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If you're in the Toronto area and you support US war resisters in Canada, please join us tomorrow night for a casual dinner, socializing, and a political and legal update on the campaign to Let Them Stay. When: Friday, June 19 5:30 doors open 6:00 buffet dinner 7:00 updates, featuring lawyer Alyssa Manning, campaign representatives and war resisters Where: Steelworkers Hall, 25 Cecil Street, Toronto Admission: $20, proceeds go to war resister legal defense. RSVP: Email resisters@sympatico.ca or leave a comment here and I'll pass it along.

This report was written by Sarah Lazare, of Courage To Resist . At Fort Bragg, North Carolina, AWOL soldiers find themselves detained for months under difficult conditions in an extended legal limbo they cannot escape. Dustin Stevens is one of about 50 soldiers being held at Fort Bragg awaiting likely AWOL and desertion charges that seem like they will never arrive, he says. A former soldier who refused to continue military service seven years ago because he did not want to fight a war, Stevens says that he and his colleagues are being held in legal limbo - a no man's land of poor living standards and arbitrary punishments - while awaiting charges and possible court-martial. Stevens has been in a holdover unit for five months without charges, and he says that others have been held for up to a year in conditions he describes as harrowing. The unit is overcrowded and filthy, he says, with four people to a room. The command verbally abuses the soldiers, with one commanding officer pro...

I have another good item from James, which is handy, because I'm transcribing for the campaign today and tomorrow, and have limited blogging time. In what is believed to be the first ruling of its kind, a New York State court has determined that police can taser a suspect in order to obtain a DNA sample without his consent. Think about the implications of this. If the police cannot obtain the evidence they need through the normal methods - that is, by doing their jobs - they can zap you to get some. And you can be forced to give up evidence, as long as there's a warrant and the police aren't being "malicious". Although who will judge this maliciousness and how it will be defined isn't noted. The taser in this case isn't being used to subdue a dangerous, out-of-control suspect, or to protect the police; it's being used to force a suspect to give potentially incriminating evidence. It's pain compliance , pure and simple. The more pain compliance is ...

Small sample size, and unscientific survey, but interesting nonetheless. From a Daily Kos journal, sent to me by James. 91% of Canadians have never had necessary health care delayed or denied... as opposed to 34% of Americans. . . . Total Canadians: 333 Never had necessary health care denied or delayed: 304 votes - 91% Have had necessary health care denied: 7 votes - 2% Have had necessary health care delayed: 19 votes - 5% Have had necessary health care denied and delayed: 3 votes - 1% Total Americans: 841 Insured, never had necessary health care denied or delayed: 283 votes - 34% Insured, have had necessary health care denied: 99 votes - 12% Insured, have had necessary health care delayed: 125 votes - 15% Insured, have had necessary health care denied and delayed: 122 votes - 15% Uninsured: 212 votes - 25% Good graphic representation of this and discussion here .

The Coalition lives on. Canadians will lose their homes and rely on food banks while the Government and the so-called Opposition study Employment Insurance. Not fix. Study. The endless minority Government lives on. And Michael Ignatieff shows himself to be Stephane Dion with a better accent. Full of threats and bluster, but too weak to make real change. James Curran sums it up with one question, "We dumped our former Leader because...?" It's too depressing to write another word. Here are some other people's words: Canadian Soapbox : Iggy gets a powerplay and scores ... into his own net Ignatieff's plan was to criticize and demand changes. ... Harper mulled those demands over for perhaps a nanosecond before basically saying "no". ... I've never seen someone trying to sound forceful and decisive while back pedalling so fast. Peace, Order and Good Government, eh? : Ignatieff must think this little bit of theatre allows him to be perceived as holding the...

Cash-strapped British Airways has come up with a sure-fire cost-cutting plan: slavery. British Airways has asked its 40,000 staff to work without pay for up to a month as the ailing airline seeks to cut costs. The group, which made a record £401 million loss in 2008 amid surging fuel prices and a collapse in premium-fare passengers, is seeking to reduce costs dramatically and has already offered staff unpaid leave or a reduction in hours. Willie Walsh, BA's chief executive, has now gone a step further by asking staff to volunteer for between one and four weeks of unpaid work in what he says is a "fight for survival." Mr Walsh, who said last week that he would work for free in July, has set a deadline of June 24 for employees to volunteer for unpaid work. He said that the salary deductions would be spread over three to six months wherever possible. BA denied that those staff who volunteered for unpaid work would be given preference if the airline imposes a further round of...

Why are you all reading this blog? Don't you know no one reads blogs anymore? About a week ago, I saw yet another blogging-is-dead story in the Globe and Mail . (I can't find the version I saw online, but I did find the same story in the Halifax Chronicle Herald .) The headline was enough to set me off: "For most, blogging is a boulevard of broken dreams - Online writers start out with dreams of money and fame, but the reality is that only 5 per cent of blogs are frequently updated". What is it about these stories that bother me so much? First, stories that turn something patently obvious into a "report" generally make me slap my forehead. People start projects and don't finish them? Do tell! But the "life" sections of newspapers are full of perennials - literally full, that's basically all they are - and while I find most of those stories silly, they don't make me grind my teeth. It's the pseudo-analysis of internet activity, and ...