Prometheus 6

Bhutto's surprise will offers guidance to her party
Saeed Shah | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: December 29, 2007 03:24:23 PM

NAUDERO, Pakistan — Benazir Bhutto left a last will and testament that maps out the future for her political party and who should lead it in her absence, her husband Asif Zardari disclosed on Saturday.

The document will be presented to her Pakistan People's Party on Sunday. It's expected to include her preference for who should lead the party in her absence. Zardari himself would be a highly controversial contender. Their son Bilawal would win a huge amount of goodwill, but is still a teenager, and Zardari appeared to rule him out on Saturday.

"He's too young. He's 19 years old," Zardari said.

Zardari said he opened the letter himself only on Saturday. Its contents will be read to an emergency meeting of the party on Sunday by Bilawal, a student at Britain's prestigious Oxford University, where his mother also studied.

Because the change that we need isn't a "change in tone." It's a change in focus and direction...and if they insist on pushing foolish tax breaks and pulling race cards, crushing the Republican Party may well be necessary.

So what is his plan? He may have let it slip in a recent interview, when he explained that a big reason he should be the Democratic nominee is that he could carry his party to a sweeping congressional victory that would provide a "mandate for change." "I mean, if we have a 50-plus-one election, we cannot get a serious health-care bill done. We can't have a serious agenda on climate change," he said.

That doesn't sound like a man who wants to work with Republicans toward a bipartisan era. It sounds like a man who wants to crush his opponents at the polls, and then bulldoze his agenda through an enfeebled opposition.

Change Agent?
Barack Obama and the burden of liberalism.
BY KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
Friday, December 28, 2007 12:01 a.m.

Win no matter what it takes. 

"We did the essay and that's what we did to win," Priscilla Ceballos, the mother, said in an interview with Dallas TV station KDFW. "We did whatever we could do to win."

Hannah Montana essay winner a fake
The Associated Press
6:39 AM CST, December 29, 2007

GARLAND, Texas

An essay that won a 6-year-old girl four tickets to a Hannah Montana concert began with the powerful line: "My daddy died this year in Iraq."

While gripping, it wasn't true -- and now the girl may lose her tickets after her mom acknowledged to contest organizers it was all a lie.

The sponsor of the contest was Club Libby Lu, a Chicago-based store that sells clothes, accessories and games intended for young girls.

But anybody who would come to someone’s house, threaten the residents with harm, use racial or ethnic epithets and then slap a gun in defiance after being ordered to leave the property at gunpoint is crazy enough to do just about anything....

Those prosecutors say John White acted criminally and irrationally. I say it depends on what side of the threatening mob you’re on.

Damn right. Though I have no problem standing by my representing for equal protection under the law in Jena, this was some bullshit.

Commentary: Jena Six, My Foot – Where is the Black Community’s Outrage Over the John White Verdict?
Date: Thursday, December 27, 2007
By: Gregory Kane, BlackAmericaWeb.com

A bunch of white guys show up at your house after 11 p.m., cursing, calling your 20-year-old son the N-word and threatening to kill him. You take your .32 Beretta, go outside and order the mob off your property.

Instead of leaving, one of the white guys slaps the gun in defiance. What do you do?

Obama, however, is a product of America's mainstream, in which he enjoys unlimited opportunities. He is a model of blacks' possibilities when they are emancipated from ideologies of blackness, particularly those that, Steele says, "focus on self-respect apart from achievement."

In addition to being "emancipated from ideologies of blackness," Blacks must also have a couple of Ivy League degrees and connections up and out the wazoo for Obama to be "a model of blacks' possibilities."

Barack Obama...try him again for the first time.

My reaction to the restructured reality represented by the linked article may seem peculiar to you, given that I have said I'm voting for him in the New York primary. But voting for John Edwards was a real possibility for me. I do not see Sen. Obama as an unalloyed good.

In his 2006 book, “The Audacity of Hope,” Mr. Obama recalls sitting with a white, liberal Democrat in the Senate and listening to a black, inner-city legislator, whom he identified only as John Doe, speechifying on how the elimination of a particular program was blatant racism. The white colleague turned to Mr. Obama and said, “You know what the problem is with John? Whenever I hear him, he makes me feel more white.”

The lay preacher in Dent suffered from a guilty conscience. In his 1978 memoir, “The Prodigal South Returns to Power,” Dent wrote that his politics were never racist. “The aim of the Southern strategy,” he claimed, was merely “to have the South treated just like any other section of the U.S.A.” Three years later, when he retired from law to preach the Gospel full time, he came clean. Yes, he admitted, of course he had exploited race to aggrandize Southern power. “When I look back,” he said, “my biggest regret now is anything I did that stood in the way of the rights of black people.”

The Southern Strategist
By RICK PERLSTEIN

In the small Southern town that produced Harry Dent, the future Nixon White House political aide, Dent’s great-uncle John (The Baptist) Prickett edited the newspaper. One day, an outraged reader called Prickett a “Republican S.O.B.” Prickett, who like everyone else in South Carolina was a Democrat, laid him flat with a punch. The baffled reader, upon recovering, asked what was the matter with calling him an S.O.B. “But you called me a Republican S.O.B.,” Prickett answered — and thereby hangs the tale of why Harry Shuler Dent is such an important figure in American history. He was the behind-the-scenes player who did the most to turn the South from a region that despised Republicans into a Republican bastion.

Knightmare
by Earl Dunovant

I used to be
A knight in shining armor
A pretender
To the throne of Prince Charming

You were too blind to see
That I was too blind to see
So we were happy

But the armor
Grew hot and heavy
The chain mail
Chafed in private, sensitive places

And I never wanted
A Princess anyway
I just wanted you

Bush had the whole Republican Party referring to him as "our Commander in Chief." Evangelicals still do. But Iraq got so screwed even his own party told him the next word could not come from him. So he could no longer wear the military dictator mask.

He's still determined to break the Constitution. He's decided he can "pocket veto" the defense authorization bill.

He's decided not to fund the troops because the Iraqi government objects to some part of the bill.

I am withholding my approval of H.R. 1585, the "National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008," because it would imperil billions of dollars of Iraqi assets at a crucial juncture in that nation's reconstruction efforts and because it would undermine the foreign policy and commercial interests of the United States.

Bush is taking greater care of Iraqi assets than he ever took of ours...including the lives of the troops. He hiomself said how failure to fund the troops would endanger their lives.

...it's fucking brilliant.

The BEAST 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2007

A sample: 

43. Sherri Shepherd

Charges: Perfectly illustrated the Creationist's level of intellect when she declared her disbelief in evolution, and was immediately stumped about the shape of the earth, explaining her ignorance was due to the fact that she was too busy feeding her children to acquire rudimentary knowledge about... well, about anything, presumably. Further compounded her astonishing lack of basic knowledge when she authoritatively declared that Jesus Christ came before the ancient Greeks, and that she didn't think "anything predated Christians." Judging by these statements, Sherri probably thinks there are dragons on the other side of her desk.

Exhibit A: Accurately reflects the intelligence of her viewing audience.

Sentence: Pushed off the edge of the earth.

The monkeys were deprived of sleep for 30 to 36 hours and then given either orexin A or a saline placebo before taking standard cognitive tests. The monkeys given orexin A in a nasal spray scored about the same as alert monkeys, while the saline-control group was severely impaired.

Snorting a Brain Chemical Could Replace Sleep
By Alexis Madrigal
12.28.07 | 12:00 AM

In what sounds like a dream for millions of tired coffee drinkers, Darpa-funded scientists might have found a drug that will eliminate sleepiness.

A nasal spray containing a naturally occurring brain hormone called orexin A reversed the effects of sleep deprivation in monkeys, allowing them to perform like well-rested monkeys on cognitive tests. The discovery's first application will probably be in treatment of the severe sleep disorder narcolepsy.

The treatment is "a totally new route for increasing arousal, and the new study shows it to be relatively benign," said Jerome Siegel, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA and a co-author of the paper. "It reduces sleepiness without causing edginess."

California: Part of San Francisco Health Plan Struck Down
By AP

A federal judge has struck down a key provision of a new San Francisco program to provide basic health care for uninsured residents. The city was set to begin requiring employers with more than 20 workers to start subsidizing the health plan on Jan. 2. But the judge, Jeffrey Wright of Federal District Court, ruled that the mandate would violate a 1974 federal law designed to prevent inconsistencies in the coverage afforded employees who work for the same company but live in different jurisdictions.

Albuquerque Has Renewal of Attacks on Abortion
By DAN FROSCH

A rash of attacks on abortion and family planning clinics has struck Albuquerque this month, the first such violence there in nearly a decade.

Two attacks occurred early Tuesday at two buildings belonging to Planned Parenthood of New Mexico, according to Albuquerque police and fire officials. An arson fire damaged a surgery center the organization uses for abortions, and the windows of a Planned Parenthood family planning clinic 12 blocks away were smashed, the officials said.

Neither building sustained significant damage, and activities at both of them resumed Wednesday, a spokeswoman said.

The attacks came just weeks after the Albuquerque clinic run by a nationally known abortion provider, Dr. Curtis Boyd, was destroyed by arsonists on Dec. 6.

Fisk's board of trustees in December 2005 voted to try to sell off two signature pieces of the art collection to help keep the school afloat. Those efforts became bogged down in court battles over whether the sale of paintings violated the terms of O'Keeffe's bequest, and a Fisk lawyer told the judge that the school was likely to run out of cash before the end of the year.

The Mellon grant has halted that cash-flow crisis, but some feel that the school waited too long to focus on fundraising 

Historically Black College Struggles Financially
Already Beset by Donor Fatigue, Fisk University Is in Legal Battle Over Valuable Art
By Erik Schelzig
Associated Press
Friday, December 28, 2007; A18

NASHVILLE, Dec. 27 -- Despite two years of trying, Fisk University has not been able to turn any of the valuable art donated by painter Georgia O'Keeffe into cash.

U.S. Patent Application #20070291710 describes a device that also would keep tabs on where a user shops and what he or she likes to buy. Computers at participating stores would keep track of regular customers and their favorite orders.

Apple's Piping Hot Innovation
Brian Caulfield 12.27.07, 6:00 AM ET

BURLINGAME, CALIF. -

Want a coffee with your iPhone?

Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs wants to patent a process that will save customers the hassle of waiting to order a cup of coffee at a local Starbucks or a fresh burger at the nearest fast food restaurant. Even better: The technology would let you jump the line of those ordering in person.

“Everything I did with Giuliani Partners has been totally legal, totally ethical,” Mr. Giuliani recently told The Associated Press. “There’s nothing for me to explain about it. We’ve acted honorably, decently.”

Under Attack, Drug Maker Turned to Giuliani for Help
By BARRY MEIER and ERIC LIPTON

In western Virginia, far from the limelight, United States Attorney John L. Brownlee found himself on the telephone last year with a political and legal superstar, Rudolph W. Giuliani.

For years, Mr. Brownlee and his small team had been building a case that the maker of the painkiller OxyContin had misled the public when it claimed the drug was less prone to abuse than competing narcotics. The drug was believed to be a factor in hundreds of deaths involving its abuse.

Mr. Giuliani, celebrated for his stewardship of New York City after 9/11, soon told the prosecutors they were wrong.

Not sure how much difference that makes. 

In July 2006, a group of Somalis were worshiping in a storefront mosque there when a white man rolled the head of a pig, an animal considered unclean in Islam, across the floor. And last month, a Somali student at Lewiston High School said, a white man threw sand and dirt in his face as he ran at a cross-country meet.

Last year, a white man shouted racial slurs at a pregnant black woman in Hancock, near Bangor, and kicked her in the abdomen, according to Mr. Harnett’s office. And in March, Assata Sherrill, a black resident of Bangor, told the police that three white boys had thrown stones and shouted racial epithets at her as she walked her dog near the city’s waterfront. 

Threat in Maine, the Whitest State, Shakes Local N.A.A.C.P.
By ABBY GOODNOUGH

BANGOR, Me. — In October, the N.A.A.C.P. chapter for northern Maine got shocking news. A man from a nearby town had threatened to shoot “any and all black persons” attending the group’s meetings at an old stone church here, and state prosecutors were worried enough to seek a restraining order.

Such remarks are not unheard of in Maine, the nation’s whitest state, which has fewer black residents — 10,918 in 2006, or less than 1 percent of the population, according to the Census Bureau — than some neighborhoods of Chicago or New York. But nor are they usually so blunt. The chapter has since held meetings at police stations and canceled its annual Kwanzaa celebration, which normally draws people from up and down the coast of Maine.

The Bush administration has to rethink more than just its unhealthy and destructive enabling of Mr. Musharraf. It also must take a hard look at the billions it is funneling to Pakistan’s military. That money is supposed to finance the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. As a report in The Times on Monday showed, Washington hasn’t kept a close watch, and much of it has gone to projects that interested Mr. Musharraf and the Pakistani Army more, like building weapons systems aimed at America’s ally, India. Meanwhile, Al Qaeda and the Taliban continued, and continue, to make alarming gains.

The United States cannot afford to have Pakistan unravel any further. The lesson of the last six years is that authoritarian leaders — even ones backed with billions in American aid — don’t make reliable allies, and they can’t guarantee security.

I understand our potential presidents were caught off guard, but could the Democratic candidates be more formulaic? And could the Republicans...especially Giuliani...be more meaningless?

When we started talking about the stresses of trying to meet the American ideal Con Permisso noticed when we slipped away “from what could be said, to who should be addressed.” It was a good observation. I want to try again, this time by describing the problem in as ideology-free way as I can.

We try to have this ideal life made of ideal parts. And of course we are none of those things. So much of what we have to do is the facade than makes us fit in. I think we have these idealizations we are trying to be, and we make plans as though we have succeeded.

Even if we can maintain the ideal shape we need to hold, the space in which we are to fit must conform as well, which means the people around us hold up their facades as well. Our happiness depends on them being as ideal as we must be.

Because of this we measure our deficits instead of our strengths, We concern ourselves with the myriad ways we exceed or come up short of the measure.

Because I don't think an appeal will work. So when the white mob comes to your door, fire off a round in the air, or the ground, somewhere away from them. They'll leave, or attack...and you can defend yourself if they attack.

The ground is better...no one gets hit when gravity finally gets the bullet. 

Saturday was the fourth day of deliberations after a four-week trial for White, who said he feared for his family's safety when he brandished a gun in front of an angry group of white teenagers gathered outside his Miller Place home. White, 54, was convicted of shooting 17-year-old Daniel Cicciaro Jr. to death on Aug. 9, 2006.

The jury told Kahn it was deadlocked on Friday afternoon; she told jurors to return Saturday. After they deliberated for more than 11 hours and sent out another note saying they could not agree, Kahn asked jurors to keep talking and indicated she would schedule deliberations on Sunday, with time off for religious services.

Many jurors appeared near tears; one began rocking back and forth with his head in his hands. The jury returned a guilty verdict an hour later.

Lawyers Consider Appeal, Citing Pressure on Jurors
By Amy Westfeld
Associated Press
Thursday, December 27, 2007; A10

NEW YORK, Dec. 26 -- A judge's decision to keep a stymied jury deliberating for 12 hours just days before Christmas could be grounds to overturn a manslaughter verdict against a black man convicted of shooting a white teenager, criminal defense lawyers said Wednesday.

The lawyers, who are not involved in the case, criticized Suffolk County Judge Barbara Kahn's unusual Saturday-night session for the Long Island jury that convicted John White, 54, in the encounter outside White's home.

Bury My Heart: Remembering Those Who Worked for Racial Justice
2007 Dec 27

‘Tis the season for year-end lists and remembering those we lost in 2007. Given that, I thought it was important to remember a few of those who worked for racial justice that we lost this past year. This list of ten people, some of whom you’ll recognize and some you may not, are in no particular order.