Noam Chomsky Edition

The water disaster that could destroy California, how much NATO pays for dead Afghan children, and answers to frequently asked questions about health care reform.

On a regular basis, Truthdig brings you the news items and odds and ends that found their way to Larry Gross, director of the USC Annenberg School for Communication. A specialist in media and culture, art and communication, visual communication and media portrayals of minorities, Gross helped found the field of gay and lesbian studies.

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The United States was founded as an “infant empire,” in George Washington’s words.

Health Care Reform FAQ Can Republicans really repeal it? Does it violate the 10th Amendment? How, exactly, does it reduce the deficit?

NATO’s Fire Sale — One Dead Afghan Child, $2,000 The family were offered “American compensation” — $2,000 for each of the victims. “There’s no value on human life,” said Bibi Sabsparie, mother of two of the dead. “They killed our family, then they came and brought us money. Money won’t bring our family back.”

Salvador Allende’s Internet Cybersyn (or Synco, in Spanish) was computer network constructed in 1970 by an English/Chilean team headed by cyberneticist Stafford Beer … .

The Museum of Bad Art The pieces in the MOBA collection range from the work of talented artists that have gone awry to works of exuberant, although crude, execution by artists barely in control of the brush. What they all have in common is a special quality that sets them apart in one way or another from the merely incompetent.

The GOP’s newfound love of public opinion One Republican leader after the next stood up yesterday to depict the health care bill as a grave threat to democracy because it was enacted in the face of disapproval from a majority of Americans.

The creepy tyranny of Canada’s hate speech laws The far-right hatemonger Ann Coulter was invited by a campus conservative group to speak at the University of Ottawa, and the vice provost of that college sent Coulter a letter warning her that she may be subject to criminal prosecution if the views she expresses fall into the realm of prohibited viewpoints. …

Old-school architect creates an iOpener A taxi pulled up to Apple’s Fifth Avenue store one recent morning, and while the meter was running a pair of tourists dashed out to have their photos taken near the entrance, a glass cube of such incorporeal lightness that it seems in danger of floating away.

Uri Avnery: The Doomsday Weapon It is already a commonplace to say that people who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat their mistakes.

The Looming Water Disaster That Could Destroy California, and Enrich Its Billionaire Farmers There’s a disaster waiting to happen in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and a handful of wealthy farmers seem to like it that way.