I created a new category for this one. I refuse to post it under News.

Maybe I should have called the category "The Psychic Friends Network"…

Read the rest. I thought Andrew Northrup maxed out political satire for the month with brainses feel all swirly and bad. But then he did post that last month.

Not even Arnold being elected can top this Keith Berry's work. The only satire that could would be Bush being elected.

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

Clown.

View image

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."

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."

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."

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!

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.

In no particular order.

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.

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.

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.

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, 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?

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.

Click for the full-sized stolen image.

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.

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]

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.

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.

Drawn by Jeff Daaaaaaamn!ziger

Oops. A Freudian slip. Sorry…

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Because, in the end, Americans are NOT STUPID.

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

from Passions and Interests

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.

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.

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.]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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…

Too quiet for David Neiwert's tasts, apparently.

DAYUM!!

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

• 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?

I thought Billmon was joking!

CLAIRVOYANT!!

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?

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."

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

Dogfighting Tops List of Hated Sports

via Karmalised

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

…in Great Britain.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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:

Part of the muddying here comes from the very word "race", which I don't think has been adequately defined for this discussion yet. Even people like me and people I expect to be sensitive to this (like P6) fall into the trap of thinking that "race" means "black or white" without taking into account other races. When you talk about race in America, 90% of the people seem to take into account only Black and White, and it is as if the other races (whatever race means) don't matter. Which brings me to my point -- white people have only had free black people around them for two generations.