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’Cronyism’ controversy reignited as leaked list of new peers includes Labour’s millionaire friends
By Marie Woolf
Tony Blair is to reward a clutch of millionaire Labour Party donors - including the head of the Priory celebrity rehabilitation clinic - with peerages, The Independent on Sunday has learnt.
In a move that will trigger a fresh row over "cash for honours", Mr Blair is to elevate to the Lords four businessmen who between them have given almost half a million pounds to the (…)

By Robert Kuttner
THE UNITED Autoworkers union has agreed to save General Motors over a billion dollars a year in health insurance costs. This is a disguised pay-cut, since workers will now pay more out of pocket for their healthcare.
The union agreed to this desperation deal to help keep GM alive. The once-dominant auto-maker posted a record $1.1 billion loss in the third quarter; and its former parts division, Delphi, with 34,000 union jobs, has just gone into bankruptcy. If and when (…)

A Natural Inspiration
Just for a moment, can we all jump ahead, say one or two years from now, into what could be a very real scenario. The draft has been reinstated. Our sons and daughters are faced with the choice of going to war or jail. Parents are in shock. They can’t believe this has happened to their very own. Shock turns to anger and confusion. Their former lack of concern and awareness of their government’s imperialistic agenda is starting to become the biggest mistake of their (…)

Hardball’s pattern of misinformation and imbalance on CIA leak case
In recent months on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, coverage of the investigation into the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame has offered a clear pattern of misinformation by host Chris Matthews and his guests. Further, on numerous occasions, Hardball’s panels of guests who discussed the issue have skewed right — solely composed of Republicans, prominent conservatives, and journalists or political figures with no (…)

by Ray Boyd (28 Sept, 2005) The premier online money manager is a big bad corporation with big bad law enforcement complex... and they’re going after marijuana drug-related businesses and you.
There it is, on the e-commerce websites of people selling bongs, cannabis seeds, weighing scales, hydroponics equipment, and cannabis cultivation books. It’s on the websites of marijuana advocates, left-wing activist groups, environmental organizations, gun dealers, and Bible wholesalers.
What is (…)

Theories about Russian agents steering Hurricane Katrina may be off base, but research into weather manipulation has been going on for decades
Pssst. Have you heard? Hurricane Katrina was intentionally steered to hit New Orleans. The Russians — a clique of KGB secret-police hardliners who took over a secret weather-control weapon developed for the old Soviet military — did it. In fact, according to retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Bearden, they’ve been dickering with U.S. weather (…)

To the Editor:
Is this for real?
Frist is investigated for the same thing Martha Stewart did time for. Delay is indicted. Now the Bush crime family has nominated a loyalist woman who has never been a judge to the Supreme Court.
Please Republicans, take your party back and stop the madness.
If Clinton had made decisions like this, he would have been brought up for impeachment and the firing squad.
Dan Pike
Rollinsford
http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/10092005/letters/67232.htm

The Scandalous History of the Red Cross
By JOE ALLEN
Iin recent years, the image of the Red Cross has been tarnished. The worst scandal came after the September 11 attacks, when it was revealed that a large portion of the hundreds of millions of dollars donated to the organization went not to survivors or family members of those killed, but to other Red Cross operations, in what was described by chapters across the country as a "bait-and-switch" operation.
Recently, long-simmering (…)

BURN BABY BURN
By Peter Fredson
October 22, 2005
A reporter on the Afghanistan scene last Thursday photographed and described the burning of corpses of Afghan soldiers who had died fighting invading U.S. troops.
On the rocky hilltop above Gonbaz village in southern Afghanistan U.S. soldiers burned the corpses of the two Taliban fighters. Lt. Eric Nelson, of B Company, I-508 platoon told the villagers to pick up the corpses and bury them. But the villagers refused so the Lieutenant (…)

by JOHN SOLOMON
WASHINGTON - The New York Times’ Judith Miller belatedly gave prosecutors her notes of a key meeting in the CIA leak probe only after being shown White House records of it, and her boss declared Friday she appeared to have misled the newspaper about her role.
In a dramatic e-mail, Executive Editor Bill Keller wrote Times’ employees he wished he’d more carefully interviewed Miller and had "missed what should have been significant alarm bells" that she had been the (…)