The Sociologist

Howard Dean: "We Are About to Enter the 60's Again"

2006-06-28T19:40:00.000-05:00

Political and social prognostications are often wildly inaccurate. The possible exception is the sociologist Daniel Bell, but much of what he has predicted borders on the obvious (e.g., the decline of manufacturing and the rise of the service sector). Regardless, it is still worth noting that a prominent politician such as Howard Dean is predicting a change in the political climate of the United States (and by extension, the industrialized world). Perhaps he's right...

Evidence for this political shift from Kansas: I was at a protest today in a conservative college town of 40,000 people with about 9 other protestors. The great majority of people driving by ignored us, but we received a few approving honks (and a handful of bizarre comments, including "Go to chuch!" from a guy in a UPS truck). However, most striking was a young man in full army fatigues driving a large pickup truck. As he drove past, he honked about a dozen times and gave a thumbs up. Then as more cars drived by, I noticed a peculiar pattern: a lot of young men in their twenties. I don't know how many were from in the army, but this kind of repsonse would have been unthinkable three years ago!

Here's the story about Dean from CNS News:

America is about to revisit one of the most turbulent decades in its history, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told a religious conference in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. "We're about to enter the '60s again," Dean said, but he was not referring to the Vietnam War or racial tensions. Dean said he is looking for "the age of enlightenment led by religious figures who want to greet Americans with a moral, uplifting vision."

"The problem is when we hit that '60s spot again, which I am optimistic we're about to hit, we have to make sure that we don't make the same mistakes," Dean added.

Bush Ignores Law He Signs, Vexing Congress

2006-06-27T02:26:00.000-05:00

See, in the world of the Bushies there are two laws: one you sign in public appearances, and another you actually use... Welcome to democracy, American-style!

Here's the story from Yahoo! News:

Sen. John McCain thought he had a deal when President Bush faced with a veto-proof margin in Congress, agreed to sign a bill banning the torture of detainees. Not quite. While Bush signed the new law, he also quietly approved another document: a signing statement reserving his right to ignore the law. McCain was furious, and so were other lawmakers. The Senate Judiciary Committee is opening hearings this week into what has become the White House's favorite tool for overriding Congress in the name of wartime national security.

"It's a challenge to the plain language of the Constitution," the committee's chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I'm interested to hear from the administration just what research they've done to lead them to the conclusion that they can cherry-pick." [...]

U.S. Supreme Court Approves Kansas' Bizarre Death Penalty Law

2006-06-26T15:12:00.000-05:00

Kansas has a bizarre law that if "aggravating" and "mitigating" circumstances are equal, then Kansas juries should impose a death sentence. In other words, if the jury has strong doubts about a person's intention to cause harm, then the state should go ahead and kill the bastard. Of course, the Kansas Supreme Court (hardly a bastion of liberals) ruled that this law violated the Constitution's protections against cruel and unusual punishment. However, today the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the ruling by the Kansas Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision, with Samuel Alito as the tie-breaker.

2 extremely disturbing thoughts:
1. It appears that the Kansas Supreme Court, right in the middle of red-state America, is more liberal than the U.S. Supreme Court.
2. Right-wing nutcase Samuel Alito is the new Sandra Day O'Connor, acting as the tie-breaker between the "liberals" and right-wing radicals. Shit.
3. The U.S. is an extreme outlier in state-sponsored executions, ranking up there with fundamentlist proto-fascist states such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.

Here's the story from Reuters:

A closely divided U.S. Supreme Court on Monday upheld a Kansas law that requires a death sentence when the evidence for and against such a punishment appears to be equal. The justices by a 5-4 vote overturned a Kansas Supreme Court ruling that declared the state's death-penalty law unconstitutional for violating protections against cruel and unusual punishment. The 1994 law says if the evidence for and against imposing a sentence of death is equal, Kansas juries must choose death instead of life in prison. [...]

Justice Samuel Alito, the court's newest member who was appointed by President George W. Bush, apparently cast the tie-breaking vote to uphold the law. [...]

Canadian Politics - Peacekeeper or War-monger?

2006-06-26T10:48:00.000-05:00

This is the first in a series of special posts on Canadian politics. With the January 2006 election of Bush's puppet (aka Prime Minister Harper), we need to be as vigilant as ever.

The Conservative Government today announced up to $15 billion in new military spending to support its attack mission in Afghanistan. While falling somewhat short of the military's own demands, the funds will be used for new naval ships, army trucks, helicopters, and aircraft.

In the words of Defense Minister Gordon O'Connor: "It's about having a three-ocean navy, a robust army and a revitalized air force."

O'Connor also announced plans to increase the total size of the Canadian Forces to over 100,000 soldiers, and, of course, to forge closer ties with the US military.

The Conservatives' plans and spending patterns, along with their recently affirmed policy on Afghanistan, signal their commitment to forsake Canada's historic role as peacekeeper and diplomat. Rather, if the Conservatives have their way, Canada will become a "tough" and "responsible" ally of the United States. In other words, Canada will lose its positive global reputation and become known as just another Western war-monger.

The military spending also gives the Conservatives another excuse to say the funds just are not available to support our public health care system. Unfortunately this government would rather bomb brown people in distant lands than invest in the health and well-being of its own citizens.

For the CBC report on military spending, see http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/06/26/defence-spending.html

British "Helpless" in Southern Iraq

2006-06-25T19:52:00.000-05:00

There's more violence in Iraq and the British are unable to contain it...

Here's the story from The Independent:

British forces are facing rising violence among Shia Muslim factions in southern Iraq, but are powerless to contain it, military and diplomatic sources have told The Independent on Sunday. Both British and Iraqi authorities were seeking to play down the situation, they added. [...]

In Baghdad the Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is due to present a national reconciliation plan to parliament today, aimed at reducing sectarian violence and defusing a significant portion of the Sunni insurgency, although Saddam Hussein loyalists and foreign fighters such as al-Qa'ida are excluded. There are question- marks over the plan, but it will do nothing to heal tensions among Shias in their southern heartland. [...]

The Emerging Democratic Majority

2006-06-25T19:44:00.000-05:00

A growing number of moderate Republicans are getting tired of supporting politicians that do little to help the working and middle classes economically while focusing on cultural issues such as creationism and school prayer. Embelmatic of this change is Mark Robinson: a few weeks ago he was the Kansas Republican party chairman but now he calls himself a Democrat. The unhappy marriage of neo-liberalism and Christian fundamentalism ("One Market Under God," as Thomas Frank calls it) is beginning to unravel...

Here's the story from The Guardian:

The squat, bunker-like building in a south Topeka suburb does not look like a place to turn American politics on its head. Nor does Mark Parkinson, a tall, affable man, look too much like a revolutionary. But here, deep in the American heartland, are the warning signs of a political earthquake.

The two-storey office block is Parkinson's campaign headquarters as he runs as Democrat candidate for deputy governor. So far, so normal. Except that only a few weeks ago Parkinson was a Republican. In fact, he was Kansas Republican party chairman.

His defection to the Democrats sent shockwaves through a state deeply associated with the national Republican cause and the evangelical conservatives at its base. Nor was it just Parkinson's leave-taking that left Republicans spluttering with rage and talking of betrayal. It was that as he left Parkinson lambasted his former party's obsession with conservative and religious issues such as gay marriage, evolution and abortion.

Sitting in his headquarters, the new Democrat is sticking to his guns. Republicans in Kansas, he says, have let down their own people. 'They were fixated on ideological issues that really don't matter to people's everyday lives. What matters is improving schools and creating jobs,' he said. 'I got tired of the theological debate over whether Charles Darwin was right.' [...]

Global Warming's Sci-Fi Weather

2006-06-24T19:27:00.000-05:00

So, according to the neo-libs, global warming doesn't affect the economy, so long as it is profitable to burn oil. Meanwhile, in the real world, the weather's getting pretty fucking strange. Moreover, there's growing concensus among scientists that global climate disruption will only produce more extemes (though the following article frames it as a faux debate). The following article provides a feaklist of recent Ripley's Believe it or Not Weather.

Full story at ABC News:

[....]

The United States logs the warmest January since 1895, averaging just under 40 degrees.

A record downpour soaks the Nevada desert.

Hail pummels Manhattan in the middle of April.

Glaciers melt in Greenland.

The worst drought hits the Amazon rain forest in a century.

Three Category 5 hurricanes -- including Katrina, Rita and Wilma-- and 27 named Atlantic storms struck in 2005.

Just last summer, India records its greatest precipitation event ever, with a weather station in Mumbai getting 37 inches of rain in 24 hours.

In Hawaii Mount Waialeale got nearly 130 inches -- almost 11 feet-- of rain in six weeks.

Back in 2003, Europe's record-breaking heat wave killed more than 30,000 eel in the River Rhine.

Wildfires burn 2.6 million hectares in Alaska.

Canada experiences a record cold winter in the east and a record hot summer on the west coast.

Tasmania gets its second wettest January in more than 100 years.

According to the National Climatic Data Center, 2005 marked the warmest global temperature on record.

Miami Herald Journalist: Terrorist Plot "Overblown"

2006-06-24T19:18:00.000-05:00

You won't see this stateside. For the full article and video at the BBC:

Repbulicans Pushing Tax Cuts for the Rich

2006-06-24T11:23:00.000-05:00

If you read this blog often enough then you'll understand the basic "principles" of neo-liberal economics. One of the main "principles" of neo-liberalism is to cut taxes for the rich. Why would anyone support this, might you ask? Because neo-liberals believe your income equals your "productivity". If you're poor it's because you're unproductive, which is largely a consequence of laziness and stupidity; likewise, if you're rich it's because you're productive, which is basically a result of diligence and intelligence. Now we wouldn't want to punish the productive people by taxing them; if anything, we should reward their efforts by giving them outrageous tax breaks! Moreover, by giving them these breaks they will "invest" their hard-earned wealth into the economy (i.e., they will sink ridiculous sums of money into the global casino of financial speculation). From these "investments" wads of greenbacks will eventually "trickle down" to the general population like manna from heaven. See, are you beginning to understand how this "science" works?

Here's the story from the New York Times:

Two weeks ago, the Senate killed an effort to repeal the federal estate tax on multimillion-dollar fortunes. The "no" votes were a stand for budget sanity and basic fairness. But the pro-repeal camp doesn't want to take no for an answer.

Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed an estate-tax cut that is a repeal in everything but name. The so-called compromise would exempt more than 99.5 percent of estates from tax, slash the tax rates on the rest and cost at least $760 billion during its first full decade. Of that, $600 billion is the amount the government would have to borrow to make up for lost revenue from the cuts, which would benefit the heirs of America's wealthiest families, like the Marses of Mars bar and the Waltons of Wal-Mart Stores. The remaining $160 billion is the interest on that borrowing, which would be paid by all Americans.

No lawmaker who voted for the compromise gets any points for moderation. Like the earlier full repeal bill, this one is unfair and grounded in intellectual dishonesty. The goal is not to pass good legislation, but to get this top priority for big-shot constituents nailed into law before the November elections produce a legislature that's more responsible on fiscal matters.

In an attempt to rally support, House lawmakers have included in the bill another, totally unrelated, tax cut — for timber companies, worth $900 million over the next three years. The measure, based on the theory that American timber companies are at a disadvantage in the global marketplace, is essentially a special-interest giveaway that would encourage every business with international competitors to demand its own tax break. There is much to reform on the competitiveness front, but it should be done comprehensively, not on the basis of who has the senators best positioned to carve out a special deal.

The timber provision is a blatant attempt to extort "yes" votes out of four Democratic senators who have supported the timber industry in the past, but who have opposed estate-tax repeal: Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, both of Washington, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. The idea is that if a few Democratic opponents can be enticed to vote for the estate-tax cuts, Republicans who have previously broken with their party over the issue might also go along, notably Senators George Voinovich of Ohio and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island.

All this effort for a bill that would put $760 billion in new debt on the backs of Americans in the name of making a handful of extremely rich people even richer. Congressional leaders may know how to count votes, but otherwise their math is pathetic.

Only the Lonely: 25% of Americans Have No Social Support

2006-06-24T11:02:00.000-05:00

This is an interesting article based on a study by two sociologists in Duke University. Main finding: American is becoming more soically isolated since 1980. The cause? Well, the MSM (mainstream media) have only focused on the bugaboo of television.

However, the fact that social isolation has epidemic since the growth in neo-liberal economic social policies should be an indicator. Why? Again, the increasing labor market "flexibility" (translation: job insecurity), combined with declining wages, has resulted in more families who must work two or more jobs to make ends meet. We are overworked as a nation.

Second, television is a factor, but it's primarily because its sole purpose is to make the "bewildered herd" atomized consumers to feed the commodity production system. It's not TELEVISION, or the INTERNET, but COMMERCIALS, and the CONTENT of television. Remember, unhappy people are people who buy things to make themselves feel better. If they have no money at all, it's not a problem, since we can provide them with a credit cards to keep them buying.

Third, we are becoming a more unequal society (hierarchical) society. This is ignored in the article linked from MSNBC. In countless studies, inequality has been found to predict poor mental and physical health, and as recent other studies have shown, neoliberalism has created an American society that is nearly as unequal as it was during the days of the Robber Barons. Why does inequality matter? 1) Those in power are more able to use their economic means to instill policies that benefit themselves at the expense of the masses; 2) Hierarchy by itself creates a society in which resources are autmatically constricted for the rest of the population, such that competition for the "leftovers" is more common. This, of course, is quite desired in mainstream economic theory. According to the neo-liberals, a quasi-fuedalist society is just a reflection of human nature, and our egoistic desire for personal wealth. The sooner we have have a hierarchical society comprised of atomized consumers, the better. Or, in the words of Adam Smith, "personal vice is public virtue." If we can create a society in which we are ALL socially-isolated (not just 25% of Americans) and ready to lift each others' wallets, then we will have finally acheived the neo-liberal utopia/dystopia.

What an interesting "science" of avarice, this neo-liberal economics is!

Read the full story at MSNBC:

[....]

A quarter of Americans say they have no one with whom they can discuss personal troubles, more than double the number who were similarly isolated in 1985. Overall, the number of people Americans have in their closest circle of confidants has dropped from around three to about two.

The comprehensive new study paints a sobering picture of an increasingly fragmented America, where intimate social ties -- once seen as an integral part of daily life and associated with a host of psychological and civic benefits -- are shrinking or nonexistent. In bad times, far more people appear to suffer alone.

[....]

Television blamed
Robert D. Putnam, a professor of public policy at Harvard and the author of "Bowling Alone," a book about increasing social isolation in the United States, said the new study supports what he has been saying for years to skeptical audiences in the academy.

"For most of the 20th century, Americans were becoming more connected with family and friends, and there was more giving of blood and money, and all of those trend lines turn sharply in the middle '60s and have gone in the other direction ever since," he said.

[....]

Bush Administration Secretly Searching Bank Account Records

2006-06-24T10:57:00.000-05:00

If the U.S. were a fully-functioning democracy than there would have been a national dialogue over the relative merits of surveillance programs. At there very least there would have been an honest discussion in Congress! Alas, the lords of war have decided that they know best, in the same way that they knew best in attacking Iraq and Afghanistan. As a side note, notice what this database is not being used to uncover evidence of corproate embezzlement, tax shelters, fraud, and so forth.

Here's the story from the Washington Post:

The Bush administration, relying on a presidential declaration of emergency, has secretly been tapping into a vast global database of confidential financial transactions for nearly five years, according to U.S. government and industry officials.

Initiated shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, the surveillance program has used a broad new interpretation of the Treasury Department's administrative powers to bypass traditional banking privacy protections. It has swept in large volumes of international money transfers, including many made by U.S. citizens and residents, in an effort to track the locations, identities and activities of suspected terrorists.

Current and former counterterrorism officials said the program works in parallel with the previously reported surveillance of international telephone calls, faxes and e-mails by the National Security Agency, which has eavesdropped without warrants on more than 5,000 Americans suspected of terrorist links. Together with a hundredfold expansion of the FBI's use of "national security letters" to obtain communications and banking records, the secret NSA and Treasury programs have built unprecedented government databases of private transactions, most of them involving people who prove irrelevant to terrorism investigators.

Stuart Levey, undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in an interview last night that the newly disclosed program -- the existence of which the government sought to conceal -- has used the agency's powers of administrative subpoena to compel an international banking consortium to open its records. The Brussels-based cooperative, known as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, links about 7,800 banks and brokerages and handles billions of transactions a year.

Terrorism investigators had sought access to SWIFT's database since the 1990s, but other government and industry authorities balked at the potential blow to confidence in the banking system. After the 2001 attacks, President Bush overrode those objections and invoked his powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to "investigate, regulate or prohibit" any foreign financial transaction linked to "an unusual and extraordinary threat."
[...]

Sears Tower Plot Likely Exaggerated

2006-06-23T20:59:00.000-05:00

We all know that one of the primary functions of the Ministry of Homeland Security is to scare the bejesus out of us so that we're more willing to give up our civil liberties. After all, what else would explain the asinine advice about duct tape not to mention the color-coded threat system that inexplicably never goes below "orange"? This campaign of scare tactics by the Bushies combined with the media's bias toward sensationalism results in a tendency to exaggerate the threat of terrorism. Case in point: the Sears Tower plot. As Buzzflash reveals, there were no terrorist connections, no actual terrorist actions, and apparently no real terrorist threat (if the words of officials are to be believed).

Sure, terrorism is real and should be prevented. But what about the 3 billion people on planet Earth that live on less than 2 dollars a day? Or the millions of Americans that are literally starving themselve to death? Or the 150 million refugees that will be swept away by droughts, floods, and hurricanes created and intensified by global warming? These are things you're not supposed to think about. Why? Because then you'll start questioning neo-liberalism, which calls for dismantling environmental regulations, gutting minimal welfare programs, and cutting taxes for the rich.

For the full story go to Buzzflash.

In 2003, U.S. Spurned Iran's Offer of Dialogue

2006-06-23T16:35:00.000-05:00

The Washington Post mentioned something that should have been front-page news in any functioning democracy: Iran was willing to use diplomacy on ALL of the issues that are currently in the news, including official recognition of Israel.

Note in the article that Iranian regime was believed to be on the "verge of collapse." However, no justification is given for this supposed assertion, though there is a clue: one official admits that the policy in 2003 was focused on "regime change," or "invasion" for the rest of us.

Here is the story from the Washington Post:

Just after the lightning takeover of Baghdad by U.S. forces three years ago, an unusual two-page document spewed out of a fax machine at the Near East bureau of the State Department. It was a proposal from Iran for a broad dialogue with the United States, and the fax suggested everything was on the table -- including full cooperation on nuclear programs, acceptance of Israel and the termination of Iranian support for Palestinian militant groups.

But top Bush administration officials, convinced the Iranian government was on the verge of collapse, belittled the initiative. Instead, they formally complained to the Swiss ambassador who had sent the fax with a cover letter certifying it as a genuine proposal supported by key power centers in Iran, former administration officials said.

Last month, the Bush administration abruptly shifted policy and agreed to join talks previously led by European countries over Iran's nuclear program. But several former administration officials say the United States missed an opportunity in 2003 at a time when American strength seemed at its height -- and Iran did not have a functioning nuclear program or a gusher of oil revenue from soaring energy demand.

"At the time, the Iranians were not spinning centrifuges, they were not enriching uranium," said Flynt Leverett, who was a senior director on the National Security Council staff then and saw the Iranian proposal. He described it as "a serious effort, a respectable effort to lay out a comprehensive agenda for U.S.-Iranian rapprochement."

While the Iranian approach has been previously reported, the actual document making the offer has surfaced only in recent weeks. Trita Parsi, a Middle East expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said he obtained it from Iranian sources. The Washington Post confirmed its authenticity with Iranian and former U.S. officials.

Parsi said the U.S. victory in Iraq frightened the Iranians because U.S. forces had routed in three weeks an army that Iran had failed to defeat during a bloody eight-year war.

The document lists a series of Iranian aims for the talks, such as ending sanctions, full access to peaceful nuclear technology and a recognition of its "legitimate security interests." Iran agreed to put a series of U.S. aims on the agenda, including full cooperation on nuclear safeguards, "decisive action" against terrorists, coordination in Iraq, ending "material support" for Palestinian militias and accepting the Saudi initiative for a two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The document also laid out an agenda for negotiations, with possible steps to be achieved at a first meeting and the development of negotiating road maps on disarmament, terrorism and economic cooperation.

Newsday has previously reported that the document was primarily the work of Sadegh Kharazi, Iran's ambassador to France and nephew of Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi and passed on by the Swiss ambassador to Tehran, Tim Guldimann. The Swiss government is a diplomatic channel for communications between Tehran and Washington because the two countries broke off relations after the 1979 seizure of U.S. embassy personnel.

Leverett said Guldimann included a cover letter that it was an authoritative initiative that had the support of then-President Mohammad Khatami and supreme religious leader Ali Khamenei.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has stressed that the U.S. decision to join the nuclear talks was not an effort to strike a "grand bargain" with Iran. Earlier this month, she made the first official confirmation of the Iranian proposal in an interview with National Public Radio.

[....]

Richard N. Haass, head of policy planning at the State Department at the time and now president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said the Iranian approach was swiftly rejected because in the administration "the bias was toward a policy of regime change." He said it is difficult to know whether the proposal was fully supported by the "multiple governments" that run Iran, but he felt it was worth exploring.

"To use an oil analogy, we could have drilled a dry hole," he said. "But I didn't see what we had to lose. I did not share the assessment of many in the administration that the Iranian regime was on the brink."

Parsi said that based on his conversations with the Iranian officials, he believes the failure of the United States to even respond to the offer had an impact on the government. Parsi, who is writing a book on Iran-Israeli relations, said he believes the Iranians were ready to dramatically soften their stance on Israel, essentially taking the position of other Islamic countries such as Malaysia. Instead, Iranian officials decided that the United States cared not about Iranian policies but about Iranian power.

The incident "strengthened the hands of those in Iran who believe the only way to compel the United States to talk or deal with Iran is not by sending peace offers but by being a nuisance," Parsi said.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Apocalypse

2006-06-23T15:35:00.000-05:00

According to the following article: a growing number of mainstream mega-church Christians want to destroy humanity, and the sooner the better. I know a little crazy at first, right? It's not like we're living in Iran. And besides, there are some wacko Christian people out there, but they're only a few guys in a few cabins in Montana, right?

Were it only so.

Just read the following LA Times article which documents the growth of religious fanaticism in the United States. According to the article, 40% of Americans believe we are in the "end times." Moreover, various religious groups want to "hasten" this process by sending their minions (funded by rich lunatics, and government tax breaks as well) to convert the scared and the lonely (fortunately neoliberal policies will ensure that there are enough of those kinds of people). As long as economic instability and reckless social policy continue (no minimum wage, growing economic inequality, lack of health care, global warming, etc.), we may very well end in a spiral of fanaticism that is difficult to escape. Fortunately, you can comfort yourself with the fact that there will be plenty of cults for you to join, in case you feel that the reality-based community is too hot to handle. So why worry about the survival of the species, especially if you know that nuclear war can get you a quick ticket to heaven?

Read the full story at the LA Times:

For thousands of years, prophets have predicted the end of the world. Today, various religious groups, using the latest technology, are trying to hasten it.

Their endgame is to speed the promised arrival of a messiah.

For some Christians this means laying the groundwork for Armageddon.

With that goal in mind, mega-church pastors recently met in Inglewood to polish strategies for using global communications and aircraft to transport missionaries to fulfill the Great Commission: to make every person on Earth aware of Jesus' message. Doing so, they believe, will bring about the end, perhaps within two decades.
[....]

According to various polls, an estimated 40% of Americans believe that a sequence of events presaging the end times is already underway. Among the believers are pastors of some of the largest evangelical churches in America, who converged at Faith Central Bible Church in Inglewood in February to finalize plans to start 5 million new churches worldwide in 10 years.

"Jesus Christ commissioned his disciples to go to the ends of the Earth and tell everyone how they could achieve eternal life," said James Davis, president of the Global Pastors Network's "Billion Souls Initiative," one of an estimated 2,000 initiatives worldwide designed to boost the Christian population.

As we advance around the world," Davis said, "we'll be shortening the time needed to fulfill that Great Commission. Then, the Bible says, the end will come."

[....]

"Our whole purpose is to hasten the end times," [one pastor] said. "The Bible says Jews will be brought to jealousy when they see Christians and Jewish believers together as one Â they'll want to be a part of that. That's going to signal Jesus' return."

Jews and others who don't accept Jesus, he added matter-of-factly, "are toast."

[....]

U.S. Losing Its Middle-Class Neighborhoods

2006-06-22T14:04:00.000-05:00

As the article below describes, America's neighborhoods are becoming increasingly segregated by class. If you read the World Bank's reports on Third World countries, I believe the technical term for this is "economic miracle." You know, the kind of "miracle" that leads to higher levels of inequality, an increasingly restless underclass, and record profits for transnational corporations.

Here's the story from MSNBC:

Middle-class neighborhoods, long regarded as incubators for the American dream, are losing ground in cities across the country, shrinking at more than twice the rate of the middle class itself. In their place, poor and rich neighborhoods are both on the rise, as cities and suburbs have become increasingly segregated by income, according to a Brookings Institution study released today. It found that as a share of all urban and suburban neighborhoods, middle-income neighborhoods in the nation's 100 largest metro areas have declined from 58 percent in 1970 to 41 percent in 2000. [...]

Middle-income neighborhoods -- where families earn 80 to 120 percent of the local median income -- have plunged by more than 20 percent as a share of all neighborhoods in Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. They are down 10 percent in the Washington area.

It's happening, too, in this prosperous, mostly white middle-income Midwestern city where unemployment is low and a vibrant downtown has been preserved. As poor and rich neighborhoods proliferate, the share of middle-income neighborhoods in greater Indianapolis has dropped by 21 percent since 1970.

"No city in America has gotten more integrated by income in the last 30 years," said Alan Berube, an urban demographer at Brookings who worked on the report. "It means that if you are not living in one of the well-off areas, you are not going to have access to the same amenities -- good schools and safe environment -- that you could find 30 years ago," he said. [...]

American CEOs Earn 262 Times Pay of Average Worker

2006-06-22T13:50:00.000-05:00

Republicans are rejecting calls for increasing the very minimal minimum wage, because according to their neo-liberal pseudo-science paying people decently leads to higher levels of unemployment. Of course, their same pseudo-science tells them that CEOs making record profits merely reflects increased "productivity" among CEOs. It's an interesting "science," this neo-liberal economics!

Here's the story from Yahoo! News:

Chief executive officers in the United States earned 262 times the pay of an average worker in 2005, the second-highest level in the 40 years for which there is data, a nonprofit think-tank said on Wednesday. In fact, a CEO earned more in one workday than an average worker earned in 52 weeks, said the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. The typical worker's compensation averaged just under $42,000 for the year, while the average CEO brought home almost $11 million, EPI said.

In recent years, compensation has been a hot issue with shareholders who have been bombarded with news stories about chief executives who are given multimillion dollar bonus and pay packages even if shares have declined. For example, the chief executives of 11 of the largest companies were awarded a total of $865 million in pay in the last two years, even as they presided over a total loss of $640 billion in shareholder value, a recent study from governance firm the Corporate Library, found.

In 1965, U.S. CEOs at major companies earned 24 times a worker's pay. That ratio surged in the 1990s and hit 300 at the end of the recovery in 2000, according to EPI. CEO pay is defined by the sum of salary, bonus, value of restricted stock at grant and other long-term incentives. Worker pay is hourly wage of production and nonsupervisory works, EPI said.

Despite Senate's Refusal, Americans Favor Withdrawal From Iraq

2006-06-22T13:43:00.000-05:00

How many more deaths will it take for Republicans to wake up and smell the bloodshed?

Here's the story from Editor and Publisher:

The new efforts by Republicans in Congress, and in the media, to use Iraq to their advantage by branding Democrats as favoring a "cut-and-run'" policy, has received wide coverage in the past week. Often pundits, and even reporters, have suggested that this is working, because Americans are not in favor of a "hasty" withdrawal. Democrats are in shambles, they report, as they fear that proposals for setting a timetable for withdrawal put forward by Sen. John Kerry and Rep. John Murtha will prove disastrous for the party in the November elections, due to the alleged unpopularity of this stance.

This conclusion, however, flies in the face of surveys by all major polling firms, as [the newspaper Editor and Publisher] has chronicled over the past two years. The fact is, not "some" polls, but virtually every major poll shows that American have long declared that going to war against Iraq was a mistake.

And far more than "independent voters" are drawn to withdrawal. Every major poll reveals that a majority of Americans advocate withdrawals from Iraq, with large numbers wanting this to be quite speedy, and most wanting a full pullout in a year or so (Kerry's idea) or by the end of next year.

This is hardly a "some" position. A CNN poll, for example, conducted June 14-15 found that 53% favored a timetable for withdrawal, while 41% opposed it. Yet newspaper editorials, as usual, remain mute on this and the Senate today soundly trounced the Democrats' withdrawal pleas, even a wishy-washy one put forward by Sen. Carl Levin. [..]

Update: South Korea Now Says Missile Launch is Not Imminent

2006-06-22T13:36:00.000-05:00

Here we go again... perhaps South Korea is just trying to calm down their own citizens?

Here's the article from Yahoo! News:

[...] "It is our judgment that a launch is not imminent," Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung told a parliamentary meeting in comments confirmed by his ministry.

Worries over a possible North Korean launch have grown in recent weeks after reports of activity at the country's launch site on its northeastern coast where U.S. officials say a Taepodong-2 missile -- believed capable of reaching parts of the United States -- is possibly being fueled.

Yoon said if the North fires a missile toward South Korean territory, combined U.S. and South Korean forces will be ready to intercept it. Japan and the United States have issued strong statements of concern and have sent ships and planes to monitor the communist nation. [...]

New Study: Global Warming Fueled 2005 Hurricanes

2006-06-22T13:25:00.000-05:00

Hot Enough for Ya?

Republicans like to believe that the record-breaking series of intense 28 hurricanes last year (remember hurricane Beta???) were the result of "natural cycles," in the same way that global warming is the result of "natural cycles." Of course, scientific evidence shows otherwise.

Here’s the story from YubaNet:

Global warming accounted for around half of the extra hurricane-fueling warmth in the waters of the tropical North Atlantic in 2005, while natural cycles were only a minor factor, according to a new analysis by Kevin Trenberth and Dennis Shea of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

"The global warming influence provides a new background level that increases the risk of future enhancements in hurricane activity," Trenberth says. The study appears 27 June in Geophysical Research Letters, published by the American Geophysical Union.

Thestudy contradicts recent claims that natural cycles are responsible for the upturn in Atlantic hurricane activity since 1995. It also adds support to the premise that hurricane seasons will become more active as global temperatures rise. Last year produced a record 28 tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic. Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma all reached Category 5 strength.

Trenberth and Shea's research focuses on an increase in ocean temperatures. During much of last year's hurricane season, sea-surface temperatures across the tropical Atlantic between 10 degrees north and 20 degrees north, which is where many Atlantic hurricanes originate, were a record 0.9 degrees Celsius [1.6 degrees Fahrenheit] above the 1901-1970 average. While researchers agree that the warming waters fueled hurricane intensity, they have been uncertain whether Atlantic waters have heated up because of a natural, decades-long cycle, or because of global warming. [..]

Earth's Temp at 400-Year High

2006-06-22T13:12:00.000-05:00

How long will it take for conservatives (neo-liberals and fundamentalists alike) to realize that humans actually have had an impact on the Earth's temperature? Perhaps the bizarre "heat bursts" in Nebraska will convince a few red-staters that something is really weird with planet Earth. At least there are a few Republicans such as Sherwood Boehlert who are beginning to acknowledge global warming in light of decades of scientific research and common sense.

Here's the story from BreitBart:

The Earth is the hottest it has been in at least 400 years, probably even longer. The National Academy of Sciences, reaching that conclusion in a broad review of scientific work requested by Congress, reported Thursday that the "recent warmth is unprecedented for at least the last 400 years and potentially the last several millennia."

A panel of top climate scientists told lawmakers that the Earth is running a fever and that "human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming." Their 155-page report said average global surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere rose about 1 degree during the 20th Century. The report was requested in November by the chairman of the House Science Committee, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., to address naysayers who question whether global warming is a major threat. [..]

Climate scientists Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes had concluded the Northern Hemisphere was the warmest it has been in 2,000 years. Their research was known as the "hockey-stick" graphic because it compared the sharp curve of the hockey blade to the recent uptick in temperatures and the stick's long shaft to centuries of previous climate stability.

The National Academy scientists concluded that the Mann-Bradley-Hughes research from the late 1990s was "likely" to be true, said John "Mike" Wallace, an atmospheric sciences professor at the University of Washington and a panel member. The conclusions from the '90s research "are very close to being right" and are supported by even more recent data, Wallace said.

The panel looked at how other scientists reconstructed the Earth's temperatures going back thousands of years, before there was data from modern scientific instruments. [...] Combining that information gave the panel "a high level of confidence that the last few decades of the 20th century were warmer than any comparable period in the last 400 years," the academy said. [...]

Quiz: Who said it, Adolph Hitler or Ann Coulter?

2006-06-21T23:23:00.000-05:00

It's scary how difficult it is to get correct answers on this thing. Take the quiz here.

Defense Department Rejects Santorum's WMD Claims

2006-06-21T23:19:00.000-05:00

Another pathetic attempt to retrofit the Iraq war with lies...

Here's the news from Think Progress:

Today, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) held a press conference and announced "we have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq." Santorum and Hoekstra are hyping a document that describes degraded, pre-1991 munitions that were already acknowledged by the White House's Iraq Survey Group and dismissed.

Fox News' Jim Angle contacted the Defense Department who quickly disavowed Santorum and Hoekstra's claims. A Defense Department official told Angle flatly that the munitions hyped by Santorum and Hoekstra are "not the WMD's for which this country went to war." [...]

Also, here's is Santorum's reply to Alan Colmes on Fox News:

Transcript:

COMBS: Congressman, Senator, it's Alan Colmes. Senator, the Iraq Survey Group -- let me go to the Duelfer Report -- says that Iraq did not have the weapons our intelligence believed were there. And Jim Angle reported this for Fox News quotes a defense official who says these were pre-1991 weapons that could not have been fired as designed because they already been degraded. And the official went on to say these are not the WMD's this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had and not the WMD's for which this country went to war. So the chest beating at this Republicans are doing tonight thinking this is a justification is not confirmed by the defense department.

SANTORUM: I’d like to know who that is. The fact of the matter is, I'll wait and see what the actual Defense Department formally says or more important what the administration formally says.

U.S. Back to All-Out War in Afghanistan

2006-06-21T23:14:00.000-05:00

Didn't we "win" this thing? Oh yeah, in the same way that we "won" Iraq.

Here's the story from ABC News:

The United States military is quietly carrying out the largest military offensive in Afghanistan since U.S. troops invaded the country in 2001. "The Taliban has made a comeback, and we have the next 90 days to crush them," said a senior U.S. military official.

The offensive, "Operation Mountain Thrust," involves almost 11,000 U.S. troops and is focused on four southern Afghanistan provinces. The Taliban has re-emerged as the Afghan government "has created vacuums of power" says the official. Proceeds from the growing opium trade in the region has helped the Taliban obtain new weapons and pay local officials.

The Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, remains at large despite a $10 million reward offered by the United States. U.S. military officials believe he has established a safe haven in Pakistan, where U.S. soldiers cannot operate.

U.S. Army Raises Maximum Enlistment Age to 42

2006-06-21T23:02:00.000-05:00

What do you do when even working class people (structurally disadvantaged by neo-liberal economic policies) begin rejecting the military as a career option? You raise the maximum enlistment age! Perhaps we should just get rid of Social Security and give those seniors that didn't earn millions in the stock market the option of serving their country.

Here's the story from the Army Times:

The Army has again raised its age limit for active-duty and Army Reserve recruits in hopes of expanding its pool of potential soldiers.

The new maximum enlistment age is 42 for both components, Recruiting Command announced Wednesday. In January, the Army began allowing recruits for active duty as old as 40. Previously no one older than 35 was allowed to enlist.

The Army Reserve age limit also was previously 35, but it had been raised to 40 in March 2005. Older recruits must still meet physical standards and pass a medical examination before they'll be allowed to join the Army.

However, 40- to 42-year-olds will receive additional medical screening, especially on their cardiovascular health, such as blood pressure and cholesterol, said Recruiting Command spokesman Douglas Smith. Smith said he didn't know much larger the recruiting pool is with the change.

More than 1,000 individuals older than 35 have enlisted in the Army and Army Reserve since the age limits were raised, according to Recruiting Command. [...]

Frist Slips "Poison Pill" in Minimum Wage Bill

2006-06-21T22:57:00.000-05:00

Republicans know that the general population typically rejects their economic policies once they find out the details. For example, rather than outright rejecting Ted Kennedy's bill to increase the minimum wage, Bill Frist has attached an anti-abortion “poison pill” amendment. As a result, the bill will likely die as Democrats refuse to swallow Frist's ghastly concoction.

Here's the story form Democrats.com:

It was so much easier for Senate Republicans to kill both attempts by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) to raise the minimum wage last year with no midterm elections looming right around the corner. With nothing more than their routine disregard for the poor as an excuse, the GOP leadership killed two bills offered by Kennedy in 2005 to raise a federal minimum wage that has remained the same for almost a decade.

This year it's tougher, because Republican Senators up for reelection may have to explain screwing working Americans in a more recent vote while, at the same time, managing to give themselves nine pay raises, totaling almost $32,000, in the same ten-year span.

So Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) has found a new way to pull his Simon Legree act and this time it takes the form of attaching a "poison pill" amendment to Kennedy's [bill], which would gradually raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour over the next two years.

A poison-pill is a procedural maneuver in which an onerous amendment is attached to a bill under consideration to force proponents of the original legislation to bail out and drop the whole issue. It's designed to either kill a bill entirely or create a situation that forces the other side into a negotiation to water down their original legislation to an unrecognizable point.

And the best way for a Religious Right go-to guy like Frist to do that -- and to poke a sharp stick in the eye of Senate Democrats -- is to attach an anti-abortion bill, that must be voted on before the minimum wage measure. Frist's [amendment] would criminalize the transport of a minor across state lines to get an abortion and Democrats have to contend with that before they can get to the minimum wage issue.

Frist's intent is clear: To force red-state Democrats to vote "yea" on an anti-abortion bill -- or face the wrath of their conservative constituents this year -- which, if it passes, would then force all Democrats to vote against the minimum wage to nullify the anti-abortion part. [...]

Republicans Reject Bill to Police Halliburton

2006-06-21T22:17:00.000-05:00

The conservative position on the "free" market can seem quite puzzling when you read articles like the one below, which documents how Republicans rejected rules that would have increased competition and reduced corruption among corporations such as Halliburton that are receiving comfy no-bid contracts from the government. Of course, this paradox quickly dissolves once you realize the fundamental principle of neo-liberalism: while the general population needs the "free" market shoved down their throats, corporations need the nanny state to give them huge government subsidies, tax breaks, and loopholes. Do you plan on getting rid of a minimal safety net for women and children (average age 7 during the 1996 Welfare Reform bill)? That's a good thing, because the disciplinary power of the "free" market will teach women and children "self-reliance" and "fiscal responsibility." Do you plan on getting rid of no-bid government contracts that waste billions of dollars? That's a bad thing, because then neo-liberals won't get their severance packages.

Here's the story from AlterNet:

[...] In an effort to stop companies like Halliburton and its subsidiaries from cheating our troops and stealing from Americans, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., introduced [and attached an amendment] to the Defense Authorization bill currently being debated in the Senate. The bill was intended to improve contracting "by eliminating fraud and abuse and improving competition in contracting and procurement." [...]

Dorgan's bill -- cosponsored by 17 Democrats and called the Honest Leadership and Accountability in Contracting Act of 2006 -- was tabled by a roll call vote of 55-43, effectively rejecting the amendment. Every single Senate Republican voted against the measure to make the contracting process honest and impose penalties on those who break the law.

And just what were the stern rules that the GOP didn't think their buddies at Halliburton should have to live with? The text of the legislation spelled out that Bush and Cheney's defense-contractor buddies would be in trouble if they did any of the following:

1. "Executes or attempts to execute a scheme or artifice to defraud the United States or the entity having jurisdiction over the area in which such activities occur."

2. "Falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact."

3. "Makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statements or representations, or makes or uses any materially false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry."

4. "Materially overvalues any good or service with the specific intent to excessively profit from the war or military action."

The measure called for those found guilty of violating the law to be imprisoned for up to 20 years and be subject to a fine of up to $1,000,000 -- a drop in the bucket for these guys -- or a percentage of their ill-gotten gains.

And Senate Republicans still saw fit to reject penalizing companies engaging in overt war profiteering and fraud despite Dorgan's spending a considerable amount of time on the Senate floor trotting out example after example of the hideous abuse that has been occurring in Iraq. [...]

U.S. Rejects Direct Talks with North Korea

2006-06-21T21:49:00.000-05:00

What is the Bush Administration's reaction to the growing North Korea missile crisis? Reject direct talks and get ready to launch our bigger, faster missiles! This is the lunacy we should expect given the Bush Administration recent scored a 1.8 out of 10 on diplomacy by an international panel of military and other experts. Given the massive failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, why does the Bush Administration consider diplomacy with North Korea as anathema? At the very least somebody should question the twisted logic of the U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, who claims even the attempt at diplomacy will just "encourage the repetition of [aberrant behavior]." This completely ignores that rejecting direct talks, imposing economic sanctions, and preparing missiles for launch are isolating North Korea, thus increasing the likelihood of "aberrant behavior."

Here is the article from The Raw Story:

North Korea

said Wednesday it wants direct talks with the

United States

over its apparent plans to test-fire a long-range missile, but a top

U.S.

envoy rejected the request.

North Korea

this week issued a bristling declaration of its right to carry out the launch and said

U.S.

concerns should be resolved through negotiations. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said a missile threat wasn't the way to seek dialogue.

"You don't normally engage in conversations by threatening to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles, and it's not a way to produce a conversation because if you acquiesce in aberrant behavior, you simply encourage the repetition of it, which we're obviously not going to do," Bolton told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York.

President Bush said North Korea faces further isolation from the international community if it test-fires the missile believed capable of reaching U.S. soil. "It should make people nervous when non-transparent regimes who have announced they have nuclear warheads, fire missiles," Bush said at a meeting with European leaders in Vienna, Austria. "This is not the way you conduct business in the world."

The U.S. and Japan have said they could consider sanctions against North Korea if it goes ahead with the launch, and Washington was weighing responses that could include attempting to shoot down the missile. [...]

U.S. Learns to Live with Less Freedom

2006-06-19T19:34:00.000-05:00

There is a puzzling willingness among Americans, even "liberals", to disregard the Bush Administration's attack on civil liberties.

Here's the story from the Toronto Star:

The fierce cultural aversion to the long reach of government is emblazoned on every licence plate here, an omnipresent statement that should make Rich Tomasso's job easier.

But even a man who makes it his business to protect individual liberties in a state where no government would dare collect a sales tax or personal income tax — or force a seatbelt around a driver or a helmet on a motorcyclist — has to face some harsh realities in George W. Bush's America.

"People are more afraid of terror than having their privacy violated," says Tomasso, chair of the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance. "For so long the rhetoric has been about fear, not hope and more traditional American values."

"Live Free or Die" is not just a cheesy licence plate slogan in this tiny New England state. But even New Hampshire is not immune to the national erosion of civil liberties that has permeated every part of the United States since terrorists forced their way into airline cockpits almost five years ago, taking away a nation's bravado and replacing it with fear.

The exploitation of that fear by an administration intent on inflating the powers of the presidency, at the expense of a cowed Congress and with the tacit approval of an anxious nation, may be a cautionary tale for Canadians should some of that U.S.-style fear find its way north of the border in the wake of Toronto's recent terrorism arrests.

In recent years, it has become a truism that Americans will trade away some liberties because they have been attacked. Canadians have not.

But where is that rugged U.S. individuality that had helped define this nation? [...]

Since Bush declared his global war on terror, "it has become a war on American citizens," says Dan Belforti, who is running for the U.S. Congress as a Libertarian candidate in New Hampshire.

It started with the country — those of all political stripes — rallying around a leader who cast the U.S. as victim, declaring the rest of the world was either with him or against him. Bush and his inner circle allowed to stand the perception that the Iraq war was linked to Sept. 11, 2001 — a belief still held today by a substantial number of Americans.

With the threat of another attack foremost in their minds, Americans looked the other way as "enemy combatants" were held without due process at Guantanamo Bay, shrugged amid revelations their government was secretly picking up terrorist suspects and flying them to countries with ugly human rights records, yawned when they were told the CIA might be holding prisoners in secret sites in Eastern Europe.

But more surprising has been the lack of pushback when they were told the Bush administration had ignored a law requiring court approval and had begun wiretapping international calls of Americans and assembling a massive databank of phone records of Americans.

In Canada, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service must get court approval before conducting any electronic surveillance, and the Communications Security Establishment needs written authorization from the minister of defence. Here, Bush argued his constitutional power overrode the need to go to a court that took too long to give approval anyway.

More quietly, Bush has claimed, some 750 times, the authority to disobey laws he has signed — including a much-publicized ban on torture — if they conflict with his interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. No U.S. president has ever invoked that right so many times.

The U.S. Congress has passed legislation that essentially establishes a national ID card, and there are calls for a national DNA registry of Americans. The Bush administration believes it is on the winning side when it comes to the tug between security and liberty.

"When you push even the harshest critic, even they say, `Yeah, we should be listening to Al Qaeda,'" a senior administration official told The Washington Post, making a reference to the wiretapping program. "So from that perspective, that's a winning (issue) and we're on the side of the public."

But there have been recent signs that the beginning of a pushback may finally be at hand. "The Bush administration has been bent on a scheme for years of reducing Congress to akin to an extra in a Cecil B. DeMille political (movie) extravaganza," Bruce Fein, a justice official in Ronald Reagan's administration, told Congress recently.

"(It includes) the assertion of executive privilege to deny Congress any authority to oversee executive branch operations; a claim of inherent presidential authority to flout any statute that he thinks impedes his ability to gather foreign intelligence, whether opening mail, conducting electronic surveillance, breaking and entering, or committing torture."

Gene Healy and Timothy Lynch of the libertarian Cato Institute have written that Bush has conferred upon himself the power to pursue any tactic he wishes to win the war on terror, simply by telling audiences he will use any "legal" means to protect the country.

"That is what most Americans want to hear and believe," they write. "Unfortunately, the president appears to believe that he is the ultimate arbiter of what is legal and what is illegal — at least in matters relating to national security."

Cooper says there is nothing unusual or wrong about people rallying around leaders in times of stress. What is wrong, he says, is when they stop paying attention to what the government is doing. "There is not much doubt the administration has utilized the fear of another 9/11 and the war on terror to expand the executive power," Cooper says.

But he says the wakeup call might have been sounded. "People are starting to ask questions," he says. "In a way, I'm a little bit surprised that things as obscure and arcane as presidential signing statements appear to have had some staying power in the media."

Bush's predilection for presidential signing statements, which give him the right to ignore portions of the laws he signs, had largely gone unnoticed until late last year, when he signed an amendment to a military spending bill that banned cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of foreign prisoners.

Then, after a highly publicized signing ceremony with the man behind the ban, Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, Bush quietly put a statement in the U.S. register giving him the right to ignore the ban if he felt it was protecting Americans from terror. A litany of court challenges have been issued by civil liberties groups over the reported data-mining by U.S. phone companies and arguments were heard in a Detroit court last week in a legal challenge to the wiretapping program.

A Supreme Court ruling on Bush's plan to try "enemy combatants" under special military tribunals at Guantanamo could come this month and if the court rules the tribunals invalid, it could begin the process of closing the prison camp. Revolt may finally be brewing within the ranks of Congress where Republicans facing mid-term elections in the fall are finding backbone.

Revolt is brewing in New Hampshire, too. It is the first state to openly challenge the so-called Real ID Act, approved last year and scheduled to come into effect in May 2008. Many believe it is the precursor to a national ID card. The bill requires states to check whether driver's licence applicants are in the country legally, and to require documents showing their birthdate, social security number and home address. The act also requires that states find a way to verify the documents are valid.

If New Hampshire rejects the law, its residents will no longer be allowed to use driver's licences as required identification at airports, federal buildings and, potentially, the Canadian border. "The view here is `get off my motorcycle, get out of my car, stay away from my guns and get out of my bedroom,'" says Michael Dupre, a professor of political sociology at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics.

"The culture of liberty is still very strong here."

FBI: "No Hard Evidence Connecting Bin Laden with 9/11"

2006-06-19T00:30:00.000-05:00

This report raises a number of questions. If Osama didn't attack us, then who did? And why did the Bush Administration attack Afghanistan if there was no "hard evidence"? Also, what about the Bin Laden "confession video" that the U.S. government released after 9/11? Does the FBI doubt the authenticity of this video? I'm no fan of conspiracy theories (which usually presume too much competence and control by elites and others), but followers of the 9/11 "Truth Movement" should be lauded for trying to raise public awareness of inconsistencies ignored by the mainstream media.

Here's the story from Information Clearing House:

This past weekend, a thought provoking e-mail circulated through Internet news groups, and was sent to the Muckraker Report by Mr. Paul V. Sheridan (Winner of the 2005 Civil Justice Foundation Award), bringing attention to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist web page for Usama Bin Laden.[1] (See bottom of this web page for Most Wanted page) In the e-mail, the question is asked, “Why doesn’t Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted poster make any direct connection with the events of September 11, 2001?” The FBI says on its Bin Laden web page that Usama Bin Laden is wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998 bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. According to the FBI, these attacks killed over 200 people. The FBI concludes its reason for “wanting” Bin Laden by saying, “In addition, Bin Laden is a suspect in other terrorists attacks throughout the world.”

On June 5, 2006, the Muckraker Report contacted the FBI Headquarters, (202) 324-3000, to learn why Bin Laden’s Most Wanted poster did not indicate that Usama was also wanted in connection with 9/11. The Muckraker Report spoke with Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity for the FBI. When asked why there is no mention of 9/11 on Bin Laden’s Most Wanted web page, Tomb said, “The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”

Surprised by the ease in which this FBI spokesman made such an astonishing statement, I asked, “How this was possible?” Tomb continued, “Bin Laden has not been formally charged in connection to 9/11.” I asked, “How does that work?” Tomb continued, “The FBI gathers evidence. Once evidence is gathered, it is turned over to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice than decides whether it has enough evidence to present to a federal grand jury. In the case of the 1998 United States Embassies being bombed, Bin Laden has been formally indicted and charged by a grand jury. He has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence connected Bin Laden to 9/11.” [...]

Tags:

Latest News: North Korea Could Launch a Missile in the Next 48 Hours (Maybe)

2006-06-18T02:15:00.000-05:00

Although North Korean officials are denying that a missile test is imminent, South Korean officials believe North Korea has fueled a missile that is probably capable of reaching all of South Korea, all of Japan, and parts of the U.S. Because the fuel breaks down in 48 hours, experts think a launch is imminent. Now why did we attack Iraq, again?

"I'm So Lonely"

Here's the latest from Reuters:

North Korea is believed to have completed fueling a missile capable of reaching Alaska, raising the probability of an imminent test launch, U.S. officials said on Sunday. The United States plans to join Japan in a sharp response if the test goes ahead.

Washington has warned Pyongyang against the launch in a message passed to North Korean diplomats at the United Nations but there was no response, American officials told Reuters.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Pyongyang could still decide to scrap the launch, but that was unlikely given the complexity of siphoning fuel back out of a missile prepared for launch.

The test is expected to involve a Taepodong-2 missile with an estimated range of 2,175 to 2,670 miles. At that range, parts of Alaska in the United States would be within reach as well as Asia and Russia. North Korea lacks an operational missile that can hit the continental United States, the California-based Center for Nonproliferation Studies said in a recent report.

Nonetheless it would be Pyongyang's first test of a long-range missile since it stunned the world in August 1998 by firing a Taepodong-1 over Japan that landed in the Pacific Ocean. U.S. officials have watched with alarm as satellite photos showed launch preparations accelerating at the Musudan-ri missile facility in North Hamgyong province in North Korea's northeast.

The New York Times, quoting American officials, reported on its Web site that booster rockets were loaded onto a launch pad and fuel tanks fitted to a missile. This could not be confirmed, but U.S. and other officials have said satellite images show fuel tanks and key components of a missile positioned at the test site.

The South Korean daily Dong-A Ilbo quoted a Seoul government official as saying the launch could be imminent. "We think North Korea has poured liquid fuel into the missile propellant built in the missile launching pad. It is at the finishing stage before launching" but the South Korean government did not know if fueling was completed, he said.

Experts say if the missile is not launched 48 hours after fueling, the fuel will start to break down and damage the missile. The test preparations came as six-country talks on North Korea's nuclear programs are stalemated and international attention has shifted to concerns that Iran is building a nuclear weapon, which Tehran denies.

If they test, the North Koreans "undoubtedly would bring upon themselves tougher sanctions from Japan and a cooling (in relations) from South Korea and China so it's not cost free for them, but it suggests they are not happy where they are in terms of the six-party process," said Michael Green, a former senior Asia adviser to President George W. Bush.

Pyongyang now regrets a joint statement adopted by the six countries participating in the negotiations -- the United States, South and North Korea, Japan, Russia and China -- which requires it to give up its atomic ambitions, he told Reuters. It is also unhappy with a U.S. crackdown on financial transactions involving cash earned by the North through illegal activities like currency counterfeiting, he said.

Daniel Pinkston of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies said the launch would be portrayed glowingly in official North Korean media and show the country as advancing its military and scientific prowess. Some of North Korea's leaders may not be too worried about the response from Washington because "they see the U.S. as doing everything already it can to punish North Korea," Pinkston added.

American and Japanese "assets" -- including satellites and a U.S. guided missile ship -- have been moved into position to serve as long-range surveillance and tracking platforms. Washington and its allies were caught off guard when Pyongyang last tested a missile eight years ago and they are determined to be ready this time to gather critical intelligence on the North's capabilities.

Tags:

2,500 Dead American Soldiers

2006-06-18T01:08:00.000-05:00

This is a marker nobody can be proud of. Let's just hope that Republicans will stop focusing on meaningless pro-war resolutions, gay marriage bans, and idiotic flag-burning amendments, and work with Democrats to effectively deal with the continuing chaos in Iraq. Nobody can doubt that these young Americans, often from the lowest rungs of the class hierarchy, deserve to be sent off to war only when absolutely necessary. Of course, we should not forget the other deaths in this ongoing debacle, including the upwards of 100,000 Iraqis, thousands of private mercenaries, and thousands of journalists, specialists, and other workers.

2,500 Gone

Here's the story from MSNBC:

The number of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq war has reached 2,500, the Pentagon said Thursday, more than three years into a conflict that finds U.S. and allied foreign forces locked in a struggle with a resilient insurgency.

In addition, the Pentagon said 18,490 U.S. troops have been wounded in the war, which began in March 2003 with a U.S.-led invasion to topple President Saddam Hussein. [...]

Tags:

House Republicans Entrap Democrats By Passing Meaningless Pro-War Resolution

2006-06-18T00:52:00.000-05:00

Recently the House of Representatives passed, 256-143, a "nonbinding" (read: meaningless) pro-war resolution on Iraq, with 42 Democrats siding with the Republicans. Of course there's nothing substantive in this bill, nothing that will set a timetable in Iraq or increase security in the U.S. or deal with the massive amount of wasted dollars due to no-bid corporate contractors (the best estimate is that there's about $21 billion that is just "missing"). Ultimately this bill was just a transparent politidcal attempt to make vulnerable Democrats appear "unpatriotic" and "weak". No doubt Republicans will take advantage and run vicious ads attacking those Dems show rejected supporting this piece-of-shit bill. In the meantime, the Senate rejected, 93-6, Kerry's proposal to set a timetable in Iraq. Way to go, Democrats!

Here's the story from the San Francisco Chronicle:

The House passage Friday of a nonbinding resolution on the war in Iraq was a not-so-subtle election-year effort by Republican leaders to portray Democrats as weak on national security and unwilling to support U.S. troops.

But the acrimonious debate that culminated in a 256-153 vote in favor of the pro-war measure suggests that the battle over how much longer to keep 130,000 American soldiers in Iraq will only intensify -- especially as polls show that a majority of Americans want to see a timetable for when U.S. troops will begin to return home.

Republicans, in the 2002 midterm elections and 2004 presidential election, successfully used appeals to "stay the course" in the war on terrorism to preserve their majorities in Congress and re-elect President Bush.

But the public's patience for the "stay the course" strategy has been waning because of rising sectarian violence in Iraq and the mounting death toll of U.S. troops. The point was underscored when the House and Senate halted the war debate Thursday for a moment of silence after the Pentagon announced the 2,500th death of an American armed services member in Iraq.

Even Republican Majority Leader John Boehner of Ohio acknowledged Friday that anyone honestly debating the war resolution had to admit that the violence between Sunni and Shiite factions has worsened in recent months, testing the ability of U.S. troops to maintain order.

But Boehner added: "Retreat is not an option in Iraq. The stakes for the American people are too high."

Meanwhile, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco used Friday's debate to suggest that her party -- if it wins back power in the November elections -- would agitate for a very different course in Iraq.

"Our new direction would say to the Iraqi people: We will not be in your country indefinitely, we will not construct permanent bases, and we will not control the flow of your oil," Pelosi said. "We will work with you and your neighbors diplomatically to ensure that the reconstruction of Iraq is successful."

The war resolution was carefully worded by GOP leaders to put Democrats in Republican-dominated "red" states and swing districts in political jeopardy if they voted against it.

First, the resolution contained a patriotic appeal to honor America's fighting men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan. The measure also urged the United States to complete the mission of creating a free and secure Iraq.

The resolution opposed setting an "arbitrary date" for withdrawing troops and concluded with a declaration that the United States "will prevail in the global war on terror, the noble struggle to protect freedom from the terrorist adversary."

Forty-two Democrats voted for the measure, many from Southern or Midwestern states that backed Bush in the last election. In California, two Central Valley lawmakers -- Dennis Cardoza of Merced and Jim Costa of Fresno -- were among the Democrats who supported the resolution.

"I reluctantly voted in favor of the nonbinding resolution on the war on terrorism," Cardoza said in a statement after the vote. "If one takes the time to read the resolution, it talks about winning the war in Iraq, supporting our troops and establishing a citizen-based government in Iraq. These are noble goals, and I support them.

"The problem is not what was said in the resolution, but what was not said. We owe our troops more than rhetoric; we owe them a real plan." Democrats said they already expect to see radio and TV ads running against vulnerable members who voted against the measure.

"It's a trap," Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, a leader of the Out of Iraq Caucus, said during the debate. "It's an attempt to force Democrats to sign onto a resolution that will do nothing to bring our troops home. All they want to do is make us sound unpatriotic."

In the Senate, Republican leaders achieved much the same result by forcing a vote on an amendment proposed by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., to demand a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. The measure failed, 93-6.

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Mark Crispin Miller: My Rejected Salon Letter on the 2004 Election

2006-06-18T00:20:00.000-05:00

What happened to Salon? At one time it was one of the premiere sites for liberal news and commentary, but now it appears to be a front for the "mod squad" Democrats (maybe it's those corporate ads they force you to watch to read their articles, even those from the Associated Press?). As you probably know, a few weeks ago Robert Kennedy, Jr. wrote a heavily-footnoted article in Rolling Stone documenting the widespread fraud in the 2004 presidential election ("Was the 2004 Election Stolen?"). In response, Salon posted an attack written by Farhod Manjoo, a technology reporter. As expected, there was a massive influx of letters from angry readers of Salon, many of them threatening to end their subscriptions. As a result, John Walsh, the editor of Salon, tried to calm the controversy by defending Farhod Manjoo's error-riddled article. Most recently Mark Crispin Miller, an NYU media studies professor who has written a book on election fraud, wrote an elegant letter refuting Manjoo's claims. Naturally, Salon didn't publish it.

Here's an excerpt of Mark's letter, unavailable at Salon but fully available at Yahoo! News:

I'd like to thank Salon for touching off this spirited debate on Farhad Manjoo's argument with Robert Kennedy, Jr., and also want to thank you in particular for your own personal defense of Manjoo's writings on election fraud. I am especially impressed by your desire "to place this debate in its proper political context." Such careful explanation is exactly what we need; and so I'd like to help shed just a bit more light upon that context, by clarifying the record as you have described it.

In defense of Manjoo's writings since Election Day 2004, you claim (just as he has often claimed) that Salon cares tremendously about the problem of election fraud, and always has: "Salon has aggressively covered Republican efforts to suppress Democratic voter participation going back to December 2000," and has "followed the story doggedly ever since." In 2002, you claim, "Manjoo expanded Salon's coverage of our flawed election system with a special focus on the problems with electronic voting." Since then, you write, "[h]e has approached his stories on the massive problems with voting in this country in the same way, with an open mind." In his zealous drive to learn the truth, you say, "he did not find evidence" of any widespread fraud in Georgia in 2002 (where Democrat Max Cleland lost his Senate seat, surprisingly, to Saxby Chambliss, and Democrat Roy Barnes was, also surprisingly, ousted as governor by Sonny Perdue). And, two years later, you remind us, Manjoo found nothing to confirm the view that fraud decided Bush's re-election in Ohio.

And so Salon has, for the last six years, been searching earnestly for "evidence" of fraud, and finding nothing but "unproven charges." If I may say so, this version of your history is not credible. First of all, it begs the question -- for there is vast evidence of fraud, as the letters you've received make wholly clear. Certainly you have the right to keep insisting that there is no evidence, and Manjoo certainly has every right to quibble with whichever single claim he may perceive as bogus or exaggerated. Neither move per se, however, can negate the copious, precise and ever-growing evidence of massive fraud in 2004, any more than the tobacco companies could negate the evidence that cigarettes are lethal, or the US religious right suppress the evidence of natural selection, or of global warming. As it's the evidence that matters above all, Salon's readers ought to be encouraged to study it themselves, and not accept mere claims about it, whether yours or mine.

So let me move beyond that fundamental argument, and make a more specific criticism of your recent statement in defense of Salon's treatment of election fraud. That statement obscures the fact that Manjoo's attitude toward his subject -- and, therefore, Salon's position -- has been strangely inconsistent. On the one hand, you are surely right to say that he has done some excellent reporting on the looming danger of election fraud -- before Nov. 2 of that fateful year. Back then he did a fine job covering several sinister developments, including the shenanigans of Nathan Sproul, a theocratic activist whose firm, Sproul & Associates, conducted bogus voter-registration drives in at least six states, covertly registering people as Republicans without their knowledge, and often trashing forms filled out by Democrats. (As I point out in Fooled Again, my book on the 2004 election, SEC records suggest that Sproul may also have abetted the subversion of the recount in Ohio.) In fact, I thought so highly of Manjoo's reporting pre-Election Day that I was often guided by it in my own research for Fooled Again, and therefore even thanked him warmly in the book's acknowledgments (p. 349). Considering such trenchant work throughout the presidential race, it seemed, to say the least, quite odd that Manjoo suddenly and absolutely shifted ground as soon as Bush's unexpected victory was official. Where he had indeed been dogged and impartial in exposing some real threats to the integrity of the election, ex post facto he seemed far less interested in dealing with the evidence of GOP malfeasance than in jeering every effort to discuss it. Instead of careful scrutiny of that evidence, he resorted mainly to sarcastic hooting and ad hominem assault -- the same tactics that the Bush Republicans themselves have always used to cast all argument about their unexpected win as sheer insanity. [...]

What explains this eagerness to kill all conversation on an issue of such grave importance? This is not a question just about Farhad Manjoo and/or Salon, because your way of dealing, or not dealing, with this all-important matter has been typical of the entire US political establishment throughout Bush/Cheney's reign. This general silence has prevented us from facing an enormous threat to our democracy, which is now at unprecedented risk. We might start to illuminate this problem by doing now exactly what you claim you want to do: "place this debate in its proper political context." Let us therefore reconsider your reporter's violent post-election U-turn, which had him all at once reflexively deriding the very story that he had himself been very capably reporting. [...]

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General Accountability Office: Voting "Irregularities" in 2004

2006-06-17T23:42:00.000-05:00

How much overwhelming evidence will it take for the "mod squad" milquetoast Democrats to stand up and criticize the deliberate attempts by conservatives to deny the right of people to vote? Even the federal government is admitting to "irregularities" in the 2004 election! The GAO report can be found here.

Here's the story from NewsMax:

Many of the voting and counting mishaps of the bizarre 2000 general election were not fixed four years later and brand new problems arose, including a rash of fraudulent voter registrations in some areas, congressional investigators say.

A study of the 2004 election by the Government Accountability Office concludes that paper ballots continued to be used extensively by small jurisdictions, many polling places struggled to manage heavy early voting and new federal requirements for voter identification were applied unevenly by local officials across the country. The GAO released the study Thursday.

Altogether, 41 states were granted extra time to meet federal requirements to build statewide voter registration lists, meaning most such lists were not in place for the 2004 vote.

New problems cropped up in 2004. Ambitious get-out-the-vote drives swamped officials with the task of checking applications with their backs against registration deadlines. Incomplete addresses, fictional names and questionable signatures showed up.

The report estimates 5 percent of local jurisdictions handled voter registration applications with fraudulent names.

Places that adopted newer voting technology since 2000 were not necessarily making the best use of it. Investigators said performance measures "have not been systematically embraced" and they found shortcomings in security and testing procedures.

It came as little surprise that problems plaguing the nation's patchwork elections system remained in the first general election since a 2002 federal law placed new requirements on state and local officials and gave them more money to help with costs.

The changes got off to a slow start in part because members of the Election Assistance Commission, a new body set up to help state and local officials, were appointed by President Bush eight months behind schedule and not at work until January 2004.

Widespread voting problems were exposed in 2000, the closest presidential election in history. The outcome was in limbo for weeks until the Supreme Court stopped a Florida recount, handing Bush victory based on a mere 537-vote margin in that state.

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Army Corps Lied About Cheney's Role in Halliburton Contract

2006-06-17T23:32:00.001-05:00

More lies from the lying liars. Now why would you lie about something like this? Because even top officials know that having energy policy designed by Big Oil is a bad idea. Of course, bring anything like this up when you're talking to an economist and they'll just babble on about the virtues of the "free" market!

"The Dick"

Here's the news from The Raw Story:

New documents obtained by a conservative watchdog group suggest that the US Army Corp of Engineers may have publicly lied regarding the involvement of the Vice President's office in awarding a 2003 multi-billion dollar, no-bid contract to Kellogg Brown and Root. [...]

The newly released emails show the Army Corps attempting to deflect attention from Cheney's office by distributing talking points that would mask Cheney's purported role. The Corps could not immediately be reached for comment.

Among the 100 pages of newly-obtained documents is an 2003 email in which Army Corps official Carol Sanders writes, "Mr. Robert Andersen, Chief Counsel, USACE, participated in a 60 Minutes interview today in New York regarding the sole source award of the oil response contract to Kellogg, Brown and Root... [Andersen] was able to make many of the points we had planned."

Sanders subsequently provided sound bites from the interview, including, "There was no contact whatsoever (with the VP office)." This directly contradicts another email uncovered by Judicial Watch in 2004. [...]

The vice president's associations with Halliburton "raise concerns about the appearance of a conflict of interest or favoritism," Judicial Watch argued, "particularly since the contract was awarded to KBR without a bidding process and because the contract was not announced to the public until after it was approved." [...]

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Al-Qaeda Planned a Poison-Gas Attack in N.Y. Subway

2006-06-17T22:08:00.000-05:00

News of a planned (but abandoned) Al-Qaeda attack raises three crucial questions:

1. Has the invasion and occupation of Iraq reduced the threat of terrorism? No. Ever since the Bushies breached international law and invaded Iraq, the world has become a more dangerous place: more terrorist attacks have occurred worldwide, more young people have joined the ranks of Islamic fundamentalism, the threat of nuclear war has increased in North Korea, Iran, and elsewhere, and more people have come to despise Americans and the West. Details of this recent planned attack only confirms the mounting evidence that Iraq has only exacerbated the threat of terrorism.

2. Would the Bushies have been capable of stopping the attack? Let's just be thankful that Al-Qaeda called off the attack. Given the massive corruption and wasteful spending in Iraq, the post-Katrina debacle, and reduced federal security funding in New York and other "Blue" areas, it is clear the Bush Administration and their cronies are incapable of effectively running government programs and institutions. Naturally, conservatives like to think massive incompetence is inherent in government, ignoring that federal programs designed and developed by leftists have been remarkably effective in providing services and goods to the general population (e.g., New Deal, Social Security, Medicare, GI Bill, Earned Income Tax Credit, etc.). The same can be done with federal security and emergency agencies if conservatives actually took public administration seriously.

3. Would the threat of terrorism decrease if the Bushies spent more resources protecting the U.S. rather than attacking and occupying other countries? Of course!

Here's the story from Time Magazine:

Al-Qaeda terrorists came within 45 days of attacking the New York subway system with a lethal gas similar to that used in Nazi death camps. They were stopped not by any intelligence breakthrough, but by an order from Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman Zawahiri. And the U.S. learned of the plot from a CIA mole inside al-Qaeda. [...]

U.S. intelligence got its first inkling of the plot from the contents of a laptop computer belonging to a Bahraini jihadist captured in Saudi Arabia early in 2003. It contained plans for a gas-dispersal system dubbed "the mubtakkar" (Arabic for inventive). Fearing that al-Qaeda's engineers had achieved the holy grail of terror R&D -- a device to effectively distribute hydrogen-cyanide gas, which is deadly when inhaled-- the CIA immediately set about building a prototype based on the captured design, which comprised two separate chambers for sodium cyanide and a stable source of hydrogen, such as hydrochloric acid. A seal between the two could be broken by a remote trigger, producing the gas for dispersal.

The prototype confirmed their worst fears: "In the world of terrorist weaponry," writes Suskind, "this was the equivalent of splitting the atom. Obtain a few widely available chemicals, and you could construct it with a trip to Home Depot – and then kill everyone in the store."

The device was shown to President Bush and Vice President Cheney the following morning, prompting the President to order that alerts be sent through all levels of the U.S. government. Easily constructed and concealed, mass casualties were inevitable if it could be triggered in any enclosed public space.

Having discovered the device, exposing the plot in which it might be used became a matter of extreme urgency. Although the Saudis were cooperating more than ever before in efforts to track down al-Qaeda operatives in the kingdom, the interrogations of suspects connected with the Bahraini on whose computer the Mubtakkar was discovered were going nowhere. The U.S. would have to look elsewhere. [...]

But then, for reasons still debated by U.S. intelligence officials, [ Osama bin Laden's deputy] Zawahiri called off the attack. "Ali did not know the precise explanation why. He just knew that Zawahiri had called them off."

The news left administration officials gathered in the White House with more questions than answers. Why was Ali cooperating? Why had Zawahiri called off the strike? Were the operatives planning to carry out the attack still in New York? "The CIA analysts attempted answers. Many of the questions were simply unanswerable." [...]

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North Korea to Launch Missile Capable of Reaching U.S. Mainland

2006-06-17T21:30:00.000-05:00

The way events with North Korea and Iran are going, it seems that Bush's plan of attacking Iraq has had no positive effect on curbing the threat of nuclear war. The latest news is that North Korea is planning to launch a missile that is capable of hitting the U.S. mainland. Perhaps instead of attacking countries in the Middle East and cutting taxes for the rich, the Bush Administration should take the advice of a recent group of Nobel Laureates and use diplomatic means to introduce weapons inspectors into North Korea while simultaneously easing economic sanctions.

Oh Shit

Here's the story from the Mumbai Mirror:

North Korea loaded booster rockets onto a launch pad, preparing to test as early as Sunday a missile that might be able to reach the US mainland, media reported.

The reports follow US government warnings that the communist North is accelerating preparations to test a Taepodong-2 missile.

A US government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Friday that a test may be imminent. South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper said intelligence authorities of Seoul and Washington had made the assessment, based on satellite images, that the North had loaded booster rockets onto a launch pad and moved 10 large tanks of liquid fuel close by.

The Taepodong-2 is a three-stage missile, but the warhead section hadn't been loaded yet, the paper said, quoting an unidentified high-level South Korean government official. South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Choo Kyu-ho couldn't confirm the report.

Japan’s Foreign Minister and the US ambassador to Japan on Saturday called North Korea’s possible missile test a provocative action, and Tokyo urged Pyongyang through diplomatic channels not to proceed with the launch, news reports said.

Japan’s Foreign Minister Taro Aso and US Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer met on Saturday evening.

Japan’s concern can be traced back to 1998, when North Korea test-fired a Taepodong-1 ballistic missile over northern Japan, claiming it was a satellite launch. There were reports that Japan had dispatched two Aegis destroyers to the Sea of Japan and Pacific Ocean.

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Secret GOP Hit List Prevented African-Americans From Voting

2006-06-16T18:00:00.000-05:00

More evidence of election fraud by the Republicans. There is a fundamental truth that has not (but should) enter the public sphere: Republicans have been systematically trying to prevent blacks from voting. Why? Because the overwhelming majority of blacks vote for Democratic candidates. In fact, after Katrina the number of blacks supporting Bush was basically ZERO. How could this be? Well, 2% approved of Bush, but the margin of error was around 2%, meaning the actual approval rate could be anywhere from 0% to 4%.

Here's the from OpEd News:

The Republican National Committee has a special offer for African-American soldiers: Go to Baghdad, lose your vote. A confidential campaign directed by GOP party chiefs in October 2004 sought to challenge the ballots of tens of thousands of voters in the last presidential election, virtually all of them cast by residents of Black-majority precincts. Files from the secret vote-blocking campaign were obtained by BBC Television Newsnight, London. They were attached to emails accidentally sent by Republican operatives to a non-party website.One group of voters wrongly identified by the Republicans as registering to vote from false addresses: servicemen and women sent overseas.

Here's how the scheme worked: The RNC mailed these voters letters in envelopes marked, “Do not forward”, to be returned to the sender. These letters were mailed to servicemen and women, some stationed overseas, to their US home addresses. The letters then returned to the Bush-Cheney campaign as "undeliverable." The lists of soldiers of "undeliverable" letters were transmitted from state headquarters, in this case Florida, to the RNC in Washington. The party could then challenge the voters' registration and thereby prevent their absentee ballot being counted. One target list was comprised exclusively of voters registered at the Jacksonville, Florida, Naval Air Station. Jacksonville is third largest naval installation in the US, best known as home of the Blue Angels fighting squandron.

Our team contacted the homes of several on the caging list, such as Randall Prausa, a serviceman, whose wife said he had been ordered overseas.A soldier returning home in time to vote in November 2004 could also be challenged on the basis of the returned envelope. Soldiers challenged would be required to vote by "provisional" ballot. Over one million provisional ballots cast in the 2004 race were never counted; over half a million absentee ballots were also rejected.

The extraordinary rise in the number of rejected ballots was the result of the widespread multi-state voter challenge campaign by the Republican Party. The operation, of which the purge of Black soldiers was a small part, was the first mass challenge to voting America had seen in two decades. The BBC obtained several dozen confidential emails sent by the Republican's national Research Director and Deputy Communications chief, Tim Griffin to GOP Florida campaign chairman Brett Doster and other party leaders. Attached were spreadsheets marked, "Caging.xls." Each of these contained several hundred to a few thousand voters and their addresses. A check of the demographics of the addresses on the "caging lists," as the GOP leaders called them indicated that most were in African-American majority zip codes. Ion Sanco, the non-partisan elections supervisor of Leon County (Tallahassee) when shown the lists by this reporter said: “The only thing I can think of - African American voters listed like this – these might be individuals that will be challenged if they attempted to vote on Election Day.”

These GOP caging lists were obtained by the same BBC team that first exposed the wrongful purge of African-American "felon" voters in 2000 by then-Secretary of State Katherine Harris. Eliminating the voting rights of those voters -- 94,000 were targeted -- likely caused Al Gore's defeat in that race.The Republican National Committee in Washington refused our several requests to respond to the BBC discovery. However, in Tallahassee, the Florida Bush campaign's spokespeople offered several explanations for the list. Joseph Agostini, speaking for the GOP, suggested the lists were of potential donors to the Bush campaign. Oddly, the supposed donor list included residents of the Sulzbacher Center a shelter for homeless families. Another spokesperson for the Bush campaign, Mindy Tucker Fletcher, ultimately changed the official response, acknowledging that these were voters, "we mailed to, where the letter came back – bad addresses.”

The party has refused to say why it would mark soldiers as having "bad addresses" subject to challenge when they had been assigned abroad.The apparent challenge campaign was not inexpensive. The GOP mailed the letters first class, at a total cost likely exceeding millions of dollars, so that the addresses would be returned to "cage" workers.“This is not a challenge list," insisted the Republican spokesmistress. However, she modified that assertion by adding, “That’s not what it’s set up to be.” Setting up such a challenge list would be a crime under federal law. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlaws mass challenges of voters where race is a factor in choosing the targeted group.

While the party insisted the lists were not created for the purpose to challenge Black voters, the GOP ultimately offered no other explanation for the mailings. However, Tucker Fletcher asserted Republicans could still employ the list to deny ballots to those they considered suspect voters. When asked if Republicans would use the list to block voters, Tucker Fletcher replied, “Where it’s stated in the law, yeah.”

It is not possible at this time to determine how many on the potential blacklist were ultimately challenged and lost their vote. Soldiers sending in their ballot from abroad would not know their vote was lost because of a challenge.

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1,400,000,000 People Will Live in Urban Slums by 2020

2006-06-16T17:50:00.000-05:00

Many Americans, including "liberal" academics who study poverty, often forget about the staggering number of people living in severe poverty around the world. Clearly, according to these statistics, the neoliberal dream of the past 30 years has been a failure.

Margaret Thatcher: "There is no alternative."

Here's the story at Yahoo! News:

About 1.4 billion people worldwide will be living in slums by 2020 unless action is taken to improve conditions for the urban poor, according to a U.N. report released Friday. The number of slum-dwellers globally is expected to grow from the current 1 billion -- nearly all in the developing world -- as city populations swiftly rise, the U.N. Human Settlement Program said.

"Slums in many cities are no longer just marginalized neighborhoods housing a relatively small proportion of the urban population," the report said. "In many cities, they are the dominant type of human settlement." The global slum population is expected to grow by 27 million every year until 2020, the agency said.

Authorities have traditionally viewed slums as temporary settlements that would disappear as cities developed and incomes rose. But the report said slums — lacking durable housing, sufficient space and easy access to safe water or adequate sanitation — are continuing to grow and becoming a permanent feature of many cities, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.

"There are two cities within one city -- one part of the urban population that has all the benefits of urban living, and other part, the slums and squatter settlements, where the poor often live under worse conditions than their rural relatives," said Anna Tibaijuka, chief of the U.N. program.

The report said the only part of the developing world to have limited slum growth is North Africa, where countries such as Egypt and Tunisia have made large investments in improving living conditions, as well as trying to dissuade people from moving to the slums.

As of last year, just under half of the world's population of 6.45 billion lived in cities. The urban population is forecast to reach half the world's population in 2007, when the overall figure is predicted to be 6.57 billion.

Trends indicate the number of urban dwellers will reach 5 billion by 2030, out of a total population of 8.1 billion.

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Top Policy Analysts: Bush's Diplomacy Gets 1.8 out of 10

2006-06-15T07:18:00.000-05:00

Anyone who has read Foreign Affairs knows it's not staffed by left-wing bloggers but rather hawkish military advisors and staid diplomats. Given their ties to the current governmental system, they still give Dubya and his cronies too much credit. Why not a 0.8 instead of a 1.8? After all, by failing to seriously consider diplomacy in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Busheviks have increased the threat of terrorism. Moreover, they've pushed the world closer to a nuclear war with their diplomatic failures with Iran, Russia, and North Korea (Of course Europe has helped to ease relations and acted to broker what would have otherwise been complete rather than partial disasters).

I highly recommend reading the full article in the Toronto Star.

Here's a summary of the survey of 100 military and diplomacy experts (including people from the CIA and NSA):

1. "Across the board, [leading military and diplomacy experts] rated Washington's diplomatic efforts as abysmal, with a median score of 1.8 out of 10."

2. "The Department of Homeland Security, created in the aftermath of 9/11, was rated for effectiveness at only 2.9 out of 10."

3. "Some 86 per cent of the survey respondents said the world has grown more, not less, dangerous, despite President George W. Bush's claims that the U.S. is winning the war on terror." It doesn't take a military analyst to realize this!

4. "Almost 62 per cent identified Saudi Arabia as the premier incubator for terrorists. " Naturally. But we couldn't let the public know about this inconvenient fact because the Bushies had business ties with the Saudis.

5. "Asked what presents the single greatest danger to American security, nearly half the analysts said loose nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Only 4 per cent said Iran." As Hans Blix has pondered, why do we seem so blissfully unconcerned about the 27,000 nukes owned by Russia, America, India, Israel, and other countries?

Obviously this confirms what those of us on the left have been predicting and saying since 2001. However, why does the Department of Homeland Security get a score that's 1.1 points higher than the Busheviks' overall diplomatic efforts? Remember that this is the same organization that failed miserably in the wake of Katrina (although they were most poor people, so I suppose they don't really count, right?).

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The Case of the $21 Billion Missing in Iraq

2006-06-15T01:49:00.000-05:00

Now where did I leave that $21 billion I had the other day? Oh yeah, it's in the pockets of the plutocrats who own the corporations. See, this is how the "free market" works: you get your no-bid contract, you inefficiently and ineffectively provide your "services," and then you pocket the rest as profit (where greater inefficienty = greater profit). Now why didn't I learn about this in Econ 101, you might ask? Because economics, as taught in nearly all colleges and universities, has about much relevance with reality as 17th century Argentinian poetry has with your checking account. No relation. Zip.

Here's the story in the Baltimore Chronicle:

During the days of the Nixon Watergate scandal investigation, reporter Bob Woodword was famously advised by his mysterious source, Deep Throat, to "follow the money" as a way of cracking the story.

Well, there is a lot of money to follow in the current scandal that can be best described as the Bush/Cheney administration, and so far, nobody's doing it.

My bet for the place that needs the most following is the more than $9 billion that has gone missing without a trace in Iraq--as well as $12 billion in cash that the Pentagon flew into Iraq straight from Federal Reserve vaults via military transports, and for which there has been little or no accounting.

As word of massive corruption began to surface in 2003, Congress passed legislation creating an office of Inspector General, assuming that this new agency would monitor the spending on the occupation and reconstruction, and figure why all so much taxpayer money was disappearing, and why only minimal reconstruction was going on in destroyed Iraq, instead of a massive rebuilding program as intended. Bush named an old friend and supporter, Stuart Bowen, to the post--a move that should have put Congress on alert, given this administration's long history of putting cronies in positions of authority.

When the Coalition Provisional Authority was terminated in late 2004, with corruption still rampant and growing, Congress redefined Bowen's position as Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.

Bowen, went to work. He uncovered some corruption in a report in early 2006 that sounded scathing enough. Bowen found cases of double billing by contractors, of payments for work that was never done, and other scandals. But he never came up with more than $1 billion or so worth of problems--a small fraction of the total amount of money that was vanishing.

Now we know why so little was done.

It turns out that Bowen was never really looking very hard. [...]

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Congress Gives Itself 7th Straight Pay Raise

2006-06-15T01:38:00.000-05:00

This pay raise is a miniscule amount compared to the millions appropriated each year by plutocrats such as Dick Cheney. However, these politicians realize that they need a minimum wage for the work that they do (you know, just in case their profitable corporations happen to be investigated by some naïve newcomer at the Securities and Exchange Commission). Of course, those of us in the general population shouldn't come to the erroneous conclusion that we ought to have our minimum wage increased. After all, the lowest minimum wage in the industrialized world provides us the incentive to work hard for the corporations!

Here's the story from Boston Channel:

Despite record low approval ratings, House lawmakers Tuesday embraced a $3,300 pay raise that will increase their salaries to $168,500.

The 2 percent cost-of-living raise would be the seventh straight for members of the House and Senate.

Lawmakers easily squelched a bid by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, to get a direct vote to block the COLA, which is automatically awarded unless lawmakers vote to block it.

In the early days of GOP control of Congress, lawmakers routinely denied themselves the annual COLA. Last year, the Senate voted 92-6 to deny the raise but quietly surrendered the position in House-Senate talks. [...]

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Another Top Bush Official Jumps Ship

2006-06-15T01:11:00.000-05:00

You know things are going badly for the Bush Administration when another senior official (this time his speechwriter for the past seven years) leaves the Bush Crime Family.

Here's the story from the Washington Post:

Michael J. Gerson, one of President Bush's most trusted advisers and the author of nearly all of his most famous public words over the past seven years, plans to step down in the next couple of weeks in a decision that colleagues believe will leave a hole in the White House at a critical period.

Gerson said in an interview that he has been talking with Bush for many months about leaving for writing and other opportunities but waited until the White House political situation stabilized somewhat. "It seemed like a good time," he said. "Things are back on track a little. Some of the things I care about are on a good trajectory."[Emphasis added] [...]

(I have two points. First, to say that things are “back on track a little” is just Washington-speak for “Holy shit this administration is a broken elevator in freefall.” After all, public opinion still hovers around 30% with no end in sight, and there are so many scandals tied to the Busheviks it's difficult if not impossible to keep track of them all ("Is this Plamegate or Abramoffgate or Abugate or Verizongate or what?"). Moreover, nobody admits they're quitting a presidential appointment because the people they work for are imploding from corruption. Second, notice that Gerson says “Some of the things I care about are on a good trajectory.” That demands a follow-up question: “How large was your refurnd from Bush's war-time tax cuts?")

Gerson is the latest in a series of longtime Bush aides to leave, following White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., press secretary Scott McClellan and Treasury Secretary John W. Snow. But newly installed Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten said in an interview that the departure is not part of his broader shakeup of the president's operation. No one is being tapped to take Gerson's most recent assignment as senior adviser.

"He's one of the few people who is irreplaceable," Bolten said. "He's a policy provoker, a grand strategist and a conscience who in many cases has not only articulated but reflected the president's heart." [...]

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Bush and Co. Suing New Jersey to Prevent Wiretapping Investigation

2006-06-15T01:00:00.000-05:00

Clearly the Bushies have something to hide in regard to the NSA wiretapping. Also, isn't it interesting how conservatives criticism the ability of the general population to sue private corporations for wrongdoing while at the same time file suits to hide wrongdoing by private corporations (and corrupt government?

Here's the story from Yahoo! News:

The unusual filing in U.S. District Court in Trenton, N.J., is the latest effort by federal authorities to halt legal proceedings aimed at revealing whether and how often AT&T, Verizon and other phone companies have provided customer records to the NSA without a court order.

New Jersey Attorney General Zulima Farber, a Democrat, and other officials sent subpoenas to five carriers on May 17, asking for documents that would explain whether they supplied customer records to the NSA, the lawsuit said.

The subpoenas followed by a few days a USA Today report that the phone companies had complied with the secretive agency's request for the phone records of millions of ordinary Americans after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The companies' deadline to respond to the subpoenas is Thursday, the federal lawsuit said.

Farber subpoenaed the phone companies for information because she suspected state consumer protection laws may have been violated if in fact the phone companies were turning over such records, Farber spokesman David Wald said.

"The phone companies were turning over information without any notice to consumers," Wald said. "We were seeking to protect the people of New Jersey."

The Justice Department said more than 20 lawsuits have been filed around the country alleging that the phone companies illegally assisted the NSA. The government says sensitive national security information would be revealed if judges allow those cases to proceed.

The American Civil Liberties Union also has filed complaints in more than 20 states, including New Jersey, asking state utility commissions and attorneys general to investigate.

In this matter, the federal government said the New Jersey officials are treading on federal turf and that the companies, if forced to comply with the subpoenas, would be confirming or denying the existence of the program. President Bush and other top federal officials have refused to do that.

Assistant Attorney General Peter Keisler also warned lawyers for the phone companies that responding to the subpoenas "would violate federal laws and executive orders."

A separate letter that Keisler, head of the department's Civil Division, sent to Farber made the same points, but it took a softer approach.

"We sincerely hope that you will withdraw the subpoenas, so that litigation over this matter may be avoided," Keisler said.

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Rove's Next Abomination: Dismantling EPA Rules for Big Oil

2006-06-13T13:27:00.000-05:00

Although Fitzgerald has apparently given up prosecuting Rove for lying about the cravenly leak of a CIA operative, the great thing about the Bush Administration is that there's always another scandal around the corner. This time letters reveal that Rove, to ensure continued political support from Big Oil, worked to dismantle EPA rules on keeping groundwater clean near oil and construction sites.

Here's the story from the LA Times:

A rule designed by the Environmental Protection Agency to keep groundwater clean near oil drilling sites and other construction zones was loosened after White House officials rejected it amid complaints by energy companies that it was too restrictive and after a well-connected Texas oil executive appealed to White House senior advisor Karl Rove.The new rule, which took effect Monday, came after years of intense industry pressure, including court battles and behind-the-scenes agency lobbying. But environmentalists vowed Monday that the fight was not over, distributing internal White House documents that they said portrayed the new rule as a political payoff to an industry long aligned with the Republican Party and President Bush.

In 2002, a Texas oilman and longtime Republican activist, Ernest Angelo, wrote a letter to Rove complaining that an early version of the rule was causing many in the oil industry to "openly express doubt as to the merit of electing Republicans when we wind up with this type of stupidity."

Rove responded by forwarding the letter to top White House environmental advisors and scrawling a handwritten note directing an aide to talk to those advisors and "get a response ASAP."

Rove later wrote to Angelo, assuring him that there was a "keen awareness" within the administration of addressing not only environmental issues but also the "economic, energy and small business impacts" of the rule.

Environmentalists pointed to the Rove correspondence as evidence that the Bush White House, more than others, has mixed politics with policy decisions that are traditionally left to scientists and career regulators. At the time, Rove oversaw the White House political office and was directing strategy for the 2002 midterm elections.

Angelo had been mayor of Midland, Texas, when Bush ran an oil firm there. He is also a longtime hunting partner of Rove's. The two men first worked together when Angelo managed Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign in Texas. [...]

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Although a Liar, Rove Escapes Prosecution in Valerie Plame Case

2006-06-13T13:05:00.000-05:00

"Mr. and Mrs. Karl Rove"

Baby-faced prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has apparently given up charging Karl Rove for any wrongdoing on leaking Valerie Plame's name to Novak and others. Nonetheless, the legal counsel for Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame issued a statement: "The day still may come when Mr. Rove and others are called to account in a court of law for their attacks on the Wilsons." Now why might somebody say this? Because, although he apparently didn't lie to Fitzgerald or the FBI, Rove may be guilty of the following "non-crimes":

1. Carelessly bandying around classified information
2. Lying to reporters and the public, allowing the White House to claim he had no role in the Valerie Plame affair
3. Conspiring with others in the White House to leak the name of a CIA operative because somebody spoke out against the president

Remember that the Bushies kept (incorrectly) saying they couldn't answer any questions about Rove and Co. because of the ongoing investigation. Now that the investigation is over and Rove is cleared, let's have a full discussion (yeah, right).

Here's the article from The Guardian:

Karl Rove, President Bush's policy strategist, has been told by prosecutors he will not be charged with any crimes in the investigation into the leak of a CIA officer's identity, his lawyer said today.

Robert Luskin said that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald told him of the decision yesterday, ending months of speculation about the fate of one of George Bush's closest advisers.

The decision comes after Mr Rove testified five times before a grand jury over the leaking to the press that Valerie Plame, the wife of former US ambassador Joseph Wilson, was a covert CIA agent.

"On June 12 2006, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald formally advised us that he does not anticipate seeking charges against Karl Rove," Mr Luskin said in a statement. "We believe the special counsel's decision should put an end to the baseless speculation about Mr Rove's conduct." [...]

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Why Net Neutrality is Necessary for Democracy

2006-06-13T01:48:00.000-05:00

This is the clearest and most concise argument for net neutrality that I have found. A must-read for anyone interested in ensuring an equitable and democratic future. Kudos to Lessig and McChesney.

Here's the article from the Washington Post:

Congress is about to cast a historic vote on the future of the Internet. It will decide whether the Internet remains a free and open technology fostering innovation, economic growth and democratic communication, or instead becomes the property of cable and phone companies that can put toll booths at every on-ramp and exit on the information superhighway.

At the center of the debate is the most important public policy you've probably never heard of: "network neutrality." Net neutrality means simply that all like Internet content must be treated alike and move at the same speed over the network. The owners of the Internet's wires cannot discriminate. This is the simple but brilliant "end-to-end" design of the Internet that has made it such a powerful force for economic and social good: All of the intelligence and control is held by producers and users, not the networks that connect them.

The protections that guaranteed network neutrality have been law since the birth of the Internet -- right up until last year, when the Federal Communications Commission eliminated the rules that kept cable and phone companies from discriminating against content providers. This triggered a wave of announcements from phone company chief executives that they plan to do exactly that.

Now Congress faces a legislative decision. Will we reinstate net neutrality and keep the Internet free? Or will we let it die at the hands of network owners itching to become content gatekeepers? The implications of permanently losing network neutrality could not be more serious. The current legislation, backed by companies such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast, would allow the firms to create different tiers of online service. They would be able to sell access to the express lane to deep-pocketed corporations and relegate everyone else to the digital equivalent of a winding dirt road. Worse still, these gatekeepers would determine who gets premium treatment and who doesn't.

Their idea is to stand between the content provider and the consumer, demanding a toll to guarantee quality delivery. It's what Timothy Wu, an Internet policy expert at Columbia University, calls "the Tony Soprano business model": By extorting protection money from every Web site -- from the smallest blogger to Google -- network owners would earn huge profits. Meanwhile, they could slow or even block the Web sites and services of their competitors or those who refuse to pay up. They'd like Congress to "trust them" to behave.

Without net neutrality, the Internet would start to look like cable TV. A handful of massive companies would control access and distribution of content, deciding what you get to see and how much it costs. Major industries such as health care, finance, retailing and gambling would face huge tariffs for fast, secure Internet use -- all subject to discriminatory and exclusive dealmaking with telephone and cable giants.

We would lose the opportunity to vastly expand access and distribution of independent news and community information through broadband television. More than 60 percent of Web content is created by regular people, not corporations. How will this innovation and production thrive if creators must seek permission from a cartel of network owners?

The smell of windfall profits is in the air in Washington. The phone companies are pulling out all the stops to legislate themselves monopoly power. They're spending tens of millions of dollars on inside-the-Beltway print, radio and TV ads; high-priced lobbyists; coin-operated think tanks; and sham "Astroturf" groups -- fake grass-roots operations with such Orwellian names as Hands Off the Internet and NetCompetition.org.

They're opposed by a real grass-roots coalition of more than 700 groups, 5,000 bloggers and 750,000 individual Americans who have rallied in support of net neutrality at http://www.savetheinternet.com/ . The coalition is left and right, commercial and noncommercial, public and private. Supporters include the Christian Coalition of America, MoveOn.org, National Religious Broadcasters, the Service Employees International Union, the American Library Association, AARP and nearly every consumer group. It includes the founders of the Internet, the brand names of Silicon Valley, and a bloc of retailers, innovators and entrepreneurs. Coalitions of such breadth, depth and purpose are rare in contemporary politics.

Most of the great innovators in the history of the Internet started out in their garages with great ideas and little capital. This is no accident. Network neutrality protections minimized control by the network owners, maximized competition and invited outsiders in to innovate. Net neutrality guaranteed a free and competitive market for Internet content. The benefits are extraordinary and undeniable.

Congress is deciding on the fate of the Internet. The question before it is simple: Should the Internet be handed over to the handful of cable and telephone companies that control online access for 98 percent of the broadband market? Only a Congress besieged by high-priced telecom lobbyists and stuffed with campaign contributions could possibly even consider such an absurd act.

People are waking up to what's at stake, and their voices are growing louder by the day. As millions of citizens learn the facts, the message to Congress is clear: Save the Internet.

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Alberto Only 4 MPH Away From Hurricane Status

2006-06-13T01:09:00.000-05:00

How much weird, record-breaking weather will it take for conservatives to realize the reality of human-caused global warming? Alberto is likely to become a hurricane when it hits land. If this is the case, then it will be the earliest hurricane of the season in over forty years. The latest information is from the National Hurricane Center.

Here's the story from Yahoo! News:

More than 20,000 people along Florida's Gulf Coast were ordered to clear out Monday as Alberto — the first tropical storm of the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season — unexpectedly picked up steam and threatened to come ashore as a hurricane.

Forecasters posted a hurricane warning for the Gulf Coast and a tropical storm warning from north of Daytona Beach to the Georgia-South Carolina line. Alberto, which could begin battering the Gulf coast early Tuesday, was expected to cross through Florida and into Georgia. [..]

If Alberto came ashore as a hurricane, it would be the earliest hurricane in 40 years to hit the United States, according to the National Hurricane Center. The earliest on record is Alma, which in 1966 struck the Florida Panhandle on June 9 — the ninth day of the hurricane season. [Emphasis added]

Alberto started as a tropical depression on Saturday, and forecasters over the weekend were confident it would not become a hurricane. But the storm's winds accelerated with startling speed from 50 mph to 70 mph in just three hours Monday morning. The minimum for a hurricane is 74 mph. [Emphasis added] [...]

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Americans Still Hate Bush Despite Zarqawi's Death

2006-06-13T00:55:00.000-05:00

CBS News

Despite the press conferences on gay marriage and Zarqawi's death, Americans agree that Bush is doing a terrible job on Iraq, terrorism, and "domestic issues" (read: the entire United States).

The death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has done little to improve views of how things are going for the U.S. in Iraq or boost President Bush's approval ratings, a CBS News poll finds. [...]

Zarqawi's killing hasn't helped President Bush with the public, either. His overall job approval rating remains just 33 percent — down slightly from 35 percent last month — while 60 percent disapprove. [...]

Mr. Bush's approval rating for handling the war in Iraq is unchanged at 33 percent, while approval for his handling of terrorism remains just below 50 percent.

The president also gets mostly poor marks on domestic issues, with just one in three Americans saying they approve of how he's handling both immigration and the economy.

Conservatives (Again) Slashing Funding for PBS and NPR

2006-06-13T00:47:00.000-05:00

Boston Globe

Read this article. Then go to moveon.org and sign the petition.

House Republicans yesterday revived their efforts to slash funding for public broadcasting, as a key committee approved a $115 million reduction in the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that could force the elimination of some popular PBS and NPR programs.

On a party-line vote, the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees health and education funding approved the cut to the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes money to the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio. It would reduce the corporation's budget by 23 percent next year, to $380 million, in a cut that Republicans said was necessary to rein in government spending.

The reduction, which would come in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, must be approved by the full Appropriations Committee, and then the full House and Senate, before it could take effect. Democrats and public broadcasting advocates began planning efforts to reverse the cut.

A similar move last year by Republican leaders was turned back in a fierce lobbying campaign launched by Public Broadcasting Service stations and Democratic members of Congress, in a debate that was colored by some Republicans' frustration with what they see as a liberal slant in public programming.

Still, Republicans say they remain adamant that public broadcasting cannot receive funding at the expense of healthcare and education programs.

Republicans are looking for ways to save taxpayers' dollars, amid fiscal conservatives' concerns over the budget deficit.

``We've got to keep our priorities straight," said Representative Ralph Regula , an Ohio Republican who is chairman of the appropriations panel that approved the cut. `` You're going to choose between giving a little more money to handicapped children versus providing appropriations for public broadcasting."

Democrats accused Republicans of trying to gut a bastion of children-oriented television to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy that have been backed by the Bush White House.

``Dick Cheney and the Republicans have decided to go hunting for `Big Bird' and `Clifford the Big Red Dog' once again," said Representative Edward J. Markey , a Malden Democrat who led the successful effort to reverse the cuts last year. ``PBS is right at the top of their hit list -- always has been and always will be, until they can destroy it."

Most of the savings would come by eliminating subsidies for educational programs and grants for a number of technological upgrades.

Jan McNamara , a PBS spokeswoman, said the digital upgrade would have to be funded with money that is now being used for other programs, forcing almost all areas of public broadcasting to feel a pinch.

Paula Kerger , PBS's president and chief executive, said in a statement that the cuts would force the network to ``drastically reduce the programming and services public television and public radio can provide to local communities."

he literacy television program ``Ready to Learn" would be eliminated, she said, as would the online teachers' resource ``Ready to Teach."

The cuts could force smaller public-radio stations in rural areas -- which rely almost exclusively on federal money for operations -- to close altogether, said Kevin Klose , NPR's president. ``The impact of today's decision could resonate in every community in America," Klose said.

John Lawson , president of the Association of Public Television Stations, said Republican leaders are contradicting their own goal statements by seeking to cut funding for public broadcasting on the day the House voted to increase fines for indecent television content. ``These cuts are targeted to inflict maximum damage," Lawson said. ``I guess we'll have to start ringing phones on [Capitol] Hill again."

The cuts are included in a $142 billion spending bill covering domestic social programs in health, education, and labor. Even with the cuts to public broadcasting, the bill would spend $1 billion more in total than is being spent this year on those programs, and $4 billion more than President Bush had requested for those areas of spending. Student loans and research grants to local hospitals are among the areas that would see funding boosts.

The same appropriations subcommittee called last year for an even more drastic cut of $223 million from public broadcasting programs. At the time, Republicans attacked the PBS for programming they said represented out-of-the-mainstream viewpoints, highlighting in particular a ``Postcards From Buster" episode that featured lesbian couples and their children in Vermont.

But, in a defeat for House leaders, 87 Republicans joined unanimous Democrats in bucking an attempt to cut funding from the stations.

Markey expressed confidence that supporters of public broadcasting would have more than enough votes to stop a cut again this year. Their arguments will carry particular force in an election year in which moderate Republicans fear being portrayed as callous to the demands of their constituents, he said.

Regula also seemed resigned to seeing that sequence of events repeat itself, though he maintained that he was right ``on principle."

``They've got a bigger megaphone than I do," he said. ``They'll trot out Elmo and Mickey Mouse and Lord knows who else, and I'll be out there kind of by myself."

Man Uses Fake ID to Enter Homeland Security Headquarters

2006-06-12T23:51:00.000-05:00

CNN

If Bush and Co. were spending more resources on increasing security in the U.S. instead of fighting ill-conceived crusades abroad, then maybe this sort of thing wouldn't be possible.

A man using a fake identification card was able to enter the Homeland Security Department headquarters in Washington, he said, even though the United States government considers the type of Mexican-issued card he used invalid.

Retired New York City policeman Bruce DeCell, who had arranged to meet with DHS officials last week to lobby for document security, told CNN he purposely used a forged version of identification that Mexican consulates in the United States issue to their nationals living here illegally.

Undocumented Mexicans can use the cards at banks and other institutions that accept them. The cards are not valid for entry into federal government buildings. [...]

U.S. Taxpayers Funding Mercenaries for Iraq War

2006-06-12T23:22:00.000-05:00

CNN

Listen up, friends. This is how the "free market" works: first, politicians with ties to corporate America create and pass legislation that channels billions of dollars into the military; second, the general population pays taxes, of which around upwards of one-half goes to the Pentagon system; third, the military system gives no-bid contracts to corporate America and cronies; finally, corporate America and cronies reap enormous profits. This has been the usual state of affairs since at least the Korean War. But now corporate America is not only making computers, electronics, airplanes, and weapons for the Pentagon, but also sending its workers to fight in combat! Of course, these deaths "don't count" in the official tally of American military personnel. How much do you want to bet we'll never see a Bush-sponsored mounment with these people's names and faces?

Business is booming for those willing to tackle one of the most dangerous jobs on Earth. Lucrative U.S. government contracts go to firms called on to provide security for projects and personnel -- jobs that in previous conflicts have been done by the military.

A single contract awarded to Britain's AEGIS Specialist Risk Management company by the Pentagon was worth $293 million, and while the government says it cannot provide a total amount for the contracts -- many of which are secret -- industry experts estimate Iraq's security business costs tens of billions of dollars.

These contractors have not been without controversy. Late last year, AEGIS launched an investigation into whether its employees produced video clips that showed up on the Internet in which it appeared civilian vehicles were being shot at. AEGIS has not released the results of its investigation, but a U.S. Army investigation found no probable cause that a crime occurred.

The market for private contractors is there thanks to an unprecedented "outsourcing" of conflict, according to Amy Clark, who led the Baghdad end of a small private security contractor.

"Where you've got a military where the assets and the personnel are strained, then private contractors have had to step in and fill the void," she told CNN, agreeing to be interviewed if her company's name was not revealed.

But where there is money, there is also danger. No official totals exist of how many private contractors have been killed in Iraq. But Clark believes the death rate among the 25,000 or so contractors is higher than among U.S. military forces. [...]

The danger does not bring glamour. Clark's outfit shepherds convoys along supply lines strewn with roadside bombs targeting U.S. and Iraqi forces and those who support them. Missions have included guarding trucks carrying gravel for military bases.

"Military doesn't even like to go where we are going, and most of the companies that do this don't want to go where we are going ... and that's why we're going," explained one of Clark's men, nicknamed "Mr. GQ."

His colleague, Gonzo, gives a graphic description of what their team faces: "If we get ambushed and cut off, then yes, we are going to fight back and push through. That's what we get paid to do -- protect the clients, protect the asset -- that's our job.

"It sounds crude, but basically our job is to be a bullet sponge."

There is debate about how far these private contractors should go, what authority they have and who should police them, and no hard and fast answers. In the meantime, the contractors continue to face danger.

On one day recently, two roadside bombs went off simultaneously near one of Clark's security trucks, and the convoy was then attacked with heavy small-arms fire from nearby rooftops.

"The blood in the back seat of the truck, all the bone fragments and flesh pretty much told the tale -- they got hit pretty bad," Gonzo said.

That same night, three roadside bombs were detonated beside the same convoy. Two of Clark's men were killed and five wounded.

Thousands of Progressives in Washington for "Take Back America" Conference

2006-06-12T23:10:00.000-05:00

Yahoo! News

Although I disagree with minority leader Reid on a couple of issues (e.g., his vague views on abortion and support for Harriet Miers), it's good to see that he's supporting the "Take Back America" conference. The Democratic Party needs to realize that being liberal is a good thing: it means helping the poor and weak, embracing community over consumerism, promoting religious tolerance, ensuring a safe environment, and so on.

The Campaign for America's Future today released details for the opening day of the organization's "Take Back America" conference. More than 2 thousand progressive leaders and activists will gather at the Washington Hilton on Monday for the first day of the annual event.

Campaign for America's Future co-director Robert Borosage and Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg will hold a morning news conference to release an election-year message guide and brief reporters about highlights of the gathering. Progressive leaders will also kick-off events to outline a bold "Agenda for the Common Good" during the conference's opening luncheon.

Actor and environmentalist Robert Redford, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), former Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colo.), Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Rep. Barbara Lee [...] (D-Calif.), Rep. Bennie Thompson [...] (D-Miss.), AFL-CIO president John Sweeney and many others will join Campaign for America's Future co-director Roger Hickey to begin outlining bold initiatives that make up a progressive agenda that promotes the "common good." [...]

Alleged Canadian Terrorists Bought Guns in the U.S.

2006-06-12T23:05:00.000-05:00

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Thanks, conservative America! Due to your continued opposition to gun control, terrorists from other countries are now able to supply themselves with guns.

Three handguns bought somewhere in Columbus might have helped authorities stop a terrorist plot to bomb Toronto's financial district and behead the prime minister of Canada. Border guards in August caught two Muslim men trying to cross the Peace Bridge from Buffalo, N.Y., with the guns - two loaded .38s and a 9 mm - duct-taped to their bodies.

Officials at first thought they had cracked a routine gun-running scheme: smugglers buying cheap weapons in the United States to sell on the black market in Canada.

But when they discovered who had rented the white Buick the smugglers were driving - a radical young Muslim from suburban Toronto - they suspected something more sinister, Toronto's Globe and Mail reported.

Nine months later, the Canadian investigation had grown into a worldwide terror probe called Project OSage.

It culminated last week with charges against 17 men and boys, the largest terrorism sweep ever in Canada.

Among those indicted were the two men caught with the Ohio guns - Mohammed Dirie, 22, and Yasin Abdi Mohamed, 24 - and Fahim Ahmad, 21, the man who rented the Buick. [...]

EPA Secretively and Radically Changes Pollution Rules

2006-06-12T22:23:00.000-05:00

The Raw Story

As this article reveals, the Environmental "Protection" Agency is a sham. Their latest crime spree involves getting rid of a widely-used database that tracks and identifies toxic chemicals. As well, they are changing pollution rules so that every other year corporations can release any toxic chemical they want without telling the general population, let alone the EPA, what they're doing. On those off-years in which corporation do have to report their toxic emissions, they only have to do so if they spew out more than two and a half tons of shit into the envrionment. Now why, might any sane person ask, is the EPA making these changes? To "save paper." Seriously.

During the cleanup after Hurricane Katrina, local officials and the Environmental Protection Agency depended on one source to find hotspots of toxic chemicals: a database known as the Toxic Release Inventory.

"This was the only information they had to identify toxic chemicals of any kind in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina," says Clayton Northouse, an information policy analyst at OMB Watch, a nonprofit government accountability group.

Until a few weeks ago, the inventory was to be slashed to comply with the Federal Paperwork Reduction Act. The EPA said they were gutting the 20-year-old database to save paper. What they didn't say was that the decision would dramatically reduce pressure on polluters.

Under the plan, companies would report biannually instead of annually and would only have to report toxic releases of more than 5,000 pounds. Currently, the EPA requires reporting of any releases greater than 500 pounds.

"During the off year, they could release any toxic chemical without having to report it," Northouse said. "There's already an 18-month delay."

Environmental watchdogs say the inventory is critical to public health.

"The TRI is one of the premiere pollution-prevention tools in the United States," says Kristan Markey, a research analyst for Environmental Working Group. "Businesses don't like TRI because it says who is polluting in local communities."

The EPA, he added, decided to change the database "out of the blue" in 2005.

But on May 22, eight months after EPA proposed the cutbacks, the House of Representatives voted for an amendment that would save the Inventory. 92 percent of the nays came from Republicans. It's unclear whether the amendment will pass the Senate or be signed into law by President Bush. [...]

Germany Denies Rummy's Request for Iraq Help

2006-06-12T22:14:00.000-05:00

Der Spiegel

It's always refreshing to find out that entire other industrialized countries think that attacking and occupying Iraq has been a massive failure. Even if the German government wanted to help out ol' Rummy, they couldn't because the German people have hated the Iraq since the beginning. Perhaps they learned something we didn't from WWII?

The United States remains interested in a greater German involvement in Iraq according to a newspaper report on Friday. According to the Berlin daily Berliner Zeitung, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has asked his German counterpart Franz Josef Jung for help in training the Iraqi military in Baghdad. Germany's policy of only providing training assistance outside the borders of Iraq, however, will continue, Jung said at a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels on Thursday. "We're contributing our part to the stabilization of Iraq," Jung said while also emphasizing that German assistance outside Iraq would continue.

Germany has participated in training Iraqi officers in both Hamburg and in the United Arab Emirates as part of a NATO mission begun in 2004 aimed at stabilizing the situation in Iraq. Some 1,000 Iraqi officers have been trained in Baghdad since then with a further 500 travelling to Europe for training. But Germany has consistently refused to become involved directly in Iraq -- a policy that has not changed since Chancellor Angela Merkel's election in the autumn of 2005. Nevertheless, Merkel's term in office has corresponded with a thawing of trans-Atlantic relations which had become frosty under Merkel's predecessor Gerhard Schröder.

Despite the change of tone, however, a direct German involvement in Iraq would likely be extremely controversial. Schröder's outright refusal to get involved in Iraq, first voiced categorically during his 2002 campaign for the chancellery, was extraordinarily popular in Germany and led to his re-election that year. Four years later, the US presence in Iraq remains deeply unpopular in Germany.

The German military only recently pledged almost 800 troops to participate in a peace-keeping operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo during elections there at the end of July. German troops are likewise stationed in Afghanistan, Kosovo and off the Horn of Africa.

NSA Blocking Whistleblower From Revealing Shocking, Illegal Activities

2006-06-12T22:06:00.000-05:00

Think Progress

Russell Tice last month told said that he has new information on the Bush Administration's illegal surveillance of innocent Americans. He was scheduled to tell the Senate Armed Services Committee this incredible new information. “I think [they are] going to be shocked when I tell them what I have to tell them. It's pretty hard to believe,” Tice said. “It's an angle that you haven’t heard about yet." Tice added that his information is different from that relating to the Terrorist Surveillance Program and the NSA's database of millions of Americans' phone calls. Fast forward one month later, and what has happened? Think Progress summarizes:

Since that time, little has been reported of Tice’s meeting. Congress Daily (sub. req'd) follows-up today, “Tice met last month in a closed session with senior staff from the Senate Armed Services Committee. Tice said he told the staffers everything he knew. But he said the aides did not say how, or if, they would follow up on his allegations.” CongressDaily also reports that House Government Reform National Security Subcommittee, through its Chairman Christopher Shays (R-CT) and ranking member Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), is seeking to interview Tice, but the NSA is resisting.

And here are the additional details from Congress Daily:

Tice said his information is different from the terrorist surveillance program that President Bush acknowledged in December and from news accounts last month that the NSA has been secretly collecting phone call records of millions of Americans. Because he worked on special access programs, however, it has not been clear on Capitol Hill which committees have jurisdiction to debrief him. Shays and Kucinich gave the NSA until Friday to explain any legal reason why they cannot interview him. But that deadline passed without a response, and a subcommittee aide today called the missed deadline troubling. [Emphasis added]

Shays and Kucinich had originally asked the NSA to give them a reason by May 26, but the agency asked for an extension until June 9. NSA spokesman Don Weber said today that the agency “is performing due diligence in developing a response to the committee’s request,” but added that Tice has not notified the agency of the alleged illegal activity. Tice said he does not believe he needs to notify the agency of his allegations.
[Emphasis added]

Why is the NSA stalling? What else does it have to hide? Let's hope the general population will hear the details of Tice's testimony.

NYT Columnist: Kerry "Almost Certainly" Won Ohio in 2004

2006-06-12T14:27:00.000-05:00

The Raw Story

Finally, the mainstream media are paying attention to the wealth of evidence showing the major voting irregularities in Ohio. Here are excerpts from Bob Herbert's New York Times column:

Republicans, and even a surprising number of Democrats, have beenanxious to leave the 2004 Ohio election debacle behind. But [Robert] Kennedy, inhis long, heavily footnoted article ("Was the 2004 Election Stolen?"),leaves no doubt that the democratic process was trampled and left fordead in the Buckeye State. Kerry almost certainly would have won Ohioif all of his votes had been counted, and if all of the eligible voterswho tried to vote for him had been allowed to cast their ballots. [emphasis added] [...]

No one has been able to prove that the election in Ohio washijacked. But whenever it is closely scrutinized, the range of problemsand dirty tricks that come to light is shocking. What's not shocking,of course, is that every glitch and every foul-up in Ohio, everyarbitrary new rule and regulation, somehow favored Bush. [...]

Walter Mebane Jr., a professor of government at Cornell University,did a statistical analysis of the vote in Franklin County, whichincludes the city of Columbus. He told Kennedy, "The allocation ofvoting machines in Franklin County was clearly biased against voters inprecincts with high proportions of African-Americans."

Mebane told me that he compared the distribution of voting machinesin Ohio's 2004 presidential election with the distribution of machinesfor a primary election held the previous spring. For the primary, hesaid, "There was no sign of racial bias in the distribution of themachines." But for the general election in November, "there wassubstantial bias, with fewer voting machines per voter in areas thatwere heavily African-American."

Technorati Tags Sociologist,Kerry,2004,voter,fraud,stolen,election.,The

The Most Powerful Man in America: A 26-year-old College Dropout Named "Blake"

2006-06-11T21:05:00.000-05:00

Time Magazine

"The Membrane"

Just read the following and I think you'll begin to understand why everything has been going so terribly wrong in the past five years...

Blake Gottesman, a 26-year-old Texan who met the President when he was dating Bush's daughter Jenna in high school, has the title of personal aide to the President. It's a job that traditionally meant being "body guy" to the chief, the young aide who carries the souvenirs and dispenses the Purell. But Bush is uniquely sensitive about his personal ecology, and Gottesman has blossomed into a systems analyst, gatekeeper and diplomat who serves as the membrane between the President and the rest of the staff.

Let's keep this straight:

1. "rest of staff" = Secretary of State, Attorney General, Vice President, Secretary of Homeland Security, and all the people who actually run the country

2. "the membrane" = a 26-year-old college dropout named "Blake"

Hmmm... Imagine for a moment that I'm the Secretary of Homeland Security and a hurricane just hit New Orleans. Naturally, I need to speak with the president so I can deal with the unfolding disaster. So I pick up the phone, call the White House, and there on the other end is a 26-year-old college dropout named "Blake." Perhaps he was also was the head "diplomat" for the negotiations with Saddam before we attacked Iraq?

Gottesman, famous for remembering the names of volunteers, floats above all the political, military and advance-office silos and orchestrates each group's interaction with the President, incorporating preferences and efficiencies learned from other days and other cities. On the road he'll crack a joke if Bush is getting tense.

"If the aide looks nervous, the President will think there's something to be nervous about," Gottesman, who is intensely private even for a Bushie, tells TIME in a rare interview. "So you look calm even when everything is going wrong."

White House Counselor to the President Dan Bartlett calls Gottesman "a walking mood ring," the unquestioned authority on whom the President wants in his limo, what member of Congress he may accept in his office on Air Force One and whether it is wise for a top aide to bring up a particular topic at a particular time. "Blake is so humble and professional that advisers much older than he rely on his advice instead of resenting him," says Reed Dickens, 28, who has filled in for Gottesman.

The President occasionally calls Gottesman "Soldier," needling him for the earpiece he wears to stay in contact with other staff members during presidential events. Lately Bush has been calling him "Harvard" because this fall he will follow in the President's footsteps and enroll in Harvard Business School. Senior adviser Karl Rove describes him as "brilliant," but Gottesman had a notable hurdle: he went to work for the presidential campaign when he was 19, so he didn't finish his undergraduate degree. He found a 1991 Boston Globe article, "Harvard Business School on a High School Diploma," that described cases of successful graduates who had been admitted without finishing college, and he won over admissions officials by outlining the earlier cases in an essay. "I researched not just the precedent but whether I'd be able to hack it and contribute to the classes," Gottesman says. "I talked to a bunch of alumni and current students and decided it was worth a shot." Gottesman scored in one of the top percentiles on his Graduate Management Admission Test. He also got into Stanford's business school. [...]

Intercepted Fax Proves Existence of Top-Secret Prisons

2006-06-11T20:52:00.000-05:00

Sunday Herald

The following article reveals new details on the secret fax proving the U.S. has a network of secret prisons in Europe. This is an outrageous violation of international law, and is yet another stain on the Bush Crime Family's human rights record. The blame is not entirely with the U.S., however, given that fourteen European countries colluded with the CIA.

The intercepted top-secret fax contained information that America never wanted the world to know – that the US was holding war-on-terror captives at clandestine “black site” prisons in eastern Europe.The fax, datelined November 10, 2005, 8.24pm, was sent by the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, in Cairo, to his ambassador in London. It revealed that the US had detained at least 23 Iraqi and Afghani captives at a military base called Mihail Kogalniceanu in Romania, and added that similar secret prisons were also to be found in Poland, Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria.

The discovery of the fax seriously undermines the US’s denial that it has ever used secret detention facilities, breaching international law. It also adds to the pressure for the release of information on “extraordinary renditions”. These rendition flights see kidnapped terror suspects taken by the CIA to countries where torture is common, such as Uzbekistan. British intelligence has supported this practice and UK airports, particulary Prestwick, have given CIA jets logistical support.

The Council of Europe last week published the results of its long-running investigation into rendition and found that 14 European countries, including Britain, had colluded with the CIA. It also suggested that secret prisons were operating in eastern Europe, but did not have conclusive proof.

The fax, intercepted by Swiss intelligence, indicates that Egypt has such proof. It is headed: “The Egyptians have access to sources which confirm the existence of American secret prisons”.

Its shocking contents would never have been uncovered if it hadn’t been for a conscientious surveillance officer with the Swiss secret service, stationed at an eavesdropping centre in Zimmerwald, south of Berne. On November 16, six days after the fax was first sent via satellite from Cairo to London, the officer intercepted it using the Onyx eavesdropping system. The officer marked their personal coded identifier, “wbm”, on the page and put the information down in a COMINT SAT report. [...]

Additional Evidence of Ann Coulter's Insanity

2006-06-11T11:26:00.000-05:00

Media Matters

This is just crazy. Why does publicly fighting the Bushie's refusal to investigate 9-11 automatically mean you're a money-grubbing whore bent on achieving celebrity status? (Methinks Ms. Coulter is projecting herself on the 9-11 widows.)

On the June 8 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, right-wing pundit Ann Coulter defended her attack on the widows of the victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by stating, when pressed by co-host Alan Colmes, that it is not "as obvious to me as it apparently is to you," that, if given the opportunity, the 9-11 widows "would not give up every piece of celebrity and notoriety they have to have their husbands back," as Colmes put it.

Coulter and Colmes were discussing Coulter's new book,"Godless: The Church of Liberalism" (Crown Forum, June 2006), in which she wrote of the 9-11 widows: "These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much." During the segment, Colmes asked Coulter: "Do you think, for one second, these women would not give up every piece of celebrity and notoriety they have to have their husbands back?" Coulter responded, "Oh, I don't know. At this point, to give up $2 million ... to have to go back to cooking meals and not ... appearing in Vanity Fair. They're clearly enjoying their celebrity status."

Democratic strategist Laura Schwartz, who was also a guest on the show, interjected: "Oh, my God, what are you saying, Ann?" Colmes then again asked: "I want to be clear on this. They would not give this up to get their husbands back?" Coulter replied, "I don't know. I can't read into their hearts. But it isn't as obvious to me as it apparently is to you." [...]

Was Zarqawi Beaten to Death by U.S. Soldiers?

2006-06-11T11:13:00.000-05:00

CBS News

If this Iraqi man is correct, then the U.S. has more explaining to do. Certainly, we'd all agree that it's great to have a murderous religious zealot like Zarqawi dead, but due to the lack of disciplinary control (a recurring theme, perhaps, in the Iraq war?) we lost the opportunity to squeeze additional intelligence information from him.

An Iraqi man who was one of the first people on the scene of the U.S. airstrike targeting Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said he saw American troops beating a man who had a beard like the al Qaeda leader.

The witness, who lives near the house where al-Zarqawi spent his last days, said he saw the man lying on the ground near an irrigation canal. He was badly wounded but still alive, the man told Associated Press Television News.

U.S. troops arriving on the scene wrapped the man's head in an Arab robe and began beating him, said the local man, who refused to give his name or show his face to the camera. His account could not be independently verified.

The U.S. military made no mention of any physical contact between U.S. troops and al-Zarqawi other than an attempt to provide him with medical attention. [...]

U.S. Admiral: Suicides an Act of War

2006-06-11T10:54:00.000-05:00

CNN

Clever Orwellian logic by the good Admiral. Who would've thought that a triple suicide was really an "unorthodox" act of war attacking "the weak points" of the U.S.? Of course, the Admiral fails to mention that the weak point in question is the Bush Administration's inhumane and illegal treatment of prisoners, made grossly apparent by these recent deaths.

[...] "This was clearly a planned event, not a spontaneous event," said Rear Adm. Harry Harris, commander of Joint Task Force-Guantanamo.

He described the men, whose names were not released, as committed jihadists captured on the battlefield. "I believe this was not an act of desperation, rather an act of asymmetric warfare waged against us," Harris said.

"Asymmetrical warfare" is defined as "a conflict in which a much weaker opponent uses unorthodox or surprise tactics to attack the weak points of the much stronger opponent."

Harris added that there is a "mythical belief" that the Guantanamo detention center would be shut down if three detainees die. [...]

Saudi Lawyer: Bushies Responsible for Gitmo Deaths

2006-06-11T10:39:00.000-05:00

Washington Post

The lawyer for the Saudi nationals is right on target: there's little doubt that the Bush Administration's utter disregard for human life resulted in this triple suicide at the Gitmo gulag.

A lawyer for Saudi nationals imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay said on Sunday he held U.S. authorities responsible for the deaths of two Saudi prisoners who hanged themselves at the U.S. naval base.

Saudi Arabia, a staunch U.S. ally, said it was stepping up efforts to repatriate all nationals held at the base in Cuba.

An Interior Ministry statement identified the two Saudis as Manei al-Otaibi and Yasser al-Zahrani but gave no further details about them. A Yemeni man also committed suicide.

"We are doing all we can to bring the bodies of the two victims home," a Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman told Reuters, but declined to say if Riyadh would ask for an investigation into the deaths.

The three men, who hanged themselves with clothes and bedsheets, were the first prisoners to die at the base in Cuba since the United States began holding "terrorism" suspects there in 2002.

Notice that the word "terrorism" is in quotes, to indicate the Washington Post's reluctance to take in the Bush Administration's party line rationale for indefinitely detaining people in the gulag. Way to go Post!

"Our priority now is to repatriate the bodies of the victims and to step up our efforts to bring back all Saudis detained there," the Interior Ministry spokesman said.

"Each Saudi has to be brought home where he can face up to charges he is accused of based on our laws and regulations."

He said there were up to 103 Saudis detained at the naval base, which holds about 460 foreigners captured mainly in Afghanistan where the United States has fought the Taliban and al Qaeda. [...]

"The detainees' death reveals the mistreatment at Guantanamo and the extent human rights are breached," said Katib al-Shimary, lawyer for Saudi detainees at Guantanamo. "Their suicide, that is if they did commit suicide, is a response to the oppression and injustice they lived in."

"I hold the U.S. authorities responsible for their deaths," Shimary told Saudi-owned satellite television Al Arabiya.

The lawyer said U.S. authorities did not allow him or any other foreign lawyers to meet detainees, adding that he had not been informed of the death of the two Saudis. [...]

The three detainees had taken part previously in extended hunger strikes and been force-fed. They all left suicide notes but no details were made public.

Notice there were suicide notes left at Gitmo. How much you wanna bet the military's propaganda (read: public relations) experts won't allow these to be released any time soon?

U.S. Conservatives Move Us Closer to a Two-tier Internet

2006-06-11T00:42:00.000-05:00

BBC

This is bad news: conservatives in the House of Representatives have rejected a "net neutrality" amendment that would have prevented the creation of a "two tier" Internet, one for the rich and the other for the general population. Sweet jesus, I hope this amendment gets passed in the Senate.

Some fear the decision will mean net providers start deciding on behalf of customers which websites and services they can visit and use.

The vote is a defeat for Google, eBay and Amazon which wanted the net neutrality principle protected by law.

All three mounted vigorous lobbying campaigns prior to the vote in the House of Representatives. [...]

The rejection of the principle of net neutrality came during a debate on the wide-ranging Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act (Cope Act).

Among other things, this aims to make it easier for telecoms firms to offer video services around America by replacing 30,000 local franchise boards with a national system overseen by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Representative Fred Upton, head of the House telecommunications subcommittee, said competition could mean people save $30 to $40 each month on their net access fees. [emphasis added]

As an aside, notice the Republicans' propagandistic mantra of "competition, competition, ueber alles!" Sure, competition can produce innovation, but it can also lead to increased individual stress and insecurity, more emphasis on product quantity over quality, and greater focus on public relations rather than actual production. In reality, conservative buzzwords such as "competition" are usually just code words for greater corporate power (aided and abbetted by massive subsidies via the Pentagon system, regulatory loopholes, and highly regressive tax breaks).

An amendment to the Act tried to add clauses that would demand net service firms treat equally all the data passing through their cables.

The amendment was thought to be needed after the FCC ripped up its rules that guaranteed net neutrality.

During the debate House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, said that without the amendment "telecommunications and cable companies will be able to create toll lanes on the information superhighway".

"This strikes at the heart of the free and equal nature of the internet," she added. [...]

The ending of net neutrality rules also spurred the creation of activism sites such as Save The Internet and Its Our Net.

Speaking at a conference in late May, web creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee warned that the net faced entering a "dark period" if access suppliers were allowed to choose which traffic to prioritise.

The amendment was defeated by 269 votes to 152 and the Cope Act was passed by 321-101 votes.

The debate over the issue now moves to the US Senate where the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will vote on its version of the act in late June. The debate in that chamber is also likely to centre on issues of net neutrality.

E-mail Reveals Bush Used "Heckuva Job" Brownie as Whipping Boy

2006-06-11T00:23:00.000-05:00

A White House e-mail clearly reveals that Bush and Co. were glad that Mike Brown was the scapegoat for the Katrina disaster (even though the whole administration, including Bush himself, were directly responsible for the avoidable disaster). Yet most striking is the e-mail's addendum: "Congratulations on doing a great job of diverting hostile fire away from the leader." To what extent did the White House actively and purposively try to pin the blame on Mike Brown?

The former emergency management chief who quit amid widespread criticism over his handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina said he received an e-mail before his resignation stating President Bush was glad to see the Oval Office had dodged most of the criticism.

Michael Brown, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Friday that he received the e-mail five days before his resignation from a high-level White House official whom he declined to identify.

The e-mail stated that Bush was relieved that Brown -- and not Bush or Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff -- was bearing the brunt of the flak over the government's handling of Katrina.

The September 2005 e-mail reads: "I did hear of one reference to you, at the Cabinet meeting yesterday. I wasn't there, but I heard someone commented that the press was sure beating up on Mike Brown, to which the president replied, 'I'd rather they beat up on him than me or Chertoff.' "

The sender adds, "Congratulations on doing a great job of diverting hostile fire away from the leader." [emphasis added]

CNN has been unable to verify the authenticity of the e-mail, but the White House designation "eop.gov" is part of the sender's e-mail address, indicating it came from the Executive Office of the President. [...]

Iraq War Opponent Eyes Democratic Leadership

2006-06-11T00:12:00.000-05:00

Although I disagree with Murtha on some issues (he's stridently against abortion and gun control), I like his support of labor and his opposition to the current Iraq debacle. Let's hope his run will energize the feckless Democrats.

Rep. John Murtha, an outspoken opponent of the war in Iraq, unexpectedly announced on Friday he will run for the No. 2 leadership post in the U.S. House of Representatives if Democrats regain control of that chamber in elections this fall.

"If we prevail as I hope and know we will and return to the majority this next Congress, I have decided to run for the open seat of the majority leader," Murtha, a Pennsylvanian, said in a letter sent to House Democrats.

"I would appreciate your consideration and vote and look forward to speaking to you personally about my decision," Murtha said in the letter. [...]

Bush Could Have Gotten Zarqawi Years Ago

2006-06-11T00:02:00.000-05:00

Salon

This is hardly surprising given the incompetence of the Bush Administration, but let's see if the "liberal" mainstream media pick this story up.

Iraqi and U.S. officials announced this morning that... Zarqawi has been killed in an air strike northwest of Baghdad. At the White House, George W. Bush declared the news "a victory in the global war on terror."

Assuming that Zarqawi is really dead -- and we could wallpaper a small house with news reports of major al-Qaida leaders who turned out not to be -- the U.S. special forces who pulled off the attack deserve whatever praise they're going to get. But at the risk of raining on anyone's parade, it's fair to make one observation here:

The Bush administration didn't need to go to war to take out Zarqawi.

In fact, there's evidence that the war actually helped keep Zarqawi alive longer -- and certainly presented him with more easily accessible targets -- than would have been the case if the United States had not invaded Iraq. As NBC News reported back in 2004, U.S. military planners drew up plans to take out Zarqawi three times in 2002 and 2003, but the Bush administration killed the plans each time. Why? Because, military officials told NBC, the Bush administration feared that destroying Zarqawi's terrorist camp in Iraq "could undercut its case for war against Saddam." [...]

Hans Blix: What About the Other 27,000 Nukes?

2006-06-10T23:51:00.000-05:00

Information Clearing House

Hans Blix, the weapons inspector who the U.S. should have listened to in the first place, reminds us that while Iran may be years or even a decade away from having a nuke, the U.S., Russia, and many other countries have tens of thousands of nukes that are seconds away from causing worldwide destruction.

During the Cold War, it proved possible to reach many significant agreements on disarmament. Why does it seem so impossible now, when the great powers no longer feel threatened by one another?

Almost all the talk these days is about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to states like Iran and North Korea, or to terrorists. Foreign ministers meet again and again, concerned that Iran has enriched a few milligrams of uranium to a 4 percent level.

Some want to start waving the stick immediately. They are convinced that Iran will eventually violate its commitment under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to forego nuclear weapons.

While it's desirable that the foreign ministers talk about Iran, they don't seem to devote any thought to the fact that there are still some 27,000 real nuclear weapons in the United States, Russia and other states, and that many of these are on hair-trigger alert.

Nor do the ministers seem to realize that the determination they express to reduce the nuclear threat is diminished by their failure to take seriously their commitment, made within the framework of the NPT, to move toward the reduction and elimination of their own nuclear arsenals.

The stagnation in global disarmament is only part of the picture. In the United States, military authorities want new types of nuclear weapons; in Britain, the government is considering the replacement, at tremendous cost, of one generation of nuclear weapons by another - as defense against whom?

Last year a UN summit of heads of states and governments failed to adopt a single recommendation on how to attain further disarmament or prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. For nearly a decade, work at the disarmament conference in Geneva has stood still. It is time for a revival.

One can well understand that policymakers in the United States, as elsewhere, feel disappointment and concern that the global instruments against nuclear proliferation - the NPT and international inspection - have proved to be insufficient to stop Iraq, North Korea, Libya and possibly Iran on their way to nuclear weapons.

This may help explain their inclination to use the enormous military potential of the U.S. as either a threat or a direct means of preventing proliferation.

However, after three years of a costly and criticized war in Iraq to destroy weapons that did not exist, doubts are beginning to arise about the military method, and a greater readiness may emerge to try global cooperation once again to reduce and eventually eliminate weapons of mass destruction.

A report with 60 concrete recommendations to the states of the world on what they could do to free themselves from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, worked out by an independent international commission of which I was the chairman, is now available at www.wmdcommission.org.

Apart from proposals for measures to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction to more states and terrorists, the report points to two measures that could turn current concerns about renewed arms races into new hopes for common security. In both cases, success would depend on the United States.

A U.S. ratification of the comprehensive test-ban treaty would, in all likelihood, lead other states to ratify and bring all such tests to an end, making the development of nuclear weapons more difficult. Leaving the treaty in limbo, as has been done since 1996, is to risk new weapons testing.

The second measure would be to conclude an internationally verified agreement to cut off the production of highly enriched uranium and plutonium for weapons purposes.

This would close the tap everywhere for more weapons material and would be of special importance if an agreement on nuclear cooperation with the United States were to give India access to more uranium than it has at the moment.

It is positive that the U.S. has recently presented a draft cutoff agreement, but hard to understand why this agreement does not include international inspection. Do the drafters think that the recent record of national intelligence indicates that international verification is superfluous?

Bilderberg Group Detains Journalist Alex Jones

2006-06-10T23:35:00.000-05:00

InfoWars

Alex Jones is a journalist and radio host (not to be confused with the Harvard journalist with the same moniker) who has been openly critical of the official story of 9/11. If even half of what is written in this article is true, then this is an outrageous violation of basic human rights. The most interesting question, however, is why is the Bilderberg Group so afraid of this man?

Alex Jones and his team were detained by Canadian immigration on orders of the Bilderberg Group for a 15 hour nightmare of interrogation, accusations and threats of arrests in anticipation of the conference in Ottawa which starts today.

The group was detained at 11:45pm last night and only released after 2pm today.

Customs openly told Alex as soon as they brought him into custody that the Bilderberg Group was aware of his arrival and that this was the reason for his detainment. All three members of the team were instantly detained despite going through different immigration desks. [...]

[...] "I was screamed at, I was cussed at, I was interrogated," said Alex.

Jail threats were issued as officials seized and searched through Alex's equipment for 15 hours. He was told that if any trace of pornography was found on his three computers that he would be arrested.

"They were talking about how I was a criminal - they hooked our laptop computers up and said that if they found any porn, even mainstream porn, that it's illegal to take it across lines and that we'd be going to jail," said Alex, thanking God that no trace of any porn was found on his office computers.

Searches continued throughout the night and again in the morning.

Immigrations officials seemed to take a gleeful satisfaction in detaining the team, claiming they were liars and not part of the media despite one admitting to having seen an Alex Jones documentary. Accusations of drugs and weapons smuggling were thrown around without recourse.

"You Americans shit all over us Canadians think you can do anything you want to us," said one immigration official who was acting more like a drill sergeant.

Towards the end of the ordeal national media, including the Ottawa Citizen and CBC, got wind of what was unfolding and sent journalists to the airport to talk to Alex.

A CBC journalist vouched for the fact that Alex was in the media and that she was planning on interviewing him, after also being subjected to a barrage of questions by officials.

At this point immigration officials sharply changed their attitude, reversed a likely decision to deport the team and by the end were apologetic and conciliatory about the entire issue.

Trade Deficit Grows to $63.4 Billion in April

2006-06-10T22:19:00.000-05:00

Bloomberg

The U.S. trade deficit has increased yet again. But why is this a bad thing? Basic real-world economics tells us that the high value of the dollar leads to record trade deficits (because America's goods are too expensive for other countries to purchase). Trade deficits, in turn, lead to losses for manufacturing and economic instabilities (as the material economic base of the country weakens and other countries become wary of investing in the U.S.). In short, the formula is as follows: high value of the dollar = record trade deficits = losses for manufacturing, economic instability.

But why is the dollar overvalued? Because neo-liberals believe exchange rates should be regulated not by governments but rather by the mystical "invisible hand" of the "free market." According to this bizarre perspective, in a deregulated market currencies will reflect their "true" value because "rational" people do not invest in countries with weak economies and low interest rates (since they won't get as much back from their investments). Of course, in reality investors end up investing based largely on habit, mob psychology, and guesswork. The end result is that currencies are often over- and under-valued, which may lead to economic crashes as investors panic and withdraw money from countries (Argentina in 2001, anyone?). In addition, because currencies are often quite obviously under- or over-valued, governments routinely "interfere" with the "free" market (although the U.S. has traditionally had less regulation in currency markets than other countries, preferring to manipulate interest rates alone).

The U.S. trade deficit widened in April as the cost of imported oil rose and purchases of industrial machinery and automobiles increased, a government report showed today.

The gap in goods and services trade widened to $63.4 billion from March's $61.9 billion, the Commerce Department said in Washington. Exports were little changed and imports rose, while the deficit with China widened.

Crude prices approaching a record lifted the nation's energy- import bill, while economic growth that's faster in the U.S. than in the European Union and Japan propelled demand for manufactured goods made overseas. Further increases in the trade deficit may be limited by weakness in the dollar and a slowdown in consumer spending caused by rising interest rates.

``U.S. demand growth continued to run at a fast pace in the first quarter, and some of that carried into April,'' Elisabeth Denison, an economist at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein in New York, said before the report. ``Consumer spending will moderate and imports should slow, so we may see stabilization in the deficit during the latter half of the year.''

The April deficit compares with the $65 billion estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 67 economists. Forecasts for the trade gap ranged from $63.4 billion to $69 billion.

The trade deficit in goods adjusted for changes in prices, figures the government uses in its calculation of gross domestic product, was little changed in April at $57.6 billion.

Predictably, rather than criticizing the inability of "free" markets to slowly and effectively reduce the value of the U.S. dolla, neo-liberals criticize the regulated Chinese market. Never mind that the U.S. economy has enormous "distortions" of its own, especially due to agricultural subsidies, corporate bailouts, and tax breaks.

[...]Departing U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow, in a May 19 interview, repeated his criticism of China for not doing more to make its currency more responsive to market forces.

``China's got to move on this,'' Snow said. China's progress ``has been really inadequate'' since the July revaluation.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley said June 5 that he expects Henry Paulson, President George W. Bush's nominee to replace Snow, to be ``very aggressive'' in pushing China on the issue.

Grassley is co-sponsor of one of the more than a dozen measures that would punish China for its currency policies, failure to control intellectual property theft and other practices that lawmakers say hurt U.S. companies.

The rapid pace of U.S. economic growth compared with other developed economies also helps explain the trade deficit. A strong economy translates into more demand for all goods, including those imported from abroad. [...]

So, what's the real-world solution to America's huge trade deficit? In a nutshell, there needs to be greater coordination between the world's governments and monetary authorities so they can effectively regulate the global currency market. There are no easy answers such as the absurd mantra of "deregulation, deregulation, deregulation." But there are real-world steps that can be taken. For example, currencies could be allowed to fluctuate but only within a given range, so that there aren't excessive drops or increases in the value of currencies. For more information see the excellent Working Paper #131 from the Economic Policy Institute.

The World's Power Elite Gather in Canada

2006-06-10T21:55:00.000-05:00

BreitBart

For those who think there's a secret cabal of corporate and political elites who run the world, then they're probably talking about the Bilderberg Group. They're holding secret talks in Canada right now, and the mainstream media always forgets to ask the fundamental questions: why does this group exist? Why are their meetings secret? And why are you a conspiracy theorist for even asking these basic questions? The group says their meetings are secret to encourage "frank and open discussions." However, this is absurd for two reasons. First, it begs the question of why they can't speak the truth in public (or conversely, why they must lie in public situations). Second, in a classic use of Orwellian doublespeak, it's nonsensical to assert that these discussions are "open" given that approximately 100% (rounded up) of the world's population is barred from attending.

The world's political elite, top thinkers and powerful business folk gathered here for an annual, ultra-secretive Bilderberg conference as heavy security kept conspiracy theorists and curious onlookers at bay.

Global luminaries such as former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, US banker David Rockefeller and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands were greeted at the airport by limousine drivers holding single-letter "B" signs late Thursday, said local reports.

They were quickly whisked away to the Brookstreet Hotel in a serene suburb of Ottawa for three-day talks on oil markets, security concerns tied to Iran's nuclear ambitions, terrorism, and immigration, the Ottawa Citizen reported.

Conspiracy theorists who follow the group accuse it of plotting world domination at its informal annual gatherings.

But, Richard Perle, former US defence policy advisor, upon his arrival in Ottawa, denied allegations the group crafts public policy behind closed doors. "It discusses public policy," he stressed to a Citizen reporter.

A statement from the group said the meetings were private to encourage "frank and open discussions." [...]

Deja Vu: Another Early Start to the Hurricane Season

2006-06-10T21:34:00.000-05:00

Sun-Sentinel

The first tropical depression has formed only ten days since the start of the hurricane season. This is eeriely similar to last year's record season when the first storm formed on June 8 (compared to June 9 this year). Given the absolute blindness of most conservatives to anything contradicting their faith in the "free" market or Christian fundamentalism, it'll probably take a decade of death and destruction to convince them of the clear link between the severity of hurricanes and global warming. Of course, there's one brand of conservative that doesn't need much convincing: insurance agents.

South Florida likely will dodge the heaviest rains and wind from a system that was expected to strengthen into Tropical Storm Alberto possibly as early as Saturday evening, as its core was to remain well to the west in the Gulf of Mexico.

Yet, the system's sprawling outer bands were expected to produce up to 2 inches of rain and gusts up to 45 mph between Sunday and Tuesday morning, said meteorologist Robert Garcia of the National Weather Service in Miami. [...]

Emerging on Saturday morning as the first tropical depression only 10 days into the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season, the system was projected to churn northeast toward the Big Bend area of Florida's West Coast, with a projected landfall near Cedar Key on Monday afternoon or evening.

Although it was forecast to intensify to about 60 mph, or tropical storm strength, the Gulf's warm waters could fuel it into a hurricane, the National Hurricane Center in Miami-Dade County said.

"If the conditions became just right, anything is possible," said hurricane specialist Stacy Stewart. "But right now, we're just predicting a tropical storm, and a moderate one at that." [...]

Machine Gun Jesus

2006-06-10T21:15:00.000-05:00

San Francisco Chronicle

Finally, an ultra-violent, bloody video game that's Jesus-friendly and action-packed. I'm just hoping that Left Behind mini-hunk Kirk Cameron is doing the voice-over...

[...] Behold, blessed children, the new and upcoming "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" video game, based on the freakishly best-selling series of apocalyptic trash-lit books. It's an ultraviolent, hilariously inept, wondrously accurate portrayal of what every true right-wing Christian fundamentalist really fantasizes about after they've had one too many pink wine spritzers and have logged a few hours in the gay chat rooms and have sufficiently indoctrinated their happily numb kids with tales of vile homos and scary "progressive" liberals who want to buy them candy and tattoo their sacrums and feed them organic hot dogs.

What's the game actually about? How do you play? I believe the pro-choice, pro-religion Talk to Action blog describes it best:

Imagine: you are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group whose purpose is to remake America as a Christian theocracy, and establish its worldly vision of the dominion of Christ over all aspects of life. You are issued high-tech military weaponry, and instructed to engage the infidel on the streets of New York City. You are on a mission -- both a religious mission and a military mission -- to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state -- especially moderate, mainstream Christians. Your mission is "to conduct physical and spiritual warfare"; all who resist must be taken out with extreme prejudice.

Ah yes, the neo-Christian ideal. The ultimate dominionist police state, a smoking, reeking, post-apocalyptic vision of New York, a world teeming with nonbelievers just waiting to be either converted or massacred by nothing less than a Christianized American Taliban, a world of righteousness and judgment and death, all in the name of one very nasty and bloodthirsty God. It's "Grand Theft Auto" for the Rick Santorum set. It's "Resident Evil 4" for American Family Association types who eat too much BGH meat and never have sex. [...]

Americans Would Hate Dubya Even if Osama Were Captured

2006-06-10T21:07:00.000-05:00

BBS News

If Osama bin Laden were captured by the U.S., nearly 60% of Americans would still not approve of Dubya as president. Moreover, only 3% of Democrats would give him a positive rating on terrorism. Keep in mind the margin of error of this survey is 2.5 percentage points, so it's possible only 0.5% of Democrats would give him a positive rating. In other words, it's possible that, for all practical purposes, ZERO Democrats would approve of his performance on terrorism.

With President Bush's job approval numbers languishing in the low 30s, not even Osama bin Laden can come to the rescue, a new Zogby Interactive survey shows.

And Wednesday's death of Iraqi al-Qaeda leader Al-Zarqawi is unlikely to improve the President's numbers much, Pollster John Zogby said.

The interactive survey, conducted May 15-16, 2006, included 1,538 respondents and carries a margin of error of +/- 2.5 percentage points. It shows that, even if U.S. military forces were to capture bin Laden, it wouldn't provide much of a bump to Bush's job approval numbers.

Asked how much credit would be due President Bush if bin Laden were caught, 52% said they would give him no credit because he turned his attention instead to Iraq after the war in Afghanistan. Twenty-eight percent would give him all the credit, while 17% said he would deserve some of the credit.

The President's job approval rating in fighting against terrorism would be at 42% if bin Laden were found, the poll shows, which is about where he is right now -- with bin Laden still on the loose. A Zogby telephone poll in May showed his job approval for fighting terrorism at 41%, which was down from 44% in February.

The partisan split on the question is dramatic. While 86% of Republicans would give him positive marks for fighting terrorism if bin Laden were found, just 3% of Democrats would give him a positive rating on terrorism. Among independents, 36% would give him good marks, while 64% would give him negative marks.

Who Would Jesus Spank?

2006-06-10T20:47:00.000-05:00

The Guardian

Are you a friendless sociopath who gets a kick out of beating kids with quarter-inch tubing? Are you an ostracized sado-mashochist who can't get aroused without spanking yourself and others? Or are you a lonely jinjoist with a deranged sense of morality but no one to attack? Well, you're in luck 'cause you've got a friend in Jesus, who is totally in with violence, cruelty, and punishment.

[...] "We are told that in England it is a crime to spank children," writes Debbi Pearl from No Greater Joy Ministries, following a row that has erupted over the distribution of their literature in the UK. "Therefore Christians are not able to openly obey God in regard to biblical chastisement. They are in danger of having the state steal their children." The Pearls are evangelical Christians who believe corporal punishment is "doing it God's way". With a mailing list of tens of thousands of parents, the Pearls say that the justification for their approach is in scripture: "He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes" (Proverbs 13:24).

Chastening begins early. "For the under-one-year-old, a little, 10- to 12-inch long, willowy branch (stripped of any knots that might break the skin) about one-eighth inch diameter is sufficient," writes Michael Pearl. With older children he advises: "After a short explanation about bad attitudes and the need to love, patiently and calmly apply the rod to his backside. Somehow, after eight or 10 licks, the poison is transformed into gushing love and contentment. The world becomes a beautiful place. A brand-new child emerges. It makes an adult stare at the rod in wonder, trying to see what magic is contained therein."

It's incredible to me that books such as this are readily available on Amazon; it is little short of incitement to child abuse. What makes the whole thing doubly sick is that it's done in the name of God. Apparently, the "proper application of the rod is essential to the Christian world-view". Note "essential". Perhaps it shouldn't come as a surprise. For, as evangelicals, the Pearls believe that salvation only comes through punishment and pain. God punishes his Son with crucifixion so that humanity might not have to face the Father's anger. This image of God the father, for whom violence is an expression of tough love, is lodged deep in the evangelical imagination. And it twists a religion of forgiveness and compassion into something dark and cruel.

It's terrifying how deep this teaching penetrates into a philosophy of child rearing. Just as divine anger is deemed to be provoked by the original sin of human disobedience, the beating of children is seen as punishment for rebellion. According to Ted Tripp, in his monstrous bestseller Shepherding a Child's Heart, even babies who struggle while having their nappy changed are deemed to be rebellious and need punishment.

Last month Lynn Paddock of North Carolina was charged with the murder of her four-year-old son, Sean. She had apparently beaten him with a length of quarter-inch plumbing line - plastic tubing. Like many in her church, Paddock had turned to the Pearls' resources on Biblical parenting. The Pearls say chastisement with plumbing line is "a real attention getter". Sean Paddock's autopsy describes layers of bruises stretching from his bottom to his shoulder.

Pat Robertson: Legs on Loan From God?

2006-06-10T20:31:00.000-05:00

MSNBC News

Oh my god, he has JESUS LEGS!

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson says he has leg-pressed 2,000 pounds, but some say he'd be in a pretty tough spot if he tried.

The "700 Club" host's feat of strength is recounted on the Web site of his Christian Broadcasting Network, in a posting headlined "How Pat Robertson Leg Pressed 2,000 Pounds."

According to the CBN Web site, Robertson worked his way up to lifting a ton with the help of his physician, who is not named. The posting does not say when the lift occurred, but a CBN spokeswoman released photos to The Associated Press that she said showed Robertson lifting 2,000 pounds in 2003, when Robertson was 73. He is now 76.

The Web posting said two men loaded the leg-press machine with 2,000 pounds "and then let it down on Mr. Robertson, who pushed it up one rep and let it go back down again." The Web site said several people witnessed the event, and shows video of Robertson leg-pressing what appears to be 1,000 pounds.

Clay Travis of CBS SportsLine.com called the 2,000-pound assertion impossible in a column this week, writing that the leg-press record for football players at Florida State University is 665 pounds less.

"Where in the world did Robertson even find a machine that could hold 2,000 pounds at one time?" Travis asked.

Andy Zucker, a strength-training coach at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, said leg presses of more than 1,000 pounds represent "a Herculean effort, and 2,000 pounds is a whole other story."

"If he was able to lift that much weight, I take my hat off to him, but the numbers suggest that people who lift that much weight are few and far between," Zucker said. "One would have to see what type of leg press it was on and under what parameters it was done." [...]

Either Pat Robertson is a a deranged liar or he has Jesus legs. Take your pick. But here are a few reasons to doubt his claim of lifting one ton in 2003: first, most machines don't even hold one ton of weights (Clay Travis of CBS Sports: "Where in the world did Robertson even find a machine that could hold 2,000 pounds at one time?"); second, the leg-press record for the Flordia State University football team is 665 pounds less than Robertson's one ton; third, Robertson's web site video only shows him lifting at most 1,000 pounds (impressive, but not Jesus legs); fourth, although Roberston claims he lifted one ton in 2003, one of his photos had a digital stamp date of 1994 (so while he may have done it in the past, he may not be able to do it now); fifth, notice in the photograph above that he's cheating by using his arms to push up his legs; finally, keep in mind that this guy is mentally deranged and probably a liar, who has also called for the assassination of a head of state and blamed 9/11 on lesbians.

More Violence Expected in Iraq, Dubya Says

2006-06-10T19:51:00.000-05:00

Xinhua News

Another inane press conference by Dubya.

U.S. President George W. Bush said here on Saturday that violence in Iraq may escalate after the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most wanted insurgent in the war-torn country. "Zarqawi is dead, but the difficult and necessary mission in Iraq continues. In the weeks ahead, violence in Iraq may escalate. The terrorists and insurgents will seek to prove that they can carry on without Zarqawi," said Bush in a radio address.

Noting that the U.S.-led "coalition and Iraqi forces are seizing this moment to strike the enemies of freedom in Iraq," Bush said, "The work ahead will require more sacrifice and the continued patience of the American people."

Bush said he will have discussions with key members of his cabinet at Camp David, and have a teleconference discussion with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Monday and Tuesday to discuss the way ahead in Iraq.

"Together we will determine how to best deploy America's resources in Iraq and achieve our shared goal of an Iraq that can govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself," Bush said.

Washington announced on Thursday that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was accused of leading a campaign of car bombings and kidnappings and suicide attacks that has taken the lives of many U.S. soldiers and innocent Iraqis, was killed on Wednesday in a joint U.S. and Iraqi military raid north of Baghdad.

Does he know something we don't? Or is this a feeble public relations attempt? This non-event of warning of escalating violence has at least three advantages for Bush and Co.: first, it reminds the public about the death of Zarqawi, which presumably justifies the incompetence of the past six years; second, it lowers the public's expectations of continued chaos in Iraq; finally, it gives the illusion that Bush is in control in Iraq, or at least that he knows what's going on there.

Triple Suicide in Gitmo Gulag

2006-06-10T15:23:00.000-05:00

Yahoo! News

This is another stain on the Bush Administration's atrocious human rights record. The worst part is that these deaths were preventable. As one putatively falsely accused "terrorist" said: "We all expected something like this but were not prepared." It doesn't take a Ph.D. to realize there's a basic formula at work here: indefinite detainment = desperation = suicide. Oh well, just more "collateral damage," right? Nevermind that Gitmo is opposed by virtually every world leader in the industrial world, violates the United Nations' ban on torture, and goes against every major ruling on international law. These are just technical details!

Three detainees at Guantanamo Bay apparently committed suicide amid protests of the U.S. military prison by inmates, the Defense Department said Saturday. They were the first reported deaths at the controversial detention center where suspected terrorists have been held for as long as 4 1/2 years.Two men from Saudi Arabia and one from Yemen were found "unresponsive and not breathing in their cells" early Saturday, according to a statement from the Miami-based U.S. Southern Command, which has jurisdiction over the prison. Attempts were made to revive the prisoners, but failed. [...]

A U.N. panel said May 19 that holding detainees indefinitely at Guantanamo violated the world's ban on torture. The panel said the United States should close the detention center.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are among those who also recently have urged the United States to close the prison.

Gitmo so strikingly reveals the incredible incompetence and disdain of the Bush Administration that even Bush himself admits it should be closed. Of course, only if the people he appointed in the Supreme Court tell him to!

On Friday, after the prison came up during a meeting with Fogh Rasmussen at Camp David, Bush said his goal is to do just that.

"We would like to end the Guantanamo — we'd like it to be empty," Bush said. But he added: "There are some that, if put out on the streets, would create grave harm to American citizens and other citizens of the world. And, therefore, I believe they ought to be tried in courts here in the United States."

Bush said his administration was waiting for the Supreme Court to rule whether he overstepped his authority in ordering the detainees to be tried by U.S. military tribunals. [...]

Moazzam Begg, 37, a British Muslim who spent three years in U.S. detention, including two years at Guantanamo before being released in 2005, told The Associated Press, "We all expected something like this but were not prepared. It's just awful. I hope the Bush administration will finally see this is wrong."

There have been increasing displays of defiance from Guantanamo Bay prisoners, who have been held for up to 4 1/2 years with many claiming their innocence.

Until now, Guantanamo officials have said there have been 41 suicide attempts by 25 detainees and no deaths since the U.S. began taking prisoners to the base in January 2002. Defense lawyers contend the number of suicide attempts is higher.

Those held at Guantanamo "have this incredible level of despair that they will never get justice. And now they're gone. And they died without ever having seen a court," Barbara Olshansky of the Center for Constitutional Rights said in a telephone interview from New York. Her group represents about 300 Guantanamo detainees.

She appealed to the administration "for immediate action to do the right thing. They should be taken to court or released. I don't think this country wants the stain of injustice on it for many years to come." [...]

Welcome to The Sociologist

2006-06-09T22:56:00.000-05:00

New posts begin Saturday June 9, 2006