HELIOLITH

Trying to catch up on the news of May Day Rally in Los Angeles, and wanting primary sources, I turned to YouTube. Lamentably, I had to filter through white-supremacist versions of riot footage, set to what sounds like angry white-power punkrock. Is there really a white-power musical genre? Blech. One of […]

Shock jock humor is to Talula as horror movies are to Michael. I don’t understand the point. I realize a lot of people listen to radio asswipes like Don Imus and Howard Stern, and that a lot of the people who listen actually agree that he’s a putz. But I fail to see the excitemment […]

So an Italian judge is trying to decide whether to request the extradition of 26 U.S. citizens in connection with the kidnapping and torture of Mr Hassan, also known as Abu Omar. He was released from prison in Egypt last Sunday, 2/11/07. According to this BBC article, “He says that he was repeatedly […]

Responding to Iran’s assertion that they will hit back hard if the USA attacks them, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates asserted, “My impression is they make threats like this from time to time. We have no intention of attacking Iran.” (Herald Tribune) He added, “It’s just another day in the Persian Gulf.”
Yet […]

As much as I applaud and appreciate Lloyd Levine’s chutzpah, I can’t help but laugh at the thought that he is actually proposing to ban regular incandescent light bulbs in California. The Washington Post has a good writeup, if you don’t want to just check the frontpage of Levine’s Homepage.
Personally, about […]

From England’s Guardian Unlimited

At the rally, 12-year-old Moriah Arnold stood on her toes to reach the microphone and tell the crowd: “Now we know our leaders either lied to us or hid the truth. Because of our actions, the rest of the world sees us as a bully and a liar.’’
The sixth-grader from Harvard, […]

Lifting my long unused blog-voice as though to test the microphone, I share this link on geothermal energy (via slashdot today): MIT-led panel backs ‘heat mining’ as key U.S. energy source - MIT News Office.
Knowing that we (U.S. Residents) are consuming more than our share of the earth’s energy and resources, I am […]

We interrupt this week of perpetual studies with the following news: Mark Wilkerson is badass. He deserted the US Army for Canada after being denied concientious objector status, and has just returned to turn himself in after a year and a half. I listened to his story this morning on WNYC. He talked about his […]

I saw this bumper sticker in the supermarket parking lot last week, and it’s ringing truer and true as our current events become stranger every day. From the US today blocking a deal on fighting AIDS to the president pretending he could ever pass an anti-same-sex marriage ammendment to the Constitution, to the improbability […]

The UK’s Sunday Times runs the story today of the officially recognized massacre of 24 innocent civilians, including the elderly, disabled, women, and children in Haditha, Iraq at the hands of at least 4 U.S. Marines who according to one military official “suffered a total breakdown in morality and leadership” it’s important to read what […]