David Moberg | March 14, 2005 issue | The Nation

Andy Stern is not shy about speaking his mind. For several years the energetic 54-year-old president of the 1.8 million-strong Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the nation's second-largest and fastest-growing union, has argued in a bold--one of his favorite words--and often provocative way that the labor movement must organize new members faster or die. And he claims that unions can do so despite a hostile political climate; but only if they revamp their structure and strategy, consolidating forces to create bigger, more muscular unions in each sector of the economy. ...   more »

A new online effort organized by Democrats.com had its maiden voyage today.  It's BlogCall, which will try to put bloggers and mainstream media together, covering stories in the blogosphere to give depth to stories and make the bloggers covering them available to other bloggers and people in the media.

Today's presentation was by John Aravosias of AmericaBlog, talking about the Jeff Gannon/James Guckert story.
http://www.americablog.org/

Today's call can be heard this evening at 5:00 PM Central time on Radio Left.
http://radioleft.com/

And it will be archived by Ben Burch at the White Rose Society.
http://www.whiterosesociety.org/

In the future, calls will be on Tuesdays (starting March 8), at 1:00 PM Eastern time.

On March 8, the presenter will be Brad Friedman of Bradblog, and he will discuss the attempts by Florida Republicans to have software written that would .  Clint Curtis, the programmer who wrote the prototype for the software, is scheduled to be on the call and to answer questions.

Future BlogCalls will also be featured on Radio Left on the same day as the call, at 5:00 pm Central time, and will be archived at the White Rose Society.

No live show today, Tuesday, February 22, 2005.

Please listen to the replays, and we'll be back tomorrow.

Reza Aslan | The Nation | February 28, 2005 reprinted by Permission

 The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America
by Kenneth M. Pollack

A threatening storm gathers in the Middle East. A rogue nation in the hands of a tyrannical regime with possible ties to Al Qaeda and a history of supporting global terrorism is secretly developing weapons of mass destruction, which pose an imminent risk to the security of the United States and its allies in the region. Sound familiar?

It is becoming increasingly clear that the rhetoric the Bush Administration employed to justify its pre-emptive invasion ...   more »