Random News & Views Roundup

- This is what civil disobedience looks like when an election ought to be contested: 'Mexican Civil Resistance in Five Acts'.

- 'Clinton 1, Rumsfeld 0' (with handy, dandy video)

- 'UN report a 'moral indictment' of US'. (I'll write more about this once I've had a chance to read the report).

- Tom DeLay's name is stuck on the ballot, whether he likes it or not unless the Supremes decide otherwise.

- The Seattle Post Intelligencer reports on 9/11 conspiracy theories and informs us that Americans are pretty damn angry:

...the new survey found that 77 percent say their friends and acquaintances have become angrier with the government recently and 54 percent say they, themselves, have become angrier -- both record levels.

- Stephen Harper is still a wanker and his party is tanking:

According to a Decima poll released to The Canadian Press on Wednesday, the Conservatives and Liberals are in a dead heat nationally, but the Liberals have begun to take the lead in Quebec for the first time since the January election.

And, how does he plan to bring his numbers up? On the backs of the Lebanese whose side he certainly hasn't been on until he figured out he could score political points by using them:

Harper is widely expected to announce new support for Lebanon by the end of the meetings, possibly including new aid commitments to the war-torn country.

Party members expect the poll numbers to turn around once Harper announces the measures.

- 'Six Marines Charged in Iraq Assault':

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Six Marines accused of injuring civilians in the Iraqi village of Hamdania in April were charged Thursday with assault.

Half of the men were already being held on murder charges in an unrelated case. Military officials said that the assaults were uncovered during an investigation into that slaying.

A seventh Marine, an officer, is expected to be charged next week in the assault case, according to Lt. Col. Colby Vokey, the Marine Corps' defense coordinator for the western United States.

The nature of the assaults was not described.
[...]
Hutchins, Thomas and Shumate were among eight servicemen previously charged in the April 26 slaying of 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad, an Iraqi civilian, officials said.