May 22, 2004

This is what I get for reading dead tree newspapers.

Check this, from the NY Daily News

Slay at Shaq's He's out of town, cleaning woman's killed

By CORKY SIEMASZKO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

A housekeeper cleaning Shaquille O'Neal's palatial Houston-area home was fatally stabbed yesterday and police arrested the worker's teenage son.

The Los Angeles Lakers star was in Minnesota preparing for a playoff game against the Timberwolves when Tristan Williams, 18, allegedly plunged a steak knife into his mother.

Shaq does not live in the sprawling Sugar Land, Tex., house. His former flame, Arnetta Yardbourgh, lives there with his oldest daughter. The mom witnessed the killing.

Why is this national news? Why is it being connected to Shaq?

Shaq, 32, who was born in Newark but spent his teenage years in San Antonio, Tex., is listed in property records as the owner of the home. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Shaunie, and their three kids.

The Texas house features a semi-circular driveway, soaring ceilings, extra-large rooms, and custom bathrooms to accommodate the hulking NBA star, a neighbor said.

O'Neal, who has led the Lakers to three titles, married Shaunie last summer. Shaq and Arnetta, his high school sweetheart, were an item until 2000 but didn't live together.

Shaq's teammate, Kobe Bryant, has been battling rape charges as the Lakers make another title drive.

And what does ANY of THAT have to do with the story?

You know, when I was a kid I used to wonder how exactly the right amount of things happened to fill an even number of newsprint pages every day. Then I found out they'd pick and choose stories. Later I discovered they reran some as filler, and occasionally duplicated the filler stories in a single issue. Now I've concluded that they simply surround all the ads they sell with text. This is the biggest advantage of online news delivery. Eventually they'll figure out the filler isn't necessary anymore…at least the kind of filler in that last quote.

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It's programming day, and test various server-side systems day. I had a breakthrough figuring out this word processing library I'm using for the next release of MTClient. Version 1.60 is going to be impressive, and 2.0 more so. I'll upgrade the support site to MT3 within the next few days. On the server side I'll be testing pMachine's ExpressionEngine and deciding on an osCommerce variant; probably oscnukelite.

So no politics, sociology or anything else likely to bring me near the keyboard today. The Sunday talk shows always bring out the worst in me, so I'll probably be posting tomorrow.

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May 21, 2004

The host says mt-xmlrpc.cgi is a cpu hog. Maybe it's just because I use it so much, I don't know.

This will take some thought and investigation.

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via Josh Marshal

Barack Obama is the Democratic candidate for the open seat and his opponent is Republican Jack Ryan. For the last ten days, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, Ryan has had a campaign staffer, Justin Warfel, follow Obama with a video camera all day.

And I mean, all day.

Not only does he record Obama's public appearances, he tails Obama in his car; he follows him into restrooms; he stays a couple feet behind him when he's walking in public; he waits outside his office and pesters his secretary. And he heckles Obama at public appearances.

The Chicago Sun-Times asked Ryan's campaign manager if this was appropriate ...

But Jason Miller, Ryan's campaign manager, insisted Obama's public movements are fair game and the point is to make sure Obama doesn't contradict himself with his public statements.

"If he's having a phone conversation, then Justin is not trying to tap into the conversation or record what he is saying or something like that," Miller said. "He's monitoring because you never know when ... a reporter comes up and starts asking questions."

The State's Republican Senate Minority Leader disagreed. "I don't care if you're in public life or who you are," Frank Watson (R-Greenville) told the Sun-Times. "You deserve your space, your privacy. I don't think it's appropriate."

Someone should see if this can be dealt with as stalking. I mean, suppose this cameraman followed Jodi Foster into the bathroom? And since the staffer is acting at the Ryan's direction, he should be culpable as well.

Now if it were me, I'd mention it in my next speech and promise to kick the shit out of anyone that follows me into the bathroom. Now do so, and I'll prove I keep my campaign promises.

But I guess that would make him a fiery leader who pounds his fists. Damn shame. Not to mention a major reason I'd never run for office.

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Give DeLay his way and they'll use AFDC funds to set up new military bases in Libya.

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DeLay Seeks Child Welfare Power for Bush
By SUZANNE GAMBOA
Associated Press Writer

May 20, 2004, 5:37 PM EDT

WASHINGTON -- House Majority Leader Tom DeLay told House colleagues Thursday that abused and neglected children "are dying and it's our fault" because programs designed to protect them are overlapping and ineffective.

Testifying from the dais in a House Government Reform Committee, DeLay said government agencies could be reorganized more quickly if Congress cedes to President Bush the authority to do the work.

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I'm not going to quote from it. No, I am.

Savage: "Everything's about Brown v. The Board of Education; it's sickening"

The day after the fiftieth anniversary of the historic civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education, nationally syndicated radio show host Michael Savage made known his views of the court case and racism in the United States. During the May 18 broadcast of Savage Nation, Savage's comments included: "I am so tired of the race thing, leave me alone already"; "In fact [minorities are] given priority treatment everywhere"; and "Everything's about Brown v. The Board of Education, it's sickening. ... [E]verywhere you turn is racism again, and you gotta listen to the garbage."

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Cheesy name, that. I prefer Ebonics.

Anyway, Kerim at Keywords hit me with a two-fer: A link to Geoffrey Pullum at Language Log's harsh treatment of William Raspberry.

The occasion for writing the letter was that I had just seen the remarkably unfunny humorous column Raspberry published in the Washington Post on December 26, 1996, right after the Oakland story broke. Like everyone else, he was indirectly mocking the Oakland Unified School District and the idea of making an unprejudiced judgment about the sociolinguistic situation of many of Oakland's black schoolchildren, and directly mocking `Ebonics'.

Raspberry's column was bad, I mean ba-a-a-ad, in the Standard English sense, not the AAVE slang sense. The column was probably produced hastily, perhaps during what may have been a bibulous Christmas Day. I rather I hope he is ashamed of it. I won't explain all of the column, but basically it involved an imaginary alter ego of Raspberry himself getting into a cab in Washington DC and having a conversation, full of misunderstandings, in which the cab driver speaks AAVE and Raspberry does not. For example, the cab driver says 'Sup? (for "What's up?") as a greeting and the fictional Mr Raspberry thinks he is being asked if he would like to sup, so he says he has already dined (I did warn you that it was not funny). At the end, when he learns there is money in giving classes on AAVE, the fictional Mr Raspberry suddenly starts speaking it himself (as if all black people really do know it deep down).

And the letter itself:

I'm a linguist, and one of those who claim that African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is a consistent language with its own rules. What I noticed was that your piece includes two paragraphs -- just 32 words -- in which the characters speak entirely in AAVE. But there appear to me to be grammatical errors in the AAVE. Not cases of difference from standard English, which is of course what correct AAVE frequently has, but rather cases of difference from AAVE as I know it. Let me run through them.

First, you have the cabbie saying What you be talkin' 'bout, my man?. But the uninflected be of AAVE is normally a habitual aspect marker. Your cabbie does not mean 'what do you habitually talk about?', he means 'what are you talking about right now?'. Surely the normal AAVE for this would be What you talkin' 'bout?, with the zero copula, not the uninflected be.

Second, you have the cabbie saying I don't be offerin' you my grub. Again, this is clearly present progressive -- it is what is happening right there and then he is referring to, not some habitual state of affairs. So the be seems wrong here too. Maybe utterances like I don't be lying do sometimes occur in AAVE for 'I am not lying', but I've never heard the construction or encountered any reference to it in the research literature; whereas I've heard I ain't lyin' hundreds of times (as in the blues song 'I Put a Spell on You', where I ain't lyin' is used as a perfect rhyme for because you['re] mine; he doesn't sing, *I don't be lyin').

Is SO correct, and SO classic.

The second benefit of Kerim's post is a snatch of his own experience in teaching AAVE.

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Database Firm Listed 120,000 'Likely Terrorists'
Thu May 20, 2004 05:57 PM ET
By Jane Sutton

MIAMI (Reuters) - The company that runs the multistate MATRIX law enforcement database gave the U.S. government a list of 120,000 people who scored high on a computer profile it said was designed to identify likely terrorists, a civil liberties group said on Thursday.

The Florida company that created the list, Seisint Inc., said in government documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union that the "High Terrorism Factor" list had led to scores of arrests.

Seisint created the list shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, apparently acting on its own, the ACLU said.

The ACLU has asked for a government investigation to determine who had access to the list of 120,000 people and how the information was used. It called the data-mining program a chilling invasion of privacy that allows police to investigate millions of law-abiding citizens without their knowledge.

"People on that list ought to be concerned," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's privacy and technology program. "Just being associated with a terrorist list is going to make people's lives miserable."

Law enforcement officials involved with the program have said the terrorist quotient was abandoned when MATRIX was developed. But the ACLU said the documents it received through freedom of information requests contained nothing to indicate that, and that the terrorist profiling feature was "a sort of central selling point of the program."

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NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno":

"Yesterday Vice President Dick Cheney gave a speech at the Coast Guard academy where he vowed that America would fight on in Iraq. Then he said, 'Not actually me, other Americans.' You know, we should have a law in this country, anybody vowing to fight on actually has to do some of the fighting."

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Catholic Leader Open to Hearing from Lawmakers
Thu May 20, 2004 05:42 PM ET

By Thomas Ferraro
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of a task force of bishops "is open to hearing" from Catholic members in Congress concerned that church leaders may trigger a backlash if they deny Communion to politicians who support abortion rights, a spokeswoman said on Thursday.

The spokeswoman for Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C., said, however, a meeting has not yet been set and declined to predict when one might be.

The spokeswoman for Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C., said, however, a meeting has not yet been set and declined to predict when one might be.

"The task force (on bishops and Catholics in public life) has heard from a number of people, and it is open to hearing from them," said spokeswoman Susan Gibbs.

"We're hopeful we can open a dialogue," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, one of 48 Catholic members of the House of Representatives, all Democrats, who recently wrote McCarrick.

In the letter, dated May 10 and made public this week, the lawmakers asked to begin a discussion with bishops on the potentially explosive election-year issue.

Several bishops have threatened to deny the Eucharist, which Catholics believe is the body of Christ, from Catholic politicians who vote for abortion rights such as Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. The church opposes abortion.

"We firmly believe that it would be wrong for a bishop to deny the sacrament of holy communion to an individual on the basis of a voting record," wrote the Democrats, who include the party's House leader, Nancy Pelosi of California.

"We believe such an action would be counterproductive and would bring great harm to the church," they wrote.

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Chandra Observations Confirm Existence of Dark Energy

New x-ray observations seem to have sealed the case of the universe's elusive dark energy. Yesterday NASA announced results from the Chandra telescope that offer independent confirmation that three quarters of the universe is made up of dark energy. "Dark energy is perhaps the biggest mystery in physics," says team leader Steve Allen of the University of Cambridge in England. "As such, it is extremely important to make an independent test of its existence and properties."

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Quote of note:

An Asian diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS he is confident the United States will exert enough pressure on Council members to get the resolution adopted.

''But in the context of all the gross human rights abuses in Baghdad, the debate may also provide a much-needed platform for U.S.-bashing,'' he predicted.

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U.S. Wants Another U.N. Exemption from War Crimes Law
Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, May 20 (IPS) - The United States is pushing for a new U.N. Security Council resolution aimed at exempting its troops from prosecution for war crimes when they serve in any U.N. peacekeeping operations.

If granted, the request would renew an exemption first permitted in 2000 and grudgingly repeated by the world body in 2003. It comes as the international community is outraged at abuse, including torture, committed by U.S. soldiers and other personnel against prisoners in a jail in occupied Iraq.

''Given the recent revelations from Abu Ghraib prison (in Baghdad),'' says Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch (HRW), ''the U.S. government has picked one hell of a moment to ask for special treatment on war crimes.''

''The U.N. Security Council should not grant special favours to any country, including the United States,'' added Dicker, director of the International Justice programme at HRW.

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The ugly face of power

One of Colin Powell's aides has shown TV viewers what the Bush administration is really like, says Philip James

Friday May 21, 2004

…The Soviet-style manner in which Republican operative Miller, who used to work for the majority leader, Tom "the Hammer" DeLay, tried to muzzle an interviewer once the questioning no longer pleased her betrayed an arrogance that goes to the core of this White House.

This isn't the first time the Bush White House has unknowingly revealed itself on tape. At an Illinois rally during the 2000 campaign, the then candidate George Bush called a New York Times reporter an asshole. His comments were picked up and relayed to the world by an unnoticed camera mike. Bush refused to apologise.

Back then, the gaffe was laughed off as part of the machismo of campaigning. In fact, the denigration of an NYT journalist was thought to have actually boosted Bush's numbers with the stock-car racing crowd.

That early example of self-ordained impunity was the beginning of a consistent pattern of behaviour. Four years on, the seeds of this administration's hubris are springing up all over.

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Exporting Abuse?
Wardens Chosen to Establish Iraq Prison System Had Past Abuse Allegations

By Brian Ross

May 20, 2004 � A number of former state prison commissioners chosen by the Bush administration to establish a prison system in Iraq left their old posts after allegations of neglect, brutality and inmate deaths, an investigation by ABCNEWS has found.

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This is a decent development, but I swear I keep wondering how people can talk about this administration's steely resolve when public opinion has made them reverse almost literally every position they've ever taken.

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Progress on AIDS
Friday, May 21, 2004; Page A24

MORE THAN six months have passed since the World Health Organization and its allies launched the organization's "3 by 5" initiative, an effort to get antiretroviral medicines to 3 million HIV-infected people by the end of 2005. That target is a long way from where the world is at the moment. At the end of 2003, only 400,000 patients were receiving treatment, and the prospects for a rapid expansion were clouded by the Bush administration's attitude toward cheap generic drugs. On Sunday, however, the administration announced a promising shift in policy. If it is implemented effectively, there will soon be a big jump in the number of patients receiving treatment in the 14 African and Caribbean countries covered by President Bush's AIDS initiative.

Previously the administration had instructed the medical charities and other agencies that implement its program to use branded AIDS medicines, even though these are expensive and unavailable in simple pills combining three drugs in one capsule, and even though some target countries (Tanzania, for example) lean strongly toward using combination pills. Moreover, the administration refused to accept assurances from WHO that the combination pills offered by Indian generic manufacturers are safe and effective, while also refusing to say what was wrong with the WHO certification process or what alternative process it might prefer.

Now the administration has said that generic drugs may be acceptable, and it invites the generic manufacturers to submit their products to the Food and Drug Administration so that they can be certified for use in U.S. programs in developing countries. Critics complain that the WHO certification process is still not getting due respect, and there's something to these objections. But the Bush administration claims the certification process will take a maximum of eight weeks -- speedy by FDA standards.

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New Details of Prison Abuse Emerge
Abu Ghraib Detainees' Statements Describe Sexual Humiliation And Savage Beatings

By Scott Higham and Joe Stephens
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, May 21, 2004; Page A01

Previously secret sworn statements by detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq describe in raw detail abuse that goes well beyond what has been made public, adding allegations of prisoners being ridden like animals, sexually fondled by female soldiers and forced to retrieve their food from toilets.

The fresh allegations of prison abuse are contained in statements taken from 13 detainees shortly after a soldier reported the incidents to military investigators in mid-January. The detainees said they were savagely beaten and repeatedly humiliated sexually by American soldiers working on the night shift at Tier 1A in Abu Ghraib during the holy month of Ramadan, according to copies of the statements obtained by The Washington Post.

The statements provide the most detailed picture yet of what took place on the cellblock. Some of the detainees described being abused as punishment or discipline after they were caught fighting or with a prohibited item. Some said they were pressed to denounce Islam or were force-fed pork and liquor. Many provided graphic details of how they were sexually humiliated and assaulted, threatened with rape, and forced to masturbate in front of female soldiers.

"They forced us to walk like dogs on our hands and knees," said Hiadar Sabar Abed Miktub al-Aboodi, detainee No. 13077. "And we had to bark like a dog, and if we didn't do that they started hitting us hard on our face and chest with no mercy. After that, they took us to our cells, took the mattresses out and dropped water on the floor and they made us sleep on our stomachs on the floor with the bags on our head and they took pictures of everything."

The prisoners also provided accounts of how some of the now-famous photographs were staged, including the pyramid of hooded, naked prisoners. Eight of the detainees identified by name one particular soldier at the center of the abuse investigation, Spec. Charles A. Graner Jr., a member of the 372nd Military Police Company from Cresaptown, Md. Five others described abuse at the hands of a solider who matches Graner's description.

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Vitamin D Deficiency Called Major Health Risk
By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 21, 2004; Page A01

Many Americans, particularly African Americans, may be suffering from unrecognized deficiencies of a key nutrient -- vitamin D -- that increase the risk of bone problems and perhaps a host of other diseases, a growing number of scientists say.

Pediatricians scattered around the country have been surprised to see children suffering from rickets, a bone disorder caused by vitamin D deficiency that had been largely relegated to a bygone era. A few doctors have come across adults who were disabled by severe muscle weakness and pain, sometimes for years, until they were treated for undiagnosed vitamin D deficiency. And recent studies suggest low vitamin D may be putting the elderly at higher risk for the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis and life-threatening falls and fractures.

But beyond bone and muscle problems, some evidence suggests a dearth of vitamin D may be associated with an array of more serious illnesses, including many forms of cancer, high blood pressure, depression, and immune-system disorders such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes.

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Extra $150 Million Is Found to Pay for Housing for the Poor
By DAVID W. CHEN

Published: May 21, 2004

The nation's top housing official told Congress yesterday that the federal government had unearthed an extra $150 million to help housing agencies absorb cuts to the government's main housing program for poor Americans.

Alphonso Jackson, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, told the House Financial Services Committee that the money would be divided among 525 agencies, or about one-fifth of those that participate in what is popularly known as the Section 8 voucher program. But it was not immediately clear from either HUD or some of the agencies that stood to be the most affected, especially in New York City, how the money would be divided and whether the $150 million would cover the projected shortfall.

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…which is to say even higher than Bush.

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Justice Memos Explained How to Skip Prisoner Rights
By NEIL A. LEWIS

ASHINGTON, May 20 � A series of Justice Department memorandums written in late 2001 and the first few months of 2002 were crucial in building a legal framework for United States officials to avoid complying with international laws and treaties on handling prisoners, lawyers and former officials say.

The confidential memorandums, several of which were written or co-written by John C. Yoo, a University of California law professor who was serving in the department, provided arguments to keep United States officials from being charged with war crimes for the way prisoners were detained and interrogated. They were endorsed by top lawyers in the White House, the Pentagon and the vice president's office but drew dissents from the State Department.

The memorandums provide legal arguments to support administration officials' assertions that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to detainees from the Afghanistan war. They also suggested how officials could inoculate themselves from liability by claiming that abused prisoners were in some other nation's custody.

…One of the memorandums written by Mr. Yoo along with Robert J. Delahunty, another Justice Department lawyer, was prepared on Jan. 9, 2002, four months after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. The 42-page memorandum, entitled, "Application of treaties and laws to Al Qaeda and Taliban detainees," provided several legal arguments for avoiding the jurisdiction of the Geneva Conventions.

…On Jan. 25, 2002, Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel, in a memorandum to President Bush, said that the Justice Department's advice was sound and that Mr. Bush should declare the Taliban as well as Al Qaeda outside the coverage of the Geneva Conventions. That would keep American officials from being exposed to the federal War Crimes Act, a 1996 law, which, as Mr. Gonzales noted, carries the death penalty.

…Another memorandum from the Justice Department advises officials to create a situation in which they could plausibly claim that abused prisoners were never in United States custody.

That memorandum, whose existence was acknowledged by two former officials, noted that it would be hard to ward off an allegation of torture or inhuman treatment if the prisoner had been transferred to another country from American custody. International law prohibits the "rendition" of prisoners to countries if the possibility of mistreatment can be anticipated.

The former officials said that memorandum was explicit in advising that if someone were involved in interrogating detainees in a manner that could cross the line into torture or other prohibited treatment, that person could claim immunity only if he or she contended that the prisoner was never in United States custody.

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To the Editor:

Specialist Jeremy C. Sivits has pleaded guilty to dereliction of duty and will serve a year in jail. He failed to stop abuse of Iraqi prisoners that he witnessed at Abu Ghraib prison on Nov. 8.

As it happens, two days before Specialist Sivits witnessed the abuse, the Red Cross issued a report detailing prisoner mistreatment at Abu Ghraib. Staff lawyers for Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the ground commander in Iraq, drafted a response, but General Sanchez was not shown the report until January, when an investigation began.

On Wednesday, General Sanchez's staff lawyer told the Senate that Red Cross reports were handled "in a haphazard manner." Also on Wednesday, Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top commander in the Middle East, told the Senate that the reason for the command failures was that "our doctrine is not right" and cited "breakdowns in procedures."

Legally and morally, it is impossible to understand how if Specialist Sivits is guilty of dereliction of duty, others much above him in the chain of command are not guilty of a greater dereliction of a higher duty.

STEPHEN GILLERS
New York, May 20, 2004
The writer is vice dean of New York University School of Law.

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Then start with this comparison of the server-side software. This is all stuff you'd install in you're web account, no hosted solutions.

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May 20, 2004

Comparisons of Bush to Hitler are way offf the mark. He's more like Kaiser Wilhelm.

Wilhelm appeared not to foresee the consequences of an Austro-Hungarian attack on Serbia, pulling France, Russia and Britain into the war. Too late he attempted to scale back German involvement: he was firmly dissuaded by the German military. (Click here to read Wilhelm's account of the events of July 1914.)

Wilhelm operated as Commander in Chief of the German armed forces throughout the war. Notwithstanding this, the German military operated under its own effective control: Wilhelm was essentially a figurehead.

LATER: Incidentally, ProperWinston is a pinhead with no sense of humor.

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Even though he's not "a fiery leader who pounds his fists" (and that is still a curiously turned phrase to me), I just dropped the brother's blog into the sidebar.

Couple of thoughts occurred to me.
1- If Kerry got a face lift and a serious tan he'd resemble Obama
2- I'm wondering how certain old-school folks feel about a Black Liberal that so thoroughly embodies Old School values.

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I said so Sunday, and he proves it…again

We have the strength � military, economic, cultural, diplomatic, (dare I include the strength of our religious faith, also?) � to persist around the world unto victory � for generations if necessary.

Jesus, that's the kind of thinking that got us into this mess. It's become apparent that we can do this only if we don't do anything else.

These guys aren't Vulcans, they're Klingons.

It is heartbreaking, though no longer perplexing, that the president's political and media opposition want the president's defeat more than America's victory. But that is the price we must pay for living in a free country.

Anyone who believes the Bushistas left us capable of more than a dignified exit has simply not been paying attention or is hoping no one else has.

You know, it is heartbreaking, though no longer perplexing, that the president's political and media allies want the president's victory more than America's victory. But that is the price we must pay for living in a free country.

(Sedition laws almost surely would be found unconstitutional, currently � although things may change after the next terrorist attack in America.)

You look forward to this, Tony?

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GI: Boy mistreated to get dad to talk
Thu May 20, 9:40 AM ET

By Mike Dorning Washington Bureau

A military intelligence analyst who recently completed duty at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (news - web sites) said Wednesday that the 16-year-old son of a detainee there was abused by U.S. soldiers to break his father's resistance to interrogators.

The analyst said the teenager was stripped naked, thrown in the back of an open truck, driven around in the cold night air, splattered with mud and then presented to his father at Abu Ghraib, the prison at the center of the scandal over abuse of Iraqi detainees.

Upon seeing his frail and frightened son, the prisoner broke down and cried and told interrogators he would tell them whatever they wanted, the analyst said.

The new account of mistreatment came as Army Spec. Jeremy Sivits was sentenced in Iraq to a year in prison Wednesday and a bad-conduct discharge after pleading guilty in the first court-martial stemming from the abuses at Abu Ghraib.

via Atrios

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Though I'm not having ANY conversations with Cobb about political rapproachments as long as a side effect of his efforts will help a set to truly dangerous individuals run the country further into the ground, we will, thankfully, have other areas for fruitful discussion.

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Ward Connerly.

The article is about him, and the book is only a side-comment. But if he wrote the book, I would buy it. Curiosity, what can I say.

"Whites say, 'Thank you for helping us,''' said Connerly. ''They mean, thank you for helping us whites. They miss the larger picture when they see it that way."

He recalled a man attempting small talk at a reception honoring people who help to create a color-blind society.

''Do you know Tom Sowell?'' asked the guest, referring to the conservative black columnist and author. Another man chimed in: ''Have you ever met Justice Thomas?''

So much for color-blind, Connerly thought.

''It becomes clear to you that all they see is race,'' he said.

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The new struggle to end affirmative action
Regent turns attention to Michigan
By RUBY L. BAILEY
Knight Ridder Newspapers

SACRAMENTO - Ward Connerly started thinking about what was wrong with white people right after he led a campaign to undo affirmative action programs.

Of Irish, American Indian and African-American heritage, Connerly wasn't bothered that his campaign for Proposition 209 to ban race and gender preferences in public university admissions and state hiring branded him a sellout with many blacks and Hispanics.

What unnerved him was the reaction of white Californians who supported his effort and who sought him out to thank him for ''helping us.''

Although Connerly and a majority of California voters agreed that racial preferences needed to go, he realized many of the people thanking him weren't motivated by the principle of equal treatment.

That's why Connerly thinks he needs to write a book that helps white Americans better understand black Americans.

''I'm going to tell them to walk in the shoes of black people,'' said Connerly. ''Tell them why it's so difficult for black people to let go of affirmative action. It's not just about getting those black people to do what everyone else thinks they ought to do.''

This is the same Ward Connerly, now 69, who has been telling black Americans to embrace competition and pull themselves up by those old bootstraps even if the playing field is bumpy. He's the same man trying to do in Michigan what he did in California and Washington state.

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via Taegan Goddard's Political Wire

Blog Scandal On Capitol Hill "The office of straight-laced Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine (R) became the epicenter of salacious Capitol Hill gossip Wednesday, when it surfaced that an entry-level DeWine staffer apparently had been chronicling her steamy sex life on an Internet weblog," the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.

"The blog was removed from public view after another Washington blog, known as Wonkette.com, linked to some of the racier passages from the DeWine employee's online diary. The passages detailed the woman's affairs with several men, purporting to include a married (but unnamed) chief-of-staff in a federal agency, and discussed being paid for sex."

But even better:

Update: A replica of the now defunct Washingtonienne blog has been reproduced from the Google cache.

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Beyond integration: Better teaching is post-'Brown' frontier
By Gail Russell Chaddock | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON - Half a century after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawed deliberately segregated schools, more than 60 percent of black fourth-graders can't read.

It's a stark indicator of how the Brown decision, for all its transforming effect on US society, has left America still struggling to educate its least-advantaged children.

That's the grim news. But as the nation remembers the Supreme Court's historic ruling, some signs are more promising. A new generation of equal-opportunity activists is pushing to close the performance gap, focusing not on how to racially integrate classrooms but on how to boost achievement of the poorest kids. And these advocates appear to be winning converts, from teachers' unions to politicians of both parties.

Their recipe for rescuing inner-city schools includes a range of ingredients: More preschool and after-school programs, more funding, more measuring of how schools are performing.

But one element, they say, is the most crucial: How to get better teachers into the neediest classrooms. It's a goal that runs against the grain of nearly every incentive in American public education, from local funding of schools to seniority perks within the teaching profession. Yet this central issue, talked about for years, is starting to take hold now on many fronts.

"Until governors, legislators, and local leaders break the trend of assigning the least qualified teachers to the neediest children, the achievement gap between poor and middle-income children will continue to grow," says Gov. Mark Warner (R) of Virginia, chairman of the Education Commission of the States, which has adopted this reform as a key goal.

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National AAPI Leaders Denounce Gutting of Historic Executive Order
Community Leaders Call on President Bush to Retain Focus on Improving the Quality of Life of Underserved Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 14, 2004
Christine Chen
(202) 223-5500
[email protected]

Washington, D.C. ---Today national leaders in the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community criticized the "Increasing Economic Opportunity and Business Participation of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders" Executive Order issued by President Bush on Thursday, May 13th. Fully one year late, the Executive Order renews the President's Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, but drastically reframes and restricts the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, both originally established under Executive Order 13125, issued in 1999.

The original Executive Order issued by President Clinton and renewed for two years at the beginning of President Bush's term, had a broad mandate to "improve the quality of life of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders through increased participation in Federal programs where they may be underserved (e.g., health, human services, education, housing, labor, transportation, and economic and community development)." The White House let that Executive Order expire a year ago, terminating the Commission then chaired by Dr. John Tsu, a well respected educator from California.

The May 13th Executive Order moves the Initiative from the Department of Health and Human Services to the Department of Commerce and drastically narrows the mission of the Initiative and the Commission from broadly helping underserved AAPI communities to solely focusing on the development of AAPI small businesses. Specifically the new Executive Order instructs the Commission to "improve the economic and community development of Asian American and Pacific Islander businesses through ensuring equal opportunity to participate in Federal programs, and public-sector, private-sector partnerships, and through the collection of data related to Asian American and Pacific Islander businesses" and "increase the business diversification of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, including ways to foster research and data on Asian American and Pacific Islander businesses including their level of participation in the national economy and their economic and community development."

"The quality of life of the AAPI community cannot be adequately improved by limiting the improvements of one facet of AAPI policy priorities," said Christine Chen, Executive Director of the Organization of Chinese Americans. "Limiting the purpose of the Executive Order ends any advances in education policy, for example."

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John at Discriminations has one more Brown vs. Board of Education post, and it's a bit better than the last one:

I can't let all the "legacy of Brown" celebration/lamentation fade away without noting a point (which I've made several times in the past, such as here, here, and here) that none of them made: those who support racial preferences actually are following Plessy v. Ferguson, not Brown.

The meaning of Brown is that there can be no "separate but equal" because separation on the basis of race is inherently unequal, and hence that official classification by race is a violation of equal protection. The holding in Plessy, by contrast, was that the Constitution does not require colorblindness (as Justice John Marshall Harlan argued so eloquently in his dissent), and hence that racial discrimination can be reasonable and thus constitutional.

But still wrong.

John doesn't take into account the distinction between procedural law and substantive law. It's the common logical flaw in all attacks on plans that take race into account in any way.

Classifications of Law

Substantive law vs. procedural law: Substantive law creates, defines, and regulates legal rights and obligations. Procedural law defines the rules that are used to enforce substantive law.

An example of the difference that's less emotionally charged while remaining a decent parallel than the field of race relations is traffic law enforcement.

A maximum speed limit exists on any stretch of road…substantive law. And though I'm tempted to allow certain folks to thing the parallel is the rather simplistic speed limit = quota, it is that rate of progress one would achieve strictly through one's own efforts. Racism allows one to exceed the speed limit.

Now in the real world, if you have someone exceeding the speed limit, how can those responsible for enforcing the limit…procedural law…do so?

They must exceed the speed limit to catch the speeder.

This logical flaw in the argument is also the legislative tactic that has allowed the dismantling of a lot of legal progress. Gut the procedural law for financially expedient (i.e., engineered via supply side tactics) reasons and you can leave alone, or even strengthen, the substantive law and still lose moral ground.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 14, 2004
David Goldberg or Michelle Woolley
202-466-3311

12-Point Program to Invest in Equality

To compete in the 21st century, America must invest in schools and communities to ensure that they have the resources to meet the educational needs of all children. Since 90 percent of children attend public schools, our nation must make an investment in public education.

To fulfill the promise of Brown v. Board of Education and provide full equality of educational opportunities, the nation must commit to an agenda for immediate and long-term public education reform:

IN THE SCHOOLS

1. Qualified teachers for all students
Provide state and federal financial incentives to help low-income districts recruit, train, and retain qualified teachers.

Provide state and federal financial incentives to help low-income districts recruit, train, and retain qualified teachers.

2. Smaller classes and schools
Commit the resources necessary to build facilities and hire staff sufficient to ensure that all students are taught in small classes and have adequate supervision during class and during the school day.

Commit the resources necessary to build facilities and hire staff sufficient to ensure that all students are taught in small classes and have adequate supervision during class and during the school day.

3. High expectations and the resources to meet those expectations
Apply the same high expectations for achievement to all students and provide the courses, materials, and any transitional and early childhood programs necessary so all children have the opportunity to meet the raised expectations. Schools should strive to accurately identify children who need special education services and remedial instruction, and provide appropriate services for those children.

Apply the same high expectations for achievement to all students and provide the courses, materials, and any transitional and early childhood programs necessary so all children have the opportunity to meet the raised expectations. Schools should strive to accurately identify children who need special education services and remedial instruction, and provide appropriate services for those children.

4. Challenging curriculum in core subjects
Challenge all students with enrichment opportunities like advanced placement English, math, and science classes and provide federal and state incentives for intensive academic after-school programs for all students, especially those in low-income districts where the need is greatest.

Challenge all students with enrichment opportunities like advanced placement English, math, and science classes and provide federal and state incentives for intensive academic after-school programs for all students, especially those in low-income districts where the need is greatest.

5. Harness the power of technology
Build and re-fit schools, classrooms, and labs with modern technology, including computers, internet, and scientific equipment, and train teachers to use technology as a teaching tool in any subject.

IN THE COMMUNITY

6. Parent and community involvement in schools
Support parents' involvement in their children's education and community commitment to their schools, including integrating supportive services for families, where social services can help connect parents to their schools.

7. Invest in communities
Implement housing and lending policies that provide homeownership choices and opportunities for people of color; build wealth in the minority community and create better-funded, better-resourced, high quality neighborhood schools.

8. Break the cycle of poverty and poor education
Address the ways neighborhood and family poverty sabotage children's education. Ensure that low-income neighborhoods get equitable school funding for on-budget education programs and sufficient funds for off-budget capital improvements. Provide nutrition and health services to prevent hunger and illness from undermining a child's ability to learn. Assist parents who can't get directly involved in education because they are forced to work day and night jobs and need access to quality day care.

9. Promote diversity
Support integration plans that promote racial diversity in our schools; provide incentives for jurisdictions to design school districts encompassing racially and economically diverse neighborhoods; and encourage affluent districts to enroll students from lower-income areas. Establish public magnet schools and public charter schools inside poor and racially isolated districts to attract students and families into the districts and increase integration.

KEEP THE FOCUS ON EDUCATION

10. Stop using half-measures and quick fixes that divert resources and attention from improving public education

After Brown, discrimination and resistance to integration was so extreme in places like Prince Edward County, Va., that they closed their public schools and used taxpayer money for vouchers to pay for private schools for white children. Vouchers are still a way to abandon public education, increase segregation, and leave millions of children behind; we can't go back to this shameful tradition. Create disciplinary models that focus on keeping children in school, or provide quality alternative settings rather than pushing them out of school and into jail.

11. Use standardized tests only as diagnostic tools to assess student needs
Employ tests as only one of several measures for evaluating student progress and to direct resources to meet student needs, not to punish under-resourced schools or students who have not had the opportunity to learn the tested material. Reject high-stakes testing as a sole criterion for making major decisions.

12. Ensure that no child is actually left behind
Fully fund the No Child Left Behind law so it provides resources to meet standards, instead of punishing schools and diverting funds from students and schools with the greatest need for help.

May 14, 2004

For more information, please contact David Goldberg, program manager and special counsel, at 202-466-0087 or [email protected], or Michelle Woolley, policy assistant, at 202-263-2881 or [email protected]. You can also visit our special website, www.realizethedream.org.

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I have to give Mr. Guillermo props for honesty and principles.

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On Brown And Our Taste For Segregation
Emil Guillermo, Special to SF Gate
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
�2004 SF Gate

If only Brown vs. Board of Education had been decided in an era of real diversity, instead of during a time when America was black and white.

Then, maybe, I'd have no conflicts with the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that outlawed the notion of "separate but equal" in the public schools.

But, as I consider the impacts of Brown, I wonder whether my efforts to integrate America put me on the side of the segregationists.

Let me clarify: I'm a believer in integration. But there was only one way for me, an Asian American of Filipino descent, to really guarantee it in my lifetime.

I married a white woman.

…White flight to the suburbs is perhaps the most notorious of all the reactions toward Brown. But what you don't often hear about is Asian flight as well.

Check the census figures, and Asian Americans are always the next-largest group in more affluent communities, sometimes breaching the 10 percent barrier. In Palo Alto, Asian Americans constitute more than 17 percent of the population, versus whites, at 75.8 percent.

But the general pattern is for whites to dominate a given town's population with 80-90 percent of the population, with Asian Americans being the only people of color to significantly show up on the census radar.

Take former President Clinton's home of Chappaqua, N.Y., a nice Westchester County suburb of New York. Chappaqua is 91.5 percent white. The second-most-populous group is Asian Americans, at 5.6 percent. Blacks? They're at 0.9 percent. All 89 of them.

No wonder Clinton put his office in Harlem. He had to in order to feel like an egalitarian.

I'm dealing with census numbers, but I have no doubt the ethnicity statistics for public schools reflect the community demographics in the aforementioned cities.

Add it all together, and you have the segregation Brown hasn't been able to fend off -- the natural "economic" segregation of people and the flight to a decent education.

In a black-and-white context, where does it put Asian Americans? As the new whites? Yet ask Asian Americans in Orinda, and they'll say they aren't segregationists, or separatists. I know I wasn't. We were the "integration" factor.

But can you call entering a community that is 80 percent white real integration?

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Officials Seize Files of Top Iraqi Leader Once Backed by U.S.
By DEXTER FILKINS and KIRK SEMPLE

AGHDAD, Iraq, May 20 � The offices and home of Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi politician once favored by the Pentagon but now at odds with the American authorities, were raided by the authorities today and computers and documents were seized.

Witnesses said the raiding party involved about 100 American and Iraqi law enforcement officers, including officials believed to be from the F.B.I. and the C.I.A..

A spokesman for the American occupation authorities said that the Coalition Provisional Authority and its top official, L. Paul Bremer III, had not been involved in the raids, and he referred all questions to the Iraqi police, which, the spokesman said, had planned and conducted the operations.

Mr. Bremer, the spokesman said, "did not know the operation was occurring today" and was notified only after it had been completed. He did not confirm witness accounts that American troops involved.

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Hopi Indian tribe votes down casino
By Walter Berry, Associated Press Writer | May 20, 2004

PHOENIX --Hopi voters rejected plans to build a casino in northeastern Arizona, choosing cultural customs over cold cash.

The referendum, which called for up to 500 slot machines on tribal trust land off the reservation near Winslow, was defeated 1,051 to 784 Wednesday night. There are 8,525 eligible voters.

Some tribal members said they believe gambling goes against Hopi cultural customs and would add another social ill to a community already plagued by alcoholism and crimes linked to drug abuse.

"Gaming is making money off other people's bad habits and the Hopi way says we should not use other people's bad habits to benefit," tribal Vice Chairman Caleb Johnson said days before the vote.

But other Hopis said gaming money is an economic necessity and would put them on par with tribes that have used the added revenue for improved housing, education, health care and law enforcement.

"Certainly the Hopi Tribe is similar to all other tribes -- they look to generate revenue," said Hopi assistant general counsel Niccole Winship. "This was an opportunity for the tribe to do so. The members' personal choices came out on top."

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BRITNEY ENDS GERMAN CONCERT IN TEARS

Relatives of troubled pop beauty Britney Spears are seriously worried about her mental health -- after she rushed off stage in Berlin, Germany, in tears.

The superstar, 22, has been struggling to cope with her huge workload as she continues her Onyx Hotel tour in Europe, and sources close to Britney fear the situation is only going to get worse.

Britney is reportedly desperate to return home to her mother Lynne after suffering the worst reviews of her career for the raunchy stage show. But with contractual obligations preventing her from ditching the tour, miserable Britney is getting more and more depressed.

And the depth of her anguish was clearly demonstrated when she ran off the stage in the German capital and fled to a waiting car, before ignoring fans as she ran into her hotel.

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I have little idea of what Britney even sounds like beyond the Pepsi commercials. One major reason I avoided her was philosophical: The way she went directly from child start to manufactured raunch queen is a sign of a pretty disgusting national Lolita complex. But her situation is beginning to get a little sympathy from me.

She's a child. I'm sorry but with folks living with their parents until they're some 35 years old, she's more of a child than Annette Funachello was after the first Mickey Mouse Show run. It's hard to walk around wearing a "Fuck Me" sign to make money. And I strongly suspect it wasn't her idea.

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Quote of note:

The Israeli army said it did not fire deliberately at the procession but that tank fire aimed at driving back the protesters may have caused casualties. It said gunmen were among the crowd. "We regret very much any loss of civilian life as a result of operations of self defence that we have to take," Israeli Senior Advisor Raanan Gissin told Reuters. "We are conducting a very thorough investigation almost like a police investigation".

Tank fire aimed at driving the crowd back.

And it "may have" caused casualties.

You know what? I'm linking to some five minutes of raw footage on this from Reuters. No commentary from reporters or editors. The player has a button to switch to a low bandwidth version.

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Israeli Missile Hits Rafah March

Israeli tanks and helicopters fired on protesters in a refugee camp on Wednesday (May 19), killing 10 Palestinians and raising a two-day death toll to 33 in Israel's bloodiest Gaza raid in years, witnesses said.

Medics said about 50 people were wounded at the besieged Rafah camp in southern Gaza and that the casualties included many children and teenagers. The firing sent a marching crowd fleeing in terror, some dragging bloodied comrades and others carrying wounded children in their arms.

…"An Israeli armoured vehicle fired a shell and many were wounded and then the helicopters in the sky overhead fired a missile at the protesters and then immediately afterwards two shells were fired and we were shocked at this massacre," another resident of Rafah said.

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HMOs to Cost Medicare $2.75 Bln Extra in '04- Rpt
Thu May 20, 2004 12:06 AM ET

By Kim Dixon
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A new law encouraging private health insurers to bid for Medicare business will cost the government $2.75 billion more this year than a fully government-run program, a nonprofit group reported on Thursday.

The Commonwealth Fund's study suggests that the government may be better than private insurers at managing health care costs for the elderly, the authors said.

"It suggests that private health plans don't save more money," said Brian Biles, professor of health policy at George Washington University, an author of the study "The Cost of Privatization" in Medicare.

The analysis of government data found that payments to the private plans in 2004 will be an average 8.4 percent higher than the costs in traditional Medicare, the study found. That comes out to $552 more per recipient.

Biles said the study controls for the fact that private insurers tend to cover healthier people, while Medicare must cover everyone.

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No Consensus on Iraq Bioweapons Labs -White House
Wed May 19, 2004 10:47 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It remains unclear whether the CIA was wrong about Iraq's purported prewar mobile biological weapons laboratories, the White House said on Wednesday, disputing a comment by Secretary of State Colin Powell.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said it was still not known why Iraq had the rolling labs. They had been described in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq as part of an effort to build weapons of mass destruction.

"The latest that has been said by the intelligence community is that there is no consensus. There is disagreement on what the use of those biological laboratories were for," McClellan said at a briefing.

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Is the lack of consensus within the intelligence community or between it and The White House?

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Greenpeace Cleared in U.S. Ship-Boarding Case
Wed May 19, 2004 05:53 PM ET

By Jim Loney
MIAMI (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Wednesday acquitted environmental protection group Greenpeace on charges it conspired to break the law by sending activists aboard a freighter carrying illegally felled mahogany two years ago.

The politically charged case dusted off a law not used since 1890 to bring the first criminal prosecution by U.S. authorities of an advocacy group for civil disobedience.

U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan granted a Greenpeace motion to dismiss the charges after the prosecution rested on the third day of trial, ruling federal prosecutors had failed to prove their case, a Greenpeace lawyer said.

"We're elated. This is a real victory for America's tradition of free speech," said John Passacantando, the executive director of Greenpeace U.S. "But our liberties are still in jeopardy, of course. The Bush administration is intent on stifling free speech."

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Mrs. Bush Avoids Criticizing Husband's Speeches
Wed May 19, 2004 08:41 PM ET

By Steve Holland
BURBANK, Calif. (Reuters) - U.S. First lady Laura Bush was warned by her mother-in-law never to criticize George W. Bush's speeches, and the one time she did, he drove the car into the garage wall, she said on Wednesday.

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He's driving the whole damn country now.

No wonder they're trying to silence criticism. But driving over a cliff is worse than driving into a wall. We need to be the wall.

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First Ashcroft declassifies a memo just in time to use it to try to slime a 9/11 commission member.

Now they classify information that's been in the public domain for two years.

That's the knowledge we need to make a accurate assessment of government activities caught up in the middle, you know.

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Material Given to Congress in 2002 Is Now Classified
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, May 19 - The Justice Department has taken the unusual step of retroactively classifying information it gave to Congress nearly two years ago regarding a former F.B.I. translator who charged that the bureau had missed critical terrorist warnings, officials said Wednesday.

Law enforcement officials say the secrecy surrounding the translator, Sibel Edmonds, is essential to protecting information that could reveal intelligence-gathering operations. But some members of Congress and Congressional aides said they were troubled by the move, which comes as critics have accused the Bush administration of excessive secrecy.

"What the F.B.I. is up to here is ludicrous," Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said in an interview. "To classify something that's already been out in the public domain, what do you accomplish? It does harm to transparency in government, and it looks like an attempt to cover up the F.B.I.'s problems in translating intelligence."

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Hot Seat Grows Lukewarm Under Capital's Fog of War
By JOHN TIERNEY

WASHINGTON, May 19 — The commander of American forces in the Middle East, Gen. John P. Abizaid, showed up early for his engagement with the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday morning. As he sat at the witness table, looking over his opening statement on the prison abuse scandal in Iraq, one of the Republicans on the committee stopped by to commiserate.

"The press accounts are just unreal," said the committee member, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, shaking his head in disgust. "It's been a landslide of criticism." He urged General Abizaid to set the story straight and promised to do his part once the questioning began.

"I'll throw you a couple of softballs," Mr. Roberts whispered.

He made good on that promise, but General Abizaid barely needed the help. On paper, the hearing had the makings of a classic Washington confrontation — three generals with nine stars among them making their first public appearance to atone for a scandal — but not even the Democratic critics on the committee managed any moments of drama for the television cameras.

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Rates Rise, Changing Face of Home Sales
By JENNIFER BAYOT

As mortgage rates climb, fewer home owners are refinancing their old loans, and potential purchasers are reconsidering when - or whether - to buy. Their choices could reshape the housing market ahead, economists said, and even affect other spending decisions.

Refinancings, which accounted for more than half of all the home loans last year, are shrinking fast. After three years of easily switching to better terms on their mortgages and frequently taking out cash, consumers can no longer rely so heavily on refinancing to shore up their family budgets and maintain their spending.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said yesterday that refinancing activity fell 17 percent last week to its lowest level since the start of the year, as the standard 30-year mortgage rate has risen to 6.2 percent since flirting with 45-year lows in mid-March. In the intervening weeks, refinancing activity has fallen almost two-thirds.

"What consumers are seeing for the first time is a rapid rise in rates," said Anthony Meola, executive vice president for home loans production at Washington Mutual, a big servicer of home loans.

The sharp appreciation in home prices that consumers have come to rely on for household wealth will probably diminish if rates continue to rise, though the National Association of Realtors estimates that the 30-year rate would have to rise to 8 percent to seriously impede home sales. Rising rates make homes more expensive for consumers and will damp total home sales and home prices.

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Disputed Strike by U.S. Military Leaves at Least 40 Iraqis Dead
By DEXTER FILKINS and EDWARD WONG

Published: May 20, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 19 — About 40 Iraqis were killed Wednesday by American forces in an attack near the volatile border with Syria. American officials said they had fired on a suspected guerrilla safe house, but Iraqis said the Americans had strafed civilians at a wedding party.

American military officials said the attack occurred in the open desert on Wednesday evening, about 15 miles from the Syrian border and southwest of the town of Qusaiba. In a statement, American officials said they had called in air support after an American military operation in the area had come under hostile fire.

After the attack, the Americans said they had recovered "numerous weapons," cash and foreign passports.

Associated Press Television News broadcast film, said to be taken at the scene, showing a truck heaped with bloody bodies, many of them wrapped in blankets. Several of the bodies shown appeared to be those of children.

Both the American and the Iraqi accounts agreed that about 40 people had died. But some Iraqis and several reports in the Arab press said the attack had killed civilians, not insurgents.

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Another day, another law broken…

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Ruling Says White House's Medicare Videos Were Illegal
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, May 19 - The General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said on Wednesday that the Bush administration had violated federal law by producing and disseminating television news segments that portray the new Medicare law as a boon to the elderly.

The agency said the videos were a form of "covert propaganda" because the government was not identified as the source of the materials, broadcast by at least 40 television stations in 33 markets. The agency also expressed some concern about the content of the videos, but based its ruling on the lack of disclosure.

The consequences of the ruling were not immediately clear. The accounting office does not have law enforcement powers, but its decisions on federal spending are usually considered authoritative and are taken seriously by officials in the executive branch of the government.

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Jesse at Pandagon links to a story that gives me real hope for the future of the Religious Right:

Childless couple told to try sex

A German couple who went to a fertility clinic after eight years of marriage have found out why they are still childless - they weren't having sex.

The University Clinic of Lubek said they had never heard of a case like it after examining the couple who went to see them last month for fertility tests.

Doctors subjected them to a series of examinations and found they were both apparently fertile, and should have had no trouble conceiving.

A clinic spokesman said: "When we asked them how often they had had sex, they looked blank, and said: "What do you mean?".

"We are not talking retarded people here, but a couple who were brought up in a religious environment who were simply unaware, after eight years of marriage, of the physical requirements necessary to procreate."

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I have to quote an old Uppity-Negro post:

Any Log Cabin Republicans out there care to comment on this? Come on, don't be shy. You're already incredibly fucking stupid, don't add to your flaws.

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GOP Tells Gay Republicans 'You're Not Wanted'
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: May 19, 2004 5:03 pm. ET

(Raleigh, North Carolina) Gay Republicans have been told they are not welcome at the party's state convention this weekend. The state's Log Cabin Republicans had requested a table to display its literature at the convention, but Ferrell Blount, the Chairman of the GOP in North Carolina rejected the group and in a letter to Log Cabin accused the LCR of disloyalty.

LCG "advocates special rights and privileges for homosexuals," wrote Blount. "It openly opposes President Bush’s call for a constitutional amendment to protect the sanctity of marriage as being the union between one man and one woman."

Blount pointed to the party platform that says "Republicans believe that a two-parent family, where a husband and wife live in harmony in one home, provides the ideal environment for raising children and is the best model for family life. We praise the courageous efforts of single parents who work hard to provide stable homes, and we recognize that single parents often succeed and two-parent families sometimes fail. We, therefore, oppose efforts to redefine the traditional family structure and offer the Republican Party as a refuge fore everyone concerned with about the breakdown of family life in America."

Ed Farthing, the chair of the North Carolina Log Cabin Republicans called Blount's position "discouraging".

"It appears to be you have to be a white, Anglo-Saxon married Protestant for the Party to pay any attention to you," Farthing told 365Gay.com.

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Someone might cover what Kerry and Bush actually say they intend to do, instead of what each says the other says.

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May 19, 2004

EDUCATION
Still Work to be Done

As we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board, the Supreme Court's landmark decision declaring school segregation unconstitutional, questions remain about the fairness of public education. Newsweek reports "Today, by virtually any measure of academic achievement, blacks, Puerto Ricans and Mexican-Americans are, on average, far behind their white and Asian-American peers." Meanwhile, a Newsweek poll shows "only 38 percent" of blacks believe their neighborhood schools "have the resources necessary to provide a quality education." Reports released this month demonstrate that unequal resources track with unequal outcomes. A recent study by the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future illustrates that a two-tiered or separate and unequal, education system continues to exist in many states. A report by the Education Trust demonstrates that "on every measure – teacher quality, access to high-level curriculum, and state/local education funding – students of color and low-income students continue to get less than their fair share of public education's most critical resources." President Bush, however, has not delivered on promises to fully fund No Child Left Behind, while demanding strict compliance with new mandates, putting schools in impossible situations. Recent court rulings reveal, "[a]s the clamor for integration wanes, the fight for opportunity in the nation's public schools has largely become a battle over money."

INSUFFICIENT FUNDS: In the school district of Topeka, Kansas, where President Bush spoke Monday, the president's 2004 budget leaves more than 8,000 students without Title I aid, aimed to assist "public schools with the highest percentages of children from low-income families." The NYT reports "only days before the Brown v. Board of Education festivities were set to begin, a state judge took the drastic step of ordering the schools shut down unless lawmakers increased the 'hugely insufficient dollars' going to all districts, particularly those with poor minority students." Similar verdicts have come down in Massachusetts and Montana, where judges noted "that state exams and the federal No Child Left Behind law set concrete academic goals that students have little chance of meeting without more money." Such rulings underscore the local realities states face as a result of the president's cuts in funding to states – the situation is exacerbated by state budget cuts stemming from local resistance to raising taxes for education. "For the standards-based approach to have any chance of success," wrote Judge Jeffrey M. Sherlock of Montana last month, "the state must assure that districts have sufficient resources." This year alone, the president underfunds No Child Left Behind by $9.4 billion.

ADMINISTRATION IMPLEMENTATION FAILURES: In a report released this year, the Harvard Civil Rights Project tracked "the first-year results of the No Child Left Behind Act in 11 urban districts," concluding that "In each of the districts we studied, fewer than 18% of eligible students requested and received supplemental educational services. In most of these districts it was less than 7% of the eligible students, and in some it was less than 1%." Other reports confirm the main problem is the administration's failure to effectively implement the law. A report released by the Citizens Commission on Civil Rights, "Choosing Better Schools," argues that the transfer and supplemental service options under NCLB are providing valuable educational opportunities to low income students, but calls for the administration to do more to assist states and districts in implementing them. A report issued by the Center for Education policy similarly argues the administration needs to provide greater support and place a higher priority on improving struggling schools rather than promoting transfers.

NEXT STEPS?: There are a diversity of proposals to improve educational opportunities for all students. Many believe ensuring high quality teachers for all students is the key to equal educational opportunities. An American Progress column by Sheryll Cashin contends we must renew our commitment to integration. Author Richard Kahlenberg, suggests "the research shows, poor kids of all races do better in a middle-class environment." Kahlenberg applauds attempts at economic de-segregation in North Carolina, Massachusetts, San Francisco, Florida and elsewhere, both for their effect on academic achievement and on broader issues of citizenship.For more reform proposals watch the recent American Progress education forum.

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Revisiting a Martyrdom
Inspired by a novice filmmaker, prosecutors launch a new investigation into the murder of Emmett Till
By DAVID VAN BIEMA

Where they failed, Beauchamp's work on The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till apparently succeeded. (Another documentary on the subject, The Murder of Emmett Till by director Stanley Nelson, aired on PBS last year.) Initially researching a feature film, Beauchamp, 32, says, "I realized that I wasn't doing interviews — I was taking depositions." He says he found witnesses, including a woman who asserts on film that she saw a black man aiding the murderers' search for Till, and that Milam's green Chevy pickup was not alone when leaving the kidnapping, but one of a "caravan." Beauchamp eventually concluded that as many as 11 people — six of them white and five black — were complicit, and presented his findings to Mississippi authorities in February. Quizzed about the witness count last week, local district attorney Joyce Chiles replied, "That number would probably best come from Keith Beauchamp. The only thing we're doing is following up on statements of people he has already located."

That is fine with Simeon Wright. He loves the film. He differs with those who see little point to the investigation now that Bryant and Milam are dead. "Would it be proper for us to say Mohammed Atta and all his boys are dead, so let Sept. 11 die?" he asks. "We can know who was in the conspiracy. They're in their 70s now. Why die with this stain on their hands?" And he adds, "Who knows? Maybe the state will call and say, 'Mr. Wright, we're so sorry your family suffered this grave injustice in Mississippi.'"

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What Brown Means Today
How Brown v. Board of Education helped change America — and how it didn't
By KRISTINA DELL

…Just two lawyers from the team that argued Brown are still alive, and they answer that question in very different ways. Yet both are still involved in civil rights work and both become contentious when asked about current racial disparities. "The schools we have today with black kids were the kind of schools we had before Brown," says Carter, 87, from his roomy chambers in downtown Manhattan where he has been a U.S. District Court judge for the Southern District of New York since 1972. Professor Jack Greenberg, 79, is more sanguine. "Do you want to take a glass half-empty or a glass-half full approach?" he asks. "In 1954, that glass was 100 percent empty."

Still, the numbers aren't pretty. Harvard's Civil Rights Project shows that the proportion of black children in the South's white-majority schools has dropped significantly over the past fourteen years, fom an average of 43.5% to 32.7%. But the most segregated schools are found in the North with New York, California, Michigan and Illinois having the lowest percentages of black students in majority-white schools. Ironically, many blacks have moved back to the South because the conditions there are better than in places like Detroit, Cleveland and Baltimore.

Beyond segregation, blacks continue to lag behind educationally. More than 70% of white students graduate from high school on time; just over half of black and Hispanic students do. Blacks make up 8.5% of all students in U.S. graduate programs, well short of their percentage of the young adult population. That can lead to economic disparity: the black unemployment rate is almost double the rate of whites. In 2002, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that the poverty rate for whites was 7.8% whereas for African Americans it reached 24.1%.

A lot of these numbers result from socio-economic trends: many schools are funded by local property taxes which have caused gross disparities among districts, often built on income and race. Even though the law desegregated schools, many blacks never made it out of the poor inner cities to the better-funded schools usually found in the suburbs. Carter sees affirmative action as one way to bridge the gap. Once blacks were free to go ahead and attend white schools, "they were supposed to be on the same starting line. But, they need some kind of help to get them into the mainstream."

But, Carter argues, the biggest reason Brown hasn't been a complete success lies in the Supreme Court. When the 1954 Brown decision came down, the Court did not specify a remedy for school segregation. A year later it issued Brown v. Board of Education II, which said that the transition to integration should happen "with all deliberate speed." That, says Carter, paved the way for years of foot-dragging, and institutionalized resistance. "When the Supreme Court made that decision 'over time' I lost all respect for it, because they departed from all precedence," said Carter. "I have never known a case where the Supreme Court held that you're entitled to a right that is not vindicated immediately. 'Over time' allowed the South to prepare and work and believe they could defy the Court." …

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Last week was interesting. Checking in this week, I see this:

A Note From The Chairman: Warning on Comments
I had to spend some time, today, deleting personal attacks and flames. This was not fun, nor will I do this regularly. Those who persist will simply be banned from comments.

Read the Guide, people: Rudeness is NOT TOLERATED here. Period. Insulting other commentors or calling Iron Bloggers 'a shame' is way out of bounds. This site is here to promote CIVIL discourse. You want to flame? Take it somewhere else. You want to call people names? Take it somewhere else.

You want to behave like adults and discuss the merits of an argument or the issue? Great. But leave the personal attacks out of it. The Iron Bloggers (Rosemary, Jay, Robin and Vinod) have graciously volunteered to do this and while critiquing their posts are fair, attacking them is not.

This is the ONLY warning you will get. If you find one of your posts deleted? It is you I am speaking to. If not, carry on.

PS - As I just had to delete 2 more comments, attacking the Challenger is also right out.

Please. Act like adults.

# posted by The Chairman

That's the way you're supposed to run a one-on-one debate. Props to The Chairman.

This week's debate is on Gay Marriage, and if atypically verbose it is quite typical conceptually…and tactically as well.

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Yes, I intend to get off a good one on the topic tomorrow and Friday as well.

I had a considerable amount of help for today's post. It's the text of a discussion that just wrapped up at that Discriminations site I've been bitching about.

That link points to a post on P6 that points to the discussion. I already pinged the thing twice.

The conversation is reproduced verbatim and I leave any conclusion about points raised and techniques used to your judgment.

Comments: Still More Brown Watch

A friend of mine lamented that she hadn't had time to read all the "Legacy of Brown" retrospectives have been appearing recently. I told her not to worry; all she need do is read the short editorial on the subject...

Glad you provided the links.

Now if you can explain why you quoted the Times in such a way as to twist the entire intent of their editorial in a way that DOESN'T show your intent is incompatible with honesty I will be truly impress. Will even post it verbatim on my site with no comment.

Posted by P6 May 17, 2004 02:59 PM

This would be a cool way to slut for links. But, of course, it isn't.

Posted by ELC May 17, 2004 04:22 PM

I am not the one who suggested anyone read the Times quote on my site.

I am the one who says the post should have linked to the editorial in the first place but then you'd have all seen what was written here had nothing to do with what was written at the Times.

Please, feel free to NOT visit my site.

In fact, I implore you. Don't. Follow. That. Link.

Posted by P6 May 17, 2004 05:44 PM

P6: I fail to see how the portion John left out invalidated the point he was trying to make -- namely, the lack of statistics on school integration in the South today. He was questioning the facts of a salient point in the editorial.

Perhaps John could have left the very last sentence in, but methinks you doth protest too much.

Posted by Joey May 17, 2004 06:14 PM

1) Regarding the TIMES article: John's partial quote was completely in the spirit of the article and the additional context given by P6. (For example, the article clearly meant to compare two statistics that are clearly incomparable.) If P6 wants to claim otherwise, it is not sufficient to merely give a larger quote; he must explain what it was about the context that John got wrong.

2) Regarding the article about Auburn University: P6 likes the first part of the article that says we need black and female computer scientists in order to address the shortage caused(!) by terrorism. For some reason P6 therefore criticizes John for attacking the later part of the article that says we also need black and female computer scientists for a completely different reason: because they think differently from nonwhite males. John never criticizes the first part of the article, but I will.

Let us assume that we have a shortage of computer scientists, and that we therefore want to attract more qualified people into the field (and that we don't care what -- presumably useless -- activities we take them away from). The article says, "White males can't fill the gaps." Leaving aside the constant confusion between "white" and "nonblack", I say: "Why not?" After all, very few white males are computer scientists; the vast majority are not. Who knows where the greatest untapped potential is for computer scientists. I think we should take Auburn's miraculous methods for converting Blacks and women into computer scientists, and use them to convert people of ALL sexes and races into computer scientists.

Posted by Private Person May 17, 2004 08:28 PM

As I indicated in my UPDATE, I don't feel the need to respond to the charge that my "intent is incompatible with honesty," but to save anyone who cares the trouble of scrolling up to check I would like to point out that the third word of the the third line of my post does link to the NY Times editorial.

Posted by John Rosenberg May 17, 2004 09:53 PM

Private Person:

1) Regarding the TIMES article: John's partial quote was completely in the spirit of the article and the additional context given by P6. (For example, the article clearly meant to compare two statistics that are clearly incomparable.) If P6 wants to claim otherwise, it is not sufficient to merely give a larger quote; he must explain what it was about the context that John got wrong.

Fine.

The theme, of course, is the failure of Brown's purported promise of integration.

That is not the case. The theme of the editorial is that the work is progressing, hopeful but incomplete. Since the entire basis of the post is incorrect, it kinda voids the rest of any meaning.

2) Regarding the article about Auburn University: P6 likes the first part of the article that says we need black and female computer scientists in order to address the shortage caused(!) by terrorism.

It's a fact that half out technical graduates were foreigners. It's a fact that many of them find equal facilities at home now. The article's speculation seems reasonable and the National Science Foundations's decision to support a study to understand its success is a good move. Supporting folks getting into the middle class is generally a good thing to do anyway.

For some reason P6 therefore criticizes John for attacking the later part of the article that says we also need black and female computer scientists for a completely different reason: because they think differently from nonwhite males.

Wrong again.

His statement:

This is a provocative assertion, and it would be good to have some evidence of the results of this "difference." In what sense, or in what sense related to computer science, are all non-blacks "the same people"? "Same" how? How are black minds different from white or Asian or Hispanic minds? Have there been any black "solutions" that could only have been produced by someone with a black background? Discriminating minds want to know....

My response:

There is no conception of "all non-blacks" being "the same people," anywhere in the article.

I "attacked" John…and frankly, now you…for the attacking the program with a strawman.

Leaving aside the constant confusion between "white" and "nonblack", I say: "Why not?"

Because not all of them will want to. It's that simple. Perhaps "won't" is a better word for it than "can't."

What really bothers me here is the amount of effort it takes to root out words in a positve article about a Generally Good Thing and spin them negatively. The only thing worse would be if you do it effortlessly.

And don't worry, I'm not a troll. I won't be posting here regularly.

Posted by P6 May 17, 2004 11:07 PM

The editorial ambiguously says "Brown kick-started...a slow but steady process of dismantling legal segregation." What do they mean by "legal segregation"? Of course, Brown immediately banned segregation by force of law. In addition, Brown also helped lead toward later laws making many forms of private segregation illegal -- housing, employment, etc.

As John pointed out, the editorial compared southern statistics with national statistics. That same comparison also loaded the deck by comparing schools with majority black students vs. schools with majority non-white. students.

It's annoying to see this sort of contempt for the reader, even when its not needed. The Times is essentially correct. Brown has not led to as much school integration as many had expected.

In my opinion, the biggest flaw in the editorial is its failure to note that the Brown decision didn't lead to the educational gain many had expected. Brown presumed that integration would automatically produce equal educational results. I think time has disproven that idea. Too bad the Times is still stuck in a superseded mind set. The more important battle today is to improve education for blacks.

Posted by David May 18, 2004 01:42 AM

David:

the short editorial on the subject that appears in today's New York Times In my opinion, the biggest flaw in the editorial is its failure to note that the Brown decision didn't lead to the educational gain many had expected.

One short editorial can't cover everything. You're blaming them for dealing with one topic at a time? How…desparate.

But since you brought it up, why did Brown fail to produce the educational gain many expected (hint: "There was bitter opposition to school integration.")? Who expected it to happen automatically (hint: it wuzzent Black folks)?

The whole post is an ad hominem attack. The New York Times being a legal person and all.

And as a side note, I find the number of you that have clicked that like after I specifically asked you not to a bit disrespectful.

That's a joke, son.

Posted by P6 May 18, 2004 05:47 AM

P6 - "why did Brown fail to produce the educational gain many expected (hint: 'There was bitter opposition to school integration.')?

You seem to have bought into the notion that integration = education gain. I disagree. I think the public schools failed,for two main reasons. The educational establishment gave them lousy tools. Also, judges and others made it difficult to maintain the discipline needed for effective teaching.

I was educated in the inner city at a time when those schools still worked. My wife and I chose to send our children to integrated schools. They got good educations only because we had the background and the interest to supplement their mediocre classes.

"You're blaming them for dealing with one topic at a time? How�desparate (sic)."

The Times mention of the conservative Supreme Court was an implicit call for more bussing. I was disagreeing. I think what's needed now is improved education for those students who need it most. Their best hope, in my opinion, is school choice.

Posted by David May 18, 2004 08:35 AM

David:

You seem to have bought into the notion that integration = education gain

We haven't discussed my views on this yet. And since this isn't the topic under discussion in the above post I won't go into it here.

Again, my problem is the energetic spinning of objectively good results.

The Times mention of the conservative Supreme Court was an implicit call for more bussing.

David, what you see depends on where you look. If you insist there are boogiemen in every minority outreach program that exists, you will be able to find something to prove that are there.

A skilled misrepresentation by selective quoting is the best way.

Posted by P6 May 18, 2004 01:49 PM

P-6, I gather you don't agree with my interpretation of the Times's comment about a "conservative Supreme Court." OK. What's your interpretation? What was the their complaint?

Posted by David May 18, 2004 05:25 PM

The theme, of course, is the failure of Brown's purported promise of integration.

That is not the case. The theme of the editorial is that the work is progressing, hopeful but incomplete.

They had no complaint. Posted by P6 May 18, 2004 08:01 PM

P-6:

"The theme, of course, is the failure of Brown's purported promise of integration."

Right.

Q. Why did the Times mention a conservative SC as relevant to the lack of integration?

A. Because the conservative SC was less willing to use bussing for racial integration than a liberal SC would have been.

See. When the Times mentioned a conservative SC, they were implicitly advocating more bussing.

Posted by David May 18, 2004 10:10 PM

David:

See. When the Times mentioned a conservative SC, they were implicitly advocating more bussing.

Right.

I take it the initial discussion is over? I assumed your changing the subject was conceding the point I made. Which is already explained in a prior comment.

Posted by P6 May 18, 2004 11:36 PM

P-6: Sure, I agree with you. The last sentence of the editorial says, "Brown's glass as considerably more than half full." That's consistent with your formulation that the work is progressing, hopeful but incomplete.

I's not sure what you mean by, "They had no complaint." Saying that school integration is incomplete because of a conservative SC sounds to me like a complaint.

I think we're pretty much in agreement, except for some quibbling about word usage.

Posted by David May 19, 2004 06:06 AM

David:

I honestly think our differences run a little deeper, but that happensif you're not ready for that you shouldn't speak out, just do your stuff sneaky.

Add to that the increased nuance in today's posts and I'm ready to stop jumping up and down on people's head in their own house.

But don't be surprised to see trackbacks.

Posted by P6 May 19, 2004 11:37 AM

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Probe Targets Government Scientists' Consulting
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 19, 2004; Page A01

Top legal and ethics officials in the Department of Health and Human Services have repeatedly allowed government scientists to engage in lucrative consulting deals with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies while ignoring the concerns of lower-level ethics officers, according to evidence presented at a House subcommittee hearing yesterday.

In one highlighted case, top HHS officials during the Clinton administration insisted that the director of the National Cancer Institute, Richard D. Klausner, be deemed eligible to receive a $40,000 award from the University of Pittsburgh even though the university is a major NCI grant recipient -- and despite the fact that the institute had just settled a lawsuit brought against it by a Pitt researcher, on terms favorable to the university.

At a minimum, the proximity of those events gave the appearance that Klausner was being rewarded by the university for helping to settle the suit, said ethics officers who told the subcommittee yesterday they were uncomfortable with the arrangement but were pushed by HHS general counsel to endorse it.

In a more recent case, a pair of scientists employed by the NCI and the Food and Drug Administration were twice approved to do outside consulting for a California technology company even though that company appears to be in competition with a Maryland firm that already had a formal arrangement with the government to use the same scientists' expertise.

This cartoon, BTW.

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Quote of note:

For families earning less than $10,750, however, the House bill would do nothing. Thus, a family with a parent working full-time at the minimum wage ($10,300) would get no benefit from the bill. A better-off but still low-income family with two children would get a one-time $300 average tax break ($150 per child). By contrast, two-child families with earnings between $150,000 and $250,000 get $22,000 in extra tax breaks over the next 10 years ($1,000 per child per year). This is bad social policy, bad tax policy, and bad fiscal policy. You'd think they'd be embarrassed, but they're not.

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Leave No Rich Child Behind
Wednesday, May 19, 2004; Page A22

THE HOUSE of Representatives plans to take up a bill this week that would provide new tax breaks to families earning as much as $309,000, while doing next to nothing for those at the low end of the income scale. The bill, which could come up as early as today, is the most egregious part of a House tax-cutting spree that altogether would add more than $500 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years, according to estimates by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center.

The House would not only make permanent the $1,000-per-child tax credit enacted as part of the 2001 tax cut but would dramatically increase the income limits for eligibility. Currently, married families with incomes of up to $110,000 receive the full credit; the bill would more than double the income ceiling, to $250,000. Under existing law, families with two children and incomes up to $149,000 receive a partial tax credit; the bill would make that partial credit available to families with two children and income of between $250,000 and $289,000; families with three children would be entitled to the partial credit up to an income of $309,000.

This is unnecessary, misguided and irresponsible. Families at that income level have already enjoyed significant benefits from the recent tax cuts; they don't need an extra subsidy to help support their children.

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Unfortunately for the Bushistas, "later" eventually becomes "now," and usually a lot sooner than you're ready for.

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U.S. Faces Growing Fears of Failure
Wolfowitz Concedes Errors as Damage Control Continues
By Robin Wright and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, May 19, 2004; Page A01

The Bush administration is struggling to counter growing sentiment -- among U.S. lawmakers, Iraqis and even some of its own officials -- that the occupation of Iraq is verging on failure, forcing a top Pentagon official yesterday to concede serious mistakes over the past year.

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President, Senate Reach Pact on Judicial Nominations
Bush Vows He Won't Use Recess Appointments; 25 to Get Vote

By Helen Dewar
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 19, 2004; Page A21

The White House pledged yesterday that President Bush will not bypass the Senate in appointing federal judges for the next eight months as part of a bipartisan deal to break a seven-week impasse over votes on Bush's judicial nominees.

Under the agreement, Bush will not use his constitutional power to give temporary appointments to judicial nominees during congressional recesses for the rest of his current term ending Jan. 20 -- a power he exercised twice in recent months, infuriating Democrats.

In return, Democrats, who had been holding up action on all of Bush's judicial choices since March to protest the recess appointments, agreed to allow votes on 25 mostly noncontroversial nominations to district and appeals court posts over the next several weeks.

The agreement amounted to a partial cease-fire in the Senate's grueling fight over Bush's conservative choices for the judiciary.

Democrats refused to include seven appeals court nominees they have been blocking -- or threatening to block -- as too ideologically conservative in their views on abortion, worker rights and other issues likely to confront a federal judge. Democrats will continue to oppose these nominees, Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) told reporters.

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2 GOP Chairmen at Odds Over Hill Abuse Hearings
Rep. Hunter Worried About Absences From Iraq

By Bradley Graham and Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, May 19, 2004; Page A18

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee lashed out at his Senate counterpart yesterday for summoning senior U.S. commanders from the field to testify at hearings into the prisoner-abuse scandal, saying the move threatens to disrupt military operations in Iraq.

"I think the Senate has become mesmerized by cameras, and I think that's sad," said Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.).

Hunter's remarks represented a rare public attack by one leading Republican lawmaker on another. They reflected the growing strains in senior GOP circles over how to manage the scandal that has tarnished perceptions of the United States abroad, undercut U.S. efforts in Iraq and thrown the Bush administration on the defensive.

House Republican leaders have argued for doing as little as possible in response to the scandal, complaining that administration critics are exploiting it for political ends. But the Senate Armed Services Committee, chaired by John W. Warner (R-Va.), has made clear its intention to hold a series of hearings aimed at flushing out responsibility for the scandal.

In contrast to Hunter's panel, which has limited itself to one public and one closed-door hearing on the scandal, Warner's committee has convened two public hearings and has scheduled a third today with three senior commanders as witnesses, including Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top U.S. officer in the Persian Gulf region; Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, head of U.S. forces in Iraq; and Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the new chief of detention facilities in Iraq.

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Haitian leader returns black love to sender
An Ocean Apart
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
May 18th, 2004 8:30 AM

When Haitian prime minister Gerard Latortue came to Manhattan last week, he had a curt message for his cousins up north—butt out. Since the overthrow of Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February, Latortue has been under fire from African American leaders who view him as an illegitimate steward of the first free black state in the Western Hemisphere. Just last month, 1,500 protestors gathered in Brooklyn to voice their opposition to Latortue and push for Aristide's return. "I think Latortue is a puppet for both Bush administration interests and the interests of the Haitian elite," says Bill Fletcher Jr., president of the Pan-Africanist lobby TransAfrica Forum.

But Latortue charged that his American critics were turning Haitian strife into "a racial issue that doesn't correspond with the aspirations of the Haitian population today," and that criticism of him is being "promoted more by Afro-Americans than by Haitians, in the name of black power." Latortue went on to argue that African American leaders were using Haiti's troubles in hopes of further blemishing President Bush’s questionable foreign policy record.

"I don't think much of [Latortue's] comments. This is not the first off-the-wall statement he's made," says California congresswoman and former Congressional Black Caucus chair Maxine Waters. "He is a person who's been put in place by multinational powers and I don't think he knows very much."

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Senior.

Junior's been a lost cause ever since he suggested I put food on my family.

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Swell affair at a grand a head as Dad speaks up to boost Bush campaign

Patrick Barkham
Wednesday May 19, 2004
The Guardian

As every high spending teenager knows, when the overdraft gets big it is best to call in Dad. And so it was that George Bush senior brought a presidential outreach project to London last night in a bid to drum up more dollars for his son's presidential re-election campaign, which has already broken all fundraising records.

Amid tight security, an audience dominated by American expats paid $1,000 (£566) a head to hear the first President Bush appeal for more money for George W at the five-star Landmark hotel in Marylebone, London.

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Must have run out of American suckers.

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‘Definitely a Cover-Up’
Former Abu Ghraib Intel Staffer Says Army Concealed Involvement in Abuse Scandal

By Brian Ross and Alexandra Salomon

May 18, 2004 — Dozens of soldiers — other than the seven military police reservists who have been charged — were involved in the abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, and there is an effort under way in the Army to hide it, a key witness in the investigation told ABCNEWS.

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…though we do appreciate the confirmation.

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May 18, 2004

White supremacists Cut Brown v. Board Rally Short
Date: Monday, May 17, 2004
By: Associated Press

TOPEKA, Kan. - Two dozen white supremacists held a rally Saturday near the site of the school that was the subject of the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision, but they cut the demonstration short after counterprotesters moved within about 25 feet of them.

A line of police officers in riot gear stood between the supremacist group and about 100 counterprotesters in a city park near the former Monroe Elementary School, subject of the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 decision declaring segregated schools unconstitutional.

About two dozen of the counterprotesters had moved into the area designated for the supremacists, and for several minutes the two sides shouted insults and taunts at each other.

Billy Roper, chairman of the White Revolution group of Russellville, Ark., said the protesters' approach wasn't the reason his side left the site 45 minutes earlier than planned.

"We did what we came to do. Our work is over," Roper said.

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Heh.

Sound like those guys in high school selling wolf tickets while their boys are "holding him back".

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That title belongs to a book I read years ago on Black culture seen as a ring around the Atlantic Ocean. British auther, interesting stuff.

That's not what I'm writing about though It's this, from BlackBritain.com:

A new Commission for Equality and Human Rights A New Commission for Equality and Human Rights proposes to bring together the work of the CRE, the EOC and the DRC within a new, single equality body ... The Department of Trade and Industry published its White Paper Fairness for All: A New Commission for Equality and Human Rights which proposes to bring together the work of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) and the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) within a new, single equality body.

This follows the government’s announcement on 30 October 2003 that it intends to establish a single Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR). [P6: the post is dated 5/14/2004, don't blame me]

The White Paper Fairness for All states that it is a response to the new challenges that face Britain in the 21st century including inter alia, that although more women form part of the work force than ever before, they still earn significantly less than their male counterparts,are concentrated in lower-skilled occupations and part-time employment, seventy per cent (70%) of minority ethnic communities live in eighty-eight (88) of the most deprived areas.

In addition, 6.9 million of the 10 million disabled people of working age are nearly seven times as likely as non-disabled people to be out of work and claiming benefits.

The White Paper provides, These social and demographic changes, and our deepening understanding of the nature of discrimination, reveal the potential cost – to us all – of the injustice and divisions caused by prejudice and discrimination.

As a result of the diversity in Britain the White Paper provides that the challenge facing Britons is how we shape and promote the shared values that underpin citizenship.

The challenge would also require respecting and celebrating our differences, coupled with the need to promote wider ownership of common values and a shared sense of belonging.

I disagree, personally, with the last line. You don't have to celebrate my differences, you just have to not get on my nevers over them.

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But AngryDesi does. Write about it, at least. And well.

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If you're a Black Republican…well, I don't know what you're doing here. You should be at Cobb's joint.

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Why P6 looks different when run through Allconsuming.net.

That's the whole post, you don't need to waste a page load.

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And just because I feel like it…

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I'm doing this kind of on the fly, so it might not be as tight as it should be. I was going to start with an old essay I wrote at the start of my time as a Black partisan (no, I was not always one). At the time I called myself an "aggregationist."

Claude McKay said in his autobiography, "Negroes do not understand the difference between group segregation and group aggregation. And their leaders do not enlighten them, because they too do not choose to understand."

This is all too true. Fortunately, I'm not a leader. I have chosen to understand. And I have chosen to explain the difference, and the difference that difference makes.

Segregation and aggregation both refer to a gathering together of things according to some shared characteristic. Both imply considering that group a single entity. But just as all other things can be constructive or destructive, so can this viewing groups of people collectively. Aggregation is the positive side of this collective viewing, while segregation is the negative side.

What makes segregation negative is that it's something that's done to you, whereas aggregation is something that is done by you. Segregation is imposed on you, aggregation is chosen by you. When you aggregate, you draw together with people. When you segregate, you push people aside.

When I wrote the essay it was to explain why it is no sin for Black folks to actively support each other on principle…the nature of aggregation was under discussion. This time it is the nature of segregation being considered, and I'm doing it in connection with the widely reported "failure" of integration to "close the education gap."

Yes. Scare quotes. And you gotta do some history with me. Can't change it, but it is the only source of data we have to analyse.

We all know Jim Crow was the order of the day at the time Brown was decided. And as the neo-Confederates will never fail to reminder us, it wasn't only in the South than The Negro had problems. I think it safe to say that at the time a plurality of mainstream types actively disliked The Negro and a majority of the balance didn't much find him to be the sort of fellow one would associate with.

Put that aside for a paragraph and consider: are you comfortable in close quarters with someone you actively dislike?

Now bring it home. This is a major part of the reason the education gap still persists. Did you read Prime's post yesterday? If not, get to it.

Don't you ever wonder (okay, I'm assuming you knew) why there were so many intelligent, erudite Black folks so quickly after the War Between The States? One reason is their teachers volunteered to teach them. People who though it important enough that The Negro be educated that they moved into his midst. That all broke down of course, and wasn't intended to end segregation anyway.. Separate can be equal, but you have to give it an honest shot.

And it was almost tried.

I said the other day I was still wrapping my mind around the fact that Brown v.Board of Education wasn't the seminal case decided that day. For some reason, perhaps because I wasn't as familiar with the details as I could have been, I thought the set of class actions was named for the case of greatest significance.

Wrong.

Ironically, it was not Brown but the case from South Carolina, Briggs v Elliott, that was the more important and interesting of the four. The Topeka case arose out of an 1867 law that permitted towns of more than 15,000 to segregate their elementary schools; the other states had constitutional and statutory provisions that mandated racial segregation at all levels.

The story in South Carolina was very different. South Carolina had been the nullification state in 1832, the first to secede in 1860, and since the 1890s had built a rigid set of laws and customs segregating the races. Harry Briggs, a tenant farmer and navy veteran, with five children, "figured anything to better the children's education was worthwhile...."[2] Clarendon County was part of the old cotton belt and most blacks were poor tenant or sharecropping farmers The county school enrollment was 6,531 blacks and 2,375 whites ; and the total value of the 61 black schools was officially listed as $194,575; the value of the white schools was put at $673,850. In 1949-50 Clarendon County spent $179 per white child in the public schools; but only $43 for each black child.[3] In District #1 of the county, where Briggs and the other plaintiffs lived, there were 2,800 African Americans and 295 whites.[4] Such a picture repeated itself over and over in the Deep South.

As a side note, I intend to spider that site and ask their permission to mirror it because the URL includes the word "old site". If they say no, at least I'll have it archived for myself.

Even more significant that the statistics was the solution the State of South Carolina proposed:

At the beginning of the hearing the defendants admitted upon the record that 'the educational facilities, equipment, curricula and opportunities afforded in School District No. 22 for colored pupils * * * are not substantially equal to those afforded for white pupils'. The evidence offered in the case fully sustains this admission. The defendants contend, however, that the district is one of the rural school districts which has not kept pace with urban districts in providing educational facilities for the children of either race, and that the inequalities have resulted from limited resources and from the disposition of the school officials to spend the limited funds available 'for the most immediate demands rather than in the light of the overall picture'. They state that under the leadership of Governor Byrnes the Legislature of South carolina has made provision for a bond issue of $75,000,000 with a three per cent sales tax to support it for the purpose of equalizing educational opportunities and facilities throughout the state and of meeting the problem of providing equal educational opportunities for Negro children where this had not been done. They have offered evidence to show that this educational program is going forward and that under it the educational facilities in the district will be greatly improved for both races and that Negro children will be afforded educational facilities and opportunities in all respects equal to those afforded white children.

None of this can be considered in isolation. This was the first sales tax ever enacted in South Carolina. This wasn't what I would call a noble gesture, but the best one could do if one truly both believed in segregation and acknowledged federal law takes precedence: fulfill the law in the narrowest means possible, In this case it meant providing the "equal" part of separate but equal¿in public facilities. It meant they had to pay to maintain their segregation¿and the significance of that is they were willing to do so. The offer South Carolina made has fascinated me for years. I've read a number of alternate universe science fiction and can't help by see that moment as a turning point

Like I told you before, we minorities ain't stupid. I can assure you, based on talks with older folks than me, they were fully aware of how strongly the local white folks felt about segregation. They were the ones constantly pushed aside. Do you know what the settlement the Black folks of Selma, AL originally asked for in their bus boycott? Only that they not be required to give up a seat, or be left on the sidewalk, after they'd paid for it. They had no problem being seated from back to front while white folks were seated from front to back, or even getting on at the back of the bus. They wanted what they paid for, and when the all the seats were filled the next passenger of whatever race would stand until a seat was available.

No, Black folks weren't stupid enough to directly repudiate such a deeply held fusion of religion and politics.

Anyway, even though South Carolina offered this up, one had to consider the bigger picture. South Carolina was just one state; it would probably set a precedent for the other states of the old Confederacy given its status as historical role model, but how long would that take?

There's this divine impatience you get when you're sure you doing God's will, when you surf the cresting wave of destiny. When I was studying the history of Europe (as one must) it occurred to me that Germany's biggest flaw pre-WW I was impatience. As Europe's dominant economy, home of the most prestigious learning and research centers, and with their growing influence, I really feel had they simply kept doing what they were doing all along Europe would have unified under Germany in the normal course of events. But when you're on that wave, you want to make sure you see the way it turns out.

From PBS's African American World site:

Several years before 1963, the African American community had adopted the motto "Free by '63". And by 1963, a hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation, the civil rights movement had made much progress: lunch counters and other public accommodations had become integrated and the Kennedy administration announced new civil rights proposals.

I suspect divine impatience was an element in how the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund decided to handle these cases. I believe it affected the whole community. Black folks figured if they were in the same place at the same time as white folks were being taught they would learn too; this is a very different goal than integration

Thing is, they weren't expecting to change. Integration was to give us access to the stuff we need to have our own. And they didn't consider the fact that the mainstream's memory those legal cases that made us so giddy was different than ours, but just as fresh, vivid and inspiring. Given that we humans were happy to be on the winning side, how do you suppose being on the losing side made them humans feel?

Shouldn't have been so triumphal. Though I hate to say NewsMax got something right, Newsmax got something right:

In fact, the civil rights movement was not about politics. Nor was it about which politicians did what and which political party should take the most credit. When it came to civil rights, America's politicians merely saw the handwriting on the wall and wrote the legislation to make into federal law the historical changes that had already taken place. There was nothing else they could do.

Now, how would it feel to watch people you are convinced are not only your inferior but your subordinate stake out territory you expressly forbade him?

And if you're honest, how can you not see the reaction as a most eminently human one? You don't have to like it. But you do have to acknowledge it. It doesn't seem to me the Black community did so.

I'm not sure if our legislators took it into account or not, because the method chosen to integrate was SO blind to human nature it may have been intentional sabotage along the lines of Howard Smith's adding women to the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, with the intent of making it tough enough to frighten off the support Bull Connor so thoughtfully arranged. I mean, didn't we just lose over some buses? We have to let them sit wherever they want, but next to my sweet child? And it's bad enough you want to bus them over here, but what caring parent would allow their child to be shipped across the city before the sun even comes up sometimes to go to that school¿the one even niggers don't want?

And it's important to remember the collective response because the whole teaching vibe is voluntary. It's a matter of knowledge, skills and experience, yes, but it's also a matter of intent. You can't force intent, nor can you fake it. Right now there's a teacher somewhere grumbling and mad as hell because there ain't enough supplies for the whole week's lesson, but fuck that I'm coming out my pocket, bring that shit myself hmph how the hell they expect me to do my job I got kids to teach I'll put the can of corned beef hash in the fridge until it's firm slice it thin enough for sandwiches all week so I can get this stuff for my kids. Bastards.

It was years before our children were feeling that kind of love.

Then there was the change from integration-as-tactic to integration-as--goal. But I intend to post this today.

I guess what I'm saying in my overextended way is, when you look for a reason the "failure" of integration to "close the education gap" you can't be simplistic about it because now is always the result of a confluence of events, forces, human reactions and timing.

And if you're looking for someone to blame, don't. Because we're at the beginning of a new road and Black folks are as inexperienced at being free as white folks are having us among them as such. Almost as inexperienced. And it's still trial and error out here.

I'd like to think if we all keep that in mind it would help.

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Sorry for the cybernetic salad.

There's a saying in the software development field, that you have to "eat your own dog food." It means actually using the code you have under development, Well, I switched editing toolkits in med-version change with MTClient, and like an idiot I didn't use it on my test site first.

Neither have I looked at the site until just now, when I saw what a mess it was. Basically I think I surpassed the maximum number of things I can do at once.

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Sept. 11 Panel Describes Confusion in Burning Towers (Update3)
May 18 (Bloomberg) -- Heroic efforts by police and fire fighters were undermined by tensions between their departments, problems with radio communications and 911 operators who couldn't give fully informed advice to callers trapped in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, says a new report by the federal commission studying the attacks.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which ran the trade center complex,"acknowledges that it had no protocol for rescuing people trapped above a fire in the towers," the interim report by the commission staff says. The report describes the confusion, destruction and miscommunication that confronted emergency workers after terrorists struck the World Trade Center.

The commission intends the report, released at the start of a two-day hearing in New York City, to be the most complete and accurate version yet published of the 100 minutes during which the two World Trade towers were struck by hijacked commercial jetliners, burned and then collapsed.

"Today will be a very difficult day, to relive the loss and the terrible devastation" commission chairman Thomas H. Kean said as he opened the hearing, attended by about 500 people, many of whom lost relatives on Sept. 11. "Our purpose in presenting this information is to obtain the perspective from those who responded to the attacks. We want to know how and why they made the decisions they made, often in the absence of good information, and sometimes under the most adverse conditions."

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Difficult indeed.

My brother was watching the hearings on TV and I walked behind him as they showed a video of the second impact that I had never seen before.

I'm a cynical bastard, and I've seen that impact so many times from so many angles that I guess I became numb. But seeing it again, from only a couple of blocks away, a totally new to me angle, was still like a small punch in the stomach.

One of the two commissioners, I think he was from the Fire Department, was pretty testy after the meeting over the blame implications of the questioning. He said you have to remember the scale of the problem they faced, that they had 18 acres of hell to deal with, and he thought the departments did exceptionally well.

I agree. I don't have a flag or an "I heart my cops" sticker on the door…because I don't…but as humans the member of the police and fire departments that responded that day should get nothing but respect for saving the lives they did instead of running into the shadows as their most basic impulses would demand.

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Polemics of head and heart: time to realize a voter has both
By Brad Rourke

WASHINGTON - Among certain opinion-makers, it is fashionable to talk about how "bankrupt" the division between left and right is, pointing out that it is the "middle" of America that holds the key to the future. Most Americans even identify themselves as "moderates."

Others stress the polarization between "red" and "blue" America, saying that today there is little room for anything but red and blue, right and left, Republican and Democrat.

Who's right? The partisans of the middle, or the adherents to partisanship? Is there a center, or has the electoral divide swallowed it up?

The answer is "neither."

Today, the divide is not between right and left. It is between the head and the heart.

On the one side are the heads, living in the realm of policy and intellectual rigor. The heads look at outcomes, perform stakeholder analyses, and think hard about what the smartest public choice is on any of a host of issues. More important, they support the choices they make through appeals to the intellect. "Our ideas are smart," go their arguments. "On balance, these are the best policies because they result in the best outcomes."

But arrayed against the heads is the team of sentiment. The hearts look at each possibility and ask, "Does it feel right? Will I be morally comfortable taking this action?" The heart partisans think about what their gut tells them, what their role models might do, and what "message" they will be sending to children. And, they support their choices with arguments that tug at the heartstrings: "These choices are the right ones because they are inherently moral and bespeak the aspirations of America," they say.

In today's political constellation, the Democrats are the heads, and the Republicans are the hearts.

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Locked in Abu Ghraib
The prison scandal keeps getting worse for the Bush administration.
By Fred Kaplan

The White House is about to get hit by the biggest tsunami since the Iran-Contra affair, maybe since Watergate. President George W. Bush is trapped inside the compound, immobilized by his own stay-the-course campaign strategy. Can he escape the massive tidal waves? Maybe. But at this point, it's not clear how.

If today's investigative shockers\'97Seymour Hersh's latest article in The New Yorker and a three-part piece in Newsweek\'97are true, it's hard to avoid concluding that responsibility for the Abu Ghraib atrocities goes straight to the top, both in the Pentagon and the White House, and that varying degrees of blame can be ascribed to officials up and down the chain of command.

Both stories are worth reading in full. The gist is that last year, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld put in place a secret operation that, in Hersh's words, "encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq."

via Josh Marshall

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That was not an exclamation of surprise. It was a description of the situation.

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Bush White House checked with rapture Christians before latest Israel move
The Jesus Landing Pad
by Rick Perlstein
May 18th, 2004 10:00 AM

It was an e-mail we weren't meant to see. Not for our eyes were the notes that showed White House staffers taking two-hour meetings with Christian fundamentalists, where they passed off bogus social science on gay marriage as if it were holy writ and issued fiery warnings that "the Presidents [sic] Administration and current Government is engaged in cultural, economical, and social struggle on every level"--this to a group whose representative in Israel believed herself to have been attacked by witchcraft unleashed by proximity to a volume of Harry Potter. Most of all, apparently, we're not supposed to know the National Security Council's top Middle East aide consults with apocalyptic Christians eager to ensure American policy on Israel conforms with their sectarian doomsday scenarios. \par

But now we know.

"Everything that you're discussing is information you're not supposed to have," barked \plain\f0\fs20\cf0 Pentecostal minister Robert G. Upton when asked about the off-the-record briefing his delegation received on March 25. Details of that meeting appear in a confidential memo signed by Upton and obtained by the Voice.

The e-mailed meeting summary reveals NSC Near East and North African Affairs director Elliott Abrams sitting down with the Apostolic Congress and massaging their theological concerns. Claiming to be "the Christian Voice in the Nation's Capital," the members vociferously oppose the idea of a Palestinian state. They fear an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza might enable just that, and they object on the grounds that all of Old Testament Israel belongs to the Jews. Until Israel is intact and David's temple rebuilt, they believe, Christ won't come back to earth.

Abrams attempted to assuage their concerns by stating that "the Gaza Strip had no significant Biblical influence such as Joseph's tomb or Rachel's tomb and therefore is a piece of land that can be sacrificed for the cause of peace."

Three weeks after the confab, President George W. Bush reversed long-standing U.S. policy, endorsing Israeli sovereignty over parts of the West Bank in exchange for Israel'sdisengagement from the Gaza Strip.

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I feel a draft.
And don't blame Charlie Rangel either.

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IRS May Help DOD Find Reservists
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
May 18, 2004

FORT WORTH, Texas - The Defense Department, strapped for troops for missions in \plain\f0\fs20\cf0 Iraq and Afghanistan, has proposed to Congress that it tap the Internal Revenue Service to locate out-of-touch reservists.

The unusual measure, which the Pentagon said has been examined by lawyers, would allow the IRS to pass on addresses for tens of thousands of former military members who still face recall into the active duty.

The proposal has largely escaped attention amid all the other crises of government, and it is likely to face opposition from privacy rights activists who see information held by the IRS as inviolate.

For it to become practice, Congress and President Bush would have to approve the proposal, which would involve amending the tax code.

via Atrios

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Brilliant. If Ashcroft can invoke a 1872 law, the Democrats can invoke a 20^th century one.

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Democrats Sue Over Medicare Costs

House Democrats filed a federal lawsuit against President Bush's top health adviser yesterday in an effort to compel the administration to release internal cost estimates from last year predicting that the Medicare prescription drug law would cost one-third more than the White House said.

The lawsuit, by the 18 Democrats on the House Government Reform Committee, alleges that Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson violated a 1928 law that requires federal agencies to share relevant information with Congress anytime at least seven members of a committee request it.

The suit escalates a tug of war between congressional Democrats and administration officials that began when the Medicare program's chief actuary disclosed that he had been threatened with firing if he gave Congress his calculations that the new Medicare law would cost $500 billion to $600 billion during the next decade. Bush said last year that it would cost $400 billion but revised the amount to $534 billion four months ago, provoking the ire of Democrats and some conservative Republicans.

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State of Emergency Declared in Nigerian State
Tuesday, May 18, 2004; 6:45 AM

LAGOS, Nigeria -- Nigeria's civilian president declared a state of emergency Tuesday in the violence-ravaged central state of Plateau, replacing the state's elected governor with a former military general and dissolving its legislature.

The declaration gives President Olusegun Obasanjo's administration sweeping powers to rule by decree in the state where hundreds have been killed in recent weeks in fighting pitting Christian and Muslim ethnic groups.

In an address on state radio, Obasanjo said he was suspending Gov. Joshua Dariye and other elected state officials who he said had "wittingly and unwittingly encouraged acts that have subverted peace and tranquility."

Replacing Dariye is retired Maj. Gen. Chris Ali, a state resident who served in the Nigerian army under previous junta rulers.

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A wise old saying I made up says, "One who seeks power is, for that very reason, unfit for it."

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Gandhi Says She 'Must Humbly Decline' to Be India's Premier
By AMY WALDMAN

NEW DELHI, May 18 '97 Sonia Gandhi, who led the Indian National Congress to unexpected triumph in India's elections, told her party's legislators tonight that she would "humbly decline" the post of prime minister.

In the six years since she had reluctantly entered politics, she told party members gathered in the central hall of Parliament, "one thing has always been clear to me and that is \'97 as I have often stated \'97 that the post of prime minister has not been my aim."

She had always vowed, she said, that were this situation ever before her, "I would follow my inner voice."

Mrs. Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of a former prime minister, added: "Today that voice tells me I must humbly decline this post."

She had been under "tremendous pressure" to reconsider, she said, "but I must follow my voice." She was not, she said, tempted by power.

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Israeli Army Moves on Rafah Refugee Camp in Gaza
By JAMES BENNET

JERUSALEM, Tuesday, May 18 - Israeli armored bulldozers reinforced by helicopter \plain\f0\fs20\cf0 gunships advanced early Tuesday into the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip \plain\f0\fs20\cf0 after Israeli troops sealed the camp off for what the army called a large-scale operation to root out militants and weapons smuggling tunnels.

An Israeli helicopter fired missiles that killed at least 12 Palestinians and wounded 34, The Associated Press reported, while bulldozers began knocking down structures at the camp's margins.

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Quote of note:

In an age when consumers expect to be offered a receipt every time they use an A.T.M. or buy gasoline, it is hard to believe that there is opposition to paper records for electronic voting. But the opposition has been strong. Many local election officials and voting machine companies are fighting paper trails, in part because they will create more work and will raise difficult questions if the paper and electronic tallies do not match.

You damn skippy it will raise difficult questions if the paper and electronic tallies do not match. That the whole point.

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Voting Machines for New York

As concerns have grown about the reliability of electronic voting machines, a nationwide groundswell has been forming to demand that the machines produce paper records of votes that voters can check. California will require all electronic voting machines in the state to produce such records by 2006, and Ohio adopted the same rule this month. New York State should have been in the forefront of this movement, but its elected officials have been dragging their feet. If New York acts quickly and resolutely now, however, it can not only protect the reliability of its own votes, but can also help make verifiable paper trails a national standard.

The Help America to Vote Act, a reform law passed after the 2000 election mess, makes billions of dollars available to the states for improved voting machines. As highly paid lobbyists have descended on Albany to fight for rules that favor the voting-machine companies that hired them, the Legislature has approached the critical question of voting machine standards in slow motion. It is critical that the lawmakers resolve the issue in the next few weeks, before the June adjournment. Further delay could leave manufacturers unable to produce acceptable machines in time for 2006 and could risk the loss of millions of dollars in federal funds.

To ensure the integrity of the voting system, the Legislature should require that all electronic voting machines in the state produce a voter-verifiable paper trail. It should also mandate manual audits of a reasonable percentage of the state's voting machines to check their tabulations against the paper records. The Legislature should also insist that manufacturers reveal their computer code to state and local officials to show that there are no software errors or secret instructions to steal votes.

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First errata: As part of this post I copied over a table of links to anti-Bush documentary movies. One of them, Bush's Brain, was actually to the book. Michael Shoob, one of the guys who made the film, dropped by the comments with the correct URL, http://www.bushsbrainfilm.com/. The table in the original post has been corrected, but I didn't take out the book link. I added the movie link and an indication of which is which.

Next:In order to make up for the error, I direct your attention to the trailers for the movie.

There's two versions of the trailer, a four meg high resolution Quicktime and a 780k low res one.

Finally, and amusingly, comes this Quicktime (broadband, dial-up) recruitment for True Majority, which has several humorous yet informative projects going.

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M.P.'s Received Orders to Strip Iraqi Detainees
By ERIC SCHMITT and DOUGLAS JEHL

Published: May 18, 2004

WASHINGTON, May 17 — The American officer who was in charge of interrogations at the Abu Ghraib prison has told a senior Army investigator that intelligence officers sometimes instructed the military police to force Iraqi detainees to strip naked and to shackle them before questioning them. But he said those measures were not imposed "unless there is some good reason."

The officer, Col. Thomas M. Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, also told the investigator, Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, that his unit had "no formal system in place" to monitor instructions they had given to military guards, who worked closely with interrogators to prepare detainees for interviews. Colonel Pappas said he "should have asked more questions, admittedly" about abuses committed or encouraged by his subordinates.

The statements by Colonel Pappas, contained in the transcript of a Feb. 11 interview that is part of General Taguba's 6,000-page classified report, offer the highest-level confirmation so far that military intelligence soldiers directed military guards in preparing for interrogations.

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Who better to run the country like a business than one of the world's most successful businessmen? Warren Buffet can be VP.

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Soros Steps Up Attack on Bush Policies in Iraq
Mon May 17, 2004 08:03 PM ET

By Mark McSherry
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros on Monday stepped up his attack on President Bush's international policies, saying the U.S. war on terror had claimed more innocent lives than the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Soros said the invasion of Afghanistan could be justified because the Taliban had helped al Qaeda, but the invasion of Iraq "could not be similarly justified."

Speaking at a graduation ceremony at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs in New York, he further charged that recently published photographs of U.S. troops abusing Iraqi prisoners were "not a case of a few bad apples, but a pattern tolerated and even encouraged by the authorities."

"We claim to be liberators, but we turned into oppressors," Hungarian-born Soros said of U.S. actions in Iraq.

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Someone will have to tell me, of course. I'm not reading that site.

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Bush Reiterates Call for Gay Marriage Ban
Mon May 17, 2004 02:38 PM ET

TOPEKA, Kan. (Reuters) - President Bush renewed his call for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage on Monday as gay and lesbian couples in Massachusetts became the first in the United States to marry legally.

"The sacred institution of marriage should not be redefined by a few activist judges. All Americans have a right to be heard in this debate," the Republican president said in a written statement.

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U.S. Vows to Press for Rights Despite Iraqi Abuses
Mon May 17, 2004 04:28 PM ET

By Saul Hudson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States vowed on Monday to press for human-rights improvements around the world, as it issued an annual report that had been delayed by widespread outrage at U.S. military abuses of Iraqi prisoners.

The State Department released its report on efforts to promote human rights, after earlier postponing the document out of concerns that anger over the Iraqi prisoner scandal would eclipse any positive news in the document.

A department official said the United States was seen as "imperfect" but still a force for human rights in the wake of the scandal.

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May 17, 2004

Sarin-filled munitions in Iraq worry U.S.
From staff and wire reports

WASHINGTON — The small amount of deadly nerve agent sarin dispersed by a shell that exploded near a U.S. military convoy apparently was left over from Saddam Hussein's banned chemical arsenal built up two decades ago.

Two former weapons inspectors, Hans Blix and David Kay, said the shell probably was a stray weapon scavenged by militants. It likely does not signify that Iraq still had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, they said.

Kay, who led a U.S. team hunting for such weapons, said it appears the sarin shell was one of tens of thousands produced for the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. The shells were banned by the United Nations after the first Gulf War, and Saddam said he had destroyed them all in the mid-1990s.

"It is hard to know if this is one that just was overlooked — and there were always some that were overlooked, we knew that — or if this was one that came from a hidden stockpile," Kay said. While the explosion demonstrates that Saddam hadn't complied fully with U.N. resolutions, Kay added, "It doesn't strike me as a big deal."

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You know, there's a specific method mainstream types use to discredit minorities. I ran across an example when I stopped past Orcinus to get an update on the progress of his media manifesto. A couple of posts below the responses to the manifesto he writes about MEChA's latest problems at Stanford:

Stanford University students have voted to stop funding the Chicano group MEChA after a series of articles in the conservative Stanford Review accused the organization of racism.

In what is believed to be the first such vote on any college campus, Stanford students voted 1,357 to 1,329 to withhold MEChA's special fees, which amount to more than $40,000. The students voted about five months after articles in the Review cited anti-white statements in MEChA documents and compared the group to the Ku Klux Klan.

A difference of 28 student. That means if 15 out of the 2,686 student can thought otherwise MEChA would still be funded.That's almost a random fluctuation.

Notice the accusations: racism; being "like the Klan." And of course, their slogan, which the Washington Times reports as:

"Por la Raza todo. Fuera de La Raza nada," means, "For the race, everything. For those outside the race, nothing."

But as David notes:

A more accurate translation of the slogan would recognize that though "Por" translates to the English "For," it is used in a very specific sense of the word -- namely, "On behalf of" or "In the service of". "Fuera" is not "for those outside" but rather refers to the speaker, and means "Apart from." So what the slogan actually says is this:

In the service of the race, everything
Apart from the race, nothing

There is nothing remotely racist, particularly in the sense of being exclusionist or derogatory, about this, of course. The second line clearly only refers to the need to maintain one's ethnic and cultural identity. It is only racist if you deliberately mistranslate it: "For those outside the race, nothing."

And you know us, minority folks (I'm going out on a limb generalizing about so nebulous a group, but I'm confident about this one), we ain't stupid…we know where the power is. We'll work with it, get out of it's way or do stuff behind it's back, but the idea of setting up a public anti-white organization that's actually standing still and getting public funds would only even occur to a very, very few. That's why the whole accusation just struck me as absurd from the beginning.

Still, folks tend to believe that which is repeated often enough. If you can't shut down the lie quickly this "Your just a <color> Klan" technique is almost guaranteed to work.

Because white people don't like to be associated with the Klan. And they don't want to be reminded of it. Most of them because they hate the thought of being seen as a racist roughly as much as the equivalent social class of Black person hates being thought of as a nigger. Most decent white folks would really rather not deal in race at all at this point.

The problem is, we minorities keep on being Black, and Oriental, and Mexican, you know? And ALL our moms were like taking that toy from you and your little brother, saying "If you can't share, neither of you can have it." So a significant chunk of white folks have decided since we can't play nice with race no one should have it. And though they've promised to be nicer than they were in the past (yes, they're nicer; no nicer is not the same as treated as a equal in the social commons), nobody ever forgets where he buried the hatchet.

So as I see it there's this underlying tension in all transactions where race is an element.That tension, like any emotion, tells you there's something you need to deal with…and provides the energy to deal with the situation if you do more than sit there and vibrate. What you have to do at that point is get real conscious and determine whet the problem lies. Slow down and perceive for a while.Make no assumptions and only react when you're clear.

Except if you do that you usually can't see a problem anymore.

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I started writing something for OSPolitics. By the end I was like, nnnnaaahhh, I better put this one on P6.

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Legal hurdles of segregation are gone, but social barriers remain

By JAMES A. FUSSELL

Kansas City Star

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - In 1984, Mike and Stephanie Howell did something that used to be illegal.

The interracial couple got married.

Mike is black. Stephanie is white. In the 1950s, many states outlawed such marriages. Even in the 1980s, interracial unions still raised eyebrows, and tempers. People stared, threw eggs at Mike's car and sent him threatening letters.

Today, the Lenexa, Kan., couple said, interracial marriages simply are not that incendiary.

Progress?

You bet.

Acceptance of black-white relationships has come a long way in the 50 years since Brown v. Board of Education helped put an end to legal segregation. The question is, have we?

The answer is inarguably yes.

And no.

Recently the Howells' teenage son went to pick up a date who is white. The girl's father took one look at his dark skin and slammed the door in his face.

Progress?

None.

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River at Baghdad Burning:

Last Few Days... That video of Nick Berg is beyond horrible. I haven't been able to watch it whole. It makes me sick to my stomach and I can hardly believe it happened. His family must be devastated and I can't even imagine what they must have felt. With all of this going on- first Abu Ghraib and now this, I haven't felt like writing anything.

Ansar Al Islam are a fundamentalist militant group- mostly Kurdish- based in the north of Iraq. They made a name for themselves recently and chose the Kurdish autonomous region as 'home' with the full knowledge of the CIA, who had more control over the region than the former regime. Since the beginning of the war, they have been responsible for various explosions and attacks- or so they say. The beheading has nothing to do with Islam. I'm still hoping- albeit irrationally- that the whole thing was some sort of grotesque setup.

Emphasis added, of course.

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Check Al-Muhajabah's Veiled for Allah for a nice long list of links to the reactions of American Islamic organizations to the Berg Beheading.

Sad thing is, you don't even get to comment on her site anymore because of trolls. She's had to get off the slab, at least for a while.

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In a medium as focused on archives as blogging I shouldn't post anything quite so…temporal. But I must say, today the SwissGroove net radio station is totally kicking ass.

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I couldn't resist surfacing this further quote from Alan Paton:

Many Americans are too pessimistic about their own country; they measure their moral strength in terms of sleeping-tablet consumption, Kinsey reports, juvenile delinquency and McCarthyism. Let them try measuring it as well in terms of the advance of the Negro. Let them try measuring it in terms of justice, which, so often defeated, has a way of conquering in the end.

And the last line, which rings too true today:

Perhaps it might be true, after all, that a nation gets the Supreme Court that it deserves.

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Collier's Magazine invited Alan Paton, author of "Cry, The Beloved Country" to travel around the USofA and write about the conditions of Black folks the Negro some 50 years ago. He wrote two articles, "The Negro in America Today," about the Negro in the south and “The Negro in the North,” about…well, you get it.

And yes, those links are to the complete text of the articles. Just as interesting is the letters Colliers received in response to the article.

Below the fold is his conclusions. Here's my favorite part:

So in this century it was the Negro, of all Americans, who clarified the principles on which the democracy of America was based. It was he who kept on reminding America what kind of nation she was. It was he who used persistently, as free men should, the power of law and court. But as America could thus thank God for him, so could he thank God for America, that he lived in a country where such things could be, where man was both bound and made free by the law...

And I'm not ducking the original writing. I'm still wrapping my mind around the discovery that Brown v. Board of Education was not the seminal case that established school desegregation.

The big quote:

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By now I assume that it is an incontrovertible fact that segregation is dying. The evidence is massive. I take it to be a fact of immense significance that the leaders of Negro action, who can without great error be identified with the NAACP, have set 1963, the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, as the year by which all forms of segregation and discrimination should have been rooted out forever from the life of America.

The President of the United States has stated unequivocally that in the District of Columbia, in all the armed services, and in all areas where federal authority clearly extends, he is fully committed to this same goal.

It must be recorded again that the protagonist in this struggle has been the Negro himself. This is not to belittle the part that has been played by non-Negroes, in the NAACP itself, in churches and Jewish organizations, and in labor unions, by civil liberty leagues, by fighters of every kind.

Yet it seems proven that the burden of this struggle has been borne not by those who fought for others, but by those who fought for themselves. This may seem a melancholy conclusion to some, derogatory to altruism; but it seems to me a sturdy fact of life. I do not think it establishes the inherent moral superiority of the Negro; but it re-establishes that out of adversity great strength is born.

This adversity is now on the decline. Will the great strength stay on, now part of the Negro soul? Or will it waste away? As America accepts the Negro more and more fully, will this strength be poured into herself, so that she can play more surely her role in the world? Will she understand more deeply the problems of Asia and Africa? Of the far future no one can speak, but of the nearer future one can have every hope, as the Negro is more and more admitted to the high offices and the high responsibilities of the republic, and more and more uses the power of his vote. . . .

So in this century it was the Negro, of all Americans, who clarified the principles on which the democracy of America was based. It was he who kept on reminding America what kind of nation she was. It was he who used persistently, as free men should, the power of law and court. But as America could thus thank God for him, so could he thank God for America, that he lived in a country where such things could be, where man was both bound and made free by the law. . . .

The implications of the decision of 1954 are far-reaching. If separate educational facilities are unequal, what enforced separation is not? Segregation is thus seen not through a haze of sophistry and altruistic cant, but through the clear air of common sense, as something indefensible and unjust, even evil. . . .

Many Americans are too pessimistic about their own country; they measure their moral strength in terms of sleeping-tablet consumption, Kinsey reports, juvenile delinquency and McCarthyism. Let them try measuring it as well in terms of the advance of the Negro. Let them try measuring it in terms of justice, which, so often defeated, has a way of conquering in the end.

Perhaps it might be true, after all, that a nation gets the Supreme Court that it deserves.

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He not only has an agenda that causes him to misquote folks, he's sensitive about it being pointed out, too. And runs the same nonsense "ad hominem" defense (while accusing me of the same; at least I don't deny it) that Joe Taylor tried so valiantly.

My comment on his site:

Glad you provided the links.

Now if you can explain why you quoted the Times in such a way as to twist the entire intent of their editorial in a way that DOESN'T show your intent is incompatible with honesty I will be truly impress. Will even post it verbatim on my site with no comment.

I'll probably be judged illiterate for the lack of conjugation ("impress").

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I mentioned a friend of mine's project to get books to school children in Ghana. Here's an update.

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Good Morning or Afternoon:

It is my pleasure to provide this short update of the activities of the Digital Literacy Alliance, Inc. Much of what has transpired during the past month has occurred due to the hard work and dedication of many tireless hands, and I just want to say THANK YOU!!

BOARD OF DIRECTORS:

The BOD has been expanded to 7 members with 2 alternates. The Board members are:

Dr. Kojo Arthur - Culture and Curriculum
Dr. Gregory Yawson - Research and Development
Dr. Pharra DeWindt - Executive Director/President
Mr. Rasul Murray - Yaa Nyarkoa Library
Mr. Eric Vosbergh - Technology
Mr. Kojo Yankah - Finance
Ms. Fai Walker - Administration

Alternates: Mr. Derrick DeBurr, Ms. Sherrie Byrnes (Fund raising)

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE:

Volunteers are currently being sought for positions on the new Executive Committee board. At this time the following members are Executive Committee leaders:

Ms. Stephanie Gadlin - Marketing and Advertising
Ms. Pittershawn Palmer - Yaa Nyarkoa Library and web design
Mr. Bernie Poole - Curriculum (Distance Learning)
Ms. Martina Scimeca - Publications (news releases)

Executive Committee leaders are still needed in the areas of finance, technology, and research and development. Please contact the Board member in charge of that area to volunteer.

DLA PROPOSAL:

A proposal is available to anyone who is interested. I must give my heartfelt thanks to Mr. Lawrence Spearman of the Spearman Group in Houston, Texas, for his support and assistance in crafting the DLA Proposal. THANK YOU!!

BOOK DRIVE:

The Ghana Book Trust has offered to provide a container to ship the books and make sure they pass through customs with as little difficulty as possible. We are still responsible for the shipping costs, which at this point is approximately 4,000.00. The GBT will bill us for the cost, therefore it is essential that we collect the "bucks" along with the books.

Ms. Patricia Hinds of Essence Magazine has donated 5-6 thousand ( yes I said THOUSAND) young children's books to give away this summer during the launching of the Yaa Nyarkoa Library through the Essence Books for Children division. The books will be delivered to Rasul Murray this week.

We have over 150 pledges of books to be donated from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The international book drive was not an original part of the plan, but we welcome the timely assistance of Mrs. Paula deRonde, of Belfountain, Ontario (retired Assistant Director of the Toronto Libraries) and Ms. Adele Robinson of the Black Artists organization of the United Kingdom, who is coordinating not only collections in the UK, but also in Ethiopia and the Netherlands.

With the number of donations expected, we should be able to ship more than 15,000 books to our library with our first shipment in July. IF YOU ARE IN THE NYC AREA AND CAN ASSIST RASUL MURRAY WITH PACKING AND LOADING THE CONTAINER FOR SHIPMENT, PLEASE CONTACT HIM AT [email protected]. HE IS IN NEED OF WILLING HANDS AND STRONG BACKS!

Our thanks go to Mr. Denton Taylor, Mr. Sekou Molefi Baako, Executive Director, Langston Hughes Library and Cultural Center, and Mr. Amiri Baraka of New York City as well as Ms. Iris Jones of Chicago, Ill. for their generous financial donations this month.

ALLIANCES:

I am pleased to announce the cooperation of two not for profit organizations in our efforts to forward literacy in Agona Duakwa. The Langston Hughes Institute of Buffalo New York, led by Mr. Michael Hill, and the National Council of Ghanaian Associations. Mr. Alhaji Mardah is our contact with that organization. We hope to enlist other not for profits in our cause in the near future.

DUAKWA VOCATIONAL AND TECHNOLOGY INSTITUTE:

The following information is about the vocational school where the library is located. This news comes from Mr. Kojo Yankah:

We visited the DVTI site. They have cleaned up the compound and they are tending the flowers and plants. There are four classrooms and there is the Administration Block with three offices. There is the structure for a piggery and one for poultry.

I have asked a colleague to find out how much it will cost to wire-fence the 3 acre plot.

The next thing I am going to do is send a group of artisans there to fix the doors and windows and re-wire the building for electricity. In other words, I would like the compound to be ready by the time you come in July. What else do we need ? Computers, Connectivity, Books, and Students.

As soon as possible I am going to get Mrs Aidoo (Doris) to supervise work on the compound. I tell you that with a little support from NGOs here (Africa 2000, and Denise's group, KGINKS etc) we can get the school moving.

Anybody who has access to a Rotary Club might ask them to bear the shipping costs of our books. 'This is a regular support Rotary gives to sending books to Africa', says Robert Amoako of the Ghana Book Trust.

Secondly, I have secured the Competence Based syllabus for five subjects (Electrical Installation, Refrigeration and Air conditioning, Carpentry and
Joinery, Block-Laying and Concreting, and Dressmaking - all for apprentices) from the National Coordinating Committee for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (NACVET), Ghana. I will send it in my next mail.

PRESS RELEASES:

DLA SPONSORS BOOK DRIVE TO FURNISH NEW LIBRARY IN GHANA

NATIONWIDE-- In an effort to increase the literacy of thousands of rural
Ghanaian children and their parents, the Digital Literacy Alliance, Inc.(A Not For Profit Organization) is currently sponsoring "The Books and Bucks" drive.

Book donations will be collected to furnish the Yaa Nyarkoa Library and serve the 20,000 people of two towns, Agona Duakwa and Agona Nsaba. This is a grass-roots effort that needs your support.

To take part in this drive, simply collect books from your attic, basement, friends and neighbors and donate a dollar per book that will be used for shipping costs to Ghana.

Please send your book donations to:

Mr. Rasul Murray
Library Fund Coordinator
P.O. Box 05042, 4 Pratt Station
Brooklyn, NY 11205-050424
e-mail: [email protected]

Your tax deductible donation will help support our campaign to increase the access to literature and improve the literacy skills of all those who are eager to learn. Your generous contribution to education will ensure that the dream of book accessibility in these two villages becomes a reality.

These organizations have received press releases. If you know of anyone at one of these organizations, please give them a call to remind them of our cause.

New York Daily News
Fax: Newsroom 212 -643-7831

New York Observer
Fax: 212-688-4889

Cornell Daily Sun
[email protected]
Fax: 607-273-0746

Ithaca Ithacan
Fax 607-274-1565
Editor in Chief - Ph: 607-274-7010
Managing Editor - 607-274-3208
[email protected]

Ebony/ Jet (Johnson Publishing Inc. in Chicago)
Fax: 312-322-0957

Vibe
Fax: 212-448-7400

NYPL - Baychester Branch
Spoke with a branch librarian 4/27
Fax: 718-671-2836

Please continue to support our worthy cause!

Sincerely,

PHARRA

Pharra DeWindt, Ph.D
Executive Director
Digital Literacy Alliance
http://www.pharra.com
[email protected]
[email protected]

"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he/she has overcome while trying to succeed." Booker T. Washington, Educator

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National Public Radio proves its worth (be you a racist or not) with it's collection of links to its articles on Brown its precursors and its repercussions.

Best thing is, it's audio so you can be lazy and still get schooled.

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The Levine Museum of the New South has an exhibition up about the South Carolina legal cases that began the process that became the Brown v. Board of Education case.

COURAGE: The Carolina Story That Changed America
Half a century ago Carolina families launched a lawsuit that changed America. This lawsuit was the first of five across the country that would lead to the 1954 landmark Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education. The Brown decision ruled racially segregated schools unconstitutional and set in motion a series of events that continue to shape our lives today.

Few Americans realize that what’s known as the case of the century, started in the Carolinas. The final chapters of Brown played out in the Supreme Court, but the story began when a country preacher named Rev. J. A. De Laine and his neighbors in Clarendon County, SC filed a lawsuit demanding the end of separate, unequal schools for their children.

On January 31, Levine Museum of the New South opens COURAGE: The Carolina Story That Changed America. This groundbreaking new exhibit tells the story of ordinary people – people outside the traditional power structure, without wealth and often with little classroom education – and how they worked together to begin the process that ended legal segregation of the races in America’s schools.

An exhibition of national importance, COURAGE will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Brown decision. COURAGE is the Museum’s first major exhibit since the 2001 unveiling of the award-winning permanent exhibit Cotton Fields to Skyscrapers. It will be on display at the Museum through August 15, 2004, after which it will travel to the McKissick Museum in Columbia, SC.

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Debwire and Move The Crowd have collected articles and posts about Brown v Board of Education, forcing me to get creative in a while.

Deb in particular has some "that was then, this is now" statistics.

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On the Brown v Board of Ed anniversary, The Prime One at prime time has a highly non-theoretical post titled Prime vs. Board of Education:

I've decided to take a different approach. This is a topic that I have often wanted to blog about, but could not really make a clean connection to anything going on in the real world. Not that one needs such connections on their own blog, but it does help. So, if you have a few minutes to burn, continue reading and I will try to explain how Brown vs. Board of Education shaped my education and overall being. I may not be clear in the beginning, but I will get there eventually.

From preschool through high school, every school I attended had a racially diverse student population. However, only my primary (I'll explain that in a minute) elementary school could claim the honor of being racially diverse without the aid of forced bussing.

Read that stuff, man. It's long, but if you didn't mind reading mad text you wouldn't be here, right?

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It seems last week annoyed me more than I thought. I screwed at least two posts badly. One was all my stuff, so no big deal. But the other was stuff provided by The Moving Ideas Network, an excellent collection of resource links (again…to paraphrase Steve Martin on his own ukulele playing skills, "Hey, these guys are good." Almost good enough for me to forgive the associated TAPPED). Worse, I didn't correctly attribute it to them, something for which I feel the need to issue an apology they'll likely never see.

Well, I cleaned up the mess I made of their article and will not be doing anything I'll need to apologize for in the future.

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U.S. and Iraq Spar Over Who Should Run Corruption Inquiry Into Oil-for-Food Program
By SUSAN SACHS and JUDITH MILLER

raq's political leaders are sparring with the American occupation administration over who should investigate possible official and corporate corruption in the United Nations oil-for-food program.

The dispute pits L. Paul Bremer III, the American administrator of Iraq, against the Iraqi Governing Council, whose members Mr. Bremer appointed last year. As the June 30 date for an American power transfer approaches, the two sides have increasingly been at odds over the future political setup.

It is not clear whether the present Governing Council will retain any power in a transitional government.

Governing Council members said they wanted to supervise any Iraqi inquiry into the oil-for-food program, and had asked the American accounting firm KPMG International in February to assemble possible evidence of alleged kickbacks and bribes paid under the now-defunct oil-for-food program.

Mr. Bremer has refused to release money to pay KPMG and instead has now approved the hiring of a different company, Ernst & Young, to conduct a $20 million investigation on behalf of a different agency of Iraq's transitional government.

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Some Iraqis Held Outside Control of Top General
By DOUGLAS JEHL

Published: May 17, 2004

WASHINGTON, May 16 — About 100 high-ranking Iraqi prisoners held for months at a time in spartan conditions on the outskirts of Baghdad International Airport are being detained under a special chain of command, under conditions not subject to approval by the top American commander in Iraq, according to military officials.

The unusual lines of authority in the detainees' handling are part of a tangled network of authority over prisoners in Iraq, in which the military police, military intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, various military commanders and the Pentagon itself have all played a role. Congressional investigators who are looking into the scandal over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners say those arrangements have made it difficult to determine where the final authority lies.[P6: emphasis added because I do not believe this effect was accidental]

At least as of February, many of the 100 or so prisoners categorized by American officials as "high value detainees" because of the special intelligence they are believed to possess, had been held since June 2003 for nearly 23 hours a day in strict solitary confinement in small concrete cells without sunlight, according to a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

While not tantamount to the sexual humiliation and other abuses inflicted on Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, the conditions have been described by the Red Cross as a violation of the Geneva Conventions, the international treaty that the Bush administration has said it regards as "fully applicable" to all prisoners held by the United States in Iraq.

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Oops. I guess I wrote that title too soon, huh?

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Divided Mission in Iraq Tempers Views of G.I.'s
By EDWARD WONG

KARBALA, Iraq, May 16 — Six weeks ago, soldiers of the First Armored Division were renovating schools. Now they are raiding them for hidden munitions.

Children wave to them along the roads, while insurgents with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades make them targets.

"Our mission is to rebuild this country, but the thing is, the bad guys won't let us do it," said Specialist Jennifer Marie Bencze, 20, of Santa Rosa, Calif. "At the same time we've got engineers rebuilding schools, fixing roads, doing all the humanitarian projects, we've got infantry fighting the bad guys. So the mission is really confused."

Here in the Shiite heartland, the division is caught up in the fiercest and deadliest fighting now under way in Iraq. That is a far cry from May 2003, when it rolled into Iraq thinking the war was all but over, ready to plant Western-style institutions in this arid land. Interviews with dozens of soldiers over the last two weeks suggest that their idealism has been tempered.

All agree the war is at a crucial juncture, but few soldiers can say with certainty how to achieve victory — or even what might constitute victory.

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Israel Says It Will Proceed With Demolition of Homes
By JAMES BENNET

Published: May 17, 2004

JERUSALEM, May 16 — Despite international criticism, Israeli officials said Sunday that they intended to proceed with a plan to widen an Israeli-patrolled lane along the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt by demolishing as many as hundreds of Palestinian homes.

The Israeli Army defended the proposed demolitions as necessary to foil weapons smugglers and to protect soldiers in the area from Palestinian militants who use the buildings as cover.

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A Fake Macedonia Terror Tale That Led to Deaths
By NICHOLAS WOOD

Published: May 17, 2004

SKOPJE, Macedonia, May 14 - Roughly two months after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, a group of high-level officials met here in Macedonia's Interior Ministry to determine how their country could take part in the United States-led campaign against terror.

Instead of offering troops to support American soldiers fighting in Afghanistan, as other countries in the region had done, senior officials and police commanders conceived a plan to "expose" a terrorist plot against Western interests in Skopje, police investigators here say.

The plan, they say, involved luring foreign migrants into the country, executing them in a staged gun battle, and then claiming they were a unit backed by Al Qaeda intent on attacking Western embassies.

On March 2, 2002, this plan came to fruition when Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski announced that seven "mujahedeen" had been killed earlier that day in a shootout with the police near Skopje. Photos were released to Western diplomats showing bodies of the dead men with bags of uniforms and semiautomatic weapons at their side.

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John Scoble tells about a "sewing geek" on Haight that uses some mad high-tech equipment, all running a Windows variant (which I note as a courtesy to Scoble, :

You think her machine isn't futuristic? Well, you should see it. She can take your design, scan it in, bring it into Adobe Illustrator to convert the scan into a vector graphic, then move it into one of the digital stitching programs she uses (she has three of them).

…Her home machine, a Bernina 200E, has Windows CE embedded, and does quilts, dresses, and all sorts of things. She trades patterns on the Internet, too, and says there's a huge community of "sewing geeks" who have machines that work off of digital patterns.

…The stuff she does with this hardware is amazing, though. She can do nearly any pattern on any kind of material. Hats, jackets, etc. Her store was full of stuff and she'd happily do something custom for you.

I like my stuff unique, so this is cooler'n hell. And I'm pretty sure I could find similar services in NYC (you don't sell $9000 systems like her sewing setup unless there';s a decent market for it), but I need another excuse to travel so there you are.

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For the last time, so you don't have to go past *gag* Drudge.

With a thanks to Mr. Doctorow of BoingBoing. Saved time and money.

I been ragging on ol' Colin, but this I must admit: he don't duck. And I REALLY wonder about Emily.

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The prison effect on political landscape
By Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman

DURHAM, N.C. - The US prison boom of the past 30 years - which has nearly doubled the number of state prisons to more than 1,000 and increased the nation's prison population from 218,000 to 1.3 million - has had widely recognized economic, political, and social effects.

But one important political effect of the forced relocation of millions of inmates has been largely overlooked: The dilution of the urban black vote to the benefit of rural white communities.

A new Urban Institute report shows that inmates tend to come from regions that are demographically distinct from those in which their prisons are located. And because the Census Bureau counts prison inmates as residents of the legislative districts in which they're incarcerated, the relocation of inmates - who are not allowed to vote in 48 states - skews both the distribution of government funds and the apportionment of legislative representation.

This is a particularly grievous injustice in an era in which presidential and legislative races are won by razor-thin margins.

The distortion in representation caused by enumeration of prisoners tends to favor rural residents, whites, and Republicans, at the expense of urban residents, blacks, and Democrats.

In most states, prisons are disproportionately located in rural areas, yet most inmates come from urban areas. For example, in four state house districts in Connecticut, inmates make up more than 10 percent of the population. Each of these districts has low population and is disproportionately white - except, of course, for the inmate populations. And because of the presence of inmates, these districts effectively get about 10 percent more representation than they ought to.

Similarly, in Florida, statistics show a correlation between gains in representation from the presence of prisons and partisan affiliation of voters. Counties that gain population by importing prison inmates - and thus increase their congressional and state legislative representation - tend to vote Republican. Meanwhile, counties that lose population and legislative representation because a share of their population is imprisoned in other counties tend to vote Democratic.

Besides affecting representation inside a state, prison location has the potential to affect congressional apportionment between states. Wisconsin, for example, contracts to send as many as 10,000 inmates to prisons in other states. Wisconsin politicians were so concerned that the state would lose a congressional seat after the 2000 Census because of this practice that Republican Rep. Mark Green actually introduced legislation to count those inmates as citizens of Wisconsin. (In the end, the legislation didn't pass, and the seat was lost - though because of a larger margin of population loss than the inmates accounted for.)

This is only the most recent in a long line of techniques for diluting the voting power of African-Americans. And it's uncomfortably reminiscent of the infamous "three-gifths compromise." Under that clause of the Constitution, which determined how representation in the lower house of Congress would be allocated, slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person - although, of course, they weren't allowed to vote. The result was that the presence of disenfranchised blacks in the South increased the representation of white Southerners in the House. Likewise, under the current method of counting prison inmates, the presence of disenfranchised blacks in rural prisons increases the representation of white, rural, Republican voters both in the House and in state legislatures.

Not only does counting inmates in the districts in which they're incarcerated dilute the African-American vote and therefore violate the Voting Rights Act, it creates unconstitutional inequalities in the number of constituents per district, a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Since the "one man, one vote" Supreme Court rulings in the '60s requiring that legislative boundaries in each state contain equal populations, the right of each citizen to equal representation in the House and state legislature has been a cornerstone of American democracy. The postcensus redistricting is designed to fulfill this critical goal of ensuring that each legislative district has as close to an equal number of constituents as possible.

The method of counting inmates where they're imprisoned, and not in their home districts undermines this doctrine. Even in the eyes of the legislators whose districts benefit from the presence of inmates, those inmates are not their constituents. In a survey I conducted of 40 Indiana state legislators, all - Democrat and Republican, with or without a prison in their district - said that inmates who are incarcerated in other districts, but who have family members in their district or lived there prior to incarceration, are more truly their constituents than inmates from other areas who happen to be incarcerated in their district.

Thus this is further evidence that counting inmates in the districts in which they're incarcerated creates an imbalance in the number of true constituents per district.

The Census Bureau should count prison inmates at their "homes of record." If the Census Bureau and Congress refuse to act, then the courts must enforce the Voting Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment and require a change in enumeration methods.

In an era in which America has the largest prison population in the world in both relative and absolute terms, the topography of that population should not be allowed to arbitrarily reshape the political landscape.

• Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman is a president's research fellow at Duke University

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US to move Korea troops to Iraq

The US is planning to move some of its troops from South Korea to Iraq, according to the Seoul government.

South Korea's foreign ministry said the two governments were currently discussing the details of such a move.

A ministry official said the US was planning to transfer a full brigade of 4,000 soldiers currently stationed near the North Korean border.

The US has had to reverse plans to reduce troop numbers in Iraq because of the escalating violence there.

The South Korean official, Kim Sook, said Seoul had been informed of the troop moves on Monday, and had expressed its understanding.

"The US explained that it is inevitable to move part of US Forces Korea to Iraq for the sake of a successful hand-over of sovereignty to Iraq," Mr Kim said at a press briefing.

The US currently has some 37,000 troops based in South Korea under an agreement dating back to the Korean War 50 years ago.

There are about 130,000 US troops occupying Iraq, with an additional 20,000 from other nations.

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I lifted the title of this post from the article because I can't think of a clever thing to say about this. It looks like we're not even going to be able to pretend to leave Iraq by June 30 anymore.

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Too Violent to Rebuild?
Iraq Reconstruction Stalled Amid Anger, Unrest and Danger

B A G H D A D, May 16, 2004
— At the Daura power plant here, there is a major problem: The turbines have been removed for badly needed repairs, but the German subcontractor overseeing the repairs fled the country in April because Baghdad is too dangerous.

No work is getting done at Daura. No smoke from the smokestacks. No electricity going into the grid. The power plant was originally scheduled to be back up and running to full capacity next month. But now it's been shut down indefinitely.

What that means is that 320,000 families in Baghdad will spend the summer with no air conditioning.

It's one example of how the recent wave of violence threatens the effort to rebuild Iraq. U.S. officials say at least 2,000 construction projects were expected to be under way by now. Only 42 are up and running.

Money is still flowing, but much of it goes to armored cars and hired guns. A total of $300 million originally earmarked for construction is now being diverted to security and administrative costs.

In fact, out of $18.4 billion in reconstruction aid approved by Congress last year, only about 5 percent has been spent.

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Bomb Kills Head of Iraq Governing Council
Suicide Bombing Kills Head of the Iraqi Governing Council, Iraqi Official Says

The Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq May 17, 2004 — The head of the Iraqi Governing Council was killed in a suicide car bombing near a checkpoint outside the coalition headquarters in central Baghdad on Monday, dealing a blow to U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq ahead of a handover of sovereignty on June 30.
Abdel-Zahraa Othman, also known as Izzadine Saleem, was the second and highest-ranking member of the U.S.-appointed council to be assassinated. He was among nine Iraqis, including the bomber, who were killed, Iraqi officials said.

"Days like today convince us even more so that the transfer must stay on track," said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, speaking on CNN.

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I went past my daughter's LiveJournal site…okay, it was her fan fiction site and I got nosy…and caught a discussion of American Idol (which I do not watch much as I do not watch any other "reality" TV show). In particular, they were discussing how Latoya got booted.

One of her British friends opined:

Between the President and American Idol, I feel that there is an extremely good case to be made that the American Public should not be trusted with anything.

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May 16, 2004

Looking over all I've written this week, I'm afraid I've contracted the dread Den Beste Disease.

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Me, that is. I just looked at the post titled, Uh-oh, The Iraqis Are In Trouble Now, into which I copied a chunk of a post from the old grey version of P6.

Which had embedded CSS that rendered the chunk unreadable. I'd specified a black background and didn't specify a text color, so there were these big black boxes on the page. More proof semantic markup is the way to go, and I need to adjust stuff.

Now that I've fixed it so that you can actually read it, could you do so and kind of forget the other post ever happened?

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I'd said before that I'm focusing on politics until the election goes one way or the other, after which I'd get back to social and racial justice. And let those who WILL object note that the only way they are left out is if they do not feel I am part of their society. I add the racial part because minorities tend to come up particularly short in the justice area.Joe set me off, though. I said I'd make an example of him, and I meant it. And now I'm at least half way in that mode.

I've been reading Discriminations for a minute. If I recall, Cobb once pinged them with a response to a post of mine. It's an anti-affirmative action site, as though "affirmative action" were an actual thing. John would, of course, say he's running an anti-discrimination site.

What he's done, though, is give me more evidence that the more erudite anti-racial justice positions are fueled by str8 ig'nance. For example he writes about an editorial in the NY Times:

The theme, of course, is the failure of Brown's purported promise of integration.

For those who believe in integration, and who hoped Brown v. Board of Education would make it a reality, it is easy to lament what one author has called Brown's "hollow hope."

The Times does add its own contribution to this familiar tale, by playing fast and loose with some statistics. In the 1972-73 school year, the editorial points out,

more than 46 percent of black children in the South attended majority white schools.... In recent decades, as the nation's commitment to integration has waned, and the Supreme Court has become more conservative, the trend lines have reversed. Nationally, 70 percent of black students now attend schools in which racial minorities are the majority.

Yes, but what were the national numbers in 1972-73, and what are the numbers in the South today? The editorial doesn't say.

Remember two days ago when I showed his bad attitude about a seriously useful minority recruiting program at Auburn's Computer Science program by providing the correct context?Well, I'm about to do it again.

Let's look at that second quote of his, that starts in the middle of a sentence and elides a chunk of unspecified size. Check the full source. In fact, let's underline his quotes so you can see how he twisted the intent of the editorial by his selective quoting.

There was bitter opposition to school integration. In the South, elected officials engaged in "massive resistance." Prince Edward County, Va., closed its schools rather than integrate them. Federal troops had to accompany the first blacks to attend Little Rock Central High School. But after years of further litigation, and great struggle by civil rights activists, Brown's impact began to be felt. In the 1972-73 school year, more than 46 percent of black children in the South attended majority white schools.

At the heady moment of victory, Thurgood Marshall, who argued the case for the N.A.A.C.P., predicted segregation in education would be eliminated nationwide in five years. Integration has proved far more elusive than that. When the courts tried to desegregate the North, cities like Boston engaged in their own versions of massive resistance. In recent decades, as the nation's commitment to integration has waned, and the Supreme Court has become more conservative, the trend lines have reversed. Nationally, 70 percent of black students now attend schools in which racial minorities are the majority.

For those who believe in integration, and who hoped Brown v. Board of Education would make it a reality, it is easy to lament what one author has called Brown's "hollow hope." Still, anyone who was alive in Topeka in 1954 would find modern America's racial landscape unrecognizable, and might well be inclined to see Brown's glass as considerably more than half full.

Either John can't read (obviously not the case) or he has an agenda that honesty will not support.

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Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Ed decision. It should be obvious I'll be spending a little time on the topic during the upcoming week.

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The S-Train Canvass got a new paint job, and new outlook.

Also, he bailed on Tha Alliance. I been sitting here twiddling my thumbs waiting for that…

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US tried to plant WMDs, failed: whistleblower

Daily Times Monitor

According to a stunning report posted by a retired Navy Lt Commander and 28-year veteran of the Defense Department (DoD), the Bush administration’s assurance about finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was based on a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) plan to “plant” WMDs inside the country. Nelda Rogers, the Pentagon whistleblower, claims the plan failed when the secret mission was mistakenly taken out by “friendly fire”, the Environmentalists Against War report.

Nelda Rogers is a 28-year veteran debriefer for the DoD. She has become so concerned for her safety that she decided to tell the story about this latest CIA-military fiasco in Iraq. According to Al Martin Raw.com, “Ms Rogers is number two in the chain of command within this DoD special intelligence office. This is a ten-person debriefing unit within the central debriefing office for the Department of Defense.”

The information that is being leaked out is information “obtained while she was in Germany heading up the debriefing of returning service personnel, involved in intelligence work in Iraq for the DoD and/or the CIA. “According to Ms Rogers, there was a covert military operation that took place both preceding and during the hostilities in Iraq,” reports Al Martin Raw.com, an online subscriber-based news/analysis service which provides “Political, Economic and Financial Intelligence”.

Al Martin is a retired Lt Commander (US Navy), the author of a memoir called “The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran-Contra Insider,” and is considered one of America’s foremost experts on corporate and government fraud. Ms Rogers reports that this particular covert operation team was manned by former military personnel and “the unit was paid through the Department of Agriculture in order to hide it, which is also very commonplace”.

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It's *gag* Drudge. I'll get a legitimate transcript later. It's just that Atrios pointed this one out.

BLEEP THE PRESS: CAMERA MOVED OFF POWELL DURING RUSSERT GRILLING; AIDE ATTEMPTED TO CUT OFF INTERVIEW
Sun May 16 2004 10:45:35 ET
**Exclusive Details**

An aide to Sec. of State Colin Powell ordered a halt to a MEET THE PRESS interview and directed a camera to shoot a palm tree during provocative questioning by host Tim Russert!

Powell was being interview by satellite from Jordan.

State Department press aide Emily Miller fumed as Tim Russert went beyond the 10 minutes allotted for the NBC Sunday session

NBC's MEET THE PRESS joined in progress....

TIM RUSSERT: Finally, Mr. Secretary, in February of 2003, you placed your enormous personal credibility before the United Nations and laid out a case against Saddam Hussein, citing.

(Camera moved off of interview subject)

EMILY MILLER, STATE DEPARTMENT PRESS AIDE: You're off.

SECRETARY POWELL: I am not off.

EMILY MILLER, PRESS AIDE: No. They can't use it, they're editing it.

SECRETARY POWELL: He's still asking the questions.

EMILY MILLER, PRESS AIDE: He was not ...

SECRETARY POWELL: Tim, I am sorry I lost you.

MR. RUSSERT: I am right here Mr. Secretary. I would hope they would put you back on camera. I don't know who did that.

EMILY MILLER, PRESS AIDE: He was going to go for another five minutes.

SECRETARY POWELL: We've really scre...

MR. RUSSERT: I think that was one of your staff Mr. Secretary. I don't think that's appropriate.

SECRETARY POWELL: Emily, get out of the way. Bring the camera back please. (Camera returns to the interview subject) I think we're back on Tim, go ahead with your last question.

MR. RUSSERT: Thank you very much, sir.

In February of 2003, you put your enormous personal reputation on the line before the United Nations and said that you had solid sources for the case against Saddam Hussein. It now appears that an agent called "Curve Ball" had misled the CIA by suggesting that Saddam had trucks and trains that were delivering biological chemical weapons.

How concerned are you that some of the information you shared with the world is now inaccurate and discredited?

SECRETARY POWELL: I'm very concerned. When I made that presentation in February 2003, it was based on the best information that the Central Intelligence Agency made available to me. We studied it carefully. We looked at the sourcing and the case of the mobile trucks and trains. There was multiple sourcing for that. Unfortunately, that multiple sourcing over time has turned out to be not accurate, and so I'm deeply disappointed.

But I'm also comfortable that at the time that I made the presentation it reflected the collective judgment, the sound judgment, of the intelligence community, but it turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong and, in some cases, deliberately misleading. And for that I'm disappointed, and I regret it.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Secretary, we thank you very much for joining us again and sharing your views with us today. SECRETARY POWELL: Thanks, Tim.

(END OF PRE-TAPE INTERVIEW)

MR. RUSSERT: AND THAT WAS AN UNEDITED INTERVIEW WITH THE SECRETARY OF STATE, TAPED EARLIER THIS MORNING FROM JORDAN.

WE APPRECIATE SECRETARY POWELL'S WILLINGNESS TO OVERRULE HIS PRESS AIDES' ATTEMPT TO ABRUPTLY CUT OFF OUR DISCUSSION AS I BEGAN TO ASK MY FINAL QUESTION.

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On Late Edition, this General dude is talking about the need to find and work with "good Iraqis."

It just reminds me way too much of the "You're not like other Black people" and "S/he's one of the good ones" crap.

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THE GRAY ZONE
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib.

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Pioneers Fill War Chest, Then Capitalize
By Thomas B. Edsall, Sarah Cohen and James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, May 16, 2004; Page A01

First of two articles

GREENSBORO, Ga. -- Joined by President Bush, Vice President Cheney and a host of celebrities, hundreds of wealthy Republicans gathered at the Ritz-Carlton Lodge here in the first weekend in April, not for a fundraiser but for a celebration of fundraisers. It was billed as an "appreciation weekend," and there was much to appreciate.

As Bush "Pioneers" who had raised at least $100,000 each for the president's reelection campaign, or "Rangers" who had raised $200,000 each, the men and women who shot skeet with Cheney, played golf with pros Ben Crenshaw and Fuzzy Zoeller and laughed at the jokes of comedian Dennis Miller are the heart of the most successful political money operation in the nation's history. Since 1998, Bush has raised a record $296.3 million in campaign funds, giving him an overwhelming advantage in running against Vice President Al Gore and now Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.). At least a third of the total -- many sources believe more than half -- was raised by 631 people.

…For achieving their fundraising goals, Pioneers receive a relatively modest token, the right to buy a set of silver cuff links with an engraved Lone Star of Texas (Rangers can buy a more expensive belt buckle set). Their real reward is entree to the White House and the upper levels of the administration.

Of the 246 fundraisers identified by The Post as Pioneers in the 2000 campaign, 104 -- or slightly more than 40 percent -- ended up in a job or an appointment. A study by The Washington Post, partly using information compiled by Texans for Public Justice, which is planning to release a separate study of the Pioneers this week, found that 23 Pioneers were named as ambassadors and three were named to the Cabinet: Donald L. Evans at the Commerce Department, Elaine L. Chao at Labor and Tom Ridge at Homeland Security. At least 37 Pioneers were named to postelection transition teams, which helped place political appointees into key regulatory positions affecting industry.

A more important reward than a job, perhaps, is access. For about one-fifth of the 2000 Pioneers, this is their business -- they are lobbyists whose livelihoods depend on the perception that they can get things done in the government. More than half the Pioneers are heads of companies -- chief executive officers, company founders or managing partners -- whose bottom lines are directly affected by a variety of government regulatory and tax decisions.

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From GOP, Zero Tolerance For Democratic War Critics
By Charles Babington
Sunday, May 16, 2004; Page A05

Republicans have adopted a scorched-earth strategy toward Democrats who challenge the wisdom of the way the war in Iraq is being conducted. Such critics, GOP officials say, are not merely misguided but are craven cut-and-runners who help the enemy and put politics ahead of U.S. troops' safety.

Democrats say the Republicans are twisting facts and trying to stifle debate through intimidation. Not so, say the Republicans, who insist they are not questioning Democrats' patriotism, only their judgment and resolve. If accuracy and nuance sometimes fall victim to all this rhetoric, well, there's a war on, folks.

The ruckus began May 6, when Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) -- a hawkish, longtime defender of the Pentagon -- told reporters he believed the war in Iraq could not be won without sending in significantly more troops and equipment, which he advocated. "Our failure to surge in terms of troop level and resources needed to prevail in this war" has resulted in "what appear to be unattainable goals in our current path," Murtha said at the news conference, hosted by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

House Republicans responded within minutes. "This morning, in a calculated and craven political stunt, the national Democrat Party declared its surrender in the war on terror," said Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.). "Out of sheer, brazen partisanship," House Democrats have "undermined our troops." Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Tex.) said Democrats "are basically giving aid and comfort to our enemies."

Reporters pointed out that Murtha has consistently said the war was unsustainable only under the current policies, and that he urged massive troop buildups as a remedy. DeLay was unmoved. "If you don't give solutions," he said, "that is saying, 'Cut and run.'

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Low Rates, High Expectations
By JAMES GRANT

Inflation is returning to the American checkout counter under the unlikely sponsorship of the Federal Reserve. For the past year, the Fed has been striving to make the dollar buy less. It's well on its way to succeeding, to judge by the recent readings on wholesale and consumer prices.

Why the Fed decided to propagate inflation, after having so long battled against it, is a story that begins with the return to common usage of an old word. Late in 2002, officials began to warn of the danger of "deflation," or broadly falling prices. Everyday low prices are well and good, the central bankers allowed. Yet if prices steadily and predictably fell, people would stop buying things. They would stay home to wait for tomorrow's guaranteed lower prices. And if the American consumer stopped shopping — and borrowing to shop — where would we be?

…Now the 1 percent era is fast closing, and financial markets worldwide are shuddering. As the signs of inflation multiply, the Fed finds itself in a very interesting position. It never wanted much inflation, it protests; just a whiff would suffice.

But the subjects in the central bank's monetary experiment are human beings, not laboratory mice. When people sense that prices are going to rise, they take steps to protect themselves. They buy extra inventory, invest in so-called hard assets (houses, not bonds) and pass along their rising costs as best they can. Once instilled, inflationary habits are hard to break, as the Fed exactly understands.

…The Fed has another reason to be conscience-stricken. It knows, or should know, that by trying to make the dollar cheaper, it has precipitated even more borrowing in an economy heavily encumbered. The greater the debt, the more deflation-prone the economy. And the more deflation-prone the economy, the more the Fed is apt to try to cheapen the dollar. The truth is that the central bank of the United States is chasing its tail.

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Peggy said the Nick Berg pictures are "something of an antidote" to the Abu Ghraib picture. Donaldson asks, "An antidote to who?"

Donaldson is making the point that Iraqis are the ones who have to decide whether they believe in the USofA or not.

He also had to ask Peggy, "Can I please get in a word edgewise, you're a lovely woman, but…"

And when she went on about consistency and staying the course, Sam hit her with one of my favorite lines: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds." AFTER the commercial, AFTER he got her to stop overtalking him.

Frankly, Political Tourette's Syndrome is the classic Conservative© debate technique.

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Police Break Up Rally for Reform in Zimbabwe
By REUTERS

HARARE, Zimbabwe, May 15 (Reuters) — The police fired tear gas and beat people who were preparing to hold a meeting on constitutional reform in the central Zimbabwe city of Gweru on Saturday, the coalition organizing the event said.

About 80 people were arrested, including the coalition's chairman, Lovemore Madhuku, said Ernest Mudzengi, spokesman for the group, the National Constitutional Assembly.

The meeting was meant to focus on an economic and political crisis for which many blame President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF government.

Mr. Mugabe was quoted in The East African Standard, a Kenyan newspaper, on Saturday as indicating that he plans to retire when his term ends in 2008 and that he is seeking a successor.

It was the second time this year that Mr. Mugabe, 80, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, had suggested that he would not seek another term.

"I want to retire from politics," Mr. Mugabe was quoted as saying by The Standard. "I have had enough. I am also a writer and would like to concentrate on writing after this term of office is over."

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The Hawks Loudly Express Their Second Thoughts
By JOHN TIERNEY

…Most blame the administration for botching the mission, and some are also questioning their own judgment. How, they wonder, did so many conservatives, who normally don't trust their government to run a public school down the street, come to believe that federal bureaucrats could transform an entire nation in the alien culture of the Middle East? To these self-doubting hawks, the conservatives now blaming American officials for Iraq's problems are reminiscent of the leftists who kept blaming incompetents in the Kremlin for the failure of Communism.

…But many hawks across the political spectrum are having public second thoughts. The National Review has dismissed the Wilsonian ideal of implanting democracy in Iraq, and has recommended settling for an orderly society with a non-dictatorial government. David Brooks, a New York Times columnist, wrote that America entered Iraq with a "childish fantasy" and is now "a shellshocked hegemon." Journalists like Robert Novak, Max Boot and Thomas Friedman have encouraged Mr. Rumsfeld to resign.

Robert Kagan and William Kristol, two influential hawks at the neoconservative Weekly Standard, warned in last week's issue of the widespread bipartisan view that the war "is already lost or on the verge of being lost." They called for moving up the election in Iraq to Sept. 30 to hasten the transition and distract attention from American mistakes.

"There's a fair amount of conservative despair, which I respect," Mr. Kristol, the magazine's editor, said in an interview. "My sentiments are closer to anger than to angst. My anger is at the administration for having made many more mistakes than it needed to have made. But we still have to win and we still can win."

Andrew Sullivan, the conservative blogger, has questioned whether it was foolish to trust the Bush administration to wage the war competently. After the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, Mr. Sullivan posted such pained thoughts questioning the moral justification for the war that he was inundated with e-mail messages telling him to buck up.

"Now I'm being bashed for going wobbly," Mr. Sullivan said. "I'm still in favor of this war and still desperately want it to succeed, but when the case we made for war is undermined by events, we have to acknowledge that and explain why the case for war still stands. Sometimes politicians have to stick to scripts regardless of the facts, but a writer has an obligation to be more honest."

…"I supported the war and now I feel foolish," Mr. Carlson said. "I'm just struck by how many people like me who were instinctively distrustful of government forgot to be humble in our expectations. The idea that the federal government can quickly transform the Middle East seems odd to me for a conservative. A basic tenet of conservatism is that it's much easier to destroy things than to create them - much easier, and more fun, too."

…Samuel P. Huntington, the Harvard professor who famously predicted that the cold war's end would be followed not by the global spread of Western capitalism and democracy but by a "clash of civilizations," said he agreed with the need to combat foreign enemies with pre-emptive action in some cases. But he did not consider Iraq one of those imminent threats and opposed the invasion.

"We just didn't realize how totally different the culture is in Middle Eastern countries," he said. "Before the Iraq war, I predicted that we would quickly defeat Saddam Hussein and then find ourselves in a second war against the Iraqi people that we could never win." A similar prediction was issued last fall by Owen Harries, the former editor of The National Interest. In an essay in "The American Conservative," Mr. Harries quoted Edmund Burke's classic essays on the dangers of remaking society at home or abroad.

"We may say that we shall not abuse this astonishing and hitherto unheard of power," Burke wrote of the British empire in the 1770's. "But every other nation will think we shall abuse it. It is impossible but that, sooner or later, this state of things must produce a combination against us which may end in our ruin."

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Powell Opposes Israel's Razing of Palestinian Homes
Sun May 16, 2004 05:10 AM ET
By Arshad Mohammed

DEAD SEA COAST, Jordan (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Sunday the United States opposed Israel's demolition of Palestinian homes in a Gaza refugee camp and called for an end to the current cycle of violence.

Powell also rebuked Palestinian President Yasser Arafat for urging Palestinians to "terrorize the enemy," saying the Palestinian president was making it "exceptionally difficult" to move the peace process forward.

"We know that Israel has a right for self-defense but the kind of action they are taking in Rafah with the destruction of Palestinian homes, we oppose," he told a news conference in Jordan.

"We don't think that that is productive," he said.

Israel's Supreme Court on Sunday lifted its temporary ban on the demolition of homes in Rafah where the army plans to widen a flashpoint corridor it controls along the Egyptian border.

Israeli political sources say dozens or even hundreds of Palestinian homes in Rafah, on the edge of the "Philadelphi" buffer zone, would be razed to widen the corridor and give soldiers more protection from attack by militants.

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Kerry Shifts Campaign Focus from Iraq to Economy
Sun May 16, 2004 10:01 AM ET

By Patricia Wilson
BOSTON (Reuters) - Democratic White House hopeful John Kerry offered on Sunday an economic agenda promoting middle-class growth and opportunity as an alternative to President Bush's "special favors" for the wealthiest Americans.

…But the Massachusetts senator said 98 percent of Americans and 99 percent of U.S. business would still get tax cuts if he were elected president on Nov. 2. Bush and his Republican allies have portrayed Kerry as a typical tax-raising liberal.

"We know that the measure of a strong economy is a growing middle-class where every American has a chance to work and an opportunity to succeed," Kerry said. "For three years, the American people have been asking this White House, 'What are you going to do about this? And for three years, they've basically told us: 'You're on your own."'

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UK Nobel Laureate Wants Genetic Bias Ban
Fri May 14, 2004 09:51 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - A Nobel Prize winning scientist has called on the British government to introduce legislation to prevent discrimination on the basis of people's genetic make-up, the Guardian newspaper reported on Saturday.
"The main worry with genetic tests is abuse of the information," Sir John Sulston, who is a member of the government's genetics advisory panel the Human Genetics Commission, told the Guardian in an interview.

"So are we going to use them and lose the medical benefits, or are we going to alter society by drafting good laws so people are protected?" said Sulston.

Medical advances and the sequencing of the human genome have led to concerns that genetic testing could be used by insurance companies and employers to discriminate against people with an increased risk of developing certain diseases.

"People are quite right to be leery about having genetic tests until we have solid laws in place to protect their rights," Sulston told the Guardian.

"What we have to establish, right across the board, is the right for people to be treated equally, regardless of their genetic make-up.

"We can't just keep fudging the issue. Like laws on sexual and race equality, this could be very hard to police and enforce, but it is nevertheless worth pushing for.

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Sunday, May 16, 2004; Page BW06
NEGRO LEAGUE BASEBALL The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution
By Neil Lanctot. Univ. of Pennsylvania. 496 pp. $34.95

If you know anyone who claims to be up on baseball history -- smarties who know the names of Joe DiMaggio's outfielder brothers or how many years Hoyt Wilhelm pitched in the minors -- ask them for whom Satchel Paige played (the Pittsburgh Crawfords) or Josh Gibson (the Homestead Grays) or Jackie Robinson in his pre-Brooklyn Dodgers days (the Kansas City Monarchs) or Larry Doby before the Cleveland Indians (the Newark Eagles). If they hit it out of the park on those (it's 1,000 to 1 in Vegas they won't), brush them back with this: Name the six teams in the Negro National League and the six in the Negro American League in the mid-1940s.

Bet the farm, or at least the fences around it: No one will know, except those who have just read Neil Lanctot's story of black baseball during its five-decade run to its final innings in the late 1950s. In remarkable detail -- 576 endnotes alone that consume 77 pages -- Lanctot takes us beyond the ball field where the Paiges and Gibsons played in forced segregation, and into the commercial and social realities of baseball in black communities. As much as the Paiges and others may be romanticized for being the equal of any white players, they remained trapped in an industry that was separate but emphatically unequal.

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Colin Powell on Meet the Press:

"Those people who gave their lives for Iraqi freedom will see…"

I'm sorry, they don't see shit. That's part of being dead.

Tim had some harsh questions.

I want a transcript of this one too. Powell's press aide turned the camera away, making Russert say "I believe that's one of your staff. I don't feel that was appropriate." They aired it unedited.

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On the McLaughlin Report Lionel Barber said Rumsfeld won't be fired because Bush is too weak to fire him.

Tony Blankley has gone insane, by the way.

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This Week on ABC is coming from Jordan this week, and his roundtable consists of Fareed Zakaria and two Arab journalists. It is very interesting.

We're used to thinking of Fareed as this really even handed guy…well, I am for the most part…but that's because as progressive as I feel myself to be I still start from an American perspective. This is another one that cries out for a transcript to be read.

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Simon Cozens has a history lesson for you and (unconnected) the best reason to develop a database I've ever seen.

It all starts, like most things do, with beer.

The big problem with beer is that the nicer the beer, the more of it you consume, and, for some reason, the less likely you are to remember how good it was in the morning, and so you never know whether or not you want to buy that particular beer again. So you have to buy it anyway to try to work out whether or not you liked it. This is enjoyable, but not particularly economical. I found myself needing some kind of database to keep track of my tastings.

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This just came down through channels. All opinons expressed are those of the author.

Backers of Gay Marriage Ban Find Tepid Response in Pews
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

Published: May 16, 2004

Just four months after an alliance of conservative Christians was threatening a churchgoer revolt unless President Bush championed an amendment banning same-sex marriage, members say they have been surprised and disappointed by what they call a tepid response from the pews.

Most of the groups supporting the proposed federal constitutional amendment concede that it appears all but dead in Congress for this election year.

As Massachusetts prepares to become the first state in the nation to allow same-sex marriage on Monday, several high-profile conservatives say they are now pinning their hopes mainly on reaction to events there, betting that scenes of gay weddings in Provincetown may set off a public outcry.

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Dear "Several high-profile conservatives":

You are a dense as depleted uranium. You had scenes of gay weddings all over hell and back. And yes, there was a public outcry…from you.

What were you expecting to see tomorrow in Provincetown that hadn't been already seen? Gay orgies in the park? Please…

The fact is, you've seen all the support on this issue that you're going to get. Gay marriage isn't a national security issue so nothing in the discussion was redacted or hidden. And truthfully, talking to Christ 5 yesterday (that would be several hundred years in the future to you) he told me how disappointed everyone was with the reaction to what his earlier reifications taught. He's still waiting for 144,000 honorable Christians to be alive at the same time before he fully reifys.

Anyway, I just thought I'd let you know you could be directing your energies toward something important instead of something already writ large.

Your friend and respected adversary,

Prometheus 60

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…is still going to jail.
Quote of note:

As that defense is presented at their courts-martial, the central question of Abu Ghraib — whether what happened there was aberration or policy — will become crucial.

"We intend to put the military on trial for their breakdown in leadership, structure, guidance, policy," Mr. Bergrin said. The proceedings will begin this week, when Specialist Sivits is expected to plead guilty in exchange for leniency, and then testify against other defendants.

But the most immediate task for the other accused soldiers is proving that they were doing what their superiors wanted. "Our defense says he was following orders and that he believed the orders were lawful," said Guy L. Womack, a lawyer for Specialist Graner.

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Accused G.I.'s Try to Shift Blame in Prison Abuse
By ADAM LIPTAK, MICHAEL MOSS and KATE ZERNIKE

Published: May 16, 2004

This article was reported and written by Adam Liptak, Michael Moss and Kate Zernike.

Six of the defendants in the Abu Ghraib abuse case once all bunked together in a tent in Baghdad. But as the most important military prosecutions since Vietnam unfold, each soldier is struggling alone to explain away seemingly irrefutable evidence captured in frame after frame of disturbing images, and they are pointing fingers at one another, minimizing their roles and blaming the government.

One defendant, Specialist Megan M. Ambuhl, says she was merely a bystander who treated the Iraqi detainees kindly, giving them copies of the Koran and making sure their meals contained no pork.

Specialist Jeremy C. Sivits, in a statement to investigators, described brutal conduct by Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick II and Specialist Charles A. Graner Jr., who, in turn, call him a liar.

Then there is Sgt. Javal S. Davis. His lawyer, Paul Bergrin, accuses the government of abusing him by interrogating him for 20 sleepless hours right after he worked a 60-hour shift at Abu Ghraib.

The defendants' challenge is to convince military courts that the pictures of abusive treatment of Iraqi detainees, which have generated a storm of criticism, do not begin to tell the whole story. Each has a personal version of events but one theme unites them: they contend they were following orders.

Sorry folks.

This was undeniably a series of war crimes, and if the Bushistas had respect for international order (which of course they don't else we wouldn't be having this discussion) you'd be tried in Zurich or something.

Maybe you have to be on the side with the most remaining weapons for the "I was following orders" defense to work.

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I have not seen the beheading video and I will not. Seriously not interested, not feeling it's necessary for me to judge the players. Not to mention the fact that I know how it ends.

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NEW YORK'S 'DIGNITY FOR ALL STUDENTS' ACT: Bill Addresses Tension Between Asian & Black Students.
Violence rises between Asian and African American Students in NY Schools

(May. 14, 2004) Civil Rights laws are kicking up in New York with the rising tension between Asian and African American students in New York's public high schools. A proposed state law focusing on prohibiting discrimination and harassment of students in public schools on the basis of race, color and sexual orientation will now probably pick up in its progress.

The Dignity for All Students Act was passed by the New York State Assembly. In order to become law it still has to be passed by the State Senate and Governor George Pataki must sign the bill into law.

The bill sets guidelines and policies for how schools can best remedy incidents of harassment or discrimination and incidents must be reported. Some New York City school authorities have denied that Asians are targeted for more bullying and harassment than students of other ethnicities.

But at a recent public hearing, parents and students from the Korean and Chinese American community said Asian students are becoming the target of physical attacks and verbal harassment, particularly by African American students, and that they were being picked on because of their ethnicity.

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