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 [...]

http://www.latimes.com…

Think Goldwater is the father of conservatism? Think again.
By Neal Gabler
November 30, 2008
Ever since the election, partisans within the Republican Party and observers outside it have been speculating wildly about what direction the GOP will take to revive itself from its disaster. Or, more specifically, which wing of the party will prevail in setting the [...]

http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com…
We continue our look at mainstream coverage of the Mumbai attacks:
Michael Evans of the Times:
The group that claimed to be behind last night’s attacks on Bombay — the Deccan Mujahideen — has not hitherto been heard of in India, let alone in the outside world.
Boston Globe:
An e-mail message to Indian media outlets taking responsibility for [...]

http://thinkprogress.org…
In a Washington Post op-ed today, a former Special Operations interrogator who worked in Iraq in 2006 sharply criticizes American torture techniques as ineffective and dangerous. “Torture and abuse cost American lives,” he writes:
I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu [...]

http://www.nytimes.com…
By DAVID BARSTOW
In the spring of 2007 a tiny military contractor with a slender track record went shopping for a precious Beltway commodity.
The company, Defense Solutions, sought the services of a retired general with national stature, someone who could open doors at the highest levels of government and help it win a huge prize: the [...]

http://www.globalresearch.ca…
by Sherwood Ross
If African-Americans are overrepresented in the armed forces it is likely because of the military’s practice of “strategically targeting low-income youth and students of color,” the ACLU has found.
Result: While African-Americans make up only 16% of the same-age civilian population, in 2006 they represented about 22% of enlisted Army personnel.

Posted by Kristin Bricker - November 29, 2008 at 8:07 pm
A Mexican police trainer fired for hitting a female cadet has been hired by another police force in Guanajuato
La Jornada has revealed that some of the trainers responsible for the torture classes given to Leon, Guanajuato, Special Tactics police are San Diego, California, police officers [...]

http://www.jackandjillpolitics.com…
Author: The Christian Progressive Liberal
When I’ve interviewed for jobs (and I’ve had to do that with increasing regularity in the past month or so), I complied with EVERYTHING prospective employers requested of me.  Even if I didn’t get the job, they couldn’t turn me down because I lacked the qualifications, didn’t meet [...]

Taj Mahal hotel chairman: We had warning
The Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai, India, temporarily increased security after being warned of a possible terrorist attack…
[SNIP]
…those measures, which were eased shortly before this week’s terror attacks…
[SNIP]
“It’s ironic that we did have such a warning, and we did have some measures,” Tata said, without elaborating on the warning [...]