The Slow Progress of the Slow Food Movement

Progress.

Should Iran Have Nukes?

Here's an affirmative argument.

Swedes Build Cardboard Piano

Why is this interesting?

The Jose Padilla Case

Jose Padilla, a US citizen, has been held in solitary confinement for 2 years. No attorney until this spring. Sound unconstitutional? Here's the blow by blow of why.

Mean People

Maxspeak blog is having a contest. The contest gives a reward for the most viscous and mean email found on a prominent right wing blog. Read this stuff at your own risk, it's revolting.

Who Has Power?

From a BBC report on how the "leftist" Brazilian government fought a rise in the minimum wage. Why might the Worker's Party be on the wrong side of the debate? Because...

"The problem is that Lula signed a deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) soon after he came to power which has meant that his government has had to keep a tight rein on public spending."

This is why John Kerry is bad. Also his Iraq policy but when it comes down to it Kerry means lower wages for Brazilians and billions of other workers because in no way will he break with institutions like the World Bank and IMF.

Here's the entire article.

This is THE issue today. We talk about social justice and real change but liberals don't, either willfully or by not wanting to upset their comfortable lifes, make the connections between their government and things like the minimum wage in Brazil.

Smoking Gun!

Enron traders have been caught on tape yucking it up over how they would rip of granny in Pasadena. What is disturbing about the entire scandal is not hearing the evidence or seeing the pictures of Abu Ghraib for that matter but that there is so little political fallout for either.

In both instances political decisions were made in state legislatures and in Washington by Democrats and Republicans that led to lower downs doing what logically followed from the decisions and directives of higher ups. And who will take the fall?

Robert Jensen: The US Lost the War in Iraq, and That's a Good Thing

Here's the article.

Bush Ad

Here's an anti-Bush ad from the Dave Chapelle/National Lampoon set. Be warned: profanity alert. From this article on the non-official political ads of the campaign.

Death Squads in Iraq?

Remember the Phoenix Program? In Iraq today?

Remind Us

The Bush regime in their own words. Why did the US go to war in Iraq?

When's a High Crime (Or War Crime For That Matter) a High Crime?

The Nation argues Abu Ghraib shows complicity at the top for a war crime and thus a high crime and impeachable. It's no Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Yesterday I Said PJ O'Rourke is a Decent Writer and is Somewhat Entertaining Although an Opportunist

"Fascism, however, is a pointless ideology -- the graps (sic) of power for power's sake. The fight against fascism seems like Dad's war, Granddad's war. Fascism should be out of date in the purposeful, task-oriented world of today. Never mind Slobodan Milosevic, Vladimir Putin, Yasir Arafat, Somali warlords, Charles Taylor, China's politburo, the Saudi royal family, murderous Hutu rabble, and New Gringrich's career arc. . . . Fascists do bad things just to be bad. . . . "

P.J. O'Rourke, Peace Kills

I take it back.

A discussion here of the links made on Memorial Day between WWII and Iraq.

They got the reference from this idiotic blog.

The Concorde

The yuppie expresses last hurrah. Actually, some amazing photography.

Thinkable Thought From Time on Cheney and Halliburton

Time's version of investigative journalism. We got if from Judicial Watch.

Clash of Barbarians

One of my favorite writers when I was in NJ. He wrote for the Bergen Record. Daniel Lazare on the reactionary ideas of Samuel Huntington.

Bombies: The Aftermath of the Bombing of Laos Today

Here's a film that I am showing my students this week. As Ann Richard's once said, "it ain't pretty."

Torture Something New?

Al McCoy on the history of US involvement with torture.

David Dellinger: I Doubt He'll Ever Rest

Obit for DD.

Norm Solomon on the "Liberal" New YorkTimes and NPR

"Tardy by more than a year, the semi-mea-culpa article by the Times editors -- while failing to provide any forthright explanation of Chalabi's role as a chronic source for Miller's prewar stories -- appeared a week after the U.S. government turned definitively and publicly against its exile ally Chalabi. Only then were the top New York Times editors willing to turn definitively and publicly against key Times stories spun by the Chalabi-Miller duo."

See the entire article.

I also thought the timming of the mea culpa odd. The same week the US turned on Chalabi. It's similar to state controlled media, criticism that is allowed and that which is not. The talk of Chalabi as crook and criminal and purveyor of lousy intelligence has been around in the left wing press for years but the week the US government turn on him the NY Times gives its "apology."