”We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat mujahideen.” These were the words of al-Qaeda’s top commander for Afghanistan operations and spokesperson Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, immediately after the attack that claimed the life of Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto on Thursday (December 27).
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No matter what turns out to be the truth behind […]

Keep this hope alive.
They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. — Isaiah 2:4
Ain’t gonna study war no more.

Hat tip to LT for this one. LT sez, “Tent cities in suburbia and squatting in vacant houses. It’s sort of like loving someone with a terminal illness: the rapid decline and end still comes as a shock.”
Between railroad tracks and beneath the roar of departing planes sits “tent city,” a terminus for homeless […]

Forwarded from INCITE!
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Dear INCITE! Supporters,
As you may have heard, the New Orleans City Council approved the HUD program of demolishing the public housing in New Orleans. 4,500 units of public housing will be demolished by HUD, making way for “mixed income” neighborhoods with only 800 units of public housing - an 82% reduction in […]

Congratulations are due Jacob Zuma – apparently far more Machiavellian than even his arch-opponent since 2005, Thabo Mbeki – and the tireless band of warriors from the Congress of SA Trade Unions, SA Communist Party and African National Congress Youth League who kept his political life support on when everyone else declared him dead.
But after […]

I here submit the concept of a multidimensional balance of human life which can serve as a framework for evaluating man’s relation to his tools. In each of several dimensions of this balance it is possible to identify a natural scale. When an enterprise grows beyond a certain point on this scale, it first frustrates […]

Perhaps the most terrible legacy of the administration of President George W. Bush has been its utter disregard for such basic international legal norms as the ban against aggressive war, respect for the UN Charter, and acceptance of international judicial review. Furthermore, under Bush’s leadership, the United States has cultivated a disrespect for basic human […]

This slow-motion collapse of the planet leaves us with the bitterest kind of awakening. For parents of young children, it provokes the most intimate kind of despair. For people whose happiness derives from a fulfilling sense of achievement in their work, this realization feels like a sudden, violent mugging. For those who feel a […]

[Hat tip to Audrey for this one.]
Here is a real situation in Iraq that is rich in contradictions and symbols, beginning with the mortar attack on the Burger King and Cinnabon. It occurs to me that in Vietnam we had no Burger King. My infantry unit had three standdowns while I was there, each […]

…that’s why they are less than aggressive about holding Bush accountable. What are your questions?
What did Congressional Democrats know, and when did they know it?
Is it possible that many Democratic leaders have been informed by the Bush administration over the years about its doubtfully legal activities?
If so, are they therefore complicit in the Bush […]