I just watched Robert Greenwald’s new documentary Wal-Mart: The high cost of low price. Greenwald also did Outfoxed a great documentary about Rupert Murdoch’s attack on American journalism. Now Greenwald skewers the world’s largest retailer with a relentless mix of very individual stories of family businesses that were ruined, workers who were intimidated and harassed, […]

Looks like another South American country is taking a left turn: Bolivia seems to have handed a clear victory to Aymara Indian candidate Evo Morales, a socialist and admirer of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez: Several polls give him 42-45% of the vote ahead of his nearest challenger, former President Jorge Quiroga who, the polls […]

This is great news – especially for the family of Susanne Osthof: BERLIN (Reuters) – A German woman abducted in Iraq three weeks ago is free, her brother told German n-tv television on Sunday. Archaeologist Susanne Osthoff, 43, who spent more than a decade working on excavations in Iraq, disappeared with her driver on November […]

Shark fin sup is considered a delicacy in Asia. Shark’s fin is “regarded as a tonic food and an aphrodisiac, the Chinese believe shark’s fin strengthens the internal organs and retard aging,” explains a recipe. The sharks that supply their trademark body parts to this dish are caught using longlines. Fishermen then cut off the […]

It’s getting chilly out in Durham and the chill gelled the juice in the juicebox, despite the 10 percent kerosene blend. Today at noon it was just below freezing, and the biodiesel/kerosene blend (B90) was solid in the mason jar net to the pump. The pump only managed to squeeze a few drops out of […]

Not your daddy’s diesel clunker: Audi is going to compete at the 24 hours of LeMans with the R10 race car, powered by a 5.5 liter 650 HP V12 diesel engine. According to Audi this engine put out 1100 Newton meters of torque (811 Lb Ft). Audi claims this is the most powerful diesel engine […]

The cold fact that Governor Schwarzenegger refused to grant clemency to Stanley Tookie Williams was predictable and consistent with the cruel spirit of the death penalty. The practice in this country to terminate the lives of convicted murderers is irrespective of any subsequent redemption or repentance. It is thus quite remarkable that the Governator’s decision […]

The Reverend Moon is at it again, promoting an idea so breathtakingly absurd that he should get a prize for it: a highway tunnel from Alaska to Siberia! Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the South Korean giant of the religious right who owns the Washington Times, is on a 100-city speaking tour to promote his $200 […]

Old Europe is in a tizzy over finding out more and more details of how the CIA used European airspace and airports to shuttle abducted terrorism suspects to and fro for “innovative interrogation” in what some call a “gulag-like” system of “black sites” – secret prisons. Well, the GULAG it ain’t, but a scandal it […]

Big promises, lots of talk today, and some quirky publicity, for World Aids Day. Anybody care to listen to the voices of those among us living with the dreaded disease? The stories of how the stigma, the ignorance, the silence kills millions? Anybody? Black Looks shares one of those stories, Rose’s story, with us: R: […]