Calling the federal agents surrounding his fortified compound "guns for hire," a New Hampshire man convicted of tax evasion vowed today that he and his wife would fight U.S. marshals to the death if they tried to capture them.
"Do not under any circumstances make any attempt on this land. We will not accept any tomfoolery by any criminal element, be it federal, state or local," said Ed Brown in a press conference from the stoop of his concrete-clad home in... (more)
During a trip to Washington, D.C., last weekend, I was struck by a front-page Washington Post article on the dismal state of the city's public schools. Despite spending more per student than virtually any other school district in the nation, the capital's pupils are tragically deprived of a decent education, with nearly three-quarters of them lacking basic math skills.
"The district spends $12,979 per pupil each yea... (more)
Environmental groups have hit out at the new organic regulation on which EU agriculture ministers reached political agreement this week, claiming it opens the door for GMOs in organic foods.
The new organic regulation and labelling, which will come into force in January 2009, is intended to simplify the sector for farmers and consumers and is expected to help drive further development, according to the European Commission.
However the cultivation of genetically modi... (more)
"Zombie" GM crops - so called because farmers will have to pay biotech companies to bring seeds back from the dead - are being developed with British taxpayers' money.
The highly controversial development - part of a £3.4m EU research project - is bound to increase concerns about the modified crops and the devastating effect they could have on Third World farmers.
Environmentalists charge that it appears to be an attempt to get round a worldwide ba... (more)
The Pentagon will announce this week that Geoff Morrell, previously a White House correspondent for ABC News, has been hired as the Defense Department’s on-camera briefer, a senior administration official told The Politico.
Morrell, 38, will become a familiar face of the administration on television and the Web. The official said that a working journalist was chosen by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in an effort to improve press relations at a tim... (more)
Interrogators at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, forced a stubborn detainee to wear women's underwear on his head, confronted him with snarling military working dogs and attached a leash to his chains, according to a newly released military investigation that shows the tactics were employed there months before military police used them on detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
The techniques, approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for use in int... (more)
They're "nutcases" to Vancouver writer Terry Glavin, "gibbering idiots" to British author and Guardian columnist George Monbiot, and "conspiracy nuts" to U.S. political writer Alexander Cockburn. They're promoting "crap," says David Corn, Washington editor of The Nation. They're trafficking in "pure fantasy" that is "rotting peoples brains," says Canadian military analyst and author Gwynne Dyer.
They're opponents of the Bush administration who reject the official story on 9/11. An... (more)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Different conservative blogs have different pet issues -- government transparency, federal judges, Fred Thompson, to name a few.
But no issue in recent memory has united conservative bloggers like the debate over immigration. Their frustration has culminated in a full-scale revolt against the Bush administration and a Senate bill that activists say does little to solve the country's border security problems.
Slackers at Fox News Channel, you’re on notice! Your boss is not pleased. Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes is on the warpath following his network’s recent ratings slump, and he won’t hesitate to clean house to turn things around.
So far during the second quarter, the No. 1 cable news channel’s primetime schedule has dropped 22% in its core 25-54 demo and 8% in total viewers. The first quarter was even worse.
Politics derives from the Greek word for civics, which is Latin for the art of governing. In ancient Greece and Rome, governing was the privilege of a minor fraction of the population known as citizens.
Political government as we have come to know it was originally confined to cities (polis in Gre... (more)
Taguba knew his report would make him unpopular: “If I lie, I lose. And, if I tell the truth, I lose.” Photograph by Mary Ellen Mark.
On the afternoon of May 6, 2004, Army Major General Antonio M. Taguba was summoned to meet, for the first time, with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in his Pentagon conference room. Rumsfeld and his senior staff were to testify the next day, in televised hearings before the Senate and the House Armed Services Committees, abou... (more)
In less than 24 hours of fierce street-fighting, Bush’s proxy-army in Gaza was routed by armed units of Hamas. It was a stunning defeat for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and for US-Israeli policymakers who have done everything in their power to overturn the "free and fair" election of the Hamas government. For now, Hamas has reestablished its authority in Gaza although Abbas is still working frantically with Bush and Olmert to consolidate his power in the West Bank. So far, Abbas ha... (more)
Waxahachie resident Allen Nelms says a call to 911 to get medical attention for his diabetic seizure got him Tasered by police instead.
He said he still has no answer as to why police broke down his door with their guns drawn before shooting him multiple times with a Taser as he lay in bed.
“One of the officers said I ‘lunged’ at him. I asked him, ‘How can I lunge at you from my back and on my bed?’ ” Nelms said in an interview wi... (more)
The drumbeat for war against Iran has begun again, led by Sen. Joe Lieberman, the independent Democrat from Connecticut, and the usual pro-Israel crowd. Lieberman seems to be under the impression that the U.S. can bomb Iran and not get into a full-fledged war.
Well, we know all about cakewalks and how they turn into long, bloody and dreary marches. We learned nothing from Vietnam, and apparently some of the people have learned nothing from Iraq, now a cakewalk war that has lasted... (more)
The US Deputy Secretary of State reportedly planned the attack on the holy Shia shrines in Samarra to help topple the Iraqi government.
According to an informed source John Negroponte plotted the attack during an unannounced trip to Iraq on June 12 in order to fuel insecurity and sectarian violence in the country.
Negroponte's motive was to overthrow Iraq's legitimate government, the same source added.
Just one day after a news that an internal audit found that FBI agents abused a Patriot Act power more than 1000 times, a federal judge ordered the agency Friday to begin turning over thousands of pages of documents related to the agency's use of a powerful, but extremely secretive investigative tool that can pry into telephone and internet records.
The order for monthly document releases commencing July... (more)
Although I have written previously about the hypocrisy of both American Christian soldiers and Christian warmongers, there is another group of Christians that are hypocrites as well: Christian militarists.
As I have pointed out again and again, there is an unholy alliance between conservative, evangel... (more)
The government has responded to an e-petition on the burgeoning DNA database but rebuffed its main complaint that the world's largest criminological genetic store has been built "by stealth" and without Parliamentary and public consent.
750 people had endorsed the e-petition, "StopDNAbystealth", which complained that DNA policy constituted "unjustified accumulation of private data by the State, which erodes the presumption of innocence and feeds a culture of aut... (more)
The first wave of talking CCTV cameras are being tested. The prospect of talking CCTV is nowhere near as fearful as the reality of hearing faceless voices being broadcast in the street.
A council is to hide a camera in a bin bag to catch residents who do not follow new rules about putting out the rubbish.
Householders in a seaside town have been told to put their bins out at the front of their homes and not in an alleyway to the rear. They must also leave their rubbish out between set times to ensure it does not attract pests or miss the dust cart.
To enforce the new rules, a camera will be placed in a rubbish bag and ... (more)
TONY Blair wants to hand the European Union radical new powers in his last act as Prime Minister, it emerged today.
The Prime Minister has welcomed controversial plans to bring back the troubled EU constitution by the back door - totally bypassing the need for public referendums on sweeping new powers for Brussels.
German chancellor Angela Merkel has suggested ditching the name "constitution" from the title and instead calling it an "amendi... (more)
