Two Years Later, Iraq War Drains Military
Heavy Demands Offset Combat Experience

By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 19, 2005; Page A01

Two years after the United States launched a war in Iraq with a crushing display of power, a guerrilla conflict is grinding away at the resources of the U.S. military and casting uncertainty over the fitness of the all-volunteer force, according to senior military leaders, lawmakers and defense experts.

The unexpectedly heavy demands of sustained ground combat are depleting military manpower and gear faster than they can be fully replenished. Shortfalls in recruiting and backlogs in needed equipment are taking a toll, and growing numbers of units have been broken apart or taxed by repeated deployments, particularly in the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve.

Pentagon Strategy Aims to Block Internal Threats to Foreign Forces
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 19, 2005; Page A02

A new national defense strategy issued by the Pentagon calls for greater U.S. military efforts to keep foreign nations from becoming havens for terrorism or being undermined internally by such additional threats as insurgency, drugs and organized crime.

While U.S. forces have long helped to bolster foreign militaries through a variety of assistance programs, the new emphasis on aiding them against internal threats marks a significant departure from the traditional focus on guarding against potential cross-border aggression.

Scientists Discover What You Are Thinking

PASADENA, Calif. - By decoding signals coming from neurons, scientists at the California Institute of Technology have confirmed that an area of the brain known as the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vPF) is involved in the planning stages of movement, that instantaneous flicker of time when we contemplate moving a hand or other limb. The work has implications for the development of a neural prosthesis, a brain-machine interface that will give paralyzed people the ability to move and communicate simply by thinking.

By piggybacking on therapeutic work being conducted on epileptic patients, Daniel Rizzuto, a postdoctoral scholar in the lab of Richard Andersen, the Boswell Professor of Neuroscience, was able to predict where a target the patient was looking at was located, and also where the patient was going to move his hand. The work currently appears in the online version of Nature Neuroscience.

A New Screen Test for Imax: It's the Bible vs. the Volcano

By CORNELIA DEAN

The fight over evolution has reached the big, big screen.

Several Imax theaters, including some in science museums, are refusing to show movies that mention the subject - or the Big Bang or the geology of the earth - fearing protests from people who object to films that contradict biblical descriptions of the origin of Earth and its creatures.

The number of theaters rejecting such films is small, people in the industry say - perhaps a dozen or fewer, most in the South. But because only a few dozen Imax theaters routinely show science documentaries, the decisions of a few can have a big impact on a film's bottom line - or a producer's decision to make a documentary in the first place.

The Do-Nothing Conspiracy

By DAVID BROOKS

If you want an image that captures what American politics will be like over the next few decades, imagine two waves crashing down upon us simultaneously, each magnifying the damage caused by the other.

The first wave is the exploding cost of the entitlement programs. The second wave is the ever-increasing polarization of the political class. The polarization will make it impossible to reach an agreement on how to fix the entitlements problem. Meanwhile the vicious choices forced on us by entitlement costs will make the polarization even worse.

Quote of note:

REP. DAVE WELDON: And to me, it all is sufficiently suspicious that to at least allow the same level of federal review, you know, we're using the civil rights law called the Removal Act in the House version of this bill which was to protect people's civil rights during, you know, the period of the civil rights movement in the United States.

I think it was a very plausible legal approach for us and ultimately the federal court could conclude that the state court had acted appropriately in this.

Remember that.

Last night Congressman Dave Weldon of Florida was on The News Hour talking about the subpoena they issued to a lump of meat.

Roxie at Rox Populi opened a door that Travis at Prolix and Michelle at A Small Victory stepped through.

Do not fuck with the folks that are working this out.

I got shit to do, so I'm going to quote me.

The armies of the Culture Wars are suiting up. People are listening to pundits extrapolate from admittedly flawed polls about their own nature, and the nature of the other. We, the armchair footsoldiers, choose up sides and lambaste each other mercilessly for the words of the leaders of our parties.

Before we get lost in the frenzy, though, I have a request. Something I'd seriously like you to do.

Forget about politics and racism and economics and high principle for a while. Think about your everyday life. People you know, things you do, places you hang out 

just
regular
stuff.

Think about it in ideal terms. What would you like your everyday life to be like?

Hold that ideal in your mind for a while because that is what you should be fighting for. Not a political party, not a social policy or sense of personal outrage. Certainly nothing as petty as a sense of personal triumph or despair over someone else's actions.

You should hold that ideal strongly enough that you don't forget it when choosing a tactic. Strongly enough to remember it every time you make a promise. You should attend to the real concerns of your life and let the political games take place in whatever time is left.

I want you to do that because in the end I'm confident that the world that will support what I need, will support what you need too. In fact, I'm confident that our needs will coincide and our desires nearly so. We will differ in how we pursue our desires because we have different knowledge and learned different techniques.

But we want the same things. And I want you to take a long, clear look at those things, understand clearly what you need and want. And from there you can take the conversation wherever you like.

Dave Winer can be a dick.

Is Iraq Becoming the World's Biggest Cash Cow?
Emad Mekay

WASHINGTON, Mar 17 (IPS) - The United States has charged a former employee of the U.S. construction giant Halliburton and a Kuwaiti subcontractor with defrauding the U.S. government of millions of dollars in a contract scam in Iraq, one day after an international watchdog group warned that lax oversight was threatening the reconstruction effort there.

Two men -- Jeff Alex Mazon, a former employee of Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Houston-based Halliburton Co.; and Ali Hijazi, the managing partner of a Kuwaiti business, LaNouvelle General Trading and Contracting Company -- were indicted on charges of devising a scheme to defraud the United States of more than 3.5 million dollars.

The charges are related to the awarding of a subcontract to LaNouvelle to supply fuel tankers for U.S. military operations in Iraq before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

The indictment alleges Mazon rigged a bid he received from Hijazi of LaNouvelle for fuel tankers to ensure that LaNouvelle would be overpaid. It also said that Mazon, 36, allegedly inflated the competitor's bid to ensure that LaNouvelle's bid would be the lowest.

Mazon allegedly tripled both bids and, in February 2003, on behalf of KBR, Mazon awarded the subcontract for fuel operations at the airport to LaNouvelle.

The subcontract specified that KBR was to pay LaNouvelle more than 5.5 million dollars, nearly five million dollars more than the KBR estimate of the job -- about 680,000 dollars.

Hijazi allegedly presented Mazon with a one-million-dollar check in exchange for Mazon's favourable treatment of LaNouvelle.

Secret US plans for Iraq's oil
By Greg Palast

The Bush administration made plans for war and for Iraq's oil before the 9/11 attacks, sparking a policy battle between neo-cons and Big Oil, BBC's Newsnight has revealed.

Two years ago today - when President George Bush announced US, British and Allied forces would begin to bomb Baghdad - protesters claimed the US had a secret plan for Iraq's oil once Saddam had been conquered.

In fact there were two conflicting plans, setting off a hidden policy war between neo-conservatives at the Pentagon, on one side, versus a combination of "Big Oil" executives and US State Department "pragmatists".

"Big Oil" appears to have won. The latest plan, obtained by Newsnight from the US State Department was, we learned, drafted with the help of American oil industry consultants.

Just to try to break the authority of the courts.

You know what the hospice's proper response is, right? Obey the court AND the Congress. Disconnect the tube and clean up the biomass for delivery to Congress.

Subpoena Delivered to Schiavo's Hospice
Battle Over Brain-Damaged Woman Shifts to Invitation From Congress; Hospice Receives Subpoena
By MITCH STACY
The Associated Press

Mar. 18, 2005 - As a deadline loomed, a subpoena was delivered Friday at the hospice where severely brain-damaged Terri Schiavo lives, and an attorney for her parents said they hoped an invitation from U.S. Senate Republicans would buy them more time.

The Senate Health Committee has requested that Terri Schiavo and her husband, Michael, appear at an official committee hearing on March 28. Earlier Friday, a House committee was issuing congressional subpoenas to stop doctors from disconnecting the tube.

The hospice where Terri Schiavo lives received a subpoena late Friday morning, spokeswoman Louise Cleary said. Officials declined to say who was subpoenaed and did not disclose their next steps.

"At this time, we are monitoring developments and consulting with legal and ethical advisers to determine what to do," she said.

This is wrong on more levels than I care to address.

Last-ditch bid in right-to-die case
House committee to issue subpoena to stop removal of feeding tube
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Employing an "extraordinary congressional" maneuver, House Republican leadership early Friday made a last-ditch effort to keep doctors from removing Terri Schiavo's feeding tube.

Schiavo is scheduled to have her feeding tube removed at 1 p.m. today, under court order.

"Later this morning, we will issue a subpoena, which will require hospice administrators and attending physicians to preserve nutrition and hydration for Terri Schiavo to allow Congress to fully understand the procedures and practices that are currently keeping her alive," a statement from the House Republican leadership said.

The RepRap Project
RepRap is short for Replicating Rapid-Prototyper.
This is the homepage of the Replicating Rapid-Prototyper Project in the

Centre for Biomimetic and Natural Technology
at
Bath University.

A universal constructor is a machine that can replicate itself and - in addition - make other industrial products.  Such a machine would have a number of interesting characteristics, such as being subject to Darwinian evolution, increasing in number exponentially, and being extremely low-cost.

The project described in these pages is working towards creating a universal constructor by using rapid prototyping, and then giving it away free under the GNU General Public Licence.

Yeah, Tom DeLay got grief and it could spread to infect other Republicans, but I think the L.A. Times overstates the case a bit.

The split in the intellectual soul of the conservative movement could change long-term thinking. But it's nothing compared with the volcano that will ensue if Republicans lose seats in 2006 because of DeLay.

If Republicans lose seats it will be blamed on DeLay regardless of the actual reason. But if Republicans do lose seats over DeLay it will result in a shifting of personnel, not direction, in the Conservative movement.

The far more interesting thing the editorial mentioned is that intellectual split because it can change the movement's direction...more accurately, its importance.

You remember that old saw, "the lights are on but nobody's home." In this case it's just the electric bill being delivered.

I've faced the death of a number of loved ones. That just happens. I am not unsympathetic, but Terri Schiavo just isn't here anymore. Do they really think the spirit they remember still exists?

Fifteen years.

And if you want the truth, I believe the political actors in this case are just making a symbolic show of concern.

On the other hand, I would have told Michael Schiavo to walk away years ago...because she's gone already. What do you care if they keep massaging a lump of meat? And if that description of the biomass in the bed offends you then you should keep the life support going.

Anyway...

Lawmakers Can't Agree on a Way to Save Schiavo
The Florida woman, in a vegetative state for years, may have her feeding tube removed today.
By Mary Curtius and John-Thor Dahlburg
Times Staff Writers
March 18, 2005

Senate Rejects Bush's Cuts
It narrowly approves a $2.6-trillion budget as four Republicans break ranks. A confrontation with the House over its fiscal plan is expected.
By Joel Havemann
Times Staff Writer
March 18, 2005

WASHINGTON   The Senate on Thursday voted to restore cuts sought by President Bush in Medicaid, education and other domestic programs, and then approved a $2.6-trillion budget for fiscal year 2006.

The vote on the budget was 51-49.

The Senate's actions set up a confrontation with the House, which earlier Thursday approved its own version of the budget  — one that hews more closely to Bush's initial spending and tax proposals.

I have absolutely no proof for anything in this post.

We live in this four dimensional universe, right? Three dimensions plus time. Did you ever wonder why you can perceive the tree dimensional nature of things and not the temporal one?

What if I said you not only can, you do...you just don't call it that.

Picture this. If you stand on the geographic north pole of the Earth, it's like being at the peak of a hill. In every direction you look, the curved surface of the earth falls away from you, curves in a single direction you could call "down." Looking out across the universe, what you see "curves" in a direction you could call "the past."

When you look into the night sky, you're looking into infinity. And the average human interprets it as a bowl. You flatten it out. There's some stuff we can recognize, the moon planets, and everything else is the horizon.

Online purchases could give you away

13:16 15 March 2005

NewScientist.com news service

Celeste Biever

Retailers could guess your age, sex, birthday and wedding anniversary simply from the types of gifts purchased for you online and their timing, according to a patent granted to online retail giant, Amazon.

The information could be used to remind your loved ones of an impending special occasion and offer gift suggestions.

Currently Amazon makes personalised suggestions to customers based on previous purchases by that customer, previous web pages browsed and comparisons between customers who have bought similar products. But the company may vastly increase its predictive capability in the future.

The patent describes software that automatically guesses when a gift is being purchased by extracting key words such as "birthday" or "anniversary" from an attached message. It might also note details such as the fact that the buyer has asked it to be gift wrapped or that the recipient address is different from the purchaser address, according to the patent, which was granted on 8 March.

The software would then infer the recipient's age and gender according to the type of gift, the paper it is wrapped in and by cross-referencing any past appraisals of the items purchased. Amazon would remind potential gift purchasers by sending them emails or an alert when they log on to the website.

Digby at Hullabaloo:

The Big Time
Another exciting panel discussion on blogging and the new media! It's going to be thrilling.
Here's the roster:

Moderator:
E.J. Dionne, Jr.
Senior Fellow, Brookings; Columnist, Washington Post Writers Group

Panelists:
Jodie T. Allen
Senior Editor, Pew Research Center

Ana Marie Cox
Wonkette.com

Ellen Ratner
White House Correspondent, Talk Radio News Service

Jack Shafer
Editor-at-Large, Slate

Andrew Sullivan
AndrewSullivan.com; Senior Editor The New Republic, Columnist, Time Magazine Live Bloggers

The following individuals will be watching the event, either in person or via the webcast, and providing online commentary in real-time on their respective blogs. Their commentary will also be shown on a projector screen at the event and on the webcast.

Daniel Drezner
www.danieldrezner.com

Ed Morrissey
www.captainsquartersblog.com

Josh Trevino
www.redstate.org

I'm awfully glad that Wonkette will be there to represent the liberal blogosphere by saying fuck a lot. It is, after all, the very essence of what we all do.

The Age of Missing Information
The Bush administration's campaign against openness.
By Steven Aftergood
Posted Thursday, March 17, 2005, at 4:23 AM PT

The government does a remarkable job of counting the number of national security secrets it generates each year. Since President George W. Bush entered office, the pace of classification activity has increased by 75 percent, said William Leonard in March 2 congressional testimony. His Information Security Oversight Office oversees the classification system and recorded a rise from 9 million classification actions in fiscal year 2001 to 16 million in fiscal year 2004.

EU Mulls Over Africa Report
Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS, Mar 16 (IPS) - While the European Union has largely welcomed the Commission for Africa report released last week, there is a debate over how the recommendations made in the paper will fit into the bloc's new development policy.

The report by the Commission for Africa, set up by the British government, was launched in London Friday (Mar. 11).

Amongst a series of proposals, the commission recommended that an additional 18.6 billion euros (25 billion dollars) a year in aid be made available for Africa by the international community by 2010. It called also for 100 percent debt cancellation for African countries, and for rich countries to provide 0.7 percent of their gross national income (GNI) for aid.

European Commission President José Manuel Barroso was swift to welcome the report as an important contribution to the fight against poverty, but European Union (EU) officials and development experts are questioning where the recommendations will feed into the renewed EU development policy.

Quote of note:

That is indeed a metaphor, though not the intended one. President Bush and his legislative allies want to convince Americans that the Social Security program is outdated and should be replaced in part by personal accounts. But the owners say they like their old clunker just fine and don't think it needs much more than a new crankshaft.

Driving Points Home On Social Security
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 17, 2005; Page A05

Republican lawmakers, trying to convince a skeptical public about the wisdom of their Social Security proposals, decided yesterday that it was time to roll out a new metaphor.

I understand, Fernando.

Ferrer Takes Defensive After Comments on Diallo Killing
By DIANE CARDWELL and JONATHAN P. HICKS

Fernando Ferrer, who is campaigning for mayor of New York, was on the defensive yesterday as Democratic leaders sharply rebuked him for telling members of a police union that the shooting of Amadou Diallo was not a crime and that there was an attempt to "over-indict" the police officers responsible.

The thought that there's thousands of heavily armed and identically dressed people walking around the city actively disliking you can be a bit...unmanning.

When asked about this issue, President Bush said it was further support for the need to establish personal retirement accounts.

"The life expectancy of white people is falling, which means the current system will become less and less fair to white people as time passes, " said President Bush to a cheering crowd of hand-picked supporters.

Heh.

Children's Life Expectancy Being Cut Short by Obesity
By PAM BELLUCK

BOSTON, March 16 - For the first time in two centuries, the current generation of children in America may have shorter life expectancies than their parents, according to a new report, which contends that the rapid rise in childhood obesity, if left unchecked, could shorten life spans by as much as five years.

The report, to be published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine, says the prevalence and severity of obesity is so great, especially in children, that the associated diseases and complications - Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, kidney failure, cancer - are likely to strike people at younger and younger ages.

The report, which wades into several controversial aspects of public health, is likely to stir debate on both scientific and political grounds. The health effects of being obese depend on many factors, like one's fitness level. And estimating these effects could alter the expected cost of medical care and the size of pension payouts.

The report says the average life expectancy of today's adults, roughly 77 years, is at least four to nine months shorter than it would be if there were no obesity. That means that obesity is already shortening average life spans by a greater rate than accidents, homicides and suicides combined, the authors say.

And they say that because of obesity, the children of today could wind up living two to five years less than they otherwise would, a negative effect on life span that could be greater than that caused by cancer or coronary heart disease

I'm not joking.

Guidelines Are Urged in Food Ads for Children
By MELANIE WARNER

WASHINGTON, March 16 - Labeling Shrek cereal by General Mills and a promotional children's book that features Kraft's Oreo cookies as extreme examples of marketing to children, Senator Tom Harkin issued a sharp rebuke on Wednesday to the nation's largest food companies.

Senator Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, criticized the food industry for contributing to childhood obesity by spending $10 billion last year on marketing to children - much of it, he said, to promote sugary and nutritionally deficient products. He called on food companies to do more to limit what they advertise to children.

Senator Harkin also said that he intended to introduce a bill that would give the Federal Trade Commission the authority to regulate advertising to children. Currently, the commission has greater authority over advertising aimed at adults.

"I sincerely hope that the industry will develop tough and effective marketing guidelines," Senator Harkin, a member of the Senate Labor, Health and Human Services Committee, said. "But when private interests work against the public good like this, government is obliged to act."

Having less authority over advertising that targets children strikes me like having more tolerance for prostitution aimed at children.

Fears for a Program That Lends Just a Little
By ELIZABETH OLSON

Since the beginning of the 1990's, thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs have moved away from unemployment or welfare by borrowing a few thousand dollars - even as little as $500 - to set up their own small business.

Diane Holloway, a single mother and out-of-work pastry chef, used a $5,000 loan from a local women's economic agency in Silver City, N.M., several years ago to cobble together a restaurant in an old storefront, cooking for customers with a scavenged pizza oven and serving them on a half-dozen mismatched tables.

"That money made the difference," said Mrs. Holloway, whose restaurant, Diane's, is now thriving, with 30 employees. She plans to open two more restaurants next year. "Without it, I wouldn't have had a chance to get my business going."

G.M. Sees a Loss Near $1 Billion; Stock Falls 14%
By DANNY HAKIM
Published: March 17, 2005

DETROIT, March 16 - General Motors' stock fell to its lowest level in more than a decade Wednesday after the company said it expected to post a loss of nearly $1 billion for the last six months. The news set off G.M.'s largest single-day share loss since the market collapse of 1987 and further darkened Wall Street assessments of the company, the world's largest automaker.

The losses reflected an increasingly harsh reality: that General Motors, which three years ago was thought to be the healthiest of the Big Three automakers in Detroit, is now considered the weakest, primarily because it is not selling enough cars at home. The losses also raised questions about the strategy of the company's chairman and chief executive, Rick Wagoner.

Many Iraqis Losing Hope That Politics Will Yield Real Change
By ROBERT F. WORTH

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 16 - Haithm Ali, a wiry blacksmith, was welding an iron gate in his shop in Sadr City, the vast Shiite slum in northeastern Baghdad, when he was asked for his thoughts about the country's new national assembly. Mr. Ali's face broke into a bitter smile.

"I don't expect any government to be formed," he said, his welding glasses pushed up over his forehead. "And they won't find any solutions to the situation we find ourselves in."

Nothing like a scientific poll is possible yet in Iraq. But as the national assembly's first brief meeting came and went, broadcast into thousands of Iraqi homes on television, a sampling of street opinion in two Iraqi cities found a widespread dismay and even anger that the elections have not yet translated into a new government.

Do you really want people to understand the issues we face? I'm not just talking about Social Security, I mean across the board. Then start by by saying what you mean. And every time you see a Republican neologism, bring it back to earth.

Sham Self-Discipline in the Capitol

The Republican majorities in Congress have begun another of their deficit-deepening wrangles over the annual budget with a shameful rejection of the pay-as-you-go discipline that helped the nation achieve healthy surpluses in the 1990's. Instead, the two houses are busy invoking sham versions that make a show of mandating cuts in selective programs, while once again ignoring lost revenues and mounting debt on the other side of the ledger.

True Paygo, as the abandoned discipline is known, mandates that when deep deficits loom, any proposed tax cuts and program enrichments must actually be paid for by specified savings or new revenues elsewhere in the budget. Worried Republican moderates and Democrats failed to restore this tool yesterday in the Senate. Real pay-as-you-go discipline disappeared along with budget surpluses as the result of a souring economy, the war in Iraq and the serial Bush tax cuts. Yet this is the one emergency tool most needed if the White House and Congress are ever to deliver on their campaign promises to somehow, someday, tackle deficits estimated at $4 trillion-plus across the next decade.

Helps if you're telling the truth, too...

Quote of note:

Reynolds said the Social Security study has nothing to do with partisan politics. "I want to see if the current [Social Security] system has a disparate impact on racial minorities," he said. "I don't know where the truth is, and that's the whole point of the exercise."

Member of Civil Rights Panel Quits, Says It Should Be Closed
Conservative Cites Partisan Agendas
By Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 16, 2005; Page A02

The longest-serving member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights abruptly resigned yesterday, saying that the agency spends money irresponsibly in pursuit of partisan agendas -- liberal and conservative -- and should be shut down.

Has any "third-world" nation ever paid off its debt to the World Bank?

Bush Says He Won't Offer Specifics on Social Security
Wed Mar 16, 2005 02:29 PM ET
By Caren Bohan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush said on Wednesday he would not unveil a detailed proposal to overhaul Social Security, his top domestic priority, anytime soon because Congress would probably reject it.

But Bush told a news conference he would not back down from his push to create private accounts for Social Security despite polls showing a lack of public enthusiasm even after he has spent weeks traveling the country to promote the notion.

"The first bill on the Hill always is dead on arrival," Bush said. "I have not laid out a plan yet, intentionally," he said. "I'm interested in coming up with a permanent solution. I'm not interested in playing political games," he said.

I don't.

But if you do, I refer you to A Walk in the Park, a blog at TravelGolf.com by Jay Flemma. I do so in the spirit of Tiger Woods and (more truthfully) because Jay is a pretty cool guy. Also an intellectual property lawyer who is far more knowledgeable than I (in his domain, anyway...

I don't do other people's poetry...but this once...

And you shouldn't expect to see it again.

You'll have noticed by now that I look for things to post that are relevant yet not widely known that, and the occasional bit of comic relief). I am assisted in this by folks emailing me things they feel should be noticed...some I post, some I don't. And this isn't a call for more or less of it. I'll say though, that I post enough that folks who have been around for even a month will have some idea of what I think is relevant.

The other day I was referred to The Master Hand, a weblog by Alex Marshall focusing on urban development. I've posted about gentrification and such but never urban development...yet it's VERY relevant to Black folks, politics, employment, and scads of other issues. It's as relevant to our lives as the layout of a chessboard is to a Queen's Gambit. The particular article I was pointed to is about the competition between public and private transportation.

Though they'll probably do an opt-out instead of an opt-in, and make it impossible for a mortal to find out how to opt out...

U.S. May Restrict Sale of Social Security Numbers
Tue Mar 15, 2005 05:20 PM ET
By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Seeking to combat rampant identity theft, U.S. lawmakers said on Thursday they may clamp new restrictions on companies that amass and sell social security numbers and other personal information.

Executives from ChoicePoint and rival LexisNexis told legislators that they had scaled back the sale of sensitive personal information following revelations in recent weeks that identity thieves gained access to more than 177,000 of the consumer profiles they sell.

Bush Taps Wolfowitz as New World Bank President
Wed Mar 16, 2005 11:09 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a lightning rod for controversy as one of the main advocates for the Iraq war, is President Bush's choice for World Bank president, administration officials said on Wednesday.

Wolfowitz would replace outgoing World Bank chief James Wolfensohn, who said earlier this month that Wolfowitz was no longer in the running for the top job after a Pentagon official suggested he wanted to stay at the Defense Department.

The U.S. Treasury Department has said it wants a new president in place before Wolfensohn departs in June after 10 years in the post.

N.Korea Says No Talks Without U.S. Retraction
Wed Mar 16, 2005 06:45 AM ET
By Jack Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea ruled out on Wednesday a return to stalled six-way talks on its nuclear weapons programs unless the United States retracted its labeling of Pyongyang as an "outpost of tyranny."

A spokesman for the North Korean Foreign Ministry also said recent comments by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in interviews with Reuters and the Washington Times -- in which she refused to apologize for giving the North the tyranny tag -- indicated the United States did not want to hold talks.

"It is quite illogical for the U.S. to intend to negotiate with the DPRK without retracting its remarks listing its dialogue partner as an outpost of tyranny," the spokesman said in comments published by the North's official KCNA news agency.

UN, Agencies Withdraw Under Threats in Sudan
Wed Mar 16, 2005 08:43 AM ET
By Opheera McDoom

KHARTOUM, Sudan (Reuters) - The United Nations has withdrawn all international staff in part of western Sudan to the state capital after Arab militias said they would target foreigners and U.N. convoys in the area, the top U.N. envoy in Sudan said Wednesday.

Jan Pronk also told Reuters in an interview that the government had made small steps to disarm the militia, known locally as Janjaweed, in West Darfur state, but more had to be done.

The Janjaweed stand accused of a campaign of rape, killing, looting and burning non-Arab villages.

Hate to tell you, but the Founding Fathers were all about property and making money.

Quote of note:

Their mission is not simply to save souls. The goal is to mobilize evangelical Christians for political action to return society to what they call "the biblical worldview of the Founding Fathers." Some speak of "restoring a Christian nation." Others shy from that phrase, but agree that the Bible calls them not only to evangelize, but also to transform the culture.

For evangelicals, a bid to 'reclaim America'
For the faithful who gathered in Florida last month, the goal is not just to convert individuals - but to reshape US society.
By Jane Lampman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Senate near meltdown over judges
A vote on nominee William Myers may be a rehearsal for a next Supreme Court justice.

By Gail Russell Chaddock | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON - Thursday's vote on the first of President Bush's blocked judicial nominees sets up a test of a "nuclear option" whose fallout could effectively bring the US Senate to a stop for the balance of the 109th Congress - and affect the balance on US courts for decades.

The pitched partisan battle revolves around a change in rules that seem arcane, but the impact could reach a wide range of issues before US federal courts, from consumer and environmental protections to civil liberties and the role of government in the post-9/11 era.

You and almost all the budget analysts knew damn well that surplus consisted of increased taxes YOU convinced people was necessary to prefund Social Security.

Then you endorsed giving the money (which, coming from a rather regressive tax, came largely from the lower and middle class citizenry) to the wealthy, ostensibly to spur investment. You supported ending the taxation of dividends, which further enriched those that needed no help and further undermined the government's financial position.

You and your boys haven't just been starving the beast, you've been eating its food.

Greenspan Defends His Support of Tax Cuts
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON, March 15 - Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, defended himself on Tuesday against Democratic lawmakers who say he contributed to soaring budget deficits by endorsing President Bush's tax cuts in 2001.

Mr. Greenspan acknowledged that he and many others had been wrong to expect trillions of dollars in surpluses that never materialized.

But in testimony before the Senate Special Committee on Aging, he said almost all budget analysts were predicting a stream of large surpluses at the time.

"I look back and I would say to you, if confronted with the same evidence we had back then, I would recommend exactly what I recommended then," Mr. Greenspan said. "It turns out we were all wrong."

His defense was a response to rising criticism from some Democrats.

And Now, the Counterfeit News

The Bush administration has come under a lot of criticism for its attempts to fob off government propaganda as genuine news reports. Whether federal agencies are purchasing the services of supposedly independent columnists or making videos extolling White House initiatives and then disguising them as TV news reports, that's wrong. But it is time to acknowledge that the nation's news organizations have played a large and unappetizing role in deceiving the public.

As documented this week in an article in The Times by David Barstow and Robin Stein, more than 20 federal agencies, including the State Department and the Defense Department, now create fake news clips. The Bush administration spent $254 million in its first four years on contracts with public relations firms, more than double the amount spent by the Clinton administration.

Quote of note:

No one, after all, denied that under long-established case law, Mr. Vitiello should have been given the prosecutor's information about Mr. McDonnell. It could have supported the defense argument that many people had stronger motives to shoot him than Mr. Vitiello, who apparently was no more than a casual acquaintance. The material also might have been used to impeach Mr. McDonnell's credibility, since prosecutors concede that he lied about being a law-abiding citizen.

Nevertheless, during those nine years of Mr. Vitiello's appeals, the district attorney was able to persuade a total of seven New York State judges to either reject or ignore the issue, according to Mitchell Briskey, the Legal Aid Society lawyer who represents Mr. Vitiello.

A Dubious Account Led to 9 Years in Prison
By JIM DWYER

Quote of note:

The United States Supreme Court has ruled that it is illegal to reject jurors on the basis of race, and the California Supreme Court in 1978 extended that prohibition to religion. While habeas corpus petitions typically challenge trial procedures, it is highly unusual for the prosecutor in a case to support the petition.

Case Stirs Fight on Jews, Juries and Execution

By DEAN E. MURPHY

OAKLAND, Calif., March 15 - The convictions of dozens of death-row inmates in California are coming under legal scrutiny because of accusations that Jews and black women were excluded from juries in capital trials in Alameda County as "standard practice."

Quote of note:

County attorneys asked a grand jury to indict Paul Rotondi and Frank Scarpinito not just with assault, but with violating the state hate crime act, which protects religious expression. On February 22, the grand jury did just that making this the first time the law has likely been used to protect a Satanist. The friends now face up to 15 years in jail.

Sympathy for the Devil
Daniel Romano was just an ordinary Satanist in Queens. One jagged scar later, he's a national test case for hate crime laws.
by Kristen Lombardi
March 15th, 2005 10:28 AM

If you saw Daniel Romano on the street today, you might think, hey, average young guy good-looking and a little stylish, maybe, but not remarkable. Yet this average young guy from Middle Village, Queens, has never been one for blending in, at least not before January 9, when he says two local teenagers got out of a car and beat him with a metal pipe and an ice scraper for being an avowed Satanist in an Italian Catholic neighborhood.

The Fleischer Watch
Introducing an ongoing inquiry into dishonest or insane assertions buried inside Ari Fleischer's White House memoir.
By Timothy Noah
Posted Tuesday, March 15, 2005, at 2:09 PM PT

In his new book, Taking Heat: The President, the Press, and My Years in the White House, Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary, lays out various "biases and predilections" of "the liberal press." Among these is its 'belief that government is a mechanism to solve the nation's problems," its insistence that "emotional examples of suffering   are good ways to illustrate economic statistic stories," and its tendency to stay "fixated on the unemployment rate." Fleischer might just as well have complained that the press believes the Earth revolves around the sun.

US tries to sink forests plan
British initiative on illegal logging opposed
Paul Brown and Roger Harrabin
Wednesday March 16, 2005
The Guardian

The US plans to wreck a British initiative to commit the G8 states to combatting illegal logging in the world's threatened rainforests, a leaked memorandum revealed last night.

The development secretary, Hilary Benn, wants G8 environment and development ministers meeting in Derby tomorrow and on Friday to insist that all timber bought by official bodies in rich nations comes from properly managed forests.

Quote of note:

"In discussing pharmacology I found a link between yawning and spontaneous orgasm in withdrawal from heroin addiction. Likewise, yawning and sexual response were associated as clinical side effects of several antidepressant drugs. In one publication an undeniable causal relation was reported: both spontaneous and intentional yawning provoked instantaneous ejaculation orgasm."

Sexy yawns
Donald MacLeod reports on the research that suggests sex is the reason for yawning
Wednesday March 16, 2005

Don't drop off at the back there - yawning is really interesting. Proving this has become the mission in life of Dutch academic Wolter Seuntjens, whose thesis - The Hidden Sexuality of the Human Yawn - has earned him a well-deserved place on this week's Improbable Research tour.

"The yawn has not received its due attention," argues Seuntjens, of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, who set out to provide an encyclopaedic overview of all available knowledge about yawning, drawing on linguistics (semantics, etymology), sociology, psychology, the medical sciences (anatomy, physiology, pathology, and pharmacology), and the arts (literature, film, visual arts).

He then explores whether yawning has an erotic side.

At least he didn't lie...

Quote of note:

But in unusually blunt criticism, he attacked The Washington Post for its coverage of his trips. In the case of one story about the England trip, he accused the paper of a "zeal to leave readers with the false impression that I did something that I did not do."

I'd like to hear him explain exactly what was in that article that wasn't true.

Anyway...

DeLay Blames Partisanship for Uproar
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay Blames Partisanship for Hubbub Regarding Overseas Travel
By DAVID ESPO
The Associated Press

Mar. 16, 2005 - A defiant House Majority Leader Tom DeLay blamed partisanship and innuendo Tuesday for the uproar surrounding his overseas travel, but Republicans reported stirrings of concern over his political durability.

Just because the good Cardinal is so stupid to get worked up over a novel. I bought Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses (and never read it) for much the same reason.

Cardinal: 'Don't read and don't buy 'The Da Vinci Code'

March 16, 2005

VATICAN CITY --If you're not among the millions who have already read "The Da Vinci Code," an Italian cardinal has a plea for you: Don't read it and don't buy it.

Genoa Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who previously was a high-ranking official of the Vatican's office on doctrinal orthodoxy, told Vatican Radio on Tuesday the runaway success of New Hampshire author Dan Brown's novel is proof of "anti-Catholic" prejudice.

Quote of note:

Overall, the votes appeared to signal an eagerness by both parties to attack each other over Social Security rather than take specific, politically risky steps to shore it up.

Social Security votes send mixed message
Party-line moves slow progress on program overhaul

By Alan Fram, Associated Press  |  March 16, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The Senate voiced its support yesterday for both a conciliatory and a sharply partisan approach to buttressing Social Security, symbolic votes that left questions about exactly how or when lawmakers will address the program's problems.

Quote of note:

The legal counsel's office "does not agree with GAO that the covert propaganda prohibition applies simply because an agency's role in producing and disseminating information is undisclosed or 'covert,' regardless of whether the content of the message is 'propaganda,' " Bradbury wrote. "Our view is that the prohibition does not apply where there is no advocacy of a particular viewpoint, and therefore it does not apply to the legitimate provision of information concerning the programs administered by an agency."

So. The prohibition on covert propaganda doesn't apply to covertly produced propaganda.

And those films did not advocate a particular point of view.

such balls...

Administration Rejects Ruling On PR Videos
GAO Called Tapes Illegal Propaganda

Rep. Henry Waxman posted a copy of an audit that Halliburton convinced the Defense Department is none of your business.

Administration Withheld Halliburton Overcharges from International Auditors
Rep. Waxman reveals that Administration officials, acting at the request of Halliburton, redacted a Pentagon report to conceal more than $100 million in fuel overcharges from international auditors overseeing the Development Fund for Iraq.
- Letter to Chairman Shays Requesting Hearings
- Original DCAA Audit
- Letters from Halliburton Subsidiary Submitting Redactions
- Redacted DCAA Audit as Sent to International Auditors
- FEATURE: Click Redactions to See Original Audit Text

But this bill just means you won't find out until it's too late.

And what is "substantial evidence?" And how will you find it? All in all, this needs to be rewritten. Desperately.

Bill calls for reporting of sexually active teens
By Matthew Franck
Post-Dispatch Jefferson City Bureau
03/14/2005

Until Monday, the bill had been sailing through the Legislature with little formal debate. It was scheduled for a House vote this morning, but on Monday the bill's author sent it back to committee for revisions.

... Perhaps the most controversial provision of the bill is one that many say would require educators, medical personnel and other professionals to report "substantial evidence of sexual intercourse by an unmarried minor under the age of consent."

Critics say the language would, in essence, require child abuse reports even of cases of consensual sex between two teens. Byrd claims the bill seeks only to target sex by children under the age of 15.

Regardless of the age covered by the bill, some opponents say its consequences would be stifling for those who are required by law to report child abuse.

That list of "mandated reporters" includes educators, physicians, nurses and other professionals who come in contact with children.

Quote of note:

Now let's see if the blogosphere can self-organize itself to find them.

Is that the goal?

Blogging Beyond the Men's Club
Since anyone can write a Weblog, why is the blogosphere dominated by white males?
By Steven Levy

...Does the blogosphere have a diversity problem?

Viewed one way, the issue seems a bit absurd. These self-generated personal Web sites are supposed to be the ultimate grass-roots phenomenon. The perks of alpha bloggers voluminous traffic, links from other bigfeet, conference invitations, White House press passes are, in theory, bequeathed by a market-driven merit system. The idea is that the smartest, the wittiest and the most industrious in finding good stuff will simply rise to the top, by virtue of a self-organizing selection process.

So why, when millions of blogs are written by all sorts of people, does the top rung look so homogeneous? It appears that some clubbiness is involved. Suitt puts it more bluntly: "It's white people linking to other white people!" (A link from a popular blog is this medium's equivalent to a Super Bowl ad.) Suitt attributes her own high status in the blogging world to her conscious decision to "promote myself among those on the A list."

By the way, Jeff Jarvis is right:

Quote of note:

Mr. Daley sighed grimly. "People always think it's the creeps and bums who go to these stores," he said. "But if you go there after lunch or after work, you'll see all these guys in suits. It's usually family guys who stop on their way home."

Makes you wonder who the people who always think that are, and how they go so deep into denial.

Sex-Related Shops Are Making a Comeback in Times Square
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Published: March 15, 2005

Ten years after Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani declared war on Times Square's X-rated peep shows, strip joints and video stores, shops selling sexually explicit materials have slowly begun to creep back into the area, adroitly exploiting loopholes in the law - and property-owners' demand for high-paying tenants - to stage their comeback.

Petty spitefulness of note:

Earlier this month, the N.F.L. shifted its annual draft of college players out of Madison Square Garden and into the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, partly because Cablevision, which owns the Garden, is opposed to the West Side stadium.

N.F.L. Expected to Pick West Side Stadium for 2010 Super Bowl
By DAVE ANDERSON

NEW YORK, March 15 - The proposed Jets stadium on the West Side of New York City is expected to be conditionally named the site of the 2010 Super Bowl by the National Football League next week at its annual meeting in Maui, Hawaii.

"For our club owners, the idea of a Super Bowl in a domed stadium in New York is a no-brainer," said Joe Browne, the N.F.L.'s vice president of communications and public affairs. [P6: Club owners don't live here]

The N.F.L.'s vote was moved up from June at the request of the Jets, which are lobbying hard to be the winning bid for a stadium site on Manhattan's West Side. Bids are due on Monday to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which controls the site.

The 2010 Super Bowl vote, which would require approval by at least 24 of the 32 club owners, would be contingent on the construction by the 2009 season of the proposed $1.7 billion retractable-roof stadium that remains embroiled in political and financial controversy. The Jets, Cablevision, Transgas and possibly a fourth developer are expected to make bids for the rights to develop in the state-owned railroad yards between 30th and 33rd Streets from 11th Avenue to 12th Avenue.

Both have a vested interest in your not understanding the economic concepts of "supply" and "demand."

Note that I separate the terms.

Some Wonder if the Surging Oil Market Is Ignoring Supply and Demand
By SIMON ROMERO

HOUSTON, March 14 - Even as oil prices flirt with record highs, a growing number of people in the energy industry, including the chairman of Exxon Mobil, are voicing concern over whether the soaring oil prices are justified by supply-and-demand conditions in the market. Some are even comparing the trading in energy markets to the speculative frenzy in technology stocks in the late 1990's.

People who talk about "supply and demand," or worse, "supply-and-demand," generally don't understand what they're talking about. People talk about demand as though it's a fixed quantity. It's not. It's a curve on a graph...the demand curve maps a price to the amount of the commodity people are willing to buy at that price. The supply curve is similar in that it maps a price to the amount of the commodity people are willing to sell at that price. If you put both curves on the same graph, the point at which they intersect is called the point at which the market clears...which means if you make exactly that much of the commodity and sell it for exactly that price everyone who wants it at that price will be able to buy it and everyone who wants to sell it at that price will be able to sell it...and there will be no leftovers.

That says nothing about desire or need for the commodity...which is what people hear when you say "demand"...nor really about the ability to provide the commodity at any given price (which may be profitable at far less than the price at which one is willing to sell it).

The industries under discussion don't price according to the demand curve but by the need for the product.

About oil prices in particular, you have to remember we're setting prices now based on expected conditions in the future. Which explains all you need to know about increasing oil prices.

New bill aims to save Schiavo
Lawmakers are moving ahead with legislation to prevent the removal of a brain-damaged woman's feeding tube.
BY GARY FINEOUT

TALLAHASSEE - With just days left before Terri Schiavo's feeding tube is to be removed, the Florida Legislature moved once again to intervene in the case, rushing ahead Monday with a bill to keep the brain-damaged woman alive.

A vote on ''Terri's Law II,'' put together by top Republicans in the House and Senate, is expected later this week and could go to Gov. Jeb Bush for his signature Friday, the same day the tube is scheduled to be removed.

In late 2003, after Schiavo's feeding tube had been taken out when a court order permitted it, Bush and lawmakers intervened in the long-running battle over her fate, passing a law that allowed the governor to have the tube reinserted. But that effort was ultimately struck down by the state Supreme Court, which ruled the law unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the governor's appeal.

David Brooks is writing off the destruction of Social Security, at least temporarily. He blames the inability to transfer all that debt to the backs of middle class American citizens on both parties...very date rape-ish bipartisan of him.

And so it's time for a provisional obit for Social Security reform - an exercise in cold stock-taking, because when historians look back on this episode they'll see a compendium of everything that is wrong with contemporary politics.

...and this editorial will document everything wrong with partisan hacks.

He got the Republican part right.

...Republican leaders have never really developed the skills required for cross-party horse-trading. Today's Republicans emerged in response to the ideological politics of the 1960's and were forged in the anti-political populism of the 1994 revolution. These anti-political creatures of conviction find sticking to orthodoxy easier than the art of compromise.

Republican blunders: Republicans often argue that Democrats are out of touch with mainstream Americans, but this time it was the Republicans who were trapped in the insulated world of their own think tanks.

Furthermore, Republicans didn't really have a strategy to get their proposals through Congress. They seemed to think that if the president held enough town hall meetings around the country, they could somehow bulldoze the Democrats.

In their efforts to create a risk-taking, dynamic society, they didn't appreciate how many people, including conservatives, value security and safety.

Some of it anyway. I'm not thrilled by his call for even greater Republican mendacity.

Quote of note:

Mr. Bush could have called for renegotiating the treaty. But in background interviews, administration officials say they have neither the time nor the patience for that process.

Bush Seeks to Ban Some Nations From All Nuclear Technology
By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: March 15, 2005

WASHINGTON, March 14 - Behind President Bush's recent shift in dealing with Iran's nuclear program lies a less visible goal: to rewrite, in effect, the main treaty governing the spread of nuclear technology, without actually renegotiating it.

Quote of note:

Of course, not many high school students have been taught the central place of class warfare in modern American politics, but the bill would provide an excellent classroom case study in the political economy of greed. Consider it an updating of that old staple of government classes, "How a bill becomes a law." It would accurately place the role of corporate money in clear ascendance over the interests of regular people.

The Bankruptcy Bill: a Tutorial in Greed
Lesson No. 1 -- Campaign cash is worth more than family values.
Robert Scheer
March 15, 2005

Because they keep revamping and expanding the SAT, I'll propose a new economics puzzler for the test makers' consideration.

Question: What is the difference between a loan shark and a banker?

Answer: Not much. The former uses hired thugs to enforce repayment from the debtors; the latter employs the feds as paid muscle.

Even better would be to make the fast-tracked bankruptcy bill   already passed by the Senate and expected to be approved soon by the House and signed by president   the subject of one of the test's new critical thinking essays. Teens could trace the correlation between the massive campaign contributions of credit card companies and banks and the imminent passage of legislation making it much more difficult for the hopelessly indebted to find the kind of relief offered by enlightened societies for millenniums.

Quote of note:

But something told me to take another look. I read the Miraloma handbook back to front and was impressed by the school philosophy, which emphasize knowledge acquisition as well as self-worth, respect for differences and social responsibility. I attended a parent/community meeting and was moved by the generosity and commitment of the parents there. I sleuthed the campus, and, behind every door, I discovered another school resource: counselors, education specialists, tutoring programs. I took the principal, Marcia Parrott, out to dinner and listened to her ideas about the importance of diversity and collaboration. I came to admire her tireless efforts to support her staff and students and soon recognized that her optimism and personal leadership style were a source of great strength for the entire school. Slowly, I got to know the personalities and talents of the teachers, all credentialed and many of whom, like the principal, didn't leave the campus until after dark.

My husband and I met with our son's teacher and were impressed with how well she knew our child and how earnestly she cared about him. We learned that, other than getting a little too goofy on occasion, he was doing great.

Every week, another presumption of mine was laid to rest.

The hot topic of school choice took on new meaning for me. Should we commit to the school our son was in and help to move it forward, or give up on it and leave the challenges to someone else?

Quote of note:

A bedrock social issue such as marriage "should be decided by the American voters, not by the court," said Tom Del Beccaro, chairman of the Republican Party of Contra Costa and president of California's county Republican chairs. "A decision about such an important societal institution shouldn't be in the hands of one, two or even nine judges."

It should be decided by the voters individually. If it's not your business you should have no say.

Now, let some opponent of people choosing for themselves who they bond with explain to me how they are affected when someone they don't know gets married.

Anyway...

THE OPPOSITION: 'Activist court' ruled predictably, but fight far from over
- Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Same-sex marriage opponents shrugged off Monday's San Francisco court ruling that would give gay and lesbian couples the right to marry, chalking it up to judicial activism, citing the Bible for support and saying they're sure to prevail if California voters are given a choice on the issue.

Many, in fact, are preparing their next move in that direction.

"Judicial tyranny is alive and well and reigning in San Francisco," said the Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman of the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition and a longtime mover behind anti-gay issues nationally and in the state.

Group Leaves Social Security Overhaul Bloc
The move by Financial Services Forum is the latest indication of the dual pressures facing corporations in Bush's drive to revamp system.
By Peter Wallsten
Times Staff Writer
March 15, 2005

WASHINGTON —  Signaling more troubles ahead for President Bush's campaign to overhaul Social Security, a group representing the nation's biggest financial companies said Monday that it had decided not to renew its membership in a business coalition raising millions of dollars to back the effort.

The Financial Services Forum, which represents chief executives from such corporate heavyweights as American Express, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, was a co-founder of the Coalition for the Modernization and Protection of America's Social Security, or Compass. But it left the coalition last month after its members failed to agree on Bush's plan to let workers divert some of their payroll tax into individual investment accounts.

Quote of note:

Because of Bush's strong support, many predict Rice will be an unusually powerful secretary. She is likely to face less competition in influencing foreign policy from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who is focusing on internal Pentagon reform.

When driving a nail, what owns the force...the head of the hammer or the arm that wields it? Dr. Rice is a hammer.

Anyway...

Rice Reshaping Foreign Policy
The secretary of State is displaying an affinity for quick action and a dislike for nuanced talk.
By Paul Richter
Times Staff Writer
March 15, 2005

WASHINGTON —  Condoleezza Rice began her term as secretary of State with a tour of Europe and the Middle East last month that showed off her skills as a fence mender. The weeks that followed have revealed another side of her style.

Lotta talk about blogging...identity blogging at that...and links and ranking.

Do you remember who invented weblog alliances? Glen at Hi. I'm Black! It was all a goof, and now it's an accepted tool to raise your visibility in the blog networks.

I don't think I'm really going to go into it yet...April is P6's second anniversary and I'll probably rant a bit then. Been thinking, though (surprise, huh?).

We got Drupal 4.6 coming up and it's got enough cool stuff that I'll probably upgrade The Niggerati Network. P6 has so many entries I'm kind of nervous about trying to upgrade it because it requires changes to the database. The N-Net's size is small enough that I can fix stuff by hand if I need to.

I finally got around to playing with the news aggregator, only I didn't have to play much. The standard aggregator doesn't understand Atom feeds, and it's a lot of you got them...The N-Net would have considerably more feeds set up already. I was hoping it would be in 4.6 but it's not so I searched the Drupal support forums to see what others have done.

Nancy White at Full Circle live-blogged the Blogging while Black session at SXSW.

Judge Says Calif. Can't Ban Gay Marriage
By LISA LEFF
Associated Press Writer
12:15 PM PST, March 14, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO   A judge ruled Monday that California can no longer justify limiting marriage to a man and a woman, a legal milestone that if upheld on appeal would pave the way for the nation's most populous state to follow Massachusetts in allowing same-sex couples to wed.

In an opinion that had been awaited because of San Francisco's historical role as a gay rights battleground, San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer said that withholding marriage licenses from gays and lesbians is unconstitutional.

"It appears that no rational purpose exists for limiting marriage in this state to opposite-sex partners," Kramer wrote.

Jonah Goldberg is a (circumcised) dick.

Photos Show Climate Change; Ministers Meet in UK
Mon Mar 14, 2005 08:54 AM ET
By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON (Reuters) - A photo of Mount Kilimanjaro stripped of its snowcap for the first time in 11,000 years will be used as dramatic testimony for action against global warming as ministers from the world's biggest polluters meet Tuesday.

Gathering in London for a two-day brainstorming session on the environment agenda of Britain's presidency of the Group of Eight rich nations, the environment and energy ministers from 20 countries will be handed a book containing the stark image of Africa's tallest mountain, among others.

Former NAACP Leader to Run for Senate
Former NAACP Leader Kweisi Mfume to Run for U.S. Senate in 2006 in Bid to Replace Paul Sarbanes

By GRETCHEN PARKER

The Associated Press

Mar. 14, 2005 - Former NAACP President Kweisi Mfume announced Monday that he will run for the U.S. Senate in 2006.

"It is with great pride and deep humility that I announce to you today my candidacy for the Senate of the United States," Mfume said at a news conference in Baltimore.

"I can't be bought. I won't be intimidated. I don't know how to quit," Mfume said as his supporters applauded.

Mfume, who was a five-term U.S. congressman before becoming president of the Baltimore-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, issued the statement after incumbent Paul Sarbanes announced Friday that he will not run for re-election.

Biases of note:

The three network evening newscasts tended to be more negative than positive, while the opposite was true of morning shows, the study said. Fox News Channel was twice as likely to be positive than negative, unlike the more neutral CNN and MSNBC, the study said.

No bias on Iraq, media study finds
By David Bauder, Associated Press  |  March 14, 2005

NEW YORK -- A study of news coverage of the war in Iraq fails to support a conclusion that events were portrayed either negatively or positively most of the time.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism, a Washington-based think tank, looked at nearly 2,200 stories on television, newspapers, and websites and found that most of them could not be categorized either way.

Quote of note:

As a result, nearly a decade after newspapers began building and showcasing their Web sites, one of the most vexing questions in newspaper economics endures: should publishers charge for Web news, knowing that they may drive readers away and into the arms of the competition?

Can Papers End the Free Ride Online?
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

Consumers are willing to spend millions of dollars on the Web when it comes to music services like iTunes and gaming sites like Xbox Live. But when it comes to online news, they are happy to read it but loath to pay for it.

Just as the real politicking means talking to real people face to face, impacting the media requires old-fashioned media contact. And don't be fooled by Drudge etc.; their media contacts took place long ago, and some of them have been subsidized from their beginning.

Quote of note:

"The way we perceive it," he said, "is that right-wing bloggers are able to invent stories, get them out on Drudge, get them on Rush Limbaugh, get them on Fox, and pretty soon that spills over into the mainstream media. We, the progressives, we don't have that kind of network to work with."

Liberal Bloggers Reaching Out to Major Media
By JONATHAN D. GLATER

William Raspberry

One by one, I'm being deprived of the independent sources that I have found so valuable in reaching my own conclusions.

Please understand that I'm not speaking of sources that reflect my own philosophy. I used to profit from reading certain conservative columnists because they helped me to see America from a different point of view. Now many of those once-helpful pundits have become (so it seems to me) mere partisans for particular politicians -- less concerned with their independence than with political victory.

Similarly with certain "think tanks" I used to rely on for a different -- often stimulating -- take on things. I knew they weren't politically neutral, but I knew I could factor in their predispositions while I looked at their facts and figures. Now, in too many cases, I find the facts and figures themselves suspect.

Nor is it just conservative institutions that have left me in the intellectual lurch. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, once a valuable influence on the White House because of its ability to speak uncomfortable truth to power, has largely been reduced to a forum for partisan squabbling.

Am I worrying too much? I don't think so. We're running around trying to create democracies all over the world while forgetting that what makes democracies work is not just the ballot but the existence of institutions and agencies that enjoy near-universal public trust.

Battle on Teaching Evolution Sharpens
By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 14, 2005; Page A01

WICHITA   Propelled by a polished strategy crafted by activists on America's political right, a battle is intensifying across the nation over how students are taught about the origins of life. Policymakers in 19 states are weighing proposals that question the science of evolution.

The proposals typically stop short of overturning evolution or introducing biblical accounts. Instead, they are calculated pleas to teach what advocates consider gaps in long-accepted Darwinian theory, with many relying on the idea of intelligent design, which posits the central role of a creator.

China Enacts Law to Stop Taiwan Secession
- By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press Writer
Monday, March 14, 2005
(03-14) 00:36 PST BEIJING, China (AP) --

China's national legislature on Monday overwhelmingly approved a law authorizing a military attack to stop Taiwan from pursuing formal independence, a day after President Hu Jintao told the 2.5 million-member People's Liberation Army to be prepared for war.

The measure was approved by a vote of 2,896 to zero, with two abstentions on the last day of the figurehead National People's Congress' annual session.

Quote of note:

Unfortunately, the threat posed by the new phones goes beyond electronic bugs.

What if that "boy" who text-messaged the girl was really a 50-year-old predator? And wouldn't kids be likely to use the vicinity detector so they could tell when their parents were heading home, giving them time to hide the evidence?

Smart but Worrisome
March 14, 2005

It has come to this: Engineers across the world have toiled to make Buck Rogers' dreams a reality, developing sophisticated satellites and launching them into precise geosynchronous orbits, all so a 15-year-old girl in the mall can use her cellphone to tell her when that boy who text-messaged her earlier is within 100 yards.

Well, progress is progress. Most of us may not have realized there was a pressing need for cellphones that can consult global positioning satellites and beep us when certain people are nearby, but these marvels are at our doorstep anyway. Companies you probably never heard of, such as Dodgeball, have begun Internet campaigns   pitched mostly at teenagers   to tout such services in U.S. markets.

Quote of note:

"I don't know of anything that would trigger this sort of response," said J.D. Crockett III, director of business operations at the church's headquarters in Charlotte, N.C. "Our sermons are played in congregations all over the world. I know of no outcry over this one."

Um, I think I'd call this an "outcry"...which you didn't know of because is hadn't happened yet.

I am quite accustomed to the mainstream adapting Black folks' gestures to their needs and desires...from rice to jazz to worship. That's right...before Black and white folks mixed in the USofA, the European style of worhip was that stiff, stick-up-your-butt, spooky-sounding cathedral kind of thing. Black folks pretty much invented the "joyful noise." So was I surprised when Republicans started pushing a political agenda in mainstream houses of worship?

A Bankrupt 'Reform'
By David S. Broder
Sunday, March 13, 2005; Page B07

When it comes to blatant hypocrisy, nothing beats the Senate record on the just-passed bankruptcy bill.

This "reform," which parades as an effort to stop folks from spending lavishly and then stiffing creditors by filing for bankruptcy protection, is a perfect illustration of how the political money system tilts the law against average Americans.

The simple fact that for eight straight years it has gained a place on a crowded congressional calendar is testimony to the impact of the millions of dollars that banks and credit card companies have spent on lobbyists and campaign contributions.

What happened -- and didn't happen -- during two weeks of Senate debate demonstrates just how the powerful exert their influence. It's all too typical of what takes place now in Washington with most issues.

US War on Drugs a 'tragic failure'

12 March 2005

THE US War on Drugs that is run from Washington DC is a "tragic failure" and should be wrested away from the feds and devolved to state level. So says an influential coalition of lawyers, doctors and church leaders in Washington state that is pressing for radical changes in drug policy.

Last week one of the coalition's members, the Seattle-based King County Bar Association, published a 146-page report recommending that the state should control production and distribution of psychoactive drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and heroin. It has long argued that drug problems should be seen primarily as a public health issue, rather than a criminal justice problem - and hence a matter for state rather than federal government.

Tsunami waves exposed remnants of lost city

26 February 2005

NewScientist.com news service

The violence of last year's tsunami uncovered remains thought to be from a 1200-year-old lost city on India's south coast.

Three structures have appeared, including a granite lion, half-buried in sand near the famous 7th-century Mahablipuram temple. The structures are about 2 metres tall and carved in the same ornate style as the temple. The waves also blasted away years of sand from a relief depicting an elephant, which is now drawing crowds.

Archaeologists believe that the worn rocks revealed by the tsunami are part of what was once an extensive port city, engulfed by the sea hundreds of years ago. A diving expedition in 2002 found extensive ruins stretching over several square kilometres submerged just offshore.

Last week Rep. Jackson of Illinois published an editorial suggesting we need a constitutional amendment establishing a national right to vote.

Last week, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Il., introduced House Joint Resolution 28 with 54 original co-sponsors. The Jackson amendment would reverse the Supreme Court's ruling in Bush v. Gore that the citizen has no constitutional right to vote. Currently, voting is a state right, and all 3,067 counties in the 50 states have different rules about who votes and how. The congressman says it's time to make voting a citizenship right.

I remember that ruling and it annoyed the hell out of me, but I wasn't as nuts then as I am now. I got time to read up on it this morning.

As DeLay's Woes Mount, So Does Money
By PHILIP SHENON and ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, March 12 - A legal defense fund established by Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, has dramatically expanded its fund-raising effort in recent months, taking in more than $250,000 since the indictment last fall of two his closest political operatives in Texas, according to Mr. DeLay's latest financial disclosure statements.

The list of recent donors includes dozens of Mr. DeLay's House Republican colleagues, including two lawmakers who were placed on the House ethics committee this year, and several of the nation's largest corporations and their executives.

Quote of note:

Mr. Bush needs the alternative tax - he relies on its projected revenue to mask the debilitating cost of making his tax cuts permanent. Congressional estimates say that extending them permanently will cost $281 billion in 2014. But that estimate assumes that nothing will be done to prevent the alternative tax from further burdening the middle class. If the middle class is fully protected, the cost of extending the tax cuts will mushroom to $356 billion - 27 percent higher than the official estimate. The federal budget deficit would explode.

Mr. Bush's Stealthy Tax Increase

President Bush is presiding over a big middle-class tax hike.

Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged Television News
By DAVID BARSTOW and ROBIN STEIN

It is the kind of TV news coverage every president covets.

"Thank you, Bush. Thank you, U.S.A.," a jubilant Iraqi-American told a camera crew in Kansas City for a segment about reaction to the fall of Baghdad. A second report told of "another success" in the Bush administration's "drive to strengthen aviation security"; the reporter called it "one of the most remarkable campaigns in aviation history." A third segment, broadcast in January, described the administration's determination to open markets for American farmers.

Stanley Crouch recaps Republican efforts to skim enough Black votes to trouble Democrats, defines what he means by the term "civil rights establishment" and in general adds nothing new.

It's in the L.A. Times' editorial section and most likely syndicated to a newspaper near you.

Did ChoicePoint End Run Backfire?
The data-collecting company has managed to avoid being bogged down by regulations -- until maybe now.
By Joseph Menn
Times Staff Writers
March 13, 2005

ALPHARETTA, Ga.   ChoicePoint Inc. was created to avoid just the sort of mess in which it now finds itself.

The nation's biggest private collector of personal information was spun off seven years ago from credit bureau Equifax Inc. largely to get around laws restricting the way such bureaus sell data.

Because it was not considered a financial services company, ChoicePoint was not subject to data laws, and for years the plan worked like a charm.

Who is it that's actually scared?

The Tension This Time
Fear Is the Fuel That Drives People to the Streets
By Jervey Tervalon
Jervey Tervalon is a novelist and the editor of a book about Los Angeles' 1992 riots, "The Geography of Rage" (RGB Books), and "The Cocaine Chronicles" (Akashic Books).
March 13, 2005

Police shoot dead an unarmed 13-year-old, and those of us who lived through the riot/uprising that set the city ablaze 13 years ago wonder if Los Angeles isn't again about to explode.

Me? I don't think we are back to that flash point of rage that poet Langston Hughes once pondered. Yet.

But the conditions that helped some rioters justify throwing flaming bottles through store windows, engaging in gunfights with grocers and beating a trucker with bricks haven't changed much.

Social critics have written hundreds of thousands of words in an effort to explain those conditions and confront the complexity of causes that ignited that blazing moment. Still, the city remains largely perplexed about what went wrong then and what is going wrong now.

I think the driving force was fear, and I know that fear still haunts parts of this city.

This has been sitting on my monitor without a title or category for quite a while.

He's Comfortable in His Skin -- Now It's Our Turn
By Sandy Banks
Sandy Banks is a Times editorial writer.
March 13, 2005

Barack Obama's fans, legions and growing, imagine a day when this new rock star of politics strides into the Oval Office.

The junior senator from Illinois insists that he has no immediate designs on the White House. But even if Obama, 43, runs as an octogenarian —  and even though he has been diplomatically dismantling racial and political boundaries since he became, in 1990, the first black president of the Harvard Law Review —  his candidacy would make this country squirm and shudder and maybe even come unglued.

On the other side of the link is a bit of commentary wrapped around a fragment of an interview...basically a puff piece. And I think what slowed me down (beyond the mere lack of coffee, I mean) was trying to connect the title to the content. Determining who is meant by "our" is key in determining what the content is.

Propaganda is important because people actually care about that which they understand.

Quote of note:

"We were surprised to see that there was little change in public thinking on secrecy after the attacks of 9/11," said Andy Alexander, chairman of the American Society of Newspaper Editors' Freedom of Information Committee.

"With the ongoing war and continuing concerns about terrorism, you might think that people would be more tolerant of government's tightening control of information, but these results suggest that's not the case. The survey indicates people are not only concerned about secrecy but also recognize the importance of access to information about their government," said Alexander, who is also Washington bureau chief for Cox Newspapers.

Poll: 7 in 10 Worried About Gov't Secrecy
By ROBERT TANNER
AP National Writer
1:03 AM PST, March 13, 2005

Americans feel strongly that good government depends on openness with the public, with seven out of 10 people concerned about government secrecy, a new poll says.

Skin-Deep: What Polls of Minorities Miss
It's no surprise that racial and ethnic tensions endure.
By David Bositis
David Bositis is senior political analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington-based research organization specializing in African American issues.
March 13, 2005

The media's knowledge of African Americans, Asians and Latinos is woefully lacking. Opinion polls break out minority-group results from general populations, but the meaningfulness of the findings is moot at best. Lacking reliable data on the variable and textured hopes, needs and fears of minority communities, the media instead turn to personal anecdotes and self-appointed spokespeople to gauge community sentiments. That can be terribly misleading   and risky   when reporting on crime, police misconduct and elections. It's no surprise that racial and ethnic tensions and misunderstanding endure in cities such as Los Angeles.