Unequal America
Elizabeth Gudrais reports for Harvard Magazine: "When Majid Ezzati thinks about declining life expectancy, he says, 'I think of an epidemic like HIV, or I think of the collapse of a social system, like in the former Soviet Union.' But such a decline is happening right now in some parts of the United States. Between 1983 and 1999, men's life expectancy decreased in more than 50 U.S. counties, according to a recent study by Ezzati, associate professor of international health at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), and colleagues.... The United States no longer boasts anywhere near the world's longest life expectancy. It doesn't even make the top 40. In this and many other ways, the richest nation on earth is not the healthiest. Ezzati's finding is unsettling on its face, but scholars find further cause for concern in the pattern of health disparities. Poor health is not distributed evenly across the population, but concentrated among the disadvantaged."

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US Headed for "Heightened Alert" Stage
Pierre Thomas reports for ABC News: "Government officials have been quietly stepping up counterterror efforts out of a growing concern that al Qaeda or similar organizations might try to capitalize on the spate of extremely high-profile events in the coming months, sources tell ABC News. Security experts point to next month's Olympics as evidence that high-profile events attract threats of terrorism, like the one issued this past weekend by a Chinese Muslim minority group that warned of its intent to attack the Games. Anti-terror officials in the U.S. cite this summer and fall's lineup of two major political parties' conventions, November's general election and months of transition into a new presidential administration as cause for heightened awareness and action. This is what the Department of Homeland Security is quietly declaring a Period of Heightened Alert, or POHA, a time frame when terrorists may have more incentive to attack."

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The Military-Industrial Complex: It's Much Later Than You Think
For TomDispatch.com, Chalmers Johnson writes: "Most Americans have a rough idea what the term 'military-industrial complex' means when they come across it in a newspaper or hear a politician mention it. President Dwight D. Eisenhower introduced the idea to the public in his farewell address of January 17, 1961. 'Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime,' he said, 'or indeed by the fighting men of World War II and Korea ... We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions ... We must not fail to comprehend its grave implications ... We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.' Although Eisenhower's reference to the military-industrial complex is, by now, well-known, his warning against its 'unwarranted influence' has, I believe, largely been ignored."

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W-Fi Internet Radios will Bring World into Your Home.
Peter Svensson of the Associated Press writes: "What are you going to listen to? Norway's 24-hour folk music channel? The public hearings of the California Integrated Waste Management Board? Radio Banadir from Somalia? It's a big world out there, and Internet radios can bring it home."

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A Vote for Net Neutrality
Chellie Pingree writes for the Huffington Post: "It's easy for those of us intimately familiar with Net Neutrality to forget that this isn't even on the radar screen for much of the public. But it should be. Even with the FCC vote to sanction Comcast, we still need to make Net Neutrality the law."

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Digital-Music Legislation Would Take Away Consumer Rights
Public Knowledge writes: "Legislation considered today by the Senate Judiciary Committee would nullify rights consumers already have to record digital music, Public Knowledge said in written testimony submitted to the Committee."

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Darwin on the Right: Why Christians and Conservative should Accept Evolution.
Michael Shermer writes in a 2006 column for Scientific American: "According to a 2005 Pew Research Center poll, 70 percent of evangelical Christians believe that living beings have always existed in their present form, compared with 32 percent of Protestants and 31 percent of Catholics. Politically, 60 percent of Republicans are creationists, whereas only 11 percent accept evolution, compared with 29 percent of Democrats who are creationists and 44 percent who accept evolution. A 2005 Harris Poll found that 63 percent of liberals but only 37 percent of conservatives believe that humans and apes have a common ancestry. What these figures confirm for us is that there are religious and political reasons for rejecting evolution. Can one be a conservative Christian and a Darwinian? Yes. Here’s how."

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The Systematic Destruction of Voting Rights in America (Part 1)
Heidi Stevenson writes in Natural News: "You might think you have the right to vote. You might think your vote counts. You might think that there's a problem here or there, but that they're the exceptions. You might think that the 2000 presidential election was an aberration, in which the US Supreme Court violated ethical and court precedents to crown the election loser, countering the will of the people. You might think it can't possibly be an ongoing problem. You might be very sadly mistaken."

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