"The Most Underreported Stories" (Adbusters Jan/Feb 2005)

It may be this generation's agent orange: Depleted Uranium. The government refused to test servicemen who returned from Iraq with mysterious illnesses. In stepped the New York Daily News, which paid for the tests. The results were shocking. In addition to cancer and kidney damage, American G.I.'s are fathering children with birth defects, much like the Iraqis are.

MSN.com reported how the Saudi Royal family admitted to financially supporting al Queada charities for over a decade. Equally disturbing in the same report, was how a Houston law firm headed by James Baker III (who represented Bush in the 2000 election quagmire) defended the Saudis against 9/11 families who sued the House of Saud for funding terrorism. Baker prevailed against the 9/11'ers and now has his own office in the White House.

While outsourcing has gotten plenty of press, little has been said about insourcing jobs to jails. Alter Net reported that Honda, TWA Airlines, and Best Western Hotels have replaced employees with prison labor. For those who might say, "If you don't like it, move to China," well, we don't have to; China's notorious practice of using prison labor has come here.

Even after the Bush administration admitted that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11, a Washington Post poll found that a staggering 70 percent of Americans still believed that Saddam had a hand in the infamous terrorist attack.

President Bush has repeatedly called Iran a "terrorist state" and it's "officially" illegal for U.S. companies to engage in any financial dealings with the Iranians. But according to 60 Minutes, Vice President Cheney's old company (from which he still draws a deferred salary) Halliburton and other corporations are using a legal loophole to do business with the enemy.

The Tsunami tragedy dominated the news, but there was not much press about how hotels and resorts, built on the coasts of Indonesia, severly weakened nature's natural defenses and added to the body count. Science News ran this AFP report, but the story quickly died along with over 150K victims.

While the White House repeatedly told us how high drug prices guaranteed our "safety," 60 Minutes reported that U.S. citizens are getting gouged for the very same "safe" precription drugs that Canada and other countries buy for cheap.

When Secretary of State Colin Powell reassured India that more American tech jobs would be outsourced their way, the mainstream press didn't raise a wimper, but Common Dreams did.