Turns out there are some rather nasty sentiments being expressed by well educated middle-class pilots inside the relative comfort and safety of their B.A. cockpits.

Also see: Robert Fisk: BA should be broken up and left with a core institution. Deportation or Rendition Airlines | The Independent

“I’ve always thought the airline should be broken up and left with a core institution. Deportation Airlines, for example, or – if that sounds a trifle downmarket – Guantanamo Airlines, or even Rendition Airlines.”

“Israeli forces have [conducted] a raid on northern Gaza, hours after rejecting a truce offered by Hamas.”

It is clear that Israel is not interested in peace.

Also see: Israel rejects Hamas cease-fire offer | Christian Science Monitor

–Opportunist reactionaries abound in the Venezuelan student movement. This is not exactly what most people think a student activist should be. The right-wing continue to fund reactionaries in the student movement that do not represent anyone but greed and international capital. Given that the Cato Institute gets it money from reputable sources like Exxon Mobile, WalMart, and Microsoft, it is not exactly “clean” money. In-fact, it is blood money. There should be no question to anyone where the counter-revolution in Venezuela is getting its funding from.

–Great video from Aljazeera about the strike in France. They even interview a shop owner that supports the strike even though he is losing 1200 a day because all his staff turned out to be “illegal” immigrants and have walked off the job.

“A 23-year-old black man was killed in a hail of gunfire outside a club in Queens on his wedding day — as he was leaving his bachelor party … Officers Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora, stood trial for manslaughter while Officer Marc Cooper was charged only with reckless endangerment. Two other shooters weren’t charged. Oliver squeezed off 31 shots; Isnora fired 11 rounds; and Cooper shot four times … The officers opted to have the judge decide the case rather than a jury.”

Police-brutality has once again been approved by the state in the U.S.

–Pilger’s latest article on the War on Democracy with a special focus on history and recent developments in Latin America.

–The racist rich in Bolivia are trying to leave and take the Bolivians’ wealth with them.

–Domestic violence continues to be a major problem in Canada and around the world. We haven’t even started along the road to reach equality until the killing and abuse stop.

–More people denouncing their own party for funding tricks.

–

“The food crisis is the greatest demonstration of the historical failure of the capitalist model,” President Chávez declared.

“Libya’s deputy UN ambassador, ended a long speech about the plight of the Palestinians by comparing the situation in Gaza to the concentration camps set up by Nazi Germany to exterminate Jews.”

Amnesty International has released a film depicting the U.S. torture-technique of waterboarding.

–This from the linked Associated Press article:

But the Maoists, who are considered terrorists by the United States, have made it clear they are committed capitalists, albeit left-leaning ones, and have no plans to transform Nepal into a communist state.

How is it that the corporate media gets it this wrong? What is a “left-leaning” capitalist? Are they trying to say that the Maoists (a group that is labeled a terrorist organization by imperialist nations) is a fuzzy-bunny liberal organization? You have got to be kidding me!

And as if the only options are to be “communist [statists]” or “committed capitalists”. How is it that this reporter can think that a party that is the left-wing militant split from the Communist Party of Nepal, a party that has been engaged in an armed people’s-war with an oligarchy (an oligarchy backed by land-owners and international capital) with expressed goals to establish socialism and egalitarian distribution of wealth, can be labeled as “committed capitalists” is beyond me. Just because they are not going to be authoritarian and establish a top-down Stalinist-like “Communist state” in no way means they are committed to capitalism. It is an insult to their struggle, that’s what it is. It is an insult from a ridiculous agency who reporters clearly do not know anything about what is going on in that country.

Didn’t the reporter read any of the other reports coming out of the country? What about visiting or reading the Maoist’s website that has a picture of Marx, Lenin, and Mao prominently displayed with the words “Workers of the world unite” proudly written across the top?

Nonsense. Absolute nonsense. They cannot even get the simplest analysis correct.

The Maoists are not establishing capitalism, “state capitalism” (aka: a Stalinist communist state), or some sort of strange revisionist conception of a socialist state. They are establishing assemblies of elected representatives to write a constitution; a people’s constitution written for and by a people that are mostly rural farmers. If they really believe that the people of Nepal, that just overwhelmingly elected communists/socialists (CPC-UML and CPC-Maoist) to power, are going to write a “committed capitalist” oriented constitution then they are living in la-la land.

–The manipulation of research by those that have a political agenda. The Tories continue to have a lot to answer for in their desperate attempts to undermine the Kyoto climate agreement by funding junk science. The horrible thing is that this is becoming a trend in the world of right-wing governments, thinktanks, and capitalist ideologues.

–Food shortages become a reality again. Guess what system doesn’t have a moral solution?

Now that the Bush II administration is coming to an end, and this information is no longer a threat, investigations like this one can take place.

–Even Ralph Nader is saying bad things about SEIU lately.

–Some rather sound resolutions for activists fighting for a just solution to the climate crisis.

–Report-back/analysis of the recent Labour Notes conference held in the US.

–If it is then the answer to the starvation question is as contagious.

–Food for thought on the developing antagonisms in Zimbabwe.

–More on Oaxaca.