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2 *million* people are marching for their freedom. In passerby interviews they keep repeating that they want a peaceful protest, as they want the rest of the world to stand behind them and see they really want this change.

Despite that, people got killed from police gunfire, live rounds and rubber bullets included.

Sure there are a few looters, some suspected of being undercover police to instill FUD in the crowds, a tactic not beyond the past 30 years of tyranny.

The army publicly announced they will _not_ fire on the people as long as the protest stays peaceful.

Google's official blog explains a new technology developed by a group of tech geeks who wanted to contribute positively to the current situation in Egypt.

This is not just middle east anymore, this is humanity coming together.

Check it out :-) http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/

And http://stop404.org/682 :-)

The govt initially just blocked Twitter and Facebook, that's when Tor usage spiked (in addition to the traffic from journalists). The net was cut by the time the streets was filled with people.

"About a half-hour past midnight on Friday in Egypt, the internet went dead."

You win a years supply of yesterday's newspaper for the 'Reading News Fail' award.

What are you basing your assumption on that the regime will be replaced by extremists? The protesters seem to be of every walk of life and from every ideological point of view. Even the Muslim Brotherhood recognizes the secular Nobel Peace Price laureate ElBaradai as the main opposition spokesperson now.

If anything, this could very well mean a good thing for the west, with a more secular and broader government of this huge power in the middle east. Of course, uncertainty doesn't make everyone in the different western governments jump up in joy (even though they arguably should) by this uprising. That said, it would obviously speed things up enormously if the Egypt military would throw their weight behind the protest, and the first signs to that end are already there.

In Colombia we're going through a similar situation. Now I don't feel so alone *sigh*

According to Al Jazeera and everyone they've interviewed for days on their live stream, CNN, BBC, Twitter, and in general the whole of the internet, this is a genuinely popular revolution in Egypt, and everyone from children to seniors are participating in it. Of course the protests are mostly dominated by young adults, but that's because they have the worst unemplyoment and most zeal, energy, and strength. Nevertheless, those police that aren't apparently ransacking the city in plain clothes are either hiding or have joined with the protesters, and the army seems to have also sided with the protesters. During Tiananmen, too, the army sided with the people. The Communist Party of China's ace in the hole was that they were able to bring in military units from far away from Beijing that weren't as empathetic to Beijing-ers. I'm no expert in the Middle-East, but I doubt Egypt has that kind of massiveness, and also, unlike Beijing, the Egypt protests are country-wide.

There are other media sources to check: good coverage at the moment by AlJazeera.

Some more Reuters quality photos here (warning: some show injuries, not nice). Barak Obama should probably not view photo 80, the protestor doesn't look too happy with the 'made in USA' tear gas canister....

Al Jazeera English: Live Stream

There are alternative sources if one looks. Some material may be objectionable, viewer discretion is advised.

Besides the U.S. commercial and cable broadcasters, there is news service on PBS stations with some streaming and podcasts available from http://www.pbs.org./ Many PBS and other public stations also carry the BBC which has much available on the web too.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/

A great many international newscasts are carried by the non-profit public satellite broadcaster MHz on their WorldView channel. (They have a number of other international channels also)

This guide is easier to browse than the one on their website:
http://proweb.myersinfosys.com/day.php?timezone=0&station=world&channel=MHz+Worldview&airdate=

They have free news and paid programs on-demand streamed through ROKU
mhznetworks.org/roku

Many of the news sources they carry have websites with some content available, here are some:

http://www.dw-world.de/ (Deutsche Welle from Germany)
http://www.euronews.net/
http://www.france24.com/en/
http://www.rt.com/ (Russia Today)
http://www.aljazeera.net/english
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=AlJazeeraEnglish#g/u
http://www.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/ (NHK Newsline)
http://www.youtube.com/taiwanmactv

Not sure where a country is? Here's a good but simple map.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/CIA_WorldFactBook-Political_world.svg

More info and a list of stations carrying WorldView:
http://www.mhznetworks.org/mhzworldview/

Sometimes a station has them on a secondary digital channel (Like KCET 28.4 Los Angeles) that isn't on cable. Ask your cable operator to add it if they're not carrying the feed.

What a first week
An eclectic mix of superstar guests this week talked with Piers Morgan about love, war and everything in between.
Stern: I don't like Jay Leno Video
Rice: Be ready for 3 a.m. call Video
Oprah: I'm never getting married"

Al-Jazeera, who may be biased and ignore pop culture B.S. on the front page; or CNN and FoxNews who give priority to celebrity diversion. I can't take credit for pointing that out, that comparison was brought to light in 4chan's /b/ years ago...and it still hasn't changed.

Harumph, idiot America.

Al Jazeera

New York Times

Any question on why Americans and Arabs have completely different perceptions of the same conflict?

... how US foreign policy in the Middle East fails to fully understand the region:

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/01/20111167156465567.html

Just to be clear, those are the original charges, which were dropped. That "duty prosecuting attorney" "agreed that Assange should be sought on suspicion of rape", NOT that he should be prosecuted. Sought for suspicion == questioning, not necessarily going into court. Do you not even read the stories you post as 'evidence?!?'

All the mass media channels are going to be stuck with the same problem, either analyses the data a publish the juiciest bits, or get right royally screwed over by the blogs as they analyse the data and publish the juiciest bits all the while crowing about how mass media kowtowed to a bunch of corrupt politicians and tried to keep their criminal behaviour secret.

Then there are news site like http://english.aljazeera.net/ and http://rt.com/ both working hard to gain a global news audience, who will be doing triple time to bust the biggest stories hidden in that data. On the internet there is real hard news competition and a big part of that is multi-lingual global news service and trying to gain an audience of hundreds of millions, the hard hitting no hold barred reporting will be the only way to do it.

*shrug* keep telling yourself it's not the case if you want, but it is the case, and it is the problem with your military and your country's military attitude. It's why you see defeat over and over despite having overwhelming numbers and technology.

You see it doesn't matter how strongly you stick to your mindset, a trait typical of Americans- an ideology bred from the 2nd World War and Cold War that they're unbeatable, that due to the sheer numbers, the amount of spending, the technology, the US is unbeatable, and yet time and time again the US has failed miserably to achieve a reasonable degree of success. You believe you won the second World War, but the reality is the Russians had done more damage and by the time the US even entered the war, the British and it's allies had already largely castrated the German Navy as well as having destroyed large swaithes of the Luftwaffe as a result of and in the aftermath of the Battle of Britain - something America was uninvolved in bar 1 pilot. Post war you entered Korea, which resulted in a stalemate, the deaths of tens of thousands of US troops and a situation that to this day is unresolved. Vietnam was of course next, and well, we all know how that worked out for you. Around this era there was of course multiple attempts on Cuba which again resulted in abject failure, such that to this day the US has a nation hostile to it right outside it's front door which it failed to deal with. Your attempt to rescue American hostages from the US embassy in 1980 in Iran went horribly wrong. In the 90s there was of course the first Gulf War which involved a rather effective invasion, but where there was once again failure to aprehend and deal with Saddam. Next up was Somalia, again, we know how that ended- the US left with their tail between their legs. It's then really on to Iraq and Afghanistan, again both of which have been failures.

Of course in many cases you did have allies with you, and these didn't prevent failure, but the fundamental problem was always that these allies have been constrained by US leadership- many of these allies have demonstrated competence in acting unilaterally where the US has not, but also any actions of winning hearts and minds by allies is often undone by US screwups.

So answer this, if your military is really so competent as your US patriotic mindset leads you to believe, then why has every major US led deployment in the last 60 years failed to achieve it's objectives? Despite overwhelming numbers, overwhelming technology and financing, why do you think it goes so wrong?

Again, look at successes over that same period, for example Sierra Leone and The Falklands for the British, or Algeria and Chad for the French- in both cases they have been resounding successes because the people were on side, look at failures, not just the US ones, but for example, Russia in Chechnya- they have been utter failures in policy because the people were not on side.

Say I have little understanding all you want, dispute the facts all you want, but it wont change the fundamental point that the US simply cannot achieve it's military goals and has not been able to for many many decades now- it doesn't matter if I understand what US military training involves or does not involve, because the reality is it does not work in practice. You only have to look at the proportionally much higher incidents of friendly fire on allies by US forces compared to other nations to see there is a severe competence issue regardless of the amount of training given.

For what it's worth I didn't ignore the relative troop numbers in my analysis, which is precisely why I used the word "proportionally". For information on checkpoints see articles like these:

http://www.channel4.com/news/iraq-war-files-death-at-checkpoint

http://english.aljazeera.net/secretiraqfiles/2010/10/2010102216241633174.h

Anyone else notice how Aljazeera are one of the few news sources that don't make Julian Assange look shifty as fuck in every story about him?

aljazeera:
http://english.aljazeera.net/mritems/Images/2010/10/23/201010231247163784_20.jpg

Now try this in google image search and look at the first few hits.
julian assange inurl:CNN

they seems to be one of the few news sources other than the guardian which can take a picture with decent colour balance and without taking it from way above his eye level or as he's leaning forward?

Aljazeera interview with Assange: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/08/2010822135529927326.html Apparently, he was forewarned by Australian intelligence?

In further other news only sitting head of state charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity by the international criminal court gets reelected which seems to concern no one. But this whole IP thing is more important anyways. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2010/04/201042612282143933.html

Al Jazeera just picked it up.

As a young person I had to drop my health coverage because I can not afford it. I rarely go to the doctor;

But look at the bright side - under ObamaCare your premiums will go up 10% (by the White House estimate), and you'll be fined $750 by the IRS when you drop that coverage you can't afford. Yay, everybody wins! And you'll get to provide proof that your health insurance meets government standards as part of you tax returns - woo hoo!

The fine isn't applied to people under a certain income, who can't get health insurance for less than a certain percent of their income, etc. I believe it's above the poverty line and 8%, respectively, although it was 400% of poverty wages in a previous draft. Shame that got changed.

More actual info:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/03/20103224250561653.html

I'm not sure why they honor the decisions of the ultra-orthodox, but not Palestinians. (That was a rhetorical statement of course. I understand why.)

Here is a link.

Fox news is simply the opposite

Haha - and here I thought NEWS was supposed to be what newscasters were supposed to report on. There should be no opposite in real news reporting. There should only be facts.

FWIW I think all those networks you mention are garbage. Newshour with Jim Lehrer is among the only real news I've ever seen. And... truthfully, Al-Jazeera listening post comes pretty damn close too

I think this is becoming a reality with the current news about Taiwan. Check this: http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/insidestory/2010/02/201021125330175987.html

No. Murder, slavery, and imprisonment are absolute violation of others' rights. Beating, raping, maiming, bullying, are lessor violations of others' rights. It's only because of society's screwed up sensitivities that you put rape on the level of murder.

Look, some convicted slavers in New York got sentenced. The man got 3 years and his wife 11 years. Yes, for absolute violation of others' rights. They got off easy because they didn't touch any genitals. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2007/12/200852512175449709.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/28/nyregion/28slave.html
No, it has nothing to do with proportionality and everything to do with sex. And children.

"as you'll be told by those self-righteous conservative christians that call themselves human"

As opposed to forward thinking "empathetic" progressives such a yourself: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/sep/29/roman-polanski-whoopi-goldberg

Or followers of Islam: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2008/11/2008111201216476354.html

Then again I've never seen one of "those" "self-righteous conservative christians" make any claim that you suggest regarding rape except to be horrified by it, and to be compassionate to the victims. And given that I attended church for the first 20 years of my life and was surrounded by quite a few "self-righteous conservative christians" who oddly enough were about one quarter as self righteous as most of the "metro cool" group who have an irrational bone to pick with them I can bet 100 to 1 that my eduacted opinion of them is about 100% more accurate then your wishful thinking and tribalism.

I'm afraid your mind is lost in a maze of hatred.

And no I'm not a Christian.

(Here comes a mod down, never violate the sanctity of the two minutes of hate against evil white christians on the Internet by the oh-so rebellious middle class white set).

Wikinews: Suicide bomber kills 30 in northwest Pakistan

Sources?

"Deadly blast in Pakistan market". Al Jazeera, September 18, 2009
Pir Zubair Shah "Suicide Blast Kills 30 in Pakistan". New York Times, September 18, 2009

Who paid for it? It wasn't free.

AC Clarke was quoted as saying that any sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic.

Surely this magic non-polluting gasoline from plastic would trump even the magic non-polluting electricity that will power all of the magic non-polluting electric cars!

In related news, they've solved the dilemma of getting rid of toxic waste.

You mean like dumping toxic waste and other stuff requiring cleanup in the 3rd world?

eg. computer equiment that is melted down by chinese peasants, Toxic waste dumped off Somalia, or in the Ivory Coast, or Africa in general. Plenty more examples on Google.

So in this case, the Mafia is just continuing capitalism's "best-practice" in keeping the cost of toxic waste removal down.

First off, let me make point you to what I actually said:

N. Korea (sic) truly IS a threat to the US and it's allies.

You attack an ally of the US, and you are attacking the US... period.

Chemical weapons:
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUST32127420090618
Don't like Reuters?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/this_world/3440771.stm
Don't like the BBC?
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2009/07/20097165415127287.html

They have had the ACTUAL (not imagined, like Iraq) capability to build and explode a nuclear device.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/25/north-korea-hiroshima-nuclear-test

Last, but certainly NOT least Delivery technology: (from Wiki)

# Nodong-1 â" larger and more advanced Scud modification. Liquid-fueled, road-mobile missile with a 650 kg warhead. First production variants had inertial guidance, later variants featured GPS guidance, which improves CEP accuracy to 190â"250 m.[43] Range is estimated to be between 1,300 and 1,600 km.
# Nodong-2 â" further improved variant of the Nodong-1, successfully tested in 2006. Range is estimated at about 2,000 km.
# Taepodong-1 â" two-stage Scud-derived missile. Has been tested with a satellite payload in 1998. The satellite failed, but the missile apparently flew without significant problems, therefore it is North Korea's longest-ranged operational missile with its 2,500 km maximum range. According to some analysts, the Taepodong-1 could have an intercontinental range of nearly 6,000 km with a third stage and a payload of less than 100 kg.[44][45]
# Musudan-1 â" a modified copy of the Soviet R-27 Zyb SLBM. No tests of this missile have ever been made, but it is known to be operationally deployed. Most probably it is used as a first stage to the Taepodong-2. The missile, also known under the names Nodong-B, Taepodong-X and BM25, has a range of 4,000 kilometers.
# Taepodong-2 â" North Korea's domestic ICBM attempt. First test occurred in 2006, when the missile failed 40 seconds after launch. On April 5, 2009, a space booster variant was launched with a satellite on board. As with in 1998, the satellite itself failed to reach orbit, but the missile flew several thousand kilometers before falling in the Pacific Ocean. Estimates of the range vary widely â" from 4,500 to 10,000 kilometers (most estimates put the range at about 6,700 km).

I'm not going to bother with multiple citations, since if you haven't started investigating on your own, then you're a zealot, and no amount of facts will convince you.

There's plenty of information there.

Pictures of posters refusing entry or service to those who defy the Dalai Lama's decrees: http://www.westernshugdensociety.org/reports/untouchables-shocking-posters-in-monastery/

Documentation of the oaths exiled Tibetans must sign (swearing to shun anyone who defies the ban) in order to obtain travel papers, housing, food assistance, etc.: http://www.westernshugdensociety.org/en/reports/oaths/

Secretly recorded speeches by the Dalai Lama detailing the religious ban: http://www.westernshugdensociety.org/en/news/speeches-endorsing-the-ban/

An AlJazeera investigative report shot in India: http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/peopleandpower/2008/09/200893014344405483.html (linked to from the site)

And there's a lot more!

The UK is also banning people from their country because of their opinion: Dutch anti-Islam MP barred from UK.
The man banned is an elected parliamentarian with strong views from the Netherlands. He was banned because his presence would pose a "genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat to one of the fundamental interests of society". All he would be doing would be showing a film. In this film, he makes the claim that the Kuran incites violence. A very obvious claim given the clear text in the book.

Actually, those two journals are print journals I normally pick up in a bookstore. As for online sources, I'm not aware of any academic journals that are freely available online (unfortunately). For free online stuff, reading a nice variety of newspaper-like sites is probably as good as one can get. A few worth reading:

Science:

Eurekalert, Scientific Blogging, National Academies

Politics/Current events:

Moscow Times, Al Jazeera, PressTV, YNet, UN News Service, People's Daily

All this plus heavy use of Google News with custom sections, of course.

None of this is as good as the journals, but it's more current.

"If Theocracies are so bad, why aren't you worried about Tibet?"

tibet as sovereign entity doesn't exist, and its theocratic structure has been outlawed by the chinese. but were tibet an independent theocracy with nukes, i would be equally worried about it as i am about iran. conversely, if iran were still a theocracy, but didn't have nukes, i wouldn't be nearly as worried about iran as i am

"Seriously, bigotry is the problem, not Theocracy"

this is like saying cancer is a problem, not heart attacks. they are both fatal problems

"While I think that there are better methods of administration, the types of democracy that we have in most western countries are not participatory nor representative... it is effectively a mediaocracy."

this is called self-disenfranchisement. your belief merely supports your own lack of accountability, and has no value when applied to the society you live in (assuming you live in a western country). you are projecting self-referential psychology like a teenager onto those aroud you. no, those around you are perfectly capable of believing and seeing the realit yof their vote mattering, and their opinion tyo be independent. this may not be true of you, but it is true of plenty in your society. i just voted for barack obama 3 months ago. where is my lack of participation or representation?

and what the heck is a "mediaocracy"? ultimate power rests in an editorial news room? a meaningless buzzword

in the west, i can choose to consume any media i like. this includes al jazeera or iran's mouthpiece, if i choose to. now, if i lived in iran, meanwhile, and i clicked on those links, and they pointed to the bbc or the new york times, i would be blocked, and perhaps even reported for unislamic activities, for not sticking with the governing parties official media. is that the "mediaocracy" you are talking about?

"Knowledge and culture sharing are a better solution that trying to stop nukes"

yes, and world war ii would have never happened if hitler and tojo were given hugs and kisses. pffft. man i need some of what you are smoking

"The whole clash of cultures idea is also patently absurd"

in some subsaharan cultures, they perform clitorectomies on female children. do you have a problem with that? congratulations, you are engaging in a clash of cultures

"it's clash of money and oil interests in the upper echelons of both so-called empires at the expense of their own peoples that is the real problem."

how did you get to work or school today? did you ride a car or bus? do you have a job or do you pay for school? in either case, you have money and oil interests. but you have this absurd idea that only the "upper echelons" are the ones gobbling up money and oil just because its cool in a hollywood bad guy sort of way. or, perhaps, governments are concerned with access to resources and the flow of capital, for the rightful reason of the well-being of their citizens. could that be it? nah...

"I, for one extend my hand of congratulations to the Iranian people and look very suspiciously at those who would tell them what to do/think/go to war over."

i agree with you 100%. i am glad you are finally ready to stand with me and condemn the ayatollahs and their constant war propagandizing of the iranian people

"Ditto applies to the American administration (and anyone else who is spineless enough not to sign the nuclear disarmament treaty),"

absolutely, we need to engage in nuclear disarmament. how does belief in that allow for iran getting nukes? iran should get nukes because the usa has them? ok, you can believe that if you want

but now you are expressing belief in nuclear proliferation. make up your mind, but you can't believe in nuclear disarmament and iran getting nukes at the same time. either you insist iran not get nukes and the usa get rid of them, or that the usa keep its nukes and iran get them too. but saying the usa

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/22/iraq-georgebush
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/12/2008121618330140949.html
He's been imprisoned and tortured, possibly including having his hand broken. Then forced to write a "confession" in which he reveals that a well-known unnamed terrorist talked him into it (yeah right). Hooray for the new republic!

Actually, I get quite a bit of my news from outside the US. Al Jazeera does a good deal of reporting in the area and they have a pretty neutral tone. The BBC is reporting pretty much the same as I have claimed and most of the other foreign press that have English sites that I have seen do the same.

Anyways, if you think Palestine is getting their message out, I would argue that they have been for a while. It's probably why your sitting there trashing Israel's version right now. Well, not really trashing but raising the point of suspicion. If you follow the plot so far, Israel backed out of Gaza completely pursuant to a cease fire agreement brokered by the Egyptian government. It ended in December around the 19th or so. In october, Hamas start launching mortars and rockets into Israel at a slow pace and Israel attempted to get the elected Palistinian authority to make it stop pursuant to the agreement. This appeared as if it worked then stopped working then worked then stopped again. For a Christmas present, Hamas launched some 30 rockets into Israel which Israel finally responded to taking out a mortar team, killing one and injuring two others. Hamas stepped up it's attacks and Israel went full blown into what we are seeing now. Hamas has closed a checkpoint along the Egyptian border which was has loads of medical aid. Egypt has offered to take critical patients and offered to set up refugee camps for the innocents at the border. Hamas has stopped the aid from getting in and stopped the injured from getting out. They have even stopped the innocent civilians from moving to the borders by firing on their own civilians who were fleeing to it. A representative from Hamas attempted to portray it as an unjustified response because there is an election coming in Israel in February 2009. Hamas Claimed it was being attacked so the politicians could manipulate the elections. A reporter asked about this bit of news floating around and the interview ended. I can't find the actually link to the report I originally read.

Wow. "The palestinians have made their motives towards the jews, all jews, absolutely clear ever since they got the hell out of dodge so that the muslim nations nearby (read: just about everything else over there) could push the jews into the sea." You are so wrong in so many ways with that statement. My friend is from Palestine, yet he is christian. A minority there, yes, but about 15%-20% of the population is christian. There are so many misconceptions about the whole area it's crazy. I also know Jewish people from Israel also, many Hebrews who have Muslim friends, and vice versa. Maybe you should talk to people from the area, converse, and then make your conclusions. I'm sure you're one of those people who watchs US news and makes your conclusions about the rest of the world based off of an obviously biased source (as all news outlets are in one fashion or another). Try visiting http://english.aljazeera.net/ and compare and contrast with the news source you use here, question each, and form your ideas instead of just running your mouth.

I took a look at at the statistics from Iraq Body Count and these seem to corroborate. Note however that the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count states that "Actual totals for Iraqi deaths are much higher than the numbers recorded on this site. ".

I haven't actually been following the whole situation lately, most of my knowledge stems from mid 2007, but there are still some critical voices. For example, take a look at this documentary by a Iraqi journalist with the Guardian from March who investigated U.S. claims concerning the success of the surge. In the beginning of the video concerning Baghdad he states: "It has been transformed into a city of walls.".

Note the following footage from before the invasion in 2003.

That might give you some more insight into the some of the reasons behind the statistics. There are a couple of more videos that I know of. Though note it was a while ago that I saw these, but I believe the information it offers is still quite important.

Such as the following short news report from March 2007, a quote:

"Here in Anbar province America cannot defeat Al-Qaeda with the troops it has, so it's turned to the tribes. Baathists and nationalist insurgents of the Salvation Council. Virtually contracting out parts of the battle against Al-Qaeda to tribal fighters. The deal is simple America gives local leaders free reign as long as they root out and kill Al-Qaeda."

Another (more lengthy report) aired on the September 2007 edition of People & Power, a news program by Al Jazeera English. It's made available through YouTube, Part I and Part II..

Here's a transcript from one of the interviews with some sort of local leader:

Q: Which tribes signed the agreement today?
A: The Tamimi, Zobai, Al Obeidi, Al Jumeilli, Fallahi.

Q: How many of the tribes were once involved in fighting the Americans?
A: Your time is up. It's $100 for an extra minute.

And the introduction from Part II:

"In defending its Iraq strategy the Bush administration increasingly points to success in turning Sunni tribes that fought an insurgency against them into allies in combating Al-Qaeda. Embedded with the U.S. military filmmakers Rick Rowley and David Enders witnessed the strategy and practice at first hand. They discovered that Shiite populations are paying the price for the peace that now reigns in areas where the Sunni insurgency once raged. And that sectarian hatred can still easily erupt as they found out after rushing to the scene of a car bombing with the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment."

Note that the sheik interviewed in the video (but not the one I transcripted above) and apparently portrayed by the U.S. as a key figure in controlling the tribes was assassinated shortly after arriving in Iraq.

Also I'm not sure if Angelina Jolie was amazed, her article in the Washington Post uses words such as "positive" and "hopeful". Amazed might be too strong of a word in this case.

I'm interested in your comments.

Yeah, in September 2001 maybe he said he didn't do it. But check this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videos_of_Osama_bin_Laden#December_13.2C_2001

Here's the most memorable quote from bin Laden. I got it from the defenselink.mil transcript; the one in Wikipedia omits much (the part about the iron structure melting is replaced with an ellipsis).

...we calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy, who would be killed based on the position of the tower. We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all. (...Inaudible...) due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. This is all that we had hoped for.

But wait! The 9/11 Truthers say that this was an actor doubling for bin Laden! Oh, then how about the ones broadcast by Al Jazeera, such as:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videos_of_Osama_bin_Laden#October_29.2C_2004

He says it was his idea to strike the towers, and this direct quote: "If Bush says we hate freedom, let him tell us why we didn't attack Sweden, for example."

So, unless Al Jazeera is secretly working for Bush or cannot authenticate a bin Laden tape, there you have bin Laden refuting his claim that he had nothing to do with it.

steveha

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/05/02/england.plea/index.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22598582/

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2007/02/2008525135351125887.html

anything else i can help you with?

Being a Brit, I love comparing US news sources to others around the world, including those of our "enemies", and I regularly find that news sources from the USA are very introverted compared not only to the BBC, but even Al Jazeera and Chineese State news are more outward looking (even if somewhat biased). It's not just the news of our enemies either I look at other allies news, they too are less introverted than their US equivilents. And it's not that you can't produce quality news from around the world, compare the versions of CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/
http://edition.cnn.com/

But who would think to put "edition" at the beginning of a URL?

The Koenig memorandum, and the entire discussion revolving around the "demographic threat" to Israel (specifically, the population rate of Arab Israelis) is the most straightforward example.

Refer to the references at the end of this wikipedia article. Also consider the nature of the right of return - any Jew in the world, anywhere, can not only get automatic Israeli citizenship, but is given generous bonus allowances to do so. Pressure is placed on non-Jews (especially Arabs) to leave Israel, and someone of Palestinian ethnicity born in what is now Israel is not allowed to immigrate, even as people who speak no Hebrew, and who have not had anyone of Israeli residency in their family for centuries, are subsidized for immigration.

It is not an absolutist state when it doesn't feel the need to be: if you are European or Jewish, it generally behaves like a liberal democracy. That is the nature of the contemporary state, of course - it doesn't actually engage in absolutist behavior until that moment when it is in its own interest to do so.

Incidentally, my own position is that the two states should be a single, completely secular state without either a religious or ethnic identity, with two official languages - and that there should be massive compensation for seized Palestinian properties, enough compensation that the beneficiary could buy comparable property in the same neighborhoods. Not that anyone is taking my calls on the topic.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A6D28BF0-554F-42A6-975E-5472D29C935D.htm
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/gaza-the-children-killed-in-a-war-the-world-doesnt-want-to-know-about-416597.html

How many links do you want? I can get you hundreds to the innocents killed by both sides. Which side is it that you think is targeting terrorists? They are both terrorists. Israel was formed by terrorists that were blowing up buildings etc. and now they face retaliation by Muslim terrorists that have no other way of combating the Jewish terrorism.

I condemn the Jews for their massacres just the same as I condemn the Muslims for theirs. Just because the Jews use tanks and gunships does not change the fact that they are just as bad.

Al Jazeera English is based in Qatar, which is rich enough not to be heavily influenced by Murdoch.
They have some top people working for them.

That's because it's a video clip taken from Al Jazeera, the Middle East's top TV news channel. They also have excellent English-language programming.

Cheers,
-j.

I wonder what would happen if I'd open this on an American airliner? Would people care? Probably, they'd all go nuts!

NRK (our equivalent of BBC) is no less critical towards the gov't than the independent channels.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E54953AF-C2F1-45F9-BB35-55EE40359FE1.htm
We bombed guys working for us!
Time to slow down the bombing.

Having watched this report today, it does seem rather hypocritical: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D689DCC6-76 51-4A82-BA72-6F0C303CCF22.htm

Done and done.

Okay.

Welcome to Canada, it's the Maple Leaf state

Gotta love the CBC (again, in Canada). I hear that Al Jazeera English is pretty impartial, too.

You have elections coming up, right?

Okay, that's a long-term goal.

That's why, if I take a vacation in Europe next year, I'm probably going to buy a GSM phone, unencumbered with all of this North American market philosophy. My understanding is that, in Europe, the mobile market involves many parties competing to provide the best service at the lowest cost... I'm not sure that I really understand this "competition" thing (that's where all of the gas stations charge exactly the same thing because you have no choice but to suck it up, right?), but I hear it's good.

Well there is always Al Jazeera, it's not Fox or CNN or even BBC!

...staffed by people who left the BBC because it wasn't sufficiently pro fundamentalist and anti American.... I've heard that Al Jazeera crews.... Actually, the more you read about them, the more it looks like they are fellow travellers of al Qaeda.....given their rabidly anti liberal politics...

Well looks like you have made your mind up already that Al-Jazeera == Al-Qa'ida. What I find strange is that the US administration and the UK government haven't actually claimed that Al-Jazeera are involved in terrorism in some way, given that both governments have previously been quite happy to identify groups that they see as threatening as terrorists, what is stopping them in this case?

More importantly would be defining the terms "support of terrorism", "collaboration" or even "terrorism". At present terms like these are used interchangeably to deamonise any group or entity that is either opposed or not sufficiently in support of US policy, in that environment an organisation that reports news in an area where people are quite legitimately annoyed at the US is going to be a target of US anger and probably portrayed as "evil terrorist collaborators".

What I would say is simple. If Al-Jazeera staff are involved in terrorism, then charge them and put them on trial, simply murdering people as they work, and whilst they pose no physical threat is not justifiable, it is criminal.

Now to move on to your comments about Tayssir Alouni, I have one question to ask, what was he convicted of? The answer is collaborating with terrorists. In short he was accused and found guilty of having contact with suspected terrorists and links to the Taliban in Afghanistan. Wouldn't you expect a journalist who was working in Afghanistan, covering a war between the Taliban and the US/UK to have contacts with people like the Taliban? Or would you prefer the more common media approach of simply restating press releases and official information? I would also expect a journalist to have contacts throughout the communities he covered, including with unsavoury individuals.

I am not saying that the Spanish authorities are wrong, but I am sceptical about the circumstances surrounding this conviction and the nature of it and I doubt I am alone. Oh and does the arrest of one man in an organisation of thousands convict the entire organisation of the same crime?I don't think so.

As for Al-Jazeera having "rabidly anti liberal politics", I would suggest you look at their website and find an example of this, they seem happy to report on gay rights issues in Russia and highlight the plight of Afghan women, none of which would seem to fit into the anti-liberal view you are crediting them with.

So once again in summary, I disagree with you, and you appear to be regurgitating propaganda. There is no danger in having a news agency reporting the news with a viewpoint different to that of the US, it is healthy. Every reporter, program and news agency will display a bias of some sort, it is a product of being human, our job is not kill people whose views differ from our own, it is to look at what they are saying and then decide what to do with that information.