This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Copyright P. Kerim Friedman.
This is the best Nigeria scam e-mail I’ve seen so far. ———- Forwarded message ———-From: Ministry of Foreign Affairs <[email protected]> Date:
A lot has been written about WikiLeaks. Too much perhaps, which is why I’m a little reluctant to add what might seem like an obvious point. But it
Three tips on using Google’s new ngrams word search. <It is case sensitive. “beatles” is not the same as “Beatles”. There are multiple data sets.
台大人類學系演講 講者：Dr. P. Kerim Friedman（傅可恩）（國立東華大學民族文化學系助理教授） 講題：”Tomorrow the Community Shouldn’t Blame Us for Revealing Their Secrets”: Collaborative
I finally figured it out. The last time I traveled abroad for a conference I tried setting up a Google Calendar to schedule my conference events and
Eight out of ten voters told exit pollsters that they are frightened by the economy; four out of ten report that their own families are still worse
Over and over again there are stories about people whose supposedly anonymous online identity is made public, or (as with this recent story about
Here is a brief rundown of the advantages and disadvantages of posterous, tumblr, and wordpress for teaching. Posterous is the easiest for having
Another problem with Posterous vs. WordPress is that WordPress automatically shows the name of each person when they post. Posterous does not seem
I’m trying Posterous for teaching this semester, as an alternative to WordPress or GoogleGroups. The main advantage is that setup is much easier
In my paper I want to: move us away from an ‘original sin’ narrative in which anthropologists discover the importance of collaboration only after
“Let me cut through the jargon, the euphemisms we use to mask human suffering and war crimes. “Closures” mean heavily armed soldiers who ring
I vividly remember throwing the 40MB hard drive for my Mac Plus out the window of my college dorm room when it died. Although I checked that the
Early on in the summer blockbuster Inception the main character, Dom Cobb, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, is looking to hire a dream “architect” and
| The New York Review of Books http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/jul/15/eyeless-gaza/ There is another critical facet
A young Obama asks his Indonesian step-father, Lolo, about war: “What are those?” “Leech marks,” he said. “From when I was in New Guinea. They
It wasn’t too long ago that I was writing posts comparing Firefox vs. Safari. When Chrome came along I thought it would solve the problem, combining
Trying to make sense of the economic crisis in Europe and I wanted to put a few things together: First, Paul Krugman has been harping about how the
Obama’s Solicitor General Elena Kagan — has a record that is almost as bad as Sunstein’s when it comes to executive power abuses, civil liberties,
For over a decade I’ve had to figure out some way to manage Chinese names in my address book. Switching between the Newton, a Treo, and now an
Since there isn’t (yet) any easy way to sync Google Chrome extensions across computers, I’m using this post to keep a list of my currently installed
I don’t want to jinx myself, but my stomach has done pretty well so far on this trip to India and I thought I’d write a bit about why. Travel in
Compared with the pairing of First World employers and Third World workers, the hiring of migrant domestic workers in the global South involves more
For some strange reason, Taiwanese love Plurk. So even though I don’t use it myself, I’d like to have my status updates posted there. The problem is
But Skype requires me to look at you while you’re talking, which is totally ridiculous. The only sci-fi show that understood this was Star Trek.
THE BATTLE between the State and Maoists is well known. But in Chhattisgarh, another battle has been fast gathering steam — between the State and
Look, I support the ACLU. But, seriously; give those people everything they want, the whole Bill of Rights, and it would not cost the country a
No matter how small film and video equipment gets, it is still like packing for a third person. Microphones are the worst, because they need to be
A lot of times, when looking for the ideal software for a particular task, I find that I end up having to choose between two applications: there
Like the Mexican folk saying that opens their paper: You should take care of small, loose bills, because large bills take care of themselves.
Despite not making much money, we have inordinately complex finances — largely because we run a film company. It hasn’t made money yet, but we need
I’ve always enjoyed playing games, but since graduate school I haven’t had much time for them. I discovered recently, however, that taking a break
Word processors suck. Anyone who has prepared a manuscript for publication will tell you that. I’m also fairly certain that Microsoft is the reason
The market for Chinese dictionaries on the iPhone is heating up. Links below are to the iTunes App store. These dictionaries all use the 80,000
There has been a lot of discussion in the mac community about a certain promotional deal by which nearly a thousand dollars worth of software can be
When I was about eight years old I used to play with the mainframe computer at my dad’s engineering school. I still remember playing Star Trek.
Mother Jones reports that the average American household spends about $500 per year on lottery tickets — more than on movies, books, and music
When I look up a word I need for a lecture on political-economy or colonial theory, I know I will not find the word I need in my dictionary. And I
I want to use Zotero 1.5b, but it seems that Firefox 3.0 has problems with large databases, and I have over 4000 references. So I’m going to try
I’m working as a consultant for an institutional website here in Taiwan. I wrote up a list of general principles for good website design to let them
This post is for people using Samsung laser printers with Apple Time Capsule (although its possible that other people are having similar issues). I
I have e-mail going back to the 90s, but I started using IMAP in 2002 and I’m pretty sure I have saved almost every e-mail I sent or received since
Cloud computing is nothing new. Email has always been “in the cloud,” especially IMAP which allows you to have your desktop email mirror that of
The vast majority of the world is multilingual. Not only are they multilingual, but many people use multiple scripts as well, including character
I’ve been using Apple computers since 1986. I used to think I would never use anything but… The recent development of both open source and cloud
The iPhone happens to be a great eBook reader. Despite (or because of) its small size, it is actually a very pleasant reading interface. This is
There is no doubt about it, Facebook is a more popular site than Twitter. And not just by a little bit either. Comparing the two is like comparing a
(Reposted from the Vimukta blog.) Each year we raise $1000 to help fund the Chharanagar library. This library is much more than a library, its a
As an advocate for getting more anthropologists to take up blogging, I constantly keep an eye out for new technologies which will make this easier.
This site is officially closed. Please change all your bookmarks, links, etc. to the new site: http://keywords.oxus.net/ See you over there
I’ve completed the design of the new site. I even have a couple of items ready to post. However, I am not going to start using the site until I can
This site is officially closed. Please change all your bookmarks, links, etc. to the new site: http://keywords.oxus.net/ See you over there
I think I solved the Bloglet Problems. We’ll find out tonight. But I lack the patience to wait. I’m going to start posting today. This site is
This site is officially closed. Please change all your bookmarks, links, etc. to the new site: http://keywords.oxus.net/ See you over there
I’m thinking about a major overhaul in how I do my blogging. First of all, I need to cut down a bit to focus on finishing my dissertation this year.
This is an English language letter by the author of a powerful on-line comic strip about SARS in Taiwan. In the letter he explains all of the
I’m tired of blogging the Jessica Lynch story, but since I’ve been doing so, I feel it is important to point out this excellent in-depth story in
The simple answer is being fired. Which happens pervasively in union drives. Two very good posts about the state of Unionization in America over
Here is an excerpt from the acceptance speech given by Bill Moyers when he was presented with the “America’s Future Lifetime Leadership Award” award
From SF Gate: A new rifle-launched gas grenade, invented by the U.S. Army ostensibly for nonlethal crowd control, has created a stir because the
The number of children in Iraq suffering from diarrhoea and related diseases appears to have risen dramatically in the past year, the United Nations
Here are some letters to the NY Times that respond to many of the same issues I raised in my earlier post. Dr. Leanne Hinton The movement toward
This is just awful! Remember the forced Arab male registration program Bush instituted this past year? Where all of the muslim males from several
It seems that there is some credence to Fox News’ claims to deliver balanced reporting. Even though they were more overtly pro-war than any other
Daily Kos has the goods on Martha Stewart: Second, as a member of the board of directors of the New York Stock Exchange, (also called the Board of
I recently came across an article in the NY Times that discusses the concept of “endangered languages.” It is an intelligent, well written article
This image says it all: Here is the original map, which shows some important details (like towns that are all but completely walled off) not
Effective tax rates on millionaires have plummeted over the last 50 years while tax rates on the middle class have quintupled. And here is a chart
Taiwan’s number of SARS probable cases continued to fall yesterday for the second consecutive day as three cases were reclassified and two more
From what I can tell, this doesn’t really mean very much, but at least they are talking about it. I personally wonder how the details would work if
I know their intentions are good, but this is just a bad idea: Habitat for Humanity, the nonprofit group that builds low-cost housing, is opening
Fareed Zakaria has some advice for the administration: Stick around and make sure those countries are rebuilt! I was against both wars, but I agree
This, of course, is nothing new. In the 1980s I helped run an Amnesty International campaign in my high school to block the death penalty because it
Worldwide, GM crops are grown by at least six million farmers in 16 countries…Monsanto produces more than 90% of crops worldwide. One company
Big surprise: Turns out Republicans are not the champions of “states rights” they claim to be. Daily Kos quotes a Nathan Newman post about how
Yes, the Jessica Lynch story again — but this is just too funny: There’s more, including the rather funny detail that “U.S. commandos refused a key
Not only is he writing for the Guardian, but he worked as an interpreter during the war. This article is a fun read for Salam Pax fans: “Salam Pax”
From Atrios we learn that we’ve won–we’ve finally overtaken Russia. The U.S. now has the largest prison population in the world. From Talk Left
Bush claims we did find WMDs — those two trailers: President Bush, citing two trailers that U.S. intelligence agencies have said were probably used
Most taxpayers will receive a $400-a-child check in the mail this summer as a result of the law, which raises the child tax credit, to $1,000 from
Guess what — media monopolies are not good for democracy, or capitalism. Free markets, taken to extremes, sometimes lead to monopolies. Monopolies,
Under the new law, Congress has “taken the unprecedented step” of dictating to federal judges what sentences must be imposed. Since 1986, when the
“I am dying!” Martinez cried. And, according to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, there is nothing wrong with that! Why? Because the
Independent human rights groups estimate that there are more than 600 politically motivated arrests a year in Uzbekistan, and 6,500 political
No, I’m not a big Nader fan, and I hope someone else runs in his stead, but I did vote for him in the last election. Why? Because I couldn’t find
It took a House Armed Services subcommittee a shade under 11 minutes on May 7 to approve $1.7 billion more than the Pentagon had requested in its
BoingBoing.net has been hosting a SARS Digital folk art gallery. This one is the funniest
“Jay Garner is doing a truly outstanding job for the nation. Any suggestion to the contrary is flat untrue and mischievous.” –Secretary of
An anti-Iraq war blogger, who also happens to be a writer for Sesame Street, responds to a BBC article which announces that “American interrogators
FBI Apologizes to the “Evansville 8″: As part of a national roundup in the weeks after the terrorist attacks, the “Evansville 8″ were among 50
Microsoft executives no longer call open source a “cancer” and a “destroyer of intellectual property”, at least in public. But, if anything, the
I just had to reinstall my computer from a backup I had made on a Firewire drive. In the process I discovered that I should have been making such
Gary Heart has some interesting things to say about America’s transition to Empire. Of course, it all depends on whether you see what is happening
Here is a much better explanation, from the Washington Post, of the research that shows the cat-SARS link: The long-sought discovery came when a
The underlying strategy here is all too familiar: Instead of challenging popular liberal programs directly, the Republicans are creating fiscal
It seems that Bloglet (the service I’ve been using to send out the e-mail version of this blog) has simply stopped working. Customer service used to
This Op-Ed in the Taipei Times shows how little regard Taiwan grants to the work of the (mostly female) nursing staff who are the front line of
Personally, I don’t buy this BBC Story which claims that SARS may have come from a type of cat eaten as a delicacy in Guangdong province. True, the
Looks like the Department of Homeland Defense’s color-coding scheme to alert the nation to danger from terrorist attacks is reactive rather than
Taiwan has long desired to join the WHO. Politics, specifically the objections of the Chinese Government, continue to prevent Taiwan from joining.
Surprise, surprise: The TV networks that will benefit from the new FCC rules on media ownership have been keeping their viewers in the dark about
Another article on the Lynch “rescue” story: Sadly, almost nothing fed to reporters about either Lynch’s original capture by Iraqi forces or her
I don’t publish much about the environment on this blog — I guess because protection seems like such an obvious good and the government’s policies
The heat of Taiwanese summer could kill SARS if people just turn off their ACs! Experts have estimated that the temperature range between 17?Ǭ?C
Afghanistan’s powerful regional governors have agreed to hand over hundreds of millions of dollars to the central government in a dispute over
“There’s been a very, very big deterioration in security countrywide, especially for aid workers,” said Rafael Robillard of ACBAR, an umbrella group
Salon has an article with more on the plight of Iraqi Palestinians: Al-Assa’ad is one of 850 Iraqi Palestinians living in a refugee camp 50
Doesn’t look good: Official unemployment now stands at 6 percent; 8.8 million Americans are unemployed, an increase of 3 million since October
It is amazing. I wonder if the military will start hiring Steven Spielberg to direct their battles for them. Seems the US military was using blanks
The battle for Baghdad cost the lives of at least 1,101 Iraqi civilians, many of them women and children, according to records at the city’s 19
Last May 9, the Senate Armed Services Committee voted to repeal a 10-year ban on the research and development of “low-yield” nuclear weapons —
“This chart illustrates the march of consolidation within that short and brutal time frame.” TomBarger.com
“The problem in Saudi Arabia is that the middle class is shrinking,” said Turki Hamad, a Saudi political scientist. “And the more poverty you have,
Basically, a traditional Arabic name given in full consists of the kunya (‘father/mother of X’), the ism (the actual given name, e.g. Muhammad or
Intelligence agencies had a far less accurate picture of Iraq’s weapons program than participants believed at the outset of their search, they
Still, isn’t the Bush administration doing its best to fight terrorism? No. Krugman in the NY Times
Sorry. The mail server was down and I had to manually re-start it. If you are subscribed to the e-mail list and you missed any posts this past week
Florida Governor Jeb Bushs orders that a guardian be appointed for a fetus . Abortion rights advocates are angry. As they should be! Via Talk Left
An interesting article about journalistic ethics at the New York Times: The actions of Blair, while grossly inappropriate, are hardly unknown
Taiwan’s leading hospital, overwhelmed by an internal outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, was effectively shut down tonight, dealing a
Hellman says a $399.1-billion budget represents a $16.9-billion increase over current spending and accounts for 17% of the nation’s total budget.
To recite from a Pentagon press release that an Iraqi division has been “degraded by 70 percent” is an astounding abdication of journalistic
A move in the U.S. Congress to link immigration with opening up Mexico’s state oil company to U.S. investment has outraged Mexicans, and newspapers
As if things weren’t bad enough, it seems that the FCC is planning to eliminate what remaining controls exist on media ownership in the US: The
Every once in a while, in order to remind myself of the quality of information typically reported, I trace down the source of a particularly
SARS cases surge in Taiwan. Taiwan reported 23 new cases and four deaths today, bringing the island’s 207 infections ahead of Singapore’s 205
The English spelling system is such a pain, we’d might as well switch to hanzi — Chinese characters. How should we go about it? Here’s how
Yup: Our states are going bankrupt, social services are cut to the bone , the economy is in deep trouble, and Bush wants to build nuclear bombs?
Since the beginning of the current strife in September 2000 until April 30 2003, a total of 12,737 people had seen their homes demolished in Gaza
Across the southern portions of Afghanistan, where the Taliban found strong support among the rural conservative Pashtun populations, there are
Ledeen’s ideas are repeated daily by such figures as Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. His views virtually define the stark
The east Asian Sars outbreak, which Chinese officials said showed signs of declining in Beijing, today appeared to be accelerating in Taiwan with
Well, I suppose that depends on what you thought of Mother Theresa. But he is certainly making a play for sainthood with his decision to give away
Many people come here from NoWarBlog.org or places that copied the link from there — and so only see the blogs in the “no war category”. However,
What is an RSS feed? That link has a lot of info, but the short answer is that it is simply a way of formating content so that it can easily be used
At a time when less than 2 percent of the U.S. population is infected with hepatitis C, 29.7 percent of Maryland prisoners had it, said Liza
Do this administration’s conflicts-of-interest ever end? Last February, the Defense Policy Board, a group of outside advisors to the Pentagon,
Not to worry. The Republicans — famous for their support of labor and family-friendly policies — have come up with a solution. It’s called the
Data compiled by Iraq Body Count from widely published press and media reports shows that at least 200 civilian deaths have already been reliably
247,966 Taiwanese have married foreign brides. Two thirds of these brides are from Mainland China, but what is more interesting is that “the highest
Here’s what CNN had to say about the rescue, in an article dated May 6, three weeks after the Washington Post first reported doctors’ claims that
The “war on terror” comes at a time when terrorism is at its lowest total since 1969: In its annual report to Congress on terrorism, the State
First, make sure they are payed as little as possible. Secondly, violate the laws that ensure their health is protected. And, third, take away any
in its desperate efforts to contain severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) as panic riots hit
Halliburton’s role in post-war Iraq includes operating Iraqi oil fields, new documents have revealed. BBC
Median CEO pay at the 37 largest defense contractors rose 79 percent from 2001 to 2002, while overall CEO pay climbed only 6 percent…
Iraqi largess toward Palestinian immigrants almost always came at the expense of everyday Iraqis. This was especially true under Iraq’s last ruler,
The U.S. has created a corporate-style “Advisory Board” to oversee Iraq’s oil industry. This Modern World
… there is a much more concrete sign that the [NATO] alliance has emerged from Iraq intact: the decision, one “of almost earth-shattering
This is what I thought — although this Daily Kos article is the first I’ve seen confirming that the impact of last Friday’s judgment is actually
Lots of U.S. newspapers are reporting the uncovering of mass graves in Iraq, containing bodies of rebels killed in 1991 by Saddam Hussein’s
The City College of New York Libraries has updated our online bibliography of primary government documents and information about Iraq and I hope you
The UN nuclear watchdog agency has urged Washington to allow it to investigate nuclear sites in Iraq that have reportedly been looted. BBC
Seems that most of the damage at the museum was in the offices. However, many priceless antiquities have been lost — just not as many as initially
Eight people have died in Taiwan and 100 are infected, double the toll last week, and 384 additional cases are being investigated, the Taiwan Center
The number of black youths living in extreme poverty is at its highest level in the 23 years that such statistics have been kept, according to a
This is one of the better articles I’ve seen about the whole Santorum flap: Of course, Santorum’s analogies don’t stand up to logical scrutiny.
Bin Laden’s estranged family, a sprawling, extraordinarily wealthy Saudi Arabian dynasty, is a substantial investor in a private equity firm founded
The agency awarding Iraq reconstruction contracts deleted its requirement for a security clearance after realizing it awarded a project to a company
Very scary stuff: “If we continue to allow black people the right hold public office,” he wrote, “then we’re just itching for trouble. Also, in
In Wolfowitz’s rosy view of history, the millions of Koreans, Filipinos and Indonesians who rebelled against their authoritarian governments were
The U.S. government this week launched its Arabic language satellite TV news station for mostly Muslim Iraq. It is being produced in a studio —
In a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Waxman said Halliburton Co. subsidiaries and joint ventures had done business in Iran, Iraq and
Atrios on the Hostage Crisis in Nigeria: Hostage crisis? What on Earth are you talking about Atrios? What hostage crisis? What? You’re telling me
Actually, save her field notes: Dr. Sheldon Zink, a medical anthropologist has received five subpoenas and notices since December 16, 2002.?Ǭ
Media Transparency has a great who’s-who of which conservative think tank folks have been given what government jobs under Bush. I don’t think there
From Body and Soul: One of the things that struck me watching the crowds tearing down the statues of Saddam Hussein was that I didn’t see any
But race matters independently of the other background factors with which it may or may not be correlated, for two reasons. First, the experience of
Niall Ferguson: This guy is all over the place — the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, etc. and now he has a new book, Empire, which
The author of the book that the movie City of God is based on was interviewed in the NY Times: The notion that he is a freakishly gifted ghetto
In yet another grab for power and blow to justice, Attorney General John Ashcroft has issued a legal opinion declaring that most illegal immigrants
From Daily Kos: Ahh, the forces of Democracy and freedom continue to consolidate their gains in Iraq. Well, except that the nation’s largest
From Talk Left: The ACLU filed suit today against the federal government’s secret “no fly” list at San Francisco Airport
From Talk Left: In short, the Government knows Moussaoui wasn’t part of Sept. 11–but to convict him on the conspiracy charge and have him sentenced
In Newsweek Fareed Zakaria proscribes a road to a democratic Iraq. Too bad Bush probably won’t read it. Here are some highlights: What is called
Cynical Bush is scheduling his election campaign to coincide with the anniversary of 9-11: President Bush’s advisers have drafted a re-election
This is a very fascinating document about the role of “Tribals” in India’s communal riots. Ganesh Devy argues that the indigenous peoples of India
Water: yet another of the longer-term problems for Uncle Sam’s occupation government to deal with. Not only is Turkey hogging the stuff (allegedly),
“There’s something terribly wrong with our immigration policies if it takes death on the battlefield in order to earn citizenship,” Cardinal Roger
When the mainstream mass media isn’t declaring feminism dead, it’s distorting the image of feminism. How does this affect mainstream society’s image
The sugar industry in the US is threatening to bring the World Health Organisation to its knees by demanding that Congress end its funding unless
It seems the Betchel group — which got the contract for rebuilding Iraq Last week Mr. Shultz’s Bechtel Group was able to demonstrate exactly what
Iraqi Doctors hid Jessica Lynch from Iraqi intelligence agents: Private Lynch was kept alone in a single room, where her nurses would sing her to
So it’s no surprise that there’s also early interest in candidates’ answers to the question, “What’s your favorite book?” This may seem an innocuous
Plans to build a pipeline to siphon oil from newly conquered Iraq to Israel are being discussed between Washington, Tel Aviv and potential future
Say that you are one of those fortunate people who manage to pay off most of their credit cards every month. Then imagine your surprise when one of
“I’m not sure any of this means that America’s foreign-policy objectives are served by having a Bush-loving, Islam-bashing, Muslim-converting
and as such have inescapable responsibilities towards those in their custody and
The first President George Bush won the first Gulf War. A year later he lost the presidency because the economy was in the tank. Will the second
This was posted in Slashdot: “The Asia Times reports that after years of losing money, online newspapers are starting to pay off . The New York
The U.S. is holding 6,850 Iraqi war prisoners. Just a handful are top Iraqi leaders. In deciding what to do with the prisoners, the U.S. says that
If you haven’t read this excerpt of Abd Samad Moussaoui’s book about his brother yet, you should, it is well written and very revealing: Zacarias
When the “United States, for the first time in a decade, decides not to submit a UN resolution censuring China for human rights violations.” Did it
From the Washington Post: As Hussein relocated Arabs to northern Iraq, Kurds and Turkmen were deprived of the right to purchase property, while
From Talk Left: “For the first time in New York since the state’s high court opened courtroom doors to identification experts, a judge has said a
According to a survey of Taiwanese family incomes in 2001, the most affluent 20 percent were 6.39 times richer than the bottom 20 percent
From Stand Down: It appears that the Betchel Group , recent recipient of a lucrative government contract to rebuild Iraq, has a history in the
HONEST GRAFT. Let’s get this straight. 60 percent of Coloradans oppose school vouchers, according to a February poll — following up on the defeat of
In the Washington Post, the deputy director of the Iraqi Archaeological museum ransacked by looters says: “If there were five American soldiers at
When individuals are charged with doing business with enemy states or listed terrorist groups, there are press conferences and press releases,
British security forces were involved in sanctioning killings in Northern Ireland, according to the senior police officer investigating allegations
An appeals judge told lawyers for Vice President Richard Cheney on Thursday they had no basis to ask the court to intervene in a suit seeking White
From a talk by actor Tim Robbins: I’m sick of hearing about Hollywood being against the war. Hollywood’s heavy hitters, the real power brokers and
In Taiwan, Gulf War II was seen by the military as a model of what an invasion from China might look like. Of course the Chinese military aren’t
General Motors is an old hand at villainizing and undermining public transit. Long before it was running Canadian newspaper ads villifying transit
The Privacy Act of 1974 requires the FBI to make reasonable efforts to ensure the accuracy and completeness of the records in this database. Last
From Tapped: THE NEVERENDING CLINTON WARS. Did you know that a federal special prosecutor is still investigating former Housing Secretary Henry
Washington Post: Asserting the same right of preemptive war that the United States used to justify its invasion of Iraq, Indian officials have
From the Nation: The process of getting all this infrastructure to work is usually called “reconstruction.” But American plans for Iraq’s future
President Bush greeted the people of Iraq on their TV screens. “You are a good and gifted people,” he told them as Arabic script appeared below his
I was thinking about writing something on this issue, when I found this quote in Tapped: Compared to its counterparts around the world, the
The scary thing is that this slash-and-burn approach to governing may continue to work for Mr. Bush’s people because the initial triumphs get all
When a series of large antiwar protests began nearly eight weeks ago, the New York Police Department started questioning hundreds of people arrested
Seen from a complacent Washington, Afghanistan still may look better than it did before the U.S. intervention. But experts following the country say
From the BBC: The US military in Afghanistan says it has killed 11 Afghan civilians by mistake in an air attack
I want to talk to you about my favourite Saddam statues, in anticipation they may not be here for much longer. Baghdad :: Andrew Gilligan ::
From TAPPED: Though there does not appear to have been any provocation, its reporters were attacked first with small arms fire and then with a tank
From Tapped: The military does just fine with gay and lesbian soldiers, as Thomas Oliphant points out in this excellent column . According to
I can’t believe anyone takes this claim seriously, but this is a good point for those who do. It seems almost every Iraqi owns a gun: If gun rights
Back in the early 1970s Alaska set up the Alaska Permanent Fund, which holds the revenues from oil leases as a public trust, with a portions of the
Ariel Sharon has brushed aside an appeal by the White House to stop an unprecedented move by Jewish settlers into a Palestinian district of
From the BBC: Al-Jazeera said its correspondent Tareq Ayoub died and a cameraman was injured when two missiles hit its office, virtually destroying
Max over at Nowarblog.org recently posted an item called “The I Told You So Olympics”. In it he says: It’s never too early for bitter
The story. Oakland police fired rubber bullets to disperse about 750 anti-war demonstrators on Monday in what was believed to be the first use of
Surly the idiocy of Bill Keller’s column in the NY Times is obvious and I don’t have to refute it point-by-point? I mean, what can you say about a
From the Washington Post: “We discovered a base with tents, food, weapons. It was here that Taliban coming from Pakistan would stay before moving
In Iraq, everything comes from Hussein, not only what is painful but also what is good. Protection from enemies and privation comes from Hussein,
This is from an interview with a non-embedded journalist who was one of several arrested by US forces in Iraq: After we were arrested at six o’
Behind the rhetoric from Damascus is concern that top officials in the Bush administration have targeted Syria as the next country for a change in
While in central Baghdad the war has arrived as a series of interruptions to daily life, Sueb and the other extremities of this vast city are being
Brilliant! So if there was a country that could justly have been accused of “accommodating Nazi evil” in the period around 1940, its name isn’t
I’m very happy that Jessica Lynch is safe. I’m also impressed at the rescue operation which succeeded where others had failed (resulting in nine
Either: (1) Sadaam is showing an “astonishing degree of responsibility and restraint in the teeth of extreme provocation” by not using his weapons.
A few days ago I linked to an article about “Jay Garner, the retired US general who will oversee humanitarian relief and reconstruction in postwar
And the Supreme Court is trying to sort them out. A worthwhile article to read — if only for the audio links. All this makes for a long morning of
From the BBC News blog: Just occasionally you get to lift the lid on this restricted society — and talk to real people about why the uprisings
Iraq stories the media has already gotten wrong. Update: Now the Guardian UK has a site devoted to debunking the “fog” of war journalism. It is very
“We should not march into Baghdad . . . . To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us, and make a
San Francisco Chronicle business and technology reporter Henry Norr has been suspended for two weeks without pay after having been arrested in an
Here is a good piece by Slate’s Mickey Kaus about why Rumsfeld would want to send less troops than the military thought was necessary (Scroll down
The war in Iraq might not be going quite as smoothly as the Bush administration hoped, but the war at home is going just swimmingly. War is
…invaders get bogged down in the foetid marshes and broiling deserts; the enemy refuses to run away; soldiers perish in their thousands and Britain
Here is a map of the latest developments from the Washington Post. Here is a Map of where reporters are in Iraq. But please note: Now, this first
Tapped highlights some of Hersh’s New Yorker article on how Rumsfeld undermined the military decision making process: From the Hersh article: On at
The marines have brought the whole encyclopaedia of military technology with them to Iraq. From aircraft to x-ray machines, they have a myriad ways
“If you aren’t with us you are against us.” So now, since the Iraqi’s didn’t jump for joy at the arrival of US forces, we will start arresting
The Bush crowd’s brazen Big Lie technique was much in evidence in Donald Rumsfeld’s “Meet the Press” appearance this past Sunday. When Tim Russert
There has been a big increase in traffic to this site since the war started. FYI: If you came here from StandDown, then you are probably only seeing
Seymour Hersh does it again: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly rejected advice from Pentagon planners that substantially more troops and
But there is growing evidence that Americans are reluctantly and sometimes unintentionally becoming party to many of the feuds and armed disputes in
From the Guardian UK: Jay Garner, the retired US general who will oversee humanitarian relief and reconstruction in postwar Iraq, is president of
The following is a quote from an anti-war article Mark Twain submitted in 1905 to Harper’s Bazaar to express his outrage at military intervention in
I don’t usually read Maureen Dowd, but some times she is right on target: Why is all this a surprise again? I know our hawks avoided serving in
the Pentagon confirmed it was authorising use of “non-lethal” gases of the type used in last October’s disastrous Moscow theatre siege — a move
This is a great post about the Washington Post’s columnist, Charles Krauthammer. It shows the arguments he is using to support war in Iraq, and the
War planners say “we overestimated the appeal of liberation.” Perhaps it would be closer to the truth to say that Iraqis are not at all lacking in a
The Texas-style admissions policies supported by the President only work because of how segregated Texas schools are: Texas-style plans achieve
Click here to randomly generate 20 names for US Military operations. Of course, the best name is the one The Onion came up with: “Operation Piss off
Although Unicode isn’t explicitly mentioned: Internet domain names in languages other than English should be available within the next few weeks or
Libraries who have been visited by the FBI can’t mention that fact AFTER the visit, but many libraries and library systems are becoming pro-active
Way back in August, the Army Times reported a story about how a retired U.S. officer resigned his role as commander of enemy forces in the biggest
In case you missed it: The US army said it gave the main Iraqi oil well firefighting contract to a unit of Halliburton Co., a firm once run by Vice
After reading Safire’s first column, as a former producer with “60 Minutes,” my curiosity was piqued. I looked into his charges, and found they
One of the many hard questions about the war in Iraq is what the United States will do about something called the National Liberation Army. The NLA
Doesn’t it bother anyone that the US government made claims about Iraq’s nuclear program based on documents which the most rudimentary fact-checking
So events that may seem negative–Hezbollah for the first time targeting American civilians; U.S. soldiers preparing for war with Syria–while
Two British soldiers lie dead on a Basra roadway, a small Iraqi girl — victim of a US/UK airstrike — is brought to hospital with her intestines
The sudden collapse of a population’s water supply is the most serious of humanitarian emergencies. People affected by a natural disaster, such as
One of the missing soldiers is 19 year old Jessica Lynch . She joined the army because there were “few jobs in her hometown.” From the No War Blog
The Onion describes itself as “America’s finest news source,” and it’s not an idle boast. On Jan. 18, 2001, the satirical weekly bore the headline
Clear Channel makes no secret of it: Clear Channel Worldwide Inc., the nation’s largest owner of radio stations (over 1200 stations in all 50
Here is a good list of blogs in Iraq from Caterina.net: – Dear Raed , a blog in Baghdad. (thanks Estee) – Kevin Sites , a CNN correspondent in Iraq
In this NY Review of Books article, Tony Judt trashes a bunch of “foreign policy pundits” who all think that they have some magic formula to
The Washington Post has an article about where to get your truly-up-to-date-online-internet-blog-fix about the the war: The Internet is brimming
This piece, from a week ago, is a little dated, but still worth reading. It describes several notable resignations, including this one: Another
There is a long tradition of military commanders giving final words of encouragement to their troops before battle. The actual speech is here.
From the BBC: Police in San Francisco have arrested 1,025 people during violence at an anti-war demonstration. I was in Times Square, protesting
We have long known that the mainstream media’s war coverage is biased. However, the timidity with which they have failed to go after the
This is from a blog supposedly coming right out of Baghdad: yesterday the last 500 prisoners from the Iraq-Iran war were being exchanged. I can’t
At the NY public library they had a letter-writing campaign to try to restore $9.6 million cut (in addition to the $16.1 million already cut) from
…the war is about more than Iraq; it is about the character of our society and the international order in which we live. The Administration hopes
An interesting article about the history of conservative think-tanks and judicial theory. In 1971 the National Chamber of Commerce circulated a
“Of the 535 members of Congress, only ONE (Sen. Johnson of South Dakota) has an enlisted son or daughter in the armed forces! “Michael Moore The
This Newsweek article by the always intelligent Fareed Zakaria is perhaps too middle-of-the road politically to be of interest to most people, but I
That’s when war starts. As I understand it, Bush is to give a speech tonight at 8:00 in which he will deliver a 48 hour ultimatum to Saddam Hussein.
I’m just copying this blog item entirely from Tom Tomorrow, so that my e-mail readers can see the whole list. See where the Democrats stand. Our
Jessica Tuchman Mathews, the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, was interviewed on NOW with Bill Moyers about their plan
On the brink of war, both supporters and critics of United States policy on Iraq agree on the origins, at least, of the haunted relations that have
It looks like the administration is gearing up for war without the UN. Although the February 15th Rally was a huge success, it is even more
It looks like the administration is gearing up for war without the UN. Although the February 15th Rally was a huge success, it is even more
The original reasons given for making Iraq an immediate priority have collapsed. No evidence has ever surfaced of the supposed link with Al Qaeda,
Disinfopedia is a collaborative encyclopedia of disinformation. (Yes, it is a wiki!) Take a look at the war propaganda page! Thanks to boingboing
Afghanistan’s police force is in urgent need of reform to end “increasingly widespread” corruption, beatings and torture by officers, according to
The Beastie Boys have released an anti-war MP3 you can download from their website. Here are my favorite bits: Mirrors, smokescreens and lies It’s
The stark fact is that almost a quarter of Palestinian children are suffering from acute or chronic malnutrition for purely man-made reasons. No
The NY Times this past Sunday had an article that made it very clear that Bush considers peace in Israel nothing more than another piece of leverage
The Senate just caved in,” he said. “That’s not what the Senate was intended to be and to do.” The L.A. Times on how congress caved in to the
Well, it seems that there is someone blogging away in Baghdad. Here is a sample: A BBC reporter walking thru the Mutanabi Friday book market
Having finished The Threatening Storm , the careful reader will wag his or her head in disbelief. How can a book resounding with so many warnings
Although the NY Times reports that Bush Sr. and Jr. talk (in private) on the phone every day, this article from the London Times reports Bush Sr.
Afghanistan, where the Internet was banned during the rule of the purist Taliban, will formally inaugurate its .af domain for Afghan Web sites and
Although Afghan women returned to work after the fall of the Taliban, they continue to be forced into marriages and fall victim to domestic
The head of the U.N. nuclear agency on Friday shot down allegations Iraq tried to revive its nuclear arms program and said fake documents backed
And Mr. Bush then said that if Mexico or other countries oppose the United States, “there will be a certain sense of discipline.” In the NY Times
Tyndall says that until the peace demonstrations, the Big Three networks concentrated heavily on the Bush administration. From USA Today
when he claimed to be worried about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. Otherwise, Iraq’s
A chemical plant which the US says is a key component in Iraq’s chemical warfare arsenal was secretly built by Britain in 1985 behind the backs of
You really have to hand it to U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson. The man can say absolutely anything and still keep a straight face. Here he is in
A month after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush released a list of the world’s most-wanted terrorists. There were 22 names on it. Khalid Shaikh
A lawyer was arrested late Monday and charged with trespassing at a public mall in the state of New York after refusing to take off a T-shirt
I blogged another article about how administration hawks see controlling middle eastern oil as a security issue a long time ago, but this one in
The United States is conducting a secret ‘dirty tricks’ campaign against UN Security Council delegations in New York as part of its battle to win
Ariel Sharon yesterday virtually ruled out the creation of a Palestinian state under his hawkish new government just a day after President Bush
Whatever the reasons, Clinton’s Justice Department did bail out the Reagan-Bush team in the mid-1990s when more disclosures about the secret
When it comes to morality, diplomats are usually seen as cold and calculating. Machiavelli and Metternich are synonymous with the ruthless pursuit
On February 24, Newsweek broke what may be the biggest story of the Iraq crisis. In a revelation that “raises questions about whether the WMD
Nearly 300,000 mentally ill people are held in US prisons, often because there is nowhere else for them to go. So serious is the problem that one
Would you be willing to pay 1/4 of 1 penny more for your Chalupa if it meant that farmworkers could earn a living wage? Food First
This NY Review of Books article by Nobel-prize winning economists, Joseph Stieglitz does an excellent job of pointing out the threat to the (US &
There’s so much chest-thumping, so many alarums about Iraqi menace, that I sometimes feel that the only patriotic thing to do is to invade Iraq and
Did Bush authorize the Pakistani’s to airlift Bin Laden out of the country? Well maybe not Bin Laden, but certainly some of his associates seem to
A recent NY Times article says this: “In Afghanistan, the biggest lesson we learned in our tactical information operations — the radio and TV
In case you are not up to date on this, on March 3, 2003, hundreds of performances of Aristophanes’ bawdy comedy will be presented as a “worldwide
In recent days, an Independent on Sunday investigation reveals, they have stepped up attacks on missile sites near Basra which could threaten the
Here in the United States, an unsexy virus not much associated with evil or terrorism — influenza — claims between 10,000 and 20,000 lives per year;
The authorities in the southern Indian state of Kerala say they have cleared a wildlife sanctuary which was illegally occupied by more than 1,000
It’s not that the Bush administration is always stingy. In fact, right now it is offering handouts right and left. Most notably, it has offered the
Ordinarily jaded and cynical journalists and their editors seem of late to have entirely lost their grounding in reality. Constrained for years by a
Even though I didn’t get any offers for hosting of the No War Wikki, I’ve got it up and running!!! Right now there is no actual content, but anyone
The Afghanistan Government and Unicef will this week begin a new training programme for teachers before they go back to the classroom to begin the
Hundreds of thousands of people around the world staged antiwar protests in scores of cities …. hmmm I’m pretty sure it was in the millions from
The Bush administration filed a brief in support of a city government’s attempts to suppress a march which was protesting their policies. Thanks
About 2,000 antiwar protestors, both Jews and Palestinians, marched peacefully in central Tel Aviv for about 90 minutes early tonight. Many waved
Newsweek debunks Powell’s UN power-point presentation for war. Most importantly, they show just how questionable some of his most damming assertions
Three years after vast crowds turned out around the world to celebrate the new millennium, millions gathered again yesterday in a darker mood of
From Newsweek: It was a site to warm the hearts of those opposed to war in Iraq the world over: On a wintry London afternoon, a dense,
More than six million protesters took to the streets around the globe on Saturday to send a passionate message to President Bush not to invade Iraq
Whatever one thinks of the coming war, its aim of eliminating weapons of mass destruction is a worthy one. Who could have imagined that the hawks
For me, the most worrisome claim made by Powell at the UN Security Council was about the mobile biological weapons factories. If true, and Powell
It is bad enough that the Kurds are getting the shaft in the war on Iraq, but if I were a member of the Iraqi opposition I would be worried, very
The Senate’s odd tradition of the filibuster—delaying a vote indefinitely by speaking for hour after hour on the Senate floor—could push back a
Belgium’s supreme appeals court has ruled that a genocide lawsuit against Ariel Sharon could go ahead once his term as prime minister of Israel
Afghan officials said yesterday that at least 17 civilians were killed in a US-led bombing raid in southern Afghanistan. Full story here
Up to 10 million people on five continents are expected to demonstrate against the probable war in Iraq on Saturday, in some of the largest peace
In the past, Condi Rice has implored the networks not to broadcast the tapes outright, fearing he might be activating sleeper cells in code.
The Bush Administration is preparing a bold, comprehensive sequel to the USA Patriot Act passed in the wake of September 11, 2001, which will give
“Why, of course, the people don’t want war,” Goering shrugged. “Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that
The battle for Arab eyeballs is about to be joined by new TV stations hoping to challenge Al-Jazeera, which has been shut out of Jordan and
Tapped thinks so, so does the Nation, and a lot of others. On Monday, David Corn reported in The Nation that the A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War
Beth Osborne Daponte talks about how her estimates of Iraq’s Gulf War dead got her in deep trouble with the White House Full interview is here
At some point during its 14-year run, The Simpsons turned into one of the best sitcoms on television—and that’s not a compliment. At one time, to
Now I get it. We must go to war with Iraq because of the link between al Qaeda and Iraq which will be forged…as a result of our war with Iraq.
What Powell said back in 2001 (remember when deficits were bad and the economy was good … and Bin Laden had nothing to do with Iraq?): When Powell
Ten Nobel prize winning economists have attacked President George W Bush’s tax cutting policies. From the BBC. The full report will be released
Several large retailers this week began collecting sales tax on Internet purchases. CNet
I knew that the smallpox vaccination plan was not going to be popular with doctors. Turns out that they aren’t implementing it: A nationwide survey
There is now an on-line petition where you can voice your opinion and demand that NY City allow the Feb. 15th protest to proceed. More information
A good point by Kristof in the NY Times: Hawks often compare Saddam to Hitler, suggesting that if we don’t stand up to him today in Baghdad we’ll
Oh boy — if you are a Chinese Nuclear Physicist you can get a job with the FBI: “We’re not interested in kids taking history or English 101,” said
The arrival of U.S. Special Forces trainers in this battered town last month signaled the beginning of a change that gives the United States more
Slate has a nice political history of Guernica. (In case you missed it, the UN covered up their copy for Powell’s speech!) Guernica is no stranger
Security Analyst Ian Davis makes some very pertinent points about Powell’s speech in the Guardian UK. Here is an “executive summary”: US
“Sam’s Club, the members-only branch of retail giant Wal-Mart, has entered the budget PC race with a $299 system running Red Hat’s version of the
This BBC report is just too funny — or depressing, I can’t decide which: Downing Street has defended an intelligence dossier of evidence against
Attorney General John Ashcroft has ordered United States attorneys in New York and Connecticut to seek the death penalty for a dozen defendants in
Bob Herbert in today’s NY Times, writes: In Chicago there are nearly 100,000 young people, ages 16 to 24, who are out of work, out of school and
“>Here and here. But this is the part that upsets me the most. The only reason that Clinton’s welfare “reform” didn’t end in disaster was because of
And an interesting comment from CalPundit about the recent evolution/creationism hullabaloo: But the real story isn’t that the scientific
Two stories from the BBC: First, a historical rebuke for John Howard! The Australian Senate has passed an historic no-confidence motion against the
The Guardian UK on the war in Columbia: …this month the Colombian government will start to deploy a new kind of “self-defence force”, composed of
Chris Mooney, co-founder of one of the best blogs (Tapped), has a nice story about the history and impact of blogging. All of which suggests the
On Tom Tomorrow’s site there is a great image of the picture that “might have been”… The “Guernica” work by Pablo Picasso at the entrance of the
Some other British leaders were equally blood-thirsty. After the revolt of 1920, TE Lawrence — Lawrence of Arabia — wrote to the London Observer to
The organizers of the large anti-war rally planned for NY City on Feb. 15th have run against the Bloomberg administration which is stalling on the
A former high-level Iraqi nuclear scientist, now living in Canada, said on Monday there is no way Iraq could possess nuclear weapons and the United
President Hamid Karzai said today he is “very, very strongly” committed to holding national elections next year to select a new government, but that
There seem to be some people who would like the anti-war movement to focus its energies entirely on the issue of war. The reasoning is that this
An interesting article from the Chicago Tribute: The coalition of the willing, said security analyst Loren Thompson, “is really a coalition of the
It emerged yesterday that government auditors, former technicians and other experts had cautioned Nasa that budget cuts at the space agency were
Dr. Schwartz should be a hero — instead her case is getting scuttled by government privacy clauses that aren’t necessarily even relevant to her
“The State of the Union address was President Bush’s opportunity to make the case for a unilateral invasion of Iraq. He failed to do so in a
The Guardian UK once again steps up to the plate. This time to evaluate evidence tying Iraq to al-Qaida. Establishing the link is essential to
B.L. Bhole, a political scientist at Nagpur University, is quoted in the NY Times about the R.S.S. — the Hindu Nationalists responsible for stoking
The findings of the Livermore report were confirmed in a June 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, a major assessment by the CIA and all other
For anyone who missed it, the NY Times has a must-read op-ed article on containment as an option to war. For all those who say that the anti-war
Today, nobody has any doubts that the state-controlled media in the former Soviet bloc countries were bombarding millions of people with
Mr. Blix took issue with what he said were Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s claims that the inspectors had found that Iraqi officials were
Saturday, February 15th will be a world-wide day of action against the Bush Administration’s proposed war on Iraq. An unprecedented number of
Tapped has an interesting post on this: The point is, if you say the only way to get a prescription drug benefit is to join a managed care plan,
The NY Straphangers campaign as some interesting ideas about how to change the MetroCard fare system used on New York City mass transit. Currently
WHO estimates that 100,000 Iraqi civilians could be wounded and another 400,000 hit by disease after the bombing of water and sewage facilities and
This Guardian UK article provides a very thorough analysis of the Hans Blix report to the UN. Each of the key points made by the UN inspectors is
Michael Kinsley has a nice piece on the lack of logical and hence moral grounding in Bush’s State of the Union speech. On Saddam as “evil”: If
The first personal computer, the MITS Altair 8080, was released in 1975 and changed the world forever. A handful of geeks (Bill Gates included) saw
Two interesting articles about Oil in Iraq — from the Cato institute and the Wall Street Journal no less! They point out that even if “security”
This letter in the Taipei Times says what I wanted to say, but doesn’t hold back any punches! But, then, it is easier for a Taiwanese to call other
You can be sure when the next Gulf War starts we won’t be seeing many pictures like this. Something to think about when you read stuff like this:
The same thing happened to me. I’m linking to this site so that it will come up in more Google Searches. I hope it helps!!! I was recently
War in Context has an interesting warning: In the fog of war, much of this material would rapidly be “privatized” — liberated by colonels, security
The team’s report says the years of conflict have led to the “collapse of local and national governance, destroyed infrastructure, hindered
IN THE MIRROR OF MAYA DEREN, by Martina Kudlácek. The film was beautifully shot (somewhat traditionally, considering the subject matter, but it
““Category Management” is the sexy trend for today’s mega-retailers. It involves asking one vendor to take over a section of your store and decide
is the practice of marking a series of symbols on sidewalks and walls to indicate nearby wireless access. That way, other computer users
Even General Schwarzkopf feels the administration hasn’t made a convincing case for war: “The thought of Saddam Hussein with a sophisticated
The NY Times has an interesting article about how the Administration’s brief on the Michigan case threatens long-standing practices at US Military
JANEANE GAROFALO, ACTRESS: Thank you. KURTZ: You’ve been all over the tube, from “Good Morning America” to CNN, MSNBC, Fox, speaking out against
This Washington Post article is a good account of the troubles that continue to plague US military operations in Afghanistan. (Do I need to point
“An Israeli officer has been removed from his post for obstructing an air attack against the Palestinians. BBC NEWS
Looks like Keynote has a bug specific to the video cards on iBooks running 10.2.3. “This issue has been reported most often when using 500 MHz
“Bush cited the aluminum tubes in his speech before the U.N. General Assembly and in documents presented to U.N. leaders. Vice President Cheney and
My letter to the Taipei Times was published! “I was dismayed to read that a Ministry of Education official said that since”English is not a native
This is an interesting LA Times article on Cheney’s links to the company that is one of the largest contractors of an increasingly privatized US
Seems the MOE may not even have the right to block the hiring of English teachers from other countries! “Can the MOE halt the import of Filipinos
“But overall, the trend is clear: at combined SAT scores of 1300 and above, the presence or absence of affirmative action makes no significant
Sociology professor revises protest figures downwards for DC rally: “Clark McPhail, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Illinois
You have to read to the very end of this post to find out! “So what’s remarkable about these headlines?” WampumBlog
This article explains where the Wortheim Study (the place where I work on my dissertation) is on the pecking order of rooms for writers at the NY
“Critics of the Christian Right say the IFCJ’s appeal to”prophesy” in their infomercial is a thinly veiled reference to Armageddon, the Second
“Europeans tend to regard free national health services, unemployment benefits, social housing and so on as pretty good models of human progress. We
“The Bush administration has chosen Jerry Thacker, a Pennsylvania marketing consultant who has characterized AIDS as the”gay plague,” to serve on
“A peace march and rally held here last weekend drew at least twice the number of people originally thought, police said Tuesday. SF Gate
“George W. Bush issued a stern rebuke to Senator Trent Lott in December for his praise of the segregationist 1948 presidential bid of Strom
“A friend who is a U.S. businessman based in the Far East recently called our attention to a right-wing outfit called New American Century. On the
“$70 million to investigate the activities of Clinton’s penis. Eschaton
In this article Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz argues that war is bad for the economy, and arguments to the contrary are “nonsense.” “War is
The following statement is based on the fact that “The Dakotas, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming make up 10 percent of the Senate and less than 2 percent
“The remarkable thing about this annual review of King’s life is that several years — his last years — are totally missing, as if flushed down a
It looks like there were between 200,000 and 500,000 people who showed up at the two protests in Washington DC and SF. Although the official police
As Atrios says: “if race shouldn’t be a factor in admissions why should it be a factor in funding decisions?” Is Atrios correct that Bush wants to
“Microsoft announced its first ever dividend of 16 cents per share and a 2-for-1 stock split. NathanNewman.org — News and Views
Interesting point… “Moreover, percentage plans are based on an uncomfortable reality, said Lee C. Bollinger, who was president of the University of
This is a decent overview of the topic — considering how short the article is. “Sociologists, of course, have argued for decades about how to
Something to remember when you go to the polls: “Four of the seven Democrats who have already joined the presidential race or are likely to do so
“More than 50,000 Americans converged on the National Mall in the centre of Washington, in one of the biggest protests since the build-up for war
This article makes it seem like it is Farrakahan’s fault that there are no accurate numbers on how many people attended today’s march. I find this
Lessing offers a cool idea to undo the damage done by this act of Congress: “Still, missing from the opinion was any justification for perhaps the
This is interesting — look at how different the converage of the protests is in the NY Times compared to the Washington Post and the BBC. As usual,
This Blog is one of the few sites to really cover the Affirmative Action issue (the news certainly hasn’t) — but see the many good articles linked
“This points to another truth about fortress continents: Being on the inside may be better than being locked out, but it’s no guarantee of equal
“After 36 years of Israeli occupation, in the territories there isn’t a single medical center worthy of the name, and the road to medical treatment
“Take a look at one of those credit cards in your wallet. That’s the exact size and thickness of an upcoming, revolutionary removable storage device
Now it occurs to them! “As the Pentagon prepares for the possibility of another war, it would like to demonstrate more significant progress
“George W. Bush railing against “class warfare” is like Trent Lott deploring liberals for “playing the race card.”
“Walt Disney understood the value of the public domain, and used it precisely as other great artists had done. He updated an out-of-copyright
“To a large degree, the focus on encouraging dividends is treating the right symptom but the wrong cause. The fact that companies use their cash to
This is disappointing. It may be that the Supreeme Court was not the correct plact to fight this — but I wish it hadn’t happened. “The Supreme
“U.S. and British warplanes have bombed more than 80 targets in Iraq’s southern”no-fly” zone over the past five months, conducting an escalating air
“A British aid agency has warned of worsening security in Afghanistan and asked the international community to address the problem.” BBC NEWS
“About 220 organizing centers in 45 states are coordinating transportation and spreading the word about Saturday’s ANSWER rally, 70 more than in
“My colleagues on the editorial page dubbed the Bush administration’s proposal to eliminate taxes on corporate dividends”The Charles Schwab Tax
Please join me in signing an online petition asking President Bush to let the weapons inspections work, rather than rushing to war. If we don’t act
This is a brilliant piece by Saletan, in which he takes the administration’s garbage about Iraq’s supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction, and shows
Atrios has a great series of posts on the internment of Japanese during WWII. Included is a link to a 1941 propaganda movie justifying the camps.
“On a square hosting a vast Jewish candelabra, decked with Israeli flags, two women chat in the wintry sunshine. They are among the 400 Jewish
I personally am convinced that a better school diet will reduce the number of Ridlin prescriptions! “A school lunch often looks like an exercise in
“Chavistas are pushing the national government to transform the oil company into a truly people owned company, not just nationalized in name only.
Bruno Dumont’s La Vie de Jésus is nearly as good as his second film L’Humanite. He is an amazing director with an acute understanding of the
Detroit Residents Cut-off from Heat, Water and Lights! DTE Energy and Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) show greed — no holiday spirit.
Although pro-US protests in Korea made it to the front page of the NY Times, the real story is a massive anti-war protest in LA — the largest since
“Two weeks later, the capture and incarceration of a top elder of one of the largest tribes in the Pashtun ethnic group has brought hundreds of
If you can’t run again, might as well make the best of it. Good for Ryan! “With a single sweep, Governor Ryan, a Republican, spared the lives of
What does this mean? If it is a “known fact” then why do we need inspectors? Where is the proof? This is just crazy talk… “The Bush administration
““I’m totally scared,” 28-year-old Chedli Fathi, whose student visa expired in 2001, told the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper. BBC NEWS
Robert Reich, former secretary of labor, argues that the problem with the economy is that increasing inequality is making the masses increasingly
“You might think exempting dividends from tax”simplifies” the income tax. Nothing could be further from the truth. What it threatens to do is open
Kuttner weighs in: “The administration also claims that dividend income should be exempt from the income tax because corporations already pay taxes
Is it unfair for corporate dividends to be taxed twice — as the Wall Street Journal claims? Well, first of all, much of corporate dividends aren’t
A nice piece about Joe Lieberman: ” So, what’s not to like about Joe? Well, once you get beyond his style and his Big Money prowess, he looks
““What the cases of North Korea and Iraq show is that if the threat is genuinely serious, the pre-emption doctrine is not pursued,” said Zbigniew
This columnist in the Wall Street Journal believes that “double taxation” is a serious concern — for the very same reasons listed in the CBPP
“Backed by the United States and the United Nations, Afghanistan
“With so many Americans losing their jobs and their health insurance, with senior citizens getting clobbered by prescription drug costs, with money
“The calculation was simple. Every rich person who died was a dead person. If you thought of him as rich, you envied him. If you thought of him as
“Most computer users will find a 17-inch screen and gigabit data jacks about as useful as 4-wheel drive and roll bars.” Slate
I don’t understand how the Republicans can accuse people on the Left of “class warfare” when they introduce policies like these… And hasn’t
“RUSSIA IS ARMING ONE WARLORD, Iran another. Wealthy Saudis have resumed funding Islamic extremists and some Central Asian republics are backing
“… over the past decade, the group Democracy 21 reports that corporations gave $636 million to Republicans and $449 million to Democrats — and in
Seems that a new book by the writer of the “Axis of Evil” speech reveals that policy had more to do with oratory than planning. “In the book, he
“Despite the near-constant talk of a U.S.-led invasion to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein, aid officials here say there appears to be little
“The military’s previous experience with assassination programs suggests some of the difficulties involved. In the late nineteen-sixties, during the
I’m going to be doing other things for the next two weeks, so this site won’t be updated till after January 7th. I strongly urge you to take a daily
I have long believed that the President’s plan to innoculate people for Smallpox is just a scare tactic to gain support for a war in Iraq. Now it
I’ve interrupted my packing in light of reports that it looks like war. Time to stop talking and to take to the streets. Hope to see everyone in DC
This is a must-read article on Bush’s pick for Lott’s replacement! “…the fair-haired choice of the White House appears to be Tennessee’s Bill
“Hundreds of men and boys from Middle Eastern countries were arrested by federal immigration officials in Southern California this week when they
“Fearing that the Patriot Act will curtail Americans’ civil rights, municipalities across the country are passing resolutions to repudiate the
“Some two dozen donor nations rallied to the support of President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan today, pledging $1.2 billion in fresh relief aid and
I wrote this short piece and posted it today at Stand Down. “If the continued support of Bush despite general reluctance to go to war can be
“British officials said the list of companies appeared to be accurate. Eighty German firms and 24 US companies are reported to have supplied Iraq
I wrote this short piece and posted it today at Stand Down. “If the continued support of Bush despite general reluctance to go to war can be
“Former President Clinton said Wednesday it is”pretty hypocritical” of Republicans to criticize incoming Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott for
Well, not really, but this is a good article by Joseph Stiglitz (last year’s winner) on what this year’s winner has done to help us understand
Fear as a political tool. Works for Republicans, so why can’t the BJP use it? “The decisive victory by the BJP, which also heads India’s national
There is a nice map with the article. “Only 30 percent of the networks discovered in Mr. Lara’s survey had turned on the encryption system in their
“The head of the government’s Total Information Awareness project, which aims to root out potential terrorists by aggregating credit-card, travel,
I hope this is a joke: “Mr. Gore’s decision opens the way for his running mate from 2000, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, to run for president. Mr.
“Yes, I’m deeply concerned about the words expressed by Senator Lott at Strom Thurmond’s birthday party. But I’m even more concerned about the words
“This high pro-coup intensity against Venezuelan democracy enters a new paradox. The Bolivarian Constitution of 1999, born from the breast of a
The NY Times actually reported the worker’s side of the story. Although 33 grand a year is not much in NY, so I find it strange that the NY times
” There are 34,000 transit workers in the TWU. Last year, the MTA filed 16,000 disciplinary actions
“The Pentagon’s missile defense program suffered a setback early Wednesday when an interceptor failed to separate from its booster rocket and missed
This initiative is small change compared to the billions of dollars spent on supporting undemocratic governments, like those in Egypt, but Powell is
“It’s true that, to our knowledge, Thurmond has never given a big speech saying, essentially,”I was wrong to run in 1948.” But the man has gone
“Emerging evidence shows Trent Lott addressed a white supremacist group at least twice in the 1990’s and is on record praising the group,
Lets get this straight — we should go to war with Iraq because of their use of banned weapons of mass destruction; and, in doing so, we are
“No one can deny that cross-burning is criminalized solely because of the message it conveys. And it’s clear from the justices today that the more
“The ambivalent relationship between Russia and its Muslims is deeply rooted in history. Russia conquered Muslim territories in the Volga-Ural area,
Fight Spam I’ve created a new page of bookmarks with resources for fighting spam. Links to sites that filter spam, ideas for reducing spam, and
“Orchid Island is expected to become the first Aboriginal autonomous district if Aboriginal self-government legislation is passed, government
Why consumption isn’t the answer to all our ills! “But even with rising tides of prosperity, the postwar consumer culture fed inequalities that are
Just in case you forgot. I imagine that by then we will know if there is going to be a war or not — it may have already started. In any case, mark
“What happened next was even stranger. To succeed O’Neill, Bush turned to another industrialist with no Wall Street credentials, railroad executive
“At the beginning of this new millennium I was asked to discuss, here in Oslo, the greatest challenge that the world faces. BBC NEWS
“At least 66 new Jewish outposts, or fledgling settlements, have sprouted across the ridgelines and hilltops in those two years, compared with the
“In its wish to win the support of Muslim states for its war on terrorism, Washington appears to have replaced its previous reluctance to arm
“Ultimately the Supreme Court will be left with two facts: First, schools want — and deserve — racially diverse student bodies; and second, given
“Fifty years ago the politics of race in America weren’t at all disguised. Jim Crow laws both impoverished and disenfranchised Southern blacks;
This is a must-read article from this week’s NY Times Week-in-Review. Not only does it point out what many have long known — that the real problem
“The fraudulent story of Iraqi soldiers throwing Kuwaiti babies out of incubators during the occupation of Kuwait in 1990 is depicted as if it were
And sometimes people get tired of war … “Sri Lanka’s government and ethnic Tamil rebels agreed today to work out regional autonomy within a federal
The American Prospect writes about two new books by Al Gore. I have to say that Gore seems to be trying very hard to make himself different from the
But whose counting when there is a war on? “The nation’s unemployment rate unexpectedly shot up to 6.0 percent in November, the highest level since
“The wireless technology known as WiFi, which allows users of personal and hand-held computers to connect to the Internet at high speed without
“The Perpetual War Portfolio is an evenly weighted basket of five stocks poised to succeed in the age of perpetual war. The stocks were selected on
“In studying Bush’s various adventures in oration, he started to see a pattern emerging. TheStar.com
“For both breaking news and obscure information alike, people around the world search on Google at www.google.com. With a bit of analysis, this
“Iqbal Pittalwala’s first book of short stories is a very good read. Pittalwala has put together a fine portrayal of the characters in the stories
“Retailers and manufacturers love them because they make goods”sound cheaper than they are — and chances are they will forget to send in the rebate
This quote makes this article sound like it is arguing that “its all oil” actually, it makes a very different point. However, it is interesting to
“United for Peace is a new national campaign that brings together a broad range of organizations throughout the United States to help coordinate our
“The brother of President George Bush, the Florida governor, Jeb Bush, has been instrumental in securing the release from prison of militant Cuban
” A few months ago Mr. Rove compared his boss to Andrew Jackson. As some of us noted at the time, one of Jackson’s key legacies was the “spoils
“On the evening of November 22nd 2001, as part of a ‘morale-boosting visit’, a troupe of six cheerleaders from the Miami Dolphins football team,
“A US plane has bombed a target in western Afghanistan — the first time the US has used a B-52 bomber in the country in five months. BBC NEWS
“The Adventures of Hamza will reunite nearly 70 of the finest surviving paintings from the Hamzanama, a fourteen volume manuscript created by
“ This is an alarming article in the Washington Post, which reveals that no background checks were conducted for the UN arms inspectors. Considering
“Asking Henry Kissinger to investigate government malfeasance or nonfeasance is akin to asking Slobodan Milosevic to investigate war crimes. Pretty
Although phrased as a sort of Haggada, and some of the facts are slightly questionable, this is a generally good overview of the problems with the
I moved everyone on the e-mail subscription list to a new service run by bloglet.com. You should have received a message confirming your
“John Rawls, who served as the Conant professor emeritus and was one of the most notable political and moral philosophers of the 20th century, died
“The Executive Yuan is set to approve a Council of Aboriginal Affairs proposal to recognize the Kavalan as the nation’s 11th Aboriginal tribe.
I wasn’t going to blog this item by Chomsky, but now that the NY times is reporting that we are actually following Chomsky’s “modest proposal” I had
Here is a list of upcoming readings by the authors of Women for Afghan Women
“American and British war planes have been fired on several times in recent days while patrolling”no-fly” zones over Iraq. The Bush administration
“American and British war planes have been fired on several times in recent days while patrolling”no-fly” zones over Iraq. The Bush administration
I’m heading to New Orleans, so no blogs till I get back. If I miss anything truly momentous let me know! Otherwise I’ll assume it is buisness as
“- Ruling for the first time in its history, the ultra-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review today gave the green light to a
“March 6, 1992: The Washington Post reports that the U.S. Census Bureau demographer assigned to estimate the number of Iraqis killed during the Gulf
In case you missed it! Tom Tomorrow does it again… This Modern World
“Much has been written about what’s wrong with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). After all, it’s been used to jail programmers, threaten
“The five women named to the policy-making Central Committee make up barely 2.5 percent of that influential body — an all-time low in the 53-year
“Last week, senior White House officials, in a meeting with AIDS activists, made it plain that President Bush is going to insist on underfunding the
“Nearly half of campus faculty are now part time, according to a report released last week by the American Council on Education (ACE). According to
Nothing like adding a few kickbacks in there to make the homeland more secure! “Lawyers for parents of autistic children suing pharmaceutical
“It seems likely that Americans are underestimating the economic commitment involved in a war with Iraq.” The New York Review of Books
If you missed NOW tonight, check here to read about this very important story on how Ashcroft is willing to change laws to eliminate all kinds of
A must-see cartoon posted to the Stand-down web site (also referred to as the nowarblog. See Cartoon here
“the rash of bizarre, fake commemorative plaques that has suddenly begun gracing the streets of Paris has got the city council worried. There is,
“A report to be released today predicts that an invasion of Iraq could lead to a”human catastrophe” with casualties as high as 250,000 within the
I think its great that there are still world leaders worried about freeing their countries from “the shackles of subjectivism and metaphysics”!!!
“Microsoft Corp said on Tuesday it would invest $400 million in boosting education, business partnerships and software development in India, which
“On Monday evening about 1,000 students gathered to protest in the west of Kabul about their poor living conditions and lack of electricity. BBC
“The Pentagon is constructing a computer system that could create a vast electronic dragnet, searching for personal information as part of the hunt
“Born in Hamburg in 1900 (as Detlef Sierck), the legendary director hobnobbed with the likes of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill in 1920s Germany, then
Someone e-mailed this to me: Media concentration, also known as media convergence or media consolidation, basically comes down to the fact that
“A new report by Human Rights Watch asserts that Colombia’s attorney general has undermined investigations of right-wing paramilitary groups by
“FLORENCE, Italy (Reuters) — More than half a million anti-war protesters from across Europe marched through this Italian Renaissance city on
“He’s a glory hog who unfairly receives credit for the accomplishments of others and who skates through school by taking advantage of his inherited
Is it too much to hope for a Democratic shift to the Left? As someone recently pointed out on a blog somewhere in cyberspace: “If voters wanted to
Perfect gift for the young’un — practice bombing civilians homes and placing an American Flag on it! “Forward Command Post $44.99 Take command of
“Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels wants to transfer control of information management from the printing office to individual
“With all the concern about dirty bombs, bioterrorism, and suicide bombers smashing airplanes into power plants, the public has pretty much
“The U.S. military is losing momentum in the war on terrorism in Afghanistan because the remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban have proven more
“Open markets are necessary for economic growth, but they are hardly sufficient. Some regions of the world have done extremely well from
“Two years into the Bush administration, the stock market has collapsed, unemployment is up, and the economy is stagnant. The out party
“A key Afghan regional leader courted by senior U.S. officials has personally overseen a wave of repression and politically motivated arrests and
This is the only Y2K bug I’ve ever heard of! ““They changed the whole system because of the 2000 screw ups,” said the client. “But it doesn’t work.
Read my debate with Radley Balko of Foxnews.com: “It is interesting how ideologically motivated writers tend to create straw men of the views they
I will be moving the mailing list for this blog over to a service run by BLOGLET.com. This is a free service that allows you to get one daily e-mail
“A police crackdown on the thousands of Chechens who live in Moscow and other Russian cities has left one Chechen woman, who was held hostage in
“There is”clear evidence” that Israeli soldiers and their commanders committed war crimes against Palestinian civilians — including unlawful
“Three-dimensional holographic video images will be generated by a computer rather than being fixed in a static medium; they will be shown in
This is a thought provoking article, even if it ultimately jumps from one argument to another without fully developing any of them. “It would be a
When the 9-27 earthquake happened in Taiwan, I remember that it was a lucky thing it happened at night. Most of the schools near the epicenter
Here is an illustration (from the Sept. 3, 2001 New Yorker) of life under the elevated 7 train in Jackson Heights. It is by Ben Katchor, whose work
“He is shunned by all Western powers save the United Kingdom, ostracized in the Arab world and disdained even by many of his erstwhile comrades in
“A celebrated Canadian author, Rohinton Mistry, has cancelled the second half of his US book tour because of racial profiling at US airports.” BBC
“When the White House urges a crackdown, as it frequently does in public statements and private meetings, it knows–and does not mind–that terrorism
“Hayashi’s customizations are just one of the many ways Japanese Mac users like to decorate their machines
Director: Zhang Yimou Cast: Jet Li, Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung … Sounds exciting! “Before became the First Emperor of China, Ying Zheng (played by
“More than two years of Palestinian violence, military counteroffensive and reoccupation have shredded the Israeli economy and left its poorest
“Now, of the 62 senators who voted with the industry against raising fuel efficiency standards, the average received about $19,000 in contributions
“Average fuel economy for the galaxy of shiny new 2003 model cars and trucks headed for showrooms is 20.8 miles per gallon, about 6 percent below
“39 films from over 19 countries represent the range of documentary from indigenous community media to experimental non-fiction.” American Museum
““Certainly Brazil is way ahead of the United States right now in terms both of the technology and administration of the election process,” said
“”The demonstration on Saturday in Washington drew 100,000 by police estimates and 200,000 by organizers’, forming a two-mile wall of marchers
This is a great new site for the anti-war blogsphere. “We hereby invite bloggers of the left, the right, and other political persuasions to add
Tom Tomorrow has an excellent rant in his blog today. Here is an excerpt: “And in an article about the march in yesterday’s Salon, Michelle
George P. Fletcher is Cardozo professor of jurisprudence at Columbia Law School “Perpetrators of violent acts rarely concede that they are
“The startup, Splashpower, has developed a prototype electromagnetic chip that can be embedded in any device that requires charging such as a PDA or
Chris Mooney seems to miss the overt similarities to British Colinial policy, but he does a good job of highlighting the contradictions in how
“In a paper to be published soon in the scientific journal Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the two academics focus on recent US actions that have
“How dumb were prosecutors to let Peter Guber, former head of Sony Pictures, on to the Winona Ryder shoplifting jury? They must not have read Nancy
“America’s 150,000 meatpacking workers perform the most dangerous job in the country, many of them making knife cuts every few seconds. In 2000 the
“National Public Radio and the New York Times arrived at the same conclusion about the anti-war rally in Washington, DC this weekend: The turnout
“According to a comparative study on declining birth rates in four countries (the US, Sweden, Germany, and Japan), Sweden was the only country with
“The members of the Christian Coalition of America are some of the most passionate defenders of Israel in the United States. There’s just one catch:
“The government has put Mr. Hamdi in a legal purgatory. If he were charged with a crime in a civilian court, as Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged 20th
“Previous studies, including by United Nations agencies, have shown Afghanistan’s maternal mortality rate to be among the highest in the world.
“Thousands of Aboriginal citizens from around the island demonstrated in front of the Presidential Office yesterday to push for a return of
“FBI statistics show there have been nearly 500 “terrorist” acts on US soil over the past two decades
“A recent e-mail to the 6,100 full-time headquarters employees of the Environmental Protection Agency reminded them of the provisions of the Hatch
“Farewell, Jim Prufrock. Adios, Mary Sloman. We wish you were on a network that could afford to stick its neck out and keep it out there for a full
“Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., whose biggest campaign contributor is Microsoft, was criticized by the technology committee Wednesday for an addendum to
“Pioneer of one of the most amazing success stories in Indian business, Jaswanti Ben, and seven other out-of-work women, started her poppadum
“At a ceremony with the nation’s Aboriginal tribes, Chen Shui-bian said he would follow through on on a deal he signed that effectively grants
“So when Shah, 37, was convicted of multiple violent crimes and sentenced to death last week by a national security court here, many Afghans cheered
“As Bush leads the nation toward a confrontation with Iraq and his party into battle in midterm elections, his rhetoric has taken some flights of
In case you missed Krugman’s article in last week’s magazine, it is certainly worth a read. If you’ve read Amartya Sen’s book “Development as
The list in this report of the top 100 organizational donors since 1989 is the first installment of ongoing research… “Incumbency, rather than
“Dozens of multinationals including Barclays Bank, De Beers and Anglo American have been accused of facilitating the plunder of the Democratic
“An Egyptian appeals court has confirmed the guilty verdict in the case of Shohdy Naguib Surur, who was sentenced to one year in prison in June for
“The United States is alone among Western nations in executing those who committed their crimes as juveniles. According to statistics compiled by
This is an interesting list of quotes from four years ago and from today. It includes almost every major news source (NY Times, Newsweek, LA Times,
“This Saturday, Oct. 26, tens of thousands of students, peaceniks, priests, union members, war veterans and working moms and dads will gather in
“There are many recent examples of how preventive actions by the U.S. cost lives, squandered money and heightened international antagonisms. The CIA
“Howard’s openly racist policies have again begun to isolate Australia. He has deployed Australian troops against helpless, mostly
If you find this blog useful, tell your friends! You can direct them either to the web page: http://kerim.oxus.net/nucleus/index.php?blogid=1 Or to
“The Pentagon is scaling back its role in the”war on drugs” in what amounts to a tacit admission of failure in countering the narcotics trade.
Whehter or not the main claim of this article (that Paxil is addictive) is true, the following data is quite scary: “The ads pay off for drug
Here is a link to a URL on my news web site: http://kerim.oxusnet.net/nucleus/action.php?action=plugin&name=TrackBack&tb_id=760
“Anything that pisses off the health insurers has got to be good.” Working for Change
“To criticize the occupation is not to overlook Israel’s unique strengths, just as protesting the Vietnam War did not imply ignoring the distinct
“What reason is there to believe that an active containment effort would not succeed against Saddam Hussein, who is clearly much weaker than Stalin
Krugman: “Put all this together and it becomes clear that, sure enough, something like 40 percent of the tax cut
“The official said most of the alleged financiers are wealthy Saudi bankers and businessmen. Because the Saudi government has previously proven
NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF “Listen to the American hawks after a few glasses of wine, and you might be seduced into thinking that after overthrowing
“One remarkable statistic to come out of the 1999 air war against Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic was that, ton for ton, the bombing killed
Actor Woody Harrelson gets political in London! “Woodman and I agree about a lot of things, but one thing we can never agree about is Iraq. He
“Hefner argues that moderate Muslims would never allow Indonesia to become an Islamic state, and that Abu Bakar Baasyir may soon be under house
“The No Fly list is still up and running. The FBI and the Transportation Security Administration have a list of suspicious people they distribute to
This is from a letter from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights regarding the ID requirements in the legislation passed by the Senate. “The
This is amazingly a quote by Dick Cheney (from 1991) on why it didn’t make sense to seek regime change! “You deploy a force, you win the war, and
Even though these two backed down where it really counted — war in Iraq — they have at least shown some leadership on this one. Although I doubt
“LET’S GET THIS STRAIGHT. The White House resists creating a Homeland Security Agency for months. When the FBI scandals break, they quickly hop on
It turns out that most people come to my web site from doing a google search for something or another — often not finding what they are looking for.
“Click today on the Web page of a U.S. representative, and you’ll typically find little more information than you’ll find on the gagged Web page of
“Oscar-winning animated duo Wallace and Gromit have returned after a six-year absence in a series of short films — and BBC News Online has exclusive
“While geography represents an obvious difference between the FBI and the CIA
“Didn’t the president promise to exhaust diplomatic options? Didn’t he promise not to go to war unilaterally unless multilateral action
Bad news for the future of Taipei’s famous Shihlin night market … “Retailers say organized crime is dictating decisions as the Shihlin night market
““The arrival of more animals is the last thing that the Kabul Zoo needs right now as it continues to struggle to look after the few animals that
“Bonfiglio, Thomas Paul Race and the Rise of Standard American Walter de Gruyter
“Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas. degruyter
Someone forwarded this to me and I think it is quite brilliant
This is the list of books in one of the most important series of books on language politics. “Contributions to the Sociology of Language Edited
Paul Ginsparg “Abstract: If we were to start from scratch today to design a quality-controlled archive and distribution system for research
Call today and let them know how you feel. “Sen. Hillary Clinton noted the strides Bush has made to answer the concerns raised about unilateral
See if your represetnative stood up to Bush or caved in. Either way write to them and let them know what you think! “The 296-133 roll call Thursday
The reason the democrats caved is no big mystery. This way they don’t have to take responsibility. By passing the buck to Bush, the war will be his
I usually don’t care much for Thomas Friedman’s opinion pieces in the Times, but every once in a while he hits the spot. This is one that I hope the
Who is his speechwriter? This is a great speech! “Senator Byrd delivered the following remarks as the Senate opened debate on Senate Joint
“Ignorance seems to be a guiding principle among the administration’s hawks. Dick Cheney supported South African apartheid and voted against a
“The Cabinet’s approval of Tongyong Pinyin as the nation’s official system for Romanization may flounder because local government disagree” The
“It’s the same old trap. Nato used exactly the same trick to ensure that it could have a war with Slobodan Milosevic. Now the Americans are
This is an important point! “Of course, there’s one difference between the coming Iraq war and the previous Iraq war. Now there’s Al Jazeera, so a
“Particularly in the Middle East therefore, democrats need to resist attempts to justify American imperial policies in the name of democracy and
““Romania looks like the most extreme example of a European Union candidate country attempting to please western European governments by adopting
“Oppose war against Iraq Urge your senators and representative to vote
Republican Congressman Ron Paul gave a wonderful interview on Bill Moyers program NOW, about why he is against war in Iraq. Here is a statement he
““We had to go through this, putting politics aside, so we have a chance to get to a consensus that will lead the country in the right direction,”
If you look up your representatives on this web site you will get the best data I was able to find about their voting records on specific issues.
“We encourage people across the country, and especially from the East Coast and Mid-West, to come to NYC and make your voice heard on October 6.”
A web page bibliography with sources on “like”. NPR Interview with Muffy E. A. Siegel Siegel’s article in the Journal of Semantics A Fresh Air Piece
What really bothers me is that many people will read the following quote and think it is a perfectly reasonable statement for the Pentagon to make.
“Quantum cryptography gets around this by sending an encoded message and, separately, a key to decode it, which are transmitted in pulses of
“US scientists are developing a light-sensitive chip that will be implanted into the eyes of blind people to restore some of their vision.” BBC NEWS
You really have to wonder just who is in charge … “The Central Intelligence Agency has refused to provide Congress a comprehensive report on its
“Gadget freaks often exhibit their own bursts of bizarre behavior, like carrying around one electronic gizmo to look up phone numbers and another to
“Last Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of London to protest military action against Iraq, rallying in what the London
“Two Diamondback reporters covering the IMF-World Bank protests were arrested Friday morning and manacled for 23 hours. Surrounded by hundreds of
“Beyond New Jersey, at least seven other Senate races are considered tossups by politicians and strategists in both parties. Four are currently held
Although this sounds like a conspiracy theory — it is really just from a US Government reports. I blogged a similar article from the New York Review
“WHO, EXACTLY, IS RESPONSIBLE FOR DELAYING HOMELAND SECURITY? You have probably guessed that this is a question to which Tapped already has an
“Commenting on the cost of a war in Iraq, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer ( news — web sites) said Tuesday it would be cheaper if President
“Last Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of London to protest military action against Iraq, rallying in what the London
This is a nice article by Kristoff: “Still, we shouldn’t demonize all of Iraq
“The internationally acclaimed Iranian film director Abbas Kiarostami, who won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1997 for”A Taste of Cherry,” was unable
Another Tom Tomorrow tip: “a new Iraq oil boom could begin within two years of the war’s end …. Once production reaches its full capacity, they
Tom Tomorrow had a link to this very scary story: “A federal”No Fly” list, intended to keep terrorists from boarding planes, is snaring peace
“”It is hypocrisy to encourage poor countries to open their markets while imposing protectionist measures that cater to powerful special interests,”
What is up with Newsweek? They keep breaking stories ignored by the rest of the mainstream press … “The official story from both the 82d Airborne
While some people were protesting the IMF in DC, we went instead to hear Rev. Billy of the Church of Stop-Shopping give a sermon at the CVS protest
“The diversion begins when consumers get software from the Internet that helps them swap music or other files, or find bargains online. As they
It is only $11.16 at Amazon.com. Buy copies for your friends! (Look for an essay by my mom — A.J. Lederman.) “Women for Afghan Women: Shattering
“Sen. Robert Byrd, a master at hectoring executive branch witnesses, asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld a provocative question last week: Did
“Under the current Teacher’s Law, teachers may form professional associations that focuses on services and research on educational topics. However,
“Nationwide, only 2.7% of the installed fiber is actually being used, according to Telegeography Inc. Much of the remaining fiber
“A deluge of reader mail has opened my eyes to some very sound reasons why the Motorola PowerPC chip’s days may be numbered…” BW Online
“But let’s pretend we actually do have some role in deciding whether our nation goes to war. How should we go about it when our leaders don’t come
“Rami saved an untold number of Israelis by alerting the police. But he was wounded after he stepped in, and he later found himself bound in a
Thanks to Cursor.org for pointing out no less than three stories about the link between “war talk” and burying domestic issues before the
Taiwanese Siraya baseball player breaks into the US Major leagues! “Chen’s family and their extended clanfolks are from the rural Tao-Shia village
By my advisor, Dr. Judith Goode! “Most welfare mothers do not need to be”taught how to work.” The majority of welfare recipients are mothers of
“Actor Mel Gibson is to direct a film about Jesus Christ made entirely in the ancient languages of Latin and Aramaic — without any subtitles.” BBC
“Motorola is unveiling a global positioning system chip it says is the first GPS satellite sensor small enough and hence cheap enough for practical
A Taiwanese academic argues that scantily clad women have helped save the economy. “For a country doing its utmost to step onto the world stage, or
Ken Loach: “The scale of next Saturday’s anti-war demonstration in London may take some by surprise. Organised by the Stop the War Coalition and
Mark Twain, “The Mysterious Stranger” (1910). Twain had it right almost a hundred years ago. Sort of depressing, but encouraging as well. A must
Just some of the many good questions Eric Alterman asks: “Why did the Bush national security team ignore the Al Qaeda briefing it received from
This is a very interesting article if you have access to the NY Review of Books (subscription required). “Last May I was invited to China for two
“The Yuquis traditionally lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers. Then five years ago they, and five communities of Mojeno, Mobima, Trinitario and
“But even so the Lius are categorized by the Cabinet-level 921 Earthquake Post-Disaster Recovery Commission’s regulations as”ineligible” for housing
“A pro-Israel think tank plans to start an Internet site Wednesday to monitor the attitudes of American professors and universities toward Islamic
“Senior Republican Party officials say the prospect of at least two more weeks of Congressional debate on Iraq is allowing their party to run out
Read this quote by Harvard’s President. It clearly amounts to an equation of anti-Israeli criticism to anti-Semitism. This is no way to encourage
“Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura tells “Hardball’s” Chris Matthews that “it
Two damming articles: The first points out that we knew planes could and would be used as weapons. The second that we had an FBI informant living
Now this is truly “smart” — I wish they would have something similar for the NY subway … “A smart alarm clock that will allow you a lie-in or wake
“Since the early months of the war, stories have been circulating that Al Qaeda is paying locals tens of thousands of dollars to spirit its people
Maybe there should be a UN resolution against Colin Powell? “The American Secretary of State, Colin Powell, has said the United States will find
“What began as an obscure trade dispute between Europe and the United States has turned into a political brawl over $100 billion in corporate tax
I think it is a beautiful and moving sculpture. Too bad people can’t stomach it … “Response to a jarring depiction of a woman plunging to her
“America will act against such emerging threats before they are fully formed. We cannot defend America and our friends by hoping for the best. So we
“When discussing the horrors of the Swedish welfare state, conservatives will bemoan the poverty and low wages of the Swedes. But when discussing
“Washington’s logic of force has failed in the Middle East and elsewhere. All three major American wars of the last half a century — in Korea,
This is pretty exciting stuff: “Balaj Chan K’awiil was born to privilege and given a kingdom, but he sold out to the enemy, defeated his former
When the United Nations relaxed its sanctions regime in 1998 and permitted Iraq to buy spare parts for its oil fields, it was Halliburton, under Mr
“Apple’s senior vice president of applications Sina Tamaddon continues to spin adoption rates positively, telling Macworld UK”We’re thrilled to have
“The Blaine amendments are named for James G. Blaine, a congressman and senator from Maine who, in the mid-1870s, unsuccessfully attempted to win
…according to newly released files, the fearsome director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, J Edgar Hoover, was watching Alfred. He was not
Tom Tommorow had this blog, but I have to wonder if Brezezinki isn’t trying to simply look like he had more control of events then he really did. I
“MULTILINGUA Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication Editor: Richard J. Watts ISSN 0167-8507
“Oxfam estimates 8% more coffee is produced than necessary every year, causing a slump in export prices. BBC NEWS
“The balancing of powers was the device the Founding Fathers hit upon to prevent the tyranny of concentrated power. In writing Article I, Section 8,
An article in the Nation? No … Newsweek! “The war against Iran was going badly by 1982. Iran
“Intel says that combining digital and analog capabilities could some day, for example, consolidate all of a cellphone onto a single chip.” NY TImes
“Since the late 1990’s, Nigerian movies have found a place next to offerings from Hollywood and Bollywood, Bombay’s equivalent, in the cities, towns
“This morning’s Today Show set off warning bells earlier than I’d expected, as Katie interviewed Richard Butler, the government’s answer to the
This is a very important point — Dahlia Lithwick points out how well the justice system worked by handling terror as a criminal act rather than an
“Friends look at me as if I have lost the plot when I say this. But John Bolton, Richard Perle, Condoleezza Rice, Frank Gaffney and Paul Wolfowitz
“The smiley and its many variants are an important (and fun!) part of the worldwide online social culture — allowing emotions to be conveyed in
69% of Americans polled by Fox News answered yes!!! “Do you believe that Iraq currently has nuclear weapons?” FOXNews.com
“The reason World War II accomplished what the New Deal could not was simply that war removed the usual inhibitions. Until Pearl Harbor Franklin
“The White House document released yesterday as evidence that it is time to overthrow Saddam Hussein is a concise summary of his regime’s abuses of
“ChevronTexaco, the world’s fourth-largest oil company, evaded $3.25 billion in federal and state taxes from 1970 to 2000 through a complex
“Taiwan’s Transportation and Communication Ministry has said that cellular phone penetration in the country has passed the 100% mark. With 22.6
“Wireless FUD: Spammers could use WiFi ZDNet ran a story earlier this week about wireless spammers who drive up to open APs and send”millions of
“One of the world’s most respected statesmen, Nelson Mandela, has condemned United States intervention in the Middle East as”a threat to world
“… according to The Los Angeles Times, American media are presenting just 20 to 30 percent of the overseas news they published and broadcast 15 or
Bush on 9/11: [This is a real quote!!!] “In great tragedy, we have also seen great opportunities.” NY TImes
This Modern World Cartoon Salon.com
Here are my own reflections on 9/11: Even those in the current administration who seem to desire a never-ending war against terror are forced at
This is from a book review… “What comes through clearly in”The Great Tax Wars” is that even though income taxes are accepted today and seem to have
“Thousands of Chinese peasants who sold their blood to government-sponsored”blood stations” have contracted HIV-Aids, health officials have finally
““While Taiwan is devoting itself to anti-terrorism, there is no reason to have the 23 million people here being shadowed by protracted military
“Researchers at the Hewlett-Packard research labs have turned to nanotechnology to help create a system that can store at least 10 times as many
“The 802.11g standard is part of the thicket of wireless networking standards. The most popular is Wi-Fi, or 802.11b, which has been installed in 15
“When a president of the United States declares war on cancer or poverty or drugs, we know that”war” is a metaphor. Does anyone think that this war
“In 1989, a 28-year-old woman was jogging in Central Park late at night, when she was attacked by a gang of teenage boys who had gathered for a
“Thursday’s assassination attempt in the southern city of Kandahar of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is widely despised in ethnic Pashtun
“This invocation of the Nazi analogy skirts perilously close to Godwin’s Law, but it’s worth examining. An”appeasement” policy depends on the notion
When I first saw this article on “couple busters” in Japan, I dismissed it as the latest piece of Japanese-exoticism. (It seems that there is a
“Speaking at the First International Security Users Conference here, Adrian Wright, managing director of Secoda Risk Management, warned that junk
“Almost three million people nationwide have been out of work for at least 15 weeks, up more than 50 percent from a year ago. Half of them have not
The former Poet Laureate picks some pomes to mark the anniversary of Sept. 11th. “More often than not, the best poems about an event are written
I thought that “Lost Horizon” was actually supposed to be based in the Hunza valley of Pakistan … “Zhongdian is not the only place to have
“A senior Israeli commander, Major-General Uzi Dayan, completed his tour of duty yesterday with a warning that the ailing Israeli economy will be
“So why does Mr. Hussein want weapons of mass destruction? For their only real function — deterring other countries from attacking him. If he had
Thanks to ThisModernWorld.com for pointing this out! “Some of the fundamental changes to Americans’ legal rights by the Bush administration and the
“When George H. W. Bush ordered American forces to the Persian Gulf
“Media coverage is portraying Powell as a steady impediment to a huge assault on Iraq. But closer scrutiny would lead us to different
“Siebel Systems is hardly the only company to recognise the War on Terrorism’s lucrative promise. For this year alone, the US government has
“Formerly admired almost universally as the preeminent champion of human rights, our country has become the foremost target of respected
Sometimes those CEOs can make a lot of sense! ““It must be noted, however, that while we are spending literally billions of dollars to keep
“More than two dozen countries in Asia, Europe and Latin America, including China and Germany, are now encouraging their government agencies to
What is really funny is the “sidebar” at the bottom of this article, from a “licensed grief counselor”. “Will it be a major network like CBS that
Where is the outrage? I have not seen any news stories about this. Of course, working there everyday myself I am biased, but it seems to me that
“UK employers are spending more time disciplining staff over internet and e-mail abuse than any other office offence, a survey has found. BBC NEWS
“In fact, while it is frequently reported that 17 of the 24 active judges were appointed by Democrats, this sly insinuation about the politics of
“When Dick Cheney was CEO of the oilfield supply firm Halliburton, the company did $23.8 million in business with Saddam Hussein, the
“Without convincing evidence of imminent danger, administration officials have been dusting off old cases that hint at Iraqi plots and conspiracies,
“President Bush, backed by most other politicians and the mass media, is using the tragedy of September 11, 2001, to justify an endless”war against
“Between August 1 and last night, 49 Palestinians were killed by Israel Defense Forces fire in the West Bank and Gaza Strip; around 180 were
“The Kentucky prison service has suspended satanic worship services at a prison while officials look into the legality of the practice. Guardian
Although those at the bottom made gains during the 90s, those at the top gained much more, and those at the bottom are hit the worst by the current
“Edison is struggling mightily, and it’s hard not to conclude that its public status is partially responsible. Edison’s experience calls into
““How is it that billionaires like Shinawatra and Bernie Schwartz can get the U.S. taxpayers to subsidize their deals?” asked Franklin G. Polk, a
“China appears to have blocked access to the popular search engine, Google.” BBC NEWS
“It is suddenly de rigueur for US officials to say,”Saddam Hussein gassed his own people.” They are evidently referring to the Iraqi military’s use
“So frustrated are many South Africans with global trade’s failures to improve their living conditions that there are not one, but two alternative
“The U.N. has only 4,200 personnel in Congo, Africa’s third largest country, and member states have failed to provide another 1,500 requested by
“The Fourth Amendment guarantees that”the right … against unreasonable searches and seizures
“The United Nations says that 1.1 billion people lack clean drinking water and that 2.4 billion need access to sanitation. More than 2.2 million
Thanks to Tapped for finding this Legal blog which discusses the constitutionality of the White House’s assertion that it doesn’t need Congress to
“At issue in the legal threat is Apple’s well-received iDVD application, which permits users to burn DVDs only on internal drives manufactured by
“The United States is blocking human, environmental and freedom of information rights from being enshrined in the earth summit’s plan of action in
“The U.N. special representative in Afghanistan said today that the weakness of the Afghan government and the risk to investigators or witnesses
“Under the order,”The Executive Branch seeks to uproot people’s lives, outside the public eye, and behind a closed door,” Senior Judge Damon J.
“In fact, the government doesn’t make money when it sells timber rights to loggers. According to the General Accounting Office, the Forest Service
“A record 6.6 million people in the United States were either in jail or under community supervision at the end of last year, according to new
Tarantino returns next year! ““Kill Bill,” in contrast, pays homage to the “grindhouse” exploitation films produced by the Shaw brothers of Hong
“On the issue of Martha Stewart versus Julia Child, the world is clearly divided into two camps. Perhaps you love Martha — her freakishly neat ways,
““Every 24 hours, 2 million people produce 800 cubic meters of solid waste. If all 40 of our trucks make three trips a day, they can still transport
“Civil liberties campaigners have responded with anger to the news that, for the last three months, Wilmington police have been compiling a database
“Ironically, FISA was enacted as a reform in the wake of the Watergate scandal. Richard Nixon previously asserted the right to conduct unilateral
“By 2015, according to estimates from the United Nations and the United States government, at least 40 percent of the world’s population, or about
“The biggest war game in US military history, staged this month at a cost of
“Several hundred Pakistanis have been released since the spring, but the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has visited many of the
“But in a number of cases, the court said, the F.B.I. and the Justice Department had made”erroneous statements” in eavesdropping applications about
“About one in four classes at public middle schools and high schools is taught by a teacher not trained in the subject, and the problem is much
This is written by an inmate at the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles who briefly shared a shower with Charles Keating.
“Such electronic checking has become common among doctors who use hand-held organizers. ( Harris Interactive, a research firm, estimates that about
“But if investors are entitled to keep every dollar they gain in the stock market, it’s hard to see why they shouldn’t cough up every dollar they
“…the state of Nebraska, collecting $65 per detainee per day from the INS, rakes in more than $1 million a year over and above the cost of running
“A new body called the Initiative for Software Choice has started lobbying governments over their use of so-called open source software. BBC NEWS
They have a map of all the surveillance cameras in Manhattan! “The Institute for Applied Autonomy (IAA) and Surveillance Camera Players (SCP) lead
“In emotional rallies up and down the West coast, dock workers are telling the Bush administration to butt out
Where were the Hawks when it was their turn to serve? “Consider Washington’s two most prominent superhawks: Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld’s deputy) and
“The world’s biggest barista and a grass-roots group are squaring off in a wireless game of chicken at Pioneer Courthouse Square
This is an important article on who all those “experts” are and why they are on TV. Turns out that most of them are from one of three right-wing
“The Internet Archive, working with Alexa Internet, has created the Wayback Machine. The Wayback Machine makes it possible to surf pages stored in
Here is another opinion piece on Exxon-Mobile. This time about how they spent nearly a million dollars to pressure the Bush administration not to
“PolyFuel, for instance, a spinoff of SRI International, is working on fuel cells for portable devices. The cells essentially break down methanol
“Hollywood wants to be sure that you can’t do anything with video from TV or cable without the film studios’ permission. So while you may want to be
“The Bush administration, promiscuously invoking the war against terrorism, is using its influence inappropriately to assist an American oil company
“Mr. Jobs and Apple decline to confirm those plans. But industry analysts see evidence that Apple is contemplating what inside the company is being
“Though senior officials of the Reagan administration publicly condemned Iraq’s employment of mustard gas, sarin, VX and other poisonous agents, the
“As measured by the casualty count, the suicide bombings, as Rantisi suggested, have tended to level the battlefield despite Israel’s overwhelming
This is a public sculpture by Caro Bensca, an artist whom we staid with in Amsterdam a few years ago. Her web page has other photos of her work.
This is the single best newspaper article on “globalization” written in the mainstream press that I have read. And it was the cover story in the NY
“Within a couple of decades, Verlan has spread from the peripheral housing projects of France’s poorest immigrants, heavily populated with Africans
“Deregulating telecommunications has tended to be messy everywhere, including the United States. In China, with its huge market and unsettled rules,
“Ziauddin, a sunburned 65-year-old farmer, watched with mingled regret and anticipation. Like thousands of other farmers who grow opium poppies in
“Holy Cow: Beef in Indian Dietary Traditions,” is a dry work of historiography buttressed by a 24-page bibliography and hundreds of footnotes citing
“Indonesia’s human rights tribunal for East Timor continued its run of astonishing verdicts yesterday by acquitting the police chief and five
Oops. I wonder what would happen if I made a 1.1 billion dollar mistake on my Taxes? “Mirant Corp., a natural-gas trader, said it may have inflated
There is a related article on the telecommunications industry by Paull Starr in the new TAP, but it is not yet online. “What’s truly amazing is
““The problem, in my view, in Afghanistan is not security,” Mr. Rumsfled said. “It is, rather, the challenge of bolstering the new government, the
“Ariel Sharon has”threatened” that early elections will be held if the Knesset cannot pass his proposed budget, a move that most regard as a
“In July the administration promised to shut down every United Nations peacekeeping mission in the world if the U.N. Security Council didn’t grant
Nicholas Kristof wrote this very strong condemnation of Bush’s policies towards Third World Women. I am very happy to see this, but I wish Kristof
“Back when I first got professionally obsessed with Japan’s problems, around four years ago, I made myself a mental checklist of reasons that
“Palestinian witnesses said 19-year-old Nidal Abumuhsein was forced at gunpoint to try and get the senior Hamas militant to surrender. BBC NEWS
“Weeds have become stronger and fitter by cross-breeding with genetically modified crops, leading to fears that superweeds which are difficult or
“Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft’s announced desire for camps for U.S. citizens he deems to be”enemy combatants” has moved him from merely being a
“Line by line, a federal judge today dissected the government’s reasoning for holding Yaser Esam Hamdi incommunicado in a Navy brig here and
Turns out, giving employees stocks doesn’t automatically make them act like owners. “Back in July 1994, when United was listing badly, company
“Street children have been a chronic problem in Kabul, the Afghan capital, since war broke out in 1979. But their ranks have been swollen to an
“Some 700 Palestinian demonstrators in Bethlehem waited in vain on Saturday evening for activists from Ta’ayush Jewish-Arab Coexistence to arrive
Bush found a reason to block a bill that would have sent money for election reform and the SEC. “Mr. Bush said,”A lot of that money has nothing to
“The events of Sept. 11 were horrific, but the American leaders mis-used them, too,” the Iranian leader said at a news conference in the old royal
Dear George …. Here is an archive of letters from the correspondence between George Bush and Ken Lay (whom Bush claimed not to really know that
“The suit’s colossal settlement was designed to erase farmers’ debts to government creditors, put $50,000 in their pockets and give black applicants
“More than 40 years after the famous civil rights Freedom Riders challenged segregation in the southern states, a new Freedom Ride is being planned
“The two-mile-thick blanket of pollution over South Asia may be causing premature deaths in India on a large scale, and both flooding and drought in
“The idea that a voucher program so limited in scope somehow equals Brown is preposterous on its face. By desegregating public schools and colleges
“Again, generalisations are dangerous. Some of these town journals are feisty and excellent. But, in the main, local papers leave big national
“After uncovering the Chinese- and Korean-language Web sites and assessing their effect on scores, test administrators suspended the electronic
“In five years, prepaid phone cards have transformed immigrant life. It no longer matters if a newcomer lacks the credit history to get
This article does an increadible job of getting to the heart of Stiglitz’s argument against IMF policy. However, the criticisms he then aims at the
British history lessons! “Such large-scale persecutions of religious minorities as took place in Europe in the Middle Ages were unknown in the
“They buried Saartjie Baartman, known as Sarah, today in a solemn ceremony on a small hill overlooking this Gamtoos River town, where she was born
“American schools are now becoming increasingly segregated by race, according to a new study. Nearly half a century after the famous battles to
This is one of the best articles on blogging I’ve seen. Mostly because it actually discusses the print equivalent — the pamphlet! “Of course, in
“In war, counting is not value-free. To overlook or underestimate the civilian dead gives rein to the enthusiasts of precision-guided weaponry. It
“According to our most recent survey of Consumer Reports readers, 5 percent bought a computer that was completely inoperable within the first month;
“Last September, the loose affiliation of programmers who monitor the Gnutella file-trading network noticed something strange. The network, a
“In the wake of the Spanish-American War of 1898, the United States acquired several overseas territories, including Cuba and the Philippines. Carl
“The United States has never grown so much food. Scarcity is down, food is cheap, and enough food is produced to provide for every woman, man, and
“A 2-to-1 ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found that a 1997 Vermont law that mandated campaign
“They report today in the US journal Science that the wilderness converted to human use each year actually costs economies $250bn a year, every
“In a development bordering on what the American Civil Liberties Union called”surreal,” the on-line magazine Salon.com today revealed that the
“The U.S. has moved to block a lawsuit against Exxon Mobil Corp. ( XOM) for alleged human-rights abuses at its Indonesian natural-gas operations,
“U.S. jet fighter pilots, responsible for at least 10 deadly”friendly fire” accidents in the Afghanistan war, have regularly been given amphetamines
“Although the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in November 1994 was widely heralded as a conservative revolution against Big
I used to live upstairs from Michael Sells. “…this year, the university in Chapel Hill is asking all 3,500 incoming freshmen to read a book about
“Outside experts say, and some administration officials concede privately, that U.S. policy is hamstrung by President Bush’s aversion to
“The Justice Department has spurned a federal judge’s order to produce documents to back its contention that an American citizen captured in
I’ve mentioned this blog before, but there are so many good posts today that rather than duplicating them on my blog, I thought I’d just send you
I’ve mentioned this blog before, but there are so many good posts today that rather than duplicating them on my blog, I thought I’d just send you
“At a time when Karzai begins nearly every speech with a plea for money to rebuild Afghanistan’s roads, when there are armies of unemployed men
“Israel’s one million Arab citizens, who are already treated with suspicion by their Jewish compatriots, faced a new threat yesterday when the
“Anglo American, the London-based mining giant, has become the first multinational corporation to provide its South African staff with free
Two articles on Iraqi history: “In 1941, Iraqis again rebelled against their British masters, but were crushed by RAF bombers. After World War II,
Looks like the census didn’t count the impact of graduate students on pulling down the median income of Jackson Heights. “The surprising drop in
“The curfews and roadblocks, which affect 700,000 city dwellers and hundreds of thousands of villagers, have already put most Palestinians out of
“The Bush administration sat on a Clinton-era plan to attack al-Qaida in Afghanistan for eight months because of political hostility to the outgoing
Some references I found: “Greaves, Thomas.”Tribal Rights.” Valuing Local Knowledge: Indigenous People and Intellectual Property Rights. Ed. Stephen
I wish I understood how this works. Maybe only one person is on at a time? Or perhaps they just assume you will click close to the last search? In
“By the government’s own count, 25 million workers in China are in regular contact with hazards such as toxic chemicals and coal dust, and 13,000
“Fourteen million people — half of them children — face starvation in Southern Africa. BBC NEWS
Looks like politics will keep street signs in Taiwan from becoming any easier to read! “Despite the central government’s decision to make Tongyong
“Taiwan’s President Chen Shui-bian has backed calls for a referendum on independence, in a move almost certain to anger China. BBC NEWS
At the bottom of this article it mentions that most of the people detained were deported, but this is not commented upon. Why where they deported?
““U.S. Spied on Iraq Under U.N. Cover, Officials Now Say,” a front-page New York Times headline announced on Jan. 7, 1999. The article was
Now if only the US would do the same … “The Turkish parliament has voted to abolish the death penalty, and allow broadcasts in the Kurdish
Hey, lets just bomb them — who cares what the facts are? “As the panel met, Defence Minister Donald Rumsfeld insisted that no decision had been
“The focus on stock options as a source of corporate misbehavior is fairly recent, but the problem that options are designed to solve is nearly as
This panel discussion from the Guardian, in which they interview a wide range of experts on Iraq’s military capabilities is very interesting.
“… several weeks after Enron’s lawyers spelled out the company’s strategy for manipulating the California electricity market, Kenneth L. Lay,
“These are the familiar battlegrounds of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Now another location has come under siege on the map of desperate
“A bizarre new service offering ‘designer kidnapping’ for thrill-seeking New Yorkers is dividing opinion across the city. BBC NEWS | World |
“When Congress brought copyright law into the digital era, in 1998, some in academe were initially heartened by what they saw as compromises that,
The Guardian presents an edited version of an article from Mother Jones “Drug companies say millions of Americans suffer from pathological anxiety,
“Programming other board games has been a relative snap. Even chess has succumbed to the power of the processor. Five years ago, a chess-playing
“Disposable phones could soon be joining throwaway cameras in shops across the US. BBC
“The Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) web site was buried under a flood of computer traffic over the weekend, an apparent act of
“AIRSTRIKE REPORT WON’T BE RELEASED The United Nations said it had decided not to publicly release a report written by a fact-finding team sent to
“Lawmakers credited whistle-blowers with helping bring to light accounting abuses at Enron Corp. and other major corporations, and said the changes
It isn’t illegal — and that’s the problem! “Harken Energy Corp. set up an offshore subsidiary in the Cayman Islands tax haven while President Bush
“War supporters respond to doubters with a seemingly irresistible argument: What is the alternative? Do you really want Mr. Hussein to get weapons
“An Egyptian military court has convicted 16 men — mainly academics and professionals — of belonging to the outlawed Islamic group, the Muslim
“A leading Egyptian human rights activist, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, was jailed for seven years yesterday for receiving foreign funding without government
Welcome to uComics Web Site featuring Tom Toles
“Thousands of Palestinians poured onto the streets of Nablus on Monday in defiance of a 40-day-old Israeli army curfew, the strongest challenge yet
“Under the Patriot Act, the FBI doesn’t have to demonstrate ‘probable cause’ of criminal activity to request records. In fact, the so-called ‘search
“After more than a decade of trial and error and about $30 million in R&D, the 63-year-old Norris may be on the verge of changing the world as we
It is time to cut off the flow of weapons to Israel, which is the top recipient of U.S. military aid at $3 billion a year. According to a November
This is an interesting article about what is wrong at the FBI. “The Bush administration has been happy to pick fights with the American Civil
“According to statistics released by British de-mining agency the Halo Trust, Afghanistan is the most mined country in the world. BBC NEWS
“Lara Stemple, executive director of the non-profit human rights group Stop Prisoner Rape, told UPI,”Rape and HIV in prison is eight to 10 times as
I’m sure everyone saw the headline about the rescue of the miners, but this was at the bottom of the page: ““I worked that old mine in the 50’s,”
True? The Guradian thinks that the failure of Abdullah’s peace plan may have something to do with it. “Saudi Arabia is teetering on the brink of
Why the Cuban trade embargo might be lifted: ““I feel at some point that the farm state politics will overwhelm the Florida politics,” Mr. Flake
“Yet many people who might have been entitled to file claims and share in settlements have received nothing, some lawyers say, because they were
“The South African prisons department has been forced to reinstate a governor who was sacked for resisting official pressure to destroy a secretly
“In the war on terror, the US is careful to show how fairly it’s treating the hundreds of orange-suited Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters locked behind
Card Games from around the world, and how they are played! “There are a few card games that have spread throughout the world, but almost all
Did anyone miss this? I ususally don’t post such headline stories, but I think it is amazing that the White House would be willing to veto the
“It’s hard to believe Google — which is now the world’s largest single online marketplace — came on the scene only a little more than 8 years ago,
“A proposal by a California congressman would give the entertainment industry broad new powers to try to stop people from downloading pirated music
Yesterday was the anniversary of the first brick thrown in this famous comic! “On July 26, 1910, the mouse hurled a brick at the cat, thus
From Stephen Weissman of the Washington Post: “I have obtained classified U.S. government documents, including a chronology of covert actions
Here is the latest privacy scandal: “They thought they were making routine purchases
“Using a search engine to locate stories on newspapers’ sites violates European Union law, according to a recent ruling by judges in Munich’s Upper
In case you didn’t already read about this: “Operation TIPS
This article starts off the latest New Democracy Forum on the Boston Review. It addresses the issue of whether there should be limits on how far we
If you are interested in Paul Krugman, you may wish to check out the Unofficial Paul Krugman Web Page. It has links to the official web page as
Pretty much how I feel about the show. “Six Feet Under may have won an outrageous 23 Emmy nominations, but it’s really just Ally McBeal in
“The Guatemalan government is planning to reward the paramilitaries who took part in the massacre of tens of thousands of villagers during the
“A more complete version of Fanta’s story is told in the book For God, Country, and Coca-Cola, by Mark Pendergrast. The Fanta brand’s roots are
“A bus carrying people to a picnic area hit a land mine in central Afghanistan, killing 13 passengers and injuring six others, a U.N. official said
I generally don’t post from the WSJ, because it requires a subscription, but this quote pretty much says it all… “More than 1.3 million refugees
“The American air campaign in Afghanistan, based on a high-tech, out-of-harm’s-way strategy, has produced a pattern of mistakes that have killed
“Unless you work for the Securities and Exchange Commission (and probably even if you do) the plague of scandals has left you as confused as an
You really need to see the original article in the Magazine in order to appreciate the photographs. They are too small on the web page. “Stolen
“Alan Lomax, the legendary collector of folk music who was the first to record towering figures like Leadbelly, Muddy Waters and Woody Guthrie, died
“America’s fledgling Internet radio industry could be effectively killed this summer based on the Librarian of Congress’s acceptance of most of the
“Our research group at Sun Microsystems Laboratories seeks such alternatives. Along with several other groups worldwide, we are investigating ways
If you thought that James A. Traficant’s hairstyle was funny, then you really should see his homepage
One of the more interesting newsletters I receive is called the “Left Business Observer”. It is a soidly Keynesian account of the current economy
General Nezzar’s witnesses argued that the army had saved the country from falling into the hands of a barbarian horde. But a dissident intelligence
This is a nice quote on out-of-whack CEO stock-option plans from an article in the Economist: “The key assumption of the optimal-contracting view is
This guy is a genius. I saw him on a TV show, but the economist truly captures the wonderful “efficiency” of his style: “Unlike any of the 19 other
Released in early 1998 and made for a mere 1.2 million dollars, the Ring was the number 1 box office sensation of the year, smashing records in
I’m slowly building up a list of interesting blogs. Today’s latest addition is Tom Tomorrow’s webpage which contains his blog as well. Be sure to
A national police spokesman, Haz Iwendi, said that between 200 and 300 women had seized the stations, according to the French news agency AFP. The
Chicago, February 27, 2002: Today, the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moves the minute hand of the
This following quote appears in one of the many articles in a new American Prospect special on Welfare Reform. (There are some good links on the
Hundreds of workers are unable to leave an oil terminal in southern Nigeria which has been occupied by 150 women protestors since Monday. The
Deep in the bowels of the US state department, not far from the cafeteria, there is a small office identified only by a handwritten sign on the door
Pushing public-school students toward a religious education may not be against the law, but it certainly is bad education policy. Some parents argue
The claim that Reagan’s military buildup unhinged Soviet Communism, and that the coup de gr
Human rights groups in Israel are vowing to fight a government decision that would prevent Israeli Arabs from moving into Jewish communities built
I read somewhere (can’t remember where) that a reporter for the New Yorker called up Robin Williams to ask for a suggestion on how to fix the pledge
The American Prospect has a special section on issues in depth which is quite good. This one is devoted to the issue of globalization. Their Policy
I will be out of town for the next two weeks and I won’t be updating the site as frequently. If I miss something important, please alert me via
Last week Nicholas Kristof wrote another one of his foolish articles about sweatshops. I wrote a letter, which they did not publish. Instead, they
“The first spectacular images showing the Earth’s oceans in detail have been returned by NASA’s new environment-watching satellite, Aqua.” New
Abstracts of papers presented at the 2002 NATSA conference. Panels
“A federal judge in New York declared the death penalty unconstitutional today, saying evidence has shown that there is an”undue risk” that a
“Several colleges are now looking to share more of that work by building”institutional repositories” online and inviting their professors to upload
“The industry is in ways a victim of its own success
These are some nice notes from the excellent series of films aired last month on Turner Classic Movies. If you missed it, I suggest you write them
This is an expanded version of an article in Yediot Aharonot, June 30, 2002. The Gaza strip is a perfect realization of the Israeli vision of
“The efforts to bring God into the state reached their peak during the so-called”religious revival” of the 1950s. It was a time when Norman Vincent
“The Real Price of Prisons There are more people behind bars in the United States today than ever before. Since 1980, the inmate population has more
“The end of apartheid stands as one of the crowning accomplishments of the past century, but we would not have succeeded without the help of
A religious litmus test for Judges? “But after Bush had a night to ponder the court’s decision — you think he read it? — he took pledge-mania
“The janitors who clean Yahoo!’s offices earn poverty wages, starting at around $16,000 a year, and do not have access to affordable health
“When most of us think of the Holocaust we think of Auschwitz. But the industrialized, largely hands-off method of killing Jews at Auschwitz and the
“The plight of millions of migrant workers toiling for meagre wages in southern China has been thrown under the spotlight by a three-day textile
“The end of apartheid stands as one of the crowning accomplishments of the past century, but we would not have succeeded without the help of
“Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee today appointed a hawkish Hindu nationalist as the country’s deputy prime minister, a move analysts said
“The efforts to bring God into the state reached their peak during the so-called”religious revival” of the 1950s. It was a time when Norman Vincent
“Palestinian Authority President Yasir Arafat stunned the world yesterday by demanding that the United States hold democratic elections for a new
“The janitors who clean Yahoo!’s offices earn poverty wages, starting at around $16,000 a year, and do not have access to affordable health
Another good commentary on the 9th Circuit decision from Slate … “So as a matter of logic, there is something to be said for the 9th Circuit
“By some peculiarity or whim of the Israeli military commander, the city’s fire brigade alone was granted dispensation from the curfew that has
“Textbook battles are legendary in Texas, where conservative critics frequently complain of liberal bias, and liberals counter with charges of
An interesting article, although it would be more interesting if it addressed the union-busting aspects of switching funds from state to religious
“The future of the political party left behind by the murdered Dutch libertarian Pim Fortuyn was thrown into doubt last night when his successor was
“Turns out that the Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by a Christian socialist, Francis Bellamy — first cousin of Edward Looking Backward
“For the first time since the Cold War, the FBI is visiting public libraries to keep tabs on the reading habits of people the government considers
“Magnetic wood could be a major plank in the battle against noisy cellphone users. The high-tech material absorbs microwave radio signals, making it
“Afghan President Hamid Karzai should put a stop to the intimidation of former Women’s Affairs minister, Dr. Sima Samar, Human Rights Watch said
This was in today’s letters section of the New York Times, and it explains why they will never print my letters … Did they print this because SUV
“Most of Russia’s farmland is still owned by the state The lower house of the Russian parliament has approved the sale of farmland across Russia,
For those who don’t know. “Worldcom” is the owner of “MCI.” We knew they were crooks when it took us half a year to get some money refunded that
“The wife of Afghan king Zahir Shah has died in Rome only a few weeks before she was to return to her homeland to be reunited with her husband. BBC
“The entertainment industry could be given new powers to deliberately sabotage internet music and movie file-sharing services, under proposed US
“A state appeals court yesterday overturned a ruling that New York State had failed its constitutional duty to ensure”a sound, basic education” for
“The Importance of Being Exotic AlterNet — The God of Literary Trends
A discussion of modern prison life compared with Wilde’s “The Ballad of Reading Gaol.” “The last time I attended a hanging in the prison it was a
“G8 governments are undermining their”war on terror” and their claims to want to end armed conflict by supplying massive numbers of weapons to
“Moore’s Law holds that the number of transistors on a microprocessor
“President Robert Mugabe ordered 2,900 commercial farmers to stop work yesterday, as Zimbabwe faces its worst food shortage for 60 years.”
“But today’s threatened defection by Yonus Qanooni, the former interior minister and a senior leader of the Northern Alliance militia, as well as
“who worked from 1995 to 2000 at a Wal-Mart in southeast Kansas City.”A company that makes billions of dollars doesn’t have to do that.” (NYTimes)
After the success of last year’s rockfest featuring The White Stripes, The Greenhornes, and The Mooney Suzuki, WNYU’s New Afternoon Show is happy to
“More than 31 percent of the students classified as English language learners who were supposed to graduate in June 2001 dropped out along the way.
We saw this and it was great, as was the last Epic Theatre Production we saw: “Hannah and Martin.” “Last September was not a great time to
Positions 8.1 Subimperialism Fred Yen Liang Chiu Also: “Nationalist Social Sciences and the Fabrication of Subimperial Subjects in Taiwan Monanen
Positions 8:3 Visual Cultures of Japanese Imperialism Leo Ching 8:3 Visual Cultures of Japanese Imperialism
Language Problems & Language Planning 26:1 (2002) Kurt E. M
“Afghanistan’s newly elected President Hamid Karzai named all but one of his 29 members of Cabinet on Saturday, leaving the women’s affairs ministry
“The Expeditionary Task Force, the official name for an armed unit of 1,500 former Bolivian soldiers, is paid, fed, clothed and trained by the U.S.
“Last July, the number of homeless families with children in the system surpassed all previous records, and that trend has only accelerated. Last
This was reported a long time ago by “In These Times”, I’m glad that the case is finally making it to the courts. “Italian police have been accused
Silly title — but good news for my mom’s program to get Afghans to use solar cookers! “President Bush received the Afghan fundamentalist Ishaq
“American intelligence experts intercepted two messages from Afghanistan on September 10 referring to a major event due to take place the next day,
This article in the Wall Street Journal (Subscription required) covers an important case in whcih the Supreme Court allowed the Census bureau to use
“A gas explosion that ripped through a coal mine in northeastern China killed at least 111 miners, state television reported today. …
“On the final night of the loya jirga, more than 1,500 delegates gathered for the unveiling of the new cabinet. Our hearts sank when we heard
John Sayles and Maggie Renzi talk about their new movie. “To me, Florida has always represented the triumph of advertising, making people believe
“Of the many tasks that lie ahead for Afghanistan’s new transitional government, perhaps one of the most difficult will be to rebuild a banking
The Drummer from the Doors on why he won’t sell out. “Dread ripples through me as I listen to a phone message from our manager saying that we (The
Krugman often harps on the same themes, but he does so with great style. This was just so funny (and depressing) that I had to post it. “It is
“Webcasters worried that Internet radio would be wiped out by outrageously high royalty rates found little solace on Thursday despite a ruling that
“Wireless telecoms: Four disruptive technologies are emerging that promise to render not only the next wave of so-called 3G wireless networks
“A prototype radio device designed to fit inside a human tooth and provide covert mobile phone communications has been created by two UK
Webber + Bollywood = ??? “Stage producer Andrew Lloyd Webber has received a standing ovation from the first night audience of his eagerly-awaited
“Consumer-electronics giant Philips is demonstrating a prototype miniature disc drive that uses a coin-size disc capable of storing nearly twice as
Political Cartoon (either link will take you to the image). “David Rowe, Sydney, Australia — The Australian Financial Review” Slate Comics
“Here’s some advice for lovelorn men from the world’s most consulted
A new film argues that there is enough evidence to warrent a human rights investigation into what happened to missing POWs from the uprising in
Thursday and Friday Only (two shows each night). “Cecil Taylor and the Sound Vision Orchestra
Blogs can mean lots of different things, from personal diaries to serious journalism. (Did you know that the word “blog” has been added to the OED?)
This NY Times article does a good job of expalining exactly what Enron/Anderson did that caused the whole mess in the first place. “The evidence
“# Each year 100,000 New Yorkers experience homelessness. Statistics — Hunger & Homelessness In New York City
“# Each year 100,000 New Yorkers experience homelessness. Statistics — Hunger & Homelessness In New York City
“Days before closing arguments are scheduled in the Microsoft antitrust trial, a group of six leading antitrust economists has filed a last-minute
“The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, says the number of Afghans returning from exile has vastly exceeded expectations. It says a million
“The worst farm crisis since the end of World War I never hit Amish farmers. The people of Holmes County and adjacent Wayne County suffer the
“Years ago, it was a different Kabul University, a more relaxed campus where men and women studied in modern facilities. During the opening decades
“Syed Massood, an economist and member of the independent national commission that prepared the assembly, said he and several colleagues almost
“The Tyzx vision system is based on stereo vision
“The CIA and US special forces have been given authority to use”lethal force” to capture or kill the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein. (Guardian)
“Clark Kerr, who was president of the University of California from 1958 to 1967, had a witty send-off when the state’s board of regents
Here is a new weblog I found. “Immigration and Right-Wing Parties in Europe :: Immigration and Right-Wing Parties in Europe
“Italy hailed the redress of a historic injustice yesterday after the US Congress recognised an impoverished Florentine immigrant as the inventor of
“For decades, software makers have been protected from lawsuits as U.S. courts have struggled with the task of defining something as abstract and
I figured out how to upload pictures to the blog, and I thought I’d celebrate with Karzai’s new hat
“The Afghan people have spoken clearly on this issue. I recently participated in a U.N.-commissioned assessment mission by the Center for Economic
“A new kind of image sensor devised by Foveon, an imaging company based in Santa Clara, California, cunningly solves these problems. The X3 sensor,
Google Answers “What is Google Answers? Google Answers: Frequently Asked Questions
“President Bush early this year signed an intelligence order directing the CIA to undertake a comprehensive, covert program to topple Saddam
“It is the most romantic story in American cryptology. To keep the Japanese from getting American secrets in World War II, Navajos
“How does a spider gene get into goat milk in the first place? Nexia uses two common spider specimens, Araneus diadematus (the common garden spider)
I’ve finally enabled a new feature on the web site, which will enable registered users to post comments on any item in the web log. You can comment
“The combination of waterless farms in southern Texas, accumulating water debt by Mexico and key upcoming elections on both sides of the border is
“A study by respected technology research company Gartner has found that Macs are up to 36 percent cheaper to own and run than competing Windows
“Iceland sent police officers to Boston and three European cities today to try to prevent Falun Gong members from flying here on Icelandair while
“In 1981 those captains of industry were paid an average of $3.5 million, which seemed like a lot at the time. By 1988 the average had soared to
Link to letter referred to in the article. “A group of leading American writers, actors and academics have signed a statement strongly criticising
“This report presents the findings of a human rights assessment mission to Afghanistan, undertaken in January 2002 by the Center for Economic and
If you have the right fonts and can read Dari or Pashto, you can read the transcripts of the Loya Jirga speeches in full. (Institute for War and
“Like all major movies, Harry Potter was widely pirated before its official release. Macrovisions-busters can also be bought, often disguised by
“European satellite TV viewers can watch live broadcasts of peacekeeping and anti-terrorist operations being conducted by US spyplanes over the
“A host of cable companies … are moving away from the old flat-fee pricing scheme that allowed users to download and transmit endless amounts of
“At points, Kollar-Kotelly chastised Microsoft with some fairly harsh language. The judge said one argument”borders on the frivolous,” while calling
“The World Food Summit in Rome has ended without achieving anything, delegates have said. (BBC)
“Africa has lost $140bn through corruption the decades since independence, Nigeria’s president, Olusegun Obasanjo has said. (BBC )
“This is what bonded labor looks like in Pakistan. The practice, in which employers give high-interest loans to workers, whose entire families must
“A way of storing a terabit of data on a chip no bigger than a postage stamp has been developed by researchers at IBM. New Scientist
“Chile’s Judge Juan Guzman is so frustrated by the lack of cooperation by Mr Kissinger that he is now considering an extradition request to force
“Thousands of unemployed Nicaraguan coffee workers, struggling to find a way to survive the third year of a global coffee crisis, are again lining
“A senior Taliban official said he approached U.S. representatives three years ago for help in replacing the hard-line Islamic leadership but was
“Mr. Holt and his business partner, John Furrier, both software engineers, have started a company with a shoestring budget and an ambitious target:
This is a silly article, but it is interesting to note that my blog is a “war blog” of sorts, although it doesn’t seem to be of the kind that the NY
“The metamorphoses of nationalism and internationalism, from the time of Kant to the to the
“Around the world, the poorest of the poor are the landless in rural areas, (Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy)
In two recently published articles, Lo
“AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM’S WHITE BLINDSPOT” (Cultural Logic) As I started reading David’s book, I presumed that as a historian, he was concerned
“Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2001. 30:527-550.” AR Anthropol. — Abstracts: Bhatt 30 (1): 527 Rakesh M. Bhatt University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign,
“Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2001. 30:139-161.” AR Anthropol. — Abstracts: Harrell 30 (1): 139 Stevan Harrell Burke Museum of Natural History and
“Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2001. 30:19-39.” AR Anthropol. — Abstracts: Errington 30 (1): 19 Joseph Errington Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
“Modern China, January 2002, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 39-78(40)” ingenta: article summary
“Comparative Studies in Society and History (2001), 43:651-664 Cambridge University Press” Cambridge Journals Online — CUP Abstract Page Abstract
“Language in Society (2002), 31:85-112 Cambridge University Press” Cambridge Journals Online — CUP Abstract Page This article examines an
“Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 10.2, Fall 2002″ Table of Contents, Positions 10.2
“Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2001. 30:109-137.” AR Anthropol. — Abstracts: Ahearn 30 (1): 109 Laura M. Ahearn Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New
“Acute lack of medical facilities and drugs will once again cause suffering and pain in the mountainous province of Ghor as the window of time
I haven’t read this, but it sounds interesting. “In a powerful challenge to conventional wisdom, Philip Hamburger argues that the separation of
“The radical Basque political party Batasuna, which is seen as the Basque equivalent of Sinn Fein and wins up to 200,000 votes, was on the road to
“The World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that 12.8 million people are on the brink of starvation in southern Africa and urgently need food aid.”
“A governor in Nigeria who has been critical of President Olusegun Obasanjo, has been attacked in his car by a mob in the capital, Abuja. (BBC)
Article by Yitzhak Laor: “But this ‘evil of the past’ has a peculiar way of entering our present life. On 25 January, three months before the IDF
An article by Slavoj Zizek: “When Donald Rumsfeld designated the imprisoned Taliban fighters ‘unlawful combatants’ (as opposed to ‘regular’
“The F.B.I.’s Arabic translation test simply does not measure all the language skills needed for intelligence gathering focused on Arabic speakers
This is from a NY Times Op-ed piece by Amartya Sen. I recently read Sen’s book, Development as Freedom, and I highly recommend it! He argues, here
“In a feat of literary sleuth work, Ms. Heifetz, the mother of a high school senior and a weaver from Brooklyn, inspected 10 high school English
“Over 800,000 Afghan refugees have returned to their homes in Afghanistan, according to UNHCR. … The UNHCR had planned repatriating 800,000 this
“Key commanders in Afghanistan have nominated interim leader Hamid Karzai to be their candidate as the next head of state.” (BBC)
“No one has yet snagged the Bush administration’s $25-million”dead or alive” bounty on Bin Laden. But a senior intelligence official in Washington
“Sao Paulo — a city of 18 million, populated by the fantastically wealthy and the severely poor with little in between — is, by some accounts, a
“The government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has steadily continued the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank during the
“The carpet industry, a major source of income for Afghan refugees in Pakistan, illustrates the dilemma facing Human Rights activists who want to
Here is a web page for those who wish to keep on top of Enron-related news: The Daily Enron
AI reports that 2,4468 people were executed in China’s crackdown on crime. This was reported earlier in the NY Times, but has received surprisingly
“Zambia has declared the country’s food shortage a national disaster, saying four million people face starvation.” (BBC)
“While, in the past, companies have created fake citizens’ groups to campaign in favor of trashing forests or polluting rivers, now they create fake
This is an important point that is very rarely made in the media. In this 2000 interview, Phyllis Bennis, head of the Middle East Project at the
“Officials at the American Civil Liberties Union criticized the new guidelines, saying they represent another step by the Bush administration to
“Two former high-ranking Taliban talk of reorganizing their militant religious movement and describe a recovering al-Qaida
Have the chiefs of staff at the pentagon been reading the Guardian UK? “Virtually the entire senior leadership of Al Qaeda and the Taliban have
“Barak today portrays Arafat’s behavior at Camp David as a”performance” geared to exacting from the Israelis as many concessions as possible without
“One of Afghanistan’s most powerful warlords, Abdul Rashid Dostum, has been elected to a tribal council that will pick the devastated country’s next
“But local officials said the raid on Bandi Temur, a poor collection of houses on the edge of the scalding, stony desert, less than 60 miles from
“The Palestinians did insist that Israel recognize that it bore responsibility for creating the problem of the refugees. But it is ironic that Barak
“The latest United Nations report on the Democratic Republic of Congo says rebels and foreign governments are still plundering the country’s
I thought this article was of interest simply because it exposes how wildly inaccurate the press can be about simple figures, such as the income
“Baghlan province, a rich agricultural region in northern Afghanistan, has been among the areas hardest hit this spring by a plague of locusts,
“Elections officials in Miami-Dade, Osceola and Orange Counties say they are in talks with the department over complaints that they failed to
“The Joint Chiefs of Staff have waged a determined behind-the-scenes campaign to persuade the Bush administration to reconsider an aggressive
“Microsoft Corp. is aggressively lobbying the Pentagon to squelch its growing use of freely distributed computer software and switch to proprietary
“Rubber bullets are unsafe and should never be used by authorities to control riots, doctors have warned.” (BBC)
“Digital video recorders, or DVR’s, make it so easy to program and play back shows
“Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who favors expanding the international peacekeeping force beyond Kabul, has circulated a letter to Bush among other
“Amid signs of hunger and malnutrition in the West Bank and Gaza, the UN World Food Programme launched an emergency operation yesterday to help feed
“Early results of face-recognition surveillance tests at Palm Beach International Airport suggest the technology is proving again to be unreliable,
“. . . whatever may have been the extent of success, almost every country, at least officially, recognised the need of state-led redistributive land
“The two men had applied to change their tourist visas into student visas in September 2000, after they had enrolled on a professional pilots’
“You see, corporate leaders were desperate to keep their stock prices rising, in an environment where anything short of 20 percent profit growth was
“Recently a group of female schoolteachers walked into the town
“During Vice President Dick Cheney’s tenure as its chief executive, the Halliburton Corporation altered its accounting policies so it could report
“Mr. Taniwal is mounting a two-pronged effort to show local residents and local gunmen that he has the funds from international donors to pay
“Farooq Ghulam, CARE’s education program director in Afghanistan, is visiting the United States for the United Nations Special Session on Children.
“A chief scientist with China’s Moon exploration programme, Ouyang Ziyuan, said that the country was planning to launch its first mission to the
“Farooq Ghulam, CARE’s education program director in Afghanistan, is visiting the United States for the United Nations Special Session on Children.
“The Nigerian Government is under pressure to disband state sponsored vigilantes operating in Eastern Nigeria.” (BBC)
“Music disc copyright protection schemes such a Cactus Data Shield 100/200 and KeyAudio can be circumvented using tools as basic as marker pens and
“The bitter Congo war is almost over but the militias who fought in it still attack women with impunity” (Guardian UK)
“Information from Mr. Murad’s confession formed a basis for an analysis prepared for United States intelligence agencies in 1999. The analysis
“By holding fast to their capabilities for massive overkill, the United States and Russia are violating their pledge under the Nuclear
“Microsoft has come up with another novel way to make its software compulsory — an annual subscription licensing system for schools where you have
“Wim Jansen, a linguistics professor at Amsterdam University, and president of the defence league, said Dutch is under mortal threat and risks
“Pakistan was preparing to possibly fire nuclear weapons during a 1999 border conflict with India, moving the countries closer to nuclear war than
“One would think when we’re engaged in the war on terrorism, we would be going after terrorists, rather than tracking down little old ladies who are
“The classified memorandum written by an F.B.I. agent in Phoenix last summer urging bureau headquarters to investigate Middle Eastern men enrolled
“The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled, 5 to 4, in overturning a lower court’s ruling that the admissions policy used by the law
“The last tenant paid $500 a month for the place, an amount that now seems decidedly paltry in this city of galloping rents. The current cost is
“For a man with no official role in the new Afghanistan, Sayyaf commands attention. Once considered among the country’s most radical Islamic
“The nearly 300 boys here at the Sewa Dham school, most of them from what are called the tribal belts of central and northeastern India, hew to a
Cheney gets his pipeline! “Afghan interim ruler Hamid Karzai will hold talks with his Pakistani and Turkmenistan counterparts later this month
“A coalition of movie studios and TV networks, which includes Viacom Inc., the NBC television network, Walt Disney Co. and AOL Time Warner Inc., has
“The true revolution promised by the rise of bloggerdom is not about journalism. It’s about information management. The bloggers have the potential
“A European Union envoy in Afghanistan has called for urgent action to improve the conditions of hundreds of former Taleban fighters held prisoner
“Tens of thousands of stolen credit-card numbers are being offered for sale each week on the Internet in a handful of thriving, membership-only
“Of Enron Corp.’s many political maneuvers in Washington before its fall into bankruptcy, winning the promise of federal financing for a 390-mile
“NASA needs parts no one makes anymore…. So to keep the shuttles flying, the space agency has begun trolling the Internet” (NY Times)
“Ugandan rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have killed several hundred Sudanese civilians in the past week, Ugandan army and Sudan
“Tens of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets of Tel Aviv to demand the immediate withdrawal of the Israel army and settlers from
This article has an interesting discussion about half-way through regarding how the Richard Perle, a top military advisor, thinks about the
“The significance of the “smoking gun” Enron memos that came to light a few days ago is that they show exactly how swell those power executives
I’ve added a feature to the web page version of the blog whereby you can select to view only items in a particular category. Current categories are:
“The Central Intelligence Agency, using a missile fired from an unmanned surveillance drone, tried on Monday to kill an Afghan factional leader who
This is a very important commentary on the urgent need to reform the institutions of globalization. The former head of the World Bank, who has now
(New Scientist) “The age of the living robot is upon us. And all it takes to turn a living rat into a radio-controlled automaton is three
(Turnpoint) “My plan was to get relative performance measurements for various designs (including mine) of homebrew antennas for 802.11b wireless
(The Nation) “The Pentagon has not released any figures regarding the number of civilian casualties. But it appears that hundreds of
(Boston Review) The Rwandan experience in particular offers a number of rich lessons about the efficacy (or lack thereof) of the juridical approach
(Global Exchange) Coffee is the second largest US import after oil, and the US consumes one-fifth of all the world’s coffee, making it the largest
(Christian Science Monitor) “A group of influential tribal leaders from seven of Afghanistan’s 33 provinces say they’re so dismayed at the process
(Alternet) The Bush administration Monday formally renounced its obligations as a signatory to the 1998 Rome Statute to establish an International
(Alternet) Twenty-six states now require the pledge of allegiance to be recited in public schools. Some states require schools to reflect on the
(BBC) Human Rights Watch says at least 52 Palestinians died of whom 22 were civilians. Many of the civilians were killed wilfully and unlawfully the
(Tikkun) These are the data banks developed in Palestinian Authority institutions like the Education Ministry, the Higher Education Ministry and the
(NYTimes) In a victory for the United States, Turkey agreed today to assume command of the international security force in Kabul, the Afghan
(ZDNet) Attacks by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates on the GNU General Public License, under which much open source and free software is distributed,
(Wired) …celebratory plans were scuttled because of the heightened Israeli-Palestinian tensions. Instead,Bibliotheca Alexandrina — which ostensibly
(The Independent) What really happened when Israeli forces went into Jenin? Just as the world is giving up hope of learning the truth, Justin
(Afgha) The Afghan National Bank and the interim Finance Ministry both say they have not authorized the printing of new afghani bank notes recently.
(IAP) … as a consequence of organizing the demonstration and sit-in, the University of California at Berkeley has decided to susp! end Students for
(LaborNotes) Could the bad old days be returning to the AFL-CIO’s operations in other countries? Fear that in Venezuela the AFL-CIO was supporting
(UMI) Humanitarian aid groups are also clamoring for more peacekeepers and for them to be deployed throughout the country. The stability they
(Nation) By what inhuman calculus did Israel’s army, using dozens of tanks and armored personnel carriers, along with hundreds of missile strikes
(Slate) A good critical assessment of Al Gore’s Earth Day Op-Ed in the NYTimes this past Saturday, in which he accused “President Bush of
(New Scientist) China now ranks second in the world for home internet use and could leapfrog the US as the biggest online nation in the next few
(RedPepper) When supplies run low during the summer months, the Israeli water company, Mekorot, simply shuts off the valves that supply Palestinian
(NYTimes) I think that this is an important opinion piece by Jimmy Carter. He argues that more could be done to bring about a settlement
It was easy to miss this article on the protests in the NYTimes, although the Washington Post made it Front page news
(NYTimes) In what is believed to be the largest experiment in privatization mounted by an American school district, a state panel charged with
(BBC) A UN envoy has said that the devastation left by Israeli forces in the Jenin refugee camp is “horrific beyond belief”
(NYTimes) Bush today reversed his policy towards Afghanistan and, citing the Marshall Plan, he stated that we needed long-term support to rebuild
This is a rough transcript from a recent appearance by Roger Normand (Executive Director, CESR) on “The O’Reilly Factor”, a Fox talk show with a
(BBC) The head of the Dutch army has resigned over the Srebrenica massacre, one day after the entire government stood down
(Slate) Bush is the first in his family of politicians to craft a pro-Jewish image. Starting with accusations that Prescott Bush was a Nazi
(NYTimes) About 800,000 refugees fled their homes during the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948. A United Nations resolution, No. 194, passed that year,
(ZNet) “The conventional wisdom is that, even if both sides are at fault, the Palestinians are irrational “terrorists”who have no point of view
A number of papers ran with articles or op-ed pieces about the failure of the US to denounce the coup in Venezuela. Including the LA Times, the
(NYTimes) A recent drive around the New Jersey suburbs with two security experts underscored the ease with which a digital eavesdropper can peek
(electronicIntifada ) Myth 1: There is no moral equivalence between suicide bombings on the one hand, and Israel’s killing of Palestinians on the
(BBC) You got to wonder when people are denying things that nobody has accused them of yet
(Chronicle of Higher Ed — subscription required!) More than 300 European academics have signed a petition calling for a boycott of Israeli cultural
(BBC) Two million people, mostly in Africa, die needlessly each year, because water supplies are not being properly managed
(Amnesty International) “The US government must ensure that all its actions in relation to those in its custody in Afghanistan and Guant
(Nando) A Treasury Department investigation shows the Internal Revenue Service mistakenly paid out more than $30 million to tax filers seeking
(NYTimes) In Fremont, where 10,000 of the estimated 60,000 Afghan refugees in the San Francisco Bay area live, everyone knows someone who has
(BBC) Venezuela’s interim President Pedro Carmona has resigned after a single day in office, as protests continue in support of ousted leader Hugo
(NYTimes) Did the US make a mistake when it closed down one of Somalia’s largest employers? The NYTImes thinks so: “Five months later, however, some
(Guardian) Up to 5,000 child fighters have been encircled by Sudanese and Ugandan troops in southern Sudan, in readiness for an all-out assault on
The Economics Reporting Review is CEPR Co-Director Dean Baker’s weekly analysis of business and economics articles in the New York Times and the
The web site, CorpWatch India, has a very thoughtful and well balanced article about the events surrounding the introduction of Bt Cotton seed into
(BBC) A senior Chinese official says cracks have appeared in the controversial Three Gorges hydroelectric dam being built on the Yangtze river
(NYTimes) Nicholas Kristof Op Ed on Israel. Nothing new, but well written
(NYTimes) Many of the business executives recently appointed to government positions first entered the private sector after prior careers in the
(NYTimes) Pressed for profits, Internet companies are increasingly selling access to their users’ postal mail addresses and telephone numbers, in
(New Scientist) First came the atom bomb, the stealth bomber and the airborne laser. Now comes the US military’s latest fearsome weapon: the
The Electronic Intifada has a link to this list of rather depressing statistics on the Palestine Monitor web site
(Washington Post) Perhaps most striking is the series of fences and walls rising piecemeal along stretches of borderland between central Israeli
(BBC) A United Nations repatriation programme of tens of thousands of Afghan refugees has ground to a halt because of violence on Afghanistan’s
Speakers: Roger Normand, Executive Director, Center for Social and Economic Rights Brenda Stokely, President, AFSCME Local 215, DC1707;
(BBC) The Israeli army says it has killed at least 200 Palestinians in its sweeping 10-day offensive in the West Bank
A message from CESR. Click on “read more” at the end of this post to see the full letter. Dear friends, Despite international calls for a
(NYTimes) Under the plan, the Afghan officials will offer poppy farmers around $500 per acre to destroy their plants. If the farmers refuse, Mr.
If you have used Yahoo to purchase anything, for their e-mail forwarding service, or any other service where you might have given them your address,
(Alternet) A new bill would “require any device that can “retrieve or access copyrighted works in digital form” to include a federally mandated copy
(Guardian) British peacekeepers traded gunfire with Afghans in crime-plagued west Kabul, only to find they had been mistaken for robbers on the prowl
(Alternet) This article describes the bizarre views coming from far right camps in the US, like the American Enterprise Institute. They seem to
(New Scientist) This article describes a new invention that will take those noise-cancelling headphones and make them work with speakers. It will be
(BBC) General Jurat said most of those arrested were members of Hezb-i-Islami — a hardline Islamic group headed by former prime minister and
(NYTimes) A profile of “Ismail Khan, the powerful governor in western Afghanistan who American officials fear is being courted by Iranian
The NYTimes has a review of a three part (six hour!) series on globalization that will premier tonight at 9:00 (at least in NY). It sounds
(BBC) New violence flairs up. Over 700 muslims have died in the riots to date …
(Afga) An article points out the limitations and contradictions in Bush’s plan to train the new Afghan army
(BBC) The Japanese have come up with exactly the thing I would need if I am ever going to sing in a Taiwanese KTV
Witness accounts obtained by the Guardian in villages across the Pashtun belt, close to the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, show a pattern of brutal revenge
(Alternet) This letter by Israeli human rights activist and writer Neve Gordon was published in the weekly Jerusalem newspaper Kol Ha’Ir. It is
(Tidbits) An article in Tidbits expains the history of text from ASCII to Unicode: “Unicode. Whether or not you’ve heard of Unicode, it affects you.
(Alternet) There aren’t that many articles on this page itself, but there are good links to breaking news and other web sites
(NYTimes) This is an interesting article on the inability of US and Europe to stop Opium production this year in Afghanstian. Quote: “In the absence
(NYTimes) An in depth look at the US Beef industry from the magazine section. Quote: “The F.D.A. is opening an inquiry into the problem, but for
According to the Times is a Web-only feature highlighting facts and figures culled from the week’s news. It appears on Thursdays
(Guardian) Israeli troops have taken over Yasser Arafat’s headquarters, switched off the electricity and telephone and confined him to one floor of
(NYTimes) Tribal leaders from the treacherous mountainous areas along the border with Afghanistan have an unambiguous message for American
If you are looking for tools to run your own blog, I have a section on my bookmarks page. Some of the tools are free, and some are very easy to run
The Nation regularly reports on, investigates and analyzes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We’ve devoted this special web page to related material
It is so easy to create a blog, that I decided I’d add one for information technology related news. I’ll be posting links to useful research tools,
(NYTimes) New York State has broken down elementary and middle school standardized test scores by race and ethnicity for the first time and found
(NYTimes) Billy Wilder, the caustic writer and director who won six Academy Awards and international acclaim as one of the world’s great filmmakers
(NYTimes) Here are some ideas for new products that should exist, but don’t; at least, not according to the exhaustive search conducted by my
(Guardian) Dr Francis Lovemore, medical director of the Amani Trust human rights group in Harare, says sexual assaults or forced sexual humiliation
(Guardian) More than 2,000 are feared dead as Afghans race to rescue buried victims of worst earthquake in living memory …
(Salon) A new ruling involving the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is set to wipe out independent online music stations
(Source — Focusweb) World coffee prices have fallen to their lowest level in 32 years. Before this price collapse coffee was the world’s largest
(Source — NYTimes) [An] Afghan official said American officials had told Italian counterparts last week that Italy, not the United States, should
(Source — IWPR) Cave networks in the mountains around the Bamiyan Buddhas, the giant statues destroyed by the Taleban last year, have become
(Source — Guardian) It accuses President Bush of being the “thief-in-chief, a trespasser on federal land, a squatter at the Oval Office” and calls
(Source — Guardian) The US Air Force has begun preparations to move its Gulf headquarters from Saudi Arabia to Qatar, to bypass Saudi objections to
(Source — Relief Web) This page contains a list of the latest major documents added to ReliefWeb pertaining to Afghanistan
(Source — NYTimes) The Supreme Court today interpreted a federal drug law to permit the eviction of public housing tenants for drug use by any
(Link to Source — BBC) More than 1,500 people are feared dead and thousands have been left homeless after a series of earthquakes struck
(Link to Source -Media Monitors) Why Sharon is a War Criminal An eye-witness report of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre: by Dr. Ben Alofs. I am a
(Link to Source — BBC) India’s parliament has begun a rare joint session as the government attempts to pass a controversial anti-terrorism bill
Things aren’t working as expected. It seems that Yahoo’s Digest mode doesn’t accept HTML e-mail. That means I have had to switch everyone back to
(Link to Source — Guardian) China and Iran have withdrawn their contribution to monitoring nuclear tests, apparently in protest at Washington’s
(Source — NYTimes) Turmoil that could ultimately threaten his government, from ethnic strife to battles among warlords, percolates nearly everywhere
(Link to Source — Afgha.com) Zahir Shah, the former king of Afghanistan, vowed yesterday to be “in Kabul by April,” shrugging off concerns over his
(Link to Source — Guardian UK) It is curious that the man who controls a quarter of the world’s oil reserves, and whose Middle East peace initiative
(Source::AFROL) Nigerian universities experience a wave of strikes as lecturers from one university after another demonstrate their solidarity with
[NYTimes] Taiwan’s government has stunned its freewheeling news media by seeking to ban a weekly magazine that was about to publish an article
Afgha.com — U.S. Troops Found Afghan Biological Weapons Lab U.S. troops battling remnants of the al Qaeda network in southeast Afghanistan (news —
Afghans Have a Palace, but Not a Role, Ready for the Former King By the quiet, almost secretive way in which the Karzai government has prepared for
BBC News | Afghan schools enter post-Taleban era Almost two million children are expected to return to school — significantly, many of them girls
U.N. Urges ‘More Crop Per Drop’ as Water Dwindles — “Water scarcity and quality will be one of the major problems of the 21st century,” Godwin
AlterNet — CORN: We Make War; Keeping Peace is for Others For months, Hamid Karzai, the interim prime minister, has pleaded for expanding the
U.S. Nuclear Arms Stance Modified The Bush administration is working to codify the evolution of U.S. strategic nuclear doctrine from the Cold War
Many people seemed happy about the new format, while some still wanted e-mail. Hopefully this compromise will work — you will get e-mails, but not
The Guardian | Beijing rounds up Muslims The Chinese authorities have detained thousands of Muslims in Xinjiang region in the north-west since
BBC News | Italian workers take to the streets The centre of Rome has been brought to a standstill by an anti-terror demonstration organised by
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