Al Norman: Wal-Mart Shoppers Are Trained To Be “Savages”…At Wal-Mart, they know the price of everything, but the value of nothing. It was the manager at the Rapid City, Michigan Wal-Mart store who said what the company’s top brass in Bentonville could not say. “There’s nothing in my store that’s worth people’s safety or lives.”

New FBI spy rules worry Arab-Americans…In a last-minute rule change before he leaves office, President George Bush amended U.S. Department of Justice guidelines to allow the FBI to use confidential informants to gather intelligence in preliminary probes, interview people without identifying who they are and spy on suspects without first getting clear evidence of wrongdoing, the Detroit Free Press reported Sunday.

Now anthrax takes toll on the starving in Zimbabwe….A quarantine zone has been declared in the affected areas of Matebeleland North

Kristol Calls On Bush To Pardon Torturers And Wiretappers, Reward Them With Medal Of Freedom….In the Bush era, the Medal of Freedom has come to absurdly represent a reward for those who carried out policy failures at the urging of the Bush administration. By this standard, the implementers of torture and warrantless wiretapping certainly qualify for such a medal.

The case of the missing acorns

UK: Veteran returns from the front to be beaten up by police, then has to pay them compensation

World leaders to sign cluster munitions ban….The United States, which has more than one billion bomblets in its arsenal, opposes the treaty and has encouraged countries not to sign. Russia and China, which also oppose the treaty, are thought to have a similar number. All three countries are major producers. Pro-ban campaigners suspect the U.S. has quietly influenced most — if not all — of the significant absentees in Oslo: India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Romania, Poland and Israel.