Pacific Free Press was launched in March 2007 by Dutch-Canadian Richard
Kastelein of V.O.F. Expathos, in the Netherlands along with Chris Cook- CFUV radio journalist and Editor in Chief of Pacific Free Press. Cook is based in , Victoria, British Columbia.
The mission of Pacific Free Press is simple: to dig out nuggets of truth from
the slag-heap of lies, ignorance and witless diversion that has buried
public discourse today. Pacific Free Press provides a new venue for
disseminating hard news and insightful, fact-based analysis of the
harsh realities too often ignored or distorted by the mainstream press.
The news was mixed to good to what the hell for those of us who plug in daily to the Air America Radio network, good because the troubled little network has a backer, mixed because Al Franken is hanging up his microphone — perhaps to chase bigger and better things — and to what the hell because Franken's departure leads to the rocket promotion of a bearded professor of a man called Thom Hartmann.
For those of you living in a cave, provided that the cave has food, heat, cable, and every other amenity besides a satellite radio receiver or a high-speed Internet connection, the announcement came down at noon today, as Franken himself announced that the Greens of New York would be purchasing the property and that he, Al Franken, would leave the microphone Feb. 14. He did not provide the two of this one-two punch and tell us if he intended to run against Norm Coleman in Minnie Soda.
It is, surely, a relief to know that the Air America Radio has a backer and that it will survive. It would have been a profound shame to have lost this, once the pluckiest presence in the genre, indeed, that which formed the genre, which previously had consisted of Hurricane Randi in the Sunshine State, Alan Colmes at the improbably Fox "News," Big Ed, and the chronic SFX-abusing Stephanie Miller. Before the Air America, there was some scratching at the gate but no leaping over and no explosive smashing through. Say what you will of the network's reliance on brand and big name dropping. It got them through the door, and it was Franken — whose "Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot" was so groundbreaking it's difficult to remember that it was — who led the crush.
So realize how much oxygen Franken's departure will suck out and how, once again, the Air America seems rather unprepared for the transition.
In
2004, 20 million unmarried women -- single, divorced, separated or
widowed -- didn't vote. In 2006, that number was 30 million.
Depressing? Yes. But in 2008, these women are also known as the voting
bloc that could determine the outcome of this election and many more to
come.
Unmarried women make up the largest bloc of non-voters
in the nation. Over 26 percent of eligible voters -- 53 million people
-- are unmarried women. And for the first time in history there are as
many women who are unmarried as married.
The Squatters Won’t Go Away
by Philippe Revelli From Morro do Osso -- Bone Hill -- in Itapecerica da Serra, on the southwest fringe of greater São Paulo, you can see rows of homes made of black plastic sheeting supported by wood or bamboo poles.
Here and there a column of white smoke rises from a fire on which the morning coffee brews.
Some 3,000 families from the city’s favelas have occupied an area of private land beneath the banner of the Homeless Workers’ Movement (MTST).
Thousands of laborers are toiling around the clock to complete dozens of Olympic stadiums and support facilities, overhaul the entire metropolitan infrastructure and transportation system, and install state-of-the-art toilets at all the tourist attractions.
The noise generated by the pounding and drilling with heavy equipment has city residents complaining of sleepless nights. An even greater concern is air pollution.
Rove Could Be Held in Contempt of Congress: Is Karl Rove Headed to Jail?
by American News Project
The House Judiciary Committee has voted to hold Karl Rove in contempt of Congress after repeated efforts to get him to testify under oath.
Now the decision to take the matter to the House floor for vote lies with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
She says she won't consider the resolution until September but public pressure is mounting. Is Karl Rove headed to jail?
The Grand Jury indictment was hand delivered in a plain brown envelope. Because it arrived late, I decided to have dinner before unsealing the package. I had enough clues about the contents to know it was going to be a long night.
By dawn - I was still up desperately fighting off the temptation to sleep. Every page of the indictment revived buried memories from the scene of the crime. Long forgotten details were resurrected in vivid color. To my surprise, there was also a lot of evidence that I wasn't aware of - the kind of details only a professional investigator knows how to dig up.
After a few hours of sleep - I got up and instinctively reached for the indictment. The charges were conspiracy to defraud the United States of America. An ex-district attorney from California had taken it upon herself to prosecute Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell and Rice for systematically lying to the American people to make a fraudulent case for launching a war in Iraq.
By noon, I was done. I had read the indictment, seen the compelling evidence, waded through an instructive lecture explaining the exact legal definition of conspiracy and fraud and accepted an implicit invitation to sit on the Grand Jury.
It was a closed and shut case. There was no beating the rap. The former district attorney had obviously done her homework and she was going to cakewalk her case from the Grand Jury to a full-blown trial.
You can’t make this stuff up. George Bush believes that “the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude.” On the other side of the political divide, Presidential hopeful Joseph Biden - a sponsor of the anti-surge legislation pending before Congress - maintains that we’ve “done enough for the Iraqis.”
What a strange war we’re having Iraq. After four years of shifting rationales, Americans remain clueless about why Bush opened this Pandora’s box. The cold math that led to this disastrous imperial project is just too much for the pundits to own up to.
Far too many Americans trip over whatever happens to be the latest rationale for sending half our army half way around the world to fight a people that did us no harm. Even the anti-war camp is crowded with pundits whose gripe de jour is that Bush is a messianic Samaritan idealist who miscalculated the cost of exporting liberty to Iraqi ingrates.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s very gratifying to see the war party’s constituency dwindle to an irredentist thirty percent of the population. It wasn’t so long ago that opponents of the Iraq war were rewarded with scarlet letters identifying them as subversive Al-Qaeda apologists.
Over the past year, I’ve posted the first eight installments (seven chapters and an excursis) of my unpublished book, THE RIVER AND ITS CHANNEL. It’s a book of which I feel very fond, and one that continues to excite me (and one whose failure to find a publisher I grieve). I’m glad that it has been grabbed at least some of you as well.
Here now, for your possible weekend reading, is chapter 8. (One interesting segment of this chapter is an exploration of the nature of creativity.)
The overarching question with which THE RIVER AND ITS CHANNEL is concerned might be stated: Is there something that we can trust to see that what unfolds in our lives and in the world is as it should be, or are we wise to try to impose our will and intention to make things happen as they should happen?
The book itself works by weaving together two levels: the telling of a story and the exploration of ideas. How the story unfolds is in itself organically connected with how the ideas get clarified.
Chapter 8
ADVENTURES IN THE EXCLUDED MIDDLE
It felt like a significant shift in my project. From celebrating the unfolding side of things in preference to the controlling, I began now to explore how it might be that beauty and wisdom emerge out of the ways the two sides get combined in the dance. The project itself had been unfolding– and this, too, was a kind of dance that melded the unpredictable flows of sheer discovery with the more structured process of critical analysis. In the wake of this shift, I now I felt some need to regain my bearings.
For help in this, I sought out companionship, contacting people who might help me sort out the ways that we should allow things to unfold and the ways where we should impose our intentions and purposes. The search for such companionship was not an unmitigated success.
to the Question: Why Can They Not See?
by Andrew Bard Schmookler My naming my website “NoneSoBlind” indicates how struck I have been that so many of my fellow Americans have been unable to see something I regard as so blatant, as well as so vital, about the regime wielding power in America.
How can people who otherwise seem intelligent, and who otherwise seem decent, fail to see that this Bushite gang is a bunch of criminal, lying thugs?
How can they not see that this regime is a means by which evil forces are dismantling all that’s best in America?
My posting the exchange, below, fits in nicely with a point I’ve been making lately in conjunction with my argument that the Democrats in Congress are our most important weapon for defeating the Bushites. In advancing that argument against the considerable flak it has drawn from various people on the left, I’ve made the point that the situation of a politician is fundamentally different from that of the rest of us. To be an elected office-holder, one must please a majority of his/her audience, whereas someone like me gets to speak the truth as he sees it and let the chips fall where they may.
That connects with my posting this exchange in that I anticipate that a majority of the audience for this piece –on this site, and still more so on a few others where it will also likely appear—I expect I will lose rather than gain standing. In other words, more people, I expect, will think my interlocutor, with whom I am here in intense debate, and who is indeed a bright and articulate fellow, represents the more right and righteous point of view.
But I’m not running for office, and so I don’t have to concern myself with popularity. I get to do what I say one should not expect most politicians to do: stand up for what he thinks important and right for its own sake.
So, what do I regard as important about the issue under debate here? It affords another opportunity to look at a mind-set that I believe prevents the left from playing a constructive and effective role in America’s political life.
What follows is a discussion of Israel and its motives. For the most part, I have shied away from discussing the Arab-Israeli conflict– not because my views would be unpopular with this audience but because it would be a distraction from what I see as the central task of our times, which is to save America from the evil forces that have taken it over.
A speculation
I’ve expended some virtual ink here laying out my thoughts, post election, regarding the idea of impeachment. In a nutshell, I’ve said that while the Bushites deserve impeachment like none others in American history, the Democrats should proceed very carefully if at all to make sure that they do not play into the Bushites’ hands and lose the center of the American electorate. What I had in mind was that the Dems conduct the right kinds of hearings in the right way, and see how things evolve.
But of course, the situation in the system evolves in other ways as well. And with the Bushites’ latest military gambit –the so-called surge, as president in GWB’s talk to the nation this past week– may lead to a different scenario from any I’d imagined before. My purpose here is to lay out a conceibable scenario that may lead to impeachment sooner and for different reasons than I’d envisioned before.
1) Signs are accumulating that the new Bushite gambit is NOT about Iraq but about expanding the existing disaster in Iraq into a wider regional war, with Iran in particular as the target.
Among these signs are a) some language in the president’s statement, b) the replacement of the commander of American forces in Iraq by a Navy man whose expertise has nothing to do with the kind of war being fought in Iraq but would be appropriate for managing an air assault on Iran, and c) the the sending of a carrier fleet to the Persian Gulf.
12. A Revolution in a land far away – why is it important to me? (Opinion/Opinion)
Author : Andy Goodall
by Andy Goodall
A Revolution in a land far away – why is it important to me? Over the past few years, a revolution is happening in a land which people are now increasingly becoming aware of. This revolution has taken everybody by surprise, and as a result has caused optimism, anger, confusion, sadness, hatred and hope. All this is amongst those who are aware of much of what is happening. This can also apply to those who know little about the details.
The country in question is Venezuela , until recently a little known country by most living in Britain , it is nevertheless the worlds 4th largest exporter of oil, primarily to the United States of America but generating new markets recently. We are all affected by events happening there, as George Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and many US military chiefs have repeatedly made threats against Venezuela . Senior Right wing proponents have called for assassination of President Chavez. What are they upset about?
To understand this we need to need to understand what things were like in the recent past:
40% of all Caracas habitations had no water. Widespread illiteracy throughout the country 80% of Venezuelans lived in poverty minimal Health and Education Yawning divide between rich and poor Mass media censorship 80% of land belonged to 6% of the population Policy of "disappearing" left-wing activists was started in Venezuela and used as a model for the Southern Cone countries in the 1970's. Mass oppression to implement huge IMF cuts.
The Alberta Disadvantage in Higher Education
by Anthony J. Hall
In Alberta an attack is gathering force on the most fundamental principles essential to the academic viability of universities. This attack has implications that go far beyond the jurisdiction most stereotypically associated with cowboy culture and the lucrative vastness of this province’s oil and gas resources.
As demonstrated by the political genesis of Canada’s current federal government, developments in Alberta tend to lie at the origins of changes with broad ranging implications. Alberta has long been a laboratory for experimentation in right-wing techniques of political manipulation and governance. This experimentation is aimed most often at subordinating the activities of public institutions to the will and desires of the executive branches of private corporations, but especially the Texas-based energy conglomerates that dominate Calgary. Hence the stakes are large in the current drive to make Albertan universities conform to the energy industry’s preferred models of business management. If this insidious power grab succeeds here, it may soon spill over to contaminate the educational policies of other provinces and states.
14. As America Slept (Opinion/Opinion)
Author : Anwaar Hussain
by Anwaar Hussain
It all happened while America slept.
As America slept, airline jets appeared in the azure blue New York Skies some five years back and within minutes bumped through tall wonders of human achievements reducing them and their occupants to a tangled mass of steel, concrete and human flesh. While the world stood horror-struck and frozen from the pain of the victims and the sheer scale of the crime, somewhere in some dark unlit corners of America, a small leering cabal of malicious, hateful and warmongering few backslapped each other. But America slept.
As America slept, this small but ruthless group of men stole democracy from the American people and almost knocked her over with a noxious blow of fascism. The political philosophy of these creatures sent instant shivers up the collective spine of global citizenry. But America slept.
As America slept, their liberties were curtailed, their freedoms taken away, their economy bankrupted, their private lives spied upon and their nation kept in a constant state of fear. Riding on the wings of ‘terror’, their leaders sleep marched America into history's hall of shame. But America slept.
I remember the horror of death. On a darkening evening, three soldiers encountered me on a jungle trail. Our meeting startled us. The soldiers braced to shoot me. Shaking, I wedged myself and my M-16 rifle against a tree. I shot two of them. The third person dropped to the Earth on that dusk eve, crawled into dense bushes, and thankfully fled away. "Oh God." I groaned deeply. "What have I done? Why am I here?"
War unites humanity to feel madness, horror, and insanity. There must exist an enclave of peace, meditation, solace, and a quiet place to step back from this insanity. To be able to find and touch the Self's reserve of tranquility of Being is a difficult spiritual struggle. The Word one searches for to be descriptive and speak, fails. Words are all we have to work with. Words lack the power and often we people feel diminished with hardly the capacity to communicate. I represent myself guilty of this fact.
Before I digressed into the second paragraph, I began to mention that portraits were found on the limp, lifeless, lacerated forms. In long moments immediately after their death, I began wondering about those rummaged pictures my fellow squad members found. I wondered about their mothers, fathers, children, and their extended families of friends. Being stricken with a truth I had always known: These Vietnamese were people, distinguished and unique individuals. They were fellow humans, not my enemy.
Aaron Mercredi: I see you have accused me of disrupting your event on Friday, March 30, 2007, UBC. As
you witnessed, I rose to ask Mr. Bob Robideau a question after he
publicly accused Tutchone citizen, Canadian citizen, and Vancouver
resident John Graham with murdering fellow Canadian activist Anna Mae
Pictou Aquash. The question I asked, which remains unanswered, is
simple:
1. What evidence does Mr. Robideau possess that suggests Mr. Graham was involved with the death of Ms. Pictou Aquash?
The Struggle for Affordable Housing in New Orleans
by Bill Quigley In a remarkable symbol of the injustices of post-Katrina reconstruction, hundreds of people were locked out of a public New Orleans City Council meeting addressing demolition of 4,500 public housing apartments.
Demolition Man: HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson has his own reasons for
pressing ahead with the demolitions.
Some were tasered, many pepper sprayed, and a dozen arrested. Outside the chambers, iron gates were chained and padlocked even before the scheduled start.
The scene looked like one of those countries on TV that is undergoing a people's revolution -- and the similarities were only beginning.
$400,000 Apartments for the Holidays
by Bill Quigley On the 12th day before Christmas, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is planning to unleash teams of bulldozers to demolish thousands of low-income apartments in New Orleans.
Despite Katrina causing the worst affordable housing crisis since the Civil War, HUD is spending $762 million in taxpayer funds to tear down over 4,600 public housing subsidized apartments and replace them with 744 similarly subsidized units — an 82% reduction.
HUD is in charge and one person, a HUD employee, makes all the local housing authority decisions. HUD took over the local housing authority years ago — all decisions are made in Washington DC. HUD plans to build an additional 1000 market rate and tax credit units — which will still result in a net loss of 2,700 apartments to New Orleans — the remaining new apartments will cost an average cost of over $400,000 each!
Jailed for Justice
by Bill Quigley Louis Vitale, 75, a Franciscan priest, and Steve Kelly, 58, a Jesuit priest, were each sentenced to five months in federal prison for attempting to deliver a letter opposing the teaching of torture at Fort Huachuca in Arizona.
Both priests were taken directly into jail from the courtroom after sentencing.
A few months ago I began receiving emails with a subject line “Submission For Linking” from Jason Miller. I’m not sure how he discovered me or my website, but as began reading the barrage of articles that Jason sent me for linking, I became increasingly impressed with his blogspot and with the person managing it. Upon noticing that Jason occasionally interviewed other progressive bloggers, I requested that he interview me, and the results have been extraordinary, in part, because of the nature of the questions that Jason asks. As a result, I asked Jason if I could interview him, not only to return a favor, but because I am genuinely curious about who this man is and what drives his passion to maintain and manage Thomas Paine’s Corner, aka, Civil Libertarian Blogspot.
Jason, I take it that you are not the actor, Jason Miller, who played the Father Damien Karras in “The Exorcist.” So having established that, I have some questions for you:
1) Jason, I notice that you live in Kansas City. How long have you lived in the Midwest, and how do you find the consciousness in your part of the Midwest with respect to issues of civil liberties, human rights, social justice, and the other topics on which you write?
I have spent most of my 40 years here in the Kansas City area. My father worked for the federal government, so as a child I did live near Washington, DC for a couple of years.
Thanks to a sustained effort by the moneyed interests wielding the power in the United States, a significant percentage of the US American public remains transfixed by a carefully woven tapestry of lies. Up until two years ago, I was amongst that group. A significant number of our fellow citizens, whether they live in the Midwest, the Northeast, or wherever frantically search for ways to fend off threats to their highly addictive and comforting delusions of American Exceptionalism, benevolence, and moral leadership.
As you are well aware, our Constitutional Republic, which was forged by children of the Enlightenment and embedded with democratic principles yet still marred by the legalization of chattel slavery and the exclusion of Native Americans, has been under siege by a ruthless aristocracy from its inception. Cultural myths of equal opportunities for all, upward mobility, glorious wars to “protect our freedoms”, and numerous other bundles of tripe serve to blind most of the public to the realities of domestic economic fascism and the mass murder our military routinely commits to advance our imperial foreign policy.
Many US Americans are too busy adhering to their programmed script and “thanking a vet” for their rights and freedom to realize that soldiers serving in wars of aggression were unwitting pawns of an opulent ruling class determined to increase its wealth and power under the guise of “spreading democracy”.
Vision obscured by the “rockets red glare”, many of us remain blind to truths that would be devastating to the soft form of tyranny practiced by the deeply entrenched Duopoly. Throughout the relatively brief history of the United States, federalists, slavery proponents, Robber Barons, corporations, monopolists, lobbyists, defense contractors, and a host of other entities have waged war on human rights, freedoms, and civil liberties, in one form or another.
Yet many of the people with whom I engage daily (in person and via the Internet) can’t seem to get their arms around the fact that we are living one of the biggest lies ever contrived. Nor do they recognize that the civil rights, consumer and environmental protections, “entitlements”, and employment benefits are not there because “our boys” donned uniforms and wasted millions of “lesser” human beings nor because men like George Bush and Dick Cheney have hearts of gold.
From my experience, there are still many Flat-Earthers dwelling in many regions of our country who believe that the freedoms and rights which are still extant in the United States, exist thanks to, rather than in spite of, the militaristic plutocrats who have ruled our republic for years.
Ontario's Bruce Power talks of nuke plant for northern Alberta
Nuclear power could cut oil sands emissions
by CBC News Bruce Power, a private nuclear utility that generates about a fifth of Ontario's electricity, said Thursday it has taken a step that could lead to construction of Western Canada's first nuclear plant.
Bruce said it filed an application with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission for clearance to prepare a possible site in Alberta's Peace River district.
The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. -- Andre Lorde
It should surprise no one that the United States invasion and occupation of Iraq four years ago was based upon lies and fabricated evidence. Other wars instigated by the U.S. were begun in the same way, but we never seem to learn the lessons that history could teach us. The purpose of the U.S. invasion was not to free the Iraqi people or to spread democracy (when has the government ever done that?); it was to privatize the natural wealth of the region and to transfer ownership from the Iraqi pubic domain to the coffers of U.S. corporations.
We have a long and shameful history of imperial invasions and occupations, and no experience building democracies.
The Ghosts of Misplaced Conscience
by Charles Sullivan Everything about America is done to the max—super sized—including ourselves.
Americans are fond of excess, fond of glitz and glitter, the bright beads and trinkets of capitalism; the symbols of conspicuous consumption.
Millions of us live in McMansions, drive fast cars and hulking tanks and work at high stress glamorous jobs that provide enormous financial reward but leave us spiritually empty.
Pacifying the Public
by Charmaine White Face The
USDA Forest Service from Custer National Forest out of Billings, MT, is
responsible for a large area in the Northwestern corner of South
Dakota. The Cave Hills and Slim Buttes area exhibits some of the most
unique and beautiful landscapes in the state. This area also was used
extensively in the 1960s for uranium mining, …open-pit uranium mining.
Unfortunately, at that time, there were no laws for reclamation, so 89
mines and prospects were left abandoned, according to information from
the US Forest Service.
On Nov. 13, 2007, in the nearest
community to the Cave Hills area, a blink of an eye place known as
Ludlow, the Forest Service held an open house “to update the public on
the activities happening at the site.” It was advertised in the
regions’ daily newspaper a few times, and flyers were sent to
interested individuals.
"I used to be a victim. Now I'm a threat!" - Harriet Nahanee 1935- 2007
Not everyone in Vancouver cheered when the city was elected to host the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. Advocates for the largely forgotten residents of the Downtown East Side issued dire predictions of displacement during the course of the games, and the further gentrification of the neighbourhood afterwards. Afterall, it was something those living in the city back in the eighties already experienced with that other global bread and circus extravaganza that brings misery to the poor and marginalized citizens wherever it goes: the travelling Expo(s).
Deceits to Come: A Predictive History of George Bush's Second Term
by C. L. Cook
Before the New Year gets out of its diapers, and in the spirit of pre-emption lately so fashionable, I think it fitting to sketch out a few of the inevitable crimes, and misdemeanors George W. Bush must commit during his second illegitimate term if he is to complete the creation of the nightmare project that is his New American Century.
[I wrote this in the early days of 2005, those halcyonyears when war was young and... - lex]
Editor; I just picked up my Saturday Times-Colonist to find the most ignorant ad I have ever seen staring me in the face from page F5. The full page ad is titled "Introducing Affordable Housing for Rich People."
It seems to me to be the epitome of everything that is wrong with our greedy self-serving way of living.
Afghanistan Fatalities: "We Didn't Want Canadians to be Aware"
by C. L. Cook
Brigadier-General Mike Ward, the head of Canadian Forces operations summed up Canada's continued involvement with American wars in the Near East yesterday, telling reporters Joint Task Force 2 (JTF2), a secretive commando unit, had killed and captured Afghani "insurgents."
"We didn't specifically want Canadians to be aware that special
operations were operating abroad." - Brigadier-General Mike Ward on
Canadian involvement in Afghanistan. (Sept. 20, 2005)
[With news of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan today, Jan. 17, 2008 suffering the third of three bombing attacks against patrols in the past week, (one confirmed killed and seven wounded) a look back to the point where the Canadian ship of state changed course, taking a distinctly more militaristic tack to the occupation in that country is warranted. - lex]
Operation Keeping Goodwill
by C. L. Cook Two Canadian soldiers are reported today wounded during a new offensive in southern Afghanistan. The Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) says hundreds of Canadian troops are taking part in Operation Khar Khowhai, translated as Keeping Goodwill.
It's a presumptive title at best, as there has been little evidence of a goodwill towards International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) to keep in Afghanistan, whether at bayonet point, or among the largely illusory beneficiaries of Canada's much touted Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT).
And Shall it be the Law of the Town? Arresting George W. Bush
by C. L. Cook What if it's as easy as that; what if stopping the horrors we, the whole of humanity, have witnessed in the person of George W. Bush and his extra-legal operatives these past seven years could be as simple as that?
Kurt Daims
Seven long years; is that not enough suffering endured to atone any sin; long enough to have an end to torment? Kurt Daims of Brattleboro, Vermont thinks so, so he's taking the notion to council of a war crimes indictment, to be sworn out against Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney should they happen by the township.
Controversial Canadian Government Bill Passes First Reading:
Land Can Only be Bought by Christians
by Kim Petersen On Friday, 20 July, the Canadian parliament approved first reading of a bill that would allow for the purchase of land by Christians only. While largely uncontroversial in the Canadian parliament and media, it ruffled some feathers elsewhere.
In a statement released by the Vatican, the bill was described as “too far reaching.” Pope Benedict XVI indicated that land should only be purchasable by Roman Catholics as it is the only church established on the planet by Jesus.
Anti-Genocide Activists in Guatemala Kidnapped, Threatened Anonymous
18 Feb 2007 02:20:07 PM
An indigenous rights organizer pursuing the national genocide cases in Guatemala was recently kidnapped in Guatemala City while other members of the activist legal team with whom he works have recieved written threats and incurred other types of intimidation.
On Feb. 2, Otto Navarro, a lawyer with the Center for Legal Action in Human Rights (CALDH), found the tire of his car slashed. Later that day, Josè Roberto Morales, CALDH’s indigenous rights coordinator, was kidnapped by two armed men in a carjacking in front of his house. They released him in another neigborhood, advisng him that if he activated the vehicle’s alarm they would return to his home to murder him. His vehicle was later uncovered with all of his belongings, including a laptop computer, intact.
United
Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, former Canadian Supreme
Court Justice, Louise Arbour received a barrage of criticism in Israel
a day after her comments regarding Israel's continuing atrocities
commited against the civilian population of Palestine.
Yesterday, Louise Arbour toured the battered town of Beit Hanoun.
Residents took the U.N. High Commissioner through houses destroyed by
Israeli artillary fire; fire that has claimed the lives of at least 19,
wounding more than fifty others. It was for Arbour the beginning of a
five day visit to the area,planned to culminate in an audience with
Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Omert.
After hearing survivor's stories, and walking through the rubble of
destroyed houses, Arbour decried the attacks, saying; "The call for
protection [of civilians] has to be answered. We cannot see civilians,
who are not the authors of their own misfortune, suffer to the extent
of what I see here."
Attorneys Firing Scandal: Karl Rove Served with Judiciary Committee Subpoena
by C. L. Cook
Dana Siegelman, intrepid daughter of wrongly convicted former Alabama governor, Don Siegelman sends a link to an Associated Press account of Karl Rove, once famously touted as 'Bush's Brain' to appear before the House Judiciary Committee to answer questions regarding his knowledge of, and possible involvement in, tampering with the nation's judiciary, culminating in the firing of at least nine U.S. States Attorneys General for political reasons.
Governor Siegelman was recently released from prison, pending appeals of the court's finding against him, and the unprecedented nature of his sentencing.
Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste is returning to Haiti for a weekend visit today. This is double good news: it is a sign that Fr. Gerry's recovery from leukemia has gone far, and that Haiti's justice system is recovering enough for Fr. Gerry to count on it respecting his rights.
On the bad news side, Hurricane Dean is expected to pass about 100 miles south of Haiti on Saturday. Current predictions are for tropical storm force winds, but probably not hurricane force winds, to hit Haiti’s Southern Peninsula. Heavy rains are expected.
Who says there is no hope for peace in the Middle East? Here's a very heartening development, as bitter enemies reach across the divide to join hands in a common cause. Surely such faith-filled cooperation between the "People of the Book," the "Children of Abraham," the "Fanatical Devotees of a Bronze Age Sky-God Cult" will be the way forward from the current hell of war and strife, leading the world into a new earthly paradise where human beings are not allowed to seek warmth, affection, contact and pleasure from one another, except in the severely restricted circumstances dictated by fanatical devotees of a Bronze-Age Sky-God cult. (The picture at right shows some good godly folk setting fires in the streets, offering up the fragrant aroma of, er, cardboard boxes and wooden crates to pleasure the nostrils of the Most High God.)
Of course, those other People of the Bookers – the Bush-Base American Christianites who have made sexuality the great, throbbing focus of their heated, panting faith – should also be standing shoulder-to-shoulder, cheek-by-jowl, arm-in-arm, thigh-pressed-firmly-but-chastely-to-thigh with their fellow Sky-God cultists in Jerusalem. Perhaps they could send a representative to the protests, some prominent figure of great spiritual power and high political connections, to show that America stands with the rabbis and mullahs in the holy crusade against warmth, affection, contact and pleasure.
This is my latest article for Truthout.org. Links to follow later.
Less than a mile from where British Prime Minister Tony Blair was gripping and grinning during a surprise visit to Baghdad on Sunday, agents of the extremist factions that he and George W. Bush have empowered, paid and heavily armed were raiding the offices of the Iraqi Red Crescent Agency and rounding up some of the few remaining relief workers in the country who attend to the suffering of all sides. This bold, broad-daylight assault came less than 48 hours after top Red Crescent officials publicly accused U.S. military forces of conducting a series of attacks on the agency's offices around the country during the course of the war.
As the New York Times reports, the Sunday raid followed a grim pattern that is by now well-established in the bloodsoaked capital, and is likely to have the same grim conclusion. The usual "armed men dressed in police commando uniforms" descended on the Red Crescent office just outside the Coalition's Green Zone island of virtual reality and methodically went through the building and seized all the male employees. Seven men were later released, while the rest were taken off to an unknown location.
The "armed men in police commando uniforms" were, of course, police commandos, in this case almost certainly under the control of the Interior Ministry, one of the Shiite enclaves in the sectarian-riddled government. As the NYT notes, "control of the district, in the heart of Baghdad, was given to the Iraqi police in November." The Interior and Defense Ministries, which control the bulk of Iraq's security forces, are in the hands of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the militant Shiite party whose leader, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, was given a warm White House welcome by Bush earlier this month. SCIRI was formed in Iran by Iraqi exiles and touts Khomeini-style clerical rule. Yet because of its long-time willingness to wheel and deal with America's "security organs," it has been a favorite of the invaders throughout the occupation. In a recent TomPaine.co
About 
The news was mixed to good to what the hell for those of us who plug in daily to the Air America Radio network, good because the troubled little network has a backer, mixed because Al Franken is hanging up his microphone — perhaps to chase bigger and better things — and to what the hell because Franken's departure leads to the rocket promotion of a bearded professor of a man called Thom Hartmann. 
From Morro do Osso -- Bone Hill -- in Itapecerica da Serra, on the southwest fringe of greater São Paulo, you can see rows of homes made of black plastic sheeting supported by wood or bamboo poles. 
The opening of the 29th Olympic games in Beijing is less than nine months away.
The Grand Jury indictment was hand delivered in a plain brown envelope. Because it arrived late, I decided to have dinner before unsealing the package. I had enough clues about the contents to know it was going to be a long night. 
My naming my website “
My posting the exchange, below, fits in nicely with a point I’ve been making lately in conjunction with my argument that the Democrats in Congress are our most important weapon for defeating the Bushites. In advancing that argument against the considerable flak it has drawn from various people on the left, I’ve made the point that the situation of a politician is fundamentally different from that of the rest of us. To be an elected office-holder, one must please a majority of his/her audience, whereas someone like me gets to speak the truth as he sees it and let the chips fall where they may.
A speculation
I’ve expended some virtual ink here laying out my thoughts, post election, regarding the idea of impeachment. In a nutshell, I’ve said that while the Bushites deserve impeachment like none others in American history, the Democrats should proceed very carefully if at all to make sure that they do not play into the Bushites’ hands and lose the center of the American electorate. What I had in mind was that the Dems conduct the right kinds of hearings in the right way, and see how things evolve.
In Alberta an attack is gathering force on the most fundamental principles essential to the academic viability of universities. This attack has implications that go far beyond the jurisdiction most stereotypically associated with cowboy culture and the lucrative vastness of this province’s oil and gas resources. 
It all happened while America slept.
Aaron Mercredi: I see you have accused me of disrupting your event on Friday, March 30, 2007, UBC. As
you witnessed, I rose to ask Mr. Bob Robideau a question after he
publicly accused Tutchone citizen, Canadian citizen, and Vancouver
resident John Graham with murdering fellow Canadian activist Anna Mae
Pictou Aquash. The question I asked, which remains unanswered, is
simple:
In a remarkable symbol of the injustices of post-Katrina reconstruction, hundreds of people were locked out of a public New Orleans City Council meeting addressing demolition of 4,500 public housing apartments.
On the 12th day before Christmas, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is planning to unleash teams of bulldozers to demolish thousands of low-income apartments in New Orleans. 
Louis Vitale, 75, a Franciscan priest, and Steve Kelly, 58, a Jesuit priest, were each sentenced to five months in federal prison for attempting to deliver a letter opposing the teaching of torture at Fort Huachuca in Arizona. 
A few months ago I began receiving emails with a subject line “Submission For Linking” from Jason Miller. I’m not sure how he discovered me or my website, but as began reading the barrage of articles that Jason sent me for linking, I became increasingly impressed with his blogspot and with the person managing it. Upon noticing that Jason occasionally interviewed other progressive bloggers, I requested that he interview me, and the results have been extraordinary, in part, because of the nature of the questions that Jason asks. As a result, I asked Jason if I could interview him, not only to return a favor, but because I am genuinely curious about who this man is and what drives his passion to maintain and manage 
It should surprise no one that the United States invasion and occupation of Iraq four years ago was based upon lies and fabricated evidence. Other wars instigated by the U.S. were begun in the same way, but we never seem to learn the lessons that history could teach us. The purpose of the U.S. invasion was not to free the Iraqi people or to spread democracy (when has the government ever done that?); it was to privatize the natural wealth of the region and to transfer ownership from the Iraqi pubic domain to the coffers of U.S. corporations. 
Everything about America is done to the max—super sized—including ourselves. 
Not everyone in Vancouver cheered when the city was elected to host the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. Advocates for the largely forgotten residents of the Downtown East Side issued dire predictions of displacement during the course of the games, and the further gentrification of the neighbourhood afterwards. Afterall, it was something those living in the city back in the eighties already experienced with that other global bread and circus extravaganza that brings misery to the poor and marginalized citizens wherever it goes: the travelling Expo(s).
Editor; I just picked up my Saturday Times-Colonist to find the most ignorant ad I have ever seen staring me in the face from page F5. The full page ad is titled "Introducing Affordable Housing for Rich People." 
Two Canadian soldiers are reported today wounded during a new offensive in southern Afghanistan. The Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) says hundreds of Canadian troops are taking part in Operation Khar Khowhai, translated as Keeping Goodwill.
What if it's as easy as that; what if stopping the horrors we, the whole of humanity, have witnessed in the person of George W. Bush and his extra-legal operatives these past seven years could be as simple as that? 
An indigenous rights organizer pursuing the national genocide cases in Guatemala was recently kidnapped in Guatemala City while other members of the activist legal team with whom he works have recieved written threats and incurred other types of intimidation. 
Yesterday, 
Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste is returning to Haiti for a weekend visit today. This is double good news: it is a sign that Fr. Gerry's recovery from leukemia has gone far, and that Haiti's justice system is recovering enough for Fr. Gerry to count on it respecting his rights. 
between the "People of the Book," the "Children of Abraham," the "Fanatical Devotees of a Bronze Age Sky-God Cult" will be the way forward from the current hell of war and strife, leading the world into a new earthly paradise where human beings are not allowed to seek warmth, affection, contact and pleasure from one another, except in the severely restricted circumstances dictated by fanatical devotees of a Bronze-Age Sky-God cult. (The picture at right shows some good godly folk setting fires in the streets, offering up the fragrant aroma of, er, cardboard boxes and wooden crates to pleasure the nostrils of the Most High God.)
paid and heavily armed were raiding the offices of the Iraqi Red Crescent Agency and rounding up some of the few remaining relief workers in the country who attend to the suffering of all sides. This bold, broad-daylight assault came less than 48 hours after top Red Crescent officials publicly accused U.S. military forces of conducting a series of attacks on the agency's offices around the country during the course of the war.
