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Review – The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth

Since coming into office in 2001, George W. Bush, his administration, and his supporters (mainly ideological religious groups and corporate powers) have waged an unprecedented attack on science. Broadly speaking, these attacks have focused on debunking scientific conclusions relating to evolution, health care (i.e., stem cell research), and perhaps most strikingly, the environment. It is in the realm of the environment that the administration's policies will have the most lasting damage. A plethora of articles have documented the Bush administration's systemic weakening of important environmental policies and even their agencies, the stacking of commissions with people directly from the business world hell bent on the bottom line, and the silencing of our nation's top scientists.

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Class War Weapon of Choice – For the Holidays and All Days

The motto of the United States of Consumption is "In More We Trust." The contribution of American culture to humanity is consumption obsession. Our epidemic of obesity, our land gluttonous suburban sprawl, our monster-size environmental footprint, our ravenous automobile addiction, and our heartless greed are symptoms of a deep-seated, sick mental state that keeps the economy humming. And it keeps increasing economic inequality and apartheid.

Saparmurat Niyazov

What Transition for Turkmenistan?

The death of the President-for-Life of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Niyazov, on 21 December 2006, the shortest day of the year, has again proved that all humans are mortal, and that death is the great equalizer.  The Turkmenbashi, "Father of all Turkmen" had set the stage for his own immortality, having written down from heavenly sources a two-volume book The Ruknama (The Book of the Soul) on the model of the Koran which was dictated to but not written by the Prophet Muhammad.

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In Gaza: Democracy and Its Discontents

It's all too convenient for the BBC website to describe the ongoing bloodshed between Hamas and Fatah supporters in the Gaza Strip as "inter-factional rivalry", and it's equally fitting for the Washington Post to narrate the same unfortunate events - which have left many Palestinians dead and wounded - as if they are entirely detached from their adjoining regional and international milieus.  

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Hold those responsible for Iraq accountable

I've been struggling to write something new about the war in Iraq but failed to find any appropriate words. Despite everything we now know about the war, the U.S. occupation continues. While policymakers procrastinate and parse the finer points of withdrawing all U.S. troops, more flag-covered coffins relentlessly emerge from the bowels of giant wing-tipped hearses in Dover, Del.

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Russian labor: On the road to resurgence?

Fifteen years ago, the super power that had once ruled over more than a fifth of the earth's surface collapsed in a conflagration of economic chaos and social upheaval. After all manner of frenzied reforms and adjustments, the entire economic and political apparatus of  the USSR imploded in the process ushering in a whole new era of global politics.