On the flight home today I got my hands on a copy of yesterday’s Guardian and wanted to bring attention to an article by Larry Elliott about the ongoing economic crisis that I thought incredibly well written… “This was the week the world changed. It started with the US authorities trying to rescue Lehman. It ended with the US taxpayer preparing to pick up the tab for the mistakes of Wall Street's elite. It started with the prime minister sipping cocktails with financiers in Canary Wharf. It ...More »

It is altogether proper that we fear nuclear weapons. While one has not been used in 63 years – 63 years ago on this very day, in fact - the horror and devastation wrought by the two employed in the summer of 1945 was enough to usher in an age of unprecedented fear and paranoia. In the wake of that fear and paranoia a nuclear arms race would commence that would help promote a theory that to maintain nuclear détente the production of weapons was ...More »

As expected, the testimony of both General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker today was predictable. First, Petraeus recommended that planned US troop withdrawals in July be postponed to ensure that ‘gains’ made are not jeopardized. He also claimed that security in Iraq is currently better than it was when he last testified before Congress in September of 2007. Unfortunately, when one looks at the numbers, that simply isn’t the case. Attacks against US forces and Iraqi security forces this month are higher than they were ...More »

A few random bits to start with today prior to delving into the Petreaus-Crocker debacle. First, congrats to my friend Claire Folwer who wrote her first blog entry in a year yesterday – for The Guardian. Second, a rather shocking occurrence in which a girl was assaulted while it was videotaped… Regarding The Recently Announced Calgary Date I realize that some fans in Calgary might be disappointed that I’m not playing my own show but rather the Virgin Festival. Then again, the bands on the bill that day are ...More »

Over the years this website has been mentioned in numerous notable publications and has been linked to by various well-known websites. I have also been contacted by the likes of the BBC in the past with regards to getting a hold of authors, in that particular case it was Samar and their desire to interview her about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon after reading her entries on the site. But today I got a bit of an enjoyable shock. While reading the Comment Is Free ...More »

First up this morning, two quick film reviews… Redacted Based on the rape and murder of a teenaged Iraqi girl in Mahmoudiya (and the execution of other members of her family) by US Marines manning a nearby checkpoint, the film is a wake up call that received little to no attention in the United States. While the crime is one of the major focuses of the film, another important aspect is the pressures faced by the individual that finally came forward and revealed that it happened. Into ...More »

If you spend some time doing some investigating today you’ll quickly discover that the unrest overtaking Kenya has a very dark side to it, one that is steeped in ethnic tensions that the country’s recent election results have pushed to the forefront. What took place in Eldoret, in Western Kenya, where 80 children were burned alive in a church along with an estimated 20 adults was, in truth, an act of ethnic cleansing undertaken by members of the Kalenjin tribe, most of them youths. ...More »

On December 21st, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York exploded mid-air over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. All 270 aboard the 747 were lost, and 11 residents of Lockerbie itself were killed when a wing section of the aircraft, traveling at some 500 miles per hour, hit 13 Sherwood Crescent and exploded. The man convicted of the bombing was a Libyan intelligence officer, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, who was also the head of security for Libya Arab Airlines. He was ...More »

I want to clarify that the focus of this entry is the practice of counter-intelligence and the very real historical ramifications that it has had with regards to Latin America. John Pilger’s entry posted today on the The Guardian’s Comment Is Free blog entitled “The old Iran-Contra death squad gang is desperate to discredit Chavez” is an interesting read. In it, Pilger confronts some of Latin America’s harsh realities and, having also made a documentary entitled The War On Democracy, which “shows that the principles of ...More »

First, it seems that Samar’s latest entry Hot/Live has become a topic of discussion on, of all places, the Sean Hannity forums. Who knew. The fact that no one seems to have actually read the entry is apparent though. They all refer to Samar as a male. And, of course, the term Hezbollah was thrown around, which I would think would be rather insulting to a woman that was a member of the democratic movement in her country. Other articles of note over the last twenty ...More »