Forget Roe and the Framers. Let's Talk Business
By Lorraine Woellert
Sunday, October 16, 2005; B01

Conservative howling over Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers echoes unabated since President Bush introduced his friend and confidant to the public on Oct. 3. If anything, the clamor has intensified, with some in the conservative chattering class now hounding Miers to withdraw. But while Bush dodges the brickbats, another critical element of the Republican political base is applauding from the wings.

That would be big business. For the first time in more than three decades, corporate America could find itself with not one, but two, Supreme Court allies with in-the-trenches industry experience -- Miers and newly minted Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. Don't be fooled by the low-key personas they have projected thus far; both are legal wonks who have packed a powerful punch in the corporate world. Together, they could be a CEO's dream team.

I find myself actually hesitant to link to ChangingMinds.org, because

• I haven't (and won't) thoroughly explored it's claimed 1700+ pages
• Some of it is straight bullshit

But there's a lot of broadly applicable information presented quite amorally. It comes from a corporate perspective, but that's okay. It identifies patterns you will see in use all around you if you keep them in mind. I invite your attention to Leadership, Propaganda, and Sales in particular as topics of interest, as well as the entire section on Techniques.

Quote of note:

So, what did white hands make of this other? There are stereotypes aplenty - dusky female attendants in harem scenes; the poor; future composer Coleridge-Taylor posing as an African draped in a leopardskin (the leopardskin was a popular studio prop) - but there are few grotesques. Most subjects are given fair, unexaggerated likenesses and the positions they occupy in these scenes, though often sentimentalised, are not ridiculed.

White lines
There were plenty of black faces on canvas in the 19th century - but few behind the easel. Diran Adebayo on how racial prejudices were expressed in art
Diran Adebayo
Saturday October 15, 2005
Guardian

There's a piece of advice I give budding black British writers who want to write a successful "black" novel. "The best thing," I say, "is to hang out with as many white folk as you can. Find out what's on their minds about black people." I do not mean this cynically - OK, a little bit - but more as a reflection of the fact that in the literary world, most people (the editor, the PR person, the critics and most of the book-buying public) are white. Black novelists thus find themselves in the peculiar position of creating a work of fiction in the knowledge that those who are most likely to appreciate how well it has been done are the ones who don't matter. This doesn't only affect black writers and artists - a white working-class novelist might say the same - but it has affected us greatly down the years, and tends to increase the more rarefied the artistic air you breathe. With pop music, it's possible to make a record cheaply and then generate a black street buzz around your product, but in the worlds of film and visual arts, less so.

Manchester's exhibition Black Victorians: Black People in British Art 1800-1900 is a case in point. Of all the paintings, photos and sculptures presented here by curator Jan Marsh, none are by black Britons; these images are, more than usual, a record of the white gaze. And there are some celebrated white gazers among them: the sculptor Pietro Calvi, the painters Gabriel Rossetti, James Whistler and John Lewis, whom Ruskin ranked second only to Turner among British artists of that period.

Spyware can constitute illegal trespass on home computers

A federal trial court in Chicago has ruled recently that the ancient legal doctrine of trespass to chattels (meaning trespass to personal property) applies to the interference caused to home computers by spyware. Information technology has advanced at warp speed with the law struggling to keep up, and this is an example of a court needing to use historical legal theories to grapple with new and previously unforeseen contexts in Cyberspace.

The lawsuit

In Sotelo v. DirectRevenue, the plaintiff filed a complaint against various defendants alleging that, without his consent, the defendants caused spyware to be downloaded onto his computer. In a nutshell, the plaintiff alleged that the spyware tracked his Internet use, invaded his privacy, and caused damage to his computer.

One-Fifth of Human Genes Have Been Patented, Study Reveals
Stefan Lovgren
for National Geographic News
October 13, 2005

A new study shows that 20 percent of human genes have been patented in the United States, primarily by private firms and universities.

The study, which is reported this week in the journal Science, is the first time that a detailed map has been created to match patents to specific physical locations on the human genome.

Researchers can patent genes because they are potentially valuable research tools, useful in diagnostic tests or to discover and produce new drugs.

Quote of note:

Bruce Yannett, a former Iran-Contra prosecutor, said DeLay's campaign effort might raise questions of trying to taint the potential jury pool but the legal standard for making such a case is hard to prove.

Nonetheless, Yannett said he could not imagine President Reagan overtly using his campaign to attack prosecutors during the 1980s investigation of the Iran-Contra affair. "I would not recommend his campaign do it. It does seem a little unusual," Yannett said.

...The Web site also gives readers tools to send a letter to newspaper editors in support of DeLay, to contact a radio talk show or to e-mail DeLay's carefully crafted "facts" to friends.

And, of course, the Web site wouldn't be complete without one of the oldest pitches in politics. "Make a contribution," it pleads.

DeLay Uses Website to Attack Prosecutor
By JOHN SOLOMON
Associated Press Writer
12:22 AM PDT, October 15, 2005

Check this:

Forty-one percent of respondents said Bush's presidency will be seen as unsuccessful in the long run, while 26 percent said the opposite. Thirty-five percent said it was too early to tell, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

Seven in 10 said they want the next president to offer policies and programs that are different from the Bush administration's.

Only half said they wanted the next president to offer different policies in 2000, at the end of the Clinton presidency. By a 2-1 margin, people said the Bush administration has had a negative impact on politics and the way government works.

People were inclined to say Bush's policies have made things worse on a wide range of issues such as the federal budget deficit, the gap between rich and poor, health care, the economy, relations with U.S. allies, the tax system and education. By 47 percent to 30 percent, those surveyed said Bush has improved the situation with national security.

Republicans give the president mixed reviews in many of these areas. Almost half of Republicans said Bush's policies have made the deficit worse and just 12 percent say he has improved that situation.

I already expressed my detailed opinion of David Nicholson's editorial in today's Washington Post.

In the comments of the next post, fulnelson wrote:

I guess maybe I'm now numb to that Bell Curve b.s., but what struck me about Nicholson's article is his totally misunderstanding (IMHO) of the purpose of such marches, including the original March on Washington.  Such events are meant to galvanize public opinion and inject into the public dialogue the critical issues of racial disparity in this country.  A march cannot--and was never intended--to serve as a mass organizing meeting to develop consensus on a Black Agenda.  Even in the 60's, no one expected marching would solve problems, but would draw national (and international) attention to them and to show the strength of commitment to solving them.  At the time of the March on Washington, the Civil Rights bill was pending in Congress, and the sheer numbers at the March made an intimidating force legislators straddling the fence could not overlook.  Time and time again, we see that getting things done means not just drawing attention to an issue, but hammering out solutions in back rooms, board rooms, city halls, state houses, etc.  And building public understanding of the urgency for a given solution is vital to that process.

Nicholson is also off the mark in looking to "powerful black executives...from Fortune 500 companies" as saviors for Black America by taking sabbaticals to lead traditional civil rights organizations.  True, such executives can play a critical role in addressing the problems that plague us, but it takes politicians, grass roots organizations, institutions, and EVERYONE to do their part.  Unfortunately, many executives in Fortune 500 companies lack the motivation and the credibility to be anything other than token leadership.  At any rate, let's keep these execs in place where they are, and put pressure on them to build corporate initiatives (like worker protection,  fighting for affirmative action, etc.) that help the cause.  I'd much prefer that to any NAACP boycott or Urban League program.

Finally, let me add that no one is seriously expecting Sharpton, Farrakhan, or Jackson to become another Martin Luther King; we became disabused of that notion long, long ago.  What we do appreciate about them (at their best) is their ability to articulate for the national media the issues of race that confront us as a people and as a country.  That's all.  I don't expect they can single-handedly solve any of our problems alone, or that they can serve as our un-elected co-presidents of Black America.  But like P6, if they are able to spearhead and develop a plan of action around specific issues that I think makes sense, I am definitely down.

Between this and the speech debacle when she announced, Pirro looks to have as many competency issues as Dubya.

What Endorsement? Two Reject Claim on Pirro Site
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ

WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 - Two Republican leaders in upstate New York on Thursday disputed the claim by Jeanine F. Pirro's campaign that they had endorsed her candidacy for the United States Senate, dealing another embarrassing setback to a campaign struggling to build momentum as she seeks to unseat Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Quote of note:

Cooper also cited another document, a June 2002 American Express bill, that shows ARMPAC mixed hard money and soft money spending by DeLay, Ellis, Ferro and others on travel, meals and various other expenses using the same account.

FEC auditors found ARMPAC may have improperly spent about $200,000 in soft money and ARMPAC has already repaid that amount.

Papers: DeLay Group Used $100K for Races
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Tom DeLay's political group used nearly $100,000 in corporate and unlimited donations to mail last-minute political appeals praising five congressional candidates despite rules meant to keep such money out of federal races, documents released Thursday show.

Quote of note:

The White House declined to comment, saying that any telephone conversation between Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair at that time would have been private and personal. A spokesman for the British Embassy in Washington also declined to comment.

Bush Cited 2 Allies Over Arms, Book Says
By DOUGLAS JEHL

WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 - Two months before the invasion of Iraq, President Bush told Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he "wanted to go beyond Iraq" in dealing with the spread of illicit weapons and mentioned Saudi Arabia and Pakistan on a list of countries posing particular problems, according to notes taken by one of Mr. Blair's advisers cited in a new book.

You will note I am not at the Millions More Movement...show me some substance and I'll kick in, is my position. But David Nicholson's op-ed on the Millions More Movement let some really bigotted stuff leak out (because of all the problems folks have with alternate terminology I say "bigot" nowadays).

Discussing the Millions More Movement in the Washington Post, David Nicholson says:

It's going to take a lot more than a 10-point platform, and speeches on the Mall, to change the realities that lead to the perception that maybe black people aren't quite good enough.

The boy is very skilled with weasel words.

The question is, what is the domain in which these realities exist? My first impulse is to run down a list of conditions common to those Black folks he's talking about that physically limit one's development. But the reality that leads to the perception is always the real rules by which one judges things. That reality is between David's ears...otherwise he'd be making structural observations rather than value judgements.

Storms Alter Louisiana Politics
Population Loss Likely to Reduce Influence of Black Voters
By Michael A. Fletcher and Spencer S. HsuWashington Post Staff Writers
Friday, October 14, 2005; Page A07

The massive population shift caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita holds seismic political implications for Louisiana, which faces a near-certain reduction of its congressional delegation and a likely loss in black-voter clout that could severely affect the state's elected Democrats.

Less than two months after Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, leaving much of New Orleans and surrounding areas unlivable, Louisiana officials are beginning to grapple with the bewildering new political landscape. The storms and resultant flooding caused more than 1 million residents to flee their homes, many for far-flung destinations from which they may never return.

Mark Fiore's take on Bush's speech.

Which speech?

Does it really matter? 

Study: U.S. poor trapped in urban areas
Wednesday, October 12, 2005; Posted: 11:07 a.m. EDT (15:07 GMT)

...Poor planning over decades has concentrated public housing at the core of cities around the nation, while new developments, jobs and schools mushroomed in the suburbs, beyond the reach of low-income households, deepening the divide between the haves and have-nots, the study said.

"Concentrating poverty compounds the effects of just plain poverty," said Alan Berube, primary author of "Katrina's Window: Confronting Concentrated Poverty Across America."

Berube's study focused on extremely disadvantaged neighborhoods where high crime and a lack of quality housing, stable job opportunities and supportive schools erode the quality of life, and limit the chances that a family might rise above the hardships imposed by their own financial straits.

Here's the full five minute video of assault by several New Orleans PD on an obviously subdued citizen. 

I choose my words carefully. The mounted policeman constantly manuevered his mount between the camera and the ongoing assault. About a quarter to a third of the way through you can hear the brother say "If you allow me to turn over, I will." He was not intoxicated. 

Quote of note:

One of the E-mails was dated Oct. 3 with a 6:05 p.m. time stamp, about 90 minutes before Bloomberg was fully briefed on the threat, a police source said.

Terror tip for rich
E-mails warned bigs of city attack
By ALISON GENDAR
DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU CHIEF

The city's rich and well-connected were tipped off to last week's subway terror threat days before average New Yorkers, the Daily News has learned.

At least two E-mails revealing the purported plot were sent to a select crowd of business and arts executives early last week by New Yorkers who claimed to have close connections to Homeland Security and other federal officials, authorities said.

Was Bush Teleconference with Soldiers in Iraq Scripted?
By E&P Staff
Published: October 13, 2005 3:23 PM ET

NEW YORK Contrary to early accounts, President Bush's question-and-answer session with U.S. troops in Iraq tied to Saturday's vote on the new constitution now seems far from spontaneous. Subsequent reports from journalists on the scene revealed quite a bit of choreography in Thursday's teleconference with the president in Washington.

The official pool report, in fact, painted this scene: "The soldiers, nine U.S. men and one U.S. woman, plus an Iraqi, had been tipped off in advance about the questions in the highly-scripted event. Allison Barber, deputy assistant to the Secretary of Defense for internal communication, could be heard asking one soldier before the start of the event, 'Who are we going to give that [question] to?'"

Quote of note:

The poll also revealed overwhelming opposition to Bush among African-Americans. Only two percent said they approved of his performance as president, the lowest level ever recorded in that category, NBC television reported.

Bush popularity keeps dropping
13/10/2005 08:11  - (SA)

Washington - Support for the majority Republican party in the United States is sagging as President George W. Bush's popularity continues to slide, according to a poll released on Wednesday.

...A plurality of Americans, 48%, said they would prefer the Democrats to control Congress compared to 39% who want the Republicans in power, said the poll commissioned by United States television channel NBC and the Wall Street Journal.

Decision on Plan B Called Very Unusual
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 13, 2005; A09

A long-awaited report on the 2004 Food and Drug Administration decision to reject an application to allow easier access to the "morning after pill" concludes that the decision was highly unusual, was made with atypical involvement from top agency officials, and may well have been made months before it was formally announced.

...As described by some familiar with the draft, the GAO found that top FDA officials participated in assessing the application to allow the emergency contraceptive Plan B to be sold without a prescription, and that such unusual high-level involvement was justified by the perceived sensitivity of the issue.

There are 1,800 rights of marriage. If you're gay, take 6.
Much-anticipated state appeals court ruling could give them access to marriage licenses
Sunday, October 09, 2005
By MELISSA ANELLI
STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE

Gerard Mawn and Angel Love-Figueroa have been together for more than eight years. They share a house, two dogs and the somewhat notorious distinction of being one of the very few gay couples ever to use City Hall's chapel to marry.

Since the wedding -- a religious ceremony that took place on Valentine's Day -- they've been trying to act married, even if the law doesn't consider them spouses. To do so, they've been trying to acquire as many of the 1,800 possible rights, protections and privileges that a marriage license offers as possible.

C. DeLores Tucker, 78, fought for civil rights

PHILADELPHIA -- Political activist C. DeLores Tucker, 78, who marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., was the first black to serve as secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and in later years protested against obscenities in rap music, died Wednesday.

The West Mount Airy, Pa., resident spent her life fighting for civil rights; it was a struggle she carried out with poise and elegance. She was known for wearing turbans with matching ensembles, even when taking to the streets or being arrested.

Within hours of her death -- of undisclosed causes at Suburban Woods Health and Rehabilitation Center in Norristown, Pa. -- many of the area's politicians issued statements.

Not that Clinton is my boy or anything, but all you broke, sick, filing for bankruptcy people that hated Hillary so much you refused a single payer system get only the minimum sympathy required by humanity. Which, of course, means your ass might get shot...

Anyway... 

Treated for Illness, Then Lost in Labyrinth of Bills
By KATIE HAFNER

When Bracha Klausner returned home after an extended hospital stay for a ruptured intestine three years ago, she found stacks of mail from doctors and hospitals waiting for her.

There were so many envelopes - some of them very thick - that at first, Mrs. Klausner, 77, could not bring herself to open them, and she stored them in large shopping bags in her Manhattan apartment.

Let This Leak Go
By Richard Cohen
Thursday, October 13, 2005; Page A23

The best thing Patrick Fitzgerald could do for his country is get out of Washington, return to Chicago and prosecute some real criminals. As it is, all he has done so far is send Judith Miller of the New York Times to jail and repeatedly haul this or that administration high official before a grand jury, investigating a crime that probably wasn't one in the first place but that now, as is often the case, might have metastasized into some sort of coverup -- but, again, of nothing much. Go home, Pat.

We impeach a guy for a blowjob, and you want to let the guy who lied us into a couple thousand dead Americans, a deficit driven economic catastrophe, and put us at the mercy of a bunch on know-nothing assholes walk?

The dispute:

Many climatologists, along with policymakers in a number of countries, believe the rapid temperature rise over the past 50 years is heavily driven by the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities that have spewed carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases" into the atmosphere. A vocal minority of scientists say the warming climate is the result of a natural cycle.

The evidence for climate change:

Global temperatures this year are about 1.36 degrees Fahrenheit (0.75 Celsius) above the average between 1950 and 1980, according to the Goddard analysis. Worldwide temperatures in 1998 were 1.28 degrees Fahrenheit (0.71 Celsius) above that 30-year average. The data show that Earth is warming more in the Northern Hemisphere, where the average 2005 temperature was two-tenths of a degree above the 1998 level.

Climate experts say such seemingly small shifts are significant because they involve average readings based on measurements taken at thousands of sites. To put it in perspective, the planet's temperature rose by just 1 to 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit over the past century.

The evidence this 50 year increase (which is a longer time frame than any climate cycle I'm aware of) is a cyclic change:

one skeptic, state climatologist George Taylor of Oregon, said it is difficult to determine an accurate global average temperature, especially since there are not enough stations recording ocean temperatures.

"I just don't trust it," Taylor said of the new calculation, noting that Goddard's findings are "mighty preliminary."

World Temperatures Keep Rising With a Hot 2005
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 13, 2005; A01

When your political opponents are concerned about an issue, yuou may blow them off until the issue works in your own favor.

Cool. This is going to make debates REAL easy...

Role of Religion Emerges as Issue
By Peter Baker and Charles BabingtonWashington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 13, 2005; Page A08

President Bush said yesterday that it was appropriate for the White House to invoke Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers's religion in making the case for her to skeptical conservatives, triggering a debate over what role, if any, her evangelical faith should play in the confirmation battle.

Bush said religion is part of Miers's overall background much like her work as a corporate lawyer in Texas, and that "our outreach program has been just to explain the facts to people." At the same time, his attorney general went on television and described Miers as "pro-life." But the White House said her religious and personal views would not affect her ability to serve as a neutral justice.

You have GOT to check the site to see the kind of questions these very Conservative folks want to ask Ms. Miers. 

Public Advocate's Questions That Need Answers For Harriet Miers
October 6, 2005

[Falls Church, Virginia. October 5, 2005.] Not since 1957 - when President Dwight D. Eisenhower nominated Charles Evans Whittaker - has anyone been nominated to the United States Supreme Court to fill a vacancy left by a justice whose vote was so crucial in so many constitutional cases. Hoping to shift the power on the court in a conservative direction, Eisenhower plucked Whittaker, a little-known lawyer and inexperienced judge to fill the bill.

Five years and six days later, Whittaker - at age 61 - resigned from the court, suffering from exhaustion, having been made the target for members of the Court battling and lobbying to create a majority. Overwhelmed by his responsibilities on the Court, and without having ever written a noteworthy opinion during his tenure on the Court, Justice Whittaker failed to fulfill President Eisenhower's hope to restore a conservative majority to the Court.

Yup. Znet.

The Fears of White People
by Robert Jensen

...A third fear involves a slightly different scenario -- a world in which non-white people might someday gain the kind of power over whites that whites have long monopolized. One hears this constantly in the conversation about immigration, the lingering fear that somehow "they" (meaning not just Mexican-Americans and Latinos more generally, but any non-white immigrants) are going to keep moving to this country and at some point become the majority demographically. Even though whites likely can maintain a disproportionate share of wealth, those numbers will eventually translate into political, economic, and cultural power. And then what? Many whites fear that the result won't be a system that is more just, but a system in which white people become the minority and could be treated as whites have long treated non-whites. This is perhaps the deepest fear that lives in the heart of whiteness. It is not really a fear of non-white people. It's a fear of the depravity that lives in our own hearts: Are non-white people capable of doing to us the barbaric things we have done to them?