Fixed, says a better writer than I am, is not unbroken.

I went to New Orleans this year for Rising Tide with the memory of the city four years ago fresh in my mind. With the memory of the bravery of its people, with the shell-shock and desperate stretched smiles wide, fresh in my mind. I was prepared for that, for the rage that swept over me at the abandonment of this place to hit me like a wrecking ball again.

And there she was, standing on the lawn.

Only total transparency and an end to secrecy on these issue will bring an end to this kind of illegal experimentation and the human tragedies that result. “National security” for too long has been a shibboleth to justify the worst violations of human rights.

While the gay community have been busy with other matters, members of the religious right are perpetrating a slow but consistent march to a claim that acceptance of homosexuality will soon lead to the acceptance of pedophilia.

The key here is that these folks are not saying that pedophilia and homosexuality are connected, but rather are using a faulty “slippery slope” argument, i.e. – “just like the gay community is receiving more acceptance, pretty soon the pedophiles will be getting more acceptance.”

This is a documentary about the aftermath. It will reach into your soul and make you angry at the “system.” As the title of the film tells us: The Bhopal Disaster DID NOT HAPPEN. IT IS HAPPENING. Max Carlson (Director / Cinematographer / Editor) and Kirk Palayan (Producer) present the continuing disaster happening in Bhopal today. You’ll see the contaminated water that is full of toxins that the population is drinking, generation after generation; the sicknesses continue to destroy bodies and families; the Union Carbide plant that is still polluting. It covers the legal history of the disaster. Warren Anderson, CEO of Union Carbide, who was arrested and bailed out, left India and has not been held responsible. What did the government of India get for settling the lawsuits as the sole representative of the victims?

Republican legislators in Alabama are working on bills that would require drug testing for individuals receiving welfare payments. The bills will be patterned after those that became law in Florida earlier this summer.

At least one Alabama Democrat, showing that some Southern liberals actually have a pair, vows he will tack on an amendment to any Republican bill. Alvin Holmes, a state representative from Montgomery, says his amendment would require state legislators to take drug tests. In fact, Holmes (photo, above) would require all those who receive federal funds through Alabama to take drug tests.

Obama’s 2008 campaign was about changing the way Washington worked, people either don’t think he has changed it or don’t think his changes have been for the better.

Just to get back to this drive for regulatory reform that you’ll see from the House GOP over the next several months, with spending de-emphasized, take a look at Eric Cantor’s memo on the upcoming agenda from the chamber. About 80% of it concerns repealing “job-destroying regulations,” which suddenly have become the core reason for the lack of jobs. I thought it was all about runaway spending, but I guess that was last week.

This week, President Obama will find hundreds more people in front of the White House – us included – willing to go to jail for peacefully protesting the President’s short-sighted decision to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. President Obama’s decision on this enormous fossil fuel project will not be a quiet deal with oil industry lobbyists; it will be witnessed by millions of voters who had hoped that President Obama would have the vision to get America off of oil with a moonshot program for oil-free cars by the next decade. Instead, oil profits have been pitted against the world that our children will live in, hooking America to some of the highest polluting oil without moving America quickly to a foreign oil-free future.

For many Americans, Obama’s promise to begin to move the United States away from its growing dependence on fossil fuels and address global warming was foremost among his promise of change. For many more, it was Obama’s assurance that his Presidency would change a political system dominated by lobbyists and their narrow interests, instead of the public interest. President Obama’s commitment on both of these promises – to the volunteers who knocked on doors, the young voters who elected him, and the country he leads – will be tested by his decision on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

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With less than three years until most aspects of the new health care law start, only 10 states have passed legislation creating new health insurance exchanges.