Paranoid in Tehran I don't know a single Iranian scholar, intellectual, organizer, or journalist whose life and pursuits have not been dampened by this current U.S. policy. Who is it actually benefiting? From where I sit, freedom has never seemed so remote. Time

It's the coverup, stupid As Republican control of Congress in the midterm elections teeters on the precipice, the party leaders suddenly find themselves rediscovering the harsh reality of Richard Nixon's commentary on the Watergate scandal, that it's not the crime that kills you but the coverup. Salon

58 Percent of Americans: Bush Is Lying on Iraq In the Sept. 29-Oct. 2 (CNN) poll, 58 percent said the administration misled the public about how the war is going. In addition, 57 percent said the conflict has made the U.S. less safe from terrorism, indicating that Bush's central argument in defense of his policy isn't gaining traction with voters. Bloomberg

'Ancient light' takes Nobel Prize The CMB has been called the "echo" of the Big Bang - the event that created the Universe less than 14 billion years ago.
It is the radiation that formed when the Universe had cooled to such a degree that hydrogen atoms could exist. Before that time, scientists say, the Universe would have been so hot that matter and radiation would have been "coupled" - it would have been opaque. BBC

A Racial Rift That Isn't Black and White For centuries, the South has been defined by the color line and the struggle for accommodation between blacks and whites. But the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Hispanic immigrants over the past decade is quietly changing the dynamics of race relations in many Southern towns. NY Times

Violence not confined to Islam. Christian executes Girls in Paradise. A 32-year-old dairy truck driver killed at least three schoolgirls execution style and then shot himself dead after bursting into a one-room Amish schoolhouse in rural Pennsylvania... He was armed with an automatic handgun and a shotgun.. The Sydney Morning Herald

Liberty of thought and expression.
Robert Redeker, 52, a writer and high-school philosophy teacher who has been under police protection and in hiding with his family since the newspaper Le Figaro published his op-ed piece about Islam on Sept.19. Entitled "Faced with Islamist intimidations, what should the free world do?" Time

Is the homeland where America's heart is? What kind of American are you? Red-state or blue-state? Secular humanist pinko or Bible-thumping loon? Tribe of Coulter or tribe of Franken? ..., one could say that old fires of tribal hatred (country vs. city, populace vs. elites) were rebuilt and carefully tended by politicians who could benefit from them. In that sense, what has happened in America in the last quarter-century is not altogether different from what has happened in the Balkans, the Middle East, Rwanda, Sudan and countless other exotic locations. The modalities of conflict are different, for the most part, and that's something to be grateful for. Salon

Song Search. Download. Listen. Vote!
Remember the last time you came upon a song you hadn't heard of before, a catchy tune that entered your head and refused to leave? The last time a fresh new sound seemed to open up the world just a little bit more? That's what Song Search is trying to find -- we want to unearth the greatest song you've never heard. Salon

The Literary Guide to the World? From Booker Prize winner John Banville on Ireland to acclaimed travel writer Tom Bissell on Vietnam, writers talk about the literature -- from fiction to history to memoirs -- that brings their beloved places alive. Salon