""For years, Kim Jong Il has acted in blatant disregard of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation Of Nuclear Weapons, and last week, he rejected it outright," Bush told reporters after a National Security Council meeting on North Korea. "We cannot allow weapons of mass destruction to remain in the hands of volatile, unpredictable leaders. Which is exactly why we must act quickly and decisively against Saddam Hussein.""

[via Stand Down]

"It is time for Mr Bush to take seriously his own statement at the UN that “our commitment to human dignity is challenged by persistent poverty and raging disease.” If Mr Bush would only lead his country to that end, not only would he mobilise billions of people in the fight against terrorism, but he would also fulfil his own call for the world to “show that the promise of the United Nations can be fulfilled in our time.”"

A great article in The Economist about the usefulness of Weapons of Mass Salvation in the war against Weapons of Mass Destruction.

"As seen on Dave Farber's Interesting People list today, Barry Steinhardt announced the release of a new ACLU report, Bigger Monster, Weaker Chains: The Growth of an American Surveillance Society.

"Americans need to step back from the daily drum of privacy stories and absorb the big picture: the United States is at risk of turning into a full-fledged surveillance society. The fact is, Orwell’s vision of "Big Brother" is now, for the first time, technologically possible.""

An important report.  The Future is Now.

"Coverage like this -- call it shabby journalism or editorial self-censorship -- is exactly why a pending wave of mega-media mergers should concern all Americans. As the Federal Communications Commission now pursues and implements new policies consolidating ownership of the nation's electronic media, the public will have even fewer sources for information about what really happens in history making events.

Some of the conflicts of interest not revealed in the CNBC special include the fact that NBC actively lobbied federal regulators on the AOL-Time Warner deal, decrying the power that the merged company would have in both the cable and broadband Internet market. NBC actively sought a series of policy rules designed to protect their business interests. Bob Wright, NBC's chairman who introduced the documentary and appeared in an interview, would have approved the network’s political lobbying on the merger. "

A good article from TomPaine.com and Jeff Chester, of the Center for Digital Democracy on the conflicts of interest inherent in Big Media mergers and why everyone should be letting their representatives and the FCC  know that such mergers are not in the public interest.