If you have a pulse and an IQ of at least 70, you probably realize that our mainstream press sucks. The silly bitches at the networks (and way too many newspapers, as well) fall all over themselves address the pig/lipstick story. They treat the price of John Edwards’ latest haircut like they would news that Lower Fucktardistan just nuked Annandale (although they don’t seem nearly as concerned over John McCain’s $5K celebrity makeover). And their fair and balanced coverage can’t seem to distinguish between the truth and a bald-faced lie.

In short, we know – at an abstract level – that they aren’t telling us the important stories. But … what are those stories that they aren’t telling us? When they send a “reporter” to cover the latest Sarah Palin photo-op, what story have they decided not to cover?

Thanks to Project Censored, whose “objective is training of SSU students in media research and First Amendment issues and the advocacy for, and protection of, free press rights in the United States,” we actually have a concrete, detailed sense of what stories the MSM doesn’t deem fit to print. Each year they release their Top 25 Censored Stories – the most important should-be news events that most people simply aren’t hearing about – and the list never fails to appall. How, we have to ask, can a semi-responsible press organization waste even a second of time on the trivia that passes for news these days (let’s see what FOX has up at the moment … ah, here’s one: “Lesbian Pics Prompt School to Change Yearbook Policy”) when all these other stories – massively important stories that have meaningful implications for the lives of Americans – are ignored?

Here’s this year’s list, and you can click for the stories at the Project Censored page:

# 1. Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation

# 2 Security and Prosperity Partnership: Militarized NAFTA

# 3 InfraGard: The FBI Deputizes Business

# 4 ILEA: Is the US Restarting Dirty Wars in Latin America?

# 5 Seizing War Protesters’ Assets

# 6 The Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act

# 7 Guest Workers Inc.: Fraud and Human Trafficking

# 8 Executive Orders Can Be Changed Secretly

# 9 Iraq and Afghanistan Vets Testify

# 10 APA Complicit in CIA Torture

# 11 El Salvador’s Water Privatization and the Global War on Terror

# 12 Bush Profiteers Collect Billions From No Child Left Behind

# 13 Tracking Billions of Dollars Lost in Iraq

# 14 Mainstreaming Nuclear Waste

# 15 Worldwide Slavery

# 16 Annual Survey on Trade Union Rights

# 17 UN’s Empty Declaration of Indigenous Rights

# 18 Cruelty and Death in Juvenile Detention Centers

# 19 Indigenous Herders and Small Farmers Fight Livestock Extinction

# 20 Marijuana Arrests Set New Record

# 21 NATO Considers “First Strike” Nuclear Option

# 22 CARE Rejects US Food Aid

# 23 FDA Complicit in Pushing Pharmaceutical Drugs

# 24 Japan Questions 9/11 and the Global War on Terror

# 25 Bush’s Real Problem with Eliot Spitzer

Not that any of this stacks up against Jenna Bush’s wedding, of course, but you get my point.

As it says right up there in our masthead, “think – it ain’t illegal yet.” Your ability to think is, in part, a function of what you give your brain to think about (garbage in, garbage out, after all). Thanks to Project Censored, we don’t have to settle for the prefabricated faux-news entertainment product – let’s call it Newz-Whiz® – that the corporate media insist on slopping up.

Remember, ignorance isn’t a crime unless it’s self-inflicted.