Headlines for the week ending June 7, 2008

1. US is 'the world's leading jailer:' Human Rights Watch

The United States has 2.3 million people behind bars, more than any other country in the world and more than ever before in its history, Human Rights Watch said Friday. "The new incarceration figures confirm the United States as the world's leading jailer," said David Fahti, Human Rights Watch's US program director. "Americans should ask why the US locks up so many more people than do Canada, Britain, and other democracies," he added. Folks, you better wake up-like yesterday. There is an agenda at work that the media is purposefully not reporting to you. But if your focus and attention is on the NBA Playoffs and whether of not Big Brown won the Triple Crown, then you’re already behind the 8-ball.

2. Sun, Not Man, Is Causing Climate Change

If this is true then Al Gore has a lot of explaining to do. Can Nobel Prize winners be stripped of their award?

3. 22,000 Jobs Cut on Wall Street, With More to Come

Does this look like the Bush stimulus plan is working?

4. Obama-Hillary Ticket? Ain't Gonna Happen

If Obama even begins to consider whether a Vice President Clinton would loyally help him better govern the country, she's toast in the veepstakes. This better not happen. After all of that mud slinging with Hillary and her bunch acted like she deserved the nomination. Honestly, there isn’t too much difference between these two candidates anyway, but Hillary has enough baggage to put Samsonite out of business. Don’t do it, Barack.

5. US elections: Jimmy Carter tells Barack Obama not to pick Hillary Clinton as running mate

"I think it would be the worst mistake that could be made," said Carter. "That would just accumulate the negative aspects of both candidates." Hillary Clinton? Negative?

6. Artificial Sweeteners Confound the Brain; May Lead to Diet Disaster

If that theory plays out, there could be implications for those who use artificial sweeteners as a weight-control aid. Recent research indeed suggests a correlation between artificial sweetener intake and compromised health. In one large survey, diet soda consumption was found to be associated with elevated cardiovascular and metabolic disease risk. A different study reveals a possible mechanism behind this effect: rats that were fed artificially sweetened yogurt in addition to their regular feed ended up eating more and gaining more weight than rats that ate yogurt with real sugar. The study's authors suggest that exposure to an artificial sweetener may undermine the brain's ability to track calories and to determine when to stop eating. Folks, the word “artificial” is the kicker and makes this decision a no-brainer. Stop using the junk!!!! Use stevia instead.

7. NJ superdelegate accuses Clinton camp of divisive tactics

U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews, who supported Hillary Clinton, tells The Star-Ledger of Newark he received a call from a top member of Clinton's organization shortly before the April 22 Pennsylvania primary. Andrews says the caller explicitly discussed a strategy of winning Jewish voters by exploiting tensions between Jews and blacks. The Clinton’s? Divisive tactics? How could he say such a horrible thing about them after all of these wonderful years?

8. Pentagon said drawing up plans for strike on Iranian camp

The Pentagon is drawing up plans for a "surgical strike" against an alleged insurgent training camp in Iran, according to the UK Sunday Times' Michael Smith.

You know, back when Clinton was President, and coincidentally on the very same day Monica Lewinsky testified, Clinton attacked a target in Sudan he insisted was making weapons of mass destruction for Al Qaeda. As it turned out, Bill's media distraction blew up a medical supply company, pretty much the only one they had in Sudan. As it turned out, there was no trace of WMDs found in the rubble, the owners of the company sued the US and you wound up paying to rebuild the company (along with the bill for those million-a-pop cruise missiles Bill used to do the job). Our government at work!

9. Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control

A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.

The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilize Iraq's position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.

This is what the current administration considers to be a viable plan for the future of Iraq???? A US presence in perpetuity? And just what, precisely, do the Iraqi people get out of this agreement? I think the words "absolutely nothing" come to mind here. Wait a minute, I thought that the Presidential candidates (in word only except for Ron Paul) were talking about bringing the troops home. It appears to be only rhetoric again. Am I surprised? Should you be surprised? (Shake your head)

10. Australian Troops Pull Out of Iraq

About 500 Australian combat troops pulled out of their base in southern Iraq on Sunday, fulfilling an election promise by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to bring the soldiers home this year. The current Prime Minister knows that the former Aussie Prime Minister acted hastily in committing troops to this fiasco. He’s getting out while the getting is good. Can you blame him?

11. Cheney calls Iraq withdrawal 'betrayal'

The US Vice President Dick Cheney has told Virginia Republicans that withdrawing US troops from Iraq would be 'an act of betrayal.' One has to wonder against whom Cheney would characterize a withdrawal from Iraq a "betrayal"; Haliburton? Kellogg, Brown & Root? Dyncorp? Blackwater?

All these companies have received no-bid contracts, and have been raking in money hand over fist from the privatization of our military infrastructure. In terms of betraying the Iraqi people, we have already done that by going to war in Iraq on a pack of lies, destroying their infrastructure, and poisoning many of them with exposure to depleted uranium, which causes all kinds of cancers and terrible malformations of their kids. We have also exposed our troops to this same kind of deadly poison, causing the same damages to our troops and their children. I wonder why our vets can’t get the same standard of care that Cheney gets. That sounds like betrayal to me.

12. America's house prices are falling even faster than during the Great Depression

As housing prices in America continue their rapid descent, market-watchers are having to cast back ever further for gloomy comparisons. The latest S&P/Case-Shiller national house-price index, published this week, showed a slump of 14.1% in the year to the first quarter, the worst since the index began 20 years ago. Now Robert Shiller, an economist at Yale University and co-inventor of the index, has compiled a version that stretches back over a century. This shows that the latest fall in nominal prices is already much bigger than the 10.5% drop in 1932, the worst point of the Depression. I wonder why we aren’t hearing about this on the news, while Bush and his administration act as if everything is just fine.

13. Man banned from jet for Transformers T-shirt

Airport guards stopped a man boarding a plane -- for wearing a Transformers T-shirt showing a cartoon gun. Some of these airport workers need to get a job.

14. Latest Airline Fee: Pay Toilets?

I’m starting to think that USA stands for Unsurpassed Stupidity of Americans.

15. Bush has plans to turn Iraq over to the corporations and their mercenary armies

Could the U.S. ultimately end up privatizing its entire mission in Iraq? That's what the latest round of contracts the U.S. government plans to let out in the coming months might suggest. And to think, many of them have no competition and get no-bid contracts with minimal oversight and/or accountability.

16. 400,000 Troops needed in Afghanistan

ISAF Commander McNeill has said himself that according to the current counterterrorism doctrine, it would take 400,000 troops to pacify Afghanistan in the long term. But the reality is that he has only 47,000 soldiers under his command, together with another 18,000 troops fighting at their sides as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, and possibly another 75,000 reasonably well-trained soldiers in the Afghan army by the end of the year. All told, there is still a shortfall of 260,000 men. One has to wonder; just precisely how this shortfall going to be made up. I hope that they don’t start implementing conscription (a draft) of Americans or illegal aliens.