Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Border Trouble The Moonie-owned Washington Times has a report on Central American gangs attacking American volunteers. [Note: typos are theirs]
Members of a violent Central America-based gang have been sent to Arizona to target Minuteman Project volunteers, who will begin a monthlong border vigil this weekend to find and report foreigner sneaking into the United States, project officials say.
James Gilchrist, a Vietnam veteran who helped organize the vigil to protest the federal government's failure to control illegal immigration, said he has been told that California and Texas leaders of Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, have issued orders to teach "a lesson" to the Minuteman volunteers. http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050328-125306-7868r.htm
Where our Quiet / passivity takes us: Paul Krugman warns:
What we need - and we aren't seeing - is a firm stand by moderates against religious extremism. Some people ask, with justification, Where are the Democrats? But an even better question is, Where are the doctors fiercely defending their professional integrity? I think the American Medical Association disapproves of politicians who second-guess medical diagnoses based on video images - but the association's statement on the Schiavo case is so timid that it's hard to be sure.
The closest parallel I can think of to current American politics is Israel. There was a time, not that long ago, when moderate Israelis downplayed the rise of religious extremists. But no more: extremists have already killed one prime minister, and everyone realizes that Ariel Sharon is at risk.
America isn't yet a place where liberal politicians, and even conservatives who aren't sufficiently hard-line, fear assassination. But unless moderates take a stand against the growing power of domestic extremists, it can happen here. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/opinion/29krugman.html?hp
Gannon Follow-Up:
Jeff Gannon is back -- at the National Press Club? Frank Rich is still only on Sundays, so I need to fill the gap. Our conservative, celebrity culture’s National Press Club invites Gannon to discuss journalism and blogging. He’s “blogged” for 3 weeks, and he’s no journalist.
Yes, the same day that the prestigious Washington, D.C., journalism organization plans to present a lunch talk by former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee, it will also allow the former White House reporter/sex site operator to be on a panel discussing bloggers and online journalism.
Gannon, whose real name is James Guckert, resigned his job with the conservative Talon News last month after it was revealed he had used a pseudonym, had little journalism background, and had ties to male escort Web sites.
Still, Press Club leaders will include Gannon on the panel April 8 that includes Wonkette.com editor Ana Marie Cox, National Journal's John Stanton, and others. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000856306
Florida, 2006 / 2008. “In play” LA Times piece on the blow back for the Repubs after the Shiavo and Social Security missteps.
President Bush's decisive victory in Florida last year seemed to cement Republican dominance in an important battleground state that once symbolized an evenly divided nation.
But with the GOP base polarized over the Terri Schiavo case and the public skeptical of Bush's plan to overhaul Social Security, two issues with explosive relevance in Florida are stirring up confusing political crosscurrents for Republicans preparing to face the voters there next year.
On both fronts, President Bush and his brother Gov. Jeb Bush are promoting positions that put fellow Republicans on the spot, just before important campaigns that will determine the governor's successor and the fate of Florida's lone Democrat holding statewide office, Sen. Bill Nelson.
Polls show the public overwhelmingly opposed to intervention by Congress and President Bush in the case of Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman whose family has been bitterly split over the decision to remove her feeding tube. But the religious conservatives who pressed hard for politicians in Tallahassee and Washington to act to have the the tube reinserted could play a pivotal role in the races for governor and Senate.
At the same time, public opposition has been mounting against the president's plan to let younger workers divert a portion of their Social Security payroll taxes into private investment accounts. The president's proposal is particularly unpopular among seniors, and so candidates in the senior-rich state are especially vulnerable to the charge that such a change could endanger benefits. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-politics29mar29,0,6473467.story?coll=la-home-headlines
The Culture of Life: Tales from the Life of one Bill Tierney
1) Life as a contractor in Iraq: February 12
The greatest frustration was evident in rank and file intelligence and law enforcement officers. After explaining his various psychological tactics to the audience, interrogator Bill Tierney (a private contractor working with the Army) said, ''I tried to be nuanced and culturally aware. But the suspects didn't break.''
Suddenly Tierney's temper rose. ''They did not break!'' he shouted. ''I'm here to win. I'm here so our civilization beats theirs! Now what are you willing to do to win?'' he asked, pointing to a woman in the front row. ''You are the interrogators, you are the ones who have to get the information from the Iraqis. What do you do? That word 'torture'. You immediately think, 'That's not me.' But are we litigating this war or fighting it?''
Some listeners murmured in assent; others sat in rapt attention. In all the recent debates about the Bush administration's stance on torture, this voice, the voice of the interrogators themselves, has been almost entirely absent.
Asked about Abu Ghraib, Tierney said that for an interrogator, ''sadism is always right over the hill. You have to admit it. Don't fool yourself - there is a part of you that will say, 'This is fun.''' http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/02/13/spy_world?mode=PF
2) For Terri: (3/28)
The legal battle over the life of Terri Schiavo may have ended, but a thick, fervent crowd remains in the makeshift encampment outside the Woodside Hospice House here.
In numbers, they were not as great on Easter as they were on the previous three days, when the legal and public relations battle came to its bitter climax. But like soup simmered for hours, what remains is a concentrated stock of the angriest and most devoted, the prayerful and the publicity hungry.
"No, we're not going to go home," said Bill Tierney, a young daughter at his side. "Terri is not dead until she's dead."
Mr. Tierney, a former military intelligence officer in Iraq who works as a translator and investigator for private companies, cried as he talked about watching the Schiavo spectacle on television and feeling the utter need to be at the hospice. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/28/national/28cnd-schiavo.html?pagewanted=print&position=
http://billmon.org/archives/001784.html
Organizing / Profiting from Terri Predictable, if ghoulish
The parents of Terri Schiavo have authorized a conservative direct-mailing firm to sell a list of their financial supporters, making it likely that thousands of strangers moved by her plight will receive a steady stream of solicitations from anti-abortion and conservative groups. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/politics/29donate.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Otherwise, the “case” is closed: Keith Olbermann, media good guy:
This case should now be considered closed. Obviously it will not be. It will be perpetuated by a few good, sad people who do not want the woman they know as daughter, sister, or friend, to die. It will be perpetuated by others who cannot come to grips with the incongruity of part of her brain still acting automatically, like a stoplight in the middle of a desert. But mostly it will be perpetuated by people who do not and have not given a damn about Terri Schiavo, or her parents, or anyone but themselves and the opportunities to exploit this situation for their own personal or political beliefs. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/
…yet,
In a new legal twist in a case already marked by back-and-forth maneuverings, a federal appeals court agreed late Tuesday to consider a request for a new hearing on whether a feeding tube should be reconnected to the severely brain-damaged Terri Schiavo, The Associated Press reported. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/national/30cnd-schiavo.html?hp&ex=1112245200&en=11ce78a97d52569b&ei=5094&partner=homepage
9/11 and Saudis: Michael Moore et al were right. Letter to the editor (NY Times) by author Craig Unger
As the author of "House of Bush, House of Saud" and the Vanity Fair article about the Saudi flights that triggered the F.B.I. investigation, I was told by the F.B.I. spokesman, John Iannarelli, "I can say unequivocally that the F.B.I. had no role in facilitating these flights one way or another."
White House officials declined to comment on the record, but privately one told me that he had made repeated inquiries and was "confident" that no such flights had taken place.
However, these new documents show conclusively that the flights not only took place, but also, in the F.B.I.'s own words, that people on them may have been "involved in or had knowledge of the 9/11/2001 attacks." In that context, it is especially disturbing to know that the White House had access to all this information and chose to conceal it. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/opinion/l30saudis.html?
What’s Happening, Iraq: Messy “democracy” The Times headlines “adjourns…amid bickering” while the Guardian notes the “descent into chaos.”
The meeting of Iraq's national assembly descended into chaos today as politicians failed to agree on a candidate for speaker.
Amid acrimonious scenes, the new governing body convened briefly, for only the second time since national elections in January, and admitted defeat in its efforts to nominate a Sunni candidate for the role.
The bickering exposed tensions in the newly formed parliament, with the outgoing interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, storming out of the session, followed by the interim president, Gazi al-Yawar
"What are we going to tell the citizens who sacrificed their lives and cast ballots on January 30?" asked Hussein al-Sadr, a Shia cleric and member Mr Allawi's coalition. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1447551,00.html
What’s Happening, China Expanding its influence…in Africa
Today, China's influence in Ethiopia is overwhelming. Its embassy is among the largest in the country and hosts more high-level visits than any Western mission. Chinese companies have become a dominant force, building highways and bridges, power stations, mobile-phone networks, schools and pharmaceutical plants. More recently, they have begun exploring for oil and building at least one Ethiopian military installation.
It's all part of Beijing's broad push into Africa. Aiming to secure access to the continent's vast natural resources, China is forging deep economic, political and military ties with most of Africa's 54 countries. There's more at stake than just fuel for an economic juggernaut, however, say senior Chinese officials, executives and Western diplomats. In Africa, as in many other parts of the developing world, China is redrawing geopolitical alliances in ways that help propel China's rise as a global superpower. http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB111205419351091336,00.html
Kofi Annan: He’s been cleared, his son criticized, but that doesn’t stop hack Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn) from repeatedly calling for Annan’s resignation. Annan’s response: “Hell, no.”
The commission investigating the oil-for-food program in Iraq reported Tuesday that Secretary General Kofi Annan had not influenced the awarding of a contract to the company that employed his son. But it faulted him for not looking more aggressively into the company's relationship with the United Nations once questions were raised. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/international/middleeast/30oil.html
Australia Speaks What one of our friends believes:
Most Australians consider U.S. foreign policy to be as threatening as Islamic fundamentalism, according to a survey released Monday.
More than two-thirds of respondents, 68%, said Australia takes "too much notice" of the United States when setting its foreign policy agenda, and 57% judged U.S. foreign policy to be as much of a threat as Islamic fundamentalism.
The Lowy Institute for International Policy surveyed 1,000 randomly selected Australians on their foreign policy views. The survey's margin of error was 3.1 percentage points.
The Sydney-based think-tank also found a majority of Australians ranked the United States near the bottom of their list of favored allies. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-03-28-australia-us_x.htm
Big Bird Goes Commercial:
Has Big Bird sold out?
On Monday Comcast is to announce the details of its new 24-hour digital cable channel for preschoolers, which will feature Elmo, Big Bird, Barney - and commercials. PBS not only approves, but is a partner: the channel's co-owners are PBS, Sesame Workshop and HIT Entertainment, producer of "Barney and Friends" and "Bob the Builder."
"I don't like pitching products to young children and I never have," said Joan Ganz Cooney, a co-founder of Children's Television Workshop (now Sesame Workshop) and the chairwoman of the executive committee of its board. "But to some degree that is nostalgia for a time that is past. The whole society, the whole business is so commercialized, even public television. This is another way of getting PBS's excellent programming to children." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/arts/television/30pbs.html?pagewanted=print&position=
-R
Members of a violent Central America-based gang have been sent to Arizona to target Minuteman Project volunteers, who will begin a monthlong border vigil this weekend to find and report foreigner sneaking into the United States, project officials say.
James Gilchrist, a Vietnam veteran who helped organize the vigil to protest the federal government's failure to control illegal immigration, said he has been told that California and Texas leaders of Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, have issued orders to teach "a lesson" to the Minuteman volunteers. http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050328-125306-7868r.htm
Where our Quiet / passivity takes us: Paul Krugman warns:
What we need - and we aren't seeing - is a firm stand by moderates against religious extremism. Some people ask, with justification, Where are the Democrats? But an even better question is, Where are the doctors fiercely defending their professional integrity? I think the American Medical Association disapproves of politicians who second-guess medical diagnoses based on video images - but the association's statement on the Schiavo case is so timid that it's hard to be sure.
The closest parallel I can think of to current American politics is Israel. There was a time, not that long ago, when moderate Israelis downplayed the rise of religious extremists. But no more: extremists have already killed one prime minister, and everyone realizes that Ariel Sharon is at risk.
America isn't yet a place where liberal politicians, and even conservatives who aren't sufficiently hard-line, fear assassination. But unless moderates take a stand against the growing power of domestic extremists, it can happen here. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/opinion/29krugman.html?hp
Gannon Follow-Up:
Jeff Gannon is back -- at the National Press Club? Frank Rich is still only on Sundays, so I need to fill the gap. Our conservative, celebrity culture’s National Press Club invites Gannon to discuss journalism and blogging. He’s “blogged” for 3 weeks, and he’s no journalist.
Yes, the same day that the prestigious Washington, D.C., journalism organization plans to present a lunch talk by former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee, it will also allow the former White House reporter/sex site operator to be on a panel discussing bloggers and online journalism.
Gannon, whose real name is James Guckert, resigned his job with the conservative Talon News last month after it was revealed he had used a pseudonym, had little journalism background, and had ties to male escort Web sites.
Still, Press Club leaders will include Gannon on the panel April 8 that includes Wonkette.com editor Ana Marie Cox, National Journal's John Stanton, and others. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000856306
Florida, 2006 / 2008. “In play” LA Times piece on the blow back for the Repubs after the Shiavo and Social Security missteps.
President Bush's decisive victory in Florida last year seemed to cement Republican dominance in an important battleground state that once symbolized an evenly divided nation.
But with the GOP base polarized over the Terri Schiavo case and the public skeptical of Bush's plan to overhaul Social Security, two issues with explosive relevance in Florida are stirring up confusing political crosscurrents for Republicans preparing to face the voters there next year.
On both fronts, President Bush and his brother Gov. Jeb Bush are promoting positions that put fellow Republicans on the spot, just before important campaigns that will determine the governor's successor and the fate of Florida's lone Democrat holding statewide office, Sen. Bill Nelson.
Polls show the public overwhelmingly opposed to intervention by Congress and President Bush in the case of Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman whose family has been bitterly split over the decision to remove her feeding tube. But the religious conservatives who pressed hard for politicians in Tallahassee and Washington to act to have the the tube reinserted could play a pivotal role in the races for governor and Senate.
At the same time, public opposition has been mounting against the president's plan to let younger workers divert a portion of their Social Security payroll taxes into private investment accounts. The president's proposal is particularly unpopular among seniors, and so candidates in the senior-rich state are especially vulnerable to the charge that such a change could endanger benefits. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-politics29mar29,0,6473467.story?coll=la-home-headlines
The Culture of Life: Tales from the Life of one Bill Tierney
1) Life as a contractor in Iraq: February 12
The greatest frustration was evident in rank and file intelligence and law enforcement officers. After explaining his various psychological tactics to the audience, interrogator Bill Tierney (a private contractor working with the Army) said, ''I tried to be nuanced and culturally aware. But the suspects didn't break.''
Suddenly Tierney's temper rose. ''They did not break!'' he shouted. ''I'm here to win. I'm here so our civilization beats theirs! Now what are you willing to do to win?'' he asked, pointing to a woman in the front row. ''You are the interrogators, you are the ones who have to get the information from the Iraqis. What do you do? That word 'torture'. You immediately think, 'That's not me.' But are we litigating this war or fighting it?''
Some listeners murmured in assent; others sat in rapt attention. In all the recent debates about the Bush administration's stance on torture, this voice, the voice of the interrogators themselves, has been almost entirely absent.
Asked about Abu Ghraib, Tierney said that for an interrogator, ''sadism is always right over the hill. You have to admit it. Don't fool yourself - there is a part of you that will say, 'This is fun.''' http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/02/13/spy_world?mode=PF
2) For Terri: (3/28)
The legal battle over the life of Terri Schiavo may have ended, but a thick, fervent crowd remains in the makeshift encampment outside the Woodside Hospice House here.
In numbers, they were not as great on Easter as they were on the previous three days, when the legal and public relations battle came to its bitter climax. But like soup simmered for hours, what remains is a concentrated stock of the angriest and most devoted, the prayerful and the publicity hungry.
"No, we're not going to go home," said Bill Tierney, a young daughter at his side. "Terri is not dead until she's dead."
Mr. Tierney, a former military intelligence officer in Iraq who works as a translator and investigator for private companies, cried as he talked about watching the Schiavo spectacle on television and feeling the utter need to be at the hospice. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/28/national/28cnd-schiavo.html?pagewanted=print&position=
http://billmon.org/archives/001784.html
Organizing / Profiting from Terri Predictable, if ghoulish
The parents of Terri Schiavo have authorized a conservative direct-mailing firm to sell a list of their financial supporters, making it likely that thousands of strangers moved by her plight will receive a steady stream of solicitations from anti-abortion and conservative groups. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/politics/29donate.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Otherwise, the “case” is closed: Keith Olbermann, media good guy:
This case should now be considered closed. Obviously it will not be. It will be perpetuated by a few good, sad people who do not want the woman they know as daughter, sister, or friend, to die. It will be perpetuated by others who cannot come to grips with the incongruity of part of her brain still acting automatically, like a stoplight in the middle of a desert. But mostly it will be perpetuated by people who do not and have not given a damn about Terri Schiavo, or her parents, or anyone but themselves and the opportunities to exploit this situation for their own personal or political beliefs. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/
…yet,
In a new legal twist in a case already marked by back-and-forth maneuverings, a federal appeals court agreed late Tuesday to consider a request for a new hearing on whether a feeding tube should be reconnected to the severely brain-damaged Terri Schiavo, The Associated Press reported. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/national/30cnd-schiavo.html?hp&ex=1112245200&en=11ce78a97d52569b&ei=5094&partner=homepage
9/11 and Saudis: Michael Moore et al were right. Letter to the editor (NY Times) by author Craig Unger
As the author of "House of Bush, House of Saud" and the Vanity Fair article about the Saudi flights that triggered the F.B.I. investigation, I was told by the F.B.I. spokesman, John Iannarelli, "I can say unequivocally that the F.B.I. had no role in facilitating these flights one way or another."
White House officials declined to comment on the record, but privately one told me that he had made repeated inquiries and was "confident" that no such flights had taken place.
However, these new documents show conclusively that the flights not only took place, but also, in the F.B.I.'s own words, that people on them may have been "involved in or had knowledge of the 9/11/2001 attacks." In that context, it is especially disturbing to know that the White House had access to all this information and chose to conceal it. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/opinion/l30saudis.html?
What’s Happening, Iraq: Messy “democracy” The Times headlines “adjourns…amid bickering” while the Guardian notes the “descent into chaos.”
The meeting of Iraq's national assembly descended into chaos today as politicians failed to agree on a candidate for speaker.
Amid acrimonious scenes, the new governing body convened briefly, for only the second time since national elections in January, and admitted defeat in its efforts to nominate a Sunni candidate for the role.
The bickering exposed tensions in the newly formed parliament, with the outgoing interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, storming out of the session, followed by the interim president, Gazi al-Yawar
"What are we going to tell the citizens who sacrificed their lives and cast ballots on January 30?" asked Hussein al-Sadr, a Shia cleric and member Mr Allawi's coalition. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1447551,00.html
What’s Happening, China Expanding its influence…in Africa
Today, China's influence in Ethiopia is overwhelming. Its embassy is among the largest in the country and hosts more high-level visits than any Western mission. Chinese companies have become a dominant force, building highways and bridges, power stations, mobile-phone networks, schools and pharmaceutical plants. More recently, they have begun exploring for oil and building at least one Ethiopian military installation.
It's all part of Beijing's broad push into Africa. Aiming to secure access to the continent's vast natural resources, China is forging deep economic, political and military ties with most of Africa's 54 countries. There's more at stake than just fuel for an economic juggernaut, however, say senior Chinese officials, executives and Western diplomats. In Africa, as in many other parts of the developing world, China is redrawing geopolitical alliances in ways that help propel China's rise as a global superpower. http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB111205419351091336,00.html
Kofi Annan: He’s been cleared, his son criticized, but that doesn’t stop hack Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn) from repeatedly calling for Annan’s resignation. Annan’s response: “Hell, no.”
The commission investigating the oil-for-food program in Iraq reported Tuesday that Secretary General Kofi Annan had not influenced the awarding of a contract to the company that employed his son. But it faulted him for not looking more aggressively into the company's relationship with the United Nations once questions were raised. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/international/middleeast/30oil.html
Australia Speaks What one of our friends believes:
Most Australians consider U.S. foreign policy to be as threatening as Islamic fundamentalism, according to a survey released Monday.
More than two-thirds of respondents, 68%, said Australia takes "too much notice" of the United States when setting its foreign policy agenda, and 57% judged U.S. foreign policy to be as much of a threat as Islamic fundamentalism.
The Lowy Institute for International Policy surveyed 1,000 randomly selected Australians on their foreign policy views. The survey's margin of error was 3.1 percentage points.
The Sydney-based think-tank also found a majority of Australians ranked the United States near the bottom of their list of favored allies. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-03-28-australia-us_x.htm
Big Bird Goes Commercial:
Has Big Bird sold out?
On Monday Comcast is to announce the details of its new 24-hour digital cable channel for preschoolers, which will feature Elmo, Big Bird, Barney - and commercials. PBS not only approves, but is a partner: the channel's co-owners are PBS, Sesame Workshop and HIT Entertainment, producer of "Barney and Friends" and "Bob the Builder."
"I don't like pitching products to young children and I never have," said Joan Ganz Cooney, a co-founder of Children's Television Workshop (now Sesame Workshop) and the chairwoman of the executive committee of its board. "But to some degree that is nostalgia for a time that is past. The whole society, the whole business is so commercialized, even public television. This is another way of getting PBS's excellent programming to children." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/arts/television/30pbs.html?pagewanted=print&position=
-R
