Quote of note:

Hughes' husband, Carlos, was convicted in 2002 of beating her. She separated from him after the attack and filed for divorce last April. She later became pregnant by another man and is due in March.

Her husband never contested the divorce, and Court Commissioner Pro Tem Julia Pelc approved it in late October.

However, the approved divorce papers didn't note that Hughes was pregnant. Sloyer filed amended papers to correct the omission, and the next day, she spoke with Bastine by phone. Bastine said he planned to rescind the divorce and then did so following a Nov. 4 hearing.

"It's not the child's fault that mom got pregnant," Bastine said. "The answer is, you don't go around doing that when you're not divorced."

via Steve Gilliard

Quote of note:

Klimkewicz refused an order to pick up his weapon at an armory and begin training with it, VandenBossche said. He was charged because he refused the order twice before stating religious reasons for his objection to it.

To rebut that charge, Klimkewicz volunteered to clear mines in Iraq, because those who do so do not carry a weapon. Twice, officials rejected his offer, Tyner said.

Newly found faith lands Marine in jail

Friday, December 31,2004

DARRYL Q. TUCKER

THE SAGINAW NEWS

Are You Damned?Hat tip to Professor Kim

You can laugh at the silly superstitions of the religious, safe in the knowledge that we are only dust and lies. All that will be left of you after you die is a slow decay and some fading memories in the minds of your friends. Hope you're enjoying your life at the moment- there's nothing better to come.

Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

Of course, to some that nets to a Yes...

Not because I don't like him but because I don't read Tapped much. I'm still annoyed at their position on identity politics.

But this one is hot.

...In both cases, though, the answer isn't to go pining away for the good old days. Among other things, those good old days barely existed. The 1970s were hardly the salad years of the US economy, and if you go much further back than that you're talking about an economic structure based on the systematic exclusion of women and African-Americans from broad swathes of social and economic life -- hardly a model we're going to return to. Instead, you need a public sector that responds to the realities of short-tenure employment. Offering health care as a universal guarantee rather than a contingent factor of employment.

All you Republican Christians better get together and excommunicate the sort of people who produce things like this as representative of YOUR deity.

You know what they say. If you're not part of the solution...

Early Black Cinema Finds New Life on DVD Set

Once thought lost, the "race movies," as they were known, which were shown mostly in the segregated movie houses of the old South, have been reproduced as a three-DVD boxed set called the Tyler, Texas Black Film Collection. In recent months, the boxed set has been distributed to 1,000 mostly poor school districts and black museums in Texas. There are tales about entrepreneurs, lawyers, novelists, preachers, musicians, cabdrivers and farmers. And, yes, the movies include gangsters, swindlers, bumblers, compulsive gamblers and plain mean folks. In plot, they're not much different from other Hollywood films of the pre- and post-World War II eras, but white society was never meant to see them.

Hat tip to Booker Rising, and (assuming I still get read after spanking that 'why negroes need Bush' thread) in return I offer to the full list and description of the movies as well as an order form to order it from SMU (if you got $250 bucks laying about the house).

I felt the need to shoot up a Republican on The American Street.

If you're one of the few folks that check The Niggerati Network, it may vanish briefly. MY ex-web host's pinheaded billing department decided to ignore my message telling them not to renew the account.

Fortunately, I traded in the credit card they have on record, so they can't bill me but they did put through some DNS entries...they say. After all, they didn't pay attention to the cancellation so they may have just ASSumed and sent out a fully automated message.

Anyway, the spot might vanish for a minute or two.

"Private and government economists" are almost inevitably type two economists, i.e., salespeople.

Risks Cloud a Sunny Forecast
Job Picture Looking Up, Dollar Down
By Nell Henderson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 2, 2005; Page F01

The U.S. job market should improve steadily this year, while consumer inflation eases and oil prices decline -- all good news, that is, if nothing goes wrong with the sunny economic forecasts released in recent weeks by many private and government economists.

The economy should continue to expand at a pace that is "not too hot . . . not too cold . . . just right," Macroeconomic Advisers LLC, the St. Louis-based forecasting firm, wrote in a recent report to clients, lifting a line from the Goldilocks tale.

But, of course, forecasts often go awry.

"Lest we be too complacent about the future, we need only remember that the story ended with Goldilocks running screaming from the three bears' house," the firm said, citing several risks to its projections.

Pope told churches not to return Jewish children after war
By Phil Stewart, Reuters | January 1, 2005

ROME -- Pope Pius XII ordered the church in France not to return Jewish children to their parents if they had been baptized into the Catholic faith to save them from the Nazis, according to a 1946 letter obtained by a historian.

The previously undisclosed Vatican directive was meant to serve as a guidepost for dealing with requests to reclaim children entrusted to Roman Catholics during World War II.

Many children were baptized and raised as Catholics during the war, a fact that often helped conceal their identities from the Nazis. But after the fighting, the Vatican apparently did not want baptized Catholics returning to Jewish communities.

Quote of note:

The two companies with the most business, nearly $700 million between them, were Boeing Co. and Integrated Coast Guard Systems, a partnership of defense contractors Lockheed Martin Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp.

Those companies have paid more than $250 million in the past three years to settle charges of improprieties involving their Pentagon contracts. Homeland Security audits also have accused the two companies of overcharging, in Boeing's case by $49 million.

US security contracts draw scrutiny
Questions raised on bidding process
By Matt Kelley, Associated Press | January 1, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The largest Homeland Security Department contractors include two companies that paid millions to settle charges they defrauded the Pentagon, one that paid a foreign corruption fine, and one accused of botching a computer system for veterans hospitals, records show.

About a quarter of the $2.5 billion awarded to the 50 largest Homeland Security contractors came under no-bid contracts, according to the department's records. At the Pentagon 44 percent of contracts were awarded under "other than full and open competition."

The rest of the money paid to the top contractors for Homeland Security, a bit more than $2 billion, was for contracts awarded through competition.

Some of the nation's largest federal contractors have won the new business of protecting America from terrorists, including many with a recent history of legal run-ins with the government, according to the records.

The two companies with the most business, nearly $700 million between them, were Boeing Co. and Integrated Coast Guard Systems, a partnership of defense contractors Lockheed Martin Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp.

Those companies have paid more than $250 million in the past three years to settle charges of improprieties involving their Pentagon contracts. Homeland Security audits also have accused the two companies of overcharging, in Boeing's case by $49 million.

Quote of note:

In "an open letter to the Christian church" last month, Charles W. Colson, the born-again Nixon aide and another influential Christian conservative, warned against listing demands of the president or other elected officials.

"To think that way demeans the Christian movement," Mr. Colson wrote with his associate Mark Earley. "We are not anybody's special interest group."

In an interview in his office in Colorado Springs, Dr. Dobson acknowledged that his plunge into partisan politics had irrevocably changed his public image. "I can't go back, nor do I want to," he said. "I will probably endorse more candidates. This is a new day. I just feel a real need to make use of this visibility."

Dude. That's what Nietzsche called "the will to power."

Sudan and Southern Rebels Sign Pact to End Civil War

By MARC LACEY

NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec. 31 - The government of Sudan signed a preliminary peace accord on Friday night with a rebel group from the country's impoverished south that could end one of Africa's longest-running civil wars, even as the conflict in the western Darfur region continued.

Representatives for the two sides met at a resort on Lake Naivasha, in Kenya, and signed a power-sharing agreement that is intended to become a permanent cease-fire.

The war in Sudan's western Darfur region involves different rebels, however, and peace talks aimed at quelling that conflict have faltered.

Congress Resists Key Recommendation of 9/11 Panel
Without Consolidation, Homeland Security Department Officials Report to 88 Panels on Capitol Hill

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 1, 2005; Page A04

Congress has balked at consolidating committee jurisdictions when it comes to overseeing the $39 billion Department of Homeland Security and its constituent agencies, a key recommendation of the Sept. 11 commission.

The commission found that homeland security officials reported to 88 congressional committees and subcommittees last year. The commission report cited an expert witness who called that "perhaps the single largest obstacle impeding the department's successful development."

Quote of note:

"Let us hope," the chief justice concluded, "that the Supreme Court and all of our courts will continue to command sufficient public respect to enable them to survive basic attacks on the judicial independence that has made our judicial system a model for much of the world."

Rehnquist Offers A Historical View
Fights Over Judicial Branch Are Nothing New, He Writes

By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 1, 2005; Page A03

As speculation continues to swirl over his future on the Supreme Court, ailing Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist urged Americans to view the current debate over the ideological direction of the federal judiciary in historical perspective.

Average-Wage Earners Fall Behind
New Job Market Makes More Demands but Fewer Promises

By Jonathan Krim and Griff Witte
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 31, 2004; Page A01

ST. CHARLES, Mo. -- Teresa Geerling is living the future of life in the middle of the American workforce.

After years cleaning the insides of airplanes and polishing their outsides, Geerling was laid off from American Airlines last year. The job was physically taxing for Geerling, 50, but the nearly $32,000 annual pay and health-care coverage helped provide a typical middle-class life in this small midwestern community.

I was 37 when I wrote this (when you're a Chaos Lord, at 37 you're still a babe in arms).

Why America Needs Us To Be Black
by Earl Dunovant © 1994

July 4th is celebrated as the birthday of the United States of America. Though it is the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, it is not the day America was born. America was born August 20, 1619. That's the day British pirates landed a Dutch ship on the shores near Jamestown, Virginia. That's the day pirates sold the first 20 Africans to British colonists, setting the North American continent on a course that has since shaped the world.

One hundred fifty seven years later, after considerable wrangling to make slavery legally, religiously...automatically...acceptable, after artisans, metal workers, laborers, cooks, and servants built the landscape and economy of this nation, after the well-being of the majority was insured by labor of the last tribe of Africa, a nation was declared to be born based on the words of Thomas Jefferson - "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"

New rape-treatment debate

By Marie McCullough
Knight Ridder Newspapers

PHILADELPHIA   The Justice Department has issued its first-ever medical guidelines for treating sexual-assault victims   without mention of emergency contraception, the standard precaution against pregnancy after rape.

Omission of the so-called morning-after pill has frustrated and angered victims' advocates and medical professionals.

Washington and four other states   California, Illinois, New Mexico and New York   have laws requiring hospitals to provide the contraception, or at least tell victims how to obtain the pills.

Gail Burns-Smith, one of several dozen experts who vetted the protocol during its three-year development by Justice's Office on Violence Against Women, said emergency contraception was included in an early draft, and she does not know of anyone who opposed it.

Quote of note:

And this turns out to be utterly typical of the way conservatives practice fiscal restraint. Their strategy of "starving the beast"   trimming down government by depriving it of revenue   is not supposed to chop down spending per se; it's supposed to get rid of waste. As it happens, though, waste has flourished while Washington has sacrificed lots of necessary spending.

Billions for Pork as Science Is Slashed
Damn the future, the GOP wants to buy votes today.
JONATHAN CHAIT

Ethics: In the Eye of the Beholden?
Conflict-of-interest woes involving House and Senate members have resulted in wrist slaps and promises -- but little actual reform.
By Walter F. Roche Jr.

December 31, 2004

WASHINGTON   Faced with mounting evidence that current ethics rules do not cover new ways lobbyists have devised to win favor with members of Congress, the House ethics committee plans to unveil an array of proposed changes next year.

But the proposed changes appear likely to loosen ethics restrictions, not tighten them.

Soldier Shot While Allegedly Vandalizing Homes
Lake Elsinore man fired on group toilet-papering houses, police say. Victim was on leave.
By Janet Wilson and Seema Mehta

December 31, 2004

A Lake Elsinore man allegedly chased down and shot a soldier home on leave from Iraq early Thursday, after catching him with a group toilet-papering his yard and other homes in the neighborhood. Aubrey Weldon, 34, a construction worker, was so angry about his Riverside County neighborhood being festooned with toilet paper that he chased down the group in his truck on the 29000 block of 3rd Street, started fighting with them and then pulled out a handgun and opened fire at 12:30 a.m., said Sgt. Earl Quinata of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department.

Army Spc. Daniel Alvarado Jr., 25, of Temecula was shot in the head and was in critical condition in Loma Linda Medical Center, authorities said. Robert Limon, 22, of Temecula was grazed by a bullet and was treated at another hospital.

Weldon was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and was booked into Southwest Detention Center, Quinata said. His bail has been set at $500,000.

Investigators were questioning others involved, and authorities said vandalism charges could be filed against those who toilet-papered the homes.

An Army spokesman said Alvarado is an active Army specialist with Charlie Company, 123rd Main Support Battalion. That battalion was in Iraq this summer. A Riverside County official said Alvarado was home on leave.

Michael Lombardi, who said he is Weldon's best friend and owns the house where Weldon lives, defended his roommate.

"It's a damn shame it had to turn out that way, but you have to protect what's yours," Lombardi said. "I'm not saying [Alvarado] got what he deserved. I hope he lives. I really do for my roommate's benefit . [But] don't paint this rosy little picture of innocent little teens. The man lying in the [hospital] bed is 25 years old."

Because copied the text and picture to the clipboard and pasted it into the pre-alpha MTClient I'm shaking out.

It came over with links, formatting and the image intact. Then I dragged the image to where I wanted it to display.

I still have one absurd clipboard issue to work out. But hey, it's an alpha version. And I'm thinking I may set it up for download today. It will definitely be ready for testing early next week.

Wright reveals Browder, Season Nine plans
WEDNESDAY - DECEMBER 22, 2004

Executive producer Brad Wright answered many nagging questions about the future of Stargate SG-1 in today's installment of Chicago Tribune columnist Maureen Ryan's "The Watcher" -- including new details on actor Ben Browder's new character.

"He's the F-302 pilot (our Earth-designed space fighter) that led the squadron that fought Anubis in Antarctica," Wright revealed. The climactic battle took place in the Season Seven finale, "Lost City, Part 2." "He was badly injured when his fighter crashed, nearly killed -- but was was promised a place on SG-1 if he made it back to fighting form." Executive producer Robert C. Cooper recently said that the character has played a role in SG-1's past, which will be shown on-screen through flashbacks (story). The character's intended name has not yet been cleared through legal channels.

Two Tenn. Couples Charged in $1.5 Million Scheme Aimed at Wal-Mart Stores

By Colin Fly
Associated Press Writer

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Two couples have been charged in a price-switching scheme that allegedly defrauded Wal-Mart stores in 19 states of $1.5 million over the last decade.

Authorities said the scheme involved using a home computer to produce UPC bar codes for cheaper products and slipping them over the real codes on high-priced items. The suspects then allegedly sold the merchandise, or returned it for refunds or store gift cards that also were sold.

Quote of note:

Locals acknowledge that this is an unusual place to find a black community of any size. Populations of African Americans rarely rise above the 1% mark in the 20 counties north of Sacramento.

However, in Weed   a town with one supermarket and one drugstore, and where bowling is on the Chamber of Commerce's list of popular pastimes   blacks are part of a vibrant ethnic patchwork of residents who trace their roots to Italy, Mexico and Southeast Asia, among other places.

Blacks in Weed were not untouched by the pre-civil rights era racial hostility that marred much of America. The Southerners who ran the mill segregated the housing provided to blacks, Mexicans, Italians and whites.

Certain stores refused to hire blacks, and from 1955 to 1958, African Americans in Weed participated in anti-segregation student protests and sit-ins. In the 1960s, Weed was even visited by a contingent of the militant Black Panthers.

Still, a certain level of racial harmony and social decorum remained. The schools, for example, were never segregated.

A Shrinking Presence
Longtime Haven's Black Population Dwindles
By Ann M. Simmons

Quote of note:

The Times reviewed the disclosures of all nine justices for the years 1998 through 2003, the only period of time for which disclosure forms were still on file at the court. They reported receiving cash, which they usually gave to charity, but kept or used various valuable items, mementos and club memberships.

In that six-year period, Thomas accepted $42,200 in gifts, making him the top recipient.

Next in that period was Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who accepted $5,825 in gifts, mostly small crystal figurines and other items. She also reported an $18,000 award in 2003 from the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, but listed it as income. The money was for the society's Benjamin Franklin Award for Distinguished Public Service. She gave other cash awards to charity.

Third was Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who accepted a $5,000-award from Fordham University   the only gift he reported for the six-year period.

In addition, The Times obtained a full set of disclosure forms for Thomas' 13-year tenure on the court, as well as forms dating to 1992 from Justice Antonin Scalia, 1993 for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and 1996 for O'Connor. (The official disclosure forms are removed from the public file after six years.)

Since joining the court, Thomas reported accepting gifts valued at $47,745. He also reported other gifts without citing a dollar value, ranging from "small gifts and flowers" to free plane trips and accommodations from friends.

Justice Thomas Reports Wealth of Gifts
In the last six years he has accepted free items valued at $42,200, the most on the high court.
By Richard A. Serrano and David G. Savage
Times Staff Writers

Quote of note:

In fact, multitasking   a computing term that involves doing, or trying to do, more than one thing at once   has cemented itself into our daily lives and is intensely studied. Research has shown it to be consistently counterproductive, often foolish, unhealthy in the long run, and in the case of gabbing on the cell phone while driving, relatively dangerous. Yet it is also expected, encouraged and basically essential.

Do you have never-ending deadlines? Job uncertainty? A dual-income family life with kids? A do-more-with-less workplace? Then you multitask.

Life Interrupted
Plugged into it all, we're stressed into distraction

You shouldn't be ignoring all the new sources of news and analysis you found during campaign season.

Quote of note:

Secrecy -- and the conflicts of interest that it promotes -- clouds the decision-making process of government in issues as diverse as medical guidance to the nation's physicians and the acquisition of aircraft. And those are just the instances that have come to light in recent days.

The Secrets War

"A huge door is closing within our government," Steven Aftergood, a government secrecy expert at the Federation of American Scientists, recently told the Federal Times. "The message is: 'We don't want you talking to anybody outside of government.'"

As the Bush administration prepares to begin its second term, much has been written about the president's intolerance for dissent or even raised eyebrows among those closest to him. Less attention, however, has been paid to efforts by the White House to restrict access to vast amounts of information and to create an atmosphere in which secrecy is rewarded and criticism silenced.

This is the type of story -- a gradual erosion instead of a single, headline-grabbing event -- that most in the press tend to overlook. Yet in the coverage of government, it may be the most significant event of all. Aftergood's comments came in response to new efforts by the Department of Homeland Security to keep sensitive -- but unclassified -- information out of the public domain. According to a department directive cited by the Federal Times, "employees and contractors can be searched at any place or any time to ensure they are in compliance with the policy. They can also face administrative, civil or criminal penalties if they violate the rules."

Violence Against Iraq Troops Takes Toll

Deadly Year in Iraq Has Grown Worse Since Summer As Military Struggles to Adjust Tactics

The Associated Press

Dec. 31, 2004 - Key measures of the level of insurgent violence against American forces in Iraq, numbers of dead, wounded and insurgent attacks, show the situation has gotten worse since the summer.

While those numbers don't tell the full story of the conflict in Iraq, they suggest insurgents are growing more proficient, even as the size of the U.S. force increases and U.S. commanders succeed in soliciting more help from ordinary Iraqis.

For example:

The U.S. military suffered at least 348 deaths in Iraq over the final four months of the year, more than in any other similar period since the invasion in March 2003.

These NPR pages have audio of the interviews.

Jason DeParle, 'A Nation's Drive to End Welfare'

Fresh Air from WHYY, September 20, 2004 · DeParle is The New York Times' welfare policy reporter. His new book is American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids and a Nation's Drive to End Welfare. DeParle tracks the lives of three families in Milwaukee affected by welfare reform laws.

George Will should have listened to these interviews before he wrote that garbage. Jason DeParle's book SO debunks everything Will's editorial implies, I see his editorial as a preemptive strike.

It's not a simple story at all.

I need this book. And you need to hear this interview with Mr. DeParle. Somewhere around 24 minutes gets really amazing.

Understand this is about the Wisconsin Welfare Miracle, and their privatization of welfare. The mismanagement makes the handling of Dallas' NCLB precursor look like inspired leadership.

LATER: Here's a link to the stupidness that annoyed me.

I gave George Will the benefit of the doubt to some degree this morning.

But check this:

'American Dream': The Effects of Welfare Reform

Weekend Edition - Saturday, December 4, 2004 · One notable absence from the panoply of issues raised in this year's presidential campaign was how to provide for those millions of Americans who receive some kind of welfare assistance.

President Bill Clinton vowed in 1992 that he would "end welfare as we know it." Four years later, he worked with a Republican-controlled Congress to enact sweeping reforms meant to move millions of Americans off the welfare rolls and into jobs.

New York Times senior writer Jason DeParle's book American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation's Drive to End Welfare examines the effect of these reforms. DeParle and Angela Jobe, a woman affected by the law who is featured in the book, join NPR's Scott Simon.

From this interview, it's obvious Will twisted the book, and horribly misrepresented Angela Jobe. And as a wordsmith I know it was willful.

Fuck George Will.

Abiola at Foreign Dispatches is linking to a story in The Guardian about the source and expression of anti-Japanese nationalism in China.

Chauvinism as Catharsis

A Guardian story makes explicit something I've long believed: that the intensity of the hatred expressed by so many young Chinese towards Japan is nothing other than a redirection of discontents they feel with the state of their own society onto an acceptable scapegoat, with government approval and encouragement. To hear some Chinese nationalists rage, one would never know that the Communist Party has taken far many more Chinese victims than the Japanese did throughout their bloodsoaked excursions into adventurism.

This is probably evil of me, but I immediately read White American for Chinese and Black American for Japanese.

The support forum for my MTClient software is an open source BBS package called YaBB SE. I'd give you a link to the distribution site but there is none anymore...the project changed its name to SimpleMachines. And after like a year of beta testing, they just released version 1 with upgrade from YaBB SE version.

It is a significant upgrade to what I thought was the best forum software out there.

And I gotta get to it sooner or later.

le sigh

Time-Warner provides my cable connection. They have a cable box with a PVR built in, very TiVo-like, for nine bucks per month.

Tomorrow a particular sale ends whereby I can get a rather potent box, 160 gig hard drive, 512 megs ram, for $650. With another $100 or so I can get a PVR card for the box. This way I can not only TiVo-tize I can edit and manipulate, burn DVDs and alla that. Pay for itself in six years (unless I decide to charge folks for burning their old vinyl to CD).

I will decide by 10 am tomorrow. I am taking advice tonight.

You're going to need this. And it's free.

Essential XML Quick Reference: A Programmer's Reference to XML, XPath, XSLT, XML Schema, SOAP, and More

Addison-Wesley and Developmentor have provided TheServerSide.NET with the entire book of Essential XML Quick Reference for free download. Essential XML Quick Reference is for anyone working with today's mainstream XML technologies. It was specifically designed to serve as a handy but thorough quick reference that answers the most common XML-related technical questions.It goes beyond the traditional pocket reference design by providing complete coverage of each topic along with plenty of meaningful examples. Each chapter provides a brief introduction, which is followed by the detailed reference information. This approach assumes the reader has a basic understanding of the given topic.The detailed outline (at the beginning), index (in the back), bleeding tabs (along the side), and the page headers/footers were designed to help readers quickly find answers to their questions.

About the Authors

Aaron Skonnard is a founder of PluralSight and a contributing editor to MSDN Magazine, where he writes "The XML Files" column.
Martin Gudgin works at Microsoft, where he spends his time thinking about component software and related technologies. A Windows developer since 1987 and a COM developer since 1994, Martin has trained and mentored developers from a wide range of companies, including Microsoft, in numerous technical areas such as COM, IDL, MTS, COM+ and XML. He is a member of several W3C Working Groups, including XML Schema and SOAP.

The Progressive Blog Alliance is running on CivicSpace (nee Drupal)? And hosted by SmartCampaigns?

I just browsed back to the first message and this has been going on for a month. Goes to show how little attention I've been paying last few weeks, I guess.

It's a pretty wild-west kind of experiment. Looks like it might actually thrive, and its organization gives me ideas for The Niggerati Network...though they built their community before building their community site. That's usually a good idea and frankly is one of the major holes in my skill set.

Quote of note:

At one point, then-President Bill Cullom noticed Luna had upgraded his wardrobe and was traveling extensively. ''He told people he won a million-dollar lottery in Washington state,'' Cullom said.

Trusted chamber workers charged in theft
Using low-tech tools, including a typewriter with a corrective ribbon for altering checks, two employees stole $1.9 million from the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce, authorities say.

By GREGG FIELDS

Two former high-ranking employees in charge of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce's financial operations were arrested Wednesday and face charges in the theft of $1.9 million from the business organization.

Ill riff of note:

Cheney again touted his "Ohio roots" and told the crowd it "seems to me you all would want to send a homeboy back to the White House."

Homeboy! Dick is illin', dawg...

Aight, here's a better one.

Cheney boasted in Toledo that his ancestor had fought in Georgia and was "in Sherman's march to the sea through Atlanta." He added: "I don't talk about that much in Georgia."

Seriously...every Civil War re-enactment further convinces me Black people would be stupid to let go of all that before white folks do.

Anyway...

George Will has an editorial in the Washington Post derived from American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation's Drive to End Welfare by Jason Deparle, a new book that I am totally unfamiliar with outside of this editorial.

The editorial itself is a pretty standard presentation of pretty standard fare on welfare reform so I don't intend to go into it in detail but I'm reacting on the fly here and don't really know how long this post will be. There are a few things in there I feel can be rescued from Mr. Will's world view, and a few things that give the whole editorial a really unfortunate spin that, as a fellow wordsmith, I know was unnecessary.

They are cases of the media telling people what was known by experts all along, far too late for the information to do any good.

Nuclear Capabilities May Elude Terrorists

Experts point to enormous technical and logistical obstacles confronting would-be nuclear terrorists. Senior officials on President Bush's national security team believe al Qaeda has shifted its attention to other efforts, at least for now.

Terrorists Separated From Biowarfare

Myriad technical obstacles could face terrorists who try to manufacture biological weapons, problems that would confound even skilled scientists who tried to help them, biological warfare experts say.

Quote of note:

The new generation of ID cards must be able to digitally store biometric data such as facial photographs and fingerprint images, bear contact and contactless interfaces, and allow the encryption of data that can be used to electronically verify the user's identity, according to NIST draft standards.

Such cards will be required for all federal employees, including members of the military, as well as for employees of private organizations and state and local governments who regularly require access to federally controlled facilities and computer systems. That is a universe of more than 2 million people, said W. Curt Barker, the project manager at NIST.

Single Government ID Moves Closer to Reality
High-Tech Cards Are Designed to Bolster Security

Quote of note:

With such variation at the grass-roots level, it's not fair to say that all charter schools are failures. Yet clearly we have enough evidence to suggest that the free-market ideals that fueled this reform movement are at best misguided and at worst harmful to the most disadvantaged students. It was this rhetoric that persuaded lawmakers in 42 states to pass laws establishing some 3,000 charter schools, which have enrolled nearly 700,000 children. It is this set of principles that lawmakers must reconsider.

Charter Schools: Lessons in Limits
By Amy Stuart Wells
Wednesday, December 29, 2004; Page A19

Do you have any idea how much this needs to be recognized?

The Next Economy

By Robert J. Samuelson

Wednesday, December 29, 2004; Page A19

We are undergoing a profound economic transformation that is barely recognized. This quiet upheaval does not originate in some breathtaking technology but rather in the fading power of forces that have shaped American prosperity for decades and, in some cases, since World War II. As their influence diminishes, the economy will depend increasingly on new patterns of spending and investment that are still only dimly apparent. It is unclear whether these will deliver superior increases in living standards and personal security. What is clear is that the old economic order is passing.

I am not bitching per se because this sort of investigation would have prevented a lot of the abuses of early affirmative action programs.

Quote of note:

Among the contract recipients the SBA report listed as too large to count as small businesses was Raytheon Co., which it said won small-business contracts worth $126.7 million. "Raytheon works diligently to comply with all federal contracting regulations," said James Fetig, a spokesman for the company.

U.S. Overestimated Small-Business Dollars
Some Contract Awards Didn't Qualify
By Annys Shin

House Ethics Panel Chief May Be Replaced
By Mike Allen

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 29, 2004; Page A04

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert is leaning toward removing the House ethics committee chairman, who admonished House Majority Leader Tom DeLay this fall and has said he will treat DeLay like any other member, several Republican aides said yesterday.

Although Hastert (Ill.) has not made a decision, the expectation among leadership aides is that the chairman, Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.), long at odds with party leaders because of his independence, will be replaced when Congress convenes next week.

Stop Sweating Social Security -- the End Is Not Near
By Kevin Drum

Kevin Drum is a writer for the Washington Monthly.

December 29, 2004

I used to be a Social Security doom-monger. Like everyone else my age, I knew the familiar drill: Social Security is a demographic time bomb. Life expectancies are increasing. The baby boom generation is getting ready to retire. Every year we have a smaller number of workers supporting a larger number of retirees.

Politicians were eager to feed my fears. Bill Clinton urged us to "take action now to avert a crisis in the Social Security system." Al Gore made the Social Security "lockbox" a centerpiece of his presidential campaign. And George W. Bush insisted earlier this month that Social Security was "headed toward bankruptcy down the road." As a result, most young people today are convinced that Social Security will be gone by the time they retire.

But what if something that "everybody knows" turns out to be a political myth? What if Social Security isn't in trouble at all?

The Perfect Candidate for Iraq
Patt Morrison

December 29, 2004

Some time around high noon EST, three weeks from today, George W. Bush will be sworn in for a second term as president, or as some of us think of it, "Dubya Dubya Too."

Ten days after that, Iraqis will strap on their body armor and go to the polls to vote for leaders of their own. More than 100 slates of candidates are in the running, but I know whom Iraq voters' choice should be. Who better to govern Iraq than the man who broke it, bought it and now pledges to put it back together again: George W. Bush?

Like the Lone Ranger, Bush can make the claim to Americans that his work here is done. He has made his point: The Bush family second-term curse has been broken. It's all lame-duck downhill from here. So why not share his gospel of freedom in person and double-down democracy?

There are so many reasons, political and personal, that Bush should be the president of post-Hussein Iraq. Iraq could suit Bush a lot better than the Beltway culture of white-shoe lawyers and lobbyists and think-tank intellectuals. The man who is pleased to "see freedom on the march" has earned the right to see it marching up close, from the reviewing stands of the Baghdad parade ground.

The reasons for Bush to become president of Iraq:

No, I'm not giving you the reasons.

Quote of note:

Creating a new race category wasn't what the bureau had in mind. In 1990 and 2000, in hopes of reducing the number of Latinos identifying as "other," it tried to convey more clearly that its ethnicity and race questions should be answered independently. But to no avail. Today, about 6% of Americans, or more than 1 in 20, count themselves as "some other race," and the overwhelming majority of them are Latinos. Like it or not, nearly half of the Latino population considers itself a race.

And if that's not enough to chew on for a while:

Certainly the notion of a new race emphasizes the fact that such categories primarily reflect social ideas and practices, not natural, immutable divisions among humans. And the Latino community's insistence on being considered a race also challenges the conservative mantra that the U.S. no longer needs such categories because it is moving quickly toward race blindness.

The Birth of a 'Latino Race'

Journalist: Transcriber or Illuminator?

Today, in a story about the new "Pentagon Channel," the Washington Times lets it readers know exactly what it believes to be the role of the national media. Here's the lede of the Times' piece:

The Pentagon has created its own 24-hour television channel to cut out the middleman -- the national media -- in covering news events at the headquarters of the world's most powerful military.

The national media, it seems, is "the middleman" -- a phrase that implies its share of shadiness. The media's role, in this characterization, is merely that of a profit-driven peddler who adds nothing of value to the goods he's passing along. In other words, something we'd be better off without.

Court Backs Firing of Waitress Without Makeup
Tue Dec 28, 2004 02:42 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A female bartender who refused to wear makeup at a Reno, Nevada, casino was not unfairly dismissed from her job, a U.S. federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday.

Darlene Jespersen, who had worked for nearly 20 years at a Harrah's Entertainment Inc casino bar in Reno, Nevada, objected to the company's revised policy that required female bartenders, but not men, to wear makeup.

A previously much-praised employee, Jespersen was fired in 2000 after the firm instituted a "Beverage Department Image Transformation" program and she sued, alleging sex discrimination.

You can't prescribe marijuana...

Ecstasy to be tested on terminal cancer patients
FDA approves study to see if drug helps people face final days
The Associated Press
Updated: 6:49 a.m. ET Dec. 28, 2004

WASHINGTON - The illegal club drug Ecstasy can trigger euphoria among the dance club set, but can it ease the debilitating anxiety that cancer patients feel as they face their final days?

The Food and Drug Administration has approved a pilot study looking at whether the recreational hallucinogen can help terminally ill patients lessen their fears, quell thoughts of suicide and make it easier for them to deal with loved ones.

 End of life issues are very important and are getting more and more attention, and yet there are very few options for patients who are facing death,  Dr. John Halpern, the Harvard research psychiatrist in charge of the study, said Monday.

The small, four-month study is expected to begin early next spring. It will test the drug s effects on 12 cancer patients from the Lahey Clinic Medical Center in the Boston area. The research is being sponsored by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a nonprofit group that plans to raise $250,000 to fund it.

...but you can test Ecstasy.

No Change in Timetable for Tax Overhaul-W.House
Tue Dec 28, 2004 01:44 PM ET

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - The White House insisted on Tuesday that the timetable for President Bush's proposed revamp of the tax code had not changed and Bush sees it as a top priority.

"The president made it quite clear that tax reform is a top priority in his second term," said White House spokesman Trent Duffy, adding that the White House will soon appoint members of a bipartisan commission to study changes to the tax code.

"The timetable has not changed and it's moving forward," Duffy said.

Ezra at Pandagon:

Lakoff's Salty Tears

Brad's post on the economic agendas of liberals reminds me of something I've been meaning to talk about for awhile now. We really must stop calling ourselves fiscally conservative (and, for the record, I've been guilty of it too). We are fiscally responsible and linguistically stupid, as we believe in economics (and yes, it's gotten to the point where believing in economics actually differentiates you from the Administration) and have been lazy enough to tie our basic respect for mathematics to the opposing party's philosophy. We should stop doing that.

Yup.

Boom creates jobs, but leads to low pay
THE DEVELOPMENT BOOM IS PRODUCING JOBS FOR LABORERS, BUT THE WORK CAN BE STRENUOUS AND DOESN'T PAY VERY WELL

BY PATRICK DANNER

Keith Jones jabs a scraper at the stucco that had fallen onto a sidewalk at Harbor Shops, a retail development under construction off 17th Street Causeway in Fort Lauderdale.

Columbia Journalism Review's Campaign Desk didn't fold up shop last month. And being a journalism review and all, they interviewed Edmund L. Andrews, who writes about economic policy for the New York Times, on reporting about Bush's raid on Social Security. Here's a nice quote.

E.A.:There are several issues that people need to be very, very skeptical about when they hear the rhetoric. They need to be quite skeptical of claims that there is a crisis coming that needs to be addressed right now in a particular way. They need to be very skeptical of any claim that personal savings accounts are the solution to this crisis or shortfall -- because they aren't. They may have a lot of virtues but they really don't do much one way or the other to solve the problem. Some argue that they even, in the long term, make the fiscal gap worse.

Here's another.

More Than Mind Matters
Mental and Physical Ailments Deserve Equal Health Care Coverage
By Allen Lebovits

Monday, December 27, 2004; Page A29

A recently released medical study confirms that poor mental health and stress can cause us to age more quickly and get sick faster -- that there are actually molecular changes in the body when we are stressed. This probably isn't surprising to most people. Mental health professionals, through their experiences with patients, have long known that the mind plays a major role in the health of the body. But the landmark study published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences solidifies it.

In the course of writing this post at The Niggerati Network, I discovered two resources that were new to me.

First was the newspaper from which I got the articles I linked to, The Louisiana Weekly

Welcome to The Louisiana Weekly

For over seventy-five years The Louisiana Weekly has articulated the interests of Louisiana's African-American community. We are proud of our longevity, and hope we have been useful. But times have changed.

It is our belief that life is about education - mental, emotional, social and spiritual learning, and personal growth. The more learning and growth we experience, the richer and more meaningful life becomes. Henceforth The Louisiana Weekly will attempt to represent the interests of our multicultural community in its individual and collective quest for a richer, more dimensional, and meaningful quality of life.

Second was The Schott Foundation for Public Education, which produced Public Education and Black male students: A State Report Card, in which they make a very interesting statement:

That Line at the Ferrari Dealer? It's Bonus Season on Wall Street

By JENNY ANDERSON

Samantha Kleier Forbes, a 30-year-old real estate broker, was getting ready to leave for a vacation to Florida with her mother and sister when she got an urgent call. It was a client who had spent the summer scouring the Upper East Side of Manhattan for an apartment priced between $4 million and $5 million.

The client insisted on seeing more apartments that day, but now she wanted to look in the $6 million range. Her husband, a banker at Goldman Sachs in his late 30's, had just received his year-end bonus.

Quote of note

Over the past two years, Treasury - like state under Mr. Powell - has become a neutered giant, looking for direction from an often distracted or otherwise engaged White House. Meanwhile, the policy arms of entire parts of the government have been withering as career staffers leave for jobs where they can at least use their expertise and training.

The Cabinet of Incuriosities

By RON SUSKIND

WASHINGTON

AS President Bush remakes his administration for his second term, the most important member of his new cabinet may turn out to be the one he was unwilling - or unable - to replace: Treasury Secretary John Snow.

Pot packages found inside bales of hay

December 27, 2004

VAN BUREN, Ark. --A Massachusetts man was arrested the day after a state trooper found 27 packages of suspected marijuana nested in bales of hay inside a horse trailer.

State police say Everton Garriques, 45, of Hingham, Mass., was a passenger in the pickup truck pulling the trailer during the Christmas Day stop. Police said they found more than 800 pounds of what they believe is marijuana hidden inside the trailer.

Police stopped the truck for speeding and having no license plate light, according to a state police dispatcher. After receiving conflicting information from Garriques and the driver, Dale Barrett, 23, of Lithonia, Ga., the trooper asked for and received consent to conduct a search, the dispatcher said.

Unhealthy conditions ripe for disease

By Stephen Smith, Globe Staff  |  December 28, 2004

Survivors from the gargantuan tsunami that swept across Asia will face a host of new threats in the coming days and weeks: viruses and bacteria in the water, diseases seeping from human remains, and the vulnerability to bugs and other predators that comes from having no shelter.

"Whatever number of people have been killed immediately by the tsunami, the possibility of a doubling or a tripling of that number through secondary public-health issues is possible," said Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

Chavez predicts energy deals with China to boost trade to $3b

By Fabiola Sanchez, Associated Press  |  December 28, 2004

CARACAS -- President Hugo Chavez said oil and gas deals he recently signed with the Chinese, part of a strategy to reduce his country's reliance on US export markets, will boost trade with the Asian country to nearly $3 billion next year.

Speaking to reporters yesterday after his return from a five-day visit to Beijing, Chavez said the trip brought "great results" for Venezuela.

The agreements allow Chinese companies to explore for oil, set up refineries, and produce natural gas in the South American country, officials said earlier.

Plan for Social Security relies on an immediate, familiar Bush strategy

By Peter S. Canellos, Globe Staff  |  December 28, 2004

WASHINGTON -- The run-up to President Bush's plan to deal with Social Security is looking a lot like the run-up to his plan to deal with Saddam Hussein.

The expected Social Security shortfall has been a perennial domestic concern in much the same way that Hussein's intransigence with arms inspectors was a perennial foreign-policy concern: From the White House to Congress to think tanks, policy makers worried about it, but presidents (including Bush) felt no immediate need to deal with it.

Mayor orders golf club fined over gay benefits
December 28, 2004

ATLANTA -- The mayor is threatening a country club with up to $90,000 in fines for refusing to extend spousal benefits to the partners of gay members. Mayor Shirley Franklin said last week in a letter to the Druid Hills Golf Club that the club violated Atlanta's human rights ordinance, which requires businesses to treat domestic partners registered with the city as married couples. Franklin said she is ordering the city solicitor to fine the club $500 a day for up to six months -- a total of $90,000 -- unless the rule is changed. (AP)

Is the country club being punished, or are the individual members being punished?

The racial issues in people's heads manifest in a number of ways in this case.

Persad case juror regrets acquittal
Says panel faced racial pressure
By Donovan Slack, Globe Staff  |  December 28, 2004

One of the jurors who acquitted a defendant in the slaying of 10-year-old Trina Persad said he will regret his decision for the rest of his life. The juror, who declined to be named for fear of retribution, said a member of the jury polarized the group along racial lines and made him question his ''own better judgment" while ramming the acquittal through.

The jury was dismissed last week after prosecutors told the court that three members had lied on questionnaires about having criminal records. The dismissal occurred as jurors were deliberating the fate of Joseph Cousin, a 20-year-old Dorchester man accused of shooting Persad in 2002. The jury had acquitted 25-year-old Roxbury resident Marquis Nelson on charges of first-degree murder in the case. Persad was killed in a drive-by shooting targeting rival gang members in a Roxbury park, prosecutors say.

It was announced that five people "answered untruthfully," so I guess that includes two alternates. And I suspect the guy they were worried about was Albert Pless:

Judge's Robe Featuring Ten Commandments Draws Objections

All Things Considered, December 27, 2004 · An Alabama judge has embroidered the Ten Commandments on the front of his judicial robe. Legal scholars say the display could be challenged as unconstitutional, though no one in his rural part of the state has done so. NPR's Debbie Elliott reports.

EFF helping produce anonymizing software
I have the coolest job: my employer, EFF, is now officially doing development on Tor, an anonymizing network tool that lets people use the Internet without being snooped upon:

Your traffic is safer when you use Tor, because communications are bounced around a distributed network of servers, called onion routers. Instead of taking a direct route from source to destination, data packets on the Tor network take a random pathway through several servers that cover your tracks so no observer at any single point can tell where the data came from or where it's going. This makes it hard for recipients, observers, and even the onion routers themselves to figure out who and where you are. Tor's technology aims to provide Internet users with protection against "traffic analysis," a form of network surveillance that threatens personal anonymity and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security.

Dozens of European tourists dead or missing in Asian disaster
Mon Dec 27,10:55 AM ET

BERLIN (AFP) - Shocked European sunseekers began to trickle home from Asian resorts hit by massive tidal waves, as travel companies began to compile information on dead, injured and missing among their clients, and to bring survivors home.

In the face of the earthquake and tidal wave in Asia, it's hard to find a lot to whine about.

Also, I'm really, really close to an alpha release of MTClient version 2.0. There's some clipboard stupidity I have to fix, and the editor doesn't write code the way I do. But that doesn't matter. Folks will Like this new version a lot. You can write a CSS style sheet for each weblog account you set up, so that you pretty much see what your post will look like even before the preview. And if you have special classes set up in your site's CSS you can add them to the account stylesheet and use them as you write.

Images are visible (might be resizable, we'll see), toolbar is customizable.

And I haven't even added what I consider the major new functionality yet.

Anyway, wish me luck because from this moment forward all posts will be made via this pre-alpha thingie. Which means I should hook up the spellchecking ASAP.

On the other hand:

The CIA has refused to acknowledge whether it has documents and photographs related to abuse of detainees.

with all the publicity the known pictures and documents have had, it is a little disingenuous.

CIA resists request for abuse data

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff  |  December 27, 2004

WASHINGTON -- The CIA is refusing to disclose any information about abuse of detainees in Afghanistan and at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, invoking a legal precedent that involved a secret project by billionaire Howard Hughes to recover a sunken Soviet nuclear submarine in the 1970s.

Quote of note:

…ambitious as the administration's plans for private accounts may be, "fixing" Social Security is by far the easier task. Medicare faces the same relentless demographic pressures as Social Security -- plus the burden of rapidly rising health care costs. Another may be that grappling with Medicare will require thinking about the nation's irrational health care system as a whole, a task for which the administration and Congress appear to have little stomach.

The Bigger Problem
Monday, December 27, 2004; Page A28

THE PROGRAM NOW consumes one-eighth of the federal budget; in 10 years that share is expected to grow to one-fifth. It will consume more money this year than enters the Treasury through payroll taxes. By 2019, if current spending patterns hold, the trust fund that finances the biggest part of the program will be out of cash.

In a Changed Ward, Barry Is Back
By Paul Schwartzman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 27, 2004; Page A01

The white SUV slowed to a stop in front of a row of brick townhouses in Southeast Washington, and the back window slid down to reveal a famous political face.

The sight of Marion Barry was enough to prompt Calvin Turner and Ivan Driver to interrupt their conversation and smile as if they were greeting an old friend. Then they unleashed a litany of complaints about life in Ward 8, the rolling swath of poor and blue-collar neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River that Barry will represent on the D.C. Council beginning next week.

Their grievances included a lack of playgrounds and recreation centers for children and the new housing in the area that is selling for what they regard as sky-high prices.

Jet Is an Open Secret in Terror War
By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 27, 2004; Page A01

The airplane is a Gulfstream V turbojet, the sort favored by CEOs and celebrities. But since 2001 it has been seen at military airports from Pakistan to Indonesia to Jordan, sometimes being boarded by hooded and handcuffed passengers.

The plane's owner of record, Premier Executive Transport Services Inc., lists directors and officers who appear to exist only on paper. And each one of those directors and officers has a recently issued Social Security number and an address consisting only of a post office box, according to an extensive search of state, federal and commercial records.

Quote of note:

What America lacks today is a middle ground. Advocates of both extremes are at fault. The extremists have to give a little ground. The liberals would do well to recognize that the Super Bowl stunt was outrageous, the conservatives could admit that it really amounted to nothing. Both would be right.

People could write books on this subject, and probably have. The point I hoped to make when I began this overly long essay was that America needs compromise. We won't get it from our leaders, who pander to the extremes, so it's up to you and me.

Outrageous as he sometimes was, even The Greatest knew when to back off.

A Plea For Restraint
VIEW FROM THE LEFT

Quote of note:

I'm not alone in this. A spiky-haired friend of mine with a daughter about to graduate from high school commiserated with me the other day about how hard it is to be a responsible parent these days.

Then he said the words all struggling boomer parents never thought they'd say: "I wish my daughter would turn 18 and move out so I could be a liberal again."

Ah, at least it's a temporary state.

The Good Kind Of Conservative
- Emil Guillermo, Special to SF Gate
Tuesday, December 14, 2004

During the three years I've written this column, I've been called all sorts of things.

"Liberal scum" is one of the nicer phrases to come my way.

But, really -- me, liberal?

I'm innocent. And, to prove it, I present Exhibit A: my teenage daughter.

Even though I may have felt a tad blue about the red state of America after the November election, this month I've moved on.

Now I'm preoccupied with a realization I've never quite articulated in public.

December is a family time. It's even more so for me, as my oldest daughter, Jillian, turns 16 three days before Christmas.

In reaching that milestone, Jilly's done more than Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh or the Fox News Channel has ever been able to do.

She's convinced me of my conservatism.

Quote of note:

Like his tax cuts, Bush's personnel decisions are sending the unfortunate message that no one apart from the soldiers on the ground and their families should pay any price for this war…

Restoring accountability for policy makers is trickier. The clamor about Rumsfeld overly personalizes fault for an Iraq strategy that Bush had approved; the president bears the ultimate responsibility to find a path with a better prospect of success at a cost America will accept.

Still, Bush is leaving a dangerous impression that on Iraq he values loyalty more than performance. A conspicuous administration shake-up that labels and punishes failure might offer the president his best chance to prompt fresh thinking — if he wants to hear it.

Bush Sending the Wrong Message as Chaos Smolders in Iraq
Ronald Brownstein

Quote of note:

For Mylers, 17, the diverse workplace experience is part of her curriculum at the Met School — a thriving public high school here that caters to a largely poor and minority student population.

…With 100% of its seniors accepted each year to college, the Met's "one student at a time" approach to learning has caught the attention of educators around the country.

Tests Are History at This High School
The Met may not have required classes, but all its seniors get accepted to college. Its success catches the attention of education reformers.
By Elizabeth Mehren
Times Staff Writer

December 27, 2004

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — When she wanted to be a detective, Carleen Mylers studied criminal justice and took a job as an investigator. When she thought she might become a lawyer, she worked in family court. Now that she has an internship in a local middle school, people are asking if she plans to go into teaching.

I'm not thrilled with this ex post facto stuff, though.

Citing Prop. 64, Firms Seek to Kill Lawsuits
At least a dozen unfair-competition cases that existed before the measure's passage have come under challenge.
By Marc Lifsher and Myron Levin
Times Staff Writers

December 27, 2004

Corporations are trying to kill a raft of lawsuits filed under California's Unfair Competition Law, claiming that the suits were invalidated when voters approved Proposition 64 last month.

The ballot measure made it harder for businesses to be sued over deceptive advertising and other fraudulent practices under the law, which corporate interests have long attacked as an invitation for unscrupulous attorneys to file so-called shakedown lawsuits against businesses.

Findlaw presents Why It's Unconstitutional to Teach "Intelligent Design" in the Public Schools, as an Alternative to Evolution by Michael C. Dorf, much to the chagrin of ID proponents everywhere.

The Potential Loophole in Aguillard: The Role of Subjective Motive

Justice Scalia, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist, dissented from the Aguillard ruling. These Justices took special exception to the majority's reliance on evidence of the subjective motives of the legislators who enacted the Louisiana law. In their view, the "purpose" of the Louisiana legislature in enacting the challenged law was necessarily a fiction--a composite of the multiple and mixed motives of the many people composing the legislature.

Tucker Carlson is actually a good observer

They discussed Barak Obama, with Matthews basically asking how Obama should establish himself in DC. Carlson (and Sam Donaldson, who just avoided the heart of it) suggested Obama "go against type" and establish himself in foreign policy, finance, ANYthing but race.

Sadly, that's a fair statement. Expertise on race is a secondary skill in American politics.

And he said the success of Gibson's movie wasn't about the movie being good or bad. People saw it as a talisman, a gesture to acknowledge their membership in a community. Dead on point, and it occurs to me much of George Bush's support is the same.

Sam Donaldson suggested there will be pressure on Colin Powell to change party and run for President in 2008. Hm.

Ex-hostage: Militants wanted Bush re-elected
French journalists say captors thought Bush boosted their cause
The Associated Press
Updated: 6:53 a.m. ET Dec. 24, 2004

PARIS - French journalists held hostage for four months in Iraq said their militant captors told them they wanted President Bush to win re-election.

In a four-page account of their ordeal, one of the reporters, Georges Malbrunot, also wrote that they saw several other hostages who were later decapitated. The journalists said their captors viewed foreign businessmen working in Iraq as their enemies.

One of the captors from the group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq said Bush’s re-election would boost their cause, Malbrunot wrote in Friday’s edition of Le Figaro, the French daily he works for.

I mean, since there are other viewpoints on how God created mankind.

Anyway…

Evolution, 'intelligent design' share deskspace
Pa. school board is presenting another challenge for evolution
By Michael Powell
The Washington Post
Updated: 6:22 a.m. ET Dec. 26, 2004

DOVER, Pa. - "God or Darwin?"

Lark Myers, a blond, 45-year-old gift shop owner, frames the question and answers it. "I definitely would prefer to believe that God created me than that I'm 50th cousin to a silverback ape," she said. [P6: Neither belief makes you more or less human. Neither belief changes your nature or the challenges you must respond to in life.]"What's wrong with wanting our children to hear about all the holes in the theory of evolution?"

Quote of note:

"When people ask me what the justification for this is, I point out that in nearly every country in the world you find government involved in the food supply," said Bob Young, an economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation, the powerful trade group for major agricultural producers.

But because nearly 70 percent of the subsidies go to the top 10 percent of agricultural producers, the recent prosperity is not seen or felt among many small to medium-size growers who keep the struggling counties of the Great Plains alive.

Big Farms Reap Two Harvests With Subsidies a Bumper Crop
By TIMOTHY EGAN

GURLEY, Neb. - The roadside sign welcoming people into this state reads: "Nebraska, the Good Life." And for farmers closing out their books at the end of a year when they earned more money than at any time in the history of American agriculture, it certainly looks like happy days.

Aiming for Sports Renaissance for City's Young Schoolchildren
By BILL PENNINGTON

With the last class complete at P.S. 308 in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, so many basketball players have filled the school's tiny gymnasium that there is barely space to bounce a ball. Boys and girls swarm a floor roughly half the size of a regulation court.

Soon, P.S. 308's boys basketball team will begin a spirited practice, the players' shouts radiating beyond the gym walls - sounds of life in cheerless streets enveloping the school on a cold December afternoon.

"If there were no sports, people would be in the neighborhood causing nothing but trouble," James Fernandez, an eighth grader who is one of the team's captains, said afterward. "I don't know what we'd do without our sports."

Sunday News Quiz
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

My wife constantly regales me about her favorite National Public Radio show, "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me." The show features three journalists who have to answer questions about the week's news. Some of the news stories they are quizzed about seem totally unbelievable, while others are straightforward. Well, this is my last column for 2004, so let's play a little "Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me." I'll give you 10 news stories from the past few weeks and you tell me what they all have in common.

Alternate punch line:

Reach out? Like he does?

Bush Asks Americans to Reach Out
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON, Dec. 25 - President Bush urged Americans to help the neediest among them by volunteering to care for the sick, the elderly and the poor in a Christmas Day call for compassion.

"Many of our fellow Americans still suffer from the effects of illness or poverty," the president said in his weekly radio address. "Others fight cruel addictions, or cope with division in their families, or grieve the loss of a loved one."

"Christmastime reminds each of us that we have a duty to our fellow citizens, that we are called to love our neighbor just as we would like to be loved ourselves," Mr. Bush added. "By volunteering our time and talents where they are needed most, we help heal the sick, comfort those who suffer and bring hope to those who despair, one heart and one soul at a time."

China Expands. Europe Rises. And the United States . . .
By FRED KAPLAN

IT'S a risky business to predict the decline of the American empire. Ask Paul Kennedy, the Yale historian, who issued such a forecast in his 1987 book, "The Rise and Fall of Great Powers," only to witness an almost immediate American resurgence.

Yet the signposts, at the end of this year, are ominous. As an economic power, the United States no longer sets the rules, much less rule the game. As a military power, it vastly outguns the rest of the world, but has a harder time translating armed might into influence.

On March 1, the European Union announced that it was raising import tariffs on a long list of American products, and would go on raising them each month until Congress repealed a subsidy for American exporters that had been ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization. Congressmen railed against this intrusion but finally gave in. Americans realized that, in the global economy they largely created and for 60 years dominated, they could no longer do whatever they wanted.

U.S. Is Suggesting Guaranteed Role for Iraq's Sunnis
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN

WASHINGTON, Dec. 25 - The Bush administration is talking to Iraqi leaders about guaranteeing Sunni Arabs a certain number of ministries or high-level jobs in the future Iraqi government if, as is widely predicted, Sunni candidates fail to do well in Iraq's elections.

An even more radical step, one that a Western diplomat said was raised already with an aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric, is the possibility of adding some of the top vote-getters among the Sunni candidates to the 275-member legislature, even if they lose to non-Sunni candidates.