Category: News
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Cuba's World-Class Healthcare System
24-hour state-covered dental care. 1 doctor for every 600 citizens. No citizen more than 20 minutes from a consultorio clinic with a resident doctor and nurse (that often visits you at home, unannounced). American embargoes contribute to a balanced diet. Lowest infant mortality, second only to Canada. Total annual care paid per citizen: $251. Doctors-in-training […]
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USDA Scales Back Mad-Cow Testing
The current testing level — 1,000 each day — reflects the heightened concern that followed the discovery in December 2003 of mad cow disease in the United States. Since then, tests have turned up two more cases of the disease, known medically as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. Beginning around late August, the new level […]
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Thoughts on Illegal Immigration
The immigration debate is crazy and it is a no-win situation for anybody. Unfortunately, it seems the issue of border-security remains stuffed down by the rampant racism underlying the arguments. I think this is really the wedge issue for the 2006 elections in case Iran doesn’t have the heft expected (Americans are very obedient when […]
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Power Bottom Loses Texas House Race
Tom Malin, a Democratic candidate for the Texas House used to be a male prostitute under the name Tom Sharpe. He gained 45% of the vote but lost to Jack Borden. Malin was outted by the Dallas Morning News and of course the blogosphere has dug up caches of his old escorting profiles. Malin maintained: […]
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Post-WWII German and Russia: A Comparison
Fantastic comment on Plastic post about Nikita Kruschev’s secret four hour speech: The reason why the Soviet Union reacted so differently from Germany, is probably that although many of the circumstances in the two countries were alike, many other circumstances differed greatly. For instance: …3. While Germany had had a comparatively open an well educated […]
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Media Sat on Katrina Tape for 6 Months
Be mortified as Bush doesn’t ask a single damned question while every expert they can find tells him that the levees will most likely fail and there will be mass destruction and loss of life. But also be mortified that the media secured the video tapes a few days after and then sat on the […]
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National Archives Reclassifies Thousands of Documents
In a seven-year-old secret program at the National Archives, intelligence agencies have been removing from public access thousands of historical documents that were available for years, including some already published by the State Department and others photocopied years ago by private historians. [Historian] Mr. [Matthew] Aid was struck by what seemed to him the innocuous […]
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Top 10 Censored News Stories of 2005
Project Censored is back with their picks for the top under-reported stories of last year: White House erodes open government. Civilian death toll of Fallujah Distored election coverage, hackable voting machines Surveillance soceity unveiling US uses tsunami to military advantage Saddam raked in oil profits from Jordan and Turkey – with US approval Journalists in […]
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Feet to the Fire: The Media After 9/11
Kristine Borjesson is back with a new book about media, politics and perception. Her previous book, Into the Buzzsaw is pretty mindblowing. When I watch network news, it’s just so hard to watch. It isn’t attractive. They all look alike, they all sound alike, they all say the same things. And I don’t care how […]
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Oil Industry Shut Down Refineries to Boost Profits
From The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights: The three internal memos from Mobil, Chevron, and Texaco show different ways the oil giants closed down refining capacity and drove independent refiners out of business. The confidential memos demonstrate a nationwide effort by American Petroleum Institute, the lobbying and research arm of the oil industry, to […]