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An Economic 9-11?
An interesting story appeared briefly a few days ago. Two men were arrested with three trillion (with a "t") in fake US Federal Reserve Negotiable Certificates, sometimes called "bearer bonds". What is interesting about the story is how the US Mainstream media pretty much ignored the whole thing. Considering the non-stop coverage given the Michael Jackson molestation trial, the avoidence of a story of a three trillion dollar crime called attention to itself.
Details (…)

By Terry M. Neal
After my recent column on President Bush’s popularity woes, a torrent of e-mail flooded in from angry Democrats insisting that Bush’s relative lack of popularity only reinforced their belief that the 2004 election was stolen.
Regular readers are well aware that I’m not a conspiracy theorist. My natural journalistic skepticism applies not just to politicians and people in power, but to wild-eyed theories as well. The Talking Points column that followed the polling piece (…)

Working harder for less while business lines its pockets
THREE YEARS into an economic recovery, workers are losing ground—so much so that the mainstream media are finally having to take notice.
Once inflation is taken into account, compensation for nonsupervisory workers in the private sector—about 80 percent of the workforce—dropped 0.4 percent in 2004. Analyses in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times blamed the usual suspects: globalization and the outsourcing of jobs overseas, a (…)

On May 29, 2004, a station wagon that Iraqi insurgents had packed with C-4 explosives blew up on a highway in Ramadi, killing four American marines who died for lack of a few inches of steel. The four were returning to camp in an unarmored Humvee that their unit had rigged with scrap metal, but the makeshift shields rose only as high as the marines’ shoulders, photographs of the stricken Humvee show, and the shrapnel from the bomb shot over the top. "The steel was not high enough," said (…)

The UN’s top human rights investigator in Afghanistan has been forced out under American pressure just days after he presented a report criticising the US military for detaining suspects without trial and holding them in secret prisons.
Cherif Bassiouni had needled the US military since his appointment a year ago, repeatedly trying, without success, to interview alleged Taliban and al-Qa’ida prisoners at the two biggest US bases in Afghanistan, Kandahar and Bagram.
Mr Bassiouni’s report (…)

Requesting Feasability Study of Mustard Seed Biodiesel
"Mr. Chairman, this is a noncontroversial amendment which authorizes a National Academy of Science study on the feasibility of mustard seed as a feedstock for biodiesel.
"Now, mustard seed has many advantages over other feedstocks, including higher oil content, it is easier to grow in colder and drier climates of the U.S., and the conversion process leaves behind an organic pesticide and herbicide. Initial research studies by the (…)

In what is unlikely to stem the controversy surrounding disgraced White House correspondent James Guckert, the Secret Service has furnished logs of the writer’s access to the White House after requests by two Democratic congressmembers.
The documents, obtained by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) through a Freedom of Information Act request, reveal Guckert had remarkable access to the White House. Though he wrote under the name Jeff Gannon, the records show that he (…)

A fuming John Kerry had "daggers in his eyes" after a fellow Democrat promoted Hillary Rodham Clinton for president - suggesting the 2004 loser is green with envy at a potential rival.
The flap was touched off two weeks ago when Clinton spoke at a Minneapolis Democratic dinner and Sen. Mark Dayton (D-Minn.) told the cheering crowd that he was introducing "the next great president of the United States."
Two days later, Kerry came over to Dayton on the Senate floor "with daggers in his (…)

Perry Anderson, "Dégringolade." London Review of Books, September 2, 2004 http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n17/ande01.html
Perry Anderson, "Union Sucrée." London Review of Books, September 23, 2004 http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n18/ande01.html
Perry Anderson, La pensée tiède. Un regard critique sur la pensée française, with a response by Pierre Nora. Paris: Seuil, 2005 Symposium: "The End of French History? Perry Anderson Dissects ’Neo-Liberal’ France" With Michael Christofferson, Eric Fassin, (…)

Scientists have begun putting genes from human beings into food crops in a dramatic extension of genetic modification. The move, which is causing disgust and revulsion among critics, is bound to strengthen accusations that GM technology is creating "Frankenstein foods" and drive the controversy surrounding it to new heights.
Even before this development, many people, including Prince Charles, have opposed the technology on the grounds that it is playing God by creating unnatural (…)