City Says HIV Count Is Likely Too Low
by Darryl Fears and Jose Antonio Vargas
A report showing that 3 percent of D.C. residents are infected with HIV or AIDS is probably an undercount, and the prevalence of the disease is probably worse than is known, according to Shannon L. Hader, director of the city's HIV/AIDS Administration. |
The Sublime to the Ridiculous: The Evolution of Main Stream Media
by Trish Purcell
Remember Edward R. Murrow, a courageous journalist who produced a series of TV news reports that helped lead to the censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy? Remember Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward and their unflagging pursuit of the truth in the Watergate scandal? These men showed us what real journalism is about. |
Foreign Policy: why is Obama writing to Jacques Chirac?
by Aimee Kligman
It is amazing what people will do to discredit newly elected President Obama.The following headline caught my attention: 'Obama Snubs French President; Seeks to Work With Predecessor'. This was written today, by Mark Ipomeni of AOL News.If one were to reflect on the headline, one would assume that President Obama picked up his pen and said to himself: 'I think I'm going to write to Jacques Chirac, just so I can annoy and undermine President Sarkozy'. So, you'd hope that by reading further into the article, there would be some clarification. |
TOXICITY: DC Has Once Again Found Religion and Gets Principles - We Know What THAT Means!
by Fred Cederholm
I’ve been thinking about toxicity. Actually I’ve been thinking about the unfolding recession/ depression, Obama on 60 Minutes, toxic albatrosses, Uncle $ugar as a toxic hedge fund auctioneer, toxic national debt, toxic dollars, and our toxic Congress. Any substantive action last week on the unfolding recession/ depression – now being marketed as “THE GREAT CORRECTION” – took a backseat to the brouhaha of $165 MILLION in bonuses paid to potentially culpable parties at AIG from the some $170 BILLION bailout money from the US taxpayers. |
The Fifth Aghan War: Tilting at Afghan Windmills
by Brian Cloughley
Don Quixote, the main character in a novel by the Spanish writer Cervantes in 1605, spent a lot of time on horseback, armed with a lance, attacking windmills which he thought were menacing giants."Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills . . . And no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to his squire, "Fortune is guiding our affairs . . . Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich, for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless." |
Stick Your Damn Hand In It: 20th Birthday of the Exxon Valdez Lie
by Greg Palast
"Gail, Please! Stick your hand in it!"The petite Eskimo-Chugach woman gave me that you-dumb-ass-white-boy look."Gail, Gail. STICK YOUR DAMN HAND IN IT!"She stuck it in, under the gravel of the beach at Sleepy Bay, her village's fishing ground. Gail's hand came up dripping with black, sickening goo. It could make you vomit. Oil from the Exxon Valdez. |
Obama Administration Careening Towards Disaster (And Taking the Country With It)
by Dave Lindorff
Six months after the failed Bush administration effort to "rescue" the US financial system, and after two months of failed efforts by his own new administration, at an expense to the American public of several trillion dollars and counting, the Obama administration is announcing plans to blow another $1 trillion in a massive taxpayer giveaway to investors who will be subsidized in an effort to get them to buy the so-called toxic assets on the books of the nation's biggest banks. |
America's point of no return
by Douh Thompson
It may be time to face the sad fact that this nation has reached the point of no return.Our economy is out of control, oozing ever deeper into a toxic swamp of worthless assets, bad loans, failed companies and corporate greed.Our government is frozen by bitter, partisan bickering, led by a charismatic President who finds that translating optimistic rhetoric is all but impossible in the face of political reality. |
Good luck, Marlins — I'll wave from my couch
by Michael Mayo
The Miami-Dade County Commission voted to build the Marlins their long-awaited stadium on Monday, but I still won't believe it until the shovels hit the dirt.As a few of the more astute public speakers noted, there's no guarantee a bond issue can get floated by the July deadline in today's chaotic economic climate. |
Geithner plan arithmetic
by Paul Krugman
Leave on one side the question of whether the Geither plan is a good idea or not. One thing is clearly false in the way it’s being presented: administration officials keep saying that there’s no subsidy involved, that investors would share in the downside. That’s just wrong. Why? Because of the non-recourse loans, which reportedly will finance 85 percent of the asset purchases. |
The Bank Rescue
by New York Times
President Obama’s long-awaited plan to revive the banks could work if certain assumptions about the future are right. But there is not much, beyond faith, to believe those assumptions will pan out — and even if there were, it is hard to see how the plan is the best way to go. |
Mr. Cheney, What About This 'Executive Assassination Squad'?
by John Nichols
Dick Cheney is not going to fade away.George Bush may have retreated to Texas to clear brush and ponder how things went so horribly wrong. But Cheney, who failed out of the university from which Bush graduated, has never been so reflective as the former president. |
These Colors Cannot Run... Afghanistan
by Norman Solomon
Is your representative speaking out against escalation of the Afghanistan war?Last week, some members of Congress sent President Obama a letter that urged him to "reconsider" his order deploying 17,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan.Everyone in the House of Representatives had ample opportunity to sign onto the letter. Beginning in late February, it circulated on Capitol Hill for more than two weeks. The letter was the most organized congressional move so far to challenge escalation of the war in Afghanistan. |
Oil Plagues Sound 20 Years After Exxon Valdez
by MSNBC
Future risk assessments must look at longer impacts, recovery council saysTwenty years after the Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil in Alaska's Prince William Sound, oil persists in the region and, in some places, "is nearly as toxic as it was the first few weeks after the spill," according to the council overseeing restoration efforts. |
Obama pens editorial calling for global economic action
by Raw Story
An editorial by President Barack Obama calling for global economic cooperation ran in 31 papers around the world Tuesday, from Madrid to the Czech Republic to Riyadh."My message is clear," Obama wrote. "The United States is ready to lead, and we call upon our partners to join us with a sense of urgency and common purpose. Much good work has been done, but much more remains." |
