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E.J. Dionne
$18.95
By Dorothy Fall
$18.15
$22
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stan.uio.no
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A court has ordered Google to hand over the viewing log of every user and every video ever on YouTube. Media giant Viacom is suing Google over copyright violations, and won access to the 12 terabytes of data, but not YouTube’s source code, which it also demanded. Google has asked to anonymize the data.
Posted on Jul 3, 2008
7 COMMENTS 
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U.S. Navy / Petty Officer 1st Class Shane T. McCoy
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One man’s torture, it seems, is another’s “coercive management technique.” For decades the United States has maintained that American prisoners were tortured by the Chinese during the Korean War. Now it turns out that at least some of the interrogation methods used at Guantanamo Bay were lifted directly from an American study of China’s Korean War era practices.
Posted on Jul 3, 2008
3 COMMENTS
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mediamatters.org
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Fox News apparently doesn’t handle bad publicity very well. In response to a New York Times story that suggested the network’s ratings might be slipping, the co-hosts of “Fox & Friends” cried foul, broadcasting photos of Times reporter Jacques Steinberg and editor Steven Reddicliffe. The problem? The “news” channel had doctored the pictures to make the journos appear less attractive.
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There’s a lot more to object to in the new FISA bill than just retroactive immunity for the telecoms. It seems that the regulation of surveillance is still hopelessly out of date. How is a court supposed to handle complex algorithms and countless terabytes of data? Truthdig contributor Elliot Cohen warns that the new law could conceivably allow the theft of the 2008 presidential election.
Posted on Jul 2, 2008
5 COMMENTS
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Salon.com
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The folks at Blackwater and other private security outfits in Iraq encountered a dramatic setback Wednesday after an Iraqi minister announced that private guards will no longer be given immunity from U.S military and Iraqi law, ending more than five years of unregulated mercenary violence in the country.
Posted on Jul 2, 2008
9 COMMENTS
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cnbc.com
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Wal-Mart may be fined by a Minnesota judge for violating the state’s employment laws. The fines are for ‘’contractual violations,” a fancy way of saying that Wal-Mart denied rest breaks to workers at least 1.5 million times.
Posted on Jul 2, 2008
4 COMMENTS
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businessweek.com
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A recent advertising partnership between search giant Google and competitor Yahoo has antitrust authorities worried. Not only does a Google-Yahoo deal look ridiculous in name, but critics (such as Microsoft) say the partnership would consolidate Google’s control of Internet search ad revenue to a whopping 90 percent of U.S. market share.
Posted on Jul 2, 2008
1 COMMENT
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Politicians usually try to explain away their records once they bid for higher office. Take the case of just about any big-time Democrat and the issue of gay marriage. But San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who formally launched an exploratory bid Tuesday for the California governorship, says he’s not worried about his gay rights legacy: “We’re about civil rights and equal rights, you better believe it. ... I’m proud of that, I’m not going to hide from that.”
Posted on Jul 1, 2008
3 COMMENTS
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commons.wikimedia.org
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Despite spending countless billions and passing draconian laws, the United States is anything but a drug-free zone. The percentages of those in the U.S. who have tried marijuana or cocaine are greater than the percentages of any other country surveyed, according to a new study. The Netherlands, which has notoriously lax drug policies, had less than half the percentage of marijuana users and an even lower level of cocaine dabblers relative to the U.S.
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U.S. Department of Energy
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Four decades ago, officials from countries around the world signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), pledging to bring the spread of those weapons to a halt. The treaty also pledged the signatories that possessed said weapons at the time—such as the United States—to get rid of their nuclear arms.
Posted on Jul 1, 2008
2 COMMENTS
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chasingthecool.wordpress.com
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Fine, so the headline was a bit much, but this was one time we didn’t mind saying venti instead of large: Turns out that even the top bananas at Starbucks finally realized that they’ve overextended themselves, and due to the sagging economy, they’re closing 600 U.S. retail locations. Great—so that means there’ll be only eight Starbucks stores on every block instead of nine.
Posted on Jul 1, 2008
2 COMMENTS
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Flickr / BohPhoto
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Barack Obama says he was erroneously “tagged as being on the left,” a reputation that served him well during the primaries. Now that he has the nomination secured, the candidate is trying to reinvent himself as a centrist. Take his endorsement Tuesday of one of George W. Bush’s signature policies, the “faith-based initiative.”
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Flickr / Svadilfari
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If you plan on speeding through Holly Springs, Ga., be warned: The police chief there has decided to start charging the pulled-over a fuel surcharge. Cop houses around the country are struggling with the high cost of gas. The chief in Holly Springs said he got the idea from businesses, such as airlines, that pass their troubles on to the consumer.
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voanews.com
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For the second month in a row, the number of American and NATO troops killed in Afghanistan—45—was higher than in Iraq. In fact, the so-called forgotten war was deadlier last month than at any time since the United States invaded in 2001, according to an AP tally.
Posted on Jul 1, 2008
7 COMMENTS
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AP photo / Alex Brandon
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Canadians admire Barack Obama more than any other politician in either the U.S. or Canada, according to a recent poll. But there’s plenty of envy to go around. According to the same survey, a majority of both Canadians and Americans think Canada has a superior health care system.
Posted on Jun 30, 2008
6 COMMENTS
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The evidence collected from rape victims after they’ve been assaulted goes into something called a rape kit. It’s the product of a lengthy and uncomfortable examination process that, according to a recent report in the Los Angeles Times, far too often leads to nothing. Some 400,000 rape kits are sitting in storage, untested, right now.
Posted on Jun 30, 2008
3 COMMENTS
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AP photo / Danny Johnston
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Monday brought yet another round of political Mad Libs, which proceeds as follows: 1. (Insert surrogate name here), adviser to (candidate)’s presidential campaign, slams (rival candidate) for lack/excess of (personal quality) on (major media outlet); 2. (Rival candidate) blasts (surrogate), hints that such antics reveal opposition’s true character; 3. (Candidate) distances self from (surrogate), who goes on to apologize and perhaps step down; 4. Repeat as necessary.
Posted on Jun 30, 2008
21 COMMENTS
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AP photo / Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi
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If Zimbabwe’s Thug-for-Life Robert Mugabe had any worry about the reception he would face at the African Union summit at Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh resort on Monday, he can exhale. Mugabe received a leader’s welcome and only modest challenge as he sailed through his first international meeting since being reinstalled as Zimbabwean president after a sham election. Updated
Posted on Jun 30, 2008
5 COMMENTS
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AP photo / Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service
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Remember when North Korea loomed menacingly as the next big nuclear threat on the world stage, with cognac-swilling Communist Kim Jong Il starring as the latest dictator du jour? What a difference a few years can make: The North Korean government has now demonstrated its willingness to halt the country’s nuclear weapons program and has begun accepting food shipments from the U.S. and increased aid from the World Food Program.
Posted on Jun 30, 2008
4 COMMENTS
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Patrick Chappatte, NZZ am Sonntag
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France’s foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, announced on Monday that his country would not recognize the government of Robert Mugabe. Kouchner, who co-founded the human rights organization Doctors Without Borders, dismissed Zimbabwe’s recent election as a “farce.”
Posted on Jun 30, 2008
2 COMMENTS
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commons.wikimedia.org
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Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s Cabinet has agreed to a German-brokered prisoner exchange with Hezbollah. It is believed that under the terms of the deal, Israel would receive the bodies of two captured soldiers in return for the release of five Lebanese prisoners and the bodies of 10 more.
Posted on Jun 29, 2008
2 COMMENTS
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Flickr / YouLocalDave
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The theory that the Bush administration wanted Iraq for its oil has just gotten a major boost. It turns out that the U.S. State Department sent over a team of lawyers and consultants to help the Iraqi government work out several high-profile no-bid contracts with five Western oil giants.
Posted on Jun 29, 2008
18 COMMENTS
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AP photo / Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi
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Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has fought tooth and nail to maintain his position of power during the three months since his authority was threatened by opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, widely recognized (but not by Mugabe) as the winner of last March’s election, and now it looks like all that hard work and abject brutality has paid off.
Posted on Jun 28, 2008
10 COMMENTS
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AP photo / Jeff Roberson
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After the past weeks’ disastrous floods, many in the rural Midwest are looking to the government not with gratitude but animosity. Folks in towns that requested levees back in 1993 were left, paradoxically, high and dry by the Army Corps of Engineers, which required small communities to pay more than $1 million for flood barriers.
Posted on Jun 27, 2008
14 COMMENTS
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jumpcut.com / anselpixel2
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After doing everything but follow the overwhelming anti-war mandate given by voters in the 2006 congressional elections, the Democratic-controlled Congress accepted a war bill late Thursday that will keep U.S. troops in Iraq until at least Jan. 20.
Posted on Jun 27, 2008
21 COMMENTS
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Washington’s Overrated ‘Old Hands’
