March 13, 2004

Cancer Deadlier for Poor, Minorities
By Karen Pallarito
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, March 11 (HealthDayNews) -- Minorities and people living in poverty are still at greater risk of getting cancer and dying from it than whites and more affluent individuals, a new American Cancer Society study finds.

Blacks have the highest death rate from all cancers combined, with an annual death rate from cancer that is 40 percent higher for black men and 20 percent higher for black women than their white counterparts, the study found.

Being poor also boosts cancer death rates, regardless of race or ethnicity, researchers found. Men who live in poverty-stricken counties have a 13 percent higher death rate from all cancers combined, vs. men in richer counties. Cancer deaths are 3 percent higher for women in poor counties than for their more affluent counterparts.

The report appears in the March/April issue of CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.

"The issue of how we can actually eliminate these disparities represents a very large and unresolved problem," says Dr. Michael Thun, head of epidemiology research at the American Cancer Society and a co-author of the paper.

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Quote of note:

"The FDA can take action if supplements are proven unsafe," says John Hathcock, vice president for scientific and international affairs for the Council for Responsible Nutrition, a trade association for the dietary supplement industry.

…Wolfe counters by saying that approach is no solution at all. It amounts to "after-the-fact" power -- the ability to remove a product after harm has been done, in some cases fatal harm, he says.

"The FDA is part of the public health service, not part of the funeral industry," Wolfe adds.

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Tougher Regulation of Supplements Sparks Dispute
By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, March 13 (HealthDayNews) -- While both sides in the dietary supplement debate welcome the tough, new proposals for labeling and manufacturing set forth by the U.S. government last week, they disagree bitterly on what should come next.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) action came on the heels of recent deaths involving supplements containing the herb ephedra, although many have anticipated this move for years.

Ephedra has been implicated in more than 100 deaths, including high-profile tragedies such as the death of Baltimore Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler at spring training in February.

But the FDA proposal to require supplement makers to follow so-called "current good manufacturing practices" has actually been anticipated for almost nine years -- ever since passage of the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA).

That federal law made supplements immune from the typical scrutiny the FDA requires of drugs before they can be sold, but gave the agency the power to regulate the supplements' labeling and testing standards.

The proposed new rules, which would cover vitamins and herbs such as ginkgo biloba and St. John's wort, among others, were announced March 7 following several findings that dietary supplements may not contain the amounts of ingredients the label suggests. In one instance cited by the FDA, soy products contained only 50 percent of the amount of isoflavones declared on the label.

Critics of the proposed new rules call them a start, but add that the supplement industry must also prove the products work and don't harm consumers.

"The largest problem is the products have not been shown to be safe and effective," says Dr. Sidney M. Wolfe, director of the Public Citizen Health Research Group.

But supplement industry representatives counter that there are already safeguards in place to protect the public against potentially harmful supplements.

"The FDA can take action if supplements are proven unsafe," says John Hathcock, vice president for scientific and international affairs for the Council for Responsible Nutrition, a trade association for the dietary supplement industry.

The FDA can take a product off the market immediately, Hathcock adds, or go through a more time-consuming process to prove it should be banned.

Wolfe counters by saying that approach is no solution at all. It amounts to "after-the-fact" power -- the ability to remove a product after harm has been done, in some cases fatal harm, he says.

"The FDA is part of the public health service, not part of the funeral industry," Wolfe adds.

"The law [DSHEA) should either be repealed entirely or so seriously modified ... that in a reasonable period of time these companies are going to put up or shut up," he says.

The proposed rule, experts note, is just that. During a 90-day comment period, the FDA will seek suggestions and feedback.

Typically, once the FDA has drafted a final regulation, companies are given time to implement it. Hathcock says that in a best-case scenario, it would be 18 months before the new labeling and manufacturing standards are in practice.

The supplement industry already adheres to many of the labeling and manufacturing proposals put forward by the FDA, says David Seckman, executive director of the National Nutritional Foods Association, which represents almost 5,000 retailers, manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors of natural products, including foods and dietary supplements.

Like the Council for Responsible Nutrition, the National Nutritional Foods Association established its own "current good manufacturing practices" program, Seckman says, adding, however, that participation by members is voluntary.

Comparing the FDA's proposed regulations to the NNFA's program, Seckman says, "our quick analysis is, 85 percent of what we see in our GMP [good manufacturing practices] process is included in the government's proposed regulation."

An FDA spokeswoman says dietary supplement safety "is a high priority for this administration and the new commissioner, Dr. Mark B. McClellan."

Asked why it has taken nine years for the proposed labeling changes, she says, "I can't speak to what other commissioners have done."

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Clonaid, Youth Pill Win Dubious Distinctions

THURSDAY, March 13 (HealthDayNews) -- Drum roll, please. It's time to announce the second annual Silver Fleece Awards, which are handed out each year to the product and organization that make the most outrageous or exaggerated claims about human aging.

This year's Silver Fleece Award for an anti-aging product goes to a substance called Longevity. It's sold on the Internet by Urban Nutrition Inc. and costs $44.99 for 90 pills.

Longevity and many other products that make outlandish anti-aging claims have never been proven to do anything but line the pockets of the people who sell them, notes one of the three scientists who served as a judge in a prepared statement.

Curiously, the Web site for Longevity claims a list of famous patients -- John Wayne, Yul Brenner, Anthony Quinn, Princess Caroline of Monaco -- who all happen to be dead.

The "lucky" winner of the Silver Fleece Award for an anti-aging organization goes to Clonaid, the controversial company that claimed in December it had cloned the world's first human baby.

Clonaid was founded by the leader of a religious organization called the Raelian Movement who claims that cloning will enable mankind to reach eternal life.

This award "recognizes the organization that contributes the most to disseminating misinformation and/or products associated with the claim that human aging can be stopped or reversed," the judges said.

The Silver Fleece award, a bottle of vegetable oil labeled "Snake Oil," was to be presented Thursday at the joint conference of the National Council on Aging and the American Society on Aging in Chicago. Neither recipient was there.

The three judges of the Silver Fleece Awards are experts on aging. Last year, they issued a position paper along with dozens of other scientists warning the public that no currently marketed product, therapy or any other form of intervention has yet been proved to slow, stop or reverse human aging.

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Poor Babies Born in Cold Weather Face Health Problems
By Ed Edelson
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, March 11 (HealthDayNews) -- Cold weather at birth is associated with an increased risk of diabetes, heart problems and poor lung function if the baby is born into a low-income family, a new British study finds.

The study of more than 4,000 women now in their 60s and 70s discovered that those born in the coldest months were more likely to develop coronary heart disease, breathing problems, high cholesterol levels and insulin resistance, says a report in the April issue of Heart by researchers at the University of Bristol.

The association between temperature at birth and later health problems was strongest for babies whose fathers were either unemployed or manual laborers and "was nonexistent in those from nonmanual social classes in childhood," the report says.

Clearly, "those most likely to have fewer resources and a lower standard of living were most likely to be affected by the cold," says Dr. Richard Mitchell, a research fellow at the University of Edinburgh Medical School and a member of the study team.

"Our study suggests that resources, in terms of things like housing quality and clothing, are an important buffer," Mitchell says. "Where resources are adequate for the environment, the environment poses no threat. When they're not so good, the environment gets a chance to affect the body much more."

In cold numbers, women born in the three most frigid months of the year were 24 percent more likely to have coronary heart disease later in life, the researchers say.

Weather is far from the whole story, Mitchell says, since "it's reasonable to assume that diet and lifestyle are more important."

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Man, I thought DARPA's robot road race was deep. Now comes thi sguy who's building a robot from a car!

This thing has been slashdotted already, but here's a link to a temporary mirror.

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HAITI:U.N. Awaiting Formal Request for Probe
Thalif Deen

The United Nations says it is willing to investigate the ouster of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide last month, provided the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) makes a formal request -- a move that U.S. and French officials are actively discouraging, say diplomats.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 10 (IPS) - The United Nations says it is willing to investigate the ouster of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide last month, provided the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) makes a formal request -- a move that U.S. and French officials are actively discouraging, say diplomats here.

The 15-member CARICOM, of which Haiti is a full-fledged member, last week publicly called for a U.N. probe into what Aristide says was his "kidnapping" by U.S. forces. But it has stopped short of making a formal demand to the world body.

''The CARICOM call for a U.N. investigation was in their statement,'' U.N. Spokesman Fred Eckhard said Wednesday, ''but it has not been communicated to us formally. Once that happens, we will react.''

According to diplomatic sources here, who did not want to be quoted or identified, both the United States and France, two permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, have pressed Caribbean officials to desist from formally requesting a U.N. probe or bringing the issue before the Council.

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via Slashdot

Prenatal choline supplements make baby's brain cells bigger, faster
Posted on Friday, March 12 @ 13:10:48 EST by bjs

The important nutrient choline "super-charged" the brains of animals that received supplements in utero, making their cells larger and faster at firing electrical "signals" that release memory-forming chemicals, according to a new study. These marked brain changes could explain earlier behavioral studies in which choline improved learning and memory in animals, say the researchers from the departments of pharmacology and psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center and from the Durham VA Medical Center. The implications for humans are profound, said the researchers, because the collective data on choline suggests that simply augmenting the diets of pregnant women with this one nutrient could affect their children's lifelong learning and memory. In theory, choline could boost cognitive function, diminish age-related memory decline, and reduce the brain's vulnerability toxic insults.

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AP Enterprise: Justice found Rumsfeld, senior FBI official had souvenirs from Sept. 11 sites
JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer
Friday, March 12, 2004
©2004 Associated Press
(03-12) 18:23 PST WASHINGTON (AP) --

The Justice Department investigation that criticized FBI agents for taking souvenirs from the World Trade Center site also found that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and a high-ranking FBI official kept items from the Sept. 11 attack scenes.

The final investigatory report said the Justice Department inspector general confirmed Rumsfeld "has a piece of the airplane that flew into the Pentagon." The Associated Press obtained a copy of the report Friday.

Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said Friday night that Rumsfeld has a shard of metal from the jetliner that struck the Pentagon on a table in his office and shows it to people as a reminder of the tragedy Pentagon workers shared on Sept. 11, 2001.

"He doesn't consider it his own," Di Rita said, adding the piece is on display for the Pentagon. "We are mindful of the fact that if somebody has an evidentiary requirement to have this shard of metal, we will provide it to them."

The Justice Department investigation also collected testimony that Pasquale D'Amuro, FBI Director Robert Mueller's executive assistant director for terrorism until last summer, asked a supervisory agent to "obtain a half dozen items from the WTC debris so the items could be given to dignitaries."

Six items -- none needed as evidence -- were gathered and sent to D'Amuro, the report said.

D'Amuro, now the head of the FBI's New York office, told investigators that "he asked for a piece of the building as a memento" and that he was aware that agents had taken such items from other terrorist crime scenes over the years.

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Cost of appeal deters DAs from arguing some cases
By Kathleen Burge and Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff, 3/13/2004

On a late summer night four years ago, state and federal investigators made the year's biggest drug bust in Suffolk County: more than $2 million worth of cocaine stashed in an apartment along Revere Beach Boulevard.

But no one has been convicted of selling the 22 kilograms of cocaine, partly because a judge ruled that the search was illegal. While such rulings are not uncommon, Suffolk County prosecutors had concerns that extended beyond matters of law: They said they couldn't afford to appeal.

Under a state law loathed by district attorneys, but unnoticed by the general public, the DA's office would have to pay the legal fees of the two alleged drug dealers if they appealed the judge's ruling, potentially tens of thousands of dollars.

The Suffolk District Attorney's office asked the state's highest court to exempt it from the requirement, but the court refused. Prosecutors are now pursuing the appeal, in spite of the cost.

For nearly a decade, district attorney's offices have had to pay the fees of defendants' lawyers when prosecutors appeal pretrial rulings that suppress evidence and gut their cases. But district attorneys say that budget cuts are making it all but impossible to continue doing so. In response, Governor Mitt Romney has proposed eliminating the requirement in the fiscal 2005 budget.

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Bush campaign seeks to liken Kerry, Gore

(By Anne E. Kornblut, Globe Staff)
WASHINGTON -- Senator John F. Kerry has been steeling himself for Republican charges that he is a "Massachusetts liberal," but senior Bush strategists say they won't treat the presumptive Democratic nominee like another Michael S. Dukakis. Instead, they plan to paint him as Al Gore -- a waffling Washington insider too aloof to connect with average Americans.

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VOICES / A FORUM FOR COMMUNITY ISSUES
The Straight Guy Says Aye to Allowing Gay Marriage
By Stuart S. Light

March 13, 2004

…Many people today want to link marriage to procreation. That's the big argument against gay marriage, outside of biblical injunctions, of course. Simply put, conjugal unions that can't produce offspring are unnatural. However, if you call them something other than marriage, they can be marginally tolerated as long as they're in someone else's backyard. Call it marriage and all hell breaks loose.

The fact that marriage was created as an economic expediency, and procreation is a constant in all species with or without a license, seems to be absent in the debate. But the debate, such as it is, is driven by prejudice, the great labor-saving device that allows the formation of tightly held opinions without facts to support them.

I heard a congresswoman from Colorado berating the mayor of San Francisco on television for promoting gay marriages, which will, she believes, certainly lead to the sanctioning of polygamy (the implication is that the mayor surely supports such arrangements). President Bush has weighed in on a constitutional amendment that marriage can only be between a man and a woman. He must have thought long and hard on this for a minute after being informed that his evangelical base would find it right neighborly of him, and a real good reason to vote for him in November.

The Democrats will dance, parse and obfuscate while keeping their fingers in the air to see which way the polling winds are blowing. At the end of the day, they will agree that civil unions are swell, but they won't be supporting gay marriage. And, at the end of a much longer day, the proposed amendment to ban gay marriage will be defeated, and the whole issue will revert to the states, where it doesn't belong. At best, marriage is a 50-50 proposition. There is no legal linkage between marriage and procreation. A dismal, co-dependent marriage down the block doesn't make mine co-dependent and dismal.

If gays can be licensed to drive a car or practice law and medicine, they should be able to get a marriage license. I'll take my chances with married gays — just keep the bad drivers, lawyers and doctors away from me.[P6: emphasis added]

The argument is put forth that marriage is the very foundation of civilization. No, it is not. Civility, kindness, caring, compassion, cooperation and love are. So "bring it on!" Bring on the love and commitment. Bring on the open society we believe we live in. Bring on the tolerance for different points of view and lifestyles. Bring on the separation between church and state. Bring on the Bill of Rights and civil rights and human rights, and the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Bring on the right to choose who we are and whom we love. Bring on gay marriage.

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Let GR8 PL8 Ruling Stand
March 13, 2004

2BAD4U

Too bad, that is, if you wanted the Legislature to approve a vanity license plate for your car with the image of Cesar Chavez or Martin Luther King Jr., or a plate that declares "Choose Life" or support for pediatric AIDS research, the National Guard or the San Francisco football team.

A federal judge in Sacramento has, praise be, put an end to battles in the Legislature over approving new special-interest license plates, an issue that has sharply divided the Senate and Assembly in recent years. Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. ruled unconstitutional late last month a state law that gave lawmakers "unfettered discretion" in picking and choosing which organizations and special interests would get plates and which would not.

The 24-page ruling said the 1st Amendment did not give the Legislature a right to allow views "it finds acceptable while denying access to those wishing to express less-favored or more-controversial views." The suit was brought by the Women's Resource Network, a nonprofit organization that promotes adoption over abortion, after the Legislature — dominated by pro-choice Democrats — rejected its request for a special plate declaring "Choose Life."

A federal court in Louisiana earlier issued a similar ruling, striking down a Louisiana law patterned after California's.

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THE RACE TO THE WHITE HOUSE
Bush Drawn Into TV Ad War
Experts say the president may lose some of the benefits of incumbency by taking on his challenger this soon.
By Nick Anderson and Mark Z. Barabak
Times Staff Writers

March 13, 2004

WASHINGTON — President Bush and John F. Kerry began a television ad duel this week that spotlights the incumbent in a place many of his predecessors studiously avoided so early in an election year — in the middle of a bare-knuckle fight with the challenger.

Far from pursuing a "Rose Garden" strategy — in which presidents use the prestige and aura of the White House to stand above the hurly-burly of the campaign — Bush is going toe-to-toe with his presumed Democratic challenger more than seven months before the election.

That's just where Kerry wants the president, the Democrat's aides say.

"Standing in the Rose Garden as president puts [Bush] in a very different place," said Michael Meehan, a senior Kerry strategist. "To have him give that up helps level the playing field and improves our chances."

Republicans disagree on whether Bush has joined the battle at the correct time. Some have been spoiling for him to lash back at Democrats who have been attacking him for months, while others say it would be wiser to wait until voters are more focused on the race.

Fully joining the exchange with the president, Kerry planned to air his first TV commercial of the general election today. It accuses Bush of "misleading America" about Kerry's tax policy in an advertisement, released Thursday, that depicts Kerry as seeking to raise taxes by "at least $900 billion."

"Once again, George Bush is misleading America. John Kerry has never called for a $900-billion tax increase," a narrator in the Kerry ad says. "He wants to cut taxes for the middle class. Doesn't America deserve more from its president than misleading, negative ads?"

Through their commercials, Kerry and Bush will be squaring off over the next week in as many as 16 states.

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U.S. Launches New Afghanistan Offensive
By STEPHEN GRAHAM
Associated Press Writer

5:12 AM PST, March 13, 2004

KABUL, Afghanistan — The U.S. military on Saturday announced a sweeping new operation across troubled southern and eastern Afghanistan, with the aim of destroying al-Qaida and the Taliban and ultimately reeling in Osama bin Laden.

The offensive comes as Americans step up their hunt for the al-Qaida leader and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, who are believed to be hiding out in the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"We believe this will help bring the heads of the terrorist organizations to justice, by continuing placing pressure on them," said Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, a U.S. military spokesman.

The operation, however, was "about more than one person," he said. Hilferty said American forces were confident they will eventually catch the al-Qaida leadership as well as Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar, but not necessarily during the new operation.

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That's why we're his opponents.

The phrasing of this is fascinating. They're concerned about the ability to predict the political impact of their statements? In my view they've NEVER had that ability. They never cared to have it because the intent…again, go back to the drama instigated in the beginning of 2001 when it became obvious that all Bush's talk of "bipartisanship" was a cover for the most partisan agenda in living American memory…the intent, I say, was to steamroll the opposition. And their ability to form a persuasive message hinged on an ignorance of history and current events in some and blatant appeals to self-interest in others.

But the really interesting thing is, there's no mention of concern that they seem to be unable to develop a policy that works even to the degree that it accomplished their own goals, much less that it benefit the nation as a whole.

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Missteps on Economy Worry Bush Supporters
By Jonathan Weisman and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 13, 2004; Page A01

A string of glaring missteps by President Bush's economic team has raised alarm among the president's supporters that his economic policymakers may have lost the most basic ability to formulate a persuasive message or anticipate the political consequences of their actions.

In recent weeks, the White House has had to endure its chief economist's positive comments about job "outsourcing," or sending work overseas; controversial passages in the annual Economic Report of the President; questions over the legitimacy of Bush's 2005 budget; a California swing in which Bush bragged about the possible addition of two or three jobs to a 14-person business in Bakersfield and a flap over a job-creation forecast that not even the president could stand by.

On March 1, a host of U.S. industries began paying trade sanctions to Europe because Congress and the White House have not replaced illegal export subsidies with new aid for ailing manufacturers.

But the non-naming of Anthony F. Raimondo on Thursday as assistant commerce secretary for manufacturing and services has brought the concerns to a boil.

The long-anticipated announcement of a manufacturing czar was supposed to be a good-news day for a White House struggling with its economic message. Instead the planned, smiling photo op fizzled when it came to light that a year ago Bush's choice had opened a major plant in Beijing.

"Clearly, the machinery's not working very well," said Bruce Bartlett, an economist with the conservative National Center for Policy Analysis, who noted that this White House has been known for its discipline on message.

Republicans on Capitol Hill and in the lobbying world of K Street say that the incidents may be minor, but they are many, each amplified by the last. And they are supplying a steady, nourishing diet for Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who has made jobs and Bush's economic policies a centerpiece of his campaign to capture the White House.

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Easier Internet Wiretaps Sought
Justice Dept., FBI Want Consumers To Pay the Cost

By Dan Eggen and Jonathan Krim
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 13, 2004; Page A01

The Justice Department wants to significantly expand the government's ability to monitor online traffic, proposing that providers of high-speed Internet service should be forced to grant easier access for FBI wiretaps and other electronic surveillance, according to documents and government officials.

A petition filed this week with the Federal Communications Commission also suggests that consumers should be required to foot the bill.

Law enforcement agencies have been increasingly concerned that fast-growing telephone service over the Internet could be a way for terrorists and criminals to evade surveillance. But the petition also moves beyond Internet telephony, leading several technology experts and privacy advocates yesterday to warn that many types of online communication, including instant messages and visits to Web sites, could be covered.

The proposal by the Justice Department, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration could require extensive retooling of existing broadband networks and could impose significant costs, the experts said. Privacy advocates also argue that there are not enough safeguards to prevent the government from intercepting data from innocent users.

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How much do I want it? I found the source code.

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The Pundit on the Desktop
By MIKE MORTON and SABRA MORTON

Ars Magna, the software program that always answers in anagrams, has been giving some thought to the presidential election. When we say senator, for instance, it replies treason; and if we ask it about tax policies, it comes back with axe politics. Recently, we settled in for an interview about the 2004 presidential race:

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I'm not REALLY picking on Dean. It's just a non-facetious question occurred to me based on his comment:

If you really think that freedom and democracy are "terms of art," when referring to nations such as Australia, Spain, the United Kingdom, Poland and the rest of the Eastern European nations, I really don't think we have even a basis for discussion, because we have no common ground.

What I'd like, based on the commonly heard "They hate us for our freedom," "Free nations will act to disarm…" and such, and (frankly) the nit-pickingly precise analysis the Bush administration has proved necessary to extract what they mean and believe from what they actually say, I'd like a definition of "free" and "freedom" that applies equally to all the nations in the Iraq Invasion Coalition.

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March 12, 2004

AARP, new group in alphabet soup dispute with opposing views on Social Security
By LEIGH STROPE
The Associated Press
3/12/04 5:34 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) -- AARP, the advocacy group for people over age 50 that opposes diverting Social Security taxes into private accounts, is irked about a new organization with a similar name -- minus one A -- that is advocating the changes.

The new group, founded by Republicans, is called Alliance for Retirement Prosperity, or ARP.

"Gee, what a coincidence," said John Rother, AARP's policy director

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Some may recall the occasional announcement of a Stargate SG-1 festival in my home. I have the first five seasons on DVD, and the sixth is on the air locally.

Sometime this season…I've been kind of lax watching the broadcast this year…a ship named Prometheus winds up orbiting the Earth. And someone decided to search for "SG-1 prometheus plans."

My first reaction was, "Who hell trying to find out when I watch TV?" And I go to the Google page and find:

All of season 6 available for download.

And an ad for the Season 6 set.

I am downloading about one DVD's worth of episode, which will hold me until the disks arrive. And God Bless Broadband!

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r@d@r on ex-lion tramer

don't be too complacent

when clinton was elected, me and a small cadre of liberal-leaning leftists [as opposed to left-leaning liberals, if you get my meaning] celebrated with naive joy, and after a what seemed like a long sojourn in a wilderness of despair during reagan's war on central america and bush's war on everyone else, some of the relief was justified. however, it didn't take too long before we were devastated by the sense that we'd been taken. if, of course, we had been as savvy readers-between-the-lines as we are now [thanks in great part to the internet, which believe it or not has successfully re-radicalized a few of us] we would never have turned our backs to him. now, in retrospect and all things considered, i like the sleazy reprobate in spite of myself - he was a tool in so many ways, but only insofar as he was a part of a much larger problem.

now that it looks like bush's ship is going down, which is just fine, we have to remain vigilant and ready to fight. winning this battle will not mean winning the war, if whoever stands in bush's place remains an unquestioned, unchallenged tool of the corporations that are destroying our planet.

Charles Derber, professor of sociology at Boston College and author of the forthcoming book, Regime Change Begins At Home: Freeing America From Corporate Rule, on Tompaine.com:

On April 2, 2003, in a campaign talk in Peterborough, New Hampshire, John Kerry said, "What we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States." Kerry's success, both as the anointed Democratic candidate and prospective president, depends on him getting enough Americans to take that idea seriously.

Webster's dictionary defines a regime as a "system of rule." In Iraq, changing the regime required not just taking out Saddam Hussein but changing the despotic system of rule created by the Baathist Party, with American connivance, for 35 years. In U.S. politics, it means sending the president packing. But there's a second stage of regime change that deserves more discussion. We need to abolish the corporate system of rule that currently dominates democracy.

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I hereby nominate The Poor Man for every damn web award in existence, and four of five professional ones.

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Brad DeLong:

A decade ago, while at the Treasury, I worked on the (greatly imperfect) Clinton health-care reform effort. And I remember why many of the Republicans opposed us: not because they were afraid that health-care reform would fail to produce better health care at lower cost, but because they were worried that health-care reform might succeed. The Clinton health-care reform plan was to be opposed "sight unseen," for a successful health-care reform would "revive the reputation of the [Democratic] Party" and win the Democrats "a lock on the crucial middle-class vote."

NewsHour Online: The Healthcare Debate: December 2, 1993 - Leading conservative operative William Kristol privately circulates a strategy document to Republicans in Congress. Kristol writes that congressional Republicans should work to "kill" -- not amend -- the Clinton plan because it presents a real danger to the Republican future: Its passage will give the Democrats a lock on the crucial middle-class vote and revive the reputation of the party.... January 25, 1994: Oppose any Clinton health care reform "sight unseen" and adopt a stance that "There is no health care crisis."

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Dean Esmay (who I just remembered owes me a discussion on race) has another one of those interesting posts where a comment

Hitler was only "democratically" elected if you think someone whose party gets 30% of the vote, then uses backroom maneuvering to sieze power and overthrow the democratic government (pretty much what Allende did in Chile too, come to think of it) counts. Countries like Germany and Italy were fascist nations who went fascist because, it was argued by much of the intelligentsia and by the fascists themselves, that liberal democracy was a failed experiment and could not survive.[P6: emphasis added]

…demands as much attention as the post itself:

Live Free Or Die
Stephen Green has the line of the day.

"But part of me is so angry after yesterday's bombing, that all I could think was, "Isn't it time we made that American sentiment 'Live free or die' into a goddamn ultimatum?"

He says he's not proud of that sentiment. Increasingly, I'm not sure why he should be. In fact, I rather wish I'd said it.

When you look at the countries in the Iraq "coalition", one must conclude "freedom" and "free nations" have become terms of art. So my question about the post is, is that ultimatum to be applied domestically as well?

And the comment…posted by Dean himself…ought to give any honest person more than enough reason to run the Democratic column in November.

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Hate incidents stir controversy at California colleges
Date: Friday, March 12, 2004
By: Associated Press

CLAREMONT, Calif. - Students rallied and teachers canceled classes Wednesday at a group of colleges where a rash of hate incidents has been reported in recent months.

"I'm disappointed, disgusted, angry, frustrated and saddened," said Marc Bathgate, 21, president-elect of the Claremont McKenna student government. "There was a sense that this community was beyond that. That sense is now gone."

The colleges - known for their rigorous academics and home to several respected research institutes - were galvanized after a Claremont McKenna professor's car was vandalized and covered in racist and sexist epithets Tuesday night while she spoke at a forum about the need for tolerance and racial harmony.

Police and federal agents are investigating the incident as a hate crime.

The consortium of seven independent institutions includes undergraduate colleges Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Pitzer, Pomona and Scripps, as well as the Claremont Graduate University and the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences.

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Quote of note:

Determined to flourish in a multicultural society, Shimomura likes the metaphor of a tossed-salad better than a melting pot.

Nothing about him has melted, and that includes his memories. They are the basis of his current show, but they do not shape its content.

In high school in 1958, he was dating a white girl from West Seattle against his better judgment, he says, as West Seattle was a well-known hotbed of racism. One night she told him to let her off a block from her home, as her father didn't want her dating "Oriental people" and would kill him if he came to the door. "You think I'm kidding?" she said.

"I remember her getting out of the car and walking away, down the street, past the headlights into the dark," he said.

That's his memory, and it's not what he painted. He painted a cool, Roy Lichtenstein blonde snuggling up to a yellow-skinned demon who licks her with an enormous tongue, a shotgun at his back. He painted himself as "the Jap" the father saw.

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Shimomura Explores Racism in All Its Guises
By Regina Hackett
©2004 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
March 11, 2004

Enough about the victim. Let's hear from the perpetrator.

Roger Shimomura paints racist incidents from the racist's point of view. His cold, flat style -- a blend of American Pop and Japanese ukiyo-e or "floating world" graphics -- gets inside his hot subject and gives it a deadpan edge.

His paintings ring the front room at the Greg Kucera Gallery like small windows to a demented world. Beside each acrylic painting is a terse explanation of its contents, which creates a double-barrel effect: dry facts, fierce visuals.

At 64, Shimomura has a lifetime's worth of experience with racism in all its guises, from the bungling and insensitive to focused hatred. He collects its signs and symbols, including, he says, "Jap hunting licenses, slap-a-Jap cards and movie posters featuring yellow-face actors."

It's the kind of material his parents' generation shunned, but Shimomura agrees with African American painter Kara Walker, who uses racist stereotypes in her work in order to dominate and defuse them: "Change the joke and slip the yoke."

While Walker deals in archetypes, Shimomura gets personal with his own life. Most of these narratives are versions of incidents that happened to him.

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At Kicking Ass you can buy the tickets.

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Mar 12, 2004: Join us for Something New II in DC March 25

Join DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe, Rep. Harold Ford, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, Rep. Linda Sanchez, Rep. Kendrick Meek, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., and several exciting special guests in honoring the 2004 Democratic presidential candidates, President Bill Clinton, and President Jimmy Carter.

The DNC presents a sophisticated late night hip-hop experience. Join other young Democrats at Dream nightclub in Washington, DC on March 25 in the fight to beat Bush and the Republicans in 2004.

Special guests include Celebrity Guest Host Star Jones from ABC's "The View," groundbreaking rap artist Q-tip, and the dynamic duo of Grammy award winning Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds and producer of Showtime's "Soul Food" Tracy Edmonds — and many, many more to come.

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Now, if they want to lock down the "Old Guy in the Club" vote, they need to get Bouncy to show.

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This will be a busy weekend for me. I have a couple of projects I've been studying up for. I want to start the actual design work and on one project get some real coding going on.

I've decided reBlog is cool enough to work with for a while, sort of the way I used Blogger to figure out how blogging software should work before writing MTClient. With reBlog, I'll be collecting the sites I actually want to track. The qualifications will be different than those for getting into my personal RSS reader…more liberal (as it were) because there'll be a few more conservative types. And there will be very, very few pure referral-type blogs.

I've tossed a style sheet and template on my little reBlog experiment that's a variant of the P6 templates and am, once again, choosing one of two avatars:

And in the course of all this, I've decided an optional full text feed is not a bad thing. It's at

http://www.prometheus6.org/index.rss

This is probably the last project update that will be posted here.

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Because more than enough stupidity that requires a response from the USofA is going happen anyway.

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Divided S. Koreans Impeach President
Violence Breaks Out Among Legislators

By Anthony Faiola and Joohee Cho
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, March 12, 2004; Page A12

TOKYO, March 12 -- President Roh Moo Hyun on Friday became South Korea's first leader in history to be impeached, losing his constitutional powers in the climax of a political struggle that left South Koreans more sharply divided than at any point since the restoration of democracy in 1987.

After a drama in the National Assembly as pro- and anti-Roh legislators came to violent blows before, during and after the vote, Roh's opponents secured 193 votes for impeachment -- above the two-thirds mark of 181 needed.

Roh is to be automatically suspended from office for up to six months pending a ruling by South Korea's nine-member Constitutional Court, leaving Prime Minister Goh Kun temporarily in charge at a pivotal time. South Korea, with Asia's fourth-largest economy, faces political chaos as it struggles with a fragile economic recovery and as totalitarian North Korea has vowed to become a nuclear power. In Seoul, stock shares tumbled more than 5 percent after the vote.

Goh, while expressing regret about the impeachment, quickly moved to assume his role as commander in chief of South Korea's 650,000-member military, which defends against the North along the world's most heavily armed border.

"The people feel unease because the impeachment bill was passed at a time that the economy faces difficulties," Goh said. "The cabinet and all government officials must do all they can to stabilize the people's lives and ensure that the country's international credibility will not be damaged."

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Job No. 1 for Bush
By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Friday, March 12, 2004; Page A23

"Ohio's unemployment rate is higher than the national average; manufacturing communities like Youngstown and Cleveland have been hit especially hard. . . . I know there are workers here concerned about their jobs going overseas. I share that concern. . . . There are those with good jobs who worry about their health care and their retirement benefits. There are a lot of moms and dads who wonder whether or not their child will be able to find a job in the community in which they were raised."

Those words aren't an excerpt from an old John Edwards speech about the "Two Americas," or a new John Kerry speech lashing the Bush economy. That's President Bush himself, speaking on Wednesday in Cleveland. They are the admissions of a man who knows he's in a desperate race to redefine how Americans see this election-year economy.

The first two months of 2004 will be remembered as the moment Americans shifted their view of Bush's economic stewardship. The politicians' private polls and the public polls tell the same story: Americans who began to have faith in the economic recovery a few months ago are now losing it.

This puts Bush in the tricky position of having to do many things at once. He needs to make clear he understands that people are hurting. He needs to offload blame. He needs to convince voters that things can only get better -- and that his opponents will only make things worse.

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The IMF and Argentina
Friday, March 12, 2004; Page A22

UNTIL TUESDAY morning, the International Monetary Fund seemed set to suffer its biggest default ever. Argentina's bankrupt government was threatening to withhold payment of $3.1 billion, a snub which, had it been sustained, would have torn a large hole in the IMF's balance sheet. At the eleventh hour, the Argentines relented. The worry is that the IMF, to save its skin, is abdicating the role it ought to play in sorting out Argentina's mess -- and that the Bush administration is encouraging this abdication.

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Senate OK of $2.36T Budget Shifts Spotlight to House
By Alan Fram
Associated Press Writer
Friday, March 12, 2004; 4:34 AM

WASHINGTON -- Senate approval of a $2.36 trillion budget easing President Bush's tax-cutting and spending plans shifts the spotlight to the House, where a similar package has so far bounced along a rocky road.

The Republican-led Senate approved its package early Friday on a mostly party-line 51-45 vote. Though it mostly follows Bush's vision of defense increases, restrained domestic spending and gradual deficit reduction, it ignores his call for permanent tax cuts he considers the heart of his plan for reviving the economy.

Like the Senate plan, the fiscal outline debated Thursday by the GOP-run House Budget Committee has smaller tax cuts, less spending and faster reduction of record deficits than Bush proposed. That underscores an election-year desire by Republicans to show action against shortfalls expected to approach an unprecedented half trillion dollars this year.

"We have to start that long journey with a first step, and that's what today allows us to do," said House budget panel chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa.

Nussle, who ran into objections from GOP defense and veterans advocates as he crafted his plan, hit more problems Thursday.

They were resolved -- for now -- when Nussle said his committee would approve new procedures making it harder for Congress to increase spending not paid for with other savings. The dispute forced him to delay final passage of the budget and a separate bill creating the procedural hurdles until next week.

Congress' budget sets ceilings for revenues and expenditures, but its details are only advisory. Actual tax and spending changes are made in later bills.

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Aristide Said To Plan Visit To Jamaica
Associated Press
Friday, March 12, 2004; Page A12

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, March 11 -- Ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his wife will travel to Jamaica next week, less than three weeks after fleeing into exile, Jamaica's prime minister said Thursday.

Prime Minister Percival J. Patterson made the announcement in Jamaica's capital, Kingston, as Haiti's interim prime minister, Gerard Latortue, began choosing a cabinet on Thursday. Latortue said he would appoint a former Haitian army general to stabilize his traumatized country as U.S. Marines carried out their first disarmament mission.

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March 11, 2004

Human remains may be in Canadian meat
3/11/2004

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Officials are investigating whether meat processed at a farm owned by a suspected serial killer might have been contaminated by human remains, authorities said Wednesday.

Robert William Pickton, 54, was arrested in February 2002 and has been charged with 15 counts of murder for killings spanning 20 years.

The remains of 22 women have been found at Pickton's pig farm east of Vancouver, police investigators said. In all, Pickton is suspected in 31 killings, authorities said.

None of the pork from Pickton's farm was sold in stores. But Dr. Perry Kendall, the health officer for British Columbia, said that Pickton often gave friends frozen pork products.

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Challenger Allen upsets Ron Wilson By STEVE McVICKER Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle

For the first time in almost 30 years, District 131 in Houston will have a new representative in the Texas Legislature after Alma Allen upset longtime incumbent Democratic state Rep. Ron Wilson, an often controversial figure who most recently drew fire after siding with Republicans in last year's acrimonious battle over redistricting.

With all precincts reporting, Allen, a member of the State Board of Education, beat Wilson by a margin of 55 percent to 44 percent.

Allen will face no Republican opposition in the November general election.

And you know why Wilson lost?

"I think Ron moved out of step with his district and started representing (Republican Speaker of the House) Tom Craddick instead of Tom Jones in his district," said state Rep. Garnet Colemen.

Coleman's comments were a reference to the fact that Wilson was one of the few Democrats to side with Craddick and other Republicans in a redistricting plan designed to give the GOP the majority of Texas congressional seats. It was a sentiment echoed by Wilson's challenger.

"I think redistricting was the key issue in the race," Allen said. "We're very excited and we're looking forward to new leadership and new ideas in the district."

hat tip to Nathan Newman

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The dangers of casting the first stone.

As the GOP demands that Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry apologize for calling Republicans 'the most crooked ... lying group I've ever seen,' they might do well to remember their own past.

Back in the 1990s, Newt Gingrich's political action committee came up with a lists of words that Republican candidates could use to describe themselves and their party, and another set to describe the Democrats. The use of this GOPAC vocabulary was a critical element in the GOP's takeover of Congress in 1994.

Get thee to Pacific Views for the embedded link to the GOPAC vocabulary.

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Flaws cited in Bush medicare ads

WASHINGTON, March 11 (UPI) -- The U.S. General Accounting Office says Bush administration ads and brochures publicizing a new Medicare law are misleading.

The GAO, an investigative arm of Congress, says that while the material is not illegal, it misrepresented the prescription drug benefits that would be offered to millions of elderly and disabled people.

The fliers and advertisements are flawed by "omissions and other weaknesses," according to a legal opinion by Anthony H. Gamboa, GAO general counsel, the New York Times said.

Gamboa said the administration, for example, did not point out that beneficiaries might be charged up to $30 for drug discount cards that become available in June.

Also, he said, the administration incorrectly suggested that the law set a premium of $35 a month for drug coverage, beginning in 2006, an amount, he said, that is only an estimate.

The administration plans to spend more than $22 million publicizing drug benefits, new coverage for preventive health services and new insurance options

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Report clears Medicare ads
But GAO does cite 'omissions' in spots critics call partisan
By Kristina Herrndobler
Washington Bureau

March 11, 2004

WASHINGTON -- Congressional investigators cleared the Bush administration Wednesday of wrongdoing in producing advertisements about new Medicare prescription-drug benefits that critics claimed were a misuse of taxpayer dollars and misled the public about the benefits.

But the report by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, concluded that the ads produced by the Department of Health and Human Services have "notable omissions and other weaknesses."

Democrats alleged that the ads were being used by the administration to promote President Bush and misrepresented the program to make it appear that the new Medicare benefits are more generous than they are. Nine members of Congress asked the GAO to review the ads to determine whether the spots violated federal laws prohibiting agencies from spending taxpayer money on "publicity or propaganda" without the approval of Congress.

But the report found that the advertisements, while flawed, "are not so partisan as to be unlawful."

The ads, which include mail, print and television advertising, are part of a $22 million media campaign by Health and Human Services to highlight changes resulting from the enactment of prescription-drug coverage

The television spots emphasize that the basic Medicare program has not changed, but that under reforms passed last year, new benefits are available to senior citizens, such as prescription-drug coverage. The ads include a toll-free number for seniors who have questions about their benefits.

The ads do not mention that seniors who enroll in the drug-discount card program created by the new law may be charged an annual fee, or that the savings from the discount cards may vary by the type of prescription drug. But the GAO found that those omissions were not enough to recommend that the ads be pulled.

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Today's Progress Report says:

The Six Month Wait

President Bush took six months to choose someone to fill the post of "manufacturing czar" and he still managed to get it wrong. The position, announced last Labor Day with great fanfare, was designed to help the ailing manufacturing industry – which has hemorrhaged more than 2.8 million manufacturing jobs since Bush took office. The Administration planned to announce the nomination of Anthony Raimondo, CEO of Behlen Manufacturing Co., at a press conference this morning. But that event was abruptly canceled after serious concerns emerged about Raimondo's record. (American Progress released this backgrounder yesterday afternoon). Now several administration officials say "the nomination may be scrapped." A look at Raimondo's record reveals what a poor choice the President made for the position.

Their error is in saying the Bushistas got it wrong. Raimondo is exactly what they want in that position.

(I can riff on CAP because I was ahead of the curve.)

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I was cruising the Yahoo! News slideshows today. I decided to check out photos on Haiti, more because I accidentally clicked a picture than any other reason. I do like photography. It was my major hobby before I started obsessing over computers.

So like I said, i was flipping pictures and came across this one:

And I was like, mad cool composition!

Then I was like, definitely not a candid portrait.

Then I was like, how many more posed pictures in this piece?

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I found this portrait of Haiti's new interim prime minister. Gerard Latortue.

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I found this one, which bothers me.

OH, yeah. Armed folks hiding in the middle of a firefight and the photographer isn't.

Now, I really have no beef with posed pictures. And the guys behind the camera in this set can do some really beautiful work. I would just like folks to be clear: this isn't news. It's art.

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Finally, look at these pictures and tell me if there's anyone&hellip[;in the entire world…for whom the name "Boniface" is less appropriate.

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…when you've got Pong?

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Suddenly hip-hop remixes are being called "mash-ups," at least in some of the more mainstream venues.

Normally the mainstream makes our word theirs. But when they replace our word with theirs, it means the named concept is no longer ours.

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California.

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Senate Raises Bar to Enact New Tax Cuts; Rebuff to Bush
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.

WASHINGTON, March 10 — The Senate dealt a surprising election-year rebuke on Wednesday to the White House goal of new tax cuts as it narrowly backed a new rule to require at least 60 votes to approve any tax cuts in the next five years.

Four Republican senators — Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, John McCain of Arizona and Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both of Maine — joined Democrats in the 51-to-48 vote.

Mr. Bush has called on Congress to make permanent his tax cuts, which are scheduled to expire at the end of the decade. Republicans in Congress had already sidestepped action on his request this year, in an election campaign in which voters are concerned about the $478 billion budget deficit.

But under the amendment approved on Wednesday night, any tax cuts — or spending increases — in the next five years will require 60 votes for approval in the Senate, unless supporters are able to find spending cuts or other tax increases to make up for the money that would be lost, said Senator Russell D. Feingold, the Wisconsin Democrat who sponsored the amendment.

First, though, the Senate would have to approve the budget resolution that is being debated. Then, Mr. Feingold said, his provision would have to be accepted at the conference committee, where House and Senate budget writers try to reconcile differences in their proposals. The Senate is expected to vote on its $2.4 trillion budget resolution by the end of the week. The House Budget Committee is scheduled to consider its proposal on Thursday.

"The taxpayers of this country are desperate," Mr. Feingold said, "and I think people are going to find out that the taxpayers are frustrated and that they are figuring out that the deficit is completely out of control."

His amendment, he added, helps put Congress on the "long hard road to balancing the budget."

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Chávez Says U.S. Is Fueling His Enemies
By JUAN FORERO
Published: March 11, 2004

CARACAS, Venezuela, March 10 — Under United States pressure to allow a recall referendum against his rule, President Hugo Chávez has in recent days counterattacked, charging that the Bush administration is trying to oust him by aiding his adversaries, including those who briefly overthrew him in a 2002 coup.

Mr. Chávez has seized on the information in reams of United States government documents, made public by a pro-Chávez group in New York that show Washington is trying to strengthen political parties and other antigovernment groups that want to remove the populist firebrand through a recall.

Aid to opposition groups by the National Endowment for Democracy, a nonprofit agency financed by the United States Congress, is not new. Nor is the $1 million spent here last year excessively high for an organization that spends $40 million a year to finance hundreds of organizations in 81 countries.

But the unearthing of 2,000 pages of documents has provided details of how the Bush administration considers the rehabilitation of Venezuela's battered political parties the best way to counter a leader Washington views as erratic and authoritarian.

"The future of Venezuelan democracy depends on the rebuilding of healthy and responsive political parties that can effectively channel citizen demands," says one memo.

Mr. Chávez has lashed out in three recent speeches, telling Washington to "get its hands off Venezuela" and charging that the Bush administration is "financing this mad opposition." He has even gone so far as to threaten to cut off oil exports if Washington gets the "idea of trying to blockade Venezuela, or, even worse, of invading Venezuela."

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Scientist in Plague Case Is Sentenced to Two Years
By KENNETH CHANG

Published: March 11, 2004

An expert on plague who caused a bioterrorism scare in January 2003 when he reported plague bacteria missing from his laboratory at Texas Tech University was sentenced yesterday to two years in prison even though a jury had cleared him of the most serious charges.

The expert, Dr. Thomas C. Butler, was also fined $15,000 and is to pay $38,675 in restitution to Texas Tech, in Lubbock. He remains free on bond until April 14 and has 10 days to decide whether to appeal his convictions.

In December, a jury found Dr. Butler, 62, guilty of 47 of the 69 charges that emerged from a federal investigation of him after the scare. None of the 47 convictions were directly related to the original incident. Forty-four involved contract disputes with Texas Tech. Dr. Butler was found guilty of defrauding the university by diverting payments from drug companies for clinical trials directly to his bank account.

…The case drew the attention of many prominent scientists, including several Nobel Prize winners, who said that the prosecution would cause scientists to avoid research related to bioterrorism. Scientists may also be leery of helping F.B.I. agents in an investigation out of fear that they might end up targets like Dr. Butler, they said.

…Judge Sam R. Cummings of Federal District Court imposed a sentence that was lower than the standard set by federal guidelines, citing testimony that the bacteria shipment was done for humanitarian reasons and that the Department of Commerce would have approved a permit had Dr. Butler applied. Judge Cummings also questioned whether Texas Tech deserved any restitution for the "shadow contract" convictions.

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Quote of note:

"This is the most important election indeed in our lifetime," said Gerald McEntee, chairman of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s political committee and president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

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A.F.L.-C.I.O. Plans to Spend $44 Million to Unseat Bush
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: March 11, 2004

BAL HARBOUR, Fla., March 10 — The A.F.L.-C.I.O., long one of the biggest players in presidential politics, announced its most ambitious, most expensive campaign effort on Wednesday, a $44 million program aimed at unseating President Bush.

The labor federation plans to urge its 13 million members to vote for Senator John Kerry, the expected Democratic presidential nominee, and will make a special effort to focus on union members who are swing voters. Also for the first time, organized labor will seek to persuade and mobilize hundreds of thousands of nonunion members to vote for labor's preferred presidential candidate.

"America's unions are united for the biggest and earliest mobilization effort for the 2004 elections in the union movement's history," said John J. Sweeney, the federation's president.

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Liberal Talk Radio Network to Start Up in Three Cities
By JACQUES STEINBERG

The creators of a fledgling liberal talk radio network who hope to challenge the dominance of conservative voices on the nation's airwaves said yesterday that its programming would make its debut on March 31 on low-rated stations in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

The network, known as Air America Radio, said its hosts would include Al Franken, the comedian and political satirist, whose program will be broadcast from noon to 3 p.m.; Janeane Garofalo, an actress whose program will be on from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.; Chuck D, a hip-hop artist, who will be a co-anchor of a morning program; and Martin Kaplan, a media analyst who has previously appeared on National Public Radio.

Mr. Franken's program will be called "The O'Franken Factor,'' in a barb aimed at Bill O'Reilly, the host of "The O'Reilly Factor'' on the Fox News Channel. Fox News sued Mr. Franken and his publisher last summer in an unsuccessful effort to block distribution of his book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right'' (E. P. Dutton, 2003). The network charged that the book's use of Fox's "fair and balanced'' tagline would tarnish its image.

For all Air America's relative star power and connections - Mark Walsh, the network's chief executive, has donated more than $100,000 to the Democratic Party and has served as an adviser to the presidential candidate John Kerry on Internet issues - the network faces enormous hurdles. They include making money for its investors and unseating the biggest conservative voices in talk radio, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, whose programs appear on hundreds of stations.

"It's tough to build a syndicated show, let alone a whole array of syndicated shows,'' said Michael Harrison, a former radio station owner who is the publisher of Talkers, a trade magazine.

In New York, for example, Air America will broadcast on WLIB, an AM station that was ranked 24th in the metropolitan New York market last fall, according to Arbitron; WABC, which broadcasts Mr. Limbaugh and Mr. Hannity, was ranked 12th. Similarly, in Chicago, Air America's affiliate, WNTD, was ranked 32nd; the Limbaugh affiliate, WLS, was ranked fifth. In Los Angeles, Air America will be broadcast on KBLA, which ranked 30th.

Nonetheless, Mr. Walsh said the effort had support, including an initial investment of more than $20 million provided by several backers, including Evan Cohen, a venture capitalist, and Rex Sorensen, a entrepreneur.

Mr. Walsh said that he expected the network, whose parent company is Progress Media, would offer something unique on talk radio - a megaphone for liberals - and that by the end of the year he anticipated its programming would be carried by stations in at least a dozen other markets, including San Francisco. Mr. Walsh declined to name any other cities where the network was pursuing stations.

Mr. Franken, who described himself in a telephone interview as "a comedian first and a citizen second,'' said he intended his show to be "entertaining, funny and hard-hitting.''

"This territory has been ceded to the right way too long,'' he said. "We're going to take it to them.''

Mr. Franken said that he had called his show "The O'Franken Factor'' with the hope that it would "annoy and bait'' Mr. O'Reilly.

Robert Zimmerman, a spokesman for Fox News, said: "One of this country's founding principles is the right to free speech. We wish them well.''

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Shiites May Demand Lifting of Limits on Their Power
By JOHN F. BURNS
Published: March 10, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 9 — Iraq's most powerful Shiite leaders kept up the pressure on Tuesday for changes in the interim constitution they signed on Monday, hinting that they may entangle the next phase of the American political timetable here, choosing a transitional government, by continuing their push for fewer constraints on the powers of the country's Shiite majority.

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U.S. Softens Its Rebuke on Iran Nuclear Issue, Appeasing Allies
By CRAIG S. SMITH
Published: March 10, 2004

VIENNA, March 9 — The United States agreed Tuesday to tone down its criticism of Iran in order to win European support for a demand that Tehran divulge more about its nuclear program, according to European diplomats here.

Washington dropped threatening language from a draft resolution being prepared at a meeting of the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, and agreed to insert a paragraph praising Iran's cooperation so far. The board's 10 European members signed off Tuesday on the revised draft, and the United States will present it to remaining board members on Wednesday.

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Bush Agrees to Answer All of 9/11 Panel's Questions
By PHILIP SHENON
Published: March 10, 2004

WASHINGTON, March 9 — The White House said Tuesday that President Bush would privately answer all questions raised by the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks and suggested that the interview might go beyond the one-hour limit originally offered to the panel.

"He's going to answer all the questions they want to raise," said the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, whose remarks indicated that the White House was softening its negotiating stance toward the bipartisan commission. "Nobody's watching the clock."

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Recent Slide in Stock Steepens, With Dow Falling 160
By ALEX BERENSON

Shares continued their recent slide yesterday as investors seemed increasingly worried about weakness in the economy and the prospects for growth in profits.

This week's drop has wiped out the year's gains for the Nasdaq composite index and the Dow Jones industrial average, though the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index is still up slightly for the year. But several big investors said that stocks, while no longer cheap, were still reasonably valued and that the possibility of a steep pullback appeared slight.

No single news event accounted for yesterday's slide, economists and professional money managers said. But investors appear concerned that the economy's growth over the last year has come mainly as a result of short-term stimulus from the federal government and Federal Reserve, not because of increased corporate investment or sustainable increases in consumer spending.

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March 10, 2004

Here you go.

Mind you, this isn't much different than doing things manually, but that's the point. This isn't an automatic display of an RDF or Atom feed (there's no RSS 2.0 support at this point). This is something that allows you to select which posts get displayed. you could think of it as a fairly intricate "Blog This!" bookmarklet.

Anyway, it's a start, something for me to play with as I refine my ideas.

LATER: I shouldn't have to mention this, but I think I should mention that in my earlier post about my community site plans, inclusion is determined by the one-drop rule. My agreeing with you may not be…

Also, any posts I include will be from the site more than the blogger, so Pandagon (for example) wouldn't be left out—and nor would Ezra. Note the ass-umption of Ezra's ethnicity on my part. And folks like The Heed Heeb, who just happen to not be Black but write well on a topic of interest to significant numbers of Black folk will also be in the mix.

That's a lot of folks, and a lot of time. Given the amount of time I spend on P6, something will give one way or the other. But like I said, I'm still refining the idea.

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Resistant form of gonorrhea gains foothold
By Stephen Smith, Globe Staff, 3/10/2004

A dangerous form of gonorrhea that can't be treated with standard antibiotics has swiftly established a foothold in Massachusetts, highlighting a resurgence of sexually transmitted illnesses across New England, disease trackers report.

The new germ was first detected in the state in 2002. By last year, one of every seven gonorrhea patients tested positive for the bacteria, which cannot be treated with the cheapest antibiotic pills. Maine reported its first case in January.

Though other New England health departments do not routinely examine blood samples for the new bug, health officers in those states said they suspect its presence.

Infectious disease specialists fear that the number of drug-resistant gonorrhea cases will grow exponentially, as patients with the new strain are unwittingly prescribed drugs that do them no good. Thinking they're cured, the patients may resume unsafe sex practices and pass on the infection.

"If the drug-resistant gonorrhea establishes that initial beachhead, it can become very hard to put the genie back into the bottle," said Dr. Stephen L. Boswell, executive director of the Fenway Community Health Center in Boston.

Federal infectious disease specialists are monitoring the spread of the drug-resistant bacteria -- which arrived in the United States about four years ago, on the West Coast -- with a mixture of surprise and alarm. Investigators from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the Massachusetts outbreak appears to be more severe than clusters recently reported in Seattle, Las Vegas, Chicago, Dallas, and Philadelphia.

They also predict that the new gonorrhea strain could be a harbinger of an increase in HIV infections: Because people with gonorrhea have open sores on their genitals, they can catch the AIDS virus more easily and spread it more efficiently if they're already infected. "We're really surprised at the speed of this," said Dr. Susan Wang, a CDC medical epidemiologist who is analyzing the Massachusetts gonorrhea cases. "We were hoping to have a little more time before it came to the East Coast. The amount that we're seeing in Massachusetts is quite a bit. We're quite concerned."

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Bush wraps up Republican nomination
3/9/2004

WASHINGTON -- President Bush wrapped up the nearly nonexistent race for the Republican presidential nomination Tuesday night by pocketing nearly every delegate up for grabs in the four Southern states that held primary elections.

Bush had 1,264 delegates, according to an Associated Press count, eclipsing the 1,255 needed for the nomination on a night when voters in Texas -- where Bush was governor -- went to the polls.

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Justice Dept. drops abortion record hunt
By Curt Anderson, Associated Press Writer, 3/9/2004

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department is dropping its effort to subpoena abortion records from six Planned Parenthood affiliates as part of the government's defense of a new law barring certain late-term abortions, officials said Tuesday.

Government lawyers said they were forced to withdraw the subpoenas because of U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton's ruling in San Francisco last week that the records could not be introduced in a trial of a challenge to the law brought by Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

The Justice Department still is pursuing abortion records -- with names, addresses and other personal information edited out -- to defend the law against similar lawsuits brought by abortion providers in New York and Lincoln, Neb.

The lawsuits seek to invalidate a law signed by President Bush last year that bans a procedure referred to by critics as partial-birth abortion and by medical organizations as "intact dilation and extraction." In these late-term abortions, a fetus' legs and torso are pulled from the uterus and its skull is punctured.

Monica Goodling, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said the abortion records are considered central to the claims by the law's challengers that the procedure is medically necessary. But, she added, the Justice Department notified the six Planned Parenthood affiliates it would not seek to enforce subpoenas seeking the records because of the San Francisco judge's order.

The Justice Department has come under heavy criticism for its subpoenas of abortion records from many abortion rights and privacy groups, who contend that they violate women's expectations of medical privacy and could cause a chilling effect on a woman's right to an abortion.

"I am glad the department has decided to back off its subpoena for now, but it should never have attempted such as violation of women's medical records and lives in the first place," said Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y. "These subpoenas were just the latest example of this administration's willingness to go to any length to restrict a woman's right to choose."

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The Guardian is moving in on your turf. Successfully, I might add.

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Hint of suspicion

Leader
Monday March 8, 2004
The Guardian

In order to save time, the following article is being printed several months ahead of schedule as a service to readers and nascent conspiracy theorists.

The capture of Osama bin Laden, while warmly welcomed around the world, raises several questions about the interface between the war on terror and the US election cycle. The most worrying of these is the suspicion that Mr Bin Laden had already been in custody for a considerable period. George Bush's official spokesman has vehemently denied charges that the al-Qaida leader was actually apprehended in December 2001. But there is more than a hint of a "non-denial denial" about the White House's rejection of claims that news of Mr Bin Laden's capture was timed to coincide with the climax of the Democratic party convention. It is not just die-hard cynics who found the White House spokesman Scott McClellan's "Where'd you get a crazy idea like that?" less than frank.

Further, it is hard to be convinced by the explanation that Mr Bin Laden's tanned and robust appearance was because "he worked out a lot", given that Mr Bin Laden is said to have been living in caves for almost three years. Similarly, Mr McClellan's description of the site of Mr Bin Laden's capture as "Pakistan, Afghanistan ... around there" was dangerously vague and left the White House vulnerable to troubling suspicions.

There has still been no official comment on the Los Angeles Times's leak of a draft agenda for the Republican convention, with a curious entry: "Sept 1, 18.45-18.55 EST, main floor: OBL to support ban on gay marriage." And the fact that Fox News was the only television crew on hand to witness his capture cannot only be "good old-fashioned journalism", as its management asserts, a scepticism strengthened by reports in March of Mr Bin Laden attending the News International management conference in Cancun. None of these discrepancies adds up to hard evidence - but the idea that US special forces capturing Mr Bin Laden also found George Bush's missing national guard records in a Tora Bora cave is simply too much to swallow.

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Quote of note:

Carl Forti, the NRCC's [P6: National Republican Congressional Committee] communication director, denied that the party tried to squash District 4's grassroots challenger with bluster. Forti confirmed that Reynolds and Telford had been in contact with Murphy, but said that Karl Rove's name had not been dropped in either conversation. He also denied that either caller had in any way suggested that running might ruin Murphy's political career and make him an enemy of the White House.

Unfortunately for Forti, Murphy owns a tape recorder. He taped his conversations with Telford and Reynolds, and he shared them with the Dallas Observer.

Amateur Hour
Congressional candidate Mike Murphy feels the strong arm of the GOP
BY JOHN GONZALEZ

About a year ago, Mike Murphy and his pal J.J. Miller were at his pad in Frisco shooting pool over a few cold beers and lamenting the state of politics. Murphy, who is now 30, and Miller, 33, couldn't find a candidate whose ideas and values meshed with theirs, and the two young Republicans thought their party needed better guidance.
"That's when I said he should run for Congress," Miller recalls. "I told him he'd be perfect."

The idea grew on Murphy, despite a few obstacles to his candidacy. For instance, the finance manager and Texas native had no political experience.

And no money.

And, when you get right down to it, not much of a chance, really.

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African 'mercenary plot' thickens

Zimbabwe has linked the alleged plot to 64 men detained in Harare after their plane was grounded on Sunday.

Zimbabwe claimed US, British and Spanish spy agencies were helping the "mercenaries" in the plot.

Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema also said multinational firms were involved in the conspiracy.

According to Zimbabwe's Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi, the "mercenaries" were "aided by the British secret service, that is MI6... American Central Intelligence Agency and the Spanish secret service".

'Link'

The BBC's Alastair Leithead in South Africa describes the British and American links as "spurious", but adds there is growing evidence that the mystery does relate to a coup attempt gone wrong.

South African government officials said they believed the suspected mercenaries had been en route to Equatorial Guinea to help carry out a coup, and had stopped at Harare to pick up weapons.

South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said the government was trying to establish what was going on, but added that "indeed there was a link between the plane and Equatorial Guinea".

Earlier, the Equatorial Guinea president said a group of 15 mercenaries had been arrested in the country on suspicion of trying to overthrow him.

He said they were linked to those held in Zimbabwe.

On state radio, Mr Obiang said South Africa had warned him that a group of mercenaries was heading for his country.

He also accused multinational companies of being behind the plot to overthrow him, and said any firms that financed such operations would be classified as enemies.

Court

The 64 suspected mercenaries are currently imprisoned in Zimbabwe and are expected to appear in court on Thursday.

The Zimbabwean authorities have warned they could face the death penalty if found guilty.

The men - said to be Angolans, South Africans and Namibians - were detained after their plane was impounded on Sunday evening at Harare International Airport.

A senior executive from the company that chartered the plane said they were going to Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo to work as security staff at the mines.

He said they stopped in Harare to pick up cheap mining-related supplies.

---

I can picture the comments.

I'm going to be real, just for a second. The Constitution, and logical extrapolations therefrom, are no guarantee of your rights. Read it and find a reference to sex…there is none. Yet women (who fit the definition of citizen) needed an amendment to get the right to vote. And when they did, Black women should have gained that right as well, yet they didn't.

Hate to tell ya, but your rights exist within the context of the social agreement currently active.

Subject: Camille Cosby's Speech (this is an important must read) Date: Sun, September 7, 2003

Below you will find a speech that Bill Cosby's wife gave at a function. Everyone please read this and pass it on to as many African Americans you come in contact with.

Camille Cosby just made a reference about the Voting Rights Act in her most recent open letter on racism. This is extremely important.

We are quickly approaching the 21st Century and we were wondering, and when I say 'we', I mean others of us out there who wonder if everyone else out there knows what the significance of the year 2007 is to Black America?

Did you know that our right to VOTE will expire in the year 2007? Seriously! The Voters Rights Act signed in 1965 by Lyndon B. Johnson was just an ACT. It was not made a law.

In 1982, Ronald Reagan amended the Voters Rights Act for another 25 years. Which means that in the year 2007 we could lose the Right to vote!

Does anyone realize that African Americans are the only group of people who require PERMISSION under the United States Constitution to vote! In the year 2007, Congress will once again convene to decide whether or not Blacks should retain the rights to vote (crazy but true).

In order for this to be passed, 38 states will have to approve an extension. This is ludicrous! Not only should the extension be approved, but also the ACT must be made a law. Our right to vote should no longer be up for discussion, review and/or evaluation.

We must contact our Congress-persons, Senators, Alderpersons, etc., to put a stop to this! As bona fide Citizens of the United States, we cannot "drop the ball" on this one! We have come too far to let government make us take such a huge step backward. So please, let us push forward to continue to build the momentum towards gaining equality.
--------------------

The Voting Rights Act was extended in 1970, 1975, and 1982. See http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usam/title8/cvr00019.htm

Please pass this on to others, as we are sure that many more individuals are not aware of this. I urge all of you that are able to contact those in government that have your vote and make them aware of our combined concern for this issue.

One voice!…..One Vote! You cannot complain if you do not participate…..local, State & national…

When I received this one I had no choice but to pass it on. Please do the same.

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This post really belongs on my development blog that I just (re)started, but since no one knows about it yet I'm posting here because I really would like opinions.

I really get tired of folks telling people what Black folks think, or are like, and all that. Meanwhile, Black folks are actually here and more than capable of expressing themselves. The problem (among non-Black folks, anyway) is knowing who to ask. Another problem is knowing what to ask about. The real answer to that is "anything." There is no issue that affects any American that doesn't impact me…of course the inverse is true too, but most folks don't feel that way.

Because of this, part of what I'd like to do is help make the various opinions in the Black communities more accessible.

Aggregating current articles by Black writers and/or about "Black issues" is one element of how I want to approach this. Having a sentimental attachment to Movable Type, and recognizing I'm not going to get the level of integration I'd like to have for a while (hell, I'm not 100% sure on everything I want to integrate), reBlog looks like a good way to start. I'm thinking of grabbing their code, which they just released as an Open Source project. The best thing about reBlog is, being based on Movable Type, I know how to make it look the way I want it to. I can make it all look integrated whether or not it is. The problem is the distinctive imprint of my judgment will be manifest in the selection of sites and articles I work with and that's not my intent. My intent is to help expose as objective a view of Black opinions as possible.

Partially to offset that I want to add, I guess you'd call it a link portal. It will let me maintain a directory of links that people can vote and comment on, allows users to submit site and category suggestions, and a lot of other stuff I'm not much interested in. You can see a minimally customized implementation here. I want to focus on small media like blogs, grass roots organizations and such. I was also thinking links to specific articles as opposed to entire sites.

The other major software up for consideration is PHP-Nuke and maaaaaybe Scoop.

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At least it's possible in the tech realm.

Not only is Dave Weiner trying to build a bridge between the RSS 2.0 and Atom syndication formats when RSS 2.0 is gaining more and more uses (in comparison, Atom—which isn't a final spec yet—has a lot of promised support from aggregators) but he has set ground rules for a the discussion:

If you've ever read any of the RSS vs. RDF/Atom war threads you'll know why that was necessary.

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From Bush's Problem With Black Voters:

Kerry signaled his resolve to cement his support among blacks this week when he told a radio interviewer, "President Clinton was often known as the first black president. I wouldn't be upset if I could earn the right to be the second."

1. Clinton as "the first Black President" is one of the larger cowpies in the political pasture
2. I'd be satisfied with "the first President that gives equal weight to the priorities of the Black communities"

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Is Recovery Without Jobs Now the Norm?
By Don Lee
Times Staff Writer

March 10, 2004

For months, economists have been reassuring Americans that the employment market drought will soon end.

With corporate profits surging and economic indicators improving, they said, it won't be long before there is a downpour of jobs. After all, history shows that strong economic growth is quickly followed by robust job creation.

With this recovery, that still hasn't happened. Most economists aren't ready to throw out the history books, but the release month after month of disappointing payroll-gains reports has raised troubling questions about whether there has been a profound change in the way the U.S. economy operates: With advances in technology, rising productivity rates and the outsourcing of work to foreign countries, more economic activity won't translate into more jobs.

"I'm growing increasingly suspicious that something more fundamental may be happening to the job market and the economy," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com, a research and consulting firm in West Chester, Pa. [P6: Duh. Ya think?]

The government's latest employment report showed that employers nationwide added a puny 21,000 nonfarm jobs to payrolls in February. The California jobs report for last month, due this Friday, is likely to be as grim.

The jobless recovery, nearly 2 1/2 years old, has gone on too long to be called an anomaly or a blip, Zandi said. [P6: Duh. Ya think?] "Even if the economy finds its way and creates jobs," he added, this strange time will be remembered as "part of economic lore."

If the past pattern of growth no longer holds, the implications are enormous.

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Spy Unit Skirted CIA on Iraq
Pentagon group's role in shaping White House views about ties between Hussein and Al Qaeda was greater than known, Senate panel hears.
By Greg Miller
Times Staff Writer

March 10, 2004

WASHINGTON — A special intelligence unit at the Pentagon privately briefed senior officials at the White House on alleged ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda without the knowledge of CIA Director George J. Tenet, according to new information presented at a Senate hearing Tuesday.

The disclosure suggests that the controversial Pentagon office played a greater role than previously understood in shaping the administration's views on Iraq's alleged ties to the terrorist network behind the Sept. 11 attacks, and bypassed usual channels to make a case that conflicted with the conclusions of CIA analysts.

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Tenet said he was unaware until recently that the Pentagon unit had presented its findings to the offices of Vice President Dick Cheney and national security advisor Condoleezza Rice. It is not clear whether Cheney or Rice were present for the briefing, which was mentioned in a Defense Department letter released by the Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

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Bush Fund-Raisers Among Overnight Guests
By SHARON THEIMER
Associated Press Writer

4:22 AM PST, March 10, 2004

WASHINGTON — President Bush opened the White House and Camp David to dozens of overnight guests last year, including foreign dignitaries, family friends and at least nine of his biggest campaign fund-raisers, documents show.

In all, Bush and first lady Laura Bush have invited at least 270 people to stay at the White House and at least the same number to overnight at the Camp David retreat since moving to Washington in January 2001, according to lists the White House provided The Associated Press.

Some guests spent a night in the Lincoln Bedroom, historic quarters that gained new fame in the Clinton administration amid allegations that Democrats rewarded major donors like Hollywood heavyweights Steven Spielberg and Barbra Streisand with accommodations there.

That scandal and Bush's criticism of it is one of the reasons the White House identifies guests. In a debate with Vice President Al Gore in October 2000, Bush said: "I believe they've moved that sign, `The buck stops here,' from the Oval Office desk to `The buck stops here' on the Lincoln Bedroom. And that's not good for the country."

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Obesity Gaining on Tobacco as Top Killer
Bad diets and inactivity are rampant and could cancel out many health advances, studies say.
By Rosie Mestel
Times Staff Writer

March 10, 2004

Poor diet and physical inactivity are closing in on tobacco use as the leading preventable causes of death in the U.S., primarily because of a dramatic rise in obesity, according to a new scientific report.

The analysis, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., reported that deaths caused by poor eating habits and sedentary lifestyles rose by 33% between 1990 and 2000 to an estimated 400,000.

Deaths related to smoking or exposure to tobacco came to 435,000. Their share of total U.S. deaths have dropped from 19% to 18.1% since 1990.

The number of deaths related to other preventable health threats, such as illicit drug use and environmental toxins, changed only slightly, the authors reported.

"Our poor eating habits and lack of activity are literally killing us, and they're killing us at record levels," said Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson at a news conference in Washington.

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AFTER THE STRIKE
Grocery Job Is Hard to Replace
A temporary worker earned more than he ever had before. A picket suffered a blow to his self-esteem.
By Ronald D. White
Times Staff Writer

March 10, 2004

The union member on the picket line and the replacement worker who took his job kept their eyes on each other during the 20-week strike and lockout.

As long as Tom Wilson could peer through the plate-glass windows and spot Demond Camper uncrating tomatoes or spraying lettuce in the sparsely supplied, infrequently shopped corner of Vons, he knew the supermarket chains were suffering and the union had a fighting chance to protect his wages and benefits.

As long as Camper saw that Wilson was outside in the parking lot, carrying his picket sign, he knew that he had at least one more day on a job that paid him more than he had earned in his life: $12 an hour, so much that he could buy his kids Christmas gifts.

"It's hard to say what I would have been doing without this job," said Camper, 27. "Probably temporary work at minimum wage. They treated me good here."

He pulled his last shift at the Vons at Lincoln Boulevard and Broadway in Santa Monica last Thursday, the day before Wilson, 45, walked back into the store for the first time in more than four months.

The strike and lockout that ended Feb. 29 put 59,000 people out of work when the union struck Vons and Pavilions stores Oct. 11 and Albertsons and Ralphs locked out their union members the next day. But the dispute between the stores and the United Food and Commercial Workers gave thousands new jobs.

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From the sidebar to this article.

National Delegate Count

Kerry 1,816
Edwards 532
Dean 180
Clark 80
Sharpton 24
Kucinich 22
Lieberman 8
Gephardt 3
Other 1
Total Delegates: 4,322
Total Pledged: 3,520
Total Unpledged: 802
Delegates Needed to Win: 2,162

Updated March 10, 2004; 7:20 a.m.

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Credit where due, yo. Too bad the brain doesn't turn on until we're facing a potential crisis

Quote of Note:

Moderate Republicans say they may team up with Democrats to remove language in the budget resolution allowing the Senate to approve tax cuts worth as much as $80 billion over five years with a simple majority of 51 votes -- not the 60-vote super-majority needed to overcome a filibuster. Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said there is "a good possibility" that such language will be stripped.

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Senate Considers Impediment to Tax Cuts
New Rules Have Bipartisan Support and Would Make Permanent Extension Tougher

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 10, 2004; Page A04

The Senate appears ready to adopt strict new budget rules this week that would make it more difficult to permanently extend President Bush's tax cuts, a potential blow to the centerpiece of the president's election-year economic agenda.

Bush has repeatedly called on Congress to make permanent the $1.7 trillion in tax cuts approved since he came to office. Those tax cuts would expire over the next six years, with all of them disappearing by 2011. But rising voter concerns over record budget deficits have made some Republicans skeptical about Bush's request.

A bipartisan bill written by Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) and Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) would allow those cuts to be extended only if they are offset by equivalent spending cuts or other tax increases. That mandate could be overridden only by a 60-vote majority. The measure would exempt three tax cuts aimed at moderate-income households that expire this year: the expanded 10 percent income tax bracket, the $1,000-per-child tax credit and the "marriage penalty" cut.

"We're saying we want to be modest on tax cuts now, but after that, you've got to start paying for it," said Domenici, a former Senate Budget Committee chairman who has remained influential on tax-and-spending matters.

The Senate is also likely to add $7 billion to the budget's $414 billion allotment for defense spending in 2005, bringing it to the level requested by the White House.

The defense spending issue has slowed progress on the House's efforts to pass its version of the budget. House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle (R-Iowa) -- hoping to spread spending cuts throughout the federal budget -- planned to cut the president's defense request by a half a percentage point, or about $2.1 billion. But House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) has threatened to lead a revolt over the cut.

The House Budget Committee still hopes to take up its tax-and-spending plan today or tomorrow.

---

(Actually, anyone who knows your typical guy)

Quote of note:

Stern, whose topics frequently include sex, has responded on his show with harsh attacks on the Bush administration, warning that he might soon be forced out of his job by FCC investigations and urging his listeners to vote against those who support censorship.

More recently, he has claimed that the FCC has delayed moving against him because it fears that he could turn tens of thousands of often conservative voters away from President Bush.

A spokeswoman for the FCC's enforcement bureau declined to comment on whether the agency is investigating Stern's show. Stern's agent, Don Buchwald, also refused to comment.

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Congress Acts to Curb Offensive Programs
Senate Panel Proposes Stiff Fines, Delaying Media Consolidation

By Jonathan Krim
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 10, 2004; Page E01

A Senate panel yesterday paved the way for a broad crackdown on radio and television programming deemed offensive, including stiff fines for entertainers who break indecency rules and limiting violence that can be seen by children.

With the House scheduled to vote Thursday on its version of an indecency bill, Congress is moving swiftly in the wake of public outcry over a Super Bowl halftime show in which performer Janet Jackson's breast was bared by singer Justin Timberlake. President Bush has indicated he supports the House legislation, which would allow fines of up to $500,000 per incident that could be levied by the Federal Communications Commission against violators of its indecency rules.

But the Senate Commerce Committee sharply raised the stakes for the entertainment industry, which has pledged to police itself and has been careful not to openly oppose tougher FCC regulation.

The Senate bill would temporarily roll back controversial rules passed by Congress late last year that allow some media organizations to get larger. By a 13-10 vote yesterday, the panel passed an amendment sponsored by Sens. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) that would put the rules on hold for a year until the General Accounting Office can study the relationship between indecent programming and media consolidation.

"These issues are inevitably related," said Dorgan, who last year led an effort in the Senate to roll back the new media ownership rules. But Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), who sponsored the overall bill, said the amendment would be "a deal killer" that threatens passage of any indecency legislation.

If the provision survives a full Senate vote and then negotiations with the House, it would pose a challenge for FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell, who supported even greater easing of media concentration rules, while also beating the drum for tougher indecency enforcement.

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Justice Admits Considering Retirement
Associated Press
Wednesday, March 10, 2004; Page A03

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who will turn 80 this year, acknowledges that he is thinking about retirement. But he will not say when that might come.

"At age 79, you can't help but think about retirement," he told NBC's "Today" show in an interview airing today. "Your life expectancy isn't what it once was. And you've got to think about the possibility of retirement."

Asked whether he would remain on the Supreme Court, he said: "I'll just stick with what I just said."

Rehnquist is not the oldest member of the court. Justice John Paul Stevens will turn 84 next month and is still a spry bridge player and golfer.

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FEC: Sharpton should get $100,000 in funds – and an investigation
By DEVLIN BARRETT
Associated Press Writer

March 9, 2004, 5:29 PM EST

WASHINGTON -- Election officials are recommending that Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton receive $100,000 in federal matching funds – and be the subject of an investigation into whether he deserves the money.

The mixed recommendation by lawyers for the Federal Election Commission will be presented to the six commissioners Thursday for a likely vote, after an internal back-and-forth over whether the outspoken reverend may have violated campaign finance rules.

Sharpton's campaign manager, Charles Halloran, said: "We stand behind everything we've done and every document we've submitted. We welcome a full audit. It's part of the political process."

At issue are loans and out-of-pocket payments made by Sharpton, the activist preacher, to Sharpton, the candidate. The New Yorker's campaign is low on cash and is carrying heavy debts, but FEC rules prohibit federal matching funds to any candidate who loans his own campaign more than $50,000.

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March 09, 2004

Have you ever had a thought that insisted on being expressed but refused to settle down into a form that's easy to write?

With all the economics stuff I've been reading, I think I've developed a feel for what's so convincing about the free market argument. I'm coming to feel that, once you've set your priorities, the free market may well be the best way to handle the rest of the stuff.

Yet I'm also feeling Conservatives and Libertarians have destroyed any chance of a free society developing as a result of free markets within my lifetime. Conservatives and Libertarians don't actually trust the free market enough to let it develop rather than forcing things. I think the situation is best described by one of my favorite Zen koans:

Joshu asked Nansen, "What is the Buddha?"
Nansen said, "This very mind is Buddha."
Joshu asked, "How can I accord with it?"
Nansen said, "By intending to accord, you immediately deviate."

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Gay and Republican, but Not Necessarily Disloyal to President
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

As a lesbian in a long-term relationship, Margaret Leber objects to the idea of amending the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

But Ms. Leber, a software engineer and a registered Republican in Jeffersonville, Pa., is also a member of the Pink Pistols, an organization of gay and lesbian gun owners, and marriage is not the only issue on her mind.

"Right now, I am leaning toward Bush," Ms. Leber said. "All the Democrats just rolled into Congress to vote for this gun-control bill. Somebody with my values and beliefs can't be a single-issue voter."

President Bush's support for the gay-marriage amendment drew expressions of dismay and betrayal from many of his gay and lesbian supporters, including some of the 12 prominent gay Republicans who met with him in Austin, Tex., shortly after his election as a show of mutual support. But as the debate over same-sex marriage heats up, some gay Republicans say Mr. Bush may still get their vote in November.

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Of all the major bloggers I've read, Tyler Cowen is the only one that would link to a story like this not even a suggestion of supporting evidence.

Subliminal Messaging

A group is challenging the rule of chess which states that white moves first is racist; it just perpetuates the image that whites make moves and blacks have to adjust to it. How they plan to change the rule I don't know. I saw this on television. Who they would sue to have this changed is beyond me. The US Chess federation, the group that makes the rules for American chess, would be a good place to start. If they plan to make this a simple suggestion, it will probably be dismissed as idiotic. If they want to make it a suit, this could be the biggest subliminal message suit since all the rock music was almost found to tell kids to kill.

Subliminal messaging indeed.

(by the way, Instapundit isn't a blogger.)

---

Democracy Now!, via TalkLeft

AMY GOODMAN: I am Amy Goodman from the radio/TV program Democracy Now! around the United States. We would like to know why you left Haiti.

PRESIDENT ARISTIDE: Thank you. First of all, I didn't leave Haiti because I wanted to leave Haiti. They forced me to leave Haiti. It was a kidnapping, which they call coup d'etat or [inaudible] ...forced resignation for me. It wasn't a resignation. It was a kidnapping and under the cover of coup d'etat.

AMY GOODMAN: It was a kidnapping under the cover of coup d'etat?

PRESIDENT ARISTIDE: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Who forced you out of the country?

PRESIDENT ARISTIDE:I saw U.S. officials with Ambassador Foley.

Mr. Moreno, [inaudible...] at the U.S. Embassy in Haiti I saw American soldiers. I saw former soldiers who are linked to drug dealers like Guy Philippe and to killers already convicted, Chamblain. They all did the kidnapping using Haitian puppets like Guy Philippe, [inaudible], and Chamblain, already convicted, and basically, this night, I didn't see Haitians, I saw Americans.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you say that they kidnapped you from the country. Secretary of State Powell said that that is ridiculous. Donald Rumsfeld said that is nonsense. Your response?

PRESIDENT ARISTIDE: Well, I understand they try to justify what they cannot justify. Their own ambassador, ambassador Foley said we were going to talk to the media, to the press, and I can talk to the Haitian people calling for peace like I did one night before. And unfortunately, once they put me in their car, from my residence, a couple of days later, they put me in their planes full with military, because they already had all of the control of the Haitian airport in Port-au-Prince. And during the night, they surrounded my house, and the National Palace, and we had some of them in the streets. I don't know how many are -- were there. So it's clearly something they planned and they did. Now, if someone wants to justify what I think they cannot justify and that's -- my goal is to tell the truth. This is what now I'm telling you -- the truth.

AMY GOODMAN: President Aristide, did you resign the Presidency?

PRESIDENT ARISTIDE: No, I did not resign. I exchanged words through conversations, we exchanged notes. I gave a written note before I went to the press at the time. And instead of taking me where they said they were taking me in front of the Haitian press, the foreign press, to talk to the people, to explain what is going on, to call for peace. They used that note as a letter of resignation, and I say, they are lying.

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The Democracy Now! page has links to Real Audio streams and such of the interview as well as the transcript.

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The last paragraph of this quote nailed it for me.

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Aristide says he's still president of Haiti
By Daniel Balint-Kurti, Associated Press, 3/9/2004

BANGUI, Central African Republic -- Insisting he's still Haiti's president, a defiant Jean-Bertrand Aristide appeared in public for the first time in exile yesterday, calling on supporters to wage a peaceful resistance against rebels he derided as "drug dealers" and "terrorists."

Looking composed, Aristide also criticized the United States, reiterating allegations denied by Washington that America helped remove him from power by force.

"I am the democratically elected president and I remain so. I plead for the restoration of democracy" in Haiti, Aristide told reporters in Bangui, seated on an armchair next to his wife, Mildred, at the Foreign Ministry.

"We appeal for a peaceful resistance," he added.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Aristide resigned Feb. 29 and turned power over to his constitutional successor. "If Mr. Aristide really wants to serve his country, he really has to, we think, let his nation get on with the future and not try to stir up the past again," Boucher said.

Aristide spoke with reporters despite a pointed, public request by Foreign Minister Charles Wenezoui that he avoid talking about Haitian politics or unidentified "friendly countries."

The ousted leader has been in Bangui since March 1. As rebels advanced on the capital, Port-au-Prince, Aristide fled his homeland Feb. 29 on a flight arranged by the US government. He is housed in a presidential palace apartment.

Until the press conference yesterday, the Central African government had refused lawyers and journalists access to Aristide and his wife, saying that comments made directly and indirectly by Aristide to foreign media had created diplomatic problems.

---

Aristede's isolation was no rumor. And the couple hundred guys that are the "rebel army" had weapons that cost more than your average Haitian earns in a year. And when they appeared on TV, their cammy fatigues were all nicely pressed and starched.

In the comments here it's been said

The reality is that the Central African Republic's leaders must put the needs of their citizens before giving Aristide a platform for his propaganda, and that means preserving good relations with Washington no matter what party is in power. If Aristide can't appreciate the reality of how the world works, he ought to move on somewhere else that's quick to have him ASAP. The fact that Thabo Mbeki isn't so eager to take him in ought to tell you something about how Aristide is viewed in that part of the world.

But Mbeki had no choice. Understand that. If he didn't want Aristede taking asylum in C.A.R., why allow it?

Because he has to "[preserve] good relations with Washington no matter what party is in power." And, apparently, no matter what the party in power does. Who does this say more about, Aristede, Mbeki or the Bushistas?

Not Aristede. People who complain about his tactics forget the alternative. Aristede was the first to actually try to solve Haiti's domestic problems. And when you have a nation with no economic underpinning, where "the rule of law" means whatever those in power say it means today, change requires an iron hand inside the velvet glove. No one who supports what the USofA is doing in Iraq has any business complaining about Aristede's tactics.

Not Mbeki. As I said, what choice did he have? Although if he feels being a lackey prepares one for any other position, he's a fool.

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Zimbabwe seizes plane carrying suspected mercenaries
US says no sign of tie to aircraft, passengers
By Cris Chinaka, Reuters, 3/9/2004

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- Zimbabwe held a US-registered cargo plane yesterday that the government said was carrying suspected mercenaries and a cargo of military gear.

The United States said there were no indications of a US government connection to the plane, whose origin and destination remained a mystery.

The aging Boeing 727-100 aircraft was impounded Sunday evening at Harare International Airport "after its owners had made a false declaration of its cargo and crew," Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi said in a statement.

"The plane was actually carrying 64 suspected mercenaries of various nationalities," Mohadi said, adding an investigation had also found military materiel. Television pictures showed hardware such as satellite telephones and military knives.

Authorities said no formal charges had been made, and investigations were underway to establish the identities of passengers on the plane and the nature of their trip.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters: "We have no indication this aircraft is connected to the US government." A senior US official said the government wanted to complete its checks before definitively ruling out a connection.

The Pentagon also denied a connection to the aircraft. "It isn't one of our planes and not any of our people," said Pentagon spokesman Army Major Paul Swiergosz.

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ANC pressed on AIDS `holocaust'
Response an issue in S. African politics
By Andrew Quinn, Reuters, 3/9/2004

JOHANNESBURG -- South Africa's AIDS crisis grabbed the campaign spotlight yesterday as a powerful political challenger accused President Thabo Mbeki's African National Congress of standing idle as a "holocaust" engulfs the country.

South Africa's biggest AIDS pressure group, meanwhile, threatened to take the government to court before the April 14 elections unless it begins a promised public rollout of AIDS-fighting drugs.

Home Affairs Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi, whose Inkatha Freedom Party, or IFP, is the country's second-largest black-led political party, said Mbeki's AIDS policy had led to disaster.

"HIV/AIDS alone is an issue which demands and dictates a profound change in the leadership of our country," Buthelezi said in a Durban speech outlining the IFP's AIDS policy. "South Africa faces a holocaust, and its leaders are complacent."

South Africa has the world's largest HIV/AIDS caseload with an estimated 5.3 million of its 45 million people infected.

Activists estimate about 600 South Africans die of AIDS each day, and the number of children orphaned by AIDS is projected to reach some 2 million by 2010.

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Fresh take on so-called No Child Left Behind
News media see real education act flaws
WEA President Charles Hasse

Among public school supporters, deep apprehension preceded the Aug. 28 release of Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) scores, and the accompanying list of 436 schools in the state that did not meet new federal requirements for "Adequate Yearly Progress." While there was general agreement in the education community regarding flaws so considerable in the so-called "No Child Left Behind" Act (NCLB) as to render its list of under-performing schools meaningless, there was concern that sensational media reporting of the new federal rankings would alarm the public and touch off a fresh round of school bashing.

It turns out we were overwrought for naught. Reporters generally concentrated on the unworkable aspects of the federal rules, and their incompatibility with state performance measures. They focused on schools that have made extraordinary gains on state assessments -- such as Chinook Middle School in my district, Highline, up 14 points in math, 7 points in reading and 12 points in writing -- only to be singled out for possible punitive sanctions under the new federal scheme.

For their part, editorial writers mostly criticized NCLB, and praised our state's school improvement efforts. In a Seattle Times editorial, for example, the paper dismissed the news that 22 percent of state schools didn't meet AYP, pointing instead to big jumps in WASL and SAT scores, and suggesting that the real issue is "whether adequate resources are being devoted to education during state and federal budget crunches."

The Vancouver Columbian's conservative columnist Elizabeth Hovde observed, "While accountability is certainly good, No Child Left Behind is unaccountable to common sense." An editorial cartoon by Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Pulitzer prize-winning artist David Horsey portrayed NCLB itself in a corner wearing a dunce cap.

The censure of NCLB is part of a national trend. A St. Petersburg Times editorial was perhaps the pithiest of all. "Gov. Jeb Bush says that Gulfport Elementary School did so well academically last year it is due for a state bonus check of roughly $40,000. President George W. Bush says Gulfport Elementary School has performed so poorly that its parents must be allowed, less than a week before school begins, to pull their children out. …This is random reform at its worst, pushing and pulling school districts, rewarding and punishing schools based on a narrow appraisal of their work."

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Quote of note:

Fortunately, Robertson has resigned his judgeship and is no longer hearing cases. As of April 1, he’ll be toast. Still, it’s frightening to think that a man who had nearly unlimited power to affect peoples lives -- to bring the full weight of the law down on them -- is also a vile, ignorant, hateful bigot.

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Commentary: Jaded Va. Judge Put his Racism in Writing
Date: Tuesday, March 09, 2004
By: David Person

Virginia General District Judge Ralph B. Robertson is the new poster boy for bigotry. But it's not necessarily because of what he did while sitting on the bench. It's more for what he did off the bench.

According to a report in the Richmond Free Press, the jaded judge went into an Internet chat room and wrote: "African-Americans are prone to crime and violence because it is in their genes." To justify his bigotry, Robertson gave this explanation: "I am not a racist. I am a racialist. The difference being I don't discriminate against an individual, but I do recognize the fact that there are a lot of differences between races which I assume from a biological standpoint is caused by difference in DNA.

"If DNA controls everything else, why shouldn't it cause a difference in ability to learn or play sports or a proclivity for violence?"

Excuse me? Black folks are genetically prone to violence, but whites who enslaved blacks, exterminated American Indians, and routinely lynched black people -- including women and children -- and were so callous that they would picnic and take pictures aren't genetically prone to be violent?

What an idiot.

In case there was any doubt about the depth of his racism and the shallowness of his intellect, Robertson decided to top off his bigotry with old-fashioned name-calling. He also wrote that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a plagiarist, that the Rev. Jesse Jackson was "a thief, a liar and a traitor to his own people" and that the Civil Rights Movement is a "scam."

Right -- Dr. King's entire legacy of sacrifice and commitment, along with a Nobel Peace Prize and other honors, means nothing and should be reduced to allegations of plagiarism.

Sure -- the Rev. Jackson, a man who has consistently encouraged black people to better themselves and been a voice for voiceless people of all races, is nothing more than a Judas.

And of course -- slavery, segregation, lynching, redlining, job and housing discrimination and all other forms of racism addressed by the Civil Rights Movement are simply a figment of our imagination. The past 400 years never happened.

We made it all up.

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Ripped from today's headlines, as the like to say on TV.

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Quote of note:

For example, Ehrlich's plan would have given the independent panel authority to rip up union contracts with Baltimore teachers after July 1.

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Baltimore Rejects Aid For Schools From State
Council Passes Emergency $42 Million

By Lori Montgomery and Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 9, 2004; Page B08

Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley ended a brewing battle over control of the city's bankrupt public schools late yesterday, announcing that he would reject a state bailout offered by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and instead drain the city's rainy-day fund to pay the school system's bills.

At O'Malley's urging, the Baltimore City Council voted to approve an emergency loan of $42 million to the troubled school system, a move that eliminates the threat of a state takeover but that almost certainly will force the mayor and council to ask city residents to pay higher taxes, according to Baltimore lawmakers and other state officials.

Together with a $16 million loan from the private Abell Foundation, the cash will allow the school system to avert widespread layoffs and teacher pay cuts as it tries to recover from an estimated $58 million deficit discovered by a newly appointed administrator during the summer.

In the end, O'Malley and other Baltimore officials concluded that there were simply too many strings attached to the governor's offer.

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March 08, 2004

Assuming one committed a crime, given that no one can be compelled to incriminate themselves how can one be convicted of lying about it?

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'Return of the King' Comes to Video in May
By DAVID GERMAIN
The Associated Press
Monday, March 8, 2004; 12:32 AM

LOS ANGELES - The march to Middle-earth will be shorter this time for the home-video release of the final chapter in "The Lord of the Rings."

"The Return of the King" comes to DVD and VHS May 25, New Line Cinema announced Monday. That's about three months quicker than parts one and two of the fantasy trilogy, both of which hit video in late summer.

The announcement comes a week after "The Return of the King" bulldozed its way through the Academy Awards, earning a record-tying 11 Oscars, including best picture and director for Peter Jackson, and sweeping every category in which it was nominated.

The awards bring added prestige, but for a franchise whose theatrical receipts are pushing $3 billion, the Oscar attention was scarcely needed to boost sales.

"That is significant and valuable and adds to the imprimatur and pedigree of the trilogy, but the films have already achieved such high levels of acknowledgment and acceptance," said Stephen Einhorn, president of New Line Home Entertainment. "I do not think it materially affects the demand for the films."

New Line had held off until August for home-video releases of "The Fellowship of the Ring" and "The Two Towers" the last two years to feed into anticipation for the theatrical release of the next film in J.R.R. Tolkien's epic.

With the trilogy concluded, New Line decided to roll the conclusion out earlier on home video.

That's good news for fans anxious to finally stage marathon viewings at home of all three films in Jackson's monumental adaptation of Tolkien's tale, which follows the quest of a band of hobbits, humans, elves and other mythical allies to destroy a ring of ultimate evil and defeat a wicked tyrant.

New Line also plans an extended version of "The Return of the King" on home video around the holidays, similar to the longer cuts of the first two films. The three extended versions will push the saga's running time to more than 11 hours.

The initial DVD release of "The Return of the King" will include the 3-hour, 20-minute theatrical version, plus a range of behind-the-scenes material and trailers and TV spots for the trilogy.

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Support for Bush Slumps on Economy, Iraq

By Rich Morin and Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, March 8, 2004; 6:30 PM

…In a bit of good news for Bush, Nader is drawing essentially all of his support from Kerry, who leads Bush by nine percentage points in a two-way matchup with the president -- an indication Nader could play the spoiler for Democrats in 2004 as he did four years ago. Underscoring that potential, nearly two thirds of Democrats opposed Nader's decision to run, while half of all Republicans approve of his move.

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Which makes sense. He is the highest profile, non-anonymous (ex-)unemployed blogger. Anyway, congrats to him.

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Federal banking rules erode strong consumer safeguards
Mon Mar 8, 6:09 AM ET

In the late 1990s, North Carolina saw an upsurge in cases where banks tricked elderly homeowners into refinancing with high interest-rate loans carrying hidden fees. In response, the state enacted a law against such "predatory-lending" tactics.

Now the law is being undermined by an obscure federal agency. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), a branch of the Treasury Department (news - web sites) that regulates banks, ruled this winter that 14 state predatory-lending laws - and a host of other consumer-protection laws across the USA - do not apply to banks chartered by the federal government. Instead, the OCC says it will take over the job of protecting consumers who use some 2,100 banks regulated by Washington. These national institutions, including the largest banks in the USA, account for 55% of bank assets.

The new rules are meant to provide uniform oversight of an industry that has been transformed in recent decades from predominantly local operations to huge institutions with branches from coast to coast. But the change threatens strong consumer-protection laws that have been the responsibility of states for more than a century.

By broadening its authority over banks, the federal government leaves millions of customers vulnerable to the kinds of abuses found in North Carolina. That's because federal consumer laws are weaker than those in many states, and Washington is unable to enforce strict compliance.

The new federal regulations put consumers at risk because of:

Fewer legal rights. Under the OCC's rules, federal banks would be exempted from state false advertising statutes, do-not-call registries, predatory-lending laws and other consumer protections.

Fewer enforcement resources. The OCC's primary mission is to ensure a healthy banking industry. As a result, it cannot match the thousands of investigators working in state agencies to look out for consumer interests. The federal agency has 1,700 examiners who spend most of their time ensuring banks meet solvency and accounting requirements, and a 40-person consumer complaint center in Houston that is open just 28 hours a week.

States already are seeing the negative impact of Washington's new reach. New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer says banks routinely refuse to cooperate with state consumer-abuse investigations, citing OCC policies. Faced with complaints from states, the federal agency told banks this month not to brush off state authorities.

Treasury Secretary John Snow says federal regulation is needed to spare national banks from dealing with 50 different sets of rules. But state consumer laws don't interfere with federal banking regulations. And many of the state provisions apply to other financial industries with national operations, such as insurance and securities.

The federal government's anti-consumer actions are prompting needed resistance. Spitzer is challenging the OCC's authority in a lawsuit against a federally chartered bank in New York. And members of Congress are threatening to curb the Comptroller's powers if it doesn't alter course on its own.

Regulators in Washington may have the expertise to ensure that banks follow proper accounting procedures. But protecting the interests of bank customers is a job best left to the states. .

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After Haiti, Venezuela is wary of US interference
The US response in Haiti has divided Latin Americans over US policy - especially in politically torn Venezuela.
By Mike Ceaser | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

CARACAS, VENEZUELA - Whether Washington is a hero or hangman of democracy in Latin America may be a matter of political perspective.

Haitians watched last week as US agents whisked leftist President Jean-Bertrand Aristide off to the heart of Africa in what Mr. Aristide describes as a kidnapping. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez, another leftist who has antagonized Washington, has harshly accused the White House of backing coup-plotters against him. Critical of US action in Haiti, he warned the US on Friday to "get its hands off Venezuela."

The Caribbean Community, or CARICOM, an organization of mostly English-speaking nations, is calling for Aristide's departure to be investigated. More than a dozen Caribbean nations have refused to join any peacekeeping force there.

Washington has reformed from the days when it supported vicious Latin American dictatorships, but it has not embraced democracy unreservedly, says Robert Fatton, a Haitian-American professor of politics at the University of Virginia.

"There have been changes in support for democracy, but they have to be democracies that the US likes," he says.

Haitians and Venezuelans alike are divided over US actions. What Chávez and Aristide loyalists may consider American intrusion and coup-mongering is simply support for democracy in the eyes of many of their opponents, who have accused both presidents of ruling authoritatively and violating human rights.

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Quote of note:

Only someone ignorant of American history and of the administrations of the elder and younger George Bushes would dismiss these questions. The US has repeatedly sponsored coups and uprisings in Haiti and in neighboring Caribbean countries. The most recent previous episode in Haiti came in 1991, during the first Bush administration, when thugs on the CIA payroll were among the leaders of paramilitary groups that toppled Aristide after his 1990 election.

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Are those dirty US fingerprints on Aristide's ouster?
By Jeffrey D. Sachs

NEW YORK - If the circumstances weren't so calamitous, the US-orchestrated removal of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from Haiti would be farcical. According to Mr. Aristide, US officials in Port-au-Prince told him that rebels were on the way to the presidential residence and that he and his family were unlikely to survive unless they immediately boarded an American-chartered plane standing by to take them to exile. The US made it clear, he said, that it would provide no protection for him at the official residence, despite the ease with which this could have been arranged.

Indeed, says Aristide's lawyer, the US blocked reinforcement of Aristide's own security detail and refused him entry to the airplane until he signed a letter of resignation.

Then Aristide was denied access to a phone for nearly 24 hours and knew nothing of his destination until he was summarily deposited in the Central African Republic. But this Keystone Kops coup has apparently not worked entirely according to plan: Aristide used a cellphone to notify the world that he was forcibly removed from Haiti. The US dismisses Aristide's charges as ridiculous. Secretary of State Colin Powell's official version of the events is a blanket denial based on the government's word alone. In essence, Washington is telling us not to look back, only forward. This stonewalling brings to mind Groucho Marx's old line, "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?"

There are several tragedies in this surrealistic episode. The first is the apparent incapacity of the US to speak honestly about such matters as toppling governments. Instead, it brushes aside crucial questions: Did the US summarily deny military protection to Aristide? Did the US supply weapons to the rebels, who showed up in Haiti last month with sophisticated equipment that last year reportedly had been taken by the US military to the Dominican Republic, next door to Haiti? Why did the US abandon the call of European and Caribbean leaders for a political compromise, a compromise that Aristide had already accepted? Most important, did the US bankroll a coup in Haiti, a scenario that, based on the evidence, seems likely?

Only someone ignorant of American history and of the administrations of the elder and younger George Bushes would dismiss these questions. The US has repeatedly sponsored coups and uprisings in Haiti and in neighboring Caribbean countries. The most recent previous episode in Haiti came in 1991, during the first Bush administration, when thugs on the CIA payroll were among the leaders of paramilitary groups that toppled Aristide after his 1990 election.

Some of the players in the current round are familiar from the previous Bush administration. Also key is US Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega - a longtime Aristide-basher - widely thought to have been central to the departure of Aristide. He'll find it much harder to engineer the departure of gun-toting rebels.

In 1991, when Congressional Black Caucus members demanded an investigation into the US role in Aristide's overthrow, the first Bush administration laughed them off, just as the administration is doing today in facing new queries from caucus members.

Indeed, those questioning the administration about Haiti are being smeared as naive and unpatriotic. Aristide himself is being accused of dereliction in the failure to lift his country out of poverty. In point of fact, this administration froze all multilateral development assistance to Haiti from the day that George W. Bush came into office, squeezing Haiti's economy dry. US officials surely knew that the aid embargo would mean a crisis in the balance of payments, a rise in inflation, and a collapse of living standards, all of which fed the rebellion.

Another tragedy in this episode is the silence of the media when it comes to asking all the questions that need answers. Just as in the war on Iraq's phony WMD, wherein the mainstream media initially failed to ask questions about the administration's claims, major news organizations have refused to challenge the administration's accounts on Haiti. The media haven't had the gumption to find Aristide, or even to point out that he is being held incommunicado.

With a violence-prone US government operating with impunity in many parts of the world, only the public's perseverance in getting at the truth can save us, and others, from our own worst behavior.

• Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, is a former economic adviser to Latin American governments. This commentary originally appeared in The Los Angeles Times. ©2004 The Los Angeles Times.

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Black Market Nuke Trade
U.S. Knew of Pakistan Nuclear Dealings for at Least Seven Years
By Brian Ross
ABCNEWS.com
March 4— The United States had knowledge of a network of black market nuclear proliferation from Pakistan to countries accused of supporting terrorists for at least seven years before it was publicly exposed, ABCNEWS has learned.

What U.S., British and U.N. investigators found was that a company in Pakistan was prepared to sell everything needed to make a nuclear bomb — plans, equipment and fuel — for $50 million, with no questions asked about how it might be used.
The one-stop nuclear package was even advertised at a Pakistani arms show in 2000, where the company handed out brochures to visitors, including a reporter for Jane's Defense Weekly.

"[The company] gave out two very glossy brochures, inside of which they promised to provide all of the components needed for a uranium-enrichment facility," reporter Andrew Koch said.

Behind it all: the now-infamous Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, who confessed last month to selling nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya. Investigators say he made millions running the operation.

"I think that now we have to confront the reality that there's a nuclear black market, a Wal-Mart, in effect, of nuclear smuggling and it covers four continents, a dozen countries, lots of inventive behavior," said Graham Allison, director of Harvard University's Center for Science and International Affairs.

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I ask because there's a SERIOUS need for an analysis of The Miseducation of the Caucasian.

Quote of note:

Every student takes a course called "Foundations of Liberty," which teaches that democracy rests on biblical principles, traditional sex roles, limited government and private property rights.

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School Rules, From VH1 to Hand-Holding
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, Va., does more than train home-schooled students. College administrators say that it also provides evangelical Christian home-schooling parents with a campus culture uniquely suited to their values — where the core curriculum includes a semester of "biblical reasoning" and students are expected to graduate with their chastity intact. [P6: I wonder how they verify that last one?]

In its application form, the college does not ask prospective students their race, but the student body is nearly entirely white. One black student attended briefly but soon dropped out, several students said.

The college enforces a strict moral code. Drinking without parental supervision is forbidden. Students live in single-sex dormitories. Male students are required to wear their hair neatly and women must dress "modestly."

Campus televisions block MTV and VH1 because the college considers their programming to be racy, and students' computers come equipped with a software program called "Covenant Eyes" that monitors the Web sites they visit.

But the most popular rule among parents, administrators say, is also the most controversial among students: the "courtship policy."

Before spending much time alone with a female student, a male student must ask her father or guardian for permission to court. Even then, displays of affection on campus are limited to holding hands while walking. If a couple stop moving, they must step apart.

Jane Grisham, a senior from California, said that in her first month on campus, a male student called her father to ask permission to woo her. "My dad thought he was crazy," she said.

All in all, though, several students said they were pleased with the rules. "You are having fun, but you are careful to adhere to the principles that you have always been taught," said Christy Somerville, a sophomore, "so you know what fun is O.K. and what is not."

Every student takes a course called "Foundations of Liberty," which teaches that democracy rests on biblical principles, traditional sex roles, limited government and private property rights.

Aside from the issue of slavery, the course suggests, early America was nearly ideal. In a recent seminar on Tocqueville's depiction of the early Republic, for example, Prof. Robert D. Stacey quizzed the class: "Who is chiefly responsible for the raising of children? Mothers, right? Sounds like a certain home-schooling movement I know."

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President's Initiative to Shake Up Education Is Facing Protests
By SAM DILLON

Democratic legislators in Oklahoma were so unhappy with President Bush's No Child Left Behind school improvement law that they drafted a resolution calling on Congress to overhaul it. But at the last minute one of the state's most conservative Republicans, State Representative Bill Graves, stepped up with his own suggestion: Tell Congress to repeal it entirely.

The resolution passed, and Mr. Graves got a standing ovation.

"Some of my Republican colleagues grumbled because they don't like to see the Democrats jumping on President Bush," Mr. Graves said. "But I've always thought Bush was wrong to push that law."

There is little chance that Congress will amend, much less repeal, the law in an election year, experts said, but the unusual alliance in the Oklahoma Legislature reflected the widespread outcry that the president's signature education initiative has provoked. Like similar measures being debated in legislatures across the country, the Oklahoma resolution brought together liberal Democrats and states' rights Republicans, angry over what they see as a cumbersome federal intrusion on local schools.

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Sharpton's Next Role: Talk Radio? Reality TV?
By JIM RUTENBERG

WASHINGTON, March 7 - He may not have won many votes this primary season, but the Rev. Al Sharpton won credit from various quarters for often stealing the show at Democratic presidential debates, where his wit and sense of humor often made his opponents seem like, well, politicians.

Now, as he contemplates leaving the campaign trail, Mr. Sharpton, a onetime child preacher who went on to become a firebrand activist and presidential candidate, is talking about what he hopes will be his next incarnation: multimedia sensation.

While Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts is trying to ride his campaign momentum to the White House, Mr. Sharpton is trying to ride his into a career in television and radio, books and movies.

Mr. Sharpton, who retained the William Morris talent agency two weeks ago, said he wanted to be the host of his own cable news and radio programs, and his talent representatives said they were pursuing talks with all conceivable outlets.

But, perhaps unsurprisingly for a man who is running for president, Mr. Sharpton's media ambitions do not stop there. He has already had an informal discussion with Fox Television Studios about a possible reality television show, officials there said on Friday. And he recently met with Sid Ganis, the Hollywood producer who included Mr. Sharpton in the 2002 remake of "Mr. Deeds,'' to discuss future roles.

"For months they were saying to me from various parts of the media world that they wanted me to do a syndicated radio show, a syndicated TV show, and now these guys with a reality show,'' Mr. Sharpton said. "I said I wanted to wait for the end of the campaign. Now that we're halfway through, I told William Morris to go and complete some deals.''

Mr. Sharpton acknowledged that his attempts to become a media star could draw criticism that his presidential race was more about his own ambition than it was about his causes. But, he said, any such accusations would be unfair: his first priority was to use daily radio and television talk shows to further awareness of his civil rights causes in a media environment that he said is far richer in outspoken right-leaning hosts than it is in left-leaning ones.

"What the left has missed that the right understands is you need a mixture of policy and personality, because people tend to view and listen to people as well as to policy, and we have not developed the personalities,'' Mr. Sharpton said.

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A Plague for the Young Homeless

A startling study of children entering the New York City homeless shelter system in 1998 and 1999 found that half of them were asthmatic. An overwhelming percentage of the worst stricken were not receiving regular care. The rate of affliction seems to have remained constant since the study was completed, while the number of children in city shelters has nearly doubled to 16,000.

While New York's numbers are the highest documented, the chronic illness is on the rise in other cities. The New York study, published in the March issue of The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, underscores the vulnerability of urban populations that lack housing and access to primary health care. Low-income living environments are often the perfect hosts for lung-irritating particles, like dust, sooty air and the waste of household pests. Unhealthy nutrition is a co-conspirator.

New York has worked to reduce hospitalizations for asthmatic children in high-risk neighborhoods, but the special needs of children without the stability of a home have been harder to address. The illness — whose attacks can be triggered by a mere whiff of tobacco smoke or a passing feline — is harrowing for any victim, but most lethal to children without access to the medications that help them breathe normally again.

The only care these youngsters may get is in an emergency room, which does little to prevent future attacks and further strains an overwhelmed health system. Often ignored as unwanted burdens, young and homeless asthma patients have the added misfortune of being the canaries in the coal mine for this illness. Helping them breathe should be a priority on every urban agenda.

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Yang:

Functioning nations cannot be conjured into existence by foreign occupiers. They must be put together primarily from within. But in shattered societies like Afghanistan, Iraq and Haiti, no internal effort can get far without a substantial and sustained outside commitment.

Yin:

Haiti has been a failed state almost from its start 200 years ago. Its leaders have been authoritarian and corrupt, its economy impoverished and uncompetitive, and its people forced, in increasing numbers, to seek work and a decent life abroad.

Haiti was a nation formed by slaves that overthrew their "masters." Haiti was also surrounded by slaver states that had a vested interest in its failure from day one.

The Axis of Reconstruction

President Bush, who rejected using American troops for "nation building" in his first campaign, is doing far more of it than his recent predecessors. More than 100,000 troops are now enmeshed in two important and difficult exercises in repairing failed states — Afghanistan and Iraq. In Haiti, a smaller American military contingent faces similar challenges. The fate of these three efforts will not only affect Mr. Bush's re-election campaign, they will shape his presidential legacy.

While American military forces entered these countries for different reasons, in each they encountered a shattered society. Political and economic reconstruction became not just a moral, but a practical necessity. Without effective nation-building, American forces could leave these countries only to be summoned back.

None of these efforts are likely to succeed if they remain the responsibility of the American military alone. The lesson being driven home by Iraq — that international efforts work best and that defeating the enemy is not enough — apply everywhere. Progress ought to be measured against three benchmarks — securing stability, promoting democracy and resolving the underlying problems that prompted military intervention.

More than two years after American-led forces evicted the Taliban from Kabul, much of Afghanistan remains insecure. A relatively enlightened constitution has been adopted, but is not enforceable in most of the country where warlords rule. Women still face severe legal and social discrimination.

American troops went to Afghanistan to capture Osama bin Laden and oust the Taliban government that sheltered him. So far, Mr. bin Laden has not been captured and the Taliban has not been conclusively defeated. Even if both things are accomplished, that will not solve the problem. America took on the challenges of Afghanistan because the breakdown of governmental authority over nearly a quarter-century of civil war had opened the country to international terrorists. Until that authority is effectively re-established by a government that meets the needs and aspirations of Afghans of both genders, America's work will not be completed.

After nearly a year of American occupation, Iraq still suffers from pervasive insecurity, which has now spread from the Sunni heartland to predominantly Shiite and Kurdish areas. The United States Army has been pushed close to its long-term deployment limits by the occupation, with no early relief in sight. An interim Iraqi constitution has been drafted, but its signing was held up over the weekend by differences over the crucial question of how governmental power is to be apportioned among rival religious and ethnic groups. Iraqis are now optimistic this it can be signed today. Still, no satisfactory formula has yet been devised for creating the interim government due to assume power July 1.

The Bush administration's case for invading Iraq was based on a supposedly imminent threat from Iraqi unconventional weapons. No imminent threat was found. But Iraq's scientists clearly know how to make those weapons and if continued chaos leads to a new dictatorship, covert work might resume. That gives America a practical interest in developing stable democratic structures that can outlast American military occupation.

Haiti has been a failed state almost from its start 200 years ago. Its leaders have been authoritarian and corrupt, its economy impoverished and uncompetitive, and its people forced, in increasing numbers, to seek work and a decent life abroad. Previous American interventions failed to address these deeper problems adequately, leading to new crises and new interventions at increasingly shorter intervals. To end that depressing cycle, Washington must look beyond shuffling personalities at the top of Haiti's government to nurturing effective civic institutions and sustainable economic growth.

Functioning nations cannot be conjured into existence by foreign occupiers. They must be put together primarily from within. But in shattered societies like Afghanistan, Iraq and Haiti, no internal effort can get far without a substantial and sustained outside commitment.

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The Road to Gay Marriage

Published: March 7, 2004

…The controversy over same-sex weddings has obscured the remarkable transformation in opinion over civil unions. Less than 20 years ago, the United States Supreme Court enthusiastically upheld a Georgia law making gay sex a crime. Last year, the court reversed itself, and a national consensus seems to be forming that gay couples have a right to, at the least, enter into civil unions that carry the same rights as marriage. Even President Bush, who has endorsed a constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriage, has suggested he had no problem with states' recognizing civil unions.

Civil unions, with rights similar to marriage, are a major step, but ultimately only an interim one. As both sides in the debate agree, marriage is something more than a mere bundle of legal rights. Whatever else the state is handing out when it issues a marriage license, whatever approval or endorsement it is providing, will ultimately have to be made available to all Americans equally.

To the Virginia judge who ruled that Mildred Jeter, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, could not marry, the reason was self-evident. "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents," he wrote. "And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages." Calling marriage one of the "basic civil rights of man," the Supreme Court ruled in 1967 that Virginia had to let interracial couples marry. Thirty-seven years from now, the reasons for opposing gay marriage will no doubt feel just as archaic, and the right to enter into it will be just as widely accepted.

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India Takes Economic Spotlight, and Critics Are Unkind
By AMY WALDMAN

BOMBAY, March 2 — India has finally arrived on the global economic scene. Unfortunately, like a debutante suddenly told she is wearing the wrong dress, it is not exactly the triumph India imagined.

In recent weeks, the outsourcing of white-collar service jobs to places like this financial capital on the Arabian Sea has become the focus of the American presidential campaign, the brunt of jokes on late-night shows, the subject of angry Web sites, and the target of legislation in more than 20 states and Washington.

Long caricatured in many American minds as home only to snake charmers and poor people, India is now being caricatured as a nation of predatory brains set on stealing American jobs.

The strong reaction to the shifting of jobs is spawning frustration in India, a country the United States was cheering not so long ago as it began to open a largely socialist, closed economy and enter the global arena. It is also surfacing as a potential irritant in relations between the countries. Indians say they are doing exactly what the United States wanted, and bridle at the new criticism as a double standard.

"The U.S. is propagating capitalism — we don't really understand why they are so scared," said Ravi Shankar, 36, an employee of Tata Consultancy Services, India's largest technology services company. "If you're going to talk about competition, you should have no fear — may the best man win."

But now India's pride has become America's pain. Over the last decade, riding technology advances, India's engineers and English-speaking college graduates have been taking on more work — from credit-card complaints to software programming to research for American companies half a world away.

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College for the Home-Schooled Is Shaping Leaders for the Right
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

PURCELLVILLE, Va. — As one of 12 siblings taught at home by their parents in St. Croix Falls, Wis., Abram Olmstead knew he would fit right in at Patrick Henry College, the first college primarily for evangelical Christian home-schoolers. But what really sold him was the school's pipeline into conservative politics.

Of the nearly 100 interns working in the White House this semester, 7 are from the roughly 240 students enrolled in the four-year-old Patrick Henry College, in Purcellville. An eighth intern works for the president's re-election campaign. A former Patrick Henry intern now works on the paid staff of the president's top political adviser, Karl Rove. Over the last four years, 22 conservative members of Congress have employed one or more Patrick Henry interns in their offices or on their campaigns, according to the school's records.

…Patrick Henry College is the centerpiece of an effort to extend the home-schooling movement's influence beyond education to a broad range of conservative Christian issues like opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage and obscenity in the media. The legal defense association, located on the Patrick Henry campus, established the college as a forward base camp in the culture war, with the stated goal of training home-schooled Christian men and women "who will lead our nation and shape our culture with timeless biblical values."

"We are not home-schooling our kids just so they can read," Mr. Farris said. "The most common thing I hear is parents telling me they want their kids to be on the Supreme Court. And if we put enough kids in the farm system, some may get to the major leagues."

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For More Afghan Women, Immolation Is Escape
By CARLOTTA GALL

JALALABAD, Afghanistan — Waiflike, draped in a pale blue veil, Madina, 20, sits on her hospital bed, bandages covering the terrible, raw burns on her neck and chest. Her hands tremble. She picks nervously at the soles of her feet and confesses that three months earlier she set herself on fire with kerosene.

Beside her, on the next bed, her mother-in-law, Bibi Khanum, and her brother-in-law, Abdul Muhammad, 18, confirm her account but deny her reason, which Madina would explain only outside on a terrace, away from her husband's family. "All the time they beat me," she said. "They broke my arm. But what should I do? This was my home."

Accounts like Madina's are repeated across Afghanistan, doctors and human rights workers say. They are discovering more and more young women who have set themselves on fire, desperate to escape the cruelties of family life and harsh tribal traditions that show no sign of changing despite the end of Taliban rule and the dawn of democracy.

Doctors and nurses in Kabul and Jalalabad say they have seen more cases recently, partly because the population has been swollen by the return of two million refugees and because cases are being tracked for the first time by rights groups, hospitals and the government.

But the trauma and social upheaval of decades of war, poverty and illiteracy in Afghanistan have also intensified the traditional pressures on young women, they say.

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March 07, 2004

I've started my second major economics book. The Mystery of Capital, Why Capitalism Triumphs In The West And Fails Everywhere Else, by Hernando deSoto. The introduction lines up the points he intends to prove in the text, and they are points I agree with already. He's just going to show me where the documentation is.

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That was before I saw (via Technorati) a number P6 links by Ecosystem-registered blog go unnoticed or uncollected or whatever by the Ecosystem reports

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Fighting Your Workplace: Corporate Funding of Politicians (Politics)

By theboz
Sun Mar 7th, 2004 at 03:48:21 AM EST

When your company comes to you asking to give some of each paycheck to them so they can put it into a PAC (Political Action Committee) that translated to buying off politicians, what can you do? This especially counts when you work for a large company that has acted badly towards consumers in the past and don't want them to do this again.

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Illinois Senate Race Attracts 7 Candidates in Millionaire Range
By MONICA DAVEY

CHICAGO, March 5 — In a cramped radio studio on a recent morning, a handful of candidates for the United States Senate were heaping scorn on an absent opponent — one with higher poll ratings than theirs, and a lot more money.

"We're on the poverty level compared to him," Maria Pappas, a Democrat, complained. Another Democratic hopeful, Joyce Washington, said solemnly, "If we start believing that a megamillionaire can come in here and buy a seat, this is a sad day."

The man they were grumbling about, Blair Hull, is undeniably rich. A former securities trader who began his climb to wealth counting blackjack cards in Las Vegas, Mr. Hull has promised to spend as much as $40 million of his own money in this campaign, more than any Senate candidate in Illinois has ever done.

But while Mr. Hull's lavish spending made him an early Democratic front-runner, his are not the only deep pockets in this race, one of the most closely watched in the nation. Seven of the 15 candidates hoping to succeed Peter Fitzgerald, a millionaire who is not seeking a second term, fall in the millionaire range themselves. Four are Republicans and three are Democrats, including the two women who complained indignantly about Mr. Hull — Ms. Pappas and Ms. Washington.

Americans have grown used to seeing rich political novices seek office, but rarely has one race drawn so many. They include a dairy owner whose name is ubiquitous on milk bottles, an investment banker turned schoolteacher, a paper company executive and a doctor turned high-tech entrepreneur. Of the 10 Senate candidates across the country who had given the most money to their own campaigns by the start of this year, 5 were running in Illinois, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

"This is a race of the rich and of the really rich," said David Morrison, deputy director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, a nonpartisan group. Six years ago, critics griped that Mr. Fitzgerald, a Republican and a relative unknown, was trying to buy the seat with $13 million of his own money. "Some of the rich people in this one," Mr. Morrison said, "would make Senator Fitzgerald look like a piker."

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Gay couples from out-of-state may not be able to marry in Mass.
3/7/2004

BOSTON -- Hundreds of same-sex couples from out-of-state may not be able to get married in Massachusetts because of a 1913 law that has been little noticed until recently.

Town clerks have sought legal guidance from the attorney general and the governor on the law, but so far haven't received any, the Boston Sunday Globe reported.

The law forbids town clerks to issue marriage licenses "if such marriage would be void if contracted" in the couple's home state.

Thirty-eight states have so-called "Defense of Marriage" laws on the books that ban same-sex marriages. And no states officially sanction gay marriage, though individual officials in various states have decided recently to perform wedding ceremonies for same-sex couples.

"Even Vermont only has civil unions," said Linda Hutchenrider, president of the Massachusetts Town Clerks' Association and the town clerk of Barnstable. "As the law is written now, anyone outside the jurisdiction who cannot be married legally there can't be married here. That might be all 50 states."

The clerks' association asked Attorney General Thomas Reilly on Feb. 24 for a legal opinion on the law, but a lawyer in Reilly's office responded that the association wasn't in a position to ask for a formal legal opinion.

Only state officials, district attorneys and the Legislature can ask for such opinions, the lawyer wrote.

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Romney's scholarship plan favors richer school districts
Suburban whites would largely be tuition winners
By Anand Vaishnav and
Bill Dedman, Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent, 3/7/2004

A scholarship proposal that Governor Mitt Romney is touting to help working-class families would give the edge to richer school districts, a Globe analysis shows.

Romney's Adams Scholarship program, which he announced during his State of the State address in January, would award free public college tuition to the top quarter of MCAS scorers. Because the scholarship selection would rest solely on test scores and because wealthier students tend to score higher, the students most likely to qualify would need the help the least.

The districts with the largest share of winners under Romney's proposal are overwhelmingly affluent, suburban, and white, according to the Globe's review of MCAS scores for this year's junior class.

Christy Zweig, a junior at Dover-Sherborn Regional High School, would be a shoo-in for the scholarship. But Zweig, who attends school in one of the state's wealthiest school districts, is not even considering attending a Massachusetts public university. At Dover-Sherborn, where the median family income is $148,000, two out of three juniors would qualify.

Meanwhile, Ihab Rashad, who works three days a week to save money for a public college, would have no chance of winning one of the scholarships. Rashad, a 16-year-old junior from Lawrence, scored near the top of his class on the MCAS test, but not high enough to make the cut. At Lawrence High, where median family income is $32,000, only 3 percent of students in the junior class would qualify for the scholarships.

Every school district in the state and its percentage of students qualifying under Romney's plan is listed at www.boston.com/mcas. In other states, similar scholarship plans reach more income levels by including grades and other factors or by rewarding top scorers in each school. By contrast, Romney said his plan would encourage students to work harder because he has established a statewide competition based on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System exams.

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Before fall of Aristide, Haiti hit by aid cutoff
By Farah Stockman
and Susan Milligan, Globe Staff, 3/7/2004

WASHINGTON -- For three years, the US government, the European Union, and international banks have blocked $500 million in aid to Haiti's government, ravaging the economy of a nation already twice as poor as any in the Western Hemisphere.

The cutoff, intended to pressure the government to adopt political reforms, left Haiti struggling to meet even basic needs and weakened the authority of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who went into exile one week ago.

Today, Haiti's government, which serves 8 million people, has an annual budget of about $300 million -- less than that of Cambridge, a city of just over 100,000. And as Haitians attempt to form a new government, many say its success will largely depend on how much and how soon aid will flow to the country.

Some banking officials said loans could resume in a matter of weeks, but others familiar with the process say it could take years.

"It is important to understand that we need help because we are the poorest country in the hemisphere," said Claude Roumain, a key opposition leader who has called for a special international fund to rebuild Haiti and an audit of the central government. "The main concern is where we stand now. To know exactly and to tell the truth to the people."

Many of Aristide's supporters, in Haiti and abroad, angrily contend that the international community, particularly the United States, abandoned the fledgling democracy when it needed aid the most. Many believe that Aristide himself was the target of the de facto economic sanctions, just as Haiti was beginning to put its finances back in order. "This is a case where the United States turned off the tap," said Jeffrey Sachs, an economist at Columbia University. "I believe they did that deliberately to bring down Aristide."

Many Haitians agree. "They left Aristide alone, on his own, and that's how we got into this predicament," Frankie Charles, 36, said last week as he wandered outside the National Palace now occupied by US Marines. "I know they didn't like him. But they could have let him stay and finish his five-year term."

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Another Judge Rules Against Bush Admin. in Abortion Records Case
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
March 7, 2004

San Francisco, CA (LifeNews.com) -- A second judge has ruled against the Justice Department's effort to obtain patient records from those abortion advocates who have sued to overturn the ban on partial-birth abortions, signed into law last year by President Bush.

The government is hoping to obtain the records to aid in its defense of the law by showing that partial-birth abortions are never medically necessary to protect a woman's health.

U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton became the second judge to deny the request when she ruled on Friday that "women would not want to share" their personal information.

The Justice Department has said it would accept redacted records striking such personal information as names, contact information and social security numbers.

Justice Department spokeswoman Monica Goodling said the Bush administration was disappointed in the ruling. "We took every care to protect patient privacy," she said.

Hamilton's ruling is at odds with U.S. District Judge Richard Conway Casey, who has said he tentatively agrees with the Bush administration and may be inclined to let the law take effect unless the hospitals in that case produce the abortion records in a timely manner.

Both Hamilton, Casey and a federal judge in Nebraska will hold hearings on March 29 on three separate lawsuits abortion practitioners filed against the pro-life law.

The federal government had sought abortion records from a group of Planned Parenthood abortion businesses in six locations, including affiliates in Los Angeles, San Diego, New York, Washington, Kansas City and Pittsburgh.

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via Atrios (who seems to have no intention of setting up a proper syndication feed):

He molests the dead
Jimmy Breslin
March 6, 2004

In his first campaign commercial, George Bush reached down and molested the dead.

But this only in keeping with both Bushes. George Bush, Sr., had the badge of officer Eddie Byrne, who was gunned down in South Jamaica, and he stood up at Christ the King High School in Middle Village and held it up and said he would have this badge on him forever. Some chance. Bush then led high school girls into insane cheers for the death penalty.

Now, right off, this second George Bush came up with the badge of a Port Authority cop, George Howard, who died. He was from Hicksville. His mother gave Bush the son's badge. When Bush came back to the trade center a year later, he reached into his pocket and whipped out that badge and he had a tear in his eye. What makes it worse is that this George W. Bush acts like he's entitled to treat the remains of a dead man like a souvenir. Now he shows a commercial with dead bodies, or body parts, covered with an American flag being taken through the smoke and flames of the world trade center attack. It caused people who had lost family members in the attack to complain about using the dead or parts thereof being used for a politician's gain.

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…from whence the directions to the quiz came.

Which Colossal Death Robot Are You?

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They managed to give out a set of Image Awards that didn't make them look like basket cases.

Winners of the 35th annual NAACP Image Awards:

The Associated Press
3/7/04 2:53 AM

A complete list of winners of the 35th annual NAACP Image Awards.

Television Categories:

Outstanding comedy series: "The Bernie Mac Show," Fox.

Outstanding actor in a comedy series: Bernie Mac, "The Bernie Mac Show."

Outstanding actress in a comedy series: Mo'Nique, "The Parkers," UPN.

Outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series: Dorien Wilson, "The Parkers."

Outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series: Camille Winbush, "The Bernie Mac Show."

Outstanding drama series: "Soul Food," Showtime.

Outstanding actor in a drama series: Steve Harris, "The Practice," ABC.

Outstanding actress in a drama series: Nia Long, "Third Watch," NBC.

Outstanding supporting actor in a drama series: Mekhi Phifer, "ER," NBC.

Outstanding supporting actress in a drama series: Loretta Devine, "Boston Public," Fox.

Outstanding TV movie, miniseries or dramatic special: "D.C. Sniper: 23 Days of Fear." USA Network.

Outstanding actor in a TV movie, miniseries or dramatic special: Charles S. Dutton, "D.C. Sniper: 23 Days of Fear."

Outstanding actress in a TV movie, miniseries or dramatic special: Whoopi Goldberg, "Good Fences," Showtime.

Outstanding actor in a daytime drama series: Kristoff St. John, "The Young and the Restless," CBS.

Outstanding actress in a daytime drama series: Victoria Rowell, "The Young and the Restless," CBS.

Outstanding TV news, talk or information, series or special: "Judge Mathis," syndicated.

Outstanding variety series or special: "2003 Essence Awards," Fox.

Outstanding Performance in a Youth Children's Program: Raven, "That's So Raven," Disney Channel.

Motion Picture Categories:

Outstanding motion picture: "The Fighting Temptations," produced by MTV/Paramount.

Outstanding actor in a motion picture: Cuba Gooding Jr., "Radio," produced by Sony/Columbia.

Outstanding actress in a motion picture: Queen Latifah, `Bringing Down the House," Buena Vista Pictures.

Outstanding supporting actor in a motion picture: Morgan Freeman, "Bruce Almighty," Universal.

Outstanding supporting actress in a motion picture: Alfre Woodard, "Radio."

Literature Categories:

Outstanding literary work, fiction: "Love," by Toni Morrison, Knopf.

Outstanding literary work, nonfiction: "Why I Love Black Women," Michael Eric Dyson, Basic Civitas Books.

Outstanding literary work, children's: "My Brother Martin: A Sister Remembers Growing Up With the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.," by Christine King Farris, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.

Music Categories:

Outstanding new artist: Ruben Studdard, "Soulful," J Records/BMG.

Outstanding male artist: Luther Vandross, J Records/BMG.

Outstanding female artist: Alicia Keys, J Records/BMG.

Outstanding duo or group: OutKast, Arista.

Outstanding jazz artist: Ramsey Lewis, "Simple Pleasures," Narada Jazz/EMI.

Outstanding gospel artist, traditional or contemporary: Donnie McClurkin, "Donnie McClurkin ... Again," Verity Records.

Outstanding music video: Luther Vandross, "Dance With My Father," directed by Diane Martel.

Outstanding song: Luther Vandross, "Dance With My Father," J Records/BMG.

Outstanding album: Luther Vandross, "Dance With My Father, J Records/BMG.

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Canton woman wins Web free speech case
She used a nursery's name for site warning potential customers
March 6, 2004

BY JEFF BENNETT
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

Anyone who has thought about developing a Web site to gripe about a company owes Michelle Grosse some thanks.

The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled Friday that the Canton woman did not violate the law when she used the name of Lucas Nursery and Landscaping Inc. for a Web site she created to complain about the Canton nursery.

Paul Levy, staff attorney with the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said the ruling bolsters the fight by consumer groups to stop corporations from snuffing out free speech on the Internet.

"This is a very important case," said Levy. "This is a mainstream circuit court that said using the Internet and the name of the company to criticize a company is perfectly legitimate."

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Creeping censorship?
Sunday, March 7, 2004
©2004 San Francisco Chronicle

UNLIKE THE totalitarian regimes condemned by the United States, ours is a nation where we never have to fear government censorship.

Right? Or has something changed?

To the shock of publishers, editors and translators, the Treasury Department recently issued regulations that prohibit editing manuscripts that come from Iran -- and perhaps other countries, including Cuba, Libya, North Korea, with whom trade is banned without a government license.

The new regulations require editors to publish only "camera-ready copies of manuscripts" and warn that they may face serious legal consequences if they insert illustrations, correct grammar, replace inappropriate words or rearrange paragraphs or sentences. If publishers violate these regulations, they could be charged with "trading with the enemy," and receive a fine of $500,000 and a 10-year prison sentence.

The publishing industry has rightly condemned these regulations as an imposition of censorship. Eric Swanson, a senior vice president at John Wiley & Sons, said that it is "against the principles of scholarship and freedom of expression, as well as the interests of science, to require publishers to get U.S. government permission to publish the works of scholars and researchers who happen to live in countries with oppressive regimes."

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In light of this

It's dinner time. Do you know how much food you're eating?

Probably not.

That's because we are a nation of portion distortion. For the last 30 years, the amount of food designed to be eaten at one sitting has ballooned to such an extent that most diners no longer have any idea what constitutes a reasonable amount of food.

A single 20-ounce bottle of soda is actually 2 1/2 servings. Muffins are the size of small cakes. A large order of french fries? That's a third of the calories you should eat in a day.

Most Americans wouldn't know a sensible portion of pie if it hit them in the face.

perhaps I shouldn't be so sanguine. But just because YOU got no discipline…

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Controversy could crumble sales of Girl Scout cookies
Kim Severson, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, March 6, 2004
©2004 San Francisco Chronicle

It's a tough year to be a Girl Scout.

As girls fan out across the Bay Area to sell what probably will be 2 million boxes of cookies, the sweet icon of American entrepreneurial spirit finds itself dunked in some of the nation's hottest topics -- abortion, obesity and labor relations.

And if that isn't bad enough, the low-carb craze could torpedo the century-old American tradition.

The first blow came from an anti-abortion group in Waco, Texas, that staged a Girl Scout cookie boycott last month. At issue was a summer sex- education conference for girls sponsored by Planned Parenthood and endorsed by the local Girl Scout council.

For boycott leaders, the final straw came when the local chapter named a Planned Parenthood executive as a Girl Scout "Woman of Distinction," said John Pisciotta, co-director of Pro-Life Waco and an economics professor at Baylor University.

Anti-abortion cookie lovers can breathe easier, however. Pisciotta, who aired his case on NBC's "Today Show'' on Friday, said that the Bluebonnet Council of Girl Scouts, which oversees troops in the Waco area and 13 other counties, has agreed to sever ties with Planned Parenthood.

That means the boycott is off. Pisciotta is even going to buy some of his favorite Girl Scout cookies, the top-selling Thin Mints.

Nutritionists who are trying to help the nation trim calories and avoid dangerous trans fat might not be as pleased. The Girl Scouts' national office has received complaints because the cookies are made with plenty of partially hydrogenated vegetable oil -- think Crisco or margarine -- which the Food and Drug Administration and the nation's top medical researchers agree is the most dangerous fat in the human diet.

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Something just set me off, is all.

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Chicago City Council To Investigate Fire Department
Alderman Receives Angry Voice Mail

CHICAGO -- A City Council committee has scheduled a hearing Wednesday afternoon over growing fears of racism in the Chicago Fire Department, NBC5 reported.

Chicago Fire Department officials said a racial slur had been broadcast over a department radio frequency on Monday. It's the third time in less than a month.

Fire Chief Patrick Howe said on Monday that several department officials heard several racial epithets in a six-second span.

Fire Commissioner James Joyce said this slur is likely to be a prank. He said this was an intentional act by someone, which, in his opinion, is very serious. He said there will be disciplinary action if it does turn out to be a firefighter saying those slurs on the department radio.

"I'm offended at this, in that we already know what happened two weeks ago," Joyce said. "We know how stringent the discipline was. We know that we socked the individuals that were involved the first time. And this appears to me -- just by the listening and the tone -- that this is somebody thumbing their nose at the fire administration over the heavy discipline."

A firefighter received a 90-day suspension in the first incident, after he accidentally broadcast a slur directed toward a black motorist on Feb. 2. Fire Commissioner James Joyce called the remarks "reprehensible and unacceptable." His supervisor received a 30-day suspension, NBC5 reported.

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Resignation accepted for JP taped using racial slur
By The Associated Press

(3/03/04 - PEARLAND, TX) — A state commission said Wednesday it has officially accepted the resignation of a Brazoria County justice of the peace who was videotaped using racial slurs and profanity while arraigning inmates.

Under an agreement, the State Commission on Judicial Conduct decided to no longer pursue disciplinary action against Matt Zepeda in exchange for his resignation and a promise that he never again serve as a judge in the state.

Under the agreement, Zepeda doesn't admit guilt, fault or liability regarding the accusations against him.

The commission had been investigating Zepeda since a videotape surfaced in October 2002 showing the judge cursing one inmate and using a racial slur toward another at the Pearland jail.

Last month after reviewing the case, the commission voted to have the Texas Supreme Court appoint a review tribunal to remove Zepeda from office and issue an order prohibiting him from holding any judicial office in the future.

Zepeda had been suspended without pay since December 2002.

A month before, about 50 protesters, including some representing the New Black Panther Party, rallied outside Zepeda's Pearland home to demand his resignation. Some residents sided with Zepeda, maintaining he was a "good guy" who made a mistake.

Zepeda, who had been in office since January 1999, was re-elected in November 2002 after running unopposed.

(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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Tourney Director Uses Racial Slur

MACON, Ga. (AP) -- The director of Georgia's high school basketball tournament says he doesn't consider a racial epithet he used at a playoff game to be offensive.

John Goldston, the longtime director of the Georgia High School Association Tournament, used the epithet Thursday while speaking to a group of men at a check-in table on the basketball court of the Macon Coliseum. A reporter for the Macon Telegraph covering the state playoff game heard Goldston use the word while referring to the number of black residents in Macon.

One of the men to whom Goldston was speaking corrected him by saying, "African-American," but Goldston repeated the epithet.

The reporter asked him if his comments were inappropriate, to which the 81-year-old responded, "Probably, yes."

"It's just a word to me. I don't mean anything derogatory by it," Goldston said.

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Veteran Cop Off Force After Allegedly Making Racial Slur
Conneaut Officer On Force Since 1988

UPDATED: 2:04 PM EST March 2, 2004
CONNEAUT, Ohio -- A veteran police officer accused of referring to a 12-year-old girl using a racial slur is off the force.

Conneaut patrolman Henry Hayes allegedly used a six-letter racial epithet in January while answering a complaint involving the biracial girl and her friends, NewsChannel5 reported.

Sharon Brooks said Hayes, who has been on the force since 1988, allegedly made the remark to Brooks' daughter.

Brooks said that four other children have corroborated with her daughter's story.

Hayes' personnel file includes several other complaints about his public demeanor.

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Gay marriage isn't civil rights

By Jeff Jacoby, 3/7/2004

HOMOSEXUAL marriage is not a civil rights issue. But that hasn't stopped the advocates of same-sex marriage from draping themselves in the glory of the civil rights movement -- and smearing the defenders of traditional marriage as the moral equal of segregationists.

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If we frighten North Korea enough they will nuke California, which will help Bush and the Republicans by:

1. Reestablishing Bush's credentials as a "war president"
2. Getting rid of Barbara Boxer
3. Insuring California's electoral votes don't go to the Democratic party
4. Providing new ruins for their campaign ads
5. Strengthening his appeal to the Chickenhawk wing…excuse me, the Thunderchicken wing of the Republican party

Ill advised on Korea

3/7/2004

PRESIDENT BUSH, misled by Vice President Cheney and other hard-liners, instructed the US delegation at the recent six-nation Beijing talks on North Korea's nuclear program to say he was losing patience with the diplomatic effort to persuade Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear capability. This was a serious blunder.

Bush's message was delivered on the third and last day of the talks -- just as host China was trying to shepherd North Korea, the Americans, South Korea, Russia, and Japan into agreeing on a final communique. The statement the six participants had been drafting was intended to stipulate the steps they would take to resolve the crisis.

There were to be three phases. The first would be an agreement in principle under which North Korea would state its willingness to dismantle its nuclear program and the United States would state its willingness to provide security guarantees to the North. In a second phase, North Korea would freeze its nuclear activities and accept inspectors to verify the freeze. This would be a down payment on an explicit commitment to proceed to the dismantling of the North's entire nuclear program.

Once the freeze was verified, South Korea would provide energy aid, which Pyongyang defined as direct delivery of electricity. In a final phase, the complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantling of North Korea's nuclear facilities would take place in coordination with a written security guarantee from Washington and the resolution of all other issues.

Bush's directive expressing a loss of patience came after Chinese diplomats had said they wished to include in the diplomatic communique mention of North Korea's demand that as a quid pro quo for its cooperation, America's hostile policy toward Pyongyang would be ended. Since Secretary of State Colin Powell and Bush himself have already said the United States has no intention of attacking North Korea and would be willing eventually to establish diplomatic relations with the North, Bush's ill-timed instructions were a gratuitous sabotaging of the talks.

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U.S. Military Inquiry Into Deaths of 4 Iraqis Is Inconclusive
American troops are suspected in the machine-gun attack that killed a taxi driver and three passengers, but no culprit has been found.
From Times Staff and Wire Services

March 7, 2004

TIKRIT, Iraq — The U.S. military has closed an investigation into the January killings of four Iraqis whose deaths were blamed on American troops, saying it couldn't find the culprits, the Army said today.

No one claimed responsibility for the Jan. 3 deaths of the Iraqis — a taxi driver and three passengers, including a woman and a 7-year-old boy — who were killed by heavy machine-gun fire as their cab traveled near Tikrit. The sole survivor, another passenger, blamed American troops.

The Army did conclude that someone affiliated with the U.S.-led coalition probably shot at the taxi. The bullets appear to have come from a mounted .50-caliber machine gun of the type used by U.S. forces, said Maj. Josslyn Aberle, a spokeswoman for the Tikrit-based 4th Infantry Division, which investigated the incident.

"It's an unsolved case. We could not get enough information to determine if it was a military unit that did it," Aberle said today. She said either the military or a private security firm could have been responsible.

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Waving Yellow Flag on 'Green' Hybrid Vehicles
Consumer advocates say the gas-electric cars help less in the pocketbook than their high mileage ratings might imply.

…But consumer advocates say the marketing glosses over a few things, including the true operating cost of the cars, despite their fabled fuel economy. "If you're looking at this purely as a pocketbook decision, the hybrid won't work," says Gabriel Shenhar, senior auto test engineer for Consumer Reports magazine, although he has no quarrel with the hybrids' environmental credentials.

The three main reasons:

• Although the Prius and Honda's Civic and Insight hybrids do get terrific gas mileage, in real-world use they rarely match the extraordinary fuel economy the Environmental Protection Agency gets on its test circuit. [[P6: false point - NO car get real-world mileage that equals the EPA estimates]

• The federal government is gradually rolling back the tax deduction hybrid buyers can claim — it was $2,000 last year but $1,500 this year. Unless Congress renews it, the deduction will keep declining until it disappears in 2007. [P6: fair to consider, but actually supports the lower cost claim]

• Analysts at Internet car shopping and information service Edmunds.com say the technology that makes hybrids appealing is improving so quickly that today's vehicles are likely to depreciate faster than conventional cars as new hybrids arrive.

Edmunds' "true-cost-to-own" formula shows that because of depreciation, a Prius or Civic Hybrid probably would cost $1,000 more over a five-year period than a comparable Corolla or conventional Civic. [P6: depreciation is like opportunity costs—something you copnsider but not something you pay]

What's more, the life span of the hybrids' expensive high- voltage battery packs is an issue that occasionally raises concerns. California and five other states require hybrids to be covered by a manufacturer's warranty for 10 years or 150,000 miles. [P6: this is a problem for…who?]

Spokesmen for Toyota and Honda say they have not yet had a claim for replacement of the massive battery packs — which are as wide as the cars themselves and carry a list price of about $3,000. The price is expected to decline as battery technology improves. Toyota engineers have talked about $1,000 replacement costs a few years from now.

"We expect the batteries to outlive the warranties," says Gunnar Lindstrom, head of marketing for alternative-fuel vehicles at American Honda Motor Co. in Torrance.

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Bitter Budget Medicine

By David S. Broder

Sunday, March 7, 2004; Page B07

The debate on the federal budget this year is taking place in an atmosphere far different from that of the earlier years of the Bush administration. It's almost as if the fiscal binge is over and legislators -- especially Republicans -- have sobered up.

In the first year after George W. Bush's election, amid the euphoria of promised budget surpluses as far as the eye could see, nothing mattered much to congressional Republicans but handing out whopping tax cuts to their constituents.

In 2002 and 2003, under the shock of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq, along with a poky economy, the case for spending "whatever it takes" drove every other consideration from their minds.

It is only now, in year four, with another presidential election looming and the stark reality of a record deficit staring them in the face, that the members of the president's party are acting as if they have recognized the hole the country is in.

… Even more striking were the words -- and demeanor -- of Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, the senior Republican on the Budget Committee for almost 22 years and its former chairman. In earlier Bush years, it was a matter of surprise and even dismay to budget hawks that Domenici countenanced and defended big tax cuts in the face of rising deficits.

Now clearly concerned, Domenici said that he believed the nation can work its way out of this jam -- but only if Congress again applies the enforceable budget limits that worked well in the 1990s. And specifically, he indicated his readiness to support "pay as you go" rules for future tax cuts, as well as spending proposals. That would mean that any tax breaks not on the books would have to be matched either by spending cuts or alternative revenue-raisers.

Bush, in his budget, would impose "pay as you go" rules on spending but not on tax cuts, tilting the table in the direction of his favorite pastime, reducing the taxes his patrons have to pay.

But the only way out of this jam -- the only way to prepare for the staggering retirement and health care costs of the soon-to-retire baby boomers -- is if tax cuts and spending are both brought back into line.

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Power Shift In Haiti Puts Rights at Risk

By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 7, 2004; Page A01

…By many measures, Aristide failed to fulfill the democratic promise of his 1990 election, which ended nearly two centuries of military-backed government in Haiti. The former Roman Catholic priest, who helped topple the Duvalier family dictatorship in 1986, practiced a winner-take-all politics by packing all levels of government with his partisans and employing armed gangs to intimidate political opponents.

Within his imperfect democracy, however, sprouted the beginnings of a government that was more responsive to Haiti's poor and willing for the first time to take on difficult human rights prosecutions -- at least against its enemies. Now those tentative openings may disappear as the political power shifts back from Aristide's mostly poor followers to a group of former military officers, traditionally the enforcement arm of Haiti's economic elite, who have reentered politics at the head of a rebel army.

Literacy programs, laws to raise living standards for the vast majority of Haitians who live in poverty, and judicial reforms that brought seminal prosecutions of military and paramilitary figures for past crimes are suddenly at risk. So, too, is Haiti's weak democracy as an appointed government struggles to guide the country until its next elections.

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