Easter news, candidly speaking

Gen. McChrystal: We've Shot 'An Amazing Number Of People' Who Were Not Threats

"We really ask a lot of our young service people out on the checkpoints because there's danger, they're asked to make very rapid decisions in often very unclear situations. However, to my knowledge, in the nine-plus months I've been here, not single case where we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it and, in many cases, had families in it."

Oh, and its been a tough Easter for the Pope

"…the pope's personal preacher, Father Raniero Cantalamessa, said in a Good Friday sermon that attacks on the Catholic Church and the pope over the sexual abuse scandal were comparable to "collective violence" against Jews."

Infallibility has built-in problems including… no rest for the weary:



Happy Easter!

Corporate Ties to Network Political "Journalism"

“The Media-Lobbying Complex”: Investigation Exposes Undisclosed Corporate Ties of Network Political Pundits

…read more at Democracy Now!

One wonders if this was considered in the Supreme Court's decision regarding "free" corporate speech?

:>)

Beware the Communists Among Us

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Rage Within the Machine - Progressivism
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

What more can one say? :>)

Let's Begin the Torture Trials

Yoo Said Bush Could Order Civilians 'Massacred'
By Michael Isikoff, News-week
20 February 2010

The chief author of the Bush administration's "torture memo" told Justice Department investigators that the president's war-making authority was so broad that he had the constitutional power to order a village to be "massacred," according to a report by released Friday night by the Office of Professional Responsibility.

❊❊ ❊❊

Tell Attorney General Holder:
You must prosecute Dick Cheney for torture!

Waterboarding is torture and a war crime. The UN Convention on Torture, the Geneva Conventions, the Red Cross, and constitutional governments around the globe agree on this point of law. More to the point, Attorney General Eric Holder has stated publicly that waterboarding is torture. Cheney's confession legally obligates Holder to prosecute him.

So tell me you don’t want Cheney prosecuted for torture?

Bumper Stickers Mean Trouble

Be careful what you wear to political rallies - no t-shirts with inflammatory messages like "Peace Now". You're not in America, after all.

Below, you can listen to an interesting "On the Media" audio story about what not to do when going to an official government event whose sponsors may not agree with your point of view.

Fender Bender
February 12, 2010
In March of 2005, Leslie Weise was ejected from a Town Hall meeting with the president because she arrived in a car with a bumper sticker that read, “No More Blood For Oil.” Were her First Amendment rights violated? ACLU senior counsel Chris Hansen argued just that in court. He explains.

On the minds of many in the UK

I sympathize with the many UK photographers penalized for plying their highly skilled trade amid such unusual rules as those implemented to "prevent terrorism". What about the blow-back from patriotic citizens who become falsely accused of crimes against the state for utilizing the tools of their lawful trade?

Now I see that it is a "crime" in Boston to photograph police in the performance of their duties.

One wonders where it is all heading.

Howard Zinn, 1922-2010

Watch Democracy Now!'s tribute

“If democracy were to be given any meaning, if it were to go beyond the limits of capitalism and nationalism, this would not come, if history were any guide, from the top. It would come through citizen’s movements, educating, organizing, agitating, striking, boycotting, demonstrating, threatening those in power with disruption of the stability they needed.” --Howard Zinn

More tributes here.

Merry Christmas, from Ronald Reagan!

"I'm sending coffin nails to all my friends, and the tobacco companies are glad to finance my campaigns to boot. What a laugh!"

Smoke all the Chesterfields you want, but will Mr. Reagan's party take care of you when you're old and dying of cancer? I don't think so. Dear Ron was one of the first to attack the original Medicare program as "socialized medicine".

The refrain still works today, apparently. Corporate welfare is fine; taking care of your citizens' deteriorating health when they use your products, like tobacco, well . . . that's positively un-American.

Remember how hard it was to fight the Big Tobacco lobby in the previous century, then think about how effective Big Insurance has been in defeating decent, affordable health care.

In case you had any doubts about who runs the show, see "Class War Is Over, Working People Lost".

Smoke Chesterfields, for a taste that's mild and soothing to your throat with no unpleasant after-taste. Doctor recommended!

22 Million Missing Emails from the Bush Admin "found"!

Hmm. Didn't Rosemary Woods, Dick Nixon's secretary "accidentally" erase 22 minutes of crucial White House tapes? What is it with "22"? It must be one of the mystical Republican numbers.

22 Million Bush Emails Recovered

The 22 million e-mails "would never have been found but for our lawsuits and pressure from Capitol Hill," said Anne Weismann, chief counsel for CREW. "It was only then that they did this reanalysis and found as a result that there were 22 million e-mails that they were unable to account for before."

First Global Map of Mercury

Image: USGS. Large, Extra Large, and Ridiculously Huge version of this image available at the USGS Astrogeology Center.

Story Link: First Global Map of Mercury
from Wired.com

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