March 2, 2007

The War on Terror Is the Leading Cause of Terrorism - "It's official: A new report shows that the U.S. has made the world more dangerous -- not just for Americans, but for everyone."

Why Can't We Talk about Peace in Public? - "America's growing economic dependence on the hi-tech defense industry is creating a culture that views peace and nonviolence as seditious concepts. ... It's not that I don't believe these stories, and not that I don't want to hear them. I'm just wary of sullying the debate over this war with a referendum on the behavior of young soldiers who have been placed in an impossible position, sent to fight in a strange and hostile place with no clear mission and no detectable strategy for securing peace or victory. In my mind, all the people in the Bush administration and in Congress and in the media who got these kids sent there in the first place have to be the first ones held responsible for whatever those kids do after being thrown into the fire. I just don't yet have the stomach to start pointing the finger at a bunch of teenagers and twenty-somethings who never should have been sent there in the first place."

Kucinich introduces bill to immediately end Iraq occupation ... - "HR 1234 is a plan for the United States to use existing money to bring the troops and necessary equipment home and transition to an international security and peacekeeping force."

Iraqi Oil Law Gives Cover for Corporate Profit - "For example, it specifies that up to two-thirds of Iraq's known reserves would be developed by multinationals, under contracts lasting for 15 to 20 years. This policy would represent a u-turn for Iraq's oil industry, which has been in the public sector for more than three decades, and would break from normal practice in the Middle East."

Democrats send out first round of subpoenas - "A House Judiciary subcommittee approved today the first in what is expected to be an avalanche of subpoenas to Bush administration officials. They will likely explore corruption and mismanagement allegations on everything from pre-war Iraq intelligence to the mishandling of the response to Hurricane Katrina."

The Pentagon’s Power to Arrest, Torture, and Execute Americans - "The president and the Pentagon now wield the omnipotent power to arrest, torture, and execute any American they label an “enemy combatant.” It is impossible to overstate the significance of this power. It has totally upended the relationship of the military and civilian in the United States. The assumption of this particular power easily constitutes one of the most monumental revolutions of liberty and power in history. It is a revolution that every American must confront now, not later. If people wait until later to confront the expanded use of this power, it will be too late, because by that time it will be too dangerous to do so."

US, Israel begin talks on new 10-year aid plan - "US and Israeli officials opened talks Thursday on a new multi-year plan for US aid to the Jewish state, which could seek additional funds to meet evolving threats from Iran, Syria and Islamic militants."

Africa – Where the Next US Oil Wars Will Be - "The Pentagon does not admit that a ring of permanent US military bases is operating or under construction throughout Africa. But nobody doubts the American military buildup on the African continent is well underway. From oil rich northern Angola up to Nigeria, from the Gulf of Guinea to Morocco and Algeria, from the Horn of Africa down to Kenya and Uganda, and over the pipeline routes from Chad to Cameroon in the west, and from Sudan to the Red Sea in the east, US admirals and generals have been landing and taking off, meeting with local officials. They've conducted feasibility studies, concluded secret agreements, and spent billions from their secret budgets."

Reading Hillary Rodham's hidden thesis - "The senior thesis of Hillary D. Rodham, Wellesley College class of 1969, has been speculated about, spun, analyzed, debated, criticized and defended. But rarely has it been read, because for the eight years of Bill Clinton’s presidency it was locked away."

D.C. Madame to Sell 10,000 Phone Records of High-End Washington Clients - "But, he said, chances are good that some interesting names will pop up. “Statistically, if you have 10,000 people, and given the structure of this particular service, these weren’t people beckoning from car windows,” he said. “The escorts only responded to four and five star hotels or private residences. And so the landlines will show up on the private residences real quickly.”"

National ID Card Rules Unveiled - "Critics, such as American Civil Liberties Union attorney Tim Sparapani, charge that the bill increases government access to data on Americans and amplifies the risk of identity theft, without providing significant security benefits."

How Real ID will affect you - "Only ID cards approved by Homeland Security can be accepted "for any official purpose" by the feds. ... Homeland Security is permitted to add additional requirements--such as a fingerprint or retinal scan--on top of those. We won't know for a while what these additional requirements will be. Why did these ID requirements get attached to an "emergency" military spending bill?Because it's difficult for politicians to vote against money that will go to the troops in Iraq and tsunami relief." -- Ah, the land of the free.

Queer 101: A Guide for Heteros - "So why hasn't anybody called a spade a spade? Many in Middle America have come to believe homosexual values must be abhorrent, based on the right's insistence that all homosexuals are radical perverts. Blindness to difference has allowed the right wing to invent a sinister stereotype of "homosexuals" that has only tenuous links to reality. Radical right groups generate bogus statistics by conflating gay men and lesbians (the claim that homosexuals are more likely to have STDs should more accurately say that lesbians have the lowest rates of STDs of any group) and gay men and men who molest boys (imagine if they consistently referred to men who molest girls as "straight men"). The right gets away with their smears because they have persuaded Americans that sex and desire have no role in polite society."

Pope is warned of a green Antichrist - "An arch-conservative cardinal chosen by the Pope to deliver this year’s Lenten meditations to the Vatican hierarchy has caused consternation by giving warning of an Antichrist who is “a pacifist, ecologist and ecumenist”." -- That's because this is the "hot" topic of the moment.

Religious Right Gets Research on Gay Families Wrong - "Social scientists who have done research on gay and lesbian families say religious fundamentalists are deliberately distorting their work to make the case that heterosexual married couples provide the best environment for rearing children."

New 'Bible' says Christ born of gorilla, not virgin - "It is a "Bible for skeptics, seekers, and people of different faiths.""

Poll: The Politics Of Health Care - "Most Americans believe government can play a role in fixing the health care system. Two-thirds say the federal government should guarantee that all Americans have health insurance — and a similar number says providing health insurance for all is a more serious problem than keeping health care costs down."

Cold remedies put children at risk, group says - "Parents of young children are spending billions of dollars on over-the-counter cough and cold remedies that don't work, and which could make the kids sicker, according to a group of leading pediatricians."

USDA Backs Production of Rice With Human Genes - "The Agriculture Department has given a preliminary green light for the first commercial production of a food crop engineered to contain human genes, reigniting fears that biomedically potent substances in high-tech plants could escape and turn up in other foods."

Justice Department takes aim at image-sharing sites - "The Bush administration has accelerated its Internet surveillance push by proposing that Web sites must keep records of who uploads photographs or videos in case police determine the content is illegal and choose to investigate, CNET News.com has learned."

Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says - "Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet's recent climate changes have a natural—and not a human- induced—cause, according to one scientist's controversial theory."

South Africa plans to cull elephants - "Small farmers and villagers here see them as cunning, destructive and dangerous beasts whose very name conjures up death. In the West, elephants are perhaps the most beloved of the big game species and tourists fly thousands of miles just to see one. So South Africa's proposal, unveiled Wednesday, to thin elephant herds by methods that include shooting them was bound to spark controversy."

Rap Music: Is the Backlash Here? - "Music sales overall are down, but rap sales in particular have dropped 21 percent from 2005 to 2006. For the first time in 12 years, the top ten best-selling albums of the year did not include a rap album. A poll of black Americans by The Associated Press and AOL-Black Voices last year revealed 50 percent of respondents said hip-hop was a negative force in American society."

Quote of the Day

"And we refuse to see, that people overseas suffer, just like we."

~ Faithless