by Democracy Now

The Senate is expected to vote on a controversial measure to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act tomorrow. The legislation would rewrite the nation’s surveillance laws and authorize the National Security Agency’s secret program of warrantless wiretapping. We speak with Mark Klein, a technician with AT&T for over twenty-two years. In 2006 Klein leaked internal AT&T documents that revealed the company had set up a secret room in its San Francisco office to give the National Security Agency access to its fiber optic internet cables.

Guest:

by Jeremy Herron, AP

When media and technology tycoons convene Tuesday in idyllic southern Idaho for five days of dealmaking and outdoor recreation, the mountain air will carry more than a whiff of uncertainty as most arrive with their businesses in various states of disarray.

Powerful moguls come to Allen & Co. investment bank’s annual retreat in Sun Valley seeking new acquisitions and alliances and _ increasingly in recent years _ the opportunity to retool their businesses.

by Danny Schechter

California Real Estate Insider Sues Financial Greed Industry In The Public Interest

It has been nearly a year since what we now know as the subprime crisis melted down the markets, caused banks to begin writing down assetless assets and forced The Federal Reserve Bank to come to the attempted rescue of the American economy by injecting billions of dollars into the banking system and cut interest rates seven times

Read this or George W. Bush will be president the rest of your life
July 4, 2008
by William Blum
www.killinghope.org

Some thoughts on "patriotism" written on July 4

Most important thought: I'm sick and tired of this thing called "patriotism".

by Ramzy Baroud

The world of journalism, like any other profession, can be muddled with a plethora of distractions, self-interests and agendas that certainly do not serve the cause of a free press. Outside as well as inside pressures and interests often compromise the very essence of the journalist's mission.

Inter Press Service
By Dahr Jamail

SAN FRANCISCO, Jul 3 (IPS) - U.S. journalist Zoriah Miller says he was censored by the U.S. military in the Iraqi city of Fallujah after photographing Marines who died in a suicide bombing.

On Jun. 26, a suicide bomber attacked a city council meeting in Fallujah, 69 kms west of Baghdad, between local tribal sheikhs and military officials.

Mr. Twain Offers a Lesson on Patriotism
By Scott Horton

It was March 16, 1901. A lanky man with elegant and flowing white hair and a prominent moustache strode to the podium. He hardly needed an introduction: the audience would immediately have recognized what was arguably the best-known face in America. The event was a meeting of the Male Teachers Association of the City of New York. It was a convivial gathering for dinner at the Albert Hotel in Greenwich Village, at the corner of University Place and Eleventh Street.

By Priyamvada Gopal
June 29, 2008, ZNet

[This is a longer version of a piece carried by the Guardian June 27th.]

Dan Glaister in Los Angeles
Sunday June 29, 2008
guardian.co.uk

Welcome to Strike 2008 - the sequel. Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the negotiating room, the Hollywood unions and their studio paymasters have devised a new dispute to threaten an already precarious industry.

Reuters

Sunday, 29 June 2008

Analysts said before Friday's vote that Mugabe defied a chorus of calls to call off the one-candidate election so that he could negotiate with Tsvangirai from a position of strength

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe was sworn in today after being declared the landslide winner of a widely condemned election which African observers said was scarred by violence and intimidation.

Mugabe was the only candidate and went ahead with the vote in defiance of much world opinion, including in Africa.

Pistol may hand advantage to those closest to the starting official

by Katharine Sanderson - www.Nature.com

The Olympics may not be the bastion of pure sporting contest that people might think. Although the pistol used to start sprint events in the Games might make good theatre, it may mean that sprinters in lane 1, nearest the gun, get away from the blocks faster.

From www.PCRM.org

The 2008 Farm Bill recently enacted into law by Congress is a dramatic disappointment. The number one cause of death in this country is chronic disease related to the over-consumption of fat and cholesterol—yet the new Farm Bill continues to support, in the main, the production of foods high in fat, sugar and cholesterol.

[From Scientific American]

Global warming is leaving trees behind, according to a new study in Science. An analysis of forest species in six French mountain ranges (the western Alps, northern Pyrenees, Massif Central, western Jura, Vosges and the Corsican range) shows that more than two thirds of them moved at least 60 feet (18.5 meters) higher on the mountainsides per decade during the 20th century.

Inter Press Service
By Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail*

BAQUBA, Jun 24 (IPS) - Iraqis seem divided on who they would like to see as the next U.S. president, but few believe that either will end the occupation.

"The U.S administration has committed a big mistake in Iraq," Adil Ibrahim, a local physician in Baquba, capital city of Diyala province, located 40 km northeast of Bagdhdad, told IPS. "We hope that whoever wins the election, the new administration can mend the huge mistakes of this one."

From MediaLens.org

Yesterday, we published a media alert (http://www.medialens.org/alerts/08/080625_selling_the_fireball.php), in which we discussed our exchange with Times commentator, Bronwen Maddox. In response, Times commentator Oliver Kamm wrote to us:

Gentlemen,

From MediaLens.org

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ISR Issue 59, May–June 2008

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Lenin’s return
THE FOLLOWING three presentations were delivered at a panel discussion entitled Lenin’s Return?, held at the Left Forum in New York City on March 15, 2008.

HELEN SCOTT is associate professor of English literature at the University of Vermont in Burlington, and is the editor of The Essential Rosa Luxemburg (Haymarket Books, 2008).

Tarantino relief at finishing project
By Tom Brook
Provincetown, Massachusetts

Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction director Quentin Tarantino speaks of his relief at finishing the screenplay for his latest film project, a "modern, in-your-face" World War II epic.

Tarantino, who was at an independent film festival in the US, confirmed he has now finished the screenplay for Inglorious Bastards - his long-awaited new film - and he maintains he is moving into pre-production right away.

Paving over and farming on floodplains blamed for record floods in the Midwest

by David Biello/Scieintific American
At least 19 levees in Iowa, Illinois and Missouri have failed over the past week after heavy rains, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—and workers swarmed to shore up others with sandbags to prevent rising waters in the Mississippi and its tributaries from overflowing and washing away surrounding communities, farmland and soil. Engineers blame overdevelopment—and potentially poor maintenance of the levees—for the flooding.

by Jason Leopold
June 21st, 2008

A Democratic engineered emergency supplemental bill to continue funding the occupation of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan to the tune of $162 billion is expected to win bipartisan support, aides to leaders in the House said late Wednesday.