Today's award for the most euphemistic lead paragraph goes to the New York Times. Paraphrasing Hillary Clinton, the Times says the U.S. has agreed to "send communications equipment to help rebels organize and evade Syria's military."

The security and surveillance state does not deal in nuance or ambiguity. Its millions of agents, intelligence gatherers, spies, clandestine operatives, analysts and armed paramilitary units live in a binary world of opposites, of good and evil, black and white, opponent and ally.

Wall Street is buzzing about the annual report just put out by the Dallas Federal Reserve. In the paper, Harvey Rosenblum, the head of the Dallas Fed's research department, bluntly calls for the breakup of Too-Big-To-Fail banks like Bank of America, Chase, and Citigroup.

Israel decided Monday to sever all contact with the United Nations human rights council and with its chief commissioner Navi Pillay, after the international body decided to establish an international investigative committee on the West Bank settlements.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Friday that the move by the UN body proves that the Palestinians do not want to renew negotiations with Israel.

On the one hand, we cannot exclude the possibility that the senior Israeli officials briefing us are bluffing. On the other hand, what we journalists hear in closed rooms is staggering.

 Something quite extraordinary has been happened in recent months:  Israeli leaders have taken to openly threatening to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities before Christmas 2012. 

Nobel Peace Prize nominee Bradley Manning's next appearance in court will take place April 24-26 at Ft. Meade, MD. At the previous hearing on March 15th, Bradley’s lawyer filed a motion to dismiss all charges based on the government’s failure to present evidence as requested. Additionally, a broad coalition of media groups filed a complaint because documents from the court proceedings have been mostly shielded from the public’s view.

Columbia legal scholar Philip Bobbitt just sent in this fascinating article on the constitutionality of the individual mandate as justified by biosecurity. If that sounds like a bit of a non-sequitur, well, take a look at the piece.

A Christian missionary sets out to convert a remote Amazonian tribe. He lives with them for years in primitive conditions, learns their extremely difficult language, risks his life battling malaria, giant anacondas, and sometimes the tribe itself. In a plot twist, instead of converting them he loses his faith, morphing from an evangelist trying to translate the Bible into an academic determined to understand the people he's come to respect and love.

Global Exchange will award one People’s Choice honoree in 2012. The People’s Choice honoree will receive $1,000 in honor of their work and will be recognized at this year’s Human Rights Awards celebration on May 10, 2012.

I like this guy and believe that this short interview is well worth watching.

In response to Netanyahu's AIPAC speech, Haaretz's editor-in-chief says that what looks like a preparation for war, acts like a preparation for war, and quacks like a preparation for war, is a preparation for war.

I remember being a young Marine recruit at Parris Island, August of 1966, running, running, boots thumping on the grinder, exulting in the sense of power and communion that comes of men acting in unison, shouting, “Luke the Gook comes marching by, stick your bayonet in his eye, lef rye lef rye lef....” Only an idiot goes to PI—Third Batallion, Disneyland, in my case—in August. I was one. It goes with being nineteen.

 Worth considering, IMO.

One final note: News organizations and websites that have uncritically reported the atrocity stories from these "human rights" groups have helped set the stage for military action against Syria, and have been in fact part of the psychological preparation of the battlefield. As such, they should be considered as morally culpable for the disaster that will soon unfold for the Syrians and for us as the John McCains and the Hillary Clintons and the Sean Hannities and the Bill Kristols of the world.

Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, two major schools of thought have influenced Iran's foreign policy toward the United States. The first maintains that Iran and the United States can reach a compromise based on mutual respect, noninterference in domestic affairs, and the advancement of shared interests. Those who hold this view acknowledge the animosity and historical grievances between the two countries but argue that it is possible to normalize their relations. The second school is more pessimistic.

Last year, as you may remember, PFC Bradley Manning won the UK Guardian reader’s choice poll regarding who should win the Nobel Peace Prize by a significant margin. This year, he has been re-nominated for the prestigious award by The Movement of the Icelandic Parliament. The following article was originally posted on the blog of Icelandic MP member Birgitta Jónsdóttir.

I spent last year in Afghanistan, visiting and talking with U.S. troops and their Afghan partners. My duties with the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force took me into every significant area where our soldiers engage the enemy. Over the course of 12 months, I covered more than 9,000 miles and talked, traveled and patrolled with troops in Kandahar, Kunar, Ghazni, Khost, Paktika, Kunduz, Balkh, Nangarhar and other provinces.

When Defence Secretary Leon Panetta told Washington Post columnist David Ignatius this week that he believes Israel was likely to attack Iran between April and June, it was ostensibly yet another expression of alarm at the Israeli government's threats of military action.

But even though the administration is undoubtedly concerned about that Israeli threat, the Panetta leak had a different objective.

A revealing conversation between Robert Wright and Joanna Brooks, the "Mormon Girl" about growing up Mormon and being a Mormon. Learn all about funny undies.

What happened to Canada? It used to be the country we would flee to if life in the United States became unpalatable. No nuclear weapons. No huge military-industrial complex. Universal health care. Funding for the arts. A good record on the environment.

But that was the old Canada.