NEW LONDON, CONNECTICUT – WANTED: a few not-so-bright cops. That is the official hiring policy in this former whaling village, where Police Department officials refused to grant Robert J. Jordan a job interview because they considered him to be too smart, then waged a three-year court fight to protect their right to favor mediocre applicants. [...]
It has been reported that over 500,000 spying requests were made in the UK last year from authorities such as the Police force to local councils. This represents a substantial jump from the 350,000 requests in 2006 and is starting to worry some of the civil liberty groups in the UK. Communications Commissioner Sir Paul [...]
The federal agency insuring bank deposits learned that it can’t afford to ignore the blogs following its seizure this month of IndyMac Bank, the largest bank failure since the 1980s. “The blogs were a bit out of control,” Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., told the San Francisco Business Times after a [...]
Friday, July 25, 2008 The media hailed Obama’s Berlin speech in front of hundreds of thousands yesterday as a call for a vision of America as part of a “new world order”. Excerpts from The International Herald Tribune: “I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before,” Obama said, confronting the [...]
A Wall Street Journal columnist has advised people to “start stockpiling food” and an ABC News Report says “there are worrying signs appearing in the United States where some … locals are beginning to hoard supplies.” Now there’s concern that the U.S. government may be competing with consumers for stocks of storable food. “We’re told [...]
When travelers go to the airport, they know what kind of security to expect: luggage searches, metal detectors and shoe inspections. It’s all part of our post 9-11 reality enforced by the Transportation Security Adminstration. But as CBS 2 Investigator Pam Zekman reports, thousands of travelers have complained that some of these screenings can become [...]
A flight with members of Texas’ U.S. Congressional delegation aboard, including former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, “took a major nosedive” and was forced to make an emergency landing on Tuesday afternoon, according to a Houston TV station. KHOU reports that a Continental Airlines flight carrying seven U.S. lawmakers suddenly lost cabin pressure on its [...]
The private military contractor Blackwater Worldwide has frequently been embroiled in controversy for its activities in Iraq and elsewhere. Last fall, the Iraqi government attempted to revoke Blackwater’s license to work in that country after contractors opened fire at a Baghdad intersection, killing eight civilians. In an interview with the Associated Press on Monday, Blackwater’s [...]
“There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.” Should those who ordered war crimes be held to account? With the conclusion of the Bush regime [...]
A congressional investigation has found that US Vice President Dick Cheney’s office backed efforts by ExxonMobil and other oil industry players to scupper support among several top Bush Administration officials for using the US’s Clean Air Act to limit greenhouse gas emissions. The report released by Congress’s Select Committee on Energy Independent and Global Warming [...]
In response to mounting media questions about the failure of the Barack Obama presidential campaign to produce the presumptive Democratic nominee’s birth certificate, an official spokesman of the campaign has endorsed as genuine the image of a document purporting to be his “birth certificate.” But some who have examined that image in high resolution claim [...]
CHICAGO — As Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Wednesday signed a new law that will put in place tougher penalties for selling guns to minors, he also announced he’s got a new idea to help combat the violence that Chicago is experiencing: he’s talking to the Illinois State Police and the National Guard to see if [...]
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Think you’re feeling pain at the gas pump? Consider the residents of Lime Village, Alaska, an isolated Denaina Athabascan Indian community where gasoline prices have hit $8.55 a gallon. The price is severely curtailing movement around the interior Alaska village, where four-wheelers are sitting idle, said Ursula Graham, administrator for the [...]
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who has figured prominently in recent political news for his attempts to begin impeachment hearings against President George W. Bush, today announced that the congressional subcommittee he chairs will look into reports of peace groups being surveilled by police and private investigators. “[M]ost people would be upset to know that police [...]
Among the seemingly innumerable scandal-worthy stories which have so marked the war in Iraq is one growing tragedy which has been largely ignored: shoddy electrical work by U.S. contractors at military bases leading to numerous electrical fires, troops receiving painful shocks, and even death by electrocution. In January 2008, Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, a 24-year-old [...]
