Fourteen anti-war activists may have made history today in a Las Vegas courtroom when they turned a misdemeanor trespassing trial into a possible referendum on America's newfound taste for remote-controlled warfare.

The so-called Creech 14, a group of peace activists from across the country, went on trial this morning for allegedly trespassing onto Creech Air Force Base in April 2009.

From the start of today's trial, prosecutors did their best to keep the focus on whether the activists were guilty of allegations they illegally entered the base and refused to leave as a way to protest the base's role as the little-known headquarters for U.S. military operations involving unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, over Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.

But a funny thing happened on the way to prosecutors' hope for a quick decision.

Appearing as witnesses for the Creech 14 today were some of the biggest names in the modern anti-war movement: Ramsey Clark, former U.S. attorney general under President Lyndon Johnson; Ann Wright, a retired U.S. Army colonel and one of three former U.S. State Department officials who resigned on the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq; and Bill Quigley, legal director for the New York City-based Center for Constitutional Rights.

Venice Louisiana - Thousands of fish and a dead whale on Monday were found dead at the mouth of a shipping channel in Venice. Species include crabs, sting rays, eels, drum, speckled trout and red fish.

A British teenager has been banned from America for life for sending Barack Obama an abusive email, in which he calls the President a p***k.

Luke Angel, 17, insulted Mr Obama while drunk after watching a programme about the 9/11 attacks on the U.S.

Angel was reprimanded by police on both sides of the Atlantic after firing off the message to the White House.

The FBI intercepted the message and contacted police in the UK who went to see Mr Angel at his home in Silsoe, Bedfordshire.

The college student is now on a list of people who are banned from visiting the States.

The teenager told the Bedfordshire On Sunday newspaper that he had sent the email after watching a TV programme about September 11.

When asked about the ban, Luke said: 'I don't really care. My parents aren't very happy about it.

'The police who came round took my picture and told me I was banned from America forever.'

All governments lie, kill and misuse public funds, but these calculated habits are amplified manifold during wars. We're in two now, aiming for a third. Japan, whose land we're still occupying 65 years after Hiroshima, has just announced sanctions against Iran beyond what the U.N. mandated. South Korea swiftly followed suit. It's surprising to see these two countries so in sync, until one remembers that they have become American cheerleaders for decades. Rah, rah, bomb Tehran! A murderous chorus is rising, yet again. Countries that aren't our client states can be counted with two hands, even those missing fingers from an exploding grenade.

Universal outrage has been drummed up over the case of an Iranian woman about to be stoned to death for adultery. She's also implicated in the murder of her husband, for which she may be hanged. This second, more serious crime has been left out of many news stories. America also executes, but it doesn't stone, especially for a bit of ticklish fun on the side. We inject, electrocute, gas, hang and shoot our condemned. We're more humane that way. Forever bureaucratic, we pay attention to procedural niceties.

In an ideal society, those chosen to represent and lead the people would be chosen because they had shown 'leadership qualities' - honesty, integrity, intelligence (both emotional and intellectual) and, most importantly, a paternal or maternal protective instinct towards others. In short, leaders would be those that could effectively lead the society in a way that secured the best interests of all. Ideal leaders would certainly not be 'war-like' but rather peace-makers. So why don't we have societies like this around the world today? Does power really corrupt? Is it inevitable that any human being elevated to a leadership role will succumb to the lure of power and control over others and ultimately turn bad and against the people? Do we conclude therefore that the very idea that one or a few should lead the many is simply a bad one?

It's true that human history is embarrassingly bereft of these ideal leaders. The ones that history records as being 'great' were very often the most war-like and directly or indirectly caused the most suffering to innocent people. Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, FDR, Winston Churchill....George W Bush?

There have been a few notable exceptions though, Martin Luther King, is one, JFK is another, and there are undoubtedly many less-well-known examples from all over the planet (Benazir Bhutto for a more recent example). But in the case of these three, and many others of similar calibre, you may have noticed that they have an unfortunate tendency to be assassinated by, we are told, irate citizens who bizarrely, cannot abide their attempts to be truly great leaders in the ideal sense. Of course, I am being a little facetious here, because there is strong evidence to suggest that MLK, JFK, Bhutto and many others who were allegedly assassinated by 'lone nuts' were in fact murdered by the competition - the corrupt leaders.

It's been nine years since 9/11. Millions of people, civilians and soldiers have died world wide in the following war on terror. The American people have lost basic rights due to the Patriot Act. In Europe and other countries, similar "security measures" have been implemented. Anyone who has been on an international flight has experienced some of it first hand. Trillions of Dollars are spent on the war on terror, while millions of people have lost their jobs and homes as the economy is disintegrating worldwide. The emperor is naked and there is an elephant in the living room, but to this day the official story of 9/11 has not been significantly challenged publicly.

I find it interesting how people in this day and age talk about a "shift in consciousness" or "awakening" into a "New Age" while after 9 years the biggest lie is still in place. Especially Liberals and people who themselves believe to be "aware" and "conscious", yet they vote for Obama and dare not to question 9/11 or man-made "Global Warming". I think most people simply don't want the truth, for the truth is a tricky thing. It's a can of worms most people are not willing to open, as it will challenge their beliefs and ideals on a core level. Hence, they rather defend/ignore the lie and the lies they tell themselves.

The furthest most people go in regards to 9/11 is that "Bush let it happen" à la Michael Moore, but to realize, by looking into it deeper, that it was actually an Inside Job leading to Israel and not "Islamic Extremists" is still too far out for most people. It's a touchy subject, because it'll require them to question much of what they ever thought to be true about this country and the world in general.

In a small courtroom in Haifa's District Court, a colonel in the Israeli engineering corps who wrote a manual for the bulldozer units that razed the Rafah Refugee Camp in 2003 offered his opinion on the killing of the American activist Rachel Corrie.

"There are no civilians during wartime," Yossi declared under oath.

Yossi made his remarkable statement under withering cross examination by Hussein Abu Hussein, the lawyer for the family of Corrie, who was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer in Rafah on March 17, 2003. In the back of the courtroom were Rachel's parents, Craig and Cindy, and her sister, Sarah, back in Israel for the second round of hearings in their civil suit against the state of Israel. They were joined by supporters, friends and a handful of reporters, including me (see Nora Barrows-Friedman's report for more). No one from the Israeli media was present - the case has been virtually ignored inside Israel.

In the immediate wake of Corrie's killing, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, then the chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, instructed Corrie's parents to demand a "thorough, fair and transparent investigation" from the Israeli government. Since then, the Israelis have stonewalled them, refusing to provide key details of their investigation, which was corrupted from the start by the investigators' apparent attempts to find evidence that a bulldozer did not in fact kill Rachel.

Former prime minister Tony Blair is considering cancelling a high-profile signing of his new memoir because of planned protests.

Mr Blair said he was concerned about the potential "hassle and cost" to the police of pressing ahead with Wednesday's event in central London.

Eggs and shoes were thrown by demonstrators at a previous signing in Dublin and anti-war groups have promised a mass protest outside the Waterstone's store in Piccadilly.

The ex-PM said it was "sad" that people wanted to disrupt such events but indicated he may call it off amid evidence that other hostile groups were set to join in.

Not everyone has been doing badly during the economic turmoil of the last few years. In fact, there are some Americans that are doing really, really well. While the vast majority of us struggle, there is one small segment of society that is seemingly doing better than ever. This was reflected in a recent article on CNBC in which it was noted that companies that cater to average Americans are doing rather poorly right now while companies that market luxury goods and services are generally performing exceptionally well. So why aren't all American consumers jumping on the spending bandwagon? Well, it seems that there are a large number of Americans who either can't spend a lot of money right now or who are very hesitant to. A stunningly high number of Americans are still unemployed, and for many other Americans, there is a very real fear that hard economic times will return soon. On the other hand, there is a significant percentage of Americans who are blowing money on luxury goods and services as if the economy has fully turned around and it is time to let the good times roll. So exactly what in the world is going on here?

Well, in 2010 life is very, very different depending on whether you are a "have" or a "have not". The recent article on CNBC referenced above described it this way....

Tony Blair's autobiography has been turning up in the crime section of bookshops thanks to a Facebook and Twitter campaign.

The publication of the ex-prime minister's memoirs, A Journey, was one of the most eagerly awaited literary events of the year, but his insistence that the decision to invade Iraq was correct meant that not everyone welcomed the book.

A Facebook group entitled 'Subversively move Tony Blair's memoirs to the crime section in book shops' gained more than 1,000 members inside a day.

The group's creator, Euan Booth, said the idea was non-violent direct action against a man he described as "our generation's greatest war criminal".