Moore Spoke With Berg Months Before Death
By JASON STRAZIUSO
Associated Press Writer

May 29, 2004, 3:29 PM EDT

PHILADELPHIA -- In an unused interview shot for Michael Moore's latest film, the American who was beheaded in Iraq said he was concerned about security there as he prepared to seek work as an independent businessman, his family said Saturday.

Moore's crew shot the 16-minute interview with Nicholas Berg during an Iraqi business conference in Arlington, Va., on Dec. 4, said his brother, David Berg.

…Moore confirmed Thursday that he had footage of Berg -- shot for his film "Fahrenheit 9/11," which is critical of President Bush -- but said he would share it only with the family.

…David Berg said Moore handled the situation with "dignity, respect and discipline."

"Michael Moore has really been a total class act with this whole thing," David Berg said. "He could have sold this to the media or stuck it in his movie."

Sara Berg said she saw the video footage as a "gift."

You know, the Black communities, the Children of Africa, have a long tradition of reaching back for the less fortunate among us. It goes all the way back to the Underground Railroad, all the way back to slaves buying their freedom and hanging around to buy their family's freedom, risking recapture to help others escape, giving a greater fraction of our disposable income to charity that any other self-identified group.

This is why it bothers the hell out of me to keep hearing Black Conservatives trying to convince people that tradition needs be disposed of.

Subtitled, "Why Conservatives, Black and Otherwise, Are Still Wrong," and brought on by Gregory Kane's Black leaders must choose between criminals and victims.

Look, we know Black folks got grief. What makes me write all y'all off is your insistence on attaching "Stop Blaming White People" to "Take Personal Responsibility." See, I personally am tired of hearing "we know there's racism, but…" And I'm SERIOUSLY tired of "Blaming White People" being caste as the opposite of "Take Personal Responsibility."

The reason I'm tired of it goes back to what I've said about the word racism actually meaning different problems to Black folks and white folks. I have come to the conclusion that the major problem white folks have with racism is that they get blamed for it. So when I hear "Stop blaming white people and take personal responsibility" as though white folks have nothing to do with racism (whichever meaning you want to work with), it becomes clear that the major issue at hand is whose fault it all is. All the while admitting racism is still a problem.

Here's a fact: the racial problems in this country get their input from everyone who has racial problems.

And here's a speculation: when white folks start taking personal responsibility for racism, they will find Black folks willing to meet them half way.

Keeping Harlem's Storied Jazz Past Jamming
By SHERRI DAY

With the big-band era long gone and hip-hop music dominating radio charts and dance clubs, what's an old jazz master to do?

Jam.

On a recent Monday night in Harlem at the New Amsterdam Musical Association, which claims to be the oldest jazz organization for black musicians in the country, a 13-piece band sliced through the silence on a residential block with the sounds of "Satin Doll," "Pennies From Heaven" and "Take the 'A' Train."

William Pyatt, 75, a tenor saxophonist whose cheeks bulged as he leaned into the mike, took frequent solos. Albert Sheldon, 79, tidy in a three-piece suit, closed his eyes and swayed, his shoulders twitching as he extended his red and white accordion. Emmanuel Grier, 63, delighted the crowd with a one-handed solo on the conga drums. And W. Morris Mitchell, 76, who travels from his East New York home on a senior citizens' Access-a-Ride shuttle, kept the melody on the piano.

Most of the musicians at the jam session are longtime members of the music association, a blue-collar bedrock of jazz history in Harlem. Black musicians who were not welcome in the local musicians' union because of their race founded the organization in 1904, jazz historians said. These days, the old-timers - none of whom were alive when the organization began - are trying to rebuild NAMA as it celebrates its 100th anniversary. They also want to inspire new generations to play jazz.

"I like to keep the legend alive," said Fred Staton, an 89-year-old tenor saxophonist who has played with Billy Strayhorn, Art Blakely and Billy Eckstine. "If we don't, no one else will."

Conservative Allies Take Chalabi Case to the White House
By ELISABETH BUMILLER

WASHINGTON, May 28 ? Influential outside advisers to the Bush administration who support the Iraqi exile leader Ahmad Chalabi are pressing the White House to stop what one has called a "smear campaign" against Mr. Chalabi, whose Baghdad home and offices were ransacked last week in an American-supported raid.

Last Saturday, several of these Chalabi supporters said, a small delegation of them marched into the West Wing office of Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, to complain about the administration's abrupt change of heart about Mr. Chalabi and to register their concerns about the course of the war in Iraq. The group included Richard N. Perle, the former chairman of a Pentagon advisory group, and R. James Woolsey, director of central intelligence under President Bill Clinton.

Members of the group, who had requested the meeting, told Ms. Rice that they were incensed at what they view as the vilification of Mr. Chalabi, a favorite of conservatives who is now central to an F.B.I. investigation into who in the American government might have given him highly classified information that he is suspected of turning over to Iran.

Mr. Chalabi has denied that he provided Iran with any classified information.

---

That the neocons would defend Chalabi is no surprise. Chalabi is so deep in the mix that discrediting him would discredit all who took his word as gospel. Propping up Chalabi, getting the spy stuff squashed even if (if?) he doesn't wind up in charge of Iraq, is a self defense move.

No, what is priceless is the nature of Perle's complaints:

"There is a smear campaign under way, and it is being perpetrated by the C.I.A. and the D.I.A. and a gaggle of former intelligence officers who have succeeded in planting these stories, which are accepted with hardly any scrutiny," Mr. Perle, a leading conservative, said in an interview.

Mr. Perle, referring to both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, said the campaign against Mr. Chalabi was "an outrageous abuse of power" by United States government officials in Washington and Baghdad.

Talk about being hoist by one's own petard. The Neocons really do argue like Flame Warriors; they have a line and a technique and they stick with it.

For some reason though, this line cracks me up.

"I know of no inaccurate information that was supplied uniquely by anyone brought to us by the Iraqi National Congress," Mr. Perle said.

"Hey, we were no more fucked up than anyone else, why pick on us?"

I watch commercials for the latest in consumer innovation, disposable wash dishcloths, with a mixture of fascination and a vague feeling of horror. The next thing to annoy me enough to create an extended rant will likely be marketing.

---

As Satan Scrubbed My Toilet
It's a slew of new, disposable products that really scream "Screw the planet, I'm an American!" Life is good

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, May 28, 2004

Pity the poor beleaguered housewife, still struggling like a haggard dog through her array of thankless daily chores.

Just look at her, hair pulled tight and life a-shambles, saddled with all manner of horrible bristly toilet brushes and horrible sponges and horrible cloth towels to wipe down the horrible countertops and then topping it all off with being forced to use one of those horrible old-fashioned bristle brooms to sweep the floor. Horrible!

Thank God, then, for modern ultraconvenience. Thank God for the corporate household-product industry, so thoroughly glutted on excess merchandise and overinvention they can't possibly think of things we actually need anymore. And thank God for our concomitant complete lack of any real environmental conscience. Yay America!

See, now, the happily narcotized, entirely sexless, vaguely bulbous modern housewife in the recent TV commercial as she finally tosses away her angry, growling, animated (!) toilet brush (see how it snaps and snarls at her like a drunken deadbeat dad! See her toss it into the trash can and then plop her butt down on it in satisfied glee!) in favor of -- say it with me -- disposable toilet scrubbers you use once and throw away!

Like the ScotchBrite! Or the Clorox ToiletWand™! Or the Scrub N' Flush! Or the Scrubbing Bubbles™ Fresh Brush™ Toilet Cleaning System! Yes, Virginia, the world is certainly headed in the right direction.

Just watch that brush head break apart in a swirl of pulpy chemical fibers in the toilet. Look at the nifty cheap-ass landfill-plastic handle -- remember, it's not a brush, it's a "toilet-cleaning system." Look at the shiny plastic tub of refills you have to buy every month just to keep the goddamn thing stocked before the handle snaps in half and you have to buy a whole new one because it's actually worth about seven cents and is made by disposable factory workers in Malaysia who die of petroleum-related cancer even faster than BushCo can decimate the Clean Air Act. Neat!

See? Life is easier already. Who knew you needed a new toilet brush to replace that tough metal one you had that lasted years? No one, that's who! What was wrong with the old, sturdy kind? Nothing, that's what! Hail marketing!

Quote of Note:

"It is my belief that America does better together ? not split, fractured, splintered," he said. "I liked it when George Bush ran for office and talked about bringing everyone together. I haven't liked the result. We have an executive who seems to be a good man but who could stand some good counsel."

---

Ex-Governor's Possible Run Is Talk of Louisiana Senate Race
Buddy Roemer's chance of winning would be small, analysts say, but his effect would not be.
By Scott Gold
Times Staff Writer

May 29, 2004

HOUSTON ? There are moments, amid the din of Louisiana's halls of power, when it seems like Charles "Buddy" Roemer III is the only person who has not declared his candidacy for the U.S. Senate. Still, he's getting the lion's share of the buzz.

In an interview this week, the Democrat - turned - Republican ? who served as Louisiana governor from 1988 to 1992 ? gave the strongest indication yet that he would like to jump back into politics. Though most analysts have said his chances of victory would be slim, the effect of his candidacy could be enormous.

From the Ranks to the Street
Nearly a fourth of the homeless are veterans. Reasons vary, but many fail to adjust to life's randomness after the order of military service.
By Jocelyn Y. Stewart
Times Staff Writer

May 29, 2004

After the homecomings are over and the yellow ribbons packed away, many who once served in America's armed forces may end up sleeping on sidewalks.

This is the often-unacknowledged postscript to military service. According to the federal government, veterans make up 9% of the U.S. population but 23% of the homeless population. Among homeless men, veterans make up 33%.

Their ranks included veterans like Peter Starks and Calvin Bennett, who spent nearly 30 years on the streets of Los Angeles, homeless and addicted.

Or Vannessa Turner of Boston, who returned injured from Iraq last summer, unable to find healthcare or a place to live.

Or Ken Saks, who lost his feet because of complications caused by Agent Orange, then lost his low-rent Santa Barbara apartment in an ordeal that began when a neighbor complained about his wheelchair ramp.

"I'm 56 years old," Saks said. "I don't want to die in the streets?. This is what our [soldiers in Iraq] are coming home to? They're going to live a life like I have? God bless them."

Studies indicate that some will live such a life. Male veterans are 1.3 times more likely to become homeless than non-veterans, women 3.6 times more likely. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, the estimated number of homeless Vietnam veterans is more than twice the number of soldiers, 58,000, who died in battle during that war.

From Wages to Canadian Drugs, Bills Contain Risks for Governor
By Jordan Rau
Times Staff Writer

May 29, 2004

SACRAMENTO ? For six months, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has managed to keep his position unknown on a host of potentially divisive issues. Now he is going to have to start filling in the blanks.

After acceding repeatedly to a Republican governor determined to deliver on campaign promises, the Democrats who control the state Senate and Assembly this week approved a number of measures that likely will force the governor to make some difficult choices.

The Assembly endorsed raising the minimum wage to $7.75, a 15% increase. If the more liberal Senate concurs, as expected, the governor will have to choose between being a champion of low-wage workers or signing a bill that small businesses and the California Chamber of Commerce say will cost the state jobs.

The Legislature is also poised to approve a handful of measures that would encourage individual Californians and state agencies to import prescription drugs from Canada, where they are cheaper. The notion is popular among elderly voters and could save the state millions.

But approving those bills would put Schwarzenegger on a collision course with the pharmaceutical industry and the Republican administration in Washington, both of which oppose drug imports as unsafe.

Schwarzenegger may have to choose between politically appealing measures and some of his bigger campaign supporters in other areas.

Car dealers, for instance, will strongly urge him to veto a measure that would allow used car buyers to return a car within three days of sale.

The bill passed the Assembly this week. Automotive interests have donated $824,335 to Schwarzenegger, according to arnoldwatch.org, a consumer activist website.

Michelle Malkin started trash-talking Wonkette, who (the little header graphic not withstanding) does not take it laying down!

Wonkette not only fisks Ms. Malkin, she uses tables to lay out her case to make sure you can't miss the point. Selected examples follow:

Michelle says	Michelle means
I don't usually write about such inside-the-Beltway gossip, but Cutler's indecent conduct, glib rationalizations and in-your-face shamelessness, and the accompanying feeding frenzy over her, deserve a firm outside-the-Beltway lashing.	I am so turned on right now.
It harms those trying to succeed on their merits in the professional arena.
And it also harms our own daughters, who will be forced to fight harder to protect their dignity and credibility in a "Girls Gone Wild" culture.	Fight against other women like Jessica Cutler, I mean. Men don't play any role in this scandal at all. Just Jessica and our daughters, fighting. . . wrestling, really. . . against each other.

I wonder how many terminal bloggers, if they had to start over again, would do things the same way?

In the course of my experiments I just set up Wordpad on my intranet and imported all the entries ever published on P6/Blogger, P6/Gray and P6/Green. Some 4000 of them, plus comments. Just the process of doing it made me review how I'd handled entries. P6/Blogger had no categories because it was the free account, and I lost all the Haloscan comments. And P6/Gray was crippled because I couldn't stand waiting for the import of some 2000 posts. I don't know if I broke my installation (a possibility, because it was really an emergency move) or I was just too impatient with the rebuilding process. I kept all the static pages I'd generated, which is why you can google the site and get those old gray guys. But comments are dead there and the built-in search can't reach the pages and it's all just annoying.

The imported posts don't all look so smooth because I'd embedded CSS styles all over the place. And any number of things, like the Public Library section, would be better as multi-paged posts. Of course, with all the text laying about, it wouldn't be easy to find all of the good stuff. If I'd used categories better the first time through it would be easier to restructure.

Fixing all this stuff would invalidate damn near everything Google knows about me. I'm giving it serious consideration, though.

Happy Furry Puppy Story Time has survived for a year without anyone kicking Norbizness's ass. Congratulate him before his victims catch up with him.

Court lifts cloud from Berkeley schools
Judge says district has desegregated

BY SEANNA ADCOX
Of The Post and Courier Staff
A federal judge has dismissed a 34-year-old federal desegregation order against the Berkeley County School District and declared its schools unitary.

The school district has "eliminated the vestiges of the former dual system and has achieved unitary status," U.S. District Judge David Norton wrote in his order signed and filed Wednesday in Charleston.

The declaration means Berkeley County public schools have complied with court orders and eradicated racial discrimination "to the extent practicable." Berkeley County is the state's fourth largest school district with more than 26,000 students.

"This is a wonderful present," school district spokeswoman Pam Bailey said Thursday. "It's the end of the school year today and the end of a 34-year-old shadow."

---

Well, it's a 600 year shadow if you're actually counting.

The 2004 ACS National Convention
June 18-20, 2004
Marriott Wardman Park Hotel
Washington, D.C.

The theme of this year's Convention will be: "Liberty and Equality in the 21st Century"

The Convention will feature a keynote address by: United States Supreme Court
Justice Stephen G. Breyer

ACS's First National Convention last year was a tremendous success, as hundreds of ACS members and others who care passionately about legal and public policy issues came together to learn, debate, and strategize. Attendees reported that they learned much, were greatly inspired, and had a wonderful time.

2004 is the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education and the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This year's ACS Convention will honor these landmark developments in American law, and explore today's challenges in the pursuit of liberty and equality, with speakers including dozens of leading lawyers, judges, policymakers and academics. For a complete list of Convention programs and speakers, see the full Convention schedule.

The chairman of Great Britain's Commission for Racial Equality, he has been quoted here several times, most recently in a link to a BBC article. Seems the British are as hung up on terminology as Americans are. Anyway, he's turned up again, and I keep blogging about British race issues because they are so close to ours, yet no being ours there's a chance people will have enough distance to consider them rationally. So today I link to How British do you want to be?

If there is a tension between people from different ethnic backgrounds, who has to act to change that? Those who feel persecuted, learning their Shakespeare as rapidly as possible, or the majority, claiming that the very notion of Britishness may be under threat? The Observer asked people from across the cultural and racial spectrum, all British passport holders, for their points of view.

But I will. Jeralyn Merritt introduced Talkleft readers to The BrownWatch, "news for people of color."

One of the commenters said:

What's this News for color People???
i'm black, and i am ashamed with this initiative.

And I'm REALLY not understanding why this person feels shame.

lifted from Talking Points Memo

The official list of terrorist people and organizations.

Quote of note:

Over the past 25 years, the U.S. prison system has more than quadrupled in size, as the nation adopted policies to get tough on crime. Among those incarcerated are hundreds of thousands of people sentenced to long terms for relatively minor crimes like drug possession, the majority of them black or Hispanic.

"Mandatory sentences are filling federal prisons with low-level offenders instead of the kingpins they were supposed to catch," said Julie Stewart, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums.

---

U.S. Record Prison Population Rises Again
Thu May 27, 2004 05:14 PM ET

By Alan Elsner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States saw its prison and jail population increase again in 2003, the Justice Department reported on Thursday.

The number of people held in U.S. federal and state prisons and jails on June 30, 2003, was 2,078,570 -- almost 41,000 more than the previous year and the biggest increase in four years.

The Justice Department reported earlier this month that the annual cost of the U.S. prison system was around $57 billion.

Women inmates passed the 100,000 level for the first time ever. The number of women incarcerated rose by 5 percent, almost double the rate of increase among males.

Iyad Allawi Chosen as Iraqi PM, Aide Says
Fri May 28, 2004 10:52 AM ET

By Tom Perry
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iyad Allawi, a member of Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council with long-time links to the CIA, has been chosen as prime minister in Iraq's interim government, an aide to Allawi told Reuters on Friday.

"There was a meeting of the Governing Council and Dr Allawi was unanimously chosen as prime minister," Hani Adris said.

Looming Atlantic Hurricane Season Seen as Busy
Fri May 28, 2004 08:03 AM ET

MIAMI (Reuters) - The Atlantic-Caribbean hurricane season that starts on Tuesday will be busier than average with 14 named storms, eight of which will become hurricanes, a well-known cyclone researcher said in a revised forecast on Friday.
Of the eight anticipated hurricanes, three will become intense, with winds over 111 mph, Colorado State University storm researcher William Gray predicted.

Gray's forecast for the season that runs from June 1 to Nov. 30 was unchanged from his last forecast on April 2, but added one more named storm than his team's initial forecast in December.

Circular tropical weather systems are given names when sustained winds reach 39 mph and become hurricanes when they hit 74 mph.

The long-term average for the Atlantic-Caribbean season is 9.6 named storms, with 5.9 of those reaching hurricane strength and 2.3 of those becoming intense.

To Tell the Truth
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: May 28, 2004

…So why did the press credit Mr. Bush with virtues that reporters knew he didn't possess? One answer is misplaced patriotism. After 9/11 much of the press seemed to reach a collective decision that it was necessary, in the interests of national unity, to suppress criticism of the commander in chief.

Another answer is the tyranny of evenhandedness. Moderate and liberal journalists, both reporters and commentators, often bend over backward to say nice things about conservatives. Not long ago, many commentators who are now caustic Bush critics seemed desperate to differentiate themselves from "irrational Bush haters" who were neither haters nor irrational ? and whose critiques look pretty mild in the light of recent revelations.

And some journalists just couldn't bring themselves to believe that the president of the United States was being dishonest about such grave matters.

Finally, let's not overlook the role of intimidation. After 9/11, if you were thinking of saying anything negative about the president, you had to be prepared for an avalanche of hate mail. You had to expect right-wing pundits and publications to do all they could to ruin your reputation, and you had to worry about being denied access to the sort of insider information that is the basis of many journalistic careers.

The Bush administration, knowing all this, played the press like a fiddle.

Quote of note:

The death toll was so high, in part, because almost all the trees on those hills are gone, and the soil is eroded, leaving no natural barrier for the annual spring rains. The trees have been cut for charcoal, the only product with much market value in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.

Grief as Haitians and Dominicans Tally Flood Toll
By TIM WEINER and LYDIA POLGREEN

…Government officials in both nations said the confirmed death toll from the devastating floods reached nearly 900 on Thursday. But they said it might go as high as 2,000, with the greatest losses in Haiti, making it one of the worst natural disasters in Caribbean history.

The death counts remain estimates from officials citing conflicting and sometimes second-hand information. They stood as high as 1,660 or more in Haiti, according to some government officials, and were confirmed at more than 300 in the Dominican Republic.

A total of at least 11,200 families, probably more, have been displaced by the flood in both nations, Red Cross workers here said. Thousands of homes and shanties have been destroyed in villages so poor and isolated that no one is exactly sure how many people lived there before the flood.

Two weeks of heavy rains, which continued Thursday, became a deadly torrent at dawn on Monday. In Haiti, as much as five feet fell in 36 hours on the town of Fond Verrettes, in a valley about 40 miles east of the capital, Port-au-Prince, officials said.

If Oil Supplies Were Disrupted, Then ...
By SIMON ROMERO

HOUSTON, May 27 - With demand high, supplies squeezed, prices climbing and refineries already running flat out, what if something really went wrong? Something like a terror attack on crucial oil installations in Saudi Arabia or in the United States, or something less sinister but just as disruptive, like a fire or accident at a major refinery or port or a flare-up of civil or labor turmoil in Nigeria or Venezuela?

Industry experts say that the drum-tight American fuel market has become unusually vulnerable to any such nasty surprises, because there is little spare capacity available and because traders, executives and policy makers are nervous about terrorism and other threats - to the point that crude oil now carries a "risk premium" of 12 to 25 percent, analysts estimate.

"The problem is, we've already tasted some of these events in one form or another," said Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, an energy analysis company. "The threat of an oil shock is very tangible. If an oil trader wants to think about risk, all he has to do is turn on the television."

Just how big a risk premium traders will demand on oil is a subjective calculation, driven up or down from day to day by news developments. One energy strategist, Fadel Gheit of Oppenheimer & Company in New York, estimated that worries about Nigeria contributed about $1 a barrel; Venezuela another $3; the situation in Iraq, $4 more; and jitters about new trouble in Saudi Arabia, $5 a barrel. "In a psychologically charged market, bad news travels faster than good news," Mr. Gheit said.

Without the black cloud of vulnerability from the market, many analysts say, crude might trade for $30 or $35 today instead of nearly $40.

NEC Unit Admits It Defrauded Schools
By MATT RICHTEL and GARY RIVLIN

SAN FRANCISCO, May 27 - Criminal investigations into corruption and waste in the E-Rate program, a federal plan to bring Internet access to poor schools and libraries, yielded their biggest legal settlement to date on Thursday. NEC Business Network Solutions, a subsidiary of NEC, the computer giant, agreed to plead guilty to two federal felony counts, one for wire fraud and one for antitrust violation, and to pay $20.7 million in fines and restitution.

The settlement, announced in federal court in San Francisco, comes amid increasing scrutiny of the multibillion-dollar E-Rate program. Congressional hearings on the program may be held as early as next month, according to Congressional staff members. Lawyers involved in the case said there were likely to be additional, and even larger, settlements with other technology vendors.

"This is just one piece of a nationwide scheme that is all coming to light," said Eric R. Havian, a lawyer who is representing the San Francisco Unified School District, which tipped federal prosecutors to the fraud. "There are many school districts that were victimized."

Gerald P. Kenney, general counsel of NEC America, said in a statement: "We made mistakes with E-Rate. We've acknowledged and accepted responsibility for those mistakes, cooperated fully with the government and taken action to ensure that these problems can't happen again."

Established with great fanfare in 1996, the E-Rate program added a tax to telephone bills, with the proceeds to be distributed mostly to poor and rural schools. The program has been used by school districts to pay for network infrastructure, like routers and switches to direct Internet traffic, computer servers to manage the system and cables to connect them.

The program gave schools the ability to seek competitive bids from vendors. But there is mounting evidence that some companies hired to provide equipment and services persuaded schools to forgo competitive bids, inflated their prices or defrauded administrators of the E-Rate program when presenting the final cost for services.

"Schools are being promised million-dollar systems when a system costing $10,000 would make more sense," said John Dunbar of the Center for Public Integrity, a public policy research group in Washington. "That's one of the flaws of the system. If the schools had vested interest in making sure that the money was being spent wisely, then it wouldn't be so easy to defraud the program."

An extensive, but too important not to focus on, Quote of Note:

In fact, the new system appears designed to virtually eliminate unfettered public access. Under the Freedom of Information Act, all records created by federal agencies are available to the public for modest reproduction fee, with a few specific exceptions. By allowing GCE to directly collect contract data from each agency, the Bush Administration has effectively bypassed the Act, because the compiled records are never directly controlled by any government agency. Drabkin, who has already rejected such requests for the data, says the public can still get access to the raw information by approaching each individual agency.

via The Memory Hole, (which, by the way, the Army has categorized as a political extremist site because it hosts documents produced by the government and big business).

---

Public Information, Private Profit?
Long publicly available, a database detailing federal contracts has been outsourced ... to a federal contractor.

Michael Scherer
May/June 2004 Issue

For 25 years, the clearest window into the murky world of federal contracting has been an obscure public database available to anyone for a nominal fee. No longer. Under a new deal approved by the White House, the government's voluminous compilation of contracting information has been turned over to a contractor.

Established by an act of Congress in 1979, the Federal Procurement Data System was a rare island of public information, the only complete record of federal contracts. Using the database, journalists, auditors and federal investigators could review the million or so agreements with corporations Uncle Sam signed each year. They could find the companies reaping the largest awards, track the rise in no-bid deals, and measure the recent drive to replace federal employees with corporate employees. But under a new contract, the General Services Administration has now turned over responsibility for collecting and distributing information on government contracts to a beltway company called Global Computer Enterprises, Inc.

In signing the $24 million deal, the Bush Administration has privatized not only the collection and distribution of the data, but the database itself. For the first time since the system was established, the information will not be available directly to the public or subject to the Freedom of Information Act, according to federal officials. "It's a contractor owned and operated system," explains Nancy Gunsauls, a project manager at GCE. "We have the data."

With the compiled database under private control, journalists, corporate consultants, and even federal agencies will be barred from independently searching copies of it. Instead, GCE has pledged only to produce a set of public reports required by the government, and to provide limited access to the entire database for a yet-to-be-determined fee.

Couple of dead ones…

---

The Homicide Cases
Friday, May 28, 2004; Page A22

PRESIDENT BUSH'S persistence in describing the abuse of foreign prisoners as an isolated problem at one Iraqi prison is blatantly at odds with the facts seeping out from his administration. These include mounting reports of crimes at detention facilities across Iraq and Afghanistan and evidence that detention policies the president approved helped set the stage for torture and homicide. Yes, homicide: The most glaring omission from the president's account is that at least 37 people have died in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and that at least 10 of these cases are suspected criminal killings of detainees by U.S. interrogators or soldiers.

The deaths reveal much about the true nature of the still-emerging prisoner scandal. First, only a minority of them occurred at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad; nine of the 10 homicides acknowledged by the Pentagon occurred elsewhere. Second, the administration has done its best to cover up the killings: They have been reported only after news of them leaked to the media, and details about most of them are still undisclosed.

No one has been criminally charged in any of the cases, even though some date to December 2002. Investigations have been shoddy and secretive. And no senior officer or administration official has accepted responsibility or been held accountable for allowing unlawful killings to take place under his or her command. Had it not been for the leak of the photographs from Abu Ghraib, which record less serious crimes, it is probable that none of the deaths in Iraq would have become public knowledge.

Quote of note:

The signs reading "Support Our Troops" and "United We Stand" are still found on posters, school lockers and bumpers. But after 15 months of difficult fighting, many people have decided that supporting American soldiers does not mean backing the war itself.

"I support our troops, but I certainly don't agree with what we're trying to do by trying to Americanize and westernize a culture that doesn't want to be Americanized," said Janet Pope, a management analyst for the Pasadena Police Department. "I'm worried and borderline disgusted that many of our young people will die in this war when we truly don't know the reasons behind it."

---

Worry and Anger Over Iraq Situation
Poll, Interviews Find Rising Concern

By T.R. Reid
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 28, 2004; Page A19

OGALLALA, Neb. -- From this edge of the western plains to California's palm-lined drives to New York's urban canyons, Americans say they are worried and angry about the U.S. role in Iraq, with their anxiety matching that of the earliest days of the war when the success of the push to Baghdad was far from secure.

Nearly daily attacks on U.S. troops and continuing revelations about abuse of Iraqi prisoners have combined to stir the unrest, leading many to doubt whether the outcome will match the Bush administration's stated goals for going to war.

…Such questions reflect the concerns of a majority of the nation. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll, concluded Sunday night, found that two-thirds of Americans -- 67 percent -- describe themselves as "worried" about the situation in Iraq. In early March of last year, days after combat began, 64 percent said they were worried about the war.

Fifty-seven percent of Americans say they are "angry," nearly double the figure in March 2003. While most Americans say they are "hopeful" about the eventual outcome, the number of optimists has fallen, from 80 percent 15 months ago to 62 percent today. In another change, a minority today describe themselves as "proud" of the U.S. effort in Iraq.

Shiite Politicians' Objections Lead Candidate to Withdraw
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, May 28, 2004; Page A19

BAGHDAD, May 27 -- A politically independent Shiite Muslim who had been a top choice of the United States and the United Nations to become Iraq's prime minister withdrew from consideration after objections from formerly exiled Shiite politicians who want the job for themselves, officials involved in the political transition said Thursday.

The politicians' refusal to accept Hussain Shahristani as prime minister has complicated U.S. and U.N. efforts to form an interim Iraqi government to assume limited political authority on June 30, forcing U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and top U.S. officials to scramble for new candidates. The U.S. occupation authority had hoped to have the government named by Monday, to give appointees a month to work into their new jobs, but U.N. officials said that goal now appears unattainable.

The stand against Shahristani also struck a serious blow to attempts by the United States and the United Nations to fill top positions in the interim government with independents and technocrats instead of politicians, many of whom spent years in exile and enjoy little public support.

The U.S. government funded many exiled opposition politicians during the rule of President Saddam Hussein, and several were appointed to Iraq's Governing Council after Hussein was toppled last year. Because of their unpopularity, however, the occupation authority has sought to minimize their role in Iraq's next government. Yet Shahristani's inability to win their approval illustrates their continuing ability to disrupt U.S. plans for the country's political transition.

Why al-Qaeda Thrives
President Bush says Iraq is the central front in the war on terror, but security experts say Iraq is the reason Bin Laden's movement is growing
By TONY KARON

…President Bush framed his Monday keynote address on Iraq around the idea that the country is now "the central front in the war on terror." He implied that the invasion of Iraq was a choice forced on the U.S. by the Sept. 11 attacks and that the enemy facing the U.S. there shares al-Qaeda's goal of establishing "Taliban-type" rule. In all, he used the words "terror" or "terrorist/terrorism" 19 times. But the president's characterization will hardly have resonated with his Iraqi audience, who see al-Qaeda as a problem brought into their country by the U.S. invasion rather than by Saddam Hussein. Even the U.S. intelligence community has long maintained that Saddam's regime had no connection with the 9/11 attacks, while U.S. commanders on the ground in Iraq say that foreign terrorists constitute only a small fraction of the insurgency facing Coalition troops there.

If, indeed, there is a connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda, it may not be the kind the Bush campaign is likely to dwell on.The same day the President spoke, the prestigious International Institute for Strategic Studies released its annual survey that found, among other things, that far from dealing a blow to al-Qaeda and making the U.S. and its allies safer, the Iraq invasion has in fact substantially strengthened bin Laden's network and increased the danger of attacks in the West. And the London-based IISS is not some Bush-bashing antiwar think tank; it hosted the president's keynote address during his embattled visit to the British late last year.