homefries.org

I’m feeling burdened by the bigotry and ignorance of people who are objecting to the Cordoba Institute’s community center (and yes, mosque) at a location in lower Manhattan near the World Trade Center. (The so-called “Ground Zero Mosque.”) Although some of the rhetoric has de-escalated to “they may have the right to build it, but [...]

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George Bush admits committing war crimes.

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CNN has an interactive map showing military casualties from Afghanistan and Iraq. It includes U.S. and coalition forces and links locations in Iraq and Afghanistan with the hometowns of the soldiers who died. It is sobering and a beautiful tribute. Five young men from the county I grew up in have been casualties of the [...]

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. . . but isn’t boarding a ship in international waters (by dropping from a helicopter, no less) an act either of piracy or of war? I acknowledge the right of Israel to decide who and what can enter Israel, and what ships can enter Israel’s territorial waters or dock. I find it incredibly offensive, [...]

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Robert Paterson has one of the most consistently bleak yet optimistic takes on reality that I’ve come across. Today he critiques the economic system we live in as being dominated by finance to the detriment of “making and doing things that benefit us really.” He looks to the end of the Soviet Union and of [...]

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The root cause of hunger and famine is rarely crop failure alone. It is about who controls and benefits from the land and its resources. About 1 billion people, or one in six of the global population, go hungry today, even though more food is being produced than ever. And yet, around the same number [...]

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This lovely short film really helped me get a handle on the scale of the Icelandic volcano in a way that the still and aerial photography I’ve seen did not. Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull – May 1st and 2nd, 2010 from Sean Stiegemeier on Vimeo.

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I couldn’t put it better myself: Haven’t we learned and understood that democratic processes and civil societies need to come from within? Democratic governments and liberal economic policies can’t be forced on to a nation from the outside, however desperately they may need it. No, these things must come from within. Without the domestic demand [...]

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Some of the brutal interrogation methods that Mr. Yoo and Mr. Bybee approved for use on Qaeda prisoners, including wall-slamming and the near-drowning of waterboarding, had never before been authorized in American history, and the United States had condemned such treatment as torture and abuse when used by other countries. Um, perhaps because it is [...]

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John Yoo, page 251 Jay Bybee, page 255 Steven Bradbury, page 258 Michael Chertoff, Adam Ciongoli, John Ashcroft, page 259 OPR Report On Torture Memos. Based on the results of our investigation, we concluded that former Deputy AAG John Yoo committed intentional professional misconduct when he violated his duty to exercise independent legal judgment and [...]

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