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  • Programmed To Be Shallow?
    4 January 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    by Wayne Besen Giving new meaning to a pyramid scheme, a recent New York Times article discussed how the pharmaceutical industry hires college cheerleaders as its drug representatives. "They don’t ask what the major is," T. Lynn Williamson, a cheering advisor for University of Kentucky, said of the drug companies who turn to the school to find pompom pill pushers. Of course, the pharmaceutical giants would have us believe it’s coincidental that their reps look like runway models. (…)

  • Transit strike may embolden unions nationwide
    4 January 2006 par (Open-Publishing)

    By LARRY McSHANE
    NEW YORK - The three-day walkout by city transit workers, while a hassle for millions of New Yorkers, was a boost for unions from coast to coast as they face negotiations where management calls for health care and pension givebacks are almost inevitable, labor experts say.
    “This was a very important stand for those workers to have made,” said Ron Blackwell, chief economist for the AFL-CIO. “It will resonate nationally.”
    ADVERTISEMENT The 33,000 members of Transport (…)

  • The War on Immigrants. Get ready for a Republican assault their opportunity for election-year demagogy
    4 January 2006 par (Open-Publishing)

    By Harold Meyerson
    The conventional wisdom is still unpersuaded that the Republican Party is about to mount a full-force attack on American’s undocumented immigrants — of whom, by some counts, there are 11 million. After all, the Republicans are the party of employers — large (agribusiness), medium (construction companies), and small (restaurateurs) — who have long depended on immigrants for cheap labor. The cheap labor sectors of American capitalism are a huge source of donations for the (…)

  • How is socialism bad when it helps those who need it most?
    4 January 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
    8 comments

    by Mary MacElveen There are times where the good news coming from Venezuela is overshadowed by those closely monitoring what weapons have been purchased by the Chavez administration, or how he will interact with Bolivia’s president-elect Evo Morales.
    In my opinion both are treated by those who oppose President Chavez as if the sky were falling in.
    The opposition, both in America and in Venezuela, should sit down and take a deep breath.
    Some are alarmed at President Chavez’ (…)

  • Justice to Try to Toss Gitmo Challenges
    4 January 2006 par (Open-Publishing)

    by MARK SHERMAN
    WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department will seek dismissal of lawsuits from more than 300 Guantanamo Bay detainees fighting the legality of their confinement, using a new law that the Bush administration says sharply limits existing challenges. Advocates for detainees quickly registered their opposition Tuesday.
    The measure, part of the Defense Appropriations Act that President Bush signed last week, was intended to allow detainees at the U.S. naval base in Cuba to (…)

  • The $4bn industry that is America’s guilty secret
    4 January 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
    2 comments

    By Rupert Cornwell
    Lobbying is Washington’s grubby secret. Some say lobbying is part of the democratic process. Others claim it is legalised bribery, even corruption. But love it or loathe it, it is the way Washington works.
    Usually you hear little about the quiet meetings, the lavish lunches and junkets that lubricate American politics. But every once in a while something comes along to open the system to what it hates most: daylight. The case of Jack Abramoff, influence-peddler (…)

  • US warplane used to target Iraqi family home
    4 January 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
    2 comments

    by Brian Whitaker and agencies in Baiji
    Between six and 14 members of an Iraqi family were reported dead yesterday after US warplanes obliterated a house in the northern oil town of Baiji. Enraged local officials described the attack as unjustified and said it had killed an innocent family, including one member who worked for the Iraqi police.
    "I absolutely confirm there were no terrorists in this house," police chief Colonel Sufyan Mustafa told Reuters. "Even if there had been, why (…)

  • Peak Oil and the End of Empire
    4 January 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
    3 comments

    by Charles Sullivan
    Peak oil is most likely a term most readers have not heard before. That is about to change. The concept is slowly making its way onto the mainstream stage. It is intruding into the fringes of the public conscience and soon it may occupy the greater part. When that time comes, as it inevitably will, and probably sooner than you think, the world as we know it will end.
    Oil is the lifeblood not only of the U.S. economy-especially its terrible military capability-it is in (…)

  • New "Patriot" Act Creates American Gestapo
    4 January 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
    2 comments

    Hitler had the brownshirts- his Gestapo that went around the country taking out dissenters. The New "Patriot" Act creates a new American Gestapo: (Section 605)
    There is hereby created and established a permanent police force, to be known as the `United States Secret Service Uniformed Division’. Subject to the supervision of the Secretary of Homeland Security...
    The new USSSUD will be in DC, but also everywhere Bush travels, or former Presidents, or heads of state, or even at events (…)

  • Friends Don’t Let Friends Commit War Crimes
    4 January 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    "You’re like an ambassador for peace," a Spanish journalist told me as we finished one of the dozens of interviews I gave in Europe. I did this interview right before I went to urge the Spanish Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs to oppose the war more strenuously.
    In reality, I did feel like an ambassador for peace as I traveled around Europe for 16 days in December.
    The Mayor of London held a reception in honor of our peace efforts at the new and very modern City Hall, near the (…)