PEN American Center has joined more than 1,100 writers and free expression advocates in the United States to raise grave concerns over government surveillance and threats against the press, saying authorities are intruding too much on privacy in the name of national security. (more…)

Boys who drink water with levels of fluoride considered safe by federal guidelines are five times more likely to have a rare bone cancer than boys who drink unfluoridated water, according to a study by Harvard University scientists published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Sodium fluoride is a protoplasmic poison, if you drink tap water you’re putting your long-term health in serious jeopardy. There are countless studies to back up the harmful effects of sodium fluoride, I will post a whole article on all of those studies sometime in the near future. (more…)

Welcome to a radical new vision of space and the future, from the same crowd that brought you Iraq. In a little-noted policy document, the Bush Administration has unilaterally declared its right to conduct pre-emptive attacks on foreign spacecraft and on any objects or installations that might support them from the ground. It has also declared its opposition to international treaties that might restrict space exploration to primarily peaceful purposes. (more…)

As the world grapples with how to rein in the “axis of evil” state which this week conducted a nuclear test, this spectacular satellite photo unveiled yesterday by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld shows in stark detail the haves and have-nots of the Korean peninsula.

The regime in the north is so short of electricity that the whole country is switched off at 9 p.m. - apart from the capital of Pyongyang where dictator Kim Jong-il and his cohorts live in relative luxury. But even there, lighting is drastically reduced. (more…)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military’s top officer said Thursday that the Pentagon would have sufficient forces to win if called on to fight a war in North Korea, but the conflict would be more difficult without the intelligence and guidance systems devoted to Iraq and Afghanistan. (more…)

Asian political leaders on Sunday proposed creating a community called “Asian Union’’ in a concluding statement at the fourth general assembly of the International Conference for Asian Political Parties (ICAPP).

Four hundred representatives from 90 political parties in 36 Asian countries adopted the Seoul Declaration from the three-day conference, which included not only the establishment of the Asian Union but also a joint campaign to fight terrorism, poverty and weapons of mass destruction. (more…)

Freedom under occupation makes Saddam Hussein look like Nelson Mandela in comparison

A new study published by The Lancet estimates that 655,000 Iraqis, the vast majority of them innocent civilians, have been killed as a result of the bombing and occupation of Iraq. Was this a human price worth paying for the supposed liberation of an oppressed people? How does freedom in Iraq under Bush’s mandate compare with Saddam Hussein’s regime? (more…)

Immediately after the Mark Foley scandal broke, some anti-Republican gay-rights activists composed a memo containing the names of closeted gay Republican Congressional staffers and sent it to leading Christian-right advocacy groups. The founder and chairman of one of those groups, the Rev. Don Wildmon of the American Family Association, told me he has received that memo, which he referred to simply as “The List.” Based on The List’s contents, Wildmon is convinced that a secretive gay “clique” boring within the Republican-controlled Congress is responsible for covering up Foley’s sexual predation toward teenage male House pages. Moreover, Wildmon calls on the Republican Party leadership to promptly purge the “subversive” gay staffers. (more…)

Keith reveals the bush administrations truest innermost feelings of Christianity. Of course we all knew that already. Bush and most of his staff are skull and bones, a satanic secret society at yale university.

Threatens Truth Professors With FBI Investigation

During Professor Jim Fetzer’s appearance on The O’Reilly Factor Thursday night, O’Reilly equated the 9/11 Scholars with terrorists and threw his weight behind a move to have them being investigated by the FBI, in a similar vein to a previous case in which his false charges led to the arrest of another professor and charges of supporting terrorism which were later dismissed.

“I’d put the FBI on you and that nutty Barrett and find out what the hell you guys are up to,” salivates O’Reilly, making reference to Sammy Al-Arian, a former professor at USF who was charged and later acquitted of helping to lead a Palestinian terrorist group that carried out suicide bombings against Israel. (more…)

Laughs off notion Bush admin. got political gas mileage out of accident, yet admits it himself - attacks 9/11 truth movement

In the second hour of his nationally syndicated show Thursday, Rush Limbaugh attacked Alex Jones, Prison Planet.com and the 9/11 truth movement, for suggesting that the Cory Lidle plane crash affected the upcoming election by invoking memories of 9/11 - when it was Fox News and Limbaugh himself that pitched this spin. (more…)

Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land provides a striking comparison of U.S. and international media coverage of the crisis in the Middle East, zeroing in on how structural distortions in U.S. coverage have reinforced false perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This pivotal documentary exposes how the foreign policy interests of American political elites–oil, and a need to have a secure military base in the region, among others–work in combination with Israeli public relations strategies to exercise a powerful influence over how news from the region is reported. Through the voices of scholars, media critics, peace activists, religious figures, and Middle East experts, Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land carefully analyzes and explains how–through the use of language, framing and context–the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza remains hidden in the news media, and Israeli colonization of the occupied terrorities appears to be a defensive move rather than an offensive one. The documentary also explores the ways that U.S. journalists, for reasons ranging from intimidation to a lack of thorough investigation, have become complicit in carrying out Israel’s PR campaign. At its core, the documentary raises questions about the ethics and role of journalism, and the relationship between media and politics. (more…)

More than 5,100 voters in a dozen Cuyahoga County communities may have received flawed absentee ballots.

The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections reported Monday that the errors - mostly misspellings and omitted words - appear on ballots for more than a dozen local issues and will require corrected ballots to be sent to voters. (more…)

A veteran GOP consultant was sentenced today to 5 to 10 years in prison for luring two male college students into his home on separate occasions, holding them captive in his spartan apartment and threatening them with Mafia retaliation if they contacted their friends or family. (more…)

St. Louis Election Board officials say they’ve discovered at least 1,492 “potentially fraudulent” voter registration cards - including three from dead people and one from a 16-year-old - among the thousands pouring in before today’s voter registration deadline for the Nov. 7 election. (more…)