contributions

by Manuel Valenzuela
In this age of modernity and technology, where the television monitor has become the center of the average American household, from cradle to grave acting as surrogate parent, teacher, role model and as influencer of human thought, it should come as no surprise that entire populations can be controlled with such facility and efficiency, turning once thinking humans into grazing sheeple. For in today’s day and age, he who controls television controls the masses, and he (…)

By Jason Leopold
Did Vice President Dick Cheney help cover-up the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson in the months after conservative columnist Robert Novak first disclosed her identity?
That’s one of the questions Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is likely trying to figure out. It’s unclear what Cheney said to investigators back in 2004 when he was questioned-not under oath-about the leak, particularly what he knew and when he knew it.
The five-count criminal (…)

By OLIVIA JUDSON
IF chimpanzees observed New Year’s Day, they would have much to reflect on. In 2005, they joined humans, chickens and mosquitoes, as well as less famous occupants of the planet, on an exclusive but growing list: organisms whose complete genomes have been sequenced.
What would they make of this news, I wonder? Perhaps they would resent the genetic evidence that they are related to us. Or perhaps they would, as I do, revel in being part of the immensity of nature and a (…)

by LAURA MILLER
Every year at the University of East Anglia, in Norwich, England, a guest is invited to speak on the subject of religion and education. Sometimes, a prominent bishop is asked to deliver a lecture, but, as a rule, the event isn’t exactly a big draw. This year, the auditorium was filled, and another room, with a video feed, had to be set up for those who couldn’t fit into the main hall. The speaker, Philip Pullman, is fervently admired for his sophisticated trilogy of (…)

by Robert Fisk
12/30/05 "The Independent" — — This was the year the "war on terror" - an obnoxious expression which we all parroted after 11 September 2001 - appeared to be almost as endless as George Bush once claimed it would be. And unsuccessful. For, after all the bombing of Afghanistan, the overthrow of the Taliban, the invasion of Iraq and its appallingly tragic aftermath, can anyone claim today that they feel safer than they did a year ago?
We have gone on smashing away at the (…)

Caught in gratuitous and illegal spying on American citizens, the Bush administration has defended its illegal activity and set the Justice (sic) Department on the trail of the person or persons who informed the New York Times of Bush’s violation of law.
Note the astounding paradox: The Bush administration is caught red-handed in blatant illegality and responds by trying to arrest the patriot who exposed the administration’s illegal behavior.
Bush has actually declared it treasonous to (…)

It is widely known that President Bush led the United States into an “unjustified war” against Iraq based on deceptions and lies linking Hussein Saddam with ties to 9-11 attacks and al Qaeda terrorists, and with possession of WMDs. It is also vastly accepted that Bush has initiated a “global war” against terrorism. However, it is not commonly acknowledged that these two wars in Iraq are distinct and different. The U.S. Congress only authorized Bush to remove the supposedly impending threat (…)

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS - TEN WAYS TO STOP THE WAR
The latest UNICEF report (December 2005) estimates that in 2004 the under-5 infant mortality was 122,000 in Occupied Iraq, 359,000 in Occupied Afghanistan and 1,000 in the occupying country Australia (noting that in 2004 the populations of these countries were 28.1 million, 28.6 million and 19.9 million, respectively) ().
About 1,300 under-5 year old infants will have died in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan on Christmas Day 2005 alone and (…)

WASHINGTON, Dec. 31 - A top Justice Department official objected in 2004 to aspects of the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program and refused to sign on to its continued use amid concerns about its legality and oversight, according to officials with knowledge of the tense internal debate. The concerns appear to have played a part in the temporary suspension of the secret program.
The concerns prompted two of President Bush’s most senior aides - Andrew H. Card Jr., his (…)

by Martin Walker
December 31, 2005 UPI
WASHINGTON, Dec. 30 (UPI) — The Bush administration is preparing its NATO allies for a possible military strike against suspected nuclear sites in Iran in the New Year, according to German media reports, reinforcing similar earlier suggestions in the Turkish media.
The Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel this week quoted "NATO intelligence sources" who claimed that the NATO allies had been informed that the United States is currently investigating all (…)