First, we need to offer publicly funded incentives for real innovation, research, and development. Second, we must put public funds to work to improve, expand, and repair Amtrak infrastructure and equipment. Third, through public disclosure of the issues involved, we can promote the fair settlement of labor contracts for Amtrak workers.

Apparently it's not killer bees, sleeper cells, or flesh eating viruses we are supposed to fear this week. According to the mainstream media, it's the Super Bowl that's hazardous to our health.

Now Palestinian women, once more, have led Palestinian civil society in a most meaningful and rewarding way. Just when Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak was being congratulated for successfully starving Palestinians in Gaza to submission, ordinary women led a march to break the tight siege imposed on Gaza.

In what human rights groups are calling a "devastating" decision, the Israeli High Court issued a verdict on 30 January rejecting a petition by 10 groups and clearing the way for Israel to cut electricity and fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip.

Mexican researcher Alfonso Herrera Franyutti described as a crime the multibillion-dollar US military escalation in a world where the vast majorities die of hunger.

On February 12th, I'll vote for Obama in the Virginia Democratic Primary if it still matters (if it doesn't I'll vote for Kucinich). And I will have no possible way to determine whether my vote is counted. I'll be voting on a touch-screen electronic voting machine.