Ravings and Rants

Waterboarding

2006-11-17T10:30:00.000-06:00

This is a bit long but I think that the important thing that is brought up here is the debate about what the Bush administration is notoriously famous for, redefining what words and phrases mean. Just my .02.

Gods Gonna Cut You Down

2006-11-13T21:33:00.000-06:00

Oh ... and one more thing

2006-11-10T01:29:00.000-06:00

Sometimes "Its" just what it is

2006-11-08T01:56:00.000-06:00

Let me introduce the world to some new realities:

Karl Rove is not a genius. He is the author of the biggest GOP defeat in most of our lifetimes.

America really hates George Bush. Tonight, America said to George Bush, STFU and cut the dumb shit. Bring the troops home, pronto.

America is helping Democrats to pitch a shutout so far, holding all their seats, completely overturning the GOP revolution of 1994 in the House. The Senate looks to me like a 51 vote win for the Dems now.

Thanks, Karl.

What we talked about earlier this week is holding up: the Old Confederacy is the big loser tonight, relegated to the minority in the House. There is no reason, none, nada, zilch, to allow legislation in the House to be held hostage to Southern authoritarian Theocrats and racists anymore. Buh-bye.

Simulations ran in 1999 show what we know now about Iraq

2006-11-05T09:53:00.000-06:00

A series of secret U.S. war games in 1999 showed that an invasion and post-war administration of Iraq would require 400,000 troops, nearly three times the number there now.

And even then, the games showed, the country still had a chance of dissolving into chaos.

In the simulation, called Desert Crossing, 70 military, diplomatic and intelligence participants concluded the high troop levels would be needed to keep order, seal borders and take care of other security needs.

The documents came to light Saturday through a Freedom of Information Act request by George Washington University's National Security Archive, an independent research institute and library.

"The conventional wisdom is the U.S. mistake in Iraq was not enough troops," said Thomas Blanton, the archive's director. "But the Desert Crossing war game in 1999 suggests we would have ended up with a failed state even with 400,000 troops on the ground."

There are about 144,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, down from a peak in January of about 160,000.

A week after the invasion, in March 2003, the Pentagon said there were 250,000 U.S. ground force troops inside Iraq, along with 40,000 coalition force troops.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Central Command, which sponsored the seminar and declassified the secret report in 2004, declined to comment Saturday because she was not familiar with the documents.

News of the war games results comes a day before judges are expected to deliver a verdict in Saddam Hussein war crimes trial.

The war games looked at "worst case" and "most likely" scenarios after a war that removed then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power. Some of the conclusions are similar to what actually occurred after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003:

"A change in regimes does not guarantee stability," the 1999 seminar briefings said. "A number of factors including aggressive neighbors, fragmentation along religious and/or ethnic lines, and chaos created by rival forces bidding for power could adversely affect regional stability."

"Even when civil order is restored and borders are secured, the replacement regime could be problematic -- especially if perceived as weak, a puppet, or out-of-step with prevailing regional governments."

"Iran's anti-Americanism could be enflamed by a U.S.-led intervention in Iraq," the briefings read. "The influx of U.S. and other western forces into Iraq would exacerbate worries in Tehran, as would the installation of a pro-western government in Baghdad."

"The debate on post-Saddam Iraq also reveals the paucity of information about the potential and capabilities of the external Iraqi opposition groups. The lack of intelligence concerning their roles hampers U.S. policy development."

"Also, some participants believe that no Arab government will welcome the kind of lengthy U.S. presence that would be required to install and sustain a democratic government."

"A long-term, large-scale military intervention may be at odds with many coalition partners."

Declaring Martial Law has never been easier

2006-10-30T16:46:00.001-06:00

In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law (1). It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President's ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is seeking to undo those prohibitions.

Public Law 109-364, or the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a "public emergency" and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress public disorder."

President Bush seized this unprecedented power on the very same day that he signed the equally odious Military Commissions Act of 2006. In a sense, the two laws complement one another. One allows for torture and detention abroad, while the other seeks to enforce acquiescence at home, preparing to order the military onto the streets of America. Remember, the term for putting an area under military law enforcement control is precise; the term is "martial law."

Section 1076 of the massive Authorization Act, which grants the Pentagon another $500-plus-billion for its ill-advised adventures, is entitled, "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies." Section 333, "Major public emergencies; interference with State and Federal law" states that "the President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of ("refuse" or "fail" in) maintaining public order, "in order to suppress, in any State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy."

For the current President, "enforcement of the laws to restore public order" means to commandeer guardsmen from any state, over the objections of local governmental, military and local police entities; ship them off to another state; conscript them in a law enforcement mode; and set them loose against "disorderly" citizenry - protesters, possibly, or those who object to forced vaccinations and quarantines in the event of a bio-terror event.

The law also facilitates militarized police round-ups and detention of protesters, so called "illegal aliens," "potential terrorists" and other "undesirables" for detention in facilities already contracted for and under construction by Halliburton. That's right. Under the cover of a trumped-up "immigration emergency" and the frenzied militarization of the southern border, detention camps are being constructed right under our noses, camps designed for anyone who resists the foreign and domestic agenda of the Bush administration.

An article on "recent contract awards" in a recent issue of the slick, insider "Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International" reported that "global engineering and technical services powerhouse KBR [Kellog, Brown & Root] announced in January 2006 that its Government and Infrastructure division was awarded an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract to support U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in the event of an emergency." "With a maximum total value of $385 million over a five year term," the report notes, "the contract is to be executed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers," "for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) - in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs." The report points out that "KBR is the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton." (3) So, in addition to authorizing another $532.8 billion for the Pentagon, including a $70-billion "supplemental provision" which covers the cost of the ongoing, mad military maneuvers in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places, the new law, signed by the president in a private White House ceremony, further collapses the historic divide between the police and the military: a tell-tale sign of a rapidly consolidating police state in America, all accomplished amidst ongoing U.S. imperial pretensions of global domination, sold to an "emergency managed" and seemingly willfully gullible public as a "global war on terrorism."

Make no mistake about it: the de-facto repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act (PCA) is an ominous assault on American democratic tradition and jurisprudence. The 1878 Act, which reads, "Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both," is the only U.S. criminal statute that outlaws military operations directed against the American people under the cover of 'law enforcement.' As such, it has been the best protection we've had against the power-hungry intentions of an unscrupulous and reckless executive, an executive intent on using force to enforce its will.

Unfortunately, this past week, the president dealt posse comitatus, along with American democracy, a near fatal blow. Consequently, it will take an aroused citizenry to undo the damage wrought by this horrendous act, part and parcel, as we have seen, of a long train of abuses and outrages perpetrated by this authoritarian administration.

Despite the unprecedented and shocking nature of this act, there has been no outcry in the American media, and little reaction from our elected officials in Congress. On September 19th, a lone Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) noted that 2007's Defense Authorization Act contained a "widely opposed provision to allow the President more control over the National Guard [adopting] changes to the Insurrection Act, which will make it easier for this or any future President to use the military to restore domestic order WITHOUT the consent of the nation's governors."

Senator Leahy went on to stress that, "we certainly do not need to make it easier for Presidents to declare martial law. Invoking the Insurrection Act and using the military for law enforcement activities goes against some of the central tenets of our democracy. One can easily envision governors and mayors in charge of an emergency having to constantly look over their shoulders while someone who has never visited their communities gives the orders."

A few weeks later, on the 29th of September, Leahy entered into the Congressional Record that he had "grave reservations about certain provisions of the fiscal Year 2007 Defense Authorization Bill Conference Report," the language of which, he said, "subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military's involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law." This had been "slipped in," Leahy said, "as a rider with little study," while "other congressional committees with jurisdiction over these matters had no chance to comment, let alone hold hearings on, these proposals."

In a telling bit of understatement, the Senator from Vermont noted that "the implications of changing the (Posse Comitatus) Act are enormous". "There is good reason," he said, "for the constructive friction in existing law when it comes to martial law declarations. Using the military for law enforcement goes against one of the founding tenets of our democracy. We fail our Constitution, neglecting the rights of the States, when we make it easier for the President to declare martial law and trample on local and state sovereignty."

Senator Leahy's final ruminations: "Since hearing word a couple of weeks ago that this outcome was likely, I have wondered how Congress could have gotten to this point. It seems the changes to the Insurrection Act have survived the Conference because the Pentagon and the White House want it."

The historic and ominous re-writing of the Insurrection Act, accomplished in the dead of night, which gives Bush the legal authority to declare martial law, is now an accomplished fact.

The Pentagon, as one might expect, plays an even more direct role in martial law operations. Title XIV of the new law, entitled, "Homeland Defense Technology Transfer Legislative Provisions," authorizes "the Secretary of Defense to create a Homeland Defense Technology Transfer Consortium to improve the effectiveness of the Department of Defense (DOD) processes for identifying and deploying relevant DOD technology to federal, State, and local first responders."

In other words, the law facilitates the "transfer" of the newest in so-called "crowd control" technology and other weaponry designed to suppress dissent from the Pentagon to local militarized police units. The new law builds on and further codifies earlier "technology transfer" agreements, specifically the 1995 DOD-Justice Department memorandum of agreement achieved back during the Clinton-Reno regime.(4)

It has become clear in recent months that a critical mass of the American people have seen through the lies of the Bush administration; with the president's polls at an historic low, growing resistance to the war Iraq, and the Democrats likely to take back the Congress in mid-term elections, the Bush administration is on the ropes. And so it is particularly worrying that President Bush has seen fit, at this juncture to, in effect, declare himself dictator.

Does anyone know what the term "Media Saturation" means

2006-10-26T10:54:00.000-05:00

According to Dylan Stableford over at FishbowlNY, Rachael Ray announced to a magazine conference in Phoenix that she is going to open a "burger joint" in New York, where she will create a rotating menu based on 190 different burger recipies she's devised over the years. She won't just be making hamburgers, though; she'll put anything that can be made into a burger onto the menu, from turkey to swordfish. She also plans to make a fast-food version of the restaurant, which I'm sure will be franchised throughout the country.

So... she's got a magazine. Three Food TV shows. Cookbooks. A syndicated talk show. A soundtrack album. And now she's going to be a fast-food mogul. I think I know why I tune into her talk show every so often... I'm waiting to see her head explode.

............
Now, I know .. Rachel, shes a cutie, in fact my ex and I bonded over our collective drooling over Ms Ray and her cute shows, but come on now. Shes on FOUR hours a day on any given day. When will someone realize that TOO much of ANY thing is enough to just simply rot our collective brains. I guess thats why its TV though huh?

I dont believe in your voting machines

2006-10-20T09:11:00.001-05:00

WASHINGTON - Count on close, contentious elections to stir up public distrust in the vote count.

That could be why people in the United States, Italy and Mexico had the lowest levels of confidence in the vote count among nine countries in AP-Ipsos polling taken just weeks before the U.S. midterm elections. Fewer than two-thirds in each of the three countries said they were confident the vote count would be accurate.

That's lower than in the other countries polled — Canada, France, Germany,
South Korea, Spain and the United Kingdom, where three-fourths or more in each country felt the vote count is accurate.

"If we're going to have an effective democracy, we can't lose confidence in the institutions that deal with the votes," said Gabriel Nunez, a 39-year-old sales clerk in Mexico City.

In Mexico, Italy and the United States, recent contested elections left one side feeling cheated.

_In Mexico this past summer, ruling party candidate Felipe Calderon was proclaimed the winner after the country's top electoral court rejected claims by leftist candidate Andres Manual Lopez Obrador of widespread fraud. By the end of the year, Mexicans will have an elected president, and the man he beat will have been "inaugurated" president by his followers.

_In Italy's parliamentary elections last April, outgoing Premier Silvio Berlusconi alleged the vote was marred by irregularities and for weeks refused to accept the narrow-margin victory of Romano Prodi's center-left coalition.

_In the United States, the 2000 election was contested for more than a month before the Supreme Court ended the dispute, enabling Republican George W. Bush to be certified the winner over Democrat
Al Gore. The 2004 election had enough problems to bring back memories from four years earlier.

_Germans had a close election in 2005 but worked out a compromise and the German people accepted the count with little outcry.

The U.S. complaints in 2000 and again in 2004 left Charlotte Blum, an independent voter from Fairfax, Vt., with doubts about the accuracy of the vote count. "People were asking for recounts," she said of the 2004 voting. "It's a bad atmosphere for the country."

The doubts come at a time that voter turnout has been sliding in many different countries.

Only half in the United States said they always vote, the lowest level in any of the nine countries polled. More than seven in 10 in Canada, France and Germany say they always vote, with almost that many in Spain and Britain saying that.

Voter turnout is traditionally higher in many European democracies than in the United States, and some voting analysts blame U.S. voter registration laws that put much of the burden on the voter to register.

Voter turnout has been dropping in many democracies, however, and the lack of interest among young adults is frequently cited.

For example:

_In the United Kingdom's 2001 election, just 59 percent of registered voters cast a ballot, the lowest turnout since 1918. The 2005 national elections brought out 61 percent of voters, recording a slight upturn in a trend that has been moving down.

_Voter turnout in Canada has waned steadily over recent years, dropping from 75 percent of registered voters in 1988 to an all-time low of 60 percent in the June 2004 election.

_Turnout for German parliamentary elections usually hovers around 80 percent, matching a post-World War II low last year with about 78 percent of the electorate turning out — still high for most democracies.

_In France, voter turnout has been dropping, especially in parliamentary elections, but the 2002 results when right-wing candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen forced a runoff — eventually won by
President Jacques Chirac — were a shocker for many.

Margot Gillouard, a 19-year-old student in Paris who would be voting for the first time in 2007, is aware of the high stakes in the French elections. "When you see what happened the last time, I wouldn't miss it for anything," she said.

Turnout in the United States has been dropping over the last few decades, but was higher in 2004 when 122 million, or 62 percent of the voting age population, turned out in the presidential contest.

The drop in voting levels is widespread and often involves young people, said Bruce Cain, a political scientist at University of California-Berkeley.

"There seems to be a general wave of demobilization, a problem of disengagement," he said, noting that voting is marked by "peaks and valleys." "A major part of it in many countries is young people. They move a lot, they don't have a vested interest in the society."

Compulsory voting is one approach that scattered countries have tried over the years — though few enforce the law. That approach to improving voter turnout was backed by 63 percent in France, 59 percent in Mexico and 58 percent in Britain.

Only 33 percent in the United States favored that approach, according to the polling of about 1,000 people in each of the countries. The telephone polls, conducted between Sept. 8 and Oct. 1, have margins of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points in each country.

Skeptical attitudes about how much an individual's vote counts runs high in European democracies — with totals ranging from 32 percent in Germany and 51 percent in Spain saying they feel their vote doesn't count.

But occasional election problems don't upset Giancarlo Rossi, a 60-year-old export manager in Rome, who agrees with six in 10 in his country that he's confident his vote counts.

"Little tricks can happen often," he said, "but they don't influence the overall result."

Top o' the mornin to ya!

2006-10-20T09:05:00.000-05:00

So I've got two posts today about voting confidence/fraud so lets get started shall we:

Diebold Election Systems Inc. expressed alarm and state election officials contacted the FBI yesterday after a former legislator received an anonymous package containing what appears to be the computer code that ran Maryland's polls in 2004.

Cheryl C. Kagan, a longtime critic of Maryland's elections chief, says the fact that the computer disks were sent to her - along with an unsigned note criticizing the management of the state elections board - demonstrates that Maryland's voting system faces grave security threats.

A spokesman for Diebold, which manufactures the state's touch-screen voting machines, said the company is treating the software Kagan received as "stolen" and not as "picked up" at the State Board of Elections, as the anonymous note claimed. Lawyers for the company are seeking its return.

The disclosure comes amid heightened concerns nationwide about the security of the November elections and the ability of the state to keep tight controls on the thousands of machines that will be used next month.

Maryland's September primary - which used voting machines and electronic check-in equipment made by Diebold - suffered a series of mistakes, and the outcomes of some contests were not known for weeks.

In the wake of the problems, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and other politicians renewed their call to jettison the equipment. The governor has urged state voters to request absentee ballots, although use of the paper alternative raises different concerns about fraud.

A spokesman for the governor said the apparent distribution of the voting-machine software was troubling.

"This raises yet another unanswered question with regard to Diebold technology," said Henry Fawell, an Ehrlich spokesman.

The availability of the code - the written instructions that tell the machines what to do - is important because some computer scientists worry that the machines are vulnerable to malicious and virtually undetectable vote-switching software. An examination of the instructions would enable technology experts to identify flaws, but Diebold says the code is proprietary and does not allow public scrutiny of it.

Diebold has not confirmed that the code received by Kagan is authentic, said Mike Morrill, a spokesman for the company in Maryland. But Johns Hopkins University computer scientist Aviel Rubin reviewed one of the disks and said he believed it was genuine. If it wasn't, he said, "someone went to great lengths to make it look like it was."

"My feeling is that it may have come out of the testing labs, which means that if that's true, their procedures for protecting their clients' valuable proprietary information have failed," said Rubin, who in 2003 published a report on Diebold security flaws after discovering a copy of the code on the Internet.

"If it came out of Diebold, it's like Coca-Cola having their recipe exposed and then not learning their lesson," he said. "If it came out of the testing labs, then it's hard to blame the manufacturer."

Kagan, a former state Democratic delegate from Montgomery County who is now executive director of the Carl M. Freeman Foundation, said the disks were delivered to her office Wednesday.

An accompanying letter refers to the State Board of Elections and calls Kagan "the proud recipient of an 'abandoned baby Diebold source code' right from SBE accidentally picked up in this envelope, right in plain view at SBE. ... You have the software because you are a credible person who can save the state from itself. You must alert the media and save democracy."

Kagan called the attorney general's office, and word of the disks began to spread. Learning of the development, Linda H. Lamone, the state's elections chief, reported Kagan's possession of the code to the FBI yesterday.

Kagan said she had been contacted by an FBI investigator but had not met with him. "I intend to cooperate" with the inquiry, Kagan said, adding that she believed evidence of a serious security breach had to be revealed.

An FBI spokeswoman could not confirm yesterday the nature of the bureau's interest.

Morrill, the Diebold spokesman, said it was unlikely that the code was obtained in the manner outlined in the letter.

The codes, which were delivered to Kagan in three versions on separate disks, are proprietary - meaning there are restrictions on their use and duplication. Violators of those restrictions could be charged with crimes.

Based on their labels, the disks appear to be created by two companies that test the software - Wyle Laboratories and Ciber Inc., whose teams are based in Huntsville, Ala. Maryland law requires such independent testing before the equipment's use.

The disks have the testing authorities' names on them, as well as other identifying features. Anyone who had permission to handle these disks would have received passwords from Diebold, enabling investigators to trace those authorized to use them.

Morrill said two of three disks were never used and that the third was version 4.3.15c, which was used in Maryland during the 2004 primary.

Ross Goldstein, the state's deputy elections administrator, said Maryland now uses version 4.6 and that the public should be confident that their votes are secure.

The disks contain "nothing that's being used in this election," Goldstein said.

Diebold marketing director Mark Radke said the company is investigating the chain of custody of the disks and is asking its testing companies to pull their logs.

"These disks contain codes used for testing purposes," Radke said. "They were shipped from the testing authority. Diebold was never in the chain of custody."

Older versions of Diebold's computer code have long been in public circulation, including the copy discovered by Rubin.

This year, a team of Princeton University computer scientists obtained a slightly older version of the code than that sent to Kagan and found that a programmer with access to the voting machines and their passwords could install malicious software or viruses.

Some of the flaws could be remedied with quick fixes, the researchers said, but others were "architectural in nature" and could not be easily corrected without redesigning the machines.

"In any case, subsequent versions of the software should be assumed insecure until fully independent examination proves otherwise," the researchers wrote.

Diebold has consistently resisted pressures from computer and political scientists to make their software available to experts for critiques, a process called open-source software development.

Not doing that is "a mistake" on Diebold's part, said Donald F. Norris, a professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and director of the university's National Center for the Study of Elections.

(link to this story)

Sinking to NEW lows

2006-10-19T16:21:00.000-05:00

A little-known Republican group that claims to have swayed the 2004 presidential election with provocative radio advertising aimed at black and Hispanic audiences is spending nearly $1 million this year to boost the GOP's chances of holding on to a majority in Congress.

The group, America's Pac, began running ads last month in more than two dozen congressional districts.The campaign discusses issues ranging from warrantless wiretapping to school choice, but the most inflammatory spots pertain to abortion.

"Black babies are terminated at triple the rate of white babies," a female announcer in one of the ads says, as rain, thunder, and a crying infant are heard in the background. "The Democratic Party supports these abortion laws that are decimating our people, but the individual's right to life is protected in the Republican platform. Democrats say they want our vote.Why don't they want our lives?"

Another ad features a dialogue between two men.

"If you make a little mistake with one of your ‘hos,' you'll want to dispose of that problem tout suite, no questions asked," one of the men says.

"That's too cold. I don't snuff my own seed," the other replies.

"Maybe you do have a reason to vote Republican," the first man says.

Another spot attempts to link Democrats to a white supremacist who served as a Republican in the Louisiana Legislature, David Duke.The ad makes reference to Duke's trip to Syria last year, where he spoke at an anti-war rally.

"I can understand why a Ku Klux Klan cracker like David Duke makes nice with the terrorists,"a male voice in the ad says. "What I want to know is why so many of the Democrat politicians I helped elect are on the same side of the Iraq war as David Duke."

(read the rest of this story here)

10 Worst Congressman

2006-10-19T14:29:00.000-05:00

Rolling Stone has a really great piece on the 10 Worst Congresspeople and guess what ... 9 of them are Republicans.

Eli Lilly learns self promotion

2006-10-19T11:33:00.001-05:00

Drug maker Eli Lilly & Co. used questionable marketing practices to promote its drug to fight blood infections, according to several doctors. A whistleblower report in the New England Journal of Medicine accuses the company of initiating false reports of a shortage of the drug, Xigris.

The plan involved a public-relations firm hired by Eli Lilly, which then spread the word that its very expensive drug was being "rationed," the report says. It also included descriptions of physicians being "systematically forced" to decide who would live and who would die.

Xigris was designed to fight sepsis, a condition that kills more than 200,000 Americans annually. It is the only approved drug for sepsis, and it costs $8,000 to treat a single patient. Lilly hoped it would be a blockbuster, with sales of at least a billion dollars a year. But after five years on the market, sales are only $200 million.

That led the company to take unusual steps, according to Dr. Robert Danner, an infectious-disease expert at the National Institutes of Health. Danner emphasizes that in this case, he is speaking as a private citizen, not an NIH employee.

Danner says Lilly hired a P.R. firm that created the message that doctors were being forced to ration Xigris because of its high cost. That message was promoted by a newly formed task force on ethics. Lilly funded the task force with $2 million.

Next, a group of physicians, many with financial ties to Lilly, founded the Surviving Sepsis Campaign. Lilly provided the great majority of the funding. The campaign's first task was to formulate new practice guidelines for treating sepsis.

At least 11 medical groups endorsed the new guidelines. But the influential Infectious Diseases Society of America did not.

Dr. Naomi O'Grady chaired the panel of the Infectious Diseases Society that reviewed the guidelines.

"Let me choose my words carefully," said O'Grady, who is not involved with the current report. "This guideline really, I believe, was designed to promote a product."

O'Grady says her panel felt the guideline was developed hastily, and did not properly weigh the evidence for Xigris. The committee also didn't like the fact that Lilly funded the process.

Eli Lilly spokeswoman Judy Kay Moore insists that the company did not mastermind the ethics task force or steer the guideline-writing process.

And it was only a coincidence, Moore says, that the ethics task force and the Surviving Sepsis Campaign used the same P.R. firm, Belsito and Company.

We did not intend for or direct Belsito and Company to act on Lilly's behalf in this regard," Moore says. "Lilly did not recommend that they hire Belsito. And Lilly gave a grant to these groups and off they went to do their work."

But Lilly says that it is taking the criticism "very seriously."

Dr. Mitchell Levy, of Rhode Island Hospital, is a leader in the Surviving Sepsis Campaign. He says there's nothing wrong with a drug company funding the efforts, as long as everybody's open about it.

"In an ideal world, where there was enough NIH funding," Levy says, "for purity it would be great to not have to use industry funding."

Levy is working with a respected Massachusetts firm, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, to turn the complex treatment guidelines into a boiled-down version that hospitals pledge to implement.

Many believe the guidelines set the stage for how doctors ultimately will be paid -- that is, according to whether they adhere to treatment guidelines. Robert Danner, one of Eli Lilly's critics, says this gives drug companies an even greater motive to influence guideline-writing.

Keith Olbermann .. My Hero

2006-10-19T10:47:00.000-05:00

I havent had a chance to watch this yet but I have read the transcript and again, Keith is right on the money.

Media Bias, Culture Warriors and Bush

2006-10-19T08:27:00.000-05:00

Bush Meets To Keep Talk Radio Hosts In Line:

Yep thats the headline. Now our Glorious Leader is giving talking point tips to Talk Show Hosts to get them to get the "party line" message out. Wait, whos that there to the left of the Prez? Is that Sean Hannity? Doesnt he have both a radio talk show and a show on that little network Faux News? So the question begs to be asked, just how big of a sucker or idiot are you? I personally cant believe that anyone can watch Faux news, but I've seen the numbers, so I know that people do. What should be MORE frightening to anyone who reads this, is that the President is giving them TALKING POINTS for their shows. The so called "right wing" love to rant and rave about media bias and how the "leftist" agenda, gets propagated by the Main Stream Media. Just take a look at the article here and the picture and tell me if you think that that door doesnt swing BOTH ways.

Habeus Whatis?

2006-10-11T11:30:00.000-05:00

This is from Wikipedia:

In common law countries, habeas corpus (/'heɪbiəs 'kɔɹpəs/), Latin for "you [should] have the body", is the name of a legal instrument or writ by means of which detainees can seek release from unlawful imprisonment. A writ of habeas corpus is a court order addressed to a prison official (or other custodian) ordering that a detainee be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not that person is imprisoned lawfully and whether or not he or she should be released from custody. The writ of habeas corpus in common law countries is an important instrument for the safeguarding of individual freedom against arbitrary state action.

Now read this (even though its from the Washington Post)
White House national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley met with Republican senators yesterday in an effort to reach final agreement on legislation that would govern the military trials of terrorism suspects, but they did not resolve a dispute over whether the captives should have access to U.S. courts.

The complex measure, which President Bush has called a top legislative priority, nonetheless appears likely to win approval by the time Congress adjourns at the end of this week. A vote is expected in the House today on a version of the legislation that the White House supports. It was unclear yesterday evening whether Republican leaders would allow any amendments to it.

The Senate-White House negotiations centered on what is known as a "court-stripping" provision that bars U.S. courts from considering habeas corpus filings by detainees over their confinement and treatment. It affirms the Bush administration's assertion that it has an incontestable right to hold persons detained as "unlawful enemy combatants" for the duration of the battle against terrorism.

"Habeas has to be resolved," and it will most likely be addressed on the Senate floor, John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters after meeting with Hadley. Senate Republican leadership aides said that the floor debate could begin today and that the legislation setting rules for military commissions, as they are known, might be combined with a bill to create a new fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Three foes of the habeas corpus provision -- Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) -- introduced yesterday an amendment to overturn the administration-backed provision by allowing foreign nationals in military or CIA custody to challenge the legality of their detentions after one year.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who supports the suspension of the habeas corpus process, predicted that the Specter amendment "will be defeated, I think, in a bipartisan fashion, with a solid vote." But Graham said he has been exploring a different amendment on the matter, which he declined to describe.

Administration officials have said that the controversial provision is warranted because "unlawful enemy combatants" are not entitled to the same rights as regular soldiers or U.S. citizens; because isolation and the threat of indefinite detention aid U.S. interrogations; and because habeas corpus petitions could obstruct or delay the military trials of detainees.

But human rights groups and defense lawyers have condemned the provision as unconstitutional. They said it could leave detainees "to rot" in jail.

Thirty-one former ambassadors, including 20 who served in Republican administrations, jointly wrote Congress this week that "to eliminate habeas corpus relief for the citizens of other countries who have fallen into our hands cannot but make a mockery" of the administration's efforts to promote democracy. They also said that it would set a precedent that could jeopardize U.S. diplomats and military personnel overseas.

The negotiators also discussed yesterday a recent administration-backed change in the legislation to broaden the definition of potential unlawful enemy combatants in a way that would allow the government to detain and try a wider range of foreign nationals than envisioned earlier.

Other recent changes to the bill aroused controversy yesterday. In one, the administration and its House allies would give the defense secretary wide latitude to depart, without independent judicial scrutiny, from the rules and detainee protections the legislation would create. It would allow him to do so whenever he deems it "practicable or consistent with military or intelligence activities."

Georgetown University law professor Neal K. Katyal, who represented Salim Ahmed Hamdan in a case in which the Supreme Court overturned in June the administration's previous military-trial procedures, said the discretion, as written, is broad enough for the Defense Department to suspend a presumption of innocence for defendants. The new rules "themselves build in all the flexibility the secretary of defense needs to depart massively," Katyal said.

Other defense lawyers criticized yesterday recent changes that make it easier for prosecutors to introduce evidence without challenge and that eliminate defendants' right to examine all the evidence presented against them. The draft bill would, however, preserve defendants' right to respond to that evidence.

------------------------------------------
Notice this one phrase if you notice nothing else:
to eliminate habeas corpus relief for the citizens of other countries who have fallen into our hands cannot but make a mockery of the administration's efforts to promote democracy.

Nuff Said.

New Holiday Proposal

2006-10-09T09:10:00.000-05:00

As an American (and believe me thats not something I'm hugely proud of at this time,) I propose a new holiday. Its called Sense of Entitlement day. I mean why not. Check out my thoughts:

Christians and politicians would have a week a year to use however they wanted. Want your sense of entitlement all in one week? Sure why not. Want to use your sense of entitlement sparingly over the year? Go ahead its yours.
People that make over 30K a year would get a month a year. Hell what am I saying, they wouldnt listen anyway. Go nuts. Feel that sense of bloated ego ALL year long. Who am I to stop you?

(If your group isnt in here, contact me and I'll make a SPECIAL concession for you.)

What does anyone think? Good idea or not?

Olbermann on Bush

2006-10-07T14:44:00.001-05:00

Executive Power Grab Pt2

2006-10-06T12:39:00.000-05:00

President Bush, again defying Congress, says he has the power to edit the Homeland Security Department's reports about whether it obeys privacy rules while handling background checks, ID cards and watchlists.

In the law Bush signed Wednesday, Congress stated no one but the privacy officer could alter, delay or prohibit the mandatory annual report on Homeland Security department activities that affect privacy, including complaints.

But Bush, in a signing statement attached to the agency's 2007 spending bill, said he will interpret that section "in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch."

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said it's appropriate for the administration to know what reports go to Congress and to review them beforehand.

"There can be a discussion on whether to accept a change or a nuance," she said. "It could be any number of things."

The American Bar Association and members of Congress have said Bush uses signing statements excessively as a way to expand his power.

The Senate held hearings on the issue in June. At the time, 110 statements challenged about 750 statutes passed by Congress, according to numbers combined from the White House and the Senate committee. They include documents revising or disregarding parts of legislation to ban torture of detainees and to renew the Patriot Act.

Privacy advocate Marc Rotenberg said Bush is trying to subvert lawmakers' ability to accurately monitor activities of the executive branch of government.

"The Homeland Security Department has been setting up watch lists to determine who gets on planes, who gets government jobs, who gets employed," said Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

He said the Homeland Security Department has the most significant impact on citizens' privacy of any agency in the federal government.

Homeland Security agencies check airline passengers' names against terrorist watch lists and detain them if there's a match. They make sure transportation workers' backgrounds are investigated. They are working on several kinds of biometric ID cards that millions of people would have to carry.

The department's privacy office has put the brakes on some initiatives, such as using insecure radio-frequency identification technology, or RFID, in travel documents. It also developed privacy policies after an uproar over the disclosure that airlines turned over their passengers' personal information to the government.

The last privacy report was submitted in February 2005.

Bush's signing statement Wednesday challenges several other provisions in the Homeland Security spending bill.

Bush, for example, said he'd disregard a requirement that the director of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency must have at least five years experience and "demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management and homeland security."

His rationale was that it "rules out a large portion of those persons best qualified by experience and knowledge to fill the office."

Executive Power Grab Free For All

2006-10-06T12:32:00.001-05:00

WASHINGTON -- President Bush this week asserted that he has the executive authority to disobey a new law in which Congress has set minimum qualifications for future heads of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Congress passed the law last week as a response to FEMA's poor handling of Hurricane Katrina. The agency's slow response to flood victims exposed the fact that Michael Brown, Bush's choice to lead the agency, had been a politically connected hire with no prior experience in emergency management.

To shield FEMA from cronyism, Congress established new job qualifications for the agency's director in last week's homeland security bill. The law says the president must nominate a candidate who has ``a demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management" and ``not less than five years of executive leadership."

Bush signed the homeland-security bill on Wednesday morning. Then, hours later, he issued a signing statement saying he could ignore the new restrictions. Bush maintains that under his interpretation of the Constitution, the FEMA provision interfered with his power to make personnel decisions.

The law, Bush wrote, ``purports to limit the qualifications of the pool of persons from whom the president may select the appointee in a manner that rules out a large portion of those persons best qualified by experience and knowledge to fill the office."

The homeland-security bill contained measures covering a range of topics, including terrorism, disaster preparedness, and illegal immigration. One provision calls for authorizing the construction of a 700-mile fence along the Mexican border.

But Bush's signing statement challenged at least three-dozen laws specified in the bill. Among those he targeted is a provision that empowers the FEMA director to tell Congress about the nation's emergency management needs without White House permission. This law, Bush said, ``purports . . . to limit supervision of an executive branch official in the provision of advice to the Congress." Despite the law, he said, the FEMA director would be required to get clearance from the White House before telling lawmakers anything.

Bush said nothing of his objections when he signed the bill with a flourish in a ceremony Wednesday in Scottsdale, Ariz. At the time, he proclaimed that the bill was ``an important piece of legislation that will highlight our government's highest responsibility, and that's to protect the American people."

The bill, he added, ``will also help our government better respond to emergencies and natural disasters by strengthening the capabilities of the Federal Emergency Management Agency."

Bush's remarks at the signing ceremony were quickly e-mailed to reporters, and the White House website highlighted the ceremony. By contrast, the White House minimized attention to the signing statement. When asked by the Globe on Wednesday afternoon if there would be a signing statement, the press office declined to comment, saying only that any such document, if it existed, would be issued in the ``usual way."

The press office posted the signing-statement document on its website around 8 p.m. Wednesday, after most reporters had gone home. The signing statement was not included in news reports yesterday on the bill-signing.

Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine and chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, who has been one of the harshest critics of FEMA's performance during Katrina, yesterday rejected Bush's suggestion that he can bypass the new FEMA laws.

Responding to questions from the Globe, Collins said there are numerous precedents for Congress establishing qualifications for executive branch positions, ranging from the solicitor general's post to the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service.

She also said that Congress has long authorized certain officials from a variety of departments ``to go directly to Congress with recommendations," pointing out that the FEMA director statute was modeled after a law that gives similar independence to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon.

``I believe it is appropriate to extend this authority to the official tasked with leading the nation's response to disasters," she said.

Georgetown Law School professor Martin Lederman said Congress clearly has the power to set standards for positions such as the FEMA director, so long as the requirements leave a large enough pool of qualified candidates that the White House has ``ample room for choice."

``It's hard to imagine a more modest and reasonable congressional response to the Michael Brown fiasco," said Lederman, who worked in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel from 1994 to 2002.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment about its signing statement.

In the past, the administration has defended the legality of its signing statements. It has also argued that because Congress often lumps many laws into a single package, it is sometimes impractical to veto a large bill on the basis of some parts being flawed .

At a June hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, a Bush administration attorney, Michelle Boardman , noted that other US presidents have also used signing statements. She asserted that Bush's statements ``are not an abuse of power."

Bush's use of signing statements has attracted increasing attention over the past year. In December 2005, Bush asserted that he can bypass a statutory ban on torture. In March 2006, the president said he can disobey oversight provisions in the Patriot Act reauthorization bill.

In all, Bush has challenged more than 800 laws enacted since he took office, most of which he said intruded on his constitutional powers as president and commander in chief. By contrast, all previous presidents challenged a combined total of about 600 laws.

At the same time, Bush has virtually abandoned his veto power, giving Congress no chance to override his judgments. Bush has vetoed just one bill since taking office, the fewest of any president since the 19th century.

Earlier this year, the American Bar Association declared that Bush's use of signing statements was ``contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional separation of powers."

Last month, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service concluded that Bush's signing statements are ``an integral part" of his ``comprehensive strategy to strengthen and expand executive power" at the expense of the legislative branch.

Satan is a Democrat

2006-10-05T09:10:00.000-05:00

Since the media has been saying both Denny Hastert and Mark Foley was, I can only assume then that both Satan AND (M)Anne Coulter are both now Dems too. Anyway, heres a great quote from Aristotle.

"A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side."
~~Aristotle

Bashing Wal-Mart Yet Again

2006-10-04T16:25:00.000-05:00

Simply because I love to ....... This article is from the Nation.

On September 11, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley used his veto power for the first time in seventeen years to block a measure that would have given Wal-Mart employees and workers at other "big box" stores at least $10 per hour plus benefits worth at least $3 per hour. The City Council had passed the bill by a 35-to-14 vote margin. Daley's brash act was a temporary victory for the chorus of conservative pundits and corporate flacks who have been singing Wal-Mart's virtues for the past year. Here's what they claim and why they are wrong:

1. Wal-Mart's low prices save American consumers $263 billion a year (cited by syndicated columnists Robert Samuelson, Sebastian Mallaby, John Tierney and George Will):

The Economic Policy Institute has ripped apart the methodology Wal-Mart's consultants used to come up with this most popular claim of the Wal-Mart pundits. The consultants based their finding on an analysis of the effect of Wal-Mart expansion in a locality on overall consumer prices in that area. The problem, as EPI points out, is that 60 percent of the consumer price index is made up of services like transportation and housing that Wal-Mart doesn't provide. Therefore, the $263 billion figure is wildly exaggerated.

Even Wal-Mart's recent announcement that it will sell generic drugs for $4 is mostly hype. According to the New York Times, the plan will only cover about 124 medicines (out of 11,000 generics on the market), and Wal-Mart was careful not to include relatively expensive but widely used drugs like the high-cholesterol treatment Zocor. In her forthcoming book Big-Box Swindle, Stacy Mitchell cites surveys in several states that have found it was independent pharmacies--not Wal-Mart--that had the lowest average prices on drugs.

While Wal-Mart's consumer benefits are clearly overrated, it's hard to dispute that the company sells a lot of cheap stuff. The question, then, is at what price? Slavery kept cotton prices low in the United States for centuries and saved consumers countless dollars. But it was wrong. Likewise, Wal-Mart's strategy of keeping costs down by exploiting sweatshop suppliers abroad while undermining unions and paying less than living wages in this country should be deemed unacceptable in the twenty-first century.

2. If Wal-Mart increases wages, it will have to increase prices (various pundits):

Wal-Mart knows, despite all the bluster to the contrary, that there is ample space in its profits ($11.2 billion in 2005) to increase wages without raising prices. According to the Economic Policy Institute, Wal-Mart could have raised the wages and benefits of each worker by more than $2,000 last year without raising prices--while still maintaining a profit margin substantially higher than Costco's. A key competitor, Costco pays its workers an average of $17 an hour. Wal-Mart claims it pays its full-time employees $10.11 per hour but refuses to reveal average pay for its part-time workers.

3. "When Wal-Mart opened a store in Glendale, Ariz., last year, it received 8,000 applications for 525 jobs, suggesting that not everyone believes the pay and benefits are unattractive" (Sebastian Mallaby):

In a global economy whose rules are rigged in favor of highly mobile global corporations, US workers have precious few choices in the job market. The country has hemorrhaged 3.4 million manufacturing jobs since 1998. Of the ten occupations projected to have the largest growth in coming years, five (retail sales, cashiers, food preparation, janitors and waiters) have median pay that is below the poverty line for a family of four. And even in this job market, more than half of Wal-Mart workers turn over every year, according to the group American Rights at Work.

4. If cities raise minimum wages, Wal-Mart and other big-box stores will go elsewhere:

This was Wal-Mart's top argument against the Chicago bill. In some instances, Wal-Mart has cut and run to escape pesky unions or regulations. In Quebec, where labor laws are stronger than in the United States, Wal-Mart closed down one store after workers dared to vote in a union, and the company has fought in the courts (albeit so far unsuccessfully) against unionization of a second store. In Germany, Wal-Mart withdrew completely, mostly because of low profits, but the firm had also chafed under the country's stringent labor and environmental regulations. And yet Wal-Mart has also demonstrated that it will bend when it deems the benefits outweigh the bottom line. For example, when British distribution center workers at Wal-Mart's Asda chain threatened to strike this spring, Wal-Mart chose not to bolt but to grant large concessions. Asda makes up 10 percent of the company's global sales.

In the United States, Wal-Mart has virtually saturated rural America. Thus, its future profits depend in good part on breaking into US urban markets. The only question is what standards will the world's largest retailer be asked to meet?

5. "Wal-Mart's health benefits are about as generous as those of comparable employers" (Sebastian Mallaby):

"Wal-mart doesn't pay high wages and benefits mainly because it's in an industry (retailing) where those are rare," notes economist Robert Samuelson. And Wal-Mart isn't the only employer with crummy wages and benefits. Pressure to compete with the Wal-Mart goliath makes it hard for everyone else to gain better wages and benefits. That was one of the tough lessons learned by the California grocery employees during the failed strike of 2003-04.

6. "Wal-Mart costs about 50 retail jobs among competitors for every 100 jobs Wal-Mart creates" (George Will):

Not so fast, George. Numerous studies indicate that Wal-Mart is a net job-killer. The Public Policy Institute of California found that Wal-Mart stores reduce employment in their local county's retail sector by 2 to 4 percent. A widely cited study by Iowa State University documented that rural communities (the focus of Wal-Mart's initial expansion) lost up to 47 percent of their retail trade ten years after the discount giant's arrival. A University of Illinois study forecast a likely net job decrease in Chicago's West Side if Wal-Mart came in.

7. "Wal-Mart has helped poor and middle class consumers--in fact, more than anybody else" (Richard Vedder):

This hyperbole comes from the American Enterprise Institute, one of four pro-Wal-Mart think tanks that have received grants from Wal-Mart's foundation. In fact, what Wal-Mart has helped to do is lower the earnings of poor and middle-class consumers. Studies by the University of California-Irvine and others show that when Wal-Mart enters a region, the area's overall wages tend to decline as competitors' higher-paying jobs are wiped out. This wage depression has been most severe in the southern United States, where Wal-Mart stores are most prevalent.

8. "The notion that a job is worthless without benefits is like saying a car is useless without a sunroof" (Tim Kane, Heritage Foundation):

Is healthcare really a frivolous "option"? According to an internal company memo, 46 percent of Wal-Mart workers' children either have no health insurance or are on Medicaid. The same memo reveals that less than half of Wal-Mart's associates are enrolled in the company health insurance plan, compared to the nearly 70 percent enrolled with most national employers.

Wal-Mart encourages its 1.3 million US employees to enroll in taxpayer-funded health programs. A number of studies have demonstrated the way Wal-Mart shifts its employee expenses onto taxpayers. A 2004 Congressional study estimated that taxpayers subsidize an average Wal-Mart store to the tune of more than $420,000 a year, or more than $2,000 per employee. This takes the form of government-funded food stamps, housing subsidies and health insurance programs. Another study found that the state of California spent a total of $86 million a year on public assistance for Wal-Mart workers, or more than $1,900 per worker. Wal-Mart employees were the largest users of state healthcare programs in eleven out of thirteen states that reported employer usage.

9. Wal-Mart is now "the green machine" (Fortune magazine):

In an apparent attempt to peel off some of its critics, Wal-Mart has announced a long list of environmental commitments. It has jumped into the organics market and set up a series of "sustainability" groups to get environmentalists' help on specific challenges, like reducing packaging and boosting truck fuel efficiency. The problem is that it's simply impossible for a business model so dependent on a fossil fuel-driven global supply chain to be sustainable. With more than 60,000 suppliers, Wal-Mart's supply chain emits 200 million metric tons of global warming pollution a year.

10. "Wal-Mart coming into a community expands the tax base and boosts overall community development" (various pundits):

It's just the opposite. Wal-Mart gets local and state taxpayers to provide substantial subsidies to Wal-Mart stores in the form of real estate development funds and reduced property taxes. One Good Jobs First study found that 90 percent of Wal-Mart distribution centers received tax breaks and other subsidies, valued at an average of $7.4 million per distribution center. Wal-Mart sought and received subsidies averaging about $2.8 million at 1,100 of their locations, about one-third of its US stores.

Stick A Ribbon On Your SUV

2006-10-03T21:11:00.000-05:00

More Foley News

2006-10-03T16:45:00.000-05:00

From ABC News:

Former Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) interrupted a vote on the floor of the House in 2003 to engage in Internet sex with a high school student who had served as a congressional page, according to new Internet instant messages provided to ABC News by former pages.

ABC News now has obtained 52 separate instant message exchanges, which former pages say were sent by Foley, using the screen name Maf54, to two different boys under the age of 18.

This message was dated April 2003, at approximately 7 p.m., according to the message time stamp.

Rice, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft warned previous to 9/11 according to 9/11 Commission testimony

2006-10-03T09:42:00.000-05:00

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and former Attorney General John Ashcroft received the same CIA briefing about an imminent al-Qaida strike on an American target that was given to the White House two months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The State Department's disclosure Monday that the pair was briefed within a week after then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was told about the threat on July 10, 2001, raised new questions about what the Bush administration did in response, and about why so many officials have claimed they never received or don't remember the warning.

One official who helped to prepare the briefing, which included a PowerPoint presentation, described it as a "10 on a scale of 1 to 10" that "connected the dots" in earlier intelligence reports to present a stark warning that al-Qaida, which had already killed Americans in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and East Africa, was poised to strike again.

Former CIA Director George Tenet gave the independent Sept. 11, 2001, commission the same briefing on Jan. 28, 2004, but the commission made no mention of the warning in its 428-page final report. According to three former senior intelligence officials, Tenet testified to commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste and to Philip Zelikow, the panel's executive director and the principal author of its report, who's now Rice's top adviser.

A new book by Bob Woodward of The Washington Post alleges that Rice failed to take the July 2001 warning seriously when it was delivered at a White House meeting by Tenet, Cofer Black, then the agency's chief of top counterterrorism, and a third CIA official whose identity remains protected.

Rice's deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, who became national security adviser after she became secretary of state, and Rice's top counterterrorism aide, Richard Clarke, also were present.

Woodward wrote that Tenet and Black considered the briefing the "starkest warning they had given the White House" on the threat posed by Osama bin Laden's terrorist network. But, he wrote, the pair felt as if Rice gave them "the brush-off."

Speaking to reporters late Sunday en route to the Middle East, Rice said she had no recollection of what she called "the supposed meeting."

"What I'm quite certain of, is that it was not a meeting in which I was told that there was an impending attack and I refused to respond," she said.

Ashcroft, who resigned as attorney general on Nov. 9, 2004, told the Associated Press on Monday that it was "disappointing" that he never received the briefing, either.

But on Monday evening, Rice's spokesman Sean McCormack issued a statement confirming that she'd received the CIA briefing "on or around July 10" and had asked that it be given to Ashcroft and Rumsfeld.

"The information presented in this meeting was not new, rather it was a good summary from the threat reporting from the previous several weeks," McCormack said. "After this meeting, Dr. Rice asked that this same information be briefed to Secretary Rumsfeld and Attorney General Ashcroft. That briefing took place by July 17."

Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter, a Pentagon spokesman, said he had no information "about what may or may not have been briefed" to Rumsfeld at Rice's request.

David Ayres, who was Ashcroft's chief of staff at the Justice Department, said that the former attorney general also has no recollection of a July 17, 2001, terrorist threat briefing. Later, Ayres said that Ashcroft could recall only a July 5 briefing on threats to U.S. interests abroad.

He said Ashcroft doesn't remember any briefing that summer that indicated that al-Qaida was planning to attack within the United States.

The CIA briefing didn't provide the exact timing or nature of a possible attack, nor did it predict whether it was likely to take place in the United States or overseas, said three former senior intelligence officials.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because the report remains highly classified.

The briefing "didn't say within the United States," said one former senior intelligence official. "It said on the United States, which could mean a ship, an embassy or inside the United States."

In the briefing, Tenet warned in very strong terms that intelligence from a variety of sources indicated that bin Laden's terrorist network was planning an attack on a U.S. target in the near future, said one of the officials.

"The briefing was intended to `connect the dots' contained in other intelligence reports and paint a very clear picture of the threat posed by bin Laden," said the official, who described the tone of the report as "scary."

It isn't clear what action, if any, the administration took in response, but officials said Rumsfeld was focused mostly on his plans to remake the Army into a smaller, high-tech force and deploy a national ballistic missile defense system.

Nor is it clear why the 9/11 commission never reported the briefing, which the intelligence officials said Tenet outlined to commission members Ben-Veniste and Zelikow in secret testimony at CIA headquarters. The State Department confirmed that the briefing materials were "made available to the 9/11 Commission, and Director Tenet was asked about this meeting when interviewed by the 9/11 Commission."

The three former senior intelligence officials, however, said Tenet raised the matter with the panel himself, displayed slides from the PowerPoint presentation and offered to testify on the matter in public.

Ben-Veniste confirmed to McClatchy Newspapers that Tenet outlined for the 9/11 commission the July 10 briefing to Rice in secret testimony in January 2004. He referred questions about why the commission omitted any mention of the briefing in its report to Zelikow, the report's main author. Zelikow didn't respond to e-mail and telephone queries from McClatchy Newspapers.

Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism chief, Ben-Veniste and the former senior intelligence officials all challenged some aspects of Woodward's account of the briefing given to Rice, including assertions that she failed to react to the warning and that it concerned an imminent attack inside the United States.

Clarke told McClatchy Newspapers that Rice focused in particular on the possible threat to President Bush at an upcoming summit meeting in Genoa, Italy, and promised to quickly schedule a high-level White House meeting on al-Qaida. That meeting took place on September 4, 2001.

Ben-Veniste said the commission was never told that Rice had brushed off the warning. According to Tenet, he said, Rice "understood the level of urgency he was communicating."

Can we NOW tell George to "Connect the Dots?" Really, why would anyone vote for a Republican now? Can anyone remember a few years ago when someone (and I wont mention names) talked about, in their stump speech, about returning dignity back to the White House. Is this their idea? Or maybe its the whole Foley/Hastert fiasco we currently are seeing unfold. When your own party turns against you, what does that say?

Reboot Democracy

2006-10-02T17:00:00.000-05:00

From Boing Boing

Double Standard = dradnatS elbuoD

2006-10-02T15:46:00.000-05:00

Gingrich: House GOP would have "been accused of gay bashing" if it "overly aggressively reacted" to Foley's emails in 2005

Discussing the recent resignation of former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) with host Chris Wallace on the October 1 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, Fox News political analyst and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) claimed that House Republicans would have "been accused of gay bashing" if they had "overly aggressively reacted" to Foley's allegedly inappropriate email communications with a 16-year-old male congressional page when House Republicans reportedly first learned of Foley's actions in late 2005. As Media Matters for America has noted, the House Republican leadership -- including House Majority Leader John Boehner (OH), National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds (NY), and a senior aide to House Speaker Dennis Hastert (IL) -- has reportedly known for months about Foley's emails. Wallace then asked: "How would it have been gay bashing?" Gingrich replied: "Because it was a male-male relationship," adding that "there was no proof" that Foley was a "predatory person."

Gingrich suggested that House Republican leaders would have been responding "overly aggressively" if they took action against Foley after reading his alleged emails because "the actual notes were relatively innocuous, there was nothing sexual in those notes." As the weblog Talking Points Memo has noted, House leaders have acknowledged that Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA) had seen the emails; the blog also noted a report by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) said he and the clerk of the House had also seen the emails, while a Shimkus spokesman said Shimkus hadn't seen the emails. Boehner, Reynolds, and Hastert acknowledge being aware of the emails, but not having seen them directly. In the emails, Foley allegedly asked the page to "send me an email pic of you," remarked that a different page was "in really great shape," and asked the page "what do you want for your birthday" and "how old are you now?"

Further, if House leaders had investigated further, they might also have uncovered sexually explicit instant messages Foley reportedly sent to a House page in 2003.

From the October 1 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace:

WALLACE: Before we get to the Clinton interview, let's start, as we always do, with the latest news. It now turns out that, as we said, top Republican House leaders knew for months that Congressman Mark Foley sent inappropriate emails to at least one 16-year-old male page. Speaker Gingrich, did House Republican leaders do all they should have?

GINGRICH: Well, I think if you look at what they actually knew, which was that the family did not want anyone involved and the actual notes were relatively innocuous, there was nothing sexual in those notes. They had him counseled. They had the head of the page program, Congressman Shimkus, talk to him very directly. And I think they thought that it was over. The newest incident only surfaced when ABC News interviewed Foley and he resigned within two hours, or I think the House leaders would have moved to expel him.

WALLACE: But during all those months they left Foley in the House Republican leadership. They left him as the head of the congressional caucus dealing with exploited children. No second thoughts about that?

GINGRICH: Well, you could have second thoughts about it, but I think had they overly aggressively reacted to the initial round, they would also have been accused of gay bashing. I mean, the original notes had no sexual innuendo and the parents did not want any action taken.

WALLACE: How would it have been gay bashing?

GINGRICH: Because it was a male-male relationship. And they had no -- there was no proof, there was nothing that I know of in that initial round that would have led you to say in a normal circumstance that this is a predatory person.

Your new constitution

2006-10-01T23:00:00.000-05:00

As there have lately been so many changes to the basic functioning of the United States -- a shift of powers here, a whittling away of rights there, it seems a good time to issue a revised version of the basic operating document. This is the real Republican Contract with America.

We the Republicans of the United States, in Order to prevent any challenge to our continued Supremacy, free ourselves from the Confines of Justice, placate the Tranquil masses, degrade the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of War Profiteering for ourselves and our Friends, do ordain and establish Constitution 2.0 for the United States of America.

ARTICLE I
Section 1
All legislative Powers are hereby ceded to the Executive branch, though the Congress will still make a Grand Noise and wave their arms as if they give a Damn.

Section 2
The House of Representatives will consist of those best able to Lick the Boots of the Lobbyists and Corporations lining their pockets.

No one can be a Representative unless Fox News says that he is a Patriotic American,

Representation shall be apportioned based on numbers of people willing to Pay for the Privilege. The actual Enumeration shall be made whenever it is of benefit to Republicans.

Representatives will choose a Speaker and other Officers by how willing these Officers are to turn a blind eye to the Crimes of Republicans and how Loudly they will Declare the Daily Talking Points.

Section 3
The Senate shall... oh hell, just see Section 1.

The Vice President shall be President of the Senate and can use any Four Letter Word he wants in talking to Senators, so F-You, Leahy.

Section 4
Elections will be held whenever Diebold is prepared to provide the Right Results.

Section 5
Each House shall make a mockery of policing itself and shall be free to throw out all the Democrats they want, but Republicans who engage in Pederasty shall be protected.

Section 6
Republican Senators and Representatives will enjoy a Revolving Door of organizations who pay for votes, and give them jobs any time they are taking a break.

Section 7
The House and Senate shall apply a large Rubber Stamp to every suggestion issued by the President.

Section 8
The House shall raise all the taxes they want on the poor and middle-class so long as they leave the Rich alone.

The Congress will dodge all responsibility for decisions on War.

Section 9
The rules of Immigration shall be set in a way that protects Republican majorities.

Section 10
Any treaties are not worth the paper they are Written on.

ARTICLE II
Section 1
The President can do anything he wants, that's what's good about being President. Heh heh.

Section 2
The President can wear any uniform he wants and pretend to fly planes.

Section 3
The President and the Congress should split some beers now and then, but he doesn't have to invite any Democrats.

Section 4
Having sex is a good Reason to get rid of a President. Lying, being Incompetent, Wasting Billions, and getting Thousands of Americans Killed, is fine.

ARTICLE III
This Article was full of that Judge stuff, so we just took it out.

ARTICLE IV
We can declare any place we want part of the United States so they can call their stuff "Made in the USA," but don't go thinking they get representation.

ARTICLE V
Amendments to the Constitution will only be for Really Important Stuff, like how scared we are of Homos and Foreign People.

ARTICLE VI
You can ignore any part of this Constitution if it gets in the way of Profit or something that gets Republicans elected.

ARTICLE VII
People are supposed to be afraid all the Time, otherwise they do too damn much Thinking.

The Bone that is FISH ... Skankin to the beat

2006-09-29T21:17:00.000-05:00

No politics today ... just muppets with attitude

2006-09-29T15:46:00.001-05:00

Diggin in my musical closet ... yet again

2006-09-29T15:42:00.001-05:00

As election time approachs

2006-09-29T10:50:00.000-05:00

I'm reminded of this lovely picture. Now some two years later and its time for a mid-term possible hand over of the house and senate. Can it be any different now?

2006-09-26T22:55:00.001-05:00

That smell is Fox News

2006-09-26T14:13:00.000-05:00

Only FOX, I swear. While the video of Olbermann a few weeks back was taken down by Google Video because they had squirreled out that I was not the creator of the content, YouTube had let me use news videos from various sources with no problems.

So imagine my surprise when I check my email today and see the following.

Dear Member:

This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by Fox News Network, LLC claiming that this material is infringing:

And this message popped up when I tried to visit the video’s page:

This video has been removed at the request of copyright owner Fox News Network, LLC because its content was used without permission

Again, keep in mind that I have CNN and MSNBC videos up as well, some with mild popularity. But of course a few days later FOX comes after me and complains. Now, I don’t have a problem with copyrighted material being prevented from spreading for free. That’s fine. But it only makes sense in the case where its circulation determines the creator’s income.

News, ideally, should be free to spread. News organizations should not have a problem with old news circulating freely. You’ll pay for a movie to watch it a few times, you’ll buy a ticket to a movie that came out last year. You’ll turn to a TV show that you’ve already seen just because you like it.

But that’s not why you turn to news stations. You turn on FOX or CNN to see things you haven’t before. That’s the point of news. You want to see what’s going on NOW. The purpose of news is to have it circulated. This video is an interview, would they have told me to remove the transcript from my site had I uploaded that? Same information, but now you have to read it instead of watch it.

Generally, news organizations don’t really have the time to replay old episodes, and this 30 minute interview of which half I had uploaded will never be seen in its entirety on FOX ever again. It’s not like they’re relying on rerun ratings.

There are only two reasons for a news organization to want that video taken down, because they plan on selling it or because they don’t want people to see it. I doubt heavily that this interview will ever be sold because of how bad it makes them look. Can I assume that they want it down so no one will see how much of a smackdown Clinton gave Wallace? The transcript is there, but it’s different in text than in video.

Curiously, digging around on FOX’s site itself doesn’t yield the full interview either. You can get bits and pieces, but not the full thing. It’s gone AWOL. And the one bit you can get starts right off with Clinton on the offense, forgetting the full lead-in.

You can search for the video on YouTube yourself. Click on any of the results, you’ll see the same message. FOX hasn’t done this with the O’Reilly clips, none of the other bits from FOX that litter YouTube. They went through and reported every single instance of this video being circulated. It’s as if they’re trying to erase the actuality of it in order to facilitate their talking heads’ distorting it.

So, I say this with all objectivity: fuck you, FOX.

(above story from Hanlon's Razor .... the title of this story is the link.)

Late Night Lust

2006-09-24T22:51:00.001-05:00

Is this Love?

2006-09-22T19:34:00.001-05:00

Possibly the strangest commercial I've ever seen

2006-09-21T22:31:00.000-05:00

What would happen if David Lynch directed Commericals .... hmmmmm maybe its something like this.

Iraq For Sale

2006-09-21T14:26:00.001-05:00

Anyone care to do the Safety Dance with me?

2006-09-21T14:14:00.000-05:00

TAMPA - MacDill Air Force Base officials are investigating why security personnel did not stop two teenagers in a stolen car from barreling through the main entrance to one of the nation's most important military installations.

The breach, which occurred early Wednesday morning, has raised questions about how well-protected MacDill is and what further steps might be taken to seal the nearly 5,800-acre base from outsiders.

Tampa police were tracking Davaraye Mungin and Damia Bowie, both 16, as they sped south on Dale Mabry Highway toward MacDill in a 2000 Chrysler Cirrus.

A police dispatcher phoned the base to alert security officials about the speeding car because police and the base do not share a radio frequency.

Police thought the call went through seconds before the vehicle passed through the gate at Dale Mabry Highway, but Air Force 1st Lt. Larry van der Oord, a base spokesman, said the call came after the car was on the base.

Van der Oord said two enlisted members of the 6th Security Forces Squadron were guarding the entrance when the teens plowed through before 3 a.m. Because of the time of day, the gate had been shut down to one lane.

There was no immediate explanation for why the guards did not stop the vehicle. The guards are authorized to use deadly force if the threat warrants such action, van der Oord said.

"There's an investigation to find out what happened," he said. "Any time there's an incident, it's an issue that has to be taken seriously and be looked at very carefully."

The vehicle did not get far, van der Oord said. The pair drove down Boundary Drive to Hangar Loop Drive - roughly two miles - before crashing into two police cruisers near U.S. Central Command's main headquarters building at 2:48 a.m., van der Oord and police said.

Security at MacDill's entry points was being strengthened in response to the incident, van der Oord added.

Mungin and Bowie are charged with felony auto theft and felony auto burglary. Mungin also is charged with fleeing and eluding, aggravated battery on a law enforcement officer and resisting arrest with violence, police said.

There is more of this story located here but the point is this. Security and all of the Boogey men that this administration has been throwing at us is a JOKE. We are NO safer today than we were 5 years ago. Just think if the people driving that car were say extremists and had a car bomb set to detonate as soon as they hit the grounds of the base instead of joy-riding teenies. Every American should feel like they're watching David Copperfield about now, because ladies and gentlemen, this is an ILLUSION.

My last post of the day

2006-09-19T19:49:00.000-05:00

And this is just sad:

WASHINGTON - There is so much political corruption on Capitol Hill that the FBI has had to triple the number of squads investigating lobbyists, lawmakers and influence peddlers, the Daily News has learned.

For decades, only one squad in Washington handled corruption cases because the crimes were seen as local offenses handled by FBI field offices in lawmakers' home districts.

But in recent years, the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and other abuses of power and privilege have prompted the FBI to assign 37 agents full-time to three new squads in an office near Capitol Hill.

FBI Assistant Director Chip Burrus told The News yesterday that he wants to detail even more agents to the Washington field office for a fourth corruption squad because so much wrongdoing is being uncovered.

"Traditionally, a congressional bribery case might be conducted on Main Street U.S.A., but a lot of the stuff we're finding these days is here in Washington," said Burrus, who heads the FBI's criminal division.

He said typical crimes involve lawmakers' illegal interactions with lobbyists and "people who have a lot of savvy about how the congressional process works and appropriations."

Plus, the electronic and legislative paper trail that winds up as evidence is in Washington, as Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) and ex-Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham (R-Calif.) can attest.

Ney has agreed to plead guilty to corruption charges. Cunningham was sentenced to eight years in the slammer for taking bribes.

Two years ago, only 400 agents worked on public corruption cases. Now, 615 agents nationwide - including 30 in New York - are trying to nail public servants for betraying the public trust in 2,200 ongoing cases.

A recent FBI search of the Alaska Statehouse was a first of its kind.

In Washington, agents conducted unprecedented searches of the offices of the CIA's third-ranking executive and the House office of Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.).

Both stemmed from bribery allegations.

Burrus wouldn't speculate about why there is so much graft, but said, "We have to pull the whole weed up or it's just going to grow back again."

The Cult of Christ

2006-09-19T19:29:00.000-05:00

This is the future ... be afraid. Be VERY afraid. Listen for a comment made about who wants to be among those that would die for Christ? Chilling stuff.

More troubles for Diebold

2006-09-19T11:23:00.000-05:00

Like other computer scientists who have studied Diebold voting machines, we were surprised at the apparent carelessness of Diebold’s security design. It can be hard to convey this to nonexperts, because the examples are technical. To security practitioners, the use of a fixed, unchangeable encryption key and the blind acceptance of every software update offered on removable storage are rookie mistakes; but nonexperts have trouble appreciating this. Here is an example that anybody, expert or not, can appreciate:

The access panel door on a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine — the door that protects the memory card that stores the votes, and is the main barrier to the injection of a virus — can be opened with a standard key that is widely available on the Internet.

On Wednesday we did a live demo for our Princeton Computer Science colleagues of the vote-stealing software described in our paper and video. Afterward, Chris Tengi, a technical staff member, asked to look at the key that came with the voting machine. He noticed an alphanumeric code printed on the key, and remarked that he had a key at home with the same code on it. The next day he brought in his key and sure enough it opened the voting machine.

This seemed like a freakish coincidence — until we learned how common these keys are.

Chris’s key was left over from a previous job, maybe fifteen years ago. He said the key had opened either a file cabinet or the access panel on an old VAX computer. A little research revealed that the exact same key is used widely in office furniture, electronic equipment, jukeboxes, and hotel minibars. It’s a standard part, and like most standard parts it’s easily purchased on the Internet. We bought several keys from an office furniture key shop — they open the voting machine too. We ordered another key on eBay from a jukebox supply shop. The keys can be purchased from many online merchants.

Using such a standard key doesn’t provide much security, but it does allow Diebold to assert that their design uses a lock and key. Experts will recognize the same problem in Diebold’s use of encryption — they can say they use encryption, but they use it in a way that neutralizes its security benefits.

The bad guys don’t care whether you use encryption; they care whether they can read and modify your data. They don’t care whether your door has a lock on it; they care whether they can get it open. The checkbox approach to security works in press releases, but it doesn’t work in the field.

(Also note, Keith Olbermann did a commentary last night on GWB that I will hopefully be posting sometime today, if not, its on Crooks and Liars.

More music from my archive

2006-09-17T20:41:00.000-05:00

Problems forseen in upcoming election

2006-09-17T13:31:00.000-05:00

An overhaul in how states and localities record votes and administer elections since the Florida recount battle six years ago has created conditions that could trigger a repeat -- this time on a national scale -- of last week's Election Day debacle in the Maryland suburbs, election experts said.

In the Nov. 7 election, more than 80 percent of voters will use electronic voting machines, and a third of all precincts this year are using the technology for the first time. The changes are part of a national wave, prompted by the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 and numerous revisions of state laws, that led to the replacement of outdated voting machines with computer-based electronic machines, along with centralized databases of registered voters and other steps to refine the administration of elections.

But in Maryland last Tuesday, a combination of human blunders and technological glitches caused long lines and delays in vote-counting. The problems, which followed ones earlier this year in Ohio, Illinois and several other states, have contributed to doubts among some experts about whether the new systems are reliable and whether election officials are adequately prepared to use them.

In a polarized political climate, in which elections are routinely marked by litigation and allegations of incompetent administration or outright tampering, some worry that voting problems could cast a Florida-style shadow over this fall's midterm elections.

"We could see that control of Congress is going to be decided by races in recount situations that might not be determined for several weeks," said Paul S. DeGregorio, chairman of the federal Election Assistance Commission, although he added that he does not expect problems of this magnitude.

"It's hard to put a factor on how ill-prepared we are," said former Ohio governor Richard F. Celeste, a Democrat who recently co-chaired a study of new machines with Republican Richard L. Thornburgh, former governor of Pennsylvania, for the National Research Council. They advised local election officials to prepare backup plans for November.

"What we know is, these technologies require significant testing and debugging to make them work," added Celeste, now president of Colorado College. "Our concern -- particularly as we look to the November election, when there is a lot of pressure on -- is that election officials consider what kinds of fallbacks they can put in place."

The main focus is on whether people know how to properly use the machines, particularly the large army of volunteers who staff the polls at most precincts.

"We know the equipment works because it's been qualified to federal standards," said Kevin J. Kennedy, executive director of the Wisconsin State Elections Board and president of the National Association of State Election Directors. "The real challenge is to make sure our poll workers are trained and make sure voters have been educated so that we don't have an experience like Maryland had."

What is clear is that a national effort to improve election procedures six years ago -- after the presidential election ended with ambiguous ballots and allegations of miscounted votes and partisan favoritism in Florida -- has failed to restore broad public confidence that the system is fair.

To the contrary, litigation is on the rise. Rick Hasen, a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and the author of Election Law Blog, found that the number of election challenges filed in court had risen sharply from 2000 to 2004 -- from 197 per year to 361. "Parties have become more willing to go to court," Hasen said.

In 2004, some Democrats alleged widespread voting irregularities in Ohio, including questionable vote-counting and problems with machines in Democratic-leaning precincts. Nonpartisan election experts have said the problems were not so severe to call President Bush's victory, by about 119,000 votes, into question.

This year, there are debates over standards for keeping voter registration rolls up to date; for the handling of "provisional ballots" used by people who do not show up on those rolls but believe they are legally qualified to vote; and for assuring the validity of electronic vote counts through the use of paper trails for all electronic machines. State legislation requiring state or federal identification for all voters has been challenged in courts.

One reason many issues are coming to a head this year is that the Help America Vote Act set the start of 2006 as the deadline for states to comply fully with its regulations.

Help America Vote does not mandate electronic voting, but it has greatly accelerated that trend. The law banned lever machines and punch cards to end debates about ambiguous "hanging chads" of the sort that occurred in Florida in 2000. What is clear is that electronic machines have their own imponderables.

In Montgomery County, the breakdown came when election officials failed to provide precinct workers with the access cards needed to operate electronic voting machines. In Prince George's County, computers misidentified some voters' party affiliation and failed to transmit data to the central election office. At least nine other states have had trouble this year with new voting technology.

During Illinois's March primary, poll workers in Cook County (Chicago) experienced problems at hundreds of sites with new voting technology, delaying results in a crucial vote for the county's board.

In Ohio, results from the May primary election were delayed for nearly a week in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) when thousands of absentee ballots were incorrectly formatted for electronic scanners and had to be counted by hand.

Twenty-seven states require electronic voting machines to produce a paper trail available for auditing during a recount, but an analysis of Cuyahoga County's paper trail by the nonpartisan Election Science Institute showed that a tenth of the receipts were uncountable.

So far, none of these problems has prompted lingering legal challenges. But experts say turnout in general elections is much higher than in primaries and will put new stresses on the election system.

Although Help America Vote imposed national standards, it did not impose a uniform system. There are different styles and brands of equipment in use, with the potential for different bugs. The main systems are optical-scan machines and touch-screen machines. The potential problems election officials cite include machines breaking down or paper ballots not being read by optical-scan machines.

Beyond technical bugs, questions remain about whether the machines are vulnerable to vote fraud by hackers.

For several years, prominent computer scientists have taken aim at the electronic voting machines, which in essence are computers. In analyses of the software that runs widely used models of the machines, and in tests on specific brands, the scientists have shown how they could manipulate the machine to report a vote total that differed from the actual total cast by voters.

Machine vendors and some election officials have said that, while changing vote totals may be possible for someone with sophisticated technical knowledge in a controlled experiment, it is highly unlikely in a real election, given the security and oversight.

In the wake of Help America Vote, Congress has appropriated more than $3 billion to states to upgrade equipment, and Vermont Secretary of State Deb Markowitz, the president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, said many states have met all of Help America Vote's requirements. Backers credit the law with making voting easier for the disabled and people for whom English is not a primary language. And they say that when machines and databases work properly, they make voting more accurate.

As Election Day nears, however, states remain embroiled in legal disputes growing out of Help America Vote's requirements for centralized voter databases and for some first-time voters to show identification at the polls. The Justice Department has sued New York state for failing to comply with Help America Vote requirements, such as upgrading machines and building a central voter database.

Democrats and Republicans remain at odds over voter registration rolls. The Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal advocacy group, recently showed that properly registered voters in Florida, New Jersey and Kentucky were being removed from voter databases through electronic purges.

"Voter suppression doesn't happen with intimidation on Election Day, but rather through silent and sometimes secret government actions in the weeks leading up to an election," said Michael Waldman, the center's executive director.

Republicans have pressed for laws requiring voters to show a state or federal identification card -- a requirement Democrats say could disenfranchise low-income and minority voters.

A handful of states have passed expansive laws requiring voters to show state or federal ID at the polls. On Thursday, a circuit court judge in Missouri struck down as unconstitutional that state's ID requirement. That ruling followed a similar decision by a court in Georgia. A court in Indiana, however, upheld the requirement.

Further clouding the election process is the fact that, in many states, the administration of elections remains in political hands -- run by secretaries of state or other officials who run for office with partisan affiliations and who often have designs on higher office.

Robert Pastor, director of a commission on election reform organized by American University and headed by former president Jimmy Carter and former secretary of state James A. Baker III, said this tradition should be abandoned.

"The Carter-Baker commission identified 87 steps that need to be undertaken," he said. "Regrettably, almost none of them are being done right now. I would start by establishing statewide, nonpartisan election administratio

AND

2006-09-16T13:54:00.000-05:00

Since we're talking about the internet(s.) We can't forget Senator Ted Stevens.

Net Neutrality

2006-09-16T13:52:00.000-05:00

Because I have no faith

2006-09-15T15:18:00.000-05:00

The latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll found Republicans and Democrats equally capable of protecting the country in the eyes of those surveyed. If the House elections were held today, Democrats have a 14-point edge among likely voters, 53% to 39%, in the generic congressional ballot. While still a large gap, this is somewhat narrower than last month.

Meanwhile, Pew Research finds voters "are expressing strong and consistent anti-Republican attitudes. The GOP lags well behind the Democratic Party on nearly all major issues, including the economy, Iraq, education, health care, the environment and the budget deficit."

In the generic congressional ballot, Pew finds Democrats leading 50% to 39%.

Now lets see how fast the democrats can piss away this lead. I'm still waiting for the "counter" message. You know, the one in which democrats tell me what they can offer me besides NOT being republican.

2006-09-15T14:17:00.000-05:00

Report on Iran by the US is labeled "dishonest."

2006-09-15T08:37:00.000-05:00

A recent House of Representatives committee report on Iran's nuclear capability is "outrageous and dishonest" in trying to make a case that Tehran's program is geared toward making weapons, a senior official of the U.N. nuclear watchdog has said.

The letter, obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday outside a 35-nation board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, says the report is false in saying Iran is making weapons-grade uranium at an experimental enrichment site, when it has in fact produced material only in small quantities that is far below the level that can be used in nuclear arms.

The letter, which was first reported on by The Washington Post, also says the report erroneously says that IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei removed a senior nuclear inspector from the team investigating Iran's nuclear program "for concluding that the purpose of Iran's nuclear program is to construct weapons."

In fact, the inspector was sidelined on Tehran's request, and the Islamic republic had a right to ask for a replacement under agreements that govern all states relationships with the agency, said the letter, calling the report's version "incorrect and misleading."

"In addition," says the letter, "the report contains an outrageous and dishonest suggestion that such removal might have been for 'not having adhered to an unstated IAEA policy barring IAEA officials from telling the whole truth about the Iranian nuclear program.'"

Dated Aug. 12, the letter was addressed to Rep. Peter Hoekstra (news, bio, voting record), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. It was signed by Vilmos Cserveny, a senior director of the Vienna-based agency.

An IAEA official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the letter, said it was written "to set the record straight."

Jamal Ware, a spokesman for the House committee, confirmed they had received the letter and said the chairman had referred it to Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and Rep. Rush Hold, D-N.J. They will review it and issue a formal response if necessary, he said.

"All IAEA complains about is a photo caption. If you read the report, it's very clear that what it is saying is that Iran is working to develop the capability to enrich uranium to weapons grade, not that they have done so," Ware said. "They use a string of adjectives, while not pointing to any substantive criticism of the report. There are areas where we would disagree with them. A disagreement does not make what we say erroneous."

The dispute was reminiscent of the clashes between the IAEA and Washington over whether Saddam Hussein was trying to make weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear arms. American arguments that Saddam had such covert arms programs were given as the chief reason for invading Iraq and toppling Saddam.

ElBaradei's criticism of the U.S. standpoint on Iraq and subsequent perceptions that he was soft on Iran in his staff's investigation of suspicions Tehran's nuclear activities may be a cover for a weapons program led to a failed attempt last year by Washington to prevent his re-election.

Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine

2006-09-14T19:08:00.000-05:00

Be warned .... this is a long video (9:29) but very important to watch.

Nancy Grace ... why is she not on Fox? The trifecta would be complete.

2006-09-14T10:38:00.000-05:00

Neil Cavuto is my saviour

2006-09-14T09:16:00.000-05:00

(And according to this from one of his guests, maybe George W IS his favourite son.)

During a discussion of how the recent attack on the U.S. Embassy in Syria will affect the stock market, on the September 12 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto, Fox News senior business correspondent Brenda Buttner asserted that "Wall Street is very insular" and "the market's going to go down" if a terror attack occurs in the United States. Buttner then claimed: "Thank God and thank President Bush it hasn't happened here yet," adding that "they've [terrorists] been trying and President Bush has been trying to stop them despite the opposition of some very misled people." Fox News touts Your World as "the No.1 business news show on cable."

From the September 12 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto:

NEIL CAVUTO (host): Brenda?

BUTTNER: These despicable militants are trying to hit us over there. They're trying to do it over here. They just haven't been -- been successful today. Just as [Fortune magazine senior writer] Adam [Lashinsky] said, they will try to do it again tomorrow; and Wall Street is very insular -- they don't see anything except what's right in front of their face. And if it happens here, the market's going to go down. Thank God and thank President Bush it hasn't happened here yet. But they've been trying and President Bush has been trying to stop them despite the opposition of some very misled people.

Seriously .... what planet are these people on? Does anyone actually get information from the media anymore? There is a movie called "Why We Fight," and one of the most chilling descriptions of modern "political punditry" is that all people on the political "stage" now are just actors. If thats true, do we have years of crappy re-runs ahead of us? Or is it going to be like Sam Peckinpah and they'll just be bloody, spaghetti westerns until we reclaim our country? Are you one of the misled? I know that I'm not. I'm going to be posting a story later today about how Princeton was able to create a virus and hack into an electronic voting machine, with the video. Stay tuned ......

Konsumer Kulture Khaos

2006-09-13T16:48:00.000-05:00

Republican to outspend Democrats 5 times

2006-09-13T13:31:00.000-05:00

This is the first paragraph of an article I read today:

The Republican National Committee (RNC) will spend its entire bank account, $60 million or more, helping Republicans try to retain control of Congress in the midterm elections.

So lets just put this in simple terms. It doesnt matter what the message is. We all know "Money talks bullshit walks," so the question remains. What is the best form of government that you can buy? Just something to ponder.

Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment on Bush

2006-09-12T20:14:00.000-05:00

And lastly tonight a Special Comment on why we are here. Half a lifetime ago, I worked in this now-empty space.
And for 40 days after the attacks, I worked here again, trying to make sense of what happened, and was yet to happen, as a reporter.
And all the time, I knew that the very air I breathed contained the remains of thousands of people, including four of my friends, two in the planes and — as I discovered from those "missing posters" seared still into my soul — two more in the Towers.
And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds of New York policemen and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a dozen or more, as our ancestors.
I belabor this to emphasize that, for me… this was, and is, and always shall be, personal.
And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft", or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here — is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante — and at worst, an idiot — whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.
However. Of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast — of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds… none of us could have predicted… this.
Five years later this space… is still empty.
Five years later there is no Memorial to the dead.
Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.
Five years later this country’s wound is still open.
Five years… later this country’s mass grave is still unmarked.
Five years later… this is still… just a background for a photo-op.
It is beyond shameful.
—
At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial — barely four months after the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field, Mr. Lincoln said "we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."
Lincoln used those words to immortalize their sacrifice.
Today our leaders could use those same words to rationalize their reprehensible inaction. "We can nto dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground." So we won’t.
Instead they bicker and buck-pass. They thwart private efforts, and jostle to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere. They spend the money on irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations, and buying off columnists to write how good a job they’re doing — instead of doing any job at all.
Five years later, Mr. Bush… we are still fighting the terrorists on these streets. And look carefully, sir — on these 16 empty acres, the terrorists… are clearly, still winning.
And, in a crime against every victim here and every patriotic sentiment you mouthed but did not enact, you have done nothing about it.
—
And there is something worse still than this vast gaping hole in this city, and in the fabric of our nation.
There is, its symbolism — of the promise unfulfilled, the urgent oath, reduced to lazy execution.
The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it… was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support.
Those who did not belong to his party — tabled that.
Those who doubted the mechanics of his election — ignored that.
Those who wondered of his qualifications — forgot that.
History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government, by its critics.
It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation’s wounds, but to take political advantage.
Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.
The President — and those around him — did that.
They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused; as appeasers; as those who, in the Vice President’s words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."
They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken… a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated Al-Qaeda as much as we did.
The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had ’something to do’ with 9/11, is "lying by implication."
The impolite phrase, is "impeachable offense."
Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space… and to this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country.
Still, there is a last snapping flame from a final candle of respect and fairness: even his most virulent critics have never suggested he alone bears the full brunt of the blame for 9/11.
Half the time, in fact, this President has been so gently treated, that he has seemed not even to be the man most responsible — for anything — in his own administration.
Yet what is happening this very night?
A mini-series, created, influenced — possibly financed by — the most radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be televised into our homes.
The documented truths of the last fifteen years are replaced by bald-faced lies; the talking points of the current regime parroted; the whole sorry story blurred, by spin, to make the party out of office seem vacillating and impotent, and the party in office, seem like the only option.
How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death… after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections… how dare you or those around you… ever "spin" 9/11.
—
Just as the terrorists have succeeded — are still succeeding — as long as there is no memorial and no construction here at Ground Zero…
So too have they succeeded, and are still succeeding — as long as this government uses 9/11 as a wedge to pit Americans against Americans.
This is an odd point to cite a television program, especially one from March of 1960. But as Disney’s continuing sell-out of the truth (and this country) suggests, even television programs can be powerful things.
And long ago, a series called "The Twilight Zone" broadcast a riveting episode entitled "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street."
In brief: a meteor sparks rumors of an invasion by extra-terrestrials disguised as humans. The electricity goes out. A neighbor pleads for calm.
Suddenly his car — and only his car — starts. Someone suggests he must be the alien. Then another man’s lights go on.
As charges and suspicion and panic overtake the street, guns are inevitably produced.
An "alien" is shot — but he turns out to be just another neighbor, returning from going for help.
The camera pulls back to a near-by hill, where two extra-terrestrials areseen, manipulating a small device that can jam electricity. The veteran tells his novice that there’s no need to actually attack, that you just turn off a few of the human machines and then, "they pick the most dangerous enemy they can find, and it’s themselves."
And then, in perhaps his finest piece of writing, Rod Serling sums it up with words of remarkable prescience, given where we find ourselves tonight.
"The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices - to be found only in the minds of men.
"For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own — for the children, and the children yet unborn."
—
When those who dissent are told time and time again — as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus — that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it, we are somehow un-American…
When we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11"… look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me:
Who has left this hole in the ground?
We have not forgotten, Mr. President.
You have.
May this country forgive you.

( I recommend clicking on the link to go watch the video ) Watch the video here

When you have that moment of silence today .... just remember

2006-09-11T08:35:00.000-05:00

Torture may get a new definition

2006-09-10T13:38:00.000-05:00

To many of President George W. Bush's allies, it is time to free intelligence officials from "legislative purgatory" and get the CIA back in the business of effective interrogations of suspected terrorists.

That chance could come this week if the Senates takes up a White House proposal limiting the punishable offenses that CIA interrogators may face when questioning "high-value" terrorist suspects. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Republican of Tennessee, is expected to begin debate on the bill as early as Tuesday.

Through omissions and legal definitions, the proposal could authorize harsh techniques that critics contend potentially violate the Geneva Conventions, which govern the treatment of war prisoners. These methods include hypothermia, stress positions and "waterboarding," a practice of simulated drowning.

The bill would keep in law prohibitions on war crimes such as rape and torture that are widely accepted as illegal.

The proposal would apply back to 2001 the Bush administration's standards for treatment of detainees. That would shield CIA personnel from liability under a 1996 law intended to uphold the Geneva Conventions, since the fight against terrorism began and harsher interrogation methods were approved.

Sen. John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has developed his own plan to address concerns he has related to the military commissions that would prosecute terrorism detainees. According to a draft copy of the bill, his legislation also may amend that 1996 law, the War Crimes Act.

President Bush sent his plan to Capitol Hill last Wednesday, the same day the Pentagon issued rules forbidding military personnel from using those same harsh techniques.

"The net effect is that at least some of the alternative techniques are rendered, in effect, lawful" for the CIA, said Martin Lederman, a Georgetown law professor and former legal adviser at the Justice Department during the Clinton administration.

Lederman and other legal experts, along with human rights activists, say the White House proposal would undermine the 1949 Geneva Conventions by providing a more narrow definition of objectionable treatment.

"I think that's the bombshell ... because no other country has done that," said Elisa Massimino, the Washington director for Human Rights First. "And once we do, we lower the floor and the whole structure could crumble."

But according to conservatives, the move was necessary to repair damage done to the White House's intelligence program since a Supreme Court ruling in June. The court ruled against Bush's claim that interrogators did not have to comply with the Geneva Conventions when dealing with members of al-Qaida.

The court's decision to grant suspected terrorists certain rights potentially exposed Americans to prosecution under the War Crimes Act. The result, conservatives say, was a profound cooling effect on the CIA interrogation program.

"We're interviewing, not interrogating," said Sen. Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Roberts, a Kansas Republican, said in a recent interview that he believes intelligence officials are frozen in a type of "legislative purgatory." He said that keeps them from wanting to "walk up to the line, as has been the case before where we got 50 percent of our intelligence on what the terrorists were doing."

Tom Crispell, a CIA spokesman, declined comment on the agency's program.

According to recent public opinion polls, Roberts is not alone with his concerns. In an August poll conducted by Time, 55 percent of those surveyed said they support the harsh interrogation methods sometimes used to obtain information from prisoners in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In a separate poll also by Time, 15 percent of respondents favored torture, even though it is against the law.

Such a willingness to be tough on terrorists could help Bush push a hard line on his legislation. At the same the president is asking Congress to amend the War Crimes Act and establish military tribunals to try detainees, he also wants lawmakers to approve the National Security Agency's terrorist surveillance program.

The effort is seen by many critics as an election-season push to expand his authorities to monitor suspected terrorists at a time when lawmakers from both parties are selling themselves as tough on terrorism.

A true musical Genius

2006-09-09T18:57:00.000-05:00

An afternoon with the Residents

2006-09-09T15:29:00.000-05:00

Proof .... No links between Saddam, Al-Qaida links ... Connect THESE dots

2006-09-08T14:22:00.000-05:00

WASHINGTON - There's no evidence Saddam Hussein had ties with al-Qaida, according to a Senate report on prewar intelligence that Democrats say undercuts President Bush's justification for invading Iraq.

Bush administration officials have insisted on a link between the Iraqi regime and terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Intelligence agencies, however, concluded there was none.

Republicans countered that there was little new in the report and Democrats were trying to score election-year points with it.

The declassified document released Friday by the intelligence committee also explores the role that inaccurate information supplied by the anti-Saddam exile group the Iraqi National Congress had in the march to war.

It concludes that postwar findings do not support a 2002 intelligence community report that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program, possessed biological weapons or ever developed mobile facilities for producing biological warfare agents.

The 400-page report comes at a time when Bush is emphasizing the need to prevail in Iraq to win the war on terrorism while Democrats are seeking to make that policy an issue in the midterm elections.

It discloses for the first time an October 2005 CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam's government "did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates."

Bush and other administration officials have said that the presence of Zarqawi in Iraq before the war was evidence of a connection between Saddam's government and al-Qaida. Zarqawi was killed by a U.S. airstrike in June this year.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said the report was "nothing new."

"In 2002 and 2003, members of both parties got a good look at the intelligence we had and they came to the very same conclusions about what was going on," Snow said. That was "one of the reasons you had overwhelming majorities in the United States Senate and the House for taking action against Saddam Hussein," he said.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., a member of the committee, said the long-awaited report was "a devastating indictment of the Bush-Cheney administration's unrelenting, misleading and deceptive attempts" to link Saddam to al-Qaida.

The administration, said Sen. John D. Rockefeller, D-W.Va., top Democrat on the committee, "exploited the deep sense of insecurity among Americans in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, leading a large majority of Americans to believe — contrary to the intelligence assessments at the time — that Iraq had a role in the 9/11 attacks."

The chairman of the committee, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said it has long been known that prewar assessments of Iraq "were a tragic intelligence failure."

But he said the Democratic interpretations expressed in the report "are little more than a vehicle to advance election-year political charges." He said Democrats "continue to use the committee to try and rewrite history, insisting that they were deliberately duped into supporting the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime."

The panel report is Phase II of an analysis of prewar intelligence on Iraq. The first phase, issued in July 2004, focused on the CIA's failings in its estimates of Iraq's weapons program.

The second phase has been delayed as Republicans and Democrats fought over what information should be declassified and how much the committee should delve into the question of how policymakers may have manipulated intelligence to make the case for war.

The committee is still considering three other issues as part of its Phase II analysis, including statements of policymakers in the run up to the war.

The Microsoft Experiment

2006-09-08T12:54:00.000-05:00

PHILADELPHIA - Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has famously called high schools "obsolete" and warned about their effect on U.S. competitiveness. Now, his company has a chance to prove that it can help fix the woes of public education.

After three years of planning, the Microsoft-designed "School of the Future" opened its doors Thursday, a gleaming white modernistic facility looking out of place amid rows of ramshackle homes in a working-class West Philadelphia neighborhood.

The school is being touted as unlike any in the world, with not only a high-tech building - students have digital lockers and teachers use interactive "smart boards" - but also a learning process modeled on Microsoft's management techniques.

"Philadelphia came to us ... and asked us to design a school," said Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer of Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft. "We're going to take our best shot."

The company didn't pay the $63 million cost - that was borne by the Philadelphia School District - but shared its personnel and management skills. About 170 teens, nearly all black and mainly low-income, were chosen by lottery to make up the freshman class. The school eventually plans to enroll up to 750 students.

Sabria Johnson, a 14-year-old from West Philadelphia, said she is excited to be attending the school.

"We're getting a chance to do something new," said the freshman, who hopes one day to go to Harvard or to the London College of Fashion. "We don't get a lot of opportunities like the suburban kids."

Mundie said companies have long been concerned that schools aren't churning out graduates with the skills and know-how that businesses require in employees to compete globally - and mental acuity is especially critical to Microsoft.

"Our raw material is smart people," he said.

School district CEO Paul Vallas said he was impressed by more than just the company's technology.

"I was also taken by their culture," Vallas said. "They created a culture within which ideas can be generated and acted upon."

At the 162,000-square-foot high school, which sits on nearly eight acres, the day starts at 9:15 a.m. and ends at 4:19 p.m., simulating the typical work day. Officials said studies show students do better when they start later in the day.

Students - who are called "learners" - use smart cards to register attendance, open their digital lockers and track calories they consume. They carry laptops, not books, and the entire campus has wireless Internet access.

Teachers, or "educators," rather than using blackboards, have interactive "smart boards" that allow teachers to zoom in and out, write or draw, and even link to the Internet.

There's no library, but an "interactive learning center" where information is all digital and a "multimedia specialist" will help out students.

Instead of a cafeteria, there's a food court with restaurant-style seating. The performance center - where two sections rotate close to create a smaller space - replaces the typical auditorium.

"This is completely different from any Philadelphia school I've ever seen," said Tramelle Hicks, 39, of West Philadelphia, whose 15-year-old daughter Kierra is going to the school. She said she believes her daughter would benefit from learning strategic and organizational skills from Microsoft.

The high school will use an "education competency wheel," patterned after a set of desirable traits Microsoft encourages among its employees. Officials, teachers and students are to be trained in dozens of skills, including organizing and planning, negotiating, dealing with ambiguity and managing relationships.

Students have scheduled appointments with teachers, typed into their online calendars, instead of being limited to structured times for classes. Their laptops carry software that assesses how quickly they're learning the lesson. If they get it, they'll dive deeper into the subject. If not, they get remedial help.

Lessons will have more incorporation of current events to teach subjects. For instance, a question of whether Philadelphia is safe from the avian flu will teach students about geography, science and history.

"Learning is not just going to school," said Shirley Grover, the school's energetic principal who came from the American School in Milan, Italy. "Learning is equal to life."

In addition, students at the school must apply to college in order to get a diploma.

This new approach to education has sparked the interest of Doug Lynch, vice dean of the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.

"Two things are quite intriguing - the willingness of the district and Microsoft to try something different," Lynch said. He cautioned, however, that while trying new methods may be valuable "we have to be careful because you're messing with kids' lives."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'll be posting my thoughts on this later ... and trust me .... thats a WHOLE post.

Calling Dr. Doolittle

2006-09-07T20:38:00.000-05:00

SEP. 7 12:08 P.M. ET The owner of DataUSA Inc., a company that conducted political polls for the campaigns of President Bush, Sen. Joe Lieberman and other candidates, pleaded guilty to fraud for making up survey and poll results.

Tracy Costin pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Costin, 46, faces a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 when she is sentenced Nov. 30.

As part of her plea agreement, Costin agreed to repay $82,732 to the unidentified clients for 11 jobs between June 2002 and May 2004. DataUSA is now known as Viewpoint USA.

According to a federal indictment, Costin told employees to alter poll data, and managers at the company told employees to "talk to cats and dogs" when instructing them to fabricate the surveys.

FBI Special Agent Jeff Rovelli said 50 percent of information compiled by DataUSA and transmitted to Bush's campaign was falsified, the Connecticut Post reported Thursday.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward Chang said on several occasions when the company was running up against a deadline to complete a job, results were falsified. Sometimes, the respondent's gender or political affiliation were changed to meet a quota, other times all survey answers were fabricated.

Keith Olbermann comments on Bush

2006-09-06T08:43:00.000-05:00

It is to our deep national shame—and ultimately it will be to the President’s deep personal regret—that he has followed his Secretary of Defense down the path of trying to tie those loyal Americans who disagree with his policies—or even question their effectiveness or execution—to the Nazis of the past, and the al Qaeda of the present.

Today, in the same subtle terms in which Mr. Bush and his colleagues muddied the clear line separating Iraq and 9/11 -- without ever actually saying so—the President quoted a purported Osama Bin Laden letter that spoke of launching, “a media campaign to create a wedge between the American people and their government.”

Make no mistake here—the intent of that is to get us to confuse the psychotic scheming of an international terrorist, with that familiar bogeyman of the right, the “media.”

The President and the Vice President and others have often attacked freedom of speech, and freedom of dissent, and freedom of the press.

Now, Mr. Bush has signaled that his unparalleled and unprincipled attack on reporting has a new and venomous side angle:

The attempt to link, by the simple expediency of one word—“media”—the honest, patriotic, and indeed vital questions and questioning from American reporters, with the evil of Al-Qaeda propaganda.

That linkage is more than just indefensible. It is un-American.

Mr. Bush and his colleagues have led us before to such waters.

We will not drink again.

And the President’s re-writing and sanitizing of history, so it fits the expediencies of domestic politics, is just as false, and just as scurrilous.

“In the 1920’s a failed Austrian painter published a book in which he explained his intention to build an Aryan super-state in Germany and take revenge on Europe and eradicate the Jews,” President Bush said today, “the world ignored Hitler’s words, and paid a terrible price.”

Whatever the true nature of al Qaeda and other international terrorist threats, to ceaselessly compare them to the Nazi State of Germany serves only to embolden them.

More over, Mr. Bush, you are accomplishing in part what Osama Bin Laden and others seek—a fearful American populace, easily manipulated, and willing to throw away any measure of restraint, any loyalty to our own ideals and freedoms, for the comforting illusion of safety.

It thus becomes necessary to remind the President that his administration’s recent Nazi “kick” is an awful and cynical thing.

And it becomes necessary to reach back into our history, for yet another quote, from yet another time and to ask it of Mr. Bush:

“Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

Authoritarian and Conservative linked?

2006-09-05T11:22:00.000-05:00

The abstract is located here

Authoritarianism is a personality trait operationally defined in terms of:
1) a high degree of compliance with socially-accepted authorities;
2) aggressiveness toward persons that is believed to be sanctioned by established authorities;
3) a high degree of adherence to social conventions believed to be favored by society and established authority (Altemeyer, 1996).

Authoritarian personality characteristics:
1) are less likely than most people to demonstrate self-awareness (Altemeyer, 1999) and
2) are more likely to favor religious beliefs over scientific data when the two appear to be in conflict (Westman et al., 2000).
3) exhibit more self-reported fear than the general population (Eigenberger, 1999),
4) tend to be prepared to cut low-status offenders more slack than high status offenders (Feather, 2002).
5) correlate with security values such as national strength and order, religiosity, and propriety in dress and manners (Heaven, 2001),
6) and individuals with high RWA scores tend to indicate negative attitudes toward homosexuality than the high SDO-scale (Whitley, et al., 2001).
7) individuals with high RWA scores may have greater trouble remembering what they read and making correct inferences (Wegmann, M.F. 1992).

2006-09-03T23:04:00.000-05:00

Lets All Pray

2006-09-02T22:21:00.000-05:00

You're a pervert and you didnt even know it! Too bad this post is real ... thanks to the lovely citizens of Columbus Ohio.

2006-09-01T16:48:00.000-05:00

COLUMBUS - An Ohio legislative panel yesterday rubber-stamped an unprecedented process that would allow sex offenders to be publicly identified and tracked even if they've never been charged with a crime.

No one in attendance voiced opposition to rules submitted by Attorney General Jim Petro's office to the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review, consisting of members of the Ohio House and Senate.

The committee's decision not to interfere with the rules puts Ohio in a position to become the first state to test a "civil registry."

The concept was offered by Roman Catholic bishops as an alternative to opening a one-time window for the filing of civil lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse that occurred as long as 35 years ago.

A recently enacted law allows county prosecutors, the state attorney general, or, as a last resort, alleged victims to ask judges to civilly declare someone to be a sex offender even when there has been no criminal verdict or successful lawsuit.

The rules spell out how the untried process would work. It would largely treat a person placed on the civil registry the same way a convicted sex offender is treated under Ohio's so-called Megan's Law.

The person's name, address, and photograph would be placed on a new Internet database and the person would be subjected to the same registration and community notification requirements and restrictions on where he could live.

A civilly declared offender, however, could petition the court to have the person's name removed from the new list after six years if there have been no new problems and the judge believes the person is unlikely to abuse again.

The attorney general's office said it continues to hold discussions with a group representing day care operators about one of the rules pertaining to what such facilities would do with information they might receive pertaining to someone on the registry if that person is living nearby.

From Wikipedia (on Civil Registry):
Civil registration is the system with which a government records the vital events of its citizens. The primary purpose of civil registration is to create legal documents that are used to establish and protect the civil rights of individuals. A secondary purpose is to create a data source for the compilation of vital statistics.

The United Nations defines civil registration as "the continuous, permanent, compulsory and universal recording of the occurrence and characteristics of vital events pertaining to the population as provided through decree or regulation in accordance with the legal requirements of a country. Civil registration is carried out primarily for the purpose of establishing the legal documents provided by the law. These records are also a main source of vital statistics. Complete coverage, accuracy and timeliness of civil registration are essential for quality vital statistics.

Vital events that are typically recorded include live birth, death, foetal death, marriage, divorce, annulment of marriage, judicial separation of marriage, adoption, legitimization and recognition. Among the legal documents that are derived from civil registration are birth certificates, death certificates, and marriage certificates.

Keith Olbermann comments on Donald Rumsfeld

2006-08-31T09:22:00.000-05:00

Its Hot In Topeka

2006-08-30T23:06:00.000-05:00

Cronyism in the White House ???? Surely not!

2006-08-30T12:41:00.000-05:00

Remember the guy who was going to shake up Public Broadcasting because he felt it was biased in one direction? His problems aren't vanishing:
Democrats are pushing for the ouster of the chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors who is accused of misusing government money, overbilling for his time and hiring a friend as a consultant.
Does this mean there is cronyism in the Bush administration and other things perhaps a bit worse?
A summary of a report by the State Department's inspector general released Tuesday says Kenneth Tomlinson misused government funds for two years as chairman of the organization, which oversees the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and other U.S. government broadcasting abroad.

Tomlinson stepped down last fall as a board member of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps fund public television, amid allegations of improperly promoting conservative programming.

The State Department investigation found that Tomlinson, as a political appointee to the Broadcasting Board of Governors, signed invoices worth about $245,000 for a friend without the knowledge of other board members or staff.

Tomlinson also used the board's office resources to support his private horse racing operation and overbilled the organization for his time, in some instances billing both the Broadcasting Board of Governors and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for the same time worked.
But maybe the horse racing was work related. After all, lots of administration officials have been accused of horsing around. Remember: this is the anniversary of the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.

This CNN report has his response to the charges:
Tomlinson said in a statement that he believed the investigation results were "inspired by partisan divisions inside the BBG."
So it's all just politics. AND:
Regarding the double billing, Tomlinson said he was in the unusual position of serving as chairman of two boards at the same time but still made "diligent efforts" to properly bill each board.

On charges of using government funds for his horse farm, Tomlinson said: "I am confident that I spent far more time on broadcasting responsibilities at my farm and my private residences than I spent on my horses at the office."
That takes care of that allegation totally.

So what will happen? Not much:
State investigators note in the report summary that the U.S. attorney's office in Washington has reviewed the case and concluded a criminal investigation is not warranted. However, they said a civil investigation related to the charges he hired a friend as a contractor was pending.
ETC. The motif of this administration on so many fronts is that there really aren't consquences or there will be limited ones for people who either screw up in their jobs or (at the least) give the impression of screwing up. In 2000 Republicans scornfully repeated the Bill Clinton phrase "it all depends on what is is" as typifying a splitting-hairs attitude on the part of Clinton and the Democratic administration. The Clintonistas were painted as not quite grown ups who wouldn't take responsibility for their actions.

On so many fronts what we see in the Bush administration is an administration that also operates under "it all depends on what is is" and always has a new excuse for deficiencies. And if the heat gets too hot, the tactic is to go on the attack against those turning on the heat and accuse them of partisanship. The irony is that this charge comes from what historians will surely say is one of the most divisive, partisan administrations in American history,

If the growups are now in charge, hopefully the kids aren't watching

Couldnt Have Said It Better Myself

2006-08-29T20:35:00.000-05:00

There should be a lot of very red faces in newsrooms all over the United States right about now -- there should be, but I doubt there will be.

As many legal experts had theorized might happen, Boulder, Colorado prosecutors today dropped their case against John Mark Karr in the slaying of JonBenet Ramsey. It appears that a DNA sample taken from Karr simply does not match DNA from JonBenet Ramsey's body, making it likely that Karr was just an attention-seeker trying to get a quick 15 minutes of fame and dupe a scandal-hungry media into playing along.

Mission accomplished.

It remains unclear whether Karr will be released or extradited to California to face child pornography charges there.

Samples of Karr's DNA had been taken upon his arrival in Boulder on Thursday and they were tested at the Denver Police Department's crime lab over the weekend. Despite his insistence that he killed Ramsey -- and the 10-day media frenzy that has followed -- the tests have failed to put him at the scene of the crime and he may be released entirely by the end of the week.

What is amazing to me is the media circus that has followed this "case" for almost two weeks now without really a shred of proof that anything had truly developed in the 10-year-old mystery. And we're not just talking about an informational mention on page six or seven of the local newspaper, or a 90-second story buried in the second half of a one-hour newscast.

We're talking about hour upon hour of coverage, with some cable news networks devoting the entire hour of a 60-minute newscast to a developing story that could very well have turned out to be a lot of noise about nothing. We're talking about alleged journalists and editors whose judgment made them decide that John Mark Karr's plane ride from Thailand to the United States, where he sat, who he talked to, what he ate and even what procedure was used to allow him to use the bathroom was their very top story.

All of this without the most basic elements of proof that freshman journalism students taking Reporting 100 are taught to look for.

Unbelievable.

And this giant waste of time and resources, occurred at the expense of real news affecting real lives: A major crisis in the Middle East, a civil war in Iraq that's killing an average of 100 Iraqis a day and with our troops stuck smack-dab in the middle of it. We have a major portion of our population without the means to get a simple medical check-up because they have no health insurance, more Americans in poverty, a devastating budget deficit and hurricane season upon us with FEMA in no better shape than it was a year ago when it bungled Hurricane Katrina.

Oh, and those people whose lives were sidelined by Katrina a year ago, tomorrow? Most of them still haven't received any help.

But none of that -- not one bit of it -- was more important to the corporate media over the last 10 days than a specious confession, to a murder long ago and with very little in the way of proof to go along with it.

We should read, see and hear some major mea culpas across every spectrum of the American media for wasting everyone's time over the last two weeks and, if there's a price to pay for total journalistic incompetence, more than a few editors should be fired. That should happen -- but it won't.

The best we can hope for is that the media will take a good, long, collective look in the mirror and hopefully feel some shame over what buffoons they have been over this non-story and how much they have let the American people down.

I'm sure a few will feel that guilt -- at least until the next blonde chick goes missing in the Caribbean.

A bit further from hell today

2006-08-29T10:59:00.000-05:00

So I saw this on Fark and thought I would share:

Attention Central Texas Residents: The atmospheric condition of water falling from the sky is called "Rain." You may not have witnessed it in your lifetime, but it was actually quite common at one time.

Yes, finally after 19 straight days of 100+ degree weather, we had a whole day of rain. It only supposed to be in the 80's today and I can truly say that its nice outside.

Throw another nut log on the fire

2006-08-28T15:11:00.000-05:00

USA - 9NEWS has confirmed from two sources that the DNA taken from John Mark Karr does not match the DNA samples taken from the crime scene in the JonBenet Ramsey murder case.

9NEWS has also confirmed from different sources that no charges will be filed against Karr in connection with the Ramsey case by the Boulder County District Attorney's office.

Samples of Karr's saliva and hair were taken in Boulder after his arrival on Thursday. Those samples were tested over the weekend inside the Denver Police Department's Crime lab.

9NEWS has confirmed that Karr's DNA is ruled out as the foreign DNA left on JonBenet Ramsey's body when she was murdered in December 1996.

JonBenet was covered in a blanket when her body was found. Foreign hair fibers were found on that blanket and they did not match any of the Ramsey family or approximately 100 people that were tested.

Karr was taken into custody in Bangkok, Thailand earlier this month in connection with the murder. He arrived in Boulder Thursday afternoon on a probable cause warrant for charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual assault on a child.

Karr said at a press conference in Thailand he was with JonBenet when she died.

Karr is scheduled to be in court Monday afternoon for an advisement hearing.

He still faces charges of child pornography in California.

*********************************************************************
NOW can we stop talking about this NUT Job and get on with REAL news?

A Third World Country with a First World Mentality

2006-08-28T10:22:00.000-05:00

WASHINGTON — A pipeline shuts down in Alaska. Equipment failures disrupt air travel in Los Angeles. Electricity runs short at a spy agency in Maryland.

None of these recent events resulted from a natural disaster or terrorist attack, but they may as well have, some homeland security experts say. They worry that too little attention is paid to how fast the country's basic operating systems are deteriorating.

"When I see events like these, I become concerned that we've lost focus on the core operational functionality of the nation's infrastructure and are becoming a fragile nation, which is just as bad — if not worse — as being an insecure nation," said Christian Beckner, a Washington analyst who runs the respected Web site Homeland Security Watch (www.christianbeckner.com).

The American Society of Civil Engineers last year graded the nation "D" for its overall infrastructure conditions, estimating that it would take $1.6 trillion over five years to fix the problem.

"I thought [Hurricane] Katrina was a hell of a wake-up call, but people are missing the alarm," said Casey Dinges, the society's managing director of external affairs.

British oil company BP announced this month that severe corrosion would close its Alaska pipelines for extensive repairs. Analysts say this may sideline some 200,000 barrels a day of production for several months.

Then an instrument landing system that guides arriving planes onto a runway at Los Angeles International Airport failed for the second time in a week, delaying flights.

Those incidents followed reports that the National Security Agency (NSA), the intelligence world's electronic eavesdropping arm, is consuming so much electricity at its headquarters outside Washington that it is in danger of exceeding its power supply.

"If a terrorist group were able to knock the NSA offline, or disrupt one of the nation's busiest airports, or shut down the most important oil pipeline in the nation, the impact would be perceived as devastating," Beckner said. "And yet we've essentially let these things happen — or almost happen — to ourselves."

The Commission on Public Infrastructure at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, said in a recent report that facilities are deteriorating "at an alarming rate."

It noted that half the 257 locks operated by the Army Corps of Engineers on inland waterways are functionally obsolete, more than one-quarter of the nation's bridges are structurally deficient or obsolete, and $11 billion is needed annually to replace aging drinking-water facilities.

President Bush, asked about the problem during a public question-and-answer session in an April visit to Irvine, Calif., cited last year's enactment of a comprehensive law reauthorizing highway, transit and road-safety programs.

"Infrastructure is always a difficult issue," Bush acknowledged. "It's a federal responsibility and a state and local responsibility. And I, frankly, feel like we've upheld our responsibility at the federal level with the highway bill."

But experts say the law is riddled with some 5,000 "earmarks" for projects sought by members of Congress that do nothing to systematically address the problem.

"There's a growing understanding that these programs are at best inefficient and at worst corrupt," said Everett Ehrlich, executive director of the CSIS public infrastructure commission.

Ehrlich and others cite several reasons for the lack of action:

• The political system is geared to reacting to crises instead of averting them.

• Some politicians don't see infrastructure as a federal responsibility.

• And many problems are out of sight and — for the public — out of mind.

"You see bridges and roads and potholes, but so much else is hidden and taken for granted," said Dinges of the Society of Civil Engineers. "As a result, people just don't get stirred up and alarmed."

But a few politicians are starting to notice. In March, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., joined Sens. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, and Tom Carper, D-Del., in sponsoring a bill to set up a national commission to assess infrastructure needs.

That same month, the CSIS infrastructure commission issued a set of principles calling for increased spending, investments in new technologies and partnerships with business. Among those signing the report were Sens. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and Chris Dodd, D-Conn.

"Infrastructure deficiencies will further erode our global competitiveness, but with the federal budget so committed to mandatory spending, it's unclear how we are going to deal with this challenge as we fall further and further behind in addressing these problems," Hagel said in a speech last year. "We need to think creatively

Iran has nuclear capability ... Guess whos responsible for it?

2006-08-27T19:28:00.000-05:00

In the heart of Tehran stands one of Iran's most important nuclear facilities, a dome-shaped building where scientists have conducted secret experiments that could help the country build atomic bombs. It was provided to the Iranians by the United States.
The Tehran Research Reactor represents a little-known aspect of the international uproar over the country's alleged weapons program. Not only did the U.S. provide the reactor in the 1960s as part of a Cold War strategy, America also supplied the weapons-grade uranium needed to power the facility — fuel that remains in Iran and could be used to help make nuclear arms.
As the U.S. and other countries wrestle with Iran's refusal to curb its nuclear capabilities, an examination of the Tehran facility sheds light on the degree to which the United States has been complicit in Iran's developing those capabilities.
Saturday Iran inaugurated a heavy-water plant, expanding its nuclear program only days before the U.N. deadline that threatens sanctions unless Tehran curbs activities the West fears are meant to make atomic weapons, The Associated Press reported.
The move was the latest defiance by Iran to concerns expressed by the U.N. Security Council. Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shrugged off the possibility of sanctions, insisting they would not slow Iran's nuclear ambitions.
"We tell the Western countries not to cause trouble for themselves because Iranian people are determined to make progress and acquire technology," Ahmadinejad said after opening the plant.
He stressed his government's contention that the nuclear program is peaceful — intended only to produce fuel for nuclear power plants.
Though the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, has found no proof Iran is building a bomb, the agency says the country has repeatedly concealed its nuclear activities from inspectors. And some of these activities have taken place in the U.S.-supplied reactor, IAEA records show, including experiments with uranium, a key material in the production of nuclear weapons.
U.S. officials point to those activities as evidence Iran is trying to construct nuclear arms, but they do not publicly mention that the work has taken place in a U.S.-supplied facility.
The U.S. provided the reactor when America was eager to prop up Iran's shah, who also was aligned against the Soviet Union at the time. After the Islamic revolution toppled the shah in 1979, the reactor became a reminder that in geopolitics, today's ally can become tomorrow's threat.
Also missing from the current debate over Iran's nuclear intentions is emerging evidence that its research program may be more troubled than previously known.
The Bush administration has portrayed the program as a sophisticated operation that has skillfully hidden its true mission of making the bomb. But in the case of the Tehran Research Reactor, a study by a top Iranian scientist suggests otherwise.
After a serious accident in 2001 at the U.S.-supplied reactor, the scientist concluded that poor quality control at the facility was a "chronic disease." Problems included carelessness, sloppy bookkeeping and a staff so poorly trained that workers had a weak understanding of "the most basic and simple principles of physics and mathematics," according to the study, presented at an international nuclear conference in 2004 in France.
The Iranian scientist, Morteza Gharib, told the Chicago Tribune that management of the facility had improved in the past three years. When asked whether sloppiness at the reactor might have contributed to some of Iran's troubles with the IAEA, Gharib wrote in an e-mail: "It is always possible, for any system, to commit infractions inadvertently due to lack of proper bookkeeping."
Jeffrey Lewis, an arms control expert at Harvard University, said bungling might be to blame for some infractions, but the Iranians clearly concealed major nuclear activities, such as building a facility to enrich uranium. "This was not an oversight," he said.
Another overlooked concern about the Tehran reactor is the weapons-grade fuel the U.S. provided Iran in the 1960s — about 10 pounds of highly enriched uranium, the most valuable material to bomb makers.
This uranium has already been burned in the reactor, but the "spent fuel" is still highly enriched and could be used in a bomb. Normally, spent fuel is so radioactive that terrorists could not handle it without causing themselves great harm. But the spent fuel in Iran been stored for so long that it is probably no longer highly radioactive and could be handled easily, U.S. scientists say.
The fuel is about one-fifth the amount needed to make a nuclear weapon, but experts said it could be combined with other material to construct a bomb.

Since everyone else is talking about this

2006-08-23T12:53:00.000-05:00

A handwriting analyst who said he is 99.9 percent certain that John Mark Karr wrote the JonBenet Ramsey ransom note was disqualified as an expert witness earlier this year by a federal judge who challenged his expertise.

Georgia Federal District Court Judge Clay Land wrote that analyst Curtis Baggett was not certified by several industry groups, had not undergone proficiency tests and had not authored texts in the field of handwriting analysis.

In comparison to another expert witness, Land said Baggett's qualifications "are clearly paltry."

Baggett responded Tuesday that he has testified in more than 2,500 cases and was successfully disqualified in only about four. He said he has never been disqualified when he has appeared at trial.

A document examiner studying at Handwriting University, a training company that Baggett and his son run, says sniping is not unusual in the field.

"Every time you're on the top, someone is after you," said Vicki Kizer, who is studying under Baggett. "Curtis does more document exams per month than most people do all year."

Several other document examiners have said they are strongly leaning toward Baggett's conclusion based on a comparison of Karr's writing in a high school yearbook with the three-page note left on the Ramsey family stairway on the day JonBenet was reported missing.

In 2004, a federal magistrate in Maine also challenged Baggett's credentials and excluded his testimony in a civil case there.

Baggett said he was staking a large part of his reputation on his judgment that Karr wrote the ransom note.

He said there were at least 12 points of similarity between the ransom note and the yearbook entry.

Texas document examiner Linda James, however, said that while there are similarities between the yearbook writing and the ransom note, more evidence is needed.

"There are too many other things to consider," she said.

She also said Baggett had considered similarities, but not dissimilarities.

With the issue of DNA in the JonBenet case still in doubt, much of the case against Karr could revolve around expert handwriting analysis.

If that happens, experts said handwriting analysts will probably line up on both sides of the issue.

Baggett is one of the nation's most well-known document examiners.

He attributed the Maine and Georgia disqualifications to inadequate information about his credentials given to the courts in his absence.

NSA Wiretapping is Unconstitutional

2006-08-17T12:36:00.000-05:00

DETROIT - A federal judge ruled Thursday that the government’s warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy.

“Plaintiffs have prevailed, and the public interest is clear, in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution,” Taylor wrote in her 43-page opinion.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of journalists, scholars and lawyers who say the program has made it difficult for them to do their jobs.

The government argued that the program is well within the president's authority, but said proving that would require revealing state secrets.

The ACLU said the state-secrets argument was irrelevant because the Bush administration already had publicly revealed enough information about the program for Taylor to rule.

“By holding that even the president is not above the law, the court has done its duty,” said Ann Beeson, the ACLU’s associate legal director and the lead attorney for the plaintiffs.

The NSA had no immediate comment on the ruling.

Taylor dismissed a separate claim by the ACLU over data-mining of phone records by the NSA. She said not enough had been publicly revealed about that program to support the claim and further litigation could jeopardize state secrets.

Post Employment Help of the Future

2006-08-16T10:06:00.000-05:00

NEW YORK - Bankrupt Northwest Airlines Corp. advised workers to fish in the trash for things they like or take their dates for a walk in the woods in a move to help workers facing the ax to save money.

The No. 5 U.S. carrier, which has slashed most employees' pay and is looking to cut jobs as it prepares to exit bankruptcy, put the tips in a booklet handed out to about 50 workers and posted for a time on its employee Web site.

The section, entitled "101 ways to save money," does not feature in new versions of the booklet or the Web site.

Northwest spokesman Roman Blahoski said some employees who received the handbook had taken issue with a couple of the items. "We agree that some of these suggestions and tips ... were a bit insensitive," Blahoski told Reuters.

The four-page booklet, "Preparing for a Financial Setback" contained suggestions such as shopping in thrift stores, taking "a date for a walk along the beach or in the woods" and not being "shy about pulling something you like out of the trash."

The booklet was part of a 150-page packet to ground workers, such as baggage handlers, whose jobs will likely be cut after their union agreed to allow the airline to outsource some of their work, Blahoski said.

Prepared with the help of an outside company, the booklet encourages employees to manage their money better and prepare for financial emergencies.

"If you have saved some money, pat yourself on the back -- you deserve it," the booklet reads. "Take out only what you need and spend prudently."

I think that Fox News IS Satan

2006-08-15T13:55:00.000-05:00

If Xray machines cant detect explosives in my shoes, why do I still need to put them in the Xray machine?

2006-08-15T12:56:00.000-05:00

The government's new order that all airline passengers put their shoes through X-ray machines won't help screeners find a liquid or gel that can be used as a bomb.

The machines are unable to detect explosives, according to a Homeland Security report on aviation screening recently obtained by The Associated Press.

The Transportation Security Administration ordered the shoe-scanning requirement as it fine-tunes new security procedures.

Those procedures were put in place after British police last week broke up a terrorist plot to assemble and detonate bombs aboard as many as 10 airliners crossing the Atlantic Ocean from Britain to the U.S.

Among the new procedures are a ban on liquids and gels in airline passenger cabins, more hand searches of carryon luggage, and random double screening of passengers at boarding gates.

On Sunday, the TSA made it mandatory for shoes to be run through X-ray machines as passengers go through metal detectors. They were begun in late 2001, after the arrest of Richard Reid aboard a trans-Atlantic flight when he tried to ignite an explosive device hidden in his shoe. The shoe scans have been optional for several years.

In its April 2005 report, "Systems Engineering Study of Civil Aviation Security — Phase I," the Homeland Security Department concluded that images on X-ray machines don't provide the information necessary to detect explosives.

Machines used at most airports to scan hand-held luggage, purses, briefcases and shoes have not been upgraded to detect explosives since the report was issued.

TSA contends, however, that screening shoes is an important security strategy for detecting concealed weapons or tampering.

"It's absolutely a security reason that we're running the shoes through the X-ray machines," TSA spokeswoman Ellen Howe said Tuesday. "Our security officers, after they've screened thousands of shoes, can see that shoes have been tampered with or an anomaly in the shoe."

She also said that TSA doesn't need large bomb-screening equipment to find a problem in a shoe. "We've definitely found things that need to looked at further," she said.

The Homeland Security report said that "even a 1/4-inch insole of sheet explosive" could create the kind of blast that reportedly brought down Pan Am flight 103, the airliner that blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988, killing 270 people in the air and on the ground.

The Homeland Security report recommends that explosives trace detection, or ETD, be used on the shoes and hands of passengers when the screeners determine they must be checked more thoroughly.

"To help close this gap, the percentage of shoes subjected to explosives inspection should be significantly increased," the report said.

"Within the current state of the art, they afford the only meaningful explosives detection capability at the checkpoint," the report said.

ETD involves a screener using a dry pad on the end of a wand to wipe a surface — baggage, shoes, clothing — and then putting the pad into a machine called an ion mobility spectrometer. The machine can detect tiny particles, or traces, of explosives.

Screeners do use ETD on passengers who have been selected to be screened a second time after going through the checkpoint.

TSA chief Kip Hawley recently acknowledged that the threat from liquid explosives isn't going away — and new security measures designed to thwart the threat may be around for awhile.

The agency is testing equipment to detect liquid explosives at six airports, Hawley said, and he called the technology "very promising."

But, he said, "with a million and a half to 2 million passengers every day, it is not practical to think that we are going to take every bottle and scan it through these liquid scanners."

"We are not going to wait for the perfect device to be deployable," Hawley said in an interview Friday. "We're going to look for a total system to be at the level to make us comfortable."

The agency wants to make better use of a limited resource — airport screeners, whose numbers have been capped by Congress at 45,000. The TSA handles security for 450 commercial airports.

Among the changes TSA said it is considering:

_Hire more people to take baggage-handling responsibilities from screeners so the screeners can focus on security responsibilities.

_Have screeners, instead of contract employees hired by airlines, check IDs and boarding passes.

_Expand a program that trains screeners to look for unusual behavior in passengers that might indicate malicious intent. Called SPOT — Screening Passengers by Observation Technique — it's used in at least 12 airports, Howe said.

Those changes may require approval by Congress and agreement with airports and the airline industry, which might have to bear some of the cost, Howe said.

Oh yeah ... they call it Airport Security. Its like calling Ms Cleo a Psychic, just because she says that she is.

Nexus of Terror

2006-08-15T12:38:00.000-05:00

Keith Olbermann had a great piece last night about just how coincidental some timings have been to arrests in the "War on Terror". Go watch the piece here

More Media Truthiness

2006-08-14T14:31:00.000-05:00

Since publication of The New York Times scoop last Dec. 16 on National Security Agency warrantless eavesdropping -- which later won a Pulitzer -- one side issue has been the hint that the paper had the basic story before election day, more than a year earlier, and held it.

Critics have suggested that if it had been published earlier it might have cost President Bush re-election. Bill Keller, the Times' executive editor, has given varying answers about this. Did he mislead readers last December by stating that he had held the article for "a year" to place that after the election? Later he said, vaguely, "more than year."

In January, the paper's public editor, Byron Calame, complained that he had encountered "unusual difficulty" in trying to determine when exactly the paper learned of the surveillance. "The New York Times's explanation...was woefully inadequate," wrote Calame at that time. "And I have had unusual difficulty getting a better explanation for readers, despite the paper's repeated pledges of greater transparency."

Now, in the Sunday Times this week, Calame has produced a tough-minded column, revealing new information and offering fresh criticism. In the end, Keller admits that his dating of the delay had been "inelegant."

This is how Calame starts: "Did The Times mislead readers by stating that any delay in publication came after the Nov. 2, 2004, presidential election?" He continues: "I have now learned from Bill Keller, the executive editor, that The Times delayed publication of drafts of the eavesdropping article before the 2004 election." He adds, "Since the Times article appeared, I have grown increasingly intrigued by changes in the way the delay has been described in the paper and in comments by Mr. Keller."

Keller, who wouldn’t answer any questions about this from Calame for an earlier column, did talk to the public editor for the new report.

"The climactic discussion about whether to publish was right on the eve of the election," Keller tells Calame. For a full accounting of why the story was delayed, see www.nytimes.com for the entire column.

Following that summary, Calame asks: So why did the Dec. 16 article say The Times had delayed publication for "a year,” specifically ruling out the possibility that the story had been held prior to the Nov. 2 election?

“It was probably inelegant wording,” Keller replies. Later he adds, “I don’t know what was in my head at the time.”

Calame concludes: 'Given the importance of this otherwise outstanding article on warrantless eavesdropping — and now the confirmation of pre-election decisions to delay publication — The Times owes it to readers to set the official record straight."

Let The Police State Begin

2006-08-14T09:15:00.000-05:00

WASHINGTON — The nation's chief of homeland security said Sunday that the U.S. should consider reviewing its laws to allow for more electronic surveillance and detention of possible terror suspects, citing last week's foiled plot.

Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, stopped short of calling for immediate changes, noting there might be constitutional barriers to the type of wide police powers the British had in apprehending suspects in the plot to blow up airliners headed to the U.S.

But Chertoff made clear his belief that wider authority could thwart future attacks at a time when Congress is reviewing the proper scope of the Bush administration's executive powers for its warrantless eavesdropping program and military tribunals for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"What helped the British in this case is the ability to be nimble, to be fast, to be flexible, to operate based on fast-moving information," he said. "We have to make sure our legal system allows us to do that. It's not like the 20th century, where you had time to get warrants."

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says he'd like to see laws that give U-S authorities more flexibility to conduct electronic surveillance.

The Bush administration has pushed for greater executive authority in the war on terror, leading it to create a warrantless eavesdropping program, hold suspects who are deemed as "enemy combatants" for long periods and establish a military tribunal system for detainees that affords defendants fewer rights than traditional courts-martial.

Congress is now reviewing some of the programs after lawmakers questioned the legality of the eavesdropping program and the Supreme Court ruled in June that the tribunals defied international law and had not been authorized by Congress.

On Sunday, Chertoff said the U.S. is remaining vigilant for other attacks, citing concerns that terror groups may "think we are distracted" after last week's foiled plot. Attaining "maximum flexibility" in surveillance of transactions and communications will be critical in preventing future attacks, he said.

"We've done a lot in our legal system the last few years, to move in the direction of that kind of efficiency," Chertoff said. "But we ought to constantly review our legal rules to make sure they're helping us, not hindering us."

He said he expects the Bush administration to keep the U.S. on its highest threat alert for flights headed to the U.S. from the United Kingdom and at its second-highest level for all other flights.

"We haven't fully analyzed the evidence, and therefore, we're still concerned there may be some plotters who are out there," Chertoff said. "We also have to be concerned about other groups that may seize the opportunity to carry out attacks because they think we are distracted with this plot."

Still, Chertoff said he believed that the nation's airline screeners were well-positioned to catch future terrorists. He did not anticipate greater restrictions beyond the current ban on carrying liquids and gels onto airliners, such as barring all carry-on luggage.

"We don't want to inconvenience unnecessarily," he said. "I think we can do the job with our screening, screening training and our technology without banning all carry-on luggage."

Chertoff made the comments on "Fox News Sunday" and ABC's "This Week.

"Culture War " overblown media hype ...or just another Talking Points Memo on Bill O'Reillys "The Factor"

2006-08-07T16:55:00.000-05:00

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The so-called culture wars rending America over such issues as abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research may be overblown, based on a U.S. poll released on Thursday.

"Despite talk of 'culture wars' and the high visibility of activist groups on both sides of the cultural divide, there has been no polarization of the public into liberal and conservative camps," the Pew Research Center said, commenting on its poll of 2,003 American adults.

Best illustrating the willingness of Americans to consider opposing points of view is that two-thirds of poll respondents supported finding a middle ground when it comes to abortion rights -- a solid majority that stood up among those calling themselves evangelicals, Catholics, Republicans or Democrats.

The issue of abortion continued to split the country -- 31 percent want it generally available, 20 percent say it should be allowed but want to impose some restrictions, 35 percent want to make it illegal with few exceptions, and 9 percent want it banned altogether.

The poll, sponsored by the nonpartisan research group, was conducted with adults by telephone July 6-19 and had a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.

On five prominent social issues -- abortion rights, stem cell research, gay marriage, adoption of children by gay couples, and availability of the "morning-after" pill -- most Americans did not take consistent stances.

Just 12 percent took the conservative position on all five issues, while 22 percent took the opposite stance on all five. The bulk of Americans had mixed opinions.

On the subject of gay unions, 56 percent opposed giving gays the right to marry, but 53 percent favored allowing gays to enter into legal agreements that provide many of the same rights as married couples.

There has been an increase in recent years in the proportion of Americans who believe homosexuality is innate -- 36 percent, up from 30 percent in 2003. Similarly, 49 percent believed homosexuals cannot be changed to heterosexual, compared to 42 percent in 2003.

The poll's findings on stem cell research -- which preceded
President George W. Bush's veto of a bill to expand federal funding -- showed 56 percent favored the research even though human embryos would be destroyed, while 32 percent were opposed. Most of the gains in support of stem cell research occurred prior to 2004 and has been stable since.

But perhaps more significantly, 57 percent of the respondents said they had heard little or nothing about the stem cell debate.

(* my note:

Come Bill O' time to give up the ghost and admit its just another way for you and people like (M)Anne Coulter to sell books to scared Christians and ultra-tight assed conservatives who enjoy making up the truth.)

Al Gore spoof linked to Exxon Mobil

2006-08-07T11:40:00.000-05:00

An online parody of Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, has been tied to a lobbying firm which counts ExxonMobil among its clients, The Wall Street Journal reported today.

The online YouTube profile, which is where the film is hosted, indicates that it was made by a twenty-nine year old working in his Beverly Hill basement. A Wall Street Journal investigation included and email exchange with the gentleman, nicknamed "Toutsmith." Research in to the routing of the email revealed that it was sent from the offices of DCI Group, the firm which ExxonMobil has a contract with.

The Journal report said:
A DCI Group spokesman declines to say whether or not DCI made the anti-Gore penguin video, or to explain why Toutsmith appeared to be sending email from DCI's computers. "DCI Group does not disclose the names of its clients, nor do we discuss the work that we do on our clients' behalf," says Matt Triaca, who heads DCI's media relations shop.

Dave Gardner, an Exxon spokesman, confirms that Exxon is a client of DCI. But he says Exxon had no role in creating the "Inconvenient Truth" spoof. "We, like everyone else on the planet, have seen it, but did not fund it, did not approve it, and did not know what its source was," Mr. Gardner says.

You can go here to learn more about Exxon and how they are trying to change this debate.

The Constitution in Crisis

2006-08-06T21:35:00.000-05:00

The Constitution in Crisis; The Downing Street Minutes and Deception,
Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War,
and Illegal Domestic Surveillance.

Go Read This.

When the Shiite Hits the Fan

2006-08-06T01:03:00.000-05:00

Former Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith is claiming President George W. Bush was unaware that there were two major sects of Islam just two months before the President ordered troops to invade Iraq, RAW STORY has learned.

In his new book, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created A War Without End, Galbraith, the son of the late economist John Kenneth Galbraith, claims that American leadership knew very little about the nature of Iraqi society and the problems it would face after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

A year after his “Axis of Evil” speech before the U.S. Congress, President Bush met with three Iraqi Americans, one of whom became postwar Iraq’s first representative to the United States. The three described what they thought would be the political situation after the fall of Saddam Hussein. During their conversation with the President, Galbraith claims, it became apparent to them that Bush was unfamiliar with the distinction between Sunnis and Shiites.

Galbraith reports that the three of them spent some time explaining to Bush that there are two different sects in Islam--to which the President allegedly responded, “I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!”

Research by RAW STORY has confirmed a surprising lack of public statements from the president regarding the branches of Islam, but did uncover at least one mention of their existence. A fact sheet released by the White House in December of 2001 does indeed use the term Sunni to describe a Lashkar-E-Tayyib, "the armed wing of the Pakistan-based religious organization, Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad." Other mentions, not originating from the White House, were common in government documents and proceedings, as well as in media coverage of the middle east.

Other reports also place Bush announcing newfound knowledge of the differences between Muslim groups shortly before entering the Iraq war.

In an interview with RAW STORY, Ambassador Galbraith recounted this anecdote from his book to exemplify “a culture of arrogance that pervaded the whole administration.”

“From the president and the vice president down through the neoconservatives at the Pentagon, there was a belief that Iraq was a blank slate on which the United States could impose its vision of a pluralistic democratic society,” said Galbraith. “The arrogance came in the form of a belief that this could be accomplished with minimal effort and planning by the United States and that it was not important to know something about Iraq.”

The Bush Administration’s aims when it invaded Iraq in March 2003 were to bring it democracy and transform the Middle East. Instead, Iraq has reverted to its three constituent components: a pro-western Kurdistan, an Iran-dominated Shiite theocracy in the south, and a chaotic Sunni Arab region in the center.

Galbraith argues that because the new Iraq was never a voluntary creation of its people--but rather held together by force--America’s ongoing attempt to preserve a unified nation is guaranteed to fail, especially since it’s divided into three different entities.

“You can’t have a national unity government when there is no nation, no unity, and no government,” said Galbraith. “Rather than trying to preserve or hold together a unified Iraq, the U.S. must accept the reality of Iraq’s breakup and work with the Shiites, Kurds, and Sunni Arabs to strengthen the already semi-independent regions.”

Galbraith further argues that the invasion of Iraq destabilized the Middle East while inadvertently strengthening Iran. One of the administration's intentions in invading Iraq was to undermine Iran, but instead, the Iraqi occupation has given Tehran one of its greatest strategic triumphs in the last four centuries.

Once considered to be Iraq’s worst enemy, Iran has now created, financed and armed the Shiite Islamic movements within southern Iraq. Since the Iraqi Parliamentary elections of 2005, the Shiites have made considerable political gains and now have substantial influence over the country’s U.S.-created military, its police, and the central government in Baghdad. In addition, Iraq is developing economic ties with Iran that Galbraith believes could soon link the two countries’ strategic oil supplies.

Galbraith says that, “thanks to George W. Bush, Iran today has no closer ally in the world than the Iraq of the Ayatollahs.” As a result, he argues, sending U.S. forces into Iraq, has in effect, made them hostage to Iran and its Iraqi Shiite allies and left the U.S. without a viable military option to halt Iran’s drive to obtain nuclear weapons.

A seasoned diplomat, Galbraith served as the first U.S. ambassador to Croatia, where he negotiated the 1995 Erdut Agreement that ended the Croatian war.

Galbraith fears the United States may have lost the war on the very day it took Baghdad. “The American servicemen and women who took Baghdad were professionals--disciplined, courteous, and task-oriented,” said Galbraith. “Unfortunately, their political masters were so focused on making the case for war, so keen to vanquish their political foes at home, felt certain that Iraqis would embrace American-style democracy, yet they were so blinded by their own ideology that they failed to plan for the most obvious tasks following military victory.”

Galbraith believes that the Bush Administration’s effort will only leave the U.S. with an open-ended commitment in circumstances of uncontrollable turmoil. In the end, he believes, America’s most important objective is to avoid a worsening civil war.

“There is no easy exit from Iraq,” said Galbraith. “The alternative, however is to continue the present strategy of trying to build national institutions-displaced in the 2003 invasion-but how can you do that where this now is no longer an existing nation?”

Bill of Rights Mean Nothing

2006-08-04T12:25:00.000-05:00

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said the US government could "indefinitely" hold foreign 'enemy combatants' at sites like the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"We can detain any combatants for the duration of the hostilities," said Gonzales, speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"If we choose to try them, that's great. If we don't choose to try them, we can continue to hold them," he said.

Yet neither the Bush administration nor the US military wants "to remain the world's jailers indefinitely," he said.

A Supreme Court ruling last month declared that government of President George W. Bush had overstepped his authority in forming military commissions to try detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

That authority, the court said, belongs to Congress, and the Senate committee is now hearing testimony on how the Guantanamo prisoners should be dealt with.

Gonzales said he was waiting for a green light from Congress to reinstate military tribunals to try war-on-terror prisoners at Guantanamo, Cuba.

Gonzales has proposed minor modifications to rules that inmate attorneys have decried as violating the rights of their clients.

The proposed rules would allow hearsay evidence to be introduced, including evidence obtained under duress, unless a military judge considers it unreliable, Gonzales said.

To prevent terrorists from having access to confidential information, judges handling the cases must be able to temporarily exclude defendants from their own trial if deemed necessary for national security.

And if a defendant faces the death penalty, he will face a panel of 12 judges who must rule unanimously for a death sentence to be issued.

Around 450 prisoners are being held in the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- some for years -- without charges being brought. Human and civil rights lawyers have brought suit on behalf of detainees, many of them picked up as suspected Al-Qaeda or Taliban fighters on Afghanistan's battlefields.

The Washington Post, quoting anonymous Bush administration officials, reported Wednesday that the White House also hopes to allow the secretary of defense to add crimes at will to the military court's jurisdiction.

Senators did not question Gonzales directly about this, though the attorney general gave assurances that no US citizen would face these courts.

Son of a Bush

2006-08-03T22:35:00.000-05:00

Thank God for Chuck D.

Uh! Backwards!

C'mon! C'mon! C'mon! (c'mon!)

Oh no, struck by greased lightning
F'ed by the same last name, you know what?
China ain't never givin back that god damned plane
Must got this whole nation trained on some kennel ration
Refrain, the same train, full of cocaine, blows the brain

Have you forgotten? I've been through the first term of rotten
The father, the son and the holy Bush-shit we all in

Don't look at me, I ain't callin for no assasination
I'm just sayin, sayin
Who voted for that asshole of your nation?

Deja Bush, crushed by the headrush, when I wrote the bumrush
Saw you salute to the then Vice Pres
Who did what RayGun [Reagan] said

And then became prez himself, went for delf
Knee deep in his damned self
Stuck in a three headed bucket, a trilateral Bush-shit
Sorry ain't no better way of puttin it

No you cannot freestyle this
Cause you still ain't free
If I fight for y'all then they get me
How many o y'all is comin to get me?

None! Cause it's easier to forget me
Ain't that a Bush, son of a Bush is here all up in yo zone
You ain't never heard so much soul to the bone
I told y'all when the first Bush was tappin my telephone
Spy vs. Spy, can't truss em, as you salute to the illuminati
Y'know what? Take yo ass to your one millionth party!

He's the son of a Baaaaaad man
The son of a bad...
He's the son of a Baaaaaad man
Son of a bad..........

Now here's the pitch
Hiding inside certified genocide
Ain't that a Bush, repeat ain't that a Bush?
Out of nowhere headed to the hot house
Killed 135 at the last count
Texas Bounce! Texas Bounce! (c'mon)
Cats in a cage got a ghost of a chance
Of comin back from your whack-ass killin machine
Son of a Bush, ain't that a son of a Bush
Cats doin bids for the same Bush-shit that you did (the father)
Serial killer kid, uhh! Serial killer kid
Go on!

He's the son of a Baaaaaad man
The son of a bad...
He's the son of a Baaaaaad man
Son of a bad.........

the father, the son...
the father, the son...
(go on, better go on)
the father, the son, and the holy Bush-shit
The father...
The father...

Coke is the real thing
Used to make you swing
Used to be yo thing
Daddy had you under his wing
Uhh, son of a Bush
Bringin kilos to fill up silos
You probably sniffed piles
Got inmates in Texas scrubbin tiles
That shit is wild
That shit is wild CIA child
That shit is wild CIA child......

He's the son of a Baaaaaad man
The son of a bad...
He's the son of a Baaaaaad man
Son of a bad......

Son of a bad, man

Can I have Freedom Fries with that Abuse of Power?

2006-08-03T08:57:00.000-05:00

A draft Bush administration plan for special military courts seeks to expand the reach and authority of such "commissions" to include trials, for the first time, of people who are not members of al-Qaeda or the Taliban and are not directly involved in acts of international terrorism, according to officials familiar with the proposal.

The plan, which would replace a military trial system ruled illegal by the Supreme Court in June, would also allow the secretary of defense to add crimes at will to those under the military court's jurisdiction. The two provisions would be likely to put more individuals than previously expected before military juries, officials and independent experts said.

The draft proposed legislation, set to be discussed at two Senate hearings today, is controversial inside and outside the administration because defendants would be denied many protections guaranteed by the civilian and traditional military criminal justice systems.

Under the proposed procedures, defendants would lack rights to confront accusers, exclude hearsay accusations, or bar evidence obtained through rough or coercive interrogations. They would not be guaranteed a public or speedy trial and would lack the right to choose their military counsel, who in turn would not be guaranteed equal access to evidence held by prosecutors.

Detainees would also not be guaranteed the right to be present at their own trials, if their absence is deemed necessary to protect national security or individuals.

An early draft of the new measure prepared by civilian political appointees and leaked to the media last week has been modified in response to criticism from uniformed military lawyers. But the provisions allowing a future expansion of the courts to cover new crimes and more prisoners were retained, according to government officials familiar with the deliberations.

The military lawyers received the draft after the rest of the government had agreed on it. They have argued in recent days for retaining some routine protections for defendants that the political appointees sought to jettison, an administration official said.

They objected in particular to the provision allowing defendants to be tried in absentia, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to describe the deliberations. Another source in contact with top military lawyers said, "Their initial impression is that the draft was unacceptable and sloppy." The source added that "it did not have enough due-process rights" and could further tarnish America's image.

The military lawyers nonetheless supported extending the jurisdiction of the commissions to cover those accused of joining or associating with terrorist groups engaged in anti-U.S. hostilities, and of committing or aiding hostile acts by such groups, whether or not they are part of al-Qaeda, two U.S. officials said.

That language gives the commissions broader reach than anticipated in a November 2001 executive order from President Bush that focused only on members of al-Qaeda, those who commit international terrorist acts and those who harbor such individuals.

Some independent experts say the new procedures diverge inappropriately from existing criminal procedures and provide no more protections than the ones struck down by the Supreme Court as inadequate. John D. Hutson, the Navy's top uniformed lawyer from 1997 to 2000, said the rules would evidently allow the government to tell a prisoner: "We know you're guilty. We can't tell you why, but there's a guy, we can't tell you who, who told us something. We can't tell you what, but you're guilty."

Bruce Fein, an associate deputy attorney general during the Reagan administration, said after reviewing the leaked draft that "the theme of the government seems to be 'They are guilty anyway, and therefore due process can be slighted.' " With these procedures, Fein said, "there is a real danger of getting a wrong verdict" that would let a lower-echelon detainee "rot for 30 years" at Guantanamo Bay because of evidence contrived by personal enemies.

But Kris Kobach, a senior Justice Department lawyer in Bush's first term who now teaches at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, said he believes that the draft strikes an appropriate balance between "a fundamentally fair trial" and "the ability to protect the effectiveness of U.S. military and intelligence assets."

Administration officials have said that the exceptional trial procedures are warranted because the fight against terrorism requires heavy reliance on classified information or on evidence obtained from a defendant's collaborators, which cannot be shared with the accused. The draft legislation cites the goal of ensuring fair treatment without unduly diverting military personnel from wartime assignments to present evidence in trials.

The provisions are closely modeled on earlier plans for military commissions, which the Supreme Court ruled illegal two months ago in a case brought by Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni imprisoned in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "It is not evident why the danger posed by international terrorism, considerable though it is, should require, in the case of Hamdan, any variance from the courts-martial rules," the court's majority decision held.

No one at Guantanamo has been tried to date, though some prisoners have been there since early 2002.

John Yoo, a former Justice Department lawyer who helped draft the earlier plan, said Bush administration officials essentially "took DOD regulations" for the trials "and turned them into a statute for Congress to pass." He said the drafters were obviously "trying to return the law to where it was before Hamdan " by writing language into the draft that challenges key aspects of the court's decision.

"Basically, this is trying to overrule the Hamdan case," said Neal K. Katyal, a Georgetown University law professor who was Hamdan's lead attorney.

The plan calls for commissions of five military officers appointed by the defense secretary to try defendants for any of 25 listed crimes. It gives the secretary the unilateral right to "specify other violations of the laws of war that may be tried by military commission." The secretary would be empowered to prescribe detailed procedures for carrying out the trials, including "modes of proof" and the use of hearsay evidence.

Unlike the international war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, the commissions could rely on hearsay as the basis for a conviction. Unlike routine military courts-martial, in which prosecutors must overcome several hurdles to use such evidence, the draft legislation would put the burden on the defense team to block its use.

The admission of hearsay is a serious problem, said Tom Malinowski, director of the Washington office of Human Rights Watch, because defendants might not know if it was gained through torture and would have difficulty challenging it on that basis. Nothing in the draft law prohibits using evidence obtained through cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment that falls short of torture, Malinowski said.

The U.S. official countered that a military judge "would look hard" at the origins of such evidence and that defendants would have to count on "the trustworthiness of the system."

To secure a death penalty under the draft legislation, at least five jurors must agree, two fewer than under the administration's earlier plan. Courts-martial and federal civilian trials require that 12 jurors agree.

2006-08-02T11:17:00.000-05:00

Diebold Machines found to be less secure than previously thought

2006-08-02T08:51:00.000-05:00

“This may be the worst security flaw we have seen in touch screen voting machines,” says Open Voting Foundation president, Alan Dechert. Upon examining the inner workings of one of the most popular paperless touch screen voting machines used in public elections in the United States, it has been determined that with the flip of a single switch inside, the machine can behave in a completely different manner compared to the tested and certified version.

“Diebold has made the testing and certification process practically irrelevant,” according to Dechert. “If you have access to these machines and you want to rig an election, anything is possible with the Diebold TS -- and it could be done without leaving a trace. All you need is a screwdriver.” This model does not produce a voter verified paper trail so there is no way to check if the voter’s choices are accurately reflected in the tabulation.

Open Voting Foundation is releasing 22 high-resolution close up pictures of the system. This picture, in particular, shows a “BOOT AREA CONFIGURATION” chart painted on the system board.

The most serious issue is the ability to choose between "EPROM" and "FLASH" boot configurations. Both of these memory sources are present. All of the switches in question (JP2, JP3, JP8, SW2 and SW4) are physically present on the board. It is clear that this system can ship with live boot profiles in two locations, and switching back and forth could change literally everything regarding how the machine works and counts votes. This could be done before or after the so-called "Logic And Accuracy Tests".

A third possible profile could be field-added in minutes and selected in the "external flash" memory location, the interface for which is present on the motherboard.

This is not a minor variation from the previously documented attack point on the newer Diebold TSx. To its credit, the TSx can only contain one boot profile at a time. Diebold has ensured that it is extremely difficult to confirm what code is in a TSx (or TS) at any one time but it is at least theoretically possible to do so. But in the TS, a completely legal and certified set of files can be instantly overridden and illegal uncertified code be made dominant in the system, and then this situation can be reversed leaving the legal code dominant again in a matter of minutes.

“These findings underscore the need for open testing and certification. There is no way such a security vulnerability should be allowed. These systems should be recalled”

The rest of the pictures can be found here

Some People Never Learn

2006-07-31T10:34:00.000-05:00

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Gov. Mitt Romney has apologized for referring to the troubled Big Dig construction project as a "tar baby" during a fundraiser with Iowa Republicans, saying he didn't know anyone would be offended by the term some consider a racial epithet.

In a speech Saturday, Romney, a Republican considering a run for president in 2008, acknowledged he took a big political risk in taking control of the project after a fatal tunnel ceiling collapse, but said inaction would have been even worse.

"The best thing politically would be to stay as far away from that tar baby as I can," he told a crowd of about 100 supporters in Ames, Iowa.

Black leaders were outraged at his use of the term, which dates to the 19th century Uncle Remus stories, referring to a doll made of tar that traps Br'er Rabbit. It has come to be known as a way of describing a sticky mess, and has been used as a derogatory term for a black person.

"Tar baby is a totally inappropriate phrase in the 21st century," said Larry Jones, a black Republican and civil rights activist.

"He thinks he's presidential timber," Jones said. "But all he's shown us is arrogance."

Romney's spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, said the governor was describing "a sticky situation."

"He was unaware that some people find the term objectionable and he's sorry if anyone's offended," Fehrnstrom said.

White House spokesman Tony Snow sparked similar criticism in May when he used the term in response to a question about government surveillance.

Let The Police State Begin

2006-07-30T21:22:00.000-05:00

A Penn State college senior was arrested after he pointed his camera cell phone at police activity in his neighborhood. A Philadelphia NBC News Channel 10 report says the family of Neftaly Cruz, 21, is claiming the cops had "no right to come onto their property and arrest their 21-year-old son simply because he was using his cell phone's camera."

Cruz had heard a commotion outside his parents' home and walked out the door to investigate it. When he saw the street lined with police, he flipped his phone open to take a picture. Within moments, an officer came to his back gate, put him into a police car, cuffed him and took him to jail. According to a neighbor's report, the cop spoke only once during this process, allegedly saying, "You should have just went [sic] in the house and minded your own business instead of trying to take pictures off your picture phone."

The charge against Cruz was based on a new law, allegedly prohibiting people from taking pictures of police officers with cell phones. Cruz is quoted as saying, "They threatened to charge me with conspiracy, impeding an investigation, obstruction of a investigation..." Larry Frankel of the local ACLU chapter, reportedly said, "There is no law that prevents people from taking pictures of what anybody can see on the street," adding that, "it's rather scary that in this country you could actually be taken down to police headquarters for taking a picture on your cell phone of activities that are clearly visible on the street."

Are we surprised?

2006-07-29T23:30:00.000-05:00

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 29 — The State Department agency in charge of $1.4 billion in reconstruction money in Iraq used an accounting shell game to hide ballooning cost overruns on its projects there and knowingly withheld information on schedule delays from Congress, a federal audit released late Friday has found.

The agency hid construction overruns by listing them as overhead or administrative costs, according to the audit, written by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, an independent office that reports to Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department.

Called the United States Agency for International Development, or A.I.D., the agency administers foreign aid projects around the world. It has been working in Iraq on reconstruction since shortly after the 2003 invasion.

The report by the inspector general’s office does not give a full accounting of all projects financed by the agency’s $1.4 billion budget, but cites several examples.

The findings appeared in an audit of a children’s hospital in Basra, but they referred to the wider reconstruction activities of the development agency in Iraq. American and Iraqi officials reported this week that the State Department planned to drop Bechtel, its contractor on that project, as signs of budget and scheduling problems began to surface.

The United States Embassy in Baghdad referred questions about the audit to the State Department in Washington, where a spokesman, Justin Higgins, said Saturday, “We have not yet had a chance to fully review this report, but certainly will consider it carefully, as we do all the findings of the inspector general.”

Bechtel has said that because of the deteriorating security in Basra, the hospital project could not be completed as envisioned. But Mr. Higgins said: “Despite the challenges, we are committed to completing this project so that sick children in Basra can receive the medical help they need. The necessary funding is now in place to ensure that will happen.”

In March 2005, A.I.D. asked the Iraq Reconstruction and Management Office at the United States Embassy in Baghdad for permission to downsize some projects to ease widespread financing problems. In its request, it said that it had to “absorb greatly increased construction costs” at the Basra hospital and that it would make a modest shift of priorities and reduce “contractor overhead” on the project.

The embassy office approved the request. But the audit found that the agency interpreted the document as permission to change reporting of costs across its program.

Referring to the embassy office’s approval, the inspector general wrote, “The memorandum was not intended to give U.S.A.I.D. blanket permission to change the reporting of all indirect costs.”

The hospital’s construction budget was $50 million. By April of this year, Bechtel had told the aid agency that because of escalating costs for security and other problems, the project would actually cost $98 million to complete. But in an official report to Congress that month, the agency “was reporting the hospital project cost as $50 million,” the inspector general wrote in his report.

The rest was reclassified as overhead, or “indirect costs.” According to a contracting officer at the agency who was cited in the report, the agency “did not report these costs so it could stay within the $50 million authorization.”

“We find the entire agreement unclear,” the inspector general wrote of the A.I.D. request approved by the embassy. “The document states that hospital project cost increases would be offset by reducing contractor overhead allocated to the project, but project reports for the period show no effort to reduce overhead.”

The report said it suspected that other unreported costs on the hospital could drive the tab even higher. In another case cited in the report, a power station project in Musayyib, the direct construction cost cited by the development agency was $6.6 million, while the overhead cost was $27.6 million.

One result is that the project’s overhead, a figure that normally runs to a maximum of 30 percent, was a stunning 418 percent.

The figures were even adjusted in the opposite direction when that helped the agency balance its books, the inspector general found. On an electricity project at the Baghdad South power station, direct construction costs were reported by the agency as $164.3 million and indirect or overhead costs as $1.4 million.

That is just 0.8 percent overhead in a country where security costs are often staggering. A contracting officer told the inspector general that the agency adjusted the figures “to stay within the authorization for each project.”

The overall effect, the report said, was a “serious misstatement of hospital project costs.” The true cost could rise as high as $169.5 million, even after accounting for at least $30 million pledged for medical equipment by a charitable organization.

The inspector general also found that the agency had not reported known schedule delays to Congress. On March 26, 2006, Bechtel informed the agency that the hospital project was 273 days behind, the inspector general wrote. But in its April report to Congress on the status of all projects, “U.S.A.I.D. reported no problems with the project schedule.”

In a letter responding to the inspector general’s findings, Joseph A. Saloom, the newly appointed director of the reconstruction office at the United States Embassy, said he would take steps to improve the reporting of the costs of reconstruction projects in Iraq. Mr. Saloom took little exception to the main findings.

In the letter, Mr. Saloom said his office had been given new powers by the American ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, to request clear financing information on American reconstruction projects. Mr. Saloom wrote that he agreed with the inspector general’s conclusion that this shift would help “preclude surprises such as occurred on the Basra hospital project.”

“The U.S. Mission agrees that accurate monitoring of projects requires allocating indirect costs in a systematic way that reflects accurately the true indirect costs attributable to specific activities and projects, such as a Basra children’s hospital,” Mr. Saloom wrote.

Lets Remind Each Other of the Truth

2006-07-28T00:50:00.000-05:00

NEW YORK -- Profits at Exxon Mobil surged 36 percent to a near record $10.4 billion in the second quarter as surging oil prices helped the world's largest publicly traded company soundly beat Wall Street forecasts.

The company's profit - which amounts to a cool $1,318 a second - is the second biggest ever reported by a U.S. company, behind only the $10.7 billion Exxon itself earned in the fourth quarter of 2005.

The earnings equaled $1.72 a share, topping the $1.64 a share analysts had forecast on average, according to First Call. Total revenue in the quarter was just a bit more than $99 billion.

Exxon (Charts) shares rose modestly in afternoon New York Stock Exchange trading.

The $1,318 a second would buy enough gasoline, even at the current $3 a gallon national average, to drive a Hummer H3 between Los Angeles and New York three times.

One analyst said Exxon's record fourth-quarter earnings in 2005 included a $400 million tax charge that analysts were not including as part of that quarter's profit.

"Apples to apples, this quarter is the highest by any organization ever," said Fadel Gheit, an energy analyst at Oppenheimer.

Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil caught considerable flak from the general public for its record fourth quarter, which came soon after gasoline prices hit record highs.

Compounding matters, the company gave its outgoing CEO Lee Raymond a retirement package worth about $350 million around the same time.

That combination of events led to a public outcry calling for restrictions on CEO pay and calls from lawmakers who wanted to institute a windfall profits tax on the oil industry or even break up some of the oil giants that merged in the 1990s.

But the industry says that oil prices fluctuate widely over time and that, in the long run, it's actually less profitable than a number of other industries.

Officials have also argued against a government-forced breakup, saying oil companies need to be big to compete in a global market against foreign state-run firms, some of which are larger than Exxon Mobil.

Surging oil prices helped Exxon in the second quarter, when crude prices jumped 31 percent.

Exxon said spending on exploration and production rose 8 percent in the quarter, to $4.9 billion, while overall output rose 6 percent.

Investors have been concerned that high oil prices would lead the company to boost spending even further.

But the desire to restrain spending may run counter to consumer's interests, as more oil on the market would help lower gas prices.

Gheit said the company sent $7.9 billion back to shareholders in the second quarter in the form of dividends and stock buybacks.

He said Exxon's expenditures on exploration and production were sufficient, as most of the world's oil reserves are by now widely known. Extracting those reserves, he said, is constrained more by politics than it is by lack of spending on exploration.

"They can't just go and push [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and say, 'let us in,'" he said. "They need access to resources, what can they do?"

Gheit thought the company was striking a good balance with how it is spending its cash.

When asked about investing in renewable energy technologies, an Exxon official said that, apart from ethanol, it's generally not part of the company's plan.

"There are very few that are economical without subsidies," said Henry Hubble, vice president for investor relations, on a conference call. "We don't think it makes sense to invest in it at this point."

The company's mammoth earnings, and its reluctance to get into the alternative energy market, drew fire from critics.

Shawnee Hoover, director of Exxpose Exxon, a coalition of groups including Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, said Exxon will continue to post record profits until consumers have other energy choices.

"Exxon wants to preserve [its] market by not doing anything about global warming," Hoover said on a conference call.

Industry experts say that it's becoming increasingly expensive for oil companies to get easily refinable crude oil out of the ground.

At the same time, high prices have led to surging demand for exploration and drilling equipment and workers, causing the price of such services to jump at least 15 percent a year over the last several years, industry executives and analysts say.

Then there's the geological fact that new, large, high-quality oil fields are simply getting harder to find.

Meanwhile, new production hasn't kept pace with surging demand - not only from the United States but from China, India and other rapidly growing economies - which has driven prices up nearly fourfold, from around $20 a barrel in early 2002 to a trading high of $78.40 earlier this month on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Tensions in the Middle East and other parts of the world and speculative buying by big investment funds have also helped fuel the run-up.

Gimme Some Truth

2006-07-28T00:42:00.000-05:00

Yeah .... so I'm listening a lot to John Lennon lately .... tell me it doesnt fit

I'm sick and tired of hearing things
From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocritics
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth
I've had enough of reading things
By neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth

No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of tricky dicky
Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of hope
Money for dope
Money for rope

No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of tricky dicky
Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of soap
Money for dope
Money for rope

I'm sick to death of seeing things
From tight-lipped, condescending, mama's little chauvinists
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth now

I've had enough of watching scenes
Of schizophrenic, ego-centric, paranoiac, prima-donnas
All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth

No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of tricky dicky
Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of soap
It's money for dope
Money for rope

Ah, I'm sick and tired of hearing things
From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocrites
All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth now

I've had enough of reading things
By neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians
All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth now

All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth now
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth

Correction

2006-07-27T15:44:00.000-05:00

Over the past couple of years, the issue of Internet governance has become a hot topic. Currently, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is responsible for parceling out IP addresses and domain names. In turn, ICANN operates under the auspices of the US Commerce Department, an arrangement that doesn't sit too well with parts of Europe, the UN, and many developing nations.

Contrary to some reports, things are not about to change. After a meeting at the Commerce Department, Acting Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information, John M.R. Kneuer, said that the existing arrangement was likely to continue, at least for another year. "There certainly are still strong arguments that there's more work to be done," said Kneuer.

When ICANN was created in 1998, the US government intended for it to be fully privatized by 2000. However, that has failed to happen for a couple of reasons, namely a reluctance on the part of the US to let go control and ICANN's inability to meet some performance benchmarks.

At last fall's World Summit on the Information Society, attendees called for international control of the Internet. What would constitute an ideal alternative to US control differs depending on who one asks. The European Union is on record as desiring a public-private partnership; nations such as Iran, China, and Cuba would like to see "anyone but the US"; and another bloc of countries prefer UN oversight, perhaps via the century-old International Telegraph Union.

Kneuer did reiterate the US government's commitment to ultimately relinquishing control over ICANN, saying that "that we're all gathered here today and we've undertaken this process is a clear indication that we are committed to this transition." That's a big change from last summer, when the Commerce Department declared that it would "retain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file" while reiterating its stance against interfering in how other countries handle their own top-level domains.

So for now, it looks as though the status quo wins out.

US to relinquish control of the Internet(s)

2006-07-27T09:41:00.000-05:00

In a meeting that will go down in internet history, the United States government last night conceded that it can no longer expect to maintain its position as the ultimate authority over the internet.

Having been the internet's instigator and, since 1998, its voluntary taskmaster, the US government finally agreed to transition its control over not-for-profit internet overseeing organisation ICANN, making the organisation a more international body.

However, assistant commerce secretary John Kneuer, the US official in charge of such matters, also made clear that the US was still determined to keep control of the net's root zone file - at least in the medium-term.

"The historic role that we announced that we were going to preserve is fairly clearly articulated: the technical verification and authorisation of changes to the authoritative root," Kneuer explained following an afternoon of explicit statements from US-friendly organisations and individuals that it was no longer viable for one government to retain such power over the future of a global resource.

Despite the sentiments, however, it was apparent from the carefully selected panel and audience members that the internet - despite its global reach - remains an English-speaking possession. Not one of the 11 panel members, nor any of the 22 people that spoke during the meeting, had anything but English as their first language.

While talk centered on the future of the internet and its tremendous global influence, the people that sat there discussing it represented only a tiny minority of those that now use the internet every day. Reflections on the difficulty of expanding the current internet governance mechanisms to encompass the global audience inadvertently highlighted the very parochialism of those that currently form the ICANN in-crowd.

When historians come to review events in Washington on 26 July 2006, they will no doubt be reminded of discussions in previous centuries over why individual citizens should be given a vote. Or, perhaps, why landowners or the educated classes shouldn't be given more votes than the masses.

There was talk of voting rights, or what the point was of including more people in ICANN processes, and even how people could be educated sufficiently before they were allowed to interact with the existing processes.

Ironically, it was ICANN CEO Paul Twomey who most accurately put his finger on what had to be done. One of the most valuable realisations that ICANN has ever come to, he noted, was that when it revamped itself last time, it recognised it hadn't got it right. Even more importantly, Twomey noted, was the fact the organisation recognised that "it would never get it right. And so ICANN put a review mechanism into its bylaws".

The reason Twomey's observations are particularly noteworthy is that it is Paul Twomey himself who has consistently - and deliberately - failed to open ICANN up, keeping meetings secret, and refusing to release information about discussions either before a meeting and, in some cases, after the meeting.

A stark warning came from the Canadian government - the only government except for the US government invited to speak. Recent arrival, but highly knowledgeable representative, Bill Graham was extraordinarily clear. "It is time for ICANN to recognise that it is in many ways a quasi-judicial body and it must begin to behave that way," he said.

"The ICANN board needs to provide adequate minutes of all its meetings. There needs to be a notice of what issues will be considered, and the timeframe when a decision is made. A written document needs to be posted setting out the background and context of the issues. There needs to be an acknowledgment and a summary of the positions put forward by various interested parties; there needs to be an analysis of the issues; there needs to be an explanation of the decisions and the reasons for it; and ultimately there needs to be a mechanism for the board to be held accountable by its community."

Everyone recognised the meeting as an historic turning point in the future of the internet, causing a strange amount of one-upmanship among those taking part, most of it covering how long they had been involved with ICANN. Paul Twomey referred to the Berlin meeting (1999); an irregular ICANN contributor (on the panel thanks to US governmental influence) spoke of "being there before ICANN was even created". The swagger got so bad that several well-informed contributors were forced to apologise because they had only been to three ICANN meetings.

Ultimately, what came out of a gathering of the (English-speaking) great and the good regarding the internet was two things:
That the US government recognises it has to transition its role if it wants to keep the internet in one piece (and it then has to sell that decision to a mindlessly patriotic electorate)
That ICANN has to open up and allow more people to decide its course if it is going to be allowed to become the internet's main overseeing organisation

If you ignore the fact that the conversation only happened within a tiny subset of the people that actually use the internet, everyone can feel quite content in walking away feeling that at least people now understand their point of view.

As a rare non-US contributor, Emily Taylor, Nominet's lawyer, UK citizen, and a member of the IGF Advisory Group told us she felt that "the fact that the meeting took place was as valuable as anything that was discussed".

That much is certainly true. The US has recognised that it can no longer hope to control the internet. The next step is for everyone invited into the party this time to recognise that they too play only a small role in the global revolution that is this jumble of interconnected computer networks.

FEMA FU

2006-07-26T10:46:00.000-05:00

Members of Louisiana’s congressional delegation said Monday that FEMA’s policy restricting media access to residents living in FEMA-managed trailer parks is absurd, outrageous and denies park residents their rights as American citizens.

“FEMA just strikes you as a bureaucracy that’s out of control,” said U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal, R-Kenner. “You don’t lose your fundamental rights just because you’re living in temporary housing. It’s an outrageous pattern of behavior.”

Jindal was referring to a July 15 article in which The Advocate detailed an incident in a Federal Emergency Management Agency-operated trailer park in Morgan City where a reporter and photographer were ordered off of the site.

The two had been invited into a trailer occupied by resident Dekotha Devall and her family. But during the interview a security guard ordered the reporter and photographer to leave.

The security guard called the police after the reporter attempted to give Devall a business card, an act the guard said was forbidden.

Later, the security guard told another resident, Pansy Ardeneaux, she was not allowed to speak to the media through a chain link fence surrounding the park and ordered Ardeneaux to return to her trailer.

When FEMA officials were told of the incident, they said the media has to be escorted at all times by FEMA representatives.

“If a resident invites the media to the trailer, they have to be escorted by a FEMA representative who sits in on the interview,” said Rachel Rodi, a FEMA spokeswoman. “That’s just policy.”

Jindal said that policy is ridiculous.

“How in the world can you stop someone in their home from talking to whomever they want?” Jindal asked. “It’s a freedom of speech issue; it’s a freedom of association issue.”

Jindal also criticized FEMA for defending its position.

To read the rest of the article go here

Nobody Told Me

2006-07-25T23:53:00.000-05:00

Everybody's talking and no one says a word
Everybody's making love and no one really cares
There's Nazis in the bathroom just below the stairs
Always something happening and nothing going on
There's always something cooking and nothing in the pot
They're starving back in China so finish what you got

Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Strange days indeed -- strange days indeed

Everybody's runnin' and no one makes a move
Everyone's a winner and nothing left to lose
There's a little yellow idol to the north of Katmandu
Everybody's flying and no one leaves the ground
Everybody's crying and no one makes a sound
There's a place for us in the movies you just gotta lay around

Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Strange days indeed -- most peculiar, mama

Everybody's smoking and no one's getting high
Everybody's flying and never touch the sky
There's a UFO over New York and I ain't too surprised

Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Strange days indeed -- most peculiar, mama