Prometheus 6

Bush Vows to Correct U.S. Intelligence Flaws

...and I swear my first thought was, "he must gonna resign."

Priestly society to battle abortion
By Bobby Ross Jr., Associated Press  |  April 2, 2005

DALLAS -- A priest who comforted Terri Schiavo's parents and siblings says he's starting the Roman Catholic Church's first society of priests devoted exclusively to ''the Gospel of Life," fighting against euthanasia and abortion.

The Diocese of Amarillo will provide a vacant Catholic high school and dormitory to house the male-only Missionaries of the Gospel of Life, the society founded by the Rev. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life.

''I have long been convinced that God is raising up numerous disciples ready to devote their entire lives to ending the tragedy of abortion, which the bishops have identified as the 'fundamental human rights issue of the day,' " Pavone said in a statement.

Pavone served in recent days as a spiritual adviser to Bob and Mary Schindler. Pavone later described Schiavo's death after her feeding tube was removed as ''a killing."

Ignore them.

Seriously.

Look, let's assume a "Culture of Life," where "the default assumption is Life"...all capitalized essences operating as undefined terms. The evidence of recent events shows that under this assumption, the body Terri Schiavo once inhabited would still be processing material input. Fine.

How long do you support that? The technology is such that the processing could continue longer than Bob and Mary Schindler. Do you finally kill her...we're saying she's alive, we're assuming she wants to live though we're not sure and that will never change...do you kill her when she has no more loved ones willing to claim her?

Or do you kill her when the bills can no longer be paid? When does it change from medicine to taxidermy?

Do you think John Paul II was unable to get himself connected to all manner of life supporting machinery? Why do you think he didn't?

Don't even argue morality with these assholes. Let them make their speeches and continue to be guided by your morals as before.

Before the Fall

The recent rally of the United States dollar notwithstanding, the greenback has nowhere to go but down. But the Bush administration is betting that foreign investors will continue to invest huge sums in this depreciating currency. How huge? Last month, the government reported that the United States' deficit in international transactions, mainly trade, reached an unprecedented $666 billion in 2004, a 24 percent increase from the 2003 level and, at 5.7 percent of the economy, about two to three times what most economists consider sustainable.

The administration expects foreigners, mainly Asian central bankers, to keep plugging the trade gap because buying American securities increases their exports. It is also assuming that foreign central banks won't risk the losses in their dollar reserves that would occur if they started shunning dollar-based investments. In brief, the United States is betting that it's too big - in other countries' eyes - to fail.

The dollar's current uptick is just a breather in its overall downward trajectory. It's due largely to the United States' higher interest rates, which lure foreign investors away from euros and into dollar-based investments. But what will happen when the Federal Reserve stops raising rates? Here's a hint: When one Federal Reserve governor suggested recently that rates might peak at a lower level than analysts expected, the dollar promptly slid.

Facing Tough Race, Santorum Moderates
By Mike Allen and Brian Faler
Saturday, April 2, 2005; Page A04

Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) has recently made a series of gestures toward the center as he gears up for a tough reelection race against a moderate Democrat. For one of Capitol Hill's most ardent conservatives, the adjustment has been pronounced enough that the liberal American Prospect sarcastically referred to him as a "man of the people."

Now, the senator has said that he is rethinking the breadth of his support for the death penalty. Santorum told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that he has "felt very troubled about cases where someone may have been convicted wrongly." Santorum, a Roman Catholic, said he still supports capital punishment but agrees with the Vatican that it should be limited. He said DNA evidence should be used where possible and believes that there "probably should be some further limits on what we use it for."

DeLay Wants Panel to Review Role of Courts
Democrats Criticize His Attack on Judges

By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 2, 2005; Page A09

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), under fire from Democrats for what they consider threatening remarks about federal judges, plans to ask the Judiciary Committee to undertake a broad review of the courts' handing of the Terri Schiavo case, his office said yesterday.

DeLay's office did not specify exactly what the majority leader wants the committee to do. The Constitution gives Congress the power to set the areas of authority for federal courts, but it was unclear what could be done by the committee in response to the Schiavo case, in particular.

The majority leader said Thursday he wants to examine what he called the "failure" of state and federal courts to protect Schiavo, who died 13 days after the court-ordered withdrawal of her feeding tube.

DeLay issued a statement asserting that "the time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior." He later said in front of television cameras that he wants to "look at an arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at Congress and the president."

Democrats continued to criticize DeLay yesterday, with Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) charging that the Republican might have broken a federal statute against threatening U.S. judges.

"Threats against specific federal judges are not only a serious crime, but also beneath a Member of Congress," Lautenberg wrote. "Your attempt to intimidate judges in America not only threatens our courts, but our fundamental democracy as well."

New Ethics Rules Cost NIH Another Top Researcher
By Michael S. Rosenwald and Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, April 2, 2005; Page A01

James F. Battey, chief of the National Institutes of Health's high-profile human-stem-cell program and director of that agency's deafness institute, will retire in September after more than 20 years at the agency, citing his inability to comply with strict new conflict-of-interest rules that have roiled the NIH internally and prompted a backlash in the broader science and business communities.

Battey is the fourth high-profile researcher to announce plans to leave since the new rules were unveiled in early February and is the first institute director to do so.

Agency scientists say the departures are emblematic of the new reality at NIH, in which rules curtailing what stocks researchers can own and regulating their relationships with drug companies, scientific organizations and even medical journals have set the agency against a trend of encouraging closer ties among researchers, firms and think tanks.

In interviews recently, agency scientists said they have confronted problems as small as being turned down from accepting token travel reimbursements to professional conferences and as large as, in Battey's case, being expected to divest holdings from a trust fund he manages for his family.

"The new rules imposed an insurmountable problem for me," said Battey, who has applied for the job of president of the new California Institute of Regenerative Medicine. "I manage a family trust . . . which supports the education of my father's seven grandchildren, and it contains assets I'm told I'd have to divest. That would cost a lot of money, and I can't do that to my family."

Quote of note:

"That evidence was the cornerstone of our case," said Glenn F. Ivey, the Prince George's state's attorney. "It was powerful evidence. I hope this verdict helps our efforts to have the [ballistics identification database] continued and expanded."

Ballistics Database Yields 1st Conviction
Oxon Hill Man Tied To Murder Weapon

By Ruben Castaneda and David Snyder
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, April 2, 2005; Page B01

Evidence linking an Oxon Hill man to a murder weapon -- the equivalent of a handgun's fingerprint -- yesterday helped Prince George's County prosecutors win a first-degree murder case.

The verdict against Robert Garner, 21, marked the first time that prosecutors in Maryland have used information from a statewide ballistics database to obtain a conviction, law enforcement officials said. The conviction comes as some Maryland lawmakers are trying to kill the Integrated Ballistics Identification System because they say it is ineffective.

After a four-day trial, the Circuit Court jury convicted Garner of killing Kelvin Braxton, 22, outside a Popeyes chicken restaurant in Oxon Hill the evening of April 23. Garner is scheduled to be sentenced May 6.

Although the weapon, a .40-caliber handgun, never was found, county police and prosecutors connected the firearm to Garner through 10 shell casings found at the scene. A handgun leaves unique markings on shell casings each time it is fired, according to firearms experts.

The casings recovered at the murder scene matched a casing that was on file with Maryland State Police, showing that the weapon was purchased by Garner's then-girlfriend (now his wife) in a Forestville store about three weeks before the killing, according to trial testimony.

Quote of note:

"When you or I walk into a pharmacy with a prescription," she said, "we have to have a strong level of confidence that we're going to walk out carrying the drugs we need. If the drug is in stock, it must be dispensed. End of discussion."

Illinois Drugstores Required to Fill Birth Control Prescriptions
By Stephanie Simon
Times Staff Writer
April 2, 2005

ST. LOUIS   Responding to complaints about a Chicago pharmacist who refused to dispense birth control pills, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Friday issued an executive order requiring drugstores to fill prescriptions for contraceptives.

The policy, the first of its kind in the U.S., requires pharmacies that carry contraceptives to fill prescriptions without delay.

"No hassles, no lecture, just fill the prescription," Blagojevich said.

If an individual pharmacist will not provide birth control pills because of moral or religious beliefs, the drugstore must have a plan to ensure that the patient receives the pills promptly.

In most cases, that means having another pharmacist on hand to dispense the drug.

The policy does not require that all drugstores carry contraceptives; many don't, especially in Catholic hospitals.

But if the pharmacy has them, it must dispense them to anyone with a valid prescription   or risk suspension of its license, said Susan Hofer of the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, which oversees pharmacies.

Because Blagojevich issued the policy as an emergency rule, it would remain in place for 150 days. During that time, Hofer said, the state will hold public hearings on a proposal to make the policy permanent.

Hastert Doubtful on Social Security Bill
House Speaker Says That Passage of Legislation This Year May Be Unlikely
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 1, 2005; Page A04

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) has acknowledged that President Bush's call for completion of a Social Security bill this year could be unrealistic and that the legislation might have to wait until 2006.

The president's aides immediately responded by saying Bush is committed to winning passage this year. The White House and Republican congressional leaders have said repeatedly that the proposed restructuring of the retirement system is doomed if it does not pass this year, because it will be even more difficult to get Democratic support in 2006, a midterm election year.

I'm not ignoring you guys, seriously. But I have a new tech issue I have to figure out. The site had a temporary blackout today and a total blowout yesterday. The times were when I expect my highest volume, so I may need to increase the number of processes my server can run.

The other thing is, both times I noticed when I was posting something remotely. Hm.

And I've been writing documentation for some stuff you probably don't care about.

It has been suggested I write a book. I think I'm considering it this time.

Buckdancing Negroes and Conservative Groupthink About Black Folks

by Armstrong Baldpate

Conservative groupthink about black folks and the buckdancing negroes that tout it are attacking the black community.

The buckdancing negro is the online columnist who is dedicated solely to getting us to pay attention. Nattily dressed in a Brooks Brothers suit, he stands tall at conservative media venues, studding his speech with racially charged words that solicit knee-jerk reactions from the crowd.

The buckdancing negro is a parasite. He nourishes himself on the suffering of others. He exists by satisfying the mob s voracious appetite for excuses and easy solutions. If there is no easy solution for the complex problems of racism in our country, the buckdancing negro will create one. In a calm baritone he will talk about affirmative action. Sure, that causes people in the crowd to pump their fists in support. But what does it actually do to affect progress?

Racial denial does not confront the fact that the tenets of conservatism has failed white people by putting them in the mindset that they have no responsibility for racial progress. Racial denial does not confront the fact that white Americans have the same public policy issues as Black Americans. Racial denial turns them to social activism designed to preserve social relationships shaped by past crimes. America needs to support the same social subsidies for Black Americans that white Americans receive to achieve the American dream. Instead, the little pissant sheep spend all their time cleaving to century-old excuses and stirring racial tensions because this is how they make a living. That is how they attack. Every pundit that comes forward is paid to push someone else s agenda. Like the old saying goes,  show me the money. 

This is, of course, empty rhetoric, and it marks a sad decline. During the heyday of the civil rights movement, writers were not apt to become household names unless they accomplished something great, something galvanizing. Now writers know that they can achieve this perch by pumping white America full of vitriol about how all the problems America faces as a community are the result of Black people s sins. They fill their speeches with the sort of racial rhetoric that shocks people into paying attention. And we have come to confuse the attention they receive with genuine leadership.

Alan Keyes, Ward Connerly, Armstrong Williams and Niger Innis do not work for racial progress. They do not talk about the complex problems that confront America. Instead they distill these complex issues into racially-charged sound bites that get their swollen faces on TV. This is not analysis. It s hype. And it encourages a sort of conservative groupthink that conditions the public to think and act a certain way. Every white person in this country knows that he is not supposed to support racial justice. Does it matter that Black people have done more to be a part the society than any currently accepted and integrated immigrant group? Apparently not. Apparently it is OK if a Black person to work for racial justice, but if a white person does, he is trapped by liberal guilt.

Similarly, it s OK for a black person to be concerned about racial profiling, but if a white person comes out and says law enforcement techniques like this are inherently damaging, he is labeled and dismissed as a  soft on crime.  This is conservative groupthink: they all have to think and act the same way, or they re called traitors. These cultural norms keep them in line. They ensure that the conservative community is the easiest voting block to control and to take for granted.

This is having a disastrous effect on the America. Ever wonder why race relations never seem to improve? How can you solve any problem by pretending it doesn t exist? I see it all the time - conservatives whose idea of anti-racism is to get Black people to stop showing any outward sign of being Black. This groupthink has gotten to the point where they willingly cutting off their chances to recruit talented minorities to appeal to their base. Limiting who gets the benefits of justice does not help us achieve progress. It just keeps conservatives stuck in a pretense of self-righteous innocence.

Liberal guilt is just a term that people use to keep conservatives distracted from real problems. White people aren t inherantly racist. Look at the N.A.A.C.P. - white and Jewish Americans were among its founders. But throwing your arms up and claiming innocence does nothing to break down racial ignorance. They must talk honestly and break down stereotypes from the inside. This doesn t happen if they spend all of their time in denial.

Sadly, that s what our the buckdancing negroes are encouraging them to do when they tout this myth of the white American with no responsibility for supporting racial justice. This myth is appealing because it lets the horrible crimes that have been visited upon the Black community slide from their consciousness. But it is dangerous because it encourages us to alienate ourselves from the opportunities that exist. Even more dangerous is the fact that we have failed to produce a new mythology, a new set of images that might encourage white American to think of itself as something other than that-which-everyone-else-is-not.

Until the buckdancing negroes dispense with the groupthink and take a hard look at the problems facing America, until they seek to embody a new mythology and break free from the myth of the no responsibility, little will change.

Check out Michelle Maklin's blog. A true conservative voice.

DeLay's Reckless Threat

House leader Tom DeLay has issued a chillingly irresponsible threat against the judges involved in the Schiavo case. Following Terri Schiavo's death, DeLay released a statement warning that "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today." This vague and provocative comment came in the midst of a broadside of attacks against those judges   several of them self-described conservatives appointed by conservative presidents   whom DeLay said typified "an arrogant, out of control, unaccountable judiciary." The New York Times reports that Sen. Edward Kennedy called DeLay's statement "irresponsible and reprehensible," and urged that "at a time when emotions are running high, Mr. DeLay needs to make clear that he is not advocating violence against anyone. People in this case have already had their lives threatened." Sen. Kennedy is right. Whatever his agenda or personal political troubles, Tom DeLay must disavow his irresponsible rhetoric.

THREATS AGAINST SCHIAVO JUDGES: DeLay's vague threat against judges yesterday wasn't just offensive, it was dangerous, especially given the serious threats against judges and others involved in the Schiavo case. Florida Pinellas County Circuit Court Judge George Greer has been "under 24-hour protection by two U.S. marshals due to increased threats against his life by those unhappy with his handling of the Schiavo case." Last Thursday, police arrested an Illinois man they said robbed a Florida gun store as part of an attempt to "rescue Terri Schiavo." The next day, FBI officials took into custody a North Carolina man for placing a $250,000 bounty "on the head of Michael Schiavo" and another $50,000 to murder Judge Greer. And police yesterday said they had "logged several bomb threats" to the hospice where Schiavo died and "the circuit and federal courts that refused to order her feeding tube restored."

EXTREME RHETORIC: Unfortunately, DeLay was just one of several high-profile conservatives who "renewed the combative tone they had used to advance the Schiavo legislation." Dr. James Dobson, founder of the conservative evangelical group Focus on the Family, said "the judges who would not stop the removal of Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube were guilty not only of judicial malfeasance - but of the cold-blooded, cold-hearted extermination of an innocent human life.'" Dr. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention said of those who opposed congressional intervention in the case, "If they want to be vigorous defenders of Michael Schiavo and his right to have his wife killed by starving and dehydration, my words to them are 'Go ahead, be Michael's defenders' - and I wish on each of them a son-in-law like Michael Schiavo."

VIOLENCE AGAINST JUDGES: Such incendiary statements are even more inappropriate considering the recent high-profile acts of violence against judges, including the murders of the husband and mother of a federal judge by an embittered ex-plaintiff. Warning against such rhetoric, the American Bar Association last week issued a statement expressing concern that commentators had "crossed the line in using this tragedy to needlessly, gratuitously and viciously attack" judges. "They are not killers as some have called them, nor are they activists bent on pushing an ideological agenda. They are simply dedicated public servants called on to serve as impartial arbiters in a very difficult case."

.

A Culture of Life™

via Vision Circle

Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science Opens
Applications Being Accepted

In fall 2005, the University will open the Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science [(MS)2], a public charter school committed to academic excellence with a specific focus on mathematics and science. The school is the first component of the University s planned Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Center.

We plan to enroll 120 sixth grade students for the 2005-06 academic year, and only D.C. residents are eligible to apply.

Applications are being accepted during the month of March. They are available online at www.howard.edu/ms2, or may be picked up from the Howard University Community Association, located at 2731 Georgia Avenue, NW. Any applications received after March 31st will be added to the school s waiting list.

If you have any questions or require additional information, please contact us at [email protected] or 202.806.7725.

A faulty intelligence report

IT WAS classic irony that Terri Schiavo died the same day the presidential commission on intelligence failure was released. For the brain-damaged Schiavo, the allegedly life-loving Republican Congress and White House engineered a historic and histrionic Palm Sunday vote to support Schiavo's parents, who wanted her feeding tube reinserted over the wishes of Schiavo's husband.

Deep divide seen on fate of incapacitated

WASHINGTON -- Once again, the collision of law, politics, and a tortured family saga has jolted America into a discussion of a complex social concern -- in this case, who should decide whether to remove sustenance from an incapacitated person.

The status quo is fine. There are outlier cases, and legal mechanisms to resolve disputes...a different requirement than "make everyone happy." Everyone understands there is a point beyond which active biology can no longer be called human life. Everyone knows what they want for themselves, and everyone knows actually following through if the situation arises will be a real bitch.

It's another case of ballistics versus quantum mechanics. This is a "complex social concern" if you consider all the ways and places the death of an individual (or frankly, the cost of maintaining the biological activity) affect other lives and events. But when you're in the spot issues are stark and human costs are clear.

There's no controversy here, there's only conversation.

Just like abortion.

Look at the surge in living wills since the circus came to town. How many of those things do you think say, "Keep the carcass pulsating and brush off the maggots once in a while"? How many deeply religious people want their souls bound to a insensate, immobile body indefinitely? How many want that for their loved ones?

How many thousands of people have already made this difficult decision without the assistance of wisdom passed from on high? How many are making that very decision today?

Why is anyone trying to intrude in it at all?

You know how they say history is written by the victors? This is how it's done.

Panel faults spy agencies for claims of Iraqi weapons

WASHINGTON -- A presidential commission blamed the intelligence community yesterday for prewar assertions that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and concluded that no one in the Bush administration had pressured analysts to reach any conclusions about Iraq's weapons programs.

Oh, you thought I was talking about the winner in Iraq?

You read this and say, "Oh, what a surprise," and move on like any sane person would. We've been over Iraq. We've moved beyond the invasion, we've had to...we all have a stake in what comes next.

This moving beyond creates a "space" in which a plausible explanation for your current condition can be inserted...an explanation that blocks your view of the actual event.

EU Will Seek to Impose Sanctions on U.S.
By RAF CASERT
The Associated Press
Thursday, March 31, 2005; 9:28 AM

BRUSSELS, Belgium - The European Union head office said Thursday it will seek to impose additional sanctions of up to 15 percent on U.S. products to punish Washington for failing to repeal an antidumping law ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization.

The European Commission said its action would be joined soon by seven other nations, including Japan, South Korea and Brazil, which had all requested the WTO authorize retaliation.

The EU's move would slap additional duties of up to 15 percent as of May 1 on such U.S. products as paper, textiles, machinery and farm produce. The European Commission's proposal still needs to be approved by the EU member states.

Targeted items ran from writing pads to sweetcorn, tablecloth and sports footwear.

The EU said that according to the latest information, the level of retaliation would amount to slightly less than $28 million.

The agency said it took its latest step "in light of the continuing failure of the United States to bring its legislation in conformity with its international obligations."

Look at this shit. Steal $100 million, get caught and pay $6 million in fines. That's $94 million olloars theys bastards get to keep.

Debt-Relief Firms To Pay $6 Million In FTC Settlement
Agency Cites Lies About Fees, Services
By Caroline E. Mayer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 31, 2005; Page E06

The Federal Trade Commission announced yesterday that three consumer debt-service companies have settled charges that they cheated financially strapped customers out of more than $100 million.

The agency said National Consumer Council Inc., of California, Debt Management Foundation Services, of Florida, and Better Budget Financial Services, of Massachusetts, agreed to pay more than $6 million in consumer refunds for falsely promising easy debt relief that left many consumers deeper in debt and sometimes forced them to file for bankruptcy protection.

Ted Koppel to Leave 'Nightline' and ABC News
By JACQUES STEINBERG
Published: March 31, 2005

Ted Koppel, who during a quarter century as the host of "Nightline" on ABC provided a hard-news alternative to the monologues and light banter of Johnny Carson, Jay Leno and David Letterman, will leave the network when his contract expires in early December, ABC News announced today.

Mr. Koppel said in an interview that he had informed ABC of his decision earlier this week and did not yet know what he might do next. It was not immediately clear how ABC intends to replace him.

ABC News executives said today that they expected that "Nightline" would endure in the same time slot after Mr. Koppel's departure, but the network has yet to resolve how it would rework the program or even whether it would continue to broadcast from Washington.

Here we go again...

Shut the fuck up, go home and let those people get over it.

Columbia Panel Reports No Proof of Anti-Semitism
By KAREN W. ARENSON

An ad hoc faculty committee charged with investigating complaints that pro-Israel Jewish students were harassed by pro-Palestinian professors at Columbia University said it had found one instance in which a professor "exceeded commonly accepted bounds" of behavior when he became angry at a student who he believed was defending Israel's conduct toward Palestinians.

But the report, obtained by The New York Times and scheduled for release today, said it had found "no evidence of any statements made by the faculty that could reasonably be construed as anti-Semitic."

It did, however, describe a broader environment of incivility on campus, with pro-Israel students disrupting lectures on Middle Eastern studies and some faculty members feeling that they were being spied on.

It said that Columbia's failure to address various student complaints quickly had had a "deeply negative impact" on the university as a whole, had led to an "acute erosion of trust between faculty and students," and had left Columbia vulnerable to criticism from outside groups with their own agendas.

As Gambling Grows, States Depend on Their Cut
By FOX BUTTERFIELD

DOVER, Del. - Gambling revenues, once a mere trickle, have become a critical stream of income in a number of states, in some cases surpassing traditional sources like the corporate income tax and helping states lower personal income or property taxes.

The sums are so alluring that some officials are concerned that their states are becoming as addicted as problem gamblers. "We're drunk on gambling revenue," said Representative Wayne A. Smith, the Republican who is House majority leader in the Delaware Legislature. "Gambling revenues are like free money."

In Rhode Island, South Dakota, Louisiana, Oregon and, most of all, Nevada, taxes from casinos, slot machines at racetracks and lotteries make up more than 10 percent of overall revenues, according to a new report. In Delaware, West Virginia, Indiana, Iowa and Mississippi, gambling revenues are fast approaching 10 percent.

So vital has the money become that in Rhode Island, gambling revenue has surpassed the corporate income tax to become the state's third largest source of income, after the personal income and sales tax. It has enabled the state to avoid raising its income tax for 10 years.

Because of gambling, South Dakota officials were able to push through a 20 percent reduction in property taxes a decade ago by increasing to 50 percent the state's share of gambling revenue from video lottery terminals, up from 37 percent.

A property tax reduction was also the main argument in Pennsylvania for legalizing gambling when the Legislature last year authorized slot machines at racetracks and casinos after years of intense opposition.

Here in Delaware, where video slot machines were legalized in 1994 as a way to revive ailing horse racing and horse farming industries, racetracks are thriving, horse farms have been preserved and the legislature, unexpectedly, has been able to cut the top personal income tax rate over several years during the late 1990's to 5.9 percent, from 8.4 percent, a reduction of nearly one-third.

What did I tell you?

Quote of note:

It was also unclear if the Vatican had plans to replace the nasal feeding tube, normally a temporary device, with the more comfortable, efficient and long-term type of artificial feeding conduit that is placed directly through the abdominal wall.

This latter mechanism, called a PEG, is the type that has kept Terri Schiavo alive for the last 12 years. Although it is put in place under local anesthesia, the procedure would presumably require a brief return to the hospital. Also, it represents a more permanent commitment to aggressive end-of-life care, and it is not clear whether the pope would choose that route.

This is the only case whose impact could overshadow the media noise generated around Terri Schiavo's case. I know the Church allows you or your legal guardian to forgo heroic measures to preserve life...for the record, I have no beef with that. But if it's possible to live and you make a conscious choice not to, that's close enough to suicide as to make no difference.

I wouldn't wish life with Parkinson's Disease on my worst enemy, but it is rarely the actual cause of death...steps can be taken now to extend John Paul II's life, to protect against those complications. Of course the neural cell death would continue until his ability to interact is gone. But he'd be alive...the vessel of God's will.

How can The Pope choose not to live? How can the Cardinals choose not to let him?

They can because beyond a point it becomes monstrous.

Of course none of that decision making will take place on the record. But that doesn't matter. The fact that no current religion compels you to take those extraordinary measures to preserve life means every current religion recognizes there is a point at which the biological activity is not human life.

Pope Is Being Fed With a Tube
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

International Herald Tribune

ROME, March 30 - Pope John Paul II is receiving liquid feedings through a tube that was inserted through his nose and winds down into his stomach, Vatican officials announced Wednesday, raising new alarms about the pope's deteriorating health and his ability to lead the Roman Catholic Church.

"To improve his calorific intake and promote an efficient recovery of his strength, nutrition via the positioning of a nasal gastric tube has begun," the chief Vatican spokesman, Joaquín Navarro-Valls, said.

The announcement did not say exactly when the feedings had started. But the ailing pope, looking gaunt and exhausted, appeared silently at the window of his chambers at 11 a.m. local time, without a feeding tube in place.

"Public audiences are still suspended," it added. For the first time, the Vatican seemed to damp down a bit its normally upbeat assessment of John Paul's medical condition, now characterizing his convalescence as "slow."

For the immediate future, it seems unlikely that the pope, 84, will continue the silent, symbolic appearances at his apartment windows that have become his only contact with the outside world since the surgery to create a breathing hole in his throat a month ago. In these choreographed moments, the Vatican has been careful not to show signs of medical paraphernalia, like feeding tubes, which must be taped heavily to the nose to keep them safely in place.

You know, sometimes I think we've already blown it.

Quote of note:

Walter Reid, director of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, said over the past 50 years humans had changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than any comparable period in human history.

"These changes have resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss to the biological diversity of the planet," Reid said.

U.N. Study: Earth's Health Deteriorating
- By CATHERINE McALOON, Associated Press Writer
Thursday, March 31, 2005
(03-31) 02:48 PST LONDON, United Kingdom (AP) --

Growing populations and expanding economic activity have strained the planet's ecosystems over the past half century, a trend that threatens international efforts to combat poverty and disease, a U.N.-sponsored study of the Earth's health warned on Wednesday.

The four-year, $24 million Millennium Ecosystem Assessment found humans have caused heavy damage or depleted portions of the world's farmlands, forests and watercourses.

Unless nations adopt more eco-friendly policies, increased human demands for food, clean water and fuels could speed the disappearance of forests, fish and fresh water reserves and lead to more frequent disease outbreaks over the next 50 years, it warned.

"This report is essentially an audit of nature's economy and the audit shows that we have driven most of the accounts into the red," Jonathan Lash, a member of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment board, said in London.

The report said degradation of ecosystems was a barrier to achieving development goals adopted at the U.N. Millennium Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa in September 2000: halving the proportion of people without access to clean water and basic sanitation by 2015 and improving the lives of 100 million slum dwellers by 2020.

I mean, since Democrats have made suggestions that would actually achieve solvency Bush can't possibly be talking about them, right?

Anyway...

Bush Invites Critics to Show, Tell
The president warns there may be political repercussions for lawmakers who don't address Social Security's solvency problems.
By Warren Vieth
Times Staff Writer
March 31, 2005

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa   President Bush tried Wednesday to persuade congressional skeptics to back his approach to Social Security restructuring and invited critics to join him at the negotiating table.

Bush took his Social Security campaign to the home state of Republican Senate Finance Chairman Charles E. Grassley, who has expressed doubts about the prospects of passing restructuring legislation this year.

Midway through a 60-day barnstorming tour to promote his plan for letting younger workers divert part of their payroll taxes into personal investment accounts, Bush said lawmakers who tried to avoid dealing with Social Security might be held accountable by constituents.

"There's a political price for not getting involved in the process . There's a political price for saying it's not a problem," Bush said during a radio interview conducted in a restaurant booth in Cedar Rapids, seated with Grassley.

Court Broadens Scope of Age-Discrimination Protections
By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON, March 30 - The Supreme Court ruled today that older workers can, in some circumstances, recover damages from their employers for harm caused by age discrimination even if the harm was not deliberate.

The court, ruling 5 to 3 in a case closely watched by business interests, held that the 1967 Age Discrimination in Employment Act does allow such lawsuits. But the court also made clear that the estimated 75 million people covered by the law - workers over age 40 - must clear a high threshold of evidence to prevail.

Justice John Paul Stevens and the four other justices who joined him in the main thrust of today's ruling alluded to earlier Supreme Court findings that good faith by employers "does not redeem employment procedures or testing mechanisms that operate as 'built-in headwinds' for minority groups and are unrelated to measuring job capability."

Justice Stevens, using the technical language that has accompanied years of court arguments over interpretation of the law, said the act does allow recovery of damages in "disparate impact" cases - that is, in instances in which the effect on older workers is unintentional - as well as "disparate treatment" cases, when the effect is clearly deliberate.

This is seriously curious for a couple of reasons. First of all, the "disparate impact" argument has been rejected where racial discrimination is concerned.

But attorneys for the State of Alabama took one last shot. They asked the U.S. Supreme Court to declare that Congress never intended private individuals to be able to bring lawsuits directly under the authority of the Title VI implementing regulations. The Court agreed to hear the case, and on April 24,

2001 they reversed the judgment. By a 5-4 majority in Alexander v. Sandoval (the same breakdown of individual Justices deciding in favor of George W. Bush in Bush v. Gore), the Court concluded that Congress only intended these regulations to be directly enforceable by the Office of Civil Rights a political body with very limited resources not by a private right of action.

The other reason is, Justice Scalia voted with Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer. The opinions given are revealing:

Justice Antonin Scalia filed a separate opinion, saying "disparate impact" claims alleging a hurtful effect are acceptable based on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's interpretation of the congressional statute, not the majority opinion's "independent determination" of the law.

Had Rehnquist been well enough to be involved in this case from the beginning, he'd have likely voted with the Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer and everyone would have said "the oldest Justice was the swing vote."

Scalia was, undeniably, the swing vote here, yet he manages to excoriate the more liberal judges for their "activism": while voting with them. He does so by yielding to the executive branch of government's interpretation of the legislative branch's intent. Talk about staying on message.

But why? What would make Justice Scalia decide a constitutional issue this way when he obviously so disagrees with the decision he won't even sign onto his own vote?

Just imagine the repercussions of telling the Baby Boomer generation they can't sue for age discrimination.

And we're talking about raising the retirement age, right? How can you suggest that immediately after saying you can't sue for age discrimination?

Because it has been decided that individuals can't sue for race discrimination, only the Office of Civil Rights. They can for age discrimination, but not race discrimination. That is a contradiction that, if challenged, cannot be easily maintained.

Nor have I been so impress with the US nowadays that I want it attached to my domain names.

Anyway...

Dear Valued Go Daddy Customer,

Today I have the unfortunate responsibility of informing you that there has been a decision made by bureaucrats of a Federal agency that takes away your right to privacy as guaranteed by the United States Constitution.

This decision was unilaterally made by the National Telecommunications and Information Association ("NTIA") -- http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ -- without hearings that would determine the impact on those affected, and delivered without notice -- in short, the NTIA decision was made without due process of any kind. This is exactly how our government is not supposed to work.

The effect of this decision is to disallow new private domain name registrations on .US domain names. In addition, if you already own a private .US domain name registration, you will be forced to forfeit your privacy no later than January 26, 2006. By that time, you will need to choose between either making your personal information available to anyone who wants to see it, or giving up your right to that domain name.

I personally find it ironic that our right to .US privacy was stripped away, without due process, by a federal government agency -- an agency that should be looking out for our individual rights. For the NTIA to choose the .US extension is the ultimate slap in your face. .US is the only domain name that is specifically intended for Americans (and also those who have a physical presence in our great country). So think about this for a moment. These bureaucrats stripped away the privacy that you're entitled to as an American, on the only domain name that says that you are an American. I am outraged by this -- you should be also.

If, like me, you are outraged at the NTIA's decision to strip away our constitutional right to privacy, the Web site http://www.TheDangerOfNoPrivacy.com will provide you with a petition to sign. (Only your name will be published, your address and email information will be kept private.) This Web site also provides a very easy way for you to send either a fax or an email, expressing your outrage, to your Congressperson and Senators. This is all provided at no cost to you. All that is required is for you to take the time to visit http://www.TheDangerOfNoPrivacy.com sign the petition, and send the fax or email to your legislators.

On my personal Blog -- http://www.BobParsons.com -- there are a number of articles where you can learn more about the NTIA's unfortunate decision and what you can do to help get it reversed.

I also will be talking about our right to privacy on Radio Go Daddy, our weekly radio show that debuts today, March 30, at 7 PM PST. To find out how to listen in, please visit the Web site dedicated to the show, http://www.RadioGoDaddy.com

You can be sure that I, and everyone at GoDaddy.com, will do everything in our power to get the NTIA decision reversed. However, we need your help. Please visit http://www.TheDangerOfNoPrivacy.com to sign the petition and express your feelings to your Congressperson and Senators.

Sincerely,

Bob Parsons President and Founder
GoDaddy.com

Since CNN is shilling for the Religious Right nowadays I thought I'd give my honest, swear-ta-God opinion of an idea they're floating.

The ace up his sleeve

NEW YORK (CNN) -- This past weekend, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the influential chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, seemed to throw cold water on President Bush's hopes for major Social Security change. And recent polls have shown that the public is also cool to the idea of private accounts, arguably the central element of President Bush's Social Security plan.

But as the Social Security debate continues to unfold, do not underestimate President Bush's ability to still get his ideas enacted. Indeed, even without broad Congressional or public support, President Bush just may have an ace up his sleeve. How might he enact his private accounts idea without such support, you may ask? By executive order.

...When President Clinton failed to get his health care plan passed in the mid-1990s, he experimented with portions of his program via executive order.

Similarly, if President Bush ultimately fails to persuade Congress (especially centrist Senators) to back his private account plan, he may sign an executive order for a smaller version of his plan,

Critics of executive orders note that Congress and the courts rarely overturn such directives, thereby raising the specter of unchecked, un-reviewed and potentially even presidential abuse of power. Indeed, the Supreme Court has only overturned an executive order twice and Congress a mere four times in the past century.

Ladies and gentlemen, if Bush does this in the face of the overwhelming rejection of his push for privatization it will represent the biggest "Fuck all you little people" ever committed in American politics.

It would be like, "Yes I know I said this will make the very situation I said we need to fix worse. Yes, I've already admitted this has nothing to do with solvency.

"But I don't care. I don't care that it increases the debt...look at all the debt I've already piled up, you think a little more will stop me? I don't care that you don't like the idea...you're either part of the intelligent, educated sector of society (in which case I just don't care about you) or you're not (in which case you're incapable of framing an argument).

"So fuck you. I'm doing what I want to do with YOUR money."

I haven't had the time to sort out all the ideas I have whose roots lay in something I learned from Harold Cruse's Plural but Equal and The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual...though I can tell you right off the top that Crisis showed me I not only can start my analyses without assuming everyone else's assumptions, but that is must.

If you haven't read these books you should. Or at least get The Essential Harold Cruse: A Reader. I haven't read it but I own the other two books so... but if I had read it, I'd have know the introduction to the book, written by Jelani Cobb, is online at his site. PTCruiser knew though, and told me. Now I pass it to the rest of you. It's a long read but worthy...not a straight lionization of Cruse at all (though I wouldn't have complained).

Mississippi Eases Hair Braiding Rules

Date: Tuesday, March 29, 2005
By: Associated Press

JACKSON, Miss. -- Mississippi lawmakers approved a bill Tuesday that would lift licensing requirements for people who take money to braid hair.

Supporters said braiding is a part of African-American heritage that should be free of the state bureaucracy. Opponents of the bill said the practice needs regulation to prevent the spread of scalp diseases.

Current Mississippi law says a braider must hold either a cosmetology license, requiring 1,500 hours of education, or a wig specialist license, requiring 300 hours of training.

The compromise bill sent to Gov. Haley Barbour only requires hair braiders to pay an annual $25 fee to register with the state and take a self-test. They would also receive a brochure on sanitation.

Read what I wrote here.

Read what ex-senator Bill Bradley wrote here.

While you do that, I'll look for an online course on writing more verbosely.

Latam-Spain Leaders Vow Cooperation But Not Anti-US
Reuters
Tuesday, March 29, 2005; 9:55 PM

By Silene Ramirez

CIUDAD GUAYANA, Venezuela (Reuters) - The leaders of Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia and Spain agreed on Tuesday to join forces to fight terrorism, drug-trafficking and poverty in Latin America, but they said their alliance was not intended to confront the United States.

The one-day summit was hosted by leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a fierce critic of Washington's global policies, at Ciudad Guayana on the banks of the Orinoco river.

Despite Chavez's stance, Venezuela, the world's No. 5 oil exporter, remains a major supplier to the United States.

After talks and lunch with the other heads of government, Chavez hailed the meeting as a sign that "a new geopolitical map" was being drawn up to counterbalance the global dominance of the United States.

"We want to do it, and we're going to do it, without confronting anyone," the Venezuelan leader told a joint news conference.

A final summit communique pledged cooperation to fight terrorism and drug-trafficking and eradicate poverty.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose government announced on Monday it would not renew an International Monetary Fund loan accord, expressed support for "changing our commercial geography" to diversify away from dependence on the United States.

"All we want to do is occupy our space in the world, showing respect for all nations but also wanting to be respected by them," said Lula.

Spain's socialist prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who has reversed the pro-U.S. foreign policy of his predecessor, Jose Maria Aznar, pledged support for Latin American efforts to improve regional security and fight poverty.

He also defended plans to sell Spanish naval frigates and transport planes to Venezuela, saying they were intended for border patrols and to combat drug-trafficking.

Quote of note:

Protesters often stand out because the crowds are packed with Bush supporters, who have been invited by a local GOP House member or organization. Those onstage at most of the town hall meetings are carefully screened people from the area who agree with the president's Social Security proposal. The participants typically rehearse what they will say with members of the president's advance team and rarely, if ever, say anything critical about his plan for private accounts.

Three Were Told to Leave Bush Town Meeting
By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 30, 2005; Page A04

Three Denver residents yesterday charged that they were forcibly removed from one of President Bush's town meetings on Social Security because they displayed a bumper sticker on their car condemning the administration's Middle East policies.

The three, all self-described progressives who oppose Bush's Social Security plan, said an unidentified official at an event in Denver last week forced them to leave before the president started to speak, even though they had done nothing disruptive, said their attorney, Dan Recht.

Initially, the three believed Secret Service agents had grabbed them and ushered them out of the auditorium, Recht said. But he said that Lon Garner, the Secret Service agent in charge of the Denver office, told them the service investigated the matter and found it was a "Republican staffer" who removed them because they had a "No More Blood for Oil" bumper sticker on their car.

Anne Applebaum says in the Washington Post:

Yet, although we see video images of death all the time -- movie shootouts, scenes of faraway warfare -- we don't much like dwelling on the medicalized environments in which most people in our society actually pass away, and we don't like thinking about the murky ethical dilemmas that their deaths often present. In some sense the Schiavo case has attracted so much attention precisely because it brings, almost for the first time, a very common, very painful, but usually very private dilemma into the public sphere.

Can we just not politicize this any further?

The fact that this has drawn so much public attention doesn't mean the general issue is now a public one.

IF Republicans try to extend this to a debate over whether parents or spouses are the default legal guardians...a totally stupid discussion unless the parents are still listing the person as a tax deduction...I would suggest Democrats take the position that current case law is clear, states can pass whatever they like to modify applicable law, and move on.

Doubts Raised On Schiavo Memo
Web Critics Question Authenticity Of 'Talking Points' Aimed at GOP

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 30, 2005; Page C01

Bloggers are swarming around a new target: the Terri Schiavo "talking points."

Fresh from declaring victory over CBS News and its discredited National Guard memos about President Bush, some of the same bloggers are raising questions about a strategy memo, first reported by ABC News and The Washington Post, that cast the Schiavo right-to-die case as a partisan opportunity for Republicans to stick it to Democrats.

"Fake but Accurate Again?" says the Weekly Standard headline on an article by John Hinderaker, an attorney and conservative blogger who had challenged the CBS documents.

While there is no hard evidence that the memo is fake, there are several strange things about it, including the basic fact that no one seems to know who wrote it and that the noncontroversial part of it is lifted from a Republican senator's press release.

ABC and The Post say their reports on the Schiavo memo were accurate and carefully worded. The document caused a stir because it described the Schiavo controversy as "a great political issue" that would excite "the pro-life base" and be "a tough issue for Democrats," singling out Florida's Sen. Bill Nelson. Two days after the memo was reported, the Republican-controlled Congress approved a bill, signed by Bush, to transfer jurisdiction of Schiavo's case from Florida courts to the federal judiciary in an effort to restore the brain-damaged woman's feeding tube.

"There's nothing on the face of the document to identify a source -- not only is it unsigned, there's no letterhead, no nothing," Hinderaker said yesterday. "This is literally a piece of paper with stuff typed on it that could have been written by anyone."

Two Months In and Still Foundering
Iraqi Assembly Again Fails to Elect Speaker or Fill Other Key Positions

By Caryle Murphy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 30, 2005; Page A08

BAGHDAD, March 29 -- Iraq's new National Assembly had just convened for its second session Tuesday when a wide-girthed Shiite Muslim cleric, Hussein Sadr, appealed to his fellow deputies to quickly elect a speaker.

"Public opinion on the street is now waiting for some action by us. What can we answer?" he said. "What shall we say to history?"

A female delegate clad head-to-toe in black also jumped up to demand answers. "There are 17 Sunni personalities inside this assembly, and to choose one of them is not difficult," she shouted, referring to the vote for speaker. "Please clarify this."

Dhari Fayad, 78, who is temporarily presiding over the assembly by virtue of being its oldest member, had heard enough.

"Now, I ask the media to leave the hall, because we're having a secret session," he said, a little more than 20 minutes into the meeting. A collective groan rose from reporters in a nearby room as the televisions showing the proceedings abruptly switched to an Iraqi singer belting out "My Homeland, My Homeland."

The session was closed so Iraq's newly minted politicians could once again find a way out of an embarrassing failure to start forming the country's first freely elected government. Two months after the assembly was elected, negotiations among the various religious and ethnic groups appear to be increasingly bogged down, as politicians bicker over who will fill top posts.

Tell me your opinion of this.

Quote of note:

Executives of Response Unlimited declined to comment. Gary McCullough, director of the Christian Communication Network and a spokesman for Ms. Schiavo's parents, confirmed that Mr. Schindler had agreed to let Response Unlimited rent out the list as part of a deal for the firm to send an e-mail solicitation raising money on the family's behalf.

List of Schiavo Donors Will Be Sold by Direct-Marketing Firm
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and JOHN SCHWARTZ

WASHINGTON, March 28 - The parents of Terri Schiavo have authorized a conservative direct-mailing firm to sell a list of their financial supporters, making it likely that thousands of strangers moved by her plight will receive a steady stream of solicitations from anti-abortion and conservative groups.

"These compassionate pro-lifers donated toward Bob Schindler's legal battle to keep Terri's estranged husband from removing the feeding tube from Terri," says a description of the list on the Web site of the firm, Response Unlimited, which is asking $150 a month for 6,000 names and $500 a month for 4,000 e-mail addresses of people who responded last month to an e-mail plea from Ms. Schiavo's father. "These individuals are passionate about the way they value human life, adamantly oppose euthanasia and are pro-life in every sense of the word!"

Privacy experts said the sale of the list was legal and even predictable, if ghoulish.

"I think it's amusing," said Robert Gellman, a privacy and information policy consultant. "I think it's absolutely classic America. Everything is for sale in America, every type of personal information."

Executives of Response Unlimited declined to comment. Gary McCullough, director of the Christian Communication Network and a spokesman for Ms. Schiavo's parents, confirmed that Mr. Schindler had agreed to let Response Unlimited rent out the list as part of a deal for the firm to send an e-mail solicitation raising money on the family's behalf.

I am. MAJOR dental work yesterday.

How major? We put those yellow cones on my forehead and routed street traffic around my head for several hours. I considered leaving my jaw there overnight, pick it up later after the swelling goes down.

Justices: Whistleblowers Can Sue for Retaliation
From Associated Press
9:40 AM PST, March 29, 2005

WASHINGTON   The Supreme Court expanded the scope of the landmark gender equity law Title IX, ruling today that it shields whistleblowers who accuse academic institutions of discrimination based on sex.

The 5-4 decision in favor of Alabama high school girls basketball coach Roderick Jackson is a victory for women's advocates who say the legal protection will prompt reports of bias that would otherwise go unsaid or unheeded.

The ruling means Jackson can pursue a lawsuit claiming he was fired for complaining that the boys team received better treatment. Congress intended such lawsuits when it passed the Title IX law, justices said.

"Without protection from retaliation, individuals who witness discrimination would likely not report it, indifference claims would be short-circuited, and the underlying discrimination would go unremedied," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote for the majority.

She was joined in her opinion by Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

Harold Cruse has died.

You have no idea the impact this man has had on my views. Not just  The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, but another major work of his, Plural but Equal.

Qusan points to a pretty amazing admission made by the anti-intellectual forces in Dover, PA., the guys trying to eliminate the teaching of evolution in schools.

"Christians are a lot more bold under Bush's leadership, he speaks what a lot of us believe," said Mummert.

"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture," he said, adding that the school board's declaration is just a first step.

"We" are not in the intelligent, educated segment of the culture. "We," in fact, feel singularly threatened by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture and the constant flow of new things it forces "us" to react to.

The autopsy can handle the Schindler's accusations.

Schiavo's Husband and Parents Now Battling Over Autopsy Plan
By Manuel Roig-Franzia and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 29, 2005; Page A03

PINELLAS PARK, Fla., March 28 -- The war over Terri Schiavo, once tightly focused on whether she would live or die, shifted at times Monday to arguments over how her body will be examined.

Her husband, Michael Schiavo, wants an autopsy in hopes of proving the severity of her brain damage. Her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, want a medical examination to answer questions about their suspicions that Michael Schiavo may have broken her bones in what they say may have been an attack that caused her brain injury, an allegation that was previously made.

Michael Schiavo and his attorneys have vehemently denied the accusation, saying doctors believe Schiavo's brain injury was caused by a lack of oxygen after a heart attack.

The dueling plans for examining Terri Schiavo's body were announced Monday as protesters carried crucifixes into Lafayette Square across from the White House, then visited three congressional offices to pressure lawmakers to intervene again in the case.

You know how folks have to warn you when something isn't work-safe? Well, make sure there are no fundies around when you follow this link.

Don't forget to read the comments.

Alma Mater As Big Brother
By Katherine Haley Will
Tuesday, March 29, 2005; Page A15

A proposal by the Education Department would force every college and university in America to report all their students' Social Security numbers and other information about each individual -- including credits earned, degree plan, race and ethnicity, and grants and loans received -- to a national databank. The government will record every student, regardless of whether he or she receives federal aid, in the databank.

The government's plan is to track students individually and in full detail as they complete their post-secondary education. The threat to our students' privacy is of grave concern, and the government has not satisfactorily explained why it wants to collect individual information.

Ex-Diplomats to Urge Rejection of Bolton as U.N. Ambassador
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 29, 2005

WASHINGTON, March 28 (AP) - A group of former American diplomats plan to send a letter to urge the Senate to reject John R. Bolton's nomination to be the next United States ambassador to the United Nations.

"He is the wrong man for this position," the group of 59 former diplomats say in the letter, addressed to Senator Richard G. Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Mr. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, has scheduled hearings for April 7 on Mr. Bolton's nomination.

Did Bush listen to the economists? No.

Did Bush listen to Union of Concerned Scientists? No.

The other day I noted pharmacists that refuse to do their jobs are part of the same Religious Right movement that set up antiabortion organizations designed to confuse women who want abortions. Today, Paul Krugman notes the pattern

Yesterday The Washington Post reported on the growing number of pharmacists who, on religious grounds, refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control or morning-after pills. These pharmacists talk of personal belief; but the effect is to undermine laws that make these drugs available. And let me make a prediction: soon, wherever the religious right is strong, many pharmacists will be pressured into denying women legal drugs.

And it won't stop there. There is a nationwide trend toward "conscience" or "refusal" legislation. Laws in Illinois and Mississippi already allow doctors and other health providers to deny virtually any procedure to any patient. Again, think of how such laws expose doctors to pressure and intimidation.

...and that it's much wider than that.

Another thing that's going on is the rise of politicians willing to violate the spirit of the law, if not yet the letter, to cater to the religious right.

Everyone knows about the attempt to circumvent the courts through "Terri's law." But there has been little national exposure for a Miami Herald report that Jeb Bush sent state law enforcement agents to seize Terri Schiavo from the hospice - a plan called off when local police said they would enforce the judge's order that she remain there.

This is at the National Press Club.

Blogger? Journalist?

Now that anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can set up shop on the Web, the days when you could tell who was a reporter by looking for a press card stuck in a fedora are long gone. Both journalists and bloggers will debate whether there's a difference between them, on Fri., Apr. 8, at 9:30 a.m. The panel includes Jeff Gannon, whose question at a presidential press conference focused attention on the issue; Ana Marie Cox, editor of Wonkette.com, and Congress Daily's John Stanton. Reserve at 662-7501.

I spotted this issue at Steve Gilliard's News Blog.

You know why they picked the panelists they did, right? Because they are what the members of the NPC see bloggers to be...a sideshow to their professional journalism. There's some complaints about the Ms. Cox (I think I should bill myself as the editor of Prometheus 6, just in case I decide to start self-marketing) "representing" the progressive side of the blognet and Gannon being taken seriously at all, I don't think this particular one is about suppressing the left. I think it's about securing a specific position for bloggers in their own minds.

Ireland Enacts Law Banning English on Maps
Ireland Enacts Law Banning English on Road Signs, Official Maps on Much of Nation's West Coast
By SHAWN POGATCHNIK

The Associated Press

Mar. 28, 2005 - Tourists, beware: Your guide book may tell you the way to Dingle in County Kerry, but all the road signs will be pointing you toward An Daingean in Contae an Ciarrai instead.

In an age where many people bemoan English's growing global influence, advocates of local languages scored a small victory Monday when Ireland enacted a law outlawing English in road signs and official maps on much of the nation's western coast, where many people speak Gaelic.

Locals concede the switch will confuse foreigners in an area that depends heavily on tourism, but they say it's the price of patriotism.

"The change is nice for the locals, but if a stranger's coming in without one of the new Dingle maps, it can be quite difficult," said Sarah Brosnan, assistant manager of the Dingle Bay Hotel, which like most things connected to the tourist trade won't be changing its name.

In all, more than 2,300 towns, villages, fields and crossroads that traditionally had both English and Gaelic names have had their previously bilingual road signs changed to Irish only. The change chiefly affects three far-flung regions of the western seaboard called the Gaeltacht, which has long been nation's last stand in the battle against English dominance.

There, English place names no longer have legal standing and may not be used in government documents or on official Ordnance Survey maps. The switch also applies in a few official Gaelic-speaking pockets of County Meath, northwest of Dublin, and County Waterford in the southeast.

Oliver says:

It's now becoming a serious question whether Republicans are on "the other side" or not.

It's LONG been a serious question...and here's the serious answer.

Right-Wing Terror Movements Omitted from DHS Terrorist List
By Justin Rood, CQ Staff

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not list right-wing domestic terrorists and terrorist groups on a document that appears to be an internal list of threats to the nation s security.

According to the list   part of a draft planning document obtained by CQ Homeland Security   between now and 2011 DHS expects to contend primarily with adversaries such as al Qaeda and other foreign entities affiliated with the Islamic Jihad movement, as well as domestic radical Islamist groups.

It also lists left-wing domestic groups, such as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), as terrorist threats, but it does not mention anti-government groups, white supremacists and other radical right-wing movements, which have staged numerous terrorist attacks that have killed scores of Americans. Recent attacks on cars, businesses and property in Virginia, Oregon and California have been attributed to ELF.

DHS did not respond to repeated requests for comment or confirmation of the document s authenticity.

That headline oughta catch your interest.

I try clever, literate lead-ins sometimes, but I've read a lot and quoting all the requisite set-up stuff would be annoying so I'll just list the stuff that got me thinking about this.

First was The Unbranding by Jeffrey Goldberg, in The New Yorkershugavery, one of the members here, brought it to my attention with this quote.

He has come to realize, he said, that many Democrats still haven’t grasped the political importance of September 11th, and again he recalled how he had urged Kerry to keep his campaign message focussed on terrorism. Kerry, Biden said, would tell voters that he would “fight terror as hard as Bush,” but then he would add, “and I’ll help you economically.” “What is Bush saying?” Biden said. “Terror, terror, terror, terror, terror. I would say to John, ‘Let me put it to you this way. The Lord Almighty, or Allah, whoever, if he came to every kitchen table in America and said, “Look, I have a Faustian bargain for you, you choose. I will guarantee to you that I will end all terror threats against the United States within the year, but in return for that there will be no help for education, no help for Social Security, no help for health care.” What do you do?’

“My answer,” Biden said, “is that seventy-five per cent of the American people would buy that bargain.”

Then, while on tour, I ran across Jude of Iddybud, writing at The American Street, responding to a post by Chris Bowers at MyDD that flipped on a statement about Goldberg's article in an article in which Matt Taibi basically rips National Security Democrats a new orifice. Chris focuses on this quote.

It would be easy to dismiss the Biden revival as a cheap stunt by a discredited party hack with all the national appeal of the streptococcus virus, except for one thing. Biden's "national security" camp includes all four of the expected main contenders for the Democratic nomination--Biden himself, Hillary Clinton, Indiana senator Evan Bayh, and John Edwards. New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, another outside contender, is also a member of this camp. We are going to be hearing a lot about "National Security Democrats" in the next three years.

The Democratic party leadership's persistent and bizarre campaign of self-condemnation and Republican bootlicking is one of those things that, on its face, makes very little logical sense. It makes cultural sense; we have come to expect that the cultural figures we call the Democrats will respond to electoral failure first by sniveling and finger-pointing, and then by puffing up their chests and telling their dates they know how to handle themselves in a bar fight. From the Republicans we expect just the opposite; beaten at the polls, they immediately start cozying up to snake-handlers and gun freaks and denouncing school lunches as socialism. It is impossible to imagine a Newt Gingrich responding, say, to LBJ's Great Society by concocting its own expensive plan to feed the poor black man--but we fully expect that a Democrat who loses an election will suddenly start to reconsider his opposition to preemtpive invasion and Reaganomics.

I suspect Chris has little objection to this part, but he gets heated over another statement.

We expect these things, so they strike us as logical when we see them happen. But they make no sense. A merely cynical opposition party would be emboldened by poll numbers showing majority opposition to the war to court those votes. And a moral one would seize upon news of the sort coming out of Britain to argue to not only to their own voters (who would unanimously support them in this aim), but to the country at large, that the invasion of Iraq was based upon a fallacy, illegal and impeachable.

But the Democratic leaders do neither. Instead, they tell 53 percent of the country that they are mistaken, and throw their chips in with the other 47 percent, who incidentally support the other party and are not likely to ever budge. They then go further and try to argue that fighting the war on terror requires abandoning health care, education and Social Security an idea that, let's face it, makes no fucking sense at all.

Chris says by claiming there's a faction of Democrats that want to abandon the core Democratic issues is divisive.

However, Tabai's slander aside, I have had enough of Democrat hawks consistently wailing about our "credibility gap" on national security and foreign affairs. This is epitomized by a group of Democrats coming together under the unofficial term "National Security Democrats." Let's see--what is the first thing that labeling yourself a national Security Democrats would serve to differentiate yourself from? Call me crazy, but I have a feeling that it is other Democrats. If some Democrats are called "National Security Democrats," a Richard Holbroke term, this simultaneously labels the rest of the Democratic Party who do not join their group as not-National Security Democrats. This thereby perpetuates exactly the same lie that the Republican Noise Machine has worked for decades to construct: that Democrats in general are neither interested nor very good at National Security.

You know, during the height of color-blindness rhetoric I'd occasionally be told someone complaining about racism was being "divisive." My response was always, "Divisive? We're already divided and pretending otherwise doesn't change a thing."

Republicans exercised astounding discipline and cooperation across their various factions because they had a target. Now that they've won, each faction is jockeying for position within the hierarchy. They were never any more unified than Democrats are right now, except in their quest for change.

This is simply a condition Democrats must accept. What they have to do is organize such that each Democratic faction is responsible for presenting the ideal solution to problems in their area of expertise. Each ideal solution is a single platform plank, and the last plank should hold that all other planks will be pursued to the degree that it is sane to do so...that situations may slow forward motion but will NEVER push them backward.

Let your "National Security Democrats" present the ideal military response, let them be the unitary voice on security.Let those expert on disabled people's rights do the same, and the labor experts, the insurance experts, etc. Let internal competition take the form of "He's good but I'm great." In other words, you don't need philosophical shifts, you need structure. Over half the country voted against Bush and his cronies...you have all the force you need. Now you need to direct it, turn it into power. Make others react to you.

Court Declines to Review Abortion Law
Supreme Court Rejects Appeal to Reinstate Law Requiring Girls Under Age 18 to Get Consent for Abortions
By HOPE YEN
The Associated Press

Mar. 28, 2005 - The Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday to reinstate a state law requiring girls under age 18 to get parental consent for abortions except under the most dire of medical emergencies.

Without comment, justices let stand a lower court ruling that struck down the Idaho law because its provisions on emergency abortions were too strict.

The Supreme Court in its landmark 1973 case, Roe v. Wade, ruled that a woman has a constitutional right to abortion before the fetus is viable and to terminate her pregnancy if it poses a risk to her health.

At issue was whether the Idaho law was unduly burdensome on young mothers by limiting abortions without consent to "sudden and unexpected" instances of physical complications.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said yes, saying there was no reasonable explanation for the restriction. Other emergency medical procedures are allowed on minors without parental permission that do not fit the "sudden and unexpected" category, it said.

The court said the rest of the law could not be salvaged because the emergency provisions were too important.

The justices' move Monday sidesteps a highly charged issue amid continuing speculation about a looming vacancy on the high court. At least three justices have said they believe Roe v. Wade should be overturned, and liberal groups have vowed to fight any judicial nominee that opposes the landmark ruling.

Court Won't Step Into Newspaper Lawsuit
Top Court Won't Step Into Lawsuit Against Paper That Reported on Accusations Among Politicians
By PETE YOST
The Associated Press

Mar. 28, 2005 - The Supreme Court refused Monday to step into a lawsuit against a newspaper, leaving the media in Pennsylvania legally vulnerable when they report defamatory comments by public figures.

The case could chill news coverage of political campaigns where charges and countercharges are commonplace, First Amendment advocates say.

The justices' decision not to consider the case was a victory for the former mayor and current council president of Parkesburg, Pa., who sued when the Daily Local News in West Chester, Pa., reported that a council member claimed they were homosexuals. The newspaper reported the councilman also had issued a statement strongly implying that he considered the two officials to be "queers and child molesters."

The newspaper quoted the council president as saying that if the councilman had made comments "as bizarre as that then I feel very sad for him and I hope he can get the help he needs."

At issue is the neutral reporting privilege which allows the press to convey a reputable public figure's defamatory comment as long as it is reported neutrally and accurately.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that no such privilege exists, though the privilege is recognized by some state and federal courts.

I missed it because I don't tech blog like I used to. But at the beginning of the month, during the quarterly "where da wimmin at" discussion, Dare Obasanjo (a VERY competent Microsoft developer and blogger I became familiar with during the Atom vs. RSS wars) commented on it and asked:

I wonder when the NAACP or Jesse Jackson are going to get in on the act and hold a blaggercon conference for black bloggers. Speaking of which, it's my turn to ask "Quick   name me five black bloggers". Post your answers in the comments.

"blaggercon" is not a typo, by the way.

Anyway, he got a number of responses I'm familiar with and about the same number that were brand new to me...it's so many of us that's going to happen, so I'm not bitter that I wasn't named (no, not bitter at all).

But it's decided my next project for me. I'm about done with my Amazon affiliate module so I think I'm going to build a blogroll on steroids system.

Quote of note:

Currently, the system taxes only the first $90,000 of income, while a growing number of Americans earn more. In 2001, for example, 15 percent of Social Security contributors made more than the taxable earnings maximum, up from 10 percent in 1983. That trend has happened despite the year-by-year increase in the taxable maximum. That translates into lost funding for Social Security. In 1983, the sum amounted to $305 billion, notes an Economic Policy Institute study. By 2001, that had grown to $775 billion. (To adjust for inflation, both figures are reported in 2004 dollars.)

"More than half of the currently projected shortfall over the 75-year planning horizon is attributable to upward redistribution of wage income since 1983," notes Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Washington think tank.

How Social Security could narrow rich-poor gap
By David R. Francis

When Congress created the Social Security system in 1935, 8 of 11 people reaching retirement age were not just poor - they were indigent. They had almost no income. Some lived on the street, many with their children. They relied heavily on charity to survive.

Those drafting the Social Security bill wanted to redistribute income to these destitute retirees. They succeeded. Today's seniors are relatively flush.

Now, the income gap between the rich and poor in the United States has gotten wider again. A reformed Social Security could help readjust that balance.

It's unclear whether President Bush's plan will do that. But Social Security could be altered to accomplish that goal, says Robert Shiller, an economist at Yale University. He frets that the growing rich-poor gap "is going to fester eventually. It will be a source of resentment."

So he suggests that both the federal income tax and Social Security be indexed so that any growth in this income gap be offset by raising the progressivity of the tax and retirement systems. Here's how it might work:

Between 1979 and 2002, the top 1 percent of the population enjoyed a 111 percent increase in their real income, the Congressional Budget Office reported recently. The top fifth enjoyed a 48 percent gain during the same period while the bottom fifth got only a 5 percent income hike. Following Dr. Shiller's theme, income-tax rates could be raised on high incomes. A special tax-based benefit for the working poor could be enlarged and their Social Security pensions boosted to reflect a higher share of their income while working.

A more modest proposal would be to raise the level of earnings subject to the Social Security tax. Currently, the system taxes only the first $90,000 of income, while a growing number of Americans earn more. In 2001, for example, 15 percent of Social Security contributors made more than the taxable earnings maximum, up from 10 percent in 1983. That trend has happened despite the year-by-year increase in the taxable maximum. That translates into lost funding for Social Security. In 1983, the sum amounted to $305 billion, notes an Economic Policy Institute study. By 2001, that had grown to $775 billion. (To adjust for inflation, both figures are reported in 2004 dollars.)

"More than half of the currently projected shortfall over the 75-year planning horizon is attributable to upward redistribution of wage income since 1983," notes Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Washington think tank.

Sorry, that slipped.

Quote of note:

It's commonly argued that Americans don't want the jobs illegals take. But a workforce of perhaps 7 million undocumented workers depresses wages. Those wages would readjust upward, and be attractive to Americans and legal immigrants, if the stream of illegals significantly abated. Promise of work in the US encourages illegal (and dangerous) border crossing. That's why the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 provided for sanctions against businesses that hire the undocumented.

Joke on America: Hiring Illegals

Ha ha ha. That's a good one. Wal-Mart, a company with $285 billion in sales, gets fined a mere $11 million earlier this month for having hundreds of illegal immigrants clean its stores.

The federal government boasts it's the largest fine of its kind. But for Wal-Mart, it amounts to a rounding error - and no admittance of wrongdoing since it claims it didn't know its contractors hired the illegals.

Quote of note:

In that she is not alone. As of 2001, a federal analysis of households with at least one worker from age 21 to 64 concluded that 28 million -- more than one-third of the total -- did not have a retirement savings account of any kind. The study, released in 2003, relied on Census Bureau and Federal Reserve data.

Saving for the Future
By Annys Shin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 28, 2005; Page E01

Pamela Ginsberg was once invited to a bar mitzvah by one of her customers and danced the hora in the family circle. At the grocery store where she works as a butcher, she has blanketed part of a wall behind the deli counter with photos and hand-scrawled notes from the children she has treated to slices of turkey. When she serves customers, she stands beneath a flying wooden cow and pig -- gifts from a man who could not get enough of her corned beef.

These are the reasons Ginsberg lists for why she likes working at the Brookeville Market in the District's Cleveland Park neighborhood.

"It's my life," said Ginsberg, who is also the store's kosher and specialty foods buyer. "These people are my customers, but they treat me like family."

But no pension or 401(k) plan comes attached to her job. She is 41 and has $7,000 in the bank. Her annual salary of about roughly $40,000 might seem reasonable for a single person with no children, no car and no debt, but increasingly Ginsberg frets about what her finances will look like when she stops carving cutlets and chopping prime rib.

She has reason to be concerned. A review of Ginsberg's finances by three local financial planners indicated she needs to make big changes right away, cutting out her few indulgences, and investing as much of her income as possible. Even then, they say, she is likely to run out of money and be dependent on her Social Security check.

Quote of note:

Drug makers consider the governor's plan far more preferable than the Health Access and Frommer approaches. Their plans would cover more people than Schwarzenegger's, requiring discounts for anyone earning less than four times the federal poverty level ($38,200 for an individual or $77,400 for a family of four). People with incomes above that who spend a disproportionate amount on medical expenses also would be eligible.

Most disturbing to the industry is that under the Health Access and Frommer proposals, drug companies that do not consent to the discounts could be shut out of a prized market: the state's huge Medi-Cal program, which annually buys $3 billion worth of drugs for the poor.

"The prescription drug companies have admitted with their initiative that their drug prices are too high," said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access. "The question is, should the state use its leverage to bargain for better prices, or should it just rely on the goodwill of the industry?"

Industry Aims to Defeat Discount Drug Initiatives
By Jordan Rau
Times Staff Writer
March 28, 2005

SACRAMENTO   Facing pressure from many states to provide cheaper prescription drugs, the pharmaceutical industry has launched its most aggressive counterattack in California, where the issue is threatening to explode on the ballot as early as this fall.

The industry already has raised an unprecedented $8.6 million to defeat a ballot initiative being readied by Health Access California, an Oakland-based nonprofit, even before the authors have gathered enough signatures to qualify it for the next election.

The Health Access measure would compel drug makers to offer discounts to 6 million to 10 million Californians   making a substantial dent in the industry's profits and offering what it considers an unwelcome model for other states to follow.

The companies are treating that approach, which is paralleled by Democratic legislation pending in the state Assembly, as far graver than last year's press to allow the importation of Canadian drugs.

Drug firms also are threatening retaliatory initiatives aimed at trial lawyers and unions, which are most likely to be donors to Health Access' ballot measure. And they have hired three of Sacramento's best-connected Democratic strategists —  including former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown —  to cut a deal with the Democrat-controlled Legislature and avert a ballot battle.

Is No One Accountable?

By BOB HERBERT

The Bush administration is desperately trying to keep the full story from emerging. But there is no longer any doubt that prisoners seized by the U.S. in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere have been killed, tortured, sexually humiliated and otherwise grotesquely abused.

These atrocities have been carried out in an atmosphere in which administration officials have routinely behaved as though they were above the law, and thus accountable to no one. People have been rounded up, stripped, shackled, beaten, incarcerated and in some cases killed, without being offered even the semblance of due process. No charges. No lawyers. No appeals.

Arkan Mohammed Ali is a 26-year-old Iraqi who was detained by the U.S. military for nearly a year at various locations, including the infamous Abu Ghraib prison. According to a lawsuit filed against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Mr. Ali was at times beaten into unconsciousness during interrogations. He was stabbed, shocked with an electrical device, urinated on and kept locked - hooded and naked - in a wooden, coffinlike box. He said he was told by his captors that soldiers could kill detainees with impunity.

(This was not a boast from the blue. On Saturday, for example, The Times reported that the Army would not prosecute 17 American soldiers implicated in the deaths of three prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.)

Quote of note:

The American Pharmacists Association recently reaffirmed its policy that pharmacists can refuse to fill prescriptions as long as they make sure customers can get their medications some other way.

Really.

...Neil T. Noesen...in 2002 refused to fill a University of Wisconsin student's birth control pill prescription at a Kmart in Menomonie, Wis., or transfer the prescription elsewhere. An administrative judge last month recommended Noesen be required to take ethics classes, alert future employers to his beliefs and pay what could be as much as $20,000 to cover the costs of the legal proceedings. The state pharmacy board will decide whether to impose that penalty next month.

"He's a devout Roman Catholic and believes participating in any action that inhibits or prohibits human life is a sin," said Aden of the Christian Legal Society. "The rights of pharmacists like him should be respected."

He has the right to deny the policy...and the pharmacy board has the right to penalize his ass for it. He's in the wrong fucking business.

This is exactly like the "crisis pregnancy center" fraud

When the U.S. Supreme Court handed down Roe in January 1973, Pearson founded the Pearson Foundation and wrote a manual titled "How to Start and Operate Your Own Pro-Life Outreach Crisis Pregnancy Center." Soon, CPCs were popping up all across the country. Today, there are an estimated 3,200 CPCs nationwide.

Pearson's manual instructs CPC staff to use vague and evasive language so as not to clue women and girls in to the fact that the centers are anti-abortion. He advises centers to list themselves in the phone book "under the headings of abortion, pregnancy, birth control information, clinics, social services, welfare organizations, women's organizations and services, and health services" in order to mislead women. The manual also suggests that CPCs locate themselves in the same buildings as abortion clinics so that "the abortion chamber is paying for advertising to bring that girl to you." (JMJ Life Center, a local CPC, moved directly next door to Planned Parenthood Greater Orlando earlier this month.) Pearson's philosophy deems that CPC staffers should use whatever means necessary to prevent a woman from getting an abortion. In a 1994 speech, he declared: "Obviously, we're fighting Satan ... A killer, who in this case is the girl who wants to kill her baby, has no right to information that will help her [do that]."

Choose Life Inc.
Historically, CPCs have been funded by private donations. But in 1997, Marion County Commissioner Randy Harris formed an anti-abortion organization called Choose Life Inc., and championed a proposal that would create a state-sponsored fund-raising vehicle for CPCs: the unprecedented "Choose Life" license plate.

The first attempt to pass the "Choose Life" tag was vetoed by Gov. Lawton Chiles in 1998. But in 1999, Gov. Jeb Bush -- a staunch abortion opponent -- signed into law a bill creating the plate, making it the first of its kind in the country. (Bush is such a fan of CPCs that he donated part of his $675,000 campaign-fund surplus to them after becoming governor.)

For each $22 tag sold, $20 is returned to the county of purchase, where the board of commissioners distributes the funds to CPCs. (To date, $1.48 million has been raised in Florida from sales of more than 37,000 "Choose Life" tags; it remains one of the top-selling specialty tags.) Effectively, the "Choose Life" plate amounts to the state acting as a fund-raising agent (via tag sales) for predominantly religious, anti-abortion organizations.

Anyway...

Pharmacists' Rights at Front Of New Debate
Because of Beliefs, Some Refuse To Fill Birth Control Prescriptions

By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 28, 2005; Page A01

Some pharmacists across the country are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control and morning-after pills, saying that dispensing the medications violates their personal moral or religious beliefs.

The trend has opened a new front in the nation's battle over reproductive rights, sparking an intense debate over the competing rights of pharmacists to refuse to participate in something they consider repugnant and a woman's right to get medications her doctor has prescribed. It has also triggered pitched political battles in statehouses across the nation as politicians seek to pass laws either to protect pharmacists from being penalized -- or force them to carry out their duties.

"This is a very big issue that's just beginning to surface," said Steven H. Aden of the Christian Legal Society's Center for Law and Religious Freedom in Annandale, which defends pharmacists. "More and more pharmacists are becoming aware of their right to conscientiously refuse to pass objectionable medications across the counter. We are on the very front edge of a wave that's going to break not too far down the line."

An increasing number of clashes are occurring in drugstores across the country. Pharmacists often risk dismissal or other disciplinary action to stand up for their beliefs, while shaken teenage girls and women desperately call their doctors, frequently late at night, after being turned away by sometimes-lecturing men and women in white coats.

"There are pharmacists who will only give birth control pills to a woman if she's married. There are pharmacists who mistakenly believe contraception is a form of abortion and refuse to prescribe it to anyone," said Adam Sonfield of the Alan Guttmacher Institute in New York, which tracks reproductive issues. "There are even cases of pharmacists holding prescriptions hostage, where they won't even transfer it to another pharmacy when time is of the essence."

Quote of note:

Paul L. Francis, the acquisition and sourcing management director for the accountability office, told Congress that the Army was building Future Combat Systems without the data it needed to guide it. "If everything goes as planned, the program will attain the level of knowledge in 2008 that it should have had before it started in 2003," Mr. Francis said in written testimony. "But things are not going as planned."

He warned that Future Combat Systems, in its early stages of research and development, was showing signs typical of multibillion-dollar weapons programs that cost far more than expected and deliver fewer weapons than promised. Future Combat is a network of 53 crucial technologies, he said, and 52 are unproven.

An even better quote of note:

Future Combat soldiers, weapons and robots are to be linked by a $25 billion web, Joint Tactical Radio Systems, known as JTRS (pronounced "jitters"). The network would transmit the battlefield information intended to protect soldiers. It is not included in the Future Combat budget.

If JTRS does not work, Future Combat will fail, General Cartwright said. The Army halted production on the first set of JTRS radios in January, saying they were not progressing as planned.

An Army Program to Build a High-Tech Force Hits Cost Snags
By TIM WEINER

The Army's plan to transform itself into a futuristic high-technology force has become so expensive that some of the military's strongest supporters in Congress are questioning the program's costs and complexity.

Army officials said Saturday that the first phase of the program, called Future Combat Systems, could run to $145 billion. Paul Boyce, an Army spokesman, said the "technological bridge to the future" would equip 15 brigades of roughly 3,000 soldiers, or about one-third of the force the Army plans to field, over a 20-year span.

That price tag, larger than past estimates publicly disclosed by the Army, does not include a projected $25 billion for the communications network needed to connect the future forces. Nor does it fully account for Army plans to provide Future Combat weapons and technologies to forces beyond those first 15 brigades.

Now some of the military's advocates in Congress are asking how to pay the bill.

...Army officials say the task is a technological challenge as complicated as putting an astronaut on the moon. They call Future Combat weapons, which may take more than a decade to field, crucial for a global fight against terror.

But the bridge to the future remains a blueprint. Army officials issued a stop-work order in January for the network that would link Future Combat weapons, citing its failure to progress. They said this month that they did not know if they could build a tank light enough to fly.

The Army is asking Congress to approve Future Combat while it is fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan whose costs, according to the Congressional Research Service, now exceed $275 billion. Future Combat is one of the biggest items in the Pentagon's plans to build more than 70 major weapons systems at a cost of more than $1.3 trillion.

...The Army's publicly disclosed cost estimates for Future Combat stood at $92 billion last month. That excluded research and development, which the G.A.O. says will run to $30 billion. Mr. Boyce, the Army spokesman, said on Saturday that Future Combat costs were estimated at $25 billion for research and development and from $6.1 billion to $8 billion for each of 15 future brigades, or as high as $145 billion.

Quote of note:

Some of the anti-indecency groups see à la carte services as a way of helping consumers block out programming they consider indecent. "We are at a rare moment when there seems to be bipartisan energy on both sides of the political aisle and both sides of the ideological divide," said L. Brent Bozell, president of the Parents Television Council, a leading advocacy organization that officials say has been responsible for the vast majority of complaints against the broadcasters.

You know what? I don't much care if the choke down on sex, violence and profanity incable programming. It would seriously cut into a major source of income for major Republican donors. And it's not like people don't know where to get their sex, violence and profanity any time they want.

And I personally won't miss any of it. Last porn I bought was the issue of Playboy in which Naomi Campbell was the centerfold...and when I threw it away (after years, admittedly) none of the pages were stuck together.

There are only two down sides to this and they are "bigger picture" issues: the Bushistas will get credit from some circles, and the last time Congress forced a decoupling of cable services all the vendors repriced the parts such that the same features cost much more when a consumer reassembled the package.

Under New Chief, F.C.C. Considers Widening Its Reach
By STEPHEN LABATON

WASHINGTON, March 24 - The television and radio industries are about to come under renewed attack over sex, violence and profanity in their programming, both in Congress and at the Federal Communications Commission.

Leading lawmakers and the new leader of the F.C.C. have proposed a broad expansion of indecency rules, which were significantly toughened just last year. They are also looking for significant increases in the size of fines and new procedures that could jeopardize the licenses of stations that repeatedly violate the rules.

Some senior lawmakers, including Senator Ted Stevens, the Alaskan Republican who is the leader of the Commerce Committee, as well as Kevin J. Martin, the new chairman of the commission, have suggested it may be time to extend the indecency and profanity rules to cable and satellite television providers, which now account for viewership in 85 percent of the nation's homes. And organizations opposing what they consider indecent programming have joined forces with consumer groups that have been trying to tighten regulation over the cable industry and force it to offer consumers less expensive packages of fewer stations, known as à la carte services.

Abiola isa libertarian and so he gets a lot of readers that wouldn't be interested in my perspective. But he's also one of like three libertarians I've seen that hasn't ever said a a stupid thing. So when his readers get upset at something he writes they should really think a bit before flipping on him.

The Distribution of Human Genetic Diversity

My statement in an earlier post that I would pick mostly Africans, if I were thinking about ensuring maximum genetic variation in a small group of settlers, has evidently gotten under the skin of no small number of ignorant racist nutjobs, several of whom have, in a wonderful display of projection, been busy flinging comments on here and elsewhere to the effect that I'm a "racist" for stating what any population geneticists will acknowledge as obvious.

For the edification of such fools (and on the highly doubtful assumption that they are even educable), I hereby present a few papers supporting just this claim:

Today when you see artists like 50 Cent, Nelly, Ludacris, and others painting lyrical pictures of Black men as thugs, drug dealers, and degrading imagery of Black women, they succeed because their 80% non-Black consumer base co-signs it. So far, Ludacris has sold 10 million albums. Fiddy s "Get Rich or Die Trying" moved 11 million. If all the Black music consumers boycotted these two artists, Luda would still have sold around 8 million while 50 s last disc would ve moved a little over 9 million, simply due to the fact that 80% of their audience is not Black.

Angela Winters at Politopics pointed out How Blackness Became  Universal, and it's a goodie. Nevermind that I've said all this stuff before.

Blackness has been extracted, harvested, distilled and repackaged for mass consumption. And for the most part, it s being bought, sold, defined and produced with little or no involvement from Blacks. If Blackness were a government, Blacks would be its figureheads with the real power held by others.

Now from what I ve seen in society and the marketing worlds, Blackness goes thru 7 stages of extraction.

1. What s that?  Outsider recognition.
   
2. Oh, that s just some thing  they  do/are.  Here,  it  and those connected to  it  are ridiculed and devalued.
   
3. Hmmm,  it  looks interesting -- bet I can do it/use  it .  They covet.
   
4. This could be profitable for  us .  Then comes greed.
   
5. This isn t yours, it s  ours  -- it s  universal .  Then it s taken, co-opted, redefined and commoditized.
   
6. What happened? IT was so much better back when WE started it   IT loses its cool cache as revisionist history and selective memory takes hold.
   
7. What s next?  Now it s back to the  hood to see what else the natives are cooking up.

What am I talking about? Take jazz for example. Today, jazz is called  American Classical music.  The face of jazz is primarily non-Black: Norah Jones, Kenny G., Dianna Krall and others. Beyond the Marsalis family, our most popular Black jazz musicians Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday are all dead.

But when it began in the Black community, jazz, along with blues and R&B, was slurred together as  nigger music  and  race music  by White America. It wasn t until white musicians like Benny Goodman, The Andrew Sisters, Bing Crosby, the Dorsey Brothers and others started doing their versions of jazz, did jazz become acceptable -- and even then it was mainly the white musicians who got credit for their artistry and innovations.

By most accounts, Blackness is now dangling somewhere between stages 5 and 6. The job of the music business is to maintain Level 5 as long as possible, because once stage 6 hits, it s a wrap. Blackness will get flipped into a VH1 special. And maybe, say 10 years from now, it ll become  kitschy  or  retro hip  and the same forces that wrecked it in the first place will return to start the cycle all over again.

Quote of note:

Students who believe their professor is singling them out for  public ridicule  ænbsp; for instance, when professors use the Socratic method to force students to explain their theories in class   would also be given the right to sue.

Some professors say,  Evolution is a fact. I don t want to hear about Intelligent Design (a creationist theory), and if you don t like it, there s the door,   Baxley said, citing one example when he thought a student should sue.

Capitol bill aims to control  leftist  profs
By JAMES VANLANDINGHAM
Alligator Staff Writer

TALLAHASSEE   Republicans on the House Choice and Innovation Committee voted along party lines Tuesday to pass a bill that aims to stamp out  leftist totalitarianism  by  dictator professors  in the classrooms of Florida s universities.

The Academic Freedom Bill of Rights, sponsored by Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, passed 8-to-2 despite strenuous objections from the only two Democrats on the committee.

The bill has two more committees to pass before it can be considered by the full House.

While promoting the bill Tuesday, Baxley said a university education should be more than  one biased view by the professor, who as a dictator controls the classroom,  as part of  a misuse of their platform to indoctrinate the next generation with their own views. 

The bill sets a statewide standard that students cannot be punished for professing beliefs with which their professors disagree. Professors would also be advised to teach alternative  serious academic theories  that may disagree with their personal views.

According to a legislative staff analysis of the bill, the law would give students who think their beliefs are not being respected legal standing to sue professors and universities.

I haven't been that much fun here recently because I'm working some code to work with Amazon.com's affiliate program with Drupal that has me interested. And there's really some other functionality I should build for P6 in the next week or so. And I need to study up on Wordpress because I'll be helping out The American Street with a little tech support (not to mention its API looks interesting).

Still, I think I should like, write something once in a while. It just doesn't always have to be clever. I can point out obvious stuff once in a while, right? Well, it's become obvious to Republicans they have to appeal to at least some Black folks, and they're going to Black churches because that's where they expect to find the candidate Black folk.

And horrors...some of those Black folk met with Republicans, some took money. And I'm thinking about the churches now, not Armstrong Baldpate and his ilk, when I say I'm not terribly bothered. I am watching closely because there's a dynamic which tends to turn Black folks' representatives to the mainstream into mainstream representations of Black folks. But there's been some "traitor" language I don't think fits.

I can see the thought process: "I can get this money for my congregation, my special works, and all I have to do is say something I believe anyway at this ceremony? That's it?"

This is a problem to some folks who feel the Black church influences Black folks into passivity and acceptance. These ministers didn't think of anyone to whom that is a concern. The fact that the image is framed and presented in unfortunate ways probably didn't occur to them...not because they're stupid but because your views are not as important to them as their congregation. Presidential politics isn't as important to them as their congregation. I'm not positing any great spiritual devotion...this is just social dynamics.

All successful human societies of whatever size work on two levels for its members

1. It tells them they are okay as they are, it acknowledges them.
   What does the evangelical church say to its audience? You're flawed but God loves you so it's okay. What does the Conservative movement tell its members? You're fine, it's the direction of society that needs to be checked. Peer pressure works because it's an acknowledgement as well as a demand and it rewards with acceptance.
2. It provides a social context they can operate in on relatively normal terms

Everything else is detail...there are any number of ways these two necessities can be met. The Black church has met them for Black folks for centuries and given our physical history that will of necessity, have included acceptance of some really bad shit. It allowed the development and expression of leadership and hierarchical traits inherent in social beast such as ourselves, molding the expression of those traits between walls laid out by law and culture, adapting to the available social space by diverting the rest to be expressed in the internal structure of the community.

These requirements are primal, which is why those who think the dysfunctional tactics they see coming from Black churches will have no success just explaining the error. It is also why the Republican philosophy for racial reconciliation has no traction in the Black communities.

On Meet the Press I've heard 'moral foundation" so many times from Reza Aslan, I think we need to recognize our foundation as a nation is economic, and our religious history has always been pluralistic.

I am SO happy to have this PVR.

This was a good roundtable. There was a discussion of the political fallout of the biomass circus. They pointed out it's enabled a political argument the Republicans have no respect for the rules, that when they don't like the rules, they just change them.

This is good. It's true, and it's been done visibly...people will relate to this in a way they don't to screwing with the internal procedures of the House.

I'm going to think about this for a minute. I'm currently in the process of being amazed by the Chris Matthews Show.

On This Week, Stephanopolis is playing DeLay's claim that Terri Schiavo was God's gift to Conservatives! I love it!

Later today I'm going to present DeLay's paranoid statement and transcribe Rep. Weldon's response. It was, as Rep. Franks said, a noble attempt to pull on DeLay's foot without getting dragged down his throat with it.

LATER: I changed my mind. DeLay's noise was played in a bunch of the morning talk shows so I was in no rush.

I think John Paul will be the first Pope to rule from beyond the grave.