On the road to New York
Finding pacifist solidarity along the way to war
Michael Moore

I continue to be amazed at the large number of people -- both on the radio and those we run into -- who are completely opposed to some half-cocked military response to what has happened. No matter what the media tells you or shows you, I am convinced there is a majority of Americans who, though they want justice and want to be protected from further attacks, do not want George W. Bush to start sounding like Dr. Strangelove.

Speaking of Strangelove, this past week began with one of the most powerful pieces on "60 Minutes" in a long time. They laid it all out: How the United States -- and specifically Henry Kissinger -- plotted to overthrow the democratically-elected president of Chile in the early 1970s. The plot succeeded, President Allende was assassinated, and thousands of other Chileans were brutally tortured and murdered. Today, many within the new government of Chile would like to put Kissinger on trial for these acts of terrorism. Do you think the United States will give him up?

thanks to BookNotes

war

Bush given conflicting advice; some aides want U.S. to topple governments

Powell, seeking to build and hold an international coalition against terrorism that includes many Muslim nations, is urging caution, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
(...)

That view is not shared by the Pentagon's civilian leadership. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and others have argued for a far more sweeping U.S. response, including a strategic-bombing campaign and aid for Iraqi opposition groups to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the officials said.

The military is the one urging caution? What is this world coming too? Oh yeah...They remember Vietnam.

Pakistan Primer
How far can the United States push Pakistan before it cracks up?

Facing heavy U.S. pressure, Pakistan pledged this weekend to give its "full support" to finding and punishing the perpetrators of last week's terrorist attacks. But before putting Delta Force commandos on the next flight to Peshawar, the United States ought to consider whether it is asking Pakistani president and army boss Gen. Pervez Musharraf to do too much. In a worst-case scenario, public discontent with any U.S. intervention could sow disastrous instability in a nation already fractured by sectarian strife and armed with as many as 30 nuclear bombs.

thanks to Red Rock Eater Digest

Nuclear Safety

What happens if a suicide bomber drives a jumbo jet into one of America's 103 nuclear power reactors? What happens if a fire fed by thousands of tons of jet fuel roars through a reactor complex--or, worse, through the enormous and barely-protected containment pools of spent nuclear fuel found at every such plant?

World Trade Center

Mossad warned CIA of attacks

Mossad officials traveled to Washington last month to warn the CIA and the FBI that a cell of up to 200 terrorists was planning a major operation, according to a report in the Sunday Telegraph here yesterday.

thanks to Ethel the Blog

Who did it? Foreign Report presents an alternative view

Israel’s military intelligence service, Aman, suspects that Iraq is the state that sponsored the suicide attacks on the New York Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington. Directing the mission, Aman officers believe, were two of the world’s foremost terrorist masterminds: the Lebanese Imad Mughniyeh, head of the special overseas operations for Hizbullah, and the Egyptian Dr Ayman Al Zawahiri, senior member of Al-Qaeda and possible successor of the ailing Osama Bin Laden.

thanks to MetaFilter

Engineers Tackle Havoc Beneath Trade Center

As a staff engineer for the Port Authority in 1967, Mr. Tamaro helped build the World Trade Center's basement, a 16-acre, 70-foot-deep hole in the ground that until last Tuesday housed seven levels of shopping, parking and, at the very bottom, the PATH train station. Now he and others are concerned that debris from the collapse of the twin towers might be the only thing supporting the walls of that giant hole against the pressure of muck and water and dirt on the outside.

news

Forgetting Foreign Affairs

Foreign news cutbacks are not a recent phenomenon. National newspapers and magazines have shut scores of overseas bureaus in recent years. The cutbacks not only save money for the beancounters but reflect an editorial decision-making process that judges Americans' need to know based on focus groups. This tool of advertisers and political consultants has declared that "serving the public" means more stories about cars, celebrities and cures that don't involve pain. Forget foreign affairs.

thanks to SmirkingChimp.com

At least we have other options now. We can use news sources where our foreign news is their local news. Again, go to Points of view from Central Asia, as suggested by Scripting News readers..

other

The End of Oil

In Hubbert's Peak, Deffeyes writes with good humor about the oil business, but he delivers a sobering message: the 100-year petroleum era is nearly over. Global oil production will peak sometime between 2004 and 2008, and the world's production of crude oil "will fall, never to rise again." If Deffeyes is right--and if nothing is done to reduce the increasing global thirst for oil--energy prices will soar and economies will be plunged into recession as they desperately search for alternatives

Cannabis 'dramatically improves pain relief'

Results from Britain's first clinical trial of cannabis as a medicine show that it has a dramatic impact on controlling patients' pain.

thanks to Scitech daily Review

the urinal game

This gives women the opportunity to see what men have to go through. It's important to pick the right urinal.

thanks to weblog wannabe