Tom Engelhardt writes at Tomdispatch.com Given these last weeks, who doesn’t know what an AR-15 is? Who hasn’t seen the mind-boggling stats on the way assault rifles have flooded this country, or tabulations of accumulating Newtown-style mass killings, or noted that there are barely more gas stations nationwide than federally licensed firearms dealers, or heard the renewed debates over the […]
How Long will We let Coal Plants Mercury-Poison Us?
Mercury is a nerve poison, steady exposure to which causes all kinds of neurological and mental problems, as well as heart problems. I keep hearing public service announcements that you should not eat fish more than twice a week. Think about that. In a natural, normal world, didn’t people on the coast eat fish every […]
France, ECOWAS intervene in Mali to Halt Advance of Radical Fundamentalists
The Socialist government of France’s Francois Hollande intervened in Mali on Friday and Saturday to stop the advance of Muslim fundamentalists toward the capital, with operations continuing today (Sunday). The radicals had taken Konna, a few hundred kilometers north of the capital of Bamako, which Hollande’s government appears to have considered a red line. The […]
Since 1979, Firearms have Killed 120,000 US Children, Many more than Troops in Vietnam or Iraq & Afghanistan Wars (Graph)
h/t [-pdf] children’s Defense Fund Children’s and teen deaths are 1979-2010; I updated number of troops killed in Iraq & Afghanistan Wars to end of 2012
Top Ten Surprises of the Obama-Karzai Meet on Afghanistan’s Future
1. President Obama moved the deadline for the end of US combat missions in Afghanistan up from July 31 to “this spring.” At that point, the Afghanistan National Army will take the lead in all military actions against Taliban and other militants. US troops will mainly be training the ANA or providing close air and […]
Everything You Always Wanted to Know about US Drone Strikes *but Were Afraid to Ask (Currier)
Cora Currier writes at ProPublica: You might have heard about the “kill list.” You’ve certainly heard about drones. But the details of the U.S. campaign against militants in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia — a centerpiece of the Obama administration’s national security approach – remain shrouded in secrecy. Here’s our guide to what we know— and […]
Krugman: Only a Big-Spending Government can Get us out of our Depression (Moyers)
Bill Moyers interviews Paul Krugman, who attacks the GOP deficit hawks for interfering with our emergence from the Great Republican-caused Depression of the early 21st century. What we need, he says, is more government stimulus. But we’re not going to get it.
Bombings in Pakistan Kill over 100, as Shiites are Targeted
Pakistan on Thursday descended into the kind of violence that tends to occur in Iraq, with a distinct Sunni-Shiite cast to it. But the larger context was a spillover of enmities from Afghanistan. Three bombs were set off in Quetta. The first targeted a pool hall in a Hazara Shiite neighborhood. When people came to […]
How Zero Dark Thirty Taught us to Stop Worrying and Love Torture (Greenberg)
Karen J. Greenberg writes at Tomdispatch.com On January 11th, 11 years to the day after the Bush administration opened its notorious prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow’s deeply flawed movie about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, opens nationwide. The filmmakers and distributors are evidently ignorant of the significance of the […]
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