Are civil rights the best antiterror defense?

By Peter Ford and Lisa Abend

PARIS AND MADRID - Behind bars in two of Britain's most heavily guarded prisons sit 12 men the police say are too dangerous to set free, but whom they cannot charge with any crime for lack of evidence.

The prisoners, all North African terror suspects, may well soon earn their freedom, however, since Britain's top court has ruled that their detention is unlawful.

As the British government scrambled this week to pass new antiterror legislation that does not breach international human rights codes, in Madrid world leaders, academics, legal experts, and policemen met to discuss ways in which democracies can defend themselves against terrorism, while not compromising their ideals.

Hughes to Head Efforts to Improve U.S. Image Abroad
March 12, 2005

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former White House counselor Karen Hughes, a longtime confidant of President Bush, will head the U.S. effort to turn a tide of anti-American hostility abroad, particularly among Muslims, an administration official said on Friday.

The State Department post of undersecretary for public diplomacy, designed to promote American values overseas, has been vacant since Margaret Tutwiler left last summer.

The White House declined to confirm Hughes' appointment but spokesman Scott McClellan indicated she would return in some capacity.

Iraq office denies headless bodies reports
March 12, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq --Iraqi authorities on Saturday disputed reports that 15 headless bodies were found south of Baghdad earlier in the week.

But Iraqi Defense Ministry and army officials who were the original sources for the reports insisted -- when contacted again on Saturday -- that the decapitated bodies had, in fact, been found.

The Government Communications Directorate's Media Relations office said in an English-language announcement that "official sources in the ministries of Defense, Interior and Health deny the news that some of mass media reported regarding finding 15 bodies beheaded in Latifiya."

An official in the Media Relations office refused to expand on the statement when contacted by The Associated Press.

Obama slams Bush for linking accounts to blacks' life span
Social Security pitch `stunning,' he says
By Jeff Zeleny, Washington Bureau. Tribune news services contributed to this report
Published March 11, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Barack Obama on Thursday called President Bush's suggestion that African-Americans could reap greater rewards from overhauling Social Security a "stunning" argument that ignored the true health issues facing blacks in this country.

As the president launched a two-day tour through the South to build support for his controversial plan to revamp Social Security, Democrats challenged a White House assertion that blacks would particularly gain from Bush's proposed private retirement accounts because they have fewer years to collect benefits considering they die younger.

"It is puzzling to me that we are even having this debate about whether Social Security is good or not for African-Americans," said Obama, an Illinois Democrat. "I frankly found the statement that the president made somewhat offensive."

Quote of note:

Despite the sad and shocking details of the incident, the repeated delays and appeals in this case have revolved around a single question: Why was the only person charged with capital murder an African-American? Of the 14 people indicted (12 Hispanics and two African-Americans), 12 were eligible for the death penalty. Prosecutors say Williams was singled out because he was the only one who had control of the tractor-trailer. In other words, he was the only one who could have saved the immigrants' lives by opening the doors or turning on the refrigeration unit.

But after US District Judge Vanessa Gilmore asked for a letter from then-Attorney General John Ashcroft explaining why the government sought the death penalty "on the only black guy," the prosecution refused to explain its rationale.

The government never releases documents containing the charges, even though the issue of racial discrimination is routinely raised. "It is one of the most closely guarded secrets you can imagine," says Rick Kammen, an Indianapolis lawyer who has handled 17 federal death-penalty cases. "The government's position has been, 'Six men and a wild monkey will not tear this material from us.' "

A smuggling trial that raises racial issues, too
Of 14 indicted in immigrant deaths, why does only Tyrone Williams face capital punishment?
By Kris Axtman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

From an interview with Will Smith, sort of via Foreign Dispatches (who says rather aptly "Keep all of this in mind the next time you read some silly poll saying some huge number of whites wouldn't mind seeing one of "them" with their daughters; they can't even stand seeing "them" with someone else's...")

Where there's a Will

...Ironically what remains more of a cinematic taboo, even in these supposedly enlightened days, is the idea of a black actor kissing a white actress. The compromise appears to be, and the one that Hitch has settled for - if only to protect itself at the box office - is for the woman to come from another ethnic background.

Eva Mendes, who plays the gossip columnist Hitch falls for, is Cuban American.

"There's sort of an accepted myth that if you have two black actors, a male and a female, in the lead of a romantic comedy, that people around the world don't want to see it," admits Will.

"We spend $50 something million making this movie and the studio would think that was tough on their investment. "So the idea of a black actor and a white actress comes up - that'll work around the world, but it's a problem in the US."

Quote of note:

The White House follows a practiced formula for each of the meetings. First it picks a state in which generally it can pressure a lawmaker or two, and then it lines up panelists who will sing the praises of the president's plan. Finally, it loads the audience with Republicans and other supporters.

Social Security: On With the Show
President's 'Conversations' on Issue Are Carefully Orchestrated, Rehearsed

By Jim VandeHei and Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 12, 2005; Page A03

MEMPHIS, March 11 -- It sounded as if all of Graceland were clamoring for President Bush's plan to restructure Social Security.

Quote of note:

House ethics rules allow lawmakers and their staffs to have travel expenses paid only for officially connected travel and only by organizations directly connected to the trips. The rules also require that lawmakers accurately report the people or organizations that pay for the trips. They prohibit payments by registered lobbyists for lawmakers' travel.

DeLay's spokesman, Dan Allen, said: "The trip was sponsored, organized and paid for by the National Center for Public Policy Research, as our travel disclosures accurately reflect and what the National Center has publicly said."

Then what was the donation for? Why did Abramoff arrange for the payment to go to DeLay?

Gambling Interests Funded DeLay Trip
Later in 2000, Lawmaker's Vote Helped Defeat Regulatory Measure

Type White at BlogTyme responded to my confusion. Her point isn't a sociological one, but a marketing one.

Delicately  is perhaps not the best word to use to describe what I mean but I still stand by what I said. It think niche award blogs are a great way to show exposure so when you do walk up to someone at a conference they aren't surprised. Let me give you an example of what I went through. I used to have a popular gaming site. I suppose my race and gender didn't come across on my site, just as it probably didn't here until recently. I attended a conference where I arranged, in advance, to meet with some people (and interview them), which were all men because there weren't many women gamers then. Overall the race thing went really well except for one man. He blatantly told me he didn't realize I was female AND black. I would have a hard time achieving anything as a female but being a black female, forget it. He refused to do the interview and to be frank, he pissed me off because he was  the  person I wanted to interview. He was a high profile developer and as he pointed out, I was lucky to land the interview in the first place. This put me in an awkward position because I announced that I was interviewing him.

Of course there IS a sociological issue in there...the one that made me wonder why "offend[ing] the majority" was something I should be sensitive to.

When I saw this headline

Apple Wins Trade Secrets Legal Dispute

I thought to myself, "You know, the Justice Department should hire Apple's lawyers. I'd like to have seen the Valarie Plame leak investigation completed as quickly and directly, but obvously trade secrets are more important than national security secrets.

You can't just fail to respond to the incredible arrogance embodied in the changes the Republicans made to the rules of the Ethics committee.

Democrats Block Ethics Panel Over Rewritten Rules
The lawmakers say that Republicans gutted the committee's ability to conduct investigations.
By Mary Curtius
Times Staff Writer
March 12, 2005

WASHINGTON   Just as new controversy has erupted over trips taken by congressional Democrats and Republicans  — including House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) —  the workings of the chamber's ethics committee have been brought to a halt.

The leader of the Democratic revolt is a soft-spoken West Virginian with a reputation for bipartisanship. On Friday, Rep. Alan B. Mollohan said the Republicans had left him no choice but to thwart the committee's operations.

"The rules, each of them separately and together, seriously undermine the ability of the ethics committee to do its job," said Mollohan, the panel's ranking Democrat. "The rules are seriously flawed and extremely mischievous to the ability of the ethics committee to efficiently and responsibly discharge its duties."

...if you're actually, like, ethical.

Found a new-ish blog called BlogTyme talkning about the Brown Blog series via Techonrati. On the whole, I approve but I don't understand how the sister the wrote this can write this.

I hope more niche conferences emerge. For example a conference for or races, religions and cultures. Perhaps this will lead to niche blogging award recognition. An excellent example of this is IndiBlog Awards. This is an excellent way to delicately enlighten people about the race/gender of the blogger.

There is nothing wrong with being proud of who you are and where you come from. However being chosen simply because of your race or gender is offensive to the majority. If you have something interesting to say eventually your words will be heard - that s how blogging works.

Well, that's not how blogging works, but..."offensive to the majority"? And how delicate is the information about my race when you find out by walking up and shaking my hand? I see no reason to be more delicate with the information.

What, we're going to get 60 articles in 60 days, all telling us Bush gave that same prepared speech in front of one of four funky backdrops to another screened audience?

Bush Urges Social Security Changes in Tennessee
By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON, March 11 - President Bush took his campaign to overhaul Social Security to Memphis today, reaching across political and generational divides to try to persuade people that personal investment accounts could bolster the retirement system founded during the New Deal era.

"I'm going to continue traveling our country until it becomes abundantly clear to the American people we have a problem, and it's abundantly clear to those who receive a Social Security check that nothing's going to change," Mr. Bush told an audience in Memphis.

Spanish Muslims Issue Fatwa Against Bin Laden
Fri Mar 11, 2005 08:54 AM ET

By Emma Ross-Thomas

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's leading Islamic body has issued a religious order declaring Osama bin Laden to have forsaken Islam by backing attacks such as the Madrid train bombings a year ago.

The Islamic Commission of Spain timed its "fatwa" for Friday to coincide with the first anniversary of last year's attacks, which killed 191 people and were claimed in the name of al Qaeda in Europe.

The commission's secretary general Mansur Escudero said the fatwa had moral, rather than legal weight and would serve as a guide for Muslims.

Rice: U.S. Backs Economic Incentives for Iran
Fri Mar 11, 2005 12:12 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States, in a policy shift, will offer Iran economic incentives to abandon its suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Reuters on Friday.

"We will make clear that we will lift our objections to an Iranian application to the WTO and that we are prepared to lift an objection to the licensing of spare parts for Iranian commercial aircraft," Rice said in an interview.

"The decision that the president has taken is that the United States will make an effort to actively support the EU3 negotiations with the Iranians," Rice added, referring to Britain, France and Germany, the three European nations negotiating with Iran.

This is from the Pambazuka News service.

G. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON DEBT
1. We re always hearing about the debt crisis, but where did it originate?

The origins of the debt crisis are complex. The issue came to a head in 1982 when Mexico declared that it could not service its foreign debt. Twenty-five countries followed Mexico s example or threatened to adopt the same stance. How did it get to that stage?

The price of oil was increased by OPEC producing countries in 1973-74, leading to a glut of money in commercial banks, who in turn offered it for loan at low interest rates. As a result, developing countries were courted to take loans to finance "development". Although the absolute size of debt of sub-Saharan African countries was relatively small in proportion to the external indebtedness of developing countries, the size of the debt (and the cost of servicing that debt) in relation to the resources and productive capacity of these African countries were significantly large.

But that glut was short-lived. Coinciding with the period of the emerging technological revolution in microcomputers and in gene technology that attracted capital to new fields where the rates of profit were likely to be substantial, the 1980s saw significant increases in the cost of borrowing. As interest rates rose, and debtor countries were suddenly faced with servicing the interest on loans that absorbed the ever-greater proportions of export earnings. Debt had now become the central issue of "concern" in development circles. This further provided the entry point for international financial institutions into African countries. The IFIs offered loans on condition of the adoption of a clutch of social and economic policies that came to be known as structural adjustment programmes. The social and political impact of these policies were to position the multilateral lending agencies (with the support of the bilateral aid agencies) where they could determine both the goals of development and the means for achieving them.

Another influence on the debt crisis was the Cold War, when donor countries were more concerned with their strategic interests than whether money they lent was spent on constructive activities. The most oft-cited example of this in Africa is Mobutu in Zaire, who was able to borrow huge amounts of money as long as he pledged his loyalty to the West. This is the reason why the argument is made that the debt crisis is not only about the responsibility of indebted countries, but also about the responsibility of creditor countries for creating the crisis in the first place.

2. Sure, but everyone knows that if you borrow money you have to pay it back. Why should the debt of African countries be cancelled?

Countries are trapped in an endless cycle of debt repayments created by an economic system which worked against their interests and by previous generations of leaders that were able to borrow money because they slotted into the geopolitical interests of the superpower of the day. But the problem was created by the fact that when they borrowed, the interest rates were low, but there after they grew and grew, with the result that nearly all the national wealth is used just to pay the interest   let alone the original amount that was borrowed.

People living in highly-indebted poor countries don t and never have benefited from these loans. In actual fact, they have suffered as a result of money being diverted from spending on healthcare and education in order to service enormous debts. This means that any talk of development is the equivalent of a fools ranting until debt is cancelled. If African countries have to channel vast amounts of money into servicing their debt, how are they ever going to be engaged in meaningful development activities?

Besides, UN statistics show that indebted countries, although they have paid back three times more money than they originally borrowed, still owe more than they owed in 1980. It is in this context that campaigners have made a strong moral argument for the cancellation of debt, stressing that it is a key element used by rich countries to dominate smaller countries.

3. Who do indebted countries owe money to?

There are several different types of loans, all with their own particular history.

Bilateral State Loans have their origins in the Cold War, when scheming super powers were only to eager to dish out cash in order to secure the dependency of weaker states. Little was done in the way of a credit check as dictators lined up to access cash. Today, the populations of their countries are still paying the price.

Another type of loan was known as Export Credit Agency Corporate Loans. It goes without saying that corporate loans come at a far higher interest rate than bilateral loans. These loans increased from the 1980s onwards and were underwritten by so-called Export Credit Agencies. These are basically government agencies that fund or insure domestic corporations seeking to extend their business to high-risk areas. Again, it is the people of countries taking loans that face the burden of repayment.

Commercial Bank Loans took hold in the 1970s as petro bucks flooded banks, who looked around in glee for a way to make more profits. The answer: Lend it to the developing world and don t worry that much about who you re lending to or whether they can pay it back. It all went sour at the end of the 70s   interest rates rocketed, leaving indebted countries with a debt repayment headache that kept on getting worse.

Lastly, Multilateral Loans came about when the good old World Bank and International Monetary Fund came to the party, and offered rescue packages to make sure that indebted countries could at least pay the interest rates on the loans they had contracted. Later, The WB/IMF came up with the Brady Plan. The deal was that they would offer guarantees for the repayments of loans, while a portion of the debt was cancelled. The catch: Indebted countries had to open up markets and slash social expenditure. Again, you guessed it, the people took it on the back.

* This short description of the types of loans was compiled with assistance from an article on RISQ, an independent association of scholars, journalists, politicians, and activists who seek to render international political decision-making more inclusive, equitable, and responsible. For the full article, visit http://www.risq.org/article389.html

4. What is the total amount owed?

According to the Jubilee Debt Campaign, the original debt of the world's 52 poorest and most indebted countries is $375 billion. This translates into repayments of around GBP30 million every day. Zambia's debt repayments to the IMF alone cost $25 million, more than the country's education budget despite 40% of rural women being unable to read and write, according to Jubilee, which states that while Sub-Saharan Africa receives $10 billion in aid every year it has to pay back at least this amount in debt repayments.

5. Why cancellation? We already have the HIPC to take care of these concerns.

Following unprecedented pressure from debt campaigners, the Heavily In-debt Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative was set up in 1996 by the rich nations through the IMF and World Bank. It was intended for countries that had debt burdens of more than four times their annual export earnings and laid out certain conditions that had to be met by countries before they could be classified as having met a 'completion point', after which they would qualify for limited debt relief.

The conditionalities of the HIPC have been the subject of much criticism, as these prescriptions are regarded by many as contributing to poverty in highly indebted countries. Furthermore, there are questions as to whether the amounts of debt written off are sufficient. Many criticize the fundamental approach of the HIPC, which sets out to make debt sustainable rather than writing it off.

6. What is the human cost of the crisis?

Even for elite world leaders who have never stepped out of their comfort zones, it doesn t take a huge leap of imagination to work out the massive human cost of procrastination on debt relief. In Zambia, for example, life expectancy is expected to plummet to an alarming 33 years as a result of HIV/AIDS. Over half a million children are out of school. One would have thought that this would be cause for massive investment in health care and education, but debt service, even after HIPC completion, chews up more cash than the combined spending on health and education.

A UNDP study estimates that for each additional one per cent of GDP spent on health and education, child mortality is reduced by 24 per cent. Therefore, taking 1999 as an example, when Zambia spent
$438.5 million (13 percent of GDP) on debt servicing, child mortality could have been reduced from 202 deaths per 1,000 live births to only 8 per 1000 live births.

How many lives is that over a ten-year period? There s a frightening sum for leaders like Bush and Blair.

7. What is all this talk amongst the G7 about financing debt relief?

One of the major blocks to debt relief has been bickering amongst the G7 over how to fund any write-offs, the economic rationale being that the money has to come from somewhere.

At the recent G7 meetings in London, news reports indicated that most leaders favoured selling some of the International Monetary Fund s gold reserves to finance debt relief. The IMF is the third largest holder of gold and this option would involve selling the gold to an interested party or revaluing the gold as a way of raising funds.

But it is never that simple: Gold producers are less than happy as they feel such a mass sale would disrupt gold markets. Lawmakers in the US, which has the world s biggest gold stockpile, have opposed gold sales, saying it will harm the industry and cause job losses. Instead, the US favours a system where outstanding debts are cancelled and replaced with grants linked to human rights records.

Meanwhile, the world s biggest gold producer, South Africa, has said through its finance minister Trevor Manuel that they support the use of IMF gold reserves to finance debt relief. Manuel s comments may mask divisions within his own cabinet however. His cabinet colleague, Mineral and Energy Affairs Minister Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, came out against the plan and put it on record that other African mining ministers were also concerned.

Some of the other ideas put forward for financing debt cancellation include increasing multilateral development bank charges for middle-income countries and the provision of new funds by creditor nations. It s clear that there are no lack of options on how to finance debt cancellation, but what is lacking is the political agreement and will to get things underway. Given that the US has basically said that debt cancellation isn t in the budget this year, maybe the disputes over the financing of debt cancellation are just a mask to cover a wider political inertia.

8. If there was debt cancellation tomorrow, would that development hit the fast track?

Some analysts are already pointing to the new dangers posed by trade agreements and foreign direct investment flows. The argument goes that an outflow of resources from African countries as a result of, for example, World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreements could lead to greater financial problems than those caused by the debt crisis.

For example, an article on the website of Third World Network-Africa, based on a paper by David Woodward, economist and consultant, warns that foreign direct investment (FDI) is not a risk-free answer to the capital problems of developing countries. It was  dangerously mistaken  to view FDI in the same way as foreign loans to developing countries were viewed up to the 1980s just before the debt crisis struck.

There are a number of reasons why FDI could be worse than debt. Firstly, there is no fixed schedule for the outflows in the form of the repatriation of profits. Secondly, the rate of profit on FDI is much higher than the interest rates even on commercial loans. For Sub-Saharan Africa, the rate is estimated at 24-30% per year.

The conclusion of the argument is that FDI is like contracting a foreign loan at an interest rate of 24   34% a year. Any country exposed to this rate of FDI is faced with a net outflow of foreign exchange and the only way to avoid this is to attract new investment to cover the profits on existing investment.

* To read the full article on which this short report is based, please visit http://www.twnafrica.org/news_detail.asp?twnid=380

* Sources used to compile this Q&A

http://finance.channels.netscape.ca/finance/article.adp?id=20050225073609990001
http://finance.channels.aol.ca/finance/article.adp?id=20050303220709990009
http://www.eldis.org/static/DOC13141.htm
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20050210/bs_nm/economy_imf_gold_dc
http://www.bicusa.org/bicusa/issues/spotlight/1877.php
http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/thomas-cn.htm
http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/?lid=247
http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Debt/HIPC.asp
http://www.jubilee2000uk.org/databank/usefulstatistics/generalstats.htm
2005-03-10

This is my day to be flabbergasted.

Repeat after me, children: "Correlation does not imply causation."

And never send your children to a college that is stupid enough to broadcast the fact that their faculty doesn't understand that very basic truth.

A Reformed Social Security Can Help Families and Economic Growth

Release date: Thursday, March 10, 2005
Contact: John Della Contrada, [email protected]
Phone: 716-645-5000 ext 1409
Fax: 716-645-3765

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Policymakers and citizens pondering the merits of Social Security reform should consider new evidence showing that "social security" adversely affects decisions to marry and have children.

What Ms. Quam describes is what Health Maintenance Organizations claim to do.

For example, On Lok SeniorHealth, a community-based organization in San Francisco, provides seniors with a complete program of health services -- preventive, acute, and rehabilitative care -- along with home healthcare, social services, and such personal assistance as meal delivery, transportation, and help with prescriptions. On Lok's patients report better overall health and fewer acute-care needs and hospitalizations than comparable groups of Medicare beneficiaries.

I have also seen the impact of this care model at my own company. Our Evercare plans identify the most costly, at-risk patients and deliver care within a system of careful monitoring and management. At the heart of this system are practitioners who coordinate multiple services, facilitate communication between providers and patients, and ensure integration of treatments.

It works until the profit motive kicks in...which, because the One True Faith of the USofA is capitalism, will inevitably happen.

You don't change your goals. You explain them in terms of the current paradigm.

LATER: I am not suggesting you hide or sugar-coat a situation. The current paradign, no matter what it is, will always have ways to snark.

Bricks, mortar and our values
Civil engineers say our eroding infrastructure is becoming a morality and quality-of-life issue.
By John Balzar
Times Staff Writer
March 9, 2005

"Values" worked for George Bush. Might they do the same for our congested highways? For run-down schools? For our overflowing sewers?

In another sign of the evolving language that drives American politics, the women and men responsible for the structural foundation of society want to be part of the "values" debate.

Optimizing your economic figures always helps the investor class.

Quote of note:

Even with better-than-expected job growth, 373,000 people with college degrees quit job hunting and dropped out of the labor force last month, the Labor Department reported Friday.

The number of long-term unemployed who are college graduates has nearly tripled since the bursting of the tech bubble in 2000, statistics show. Nearly 1 in 5 of the long-term jobless are college graduates. If a degree holder loses a job, that worker is now more likely than a high school dropout to be chronically unemployed.

Long-Term Jobless Find a Degree Just Isn't Working
By Nicholas Riccardi
Times Staff Writer
March 11, 2005

Quote of note:

As the Pentagon begins its assessment, it has 145,000 troops stationed in a country they were supposed to have left months ago. And with tensions rising between Washington and the two other countries labeled by President Bush as part of an "axis of evil" —  Iran and North Korea  — there is a growing belief within the military's ranks that the White House's rhetoric about preemptive war is out of sync with the U.S. military's strained resources.

..."The administration was flat wrong on Iraq because they had blinders on," said a senior Army official who worked on strategic planning at the Pentagon. "There's now a much greater perception that we need to know what we're signing up for before we get into it."

The rulers of out little kakistocracy have confused the nature of a coup d'etat with that of a corporate takeover.

FBI Ends Probe Into Killing of Rap Star
Bureau discards theory being pursued by its lead agent regarding slaying of Notorious B.I.G.
By Chuck Philips
Times Staff Writer
March 11, 2005

The FBI has closed an investigation into the 1997 slaying of rap star Notorious B.I.G., abandoning a controversial theory pursued by its lead agent on the case.

The bureau spent 18 months investigating the possibility that a rogue Los Angeles police officer and rap mogul Marion "Suge" Knight orchestrated the killing of B.I.G., whose real name was Christopher Wallace.

FBI officials conducted a review of the investigation   and shut it down in January   after learning that Agent Philip J. Carson had discussions with lawyers for Wallace's mother, Voletta Wallace, and had been subpoenaed to testify in her wrongful-death lawsuit against the city.

I just noticed something interesting.When I ignore my stats and Google ad click-throughs for like two weeks or so, the stats and click-throughs go up. More like they go to the high end of a range. When I obsess about them (and we all do on occasion) the go to the low end of the range.

This says to me that I do better when I do what I choose with no regard for how it's received. I figure I should do more of that, starting immediately...so I bought a Yu-gi-oh! Dragon's Rage structure deck. I don't care that it's a pathetic thing for a 47 year old guy to do.

Start here. Then go there. You'll understand why he still has my respect.

Amy Sullivan at Political Animal:

According to Chuck Grassley's hometown paper, the Des Moines Register, a national group of Christian lawyers is broadcasting its opposition to the bill on religious grounds: "As Christian attorneys, we strongly believe that it was never God's intention to create a society where indebtedness was a crime or a badge of dishonor."

Grassley, however, is having none of it. "I can't listen to Christian lawyers because I would be imposing the Bible on a diverse population," Grassley told the paper. Ah, yes, there would be that vaunted Republican support for the separation of church and state.

Quote of note:

That is the choice facing us: are we to continue to pile up debt forever so that billionaires may keep "their" money? Are we to sacrifice the rights as citizens to a decent life to prop up the stock market? Or will we see, as Jefferson did, that a high national debt means the living work for the dead. The fight over social security is like the fight over slavery: there are those who want to consume the future to feed the present, who will strip bare the land so that we can have a few more years of low dividend tax rates in the present. Our interests as stockholders, or our rights as citizens?

The sign of crisis in a nation is when, to feed the beast, the present wishes to stretch back and erase two generations of government. Taney stretched back to 1787, and now George W. Bush seeks to reach back to 1933, in order to erase the New Deal, and the most important pillar of its legacy.

Feeding the Beast: Dred Scott and George W Bush.
by Stirling Newberry

Let's say we assemble a package of changes to Social Security, including a diversion ("carve-out", my ass!) of funds from Social Security to private accounts that somehow manages, by the necessary combination of tax increases ("revenue enhancements," my ass!) and benefit cuts, to achieve solvency. If you put is all on a Social Security balance sheet, the diversion would have to count as an outflow...a reduction of the cash available to pay benefits.

Now. Remove that diversion from the balance sheet.

Suddenly there's a bag of money laying around. And the size of the necessary tax increase or benefit cut is reduced. Drastically.

It's that simple.

Caps again, dammit...

Jim McCreery (R-Louisiana)
I DON'T THINK YOU MEANT TO SAY THAT UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES CAN PERSONAL ACCOUNTS FUNDED BY A CARVE-OUT CONTRIBUTE TO THE SOLVENCY OF THE SYSTEM. I BELIEVE YOU SAID EARLIER IN YOUR RESPONSE TO A QUESTION THAT IT DEPENDS ON HOW THOSE ACCOUNTS ARE STRUCTURED AND HOW THEY ARE TIED TO THE ULTIMATE BENEFIT PAY-OUT OF THE SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM.

David Walker
CARVE-OUTS BY THEMSELVES, WITH NO OTHER REFORMS, WILL EXACERBATE THE SOLVENCY STAYING IN FORCE.

Jim McCreery
ABSOLUTELY.

David Walker
DEPENDING UPON WHAT OTHER REFORMS YOU HAVE WITH A CARVE-OUT, THEY MAY OR MAY NOT CAUSE A... CONTRIBUTE POSITIVELY OR NEGATIVELY OVER THE LONG TERM, DEPENDING UPON WHAT THE OTHER REFORMS ARE. HOWEVER, IRRESPECTIVE OF WHAT THE OTHER REFORMS ARE, THEY WILL ACCELERATE NEGATIVE CASH FLOWS BECAUSE MOST OF THE REFORMS...

This is a chunk of the testimony from yesterday's first House of Representatives hearing on Social Security. Forgive the caps please; this was carved out of the source code for a PBS web page.

David Walker
SOCIAL SECURITY IS EXPECTED TO RUN A NEGATIVE CASH FLOW STARTING IN 2018. THAT MEANS IN THAT YEAR, THERE'S NOT ENOUGH MONEY GOING TO BE COMING IN TO PAY BENEFITS AND EXPENSES, AND WHAT WILL HAVE TO HAPPEN IS WE'LL HAVE TO START CASHING IN S OME OF THESE BONDS THAT HAVE ACCUMULATED OVER TIME. TO CASH IN THESE BONDS, YOU'LL EITHER HAVE TO INCREASE TAXES, CUT OTHER SPENDING, OR INCREASE THE DEBT HELD BY THE PUBLIC. 2042 IS THE DATE THAT THE TRUSTEES ESTIMATE, BY THEIR BEST-ESTIMATE INTERMEDIATE ASSUMPTIONS, THAT THE TRUST FUND WILL BECOME EXHAUSTED. IN 2042, IF THEIR ESTIMATE IS CORRECT, THEN BENEFITS WILL HAVE TO BE CUT PRECIPITOUSLY AND DRAMATICALLY ACROSS THE BOARD BY 27%, AND THEY WILL HAVE TO BE CUT GRADUALLY MORE AS TIME MOVES ON

Abuse Review Exonerates Policy
Low-Level Leaders and Confusion Blamed
By Josh White and R. Jeffrey Smith

Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 10, 2005; Page A16

The Pentagon's widest-ranging examination of prisoner abuse at U.S. detention facilities has concluded that there was no deliberate high-level policy that led to numerous cases of mistreatment, and instead blames inept leadership at low levels and confusion over changing interrogation rules, according to government and defense officials who have read the report.

Egyptian Diplomat Rebuts Bush's Views on Mideast
Notion of Sudden Democratic Shift Is Rejected

By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, March 10, 2005; Page A12

CAIRO, March 9 -- Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Wednesday offered a point-by-point rebuttal of President Bush's argument that the Middle East is opening to an era of democracy stimulated by the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

In an interview, Aboul Gheit criticized Bush's speech Tuesday to the National Defense University at Fort McNair, in which the president listed elections held by Iraqis and Palestinians and anti-Syrian demonstrations in Lebanon as signs that "clearly and suddenly, the thaw has begun" in the largely authoritarian Middle East.

Increments That Kill

IT'S BEEN A YEAR since the world woke up to the mass killings in the Darfur region of Sudan, and six months since the Bush administration termed them "genocide." Revulsion at the death toll, which stands at an estimated 300,000, has produced a humanitarian relief effort and the deployment of 1,900 armed cease-fire monitors by the African Union; both responses have saved lives. But Darfur's people still live in fear of rape, murder and starvation; perhaps 10,000 of them die monthly. And the worst of it all is the low-tech nature of this butchery. Sudan's government has armed a primitive militia that goes about on horses and camels; the government has supported the militia with rudimentary airpower, which NATO could cripple easily. So many lives could be saved with relatively little Western effort. But the killing continues.

Quote of note:

The United States Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the case of José Ernesto Medellín, a Mexican on death row in Texas, on March 28. Mr. Medellín asks the court to enforce last year's judgment of the international tribunal. Texas opposes the request.

When the federal government filed its supporting brief for Texas in the case at the end of last month, it appended the memorandum from the president to the attorney general.

Before the administration's strategy came into focus, international law professors greeted the memorandum with amazement.

"This is a president who has been openly hostile to international law and international institutions knuckling under, and knuckling under where there are significant federalism concerns," Professor Spiro said.

As it turned out, Dean Koh said, the government had "an integrated strategy."

"Element 1," he continued, "was to take the bat out of the Supreme Court's hand."

U.S. Says It Has Withdrawn From World Judicial Body
By ADAM LIPTAK

They REALLY don't give a shit about the important stuff.

Putting Last Things First

This week, there was more evidence that the world has begun edging away from the dollar. International data showed that several more nations who have been big customers for American debt - including China and India - have diversified their portfolios away from the American greenback. To us, that sounds like a serious threat to the long-term soundness of the national currency. But the Bush administration hasn't come close to addressing any of the economic fundamentals that have helped spawn the dollar's decline (the budget deficit comes to mind). Instead, the White House has been busy lobbying for new tax cuts that will make the situation worse.

U.S. Called Ready to See Hezbollah in Lebanon Role
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN

WASHINGTON, March 9 - After years of campaigning against Hezbollah, the radical Shiite Muslim party in Lebanon, as a terrorist pariah, the Bush administration is grudgingly going along with efforts by France and the United Nations to steer the party into the Lebanese political mainstream, administration officials say.

The administration's shift was described by American, European and United Nations officials as a reluctant recognition that Hezbollah, besides having a militia and sponsoring attacks on Israelis, is an enormous political force in Lebanon that could block Western efforts to get Syria to withdraw its troops.

On reading the anti-evolution article linked in that Gödel thing in Slate, I find this astounding bit of...well, I'm not sure what to call it.

III. THE UNTRUSTWORTHINESS OF SCIENTISTS

(1) Contrary to popular lore, the Galileo controversy proves not the misdeeds of the Church, but the untrustworthiness of scientists and anti-God promoters. Galileo was not even honest, having fraudulently presented the telescope as his own invention to the Venetian Senate. An accurate reading of the Church vs. Galileo is that Galileo was making outrageous claims that he had proved the earth moved around the sun by his calculations from ocean tides. Galileo did not prove such. And he had no right to be making grandiose claims about the alleged implications of such. He happened to have been correct as proven finally in the late 19th Century by stellar parallax and by Foucault s pendulum experiment, but Galileo did not prove any heliocentrism in his day. The anti-historical, anti-scientific, untrue portrayal of the Church v. Galileo is an incontrovertible proof of the untrustability and gullibility of scientists.

Good lord [sic].

Another weird one...just about everything in this category will be.

Jordan Ellenberg ends his Slate article, Does Gödel Matter?, with this:

His work was revolutionary, yes, but it was a revolution of the most unusual kind: one that abolished the constitution while leaving the material circumstances of the citizens more or less unchanged.

If you know what the incompleteness theorem says:

Given any system of axioms that produces no paradoxes, there exist statements about numbers which are true, but which cannot be proved using the given axioms.

you'll immediately understand its appeal to non-mathematicians of a mystical bent.

Dumb and Dumber, Part II

On Monday we reported Sen. Chuck Hagel's astounding misunderstanding of his own plan to overhaul Social Security. The senator spent the day gallivanting around telling people that he was calling for private investment accounts of up to 4 percent of everyone's payroll tax, when in fact his plan calls for private accounts of as much as 4 percent of total salary, or roughly 30 percent of total Social Security taxes.

If Hagel wants to go around mischaracterizing his own proposed legislation, then more power to him.

When the inevitable correction comes, who do you think gets pushed off the ladder of economic advancement first?

Tribulation is nigh!

Americans beware. I most certainly am sounding like an alarmist, but for good reason, given that I believe that the next economic depression is nigh. I think one of the latest signs is the lobbying by banks to reform bankruptcy so that banks and creditors can cease assets as the economic decline is nigh. Currently, consumers can have some of the assets protected by filling for bankruptcy. For anyone who studies history and economics, crashes in economies is almost always related banks slowing the increase in the supply of money and the coming depression will be no different.

It's also one reason I may well take Publicola up on his offer of weapons training. People do NOT behave well when they think they're losing everything. I don't want anyone hurt...but the first anyone I don't want hurt are my peoples.

Aides Concede More Mock News Videos
Tapes praise governor's proposals on nurse staffing, teachers. Legislators plan probe.
By Dan Morain
Times Staff Writer
March 10, 2005

SACRAMENTO   A week after Democratic legislators faulted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for using taxpayer money to produce "propaganda" in the form of a mock news video, the administration on Wednesday acknowledged making several others to advance its policies.

A state senator intends to question officials today about the funding and distribution of the videos.

Initially, legislators focused on one tape extolling an administration proposal to end mandatory lunch breaks for hourly workers. But additional videos have surfaced in which the administration is promoting a cut in the number of nurses required on duty in hospitals, pay for teachers based on merit rather than seniority and a more stringent tenure track.

Identity theft damages humans far more than corporations, which would put it pretty low on the list of governmental priorities. So Leahy frames the problem in terms they can't ignore...the (I need a font called "Sarcastic" here) deep concern over national security.

ID Thieves Tap Files at 2nd Big Data Firm
LexisNexis discloses that information on more than 30,000 Americans was breached. Congress plans to begin hearings today on such problems.
By David Colker
Times Staff Writer
March 10, 2005

Identity thieves have struck again, using stolen passwords to tap personal data on more than 30,000 Americans kept by information broker LexisNexis, the company said Wednesday.

The disclosure came at a bad time for an industry suddenly in the glare of unfavorable publicity. Although apparently unrelated to a larger security breach at ChoicePoint Inc. made public last month, the LexisNexis case heightened concern about businesses that keep files on consumers and prompted calls for tighter regulation.

"If criminals can breach these security arrangements, there is danger that terrorists may also be able to," Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said in a statement Wednesday.

For Titans in Trouble, Playing Stupid May Be Smart
Margaret Carlson
March 10, 2005

I suspect that every scoundrel in trouble these days has a tape of an old Steve Martin routine from "Saturday Night Live." Part of it goes, "You say, 'Steve, how can I be a millionaire and never pay taxes?' " Easy, says Steve: "First, get a million dollars. Now you say, 'Steve, what do I say to the tax man when he comes to my door and says, 'You have never paid taxes'? Two simple words   'I forgot.'"

Then, it was funny. Who knew the defense would be the one of choice for powerful politicians and corporate pirates accused of breaking the law. Often coupled with the perennial, "they left me out of my own loop," it now pops up in nearly every scandal. These defenses ought to be as laughable as that old routine. Problem is they may be working.

I had the choice of rewriting this material directly or posting a metaphorical story I wrote a while back.

Guess which option I took.

---

A Sense of Scale
by Alim Ra
Copyright ©2096

Can you remember the first time you met a Griot? Probably not…we are not obviously different than humans, and come in the full range of physical, mental and emotional types that humans do. Nothing outward would give any indication that we are different in any way from the humans you encounter every day.

You probably do remember the first time you realized someone you knew was a Griot, though. Most likely it was during some crisis; it may have been physical, it may have been spiritual, but either way it was overwhelming. And some one person stepped up. He created what needed creating, she destroyed what needed destruction, they dispatched with calm demeanor the needs of the moment. . . then moved on to the next thing.

Documents Suggest Bigger DeLay Role in Donations

By PHILIP SHENON

WASHINGTON, March 8 - Documents subpoenaed from an indicted fund-raiser for Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, suggest that Mr. DeLay was more actively involved than previously known in gathering corporate donations for a political committee that is the focus of a grand-jury investigation in Texas, his home state.

The documents, which were entered into evidence last week in a related civil trial in Austin, the state capital, suggest that Mr. DeLay personally forwarded at least one large corporate check to the committee, Texans for a Republican Majority, and that he was in direct contact with lobbyists for some of the nation's largest companies on the committee's behalf.

1. If South Carolina has yet to "get" over the Civil War after almost a century and a half, what makes you think Black people can "get over" slavery and Jim Crow in 30-odd years?
   
2. If the Republican Party is "The Party of Lincoln," what does Lindsey Graham have to get over?

Off-radar tax breaks draw new scrutiny
Red ink and a presidential tax-reform panel may put focus on 'tax expenditures.'
By Gail Russell Chaddock | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON - A little money - $100 million - to help shipping companies buy new vessels; $230 million to encourage drug companies to develop treatments for rare diseases. Half a billion to assist oil and gas exploration. Another half billion to allow ministers to deduct housing allowances from their taxes.

Together, they represent the black hole in the US budget universe.

I won't quote "The White Man's Bible," tempting though it is. But see the end of the editorial.

Quote of note:

we also need to be more vigilant about the domestic white supremacists, neo-Nazis and militia members. After all, some have more W.M.D. than Saddam.

Homegrown Osamas
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

...Since 9/11, we've focused almost exclusively on the risk of terrorism from Muslim foreigners, but we have plenty of potential homegrown Osamas.

...What troubled me most about Mr. Hale was not his extremist views, but his obvious organizational ability and talent to inspire his followers. When he was denied a law license in 1999 because of his racist views, a follower went on a rampage and shot 11 people - all blacks, Asians or Jews.

Graham Says GOP Erred By Focusing on Accounts
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 9, 2005; Page A08

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who has spent weeks attempting to recruit Democratic support for a plan to restructure Social Security, said yesterday that Republicans "made a strategic mistake" by initially focusing on a proposal to create individual investment accounts.

...is the Washington Post Editorials.

Lawmakers are preparing to unveil a budget resolution today that would provide for speedy passage this year (with amendments limited, and no filibuster allowed) of $70 billion to $100 billion in tax cuts. Given the tax cut fever of recent years, this number is said to be a sign of restraint, of a majority chastened, finally, by the mountainous national debt. Perhaps so, but this is the restraint of a dieter who is accustomed to scarfing down three pies a day and wants applause for cutting back to one.

Quote of note:

Army studies and experts have concluded that part of the decline in African American numbers is the unpopularity of the war in Iraq among blacks, combined with realities that officials say make recruiting tougher among all groups: the virtual guarantee of long deployments overseas, and widely publicized casualties.

A study of recruiting trends prepared for the Army last August found that "more African Americans identify having to fight for a cause they don't support" as a reason they are not interested in enlisting, while, for all groups, "fear of death or injury is the major barrier to joining the military today."

Steady Drop in Black Army Recruits
Data Said to Reflect Views on Iraq War

Quote of note:

Senators voted 53 to 46 against an amendment offered by Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) that had helped sink the legislation in prior years. The measure would have made it harder for people who break the law while protesting abortion to use bankruptcy to avoid paying court-ordered fines.

You see, filing bankruptcy to avoid paying court-ordered fines isn't fraud. In fact it's a long-standing tradition that must be protected.

Anyway...

Bankruptcy Bill Nears Final Senate Vote
By Kathleen Day
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 9, 2005; Page A01

As I listened to interviews with anti-Syrian Lebonese protestors over the last few weeks, I couldn't help but notice their rhetoric reflected that of Bush. You know this administration speaks their own version of English replete with terms of art. Well, the anti-Syrian forces use the same terms the same way...and the odds of THAT, given our variant cultural orientations, are roughly the same as the odds of finding snowballs in hell.

Maybe if Assad had a statue of himself they could topple there'd have been no protests.

Anyway...

Syria Supporters Rally in Lebanon
Hezbollah Chief Puts U.S. on Notice As Thousands Fill Streets of Beirut
By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, March 9, 2005; Page A01

Quote of note:

Senate leaders wanted tax cuts included, in large part because House Republicans will insist on it.

Tax, Spending Cuts Packaged
Congressional Panels Offer Budget Blueprints Today
By Shailagh Murray and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 9, 2005; Page A08

The House and Senate Budget committees will unveil fiscal blueprints today that pave the way for additional tax reductions while seeking billions in spending cuts that target Medicaid, farm assistance, major weapons systems and just about every other domestic program.

Offsetting tax breaks mostly for the affluent with spending cuts that could hurt the poor could be politically risky, particularly in the Senate, where moderate Republicans have already warned that the juxtaposition may be untenable.

So Tech Chiefs Say U.S. Is Losing Its Competitive Edge. The problem, as they see it?

-- Some 7 percent of U.S. households have broadband access, compared with 30 percent in Korea, 20 percent in Japan and over 10 percent in France.

-- U.S. investment in research and development has stayed flat for the last three decades, while it has grown significantly in competitors such as Brazil, India, China and Israel.

-- Students in the United States are behind their counterparts in other countries in math and science, and some Asian countries are graduating five times as many engineers.

And their solution?

...increase basic research funding and make permanent a research and development tax credit; promote broadband development, in part by minimizing regulations; enact a U.S.-Central America-Dominican Republic free trade agreement; promote cybersecurity initiatives; and continue to take steps to reduce frivolous lawsuits.

TechNet leaders also pledged to continue their opposition to a proposed Financial Accounting Standards Board rule that would require companies to deduct the value of employee stock options from their profits. Requiring some big companies to expense the popular employee incentives could dramatically reduce their profits.

Scott Wickham dropped by to let me know about his new wiki-based web site.

Contract for Black America

In time this wiki will be used to create the contract for black america and so much more. This is a place to gather ideas and information and to create plans . -- Scott Wickham -- founder of blackcontract.com

The two contracts: First we need to make a contract with ourselves within our community and second we need to make a contract with those outside our community.

Cobb dropped word on it in the first open thread (which is likely to be the only active one until the fifth, by which time comments on the first will autoclose).

Having told you this, I will explain why I'll not likely add a thing to it.

LATER: As I say below, my thing ain't perfect. There are people I got beef with. But Scott isn't really one of them.

Nova is about to rebroadcast their show on string theory. It happens to be a damn fine episode. and features Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe and as good a writer as he is a physicist.

From The Onion:

Study: Reality TV, Reality Unfair To Blacks
WASHINGTON, DC According to a study released Monday by the Center for Media and Social Research, the reality-TV genre is unfairly biased against black people. The study revealed that reality is unfair to blacks, as well.

Bush Announces Iraq Exit Strategy: 'We'll Go Through Iran'
"I'm pleased to announce that the Department of Defense and I have formulated a plan for a speedy withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq," Bush announced Monday morning. "We'll just go through Iran."

'Me Decade' Celebrates 35th Year
NEW YORK The "Me Decade," a period beginning in 1970 and marked by self-awareness and self-fulfillment, celebrated its 35th year Monday. "With careerism, materialism, and general self-involvement as popular as they were was decades ago, the Me Decade may well go on for another 35 years," said historian and Columbia University professor Dr. Vera Conklin. "It's been the longest-running decade in American history, beating the selfless 'Greatest Generation' of the '40s by a good 15 years. Selfishness, it seems, is here to stay." Author Tom Wolfe, who coined the term in his essay "The Me Decade And The Third Great Awakening," was unavailable for comment, as he is working on his memoirs.

I had to go to a NYC government office today. That means you bring a book because you're gonna wait. Today's book is T'ai Chi Classics by Waysun Liao.

So I sit next to the staffer's desk. She glances at the book and nods appreciatively. We do what we have to do and she says goodbye and "Enjoy your book."

I ask, "You do T'ai Chi?"

She says, "No, my husband is Thai."

I say, "You know T'ai Chi isn't Thai, right?"

She says, "They're from the same place."

Having established once again that being sociable means letting myself be taught things that I know to be wrong, I just nodded and left.

State Taxpayers Providing Relief to Military Families
By SHAILA DEWAN

Taxpayers can donate their refunds in many states to the homeless, to victims of child abuse, to protecting endangered species or to a group of needy people whose taxpayer-financed salaries do not always make ends meet - military families.

... "It's because Congress has failed to set a safety net for military families that lose heads of household," said Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, which recently added $250,000 life insurance policies for its National Guard soldiers to augment the $12,000 federal death benefit. "And the states are stepping in with humanitarian initiatives."

So why are they stressing the Mayor of London?

Report Shows Israeli Support for West Bank Settlements
By STEVEN ERLANGER

JERUSALEM, March 8 - A long-awaited report into Israeli government support for illegal settlement outposts in the West Bank, formally delivered to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today, describes widespread state complicity, fraud and cynicism, illegal diversion of government money and illegal seizure of private Palestinian land.

The report, which was written under American pressure, finished in early January and withheld until now, accuses the government of Mr. Sharon and previous Israeli governments of "blatant violations of the law" and complicity in helping settlers construct illegal outposts in violation of stated Israeli government policy. The report describes almost a state within a state, devoted to promoting illegal settlement activity in the occupied West Bank.

Group Opens $2 Million Drive for Bush Social Security Plan
By GLEN JUSTICE

WASHINGTON, March 7 - The Progress for America Voter Fund, a Republican political advocacy group, began a $2 million campaign of television commercials on Monday, rolling out a minute long advertisement supporting President Bush's Social Security plan.

The commercial, which will run on national cable channels for three weeks, opens with a scene of a fog-shrouded iceberg as an announcer intones, "Some people say Social Security is not in trouble, just like some thought the Titanic was unsinkable."

Republicans are fond of attacking what "some people" say.

It's been said before. Tried before...and every attempt had degenerated into white folks whipping on white folks and Black folks getting the heat for it.

Anyway...

The case for 'White History Month'
By Adam Mansbach  |  March 8, 2005

WITH BLACK History Month -- the shortest of the year, it is often pointed out -- drawn to a close, we bid a fond adieu to public radio tributes to African-American icons and gaze one final time at heartfelt billboard salutes from car manufacturers. In grade-school classrooms across America, timeworn photographs of Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, George Washington Carver, and Jackie Robinson are being removed from bulletin boards, tucked away to slumber for another year.

Quote of note

One of the states that gets the least out of the system is DeLay's home state. Texas got only 89 cents for every dollar its residents paid in gas taxes in 2003, and since 1957 that state has paid out $5.6 billion more to the highway trust fund than it received, a bigger gap than any other state.

"States like mine and others are sending a lot of money to the federal government and getting very little back," DeLay said last year during consideration of an earlier version of the transportation bill.

Lawmakers representing regions that have benefited counter that it is fair for the Northeast to get more because transportation needs are more acute in the densely-populated region. But with a Texan in the White House and political power shifting to the South in the Republicancontrolled Congress, that funding discrepancy is increasingly vulnerable, transportation analysts say.

Do you REALLY want to talk about getting funds back from the feds in proportion to what you pay?

Really?

GOP seeks to redistribute highway funding
What state's drivers pay in gas taxes would determine allocations
By Alan Wirzbicki, Globe Correspondent  |  March 8, 2005

WASHINGTON -- When Congress begins debate this week on a $286 billion transportation bill, Republican leaders plan to try to change how federal highway funding is distributed to eliminate what they see as unfair regional disparities.

House majority leader Tom DeLay is leading the effort to tie how much a state receives for road projects to how much drivers in that state pay in federal gasoline taxes, a change that would likely result in a smaller share of federal highway funds for parts of the Northeast and the West, and more for the South.

Quote of note:

McCain's assistance in 2003 and 2004 was sandwiched around two donations of $100,000 each from Cablevision to The Reform Institute, the tax-exempt group that touts McCain's views and has showcased him at events since his 2000 presidential campaign.

The group also pays $110,000 a year to McCain's chief political adviser, Rick Davis, who ran the senator's 2000 presidential campaign. Cablevision's money accounted for 15 percent of the institute's fund-raising in 2003, according to its most recent tax filing.

McCain hit on cable donations
Backed company pricing policies
By Associated Press  |  March 8, 2005

Quote of note:

Kennedy accused Republicans of advancing a "deeper poverty agenda" for the poor by including several provisions to cut long-standing wage and overtime protections for millions of Americans. He took particular aim at Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), a conservative who is atop the Democratic target list for 2006 and the lead supporter of the GOP minimum wage alternative.

"The senator from Pennsylvania has a record of opposing increases in the minimum wage," Kennedy said. "He has voted against it at least 17 times in the last 10 years."

Senate Votes Against Higher Minimum Wage
By David Espo
Associated Press
Monday, March 7, 2005; 8:43 PM

Richard Cohen, in his Washington Post editorial Supreme Zealotry, makes a couple of interesting points:

[The signers of the Declaration of Independence] asserted that "governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." That is a bold statement, but not religious in the least.

Scalia disagrees!

Scalia's candor is a wonderful thing. He is a devout Roman Catholic, and in 2002 he set out his philosophy in the journal First Things. He cited Saint Paul in Romans 13:1-5: "government . . . derives its moral authority from God."

Scalia's views are SO fundamentally different than those of the Founding Fathers that I wonder if he even knows the Founding Fathers' views.

To me, though, the most important part of Davey D's article is the recounting of Hiphop activists' long-standing attempts to address this.

Quote of note:

So what's this all about? Why is Sharpton jumping in at the 12th hour? Is it because this is the hot topic of the day and he wants to be a part of it? Maybe  Maybe not. The media reform and media justice argument has been around for the past 3 years and have been hot topics. He could've ran to the bank with this during his Presidential campaign. But he didn't. He certainly never had any of the main Hip Hop activists who have been dealing with this from day one come on his Sunday night 3 hour radio show on WLIB which is now home to Air America. We spoke with Bob Law who let us know that not once did Sharpton ever help out with the widespread efforts behind this campaign.

So what s the motive behind Sharpton suddenly wanting to write the FCC and call for a ban on gangsta rap? Well, he s seems to be redirecting the argument back to the artists and away from the media owners and executives who are really responsible for giving them air time.

Now Sharpton Wants to Jump In  What s the Hustle?
by Davey D

Today the NY Daily News ran an article about the Reverend Al Sharpton wanting to write letters to the FCC and call for a 90 day ban on 'gangsta rap' and anything that reeks of violence and has the potential to spill out in the streets.

...which, as you know, was the precursor of American slavery.

Quote of note:

Warren Buffett recently made headlines by saying America is more likely to turn into a "sharecroppers' society" than an "ownership society." But I think the right term is a "debt peonage" society - after the system, prevalent in the post-Civil War South, in which debtors were forced to work for their creditors. The bankruptcy bill won't get us back to those bad old days all by itself, but it's a significant step in that direction.

The Debt-Peonage Society

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Today the Senate is expected to vote to limit debate on a bill that toughens the existing bankruptcy law, probably ensuring the bill's passage. A solid bloc of Republican senators, assisted by some Democrats, has already voted down a series of amendments that would either have closed loopholes for the rich or provided protection for some poor and middle-class families.

Quote of note (which reminds me of Edgar Ray Killen's jury more than anything else):

One juror said much of that account simply failed to convince them. For example, he said, none of the jurors believed the officer's description of a first encounter with Mr. Zongo in which he said the art restorer had lunged at him and then run away.

"We knew he was lying," the juror said. "Some of us used other words. You know, like embellish. One of the holdouts liked that word a lot. On the other side, a lie is a lie and if you don't believe that, then how can you believe anything else?"

Another sticking point for the majority, that juror said, was why the officer had chased Mr. Zongo to within an arm's length of his gun, even though he acknowledged knowing that Mr. Zongo was not armed. Officer Conroy testified that he fired twice just as he managed to jerk away from Mr. Zongo, and that seconds later, he fired two more shots. "He never lost control of his gun," the juror said. "Why are you still shooting at someone who doesn't have a weapon?"

The direction of the gunshot wounds in Mr. Zongo's body also seemed to clash with Officer Conroy's testimony, the juror said. Ballistic evidence indicated that the bullets tore into Mr. Zongo's body and traveled downward, indicating that Officer Conroy did not fire at Mr. Zongo from his hip, as he said. Jurors said they were also troubled that at least one bullet hit Mr. Zongo in the back.

Even the central pillar of Officer Conroy's testimony - his account of a life-or-death struggle in which he said Mr. Zongo had fought to get his gun - was not believable for most of those jurors who said they had voted for conviction.

"The majority of us thought he made an error in judgment," another juror said. "We feel on that day he acted unreasonably in causing the death of Mr. Zongo."

Report Says Medicaid Overpays for Drugs
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, March 7 - Federal health officials are not enforcing a law that requires drug companies to cut their prices on drugs bought for poor people under Medicaid, Congressional investigators said on Monday.

The investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the federal Medicaid agency rarely verified the accuracy of price data reported by drug manufacturers and used to compute the discounts required by law. As a result, they said, Medicaid, the nation's largest health insurance program, with more than 50 million beneficiaries, often pays too much for prescription drugs.

Quote of note:

But for all the good news, many economic forecasters remain worried about the broader global imbalances. The United States' large trade deficit, which exceeded $600 billion last year, is expected to widen in 2005 and increase the country's enormous foreign indebtedness.

Exports are unlikely to redress that balance this year, most analysts predict, because Europe and Japan are growing at anemic rates in comparison with the United States.

That means American demand for imports is likely to expand much more rapidly than European and Japanese demand for American exports. And with American imports almost twice as great as exports, America's exports must grow far more rapidly to even begin a reduction in the trade deficit.

"The world is still too dependent on U.S. spending," said Nigel Gault, an economist at Global Insight, a forecasting firm, in Lexington, Mass. "We're still increasing imbalances in the global economy, so the U.S. is still increasingly dependent on the inflow of foreign capital."

As Businesses Step Up Spending, Some See a Just-Right Economy
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS and EDUARDO PORTER

Justices, 7-2, Reject Secrecy at Tax Court

By LINDA GREENHOUSE

WASHINGTON, March 7 - The Supreme Court rebuked the United States Tax Court on Monday for its adoption of a "bold" and unauthorized procedure that shields essential documents from disclosure to people with cases before the court and to federal judges who review the tax court's work on appeal.

A strongly worded 7-to-2 decision, with the majority opinion written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, was addressed to the tax court's use of "special trial judges," auxiliary judges who conduct trials and make recommendations to the 19 regular judges on how major tax cases should be decided.

Quote of note:

The N.R.A. and gun rights supporters in Congress have fought - successfully, for the most part - to limit the use of the F.B.I.'s national gun-buying database as a tool for law enforcement investigators, saying the database would amount to an illegal registry of gun owners nationwide.

Terror Suspects Buying Firearms, U.S. Report Finds

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, March 7 - Dozens of terror suspects on federal watch lists were allowed to buy firearms legally in the United States last year, according to a Congressional investigation that points up major vulnerabilities in federal gun laws.

Quote of note:

Often it took years for federal bill collectors to get around to their job. This delay gave crooks the time to hide money and appear penniless when finally cornered.

PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE
Only suckers pay
Monday, March 7, 2005

CRIME DOESN'T pay, but, in some case, it comes mighty close.

As evidence, consider the results of a federal audit: White-collar crooks pay only 7 cents of each $1 owed in fines.

A review by the Government Accountability Office looked at five cases involving such wood-paneled crimes as faking sales numbers, falsely pumping up stock values and pocketing business loans for personal use.

Real estate investors cast watchful eye on Las Vegas' high stakes housing game
- Kelly Zito, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, March 7, 2005

Las Vegas' lucky number last year was 52 -- as in 52 percent. That's how much real estate prices jumped in the nation's fastest-growing city in one year, as a housing shortage set off a wave of speculation by investors from California and other states.

But as any gambler knows, Lady Luck eventually turns a cold shoulder. Las Vegans wanted to cash in, too, and so many put their houses up for sale that they flooded the market. By the end of the year, some homebuilders were slashing prices.

Dismissal May Spur New Exec Romance Rules
By Chris Gaither and Lisa Girion
Times Staff Writers
March 8, 2005

The forced resignation of Boeing Co. Chief Executive Harry C. Stonecipher over an extramarital affair with an employee may signal an end to corporate America's willingness to ignore the sexual indiscretions of its leaders.

But few experts in workplace law expect Boeing's move to unleash a rash of firings at other companies. Instead, they said Monday, Stonecipher's ouster probably will prompt boards to institute or redefine their rules for romantic relationships, possibly by requiring that executives disclose romances they're having with subordinates.[P6: Oh, yeah, that'll work...] "If CEOs were knocked out for extramarital affairs, we'd have a major employment opportunity in the United States," said Ellen Bravo, who conducts sexual harassment training for Milwaukee-based 9to5, National Assn. of Working Women. "There would be a lot of openings."

I get the creeps every time I have to use the "Religion" and "Politics" categories on the same article. And yes, that means I have the creeps a lot...pretty much every time I look at the Republican plans to set up a one-party system in the USofA.

Quote of note:

George W. Bush may now find himself in the same kind of trap that ensnared Saudi Arabia's founder, King Abdulaziz ibn Saud. To gain political support, Saud mobilized the fanatical, ultrareligious Wahhabi movement   the movement that is spiritually at the core of Al Qaeda. Once the bargain was done, the Saudi royal family repeatedly found itself held political hostage to an extremist, barely controllable movement populated by radical ideologues. The evangelical movement in the U.S. nudged the president back into the White House, and Bush must now try to pay off the political bill for its support.

Made-in-America Wahhabism
The Christian right is our own brand of extremism.
By William Thatcher Dowell
William Thatcher Dowell edits Global Beat for New York University's Center for War, Peace and the News Media. He was a Middle East correspondent for Time magazine from 1989 through 1993.
March 8, 2005

Answer:

The country is being led by a group of ideologues who fanatically reject the notion that government has a role to play in ameliorating the harshest aspects of capitalism.

For them, the mantra is "privatization," in any and all corners of society.

In fact, what the president advocates, and what powerful Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan seems to be endorsing, is a return to the purist free-market fantasy that characterized the latter's outlook as a young libertarian academic.

... This ideological hostility to progressive taxation and income redistributions is the real issue behind the assault on Social Security, and it deserves to be debated head-on.

Knowing that the program is far too popular to be axed completely, hyper-conservatives hatched this idea of diverting its funds into the stock market. They hate the idea of all that money flowing down the food chain instead of up   lower- income workers get a higher rate of return on their Social Security taxes than those better off.

Social Security-funded private accounts, on the other hand, would not redistribute income; they simply would extend into retirement the existing decades-old pattern of the rich getting richer, the poor doing worse and the middle class eroding.

Let's be blunt: A progressive tax is a good thing for the very reason libertarian and conservative ideologues think it is bad: It redistributes income in a way that ever so slightly makes us more equal and minimally protects the weakest among us.

Anybody who wants a democratic society cannot accept excessively uneven income distribution. As Alexis de Tocqueville famously observed, the rule of the majority must be rooted in a thriving middle class.

The alternative? Class warfare and socioeconomic chaos   exactly what we faced during the Depression when Social Security was introduced to save capitalism.

Question:

You gonna be in New York on April 10th? (Not you, you live here...)

Culture Kitchen and Nichelle Newsletter present our inaugural event of the Brown Blog Series on Sunday April 10, 2005.  "Color or Content: Does Race Matter When You Blog?"

Nia (Purpose): To gather, to discuss and to have fun
Location: Lava Gina ( wi-fi access + world music )  116 Avenue C between 7th and 8th Streets
Time: 7PM-10PM 
Guests Include:
Prometheus6
Ronn Taylor
EJFlavors
Hip Hop Blogs
Tuckergurl
Nichelle Tramble

If you are coming, let me know so that I can add you to the list.  Thanks!

I know I told you about it already. I do not intend to let you forget, because I feel like this sort of meet-and-greet among Black alternate media folks is a good concept, and I know Nichelle and Liza can handle the arrangement of such much better than I. In fact, I suck at networking and being nice in general.

U.S. Intelligence Reforms Seen Posing New Dangers
Sun Mar 6, 2005 12:00 PM ET
By David Morgan

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (Reuters) - Sharing information between intelligence and law enforcement agencies -- changes recommended after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks -- could backfire and make the United States more vulnerable to al Qaeda and other enemies, former intelligence officials say.

As the Senate prepares for confirmation of a new director of national intelligence, former officials said the broad U.S. intelligence and law enforcement establishment has likely been penetrated by foreign intelligence services, both through human agents and high-tech information-gathering devices.

It gelled with this ambassadorial assignment.

The reason we're seeing all this "democracy wave" in the Middle East is someone was told, "If we'll invade a whole damn country, kill thousands and thousands of people, what makes you think we'll cavil over an assassination or two?"

Why do you think Assad told Time Magazine, " "Please send this message: I am not Saddam Hussein. I want to cooperate"?

Bush Appoints Right-Wing Extremist to UN Post
Analysis By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Mar 7 (IPS) - In a breathtaking victory for right-wing hawks, U.S. President George W. Bush has nominated Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton to become his next ambassador to the United Nations.

Natalie at All Facts and Opinions found a really obnoxious set of religious bigots thinly disguised as a business ezine. And these wonderful people have compiled a list of the ten top "gay companies" and ten top anti-gay companies.

So, we'd like to present for your reading pleasure or, more appropriately, your reading horror the first installment of Business Reform's Top Ten Pro-Gay Companies as well as a list of our top ten "anti-gay" companies. The main reason for this list is to keep you, our dear reader, informed as to where the homosexual agenda is most prevalent within the marketplace. Knowing those strongholds can only be to your competitive and moral advantage.

The second reason for our doing a list like this has to do with your investments: By knowing which companies are moving the furthest away from God's Word as it relates to human sexuality, you can then make better investment and product decisions. We all know that to hurt a man badly, your best bet is to slug him in the wallet. Stewardship has as much to do with not putting your money in the hands of the wicked as it does with putting it in the trust of those whose motivations are more sacred.

See? Mercenary. Judgmental.

Quote of note:

"It almost points out the futility of municipalities developing ordinances and laws that restrict the size of stores," said Kenneth E. Stone, professor emeritus of economics at Iowa State University, who has studied the company for 20 years. "There's always a way around them, and an outfit as big and smart as Wal-Mart will think of a way."

Wal-Mart officials say there is nothing Calvert can do to prevent construction of the stores.

Adjacent Wal-Marts May Dodge Size Curbs
Calvert Had Stopped Supercenter Plans

By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 7, 2005; Page B01

Tax Cuts Lose Spot On GOP Agenda
War, Medicare, Social Security Expenses Loom

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 7, 2005; Page A01

President Bush and Republican lawmakers are being forced to temper their anti-tax ambitions, as the party that consolidated power in Washington by promising to shrink government grapples with the high cost of its efforts to expand the Defense Department and the nation's two largest entitlement programs.

The president's only new tax initiative for the second term -- a broad restructuring of the tax code -- will be crafted in a way that results in a simpler system, not lower taxes, White House aides said.

Private Doesn't Mea n Better
By William Raspberry
Monday, March 7, 2005; Page A19

Remember the gag about "the three biggest lies"? They were: "The check is in the mail," "Of course I'll respect you in the morning" and -- the punch line -- "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you."

Maybe it's time to add a fourth: "We're from the private sector, so naturally we'll do it better."

This last "biggest lie" has become a conservative mantra, a mystical incantation repeated not so much to explain as to make explanations unnecessary. Of course the private market will do it better -- whether the "it" is cleaning city streets, funding Social Security or staffing prisons.

'Angry Black White Boy': The Way I Am

By NATHANIEL RICH

Title:  Angry Black White Boy : A Novel
Author:  ADAM MANSBACH

Macon Detornay hates the Beastie Boys, loves hot sauce and is highly skeptical of John Brown's motives at Harpers Ferry -- all of which leads him to conclude that he is the ultimate ''down whiteboy.'' A graduate of Newton South High School, Macon has grown up as a Jewish kid on the leafy streets of the Boston suburbs, where he has witnessed liberal white hypocrisy first hand. ''Even the most concerned white people,'' he observes, ''have always been able to back away from race . . . when the truth is too ugly or complicated.''

Quote of note:

Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, said he had met with the White House Correspondents Association and they had decided to let Mr. Graff in. "It is the press corps' briefing room and if there are any new lines to be drawn, it should be done by their association," he said.

So...the White House isn't deciding who get security clearance anymore?

Bullshit.

White House Approves Pass for Blogger

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

Another signal moment for bloggers is to occur this morning, when Garrett M. Graff, who writes a blog about the news media in Washington, is to be ushered into the White House briefing room to attend the daily press "gaggle."

Clear Skies, R.I.P.

Barring a cave-in by Democrats who have so far kept the bill bottled up in committee, President Bush's Clear Skies initiative appears dead for this session of Congress. This is no great loss to the nation. Clear Skies is a bad bill, which in the name of streamlining current law would offer considerably more relief to the industries that pollute the air than to the citizens who breathe it.

Because Clear Skies was one of Mr. Bush's signature initiatives, and the first proposed overhaul of the Clean Air Act since his father's landmark reforms of 1990, it is worth reflecting on its troubles. Clear Skies originally came attractively dressed as a grand bargain under which a market-based system of pollution control would replace the cumbersome regulatory mechanisms in existing law - resulting in less litigation, more regulatory certainty for industry and cleaner air for everybody.

Quote of note:

The company says that selling torcetrapib and Lipitor in one pill makes sense because the two drugs work in complementary ways, and that it has the right to market its medicines as it sees fit, especially given the huge cost of developing torcetrapib.

Pfizer Stirs Concern With Plans To Sell Heart Drugs Only as Pair
By ALEX BERENSON

A drug that could be one of the most promising new heart treatments in a decade is generating controversy even before it is approved, because its maker, Pfizer, plans to sell it only in combination with the company's best-selling cholesterol treatment, Lipitor.

Quote of note:

It could be that financial institutions aren't hurrying to tighten standards because of a little-known fact: Retailers, not banks, generally absorb losses caused by identity thieves. That means the companies issuing credit cards have little incentive to scrutinize applications, critics contend.

"As long as they continue to make money by granting credit easily to thousands of people every day, we're still going to have the problems," said Beth Givens, director of the nonprofit Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a consumer information and advocacy group.

Industry at Odds Over ID Theft Liability
By Joseph Menn
Times Staff Writer
March 7, 2005

Heidi Anderson didn't know much about identity theft until her Christmas 2001 shopping trip to Victoria's Secret, where a cashier said her store card —  which she had used only once before  — was over its limit.

The San Francisco Chronicle ran an editorial yesterday whose title (What women should want -- Politically correct is tiresome tyranny) made me suspicious.

But half way though I was like, why was this titled so obnoxiously?

As International Women's Day approaches on Tuesday, let's face it, women are not just kinder and more gentle, which are often considered feminine traits, they are also more honest, less sexist, less racist and less ageist. They are just plain better human beings than men.

Quick, think of 10 individuals who have ruined, just in the last 60 years alone, the lives of countless millions of people: Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Kim Il Sung, Idi Amin, Fidel Castro, Pol Pot, Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden ... well, you get the idea.

Police statistics worldwide confirm that men commit 10 times as many crimes as women, both violent and commercial.

When was the last time you heard about a gang of women holding up a bank and pistol-whipping an elderly guard, whose only defense was a newspaper and a coffee cup? How many professional female assassins have you read about? Or hijackers? Or female mass murderers? Janet the Ripper? I don't think so.

Women are not only far less likely to whack you over the head for your watch, or juggle the books in your office, they are also harder-working and more responsible.

In interviews with scores of factory managers, corporate presidents, restaurant managers and industrial bosses in places as far afield as Tokyo and Tashkent, Northern Ireland and South Africa, Sydney and Shanghai, I have been told repeatedly that women report on time, stay later and are more quality- conscious than men.

It's no fluke that the only person to come out with any honor from the slimy Enron scandal with any honor happens to wear high heels.

Of course, women do have some minor, irritating traits. Like almost always being right: "Put on a sweater or you'll catch a cold. ... Don't get drunk at the office party. ... I think we should turn left here. ..."

Yet, compared to the myriad venal and stupid habits of men, everything from murder to walking with muddy shoes on a new carpet, women are virtually divine creatures.

So what's the PC beef?

A WEB OF WHITE POWER
Killing of judge's relatives points to Internet's potential to breed 'lone wolf' supremacists
- Stacy Finz, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, March 6, 2005

Without Matt Hale, the white supremacist who sits in a Chicago jail cell awaiting sentencing for plotting to kill a federal judge, his once- prominent hate group has splintered and dwindled in size.

But authorities say the white-power movement doesn't need Hale, who once held rock-star status among skinheads, to be dangerous. It has the Internet.

'Skateboard Murder' Stuns Town
San Luis Obispo reacts with disbelief after the arrest of boy, 13, in the slaying of elderly man.
By Paul Pringle
Times Staff Writer
March 7, 2005

SAN LUIS OBISPO   Horrified residents call it the "Skateboard Murder," a description chilling enough for its reference to the object allegedly used to kill 87-year-old Gerald O'Malley.

But the label's combination of youthful plaything and mortal violence also summons a ghastlier element of the case: that the suspect is just 13.

And to pile shock upon shock, authorities in this Central Coast town say they are investigating whether other children might have learned of the slaying and remained silent about it until after the police found the body last Monday night.

There are those (whom, to save them embarrassment, I shall not link to at this time) who feel the Christian Right aren't significant enough to worry about. I think the Quote of Note settles all that.

But the argument that a religious institution spending public funds has the right to require employees to embrace its beliefs— and that it will be backed by the Justice Department in doing so — has changed the debate. It is an argument the Bush administration is making in Congress as well as in the courts.

Justice Unit Puts Its Focus on Faith
A little-known civil rights office has been busily defending religious groups.
By Richard B. Schmitt
Times Staff Writer
March 7, 2005

WASHINGTON   One of the main jobs at the Justice Department is enforcing the nation's civil rights laws. So when a nonprofit group was accused of employment discrimination last year in New York, the department moved swiftly to intervene —  but not on the side one might expect.

The Salvation Army was accused in a lawsuit of imposing a new religious litmus test on employees hired with millions of dollars in public funds.

When employees complained that they were being required to embrace Jesus Christ to keep their jobs, the Justice Department's civil rights division took the side of the Salvation Army.

Defending the right of an employer using public funds to discriminate is one of the more provocative steps taken by a little-known arm of the civil rights division and its special counsel for religious discrimination.

The Justice Department's religious-rights unit, established three years ago, has launched a quiet but ambitious effort aimed at rectifying what the Bush administration views as years of illegal discrimination against religious groups and their followers.

Many court decisions have affirmed the rights of individuals in the public sector not to have religious beliefs imposed on them   the Supreme Court ruling banning school-sponsored prayer in public schools among them. And courts have ruled that the rights of religious groups sometimes need protection too   upholding, for example, their right to have access to public buildings for meetings.

But the argument that a religious institution spending public funds has the right to require employees to embrace its beliefs —  and that it will be backed by the Justice Department in doing so —  has changed the debate. It is an argument the Bush administration is making in Congress as well as in the courts.

The Internet and Campaign 2004: The internet was a key force in politics last year as 75 million Americans used it to get news, discuss candidates in emails, and participate directly in the political process

3/6/2005 | Report  | Lee Rainie, John Horrigan, Michael Cornfield

The internet became an essential part of American politics in 2004. Fully 75 million Americans   37% of the adult population and 61% of online Americans   used the internet to get political news and information, discuss candidates and debate issues in emails, or participate directly in the political process by volunteering or giving contributions to candidates.

Italy Doubts U.S. Version of Iraq Shooting
Sun Mar 6, 2005 12:14 PM ET

By Robin Pomeroy and Roberto Landucci
ROME (Reuters) - Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena, shot and wounded after being freed in Iraq, said Sunday U.S. forces may have deliberately targeted her because Washington opposed Italy's policy of dealing with kidnappers.

She offered no evidence for the claim that reflected growing anger in Italy over the conduct of the war, which has claimed more than 20 Italian lives, including secret agent Nicola Calipari who rescued her moments before being killed.

The shooting Friday evening has sparked tension with Italy's U.S. allies and put pressure on Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to take a hard line with President Bush.

Speaking from the Rome hospital where she is being treated, Sgrena said the troops may have targeted her because Washington opposes Italy's reported readiness to pay ransoms to kidnappers.

"The United States doesn't approve of this (ransom) policy and so they try to stop it in any way possible," the veteran war reporter, 57, told Sky Italia TV.

In later comments to Reuters, Sgrena was less strident:

"You could characterise as an ambush what happens when you are showered with gunfire. If this happened because of a lack of information or deliberately, I don't know, but even if it was due to a lack of information it is unacceptable."

Really, I am.

But these Pharisees in the Religious Right are just fucked up.

You don't need links. They're all overthe place.

The Little Frat That Sued - Pt. 1

Reader Niky R. wrote to tell my about something he found troubling. He says, "My school, the University of North Carolina, has been fighting a 'fraternity' that claims the right to discriminate against non-Christians ... the new frat seems to be mainly a cover for a radical-right challenge in the courts to nondiscrimination policies across the country."

Niky thinks that this deserves more attention -- and I agree.

My research indicates that the fraternity is the creation of a megachurch founded by a former member of the cult-like Maranatha Ministry.

And the non-profit doing the suing (a group founded by James Dobson, D. James Kennedy, etc.) gave presentations to campus Christian groups, challenging them to fight their school's non-discrimination policies so they'd get suspended and the group could sue on their behalf, hopefully taking the case all the way to the Supreme Court.

And this week the fraternity won an injunction that is being touted as a victory for Christianity and conservatism, in that it gives them the right to discriminate against homosexuals and non-Christians.

Don't you hate being the victim of a scam?

Quote of note:

"Historically when societies have gone off kilter, there has been rampant same-sex marriage," Mr. Jackson said in an interview.

My instinctive reaction to this statement was to call bullshit. I mean, I can't recall any society where one could call same-sex marriage rampant. I'm hard pressed to think of one where it was even acknowledged.

And the issue is just a distraction to the Black communities. Not, of course, to gay Black folks. But these sorts of noises are the admission price to Bush's faith based financing .

Anyway...

Black Churches Struggle Over Their Role in Politics
By NEELA BANERJEE

You have a health care system that we can't afford. People can't afford health care without insurance, and can't afford insurance. To solve it a bill is passed that forbids negotiating for lower prices.

The other day The Washington Post ran an editorial by Newt Gingrich suggesting even more of the cost should be shifted to working families. Today the New York Times quoted an insurance company representative who said private drug insurance wouldn't work in the real world. So your government insures the insurers against loss.

DHS dodges its obligation
OUR OPINION: AGENCY SHOULD FUND TRANSITION COSTS FOR FREED CUBAN MARIEL DETAINEES

A Cuban detainee recently was released by the Department of Homeland Security in Colorado, given a bus ticket to Miami, some sweets -- and no money. Arriving three days later, he was weak and famished from the cross-country, 1,700-mile ordeal. Camillus Health Concern has treated at least five recently released Cuban detainees found homeless on the streets of Miami; three men arrived via Greyhound Bus with nothing more than their corrections ID and in need of social services. How shameful and wrong of DHS to shirk its responsibilities.

I said I'd get back to it. Here's why.

Education Law Finds Few Fans in Utah
By SAM DILLON
Published: March 6, 2005

...Education officials nationwide are watching the events here to see whether this state will win in its game of brinkmanship with federal officials. Mr. Bush's 670-page law, signed in 2002, expands standardized testing and punishes schools where even small groups of students fail to make sufficient progress. But many states have challenged its enforcement.

In Utah, legislators say that the state's own system of monitoring student proficiency is better than Washington's and that the Bush administration is overreaching.

"This issue is a lot bigger than the details of teacher qualifications and student testing," said State Senator Thomas Hatch, the rancher who led the renegade Republicans this year. "This is about who controls education - the states or Washington."

As Clinton Wins G.O.P. Friends, Her Rivals' Task Toughens

By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ

The intimate gathering at a private home in Corning, N.Y., was pretty typical for an upstate fund-raiser featuring Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton: dozens of donors clustered in the terrace, listening to her speak, as they sipped wine and nibbled on hors d'oeuvres.

But one thing made the event unusual: The host was a prominent Republican businessman whose brother Amo Houghton was the popular nine-term Republican congressman from the area who, it turns out, gives Mrs. Clinton, a Democrat, an "A-plus" for the job she is doing.

His brother James, chairman of Corning Inc., agreed. "When I introduced Hillary, I told the crowd that the last time a Houghton had a fund-raiser for a Democrat was about 1812," he said.

Defying Experts, Insurers Join Medicare Drug Plan
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, March 5 - The new Medicare drug benefit passed a major milestone in recent weeks as a substantial number of big insurance companies said they would offer prescription drug coverage to Medicare beneficiaries next year, defying the predictions of many industry experts.

...In 2000, however, when the legislation began moving through Congress, Charles N. Kahn III, who was then president of the Health Insurance Association of America, said: "Private drug insurance policies are doomed from the start. The idea sounds good, but it cannot succeed in the real world."

Insurers say they now find the risk acceptable because the government will protect them against large financial losses, at least in the first years of the program.

Under the law, the government offers subsidies to insurers, pays more for sicker patients and pays still more if the claims significantly exceed what the insurer expected.

Suspect in 10 Kansas Murders Lived an Intensely Ordinary Life

By MONICA DAVEY

PARK CITY, Kan., March 5 - In his crisp beige uniform, cap and badge, Dennis L. Rader took his job upholding the most mundane city laws with unusual earnestness.

He was often seen in his white truck, the words "Compliance Officer, Park City" painted on the side, puttering along at 10 miles an hour, searching for overgrown lawns, overflowing trash cans or dogs wandering past their fences.

"He looked for absolutely everything, and he must have enforced every rule there ever was - just because he could, I guess," said Barbara Walters, 69, a retired auditor for the Internal Revenue Service, who challenged a $25 ticket that Mr. Rader issued in 1998, saying her dog, Shadow, was running loose.

Obsessing about Sen. Clinton as usual, the Chris Matthews crew droned admiringly about the political moves she's made in the background...interesting statement that she's co-sponsored a bill with every Republican senator that voted to impeach Bill.

Then Chris Matthews asks, "Are men read for this?"

Ed Gordon: "No." (cutting off anyone that even thought about answering)

(laughter)

EG: And let's be honest about it, let me raise the name Tom Bradley. Immensely popular in Los Angeles, when he ran for governor everyone was ready to usher him is, and I'll never forget watching television the night he wasn't elected and hearing a white guy come out and say, "You know what? I went in to pull that lever...and I couldn't."

CM: Same thing with Doug Wilder in Virginia, he had a 13 point spread, won by one.

EG: ...and I think it's the same here, I think men will tell you what you want to hear when the camera's on but I don't think they'll go for it.

CM: Is it cognitive dissonance or just lying?

EG: Lying. (cutting off anyone that even thought about answering)

(laughter)

Ed Gordon (on Chris Matthews) is a much better "talking head" than Kweisi Mfume (on This Week).

John Snow says private accounts are a necessary, integral part of a "fair, equitable solution." And when asked if he'd be willing to talk about private accounts that are not linked to benefit cuts, he did the ol' soft shoe.

Albert Einstein said compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe? Come da fuk on...

AND HE JUST HAD THE NERVE TO SAY BUSH'S PLAN IS COSTLESS FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF SOCIAL SECURITY!!

Snow also exposed the whole tactic by which Bush has been able to take credit for all the legislation he initially proposed. This Social Security nonsense is about starting a dialog, invite ideas and he's saying "I'll talk to you." But here's the pisser: Sen. Grassley (sp?) said solvency is more important than private accounst and maybe the accounts should be put aside. Snow says Grassley only put that out there to draw out Democratic suggestion (of which he says they're just not getting enough...tough titty, you're not hearing more because the suggestions already made are sufficient).

On This Week, he says private accounts don't address solvency and so must be off the table.

Where have we heard that before?

But he's bit of a wuss, too. When asked about Byrd's breach of Godwin's Law and Stephanopolis says that's a loaded comparison, I'd have said, "True, true..."