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Arundhati Roy's the God of Small Things
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Index: 2005 | November
Progressive News Recycle
Page Contents
11/30/05: Top Stories
via Positive Universe Weblogs: NC Could be the 1000th execution (Updated Calendar) 11/30/05
11/30/05: TomPaine.com
TomPaine.com: Bush And Bomb Threats 11/30/05 Why won't the American media probe whether the report that Bush threatened to bomb Al Jazeera is true?
TomPaine.com: Planning For Withdrawal 11/30/05 As the debate over Iraq heats up, two new reports look at U.S. involvement in the Persian Gulf after withdrawal.
TomPaine.com: For Whom The Bell Tolls 11/30/05 Last week's Scanlon deal has sounded a death knell for the Republican Revolution of 1994.
TomPaine.com: Cunningham Co-Conspirators' Largesse Snags More GOP Members 11/30/05
TomPaine.com: U.N.: New Climate Change Deal Could Take Years 11/30/05
TomPaine.com: Eye On Ayotte 11/30/05 There's more than meets the eye about the three abortion-related cases before the Supreme Court today.
TomPaine.com: Iraqi Armed Forces Sinking Into Sectarian Conflict 11/30/05
TomPaine.com: 2005 Hurricane Season Doubles Financial Damages 11/30/05
TomPaine.com: EU Calls For Unified European Energy Policy On Climate Change 11/30/05
TomPaine.com: U.S. Paying Iraqi Press For Favorable Stories 11/30/05
TomPaine.com: Tell It To The Judge 11/30/05 Today's case before the Supreme Court would send minors seeking abortions for health reasons to the courts—not the doctor.
TomPaine.com: Leave Iraq? Only For A Good Reason 11/30/05 Only For A Really Good Reason Check out editorial cartoonist Dan Wasserman's thoughts on Bush's Iraq exit plan....
TomPaine.com: Maine Turns Down Federal Sex Ed Money 11/30/05 Amount of federal money Maine turned down because it would have been used for abstinence-only programs: $160,000...
11/30/05: The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post: Deepak Chopra: Better Than Altruism 11/30/05 Until recently the Democratic Party had shown no signs of being able to take advantage of the public's disillusion with the current administration and its right-wing agenda. Even now it is unclear if they will be able to seize the public's disaffection with the failed agenda of Bush's party. This fecklessness is due, we are told, to confusion in the ranks and conflicts over policy. Democrats have always been a disparate bunch, and at this point the party contains anti-war activists, pro-war strategists, social idealists, and pork-barrel pragmatists. | Fractured parties aren't in a position to rule, nor do they even deserve to. The Democrats' former coalition, which began with FDR in 1932, was based on altruism. Without turning into a social welfare state like Britain under the Labor Party, America decided to help the poor, provide a social safety net for the elderly, and...
The Huffington Post: Robert Schlesinger: Hillary Watch 11/30/05 Don't look now, but Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) is calibrating her Iraq position ever so slightly to the middle. | From the NYT: | In a 1,600-word letter that was e-mailed to thousands of New Yorkers, Mrs. Clinton used new verbiage to attack the White House's war planning from top to bottom, while also laying out her general vision for reducing troop levels. The letter came on the eve of an Iraq speech by President Bush, as well as one month after an antiwar crusader, Cindy Sheehan, denounced Mrs. Clinton's position on the war. | And: | She added, "Given years of assurances that the war was nearly over and that the insurgents were in their 'last throes,' this administration was either not being honest with the American people or did not know what was going on in Iraq." | With Democrats struggling to coalesce around their own plan of action for Iraq, prominent party members have staked out new ground in recent months. These include some Democrats, who, like Mrs. Clinton, are believed to be considering a presidential run in...
The Huffington Post: O'Reilly Compares Rep. Murtha With Hitler Sympathizers... 11/30/05 Bill O'Reilly on the Today Show this morning: | These pin-heads running around going, 'Get out of Iraq now' don't know what they are talking about. These are the same people before Hitler invaded in WWII that were saying, 'He's not such a bad guy.' They don't get it.
The Huffington Post: Scientists: Passionate Love Molecule Only Lasts One Year... 11/30/05 Your heartbeat accelerates, you have butterflies in the stomach, you feel euphoric and a bit silly. It's all part of falling passionately in love -- and scientists now tell us the feeling won't last more than a year. | The powerful emotions that bowl over new lovers are triggered by a molecule known as nerve growth factor (NGF), according to Pavia University researchers.
The Huffington Post: Stephen Elliott: National Strategy For Victory In Iraq 11/30/05 Today the president released the National Strategy For Victory In Iraq, a 35 page document said to be a declassified version of America's official plan for the country.(1) Accompanying the document the president delivered a speech at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. | It wouldn't seem possible that the president would continue to lie to us about Iraq. It's as if he thinks we'll get tired of pointing out that he's lying before he gets tired of telling the lie. The lie, of course, is Osama bin-Laden. | On page four of the paper, we get the subheading Prevailing in Iraq will help us win the war on terror. Following that are three bullet points: | - Osama Bin Laden has declared that the 'third world war...is raging' in Iraq, and it will end there, in 'either victory and glory, or...
The Huffington Post: Judge Orders Public Urinators To Write Letters Of Apology In Town's Paper... 11/30/05 Here's one way to write a wrong: People caught urinating in public in Fond du Lac, Wisc., are now being sentenced to compose letters of apology that are published in the local newspaper with their names attached. | Under the sentencing policy implemented by Judge Jerry Jaye of Lakeside Municipal Court more than a year ago, anyone convicted of urinating in public must write letters of apology to a downtown business group and to the community. The letters to the community are published on the opinions page of The Reporter newspaper. There's also a fine for disorderly conduct.
The Huffington Post: Doctors Perform World's First Partial Face Transplant... 11/30/05 French doctors on Wednesday claimed a world-first partial face transplant, saying a nose, lips and chin were grafted onto a 38-year-old woman disfigured by a dog bite. | The surgery was performed Sunday at a hospital in Amiens, northern France, according to a joint statement from the hospital and another in the southern city of Lyon. It said doctors from the two hospitals worked together.
The Huffington Post: Sharp Objects, Scissors To Be Allowed On Planes Again... 11/30/05 Airport security screeners are reportedly going to let passengers bring sharp objects on board airplanes again. Today's Washington Post says the Transportation Security Administration plans to announce security changes Friday. | Sources quoted by the paper say the new rules will allow things like scissors in carry-on bags. The reasoning is that such items are no longer regarded as the greatest threat to airline security. | Homeland Security Department officials are said to be more concerned about preventing suicide bomb attacks at airports. Officials want screeners to focus more on finding things that can explode rather than things that are sharp.
The Huffington Post: Robert Scheer: U.S. Occupation is Worse Than Hussein 11/30/05 So, it is mission impossible that Bush has accomplished: A terminally inept U.S. occupation of Iraq now threatens to make the despot we overthrew look good by comparison. But don't take my word for it; hear it from the United States' No. 1 ally in that increasingly nightmarish land. | '[Authorities] are doing the same as [in] Saddam's time and worse,' former interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi told the London Observer, of human-rights abuses by the U.S.-backed Iraqi government. 'It is an appropriate comparison. People are remembering the days of Saddam. These were the precise reasons that we fought Saddam and now we are seeing the same things.' Allawi, one of Hussein's victims, became a trusted CIA asset and later was handpicked by the United States to be the leader of the new Iraq. He now is the leading secular alternative to the Shiite theocrats...
The Huffington Post: James Pinkerton: Arabists, 'Nightline,' and Stubborn 'Chinatown' Reality 11/30/05 The Arabists are back, and 'Nightline' has got 'em. Not everyone is going to welcome these Arabists, of course, but it seems that US foreign policy can't function without them. | 'Arabist' is the term used to describe those foreign-affairs professionals--State Department officials, academics, charitable workers, and others, including the occasional travel writer--who dominated America's Middle East mindsetting and policymaking for most of the 20th century. Oftentimes, they had personal ties to the Middle East; their families might have been missionaries, or merchants, or educators in the region. Or they might have had an Arab spouse. In any case, they knew the language, the culture, the people. And yes, they were often sympathetic, even admiring, of the Arabs. | But in the last decade, the influence of the Arabists in Washington has been severely curtailed. An opening salvo was fired against them in 1993,...
The Huffington Post: Marty Kaplan: A National Strategy for Strategy 11/30/05 President Bush has at last announced his strategy for solving the Iraq problem: a slogan, and a booklet. | The slogan is "A National Strategy for Victory in Iraq." The booklet contains repackaged Rummy-Cheney classics, under a slick red, white and blue cover. | Jeez, these people are even more pathetic than the Democrats. | Oh, I almost forgot: the President is also going to ask for $4 billion more for training Iraqi security forces, so that, "as the Iraqis stand up, we can stand down." In other words, Bush says we're going to keep playing duck-duck-goose until there's a native winner. | This non-bold not-new non-policy pr campaign is what the New York Times calls on its front page "a carefully calibrated effort... to answer critics... who have argued that Mr. Bush has no plausible plan for bringing home the nearly 160,000 troops engaged in a war against the insurgency." | I'm sorry, but a carefully calibrated effort would be something more like, let's see, how about this: "Together, We Can Do Iraq."
The Huffington Post: US Secretly Paying Iraqi Newspapers To Run Positive Stories, Written By US "Information Troops"... 11/30/05 As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq. | | The articles, written by U.S. military 'information operations' troops, are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of a defense contractor, according to U.S. military officials and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
The Huffington Post: Bob Burnett: Republican Morality - Show Me the Money 11/30/05 A pundit once described Velveeta cheese spread as, 'the triumph of technology over taste.' The same wit might depict America's ruling Republican elite as, 'the triumph of greed over morality.' Early in the morning of November 18th, the Republican majority in the House passed a budget reconciliation bill that graphically illustrates the extent of their depravity. | The legislation contains budget cuts of $50 billion. Reductions that drastically impact programs for America's neediest citizens, particularly Medicaid and food stamps. A companion act features $70 billion in tax cuts for America's wealthy. Before the strictly party-line vote on the reconciliation bill, the National Council of Churches pled with every member of Congress. 'The role of the government is to protect its people and work for the common good. This is not the time for a budget reconciliation process. To do so is not only unjust, it's a...
The Huffington Post: Virginia Gov. Commutes Death Sentence Of Convicted Murderer... 11/30/05 Virginia Governor Mark Warner commuted the death sentence of a convicted murderer, Robin Lovitt, saying the loss of DNA evidence had violated Lovitt's right to a full review of his case. | ``The Commonwealth must ensure that every time this ultimate sanction is carried out, it is done fairly,'' Warner said yesterday in a statement. ``After a thorough review, it is my decision that Robin Lovitt should spend the rest of his life in prison with no eligibility for parole.''
The Huffington Post: NBC Names New President Of News Division... 11/30/05 Nearly a year after shepherding the handoff from Tom Brokaw to Brian Williams as the executive producer of "NBC Nightly News," Steve Capus was promoted yesterday to president of the network's news division. | The appointment, which was announced by Jeff Zucker, president of NBC Universal Television Group, caps a meteoric year for Mr. Capus, 42, who was promoted to senior vice president of the news division in June and acting president in September.
11/30/05: Positive Universe Weblogs
Latest public blog entries from Positive Universe Weblogs
Positive Universe Weblogs: Bush the Dupe? 11/30/05 CounterPunch, CA | By GARY LEUPP | “Who Will Rid Me of My Meddlesome Cabinet?” | I read in the Drudge Report that Bush “has become isolated and feels betrayed by key officials.” Maybe Cheney and his neocon protĂ©gĂ©s are really in the dog house these days. The report asserts that “Mr. Bush maintains daily contact ...
Positive Universe Weblogs: December 6 is National Day of Counter-Recruitment Action 11/30/05 Join CINDY SHEEHAN, HOWARD ZINN, DAHR JAMAIL, war resisters PABLO PAREDES and CAMILO MEJIA, Progressive Democrats of America director TIM CARPENTER, Iraq Vets Against the War & Campus Antiwar Network member DAVID AIRHART, and many more in supporting this day of counter-recruitment action on December 6! (Full endorsement list below.) | * NATIONAL DAY OF COUNTER-RECRUITMENT | * December ...
You too can blog headlines, stories, comments, and action alerts by logging in at http://blogs.positiveuniverse.com/
11/30/05: Common Dreams | News & Views
Common Dreams | News & Views: Cheney Guilty of War Crime?; Accused of Backing Torture 11/30/05 Cheney Guilty of War Crime?; Accused of Backing Torture
Common Dreams | News & Views: UN: Racial Poverty Gaps in U.S. Amount to Human Rights Violation 11/30/05 UN: Racial Poverty Gaps in U.S. Amount to Human Rights Violation
Common Dreams | News & Views: U.S. Military Covertly Pays to Run Stories in Iraqi Press 11/30/05 U.S. Military Covertly Pays to Run Stories in Iraqi Press
Common Dreams | News & Views: Denver Protesters Strike Up the Wok to Pan Administration 11/30/05 Denver Protesters Strike Up the Wok to Pan Administration
Common Dreams | News & Views: Grim Milestone Looms for US Death Penalty: 1000th Execution 11/30/05 Grim Milestone Looms for US Death Penalty: 1000th Execution
Common Dreams | News & Views: Britain Quizzes US Over Reports of CIA Jails 11/30/05 Britain Quizzes US Over Reports of CIA Jails
Common Dreams | News & Views: Armed Forces Sinking into Sectarian Chaos 11/30/05 Armed Forces Sinking into Sectarian Chaos
Common Dreams | News & Views: The Mother of All Coalitions: World Coalition Parliament + World Coalition Government 11/30/05 The Mother of All Coalitions: World Coalition Parliament + World Coalition Government
11/30/05: Alternet.org (Coverage Areas)
Alternet.org (Coverage Areas): DrugReporter: Respectable Reefer 11/30/05 Sativex, a pulverized, liquefied, and doctor-prescribed form of marijuana, has the potential to transform the drug-war landscape.
Alternet.org (Coverage Areas): DrugReporter: Congressional Malpractice 11/30/05 The judge who sentenced Jonathan Magbie to jail isn't the only party complicit in his death: the U.S. Congress also played a part in this tragedy.
Alternet.org (Coverage Areas): DrugReporter: Bringing In the Harvest 11/30/05 California law permits the cultivation of cannabis for medical marijuana patients, but farmers who grow the quasi-legal crop are still hounded by law enforcement.
Alternet.org (Coverage Areas): EnviroHealth: Is Wal-Mart Really Going Green? 11/30/05 The mega-retailer has announced a slew of environmentally friendly policies. Is this an honest attempt at change or just more greenwashing from the Biggest Box of Them All?
Alternet.org (Coverage Areas): EnviroHealth: Blowing Global Hot Air 11/30/05 Diplomats in Montreal may be eyeing 2012, but real progress on climate change won't happen until Bush leaves office.
Alternet.org (Coverage Areas): EnviroHealth: Barack's New Energy Bills 11/30/05 Sen. Barack Obama and a bipartisan crew of colleagues recently unveiled eco-friendly new energy proposals.
Alternet.org (Coverage Areas): Hurricane Katrina: New Orleans Neighborhoods Struggling to Rebuild 11/30/05 FEMA has so far been unable or unwilling to provide trailers to many who need somewhere to live while they rebuild their homes and lives.
Alternet.org (Coverage Areas): Hurricane Katrina: From Hurricane To Homelessness 11/30/05 The clock is ticking for evacuees of Hurricane Katrina, with a Dec. 1 FEMA deadline approaching that will end the payment program subsidizing their transitional accommodations.
Alternet.org (Coverage Areas): Hurricane Katrina: Personal Voices: An Unnatural Disaster 11/30/05 Persistent institutional racism not only made recovery from Hurricane Katrina more difficult, it created the conditions that allowed the horrors to happen.
Alternet.org (Coverage Areas): MediaCulture: The Best Intentions 11/30/05 The new George Clooney political thriller, i Syriana /i , paints a picture of individuals crushed by the machinery but leaves little room for hope.
Alternet.org (Coverage Areas): MediaCulture: Standing Tall Against McCarthy 11/30/05 George Clooney's film 'Good Night and Good Luck' echoes Texan John Faulk's own heroic struggle against McCarthyism.
Alternet.org (Coverage Areas): Movie Mix: The Best Intentions 11/30/05 The new George Clooney political thriller, i Syriana /i , paints a picture of individuals crushed by the machinery but leaves little room for hope.
Alternet.org (Coverage Areas): Movie Mix: When Boys Will be Jarheads 11/30/05 Sam Mendes' film version of Anthony Swofford's Gulf War memoir succeeds in airbrushing the harsh reality of war while obscuring the tragedy.
Alternet.org (Coverage Areas): Rights and Liberties: Girls Must Be Girls 11/30/05 This holidy season, pink-and-blue aisles and gender-coded departments are selling the same old message.
Alternet.org (Coverage Areas): Rights and Liberties: Alito CAPS His Bid 11/30/05 Why did Alito flaunt his membership in a Princeton alumni group that attempted to prevent women and minorities from receiving the same education he did?
Alternet.org (Coverage Areas): Start Making Sense: Return of the 'L' Word: An Interview with Douglas Massey 11/30/05 Liberals need a vision for the new century, says Douglas Massey. The key? Embracing markets.
Alternet.org (Coverage Areas): Start Making Sense: Readers Write: The Religious Left Fights Back 11/30/05 Van Jones' essay about Rabbi Michael Lerner's 'Spiritual Activism' conference provoked a multi-faceted debate among AlterNet readers.
Alternet.org (Coverage Areas): Start Making Sense: Andy vs. George 11/30/05 AlterNet's executive editor counts the ways in which Andy Stern -- the man responsible for disemboweling the AFL-CIO -- and George W. Bush are like two peas in a pod.
Alternet.org (Coverage Areas): Wal-Mart Coverage: Five Questions for Robert Greenwald 11/30/05 The director of 'Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price' explains why he made the film -- and what you can do to help fight the corporate beast.
Alternet.org (Coverage Areas): Wal-Mart Coverage: Time to Target Wal-Mart 11/30/05 Wal-Mart's size, policies and politics have become major threats to America's well-being, and it's time to strike back.
Alternet.org (Coverage Areas): Wal-Mart Coverage: The Wal-Mart 22 11/30/05 Why did 22 Democrats in Congress vote to give Wal-Mart advanced notice of inspections by the Department of Labor?
Alternet.org (Coverage Areas): War on Iraq: Why the Murtha Gambit Will Backfire 11/30/05 Murtha's success in speaking out presumes that only someone who has fought in a war can speak out against war.
Alternet.org (Coverage Areas): War on Iraq: Did Bush Really Want to Bomb Al Jazeera? 11/30/05 Given the very public temper tantrum Bush directed at the Qatar-based television network, it may not be 'outlandish' to believe he intended to bomb Al Jazeera.
Alternet.org (Coverage Areas): WireTap: Is France Ready for Affirmative Action? 11/30/05 Young French North Africans say you've got to be a Jacques or Pierre, not a Karim or Mohammad, to get a job in Paris.
Alternet.org (Coverage Areas): WireTap: Burying College Grads in Debt 11/30/05 The average student now graduates with three and a half times more debt than ten years ago, but still Washington wants to cut even more student aid.
11/30/05: Alternet.org (Columnists)
Alternet.org (Columnists): Annalee Newitz: Men's Place 11/30/05 Norwegian scientists have discovered that male-dominated societies are doomed to extinction. What does this mean for feminism?
Alternet.org (Columnists): Annalee Newitz: Good Drugs 11/30/05 Researchers discovered that chemicals from marijuana rejuvenate an area of the brain linked with learning.
Alternet.org (Columnists): Annalee Newitz: Won't Somebody Think of the Pings? 11/30/05 VeriSign's ping empire will be just another step along the road to an Internet broadcasting world that's as corrupt as the off-line one.
Alternet.org (Columnists): Norman Solomon: Thanksgiving and More Taking 11/30/05 Thanksgiving marks a time of appreciation. But media outlets only encourage us to buy -- and forget.
Alternet.org (Columnists): Norman Solomon: Getting Out of Iraq 11/30/05 The basic problem with the current U.S. war effort is that it still exists.
Alternet.org (Columnists): Robert Scheer: Cheney's Trouble with Truth 11/30/05 What Dick is, and has always been, is the most bald-faced of the administration's war hustlers.
Alternet.org (Columnists): Molly Ivins: Bush's Spin Machine 11/30/05 According to this administration's lame attempt at intimidation, noting that the Iraq war is a disaster is the same as spitting on our soldiers.
Alternet.org (Columnists): Molly Ivins: A (Tax) Cut Below 11/30/05 Evidence shows that tax breaks have been dragging the economy down, so Republicans offer a solution: more of the same.
Alternet.org (Columnists): Earl Ofari Hutchinson: The Moral Importance of Clemency 11/30/05 Governors are afraid of being seen as soft on crime, running from granting clemency to convicted murderers. But in the case of 'Tookie' Williams, it must be considered.
Alternet.org (Columnists): Arianna Huffington: Dems Miss The Message -- Even Their Own 11/30/05 It's getting tiring, hearing one Dem after the next parrot out the same inane phrase.
Alternet.org (Columnists): Sean Gonsalves: A Conversation with Dr. Moron 11/30/05 Confused about the Bush administration's double speak on torture? Concerned about the nefarious impact of pop culture on our children? Dr. Moron clears the air.
11/29/05: Top Stories
via Positive Universe Weblogs: The Tragic Blindness Of The Embedded BBC 11/29/05
11/29/05: TomPaine.com
TomPaine.com: Maine Abstains 11/29/05 Something to be thankful for this week: States refusing to cave to Bush's ineffective sex ed policies.
TomPaine.com: Iraqi Police Force Linked To Sectarian Killings 11/29/05
TomPaine.com: States Say No To Federal Sex Ed Money Pushing Abstinence 11/29/05
TomPaine.com: In Boon To Credit Industry, Bush Signs Bankruptcy Bill 11/29/05
TomPaine.com: Global Hot Air 11/29/05 Diplomats in Montreal may be eyeing 2012, but real progress on climate change won't happen until Bush leaves office.
TomPaine.com: National Security Whistleblowers Boycott Upcoming Hearing 11/29/05
TomPaine.com: The Path To Peace 11/29/05 The Cairo peace conference shows Iraq's factions are willing to do their part. Now it's time for the Bush administration to act.
TomPaine.com: Ex-Powell Aide Says Hardliners Guided Detainee Treatment 11/29/05
TomPaine.com: In Latest GOP Ethics Scandal, Congressman Admits Taking Bribes 11/29/05
TomPaine.com: Labor's Lost Story 11/29/05 How the Dems' fear of bashing capitalism allows the GOP to dominate the globalization debate.
TomPaine.com: Goodbye Habeas Corpus 11/29/05 Congress has a plan to deal with those pesky courts that can't always be relied on to do the bidding of politicians.
TomPaine.com: Banned By Fox 11/29/05 Banned By FOX Watch the television ad about Judge Alito that FOX News refused to run....
11/29/05: The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post: Katrina vanden Heuvel: Doing Time 11/29/05 Republicans may want to reconsider their current efforts to curtail habeas corpus, since it looks like they are intent on taking over yet another branch of government, the federal prison population. Leading the GOP charge is San Diego Republican Congressman, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who pled guilty Monday to charges of bribery, fraud, and tax evasion. Duke says he plans to make amends. He'd be better off planning how he's going to make friends with his cellmate. | Who that might be is the question buzzing around D.C. since former DeLay aide and lobbyist Michael Scanlon's plea deal. Federal prosecutors are charging that Scanlon and Abramoff provided a stream of bribes to Republican Congressman Robert Ney of Ohio and members of his staff, including a "lavish Scotland golf trip in 2002," in return for legislation that favored their lobbying clients. Ney says he was duped. Let's hope he's not as gullible in...
The Huffington Post: "I'm Looking For The Most Censorable Material And Saying 'Bam, There's A Piece Of Gold'"... 11/29/05 Fresh out of college, Doug Goodstein landed a job any journalism student would kill for. As a desk assistant at ABC News, he sat just a few feet away from Peter Jennings. He went to the 1992 political conventions, worked on "Good Morning America" and hobnobbed with the media elite. | But he was bored. "I never laughed," he says. "The people were just way too intense."
The Huffington Post: Greg Gutfeld: THINKIN' LOCALLY, ACTIN' GLOBALLY 11/29/05 As you know, we are on the verge of an environmental calamity never before experienced in our lives: I am talking about the coming ravages of global warming. Laurie David has done her job, voicing the outrage we all share when it comes to this impending disaster. But we need to do more than rail against Bush, or the Republicans, when it comes to the damage we have done to our environment. We need to act now. We need to do our part. | BUT HOW? | That's the BIG question. | Mike Fallows in the New Scientist explains that the unpopulated earth surface has an "albedo" of .29, meaning that it reflects 29 percent of the sunlight that falls upon it. | Interestingly, with an albedo of 0.1, urban centers absorb more sunlight than the global average....
The Huffington Post: Andrei Cherny: Creative Construction 11/29/05 The always insightful EJ Dionne of the Washington Post has a thought-provoking take on the American economy in his column today. It starts with a great story: | Decades ago, Walter Reuther, the storied head of the United Auto Workers union, was taken on a tour of an automated factory by a Ford Motor Co. executive. | Somewhat gleefully, the Ford honcho told the legendary union leader: "You know, not one of these machines pays dues to the UAW." | To which Reuther snapped: "And not one of them buys new Ford cars, either." | Dionne then goes on to remind readers of the economist Joseph Schumpeter's belief that capitalism is a form of "creative destruction," that it"is by nature a form or method of economic change and not only never is, but never can be, stationary." | There is, of course, more to the story. At the end of the column, Dionne writes "that few would embrace capitalism's innovations if the system's tendency toward creative destruction was not balanced by public innovations to spread the bounty and protect millions from being injured by change." | I...
The Huffington Post: Orville Schell: China: Boom or Boomerang? 11/29/05 When on Nov. 13 an explosion in Manchuria rocked a workshop at the No. 101 Chemical Plant at the Jilin Petrochemical Company, the world caught a glimpse of the kind of contradictions that will bedevil China's continuous 'economic miracle.' In this case, the contradiction was a particularly intractable one, namely between high-speed economic development and environmental protection. | As more than 100 tons of highly carcinogenic benzene and nitrobenzene flowed into the Songhua River, officials and the state-controlled media lied about what had happened. Only after the downriver city of Harbin (with a population of 9 million) was forced to turn off its municipal water system for more than four days, putting the city on the edge of urban panic, were the rough outlines of the disaster revealed to the public and apologies for the deception made. But no amount of apologies is capable of remedying...
The Huffington Post: Steve Wasserman: Chicago Agonistes: The Plight of the L.A. Times 11/29/05 Why continue to read newspapers? After all, newspapers are losing circulation at precipitous rates, giving rise to fears that they may not survive long enough to write their own obituaries. Cutbacks, buyouts and layoffs are widespread, affecting many of America's most prestigious newspapers, including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times, where it was recently announced that the paper faced an 8% reduction in its editorial staff. Morale plummets, anxiety mounts. | Read more at Truthdig.com.
The Huffington Post: When The Going Gets Tough... 11/29/05
The Huffington Post: Hastert Does Falwell's Bidding, Renames Capitol "Holiday" Tree "Christmas" Tree... 11/29/05 House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert has told federal officials that the lighted, decorated tree on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol -- known in recent years as the "Holiday Tree" -- should be renamed the "Capitol Christmas Tree," as it was called until the late 1990s. | The Capitol's senior landscape architect confirmed the name switch yesterday for The Washington Times. | "It was known as the 'Holiday Tree' for several years and just recently was changed back to the 'Capitol Christmas Tree.' This was a directive from the speaker," said Capitol architect Matthew Evans.
The Huffington Post: "Who's Leaking On Me? Who, In Your Opinion, Should I Not Trust On My Staff?"... 11/29/05 DEFRANK: It`s hard to know who, if anybody, at the moment, Chris. One of the things in the story in the "Daily News" that you`re talking about here is that he`s begin calling the paper -- reports that he`s been calling outside friends and advisers saying... | MATTHEWS: Who to trust? | DEFRANK: ... who`s leaking on me? Who, in your opinion, should I trust on my staff? Who, in your opinion, should I not trust on my staff? That is never a good sign. | MATTHEWS: Does he consider Karl Rove to be dispensable at this point because he may face an indictment? | DEFRANK: I think so. I`m told that. But, again, the president is an extremely loyal guy.
The Huffington Post: Orrin Hatch: Vietnam -- I Mean Iraq... 11/29/05 Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, flubbed Monday and referred to Iraq as Vietnam while commenting on Fox News against an immediate troop withdrawal. | "The Democratic Party seems to be taken over by the Michael Moore contingent in their attitude toward Vietnam, and they continually call for a withdrawal of troops at a time when we haven't finished the job," Hatch said on the network's morning show. Hatch's spokesman acknowledged the error, which was first reported on the American Prospect Web log.
The Huffington Post: Valerie Plame To Quit Her CIA Job... 11/29/05 Valerie Plame, the glamorous secret agent at the heart of the CIA leak scandal, is quitting the agency to become a full-time mom. | Plame, 42, wife of Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson, will retire next month from the CIA after 20 years tracking proliferators of weapons of mass destruction, CIA officials confirmed. | It was exposure of Plame's identity as a CIA operative in a 2003 column by Robert Novak that lead to the massive leak probe that resulted in last month's indictment of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief-of-staff. | Read the whole story here.
The Huffington Post: Air Cargo Screening 'Disaster Waiting To Happen'...Bush 'Doesn't Want To Tell His Private-Sector Friends They Have A Responsibility To Protect Against Terrorist Attack'... | Air Cargo Screening 'Disaster Waiting To Happen'...Bush 'Does 11/29/05 Only 900 Transportation Security Administration workers oversee private-industry security workers who screen a fraction of the 23 billion pounds of goods transported within the U.S. on passenger and cargo planes. | This ``is a disaster waiting to happen,'' said Representative Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican who's co-sponsoring legislation to improve cargo security. ``We're checking luggage but not cargo? It only takes a pound or two of explosives'' to blow up a plane.
The Huffington Post: County Selling Jail On Ebay For As Low As $32,500... 11/29/05 Along with concert tickets, sports memorabilia and designer handbags, add a Missouri jail to the list of things you can buy on eBay. | Randolph County officials have decided to sell their old jail on the auction site as soon as Wednesday. Bidding starts at $32,500, said Jim Myles, a county commissioner.
The Huffington Post: Cable Televangelists: "We Want To Reach The Unchurched... We Want To Be Everywhere On Cable"... 11/29/05 Trying to preserve their electronic pulpits, the nation's religious broadcasters find themselves in the unusual position of fighting an effort by anti-indecency groups to thwart channels offering racy programming. | The issue involves a debate over whether cable companies should continue offering subscribers mainstream and niche channels in bundles, or let them buy what they want on an a la carte basis. | Read entire story here
The Huffington Post: Kathleen Reardon: The Detached Leader: A Dangerous Oxymoron 11/29/05 There is no such thing as a detached leader. There are detached followers, going along to get along. The 'leader' who doesn't listen is the leader who doesn't learn. This is a frightening being convinced of its own flawlessness, intolerant and disdainful of disagreement. People like this are chosen for leadership when we fall for the bravado -- the conviction charade -- the walk, the talk, the condescension and indifference. Sometimes it's the dress and demeanor. Other times it's the connections or family name. Occasionally, they just sneak in before we notice. We see such 'leaders' chatting with 'the folks' in contrived settings after modern day sophists have arranged what will be said to whom and for how long. Nothing is natural and so nothing is honest. It's the kind of 'leadership' Peter Drucker repeatedly warned against. | No matter how much Republicans blame the 'liberals'...
11/29/05: Positive Universe Weblogs
Latest public blog entries from Positive Universe Weblogs
Positive Universe Weblogs: U.S. Air Power to Replace Infantry in Iraq 11/29/05 Juan Cole’s blog | Monday, November 28, 2005 | US Air Power to Replace Infantry in Iraq; Distant President Trapped in | Utopianism | Veteran journalist Seymour Hersh is reporting in the New Yorker that the | Bush administration has decided to draw down ground troops in Iraq. | Knowledgeable observers strongly suspect that this step would produce a | meltdown and possibly even civil war in Iraq (which ...
Positive Universe Weblogs: Stephen Zunes on Respsonsible Withdrawal 11/29/05 November 22, 2005 | Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco and Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project . He is the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003) and scores of articles on U.S. policy toward ...
Positive Universe Weblogs: Jihadist Iraq won’t happen 11/29/05 By Daniel Benjamin | DANIEL BENJAMIN served on the National Security Council staff from 1994 to 1999. He is coauthor, with Steven Simon, of “The Next Attack: The Failure of the War on Terror and a Strategy for Getting It | November 24, 2005 | FROM THE PEOPLE who brought you Saddam Hussein’s mushroom cloud and the secret Iraqi-Al Qaeda alliance ...
Positive Universe Weblogs: Cheney’s history needs a revise 11/29/05 Los Angeles Times, CA | TIM RUTTEN | IF the debate over the war in Iraq now raging across our front pages and airwaves proves nothing else, it already has demonstrated that this administration believes the people’s attention span can be measured in nanoseconds and that memory has the shelf life of fresh bread. | Take, for example, this week’s astonishingly ...
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