A pro-US weblog by three Iraqi brothers has become the unlikely setting for a huge web spat after conspiracy theorists alleged it was a fake.
Iraq the Model, a weblog detailing the more positive aspects of the US-led occupation of the country, is one of the most popular Iraq sites on the web.
But some anti-war activists said it was a CIA-sponsored propaganda tool.
The brothers strongly denied the claims, but the row has led to severe ructions in the o... (more)
Yesterday the warblogs and Cult-of-Bush blogs exploded in veritable unison with trumped-up outrage and hysteria which ricocheted throughout their echo chamber in a matter of hours over the story in the NY Times Arts Section on the Iraqi bloggers of Iraq the Model and Free Iraqi. On the theory that such an avalanche of comment must be about something of significance, I think a closer look... (more)
Federal prosecutors have told Bernard B. Kerik, whose nomination as homeland security secretary in 2004 ended in scandal, that he is likely to be charged with several felonies, including tax evasion and conspiracy to commit wiretapping.
Kerik's indictment could set the stage for a courtroom battle that would draw attention to Kerik's extensive business and political dealings with former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who personally recommended him to President Bush for the Ca... (more)
Why should I, a Jew from north London, be permitted to take up Israeli citizenship, when that right is denied to a Palestinian who languishes in a refugee camp in Lebanon? Especially when I acknowledge that a large majority of those that left in 1948 were ethnically cleansed by Israeli forces.
Those are the words of Alex Stein, writing for Comment is free last week. A commendable admission of injustice to Palestinians, you would say. But then he derives conclusions tha... (more)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military is quietly expanding capabilities to attack terrorist computer networks, including websites that glorify insurgent attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, military officials and experts say. The move comes as al-Qaeda and other groups fighting in Iraq and elsewhere have expanded their activities on the Internet and increased the sophistication and volume of their videos and messages. Much of the material is designed to raise money and recruit fighters for Iraq. ... (more)
People looking at news websites spend longer reading stories than those reading print newspapers, according to research.
A laboratory study of 600 people found that online readers on average got through three quarters of each story they chose to read.
When presented with identical stories in a broadsheet newspaper, readers managed just 62 per cent of the text, while readers of print tabloids gave up after reading 57 per cent, according to the Poynter Institute in Am... (more)
Four students from Arizona and Virginia have filed suit against plagiarism detection system Turnitin.com, arguing that the service engages in massive copyright infringement. The lawsuit, filed this week in a Virginia federal court, claims that the infringement is willful and that Turnitin's parent company iParadigms owes $150,000 for every violation.
Turnitin gives school districts an automated tool to search for instances of plagiarism. Students are generally required to submit t... (more)
He survived Iraq, only to suffer Death By Government in the "Land of the Free": Sgt. Derek J. Hale, USMC, ret. ~ RIP
Delaware was the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. It may be the first state to be afflicted with a fully operational death squad – unless a civil lawsuit filed on Friday against the murders of Derek J. Hale r... (more)
The British Government has published a map showing the coordinates of the incident, well within an Iran/Iraq maritime border. The mainstream media and even the blogosphere has bought this hook, line and sinker.
But there are two colossal problems.
A) The Iran/Iraq maritime boundary shown on the British government map does not exist. It has been drawn up by the British Government. Only Iraq and Iran can agree their bilateral boundary, and they never have done this in... (more)
“Perhaps we should get some perspective by imagining how we might react if the Iranians had occupied France and were patrolling the English channel,” runs a post on the UK Telegraph, responding to the capture of 15 British sailors by Iran.
A ticketed news vehicle at Grand and Central Police Headquarters where Chicago Police officer Anthony Abbate had a court appearance. Chicago Police cars block the driveway, inset, as they attempt to help Abbate leave through a back door. (AP/NBC5)
Anthony Abbate should have walked in and out of a Cook County courthouse like any other accused criminal Tuesday morning, Chicago Police Supt. Phil Cline said.
Instead, the burly Chicago cop, who is accused of pumme... (more)
Rosie O'Donnell is certainly not backing away from her public stance about 9/11, and this morning on The View went on a 9 minute rant about the many questions surrounding the attack, reaching around 30 million viewers in the process.
This is the largest single exposure 9/11 truth has enjoyed to date and it represents a watershed moment in the quest to bring the truth to the masses.
Rosie O'Donnell is certainly not backing away from her p... (more)
TWO Australian soldiers who served in the first Iraq war have tested positive to depleted uranium (DU) contamination despite assurances from the Federal Government they had not been exposed, an anti-nuclear group said today.
Any such admission from the Government would leave it open to millions of dollars in compensation, said Pauline Rigby, project co-ordinator for the group Depleted Uranium Silent Killer (DUSK).
Urine samples from each of the men, who served in di... (more)
"Irony is dead" was a phrase you used to hear a lot in the days right after 9/11. It wasn't true, of course; genuine irony is more necessary – and more inescapable – than ever during a time of tragedy, when reality forces itself more strongly to the surface, exposing all of its fissures and inconsistencies. What the phrase actually meant was "sneering sarcasm is dead." (Which wasn't true either, although for a time such sarcasm co... (more)
I’ll begin with a question. Is Iran an aggressor or a victim? If you’ve answered aggressor then may I suggest you take a moment to reflect.
Unfortunately, the fabricated scenario that led us into Iraq is at play again. And once again we’re being suckered into being accepting of a neoconservative plan designed to ensure America’s domination over this region’s oilfields and maintain Israel as the sole nuclear power in the Middle East.
Iran has offered to let UK officials visit the 15 Royal Navy personnel who were captured in the Gulf on Friday.
Iran's foreign minister also said the only woman being held, Faye Turney, who has been interviewed on Iranian state television, could be released.
But he said the stand-off would be resolved only if the UK stated that the sailors and marines had been in Iranian waters last Friday, which it denies.
March 28 (Bloomberg) -- A female U.K. sailor who was among a group of Britons seized by Iranian forces in the Persian Gulf was shown on Iranian television today.
Faye Turney, 26, wearing a black headscarf and smoking a cigarette, said her group had ``obviously trespassed'' into Iranian waters before their capture on March 23. The Iranians had been ``friendly and hospitable,'' she said.
``They were thoughtful, nice people and they explained to us why we had b... (more)
The 15 British sailors and marines who were patrolling the Shatt-al-Arab - or Arvand Roud, as it is known in Iran - were not exactly indulging in a little bit of Rod Stewart ("I am sailing/stormy waters/to be with you/to be free"). They had their guns loaded. These would certainly have been fired against Iraqi smugglers - or, better yet, the Iraqi resistance, Sunni or Shi'ite. But suddenly the British were confronted not by Iraqi but by Iranian gunboats.
Despite several attempts on behalf Neo-Con and thugs and their mindless cheerleaders to threaten billionaire Mark Cuban into backing away from a project to mass distribute Loose Change, Cuban has remained resolute in his determination to bring the film to the big screen.
Private businesses such as rental and mortgage companies and car dealers are checking the names of customers against a list of suspected terrorists and drug traffickers made publicly available by the Treasury Department, sometimes denying services to ordinary people whose names are similar to those on the list.
The Office of Foreign Asset Control's list of "specially designated nationals" has long been used by banks and other financial institutions to block financial transactions ... (more)
The 25-year-old man shot to death last week by a Wilmington officer never threatened police, according to five witnesses working nearby and a sixth witness standing next to the victim when the confrontation began.
Derek J. Hale, a U.S. Marine who served two tours in Iraq, died on the front steps at 1403 W. Sixth St. after a Wilmington police officer fired three .40-caliber rounds into his chest. He was killed after receiving multiple shocks from electronic Tasers.
ConsortiumNews.com Editor’s Note: Former Army Sgt. Sam Provance was one of the heroes of the Abu Ghraib scandal, the only uniformed military intelligence officer at the Iraqi prison to testify about the abuses during the internal Army investigation. When he recognized that the Pentagon was scapegoating low-level personnel, he also gave an interview to ABC News.
For refusing to play along with the cover-up, Provance was punished and pushed out of the U.S. m... (more)
Professor David Ray Griffin is the nemesis of the official 9/11 conspiracy theory. In his latest book, Debunking 9/11 Debunking, Griffin destroys the credibility of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Popular Mechanics reports, annihilates his critics, and proves himself to be a better scientist and engineer than the defenders of the official story.
Griffin’s book is 385 pages divided into four chapters and containing 1,209 footnotes. Without quest... (more)
