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George and Tony Get their al-Qaeda Fix

The tooth fairy, Santa Claus, WorldCom profits, the Easter Bunny, al-Qaeda.

The cruel, evil jerks who blew up the London subway last week, despite appropriating al-Qaeda's name for their website and T-shirts, have about as much to do with al-Qaeda as a Beatles tribute band has to do with the Fab Four.

For all the horror, hoopla and hair-pulling, this was no September 11. Timmy McVeigh slaughtered a heck of a lot more people in Oklahoma City with his cow-poop bomb.

I'm not belittling the heartbreaking hideousness of this crime, but let's get the facts straight. If al-Qaeda is the Panzer Division of terrorism, these London bombers were terrorism's Cub Scouts. We're talking a few pounds of nitro wired to a clock -- a design badly copied off the Internet.

A witness watched some Arabic-looking teenager nervously checking his bag on a bus which, London's un-hysterical police now believe, he accidentally triggered, blowing apart himself and a bunch of unlucky commuters.

The Enemy of Our Enemy May Still Be the Enemy of Democracy

As right-wing religious leaders attack Alberto Gonzales for being insufficiently doctrinaire, it's tempting to accept him as the best we can get for the Supreme Court. In a recent HuffingtonPost blog, Rob McKay suggested we mute our opposition voices precisely because a Gonzales nomination would divide the political right and fracture their coalition.

But accepting someone with the track record and values of Gonzales would be a grievous mistake. We're in our current mess in large part because our culture has been unable to confront the profoundly destructive consequences of the choices made by our leaders. To equivocate about Gonzales's role in these choices is to accept a culture of lies.

Of course, we don't completely control the outcome in this fight. It depends on the Democrats showing enough spine and the half-dozen supposedly moderate Republicans placing democracy ahead of short-term partisan advantage, and refusing to eliminate the judicial filibuster. But when someone exhibits as much contempt for due process as Gonzales does, we have to challenge him, in every way we can.

Bin Laden Souvenirs

BANGKOK, Thailand -- The Osama bin Laden cigarette lighter is adorned with his raised, chrome portrait, an embossed "9.11", sketches of the World Trade Center, an approaching airplane, and a big red splotch.

When you flick the sleek, metal lighter open, a light-emitting diode illuminates the splotch so it glows bright red on one of the buildings, emphasizing the first crash site.

Loud, computerized music beeps out a loop of Mozart.

Made in China -- as are many of the latest, gimmicky, Osama bin Laden souvenirs -- the butane lighter recently showed up in Cambodia.

"I paid two U.S. dollars for it, in the old Soviet market in Phnom Penh," a Canadian traveler, who asked not to be identified, said in an interview after visiting the Cambodian capital.

"One man's catastrophe is another man's cheesy souvenir. I bought three, for the novelty. I'll give them to people who would appreciate the irony that they even exist.

"When you open it, it plays a classical tune. It's quite freaky, eh?"

War made easy, by Normon Solomon

War made easy
By Norman Solomon
Published by John Wiley & Sons; 314 pp; $24.95

Selling war is a piece of cake if you have a mess of media that grovels at your Rovian feet, never challenges your deceptions and has its brain embedded in your darkest reaches.

For years now Norman Solomon has clearly and courageously exposed the outrageous way the American government's "fourth branch," the corporate media, has dragged our nation into the business of murder and mayhem.

As one of our keenest and most creative media critics, Norman digs deep into the horrific media corruption that's allowed this latest war to erupt.

By way of disclosure, Norman has been a long-time friend and colleague, a co-author of KILLING OUR OWN: THE DISASTER OF AMERICA'S EXPERIENCE WITH ATOMIC RADIATION (Delacorte/Delta). It's been an honor to work with him over the years and I continue to read his columns and critiques with pleasure and awe.

Ten Thousand Voter Registration Documents May Have Been Shredded in Hocking County, Ohio

Members of the Progressive Ohio Backbone Campaign traveled to Hocking County on Monday morning, July 11, and filed an affidavit of fact alleging criminal conduct with the Hocking County Sheriff’s Department against the county’s Board of Elections (BOE) Director Lisa Schwartze.

Schwartze had previously admitted at the July 5 BOE meeting that she had used the office to promote a Republican Party fund-raiser last fall. The affidavit of fact alleging criminal conduct filed against Schwartze, however, does not to pertain to Schwartze’s use of the BOE office for partisan political fund-raising. Rather, the affidavit filed pertains to her alleged illegal shredding of election documents, the Free Press has learned.

Sherole Eaton, the fired Hocking County BOE deputy director and Congressional whistleblower, who swore an affidavit against a Triad company technician for allegedly offering a cheat sheet and replacing the county’s central voting tabulator hard drive during last year’s presidential recount, says that Schwartze may have destroyed up to “ten thousand documents.”

“I told her that she couldn’t shred and delete the changes of addresses

Urgent Action from Christian Peacemaker Team – Hebron.

Largest tract of land ever confiscated in history of Hebron District to take place 19 July 2005. Two military orders, T/06/05, and T/93/05 issued on 28 June 2005, if carried out, will confiscate the farmland of fifty Palestinian families (500 people) living in the village of Tarqumiya in the Hebron district. The order stipulates that Israel will confiscate ninety-seven dunums for building the Security Barrier/Annexation wall, but in actuality the military will also confiscate 500 dunums (125 acres) behind the fence. This tract is the largest amount of land ever confiscated in the history of the Hebron District. Telem, an Israeli settlement in the southwest corner of the West Bank, will expand onto the land, currently growing olives, grapes, and field vegetables. The land confiscation will take away income of fifty families. The military gave the families a deadline of 19 July 2005 to respond. A final court decision will occur on that day.

Bush's propaganda

dear free press,

Terrorism, "the War on Terror" and the Message of Carnage

When the French government suggested a diplomatic initiative that might interfere with the White House agenda for war, the president responded by saying that the proposed scenario would “ratify terror.” The date was July 24, 1964, the president was Lyndon Johnson and the war was in Vietnam.

Four decades later, the anti-terror rationale is not just another argument for revving up the U.S. war machinery. Fighting “terror” is now the central rationale for war.

“The contrast couldn’t be clearer between the intentions and the hearts of those who care deeply about human rights and human liberty, and those who kill, those who’ve got such evil in their hearts that they will take the lives of innocent folks,” President Bush said Thursday after the London bombings. “The war on terror goes on.”

A key requirement of this righteous war is that all inconvenient history must be deemed irrelevant. “By accepting the facile cliche that the battle under way against terrorism is a battle against evil, by easily branding those who fight us as the barbarians, we, like them, refuse to

Guess what? You CAN control the airwaves

2005 is the year for Ohio's television station license renewal

Last summer the Free Press ran a brief article about the licensing of Ohio's broadcast radio stations and the public's chance to offer public comment. How many Free Press readers took advantage of this timing and reviewed files and then, in turn, filed their own comments is not known but all stations with a license were renewed for the extended period of 10 years! To some, this is not good news for local stories, multiple opinions, investigative journalism and even music diversity!

This summer we have a sort of "second chance" to make our individual and collective voices heard. October 1 is the deadline for public comments about the performance of television stations across Ohio and some other parts of the country. Perhaps, if you are a TV watcher, you've seen an announcement inviting you to view the public file held at that station's business office? If so, you should know the stations are required by the FCC not only to announce this process but to provide the public with information to be kept in the file for public review.

London terrorist bombings mirror Bush's Terrorist Energy Plan

The horrific terrorist bombings in London are a pale reflection of the terror erupting from George W. Bush's energy plan, which will ultimately kill far more people and wreck far more planetary havoc than four bombs and fifty deaths on a single city's streets.

Amidst Thursday's awful carnage, Bush leapt to deliver his set sermon on good versus evil. But in the same breath he bullied the G-8 nations into groveling at the feet of Big Oil, on whose behalf he is slaughtering thousands in Iraq.

Bush is the Osama bin Laden of climate change. Even conservative Republicans on the American corporate right are growing nervous about the continued emission of carbon dioxide into the earth's atmosphere, which has reached apocalyptic proportions.

Each day the doubters further diminish as robins find their way to Alaska and tropical diseases spread toward the poles. As the weather becomes unhinged, the world's biggest insurers join oil companies such as British Petroleum in escalating desperation. Even the Saudis have joined in, warning that their gargantuan reserves, the world's largest, may not meet demand ten years out.

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