Saturday, November 28:

Alex Knight: Giving Thanks to Inspiration - Review of "The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community" Review of "The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community" by David Korten. Alex Knight reviews the book that can inspire us to move in a radical new direction.

Patrick J. O'Donoghue: New push in Venezuela's agrarian reform arouses violent verbal PR reaction A recent push by the Agriculture & Lands (MAT) Ministry and the National Lands Institute (INTI) to recover more land for peasants in Guarico State and Lake Maracaibo South Bank has aroused a violent verbal and PR reaction by ranchers and opposition media, accusing the government of imitating Richard Mugabe's land grab of farms belonging to white farmers in Zimbabwe.

NISHOREN: New GMO Food Additives To Be Introduced Without Full Safety Appraisal The worst news yet from the world's largest maker of poisonous food additives, a total hoodwinking and conjob of Japan's Food Safety Commission, so look out! This stuff will be coming your way soon!

David Kendall: Dr King Spanks Obama: Part 4 Higher levels of economic democracy are a prerequisite, not a byproduct, of programs like Basic Income Guarantee and Single Payer Health Care. 1) Fire your boss and reorganize the workplace cooperatively. 2) Close your bank account and deposit your money in a credit union or some other form of publicly owned bank. That is, any kind of system that does not feed back into the currently predominant debt-based monetary system.

Betsy L. Angert: Thanksgiving; Time with Family. No Thanks (1 comments) Toddlers and tots rarely have opportunities to quietly, calmly, and genuinely converse with parents or the caregivers they are fond of. Hence, lads and lasses feel a sense of loss. By the teen years, the thought of another Thanksgiving celebration with relatives evokes an almost automatic response, “No thanks.”

Friday, November 27:

Cindy Sheehan: You Get What you Vote For! (35 comments) the peace movement will definitely have to increase our peace as the war machine increases it's violence!

Arthur Shaw: Venezuelan revolutionaries in 2008 have given a dazzling performance "Administration" is a kind of takeover on entities that doesn't necessarily entail expropriation with payment of fair compensation or confiscation without such compensation ... many options are available in an administration ...

Robert Davidson: Are Big Pharma and the PDUFA to Blame for Healthcare Mess? (7 comments) Recent $2.3 billion Pfizer settlement indicates an underlying systemic malady within the FDA. Since the passage of PDUFA, user fees have played an important role in expediting the drug approval process. The implicit underlying assumption, that expediting the drug approval process is good for public health, is seriously flawed.

Thursday, November 26:

Eric Walberg: Canada 's Guantanamo It seems the world's favourite peaceniks are complicit in torture

Jim Hightower: Giving Thanks for America's Good Food Movement What better day than Thanksgiving to celebrate our country's food rebels! The growing movement of small farmers, food artisans, local retailers, co-ops, community organizers, restaurateurs, environmentalists, consumers and others. This movement has spread the rich ideas of sustainability, organic, local control and the Common Good from the fringes of our food economy into the mainstream.

Steve Clemons: Thankful that Obama Has Helped Make Dissent and Debate Patriotic and Safe Again (2 comments) This White House embraces differences, rivals, and debate. This is extraordinarily important, and of all things this Thanksgiving - I'm thankful that challenging the government's course and trying to put better ideas on the table are unabashedly patriotic again.

Joe Perez: Thanksgiving is the Gayest of Holidays (1 comments) The day given over to gratitude is the most Homophilic of the holidays, because the act of expressing thanks is one of the most immanent or self-directed of spiritual acts (just as Christmas, defined by the act of giving, is the most Heterophilic of the seasonal celebrations). In receiving gifts with gratitude, we accept that which is, and we take into our soul Fullness; in giving gifts, we open to Emptiness.

Ralph Lopez: *Fire Insubordinate McChrystal Now! Civilian Government! (1 comments) Continuing to try to paint the president into a corner and infringing on the president's prerogative to shape his own foreign policy is serious insubordination, and the leak and spin wars now conducted by "military officials" could not be more in the open.

Mikhail Lyubansky: Thanksgiving's Many and Complicated Needs (2 comments) The early relationship between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag in many ways continues to be controverial, but two peoples came together in peace and mutual assistance that first year and the resulting Thanksgiving, in turn, paved the way for a half century of peace. Is this event worth celebrating, or is it yet another example of white insensitivity toward its indigenous peoples?

Wednesday, November 25:

Steven Leser: Video of Steve Leser's debate with Stuart Varney on Fox News' Your World Regarding Cap & Trade and Climate gate (12 comments) We discuss the hacked emails of climate gate as well as the costs and proposals of Cap & Trade and Copenhagen

Gene Cappa: *PUT Cheney/Bush On Trial For The 9/11 Attacks Bush put Cheney in charge on 9/11 and Cheney put our NORAD air defenses on stand down over the target areas at the Pentagon and World Trade Center Towers resulting in the 9/11 attacks.

Lora Chamberlain: Stand Against This Surge In Afghanistan, WE CAN NOT AFFORD WAR NO MORE! (2 comments) "Change We Can Believe In!" has morphed into "No Change At All!" Obama has become OBush! We can not wait any longer to "see" what Obama is going to do, he is going to escalate the status quo! We have to make a stand for America against the sucking of all of our money out of our pockets into the hands of the War Profiteers! War is a SCAM!

Suzana Megles: A Presidential Turkey Pardoning Do we really need to eat turkey on Thanksgiving Day or any other day for that matter? CBS's Sunday Morning Offering this week was all about celebrating Thanksgiving with meat. How disappointing. Don't they have any vegetarian or vegan reporters? Don't they care about the impact of so much animal raising on the environment?

Elayne Clift: On the Backs of Women: The Politics of Betrayal (1 comments) From Afghanistan to America, when the chips are down, it's always women who get thrown under the bus.

Bruce Cain: *Petition for the Immediate Re-Legalization of Marijuana (1 comments) This article provides the full text of a petition to demand the Immediate Re-Legalization of Marijuana by implementing MERP through a Special Joint Session of Congress as well as a Change.org petition to send your message to Obama and your Federal Representatives.

Noeline Clayfield: CLIMATEGATE & POTENTIAL RELEASE OF FREE ENERGY TECHNOLOGY There has been very little media coverage of the recent release of information hacked from Global Warming Facility CRU, Anglia, UK,which has blown open the fraudulent activities of secret government and corporation promoting global warming and climate change. Now there is the potential release of free energy technology hidden and ignored for the last 100 years.

Ted Newcomen: New Anti-Islamic Working Class Group Rattles British Government A new anti-islamic white working class grass-roots organization has got the British political establishment rattled. The English Defense League (EDL)has moved in to fill the vacuum caused by widespread disenchantment with traditional mainstream parties as the UK struggles with the economic recession.

Harvey Wasserman: Still more fluff, lies and radiation from TMI and the new nuke media machine Like this vast core of green groups, Moody's, Standard & Poor, Citibank and a powerful cohort of financial analysts see atomic power as a horrific investment that can only be described as, well, radioactive. The risks of building a new reactor, says a recent Citibank report, "are so large and variable that individually they could each bring even the largest utility company to its knees."

Tuesday, November 24:

Russ Buchanan: How the Democrat Party Lost Its "ic" (11 comments) My determination to find out why and when Republicans replaced "Democratic Party" with the stunningly childish "Democrat Party" led me to a secret strategy session held by the Republican elite shortly after their defeat at the polls. Strangely, the minutes of the meeting were written in verse.

Wayne Madsen: NSA eavesdropping more widespread than reported (4 comments) NSA sources report that the agency's warrantless wiretapping program was more widespread than originally reported and it began shortly after the 2001 inauguration of Bush and Cheney, some six months prior to the 9/11 attacks. It soon grew to include millions of Americans--elected and appointed government officials, federal judges, anti-Bush celebrities and clergy, and even intelligence and law enforcement officials.

Lawrence Velvel: Let Us Now Seek Competent Men. (2 comments) Let us now seek competent men.

Monday, November 23:

Sheila Samples: God Has Left the Building... (6 comments) The religious believe that God belongs to them. Christians know that they belong to God. It's that simple. Thus, CNN polls notwithstanding, America cannot become "less Christian" as a result of members of the flock jerking the tags from their ears -- and rejecting modern-day religion.

Patricia Mailloux: How to Win in the Game of Life About the health care reform and why we should consider universal health care as a viable option for our future.

Daniel Vojir: The Manhattan Declaration: The Christian Right Declares Global Warfare, Giving Africa The Gift Of ...Fear (2 comments) Warren is still nowhere to be seen in regards to criminalizing homosexuality in Africa. However, his imprint is on the Manhattan Declaration - the signed document that purports to speak for all of Christianity with all of its mind-numbing messages of hypocrisy.

P. Orin Zack: Short Story: "Striking the Set Piece" (12th in a series) If corporations could be convicted of their crimes, which ones would you want to bring to justice? Some, such as Blackwater, are obvious choices, because they boldly flaunt the law, or sidestep it by operating in the grey zones between government and private industry. Others are more subtle. They bankroll campaigns and pad pockets, and in return, get legislation either passed or blocked. Don't be hoodwinked by the puppeteers.

Franz J. T. Lee: Fifth or New International? Preliminary Food for Human Emancipation If ever we would organize a New International, and realize the above transhistoric goals, it will be the very Last International.

Ron Fullwood: Allowing China a Dominant Role in Afghanistan's Future (1 comments) It makes sense that we demand China assume more responsibility for preserving the state they benefit from.

Kevin Gosztola: Rejecting the Narrative for Health Reform in America, Believing in a Better Way (9 comments) To the extent that politicians in Washington, D.C. have not attempted reform of this magnitude with a concerted effort for a decade (perhaps, decades depending on how you regard Hillary Clinton's past efforts), the recent votes on health reform in the House two weeks ago and in the Senate this weekend are historic. But the dominant political culture has channeled righteous outrage into something terribly inadequate.

Paul Craig Roberts: A Trial That Will Convict Us All (34 comments) Considering that some Muslims will blow themselves up in order to take out a handful of Israelis or US and NATO occupation troops, the payoff that Mohammed will get out of a guilty verdict is enormous. Are we really sure we want to create a Muslim Superhero of such stature?

Stephen Lendman: Targeting Muslim Charities in America (3 comments) Targeting the innocent is the face of a police state.

Roger C. S. Lin: Taiwan: Search for a Non-Chinese Identity (1 comments) The Taiwanese people have been having an identity crisis for decades. Some claim that the island is a renegade province of the "People's Republic of China," while others hold that Taiwan should be admitted to international organizations under the name of "Republic of China." What both of these groups have in common is the stress on "China." But now a third group has emerged, which is promoting a non-Chinese identity.

Sunday, November 22:

Rodrigue Tremblary: A Real Revolution in the Making in the US Health Care Industry (1 comments) The U.S. Congress is presently debating a most important piece of legislation that would profoundly reform the U.S. healthcare system. This is without a doubt the most important domestic proposal advanced by the Obama administration.

Richard Girard: The Social Element of Social Capitalism "Women and children first!" cried the Titanic's Captain as she prepared for her final, fatal plunge. In our modern world, I believe that how we treat children and the opposite sex is a direct reflection of how we react to different and diverse peoples and ideas. There are few if any supporters of the ERA in the KKK; we need to examine the basis for this truth.

Kiilu Nyasha: America's Supermax Prisons Do Torture These conditions are a flagrant violation of article 6 of the U.S. Constitution which affirms that treaty law (i.e. international law) is the “supreme law of the land.” Thus, article 10 (3) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights stipulates that “The penitentiary system shall comprise treatment of prisoners the essential aim of which shall be their reformation and social rehabilitation.

winston: Any involvement in Afghanistan is futile. Keeping military in Afghanistan is pointless as “you could have 200,000 troops there and Afghanistan will swallow them up as it has done in the past.” Funds spent on reconstruction don't make it out of the corrupt leaders' hands. NATO is planning on a phased withdrawal. We shouldn't be left holding the bag as we were in Iraq again.

Patrick J. O'Donoghue: After a visit to the Ana Soto Socialist farm in Venezuela, I say hell to the begrudgers! (1 comments) One of the myths currently being spun with care and malice abroad by opposition think tanks, such as VenEconomy or Veneconomia is that state companies and expropriated farms are "unproductive, highly political, inefficient and badly administered."

Thomas Farrell: *The Catholic Bishops' Views About Contraception and Abortion in the First Trimester Are Ridiculous (3 comments) The Catholic bishops are wrong to ban artificial contraception and abortion in the first trimester. Therefore, American Catholics should disregard what the Catholic bishops say.

Gustav Wynn: Is Sean Hannity's Political Talk Hampering Our Children's Critical Thinking? (14 comments) The Supreme Court will soon be deciding if McCain-Feingold campaign regulation should allow corporations to fund election propaganda. But we already have this going on every day in talk radio, where the #1 broadcasters in the US are openly partisan and supported by corporate contributors like the Heritage Foundation. Should we allow propaganda over public airwaves and if so, what will this do to our children?

Nancy Tobi: Organized Crime Fighting (1 comments) America's elections are no longer run by public officials. Everyone's heard of Diebold, but who are the people hired by Diebold to really run our elections? In New England, we know at least one of them is a convicted felon - a drug trafficker. We don't know too much about the rest of them, because their identities are kept secret. Is this any way to run a democracy?

Barbara Bellows-TerraNova: The Wrath of a One-Breasted Woman, Bereft of Advice (1 comments) A One-Breasted Woman seeks the truth from a courageous doctor about what women should do with the impossible guidelines we're given.

Susan Galleymore: The Tea Party as Good Beginning (1 comments) My "left-leaning" friends had persuaded me that "right-leaning" folk are successful at spreading their message because they know they how to tow the party line, how to follow, and how to obey. And that this is unlike those of us on the "left" who march to our own tune, squabble for meager media attention, and splinter off to form smaller and less effective groups when challenges arise.

Saturday, November 28:

Get Ready for the Obama/GOP Alliance To get a majority today in Congress on Afghanistan, the Obama White House is apparently bent on a strategy replicating the tragic farce that Clinton pulled off: Ignore the informed doubts of your own party while making common cause with extremist Republicans who never accepted your presidency in the first place.

15 Signs American Society Is Coming Apart at the Seams Now I know why Obama didn't sign the treaty banning landmines, so he and Wall Street could say to the poor and hungry of America, "Let them eat landmines."

Bob Herbert: Stacking the Deck Against Kids While Wall Street is handing out billions in bonuses, American families are struggling with joblessness, home foreclosures and rampant debt. The economic woes are exacting a fierce toll on family life, and children are taking a big hit — emotionally, psychologically and otherwise.

How Dare You Criticize Wasteful Defense Spending! David Sirota: The 2010 Pentagon budget means "every man, woman and child in the United States will spend more than $2,700 on (defense) programs and agencies next year," reports the Cato Institute. "By way of comparison, the average Japanese spends less than $330; the average German about $520; China's per capita spending is less than $100."

Friday, November 27:

Arthur Silber: Once Upon a Time...Wherein We Gaze into Our Inerrant Crystal Ball and Espy a Deadly Rat Need I remind you that Obama is the commander in chief? It's not complicated in the least. In fact, the United States could leave, within three or six months. Announce the phased withdrawal of all U.S. personnel -- and then do it. We could do the same in Iraq. We won't do it in either case.

Impossible Numbers Certified in NY-23 (2 comments) How can we have a democracy if we cannot know if the vote count is accurate?If election officials cannot know,&if the candidates cannot know,& if the voters cannot know that the official results are true and correct,why even have an election? Vote counting concealed from the public is a crime waiting to happen.Because electronic vote counting is an invisible process,it flies in the face of tradition and case law.

John Aravosis on the hypocrisy of alleged pedophile enablers moralizing on gay marriage From AmericaBlog - not to mention moralizing on abortion!

Eugene Robinson - A hotter planet, whatever the e-mails say (1 comments) It would be great if this were all a big misunderstanding. But we know carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and we know the planet is hotter than it was a century ago. The skeptics might have convinced one another, but so far they haven't gotten through to the vanishing polar ice.

Wednesday, November 25:

Have the Media 'Falsely Framed' ACORN? During its four decades of community organizing, ACORN has earned the ire of certain business groups, banks and pay-day lenders, and and the Republican Party. Their attack on ACORN is part of a broader conservative effort to discredit Barack Obama -- first as a candidate, then as President.

United States Backs Illegal Elections in Honduras, Betraying Process to Restore Constitutional Order (2 comments) In declaring that it will recognize the coup regime sponsored elections on November 29 without prior restitution of constitutional order, the United States has emboldened the coup regime, betrayed a lengthy negotiation process and endangered the lives of millions of Honduran citizens who are committed to democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

Tuesday, November 24:

Obama, Teabaggers, Foreign Policy and Asia As Obama and the Democrats contemplate a new strategy for Afghanistan they should consider integrating fiscal discipline and limited government into their decision-making on this central foreign policy issue. After all, reducing and not expanding U.S. military in Afghanistan (and Iraq, and Korea, and Japan, and") would help control the spending by the federal government and reduce the deficit.

Senate health care bill: the five paragraphs you must read (1 comments) Buried in the Senate's 2,074-page health reform bill are provisions that undermine your health freedom and privacy.

Iran's Nuclear Ambassador: 'We Have Nothing to Hide' Ali Asghar Soltanieh serves as Iran's ambassador to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). He said,"We need guarantees that we will get fuel in return for our uranium. Given the way we've been treated by the West over the last 30 years, we have plenty of reasons to be mistrustful."

Making Israel disappear, By Vincent Carroll "The anti-Israeli content of Palestinian textbooks has been a longstanding concern for anyone who yearns for a permanent political settlement, but surely those books have improved since Yasser Arafat's death in 2004. Not really, says Marcus. If anything, he says, they devote more space than ever to depicting conflict with Israel as a solemn religious duty aimed at liberating a Muslim land."

Watchdog puts no bite on despots, Gerald M. Steinberg and Dan Kosky The president and communications director of NGO Monitor supports the call for reform of Human Rights Watch (HRW) by its founder, Robert Bernstein.

Inconsistent Conservatives and Progressives by Sheldon Richman The problem is that conservatives and progressives fail to see that their arguments can legitimately be applied to government activity across the board, including activities they like. If each side were consistent, it would oppose many things it now favors.

Monday, November 23:

The Pro-War, Anti-Gun Wing of the GOP | by Jerry Salcido Save Those Bullets for the Monsters

ZIHOP as Limited Hangout The Military Industrial Complex did not arise from some flaw in the American character, nor indeed from Zionism. It arose, simply put, because capital requires more capital, power more power still. Powerful states act out. “Small states are virtuous only because of their weakness.” (Bakunin).

Eric Margolis: Critics of Afghanistan need to look in mirror (1 comments) Ironically, across the Muslim world, the same western powers scourging Karzai are seen as major sources of corruption, keeping a repressive regime in power by buying dictators, generals and politicians. Many Afghans support the Taliban because it is seen as an enemy of corruption and an enforcer of justice, however harsh.

The Memory Scrub About Why Ft. Hood Happened Is Almost Complete ... If It Weren't for Archives What happened to all the initial reports that accused Fort Hood killer Maj. Nidal Hasan snapped because he was distraught over the Army's refusal to grant him either a discharge or an exemption from being deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, wars which the Muslim psychiatrist abhorred?

Sunday, November 29:

Anti-war protest shakes up holiday shopping Anti-war street theater in Seattle.

Saturday, November 28:

Afghans Detail Detention in ‘Black Jail' at U.S. Base The jail's operation highlights a tension between Obama's goal to improve detention conditions that had drawn condemnation under Bush and his stated desire to give military commanders leeway to operate. While Obama signed an order to eliminate so-called black sites run by the Central Intelligence Agency in January, that order did not apply to the Bagram jail, which is run by military Special Operations Forces.

'Draft Cheney' group looks to 2012 (1 comments) "The 2012 race for the Republican nomination for president will be about much more then who will be the party's standard-bearer against Barack Obama," says organizer Christopher Barron. "The race is about the heart and soul of the GOP."

U.S. Approach to Honduras Raises Doubts in Latin America The question now is whether the Obama administration's support for the presidential election being held there on Sunday will be seen as a stamp of approval for a coup or, as senior administration members maintain, the beginning of the end of the crisis.

Patrick J. O'Donoghue: VENEZUELA: Son of a revolutionary friend shot dead outside his home at 7:00 a.m. They shot dead the 24-year old son of an old personal friend in Barquisimeto at around 7.00 a.m. Thursday morning. Apparently, a car with three persons aboard passed by the house as young Mijail left his dad's car running with keys in the ignition.

William R Castlelich: If I'm an "Idiot," do I still have free speech rights? A country founded on discourse cannot survive an environment of non-discourse, but that's exactly where the "rightwing" takes us almost anytime any of them open their mouths.

Friday, November 27:

Iran ‘expects Russian missiles within 2 months' Iran expects Russia to deliver powerful S-300 air-defence missile systems within two months despite fierce objections from the United States and Israel. Russia is under intense Western pressure to distance itself from Iran in the long-running dispute over Tehran's nuclear ambitions, but Moscow has refused to block the delivery of the S-300 system.

OilGuy: Solar Energy Showing Promising Signs After Years of Disappointment (6 comments) After years of over promising and under delivering, the solar Industry is finally starting to show some interesting developments which have the potential to make solar power as cheap as fossil fuel on a cost-per-watt basis within five years. We take a look at some of the latest technical and product developments in the Solar Industry and the companies behind them.

Nuclear Energy: Safe, Clean and Efficient – Leave Chernobyl in the Past (3 comments) As oil prices continue to hover in the high $70's and many market commentators express their beliefs that cheap oil is a thing of the past, we find ourselves looking at the Alternative energy options and if any are a near/mid term replacement for fossil fuels. Solar, Wind and Biofuels have promised so much in the past but really aren't delivering and will not do so for some time. Nuclear Energy is the only alternative that

David Fiderer: Rewriting History to Blame Tim Geithner: An Incomplete Story of the AIG Bailout (2 comments) Placing the blame on Geithner for problems with the AIG bailout suits those who want to oversimplify the problem, and deflect away culpability from the Bush Administration.

Eileen Fleming: President Obama, the little town of Bethlehem and Americans for Palestinian Equal Rights (2 comments) Putting Christ back in Christmas should mean remembering that he too was born, lived and died under a brutal military occupation.

New Techniques Oil Companies are Using in Drilling for Oil Can New technology divert a potential Oil Crisis? We take a look at the latest technology and techniques being used by Oil Companies in the field of Oil Drilling. With our dwindling supply of fossil fuels, oil drillers are finding themselves in great demand and as their techniques become more sophisticated Oil Fields are lasting longer and producing more of the black stuff.

Ralph Lopez: *Military Families Ask Obama Not to Send Sons and Daughters Our son returned to us in good physical health and we were able to hold him in our arms and not just keep him in our hearts. So many of our friends within the organization we co-founded, Military Families Speak Out, have not shared this outcome.

Thursday, November 26:

China's backing on Iran followed dire predictions Two weeks before President Obama visited China, two senior White House officials traveled to Beijing on a "special mission" to try to persuade China to pressure Iran to give up its alleged nuclear weapons program. If Beijing did not help the United States on this issue, the consequences could be severe, the visitors, Dennis Ross and Jeffrey Bader, both senior officials in the National Security Council, informed the Chinese.

Obama and fellow Democrats at odds about troop increase for Afghanistan Top Democrats have made it clear to Obama that he will not receive a friendly reception should he announce what is considered the leading option: sending 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

Wednesday, November 25:

Larry Gross: West Hollywood: City Built on Rent Control Celebrates 25th Anniversary (1 comments) Twenty-five years ago members of the Coalition for Economic Survival (CES) rejoiced after a 7-year campaign to secure tenants' rights and preserve affordable housing in the then 1.9 square mile LA County unincorporated area of West Hollywood.

Judge Orders Algerian Released From Gitmo; But Detainee Is Not Going Anywhere On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler ordered the release from Guantánamo of Farhi Saeed bin Mohammed, a 48-year old Algerian, after granting his habeas corpus petition. Her ruling has not yet been declassified, so the reasons for her decision are not yet clear, but it is significant that the ruling now brings to 31, 80% of those challenging. Of the 31 prisoners cleared in the last 13 months, 12 remain at Gitmo

Bill Simpich: THE JFK CASE: WHAT INFORMANTS ARE STILL OUT THERE? (5 comments) There are many questions about the JFK assassination that can easily be answered - but only by eyewitnesses who aren't going to be alive for much longer.

Patrick J. O'Donoghue: Venezuela's Hugo Chavez convokes Fifth International; vindicates 'Carlos the Jackal' During a meeting with delegates attending an 'International Meeting of Parties of the Left' in Caracas, President Chavez took a bold but measured step in convoking The Fifth International on grounds that it is not enough to mouth the current left-wing dominant slogan: a "better world is possible ... it is possible and necessary."

Oilprice.com As scientists, Governments and Industry look for viable replacements to our quickly dwindling supply of fossil fuels, attention has again turned to biofuels and the potential they offer. You've all no doubt heard of Ethanol, rapeseed and other popular bio-diesel crops, but it is now possible to turn our quickly growing garbage mountains into biofuels.

Obama to attend climate talks in Copenhagen the president will attend international climate talks next month in Copenhagen and commit the U.S. to a short-term emission reduction target "in the range of 17 percent" below 2005 levels. will travel to the Danish capital Dec. 9, one day before he visits nearby Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize.

US rejects landmine ban treaty (2 comments) The US administration has rejected a global treaty, supported by more than 150 countries, banning the use of landmines. Patrick Leahy, a US senator and a leading advocate for the treaty, called the decision "a default of US leadership" and criticised the state department's policy review as "cursory and half-hearted".

Tuesday, November 24:

Danny Schechter: Will Christmas Save US? Can "Black Friday Rescue The Economy? Will Christmas Shopping and Black Friday Bail Out the ailing American Economy asks News Dissector Danny Schechter

Census worker killed himself, tried to make it look like homicide, officials conclude (2 comments) A US Census worker found dead in a secluded Clay County cemetery killed himself but tried to make the death look like a homicide, authorities have concluded. There has been some anti-census sentiment in the country this year, and Sparkman apparently tried to capitalize on that with his ruse.

Roger Shuler: Did Health-Care Reform Lead to a Medical Dean's Ouster? A medical dean in Alabama has announced he is stepping down. Is pressure brought on by possible health-care reform behind the decision?

Blackwater's Secret War in Pakistan Revealed A former senior executive at Blackwater confirmed the military intelligence source's claim that the company is working in Pakistan for the CIA and JSOC, the premier counterterrorism and covert operations force within the military. He said that Blackwater is also working for the Pakistani government on a subcontract firm that puts US Blackwater operatives on the ground with Pakistani forces

Various Agencies Waking Up to Bedbug Resurgence While education is critical, there is consensus that concerted efforts are needed on the part of public agencies across the country, from county health departments to the CDC, to update laws and regulations and come up with a coordinated response. In New York, for example, it is often not clear whether the tenant or the landlord is responsible for treating an infestation

Spin meter: Legislation inflation grips GOP Republicans: You Lie! Read how the simple-minded Republicans artificially inflate the 209 page healthcare reform bill into a 2,000+ page back-breaker. It is NOT longer than War & Peace, & it is barely longer than Bush's No Child Left Behind Act.

Monday, November 23:

OilGuy: Distorted IEA Oil Reserve Figures Create Biofuel Opportunities In "White Gold" Region of Central Asia Did the EIA deliberately put out distorted key Oil projections under intense pressure from the Bush Administration. What does this mean for the Oil Industry and what opportunities does it create, especially in the Biofuels arena.

Roger Shuler: What on Earth is the Appeal of Sarah Palin? (4 comments) Sarah Palin's book tour stops in Alabama today. Why are people standing in long lines for a chance to catch a glimpse?

Radiation Found At Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant, Site Of '79 Partial Meltdown The commission sent investigators to the central Pennsylvania plant after a small amount of radiation was detected. About 150 employees were sent home Saturday afternoon, but officials say there is no public health risk.

Palin quizzes Billy Graham about Bible's view of Middle East Sarah Palin, the hottest name in the Republican Party, took a detour from her book-signing tour Sunday to dine with Billy Graham at his mountaintop home in Montreat, NC. Graham's son, Franklin, who was present for the 2 1/2-hour get-together, said, "Daddy feels God was using her to wake America up."

World awaits U.S. plan to help curb global warming (1 comments) The success or failure of the talks in Copenhagen could hinge on whether the United States offers a concrete plan. Obama said that the U.S. and China agreed, "that each of us would take significant mitigation actions . . . and stand behind these commitments." It remains to be seen, however, how strong a commitment Obama has in mind. Neither the U.S. nor China has said what it plans to do.

MC Kean: *If a Tree Falls: If a Patient is Assaulted Under Anesthesia This is the first chapter of a book being written to educate and effect change in practices, attitudes, and policies within the health care industry by educating you the public and empowering you to act for change. Access and Cost are issues that need to be addressed and can be addressed with a Single Payer, Universal Access for all system. But what about quality and patient rights? Learn, be empowered and act.

Sunday, November 22:

Forced labour and rape, the new face of slavery in America Figures from the State Department reveal that 17,500 people are trafficked into the US every year against their will or under false pretences, mainly to be used for sex or forced labour.Human trafficking–forcing someone against their will to work for no reward–has been dubbed modern slavery. At the Dayton conference, it was discussed as a growing social problem, not in some far-off land, but among the cornfields of Ohio.

Religious Leaders Call for Civil Disobedience if Laws Don't Respect Faith A formidable coalition of 150 Catholic, Orthodox and evangelical leaders are calling on Christians in a new manifesto to reject secular authority – and even engage in civil disobedience – if laws force them to accept abortion, same-sex marriage and other ideas that betray their religious beliefs.

Beck's plan: Rally followers, sell books - Kenneth P. Vogel Glenn Beck, the popular conservative Fox News television host whose broadsides against President Obama have drawn his network into a feud with the White House, on Saturday signaled he intended to branch off more directly into political activism.

Patrick Kennedy Banned From Communion Over Abortion Rights Stand (3 comments) Church law permits Bishop Tobin to ban Kennedy from receiving Communion within the Diocese of Providence, which covers Rhode Island, but he cannot stop Kennedy from receiving Communion elsewhere.

The Cornucopia Institute: Food Manufacturers and Organic Industry Lobbyists Circle the Wagons Two powerful lobby groups in the food industry, The Grocery Manufacturers of America and the Organic Trade Association, recently intervened as friends of the court in a federal consumer class-action lawsuit accusing the nation's largest supplier of private-label organic milk of consumer fraud.

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