Detained without charge Deporatation without a hearing Illegal wire taps The Patriot Act The death penalty Illegal war Secret courts Warm winters Stolen electio Widen gap between rich and poor Dick Cheney Halliburton $70 barrel for oil New front in Iran and Syria Bin Laden not captured Collateral damage Executive stranglehold over the Supreme Court and Congress How did it come to this?

Last month the U.S. government canceled a visa that it had granted to Tariq Ramadan, a Muslim scholar in Switzerland. The visa, which had been approved in March and would have allowed him to accept a tenured professorship at the University of Notre Dame, was revoked at the request of the Homeland Security Department. No explanation has been given, but a department spokesman cited “public-safety or national-security risks” as the usual reasons for such an action. Tariq Ramadan, 42, is a professor of Islamic studies and philosophy at the University of Fribourg, in Switzerland. He will respond to questions and…

I have the utmost respect for Juan Cole and his blog. Today, he had a post that I wanted to make a small comment on, because I don’t think it gives either Sistani or Gandhi the credit each one deserves. The relevant paragraph, to be found at the end of his post, is as follows: If Sistani does lead a popular march of the sort the press is describing, it might be the most significant act of civil disobedience by an Asian religious leader since Gandhi’s salt march in British India. And it might kick off the beginning of the…