My father is the kind of sick that only ends when the laws of thermodynamics take full effect...and that may not be for a while. I'm kinda hiding behind writing and coding right now.

I can stand up and do what I have to do, but I wish I knew how to comfort people rather than just help. I wish I was capable of being comforted. I keep seeing with my memory instead of my eyes. Probably because I don't really want to see with my eyes.

My parents have been married for over 50 years. I can't imagine what my mom is feeling.

And what's really fucked up is I can't stop being clinical in my observations of my father. I can't help recognizing every fragment that falls away.

Quote of note:

The Staten Island Task Force last made headlines in 2003, when one of its members, Officer Bryan Conroy, allegedly shot and killed Ousmane Zongo, an unarmed African immigrant, inside a Manhattan storage warehouse.

Conroy and other officers were at the warehouse to bust DVD pirates.

POLICE PAYOFF PROBE
By JAMIE SCHRAM

Two NYPD veterans are being investigated by Internal Affairs for allegedly accepting payoffs from the motion-picture industry to arrest vendors of pirated DVDs, law-enforcement sources told The Post.

One officer, a sergeant on the force since 1992, has been transferred from the Staten Island Task Force to the 122nd Precinct pending the internal investigation.

Army clears top brass of Abu Ghraib wrongdoing
Former top commander in Iraq, 3 others overseeing Iraqi prisons are exonerated
- Eric Schmitt, New York Times
Saturday, April 23, 2005

Washington
-- A high-level Army investigation has cleared four of the most senior
Army officers overseeing prison policies and operations in Iraq of
responsibility for the abuses of prisoners there, congressional and
administration officials said on Friday.

Among those exonerated
was Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who was the top commander in Iraq from
June 2003 to June 2004. He was the highest-ranking officer to face
allegations of leadership failure in connection with the scandal, but
has not been accused of criminal misconduct.

Quote of note:

"What we once called porn is just mainstream sex now, and what we now think of as pornography has shrunk to a tiny, tiny area," Herdt said. "We've expanded the envelope of normative sex so much that there's not much room for 'porn' anymore."

Just the Facts of Life Now
Pornography is so common in the Digital Age that teens see it as 'part of the culture.' But if it's corrupting them, the data don't show it.
By Shawn Hubler
Times Staff Writer
April 23, 2005

Mike Clark figures he was just a little kid when he saw his first sexy pop-up ad on the Internet, and somewhat older when he saw his first sexy pop-up that he understood. First X-rated spam? Let's see   when did he first learn to use e-mail? First videogame with sexy images? Probably the first time he played Grand Theft Auto. First glimpse of an online porn site?

That means it's time to sneak in one of those posts.

Roughly simultaneously I got email from Nichelle asking:

"Why don't we see more African American and Latino bloggers getting the amount of press in MSM as the melanin-challenged (White) bloggers?" 

and got pointed to this thread by Memer

You want in on some of this?...
http://sandhill.typepad.com/sandhill_trek/2005/04/happy_birthday_.html
Should more black folk be making a fuss about not being on more white blogrolls?

The questions feel similar but they're different enough that I could respond to the first briefly and without much deep analysis (though there's depth to the topic). The second I've said nothing about yet, largely because my actual involvement in it means I'd have to review my own history. Plus there's that "should"...I'm always careful about whether or not I even respond to questions with "should" in them (STATEMENTS with "should" in them are immediately fair game).

US accused of trying to block abortion pills
Sarah Boseley, health editor
Thursday April 21, 2005
The Guardian

The US government is trying to block the World Health Organisation from endorsing two abortion pills which could save the lives of some of the 68,000 women who die from unsafe practices in poor countries every year.

The WHO wants to put the pills on its essential medicines list, which constitutes official advice to all governments on the basic drugs their doctors should have available.

Last month, an expert committee met to consider a number of new drugs for inclusion on the list. They approved for the first time two pills, to be used in combination for the termination of early pregnancy, called mifepristone and misoprostol. In poor countries where abortion is legal, doctors currently have no alternative to surgery.

Quote of note:

It's easy to see why Wal-Mart and its conservative defenders discard ideology: money. By ignoring free market principles, the left-wing Harvard Business School estimates that Wal-Mart reduces its procurement costs by 10-20 percent, primarily by taking advantage of the artificially suppressed labor market in China. One can't help note the delicious irony that Wal-Mart's market leadership is powered by an authoritarian regime that still refers to itself as communist.

Wal-Mart's Free Market Fallacy
Jonathan Tasini
April 21, 2005

Jonathan Tasini is president of the Economic Future Group and writes his "Working In America" columns for TomPaine.com on an occasional basis.

Quote of note:

When House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi attacked what she called Bush's "misleading privatization plan," a Washington Post news story immediately noted that "Bush has never advocated privatizing the entire program." This is the formulation that newspapers use when they want to alert readers that a politician is lying.

Mouthing the GOP's Words
Jonathan Chait
April 22, 2005

President Bush and his allies are probably going to lose his fight to privatize Social Security. But in the course of losing they have won an astonishing victory: They have established the precedent that a political party can unilaterally force the news media to change its terminology essentially. Push them hard enough, and the media will render verboten any previously agreed-upon phrase, no matter how widely accepted.

Quote of note:

It has never made sense that Americans should pay more than Canadians, Britons or Spaniards for drugs made by U.S. companies, which often use research financed by U.S. taxpayers. Common sense, however, doesn't maximize drug profits.

Cracks in High Drug Prices
Change is in the air as Congress looks at legalizing orders from foreign companies.
April 22, 2005

The thick political wall put up by pharmaceutical companies around their U.S. pricing is showing cracks.

It has never made sense that Americans should pay more than Canadians, Britons or Spaniards for drugs made by U.S. companies, which often use research financed by U.S. taxpayers. Common sense, however, doesn't maximize drug profits.

Based on this I have decided it's time for another open thread.

Suppose I told you that I worship a god that empowers you to cast spells that enrich you personally or punish your enemies. Suppose I told you this god I worship will give you control over worldly affairs if you execute the proper rituals. Suppose I told you there's nothing you need do but cast those magic spells.

Quote of note:

He said the station's management insisted he do an interview with Pastor Butler, even after the pastor repeatedly refused an invitation from the show's producer, Tony Motley. But he finally agreed to the interview, which centered on his anti-gay marriage platform and his preaching of prosperity messages, i.e., that faith (and giving money to the church) could translate into a Mercedes Benz or a luxury house in suburban and affluent Grosse Pointe Woods.

A strong supporter of President George Bush, Rev. Butler is a leading Black conservative minister. During the interview, Mr. Dawsey questioned why the pastor has not stood up against Pres. Bush' cuts to programs important to Blacks instead of focusing on polarizing issues like gay marriage.

Pastor Butler got upset and said he would not answer any more questions.

Detroit PBS station dumps popular Black host
By Bankole Thompson
The Michigan Citizen
Updated Apr 20, 2005, 02:35 pm

Storm bills would benefit insurers
Legislators have proposed hurricane insurance bills that would give insurers the right to refuse to pay for damage caused by floods after a hurricane.
BY BEATRICE E. GARCIA AND MARY ELLEN KLAS

TALLAHASSEE - Massive insurance regulation bills moved quickly through their last committee stops in the Florida House and Senate on Thursday, with provisions that could severely curtail homeowners' ability to collect the full value of their policies in case of a catastrophe.

A key measure in these bills -- one the insurance industry emphasizes as the most important issue before lawmakers -- would require insurers to be responsible only for damage they specifically cover in their policies.

This one cause problems on unsuspected levels.

I was checking the referral logs and found a search from http://local.google.com. That struck me as unusual, possibly one of those private projects Google insists their employees run. So I followed the search link.

It turned out to be a search for a term that maps the result to a location. Interesting concept, but serendipity caused this particular one to be hilarious. You see, there search term was "asshole" and the location was Washington D.C. So you should be able to find the location of the assholes in Washington, D.C.

I expected Guckart to pop up in there, but the first location listing returned was:

Quote of note:

"There's more than one way to skin a cat, and there's more than one way to take a black robe off the bench," said Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, according to an audiotape of a March 17 session.

2 Evangelicals Want to Strip Courts' Funds
Taped at a private conference, the leaders outline ways to punish jurists they oppose.
By Peter Wallsten
Times Staff Writer
April 22, 2005

WASHINGTON   Evangelical Christian leaders, who have been working closely with senior Republican lawmakers to place conservative judges in the federal courts, have also been exploring ways to punish sitting jurists and even entire courts viewed as hostile to their cause.

An audio recording obtained by the Los Angeles Times features two of the nation's most influential evangelical leaders, at a private conference with supporters, laying out strategies to rein in judges, such as stripping funding from their courts in an effort to hinder their work.

The discussion took place during a Washington conference last month that included addresses by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who discussed efforts to bring a more conservative cast to the courts.

Quote of note:

Ayala hired a lawyer and filed a claim against the Wendy’s franchise owner, Fresno-based JEM Management. But after police searched her home in Las Vegas and continued to question her family, she dropped the lawsuit threat, saying the whole situation was just too stressful.

“Lies, lies, lies, that’s all I am hearing,” Ayala said after police started questioning her. “They should look at Wendy’s. What are they hiding? Why are we being victimized again and again?”

Woman behind Wendy’s chili claim arrested
Reason for arrest unclear; she allegedly had found finger in food
The Associated Press
Updated: 8:04 a.m. ET April 22, 2005

His people are, as we speak, trying to craft a statement that works around all the legitimate complaints against his appearance while still throwing red meat at the the fundies. Unfortunately, it's going to wind up sounding something like this:

GS: Do you believe Senator Schumer and other Democrats are using the filibuster against people of faith?

TL: People of faith have been abused, I don't think it's because of their faith.

GS: By whom?

TL: Ah, well, no, a lot of the nominees were men and women, or are men and women of strong faith, now, remember what I said, people of faith were abused, but not perhaps because of their faith., although people do get nervous about a pattern that sets in there, but here's the thing about Frist.

Quote of note:

Religious groups, including the National Council of Churches and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, plan to conduct a conference call with journalists on Friday to criticize Senator Frist's participation in the telecast. The program is sponsored by Christian conservative organizations that want to build support for Dr. Frist's filibuster proposal.

Among those scheduled to speak in the conference call is the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, a top official of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., in which Dr. Frist is an active member.

Frist Draws Criticism From Some Church Leaders
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, April 21 - As the Senate battle over judicial confirmations became increasingly entwined with religious themes, officials of several major Protestant denominations on Thursday accused the Senate Republican leader, Bill Frist, of violating the principles of his own Presbyterian church and urged him to drop out of a Sunday telecast that depicts Democrats as "against people of faith."

Quote of note:

"Instead of dealing with the facts and dealing with them in an intelligent fashion, they try to hide their facts from the American public," charged Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department terrorism expert who first disclosed the decision to eliminate the report in The Counterterrorism Blog, an online journal.

Bush administration eliminating 19-year-old international terrorism report
By Jonathan S. Landay
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered.

Dept of Ed Goes Silent on FOIA Requests after Facing Criticism in Vouchers Report

PFAW Foundation Files Suit, Seeks Unlawfully Withheld Records

Washington, DC – Yesterday, People For the American Way Foundation (PFAWF) filed suit against the U.S. Department of Education in federal court in the District of Columbia over the Department’s unlawful failure to disclose certain records concerning the new federally funded school voucher program in the District of Columbia. The law firm of Jenner & Block is co-counsel with PFAWF in this lawsuit.

PFAWF requested the records under two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Over the span of seven months the Department disclosed a number of records in response to the first FOIA request. However, after PFAWF published a report concerning the implementation of the DC voucher program that was critical of the Department -- a report based in part on the previously disclosed records -- the Department stopped responding to PFAWF’s outstanding second FOIA request, despite prior representations that additional responsive records had been collected and would be disclosed. Furthermore, the Department has not responded to any communications from PFAWF about its failure to comply with its FOIA obligations, leaving PFAWF with no choice but to file suit.

Quote of note:

Still, Oxfam commends the recent aid increases, and Fraser admits that there is a renewed effort on the part of the international community to provide financing for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),  and this marks a real change in comparison to the aid cuts of the 1990s. 

Three Decades of Missed Aid Targets
Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 18 (IPS) - The world's 22 rich nations claim that their collective official development assistance (ODA) to developing countries has risen significantly: from an average of about 55 to 60 billion dollars in the late 1990s to 69 billion in 2003 and 78.6 billion dollars in 2004.

But in a new report released Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warns against any premature rejoicing over the rising numbers.

 While the nominal figures for increases in ODA are encouraging,  he admits,  they have to be interpreted with some caution. 

Adjusted for depreciation of the fast-falling U.S. dollar and worldwide price inflation, the 18.4 percent annual increase of ODA reported for 2003 relative to 2002  falls to around a quarter of that figure,  he notes.

Arabella Fraser, policy advisor for the international humanitarian organisation Oxfam, is equally guarded.

 Rich country self-congratulation is unwarranted,  Fraser told IPS.  Aid levels are still pitiful, at an average of 0.25 percent of national income, and way below the promise of 0.7 percent, which was made 35 years ago. 

Still, Oxfam commends the recent aid increases, and Fraser admits that there is a renewed effort on the part of the international community to provide financing for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),  and this marks a real change in comparison to the aid cuts of the 1990s. 

However, rich countries have not yet committed themselves to provide the additional 50 billion dollars a year needed to meet the MDGs and help end poverty, Fraser said.

Quote of note:

During the detentions, border agents confiscated cell phones when they learned that those being held were attempting to contact lawyers or the media,  the suit charges.

Religious Profiling Sparks Federal Lawsuit
William Fisher

NEW YORK, Apr 20 (IPS) - Three influential civil rights groups charged Wednesday that border control tactics used by the Department of Homeland Security discriminate against U.S. citizens solely on the basis of their religion and ethnicity, in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

In simultaneous news conferences held in New York City and Buffalo, on the Canadian border, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the New York Civil Liberties Union and the American Civil Liberties Union announced that they were suing the head of the Department of Homeland Security over the practice of targeting U.S. citizens participating in religious conferences outside the United States.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. district court on behalf of five Muslim-Americans who, along with dozens of others, were detained for six and a half hours, interrogated, fingerprinted, and photographed at the Canadian border crossing to Buffalo as they returned home from an annual Islamic conference in Toronto.

Schwarzenegger apologizes for 'close the borders' remark
Critics deride his explanation of 'language problem'
- Carla Marinucci, Chronicle Political Writer
Thursday, April 21, 2005

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger publicly apologized Wednesday for his earlier statements that California should "close the borders" with Mexico to control illegal immigration, saying he had misspoken because of a "language problem.''

"The bottom line is, I misspoke, and I'm sorry if I offended anyone," Schwarzenegger said about his comments Tuesday to a newspaper publishers' group in San Francisco. "I meant 'securing' our borders, not 'closing' them.

Peace 'Irreversible'; India, Pakistan Soften on Kashmir
Mon Apr 18, 2005 07:01 AM ET
By Terry Friel and Kamil Zaheer

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Declaring their peace process irreversible, nuclear rivals India and Pakistan agreed Monday to open up the militarized frontier dividing Kashmir, capping a visit to New Delhi by President Pervez Musharraf.

In a significant coming together, Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said they would work toward a "soft border" in Kashmir, opening meeting points for divided families and boosting trade, travel and cooperation across the frontier.

Reading a joint statement as he stood next to Musharraf, Singh said the two, "conscious of the historic opportunity created by the improved relations and the overwhelming desire of the peoples of the two countries for durable peace...determined that the peace process was now irreversible."

Stage Set for Senate Showdown on Bush Nominees
Thu Apr 21, 2005 03:00 PM ET
By Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A divided U.S. Senate committee approved two conservative judicial nominees previously blocked by Democrats on Thursday, setting the stage for a showdown that could paralyze the Republican-led Senate.

On party-line votes of 10-8, the Judiciary Committee sent President Bush's renominations of Priscilla Owen of Texas and Janice Rogers Brown of California to the full Senate for confirmation.

Contending all nominees deserve a vote, Republicans have threatened to change Senate rules to ban procedural roadblocks known as filibusters against judicial candidates.

Greenspan Warns That Deficits Are Unsustainable
By JENNIFER BAYOT
Published: April 21, 2005

Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, warned Congress today that the federal budget is on an "unsustainable path" as a result of rising demands on Social Security and Medicare and government spending on new programs.

Unless Congress makes major changes in how it makes the budget, he said, the country will run deficits large enough to cause the economy "to stagnate or worse."

In 2004, the federal budget ran a deficit equal to about 3.5 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, Mr. Greenspan said, while the size of federal debt relative to G.D.P. has "risen noticeably" since bottoming out in 2001.

I think I'll say it again.

David Brooks is SUCH an ass.

The fact is, the entire country is trapped. Harry Blackmun and his colleagues suppressed that democratic abortion debate the nation needs to have. The poisons have been building ever since. You can complain about the incivility of politics, but you can't stop the escalation of conflict in the middle. You have to kill it at the root. Unless Roe v. Wade is overturned, politics will never get better.

You know, the anti-abortion folks could just give up their core convictions too.

Unable to lobby for their pro-life or pro-choice views in normal ways, abortion activists focused their attention on judicial nominations.

Here's the deal. If your goal is to prevent abortions and the law allows them, what you want to do is eliminate the need for them. Because it is literally impossible to make them unavailable.

Shiite Bloc in Iraq Wouldn't Fight Execution of Hussein
Kurdish President Opposes Death Penalty
By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 19, 2005; Page A16

BAGHDAD, April 18 -- The Shiite Muslim bloc leading Iraq's new government will oppose any move to spare former president Saddam Hussein's life if a special tribunal convicts and condemns him, a spokesman for the alliance said Monday.

"We will deal with it immediately," said Ali Dabbagh, spokesman for the Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance. That group is now forming a government with a Kurdish alliance following the first post-Hussein elections in January. Dabbagh said the next courtroom activity in Hussein's trial is tentatively expected in July, with the trial itself to begin before the end of the year.

"Oppose any move to spare" is not just a hell of a lot more active than "wouldn't fight execution." It assumes execution on conviction.

Remember how your politicians behaved day to day, remember the issues they chose to address and ignore. Look into who actually benefits from their actions and don't let advertisements block your memory if you find it just wasn't you.

Economic Worries Aren't Resonating on Hill
By Jonathan Weisman and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, April 21, 2005; Page A01

Inflation and interest rates are rising, stock values have plunged, a tank of gas induces sticker shock, and for nearly a year, wages have failed to keep up with the cost of living.

Yet in Washington, the political class has been consumed with the death of a brain-damaged woman in Florida, the ethics of the House majority leader, and the fate of the Senate filibuster.

Quote of note:

The stronger economy itself gives many companies more power to raise prices, said Robert DiClemente, chief U.S. economist at Citigroup.

Rising Consumer Prices Outpace Gains in Wages
By Nell Henderson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 21, 2005; Page E01

Consumer prices rose in March at the fastest rate since October, outpacing gains in most workers' wages, as households paid more for energy, clothing, hotel rooms, medical care and other items, the Labor Department reported yesterday.

The department's consumer price index, the most widely followed inflation gauge, jumped 0.6 percent last month, largely reflecting the 4 percent surge in energy costs.

Quote of note:

Some Republicans say they worry that without a functioning ethics committee, DeLay has no formal venue for trying to clear himself of allegations while the negative publicity continues to build.

Now if you just admit the committee as you want it to operate is non-functional and we get to make some progress.

GOP Offers Probe Of DeLay's Actions
Democrats Unsatisfied by Rules

By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 21, 2005; Page A04

House Republicans yesterday offered to open an investigation into overseas travel and other activities by Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), as part of an effort to resolve a three-month impasse with the Democrats that has kept the ethics committee from functioning.

I'm hanging out with my nephew Jaiden (don't worry, he has a nice employable first name. We use his middle name so when we take over he'll have a Black name to use).

My sister only has Internet Explorer on this beast and the blockquotes look really bad.

Well, I know templating now...

So moveamericaforward.org (Republican trademark infringement, if you ask me), one day after Sen. Voinovich said he wasn't yet convinced that John Bolton's historic issues were actually resolved, had decided to beat him rhetorically all about the head and shoulders.

[dinner sound effects/cutlery]

Wife:  Honey, were you watching C-SPAN today?  Did you hear how disloyal Senator Voinovich was to Republicans and President Bush?  Voinovich stood with the Democrats and refused to vote for John Bolton, the man President Bush has chosen to fight for the United States at the UN

Husband:  No, I was streaming it on the Internet at the office, but from what I could tell, Senator Voinovich played hookey from the hearings?

Wife:  Yeah that s right.  He s missed most of the Bolton confirmation hearings, but then shows up at the last minute and stabs the President and Republicans right in the back.

Husband:  That s ridiculous   the United Nations needs reform, we need someone who will stand up for the United States and fight the UN s corruption and anti-Americanism.

Wife:  Shame on Senator Voinovich.  After the Democrats smeared Condoleeza Rice for Secretary of State and Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General, how could Voinovich side with the Democrats in smearing John Bolton?

Husband:  It seems like Senator Voinovich has become a traitor to the Republican Party.

Wife:  Enough s enough.  I m logging on to Move America Forward dot com to register my protest with Senator Voinovich s office. 

Husband:  What was that site?  Move America Forward dot com ?

Wife: Yep, Move America Forward dot com

Quote of note:

His lawyer, Harold Rosenthal, told the judge that Tehin is now penniless and pleaded for a five-year term.

"Please give him a sentence that will allow him to still have some hope in his life," said Rosenthal, repeatedly referring to Tehin's age.

Tehin had faced a sentence of 12 1/2 to 15 1/2 years. The government agreed with probation officials, who recommended a 14-year sentence.

This bastard lived large by theft. What's the deal with this "have hope in his life?"

The significance of a 14 vs. 15 1/2 year sentence is probably about the minimum time served before you're allowed parole...like if your sentence is more than 15 years there is no possibility of release in less than 7 years, or if it's less than 15 years you're allowed to finnagle it down to three...something like that. I just don't know the details…I just know it represents leniency.

Quote of note:

Representative Margaret Dayton, the Republican state representative who wrote the Utah bill, said she had worded it to assert Utah's right to control local schools without jeopardizing the state's federal education financing.

Well, good luck with that...

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings warned in a letter to Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah on Monday, however, that depending on how the state were to apply the bill's provisions, the Department of Education might withhold $76 million of the $107 million that Utah receives in federal education money. Several lawmakers said the secretary's letter seemed to be a threat.

"Seemed"?

This situation has the potential to totally screw up the works.

I wonder when Sen. Hatch has to run for reelection? Because these folks in Utah are serious, and Bush (for whom the vote to move Bolton's nomination to the Senate floor was just changed in order to avoid the possibility of embarrassment) can't afford to have his signature initiatives blown off. If the feds gank three quarters of the state's federal education funding, the next federal-level incumbent to run for office is doomed! Doomed, I tell you! BWAAAAHahahahaa!

ahem

Anyway...

Utah Vote Rejects Parts of Education Law
By SAM DILLON

Pentagon Proposes Rules to End Abusive Sales Practices on Bases

By DIANA B. HENRIQUES

The Pentagon introduced proposed regulations yesterday aimed at preventing marketing practices that have exposed military personnel, especially recruits and junior officers, to high-pressure or deceptive sales pitches for insurance and other financial products.

The proposed rules are the Defense Department's first official response to concerns raised in Congress last fall after reports in The New York Times documented abusive sales practices and unsuitable financial products on several military bases, including Fort Benning in Georgia and Camp Pendleton in California. Congress is considering legislation, introduced with bipartisan support, to address problems raised in the reports.

Quote of note:

None of the three key GOP moderates said they planned to oppose Bolton, but they agreed more time was needed to address outstanding questions.

Apparently, buried beneath geological strata of rhetoric and discipline the occasional sane Republican still exists.

Before Tuesday's committee meeting, two moderate Republicans, Sens. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, had said they were concerned about the allegations against Bolton, but remained inclined to support him.

That led the committee chairman, Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), to conclude that the 10 Republicans on the committee would rebuff pleas from the eight committee Democrats for more time. Lugar expressed irritation at parliamentary moves earlier Tuesday by Democrats seeking to delay the vote, and insisted a committee vote be held Tuesday.

"We were not born yesterday," Lugar told the Democrats. "The Republicans want to vote for John Bolton, and there are 10 Republicans here."

Democrats complained that Lugar was trying to ram the nomination through the committee and that they had not had time to substantiate or refute allegations against Bolton that began when a fellow State Department official testified that Bolton was a bully and a "serial abuser" of underlings.

Lugar attempted to cut off the debate. "We have indulged, I believe, in a lot of give," he said. "So, the give is over."

Then, however, Voinovich spoke up, saying that the treatment of subordinates was an important issue to him, and that if forced to vote Tuesday, he would oppose Bolton. "I've heard enough today that I don't feel comfortable about voting for Mr. Bolton," Voinovich said.

Facing a 9-9 tie that would block the nomination from going to the full Senate and potentially embarrass Bush, Lugar agreed to delay the vote until mid-May.

I wonder if the nut job Republicans actually out-number the moderates.

Then he says something else...

I have mixed opinions about Kilson's conclusions. I agree that there are Talented Tenth aspirations among us, but that Progressivism and race raising is nowhere near as important as it once was - that the relative amount of time elite blacks need to consider and dedicate themselves to their inferiors is less .

For the record, I haven't read part one or part two of Kilson's series in The Black Commentator. I'm waiting for the whole package, which I will then print and read in the park while drinking good beer from a brown paper bag.

...I still have to send you to read Cobb once in a while.

Faheem at Black Thought and Introspection:

"Red Lining" Governmental racism rears its ugly head again!

In a throw back to the Jim Crowe era in America, the Government is once again found to have a policy of Red Lining

Red Lining of course is not limited to the building of Homes and the manipulation of the net worth of a home. Red lining is also the illegal discrimination in regards to what financial services are made available and where businesses are set up, and this is where the Government is practicing Red Lining today.

The Prince George County (PGC) Black Chamber of Commerce noticed that no federal leasing was developing to the benefit of its 70% Black county. The Black Chamber of Commerce knows that the number one employer of the D.C. area is the federal government which means no federal leasing means no or less job opportunities for the men and women that reside in PGC. The National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) investigated on behalf of the PGC Chamber and believe it or not they found that:

He's also a cool person with excellent taste in cigars.

Quote of note:

"I'm not sure whether we have an American theater," says Wilson. "We have a European-American theater based on the values and conceptions of European drama. But in order to have an American theater you have to allow all the influences of all the different racial and ethnic groups that make up the country. Then you can come up with a theater that is uniquely and truly American. I don't think just because they do my plays is living up to the responsibilities of truly building an American theater."

In August Company
'Radio Golf' Fulfills August Wilson's Vow To Compete 10-Play African American Cycle
April 17, 2005
By FRANK RIZZO, Courant Staff Writer

Homecoming is too simple a word for it. The scene takes place in late March, when August Wilson returns to the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven to be introduced to an assembly of students of the School of Drama.

This is the custom for the creative team for each main stage production. The event is not just a warm welcoming but celebratory, poignant, historic and right.

Long applause, along with whoops, cheers and tears, greet the arrival of the conquering playwright, who was plucked from obscurity 21 years ago and given a stage to call his own at the Rep. Wilson is bringing his 10-play, decade-by-decade cycle of the African American experience in the 20th century to a close at the Rep with the premiere of "Radio Golf," which begins performances Friday.

I've decided to maintain a low-volume blog on The Niggerati Network. One, maybe two posts per day, and little to nothing directly working the news. That's actually how I worked the first incarnation of the N-Net, and it was pretty successful in its short lifetime.

Here's an example of the level I want to work on.

Quote of note:

Combs suffered lacerations on the left side of his head, two fractures near his eye, deep tissue bruises on his back, and has vision trouble. He was working at Home Depot at the time of his arrest, but has been unemployed since the incident, Lewis said.

Violent traffic stop was taped
A Davie police officer is under investigation after allegations that he used excessive force during a September traffic stop.
By NATALIE P. McNEAL

Davie police are investigating a claim that an undercover detective used excessive force on a driver after following him for a DUI traffic stop.

Quote of note:

The 50-year-old was arrested in Miami on Nov. 31, 2003 and charged with failing to disperse. After being frisked and told to empty her pockets, Haney said, she was stunned to learn she was going to be strip searched.

After she removed her clothes, Haney said in a statement, the guard told her ''to turn around, bend all the way over and spread my cheeks.'' Haney was then told to squat and ''hop like a bunny'' -- a method of dislodging contraband -- which was difficult because she has bad knees. The guard then told her to remove her naval piercing and when she couldn't, the guard came back with large clippers and cut it off.

Lawsuit on strip searches settled
Miami-Dade settles a class-action lawsuit in which thousands of women say they were illegally strip-searched by the Corrections Department.
BY NOAKI SCHWARTZ AND TRENTON DANIEL

The McLaughlin Group is a lot more serious about being online than they were a year ago. They are absolutely current with transcripts from The McLaughlin Group, and as of this writing have video of the shows through last week.

This week one of the topics was the estate tax, and Mortimer Zuckerman gave an excellent description of the state of affairs.

MR. ZUCKERMAN: I think this is one of the most immoral pieces of legislation imaginable. Of the 19,000 people that you referred to last year who paid estate taxes, only 440 of them -- count that; that's not a typo -- 440 of them were small businesses or farms.

This is mostly the wealthy people who never pay taxes on the appreciation of their assets. Their companies are assets that grew during their lifetime. They never sold it so they never paid taxes on it. Now it's going to go to their beneficiaries, and they will not pay taxes on it. So it's a wonderful program for the one-third of 1 percent at the most who really made a lot of money.

Here's the exchange:

I know y'all like them MoveOn-type videos, so here's a nice one on Thomas.

No clown shows, just a series of relevant quote set to relevant music.

Quote of note:

"What the secretary is really saying is that the administration has backed down under pressure from members of Congress who depend on campaign contributions from big agribusiness," he said. "It was smart and courageous for the president to propose limiting payments, closing loopholes and cutting overall subsidies. His change of plans is a sad reminder of this administration's policy to leave no big business behind."

Administration officials deny that is the case.

Farm Subsidies May Not Face Limits
Lawmakers Would Have to Find Other Ways to Cut Costs

By Dan Morgan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 15, 2005; Page A23

Broadly applicable quote of note:

"Their attitudes toward the needed policy changes seem much like St. Augustine's -- 'Lord, give me chastity . . . but not just yet.' "

Finding Consensus On Global Economy
Finance Chiefs Agree on Need for Change

By Paul Blustein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 18, 2005; Page A08

A serious danger looms over the otherwise robust global economy, and the tough measures needed to reduce it are clear. On that score, there was almost unanimous agreement among the dark-suited policymakers from around the globe who converged on Washington this weekend for the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

Quote of note:

Still, the preeminence of African-American studies at Harvard has been threatened in recent years by a stream of departures from the department.

The stormiest was that of Cornel West, who left for Princeton in 2002 after a confrontation with Summers early in the president's tenure. The same year, another celebrated professor, K. Anthony Appiah, also left for Princeton.

Last fall, sociologist Lawrence Bobo and his wife, Marcyliena Morgan, accepted jobs at Stanford after Summers denied Morgan tenure, despite the unanimous support of her department.

Their departure prompted Michael C. Dawson, a close collaborator of Bobo's, to accept a position at the University of Chicago.

...but

''The core faculty are the strongest of any African-American studies department in the country," said Manning Marable, who founded Columbia's African-American studies program. ''That's just a fact."

Harvard's Gates to step down as department head

By Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff  |  April 16, 2005

Nate at Cincinatti Black Blog wrote a fairly intense article on Air America's replacing Chuck D with Jerry Springer. It was picked up by Counterpunch and went from there around the globe via email.

One of the shards landed in a mailing list I read and sparked a right interesting conversation(as it happens, Darkstar was in on the discussion too). And one of my old jousting partners made a statement I intend to make liberal use of. I just have to admit I didn't make it up myself, once.

Here's some context. In response to this,from Nate's article:

After being on the air for a year, Air America finds itself struggling to attract and keep listeners, just as the Democratic Party struggles to gain and keep voters. The removal of > Chuck D -- one of only two daily African American talk show hosts -- represents much more > than just the "whitening" of Air America, it symbolizes just how far the Party has drifted > away from the Black community, it's most loyal support base.

Darkstar wrote:

Seriously, that's what it says:

The most hopeful sign, however, comes in the courage and eloquence of individual black conservatives who are willing to withstand hatred to defend their beliefs. They are radically committed to color-blindness and, for that reason, reject the idea that a new black leader is necessary to give legitimacy to conservative thought.

But they don't seem very color-blind to me. In fact "radically committed to color-blindness" means "specifically rejecting everything connected with the collective identity you share in and, in the face of all evidence, deny." That requires an exquisitely honed color sensitivity.

This is not an article written for Black folks. And I want you to consider what type of person reads statements like those below and nods their head in quiet agreement.

I can never keep a secret.

I'm serious about getting the Niggerati Network started now. I've upgraded it to the latest Drupal and it went well enough that I may risk it on this fraggin' humongous database. It's full of the sort of changes that will appeal to coders, but just as important the admin interface is a lot more rational (though I just looked at Mambo's interface and felt real jealous).

Better, I have a grip on the codebase such that I'm pretty sure I can do whatever I want. For instance:

• Having just gotten a grip on the theming system I built one from scratch, and of course I did stuff that I wasn't really supposed to. As a result (pointing at a couple of blogs that survived the previous efforts) if you look at the banners here, here and here you see that blogs or diaries or whatever you want to call them get to specify the header image, name (in green), slogan (in white) and mission (in red). The blog name link in the header goes to the blog page of the author; the one around the link goes to the site's index page.
• I have a calendar on which I'll be posting public events that I become aware of. Pretty much like what I've been posting all along, but now their on a calendar. That means I'm less likely to forget stuff. I built it using the Flexinode module because it's was quick but I'll likely rework it with custom code because Flexinode stuff doesn't strike me as very searchable.
• Once I work out some CSS issues there will be WYSIWYG editing that actually works without extra pages to the browser history.
• This thing is now a piece of cake to run multiple sites from. I had set up a support site for some of my Drupal code with a really random URL. I think I'll be moving it to run under the N-Net. I'll probably show some of the simple but highly sought after stuff I haven't really shared yet, like multi-page nodes.
• I can read Atom files in the aggregator now. That's a hack and I don't know what's taking them so long to work that into core...I suspect a touch of disdain for all things bloggish. But anyway, I can load up a whole bag of feeds now and I know there code out there to let members with blog stuff directly from the aggregator. If I find it, I'll be loading up mostly the sort of sites bloggers like to overanalyze.
• They did add an RSS 2.0 API. This is a BIG improvement on the outgoing syndication side.

We march because we should be able to wear whatever we want.
We march because men are survivors too.
We march because domestic violence is a problem in all communities.
We march because family and friends share the pain.
We march because no one should have to be afraid.

Tonight is a night of survival in the most active sense of the word. We shout to combat the silence that is forced upon us. Join us for Columbia University's annual march against relationship and sexual violence, Take Back the Night. We will meet in front of Barnard Hall at 8pm on Thursday, April 21st. The speakout will follow and last as long as people stay. We invite you to come to any or all parts of the march and speakout.

Food will be served. Free childcare is available.

Don't Be a 'Girlie Man'
As long as California is projecting a potential $10-billion deficit, governor, now is the right time to reconsider Prop. 13. Come on . . .
By Lee Green
Lee Green last wrote for the magazine about the U.S. Forest Service.
April 17, 2005

OK, you've been in office nearly a year and a half now, and we've yet to see any evidence that you're willing to curl, thrust, jerk, bench press or even touch one of the heaviest issues in California's political weight room. As Warren Buffett famously hinted during your campaign, it's time to do some heavy lifting, governor.

In fact, let's go back to that Buffett thing. Here's a man who knows finance better than Einstein knew physics, and who manages money better than California does. Actually, everyone manages money better than California does, but Buffett has proved to be especially adept so adept that you cast him as an economic advisor during your campaign. He had barely warmed his chair, though, when he did something frowned upon in politics: He spoke the truth.

Once Moderates Built Bridges; Now They Must Burn Them
Ronald Brownstein
Washington Outlook
April 18, 2005

...During the contentious Foreign Relations hearings last week, Chafee gave every indication he intended to back Bolton. Chafee says he's waiting to hear all the evidence. But his press secretary, Stephen Hourahan, says the senator "is inclined" to give Bush his choice at the U.N. Yet Chafee also made it abundantly clear last week that Bolton would not be his choice. "I wish this wasn't the nominee to the United Nations," Chafee said plaintively.

Chafee's lament captured a dynamic much larger than the struggle over Bolton. This is a miserable moment for centrist senators. They are caught between a president pursuing an aggressive, even crusading, conservative agenda and a Democratic Party fighting ferociously to block it. That frequently leaves the centrists, like Chafee with Bolton, wishing for an alternative that isn't available.

Quote of note:

This year, sensing that mandatory-reporting legislation by Wolk and Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, might have a chance of passage, the California Bankers Association proposed alternative "elder abuse legislation" (AB1664) that calls for voluntary reporting of suspected fraud. In a conference call this week, representatives of the CBA suggested that employee training was the key to detecting elder abuse.

Which raises the question: If all banks were so concerned about the exploitation of their most vulnerable customers, why hasn't such training become the industry standard? Besides, let's cut through the industry-lobby smoke: A law to do something voluntarily is no law at all.

"If voluntary programs worked, I wouldn't be here with a bill, the district attorneys wouldn't be supporting it and senior organizations wouldn't be pushing for it," Wolk said. "What we have now is voluntary reporting -- and it isn't working."

On Financial Abuse
How to steal from grandma
Sunday, April 17, 2005

I must be feeling arrogant to let this thought see the light of day...

As Stocks Slide, Investors Hope for Positive Earnings Reports
By JONATHAN FUERBRINGER

After last week's market plunge - when America's three main stock gauges fell more than 3 percent - Wall Street and unusually nervous individual investors are looking to the flood of earnings reports this week to see how optimistic corporate America is in its outlook for the economy.

Almost a third of the companies in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index and almost half the 30 companies that make up the Dow Jones industrial average are to report earnings for the first three months of the year. But more importantly, many of them will comment on the financial quarters ahead and could either counter or reinforce the current pessimism about the economy.

This is important, but its importance isn't what most folks think it is. To explain what I'm talking about I first lift a little explanatory text from Economics Explained : Everything You Need to Know About How the Economy Works and Where It's Going (and there's never been a more accurately named book). This is from pages 84 and 85.

Cool story about a true rarity: a talented artist that's in it for the art...not money (though it seems he's making a living nowadays) and definitely not fame.

Since there's no pictures with the story per se, check the multimedia slide show. It not only gives examples of his work but probably tells you all Revs feels you need to know about him anyway. Or even a little more.

Anyway, here ya go.

A Graffiti Legend Is Back on the Street
By RANDY KENNEDY

He arrived on foot, and on time, wearing heavily grease-stained beige overalls and boots. He seemed to be in his late 30's or early 40's, with thinning light brown hair. He had the windburned eyes and blackened fingernails of an ironworker, along with the vaguely feral intensity of someone on the lam.

See?

For more than a year, large quantities of scrap metal from some of the sites have routinely been filling the scrap yards of Iraq and neighboring countries like Jordan. But with this new emergence of a huge panoply of intact factory, machine and vehicle parts, it appears that some looters may have held back the troves they stole two years ago, waiting for prices to rise.

"Spare parts?" said Staff Sgt. William Larock, an American reservist in a division out of Rochester, N.Y., who is stationed near Munthriya and is coordinating repairs of some of Mr. Hussein's old troop carriers to be used for the new Iraqi Army. "A lot of them come from the market in Baghdad."

But now the bad news:

...the pieces of the artillery factory were headed to Iran when they were seized a few months ago by Iraqi border guards. They appeared to have been cut apart just so; the dismemberment allowed the material to meet the official definition of scrap, but did no damage that would prevent the pieces from being reassembled.

...Much more valuable machinery also vanished from some of the sites in the weeks after the invasion: so-called dual-use equipment, which could be used in civilian manufacturing and in building parts for nuclear weapons. Witness accounts have indicated that much of it was carried off in systematic looting in the six to eight weeks after Baghdad fell on April 9, 2003. That equipment, which investigators say was more likely coveted for its monetary value rather than its military value, disappeared without any public trace. If an entire artillery factory could come this close to crossing the border, some military specialists say, then the dual-use equipment had a chance of getting out as well.

Arms Equipment Plundered in 2003 Is Surfacing in Iraq
By JAMES GLANZ

The perfect response to accusations that "leftist organizations" are attacking Tom DeLay. Pay attention. Take a lesson.

MR. RUSSERT:  Democrats seem to be rejoicing on this.  In fact, here's a quote in USA Today.  Quoting one Barney Frank:  "Democrats think they can make DeLay an issue that costs Republican seats in next year's elections. `Democrats have gone from being frustrated that people weren't paying enough attention to DeLay to being afraid he's going be thrown out too soon.'"

REP. FRANK:  Yeah, this is a very, very different issue.  As I said, this is not a case of just peccadillos.  We're not talking about travel only, about, you know, the bed was too soft or the golf was too frequent.  We're talking about a whole approach to public policy, and we think that this illustrates, this very distorted approach to public policy that we've seen.

You know, Mr. Blunt mentioned, well, we passed the highway bill, and he's taking credit for that.  The highway bill was supposed to have been passed last year.  It expired.  If you talk to anybody who's in the business of trying to build highways of plan highways, they're terribly frustrated this Republican Congress has held it up so much.  They have held it up because the president, because of his other priorities, has insisted on holding highway spending and public transportation spending far below what even the Republican leaders in the Congress have thought was necessary.  But, yeah, it is true. We do think that Mr. DeLay is symptomatic of a corruption, frankly, of the public policy process.  That's more important to me than a question of this or that trip or this or that payment to this or that relative, etc.  It's the public policy process.

You saw it the Schiavo case, you see it in this assault on the judges.  What we have got are people who campaigned in 1994 as reformers, and they were going change things.  And in area after area after area, Mr. Blunt made that clear.  In 1997, they reformed the ethics process.  They have now de-reformed it.  They have shut down the debate in the House of Representatives and in public policy terms, they're using that.  He talked about some of the things that have come up.

Well, there are other issues that we would like to see come up on the floor of the House.  The health care for veterans.  You know, they didn't just dump Mr. Hefley as chairman of the Ethics Committee, they dumped Chris Smith from New Jersey, as chairman of the Veterans Committee.  His term hadn't expired, in terms of his length--because he had been fighting hard for veterans benefits. So, yeah, we do think that Mr. DeLay's grip on the Republican Party and the extreme right-wing position that he has articulated and used that grip to enforce are legitimate campaign issues.  That's what politics is all about.

MR. RUSSERT:  You're trying to make Tom DeLay a poster boy?

REP. FRANK:  No.  Tom DeLay made Tom DeLay a poster boy.  I was trying--yes, I did think for years that Tom DeLay's influence as a very, very right-wing guy, who sincerely believes it by the way.  I don't think this is a man who's out to line his pockets.  He happens to believe very sincerely.  I think, you know, he gets carried away.  He, himself, admitted that when he kind of threatened judges with retribution, that that was a word he shouldn't have said.  But, yeah, we have been trying to get across to people that while there are some moderate-sounding Republicans, the heart of the Republican Party is this extremely conservative group that dominates.  And Mr. DeLay, I guess in part because of the Schiavo situation and his prominence there when they tried to order the federal courts to do something, and they are now, by the way--and I think this is relevant--the Republicans are threatening all kinds of action against these liberal judges, who include of course Justices Scalia and Thomas and  Rehnquist.  Yeah, I think it is very healthy for the country to understand who the Republicans really are and who they really are.

This is from Meet The Press today too.

MR. RUSSERT:  Should Congressman DeLay have a full press conference, take any question?  We've offered him a full hour here on MEET THE PRESS, just come and sit and talk about these allegations and try to put them to rest.

REP. BLUNT:  You know, my guess is that the only way he can effectively do this is where you can sit down with counsel on both sides, look through all of the documents that are available and prove the point.

They keep saying DeLay hasn't done anything everyone else isn't doing. Wonderful. But differences in degree eventually become differences in kind. That why blind, unrestricted application of principles without regard to outcome is destructive.

I was about to type up a whole bunch of what Barney Frank said about the Ethics Committee debacle on Meet the Press today.

But they rushed out a transcript. So without further ado I present the problem with the rule changes.

REP. FRANK:  I want to respond because there's a very central point there. Mr. Blunt says that's the way the rules were until 1997, because there's a pattern here.  The Republicans took power in 1995 on the grounds that things were terribly corrupt and badly run and they were going to change things.  And it is true, initially, they changed them.  And, again, this is very critical. What--the difference is this:  Should you be able, by simply holding your own party loyalists in line, to stop an ethics investigation?  That's what the rule now says.  The Republicans came to power and they changed the rule.  He said it was done with very little thought.

I must say, Mr. Blunt, that's rather dismissive of your Republican revolution.  You say that in 1997--the Republicans came to power in '95 and fairly shortly after that they changed the rule.

But this is the pattern they've had.  They changed the rules because they said they were unfair.  Now, that they've been in power for a while, these rules are inconvenient.  Mr. DeLay was rebuked three times by the committee, admonished three times by the committee.  So they've changed the rules back. So let's understand what he just said, that the Republican revolution came in, changed the rules so that one party couldn't balk an investigation of its own member, and when it began to bite, they changed them back again.  That's the pattern, by the way,that the Republicans have engaged in on a whole lot of things.  But the central point is this:  I agreed with that change.  It used to be, until the Republicans changed it this year, that you could not have your own party dismiss the investigation.  Now, you can.

Quote of note:

The only reason NBA Commissioner David Stern even has to address this is because there's so much societal pressure to do so. It's as if people can't handle the sight of young black men getting millions right after they return their prom tuxedos to the rental shop. Meanwhile there's no movement to stop child entertainers.

It Remains an Age-Old Question for the NBA
J.A. Adande
April 14, 2005

First, let's get the terms right. Jermaine O'Neal never called anyone a racist.

Didn't use the r-word at all, in fact. It was added parenthetically to his comments about the NBA's desire to institute a 20-year-old minimum age requirement for the draft.

Eleanor Clift, The McLaughlin Report, April 17, 2005:

Progressive Democrats last week came out with an interesting tax idea, that is, why don't we tax wealth, uh capital and earnings at the same rate, wages at the same rate. Right now the working man pays more on the money that he puts his blood sweat and tears out for than people uh, get on capital that just sits there. It's an interesting idea and we're going to hear more about it.

Prometheus 6, Oldspeak vs. Newspeak, August 1, 2004.

Unearned income (as defined by the US Tax code) is taxed at a much lower rate than earned income. In the U.S. Tax code, unearned income is privileged over earned income, and in Republican political and economic policy even more so.

People whose earned income is taxed at 40% can be subsidized if their income is mostly of the unearned sort.

Remember that when Republicans talk about keeping your "hard earned money." Their tax cuts are almost all on the unearned type of income.

Rep. Barney Frank did well. I was VERY pleased when he refused to let Rep. Blunt overtalk him. When he asked Russert directly if they were just going to talk over each other there was only answer any of them can make.

Hopefully this is the beginning of the deCrossfirefication of serious political discussion. It's hard to rag on the Coulters of the world when the legitimate politicians do the same thing writ small.

Interesting response to Frist's problems.

TL: You can't extrapolate what one alleged leader or potential leader of this group says to Senator Bill Frist.

But you can extrapolate the Senator's views from the groups he chooses to visit.

Nice line though...it not only excuses Bill Frist but provides rhetorical cover for his cohort's neoconfederate organization appearances.

Immediately afterward George Stephanopolis asked Senator Lott a direct question. Watch the artful dodge:

GS: Do you believe Senator Schumer and other Democrats are using the filibuster against people of faith?

TL: People of faith have been abused, I don't think it's because of their faith.

GS: By whom?

TL: Ah, well, no, a lot of the nominees were men and women, or are men and women of strong faith, now, remember what I said, people of faith were abused, but not perhaps because of their faith., although people do get nervous about a pattern that sets in there, but here's the thing about Frist.

Since Senate rules currently require a two-thirds majority to change the rules, I think it can be argued you need a two thirds majority to change the rule on how rules change before the nuclear option can be voted on.

Man Saves Chicken With Mouth-to-Beak
Saturday, April 16, 2005
(04-16) 19:27 PDT Collbran, Colo. (AP) --

First there was Mike the Headless Chicken, a rooster that survived for 18 months after having its head lopped off with an ax. Now, western Colorado has a new chicken survival story, this one involving a man who claims he saved his fowl by giving it mouth-to-beak resuscitation.

Uegene Safken says one of the chickens in his young flock had gotten into a tub of water in the yard last week and appeared to have died.

Safken said he first swung the chicken by the feet to revive it. When that failed, he continued swinging and blowing into its beak.

"Then one eye opened. I thought it was an involuntary response," Safken said. The chicken's beak opened a little wider, and Safken started yelling at it: "You're too young to die!

"Every time I'd yell at him, he'd chirp," Safken said.

But it's a summary of the evolving opinions expressed by neocons.

The Evolution of the Neocons
From cynics to believers.
Michael Kinsley
April 17, 2005

The term "neoconservative" started out as an insult, and it is still used that way. When people say that the selection of Paul Wolfowitz to head the World Bank marks the triumph of neocons in Bush administration foreign policy, they are generally not indicating pleasure. Some cynics even say the "neocon" label is anti-Semitic: Doesn't it just refer to a Jewish intellectual you disagree with?

That's way too harsh. But what does neoconservative actually mean? Rich Lowry, a conservative of the non-neo variety writing in the current issue of the National Interest, defines a neocon as someone with a "messianic vision" of using American power to spread democracy, an indifference to the crucial distinction between what would be nice and what is essential to national security, and excessive optimism that we can arrange things according to our own values in strange and faraway lands.

Seriously, if you look you'll see the neocon cohort has hung together as their public opinions flexed and flowed. Based on that, I'd say "neoconservative" actually means "a member of a club that believed it knows better than anyone else how things should run, and has the connections to pursue that power."

Quote of note

After the purge, the president stacked the court with his allies. In his speech Friday suspending civil liberties, the president also dismissed all 31 of the high court's justices in a concession to the opposition.

The president of Congress announced Saturday night that there would be a special session today to discuss the law covering the appointment of Supreme Court justices and the future composition of the court.

In his televised message Friday, Gutierrez said he was dissolving the court because it had been constituted only as a temporary measure and it was time to move on. "Beloved people of Ecuador, let's now leave everything in God's hands," he said.

Ecuadoreans Defy Suspension of Civil Liberties; Decree Lifted
President Gutierrez issued the order after three nights of protests against his rule, but thousands disobey with demonstrations.