The Kids Aren’t Alright

But there may be no better illustration of the need, or hunger, for developmental help than the children who regularly try to climb the fence surrounding the Irma Hunter Wesley Fort Lauderdale Child Development Center. A one-story building on a run-down stretch of Sistrunk Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale, the center has an unmistakably homey feel. There are several wooden rocking chairs in the nursery and, in the back, a sunny library filled with everything from pop-up to board books. Reading nooks are decorated with stuffed animals and posters. And there’s even a tiny couch, where a toddler might curl up to read. But the kids out front, some as young as 5, can’t afford to attend the center. And without a safe place to play, they scale the fence daily with the hope of riding on the playground’s toy cars and swings.

Gene switch altered sex orientation of worms

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Altering a gene in the brain of female worms changed their sexual orientation, U.S. researchers said on Thursday, making female worms attracted to other females.

The study reinforces the notion that sexual orientation is hard-wired in the brain, said Erik Jorgensen, scientific director of the Brain Institute at the University of Utah.

What an honest recruitment ad would look like

“As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.”  ~Leonardo da Vinci

Rapidly Dying 47-Year-Old Professor Gives Exuberant ‘Last Lecture’

“If I don’t seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you.”

 

Craggers

Forget the low carb diet, try the low carbon one.

Godfather of the movement, British writer George Monbiot, has said the way to reduce emissions is through major cuts to energy use and personal consumption.

NSA Spying: What Did Pelosi Know?

According to new revelations from telecommunications company Qwest, the origins of the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretap program predated the 9/11 attacks by seven months. That would mean the terror attacks became a convenient post-facto rationalization for what the White House already wanted to do. But — former CIA analyst Ray McGovern asks — what did Nancy Pelosi and other senior Democrats know then and what will they do about it now?

Tough, Sad and Smart

They are a longtime odd couple, Bill Cosby and Harvard’s Dr. Alvin Poussaint, and their latest campaign is nothing less than an effort to save the soul of black America.

By BOB HERBERT

Feeding the Hungry is a Crime

City councils are cracking down on charity groups that feed the homeless without a permit

Income-Inequality Gap Widens

Boom in financial markets parallels rise in share for wealthiest Americans.

The richest Americans’ share of national income has hit a postwar record, surpassing the highs reached in the 1990s bull market, and underlining the divergence of economic fortunes blamed for fueling anxiety among American workers.

Only now, the full horror of Burmese junta’s repression of monks emerges

Monks confined in a room with their own excrement for days, people beaten just for being bystanders at a demonstration, a young woman too traumatised to speak, and screams in the night as Rangoon’s residents hear their neighbours being taken away.

Harrowing accounts smuggled out of Burma reveal how a systematic campaign of physical punishment and psychological terror is being waged by the Burmese security forces as they take revenge on those suspected of involvement in last month’s pro-democracy uprising.

Where Have You Gone, Paul Wellstone?

Do you remember the name Paul Wellstone? He was the United States Senator from Minnesota who five years ago this month was killed along with his wife Sheila, and daughter Marcia. They died in the crash of a small airplane while campaigning for Paul’s re-election.

A Death in the Family

Having volunteered for Iraq, Mark Daily was killed in January by an I.E.D. Dismayed to learn that his pro-war articles helped persuade Daily to enlist, the author measures his words against a family’s grief and a young man’s sacrifice.

by Christopher Hitchens

Author Naomi Klein: America is succumbing to fascism

Naomi Klein sits down with Bill Maher to discuss her new book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.

Calling it the “mission statement of the Bush administration,” Klein says that politicians are seeing themselves as facilitators between disasters and their friends in the private sector. Each time there’s a disaster, says Klein, politicians use the “shock” felt by the citizenry to “push through a further privatization agenda” with little opposition.

The Trivial Pursuit

Yesterday began with the gratifying news that Al Gore, derided by George H.W. Bush as the “Ozone Man,” had won the Nobel Peace Prize.

By BOB HERBERT

The first thing media types wanted to know was whether this would prompt Mr. Gore to elbow his way into the presidential campaign. That’s like asking someone who’s recovered from a heart attack if he plans to resume smoking.

The ‘Good Germans’ Among Us

“BUSH lies” doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s time to confront the darker reality that we are lying to ourselves.

By FRANK RICH

Ten days ago The Times unearthed yet another round of secret Department of Justice memos countenancing torture. President Bush gave his standard response: “This government does not torture people.” Of course, it all depends on what the meaning of “torture” is. The whole point of these memos is to repeatedly recalibrate the definition so Mr. Bush can keep pleading innocent.

Ann Coulter and Justice Antonin Scalia to Synagogue - Jews Are Safer with Christians in Charge

The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) called on media to stop inviting Ann Coulter as a guest commentator and strongly condemned her comments that Jews should be “perfected” by accepting the New Testament and that America would be better off if Judaism were “thrown away” and all Americans were Christian.

by Thom Hartmann

 

“While Ann Coulter has freedom of speech, news outlets should exercise their freedom to use better judgment,” said NJDC Executive Director Ira N. Forman. “Just as media outlets don’t invite those who believe that Martians walk the earth to frequently comment on science stories, it’s time they stop inviting Ann Coulter to comment on politics.”Media Matters for America has a complete transcript of Coulter’s comments — and video — available here.

Democratic House Officials Recruited Wealthy Conservatives

This letter sent from then DCCC Head Rahm Emanuel to Democratic House hopeful Jan Schneider underscores a DCCC policy of remaining “neutral” in primary races. Schneider soon came to doubt the letter’s sincerity.

Analysis: Nobel thrusts Gore back into spotlight, but will he run?

An Oscar, an Emmy and the Nobel Peace Prize. Will Al Gore now seek the ultimate reward and Oval Office mantel space? Don’t count on it.

Gore, in Palo Alto, spreads thanks for Nobel Peace Prize win

Al Gore, in his first comments since winning the Nobel Peace Prize this morning, appeared in Palo Alto to say he would “accept the award on behalf of those who have been working for so long and so hard to try and get the message out about the planetary emergency.”

The Power of Nightmares

BBC Documentary Power of Nightmares and Presidential Interpreter Fred Burks Expose Roots of War on Terror

The Power of Nightmares (view free)

Bush reign empty of moral values

Democrats and Republicans and Washington media walk on eggshells when characterizing the reprehensible conduct and policies of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. They dodge using accurate, more descriptive words that’re commonplace among ordinary folks outside the nation’s capital.

Such as “liars.”

The Swift-Boating of Graeme Frost

If you listen closely to the two-minute radio address that 12-year-old Graeme Frost delivered last week for the Democrats, you can hear the lingering effects of the 2004 car crash that put him into a coma for a week and left one of his vocal chords paralyzed. “Most kids my age probably haven’t heard of CHIP, the Children’s Health Insurance Program,” he says in a voice that sounds weak and stressed. “But I know all about it, because if it weren’t for CHIP, I might not be here today.”

White House Chooses Propaganda Over Protecting Homeland Again

Holding onto Power still more important to White House than Preventing Terrorism

Leak severs link to al-Qaeda’s secrets

Firm says Bush administration’s handling of video ruined its spying efforts

Iraqi Authorities Seek Blackwater Ouster

Iraqi authorities want the U.S. government to sever all contracts in Iraq with Blackwater USA within six months.They also want the firm to pay $8 million in compensation to families of each of the 17 people killed when its guards sprayed a traffic circle with heavy machine gun fire last month.

The demands — part of an Iraqi government report examined by The Associated Press — also called on U.S. authorities to hand over the Blackwater security agents involved in the Sept. 16 shootings to face possible trial in Iraqi courts.

Inside the ‘Secret Facility’

In an Orwellian twist, the U.S. government monitors all correspondence between a Guantánamo attorney and her client

By H. Candace Gorman

I cannot talk or write about what my clients tell me unless it is first vetted by Big Brother.

Same Old Party

By Paul Krugman

“There have been a number of articles recently that portray President Bush as someone who strayed from the path of true conservatism. Republicans, these articles say, need to return to their roots.

“Well, I don’t know what true conservatism is, but…Mr. Bush hasn’t strayed from the path at all. On the contrary, he’s the very model of a modern movement conservative.

[. . .]

“Now, as they survey the wreckage of their cause, conservatives may ask themselves: “Well, how did we get here?” They may tell themselves: “This is not my beautiful Right.” They may ask themselves: “My God, what have we done?”

“But their movement is the same as it ever was. And Mr. Bush is movement conservatism’s true, loyal heir.”

Only a U.S. Withdrawal Will Stop Al Qaeda in Iraq

The conventional wisdom has it all wrong.

Raed Jarrar and Joshua Holland

Edwards Raps Clinton Over Blackwater Tie

Democrat John Edwards said Friday the top strategist for presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton has ties to the controversial Blackwater security firm, and warned against installing “a group of corporate Democrats” to replace the Bush White House.

Watada court-martial stopped

By MIKE BARBER

A federal judge in Tacoma has delayed the court-martial of 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, a Fort Lewis Army officer to refuse to deploy to Iraq.

In a rare intervention of a civilian court in the military justice system, U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin H. Settle granted the emergency stay shortly before close of business Friday.

Judge Benjamin Settle’s stay order (PDF, 157kb)

Activists Face Six Months in Prison for Putting Up Anti-War Poster

Three activists who were arrested at a press conference near Lafayette Park appeared in Washington D.C. Superior Court yesterday where they were given a trial date of January 3, 2008, and face a six-month prison sentence.

Adam Kokesh of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Tina Richards of Grassroots America, and Ian Thompson of the A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition where arrested during a press conference near Lafayette Park where the National Park Service deployed mounted police and a SWAT team to disrupt it. (See URL for video below.) The press conference was called to display the lawful way to apply posters in response to almost $40,000 in postering fines levied against the ANSWER Coalition.

So Who’s Afraid of the Israel Lobby?

One of the strongest case studies demonstrating the power of the Israel Lobby is the 40-year official silence about the assault on the USS Liberty, an American spy ship that came under merciless attack from Israeli forces during the Six Day War. Only now are some of the secrets starting to spill out. Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern looks at some of this troubling evidence.

Has It All Come Down to a Jail?

Cincinnati Six Years After the Killings and the Riots

Why six years after police killed an unarmed black man and the city was rocked by riots, has everything in Cincinnati come down to the building of a jail? How did the liberals’ darling Todd Portune end up joining hands with conservative moral crusader Sheriff Simon Leis?

Send in the Clowns

By BOB HERBERT

It’s embarrassing.The U.S. is going through a transitional period at least as important as the early post-World War II years. New worlds in energy, technology, the economy and global interdependence are either upon us or coming fast.

Why Not Impeachment?

After the new disclosure that the Bush administration misled Congress and the public about its secret torture policies, one question that begs to be asked is: why not impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, finally? For the past year, Democratic leaders have ruled the question “off the table,” but their strategy of seeking bipartisanship to end the Iraq War obviously has failed. So, the hard choice may be either to start impeachment proceedings or accept that the United States is no longer a Republic governed by the rule of law.

The latest revelations of lawbreaking, torture and extremism

Much outrage has been provoked by the generally excellent New York Times article this morning revealing the Bush administration’s recent violations of legal restrictions on the use of torture and other “severe interrogation techniques.” And, in one sense, the outrage is both understandable and appropriate. Today’s revelations involve the now-familiar, defining attributes of this administration — claims of limitless presidential power, operating in total secrecy and with no oversight, breaking of laws at will, serial misleading of the Congress and the country and, most of all, the shattering of every previous moral and legal constraint on our national behavior.

Glenn Greenwald

Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations

When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.

But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

CIA detention program remains active: U.S. official

A secret CIA overseas detention program revealed by President George W. Bush last year remains active and has held at least one al Qaeda militant since then, a U.S. official said on Thursday.

By Randall Mikkelsen

Top 100 Ways Global Warming Will Change Your Life

Say goodbye to French wines, baseball and the Great Barrier Reef. Say hello to massive amounts of mosquitoes, the northwest passage and hurricanes.

The Susan Estrich Complex

By Glenn Greenwald

“The behavior of the Fox News “liberal” is illustrative of the self-destructive behavior of Beltway Democrats.”

Conservatives Are Such Jokers

By Paul Krugman

In 1960, John F. Kennedy, who had been shocked by the hunger he saw in West Virginia, made the fight against hunger a theme of his presidential campaign. After his election he created the modern food stamp program, which today helps millions of Americans get enough to eat.

But Ronald Reagan thought the issue of hunger in the world’s richest nation was nothing but a big joke. Here’s what Reagan said in his famous 1964 speech “A Time for Choosing,” which made him a national political figure: “We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night. Well, that was probably true. They were all on a diet.”

Neo-cons spoiling for another fight

Few events have so encapsulated the Funhouse Mirror aspect of
American political debate as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York. According to the Chicken Little Brigade in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, the bearded little fellow in the bad suit is only the latest in a succession of freedom-hating madmen bent upon destroying what the old Superman comics called “Truth, Justice and the American Way.”

Message in a Bottle

“It was meant to be,” Kloska said. “This was a sign to me.”

Limbaugh’s Cowardly Smear

The controversy over what Rush Limbaugh meant when he uttered the phrase “phony soldiers” last week isn’t just another broadcast sideshow. As the political power of conservatism declines, the symbolic authority of figures such as Mr. Limbaugh is likewise shrinking. That is why he backs away from his own words, rips them from context by selectively editing his program’s transcript and insists he didn’t demean soldiers and veterans who dissent from the Bush White House war policy—as he and his fellow partisans have done so many times before.

Kristol’s Dark Humor: Bush’s ‘Heartless Assault On Our Children’ Is ‘A Good Idea’

First of all, whenever I hear anything described as a heartless assault on our children, I tend to think it’s a good idea. I’m happy that the President’s willing to do something bad for the kids.

The Day After We Bomb Iran

There’s a raging debate within the Bush administration, the punditocracy, and the blogosphere about whether or not it is time to bomb Iran. While this conversation scares small children (and other sane people), most of the focus has been on (1) whether President… oh, excuse me… Vice President Cheney truly is moonbat-crazy enough to do so, and (2) whether anyone else in America (including the military) would go along with the idea. But not enough attention is being paid to what happens after we rain death from the skies down on Iran. Which is a shame, because that’s what we ignored during the ramp-up to war with Iraq. And we all know how that turned out.

Four Myths Government and Media Use to Scare Us About ‘Dictators’

Fog Facts: The Bush White House calls Iran’s President Ahmadinejad a “dictator” when he isn’t — part of scaring the public into thinking preemptive war is a good thing.

Forgetting Gandhi

For an America trapped in George W. Bush’s endless “war on terror,” the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, the great disciple of non-violence, might sound simultaneously jarring and alluring. In this essay on the anniversary of Gandhi’s birth, writer Pablo Ouziel recalls Gandhi’s enduring message about the evils of violence.

Bush’s Global ‘Dirty War’

For years, there have been whispers in the U.S. intelligence community that George W. Bush has been transforming his “global war on terror” into an international “dirty war.” But now two U.S. military investigations have revealed that the chain of command has approved rules of engagement that let elite American military units kill Iraqis and Afghanis on mere suspicion that they may be “enemy combatants.”