As Al Franken Announces for the Senate the Knives are Sharpened

Al Franken and Arianna Huffington in bed!

Flat Earthers Live!

Fixed earthers!

Charlie Rangle

Not Xenophobia

US to admit tens of thousands of Iraqi's asplan to deal with mayhem. A repeating pattern here?

Vancouver's "Dirty Little Secret"

Like Juarez Vancouver had a problem with women disappearing for decades.

City of Clay?

Mike Davis, "Marxist" academic that supports the Democratic party, has written some great books on LA, imperialism and megacities. I was just doing a little rooting around and found this critique in Salon.

20 and 21

The Reagan/Thatcher revolution has finally born fruit as UNICEF now declares the US and UK 20 and 21 repectively in a ranking of 21 industrial countries in their quality of life for the young.

Z-Big

Cold Warrior/imperialist Zbigniew Brezinski blows his top on the neo-colonial Iraq policy.

Wall Street Whines

This means they are making a killing. Ralph Nader on the parasitic userpers and their phony complaints.

Guardian Films

The Lost Whale. A bottlenose whale in the Thames! Well made short documentary.

Traveling with US soldiers in Iraq.

NC on Democracy and Iraq

"There is another issue: even the most dedicated scholar/advocates of "democracy promotion" recognise that there is a "strong line of continuity" in US efforts to promote democracy going back as far as you like and reaching the present: democracy is supported if and only if it conforms to strategic and economic objectives. For example, supporting the brutal punishment of people who committed the crime of voting "the wrong way" in a free election, as in Palestine right now, with pretexts that would inspire ridicule in a free society. As for democracy in the US, élite opinion has generally considered it a dangerous threat which must be resisted. But some Iraqis agreed with Bush's mission to bring democracy to the world: 1 per cent in a poll in Baghdad just as the noble vision was declared in Washington."

Free elections when they vote the "right way."

The Technological Revolution and Time

Creative destruction at work. The new processor, by Intel, teraflop, is hella more powerful than the chip in your machine now.

"The first time teraflop performance was achieved was 11 years on the ASCI Red Supercomputer built by Intel for the Sandia National Laboratory.
That machine took up more than 2,000 square feet, was powered by almost 10,000 Pentium Pro processors, and consumed more than 500 kilowatts of electricity."

Only 11 years ago!

Stories from the Front

The York, PA Harley workers need your support. Check out their site. Make a donation.

The QT Cult of Violence

Smokin Aces and the emptiness of the stylized gore of Tarantino and company. Why do these films repulse so? The self-conscious use of racist lingo? The piggy backing on old genres; blacksploitation, noir and Asian martial arts? The feminist pose while dealing exclusively in adolescent male themes of titilation, revenge and shoot em' up? Journeying into the land of Huston, Wilder, Lang, Scorcese, et. al. where character was king and the larger morality, or lack there of, is the currency, the QT genre style's it up with technicolor and yellow leather and motorcycles but in the end the suit is the only remnant.

Must See A/F

The Akron/Family are on tour. Not to be missed. Good times to be had for all.

Is Iran Going to be Bombed?

Alex Cockburn on possible scenarios for the war party.

Where a Wall Once Stood

Good murder mystery set in today's eastern Germany. Very well done exploration of re-unification and its discontents.

War on the Shia?

Pat Cockburn on the escalation:

"The United States is stepping up the war in Iraq. For almost four years, it has been fighting the Iraqi Sunni community. Now it has started to confront the followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, the nationalist Shia cleric who leads the powerful Mehdi Army militia."

The entire article.

R and B

David Cross style.

$12 Bill: No Chump Change

"The US flew nearly $12bn in shrink-wrapped $100 bills into Iraq, then distributed the cash with no proper control over who was receiving it and how it was being spent."

In the old days we called this a high crime and misdemeanor.

How to spend $12 billion quick.

Fiscal conservatives at work.