Stop the EXECUTION of Troy Davis

Stop the execution of Troy Davis.

Innocence Project.

Amnesty USA


Amnesty France

Reverse Nuremberg

We’ve got what amounts to a reverse Nuremberg defense, where Bush administration officials are let off the hook because they were only giving orders.

Thunk

« La classe ouvrière n’existe plus. Mais elle prend tout sur la gueule »

The working class no longer exists. But it's still taking it in the chops.

« Le communisme c’est le seul contrepoison le seul antidote le seul remède la seule alternative à la société d’exploitation au capitalisme qui jamais n’a le visage humain. Tous les damnés de la terre savent ça qui sont de plus en plus nombreux et de plus en plus damnés. Seuls les salauds ne sont pas avec eux et c’est comme ça qu’on les reconnaît. »

Communism is the only antitoxin the only antidote the only remedy the only alternative to the capitalist society of exploitation which never has a human face. All the wretched of the earth who are more and more numerous and more and more wretched know it. Only the bastards aren't with them and that's how we recognise them.

Georges Labica, Démocratie et révolution

Convenient Suicide

The accused terrorist who said he was tortured into making a false connection between al Qaeda and Iraq has died in a Libyan prison, human rights monitors said Tuesday.

Not A Spoof.

La Chinoise

The rest...

The Spring of the Zombies

Stiglitz

The Economic Homeless

For the economic homeless, the American ideal that education and hard work lead to a comfortable middle-class life has slipped out of reach. They're packing into motels, parking lots and tent cities, alternately distressed and hopeful, searching for work and praying their fortunes will change.

The Day Ronald Reagan Was Elected...

"The day Ronald Reagan was elected, this crisis was locked in as something that was going to happen, maybe not precisely on September 15 2008, but it was going to happen."

Evidence

This is exactly what affirmative action is meant to correct: People coming to the arbitrary conclusion that someone is "an idiot" despite all evidence to the contrary, except if you consider not being a white man evidence.

The weirdest bicycle since The Third Policeman

"Bosnia and Herzegovina is like a bicycle," says Lord (Paddy) Ashdown, who served as the country's UN high representative between 2002 and 2006. "If it is in constant motion, the chances of things going wrong are avoidable. As long as there is momentum. If it stops or is pedalled backwards, that is when I fear the prevalent mood becomes one of pessimism. Then there is the risk that it turns in on itself. And it has lost momentum.

Realists v. Neo-Cons

Blue corner:

...Petraeus expressed the view that the Pakistani army could survive the fall of the government of President Ali Zardari and that the army, led by Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, is “superior” to the civilian government.

This statement echoed the position indicated by President Barack Obama at the Wednesday evening press conference marking his first 100 days in office. Obama said he was confident that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal would remain secure, “Primarily, initially, because the Pakistani army, I think, recognizes the hazards of those weapons falling into the wrong hands.” He added, “We’ve got strong military-to-military consultation and cooperation.”

In contrast, the American president described Zardari’s government as “very fragile” and lacking “the capacity to deliver basic services” or “gain the support and the loyalty of their people.”

Obama concluded by saying of Pakistan, “We want to respect their sovereignty, but we also recognize that we have huge strategic interests, huge national security interests in making sure that Pakistan is stable and that you don't end up having a nuclear-armed militant state.”

Red Corner:

To prevent catastrophe will require considerable American effort and unquestionably provoke resistance from many Pakistanis, often for widely differing reasons. We must strengthen pro-American elements in Pakistan's military so they can purge dangerous Islamicists from their ranks; roll back Taliban advances; and, together with our increased efforts in Afghanistan, decisively defeat the militants on either side of the border. This may mean stifling some of our democratic squeamishness and acquiescing in a Pakistani military takeover, if the civilian government melts before radical pressures. So be it.

May Day

Into the Streets May First!


Alfred Hayes


Into the streets May First!
Into the roaring Square!
Shake the midtown towers!
Shatter the downtown air!
Come with a storm of banners,
Come with an earthquake tread,
Bells, hurl out of your belfries,
Red flag, leap out your red!
Out of the shops and factories,
Comrades, these are our tools,
A song and a banner!
Roll song, from the sea of our hearts,
Banner, leap and be free;
Song and banner together,
Down with the bourgeoisie!

Sweep the big city, march forward,
The day is a barricade!
Pour forth like a second Flood!
Thunder the alps of the air!
Subways are roaring our milllons --

Comrades, into the square !!!


Alfred Hayes, May 1, 1934

AMY GOODMAN: Why would any library agree to give over their work to a private company?

BREWSTER KAHLE: It seemed like a good idea at the time.

AMY GOODMAN: Why?

BREWSTER KAHLE: Because Google was going to pay for the digitization of these books. And what they said originally is that they would—like a web search engine, they would go and index these books and then allow people to see bits and pieces, but direct people back to the libraries or direct people back to bookstores to be able to get them. What we now find through this suit is Google’s ambitions were far greater than just directing people back to where they came from; they wanted to be the library or the bookstore themselves.

AMY GOODMAN: So they will make money on these libraries?

BREWSTER KAHLE: Not only will they make money, they will be the sole organization to control access to these works.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean, “control access”?

BREWSTER KAHLE: Well, if they want those books to be available to people, they can have it in their search engine and rank it high. If books are things they don’t want to have available, I don’t know, for any reason that corporations might want to do that, they can take it effectively out of the library. If they get to be the library that the next generation grows up with, then they get to decide who has access to works, and if you happen to be reading a book, they’ll know about it.

Speaking Of Swine

The Gospel of the Creole Pig by Michelange Quay