Cheney Starts New Cold War Over Oil

AlterNet: Cheney Starts New Cold War Over Oil: "Cheney's brazen oil grab strategy in Central Asia has launched a new Cold War with Russia -- and this time we're losing."

(Via AlterNet.)

Downscaling the Dreams of Youth

AlterNet: WireTap: Excerpt: Downscaling the Dreams of Youth: "America prides itself on its unlimited opportunity. So why are fewer and fewer young people able to attend college, find jobs and reach the middle-class promised land?"

(Via AlterNet.)

Viva Muqtada...

Baghdad Burning: Viva Muqtada...: "It’s darkly funny to see what we’ve turned into, and it is also anguishing. Muqtada Al-Sadr is a measure of how much we’ve regressed these last three years. Even during the Iran-Iraq war and the sanctions, people turned to sports to keep their mind off of day-to-day living. After the occupation, we won a football match against someone or another and we’d console ourselves with ‘Well we lose wars- but we win football!’ From a country that once celebrated sports- football (soccer) especially- to a country that worries if the male football players are wearing long enough shorts or whether all sports fans will face eternal damnation… That’s what we’ve become."

(Via Baghdad Burning.)

With One Pen Stroke, Bush Raises Taxes Twice

Think Progress » With One Pen Stroke, Bush Raises Taxes Twice: "In 1999, he said he would ‘oppose and veto any increase in individual or corporate marginal income tax rates or individual or corporate income tax hikes.’

But by signing the recently passed tax cut bill, he raised marginal income tax rates for Americans living abroad. (The bill also cut taxes for the wealthy and worsened long-term deficits.)

...

The Times reported last week that the bill also ‘tripled tax rates for teenagers with college savings funds.’"

(Via Think Progress.)

Tyranny of the Christian Right

AlterNet: Tyranny of the Christian Right: "The largest and most powerful mass movement in the nation -- evangelical Christianity -- has set out to destroy secular society.

Whenever I talk about the growing power of the evangelical right with friends, they always ask the same question: What can we do? Usually I reply with a joke: Keep a bag packed and your passport current."

(Via AlterNet.)

Top 10 Signs of the Impending U.S. Police State

AlterNet: Top 10 Signs of the Impending U.S. Police State: "From secret detention centers to warrantless wiretapping, Bush and Co. give free rein to their totalitarian impulses."

(Via AlterNet.)