There are no geniuses in the outhouse by Joe Bageant Sometimes you overhear a remark so wonderfully prescient you wish you'd said it yourself. Especially if you are a writer. Sitting in back of the Troubadour Club, a West Virginia honky tonk high in the Blue Ridge Mountains, I'm listening to Petie Yost, an auctioneer, talk to Bud Shanholtz, who lives on Social Security and drives a snowplow occasionally during the winter.
Celebrity priest punished after being caught with woman by Jaweed Kaleem, Lydia Martin AND Charles Rabin The Rev. Alberto Cutié, a national figure with movie star looks, was removed from his Miami Beach church Tuesday after photographs appeared in a magazine showing him frolicking with a woman in the sand on a Florida beach.A wildly popular Catholic priest, newspaper columnist and radio and television personality, Cutié will no longer run operations or say Sunday Mass at St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church.
Michael Savage, Fred Phelps banned from entering Britain by Agence France-Presse LONDON (AFP) – The government published a blacklist on Tuesday of people recently banned from the country including a Hamas lawmaker and a Jewish extremist, as well as anti-gay protestors and a far-right US talk show host.Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she decided to publish the “name and shame” list — which identifies 16 people banned since last October — for the first time to clarify what behaviour Britain will not tolerate.
Second U.S. death linked to swine flu, officials say by CNN (CNN) -- A Texas woman who had swine flu has died, officials said Tuesday, marking the second death in the United States linked to the virus and the first of a U.S. resident. The news came as officials in the United States and Mexico, where the outbreak of the H1N1 virus started, were voicing hope that the worst of the new flu strain may be over.
Has journalism disappeared or is it just hiding? by Hal Brown A very smart friend of mine, Rick McNair, who calls President Obama "WOW" for "walks on water", writes on his blog that he'd give him a grade of “C” so far. He laments a "fawning PR blitz by a media that leaves me wondering where and when journalism disappeared? Thankfully, Fox news, Rush and the internet are around to tell the other side of the story from their own biased perspective."
Environment Emerges as a Major Casualty in Gaza by Erin Cunningham GAZA CITY - Countless fruit groves across the Gaza Strip are now gone, entire farms bulldozed. The remains of thousands of destroyed homes emit toxic asbestos, while dilapidated infrastructure dumps raw sewage into the Mediterranean Sea. An already deepening environmental crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip has been further compounded by the recent war.
Senators Accuse Pentagon of Delay in Recovering Millions by James Glanz The Pentagon has done little to collect at least $100 million in overcharges paid in deals arranged by corrupt former officials of Kellogg Brown & Root, the defense contractor, even though the officials admitted much of the wrongdoing years ago, two senators have complained in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.
Jack Kemp’s Futile Quest by Bob Herbert I remember Jack Kemp from way back, from his football days. He was the all-star quarterback for the Buffalo Bills in the game in 1965 in which Joe Namath made his first start for the New York Jets. The United States was at war and Lyndon Johnson was drafting every young man he could get his hands on for his buildup of forces in Vietnam, but neither Kemp nor Namath had to worry about that. Football injuries made them unfit for service.
Afghan elections: Bring the Taliban into the race? Brilliant! by Aimee Kligman UN forces, US military command and our allies in Afghanistan may have finally come to agree that defeating the Taliban may turn into a decades-old project. Several decades. It is therefore not surprising that a top UN official in Afghanistan has called on the Taliban today to join the presidential election process. By offering the Taliban a stake in the outcome of the election may assure more cooperation and fewer attacks. President Karzai, who is running for re-election, is ahead of the game, as one his vice-presidential candidates is a former mujaheddin leader. His name is Muhammid Fahim, and his selection will help Karzai split the United National Front, one of the powerful opposition factions composed mainly of former anti-Soviet fighters who had selected their own presidential candidate, Abdullah Abdullah.
ONE LUMP OR TWO? Fake fascism & false outrage by Allan Uthman I’m actually starting to feel sorry for conservatives. They’ve never made much sense, but the trouncing they took in November appears to have driven them completely insane.I can’t think of a better word to describe people who meet up to protest taxes when taxes have not been raised, or who actually accuse the president who ended torture of being a fascist.
Tomgram: Dilip Hiro Looks At The Newest Superpower by Tom Engelhardt — from TomDispatchWhat will China become in this century? There can hardly be a more important question to ask. TomDispatch regular Dilip Hiro, who has followed shifting global power balances as the planet's former "sole superpower" edged into decline, offers a vivid picture below of a potential rising superpower weathering bad times as we head toward a multipolar planet.
Fox Defends News Clip Croppings: Calls Them "Selective Factivity" by Steve Young Reacting to recent criticism of their editing practices which tend to delete segments of news clips and soundbites which may distort or completely transpose the reality of the clip, Fox News has issued a terse response.“It is not now, nor has it ever been our intention to deceive the viewer,” said Fox honcho, Roger Ailes “In fact it is due to our respect of the viewer that we do not force them to watch newsmakers drone on and on about extemporaneous elements of a story that many times just cause confusion. It’s not editing, it’s ‘Selective Factivity’.”
Give Everyone Healthcare By Shutting Down Insurance Companies by David Swanson Our nation has more money than any other, more weapons than all the others combined, and a majority of its citizens believing it is, in some undefined sense, superior. But the people who live in the United States trail many other nations in basic measures of health and well-being. Almost uniquely among wealthy nations, we leave tens of millions of our citizens without health coverage, and many times that number with insufficient -- albeit expensive -- health insurance. We pay more per capita than anybody else for healthcare, and we get dramatically less for it. What gives?
The Other 100 Days by William Rivers Pitt "I will not speak with disrespect of the Republican Party. I always speak with respect of the past."-- Woodrow WilsonPresident Obama marked the 100th day of his term with a prime time press conference on Wednesday night, during which he highlighted a few key accomplishments while reminding the American people that he has quite a lot of crazy crap to deal with. A swine flu outbreak tickling the pandemic edge, an economy still hemorrhaging jobs and money, a ballooning deficit, bad banks, a new eruption of violence in Iraq, an ongoing war in Afghanistan, a looming war and a shaky government in Pakistan, and a bunch of very strange people waving tea bags and yelling about Lord only knows what, because they sure didn't. I got this, Obama seemed to be saying, but damn.
House Dems refuse funds to close Gitmo, relocate inmates by Agence France-Presse Democrats in the US House of Representatives unveiled a 94.2-billion-dollar emergency spending bill to cover the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, fight a flu pandemic, and a range of other outlays.Democratic House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey said the panel would meet Thursday to take up the measure, which is 9.3 billion dollars above what US President Barack Obama requested.
Sarah's getting a gun by Stephen C. Webster The NRA announced Monday that for her service to gun owners, it will give Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin a white, M4 semi-automatic with a custom, .50 caliber Beowulf chamber.Hopefully she's a better aim than Dick Cheney.From the New York Daily News: The all-white "Alaskan Hunter" - fashionable until Labor Day - is the civilian version of a modified M-4 rifle carried by U.S. troops overseas.
Egypt: Nuclear-armed Israel more dangerous than Iran by Stephen C. Webster This one should have an interesting comment thread. *Gulp*From the Jerusalem Post: Western policies based on pressuring Iran to give up its nuclear program will fail because they disregard Israeli nuclear capabilities, which is "the first and greatest threat to security in the region," an Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Monday.
Joe the Plumber: I won’t let ‘queers’ near my children, ‘and they know it’ by Raw Story In a recent interview with Christianity Today, the man who came to be known in the November presidential election as “Joe the Plumber” made eyebrow-raising remarks about gays.Known legally as Samuel Wurzelbacher, “Joe” spoke of queers and remarked that he “wouldn’t have them anywhere near my children
UK was ‘dragged’ into Iraq war, says former top MI6 official by John Byrne In a revealing speech delivered this weekend, the former deputy director of Britain’s secret intelligence service said the Iraq war “was always against” the “better judgment” of the agency.Nigel Inkster was deputy director of MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence service, during Tony Blair’s Administration. According to an article in the Telegraph Sunday, Inkster was being groomed to succeed Sir Richard Dearlove, then MI6 chief, but may have been passed over because of his opinions regarding Iraq.
