Prometheus 6

Study: Media Self-Censored Some Iraq Coverage
By Joe Strupp
Published: March 19, 2005 12:05 PM ET

NEW YORK Many media outlets self-censored their reporting on the Iraq invasion because of concerns about public reaction to graphic images and content, according to a survey of more than 200 journalists by American University's School of Communications.

The study, released Friday, also determined that "vigorous discussions" about what and where to publish information and images were conducted at media outlets and, in many cases, journalists posted material online that did not make it to print.

One of the most significant findings was "the amount of editing that went into content after it was gathered but before it was published," the study stated. Of those who reported from Iraq, 15% said that on one or more occasions their organizations edited material for publication and they did not believe the final version accurately represented the story.

Vatican says feeding tube removal like execution
By Alessandra Rizzo, Associated Press  |  March 23, 2005

VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican pressed its campaign to keep Terri Schiavo alive yesterday, saying that removing the brain-damaged American woman's feeding tube amounted to capital punishment for someone who has committed no crime.

In a front-page editorial, the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano criticized US District Judge James Whittemore's refusal to order the reinsertion of Schiavo's feeding tube and disparaged a ''society incapable of appreciating and defending the gift of life."

It said Whittemore had condemned Schiavo to an ''atrocious death: death from hunger and thirst."

Bush Opens Door to Changes in His Plan
By ANNE E. KORNBLUT

...In Tucson on Monday, Mr. Bush told the audience: "You can't liquidate your personal account when you retire. It's the interest off your personal account that will complement your Social Security check, no matter how big or little it is, that you're getting from the federal government. That's important to remember."

In Denver later that day, he cautioned that "when you retire, you can't pull all your money out." And in Albuquerque on Tuesday morning, Mr. Bush told the audience members that they "can't liquidate the plan upon retirement because it's a part of the retirement system."

"But your estate - you can leave it to whomever you want," he said. "You want to leave it to your daughter? Fine."

Doesn't that mean your private account isn't part of your estate?

Quote of note:

"My party is demonstrating that they are for states' rights unless they don't like what states are doing," said Representative Christopher Shays of Connecticut, one of five House Republicans who voted against the bill. "This couldn't be a more classic case of a state responsibility."

"This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy," Mr. Shays said. "There are going to be repercussions from this vote. There are a number of people who feel that the government is getting involved in their personal lives in a way that scares them."

G.O.P. Right Is Splintered on Schiavo Intervention
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

The Struggle to Flee LAUSD
By Mona Gable
Mona Gable is working on a Southern California memoir.
March 23, 2005

About a year ago, along with a million other parents in Los Angeles, I was anxiously waiting to hear whether my 13-year-old son got into private school. We had applied to two Catholic high schools, and the process had been sufficiently grueling as to make me want to skip college applications altogether. There were open houses to attend, letters of recommendation, transcripts and test scores to collect. We could also write a letter pleading our son's "special circumstances." In other words, if he didn't have a 4.0 and the musical gifts of Yo-Yo Ma or the footwork of David Beckham, what did he have to offer that might win him one of those sacred slots? We wrote the letter.

And then there was the religion issue. My son had to go through interviews, but equally nerve-racking, so did his father and I. Would we pass? Would they care that my husband is Jewish and that I'm Episcopalian?

It was no small point, we thought. Applications to private schools in and around Los Angeles have soared, making the schools even more selective. Everyone we knew, it seemed, was applying where we were applying: boys on my son's soccer team who not only were bona fide Catholics but had Parents Who Knew People; most of his public school friends, including one whose siblings had already graduated from one of the schools, thus scoring legacy points.

"We should always err on the side of Life."

That sets the bar really, really high for death penalty cases, don't it?

Poor baby!

Bush Urges an End to Attacks on Plan
On a Southwest tour, the president and allies suggest that opponents of the Social Security overhaul are stalling.
By Peter Wallsten
Times Staff Writer
March 23, 2005

ALBUQUERQUE   At the start of a potentially crucial congressional recess, in which lawmakers will hear from constituents about President Bush's plans to overhaul Social Security, Bush and his allies asked Democrats and AARP on Tuesday to stop attacking their ideas.

"Stop HITTING me!! Wah!"

What a fucking wimp.

"I believe there will be a bad political consequence for people who are unwilling to sit down and talk about the issue," Bush told supporters during one of his "conversations" on Social Security, appearing with McCain and New Mexico's Republican senator, Pete V. Domenici. "I think the American people expect people from both parties to stand up and take the lead and solve this issue."

You should show more flexibility then because YOU are the one bringing forth a non-plan. YOU are the one suggesting things the public categorically rejects.

This is at Columbia University in New York City, and I have a dentist appointment on the 30th, dammit.

March 30 - April 1, 2005 9:00am-5:00pm The Italian Academy for Advanced Study (118th street & Amsterdam Avenue)

"International Civil Society, World Governance, and the State Conference"

The keynote event, to be held on the evening of March 30 (Time to be Announced), will feature Archbishop Desmond Tutu and renowned writer Toni Morrison in dialogue, with Professors Mary Robinson, Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz and Dr. Shashi Tharoor as discussants. This dialogue will be followed by the conference in the Italian Academy for Advanced Study. In co-sponsorship with the Center for Contemporary Literature & Society (CCLS)

**This event is free, you must RSVP for attendance to the keynote event**
To RSVP contact Ella Turenne ([email protected], 212-854-4541).
Please visit the CCLS website: www.columbia.edu/cu/ccls/

Jesse responds flawlessly to the fiction that is Star Parker.

My elderly mom serves coffee in a local convenience store to earn a few dollars to supplement the pittance she gets from Social Security and the few extra hundred dollars per month she started getting after my dad passed away. He worked all his life. If he could have put all the money he paid in Social Security taxes into a retirement investment account over all those same years, my mom would be in a different situation today.

Parker is herself the founder and president of her own non-profit, an author of two books, a syndicated columnist, a regular commentator on all three cable networks, and virtually omnipresent across the television spectrum. Take care of your mother, you spoiled ass. Surely, with all that book and syndication money, you can give your mom enough that she doesn't have to work in a coffee shop.

The Republicans have finally jumped the shark.

Lester was talking about his boy Bomani Jones' reaction to Roland Fryer's appearance in the NY Times...and I had to find what he was talking about via Negrophile.

I purposely didn't draw any conclusions when the article first showed other than that he is one to watch, and I'd rather draw conclusions based solely on his work...

I worry greatly about anyone whose demeanor changes when white folks come around. Not so much word choice and things like that--most of us code switch, though I resolved long ago to do as little of that as possible--but his vibe. It wasn't the cool cat that I saw in the department conference room. I saw a cat performing. Here and there, he'd slip back to the cat I met, but it was mostly a performance.

...but stuff like this has bearing.

After Signing Schiavo Law, Bush Says 'It Is Wisest to Always Err on the Side of Life'
By ANNE E. KORNBLUT

TUCSON, March 21 - After a private bill-signing ceremony in the middle of the night, President Bush made a public case for helping Terri Schiavo on Monday, praising Congress for sending him the legislation that allowed federal courts to intervene.

Mr. Bush, who returned to Washington from his Crawford ranch on Sunday, was awakened after the House passed the Schiavo bill at 12:42 a.m. His staff secretary, Brett Kavanaugh, delivered the legislation to be signed, which Mr. Bush did while standing in a hallway. Seven hours later, he left on a previously planned trip to Tucson and Denver to promote Social Security changes.

Quote of note:

National Defense Strategy of the United States of America

Pentagon Reaffirms Globocop Role
Analysis by Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Mar 21 (IPS) - March has been a bad month for the world's multilateralists who, encouraged by several early appointments to the State Department and a successful presidential tour of Europe, had hoped that George W. Bush would temper his unilateralist instincts in his second term.

But culminating in Friday's release by the Pentagon of a new  National Defense Strategy of the United States of America , the last few weeks have showered a bracing dose of cold water on that notion.

Dave Sifry (think Technorati) has run a series on current blog statistics on his blog. There's the number of blogs, the number of posts and the tough one.

The tough one is tough because rather than discussing the list of blogs ordered by the number of inbound links, Mr. Sifry says

Today I'll discuss the impact of weblogs on traditional media, the impact of the A-List, and the power of the long tail.

First off, some terminology and an understanding of what we're measuring. This graph is a measure of influence or authority of a site or blog as measured by the number of people who are linking to it. Note that this is not a measure of page views or website "hits". Rather, Technorati looks at linking behavior as a proxy for attention and influence. In other words, the more people who link to a site or blog, the more influence it has on others. Note that influence is not an indicator of veracity - lots of people link to The Drudge Report, for example, which implies that Matt Drudge gets a lot of attention and influence, but not necessarily that he is truthful.

Don't get me wrong, it's interesting stuff and I probably wouldn't respond to it at all bet for Jeff Jarvis' bringing it to my attention via his paradoxical declaration of colorblindness via listing all the non-white folks he knows. Mr. Jarvis says he asked Mr. Sifry for support of his statement:

Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh or Drug Slang
Find out if Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh are gateways into heavier substances

Another Top Treasury Official Announces Resignation Plans

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON, March 21 - John B. Taylor, the Treasury Department's under secretary for international affairs, said Monday that he would resign on April 22, the latest in a series of top-level resignations at the department since the elections in November.

Administration officials are hoping to replace Mr. Taylor with Tim Adams, a former Treasury official who coordinated economic policy issues for President Bush's re-election campaign last year. Many of the other vacant posts have not been filled.

Mr. Taylor, a monetary economist who signed on at the start of President Bush's first term, had periodically been rumored as a candidate to lead the World Bank or even as a possible successor to Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

Quote of note:

Now, the DNA evidence from the semen found on her underclothes has proved that House was not a rapist; rather, it came from her husband. The victim's blood, it has since been shown, was not spattered on House's jeans during the homicide, but later in the crime lab.

Paul Gregory House

a case of actual Innocence

In 2002 the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, citing DNA evidence that raises the possibility that an innocent man might be on Tennessee's death row, asked the state Tennessee Supreme Court to review Paul Gregory House's case to determine whether there is a basis for giving him a new hearing.

Then recently discovered DNA evidence proved that House did not rape Carolyn Muncey immediately before she was killed in 1985 in Union County, north of Knoxville. Other evidence surfaced that might show that House did not kill Muncey.

New EPA Mercury Rule Omits Conflicting Data
Study Called Stricter Limits Cost-Effective

By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 22, 2005; Page A01

When the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a rule last week to limit mercury emissions from U.S. power plants, officials emphasized that the controls could not be more aggressive because the cost to industry already far exceeded the public health payoff.

What they did not reveal is that a Harvard University study paid for by the EPA, co-authored by an EPA scientist and peer-reviewed by two other EPA scientists had reached the opposite conclusion.

Cheney Joins the Social Security Campaign
Vice President, Rep. Thomas Tout Personal Accounts as Safe Way to Bolster System
By Jim VandeHei

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 22, 2005; Page A05

BAKERSFIELD, Calif., March 21 -- Two of Washington's most powerful politicians -- Vice President Cheney and House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) -- teamed up Monday to pitch personal Social Security accounts as a safe and smart way to shore up the 70-year-old retirement program.

The two men, who came to Congress together 27 years ago and now play major roles in shaping policy, said critics are misleading the public about the risks associated with allowing Americans born after 1950 to voluntarily divert about one-third of their payroll taxes into private accounts.

Quote of note:

What remains is a legal case that no longer is about Schiavo. Instead it's about the politics of abortion -- right to life -- and political opportunism. Terri Schiavo lives so that others, notably Frist, can run for higher office. I know that by watching the tape.

'A Great Political Issue'
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, March 22, 2005; Page A17

Sen. Bill Frist watched a videotape last week of Terri Schiavo made by her parents in 2001. He did this in his capacity as Senate majority leader and as a renowned physician. In both roles he performed miserably. As a senator, he showed himself to be an unscrupulous opportunist. As a physician, he was guilty of practicing medicine without a brain.