By Rowan Wolf

Fires are harder to put out than they are to start. The constant meme out of the McCain campaign has been that Obama is a Muslim, hates the United States, is a person to be afraid of, and now that he is a terrorist. It has put John McCain in the unenviable political position of having to defend the character of the man he is running against. However, that is unlikely to do anything to put out the fire that has been started.

By Rowan Wolf

We are living in perilous times. Economies, nations, and even the planet teeter on an array of tipping points. Now, legislation which made many uneasy is playing out as we had feared it might. The umbrella of "terrorist" is expanding, and the wheels of justice threaten to grind many in the dust.

By Ramzy Baroud (ramzybaroud.net) - author of The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (Pluto Press, 2006), and editor of PalestineChronicle.com

One should rightly assume that the weight of the US financial crisis, the full impact of which is just beginning to unravel, and the widening military debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan, would compel new thinking amongst leading US politicians. And then again, maybe not.

The report on the so-called Sarah Palin "Troopergate" affair has been released. You may access the full report (known as the Branchflower Report) from this link from the Anchorage Daily News, or my copy.

There are four findings in the report (pg 8):
1. Governor Palin abused the power of her office in the firing of Walt Monegan.
2. Monegan's refusal to fire Trooper Wooten was not the sole reason for firing Monegan.
3. The state dealt appropriately with its compensation of Monegan.
4. The Attorney General failed to provide emails requested.

By Sunil Potnis. Originally published at Thomas Paine's Corner

I am convinced that we humans are worse terrorists to the animal world than those humans who are terrorizing other humans. For many years suicide bombings, other forms of asymmetrical warfare, and state terrorism (euphemized as 'conventional warfare') have been ripping our hearts out and slaughtering millions upon millions of people, but over that same period humans have murdered billions upon billions of non-human animals. Yet few think of the terrorism and havoc we have unleashed on the animal world. We weep and go to war when the World Trade Center is bombed, but what should members of the animal world do when their entire species is getting wiped out? What should dogs and cats do when their family members are skinned alive? Where will seals go when every year in Canada over 200,000 of them are killed (and half of them are two week old pups)? Fortunately there are some kind-hearted humans who have dedicated their lives to fighting against the real eco-terrorism meted out by animal exploiters and murderers.

By Rowan Wolf

With the current economic crisis which seems to be spreading across the world we are dealing with far more than a "subprime" crisis, or an attempt to "quarantine "toxic debt." There is a much bigger avalanche waiting to come tumbling down. Namely the derivatives market now estimated to be over $1 quadrillion (that is 1,000 trillion) in global derivatives holdings. That makes the current $700 billion bailout look like less than a drop in a very large bucket.

By Anwaar Hussain of TruthSpring

The Muslim world stayed at the pinnacle of glories in science and technology for about 300 years from 900-1200 AD. Muslim science bloomed in Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo, and Cordoba, among other cities. Momentous progress was made in such areas as medicine, agronomy, botany, mathematics, chemistry, jurisprudence and philosophy. While the Christian Europe lagged behind pathetically, Muslim thinkers and scientists competed with Chinese for scholastic and scientific leadership.

We are told that negative campaigning "works." Perhaps it does, but why lie about yourself?