Spinal Fire Scientia Est Potentia

The story of the financial debacle will end the way it began, with the super-hustlers from Goldman Sachs at the center of the action and profiting wildly. Never in U.S. history has one company wielded such destructive power over our political economy, irrespective of whether a Republican or a Democrat happened to be president.

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Here is the link to Thursday's live blog. Please check the page regularly for updates.

7:45am PDT: The BBC has a disturbing first hand video report from a hospital in Port-au-Prince where, last night, injured people waiting for treatment slept amongst dead bodies.

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United States - When the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) back in December 1948, 58 member states voted for a historic document covering political, economic, social and cultural rights.

On Wednesday, nearly 62 years later, a widely-expanded 192- member General Assembly adopted another memorable resolution: this time recognising water and sanitation as a basic human right.

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What WikiLeaks did was brilliant journalism, and the bleating critics from the president on down are revealing just how low a regard they have for the truth. As with Richard Nixon's rage against the publication of the Pentagon Papers, our leaders are troubled not by the prospect of these revelations endangering troops but rather endangering their own political careers. It is our president who unnecessarily sacrifices the lives of our soldiers and not those in the press who let the public in on the folly of the mission itself.

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This afternoon, in a long-awaited decision, 9th Circuit Judge Susan Bolton enjoined several major provisions of Arizona’s immigration law, SB-1070. While it was speculated that Bolton would block parts of SB-1070 relating to warrantless arrests and document requirements, the judge also ended up striking down the law’s most controversial and significant provision: the requirement that police check immigration status.

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At 23, Omar Khadr is the youngest of the 176 people still imprisoned at the US military's detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. He has been there for eight years, one third of his life. A Canadian, he is the only citizen of a Western country remaining in detention, although one British resident, Shaker Aamer, is also still locked up there. Of the 779 people brought to Guantánamo since 2002,(1) only 36 have been charged or designated for prosecution.

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A group called "Stop Islamization of America" is promoting ads on major city public transportation that urge people to leave the Muslim faith. The anti-Islamic campaign is sparking thought about the religion's place in American society.

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A criminal probe announced by the Department of Justice (DOJ) will look into whether the cozy relationship between three companies and federal regulators were a leading cause of the spill in the Gulf, The Washington Post reports. The investigation being carried out by the "BP squad" is one of nearly a dozen under way by both state and federal officials.

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Without "cap and trade," Senate majority leader Harry Reid said Tuesday the narrower energy bill has a better shot at overcoming GOP opposition.

Senate majority leader Harry Reid on Tuesday unveiled a vastly narrower energy bill, minus controversial climate provisions that would have capped carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. The bill focuses instead on addressing the Gulf oil spill, home efficiency, land and water conservation, and natural gas powered vehicles.

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Washington - The House of Representatives agreed on Tuesday to provide $59 billion to continue financing America's two wars, but the vote showed deepening divisions and anxiety among Democrats over the course of the nearly nine-year-old conflict in Afghanistan." (New York Times, 28 2010)

We see at least five basic truths emerging from the Afiascostan situation.

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Some herald it as the end of climate-damaging HFCs; others warn of the "green" substitute's toxicity.

General Motors said this week it will cut out a climate-destroying chemical from its car air conditioners by 2013, in a first for an industry seeking greener auto coolants.

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The Shirley Sherrod Story started innocently. It was a beautiful anecdote of redemption and personal growth, which she related last year at a meeting of the Georgia NAACP.

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Africa leaders in Uganda address the rising threat of Islamic extremism.

Kampala, Uganda - The terrorist violence spreading from Somalia dominated this week's African Union summit, resulting in a decision to boost the number of troops it deploys in the war-torn country.

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Washington - Congress was warned Tuesday that the failure to build the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada could delay licensing of the country's first new nuclear power plants in a generation.

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Human Trafficking is a global industry that transcends borders, regions, and cultures. Within the Western Hemisphere trafficking is an important issue that arguably helps to shape relations between Latin American and the United States. In June 2010, the State Department Report on Trafficking in Persons (TIP) included, for the first time, in its ten year existence, a ranking allocated to the United States as well as 177 other countries.

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Where does the US get its crude? Here's what you need to know.

Boston - The United States consumes more oil than any other country in the world: 18.7 million barrels of oil per day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration's (EIA) short-term energy outlook.

To satisfy that demand, the United States imports 9 to 12 million barrels of oil per day.

The top seven countries on the following list account for more than $140 billion worth of oil every year: 

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Washington's spin machine is in overdrive to counter the massive leak of documents on Afghanistan. Much of the counterattack revolves around the theme that the documents aren't particularly relevant to this year's new-and-improved war effort.

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The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism released a lengthy report yesterday chronicling representation of African Americans in the mainstream media during President Obama's first year in office. The headline it generated is no shocker: Everybody was obsessed with the beer summit.

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On his Monday radio show, Glenn Beck highlighted claims that before he started targeting a little-known, left-leaning organization called the Tides Foundation on his Fox News TV show, "nobody knew" what the non-profit was.

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For years, the government has denied that depleted uranium (DU), a radioactive toxic waste left over from nuclear fission and added to munitions used in the Persian Gulf and Iraq wars, poisoned Iraqi civilians and veterans.

But a little-known 1993 Defense Department document written by then-Brigadier Gen. Eric Shinseki, now the secretary for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), shows that the Pentagon was concerned about DU contamination and the agency had ordered medical testing on all personnel that were exposed to the toxic substance.

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