Archive for December, 2003
Mercury
Mercury is bad for you:
Mercury is one of those unambiguous poisons. It’s a known nerve toxin and a cause of birth defects. Minnesota and 40 other states now have to warn anglers and their families against eating too much fish because of mercury concentrated in their fillets. Especially at risk of harm are women of […]
History
This site has a very comprehensive history of “American benevolent hegemony” over the rest of the world. It is amazing how bad we are at playing the “Empire” game.
Bribe
A question for Ashcroft:
What does a guy have to do to get a congressional bribe investigated?
Radio
Some interesting work being done in Afghanistan by a Canadian media organization:
A Canadian organization is reaching out to women in Afghanistan, teaching them to work as journalists and opening radio stations, hoping to change the view of women in a society that has traditionally held them in low esteem.
The Institute for Media, Policy and Civil […]
Incarceration
The trouble with prison isn’t that it doesn’t work; the trouble is that it doesn’t work very well but does cost a fortune compared with other ways of reducing crime. Feeding, clothing, housing and guarding a convict for a year costs more than $20,000, plus the price of physically constructing the facilities in which the […]
Untouched
In an otherwise innocuous article by the BBC about Amis Aborigine song and dance from Taiwan, they write:
The tribe was virtually left untouched for a long time, although now the younger members have gone into the cities.
This is the oldest myth in the books. Reporters love to write about “untouched” tribes. It conveys a sense […]
Donate
I personally believe the most important way the Democrats can defeat Bush is to get more people to the polls. Obviously, part of this requires delivering a message that will motivate people to vote, but a lot is simply grassroots mobilization - something the Republicans, especially the far right, has been very good at.
There are […]
Conniving
Hopefully Hispanic voters are smart enough not to let Karl Rove pull the wool over their eyes. But I was surprised that TalkLeft thought Bush’s proposed immigration reforms were a good thing, after so many other “bait and switch” moves by this administration. Then Economists for Dean highlighted this key quote from the article, which […]
Archives
Via Juan Cole:
Well, the Democratic Party seems too nice or inept to do anything with it, but as the Washington Post points out, the good folks at the National Security Archive are continuing to document the long history of Republican Party coddling of Saddam Hussein, and their hypocritical winking at his use of weapons of […]
Recruits
Remember how Rumsfeld said we wouldn’t need a large number of troops to take Iraq, but didn’t seem to take into account how many troops we’d need to hold on to Iraq afterwards? Well, it seems Rummy actually was looking for more troops all the time …. in Canada!
A Canadian Defense Ministries report said the […]
An anthropologist and documentary filmmaker, 
