[From ] by JEREMY BRECHER & BRENDAN SMITH On June 7, 2006, a 28-year-old Army lieutenant named Ehren Watada released a video press statement announcing that he was refusing to deploy to Iraq because the Iraq War was illegal and his “participation would make me party to war crimes.” After three years of trying to [...]
Archive For October, 2009
Colbert smokes same-sex marriage opponents
[Via Appetite for Equal Rights] The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
THE END OF POLITICS
[From UNDERNEWS ] Sam Smith As I tried, for about the seventeenth time, to make sense of the healthcare negotiations, I suddenly realized that I wasn’t watching a political debate at all; rather it was one of those conflicts you read about in other countries that are so hard to understand from afar – the [...]
Where is the Defund Blackwater Act?
[From The Nation] Where is the Defund Blackwater Act? by JEREMY SCAHILL Republican Congressional leaders are continuing their witch hunt against ACORN, the grassroots community group dedicated to helping poor and working-class people. Their campaign has gained bipartisan legislative support in the form of the Defund ACORN Act of 2009, which has now passed the [...]
Pentagon Instructs Officials to Cancel Contracts with ACORN. The Problem: They Don’t Exist Pentagon Instructs Officials to Cancel Contracts with ACORN. The Problem: They Don’t Exist
[From RebelReports] While the DoD targets a community group that does no business with the Pentagon, actual corporate crooks go un-confronted and continue to rake in $ billions in contracts. By Jeremy Scahill On Tuesday night, US Undersecretary of Defense Shay Assad, the Pentagon’s top contracting official, sent a memo to the commanders and directors [...]
Health care reform: who’s your daddy?
[From Pragmatos] This piece by Robert Reich lays out the worst problems with the current health care legislation. He’s right, of course, but it seems to me a safe assumption that the administration will cave on whatever they need to in order to pass a bill and claim victory. I could be wrong, of course—maybe [...]
Membership Has Its Privileges
[From iowahawk] [ed. note: republished and amended from a 2007 post] Dear BARACK OBAMA : Congratulations! On behalf of the selection committee, I am pleased to announce that you have been named a 2009 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, in recognition of your tireless efforts to STRENGTHEN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY AND COOPERATION [...]
Girl Gets Photo Removed from Yearbook for Wearing a Tux
[From feministing.com] Ceara Sturgis is a senior at a Mississippi high school described as being exemplary: “a straight-A student, goal on the soccer team, a trumpet player in the band and active in Students Against Drunk Driving”. Despite all of this, Ceara’s school is not allowing her senior photo to be included in the yearbook. [...]
What Whoopi Goldberg (‘Not a Rape-Rape’), Harvey Weinstein (‘So-Called Crime’) et al. Are Saying in Their Outrage Over the Arrest of Roman Polanski
By Calvin Trillin This article appeared in the October 26, 2009 edition of The Nation. October 7, 2009 A youthful error? Yes, perhaps. But he’s been punished for this lapse– For decades exiled from LA He knows, as he wakes up each day, He’ll miss the movers and the shakers. He’ll never get to see [...]
Artificial Intelligence Diagnoses Abuse
Eric Bland, Discovery News A broken bone one day, a particular infection a few months later and depression the following year may appear to be separate, medical issues. However, to a new artificial intelligence program developed by Boston doctors, these are all symptoms of domestic abuse. The new software can identify abuse victims up to [...]