Congress eyes funds for Iran dissidents
Spending bill includes provision for $1.5m

By Bryan Bender, Globe Correspondent, 12/6/2003

WASHINGTON -- For the first time, Congress is set to approve government funds openly earmarked to help undermine the Islamic government of Iran by providing money for dissidents inside the country, according to US officials and specialists.

The program calls for an initial $1.5 million to be spent next year to support the efforts of Iranians and Iranian organizations seeking to replace the government in Tehran with a democracy.

Though a relatively small amount of money, the funding carries great symbolic weight. Past efforts to use US government money to support Iranian dissidents have been sidetracked before reaching a final vote because of concerns that they would violate sanctions prohibiting any money from going to Iran, as well as an agreement in 1981, shortly after the release of US hostages in Tehran, to refrain from actively opposing the Iranian government.

But this time, Senator Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican with close ties to the Bush administration who has long called for more active US efforts to weaken the Iranian government, has appended the funding provision to the so-called omnibus spending bill. The provision has already gone through negotiations of a House-Senate conference committee and is due to be formally approved early next week.

A spokesman for Brownback said the Bush administration knew the senator was inserting the provision and did not oppose it.

On Nov. 6, Bush announced that US policy would be geared toward supporting democracy for Middle East countries, but his administration's policy on Iran has stopped short of providing direct support for opposition leaders. White House and State Department leaders were unavailable for comment yesterday.

"It is clear from the regime's treatment of its own people that Iran is no democracy," Brownback told a group of Iranian Americans in July, in a speech his office provided to explain his position. "I understand that the State Department's job is diplomacy and the search for common ground. But now is a time for moral clarity, not excuses."

Legislature Fails to Agree on Governor's Fiscal Proposals
The sticking point is Schwarzenegger's call for a spending cap. The GOP says it's needed, but Democrats insist it could lead to devastating cuts.
By Nancy Vogel, Gregg Jones and Evan Halper
Times Staff Writers

December 6, 2003

SACRAMENTO ? Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger acknowledged late Friday that the Legislature would probably not approve a pair of financial recovery proposals that he had hoped to place on the March ballot.

In a succession of votes, Senate Republicans and Democrats took turns shooting down the governor's plan and a Democratic alternative to borrow as much as $15 billion to patch a gaping hole in the state budget and prevent future fiscal crises.

The Senate adjourned for the week about 9:40 p.m. Debate continued in the Assembly.

GOP senators who met with the governor afterward emerged to say he was very disappointed.

Republicans and Democrats blamed each other for the failure to reach a deal.

The governor defined lawmakers as "overspending addicts during his campaign," said Rob Stutzman, Schwarzenegger's director of communications. "And as overspending addicts, they've been unable to bring themselves to a place tonight where they can truly recognize the ways of their overspending and reform themselves."

Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco) and Senate Republican Leader Jim Brulte (R-Rancho Cucamonga) exchanged barbs on the Senate floor when Brulte threatened to put an even tougher constitutional spending cap before voters next November.

"The governor bent over backwards to try to meet you halfway," Brulte said.

"Halfway?" Burton responded. "Bending over backwards? You must have been in a different meeting than I was at."

Stutzman also suggested that the governor would turn to voters in November and request that they approve a ballot measure containing an even tougher constitutional spending cap.

But California will run into significant trouble long before then: If some kind of bond proposal is not approved by voters in March, the state could run out of cash in June, when $14 billion in short-term loans obtained last year is due.

Aware of this possibility, the Schwarzenegger administration took steps Friday to proceed with an existing $10.7-billion bond issue that was approved by lawmakers last summer but has been challenged in court as unconstitutional.

Army Will Face Dip in Readiness
4 Divisions Need to Regroup After Iraq

By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 6, 2003; Page A01

Four Army divisions -- 40 percent of the active-duty force -- will not be fully combat-ready for up to six months next year, leaving the nation with relatively few ready troops in the event of a major conflict in North Korea or elsewhere, a senior Army official said yesterday.

The four divisions -- the 82nd Airborne, the 101st Airborne, the 1st Armored and the 4th Infantry -- are to return from Iraq next spring, to be replaced by three others, with a fourth rotating into Afghanistan. That would leave only two active-duty divisions available to fight in other parts of the world.

Briefing reporters at the Pentagon, the official said the four returning divisions will be rated either C-3 or C-4, the Army's two lowest readiness categories, for 120 to 180 days after they return as vehicles and helicopters are overhauled and troops are rested and retrained.

C-3 means a division is capable of performing only some of its combat missions, and C-4 means a division needs additional manpower, training or equipment to fight a major regional war.

A fifth division, the 3rd Infantry, which returned from Iraq in August, is still not fully ready to return to combat, the official said.

Employers Balk at New Hiring, Despite Growth
By LOUIS UCHITELLE

The nation's employers displayed an unexpected reluctance in November to hire more workers, despite the improving economy and rising demand for what they sell.

The work force grew by only 57,000 jobs last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported yesterday ? only a third of what most forecasters had projected. The jobs report pushed down stock prices and interest rates. But for many economists, there was clear evidence, too, that the recovery has staying power: the unemployment rate dipped to 5.9 percent from 6 percent in October, and November was the fourth straight month of rising employment.

"Not every single indicator is going to look like a boom," said Richard Berner, chief domestic economist for Morgan Stanley. "Now we are getting down to a strong, but less spectacular, recovery."

The Bush administration greeted the jobs data cautiously. Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao noted that "many other economic indicators point toward continued job growth well into the new year." President Bush, in a speech in Baltimore, said the economy "is getting stronger."

"The productivity is high; investment is strong; the home industry is vibrant," he added.

The Democratic presidential candidates, meanwhile, were scornful. The weak jobs growth "is another link in the chain of President Bush's broken promises," said Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor. Senator John Edwards of North Carolina declared that "the jobs market has gone from bad to mediocre."

November was the second anniversary of the recovery from the 2001 recession, and for most of the period, jobs disappeared at an alarming rate ? nearly 1.1 million in all through last July. In the turnaround since then, employers have added back 328,000 jobs, mostly in the lower-wage service sector. Higher-wage manufacturing jobs have continued to disappear, although at a slower rate than in the spring and summer.

"One can conclude that the jobless recovery is safely behind us," said Jared Bernstein, a senior labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, "but the number and quality of the jobs we are creating are still insufficient to sustain a truly robust recovery."

Heh.

Judge Tells SCO: No, *You* Have to Show the Code First

The big news from the hearing today is that Judge Wells told SCO that they have to go first. They have to show IBM what code they are alleging is infringing. All during discovery, SCO has been telling IBM they had to show all their code first, and then SCO would identify the alleged infringements. IBM kept telling SCO in reply that they had the burden, as plaintiffs, to at least tell IBM what code was involved. Today the judge told SCO that IBM was right. SCO has 30 days to comply. IBM doesn't have to turn over anything until they do it. The judge's order will be filed Wednesday, and SCO has a month to show the code. They can't force IBM to go first. That dance is over.

I decided to comment on Jeremy's other post individually (hey, you know blogs read backward…).

I think the real "but" is not just whether one is willing to step up but whether or not they are capable.

There's a real problem with evangelicals fielding unqualified teachers, in my opinion. This is NOT a scriptural problem…the scripture tells you to spread the Gospel and that's fine…if you know what the Gospel is. Too damn much feel-good is taken to be Gospel, folks.

The Truth Shall Set You Free. But it might not make you comfortable. How do you know it's the truth? It's simple. The truth, that is.

Takes a while to burn off the fog. But if you haven't gone through the process, no matter how much joy you feel you ain't qualified to teach.

She Who Harasses Slacker Bloggers Into Posting should get no recognition here except that I spotted Jeremy in a comment on her blog and checked out his blog, around the house.

He's about as political as she is. But he's intelligent. Always a good sign.

You really don't be linking around a person's diary blog in a site like this, but he's got a religion section there too, and since we've gone there recently I'll point out his two most recent posts; one because it makes a cogent point and one because it doesn't finish making a cogent point.

Al-M was also good enough to tell me how she found the Gaurdian piece mentioned below. Came from Freedom Rider, who signs her posts "Freedom Rider," but suspect you can find her name if you really want it by checking her article at The Black Commentator.

But I'm not talking about that stuff. I want to bring to your attention her World Aids Day post (I know it's over, but it's too damn much trouble to change the "A Good Cause" box daily, so it's up for the month).

First of all, props to those that find out things before I do and tell me about them. Al-Muhajabah told me about an article in The Guardian by Benjamin Zephaniah, a Black poet who is apparently refusing induction into the Order of the British Empire.

I'm pretty impressed with the guy who wrote the article. So I looked into just what he did that might cause him to be knighted. I found his website, read some of his work…I must say, I remain impressed with him as a person. I ain't feeling the poetry, though. Personal taste, I guess.

Last time I complained about snow, Terry at The Storm said I'd get more this weekend, so I blame him for this.

From the Center for American Progress

The Labor Department's new monthly jobs report shows the job crisis is far from over. CNN reports, "U.S. employers remained cautious in November despite the economy's robust growth rate in late summer, adding meager numbers to their payrolls, according to a government report Friday that fell far short of Wall Street expectations." According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the unemployment rate remained "essentially unchanged." All told, "about 8.7 million people were unemployed in November, 2 million of whom have been out of work for 27 weeks or longer." The report follows yesterday's weekly update in which the government announced "jobless claims rose in the United States last week at a higher level than Wall Street forecasts."

WAGES, INCOME STILL A BIG PROBLEM: The U.S. Conference of Mayors yesterday released a [PDF] report showing new jobs created during the 2004-05 period are forecast to pay an average of $35,855, much lower than the $43,629 average pay of those jobs lost between 2001-03. That highlights the major problem American Progress economist Christian Weller says is now afflicting the economy. As Weller says, "wage growth has also been fairly anemic. Compared to previous recoveries, wages in inflation adjusted terms would usually rise by 2.3% over the first 23 months of a recovery. This time, though, wages increased by only 1.1%." He says "tentative employment growth, low employment, slow wage growth, and crawling increases in hours all essentially add up to one thing: low incomes for households."

At roughtly Dec 05 2003 7:49:29 am MST, sufficiently long before the caffeine made my brain settle down to significantly reduce my tolerance, a comment was left here that I decided needs a response.

You who feel SOOOOOOO good leaving silly-ass comments on old posts.

Hiding behind a Yahoo! email address is ineffective. Don't think you can't be found. I already know your cheap ass uses Juno as an ISP. And all the tools the Feds can use to track you down are actually available…though not as an integrated whole…to anyone on the net who knows how to use them.

Not that I'm frightened of anyone who doesn't have the balls to spell out "motherfucker". Or any of you mortals at all.

Repeat after me:

I'd call you a dick, but that would insult dicks worldwide.

Elle told me I been slacking, so I had to post a bunch of stuff.

Open Letter on Copyrights
From Darl McBride, CEO

December 4, 2003

An Open Letter:

Since last March The SCO Group (?SCO?) has been involved in an increasingly rancorous legal controversy over violations of our UNIX intellectual property contract, and what we assert is the widespread presence of our copyrighted UNIX code in Linux. These controversies will rage for at least another 18 months, until our original case comes to trial. Meanwhile, the facts SCO has raised have become one of the most important and hotly debated technology issues this year, and often our positions on these issues have been misunderstood or misrepresented. Starting with this letter, I'd like to explain our positions on the key issues. In the months ahead we'll post a series of letters on the SCO Web site ( www.sco.com ). Each of these letters will examine one of the many issues SCO has raised. In this letter, we'll provide our view on the key issue of U.S. copyright law versus the GNU GPL (General Public License).

SCO asserts that the GPL, under which Linux is distributed, violates the United States Constitution and the U.S. copyright and patent laws. Constitutional authority to enact patent and copyright laws was granted to Congress by the Founding Fathers under Article I, § 8 of the United States Constitution:

Congress shall have Power ? [t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

This Constitutional declaration gave rise to our system of copyrights and patents.

Do we all look that stupid?

Hip-Hop Dominates Grammy Nominations
By NEKESA MUMBI MOODY
AP Entertainment Writer

December 4, 2003, 11:14 PM CST

NEW YORK -- Rap and R&B have been consistent chart-toppers for the last few years, but in 2003 they took over pop music -- and the Grammy nominations on Thursday.

The year's top-selling artist: rapper 50 Cent. Two of the year's biggest hits came from R&B singer Beyonce. In October, every spot on Billboard's top 10 singles chart was held by a rap or R&B artist.

Grammy voters took notice, doling out six nominations each to Beyonce, Jay-Z, OutKast and Pharrell Williams.

"Hip-hop is at its most commercial point," Andre 3000 of the rap duo OutKast told The Associated Press. "It's pretty poppy, and it's popular this year."

Five nominations apiece went to Missy Elliott, Eminem, Evanescence, 50 Cent, Chad Hugo, Ricky Skaggs, Justin Timberlake, the ailing Luther Vandross and the late Warren Zevon.

Four of the five nominees for record of the year fell into the rap or R&B category: Beyonce's "Crazy in Love," "Where Is The Love," by The Black Eyed Peas & Justin Timberlake, "Lose Yourself," by Eminem and "Hey Ya!" from OutKast. The brooding rock group Coldplay's song "Clocks" was the only exception.

And rap and R&B also dominated the album of the year category: Missy Elliott's "Under Construction"; "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below" by OutKast; and "Justified," from Timberlake, which had the former boy-band star reach into R&B for his first solo effort. The White Stripes' "Elephant" and "Fallen" from goth rockers Evanescence rounded out the category.

However, in somewhat of a surprise, 50 Cent's "Get Rich or Die Tryin'," which sold more than 6 million copies, was shut out of the major categories. It was nominated exclusively for rap awards, although 50 Cent himself was nominated for best new artist, along with Evanescence, R&B singer Heather Headley, the alt-pop group Fountains of Wayne and the dancehall artist Sean Paul.

Donations Pick Up for State GOP
Schwarzenegger's popularity helps loosen wallets -- some of them on the Democratic side.
By Dan Morain
Times Staff Writer

SACRAMENTO ? Capitalizing on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's popularity and moderate profile, the California Republican Party is raising millions of dollars by tapping disaffected Democratic givers and donors the governor has shunned.

Nearly a year before the 2004 legislative elections, party executives say they have checks and commitments exceeding the $11 million they raised for all of last year's statewide contests.

Schwarzenegger himself has raised more than $1.5 million since taking office two months ago. And California Republican Party Chairman Duf Sundheim has told Capitol lobbyists that he has donations and pledges totaling at least another $9 million for the GOP's effort to wrest control of the Legislature from Democrats next year.

Since Schwarzenegger took over, California Republicans "have died and gone to heaven," said state Sen. Don Perata (D-Oakland). "For the foreseeable future, they have an enormously popular governor who has much broader appeal than any Republican I can think of, including the president."

Republican stalwarts such as Alex Spanos, a Stockton developer who owns the San Diego Chargers football team, and companies such as ChevronTexaco account for much of the money. But Sundheim also is tapping some entities that Schwarzenegger has shunned as "special interests," including an Indian tribe, a union of public employees and several trade organizations.

Republicans also have wooed one of the Democrats' largest donors, mortgage lender Ameriquest Capital Corp., and its principals, Roland and Dawn Arnall. Ameriquest and the Arnalls have donated or promised $2 million to the California GOP, according to information Sundheim gave prospective donors in Sacramento this week.

Israel Shares Blame on Iraq Intelligence, Report Says
By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, December 5, 2003; Page A18

JERUSALEM, Dec. 4 -- Israel was a "full partner" in U.S. and British intelligence failures that exaggerated former president Saddam Hussein's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, a report by an Israeli military research center has charged.

"The failures of this war indicate weaknesses and inherent flaws within Israeli intelligence and among Israeli decision-makers," Brig. Gen. Shlomo Brom wrote in an analysis for Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies.

Israeli intelligence services and political leaders provided "an exaggerated assessment of Iraqi capabilities," raising "the possibility that the intelligence picture was manipulated," wrote Brom, former deputy commander of the Israeli military's planning division.

David Baker, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, declined to comment on the report.

The allegations parallel those raised in the United States and Britain. Officials have combed Iraq and interrogated former authorities for months, but have turned up little evidence to support the prewar assessments of Iraq's weapons programs.

"In the questioning of the picture painted by coalition intelligence, the third party in this intelligence failure, Israel, has remained in the shadows," the report said. "Israeli intelligence was a full partner to the picture presented by American and British intelligence regarding Iraq's non-conventional capabilities."

The report added, "A critical question to be answered is whether governmental bodies falsely manipulated the intelligence information in order to gain support for their decision to go to war in Iraq, while the real reasons for this decision were obfuscated or concealed."

I wasn't going to blog the sniper trials at all. But this…

By Tom Jackman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 5, 2003; Page A01

CHESAPEAKE, Va., Dec. 4 -- Lee Boyd Malvo had a plan to save the world. And it was going to start after he and John Allen Muhammad collected a $10 million payment to stop last fall's sniper shootings, an investigator for Malvo's defense team testified Thursday.

The plan involved setting up a compound for 70 boys and 70 girls. "Seventy boys and 70 girls were going to be made into super-people," Carmeta V. Albarus, an investigator and social worker, said Malvo told her. "They were going to be trained and sent out to different parts of the world and bring about a just system."

Albarus testified Thursday that she pointed out "how ludicrous" the idea was. She said Malvo "felt very confident that this could be done, because we have to start with the children." The $10 million payment from the government "was to purchase land and equipment and whatever else he needed for this compound," Albarus said.

I suppose just saying what actually happened the first time would set a bad precident.

Filed at 5:55 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House offered its third version Thursday of a pilot who spotted Air Force One while it flew to Iraq -- a sighting that if publicly disclosed would have scrubbed President Bush's Thanksgiving Day visit to U.S. troops in Baghdad.

Partisan Hacking in Congress

It sounds like a Beltway episode of "The Pink Panther": Congressional detectives have seized computers from the Senate Judiciary Committee in an investigation of how suspected Republican mischief-makers leaked minority Democrats' confidential memos to sympathetic media outlets. The sergeant-at-arms has called in espionage experts to help in grilling dozens of Capitol staff members. But the affair is hardly comical; in fact, it is further sad evidence ? as if any were needed ? of the blood-sport level of partisanship in Washington.

At first, the Republican majority denied any G.O.P. complicity after the memos were leaked and published. The documents detailed how Democratic senators had strategized and consulted outside interest groups dedicated to opposing some of President Bush's more extreme judicial nominees. But after the police moved in last week, Senator Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican who is the Judiciary Committee's chairman, reversed himself and announced that he had been "shocked" to find out that it was a member of his own staff who had hacked into the minority's computer files.

"I am mortified," he said in acknowledging the breach of confidentiality. "There's no excuse that can justify these improper actions."

In practice, though, partisan zealotry has often been the justification for much of the workings on Capitol Hill. Republicans, long under the heel of Democrats, waxed triumphalist in finally gaining majority control of both houses. Democrats have been largely ignored in the making of major legislation and have even been denied a share in hometown pork projects for voting against the G.O.P. budget.

Vindictive politicking was regularly practiced by Democrats in their majority, too. But what is happening now is nothing short of a ratcheting up toward self-satire. The parties view the nation as so microscopically divided that no initiative should be overlooked in approaching the power struggle in next year's elections. Nonetheless, stooping to Senate pilferage is hardly a clarion call to victory.

A Lynching Memorial Unveiled in Duluth

Nations deal with nightmares the same way people do ? by trying to forget them. Among the nightmares that had faded from public memory in the United States until recently, none are more ghastly than the campaign of racial terror that gripped this country from the 1880's to the 1930's, when thousands of black Americans were hanged, mutilated, burned alive or dragged to death while huge crowds looked on.

Sometimes called "lynching bees" or "Negro barbecues," these events were cast as macabre carnivals, which drew crowds with children and picnic baskets from miles around. The victims' bodies were sometimes photographed for postcards, which were used as instruments of terror until mailing such postcards was barred in the early 20th century. Lynching was not always just random violence. It was sometimes semiofficial violence, directed by whites who feared business competition from emerging black entrepreneurs and who hated the crusading newspapers of the Negro press, which began pressing aggressively for full citizenship for black people around World War I. [P6: emphasis added]

Americans who know of the violence of this period at all tend to believe that it was confined to the segregationist South. But the fact that lynchings took place in many parts of the country was underscored recently in the northern Minnesota city of Duluth when the city unveiled a moving memorial commemorating the deaths of Elmer Jackson, Elias Clayton and Isaac McGhie, three young black men who were lynched in Duluth in 1920 while a mob of 10,000 looked on.

The dedication drew thousands of people from all over the area. The emotional high point came with a speech by Warren Read, a fourth-grade teacher from Kingston, Wash., who had learned while researching his family that his great-grandfather had helped lead the mob that stormed the local jail and took the three men, who were circus workers, from their cells. His voice choking with emotion, he apologized to the victims and their families.

The memorial in Duluth is part of a national journey that began in the 1990's, when scholars and museums began to pull back the covers on a shameful and horrific period. After nearly a half-century of turning away, the country now seems more ready to look its nightmare squarely in the eye.

Um, Clarence? Ward?

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is analyzing several hate-mail letters received by prominent African-American men, including N.F.L. players, civic leaders and entertainers, The Palm Beach Post reported yesterday. The contents of the article were confirmed yesterday in an interview with a special agent from the Cleveland office of the F.B.I.

In the past year, about six N.F.L. players have received the letters, which threaten violence and instruct the players not to date white women. The F.B.I. did not reveal the names of the players, but two people with knowledge of the situation said one of them had since retired.

The Palm Beach Post reported Wednesday that a prominent Miami Dolphins player received a letter in September.

The Associated Press reported yesterday that a Columbus, Ohio, police report said the mother of the suspended Ohio State tailback Maurice Clarett received a death threat addressed to her son. Clarett's mother, Michelle, said Clarett received the letter, which had no return address, at her home on Oct. 2. The typed message was from "O.S.U. cheerleaders" and said that "black men should stay away from white women," and included other racial remarks and ended with a message that the writer would "kill and bomb the place," The A.P. reported.

Robert Hawk, a special agent in the F.B.I. office in Cleveland, said in a telephone interview yesterday that the letters to the N.F.L. players were a small part of a spate of hate mail directed at notable African-American men over the past two years. He said dozens of other "racially hateful letters" had been sent to other high-profile entertainers, civic leaders and organizations. "The letters directly ask the males to stop dating white females or they will be castrated, shot or set on fire," Hawk said. "And they are all signed either angry white women or angry Caucasian women."

At Many Stores, Early Numbers Disappoint
By TRACIE ROZHON

Published: December 5, 2003

Retail sales in November, including the bellwether Thanksgiving weekend, failed to rise to analysts' expectations, suggesting that the Christmas season may not be as good as some retailers hoped a month or two ago.

But for luxury retailers, the season still looks upbeat. [P6: emphasis added] Shoppers tended to buy higher-priced, higher-profit items last month, even at discount stores

Pentagon and Bogus News: All Is Denied
By ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 ? Early last year Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld disbanded the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence after it became known that the office was considering plans to provide false news items to unwitting foreign journalists to influence policymakers and public sentiment abroad.

But a couple of months ago, the Pentagon quietly awarded a $300,000 contract to SAIC, a major defense consultant, to study how the Defense Department could design an "effective strategic influence" campaign to combat global terror, according to an internal Pentagon document.

Sound familiar?

Senior Pentagon officials said Thursday that they were caught unawares by the contract and insisted its language was a "poor choice of words" by a low-level staffer. They said the work did not reflect any backdoor effort to resurrect the discredited office and was merely a study to understand Al Qaeda better and find ways to combat it.

"We are not recreating that office," said Thomas O'Connell, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, the policy arm of the Pentagon that deals with the military's most secretive operators and whose staff wrote the document.

But some critics of the former office voiced skepticism, saying that the contract amounted to a veiled attempt to create a low-budget copy of its ill-fated predecessor. A spokesman for SAIC referred all questions to the Pentagon.

Over the last week or so my thought piece to news flash ratio has shifted a bit and the posting volume has decreased somewhat, largely because my personal situation has improved such that I can pursue a number of things I'd had on hold for a long time. For instance, my economics studies can actually proceed (The things I study fall into two categories: things I want to know…which I pursue obsessively…and things I need to know…which I learn as much as I need to know and stop, but will work on before the things that are purely desire-inspired. Economics is in the second category).

My list of need-to-knows is growing. My sense of things is that the ground beneath our society is shifting, and most of us don't know enough about what we're ACTUALLY doing to judge how this shifting will affect our institutions. I think that needs to change. There's a lot of things I feel need to be understood from the perspective of your standard human and presented as such. I happen to think I have decent analytical and writing skills. I happen to think I can do this for a couple of subjects. Setting up to better enable the presentation of that perspective is one of my self-assigned tasks.

The trick is, though your standard human can understand just about anything that's presented clearly, even an exceptional human can't absorb and analyze everything that need be understood…that means a guy like me isn't going to be able to cover all those bases. So starting early next year, I'm going to be looking for folks capable of helping me.

I'm not talking a group blog; this is where I flex my ego. It's mineminemine. I'm talking about helping talented folks set up their own "practice"—web space is cheap and I may just lend people some to play with until the get their approach and/or subject nailed down because I don't intend to get nuts with this. And to be truthful, I'll be looking largely for Black folks (Black folks, I might add, who share my feeling that the term "blogfather" is absurd). I feel regular ol' Black folks' perspective is underrepresented in editorial space.

There's some technical and design things I have to think through, and I have to figure out where to look and how to make folks understand I'm not looking for thought clones.

Tensions on Governor's Staff
Scorching rhetoric from one camp and soothing words from the other confuse legislators.
By Peter Nicholas and Joe Mathews
Times Staff Writers

December 4, 2003

SACRAMENTO ? Tensions have begun to emerge between two camps within the administration of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, threatening to complicate his efforts to win over state lawmakers who are considering his controversial budget recovery plan.

An especially revealing episode occurred in recent days when an aide's routine effort to build support for the governor's financial package grew into something else: an aggressive series of statewide campaign rallies that appeared to target wavering lawmakers.

Schwarzenegger's legislative secretary, Richard Costigan, had drawn up a list of Democratic lawmakers whose backing could decide the fate of the governor's plan. The idea was for Schwarzenegger to court these legislators in hopes of getting the votes to put his spending cap and bond measure of up to $15 billion on the March ballot. Schwarzenegger is pressing the Legislature to act by Friday.

Two people who have spoken to Costigan about the matter said they were told the governor's political team had used the list to arrange rallies that stoked fears of Schwarzenegger's wielding his celebrity to intimidate legislators into voting for his plan.

Living the religious life of a none
Growing numbers shed organized church for loose spiritual sensibility
Don Lattin, Chronicle Religion Writer

Kellee Hom was raised in the Roman Catholic Church but never imagined she'd become a religious none.

No, not "nun." That's "none," as in "none of the above."

Hom is among a growing number of Americans who simply answer "none" or "no religion" when pollsters ask them their religious affiliation. Some "nones" identify themselves as atheists or agnostics, but the vast majority believe in God, pray and often describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious."

"My sense of God transcends all the different religions,'' said Hom, a clinical supervisor at Asian American Recovery Services in San Francisco, which helps people with substance-abuse problems. "It's an energy."

Nones are one of the fastest growing religious categories in the United States.

According to a recent survey, their ranks have more than doubled in a decade and include about 29 million Americans.

Checking Your Bill for a New Charge Called 'Oops'
By DAVID POGUE

EVERY few years, economists identify another mutant variation of inflation to keep them awake at night. In the 1980's, it was stagflation. Three years ago, it was deflation. And now, meet the economic specter of the new millennium: stealth inflation.

That's when phone companies and just about anybody else who sends you a bill manages to extract more money from you without actually raising their rates.

Phase 1 of this program was the proliferation of miscellaneous fees - for "regulatory assessment," "handling," "restocking," and so on. According to Business Week, newly concocted fees will generate $100 million for hotels this year, $2 billion for banks, $11 billion for credit-card companies - and an average of 20 percent extra on every phone bill.

Recently I may have stumbled upon Phase 2.

Attracted by the superior coverage of Verizon's wireless network, I signed up for a new cellphone. The $60 package included unlimited night and weekend calling and 800 anytime minutes.

A few days later, a welcome letter congratulated me on my new 700-minute plan. I called customer service. It was supposed to be 800 minutes, yes?

The phone representative explained that what I signed up for was the 700-minute plan, with a 100-minute bonus. The welcome letter didn't reflect the bonus, but I would see it on my monthly statements.

All right, no problem. All I'd lost was the 25 minutes on the phone with Verizon.

Yet when the first statement arrived, Verizon had charged me 25 cents for every minute over 700.

Rumsfeld Meets Warlords in Afghanistan
By REUTERS

Published: December 4, 2003

Filed at 9:54 a.m. ET

KABUL (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed suggestions on Thursday that Taliban rebels would disrupt Afghan elections next year, even as a guerrilla ambush killed a worker with a U.N.-backed project.

Rumsfeld, who met warlords in the north of the country to promote a disarmament drive, said NATO could eventually take on a wider role in post-war Afghanistan, the Western alliance's first mission outside Europe.

Prometheus isn't even an option

Athena


?? Which Of The Greek Gods Are You ??
brought to you by Quizilla

While I was at it, I got some other books, just in case it gets colder and I don't want to go out.

I got The Elegant Universe : Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory because I'm not feeling all that clear on superstring theory and a recent Scientific American article on a theory that described the universe essentially as a hologram whetted my appetite. And I picked up A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius because the title cracked me up, and it, like The Elegant Universe, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Those Pulitzer guys tend to have pretty good judgement about that sort of thing.

And about two pounds of comic books and I am good to go for a while.

I really don't like talking about things I don't have a good grip on. Batting around concepts in purely logical terms is fine, but in reality every system has its Tao, the natural way its component parts hang together and interact. For instance an automatic transmission doesn't operate logically and no amount of boolean logic will explain its function.

So, having had a really good salmon teriyaki in the Village, I hit Barnes and Noble and picked up Economics Explained: Everything You Need to Know About How the Economy Works and Where It's Going by Robert Heilbroner and Lester Thurow. When I'm done I'll see if I need to get deeper to talk rational shit.

I also got The Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto. The subtitle, "Why Capitalism Triumphs In The West And Fails Everywhere Else," indicates it covers some important material. It was an impulse buy, though, having never heard of the book before. Lots of props from conservative types, but that's not necessarily a flaw.

My boy Cobb wrote up something on the Thernstroms a little while back. I ain't say nothing at that point other than giving a high-five to a brother I hadn't heard from in long years, because I know Cobb handles his business.

The thread has picked up some traffic, it seems. But you know, I STILL can't say anything because Cobb has seriously given the best explanation of why the Thernstroms have no credibility with me.

Not like I intended this to be a series or anything, but if you start looking at this you can find snowjobs creating six foot drifts.

The third quarter was prior to the WONderful employment stats of the past few months. Basically, this says people were worked even harder than we thought. Proof?

More hours…but not more workers. Remember, we're talking third quarter here.

CAN pay workers more…but when was the last labor negotiation you heard of that didn't call for givebacks? Isn't that a significant method of achieving reportable productivity gains?

Of course,

I ask again: How well does The Economy track with the quality of life around these parts?

I'm really not suggesting we stop using statistics bcause we do, without question, need a way of understanding trends. I'm a real big proponent of detecting and using patterns in time as well as space.

The problem is when we're given statistics without context as the sole support for some position or decision.

Today's NY Times has another article about the "miracle" of the Dallas, TX school system's statistical gains, exposing what looks more and more like a scam.

These graphs compare Dallas' results on the Stanford Achievement Tests with Los Angeles' and those of the nation as a whole. The national comparison in particular strikes me as problematic…not only does it show that a passing grade (70) on the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills would put you in a pretty low percentile on the Stanford Achievement Tests, but that the percentile you'd fall into has gotten lower over the past few years.

Of course they leave no child behind. They're backing up over them. And this is in addition to the scandal of their false reporting on the dropout rate.

And Dallas isn't alone in this. California, or San Francisco at minimum, has institutionalized the practice of getting kids they consider problematic to "test out" of high school rather than graduate.

Now, one may choose to dispute theses statistics. But doesn't that further my point, that context is vital?

I'm not going to be able to catch up with every well written thing I missed overthe last two weeks, even if I confine myself to my blogroll, am I?

In the comments to What was that unemployment figure again?, buermann of Flagrancy to Reason said:

The thing is, historical unemployment figures HAVE been adjusted. This past summer. The whole method of calculating them was changed, and comparisions have been made against them since that time as if the figures lay immutable since the birth of the nation.

And the past isn't the only used to make today sound better. On Dec 1, the NY Times reported Manufacturing at Highest Level in Two Decades. What a turnaround from the gloom of the last few months, eh? Well, it's orders being reported.

And they say

Readiness. No hiring yet.

The very nature of manufacturing has changed such that there is a world-wide reduction in manufacturing jobs. And they got all these orders…of course there's a wide readiness to hire. If it become necessary. And if automation and productivity increases can handle it, it won't be necessary.

But The Economy, it'll look better and better.

Let's be real. How well does The Economy track with the quality of life around these parts?

It's snowing in NYC and I don't like snow. Especially when I have no option but to go out in it.

Or is it?

I'm just lifting this from Slashdot:

"With all of the furor over the Patriot Act a truly scary bill that expands the rights of corporations at the expense of individuals was quietly introduced into congress in October. In Feist v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co. the Supreme Court ruled that a mere collection of facts can't be copyrighted. But H.R. 3261, the Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act neatly sidesteps the copyright question and allows treble damages to be levied against anyone who uses information that's in a database that a corporation asserts it owns. This is an issue that crosses the political spectrum. Left-leaning organizations like the American Library Association oppose the bill and so do arch-conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly, who wrote an impassioned column exposing the bill for what it is the week after it was introduced."

I haven't read the linked editorials because I KNOW this sucks.

Governor Is Willing to Bend on Budget
Schwarzenegger says of what he was told about the pain of cutbacks: 'Now I understand.'

…In a reference to the nearly $4 billion in cuts he proposed over the next 19 months ? taking money from health-care programs, higher education and the developmentally disabled ? Schwarzenegger said: "I hate making cuts. Because it hurts me?. And now I understand when past governors said to me, 'Arnold, it will be tough decisions you'll have to make that are painful. We all make them.' I understood last week what that meant for the first time. Because I didn't quite understand what that meant. Those are painful decisions, to take money away from people."

Housing Case to Consider Possible Bias
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BALTIMORE, Nov. 30 (AP) ? It has been nearly nine years since Baltimore housing tenants filed a lawsuit accusing city and federal officials of creating a system of racially segregated rental units.

On Monday, the tenants' case goes to federal court, where they will argue that officials have consigned the neediest residents to the most distressed neighborhoods.

The tenants say the city housing authority and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development have perpetuated a bias over the last 50 years.

Experts say the lawsuit is one of the most important housing cases in 20 years. Should Judge Marvin J. Garbis of Federal District Court find that the tenants' civil rights were violated, he could specify changes in housing policy. A result could be judicial oversight of housing decisions.

The tenants say the city and HUD preserved the segregated system put in place in the 1930's and 1940's by continuing to build public housing in poor, mostly black areas.

But the city and HUD say concentrations of public housing residents in poor black neighborhoods are a result of demographics and broad policy decisions, not discrimination. [P6: Ahem. What "demographics" were used to determine the placement, hm?? Isn't it a coincidence that "demographics and broad policy decisions" would result in the exact same placement that was decided on in the 30's and 40's? Is it a stretch to say that racism is a broad policy decision based on demographics?]

Jeanne D'Arc:

Good idea
Avedon Carol notes that the anniversary of Bush v. Gore happens to fall a day after the National Institute of Standards holds a symposium on voting machines, making one of those days -- December 11 or 12 -- a perfect opportunity to fill the blogosphere with posts about electronic voting.

LATER: I'm late, Krugman is early.

John Constantine at Hellblazer keeps finding the most interesting things. Ya ought read the whole report he found--an Australian newspaper got it from a French news service so you can go into denial now if you like-- (LATER: The NY Times reports the discrepancy too, but they might as well be French, right?)

Well, I had some good news and felt like celebrating. And I couldn't do that when people keep finding all this kind of crap I'm responsible for:

Okay, I voted against the Shrub so I can claim innocence.

But every last damn one of you that vote for this…person, knowing this crap goes on, is an accomplice.

And I still get to be angry and disgusted.

Could you keep this layout, on accounta I can read it? Thanks.

I wasn't going to do this yet. But you start reading and listening and thinking…

My gay community ain't as big as it used to be. Not like it was ever that vast, and a significant chunk of it was lipstick lesbians anyway. It's more like I went this way and they went that way. So most of the people I've lost to AIDS weren't gay. The gay folks I knew established some discipline, fast.

And actually, if you don't care about gay folks getting AIDS, you wouldn't much care about the other folks I lost either. Hangout crew, street people, ex-junkies that cleaned up too late, but didn't find out for a couple of years.

I would say it doesn't matter WHAT you think. But it does. I know a guy who's HIV positive that didn't tell anyone for years. He didn't want to deal with the exile status. His girl found out later, and that sucks to the point I wanted to smack him.

He should have told her. But we all could have made it easier.

You don't have to be afraid of people who are HIV positive. You don't have to be afraid of people with AIDS. If you could catch it from just being around them, we'd all have it.

People with AIDS aren't evil. Some have been foolish, or unknowledgeable or just lied to. But they're not evil, and AIDS is no more a punishment than the flu…and a lot harder to catch than the flu.

I don't know if there's a lot of good biochemical news about AIDS. But I do know if we all weren't so stupid, frightened or closed-minded, there could be a lot less bad news on the personal tip.

First thing I read is Ronn at A Burst of Light pointing to a brother I should have known about before, forcing me to add yet another feed.

J. Bernard Jones at Edge of Night got one of those over-preachy spams about how 9/11 happened because we turned our back on God. Now, I ain't the one to talk about religion (we can go there all day about spirituality, but that's for the other blog I never made). But if I was to talk religion, I'd be saying stuff like:

and

…only I'd be a whole lot pissy-er about it.

Supreme Court Considers Foreign Arrests
Decision Will Determine if Federal Agents Can Sneak Into Foreign Countries to Make Arrests

By Fred Barbash
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 1, 2003; 1:38 PM

The Supreme Court said today it would consider whether the government has authority to go into another country to make an arrest without the permission of that country's government.

The justices acted at the request of the Justice Department, which argued that denial of that authority would have "profound consequences" on efforts to combat terrorism and illegal drug traffic.

The Justice Department asked the court to overturn an appeals court holding that such seizures exceed the government's legal authority and violate international law.

In theory, the lower court holding could conceivably interfere with the prosecution of al Qaeda suspects -- such as Osama bin Laden -- should they be captured overseas by U.S. agents or at the behest of U.S. agents without the cooperation of the nation harboring them.

The case presents the court with its second important terrorism-related case for the term. Last month, the justices said they would consider the government's denial of traditional legal rights to anti-terrorism detainees held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Today's case involved a Mexican doctor who was indicted in the United States in 1990 in connection with the abduction and murder five years earlier of Enrique Camarena-Salazar, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent operating in Mexico.

After failing using conventional means to get the accused man, Humberto Alvarez-Machain, sent to the United States, the DEA had him kidnapped by Mexican nationals and brought to the United States.

Ultimately, a trial court threw out the charges against Alvarez-Machain. He then sued the government and its agents for false arrest, demanding money damages.

Colorado Court Says Redistricting Is Unconstitutional
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 11:53 a.m. ET

DENVER (AP) -- In a decision with national implications, the Colorado Supreme Court threw out the state's new congressional districts Monday saying the GOP-led Legislature redrew the maps in violation of the state constitution.

The General Assembly is required to redraw the maps only after each Census and before the ensuing general election -- not at any other time, the court said in a closely watched 5-2 decision that followed party lines. A similar court battle is being waged in Texas.

Under the ruling, Colorado's seven congressional districts revert to boundaries drawn up by a Denver judge last year after lawmakers failed to agree.

The issue before the court was whether the redistricting map pushed through the Legislature by Republicans this year was illegal. Colorado's constitution calls for redistricting only once a decade and Democrats contended that task was completed by the judge.

Republicans said the map drawn by the judge was temporary and the law requires redistricting work to be done by the Legislature.

The court rejected that argument, saying: ``Because the General Assembly failed to redistrict during this constitutional window, it relinquished its authority to redistrict until after the 2010 census. There is no language empowering the General Assembly to redistrict more frequently or at any other time.''

The justices chastised the lawmakers for claiming they should be able to redraw the maps ``two, or even 10 times in a single decade.''

I think I'll start reading other folks' blogs again tomorrow. Might do some more structured writing too. We'll see...

(You decide who I'm less pleased with. I can't.)

Snowballing Debt Awaits Tomorrow's Taxpayers
Ronald Brownstein

December 1, 2003

Seniors with big prescription drug bills, health maintenance organizations awaiting lucrative new subsidies, upper-middle-class families anticipating a fat tax refund, and Iraqi cities expecting new schools or hospitals all have reason to be thankful about President Bush's extraordinary success at pushing his agenda through the Republican-controlled Congress this year.

There may be less celebration among the young people who will inherit the tab for these initiatives. Bush is funding every penny of every one of these goodies by increasing the national debt. Which is another way of saying that he's sticking the bill to the next generation.

The scale of the transfer is dizzying.

Va. Adultery Case Roils Divorce Industry
Conviction Draws Attention to Little-Used Law

By John F. Kelly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 1, 2003; Page B01

When John Raymond Bushey Jr. became the first person in as long as anyone can remember to be convicted of adultery in Virginia, several things happened:

He resigned his position as attorney for the Shenandoah Valley town of Luray, Va., a job he'd held for 32 years.

People who heard of his situation scratched their heads and said, "You mean, adultery is actually a crime?"

And those who wade into the messy aftermath of alleged infidelity -- divorce lawyers and private investigators -- started pondering what impact the ruling would have on their jobs.

As for the folks in Luray, they're just curious about what the snowy-haired Bushey -- 65 years old, married for 18 years to the town clerk and the very model of a courtly Southern lawyer -- was up to.

…Because the charges were filed in Virginia's lowest court, there are no records that reveal exactly what Bushey did, with whom he did it or why prosecutors would pluck such a rarely used statute from Virginia's criminal code and apply it to him. Bushey declined to be interviewed about the case. And the prosecutor wouldn't give many details of Bushey's Oct. 23 guilty plea, the result of a plea agreement.

"There's nobody peeping in a window saying, 'Mr. Bushey did this,' " said Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Glenn R. Williamson, when asked how authorities found out about the indiscretion. The complainant, he said, was the woman involved with Bushey. She has not been charged.

Although he pleaded guilty in District Court, Bushey is allowed to appeal to Circuit Court. On Halloween, that's what he did. More details might come out when the case goes before a judge Jan. 27. Until then, Williamson isn't discussing the case, beyond saying, "I think that the state has an interest in protecting the sanctity of marriage.[P6: and what is the value of that sanctity?]

Like other Class 4 misdemeanors in Virginia, adultery carries a maximum penalty of a $250 fine. Bushey paid half that, plus $36 in court costs. Adultery is also against the law in Maryland, where the penalty is a fine of $10, about the cost of a pecan bar and two large caramel macchiatos at Starbucks. The District will soon join about half of the states in the country by repealing its adultery statute.

All you marriage protectors, look after your own. Too damn many of you care more about the sanctity of what someone else does than about what you do.

Not like I've been paying attention to anyone else's blog over the last week, but I'm pretty sure this bit of news is making the rounds.

Has it dawned on anyone yet that having the mightiest military machine in the history of the planet doesn't make you invulnerable? That a little economic jiu-jitsu from will stop you faster than killing a couple of thousand of your guys? And what makes it jiu-jitsu is that you don't have to be strong enough to stop your opponent, just strong enough to redirect them into the nearest wall?

By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 1, 2003; Page A01

The Bush administration has decided to repeal most of its 20-month-old tariffs on imported steel to head off a trade war that would have included foreign retaliation against products exported from politically crucial states, administration and industry sources said yesterday.

The officials would not say when President Bush will announce the decision but said it is likely to be this week. The officials said they had to allow for the possibility that he would make some change in the plan, but a source close to the White House said it was "all but set in stone."

European countries had vowed to respond to the tariffs, which were ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization, by imposing sanctions on up to $2.2 billion in exports from the United States, beginning as soon as Dec. 15. Japan issued a similar threat Wednesday. The sources said Bush's aides concluded they could not run the risk that the European Union would carry out its threat to impose sanctions on orange juice and other citrus products from Florida, motorcycles, farm machinery, textiles, shoes, and other products.

Bush advisers said they were aware the reversal could produce a backlash against him in several steel-producing states of the Rust Belt -- including Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. That arc of states has been hit severely by losses in manufacturing jobs and will be among the most closely contested in his reelection race.

W.H.O. Aims to Treat 3 Million for AIDS
By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN

The World Health Organization called on developing countries yesterday to train and organize 100,000 health care and nonprofessional workers to carry out its plan to begin delivering antiretroviral drugs to three million AIDS patients by the end of 2005.

The organization, a United Nations agency, said 6 million of the 40 million people infected with the AIDS virus were in immediate need of antiretroviral treatment, but that only about 480,000 were receiving it.

The new program, which the organization said would cost at least $5.5 billion, is intended to reach half those in need by the end of 2005 ? two million more than would be reached by then without such a program.

In issuing a more detailed framework for its program, to coincide with World AIDS Day today, the organization also recommended four combinations of antiretroviral drugs that countries could use to start treatment. The list was vastly simplified from the 35 possible combinations the organization had recommended previously. All four combinations have been proved effective, though none include the powerful protease inhibitor drugs that are often prescribed in the United States and other wealthy countries.

Liberal Radio Group Says It Is Close to Acquiring 5 Stations
By JIM RUTENBERG

A Democratic investment group planning to start a liberal radio network to counterbalance conservative radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh says it is close to buying radio stations in five major cities.

The acquisitions would represent a major move toward making the network real. After its conception was announced in February, many radio analysts and even some Democratic activists predicted that the network would face too many challenges to get off the ground, including finding stations to run its programming and bucking a historical record replete with failed liberal radio attempts.

But executives with the newly formed company, Progress Media, said late last week that if all went as planned they would have the network running by early spring, in time to be part of the public dialogue during the presidential campaign season.

The executives said the stations they were acquiring reached all radios in 5 of the 10 largest media markets: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Boston. They said they would buy stations in other markets in the near future.

"We're steady as she goes to have a broadcast debut in early 2004, which gives us time to be part of the election year," said Mark Walsh, the company's chief executive and an Internet entrepreneur formerly with VerticalNet and America Online.

SUDAN: OIL COMPANIES COMPLICIT IN RIGHTS ABUSES
Sudan: Oil Companies Complicit in Rights Abuses

(London, November 25, 2003) ? The Sudanese government?s efforts to control oilfields in the war-torn south have resulted in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Foreign oil companies operating in Sudan have been complicit in this displacement, and the death and destruction that have accompanied it.

The report, "Sudan, Oil, and Human Rights," investigates the role that oil has played in Sudan?s civil war. This 754-page report is the most comprehensive examination yet published of the links between natural-resource exploitation and human rights abuses.

?Oil development in southern Sudan should have been a cause of rejoicing for Sudan?s people,? said Jemera Rone, Sudan researcher for Human Rights Watch. ?Instead, it has brought them nothing but woe.?

The report documents how the government has used the roads, bridges and airfields built by the oil companies as a means for it to launch attacks on civilians in the southern oil region of Western Upper Nile (also known as Unity state). In addition to its regular army, the government has deployed militant Islamist militias to prosecute the war, and has armed southern factions in a policy of ethnic manipulation and destabilization.

Human Rights Watch urged that the current peace negotiations deal comprehensively with the legacy of Sudan?s oil war, particularly the ethnic divisions that persist in oilfields of the south and threaten the long-term peace.

The report provides evidence of the complicity of oil companies in the human rights abuses. Oil company executives turned a blind eye to well-reported government attacks on civilian targets, including aerial bombing of hospitals, churches, relief operations and schools.

?Oil companies operating in Sudan were aware of the killing, bombing, and looting that took place in the south, all in the name of opening up the oilfields,? said Rone. ?These facts were repeatedly brought to their attention in public and private meetings, but they continued to operate and make a profit as the devastation went on.?

Let's see if anyone gets the title.

The Nation (Nairobi)
NEWS
November 24, 2003
Posted to the web November 24, 2003

By Ngumbao Kithi
Nairobi

A US-based organisation has called for the dissolution of the African Union and the establishment of a new continental body strictly for democratically elected governments.

The Free Africa Foundation president, Mr George Ayittey, from Ghana, said the AU could not solve conflicts because its leadership comprises "mafia states" practising politics of exclusion.

He suggested that the new body to take over from the AU should ensure independent and free Press in member states, independent Judiciary and electoral commission.

The Unemployment Myth
By AUSTAN GOOLSBEE

CHICAGO

The government's announcement on Tuesday that the economy grew even faster than expected makes the current "jobless recovery" even more puzzling. To give some perspective, unemployment normally falls significantly in such economic boom times. The last time growth was this good, in 1983, unemployment fell 2.5 percentage points and another full percentage point the next year. That's what happens in a typical recovery. So why not this time? Because we have more to recover from than we've been told.

The reality is that we didn't have a mild recession. Jobs-wise, we had a deep one.

The government reported that annual unemployment during this recession peaked at only around 6 percent, compared with more than 7 percent in 1992 and more than 9 percent in 1982. But the unemployment rate has been low only because government programs, especially Social Security disability, have effectively been buying people off the unemployment rolls and reclassifying them as "not in the labor force."

In other words, the government has cooked the books. It has been a more subtle manipulation than the one during the Reagan administration, when people serving in the military were reclassified from "not in the labor force" to "employed" in order to reduce the unemployment rate. Nonetheless, the impact has been the same.

The Productivity Paradox
By STEPHEN S. ROACH

Despite the economy's stunning 8.2 percent surge in the third quarter, the staying power of this economic recovery remains a matter of debate. But there is one aspect of the economy on which agreement is nearly unanimous: America's miraculous productivity. In the third quarter, productivity grew by 8.1 percent in the nonfarm business sector ? a figure likely to be revised upwards ? and it has grown at an average rate of 5.4 percent in the last two years.

This surge is not simply a byproduct of the business cycle, even accounting for the usual uptick in productivity after a recession. In the first two years of the six most recent recoveries, productivity gains averaged only 3.5 percent. The favored explanation is that improved productivity is yet another benefit of the so-called New Economy. American business has reinvented itself. Manufacturing and services companies have figured out how to get more from less. By using information technologies, they can squeeze ever increasing value out of the average worker.

It's a great story, and if correct, it could lead to a new and lasting prosperity in the United States. But it may be wide of the mark.

A two-passenger powered unicycle that hits 35 mph in learning mode?

The really sad thing is, you can start a movement that is totally principled, and have it undercut by demagogues.

In this case, it's Israel, which is NOT what those with the original dream intended:

Just picture Sharon's people even considering this.

Kibbutzim Fall, Settlements Rise -- and Israel Loses
By Jo-Ann Mort
Jo-Ann Mort is co-author (with Gary Brenner) of "Our Hearts Invented a Place: Can Kibbutzim Survive in Today's Israel?"

November 30, 2003

Here's a disturbing fact: There are now in Israel twice as many settlers as there are people living on kibbutzim. And that says a lot about the country's trajectory in recent years.

The Jewish settlers who live outside the pre-1967 Israeli borders like to compare their mission to that of the earlier generation of Jews who founded and fostered the kibbutz movement. But although it's true that both groups represent strains of Zionism and that each has had influence beyond its numbers on the direction of Israel, the missions of the settlers and those who established the collective settlements known as kibbutzim couldn't be further apart.

You want the truth? I really don't care that much about the war in Iraq. At least as compared to my concern about police state tactics here.

November 30, 2003

WASHINGTON ? The Justice Department's war on terrorism has drawn intense scrutiny from the left and the right. Now, a chief architect of the USA Patriot Act and a former top assistant to Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft are joining the fray, voicing concern about aspects of the administration's anti-terrorism policy.

At issue is the government's power to designate and detain "enemy combatants," in particular in the case of "dirty bomb" plot suspect Jose Padilla, the Brooklyn-born former gang member who was picked up at a Chicago airport 18 months ago by the FBI and locked in a military brig without access to a lawyer.

Civil liberties groups and others contend that Padilla ? as an American citizen arrested in the U.S. ? is being denied due process of law under the Constitution.

Viet Dinh, who until May headed the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy, said in a series of recent speeches and in an interview with The Times that he thought the government's detention of Padilla was flawed and unlikely to survive court review.

The principal intellectual force behind the Patriot Act, the terror-fighting law enacted by Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Dinh has steadfastly defended the Justice Department's anti-terrorism efforts against charges that they have led to civil-rights abuses of immigrants and others. While the Patriot Act does not speak to the issue of enemy combatants, his remarks still caught some observers by surprise.

In an interview, Dinh, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, said the Padilla case was not within his line of authority when he was in the department, but that he began to think about the issue later, and came to the conclusion that the administration's case was "unsustainable."

GOP Puts Its Mark on Congress and Deficit
By Janet Hook
Times Staff Writer

November 30, 2003

WASHINGTON ? A full year of Republican dominance of government has left a legacy rich in conservative triumphs: cutting taxes, building a muscular defense, restricting abortion.

But the year has also brought an extraordinary expansion of government power and spending that showed Republicans were willing to deep-six their party's traditional commitment to fiscal conservatism and limited government.

The Republican-controlled Congress has passed the third tax cut in as many years, an enormous Pentagon budget, a costly experiment in nation-building in Iraq and a vast expansion of Medicare ? all at the request of President Bush. Their actions have left the federal budget swimming in the largest deficits in history.

As one lawmaker heard from a Republican friend, "Democrats are the party of 'tax and spend'; Republicans are the party of 'don't tax ? and spend.' " That is the ironic product of the first full year since 1954 that Republicans have controlled the White House and Congress.

The site was down most of the day yesterday. I meant to post some more stuff, argue some more (who would have thought that folks would get so intense about FDA regs when that wasn't even the point of the post they were commenting on?), and generally make up for blowing off everyone's concerns but my own for a couple of days.

By the time the site came back, I was in a lengthy conversation you'd have needed a crowbar to get me away from. And you'd have had to hit me over the head with the crowbar—attempts to pry me away would have come up short.

So, all of you (with a single exception) should pretend yesterday didn't happen.