Prometheus 6   

Thanks a lot, Deore

Bill Deore adds to the Limbaugh discussion in a really "useful" way.

Clown.

View image

I think it safe to assume Tom Friedman has had enough

From the NY Times: The Real Patriot Act

Because this war on terrorism is not simply a military fight. That's the easy part. More important, it is a war of ideas. And to win a war of ideas we need to do two things:

First, we need to successfully partner with Iraqis to create a free, open and progressive model in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world to promote the ideas of tolerance, pluralism and democratization. But second, and just as important, we need to set an example ourselves, in order to get others -- both potential allies and longtime adversaries -- to buy into our war, to believe that we are not just out to benefit ourselves or protect ourselves, but that we really are out to repair the world.

Unfortunately, this president -- for ideological reasons, because of whom he is beholden to economically, and because he knows that the American people never demanded this war, so he cannot demand much from them -- will not summon Americans to set that example. He will not summon us to be the best global citizens we can be. The Bush war cry is: "Do as we say, not as we do. Good ideas for Iraqis, gluttony for Americans."

On the confusion of motion and progress

From The NY Times: From Pitchforks to Proposition 13

But in California more democracy has produced not more attacks on the wealthy and big business but chronic chaos and even paralysis -- a kind of political catatonia perversely sanctified by neoconservative and libertarian dogmas that assert, as another former governor of California put it, that "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." (Shays may have agreed with the second clause of that sentence, but certainly not with the first; he wanted to use the government to protect debtors and the disadvantaged.)

To the extent that Californians -- and Americans -- subscribe to that view, they have confounded the predictions of countless theorists about the nature of democratic politics. Among those theorists, Alexis de Tocqueville is an exception, for he identified the peculiarities of the American case now so vividly manifest in California, that most American of states. The characteristic social class that American society nurtured, said Tocqueville, was composed of "eager and apprehensive men of small property." Though born in revolution, their country was unlikely ever again to undergo revolutionary upheaval. "They love change, but they dread revolutions," Tocqueville concluded, because "they continually and in a thousand ways feel that they might lose by one."

If anyone calls this girl an example of how the system can work for anyone I will find them and slap them

This child is as exceptional as Paul Cuffe was.

In the Hunts Point section of the Bronx, there is a modest street called Faile Street. Its name is not a lie.

Its painted women sell themselves at the bodega on the corner. Its ragged men sell bags of dope from cars along the curb. It passes underneath the ruckus of the elevated highway and then dead-ends in the stench of a sewage treatment plant. Faile Street is poor. It is loud. It is often dangerous. Often, it smells.

Jenise Harrell was born and raised on Faile Street, but hers, it could be said, is a story of success. At 16, Jenise, a junior, gets solid B's at Cardinal Spellman High School. She serves on the student council. She writes for the student paper. She debates for the debate team. She works reshelving books in the library during lunch.

Her afternoons are spent at a community center, her weekends at her church.

She is trying for a future at Howard University or Duke or Stanford -- maybe even Harvard. She is trying to escape.

"I know I have it in me to get out," she says. "I have to get out. There's nothing for me here."

Another wrong estimate, my how ever could that have happened?

Report Offered Bleak Outlook About Iraq Oil
By JEFF GERTH

WASHINGTON, Oct. 4 -- The Bush administration's optimistic statements earlier this year that Iraq's oil wealth, not American taxpayers, would cover most of the cost of rebuilding Iraq were at odds with a bleaker assessment of a government task force secretly established last fall to study Iraq's oil industry, according to public records and government officials.

The task force, which was based at the Pentagon as part of the planning for the war, produced a book-length report that described the Iraqi oil industry as so badly damaged by a decade of trade embargoes that its production capacity had fallen by more than 25 percent, panel members have said.

Despite those findings, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz told Congress during the war that "we are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon."

Moreover, Vice President Dick Cheney said in April, on the day Baghdad fell, that Iraq's oil production could hit 3 million barrels a day by the end of the year, even though the task force had determined that Iraq was generating less than 2.4 million barrels a day before the war.

Now, as the Bush administration requests $20.3 billion from Congress for reconstruction next year, the chief reasons cited for the high price tag are sabotage of oil equipment -- and the poor state of oil infrastructure already documented by the task force.

"The problem is this," L. Paul Bremer III, the top civilian administrator in Iraq, asserted at a Senate hearing two weeks ago: "The oil infrastructure was severely run down over the last 20 years, and partly because of sanctions over the last decade."

Similarly, Bush administration officials announced earlier this year that Iraq's oil revenues would be $20 billion to $30 billion a year, which added to the impression that the aftermath of the war would place a minimal burden on the United States. Mr. Bremer now estimates that Iraq's total oil revenues from the last half of 2003 to 2005 will amount to $35 billion, running at a rate of about $14 billion a year.

The administration now plays down the report's findings.

The Bush administration's optimistic statements earlier this year that Iraq's oil wealth, not American taxpayers, would cover most of the cost of rebuilding Iraq were at odds with a bleaker assessment of a government task force secretly established last fall to study Iraq's oil industry, according to public records and government officials.

Could it be…another lie? Could it be…another denial?

YOU KNOW DAMN WELL THEY KNEW THW SPECIFIC FINDINGS!

Wherein Prometheus 6 explains just how weird he really is

From the comments:

ultimately we want affection for who we are more than we want esteem for what we think.

I have a hard time sorting "who I am" from "what I think".

Okay, I have this body, right? It determines a LOT…what I see, what I CAN see, what I can do…

Someone's going to say we aren't limited by our body, to which I will reply I have neither thumbs on my feet nor sonar, so there are things that are biologically possible that I can't do because I am not so equipped. No wings…you get the drift. And were I capable of these things, whole worlds of needs and possibilities would exist for me that do not now.

And I have this physical position in space and history that also influences my possibilities in ways beyond my control (though not beyond my influence).

And our personalities are reactions to and choices made from the needs and possibilities that exist for us.

And the knowledge I have comes from the interaction of my personal choices and physical experiences.

And it all feeds back in the most hellishly complex way.

And it's all so…transient…that I have a hard time finding something that I can definitively claim to be.

And I'm not saying that I'm not anything at all. Not quite; I'm not ready to say that much, to take it that far. But I know, categorically, that I'm not anything that can be indicated.

So maybe it's not so much an inability to see the difference between "what I am" and "what I think" as an inability to see the point in such a differentiation.

Things what troubles me

In no particular order.

• Acknowledging that if I were as ruthless with others as I am with myself I'd be one of the loneliest, richest people alive…and questioning if I made the right choice I'm…just this guy, see. And truth is, I don't connect with other folks but SO well anyway.
• That it truly seems things which are predictable are not understandable, and things that are understandable are not predictable
  Which is the most lyric of a whole class of issues I have with perception and reality. Don't ask. Trust me.
• Being told I've honored someone
  Meaning no harm but that's never my intent. It's just to talk.
• People that jump when the monster, killer or whatever gets someone, then turn to ask "What happened?"
  WHY THE HELL DID YOU JUMP?


• Progressives that need advice on how not to offend
  If you're one of them, recognize that, in your own understanding, you are different than those you seek not to offend
• Stupid people who give you stupid answers you're supposed to just believe
  Although, since they are stupid and all, I guess it's not their fault. Except I tend to blame stupid people for being stupid, so there you are.
• People who declare there's no answer because they have an answer in mind and just can't reach it
  …and they bruvva, People who say the answer they want is true, "Because!" which literally means "this belief is the cause of my choosing the action I did, which I would not have done had the truth of it not seemed self evident to me at the time."

Don't panic

I'm not going to stop blogging. If was going to do that, I'd just stop. I'm not this guy. Alpha Primates don't run around announcing, they act.

My health is better; y'all missed all the drama, as you were intended to.

I anticipate less traffic because posting frequency is more important than posting quality or subject matter; in fact, once you've reached a certain visibility (in Ecosystem terms, I'd say it's Marauding Marsupials) the two things that best draw new traffic from people already in the blogging mix is to post frequently and to leave good comments on highly trafficked blogs. Both of which I do; but I'm actually more interested in people blogs. THIS is a people blog, I'm just a weird person.

Link whoring can keep you visible, but it's too damn much work, from what I see. Nothing wrong with being a link whore, I'm just not one, is all. Another effective method is the referral thing; those weekly lists of cool posts of the week. You have a nice scheduled release of links and a fairly consistent viewpoint, you can become a mandatory stop for people that share your viewpoint. But that's even more work.

It just comes down to my desire NOT to be a totally online geek. To be able to talk without parsing myself all the time because of the lack of body language and other similar contexts.

Approaching health has been hard work, and as I get closer to it and have more energy, I find I want to relax. Call me selfish.

But I'm still looking out for myself. That means I still have to call bullshit when I see it. And I still need more feedback for my thinking processes than you can get without limiting myself to a crew that, on the whole, I find boring as hell. And you keep writing for your audience you eventually…inevitably…box yourself in. That's something I've never allowed.

Fewer posts mean each has to count, so exactly what will change around here is uncertain because I have to understand how to choose before I choose. So whatever change I make is not in the immediate future. It's just close enough that I get to consider it all right now. And I get to post about it right now because, … it's my damn (personal) blog.

It takes too long for things like this to come out

Arnold Unplugged - It's hasta la vista to $9 billion if the Governator is selected

Now, thirty-four pages of internal Enron memoranda have just come through this reporter's fax machine tell all about the tryst between Maria's husband and the corporate con men. It turns out that Schwarzenegger knowingly joined the hush-hush encounter as part of a campaign to sabotage a Davis-Bustamante plan to make Enron and other power pirates then ravaging California pay back the $9 billion in illicit profits they carried off.

Here's the story Arnold doesn't want you to hear. The biggest single threat to Ken Lay and the electricity lords is a private lawsuit filed last year under California's unique Civil Code provision 17200, the "Unfair Business Practices Act." This litigation, heading to trial now in Los Angeles, would make the power companies return the $9 billion they filched from California electricity and gas customers.

…While Bustamante's kicking Enron butt in court, the Davis Administration is simultaneously demanding that George Bush's energy regulators order the $9 billion refund. Don't hold your breath: Bush's Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is headed by a guy proposed by … Ken Lay.

But Bush's boys on the commission have a problem. The evidence against the electricity barons is rock solid: fraudulent reporting of sales transactions, megawatt "laundering," fake power delivery scheduling and straight out conspiracy (including meetings in hotel rooms).

So the Bush commissioners cook up a terrific scheme: charge the companies with conspiracy but offer them, behind closed doors, deals in which they have to pay only two cents on each dollar they filched.

Problem: the slap-on-the-wrist refunds won't sail if the Governor of California won't play along. Solution: Re-call the Governor.

New Problem: the guy most likely to replace Davis is not Mr. Musclehead, but Cruz Bustamante, even a bigger threat to the power companies than Davis. Solution: smear Cruz because -- heaven forbid! -- he took donations from Injuns (instead of Ken Lay).

The pay-off? Once Arnold is Governor, he blesses the sweetheart settlements with the power companies. When that happens, Bustamante's court cases are probably lost. There aren't many judges who will let a case go to trial to protect a state if that a governor has already allowed the matter to be "settled" by a regulatory agency.

So think about this. The state of California is in the hole by $8 billion for the coming year. That's chump change next to the $8 TRILLION in deficits and surplus losses planned and incurred by George Bush. Nevertheless, the $8 billion deficit is the hanging rope California's right wing is using to lynch Governor Davis.

Yet only Davis and Bustamante are taking direct against to get back the $9 billion that was vacuumed out of the state by Enron, Reliant, Dynegy, Williams Company and the other Texas bandits who squeezed the state by the bulbs.

But if Arnold is selected, it's 'hasta la vista' to the $9 billion. When the electricity emperors whistle, Arnold comes -- to the Peninsula Hotel or the Governor's mansion. The he-man turns pussycat and curls up in their lap.

Tacitus earns his keep on the blogroll

One of Tacitus' Burning Questions That Puzzle Us All is answered (most accurately, I think). And as far as the Silver Age goes, I'm a Marvel fan.

A sociological thought experiment

Humans are animals. We have physical needs. We are conscious beings, so we have psychological needs. And society is our environment, our habitat. It provides the common means by which we satisfy our physical and psychological needs. With that in mind, I ask this question.

What if the corporations win?

Suppose production and service efficiencies reach their theoretical maximum. It is no longer possible to reduce the cost of production. We've automated everything from mining to recycling, fast food service to garbage collection and minimized its dependance on human labor. That's the goal, right?

Suppose everything our economy needs to produce can be produced by, say, 25% of the current work force.

What social conditions could support this without major pathologies? Is there more that one type of society where this condition could obtain and provide for our physical and psychological needs? Given our current beliefs, are any of these societies reachable?

Just to help keep up,

Just to help keep up, Mike at TOPDOG04.COM has set up a trackback referral site called Looters With Limos. Participants post trackbacks to articles on their own blogs about how Bush's corporate contacts appear to be profiting by their relationship with administration officials.

The site's sidebar has a couple of of quotes that explain what motivated him to start the site:

So far I've seen Jo Fish of Democratice Veteran, myself and Mike himself ping the site, and he's open to more folks. And I don't see no archives, what up with that?

Devolution, or predicting my future

I'm anticipating a something of a slide in my Ecosystem ratings, and something of a drop in traffic.

I started blogging as therapy, kinda. For reasons of personal denial I had a major problem with diabetes about two years ago. Probably mentioned it before. How major? How's being 6'2" and sliding from 195 lbs (and I've never been fat) to 145 lbs? That's just the outward difficulty and enough self exposure thanks, except to say that the blogging only started a couple of months after I had enough strength to consider doing much more than watch DVDs. It was the level of human contact I could have without showing folks how bad a somewhat vain Black man can look.

Now I'm totally out of denial--fear of death will do that. I've got some discipline with diet and medication going on and I'm back up to (an almost as solid as before) 195-200 lbs. How well I look (a matter of health) on any given day depends a lot on how well I feel, both physically and psychologically. And I feel better with some controlled exposure to other humans. It's got to be controlled because I'm so purged that a 20oz Bud Ice sets me off for most of the evening, and a lack of sleep will have me feeling like shit for half the next day.

But you know what? I'm going to have that controlled human exposure. I see this as necessary because I like life and I want mine back. I'm just going to ease into it so I don't break shit again. Maybe I'll try one of these blogger get-togethers I hear goes on in New York City periodically.

What that means (and this is something I've been thinking about for a couple of days and decided on in the last like 20 minutes) is I'm going to do progessively less mainlining of news and hence progressively less blogging about it. And I have to disengage from some things that I've gotten involved with…that has actually already begun.

I like writing, though. Always have. So I'm not going anywhere. And this post not withstanding, I'm a kind of detached, private person so it won't ever be a diary at this address. The subjects I've been blogging about are important in my view so any changes will in style, and will be gradual.

It's worse than we thought!

Click for the full-sized stolen image.

Any Borland Dephi programmers out there?

I just read that the current version of Delphi (version 7) is the last Win32 version to be produced. The next version, code named Octane, will be a purely .NET development environment. Versoin 7 will be supported for the forseeable future, since .NET is not going to be the dominant platform until the next version of Windows.

There's a limit to how disturbed I can be about that, but I bet if I look around there'll be much complaining.

Still, it seems Borland is pushing C# (and C#Builder) at the expense of Delphi. I should probably go ahead and make the switch, especially since there's an open source IDE called SharpDevelop that's at version 0.97 and looks pretty damn good. Since the .NET SDK is free too there's going to be little reason to pay cash when SharpDevelop hits version 1.0.

Later: SharpDevelop is throwing exceptions when I get to the form designer. Since I just upgraded from XP Home to XP Pro and am having weirdnesses in IE, I can't say whether it's SharpDevelop or me. On the other hand, Visual Studio .NET (the C# version) is happy.

That explains a lot

Jackson was ready to Rush out door

In the hours leading up to Rush Limbaugh's resignation from ESPN Wednesday, the network's suits faced another dilemma that could have ripped apart the cast of their Sunday "NFL Countdown" show.

Well-embedded moles report that Tom Jackson, a 16-year ESPN veteran and the most popular member of the "Countdown" cast, would have quit the show if Limbaugh had stayed.

[deleted: a recounting of Limberger's spew]

Spies say that in a short post-production meeting following Sunday's show, which Limbaugh did not attend, not a word was said about his remarks.

But McNabb was upset that none of the "Countdown" crew -- Jackson, Chris Berman, Michael Irvin, Steve Young -- had directly challenged Limbaugh's noxious spew.

Jackson, who did challenge the football element of Limbaugh's commentary but not the racist part, also caught heat in some media quarters and from some of his friends.

On Wednesday, Jackson told an ESPN executive by phone he was going to attend the "Countdown" production meeting tomorrow, tell Limbaugh what he thought of him, quit the show and fly home.

Jackson's stance was exactly opposite to the one ESPN wanted the "Countdown" cast to take. With outside pressure mounting, management wanted Jackson & Co. to cooperate and help cool things down.

That might explain why Berman went on the record saying he didn't believe Limbaugh's tone or intent was malicious, but "I probably should have looked to soften it."

Spies say Jackson wasn't buying Berman's spin, or the words of ESPN executive VP Mark Shapiro, who rushed to Limbaugh's defense in Wednesday's USA Today.

Even Shapiro had to know there would be major problems if Jackson had quit. If that happened, the rest of the "Countdown" cast members, all close to Jackson, would have been forced to do something.

How would they, or any ESPN suit, be able to justify why Limbaugh, after offending with his remarks, was still on "Countdown" and Jackson was not? How would they explain why Jackson had left the show?

Jackson's colleagues would have either taken an integrity hit, giving tacit support to Limbaugh and his warped perspective, or followed Jackson out the door. If Limbaugh had stayed and Jackson had split, "Countdown" would have been in serious trouble.

Jackson's decision to bolt was a major pressure point leading to Limbaugh's resignation. Well before Limbaugh's McNabb statement, the "Countdown" scene could not be described as a lovefest.

Some staffers were uneasy and angry when Limbaugh was hired. They knew he was capable of stirring the pot in a negative way. So, when it happened, Jackson got burned for not responding to Limbaugh. The fuel for this particular fire was provided by the ESPN executives who hired Limbaugh.

Perhaps that's why Jackson was so angry. After all, it wasn't his idea to hire someone who brought absolutely nothing to the table in terms of football knowledge. No, this was all about having a human train wreck on the scene to juice ratings. The message was clear: Watch "Countdown" or you might miss what Rush said.

Sell-out of the decade

via S-Train…I'm not sure whether or not to thank him…

…He's an outright fool and that gets under my skin. And I have to take him to task. Follow this link and listen to some of his radio shows. The man is sick. I have no problem at being criticized and my racial group criticized (I do that myself). But when you preach that the "black soul is dead" and the "white is the only right way" (yes, he says stuff like that), you need to get smacked, literally and figuratively.

If you don't like me, you'll love him. I tried listening to one of his RealAudio stream. Ugh.

No one escapes!

Some folks would probably find Oliver Willis's position more reasonable than mine. Somewhat, anyway.

As usual with blogs, the comments are as interesting as the post, which is why this post was made.

Nice portrait

Drawn by Jeff Daaaaaaamn!ziger

Oops. A Freudian slip. Sorry…

Aw, man, Huey, why'd you have to let THAT slip?

It's almost as if the president had a team in the White House that was feeding his credibility into a giant shredder

Almost?

No wonder the sky-high poll numbers for President Bush have collapsed. The fiasco in Iraq is only part of the story. The news on one substantive issue after another could hardly be worse. It's almost as if the president had a team in the White House that was feeding his credibility into a giant shredder.

Despite the administration's relentlessly optimistic chatter about the economy, the Census Bureau reported that the number of Americans living in poverty increased by 1.7 million last year, the second straight annual increase. During those two years, the number of poor Americans has grown by 3 million.

Belt-tightening is also in order for the middle class. The median household income declined by 1.1 percent, a drop of about $500, to $42,400. It was the second straight year for a decline in that category as well.

Per capita income decreased, too. It dropped by 1.8 percent, to $22,794 in 2002, the first decline in more than a decade.

Boom times these ain't.

On Monday we learned that there had been a steep increase last year -- the largest in a decade -- in the number of Americans without health insurance.

The international outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas is reporting that job losses in the U.S. have resulted in a sharp decline in the number of dual-income families, particularly for those with children under 18.

And so on.

I'm deeply touched

Senate Panel Approves Judge's Nomination
By NEIL A. LEWIS

WASHINGTON, Oct. 2 -- The Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines on Thursday to approve the judicial nomination of Charles W. Pickering Sr. and send it to the full Senate, a move that came as no surprise to anyone.

Judge Pickering, a federal trial judge in Hattiesburg, Miss., was first nominated to the federal appeals court by President Bush in 2001, but was defeated along party lines when Democrats who then controlled the committee said he had a history of racial insensitivity. Senate Republicans said he had been treated shabbily, and Mr. Bush renominated him to the same post after the Republicans regained control.

The committee session on Thursday was, at its most elemental, a replay of the complicated debate about whether and how far a white Mississippi political figure had evolved in terms of racial attitude over four decades. But the usual fragile shell of courtesy that surrounds such events had shattered.

Before the straight party-line vote of 10 to 9 in favor of the nomination, there were several heated arguments and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a freshman Republican, became moist-eyed when he accused the Democrats of irresponsibly describing Judge Pickering with the "worst possible epithet for a Southern white man," by calling him a racist.

BWAAAAAAAAHahahahahahahaahahah!

Where was this reporter sitting that he could see Lindsey become moist-eyed?

Cmon. Filibuster Pickering to death, and get rid of Lindsey for bad acting.

Yin-Yang

Poll Shows Drop in Confidence on Bush Skill in Handling Crises
By TODD S. PURDUM and JANET ELDER

The public's confidence in President Bush's ability to deal wisely with an international crisis has slid sharply over the past five months, the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll has found. And a clear majority are also uneasy about his ability to make the right decisions on the nation's economy.

Over all, the poll found, Americans are for the first time more critical than not of Mr. Bush's ability to handle both foreign and domestic problems, and a majority say the president does not share their priorities. Thirteen months before the 2004 election, a solid majority of Americans say the country is seriously on the wrong track, a classic danger sign for incumbents, and only about half of Americans approve of Mr. Bush's overall job performance. That is roughly the same as when Mr. Bush took office after the razor-close 2000 election.

But more than 6 in 10 Americans still say the president has strong qualities of leadership, more than 5 in 10 say he has more honesty and integrity than most people in public life and 6 in 10 credit him with making the country safer from terrorist attack.

By contrast, the Democratic presidential contenders remain largely unknown, and nearly half of Americans -- and a like number of registered voters -- say the Democrats have no clear plan of their own for the country.

Setting things up in case the Cubs win the World Series

Closest asteroid yet flies past Earth

18:17 02 October 03

NewScientist.com news service

An asteroid about the size of a small house passed just 88,000 kilometres from the Earth by on Saturday 27 September - the closest approach of a natural object ever recorded. Geostationary communication satellites circle the Earth 42,000km from the planet's centre.

The asteroid, designated 2003 SQ222, came from inside the Earth's orbit and so was only spotted after it had whizzed by. The first sighting was on Sunday 28 by the Lowell Observatory Near-Earth Object Search program in Arizona, US.

Dan Wasserman does it again

The result of a long Democratic primary battle?

Gore/Clark in '04

10/3/2003

Democratic Party activists meeting in Washington for Democratic National Committee fall meetings warned that President Bush still has the upper hand; raised doubts about their newest candidate, Wesley K. Clark; urged second-tier contenders to get out of the race; and worried that the primary fight could drag longer than expected -- perhaps even into the summer convention.

"That would be an unnatural state and uncomfortable for people, but it might be healthy for the party," said committee member Debbie Dingell of Michigan. She said some of her state's top Democrats are considering going to the 2004 presidential convention uncommitted. The Democratic Party chairman, Terry McAuliffe, led a drive to compress the primary contests into a six-week window ending in early March. The strategy allows for the eventual nominee to gather his forces against Bush, who is expected to raise tens of millions dollars more than any Democrat. Ike Leggett, chairman of the Maryland party, said the race may last deep into the spring or summer. "But I don't subscribe to the notion that we need somebody now. I think it's healthy that we have a tough race, 10 voices raised against Bush," Leggett said.

This is right interesting

The Laws of the Father Are Visited Upon the Son
Elder Bush urged legislation cited in White House-CIA probe
By Philip Agee

October 3, 2003

The current brouhaha over the outing of an undercover CIA officer brings to mind vivid memories and comic ironies. The 1982 law that now threatens Karl Rove, or whoever it was who leaked the officer's name, is the Intelligence Identities Protection Act -- and it was adopted to silence me.

I was a CIA agent for 11 years in Latin America, but I quit in 1969 and wrote a book that told the true story of my life in the agency.

In the 1970s, some colleagues and I followed up with a campaign of "guerrilla journalism" to expose the CIA's operations and personnel around the world because we thought we could combat the agency's role in support of so many murderous dictatorships at that time, including those in Vietnam, Greece, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. The Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which makes it a felony to expose a covert intelligence agent, was designed to stop us.

Here's the first irony: It was President George H.W. Bush who fought to get that law passed when he was CIA director in 1976-1977 and later as vice president.

To justify the law's restriction of 1st Amendment rights, Bush the elder and other CIA officials repeated the same lie many times over: That by publicly identifying Richard Welch, the CIA chief in Athens who was assassinated by terrorists in December 1975, I was responsible for his death.

Bush repeated that lie long after Congress passed the law, during his term as president and even afterward. His wife, Barbara, also repeated it in her 1994 autobiography -- and I sued her for libel. As part of the legal settlement, she sent me a letter of apology containing the admission that I had not identified Welch.

In fact, I'd never met Welch, didn't know he was in Athens and had never published his name or given it to anyone.

Hm.

Young Will Not Run for U.S. Senate
Former U.N. Ambassador Declines Candidacy in Georgia

By Dick Pettys
The Associated Press
Friday, October 3, 2003; 8:50 AM

ATLANTA -- After keeping Democrats on the edge of their seats for days, former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young announced Friday that he will not run for the U.S. Senate.

That leaves the post being vacated next year by retiring Sen. Zell Miller without a significant Democratic challenger.

Four Republicans, including congressmen Mac Collins and Johnny Isakson, are already campaigning for Miller's seat.

"I decided that I could not be the candidate," Young said Friday. "I was afraid I'd win. Winning would mean I would spend the next seven years of my life in Washington, and Washington is not always the center of action."

He said he wanted to help "maintain and restore a new hope in democracy" but not by running for Senate.

A day earlier, Young had told members of the Democratic Study Group on National Security that he was "in the process" of preparing a campaign. Georgia Democrats had rallied around him as their leading candidate.

David Kay on The News Hour

JIM LEHRER: At this point, where does the preponderance of the evidence lean? Does it lean toward the fact there are still some -- there are some weapons out there and you haven't found them yet, or that they don't exist?

DAVID KAY: What we have found is a substantial body of evidence that reports that the Iraqis had an intention to continue weapons production at some point in the future. We've also found undeclared activities in the chemical and biological and missile area that were never declared to the U.N. and not discovered during inspections. So we have a lot of activity and we simply don't know whether that points to weapons or does not. That's why we're still working.

JIM LEHRER: Is there any evidence at this point as to whether or not Iraq had weapons of mass destruction at the time of the beginning of the Iraq War?

DAVID KAY: There are indications, there are Iraqis who say that but there is nothing yet that rises to the level of evidence. This is, though, a continuing, important and continuing investigation.

House of Representatives removes a razor from its wrist

Temporarily, anyway. This vote is "non-binding." On the other hand since the seven Republicans that voted against this were from "economicaly struggling states," we may find more Republicans rejecting it as the Bush economic plan continues apace.

This is what you have to do

You got broadband? Load up Cobb's category archive for his ongoing cartoon series.

You don't got broadband? Open two browser windows, load up Cobb's category archive for his ongoing cartoon series, and browse the rest of his site in the other one until the first one is done downloading.

The WTO meeting in Cancun

If you're interested in African developments, then you know about the recent WTO trade talks in Cancun that "collapsed." Pambazuka News interviewed four African activists that were in attendance for the African side of the story. When you read about Green room processes, you'll see why I said they were in attendance rather than participating. And you may understand why the African Union refused to go along with the program.

'NO LONGER DINNER': AFRICAN ACTIVISTS SPEAK ON CANCUN

Picture this. An island strip of expensive Florida styled hotels, white beaches and brilliant blue skies, disturbed by the violence of wrought iron barriers the length of the Convention Centre and 20,000 armed Mexican police and federal paramilitary. More than 10,000 people land on the island strip for the Inter-ministerial, 3,000 accredited NGO officials - but only 180 from Africa and 30 Africa Peoples Caucus activists on the outside; 1,200 accredited media journalists, of whom fewer than 100 from Africa; roughly 600 European Commission staff, but only 10 African Union staff and consultants. While the Italian delegation consisted of 106 people, there were 45 on the Kenyan delegation and 3 on the Gambian delegation. Throughout the four days, there were 150 parallel NGO workshops within the official NGO hotel; and outside the perimeter, there were daily protests, stunts, marches by Mexican workers, Korean farmers, North American and European activists and the tragic but dignified self-sacrifice of Mr. Lee.

…and towards the end, long and anxious hours waiting for the secretive green room discussions to end. The tears…and then the shouts of joy and relief when the Kenyan Head of Delegation leaked the news of the collapse of the talks at 3pm on Sunday, 14 September. Africa emerged from the talks a major negotiating player, no longer the dinner of other trading partners, but defining the direction and outcome of the talks in Cancun.

At the invitation of Pambazuka News, Irungu Houghton interviewed four Africa activists who had attended the fifth Inter-Ministerial WTO Conference, Cancun, Mexico:

• Mr Gichinga Ndirangu (Kenya national delegate, media and information officer)
• Mr. Moussa Faye (Senegalese delegate)
• Hon. Sheila Kawamara (Member of the East Africa Legislative Assembly member of the Uganda delegation)
• Ms. Crystal Overson (involved with the Africa People Caucus on popular campaigning and media outreach)

IRUNGU: What prepared African negotiators prior to Cancun for the resilience they displayed?
GICHINGA: Firstly, CSO representatives in various countries had strong support from their respective countries. The Senegalese minister remarked about the power of the petition she received from the public in Senegal before leaving. Secondly, the various meetings from the African, Caribbean and Pacific, Africa Union Trade Ministerial and the Heads of State meeting had called for solidarity. Thirdly, a range of groups such as ActionAid, Econews Africa, Seatini, Third World Network-Africa, Heinrich Boll Foundation and Oxfam worked with the Geneva based African negotiators and Ministers to hold a pre-Cancun consultation in August.
CRYSTAL: Alongside the official processes, groups came together in Johannesburg to agree on our position.

IRUNGU: Uganda had been very active during the lead up to Cancun, yet it seemed to get marginalized during the Conference, why was this?
SHEILA: Unlike the official delegations from Kenya and Senegal, our Head of State broke with the consensus that was building up in Cancun by purportedly circulating a letter that urged African countries to stay out of the G21. This prevented Uganda from joining the African countries in the forefront. However, it did not have much impact on the conference as it was so clearly out of step with the positions being taken by the Africa Group and the ACP/LDC alliance. You must realize, this was the first time for African parliamentarians to attend, we were equipped to lobby even if the president gave other orders to the members of the government delegation. That was helpful ... to have parliamentarians on board.

IRUNGU: What was unexpected about the process in Cancun?
SHEILA: The unity of African and least developing countries was unexpected.
MOUSSA: We watched carefully for those countries that seemed likely to break with the African Union position; South Africa, Egypt and some of the francophone countries. When the Green room processes started we thought the coalition would collapse.
GICHINGA: For me it was the total lack of vision on the part of rich countries that was totally unexpected. They completely misread the mood. Instead of issues the majority of delegates wanted discussed, they continued to insist on Singapore issues (For explanation, see notes below). They failed to read the mood up to the last moment.

IRUNGU: For people not familiar with the procedures in the Inter-ministerials, the "Green Rooms" seem very strange processes. What kind of discussions take place?
MOUSSA: The Green Rooms are called arbitrarily by the WTO Chairperson to discuss parts of the Declaration that are contentious. In Cancun, it was announced that a Green Room of 29 Ministers and one Advisor each would start at midnight the same day. We spent time speaking to the African Ministers, urging them to remain strong and determined only to hear at 11.45pm that the format had all changed. Nine Ministers and one Advisor each would now meet alone, not on the whole Declaration but on the 'Singapore Issues' only. The Senegalese Minister was initially part of the 26 and was then dropped. I think she was radicalized by this experience. She went from being a privileged negotiator to a victim of these tactics. From then on, I noticed she seemed to react to African delegates proposing to open negotiations on new issues that they were betraying Africa.
GICHINGA: Cancun reflected the lack of transparency that was behind the collapse of the talks in Seattle and Doha. In Seattle, Green Room meetings took place without African and Caribbean Ministers. In Doha, the process continued, this time with wider representation, but in essence the process was still flawed. In some cases, ministers were denied access to advice from their experts. This is tragic as Ministers are not involved in the day-to-day negotiations of WTO.
MOUSSA: I believe this is a mechanism for arm-twisting. It is very undemocratic.

IRUNGU: How effective was the media? Here in Kenya, all I am asked is whether I went naked on the beach in protest?
CRYSTAL: We in the African Peoples Caucus worked with media organizations from South Africa and the rest of the continent. This way, we were able put Africa on the agenda and assert "Africa is not for sale!" We interpreted some of the technical jargon for social movements to understand, we put it into language that my mother back in South Africa could understand.

IRUNGU: What was the decisive moment in the collapse of the talks?
GICHINGA: The collapse started with the presentation of the revised draft declaration on the third day of the conference. It came too late in the meeting. The text was clearly unrepresentative of the submissions of Africa, Caribbean and least developed countries. I remember the very long queue of people rushing for copies and people became frustrated when they saw no improvement. Heads of delegations met and expressed strong views one after another. I was struck by the words of the Minister from Antigua and Bermuda, Sir Ronald Sanders, when he said and I quote; "My government has a duty to care for its people. Were we to accept this document we would deserve our people's condemnation. For we would not only have gained no relief for them, we would have condemned them to a life of perpetual underdevelopment. That my delegation will not do. I have to advise that this draft does not enjoy the support of my government." I could feel this meeting was headed for collapse.
MOUSSA: For me, the most decisive moment happened in the Africa Union/ ACP meeting around midday on the last day. Minister Nkate of Botswana requested the other delegates to accept one of the Singapore Issues in return for an agreement on agriculture. African and Caribbean countries emphatically asked what part of "NO" they didn't understand.

IRUNGU: Media coverage captured the excitement at the collapse of the talks, what did it feel for you at that moment?
GICHINGA: For me there was a sense of relief. I felt like we were being led to the slaughterhouse. There was sense of victory. We had avoided a bad deal. I was elated and relieved by the outcome.
MOUSSA: I was also relieved but angry that we had not achieved anything. We had gone to Cancun for nothing; we did not make any deals. Yet I guess, we managed to stand firm on our positions and I guess that was a victory. It meant that Europeans and Americans had not reached their goal either.
SHEILA: I was excited. We had done a commendable job in keeping Africa's interests on the table and when this did not look possible,
[it contributed] to the end of the talks. After that, a fear come upon me - we had won the victory but how long can we sustain it. It was excitement and fear.
CRYSTAL: Of course on the outside we were happy. It was cause for celebration. Now we need to go back to the drawing board. The hard work starts now. It is no use celebrating - we have to work harder to ensure we take the work forward. We can't sit back; we have to start mobilizing to prepare for what is coming ahead.

IRUNGU: What were your personal lowlights of the conference?
MOUSSA: The night when I learned that the Green Room started, everybody had left and a secret process was going on. I was thinking this is the real conference, and we can do nothing about it. We have no means to influence the secret process and that night I was anxious.
SHEILA: When the greenroom process began. My lowest was when we were told about the changes in the Green Room meeting. I knew we had been beaten. But the following morning things seemed to be coming up.
CRYSTAL: The uncertainty of whether the South Africa delegation would hold to the Africa position, we were certainly not clear on whether South Africa would sell out or support African groupings, but [eventually] it became clear that South Africa did not break ranks with the Africa group.

IRUNGU: What were your personal highlights of the conference?
MOUSSA: As I heard our minister speak on BBC I realized how important her role was and how I could support her in getting her positions across.
GICHINGA: When Minister Nkate listened to the opposition to his proposal to start negotiations on trade investment and then said �well I have heard you, I am going to represent what you have said". The Green room had failed utterly and democratic representation was running the meeting.
SHEILA: My high moment was the collapse of the talks - that was my highest moment.
CRYSTAL: The high moment was when we heard the negotiations had failed.

IRUNGU: What are the dangers ahead for African agriculture, health and wider economies?
GICHINGA: Agriculture - in many African countries the danger is that we are now left with a situation where we do not know what will happen in two years time. We do not have domestic support; there is no motivation or inclination to move forward on this area. It has been a long wait. We have fought for long and in this particular outcome we have no roadmap on how the issue will be addressed.
SHEILA: The issue of regional block. We are now celebrating. But I am sceptical. I think that [many] would rather consider negotiating as individual countries. I think that could undermine the regional block. I think the only way to go is have regional integration.
MOUSSA: I fear that what they could not achieve on a multilateral basis i.e. negotiating on new issues, could be achieved on a bilateral basis. I am concerned about what ACP negotiations are going on. So, basically, the process in Geneva and bilateral processes are reasons to be worried. What they could not achieve on a multi-lateral basis they will try to do so in negotiations like the Cotonou phase 2 negotiations.
CRYSTAL: Some of the concerns that I have is that we don't know what is going on there and we have to be cautious.

IRUNGU: For the next Inter-ministerial, what should African CSOs do differently?
SHEILA: We need to lobby African governments to include more parliamentarians in their delegation - like in Norway, Britain and Italy. As elected representatives, we speak on behalf of our people.
MOUSSA: Africans need to strengthen themselves by connecting more to grassroots. Negotiators from northern countries negotiate under pressure from lobby groups We need to link up more with northern civil society and work more on subsidies reduction.
CRYSTAL: We need to connect local processes in-countries and international events better. We need to make sure that CSOs are represented on all delegations as in some cases we had no representatives from certain countries.
GICHINGA: Yes, we must engage more with the public and show them why they must make their governments accountable for the positions they take. We need civil society to challenge our governments to take the lead from their Geneva experts. We must insist that the pro-active role must come from Geneva rather than capitals. Next time maybe we should do a dummy ministerial WTO declaration to measure against our expectations.
SHEILA: We shouldn't become somebody else's dinner in these meetings. We should set an agenda and put our feet down and say this is our Position, we stand by it. I know its tough but that's what we have got to do.
CRYSTAL: Not all of our Governments are accountable yet. We should work hard towards understanding technicalities and ways of unpacking processes and complex ideas, make it clear that negotiations taking place thousands of miles away impact on our livelihoods. Yea, we are sick and tired of being dinner, we should make dinner for a change.

30 September 2003

Our thanks to Emily Nyanjugu for transcribing the interview. Irungu Houghton is Pan-Africa Policy Advisor for Oxfam GB; Gichinga Ndirangu is Media Coordinator for Heinrich Boll Foundation; Moussa Faye is the Programme Coordinator for ActionAid Senegal; and Crystal Overson is a Media activist with AIDC-South Africa. The views expressed do not necessarily represent the views of these organisations.

NOTE FOR READERS: "SINGAPORE ISSUES" :The 1996 Singapore Ministerial Declaration mandated the establishment of working groups to analyse issues related to investment, competition policy and transparency in government procurement. It also directed the Council for Trade in Goods to undertake exploratory and analytical work on the simplification of trade procedures in order to assess the scope for WTO rules in this area. Most developing countries were unconvinced of the necessity or value of negotiating multilateral rules on these issues, which they see as being of primary interest to developed economies. Since the beginning of June 2003, 101 developing countries (including 68 WTO members - well over half of the WTO's developing country embers) have said they did not want negotiations on the Singapore Issues to be agreed in Cancun.[back]

Where's the RSS feed? Seriously.

Michael at Move The Crowd hipped me to AfroNetizen's new blog. Good move. Turning on the RSS feeds would also be a good move because (if the initial topic is any indication):

…this is site that I'll want to be reading daily and participating in regularly.

Richard Cohen opens his eyes

p6: I have to do the whole editorial because Mr. Cohen just nails the whole hypocrisy thing.

Oozing Hypocrisy Over a Leak

By Richard Cohen

Thursday, October 2, 2003; Page A23

A government that cannot catch Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein is probably not going to catch the person who leaked the name of a CIA agent. The Washington leaker, a poltergeist with a phone, is sometimes good and sometimes bad but is almost never caught. He or she disappears into the Washington souk, an exotic marketplace where information is traded, character is assassinated and the air is redolent with hypocrisy.

That hypocrisy was on display Tuesday when President Bush indignantly declared war on leaking, asserting that there are "just too many leaks." The president, as is his wont, misspoke. What he meant to condemn are leaks that do damage to his administration. Up to now, he has said nothing about leaks that favor his cause.

The leak now under investigation is of a particularly pernicious kind. The identity of the CIA employee was disclosed not really to inform the public of something it should know, but as a way to send a dead fish to anyone in the administration who might question that Iraq was a major and imminent menace. Saddam Hussein, we were once told, not only had chemical and biological weapons but was rushing to build an atomic bomb. "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," said Condi Rice.

Within the intelligence community, remarks such as Rice's caused a certain amount of head-snapping. The president's national security adviser waxed mushroomish the same day in September 2002 that the New York Times reported Iraq had "sought to buy thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes" for its nuclear weapons program. The Times story cited "administration officials," "American officials" and the conclusions of "American intelligence experts."

The Times story was clearly based on a lot of reporting -- and just as clearly, government officials cooperated. They did so because the story suited the purposes of the Bush administration -- never mind that they led the Times astray. The tubes are now thought to have been designed for a conventional weapons program -- missiles.

For some reason the Bush administration did not denounce that sort of leak. On the contrary, Rice, Cheney and others used the story in their Sunday talk show appearances. This was typical. The administration has leaked or used intelligence over and over again to make the case for a war in Iraq. However, it would not permit dissenting views to surface.

One such dissenter was Joseph C. Wilson IV, a veteran diplomat who had been dispatched by the CIA to Niger to check on reports that Iraq had been trying to buy "yellowcake" uranium there. Wilson found no such effort, but -- in what we can now see was a familiar pattern -- his report was brushed aside. Bush cited the uranium in his State of the Union address.

After Walter Pincus of The Post reported on Wilson's Africa trip, Wilson himself went public in a New York Times op-ed essay. That was July 6. On July 14, Robert Novak identified Wilson's wife by name as a CIA "operative." She had been instrumental in sending Wilson to Africa, Novak wrote.

Maybe so. And if so, that's moderately interesting. But much more interesting is the fact that yet another leaker -- this one identified as a senior official -- told The Post that Valerie Plame's name was leaked "purely and simply for revenge." The Post noted that it is "rare for one Bush administration official to turn on another," which indeed it is. This leaker is now the one who needs protection. We have a latter-day Deep Throat.

The leaking of Plame's name, Nixonian in its malevolence, ought to cost Novak his University of Maryland basketball tickets and a self-flagellating column about what he would have written had a liberal columnist done something similar. Other conservative columnists, particularly those who knotted the noose after every Clinton administration boo-boo, ought to write similar columns of penance. I look forward to such delicious reading -- and their calls for a special prosecutor. (I suggest Bill Clinton.)

The president's umbrage at leaks may be sincere, but then how would he know? He merely scans the papers -- sports, presumably. As for others in his administration, their hypocrisy would threaten their immortal soul, if they had one. The fog of cant and sanctimony is so thick I fear that this time a leaker might be caught. Rest assured, it will not be the button man who put a hit on Wilson and his wife but the one who blew the whistle. White House security is at fault.

Somehow, someone got in with a conscience.

Cue the Twilight Zone theme

from Can't They Just Admit It? By George F. Will

Jeezuz. First Limberger was "allowed" to "resign", then George Will…George-fraggin'-Will…say something rational? What planet am I on?

You know why?

Because, in the end, Americans are NOT STUPID.

Get real

The Justice Dept., under Ashcroft, has greater incentive to distort the process than any special investigator. Why do I say this?

Good LORD! What's happened to Tom Friedman?

from Passions and Interests

About time, I'd say

Another Burial for 400 Colonial-Era Blacks
By MICHAEL LUO

The hole is dug. The crypts are ready to be filled. More than 400 hand-carved mahogany coffins, containing the skeletal remains of free and enslaved African-Americans, are sitting in a temperature-controlled room in Lower Manhattan.

After three centuries and 12 years, they are ready to be laid to rest for a second time.

On Saturday, in a moment that promises to be joyous and bitter all at once, the 18th-century remains will be ceremonially lowered into the ground and covered, in the same place where they were discovered a dozen years ago as the federal government prepared to build an office tower. The reinterment will follow a day and a half of observances, including a procession up the Canyon of Heroes in Lower Manhattan. It will also bring a symbolic close to an especially tumultuous chapter in the city's racial history.

The joy, those close to the project agree, will come from seeing the belated celebration of lives and history once forgotten. The bitterness, they say, stemmed from the fact they had to be reburied at all.

"It was the considered judgment of virtually every African-American I knew that they shouldn't have been disturbed in the first place," said Howard Dodson, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, which has helped bring together all the factions seeking a voice in the project.

The discovery of the remains, in a huge Colonial-era cemetery, have offered anthropologists a rare glimpse into the lives of the first black Americans in New York, which at one point had more slaves than any other city in the country besides Charleston, S.C. Some skeletons, for instance, were found with holes in the collar bones, a sign that the person was forced to carry very heavy loads.

But the find also touched off a battle that pitted the federal government's desire to complete a long-delayed building project against the sensitivities of African-Americans. Even after the government bowed to political pressure and agreed to preserve the burial plot, the effort to rebury the remains bogged down in wrangling over the details.

We haven't cut corporate taxes enough, oh, no…

Senate Panel Backs Bill to Give Tax Windfall to U.S. Companies
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 -- American corporations that have deferred taxes for years on the profits they made overseas could be in line for a huge windfall from Congress.

Hoping to bring more investment to the United States, the Senate Finance Committee approved a bill on Wednesday that would give a one-time tax holiday to companies that have accumulated as much as $400 billion in foreign profits on which they have yet to pay American taxes.

American companies can usually defer paying taxes on foreign profits as long as they keep the money outside the United States. Much of that money is reinvested in foreign operations, and some is parked in passive investments.

The Senate bill, which is part of a much broader bill to overhaul laws on international corporate taxation, would let companies bring those profits back and pay a tax rate of 5.25 percent.

Supporters say the six-month tax holiday could lure as much as $300 billion back into the United States, which in turn would increase investment and create jobs.

To press their case, companies like Hewlett-Packard have formed a broad coalition that includes the likes of Eli Lilly, Merck, Intel, Sun Microsystems and Dell Computer.

Among the coalition's main lobbyists are Bill Archer, the former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and his former chief of staff, Donald Carlson.

"The question is, Do we want this money invested in equipment and plants in Egypt or do we want it invested in the United States?" Mr. Carlson said. "To get this much bang for the buck is a rarity."

But many tax experts, including top tax officials in the Bush administration, say the move would be a mistake because it would validate the strategies of companies that spent years sheltering the overseas profits.

"The company that left Louisiana is going to pay a 5 percent tax on the widgets they make overseas, and the company that stayed in Louisiana is going to pay a 35 percent tax," said Senator John B. Breaux, Democrat of Louisiana. "If that isn't an incentive to leave, I don't know what is."

Critics also warn that there is no guarantee that the companies will invest their repatriated profits in new factories or larger work forces. Indeed, Republican lawmakers defeated an amendment offered by Mr. Breaux on Wednesday that would have required companies to reinvest their foreign profits in things like new equipment.

To call him a dick is an insult to penises worldwide

Limbaugh Resigns From ESPN's N.F.L. Show
By RICHARD SANDOMIR

Published: October 2, 2003

Rush Limbaugh resigned last night from ESPN's "Sunday NFL Countdown" three days after he made race-related comments about how the news media view the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb.

…On Sunday, Limbaugh elaborated on his belief that McNabb is overrated and that the Eagles' defense has carried the team over the past few seasons.

"What we have here is a little social concern in the N.F.L.," he said. "The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback can do well - black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve."

Two of the analysts on the show, Tom Jackson and Steve Young, commented on the football part of Limbaugh's remarks, but did not address the racial content.

"My comments this past Sunday were directed at the media and were not racially motivated," Limbaugh said in a statement issued at midnight yesterday. "I offered an opinion. This opinion has caused discomfort for the crew, which I regret.
[p6: Maybe technically true; You crack a racist joke, your motivation is to be funny.]

"I love 'NFL Sunday Countdown' and do not want to be a distraction to the great work done by all who work on it. Therefore, I have decided to resign." [p6: "…before my lard-ass suffers the great indignity of getting fired because I offened…niggers…and them white race traitors whut supports dem."]

…McNabb told The Associated Press yesterday that he wished someone on the show had challenged Limbaugh's view on race. "I wouldn't have cared if it was the cameraman," he said.

He also said that an apology from Limbaugh "would do no good because he obviously thought about it before he said it." [p6: Go, Donovan. All this apology bullshit from people who obviously ain't sorry…they need to be called on it every damn time. Go, Donovan.]

Early yesterday, Limbaugh refused to retreat from his comments about McNabb, saying on his radio talk show that the focus was on the news media, not McNabb.

"All this has become the tempest that it is because I must have been right about something," Limbaugh said. "If I wasn't right, there wouldn't be the cacophony of outrage that has sprung up in the sportswriter community." [p6: Of course, Rush. No one ever gets upset when you lie on them. They only get upset when you tell the truth. Here, have another shovel.]

Ford, who is black, said that he had no problem with Limbaugh voicing an opinion on McNabb's quarterbacking skills, "but when he injected race and said the reason we root for him or that we have something invested in him is because he's African-American is asinine. And it borders on his motivation for making the comment beyond his assessment of Donovan McNabb as a quarterback. It suggests to me that he was thinking of things in cruel and nefarious ways." [p6: It suggests to me that he's a stank, lard ass, racist, foul mouth bastard.]

Just say "No"

Look, this is ridiculous. Saddam Hussein's government had said they didn't have any WMDs. They said they were destroyed in the first Gulf War, and that they couldn't give up what they didn't have. We've seen this government has exaggerated and lied about the whole affair. And now they want another $600 Million? Oh, it's just a drop in the bucket, what with all they've already spent, all they're asking for, all they're going to need…

phaugh

I'm going to wind up learning Portuguese and movinig to Brazil, I just know it.

Link Pimping again

Since I can't write about everything, here some good stuff at Open Source Politics.

Robert Novak is a coward, The CIA's Patriotic Math, A Matter of Trust, I Have A Little List ... are all about The Valerie Plame Affair.

There's also the Ben Franklin True Patriot Act Action Alert, Pie In the Sky, The Politics of Power Barry's two-parter, Asbestos Legislation #1 and #2, and the Florida Political Breakdown.

My true partisan position

Notice that I've been anti-Bush regime around here.

NOT anti-Republican (except the extremist)

NOT pro-Democrat

From a historical viewpoint, I see things much as Zenpundit does:

Except I'm not quote as hard on the Democratic party, and not quite as disappointed in the Republican party.

Enough

Enough is Too Much!

Bush's bitter harvest

By Derrick Z. Jackson, 10/1/2003

IT IS OCTOBER, and the harvest from the spring's planting of troops remains a grapeless vine, withering into winter compost. Without weapons of mass destruction, Tikrit has given way to Texas, Fallujah is fading into Florida, and the idiocy of another $87 billion for Iraq is rapidly becoming apparent in the latest news from Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa. In the season of pumpkins, Bush is turning into one, with millions of Americans feeling like Cinderella after the ballyhoo of violent, vengeful patriotism. Bush hoped he could sneak back into the White House in 2004 before the clock struck midnight. It is too late. The original support for the war is waning as Americans realize that they have also waged war against themselves.

In the last week, the Census Bureau released data indicating that household income in the United States is on the decrease, poverty is on the increase, and the number of Americans without health insurance grew by 2.4 million, to 43.6 million. The adding of 2.4 million Americans to the rolls of the uninsured comes at a time when 2.7 million Americans have lost their jobs since Bush took office.

Bush has depended mightily on the working class and the middle class for support of his war in Iraq. But of the 2.4 million newly uninsured households, 1.4 million come from families making $25,000 to $74,999.

Nervous Republicans are already complaining that the Democrats are using the stumbling economy to foment class warfare. With Bush's trillion-dollar tax cuts and the spending for the invasion and occupation of Iraq, war against everyone except Halliburton and the wealthy was inevitable. One in five households making $25,000 to $49,999 spent 2002 without health insurance, compared with only one in in 10 households making $75,000 or more.

With all the job losses, it is not surprising that 1.7 million people were thrown into poverty in 2002. First lady Laura Bush was over in France representing the United States in its rejoining of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. That show of caring about children in developing countries was lame as the United States added 400,000 children to the ranks of the poor here at home. Poverty rose even in the suburbs, from 12.1 million to 13.3 million people. In Massachusetts, the percentage of people in poverty held stable at 9.5 percent, but the number of people without health insurance went up from 8.5 percent to 9.1 percent.

When Bush signed the first of his tax cuts in the summer of 2001, he said: "Tax relief is a great achievement for the American people. Tax relief is the first achievement produced by the new tone in Washington, and it was produced in record time. Tax relief is an achievement for families struggling to enter the middle class."

Two years later, the Census Bureau tells us that real median money income in Midwestern households has declined by nearly $1,000, from $44,531 to $43,622. The per-capita income of $22,794 represents the first annual decline in per-capita income since 1991, which -- surprise -- was again the first Bush administration.

Meanwhile, according to data released last week by the Internal Revenue Service, American households earning $56,000 to $92,800 still pay 18 percent of the nation's income taxes, more than the 16 percent of the nation's wealthiest households.

Enough is enough

White House facing revolt within GOP

By Robert Kuttner, 10/1/2003

IN JUST A FEW weeks the political tide has turned dramatically against President Bush. His popularity ratings have dipped below 50 percent. His policies are under fire on the Iraq war, the economy, and the budget mess. Moreover, Bush is facing an escalating revolt from within his own party. A little-noted indicator is that Republican senators and House members are no longer willing to take unpopular votes merely because the White House demands them. Lately the administration has lost several key votes that were billed as Republican tests of loyalty

Why is this not making me more comfortable?

Go to Atrios now!!!!!

Atrios has reported thus

There's a link to a RealAudio file of the Borger making the report!

And Brad DeLong correctly adds:

A commenter at Calpundit today said it would be fittingly ironic for the reporters who got the "anonymous tip" gave another reporter an "anonymous tip" as to who it was.

Measured words, indeed.

Now, we need a special prosecutor, no shit. If a blow job gets one, outing an undercover CIA agent gets one. And yes, even the White House, in the letter of instruction to its staff about the Justice Dept.'s investigation, admits she was a covert agent.

tick…tock…tick…tock…tick…tock…tick…tock…tick…tock…tick…tock…tick…tock…tick…tock…tick…tock…tick…tock…tick…tock…

It's awful quiet out there

Too quiet for David Neiwert's tasts, apparently.

DAYUM!!

Strikes me the force behind Orcinus has had enough of this.

Will you be having uninsurance with your poverty?

Well, this ought to go over real big with the Latinos Bush needs to get elected.

The Plame Game

This is my Plame Post for the day.

First, I want to point to the folks you can follow for the in-depth stuff. I especially like that Calpundit lined up all the observations about yesterday's developments I myself made. No point in doing all that typing when someone you're going to read before me is going to do it anyway. Add Josh Marshall's insider stuff and Mark Kleiman's in-depth digest and you should have a grip on the progressive view of all this.

For the Conservative view, see this.

Now, my favorite quotes that you may not have seen.

First, Josh busts Novak big-time:

Next, from my favorite news program, PBS' The News Hour. They run through the major networks' one hour presentation im roughly ten minutes (which s frankly all it deserves) and then do major interviews every night that are long enough for you to catch the body language of then interviewees.

Even if you miss the broadcast, though, the transcripts are cool.

That ought to do it for today.

How to get insulted

This is dedicated to Jason, George, j. brotherlove and Aaron in particular, and to every "social hierarchically-challenged" person who recognizes the situation in general.

I get deeply dispassionate when writing about race. Not so about living it. T'ain't possible. My dispassion, however, allows me to avoid accusations of unwarranted anger. In fact, I find a non-angry Black man writing about racial realities confuses the hell out of toads.

I tweak my vocabulary when writing about race because people don't feel comfortable giving advice to people whose every third word they have to run through their online thesaurus.

I would like to serve notice, though, that anyone who presents me with an opportunity such as

Fortunately, it hasn't come up yet. But if it weren't so long I'd rotate this post, the warning about assuming my reasoning is the same as someone elses, and the warning on the comments page.

I ain't got shit ta say, except

I once said Glenn was what I'd be like if I wasn't old and bitter.

Don't let 'em make you old and bitter (before your time, anyway). But I feel ya.

Words

Interestingly enough, when I sat in front of the keyboard for the first time today I had no idea what I was going to write about. Turns out I wrote enough to flood LocalFeeds the first day I joined up.

Most of it was blogging, not writing but you know what I mean. I put a bunch of words on the site.

And I was just floating around the net and wound up at Dru Blood, reading a post that I'd run across in the thick of the Identity Blogging discussion. It was about that bake sale thing, so I didn't link it, but Tonio said in the comments

and I flashed back to a semi-humorous post at Open Source Politics, caled Conservative-Sounding Policy Initiative:

and this light bulb flashes on in my head. Maybe we should call affirmative action "African-American Legacy Programs." We can call them ALPs sp everyone thinks we're talking about Swiss people, and no one would dare suggest we get rid of legacy programs, right?

Word play.

Which reminded me to get back to a post by The Everlasting Phelps wherein he makes a right-angle turn from the Identity Blogging discussion, pivoting on my explanation of why I deal in race in binary fashion when I know that's not strictly accurate. He's wrong in thinking I don't agree with him (well, at least to the degree that he agrees with me), and right in thinking it doesn't matter between us anyway…as well as in saying it's a broader issue than the conversation we are holding.

Now, there's actually a whole hell of a lot of specifics I could take issue with in his post. In fact, let's get it out of the way:

1. In the past, a lot of the words we use had very hard, specific meanings. The best example is the root of this discussion: "racism". At one time, not so long ago, this word had a very specific meaning:
   The belief that one race has a genetic superiority over another race.

   The original meaning of racism was the belief in the genetic superiority of American white people over American Black people.
2. When you want to find a Classical Racist -- someone who believes in the genetic superiority of one race over another -- you have to go far, far off into the wings of society. In a way, these people aren't really much of a part of society, in that they tend to have very little influence. They aren't a significant economic power. They don't hold any social pull outside of their own enclaves. They don't even have any redeeming cultural contributions. Aside from the people that they impact directly through violence, they simply don't matter. The DO matter because as he says later: Even though the racists are gone, they didn't take the word with them. Instead, the word was broadened to encompass more. What was once called bigotry is now racism. No one says "bigot" anymore -- the bigot is now lumped in with the racist, and this makes it harder to discuss things. The bigot is lumped in with a greater evil, and the racist is allowed to hide within the ranks of the bigots.
   and
   Ethnicity and race are used interchangeably

   Whenever you hear people talking about the inferiority of Black culture as though every Black person either belongs to or escaped from it, you're hearing the the transmission of the "Classical Racist" mindset, hidden within the bigot's speech. A wolf in fox's clothing, as it were.

By now you're wondering why I said I agree with him, I bet.

I agree because it's the weakening of meaning that allows the racist to get away with it, until you can't tell a wolf from a fox from a dog.

Phelps suggests a tightening of definitions, what Confucious used to call a rectification of names to fix this…but that only works in a unitary culture. And regardless of what some believe there has never been such a culture on this continent. Europeans of a nations, Amerinds and Africans formed the initial mix and there have been constant influxes from all three major groups ever since. Nailing down common definitions is much like nailing jello cubes to the incoming tide.

The alternative may be more difficult, though.

The fact that we can adopt the definitions others use means we are capable of distinguishing between that which is being indicated and that which we indicate with. The fact that we get twisted by twisted words means we don't. As is said in Zen, It is like pointing at the moon and paying attention to the finger. And trying to solve problems of indication by refining our language is like studying the moon from a reflection in a bowl of water.

In this society, we hardly EVER see the moon. We get commercials, speeches, lectures, spin, spin, spin…all reflections in bowls containing water of varying levels of clarity.

If we don't understand that understanding (connections between things perceived) rather than thought (verbalizations of perceptions) is what intelligence must operate on, we will live under the tyranny of words forever. If we do, we can be their master. And until we are their master, our ability to think will always be limited to the concepts current to society.

Hey, there's a idea…

Let's Act Like Citizens, Not Consumers
by Betsy Barnum

In the past few weeks, several articles have appeared in the alternative press arguing that consumer action is the way to address corporate abuses and strengthen democracy.

Doris Haddock (Granny D) described in an article posted on Common Dreams on Aug. 27 the process by which corporations have gotten too much power, especially when it comes to global trade, and declared that "a small group of dedicated people" can stop them by demanding fair trade products in coffee shops and other stores. Anita Roddick, of the Body Shop, in a Common Dreams article on Sept. 22 suggested that consumers "hold the key" to changing sweatshop conditions by supporting companies that have codes of conduct for how they treat workers.

I admire these women tremendously, but they are pointing us in the wrong direction. Consumer power is a myth, and a very potent one, that not only doesn't work but actually distracts us from the only real power we have to address corporate rule and the degradation of our world.

Treason, because

• We're at war, right? Against terrorist, or terror, or something
• We are trying to prevent the enemy from getting weapons of mass destruction, right?
• She is a case officer in the CIA's clandestine service and works as an analyst on weapons of mass destruction. Novak published her maiden name, Plame, which she had used overseas and has not been using publicly. Intelligence sources said top officials at the agency were very concerned about the disclosure because it could allow foreign intelligence services to track down some of her former contacts and lead to the exposure of agents.
• Exposing the contacts and other agents would help the enemy, right?

AHHH! They said that shit!

I thought Billmon was joking!

CLAIRVOYANT!!

Procedural point

I like the expandy-extended text as a design thing, but the main page would load a LOT quicker without it. Since you have to click something anyway to get it, should I drop the expandy-text?

Because he was with me when the calls were made

via Billmon

White House: President Knows Rove Not Involved in Revealing Identity

"He wasn't involved," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said of Rove. "The president knows he wasn't involved. ... It's simply not true."

Race and class, again…this time, it's sports

Glenn at Hi. I'm Black! got the link to this story from J-Walk:

Dogfighting Tops List of Hated Sports

…No. 1 on the list, by far, is dogfighting, hated or disliked a lot by 81 percent of the public, according to a poll conducted by the Sports Marketing Group in Atlanta. Makes you wonder what the other 19 percent were thinking. [P6: No, makes me wonder IF they were thinking]

No. 2 is pro wrestling, legal but farcical and more than a little trashy. That's also its appeal to those who love it, though more than half the nation can't stand the sight of steroid-pumped madmen slamming each other around the ring — fake or not.

No. 3 is bullfighting, a sport that Americans who haven't been to Spain or Mexico or read Hemingway don't get, never see and, apparently, don't want.

Then there's pro boxing at No. 4, loathed by 31.3 percent of the public. Need we say more than Mike Tyson and Don King?

No real surprises there, considering the violence of those sports and the aversion toward them, especially by women. But this is where the list gets interesting, with class, race and age figuring into the findings.

The genteel PGA Tour is the No. 5 most hated and disliked sport (30.4 percent), followed by the PGA seniors' Champions Tour (29.9), the LPGA Tour (29.2), NASCAR (news - web sites) (27.9), Major League Soccer (27.6) and the ATP men's tennis tour (26.5). That's a lot of people who hate or dislike events that sponsors are backing with billions of bucks.

…Three times as many black fans — 13.4 percent — say they love or like the PGA Tour now compared to 1993, doubtlessly because of Woods.

…But the big story in this list of sports Americans hate most — based on a telephone poll of 1,000 respondents that is a prelude to a larger study later this year — is what comes next: the NBA, with 19.7 percent of the country hating or disliking it, and Major League Baseball, with 17.5 percent strongly against it.

For most of the sports, with the exception of NASCAR, which has grown both in popularity and unpopularity with increased exposure on television, there was little change from the Sports Marketing Group's study that asked the same questions 10 years ago.

For the NBA, though, the hate/dislike responses increased sharply from 11.9 percent a decade ago, while baseball's negative numbers nearly doubled from 9.9 percent.

"In the NBA, there are underlying racial issues and resentment about how the players act, how many get arrested and how much they're paid," said Sports Marketing Group managing director Nye Lavalle. "In baseball, the labor disputes, the huge salaries, the perception of players on steroids and their perceived arrogance are factors."

Ten years ago, only 12.5 percent of white Americans had strong feelings against the NBA. In the poll this year, that soared to 21.1 percent of whites who hated or disliked the NBA. The number of black respondents who felt that way stayed virtually unchanged at under 3 percent.

"There's been a seismic shift in the fan base of the NBA," Lavalle said. "If the league keeps going in the same direction, it's going to be in deep trouble. Baseball is on the decline and it could be dying if it doesn't change the way it's structured."

I'm in, and it's on!

via Karmalised

You may be sure a link to a download will be made available on my sidebar as soon as possible.

Something to think about

On the rational tip, this is a no-brainer.

I'd like to think this, if he has any reponsibility with respect to his child's general welfare, is too. The government's argument in the appeal:

…is a real shit-starter.

Does the custodial parent have the right to "close off all other views"? ANY other views? How would his work in joint custody cases? And would this judgement aply to subjects taught in school, like evolution of Huck Finn (which trackback my friend Dean can consider the gentlest of reminders)?

And what the hell does that have to do with whether or not the "under God" phrase is constitutional? Once the issue is raised, how can you stuff it back in the bottle?

Contrarian Day

Wherein I confess that people whose opinions I normally don't respect have raised issues worth considering.

The thing is, the media is ALWAYS a second gatekeeper. It's unavoidable. It would just be nice if they were operating for the public good. For instance, yes, this was most eminently newsworthy; but the wrong story was printed. The right one would have been:

'Xxxx Xxxx, who holds the position of Xxxxxx in the White House, has attempted to expose an undercover operative of the C.I.A. for political reasons."

Oh, you don't want to give up your career as a journalist? You'd get a new one doing public speaking engagements on media and morality, not to mention a lucrative book deal. Probably a made-for-TV movie as well.

The fact that any number of people in the media now know who the felon that committed this crime is does not sit well with me any better than the fact that whoever's really in charge (I insist Bush is a sock puppet) knows and is satisfied not acting.

And as Kurtz says at the end of the editorial:

With professional stonewallers practiced in making "technically correct" statements, and Attorney General needs the current adminitration's existance to continue his overreaching policies (pursued at the administration's behest to begin with) it looks to me like we may be stuck with this disrespectful administration through 2004.

A new motto for P6

Do not make the mistake of thinking that because my conclusion is the same as another person's that my reasoning is the same

I should put <blink> tags around that shit.

Another reason for my restraint

This morning I woke up thinking, "Ashcroft? Ashcroft??"

What are the chances he'll put himself permanently out of work with an honest investigation?

The only possible way this Plame thing can be properly resolved is if the CIA leaks the name of the White House "personnel" invoved.

Last one tonight is, of course, on The Plame Affair

It's too late to hide my obvious pleasure at the prospect of a major scandal tarring the whole neocon establishment by association. But after reading stuff off and on all day, I feel almost sorry for a number of bloggers. I'm not talking about the LGF types, or Instapundit or Sullivan. It just seems there's a lot of folks that actually believe in their national leaders.

Ghod only knows why.

I'm not saying I won't comment on this mess in the future, but I'll be more dignified about it.

Anyway, we now know another of the reporters who knows the source of the leak.

Black History Month

…in Great Britain.

I'll admit, one place where I feel integration would be of great utility is in history classes.

Things don't look good right now

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) has asked state investigators to look into the opposite interests of a well-known Annapolis lobbyist who represents two companies involved in the overhaul of the state's voting machine system.

The war, said Bush, had been carried out "with a combination of precision and speed and boldness the enemy did not expect, and the world had not seen before." But the mission wasn't accomplished then, and it still is not.

The CIA has formally asked the Justice Department to start an investigation, and Justice has officially begun a preliminary inquiry. Meanwhile, a "senior administration official" has confirmed to the Washington Post that two "top White House officials" were responsible for the leak, that they called at least six journalists other than Novak, and that the motive was "purely and simply revenge."

The US launched its war with Iraq despite having no fresh intelligence evidence that the regime of Saddam Hussein was developing mass destruction weapons or forging ties with terrorists, the leaders of the House of Representatives intelligence committee have concluded.

Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of allied forces in the Middle East, effectively threw in the towel last week. He told reporters after an appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington that it looked as if he would not be able to count on building a "coalition brigade" with India, Pakistan and Turkey and that, therefore, "we have no choice but to plan for American forces" in coming months, a decision that will stretch military manpower even further.

Althea Gibson, First Black Wimbledon Champion, Dies at 76

By THE NEW YORK TIMES 1:57 PM ET

Althea Gibson, the gangly Harlem street urchin who parlayed an asphalt championship in paddle tennis into an unlikely reign as queen of the lawns of Wimbledon and Forest Hills, died Sunday. She was 76.

Apologies

Sorry if you came by while I was playing with the templates. I'm all settled down now.

Nixon may be seen in a better light when compared to this.

I haven't blogged the Valerie Plame story because it's being covered by more informed folks than I. But I'm blogging this out of sheer pleasure.

via Calpundit:

Make no mistake: this is treason…of the constitutional, as opposed to the CoulterThing, variety. If their is any reason in the collective American mind this, when proven, should cause the outing of the entire neocon structure, as well as shaming the media into avoiding the blatant ass-kissing and sensationalism seeking that let the neocons get into this position in the first place.

It is TV Talking Heads time. Time to see who mentions what, and what they say.

I'm still standing (yeah, yeah, yeah)

Phelps at The Everlasting Phelps has commented on Where We Stand in a post titled, interestingly enough, Standing (Until We Knock Each Other Down Again). The title makes me want to discuss the points he comments on (there are only two) in detail.

Phelphs feels my saying "White people have only had free people of other races around them for two generations" is a bit imprecise:

I'm not sure the clarification changes anything, but there's two things here: why people fall into that trap and why I step into it.

People fall into the trap because race relationships historically have been defined as white/non-white. More precisely, as fully recognized citizens/everyone else. A dichotomy. A little while ago I thoroughly annoyed a dear friend with the following bit of sarcasm, which I still stand by:

As to my working within the dichotomy, it's a simple matter of "going where the money is."

There's a problem with the requirement of fully defining things. Since I'm in full mathmatical mode this weekend, I'll explain it using the concept of a line. A line is defined by two points. Euclidean geometry holds that a line is infinite in length because it assumes a flat infinite space. But if your plane is the surface of a ball it is unbounded, not infinite. And the line is a circumference, having a measurable length.

Point being, what a definition indicates is determined as much by the context in which it is applied as much as the content of the definition itself.

I leave race undefined because my concern is for that which is indicated. Since we all know what race is, which is to say regardless of our personal definition we manage to agree on which buckets people are sorted into some +90% of the time, I prefer not to let my own choice of words become an unnecessary point of contention.

The other thing Phelps wants to do is add a little detail to my explanation of white folks' reaction to Black folks' reaction.

Okay, it's an irrational rejection. It's what I call a "kick the dog" reaction.

You know the pattern: The boss yells at the supervisor, who screams on the worker. The worker, now angry, goes home and argues with the spouse. Now the spouse is upset and has no patience with the kid, who winds up getting punished. The teary-eyed kid then kicks the dog.

Yes, irrational…but so damn human that I can't call it unreasonable.

There's actually another issue raised in Phelps' post, but as he says it should be an entire post on its own, so I'm leaving it alone.

Seriously annoyed right now

One of the sections I write for at Open Source Politics is the Knowledge section, which is about education and info tech. And I've been considering writing a review of the Movable Type-specific desktop clients because I much prefer being able to compose stuff offline. It's a persoanl thing.

Right now I am annoyed at myself and the software I've settled for…and yes, it is definitely settling. For various reasons I just lost a fairly significant response to a couple of points Phelps at The Everlasting Phelps raised in connection to "Where we stand."

I'll rewrite it tomorrow. I'm too pissed now.