By Stanley Kutler While our media wizards report a groundswell of anger against the president, tea party candidates and financiers appear to be as bothered by the policies of Franklin Roosevelt as those of Barack Obama. Related Entries October 24, 2010 Tea Party Robber Barons October 22, 2010 Bad Guys of the Foreclosure Crisis
Continue reading …Satire by Andy Borowitz By Andy Borowitz Like many Americans, over the past several years I have been the recipient of multiple unwelcome voicemails from the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Related Entries October 21, 2010 Stevens v. Scalia October 20, 2010 The Thomas Clown Affair
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Google is again in the privacy hot seat, as Britain’s privacy commission says it will once again investigate the kind and amount of personal information that the Internet search giant gathered from private Wi-Fi networks as its Google Street View cars patrolled. The BBC: Britain’s privacy watchdog is to look again at what personal information internet giant Google gathered from private wi-fi networks. The Information Commissioner’s Office had investigated a sample earlier this year after it was revealed that Google had collected personal data during its Street View project. At the time, it said no “significant” personal details were collected. Read more Related Entries October 21, 2010 Stevens v. Scalia October 20, 2010 The Thomas Clown Affair
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Olive trees are a symbol of the long history of many Palestinian families, and some Israeli settlers have now launched assaults on the trees, cutting down and torching them and at times attacking farmers in what many observers believe is part of a crescendo of settler militancy. —JCL The Guardian: Eighty-year-old Rasmia Awase had left the best olive trees until last. She and her family had already harvested most of their crop when they went to a small plot near their home in Luban a-Sharqiya on Saturday morning. Here were 40 trees that Awase had planted and tended herself, and they were now, two decades later, at their peak – the most productive of all the trees, which support 37 members of the extended family. But Awase found that someone had got there before them and had chopped down the trees, leaving stumps in the ground and branches scattered about the plot. The family blame hardline Jewish settlers from the nearby Eli settlement. Read more Related Entries October 21, 2010 Stevens v. Scalia October 20, 2010 The Thomas Clown Affair
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The UN has begun an emergency airlift to the West African country of Benin after record heavy rains have left two-thirds of the entire country under water affecting an estimated 680,000 people with a reported 800 cases of cholera. —JCL The BBC: The UN refugee agency is to start an emergency airlift of tents to the West African nation of Benin this week, amid the worst flooding there in decades. Some 3,000 tents will be flown in from Denmark to provide shelter for some of the estimated 680,000 people affected. Two-thirds of Benin has suffered from months of heavy rain, and about 800 cases of cholera have been reported. Read more Related Entries October 18, 2010 Glenn Beck Is No Match for William Shatner October 18, 2010 Super Typhoon Slams the Philippines
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While President Nicolas Sarkozy stills tries to push through a reform plan to increase the retirement age in France, protests and strikes have wrecked havoc on the country as Sarkozy’s public opinion numbers have dropped to be among the lowest of any French executive in recent memory. Al-Jazeera English: The French president’s approval rating has plummeted in the wake of growing discontent over his retirement reform plan. According to an opinion poll published on Sunday by the Journal du Dimanche newspaper, only 29 per cent of those surveyed still approve of Nicolas Sarkozy. The poll also showed that a vast majority of the people supported the ongoing strikes over the reforms that Sarkozy has pushed through in both houses of the parliament. Read more Related Entries October 18, 2010 Glenn Beck Is No Match for William Shatner October 18, 2010 Super Typhoon Slams the Philippines
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Raul Grijalva is a four-term congressman in southern Arizona. Yet given the recent SB1070 anti-immigrant legislation, the historically shoe-in Democrat is awkwardly engaged in a tight race with his Republican counterpart after Grijalva had the gall to back a national boycott campaign against his state. The 62 year-old Grijalva is pitted against Republican Ruth McClung, 28. —JCL The LA Times: The contrast between the two candidates couldn’t have been starker. On one side of the stage slouched Rep. Raul M. Grijalva, 62, a four-term congressman and local Democratic icon, sporting a bushy moustache and wearing an open-collared shirt that he had changed into an hour earlier but already looked rumpled. On the other end sat Republican nominee Ruth McClung, 28, her yellow jacket matching her sensibly styled blond hair, carefully smiling at the crowd gathered here this week at a candidate forum about 15 miles from the Mexico border. Grijalva has represented southern Arizona for decades and his daughter sits on the Tucson School Board, as he did in the 1970s. McClung’s only other experience running for office was her campaign to become captain of her high school swim team. Read more Related Entries October 20, 2010 From ‘Sons of Confederate Veterans’ to Children’s Ears October 17, 2010 Merkel: Multiculturalism Has Failed
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A cholera outbreak that has killed about 200 people in rural Haiti is threatening to spread to the capital of Port-au-Prince, endangering the hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors crowded into squalid camps around the city. —JCL Al-Jazeera English: The United Nations says that 194 Haitians have died in an an outbreak of cholera that is threatening to spread to the capital, Port-au-Prince, endangering hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors sheltered in camps. The announcement on Saturday came as the disease began to spread outside the worst-affected rural Artibonite region, triggering fears that the toll could be significantly higher. Officials in Haiti have admitted that they have not been able to visit all the areas, suggesting that many cases may not have been reported. Read more Related Entries October 20, 2010 From ‘Sons of Confederate Veterans’ to Children’s Ears October 17, 2010 Merkel: Multiculturalism Has Failed
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In an horrific witch hunt, violent assaults have followed the publication of a local Ugandan newspaper that printed an article entitled “100 Pictures of Uganda’s Top Homos Leak”. The news outlet, oddly enough called “Rolling Stone”, has said it will continue to publish the names of gay individuals. For context, any gay sexual act is already illegal in Uganda, and a proposed draconian “Anti-homosexuality Bill” has sparked international outcry. Also the paper that found it newsworthy to print the names of thought-to-be-gay individuals? It has been in publication for a whopping two months. So watch out as we begin a new series of our own: “Top Newspapers in Uganda that Publish Rubbish and are Likely Overcompensating for its Editor’s Own Toilsome Battle With Sexuality”. —JCL The BBC: Several people have been attacked in Uganda after a local newspaper published their names and photos, saying they were homosexual, an activist has told the BBC. Frank Mugisha said one woman was almost killed after her neighbours started throwing stones at her house. He said most of those whose names appeared in Uganda’s Rolling Stone paper had been harassed. Read more Related Entries October 20, 2010 ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Back in Effect October 20, 2010 Wars Will Cease When We Refuse to Fight
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The release of over 400,000 classified documents on the Iraq war has been officially labeled the biggest leak in U.S. history, leading the UN to call on the U.S. to investigate American troops’ human rights abuses while the Guardian newspaper has discovered record of 15,000 previously unreported civilian deaths. Wikileaks , the site responsible for the leak, also presents evidence that British forces were also involved in war crimes that happened in Iraq. —JCL The Guardian: The UN has called on Barack Obama to order a full investigation of US forces’ involvement in human rights abuses in Iraq after a massive leak of military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes. The call, by the UN’s chief investigator on torture, Manfred Nowak, came as Phil Shiner, human rights specialist at Public Interest Lawyers in the UK, warned that some of the deaths documented in the Iraq war logs could have involved British forces and would be pursued through the UK courts. He demanded a public inquiry into allegations that British troops were responsible for civilian deaths during the conflict. The Guardian has analysed the 400,000 documents, the biggest leak in US military history, and found 15,000 previously unreported civilian deaths. The logs show how US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to be systematic and generally unpunished. Read more Related Entries October 20, 2010 ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Back in Effect October 20, 2010 Wars Will Cease When We Refuse to Fight
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