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sisyphusshruggedBush to air breathers: Drop dead!
The Bush administration is considering easing environmental requirements for a multitude of gasoline blends and streamlining permits for new refineries to increase fuel supplies and fight soaring prices, Commerce Secretary Donald Evans said Wednesday.
Evans, a former Texas oil company executive, said in an Associated Press interview that the cost of gasoline, which hit a record national average of $2.06 per gallon this week, was affecting driving habits, with people making fewer trips to the store.
Army starts lying to get reservists to re-enlist
As part of an aggressive recruiting effort, Army and National Guard officials have warned inactive reservists that they could face being sent back to Iraq unless they re-enlist in the active reserves or join their local Guard units, according to a published report.
MariAnn Curta told the Chicago Tribune in a story published Sunday that a recruiter called her last weekend, saying her 22-year-old son Bill -- who recently completed a nine-month tour of duty in Iraq -- could be headed back there unless he enlisted in the Illinois National Guard.
"It's devious, it's deceptive, it's dishonest, it's valueless," she said. "I can't believe they'd pull this kind of fast trick on kids who have already served."
Abu Ghraib torture: Bush pledge to raze prison and build a new one turns to farce
White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said U.S. taxpayers will finance a second prison to replace Abu Ghraib. She said there is sufficient flexibility within the $18.4 billion in Iraq reconstruction aid approved in October to build the prison.
But Tim Rieser, a Democratic aide on the Senate Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, which is monitoring the reconstruction, said Bush would have to consult Congress on such a large transfer of money. "For all intents and purposes, the money is not there," Rieser said.
...
But unless the White House breaks its pledge not to ask for more reconstruction money, the additional prison construction funds will have to come from other projects -- a potential public relations problem. Members of Congress have already questioned the administration's shift of $213 million from drinking water and democracy-building projects to administrative expenses and U.S. Embassy operations.
So much for privatization!
Federal civil servants proved they could do their work better and more cheaply than private contractors nearly 90 percent of the time in job competitions last year, according to the Office of Management and Budget.
An OMB report released yesterday found that such competitions, the cornerstone of President Bush's "competitive sourcing" initiative, cost federal agencies $88 million in fiscal 2003. But they are projected to bring savings of $1.1 billion in reduced personnel costs and overhead during the next five years, the report said.
Salon.com is offering free premium subscriptions for active duty soldiers
Turn off Rush, turn on Salon - We celebrate Memorial Day by offering active-duty soldiers free Premium subscriptions.
May 25, 2004 | Do America's servicemen and -women get the full story from American Forces Radio and Television? Not according to Eric Boehlert's Salon cover story on Wednesday. Our soldiers get a daily dose of poison from Rush Limbaugh, who has dismissed the Abu Ghraib horrors as harmless frat-house pranks and denounces even Democrats who served their country (unlike Limbaugh himself, who sat out the Vietnam War) as traitors. Yet the military broadcasting system keeps even liberal commentators -- let alone far-left ones who would be the real counterpart to the extremist blowhard -- off its airwaves.
Wampum: Taxing Punitive Damages
Governor Schwarzenegger of California has proposed taxing punitive damage awards by having 75% of such awards go to the state instead of the plaintiff.
The Governor has suggested that the proposal could raise $450 million per year for the state.
I have no major objection to having a portion of punitive damages go to the state. The purpose of punitive damages is to punish a wrong-doer and to deter future wrongful conduct. Punitive damages do not exist to compensate the plaintiff and, as a result, allowing all of such damages to flow to the plaintiff (and plaintiff’s counsel) does result in a windfall.
I would object to the state taking 100% of punitive damages awards as it would eliminate all incentive for the plaintiff to bring actions that deter wrongful behavior. Just as a government whistleblower gets a windfall of 10% of the amounts saved by exposing fraud, the plaintiff should have an incentive to deter wrongful conduct. Deterring wrongful behavior is a social good.
That said, I think that Schwarzenegger’s estimate of the state collecting $450 million per year from the proposal is wildly optimistic...
Wampum: Got Spam?
The question is how to take care of these -- http based spam.
1. sharp note to registrant?
2. require revenue sharing with target sites?
3. require payment of damages to target sites?
4. seize the A record? (paxil-medication.info)
5. seize the NS record(s)? the A records associated with the NS records? (ns{1,1}.dataextend.com?
6. blackhole A and NS resident address blocks?
Since we're a registrar, we're sure that the A record is fair game (since no ICANN accredited registrar wants to get into an enforcement wrangle with ICANN over a single registration, let alone one with a highly clued ICANN accredited registrar, for a prize with a value somewhere between $6 and $35, mere lunch money). We know from our experience in network operator land (our other hat) that if a blackhole listing service takes off that blackholes the address blocks where http-spammers hang their hats, whether the domains (A records) or the resolving nameservers (NS records), real economic cost will be imposed upon spam operators. We know from our participation in the Internet Research Task Force on Spam that going after the robo-hosts (the send-side) is a waste of time -- the MovableType blackhole hack is an example of this approach...
War on terror lawless: Amnesty
The United States and its supporters in the war against terror are flouting human rights in the pursuit of a global security agenda that has made the world more dangerous, Amnesty International said today.
The abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. troops was the consequence of a Bush administration policy "to pick and choose which bits of international law it will apply and where," the group's secretary general, Irene Khan, said in presenting the annual assessment of human rights.
Khan condemned attacks by terror groups such as al-Qaida, but said the U.S. response was driving the most sustained erosion of human rights and international law in 50 years.
Terror Alert
So I'm watching the terror alert press conference. All they know is that there is some unspecific plan to attack somewhere in America at sometime in the summer or early fall. What a waste of time and money. If there's no specific information - a place, a date, and a mode of attack - I don't believe the government has any responsibility to do anything at all, especially when brush needs clearing. There's only so much we can do to stop terrorist attacks, so I say we should do nothing at all. What's the point of publicizing the names and faces of suspected terrorists when we don't even know what they're planning and when they're planning it? It might not even happen. It might be in some other country...
Kaye Grogan Watch
Part of a semi-regular series examining the musings of Kaye Grogan, pundit, fashion plate, and prose stylistess. Part 1 is here.Saddam's weapons of mass destruction more than fictionWhat will the "nay sayers" do if they find out Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction" were deployed to Syria and Lebanon?Tell "us", Kaye....
Guidelines on organic labeling rescinded
The Agriculture Department is rescinding new organic food guidelines that allowed limited use of pesticides and antibiotics, which had prompted criticism from some consumer groups and organic farmers.
Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman announced the action Wednesday after critics said the guidelines devalued the organic label. The department's Agricultural Marketing Service will work with industry representatives to clarify the standards, she said...
They don't call it WorldNutDaily for nothin'!
Now, before I go on, let me say immediately that speculation as to why people choose whom they marry is immoral and out of place.Of course it is! Why, what kind of a man would engage in such speculation, when it's so obviously immoral and out of place? The answer is: Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, that's who!But I mention Kerry's predilection to marry extremely wealthy women not to question his motivation but rather to argue that this is proof that he will probably never be president.Why not?If there is one thing we have learned about the presidency of the United States, it is that attaining the office involves immense determination. A man who is prone to taking shortcuts won't make it there.A man like... George W. Bush:George W. Bush, while born into wealth and privilege, had to summon vast spiritual resources to give up drinking and being directionless and commit himself to a demanding spiritual regimen.Demanding spiritual regimen?Now, having a wife who provides you with a private jet and eight multimillion-dollar vacation homes provides for a comfortable life. But is this the right preparation for becoming president?
Qaeda has 18,000 militants
Al Qaeda has more than 18,000 militants ready to strike and the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq has accelerated recruitment to the ranks of Osama bin Laden's network, a leading London think-tank says.
Al Qaeda's finances were in good order, its "middle managers" provided expertise to Islamic militants around the globe and bin Laden's drawing power was as strong as ever, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said on Tuesday.
It warned in its annual Strategic Survey that al Qaeda would keep trying to develop plans for attacks in North America and Europe and that the network ideally wanted to use weapons of mass destruction.
"Meanwhile, soft targets encompassing Americans, Europeans and Israelis, and aiding the insurgency in Iraq, will do," the institute said.
"Galvanised by Iraq if compromised by Afghanistan, al Qaeda remains a viable and effective network of networks," it said.
The IISS said al Qaeda lost its base after the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan in late 2001 but had since adapted to become more decentralised, "virtual" and invisible in more than 60 countries.
Real Live Preacher
So here we are. After eighteen months of anonymity it is time to come out of the closet. I guess the thing to do is just say it, so here goes.
My name is Gordon Atkinson. I live in San Antonio, Texas, and I’m the pastor of Covenant Baptist Church.
Yeah, Baptist. I know; I can hardly believe it myself. Real Live Preacher a Baptist? How can this be?
It be.
Our church is a part of a relatively new movement known as the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. We’re the "Jimmy Carter Baptists," if that helps you make sense of things.
So there it is. Now you know. I have to say that it’s a huge relief to finally be done with the anonymity. It’s work to stay hidden, and I’m tired of it. I’m tired of never mentioning San Antonio, and I’m tired of changing the names of people and places.
I decided to go ahead and come out in my own way because the Eerdmans fall catalog is about to go online, and my book will be listed there along with my name. Once that happens, my name will be public knowledge anyway.
Harsh words from a woman who raised a trekkie who defines himself politically in terms of South Park...
But apparently it's OK for Lucianne Goldberg, or whoever ghost-writes for her Web site, to say this about the dead man:Sorry, but Nick Berg sounds like a nutball to us...
Seriously, I don't get it. He supported the war (as the humanitarian removal of a dictator). Friends who cleaned out his apartment found, among other things, "an American flag made of red and white duct tape on blue cloth." But Lucianne doesn't like him. Why? Too idealistic? Too scrupulous?
Stockpile watch
Actually, neither President Bush nor his aides ever said anything about "stockpiles" in describing the Iraqi weapons threat. The Times just made that part up. -- John Hinderaker of the Claremont Institute, at Power Line Blog ("The blog is excellent--I'll make it regular reading!" --Rich Lowry, editor of National Review)
United Nations' inspections also revealed that Iraq likely maintains stockpiles of VX, mustard and other chemical agents, and that the regime is rebuilding and expanding facilities capable of producing chemical weapons...
For the sake of your children's future, we must make sure this madman never has the capacity to hurt us with a nuclear weapon, or to use the stockpiles of anthrax that we know he has, or V-X, the biological weapons which he possesses...
In defiance of pledges to the United Nations, Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons...
The inspectors concluded that Iraq likely produced two to four times that amount. That's a massive stockpile, and it's never been accounted for and it's capable of killing millions...
Iraq has also failed to provide United Nations inspectors with documentation of its claim to have destroyed its VX stockpiles...
Second, as with biological weapons, Saddam Hussein has never accounted for vast amounts of chemical weaponry: 550 artillery shells with mustard, 30,000 empty munitions and enough precursors to increase his stockpile to as much as 500 tons of chemical agents....
Hey, maw, we found us a communist
In the May 24 edition of his "Best of the Web Today" column, The Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com editor, James Taranto, wrote: "Langston Hughes, the poet who inspired John Kerry's new campaign slogan, 'Let America be America again,' turns out to be a favorite of communists."
...
In February 2001, President George W. Bush cited Langston Hughes as one of the writers "that inspire us" in a proclamation celebrating Black History Month. Hughes even received "one of the nation's highest honors" when the U.S. Postal Service printed 120 million stamps bearing his portrait
Have we sold the Kurds out on autonomy?
The free rein thus far given the Kurds is easily justified by the fact that they're the only group in Iraq right now that has established a civil society. (They got a head start during the 1990s, when the United States and Britain created a no-fly zone to protect them.) But when Iraq gains its sovereignty on June 30, the TAL will expire.
On May 24, the United States and the United Kingdom submitted to the United Nations some proposed language for a U.N. resolution to replace the TAL once Iraq becomes self-governing. The Kurds had hoped that this resolutionÑthis new constitution for IraqÑwould include the TAL language, or something like it, defining the extent of Kurdish autonomy. It did not. Bowing to Shiite leader Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's objections to Kurdish self-rule, the Americans and the British bypassed the issue altogether.
Down the Stretch They Come: Diedrich vs Herseth
One week to go and down the stretch they come. South Dakota's US House race is in its final leg with the dark horse gaining ground.
From the very start this has always been a two person race with Stephanie Herseth taking the early big lead, but as we showed you in our KELOLAND News/Argus Leader poll last week, Larry Diedrich was closing the gap and now both plan a sprint to the finish line.
They're not neck and neck yet, and Stephanie Herseth plans to keep it that way.
"Even though we like what we're seeing in momentum, we like what we've seen in some of these polls, but we know the most important poll is election day," said Herseth.
Herseth shook hands at John Morrell during one of its shift changes.
"I think it's important for working families that work hard day after day when they finish their shift to have a chance to talk to them about what their concerns are."
Larry Diedrich, who trailed by nine points in our poll, spent the day in Herseth's backyard, Aberdeen,
"Let them know we're truly interested in what they're about what their values are and what their interests are and we will take their message to Congress in a strong way.
FBI apologizes to Mayfield
The FBI apologized to Brandon Mayfield on Monday, saying it had erroneously identified his fingerprint on a bag of detonators found near the site of the deadly March 11 terror attack in Madrid, Spain.
Mayfield, a Portland area lawyer and Muslim convert, was cleared of any connection to the terror attack after a pair of agents traveled over the weekend to Madrid to examine the fingerprint and concluded hours later that it was not Mayfield's.
On Monday morning, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Jones in Portland freed Mayfield from federal control, ordered his files returned and unsealed records showing why prosecutors suspected Mayfield.
One document showed that Spanish authorities began questioning the FBI's fingerprint conclusions three weeks before Mayfield's arrest. An FBI affidavit said agents thought they had convinced Spanish police the FBI was right.
But on Monday, the FBI conceded that it was wrong and that it "apologizes to Mr. Mayfield and his family for the hardships that this matter has caused."
Why don't we get together, and call ourselves an institute.
Elsewhere, Electrolite is entertained to find itself included in a list of scholars who blog. Electrolite is now entertaining suggestions as to what we’re a “scholar” in. Along with fellow scholar Avedon Carol, we will be setting up shop as a full-fledged academic movement just as soon as this question has been fully answered to our satisfaction.
(from comments) ...the outfit we are chartering here obviously needs some impressive sounding names to attach to things, preferably insubstantial ones. At a start, I would suggest:
--The Whitmore Cellar of Antiquities
--The E. B. White Chair of Not Using "Literally" as an Intensifier
--The Django Fett Concert Hall and Automatic Weapons Range
--Regius Professor of Garlic (gonna be a major scrap over that one)
--The Research Refectory
--Thog Professor of Hideous Sentence Construction and Allied Arts
--Liberty Hall (applications for Head Cat now open)
--Little Chapel of the Possessive Apostrophe...
PermaTerror
As you all know, George W. Bush has willingly made numerous concessions to al Qaeda since 9/11. For those of you keeping score at home, here is my list. (Feel free to add to it.)
1. Keeping the citizenry in a state of fear
2. Making the citizenry less free
3. Starting an ill-conceived holy war
4. Alienating our country from its allies
5. Allowing OBL to remain at large
6. Letting the Saudis off the hook
7. Engineering the most effective recruitment strategy since the Hitler Youth by inspiring innumerable peoples across the world to hate us so much that they actually join al Qaeda
We will not let the terrorists win? Too late, buddy...
Cookie Mongoloid
Cookie Mongoloid is Sesame Speed Metal! See the Cookie Mongoloid in all his blue, furry, googly-eyed glory backed by the baddest of gender mixed metal bands as they decimate and regurgitate your childhood favorites in an abrasive metal wrath. See their harem of gothic gyrators, the Cookies, demonstrate such elemental concepts as up and down in a blaze of lights, smoke and pyrotechnic cookie shrapnel.
Governing Council president says U.N. draft resolution falls short
Iraq's U.S.-appointed leaders expressed disappointment Tuesday with the American blueprint for post-occupation Iraq, saying they must have greater control over their country's own security forces.
Many Iraqis also were unimpressed by President Bush's vow to tear down the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, where U.S. guards are accused of abusing Iraqi prisoners. The problem is not the building, some said, but the training of U.S. troops.
The U.S. plan for post-occupation Iraq, outlined in a draft resolution submitted to the United Nations on Monday, hands over power to an interim Iraqi government on June 30.
But it does not address how much control the government would have over Iraqi security forces, which remain overseen by U.S.-led international troops.
"We found it less than our expectations," council president Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer told reporters after a gathering to discuss the resolution.
Council member Ahmad Chalabi went further, saying the draft resolution "will fail the test for Iraqi sovereignty."
The President's Speech
If President Bush had been talking a year ago, after the fall of Baghdad, his speech at the Army War College last night might have sounded like a plan for moving forward. He was able to point to a new United Nations resolution being developed in consultation with American allies, not imposed in defiance of them, and to a timetable for moving Iraq toward elected self-government. He talked in general terms of expanding international involvement and stabilizing Iraq. But Mr. Bush was not starting fresh. He spoke after nearly 14 months of policy failures, none of them acknowledged by the president, which have left Iraq increasingly violent and drained Washington's credibility with the Iraqi people and the international community. They have been waiting for Mr. Bush to make a clean break with those policies. He did not do that last night...
Preservationists Call Vermont Endangered, by Wal-Mart
The Wal-Mart here, like thousands of others across the country, sells everything at a steal: jeans for $10.77, gold earrings for $9.97, a three-piece set of luggage for $29.64.
But to some Vermonters, the cavernous store in this Burlington suburb symbolizes something else: the big-box-ification of a largely unspoiled part of the country.
With that in mind, a national historic preservation group said Monday that it was placing on its annual list of endangered sites an unusual entry: the state of Vermont.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation said it was calling Vermont endangered because of the threat of "behemoth stores," specifically Wal-Mart's. The trust believes Wal-Mart, the nation's largest company, plans a big expansion in the state with Williston-size stores...
Bomb Case Against Oregon Lawyer Is Rejected
A federal judge in Portland, Ore., on Monday threw out the case against an American lawyer jailed for two weeks as a material witness in the Madrid train bombing. The Federal Bureau of Investigation said it had mistakenly matched his fingerprints with prints on a plastic bag found near the scene of the attacks that killed 191 people last March.
F.B.I. officials said that the erroneous fingerprint evidence against the lawyer, Brandon Mayfield, 37, of Aloha, Ore., stemmed from the poor quality of a digital image of the print sent from Spain and that they were conducting a review into the use of such procedures. The officials said they were no longer investigating Mr. Mayfield, a Muslim convert who was released from a Portland jail last week...
Now free, Mayfield turns furious
Local attorney Brandon Mayfield blasted the federal government Monday for jailing him for two weeks without charges and labeling him a terrorist on the basis of a misidentified fingerprint.
Mayfield said that he was “often manacled and chained” while imprisoned, threatened by at least one prison guard and denied the opportunity to visit with his family.
Mayfield, a Kansas-born convert to Islam who runs a small family law practice in Beaverton, was arrested May 6 and detained as a material witness in the investigation of the Madrid, Spain, train bombing that killed 191 people and injured more than 2,000....
Robert Jordan, special agent in charge of the FBI in Oregon, issued an apology to Mayfield Monday afternoon, saying the bureau will consider adopting new guidelines for fingerprint analysis.
“The FBI also plans to ask an international panel of fingerprint experts to review our examination in this case,” Jordan stated...
In numerous leaks to the media, FBI officials had said that Mayfield’s fingerprints were found on bomb-making material found near the scene of the March 11 bombing.
Army Suspends General In Charge of Abu Ghraib
The Army suspended Brig. Gen. Janis L. Karpinski from her command of the 800th Military Police Brigade yesterday, more than four months after abuses of detainees were discovered at the Abu Ghraib prison under her command.
religion and government
State lawmakers staged a "domestic revolt" Monday, some donning kitchen aprons and scarlet "M's" to protest a pastor who characterized female legislators with young children at home as sinners.
Democratic Sen. Debra Bowen went barefoot on the Senate floor, bringing along a toaster and other kitchen accessories to her desk.
"Today, I'll be serving up a billion dollars in savings for PG&E customers, identity theft legislation ... along with bacon and eggs, getting my shopping list together and preparing to can," she said.
State legislators were offended by what the Rev. Ralph Drollinger, who leads a Bible study class for lawmakers, wrote during a Bible lesson in April.
"It is one thing for a mother to work out of her home while her children are in school," wrote Drollinger. "It is quite another matter to have children in the home and live away in Sacramento for four days a week. Whereas the former could be in keeping with the spirit of Proverbs 31, the latter is sinful."...
Capitol Ministries' Bible study classes once met in the governor's suite of offices, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told Drollinger to move when Drollinger referred to Roman Catholicism as a false religion. Schwarzenegger and his wife are Catholic.
One free kick
This morning a dark, handsome, mysterious man appeared on my doorstep with an offer. I could use his time-machine for five round-trips. On each trip, I could kick in the shins the person of my choice.
Details:
* No further interaction with the kickee would be permitted.
* He refused to transport weapons, antibiotics, and other history-changing mechanisms. He arched an eyebrow and said, "Rest assured I'll check. Time machines aren't the only advanced technology, you know."
* The person to be kicked must be specifically identified. I said, "What about the Person From Porlock?" My mysterious interlocutor sneered. "I can't see hanging about Coleridge's door for months waiting for a knock. In any case, you know very well that modern critical consensus is that the Person never existed."
* No major historical figures. Otherwise, Stalin, Hitler, and Genghis Khan would become too bruised to walk, changing history...
Perchlorate and Water Contamination
A potential health issue that Stephen and I have been concerned about since we heard about it on the radio show Living on Earth last summer seems to be turning up again in the news. There was an in-depth report on NPR's Morning Edition today about perchlorate well contamination.
Here's a bit from the EPA on perchlorate:
Perchlorate is both a naturally occurring and man-made chemical. Most of the perchlorate manufactured in the United States is used as the primary ingredient of solid rocket propellant. Wastes from the manufacture and improper disposal of perchlorate-containing chemicals are increasingly being discovered in soil and water.
The LoE show we heard last summer was about finding perchlorate in lettuces that had been irrigated by contaminated water in California (see "Leafy Toxins"), specifically because the Colorado River has been contaminated by an explosives plant in Nevada....
Jeanne's back.
It would take too long. Start at the top, read down.
Organic Farmers Angry Over New USDA Standards
Some organic farmers and consumer groups are angry about new U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, which allow limited use of pesticides and antibiotics in organic farming.
Some organic farmers and consumer groups claim the new guidelines devalue the federal organic label.
Pam Riesgraf, who owns a 60-cow organic dairy farm in Jordan, Minn., says with the weakening of the standards, consumers and farmers could lose confidence in the USDA label.
The USDA says the guidelines are in response to questions from government certifiers. They allow for expanded use of pesticides and antibiotics, among other things.
George Siemon, chief executive of the Organic Valley farmer-owned organic cooperative in La Farge, Wis., says the USDA failed to reach out to the organic community before issuing the guidelines.
Last Word on Organic Standards, Again
FEDERAL standards for what foods can be called organic might have seemed like the final word on the issue when they went into effect two years ago. But the Agriculture Department's interpretation of the laws governing the National Organic Program has fed a fierce debate on what should be allowed in such products.
Last month the department issued what it called clarifications of the standards, allowing antibiotics in dairy cows, certain chemicals in pesticides and livestock feed containing nonorganic fish meal.
The father of national organic standards, Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, called the Agriculture Department's directives "unilateral fiats which may violate the letter of the law," and he added, "They certainly violate its spirit."
Suburban Guerrilla
would also take too long. go read.
Limited sunshine, if you can afford it.
The always-sharp Nick Confessore pointed me towards the latest refinement in the Bush Administration's campaign to restrict public access to information. This time, the target is awards to federal contractors, and the method is outsourcing:Established by an act of Congress in 1979, the Federal Procurement Data System was a rare island of public information, the only complete record of federal contracts. Using the database, journalists, auditors and federal investigators could review the million or so agreements with corporations Uncle Sam signed each year. They could find the companies reaping the largest awards, track the rise in no-bid deals, and measure the recent drive to replace federal employees with corporate employees. But under a new contract, the General Services Administration has now turned over responsibility for collecting and distributing information on government contracts to a beltway company called Global Computer Enterprises, Inc.GCE is required to produce reports for the government, and to allow "limited access" to the database for fees set at "market price" - which, given that they hold a total monopoly, apparently translates as "however much we want to charge." They also appear to be able to set their screening process for access - for example, requiring a Mother Jones magazine reporter to first schedule a one-on-one meeting with company officials ("We like to meet with folks and find out how they are using the data") at the company's leisure.
In signing the $24 million deal, the Bush Administration has privatized not only the collection and distribution of the data, but the database itself. For the first time since the system was established, the information will not be available directly to the public or subject to the Freedom of Information Act, according to federal officials. "It's a contractor owned and operated system," explains Nancy Gunsauls, a project manager at GCE. "We have the data."
Reporters or community organizations trying to track federal contracts will now have to approach each of the hundreds of federal offices and agencies individually, filing separate Freedom of Information Act requests, unless they want to pay GCE's price - quoted by one potential user as $35,000 - for whatever limited information GCE wants to release. In the meantime, GCE will be able to collect piles of money from wealthy Beltway Bandits who want to check up on their competitors.
LI husband guilty of murder he claimed was suicide
A jury took about five hours Tuesday to reject a Long Island man's claim that his wife committed suicide by shooting herself three times, including once in the back, convicting him of second-degree murder...
The Long Goodbye
George W. Bush’s speech on Iraq last night was the first of many, we’re told, as he mounts a kind of international whistle-stop tour to convince America and the world that the mess in Mesopotamia isn’t really as horrible as it looks. By the end of June the president may even find some time to campaign in Baghdad. (I’m just guessing here, but he will be next door in Turkey for a NATO summit.)
Let’s hope his stump speech improves. On Monday he repeated pretty much the same old points he’s made many times beforeÑbeen making for a year now, in factÑas if he’d been on the right track all along. And that leaves those of us who try to stay in touch with reality making some of the same old points we’ve made before, too. Sorry about that. But for one last time, I hope, let’s look at what it actually will take to get us out of Iraq...
A Gaping Hole
In years to come, historians will wonder why this Bush administration enjoyed such a strong reputation for its foreign policy for so long. After all, it was only a few weeks ago that Washington’s pundit class, spurred on by the rival presidential campaigns, declared that George W. Bush was a shoo-in as long as the focus remained on Iraq. [This particular paragraph, parenthetically, represents a rare appearance of self-deprecating humor in Newsweek]
How times have changed. The president’s grand vision for IraqÑnow known as his five-point planÑwas supposed to get the full ballyhoo on Monday evening. The magical words “prime time” were thrown around, even though the networks chose to broadcast shows like "Fear Factor" instead of the president’s fine words. But no amount of rhetorical flourish can mask the disarray of the administration’s policy in Iraq, and the president’s continuing struggle to speak convincingly to the American and Iraqi people.
Relaxation of U.S. organic rules proves costly
Bart Reid has been struggling to keep his West Texas shrimp farm afloat since April, when U.S. regulators relaxed rules covering organic food.
While small business generally gripes about regulation, Reid is suffering because the rules under the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Organic Program no longer cover seafood.
That means he can't label his Permian Sea shrimp "USDA organic," which has prompted retailers to cancel purchases.
That in turn has scared off investors interested in his business -- the first organic shrimp farm in the quickly expanding $11 billion U.S. market for organic foods.
"Everybody who was looking to do business with me ran like cockroaches under a spotlight," Reid said by telephone from Imperial, Texas.
The ruling also removed a number of industries, including personal care products, dietary supplements, and pet foods, from the organic program's purview.
As a result, businesses that had invested money to follow an organic regime in those areas realized the work was essentially meaningless, as far as the USDA label was concerned.
Fanatical Apathy: New Abuse Cases Also Isolated, White House Says
...White House spokesman Scott McClellan was quick to condemn the Army's characterization of the abuses as "widespread" or representing a "pattern."
"As far as our investigation has determined, each of the 36 cases is representative of isolated incidents perpetrated by a few individuals," McClellan said. "It's pretty clear that things happened, but we're confident that any authorization for any alleged abuses happened at levels no higher than direct evidence documents. These guys were acting on their own, and they don't reflect the values of anybody who hasn't been caught."
McClellan described any similarities between the 36 isolated cases as "a really amazing coincidence" or the actions of "a few sick individuals who traveled a lot."
McClellan also pointed out that the incidents themselves were isolated in terms of what parts of the prisoners were abused. "Take the beatings," he said. "Deplorable, yes, but often they were isolated, for example, to just the head and some parts of the torso. Sometimes as much as 76% of a prisoner's body was treated completely humanely and in accordance with the Geneva Convention. But you guys never report that."
Bill Keller tells the Times staff about the limited hangout mea sorta culpa maybe
In a memo to New York Times staffers, Executive Editor Bill Keller and Managing Editor Jill Abramson declare that today's editors' note critiquing the paper's coverage of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is "not an attempt to find a scapegoat or to blame reporters for not knowing then what we know now." It said the Times was hardly alone in its false statements, and predicted that the note "will not satisfy our most vociferous critics, but it is not written for them."
The memo was posted at the Romenesko site at www.poynter.org. The text reads:
"In Wednesday's paper you'll find a note from the editors -- us -- about our coverage of Iraq and its WMD. After a thorough review of that coverage, we feel we owe our readers some explanations. The purpose of the note is to acknowledge that we, like many of our competitors and many officials in Washington, were misled on a number of stories by Iraqi informants dealing in misinformation. This note is not an attempt to find a scapegoat or to blame reporters for not knowing then what we know now. Nor is it intended to signal that you should pull your punches. Quite the contrary. As you have probably noticed in, for example, our coverage of the prisoner abuse story, we prize hard-won, hard-hitting stories.
"The note we are publishing will not satisfy our most vociferous critics... [ed: no, jackass, it won't, because your most vociferous critics are all pissed off because you don't publish _enough_ inadequately sourced farragoes supporting the war. duh.]
Religious wrong?
Ryan Lizza, writing on his blog for the New Republic, returns from a conference on religion and politics with some interesting findings: It looks like Karl Rove's "evangelical strategy" may not be all it's cracked up to be. According to Lizza, Rove has said that there are 4 million evangelicals who didn't vote in 2000, and he's made turning them out this year a priority. But Lizza reports that a professor of political science, who conducted a poll designed to measure the connection between religious affiliation and political views, found no evidence that Rove's 4 million evangelicals even exist. And even if there are a few of them, they don't live in swing states...
U.S., Britain Differ on Iraqi Authority Over Foreign Troops -- Blair Says Iraqi 'Consent' Required for Military Operations After June 30 (this story was originally entitled "Blair: Iraqis to Have Final Say on Military Operations")
A day after the United States and Britain proposed a new U.N. Security Council resolution on Iraq, the touchy question of the relationship between foreign troops and a new nominally sovereign Iraqi government today drew differing responses from Washington and London and expressions of concern from other allied capitals.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, President Bush's chief ally in Iraq, said today that forces of the U.S.-led coalition there will need the "consent" of the new Iraqi government to conduct some military operations after political power is transferred on June 30.
Blair's comments, which went beyond anything the United States has said [ed: in the sense of flatly contradicted] on the crucial question of military authority in post-June 30 Iraq, came as U.N. Security Council members France, Germany and Russia reiterated their reservations about the draft resolution. The document is designed to give the Security Council's imprimatur to a new interim Iraqi government scheduled to take power from the U.S.-led occupation authority and to endorse the continued presence of U.S. troops as part of a "multinational force" charged with maintaining security.
Does the "ivory tower" constitute intellectual Sanctuary for war criminals?
On May 22, more than a quarter of the graduating class of Boalt Hall law students protested actions taken by Boalt law professor John Yoo during his tenure as deputy assistant attorney general for the Bush administration. In January, 2002, Professor Yoo authored a 42-page memo for the Department of Justice advising that the U.S. is not constrained by the Geneva Conventions in its treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners captured in Afghanistan. The State Department vigorously opposed this position on several grounds, arguing that it could do great damage to our international standing and the legitimacy of our foreign policy. Subsequent events in both Iraq and Afghanistan and have borne out these concerns.
The day before graduation, we authored a petition asking Professor Yoo to repudiate his official position, or else to resign from the Boalt faculty. (The petition is available online at www.PetitionOnline.com/bh2004/petition.html. As of now, more than 250 students and alumni have signed on.) In subsequent media articles on the petition, Professor Yoo and others opposed our efforts on several grounds. While he refused to comment on the memo, Professor Yoo characterized the petition as an “unfortunate attack on academic freedom,” and asserted that the link between his memo and prisoner abuses in Iraq was “speculative.” He also stood by his original position that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to prisoners captured in Afghanistan.
Professor Yoo’s response is misplaced. First, our petition is not an attack on academic freedom. It is explicitly worded as a response to official government actions taken by Professor Yoo in his capacity as deputy assistant attorney general. Professor Yoo has been espousing his viewpoints as an academic for years, yet we never before called for his resignation. We mounted this petition only in response to recent media revelations regarding his official role.
Academic freedom protects viewpoints; it does not amount to immunity for immoral or illegal actions. If a professor commits a crime or behaves in a morally reprehensible way, the community has the right to demand accountability. If, as we believe, Professor Yoo’s actions amount to aiding and abetting war crimes, that absolutely demands accountability...
Oxfam launches download service
Oxfam is launching a music download service to help raise money to fight poverty around the world.
The charity will offer 300,000 songs to download through its Big Noise Music website, which launches on Wednesday.
Tracks will cost between 75p and 99p, with 10p going to Oxfam. Stars who have backed the site include Coldplay, Faithless and The Darkness.
"Artists will see their music help some of the poorest people in the world," Oxfam's Adrian Lovett said.
Ashcroft: al Qaeda Planning Major Attack
U.S. officials have "credible intelligence from multiple sources" that al Qaeda is planning to carry out a major terrorist attack inside the United States in the next several months, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft announced during a televised press conference.
During the announcement, a list of seven people law enforcement is currently searching for in connection with terrorism investigations was made available.
The seven are part of a "be on the lookout" for alert sent to law enforcement agencies around the U.S. and the world.
"This disturbing intelligence indicates al Qaeda's specific intention to hit the United States hard," Ashcroft said, adding recent intelligence and statements attributed to the terrorist organization "suggest that it is almost ready to attack."
F.B.I. Director Robert Mueller joined Ashcroft at the press conference, adding "we do not know what form the threat will take."
"This summer and fall our nation will celebrate a number of events that serve as powerful symbols of our free and democratic society." he said. "Unfortunately, the same events that fill most of us with hope and pride are seen byadministrations that can't stop the slide in their poll numbers any other wayterrorists as prime vehicles for sowing fear and chaos."
Dangerous Rhetoric
When House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi voiced widely-held sentiments last week, telling a newspaper that President Bush was an "incompetent leader," she rather predictably brought upon herself the wrath of Tom "The Hammer" DeLay. Calling Pelosi's candid comments "dangerous rhetoric," House Majority Leader DeLay actually said her words were "putting American lives at risk." Using DeLay's logic, below find other individuals who have carelessly put the lives of Americans at risk recently by speaking their minds:
Retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, former CentCom chief: "There has been poor strategic thinking in this. There has been poor operational planning and execution on the ground. And to think that we are going to 'stay the course,' the course is headed over Niagara Falls. I think it's time to change course a little bit, or at least hold somebody responsible for putting you on this course. Because it's been a failure."
GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel: "I think you've got a president who is not schooled, educated, experienced in foreign policy in any way, versus his father."
GOP Sen. Lincoln Chafee: "The president talked about being humble when he was running for office but the opposite seems to be true."
GOP Sen. Pat Roberts: "In fighting the global war against terrorism,' we need to restrain what are growing U.S. messianic instincts -- a sort of global social engineering where the United States feels it is both entitled and obligated to promote democracy -- by force, if necessary."...
Who'd a thunk it?
Bush, who went to war in Iraq over weapons of mass destruction that have never been found, did not acknowledge making mistakes, but conceded some things had not gone according to plan.
goodness, if only someone could have predicted all those things which haven't gone to plan...hmmm.
kinda ironic that he was speaking at the war college -no?
...perhaps he could pick up a copy of this.
is it just me or does bush seem to ignore more experts than most leaders have?
World O'Crap takes on the Mayfield mess
The FBI has apologized to Mayfield and his family; we'll see if Little Green Footballs ("But if you really want the full scoop on Mayfield and his pernicious activities, the LGF lizardoids have unearthed a treasure trove of information in this topic") does likewise. [No link, because we don't want to reward evil with hits.] [her earlier coverage here]
Today's Acts from the Republican Clown Show
Right. Hire the folks who are going to run the reconstruction of Iraq by grabbing random resumes off the Heritage Foundation website. Don't bother to pick anyone who speaks Arabic, or knows about the Middle East, or has studied development. Staff the budget office with political science majors who can't read a balance sheet. Given Team Bush's almost Maoist sense of the transcendent importance of politics, political reliability is everything, and competence is nothing. I can understand their applying this to stuff they don't actually care about. But the Iraq adventure was their crown jewel. How could they have tossed it away so casually?
Comcast admits to being spam conduit
Now someone from Comcast is confirming it. "We're the biggest spammer on the Internet," network engineer Sean Lutner said at a meeting of an antispam working group in Washington, D.C., last week. Lutner said Comcast users send out about 800 million messages a day, but a mere 100 million flow through the company's official servers. Almost all of the remaining 700 million represent spam erupting from so-called zombie computers--a breathtaking figure that adds up to six or seven spam-o-grams for each American family every day.
Risky business
In a high-profile launch this week, Education Secretary Charles Clarke will announce the findings which disclose that young children carry a daily expectation of being kidnapped by a stranger, sexually abused by a paedophile or becoming a victim of terrorism.
'We are not just failing to give children the opportunities to explore the real world,' said Di McNeish, director of policy and research at Barnardo's, which carried out the study with the Green Alliance, 'but are actively dissuading them by making them over-anxious about their external environment.
The survey of more than 1,000 children aged 10 and 11 reveals that the choice to remain indoors is being made because of an increasingly unrealistic assessment by children and their parents of the risks of the outside world...
Tax exempt
After a storm of protest, Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn's office reversed her earlier decision and granted tax-exempt status to the Red River Unitarian Church in Denison. Unitarian-Universalists everywhere will sleep soundly tonight.
Several people wondered, after my previous post, why churches are tax-exempt in the first place.
Mark Kleiman's Chalabi quiz
Which is the most embarrassing element of the Chalabi situation?
1. That we've been paying Chalabi to tell us lies.
2. That Chalabi duped us by spreading the same false intelligence he was peddling to us to foreign intelligence agencies, whose reports when appeared as "confirmation" of his original fabrications.
3. That the original source of the fabrications may turn out to have been the Iranian intelligence service, using Chalabi to induce the U.S. to invade Iraq.
4. That, in return for the disinformation the Iranians were feeding us through him, Chalabi was passing genuine American secrets to Iranian intelligence.
5. That no one in Washington seems to have been authorized to give Chalabi or his crew that sensitive information, raising the specter of possible Espionage Act prosecutions.
6. That Chalabi managed to get himself seated right behind the First Lady for the State of the Union in January.
7. That a number of prominent American neocons have decided to support Chalabi against their own government, using in some cases strikingly anti-American language.
8. That the raid enraged Chalabi against the United States without reducing his ability to damage us.
9. That, after U.S. and CPA officials attributed the raid on Chalabi's house and party headquarters to Iraqis, the Iraqi Interim Governing Council denounced it.
10. That, despite the presence of 100 U.S. soldiers at the raid, the Secretary of Defense denied any advance knowledge of it...
A full transcript
Sea turtle decline 'costs millions'
Coastal communities around the world are losing millions of tourist dollars a year through the destruction of rare sea turtles, a report claims.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) says living turtles are worth nearly three times as much as dead ones because of the tourism they attract.
Of the seven marine turtle species, three are critically endangered and a further three are endangered.
Campaigners hope the WWF findings will encourage better conservation methods.
Being specific
Gerard Henderson says that "John Howard has a certain lack of empathy in dealing with individuals with whom he does not identify at a personal level".
Is this not another name for racism?
M.Cramsie, Eastwood, May 25.
Actually, no, that is not another name for racism. Which isn't to say Howard isn't a racist: that's a separate question you might like to discuss amongst yourselves. But "lack of empathy" isn't a synonym for racism. In fact, the more salient point of Henderson's description is that Howard lacks empathy with people he doesn't identify with regardless of race...
The Best Speech Of His Presidency
I urge all of you to read President Gore's speech if you didn't get to see him give it.
Al Gore has a unique position in the eyes of the world, especially in places where Machiavellian vote counting schemes are the norm rather than the exception. He is the shadow president, the man who should be at the helm instead of the man whom they have almost universally come to despise.
His words have particular meaning because they express to many the beliefs of the majority of Americans. He alone has the authority to speak for all of us who were cheated and have been forced to sit by as this usurper, through incompetence, misplaced machismo and --- most of all --- unbelievable hubris, has managed to destroy more than half a century's worth of international goodwill and over two centuries hard won belief by the American people in the rule of law.
A DESPERATE, DECEITFUL SPEECH - Grasping at Jetsam & Flotsam
President George W. Bush last night gave his hyped “major speech” on U.S. strategy in Iraq, addressing the American people, and the world, not from the Oval Office, as I had assumed he would, but from the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., where he basked in the repeated bouts of applause from a carefully selected audience of nearly 500 military officers.
Why am I not surprised? Scripting and backdrops are crucial elements of all theater, and this administration is nothing if not the theater of the absurd. Why am I also not surprised that no one in the White House gave thought to the notion that traveling to the War College, despite the favorable reception, probably wasn’t a great idea? Although the institution itself isn’t cloaked in massive secrecy, the instruction there isn’t open to the scrutiny of the general public. This is the stuff around which thousands of conspiracies can be woven by disaffected Arabs: “President Bush addresses conclave of hundreds of top U.S. military officers at secret Army training school.” ...
Banning camera phones among U.S. troops in Iraq.
This magpie was one of the bloggers who cited a report that US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld had ordered a ban on camera phones and other video devices among the troops in Iraq. According to this article in The Register, however, the story isn't true Ñ it originated in this piece from The Daily Farce, a satirical publication.
When this magpie first saw the story, we were somewhat dubious given that we couldn't located the alleged source, a UK publication called The Business. In fact, the name of the supposed source didn't sound right to us. But after we saw the story appear in several places (the like this story in the Sydney Morning Herald, for example) with an attribution to the Agence France Presse wire, we decided it had legs and wrote about it here.
We should have been more careful. The best thing would have been to not point to the report at all. But given our decision to post about Rumsfeld's alleged camera phone decision, we should at least have clued y'all in on the doubts we had about the source.
This magpie apologizes. We'll do better next time. [responsibility: amongst the things I love about the bloggers of the left...]
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-05-27 08:53 am (UTC)a small nice picture.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040527/480/dcn10905270222
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Date: 2004-05-27 09:18 am (UTC)I originally thought he wouldn't know jack about real warplan since he is a peripheral guy. But it seems somebody in neocon inner circle is leaking it to him, then he is giving it to Iranian.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/5/27/113437/843
PS. can't find a good place to post this.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-27 09:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-27 09:35 am (UTC)