Saturday

Out of America: Going to college? Watch out for Bush's bandits - Independent Online Edition > Americas

Out of America: Going to college? Watch out for Bush's bandits - Independent Online Edition > Americas: "In a way, the US student loan system resembles the over-layered health-care system here. Just as America rejects the single-payer health system embraced by other advanced countries, in the name of choice and a fictional 'efficiency', so it privatises student loans. But like the health insurers, the private lenders are in business to make a profit.

And as these middlemen prosper, college education costs grow faster than any other sector of the family budget (with the exception, of course, of health care). Thus inflation-adjusted student debt is up 60 per cent in a decade, and the US student loan business is now worth $85bn. "

ARMED FORCES JOURNAL - A failure in generalship - May 2007

ARMED FORCES JOURNAL - A failure in generalship - May 2007 Another left-wing whacko chimes in.

The Gavel » Blog Archive » General William Odom Delivers Democratic Radio Address on Iraq

The Gavel » Blog Archive » General William Odom Delivers Democratic Radio Address on Iraq: "Thus, he lets the United States fly further and further into trouble, squandering its influence, money, and blood, facilitating the gains of our enemies. The Congress is the only mechanism we have to fill this vacuum in command judgment.
To put this in a simple army metaphor, the Commander-in-Chief seems to have gone AWOL"

-Lt. General William E. Odom (left wing nutjob)

Thursday

U.S. and Japan sign nuclear power pact - Los Angeles Times: ""Some kind of nuclear nirvana is the driving force behind this," said Victor Gilinsky, a former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "It has a certain intellectual appeal until you think about how it would work and what it would cost.""

Malpractice Juries Tend to Side More With Doctors, Researcher Finds: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

Malpractice Juries Tend to Side More With Doctors, Researcher Finds: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance: "juries are several times more likely to depart from the judgment of the [independent medical] reviewers when doing so will exonerate the defendant than they are to disagree when doing so will lead to liability. The repeated finding that juries rule in favor of defendant physicians more often than physician reviewers do is remarkable given the documented reluctance of physicians to label another physician's care as negligent."
Political Briefings At Agencies Disclosed - washingtonpost.com I got one question. Do you feel coerced? Well? Do ya, punk?

UN: Iraqi gov't held casualty figures - Yahoo! News

UN: Iraqi gov't held casualty figures - Yahoo! News

Unidentified witness claims he was offered $100,000 to kill Boulis: South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Unidentified witness claims he was offered $100,000 to kill Boulis: South Florida Sun-Sentinel: "Kidan and his former SunCruz partner, fallen super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, are serving 70-month prison sentences for lying "

Sunday

Why do straights hate gays? - Los Angeles Times

Why do straights hate gays? - Los Angeles Times

Kramer is absolutely correct that heterosexism is the last remaining bigotry that's acceptable to express in public in the US, and the only one with no legal recourse whatever in most jurisdictions. (I say "in public" in full awareness of what I finally, a little tipsy, confronted someone with a few weeks back: it's amazing the things people will say when they assume you're white.)

But even more sadly, at this time in history, his more general comments about prejudice could apply to any racial, ethnic, religious, political, body-morphic or sexual minority. When it comes down to it, "[t]here is not a candidate or major public figure who would not sell" ANY of us down the river, and most of them of both major parties have done so more than once in recent memory.

Latest US solution to Iraq's civil war: a three-mile wall | Iraq | Guardian Unlimited

Latest US solution to Iraq's civil war: a three-mile wall | Iraq | Guardian Unlimited Surrealism of walls.