CIA operative retracts claims of Torture

Well, it’s official now: John Kiriakou, the former CIA operative who affirmed claims that waterboarding quickly unloosed the tongues of hard-core terrorists, says he didn’t know what he was talking about. Kiriakou, a 15-year veteran of the agency’s intelligence analysis and operations directorates, electrified the hand-wringing national debate over torture in December 2007 when he…

Oliver Stone ignites controversy

Oliver Stone will attempt to humanize Adolph Hitler in his new, upcoming 10-part documentary series, “The Secret History of the United States,” right? That’s evidently the plan as reported last week by The Independent. Stone apparently wants to “liberalize” Hitler and to finger U.S. corporations for their role in the rise of National Socialism in…

North & South Korea /developing story

News Asia-Pacific North and South Korea exchange fire North Korea declared a ‘no-sail zone’ near the disputed sea border on Tuesday [AFP] North and South Korea have exchanged artillery fire near a disputed sea border off the west coast of the peninsula, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency quoted government officials as saying. South Korea’s presidential…

IT’S OFFICIAL! ‘AVATAR’ SINKS ‘TITANIC’

January 26, 2010 @ 2:54pm The official numbers are in. So Twentieth Century Fox reports that AVATAR has earned $1.859 billion in worldwide revenue in just 39 days. It took place on Monday when James Cameron’s big budget 3D technopic passed the long-standing worldwide revenue record held by his other epic film Titanic of $1.843…

West Coast Wasteland

The state’s unemployment rate stands at more than 12 percent, and in some poorer counties it’s in the 25 percent range. In Los Angeles, that number is 12.2 percent. “It boggles the mind,” says LA’s mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa. “Not since the Depression have we had numbers this bad.” To make matters worse, in an attempt…

Coca-Cola is tasting green.

Unveiled at the Copenhagen Climate summit, the new bottle has been found to have a 12 to 19 percent smaller carbon footprint than traditional plastic bottles. In part, that stems from the fact that Coke’s petroleum-based plastic bottles require upwards of 17 million barrels of oil per year to produce, the Pacific Institute, a California…