Afghanistan with some election chat tossed in.

Test Pilot Donald starring Donald Duck and Chip ‘n’ Dale. This Walt Disney Studios cartoon was released on June 8, 1951.

There’s not much more to conservatism than “I want to punch a hippie.” And where hippies do not exist they must be invented.

Casino Beach in Pensacola, Florida was reopened on Friday, but even after the major oil that had washed ashore was removed, significant staining of the white sand so popular with tourists remained.

The America Speaks meetings held in 19 cities across the country today, funded to the tune of $1 billion dollars by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, were a study in how subtle messaging and deficit hyping can mold and shape opinions that move the public toward right-wing solutions about slashing social spending. Despite an insistence of neutrality, organizers of this series of town hall meetings allowed their agenda to show through, particularly in their presentation of options for how to deal with the nation’s fiscal future. But attendees in Los Angeles and around the country weren’t totally buying it in the first half of the meeting.

On the International Day of Support of Victims of Torture, I offer an analysis of where the fight against U.S. torture currently stands, as well as a retrospective of the history of the development of U.S. torture policy. In particular, the role of U.S. behavioral scientists in the construction of torture techniques is explored.

Does one start with the fact that a general in charge of a war complaining about said war and the people conducting it and by the way, jokes about the cheese-eating surrender monkeys notwithstanding, DYING ALONG WITH U.S. SOLDIERS, is newsworthy no matter what “culture of exposure” you are living in? That this wasn’t some trivial thing about how, say, somebody said he’d quit smoking but was being lifed about it daily by the White House press corps? Or got a blow job from an intern?

Tom Engelhardt should be well known to anyone who’s looked online for information on U.S. militarism during the past several years. His website, TomDispatch.com, has been invaluable, publishing new articles every few days, either edited by Tom (I’ve written a few of those myself) or written by Tom. And it’s Tom’s own writing, I’m sure, that brings people back.

If a person could approach you on the street, gently caress your cheek, and walk away leaving you with the feeling of having been violently slapped and dowsed with a bucket of ice water, they would approximate Tom Engelhardt’s writing, including that in his newest book “The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s.” And it’s all perfectly composed, edited, and triple-proof-read. So, here today is our unique chance to read Tom Engelhardt unscripted by asking him about just about anything related to our wars, our empire, our media, or probably any other topic. I can’t imagine Tom Engelhardt lacking for an insightful and informative opinion on anything.

There has been a significant increase in the number of people choosing to label themselves as “conservatives” according to a new report from Gallup.

Oil production in the gulf is touted to be great for the U.S., increasing our own domestic production. To the contrary, it is so poorly handled under existing law that it produces maximum risk at minimum return for the U.S. Not just a temporary ban should be exerted on further production in the Gulf of Mexico – a total ban should be issued, until the U.S. public is served instead of threatened by that drilling and that production.