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What if anything is the potential contribution of web-based "social networking" to social movements and social change?

Last night, Bill Maher went off on Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally for Sanity, and the resulting monologue was predictably funny and utterly brilliant. He's not completely discounting the impact of the rally-he's psyched that it had twice the attendance of Glenn Beck's. But he makes the important point that the Rally didn't: the right wing and the left wing are not separate but equal entities, taking down the false dichotomy between the two, and criticizing the Rally for even suggesting as much. "Two opposing sides don't necessarily have two compelling arguments," he said. "This isn't Team Edward and Team Jacob." Awesome. Check it:

Even conservatives in Europe are scratching their heads over their transatlantic allies who appear to hate the idea of cheaper, universal health care.

You can feel it. Or maybe you can't. It doesn't matter whether you feel it or not. It's happening. The story of the United States of America as we know it -- not merely as the world's dominant superpower, but as a discrete political, economic, and geographic entity -- is drawing to a close due to a convergence of emerging economic, environmental, and political crises. Nothing lasts forever, empires least of all. And this one, which only began to expand in earnest circa the year 1900, doesn't feel like it has the staying power of ancient Rome. Not at all.

The demise of the United States as the global superpower could come far more quickly than anyone imagines.

According to a poll by Gallup the majority of Americans Want Investigations on Possible attempts to use Justice Dept. for political purposes,use of telephone wiretaps without a warrant use of torture in terror interrogations

To call Jared Lee Loughner a Tea Partier is not a credible claim. But the Tea Party culture of political intimidation affirmed his violent impulses.

We can have the kind of economy, government, environment, and country we want, if we keep pushing, organizing, building, and otherwise doing the work of democracy.

While the United States has suffered the worst recession in living memory, things have only gotten better for the wealthy.

Do you believe that it is in Americans' interest to allow a small group of U.S. leaders to unilaterally murder, maim, imprison and/or torture anyone they choose anywhere in the world, without the knowledge let alone oversight of their citizens or the international community? And, despite their proven record of failure to protect America -- from Indochina to Iran to Iraq -- do you believe they should be permitted to clandestinely expand their war-making without informed public debate? If so, you are betraying the principles upon which America was founded, endangering your nation, and displaying a distinctly "unamerican" subservience to unaccountable authority. But if you oppose autocratic power, you are called to support Wikileaks and others trying to limit U.S. Executive Branch mass murder abroad and failure to protect Americans at home.

Every country has scam artists, but only in a dying country are they part of the power structure.

How has a tiny fraction of the population arranged for their narrowest economic interests to dominate those of the vast majority?

Chomsky: "What has to be done is what's happening in Madison, or Tahrir Square. If there's mass popular opposition, any political leader is going to have to respond.

The IRS estimates that individuals and corporations currently hold $5 trillion in tax haven countries. Nearly two-thirds of corporations pay no taxes at all, and the great vampire squid, Goldman Sachs, which received $10 billion dollars in taxpayer money during the bailout, negotiated their tax rate down to one percent. The entire tax haven scam costs taxpayers as much as $100 billion per year.

History shows that when spending is cut -- in the name of balancing the budget -- recessions immediately follow.