Global
LONDON -- There are still some very odd ends unaccounted for at the center of the enquiry regarding David Kelly's death, an enquiry that has already gravely dented the reputation of Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair. Kelly committed suicide after his name as a leaker to the press was deliberately surfaced, on Blair's personal OK, it now appears from the testimony of a top civil servant.
Kelly was a career government man who once ran the British chemical and biological weapons center, Porton Down, before becoming a member of the Blix team looking for WMDs in Iraq. Near the beginning of September, the Murdoch-owned London Times, strongly supportive of Blair, ran three or four stories nibbling at Kelly's odd relationship to Mai Pederson, apparently an attractive Arab-American Kuwaiti woman who had been Kelly's translator when he was working as a U.N. inspector in Iraq in late 1998.
Kelly was a career government man who once ran the British chemical and biological weapons center, Porton Down, before becoming a member of the Blix team looking for WMDs in Iraq. Near the beginning of September, the Murdoch-owned London Times, strongly supportive of Blair, ran three or four stories nibbling at Kelly's odd relationship to Mai Pederson, apparently an attractive Arab-American Kuwaiti woman who had been Kelly's translator when he was working as a U.N. inspector in Iraq in late 1998.
AUSTIN, Texas -- I'm a card-carrying member of The Great Liberal Backlash of 2003, one of the half-dozen or so writers now schlepping around the country promoting books that do not speak kindly of Our Leader's record. As a group, we are making satisfying inroads on the best-seller lists, a merciful switch from the garboid right-wing cow-flops that have appeared there lately.
Our points of view vary, our modes of attack differ -- some of us are funny and some somber -- but it continues to amaze me that there is so little overlap in what we have written. What's wrong with this administration is not a short list.
Nevertheless, we are, one and all, being dismissed by right-wing media, with its unmistakable lockstep precision -- that everybody-singing-off-the-same-page that so distinguishes the right -- as "Bush haters." Not a radio call-in show goes by, not a right-wing host fails to mention (even when I try to pre-empt the charge) that I am "just another Bush hater."
Our points of view vary, our modes of attack differ -- some of us are funny and some somber -- but it continues to amaze me that there is so little overlap in what we have written. What's wrong with this administration is not a short list.
Nevertheless, we are, one and all, being dismissed by right-wing media, with its unmistakable lockstep precision -- that everybody-singing-off-the-same-page that so distinguishes the right -- as "Bush haters." Not a radio call-in show goes by, not a right-wing host fails to mention (even when I try to pre-empt the charge) that I am "just another Bush hater."
George Shrub (Dave Lippman, comedian, satirist, singer) has been traveling throughout his globalized domain, sharing his Point of View (the Right One) so that people won't need their own. He employs anti-folk songs and interventionary anthems to explain (and enforce) that the business of America is none of your business, that unions are never civil, and that the proper place for himself, like Wal-Mart, is everywhere.
www.davelippman.com
October 17 - 8pm $10, Victoria's Midnight Cafe, 251 West Fifth Ave., Columbus, Ohio
RSVP truth@freepress.org or 614-253-2571
Kucinich may be the only guy who can win this [US Presidential] election. Sounds far-fetched, right? What the Brits would call Loony Left delusional thinking. The U.S. press would just ignore the whole thing, naturally, until it's no longer possible. Just plain crazy. But is it? Every finely tuned ear has recorded the spike in interest every time someone has had the guts to speak up about various aspects of the nascent fascism we are confronting. From Gore's early comments breaking the taboo of criticizing Bush to Byrd's articulate blasts, mainstream politicians have received a grateful roar from the rabble with each thrust, the bolder the better.
The recent Israeli military incursions into the Rafah refugee camp have
left 1,240 Palestinians homeless. According to UNRWA, this brings the
total number of Palestinians who have been made homeless in Rafah since
the beginning of the current Intifada to 7,523. The total for the whole
of the Gaza Strip now stands at 11,987. These home demolitions are
grievous, immoral, and illegal acts perpetrated by the occupation
forces against a defenseless civilian population of mostly women and
children. The demolitions are acts of collective punishment and grave
breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention, humanitarian international
law, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. According to
Amnesty International, such wanton destruction "constitutes a war
crime." These horrendous acts are accompanied by similar acts of ethnic
cleansing and expulsions in the West Bank.
ACTION REQUESTED
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition once again calls on all people of conscience to help the victims of the Rafah refugee camp demolitions by donating directly to UNRWA. Donations will be distributed to the victims who need help getting through the cold winter months.
ACTION REQUESTED
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition once again calls on all people of conscience to help the victims of the Rafah refugee camp demolitions by donating directly to UNRWA. Donations will be distributed to the victims who need help getting through the cold winter months.
Did bankrupt energy company Enron Corp. influence a controversial decision federal energy regulators made in November 2000, saying California wasn't entitled to more than $3 billion in refunds from power companies who allegedly gamed the state's wholesale electricity market?
About two dozen of the more than one million Enron emails dealing with California's energy crisis, recently released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, appear to make a strong case that the one-time high-flying energy company had some role in influencing the FERC decision three years ago--a major blow to California consumers and two of the state's investor-owned utilities that were teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Utilities in California lost billions of dollars buying high-cost power on the wholesale market and selling it at a loss under a state mandated rate freeze.
About two dozen of the more than one million Enron emails dealing with California's energy crisis, recently released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, appear to make a strong case that the one-time high-flying energy company had some role in influencing the FERC decision three years ago--a major blow to California consumers and two of the state's investor-owned utilities that were teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Utilities in California lost billions of dollars buying high-cost power on the wholesale market and selling it at a loss under a state mandated rate freeze.
