be just

The Doming of America - The Smirking Chimp : "As a former public school teacher in Washington, I heard this cliche from countless bureaucrats. It was code for 'Stop whining about ancient textbooks and prehistoric classroom materials, because there is no money.' Imagine my shock when the city announced it would be spending more than $500 million on a new baseball stadium. Clearly when it comes to the needs of billionaire sports owners, there always seems to be money available to be thrown."

Liberties lost - baltimoresun.com : "Such moments of error or alarm have sent the government off on dangerous tangents from time to time over the years - but rarely with more wide-ranging consequences than the course embarked upon after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. On this 231st anniversary of Jefferson's eloquent Declaration of Independence from British rule, the United States is desperately in need of restoring the rights and freedoms surrendered in a false bid for security that has perversely put the nation at greater risk."

Jean Gerard: Those So-Called Oil Contracts in Iraq The most recent report in the New York Times (7/3/07) says "Maliki's Cabinet Approves Oil Law Draft" and goes on to state that this means the Parliament can now begin to debate the proposed contracts. This is touted as "a major sign of progress" and will work "to boost reconciliation between Iraq's Sunnis and Shiites." Without stating any particulars at all, the article denigrates the disagreements among Iraqi factions as "bickering" and states that negotiations have been "plagued by squabbling." Use of such prejudicial words minimizes the importance of the proposals at the same time it tells nothing about what those proposals are.

American Civil Liberties Union : ACLU Slams Appeals Court Decision in NSA Surveillance Case CINCINNATI - In a 2-1 decision, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals today dismissed a legal challenge to the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program. The challenge was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of prominent journalists, scholars, attorneys and national nonprofit organizations who say that the unchecked surveillance program is disrupting their ability to communicate effectively with sources and clients.

In 2001, 19-year-old Murat Kurnaz was an innocent man caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Accused of being a terrorist, he spent five years in Guantanamo before being released -- now he's telling his story.

Statements by Iraqi insurgent groups in March 2007* Group Total number of statements Islamic Army in Iraq (IAI) 249 Ansar al-Sunnah 196 Islamic State of Iraq (ISI/Al-Qaeda)** 162 Mujahidin Army 143 Shield of Islam 89 Jaysh al-Fatihin 39 Jaysh al-Rashidin 33 Just Recompense Brigades 26 Islamic Front of Iraqi Resistance (JAMI) 14 Jihadist Brigades of Iraq 12 1920 Revolution Brigades 3 Total 966 * Source: World News Net and Mohajroon (aggregated). Statements that may have been posted elsewhere were not included in this table, which is intended to demonstrate the general media profile of the insurgent groups on two specific websites. Because press releases sometimes appear several days after the operations they announce, attacks claimed in these statements span a period that began before March 1 and ended before March 31. ** Proclaimed in October 2006, the Islamic State of Iraq is the latest iteration of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (see Section 4.1.1, Islamic State of Iraq). The group is referred to ...

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Indian woman strips in dowry row : "A woman in western India has stripped to her underwear in public to protest over alleged abuses from her husband's family for not providing a dowry. "

Tribal Chief Says NATO Airstrike Killed 108 Afghan Civilians - New York Times KABUL, Afghanistan, July 7 — Amid a continuing flurry of reports about civilian casualties in Afghanistan, the leader of a tribal council in Farah Province said Saturday that 108 noncombatants had been killed Friday in a NATO airstrike.