Okay, we have Florida, where they throw your ass off the voting rolls for having the same name as someone who was once arrested.

Texas, where with the help of Bush political appointees, they pushed through a redistricting program knowing it was illegal.

Georgia went straight for the unconstitutional poll tax, again with the collusion of the Bush regime. Had the nerve to complain about still being reviewed under the Voting Rights Act when the courts ruled as independently as Bush claims he wants them to.

With Alabama refusing to repeal certain Civil War sentiments from the state constitution, I thought they'd be next. But Ohio's democratic tradition is the next to go under, if Republicans have their way.

L.A. Times:

Pryor worked the Midwestern chitlin circuit until the early 1960s when he took his show on the road to New York's Greenwich Village, which was in the throes of sociopolitical transition.

"A tentative but innovative rapprochement had been established between white audiences and a select group of black comedians," explains journalist and historian Mel Watkins in his book, "On the Real Side" (Simon & Schuster, 1994). "The transitional comics of the fifties (Timmie Rogers, Slappy White, and Nipsey Russell) had made inroads and in varying degrees Dick Gregory, Bill Cosby and Godfrey Cambridge all had bridged the racial impasse."

At the time, many black comedians eschewed not only social commentary, but they also tended to mute any fury, or at the very least sanded the edges of the country's racial realities. Pryor, however, dove head first into the deepest of uncharted waters. "African Americans were accepted as clowns and jesters," wrote Watkins, "but were expected to avoid satire and social commentary—the comedy of ideas."

Let's take another look at that Pew Research Center thing, make a few points.

That gap has been narrowing for some years, as fewer whites, but higher numbers of blacks, express concern about dependency.

While African Americans are somewhat more inclined than whites to see a strong role for government in providing for the needs of citizens, a solid majority of blacks (62%) agree that the federal government should step in only when local government can't do the job.

With regard to government efficiency, as recently as 2000, blacks were far less inclined than whites to deplore government waste.

Now, perhaps as a result of several years of GOP control over both the White House and Congress, blacks have greater reservations: 53% of blacks now agree that government is "mostly wasteful and inefficient," scarcely fewer than the 57% of whites who say so.

This, in particular, I found interesting

It's on now.

Bring New Orleans Back Town Hall Meeting -- Live Video Webcast

Tune in on Saturday, Dec. 10 between 9 a.m. and noon Central Time to see a live video Webcast of the Bring New Orleans Back Commission's town meeting in Houston. This is a chance for dispersed New Orleans citizens to have a voice and participate in the plans for rebuilding their city. Click here to view the Webcast; you'll need broadband Internet access and the Flash player. An archive will be available after the event.

The American Planning Association and the Urban Land Institute are organizing these meetings with support from the Fannie Mae Foundation.

I am... 

Staff Opinions Banned In Voting Rights Cases
Criticism of Justice Dept.'s Rights Division Grows
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 10, 2005; A03

The Justice Department has barred staff attorneys from offering recommendations in major Voting Rights Act cases, marking a significant change in the procedures meant to insulate such decisions from politics, congressional aides and current and former employees familiar with the issue said.

Disclosure of the change comes amid growing public criticism of Justice Department decisions to approve Republican-engineered plans in Texas and Georgia that were found to hurt minority voters by career staff attorneys who analyzed the plans. Political appointees overruled staff findings in both cases.

Fact of note:

This has reached its most imposition-of-Sharia-law-like level of intolerance in the campaign to cow stores into saying Christmas. O'Reilly, escalating his "Christmas Under Siege" campaign, has posted a list of naughty and nice retailers. The American Family Association goes further, calling for a boycott of stores -- it's targeted Target -- that fail to use the word Christmas in their advertising or in-store promotions. "Target doesn't want to offend a small minority who oppose Christmas," says AFA's chairman, Donald Wildmon. "But they don't mind offending Christians who celebrate the birth of Christ."

Really? I've just gone on the Target Web site and plugged Christmas into my product search. "We found 39,197 match(es) for 'Christmas' at Target," it reported. How offensive is that?

What 'War on Christmas'?
By Ruth Marcus
Saturday, December 10, 2005; Page A21

You guys have twisted the anti-slavery amendments quite enough.

The principle at issue rests on the first sentence of the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 to guarantee the rights of emancipated slaves: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside."

...some immigration experts say that birthright citizenship is not a major incentive for the vast majority of illegal entrants.

"No, absolutely not," said Tamar Jacoby, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. "It's something that a few middle-class professional people do. I have never met a poor person who has his wife walk across the desert at eight months pregnant so they can wait 21 years to be sponsored by their child."

It's the same bullshit as the push for voter ids implemented as unconstitutional poll taxes, done knowing the Bush regime would back their illegal measures.

I'm feeling these people hate your children.

"This is about attempting to deal with a serious policy problem by going after people's babies…. It doesn't have to become law for this kind of proposal to offend people," said Cecilia Muñoz, vice president for policy of the National Council of La Raza, a Latino advocacy group. "This one really hits a nerve."

I'm feeling these people will tell any lie,

There is no official tally of the number of children born to illegal immigrants; unofficial estimates range from 100,000 to 350,000 a year. Smith and other critics of current immigration law say that 1 in 10 U.S. births — and 1 in 5 births in California — are to women who have entered the country illegally.

Come ON, man...Are ten percent of the children YOU know born to illegal immigrants?

You KNOW these people are fucked.

GOP Faction Wants to Change 'Birthright Citizenship' Policy
By Warren Vieth, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — For nearly 140 years, any child born on U.S. soil, even to an illegal immigrant, has been given American citizenship. Now, some conservatives in Congress are determined to change that.

A group of 92 lawmakers in the House will attempt next week to force a vote on legislation that would revoke the principle of "birthright citizenship," part of a broader effort to discourage illegal immigration.

Scientists: Fissure Could Be a New Ocean
- By ANTHONY MITCHELL, Associated Press Writer
Friday, December 9, 2005
(12-09) 19:45 PST ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) --

Ethiopian, American and European researchers have observed a fissure in a desert in the remote northeast that could be the "birth of a new ocean basin," scientists said Friday.

Researchers from Britain, France, Italy and the U.S. have been observing the 37-mile long fissure since it split open in September in the Afar desert and estimate it will take a million years to fully form into an ocean, said Dereje Ayalew, who leads the team of 18 scientists studying the phenomenon.

The existence of the additional material emerged as the head of the police officers union offered an apology for "extremely stupid and immature'' videos.

True. And thank you.

San Francisco police investigating what top city officials portray as racist and sexist videos produced by Bayview district officers said Thursday that new clips had come to light -- including an image of a black officer eating from a dog bowl and one of an Asian officer having difficulty riding a bicycle.

Reason 1:

The issue is heightened for public agencies like police departments, which have an obligation to serve the entire citizenry.

"When you are given a police uniform and a badge, you can't be like everyone else and have this kind of politically incorrect humor," said Joseph McNamara, former police chief of San Jose and now a fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution.

"When an entertainer like Chris Rock makes offensive comments, it's in a very different context," said Barry Chersky, an Oakland attorney who trains companies in sexual harassment prevention. "We can like or dislike Chris Rock's material, but he is not serving as the representative of a city charged with protecting all the citizens of the city."

And the key bit of advice:

What advice would Mathiason give to a San Francisco police officer -- or any other employee -- seeking to make a humorous video for his co-workers?

"I'd show it to your parents and see what reaction you get," he said.

"Or think: If it were shown on the 6 o'clock news, would your neighbors find it funny, or would it be something you'd be uncomfortable with?"

NEW IMAGES FOUND IN POLICE SCANDAL
Uproar over 'shameful' videos reverberates from Bayview to San Francisco City Hall
ETHICS
Videos violate most companies' harassment rules, experts say
- Ilana DeBare, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, December 9, 2005

Typical Old Testiment Americhristianism of note:

On Monday, Mirecki was treated at a Lawrence hospital for head injuries after he said he was beaten by two men on a country road. He said the men referred to the creationism course. Law enforcement officials were investigating.

Anti-creationism prof quits department chair

TOPEKA, Kansas (AP) -- A University of Kansas professor who drew criticism for e-mails he wrote deriding Christian fundamentalists over creationism has resigned as chairman of the Department of Religious Studies.

Paul Mirecki stepped aside on the recommendation of his colleagues, according to Barbara Romzek, interim dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

I have this movie in the background, The Librarian. The hero, a dork, just met the heroine...seat neighbors on an airplane.

Guy tries to flirt.

Girl say, "Look, let get this straight. I'm out of your league. If your league were to explode I wouldn't hear the sound for three days."

Hey, I collect clever lines. 

Death row clash
KFI's "John and Ken" become lightning rods in the Stanley Tookie Williams debate.
By Scott Martelle
Times Staff Writer
December 10, 2005

Tune in to the afternoon "John and Ken Show" on talk radio's KFI-AM (640) and you get a highly personalized take on Stanley Tookie Williams and those who are lobbying for the commutation of his death sentence. NAACP President Bruce S. Gordon is "a lunatic." Los Angeles journalist/progressive political advocate Jasmyne Cannick is a "black racist" and a "crackpot activist trying to make a name for herself." Williams himself? A conman in a murderer's prison jumpsuit.

...and "John and Ken" are weak minded assholes who have nothing but knee-jerk fear and a lust for the American death ritual.

Quote of note:

Beneath this rhetoric lies a theology declared heretical in the early centuries of Christianity: Manichaeism from a third century teacher, Mani. Manichaens of every age divide the world simply and starkly between the forces of good and the forces of evil, and urge the former to stamp out the latter. Appealing in its simplicity, Manichaeism is disastrous in reality. Early Christians regarded Manichaeism as heretical precisely because it blinded people to their own capacity for evil and encouraged gross self-deception.

Iraq war debate enters new phase
ANTHONY B. ROBINSON

You might not expect a West Point graduate, Vietnam vet and career soldier to come out with a book titled "The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Addicted to War." But that's what Andrew Bacevich, who now directs the program in International Relations at Boston University, has done.

Saudi Says Iraq War Likely Fueled Terrorism
From Times Wire Reports
December 9, 2005

The U.S.-led war in Iraq may have accelerated the spread of terrorism around the globe, and reports of U.S. mistreatment of militant suspects are troubling its allies, the new Saudi ambassador to Washington said.

In an interview, Prince Turki al Faisal said even if the United States had not invaded Iraq, global terrorism would have continued. [P6: Even Saudi princes fear trolls] "Going into Iraq may have accentuated or accelerated that process," he said.

Turki also said, "The U.S. for much of mankind has always stood as an example of … due process, human rights, innocent before proven guilty. If any of these precepts and principles are flouted by the promoter … then that affects all of us."

Courtesy of the White House.

(Obviously digital video production has gotten TOO easy.) 

I'm not kidding when I say this is symbolic of the flaws of Western culture.

"It's unimaginable how big this is," says Chen Yu, 27, who employs 20 full-time gamers here in Fuzhou. "They say that in some of these popular games, 40 or 50 percent of the players are actually Chinese farmers."

For many online gamers, the point is no longer simply to play. Instead they hunt for the fanciest sword or the most potent charm, or seek a shortcut to the thrill of sparring at the highest level. And all of that is available - for a price.

"What we're seeing here is the emergence of virtual currencies and virtual economies," says Peter Ludlow, a longtime gamer and a professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. "People are making real money here, so these games are becoming like real economies."

Ogre to Slay? Outsource It to Chinese
By DAVID BARBOZA

FUZHOU, China - One of China's newest factories operates here in the basement of an old warehouse. Posters of World of Warcraft and Magic Land hang above a corps of young people glued to their computer screens, pounding away at their keyboards in the latest hustle for money.

The people working at this clandestine locale are "gold farmers." Every day, in 12-hour shifts, they "play" computer games by killing onscreen monsters and winning battles, harvesting artificial gold coins and other virtual goods as rewards that, as it turns out, can be transformed into real cash.

That is because, from Seoul to San Francisco, affluent online gamers who lack the time and patience to work their way up to the higher levels of gamedom are willing to pay the young Chinese here to play the early rounds for them.

Quote of note: 

Best Buy spokeswoman Dawn Bryant said the plaintiffs had misunderstood the company's "customer-centric" way of doing business.

Oh, really?

Lawyers for the plaintiffs, including Bill Lann Lee, former U.S. assistant attorney general for civil rights, also portrayed the alleged discrimination as part of a company ethic that focuses on serving white customers. They cited a company policy requiring salespeople to target buyers matching four hypothetical models — all white.

Best Buy Workers File Bias Lawsuit
By Molly Selvin
Times Staff Writer
December 9, 2005

I should stop reading the news now, while I'm feeling good about the possible outbreak of intelligence (as in being smart).

Should Israel give up its nukes?
By George Bisharat
December 9, 2005

IN A SUDDEN ATTACK of common sense, a Pentagon-commissioned study released in mid-November suggests an approach to nuclear nonproliferation in the Middle East that might actually be accepted by the people of the region. What is this breakthrough idea? That U.S. policies begin not with a country that currently lacks nuclear weapons — Iran — but rather with the one that by virtually all accounts already has them — Israel.

To avert Iran's apparent drive for nuclear weapons, concludes Henry Sokolski, a co-editor of "Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran," Israel should freeze and begin to dismantle its nuclear capability.

This and other recommendations emerged from two years of deliberations by experts on the Middle East and nuclear nonproliferation.

Quote of note:

It appears that U.S. intelligence agents at some point picked up a guy they identified as an Al Qaeda member. He was duly interrogated (you guess how). And when interrogators demanded that he cough up the names of other terrorists still at large, the suspect got revenge by rattling off a list of everyone who'd ever annoyed him, including one of his old college professors, who had really burned him up by giving him a bad course grade.

Grading on the terrorist curve
Rosa Brooks
December 9, 2005

ON MONDAY, I'll be giving a final exam to 80 law students, and judging from their e-mail messages, they're worried about grades. But this term, I'm even more worried about their grades than they are.

Quote of note:

Kidan, who has known Abramoff since their student days when they were members of the College Republicans, has agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy and wire fraud in connection with the purchase of the SunCruz fleet in the fall of 2000.

"Adam will testify against Abramoff and Ney if he is given an opportunity to do so," said Joseph Conway, an attorney for Kidan.

Plea Deal Near With 2nd Abramoff Associate
Kidan Has Agreed to Cooperate in Probes
By Susan Schmidt and James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 9, 2005; A08

Federal prosecutors have all but finalized a plea agreement with a second business partner of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff in exchange for cooperation in the ongoing criminal investigations of Abramoff, congressional aides and Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio), lawyers in the case said yesterday.

Something about the combination of guns and immunity from prosecution brings out the asshole in all of us, I guess.

...many Iraqis complain that the force used by contractors, who are immune from prosecution under an order signed into Iraqi law last year, is often excessive.

"At least the police and army are recognized in the street, and they have the right to shoot because they are security forces," said Qasim Muhammed, 44, a Baghdad taxi driver. "But who gave those civilians the right to shoot?"

The newly released video, which was broadcast widely on Arabic-language satellite television stations in recent days, shows no faces and contains few audible bits of dialogue.

U.S. Military Probing Video Of Road Violence
British Contractors Appear To Shoot at Iraqi Civilians
By Jonathan Finer and Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, December 9, 2005; A01

BAGHDAD, Dec. 8 -- A silver Mercedes swings into the passing lane when a machine gun opens fire, sending the car smashing into a taxi, whose terrified occupants scatter. Moments later on the video, posted on the Internet and apparently recorded in Iraq, a white sedan is riddled with bullets as it accelerates on an open highway.

Framed as if on a movie screen by the outline of a sport-utility vehicle's rear window, those scenes and others show what appear to be private security contractors firing on Iraqi civilians. The video footage has prompted an investigation by the U.S. military, a spokesman said Thursday, and by the company linked to the incidents. It even has a soundtrack: Elvis Presley's upbeat "Mystery Train."

I just throw it across the room when it wakes me up. 

via Boing Boing

Alarm clock wakes you with a noisy hovering chopper
This alarm clock launches a small, noisy helicopter to hover over your bed when it goes off:

One thing that sometimes wakes you up at night and prevents you from sleeping is the mosquito or blowfly when flying around your room. You can't and don't want to fall asleep again until you've caught it. These produces adrenalin and requires movements. The alarm clock blowfly works like a "blowfly" that at the desire time it escapes from a cage in your room. It starts moving and producing sound around you - to turn it off you should catch it and put it back in the cage.

The site aggregator is temporarily disabled. Basically, the problem is, since I loaded about a thousand feeds all at once, they try to update all at once. I'll do something about thatthis weekend while I'm in clean-up mode.

Quote of note:

The officials suggested sending Ahmad to an unspecified foreign country that employed torture in order to increase chances of extracting information from him, according to the petition's description of the memo

Pentagon Memo on Torture-Motivated Transfer Cited
A court filing describes a classified proposal to send a detainee away for information extraction.
By Ken Silverstein
Times Staff Writer
December 8, 2005

WASHINGTON — Although Bush administration officials have denied that they transfer terrorism suspects to countries where they are likely to be abused, a classified memorandum described in a court case indicates that the Pentagon has considered sending a captured militant abroad to be interrogated under threat of torture.

Ex-GOP Official Faces Conspiracy Charge
Former GOP Official Faces One Federal Count of Conspiring Against Voters' Rights in 2002
By BEVERLEY WANG
The Associated Press

CONCORD, N.H. - A former national Republican Party official played a key role in an Election Day 2002 phone jamming plot against New Hampshire Democrats, the prosecution said Tuesday during opening statements.

James Tobin, President Bush's onetime New England campaign chairman, is being tried on one federal count of conspiring against voters' rights and several counts involving telephone harassment. He could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

U.S. Attorney Andrew Levchuk said the state GOP's former executive director, Chuck McGee, had Tobin's blessing for the scheme as well as his help in the plot to disrupt Democratic get-out-the-vote phone banks and a nonpartisan ride-to-the-polls line.

Senate Dems predict Medicare win in ’06
By Carrie Sheffield

Senate Democrats and a handful of centrist Republicans are poised to strike a political blow to the White House early next year by passing legislation that would change the Medicare prescription drug benefit.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) has enough votes to pass a bill that would extend the Medicare prescription-drug-benefit enrollment period for seniors until the end of 2006 and allow seniors a one-time change in plans.

“We are going to try to attach our language to the first available vehicle when we come back in January,” said Nelson spokesman Brian Gulley. “It would be the quickest way to get our language passed, as opposed to having to go through the committee gantlet. We have to get this thing passed as quickly as we can.”

Quote of note:

Too often, in cases where misconduct occurs, "OPD settles for ambiguous, vague and, at times, implausible answers (from officers), thereby avoiding the critical determination of whether officers saw misconduct and failed to report it," the report said.

The report said the department had developed -- but not yet implemented -- policies regarding disciplining and investigating officers.

(12-07) 16:10 PST OAKLAND -- Despite improvements elsewhere, Oakland police still too often fail to report fellow officers who improperly use force when making arrests or conduct illegal searches, and those who do come forward often face retaliation, according to a report issued today.

If you got serious problems, don't you listen to Dr. Phil.

The unanswered question:

In Christian doctrine, Heaven is a state of union with God, while Hell is separation from God. Christians have long wrestled, however, with the thorny question of what happened to those who died before Jesus, who “brought Man salvation”, as well as the fate after death of children who die in the womb.

Limbo consigned to history books
From Richard Owen in Rome
THE Pope is set to abolish the concept of Limbo, overturning a belief held by Roman Catholics since the Middle Ages.

Limbo has long been held to be the place where the souls of children go if they die before they can be baptised. However, a 30-strong international commission of theologians summoned by the late John Paul II last year to come up with a “more coherent and illuminating” doctrine in tune with the modern age is to present its findings to Pope Benedict XVI on Friday.

Quote of note: 

The place needs a good scrubbing, and that is what it would get if the leadership were somehow to embrace a set of rules changes put forward this week by several longtime members. But because the authors are Democrats -- and in some cases liberal as well -- the receptivity of the Republicans managing the House is not likely to be great.

If the House of Representatives were a person, it would be blushing these days. Unfortunately, the House is beyond embarrassment.

Its once (and maybe future) majority leader, Tom DeLay, is under indictment on money-laundering charges in Texas. One of its more colorful members, Randy "Duke" Cunningham of California, resigned last week after pleading guilty to shaking down lobbyists and contractors for $2.4 million in cash and gifts.

Bullshit defense of note:

The officer denied he had done anything wrong, and his attorney said the suspensions were a politically motivated attack on free speech.

Sorry, dude. Bush undermined your whole defence by making belief an acceptable excuse for discrimination.

You want to be a cop? We believe you should respect the community you serve.

Anyway... 

Video scandal rocks S.F. police
20 officers ordered suspended -- mayor condemns 'sexist,' 'racist' films, vows probe of departmen
- Jaxon Van Derbeken, Rachel Gordon, Trapper Byrne, Chronicle Staff Writers
Thursday, December 8, 2005

About 20 San Francisco police officers will be suspended because of their alleged involvement in what the mayor and police chief describe as videos that mock minorities and treat women as sex objects, the officials said Wednesday night.

Scientists discover how cancer spreads
Disease sends bone marrow cells to prepare new tumor sites, study finds
Reuters
Updated: 1:51 p.m. ET Dec. 7, 2005

LONDON - Scientists have discovered how cancer spreads from a primary site to other places in the body in a finding that could open doors for new ways of treating and preventing advanced disease.

Instead of a cell just breaking off from a tumor and traveling through the bloodstream to another organ where it forms a secondary tumour, or metastasis, researchers in the United States have shown that the cancer sends out envoys to prepare the new site.

Intercepting those envoys, or blocking their action with drugs, might help to prevent the spread of cancer or to treat it in patients in which it has already occurred.

Quote of note:

But the outcome also reflects a paradox of the Patriot Act, the terrorism-fighting law enacted after the Sept. 11 attacks that the Justice Department said was instrumental in bringing charges against Al-Arian. The law breathed new life into an old case by allowing the government to combine the work of intelligence and criminal investigators, but the case turned out to be so old and tenuous that jurors were ultimately unmoved.

That is bad news for prosecutors in other high-profile matters in the government's "cold case" file — including a recent indictment of onetime "dirty bomb" suspect Jose Padilla.

The Patriot Act Can't Make Up for a Weak Case
By Richard B. Schmitt
Times Staff Writer
December 8, 2005

Quote of note:

...this Congress could be remembered as the one that priced middle-class families out of college.

Higher (cost) education
December 8, 2005

THERE ARE FEW SURER WAYS to increase the gap between rich and poor than by making higher education more expensive. Yet Congress is poised to do just that. Current budget plans would deal federal student loan programs their most painful setback since their inception, limiting the opportunities for those at the lower end of the economic spectrum to build a better life.

The House last month voted to slash funding for federal student loan programs by $14.3 billion, reversing decades of expansion that have helped open the country's most expensive universities to poor and middle-class students. The House's cuts would add about $5,800 to the average $17,500 student loan debt, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Bush said today

Over the course of this war, we have learned that winning the battle for Iraqi cities is only the first step. We also have to win the "battle after the battle" -- by helping Iraqis consolidate their gains and keep the terrorists from returning.

How about that? They didn't know before they went in.

How...stupid. 

I don't know if it's the big breakthrough claimed or even good news at all, but it's legitimately news.

12/6/05

Dear Friends and Supporters:

Today the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued the most important decision affecting my client, Mumia Abu-Jamal, since the lower federal court ruling in December 2001.  An order was issued this morning that the court will accept for review the following issues, all of which are of enormous constitutional significance and go to the very essence of Mumia's right to a fair trial due process of law, and equal protection of the law under the Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution:

• Claim 14 :  Whether appellant was denied his constitutional rights due to the prosecution's trial summation.
• Claim 16 :  Whether the Commonwealth's use of peremptory challenges at trial violated appellant's constitutional rights under Batson v. Kentucky , 476 U.S. 79 (1986).
• Claim 29 : Whether appellant was denied due process during post-conviction proceedings as a result of alleged judicial bias.

Just a little.

I was just referred to a site called Intellectual Conservatism. There's a writer there that almost made me set up a category called "The Drop Squad." This guy does a worse job of justifying Black support for Judge Alito than Molotov did  justifying Black votes for Bush in 2004.

He opens with stories of the legendary Black heroes Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon Johnson, of how they compromised with political opponents. He suggests Black people may (and he continually says may, I'll give him that) benefit as much as Johnson and Lincoln (um, Lincoln was assassinated...).

Quote of note:

...Bush's senior advisers are trying to shield the president from the news. Aides are concerned that too harsh an awakening might shake Bush's faith, which has been a central part of his life for nearly 20 years.

"It's hard to tell the leader of the free world that he has been the butt of an elaborate and long-term ruse," a former staffer said. "Maybe it would be easier to take if it came from Cheney's God voice."

Voice Of God Revealed To Be Cheney On Intercom
December 7, 2005 | Issue 41•49

WASHINGTON, DC—Telephone logs recorded by the National Security Agency and obtained by Congress as part of an ongoing investigation suggest that the vice president may have used the Oval Office intercom system to address President Bush at crucial moments, giving categorical directives in a voice the president believed to be that of God.

The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press published a report (they call it a commentary) called The Black and White of Public Opinion - Did the Racial Divide in Attitudes About Katrina Mislead Us? which shows a lot more common ground between the races than one normally assumes

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, public opinion surveys as well as media reporting portrayed an America deeply divided along racial lines. In an early September Pew survey, for example, two-thirds of African Americans, but fewer than one-in-five whites, said that the government response would have been faster had most victims been white. This raises the question of whether that racial cleavage was primarily the product of Katrina's special circumstances or whether it reflected and magnified longstanding differences in the way that blacks and whites view government and the larger society. A look back at surveys from earlier years does show enduring black-white differences about the persistence of racial discrimination and the size of the social safety net. However, that review also reveals that on larger social and political values, the cleavage is far smaller and, in some cases, non-existent.

In the process, they document the reason observant Black folks see racism as a serious problem to this day.

Quote of note:

The study's author, Rakesh Kochhar, associate director of research for the center, said that, based on estimates, undocumented Mexican immigrants earn about twice as much in construction, manufacturing and hospitality jobs as they did working south of the border.

Other factors that contributed to Mexican migration include rejoining families and improved working conditions, Suro and Kochhar said.

Study: Illegal Immigrants Not Drawn by Jobs
By Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 7, 2005;

A majority of Mexican nationals who crossed into the United States illegally in the past two years left behind paying jobs that, in some cases, are similar to the agriculture, construction and manufacturing work they find north of the border, according to a study of Mexican immigrants released yesterday by the Pew Hispanic Center.

Not only do they look silly being surprised by this, they look like Republican shills...to me...but maybe I'm sensitive...

The institute also called on Congress to enhance nutritional standards and create incentives, including awards and tax breaks, to encourage companies to develop and promote healthful products for children and adolescents.

No. Just no. It's like paying your crystal meth dealer to sell liquor instead. 

TV Ads Entice Kids To Overeat, Study Finds
By Caroline E. Mayer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 7, 2005; D01

Food and beverage companies are using television ads to entice children into eating massive amounts of unhealthful food, leading to a sharp increase in childhood obesity and diabetes, a national science advisory panel said yesterday.

Good move...Jesus wouldn't approve of what he and his compatriots are doing to the poor. And the fact is, Christmas is a secular holiday. It used to be a religious holiday...the tree representing Yggdrasil, the Yule Log, elves flying around rewarding and punishing behavior...all deeply reminiscent of Jesus of Nazereth.

Whut?

"This clearly demonstrates that the Bush administration has suffered a loss of will and that they have capitulated to the worst elements in our culture," said William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.

Bush "claims to be a born-again, evangelical Christian. But he sure doesn't act like one," said Joseph Farah, editor of the conservative Web site WorldNetDaily.com. "I threw out my White House card as soon as I got it."

This is so stupid...

But the White House's explanation does not satisfy the groups -- which have grown in number in recent years -- that believe there is, in the words of the Heritage Foundation, a "war on Christmas" involving an "ever-stronger push toward a neutered 'holiday' season so that non-Christians won't be even the slightest bit offended."

And we know how important it is to offend non-Christians. Just cain't have'em being not even the slightest bit offended.

At the Catholic League, Donohue had just announced a boycott of the Lands' End catalogue when he received his White House holiday card. True, he said, the Bushes included a verse from Psalm 28, but Psalms are in the Old Testament and do not mention Jesus' birth.

"They'd better address this, because they're no better than the retailers who have lost the will to say 'Merry Christmas,' " he said.

No, pal, they're worse...theirs is an Old Testiment version of religion with Jesus ladled on like gravy on the holiday turkey.

I wonder...

Ronald and Nancy Reagan, similarly, began with a "Joyous Christmas" in 1981 and 1982 but doled out generic holiday wishes from 1983 to 1988.

Would they have tossed a card from Ronbo? 

'Holiday' Cards Ring Hollow for Some on Bushes' List
By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 7, 2005; A01

What's missing from the White House Christmas card? Christmas.

Quote of note:

Since July, prosecutors and judges in Milan have issued arrest warrants charging 22 alleged CIA operatives, including the head of the CIA Milan substation, with kidnapping and other crimes. In interviews and court documents, Italian investigators said they now believe the abduction was overseen by the CIA's station chief in Rome and orchestrated by officials assigned to the U.S. Embassy there.

The case marks the first time that a foreign government has filed criminal charges against U.S. operatives for their role in a counterterrorism mission. In addition to jolting relations between the United States and Italy, normally a strong ally of Washington in the fight against terrorism, the case is fueling a growing chorus of European complaints that the Bush administration has crossed legal and ethical lines in dealing with Islamic extremists.

It's some fucked up shit happens to women, and I can't help but feel she'd be just another vanished hooker if she hung out with white guys. 

Did gangster-rap lifestyle claim Utah woman?
Another world: The Payson native was working as a call girl when she was shot dead in northern California
By Nate Carlisle
The Salt Lake Tribune   

Police warned Lee Danae Laursen the pimps and would-be rappers she associated with were dangerous.

Some detectives offered her money so she could return home to Utah.

But Laursen - a former child care worker from Payson caught up in prostitution and a deadly feud in the rap music world - ignored their advice and declined their cash.

Less than three months later, the 21-year-old was found dead in the northern California town of Fairfield, shot twice in the head.

Fairfield police Sgt. Dan Pitcher said detectives have at least two theories for why Laursen was killed: her involvement with budding rappers or her work as a prostitute.

If she was killed for her connections to the music world, police say, it would make Laursen the fourth homicide victim in a series of crimes that spans three states.

"I don't know if she was brainwashed or what. But the lifestyle she ended up involved in was so far removed from the lifestyle she lived in Utah," said Todd Hendrix, a Las Vegas Metropolitan police detective investigating two homicides that may be linked to Laursen's.

Semi-off-topic quote of note:

Over the past three years, Wilkes' lobbying group in Washington – Group W Advisors – also paid about $630,000 in lobbying fees to Alexander Strategy Group, a firm headed by DeLay's former chief of staff Ed Buckham and staffed with former DeLay employees.

The firm has a well-publicized reputation in Washington as a conduit to DeLay's office.

"The Alexander lobbyists' sales pitch was, 'Either you hire me or DeLay is going to screw you,' " an anonymous source identified as a top Republican lobbyist told the Congressional Quarterly weekly last month. "It was not really a soft sell."

The San Diego Union-Tribune tells you what Cunningham's #1 co-conspirator was up to...man, talk about a total disrespect for law!

Joseph C. Phillips has an article online titled Honest Debate About the War, in which he says:

if our discourse is to bear fruit it must be responsible. We can’t have an honest debate so long as the issues are clouded with hysteria more appropriate to Hollywood science fiction.

and in the very next sentence says:

Our incursion into Iraq was motivated by the belief that democracy and freedom as opposed to tyranny and instability would lay a foundation of peace that would lead to victory in the war on terror.

BZZZZT! Wrong answer...at least it was wrong in 2003.

For a blatant lie within three paragraphs of beginning of the article,  Joseph C. Phillips gets NO respect. And for hosting the lie, Michael Williams gets none either.

Quote of note: 

The fires caused no injuries, but delayed move-in dates for dozens of families and raised suspicions of racism among Hunters Brooke homeowners, most of whom are black. Homeowners have pointed to racist statements that prosecutors have attributed to three of the five defendants, all of whom are white, and racial incidents in the area since the fires.

...Jeremy D. Parady, 21, of Accokeek received 7 years and 3 months. Mr. Speed and Mr. Parady had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit arson as part of a deal with prosecutors.

Mr. Parady admitted that he had singled out the development because many homebuyers are black, and Mr. Speed made racist statements to investigators, according to court documents.

Ringleader in Arsons Gets the Maximum Sentence
By GARY GATELY

Court to Rule on What Constitutes Employer Retaliation
By LINDA GREENHOUSE

WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 - For more than 40 years, federal law has prohibited employers from retaliating against employees who complain about discrimination on the job. But neither Congress, which included the anti-retaliation protection in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, nor the Supreme Court has ever defined "retaliation."

On Monday, the justices agreed to provide the definition, accepting a case that began in a Memphis rail yard when the only woman working in the maintenance department there complained about sexual harassment by her supervisor.

Quote of note:

A 2003 study reported in the Chronicle of Philanthropy noted that black Americans who give to charity donate 25 percent more of their discretionary income than white donors.

In the Coalition for New Philanthropy's 2004 study of minority giving in the New York City area, black Americans of all age groups contributed just slightly more than the nation's other two major ethnic groups, Latino and Asian. But art museums and cultural centers were low on the priority list of all minority groups.

As the Ali Center fundraisers discovered, their money goes instead to churches, schools and scholarships. "Art is important in some parts of the black community, but if you're giving money and have to choose between education and giving to a museum, you would give to education," said Mary Beth Gasman, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania who wrote a book on black philanthropy.

Study Debunks That Blacks Are Wary of Medical Research
Minorities Are Willing to Volunteer but Often Are Not Asked
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 6, 2005; A03

It is a truism that black people do not trust the medical establishment and are reluctant to volunteer for experiments.

And why should they volunteer, the story goes, given the widely known history of Alabama's Tuskegee Institute, where for decades doctors withheld medical treatment from several hundred black men with advanced syphilis as part of a sordid federal study?

"There's just this wide assumption that gets repeated all the time," said David Wendler, a bioethicist who studies race issues at the National Institutes of Health. "We wanted to see what the data really show."

Sound like the defense against Democrats...and like Democrats, the Europeans will respond, "But you aren't doing what you told us you would!"

Anyway... 

Rice Defends Tactics Used Against Suspects
Europe Aware of Operations, She Implies
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 6, 2005; A01

BERLIN, Dec. 6 -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, seeking to dampen a furor in Europe over the CIA's secret detention and transport of suspected terrorists on European soil, on Monday defended U.S. actions there as preventing terrorist attacks and strongly suggested that operations have occurred only with the cooperation of relevant governments.

Quote of note:

Wal-Mart store manager Mark Cornett, who could not be reached for comment Thursday, told Pitts that he only "did what he had to do" before saying "have a great day, sir," according to Pitts.

Pitts was so shaken that he called his boss, Dennis Branch, a regional vice president for GAF in Savannah, Ga. Branch called Cornett and confirmed Pitts' version of the story.

"I was appalled," Branch said. "He wouldn't answer questions like, "Do you call the sheriff every time you cannot verify a check?' He got very defiant. He would not apologize and eventually hung up on me. Reggie had given them the names of several GAF VPs who could vouch for him. All they did was call the GAF guard house number they found in the phone book," which was not answered.

Racial profiling feared at Wal-Mart
Store managers delay a black customer for two hours. It took police 19 minutes to figure out he did nothing wrong.
By MARK ALBRIGHT, Times Staff Writer
Published December 2, 2005

TAMPA - GAF Materials Corp. is handing out gift cards from Target as a reward to select employees this holiday season. That's because Wal-Mart, the discount store that held the business for years, last week called sheriff's deputies to apprehend a GAF manager on a bogus bad check rap while he was trying to buy this year's gift card supply.

"I keep going over and over the incident in my mind," said Reginald Pitts, the 34-year-old human resources manager for the roof material manufacturer's Tampa distribution center. "I cannot come up with any possible reason why I was treated like this except that I am black."

Wal-Mart has launched its own internal investigation of the incident, which store officials concede upfront "was handled very poorly."

"We've apologized to Mr. Pitts and are trying to find out exactly what happened so it does not happen again," said Sharon Weber, spokeswoman for the chain, based in Bentonville, Ark. "We do not tolerate racial discrimination or racial profiling at Wal-Mart."

GAF has been spending about $50,000 a year on gift cards at the Wal-Mart Supercenter at 11110 Causeway Blvd. in Brandon. For years GAF sent a white, female administrator to buy them without incident. This time, when she was on vacation the day before Thanksgiving, Pitts did the job himself. He phoned in the order for 520 cards, got the accounting department to issue Wal-Mart a $13,600 check and then encountered a royal hassle trying to exchange it for gift cards at the store.

"For a while there I thought I was going to prison," he said. "It was a totally humiliating experience."

For about two hours, store managers stalled on accepting the check for the already-printed gift cards, while Pitts stood waiting by the customer service desk. He had handed over his GAF business card, his driver's license and the toll-free numbers to GAF's bank. His accounting supervisor assured them over the phone that GAF, the nation's biggest roofing systems maker with revenues of $1.6-billion in 2004, was good for the check.

Two African-American Wal-Mart clerks watching all this from nearby told Pitts that several similarly sized transactions were made for other companies that day without delay, Pitts said. They suggested to Pitts that he was subjected to all the extra scrutiny by their bosses because he is black.

The thought made him physically ill.

My father was born in 1927 in South Carolina. Therefore, he does not trust white people. He never discussed such stuff with me when I was growing up though. There was a lot of discussion a few years back about how much Black parents should shield out kids from racism. This has pretty much ceased to be an issue.

Be honest, I wasn't aware white parents had the same issue. 

I don't recall my father ever referring to race at all, but my mother taught us that every person is a flower of creation, empowered with Free Will to make the world better or worse, as he saw fit. In her cosmology, souls were issued bodies kind of like kids were issued cars at a carnival ride. Whether you got a duck, a bunny, or an elephant did not reflect at all on your worthiness, even if it affected your enjoyment of the ride, and your prestige among your peers. It wasn't a huge issue because, as I mentioned, it was mostly theoretical in our daily experience.

Of course my parents had not been brought up with this careful attention to an abstract equality of all races, and in retrospect, I see that some of the things my mother told me were not so much core beliefs as they were wishes. She, and many of her white contemporaries, were sick and tired of the open racism of their young adulthood, but they felt powerless to end its manifestation in their time. Many, many parents of white Baby Boomers believed that if they raised their children to ignore skin color, then maybe we would find a way to set things right. They were trying (and they tried very hard) to give this to us as a gift, but it was also a grave responsibility for which (despite all their best wishing) they left us desperately unprepared.

I'm late-40s...how many Black folks were "protected" to this degree?

Can't blame folks. We're all still new to this. But we all damn better be learning from experience.

Towers fell, mob schemes began
This series was reported and written by
the Daily News Investigative Team: RUSS BUETTNER,
HEIDI EVANS, ROBERT GEARTY, BRIAN KATES, GREG B. SMITH
and Assistant Managing Editor
RICHARD T. PIENCIAK
Monday, December 5th, 2005

A four-month Daily News investigation into the $21.4 billion in federal disaster recovery aid has uncovered widespread waste, greed, lax rules and incompetence.

Yesterday, in Part 1 of the groundbreaking series, The News Investigative Team detailed how hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on projects that seemingly had nothing to do with 9/11 and lower Manhattan, how millions went to fat cats and firms that were barely hurt and how hundreds of small and less powerful business entities received barely enough to pay a month's rent.

Back in Blackface
The rehabilitation of "Stepin Fetchit."
By Armond White
Updated Monday, Dec. 5, 2005, at 7:08 AM ET
Few pop consumers remember who Stepin Fetchit was. That must mean we've come a long way from the period when mass media trafficked in racist black stereotypes, because Stepin Fetchit was one of the primary purveyors of that iconography. The minstrel-show tradition that lampooned African-Americans (sometimes by white performers in blackface) was kept going by Stepin Fetchit himself, who was black by birth and a race clown by chosen profession. This complicated identity is the subject of Mel Watkins' recent biography Stepin Fetchit : The Life and Times of Lincoln Perry, an account of the history of the notorious film- and stage performer who shuck-and-jived his way into mid-20^th-century American pop consciousness.

Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry—the actor who created Stepin Fetchit—was born in 1902 and named to honor presidents. An emblematic figure in 1930s Hollywood, Perry played the quintessential lazy, foolish American Negro—first on the black vaudeville "chitlin' circuit," where he got the tag"The Laziest Man on Earth," and later in dozens of movies. But with the advent of the civil rights era, Fetchit became a target of radical political sentiments. He was famously excoriated on a 1968 primetime CBS documentary Of Black America narrated by Bill Cosby. In the decades since, he has been virtually forgotten. Some biographers might see this as rough justice, but not Mel Watkins, who takes his cue from the contemporary range of black pop performers—from Samuel L. Jackson's raging violence to Snoop Dogg's indolent pandering to Chris Rock's black-on-black ridicule. In this new spirit of relaxed embarrassment, Watkins attempts to rehabilitate Stepin Fetchit's reputation.

Quote of note:

Nobody knows how popular the drug benefit will ultimately be with the nation's retirees, who are a critical voting bloc. But Congressional Republicans, who pushed through the Medicare drug law in 2003, have clear political ownership of it, and whatever credit or blame it brings, strategists say.

Glen Bolger, a Republican pollster, said his advice was simple: "It's going to be associated with Republicans, so you better make sure it's something they understand and take advantage of."

Too late...it is what it is, now. And what it is, is confusing as fuck.

Republicans Find They Have to Sell Drug Benefit Plan
By ROBIN TONER and ROBERT PEAR

For you pinheads whose reflexive response to progressive policies the title of this post quotes, a deep reality check.

"The current trend points to tax increases in the long run," said Brian M. Riedl, lead budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group opposed to raising taxes. "The political will to make the difficult decisions on spending is lacking."

"Political will" is a euphemism for "naked greed and lust for power unobstucted by a sleeping electorate," by the way...

When Even Supply-Siders Say Taxes Must Rise, an Unpopular Policy Looks Inevitable
By EDUARDO PORTER

The civil rights division of the Justice Department is now dedicated to protecting the rights of the white majority against parity.

Just sayin', that's all... 

Fixing the Game

...Mr. Bush's attorneys general have systematically gutted the civil rights division, driving out the career lawyers and shifting the division's focus from civil rights enforcement to deportations, other immigration matters and human smuggling. The Post said the administration has filed only three lawsuits regarding discrimination in voting. All came this year, and the first accused a majority-black district in Mississippi of discriminating against white voters.

When I was a kid I saw a mail-order ad for a 'method to kill roaches, guaranteed to work when used as directed."

It was two blocks of wood, attached by a string.

The instructions were:

1. Place roach on Block A
2. Slam Block B onto Block A 

Quote of note:

Jerold Lucey, Pediatrics' editor, called Pearlman "a bit of a huckster" and said that, in hindsight, when Pearlman submitted his study "I probably would [P6: should?] have said: 'We can't publish this if you can't tell us what it is.' " However, the editor said, "You've got to give him points for writing" to set the record straight.

...Pearlman acknowledged that he did not disclose the information earlier "because I wanted to get rich" and had hoped pharmaceutical companies would offer him money to further develop a Cetaphil-based product for head lice. When that did not happen, he says, he decided to write the letter.

"I thought it would be so fun to make the world a better place by telling everyone about this," Pearlman said in a phone interview.

Anti-Lice Lotion Not Unique, Doctor Admits
He Charged $285 for a Common Cleanser
By Lindsey Tanner
Associated Press
Monday, December 5, 2005; A04

CHICAGO, Dec. 4 -- Parents who paid $285 for an experimental head lice treatment for their children might be scratching their own heads now that the doctor selling the stuff says it is really a skin cleanser available for less than $10 a bottle at drugstores nationwide.

Quote of note:

Mr. Ellis argues that the economy's direction is easier to divine than many people think. Cast aside the recession obsession, look beyond the torrent of confusing data each week, he says, and you can often tell what the economy's next move will be. You still won't know when the next recession is coming, but neither do Mr. Greenspan or Wall Street's prophets.

In 2006, Mr. Ellis says, the economy will probably slow more than most forecasters predict, for the same important reason it has typically slowed at other points in the last 40 years: weak wage growth.

What's Ahead: Blue Skies, or More Forecasts of Them?
By DAVID LEONHARDT

Angry BellSouth Withdrew Donation, New Orleans Says
By Jonathan Krim
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 3, 2005; D01

Hours after New Orleans officials announced Tuesday that they would deploy a city-owned, wireless Internet network in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, regional phone giant BellSouth Corp. withdrew an offer to donate one of its damaged buildings that would have housed new police headquarters, city officials said yesterday.

According to the officials, the head of BellSouth's Louisiana operations, Bill Oliver, angrily rescinded the offer of the building in a conversation with New Orleans homeland security director Terry Ebbert, who oversees the roughly 1,650-member police force.

Oversight of war spending is faulted
Congress, military spar on reporting
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff  |  December 4, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The Defense Department is preparing its seventh supplemental budget request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but congressional overseers and government watchdog groups are warning that gaps in the Pentagon's accounting methods make it difficult to monitor how the armed services have spent more than $300 billion since the war on terror began.

The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has said that confusing Pentagon accounting procedures, as well as bookkeeping lapses, have complicated the legislative branch's ability to track billions of dollars that have been spent on military contracts and operations.

Study: Customers suffer where regulators are weak
IDG News Service 12/2/05

Customers pay more and are offered fewer telecommunications services in European countries where regulators have done a poor job of weakening former monopolies, according to a report commissioned by the European Competitive Telecommunications Association and released on Friday.

The report, conducted by Jones Day and Strategy and Policy Consultants Network Ltd., showed that investment in telecommunications, which leads to better services for end users, is lower in countries where there is little competition. For example, in the U.K., where the study found that the regulator is independent and has created effective regulations, telecommunications companies invest US$184 per capita. By contrast, in Germany, which tied with Greece as having the least effective regulatory environment, operators spend just $68 per capita. The incumbent has maintained a strong grip on the German market.

You like satire? Try this:

Jane Alexander, co-founder of Citizens Against Homicide...[said] "We want the execution to go on as planned."

You think it's out of context? I don't. Here's the full paragraph:

"His work doesn't mitigate the fact that he killed four people and started a gang that is still killing, dealing drugs and committing other crimes," said Jane Alexander, co-founder of Citizens Against Homicide, a Marin County support group for the families of homicide victims. "We want the execution to go on as planned."

We're talking Stanley "Tookie" Williams again, of course.