Charley James: Grief in the 21st century may have some distinctly modern elements – memorial services with shamelessly cool production values; e-mailed condolences; death announcements by Twitter – but what everyone discovers is that grieving takes up an inordinate amount of personal time, no matter how fast-paced a society we’ve become.

Charley James: t turns out that Scrooge – Ebenezer or McDuck, take your pick – is alive and well and running the Canadian province of Alberta. On Thursday, Conservative Premier Ed Stelmach told reporters the provincial government wouldn’t be donating a nickel of its lush, oil-and-gas royalty enriched treasury stash to aid in Haitian relief efforts.

Charley James: Families with any luck whatsoever have a relative who is larger than life, a genuine character that leaves behind a trail of remarkable anecdotes that celebrate a life well lived. Mine was doubly blessed because we had two, Joe and Norman.

Charley James: According to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, news reports that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab – the man accused to trying to blow up NW253 – concealed explosives in his underpants are accurate “so we want to be sure that, along with making people walk barefoot through check points, and banning shampoo and deodorant, no one is trying to sneak explosives aboard in their knickers.”

Charley James: The saddest thing about Kuperman is that the Times gave him serious space in a supposedly serious newspaper to spout the same discredited nonsense that got us into a mess in the Middle East at the same time President Obama is trying to extricate the world from the chaos unleashed the last time the neo-con war mongers had their way.

Florida’s 22nd Congressional district is where Allen West, a former lieutenant colonel who was drummed out of the Army for torturing an Iraqi prisoner by holding a mock execution after allowing men under his command to repeatedly beat the detainee, has the GOP endorsement to run for Congress in 2010

I turn on television and the words “John Hughes,” “Chevy Chase,” “Tim Allen” and “Dan Aykroyd” pop up on the screen, my blood runs cold, my temples throb and I switch over to Fat Boy Hackeysack on ESPN2, or faux history shows like Ancestors in the Attic and Ice Road Truckers. I’d rather watch more bad news from Afghanistan on BBC World, or even Céline Dion on Ice.

Why didn’t Obama deliver this speech when he spoke to bankers on Wall Street a few months ago? Better late than never, I suppose, and bankers are slightly more likely to pay attention to Volcker than to Obama as evidenced by the fact that several major US bank CEOs turned down the invitation to hear the president speak.

Harper is such a reactionary, so Neanderthal in his outlook, beliefs and world view that he makes Mike Huckabee seem qualified to lead MoveOn.org by comparison.

It’s reported that, as part of Obama’s surge, one brigade of the 82nd Airborne will be deployed to serve as trainers.. But the 82nd Airborne is a regular Army brigade trained hard and tough to fight; unit members are not trained to train. What a farce.

Although Obama may enjoy a brief up-tick in poll numbers after his talk, as soon as larger numbers of American bodies come home in flag-draped coffins, and Walter Reed fills up again with the damaged bodies and minds of soldiers whose lives have been ruined, the country will turn against what it thought, in November, 2009, was a good idea.

Sorry to tell you this Chuck Grassley and Sarah Palin and Virginia Fox and Glenn Beck and the rest of the Teabaggers and people who think the richest nation on earth is doing just fine having one-third of its population uninsured or underinsured: The only death panel is the one inside each of us.

Tony Scott is a hyperactive director who cannot hold a shot anymore than a frat boy can hold liquor; his enthusiasm sloshes and staggers and gets the spins, hurls left and right and up and down, and bears no resemblance to reality.

Sadly, the book only increases her appeal to that very base of the shrinking GOP while leaving moderate Republicans, independents and anyone else who actually thinks about things out in the Alaskan cold.

Uhm, I remember seeing video of Osama bin Laden and several al-Qaeda spokesmen publicly stating after September 11 that the group wants to destroy everything America stands for. Well, it seems Erickson is all in favour of letting the terrorists have their way, going so far as to demand Washington finish the job those four groups of highjackers started by destroying the rule of law.

Who other than His Nuttiness would praise nurses for their knowledge, care, and understanding when they tended to him after he was hospitalised following botched hemorrhoid surgery only to turn on them a year later for supporting health care reform so people who don’t have Fox News’ lush group plan can get insurance?

Humana is trolling college campuses looking for whores willing to accept money to be on-line promoters of an anti-reform policy that’s against the student’s own, best interests – or will be, once they leave school and are on their own. Given the state of the economy, no doubt Humana will be overwhelmed with applications.

Truly a wonderful human drama with political suspense that should interest anybody no matter how they vote.

While Pew concludes that cell “refuseniks” generally are less educated and poorer than people who have them, it concedes grudgingly there is “a subset of adults who resist cell phones simply because they do not want them.

No doubt the Pentagon was relieved because the report tears a strip off the Army for not giving commanders in Iraq – and, by extension, Afghanistan – the necessary tools, training and guidance to handle at-risk soldiers.

I do know that when a sitting American president is named a Nobel laureate – including Obama, only Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson have been so honoured while still in office – it is a cause for rejoicing not just in the US but in the world.

What didn’t register at the first screening was the profound theological message Michael Moore, a devout Catholic, wires into his new film.

Mr. Beck, what I feel like writing is, sir, prove to me that you are not completely unhinged. And, anyway, why won’t you deny rumors that you raped and murdered a young girl in 1991 so this whole thing can be put to rest?

Huckabee, the silver-tongued, jovial Baptist preacher now best known for losing weight, charmed the crowd gathered in Washington over Rosh Hashanah weekend – Shanatova, en shallah to all – by dog whistling coded racist messages that wowed folks in the ballroom.

Glenn Beck once insisted that he started his “9/12 Movement” to recapture the sense of unity in the nation the day after the terrorist attacks in 2001. That idea lasted about four minutes Saturday morning …

We won’t solve Afghanistan’s social or political problems by continuing to wage a cruel and apparently endless war. Our soldiers will never be able to change Afghanistan’s social behavior or end tribal customs that go back thousands of years. They are too busy defending their own bases from angry Afghans and it’s time to leave them alone.

Michael Moore’s newest film explores a taboo question that will make the right wing go apeshit yet again: What price does America pay for its love of capitalism?

American Motors and Nash have long-since disappeared. But if the auto industry could build that kind of fuel-efficient, gas-powered engine in the 1950s, why did it stop and why is the Volt such a big deal?

Sadly for the country, compadres of this group run amok in the nation, blocking health care reform, trying to stop card check, fighting financial industry regulation and taking stimulus money for their state in one hand while slamming it with the other. The GOP once was the Grand Old Party; now, sadly, the initials stand for Goofy Old Poops.

Senate Republicans confirmed they have an odd, almost sexual, obsession with “wise Latina women” that borders on a fetish.

Did any of the media really expect Palin would suddenly turn all serious and thoughtful and coherent, giving answers that both made sense and were introspective?

This morning’s New York Times which reports today that Governor Sarah Palin resigned because of the rising cost of her mounting personal legal bills

In addition to learning few lessons about national politics last fall, neither, apparently did she learn a real world, life lesson: Never pick a fight with anyone who buys newsprint by the ton

July 1 was Canada Day and, on Wednesday, The New York Times asked 11 Canadians living in the States what they missed most about their native land. Turnabout is fair play and I started thinking …

“People who know me know that besides faith and family, nothing’s more important to me than our beloved Alaska. Serving her people is the greatest honor I could imagine.”
In fact, Palin loves Alaska and the …

Yesterday’s solemn, over-the-top, wall-to-wall, commercial free coverage of Michael Jackson’s death left me wondering if Archduke Ferdinand had been shot a second time.
Yes, Jackson once was an entertainment and music genius but he hadn’t done …

Don’t conservatives, ConservaDems, the Republican Party, and the rest of the “climate change is a hoax” crowd ever get tired of being wrong?
For several years, business lobbyists along with GOP and other right wing mouthpieces …

More than MSNBC, BBC or CNN; more than The New York Times or The Independent; more than perhaps any other news outlet, the world should be thanking Nico Pitney.
For seven days, his live blogging at …

The most trusted man in America is said to be gravely ill and nearing death.
Walter Cronkite, once The Most Trusted Man In America according to a Gallup Poll at the time, is 92 and TVNewser …

Although the story is being widely reported across Europe and Asia, it’s received scant media coverage in the US.
AsiaNews along with other major media outlets outside the US are reporting that Italy’s financial police, the …

The good news about Fox News blubber mouth Bill O’Reilly is that he speaks to only a teeny, tiny percentage of the country; the bad news is part of that small and dwindling group actually …

According to the loonie chorus on the right, we’re all sons of bitches now.
When they’re not bashing Sonia Sotomayor for asking sharp questions from the bench – which would seem to be a pretty basic …

Its better known, slicker cousin, the Toronto International Film Festival, attracts celebrities, glitterati, paparazzi, red carpets and searchlights arching the Canadian night sky. Held in September, TIFF kicks off the industry’s festival season that continues …

The so-called newspaper of record – and Judith Miller and Jayson Blair – did it again.
Someone at the Pentagon leaked a report about how many former Guantanamo detainees were released only to become active in …

The right wing was gearing up for this fight even before Justice David Souter thought about retiring. This week, as President Obama was naming – as expected – Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor to fill …

I am increasingly distressed by, and unhappy with, BBC Canada. And BBC America isn’t any better, based on the program schedule on its website.
When BBC Canada launched as a stand-alone subscription service several years ago, …

The voice of the former CIA briefer on the phone is strong and direct, unapologetic in either tone or words.
“Of course we misled Congress on torture. The White House and (George) Tenet demanded it, and …

I’m so angry I feel like concealing a loaded hand gun and walking into a national park.
No, I’m not going postal. Once President Obama signs the new credit card law, it will be legal for …

For those too young to have been alive at the time or whose memories became fogged with age, in June 1961 – less than six months after being inaugurated – a very young President John …

Somehow, the Sydney Morning Herald obtained some of the additional Abu Ghraib photos that the Obama administration is in US court trying to keep hidden as it fights an ACLU Freedom of Information lawsuit. Fifteen …

“Demonizing the bankers as if they and they alone created the financial meltdown is both inaccurate and short-sighted,” Citigroup chairman Richard Parsons told reporters recently. “Everybody participated in pumping up this balloon and now that …

Why does the military attract so many religious nuts, total loonies who think their real mission is to convert Moslems – and everyone else – to Jesus?
Born-again officers at the Air Force Academy were so …

Both the Washington Post and The New York Times have that the much-anticipated report of the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) on how the torture memos came to be national policy will recommend …

“It ain’t right,” the man with the soft, desert cowboy drawl says slowly into the phone. “These folks are human beings and he treats ‘em like swine. Well, actually, Joe treats everyone who ain’t white …

Arlen Specter’s stunning announcement that he is changing parties to become a Democrat is merely the latest example of the how the Republic Party is losing its grip on America.
“Since my election in 1980 as …

Dr. Stephen J. Hawking, the author of A Brief History Of Time and The Universe in a Nutshell, and who is said to be very close to formulating a theory to explain everything in the …

So now we know: Saddam made them do it.
The Levin report into Pentagon torture released yesterday tore down the last false flag flying on the devil ship SS Torture, revealing that waterboarding and all the …

I’ve made no secret of my dislike of House Majority Leader John Boehner and his obstructionist approach to being a major voice of a minority party. But I always figured, what the hell, maybe there’s …

The Obama Administration is beginning to remind me of a woman I dated some years ago who developed a drinking problem. Not only did she refuse to admit having trouble, discussing her addiction was taboo, …

Thanks to the Syracuse Post-Standard we have a fascinating glimpse into the mind-set of tea baggers spurred into action last week by Fox News’ increasingly deranged secessionist Glenn Beck and yo-yo’s like CNBC’s Brooks Brothers …