Portside

Max Blumenthal's "Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel" one of the most fearless and honest books ever written about Israel. Blumenthal burrows deep into the dark heart of Israel. The American journalist binds himself to the beleaguered and shunned activists, radical journalists and human rights campaigners who are the conscience of the nation, as well as Palestinian families in the West Bank struggling in vain to hold back Israel's ceaseless theft of their land.

“As someone studying the economics of this, I can say that a financial transactions tax is a policy no-brainer,” Lynn Stout, a professor of corporate law at Cornell Law School, said at a Wednesday briefing on Capitol Hill. “It’s all upside, there’s virtually no downside, and it’s astonishing we don’t have one.”

There are various things that conservatives and liberals disagree over, and for some insane reason, whether or not the Civil War was about slavery is one of them. Sure, the war ended with the abolition of slavery, but many individuals still claim that the entire war was over states’ rights as opposed to the tradition of owning another human being.

The objective of the ideological project of the economics profession in the current era is to provide a theoretical foundation for unregulated financial markets and unregulated capitalism. The fact that the project has succeeded in the face of logic and history is admittedly a fantastic conjurers’ trick, but it is ridiculous to award Nobel Prizes to the conjurers.

Today, Ireland is under a different sort of tyranny, one imposed by the banks and the troika--the EU, ECB and IMF. The oppressors have demanded austerity and more austerity, forcing the public to pick up the tab for bills incurred by profligate private bankers.

The Save the Lobo rally, paid for by Defenders of Wildlife, featured a man in a wolf costume, children scrawling placards with crayons and people offering videoed testimony to be forwarded to Washington. Down the hall, an anti-wolf event was sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, an organization funded by the conservative Koch brothers. The group screened the documentary "Wolves in Government Clothing." Said one Arizona rancher: "Is this politically driven? Absolutely."

"All popular music stems from black music, be it jazz or rock and roll." . . . "I'd be happy if people said that I did a little bit to raise the dignity and recognition of the greatness of African-American music."

Angela Davis leads off an "Intercultural Speaker Series" sparking debate . . . and perhaps some self examination, at a Federal Way, Washington school district.

This statistics stuff is important. The correct analysis and interpretation of statistics are sometimes a matter of life and death.

When rich people and poor people disagree on policy, the rich people win.