TV News LIES

Mohamed is one of a growing number of American Muslims who claim they were captured overseas and questioned in secret at the behest of the United States, victims of what human rights advocates call "proxy detention"—or "rendition-lite."

The latter is a reference to the Bush- and Clinton-era CIA practice of capturing foreign nationals suspected of terrorism and "rendering" them to countries such as Egypt, Jordan, or Morocco (PDF) for interrogations that often involved torture.

Libya is a small country of just over 6 million people but it possesses the largest oil reserves in all of Africa. The oil produced there is especially coveted because of its particularly high quality.

The Air Force of the United States along with Britain and France has carried out 7,459 bombing attacks since March 19. Britain, France and the United States sent special operation ground forces and commando units to direct the military operations of the so-called rebel fighters – it is a NATO- led army in the field.

The 5.8 magnitude earthquake that rocked the East Coast Tuesday and sent two nuclear reactors in Virginia offline has refocused concerns about the safety of nuclear plants in the U.S. and prompted reviews of plants in at least six states.

Interestingly, the federal government has run exercises of how a doomsday earthquake-nuclear disaster would play out, as Noah Shachtman at Wired notes. Are we prepared for the worst? Experts around the web are highlighting the strengths and vulnerabilities of America's nuclear plants.

On Wednesday, September 7th from 12 noon to 2 pm, on Arch Street between Broad and 13th Streets, a major rally called "Shale Gas Outrage" will take place in Philadelphia. The rest of this article underlines why you might want to be there.

My inbox is full of these personal stories about fracking (high-volume gas drilling) impacts, which never seem to get out to the rest of the public. Who knows why the larger newspapers seem to be asleep at the wheel? It’s hard to understand, but you, privileged readers, can say you found out first.

Anti-abortion activists cheered news today that Texas Gov. Rick Perry had signed a sweeping pledge promising to use federal government power to curtail abortion.

Leading activists had expressed concern about Perry in recent weeks, worried that his zeal for state sovereignty under the 10th Amendment of the Constitution would get in the way of using the federal government to prevent abortions.

Having given up cable several years ago, and only missing it a few times since, I realize I'm not exactly in the majority. But news was really most of the reason I had cable, and as time went on I realized that much of the "news" I was getting on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News wasn't really news.

Between segments that might feed you a bit of actual unspun information about the goings on in the world, it was more accurately described as thinly veiled talking points walking around, pretending to be news.

Critics of shale drilling have claimed it’s the cause of recent earthquakes in Great Britain and Arkansas.

A drilling company in Great Britian stopped fracking operations in July after two small earthquakes of 1.5 and 2.3 magnitude were registered within 500 meters of the site.

“It is well-established that fluid injection can induce small earthquakes,” the British Geological Survey noted in its report of the incident. “Typically, the earthquakes are too small to be felt, however, there are a number of examples of larger earthquakes occurring.”

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the NYPD has become one of the country's most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies. A months-long investigation by The Associated Press has revealed that the NYPD operates far outside its borders and targets ethnic communities in ways that would run afoul of civil liberties rules if practiced by the federal government. And it does so with unprecedented help from the CIA in a partnership that has blurred the bright line between foreign and domestic spying.

Neither the city council, which finances the department, nor the federal government, which contributes hundreds of millions of dollars each year, is told exactly what's going on.