90,000 U.S. military records, that reveal confidential reports on the war in Afghanistan, were leaked on Sunday by the website WikiLeaks. The New York Times, the Guardian newspaper in London, and Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine received early access to the classified documents, which suggest evidence of deadly war crimes and a Pakistan-Taliban alliance. The White House has condemned the release, announcing it could severely threaten the nation’s security. But, will these leaked documents at all shape the future of the war in Afghanistan? And, how dangerous is Pakistan’s relationship with the Taliban?
Folks who grow and use medical marijuana should be all in favor of legalization, right? Not so fast. Some people who legally grow marijuana under compassionate use provisions of California law are concerned that if Prop 19 passes in November, collectives will no longer be able to cultivate large plots of land and patients will suffer. How would broad-based legalization of marijuana impact medical growers and users? Who’s for Prop 19 and who opposes it?
San Francisco is weighing a ban on the sale of cats and dogs… and hamsters, gerbils, rats, chinchillas, guinea pigs, birds. That is, every pet except fish. West Hollywood and South Lake Tahoe have banned some pet sales in recent months, but the San Francisco ban, if approved, would go much further, in part to reduce the number of animals euthanized in the city. Would you support a similar ban in your SoCal city? How far should cities go to reduce unnecessary animal deaths?
The likes of Keith Olbermann and Rush Limbaugh have a huge allure… which prompts the question: is “objective” journalism all it’s cracked up to be? And what does it mean to be objective anyway? Some analysts think objectivity in journalism was always a façade. Do you think journalism can be, or should be, truly unbiased? And do you prefer just the facts, or stories laced with opinion and point of view?
