If the foreign forces are not seen so by Afghans already, they are on the cusp of being regarded as occupiers, with little to show people for their extended presence, fueling wild conspiracies about why they remain here. The feeling is particularly acute in the Pashtun south, but it is spreading to other parts of the country. More American troops could tip the balance of opinion, particularly if they increase civilian casualties and prompt even more Taliban attacks.

What did Sarah Palin have to say to Wisconsin Right to Life that the rest of us couldn't hear? The politician who set off conspiracy theories with her TMI about the birth of her youngest son has set strict rules about who was allowed to hear her speech. No cell phones, no cameras, not even strollers. That seems pretty harsh. Was anybody taking notes?

The public is outraged about reports that Citi, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley along with other big New York employers, received hundreds, even thousands, of H1N1 vaccine doses before hospitals and other healthcare providers, many of which have run out of the precious drug. For Goldman Sachs, accused of unfairly benefiting from government bailout funds and its close relationships with administration officials, the problem is especially acute. Jokes are already circulating on Wall Street about how Goldman will create derivatives out of the few doses it has and begin trading them.

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Tea Party activists hit the Hill, arrested outside Pelosi’s office « - Blogs from CNN.com

Fox News is using retired military officers surrounded by uniformed active duty troops in an attempt to derail debate on disengagement in Afghanistan. After 8 years, the US is heading the same way Russia did, the more troops we send, the more die. Absolutely nothing has been accomplished in 8 years in Afghanistan other than to start a major war in Pakistan too. I understand Fox News. They are controlled by the powerful Israeli spokeman, Rupert Murdoch. Israel wants this war to go on forever. Though Murdoch now is an American citizen, it doesn't seem to have "taken." What is good for Israel isn't always good for the US. Active duty military who try to make their own foreign policy are not just total morons but are in violation of a number of laws. They are technically at war with the United States of America. If it is necessary for veterans to take up weapons to fight against members of our military who are part of an insurrection run by a foreign power, tell me where to sign up. To the former officers, always quick to take a payoff from a defense contractor or the Bush Pentagon as a "pundit," reading from whatever script Karl Rove has written for the day, you dishonor yourselves, your oath and the United States. The oath I remember was:---

"Medicare For All, single payer will enable the working poor to make a stand where they are, and lift themselves out of poverty by organizing for and demanding a greater share of the wealth they produce every day. By removing the dread of financial ruin due to illness or injury, single payer will enable working people to fight for their own collective economic uplift. That's why the struggle for guaranteed and universal single payer, Medicare For All is the real deal right now, the key to unlocking a better life for millions in the near future, a concrete focus of the civil and human rights movements of our time."

Amid increasing incidents of climate protesters disrupting the operations of fossil-fuel industries and airports in Britain and elsewhere, Gore suggests the scale of the emergency means non-violent lawbreaking is justified. "Civil disobedience has an honourable history, and when the urgency and moral clarity cross a certain threshold, then I think that civil disobedience is quite understandable, and it has a role to play," he says. "And I expect that it will increase, no question about it."

Most farmers I know, (not all but most), see organic farming as just another way to farm, curious, perhaps a bit backward, but to most conventional farmers organic farming doesn't even register. With agribusiness however, it's another story. They're not content with just 96.5% of the food system, they want it all. Those who have their priorities confused, need to figure out who their enemies really are.

A blowup of a famous JFK assassination photograph reveals a shooter on the Grassy Knoll.

“The handguns used in yesterday’s rampage shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, demonstrate the deadly firepower available to any American--whether that person is a member of the military or a private citizen. Initial news reports describe the handguns possessed by the shooter as a semiautomatic pistol and .357 revolver, apparently neither was military issue. Like the Luby’s massacre in neighboring Killeen, Texas that occurred 18 years ago and left 23 dead and 20 injured, the facts are as simple as they are disturbing: easy access to unmatched firepower allows angry individuals to kill and wound at will. "

Markos Moulitsas, founder of The Daily Kos, chastised the former GOP Congressman Tom Tancredo for not answering his call to duty. Tancredo having obtained 1-Y status in 1970, after his student deferments ran out, on the grounds that he had been "diagnosed with depression when he was 16 or 17 and received medication for five years for panic attacks and bouts of anxiety and depression." Tancredo was 24 at the time. Hats off to Moulitsas!

Gordon Brown warned the Afghan government today that he will not continue to risk the lives of British troops to defend a corrupt regime. In a clear policy shift, the Prime Minister cautioned President Karzai that unless he quashes endemic corruption he will have “forfeited” his right to international support. As he tried to shore up faltering public opinion at home by claiming that the conflict was a “necessity, not choice”, Mr Brown appeared to open the way for a possible exit strategy. “I am not prepared to put the lives of British men and women in harm’s way for a government that does not stand up against corruption,” he said.

Following a statement on the Floor of the House of Representative, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today made the following statement: "Why is it we have finite resources for health care but unlimited money for war? "The inequities in our economy are piling up: trillions for war, trillions for Wall Street and tens of billions for the insurance companies. Banks and other corporations are sitting on piles of cash of taxpayer's money while firing workers, cutting pay and denying small businesses money to survive. "People are losing their homes, their jobs, their health, their investments, their retirement security; yet there is unlimited money for war, Wall Street and insurance companies, but very little money for jobs on Main Street. "Unlimited money to blow up things in Iraq and Afghanistan, and relatively little money to build things in the US. "The Administration may soon bring to Congress a request for an additional $50 billion for war. I can tell you that a Democratic version of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is no more acceptable than a Republican version of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Trillions for war and Wall Street, billions for insurance companies... When we were promised change, we weren't thinking that we give a dollar and get back two cents."

His books sell in their hundreds of thousands, he is mobbed by students as a celebrity, but he is rarely reported or interviewed in the US outside radical journals and websites. The explanation, of course, isn't hard to find. Chomsky is America's most prominent critic of the US imperial role in the world, which he has used his erudition and standing to expose and excoriate since Vietnam.

The following press release was issued by the University of Sussex Students' Union on 5 November 2009: Students at the University of Sussex, England have voted to boycott Israeli goods. The decision follows the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, which calls upon the Israeli state to respect international law and end the occupation of Palestine. In a campus-wide referendum, 56 percent of students voted in favor of the boycott. The referendum was held by the University of Sussex Students' Union (USSU), which represents the institution's 11,000 students. Goods from Israel will no longer be stocked in USSU shops on the university campus, and USSU will be lobbying the university administration to observe the boycott. Tom Wills, USSU President, said "Israel has broken more UN resolutions than any other state. No other Western-backed democracy has committed such egregious violations of international law, but the international community has failed to hold Israel to account. "Sussex was one of the first universities to boycott South Africa during apartheid, and we hope that this will help kickstart an international movement on a similar scale to put pressure on Israel to end its oppression of the Palestinian people.

Pressure is growing within Nato for the removal of the remaining US nuclear weapons on European soil, and for a new doctrine for the alliance that would depend less on nuclear deterrence.