The world spent 228 times as much on its militaries in 2006 as it did on U.N. peacekeeping operations, according to the latest Vital Signs Update from the Worldwatch Institute. United Nations peacekeeping operations around the world between July 2007 and June 2008 are expected to run to $7 billion—substantially higher than the record $5.6 billion spent in 2006–07. Yet world military budgets stood at a staggering $1,232 billion in 2006. [...more]
We will not fear any longer. We will not fear the international terrorists, and we will thwart them. We will not fear the recognition of the manipulation of our yearning for safety, and we will call it what it is: terrorism. We will not fear identifying the vulgar hypocrites in our government, and we will name them. And we will not fear George W. Bush. Nor will we fear because George W. Bush wants us to fear. [...more]
With so many strikes against nuclear power, it should be off the table as a climate solution, and we need to turn our energies toward the technologies and strategies that can truly make a difference: solar power, wind power, and energy conservation. [...more]
As the markets are finally demonstrating today, the "economic good times" spurred by a runaway housing price boom (and powered by astonishingly fraudulent lending practices by dishonest banks) are over. A day of reckoning has arrived, and the unwinding of this false wealth that has been propping up the U.S. economy for so many years is about to be unleashed upon the American people. (Today's stock market meltdown is only the beginning...) [...more]
A new study of worldwide technological competitiveness suggests China may soon rival the United States as the principal driver of the world’s economy — a position the U.S. has held since the end of World War II. If that happens, it will mark the first time in nearly a century that two nations have competed for leadership as equals. [...more]
Youth Sentenced to Life without Parole in California. Approximately 227 youth have been sentenced to die in California’s prisons.1 They have not been sentenced to death: the death penalty was found unconstitutional for juveniles by the United States Supreme Court in 2005. Instead, these young people have been sentenced to prison for the rest of their [...] [...more]
In THE SHOCK DOCTRINE, Naomi Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades. [...more]
