Israel today rejected calls for a ceasefire and said it would continue military operations in Gaza, according to reports.
Who Is Amira Hass?
No bailout for the overqualified jobless.
One group that still is getting a raise — Congress
Former Merrill Lynch executive pays 37 million for NYC apartment (with taxpayer money)
Woody Paige: Time to exclaim new era of change
Robert Fisk: Leaders Lie, Civilians Die, and Lessons of History are Ignored
Glenn Greenwald: George Washington's warnings and U.S. policy towards Israel
Kucinich: UN should investigate Israeli Gaza strikes
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) called for an independent investigation to be led by the United Nations into the recent eruption of violence between Israel and Hamas along the Gaza strip that has killed scores of innocent civilians.
[snip]
Kucinich said he wrote to UN General Secretary Ban ki-Moon urging an "independent inquiry of Israel's war against Gaza." The Democratic lawmaker said Israel's attacks are an example of "collective punishment," which violates the Geneva Conventions.
"The perpetrators of attacks against Israel must also be brought to justice, but Israel cannot create a war against an entire people in order to attempt to bring to justice the few who are responsible. The Israeli leaders know better," Kucinich said in a news release Monday. "The world community, which has been very supportive of Israel's right to security and its right to survive, also has a right to expect Israel to conduct itself in adherence to the very laws which support the survival of Israel and every other nation."
Hamas' strategy of escalation
America's New Year Resolution: Stop Being Stupid
Banks in violation of local public nuisance laws.
A shorter version of our long national nightmare.
Epic Fail
Epic Fail
More than 150 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds injured after the Israeli air force fired about 30 missiles into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Clean Coal
Counterfeiting greenbacks becoming a lost art.
Coup in Guinea
The 10 Greediest People of 2008
A Japanese Town That Kicked the Oil Habit
Scott Horton: The Irony of Public Integrity
Great photos of the recent Greek riots. (h/t John Aravosis)
Glenn Greenwald: Cheney says top congressional Democrats complicit in spying
After receiving billions in aid from U.S. taxpayers, the nation's largest banks say they can't track exactly how they're spending it. Some won't even talk about it.
Lost souls of Afghanistan's heroin trade
The Republican consultant accused of involvement in alleged vote-rigging in Ohio in 2004 was warned that his plane might be sabotaged before his death in a crash Friday night, according to a Cleveland CBS affiliate.
Minnestoa Senate race: Colman leads by a mear 5 votes but Frankin is projected to win by 89.Frankin by 96 278!. The Flying Spaghetti Monster as a write in candidate on one of the challened ballots. Live coverage at The Up Take.
A.C. Thompson: Katrina's Hidden Race War
Psychiatrists Revise the Book of Human Troubles
Paul Krugman: The Madoff Economy
Idolator interviews an "anonimous" freelance music writer. Robert Christgau has a few observations.
‘Incompetent’ is the top word that Americans associate with Preznit bu$h.
Court sides with ACLU, strikes down Patriot Act gag provision
British military to withdraw from Iraq
Matthew Yglasias: Bush Tries to White-Wash History; Portrays Himself as a Victim
Scott Horton - Tamm; Punished for defending the Constitution?
Get a Job Morans!
Obama beer
Mike Ferner: Why We Must Prosecute Bush and His Administration For War Crimes
Glenn Greenwald: Senate report links Bush to detainee homicides; media yawns
Raw Story: Cheney admits autorizing detainee's torture
Afghanistan newspapers have described the Washington-led war on terror as failure and said that the outgoing White House chief Geroge W. Bush toured the post-Taliban state Monday amid surge in Taliban activities in the war-battered country.
Shoe thrower 'beaten in custody'
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush in a supreme insult has suddenly become the talk of Iraq, hailed by marchers as a national hero but blasted by the government as a barbarian.
The little-known Shi'ite reporter, said to have harbored anger against Bush for the thousands of Iraqis who died after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, had previously made headlines only once, when he was briefly kidnapped by unknown gunmen in 2007.
TV reporter Muntazer al-Zaidi remained in detention on Monday, accused by the Iraqi government of a "barbaric act." He would be sent for trial on charges of insulting the Iraqi state, said the prime minister's media advisor, Yasin Majeed.
R.I.P. Bettie Page
(April 22, 1923 – December 11, 2008)
Los Angeles Times
Bettie Page, the brunet pinup queen with a shoulder-length pageboy hairdo and kitschy bangs whose saucy photos helped usher in the sexual revolution of the 1960s, has died. She was 85.
Page, whose later life was marked by depression, violent mood swings and several years in a state mental institution, died Thursday night at Kindred Hospital in Los Angeles, where she had been on life support since suffering a heart attack Dec. 2, according to her agent, Mark Roesler.
A cult figure, Page was most famous for the estimated 20,000 4-by-5-inch black-and-white glossy photographs taken by amateur shutterbugs from 1949 to 1957. The photos showed her in high heels and bikinis or negligees, bondage apparel -- or nothing at all.
Decades later, those images inspired biographies, comic books, fan clubs, websites, commercial products -- Bettie Page playing cards, dress-up magnet sets, action figures, Zippo lighters, shot glasses -- and, in 2005, a film about her life and times, "The Notorious Bettie Page."
VetVoice: Pakistani Taliban Destroy More U.S. and NATO Supplies
Scott Horton: Sabotage at Gitmo
Photo Gallery: Days of Chaos in the Greek Capital
Real motherfuckers: AIG still hands out bonuses
Upgrading from a cardboard box for the homeless
Dreaming of a pure, white Christmas.
Paul Krugman's depression economics
Greece hit by third day of anti-police riots
Ireland pork contamination
It must be '1984'
VetVoice: Military Asks Foreigners to Fill Vital Roles Instead of Gays
Tomgram: Transision Mania
Michael S. Rozeff: U.S. Collective Dictatorship Enlarges
Paul Craig Roberts: Bush Regime Declares Itself Above the Law
LBJ accuses Nixon of treason in released tapes.
Just days before the pivotal 1968 presidential election featuring Vice President Hubert Humphrey's bid to succeed him, President Lyndon Baines Johnson suspected Humphrey's Republican opponent, Richard Nixon, of political sabotage that he called treason, according to the final recordings of Johnson's presidency to be publicly released.
As Johnson tried to arrange peace talks between North and South Vietnam on the eve of the election, he and his closest advisers received information indicating that Nixon allies had asked that South Vietnam avoid peace talks until after the election, the tapes show.
VetVoice: Interrogator who Located Zarqawi Rips U.S. Torture Policy
Scott Horton: Obama;s First Challenge: A Legacy of War Crimes
Cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe
Thai PM banned from political office for five years.
An atheists-rights group is suing the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security because state law requires the agency to stress "dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth."
Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., is not giving up on his so-far unsuccessful bid to guarantee in law that troops will get as much time at home as they spend deployed.
Duh
Princeton Proposition 8 to "preserve traditional sidewalk values".
Anatomy of a Meltdown
Tensions are mounting between Berlin and Pristina following the arrest of three German intelligence agents on terrorism charges in Kosovo.
Tomgram: Nick Turse, A Truth-teller for Our Times
Multinational Monitor's 10 Worst Corporations of 2008
Robert Fisk: Kabul 30 Years Ago, and Kabul Today. Have We Learned Nothing?
Live Piracy Map 2008
"Penis" is safe. "Clitoris" is not.
Blue Gal Answers Your Sex Questions
Friendly Fire Coverup: Army shreds documents of soldiers deaths
In the first ruling of its kind, a federal judge ordered the speedy release Thursday of five Algerian men after concluding the government didn't have the evidence to hold them for nearly seven years in Guantanamo Bay prison. (Glenn Greenwald has more)
The Taliban, Uganda, Cuba and the United States
Couture inspired by Dick Cheney.
Krugman on Auto Bridge Failure
Laura Rozen: The Adventures of a K Street Commando
The number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits for the first time hit a 16-year high last week.
Britons lose their national pastime.
Waxman defeats Dingell.
Tomgram: A Consumer's Paradise of War
Senators give distinguised convicted felon a standing ovation.
Occams Hatchet: Tell you what: you define "marriage," I'll define "God"
Faced with ongoing criticism of what many believe is a flawed system, representatives from the Bowl Championship Series assured college football fans Wednesday that the NCAA football title picture becomes much less complicated when one simply pretends certain teams do not exist. (America's Finest News Source)
An Indian warship destroyed a pirate "mother vessel" in the Gulf of Aden, the navy said Wednesday, as bandits demanded a ransom for a Saudi super-tanker seized in the most daring sea raid yet.
Uncle Toobz loses Senate seat.
Texas has become a major hub for human trafficking, state officials said Monday while proposing a more aggressive response to what a senior lawmaker described as "modern-day slavery."
Nick Turse: A My Lai a Month
Cheney and Gonzales Indicted for Prisoner Abuse
LIFE photo archive
Glenn Greenwald: Has there been too much bipartisanship or too little?
The Bush Beat: One Thousand and One Arabian Nightmares
Violet Blue: Fear of a Gay Planet
Naomi Klein: In Praise of a Rocky Transition
AMERICAblog: Complaint filed against Mormon Church Prop 8 activities
Retail sales in the U.S. dropped in October by the most on record, pushing the economy toward the worst slump in decades.
Russian church 'taken by thieves'
Bill Bradley in Vanity Fair: Why Is the National Press Ignoring Small-Town Racism?
On the $700 billion bailout - "It's a mess," said Eric M. Thorson, the Treasury Department's inspector general, who has been working to oversee the bailout program until the newly created position of special inspector general is filled. "I don't think anyone understands right now how we're going to do proper oversight of this thing."
Mark Begich pulls ahead of convicted felon Sen. Ted Stevens in Alaska vote count.
The Libby Pardon Countdown
Daily Kos diarist gjohnsit: Two signs that something is seriously wrong
U.S. Jobless Claims Reach Seven-Year High
Thomas Friedman to resign
Obama thinks he is a good talker, but he is often undisciplined when he speaks. He needs to understand that as President, his words will be scrutinized and will have impact whether he intends it or not. In this regard, President Bush is an excellent model; Obama should take a lesson from his example. Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn’t raise his standards, he will exceed Bush’s total before he is inaugurated.
Please check out VA Watchdog's VA Shredder Scandal Page.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado is renewing a call to the City and County of Denver's Independent Monitor Richard Rosenthal to investigate events surrounding the actions of metro Denver police and possible agents provocateurs at a demonstration on the opening night of the Democratic National Convention.
Treasury Secretary Paulson likes fucking over taxpayers.
R.I.P. Miriam Makeba
Get your tickets to the 56th Inaugural Ceremonies.
Freepers call for Faux boycott
I agree with BooMan, yellow crime scene tape should cover DC.
Jon Swift: Obama's Disasterous Gaffe-Laden Press Conference
List of Prop Hate Protests and Rallies.
Change.gov
An Afghan investigation has found that 37 civilians were killed in US air strikes that hit a wedding party, along with 26 Taliban, the Kandahar provincial government said Friday.
U.S. jobless rate at 14-year high
The NYT has some great maps illustrating electoral shifts.
Spiegel Online: Obama Reaches Out to European and World Leaders
It was only the second day after his election, but on Thursday, United States President-elect Barack Obama was glued to his phone speaking to leaders around the world. With a global financial crisis, there was no time to waste and Obama began dialing numbers for a handful of the most important leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, with whom he discussed the global economy.
Both Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have said they want to meet with Obama soon. Sarkozy's office confirmed on Thursday night that the two European leaders had agreed to a joint meeting with Obama after a 30-minute telephone conversation. The French president congratulated Obama on his "brilliant" victory, officials at Elysee Palace said, adding that the atmosphere of the conversation had been "extremely friendly."
At the world financial summit to be held on Nov. 15 in Washington, France wants to propose a 100-day plan for international finance reform. The plan is to be based on a paper France is to distribute in its role as the rotating president of the European Union to other EU member states on Friday in preparation for the Washington summit.
Outgoing President George W. Bush is to lead the G-20 meeting in Washington, but Obama is also expected to take part in the summit.
Obama also reached out to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, with whom he discussed the financial crisis, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East, as well as other world leaders including Mexican President Felipe Calderon, South Korean President Lee Myung Bak, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Japanese leader Taro Aso.
Obama on the lawn
Originally uploaded by mirsasha
49.1% of registered voters in Travis County took atvantage of early voting. Almost 31 million people voted early in the United States.
"Can I stop being president now?"
DKos Electoral Scoreboard
Glenn Greenwald: The Single Worst Expression in American Politics
Tomgram: The End of a Subpime Administration
The New Republic: McCain First, Second, And Always
George Carlin on Voting in US Elections
538 RSS Feed Widget
R.I.P. Studs Terkel
"I hope for peace and sanity — it's the same thing."
Conversations with History: Studs Terkel
Think Progress: Texas Businessman Files Lawsuit Claiming He Was Forced To Funnel $75,000 To Norm Coleman’s Wife
Missiles exploded in two villages in north-west Pakistan yesterday, killing 27 people including foreign fighters, in the latest in a surge of alleged American strikes, intelligence officials said.
RIAA sued for price fixing.
The Republican IT guru, recently described as a "high tech Forrest Gump" for his proclivity to be "at the scene" of so many troubling elections since 2000, and even at the heart of the "lost" White House email scandal, has been ordered by a federal judge to appear for an under-oath deposition next Monday in Ohio.
The Raw Story: Documents reveal how Ohio routed 2004 voting data through company that hosted external Bush Administration email accounts
The stupid. It burns.
Cap Metro drivers and mechanics to strike on Wednesday.
brilliant Geezer/Dingbat Political Yard Sign - where to buy it
Originally uploaded by within(Reason)
CIA officers could face trial in Britain over torture allegations
Universal Voter Registration as the Real Answer to Fraud Concerns
Barack Obama on Rachel Maddow
Nature: This journal does not have a vote, and does not claim any particular standing from which to instruct those who do. But if it did, it would cast its vote for Barack Obama.
BLDGBLOG: The Atlas of Hidden Water
Naomi Klein: Bailout = Bush's Final Pillage
Harvard Professor takes on the RIAA.
Looking for affordable artist housing in the SF Bay Area? Check out Dystopic Horizons Realty.
Jesus People Pray That False Idol Will Save God’s Economy
Chaos in Congo
Coordinated bombings kill over 60 in Assam.
Afghanistan's Ministry of Information bombed
Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, the world's biggest oil companies, posted gains in third-quarter earnings after crude's surge to an all-time high made up for slumping production.
John McCain's last best hope...
Juan Cole on McSame's hypocracy
The Army’s use of involuntary extensions of combat duty will likely continue through 2009 despite pledges earlier this year by top military officials to reduce reliance on the policy known as stop-loss.
Porsche runs over hedge funds.
For the past two months, a major American magazine and an allied news service have been engaged in a legal battle with the United States Navy over records that they believe show that John McCain once was involved in an automobile accident that injured or, perhaps, killed another individual.
Aaron Huey has many stunning photos of the Afghan Drug War.
Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Senate Republican in history and patriarch of Alaska politics, was found guilty of all seven felony charges for making false statements.
WASHINGTON—According to an FCC report released Monday, a new $300 million Microsoft ad campaign is responsible for causing televisions all across the country to unexpectedly crash.
The Microsoft ads, which began airing earlier this week, are being blamed for generating critical system errors in more than 70 million televisions. In addition, thousands of frustrated Americans said that the ads have caused their TVs to become unresponsive, their screens to turn blue, and a small box with the message "terminal application error" to suddenly appear.
Damascus Outraged by US Cross-Border Raid
Paul Krugman: Desperately Seeking Seriousness
David Neiwert - Memo to Palin: Here are some other domestic terrorists
Scott Horton: Will Justice Hack the Vote?
Obama in Denver
According to Denver police chief Gerry Whitman, "well over" 100,000 people attended the rally at Civic Center Park, at which Obama also chanted "si se puede," or "yes we can," in Spanish, with the attendees. Campaign spokesperson Jen Psaki said that the turnout was the Senator's largest in the United States, in contrast to a Friday McCain appearance which drew 3,000.
Bill Moyers Journal: James K. Galbraith
Princess Sparkle Pony: Own It, Bitches
Hack: Confessions of a Presidential Campaign Reporter
Current Events via Jean-Léon Gérôme
Merritt-ocracy: The Paulson Sporting Doctrine
Jon Swift: Great Moments in Election-Year Blogging
A group of top American communication professors have crafted and signed a statement calling on the McCain campaign, primarily, to stop its negative campaigning. “The purposeful dissemination of messages that a communicator knows to be false and inflammatory is unethical. It is that simple,” the statement says.
The successor of the Austrian far-right leader Jörg Haider was dismissed yesterday after he revealed a “special” relationship “far beyond” friendship with his former mentor.
Growing inequality in US cities could lead to widespread social unrest and increased mortality, says a new United Nations report on the urban environment.
Spencer Ackerman: Finally, an Exit Strategy
The United States ranks 36th in press freedom according to Reporters Without Borders.
The Constitution-Free Zone: Using data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, the ACLU has determined that nearly 2/3 of the entire US population (197.4 million people) live within 100 miles of the US land and coastal borders.
David Sedaris on undecided voters:
I look at these people and can’t quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention?
To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”
To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.
Police departments in cities across the country are beefing up their ranks for Election Day, preparing for possible civil unrest and riots after the historic presidential contest.
An air strike by international forces mistakenly killed nine Afghan soldiers on Wednesday, the defence ministry said, in the latest in a string of errors to hit the campaign against Taliban militants.
Sen. Ted Stevens corruption case goes before the jury today.
Patriotic protester tries a citizen's arrest of Karl Rove.
The Republican National Committee has spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize Caribou Barbie and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.
Chandrayaan-1 blastes off.
Chris Hedges: The Idiots Who Rule America
Homeless numbers 'alarming'
An ugly line has been crossed in this presidential campaign, one in which some people don't mind calling Barack Obama a dangerous Muslim, a terrorist and worse.
OH Secretary of State's Website Hacked
Dan Froomkin
It's hard at this point to look ahead to the presidential election and its aftermath without looking back at the wreckage. And so, in the continued avalanche of newspaper endorsements of Democrat Barack Obama, a successful presidency is frequently being defined as the precise opposite of the current one.
Early Voting starts today in Travis county - through October 31st.
Afghanistan: Fighting In A "Hornet's Nest"
Congressman Dennis Kucinich calls for probe of bonuses for Wall Street aid recipients.
Nick Turse: The Rising Body Count on Main Street : The Human Fallout from the Financial Crisis
The Office of Legal Counsel coughs up another hairball.
Juan Cole's take on Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama.
Ethan Persoff has posted ten frightening Halloween masks for you to download, print and scare the neighbors.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. & Greg Palast: Block the Vote
Airport security in America is a sham.
Oh noes. Twenty billion barrels of oil discovered in Cuba.
The Mahablog: Spreading the Wealth Around
The Liberal Journal on Being Anti-American
Naomi Wolf writes a letter to conservatives: "Will You Help Save the Republic from Military Takeover?"
Robert Fisk: Thucydides' account of the Spartan war contains a dark and chilling relevance.
Entire 2008 Campaign From Batman Show
Peter Dyer: US Journalists & War-Crime Guilt
October 16 is an anniversary that should hold considerable interest for American journalists who have written in support of ”Operation Iraqi Freedom” – the invasion and occupation of Iraq.Sixty-two years ago, on Oct. 16, 1946, Julius Streicher was hanged.
Streicher was one of a group of 10 Germans executed that day following the judgment of the first Nuremberg Trial – a 40-week trial of 22 of the most prominent Nazis.
Each was tried for two or more of the four crimes defined in the Nuremberg Charter: crimes against peace (aggression), war crimes, crimes against humanity, and conspiracy.
All who were sentenced to death were major German government officials or military leaders. Except for Streicher.
Julius Streicher was a journalist.
The Bush administration issued a pair of secret memos to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 that explicitly endorsed the agency's use of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding against al-Qaeda suspects -- documents prompted by worries among intelligence officials about a possible backlash if details of the program became public.
The classified memos, which have not been previously disclosed, were requested by then-CIA Director George J. Tenet more than a year after the start of the secret interrogations, according to four administration and intelligence officials familiar with the documents. Although Justice Department lawyers, beginning in 2002, had signed off on the agency's interrogation methods, senior CIA officials were troubled that White House policymakers had never endorsed the program in writing.
The memos were the first -- and, for years, the only -- tangible expressions of the administration's consent for the CIA's use of harsh measures to extract information from captured al-Qaeda leaders, the sources said. As early as the spring of 2002, several White House officials, including then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Cheney, were given individual briefings by Tenet and his deputies, the officials said. Rice, in a statement to congressional investigators last month, confirmed the briefings and acknowledged that the CIA director had pressed the White House for "policy approval."
Mark Benjamin: Friendly fire in Iraq -- and a coverup
POGO has just updated their Federal Contractor Misconduct Database
The massive purge of voters has begun in Ohio.
Brad Friedman: The Republican voter fraud hoax
Juan Cole: The Great Reagan Pyramid Scheme Comes Crashing Down
QOTD
"The fuck with success," said Saviano. "I want a life. I want a home. I want to fall in love. I want to [be able to] drink a beer in public, go to a bookshop and choose a book after browsing the back cover. I want to go for a walk, enjoy the sun, walk in the rain and see my mother without fear - and without frightening her - I'm only 28 year old, for fuck's sake."
--Roberto Saviano
As the Violence Soars, Mexico Signals It's Had Enough of America's Stupid War on Drugs
William Sampson: How I survived chop chop square
Chris Hedges: America's Political Cannibalism
Given the global economic crisis, a record 90 percent of registered voters say the country is seriously off on the wrong track, the most since this question first was asked in 1973. At 23 percent, Bush's job approval rating has fallen below Nixon's lowest; it's a point away from the lowest in 70 years of polling, set by Harry Truman in early 1952. Bush's disapproval, meanwhile, is at an all-time record – 73 percent.
Ridley Scott has acquired the film-rights to Joe Haldeman's The Forever War.
Rachel Maddow: The GOP's Descent into Hell
IMG_3168
Originally uploaded by SmoPho
Western Regionals: Capsule Recaps
Eastern Regional: Previewing the Top Seeds
UPDATED: Eastern Regional: The Opening Bouts
The City Pages has a good story on tryouts for the Minnesota Roller Girls.
But as I watched them celebrate their new members and prepare for the October 18 season opener, it all made sense. These women are hardcore, and not just because they beat each other up on roller skates. From their ramshackle beginning in 2005 to the professional athletes they are today, people have always found the Roller Girls appealing for the same reason: They make no apologies for being themselves.
Collateral damage in Wall Street, Afghan wars
A 20-year game of Telephone
Scott Horton: DOJ Goes Long for Sarah Palin
The Republican base
Cook County sheriff to stop enforcing evictions.
Hee hee hee
US rock band the Foo Fighters have told John McCain to stop using song My Hero in his presidential campaign, saying it "tarnishes" the track.
Get your 2009 Zombie Pinup Calendar today.
