Coming Soon: Direct Flights from Philly to Shanghai

All things considered, I'd rather be in Philly. At least there's one more option.

State-Sponsored Homophobia Provides Common Ground for US-Iran Relations

General Pace has something in common with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Both are incapable of dealing with gay and lesbian people in a realistic and respectful way, and both were mocked and derided by ordinary Americans. At least Pace didn't attempt to deny the existence of gay and lesbian Americans serving in the military as Ahmadinejad attempted to deny the existence of GLBT Iranians living in Iran.

Ethnic Cleansing Becomes New Plank In Bush-Cheney Iraq Policy

Spiegel has all the details in a great interview with Seymore Hersh. And how could any article that uses the terms "America's Hitler" and "Bush's Vietnam" in the first paragraph not turn out to be a great read?

Bike Philly Without Having to Compete With Cars This Sunday

The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia is sponsoring a big event this Sunday. You can register online until 5:00 pm Friday. There's also a pdf that you can download, print, and bring to register at the event.

US Park Service Police Ignore Constitution to Violently Supress Peaceful Demonstrators

So far, most corporate media [except for French-owned AFP] seem to be ignoring what happened in Lafayette Park yesterday. Long story short, a hopefully massive antiwar demonstration in DC is scheduled to coincide with the release of the Bush-Cheney "report" on Iraq by General Petreus on September 15 [in yet another craven attempt by the Bush-Cheney junta to confabulate their disaster in Iraq with the Saudi islamoextremist-sponsored terrorist attacks against the US on September 11, 2001]. One of the groups sponsoring the peaceful demonstration, ANSWER, was threatened with a $10,000 fine for using the wrong kind of tape on posters advertising the demonstration unless they removed all the posters. Yesterday, less than a dozen members of ANSWER held a press conference in Lafayette park to demonstrate a new adhesive that would appear to conform to DC's legal guidelines, at which point they were charged by mounted US Park Service Police "officers." Secret sources within the Bush-Cheney junta claim that Bush has already signed a supersecret signing statement exempting all executive branch employees from following the rule of law so the victims no longer have any legal recourse.