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Now Available! How the Press Led the USA Into the Iraq War Buy End Times Now! Today's Stories September 7, 2007 Robert Fantina Those Iraq Reports: Bush vs. Reality September 6, 2007 Kathleen and Bill Christison Bush, Iran and Israel's Hidden Hand Allan J. Lichtman When General Petraeus Speaks, Don't Listen ... Norman Solomon The Secret Addiction of Thomas Friedman Yifat Susskind Hurricane Felix's First Responders: Courage and Tragedy on the Miskito Coast Catherine Fenton Why I Am Going to the Protest Laura Santina Can the War Machine be Contained? Farzana Versey Fission Kashmir Yves Engler Haiti: Where a Wage of $2 a Day is Too Much for the Lords of Industry to Pay Kelly Overton Bang Bang; Shoot Shoot: Is Hunting Racist? Michael Simmons One Jew's Views: The Strange Genius of Drew Friedman and Kominsky Crumb Website of the Day Dams and Genocide in Guatemala     September 5, 2007 Stan Goff The End Begins Michael Dickinson Working for Mother Teresa: Memoirs of a Rebellious Volunteer Matthew Abraham Standing Firm with Norman Finkelstein and DePaul's Heroic Students: a Defining Moment Patrick Cockburn The Basra Debacle Dave Lindorff Beware the Wounded Beast Paul Craig Roberts Who Are the Fanatics? Clifton Ross Ecuador and the Struggle for Latin American Unity Elizabeth Schulte Katrina's Forgotten Refugees Joseph Grosso Labor Day in New York City Ben Terrall Where's Nancy? On Trying to Protest Pelosi in San Francisco Website of the Day A Guide to Narco Dollars   September 4, 2007 Jean Bricmont Why Bush Can Get Away with Attacking Iran Patrick Cockburn Cut and Run in Iraq Ron Jacobs The Haditha Massacre: Spinning a War Crime Tom Kerr Buried Alive on San Quentin's Death Row Gary Leupp The Case of Jose Maria Sison Sonja Karkar The Weeping Olive Trees of Palestine Heather Gray The Best and Worst of America: 9/11, Joseph Lowery and the Lethal Silence of Billy Graham Fidel Castro The Super-Revolutionaries Jackie Corr Home Depot Comes to Butte--Begging Bowl in Hand Sunsara Taylor Katrina and the Progress of the System Website of the Day Colombia Journal   September 3, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Brits Flee from Basra Eamon McCann Qana, Derry: The Dead Lie in Familiar Shapes Joshua Frank The End of the Green Party? Chris Floyd Post-Mortem America: Bush's Year of Triumph Marjorie Cohn A Look at Bush's Iran War Plans Walter Brasch The News Drones: How Fake Photos Helped Lead the US to War in Iraq Matt Reichel Redefining the American Dream Website of the Day Don't Get Fooled Again   September 1 / 2, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Entrapment Snares Larry Craig Andy Worthington Britain's Guantánamo Saul Landau The Tragic Ordeal of the Cuban Five David Keen An Occident Waiting to Happen: Intellectuals and the War on Terror Patrick Cockburn The Collapse of Iraq's Health Care Services Diana Johnstone Back in Uncle Sam's Pocket George Longstreth, MD & Karen Longstreth, RN The Sorrows of Occupation: Life in the West Bank Linda M. Woolf A Sad Day for Psychologists--a Sadder Day for Human Rights Ralph Nader Wrapping the World with Advertising Fred Gardner The Trial of Mollie Fry, MD Ben Tripp Enquiry in America Today David Michael Green American Indigestion: Why Bush Governs from the Gut Missy Comley Beattie Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: What the GOP Hasn't Learned About Tolerance Michael Dickinson Who's Cheating: Remembering Princess Diana Paul Krassner Assholes of the Week: From Larry Craig to Wesley Clark Ron Jacobs A Sports Nation of Millions Poets' Basement Buknatski, Davies and Mickey Z   August 31, 2007 Jeff Gibbs Why I Am Not Going to the Protest Paul Craig Roberts The War Criminal in the Living Room Ray McGovern Do We Have the Courage to Stop War with Iran? Robert Weissman The Benchmarks Iraq is Missing Matt Vidal Subprime Lending and Shady Mortgages Robin Mittenthal The Biofuels Trap Chris Kutalik Auto Makers Push Health Care Trust Solution for Industry in Crisis Richard Forno Watching Freedom's Watch Binoy Kampmark Dianified Dave Zirin Kenneth Foster Lives Website of the Day Free the Jena 6   August 30, 2007 Gary Leupp Larry Craig on the Seat John Ross Dead Forest Defenders Anthony DiMaggio Arabic as a Terrorist Language: the Right-Wing Assault on the Gibran Academy Jordan Flaherty Racism and Criminal Justice in New Orleans Michael Donnelly The Sierra Club Greenwashes Al Gore (and Desecrates John Muir) Russell Mokhiber Whiskey is for Drinking, Water is for Fighting Dennis Brutus and Patrick Bond Global Financial Apartheid William S. Lind The Truth Tellers Martha Rosenberg They Call Him Dr. Cruel Jeff Leys / Brian Terrell Seasons of Discontent: a Presidential Occupation Project Website of the Day Bragg: "Old Clash Fan Fight Song" August 29, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Maliki and The Mass Shia Pilgrimage to Kerbala Winslow T. Wheeler The Costs of the Afghanistan War David Rosen The GOP's Outed All-Stars: The Forced Freeing of Gay Men from the Republican Closet Dave Zirin Confronting Katrina Paul Craig Roberts More Shame, More Sorrow Diane Farsetta Christie Todd Whitman's Nuclear Spinning Wheel Ben Davis Who Won't Stand Up for Kenneth Foster?: Charles Rangel, For One Alan Farago The Housing Crisis and the Environment Jenna Orkin Echoes of 9/11: Another Fire at Ground Zero Don Monkerud The Vanishing American Vacation Richard Nasser Surfing Gaza: More Uplifting News from NPR Website of the Day Don't Sleep on the Struggle   August 28, 2007 Uri Avnery The Language of Force Bill Quigley Katrina, Two Years Later Joshua Frank The Fight to Save the Rocky Mountains China Hand "I am Alden Pyle:" Bush's Vietnam Fantasy Firmin DeBrabander Drug Wars: From Afghanistan to Baltimore Charles Peña Nuclear Fear Factor Andy Worthington Good Riddance, Gonzales Ramzy Baroud Abbas and the Abyss Anthony Papa Roger Stone's New Patsy Ashley Smith Drawing the Line at Kennebunkport Website of the Day B is for Bomb August 27, 2007 Jorge Mariscal The General Reports Bill Christison Why the US and Israel Should Lose Middle East Wars Manuel Garcia, Jr. 911 Emergency! Calling Robert Fisk!: You are Now Entering a Black Hole Anthony DiMaggio Chronicle of a Coup Foretold?: Bush, al-Maliki and the Press Bruce A. Roth India and the New Nuclear Era John Walsh Abe Foxman's Genocide Denial Roadshow, Part 2 Dave Lindorff Gonzo's Gone Ron Jacobs Taking It to the Streets Binoy Kampmark Poshed Up: Why the Beckhams Should Go Back to Brighty Russell D. Hoffman My Favorite Scientist: John Gofman, Bane of the Nuclear Industry Website of the Day George W. Told the Nation             Subscribe Online

September 7, 2007 "It's Empty at the Airport Taxi Lots, Empty on the Streets, and at the Garages." New York Taxi Workers Strike Over Tracking Devices By MARK BRENNER It was a good day to ride your bike in the Big Apple. New York City cabbies launched a two-day strike on September 6, leaving the city's streets quiet and would-be passengers scrambling. Taxi workers were protesting a plan to install new technology into the city's yellow cabs, a move they said would hurt both passengers and drivers. The strike was called by the 8,000-member New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA), an organization representing cab drivers across the city. City officials were quick to downplay the impact of the strike, calling it a minor inconvenience. Mayor Bloomberg claimed only 20 percent of the city's cabs were idled by the strike. But organizers report that 90 percent of drivers stayed away from work during the strikes first day, based on early morning traffic out of the major taxi garages located in Queens. By the afternoon a trickle of yellow cabs appeared in Manhattan hot spots like Times Square, but passengers were greeted by long lines, and an impromptu system of shared rides and flat fares. The New York Times reported that passengers arriving at the city's airports waited up to half an hour for a taxi, up from a typical wait of five minutes. "Just look in the streets," said striker David Salazar, who has been a cab driver for 12 years. "There's almost nobody out in Manhattan and the lots are empty at LaGuardia and JFK [New York's two major airports]." TRACKING TECHNOLOGY The current controversy escalated in May when the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC), the municipal agency that oversees New York's cab operations, approved a plan to install global positioning system (GPS) systems, touch screen monitors, and credit card readers in the city's entire fleet of yellow cabs. Installations were scheduled to begin October 1, with all cabs expected to be equipped with the new technology by February 2008. Many drivers, however, have taken a dim view of the plan-particularly since they've been required to foot the bill for the new systems. "This is not a navigation system," Salazar said of the GPS technology. "It won't help passengers or drivers get where they are going. It's all about advertising." Backseat video monitors are currently designed to play commercials and movie trailers on a continuous loop. Salazar continued: "Why is the city forcing us to put credit card readers into our cabs? They aren't forcing any other businesses in the city to accept credit cards. It should be optional." Muhammad Hossain, a 17-year veteran in the industry, concurred: "This is about making money. The people who will benefit are the companies selling the systems. They cost $4,000 to install, and up to $175 a month in maintenance fees. That is all money out of our pocket." Hossain also said that the credit card machines are unreliable. He explained: "They are like cell phones. Sometimes they get a signal, sometimes they don't. We'll lose at least one or two trips every shift with these machines, not to mention the 5 percent transaction fee they will take off the top of every fare." HARASSING DRIVERS On the eve of the strike, tensions escalated, sometimes turning violent. Dipak Ghosh, a taxi driver with five years on the job, was assaulted by a TLC inspector Tuesday afternoon after dropping a passenger off at the Port Authority bus terminal. Said Ghosh: "[The inspector] said I didn't record going off-duty in my trip sheet. Then he dragged me out of the car and threw me on the ground like he was going to arrest me." Ghosh walked Wednesday's picket wearing a ripped t-shirt, evidence of his run-in the day before. He said: "It was clear he was harassing me because of the strike plans. I wasn't involved [with plans for the strike] before, but now I realized we have to be united to survive. If they can do this to me, they can do this to anybody." As the strike entered its second day strike supporters reported growing participation among drivers. NYTWA Executive Director Bhairavi Desai said: "The strike is in full effect. It's empty at the airport taxi lots, empty on the streets, and at the garages. Drivers have held strong." Mark Brenner works as Labor Notes (www.labornotes.org) director in New York City. He can be reached at mark@labornotes.org.   Your Ad Here

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