UPDATE: Demonstrations at the University of Birmingham

Guardian Education reports protests at eight English universities including Birmingham. A week-long occupation at LSE ended peacefully last night after the school's director Howard Davies issued a joint statement with students which included a pledge to back a fundraising drive for Palestinian scholarships, as well as the setting up of, "a working party to look at socially responsible investments that will be "content to receive" proposals about disinvestment from companies implicated in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories."

A Farewell to George Bush: Does Torture Carry a Cost?

Before we close the door on the Bush Presidency....

For political reasons, there will be no enquiry into the illegal actions of the Bush Administration, let alone an attempt to hold its officials accountable before a criminal court. That makes it even more important that the public investigation --- first as a study of current politics and US foreign policy, later as history --- of how the Executive could bypass Congress, the US courts, and international law to sanction torture should be thorough, ongoing, and unrelenting.

Keith Olbermann, in his provocative and incisive manner, offers a summary: "Mr President-Elect, you have been handed the beginning of [our] future, use it to protect our children and our distant descendants from anything like this ever happening again."

[youtube]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=hOBbunLBW9w[/youtube]

This Moment We Hold Onto: The Day Pete Seeger Brought Us Our Land

Update: There is a campaign to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Pete Seeger. Peter Dreier makes the case for the award to Seeger with an excellent overview of his career and politics.

In case you missed it (and I did yesterday), 89-year-old Pete Seeger --- a hero of music, of civil rights, and of American politics --- joined Bruce Springsteen and tens of thousands on the Washington Mall yesterday to sing Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" at the Inaugural Concert. And it wasn't Guthrie's more famous but slightly censored version, it was the original with all the spirit of individualism, protest, and celebration.

Whatever happens in the days, months, and years after 20 January 2009, this was a moment not just for "America" but for all of us:

[youtube]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg0wiOHc9tI[/youtube]