Articles Posted on August 16th, 2011
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Once Upon a Time in Syria
In February 1982, Hafez ordered the Syrian army to bombard the town of Hama in order to quell a revolt by the Muslim Brotherhood. In what became known as the Hama massacre, an estimated 17,000 to 40,000 people were killed, including about 1,000 soldiers. The attack has been described as among the single deadliest acts by any Arab government against its own people in the modern Middle East. The vast majority of the victims were civilians. In the fifth-month of the present-day uprising, Bashar Assad is now bombarding Hama. Like father, like son.
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Good Government Measure Qualifies for June 2012 Ballot
Proponents and volunteers gathered 12,869 signatures in less than five weeks to qualify the initiative, despite operatives from Recology – the holder of the City’s highly lucrative garbage collection monopoly – deploying an expensive media campaign on both network and cable TV and funding a series of allegedly illegal actions to intimidate petition workers, harass petition signers, and buy or steal petition booklets.
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Waves of Protest Pound at BART, Shutting Down Stations
What started as a fizzled anti-police brutality protest at BART’s Civic Center station has spiraled into a San Francisco moment with echoes of the Arab Spring and V For Vendetta. Following an unprecedented decision by BART officials to preemptively cut off cell phone service on August 11, in a bid to disrupt a protest that never developed, public outrage led to further protest today and a hacking attack on MyBart.org by the notorious international hacker group Anonymous over the weekend.
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Dateline Iowa: Republican Party Hoisted on its Own Petard
Ron Paul (barely) – Paul landed less than a single percentage point behind Bachmann (although your wouldn’t know it from the conservative media’s instant anointment of Bachmann, Romney and Perry as the party’s “Top Tier Candidates”). A perhaps surprising showing in this conservative state since many of his libertarian positions are, well, provocative: legalize marijuana; abolish income tax; allow Iran to have nukes (“everybody else does…”); pull the US out of the United Nations and NATO – and the Middle East; allow states to secede from the union; eliminate the Federal Reserve; eliminate legal tender laws and sales tax on gold and silver – heck, let the free market determine monetary standards. Dr No has voted against virtually every initiative for government spending and new taxes in his 14 years as a Texas Congressman – more no’s than any other office holder. All of which impressed Iowans enough to rank him the second most-desirable Republican candidate. The American People – in Iowa – have spoken! But who’s listening?
The Hunger Site
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