"One of the two lead contractors for Israel’s apartheid wall in the occupied West Bank, Elbit Systems, has won a $145 million contract from the US Department of Homeland Security to provide similar systems on the Mexico-US border."

I might adopt "apostasy, not prayer" as a personal slogan.

1. The headline is hilarious
2. The author says the Islamic State is "ultraconservative" and that it has destroyed many cultural artifacts, in the same sentence.
3. "If we didn't intervene when they were killing people, it would be kind of grotesque to intervene over a building"

Another view of the Ukraine situation after the Odessa tragedy. This is the most lucid analysis I've read, and it seems to be rather balanced. The author (who is not Ukrainian) doesn't think the Fascists were able to convert Maidan into any real gains, and emphasizes that the thing to do now is stay out of conflicts on either side as the protests devolve toward civil war:

"However, none of the fears of «fascist takeover» have materialized. Fascists gained very little real power, and in Ukraine their historical role will now be that of stormtroopers for liberal reforms demanded by the IMF and the European Union — that is, pension cuts, an up to five times increase in consumer gas prices, and others. Fascism in Ukraine has a powerful tradition, but it has been incapable of proceeding with its own agenda in the revolutionary wave. ...

"Whereas it may occasionally be worth it to swallow tear gas or to feel the police baton for a bourgeois revolution, it makes no sense at all to die in a civil war between two equally bourgeois and nationalist sides. It would not be another Maidan but something completely different. No blood, anarchist or otherwise, should spill due to this stupidity."

Fascists and Pro-Russia Stalinists/conservatives are killing each other in Ukraine. Nobody is going to win. Here is AWU's analysis:

"The final result of such policies will be a civil war in Ukraine, which will mean an ultimate catastrophe for the working class. ... We can see that this scenario is being pushed forward by the alliance of various right-wing groups, nazis, conservatives and Stalinists. ... The cure is well-known: we should realize our own class interests, organize at workplaces and direct our rage against the real enemy, not at each other. In days like these global workers’ solidarity means very much. The global working class is doomed to eliminate itself: either in the process of social revolution and construction of a classless society or in the process of a barbaric all-out war."

"Although the call that led Texas investigators to the ranch was proven to be a hoax, CPS removed 439 children as a precaution. The subsequent litigation to reunite the children with their families and the prosecution of 11 church members, including leader Warren Jeffs, dragged on for years. Ten of the 11 were convicted on child sexual assault charges."

This sort of thing is tempting -- but it's also a lot like providing your identification before robbing a bank. Still, he's not in jail yet!

"And I was struck anew that this case was all talk, talk, talk. Church said this. Chase said that. Betterly said this (although not much.) Right up until at the prompting of the undercover officers they poured some gasoline in some beer bottles and stuffed a torn rag in the top, they hadn’t committed any crime.

"What they would have done with those “Molotov cocktails”— a scary word for a weapon that any dumb kid can make at home as many have — we’ll never know. But I will always believe the NATO 3 never posed as great a threat to the freedom of the people of Chicago as those who assigned police officers to infiltrate dissident political groups in search of potential “criminals”— and by those who chose to define those criminals as terrorists."

Judges, prosecutors, and police who invoke the fear of violence to commit their monstrous acts of violence are incredible hypocrites.

"This weekly round of deportations at the NWDC comes as Ramon Mendoza Pascual and J. Cipriano Rios Alegria continue their hunger strike in medical isolation, under solitary confinement sentences."

The fact that this guy is talking to Salon on a cellphone while in solitary gives me the impression that the Free Alabama Movement has done some impressive pre-strike organizing.

LAPD shot to death a homeless man in Hollywood while I was writing my essay about police who kill the homeless.

"A man facing deportation from Sweden has been granted a temporary reprieve after fellow passengers aboard his flight to Iran prevented it from taking off by refusing to fasten their seat belts."

"The drawbacks of using police sweeps to deliver people to social services are especially relevant in Arizona, where the length of mandatory jail sentences start at 15 days and increase each time a sex worker is convicted."

That's right. Somebody called the cops on Jesus.

It wouldn't be the first time.

"today the Justice Department announced its findings that the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) has engaged in a pattern or practice of excessive force that violates the Constitution and federal law."

World Vision (US) took another look at their copy of "the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God" and discovered that they ARE supposed to police the personal/family lives of their employees after all. Oops.