Truthout 8/6

Friday 06 August 2010

Thom Hartmann | Learning About Reality From Fiction: "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"
Thom Hartmann, Truthout: "Sometimes politics and nonfiction writing can seem altogether too intense and we feel like we need a break. For some, like myself, reading fiction is a guilty pleasure that is re-energizing. In that respect, the best-selling novel - the first in the acclaimed trilogy, - 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,' by Stieg Larsson, is both a brilliant page turner and raises a number of interesting and important issues of our day."
Read the Article

Pentagon Threatens to "Compel" WikiLeaks to Hand Over Afghan War Data
Taylor Barnes, The Christian Science Monitor: "With WikiLeaks on the verge of publishing another cache of secret Afghan war documents 20 times larger than its original leak, the Pentagon said Thursday that it may 'compel them to do the right thing.'"
Read the Article

Max Ajl | The Late, Unlamented, Not-Really-a-Climate-Change Bill
Max Ajl, Truthout: "Last week, Senate majority leader Harry Reid glumly announced that the Democratic leadership lacked the votes to push through even truncated carbon-limiting legislation, which would have called for carbon caps on power plants. 'We don't have a single Republican to work with us ... We know where we are ... We don't have the votes.' The Senate had long ago abandoned trying to pass Lieberman-Kerry (the American Power Act), the twin of the Waxman-Markey boondoggle, which the House passed last year."
Read the Article

Jobs Report: Running Low on Economic Medicine
Max Fraad-Wolff and Rick Wolff, Truthout: "We have been in the present labor market swoon since December 2007. We are 30 months into the process. Nearly everything is not getting worse fast. Most economic indicators have seen slow, uneven progress. We are a weary nation and hope is running low. We have received a massive dosage - an overdose- of bad economic news since the winter of 2007."
Read the Article

Senate Approves Funding to Keep 140,000 Teachers' Jobs
Stacy Teicher Khadaroo, The Christian Science Monitor: "It's like the ultimate back-to-school gift card: $10 billion for cash-strapped school districts to recall laid-off teachers and keep thousands of K-12 jobs. Supporters of the extra funding say it will keep about 140,000 educators working. The money for teachers, which is part of an aviation safety bill, was approved by the Senate Thursday and will likely pass the House next week when representatives unexpectedly return from August recess."
Read the Article

What the Heck Are US Marines Doing in Costa Rica? Obama's Tilt to the Right on Latin America
Nikolas Kozloff, Truthout: "The USS Makin Island, an amphibious assault aircraft carrier, is an intimidating ship. Built by Northrup Grumman, Makin Island is 45,000 tons of cold steel and has living quarters for almost 3,200 sailors and Marines. Weighing in at a whopping 42,800 tons, the ship is 844 feet long and 106 feet wide. The vessel's 70,000 horsepower hybrid propulsion system enables Makin Island to reach speeds in excess of 20 knots."
Read the Article

Clinton Refuses to Answer My Questions About Gaza Flotilla
Ann Wright, Truthout: "Dear Secretary of State Clinton, I am a retired US Army reserve colonel with 29 years in the US Army and Army Reserves, and a former US diplomat who resigned after 16 years in the US State Department in opposition to the war on Iraq. I was one of fourteen American citizens on the Gaza flotilla."
Read the Article

Kenya Passes New Constitution
Tristan McConnell, GlobalPost: "Kenyans voted overwhelmingly for a new constitution that could signal a fresh start for the country's historically damaged and divisive politics. Two-thirds of the country's 12.4 million voters cast their ballot in favor of a constitution that promises to limit the president's powers, reform land ownership, devolve more power to the county level. The new constitution would also introduce a bill of rights for the first time in the country's history."
Read the Article

Nuke U: How the University of California Is Helping to Blow Up the World
Norman Solomon, The Bohemian: "On my way to the Los Alamos National Laboratory a few years ago, I found it listed in a New Mexico phone book - under 'University of California.' Since the early 1940s, UC has managed the nation's top laboratories for designing nuclear bombs. Today, California's public university system is still immersed in the nuclear weapons business."
Read the Article

Labor Fights Back for Living Wages and Jobs for All
Shamus Cooke, Truthout: "If the U.S. economy eventually recovers and current trends continue, U.S. workers won't be celebrating in the streets. The corporate establishment has made it clear that a 'strong recovery' depends on U.S. workers making 'great sacrifices' in the areas of wages, health care, pensions, and more ominously, reductions in so-called 'entitlement programs' - Social Security, Medicare, and other social services."
Read the Article

Child Inmates Crowded Into Haiti's Dangerous Post-Quake Prisons
Alice Speri, Truthout: "Eleven-year-old Carmen Suze quarreled with a classmate and ended up in jail. Her voice barely audible, she explained that her friend had lifted her skirt and had been the first to throw a rock, and that she didn't know how badly she had hit her back. Suze's father offered the girl's parents some money to take her to a hospital, but they didn't, and she died eight days later."
Read the Article