Aerospace Rivalry Expands
Airbus Parent to Build Alabama Plant In Bid to Wrest Defense Work From Boeing
By Renae Merle and Sara Kehaulani Goo
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 23, 2005; Page D01

Europe's largest defense and aerospace company announced yesterday that it will build a manufacturing and engineering facility in Mobile, Ala., intensifying its campaign for a toehold in the U.S. defense market.

The move is the latest in a bold bid by Franco-German European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. to position itself as an American company and grab U.S. military contracts. It thrusts the rivalry between Boeing Co. and Airbus SA, a unit of EADS, into the defense market after a fierce battle for supremacy in sales of commercial airliners.

Statement by a good hearted person that is TOTALLY ignorant or in denial about the nature of the American economic system. Of note.

It is not possible to establish even a limited monopoly over microbiology. The field is too fundamental to the improvement of global public health, and too central to the development of important industries such as pharmaceuticals and plastics, to be isolated.

Censoring Science Won't Make Us Any Safer
By Laura K. Donohue
Sunday, June 26, 2005; Page B05

...Approximately every four years, Australia suffers a mouse infestation. In 1998, scientists in Canberra began examining the feasibility of using a highly contagious disease, mousepox, to alter the rodents' ability to reproduce. Their experiments yielded surprising results. Researchers working with mice naturally resistant to the disease found that combining a gene from the rodent's immune system (interleukin-4) with the pox virus and inserting the pathogen into the animals killed them -- all of them. Plus 60 percent of the mice not naturally resistant who had been vaccinated against mousepox.

Not that I mind at all...it's the accurate term.

Keeping Faith With Religious Freedom
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Saturday, June 25, 2005; Page A23

There was no obvious political benefit in David Obey's decision to take on the defense of religious minorities at the Air Force Academy. Because he stood up for their rights on the floor of the House of Representatives, the Wisconsin Democrat found himself accused of "denigrating and demonizing Christians."

Obey is unbowed. "I think if you asked God, he'd say the Ten Commandments were a road map for living," Obey said in a recent interview. "Instead, you have these self-appointed pharisees who think the Ten Commandments can be turned into a stiletto to use against their political opponents."

Yup. Pharasees and money changers.

Quote of note

But Ferdinand and others expressed reservations about approving a drug specifically for blacks. They cited concern it would provide ammunition for the discredited idea that there are basic biological differences between the races, which historically has been used to justify discrimination.

"It invites people to think there are significant biological distinctions between racial groups when in fact the evidence shows nothing of the sort," said M. Gregg Bloche of Georgetown University. "There's a risk of casual thinking that can shade over into discrimination -- there's a substantial risk."

We are, of course, talking about BiDil. And we should be clear we want such medicines.

Just remember: Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

Quote of note:

A clear head and a calculator will tell you very quickly that the costs of this conflict in Iraq are on a scale far beyond whatever benefits it was supposed to bring. 

The Empire s New Clothes
The cost of the war in Iraq is almost beyond imagining. But as it comes into focus, it s no wonder that the public is turning against it.
By Christopher Dickey

Newsweek

Updated: 3:21 p.m. ET June 24, 2005

June 24 - So the polls show most Americans don t  think it was worth going to war in Iraq.  An even bigger majority, almost six in 10, are dissatisfied with the Global War on Terror or, as the inside-the-Beltway types call it, the GWOT. This may seem a little contrary, even ungrateful, given that the same Americans are increasingly confident they won t have to face another terrorist attack like 9/11 anytime real soon. (Only 4 percent thought one might happen in the next few weeks.) Something seems to be keeping the terrorists at bay. President George W. Bush says it s the war in Iraq. So is the public just churlish? Or stupid?  I don t think so. What we re seeing with these recent polls, in fact, is a return to common sense.

Quote of note:

Anita van der Sloot insisted her husband had done nothing wrong and said Aruban authorities arrested him because they were under pressure.

"My husband is a man of integrity who has been working in the justice system 15 years and was taken without evidence," she said, describing him as "the most honest, beautiful man."

"How can this happen? This is not about Natalee anymore. It's about enormous pressure from the (United) States and the media," she said.

Aruba Police Arrest Father of Dutch Teen
By PETER PRENGAMAN

ORANJESTAD, Aruba — Aruban police arrested the father of a young Dutch teen already in custody in connection with the disappearance of a young Alabama woman, and said Thursday that he was considered a suspect in the 3-week-old case.

Ex-SunTrust employee charged in check scam
Published on: 06/24/05

A federal grand jury has indicted a former SunTrust Bank employeefor allegedly giving information about bank customers to a man who used it to defraud the bank, authorities announced Thursday.

The U.S. attorney's office and the FBI said Jonathan Bryan Adair, 23, of Atlanta, is accused of giving information about customers with more than $5,000 in their accounts to Ayyub Abdul Khaliq Cornelius, 32, of Atlanta. Both men are named in an indictment charging conspiracy, bank fraud and identity theft.

Cops: Woman, 78, killed beau, 85
Victim had a new girlfriend, police say
By BETH WARREN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/24/05

Lena Driskell didn't have the look of a suspected killer   wearing a hair net, support stockings, bathrobe and slippers.

But Atlanta police say the 78-year-old's motive was quite common —  a woman scorned.

...but that would run counter to centuries of tradition.

Time running out in Haiti
By Mark L. Schneider  |  June 23, 2005

IT'S TWO MINUTES to midnight in Haiti. When the clock strikes, the country will implode and become a permanent failed state, right on our doorstep. About the only thing that can stop the clock, let alone start winding it back some, is if the Bush administration commits Marines, money, and diplomatic muscle to help the United Nations Mission there.

That may sound alarmist, but it is time to ring the alarm: The daily deterioration of security has now reached panic proportions. Dozens of kidnappings, turf gang battles, and drug-financed or politically motivated killings, some involving the Haitian National Police, spell out the deadly menace in Haiti day after day. The country is on the edge of a complete collapse.

I can work the intellectual side of that street and I gotrespect like I got for whatever spiritual practice but I don't have the roots, recipes or relationships to be a practitioner. As such I don't ever speak to that.

I do notice conjuremen and root workers have the same issues we sociopolitical ranters have to deal with.

Maybe I should hang with the conjuremen for a while, though. Not only can I get more exposure to folks like Rickydoc, I get different kinda links.

Links to sites like Breath of Life:

All humans make music. Black music (meaning music produced or heavily influenced by people of African descent) is one of the main forces in popular music of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Even though Black music is ultimately a reflection and expression of the experiences of people of African descent, Black music is not an exclusively racial product. People from diverse backgrounds all over the world produce rap, jazz, blues, gospel, funk and many other forms of Black music. Additionally, from classical music to what is humorously called "hick hop" (rap influenced country music), Black music has directly affected all major forms of music in the world today.

This website is a celebration of Black music. We update every Monday and offer three selections each week: a classic (music that is a major example of a specific genre or style), a contemporary (music produced within the last decade or so), and a cover (previously recorded music that is given a new or different interpretation).

But also because these guys are old heads like me.

Yesterday's Supreme Court decision to enhance local government's powers of eminent domain is just a continuation of an old problem: corporate welfare.

What Is Corporate Welfare? (pdf)

Corporate welfare consists of government programs that provide unique benefits or advantages to specific companies or industries. Corporate welfare includes programs that provide direct grants to businesses, programs that provide indirect commercial support to businesses, and programs that provide subsidized loans and insurance.

Many corporate welfare programs provide useful services to private industry, such as insurance, statistics, research, loans, and marketing support. Those are all functions that many industries in the private sector do for themselves. If the commercial activities of government are useful and efficient, then private markets should be able to support them without subsidies.

That's beginning of The Cato Institute's take on corporate welfare. Not that it's terribly clever...just that the Institute is heard by folks who wouldn't normally listen to me at all.

It used to be Negro Removal.

'...but I wasn't Black so I said nothing.'

When they run out of Black folks they come for the rest of you.

High court backs seizure of land for development
By Peter S. Canellos, Globe Staff  |  June 24, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court yesterday granted cities and towns the right to force the sale of private property to make way for economic development projects, ending a closely watched battle between homeowners and the City of New London, Conn., over a plan for a sprawling waterfront complex of private housing, stores, restaurants, and businesses.

The Quote of note comes from Mark Morford's reaction to this story on the SF Chronicle's CultureBlog,

It's enough to make you look at your seemingly messy whiny drama-filled life and go, wow, you know what? I have no problems whatsoever.

Lions Rescue, Guard Beaten Ethiopian Girl
- By ANTHONY MITCHELL, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
(06-21) 17:37 PDT ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) --

A 12-year-old girl who was abducted and beaten by men trying to force her into a marriage was found being guarded by three lions who apparently had chased off her captors, a policeman said Tuesday.

Quote of note:

Over the last five years, the number of registered lobbyists in the nation's capital has more than doubled. Starting salaries for lobbyists have shot up from $200,000 to $300,000, and the fees charged by some have doubled.

... Birnbaum cited Hewlett-Packard, which nearly doubled its lobbying expenditures to $734,000, and won tax breaks worth millions. As HP's top lobbyist told Birnbaum, "We're trying to take advantage of the fact that Republicans control the House, the Senate and the White House."

...Republicans, on the other hand, have no economic constituency besides business. As a result, the GOP has been completely captured by its component interests. Under previous GOP presidents, there was some shame attached to blatant corporate giveaways. But Republicans such as Bush, DeLay, Karl Rove and Grover Norquist have a new ethos of total partisan warfare, in which the business lobby is their ironclad ally.

Hustling on K Street
Under the Republicans, it's all for sale.
Jonathan Chait
June 24, 2005

The Art of 'Manufacturing Uncertainty'
By David Michaels
David Michaels, a professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health, served as assistant secretary of Energy between 1998 and 2001.
June 24, 2005

To many scientists and policymakers in Washington, the revelation this month that Philip Cooney, chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, had rewritten a federal report to magnify the level of uncertainty on climate change came as no surprise. Uncertainty is easily manipulated, and Cooney —  a former lobbyist with the American Petroleum Institute, one of the nation's leading manufacturers of scientific uncertainty —  was highly familiar with its uses.

Both teams go into the fourth quarter with less than 60 points?

Wild.

San Antonio wins, because of Detroit's foul trouble.

These proportions sound familiar.

According to a 2004 poll by the Freedom Forum, the most recent available, 53 percent of Americans believed the Constitution should not be amended to make flag-burning illegal, while 45 percent supported a ban.

If it were up to me, I would move to close debate on the bill, and have every Democrat abstain.

Anyway...

Newsview: GOP Will Use Flag-Burning Issue As Tool to Divide Democrats in Election Year
By RON FOURNIER
The Associated Press

Jun. 23, 2005 - Symbols are everything in politics. They can get you elected or defeated. That's why Democrats fear getting singed by a proposed flag-burning ban, forced into a vote that Republicans will cast as a test of patriotism.

Pentagon Creating Database of High School Students
Privacy Advocates Say Recruitment Effort Goes Too Far

Jun. 23, 2005 - As U.S. military action in Iraq and Afghanistan continues, the Pentagon -- which has fallen short of its recruitment goals -- is using new means to find potential recruits.

Working with the private marketing firm BeNow, Inc. of Wakefield, Mass., the Pentagon has created a huge database of millions of high school students, aged 16 to 18.

The database includes names, dates of birth, genders, addresses, Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses, ethnicity, telephone numbers, and even grade point averages.

The purpose, according to a Defense Department statement, is "to assist" in "direct marketing recruiting efforts."

Flypaper theory comes unstuck
By Mark Tran / World news 04:50pm

One of the more Machiavellian justifications for invading Iraq was the flypaper theory. Invading and occupying Iraq might turn the country into a magnet for anti-US terrorists, the argument went, but it was better to slug it out in a distant and foreign land instead of closer to home.

The so-called flypaper strategy had a certain logic and superficial appeal even if it dripped cynicism. Most Iraqis might be glad to see the back of Saddam Hussein, but they are probably none too thrilled that their country has turned into a vicious battleground between US forces and the jihadists, especially as most of the casualties are Iraqis.

Congress Watch: For Frist, a pile of Bush burdens
Posted 6/22/05
By Terence Samuel

The second failed cloture vote on John Bolton in two weeks underscored that things are not going as planned for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, and some people are beginning to blame the White House for his troubles.

It is hard to schedule a vote you know you're going to lose, but there seems to be no chance that President Bush will pull the troubled Bolton nomination. Frist has been carrying the White House's water, which has turned into a burdensome task. Not enough Republican senators have warmed to Bolton to make his case a cause celebre, and that leaves Frist fighting a losing battle. But he not only has been forced to champion Bolton, whom one Republican aide described as having the "people skills of Robert Downey, Jr.," but has spent much of this Congress trying to get his colleagues to confirm judges who had been rejected in the last Congress. That is improbably difficult work for the most skilled and experienced of leaders. For Frist, who served no apprenticeship for the job, the task has been almost impossible. The two-term senator is clearly thinking about running for president in 2008, and at times it seems he is the nearest thing to an heir apparent to Bush as exists in the GOP.

Quote of note:

Perhaps its most troubling aspect, however, is that it's being sold as something different from what its authors hope it will become. Creating private accounts only to shut off their funding after a decade, just when the surplus becomes a deficit, makes little sense.

A worker retiring in 10 years would see a negligible effect. His or her account would contain the equivalent of a month or two's Social Security checks. For today's children, who'd enter the workforce after the surplus is extinguished, there would be no accounts.

With support flagging, GOP opts for shell game

Tupac Shakur arts center opens
Facility on Memorial Drive recalls rapper who was slain nearly a decade ago.
By MAE GENTRY
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/23/05

When rap artist Tupac Shakur was murdered nearly a decade ago, his mother vowed to keep his memory alive.

Afeni Shakur-Davis, a part-time Atlantan, established a foundation in her son's name dedicated to philanthropy and arts education. She wrote a book, "Evolution," detailing Tupac's life and roots. She co-produced a film, "Tupac: Resurrection," that was nominated for an Academy Award.

Senate Rejects Greenhouse Gas Limits
By Justin Blum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 23, 2005; Page A08

The Senate yesterday rejected a measure calling for mandatory limits on emissions linked to global warming, siding with the Bush administration's position that the restrictions would cost jobs, drive industry overseas and run up consumers' energy bills.

Voting 60 to 38, lawmakers rejected an amendment to a major energy bill that would have forced reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases to 2000 levels by 2010 and created an emissions trading program. Eleven Democrats joined Republicans in opposing the measure, and six Republicans voted with the Democrats to support it.

Quote of note:

The FBI's stance in this sensational case was no aberration. Those of us working for civil rights organizations found the same lack of responsiveness each time we visited FBI offices to report Klan harassment, shootings or beatings -- even acts in progress.

But don't put all the blame on Hoover and his men. Remember that white America was largely indifferent while millions of African Americans lived under an apartheid-like system that condoned their disenfranchisement and oppression.

The FBI's Mississippi Myopia
By Ron Carver
Thursday, June 23, 2005; Page A27

The nation watched this month as the trial of Klansman Edgar Ray Killen forced the white citizens of Philadelphia, Miss., to come to terms with their history. But Killen's manslaughter conviction in the 1964 killing of three young civil rights workers should be a time for all Americans to confront our complicity in Southern-style segregation.

Roots of Hatred
Edgar Ray Killen should be punished. But we can only way beat his legacy if we refuse to hate him.
WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Patti Davis
Newsweek

...I thought a lot about hatred yesterday when Edgar Ray Killen was convicted of three counts of manslaughter for the deaths of those three men who were murdered 41 years ago. I watched Killen s face on television as the jury was polled and the verdicts were read. I felt stirrings of hatred for him deep within me, and I paid attention to that.

Okay, that got my attention. Almost wish it hadn't...

I'm looking at the face of a killer, I thought, and I have no compassion for his age or his infirmities. I felt no pity for his wife, who wept and hugged him. She had to know. She had fallen in love with, and spent years with a man who was a leader in the Klu Klux Klan, who hated people because of the color of their skin. Who organized the mob that murdered three men who were simply trying to make it possible for black men and women to vote in Mississippi.

And I m left with another question: Is this how hatred always starts? With a tiny flame deep inside —  one that takes over if you don t look at it and choose to put it out? I don't embrace what I felt watching Edgar Ray Killen. I don't want to hate anyone. But maybe it's naive to assume that feeling will never come up in us. Maybe the best we can do is make a conscious choice to not surrender to it. Because there are many people in the world who don't do that who let it consume them. Edgar Ray Killen is just one.

I think I know what she's trying to do here, but let's not just trade illusions. This "being consumed" thing is nonsense...Edgar Ray Killen was acting well within the norms of the community at the time. He did not do it alone. It was not a unique, one-off event.

A Verdict in Mississippi

...This week's conviction of Edgar Ray Killen, an 80-year-old former Klansman, brings the case to a conclusion of sorts and affords some solace to the survivors of the dead. But the lingering mystery about why the state took 40 years to bring its first charges will very likely prevent this case from achieving the definitive end that the prosecutors and citizens of Neshoba County were hoping for.

No one can object to this. If your morality requires you not sell it, fine...it's not a prescription drug anyway. Since it prevents conception, it's not anything that can even approximately be called an abortion. And there is objective proof that life begins after conception anyway. It's ideal for post-rape situations...sucks that you have to think of that, but there it is...

Gov. Pataki needs to sign the bill.

Albany Legislators Back Giving Morning-After Pill Without Prescriptions
By MICHAEL COOPER and MARC SANTORA

ALBANY, June 22 - The Republican-led State Senate passed a bill on Wednesday that would allow pharmacists and nurses to dispense the so-called morning-after pill, which can prevent pregnancy after sex, to women who do not have prescriptions.

Quote of note:

Among the incidents highlighted in the report were fliers that advertised a screening of "The Passion of the Christ" at every seat in the dining hall, more than 250 people at the academy signing an annual Christmas message in the base newspaper that said that "Jesus Christ is the only real hope for the world" and an atheist student who was forbidden to organize a club for "Freethinkers."

Thing is...

They found the chaplain that told cadets to let the non-believers know they had to convert or burn in hell was just talking like Christians do. And they're right. The non-believers were threatened the exact same way believers are.

American Christianity is a very, very Old Testament kind of religion. I think they worship the God of Job rather than Jesus. They take the "jealous god" thing right to heart...in fact, there was a pretty amazing statement made in that documentary I mentioned the other day. The young lady that was the focus of the film was told "Christianity is the most intolerant religion in the world, and we take a lot of hits for that." Devout Americhristians don't want...cannot tolerate the expression of any other religious faith in their individual or collective presence. In their religion, proselytization is an act of worship. And they sacrifice their children for the good of their nation (sadly confusing political entity with national identity, but hey...).

Air Force Academy Staff Found Promoting Religion
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Shell's Chief Reaffirms Goal of 30% More Output by 2015
By HEATHER TIMMONS

LONDON, June 22 - Jeroen van der Veer, chief of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group, said Wednesday that the company would spend more on research, focus on big technology-driven projects and possibly acquire other oil producers and reserves to increase production by 30 percent as planned by 2015.

I am obliquely annoyed that acquiring already producing wells should count as increasing production.

The reason white people should not in general get comfortable calling Black people "nigger" has nothing to do with some high principle.

White people should not get comfortable calling Black people "nigger" because it will inevitably get your mother fucking ass kicked.

Very specifically that. I did not say you would get beat up. I did not say you would get beat down. I said it would be your mother fucking ass (not that one, no...the fat one, the one you sit on all day) that gets kicked.

Why? Because we don't like it when you call us "nigger." And you know what? When you get your mother fucking ass kicked for calling a Black person "nigger," no one will be on your side.

Just think about how it will feel to be all fucked up, laying at the feet of an angry Black man, and everyone saying YOU are wrong...that he shouldn't have beat you up quite so much.

Quote of note:

In 2001 alone, the Choctaws paid $7.7 million to Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon for lobbying work. But the pair spent just $1.2 million on the designated projects, keeping the remaining $6.5 million for "gimme five" - themselves - according to the e-mail and witnesses.

Senators Hear of a Wink-Wink Lobbyist Move
By ANNE E. KORNBLUT

The Senate panel and a federal task force are investigating whether Mr. Abramoff defrauded several Indian tribes while charging them more than $80 million in fees and expenses to promote their gambling interests.

The Rehoboth center, purportedly a think tank, turned out to be one of several nonprofit groups used by Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon, his business partner, to funnel money from the tribes to themselves and to pet projects, according to documents and testimony at the hearing on Wednesday, the third on the matter.

House Backs Ban on Flag Burning
By THE NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON, June 22 - The House of Representatives passed a resolution on Wednesday proposing a constitutional amendment that would enable Congress to prohibit the destruction or debasement of the flag without violating free speech rights.

The vote was 286 to 130, more than the two-thirds of the members present and voting that is required to approve a proposed amendment.

The House has passed such resolutions many times in the 16 years since the Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that the First Amendment protected flag burning, but the proposals have never passed the Senate. This year, though, the conservative tilt of the Senate has given the proposal an unusually strong chance of success. The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to approve the resolution shortly after the Fourth of July holiday. All 50 states have already passed resolutions calling for prohibitions on debasement of the flag.

Because Cassandra Wilson will be doing a free concert in Central Park!!

Yes!

I saw an interesting documentary on PBS last night, The Education of Shelby Knox.

Federally funded, abstinence-only sex education is part of the equation, sparking an intense national debate. Sex may be everywhere - in music, television, fashion and movies - one argument goes, but schools need to give teenagers the tools to resist peer pressure and say "no." Won't teaching about sex only encourage teens to try it? Opponents say that withholding information about condom use and birth control will only lead to unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

Into the culture wars steps feisty teenager Shelby Knox of Lubbock, Texas. Although her county's high schools teach abstinence as the only safe sex, Lubbock has some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases in the nation. Shelby, a devout Christian who has pledged abstinence until marriage herself, becomes an unlikely advocate for comprehensive sex education, profoundly changing her political and spiritual views along the way.

That a White Christian Republican town that mandates abstinence-only sexual education should have one of the highest teen pregnancy and STD rates in the country is unbelievable, isn't it?

Medicating Aliah

News: When state mental health officials fall under the influence of Big Pharma, the burden falls on captive patients. Like this 13-year-old girl.

The case of Aliah Gleason raises troubling and long-standing questions about the coercive uses of psychiatric medications in Texas and elsewhere. But especially because Aliah lives in Texas, and because her commitment was involuntary, she became vulnerable to an even further hazard: aggressive drug regimens that feature new and controversial drugs regimens that are promoted by drug companies, mandated by state governments, and imposed on captive patient populations with no say over what's prescribed to them.

In the past, drug companies sold their new products to doctors through ads and articles in medical journals or, in recent years, by wooing consumers directly through television and magazine advertising. Starting in the mid-1990s, though, the companies also began to focus on a powerful market force: the handful of state officials who govern prescribing for large public systems like state mental hospitals, prisons, and government-funded clinics.

One way drug companies have worked to influence prescribing practices of these public institutions is by funding the implementation of guidelines, or algorithms, that spell out which drugs should be used for different psychiatric conditions, much as other algorithms guide the treatment of diabetes or heart disease. The effort began in the mid-1990s with the creation of TMAP the Texas Medication Algorithm Project. Put simply, the algorithm called for the newest, most expensive medications to be used first in the treatment of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression in adults. Subsequently, the state began developing CMAP, a children's algorithm that is not yet codified by the state legislature. At least nine states have since adopted guidelines similar to TMAP. One such state, Pennsylvania, has been sued by two of its own investigators who claim they were fired after exposing industry's undue influence over state prescribing practices and the resulting inappropriate medicating of patients, particularly children.

Thanks in part to such marketing strategies, sales of the new atypical antipsychotics have soared.

I'm listening to a George W. Bush speech.

Ye. Gods. It's like being on the end of a firehose attached to a septic tank.

He is recycling every speech he made during his first term. It's like he's trying to talk everyone into believing it's four years ago.

If this kid is stupid enough to get on a national TV show and think his résumé would NOT be checked...

If the show's producers are stupid enough to think I'M stupid enough to think they didn't check his résumé before shooting a single foot of hour of video...

Just sit right back and you'll hear ... the truth
'Real Gilligan' star is a phony psychologist
By ANDREA JONES
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/22/05

Quote of note:

But with the most senior officers cleared of wrongdoing, there is a belief among many at the Pentagon and in the military that the scandal may be receding in the rear-view mirror of public opinion.

Posts Considered for Commanders After Abuse Case
By ERIC SCHMITT and THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, June 19 - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is considering new top command assignments that would possibly include promoting Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the former American commander in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, Pentagon and military officials say.

Such a move, which has been urged by senior Army officers and civilian officials now that an Army inquiry has cleared General Sanchez of wrongdoing, seems to reflect a growing confidence that the military has put the abuse scandal behind it.

A.M.A. to Study Effect of Marketing Drugs to Consumers
By STEPHANIE SAUL

ADD another voice to the list of groups questioning how drugs are pitched to consumers.

The American Medical Association, the nation's largest organization of physicians, agreed yesterday to study whether consumer drug advertising leads to unnecessary prescriptions, potentially harming patients and driving up health costs.

The A.M.A.'s decision, during a meeting in Chicago, came after a debate over consumer drug advertising. The association's House of Delegates had considered half a dozen proposals to limit drug advertising.

Many critics say advertising fueled the widespread use of cox-2 painkillers, recently linked to serious cardiovascular problems. Vioxx, the cox-2 drug that Merck withdrew from the market in September, was widely advertised to consumers. Studies later indicated that, for many patients, it was no more effective than other, safer pain killers.

I admit it's a cruel position to take...though no one looks at it, schools provide socialization as much as (sometimes more than) education...but I'm afraid I'm taking the position that these folks opted out of the school system so they are out. I don't know of an a la carte school system, not even a private school.

Taught at Home, but Seeking to Join Activities at Public Schools
By JAMES DAO

STRASBURG, Pa., June 16 - Mary Mellinger began home-schooling her eldest sons, Andrew and Abram, on the family's 80-acre dairy farm five years ago, wanting them to spend more time with their father and receive an education infused with Christian principles. Home schooling could not, however, provide one thing the boys desperately wanted - athletic competition.

Being Batman
David M. Ewalt

...you don't have to be a billionaire to become a caped crusader. Using commercially available training, technology and domestic help, the average guy could conceivably equip himself to become a real-world superhero, provided he's got at least a couple million to spare.

Editorials Elsewhere: Send Bolton Where?
Andrés Martinez

Condi, watch your back. Today's Wall Street Journal editorial page floats a horrifying idea   to send Stephen J. Hadley, the quiet national security advisor who was formerly Condoleezza Rice's deputy, to the U.N. and plug John Bolton into Hadley's job, which doesn't require Senate confirmation. That will show those pesky Democrats who's in charge: A recess appointment of Bolton as U.N. envoy, the editorial argues, would be a sign of weakness on President Bush's part and he "now has to decide how to respond in a way that shows he's not a lame duck." But putting Bolton in the White House? Yikes. Wasn't Condi's point in sending him to New York that she no longer wants him around?

Quote of note:

Many Republicans believe Democrats are opening themselves up to charges that they are obstructing the president's agenda. That charge proved potent, especially in states Bush carried, during the 2002 and 2004 congressional elections.

"The Democrats are treading on thin ice because they lack their own agenda and you can't just be the party of 'No' on everything," said GOP strategist Scott Reed.

You can't be the party of "Yes" on everything either.

Fact is, the Democrats have their agenda, and when you look at the Bushista Agenda...ignore global warming, military expansionism, wealth transfers from the poor to the obscenely rich, destruction of every public good provided by the government, and a culture war...I'd say obstruction is a good thing. Construction is better, but the Republicans have the keys to the tool shed, and they ain't sharing.

Mind you, the "obstruction" consists of standing on principle for a change. Take the Social Security debacle...Democrats put forth their ideas over and over, and Republicans kept saying Democrats had no plan. Why? Because Bush said he MUST have THIS, and anything without THIS is a non-starter. Bush was elected, you see (has anyone calculated what the margin of error is in the national poll that is the Presidential election?).

If that's a reasonable perspective from a Republican view, then I have bad news for the G.O.P.—the citizenry has declared they MUST have THAT...from which perspective, your plan is a non-starter and you, too, have no agenda.

Anyway...

At a Polarizing Time, Democrats Betting on Unity
By Ronald Brownstein
Times Staff Writer
June 22, 2005

THE BASIC LAWS OF HUMAN STUPIDITY
by Carlo M. Cipolla
illustrations by James Donnelly

The first basic law of human stupidity asserts without ambiguity that:

Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.

At first, the statement sounds trivial, vague and horribly ungenerous. Closer scrutiny will however reveal its realistic veracity. No matter how high are one's estimates of human stupidity, one is repeatedly and recurrently startled by the fact that:

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Domenici refused to break ranks with the White House on climate change, after meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney last week and fellow Republican lawmakers on Monday.

The Bush administration opposes any form of mandatory carbon dioxide limits, preferring voluntary measures by utilities, manufacturing plants and other emitters. President Bush pulled the United States out of the Kyoto treaty to fight global warming, citing its economic cost.

Climate change plan has setback in U.S. energy bill
Tue Jun 21, 2005 01:08 PM ET
By Chris Baltimore and Tom Doggett

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A key Republican refused to back a plan by Senate Democrats to slow U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, casting doubt on whether the Senate can muster enough votes on Tuesday to approve a climate change measure.

Lose the Election? Looks May Be to Blame

Split second judgments about a politician's competence can predict an election's outcome better than chance alone, a new study reveals. The results indicate that superficial inferences can contribute to voting choices, a process hoped to be rational and deliberative.

Alexander Todorov and his colleagues at Princeton University showed more than 800 people pictures of two candidates who competed against each other in races for either the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives. The researchers asked subjects to rate the politicians on characteristics such as age, trustworthiness, charisma and competence, based on a glance that lasted less than a second. Analysis of the data showed that the rankings of competence correlated with election outcomes: nearly 70 percent of the time the candidate thought to appear more competent was the race's winner. "Although the study doesn't tell us exactly what competence is---there are many kinds, including physical strength, social dominance and intellectual shrewdness--babyfaced people are perceived to be lacking in all these qualities," explains Leslie A. Zebrowitz of Brandeis University, who penned a commentary that accompanied the study in today's issue of the journal Science.

Mississippi Jury Convicts Ex-Klansman in 1964 Killings
By SHADI RAHIMI

Edgar Ray Killen, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, was found guilty today of felony manslaughter in the killings of three civil rights workers in Mississippi four decades ago. The verdict, delivered on the 41st anniversary of the deaths, was less severe than the murder conviction that the state prosecutors had sought.

Mr. Killen, 80, who had been free on bond, was immediately taken into custody. He faces up to 20 years on each of the three manslaughter counts. Sentencing was set for 10 a.m. on June 23.

Relatives of the victims said at a televised news conference that the trial was an important step but that the lesser conviction demonstrated the need for justice for the victims of crimes committed during the civil rights era.

I'll confess I haven't been reading other blogs as much as I used to. I decided to try to catch up a bit today. Part of the inspiration for doing so came from being asked my motivation for all this in the comments. The result is this purely reactive post, which I think will answer that question as well as another asked in the same comment thread: why am I so sure of myself?

I can't remember the last conversation I had about "blackness." For quite a while, in the Black communities, anyway, the discussion has been about how Black people are received by and respond to the mainstream. I'm not the Platonist that will shoehorn that into a static essentialism. If you must have a concept of "blackness," I suggest "that which Black folks are doing" is as good as it gets.

Tourists pay for 'reality' of poverty
Tours of poor Buenos Aires neighborhoods have brought paying visitors and impoverished residents face to face.
BY MEI-LING HOPGOOD
Special to The Herald

BUENOS AIRES - The tour of the poor neighborhood known as Misery Villa No. 20 began just past a steaming pile of garbage as residents sifted through it in hopes of recovering bits of cardboard to resell.

The visitors who strolled casually through the slum's dirt streets saw the carpentry shop where the young and jobless learn to make furniture, and a place across the way where 20 mothers knit sweaters to sell in local markets.

This is Argentina's version of reality tourism -- excursions where nonprofit groups, tourist agencies and even governments are increasingly offering tours of places like the poor neighborhoods in Buenos Aires and the favelas in Rio de Janeiro and even the Asian villages devastated by the tsunami last year. Universities and social organizations offer longer, more expensive tours, often focused on particular issues.

Race, culture served on a skewer
A conservative scholar seeks out the origins of ghetto violence.
By Katherine Dillin

...In his title essay on black-redneck culture, he not only faults white liberals for defending ghetto culture as native and natural for blacks, but he also launches into a diatribe on Southern whites. And not the educated, slave-owning whites, but the poor, individual farmers, the ones who "were in no economic condition to buy slaves."

The "common white people of the South" - he mentions Ulster Scots and Highland Scots - imported their "lawless" ways to America. These violent patterns, Sowell says, transferred to Southern blacks and today linger in US ghettos.

Bill would loosen '02 election finance law
Individuals' donations would get higher limit
By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff  |  June 21, 2005

WASHINGTON -- A historic law that was designed to restrict the influence of money in election campaigns would be drastically weakened under legislation making its way through Congress.

Republicans and some Democrats in the House, unhappy with the fund-raising limits set by the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002, which made the biggest changes since Watergate in how campaigns are funded, are seeking to lift overall limits on contributions by individuals during an election cycle. That change would allow a single individual to funnel millions of dollars to political parties and candidates for federal office.

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Secure Flight and its predecessor, CAPPS II, have been criticized for secretly obtaining personal information about airline passengers and failing to do enough to protect it. The TSA and several airlines were embarrassed last year when it was revealed that information on 12 million passengers was given to the government without the permission or knowledge of the travelers. An inspector general's report found that the TSA misled the public about its role in acquiring the data.

Airline passenger database kept by agency, records say
Plan said to screen for terror suspects
By Leslie Miller, Associated Press  |  June 21, 2005

Tracking Health Care Costs: Spending Growth Stabilizes at High Rate in 2004
Data Bulletin No. 29
Bradley C. Strunk, Paul B. Ginsburg, John P. Cookson

The recent slowdown in health care spending growth leveled off in 2004 as health care costs per privately insured American increased 8.2 percent in 2004—virtually the same rate of increase as in 2003. Nonetheless, health spending growth continued to outpace overall economic growth by a wide margin—2.6 percentage points—in 2004, despite a robust 5.6 percent increase in the overall U.S. economy as measured by per capita gross domestic product.

If health care spending growth continues to exceed growth in workers’ incomes by a significant margin, health insurance will become unaffordable to more and more people.

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I can understand why Michael Schiavo, after years in court, would not want to sue Jeb Bush. But he might have a good case. Here s a governor using the power of his office to suggest with no evidence that a heinous act occurred 15 years ago. It s called slander.

Sliming the Innocent
How the latest in the Schiavo case has made Jeb Bush into the Al Sharpton of the right.
By Jonathan Alter
Updated: 4:08 p.m. ET June 20, 2005

June 20 - I ve never agreed with Florida Governor Jeb Bush on much, but I ve always respected his integrity and the sincerity of his conservative views. Until now. His latest gambit in the case of Terri Schiavo is despicable. In fact, it calls to mind what another craven opportunist without regard for human decency did in the Tawana Brawley case in the late 1980s. Jeb Bush is acting like the Al Sharpton of the right.

Cool new beta and all that, but before you fuck up my layout by changing my neat little text link into a search box, you need to let a brother know.

Curses and Catharsis in Red Sox Nation: Baseball and Ritual Violence in American Culture
Dr. Darryl V. Caterine, Department of Religious Studies, Grinnell College

[3] Finally, when in St. Louis the rag-tag fellowship finally clenched the World Series in a four-game shut-out, Boston made it plain for the world to see that something more than just a game had been won.  The Curse of the Bambino would never again stigmatize Red Sox fans.  In a geocultural region long known for its Anglo-Calvinist reserve, celebration, revelry, and sentimentality erupted immediately in the streets of Boston and throughout New England.  On the night of October 27, church bells tolled, fireworks lit up the sky, honking car horns filled the late-night streets with cacophony, victory parties gathered spontaneously in pubs and private homes.  Three days later, the victory parade for the homecoming Red Sox drew to the streets of Boston no less than three million fans, who stood in a shower of cold rain amidst a blizzard of confetti and the blaring of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus.

[4] In this essay I would like to revisit the legend of the Curse of the Bambino for the insights it can provide scholars of American religion on the allegedly religious dimension of baseball.  The Winter 1996 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, which was devoted entirely to a discussion of religion and American popular culture, featured a now-widely-cited essay by David Chidester arguing for the inclusion of America s favorite game in the academic study of religion. Chidester put forward a functionalist argument to advance the cause, echoing similar cases made years earlier by such notable scholars of religion as Catherine L. Albanese, Allen Guttmann, and Joseph L. Price.  For these scholars, baseball exhibits a distinctive set of myths, rituals, and codes of behavior the formal elements of  official  religions that function to unite a community of participants/believers and orient them to an atemporal social and cosmic order. 

Bush says US is in Iraq because of attacks on US
Sat Jun 18, 1:15 PM ET

President George W. Bush defended the war in Iraq, telling Americans the United States was forced into war because of the September 11 terror strikes.

Bush also resisted calls for him to set a timetable for the return of thousands of US troops deployed in Iraq, saying Iraqis must be able to defend their own country before US soldiers can be pulled out.

"We went to war because we were attacked, and we are at war today because there are still people out there who want to harm our country and hurt our citizens," Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address.

'Oil Tax' Greases Wheels of Rich
By Michael Kinsley
Monday, June 20, 2005; Page A15

...In the case of OPEC members, the cost of extraction is infinitesimal. Yet they can extract $57 a barrel from the rest of the world for other reasons, including some that are definitely not beyond their control.

Domestic producers have higher costs. But they were profitably pumping away in 2002, when the price was $27 a barrel, so it's reasonable to assume that most of their output costs $27 or less to put out, and that they've also gotten a raise of $30 a barrel or close to it. Eight million barrels a day at $30 a barrel works out to $87 billion a year. If the extra $131 billion we pay to foreigners is a tax, so is the extra $87 billion we pay to the domestic oil industry. And if that $87 billion is a tax when it is collected from consumers, it is in effect a subsidy when it is pocketed by domestic oil extractors.

And the tax-and-spend doesn't stop there. When the price of oil goes up, the prices of other forms of energy go up too. This includes alternative energy sources such as windmills, cow exhaust, whatever. They all benefit from the equivalent of a subsidy of $30 a barrel, financed by the "tax" on energy consumers of an equal amount.

So it is odd, from an economic point of view (though less so from a political one), that the energy bill debate should be over who will get even more subsidies.

Bush's Road Gets Rougher
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON

WASHINGTON, June 19 - Five months after President Bush was sworn in for another four years, his political authority appears to be ebbing, both within his own party, where members of Congress are increasingly if sporadically going their own way, and among Democrats, who have discovered that they pay little or no price for defying him.

If you can't win, you can't lose either.

Mario Cuomo speaks on the stem cell debate in a NY Times editorial today. He's reaching for a rational reconsideration of the religious and ethical issues the Dubya claim motivated his decision to limit federal funding of certain lines of research. This is offered as a favor to Mr.Bush, as he's backed himself into a moral corner.

Although Mr. Bush believes that destroying an embryo is murder, he refuses to demand legislation to stop commercial interests that are busily destroying embryos in order to obtain stem cells. If their conduct amounts to murder as the president contends, it is hardly satisfactory for him to say he will do nothing to stop the evil act other than to refuse to pay for it.

Mr. Cuomo suggests a panel of "respected scientists, humanists and religious leaders" be assembled to review the relevant material. This, of course, will fail miserably to resolve the issue. Each side...and sadly, this time there are sides rather than a spectrum of positions...would have to be open to reconsidering their current position. Those on the science side of the debate do so as a matter of course. Those on the faith side of this particular debate refuse to do so as a matter of course, and this is one of the rare times where I will say the religious side is wrong...as in incorrect, not evil..for doing so.

Synthetic Testosterone Seemed Like a Good Idea. Then Came Fertility Issues.
By KAREN ALEXANDER

BROWSE the Internet for information about anabolic steroids, and you will discover a story of turbocharged manhood: huge muscles, adoring women, powerful erections and youthful energy.

Some of that story is true. But for men also hoping to father children, there may be some vital information missing. Using testosterone supplements can most likely cause a man's sperm count to plummet, often to zero. Getting it back can be costly and take years. Among heavy steroid users, it may never return.

Even in the medical community, the effects of testosterone on a man's ability to reproduce are often misunderstood. Several top fertility experts say they often see patients whose regular doctors have placed them on testosterone replacement therapy to treat various ailments - often successfully - without explaining that it might also make them infertile.

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The study does not directly answer how or whether the Patriot Act has been used to search libraries. The association said it decided it was constrained from asking direct questions on the law because of secrecy provisions that could make it a crime for a librarian to respond. Federal intelligence law bans those who receive certain types of demands for records from challenging the order or even telling anyone they have received it.

As a result, the study sought to determine the frequency of law enforcement inquiries at all levels without detailing their nature. Even so, organizers said the data suggested that investigators were seeking information from libraries far more frequently than Bush administration officials had acknowledged.

Libraries Say Yes, Officials Do Quiz Them About Users
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

CONTRA COSTA COUNTY
Who will fill Baby Boomers' big work boots?
Blue-collar jobs losing popularity despite good pay
- Cecilia M. Vega, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, June 19, 2005

...Blue-collar jobs, once a mainstay of local economies throughout the region and a magnet for young men and women who followed their parents and grandparents into union work after high school, are a vanishing way of life in the Bay Area.

Fewer young people have any interest in learning trades that could earn them six-figure salaries. Instead, they want a college degree -- often at their parents' urging -- and a comfortable white-collar job where their hands stay clean and their backs pain-free.

Bush Remarks May Have Spurred Iran Voters
- By BRIAN MURPHY, Associated Press Writer
Sunday, June 19, 2005
(06-19) 16:04 PDT TEHRAN, Iran (AP) --

Iran's spy chief used just two words to respond to White House ridicule of last week's presidential election: "Thank you." His sarcasm was barely hidden. The backfire on Washington was more evident.

The sharp barbs from President Bush were widely seen in Iran as damaging to pro-reform groups because the comments appeared to have boosted turnout among hard-liners in Friday's election   with the result being that an ultraconservative now is in a two-way showdown for the presidency.

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Sometime in the '80s, a guy in Lubbock stole 12 frozen turkeys. They were recovered, still frozen. Not only no damage, but no defrost. The guy bought 75 years, which works out to 6.3 years per bird. Don't steal a turkey in Lubbock.

Never Steal a Turkey in Lubbock, and Other Tales of Texas Justice
Racism, 'Tuff on Crime' judges and gutless politicians warp the system.
By Molly Ivins
Molly Ivins is the author, most recently, of "Who Let the Dogs In? Incredible Political Animals I Have Known" (Random House, 2004).
June 20, 2005

The U.S. Supreme Court rules yet again that another Texas case was wrongfully decided   this time because 19 of 20 blacks had been knocked off the jury pool   and I'm asked to explain what's wrong with criminal justice in Texas, in 750 words. Sure, no problem.

I don't like to be cynical, but one can get a little tired after a long time watching justice meted out in this state. The story doesn't change much, and nothing seems to get better. But for what it's worth, here's what's at the bottom of it.