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Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

The Tragedy of Our 'Disappeared' Veterans

By Penny Coleman, AlterNet
World: How the justice system has been manipulated to put astonishing numbers of vets with PTSD and other psychiatric injuries behind bars.

Vitaminwater's Empty Calories Are at the Heart of What's Wrong with the Beverage Industry

By Andrea Whitfill, AlterNet
Water: Vitaminwater tells its customers to "hydrate responsibly." That means not drinking 125-calorie sugar rushes like ... Vitaminwater.

Gun-Nut Outside Obama Townhall Linked to GOP 'Stop ObamaCare' Effort

By Adele M. Stan, AlterNet
Rights and Liberties: Strapped with a loaded gun, William Kostric carried a message from the GOP's "break Obama" campaign.

The Threat Is Real: Why Right-Wing Rage at Townhall Meetings Could Quickly Turn Deadly

By Frank Schaeffer, AlterNet
Rights and Liberties: The insurance industry has agitated the far right to prevent health reform, but they don't know whom they're messing with.

How the White House's Deal With Big Pharma Undermines Democracy

By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
Politics: When an industry gets secret concessions in return for a promise to lend its support to a key piece of legislation, we're in big trouble.

Rush Limbaugh's "Nazi" Rhetoric: Where's the Outrage?

By Eric Boehlert, Media Matters for America
Media and Technology: Why are so many corporate news outlets silent about Limbaugh's offensive Hitler comparisons?

When My Husband Became a Woman, I Realized I Was a Sexist

By Helen Boyd, On The Issues Magazine
Sex and Relationships: When my husband transitioned, it made me face all of the terrible gender stereotypes I carry around.

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

Why Corporations, Emerging Powers and Petro-States Are Snapping Up Huge Chunks of Farmland in the Developing World

By Scott Thill, AlterNet
Water: In the past six months, big players in the global economy have grabbed 50 million acres of arable land, from Africa to Southeast Asia.

GOP Senator Calls Sarah Palin's 'Death Panel' Remarks 'Nuts'

By John Byrne, Raw Story
Health and Wellness: Georgia Republican Johnny Isakson takes on Palin's fearmongering on health care reform.

The 'Perfect' Porn Vulva: More Women Demanding Cosmetic Genital Surgery

By Rebecca Chalker, AlterNet
Sex and Relationships: Women are risking their lives to achieve an unrealistic and unnecessary ideal.

13 Secret Toxins Lurking in Your Food, and How to Avoid Them

By Tina McCarthy, EcoSalon
Here are some tips to help you steer clear of hidden toxins that masquerade as safe products.

Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs Enflame Scary Right-Wing Rage

By John V. Santore, Media Matters for America
Media and Technology: The conservative playbook has been laid bare, and it's ugly. How long until their overheated rhetoric spills over into violence?

Rape Victims Charged Up to $1,200 for Rape Kits

By Ben Protess, Emily Witt, The Huffington Post Investigative Fund
Reproductive Justice and Gender: Rape is not something you should budget for. Yet some rape victims, unlike victims of other crimes, have to pay for basic evidence collection.

Christian Cowboy Plots to Bring Christ into Kids' Social Studies Class

By Rob Boston, Church & State Magazine
Belief: David Barton likens himself to a biblical prophet. He wants to destroy the separation of church and state. Why is he designing school curricula?

Why Men Need to Get Over Their Femiphobia -- Fear and Disdain of the Female

By Michael Eric Dyson, Basic Books
Sex and Relationships: The author argues in his book excerpt that a "great deal of the nation’s gender problem has to do with how men think about women."

Halting Town Hall Intimidation Is AlterNet's Top Take Action Campaign This Week

By Byard Duncan, AlterNet
Take Action: Effigies, Nazi rhetoric, guns and threatening phone calls. How are you going to help counter this despicable intimidation campaign?

Monday, August 10th, 2009

Inside Story on Town Hall Riots: Right-Wing Shock Troops Do Corporate America's Dirty Work

By Adele M. Stan, AlterNet
Rights and Liberties: How the health-care industry, the GOP and one media mogul made common cause with the anti-government fringe.

Whatever Happened to Progressive Talk Radio? Did Air America Kiss it Good Bye?

By Cynthia Lowen, AlterNet
Media and Technology: We need a progressive antidote to Limbaugh, Savage and Beck. Yet Air America Radio seems to have gone in a different direction.

The Epidemic of Pot Arrests in New York City

By Harry G. Levine, AlterNet
DrugReporter: Marijuana possession is legally decriminalized in NY State. Nonetheless, NY City makes more pot arrests than any city in the world. How do they do it?

"When in Doubt, Add Bacon and Cheese": How the Food Industry Hijacked Our Brains and Made Us Fat

By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
Health and Wellness: The food industry has changed American eating habits and helped create the country's No. 1 public-health issue.

Judd Apatow's Insidious Virgin/Whore Complex

By Sarah Seltzer, RH Reality Check
Sex and Relationships: Apatow's male characters' attitudes towards women fall into one of the two categories: dirty punchline or pedestal.

The Economic Fallout Has Decimated the Black Middle Class

By Barbara Ehrenreich, Dedrick Muhammad, Barbaraehrenreich.com
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace: 40 percent of African Americans will have experienced unemployment or underemployment by 2010 and child poverty will increase to slightly over half.

The 'Me-First, Screw You Crowd' Are No Longer Hiding Their Antics

By David Sirota, Creators Syndicate
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace: Finally, there's no pretense. The ugliest traits of this despicable movement are there for all to behold.

Saturday, August 8th, 2009

Is the U.S. on the Brink of Fascism?

By Sara Robinson, Campaign for America's Future
Rights and Liberties: There are dangerous currents running through America's politics and the way we confront them is crucial.

Eating Less May Extend Your Lifespan -- But Is it Worth It?

By Ari LeVaux, AlterNet
Health and Wellness: Recent studies indicate cutting your diet by 30 percent of what you're supposed to eat can extend your life, but living longer isn't everything.

How Outlet Malls Have Convinced Shoppers into Thinking They're Getting a Sweet Deal

By Ellen Rupel Shell, The Penguin Press
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace: Are America's 55 million outlet shoppers scoring great deals on expensive brandname products, or getting less than they're bargaining for?

The Shocking Benefits of Legalizing Pot

By Ami Cholia, AlterNet
DrugReporter: Here are some pluses to legalization that you probably haven't heard about.

Obama's $80 Billion Deal with Pharma Is a Very Bad Deal for Us

By William Greider, The Nation
Health and Wellness: The White House has cut a deal with Big Pharma that smells like the same old rotten politics that candidate Obama regularly denounced.

How Churches May Actually Help Gays Win the Marriage Fight

By Byard Duncan, AlterNet
Politics: Religious communities don't have to be the enemy of gay rights -- in fact, as some are showing, they can help swing votes for equality.

Top 5 Ways the 'Birthers' Are Like the Global Warming Deniers

By Joseph Romm, Climate Progress
Politics: Both are impervious to the evidence and both get their disinformation from the same right-wing sources.

What the Mainstream Press Can Learn from Matt Taibbi's Takedown of Goldman Sachs

By Dean Starkman, Columbia Journalism Review
Media and Technology: If biz journalists won't step back and take in the sweep of this crisis, and the systemic distortions that underlie it, somebody else will.

Immigrant Detainees Staging Hunger Strikes to Protest Deplorable Confinement

By Aura Bogado, AlterNet
Rights and Liberties: The South Louisiana Correctional Center has seen five hunger strikes in one month, as detainees are denied medical care and access to legal libraries.

Friday, August 7th, 2009

Right-Wing Turncoat Gives the Inside Scoop on Why Conservatives Are Rampaging Town Halls

By Frank Schaeffer, AlterNet
Health and Wellness: The GOP is willing to disrupt the health care debate if they can't win it. Yesterday in Tampa, a mob of Glenn Beck supporters nearly caused a riot.

Corporate Dominance of Every Aspects of Our Lives Is Suffocating us

By Helaine Olen, AlterNet
Media and Technology: Author Doug Rushkoff warns of the dominance of profit and consumerism in our mindsets, and offers a way out of the corporate culture.

"Kids Are a Pain in the Ass": 40 Reasons to Abstain from Having Children

By Vanessa Richmond, The Tyee
Sex and Relationships: People who don't have kids have more sex, more career success and a far smaller environment footprint than people who do.

Obama's Plan to Help Homeowners Is a Bust

By Zach Carter, Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace: It can't keep pace with the rate of foreclosures -- not even close. Why was the industry allowed to police itself?

Western Jihad: Yes, We Have Suicide Bombers, Too, We Just Call Them 'Heroes'

By John Feffer, Tomdispatch.com
World: We have our own rich tradition of suicide bombers -- and our own unfortunate tendency to kill civilians in our military campaigns.

Hiroshima Day: America Has Been Asleep at the Wheel for 64 Years

By Daniel Ellsberg, Truthdig
World: Deceptions about our nuclear weapons have "threatened the survival of the human species."

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?

By Steve Fox, Paul Armentano, Mason Tvert, Chelsea Green Publishing
Rights and Liberties: A new book explains how we're steering people away from cannabis and toward the use of a very harmful and deadly substance: alcohol.

'The Cove:' Japan Has a Dark Secret It Hopes the World Will Never See

By Tara Lohan, AlterNet
Water: Suspenseful and shocking film exposes the slaughter of tens of thousands of dolphins and the billion-dollar industry that profits from selling them.

Shooter Read Sexist Christian Author's Book Before Pittsburgh Female Aerobics Class Massacre

By Bruce Wilson, AlterNet
Politics: Sodini's final reading: a book by sexist Fundamentalist who claimed husbands own their wives, as property.

Chris Brown's Sentencing for Beating Rihanna: Let's Focus on What Really Matters

By Jaclyn Friedman, AlterNet
Sex and Relationships: Did the court let Brown off too easy for beating girlfriend Rihanna? The author says that's the wrong question.

Anti-Government Ideologue Megan McArdle's Amnesia About Her Privileged, Govt.-Funded Upbringing

By Mark Ames, AlterNet
Media and Technology: The "libertarian" Atlantic Monthly writer rails against public health care, yet her family trusted government enough to make them rich.

Health Care Town Halls "Gone Wild": Right-Wingers on the Rampage

Center for American Progress Health and Wellness: Screaming constituents, protesters dragged out by the cops, and congressmen fearful for their safety mark the ugly scenes created by the far right.

Hightower: Think Your Food's Organic? Think Again

By Jim Hightower, AlterNet
Health and Wellness: Thanks to corporate-friendly policies enacted under the Bush Administration, the legal organic standard is filled with loopholes.

What It's Like To Be an Atheist in the Bible Belt

By Susan McCarthy, Comment Is Free
Belief: Even in the South's big cities, many atheists feel they have to stay closeted.

Coal Industry Behind Forged Letters to Congressman Asking Him to Vote Against Climate Bill?

By Kate Sheppard, Grist.org
Environment: A firm hired by a coal lobbying group is believed to be responsible for forged letters pretending to be from the NAACP and a local Latino group.

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

How We Became a Society of Gluttonous Junk Food Addicts

By Arun Gupta, AlterNet
Health and Wellness: Junk food is killing us slowly with diabetes, heart disease and cancer. But we can't stop because we're hooked, and the food industry is the pusher.

Explosive Allegations: Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder

By Jeremy Scahill, The Nation
World: Sworn statements filed in Federal Court also allege that Blackwater founder Erik Prince launched a "crusade" to eliminate Muslims and Islam.

Why Are People So Afraid of Bisexuals?

By Adele M. Stan, AlterNet
Sex and Relationships: As society's shape-shifters, bisexuals mess with everybody's idea of sexual orientation.

Cruel and Unusual: Why Are We Doling Out Harsh Justice to Returning War Vets?

By Penny Coleman, AlterNet
World: Veterans are more likely to get longer sentences than non-veterans for the same crime. How can we treat returning soldiers so badly?

The Only Option for Health Reform Is the Public Option

By Guy T. Saperstein, AlterNet
Health and Wellness: By every objective measure, the United States has a second-rate health care system -- and the only way to fix it is to create a public option.

The New Yorker Magazine's Strange Embrace of Hate-Spewing Shock Jock Michael Savage

By Eric Boehlert, Media Matters for America
Media and Technology: A recent puff piece in the New Yorker legitimizes Savage's hate crusade.

Why Can't the U.S. Guarantee the Most Basic of Human Rights -- the Right to Clean Water?

By Peter Asmus, AlterNet
Water: California is leading the way with new legislation to guarantee clean water for all, but the federal government is far behind.