After Katrina, a white neighborhood militia murdered blacks who wandered into “their” neighborhood.  Disgusting, and a stark reminder that racism is far from eliminated in this country.

An NYT editorial and Glenn Greenwald call for accountability after the Senate Armed Services Committee inquiry into the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody was released this week.

That leaves only two choices:  (1) treat these crimes as the serious war crimes they are by having a Prosecutor investigate and, if warranted, prosecute them, or (2) openly acknowledge — to ourselves and the world — that we believe that our leaders are literally entitled to commit war crimes at will, and that we — but not the rest of the world — should be exempt from the consequences.

Lindsay Beyerstein comments on Obama’s choice of Rick Warren for the inaugural invocation.  She points out that there really shouldn’t be a religious element to the inauguration, which I agree with, and goes on to criticize Obama’s contribution to Warren’s political standing and what this could mean for America’s image and AIDS prevention efforts.

I very much want to see Cléo From 5 to 7 after this 3QD review.

Seeds Aside answers some of the questions that bring readers to his site.  Wonderfully silly.

My birth control is abortion now.

Dorothy Surrenders posts some fantastic pictures of Rachel Maddow, Katie Couric, and Campbell Brown.  I think I’m going to need to buy the January issue of Vogue.

Why unionization led to employer based healthcare in America rather than a national system as in other countries and why that’s a problem.

The system is so complex that even experts – let alone ordinary people trying to find care for themselves and their loved ones – are unable to fully understand it. The system spends one-third of its cost on paperwork, waste and profit over and above the cost of actually providing health care. Yet, nearly one-third of Americans are without health insurance over the course of a year. In all other developed countries, more than 85 percent of citizens have health coverage under public programs. The American health care system is full of inequalities: People who work for one company may have high quality insurance, while those who work for a similar company have none.

Religious freedom in America – not for Muslims, but definitely for Christians who abuse their children.

Please, be out!

Union workers definitely don’t make $73/hr.

White supremacists in the U.S. military.