‘Murder in the name of honour’ is the title of Rana Husseini’s first book, and was also the title of an article, one of her first, that she published in the English language newspaper Jordan Times in 1994, covering the murder of Kifaya, a 16-year-old girl murdered by her brothers after having been a victim of incestuous rape. Other papers in the region covering these kinds of familial murders in an off-hand way, as if they were private matters, refusing to name the phenomenon nor investigate the circumstances to avoid causing further scandal to the family. Rana vowed on that day that Kifaya’s story would not just be another four line story in a newspaper, and to make ‘honour’ killings a national issue in Jordan.

Live online discussion with author Jonathan Tasini about his book "The Audacity of Greed: Free Markets, Corporate Thieves and the Looting of America"

In the immortal words of the 43rd President of the United States, “fool me once, shame on you. Fool me … you can’t get fooled again.” Tort reform has made fools out of a lot of people for many years. First, it is touted as the answer for doctor’s skyrocketing premiums, then for the exploding cost of health care. Yet time after time, the only group that ever really profits from it is the insurance industry.

Over the last eight years, David Swanson has been one of the most tenacious and effective activists against the transgressions of the Bush presidency. As Press Secretary for Dennis Kucinich’s 2004 presidential campaign, Communications Coordinator for ACORN prior to that, a tireless anti-war activist for Democrats.com and, most notably of all, as the indefatigable spearhead behind the campaign to publicize the incriminating "Downing Street memos," Swanson has been a living, breathing illustration of what vibrant citizen activism and independent, adversarial investigative journalism should be.

Nomi has done us a great service in reviewing how we got here and where we went wrong. Each morning's headlines are full of reverberations and aftershocks of the crisis. Each evening we get promises of change and hear a growing chorus of assurance that the worst is behind us. All of this makes It Takes a Pillage an essential guide to understanding how the financial-political-economic system works in today's America and beyond. Sadly, pillage, scandal and misinformation make up much of the core of our recent financial history.

Max Blumenthal charts the Republican Party's descent into religious madness, as it transmogrifies from "I Like Ike" into "Ultimate Fighting Jesus".

Economics attempts to understand how societies solve a very basic problem. Because our resources are limited, people cannot have everything that they desire. Given that reality, how do we decide what to produce, how to produce it, and how to distribute the output? Economics strives to understand how societies and individuals make choices about how to allocate their scarce resources over the nearly unlimited wants of individuals within the society.

Ever since he first went to Iraq to cover the U.S. occupation of that country in 2003, Dahr Jamail has distinguished himself as a journalist of rare courage and honesty, who understands that a conscious commitment to humane values is a necessary tool for the reporting the truth and not an obstacle to it. He continued to cover the Middle East since his initial stint as an independent unimbedded journalist, writing for Inter Press Service, Le Monde Dipomatique and Asia Times, among other publications. Dahr was the recipient of the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Award for Journalism.

In October 08 I had the great good fortune to attend what was billed as a debate between teams of progressive and conservative talk show hosts: Thom Hartmann and Stephanie Miller on the left, Bill Handel and Alan Stock on the right. Bill Handel opened the program by saying we shouldn't expect too much from him, as he had already decided he was voting for Obama. It was left to Alan Stock to spout the right wing talking points we had all expected to hear, which he reliably did.

Some folks might have qualms or questions about our having a Republican on FDL for a book salon. Not me. It's high time we started talking to one another about the issues, rather than talking past each other in a political frenzy. Especially regarding issues which in years past were supposedly held above the political fray: national security, intelligence matters, and the rule of law.