John Edwards!!!

This is from today's Progress Report ... he WAS the Democratic candidate with the best ideas:

ELECTION
Edwards Blazed A Progressive Trail

Returning to where he began, former North Carolina senator John Edwards ended his presidential campaign yesterday in New Orleans's Ninth Ward, imploring his supporters to "not give up on the causes that we have fought for" in the effort "to make the two Americas one." During his campaign, Edwards laid out policy areas that will continue to animate the national debate in 2008, calling "for the United States to reduce its troop presence in Iraq" and issuing "a plea for citizen action to combat poverty, global warming and America's reliance on foreign oil." As CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric said last night, "John Edwards may have ended his presidential campaign. But what he started isn't over. He and his message have left a lasting impression."

PUTTING POVERTY FIRST: No issue was more important to Edwards than poverty and the plight of economic inequality in America, which he sought to cut by a third in a decade and end within 30 years. In his farewell speech, Edwards said that he had obtained pledges from the remaining Democratic candidates, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), to "make ending poverty and economic inequality central to their presidency." Edwards's efforts to guarantee that "his quest for economic justice would be carried forward" is emblematic of the role he played throughout the campaign, boldly challenging his fellow candidates to take on big issues with progressive policy prescriptions. The Center for American Progress shares Edwards's goals, having offered a plan to cut poverty in half in ten years. Last week, the House of Representatives, without objection, approved a resolution by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), declaring that the House supported the goal of cutting poverty in half in ten years.

GUARANTEEING HEALTH CARE: When Edwards unveiled his health care plan "in early 2007, it won widespread acclaim for proposing" to "cover everybody and make health care, once and for all, a right of citizenship." As The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn notes, it was "something no mainstream...presidential contender had proposed since the early 1990s." Soon after he rolled out his proposal, other candidates followed suit, embracing his ambitious goal. The American Prospect's Ezra Klein writes that "the mixture of a progressive, transformative health care plan and a credible candidate instantly reshaped the politics of health care." By proposing a universal health care plan "long before that of any other major candidate," Edwards changed the debate so that "any politician who proposed an overly cautious or incremental plan would lose voters." As The New York Times's Paul Krugman wrote in Feb. 2007, Edwards's plan addressed "both the problem of the uninsured and the waste and inefficiency of our fragmented insurance system," which forced other candidates to "come up with something comparable."

COMBATING CLIMATE CHANGE: Declaring that "our generation must be the one that says, 'we must halt global warming,'" Edwards was "the first presidential candidate to call for reducing U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions 80 percent by 2050" and the first to make his "campaign carbon neutral." Following Edwards's lead, both Clinton and Obama made similar commitments to reduce carbon emissions. As he did with health care, Edwards was the first candidate to introduce a detailed energy plan. After Edwards laid out his plan, the League of Conservation Voters applauded it as "the most comprehensive global warming plan of any presidential candidate to date" and encouraged other candidates to follow suit. As The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias wrote yesterday of Edwards, "his climate change proposal is sweeping enough to meet the standard that scientists tell us is necessary to avert catastrophe," which might sound "bizarre to hail" as an achievement, "but the truth is that" other candidates "weren't on board until Edwards was."

BRINGING TROOPS HOME: In 2002, Edwards voted in the Senate to authorize the use of force against Iraq, a vote that he did not repudiate as both a presidential and vice-presidential candidate in 2004, even though he was a critic of the war. But on Nov. 13, 2005, Edwards penned an op-ed in the Washington Post definitively declaring that "it was a mistake to vote for this war in 2002," saying, "I was wrong." As a presidential candidate, Edwards insisted that "there is no military solution to the chaos in Iraq" and called for "an immediate withdrawal of 40,000-50,000 troops and a complete withdrawal within nine to ten months." Unlike New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Edwards never committed to removing all residual troops from Iraq, but he did take the lead in committing to "withdraw the American troops who are training the Iraqi army and police." As the Center for American Progress's Brian Katulis and Lawrence Korb have argued, "[T]raining and equipping Iraqi security forces risks making Iraq's civil war even bloodier and more vicious than it already is today."

The American Dream is DEAD!!!

John Edwards, dropped out of the Presidential race today ... I am NOT happy about that ... I guess I'm an Obama support now ... I'm NOT thrilled with Hillary 'cause she's so damned patronizing ... maybe if we're lucky Obama will get the nomination and pick Edwards as his running mate ... that would be good ... an Obama/Edwards ticket!!!

EPA Hates California's Air!!!

From today's Progress Report:

ENVIRONMENT
Environmental Punishment Agency

Last month, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Stephen Johnson said he would deny an EPA waiver to California that would have allowed the state -- and 15 others -- to implement tougher standards on greenhouse gas emissions from cars. Even as the White House lauded the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, signed into law the same day, as a means to "add to the President's ongoing efforts to enhance conservation and efficiency," it refused to support California's efforts to "impose what would have been the country's toughest greenhouse gas standards on cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles." The state's proposed rule would have required car companies to achieve a 30 percent reduction of emissions by 2016, as distinct from raising fuel efficiency standards in cars, the tactic employed in the federal energy bill. But Johnson has argued "that the newly revised federal standard for vehicle fuel efficiency...was a better approach to reducing auto emissions because it was more uniform." In early January, the 16 states sued the agency over its decision. "Who does the Administrator think he and the EPA work for?" Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) asked. "The EPA Administrator needs to be reminded that he works for the American people." She added, "The Bush EPA can run, but they can't hide." Yesterday, Boxer introduced legislation that would reverse the EPA's decision and allow California and the other states to impose the emissions standard law.

JOHNSON WHITEWASHES REPORTS: When Boxer requested to see agency documents that indicated how the EPA made its decision, the agency instead cited executive privilege. EPA Associate Administrator Christopher Bliley wrote to Boxer, "The EPA is concerned about the chilling effect that would occur if agency employees believed their frank and honest opinions and analysis expressed as part of assessing California's waiver request were to be disclosed in a broad setting." Just three days later, the Los Angeles Times reported that Johnson had denied the waiver over the advice of EPA staffers. The report quoted an EPA staffer who said that "we all told" Johnson that "California met every criteria" for the waiver request. At a Senate hearing yesterday, Boxer slammed Johnson for his agency's obstruction. "Colleagues, this is the tape," Boxer said, holding up a bowl of white duct tape scraps the EPA had used to redact parts of documents it sent to Boxer's office. "This administration, this is what they did to us. They put this white tape over the documents. ...This isn't national security. This isn't classified information, colleagues. This is information the people deserve to have. And this is not the way we should run the greatest government in the world. It does not befit us."

JOHNSON OVERRULES STAFF: The EPA's reluctance to disclose its decision-making process likely stems from the fact that Johnson overruled the consensus of his staff in denying California's waiver, as the Los Angeles Times had suggested in December. This week, the EPA finally relented and allowed Boxer and her staff to examine -- but not photocopy -- documents relating to the waiver decision, including a staff-prepared slideshow that predicted the EPA was "likely to lose [a] suit" if it denied California's waiver and faced a lawsuit from the states. The documents also showed that EPA staff argued that California had "compelling and extraordinary conditions" -- including conditions making the state "vulnerable to climate change" -- that warranted its tougher emissions standards. Ignoring the clear consensus of his staff, however, Johnson explicitly stated in his denial that California did not possess "compelling and extraordinary conditions" that would justify its stringent emissions-reduction policies.

JOHNSON MISSES THE POINT: Besides denying California's waiver, Johnson also seems to be in denial about the seriousness of climate change. He hedged when Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) asked him whether global warming was "a major crisis" facing the world. "I don't know what you mean by major crisis," Johnson said, to which Sanders countered, "The usual definition of the term 'major crisis' would be fine." Johnson would admit only that it was "a serious issue." Sanders also asked if Johnson agreed that "bold action" was needed, to which Johnson agreed that "action" was required. Johnson's constant hedging frustrated Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), whom could not get a straight answer regarding the agency's regular process for reviewing waiver requests. "It's a serious matter," Whitehouse pressed Johnson. "So I will hope you will give me a real answer to it and not just lots of gobbledygook about administrative law, which I'm pretty familiar with." Yesterday, 13 governors, including Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) and Janet Napolitano (D-AZ), wrote to Johnson expressing their frustration with his decision and voicing objections to his declaration that the new energy bill's fuel economy standards rendered the states' efforts moot. "Fuel economy and greenhouse gas emission standards are not the same. Although both are laudable, they achieve distinctly different goals," the governors wrote. "The federal government, with this unprecedented action, is ignoring the rights of states, as well as the will of more than one hundred million people across the U.S. We stand by our commitment to bring cleaner cars to our states."

935 LIES ... Is That It???

This is from today's Progress Report ... Bill Clinton lied one time (is this right???) about a consensual adult affair and the rethugnicans shut down the government for a year to impeach him ... Bush lied and thousands of people died, Iraq is destroyed and the U.S. Army (and National Guard) will need years to recover:

ADMINISTRATION -- BUSH ADMINISTRATION MADE 935 FALSE PRE-WAR STATEMENTS ON IRAQ: In the years since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, numerous bipartisan government investigations have concluded that the Bush administration's claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and had links to al Qaeda were false. The Center for Public Integrity (CPI), in conjunction with the Fund for Independence in Journalism, has now launched a database documenting hundreds of inaccurate statements top Bush administration made during the run-up to the war. The database is "an exhaustive examination of the record show[ing] that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses." According to CPI, "on at least 532 separate occasions" in the two years preceding the March 2003 invasion, President Bush and his top officials "stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both." The CPI database has documented "at least 935 false statements" from these administration officials over the same time period.

One More Year!!!

One more year of this criminal administration destroying our beautiful country ... January 20, 2009 can't come soon enough ... lets hope the Bush/Cheney team doesn't start another war before this year is up.

The Top 50 Atheist Aphorisms!!!

I found this over on Friendly Atheist this evening ... I can't stop laughing!!!:

The Top 50 Atheist Aphorisms

Abstinence Makes the Church Grow Fondlers

Honk If Your Religious Beliefs Make You An Asshole

Intelligent Design Makes My Monkey Cry

Too Stupid to Understand Science? Try Religion.

There’s A REASON Why Atheists Don’t Fly Planes Into Buildings

“Worship Me or I Will Torture You Forever. Have a Nice Day.”­ God.

God Doesn’t Kill People. People Who Believe in God Kill People.

If There is No God, Then What Makes the Next Kleenex Pop Up?

He’s Dead.
It’s Been 2,000 years.
He’s Not Coming Back.
Get OVER It Already!

All religion is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry. Edgar Allen Poe.

Viva La Evolución!

Actually, If You Look It Up, The Winter Solstice Is The Reason For The Season

I Wouldn’t Trust Your God Even If He Did Exist

Cheeses Is Lard. Argue With THAT If You Can.

People Who Don’t Want Their Beliefs Laughed at Shouldn’t Have Such Funny Beliefs

Jesus is Coming? Don’t Swallow That.

Threatening Children With Hell Is FUN!

GOD - APPLY DIRECTLY TO FOREHEAD!

Jesus Told Me Republicans SUCK

God + Whacky Tobacky = Platypus

God Doesn’t Exist. So, I Guess That Means No One Loves You.

When the Rapture Comes, We’ll Get Our Country Back!

Q. How Do We Know the Holy Ghost Was Catholic?
A. He Used the Rhythm Method Instead of a Condom.

You Say “Heretic” Like It Was a BAD Thing

I Love Christians. They Taste Like Chicken.

Science: It Works, Bitches.

“Intelligent Design” Helping Stupid People Feel Smart Since 1987

I Found God Between The Sheets

I Gave Up Superstitious Mumbo Jumbo For Lent

My Flying Monkey Can Beat Up Your Guardian Angel

Every Time You Play With Yourself, God Kills a Kitten

If God Wanted People to Believe in Him, Then Why Did He Invent Logic?

Praying Is Politically Correct Schizophrenia

ALL Americans Are African Americans

I Forget - Which Day Did God Make All The Fossils?

I Was An Atheist Until The Hindus Convinced Me That I Was God

The Spanish Inquisition: The Original Faith-based Initiative

If we were made in his image, when why aren’t humans invisible too?

JESUS SAVES….You From Thinking For Yourself

How Can You Disbelieve in Evolution If You Can’t Even Define It?

Q. How Can You Tell That Your God is Man-made?
A. If He Hates All the Same People You Do.

Every Time You See a Rainbow, God is Having Gay Sex

I Went to Public School in Kansas and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt and a Poor Understanding of the Scientific Method.

WWJD = We Won. Jesus Died.

The Family That Prays Together is Brainwashing the Children

Oh, Look, Honey Another Pro-lifer For War

Another Godless Atheist for Peace and World Harmony

God is Unavailable Right Now. Can I Help You?

When Lip Service to Some Mysterious Deity Permits Bestiality on Wednesday and Absolution on Sundays, Cash Me Out. Frank Sinatra.

No Gods. No Mullets.

Top Environmental Stories of 2007!!!

from Grist via AlterNet:

The Biggest Environmental Stories of the Year

By David Roberts and Lisa Hymas, Grist Magazine
Posted on January 1, 2008

Wow. That was something else. Green has gone from "dead" to ubiquitous in just a few short years, and it peaked with the crazy buzz of 2007, which kept us busy as bees -- ironically without the actual bees (see No. 15). Here you'll find a selection of the year's top 15 stories, biased toward the U.S. and ranked by a process about as scientific as a James Inhofe press release.

15. Bees buzz off

This year, bees started disappearing, and nobody could figure out why. If so-called "colony collapse disorder" doesn't freak you out, you aren't paying attention: every fruit, nut, and vegetable you've ever eaten traces its origin back to a little bee's tentacles. Is it a coincidence that small-scale, organic-minded beekeepers had better luck? Food writer extraordinaire Michael Pollan doesn't think so. When he Pollanated the story for The New York Times (ha ha! we know!), he pointed out that the bee disappearance is just one manifestation of the increasing industrialization of the food system. There will be others. [Ominous music swells.]

14. Climate skeptics step on rakes

Believe it or not, the hardy band of climate skeptics -- those who flat-out don't believe anthropocentric climate change is real -- is still out there, showing all the resilience of cockroaches. Led by their congressional champion Jumpin' James Inhofe, they fell on their faces over and over again this year, hyping statistically insignificant changes in temperature records, flogging long-discredited quasi-scientific theories, uncritically accepting random non-peer-reviewed studies from "medical researchers," grossly misrepresenting the ruling of a British judge, falling for painfully obvious hoax studies, demanding debate and then dodging it when it's offered, and on and on (and on). What once seemed such a threat to the republic now plays more like a Three Stooges routine. (Psst, guys, the new denial is delay, arguing that climate policy is too expensive. Catch up with your ideological buddies!)

13. Lead-tainted toys scare parents

Lead poisoning can damage reproductive and nervous systems, affect blood pressure, and diminish learning ability. In short, it can eff your kids up something fierce. So parents freaked out when millions of lead-tainted playthings were recalled in the fall. Everybody pointed fingers at China. Consumer advocates and the U.S. House pointed fingers at the shoddy safety standards of the U.S. Nobody pointed fingers at parents determined to buy the cheapest possible plastic gee-gaws at Wal-Mart (oops, except us, just then).

12. Ethanol bubbles with contradictions

On one hand, the ethanol hype ramped up to dizzying new heights this year, driven by subsidy-hungry agribiz, agribiz-friendly Midwest legislators, and, lamentably, credulous environmentalists. It crescendoed with the passage of the energy bill in December, which mandates 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022, much like a little boy might close his eyes, furrow his brow, and mandate a rocketship for Christmas. On the other hand, the ethanol backlash gained momentum, as new research and skeptical greens revealed the limitations and unintended consequences of feeding our carbon sinks to our cars. Expect this to be the cat fight of 2008.

11. Courts thwart Bush

While everyone else stood around checking their watches to see if Bush was gone yet, the U.S. judicial system took to smacking his administration about the head and shoulders, ruling against it on greenhouse gases, power-plant pollution controls, endangered fish, hydroelectric dams [pauses for breath], forest management, "Healthy Forests," and Navy sonar. It's almost like judges believed the Bush administration was doing illegal stuff. Have they told Congress?

10. CFLs are all the rage

Energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs were a big, bright spot in 2007. They've been stuffed onto store shelves, made cheaper, given away for free, and, of course, adopted in homes around the world in place of old-fashioned incandescent bulbs. The CFL has even been proposed as the official light bulb of Texas.

9. Local food gets hip

Just when you thought you had a handle on the organic thing, along comes local food, the newest savior of our sinning food system. Is it the key to sustainability or just the latest hype? All we know is you can't swing a dead cat in Brooklyn without hitting a new bistro that flaunts its locally grown ingredients -- and likely as not you'll hit a locavore too.

8. The year of Gore

In February, Al Gore won an Oscar (well, his movie did, anyway). In March, he testified to Congress about climate change. In May, he released a new book that became a New York Times bestseller. In July, he helped organize the biggest benefit concert ever to raise awareness of climate change. In September, he won an Emmy. In October, he won the Nobel Peace Prize. In November, he won another Emmy and joined an esteemed venture-capital firm to advise it on green investments. And in December, he got LEED Gold green-building certification for his Tennessee home and played a key role in reviving international climate talks in Bali. Whew!

7. Scientists speak loud and clear

Climate scientists stepped out of the ivory tower this year and into the thick of the debate over what to do about global warming. More than 200 top climate scientists from around the world signed a petition demanding swift and decisive action against global warming, warning that "there is no time to lose." Pioneering climate sci-guy James Hansen began formally petitioning world leaders to place a moratorium on new coal plants. Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Nobel-winning IPCC, stated forthrightly that "I am not going to rest easy until I have articulated in every possible forum the need to bring about major structural changes in economic growth and development." When temperamentally cautious nerdlinger scientists start panicking in public, well, maybe it's time for the rest of us to start paying attention.

6. Green is the new green

While the coal and nuclear industries spent the year petitioning the government for handouts, people with their own money on the line flocked to the hottest investment since the internet: green tech. Where 2006 saw $1.2 billion dumped into the clean-tech sector, 2007 saw $2.6 billion in the first nine months alone. And speaking of the internet, the brains in Silicon Valley often led the way, with Yahoo! going carbon neutral and Google upping the ante by vowing to directly invest in making renewable energy cheaper than coal. You can tell where a culture is going by watching what its best and brightest gravitate toward -- and friends, it ain't coal.

5. Weather gets wacky

Who got hit with the worst weather of 2007? It's a tough contest. The Southeast, with its crippling drought? Southern California, with its wildfires? The Northwest, with its floods? The plains states, with their ice storms? Wow, when it rains it pours. It's almost like there's something shifting in the background, making extreme weather events more frequent ...

4. Media goes green

Green was the Britney Spears of the media universe in 2007: ubiquitous, occasionally ridiculous. Reams of glossy magazines did "green issues." NPR launched an in-depth, ongoing climate series. CNN did a big green documentary. NBC did a green week. Fox went green (really!). Sundance launched a green channel and so did Discovery, which also bought the green blog Treehugger for an estimated $10 million. A gazillion other eco-focused blogs and websites -- "newbies," as we call them -- came online, all seemingly offering the same Top Ten Tips for Greening Your Life With No Effort or Guilt At All, We Promise. Even Grist, laboring away in this space since 1999, got its moment in the sun, with features in Time, Newsweek, and on the Today show. Hell, we even wrote a book. Thanks for catching up, y'all!

3. A movement gets moving

This year, allegedly dead environmentalism rose like a phoenix from the ashes -- broader, more diverse, more entrepreneurial, more savvy, more passionate. Step It Up inspired more than 1,500 citizen climate protests all across the U.S. The Power Shift conference brought together and riled up more than 5,500 youth climate activists. Leaders like Van Jones and Majora Carter brought poverty, jobs, and justice groups into the clean-energy fold. Business and religious constituencies joined in. A new coalition called the Climate Action Network was formed to synchronize NGO lobbying and another called 1Sky sought to aggregate hundreds of voices and ideas into one coherent platform of solutions. For the first time, if you squinted just right, you saw not just a special-interest group but a bona fide movement -- a generation awakened.

2. U.S. politicians wake up

All of the major Democratic presidential candidates have hatched bold plans for fighting climate change -- Hillary Clinton and John Edwards even appeared at the first-ever forum entirely focused on the issue. Republican presidential contenders Mike Huckabee and John McCain emphasize the need to cut planet-warming emissions, while Republican governors Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Charlie Crist of Florida are taking aggressive action to do just that. In the U.S. Senate, a climate bill sponsored by a Republican and an independent is moving forward, and Congress and President Bush just OK'd a law that will mandate higher efficiency in vehicles and buildings. The train is just barely nosing its way out of the station, but it appears that the American political class is finally on board.

1. A backlash against coal

Even as the power industry ramped up its lobbying efforts -- even deploying a squadron of Santas -- the tide began turning against coal. In February, the energy world was stunned by the massive leveraged buyout of TXU Corp. by a group of investors that pledged to scrap eight of 11 proposed coal-fired power plants in Texas. In October, the Kansas state government denied permits to two proposed coal plants, explicitly on the basis of their CO2 emissions -- a first. High-profile coal plants were also rejected in Florida, Washington, and at least eight other states. California told its utilities they can no longer sign or renew contracts for dirty coal power. Power giant PacifiCorp threw up its hands and said it was giving up on coal entirely. Guess word is spreading that coal is the enemy of the human race.

© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/71672/

Watch This Film NOW!!!

Last night The Wife and I watched the documentary "No End In Sight" ... POWERFUL!!! ... every American should watch this film to see what the Bush Administration got us into in Iraq ... I'm pretty knowledgeable about The War but I even learned some things ... after it was over I said to My Love that my dream is after whatever Democrat is sworn in as President in January 2009 turns to Dubya right after and says, "You're under arrest" ... and throughout this great country of ours the Law is rounding up everyone that was responsible for getting us into this quagmire (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Feith, Rice, et al)!!!

So, run out and rent this DVD or add/move it to the top of your Netflix list NOW.

FIRED Part IV!!!

It's been two months since I got fired from Swank Audio Visuals ... I thought that at this point I would start to miss a/v work ... I don't miss it one bit ... I had a good interview today for what is the best job (dare I call it a "dream job"???) I applied for ... I hope something comes of it ... I went to the Palm Springs Village Fest last week and participated in a mini-protest against the current administration; which was very cool ... I am going to become more active in Veteran's for Peace ... with me not working it gives the Wife more freedom to work on her writing projects ... something is going to come along soon ... I can feel it!!!

Tales of War and Empire!!!

This is from AlterNet:

2007: Top Ten Tales of War and Empire

By AlterNet Staff
AlterNetPosted on December 28, 2007

2007 was an incredibly frustrating year for opponents of the seemingly endless "War on Terror," and all that it is used to justify.

Democratic control of Congress had little impact on U.S. foreign policy and progressive lawmakers made little progress towards ending the disastrous occupation of Iraq. The legal black hole in Guantanamo Bay remains the most visible symbol of America's global clandestine detention system, and, incredibly, the same hawks who sold the invasion and occupation of Iraq are still given credible hearings in the media -- this time around they're trying to pitch an attack on Iran that would potentially make the debacle in Iraq look like the cakewalk that the neocons originally promised.

At AlterNet, we did our best to bring some critical discourse to the debaate surrounding the so-called "Long War." Here are your most popular stories on the subject from 2007…

10. Accustomed to Their Own Atrocities in Iraq, U.S. Soldiers Have Become MurderersBy Chris Hedges, AdbustersAfter four years of war, American Marines and soldiers have become socialized to atrocity. The war in Iraq is now primarily about murder. There is very little killing.

9. Top Military Recruitment LiesBy Aimee Allison, David Solnit, Seven Stories PressThe new book Army of None reveals the scummy truth about the military recruitment complex.

8. Majority of Iraqi Lawmakers Now Reject OccupationBy Raed Jarrar, Joshua Holland, AlterNetMore than half of the members of Iraq's parliament rejected for the first time on Tuesday the continuing occupation of their country. The U.S. media ignored the story.

7. Bush-Cheney Really Are Planning to Attack Iran!By Jim Hightower, Hightower LowdownBush & Buckshot are riding their little stick horses, demonizing another Muslim nation -- and the Dems are supporting it. We've got to shut them down.

6. As Bush's War Strategy Shifts to Iran, Christian Zionists Gear Up for the ApocalypseBy Sarah Posner, AlterNetIs Bush pushing for a second war or a Second Coming?

5. Neocons in Cheney's Office Fund al Qaeda-Tied Groups … and No One Cares?By Tom Engelhardt, Tomdispatch.comSeymour Hersh's recent report that Iran-Contra veterans working out of Dick Cheney's office are using stolen funds from Iraq to arm al Qaeda-tied groups and foment a larger Sunni-Shia war is a very big deal.

4. White House Leak: Cheney's Plan for Iran Attack Starts With Israeli Missile StrikeBy Gregor Peter Schmitz, Cordula Meyer, Der SpiegelHigh-ranking military experts say an attack would lead to world economic chaos, or even what Bush calls 'World War III.'

3. Can We End the American Empire Before It Ends Us?By Chalmers Johnson, Tomdispatch.comBrilliant historian and essayist Chalmers Johnson argues that unless we face up to the tremendous strain our empire is having on America, we will lose our democracy, and then it will not matter much what else we lose.

2. 737 U.S. Military Bases = Global EmpireBy Chalmers Johnson, Metropolitan BooksWith more than 2,500,000 U.S. personnel serving across the planet and military bases spread across each continent, it's time to face up to the fact that our American democracy has spawned a global empire.

And, drumroll please, the top story of war and empire for 2007 was …

1. The Mega-Lie Called the "War on Terror": A Masterpiece of PropagandaBy Richard W. Behan, AlterNetThe fraudulence of the "War on Terror" is clearly revealed by looking at the pattern of actions that preceded and followed its launch.

© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/71559/