“INSUFFICIENTLY PRO-ISRAELI?” New U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had his appointment held up on such “insufficiency” charge but now, on a trip to Israel, he seems to be establishing his sufficiency bones. In presenting a large deal for U.S. arms shipments to Israel, he says that the deal is a “clear signal” to Iran [...]
“PROPAGANDA ALWAYS WINS…IF YOU ALLOW IT.” British investigative journalist John Pilger quotes Leni Riefenstahl, whose World War II era movies helped smooth the way in public opinion for the rise of Hitler. She credits a form of “liberal fascism” of that time that succumbed to her form of propaganda. Just so, the main stream [...]
TOO BIG TO PUNISH: U.S. SHIP DAMAGES WORLD HERITAGE CORAL REEF IN THE PHILIPPINES AND BARELY SAYS “EXCUSE ME.” The commander and 3 other sailors are “relieved of their duties” after they ignored warnings and slammed their minesweeper ship into the Tubataha Reef. The $1.5 million fine against U.S. government is castigated as a loose-change “slap [...]
HANDCUFFING KIDS FOR NO REASON. This is the allegation of two whistle-blowing police officers against the practices of the New York Police Department in a class action suit against the city charging racial profiling. They claim that their supervisors maintained quotas of the number of arrests and summonses they were expected to execute in [...]
GLOBAL WATER CRISIS GETS SCANT MEDIA OR POLITICAL ATTENTION…AND THAT CAN LITERALLY BE DEADLY. Long thought of as solely and environmental issue, access to clean water can no longer be stereotyped as the domain of “tree hugging” activists. With a shrinking supply, climate change and rampant pollution affecting this quite invaluable resource, water is [...]
An aggressive austerity agenda that has gripped Europe’s economy in a burgeoning malaise for nearly five years has come to an unexpected head in the tiny island nation of Cyprus. The latest fiscal catastrophe to develop across the pond has thrown global markets into turmoil and raised questions of how far Europeans are willing to [...]
THE FACTS BE DAMNED, THE U.S. AND ISRAEL MAINTAIN THAT IRAN IS A MAJOR THREAT TO DEVELOP NUCLEAR CAPABILITIES. Numerous independent reports and even one by the U.S. Intelligence Agency have established that Iran is nowhere near a “red line” of nuclear development that could represent any kind of serious threat to other nations. [...]
IS AMERICA DEALING WITH THE NEEDS OF ITS GROWING HOMELESS POPULATION? NOT EVEN CLOSE, SAYS DIANE NILAN. Ever since the War on Poverty became the War on the Poor and the federal government opened its boondoggling agenda of “10 year plans” to “eradicate” homelessness, most U.S. communities have managed to ignore the immediate needs [...]
“YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE BETTER DECISIONS IF YOU HAVE TIME TO THINK ABOUT IT IN ADVANCE.” A Canadian professor warns northern countries that they must begin now to make “advance” plans about how to deal with species-threatening effects of climate change on Arctic polar bears. If they wait for the most drastic conditions to [...]
IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN LOOKS AT THE GLOBE AND FINDS TURMOIL AND THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT IN THE “MIDDLE RUN” FUTURE. While predictions for a given year are a “fool’s mission” and those for centuries in the future only too easy to make, those for the “middle run” of a decade or so hence are subject to [...]
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