Pat Oliphant: can't hang around here all day
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Mike Luckovich; testy
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Tony Auth: foreign policy goals
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http://swiftreport.blogs.com/news/
Forget about Jacob, Madison and Abigail. The hottest baby names these days are Sean, Grover, Condi and Coulter--the monikers of Republican stars. But not every GOP personality is guaranteed a top spot on the baby name list. Experts say few parents are naming their children for Tucker Carlson, the beleaguered conservative commentator.
Most popular name among Hispanics: Gonzo, for Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez.
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002885.html
As the indictments stemming from Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation are revealed, several columnists and bloggers have been keeping the larger context of the Plame leak in view. Laura Rozen writes at War and Piece, "the Vice President's office was leading an all-out propaganda war - every bit as choreographed as the pre-war propaganda campaign by the same officials - to blame the CIA for the fact that there weren't any WMD to be found in Iraq after all, and the chief stated reason for the war was collapsing. And it enlisted not just leaks to reporters about Valerie Plame to conduct that war against the CIA. It also enlisted key Republican officials in Congress, to buck up its narrative, and literally divert attention from the role of the White House and executive branch offices in citing truly dubious Iraq intelligence - some, including the Niger yellowcake claims, not supported by the intelligence community at all. And Congress so far has gone along."
SOURCE: WarandPiece.com, October 19, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4117
LARRY JOHNSON, lcjohnso@ix.netcom.com, http://noquarter.typepad.com
Johnson worked as a CIA intelligence analyst and State Department counter-terrorism official. He is a member of the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He said: "It is slowly dawning on the American people that the Bush administration attack on Valerie and Joe Wilson was part of a broader conspiracy to hide the fact that our political leaders fabricated a case for war in Iraq. Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, and Karl Rove, among others, apparently preferred to destroy a valuable intelligence asset rather than expose the truth that the United States went to war in Iraq based on misinformation and deception. That is a crime deserving the most serious punishment."
From: Institute for Public Accuracy
When do words make you a criminal, conspirator, aider and abetter, and when do they make you a journalist, reporter, whistle-blower, free citizen? Soon we will know whether Karl Rove, Lewis 'Scooter' Libby or any other White House figure will face charges for revealing the name of a CIA operative as part of a campaign to silence her husband, a vocal critic of the war in Iraq. But as many major scandals do, the 'Plamegate' affair has sprouted hydra-heads of side scandals -- and none so interesting as the question of the role journalists have played in outing Valerie Plame...The treatment of journalists connected to Plamegate should send a cold chill through internet publishers of any stripe, and worry those of us intent on fully transporting democratic principles to the online world...Congress isn't likely to extend the narrow legal protections that mainstream journalists want to bloggers, message-board posters and mailing-list participants."
Learn more in Wired News.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,69350,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3
From: Future Brief
by Taxpayers for Common Sense www.taxpayer.net
Vol. X No. 37
October 28, 2005
Big Oil Blowout
America has seen its fair share of tough times these days: an ongoing war, a spate of devastating natural disasters, and a stumbling economy have all weighed heavily on families this fall. But there’s one group of Americans who’ve weathered the storm quite comfortably: top executives at big oil companies. With gasoline hovering at $3 a gallon and home heating oil prices expected to be the highest in recent memory, Big Oil execs have all the reason in the world to kick back, snack on brie and drink a little Chablis.
Since major energy companies are reaping record profits, you might think that Congress would, for once, stop trying to shovel tax dollars into Big Oil’s pockets. You’d be wrong. Lawmakers have been floating
a whole bunch of porky proposals for the oil and gas industry in the past few weeks, huge boondoggles that would cost taxpayers billions of dollars but do nothing to lower the price at the pump. To lawmakers, oil pork is like an itch they can’t stop scratching, and nothing seems to stop the craving.
Read the complete wastebasket here:
http://www.taxpayer.net/TCS/wastebasket/environment/2005-10-28bigoil.htm
GOING ON AT TAXPAYER.NET THIS WEEK
1. TCS opposed the newst incarnation of corporate welfare legislation known as the energy bill. Thankfully, the Senate had the good sense not to pass this porker out of conference.
2. The Costs of Katrina: Rebuilding the Gulf - TCS's resources on the cost of rebuilding the Gulf Coast, including a database of the largest reconstruction contracts given out thus far, as well as profiles of the contractors involved.
http://www.taxpayer.net/budget/katrinaspending/index.htm
3. Fiscal Roadmap for Reconstruction - Rebuilding the Gulf and restoring the lives of those who live there will cost the federal government $200 billion. We put together a reasonable and achievable
list of budget offsets for how Congress can pay for this massive undertaking. One of our suggestions: cut $10 billion in pork from the transportation bill.
http://www.taxpayer.net/budget/katrinaspending/fiscalroadmap.htm
ACTION ITEMS
Take action to tell your Senator how you feel about their vote on the "bridges to nowhere" amendment
http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/issues/alert/?alertid=8150666&type=CO
Comment:
"Yes, our numbers are large, but we are half the size of the returns of the financials and pharmaceuticals."
--American Petroleum Institute President Red Cavaney, defending the oil industry's record profits in the third quarter of 2005
The conventional wisdom that there is a growing gap between the skills U.S. workers possess and the skills employers need is at best questionable and may even be false, according to a new study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). The study’s author, Michael Handel, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, shows the skills of American workers are not as weak nor job requirements changing as rapidly as published accounts suggest. For copies of the study, Worker Skills and Job Requirements, visit
http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/book_worker_skills .
From: Work in Progress
International Trade: U.S. and India Data on Offshoring Show Significant Differences.
GAO-06-116, October 27.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-116
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06116high.pdf
Quantum computers that store information in so-called quantum bits (or qubits) will be confronted with a fundamental limitation. A quantum bit typically consists of a large number of particles, with an unavoidably large number of possibilities to be influenced by the environment and thus be subjected to decoherence. Scientists have now investigated whether it is possible to maintain the coherence in an isolated qubit. Much to their surprise they discovered that the coherence tends to spontaneously disappear, even without external influences.
http://www.sciscoop.com/story/2005/7/7/181435/9625
From:
http://techlifeblogged.blogspot.com/2005/09/tools-for-web-based-office.html
ZDnet has a nice round up of tools for The Web-based Office.
See: http://blogs.zdnet.com/web2explorer/index.php?p=20
Bad Reporter: bush nominates
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Tom Toles: inner circle
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Matt Bors: democrats attack
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http://swiftreport.blogs.com/news/
Members of the Dover, PA school board have ordered science teachers who teach in area high schools to begin each session of their classes with a recitation of the beloved inspirational poem known as "Footprints in the Sand." Board members and some parents say that "Footprints" teaches important lessons about natural history, geology and oceanography.
Skeptics ask 'what happened to the other set of footprints?'
In the week we mourned the death of the 2,000th U.S. soldier in Iraq, I. Lewis Libby, vice presidential chief of staff, was indicted today on five felony charges of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to the FBI in the grand jury investigation into the leak of the name of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, whose husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had been critical of pre-war intelligence on Iraq. According to news reports, the investigation of White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove will continue.
This case goes well beyond petty intrigue and personal revenge. As people of faith, it is time to raise our voices and demand the truth about actions that - if proven in court - were threads of misinformation and manipulation that pushed our nation into war with Iraq and punished those who discovered credible evidence against it. With the prophet Isaiah we cry out: "No one calls for justice, nor does any plead for truth" (Isaiah 59:4).
»Click here to ask Congress for an independent investigation to determine if and how the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to justify war in Iraq.
http://go.sojo.net/campaign/demand_truth/w8nus5s4h5tmb5m?
The indictment of Libby raises the possibility that top White House officials deliberately attacked someone who questioned the validity of the intelligence the White House used to claim there were "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq - intelligence that has now been discredited. More importantly, this indictment provokes further questions about whether going to war was simply an honest mistake based on bad intelligence. Are the alleged actions of Libby isolated incidents of revenge, or are they the tip of the iceberg in a conspiracy to mislead the American people into war?
We demand a truly independent commission that will investigate whether the Bush administration deliberately misled our nation into going to war. Although creating an independent commission will not bring back the 2,000 American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis who have died as a result of this war, it will nevertheless be a step toward restoring honesty and integrity to the nation's highest office.
»Click here to ask Congress for an independent investigation to determine if and how the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to justify war in Iraq.
http://go.sojo.net/campaign/demand_truth/w8nus5s4h5tmb5m?
President Bush's administration claimed in the run-up to the war that the primary justification for going to war was the threat of weapons of mass destruction. In March 2005, a commission appointed by President Bush reported that "the intelligence community was dead wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction."[1] The commission went on to report that these were simply intelligence failures, but found no evidence of any deliberate attempt by intelligence officials to mislead the administration about the war. In short, they concluded that these were honest - yet highly serious mistakes. We need an independent commission that differs from previous investigations in that members not only focus on errors within the intelligence community but at potential errors within the administration.
We want the truth about why we went to war with Iraq. Help us find it:
This is not a matter of partisan politics, nor of political revenge. It is a matter of uncovering the truth about why we went to war. Sojourners has worked for peace with justice for more than 30 years. We have been consistent and vocal opponents of the war in Iraq, and we take it seriously when voices of dissent become targets of intimidation for political gain. We have a long and consistent history of demanding integrity from our national leaders - from Nixon, to Reagan, to Clinton, and now the Bush administration.
As people of faith, we believe that the authority for governance balances on a commitment to truth when leading a nation into war and putting at risk our lives and those of our "enemies." We will not stand by while our nation's elected officials "trust in empty words and speak lies; conceive evil and bring forth iniquity" (Isaiah 59:4b).
We need your help to get 25,000 people to sign this petition by Wednesday. After you sign the petition, follow the instructions to forward this message to 10 or more of your friends, family, fellow churchgoers - anyone who believes in our call as people of faith to be prophetic voices of truth and peacemaking.
»Click here to sign a petition asking Congress for an independent investigation of President Bush's administration to determine if and how intelligence was knowingly manipulated leading up to the war in Iraq.
http://go.sojo.net/campaign/demand_truth/w8nus5s4h5tmb5m?
Blessings,
The staff at Sojourners
[1] From the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, March 31, 2005. http://www.wmd.gov/report/transmittal_letter.html
MIKE GRAVEL, sengravel@ni4d.us, http://ni4d.us
Gravel, currently president of Direct Democracy, was a noted critic of the Vietnam War while in the Senate. He entered the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record. He said today: "The indictment of Libby says that this is a serious investigation; his continuing the investigation says that this is the tip of the iceberg. Fitzgerald needs more time to dig around, but he's serious about putting people behind bars, so you could see people finally coming clean. Cheney has been the most aggressive leader in the administration and told the biggest lies about the war, and this puts it at his doorstep, so he could well go through a Spiro Agnew experience." In 2002, Gravel stated that the administration was deceiving the nation into war with Iraq.
See:
http://accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=630 .
From: Institute for Public Accuracy
Access this story and related links online:
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=33391
Retailer J.C. Penney and Josten's, which distributes school yearbooks and class rings, recently notified retirees that they will discontinue some or all of their health benefits when the new Medicare prescription drug plan takes effect Jan. 1, 2006, the Fresno Bee reports. J.C. Penney spokesperson Tim Lyon said the company will discontinue all health benefits for about 9,500 retirees who are older than age 65. "The majority of claims in our retiree medical plan are prescription drug claims, particularly in the 65 and older. The fact that Medicare was implementing prescription drug coverage in 2006 was the impetus for the change," Lyon said. J.C. Penney will help retirees enroll in a plan offered by AARP and will pay 55% of the premium cost for one year as a transition. Lyon said, "It is our feeling that the coverage under the AARP plan will tend to be better than what they have now under J.C. Penney." Richard Stoebeid, a spokesperson for Josten's, said the new Medicare benefit also prompted the company to discontinue prescription drug benefits for retirees older than age 65. He said, "Prescription drug coverage had been a gap in the Medicare program, so really, because of that, we have offered supplemental drug coverage that was paid for by the retirees." Stoebeid would not say how many
retirees will be affected by the change.
Reaction
Robert Hayes, president of the Medicare Rights Center, said the two companies are the first organizations he has heard of that will reduce retiree benefits because of the drug benefit. "The national score card is suggesting that most companies are holding steady this year. The bailing out by these employers is particularly regrettable," Hayes said. CMS spokesperson Jack Cheevers said the agency has not heard of any employers cutting benefits as a result of the new Medicare drug benefit, but he added that employers "are not required to inform us if they are dropping coverage." Cheevers said a federal subsidy to help offset retiree health care costs at companies would encourage employers to maintain retiree benefits. However, Hayes said the moves by J.C. Penney and Josten's are an indication that thesubsidy will not be enough to persuade employers to provide retiree drug coverage, and he said he expects more companies to reduce benefits in the coming months (Correa, Fresno Bee,
10/28).
Center for Economic and Policy Research
http://www.cepr.net/pressreleases/2005_10_18.htm
Only 25.2% of workers have a job that pays at least $16 per hour and provides health insurance and a pension. Between 1979 and 2004 the share of American workers in good jobs remained unchanged at about 25%, despite strong economic growth over that period. (The report defines a "good job" as one that offers at least $16 per hour or $32,000 annually, employer-paid health insurance and a pension.) In the last quarter century, the workforce has become older, more experienced and better educated, but 75% of workers are still struggling in jobs that do not provide health insurance, a pension and solid middle-class wages.
From: Poacnewsletter
U.S. District Judges Nancy Edmunds, left, of Detroit and James Carr of Toledo and Ohio appellate Judge William Skow of Toledo listen to UT law student George Thomas.
( THE BLADE/LISA DUTTON )
By IGNAZIO MESSINA
BLADE STAFF WRITER
In a mock courtroom case that revolved around the concept of intelligent design, a fictitious junior high school teacher likely would have lost his bid to teach the controversial theory.
The University of Toledo college of law yesterday held its annual Charles W. Fornoff Competition, in which law students engage in appellate arguments before three actual judges.
The case, which is similar to actual court cases, including one federal trial being held in Pennsylvania, involved an eighth-grade teacher who taught intelligent design despite a school district policy prohibiting the concept.
"In the regard of intelligent design, we may change the name of God to an intelligent being," said second-year law student George Thomas, who argued for the fictitious school district. "Certainpeople could not believe in that concept."
WHAT THEY ARE
• Intelligent design is a concept that the complexity of living things is evidence for the existence of an intelligent being or cosmic designer. The concept asserts that the features of living things and the universe exhibit characteristics resulting from an intelligent design, not an unguided process such as
natural selection.
• Evolution is a concept that embodies the belief that animals and plants developed by a process of gradual and continuous change from previously existing forms. The theory says groups of organisms change with the passage of time, mainly as a result of natural selection, so descendants differ physiologically from their ancestors.
. . .
Complete article at:
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051028/NEWS21/510280359&SearchID=73224835933981
"Federal law enforcement attempts to use cell phones as tracking devices were rebuked twice this month by lower court judges, who say the government cannot get real time tracking information on citizens without showing probable cause. This summer, Department of Justice officials separately asked judges from Texas and Long Island, New York to sign off on orders to cellular phone service providers compelling them to turn over phone records and location information -- in real time -- on two different individuals. Both judges rejected the location tracking portion of the request in harshly worded opinions, concluding investigators cannot turn cell phones into tracking devices by simply telling a judge the information is likely 'relevant' to an investigation."
Learn more in Wired News.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,69390,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_4
From: Future Brief
Political blogs aren't just reacting to news anymore - they're making it.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1027/p01s03-uspo.html
Mike Luckovich: why?
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/shared-blogs/ajc/luckovich/media/mikewhy1.jpg
Lloyd Dangle trouble town: karl rove
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Steve Benson: cut my loses
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/benson/pics/102805benson348.gif
SENATORS GRILL MIERS ON PLANS TO SPEND MORE TIME WITH FAMILY
Letter of Withdrawal Incomplete, Lawmakers Complain
Just minutes after Harriet Miers, President Bush's nominee for the United States Supreme Court, issued a letter withdrawing her nomination for the nation's highest court, members of the U.S. Senate blasted her withdrawal, calling her plans to spend more time with her family vague and ill-defined.
"When Harriet Miers says she wants to spend more time with her family, what family is she talking about and what activities does she intend to fill that time with?" said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY). "Her letter of withdrawal, in my view, has raised more questions than it has answered."
On the other side of the aisle, Sen. Trent Lott (D-Miss.) said that he had submitted several written questions to Ms. Miers regarding her decision to spend more time with her family, but that the embattled nominee had failed to answer them.
"I asked Harriet Miers to name one hobby she intends to pursue after she withdraws her nomination," said. Sen. Lott. "She has yet to reply."
Meanwhile, in a sign that he is desperate to pick someone popular enough to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, President Bush said today that he had nominated Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, star of the hit movie "Doom," to take Ms. Miers' place.
"The Rock has the number one movie in the country right now," an exasperated Mr. Bush told reporters at the White House. "Come on, guys -- that should count for something."
Elsewhere, one day after singer Janet Jackson told reporters that she did not have a child, her brother Michael offered to lend her one.
Borowitzreport.com
Why Iraq Still sells its oil à la cartel
Twilight of the neocon gods
Exclusive to Harper's Magazine
Monday, October 24, 2005
By Greg Palast
Note: This Saturday, October 22, Greg Palast and his co-author, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, received a Project Censored award, the "alternative Pulitzer Prize," for their report, JIM CROW RETURNS TO THE VOTING BOOTH: DOES AMERICA HAVE AN APARTHEID VOTE-COUNTING SYSTEM?
The Palast investigative team received a second award for uncovering the State Department's confidential pre-war plans for the economic conquest of Iraq.
By special arrangement with Harper's magazine, we are reproducing here for the first time the entire updated article on the US government's secret schemes for seizing control of the oil fields of Iraq....
TWO AND A HALF YEARS AND $202 BILLION into the war in Iraq, the United States has at least one significant new asset to show for it: effective membership, through our control of Iraq's energy policy, in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the Arab-dominated oil cartel.
Just what to do with this proxy power has been, almost since President Bush's first inaugural, the cause of a pitched battle between neoconservatives at the Pentagon, on the one hand, and the State Department and the oil industry, on the other. At issue is whether Iraq will remain a member in good standing of OPEC, upholding production limits and thereby high prices, or a mutinous spoiler that could topple the Arab oligopoly.
According to insiders and to documents obtained from the State Department, the neocons, once in command, are now in full retreat. Iraq's system of oil production, after a year of failed free-market experimentation, is being re-created almost entirely on the lines originally laid out by Saddam Hussein.
Under the quiet direction of U.S. oil company executives working with the State Department, the Iraqis have discarded the neocon vision of a laissez faire, privatized oil operation in favor of one shackled to quotas set by OPEC, which have been key to the 148% rise in oil prices since the beginning of 2002. This rise is estimated to have cost the U.S. economy 1.5% of its GDP, or a third of its total growth during the period.
Given this economic blow, and given that OPEC states account for 46% of America's oil imports, it may seem odd that the United States' "remaking" of Iraq would allow for a national oil company that props up OPEC's price gouging. And in fact the original scheme for reconstruction, at least the one favored by neoconservatives, was to privatize Iraq's oil entirely and thereby undermine the oil cartel. One intellectual godfather of this strategy was Ariel Cohen of the Heritage Foundation, who in September 2002 published (with Gerald P. O'Driscoll, Jr.) a post-invasion plan, "The Road to Economic Prosperity for a Post-Saddam Iraq," that put forward the idea of using Iraq to smash OPEC. Cohen explained to me how such an extraordinary geopolitical feat might be accomplished. OPEC maintains high oil prices by suppressing production through a quota system effectively imposed on each member by Saudi Arabia, which reigns by dint of its overwhelming reserves. The Saudis, to maintain their control on pricing, must keep a lid on production from other members-particularly Iraq, which has the second greatest proven reserves.
Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq adhered to the OPEC quota limit (historically set to equal Iran's, now 3.96 million barrels a day) via state ownership of all fields. Cohen reasoned that if Iraq's fields were broken up and sold off, a dozen competing operators would quickly crank up production from their individual patches to the maximum possible, swiftly raising Iraq's total output to 6 million barrels a day. This extra crude would flood world petroleum markets, OPEC would devolve into mass cheating and overproduction, oil prices would fall over a cliff, and Saudi Arabia-both economically and politically - would fall to its knees.
By February 2003, Cohen's position had been enshrined as official policy, in the form of a hundred-page blueprint for the occupied nation titled, "Moving the Iraqi Economy from Recovery to Sustainable Growth"-a plan that generally embodied the principles for postwar Iraq favored by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and the Iran-Contra figure Elliott Abrams, now Deputy National Security Adviser. Nominally written by a committee of Defense, State, and Treasury officials, the blueprint was in fact the brainchild of a platoon of corporate lobbyists, chief among them the flattax fanatic Grover Norquist. From overhauling tax rates to rewriting copyright law, the document mapped out a radical makeover of Iraq as a free-market Xanadu-a sort of Chile on the Tigris-including, on page 73, the sell-off of the nation's crown jewels: "privatization... [of] the oil and supporting industries."
Following the U.S. military's swift advance to Baghdad, those skeptical of the neocon plan were summarily brushed aside. Chief among the castoffs was General Jay Garner, the shortlived occupation viceroy who on the very night he arrived in Baghdad from Kuwait received a call from Rumsfeld informing him of his dismissal. When I met with Garner last March at the Washington offices of L3 Corporation's giant security subsidiary he now heads, the general told me that he had resisted imposing on Iraqis the plan's sell-off of assets, especially the oil. "That's just one fight you don't have to take on right now," he said. "You don't want to end the day with more enemies than you started with."
In plotting the destruction of OPEC, the neocons failed to predict the virulent resistance of insurgent forces: the U.S. oil industry itself. From the outset of the planning for war, U.S. oil executives had thrown in their lot with the pragmatists at the State Department and the National Security Council. Within weeks of the first inaugural, prominent Iraqi expatriates-many with ties to U.S. industry-were invited to secret discussions directed by Pamela Quanrud, an NSC economics expert now employed at State. "It quickly became an oil group," one participant, Falah Aljibury, told me. Aljibury, an adviser to Amerada Hess's oil trading arm and to investment banking giant Goldman Sachs, who once served as a back channel between the United States and Iraq during the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations, cut ties to the Hussein regime following the invasion of Kuwait.
The working group's ideas about the war had been far less starry-eyed than those of the neocons. "The petroleum industry, the chemical industry, the banking industry-they'd hoped that Iraq would go for a revolution like in the past and government was shut down for two or three days," Aljibury told me. "You have a martial law . . . and say Iraq is being liberated and everybody stay where they are . . . Everything as is." On this plan, Hussein would simply have been replaced by some former Baathist general. One candidate was General Nizar Khazraji, Saddam's former army chief of staff, who at the time was under house arrest in Denmark pending charges for war crimes. (Khazraji was seen in Iraq a month after the U.S. invasion, but he soon disappeared and has not been heard from since.)
Roughly six months before the invasion, the Bush Administration designated Philip Carroll to advise the Iraqi Oil Ministry once U.S. tanks entered Baghdad. Carroll had been CEO of both Fluor Corporation, now a major contractor in Iraq, and, earlier, of Royal Dutch/Shell's U.S. division. In May 2003, a month after his arrival in Iraq, Carroll made headlines when he told the Washington Post that Iraq might break with OPEC: "[Iraqis] have from time to time, because of compelling national interest, elected to opt out of the quota system and pursue their own path. . . . They may elect to do that same thing. To me, it's a very important national question." Carroll later told me, though, that he personally would not have been supportive of privatizing oil fields. "Nobody in their right mind would have thought of doing that," he said.
Soon after Carroll resigned his post in September 2003, the new provisional government appointed an oil minister, Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum. Uloum (who had been maneuvered into the job by then-neocon favorite Ahmad Chalabi) quickly fired Muhammad al-Jiburi, chief of Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization, and Thamer Ghadhban, the expert in charge of the southern oil fields, both of whom had been trusted by the Western oil industry. Production faltered from a combination of incompetence, wholesale theft (Iraq's oil was unmetered), sabotage, and corruption that one oilman told me was "rampant," with "direct payoffs to government officials by commercial operators."
With pipelines exploding daily, the fantasy of remaking Iraq's oil industry also went up in flames. Carroll was replaced by another Houston oil chieftain, Rob McKee, a former executive vice-president of ConocoPhillips and currently the chairman-even during his tenure in Baghdad-of Enventure, an oil-drilling supply subsidiary of the Halliburton Corporation. McKee had little tolerance for the neocons' threat to privatize the oil fields. A close associate of McKee's and the executive adviser to Hess's trading arm, Ed Morse, told me that "Rob was very promotive of putting in place a really strong national oil company," even if he had to act over the objections of the Iraqi Governing Council. Morse, who says he takes as many as six calls a day from the Bush Administration regarding Iraq, is one of the men to whom Washington turns to obtain the views of Big Oil. Like Carroll and McKee, Morse sneers at what he calls "the obsession of neo-conservative writers on ways to undermine OPEC." Iraqis, says Morse, know that if they pump 6 million barrels a day, i.e., 2 million above their expected OPEC quota, "they will crash the oil market" and bring down their own economy.
In November 2003, McKee quietly ordered up a new plan for Iraq's oil. The drafting would be overseen by a "senior adviser," Amy Jaffe, who had worked for Morse when he held the formidable title of Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations-James Baker III Institute Joint Committee on Petroleum Security. Jaffe now works for Baker, the former Secretary of State, whose law firm serves as counsel to both ExxonMobil and the defense minister of Saudi Arabia. The plan, nominally written by State Department contractor BearingPoint, was guided, says Jaffe, by a handful of oil industry consultants and executives.
For months, the State Department officially denied the existence of this 323-page plan for Iraq's oil, but when I identified the document's title from my sources and threatened legal action, I was able to obtain the complete report, dated December 2003 and entitled "Options for Developing a Long Term Sustainable Iraqi Oil Industry." The multi-volume document describes seven possible models of oil production for Iraq, each one merely a different flavor of a single option: the creation of a state-owned oil company. The seven options ranged from the Saudi Aramco model, in which the government owns the whole operation from reserves to pipelines, to the Azerbaijan model, in which the state-owned assets are operated almost entirely by "IOCs" (International Oil Companies). The drafters had little regard for the "self-financing" system, such as Saudi Arabia's, which bars IOCs from the fields; they prefer the production-sharing agreement (PSA) model, under which the state maintains official title to the reserves but operation and control are given to foreign oil companies. These companies then manage, fund, and equip crude extraction in exchange for a percentage of sales receipts.
While promoting IOC control of the fields, the authors take care to warn the Iraqi government against attempting to squeeze IOC profits: "Countries that do not offer risk-adjusted rates of return equal to or above other nations will be unlikely to achieve significant levels of investment, regardless of the richness of their geology." Indeed, to outbid other nations for Big Oil's favor will require Iraq to turn over quite a large share of profits, especially when competing against countries such as Azerbaijan that have given away the store. The Azeri government, notes the report, has "been able to partially overcome their risk profile and attract billions of dollars of investment by offering a contractual balance of commercial interests within the risk contract." This refers to the fact that Azerbaijan, despite its poor oil quality and poor location, drew in the IOCs via scandalous splits of revenue allowed by the nation's corrupt government.
Given how easily the interests of OPEC and those of the IOCs can be aligned, it is certainly understandable why smashing the oil cartel would not strike oilmen as a good idea. In 2004, with oil approaching the $50-a-barrel mark all year, the major U.S. oil companies posted record or near record profits. ConocoPhillips, Rob McKee's company, this February reported a doubling of its quarterly profits from the previous year, which itself had been a company record; Carroll's former employer, Shell, posted a record-breaking $4.48 billion in fourth-quarter earnings. ExxonMobil last year reported the largest one-year operating profit of any corporation in U.S. history.
When I talked to Ariel Cohen at Heritage, his dream of smashing OPEC in shambles, he blamed the State Department for acquiescing to the Saudis and to Russia, which also benefit s from selling oil at high OPEC prices. The poisonous policies were influenced, he said, by "Arab economists hired by the State Department who are basically supporting the witches' brew of the Saudi royal family and the Soviet ostblock . . . because the Saudis are interested in maximizing their market share and they're not interested in fast growth of the Iraqi output."
According to Morse, the switch to an OPEC-friendly policy for Iraq was driven by Dick Cheney himself. "The person who is most influential in running American energy policy is the Vice President," who, says Morse, "thinks that security begins by . . . letting prices follow wherever they may."
Even, I asked, if those are artificially high prices, set by OPEC? "The VP's office [has] not pursued a policy in Iraq that would lead to a rapid opening of the Iraqi energy sector . . . so they have not done anything, either with producers or energy policy, that would put us on a track to say, 'We're going to put a squeeze on OPEC.'"
Opposition to OPEC was handled in a style that would have made Saddam proud. On May 20, 2004, Iraqi police raided Ahmad Chalabi's home in Baghdad and carted away his computers and files. Chalabi was hunted by his own government: the charge was espionage, no less, for Iran. Chalabi's Governing Council was soon shut down and, crucially, Bahr al-Uloum was yanked from the Oil Ministry and replaced by the very men he had removed: Thamer Ghadhban, who took al-Uloum's job at the oil ministry and Chalabi rival Muhammad al-Jiburi who was made minister of trade.
But just when you thought the fat lady sang for the neo-cons, who should rise from his crypt eight months later but Ahmad Chalabi. In January 2005, Chalabi cut a deal with his former oil minister's father, a Shia power broker, and rode that religious ethnic vote back into office. Chalabi landed himself the post of Second Deputy Prime Minister and, in addition, the tantalizing title of interim oil minister. The espionage investigation was dropped; the King of Jordan offered to pardon Chalabi for the $72 million missing from Chalabi's former bank; and Chalabi once again turned over his oil ministry to Sheik al-Uloum's son. The Texans' OPEC man Ghadhban, was again kicked downstairs.
But Chalabi had learned his lesson: don't mess with Texas, or the Texan's favorite cartel. A chastened Chalabi now endorses Iraq's cooperation with OPEC's fleecing of the planet's oil consumers.
And Dick Cheney, far from "putting the squeeze on OPEC," has taken his de facto seat there, assenting by silence to the oil monopoly's piratical price gouging. But hasn't OPEC's stratospheric crude prices choked the life out of America's auto industry and bankrupted half a dozen airlines? In the Vice-President's bunker the elimination of jobs of Democratic-leaning union members is likely seen as a bonus for the good deed of boosting oil industry profits far above the ozone layer.
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. This is his fourth investigative report for Harper's Magazine. Leni von Eckardt was chief researcher with Palast on this project. This is the Palast team's fifth Project Censored award from California State University's school of journalism.
The BBC Television Newsnight broadcast of this story was produced by Meirion Jones. View the BBC report and sign up for Palast's investigation updates at www.GregPalast.com
A Times Editorial
Published October 26, 2005
Let's play pretend. Imagine for a moment that Congress is competent and cares about the financial security of Americans, especially thosenearing retirement. In that fantasy scenario, the House and Senate would be working feverishly to fix the nation's overburdened pension system, so that promised benefits would be there when needed.
In the real world, Congress is working feverishly on pension law, but not to fix the problems. Instead, under the influence of powerful corporate and union interests, lawmakers are making sure no reform occurs. That way it is easier for managers and union leaders to promise more in benefits than they can deliver.
The concept of reform is simple - make companies that offer defined-benefit pensions fund them adequately, and raise insurance premiums so that the government-backed Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. remains solvent. PBGC protects the pensions of nearly 45-million workers and retirees, but has run into financial difficulty itself because of large failures in the airline industry. If private pension funds don't cover the PBGC's current $23-billion deficit, then taxpayers will have to.
None of that has given Congress a sense of urgency.
. . .
Complete article at: http://www.sptimes.com/Tampabay.shtml
October 25, 2005 latimes.com
Robert Scheer:
MAYBE IT'S because I recently was awakened by a volley of gunshots that resulted in the death of an innocent college student — a budding leader in her community — that I am so outraged that Congress has decided to grant the gun lobby its most fervent and irresponsible wish: blanket immunity from civil lawsuits.
That protection, offered to no other industry, was assured last week when the House ratified a bill, previously passed by the Senate, shielding gun manufacturers and retailers from civil lawsuits by the victims of gun violence. The bill, now heading to the president's desk for certain approval, is a reward to the National Rifle Assn. and the rest of the gun industry lobby for doing so much to put the Republican Party in power.
Although the Senate passed the bill with the Bush administration's blessing before Hurricane Katrina, the gun lobby is justifying its victory as a logical response to the breakdown of civil order in the aftermath of the storm.
When "no police protection was available, [New Orleans residents were] defending their lives and their property with a firearm," said NRA leader Wayne LaPierre, who labeled the new legislation a "historic victory for the NRA."
What irony that the NRA once again invoked the 2nd Amendment, which was intended to preserve the states' right to maintain "a well-regulated militia."
The National Guard is the modern incarnation of the state militias that the framers of the Constitution had in mind. Its failure to protect New Orleans had nothing to do with a lack of a lawsuit shield for gun manufacturers and everything to do with this administration depleting the local National Guards through deployment to Iraq while dragging its feet in responding to a natural disaster at home.
Complete article at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-scheer25oct25,0,394421.story?track=tothtml
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/10/25/bush_in_pr_blitz_amid_leak_probe/
"With indictments" in the Plame leak case possibly looming, "Republicans are preparing a public relations blitz aimed at shoring up public support for the Bush administration," writes the Boston Globe. "The outlines ... emerged on the Sunday talk shows," when guests like Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison said perjury charges would be technicalities, "just to show that their two years of
investigation was not a waste." Other Republican angles, the Wall Street Journal reports", include "complaining about prosecutorial overreach" and questioning the credibility of retired diplomat Joseph Wilson. The Republican National Committee circulated a document titled, "Joe Wilson's Top Ten Worst Inaccuracies and Misstatements." A top Democratic talking point is that the case "is about how the Bush administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to bolster its case for war in Iraq." Democrats are also urging "a thorough housecleaning" and throwing "Mr. Bush's oft-repeated claims of integrity back at him."
SOURCE: The Boston Globe, October 25, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4111
The Monitor's White House correspondent answers key questions about the investigation.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1028/p03s01-uspo.html
NASEER ARURI, naruri@aol.com, http://counterpunch.org/aruri1028.html
Aruri is chancellor professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth; he wrote the article "Remapping the Middle East." Aruri said today: "The report relies on numerous sources, many of whom have their own agendas. I don't find anything in it that looks like a police investigation. Rather, it seems crafted to help the U.S. government, which was targeting Syria well before the Hariri assassination with the Syria Accountability Act and UN Security Council Resolution 1595. The larger goal is to reshape the strategic landscape; in the case of Syria, either through regime change or regime taming. Crippling Syria is particularly important since it is a remnant of Arab nationalism which the U.S. does not like to tolerate and which Israel does not like to deal with."
From: Institute for Public Accuracy
U.S. District Judge Joseph A. Greenaway ruled Oct. 7 that a group of undocumented immigrants, most of whom worked for a cleaning contractor, could proceed with their lawsuit charging Wal-Mart with violating federal wage laws and false imprisonment. The immigrants’ complaint alleges Wal-Mart required them to work up to 70 hours a week without overtime pay and locked store doors while they worked so they could not leave unless a Wal-Mart manager unlocked the doors.
From: Work in Progress
In the News:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/
* Latest Images:
Wilma Floods Florida
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17075
Hurricane Wilma Crosses Florida
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17074
Hurricane Wilma Strikes the Yucatan
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17072
Fall Colors in the Wasatch Range, Utah
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17071
Landslide, Neelum River, Pakistan
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17070
Mount Belinda Erupts
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17069
Hurricane Wilma
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17068
Provincetown Spit, Cape Cod, Massachusetts
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17067
* Media Alerts
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/MediaAlerts/
- Seeing the Forest and Trees
- Selective Logging Causes Widespread Destruction of Brazil's Amazon
- Rainforest, Study Finds
- Breakup of Glaciers Raising Sea Level Concern
- Entire Lakes Feel Effects of Climate Warming, University of Alberta
- Study Shows
- Climate Model Predicts Dramatic Changes over Next 100 Years
- Seafloor Creatures Destroyed by Ice Action during Ice Ages
- Mountain Winds May Create Atmospheric Hotspots
* Headlines from the press, radio, and television:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/Headlines/
- Volcano Erupts on Largest Galapagos Island
- Tropical Storm Alpha Drenches Hispaniola
- Wilma Threatens Florida with 110-mph Winds
- Seesawing Gas Kept Earth Frozen for Longer
- Group Tracks Cougar Population in Midwest
- Tropical Storm Alpha Breaks Atlantic Record
- Four Dead as Wilma Wreaks Havoc on Mexico Resorts
- Bad Science Led to Poor Panther Protection, Experts Say
- Researchers: No Way to Halt Tree-Killing Asian Beetle's Destruction
- Dutch Windmills at Risk from Climate Change
- Scientists: Better Preparation Needed for Inevitable Disasters
- Deadly Wilma Tears Into Mexico Resort Area
- Delta Waters Safe for Swimming Again
- Camera to Take Snapshot of Reef Water Quality
- Strong Quake Kills Two in Turkey, Sparks Widespread Panic
- California Landslide Part of Ancient Problem
- Old Ways of Life Are Fading as the Arctic Thaws
- Greenland Ice Cap Thickens Slightly
- Rain-Forest Damage Much Worse Than Thought
- Global Warming a Major Threat to Africa
- Termites Could Spread and Boom after Hurricane
- Varying Wilma Models Confound Forecasters
- Wilma's Rage Suggests New Hurricane Categories Needed
- Earthquake Shakes Tokyo
- Antarctic Species Feel the Warmth
- Wilma Sets Barometric Pressure Record
- Antarctic Ozone Hole May Have Peaked, UN Agency Says
- Scientists: Mission to Venus Could Help Beat Global Warming
- Warming to Cause Harsher Weather, Study Says
- Expert: Warming Trends Could Plague New Mexico
- Puget Sound Region Feeling Climate Change
- Global Warming Takes Toll on Africa's Coral Reefs
- Polar Regions Take Center Stage in Climate Crisis
- Antarctic Ice Melts as Sea Warms but Cause Unknown
- Earthquake Prediction Eludes Scientists
- Climate Change May Mean Green Sahel
- Warmer Climate Produces Less Rain
* New Research Highlights
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/Research/
Pat Oliphant: 200 u.s. dead
http://www.uclick.com/client/wpc/ta/
Stuart Carlson: stay the course
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/sc/2005/sc051026.gif
Slowpoke: Paradoxes of our times
http://workingforchange.speedera.net/www.workingforchange.com/webgraphics/WFC/js102405.gif
ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS REPAIRING MASSIVE LEAK IN CHENEY
Leak Went Undetected For Two Years, Says Army Corps Chief
The Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) began working around the clock to repair what they called "a massive leak" in Vice President Dick Cheney, the head of the USACE confirmed today.
Lieutenant General Carl A. Strock, Commander and Chief of Engineers for the USACE, said that the leak in the vice president was approximately four inches in diameter and was located in the lower half of Mr. Cheney's face.
"When we realized the size and scope of this leak, we immediately sent an emergency team of engineers to the vice president's head to address the problem," Lieutenant General Strock said.
But even as the USACE team was dispatched to the vice president's secure, undisclosed location, some experts wondered why the leak, which reportedly first appeared in July of 2003, took so long to attract the attention of the government.
According to Dr. Lawrence Trester of the University of Minnesota's School of Engineering, "It strains credulity that a four-inch leak in the vice president's face wouldn't show up in one of his annual checkups."
Dr. Trester added, "It's also surprising that no one knew about the leak, since apparently a New York Times reporter was in the vicinity when it burst."
At the White House, President George W. Bush also expressed surprise at the magnitude of the vice president's leak: "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of Dick Cheney's piehole."
Elsewhere, the World Health Organization said that in a worst-case scenario, the avian flu could spread from a bird to Jude Law and then to half the world's population.
Borowitzreport.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/19/AR2005101902246.html
Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff at the State Department until early this year, publicly blasted the Bush Administration, including accusing George W. Bush of "cowboyism."
The Washington Post's Dana Milbank writes, "He said the vice president and the secretary of defense created a 'Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal' that hijacked U.S. foreign policy." Speaking at the New America Foundation, Wilkerson said, "I'm not sure the State Department even exists anymore," referring to U.S. public diplomacy. "And how about Karen Hughes' efforts to boost the country's image
abroad? 'It's hard to sell [manure],' Wilkerson said, quoting an Egyptian friend," Milbank writes. As part of an oral history project, another State Deparment veteran said Bush's rush to invade Iraq was driven by "clear political pressure." Robin Raphel, who was coordinator for Iraq assistance, said after the invasion it became clear that U.S. officials "could not run a country we did not understand... .
It was very much amateur hour," the Los Angeles Times reports.
SOURCE: Washington Post, October 20, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4116
SEAN O'NEILL, CAMILO MEJIA, via Andrea Buffa, andrea@globalexchange.org, http://www.ivaw.net
O'Neill is a decorated Marine who was twice deployed to Iraq. A member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, he said today: "I hope that this milestone marks the point when the American people realize the U.S. military is not going to stop the violence in Iraq, and they instead start demanding a political solution to this problem."
Mejia is an Iraq combat veteran who served a year in prison for refusing to return to the war in Iraq. He is also a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. He said today: "The clock has stopped ticking for 2,000 Americans in Iraq, and once again there is a ... reason for people to pay closer attention to the human cost of a lie, but for how long this time? Should we only count by each thousand? Perhaps it's time for the American public to realize that each death counts, American, Iraqi, or otherwise. Perhaps it's time for us to keep counting until the war stops. In all our idleness and complacency that's the least we owe to the families of those fallen for this lie; God knows their suffering never
ends."
From: Institute for Public Accuracy
Dear Working Families e-Activist,
News alert: Your activism is restoring decent pay for Gulf Coast workers!
Faced with massive public outrage, President George W. Bush is restoring wages he cut for the construction workers who will rebuild the hurricane-damaged Gulf Coast.
Right after Hurricane Katrina hit, President Bush signed an executive order allowing federal contractors to pay substandard wages to construction workers who will rebuild the Gulf Coast—workers who already had lost so much and were struggling to rebuild their lives and their communities.
But you and other working family activists made the difference. You sent more than 350,000 messages to Congress and the White House—and it worked: 37 House Republicans urged the White House to reverse the suspension, and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) led unanimous opposition by Democrats to the president’s suspension.
We won. Gulf Coast workers won. President Bush is lifting his pay cut as of Nov. 8.
Now he must reinstate affirmative action requirements for contractors in the Gulf and end his attempts to slash programs for working families while adding new tax breaks for the rich—we’ll keep working on that and, of course, ask you to do your part.
You are a powerful force for working families. Thank you for restoring decent pay for Gulf Coast workers.
In solidarity,
Working Families e-Activist Network, AFL-CIO
Oct. 26, 2005
For more information contact:
Svetlana Savranskaya 202/994-7000
http://www.nsarchive.org
Washington D.C. October 26, 2005 - Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev, who died in Moscow last week at the age of 81, was probably the best known "architect of perestroika." Soviet ambassador to Canada, then member of the Politburo and Mikhail Gorbachev's closest adviser, he could rightfully be called the "Father of Glasnost."
Alexander Yakovlev rose through the Communist Party ranks to become one of the most vocal critics of the Stalinist past and a passionate advocate of democratization in the second half of the 1980s. He was one of the people history will credit for his role in helping to end the Cold War.
Recently released documents from the Yakovlev Collection of the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF) show the unprecedented scope of issues on which Alexander Yakovlev exerted influence within Soviet decision-making circles under Gorbachev. Although we usually associate Yakovlev with glasnost and democratization, it becomes clear from the record that he was also a key reformer when it came to arms control ("untying" the Soviet "package" position on nuclear arms control negotiations), and the Soviet economy. The documents also show that Yakovlev's position was quite developed and consistent very early on, when the rest of the Soviet reformers, including Gorbachev himself, were not yet willing to look beyond the existing one-party system.
The materials posted today are part of a much larger collection of documents from the former Soviet bloc available for research at the National Security Archive.
http://www.nsarchive.org
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
By HELEN THOMAS
HEARST NEWSPAPERS
WASHINGTON -- Few, perhaps none, of the U.S. presidents have injected their religion into statecraft as much as President Bush has.
I've covered presidents since John F. Kennedy and they all have regularly attended worship services. Lyndon B. Johnson went to as many as three nearby churches on Sundays when he was in Texas at the LBJ ranch.
None of the chief executives was more deeply into religion than Jimmy Carter, a Baptist. As president, he continued to teach Sunday school in churches in Washington and Plains, Ga.
But Carter and his predecessors were careful to observe a time-honored tradition of preserving the wall of separation between church and state. Bush does not seem to know where the line is drawn between his secular status and his spiritual beliefs.
Early in his first term, the "born again" president established the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives which, among other things, helps to promote and federally fund religious charities.
The president's speeches justifying the war in Iraq are laced with his belief that "the God Almighty" wants all people to be free.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Bush told Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas in June 2003 -- when Abbas was the foreign minister -- that God had told him to invade Iraq.
More recently, Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian information minister, said in a BBC broadcast that Bush informed a gathering of Palestinian ministers that God also wanted him to create a Palestinian state.
Shaath quoted Bush as saying: "I'm driven with a mission from God."
White House spokesmen have refused to comment on what they call the president's private conversations. There is also perhaps the question of literal interpretation of the president's remarks.
But Bush's public speeches are replete with implications of spiritual guidance. There is no doubt that he is guided by his faith and feels the need to spread the word.
In his controversial selection of White House counsel Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court, Bush emphasized that she is a woman of deep faith. She had been a Roman Catholic and became a Christian evangelical convert.
He was motivated by the need to reassure her most severe critics -- mostly right-wing columnists -- that Miers would remain a true conservative if confirmed for the high bench.
It appeared that the president also was subtly trying to tell his GOP constituency that she is on their side against abortion rights.
Complete article at:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/245876_thomas26.html
Helen Thomas is a columnist for Hearst Newspapers. E-mail: helent@hearstdc.com.
ROBERT PARRY, rparry@ix.netcom.com, http://www.consortiumnews.com
Editor of ConsortiumNews.com and author of the book "Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq," Parry said today: "It never made much sense that Karl Rove was the center of the scandal because he would not ordinarily have known something like the identity of a CIA agent. One of the things we learned from Watergate is that it can be the higherups who are demanding all kinds of things get done and their subordinates may or may not follow up on them."
Parry recently wrote the article "The Dangerously Incomplete Hariri Report." He states: "The investigation has many holes, including failure to follow up on a mysterious van connected to the Feb. 14 bombing." In a piece today, "On Syria, the NYT Still Doesn't Get It," Parry writes: "The New York Times isn't applying lessons learned from the bogus case for war with Iraq to the looming crisis with Syria. Rather than taking a skeptical look at allegations of Syrian complicity in the murder of Lebanon's ex-prime minister, the newspaper's editorial page is making assumptions about 'meticulous' facts that may not be supported by the evidence."
From: Institute for Public Accuracy
For the second time this year, Senate Republicans voted against giving the nation’s lowest-paid workers a pay raise, killing a proposal by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) Oct. 19 to boost the minimum wage to $6.25 an hour. Yet members of Congress could give themselves their eighth pay raise since the last minimum wage increase in 1997, when they vote on the fiscal year 2006 Treasury/Transportation appropriations. Senators voted to pass up the pay raise, but the House has not acted on the pay raise and both houses must agree for the salaries to be frozen. The new pay raise for Congress would mean the salaries of senators and representatives have gone up by $31,600 since 1997, while minimum wage workers still earn only $10,700 a year. Senate Democrats also successfully beat back a second proposal by Sen. Michael Enzi (R-Wyo.), which included draconian provisions to exempt millions of workers from the minimum wage, cut overtime pay and weaken job safety and health protection.
For more information, visit http://www.aflcio.org/.
From: Work in Progress
Two professors at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have reconstructed the deadly 1918 Spanish flu virus, which killed 40 to 50 million people, in order to anticipate future pandemics and develop new vaccines and treatments.
Using reverse genetics, the researchers reconstructed the virus, which is contained at the Centers for Disease Control. The team already has learned that the 1918 flu has similarities with the current Asian bird flu. The reconstructed virus could be used in developing a library of vaccines against other avian viruses that could jump to humans.
Visit
http://link.abpi.net/l.php?20051025A6
for more information.
This Modern World: Conservative Jones, boy detective
http://workingforchange.speedera.net/www.workingforchange.com/webgraphics/wfc/TMW10-26-05.jpg
Click here for the solution!
http://www.workingforchange.com/webgraphics/WFC/solution.jpg
Chappette: we will not leave iraq...
http://www.globecartoon.com/war/images/050624.gif
Dan Wasserman: every tom, dick and harriet
http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Graphic/2005/10/24/1130209381_3798.gif
WHITE HOUSE STAFFERS PLAN TO INFILTRATE AL QAEDA
Will Leak Bin Laden's Precise Location to the Press
According to a top-secret plan being developed by the Bush administration, high ranking White House staffers intend to infiltrate al Qaeda in the hopes of leaking Osama bin Laden's precise location to the press.
The plan, codenamed Operation Blabbermouth, was hatched over the weekend after a marathon discussion concerning the ongoing CIA leak scandal, a source inside the White House said today.
"We decided that instead of wringing our hands about leaking the name of that CIA operative, why not put out ability to leak information to positive use?" the source said. "After all, leaking is the one thing we're really good at."
The source said that White House staffers are currently undergoing training in the hopes of infiltrating al Qaeda by year's end: "We intend to infiltrate al Qaeda as completely as Halliburton has infiltrated the White House."
Once close to bin Laden, the source said, the White House staffers will immediately place phone calls to newspaper reporters to leak the madman's precise location: "We're all going to have Judy Miller on speed-dial,"
Counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke, while praising Operation Blabbermouth for its inventiveness, said that the plan has one major flaw: "In order for a plan like that to work, it would have to be kept totally secret, and they've already leaked it to the press."
In response to Mr. Clarke's criticism, the White House source offered this response: "Oops."
Elsewhere, in the World Series, some players that no one has heard of defeated some other players that no one has heard of.
Borowitzreport.com
By Stephen Pizzo, News for Real. Posted October 26, 2005.
As Fitzgerald began following the Plame leak, he discovered it was part of a conspiracy to conceal crimes much bigger than just blowing a CIA agent's cover.
If Bette Davis were still with us, she'd have a piece of advice for the American public: "Better buckle up. It's going to be a bumpy ride."
Yes, all hell is about to break loose. As I said in an early column, I've been here before and I can tell you, it ain't gonna be pretty. The process that is about to begin is a bit like the whole body politic getting a colonic. I remember how it left the nation weak and disoriented for a decade or more. I am, of course, speaking of Watergate -- different cast of characters, same crimes.
In the Watergate era we still had people in Congress, from both parties, with the integrity and backbone to pursue the matter on their own. But those folks have been replaced by the political equivalent of street gang members who make their judgments based on whether the other guy is wearing red or blue.
So forget Congress. This time the sword is wielded by an independent prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald -- who is, by all reports, a genuine Dudley Dooright:
"Famous among colleagues for remembering minutiae, he keeps extraordinary hours while handling the leak investigation and managing a Chicago office with more than 150 lawyers. Dick Sauber, an attorney for Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in the leak case, said Fitzgerald "worked the case down to the small details. He was the one who knew the obscure fact in a document and knew where to find it."
Letting a fellow like that loose on the Bush administration is like turning a bloodhound free in sausage factory -- his nose must have begun twitching the moment he arrived.
Complete article at: http://www.alternet.org/story/27266/
Stephen Pizzo is the author of numerous books, including "Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans," which was nominated for a Pulitzer.
Today, October 25th, the New York Times reports that according to lawyers involved in the Valerie Plame case, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff Lewis Libby first learned of Plame's identity from Cheney; this would appear to contradict Libby's prior testimony.
RAY McGOVERN, mcgovern@slschool.org, http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050719/cheney_and_plame.php
McGovern was a 27-year career analyst with the CIA and a member of the steering committee for Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He said today: "As long ago as July 14, 2003, we recommended to the president that he request Cheney's resignation -- and we didn't know the half of it. Not only was Cheney a leading cheerleader for the war, but he may have had a hand in manufacturing as well as exaggerating the evidence needed to deceive Congress."
From: Institute for Public Accuracy
By Jonathan Tasini, TomPaine.com. Posted October 26, 2005.
General Motors' employee coverage cuts help illustrate an important point: the global economy is a tool to drive down living standards.
It is a measure of our lowered expectations, fueled by media spin, that people shrugged and seemed to think that it was inevitable that workers for General Motors were destined to have their health care coverage slashed.
After all, some seemed to think, at a time when their company is teetering on the edge of oblivion, these "privileged" auto workers had "gold-plated" coverage that almost no other workers in America have.
But let’s be clear: The loss of benefits for GM workers was not inevitable. It happened as a result of many years of bipartisan political and economic decisions and the bipartisan lack of political courage to take on dumb ideology and corporate power.
In the minds of the elites, socking workers with a larger share of the costs of health care is just a natural part of the new economic order. As the Wall Street Journal editorial board said about the health care cost-cutting deal between GM and the United Auto Workers, "We hope it’s the beginning of wisdom about the global economy for the American labor movement."
Speaking about UAW president Ron Gettelfinger, Delphi CEO Steve Miller—who took his company into bankruptcy—said, "He’s going to have to help half a million of workers get used to the idea that globalization has taken away the ability to have someone who mows the lawn or sweeps the floor get $65 an hour."
At least one thing is refreshing: It exposes as a fraud the liberal and conservative mantra about the wonders of the global economy. Democrats and Republicans alike—from Bill Clinton to George Bush, with a supporting cast of media and academic geniuses—have repeatedly told workers that the global economy will bring great benefits to America, after a period of "adjustment." To their credit, Steve Miller and the Journal are more honest: The global economy is a tool to drive down living standards, starting with health care. Get with it, folks: Living large is so "old economy."
. . .
Complete article at: http://www.alternet.org/story/27346/
Jonathan Tasini is president of the Economic Future Group and writes his "Working In America" columns for TomPaine.com on an occasional basis. His blog Working Life chronicles the labor movement and other issues affecting American workers.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9805923/
From: Poacnewsletter
Published: Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Bylined to: Charley Reese
Orlando (Florida) based journalist Charley Reese writes: Pat Robertson, host of "The 700 Club," is not a Christian. No man who publicly advocates cold-blooded murder for political reasons can claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ.
Robertson did that on his television show, saying it would be cheaper to murder the President of Venezuela than to overthrow him with a war.
The President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, is a frequent critic of President George Bush and the United States ... he is also democratically elected.
It's funny how many people in the American elite who profess to advocate democracy tend to change their minds when the results of democracy don't suit them. Nowhere is it written that a free and democratic election will produce a leader whom we like.
That should be obvious from the outcomes of our elections ... sometimes we like the winner, and sometimes we don't. The essence of a democratic society, however, is that when we don't like the winner, we put up with him until the next election.
For a long time, I've not believed that Robertson is a Christian.
I have this old-fashioned idea that rich preachers are incompatible with Christianity.
If you don't already know this, most of the televangelists spend an inordinate amount of their time and efforts fundraising and living in the lap of luxury. I assume darn few of them will squeeze through that eye of the needle that Christ spoke of in regard to a rich man getting into heaven.
Robertson is a politician who uses Christianity as a source of income and as a cover for his political goals.
. . .
Christianity is about the next world, not this one.
Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years. Write to him at P.O. Box 2446, Orlando, FL 32802.
Complete article at: http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=46506
A bitter struggle is unfolding in the US about the most basic of issues: the origins of life. Scientists are rallying to the banner of Darwin - but their foes are growing in confidence.
Paul Harris reports from Pennsylvania
Sunday October 2, 2005
The Observer
The American Museum of Natural History in New York will open the most far-reaching exhibition in its history on Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, next month. In most countries such a display by one of the world's top museums would not be the stuff of heated controversy.
But not in America. Not in 2005.
As the rest of the world looks on in amazement at a debate that seemed to have been settled long ago, America is now gripped by a raging battle between evolution and creationism. The museum's Darwin exhibition will be just the latest battle in the continuing fight.
At the centre of it is the concept of intelligent design, which critics call 'creationism lite'. This theory holds that evolution is not a proven fact and nature is so complex that it betrays the existence of 'a designer'. Without being explicit there is little doubt the designer is intended to be God.
The exhibition will tackle this theory head on by trying to point out the difference between science and religion. Intelligent design will be explicitly mentioned. 'We expect that in some corners the show will be controversial. We are prepared for that,' said Michael Novacek, provost of the museum.
Promoting evolution to the American public, however, is not always easy, even in the 21st century. Religious think-tanks and other bodies are seeking to push intelligent design into American public life. In particular they want it taught in school science classes. Advocates of the theory say they do not want to stop evolution being taught - they just want other theories mentioned too. Critics say this approach gives the illusion of a scientific debate between evolution and rival theories when in reality there is no genuine argument left to have.
The battle is fierce. In several US states intelligent design advocates have succeeded in inserting their texts or statements into science textbooks, though these have often been thrown out later. In Kansas, the state school board, which is sceptical about evolution, even held public hearings on the merits of including intelligent design in the science syllabus. Mainstream scientists boycotted the hearings, claiming the meetings had been rigged in favour of the creationists.
But it is in the small Pennsylvania town of Dover that the big fight is taking place. Last week a trial started that has been billed as the biggest test of religion in the classroom since the infamous Scopes 'Monkey Trial' of 1925 when John Scopes was successfully prosecuted for teaching evolution in Tennessee. That trial seemed to encapsulate a moment in American history when the competing worlds of modernity and traditional beliefs clashed in a single courtroom. Now it is happening again.
. . .
Complete article at:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,1582943,00.html
"New federal wiretapping rules forcing Internet service providers and universities to rewire their networks for FBI surveillance of e-mail and Web browsing are being challenged in court. Telecommunications firms, nonprofit organizations and educators are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., to overturn the controversial rules, which dramatically extend the sweep of an 11-year-old surveillance law designed to guarantee police the ability to eavesdrop on telephone calls. The regulations represent the culmination of years of lobbying by the FBI, the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration, which have argued that 'criminals, terrorists and spies' could cloak their Internet communications with impunity unless police received broad new surveillance powers. The final rules, published this month by the Federal Communications Commission, apply to 'any type of broadband Internet access service.'"
Learn more at News.com.
http://news.com.com/FBI+Net-wiretapping+rules+face+challenges/2100-1028_3-5911676.html?tag=nefd.lede
From: Future Brief
GreatNews displays full pages of news articles across rss feeds, optimized for fast reading. So you can skim through pages in seconds, and pick interesting ones to dig in.
Nick Anderson: visions for america
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/wpnan/2005/wpnan051025.gif
Andy Singer: smaller government
http://cagle.com/news/blog/bloggifs/Libertarian051024/singerLibertarian.gif
Ben Sargent: the harriet miers effect
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/bs/2005/bs051024.gif
U.S. FACING CRONY SHORTAGE
Not Enough Cronies to Fill Government Positions, President Warns
In a nationally televised speech last night, President George W. Bush warned the American people that the United States is facing a severe shortage of cronies and that if the crisis is not addressed there may not be enough cronies to fill key government positions.
"The shortage of cronies is a real and serious problem," the president said in his speech from the Oval Office at the White House. "We ignore it at our peril."
The president said that during his first five years in office he had hired so many cronies in top administration jobs that the demand for cronies had far outstripped the supply.
While some aides to the president have called for him to tap into the Strategic Crony Reserves, an old-boy network of Republican insiders warehoused in various think-tanks and lobbying groups in Washington, D.C., the president said that such a solution is "little more than a quick fix."
"In order to avert a serious shortage going forward, we need to develop alternative sources of cronies," Mr. Bush said.
Dr. Davis Logsdon, who has been studying the nation's declining supply of cronies at the University of Minnesota's Crony Research Institute, said that outsourcing some of the work normally performed by native-born cronies may be the solution to the crony shortage problem.
"The president may consider tapping into a plentiful supply of foreign cronies, specifically in the Saudi royal family," he said.
Elsewhere, the White House revealed today that the actual nickname of Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff Lewis Libby was not "Scooter" as originally reported, but "Leaky."
Borowitzreport.com
October 25, 2005 latimes.com
By Lawrence B. Wilkerson, LAWRENCE B. WILKERSON served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell from 2002 to 2005.
IN PRESIDENT BUSH'S first term, some of the most important decisions about U.S. national security — including vital decisions about postwar Iraq — were made by a secretive, little-known cabal. It was made up of a very small group of people led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
When I first discussed this group in a speech last week at the New American Foundation in Washington, my comments caused a significant stir because I had been chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell between 2002 and 2005.
But it's absolutely true. I believe that the decisions of this cabal were sometimes made with the full and witting support of the president and sometimes with something less. More often than not, then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice was simply steamrolled by this cabal.
Its insular and secret workings were efficient and swift — not unlike the decision-making one would associate more with a dictatorship than a democracy. This furtive process was camouflaged neatly by the dysfunction and inefficiency of the formal decision-making process, where decisions, if they were reached at all, had to wend their way through the bureaucracy, with its dissenters, obstructionists and "guardians of the turf."
But the secret process was ultimately a failure. It produced a series of disastrous decisions and virtually ensured that the agencies charged with implementing them would not or could not execute them well.
I watched these dual decision-making processes operate for four years at the State Department. As chief of staff for 27 months, I had a door adjoining the secretary of State's office. I read virtually every document he read. I read the intelligence briefings and spoke daily with people from all across government.
I knew that what I was observing was not what Congress intended when it passed the 1947 National Security Act. The law created the National Security Council — consisting of the president, vice president and the secretaries of State and Defense — to make sure the nation's vital national security decisions were thoroughly vetted. The NSC has often been expanded, depending on the president in office, to include the CIA director, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Treasury secretary and others, and it has accumulated a staff of sometimes more than 100 people.
But many of the most crucial decisions from 2001 to 2005 were not made within the traditional NSC process.
. . .
Complete article at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-wilkerson25oct25,0,3717361.story?track=tothtml
Oct. 24—America’s middle class is at risk—as demonstrated by increased personal bankruptcies, record levels of debt and growing job instability. Meanwhile, the nation’s safety net is shredding at the public level—with the latest Bush administration budget proposal set to further slash critical social programs—as well as in the private sector, where employers are backing away from providing health care, pensions and family-supporting wages.
"Families are experiencing much more income instability since the 1970s, and over the last 20 years, the increase in [economic] volatility is roughly the same for the educated and those with less education," says Jacob Hacker, political science professor at Yale University.
Hacker was among five top policy analysts meeting recently in Washington, D.C., for a panel discussion on The Middle Class at Risk: Economic Insecurity in America Today, sponsored by the nonprofit Center for American Progress.
"Today, job loss is increasingly likely to be persistent. Workers are less often able to return to a similar job in a similar industry, so unemployment frequently ends only when workers accept a new job that requires major cuts in pay, hours, or both," Hacker says.
Families Need More Breadwinners Just to Cover Basic Needs
Rising job instability and the transformation of the American family—in which a two-income household is essential for survival—are behind the rising economic volatility, says Hacker, and panelist Elizabeth Warren, Harvard law professor and author of The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke.
"Since the early 1970s, the median income for a family with one income makes less than today’s two-income family," Warren says. Families today are spending far more on health care, education and child care than they did 30 years ago—and much less on clothes, food, furniture and appliances. Since the 1970s, family spending on mortgage payments has risen 81 percent, on health care, 74 percent and 100 percent on child care, says Warren.
Congress recently shredded a key safety net for working families when it passed, and President George W. Bush signed, a new bankruptcy law that will severely restrict the ability of workers to eliminate their debt—much of which is due to health care costs, according to Warren.
Working families, no longer able to depend upon government social programs or employer-provided benefits for critical support in rough economic times, increasingly turn to credit cards to survive—and the $90 billion credit card industry unilaterally sets the rules, most of which go against working families, Warren says.
"Credit card companies tell you, ‘We will be your life raft, jump aboard.’ And when they do, families find the raft is made of concrete and will drown you."
...
Complete article at: http://www.aflcio.org/issues/jobseconomy/ns10242005.cfm
More
Get more facts on jobs, wages and the global economy.
http://www.aflcio.org/issues/jobseconomy/
Learn more about the nation’s health care crisis.
http://www.aflcio.org/issues/healthcare/
Read the EPI report, Prognosis Worsens for Workers’ Health Care.
http://www.epinet.org/newsroom/releases/2005/10/051020-hlth_ins-pr.pdf
Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives want to make even deeper cuts in vital working family programs than the $50 billion they sought last week—while refusing to forgo $70 billion in tax cuts for the wealthy. "What we have done is raised our sights beyond the $50 billion...to a higher number," said Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), acting as majority leader after Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) was forced out of the post because of his recent indictments on money laundering and conspiracy charges in Texas. The House is expected to vote this week on the huge cuts to food stamps, low-income energy assistance, education and unemployment compensation that are part of a Bush administration-backed budget that also includes the $70 billion in tax cuts for the wealthy. Meanwhile, the Senate is expected to vote on a $35 billion package of spending cuts this week. Call your members of Congress toll free at 1-800-393-1082 and tell them not to cut programs desperately needed by working families, including hurricane survivors, and low-income Americans or to give more tax breaks to the wealthy.
From: Work in Progress
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/10/23/hutchinson-technicality/
From: Poacnewsletter
Opinion Editorials - Fairfax,VA,USA
It's occurred to me that Intelligent Design/Intelligent Origin Theory may be the scientific equivalent of Harriet Miers. At the ...
http://www.opinioneditorials.com/freedomwriters/klembke_20051024.html
Scientists have tried combating contamination at polluted sites by taking advantage of microorganisms that live naturally in soils and waterways. Called bioremediation, many of these microbes change nearby contaminants into less toxic forms, or versions that are easier to remove. Difficulties in extracting
the pertinent microbes from the environment, however, have hindered the development of successful bioremediation efforts.
Advances in molecular techniques can let researchers get a read on what organisms have which genes turned on at the height of clean-up activity. Integrating this information with genome sequencing data and lab culture studies is shedding light on microbial metabolic and regulatory pathways.
Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst are experimenting with the incorporation of all this information into computer models. According to the researchers, this systems approach will let scientists run simulations of microbial behavior on computers, compare the models' predictions with
lab and field data, and accurately predict who should be sent in to clean up which mess.
For more information, visit: http://link.abpi.net/l.php?20051024A2
"Robert Mason (not his real name) would love to spend a few minutes during lunch catching up on blog posts from around the web, but his company doesn't allow it. The financial institution where Mason works as a vice president has security filters set up to block access to -- among other things -- any website that contains the phrase 'blog' in the URL.
What's more, says Mason, such practices are becoming prevalent in corporate America, particularly in financial services. Mason sits on a roundtable privacy group of 20 of the country's largest banks. 'My best understanding is that my company's anti-blog stance is the industry norm,' he says. Filtering out every blog isn't a completely feasible project (and, in fact, Mason says his company's filter doesn't catch everything), but the technology to censor the lion's share of blogs is fairly commonplace. From installing simple URL filters and content scanners to blacklisting ranges of IP addresses, myriad methods for shutting out blog content are available."
Learn more in Wired News.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,69298,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1
From: Future Brief
Who should use Sphere?
Everybody, of course! Or, more specifically, two types of everybody: 1) those who already use blog search all the time, but are sick of the bad results and spam and wouldn't mind a faster, more feature-rich user experience to boot, and 2) publishers who would like to integrate high quality blog content into their websites.
What makes us better than existing blog search sites?
It starts with relevant results and fast performance. Our new relevance-based algorithm discovers new blog posts as they're created, indexes them within minutes of being published, applies rich semantic analysis and makes them searchable by relevance or time. Plus, we've got a few fun, helpful features that we think make for a richer user experience.
Tom Toles : the perfect storm
http://www.buffalonews.com/graphics/2005/10/24/1024toles.jpg
Mike Peters: tom delay mug shot
http://www.grimmy.com/images/MP_Archive/MP_2005/MP1023.gif
Ted Rall: idealists
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/trall/2005/trall051024.gif
DEMOCRATS SEEKING WAYS TO SQUANDER HISTORIC OPPORTUNITY
'We Will Manage to Screw This Up,' Vows Dean
Given a Republican president with plummeting approval ratings and a Republican congressional leadership that is being investigated, indicted, and in at least one case fingerprinted, Democratic party leaders said today that they are "actively seeking" ways to squander their historic opportunity.
At a press conference in Washington, D.C. today, Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean reassured the party faithful that the Democrats would stick to tradition and find some way to blow this golden opportunity.
"People look at the mess the Republicans find themselves in and ask, 'How could the Democrats possibly screw this up?'" Gov. Dean said. "I am here to say, don't worry, we will find a way."
The DNC chief said that the Democrats have already convened a top-level brainstorming session of strategists from the Dukakis, Mondale, and Kerry campaigns to formulate a plan for squandering the opportunity the Republicans have handed them on a silver platter.
According to those familiar with the strategy session, the Democrats have already settled on a new slogan for the 2006 midterm elections, "Read our lips - tons of new taxes," and that most of that new tax revenue would be used to promote the legalization of crystal meth.
While it is still early to be planning how to lose the 2008 election, Gov. Dean said that most preliminary discussions have revolved around nominating the Rev. Al Sharpton for President.
"We're only going for Sharpton because our first choice, Jacques Chirac, was unavailable," Gov. Dean said.
Elsewhere, days after photos of her baby were stolen, singer Britney Spears demanded that the photos be returned at once so she could sell them.
Borowitzreport.com
By Stephen Pizzo, News for Real. Posted October 22, 2005.
Why not just streamline hiring at federally funded faith-based organizations by requiring that everyone's religious affiliation be tattooed on their arms?
What's wrong with this picture?
As part of President Bush's "faith-based initiative," US taxpayers gave the Salvation Army's children services division $47 million this year -- 95% of its total budget. Several Salvation Army employees refused to take the Salvation Army's pledge "proclaiming Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord," reveal which church they belong to or identify gay co-workers -- and were summarily fired.
Let's parse this event out. The money came from American taxpayers, many of whom are not Christians. Nevertheless the workers were fired for refusing to pledge allegiance to the Christian prophet. They were also fired for failing to disclose their own religious affiliations, if any. And finally, they were fired for refusing to rat out their co-workers.
Sounds like something that would happen in Communist China, doesn't it? And, if it had happened in China, and it was Christians getting fired, you can bet your sweet bippy the Bush administration and America's Christian right would be screaming bloody murder about it.
But not this time. They even found a judge to back them on it.
Bush's big victory came Sept. 30 in New York, where a federal judge threw out most elements of a religious discrimination lawsuit against the Salvation Army. Eighteen employees claimed they were fired or demoted because they refused to pledge support to the Salvation Army's mission of "proclaiming Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord," disclose what church they attended or name gay co-workers.
U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein noted that all the plaintiffs worked for a children's services division of the Salvation Army that gets 95 percent of its $50 million budget from government grants. But the judge's 48-page opinion upheld the principle that a religious group can hire and fire employees on the basis of their religious beliefs and practices, even if their salaries come from taxpayer funds. That principle is at the heart of the Bush administration's policy. (Full Story)
Since the federal money the Salvation Army received represents nearly 100% of that division's total budget, it's a de facto federally funded program. So, are these the new HR rules for faith-based federally funded programs? Rat out gays on the payroll, or be fired. Pledge allegiance to the favored religion or superstition de jour, or be fired. Answer the question, "Are you now, or have you ever been, an atheist?" or be fired.
Why not just streamline hiring at federally funded faith-based organizations by requiring that everyone's religious affiliation be tattooed on their arms? Worked for the Germans.
Meanwhile in the American theocratic state of Utah, the ACLU has locked horns with the Mormon Church over freedom of speech and dress in a Salt Lake City downtown park. A federal appeals court Monday validated Salt Lake City's controversial sale of its Main Street Plaza park to the LDS Church, which promptly turned the former section of historic Main Street into a LDS religious park.
Three judges on the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the plaza is private property and that the city didn't endorse the LDS Church by selling off the right to public access. "Looked at objectively, the ... case is one of neutrality and equal access, in which the city does nothing to advance religion, but merely enables the LDS Church to advance itself," wrote the court.
The ruling is a victory for the city and the LDS Church, which joined to fight the American Civil Liberties Union and four plaintiffs. The ACLU wanted the court to declare the plaza a public sidewalk and allow free speech there -- though such a ruling could have led the church to wall off the plaza. Practically, the decision changes nothing since the LDS Church has been controlling the property since 2003, when the City Council voted to eliminate the easement in an emotionally charged land swap. The church manages it like its other religious property -- visitors are welcome but cannot engage in behavior the church finds offensive.
(Full Story) http://www.rickross.com/reference/mormon/mormon265.html
Lee Siegel, one of the ACLU's plaintiffs, called the decision a sad day for the principal of separation of church and state saying, it "adds to the feeling that I live in a state run by the American Taliban. Salt Lake City and the church have successfully weaseled themselves to a victory, but it doesn't make it right." He said, "I hope they enjoy their lily white, golly gee, clean, fun plaza."
When the plaza was sold to the church a few years back, the Mormons pitched the deal to the City saying they wanted to turn it into "a little bit of Paris" and to enhance downtown pedestrian access.
Of course no one thought for a second they meant can-can dancers and topless sunbathing. Actually what they meant was, no T-shirts or signs with messages they did not like, no speakers saying unkind things about Mormons. The LDS Church now decides what kind of speech will and will not be allowed in the park. And, even though it's outdoors, there will be no smoking or "disorderly" speech, dress or conduct. And other Christians beware: proselytizing is forbidden -- unless by approved members of the LDS Church.
All this from a church founded by a guy, Joseph Smith, who, if he lived today would be fitted for a straitjacket and put on a mega-dose of anti-psychotic drugs.
Let's pretend. What if somehow the Nation of Islam were able to convince the City of Washington to sell them Lafayette Park across from the White House. And they tried to pull an anti-American stunt like the Mormons have pulled off in Salt Lake City. How long do you think it would be before the reverends Dobson, Falwell and their ilk started screaming bloody murder on CNN?
I'm going to start compiling a list of acquaintances I suspect are gay. Who knows, I may need a federal job someday and a list like that could come in mighty handy.
Stephen Pizzo is the author of numerous books, including "Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans," which was nominated for a Pulitzer.
http://www.alternet.org/story/27122/
No arrest warrants. No trial. No access to the civilian court system. You may not be able to see it on television, but this court decision is the equivalent of a legal hurricane-and it is no exaggeration to say that this is a level 5 storm with respect to its potential havoc for civil liberties.
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5136
From: Poacnewsletter
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/10/20051017-10.html
George W. Bush nominated his campaign media strategist Mark McKinnon to serve on the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees U.S.-funded international media outlets including Radio Sawa, Al Hurra and Voice of America. Half of the top 50 Bush reelection campaign expenditures went to McKinnon's firm Maverick Media, totaling $170 million. (While the majority of the money went towards campaign ads, the standard commission for media consulting firms is 15 percent, according to Campaigns & Elections.) "I think the most important thing to recognize is that in all the campaigns with President Bush, it always begins with the president saying: 'Here are the things I care about. These are the things I want to talk about. Now, you guys can go and execute the plan however you want to, but this is what I'm talking about; this is what I believe in,'" McKinnon told Frontline for their 2005 piece on Karl Rove called "The Architect."
SOURCE: White House, October 17, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4090
Federal Emergency Management Agency: Improvements Needed to Enhance Oversight and Management of the National Flood Insurance Program.
GAO-06-119, October 18.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-119
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06119high.pdf
Auburn Citizen - Auburn,NY,USA
http://www.auburnpub.com/articles/2005/10/22/news/local_news/news10.txt
Sep 15th 2005 From The Economist print edition
Software: Can software really predict the outcome of an armed conflict, just as it can predict the course of the weather? IN DECEMBER 1990, 35 days before the outbreak of the Gulf war, an unassuming retired colonel appeared before the Armed Services Committee of America's House of Representatives and made a startling prediction. The Pentagon's casualty projections—that 20,000 to 30,000 coalition soldiers would be killed in the first two weeks of combat against the Iraqi army—were, he declared, completely wrong. Casualties would, he said, still be less than 6,000 after a month of hostilities. Military officials had also projected that the war would take at least six months, including several months of fighting on the ground. That estimate was also wide of the mark, said the former colonel. The conflict would last less than two months, with the ground war taking just 10 to 14 days.
. . .
Complete article at:
http://www.economist.com/science/tq/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=4368226
[premium content]
http://www.ornl.gov/news/pulse/pulse_v195_05.htm
That's the url to the Oct. 24, 2005, issue of DOE Pulse. Pulse is a newsletter about accomplishments at the Department of Energy's national laboratories. Here is some of what you'll find in this issue:
* Brookhaven: Writing at the nanoscale
* Fermilab: Topping the top quark
* Idaho: Energy from ocean microbes
* Los Alamos: What's killing the pines
Feature: PPPL team makes fusion milestone
Researcher profile: Idaho's David Petty and fusion safety
Sketchplanet is a website that allows people to create, tags and store sketches. A window on the website allows people to draw whatever they want with a mouse. Sketches can also be added to your blog.
Ben Sargent: invincible machines
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/bs/2005/bs051021.gif
Mike Luckovich: food court
http://www.creators.com/1016/LK/LK1021bg.gif
David Horsey: fair judicial system
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/dayart/20051023/cartoon20051023.gif
http://swiftreport.blogs.com/news/
While the Ten Commandments are increasingly popular in both text and tablet form, a new poll has found that few Americans are familiar with more than four of them. The Biblical bans on murder, theft, and adultery ranked highest among adults surveyed, while only a handful were familiar with Commandments prohibiting graven images and false witness.
Article Launched: 10/23/2005 01:00:00 AM
By Ed Quillen
Curious as to how we were supposed to regard the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, I called my favorite inside source: Ananias Ziegler, media relations director of the Committee That Really Runs America.
After the usual pleasantries, he said he'd just returned from a vacation, and things had come unwound during his absence. "You wouldn't believe this mess. The House majority Leader, or he was until this happened, is under indictment in Texas. The Senate majority leader has been subpoenaed in an insider-trading investigation. There's a special prosecutor with a grand jury questioning Karl Rove, the president's right-hand man. Plus there are several investigations into Jack Abramoff's activities, and he's a lobbyist who's dealt with just about everybody. Not to mention the president threatening to veto a bill because it might limit his ability to torture people."
"That wasn't why I called," I reminded him. "I wanted to get the right spin on Miers. The last I heard, good Americans were supposed to support her because she went to the right church, even though we weren't supposed to know or care what church John Roberts attended."
"Will you quit demanding logical consistency from us?" Ziegler objected. "Besides, that's all past history now."
"Isn't all history in the past?" I asked.
"You know what I mean." Ziegler took a deep breath and his voice calmed. "Now we want you to pay attention to Miers's inspiring biography, how she worked her way up and was the first woman partner in her Dallas law firm, and the first woman president of her state bar association."
"So she has a record of accomplishment," I agreed. "You're assuring me that she's not just another Bush crony?"
"Don't put words into my mouth," Ziegler said. "The point is, we know she opposes the Roe v. Wade decision, even though we also know that she doesn't have an opinion on Roe v. Wade."
That was so confusing that I skipped asking about it. "So, we should play up her biography as a feminist pioneer in good-ol'-boy Texas, and leave the rest?"
. . .
Complete article at: http://www.denverpost.com/quillen/ci_3136576
Ed Quillen of Salida is a former newspaper editor whose column appears Tuesday and Sunday.
deciding in secret to carry out policies that had left the US weaker and more isolated in the world, the top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed on Wednesday.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10684.htm
From: Poacnewsletter
The WasteBasket: A Bulletin on Wasteful Government Spending
by Taxpayers for Common Sense www.taxpayer.net
Vol. X No. 36
October 21, 2005
The Spineless Senate
Last night, Senators had a golden opportunity to get their spending priorities straight in light of massive budget deficits and the tens of billions needed to rebuild the Gulf. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), one of the Senate's only voices for fiscal responsibility, presented his colleagues the chance to cut $75 million in funding for the two infamous "bridges to nowhere" in Alaska, and send that money directly to Louisiana to rebuild the Interstate 10 bridge over Lake Pontchartrain.
Unfortunately for taxpayers, we are stuck with a Senate dominated by spineless federal money-grubbers. A measly 15 Senators could muster up enough courage to vote for the cuts; the rest, perhaps too scared of a tongue-lashing from Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, voted to keep the bridges, two of the worst pork projects in recent memory.
Read the complete wastebasket here:
http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/LQXCFDJOZT/IWEPFDJPBD/
GOING ON AT TAXPAYER.NET THIS WEEK
1. TCS Pans Senate for Failing to Stop "Bridges to Nowhere"
http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/LQXCFDJOZT/CIHOFDJPBE/
2. The Costs of Katrina: Rebuilding the Gulf - TCS's resources on the cost of rebuilding the Gulf Coast, including a database of the largest reconstruction contracts given out thus far, as well as profiles of the contractors involved.
http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/LQXCFDJOZT/EGCIFDJPBF/
3. Fiscal Roadmap for Reconstruction - Rebuilding the Gulf and restoring the lives of those who live there will cost the federal government $200 billion. We put together a reasonable and achievable list of budget offsets for how Congress can pay for this massive undertaking. One of our suggestions: cut $10 billion in pork from the transportation bill.
http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/LQXCFDJOZT/IJERFDJPBG/
ACTION ITEMS
Take action to tell your Senator how you feel about their vote on the
"bridges to nowhere" amendment
http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/LQXCFDJOZT/HNSEFDJPBH/
http://www.manufacturingnews.com/news/05/1012/art1.html
After stonewalling for a year and a half, the U.S. Commerce Department has released a report on the issue of offshore outsourcing of service-sector jobs and high-tech industries. "But the 12-page document represented by the agency as its final report is not what was written by its analysts," writes Richard McCormack of Manufacturing and Technology News (MTN). "Rather, it was crafted by political appointees at Commerce and at the White House, according to those familiar with it. At an estimated cost of $335,000 -- or $28,000 per page -- the document MTN received from the Commerce Department's Technology Administration contains no original research and forsakes its initial intent of providing a balanced view of outsourcing. ... According to those who have tracked the report's whereabouts, it was completed well before the November 2004 presidential election but was delayed for clearance by the White House and the Republican-controlled Congress due to the controversial nature of the subject."
SOURCE: Manufacturing and Technology News, October 12, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4077
Union and business leaders called on the Bush administration and Congress to take immediate action to remedy the Chinese government’s practice of manipulating its currency exchange rate to gain an unfair trade advantage. "Our policy makers need to adopt a positive trade and industrial agenda to ensure that China stops subsidizing its export sector and allows its workers the growing incomes and democratic rights that will allow them to join the middle class," AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka told an Oct. 13 news conference in Washington, D.C. The AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council, which Trumka chairs, is urging passage of H.R. 1498, bipartisan legislation that would provide U.S. manufacturers and the government with more effective tools to combat China’s illegal currency manipulation.
From: Work in Progress
Kinky is running for governor because he believes that the two parties have completely sold out to special interests and their big money. That's why he needs your help; the only thing that will stop Kinky from becoming the next Governor of Texas is a lack of financial support from the people who want him in the capitol.
Huffington Post - New York,NY,USA
... right. How can the morons use a film about emperor penguins to justify creationism (intelligent design is a joke _expression). You ...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2005/10/22/march-of-the-penguins_n_9311.html
Airships in the stratosphere beaming back broadband capable of speeds up to 120Mbps may seem like fantasy. But tests in Sweden have suggested it could become a reality within three to five years. A successful trial of the technology has been conducted by researchers, led by the University of York in the UK. Trials using a 12,000 cubic metre balloon, flying at an altitude of around 24 kilometres for nine hours, have proved it can successfully operate a data rate link of 11Mbps. 'Proving the ability to operate a high data rate link from a moving stratospheric balloon is a critical step in moving towards the longer term aim of providing data rates of 120Mbps,' said Dr David Grace, the project's principal scientific officer."
Learn more at the BBC.com.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4354446.stm
From: Future Brief
Paul Conrad: smoking gun is a mushroom cloud
Troubletown: scooter libby's poem
http://www.troubletown.com/cartoons/cartoons/ttown.782.gif
Mike Keefe: iraqi constitution
http://www.denverpost.com/keefe/ci_3132346
Faith in a higher being is as old as humanity itself. But what sparked the Divine Idea? Did our earliest ancestors gain some evolutionary advantage through their shared religious feelings? In these extracts from his latest book, Robert Winston ponders the biggest question of them all
Thursday October 13, 2005
The Guardian
The Dolley Pond Church of God With Signs Following was founded in Tennessee in 1909 by one George Went Hensley. This former bootlegger took to the pulpit in a rural Pentecostalist community in Grasshopper Valley. One Sabbath, while he was preaching a fiery sermon, some of the congregation dumped a large box of rattlesnakes into the pulpit (history does not record whether they were angry or just bored). Without missing a beat, in mid-sentence, Hensley bent down, picked up a 3ft-long specimen of this most venomous of snakes, and held it wriggling high above his head. Unharmed, he exhorted his congregation to follow suit, quoting the words of Christ: "And these signs will follow those who believe ... in my Name ... they will take up serpents."
News of Hensley's sermon spread through Grasshopper Valley; others joined him in handling snakes, and the practice caught on. There have since been around 120 deaths from snakebite in these churches, but most of the congregants tend to refuse medical help if they are bitten, preferring to believe that divine intervention will be more efficacious. Sadly, Hensley himself perished from a snakebite in 1955, and shortly afterwards the US government wisely acted to prevent the practice - although it is still legal in parts of the States.
Today, snake-handling continues mostly in small communities in rural areas of Tennessee and Kentucky, as well as pockets in other southern states. Participants feel that "the spirit of God" comes upon them as they open the boxes containing the snakes. Often lifting three or four of them up simultaneously in one hand, holding them high and allowing the creatures to wind around their arms and bodies, they praise God ecstatically.
To many of us, religious or not, this type of activity seems little short of outright lunacy. And it's certainly the case that religion and mental ill-health have long been linked. The disturbed individual who believes himself to be Christ, or to receive messages from God, is something of a cliche in our society. Ever since Sigmund Freud, many people have associated religiosity with neurosis and mental illness.
. . .
Complete article at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1590776,00.html
http://www.therevealer.org/archives/timely_002147.php
The New York Times' David E. Sanger notes a change in how George W. Bush discusses future U.S. military activities. Bush "has begun warning that the insurgency is already metastasizing into a far broader struggle to 'establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia,'" Sanger writes. TheRevealer.org's Jeff Sharlet comments, "[T]his is reductive rhetoric that equates the complexities of Indonesia, where 'radical Islamists' struggle against a dictatorship-disguised-as-a-democracy - and one directly descended from a genocidal regime just a decade past - and Spain, now a fully democratic country. Not to mention the stretch in between Spain and Indonesia. The question is, Will the media buy it?" Given "the allure of such a powerful dichotomy to a press that has so long peddled stories dependent on 'us' and 'them,'" Sharlet writes, "it's legitimate to ask, now, what's driving this latest variation on the age-old 'battle between good and evil' story - Bush's politics, or the demands of the press?"
SOURCE: TheRevealer.org, October 17, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4084
The Bush administration and Republican leaders in Congress are using the Gulf Coast hurricane disasters as a pretext to slash safety net programs—while getting ready to hand $70 billion in new tax breaks to the rich. Working families and congressional Democrats are mobilizing to stop them. To finalize the federal budget and pay for the $70 billion in tax cuts for the wealthy along with paying for rebuilding the Gulf Cost, Congress is looking to cut $35 billion to $50 billion in vital survival programs, including health care, education, food stamps and unemployment compensation—some of the programs most needed by hurricane survivors. Cutting such vital family programs and handing out tax cuts for the rich "are absolutely the wrong priorities for Congress and the nation. We need to set a new direction for America," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said. "The unprecedented cost of Katrina will be borne by those least able to afford it," House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. John Spratt (D-S.C.), ranking member of the Budget Committee, wrote to Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). Democratic lawmakers are rallying to fight the Republican reconciliation package because its provisions would increase the deficit, give more tax breaks to the wealthy and cut programs desperately needed by hurricane survivors and low-income Americans. Republican leaders also want to raise Medicare premiums and co-payments by as much as $10,000 over five years.
Join the campaign to derail the unjust budget reconciliation—call your members of Congress toll-free at 1-800-393-1082.
From: Work in Progress
From: Poacnewsletter
National Security Archive Update, October 21, 2005
CIA Secrecy Claims to Iraq Intelligence Given Little Scrutiny Despite CIA's Numerous Public Statements About the Situation in Iraq
Washington D.C. October 21, 2005 - A United States District Judge has accepted the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) contention that every single word of a 50-page National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq must be kept secret, according to a September 30 Memorandum Opinion in the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit brought by the National Security Archive against the CIA. The judge never looked at the NIE but instead deferred to the affidavit of Martha M. Lutz, the Information Review Officer for the Director of Central Intelligence. To rebut Lutz's claims, the Archive filed with the Court the CIA's own unclassified congressional testimony, speeches, and reports that contain the CIA's assessment of the situation in Iraq during the period in which the NIE was written. The court refused to compare this evidence to the actual NIE.
In its one definitive statement about the role of the judiciary in secrecy cases, Congress in 1974 mandated de novo review of agency determinations not to release information under FOIA and explicitly granted courts the authority to conduct in camera review of classified information. When President Ford sought to veto that legislation, Congress quickly overrode the veto. The legislative history makes clear that complete deference is not appropriate. While agency affidavits should be accorded substantial weight in cases concerning classified national security information, Congress indicated "in many situations" in camera inspection of documents "will plainly be necessary and appropriate." In the 30 years since, however, courts have increasingly refused to follow Congress's direction and instead have elevated substantial weight into total deference.
http://www.nsarchive.org
"Two Hurricanes Too Many" Expand Your Insight: U.S. Economy
October 2005
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
"Two Hurricanes Too Many" examines how Hurricanes Katrina and Rita affected energy markets and then considers how these effects will translate into overall U.S. economic activity.
http://www.dallasfed.org/eyi/usecon/0510hurricane.html
13:30 19 October 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Celeste Biever
Astrology would be considered a scientific theory if judged by the same criteria used by a well-known advocate of Intelligent Design to justify his claim that ID is science, a landmark US trial heard on Tuesday.
Under cross examination, ID proponent Michael Behe, a biochemist at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, admitted his definition of "theory" was so broad it would also include astrology.
The trial is pitting 11 parents from the small town of Dover, Pennsylvania, against their local school board. The board voted to read a statement during a biology class that casts doubt on Darwinian evolution and suggests ID as an alternative.
The parents claim this was an attempt to introduce creationism into the curriculum and that the school board members were motivated by their evangelical Christian beliefs. It is illegal to teach anything with a primarily religious purpose or effect on pupils in government-funded US schools.
Supporters of ID believe that some things in nature are simply too complex to have evolved by natural selection, and therefore must be the work of an intelligent designer.
Peer review
Behe was called to the stand on Monday by the defence, and testified that ID was a scientific theory, and was not "committed" to religion. His cross examination by the plaintiffs’ attorney, Eric Rothschild of the Philadelphia law firm Pepper Hamilton, began on Tuesday afternoon.
Rothschild told the court that the US National Academy of Sciences supplies a definition for what constitutes a scientific theory: "Theory: In science, a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses."
Because ID has been rejected by virtually every scientist and science organisation, and has never once passed the muster of a peer-reviewed journal paper, Behe admitted that the controversial theory would not be included in the NAS definition. "I can’t point to an external community that would agree that this was well substantiated," he said.
Behe said he had come up with his own "broader" definition of a theory, claiming that this more accurately describes the way theories are actually used by scientists. "The word is used a lot more loosely than the NAS defined it," he says.
Hypothesis or theory?
Rothschild suggested that Behe’s definition was so loose that astrology would come under this definition as well. He also pointed out that Behe’s definition of theory was almost identical to the NAS’s definition of a hypothesis. Behe agreed with both assertions.
The exchange prompted laughter from the court, which was packed with local members of the public and the school board.
Behe maintains that ID is science: "Under my definition, scientific theory is a proposed explanation which points to physical data and logical inferences."
"You've got to admire the guy. It’s Daniel in the lion’s den," says Robert Slade, a local retiree who has been attending the trial because he is interested in science. "But I can’t believe he teaches a college biology class."
The cross examination will continue Wednesday, with the trial expected to finish on 4 November.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8178
It is available at:
http://iri.columbia.edu/climate/cid/latest/
The IRI Climate Information Digest is a monthly web publication that provides a global overview of recent climate anomalies and their societal impacts (with an emphasis on climatic hazards, health, energy/water resources, and agriculture). This information provides context for the IRI seasonal climate forecasts.
Hot Topics in the October 2005 Climate Information Digest include:
-Flooding in Dakar, Senegal, exacerbates cholera outbreak
-Drought leads to record low water levels in the Amazon River basin, affecting transportation along the river
-Approximately ten million people threatened by hunger in Southern Africa in the wake of drought
bad reporter: sketchy revelations intel
http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/pictures/2005/10/21/102105-950x314-badreporter.gif
Tom Toles: repackaged harriet miers
http://www.buffalonews.com/graphics/2005/10/20/1020toles.jpg
Ted Rall: journalism 101
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/trall/2005/trall051020.gif
SADDAM DEMANDS HARRIET MIERS AS HIS JUDGE
'Likes His Chances' With Non-judge Presiding at Trial
Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein threw another monkey wrench into his upcoming trial for crimes against humanity today, demanding that Harriet Miers, President Bush's latest choice for the United States Supreme Court, serve as judge for that trial.
According to close associates, Mr. Hussein "likes his chances" of beating the charges against him if a non-judge is presiding.
While some legal experts saw the former strongman's latest demand as yet another delaying tactic, those close to Mr. Hussein say that his ardor for Ms. Miers is authentic.
Reportedly, the Iraqi madman was watching television when Mr. Bush introduced his new nominee, and when Mr. Hussein learned that she had no judging experience whatsoever, he jumped up from his prison bed and declared, "Bring me Harriet Miers!"
Mr. Hussein supposedly has told associates that with a non-judge presiding at his trial, he would be able to use what he called "weapons of mass disruption," such as inappropriate and excessive objections, motions, and even bathroom breaks.
But President Bush, attempting to nip Mr. Hussein's latest strategy in the bud, gave his demand "a big no-can-do" at the White House today.
"Harriet Miers does not have the judging experience to deal with an evildoer as wily as Saddam Hussein," Mr. Bush said. "And the only way she can get that experience is by serving on the United States Supreme Court."
Elsewhere, the Minnesota Vikings petitioned the National Football League to let them play the remainder of the season onboard a boat, arguing that that is where they have done most of their scoring this year.
Borowitzreport.com
MAX SAWICKY, [via Karen Conner, kconner@epinet.org],
http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_20050921
An economist with the Economic Policy Institute, Sawicky wrote the recent piece "Red Ink Rising." He said today: "Not withstanding the rhetoric of 'limited government,' from the Republican-controlled White House and Congress, they have increased all kinds of spending rapidly. This of course includes the military budget going from $295 billion in 2000 to $495 billion for 2005, but also includes other programs as well, though debates should be had about whether that money could be spent better. ... Both the Democrats and Republicans posture about the effect of their various proposals, some of which are substantial, some symbolic. Some cuts would cause harm, but spending already committed to and projected revenues will require an historic change. Both sides fiddle with the little things and ignore the big picture on the future of the budget."
From: Institute for Public Accuracy
The crony did time, Delay did none, and his buddies got to keep their money.
Tom DeLay's lawyer admits having nothing to back up his accusations against prosecuting D.A., but vows that won't stop him from making them
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3402899
From: Poacnewsletter
Save Our Courts; Nominations in the News
Powered by civilrights.org; a project of LCCR Education Fund
October 20, 2005
Top Stories
The lack of Republican support for Miers makes her testimony even more important; Bush's nomination has challenged his political base; what are Miers' views on gay rights?; Miers will be a strict constructionist, according to those who know her
Rising Stakes for Miers Hearing | Article | Christian Science Monitor
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=fPurkQcOSGLmvqCjqcfKwg
Bush's Miers Predicament Forces GOP Split or Nominee Withdrawal | Article | Bloomberg.com
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=cL5InpnnPFU8WIzi3kx43w
Miers Opposed AIDS Non-Discrimination Laws | Article | Washington Blade
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=D2lOvO-siN-Fq6vgoQN5Ag
What Would a 'Life Strictly Construed' Mean for the High Court? | Article | Legal Times
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=LWlB4Py5ANEFpN-nHE0U6A
Court Watch
PFAW urges Senate to take more time to assess Supreme Court nominee; Miers should "elaborate on her White House responsibilities," says Alliance for Justice
Miers Hearings Rushed on Capitol Hill | People For the American Way
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=V43VOhOlPebrs37bv6x0cw
Statement of Alliance for Justice President Nan Aron on Harriet Miers' Questionnaire | Alliance for Justice
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=d0s9g9qyG4CnuCE99j6RNw
Commentary
White House marketing of Miers has shifted from her faith to her qualifications; Miers' answers to the Senate questionnaire are "more information than insight"; Miers' thin paper trail has backfired and stirred up distrust
Faith and the Court | Editorial | The New York Times
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=IIa8Ko-g6AGEaRGUQgKRLQ
Getting to Know Her | Editorial | The Washington Post
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=avRIOHOpSRd1rtTO8JUB-Q
Miers Not Such a Stealth Nominee After All | Op-Ed | The Sacramento Bee
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=G3dAVrtWmoJixXeV66aY-Q
Calling Activists
Stay informed! Get the latest news on the judiciary from civilrights.org!
Use civilrights.org RSS feeds to receive automatic updates on your news reader or blog.
See report below to learn more about Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court:
Harriet Miers | IndependentCourt.org
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=f28R3OhIIpjGy41RRt1-cw
The Buzz
The Deafening Silence on Miers
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=9HM-AGTe9ZS_ieEx80sk6Q
Specter, Leahy Demand More Information From Miers
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=9aquJrekHi7tYO_mT-Wi3A
Panelists Demand More Data From Miers
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=lucj6suUpd7dqK2Hlhs3nA
The Trouble With Harriet
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=ZGDWCTDV_UNN8JuVZ7rGrg
Senators: Miers' Answers 'Inadequate' So Far
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=h9QaOanix-drT5_onDvj9A
View More Buzz
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=fMlBsj1WoZaj9LR6XQh-nw
Media Watch
What is the media saying about the courts in YOUR state? To view an interactive map
click here >
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=MPdRQWtOdfH8baOKYFbhUg
By Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed. Posted October 19, 2005.
The battles over the teaching of evolution are moving from high schools to universities.
In the battles over the teaching of evolution, it's usually the critics of evolution who are accused of crossing church/state lines.
But last week, some of those critics filed suit in federal court against the University of California at Berkeley, charging that its views on evolution are leading it to violate the separation of church and state. Berkeley was sued for maintaining a Web site, Understanding Evolution, to help schoolteachers. The site contains a links section that notes the many religious organizations that have stated that faith is not incompatible with evolution, and these links violate the First Amendment, according to the suit.
While much of the debate over evolution is taking place in public schools, not colleges, the lawsuit is the latest example of how these discussions can spill into higher education -- even when there is a wide and strongly held consensus among scientists backing evolution. In fact, this is the second lawsuit this year in which anti-evolution groups have gone after the University of California. The university system was sued in August over its refusal to certify high school courses on creationism and "intelligent design" as meeting the entry requirements for admission.
"These suits are attempts to bully academic institutions into compromising the science education that they provide, and I hope universities continue to stand up and not take it," said Alan I. Leshner, chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He said that efforts to oppose evolution have already moved from elementary and secondary schools to theme parks and science museums "so it's not surprising to see this directed at institutions of higher education."
One irony of the Berkeley lawsuit is that science organizations have been calling on universities to sponsor projects that reach out to public schools to explain evolution. "Berkeley is doing exactly what it ought to be doing," Leshner said.
. . .
Complete article at: http://www.alternet.org/wiretap/27075/
http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2005/11/paging_dr_ross.html
"When American corporations come up against inconvenient science," writes Bill Hogan, "they call in the American Council on Science and Health." The group's medical / executive director, Dr. Gilbert Ross, has "defended the Wood Preservative Science Council, saying ... the arsenic in pressure-treated wood poses 'no risk to human health,'" and has written "on behalf of the farmed-salmon industry that the PCBs in fish 'are not a cause of any health risk, including cancer.'" And Ross' background is as spotty as his junk science-for-hire. For "his participation in a scheme that ultimately defrauded New York's Medicaid program of approximately $8 million," Ross had his medical license revoked, spent a year at a federal prison camp, and was barred from the Medicare or Medicaid programs for 10 years, after a judge found him to be "a highly untrustworthy individual." Ross regained his medical license last year.
SOURCE: Mother Jones magazine, November / December 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4092
Working families continue to hold large companies accountable for forcing employees to use taxpayer-funded health care programs by paying low wages and skimping on benefits. The New York City Council recently overrode Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s veto of legislation setting minimum standards for employer contributions to worker health costs. On Sept. 27, Long Island working families mobilized to win passage of a similar bill by the Suffolk County Legislature. Meanwhile, working families and legislators in California and Maryland will attempt to override recent health care vetoes in their next legislative sessions. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) vetoed legislation Oct. 7 that would have required the state to collect and disclose the names of those employers whose workers apply for publicly funded health care programs as well as the cost to state taxpayers. California unions, community groups and others pushed for the Health Care Disclosure Act, while the giant retailer Wal-Mart opposed it. In May, Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich (R) vetoed a bill that would have required employers with more than 10,000 workers in the state to spend 8 percent of their payroll on worker health care costs or contribute to a special health care fund.
For more information, visit www.walmartcostsyou.com .
From: Work in Progress
"NATO has been testing technologies, including radio frequency ID tags, to try to reduce casualties from friendly fire. Earlier this month NATO's Operation Urgent Quest exercise tested the potential of a number of combat identity systems, under battlefield conditions on Salisbury Plain in England with 800 troops, 94 combat vehicles and nine aircraft putting a number of technologies through their paces. The system allows commanders and gunners to investigate a target without having to aim the main gun at it, which could be considered threatening. U.S. Army Col. Bill McKean told Silicon.com that no single system can solve the problem of friendly fire."
Learn more at News.com.
http://news.com.com/NATO+tests+RFID+to+prevent+friendly+fire/2100-11395_3-5904392.html?tag=nefd.top
From: Future Brief
http://www.philb.com/il2005/IL2005wpage_files/frame.htm
Steve Sack: my little crony
http://cagle.com/news/HarrietMiers/images/sack.jpg
Tony Auth: war on poverty (sticken)
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/ta/2005/ta051020.gif
Ben Sargent: homosexual agenda
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/bs/2005/bs051020.gif
DELAY VOWS TO CONTINUE FUNDRAISING IN PRISON
Will Tap Into Network of Convicted CEOs, Congressman Says
Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) said today that even if he is convicted of crimes for which he has been indicted in the state of Texas, he will continue fundraising for future political campaigns while serving time in prison.
A defiant Rep. DeLay told reporters in Washington that being incarcerated would not slow his fundraising efforts "one iota" because it would enable him to tap into a cash-rich network of convicted CEO's.
"If I'm behind bars, you can bet your fanny I'll be reaching out to Dennis Kozlowski, Bernie Ebbers, and the rest of my people," Rep. DeLay said. "I might be able to raise more money in prison than I could on the outside."
The specter of Rep. DeLay hitting the fundraising mother lode while serving a prison sentence sent shivers through the Democratic Party establishment, with some party leaders openly wondering if there are any Democratic congressmen who could serve time behind bars to level the fundraising playing field.
But after a top-level meeting of the Democratic National Committee last night, DNC chief Howard Dean was pessimistic that a Democrat could be recruited to break a law or two and follow Mr. DeLay through the prison gates.
"If we Democrats are ever going to be competitive with Republicans in terms of fundraising, we simply are going to have to get better at committing crimes," Mr. Dean said.
Elsewhere, Nintendo and McDonald's announced that they were teaming up to provide access to Nintendo's wireless gaming service at McDonald's restaurants, thus enabling McDonald's customers to become even more sedentary and obese than ever before.
Borowitzreport.com
JOHN MILLER, jmiller@wheatonma.edu, http://www.dollarsandsense.org
Professor of economics at Wheaton College in Massachusetts and contributing editor to Dollars & Sense Magazine, Miller said today: "So how will the Bush administration deal with the victims of Katrina and Rita? Cut taxes for the wealthy. Little more than a moment of silence later, tax cuts are back on the Congressional agenda. Instead of borrowing the money necessary to pay for the one-time expenditures to rebuild the Gulf Coast -- which would make perfect sense -- the Bush administration will slash social spending, while it goes about making permanent its tax cuts that have gone overwhelmingly to the richest 1 percent of taxpayers, with average incomes of nearly $1 million. Costing far more than hurricane relief, the Bush team will press to make permanent: the 15 percent tax rate on long-term capital gains and dividends, repeal of the estate tax in the near term and in the long term reform of the Alternative Minimum Tax and broader tax reform."
From: Institute for Public Accuracy
by Taxpayers for Common Sense www.taxpayer.net
Vol. X No. 35
October 19, 2005
Bechtel Bonanza
Sometimes, it’s very hard to tell who our government officials are working for. With high-paid jobs in the private sector only a phone call away, some of our federal bureaucrats seem less fixated on public service than they are on giving huge payouts to big contractors, so to as ensure a golden parachute when they leave their government post.
Last month, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Inspector General released an audit of the department’s Yucca activities which found that the DOE gave Bechtel SAIC, one of the nation’s largest contractors, $4 million in bonuses that the company flat out didn’t deserve. Despite Bechtel’s sloppy work, which included botched data, incomplete documents, and unacceptable final products, the DOE went to great lengths to make sure Bechtel got a fat paycheck. Read the complete wastebasket here:
http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/CXJBFDEYWL/KNSOFDEYYA/
GOING ON AT TAXPAYER.NET THIS WEEK
1. The Costs of Katrina: Rebuilding the Gulf - TCS's resources on the cost of rebuilding the Gulf Coast, including a database of the largest reconstruction contracts given out thus far, as well as profiles of the contractors involved.
http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/CXJBFDEYWL/AKILFDEYYB/
2. Fiscal Roadmap for Reconstruction - Rebuilding the Gulf and restoring the lives of those who live there will cost the federal government $200 billion. We put together a reasonable and achievable list of budget offsets for how Congress can pay for this massive undertaking. One of our suggestions: cut $10 billion in pork from the transportation bill.
http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/CXJBFDEYWL/OGGLFDEYYC/
ACTION ITEMS
Take action to weather Katrina's fiscal storm:
http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/CXJBFDEYWL/OLRJFDEYYD/
by Sheldon Rampton
The biggest surprise for me about the furor following President Bush's recent staged TV event with U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq was the media's newfound willingness to expose the facade. Bush has been conducting similar staged events for years now, and he rarely gets called on them.
Bush's teleconference with soldiers outraged Paul Rieckhoff, the Iraq war veteran who organized Operation Truth. Rieckhoff wrote a devastating critique of the event:
For the rest of this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4073
By Steve Satterwhite, Texas Observer. Posted October 20, 2005.
For Christian Fundamentalist leaders in Texas, a discussion about the 'homosexual agenda' becomes an argument about heaven and hell.
Every soul who testified at the Texas Senate State Affairs Committee hearing on May 19 on the topic of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and civil unions had more to say than they could cram into the three minutes made available to each speaker.
There were so many people who wanted to testify that the hearing was held in a packed Senate Chamber instead of a committee room. For upwards of 10 hours, they took their turns, the on-deck speaker sitting beside the one who was already testifying.
For those who supported gay marriage and gay rights in general, the proposed amendment was cast as a hideous step toward the Dark Ages, a crippling legal twist on the civil definition of marriage. What's worse, it codified discrimination in the state constitution, a document that should be used to guarantee civil rights. It would deny some human beings the freedom to be fully human.
But for the fundamentalist Christians who spoke and formed the activist core of support for the amendment, the debate was much bigger than even all of that: The argument was literally about heaven and hell.
We decided to give some of the more vociferous amendment proponents more time to voice their ideas by talking to them in person. Many declined the invitation. Paranoia was a constant with nearly everyone with whom we spoke. For some, it appears the media are to be counted among those who persecute Christians and weaken the institution of marriage. One chose not to go on the record, but still talked at length on the phone. In furtive, fevered tones, he described the argument between the two camps as a real war for the soul of our society, a hot conflict that was already dangerous and violent. Even though he was afraid of physical attacks on his family, he was still chomping at the bit to "pick up arms" to advance the cause.
Many of the people with whom we did speak used identical words to describe their position, and cited similar statistics indicating an anti-gay echo chamber. Mary Ann Markarian rattled off numbers that come from widely discredited reports by Paul Cameron. The chairman of a right-wing outfit called the Family Research Institute, Cameron was dropped from membership in the American Psychological Association in 1983 for lack of cooperation with the Committee on Scientific and Professional Ethics and Conduct. Several identified Kelly Shackleford as a leader. Shackleford, a former GOP delegate, is president of a radical right think-tank called the Free Market Foundation. He also works as a lawyer with the Liberty Legal Institute, where he helps to gin out prayer-in-school and anti-evolution lawsuits.
Those who graciously invited us into their homes, churches, and neighborhoods to make their case, spoke cautiously, and emphasized a distinction that some would dispute: While they hated the "sin of homosexuality" in all its forms, they also loved "the sinners."
Complete article at: http://www.alternet.org/story/27065/
Steve Satterwhite is a photojournalist who lives in Duncanville. Additional writing and reporting by Jake Bernstein.
James T. Bartis, Tom LaTourrette, Lloyd Dixon, D. J. Peterson and Gary Cecchine
Abstract:
In the early 1980s, industry and government took a hard look at the economics of extracting oil from vast deposits of shale that lie beneath the western United States. Oil prices subsided, and interest waned. With oil prices spiking and global demand showing no signs of abating, reexamining the economics of oil shale makes sense. In this report, the authors describe oil shale resources; suitability, cost, and performance of new technologies; and key policy issues that need to be addressed by government decisionmakers in the near future.
http://www.rand.org/publications/MG/MG414/index.html
http://www.suntimes.com/output/terror/cst-nws-afghan19.html
From: Poacnewsletter
"The greatest getting-and-spending spree in the history of the world is about to end. The 200-year boom that gave citizens of the industrial world levels of wealth, health and longevity beyond anything previously known to humanity is threatened on every side. Oil is running out; the climate is changing at a potentially catastrophic rate; wars over scarce resources are brewing; finally, most shocking of all, we don't seem to be having enough ideas about how to fix any of these things. It's been said before, of course: people are always saying the world will end and it never does.
Maybe it won't this time, either. But, frankly, it's not looking good. Almost daily, new evidence is emerging that progress can no longer be taken for granted, that a new Dark Age is lying in wait for ourselves and our children. To understand how this could happen, it is necessary to grasp just how extraordinary, how utterly unprecedented are the privileges we in the developed world enjoy now."
Learn more in the Times Online.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-1813695,00.html
From: Future Brief
http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Web_Browser_Extensions
This Modern World: The very bad idea
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David Horsey: pay for the war and hurricances
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Mike Peters: another snafu
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NEW SUPER-TINY IPOD IS IMPLANTED DIRECTLY INTO THE BRAIN
100 Million Americans Could Be Hardwired for Sound By 2008, Says Jobs
At company headquarters in Cupertino, California today, Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs introduced a new IPod so tiny that it can be implanted directly into the human brain.
The IPod MicroT becomes fused to the central nervous system through a simple non-invasive surgical procedure that can be performed in any doctor's office or at any Apple store, Mr. Jobs said.
The Apple CEO, who last week became the first to have the IPod MicroT implanted into his brain, showed how music can be downloaded via a USB port discreetly located on the back of his neck.
Mr. Jobs said that the MicroT can store up to 2800 songs and that the tracks can be shuffled by blinking one's eyes or nodding one's head, making it possible to listen to music in a classroom or at the office without anyone else knowing it.
He demonstrated by rocking out to the song "Let's Get It Started" by The Black Eyed Peas, declaring the sound quality inside his head "awesome."
While Mr. Jobs said that as many as 100 million Americans could be hardwired for sound by 2008, Sony Corporation CEO Sir Howard Stringer served notice that his company was rolling out a new, super-tiny PlayStation PortableT that could also be implanted directly into the brain.
"There's a lot of room in the average American's head and we intend to fight for every square inch of it," Sir Howard told reporters.
Elsewhere, thousands lined up to buy Powerball tickets when lottery officials announced that the grand prize would be a full tank of gas.
Borowitzreport.com
National Security Archive Update, October 18, 2005
Intelligence Reports on Saddam Hussein's Reign
For more information contact:
Jeffrey Richelson - 202/994-7000
http://www.nsarchive.org
Washington D.C. October 18, 2005 - The National Security Archive today posted a series of declassified U.S. intelligence documents and other U.S. agency reports on Saddam Hussein's human rights abuses, one of which is the subject of the first trial of Saddam which begins tomorrow in Iraq. The first set of charges concerns Saddam's responsibility, along with seven co-defendants, for the 1982 massacre of 143 Shiites in Dujail, a town 35 miles north of Baghdad, after an unsuccessful assassination attempt against Saddam. Procedures for the trial are the subject of significant controversy, as reported by the New York Times' John Burns today. The Archive's posting gives a preview of the evidence that the U.S. government may be providing to the trial process.
Saddam may face up to a dozen trials for crimes alleged to have been committed by his regime - among them the gassing of Kurds in Halabja and the suppression of a Shiite uprising in the south. However, in September it was reported that the Iraqi government may waive further proceedings if Saddam is convicted in the first trial, a conviction which could bring the death penalty.
During his years in power, the U.S. Intelligence Community produced estimates and studies of Iraq's foreign and defense policies, its military capabilities and activities, and analyses of the regime's domestic policies and actions. Other U.S. agencies, both before and after the termination of Saddam's rule, also produced reports on the the regime's internal activities.
The collection below contains a number of documents produced by U.S. agencies over the last thirty years concerning the Iraqi regime's policies and activities directed at maintaining itself in power and eliminating or neutralizing opposition to the regime.
Please follow the link below to view the documents:
http://www.nsarchive.org
FRANCES FOX PIVEN, fpiven@email.gc.cuny.edu,
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Bush_Gang/War_At_Home.html
Author of the book "The War at Home: The Domestic Costs of Bush's Militarism," Piven said today: "Americans are beginning to recognize the recklessness and incompetence of this administration in launching an invasion of Iraq. We saw recklessness and incompetence again in the failure to prepare for Katrina, or to mobilize to rescue the victims afterwards. The casualties of war and of disaster pay dearly for these mistakes. And so do the rest of us, as deficits caused by war and unpreparedness mount. The Congress seems poised to solve this problem by asking us to pay again, by slashing the programs that help shore up our eroding infrastructure, and also cutting the programs that provide some economic security for the worst off among us." Piven is distinguished professor of political science and sociology at the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York. Her past books include "The Breaking of the American Social Compact."
From: Institute for Public Accuracy
By Jennifer Talhelm
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The United States has an oil reserve at least three times that of Saudi Arabia locked in oil-shale deposits beneath federal land in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, according to a study released yesterday.
But the researchers at the RAND think tank caution the federal government to go carefully, balancing the environmental and economic impacts with development pressure to prevent an oil-shale bust later.
"We've got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East," said James Bartis, RAND senior policy researcher and the report's lead author. He added, "If we go faster, there's a good chance we're going to end up at a dead end."
Complete article at:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002463368_oilstudy01.html
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-10/17/content_3626273.htm
From: Poacnewsletter
UAW President Ron Gettelfinger denounced as a "disgusting spectacle" the decision by Delphi Corp. to sweeten the severance packages of 21 top executives one day before announcing its plan to file for bankruptcy. The union is willing to continue discussions to consider a wide range of options to make Delphi’s operation successful, he said. The UAW represents 25,000 workers at Delphi, the world’s largest auto parts supplier.
From: Work in Progress
UCLA researchers have developed an innovative new plastic (or polymer) solar cell they hope eventually can be produced at a mere 10-20% of the current cost of traditional cells, making the technology more widely available.
Made of a single layer of plastic sandwiched between two conductive electrodes, UCLA's solar cell is easy to mass-produce and costs much less to make -- roughly one-third of the cost of traditional silicon solar cell technology. The polymers used in its construction are commercially available in such large quantities that the researchers hope cost-conscious consumers worldwide will quickly adopt the technology.
For the full story, visit: http://link.abpi.net/l.php?20051013A2
"A study conducted by scientists in the U.S. and Italy warns that summers could be a lot hotter in a hundred years because of global warming caused by greenhouse gases. 'Summer is likely to be more severely hot everywhere in the U.S.,' said Noah Diffenbaugh, an atmospheric scientist at Purdue
University who co-authored study. 'In the Southwest, if you imagine the hottest two and a half weeks of the year, you're looking at that becoming three months long. Phoenix [Arizona] will get three months of what is now the hottest two weeks of the year.' Winter weather could be affected as well, Diffenbaugh said. 'You're looking at the coldest couple of weeks of the year not existing anymore in lot of places,' he said." Learn more in National Geographic News.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/10/1017_051017_warming_weather.html
From: Future Brief
Slowpoke: The handy guide to right-wing scandals
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Ted Rall: bush's cabinet-2006
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KAL: opinion poll
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BUSH AFRAID HIS DAD LIKES CLINTON BETTER
Latest Worry for Beleaguered President
Beset by such woes as the war in Iraq, rising gas prices, and falling approval ratings, President George W. Bush has a new worry preying on his mind: according to close aides, the president is now afraid that his father, former president George H.W. Bush, likes former president Bill Clinton better than him.
It is cruel twist of fate for the younger Mr. Bush, who teamed up the two former presidents to represent the U.S. relief effort after last year's Asian tsunami, only to see the charismatic Mr. Clinton best him in his father's affections.
"When they first went to Asia, the president's dad was like, 'Don't make me sit in the same plane as that sleazebag,'" one White House aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "But on the flight over, Clinton did a dead-on Al Gore imitation for him, and that totally won him over."
According to the aide, the younger Mr. Bush now frequently interrupts Cabinet meetings to telephone his father, only to be told that the elder Mr. Bush is out golfing "with Bill."
"When he finally reached him on the golf course, he was like, 'What's Bill Clinton got that I haven't got?'" the aide said. "And his dad was like, 'Well, for one thing, a surplus.'"
The heated exchange left the president noticeably gloomy, the aide said: "He's been pacing the halls of the White House, going, 'At least Harriet Miers thinks I'm awesome.'"
Elsewhere, Saddam Hussein said that he was looking forward to standing trial, serving a prison sentence, and then hosting a spin-off of "The Apprentice."
Borowitzreport.com
http://www.organicconsumers.org/Politics/harpers101205.cfm
From: Poacnewsletter
Several contractors with multimillion-dollar contracts for Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts have cozy ties with influential lawmakers and lobbyists connected to the Bush administration, according to a Center for Responsive Politics report, Ties That Bind. Of the $2.3 billion in contracts awarded by the Bush administration in the weeks after Katrina, at least 15 totaled $15 million or more each and five contracts were valued at $500 million or more. More than 80 percent of those contracts were awarded with little or no competition. For more information, visit
From: Work in Progress
NORMAN SOLOMON, norman@accuracy.org, http://www.WarMadeEasy.com
Solomon is executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and author of "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death." The book includes these examples of statements during the Vietnam War:
* 1964 - President Johnson: "Our one desire -- our one determination -- is that the people of Southeast Asia be left in peace to work out their own destinies in their own way."
* 1965 - Vice President Humphrey: "Our commitment to strengthening the peace has not weakened."
* 1966 - President Johnson: "I do not genuinely believe that there's any single person anywhere in the world that wants peace as much as I want it."
* 1967 - Vice President Humphrey: "There is no quick and easy way to peace -- it must and will be built out of the cumulative acts of men and women who dedicate their lives to the service of their fellow men -- and therefore to the service of God."
* 1968 - President Johnson: "But our goal is peace -- and peace at the earliest possible moment."
From: Institute for Public Accuracy
(17 Oct) The General Accountability Office (GAO) yesterday released a report entitled "Understanding the Primary Components of the Annual Financial Report of the United States Government." The purpose of the report "is to make available to every American a comprehensive overview of the federal government's finances. As described in the CFR, significant issues regarding the reliability and presentation of the federal government's financial information still need to be addressed. For example, the Department of Defense's current financial management problems present a significant impediment to our being able to express any opinion on the federal government's consolidated financial statements."
http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/abstract.php?rptno=GAO-05-958SP
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/243008_retail01.html
"The study of people in their natural environment is, The Hartman Group believes, the future of marketing," explains a Seattle Post-Intelligencer story. So this market research firm, which has worked for Whole Foods, PepsiCo and Campbell Soup Company, has sent two sociocultural anthropologists into a private home for up to nine months, to "observe the family's eating habits." This new approach - called "reality marketing" - will fill "an enormous void in the intellectual capital of the entire industry," said The Hartman Group's Michelle Barry. Pepsi's vice-president of consumer and customer insights, Dwight Riskey, agrees. "This generates a richness that we wouldn't get from standard techniques," he said. The Hartman Group's CEO, Harvey Hartman, stressed the importance of observing one family over time: "The fluidity of life is the power behind reality marketing."
SOURCE: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, October 1, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4068
Date: 2005
By: Mark W. French
Recent studies of crude oil price formation emphasize the role of interest rates and convenience yield (the adjusted spot-futures spread), confirming that spot prices mean-revert and normally exceed discounted futures. However, these studies don't explain why such "backwardation" is normal. Also, models derived in these studies typically explain only about 1 percent of daily returns, suggesting other factors are important, too. In this paper, I specify a structural oil-market model that links returns to convenience yield, inventory news, and revisions of expected production cost (growth of which is related to backwardation). Although its predictive power is only a marginal improvement, the model fits the data far better. In addition, I find reversion of spot to futures prices only when backwardation is severe. Convenience yield behaves nonlinearly, but price response to convenience yield is also nonlinear. Equivalently, futures are informative about future spot prices only when spot prices substantially exceed futures.
Finance and Economics Discussion Series. Divisions of Research & Statistics and Monetary Affairs. Federal Reserve Board, Washington, DC
http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2005/200530/200530pap.pdf
Ziv will be your guide to future trends inspired by current and past events.
The Link:
http://changethis.com/18.NowWhat
Giant Miscanthus, a hybrid grass that can grow as high as 13 feet, may be a future renewable fuel source, according to researchers at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
A relative of sugarcane, the grass drops its leaves in winter, leaving tall, bamboo-like stems that can be burned as fuel. It produces only as much carbon dioxide as it removes from the air during growth, so there is no effect on atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, which is a problem with fossil fuels.
Visit http://link.abpi.net/l.php?20051018A2 for more information.
Gregory: dogs talking blogs
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Tom Toles: my bunker
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Dan Wasserman: releasing her prayers
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SUNNIS FEAR ANGELINA JOLIE COULD BREAK UP IRAQ
Demand Provision In Constitution Banning Actress From Gulf State
Sunni Arabs turned out in large numbers over the weekend to vote against the new Iraqi constitution, complaining that the charter contained no provision that would prevent actress Angelina Jolie from breaking up Iraq.
While some Western observers were surprised to learn that Ms. Jolie inspired so much anxiety among Sunni voters, a leading Sunni political leader held a press conference in Baghdad on Sunday to insist that the possibility of the actress breaking up Iraq was not being exaggerated.
"When we speak of Angelina Jolie breaking up Iraq, some might say, 'It can't happen here,'" said Industry Minister Usama Abdul Aziz al-Najafi, a Sunni Arab cabinet minister. "Tell that to Jennifer Aniston!"
If the new constitution is approved, as is widely expected, Sunnis may threaten to resign from the Iraqi government unless a law is passed preventing Ms. Jolie from setting foot on Iraqi soil.
"It would be just like her to say that she's coming here to adopt some Iraqi babies, when what she really wants is to break up Iraq," Mr. al-Najafi said.
But within hours, Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, held a press conference of his own to warn the Sunnis not to take any action that would prevent Ms. Jolie from entering Iraq.
"Even if Angelina Jolie succeeded in breaking up Iraq, Iraq could still wind up in the arms of Vince Vaughn," al-Sistani said. "We could do a lot worse."
Elsewhere, U.S. Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers acknowledged today that she had no experience as a judge but cited decades of experience as a startled deer.
Borowitzreport.com
National Security Archive Update, October 16, 2005
Paramilitaries as Proxies: Declassified evidence on the Colombian army's anti-guerrilla "allies"
For more information contact:
Michael Evans 202/994-7029
mevans@gwu.edu
Washington D.C. October 16, 2005 - There is a "body count syndrome" that tends "to fuel human rights abuses" among Colombian army forces, according to a declassified U.S. military intelligence report published today on the website of the National Security Archive. That mindset had produced what the official characterized as "a cavalier, or at least passive, approach" among military officers when it came to "allowing paramilitaries to serve as proxies for the Colar [Colombian army] in contributing to the guerrilla body count."
The document is one of several cited in an article by National Security Archive Colombia analyst Michael Evans and published today in Semana, Colombia's leading news magazine. These records, including the first-hand accounts of senior Colombian army officers, provide important new details about Colombian military involvement in attacks carried out in the last decade by the country’s illegal right-wing militias and offer a unique and intimate perspective on the institutional pressures that encouraged a wide range of cooperation with paramilitary forces--from the tacit acquiescence of senior commanders to the direct participation of field officers and their troops.
Other documents shed light on the infamous series of paramilitary attacks in and around the towns of La Gabarra and Tibú in 1999. In one, Colombian army Colonel Víctor Hugo Matamoros--who remains on active duty--is quoted as telling a U.S. embassy official that his forces would not pursue paramilitary groups: "If you have so many tasks to do with so few resources, and you're faced with two illegal armed groups, one of which (guerrillas) is shooting at you and the other (paramilitaries) is shooting at them, you obviously fight the guerrillas first, then worry about paramilitaries."
Another colonel implicates two former Colombian armed forces commanders as among those who "looked the other way" with respect to collaboration with paramilitary groups. Generals Harold Bedoya and Jorge Enrique Mora "turned their backs to what was happening and felt the Colar [Colombian army] should in no way be blamed for any resulting human rights atrocities committed."
The article is the first in a monthly column to be published in collaboration with Semana.com. The series is the result of a mutual desire to publish and disseminate in Colombia declassified information now emerging from United States files about the major issues in the U.S.-Colombia relationship, including the drug war, security assistance programs, human rights and impunity. An English translation of each article along with the documents cited will be posted on the Archive's website.
Please follow the link below to read the article and documents:
http://www.nsarchive.org
by Diane Farsetta
Like much news that's damaging to the Bush administration, the report came out on a Friday.
Since then, it's gotten little media attention -- just 41 mentions in U.S. newspapers and wire stories, according to a news database search on October 11. That's remarkably sparse coverage for a story showing that the U.S. government has been engaged in illegal propaganda aimed at its own citizens.
On September 30, the nonpartisan, investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), announced that several aspects of work done for the Department of Education by the public relations firm Ketchum violated federal law. Taxpayer-funded projects carried out by Ketchum or its subcontractors -- including Armstrong Williams and Karen Ryan -- constituted "covert propaganda" or "purely partisan activities," according to the GAO.
Yet, what the GAO has condemned, administration officials seem to consider business as usual.
For the rest of this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4059
By Timothy Karr, TomPaine.com. Posted October 17, 2005.
Having quadrupled the PR budget of any previous administration, the Bush Team has broken federal propaganda laws on numerous occasions.
Treating policy as product to be marketed to the electorate is no great stretch for a president who fashions himself the CEO of White House Inc. But in its zeal to promote sales of the Bush brand, this administration has crossed the line that separates honest brokers from snake oil salesmen.
Bush and company sold Americans defective goods in clear violation of federal law. Yet Attorney General Alberto Gonzales hasn't budged. Instead, the man charged with enforcing our laws has tasked his army of lawyers to throw a legal shield around the White House, telling the administration to ignore investigations by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which repeatedly has blasted Team Bush for using taxpayer money to fund "covert propaganda."
In its latest report, issued on Sept. 30, the GAO's federal auditors scolded the White House for squandering American tax dollars to hire fake news reporters and unleash a pre-packaged new blitz in advance of the 2004 elections. The GAO found the White House violated the law by hiring pundit Armstrong Williams to shower praise on Bush's education initiative, the No Child Left Behind Act, while interviewing administration officials on the air.
The GAO also uncovered a previously undisclosed case in which the Education Department commissioned an article carried by several newspapers that extolled the administration's role in promoting science education. Readers were not informed of the government's role in the writing of the article.
The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 forbids the domestic dissemination of government-authored propaganda or "official news" deliberately designed to influence public opinion or policy. The law singles out materials that serve "a solely partisan purpose." The GAO has now found on at least four separate occasions that administration agencies violated this and other federal restrictions when they disseminated news written by the government or its contractors without disclosing the conflict of interest.
In 2003, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy produced for local newscasts eight "video news releases" that praised Bush's plan for preventing teen drug use. They were beamed into more than 22 million households via nearly 300 local television stations. Around the same time, the Department of Health and Human Services contracted PR industry professional Karen Ryan to pose as a local news reporter giving the administration's Medicare plan "an A-plus." The resulting fake news segment was broadcast by more than 40 local newscasts. In both cases, these video news releases broke the law by not disclosing the government as their source.
It's more than likely that the White House has set other propaganda efforts loose in the media mainstream. We just don't know about them yet. A January report by members of the House Committee on Government Reform noted that this administration has set aside a quarter billion in taxpayer dollars for similar propaganda efforts -- spending money on PR at four times the rate of any previous administration.
While the evidence is damning, the GAO lacks the enforcement powers to reveal the full extent of the abuse. The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel has final say over executive branch legal matters. And GAO and Justice have not seen eye to eye on covert propaganda in the past, specifically on the issue of unidentified video news releases. Justice says that all the government's publicity is legal, because they have been fact-based. DOJ advised executive agencies that they could ignore the GAO since the legal prohibition on propaganda does not apply to government-made television news segments that are "factual, politically neutral and useful to viewers."
The GAO's most recent investigation correctly shot down that sophistry, saying that pre-packaged government news is inherently false because "the essential fact of attribution is missing."
The ball is now back in Gonzales' court. If the White House indeed broke the law, it is incumbent upon DOJ to prosecute the crimes. Without legal action, an emboldened White House will continue to throw up obstacles to full disclosure and create propaganda that pushes Bush's political bromides on unsuspecting viewers.
It's been left to the public to do what our elected and appointed officials are unwilling or unable to: pressure our government to stop propaganda. Earlier this month, Free Press unleashed a public campaign to do just that. In less than a week, nearly 35,000 concerned citizens have signed letters to Congress and the Justice Department, urging Gonzales "to prosecute these crimes to the fullest extent of the law." (To learn more, visit www.freepress.net.)
Justice should never be delivered by popular fiat -- but it's essential that our elected officials and their appointees understand that the public is watching. As more evidence comes into view, we're able to assemble a case against an administration that has gone too far, involving a systemic and quiet campaign to manipulate the Fourth Estate and sway the electorate in favor of presidential policies.
Chances are that this corporate-styled White House will continue to employ the tactics of PR and marketing firms -- television advertising, product placement and media blitzes -- to pitch them to the public. But if Bush's sagging approval rating is any guide, Americans are no longer buying.
Timothy Karr is the author of MediaCitizen, a weblog about the future of America's media. From September 2003 through February 2005, Karr was executive director of MediaChannel.org and Media for Democracy.
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/26860/
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,11538,1592808,00.html
Is that why he continues to sell Saudi Arabia and Pakistan some of our best military hardware? -ed.
From: Poacnewsletter
The Predictive Awareness and Network-Centric Analysis for Collaborative Intelligence Assessment (PANACIA) system is the product of an innovative AFRL effort to create an operator-focused and roles-based system that provides adaptive multi-intelligence (multi-INT) reasoning and fusion capabilities. PANACIA integrates multiple systems from different agencies to address data needs ranging from simple tracking to complex behavioral reasoning and spanning multiple intelligence domains and phenomenologies.
http://link.abpi.net/l.php?20051013A6
Dave Wilson and davidcoe
Websites need to enable visitors to browse with ease and leave them wanting more. Allow Dave and davidcoe to introduce you to the new 4G Web Strategy.
The Link:
http://changethis.com/18.4GWebStrategy
non-sequitur: when it's our pension
http://www.ucomics.com/nonsequitur/2005/10/10/
David Horsey: 3 lame reasons to put harriet miers on the supreme court
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/horsey/viewbydate.asp?id=1272
Matt Davies: dinosaurs in the garden of eden
http://swiftreport.blogs.com/news/
Seeking to win over conservative Christians to the side of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, administration officials have begun to spread the word that the unmarried Ms. Miers is 'chaste,' and has never lain with a man. If confirmed, Ms. Miers will likely be the first virgin justice to join the Supreme Court.
Potential justice joins Jesus, John, Paul in ranks of famous virgins
Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 16:04:19 -0400
The Sepoy Mutiny Syndrome
An excellent film from India recently opened in the United States—Mangal Pandey—about the beginning of the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857, when the Army of Bengal revolted against the command and rule of the British East India Company. The East India Company had recruited, trained, and paid native troops of the Army of Bengal to conduct operations against other Indian rulers and states and to maintain order. The revolt of the sepoys resulted in the killing of thousands of British soldiers, civilians, and Indians who remained loyal—by the native soldiers upon whom they had depended.
The movie is of interest today because of the strong indications that the U.S. military is working under a burden of fear that Iraq and Afghanistan could present the U.S. military with similar mutinies. This fear of betrayal is hindering the U.S. military from accomplishing one of its most important missions: establishing professional military and paramilitary forces that can successfully protect the nascent democracies of these two nations. This fear is, in part, the cause for the lessening confidence that both U.S. taxpayers and Iraqi and Afghan citizens have in the U.S. military’s ability to accomplish its mission.
The more disturbing example is the condition of the Iraqi National Army (INA). The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has put the Iraqi military through three iterations during the two and a half years since the U.S. invasion: the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC), the Iraqi National Guard (ING), and now the INA. The short histories of all three have been problematic.
The U.S. military and the DOD have been, at best, ambivalent about creating quickly an Iraqi military force that could be considered to be effective against adversaries. Recruiting centers have not been adequately protected, and recruits not thoroughly vetted. Military living conditions have been below minimum standards. Training courses were neither intensive nor extensive. ICDC, ING, and—finally—INA units have always been undergunned. When privately asked recently about artillery for the INA, a senior Iraqi government official replied that the INA has no artillery and the Americans would be unlikely to provide artillery. It is an accepted fact that the former Ayad Allawi government, supposedly under the watch of U.S. advisers, stole millions of dollars and provided the INA with useless military equipment.
The recent reappraisal of the effectiveness of Iraqi battalions, after two years of training, is an embarrassment to the United States, not just to the Bush administration. A retired British Army colonel recently said that Iraq is a "right rollicking cock-up."
In Afghanistan, things are not much better. In spite of the extra year the Bush administration has had to train a professional military in Afghanistan, only one support unit of the Afghan National Army (ANA), a battalion of the 201st Corps in Kabul, is now beginning to receive artillery training. ANA military installations remain vulnerable to suicide attacks. In late September a suicide bomber, a relatively new threat in Afghanistan, was able to penetrate perimeter security of a post very close to Kabul and kill ANA soldiers within own their compound. The Afghan paramilitary has been characterized by observers as "more or less a hollow force," and it is estimated that a the paramilitary won’t be fully trained or outfitted until 2009, eight years after the invasion.
A soldier in the U.S. infantry is generally considered to be ready for combat after 20 weeks of training. The Bush administration has had approximately 180 weeks in Afghanistan and 120 weeks in Iraq to recruit and train professional military and paramilitary forces drawn from populations that have had extensive experience in war. In spite of Baathi incompetence, mostly Shia infantrymen and tankers held their own against (also Shia) Iranian forces that had, at times, a three-to-one advantage. Afghan mujahidin stalemated the Soviet 40th Field Army.
Something more is going on here than just the lack of DOD resources and local backwardness. Anyone who has been to Iraq or Afghanistan and who reads the U.S. military’s INA and ANA training newsletters can be forgiven for suspecting that the constant reshuffling, renaming, and renumbering of INA and ANA units and the incessant lauding of operations that result in, for example, the "capture of five rocket grenades" smacks of a shell game that is the result of something deeper—call it the Sepoy Mutiny Syndrome.
The syndrome is based on a real threat. The sepoys did, of course, revolt. Also, more than 1,800 years before that mutiny, Arminius—trained by the Romans—led a German revolt that destroyed three Roman legions. During World War II, less than a century after the Sepoy Mutiny, Subhas Chandra Bose led Indian Army prisoners of war—captured by the Japanese and reengineered as the Indian National Army—against British India. There are risks to recruiting, training, and organizing nationals other than one’s own into a professional fighting force while occupying their country. The Sepoy Mutiny Syndrome is easy to catch.
Get over it. The Bush administration committed the U.S. military to these two large and complicated interventions. There have been no publicized U.S. government resignations in response. The U.S. military as a whole is notoriously uncomfortable working with foreign militaries other than on the defense attaché cocktail circuit. One part of the military, however, is relatively comfortable dealing with foreign forces. Part of the mission of the Special Operations Forces (SOF) is to work with foreign military groups. Some support exists for combining the SOF with the CIA’s paramilitary wing (which is probably more comfortable dealing with foreigners than with Americans) for the training missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. U.S. taxpayers might well come out winners with that combination.
The regular Army, also, is not without its historical successes. The KATUSA (Korean Augmentees to the U.S. Army) program was initially criticized during the Korean War but is now generally believed to be a wellspring of the modern, efficient Republic of Korea Army (ROKA). Many Americans who had contact with ROKA troops in Vietnam certainly would not have considered them to be "slow on the uptake," a term used to characterize Iraqi and Afghan trainees in the recent months.
The U.S. military seems to be improving, with embedded advisers and other aggressive hands-on training methods. Great! Just as the courageous resistance by the passengers of UA93 on September 11, 2001, put to rest the chimera of the Stockholm Syndrome, the U.S. military must put to rest the Sepoy Mutiny Syndrome.
Warren Marik is a retired CIA officer who is currently in Afghanistan observing the recent elections.
From: Laurie Mylroie mailing list
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,172262,00.html
Not only was it staged, but one of the "soldiers" was actually a public affairs flack
http://villagevoice.com/blogs/bushbeat/archive/001948.php
From: Poacnewsletter
In a naked abuse of power, the Republican House leadership held open for 45 minutes what was supposed to be a five-minute vote on the energy bill to twist arms to get their members to switch votes. The Bush administration’s Gasoline for America’s Security Act, which passed Oct. 7 by a 212–210 margin, does nothing to lower gasoline prices and provides huge subsidies for oil companies. The Republican power grab “demonstrated once again that the Republican majority will go to any length to satisfy the greed of the energy companies over meeting the needs of the American people,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). The bill also fails to take the bold steps needed to reshape the nation’s energy policy, members of Congress and union leaders said. “This [bill] would be a great advance if we were in the 1870s, but it is not up to the technology we have in 2005,” Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) told a telephone press conference sponsored by the Apollo Alliance. The Apollo Alliance is a coalition of national security, labor, environmental, civil rights and business leaders who are fighting for energy independence from foreign energy sources.
From: Work in Progress
http://www.csis.org/burke/050930_GlobalOilRisks.pdf
"The objective of the Conference was to evaluate ten major risks impacting global economic growth and security:
1. The Dollar and the Twin Deficits
2. Environmental Accords
3. Geopolitical Conflicts
4. Globalization in Emerging Nations
5. Global Terrorism
6. Growth in China
7. Hedge Funds and Derivatives
8. Trade Liberalization
9. World Health Conditions
10. World Oil Supply"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1585687,00.html
Fake blogs-;a form of viral marketing in which PR or advertising agencies attempt to generate interest in their client's product by creating a fictional character on the internet-; are drawing criticism from real bloggers. The Cohn & Wolfe PR firm had to apologize recently after "using a fictional character to leave a series of thinly veiled advertisements on blogs and other websites.
A number of websites were hit last week with messages from Barry Scott," a fictional spokesman for a British household cleaning product. British blogger Tom Coates was especially outraged and called it "a new low for marketers" after he wrote an emotional account of his relationship with his father, and then received comment spam from "Barry Scott" disguised as condolences. Coates replied: "My view was that any right-thinking person would view trying to market your product on such a post as revolting, corrupt, cynical, disgusting, sick and dishonourable." According to some PR people, however, fake blogging is a good idea.
SOURCE: Guardian (UK), October 6, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4058
French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has recently announced the creation of 67 centres of competitiveness (pôles de compétitivié). These centres will be spread all over the French territory. Out of the 67, 15 will have a global focus. They will unite between 1000 and 5000 researchers and obtain about half of the financial resources of 1.5 billion Euro provided by the government. The 15 global centres will focus on biotechnology and chemistry, electronics, vaccination, software, aeronautics or health. The remaining 52 will mainly focus on the food sector. At the same time the Prime minister has publicly announced his intention to create one or two European Institutes of Technology. These institutions should serve as equivalents to the MIT in Boston. At present, no
details about financing are available.
NO LINK AVAILABLE
"The film '2001' gained cinematic notoriety with the introduction of a self-aware, independent-thinking, murderous computer named HAL that became a sci-fi icon. In the movie's namesake year, IBM engineers launched an effort to develop technology to help computers monitor, diagnose, and heal their own problems. IBM isn't trying to create a real-life HAL, but it does want to make computers smart enough to heal themselves. The promise of autonomic computing--systems that function automatically, much like reflexive bodily functions such as breathing, without external intervention--still remains formative. Developing these sorts of capabilities often requires multiple vendors to work together toward a long-term vision to build networkwide capabilities, sometimes piece by piece. 'We realize that autonomic computing isn't about building any one specific product,' says Alan Ganek, chief technical officer and VP of the autonomic computing software group in IBM's Tivoli software unit. 'It's about making all products exhibit these behaviors to the extent they can, and then integrating them to work more cohesively with others.'"
Learn more at Information Week.
http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=171203982
From: Future Brief
Signe Wilkinson make it (your pension) disappear
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/wpswi/2005/wpswi051013.gif
Ted Rall: america 2008
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/trall/2005/trall051015.gif
Bad Reporter: stork theory
http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/pictures/2005/10/14/101405-950x318-badreporter.gif
by Jonathan Westminster is invaluable as a backgrounder on the rise of the "Christian" Right and frightening in the predictions of where they could be taking us.
Even the appendix is good reading.
The POAC has this book available as a way to enlighten you and support the Project
http://www.oldamericancentury.org/15_solution.htm
From: POACnewsletter
By George Monbiot, AlterNet. Posted October 13, 2005.
Christian fundamentalists claim religion is associated with lower rates of violence, teen pregnancy and divorce. A new study says they couldn't be more wrong.
Are religious societies better than secular ones? It should be an easy question for athiests to answer.
Most of those now seeking to blow people up -- whether with tanks and missiles or rucksacks and passenger planes -- do so in the name of God. In India, we see men whose religion forbids them to harm insects setting fire to human beings. A 14th-century Pope with a 21st-century communications network sustains his church's mission of persecuting gays and denying women ownership of their bodies. Bishops and rabbis in Britain have just united in the cause of prolonging human suffering, by opposing the legalization of assisted suicide. We know that the most dangerous human trait is an absence of self-doubt, and that self-doubt is more likely to be absent from the mind of the believer than the non-religious infidel.
But we also know that few religious governments have committed atrocities on the scale of Hitler's, Mao's or Stalin's (though, given their more limited means, the Spanish and British in the Americas, the British, Germans and Belgians in Africa, and the British in Australia and India could be said to have done their best). It is hard to dismiss Dostoyevsky's suspicion that "If God does not exist, then everything is permissible."
Nor can we wholly disagree with the new Pope when he warns that "we are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which ... has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires." (We must trust, of course, that a man who has spent his life campaigning to become God's go-between, and who now believes he is infallible, is immune to such impulses).
The creationists in the United States might be as mad as a box of ferrets, but what they claim to fear is the question which troubles almost everyone who has stopped to think about it: if our lives have no purpose, why should we care about other people's?
We know too, as Roy Hattersley argued in the Guardian last month, that "good works ... are most likely to be performed by people who believe that heaven exists. The correlation is so clear that it is impossible to doubt that faith and charity go hand in hand."
The only two heroes I have met are both Catholic missionaries. Joe Haas, an Austrian I stayed with in the swamp forests of West Papua, had spent his life acting as a human shield for the indigenous people of Indonesia: every few months soldiers threatened to kill him when he prevented them from murdering his parishioners and grabbing their land.
Frei Adolfo, the German I met in the savannahs of northeastern Brazil, thought, when I first knocked on his door, that I was a gunman the ranchers had sent for him. Yet still he opened it. With the other liberation theologians in the Catholic church, he offered the only consistent support to the peasants being attacked by landowners and the government. If they did not believe in God, these men would never have taken such risks for other people.
Remarkably, no one, until now, has attempted systematically to answer the question with which this column began. But in the current edition of the Journal of Religion and Society, a researcher called Gregory Paul tests the hypothesis propounded by evangelists in the Bush administration, that religion is associated with lower rates of "lethal violence, suicide, non-monogamous sexual activity and abortion." He compared data from 18 developed democracies, and discovered that the Christian fundamentalists couldn't have got it more wrong.
"In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion ... None of the strongly secularized, pro-evolution democracies is experiencing high levels of measurable dysfunction."
Within the United States "the strongly theistic, anti-evolution South and Midwest" have "markedly worse homicide, mortality, STD, youth pregnancy, marital and related problems than the Northeast where ... secularization, and acceptance of evolution approach European norms."
Three sets of findings stand out: the associations between religion -- especially absolute belief -- and juvenile mortality, venereal disease and adolescent abortion. Paul's graphs show far higher rates of death among the under-5s in Portugal, the U.S and Ireland and put the U.S. -- the most religious country in his survey -- in a league of its own for gonorrhea and syphilis.
Strangest of all for those who believe that Christian societies are "pro-life" is the finding that "increasing adolescent abortion rates show positive correlation with increasing belief and worship of a creator ... Claims that secular cultures aggravate abortion rates (John Paul II) are therefore contradicted by the quantitative data."
These findings appear to match the studies of teenage pregnancy I've read. The rich countries in which sexual abstinence campaigns, generally inspired by religious belief, are strongest have the highest early pregnancy rates. The U.S. is the only rich nation with teenage pregnancy levels comparable to those of developing nations: it has a worse record than India, the Philippines and Rwanda. Because they're poorly educated about sex and in denial about what they're doing (and so less likely to use contraceptives), boys who participate in abstinence programmes are more likely to get their partners pregnant than those who don't.
Is it fair to blame all this on religion? While the rankings cannot reflect national poverty -- the U.S. has the world's 4th highest GDP per head, Ireland the 8th -- the nations which do well in Paul's study also have higher levels of social spending and distribution than those which do badly. Is this a cause or an association? In other words, are religious societies less likely to distribute wealth than secular ones?
In the US, where governments are still guided by the Puritan notions that money is a sign that you've been chosen by God and poverty is a mark of moral weakness, Christian belief seems to be at odds with the dispersal of wealth. But the U.K. -- one of the most secular societies in Paul's study -- is also one of the least inclusive, and does rather worse in his charts than countries with similar levels of religion. The broad trend, however, looks clear: "the more secular, pro-evolution democracies have ... come closest to achieving practical "cultures of life."
I don't know whether these findings can be extrapolated to other countries and other issues: the study doesn't look, for example, at whether religious belief is associated with a nation's preparedness to go to war (though I think we could hazard a pretty good guess) or whether religious countries in the poor world are more violent and have weaker cultures of life than secular ones.
Nor -- because, with the exception of Japan, the countries in his study are predominantly Christian or post-Christian -- is it clear whether there's an association between social dysfunction and religion in general or simply between social dysfunction and Christianity.
But if we are to accept the findings of this one -- and so far only -- wide survey of belief and human welfare, the message to those who claim in any sense to be pro-life is unequivocal. If you want people to behave as Christians advocate, you should tell them that God does not exist.
George Monbiot is the author of 'Poisoned Arrows' and 'No Man's Land' (Green Books). Read more of his writings at Monbiot.com. This article originally appeared in the Guardian.
http://www.alternet.org/story/26721/
14 October 2005
From New Scientist Print Edition
Debora Mackenzie
Kristin Choo
SUDDENLY, the threat of avian flu is getting some serious attention in the US. Representatives of 80 countries met in Washington DC last week to discuss strategies to contain outbreaks of the virus.
Meanwhile Michael Leavitt, US Secretary of Health and Human Services, this week made his first official trip to Asia to encourage leaders in the region to do more to stop the virus spreading. And a decision by the US senate to earmark an extra $4 billion to protect the country against a flu pandemic is awaiting approval by the House of Representatives.
These moves are welcome, but do not go far enough, flu experts say. Substantial commercial, political and bureaucratic barriers remain that will stop us being able to vaccinate enough of the world's people to contain any pandemic. What is urgently required is a global plan to combat the threat.
“Because the virus is new to our immune systems, people will need two injections. That halves the number we can protect”The problem boils down to numbers. A hybrid vaccine virus has already been produced that could immunise people against the H5N1 bird flu virus. But manufacturers can't make enough of it. Production capacity will not significantly increase any time soon, beyond a few new plants already under construction in Europe, and with the equipment available they can make only a few kilograms of the viral protein that forms the basis of the vaccine. If each dose contains 15 micrograms (µg) of viral protein, as in vaccines against ordinary flu, that's enough for no more than 900 million doses of vaccine over a normal six-month production cycle (New Scientist, 28 February 2004, p 36).
But that doesn't mean 900 million people can be protected. Because H5N1 is new to our immune system, people will need two vaccinations a few weeks apart. That halves the number who can be protected within six months to 450 million.
And even that is likely to be wildly optimistic. "This virus has done a number on us," says Robert Webster of St Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. In August, human trials of the hybrid vaccine showed that each person would require two 90-µg doses. That equates to enough vaccine worldwide for 75 million people, or around one quarter the US population.
The way round this, say vaccine experts, is to boost the power of the shots by combining them with a simple immunity-stimulating chemical called an adjuvant. Norbert Hehme at vaccine maker GlaxoSmithKline in Dresden, Germany, has made a vaccine that can induce full immunity against relatives of the H5 family of bird flu viruses with two doses of just 1.9 µg each.
Complete article at:
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/mg18825215.900
From issue 2521 of New Scientist magazine, 14 October 2005, page 6
RAHUL MAHAJAN, rahul@empirenotes.org, http://www.empirenotes.org
Mahajan is author of the book "Full Spectrum Dominance: U.S. Power in Iraq and Beyond" and writes the blog EmipreNotes.org. He said today: "Residents of western al-Anbar province are caught between an increasingly ruthless insurgency and the destructive tactics of U.S. military operations. Last month's [U.S.] offensive against the town of Tall Afar involved the same kind of heavy bombing of residential areas that we have seen before in Fallujah, Najaf, and elsewhere; by one estimate, 90 percent of the population had fled before the final offensive. These tactics continue near the Syrian border with the provocatively named Operation Iron Fist and along the Euphrates in Operation River Gate. The U.S. military makes little or no provision for the hundreds of thousands of refugees generated by these operations, violating its obligations as an occupying power." Mahajan, like Jamail, was in Fallujah in April 2004 while it was under attack.
From: Institute for Public Accuracy
Iraq: unified by oil?
by Tamara Chalabi
October 14, 2005
Iraq’s people vote on their draft constitution on 15 October. A single sentence in the document may be the key to its success, says Tamara Chalabi.
Hard times may still continue in Iraq. However, the hopes for social and political justice, as well as resolving the problem of federalism and containing the violent insurgency, might reside in chapter 4, article 109 of the draft constitution. It simply states that: “Oil and gas is the property of all the Iraqi people in all the regions and provinces”. Oil, owned by the people, can become the metamorphosing miracle that ensures the survival of Iraq’s fledging democracy.
The same land that invented the calendar and created the world’s first writing system can, thousands of years later, offer the world something equally inspiring: a new social contract that recognises that national resources are assets of society and not of the state. With such recognition, the perennial problem of rentier states can find a solution in a progressive, citizen-driven economic environment that ensures both prosperity and stability.
The way to implement Article 109 is the formation of a national oil holding company – an additional safety-valve against yet another arrogant authoritarian regime. It will be a guarantor of a healthy democracy. Such a holding company would issue every Iraqi woman, man and child the same number of shares – shares that are inalienable and non-transferable. Monthly, each citizen will receive an equal share of oil revenue (in essence a stock-dividend). There are many variations of this scheme; the exact details are yet to be figured out by the world’s best and brightest experts, but the principle is the most important point of departure.
By directly linking the individual to an oil share, the relationship with the state becomes fortified, balancing the fears from the federal bogeyman. What applies to individuals also applies to regions. This holding company will remove imbalances. Populations and not accidents of natural history (i.e. presence of oil deposits in particular regions) will determine the allocation of resources.
More immediate is the impact such a measure would have on the insurgency and the rule of law. By providing a palpable benefit for everyone, this oil revenue unites the country across the board. Every single citizen will have this asset at stake, motivating many to protect this asset from the wrath of the insurgents by driving them out of many areas where oil infrastructure is under attack.
Currently, subsidies of food, petroleum products and other goods account for about 50% of the Iraqi state budget, leaving the other half for salaries, debt repayments and new investment. The limitation this imposes on the government is immense, and when the strain of the insurgency is added, the result is a weak entity at best. The way to overcome its predicament is an oil-for-citizen programme.
By eliminating the monthly handout of food and subsidised oil and replacing it with money in the pocket of every citizen, the Iraqi government would be effectively jump-starting the economy. It would then share the governing of the country with its citizens, as they carry the responsibility of supporting the economy through their oil revenue. This democratisation of oil revenues would promote economic activity in the short term and secure social welfare and basic benefits in the long term.
The Iraqi government’s income will come from the taxation of the people’s oil shares, in addition to developing non-oil based sectors. This will guarantee that the endemic government corruption Iraq has witnessed is curtailed. Otherwise Iraq risks following Nigeria, squandering billions in ineffective government projects and with a corrupt bureaucracy feeding on its insatiable appetite for oil.
A treasury for all
Where are the inspirational models of oil-wealthy states in the developing world that Iraq might emulate? Venezuela with its oil-induced political instability; Saudi Arabia with its oil-enforced patriarchy; Nigeria with its oil-infested corruption? In contrast to these models, this scheme offers a fresh way forward for the Iraqi people – and it does not float on a utopian cloud, but has a successful precedent in the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend Program, enacted in 1982, which pays residents of Alaska an annual cash amount from the state’s oil revenue.
This prospect alters the nature of the relationship between state and society. It redefines Iraq, away from a patriarchal model that is responsible for the citizen to a custodian of society that generates income on his or her behalf. This model is the embodiment of the will of the citizen at election time. The state is a delegated power for the citizen who has the agency in the economic cycle. Such an empowered citizen would push free enterprise creatively and innovatively.
This scheme cannot happen overnight; in the absence of any safeguard against inflation or instability, it will meet great resistance. But chapter 4, article 109 of the draft constitution could yet make Iraq immune from the oil curse that has plagued other oil-rich states.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict-iraqwarafter/oil_2924.jsp
From: Laurie Mylroie mailing list
Posted on Wed, Oct. 12, 2005
By TOM LASSETER
Knight Ridder Newspapers
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Swadi Ghilan's two sons were dropping their sister off at high school earlier this year when a carload of Sunni Muslim insurgents pulled up and emptied their AK-47s into their bodies. In broad daylight his children were torn to pieces, their blood splashed against the windshield as they screamed and died.
Ghilan is a major in the Iraqi army and a Shiite Muslim, the sect that makes up some 60 percent of Iraq's population. Now, more than ever, the grieving father says he wants to hunt down and kill not only Sunni guerrilla fighters but also Sunnis who give those fighters shelter and support. By that, he means killing most Sunnis in Iraq.
"There are two Iraqs; it's something that we can no longer deny," Ghilan said. "The army should execute the Sunnis in their neighborhoods so that all of them can see what happens, so that all of them learn their lesson."
The Bush administration's exit strategy for Iraq rests on two pillars: an inclusive, democratic political process that includes all major ethnic groups and a well-trained Iraqi national army. But a week spent eating, sleeping and going on patrol with a crack unit of the Iraqi army - the 4,500-member 1st Brigade of the 6th Iraqi Division - suggests that the strategy is in serious trouble. Instead of rising above the ethnic tension that's tearing their nation apart, the mostly Shiite troops are preparing for, if not already fighting, a civil war against the minority Sunni population.
Ghilan's army unit is responsible for security in western Baghdad, where many Sunnis live. But the soldiers are overwhelmingly Shiite, and, like Ghilan, they're seeking revenge against the Sunnis who oppressed them during Saddam Hussein's rule.
U.S. officials hope that Saturday's constitutional referendum will help salve the nation's wounds. Many of the Shiite officers and soldiers said they look forward to the constitution and December elections for a different reason. They want a permanent, Shiite-dominated government that will finally allow them to steamroll much of the Sunni minority, some 20 percent of the nation and the backbone of the insurgency.
American commanders often refer to the 1st Brigade as a template for the future of Iraq's military. It was the first in the nation to get its own area of operations, the tumultuous western side of the Tigris River in Baghdad, and one of the first to take over a base from U.S. forces. It's one of the rare Iraqi units with a command competent at the brigade level, instead of just smaller company or battalion-based units.
The Iraqi troops consult with American advisers daily. On big raids in dangerous areas, the Americans often take the lead with their superior firepower.
Complete article at:
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/12885151.htm
A Knight Ridder Newspapers correspondent who isn't named for security reasons contributed to this report.
"A new report, Global Energy Risks,
http://www.csis.org/burke/050930_GlobalOilRisks.pdf
from the U.S. based Center for Strategic and Intelligence Studies analyzes the dynamics of global risks and development in the international oil market. The study takes into account the influence of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, instability in oil producing nations, and recent debates over the nature or resources."
The International Aviation and Space Salon MAKS-2005 took place on August 16-21, in the Russian town of Zhukovsky (Moscow region) with 50 participating countries. "Saturn", a Russian engine producer, presented a new-generation of civil and military aircraft engines at the MAKS-2005 air show: The SaM 146 engine for regional civilian aircrafts and an engine for the Sukhoi family of military planes.
http://www.en.rian.ru/science/20050803/41084989.html
http://www.aviasalon.com/en
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/08/22/010.html
Go to
http://www.jibjab.com/Home.aspx
and play the Big Box Mart video, a take off on Wallmart.
Mike Keefe: Govt Branches Interact
http://www.intoon.com/Keefe05/k2600.gif
Tony Auth: don't believe in global warming
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/ta/2005/ta051014.gif
Pat Oliphant: he's helped enough
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/po/2005/po051012.gif
KIM JONG-IL NAMES NON-MADMAN TO SUCCEED HIM
Critics Question Qualifications of Sane Nominee
North Korean madman Kim Jong-Il created a firestorm of controversy today by naming a non-madman to succeed him as president, prompting critics to question whether his nominee possessed the qualifications to replace one of the world's most insane leaders.
At a press conference in Pyongyang, the mercurial Kim introduced his hand-picked successor, Kyung Hwa Chim, who has been his personal chef for the past thirty-five years.
But even as a beaming Kim praised his nominee's credentials, critics combed Chim's record looking for any evidence of insanity and came up empty, causing many to wonder if the seemingly sane Chim was truly qualified for the job.
Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of being thrown into the core of a nuclear reactor, one such critic said, "With all of the insane people in Kim's government, why would you pick a non-lunatic with no madman experience whatsoever?"
For his part, Kim told reporters today that madman experience was "overrated" and that he believed that his personal chef was the best choice: "I am fully confident that as President of North Korea, Kyung Hwa Chim will be capable of making totally unhinged, loony decisions."
He acknowledged, however, that being a madman had been as asset to him during his own tenure in the job.
"You don't have to be crazy to be President of North Korea," he said, "but it helps."
Elsewhere, angry New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner said he would launch an internal investigation to determine which players were not taking their steroids during the team's recent playoff loss to the Los Angeles Angels.
Borowitzreport.com
National Security Archive Update, October 13, 2005
Postwar Projections "had little or no impact on policy deliberations"
Declassified Kerr Report Available on National Security Archive Website
Washington D.C. October 13, 2005 - The White House disregarded intelligence projections on post-Saddam Iraq according to a newly-declassified CIA report, "Intelligence and Analysis on Iraq: Issues for the Intelligence Community," posted today on the website of the National Security Archive.
"In an ironic twist," the report finds, "the policy community was receptive to technical intelligence (the weapons program), where the analysis was wrong, but apparently paid little attention to intelligence on cultural and political issues (post-Saddam Iraq), where the analysis was right."
The report, from July 2004, is the third of three prepared by a group of intelligence experts led by Richard J. Kerr, a former deputy director of central intelligence, to examine the U.S. Intelligence Community's assessments in the months before the U.S. invasion. The first two reports remain classified despite the fact that many of their key findings are summarized in the July report and in unclassified reports produced by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction.
The Kerr report also identifies a number of weaknesses in the Intelligence Community's analytical products, particularly the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraqi weapons programs, which the report says was prepared "under an unusually tight time constraint" and was "the product of three separate drafters, drawing from a mixed bag of analytic product." The October 2002 NIE was at the center of Bush administration claims about Iraq's weapons programs in the prewar period.
The report also finds that intelligence analysts were under constant pressure to find "links between Saddam and [al-Qa'ida]" causing them to take a "purposely aggressive approach" to the issue, "conducting exhaustive and repetitive searches for such links." No such ties were ever found, however, and "the Intelligence Community remained firm in its assessment that no operational or collaborative relationship existed."
The Kerr report was first reported by USA Today on October 12 and is featured in an article by Douglas Jehl in today's New York Times. The text of the report was published this month with an edited introduction in the CIA's Studies in Intelligence journal (Vol. 49, No. 3). The complete, unedited version of the report was declassified in response to a Freedom of Information Act request and appeal by National Security Archive senior fellow Jeffrey Richelson.
Please follow the link below to read the full report:
http://www.nsarchive.org
DAHR JAMAIL, mail@dahrjamailiraq.com, http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog
Jamail is an independent journalist who reported for eight months from inside Iraq, including the city of Fallujah. He said today: "Two ongoing U.S. military operations in the primarily Sunni province of
al-Anbar will make voting in the critical constitutional referendum more difficult for Iraqis in that region. With thousands of families now living as refugees and more refugees generated daily, voting will now take a backseat to things like acquiring food, blankets, medicine and shelter. Some Sunni political and religious leaders have accused the U.S. and Iraqi governments of a deliberate attempt to hamper the Sunni voting ability, as Sunni political/religious leaders have called on their followers to vote 'no' in order to block the constitution with a 2/3 majority vote in three provinces." Jamail has posted rare pictures from the U.S. offensive in western Iraq, taken by an unembedded photographer, on his website:
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery .
From: Institute for Public Accuracy
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051006/a_failed_public_diplomat.php
Newly minted propaganda czar Karen Hughes' "listening tour" of the Middle East "turned into a near feeding frenzy directed at her by the western media," writes John Brown, a former U.S. Foreign Service officer. "Hughes's PR failure with her home media would be of little importance if it did not lead to a simple but troubling question: If the administration's Under Secretary in a key foreign policy post can't demonstrate to western reporters that she's a serious professional, how will she ever be able to convince the rest of the world ... that her official assignment - winning hearts and minds abroad - is worth any attention or respect?" Instead of the four "E's" of public diplomacy - "Education, Empowerment, Engagement and Exchanges" - Brown lists several different "E's" that Hughes communicated on her tour: Evangelical, Erroneous, Evasive, Eccentric, Egocentric and Escapist.
SOURCE: TomPaine.com, October 6, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4062
Nominations in the News
Save Our Courts; Nominations in the News
powered by civilrights.org; a project of LCCR Education Fund
October 13, 2005
Top Stories
E-mail exchanges "illustrate the depth of conservative angst over the Miers selection"; executive privilege "should not be an impenetrable wall when its chief officeholder has been nominated" to the Supreme Court; Miers' nomination will likely hinge on hearings; outspoken opponent of abortion and gay rights will "shepherd" Miers' nomination process
The Right: With Friends Like These | Article | Newsweek
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=XB9WKQM88Sm0QqxeuSViWw
Miers Nomination Creates Looming Battle Over Privilege | Article | Law.com
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=ssCtAZzNCtb45Pa84rX2WA
Miers to Face Tougher Time Than Roberts in Hearings | Article | The Washington Post
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=rEv1ecfc1MusKbu_xahofg
Staunch Conservative to Serve as Miers' Guide | Article | USA Today
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=kXKfpQalXrhHTakhAT8cxQ
Court Watch
Alliance for Justice releases preliminary report on Miers; the White House is using closed-door meetings to reassure its conservative base that Miers will advance their agenda; NCJW states the importance of access to Miers' professional papers and candid testimony during the hearings
Preliminary Report on the Nomination of Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court | Alliance for Justice
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=OhTurpoqzW3XbiVmuy6Dew
The Senate and American Public Have a Right to Know More About Harriet Miers | Alliance for Justice
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=zZpBUpck48VwKFkJgIuxuw
NCJW Urges Thorough Scrutiny of Miers Nomination | National Council of Jewish Women
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=7waUEPzuBvAbh0zSHj4akQ
Commentary
Miers' nomination is "a measure of George W. Bush's unprecedented political weakness"; in addition to social values, economic values are also at stake with Miers' nomination; "the real problem with Miers is the possible conflict of interest between her loyalty to the law and her devotion to" the president
Editorial: Crony Constitutionalism | Editorial | The Nation
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=62kIkOsMW72c7ae7q7u8Qg
Op-Ed: Interpreting Harriet Miers | Op-Ed | TomPaine.com
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=ATsz16KZQAGI3wGnxBr5iA
Wrong Objections | Op-Ed | Los Angeles Times
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=wWVhHPK9Ti-gdsXNhZcjzQ
Calling Activists
Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper to let others know that decades of progress in protecting many basic civil rights hang in the balance with this Supreme Court nomination. Tell them that Harriet Miers bears the burden of demonstrating her commitment to protecting the rights and freedoms of all Americans! See profile below for helpful information for your letter:
Harriet Miers | IndependentCourt.org
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=34V6pxrzW4ipCnJXMN3MlQ
The Buzz
Bush, Promoting Miers, Invokes Her Faith
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=s-hNmk9LC5Mvi4qTx7y3Mw
Would a Justice Miers Recuse Herself From Key Cases?
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=XP93Mffr3cXr7TfQU6rTfg
Miers: Bush Loyalist or Free-Thinking Justice?
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=TfCkdmxaTrCUD3x7Wt4LVw
Bush: Focus on Miers' Faith OK
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=KsYApULS6c8Chnj5m9nEGA
Bush: 'Harriet Miers Is Going to Be Confirmed'
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=XGaCwoPcKFe5aETgpLmH8g
View More Buzz >
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=oEjiGwSuY_5FJ_zYSuKunQ
Media Watch
What is the media saying about the courts in YOUR state? To view an interactive map click here >
http://lccr.convio.net/site/R?i=c6dasG6f45dH8At4q0NFCg
Your trusted source for important news and information about lifetime federal judicial nominations. Published by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund, in collaboration with the Communications Consortium Media Center .
The bird flu outbreak in turkeys in northwest Turkey was caused by the same strain of H5N1 bird flu that was isolated in August 2005 from poultry in Siberia - meaning that the deadly strain has reached
Europe as feared.
It is the same virus as found in wild birds in Mongolia and Qinghai Lake in China in spring 2004. Those in turn derived from the H5N1 that has spread across East Asia, so far killing at least 60 people.
It is thought to pose the greatest current risk of a human flu pandemic.
Click on the link below for the full story on NewScientist.com/news:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8150
ExistGo-Bio is a new BMBF start-up programme for biotechnology research teams aiming at launching their product on the market. ExistGo-Bio shall help such teams in developing new processes in life sciences and preparing their commercial application. Over the next ten years, the 150 million Euro Programme will launch five calls for proposals. The selected projects will be funded for up to six years.
http://www.fz-juelich.de/ptj/ExistGo-Bio
Higher Education: Federal Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Programs and Related Trends. GAO-06-114, October 12.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-114
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06114high.pdf
KnowledgeStorm ( http://www.knowledgestorm.com) announced the launch of KnowIT ( http://www.knowit.com ), its specialized vertical search engine for technology. KnowIT provides business and technology professionals with a set of destinations and information on the Web, promising to deliver the most relevant set of technology-related search results. KnowIT is one of the key sites in the KnowledgeStorm Network, which includes more than 150 sites that distribute content on technology solutions. KnowledgeStorm said that the initial launch of KnowIT will be the first step of many that it is making to simplify and improve access to technology information on the Internet.
KAL: qualified person
http://www.baltimoresun.com/media/cartoon/2005-10/19947624.gif
Tom Toles: rove's legal distractions
http://www.buffalonews.com/graphics/2005/10/13/1013toles.jpg
Mike Peters: 8th visit to a disaster area
http://www.grimmy.com/images/MP_Archive/MP_2005/MP1013.gif
FEMA TOO LATE TO SAVE NICK AND JESSICA'S MARRIAGE
Agency 'Caught Unawares' By Marital Meltdown
In the latest setback for a troubled government agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) acknowledged today that it had been too late to save the marriage of singers Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson.
At a press conference in Washington, D.C., a red-faced R. David Paulison, the interim chief of FEMA, admitted that the agency had been "caught unawares" by the celebrities' marital woes.
"I thought everything was fine with them," Mr. Paulison told reporters. "The first I got wind that they were having troubles was late Tuesday morning."
Once the FEMA chief learned that Ms. Simpson and Mr. Lachey were on the rocks, it took the agency a full twenty-four hours to dispatch an emergency marriage counselor to their home in Los Angeles, but by then it was too little, too late, FEMA's critics charge.
Those same critics allege that amid the turmoil in the agency in recent weeks, someone had allowed FEMA's subscription to Us Weekly to lapse.
At the White House, President Bush expressed surprise that the marriage between the stars of MTV's "Newlyweds" was coming to an end: "Who could have guessed that Nick and Jessica's wedding vows would be breached?"
For his part, FEMA's Paulison said that the agency had learned its lesson "the hard way" from the Nick and Jessica breakup and would be better prepared the next time: "We are going to be monitoring Ashton and Demi very, very closely."
Elsewhere, Apple Computer today introduced the first Video IPod, expected to be popular among porn fans with excellent eyesight.
Borowitzreport.com
Submitted by davidswanson on Tue, 2005-10-11 12:46. Media
NOTE WELL: The After Downing Street Coalition hired Ipsos Public Affairs to do this poll. Ipsos did not sponsor the poll, but was very helpful, cooperative, and professional. Please do NOT complain to them that they did not do the poll for free. If you feel you must communicate with them, please thank them for being helpful. Please ask the other polling firms to ask the impeachment question.
For Immediate Release: October 11, 2005
Poll: Americans Favor Bush's Impeachment If He Lied about Iraq
By a margin of 50% to 44%, Americans want Congress to consider impeaching President Bush if he lied about the war in Iraq, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
The poll was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs, the highly-regarded non-partisan polling company. The poll interviewed 1,001 U.S. adults on October 6-9.
The poll found that 50% agreed with the statement:
"If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable by impeaching him."
44% disagreed, and 6% said they didn't know or declined to answer. The poll has a +/- 3.1% margin of error.
Among those who felt strongly either way, 39% strongly agreed, while 30% strongly disagreed.
. . .
Complete article at:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/3528
http://www.publicdiplomacy.org/55.htm
An advisory committee to the U.S. State Department has issued a new report which frankly admits that the war in Iraq, combined with prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib, has deeply damaged America's image in the rest of the world. "There is deep and abiding anger toward U.S. policies and actions," states the report, titled Cultural Diplomacy: The Linchpin of Public Diplomacy. Committee members reviewed several academic studies and conducted interviews in various countries with artists, cultural activists, educators, filmmakers, writers, foreign officials and journalists. "A sense of crisis was everywhere apparent," it states, "first in the growing perception of the United States as a hostile force, then in the scale of the diplomatic problem that must be solved: bridges rebuilt and new links forged.
Put simply, we have lost the goodwill of the world, without which it becomes ever more difficult to execute foreign policy."
SOURCE: Advisory Committee on Cultural Diplomacy, September 15, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4064
ANTONIA JUHASZ, antoniajuhasz@gmail.com, http://www.thebushagenda.net
Author of the forthcoming book "The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time" and a visiting scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, Juhasz said today:
"The draft Iraqi constitution serves U.S. corporations and the Bush administration by leaving in place both the military and the economic occupations. It also locks in the new Iraqi oil law slated for 2006 implementation."
From: Institute for Public Accuracy
by Taxpayers for Common Sense www.taxpayer.net
Vol. X No. 32
October 3, 2005
Flying High on the Taxpayer Dime
It’s a momentous occasion whenever Congress does anything quickly, but truly historic when the subject is money. But like a cat on a hot tin roof, Congress was snapped out of its business-as-usual slumber last month by the horror wrought by Hurricane Katrina.
In only a few days, Congress approved $62.3 billion in spending on the Gulf to help with relief efforts and to start to rebuild. In the process Congress drafted one of the shortest emergency spending bills
in recent memory. While we at TCS are typically of the mindset that longer bills provide more opportunity for political hanky-panky, this Katrina spending bill is so short that it provides little
accountability on how the money should be spent. Congress basically created a multi-billion dollar magnet for waste and abuse.
Read the complete wastebasket here:
http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/DXKCFCPABG/MIMOFCPACJ/
GOING ON AT TAXPAYER.NET THIS WEEK
1. Database of Katrina reconstruction contracts - TCS continues to expand and update this ongoing project to monitor federal spending in the Gulf. The database includes the largest contracts given out thus far, as well as profiles of the contractors involved.
http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/DXKCFCPABG/KCHMFCPACK/
2. TCS statement on House passage of the Energy Bill sequel - On October 7, after 45 minutes of arm-twisting, House leadership finally convinced enough members to switch their votes to secure a 212-210
victory on the "Energy Bill II." Read TCS's statement on this costly, wasteful bill.
http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/DXKCFCPABG/ELOOFCPACL/
3. TCS honors Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) with the "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" Award - At the TCS annual event on September 27, 2005, TCS President Jill Lancelot awarded Sen. Sununu, one of the Senate's
few true fiscal conservatives left, with the award named after Jimmy Stewart in the classic film.
http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/DXKCFCPABG/ODVPFCPACM/
4. Fiscal Roadmap for Reconstruction - Rebuilding the Gulf and restoring the lives of those who live there will cost the federal government $200 billion. We put together a reasonable and achievable
list of budget offsets for how Congress can pay for this massive undertaking. One of our suggestions: cut $10 billion in pork from the transportation bill.
http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/DXKCFCPABG/KAAYFCPACN/
ACTION ITEMS
Stop wasteful Westlands water deal:
http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/DXKCFCPABG/AOWCFCPACO/
Delphi’s bankruptcy is a big deal. It is emblematic of a new set of pressures bearing down on the US. The global rebalancing framework that I continue to embrace suggests that the world’s growth and asset return dynamic has only just begun a major tilt away from the US and dollar-based assets. If that’s the case, America will have little to offer in a low-return world for risk-averse and yield-hungry investors. Could Delphi be the long awaited wake-up call that drives this realization home?
Hindsight is always a great luxury. This would certainly have been the year for global investors to have avoided dollar-denominated assets. While the dollar itself has held up surprisingly well, US stocks and bonds have not. Year to date, the S&P 500 is down 1.3% versus a 9.5% increase for the All-Country World ex US Index (in US dollars). Returns in Japan, Europe, and most emerging markets have been terrific. Despite all the euphoria over sustained upside earnings surprises in the US, equity returns have been hammered by a wrenching compression of multiples. US sovereign bonds have also underperformed most of their global counterparts; year-to-date returns of 1.7% on 10-year Treasuries have fallen far short of above 9% returns for German bunds and emerging market debt. Only Japanese government bonds have lagged those in the US -- hardly surprising in light of the nascent recovery in the Japanese economy.
The single most important question for global asset allocation is whether this year’s under-performance of dollar-based assets is just an anomaly, or the beginning of a multiyear trend. For what it’s worth, I suspect it’s the latter. The metrics I continue to use suggest that there has been only scant progress on the road to global rebalancing. The disparity between the world’s current account surpluses and deficits continues to widen, likely to hit a record of nearly 5% of world GDP in 2006. America’s massive external deficit of 6.4% of GDP in the first half of 2005 -- on track to account for 70% of all the world’s deficits this year -- seems set to go from bad to worse over the next year, as the US saving shortfall is exacerbated by energy-related pressures on households and Katrina-related pressures on the Federal government. And the US consumption share remains at a record 71% of GDP, well in excess of shares in Europe (58%), Japan (55%), and China (42%). The world may have woken up to the imperatives of rebalancing. So far, however, there is very little to show in the morning after.
. . .
Complete article at :
http://www.morganstanley.com/GEFdata/digests/20051010-mon.html
Wed Oct 12, 2005 7:02 PM ET
By Jon Hurdle
HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - A professor on Wednesday slammed the teaching of intelligent design as a blow to science education as he testified in a lawsuit over whether the theory should be introduced in schools as an alternative to evolution.
Teaching intelligent design is "probably the worst thing I have ever heard of in science education," said Brian Alters, who teaches science education at Harvard University and McGill University in Montreal and was called as an expert witness by parents suing the Dover, Pennsylvania, school district.
The federal court trial over teaching theories of human origins in U.S. schools pits Christian conservatives, who say nature is so complex it must have been the work of a God-like creator, against teachers and scientists who back Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
The case, seen as a major test of the issue, has echoes of the famed Scopes Monkey trial of 1925 when lawyers squared off in a Tennessee courthouse over the teaching of Darwin's work.
In Dover schools, ninth-grade biology students are given a four-paragraph statement suggesting intelligent design as an alternative to evolution and steering them to a book explaining the theory. The district says the policy does not amount to teaching.
The 11 parents bringing the federal lawsuit say the policy is religiously based and illegal because it violates the U.S. Constitution's separation of church and state.
. . .
Complete article at:
"We set the standards for the Automotive industry" said State-Secretary Meyer-Krahmer at the world largest Automobile Fair IAA in Frankfurt recently. Indeed, R&D for future generations of German cars is largely funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The programme "NanoMobil" (BMBF is funding 38 million Euro) explores new applications of nanotechnologies in the fields of safety, ecology/sustainability and comfort. INVENT concentrates on intelligent traffic and user friendly technique (BMBF is funding 32 million Euro). Despite such funding, the German car industry lags behind its competitors regarding particulate filter technologies or hybrid-powering.
http://www.bmbf.de/en/1846.php (NanoMobil);
http://www.bmbf.de/en/1353.php (Mobility and Life World);
http://www.invent-online.de;
http://www.bmbf.de/pub/hybrid_position.pdf (position on hybrid techniques).
Columbia University Department of Computer Science. Technical Report Archive.
NOTE: All new technical reports are available from our new publications web
http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~library/
Tom Tomorrow: This Modern World: GOP meltdown
http://workingforchange.speedera.net/www.workingforchange.com/webgraphics/wfc/TMW10-12-05.jpg
Lloyd Dangle, trouble town: judith miller
http://www.troubletown.com/cartoons/cartoons/ttown.781.gif
RJ Matson: Government Obesity
http://www.sitnews.us/Cartoonists/100905/matson.gif
BUSH NAMES GUY HE MET AT MALL TO REPLACE GREENSPAN
President Attempts to Blunt Charges of Cronyism
Still smarting from criticism of his nomination of Harriet Miers to the United States Supreme Court, President George W. Bush today nominated a man he described as "a guy I met at the mall" to succeed Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan.
At a White House ceremony, a beaming President Bush stood at the side of the guy he met at the mall and explained how he came to choose a total unknown to replace Mr. Greenspan, who has served at the Fed since 1987.
Mr. Bush said that the two men met while they were waiting in line at a David's Cookies store: "I was very impressed with the way he counted his change, and I am confident he will bring that same understanding of money to his new role as head of the Federal Reserve."
While the president said he did not yet know the name of the guy he met at the mall, he added, "All of that will come out during the confirmation process."
After being accused of cronyism in the nomination of Ms. Miers, the president may be trying to blunt such criticism by nominating someone he barely knows to run the Fed, some in Washington believe.
But Davis Logsdon, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota, has a different theory about Mr. Bush's recent appointments: "He may be surrounding himself with lousy people in the hopes that he'll be graded on a curve."
Elsewhere, the New York Yankees fell to the Los Angeles Angels despite a ninth-inning attempt by George Steinbrenner to buy the L.A. team.
Borowitzreport.com
a southern Shia state also controlling great oil wealth, and a western area,war torn and without resources, left for Sunnis to rebuild after a brutal and heavily damaging occupation.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10584.htm
From: Poacnewsletter
ANAS SHALLAL, ashallal@cox.net, http://busboysandpoets.com
Shallal is an independent Iraqi-American business owner in Washington, D.C. He said today: "As I talk to more and more Iraqis, it's clear that most do not think this constitution is a good idea. Even many Iraqis who were among the main boosters for the war are speaking out against this constitution, like Kanan Makiya [author of "Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq"] and the former acting U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Rend Rahim. Iraqis are again left in a no-win situation. Hidden beneath the baroque language about the glories of Iraq is a document that will make Iraq ungovernable at best and will initiate the de facto partition of Iraq. Long-term this would keep Iraq weak and is part of the U.S. government's divide-and-conquer strategy. The carnage and the suffering of U.S. soldiers and Iraqis is merely collateral damage to this administration's agenda."
From: Institute for Public Accuracy
A group of 25 senators led by Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) introduced legislation late last month to reverse President George W. Bush’s executive order suspending key wage protections for workers rebuilding the areas destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. The Fair Wages for Hurricane Katrina Recovery Workers Act would ensure workers on federal rebuilding projects in the Gulf Coast are paid the prevailing local wage as required by the Davis-Bacon Act. Bush suspended the wage provisions Sept. 8 in one of his first acts after Katrina hit Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) introduced a similar bill in the House. Two Republican members of Congress, Steven C. LaTourette (Ohio) and Frank LoBiondo (N.J.) introduced a resolution Oct. 7 to force the White House to provide any communications regarding contracts in the Gulf Coast when Bush suspended the Davis-Bacon rules. Meanwhile, 37 Republican members of Congress sent a letter to Bush asking that the Davis-Bacon rules be reinstated. LaTourette, who authored the letter along with LoBiondo, and the 37 House Republicans plan to take action on the House floor the week of Oct. 17 if the Bush administration does not alter the policy.
From: Work in Progress
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-09-28-oppose_x.htm
"At the State Department's invitation," former Voice of America director and current dean of the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication Geoffrey Cowan wrote an opinion piece for USA Today praising Karen Hughes, the new U.S. public diplomacy head. Hughes "knows that we have to change our tone so that we sound less arrogant," Cowan wrote "Importantly," during her recent Middle East "listening tour," Hughes was "accompanied ... by Dina Powell, her new deputy, who was born in Egypt and speaks fluent Arabic." Noting Cowan's "third-party endorsement" of Hughes,
O'Dwyer's PR Daily reported that, while USA Today did disclose the State Department's role in the opinion piece, the newspaper didn't mention that "Cowan received a briefing from Hughes when she visited the campus on Sept. 21."
SOURCE: USA Today, September 28, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4035
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/
A system produces hard, consistent fuel pellets from cellulose and plastic waste, significantly reducing waste-handling costs. The high- carbon-content pellets burn efficiently and can fire part of their own production process. They can be added to a plant's coal feed and are used regularly in Europe as an industrial fuel source.
View this technology at:
http://link.abpi.net/l.php?20051011A3
http://www.inquisitorx.com/beta/
Inquisitor is an instant search technology that takes the waiting out of searching the web. It is an AJAX-style web application that retrieves web results and suggestions as-you-type.
What does it do? Well, just try it! Type in a test search like 'iPod' and see what happens.
Please note, Inquisitor is a beta service. At the moment, the service works best with either Firefox, Safari, or Opera (or a derivative like OmniWeb or Camino). It does work (albeit limitedly) with that other unmentionable browser, but since Firefox rocks so much, you should probably just use that.
Tony Auth: malicious design
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/ta/2005/ta051011.gif
Tom the Dancing Bug: other nature documentaries
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/td/2005/td051008.gif
Pat Oliphant: pakistan photo-op
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/po/2005/po051010.gif
National Security Archive Update, October 10, 2005
Amicus Brief Requests Review of Dismissal of Whistle Blower Case
For more information, contact Meredith Fuchs 202-994-7000
Washington D.C. October 10, 2005 - The National Security Archive, along with other openness advocates, today filed a "friend of the court" brief with the United States Supreme Court asking the Court to review the summary dismissal, on secrecy grounds, of a lawsuit filed by an FBI whistleblower.
The Archive's General Counsel Meredith Fuchs explained: "Potential whistleblowers who work in military, intelligence and law enforcement agencies will almost always come into contact with classified information. The problem is that courts today simply are accepting the government claims that the need for secrecy of such information outweighs strong interests, including constitutional interests, in addressing the claims in the lawsuits. We are asking courts to take a harder look." In the case of Sibel Edmonds, the contract linguist who sought to blow the whistle on improprieties in the FBI's translation unit, there are facts that support her claims of wrongdoing, including a Department of Justice Office of Inspector General Report that concludes that Ms. Edmonds' whistleblowing was "the most significant factor" in her termination.
Amici argue that secrecy does not always serve the goal of protecting national security, as the numerous investigations into the September 11 attacks on the United States all concluded. Noting that there has been an upsurge in secrecy over the last four years -- and that military and intelligence officials ranging from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to now-Director of the CIA Porter Goss all admit that a significant amount of the secrecy is unnecessary -- the brief argues that the judiciary must provide a meaningful review of government claims for secrecy.
In addition to the Archive, the brief was filed on behalf of the Project on Government Secrecy of the Federation of American Scientists, the National Whistleblower Coalition, the Project on Government Oversight, Public Citizen, Inc., The Government Accountability Project, The National Freedom of Information Coalition, American Library Association, the National Air Disaster Alliance, and September 11th Advocates.
To see a copy of the amicus brief, please visit
http://www.nsarchive.org
More information about the lawsuit is available at http://www.aclu.org
By Chris Mooney, AlterNet. Posted October 10, 2005.
The right-wing's contempt for science will lead to economic and ecological calamity -- unless we fight back.
[This is an excerpt from The Republican War on Science, by Chris Mooney.]
The politicization of science presents a severe challenge to modern democratic governments, which depend on a creative tension between elected representatives on the one hand, and unelected technocratic elites on the other. While we cannot allow scientific experts to rule us directly, we nevertheless need them desperately. Our leaders simply cannot do their jobs competently without considerable reliance on expertise that they themselves do not possess. But the politicization of science -- in essence, a corruption of the communication channels between credible experts and policymakers -- weakens and ultimately destroys this necessary relationship.
The advent of the modern conservative movement, its takeover of the Republican Party, and its ultimate triumph under the administration of George W. Bush have brought us to a point where a true divorce between democratic government and technocratic expertise seems conceivable. Indeed, it appears to be actually underway. To those who understand that such a split will lead to economic, ecological, and social calamity, it presents a terrifying prospect -- and leaves us with only two options.
First, we could cry out warnings to conservatives, begging that they step back from the abyss before it is too late. Apparently, the forty-eight Nobel laureates who endorsed the Union of Concerned Scientists' statement were unable to cry out with a loud enough voice to achieve this objective. Scientists must continue to issue warnings and to decry abuses of science, but we should not delude ourselves that their jeremiads, however convincing, will solve the problem.
Instead, we must push for safeguards that strengthen the role of legitimate expertise in informing government decision-making, protect that expertise from manipulation and abuse, and more generally seek to restore a spirit of candor and collaboration between the scientific community and our elected officials. A number of groups have called for such steps, demanding both new institutions and new laws to safeguard the role of science in policymaking. In particular, a recent report by the Federation of American Scientists, Flying Blind, has exhaustively analyzed the chaos that ensues when expert input and political decision-making become separated -- a case in point being George W. Bush's 2001 stem cell decision -- and proposed helpful solutions touching both Congress and the executive branch of government.
First and most obviously, we must revive the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, or a close equivalent. Members of Congress clearly lack an impartial and credible source of scientific analysis and expertise, and this deficiency has created a vacuum that has often been filled by politicized sources. For those who claimed that OTA did not always work according to the congressional schedule, a revival of the office can include any necessary restructuring. As Arizona State University science policy scholar David Guston notes of OTA studies, "They don't always have to be two hundred pages long and eight months in coming, but you can't just pick up the phone and call your bud."
In fact, some scientists and politicians have begun to clamor for OTA's return. The authors of a 2003 collection, Science and Technology Advice for Congress, outline a range of options for improving the science savvy of elected representatives, from simply resurrecting OTA to creating a similar organ in the Government Accountability Office or Congressional Research Service. They also suggest increasing the role of the well-respected but undeniably slow-paced National Academy of Sciences.
Meanwhile, Democratic representative Rush Holt, of New Jersey, a physicist, has introduced several bills outlining different approaches for restoring an OTA-like capacity to Congress. "One of the reasons for defunding OTA was that people like Gingrich accused it of being partisan," says Holt. "And I would argue that because they did away with it, it made it possible for science on Capitol Hill to become partisan."
As we have seen, in the wake of OTA's demise, Congressional Republicans held "science court" hearings pitting industry-friendly scientists against the mainstream -- a tradition that continues in the hands of James Inhofe and others. As another needed reform, Congress should implement mechanisms to ensure full disclosure of any potentially relevant conflicts of interests by witnesses invited to testify at hearings at the time of their testimony. Such a step would at least partially deter the worst excesses of the "science court" tradition.
And just as science advice to Congress needs strengthening, so does the role of science in the executive branch of government. As far as advice to the president goes, the science adviser must regain the rank of assistant to the president, while the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) must regain its previous strength. As the Federation of American Scientists notes, Congress should also consider acting to raise the stature of OSTP further, increasing both its prominence within the White House and its public role. The ever increasing importance of scientific information to political decision-making justifies such a promotion.
Similarly, we must safeguard scientific advisory committees, which have proven particularly vulnerable to political manipulation. Recently proposed legislation by Democratic representatives Henry Waxman and Bart Gordon would move in this direction by barring political litmus tests for committee membership, and requiring tough disclosure and conflict-of-interest policies. This "scientific integrity" bill also has a number of other commendable features, such as extending whistleblower protection to federal employees who allege abuses of science, so that they will not face the threat of retaliation.
With respect to all of these proposed reforms to strengthen and safeguard the nation's scientific advisory apparatus, we should bear in mind the eloquent warning of Lewis Branscomb, of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, a UCS statement signer and physicist who has served in scientific advisory capacities in both Democratic and Republican administrations:
The integrity of the science advisory process cannot withstand overt actions to censor or suppress unwanted advice, to mischaracterize it, or to construct it by use of political litmus tests in the selection of individuals to serve on committees. Nor can it survive threats to the job security of scientists in government when they attempt to call such political interventions to the attention of Congress or the press. Science advice must not be allowed to become politically or ideologically constructed. If we fail in the attempt to preserve the integrity of science in democratic governance, a strong source of unity in the electorate, based on common interest in the actual performance of government, will be eroded. Policymaking by ideology requires that reality be set aside; it can be maintained only by moving towards ever more authoritarian forms of governance.
Is Branscomb's worry about creeping authoritarianism overblown? Simply recall the words of the anonymous Bush administration official who, disdaining the "reality-based community," averred that "we're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality," and you will see that we have plenty to worry about.
Steps to safeguard science advice, however, are just the beginning. Still in the arena of legislative reforms, we must roll back the incursions of the "sound science" regulatory reform movement. Science politicizing measures like the Data Quality Act must be repealed. The "peer review" superstructure recently erected under the Data Quality Act must be dismantled pending a governmentwide study, by the National Academy of Sciences or another competent body, of the proper role for peer review in regulatory decision-making. If such an inquiry were to find a need for significant reforms in spite of the regulatory delay that they would cause, then such reforms should be considered, with an emphasis on sensitivity to the differing needs of individual federal agencies.
We must also remain vigilant in opposition to proposed laws, like the "Endangered Species Data Quality Act," that would further politicize science. As a general principle, elected representatives have no business specifying, in minute detail, how federal agencies should evaluate scientific information. We staff these agencies with scientific experts for a reason. Let's let them do their jobs.
These proposals alone, however, cannot solve the problem. We must also work to reduce the current incentives for science politicization, and even consider steps to deter political science abuses in the future.
Science politicization succeeds, at least in part, because it confuses the public and policymakers, leading them to believe that a scientific "controversy" exists where one actually does not, or that widely discredited claims are still given serious consideration in the world of science. This would not happen so frequently, however, if journalists -- the chief purveyors of scientific information to the American public in controversial and politicized areas -- performed their job better.
Throughout this book we have seen repeated examples of strategic attempts to spin reporters. The 1998 American Petroleum Institute memo, discussed in Chapter 7, discussed a plan to "maximize the impact of scientific views consistent with ours with Congress, the media and other key audiences." Similarly, the Discovery Institute's Wedge Document explicitly discussed media strategies. And no wonder: The evidence suggests that many journalists reporting on science issues fall easy prey to sophisticated public relations campaigns. For instance, in a 2004 paper published in the journal Global Environmental Change, the scholars Maxwell T. Boykoff and Jules M. Boykoff analyzed coverage of global warming in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times between 1988 and 2002. During this fourteen-year period, climate scientists successfully forged a powerful consensus on human-caused climate change. But reporting in these four major papers failed to reflect this consensus.
The Boykoffs analyzed a random sample of 636 articles. They found that a majority, 52.7 percent, gave "roughly equal attention" to the scientific consensus view that human activity contributes to climate change and to the opposed (and often industry-supported) view that natural fluctuations suffice to explain the observed warming. By comparison, just 35.3 percent of articles emphasized the scientific consensus view while still presenting the other side in a subordinate fashion (a far more appropriate story structure). Finally, 6.2 percent emphasized the industry-friendly view (simply absurd), and a mere 5.9 percent focused on the consensus view without providing the industry/"skeptic" counterpoint (justifiable, perhaps, but probably not ideal in all circumstances).
Most intriguing, the Boykoffs' study found a shift in coverage between 1988, when climate change first garnered wide media coverage, and 1990. During that period, journalists broadly moved from focusing on scientists' views of climate change to providing "balanced" accounts. During this same period, the Boykoffs noted, climate change became highly politicized, and a "small group of influential spokespeople and scientists emerged in the news" to question the mainstream view that industrial emissions are warming the planet. The authors conclude that the U.S. "prestige press" has produced "informationally biased coverage of global warming . . . hidden behind the veil of journalistic balance."
Reporters need to understand better how science abusers exploit the journalistic norm of "balance" -- demanding equal treatment for fringe or widely discredited views -- and adjust their writing accordingly. Let's face it: Journalistic "balance" has no corollary in the world of science. On the contrary, scientific theories and interpretations survive or perish based on the process of peer review, by which scientific claims are carefully scrutinized before being published in reputable journals; on whether the results of scientific experiments can be replicated by other scientists; and ultimately, on whether they win over scientific peers. When consensus builds, it is based on repeated testing and retesting of an idea.
For this reason, journalists should treat fringe scientific claims with considerable skepticism and find out what major peer-reviewed papers or assessments have to say about them. Moreover, they should adhere to the principle that the more outlandish or dramatic the claim, the more skepticism it warrants. The fact is, nonscientist journalists can all too easily fall for scientific-sounding claims that they are unable to evaluate adequately on their own.
That doesn't mean that scientific consensus is right in every instance. There are famous examples of cases in which it was proved wrong: the name Galileo comes to mind, as does that of a lowly patent clerk named Einstein. In the vast majority of modern cases, however, scientific consensus can be expected to hold up under scrutiny precisely because it has emerged from a lengthy and rigorous process of professional skepticism and criticism. At the very least, journalists covering science-based policy debates should familiarize themselves with this professional proving ground, learn what it says about the relative merits of competing claims, and "balance" their reports accordingly. In doing so, they will thwart and expose many of the most severe forms of science abuse.
When it comes to deterrence of future abuse of science, we must consider other measures as well. In particular, the repeated abuse of science that we have seen on the part of self-interested corporations, and their assorted minions, strongly suggests a systemic problem. Industry groups play the "science" card because it works (if only for a time, as Big Tobacco learned) and because they can generally get away with it. As Brown University clinical associate professor David Egilman observed at a July conference sponsored by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, when it comes to industry manipulation and suppression of science, "The penalties for getting caught never approach the cost advantages of increased profits. There are rarely criminal penalties for deaths and injuries."
As Egilman suggests, as a society we must use the legal system more vigilantly to deter corporate abuse of science, recognizing their serious social costs. The Justice Department's attempt to prosecute cigarette manufacturers for racketeering, on the grounds that they misled the public about the dangers posed by their products, could set a good precedent and help discourage such behavior in the future.
And just as science-abusing corporations must be fought in the courts, science-abusing religious conservatives -- who would misinform our children about the origin of the human species and about virtually everything having to do with sex -- must be fought in the schools, the educational system, and the public arena more generally. Here the challenge truly becomes staggering. Short of massive educational reform, we can begin by supporting the few beleaguered groups, like the National Center for Science Education, that combat the religious Right in its attempt to commandeer science to serve a religious agenda.
We must also mobilize the natural defenders of Enlightenment values: scientists themselves, who all too often fail to engage antievolutionists and other know-nothings in defense of what they hold dear. True, groups like the National Academy of Sciences and American Association for the Advancement of Science have shown an historic willingness to step up when it counts, especially with powerful friend-of-the-court briefs in creationism lawsuits. But scientists have too often failed to counter creationist efforts at the local level, preferring to remain in their ivory towers. Moreover, while scientific societies have battled antievolutionists for decades, they must bring their activist senses up to date, and also battle the spread of misinformation in sex education courses and other areas.
Legal reforms, new levels of activism, raising journalistic standards -- all of these measures will help beat back science abuse. In the end, however, we cannot escape the reality that we face a political problem, one that requires explicitly political solutions.
Ideally, Republican moderates like John McCain and Arnold Schwarzenegger would serve as emissaries to the right wing of their party, warning of the dangers of science abuse. Yet if these moderates have attempted such a step, we can detect no evidence of its effectiveness. Rather, we see the opposite. The Bush administration has alienated and spurned moderate Republicans such as former EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman and former treasury secretary Paul O'Neill, who wanted to take global warming seriously rather than hide behind distortions and evasions of reliable scientific consensus.
In this context, and considering its track record, we have no choice but to politically oppose the antiscience right wing of the Republican Party. This does not necessarily entail an outright partisan agenda. Encouraging the electoral success of Republican moderates with good credentials on science could potentially have just as constructive an effect as backing Democrats.
But if we care about science and believe that it should play a crucial role in decisions about our future, we must steadfastly oppose further political gains by the modern Right. This political movement has patently demonstrated that it will not defend the integrity of science in any case in which science runs afoul of its core political constituencies. In so doing, it has ceded any right to govern a technologically advanced and sophisticated nation. Our future relies on our intelligence, but today's Right -- failing to grasp this fact in virtually every political situation in which it really matters, and nourishing disturbing anti-intellectual tendencies -- cannot deliver us there successfully or safely. If it will not come to its senses, we must cast it aside.
Copyright © 2005. Reprinted by arrangement with BasicBooks, a member of the Perseus Books Group. All rights reserved.
http://www.alternet.org/story/26550/
Article Launched: 10/11/2005 01:00:00 AM
By Ed Quillen
Denver Post Columnist
At first, it was hard to know how to respond to President George W. Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers, a Texas attorney with no judicial experience, to the U.S. Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Roberts holds a more prominent position, but he replaced William Rehnquist, a reliable conservative vote. Miers would replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has often been a swing vote in 5-4 decisions.
Thus Miers could change the balance of the court in a way that Roberts does not, and that has a lot of people worried - some because she would change the balance, and others because they're scared she won't.
But perhaps there's no good reason to be worried, one way or the other. For one thing, Supreme Court decisions may not be all that important anyway, and for another, how could the court get much worse?
Let's start with importance. Perhaps the most potent decision from the Rehnquist Court was Bush vs. Gore in 2000. But every thorough count of those hanging chads gave Bush a victory, so the Supreme Court decision was irrelevant. The Supreme Court did not change the course of history; at most it hastened it.
. . .
Complete article at: http://denverpost.com/quillen/ci_3104337
Ed Quillen of Salida (ed@cozine.com) is a former newspaper editor whose column appears Tuesday and Sunday.
"Both these men could be pulled up as war criminals for engaging in actions that we condemned Germany in 1946 for doing," he said.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10561.htm
From: Poacnewsletter
As American corporations have "discovered that Brussels is the source of an increasingly large volume of legislation, ranging from environmental and labour standards to labelling requirements and new rules for the financial services industry," more and more lobbyists are setting up shop there. The Financial Times writes, "The dramatic increase in US lobbying activity in recent years means that companies such as Microsoft, Intel, Procter & Gamble, General Electric and General Motors have already opened offices in Brussels to lobby the Commission, the European parliament and the Council of Ministers - the three institutions that call the shots in the EU capital." According to the Times, U.S. firms have learned from watching the EU block the GE/Honeywell merger to not "make the mistake of ignoring the EU's top competition regulator." Even Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott is making yearly trips to meet with key EU commissioners to discuss services industry and food labeling issues.
SOURCE: Financial Times, October 3, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4046
"Since early Wednesday, Phil Bradham, the network engineer at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, has been cut off from the parts of the Internet he needs the most. He can't reach his Web hosting company to update his site.
Critical e-mails aren't going through, and some aren't reaching him. He can't get to some important sites on the Net, such as the popular Wikipedia encyclopedia. The source of Bradham's difficulties is a feud between two big backbone Internet companies--the long-haul networks that most consumers and even most businesses ordinarily have little to do with.
One of these companies, Level 3 Communications, has cut off direct communications with rival Cogent Communications, causing many of each company's customers to lose access to potentially significant swatches of the Net. In theory, this kind of blackout is precisely the kind of problem the Internet was designed to withstand. The complicated, interlocking nature of networks means that data traffic is supposed to be able to find an alternate route to its destination, even if a critical link is
broken."
Learn more at News.com.
From: Future Brief
http://www.ornl.gov/news/pulse/pulse_v194_05.htm
That's the url to the Oct. 10, 2005, issue of DOE Pulse. Pulse is a newsletter about accomplishments at the Department of Energy's national laboratories. Here is some of what you'll find in this issue:
* Ames: Quelling a century-old argument
* Jefferson Lab: Spinning quarks
* Argonne: Powering soldier protection
* Savannah River: Portable nuclear detection
Feature: SLAC assists the sulfuring Mary Rose
Researcher profile: Fermilab's Elizabeth Freeland
Watch: NOVA's two-hour program, "Einstein's Big Idea," Oct. 11 on PBS, cosponsored by DOE's Office of Science.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/
Ted Rall: strategic popularity reserve
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/trall/2005/trall051010.gif
Bob Englehart: Miers Comes Clean
http://www.sitnews.us/Cartoonists/100905/englehart.gif
Dan Wasserman: throw money at ourselves
http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Graphic/2005/10/04/1128482785_3961.gif
GOD'S PHONE LOGS PROVE HE DID NOT SPEAK TO BUSH
'Out of the Loop' On Iraq, Almighty Says
Days after the BBC reported that President George W. Bush claimed God told him to invade Iraq, the Almighty held a rare press conference today to say that He was "totally out of the loop" on the March 2003 invasion.
Reporters packed a meeting room at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Washington, D.C. to hear the angry denial of the Supreme Being, who had not held a press conference in over half a year.
Dressed in a white robe and sporting his trademark long, flowing beard, God told a reporter that the president's version of events was "bogus," adding, "Dude, I don't even know the guy."
The King of the Universe then showed reporters detailed phone logs from March 2003 revealing that He had no conversations with President Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, or anyone else involved in the decision to invade Iraq.
While the logs showed no conversation with the president, they did indicate that on March 24 of that year God placed a call to actress Nicole Kidman to congratulate her on winning the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in "The Hours."
In what some saw as a particularly sarcastic rebuke of the president, God offered this possible explanation of Mr. Bush's claim that He had told him to invade Iraq: "Maybe he has me confused with Dick Cheney."
Elsewhere, the Department of Homeland Security said that the recent terror threat to New York City was "specific but non-credible," and that so was the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
Borowitzreport.com
Fascism is on the march and, when this administration threw down the gauntlet in New Orleans, it declared open war on this nation's poorer citizens.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10550.htm
From: Poacnewsletter
By Richard Wolinsky, AlterNet. Posted October 10, 2005.
From Terry Schiavo to global warming, the author of 'The Republican War on Science' explains how conservatives undermine science by whipping up controversy and manipulating the media.
[This is an edited transcript of an interview with Chris Mooney from Cover to Cover, a radio show that airs on KPFA Radio in Berkeley. The full audio of the story is available here.]
Richard Wolinsky: Chris Mooney is the author of The Republican War on Science, which deals with the way Republicans, the Republican party in particular, but also individual Republicans, as well as the Republican government, have dealt with science, scientific issues, and controversies involved with science. And my take on this is that the reason it's a war on science is because these people are, they couldn't get economics as an argument, they couldn't get ideology as an argument, so they figured, why not just go after the science? Is that about it?
Chris Mooney: There is a lot of that to it. The "war on science" that I'm describing does have this opportunistic element in which you find that interest groups, whether industry or on the religious right, who want to achieve a particular political end, are using science as their means of doing so and abusing science in the process. And they're not up front, they don't say "We oppose embryonic stem cell research for moral reasons," they want to say, "No, adult cells are better, so we don't need to do embryonic stem cell research." And that's where science is abused and distorted. And I'm detecting that across a wide range of issues. And so is the scientific community.
RW: Well, the history of politicization of science goes way back. To some degree certainly we can go back to Galileo, but what we've got here over the past 20 years is something else again.
CM:That's what I would argue. I would say that to some extent every political interest politicizes science or uses science politically in the sense of selectively using information to back up your point of view. I think that with the Republican Party today, there's something very different. And the reason it's very different is because the party is committed to catering to two key constituencies, big business and the religious right, who are often coming into conflict with the mainstream scientific view on issues like evolution for the religious right or global climate change for the fossil fuel industry. So you have a systematic attempt by Republican political leaders to appease these interests on the scientific issues that matter to them. And so you get in combination a kind of perfect storm of catering to special interests on science, again and again and again, systematically, throughout the Bush government.
RW: Well, it actually started before then, and as I was reading your book, I saw that there's something called the OTA, the Office of Technology Assessment, a congressional committee, a congressional office, I'm not sure how you want to call it. The OTA came out of Congress, it's been around since when?
CM:It was founded in 1972, I believe, and it lasted until 1995, when the Gingrich Congress came in, Republicans had not controlled Congress for decades, and they pretty promptly did away with it.
RW: Ok, prior to 1972, how did Congress learn about science?
CM: Well, they would have to call hearings, and they would have to bring in experts to testify. But in the 70s, there were a growing number of scientific controversies about things like nuclear energy or the super-sonic transport, and Congress felt that they couldn't always trust the executive branch to provide them unbiased information, cause the executive branch is serving the president. So they thought that they would have their own source of information. And they founded OTA, '72, and it struggled at first, but it ultimately became a world-renowned scientific advisory body. The Europeans built their own scientific advisory bodies based on OTA.
. . .
Complete article at: http://www.alternet.org/story/26559/
Richard Wolinsky is the host of Cover To Cover, which airs on KPFA Pacifica Radio.
http://www.defenselink.mil/contracts/2005/ct20050927.html
The Rendon Group, a PR firm that has assisted U.S. military interventions in at least seven countries, continues to be a Pentagon favorite. The secretive firm recently won a year-long $6.4 million contract with the Army for "Strategic Communications Operations Support" in Baghdad. In April 2005, O'Dwyer's PR Daily reported that Rendon "is winding down its current $8.2M contract" with the Pentagon's Strategic Command. Rendon had been "handling foreign media analysis for about 15 months," with a whopping "56 staffers handling the account." The Rendon Group is no stranger to Iraq. Seymour Hersh reported in a March 2002 New Yorker article that the firm received close to $100 million from the CIA for work it did in Iraq in the five years following the Gulf War, which included launching the Iraqi National Congress.
SOURCE: Defenselink.mil, September 27, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4031
The widely televised safe landing of JetBlue Airways flight 292 with its nose gear stuck sideways at Los Angeles International Airport Sept. 21 illustrates the need to maintain the highest standards for pilots, Air Line Pilots President Capt. Duane Woerth said. U.S. airlines’ mindless pursuit of a race to the bottom to slash labor costs is driving away the best and brightest pilots, Woerth said, urging the federal government and the airlines to reverse the talent drain before it is too late.
From: Work in Progress
New Communications Blogzine is dedicated to exploring new communications tools, technologies and emerging modes of communication, (including blogs, wikis, RSS, podcasts, search marketing, etc.), the growing phenomena of participatory communications and their effect on traditional media, professional communications, business, politics and society at large.
http://www.newcommblogzine.com/
David Horsey: young earth creationists
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/dayart/20051009/Cartoon20051009.gif
Mike Keefe: Today's War Rationale
http://www.intoon.com/Keefe05/k2598.gif
Matt Bors : tv shows that didn't make the cut
http://www.mattbors.com/strips/143-tvshows.gif
http://swiftreport.blogs.com/news/
A new campaign to promote tourism to Alaska is reminding would-be travelers that if they plan to visit the 49th state, they'd better do so before it is swallowed up by the ocean. High-profile ads being displayed in Seattle, Los Angeles and Minneapolis feature a picture of a classic Alaska license plate and an irresistible vanity message: "Alaska B4ITMELTS"
By Cole Walters
A state once known for arctic tundra gets a tropical makeover
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0928/p01s03-wome.html
Karen Hughes "started her first week as the State Department's top public relations officer with a 'listening tour' of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey." After Hughes' meeting with Egyptian students on U.S. scholarships, one student said, "I'm glad she spoke to us, but I didn't find her answers very convincing." In Turkey, Fatma Nevin Vargun told Hughes, "War makes the rights of women completely erased." Turkish activist Hidayet Sefkatli Tuksal said there is "no chance for America to make its image better ... while the war in Iraq is still going on." Tuksal also said she was "feeling myself insulted" by some of Hughes' comments. In Saudi Arabia, several of the 500 women at an event with Hughes took exception to her wish that Saudi women be allowed to drive and "fully participate in society." An ob/gyn countered, "There is more male chauvinism in my profession in Europe and America than in my country."
SOURCE: Christian Science Monitor, September 28, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4033
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/26463/
From: Poacnewsletter
"As offshore outsourcing boomed in recent years, the protracted controversy over the embattled H-1B immigrant labor program finally seemed to subside as U.S. jobs were exported overseas and theoretically lessened the need for foreign workers. Yet nearly 15 years after its inception under the Immigration Act of 1990, the program remains in full force and headed for new battles. Just last month, the Indian government made a proposal to the World Trade Organization, demanding that the annual cap for H-1B visas be raised from 65,000 to 195,000.
The pivotal question:
If jobs are leaving U.S. shores, is the program still needed? The H-1B program was created to keep U.S. companies competitive in the global economy by allowing them to hire professionals from other countries. Industry leaders argue that the program serves as a brake on offshoring by easing shortages in skilled labor within U.S. borders."
Learn more at News.com.
http://news.com.com/Waging+battle+on+foreign+labor/2009-1022_3-5888772.html?tag=nefd.lede
From: Future Brief
00:30 07 October 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Jeff Hecht
How far penguins can poop and whether people can swim faster in syrup than water were among the sticky questions answered by winners of the 2005 Ig Nobel prizes.
The spoof awards, organised by the science humour journal, the Annals of Improbable Research, honour scientific achievements that "make people laugh – then think". They were presented at Harvard University's otherwise distinguished Sanders Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, on Thursday.
Edward Cussler and Brian Gettelfinger, at the University of Minnesota, US, received the Chemistry Ig Nobel for resolving whether people can swim faster in syrup than water. The question arose as Gettelfinger, a student, wondered how to increase his speed as he trained for Olympic swimming trials.
So the pair set up an experiment in two 25-yard swimming pools on campus – requiring 22 separate levels of approval. They were offered 20 train cars’ worth of corn syrup to mix with water, but the city of Minneapolis ended that plan by demanding $20,000 since draining the syrup would overload the sewage system.
Instead, they stirred 310 kilograms of guar gum powder into one pool. "It wasn't pretty when we came in the next morning," Cussler told New Scientist. "It looked like diluted snot."
But that did not stop 16 volunteer swimmers. All swam two lengths in each pool, showering as they went from the syrupy pool to clean water. Timing the swimmers, Cussler found that the thicker liquid increased the power of their strokes as much as it increased the drag on their bodies, so it made no difference. "It was fun," he says, but in the end it was "totally useless".
...
Complete article at:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8108&feedId=online-news_rss20
http://oaister.umdl.umich.edu/o/oaister/
OAIster is a project of the University of Michigan Digital Library Production Service. Our goal is to create a collection of freely available, previously difficult-to-access, academically-oriented digital resources (what are digital resources?) that are easily searchable by anyone.
Simpy is a social bookmarking service. With Simpy, you can save, tag and search your own bookmarks and notes or browse and search other users' links and tags. You can be open and share your links with others, or keep them private.
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KAL: tizzy of internal turmoil
http://www.baltimoresun.com/media/cartoon/2005-10/19871843.gif
Lloyd Dangle: conservative revolution
http://www.troubletown.com/cartoons/cartoons/ttown.780.gif
bad reporter: judy miller
http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/pictures/2005/10/07/100705-950x315-badreporter.gif
http://swiftreport.blogs.com/news/
Some critics are already dismissing Harriet Miers, President Bush's nominee to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court as a 'Blank' slate. While the sixty-year-old single Miers has never been a judge, she is intimately acquainted with the criminal justice system. Known as Harri to her friends, Ms. Miers ran away from home while just a teenager, becoming in her own words "a boozer, a user and a two-time loser," before going back to school at the age of 46.
From 'stealing the TV' to the highest court in the land
By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent
The Times October 05, 2005
THE hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has published a teaching document instructing the faithful that some parts of the Bible are not actually true.
The Catholic bishops of England, Wales and Scotland are warning their five million worshippers, as well as any others drawn to the study of scripture, that they should not expect “total accuracy” from the Bible.
“We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision,” they say in The Gift of Scripture.
The document is timely, coming as it does amid the rise of the religious Right, in particular in the US.
Some Christians want a literal interpretation of the story of creation, as told in Genesis, taught alongside Darwin’s theory of evolution in schools, believing “intelligent design” to be an equally plausible theory of how the world began.
But the first 11 chapters of Genesis, in which two different and at times conflicting stories of creation are told, are among those that this country’s Catholic bishops insist cannot be “historical”. At most, they say, they may contain “historical traces”.
The document shows how far the Catholic Church has come since the 17th century, when Galileo was condemned as a heretic for flouting a near-universal belief in the divine inspiration of the Bible by advocating the Copernican view of the solar system. Only a century ago, Pope Pius X condemned Modernist Catholic scholars who adapted historical-critical methods of analysing ancient literature to the Bible.
In the document, the bishops acknowledge their debt to biblical scholars. They say the Bible must be approached in the knowledge that it is “God’s word expressed in human language” and that proper acknowledgement should be given both to the word of God and its human dimensions.
They say the Church must offer the gospel in ways “appropriate to changing times, intelligible and attractive to our contemporaries”.
The Bible is true in passages relating to human salvation, they say, but continue: “We should not expect total accuracy from the Bible in other, secular matters.”
They go on to condemn fundamentalism for its “intransigent intolerance” and to warn of “significant dangers” involved in a fundamentalist approach.
“Such an approach is dangerous, for example, when people of one nation or group see in the Bible a mandate for their own superiority, and even consider themselves permitted by the Bible to use violence against others.”
Of the notorious anti-Jewish curse in Matthew 27:25, “His blood be on us and on our children”, a passage used to justify centuries of anti-Semitism, the bishops say these and other words must never be used again as a pretext to treat Jewish people with contempt. Describing this passage as an example of dramatic exaggeration, the bishops say they have had “tragic consequences” in encouraging hatred and persecution. “The attitudes and language of first-century quarrels between Jews and Jewish Christians should never again be emulated in relations between Jews and Christians.”
As examples of passages not to be taken literally, the bishops cite the early chapters of Genesis, comparing them with early creation legends from other cultures, especially from the ancient East. The bishops say it is clear that the primary purpose of these chapters was to provide religious teaching and that they could not be described as historical writing.
Similarly, they refute the apocalyptic prophecies of Revelation, the last book of the Christian Bible, in which the writer describes the work of the risen Jesus, the death of the Beast and the wedding feast of Christ the Lamb.
The bishops say: “Such symbolic language must be respected for what it is, and is not to be interpreted literally. We should not expect to discover in this book details about the end of the world, about how many will be saved and about when the end will come.”
In their foreword to the teaching document, the two most senior Catholics of the land, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Archbishop of Westminster, and Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Archbishop of St Andrew’s and Edinburgh, explain its context.
They say people today are searching for what is worthwhile, what has real value, what can be trusted and what is really true.
The new teaching has been issued as part of the 40th anniversary celebrations of Dei Verbum, the Second Vatican Council document explaining the place of Scripture in revelation. In the past 40 years, Catholics have learnt more than ever before to cherish the Bible. “We have rediscovered the Bible as a precious treasure, both ancient and ever new.”
A Christian charity is sending a film about the Christmas story to every primary school in Britain after hearing of a young boy who asked his teacher why Mary and Joseph had named their baby after a swear word. The Breakout Trust raised £200,000 to make the 30-minute animated film, It’s a Boy. Steve Legg, head of the charity, said: “There are over 12 million children in the UK and only 756,000 of them go to church regularly.
That leaves a staggering number who are probably not receiving basic Christian teaching.”
BELIEVE IT OR NOT
UNTRUE
Genesis ii, 21-22
So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man
Genesis iii, 16
God said to the woman [after she was beguiled by the serpent]: “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”
Matthew xxvii, 25
The words of the crowd: “His blood be on us and on our children.”
Revelation xix,20
And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had worked the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshipped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with brimstone.”
TRUE
Exodus iii, 14
God reveals himself to Moses as: “I am who I am.”
Leviticus xxvi,12
“I will be your God, and you shall be my people.”
Exodus xx,1-17
The Ten Commandments
Matthew v,7
The Sermon on the Mount
Mark viii,29
Peter declares Jesus to be the Christ
Luke i
The Virgin Birth
John xx,28
Proof of bodily resurrection
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-1811332,00.html
LONDON (AFP) - US
Bush made the claim when he met Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas and then foreign minister Nabil Shaath in June 2003, the ministers told the documentary series to be broadcast in Britain later this month.
The US leader also told them he had been ordered by God to create a Palestinian state, the ministers said.
Shaath, now the Palestinian information minister, said: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God.
'God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan'.'
"And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq...' And I did.
"'And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.' And by God I'm gonna do it'," said Shaath.
Abbas, who was also at the meeting in the Egyptian resort of Sharm al-Sheikh, recalled how the president told him: "I have a moral and religious obligation.
"So I will get you a Palestinian state."
A BBC spokesman said the content of the programme had been put to the White House but it had refused to comment on a private conversation.
The three-part series, "Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs", charts the attempts to bring peace to the Middle East, from former US president Bill Clinton's peace talks in 1999-2000 to Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza strip.
The programme speaks to presidents and prime ministers, their generals and ministers, about what happened behind closed doors as the peace talks failed and the intifada grew.
The series is due to be screened in Britain on October 10, 17 and 24.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051006/en_afp/mideastbritainusiraq
Is invaluable as a backgrounder on the rise of the "Christian" Right and frightening in the predictions of where they could be taking us. Even the appendix is good reading. The POAC has this book available as a way to enlighten you and support the Project
http://www.oldamericancentury.org/15_solution.htm
From: Poacnewsletter
"'Devastating' early drafts of a controversial book recommended as reading at a US high school reveal how the word 'creationism' had been later swapped for 'intelligent design', a landmark US trial scrutinising the teaching of ID heard on Wednesday. The early drafts of the book Of Pandas and People, were used as evidence to link the book to creationism, which it is illegal to teach in government-funded US schools. 'ID proponents have said for years that they are not creationists,' says Nick Matzke of the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, California, which is advising 11 parents who are suing the school board of Dover High School in Pennsylvania for incorporating ID into the science curriculum. 'This proves beyond a doubt that this is simply a new name for creationism.' The early versions of the book were displayed to the court by expert witness for the plaintiffs and creationist historian Barbara Forrest."
Learn more in the New Scientist.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8061
From: Future Brief
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2005/09/help_for_karen_.html
"As Under Secretary of State Karen Hughes begins her monumental campaign to improve the world's opinion of the United States, not to worry, military information warriors are poised to jump in as soon as the FEMA of public diplomacy falters," William Arkin writes for his "Early Warnings" blog. "Certainly one of the fastest growing military sectors is that of information operations (IO)." As it turns out, the Pentagon seems to have no shortage of agencies working on IO. To make sure everyone is on the same page, the Defense Department recently offered a new definition of IO: "The integrated employment of the specified core capabilities of Electronic Warfare [EW], Computer Network Operations (CNO), PSYOP [psychological operations], Military Deception [MILDEC], and Operations Security [OPSEC], in concert with specified supporting and related capabilities, to influence, disrupt, corrupt, or usurp adversarial human and automated decisionmaking, while protecting our own."
SOURCE: Washington Post, September 30, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4040
The Bush administration’s projections of future federal budget deficits are too low, incomplete and leave the U.S. economy vulnerable, according to an analysis of Congressional Budget Office (CBO) figures by the Economic Policy Institute. EPI analyzed a new report by the nonpartisan CBO that shows if President Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy become permanent and if other policies are enacted, such as privatizing Social Security, the deficit could soar to a whopping 46.5 percent of the nation’s total economic output in 2015. The Bush administration had estimated an increase to 37.7 percent. For more information, see EPI’s Sept. 21 economic snapshot at
From: Work in Progress
http://www.esnips.com/signin/index.jsp
Save real web content not just links: relevant paragraphs and images you find on any web site. oh yes, and links too
Documents, presentations, anything you want to access from anywhere or share with others
Your photos and audio or video clips
Upload as many as you like, right from your desktop. Your friends and colleagues can see them right away
Current and historical climate data, including temperature, precipitation, wind, and storms, by climate station.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ol/climate/climatedata.html
Tony Auth: heck of a job, crony
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/ta/2005/ta051006.gif
Stuart Carlson: intelligent design
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/sc/2005/sc051006.gif
Tom Toles: greenspan replacement
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinion/ssi/images/Toles/c_10072005_520.gif
U.S. DROPS SUVs ON INSURGENTS
'Operation Iron Junk' In Full Swing Across Iraq, Says Rumsfeld
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced today that the U.S. military was taking advantage of American car dealers' huge inventory of unsold sport utility vehicles by dropping the SUVs on insurgent positions across Iraq.
The defense secretary revealed details of the new offensive, called Operation Iron Junk, at a briefing today at the Pentagon.
"Car dealers can't get rid of SUVs, and we can't seem to get rid of those pesky insurgents," Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters. "Hopefully, by dropping SUVs on insurgents, we will get rid of both."
Operation Iron Junk began over the weekend when a C-17 Globemaster III cargo plane pounded insurgent positions in the town of Qaim near the Syrian border by opening its cargo hold and dumping fourteen fully loaded Lincoln Navigators on foreign fighters and suspected al Qaeda operatives.
"There is nothing scarier than seeing one of those mammoth gas guzzlers falling from the sky," chuckled Mr. Rumsfeld. "I wish I'd been there!"
Mr. Rumsfeld said that wile most of the SUV strikes have been successful, a few have missed their mark, including a sortie on Sunday in which a Ford Expedition landed on an unoccupied Toyota Prius, instantly crushing it.
But on the whole, the defense secretary was prepared to call Operation Iron Junk a success: "This is by far the most mileage anyone has ever gotten out of an SUV."
Elsewhere, in a possible breach of the separation of church and state, Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex) introduced a bill in Congress calling for God to smite a Texas grand jury with locusts.
Borowitzreport.com
Dear Working Families e-Activist,
People everywhere are outraged that President Bush took pay protections away from the workers who will rebuild the Gulf Coast.
Now Republican extremists in Congress want to cut even more paychecks.
We need to turn our outrage to action and restore decent pay for Gulf Coast workers.
Please sign our petition now.
(Click here.)
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/protect_workers/s3guser2768e36?
Workers in the Gulf Coast have lost so much—many lost their homes, belongings and jobs. Some lost family members. Now they’ve lost decent pay, too.
When President Bush signed the executive order taking away community “prevailing wage” standards for construction workers who will rebuild the Gulf Coast, he took hope from working families trying to put their lives back together. We can’t allow this to happen.
And it gets even worse: Anti-worker Republicans in Congress have introduced legislation to automatically suspend these wage protections for a year in future disaster sites.
Please turn your outrage to action and help restore decent pay for Gulf Coast workers. Click the following link to sign our petition now:
(Click here.)
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/protect_workers/s3guser2768e36?
There is no way a just America can allow pay to be cut for workers in the Gulf Coast and in future disaster sites—especially while politically connected contractors are getting fat no-bid contracts and the wealthiest Americans are getting massive new tax breaks. And especially when the recent hurricane tragedies exposed how much workers in the Gulf desperately need decent wages.
Let’s be clear: The Gulf Coast community wage standards President Bush cut were very modest to begin with. Federal law simply required that federal contractors not lower community construction wages—wages that average about $9.50 an hour in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, less than $20,000 a year for skilled, full-time work. Why in the world should these workers get pay cuts?
At least nine times in the past decade, right-wing extremists in the Republican Party tried in Congress to repeal or undermine the law that requires federal contractors to pay the “prevailing wage” for the region in which they are working. None of the efforts succeeded. But the Bush administration and Republican extremists are taking advantage of Katrina to do what they could not do otherwise.
Please take a moment to sign our Petition for Decent Pay in the Gulf Coast. President Bush and your members of Congress will get a message immediately letting them know you have signed it.
Click here:
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/protect_workers
Once you have signed the petition, please urge the people you know who care about working families and decent pay to sign it, too. Can you get five people to sign? 10? 25? The more signatures we get, the more we’ll be heard. Please click this link to send a message to your friends:
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/protect_workers/forward
Thank you for helping restore decent pay in the Gulf Coast.
In solidarity,
Working Families e-Activist Network, AFL-CIO
Oct. 6, 2005
P.S. Please forward this e-mail to your co-workers, friends and family. Together we'll fight to protect workers and their families in the Gulf Coast.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,171368,00.html
From: Poacnewsletter
JAMIN RASKIN, raskin@wcl.american.edu, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/03/1353231,
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/7632/view/print
Raskin is law professor at American University and author of the books "Overruling Democracy: The Supreme Court vs. the American People." He said today: "The thing that's really stunning is that of all of the judges and lawyers and law professors in the country, Bush turns to his own White House counsel, someone who has been on his inner legal and policy staff for many years, as the person he nominates to the Supreme Court."
From: Institute for Public Accuracy
Senate Measure Could Restrict Access to Crucial Information About Abu Ghraib Scandal in DIA Files
Washington, D.C., October 6, 2005 - After failing in 2000, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is again seeking an exception from disclosure of vast quantities of important Defense Department records currently available under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The exception would render records
that document "the conduct of foreign intelligence or counterintelligence operations" of the DIA Directorate of Human Intelligence (HUMINT) unreachable to the public.
The provision currently is included in the Defense Authorization Bill (S. 1042)and the Intelligence Authorization Bill (S. 1803). The provision would allow the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency to place the DIA's "operational files" completely outside the purview of the FOIA. "The DIA tried this
before and failed because it would protect records about death squads. Now it looks like the DIA wants to cover up records about Abu Ghraib," commented the Archive's director Thomas Blanton.
For more information, please visit our website at
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB112838476408659062.html?mod=world_news_whats_news
"Some Republicans are pushing a measure through the House of Representatives meant to ensure that students hear 'dissenting viewpoints' in class and are protected from retaliation because of their politics or religion. Colleges say the measure isn't needed, but with Congress providing billions of dollars to higher education, they are worried," writes the Wall Street Journal. This "Academic Bill of Rights" is from "Marxist-turned-conservative activist David Horowitz" and his organization, Students for Academic Freedom. Through SAF, Horowitz "has called on students to report professors who they think promote a political viewpoint or discriminate against students for their beliefs." As Molly Riordan reports in our latest, just-about-to-hit-mailboxes issue of PR Watch, SAF directed members to investigate the "political party affiliations of university professors" in "humanities and social science departments, which are perceived as more liberal than the sciences."
(If you don't already receive PR Watch, become a member/subscriber today!)
SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (sub. req'd.), October 4, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4043
By Anthony M. Townsend and Mitchell L. Moss
Center for Catastrophe Preparedness and Response
Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
New York University
April 2005
http://hurricane.wagner.nyu.edu/report1.pdf
"A Massachusetts company best known for its robotic vacuum cleaners is teaming up with Boston University to develop a robot that can locate the source of sniper gunfire. BU researcher Glenn Thoren said the partnership with Burlington-based iRobot Corp., maker of the Roomba vacuum, aims to protect soldiers in places like Iraq by quickly locating snipers so they can either steer clear or fire back. 'These systems are primarily made for gathering and understanding the nature of the threat,' said Thoren, director of Project REDOWL, or Robot Enhanced Detection Outpost withLasers. But the mobile robot's use of infrared light and lasers to fix on a target also raises the possibility that robots may eventually be armed to use weapons themselves, either autonomously or under human control."
Learn more in USA Today.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/robotics/2005-10-05-robot-sniper_x.htm
From: Future Brief
Weather.com. Local data regarding average local weather conditions, including average temperatures, record temperatures, rainfall, and sunrise and sunset times.
Mike Luckovich: trust him
http://www.creators.com/1002/LK/LK1005g.gif
Pat Oliphant: intelligent design
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/po/2005/po051005.gif
Ted Rall: deal with the devil
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/trall/2005/trall051003.gif
TOM AND KATIE: IT'S A PUBLICIST
Early Ultrasound Shows Holmes Pregnant With Tiny PR Rep
One day after announcing that they were expecting a baby, actors Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes stunned the world by revealing that an early ultrasound taken of the fetus reveals it to be a tiny publicist.
Mr. Cruise and Ms. Holmes did not indicate an approximate due date for the publicist, but said that the fetus would be making an official statement later in the week.
Obstetrician Ivan Kloester, who performed the ultrasound at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, said that it was too early to tell whether the publicist was a boy or a girl but added, "The fetus is very excited about working with Tom and Katie."
Speaking to People Magazine, Mr. Cruise said the fact that his wife-to-be is giving birth to a tiny PR rep "rocks my world."
"When I found out it was a publicist, I was like, that is just totally awesome!" Mr. Cruise said. "And man, was I relieved it wasn't a psychiatrist!"
Buddy Schlantz, a veteran talent agent and a longtime observer of the Hollywood scene, said that the birth of a publicist could be a huge positive for Mr. Cruise's career.
"The way Tom has been carrying on for the last few months, he has been crying out for a publicist to sit him down and tell him to clean up his act," Mr. Schlantz said. "I'll say this, though: that little fetus has a big job to do."
Elsewhere, a new study says that 63% of Americans are obese, although at some malls that number is closer to 100%.
Borowitzreport.com
Dear MoveOn member,
Two days ago, President Bush nominated his personal lawyer and long-time friend Harriet Miers to Sandra Day O'Connor's crucial swing seat on the Supreme Court. With no judicial experience and an extremely thin public record, even leading right-wing pundits are calling her "transparently a crony"1 with "non-existent"2 qualifications.
President Bush has refused to release any documents from Miers' time in the White House,3 and claimed he could not "recall" any conversations with Miers about abortion over 10 years of friendship and legal service.4 The people deserve the facts.
Next week our senators will be home on recess, and will be looking closely at the local press for their constituents' reactions. This is a perfect time to write a letter-to-the-editor urging the Senate to demand real answers about Harriet Miers' views.
You can write and submit your letter online, and it only takes a few minutes. Please write one today:
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=952&id=6085-5514896-hZW9XQCmovfroqMs4HLtjA&t=2
Immediately after Miers' nomination, MoveOn members stepped up to try to fill the information void. In the last 48- hours we've collected nearly 5,000 facts about Harriet Miers' record— and we're working to get this information into the hands of the media and our partner organizations. But it's remarkable how, even after collecting nearly everything that's publicly available, Miers' position on major constitutional questions and her qualifications to be a judge are still almost completely unknown.
What is clear is the deep personal and professional connection shared by Harriet Miers and George W. Bush. Here's what some members have uncovered about their long relationship:
From David, of Howell, MI:
When Miers was Bush's appointee to head the Texas State Lottery Commission, the lottery was accused by a former director of awarding multi-million dollar no-bid contracts to a technology firm represented by former Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes. Barnes has since said he helped Bush escape active duty in Vietnam, and the lottery director alleged that Barnes demanded, (and under Miers received) the lucrative public contracts to keep quiet about Bush's military service.6
From Paula, of San Mateo, CA
As Governor, Bush signed a law blocking Texas consumers from collecting a $6 billion dollar judgment against car dealers for predatory lending and keeping secret kickbacks. The law firm Miers headed represented the auto dealers.7
From Nancy of Austin, TX
Miers was hired as legal counsel on both Bush's gubanatorial campaigns. Among other things, her research was used to persuade a local judge to excuse then Governor Bush from jury duty, a civic task that would have forced him to disclose his 1976 arrest for drunken driving in Maine. He was then able to keep his arrest secret until late in the 2000 presidential campaign.8
From Stephen of Birmingham, AL:
Miers's personal friendship and allegiance to Bush has been cited for years in connection with her promotions, including to her highest post of White House Counsel.9
Cronyism on the Supreme Court is a serious threat to our democracy. In fact Alexander Hamilton
specifically argued that the Senate should be empowered to confirm or reject judicial nominees in part to prevent the President from using the Court to reward friends and political allies.10
The call to reject cronyism and secrecy is bipartisan. As conservative columnist George F. Will put it today, "The president's "argument" for [Miers] amounts to: Trust me. There is no reason to, for several reasons."11 We may have different reasons not to take Bush at his word, but we can all agree on the need for more information.
It's now up to us to make sure our senators demand that information, and refuse to offer a lifetime appointment to a swing seat on the Supreme Court as an act of faith. If you write a letter-to-the-editor today, you can help make sure the media, your community and the Senate hear this message loud and clear.
Please write one today:
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=952&id=6085-5514896-hZW9XQCmovfroqMs4HLtjA&t=3
Thanks for all that you do,
– Ben, Jennifer, Eli, Adam and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Wednesday, October 5th, 2005
Sources:
1 Statement by Michelle Malkin, October 3rd, 2005
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/003660.htm
2 Statement by Patrick Buchanan, October 3rd, 2005
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5445086/
3 "Bush Seeks to Quell Criticism of Court Nominee from the Right," New York Times, 10/4/05
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=953
4 "Bush base rattled by court pick" Atlanta Journal Constitution, 10/05/05
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=954
5 "Conservatives are wary over President's selection", The New York Times, 10/04/05
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=955
6 Texas Speaker Reportedly Helped Bush Get Into Guard" The Washington Post, 9/21/99
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=956
7 "What's the deal with Harriet Miers?" The Village Voice, 10/03/05
http://villagevoice.com/news/0540,webmondo3,68426,2.html
8 "Miers ties to Bush include personal lawyer" Associated Press, 10/03/05
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9577329/
9 "Bush promotes Miers from staff to Counsel" The Washington Post 11/18/04
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=957
10 Federalist Papers #76 by Alexander Hamilton:
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=958
11 "Can this nomination be justified?" George G. Will column in the Washington Post, 10/05/05
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=959
Harriet Miers' record and the Bush administration's secrecy raise serious concerns about cronyism. The Senate and the American people deserve the facts. Can you write a letter-to-the-editor to help spread the word?
http://political.moveon.org/lte/index.html?lte_campaign_id=32
The Good NewsProgress towards '06
Recent MoveOn member contributions helped recruit Iraq vet Paul Hackett to enter the Ohio Senate race and helped scare off a conservative challenger from taking on West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd.
Support our member-driven organization: MoveOn.org Political Action is entirely funded by our 3.3 million members. We have no corporate contributors, no foundation grants, no money from unions, no major donors program. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. If you'd like to support our work, you can give now at:
http://www.moveonpac.org/donate/email.html?id=6085-5514896-hZW9XQCmovfroqMs4HLtjA&t=4
PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION
Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.
NORMAN SOLOMON, norman@accuracy.org, http://www.accuracy.org, http://www.WarMadeEasy.com
Solomon, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, appeared on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" this morning to discuss the Harriet Miers nomination and the Bush administration's record of spin. He said today: "Miers was present at the creation of the Bush presidency. Behind the scenes, she ascended to increasingly important roles at a White House that methodically promoted deceptive claims about Iraq in order to justify the invasion and occupation. This year, in her gatekeeping role as the White House counsel, she has routinely determined what information does or does not reach the president -- including, presumably, information about Hurricane Katrina. It's breathtaking that after the recent horrendous results of cronyism at FEMA, the president would nominate to the Supreme Court a lawyer whose key qualifications seem to involve a history of unswerving loyalty to George W. Bush." Solomon is the author of "War Made Easy." He will be in Washington on Wednesday and New York City on Thursday. Video of his C-SPAN appearance will soon be posted at:
http://c-span.org/homepage.asp?Cat=Series&Code=WJE&ShowVidNum=6&Rot_Cat_CD=WJ&Rot_HT=205&Rot_WD=
From: Institute for Public Accuracy
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10501.htm
From: Poacnewsletter
http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/092905/gop.html
"A Texas grand jury's decision to indict former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) may have caught many people in Washington off-guard, but those in DeLay's inner circle had spent the past few days bracing themselves," reports The Hill. "Minutes after the announcement came, DeLay's closest and strongest supporters began mounting a defense. By 2 p.m., a two-page memo condemning [Texas prosecutor] Ronnie Earle and the indictment was hitting Republican e-mail." The memo "turns the ethical spotlight on Earle and casts DeLay as the innocent victim." It "cites a Houston Chronicle article saying that Earle had started raising money for 'far-left' groups." Republicans "would not disclose the author," but the memo is similar to one written earlier this year by former Republican National Committee research director Barbara Comstock, in response to questions about DeLay's foreign travel and campaign payments to his wife and daughter.
SOURCE: The Hill, September 29, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4032
"Experts speculate widely about the composition and tactics of the next generation of mujahideen. This speculation stems from the fact that transnational groups are harder collection targets than nation-states...The question arising is, of course, what threat will the next generation of al-Qaeda-inspired mujahideen pose? Based on the admittedly imprecise information available, the answer seems to lie in three discernible trends: a) the next generation will be at least as devout but more professional and less operationally visible; b) it will be larger, with more adherents and potential recruits; and c) it will be better educated and more adept at using the tools of modernity, particularly communications and weapons."
Michael Scheuer examines the future of Al Qaeda at the Jamestown Foundation.
http://jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2369797
From: Future Brief
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association launched a major new national public education campaign accusing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of mismanagement that is putting the safety, integrity and efficiency of America’s air traffic control system in danger. The “Fly Us Safe” TV, print and Internet campaign focuses on two serious crises facing the aviation system: an acute staffing shortage caused by FAA cutbacks and the agency’s failure to modernize and improve the infrastructure of the country’s air traffic control facilities. “If the FAA won’t step up to the plate to ensure safety, then America’s air traffic controllers certainly will,” said NATCA President John Carr.
For more information, visit
From: Work in Progress
National Center for Atmospheric Research. Economic impacts of extreme weather phenomena, including hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, and lightning, by state.
http://www.esig.ucar.edu/sourcebook/
A "smart" Web browser plug-in supplements standard search techniques with a method of analyzing the contents of a Web page or document based on a user's persistent goal. It automatically analyzes the content of electronic documents to provide a "similarity score" and the location of all relevant text.
View this technology at: http://link.abpi.net/l.php?20051004A3
This Modern World: Homeland Security evacuation plans
http://workingforchange.speedera.net/www.workingforchange.com/webgraphics/wfc/TMW10-05-05.jpg
David Horsey: right qualifications
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/dayart/20051004/cartoon20051004.gif
Mike Peters: republican leadership
http://www.grimmy.com/images/MP_Archive/MP_2005/MP1001.gif
BUSH GIVES SUPREME COURT PICK 'JUDGING FOR DUMMIES'
Non-judge to Receive Crash Course in Judging, President Says
One day after nominating a non-judge, Harriet Miers, to the United States Supreme Court, President George W. Bush presented his nominee with a book entitled "Judging for Dummies" which he said would provide her with "a crash course in judging."
The book, which includes definitions of such basic judging terms as "docket" and "gavel," will be invaluable in preparing Ms. Miers to serve on the highest court in the land, the president said.
While nominating someone with no judging experience on her resume to the Supreme Court raised eyebrows in some legal circles, Mr. Bush told reporters that although Ms. Miller had no experience as a judge she had decades of experience as a crony.
"People make up half the stuff on their resumes anyway," Mr. Bush said. "Look at poor old Brownie," referring to former FEMA chief Michael D. Brown.
Saying that "experience is overrated," the President noted, "I never served in the military, and I've invaded two countries -- you learn by doing."
Mr. Bush expressed confidence that his nominee was a quick study, adding, "If you're looking for judging experience, I can think of no better on-the-job training than serving on the United States Supreme Court."
For her part, Ms. Miers said that she had begun reading "Judging for Dummies" and was already getting up to speed for her new job: "The 'v' in legal cases is short for 'versus.'"
Elsewhere, NBC announced today that it would begin broadcasting a new spin-off of its hit "Law and Order" series entitled "Law and Order: Special Tom DeLay Unit."
Borowitzreport.com
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9577329/
From: Poacnewsletter
And some modest proposals for countering the trend.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2005, at 1:41 PM PT
Further evidence that the war in Iraq is wrecking the U.S. Army: Recruiters, having failed to meet their enlistment targets, are now being authorized to pursue high-school dropouts and (not to mince words) stupid people.
This year the Army set a goal of recruiting 80,000 active-duty soldiers, but it wound up with just 73,000--almost 10 percent short. As a result, the Army Times reported this week, the Pentagon has decided to make up the difference by expanding the pool--by letting up to 10 percent of new recruits be young men and women who have neither graduated high school nor earned a General Equivalency Diploma.
To continue reading, click here.
http://letters.slate.com/W9RH04B1832D02727EA763D70708D0
Article Launched: 09/30/2005 11:01:00 AM
By EVAN LEHMANN, Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The invasion of Iraq was the “greatest strategic disaster in United States history,” a retired Army general said yesterday, strengthening an effort in Congress to force an American withdrawal beginning next year.
Retired Army Lt. Gen. William Odom, a Vietnam veteran, said the invasion of Iraq alienated America's Middle East allies, making it harder to prosecute a war against terrorists.
The U.S. should withdraw from Iraq, he said, and reposition its military forces along the Afghan-Pakistani border to capture Osama bin Laden and crush al Qaeda cells.
“The invasion of Iraq I believe will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history,” said Odom, now a scholar with the Hudson Institute.
Homeward Bound, a bipartisan resolution with 60 House co-sponsors, including Lowell Rep. Marty Meehan, requests President Bush to announce plans for a draw-down by December, and begin withdrawing troops by October 2006.
The measure has not been voted on, nor has the House Republican leadership scheduled hearings. But supporters were encouraged yesterday, pointing to growing support among moderate conservatives and the public's rising dissatisfaction with the war.
Meehan, one of the first to propose a tiered exit strategy in January, when few of his Democratic colleagues dared wade into the controversial debate, pointed to “enormous progress.”
... Complete artlicle at: http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_3075570
By Stephen Pizzo, News for Real. Posted October 5, 2005.
Recessions begin when consumers suddenly discover they can no longer keep pace with their bills. And this one has already begun.
Of course George W. Bush will blame it all on the war and two hurricanes. In fact, it's a direct result of his own flawed economic policies and the "borrow and spend" lifestyle he sparked, not only within government, but consumers as well.
I am referring to the looming recession. It's going to be a doozie. And it has begun, as it always does, when consumers suddenly discover they can no longer keep pace with their bills.
That would have happened a couple of years ago already, had it not been for the housing bubble. Like all bubbles it was ordinary folk who eagerly fueled the Ponzi, an inverted pyramid sure to topple once it became top-heavy. As with all previous bubbles, everyone crushed by that inevitable collapse figured they were too smart to get caught by it. They figured they'd be well out of Dodge with the booty long before that happened.
So they bought homes bigger than they needed, and each time rates dropped or prices jumped in their area they refinanced, pulling a bit more booty out each time; for a pool, landscaping, or a new car. They had time. The economists said there was no bubble, prices were going up because of natural demand, not speculation. And so they stayed in Dodge. They let it ride, they let it all ride on successive spins of the wheel of fortune.
But now the hot housing market has begun to cool. Prices in the hottest markets have flattened. Houses listed for sale have grown as those who waited too long rush to cash in. Days on the market are marching upward as buyers become increasingly scarce.
That's only one indication that the end is near for George W. Bush's phony recovery -- a "recovery" bought with tax cuts he cannot repeat, and with consumer spending fueled by borrowed money, which is no longer available. Hell, consumers may not even be able to make good on the money they've already borrowed. The indicators indicate that is so:
The percentage of overdue US credit card accounts jumped to a record in the second quarter as gasoline prices surged, the American Bankers Association said. Consumers had more trouble making payments on personal, auto and home-equity loans during the three-month span, the bankers group said. Delinquencies on these loans, collectively, rose to 2.22 percent from a revised 2.03 percent in the prior quarter, the group said. Delinquencies on home-equity loans increased to 2.75 percent of all such loans, up from a revised 2.61 percent. Delinquency rates for indirect auto loans, which are made by auto dealers and held by banks, increased to 2.08 percent from 1.87 percent the previous quarter. Those for direct auto loans gained to 2.07 percent from 2.04 percent.
This is a particularly bad time for consumers to be tapped out. It comes at the beginning of the holiday spending season which can account for nearly half of many retailers income for the year. It comes just as gasoline prices reach European levels, hitting low-wage workers hardest, especially if they have to commute to work. It comes just as the first chills of winter begin spreading south from Canada and as heating oil and natural gas prices spiral to unheard-of highs.
Here's where it starts:
Credit Card Minimum Payments on the Rise
San Diego, CA (PRWEB) October 4, 2005 -- The minimum payments that credit card companies charge on a monthly basis are increasing. For credit card customers that either pay their bill in full every month or those that can afford substantially more than the minimum, this isn't going to be an issue and could even be benefit to them. For the approximately 40 million people that only pay the minimum, however, this could be devastating.
When the recession can no longer be denied, the President will blame it on 9/11, the war he started, the hurricanes and the disruption in energy production they caused. Like Michael Brown, he will blame everyone and everything, but himself.
But we know.
Stephen Pizzo is the author of numerous books, including "Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans," which was nominated for a Pulitzer.
http://www.alternet.org/story/26406/
MARJORIE COHN, Libertad48@san.rr.com, http://www.truthout.org
Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and executive vice president of the National Lawyers Guild. She has written a piece titled "Harriet Miers: Bush's Pit Bull," which will be posted on
From: Institute for Public Accuracy
"In 'The Singularity Is Near,' the inventor and prognosticator Ray Kurzweil postulates that we are fast approaching a time when humankind melds with technology to produce mind-boggling advances in
intelligence.
We will be able to play quidditch as Harry Potter does. We will control the aging process. We will be smarter by a factor of trillions. We will be so smart that we understand what Ray Kurzweil is talking about. Qubits, foglets, gigaflops, haptic interfaces, probabilistic fractals: Mr. Kurzweil is not writing science for sissies. He is envisioning precise details about how and when the Singularity - a fusion of symbiotic advances in genetics, robotics and nanotechnology that creates 'a profound and disruptive transformation in human capability' - will be upon us.
Mark the calendar for big doings in 2045 in case he's right."
Read Janet Maslin's full book review at the New York Times.
From: Future Brief
Walt Handelsman: complete transparency
http://www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/servlet/com.featureserv.util.Download?file=20051003edhan-a-p.jpg&code=edhan
Lloyd Dangle: administration talking point
http://www.troubletown.com/cartoons/cartoons/ttown.779.gif
Mike Keefe: frist and delay
http://www.sitnews.us/Cartoonists/100205/keefe2.gif
BUSH EMBARKS ON CROSS-COUNTRY MOTORCADE TO PROMOTE LESS DRIVING
200-Vehicle Convoy to Send Message of Conservation, President Says
Hoping to send a powerful message about energy conservation, President George W. Bush said today that he would embark on an historic cross-country motorcade to promote less driving.
"The time has come for the American people to wean themselves from their dependence on foreign oil, and I intend to get behind the wheel myself to send that message," Mr. Bush told reporters at the White House today.
Taking a hands-on role in the symbolic odyssey, Mr. Bush said that he would pilot the lead car in the motorcade, a Ford F250 pickup that he uses to drive around his ranch in Crawford, Texas.
The president said that he personally ordered a ranch hand to drive the pickup truck from Crawford to Washington, D.C. so that Mr. Bush would have it in time for the historic journey.
Mr. Bush added that in the event a national security emergency should require him to leave his energy conservation tour before it is complete, Air Force One will hover over the motorcade at all times, refueling in midair.
While some skeptics wondered whether Mr. Bush's cross-country trek would succeed in convincing Americans to drive less, it has already inspired one citizen to do so, as Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex) today volunteered to cancel his trip to Texas to stand trial on conspiracy charges.
"I asked myself, 'Is this trip necessary?' and I decided it wasn't," Rep. DeLay said.
Elsewhere, First Lady Laura Bush said she would appear on "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," while Vice President Dick Cheney said he would appear on "Lost."
Borowitzreport.com
This morning, Bush nominated Harriet Miers, a long time personal ally political ally and his personal lawyer to the Supreme Court. Can you help focus the Senate and the media on the facts of her record with a few minutes of research?
Dear MoveOn member,
This morning, President Bush nominated Harriet Miers to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. Miers is a long-time political appointee, campaign counsel, personal lawyer and Bush loyalist who has never served as a judge.
Ex-FEMA Director Michael Brown taught us that vital national positions must be filled with qualified candidates, not political friends with limited experience. With such a thin public record, how can Americans know Harriet Miers' approach to critical issues like corporate power, privacy and civil rights?
Right now we urgently need more information, and we need your help to get it. In the next few hours the Internet will fill with facts, anecdotes and rumors about Harriet Miers. We need your help to sort through it all, select the relevant and important details, and let us know what you find—decentralized, grassroots research.
We've set up a simple web form where you can post facts and sources that will fill out the picture on what kind of Supreme Court justice Miers would be. We'll get your research to the media, the Senate and our partner groups. This info will also be crucial in setting MoveOn's course for this nomination. Even if you just have a few minutes to spare, it could help a lot at this crucial time.
You can post facts right now at:
http://www.political.moveon.org/judgefacts?id=6078-5514896-em5MlWSiz_VX9JWIB.xI8A&t=3
Here is a quick chronology of Harriet Miers' career, courtesy of the Coalition for a Fair and Independent Judiciary, to help jump start your research.
1970—Graduated from Southern Methodist University Law School
1970-1972—Clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Joe Estes
1972-2001—Joined Texas law firm, Locke, Purnell
1985—Elected president of the Dallas Bar Association
1986-1989—Member of the State Bar board of directors
1989-1991—Elected and served one term on the Dallas City Council
1992—Elected president of the Texas State Bar
1993-1994—Worked as counsel for Bush's gubernatorial campaign
1995-2000—Appointed chairwoman of Texas Lottery Commission by Gov. George Bush
1996—Became president of Locke, Purnell, and the first woman to lead a major Texas law firm
1998—Presided over the merger of Locke, Purnell with another big Texas firm, Liddell, Sapp, Zivley, Hill & LaBoon, and became co-managing partner of the resulting megafirm, Locke Liddell & Sapp
2000—Represented Bush and Cheney in a lawsuit stemming from their dual residency in Texas while running in the Presidential primary
2001—Selected as staff secretary for President Bush
2003—Promoted to Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy
2004—Selected as White House Counsel
There are many important questions that need to be addressed, including:
What policies did she advocate for on the Dallas City Council?
What was her record at the head of the scandal-ridden Texas Lottery Commission?
What cases did she take on while working as a corporate lawyer in private practice, and what positions did she fight for?
What has she written or said in and outside of her law practice about her views on constitutional issues like privacy, the "commerce clause" or equal protection
As White House councel Alberto Gonzales played a pivotal role in softening America's stance on torture. What positions has Harriet Miers advocated for in the same role?
Has she ever publicly distanced herself from George W. Bush?
It's important that we move quickly in answering these questions. The Bush spin machine has been prepared for this nomination for some time and is already cranking at full speed. The strategy is to move Miers through as an enigma. We need to make sure the facts about her views are known.
This kind of decentralized research may never have been tried before at this scale. But a Supreme Court nominee with a record only the president really knows is a new national challenge. If we act quickly, we can meet that challenge together.
Please pitch in by taking some time to research today, and post what you find at:
http://www.political.moveon.org/judgefacts?id=6078-5514896-em5MlWSiz_VX9JWIB.xI8A&t=4
Thanks for all that you do,
–Ben, Marika, Rosalyn, Joan and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Monday, October 3rd, 2005
PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION
Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.
In Number 76 of the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton wrote:
To what purpose then require the co-operation of the Senate? I answer, that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though, in general, a silent operation. It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity. In addition to this, it would be an efficacious source of stability in the administration.
It will readily be comprehended, that a man who had himself the sole disposition of offices, would be governed much more by his private inclinations and interests, than when he was bound to submit the propriety of his choice to the discussion and determination of a different and independent body, and that body an entier branch of the legislature. The possibility of rejection would be a strong motive to care in proposing. The danger to his own reputation, and, in the case of an elective magistrate, to his political existence, from betraying a spirit of favoritism, or an unbecoming pursuit of popularity, to the observation of a body whose opinion would have great weight in forming that of the public, could not fail to operate as a barrier to the one and to the other. He would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure.
Tuesday, October 4, 2005
By HUBERT G. LOCKE
P-I COLUMNIST
There is considerable irony in the fact that the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist died during the same week that Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Both events provide a window on the conservative mindset that currently holds this nation in its grip and which -- if allowed to persist -- will only increase the sense of outrage and despair that a good many Americans feel about where this country is heading.
Rehnquist was both a symbol and a fiercely consistent expression of conservatism in America. His beliefs about race were part and parcel of his conservative outlook and were evident throughout his high court career. Even before he became a justice -- while serving as law clerk to Justice Robert Jackson -- Rehnquist wrote a notorious memorandum on the school desegregation cases that loomed before the court in 1952.
In the memo, Rehnquist opined that the ill-famed separate-but-equal doctrine that the court espoused in its 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision was "right and should be reaffirmed," adding "I realize that it is an unpopular and unhumanitarian [sic] position, for which I have been excoriated by my liberal colleagues."
Obviously, he was not excoriated enough, for once on the bench, he voted to reject a desegregation remedy for public high schools in 1977 and against affirmative action in university admissions in 1978. He was the lone dissenting vote in 1983 when the court upheld the refusal of the Internal Revenue Service to grant tax-exempt status to Bob Jones University because it insisted on a policy banning interracial dating; he dissented in 1986 when the court held that removing prospective jurors because of their race was unconstitutional; and he rejected, a year later, the claim that the death penalty was unconstitutional.
For good measure and long before he got to the Supreme Court Rehnquist, as a prominent figure in Phoenix politics, spoke out against a proposed local ordinance banning racial discrimination in places of public accommodation and against an integration plan for the Phoenix public schools.
This same haughty attitude that Rehnquist displayed toward African-Americans is very much in evidence in the aftermath of the dreadful catastrophe in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast.
While the rest of the nation watched in anguish and with a mounting sense of outrage over the government's inept response, columnist George Will, icon of the conservatives, found the occasion offered an opportunity to decry the "fast-flowing river of race-obsessing" that criticized President Bush's "inadequate sympathy" and "government's historic indifference."
Neither inadequate sympathy nor governmental indifference is the problem, according to Will.
To the contrary, the problem of New Orleans, says Will, is to be found in the American liberal's "regularly recurring rediscoveries of poor people" and, with the supercilious arrogance that only a conservative could muster, he rushes on to note "how many of the victims were women with children but not husbands."
To these displaced and despairing souls, Will offers his aid in the form of three "recondite rules for avoiding poverty: graduate from high school, don't have a baby until you are married, and don't marry while you are a teenager."
Too many conservatives have a penchant for making despicable moral pronouncements when people are suffering or dying. Marie Antoinette's reputed advice to the poor of Paris -- "let them eat cake" -- may be apocryphal but it captures the pitiless disdain many conservatives manage to manifest when those outside their circle of good fortune are under discussion.
If it is reported that 6,000 people in Africa die every day from AIDS, conservatives insist that we talk about corruption in African governments as a rationale for denying assistance.
When Iraqis by the hundreds are dying from both insurgent attacks and American military assaults aimed at dislodging the insurgents, conservatives proclaim -- as an op-ed piece in USA Today recently did -- that all the carnage is a small price to pay for making the United States safe from terrorists.
To these noble moral sentiments, we can now add Barbara Bush's tender observation that things were working quite well for the evacuees sleeping on cots in the Houston Astrodome since they were underprivileged anyway, William Bennett's "hypothetical" calculation on lowering the crime rate by killing black male babies, and George Will's opinion that if the displaced would just quit having babies without bothering to get married they wouldn't be in such desperate straits in the first place.
It's so uplifting to know what compassionate conservatism has to offer our society.
Hubert G. Locke, Seattle, is a retired professor and former dean of the Daniel J. Evans Graduate School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/243201_locke04.html
AFGE and other federal workers’ unions asked a federal judge Sept. 28 not to give the Bush administration the green light to continue its drive to take away federal workers’ rights to have a union and bargain collectively. The Bush administration has asked U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer to narrow her Aug. 12 ruling blocking the Bush administration’s new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) personnel rules, which would slash 160,000 employees’ bargaining and workplace rights and end civil service pay scales. In her ruling, Collyer said, “The regulations fail in their obligation to ensure collective bargaining rights to DHS employees.” The Bush administration has said it wants to impose similar workplace rules on the entire federal workforce, and the next target is 750,000 workers at the Defense Department, which wants to implement a new National Security Personnel System patterned closely after the DHS system. For more information, visit
or
From: Work in Progress
http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzant044453960oct04,0,7454825.story
Retail chain Anthropologie and its parent company, Urban Outfitters, filed a lawsuit against Wal-Mart in federal court in New York, alleging copyright violation over fabric designs. "According to the
complaint, Wal-Mart used Anthropologie's fabrics to produce 'confusingly similar' clothing."
GAO-05-945, September 30.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-945
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d05945high.pdf
From: Poacnewsletter
More than 60,000 patients currently are awaiting kidney transplants in the U.S. But many more people could get kidney transplants thanks to mathematical algorithms that would optimize a matching program at the national level.
Sommer Gentry, a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science, and Dr. Dorry Segev of Johns Hopkins, have developed a new algorithm to optimize the selection process for kidney paired donation (KPD). KPD provides organs to patients who have a willing, but incompatible donor. A kidney from the donor is matched to -- and transplanted into -- the recipient of a second incompatible donor/patient pair. The transplants are performed simultaneously.
Visit http://link.abpi.net/l.php?20051004A6
Tom the Dancing Bug: god-man - mysterious ways
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/td/2005/td051001.gif
Brian Fairrington: fuel bill
http://www.sitnews.us/Cartoonists/100205/fairrington2.gif
Slowpoke: Free Krugman
http://workingforchange.speedera.net/www.workingforchange.com/webgraphics/WFC/sp10032005.gif
BENNETT: ABORTING TALK-SHOW HOSTS WOULD REDUCE IDIOTIC COMMENTS
Former Education Secretary Finds Himself in Middle of Controversy Again
After bring blasted for saying on his radio program that aborting all black babies would reduce crime in America, former Education Secretary Bill Bennett attempted an apology today, telling his radio audience that aborting all future talk-show hosts would dramatically reduce the number of idiotic remarks made on the radio.
"I just want to put this out there," Mr. Bennett said on "Morning in America," his nationally syndicated radio program. "But if we were to systematically abort every future radio talk-show host in this country, the number of idiotic remarks made in America would plummet."
After making his latest controversial remark, however, Mr. Bennett did not leave well enough alone as he launched in a series of other potentially inflammatory abortion proposals.
"We have an enormous problem of gambling addiction in this country," Mr. Bennett said. "It seems to me that the one surefire way to fix it would be to abort all future gambling addicts before they get the chance to hit the tables at Vegas."
Furthermore, Mr. Bennett said, abortion could be the key to reducing the number of sanctimonious hypocrites in America today: "Let's just abort all of those sanctimonious hypocrites before they start writing pompous books and hosting radio shows."
Mr. Bennett, however, was tight-lipped on the subject of indicted House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-Texas), saying merely, "There was a simple solution to that problem."
Elsewhere, hotel heiress Paris Hilton and shipping heir Paris Latsis said they were breaking off their engagement, abandoning their plan to create a race of shallow, self-obsessed morons.
Borowitzreport.com
Posted on Thu, Sep. 29, 2005
Wheels
When the Irony Fairy strikes, nobody is outside the wand’s reach
By Ed Wallace
Special to the Star-Telegram
"Car guys are lambasting … a war ‘designed to bring the market more oil’ — a substance that industry desperately needs … while the largest and best offers for new refineries to help alleviate our high fuel costs are coming from Middle Eastern countries. "
I think people in general, especially in North America, have started to realize what’s going on here. We’ve got our troops in a place that they shouldn’t be. Every day six soldiers die, nine soldiers die, X number of civilians. And for what purpose? The purpose is very simple: oil."
— Bob Stempel, former CEO of General Motors, as quoted by Reuters on September 23rd.
"Do you know what the real cost of gas is? Is it really $3 a gallon? You need to add to that $3 a gallon the cost of a war in Iraq, the cost of losing American soldiers to keep a pipeline of oil going."
— Jim Press, head of Toyota Motor Company U.S., quoted in same article.
"If Hurricane Katrina proved anything to us, it proved the amount of inequality that exists in this country."
— Ron Gettlefinger, President of United Auto Workers, same article.
One would expect the head of one of the nation’s last remaining labor unions to tell the media what he thinks poses the biggest threats to our economy. After all, inequality has been the cry of union organizers since the early days of organized labor, before the Civil War. Further, the complaint behind Gettlefinger’s quoted line is legitimate: Over the past four years, another 17% of Americans have fallen below the poverty line.
That fact is not good news to anyone. Economically speaking, it means that the cost of government services for the poor increases, while those living in poverty are all but eliminated as a power source for our consumer-based economy. That said, debate for yourself the accuracy of that predictable comment from Labor.
Unlike the UAW chief, most American business people typically don’t comment publicly on national issues, for a valid reason; their company’s success is based on selling to all segments of the market, from the most liberal members of society to the conservatives and everyone in between. Why would any businessperson risk alienating a large group of buyers, solely because they disagreed with a policy statement that the businessperson made for publication? That said, however, while the anti-war protesters were marching in Washington, some of the auto industry’s major players started voicing their opinions on which direction this country needs to head. Most people missed those opinions only because they were released during the nonstop coverage of a then-potential disaster, Hurricane Rita.
Given the choice between watching 100,000 anti-war protesters in Washington and hearing Jim Press’ outlook on our oil needs, his words carry much more weight. Then again, considering that an energy shortage plays to Toyota’s advantage, because of its large selection of fuel-efficient vehicles, Press’ comments questioning the cost of oil carry even more weight. The Irony Fairy Wields a Mean Wand
In fact, while our eyes were on news videos of motorists leaving Houston and points south for safer ground, at the James A. Baker Institute, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal gave a lecture titled, "Saudi Arabia and the International Oil Market." His speech ranged from such points as the fact that there is no shortage of oil in the world to the observation that the irrational exuberance of light sweet crude futures trading has become so dangerous that it should no longer be allowed to work under a self-regulating market. Prince al-Faisal then blasted American refiners and the lack of new refineries, calling that lack the real problem behind the current oil crunch. (Then he jetted off to Washington and chastised us for not listening to the Saudis’ concerns before launching our attack on Iraq.)
Then came the news that Motiva’s Port Arthur refinery is planning a $3.8 billion expansion that would raise its oil refining capability by 285,000 barrels a day, adding around 5.5 million extra gallons of gasoline to each day’s market supply. Motiva’s Port Arthur facility is jointly owned by Royal Dutch Shell and Saudi Aramco. And five days before that announcement, the country of Kuwait had formally announced that it would like to sign a memorandum of agreement to build a new oil refinery here in America, one capable of absorbing up to 250,000 barrels of oil a day.
...
Complete article at:
http://www.dfw.com%2Fmld%2Fdfw%2Fclassifieds%2Fautomotive%2F12774912.htm
http://www.ssireview.com/pdf/2005FA_Feature_Doane.pdf
Corporate social responsibility "may work under certain conditions," writes Deborah Doane, but CSR efforts "are highly vulnerable to market failures, including such things as imperfect information, externalities, and free riders. Most importantly, there is often an wide chasm between what's good for a company and what's good for society as a whole." Although CSR efforts "offer good PR," sometimes they're just that. "Corporations use the United Nations to their public relations advantage, such as posing their CEOs for photographs with Secretary-General Kofi Annan," while flaunting the UN's CSR agreement, the Global Compact. After describing what she calls "the four key myths of CSR," Doane concludes that CSR "is a placebo, leaving us with immense and mounting challenges in globalization for the foreseeable future."
SOURCE: Stanford Social Innovation Review, Fall 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4027
Trying To Defend His Racist Comments On Hannity & Colmes, He Misses At Least Half The Reason People Were Offended
From: Poacnewsletter
Tuesday, September 27, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 AM
By Rick Weiss and David Brown
The Washington Post
Drive to put "intelligent design" in science class comes to Pennsylvania court
WASHINGTON — When scientists announced last month they had determined the exact order of all 3 billion bits of genetic code that go into making a chimpanzee, it was no surprise that the sequence was more than 96 percent identical to the human genome. Charles Darwin had deduced more than a century ago that chimps were among humans' closest cousins.
But decoding chimpanzees' DNA allowed scientists to do more than just refine their estimates of how similar humans and chimps are. It let them put the very theory of evolution to some tough new tests.
If Darwin was right, scientists should be able to use a mathematical formula to predict the number of harmful mutations in chimpanzee DNA by knowing the number of mutations in a different species' DNA and the two animals' population sizes.
"That's a very specific prediction," said Eric Lander, a geneticist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Mass., and a leader in the chimp project.
Sure enough, when Lander and his colleagues tallied the harmful mutations in the chimp genome, the number fit perfectly into the range that evolutionary theory had predicted.
Their analysis was the latest of many in such disparate fields as genetics, biochemistry, geology and paleontology that in recent years have added new credence to the central tenet of evolutionary theory: that a smidgen of cells 3.5 billion years ago could — through mechanisms no more extraordinary than random mutation and natural selection — give rise to the astonishing biological diversity that today thrives on Earth.
School-board decision
...
Complete article at:
This distribution includes preprints posted between Tuesday, August 30, 2005 and Friday, September 30, 2005 (31 days).
ANNOUNCEMENTS
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( http://idoc.slac.stanford.edu/ ),
on the list of Recent SLAC Publications
( http://idoc.slac.stanford.edu/preprints/ ).
IMPROVED PREPRINT SEARCH: Our new Find a SLAC Document page includes three searches to help you quickly find the document you're looking for.
This page includes a full-text search of over 10,000 SLAC preprints as well as easy access to bibliographic and citation information.
Waggr (WebAggregator) is the web's fastest and most easy-to-use web based news aggregator / rss reader.
Eric Devericks : we just keep our noses clean
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/art/editorial/cartoon/2005/575/093005.jpg
Dan Wasserman: one man's money laundering...
http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Graphic/2005/09/30/1128053683_5762.gif
Sandy Huffaker: Jesus and Moneychangers
http://www.sitnews.us/Cartoonists/100205/huffaker.gif
http://swiftreport.blogs.com/news/
Doctors who performed surgery on Vice President Dick Cheney over the weekend to remove aneurysms from behind both of his knees say that they made a bewildering discovery: Mr. Cheney has no blood flowing through his veins. Doctors present in the operating theater also determined that the Vice President's body temperature is approximately 45 degrees, less than half the average human temperature.
Lab tests reveal ethylene glycol and green fluorescent dye.
SANGITA NAYAK, sangita@thepraxisproject.org, http://www.katrinaaction.org
Nayak is communications director of the Praxis Project, which is helping coordinate the Katrina Information Network. She said today: "Through our web portal,
See:
http://www.underthesamesun.org/content/2005/09/index.html#000530 .
From: Institute for Public Accuracy
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/3376104
From: Poacnewsletter
http://www.therevealer.org/archives/main_story_002093.php
"Mainstream media and most liberal-minded Americans are blaming the Bush administration's failure to manage Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath on racism, that word that has been itching under our skin for decades. The focus is on 'racism,' though, with a very specific, definition: white versus black. This analysis is good as far as it goes -- unless, of course, your skin is brown," Marissa Kantor reports on TheRevealer.org. "Approximately 150,000 Hondurans live in Lousiana, most in New Orleans. Estimates of Mexicans living in or around New Orleans range from 40,000 to 100,000. And other groups, including Salvadorans and Brazilians, also number in the tens of thousands. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates (conservatively) that 20,000 to 35,000 of these Latinos are illegal immigrants or undocumented workers." After an extensive look at media focusing on race in the hurricane's aftermath, Kantor writes that the coverage hasn't even dignified Latinos "with a place at the racism-discussion
table."
SOURCE: The Revealer, September 19, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4016
You can trust your government, right? That's what the Bushites told us and the congress in 2001, when they rushed into law their USA Patriot Act, which included Section 215, a provision allowing the FBI to seize our personal library records without even getting a search warrant.
http://updates.jimhightower.com/ctt.asp?u=1659651&l=106465
Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York have studied the lighting in our homes, offices, and cars, and believe they've found a way to use lights for electronic communication and
to boost our health.
Light-emitting diodes (LEDs), which are used for traffic lights and on blinking clocks and answering machines, can also be made to blink so fast that a person can't notice it, but a receiving device can.
This property could lead to headlights that tell a red stop light to turn green if it's safe, road signs that communicate warnings only to specific cars, room lights that link your computer to the Internet, and room lights that transmit messages only to certain people, such as doctors or nurses in a hospital.
Smart lighting also can affect health, such as counteracting seasonal depression, fatigue, sleep disturbances, and generally regulating the body clock.
Visit Rensselaer's Lighting Research Center at
http://link.abpi.net/l.php?20050927A2 .
"Many organisations are turning a blind eye to the risks posed by PCs left unattended but logged in to networks, says a new analysis from Gartner. The main risk is that confidential information could be accessed and changed as a means of carrying out fraud, but the tendency of employees to send bogus or prank e-mails is also noted. The latter can have potentially serious legal consequences. A less obvious but equally damaging issue is that lax PC security offered employees gaining illegal access to data a
cover of plausible deniability for their actions. Gartner terms this the 'someone else used my PC' defence. If companies could not prove that the actions had been those of the person using the PC, disciplining them would be difficult."
Learn more at Techworld.com.
http://www.techworld.com/security/news/index.cfm?NewsID=4490&inkc=0
Our future - according to all forecasts and prophesies - will play itself out somewhere between heaven and hell. What it really becomes will depend on how successful we are in taking advantage of its opportunities and mastering the risks they entail.
Clearly, insurers must concentrate on risks when looking into the future - not intending to spread panic, but in their own best interest: risks already identified offer the insurance industry and society an opportunity for a future of greater promise.
This publication goes beyond the discussion of individual future risks and shows that it is possible both to understand and consciously configure the risk landscape. The work does not promise any ready-made solutions, and in the preface, Chief Risk Officer Bruno Porro explains why: “We must learn first how to deal both with the many challenges dictated by the ever accelerating rate of change and the new and different risks associated with it. Being prepared to face up to many unanswered and in some cases unsettling questions will also point us towards solutions. For whatever the face of the future, tackling it will take courage.”
publ04_risk_landscape_en.pdf , 631 Kbytes from Swiss Re.
eHub is a constantly updated list of web applications, services, resources, blogs or sites with a focus on next generation web (web 2.0), social software, blogging, Ajax, Ruby on Rails, location mapping, open source, folksonomy, design and digital media sharing.
http://www.emilychang.com/go/ehub/
Ted Rall: lifestyles of the liberal
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/trall/2005/trall051001.gif
David Horsey: exterminator
Dana Summers: bad snap
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/summers/
http://swiftreport.blogs.com/news/
The battle over a Supreme Court justice to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is heating up, and the White House is giving its short list a good reshuffle. Off the list for now, mild-mannered former petroleum industry lobbyist Priscilla Owen and hot-tempered Janice Rogers Brown, both of whom could crumble under withering interrogation from the likes of Senators Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden. Taking their place: a handful of judges who likely won't lose their cool amid the white hot glare of the spotlight: Judge Judy and Joe Brown.
Long-shot contenders: Navy Commander Harmon "Harm" Rabb, better known as JAG, and Judge Henry Roth, who sits on the nation's Style Court
September 27, 2005
The Times
By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent
RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.
According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems.
The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society.
It compares the social peformance of relatively secular countries, such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in the US consider Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it inspires atheism and amorality.
Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to lower rates of violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity and abortion. The benefits of religious belief to a society have been described as its "spiritual capital". But the study claims that the devotion of many in the US may actually contribute to its ills.
The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US academic journal, reports: "Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world.
"In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.
"The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so."
Gregory Paul, the author of the study and a social scientist, used data from the International Social Survey Programme, Gallup and other research bodies to reach his conclusions.
He compared social indicators such as murder rates, abortion, suicide and teenage pregnancy.
The study concluded that the US was the world’s only prosperous democracy where murder rates were still high, and that the least devout nations were the least dysfunctional. Mr Paul said that rates of gonorrhoea in adolescents in the US were up to 300 times higher than in less devout democratic countries. The US also suffered from " uniquely high" adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, and adolescent abortion rates, the study suggested.
Mr Paul said: "The study shows that England, despite the social ills it has, is actually performing a good deal better than the USA in most indicators, even though it is now a much less religious nation than America."
He said that the disparity was even greater when the US was compared with other countries, including France, Japan and the Scandinavian countries. These nations had been the most successful in reducing murder rates, early mortality, sexually transmitted diseases and abortion, he added.
Mr Paul delayed releasing the study until now because of Hurricane Katrina. He said that the evidence accumulated by a number of different studies suggested that religion might actually contribute to social ills. "I suspect that Europeans are increasingly repelled by the poor societal performance of the Christian states," he added.
He said that most Western nations would become more religious only if the theory of evolution could be overturned and the existence of God scientifically proven. Likewise, the theory of evolution would not enjoy majority support in the US unless there was a marked decline in religious belief, Mr Paul said.
"The non-religious, proevolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator.
"The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-2-1798944-2,00.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/28/AR2005092800259.html
"Riding a wave of concern over high energy prices triggered by Katrina" - and following a plan drawn up by the House Republican Study Committee at the Heritage Foundation - "congressional Republicans are rushing to ease environmental rules on refineries and looking for ways to open new coastal waters to oil and gas development," as well as Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The lawmakers say "the measures were needed to address the vulnerabilities exposed by hurricanes Katrina and Rita to the nation's energy system." Environmentalists and city and state officials counter that the Republicans are "exploiting the tragedy that has hit the Gulf region to pursue a slew of pro-industry measures that Congress rejected earlier this year when it passed a broad energy bill." The measures would "dismantle environmental laws that are not barriers to rebuilding the affected Gulf states," said the head of the National League of Cities.
SOURCE: Associated Press, September 28, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4028
WILLIAM ARKIN, warkin@igc.org, http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning
An intelligence analyst, Arkin writes a blog called Early Warning on the WashingtonPost.com website. He has written extensively on the role of the military during emergencies and recent calls for the curtailment of the Posse Comitatus Act as well as responsibility for the lack of proper governmental action in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He said today: "We spend $100 billion a year for a new Department of Homeland Security, and we're letting it get off the hook."
From: Institute for Public Accuracy
I will be swift to bear witness...against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan...and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts (Malachi 3:5).
On Sept. 8, President Bush issued an executive order suspending the application of the Davis-Bacon Act in the hurricane-ravaged areas of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. This alarming action virtually assures workers hired to rebuild the devastated region will be paid sub-poverty wages.
The law requires federal contractors to pay workers the average or "prevailing" regional wage for public construction projects. In New Orleans, that wage is just over $9 an hour. The act's suspension allows contractors to pay as little as $5.15 an hour - the current federal minimum wage - for these projects.
»Click here and urge Congress to reinstate fair wages for Gulf Coast workers!
http://go.sojo.net/campaign/fair_wages/w8nus5sra5tw3bk?
Addressing the nation from the French Quarter of New Orleans two weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit, the president vowed, "Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives." The following day at a prayer service at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., Bush declared, "As we clear away the debris of a hurricane, let us also clear away the legacy of inequality."
Suspending the Davis-Bacon Act does just the opposite; it assures the persistence of the inequality that plagued much of the Gulf Coast long before Katrina. Workers who lost everything in the rising waters cannot be expected to support their families on $5.15 an hour. As these women and men begin to rebuild their lives and their communities, they desperately need a just wage from their government, not a pay cut.
»Click here and urge Congress to reinstate fair wages for Gulf Coast workers!
http://go.sojo.net/campaign/fair_wages/w8nus5sra5tw3bk?
As people of faith, we believe every person has the right to productive work and to fair compensation for that work. Rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast means more than just clearing away the debris and erecting newer, stronger buildings. It means making budget and policy decisions that offer Gulf Coast workers and their families the best shot at a secure and dignified future. It means defending and upholding - not suspending - laws that were designed to keep hard-working people afloat in the American economy.
Members of Congress agree, and many are taking action to reinstate the wage protections enshrined in the Davis-Bacon Act. Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) has introduced the "Fair Wages for Hurricane Victims Act," a bill that would repeal Bush's suspension of Davis-Bacon. This legislation has already garnered the bipartisan support of 199 cosponsors. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) has introduced a similar measure, the "Fair Wages for Hurricane Katrina Recovery Act." This bill currently has 29 co-sponsors from across the political spectrum.
These numbers are encouraging, but they are not enough. In the words of Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), "The workers whose wages would be cut are the same women and men struggling to support their families and find new homes to replace the ones they lost in the hurricane. They deserve all the support we can give them, not a cut in pay when they can least afford one." It's time to act. The people of the Gulf coast are counting on us.
»Click here and urge Congress to reinstate fair wages for Gulf Coast workers!
http://go.sojo.net/campaign/fair_wages/w8nus5sra5tw3bk?
From: Poacnewsletter
"After a hot summer of heated debate in Washington about China, US policy toward China has settled into one of dissuasion and persuasion. US officials in the Pentagon aim to dissuade China from seeking to become a regional military power, while other parts of the government, the State Department in Foggy Bottom for example, aim to persuade China to adopt civil society and democratic institutions. Both faces of US policy recognize that the central question is political: what if China becomes rich and powerful, but not democratic? Unlike the Soviet Union, China does not seek to destroy the US and the international system it created. By contrast, China is playing by American-made rules, although it may be playing a different game, taking advantage of its lack of democratic constraints. The US therefore must hedge against a number of possible futures for China - strong, weak, cooperative, or aggressive."
Learn more in the Asia Times.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/GJ01Ad01.html
From: Future Brief
12:09 30 September 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Celeste Biever
The brains of pathological liars have structural abnormalities that could make fibbing come naturally.
"Some people have an edge up on others in their ability to tell lies," says Adrian Raine, a psychologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. "They are better wired for the complex computations involved in sophisticated lies."
He found that pathological liars have on average more white matter in their prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain that is active during lying, and less grey matter than people who are not serial fibbers. White matter enables quick, complex thinking while grey matter mediates inhibitions.
Raine says the combination of extra white matter and less grey matter could be giving people exactly the right mix of traits to make them into good liars. These are the first biological differences to be discovered between pathological liars and the general population.
Systematic manipulation
Other researchers have used brain imaging to show that the prefrontal cortex is more active when ordinary people tell lies. They are looking for ways to use this as an alternative to the polygraph test.
But pathological liars are a distinct group who systematically manipulate others, lie or use aliases for financial gain or personal pleasure, such as to get sickness benefits or to skip work. "It’s almost like a livelihood," s
