A court-appointed expert in Ecuador has recommended that Chevron Corp. pay $7 billion to $16 billion if it loses a marathon lawsuit over oil-field contamination in the Amazon rain forest. The estimate, contained in a report filed Tuesday in an Ecuadoran court, marks the latest twist in a bitterly fought case that has drawn international attention, with each side accusing the other of deception and dirty tricks.

Remember how the California Nurses Association took on Gov. Schwarzenegger? Well, this report suggests that powers are amassing to smash their voices: "SEIU is national, and obviously much larger than CNA, but SEIU is only 2% RNs. CNA is 100% RNs... This is about patient safety. This is about allocating responsibilities and procedures ...to unlicensed staff. Or worse (and more likely), just assigning these procedures to less skilled staff ..."

The U.S. Government suspended the Fourth Amendment and expressly authorized torture. The Attorney General lied about how the 9/11 attack happened. Barack Obama can't bowl well. Which revelations did the media cover? By Glenn Greenwald

The U.S. State Department has agreed to renew Blackwater USA's license to protect diplomats in Baghdad for one year while the FBI investigates a 2007 incident in which the company's guards are accused of killing 17 Iraqis.

The “American Way of Life,” which George H.W. Bush proclaimed to be “non-negotiable,” is a system based on greed, narcissism, selfishness, mean-spiritedness, economic subjugation, belligerence, and militarism. How could a person in their right mind truly believe that the Christian God, and Christ in particular, would embrace, condone, or bless a means of existence premised on such contemptible elements?Romans 13:8 reads, “Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.”

Naomi Klein reveals an agenda that is shocking in itself. Read the book, also. This is a preview video.

Mike Prysner was told that racism no longer existed in the military when he first joined up in the summer of 2001.“When I got to Iraq in 2003, I learned a new word: ‘Haji,’ ” he said. “Haji was the enemy. Haji was every Iraqi. He was not a person, or a father, or a teacher, or a worker.”In his speech, Prysner noted the irony of the word haji as a derogatory term.A Muslim who has completed Mecca pilgrimage is a Haji. “Essentially, we took the best thing in their culture and turned it into the worst thing,” Prysner said.

...Looking ahead ten years, I cannot tell you what new technology will bring. I can only project with confidence that it will be at least as far ahead of today's tech as today's tech is ahead of dial-up... The key here is that on that technology, whatever it is, we need to extend net neutrality for content, so that the network providers do not control what content we get to access. That's what they are attempting to do, and we must stop them.

“You got a problem with health care: tax cuts. You got problem with education: tax cuts. You got a problem with the economy: tax cuts. Poverty: tax cuts. That’s not a policy, it’s a dogma, a tired and cynical philosophy,” Obama told a crowd of over 17,000 in Grand Forks, N.D. "I believe that either Senator Clinton or I would do a far better job of leading this country over the next four years than John McCain.”

Bush's enthusiasm for missile defense has never waned. Twenty five years after Ronald Reagan proposed what became known as the "Star Wars" program, Bush clearly wants to make it a key part of his legacy. "For 2009, the White House is requesting $12.3 billion to develop ballistic missile defense. This is on top of the more than $120 billion taxpayers have already spent since 1985 to develop a system that still has yet to be realistically tested and may never be operationally effective. . . .

When American politicians talk about strategic interests, they are talking about just what I called it, manure. We have no strategic interests in the Middle East whatsoever. We wish to buy oil there. Last time I checked, those countries that produce oil were selling it to any country willing to buy it, whether that country had troops in the area or not. Since oil isn't edible, there's not a heck of a lot you can do with it if you don't sell it.What are all those Navy ships in the Persian Gulf doing?

A crucial yet overlooked deadline looms over the Iraq debate: Unless further action is taken, the war will become illegal on Jan. 1, 2009. Despite protestations to the contrary, Congress clearly understood that it was authorizing the president to intervene militarily when it passed its joint resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq in October 2002. But it did not give him a blank check. It allowed for the use of force only under two conditions.....

More than 1,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen either refused to fight or simply abandoned their posts during the inconclusive assault against Shiite militias in Basra last week, a senior Iraqi government official said Thursday. Iraqi military officials said the group included dozens of officers, including at least two senior field commanders in the battle.

Frankly, I think we're toast. We'll never see a Constitutional Republic in the United States again, and God, do I fear these lunatics having nuclear weapons.

La-Z-Boy and Whirlpool are moving jobs to new plants in Mexico, bringing job losses to hundreds of workers in Dayton and Cleveland. La-Z-Boy employees in Dayton were told today that the cutting and sewing operation is being moved to Mexico. Note: No more recliners or Whirlpool appliances for me. I have enough trouble putting a bookshelf from China together using their instructions.

"Sure, there's lots of criticism of the Bush administration for poor war planning, and for squandering U.S. lives and "treasure." All this is true, but it skirts a more fundamental problem – one that was barely mentioned in all the fifth-year anniversary commentaries last week – that the invasion was a war of aggression carried out in defiance of international law. This is not a mere technicality."

The reaction was swift and angry. After Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced Tuesday that he would speed up construction of the wall along the U.S.-Mexican border by sidestepping three dozen federal environmental laws, House Homeland Security Committee chair Bennie Thompson denounced the move as "an extreme abuse of authority."

A United Nations military observer sent e-mails home to Canada reporting that Israel was bombing schools and waging "a campaign of terror against the Lebanese people" shortly before he was killed by an Israeli bomb in Lebanon, said his widow. Maj. Paeta Hess-von Kruedener of Kingston, Ont., a member of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, was one of four UN military observers who died when the Israeli Defence Forces bombed a marked United Nations post on July 25, 2006.

A warmer world could be a more explosive one. Global warming is having a much more profound effect than just melting ice caps – it is melting magma too.

Have Justice Department officials and GOP loyalists become essentially an upscale, white-collar version of the Klan, armed with voting lists on their Palm Pilots rather than burning crosses and guns to keep blacks from voting? Yes, they have.