Week of February 05, 2006 to February 11, 2006

Road rage!

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 11, 2006 - 11:29am.
on Random rant
Philly Bus Driver Tosses Woman Off Bus
Thursday, February 9, 2006

(02-09) 17:10 PST PHILADELPHIA, (AP) --

A transit bus driver grabbed a woman by the hair, knocked her head into a pole, opened the door and tossed her into traffic after she yelled at him for missing her stop, police said.

The 52-year-old woman, who was not identified, suffered a broken shoulder.

Bus driver Mario Edney, 53, was arraigned Thursday on aggravated assault and other charges, said Officer Jillian Russell, a police spokeswoman. He was being held on $2,000 bail.

Edney said he had to skip the woman's stop Wednesday morning because of a detour, police said.

There's a level on which I feel I'd prefer knowing

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 11, 2006 - 10:55am.
on Race and Identity
Craigslist Accused of Ad Discriminating
By DAVE CARPENTER, AP Business Writer
Thu Feb 9, 7:17 PM ET

A federal lawsuit accuses the online site Craigslist of violating fair housing laws by publishing discriminatory classified ads, reviving the question of what legal boundaries, if any, should exist for postings on the Internet.

But legal experts say the lawsuit against Craigslist, a fast-growing online network of classified ads and forums, faces an uphill battle because of laws in place to protect online service providers.

Abramoff's favorite charities

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 11, 2006 - 10:30am.
on Justice | Politics
Quote of note:
They included:
  • The Capital Athletic Foundation, created by Abramoff as a sports-oriented youth charity. He funded it with millions improperly diverted from his lobbying clients and treated it as his "personal piggy bank," a lawmaker said, spending money on pet projects that had nothing to do with its stated purpose.
  • The American International Center, a bogus "international think tank" at a beach house near Rehoboth Beach, Del. Abramoff and Scanlon used the center to collect millions from their lobbying clients and then send it to their personal bank accounts.
  • Toward Tradition, a nonprofit in Mercer Island, Wash., that promotes "traditional Judeo Christian values" and was used to help Abramoff funnel an alleged $50,000 bribe of an aide to DeLay.
  • The National Center for Public Policy Research in Washington, an obscure conservative organization that Abramoff used to defraud an Indian tribe and an offshore gaming alliance of at least $2 million for his and Scanlon's personal enrichment.
Abramoff's story is not just one of clever fraudsters, but of the seeming willingness of some donors and charities to look the other way. They say that they too are victims, although some experts question whether they were diligent enough.

Abramoff's Charity Began at Home
The lobbyist admits he used nonprofits to evade taxes, pad his pockets and bribe officials.
By Chuck Neubauer and Richard B. Schmitt
Times Staff Writers
February 11, 2006

WASHINGTON — In his own way, disgraced super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff engaged in many charitable endeavors over the course of his decade-long career as a Washington insider.

Hopefully, teachers will have the courage to fail their asses for disrupting the class...aggressively

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 11, 2006 - 10:24am.
on Education | Onward the Theocracy!
Quote of note:
A former high-school biology teacher, Ham travels the nation training children as young as 5 to challenge science orthodoxy. He doesn't engage in the political and legal fights that have erupted over the teaching of evolution. His strategy is more subtle: He aims to give people who trust the biblical account of creation the confidence to defend their views — aggressively.

He urges students to offer creationist critiques of their textbooks, parents to take on science museum docents, professionals to raise the subject with colleagues. If Ham has done his job well, his acolytes will ask enough pointed questions — and set forth enough persuasive arguments — to shake the doctrine of Darwin.

"We're going to arm you with Christian Patriot missiles," Ham, 54, recently told the 1,200 adults gathered at Calvary Temple here in northern New Jersey. It was a Friday night, the kickoff of a heavily advertised weekend conference sponsored by Ham's ministry, Answers in Genesis.
Those who believe in creationism -- children and adults -- are being taught to challenge evolution's tenets in an in-your-face way.
By Stephanie Simon
Times Staff Writer
February 11, 2006

News that's thousands of years old

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 11, 2006 - 10:13am.
on Africa and the African Diaspora
Hole in a Wall Reveals Egyptian Relics
From a king's adjoining tomb, archeologists spy a chamber housing five mummies who, if not royal, were in a pharaoh's good books.
By Tanalee Smith
Associated Press

February 11, 2006

LUXOR, Egypt — The painted 3,000-year-old face of a woman — her eyes lined in black kohl — stared from a funerary mask Friday as authorities revealed to the world the first tomb discovered in eight decades in the Valley of the Kings.

The five mummies inside were found by a team of American archeologists working on the neighboring tomb of Amenmeses, a late 19th Dynasty pharaoh.

The things they tell you about are bad enough

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 11, 2006 - 6:09am.

So the Senate and House of Representatives have come to terms on a bill to extend the "controversial" provisions of the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act. The New York Times says Congress caved.

One of the most troubling aspects of the Patriot Act is the "gag order" imposed by Section 215, which prohibits anyone holding financial, medical and other private records of ordinary Americans from saying anything when the government issues a subpoena for those records. That means that a person whose records are being taken, and whose privacy is being invaded, has no way to know about the subpoena and no way to challenge it.

I told Howard Dean and now I'm telling Michael Steele

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 10, 2006 - 4:16pm.
...who should know better than to jack around with people's symbols.

That's the problem with being a Black Republican...you have to deny so much you lose track of lessons legitimately learned.

Open mouth, insert footSteele Apologizes for Holocaust Remarks
Compared Stem Cell Research to Nazi Medical Experiments
By Matthew Mosk, John Wagner and Ann E. Marimow
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, February 10, 2006; 11:30 AM

Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele apologized this morning for telling a Baltimore Jewish group yesterday that he believes stem cell research could be comparable to Nazi medical testing on Jews during World War II.

"I'm just sorry for having said it, for it having come out the way it did," Steele (R) said on WBAL radio. "I made an inappropriate inference, and I apologize for that."

Let me tell you what troubles me about this

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 10, 2006 - 3:59pm.
on Africa and the African Diaspora

Aristede won a Democratic election and was chased out of office by thugs using weapons that cost more than your average Haitian's annual salary.

If Préval won this election (as is likely, because there will always be more poor folks than there are "elites") the unrest that chased Aristede into those American helicopters will look more shady than ever. And I suspect those well armed thugs would return.

Candidate of Haiti's Poor Leads in Early Tally With 61% of Vote
By GINGER THOMPSON

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb. 9 — Unofficial electoral results that had been carried in by mules, trucks and helicopters from polling centers across the country appeared Thursday to give an early lead to René Préval, a former president considered a champion of the poor masses and a thorn in the side of the elite.

You think they can sort out the spam?

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 10, 2006 - 1:10pm.
on War

Police blotter: Patriot Act e-mail spying approved
By Declan McCullagh
Story last modified Fri Feb 10 06:23:10 PST 2006

What: The Justice Department asks a judge to approve Patriot Act e-mail monitoring without any evidence of criminal behavior.
When: Decided Feb. 2, 2006 by U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan in Washington, D.C.
Outcome: E-mail surveillance approved.

What happened: As part of a grand jury investigation that's still secret, the Justice Department asked a federal magistrate judge to approve monitoring of an unnamed person's e-mail correspondents.

Manufactured doubt aside...

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 10, 2006 - 9:41am.
on Culture wars
Quote of note:

"The best thing that C.P.B. can do now is stay out of the spotlight," Mr. Lawson added. "If changes in management at C.P.B. signal to Democrats and Republicans alike that C.P.B. will be nonpartisan and programming decisions will be made on a nonideological basis, that's a very positive development as we go about seeking support from Congress."

Official Resigns Public TV Post
By STEPHEN LABATON
and ELIZABETH JENSEN

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 — The top television executive at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced on Thursday that he would be stepping down. This is the latest in a string of departures of officials and consultants who played central roles in an effort by conservatives to bring what they viewed as more balance to public television and radio.

That's an interesting admission

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 10, 2006 - 8:35am.
on Impeachable offenses | Politics

Quote of note:

"This was not some rogue operation, but was directed at the highest levels, and specifically by Dick Cheney," Johnson said. "Libby was definitely a man with a mission, but a man who was given a mission."

Libby Testified He Was Told To Leak Data About Iraq
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 10, 2006; A08

Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff testified that his bosses instructed him to leak information to reporters from a high-level intelligence report that suggested Iraq was trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction, according to court records in the CIA leak case.

When you put it that way I don't think there's an option

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 10, 2006 - 8:18am.
on Politics

Cheney Says NSA Spying Should Be an Election Issue
By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 10, 2006; A07

Vice President Cheney suggested last night that the debate over spying on overseas communications to or from terrorism suspects should be a political issue in this year's congressional elections.

Speaking to Republicans gathered for the annual CPAC convention, Cheney said the debate over the National Security Agency surveillance program "has clarified where all stand" on an issue that has drawn criticism from congressional Democrats and some Republicans.

"And with an important election coming up, people need to know just how we view the most critical questions of national security, and how we propose to defend the nation that all of us, Republicans and Democrats, love and are privileged to serve," Cheney said.

This is something I need to check

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 10, 2006 - 7:44am.
on Impeachable offenses
I need to see what is in the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act extension the Senate is about to vote on. The one that didn't quite make it in had this gem:
    `(b)(1) Under the direction of the Director of the Secret Service, members of the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division are authorized to--
      `(A) carry firearms;
      `(B) make arrests without warrant for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such felony; and

Which video clip format works best for you?

Quicktime
16% (3 votes)
Windows Media Format
32% (6 votes)
Either
42% (8 votes)
I don't watch those things
11% (2 votes)
Total votes: 19

No thank you

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 9, 2006 - 10:24am.
on Tech

From the Los Angeles Times
IN BRIEF / TECHNOLOGY
Google to Let Users Search PCs Remotely
From Associated Press
February 9, 2006

Google Inc. is offering a new tool that will automatically transfer information from one personal computer to another, but anyone wanting that convenience must authorize the Internet search leader to store the material for up to 30 days.

The ability to search a computer remotely is included in Google's latest upgrade to its desktop searching software.

Despite the privacy concerns likely to be raised, executives of Mountain View, Calif.-based Google believe that the product will appeal to people wanting a way to use a home computer to hunt for data stored on an office computer, or vice versa.

We're not gonna discipline them anyway, so why make them go through all that stress?

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 9, 2006 - 9:57am.
on Justice

A matter of public record

WHAT CHANGED? That's the key question for members of the Los Angeles Police Commission, who secretly reversed a 25-year-old policy of publicly disclosing the names of police officers involved in shootings. Though the commission finally discussed the issue at a public meeting Tuesday, two months after making the decision behind closed doors, commissioners didn't adequately explain why a policy that has worked just fine for a quarter of a century is no longer viable. They need to.

That said, it's going to be hard to come up with a justification. When police officers are involved in a shooting, their identities matter — because without them, it's impossible to know whether specific officers pose a problem. Using the names in police reports, The Times was able to determine in 2004 that a small group of officers was involved in a disproportionate number of shootings. Yes, police officers have a right to privacy, but details of shooting incidents should be a matter of public record.

Since it works so well in elementary school...

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 9, 2006 - 9:41am.
on Education

Oh, come on.

The Commission on the Future of Higher Education, appointed last fall by the secretary of education, Margaret Spellings, has until August to make a report on issues that include accountability, cost and quality. Educators are wary. "To subject colleges to uniform standards is to trivialize what goes on in higher education," said Leon Botstein, president of Bard College. "Excellence comes in many unusual ways. You cannot apply the rules of high-stakes testing in high schools to universities."

In an interview, Mr. Miller said he was not envisioning a higher education version of the No Child Left Behind Act, which requires standardizing testing in public schools and penalizes schools whose students do not improve. "There is no way you can mandate a single set of tests, to have a federalist higher education system," he said.

But he said public reporting of collegiate learning as measured through testing "would be greatly beneficial to the students, parents, taxpayers and employers" and that he would like to create a national database that includes measures of learning. "It would be a shame for the academy to say, 'We can't tell you what it is; you have to trust us,' " Mr. Miller said.

You know the very act of slotting them into a scoring grid requires a single set of tests or the comparison is meaningless.

Panel Explores Standard Tests for Colleges
By KAREN W. ARENSON

A higher education commission named by the Bush administration is examining whether standardized testing should be expanded into universities and colleges to prove that students are learning and to allow easier comparisons on quality.

Corruption creeps slowly through the system

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 9, 2006 - 8:56am.
on Impeachable offenses

Secret Court's Judges Were Warned About NSA Spy Data
Program May Have Led Improperly to Warrants
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 9, 2006; A01

Twice in the past four years, a top Justice Department lawyer warned the presiding judge of a secret surveillance court that information overheard in President Bush's eavesdropping program may have been improperly used to obtain wiretap warrants in the court, according to two sources with knowledge of those events.

The revelations infuriated U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly -- who, like her predecessor, Royce C. Lamberth, had expressed serious doubts about whether the warrantless monitoring of phone calls and e-mails ordered by Bush was legal. Both judges had insisted that no information obtained this way be used to gain warrants from their court, according to government sources, and both had been assured by administration officials it would never happen.

David Broder has no ggod news for the Bush regime

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 9, 2006 - 7:57am.
on For the Democrats | Impeachable offenses
He tries to be "even handed"
Gonzales, in his testimony, made an effective rhetorical point by citing examples going back to Washington, Lincoln, Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt of presidents ordering interception of wartime communications -- on their own authority.
...and he actually succeeds

Rev. Joseph Lowery does not apologize for clear, intentional statements

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 8, 2006 - 2:00pm.

As well he should not.

Think Progress won't mind my stealing their bandwidth.

Rev. Joseph Lowery appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show last night to respond to right-wing criticisms that his remarks inappropriately politicized Coretta Scott King’s funeral. Carlson told Lowery his remarks “seemed like bad manners” and were “very uncomfortable.” Lowery stood his ground. Watch it:

 

CARLSON: It’s not hard to hear that [your remarks] and not draw the obvious conclusion that that’s an attack on President Bush, which of course is your right to do, and I think completely fair. But again, it seemed very uncomfortable to say something like that in a funeral with the president right there. It seemed like bad manners.

LOWERY: Well, I don’t think so. I certainly didn’t intend for it to be bad manners. I did intend for it to — to call attention to the fact that Mrs. King spoke truth to power. And here was an opportunity to demonstrate how she spoke truth to power about this war and about all wars.

And I think that, in the context of the faith, out of which the movement grows, we have always opposed war. We’ve always fought poverty. And we base our — our argument on — on the faith, on the fact that Jesus taught us. He identified with the poor. “I was hungry; you didn’t feed me. I was naked; you didn’t clothe me. I was in prison; you didn’t see about me.” He talked about war. He talked about he who lives by the sword.

So I’m comfortable with the fact that I was reflecting on Mrs. King’s tenacity against war, her determination to witness against war and to speak truth to power.

CARLSON: Were you comfortable with President Jimmy Carter`s remarks, which also seemed openly partisan and political? His reference to the domestic spying controversy now surrounding the president and to the federal government`s response to Katrina? Was that an appropriate series of remarks to give at a funeral, do you think?

LOWERY: Well, Mr. Carter is very capable of defending himself.

CARLSON: But what did you think, I`m wondering?

LOWERY: Well, I think that I`m responsible for my remarks and not Mr. Carter`s. I just think that, in speaking truth to power, if there were no fabrications and there were no deceptions, there were no misstatements or errors in fact, then I think that Mr. Carter had a right to say what he feels.

CARLSON: All right. The Reverend Joseph Lowery, joining us by phone from Atlanta tonight.

Do We Have To Go Through This Crap Again

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 8, 2006 - 1:32pm.
on Economics | For the Democrats | Politics

Sleight of Hand
Bush buried detailed Social Security privatization proposals in his budget. Can the surprise move jump-start bipartisan reform?
By Allan Sloan
Updated: 12:09 p.m. ET Feb. 8, 2006

Feb. 8, 2006 - If you read enough numbers, you never know what you'll find. Take President Bush and private Social Security accounts.

Last year, even though Bush talked endlessly about the supposed joys of private accounts, he never proposed a specific plan to Congress and never put privatization costs in the budget. But this year, with no fanfare whatsoever, Bush stuck a big Social Security privatization plan in the federal budget proposal, which he sent to Congress on Monday.

The N.R.A. has lost its mind

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 8, 2006 - 10:58am.
on News

Corporate America is not going to leave itself open to a lawsuit (failure to protect the car that was broken into by the criminal that shot the place up).

Under the bill, if business owners ban guns in cars on workplace parking lots, they could get sued and charged with a third-degree felony, punishable by a maximum five-year prison sentence and a $5,000 fine. The bill has an exception for places like schools, where guns are banned by law.

NRA bill would OK guns in cars at work
A bill being pushed by the NRA to allow people to keep guns in their cars on workplace parking lots faces a tough challenge from the powerful Florida Chamber of Commerce.
BY MARC CAPUTO

TALLAHASSEE - The National Rifle Association is pushing a bill that would penalize Florida employers with prison time and lawsuits if they prohibit people from keeping guns in their cars at workplace parking lots.

If it were college instead of prison, they'd be having bake sales instead of fights

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 8, 2006 - 9:58am.
on Justice | Race and Identity

Quote of note:

"Typically, [prosecution] does disrupt the group," says Tony Delgado, a gang expert with the Ohio Bureau of Prisons. But "you've just got to keep plugging away at them." Just ask Mikey Lando. An Aryan Brotherhood member since 1984, Lando, 56, now living in Elmira, N.Y., on disability pay, says he isn't worried about the "crew's" future. "You're never going to cripple the Aryan Brotherhood. If you kill one, there's going to be three more in its place."

Justice: Battling the Aryan Brothers
Prosecutors bid to break up a vicious prison gang.
By Sarah Childress
Newsweek

Feb. 13, 2006 issue - Barry Byron Mills is a bank robber who will spend the rest of his life in prison. An alleged leader of the notorious Aryan Brotherhood prison gang, Mills stabbed a fellow inmate to death with a handmade knife 27 years ago, adding two life sentences to his time. Now 57, he likes to project a softer side. He spends his spare time crocheting, and writes love letters to lonely women on the outside who have a weak spot for prison toughs.

Congressional election season may be challenging for Republicans

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 8, 2006 - 9:45am.
on Politics

Quote of note:

Jarding said Webb's story -- a decorated Republican veteran turned Democrat -- is compelling enough to help Democrats defeat Allen.

"This is Ronald Reagan's secretary of the Navy saying, 'The Democratic Party is closer to my ideals,' " Jarding said. "This is the genuine, real deal."

Reagan Navy Secretary Will Run for U.S. Senate
By Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 8, 2006; B05

RICHMOND, Feb. 7 -- James Webb, who served as President Ronald Reagan's Navy secretary, said Tuesday that he will seek the Democratic nomination to run against U.S. Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) this year, hoping to challenge the one-term incumbent on foreign policy and the conduct of the war in Iraq.

A Senatorial De Lay in fundraising

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 8, 2006 - 9:40am.
on Politics
Pony up, GOP sens. told
By Alexander Bolton

Senate Republican leaders yesterday urged GOP senators to meet ambitious individual fundraising goals to help close the fundraising disparity with their Democratic counterparts.

Several lawmakers said the individual fundraising goals are significantly higher than they’ve been asked to meet in past election cycles. The request also underscores how nervous Republicans are less than nine months before the midterm elections.

Participants at yesterday’s meeting at the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) said that rank-and-file senators had been asked to raise about $100,000 for the NRSC and that chairmen had been asked to raise about $150,000.

Hoping against hope

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 8, 2006 - 9:26am.
on Health
Has BYU prof found AIDS cure?
Compound could be long-sought breakthrough
By Bob Mims
The Salt Lake Tribune

Researchers, including a BYU scientist, believe they have found a new compound that could finally kill the HIV/AIDS virus, not just slow it down as current treatments do.

And, unlike the expensive, drug cocktails 25 years of research have produced for those with the deadly virus, the compound invented by Paul D. Savage of Brigham Young University appears to hunt down and kill HIV.

Although so far limited to early test tube studies, CSA-54, one of a family of compounds called Ceragenins (or CSAs), mimics the disease-fighting characteristics of anti-microbial and anti-viral agents produced naturally by a healthy human immune system.

There must have been hella more than five pictures

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 7, 2006 - 5:49pm.
on Politics
CORRUPTION -- DID THE WHITE HOUSE INSTRUCT PRIVATE PHOTOGRAPHER TO SCRUB BUSH-ABRAMOFF PICTURES? Two weeks ago, The Hill columnist and blogger Josh Marshall reported that Reflections Photography, a large studio frequently hired to photograph conservative political events, had removed from its database all photos showing President Bush with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Marshall had unsuccessfully attempted to purchase such a photo from Reflections, and called the studio's president Joanne Amos to ask why the pictures were no longer available. She "very straightforwardly told me that the photographs had been removed and that they had been removed because they showed Abramoff and the president in the same picture.

Goodbye

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 7, 2006 - 1:34pm.
on News | Race and Identity

A final farewell to Coretta Scott King
By Dahleen Glanton
Tribune staff reporter

February 7, 2006, 11:21 AM CSTp> LITHONIA, Ga. -- Thousands of mourners, including President Bush, three former U.S. presidents and legions of ordinary citizens, made their sad pilgrimages to this Atlanta suburb today to bid farewell to Coretta Scott King, considered by many to be the first lady of the civil rights movement.

Mourners began lining up as early as 6 a.m. at a shopping mall where city buses were to shuttle them to the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia to view Mrs. King's body. Then, mourners were expected to form a line to fill one of the 10,000 seats available at the funeral.

The mourners included a large contingent from Chicago, ranging from Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to Ald. Dorothy Tillman (3rd).

Many said they had stood in line for hours since Monday night in an attempt to view the body at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where she lay in state and where her husband, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., once served as co-pastor with his father.

Even if I wanted to see them, the people pushing for broad publication would be enough to change my mind

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 7, 2006 - 1:25pm.
Hate behind right-wing blogburst
No need to publish offensive cartoons
Feb. 7, 2006. 01:00 AM
ANTONIA ZERBISIAS

Well that didn't take long.

While Muslim religious extremists are rioting in the streets of Beirut, Gaza City and Kabul, Scandinavian embassies are being torched and Jordanians are deprived of their Danish feta over cartoons that were never actually published in any legitimate newspaper, the right-wing blogosphere has been staging its own "blogburst": the act of reproducing the offending depictions of the Prophet Muhammad.

It's a "simultaneous, co-ordinated posting by a large group of webmasters and bloggers on a given topic," says Israpundit who, along with Michelle Malkin, who is like Ann Coulter but not as funny and not so skinny, are leading the cartoon crusade.

The Mismeasure of Man

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 7, 2006 - 10:24am.
cover of The Mismeasure of Manasin: 0393314251
binding: Paperback
list price: $16.95 USD
amazon price: $11.53 USD
availability: Usually ships in 24 hours


It's not just death that initiates the process

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 7, 2006 - 8:55am.
on People of the Word

Quote of note:

Common wisdom holds that people have a set standard of morality that never wavers. Yet studies of people who do unpalatable things, whether by choice, or for reasons of duty or economic necessity, find that people's moral codes are more flexible than generally understood. To buffer themselves from their own consciences, people often adjust their moral judgments in a process some psychologists call moral disengagement, or moral distancing.

and

Participants in executions, like ones carried out by lethal injection in San Quentin, traditionally divide the responsibilities among workers so that no one person is entirely responsible for the death.

...and a little more at Intrapolitics.org.

When Death Is on the Docket, the Moral Compass Wavers
By BENEDICT CAREY

Burl Cain is a religious man who believes it is only for God to say when a person's number is up. But in his job as warden and chief executioner at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Mr. Cain is the one who gives the order to start a lethal injection, and he has held condemned inmates' hands as they died.

He does it, he said in an interview, because capital punishment "is the law of the land."

"It's something we do whether we're for it or against it, and we try to make the process as humane as possible," he said, referring to himself and others on the execution team.

But he concedes, "The issue is coping, how we cope with it."

It actually studies "environmental factors correlated with race", but "race" is easier to say

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 7, 2006 - 8:41am.
on Health | Race and Identity

Same reason I'm P6 instead of Prometheus 6.

Anyway...


A Conversation With Herman Taylor
Mississippi's 'Heart Man' Examines Links Between Race and Disease
By CLAUDIA DREIFUS

JACKSON, Miss. — When Dr. Herman A. Taylor Jr. goes for breakfast in this city of 180,000, he orders carefully: granola, fresh fruit. "People look at what I put on my tray," he said on a recent morning at the Broad Street Bakery, a local cafe. "They wonder if I practice what I preach."

Around Jackson, where a common breakfast can be eggs fried in lard, Dr. Taylor, a University of Mississippi cardiologist, is known as "heart man." He is the director of the Jackson Heart Study, the largest epidemiological investigation ever undertaken to discover the links between cardiovascular disease and race.

From now until 2014, Dr. Taylor and his team will be following 5,302 black residents of three Mississippi counties — Hinds, Rankin and Madison — observing their lives and how their heart health is related to their environment.

It will be interesting to see what happens if "an Aristede Ally" wins

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 7, 2006 - 8:33am.
on Africa and the African Diaspora

Quote of note:

"Haiti has a very long history of dictatorship and military rule, but somehow the Haitian people still believe they can make their voices heard," said Michele Pierre-Louis, head of the nation's Open Society Institute, the organization funded by philanthropist George Soros to promote democracy.

Aristide Ally Is Ahead in Haiti Poll
Tuesday's vote could see the reelection of Rene Preval as president, but some fear violence and chaos as thousands of voters still lack ID cards.
By Carol J. Williams
Times Staff Writer
February 6, 2006

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — More than five years have passed since Haitians last voted. Those elections were marred by violence and fraud, leading to an armed rebellion, the president's flight into exile in Africa and the arrival of foreign troops to impose order.

Senator Obama responds to Senator McCain

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 7, 2006 - 12:37am.
on Politics

February 6, 2006

The Honorable John McCain
United States Senate
241 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear John:

    During my short time in the U.S. Senate, one of the aspects about this institution that I have come to value most is the collegiality and the willingness to put aside partisan differences to work on issues that help the American people. It was in this spirit that I approached you to work on ethics reform, and it was in this spirit that I agreed to attend your bipartisan meeting last week. I appreciated then - and still do appreciate - your willingness to reach out to me and several other Democrats.

    For this reason, I am puzzled by your response to my recent letter. Last Wednesday morning, you called to invite me to your meeting that afternoon. I changed my schedule so I could attend the meeting. Afterwards, you thanked me several times for attending the meeting, and we left pledging to work together.

    As you will recall, I told everyone present at the meeting that my caucus insisted that the consideration of any ethics reform proposal go through the regular committee process. You didn't indicate any opposition to this position at the time, and I wrote the letter to reiterate this point, as well as the fact that I thought S. 2180 should be the basis for a bipartisan solution.

    I confess that I have no idea what has prompted your response. But let me assure you that I am not interested in typical partisan rhetoric or posturing. The fact that you have now questioned my sincerity and my desire to put aside politics for the public interest is regrettable but does not in any way diminish my deep respect for you nor my willingness to find a bipartisan solution to this problem.


Sincerely, Barack Obama
United States Senator

It's like he never had someone pull out of an alliance

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 6, 2006 - 9:07pm.
on Politics
It seems Senator Obama has decided McCain's ethics task force.

Obama to McCain: No Thanks on Reform Task Force

In a sign that many Democrats continue to view ethics as a potent political issue in the midterm elections,  Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Thursday rejected an effort by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to form a bipartisan task force to develop compromise reform legislation.

"I know you have expressed an interest in creating a task force to further study and discuss these matters but I and others in the Democratic Caucus believe the more effective and timely course is to allow the committees of jurisdiction to roll up their sleeves and get to work on writing ethics and lobbying reform legislation that a majority of the Senate can support," Obama wrote in a Feb. 2 letter to McCain.

Dear Anonymous Commenters

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 6, 2006 - 11:27am.
on Open thread | Random rant
If it occurs to you to leave a comment in all capital letters, you may assume it will be deleted.

I probably won't even read it in any detail to see if you're on my side or not.

Gene Sperling on C-SPAN's Washington Journal

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 6, 2006 - 9:50am.
on Race and Identity

As a former economic advisor to President Clinton, he was there to speak on economic issues. As usual, a number of citizens of the Confederate States of America called in to share their...special world view.

Normally, the guests just don't speak to that world view. But this time...

...he actually said something. Even better, he said it correctly. He named everyone, and didn't futz with people's symbols (which was Howard Dean's "pickup truck" error).

Republicans do not swear in ANYONE

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 6, 2006 - 9:45am.
on Politics
I'm watching the roll call vote appealing Chairman Hatch's ruling that AG Gonzales is not to be sworn in. PArtyline vote says he will not.

At least Hatch was nicer about it than Stevens of Alaska was...

This is what they mean when they say federal drug costs have fallen

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 6, 2006 - 8:25am.
on Big Pharma | Health | Politics
By Tony Pugh, Knight Ridder  |  February 5, 2006

WASHINGTON -- More than a month after filling thousands of unpaid prescriptions for poor, sick customers, many of America's small and independent pharmacists, particularly those in low-income and rural areas, are facing a cash crunch as they await repayment from Medicare's private drug plans.

At Rose Drugs in central Tampa, many customers are poor people with HIV infections and senior citizens on fixed incomes. When their drug coverage switched from Medicaid to Medicare on Jan. 1, store owner Rose Ferlita distributed medicines to combat their ailments even though she couldn't always verify their eligibility for the new Medicare drug benefit.

Turnabout is fair play

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 6, 2006 - 7:45am.
on Media
Quote of note:
Valley of the Wolves Iraq opens with a real-life incident. In July 2003, 11 Turkish commandos were detained by U.S. troops in the Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah. Pictures showing the detained men cuffed and with sacks over their heads provoked outrage in Turkey, where nationalist sentiment runs deep. The film proceeds to pile on fiction. Turkish intelligence officer Polat Alemdar heads to north Iraq to seek out the U.S. troops responsible and avenge Turkish honor. There he discovers a rogue unit of U.S. soldiers led by officer Sam William Marshall, played by Billy Zane.

Bad Blood on The Big Screen
A Turkish Rambo takes on the U.S. — and moviegoers are loving it
BY PELIN TURGUT / ISTANBUL

That's pretty unambiguous

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 5, 2006 - 8:39pm.
on Impeachable offenses
Quote of note:
The program, he said on NBC, "is in flat violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act." But it remained to be seen, Mr. Specter added, whether that statute is inconsistent with the Constitution.
Specter Says Surveillance Program Violated the Law
By BRIAN KNOWLTON,
International Herald Tribune

WASHINGTON, Feb. 5 — The Republican who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee said today that he believed the Bush administration had violated the law with its warrantless surveillance program and that its legal justifications for the program were "strained and unrealistic."

Black Intrapolitics: So I lied

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 5, 2006 - 1:42pm.
on Race and Identity
First I said this.

Then I did this.

Sue me.

Payments that pick your pocket

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 5, 2006 - 9:46am.
on Economics | Health
Quote of note:

Based on the clawback formula, California will be forced to pay the federal government $500 million in the 2005-2006 fiscal year, resulting in a net cost of $72 million to the state, according to the California Department of Health Services.

Kentucky Attorney General Greg Stumbo said the clawback will take $88 million in state funds from Kentucky`s cash-strapped Medicaid program in 2006 alone.

States sue on Medicare clawback
By Olga Pierce
Feb 4, 2006, 19:00 GMT

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- The attorneys general of California and at least four other states have said they will sue the federal government over the so-called clawback provision of the Medicare Part D drug benefit, which requires states to return to the federal government savings from the plan.

Once you glorify Nazism you don't need to be much more specific

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 5, 2006 - 9:23am.
on Race and Identity

Typical bullshit statement of note:

Robida is a high school dropout who, friends said, glorified Nazism but never expressed any specific prejudice against gays.

Yup. It was an isolated incident. And what is this about?

Walsh said the Robida shot his unidentified female passenger before he was wounded in the shootout with police.

Bar Attack Suspect Is Injured in Shootout
Teenager Killed Officer, Police Say
By Noah Trister
Associated Press
Sunday, February 5, 2006; A13

GASSVILLE, Ark., Feb. 4 -- A teenager suspected of a hatchet-and-gun attack in a Massachusetts gay bar shot and killed a small-town police officer and the teenager's female passenger before he was critically wounded in a gun battle with police Saturday, authorities said.

Jacob D. Robida, 18, was shot twice in the head, and "it doesn't look good right now," said Massachusetts prosecutor Paul Walsh Jr.

Legal decisions aside, you got less shot at honest reparations than Black folks do

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 5, 2006 - 9:07am.
on Economics | Race and Identity

Quote of note:

The Indian plaintiffs called the decision a "devious and deceptive" attempt to punish Indians for winning in court.

"This is totally unreal," said Elouise Cobell, a Blackfeet Indian and the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit.

Interior Pays Lawyers With Indian Funds
Associated Press
Sunday, February 5, 2006; A13

Interior Department officials, ordered to pay $7 million to lawyers for American Indians suing the government over lost royalties, cut Indian programs to find most of the money.

Jim Cason, associate deputy interior secretary, said the cuts will include $2 million from a fund for lawyers performing tribal work and $1 million from Bureau of Indian Affairs' central and regional offices and some tribal programs. The decision will not affect schools or public safety.

Unreasonable Search (no seizure because there's nothing to seize)

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on February 5, 2006 - 8:50am.
on Impeachable offenses

Quote of note:

The Bush administration refuses to say -- in public or in closed session of Congress -- how many Americans in the past four years have had their conversations recorded or their e-mails read by intelligence analysts without court authority. Two knowledgeable sources placed that number in the thousands; one of them, more specific, said about 5,000.

The program has touched many more Americans than that...

The scale of warrantless surveillance, and the high proportion of bystanders swept in, sheds new light on Bush's circumvention of the courts. National security lawyers, in and out of government, said the washout rate raised fresh doubts about the program's lawfulness under the Fourth Amendment, because a search cannot be judged "reasonable" if it is based on evidence that experience shows to be unreliable.

Surveillance Net Yields Few Suspects
NSA's Hunt for Terrorists Scrutinizes Thousands of Americans, but Most Are Later Cleared
By Barton Gellman, Dafna Linzer and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, February 5, 2006; A01

Intelligence officers who eavesdropped on thousands of Americans in overseas calls under authority from President Bush have dismissed nearly all of them as potential suspects after hearing nothing pertinent to a terrorist threat, according to accounts from current and former government officials and private-sector sources with knowledge of the technologies in use.