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Newest Blog Entries:
  Exporting Death And Destruction: ICH – Information Clearing House
As the retiring Chancellor of the Lincoln Academy, I made my final speech echoing the Eisenhower warning of the rise of the Military Industrial (Congressional) Complex.My remarks came years after his warning. Now, decades later, we see the terrible results of our becoming the Merchants of Death. My address was followed the next year by Gen. Westmorland.Posted by Michael Butler, Saturday, July 31, 2010
Doug Kendall: After Kagan, Lower Court Vacancy Crisis Looms
Posted by Michael Butler, Saturday, July 31, 2010AlterNet: Billions Wasted in Mexico Pushing Failed U.S. Drug War Tactics
Posted by Michael Butler, Saturday, July 31, 2010Imagine if We Never Ended the War on Alcohol
Posted by Michael Butler, Saturday, July 31, 2010AlterNet: Will California Legalize Pot?
Posted by Michael Butler, Saturday, July 31, 2010NYT Op-Eds (3)
"The fight between the left and the right over which side is most racist is really about the president. Will he step in to stop it?" (Blow); "So long as American corporations keep squeezing their work forces, there can be no real economic recovery" (Herbert); "In the age of 'Jersey Shore,' there’s a dissolving boundary between reality and reality" (Collins)Posted by Ian Alterman, Saturday, July 31, 2010
NYT (8): National News
NYC MOSQUE BECOMING NATIONAL REFERENDUM ON ISLAM [Ed. See my comment]; Economic recovery still elusive; As panel recommends censure, not ouster, for Rangel, Waters may be next for ethics trial; Did Hispanic candidate for NV gov disparage his own people?; Is Social Security on the block?; and both Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts work to rebrand and grow.Posted by Ian Alterman, Saturday, July 31, 2010
NYT (5): Foreign Affairs
Deadliest month for U.S. in Afghan war; Russian heatwave leads to fires - and homelessness; Here we go again - rocket fired from Gaza into Israel; Afghan women fear loss of gains; and Indonesia gets its first unabashed sexy politician.Posted by Ian Alterman, Saturday, July 31, 2010
Michael Pollan: The Mighty Rise of the Food Revolution
Pollan in the New York Review of Books ...[In the 80's] Washington had succeeded in eliminating food as a political issue—an objective dear to most governments at least since the time of the French Revolution. But although cheap food is good politics, it turns out there are significant costs—to the environment, to public health, to the public purse, even to the culture—and as these became impossible to ignore in recent years, food has come back into viewPollan reviews "Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front" by Joel Salatin, "All You Can Eat: How Hungry Is America?" by Joel Berg, "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer, "Terra Madre: Forging a New Global Network of Sustainable Food Communities" by Carlo Petrini, with a foreword by Alice Waters, and "The Taste for Civilization: Food, Politics, and Civil Society" by Janet A. Flammang .. read more
Posted by Mike Blaxill, Saturday, July 31, 2010
A cardiac arrest lifesaver
Posted by Bill Swiggard, Saturday, July 31, 2010What the GOP can do for Obama
Posted by Bill Swiggard, Saturday, July 31, 2010Do Our Personalities Pilot the Way We Live Our Lives?
Posted by Bill Swiggard, Saturday, July 31, 2010How US Ignorance Helped Doom the Afghan War
I remember being told, as a youngster, 'that learning another language was useless-learn American'. A classic example of American hubris and lack of respect for others. At the Academy I came under the sway of Major Bates, the head of the History Department. He changed my life. Later I took off for nine months, driving from Cape Town to Khartoum. You could not live doing it today. That really opened my eyes.mbPosted by Michael Butler, Friday, July 30, 2010
Crime and punishment in America: Rough justice | The Economist
Posted by Michael Butler, Friday, July 30, 2010Are Our Oceans Dying?
Posted by Michael Butler, Friday, July 30, 2010AlterNet: Dems Take on Supreme Court’s Giant Sell-Out of Our Democracy to Corporations
Posted by Michael Butler, Friday, July 30, 2010AlterNet: Watch: What a Legal Pot Economy Would Look Like
Posted by Michael Butler, Friday, July 30, 2010 Who Is Behind the 25,000 Deaths In Mexico? : ICH – Information Clearing House
Posted by Michael Butler, Friday, July 30, 2010TomDispatch: Tomgram: Andrew Bacevich, Giving Up On Victory, Not War
Posted by Michael Butler, Friday, July 30, 2010THE TRUTH GATHERING
The Truth Gathering will take place the weekend of August 14-15. Among other activities will be the official launch of the Truth Party. Yours truly will be one of the keynote speakers at the conference. Please join us!Posted by Ian Alterman, Friday, July 30, 2010
NYT Editorials & Op-Eds (7)
"The Obama administration’s request to ease the F.B.I.’s access to citizens’ electronic records is a step backward, from a president who promised something very different" (Editorial); "The federal judge who ruled on Arizona’s noxious immigration law did not stop all of it from taking effect, but she preliminarily halted the worst of it" (Editorial); "President Obama rode into office on a wave of progressive enthusiasm. But, for many reasons, that has given way to progressive disillusionment" (Krugman); "Now that we’re in the decade of the nasty crawl, what political approach is best for getting us out of it?" (Brooks); "The worst thing about the the $41,000 electric car? As a taxpayer, you’ve already bought it" (Guest Op-Ed); "Let’s take a chunk out of our bloated military budget in Afghanistan and use it to invest in building schools there instead" (Kristof); "A strategy for keeping private clinics in Haiti open could also be a way to expand access to high-quality care in the United States" (Guest Op-Ed)Posted by Ian Alterman, Friday, July 30, 2010
NYT (9): National News
Will Rangel's "day in court" hurt Dems' chances in November?; Gulf of Mexico as long-time dumping site; NEW OIL SPILL THREATENS MICHIGAN; As both sides protest ruling on AZ law, CO considers controversial immigration check on arrestees; House GOP plays politics with 9/11 health funds; Why Dems are talking up the Tea Party; Paterson admonished but not charged; and military suicides hit record high.Posted by Ian Alterman, Friday, July 30, 2010
NYT (5): Foreign Affairs
Is China's economy too far ahead of its efforts to be green?; Russian heatwave breaks every record; Chinese gov't rescinds arrest warrant for dissident reporter - and apologizes!; Are Europeans finally warming to Frankenfood?; and Catalonia is newest region to ban Spanish bullfighting.Posted by Ian Alterman, Friday, July 30, 2010
Mark Weisbrot: No Place for Washington in Colombia-Venezuela Row
Weisbrot in The Guardian ...Last Thursday, Colombia's ambassador to the Organisation of the American States (OAS) accused Venezuela at an extraordinary meeting of the OAS of harbouring 1,500 guerillas, and asked for the OAS to take action. The timing was noteworthy to many observers. President Lula da Silva of Brazil noted that it "seemed strange that this occurs a few days before [President] Uribe [of Colombia] leaves office. The new president has given signals that he wants to build peace [with Venezuela]. Everything was going well until Uribe made this denunciation." Venezuela responded by breaking diplomatic relations with Colombia ... Of course, Uribe does not necessarily take orders from Washington, but it would be naive to assume that someone who has received more than $6bn from the US would not check with his benefactors before doing something like this.. read more
Posted by Mike Blaxill, Friday, July 30, 2010
