Author: Source

Heavy fighting has taken place in and around Gaza City with Palestinian fighters putting up a stiff resistance to advancing Israeli ground forces. Large explosions and intense gun battles were reported from the Shejaiya neighbourhood late on Monday. Flares lit up the skies as Israeli helicopter gunships and fighter jets flew low over the the city.
Palestinian civilians are continuing to suffer as the Israeli military pushes deeper into the Gaza Strip. At least 548 people have been killed in the territory in the last 10 days, with at least 100 deaths reported since the Israeli ground offensive began on Saturday.

After weeks of Minnesota recount wrangling over the close contest between Republican Senator Norm Coleman and Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party challenger Al Franken, the state canvassing board has certified Franken as the winner. The canvassing board decision came Monday afternoon, after a final review of the tally, put Franken ahead by 225 votes. The formal issuance of a certificate of election will not come for at least a week — perhaps longer — as legal challenges are sorted out.

In a lot of ways, choosing the Bush administration’s 10 greatest moments — disastrous failures, all — is about as pointless as picking out your 10 least favorite hemorrhoids: There are entirely too many of them, and taken together they all add up to a throbbing mass of pain. But unfortunately, history demands that we at least make the effort so that future generations will understand why we perform voodoo rituals cursing Bush’s memory before we go to bed every night.

This is a monumental and unprecedented environmental catastrophe. The TVA disaster is now estimated at 5.3 million cubic yards of coal ash, or almost twice as large as the 2.8 million cubic yards generated by the World Trade Center collapse. This spill is affecting two tributaries of the Tennessee River. The Tennessee is a major river system and a drinking water source for millions of people downstream in Chattanooga, plus Alabama, west Tennessee and Kentucky. Coal ash is the waste material captured after the coal is burned for electricity – burning coal generates about half of America’s electricity….

The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) condemns Israel ‘s massive bombardment of the Gaza Strip which has left over 300 dead and 1,400 wounded, with the tolls mounting. The Israeli Air Force dropped more than 100 bombs in dozens of locations throughout the Gaza Strip as children left school on Saturday. The dead include men, women and children in school uniforms.

As the year winds down, I’d like to note what I consider to be the most politically courageous act of 2008: Attorney General Jerry Brown’s decision to reverse his position and urge the California Supreme Court to overturn Prop. 8.

Mike Connell was allegedly a linchpin in the biggest maze of White House scandal this country’s ever seen, yet the national news media is a no-show. What caused Connell’s crash is only one piece of this story.