Consider: if one were bound and determined to make sure whiet people remained primarily in the highest socioeconomic position and were in a position to act effectively toward that end, what steps should one take?

Consider: if one were bound and determined to make sure Black people remained primarily in the lowest socioeconomic position and were in a position to act effectively toward that end, what steps should one take?

Regent John J. Moores' position that the University of California's comprehensive review policy is unfair because it represents "an unfair advantage to disadvantaged students" would be bizarre if the class war lines weren't already drawn so clearly. That UC already boosts the grade of every student that takes the kind of advanced placement courses that are so common in wealthy districts and so rarely available to disadvantaged students by a point, regardless of how well they actually do in the course, makes the privilege position quite clear: I get everything, you get nothing.

As the L.A. Times implies, these folk aren't interested in fairness.

HMOs in Unstable Condition: Members Bolt to Other Plans
Preferred provider organizations offer greater choice, and employers like them because they can shift rising costs to workers.
By Lisa Girion
Times Staff Writer
April 9, 2005

HMOs, once the top choice for Americans who get healthcare as a job perk, are so last century.

Tightly controlled health maintenance organizations have steadily lost ground over the last decade to preferred provider organizations, which offer greater choice of physicians and hospitals and direct access to specialists —  though at a higher price.

HMOs garnered only 25% of the employer-based health benefits market last year, down from a high of 31% in 1996, according to a recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based think tank. During the same period, PPOs nearly doubled their market share to 55%.

Blow to machismo as Spain forces men to do housework
Giles Tremlett in Madrid
Friday April 8, 2005
The Guardian

Spanish men will have to learn to change nappies and don washing-up gloves under the terms of a new law designed to strike a blow at centuries of Latin machismo.

The law, due to be passed this month, is likely to provoke a revolution in family affairs in a country where 40% of men reportedly do no housework at all. It will oblige men to "share domestic responsibilities and the care and attention" of children and elderly family members, according to the draft approved by the Spanish parliament's justice commission.

Quote of note:

"Neither the House nor Senate offices responsible for keeping records on K Street's activities have audit or investigative powers," said Roberta Baskin, the center's executive director. "It is impossible, for example, to determine how many lobbyists there actually are in Washington."

Officials Fail To Track Lobbying, Report Says
Research Group Cites Billions Spent, but Spotty Regulation

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 8, 2005; Page E01

Washington's lobbying industry has mushroomed over the past decade but the government has fallen behind in keeping track of the billions of dollars a year that lobbyists spend, according to a study by the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity.

U.S. Plans New, Deep Cuts in Housing Aid
By DAVID W. CHEN

The New York City Housing Authority could lose up to $166 million, or almost a quarter of its annual federal subsidy for operating costs, under a new cost-cutting proposal by the Bush administration that could force dozens of housing agencies nationwide to fire maintenance workers, reduce services or close buildings.

If the changes sought by the administration take effect, they will result in one of the biggest cuts since Washington first began subsidizing housing: as much as $480 million, or 14 percent, of the $3.4 billion federal budget for day-to-day operations, including labor, maintenance, insurance and utilities, at the nation's 3,100 housing authorities. Housing authorities in New York State would be among the hardest hit, under a new formula that works against older urban areas.

States Told Not to Steer Beneficiaries to Drug Plans
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, April 6 - The Bush administration has told states that they cannot steer Medicare beneficiaries to any specific prescription drug plan, even if state officials find that one or two insurance plans would provide the best deals for elderly people with low-incomes.

States like Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania have for years had their own programs to help elderly people with drug costs. In some cases, the state coverage is superior to what Medicare will offer. Many states want to continue those programs to supplement the Medicare drug benefit that becomes available in January.

Hunger-Based Lines Lengthen at the Faith-Based Soup Kitchens
By FRANCIS X. CLINE
Published: April 8, 2005

...The sight of masses of Americans gratefully chowing down on free food is indeed a show, an amazingly discreet one that is classified not as outright hunger but as "food insecurity" by government specialists who are busy measuring the growing lines at soup kitchens and food pantries across the nation. There were 25.5 million supplicants regularly lining up in 2002; they were joined by 1.1 million more the next year. And even more arrive as unemployment and other government programs run out.

Much as the diners at Holy Apostles peered ahead to see what was being dished up at the steam tables, soup kitchen administrators across the country are currently eying governments' trilevel budget season and wincing at all the politicians' economizing vows. They know that "budget tightening" eventually means longer lines outside their doors.

Black, Dead and Invisible
By BOB HERBERT

I once had a young black girl, whose brother had been murdered, tell me she was too old to dream. She was 12.

I remember a teenager in South-Central Los Angeles a few years ago saying, in a discussion about his peers, "Some of us don't last too long."

Don't bother cueing the violins. This is an old story. There's no shock value and hardly any news value in yet another black or brown kid going down for the count. Burying the young has long since become routine in poor black and Latino neighborhoods. Nobody gets real excited about it. I find that peculiar, but there's a lot about the world that I find peculiar.

Columbia's Black Theatre Ensemble Presents....

THE COLORED MUSEUM

by George C. Wolfe

"All right, so you're going to have to suffer a few hundred years, but from your pain will come a culture so complex..."

Black Box Theatre
Alfred Lerner Hall
Columbia University
115th and Broadway

April 8th 8PM

April 9th 9:30PM

April 10th 2PM

Admission Price

CUID $5
non-CUID $7

But in Purpose-Driven Surrender, Ambra at nykola.com shows

...I wrote last month about what happens when good people attack. In the same week that Nichols summoned death for four people, a church-going white man named Terry Ratzmann murdered seven people. The press was far more sympathetic to Ratzmann's humanity. How could he have possible done such a thing? Granted, Ratzmann wasn't on trial for a crime like Nichols, but Nichols' record is fairly clean compared to how he's been portrayed. Surprisingly enough, the NAACP, Al Sharpton, and Jesse Jackson were nowhere near this issue. [P6: silliness stricken] And while I agree there may have been (enough cushy talk, there were) some discrepancies in reporting due to race, the bigger issue is the media's pathetic coverage of how Nichols came to surrender.

The reality is, neither of the two men could have predictably committed their crimes. In what can only be estimated to be a point of human weakness and desperation, they both gave way to a murderous spirit and their actions took the lives of others. Sad it truly is, but we are in no way justified in identifying these men by their crimes.

George at Negrophile linked to the transcript of The Chronicle of Higher Education's latest colloquy,"What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate."

I ain't gonna front. I had to look up "colloquy."

Both the questions and the answers were very interesting. So interesting I had to read the article that inspired the discussion.

...Late in January, Ms. Grande proposed a bill in the North Dakota legislature to prod public institutions of higher education in precisely that direction. Under her bill, if a student complained in writing that his or her instructor did not "speak English clearly and with good pronunciation," that student would then be entitled to withdraw from the class with no academic or financial penalty -- and would even get a refund.

Further, if 10 percent of the students in a class came forward with such complaints, the university would be obliged to move the instructor into a "nonteaching position," thus losing that instructor's classroom labor.

Almost as soon as the bill went public, Ms. Grande realized she had touched a nerve. Calls and e-mail messages poured in from all over North Dakota and from as far away as Florida and Arizona. In nearly a decade as a legislator, Ms. Grande had never attracted such a prodigious and impassioned response.

That's probably because anyone who has studied mathematics, engineering, computer science, or economics at an American university in the past decade is likely to have harbored the frustrations Ms. Grande's bill aims to soothe. With rising international enrollments in graduate programs, classroom language barriers have become both a public hobbyhorse and a subject for scholarly study in their own right. In more than a dozen states, legislatures have passed laws to set English-language standards for international teaching assistants. But Ms. Grande's bill was designed to send a stronger message: If you can't speak the language clearly, get out of the classroom.

Meanwhile, from the sidelines, linguists are sounding a cautionary note: The natives are restless, sure -- but maybe they should try listening harder.

Give you something else to think about. Anyway, you should read at least one of the other. Both preferably.

New programme gives black youngsters best shot at American universities
By: DEBORAH GABRIEL

After gaining a coveted place on a British Special Achievers Programme, Jason-Mark Rodrigues is heading for a university education in America this summer proving that our black youth can and do excel in education with the right type of support.

As a seventeen year old black male from an inner city London borough if the stories that have graced the pages of the mainstream papers in recent months were to be believed, Jason-Mark Rodrigues would be written off as a menace to society and a low-achiever.

However, nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that in common with many of our black youths Jason is an outgoing and talented individual with dreams and ambitions like anyone else.

But what distinguishes him from other black teenagers has been the guidance and influence of his parents, determination and hard work from Jason and a new programme which helps economically disadvantaged youngsters from ethnic minorities gain entrance to American universities.

Black Minister: Israelis and African-Americans Natural Allies
11:03 Apr 08, '05 / 28 Adar 5765

Pastor Glenn Plummer, previous Chairman of the National Religious Broadcasters Association and an influential American minister, spoke at this month's Christian Allies caucus meeting in Jerusalem.

Pastor Plummer proposed measures to begin repairing relations between African-American communities and the State of Israel.  The African-American and Jewish communities should be natural allies," he said. "In a recent poll, 62 percent of African-Americans said they had read from their Bibles within the previous seven days. They certainly know the difference between Isaac and Ishmael. We get it. 

The Christian Allies Caucus (CAC) presented Pastor Plummer with a letter calling for cooperation between Israel and African-American communities in America. A CAC representative said, "Israel's Parliament, the Knesset, created the Christian Allies Caucus for the express purpose of bringing the people of Israel and Christians around the world closer together. We have no greater priority than restoring the alliance between African-Americans and the Jewish people. We are reminded of the words of King Solomon in Ecclesiastes, 'To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven,' and there is no doubt that the time for this reconciliation is now."

I been moving real slow down the RSS list this week, so I just got to AngryDesi's anniversary post.

A Year of Minority Reporting

A year ago, I decided to enter the blogosphere to call attention to issues that impacted minorities and to put a minority perspective on issues being discussed in the media. Beyond that purpose, I had no concrete goals, no measures of efficacy, nor any real expectations beyond having a forum from which to digitally scream out my frustrations and to point out the things that mattered.

He has since developed concrete goals of which I heartily approve.

Aside: I havetoo much fun running the mouse over the links on Mark Fiore's home page.

These guys are dead. Why does anyone on either side think it matters at all?

Jews, Mormons to Meet Over Baptisms
- By MARK THIESSEN, Associated Press Writer
Thursday, April 7, 2005
(04-07) 19:35 PDT Salt Lake City (AP) --

Jewish leaders claim Mormons continue to posthumously baptize Jews and Holocaust victims, and will confront church leaders with a decade of frustration over what they call broken promises.

"We have proof, and we are bringing that," said Ernest Michel, chairman of the New York-based World Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors.

Because Johnathan Chait gave such a nice summary:

It was probably just a matter of time before DeLay got nabbed for something or other. The hallmark of his career lies in pushing previously known social, ethical and legal norms further and lower than anybody else had ever had the guts or the indecency to push them.

Congress has always run something of a protection racket, but only DeLay was blunt enough to divide Washington's special pleaders into "friendly" and "unfriendly" camps based on their donations and to invite them into his office to see the lists. It's a tradition for the majority party in the House to run roughshod over the minority, but DeLay has taken majority tyranny to an extreme   wantonly changing voting rules and forbidding Democrats from reading or debating legislation. Gerrymandering is a hallowed American tradition, but DeLay was the first to hit upon doing it without the cover of a census.

Quote of note:

In recent years, the potentially deadly infection has been detected in jail inmates, sexually active gay men and professional athletes.

The latest study, conducted by researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and several other institutions, confirmed that the organism was now circulating widely in the general population.

Other than professional athletes, this is the same pattern shown at the start of the AIDS epidemic.

Perilous Bug Is Creeping Onto the Streets
Once confined to hospitals, drug-resistant and potentially deadly staph infections are rising among general population, study finds.
By Charles Piller
Times Staff Writer
April 7, 2005

I have to say this.

Suspect Nabbed in Texas Coach's Shooting
- By LISA FALKENBERG, Associated Press Writer
Thursday, April 7, 2005
(04-07) 18:01 PDT Canton, Texas (AP) --

The father of a high school football player shot and wounded the team's coach Thursday, fled in a truck loaded with weapons, and then tried to kill himself by slashing his wrists, authorities said.

Jeffrey Doyle Robertson, 45, went to Canton High School just after classes started and shot coach Gary Joe Kinne in the chest, apparently with a .45-caliber pistol, police said. The coach, who also is the school's athletic director, was airlifted to a hospital in nearby Tyler, and a family spokesman said he was in critical condition.

Robertson's pickup was found about two hours later abandoned on a rural road next to a golf course a few miles outside town. Officers found him in the woods with cuts to his wrists, said Tom Vinger, a spokesman with the Department of Public Safety.

Most people who own guns are fine. Most people who own a arsenal scare the piss out of me.

Though it's a real stretch to say they've taken the first steps...

Sony patent takes first step towards real-life Matrix
07 April 2005
Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition
Jenny Hogan
Barry Fox

IMAGINE movies and computer games in which you get to smell, taste and perhaps even feel things. That's the tantalising prospect raised by a patent on a device for transmitting sensory data directly into the human brain - granted to none other than the entertainment giant Sony.

The technique suggested in the patent is entirely non-invasive. It describes a device that fires pulses of ultrasound at the head to modify firing patterns in targeted parts of the brain, creating "sensory experiences" ranging from moving images to tastes and sounds. This could give blind or deaf people the chance to see or hear, the patent claims.

While brain implants are becoming increasingly sophisticated, the only non-invasive ways of manipulating the brain remain crude. A technique known as transcranial magnetic stimulation can activate nerves by using rapidly changing magnetic fields to induce currents in brain tissue. However, magnetic fields cannot be finely focused on small groups of brain cells, whereas ultrasound could be.

Ars Technica gets the quote of note, though.

We've made that much progress...

Quote of note:

The study also steered clear of the controversy of whether the NIH study complied with Good Clinical Practices (GCP), a sweeping set of record-keeping and patient protections that NIH says it is requiring its researchers to follow.

The IOM panel said GCP was voluntary and that it remained confident the researchers for the study were in "substantial compliance" with the federal guidelines they were obligated to follow   some of which were tougher than the GCP conditions. [P6: emphasis added]

Panel: AIDS Study OK Despite Violations
- By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer
Thursday, April 7, 2005

Now all you need is imagination.

(via Abiola at Foreign Dispatches, so you don't think I be looking for stuff like that...)

Ah...more victims...

The Bigger Brotherhood

What's the scariest thing about being a conservative black? It's that you're friends with black conservatives, Republicans, Christian Conservatives, Right Wingers, Black libertarians and a host of other thoughtful, uppity and unbreakable blackfolks that everybody tries to marginalize in our democracy. But you can't put a team like that down, 'cause we've got Brotherhood.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, The Conservative Brotherhood strikes back. This afternoon I am pleased to announce three new writers to the fold.

Tits, twats and the politics of blogging : A Blog Sheroes meetup

After the last round of mindless drumming about the so-called absence of women good political bloggers came the insanity of having a hack who's shitck is to open any political news with a rimming joke touted not just as a blogger but as a left-wing blogger and, worse than that, the only left-wing political blogger with a vagina worth talking to.

Let's say many progressive, feminist, snarky political goddesses were not happy and voiced their opinions forcefully. Hell has no fury like a blog sister scorned.

So I decided to use the winter of my discontent as fuel for action. The wonderful Ms. Nichelle Stephens of Nichelle Newsletter fame and I are partnering up again to bring the Blog Sheroes meetup series to life.

The First Blog Sheroes Meetup

Google was kind enough on my blogiversary (oh, GAWD, I used one of them neologisms...) to increment my ad earnings such that I can get a check some time next month. Thank you Google, thank you ad clickers, and WAY beyond that, thanks to those folks that have donated directly. I've committed to coming out of pocket to support P6 but you guys lighten the load somewhat.

Next topic.

Today I need to back away for a bit. I've been juggling with two hands and one foot between family issues, programming, family issues, writing and family issues. Today's weather is spectacular...I have arranged for equally spectacular weather for Sunday's Brown Blogger event but that cashed in all the favors I'm owed by the Chaos Lords...and I need to get out there.

Not that I won't be writing. I finished the first draft of yesterday's page an hour or so ago and it was written (gasp) in a notebook, by hand, using a pen.

via The Progress Report:

SOCIAL SECURITY   THE COST OF PROPAGANDA: President Bush's 60-day Social Security privatization road show is getting expensive. According to some rough estimates, the drive to sell his pseudo-policy "may be one of the most costly in memory, well into the millions of dollars." Now, "House Appropriations Committee Republicans have quietly asked the administration for an accounting of its '60 Stops in 60 Days' blitz." Additionally, "Rep. Henry A. Waxman (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the Government Reform Committee, formally asked the Government Accountability Office not only for the cost but also 'whether the Bush Administration has crossed the line from education to propaganda.'"

You're next. In fact, if egregious acts against the rule of law in the United States are the standard, the whole Damn Republican leadership is at risk.

40-Year Term for Supremacist in Plot on Judge
By JODI WILGOREN

CHICAGO, April 6 - Matthew Hale, the white supremacist convicted last year of plotting to assassinate a federal judge, was sentenced Wednesday to 40 years in prison for what the sentencing judge described as an "egregious act against the rule of law in the United States."

"I consider Mr. Hale to be extremely dangerous," the judge, James T. Moody of Federal District Court, said in imposing the maximum sentence.

The crime, Judge Moody said, "undermines the judiciary's central role in our society and strikes at the very core of our government."

I think you should examine your policy of noting how "the bloggers" are raising questions as soon as any Conservative blog repeats the talking points.

Don't you?

Schiavo Memo Is Attributed to Senate Aide
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

WASHINGTON, April 6 - Senator Mel Martinez, Republican of Florida, said Wednesday that a senior member of his staff had written an unsigned memorandum about the partisan political advantages of intervening in the case of Terri Schiavo that became a controversial footnote to the debate over the wisdom and motives of Congress's actions.

In a statement on Wednesday night, Mr. Martinez said that he had just learned that the memorandum originated in his office and that its author had resigned. He did not name the author, but aides said it was Brian Darling, his counsel.

Mr. Darling could not be reached for comment.

Quote of note:

It was sickening that an elected official would publicly offer these sociopaths as examples of any democratic value, let alone as holders of legitimate concerns about the judiciary.

Hypocrisy of note:

Dr. Frist tried to distance himself yesterday from Mr. DeLay's attack on the judiciary. But Dr. Frist must carry the militants' baggage if he is ever to run for president, and he complained yesterday of "a real fire lighted by Democrats around judges over the last few days."

By Democrats? The senator should listen to what's being said on his side of the aisle, if he can bear it.

Reality of note:

Tom DeLay, vengefully vowed that "the time will come" to make the judges who resisted the Congressional Republicans' gruesome deathbed intrusion "answer for their behavior." Trying to intimidate judges used to be a crime, not a bombastic cudgel for cynical politicians.

Scumbags of note:

The Judges Made Them Do It

And if I.O.U.'s issued by the institution that makes contract law possible and enforceable are worthless, aren't ALL of them worthless? If bonds aren't real assets, why are corporations allowed to put them on their balance sheet? If debt incurred by spending the money we gave the government to prefund our retirement payments means nothing to Bush, what means anything to him at all?

Oh, right. The War on a Noun, a Culture of a Abstract Principle assignable equally to humans an amoeba.

Quote of note:

In the hope of persuading people to privatize Social Security - a move that would only add to the growing debt burden for future generations - Mr. Bush wants Americans to believe that the trust fund is a joke. But if the trust fund is a joke, so is the full faith and credit of the United States.

I'd say it's the full faith and credit of George W. Bush and his supporters is what has been called into question.

Shameless Photo-Op

DeLay Denounces Report on Payments to His Family
By CARL HULSE and PHILIP SHENON

WASHINGTON, April 6 - Representative Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, on Wednesday angrily dismissed newspaper accounts that focused on payments to his wife and daughter as well as on additional trips taken by him that have come under scrutiny.

In an interview with CNN, Mr. DeLay criticized an article in The New York Times on Wednesday that said his wife, Christine A. DeLay, and his daughter, Dani Ferro, had received more than $500,000 since 2001 from his political action and campaign committees. He called the article "just another seedy attempt by the liberal media to embarrass me," contending that his wife and daughter had legitimately earned the money by working as valued members of his political team.

"My wife and daughter have any right, just like any other American, to be employed and be compensated for their employment," Mr. DeLay said. "It's pretty disgusting, particularly when my wife and daughter are singled out and others are not, in similar situations in the Senate and as well as the House."

Oh, you mean there are OTHER senators paying stupid money to relatives that no one even knew were involved in the campaign?

In the comments to a post about Sen. Cornyn's subtle threat against the federal judiciary, James MacLean said:

Maybe someone should ask Sen. Cornyn how he feels about US. vs. Cruikshank.

US vs. Cruikshank (1870) is one you should know about, P6: according to DuBois, it was the legal case that effectively disabled the 14th & 15th Amendments. The most spectacularly convoluted, contorted logic I've ever seen in a majority opinion.

Well, with the assistance of Digby I believe we can deduce his position:

Follow the link.

CA Gov. 2006: "The Tipping Point" (LIVEblog Part 1)
Posted by
Tim Tagaris

This is one thing I love about California, and San Francisco in particular, they don't play around. Bob Brigham is on-the-ground right now, phoning in updates from a large scale protest against California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The event: Arnold's $1,000 to $100,000 a plate fundraiser. Bob referenced it in a post earlier today, here are the updates. It looks like Govenator's re-election will not be as smooth as many anticipate:

Bob says that there are easily 3000 people there right now, and they are all over the place. He counted at least 10 telvision news trucks, 30 photographers, and 2 helicopters constantly circling overhead. He said he couldn't tell what the plane flying above had on it's banner, because it was directly overhead (that made me laugh). He told me that this is nothing short of a rock concert atmosphere.

After all, the did say defending House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is a litmus test for any Republican lawmaker seeking their support.

Concise summary of note:

"The Republican legislative leaders in Congress have forgotten what our Constitution's all about," Mr. Reid said. "If they don't get what they want, they attack who's ever around. Now they're after the courts."

Frist Isn't Following Republicans on Criticism of Judges
By CARL HULSE
Published: April 6, 2005

WASHINGTON, April 5 - The struggle over the relationship between Congress and the courts intensified on Tuesday as Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, broke with fellow Republicans calling for new judicial accountability after Terri Schiavo's death. Democrats accused Republicans of undermining the separation of powers.

Importance of False Data Is in Dispute
By MATTHEW L. WALD

WASHINGTON, April 5 - Energy Department officials testified Tuesday that admissions by government scientists that they had falsified information about a Nevada site being readied for nuclear waste storage were not important, because other delays had prevented them from submitting the bad information in a license application.

In more than two hours of testimony before a House subcommittee, Energy Department officials made their first substantive remarks about the department's disclosure last month of internal e-mail messages in which Interior Department scientists discussed how they had made up scientific entries or deleted material they did not understand about how water would flow through the storage site. They said they were only beginning to evaluate whether the information made a difference in the conclusions reached in studies about the safety of the site, Yucca Mountain, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Political Groups Paid Two Relatives of House Leader
By PHILIP SHENON

WASHINGTON, April 5 - The wife and daughter of Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, have been paid more than $500,000 since 2001 by Mr. DeLay's political action and campaign committees, according to a detailed review of disclosure statements filed with the Federal Election Commission and separate fund-raising records in Mr. DeLay's home state, Texas.

Most of the payments to his wife, Christine A. DeLay, and his only child, Dani DeLay Ferro, were described in the disclosure forms as "fund-raising fees," "campaign management" or "payroll," with no additional details about how they earned the money. The payments appear to reflect what Mr. DeLay's aides say is the central role played by the majority leader's wife and daughter in his political career.

In a subsequent interview the senator said, "Whenever there's doubt, the default should be life inprisonment."

Suspect in slaying is released
By TASGOLA KARLA BRUNER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/06/05

A Lawrenceville man was freed Tuesday after spending 41 days in jail on murder charges.

Alan Craig Smith, one of two men charged in the Feb. 19 slaying of 85-year-old Hubert Massey, was released after a store's security camera proved he was shopping when the slaying occurred.

Quote of note:

"This is crossing a bridge," said Sen. E.J. Pipkin (Queen Anne's), who joined the Senate's other Republicans in voting against the bill. "Annapolis is telling private business in the private marketplace what to do."

Ya damn skippy it's crossing a bridge. And it's a lot better that the authority flowing in the other direction...there's been too much reverse governation in this country and its well past time we treat humans like humans and legal fictions (do you REALLY think a corporation is a person with constitutional rights?) like legal fictions.

Md. Passes Rules on Wal-Mart Insurance
Bill Obligates Firms On Health Spending

Speculation of note:

"If history is any guide, should higher prices persist, energy use will over time continue to decline, relative to" total economic output, or gross domestic product, he said.

And if, as really seems to be the case, history is not "any guide"?

I don't think Greenspan is "any guide" at this point.

Anyway...

Greenspan Sees Upside to Energy 'Price Frenzy'

By Nell Henderson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 6, 2005; Page E01

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said yesterday that surging energy prices reflect the tightest oil and gas markets in decades but should stimulate the development of more alternative fuel sources and conservation methods over time.

Just stop , okay? Move on, okay?

"D'oh!" of note

Still, the study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology concluded that no amount of fireproofing could have saved the buildings.

9/11 Jets Blew Off WTC's Fireproofing

The hijacked airplanes that struck the World Trade Center hit with such force that the resulting explosions blew the fireproofing off the steel columns, accelerating heat buildup and weakening the structural core -- contributing to the towers' eventual collapse, according to a report issued Tuesday.

"You must think we're idiots" comment of note:

House members bear some responsibility to ensure that the sponsors for their travel are not masquerading for registered lobbyists or foreign government interests, legal experts say. House ethics rules bar the acceptance of travel reimbursement from registered lobbyists and foreign agents.

In this case, travel funds did not come directly from lobbyists; the money came from a firm, Chelsea Commercial Enterprises Ltd., that funded the lobbying campaign

Of course, give the results of the last election you have every right to think about half of us are...

Anyway...

A 3rd DeLay Trip Under Scrutiny
1997 Russia Visit Reportedly Backed by Business Interests

Sadly for the Bushistas, Republicans in Congress have realized that political cover is made from skin flayed from their own political flesh (eeuuwwwwww...)

Quote of note:

Bush, speaking in West Virginia yesterday, appeared to be growing irked that Capitol Hill has not responded to his calls to sit down and negotiate a Social Security package. "Now is the time for people in Congress to stop playing politics with the issue and come to the table with how they think it ought to be fixed," he said.

Hill Takes a Back Seat on Social Security
Administration, Republican National Committee Lead Drive to Add Private Accounts

By Mike Allen and Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 6, 2005; Page A04

Woman: Convict Held Me Captive 11 Years
- By RICHARD GREEN, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, April 5, 2005
(04-05) 13:17 PDT Oklahoma City (AP) --

A convicted murderer and a deputy warden's wife who disappeared nearly 11 years ago have been found living together and raising chickens in Texas. The woman said she was held captive the whole time, staying with the killer out of fear her family would be harmed if she fled.

Bobbi Parker, 42, has been reunited with her husband, who never remarried, and authorities were trying Tuesday to piece together details of the strange case.

A tip generated by the TV show "America's Most Wanted" led law enforcement to a mobile home in Campti, Texas, where escaped convict Randolph Dial was arrested Monday, said FBI agent Salvador Hernandez. Parker was found a short time later working at a nearby chicken farm; the two were living in the trailer under assumed names.

Quote of note:

More Americans, even the comfortably middle class, could soon find themselves in a similar position.

Melnick, of USC, says he expects the profile of the uninsured to change over the next few years to include more middle-class families with stable jobs. The most recent census data shows that 14% of those without insurance now make between $25,000 and $50,000 a year. A recent California HealthCare Foundation survey found 17% of Californians could not pay one or more medical bills in the last year.

At what cost?
To keep health coverage, more workers are cutting back on food, heat and other necessities. Still, many of them eventually will lose the battle.
By Daniel Costello
Times Staff Writer
April 4, 2005

April 6th, 2005 marks two years of the existance of P6 in one form or another. It feels weird to make note of it when I don't really make note of my birthday, but it seems traditional on the blognet.

Because of the anniversary thing, I thought I'd share the first fruit of my page-per-day project. It needs editing.

I'm keeping the rest to myself until I figure out what I'm writing it for.

Terri Schiavo Dies Of Embarrassment

PINELLAS PARK, FL Terri Schiavo, the shy woman whose self-image issues put her in a 15-year coma, died of embarrassment Thursday, the eyes of the entire world fixed upon her. "Terri, who had been extremely reserved before her debilitation, found herself trapped at the center of an epic legal battle that became the focus of the nation," said Dr. Kyle Williamson, who treated Schiavo several years ago. "The involvement of President Bush, Congress, and numerous church officials further complicated what might have been a simple right-to-die case, and made Terri's weight issues and family difficulties public knowledge. She finally succumbed to the embarrassment last week, at age 41." Specifics of Schiavo's dying breath and photos of the woman in her self-conscious 20s have been appearing in newspapers worldwide since her death.

Who Are You Going To Believe—Me, Or That Encyclopedia Britannica Almanac 2005

I'm not saying I know everything, but there are a lot of things I do know. To have you, someone I consider a friend, doubt my word isn't just insulting, it's hurtful. So let me ask you again: When it comes to the natural resources, topography, and percentage of arable land in several West African countries, who are you gonna believe me, or that Encyclopedia Britannica Almanac 2005 with accompanying CD-ROM?

Goddamn it, Kelly! Would I second-guess you if the topic were women's shoes? It is the same.

Quote of note:

She said she was shocked when, in late 2001, her supervisor told her she would never be promoted at Harvard. In court documents, Goodwin said her supervisor told her she was "a joke" at the university's main library, where she "was seen merely as a pretty girl who wore sexy outfits, low cut blouses, and tight pants."

She said she has no immediate plans to leave Harvard, although she is looking for library jobs elsewhere. [P6: Yeah, that's the move...]

Library Assistant Loses Suit Vs. Harvard
- By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, Associated Press Writer
Monday, April 4, 2005

Well, I got my first page of my page-per-day done.

And I'm right annoyed at my web host right now. I've had serious down time over the last few business days, and it is NOT my software...of that I am convinced. I've already had a few unfortunate Internet incidents...one blogger that became annoyed that my (actually very polite) comments kept blowing holes in her statements, promised me a message via email...and suddenly the MX records (which DNS uses to route your...my...email) were blown away by someone propagating crap. The host fixed that in a couple minutes, and my personal email doesn't run through the P6 domain anyway.

Asked same blogger what that message was. She claimed she was looking to put together a list of Internet hotties (like I got an ego that's affected by that particular sort of thing) and asked me to email her. I did so from a P6 address (no picture included)...and that was the last I heard of that.

Senator Links Violence to 'Political' Decisions
'Unaccountable' Judiciary Raises Ire

By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 5, 2005; Page A07

Sen. John Cornyn said yesterday that recent examples of courthouse violence may be linked to public anger over judges who make politically charged decisions without being held accountable.

In a Senate floor speech in which he sharply criticized a recent Supreme Court ruling on the death penalty, Cornyn (R-Tex.) -- a former Texas Supreme Court justice and member of the Judiciary Committee -- said Americans are growing increasingly frustrated by what he describes as activist jurists.

Quote of note:

The mixture of issues and events, some top Republicans say, puts the party at a precarious juncture, where it needs to reassure voters that its leaders are ethical and focused on hearth-and-home issues such as jobs, affordable gasoline and secure retirements.

How you going to reassure voters your leaders are ethical when you had to publicly castrate the Ethics Committee to protect them?

How you going to reassure voters your leaders are concerned about jobs when your policies support corporations rather than humans?

How you going to reassure voters your leaders are concerned about energy prices when your energy policy has focused on despoiling a wildlife refuge for some 60 days worth of oil?

How you going to reassure voters your leaders are focused on a secure retirement for all Americans when your primary goal is a program that immediately increases the debt load, and would force ungodly amounts of capital into an already over-capitalized economy?

Post-Schiavo Questions Await Congress's GOP Leaders
Priorities Debated as Recess Ends

By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 5, 2005; Page A04

Republican congressional leaders return to Washington today to confront a political landscape that is considerably more problematic than the one they left two weeks ago, when the House and Senate adjourned for Easter recess.

"Intelligence failure" could also mean "acting stupid."

A Failure of Policy, Not Spying

President Bush praised the Robb-Silberman commission report for its scathing and perceptive analysis of "intelligence failures" in the "axis of evil" states of Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Indeed, the report contains many useful recommendations for improving intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. But the fallacy in the administration's appointment of a commission to study intelligence failures is that there is almost never such a thing as a pure intelligence failure. Intelligence failure is usually linked to policy failure.

Haiti, One Year Later

JUST MORE THAN a year after U.S. forces escorted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide into exile, Haiti remains in crisis. Heavily armed gangs loyal to Mr. Aristide or to drug traffickers roam urban neighborhoods; former army and security forces of the military dictatorships that preceded him control much of the countryside. More than 400 people have died in political violence just since September, ranking Haiti with Iraq as a zone of debilitating insecurity. A timid U.N. peacekeeping force has been as ineffectual as the politically isolated interim government. Economic reconstruction from last year's warfare and subsequent natural disasters has barely begun: International donors failed to deliver 80 percent of the aid they pledged last year.

Aren't we saying all lives are equally important, Mr. Republican suh?

A Toxic Case in Court

IN PASSING legislation in February restricting most toxic chemicals from being shipped within 2.2 miles of the Capitol, the District of Columbia acted out of a legitimate concern that a terrorist attack on a train carrying dangerous material such as chlorine gas along the city's 37 miles of rails could kill as many as 100,000 people. But instead of moving swiftly to address a life-threatening situation in the national capital region, the federal government chose to wage a legal fight with D.C. leaders. For that reason, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan held a closed session yesterday to hear the federal government's lawsuit against the city. Rail operators, joined by the Justice Department, claim that the District's law exceeds the council's authority, is unconstitutional, and thus should be prevented from taking effect next Monday. But Judge Sullivan correctly decided to use yesterday's hearing to look beyond the plaintiff's pleadings to determine whether the federal government does, in fact, have a security plan to protect the nation's capital if trains carrying hazardous materials through the city are subject to terrorist attack. That question has not been answered to the city's satisfaction. Now the obstinate feds must satisfy the court.

What a terrifying thought...

ABC News: Peter Jennings Has Lung Cancer
The Associated Press
Tuesday, April 5, 2005; 11:35 AM

NEW YORK - Peter Jennings, the chief ABC News anchorman for more than 20 years, has been diagnosed with lung cancer and will begin outpatient treatment next week, the network said Tuesday.

Jennings, 66, has been feeling ill for the past several months and was replaced Saturday on coverage of the pope's death by anchor Charles Woodruff. He last anchored "World News Tonight" on Friday.

Jennings informed ABC News staff of the diagnosis Tuesday morning and said he will anchor the broadcast when he feels up to it over the next few months as he begins chemotherapy.

Case Seeks Health Care Revolution
AOL Ex-Chief Puts Up $500 Million in Venture

By David A. Vise
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 5, 2005; Page E01

Former America Online chairman Steve Case said yesterday he is launching a District-based venture called Revolution that owns controlling stakes in companies that provide health care services, manage resort properties or operate in related fields.

In an interview, Case said he has committed $500 million of his own money to the venture, which he hopes will succeed at refocusing the health care system so that it puts the interests of consumers first. He said the enormous inefficiencies in health care became glaringly clear to him through both personal experience -- as a patient, a parent and a sibling -- and through talks with Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and other experts.

Big-Game Hunting Brings Big Tax Breaks
Trophy Donations Raise Questions in Congress

By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 5, 2005; Page A01

GERING, Neb. -- The ibex head was jammed next to the moose, whose velvety antlers brushed against a rare red lechwe and an African bongo. Below them were several preserved bobcats, and at the far end of the storage container stood endangered leopards, frozen in lifelike mid-prowl.

In all, there were more than 800 big-game and exotic animals piled into an old railroad car behind the Wyobraska Wildlife Museum, a modest and lightly visited facility here, far from any population center. It was just one of four large containers packed with animal mounts and skins -- trophies shot on expedition or safari to places such as South Africa, Mongolia and game-hunting parks in Texas.

The Supreme Court extremist threat level currently stands at HIGH.

If you're planning to write a page per day, do so BEFORE you start programming.

Quote(s) of note:

The new data showed that the Justice Department used the secret warrants 108 times from April 2003 to January 2005, for an average of almost five warrants per month. That represented a sharp increase from the last reported tally from October 2001 to April 2003, when 47 warrants were issued, for an average of fewer than three per month.

The secret warrants were used in a wide spectrum of cases beyond terrorism, including child pornography, drug trafficking and organized crime, the officials said.

In explaining the increased frequency, a Justice Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of political considerations said, "It's the criminals who set the pace for how often these warrants are used, not us."

It is, however, "us" that decides to use the law outside the conditions the law was written to address.

U.S. Begins Steps to Limit Import Surge From China
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS and ELIZABETH BECKER

WASHINGTON, April 4 - The Bush administration, reacting to a flood of Chinese clothing imports since January, began a process on Monday to impose import quotas on shirts, trousers and underwear.

In an abrupt policy reversal, the Commerce Department said that it would begin an investigation into the need to re-impose trade quotas that were lifted just three months ago on a wide variety of Chinese apparel.

"Free trade must be fair trade, and we will work to ensure that American manufacturers and workers compete on a level playing field," Carlos Gutierrez, the commerce secretary, said in a statement.

Senator Bill Frist (who, due to the idiocy of video diagnosis, is one of several Beltway folks I refuse to refer to as "Doctor") said on PBS' The Newshour:

SEN. BILL FRIST: Jim, I just have to keep coming back to the Constitution of the United States. Last week or last month when thirty-three, thirty-four senators took an oath, they didn't take an oath of government overall; they took an oath to the Constitution of the United States of America

You'd think a guy so dedicated to upholding the Constitution would be rather upset over attempts to undermine the independence and integrity of the judiciary. We're talking about a principle...separation of powers...so fundamental to the Constitution that it precedes the Bill of Rights.

Case in point.

Anyway...

Attacking a Free Judiciary

...Through public attacks, proposed legislation and even the threat of impeachment, ideologues are trying to bully judges into following their political line. Mr. DeLay and his allies have moved beyond ordinary criticism to undermining the separation of powers, not to mention the rule of law. The Schiavo case was the starkest example of their determination to have things their own way, regardless of the constitutional cost. Conservative elected officials and advocates repeatedly attacked the judiciary's right to decide the legal issues. When they were unhappy with the decisions of the Florida state courts, they rushed a bill through Congress that authorized the federal courts to rule on her case, but not on other cases like it. The bill also told the federal courts not to apply the time-honored legal doctrines that might have led them to stay out.

Quote of note:

While it has been evident for years that illegal immigrants pay a variety of taxes, the extent of their contributions to Social Security is striking: the money added up to about 10 percent of last year's surplus - the difference between what the system currently receives in payroll taxes and what it doles out in pension benefits. Moreover, the money paid by illegal workers and their employers is factored into all the Social Security Administration's projections.

Illegal immigration, Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, co-director of immigration studies at New York University, noted sardonically, could provide "the fastest way to shore up the long-term finances of Social Security."

Illegal Immigrants Are Bolstering Social Security With Billions
By EDUARDO PORTER

The Worst Black Congressman

Most of you don t even know his name. David Scott (rhymes with rot) is the most non-representative Black person in the U.S. Congress. The very worst.

Rep. Scott, whose district lies south of Atlanta, runs with a gaggle of renegade rightwing House members that includes Harold Ford, Jr., of Memphis, Alabama s Artur Davis and fellow Georgian Sanford Bishop. Scott leads the pack, having managed to vote with Republicans more than any other member of the Congressional Black Caucus on issues tracked by Techpolitics.org, the authoritative site run by veteran political researcher Ken Colburn.

This is an example of why Darkstar will always be cool with me.

'Occupation and Peace in Israel-Palestine'

Talk by: Amira Hass, Haaretz Correspondent for the Occupied Palestinian Territories

April 11, 2005 from: 8:00pm - 9:45pm

Location: Julius Held Auditorium, 304 Barnard Hall Barnard College, 117th st. and Broadway.

Sponsored by: The English Department, The Anthropology Department, Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures Department, The Center for Research on Women, and Africana Studies at Barnard, and the Middle East Institute and Anthropology
Department at Columbia.

---

Amira Hass was born in Jerusalem in 1957, the daughter of Yugoslavian-Jewish refugees. A journalist for the Hebrew daily Ha'aretz, she covers Gaza and the West Bank. She received the UPI's International Award and the Sokolow Prize, Israel's highest honor for journalists, and received UNESCO's Guillermo Camo World Press Freedom Prize in 2003.

E-mails Appear to Show Yucca Mountain Scientists Planning to Make up Data
April 04, 2005   By Erica Werner, Associated Press

WASHINGTON   E-mails by several government scientists on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump project suggest workers were planning to fabricate records and manipulate results to ensure outcomes that would help the project move forward.

"I don't have a clue when these programs were installed. So I've made up the dates and names," wrote a U.S. Geological Survey employee in one e-mail released Friday by a congressional committee investigating suspected document falsification on the project.

"This is as good as it's going to get. If they need more proof, I will be happy to make up more stuff."

In another message the same employee wrote to a colleague: "In the end I keep track of 2 sets of files, the ones that will keep QA happy and the ones that were actually used." QA apparently refers to "quality assurance."

On the McLaughlin Report this weekend, Tony Blankley (who, because he is connected to the Washington Post Times, is immediately suspect) said DeLay would still be speaker two years from now because "there's no there there."

heh.

DeLay is losing support, poll finds
Schiavo case and ethics battles are cited in the slide
By SAMANTHA LEVINE and JOE STINEBAKER
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's footing among his constituents has slipped drastically during the past year and a majority of his district disapproves of how he handled the Terri Schiavo case, according to a Houston Chronicle poll.

Nearly 40 percent of the 501 voters questioned Wednesday through Friday said their opinion of the powerful Sugar Land Republican is less favorable than last year, compared with 11 percent who said their view of him has improved.

Quote of note:

It was not until 1948 that the flag resurfaced in connection with a white-supremacist political movement, the Dixiecrats, those Southern Democrats who bolted their party in protest against its civil rights program.

'The Confederate Battle Flag': Clashing Symbols
By DIANE MCWHORTER
Published: April 3, 2005

THROUGHOUT its history of controversy, one thing the Confederate battle flag has consistently stood for is the tendency of human beings to muddle their best instincts and their worst. As the banner of Southern nationalism, the star-spangled cross is an emblem of heroic self-determination, of the Confederacy's rebellion against federal ''oppression.'' But the ideal that urged the secessionists on to their blood-drenched sacrifice was the freedom to subject a race of people to enslavement.

A Lucrative Brand of Tutoring Grows Unchecked
By SUSAN SAULNY
Published: April 4, 2005

Propelled by the No Child Left Behind law, the federally financed tutoring industry has doubled in size in each of the last two years, with the potential to become a $2 billion-a-year enterprise, market analysts say.

Tutors are paid as much as $1,997 per child, and companies eager to get a piece of the lucrative business have offered parents computers and gift certificates as inducements to sign up, provided tutors that in some cases are still in high school, and at times made promises they cannot deliver.

This new brand of tutoring is offered to parents by private companies and other groups at no charge if their children attend a failing school. But it is virtually without regulation or oversight, causing concern among school districts, elected officials and some industry executives. Some in Congress are calling for regulations or quality standards to ensure that tutors are qualified and that the companies provide services that meet students' needs.

This may be the ultimate triumph of symbol over substance.

Quote of note:

"You could hold up a paper that says 'Great work!' and it won't even matter if it's written in red," said Joseph Foriska, principal of Thaddeus Stevens Elementary in Pittsburgh.

He has instructed his teachers to grade with colors featuring more "pleasant-feeling tones" so that their instructional messages do not come across as derogatory or demeaning.

"The color is everything," said Foriska, an educator for 31 years.

SCHOOL ISSUES
Parents tell teachers to get the red out for good
Thanks to an outcry from parents, the harsh, red grading pen is leaving more schools. Teachers now are grading in warmer colors like purple.
BY BEN FELLER

Before you Democrats panic, remember you're where the Conservatives were after Goldwater. You only need to be concerned if you think Republicans will literally destroy the country in the next few years.

Of course, if you're a human rather than a political party you should probably start sweating now.

Quote of note:

The danger for the GOP is that the political dialogue is being structured less as a choice between Republican and Democratic ideas than as a referendum on Republican ideas alone. And some of those aren't faring so well.

An overwhelming majority of Americans opposed congressional and White House intervention in the Schiavo case; Bush's Social Security plan is lagging in the polls too. And it's difficult to imagine that many Americans outside the GOP's conservative base applauded House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's (R-Texas) fevered rant against the courts last week following Schiavo's death.

Democrats Are Lost in the Shuffle While GOP Holds All the Cards
Ronald Brownstein
Washington Outlook
April 4, 2005

Quote of note:

The US military had used the simulator at fairs as a recruitment tool, he said.

In a promotional video on VirTra's website, a TV reporter trying out the simulator yells: "Hey,
shooting people is fun."

Mr Haag said it was only a matter of time and demand before the system could be sold to the public as a computer game.

"This is ultimate shooter video game," he said..."We can put in smells and vibrations."

Coming soon: a PC combat game that shoots back
By Frank Walker
April 3, 2005
The Sun-Herald

A combat simulator developed for the US military that "shoots" back, delivering an electric shock strong enough to knock down players, could be the next big thing for home-computer games.

In the process of following up on a panic-stricken Slashdot post about San Francisco considering forcing political bloggers to register with the city's Ethics Commission, I went to Chris Nolan's Politics from Left to Right for the background.

But I am going to point a few fingers. San Francisco's Board of Supervisors are reacting to a nasty bit of business that was transacted during this late election. Two members of the board were targeted for defeat by the city's business community   specifically, loudly and with no-holds-barred -- by SFSOS and its founder Democratic activist Wade Randlett.

...More important to this conversation about regulating on-line communication   the backbone of SFSOS's efforts   is that Randlett got widespread credit in the city's political circles for a particularly nasty mailer that appeared just before the election. It accused Sandoval of being anti-Semitic, repeating some dumb and ugly threats he made in a meeting with city business representatives several years ago. That wasn't enough mud, however. The mailer featured a swastika asking "Are San Francisco Supervisors Doing Enough to End Discrimination and Violence?"

The mailer was paid for by a still-unknown   although Randlett has taken credit in some circles -- third party. Reached Friday, Randlett denies any involvement. "I didn t pay for it. SOS didn't pay for it," he said.

I know nothing of these folks so I'm not commenting about this. What I found curious though, was this:

I need you to look at ChevronTexaco performance history and show me what "rough patch" the woman is talking about.

Daily Price History	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
Dividend History	12-00	12-01	12-02	12-03	12-04
Dividend $	1.30	1.33	1.40	1.43	1.53
Year-end Yield %	3.08	2.96	4.21	3.31	2.91
S&P 500 Yield %	1.02	1.19	1.58>	1.43	1.46

Chevron Executive Defends High Fuel Prices and Profits
Patricia Woertz says refiners are merely rebounding from a rough patch in 2002.
By Elizabeth Douglass
Times Staff Writer
April 4, 2005

Quote of note:

In his testimony, Jones said he picked nominees mostly by personal evaluations of their skills, without consulting resumes, personnel evaluations or permanent records in the department.

Capt. Andra Williams, who was named in court as one of the black officers benefiting from Jones' discrimination, said he would have been promoted no matter who the chief was. Williams said he would continue to do his job in a professional manner and expect his co-workers to do the same.

"It's insulting to be labeled as less qualified or to imply that the community is getting less of a supervisor in me or any of the other minority supervisors or women," he said.

White Cops in Milwaukee Win Bias Suit
By CARRIE ANTLFINGER, AP

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Liza Sabater of Culture Kitchen and Nichelle Stephens of Nichelle Newsletter
PRESENT:
The inaugural event of the Brown Blog Series
Color or Content: Does Race Matter When you Blog?
(New York, NY March 14, 2005)

This is an event for African Americans and Latinos who have blogs, read blogs or wonder what the fuss is all about.  Hosts Liza and Nichelle will talk about blogging and how does the race affect a
bloggers perspective.  We will discuss the opportunities to market your blog or how to get started blogging.  We want to close the gap  on the "digital divide" And we love to meet new people.

About Us:
Liza Sabater is a blogger, mother, lapsed professor, arts and culture connector.  You can read her blog at http://culturekitchen.com

Nichelle Stephens is a blogger, management consultant, stand-up comedy producer, and  part-time party planner.  You can read her blog at http://nichellenewsletter.typepad.com

Event Information:
"Color or Content: Does Race Matter When you Blog?"
Sunday, April 10, 2005
7pm   10pm
Lava Gina Lounge
116 Avenue C, New York, NY
SUBWAY: 6 to St.Marks Place and Walk East to Avenue C.  It's between
7th and 8th Streets
CAR: directions via http:// www.mapquest.com

RSVP to us via the Meetup: http://blog.meetup.com/317/

Press Contact: Liza Sabater [email protected] and Nichelle Stephens [email protected]

Shaquille O'Neal

LeBron James

Andre Igoudala

Alan Iverson

????

Quote of note:

"It's not his voting record that's so bad," said Keith Crane, a Connecticut resident who runs DumpJoe.com and is part of an effort to find a primary opponent in 2006 for Mr. Lieberman. "It's his rhetoric that's horrid. We're an opposition party now. That means we all have to stick together."

Here's Why the Centrist Democrat Is Feeling Unloved
By NICHOLAS CONFESSOR
Published: April 3, 2005

...Often, centrist Democrats thrived as in-house critics of their own party. Henry (Scoop) Jackson jabbed at his colleagues' dovishness; Daniel Patrick Moynihan at their unwillingness to rein in entitlement spending; Joe Lieberman at their reluctance to talk about values.

There ain't no quote of note.

Instead, there's a link to an amusingly conceived graphic mapping the various Republican factions. And I note they have no Black Conservative contingent, though the do make note of the anti-Affirmative Action crew...

Anyway...

Squabbles Under the Big Tent
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

COULD this be the same Republican Party that was on such triumphant display after President Bush's re-election just four months ago?

Republicans and conservatives are quarreling over Congress's intervention in the Terri Schiavo case, and the rising influence of Christian conservatives. Some Republicans in Washington and statehouses are balking at federal tax cuts in the face of deficits or spending cuts, while a few are worried that the war in Iraq will lead to more foreign entanglements. Republicans are beginning to whisper in the past tense as they discuss Mr. Bush's signature second-term measure, the revamping of Social Security.

It's a Flat World, After All
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: April 3, 2005

...''Outsourcing is just one dimension of a much more fundamental thing happening today in the world,'' Nilekani explained. ''What happened over the last years is that there was a massive investment in technology, especially in the bubble era, when hundreds of millions of dollars were invested in putting broadband connectivity around the world, undersea cables, all those things.'' At the same time, he added, computers became cheaper and dispersed all over the world, and there was an explosion of e-mail software, search engines like Google and proprietary software that can chop up any piece of work and send one part to Boston, one part to Bangalore and one part to Beijing, making it easy for anyone to do remote development. When all of these things suddenly came together around 2000, Nilekani said, they ''created a platform where intellectual work, intellectual capital, could be delivered from anywhere. It could be disaggregated, delivered, distributed, produced and put back together again -- and this gave a whole new degree of freedom to the way we do work, especially work of an intellectual nature. And what you are seeing in Bangalore today is really the culmination of all these things coming together.''

Man, if Iverson had Igoudala on his team for the past four years the 76ers would be World Champions right now. Not like the Celtics are really playing but Pierce is.

Okay, you come back from 20-odd points, you're playing.

But Alan just threw in the dagger at 22 seconds left.

Man, I hope the Sixers can put together the team Iverson deserves before someone shivs the boy while he's driving. They do everything else to try to stop him...

I'm watching Like It Is. Gil Noble is interviewing a brutally honest 16 year old girl named Shakira. They're discussing colorism as it affects her, a self-described "dark skinned" girl.

She grew up feeling ugly.

She is the very hotness.

She said color isn't an issue with her friends but when people first meet her "The first thing they see is I'm dark skinned. The second thing is how I dress. The third thing is what I do."

Never wore her hair natural. Had a jherry curl since she was four and won't wear it natural now because "I wouldn't know what to do with it."

The Segregated Classrooms of a Proudly Diverse School
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

MAPLEWOOD, N. J., April 1 - Columbia High School seems to have it all - great sports teams, great academics, famous alumni and an impressive campus with Gothic buildings. But no one boasts about one aspect of this blue-ribbon school, that its classrooms are largely segregated.

Though the school is majority black, white students make up the bulk of the advanced classes, while black students far outnumber whites in lower-level classes, statistics show.

"It's kind of sad," said Ugochi Opara, a senior who is president of the student council. "You can tell right away, just by looking into a classroom, what level it is."

Like I said:

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.

Moralists at the Pharmacy

Scattered reports suggest that a growing number of pharmacists around the country are refusing to fill prescriptions for contraceptives or morning-after birth control pills because of moral or religious objections. Although the refusals are cast as important matters of conscience for self-described "pro-life" pharmacists, they have the pernicious effect of delaying, and sometimes even denying, a woman's access to medications that may be urgently needed. This is an intolerable abuse of power by pharmacists who have no business forcing their own moral or ethical views onto customers who may not share them. Any pharmacist who cannot dispense medicines lawfully prescribed by a doctor should find another line of work.

Quote of note:

Mr. Scott cited studies estimating that Wal-Mart saves American consumers $100 billion a year and saves the average family $600 a year, giving "them a raise every time they shop with us." Saying that Wal-Mart's wages average around $10 an hour, nearly twice the federal minimum wage, he added that the company offered "good jobs at fair wages and benefits with unparalleled opportunities for growth."

Opponents of Wal-Mart to Coordinate Efforts
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Led by Wal-Mart's longtime opponents in organized labor, a new coalition of about 50 groups - including environmentalists, community organizations, state lawmakers and academics - is planning the first coordinated assault intended to press the company to change the way it does business.

Shootings Fuel a Drive to Ease Gun Laws
By KATE ZERNIKE

Paul Bucher, the district attorney for the Wisconsin county where a man opened fire in a church service last month, killing seven people and himself, has one answer to the deadly mass shootings around the country in recent weeks: more guns.

"The problems aren't the guns, it's the guns in the wrong hands," said Mr. Bucher, a Republican who recently announced his candidacy for Wisconsin attorney general. "We need to put more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens. Whether having that would have changed what happened is all speculation, but it would level the playing field. If the person you're fighting has a gun and all you have is your fists, you lose."

Schiavo's Remains Cremated as Autopsy Becomes Part of Feud
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

TAMPA, Fla., April 2 (AP) - Terri Schiavo's body was cremated on Saturday as disagreements continued between her husband and her parents, who were unable to have their own independent expert observe her autopsy.

The cremation was carried out according to a court order issued on Tuesday that established that Michael Schiavo had the right to make such decisions, said his lawyer, George Felos. He said plans for burying Ms. Schiavo's ashes in Pennsylvania, where she grew up, had not yet been completed.

Ms. Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, said they wanted to bury their daughter in Pinellas County so they could visit her grave.

An Early Advocate of Stock Options Debunks Himself
By CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH

FIFTEEN years ago, Michael C. Jensen, a professor at the Harvard Business School, wrote a paper with Kevin J. Murphy, then a professor at the University of Rochester, that trumpeted some pretty radical ideas for the time. Compensation systems, they posited, prompted chief executives to add revenue, not to increase profit, pay dividends or otherwise reward long-suffering shareholders. Their suggestion was to make stock options a big component of top management's pay, ensuring that they do well only if shareholders do well. "It seemed a way to tie managers tighter to the mast," Professor Jensen recalled recently.

Of course, it WILL collapse if we don't...

Quote of note:

...reform based on a notion that taxes are bad for the economy is just that: a notion not backed by strong evidence. And the costs of ignoring experience in favor of hope can be high: mounting deficits, decaying infrastructure, inadequate investment in public education and research.

So the next time that some proponent of tax reform promises king-size economic benefits, there's reason to be skeptical. Like a second marriage, a new tax system can't work miracles.

Do Taxes Thwart Growth? Prove It

By ANNA BERNASEK

Prosecutor: Sharpton Not a Figure in Probe
Wiretaps Misunderstood in Fraud Case
Associated Press
Sunday, April 3, 2005; Page A08

PHILADELPHIA, April 2 -- An investigation into whether Al Sharpton was involved in a scheme to defraud a pension fund was based on misinterpreted wiretaps, a prosecutor said Saturday.

Sharpton, who was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination at the time of the investigation, attracted authorities' attention when he started raising campaign money and discussing business with the late Ronald A. White, a Democratic fundraiser who was a target of a federal corruption probe at Philadelphia City Hall.

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Although rarely recognized, minority children seem to learn as much in school as their white counterparts, and on some measures, their gains are greater. For instance, an analysis of scores from the highly regarded National Assessment of Educational Progress shows that black eighth-graders in 1998 gained more in reading from the time they were fourth-graders than whites. Although schools can do much more to improve minority performance, big causes of the continuing gap in overall achievement are that disadvantaged children start out so far behind, and their education gets less support after school and during the summer break. The best opportunities for smart investments to boost minority performance further may lie outside the regular school day.

Tests suggest this because we can assess children at the end of the school year and again when they return for the next grade. Disadvantaged children's scores fall during the summer break, while middle-class children's don't. One explanation is that in the summer, middle-class children read more, travel more, go to museums more often and learn new social and emotional skills at camp or in organized athletics.

Cheapskate Conservatives Cheat Students
Let's pump some money into highly promising programs.
By Richard Rothstein
April 3, 2005

How I Gamed the SAT
By Karin Klein
Karin Klein is a Times editorial writer.
April 3, 2005

I wasn't supposed to stop dead in the middle of grading the new essay portion of the SAT. In my stint as a scorer, I had learned the rules: Read quickly, read once, don't stop to analyze, but assign a score from 1 (bottom) to 6 (top) based on my overall impression. So, as I cringed over a preposterous assertion in this 34th or 52nd essay on the topic, "Secrecy: Good or Bad?" I should have known my scoring on this one would be counted as "wrong."

I kept forgetting another rule: In the SAT essay, it's OK to write something that lacks a factual basis.

It's useful to point this out periodically.

More GOP Than the GOP
Michael Kinsley
April 3, 2005

It was the TV talker Chris Matthews, I believe, who first labeled Democrats and Republicans the "Mommy Party" and the "Daddy Party." Archaic as these stereotypes may be, they do capture general attitudes about the two parties. But we live in the age of the one-parent family, and it is Mom, more often than Dad, who must play both roles.

It has not escaped notice that the Daddy Party has been fiscally misbehaving. But it hasn't really sunk in how completely the Republicans have abandoned allegedly Republican values...if, in fact, they ever really had such values.

Our text today is the 2005 Economic Report of the President. I did this exercise a year ago, and couldn't quite believe the results. But the 2005 data confirm it: The party with the best record of serving Republican economic values is the Democrats. It isn't even close.

The values I'm referring to are widely shared. We all want prosperity, we oppose unemployment, we dislike inflation, we don't enjoy paying taxes, etc. They're Republican only in the sense that Republicans are supposed to treasure them more, and to be more reluctant to sacrifice them for other goals, such as equality or clean air.

Statistics in the Economic Report back to 1960 tell the story. And a consistent pattern over 45 years cannot be explained away by shorter-term factors, like war or who controls Congress.

Quote of note:

A: President Lincoln was scheduled to attend the theater this evening.

Or B: After another arduous day holding a fractious nation together over the issues of slavery and secession and impatient with the slow fingers of telegraphers transmitting last week's battlefield reports, a lanky President Lincoln leaned back at his government-issue desk and told aides, "Get my tallest hat. I feel like a play tonight."

Want Filigree With Those Facts?
March 27, 2005

The Associated Press, the chief wire service news source for American newspapers and broadcasters, has decided to distribute two versions of major breaking news stories: one a traditional, straightforward, factual news lead and the other a more evocative, literary version using images, vivid description, quotes and narrative techniques intended to engage busy readers.

ALT LEDE: On a sunny, wind-swept late winter day underscoring the diverse weather systems spanning a nation as large as the United States, the good old Associated Press, a vast publishing consortium that has fed Americans their news for 156 years, is enhancing the story diet it feeds newspapers challenged by instant broadcast and Internet competition.

To promote better cardio-financial health in the newspapers' circulation systems, the venerable wire service will now squeeze two versions of every big story from its hard-pressed staff:

One, a familiar nuts-and-bolts tale that most readers will have digested several times long before the newspaper's delivery, and the other a more flowing, even quirky, version that's more fun to chew on and could bring useful perspective absent from the cable TV crawl.

What if this version A and version B were applied retrospectively? Very retrospectively.

Kids Give Up a Day Off for Academic Upgrades
Saturday classes allow L.A. Unified students to get help with basics or prep for state exit exam.
By Susana Enriquez
Times Staff Writer
April 3, 2005

Oscar Ravelo would rather play football on Saturday mornings than spend more than three hours cooped up in a classroom.

For Ravelo and thousands of other California students who have low grades or who want additional help, the school week has spilled over into the weekend.

Saturday school is part of the Los Angeles Unified School District's Beyond the Bell program, which encompasses the myriad classes stretching beyond the traditional school day.

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His firm's preferred lender had pre-qualified 90 potential buyers for a group of new houses. Since the houses wouldn't be ready for another six months, the builder tightened the loan criteria. He didn't want buyers to sign up for a house and then get frightened into canceling by rising rates.

He raised the threshold from a fully variable loan, the easiest to get since it immediately moves upward when rates increase, to a mortgage that was fixed for the first three years. That would shield buyers from rate jumps for at least a little while, but it's also more expensive.

Under the higher threshold, only about 15 of the buyers still qualified.

"People are really pushing to borrow as much as they can, and the lenders are right there," said the builder, who declined to be identified. "There's apparently not much of a cushion."

They're In   but Not Home Free
Many Californians have 'interest-only' loans. They might be living on borrowed time.
By David Streitfeld
Times Staff Writer
April 3, 2005