The Great White Way went black as did major cities of the American and Canadian Midwest and Northeast.

Sunni and Shiite Muslims have joined in alliance protesting the continuing American occupation forces. And the American “peacekeepers” remained under attack in Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile real peacekeepers who tried to interject themselves between American and Iraqi warriors are being prosecuted by the US government.

President Shrub nominated a person hostile to environmental concerns to head the Environmental Protection Agency and will give a warhawk a recess appointment to the Peace Institute.

In Alabama, the Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court justice refused to obey a court order to remove a 5,300 pound monument to the Ten Commandments (which he had installed after hours).

The first thing you have to do is follow orders... The Shrub administration which has been trying to exclude the UN from the Iraqi occupation has now gone to the UN to ask the membership for assistance in reconstruction providing that the US remain in total control.

Speaking of control... According to Human Rights Watch, the US has demanded that its peacekeepers in Liberia be exempted from being prosecuted for any crimes they might commit undermining both international and domestic law. (www.hrw.org)

Would we lie?... The FCC, defeated in the House which overturned the Commission’s attempt at increasing the monopolistic control over television station ownership, has now proposed to increase the number of low power radio stations and to encourage more local news coverage by television.

Snatching defeat from... Attorney General Ashcroft has embarked on a national speaking tour to build support for the Patriot Act and to set the stage for the “Victory Act” which will increase federal police surveillance and asset forfeiture. (Associated Press)

Poll Watch... Gallup and the California-based Field Poll studying Shrub’s approval both indicate a continuing downward trend. In California, the President’s disapproval rating had moved to 45 percent. (Associated Press)

Cutback the police/stop prison construction... Violent crimes and property crimes both declined in 2002. Since the crime statistics have been kept, about 30 years, rates have dropped almost 50 percent. (www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs)

More attacks on abortion rights... The Mississippi Supreme Court ruled this week that under state law, a fetus is a “person.” Although this my be construed as an attack on abortion, the state law still protects doctors performing abortions. (Associated Press)

Rewriting history... The Smithsonian’s attempt at displaying the Enola Gay –- the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb--has again come under attack. In 1995, veteran’s groups and super-patriots were angered by the Smithsonian display which acknowledged the controversy over whether dropping the bomb was necessary. People including many survivors, are concerned now that the Air and Space Museum has revivified its display without any mention of the death toll in Hiroshima which is in the range of 175,00 to 250, 000 people. (www.telegraph.co.uk/news)

This week in history:

Slave uprising begins the revolution in Haiti which became a model for Third World liberation (1791); Nat Turner leads slave revolt in Virginia (1831); anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti executed in Boston for alleged robbery and murder (1927); a national vote in Germany approved the vesting of sole executive power in Adolf Hitler as Fuhrer (1934); Solidarnosc, the independent workers movement and catalyst for change in Soviet-dominated Poland, founded in Gdansk (1980).