Friday, March 25, 2005
What’s Happening Kyrgyzstan: The increasingly undemocratic President Askar Akayev has been toppled; rigged elections are cited. This “Stan” was the most liberal, so the others are watching it closely. So are Moscow and the Bushies, as “we” both have bases there. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62138-2005Mar24.html
Labor News: All Wal-Mart… The Friday Al Franken show plans to address the UFCW campaign in hour #2 (1 – 2PM). You can reach it at www.airamericaradio.com or, in Greater Boston, 1200AM (Framingham) or 1430AM (Everett).
United Food and Commercial Workers have launched a campaign to get ABC's "Good Morning America" to dump Wal-Mart as a sponsor of the show's "Only in America" segment, on the grounds that, well, Wal-Mart specializes in selling underpriced Chinese crap to the people who used to work in factories until their jobs got sent overseas. The union says:
With this sponsorship, ABC News provides Wal-Mart both a format and visual framing to perpetuate a long-term myth—that Wal-Mart possesses a unique American patriotism manifested in practices that promote American values, respect workers, and privilege American-made products. http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/abcnews
Schiavo: The Courts have spoken, Jeb Bush looks to score points, the exploitation and lies continue, a few hysterics try to bring water to the incipient martyr who is being “starved” by her murderous husband and his accomplices, the Courts.
I’m not the only one to remain curious as to where the Democrats have been. This is another issue that they could have seized on. ‘Shame on you’ could easily be heaped on DeLay, Bush, Frist. The Democrats even have 70 - 80% on their side, yet remain passive.
David Sirota, of the CAP (Center for American Progress), cited in the WaPost:
Democratic strategist David Sirota said the Schiavo case creates three impressions. "Firstly, Republicans are zealots," he said. "Secondly, where the hell are the Democrats? And thirdly, well, at least the zealots believe in something strongly. And that's the problem for Democrats right now on this issue, and a whole host of others. The party seems unwilling to stand up for anything controversial."
"The calculus by Democrats is that they don't want to offend anyone," Sirota said. "But in trying not to offend anyone, they lose support from everyone. What many Democrats haven't yet learned from Republicans is that it is better to be loved by some, and hated by others, than try to be liked by everyone. Because when you do that, you are liked by no one." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59502-2005Mar23.html
Pat Buchanan, On “Hardball” with Chris Mathews: Precious
BUCHANAN: What George Bush ought to do right now is send federal marshals in and pick up Terri Schiavo and put that breathing tube back into her--excuse me, the food and hydration tube back into her, as this is taken up to the United States Supreme Court. He took an oath, Chris, to defend the Constitution of the United States. He has got an obligation, as well as these judges do, to defend that Constitution. And that means to protect this woman‘s life.
MATTHEWS: What happened to the 10th Amendment?
BUCHANAN: Look, the 10th Amendment has been dead as a door nail, Chris.
MATTHEWS: Well, it‘s our Constitution http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7286474/
Social Security: Can’t assume it’s over. Josh Marshall said it well
I must say, I hope the supporters of Social Security aren't resting on their collective laurels just because the president's jihad against the program got off to such an abysmal start.
Today, in newspapers and on websites across the country, headlines used words like 'broke', 'bankrupt' and 'bust' to describe what happens to Social Security when it starts running a deficit at some time in the middle of this century. Only weeks ago, President Bush was being forced to back off such misleading and deceptive language. And many Republicans were openly criticizing him for it. Now these are the words of choice in supposedly straight news reportage.
Supporters of Social Security really don't have the luxury of letting one lie or distortion go unchallenged or unanswered. www.talkingpointsmemo.com
What’s Happening, Iraq: The media provide a steady stream of reports that convey improvement, both as to quality of life and security for Iraqis. Today’s NY Times notes the “unusually quiet” Baghdad and hundreds of power workers holding a demonstration, chanting “no to terror".
Hard to know what’s real. Case in point: Media reports told of a raid, “U.S.-Backed Iraqis Raid Camp and Report Killing 80 Insurgents.” (NY Times). Yet, a wire service report, posted principally by foreign sources, provides contrast.
Up to 40 fighters were seen today at a Iraq lakeside training camp attacked by US and Iraqi forces a day before and said they had never left, an AFP correspondent who visited the site said.
The correspondent, who went with other journalists to the camp at Lake Tharthar, 200km north of Baghdad, said he saw 30 to 40 fighters there.
The remains of three burnt vehicles were seen on a dusty road leading to the camp in the village of Ain al-Hilwa. A few mud huts were partly destroyed and a few big craters gouged the ground.
One of the fighters, who called himself Mohammed Amer and claimed to belong to the Secret Islamic Army, said they had never left the base.
He also said only 11 of his comrades were killed in airstrikes on the site.
Iraqi commanders said 85 suspected insurgents were killed in an assault by Iraqi troops and US aircraft on the camp yesterday.
No one was captured and others had fled by boat, he said. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12645853-23109,00.html
So, what’s happening? The New Republic’s Lawrence Kaplan addresses the fuzzy realities.
Simply put, U.S. officials in Baghdad have in the past tended not to tell the whole truth. It is of course in their interest to convey good news. They've performed their job so well, however, that no one believes them anymore. The public's exposure to this has mostly been confined to shifting reports about the numbers of Iraqi forces and other upbeat but hollow assessments put out by U.S. officials.
Embassy and military officials in Iraq have told me and others, with a straight face, that the airport road is the safest road in Iraq, that Iyad Allawi will win the election by a landslide, that U.S. forces have killed more insurgents than the same officials have said even exist, and other tales too numerous to list. Dedication to the mission, career advancement, an impulse to spin — whatever the motive, the public face of the U.S. mission in Iraq has been so disconnected from reality for so long that were its assessments eventually to jibe with the whole truth, it would have no more persuasive power than the boy who cried wolf. For if the Baghdad press corps has a bias, it is a bias against bullshit. http://www.tnr.com/user/nregi.mhtml?i=w050321&s=kaplan032405 (subscription required)
Iraqi Casualties: The Columbia Journalism Review looks at the disputed Lancet figure of 100,000.
The scientists, from Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, and Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, reported a so-called 95 percent confidence interval. They said that they were 95 percent sure the number of deaths lay between 8,000 and 194,000.
Eight thousand and 194,000? What’s a reporter to make of such a broad range? The lower end of that range overlaps well with previous, nonscientific estimates, but the middle and upper range seem outrageous. True, had the researchers surveyed more houses in more neighborhoods, the interval would have been narrower. But each day spent traveling within Iraq for the study presented grave dangers to the American and Iraqi researchers.
Reporters’ unease about the wide range may have been a primary reason many didn’t cover the study. One columnist, Fred Kaplan of Slate, called the estimate “meaningless” and labeled the range “a dart board.”
But he was wrong. I called about ten biostatisticians and mortality experts. Not one of them took issue with the study’s methods or its conclusions. If anything, the scientists told me, the authors had been cautious in their estimates. With a quick call to a statistician, reporters would have found that the probability forms a bell curve — the likelihood is very small that the number of deaths fell at either extreme of the range. It was very likely to fall near the middle. http://www.cjr.org/issues/2005/2/voices-guterman.asp
The Pseudo-Draft The context being the Army missing recruiting goals, reflecting the loss of interest in the poor-paying, high risk employ. Word of mouth, undoubtedly. So, the Army does what it can.
The U.S. Army is ordering more people to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan involuntarily from a seldom-used personnel pool as part of a mobilization that began last summer.
They are part of the Army's Individual Ready Reserve, made up of soldiers who have completed their volunteer active-duty service commitment but remain eligible to be called back into uniform for years after returning to civilian life. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=7989189
SOBs: Bob Herbert on the Republican politics of distraction and exploitation.
Republicans will tell you they were ratified in the last presidential election. We may be locked in a long and costly war, and federal deficits may be spiraling toward the moon, but the era of shared sacrifices is over. This is the era of entrenched exploitation. All sacrifices will be made by working people and the poor, and the vast bulk of the benefits will accrue to the rich.
F.D.R. would have stared slack-jawed at this madness. Even his grand Social Security edifice is under assault by the vandals of the G.O.P.
While the press and the public are distracted by one sensational news story after another - Terri Schiavo, Michael Jackson, steroids in baseball, etc. - the president and his party have continued their extraordinary campaign to undermine the programs that were designed to fend off destitution and provide a reasonable foundation of economic security for those not blessed with great wealth.
Conservatives insist the cuts are necessary to get the roaring federal budget deficit under control. But they have trouble keeping a straight face when they tell that story. Laden with tax cuts, the president's proposal will result in an increase, not a decrease, in the deficit. Shared sacrifice is anathema to the big-money crowd.
The House has passed a budget that is similar to the president's, except it contains even deeper cuts in programs that affect the poor. In the Senate, a handful of Republicans balked at the cuts proposed for Medicaid. Casting their votes with the Democrats, they were able to eliminate the cuts from the Senate budget proposal. The Senate also added $5.4 billion in education funding for 2006.
All the budgets contain more than $100 billion in tax cuts over the next five years, which makes a mockery of the G.O.P.'s budget-balancing rhetoric. When Congress returns from its Easter recess, the Republican leadership will try to reconcile the differences in the various proposals. Whatever happens will be bad news for ordinary Americans. Big cuts are coming. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/25/opinion/herbert25.1.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
-R
Labor News: All Wal-Mart… The Friday Al Franken show plans to address the UFCW campaign in hour #2 (1 – 2PM). You can reach it at www.airamericaradio.com or, in Greater Boston, 1200AM (Framingham) or 1430AM (Everett).
United Food and Commercial Workers have launched a campaign to get ABC's "Good Morning America" to dump Wal-Mart as a sponsor of the show's "Only in America" segment, on the grounds that, well, Wal-Mart specializes in selling underpriced Chinese crap to the people who used to work in factories until their jobs got sent overseas. The union says:
With this sponsorship, ABC News provides Wal-Mart both a format and visual framing to perpetuate a long-term myth—that Wal-Mart possesses a unique American patriotism manifested in practices that promote American values, respect workers, and privilege American-made products. http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/abcnews
Schiavo: The Courts have spoken, Jeb Bush looks to score points, the exploitation and lies continue, a few hysterics try to bring water to the incipient martyr who is being “starved” by her murderous husband and his accomplices, the Courts.
I’m not the only one to remain curious as to where the Democrats have been. This is another issue that they could have seized on. ‘Shame on you’ could easily be heaped on DeLay, Bush, Frist. The Democrats even have 70 - 80% on their side, yet remain passive.
David Sirota, of the CAP (Center for American Progress), cited in the WaPost:
Democratic strategist David Sirota said the Schiavo case creates three impressions. "Firstly, Republicans are zealots," he said. "Secondly, where the hell are the Democrats? And thirdly, well, at least the zealots believe in something strongly. And that's the problem for Democrats right now on this issue, and a whole host of others. The party seems unwilling to stand up for anything controversial."
"The calculus by Democrats is that they don't want to offend anyone," Sirota said. "But in trying not to offend anyone, they lose support from everyone. What many Democrats haven't yet learned from Republicans is that it is better to be loved by some, and hated by others, than try to be liked by everyone. Because when you do that, you are liked by no one." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59502-2005Mar23.html
Pat Buchanan, On “Hardball” with Chris Mathews: Precious
BUCHANAN: What George Bush ought to do right now is send federal marshals in and pick up Terri Schiavo and put that breathing tube back into her--excuse me, the food and hydration tube back into her, as this is taken up to the United States Supreme Court. He took an oath, Chris, to defend the Constitution of the United States. He has got an obligation, as well as these judges do, to defend that Constitution. And that means to protect this woman‘s life.
MATTHEWS: What happened to the 10th Amendment?
BUCHANAN: Look, the 10th Amendment has been dead as a door nail, Chris.
MATTHEWS: Well, it‘s our Constitution http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7286474/
Social Security: Can’t assume it’s over. Josh Marshall said it well
I must say, I hope the supporters of Social Security aren't resting on their collective laurels just because the president's jihad against the program got off to such an abysmal start.
Today, in newspapers and on websites across the country, headlines used words like 'broke', 'bankrupt' and 'bust' to describe what happens to Social Security when it starts running a deficit at some time in the middle of this century. Only weeks ago, President Bush was being forced to back off such misleading and deceptive language. And many Republicans were openly criticizing him for it. Now these are the words of choice in supposedly straight news reportage.
Supporters of Social Security really don't have the luxury of letting one lie or distortion go unchallenged or unanswered. www.talkingpointsmemo.com
What’s Happening, Iraq: The media provide a steady stream of reports that convey improvement, both as to quality of life and security for Iraqis. Today’s NY Times notes the “unusually quiet” Baghdad and hundreds of power workers holding a demonstration, chanting “no to terror".
Hard to know what’s real. Case in point: Media reports told of a raid, “U.S.-Backed Iraqis Raid Camp and Report Killing 80 Insurgents.” (NY Times). Yet, a wire service report, posted principally by foreign sources, provides contrast.
Up to 40 fighters were seen today at a Iraq lakeside training camp attacked by US and Iraqi forces a day before and said they had never left, an AFP correspondent who visited the site said.
The correspondent, who went with other journalists to the camp at Lake Tharthar, 200km north of Baghdad, said he saw 30 to 40 fighters there.
The remains of three burnt vehicles were seen on a dusty road leading to the camp in the village of Ain al-Hilwa. A few mud huts were partly destroyed and a few big craters gouged the ground.
One of the fighters, who called himself Mohammed Amer and claimed to belong to the Secret Islamic Army, said they had never left the base.
He also said only 11 of his comrades were killed in airstrikes on the site.
Iraqi commanders said 85 suspected insurgents were killed in an assault by Iraqi troops and US aircraft on the camp yesterday.
No one was captured and others had fled by boat, he said. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12645853-23109,00.html
So, what’s happening? The New Republic’s Lawrence Kaplan addresses the fuzzy realities.
Simply put, U.S. officials in Baghdad have in the past tended not to tell the whole truth. It is of course in their interest to convey good news. They've performed their job so well, however, that no one believes them anymore. The public's exposure to this has mostly been confined to shifting reports about the numbers of Iraqi forces and other upbeat but hollow assessments put out by U.S. officials.
Embassy and military officials in Iraq have told me and others, with a straight face, that the airport road is the safest road in Iraq, that Iyad Allawi will win the election by a landslide, that U.S. forces have killed more insurgents than the same officials have said even exist, and other tales too numerous to list. Dedication to the mission, career advancement, an impulse to spin — whatever the motive, the public face of the U.S. mission in Iraq has been so disconnected from reality for so long that were its assessments eventually to jibe with the whole truth, it would have no more persuasive power than the boy who cried wolf. For if the Baghdad press corps has a bias, it is a bias against bullshit. http://www.tnr.com/user/nregi.mhtml?i=w050321&s=kaplan032405 (subscription required)
Iraqi Casualties: The Columbia Journalism Review looks at the disputed Lancet figure of 100,000.
The scientists, from Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, and Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, reported a so-called 95 percent confidence interval. They said that they were 95 percent sure the number of deaths lay between 8,000 and 194,000.
Eight thousand and 194,000? What’s a reporter to make of such a broad range? The lower end of that range overlaps well with previous, nonscientific estimates, but the middle and upper range seem outrageous. True, had the researchers surveyed more houses in more neighborhoods, the interval would have been narrower. But each day spent traveling within Iraq for the study presented grave dangers to the American and Iraqi researchers.
Reporters’ unease about the wide range may have been a primary reason many didn’t cover the study. One columnist, Fred Kaplan of Slate, called the estimate “meaningless” and labeled the range “a dart board.”
But he was wrong. I called about ten biostatisticians and mortality experts. Not one of them took issue with the study’s methods or its conclusions. If anything, the scientists told me, the authors had been cautious in their estimates. With a quick call to a statistician, reporters would have found that the probability forms a bell curve — the likelihood is very small that the number of deaths fell at either extreme of the range. It was very likely to fall near the middle. http://www.cjr.org/issues/2005/2/voices-guterman.asp
The Pseudo-Draft The context being the Army missing recruiting goals, reflecting the loss of interest in the poor-paying, high risk employ. Word of mouth, undoubtedly. So, the Army does what it can.
The U.S. Army is ordering more people to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan involuntarily from a seldom-used personnel pool as part of a mobilization that began last summer.
They are part of the Army's Individual Ready Reserve, made up of soldiers who have completed their volunteer active-duty service commitment but remain eligible to be called back into uniform for years after returning to civilian life. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=7989189
SOBs: Bob Herbert on the Republican politics of distraction and exploitation.
Republicans will tell you they were ratified in the last presidential election. We may be locked in a long and costly war, and federal deficits may be spiraling toward the moon, but the era of shared sacrifices is over. This is the era of entrenched exploitation. All sacrifices will be made by working people and the poor, and the vast bulk of the benefits will accrue to the rich.
F.D.R. would have stared slack-jawed at this madness. Even his grand Social Security edifice is under assault by the vandals of the G.O.P.
While the press and the public are distracted by one sensational news story after another - Terri Schiavo, Michael Jackson, steroids in baseball, etc. - the president and his party have continued their extraordinary campaign to undermine the programs that were designed to fend off destitution and provide a reasonable foundation of economic security for those not blessed with great wealth.
Conservatives insist the cuts are necessary to get the roaring federal budget deficit under control. But they have trouble keeping a straight face when they tell that story. Laden with tax cuts, the president's proposal will result in an increase, not a decrease, in the deficit. Shared sacrifice is anathema to the big-money crowd.
The House has passed a budget that is similar to the president's, except it contains even deeper cuts in programs that affect the poor. In the Senate, a handful of Republicans balked at the cuts proposed for Medicaid. Casting their votes with the Democrats, they were able to eliminate the cuts from the Senate budget proposal. The Senate also added $5.4 billion in education funding for 2006.
All the budgets contain more than $100 billion in tax cuts over the next five years, which makes a mockery of the G.O.P.'s budget-balancing rhetoric. When Congress returns from its Easter recess, the Republican leadership will try to reconcile the differences in the various proposals. Whatever happens will be bad news for ordinary Americans. Big cuts are coming. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/25/opinion/herbert25.1.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
-R
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Israel-Palestine: Settlements. Sharon inconsistency
Israel on Monday publicly confirmed plans to build 3,500 new housing units in the largest Jewish settlement in the West Bank, Maale Adumim. Palestinians angrily responded that such an action would violate the Middle East peace plan and would be a major obstacle to resolving bitter disputes over nearby Jerusalem.
After reports in the Israeli news media, the Defense Ministry confirmed Monday that Shaul Mofaz, the defense minister, had approved the new building plan for Maale Adumim two months ago, based on government proposals dating back several years.
In another development on Monday, Israel handed over security control to the Palestinians in the West Bank town of Tulkarm, a hotbed of Palestinian militants. Last month Israel agreed to transfer security control of five Palestinian towns in the West Bank, and Tulkarm is the second one to be handed over, after Jericho last week.
,,, Palestinians criticized the expansion plan disclosed Monday as a flagrant attempt to expand the Jewish presence in and around the traditionally Arab eastern parts of Jerusalem and to seal them off even further from Palestinian areas in the West Bank.
"If this is carried out, Israel will be dictating the outcome of negotiations on the future of Jerusalem before they even begin," said Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator with the Israelis. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/22/international/middleeast/22mideast.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Today's Times' editorial criticizes the above
We all know that any final peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians will have to include an adjustment of borders; returning to the 1967 lines is fine in theory, but there are too many Israeli Jews living outside those boundaries to expect all of them to move. But that is precisely why adding to those numbers right now is so cynical. And claims by the Israelis that they never intend to give certain settlements back anyway just don't cut it.
Mr. Sharon is unfairly trying to stack the deck before peace talks even begin by expanding the Jewish presence around the traditionally Arab eastern parts of Jerusalem. Such a move could further seal off those Israeli Arabs in east Jerusalem from Palestinian areas in the West Bank.http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/23/opinion/23wed1.html
Social Security: Bush Retreat: Now, private/personal accounts are “just one idea people should consider."
Even the slogan at the president's public events has changed. At the New Mexico event, gone were the banners that once declared the president's interest in "Strengthening Social Security."
Instead they had a more targeted message: "Keeping Our Promise to Seniors." His last several outings have been dedicated to reassuring older voters that their Social Security payments are not in jeopardy, rather than demanding the bold restructuring that was once the focus of his sales pitch. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/23/politics/23social.html
Christopher Hitchens: The former Leftie visits Ohio.
OHIO’S ODD NUMBERS
No conspiracy theorist, and no fan of John Kerry’s, the author nevertheless found the Ohio polling results impossible to swallow: Given what happened in that key state on Election Day 2004, both democracy and common sense cry out for a court-ordered inspection of its new voting machines
I am not any sort of statistician or technologist, and (like many Democrats in private) I did not think that John Kerry should have been president of any country at any time. But I have been reviewing books on history and politics all my life, making notes in the margin when I come across a wrong date, or any other factual blunder, or a missing point in the evidence. No book is ever free from this. But if all the mistakes and omissions occur in such a way as to be consistent, to support or attack only one position, then you give the author a lousy review. The Federal Election Commission, which has been a risible body for far too long, ought to make Ohio its business. The Diebold company, which also manufactures A.T.M.s, should not receive another dime until it can produce a voting system that is similarly reliable. And Americans should cease to be treated like serfs or extras when they present themselves to exercise their franchise. http://makethemaccountable.com/articles/Ohio_s_Odd_Numbers.htm
Schiavo: A federal appeals court said Terri Schiavo's parents "failed to demonstrate a substantial case on the merits of any of their claims." The parents plan another appeal.
Complicit Media: The latest from the Right: pushing a doctor who claims he can rehabilitate Terri Schiavo. William Hammesfahr is a Florida neurologist who was disciplined two years ago by the Florida Board of Medicine and was one of five court-approved physicians who examined her. And, since hack legislator Mike Bilirakis (R-Florida) wrote a letter to the Nobel Committee recommending him for The Prize, he is consistently introduced by Right media as “nominated for the Nobel Prize”.
Sean Hannity, habitual liar:
HANNITY: And coming up later in the program tonight, we're going to meet a doctor who actually spent 10 hours examining Terri Schiavo. He was nominated for a Nobel Prize. He believes that she could be rehabilitated.
[...]
HANNITY: You were nominated for a Nobel Prize in medicine?
HAMMESFAHR: Yes.
[...]
HANNITY: You were nominated to get a Nobel Peace Prize in this work. Are you saying that this woman could be rehabilitated?
[...]
HANNITY: How is it possible we're in this position if you have examined her? You were up for a Nobel Prize. This is mind boggling to me.
Joe Scarborough, MSNBC Rightie, has done the same, if less repetitively.
From the March 21 edition of MSNBC's Scarborough Country:
SCARBOROUGH: And a Nobel Prize-nominated neurologist who has treated Terri Schiavo, he says Terri should live and that her husband is perpetrating a hoax that is just aimed at killing his wife. http://mediamatters.org/items/200503220009
Fight Back?
As usual, looking for Democrats to evidence some spine- and a tad of Michael Schiavo’s outrage. Nothing from Kennedy and Kerry, Pelosi or Reid, but Howard Dean and Jim McDermott (long the sponsor of single payer health in the House) spoke up on Tuesday:
Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee and an internist, told reporters that Dr. Frist's remarks were not "medically sound." Another Democrat, Representative Jim McDermott, a psychiatrist from Washington, accused his colleagues on Tuesday of committing "legislative malpractice."
"This poor woman and this poor family are being used as a political football, and these guys will do anything to push the point that they think is so important, that they will invade this family's privacy," he said in an interview. He singled out Dr. Weldon, saying, "This is a guy who's lost track of who he is." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/23/politics/23doctors.html?pagewanted=all
Osama: Yes, he was at Tora Bora The Bushies knew it all along (so did we), but, like so much else, lied about it during the campaign. The AP report:
A terror suspect held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was a commander for Osama bin Laden during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s and helped the al-Qaida leader escape his mountain hideout at Tora Bora in 2001, according to a U.S. government document.
The document, provided to The Associated Press in response to a Freedom of Information request, says the unidentified detainee "assisted in the escape of Osama bin Laden from Tora Bora."
The detainee is not identified by name or nationality. He is described as being "associated with" al-Qaida and having called for a jihad, or holy war, against the United States. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050322/D890A5DO0.html
Update: Chocolate: Health Food? Indulge me. 2 articles, different shading
Dark chocolate -- but not white chocolate - may help reduce blood pressure and boost the body's ability to metabolize sugar from food, according to the results of a small study. Investigators from the University of L'Aquila in Italy found that after eating only 100 grams, or 3.5 ounces, of dark chocolate every day for 15 days, 15 healthy people had lower blood pressures and were more sensitive to insulin, an important factor in metabolizing sugar.
In contrast, eating roughly the same amount of white chocolate for the same period of time did not affect either blood pressure or insulin sensitivity.
This is not the first study to demonstrate potential health benefits of dark chocolate, which contains high levels of a kind of antioxidant called flavonoids. Research shows that flavonoids that can help maintain a healthy heart and good circulation and reduce blood clotting, which can lead to heart attacks and stroke. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=571&e=3&u=/nm/chocolate_dark_dc
…some studies suggest that compounds in chocolate can relax blood vessel linings, which supposedly would be a good thing for the heart. But, he said, estrogen does the same thing, and while it was thought for decades that the estrogen in hormone replacement therapy protected against heart disease, we now know that estrogen is bad for heart health -- one of the main reasons women are now generally steered away from hormone therapy at menopause.
Mars notes in press materials that 100 grams of chocolate contain four times the concentration of catechins -- a specific class of antioxidants theorized to benefit the heart -- as a cup of tea. But 100 grams of chocolate have more than 500 calories. Tea has no calories.
In studies suggesting chocolate has a health benefit, researchers take pains to make sure test subjects eating chocolate consume no more calories than participants who don't eat chocolate. But that's not what happens in the real world. ''We're Americans," said Jeffrey Blumberg, director of the Antioxidants Research Lab at Tufts University and an investigator on one of the chocolate studies. ''We don't know how to enjoy quality without quantity." http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2005/03/22/health_by_chocolate_sorry_no?mode=PF
In sum, it’s good for you and, as we know, is highly caloric.
-R
Israel on Monday publicly confirmed plans to build 3,500 new housing units in the largest Jewish settlement in the West Bank, Maale Adumim. Palestinians angrily responded that such an action would violate the Middle East peace plan and would be a major obstacle to resolving bitter disputes over nearby Jerusalem.
After reports in the Israeli news media, the Defense Ministry confirmed Monday that Shaul Mofaz, the defense minister, had approved the new building plan for Maale Adumim two months ago, based on government proposals dating back several years.
In another development on Monday, Israel handed over security control to the Palestinians in the West Bank town of Tulkarm, a hotbed of Palestinian militants. Last month Israel agreed to transfer security control of five Palestinian towns in the West Bank, and Tulkarm is the second one to be handed over, after Jericho last week.
,,, Palestinians criticized the expansion plan disclosed Monday as a flagrant attempt to expand the Jewish presence in and around the traditionally Arab eastern parts of Jerusalem and to seal them off even further from Palestinian areas in the West Bank.
"If this is carried out, Israel will be dictating the outcome of negotiations on the future of Jerusalem before they even begin," said Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator with the Israelis. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/22/international/middleeast/22mideast.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Today's Times' editorial criticizes the above
We all know that any final peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians will have to include an adjustment of borders; returning to the 1967 lines is fine in theory, but there are too many Israeli Jews living outside those boundaries to expect all of them to move. But that is precisely why adding to those numbers right now is so cynical. And claims by the Israelis that they never intend to give certain settlements back anyway just don't cut it.
Mr. Sharon is unfairly trying to stack the deck before peace talks even begin by expanding the Jewish presence around the traditionally Arab eastern parts of Jerusalem. Such a move could further seal off those Israeli Arabs in east Jerusalem from Palestinian areas in the West Bank.http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/23/opinion/23wed1.html
Social Security: Bush Retreat: Now, private/personal accounts are “just one idea people should consider."
Even the slogan at the president's public events has changed. At the New Mexico event, gone were the banners that once declared the president's interest in "Strengthening Social Security."
Instead they had a more targeted message: "Keeping Our Promise to Seniors." His last several outings have been dedicated to reassuring older voters that their Social Security payments are not in jeopardy, rather than demanding the bold restructuring that was once the focus of his sales pitch. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/23/politics/23social.html
Christopher Hitchens: The former Leftie visits Ohio.
OHIO’S ODD NUMBERS
No conspiracy theorist, and no fan of John Kerry’s, the author nevertheless found the Ohio polling results impossible to swallow: Given what happened in that key state on Election Day 2004, both democracy and common sense cry out for a court-ordered inspection of its new voting machines
I am not any sort of statistician or technologist, and (like many Democrats in private) I did not think that John Kerry should have been president of any country at any time. But I have been reviewing books on history and politics all my life, making notes in the margin when I come across a wrong date, or any other factual blunder, or a missing point in the evidence. No book is ever free from this. But if all the mistakes and omissions occur in such a way as to be consistent, to support or attack only one position, then you give the author a lousy review. The Federal Election Commission, which has been a risible body for far too long, ought to make Ohio its business. The Diebold company, which also manufactures A.T.M.s, should not receive another dime until it can produce a voting system that is similarly reliable. And Americans should cease to be treated like serfs or extras when they present themselves to exercise their franchise. http://makethemaccountable.com/articles/Ohio_s_Odd_Numbers.htm
Schiavo: A federal appeals court said Terri Schiavo's parents "failed to demonstrate a substantial case on the merits of any of their claims." The parents plan another appeal.
Complicit Media: The latest from the Right: pushing a doctor who claims he can rehabilitate Terri Schiavo. William Hammesfahr is a Florida neurologist who was disciplined two years ago by the Florida Board of Medicine and was one of five court-approved physicians who examined her. And, since hack legislator Mike Bilirakis (R-Florida) wrote a letter to the Nobel Committee recommending him for The Prize, he is consistently introduced by Right media as “nominated for the Nobel Prize”.
Sean Hannity, habitual liar:
HANNITY: And coming up later in the program tonight, we're going to meet a doctor who actually spent 10 hours examining Terri Schiavo. He was nominated for a Nobel Prize. He believes that she could be rehabilitated.
[...]
HANNITY: You were nominated for a Nobel Prize in medicine?
HAMMESFAHR: Yes.
[...]
HANNITY: You were nominated to get a Nobel Peace Prize in this work. Are you saying that this woman could be rehabilitated?
[...]
HANNITY: How is it possible we're in this position if you have examined her? You were up for a Nobel Prize. This is mind boggling to me.
Joe Scarborough, MSNBC Rightie, has done the same, if less repetitively.
From the March 21 edition of MSNBC's Scarborough Country:
SCARBOROUGH: And a Nobel Prize-nominated neurologist who has treated Terri Schiavo, he says Terri should live and that her husband is perpetrating a hoax that is just aimed at killing his wife. http://mediamatters.org/items/200503220009
Fight Back?
As usual, looking for Democrats to evidence some spine- and a tad of Michael Schiavo’s outrage. Nothing from Kennedy and Kerry, Pelosi or Reid, but Howard Dean and Jim McDermott (long the sponsor of single payer health in the House) spoke up on Tuesday:
Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee and an internist, told reporters that Dr. Frist's remarks were not "medically sound." Another Democrat, Representative Jim McDermott, a psychiatrist from Washington, accused his colleagues on Tuesday of committing "legislative malpractice."
"This poor woman and this poor family are being used as a political football, and these guys will do anything to push the point that they think is so important, that they will invade this family's privacy," he said in an interview. He singled out Dr. Weldon, saying, "This is a guy who's lost track of who he is." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/23/politics/23doctors.html?pagewanted=all
Osama: Yes, he was at Tora Bora The Bushies knew it all along (so did we), but, like so much else, lied about it during the campaign. The AP report:
A terror suspect held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was a commander for Osama bin Laden during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s and helped the al-Qaida leader escape his mountain hideout at Tora Bora in 2001, according to a U.S. government document.
The document, provided to The Associated Press in response to a Freedom of Information request, says the unidentified detainee "assisted in the escape of Osama bin Laden from Tora Bora."
The detainee is not identified by name or nationality. He is described as being "associated with" al-Qaida and having called for a jihad, or holy war, against the United States. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050322/D890A5DO0.html
Update: Chocolate: Health Food? Indulge me. 2 articles, different shading
Dark chocolate -- but not white chocolate - may help reduce blood pressure and boost the body's ability to metabolize sugar from food, according to the results of a small study. Investigators from the University of L'Aquila in Italy found that after eating only 100 grams, or 3.5 ounces, of dark chocolate every day for 15 days, 15 healthy people had lower blood pressures and were more sensitive to insulin, an important factor in metabolizing sugar.
In contrast, eating roughly the same amount of white chocolate for the same period of time did not affect either blood pressure or insulin sensitivity.
This is not the first study to demonstrate potential health benefits of dark chocolate, which contains high levels of a kind of antioxidant called flavonoids. Research shows that flavonoids that can help maintain a healthy heart and good circulation and reduce blood clotting, which can lead to heart attacks and stroke. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=571&e=3&u=/nm/chocolate_dark_dc
…some studies suggest that compounds in chocolate can relax blood vessel linings, which supposedly would be a good thing for the heart. But, he said, estrogen does the same thing, and while it was thought for decades that the estrogen in hormone replacement therapy protected against heart disease, we now know that estrogen is bad for heart health -- one of the main reasons women are now generally steered away from hormone therapy at menopause.
Mars notes in press materials that 100 grams of chocolate contain four times the concentration of catechins -- a specific class of antioxidants theorized to benefit the heart -- as a cup of tea. But 100 grams of chocolate have more than 500 calories. Tea has no calories.
In studies suggesting chocolate has a health benefit, researchers take pains to make sure test subjects eating chocolate consume no more calories than participants who don't eat chocolate. But that's not what happens in the real world. ''We're Americans," said Jeffrey Blumberg, director of the Antioxidants Research Lab at Tufts University and an investigator on one of the chocolate studies. ''We don't know how to enjoy quality without quantity." http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2005/03/22/health_by_chocolate_sorry_no?mode=PF
In sum, it’s good for you and, as we know, is highly caloric.
-R
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Iraq and Vietnam: POWs Comparisons have their problems, but for perspective, as the reports roll in about deaths at Guantanamo and elsewhere, it might be ‘helpful’ to recall the upset re the fate of our POWs in North Vietnam. The following is an entry by the web site roachblog.com:
Suddenly, the count of prisoners dead in captivity is up to 108. Boy, that happened fast, didn't it? When I did my seven year hitch in the Navy, the gold standard for horrible, communist, totalitarian, non-Geneva convention deadly bastards who you never wanted to get captured by was the North Vietnamese.
They were happy if you died in your cell. They tortured. They hated. They abused just for perverse commie, Stalinist fun. They were the worst. Worse than Nazis, even, because the Nazis at least sometimes pretended to be civilized about POW treatment. The North Vietnamese didn't even pretend.
So how many American POWS died while captured by the insane and lawless North Vietnamese during the entire Vietnam war? One hundred and fourteen. From all causes. What killed the 108 (so far) reported in our custody?
Mostly "violent causes".
Maybe someone would like to explain WTF that means. I don't even want to try. http://roachblog.blogspot.com/2005_03_13_roachblog_archive.html#111111636096712011; http://www.eiis.net/cmart/vietwarstats.html
Schiavo: The judge did the predictable. The Republican Right is shameless. Too many Democrats were absent/silent. And, what about states rights? Of course that no longer matters now that the Right controls the federal government.
As for Bush: "This is a complex case with serious issues. But in extraordinary circumstances like this, it is wise to err on the side of life."
Ah, yes, that sounds like Junior. Rampant inconsistency re right-to-die, and then there’s his/Gonzales’ infamously cursory review of capital punishment cases in Texas.
And, his/Karl Rove's priorities/fealty (to the religious Right): Considering that this guy is known for never interrupting his vacation- even when receiving a “PDB” entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the United States,” he preferred, according to The New York Times, to “break off from work early and spent most of the day fishin- a guy who works part time, has a daily workout, goes to bed at 10, etc... this time heads back to D.C. and is awake after 1AM signing the legislation.
Physicians are critical or appalled by Sen. Frist’s comments, including this neurologist’s comment: "Tomorrow I will do a transplant surgery if [Frist] starts doing neurology. He has no clue."
Frist's comments raised eyebrows in the medical community.
Although there are no official rules against the practice, ethicists said, it is generally considered unprofessional for a doctor to make or question a diagnosis on the basis of incomplete information.
"In general, physicians would consider it unprofessional for doctors to take clinical stands on issues without adequate clinical data," said Dr. Neil Wenger, head of the ethics committee at UCLA Medical Center.
William J. Winslade, a bioethicist and law professor at the Institute for the Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, was more direct. Frist "has no business making a diagnosis from a video," he said.
In his comments on the Senate floor, Frist said that based on the videotape of Schiavo and court records, she "does respond" to outside stimuli. "That footage, to me, depicted something very different than persistent vegetative state." http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-frist22mar22,0,4390116.story?coll=la-home-headlines
The Republican Memo: Unclear if Republican Senate staffers, Rick Santorum’s office, or ? was responsible.
S. 529., The Incapacitated Person's Legal Protection Act
* Teri Schiavo is subject to an order that her feeding tubes will be disconnected on March 18, 2005 at 1p.m.
* The Senate needs to act this week before the Budget Act is pending business, or Teri's family will not have a remedy in federal court.
* This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue.
* This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida - has already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats.
* The bill is very limited and defines custody as "those parties authorized or directed by a court order to withdraw or withhold food, fluids, or medical treatment."
* There is an exemption for proceeding "which no party disputes, and the court finds, that the incapacitated person while having capacity, had executed a written advance directive valid under applicably law that clearly authorized the withholding or withdrawal of food or fluids or medical treatment in the applicable circumstances."
* Incapacitated persons are defined as those "presently incapable of making relevant decisions concerning the provision, withholding or withdrawal of food fluids or medical treatment under applicable state law."
* This legislation ensures that individuals like Teri Schiavo are guaranteed the same legal protections as convicted murderers like Ted Bundy. http://dcinsidescoop.blogspot.com/2005/03/exclusive-gops-schiavo-talking-points.html
The judge is no liberal, so it’ll be ‘fun’ watching the Right brand him an “activist.”
Judge James D. Wittemore of Tampa is bound to become the latest target of the right if he decides not to order the reinsertion of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. Given his background and history, I don't think they have a leg to stand on.
He is a former federal defender, former Circuit Court Judge for Hillsboro County and Clinton appointee to the federal bench. Like all federal judges, his appointment is for life. A review of his published opinions and news articles on his decisions do not show political partisanship, or even liberal tendencies. Here's a good size sampling, all sources are listed and available on Lexis.com.
* In a high-profile case in Tampa, he ruled a "county can regulate nudity in private clubs to protect residents from an increase in crime and prostitution as well as the degradation of women." Sarasota Herald-Tribune, January 15, 2003.
* He "denied an adult business owner's attempt to bar the State Attorney's Office from prosecuting him under a state racketeering law if he sets up shop in Polk County." Lakeland Ledger, February 5, 2003. http://talkleft.com/new_archives/010117.html#010117
The Thoroughly Politicized EPA: Mercury
The WaPost fronts the EPA’s ignoring a study that shows that stricter rules than their new, looser ones, would be far more beneficial. The study was funded by the EPA, but somehow…
When the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a rule last week to limit mercury emissions from U.S. power plants, officials emphasized that the controls could not be more aggressive because the cost to industry already far exceeded the public health payoff.
What they did not reveal is that a Harvard University study paid for by the EPA, co-authored by an EPA scientist and peer-reviewed by two other EPA scientists had reached the opposite conclusion. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55268-2005Mar21.html
What’s Happening, Kyrgyzstan: Rigged elections (?), citizen protests that included torching a few government buildings. Kyrgyzstan houses a few U.S. bases, so most of the major papers have noted developments.
Both critics and supporters of Akayev see the growing protests as modeled after peaceful uprisings in Georgia two years ago and in Ukraine last year that forced out governments accused of electoral fraud. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-kyrgyz21mar21.story
Evolution and the [very] big screen.
Several Imax theaters, including some in science museums, are refusing to show movies that mention the subject - or the Big Bang or the geology of the earth - fearing protests from people who object to films that contradict biblical descriptions of the origin of Earth and its creatures.
The number of theaters rejecting such films is small, people in the industry say - perhaps a dozen or fewer, most in the South. But because only a few dozen Imax theaters routinely show science documentaries, the decisions of a few can have a big impact on a film's bottom line - or a producer's decision to make a documentary in the first place.
People who follow trends at commercial and institutional Imax theaters say that in recent years, religious controversy has adversely affected the distribution of a number of films, including "Cosmic Voyage," which depicts the universe in dimensions running from the scale of subatomic particles to clusters of galaxies; "Galápagos," about the islands where Darwin theorized about evolution; and "Volcanoes of the Deep Sea," an underwater epic about the bizarre creatures that flourish in the hot, sulfurous emanations from vents in the ocean floor. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/19/national/19imax.html?pagewanted=print&position=
DeLay Trouble: Even David Brooks is on his case. And, most unusual is that Brooks ignores the Democrats in writing about Masters of Sleaze. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/22/opinion/22brooks.html?hp
CEO Pay: Still over-the-top. Hey, I thought they were ‘suffering’ after the bad p.r. of the last few years?
High-profile meltdowns aside, it still pays to be the boss.
Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Carly Fiorina, recently muscled out of her job over lackluster performance, walked away with an exit package worth $42 million. Boeing Co.'s Harry C. Stonecipher, pushed out over an affair with a female employee, nonetheless is eligible for retirement benefits of about $600,000 per year. Franklin D. Raines bowed out under heavy pressure in December following accounting problems at Fannie Mae. But the firm says he is now owed $114,393 per month in pension benefits.
At many other corporations untouched by scandal, pay continues to climb whether performance is great, lousy or middling. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55305-2005Mar21.html
-R
Suddenly, the count of prisoners dead in captivity is up to 108. Boy, that happened fast, didn't it? When I did my seven year hitch in the Navy, the gold standard for horrible, communist, totalitarian, non-Geneva convention deadly bastards who you never wanted to get captured by was the North Vietnamese.
They were happy if you died in your cell. They tortured. They hated. They abused just for perverse commie, Stalinist fun. They were the worst. Worse than Nazis, even, because the Nazis at least sometimes pretended to be civilized about POW treatment. The North Vietnamese didn't even pretend.
So how many American POWS died while captured by the insane and lawless North Vietnamese during the entire Vietnam war? One hundred and fourteen. From all causes. What killed the 108 (so far) reported in our custody?
Mostly "violent causes".
Maybe someone would like to explain WTF that means. I don't even want to try. http://roachblog.blogspot.com/2005_03_13_roachblog_archive.html#111111636096712011; http://www.eiis.net/cmart/vietwarstats.html
Schiavo: The judge did the predictable. The Republican Right is shameless. Too many Democrats were absent/silent. And, what about states rights? Of course that no longer matters now that the Right controls the federal government.
As for Bush: "This is a complex case with serious issues. But in extraordinary circumstances like this, it is wise to err on the side of life."
Ah, yes, that sounds like Junior. Rampant inconsistency re right-to-die, and then there’s his/Gonzales’ infamously cursory review of capital punishment cases in Texas.
And, his/Karl Rove's priorities/fealty (to the religious Right): Considering that this guy is known for never interrupting his vacation- even when receiving a “PDB” entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the United States,” he preferred, according to The New York Times, to “break off from work early and spent most of the day fishin- a guy who works part time, has a daily workout, goes to bed at 10, etc... this time heads back to D.C. and is awake after 1AM signing the legislation.
Physicians are critical or appalled by Sen. Frist’s comments, including this neurologist’s comment: "Tomorrow I will do a transplant surgery if [Frist] starts doing neurology. He has no clue."
Frist's comments raised eyebrows in the medical community.
Although there are no official rules against the practice, ethicists said, it is generally considered unprofessional for a doctor to make or question a diagnosis on the basis of incomplete information.
"In general, physicians would consider it unprofessional for doctors to take clinical stands on issues without adequate clinical data," said Dr. Neil Wenger, head of the ethics committee at UCLA Medical Center.
William J. Winslade, a bioethicist and law professor at the Institute for the Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, was more direct. Frist "has no business making a diagnosis from a video," he said.
In his comments on the Senate floor, Frist said that based on the videotape of Schiavo and court records, she "does respond" to outside stimuli. "That footage, to me, depicted something very different than persistent vegetative state." http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-frist22mar22,0,4390116.story?coll=la-home-headlines
The Republican Memo: Unclear if Republican Senate staffers, Rick Santorum’s office, or ? was responsible.
S. 529., The Incapacitated Person's Legal Protection Act
* Teri Schiavo is subject to an order that her feeding tubes will be disconnected on March 18, 2005 at 1p.m.
* The Senate needs to act this week before the Budget Act is pending business, or Teri's family will not have a remedy in federal court.
* This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue.
* This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida - has already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats.
* The bill is very limited and defines custody as "those parties authorized or directed by a court order to withdraw or withhold food, fluids, or medical treatment."
* There is an exemption for proceeding "which no party disputes, and the court finds, that the incapacitated person while having capacity, had executed a written advance directive valid under applicably law that clearly authorized the withholding or withdrawal of food or fluids or medical treatment in the applicable circumstances."
* Incapacitated persons are defined as those "presently incapable of making relevant decisions concerning the provision, withholding or withdrawal of food fluids or medical treatment under applicable state law."
* This legislation ensures that individuals like Teri Schiavo are guaranteed the same legal protections as convicted murderers like Ted Bundy. http://dcinsidescoop.blogspot.com/2005/03/exclusive-gops-schiavo-talking-points.html
The judge is no liberal, so it’ll be ‘fun’ watching the Right brand him an “activist.”
Judge James D. Wittemore of Tampa is bound to become the latest target of the right if he decides not to order the reinsertion of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. Given his background and history, I don't think they have a leg to stand on.
He is a former federal defender, former Circuit Court Judge for Hillsboro County and Clinton appointee to the federal bench. Like all federal judges, his appointment is for life. A review of his published opinions and news articles on his decisions do not show political partisanship, or even liberal tendencies. Here's a good size sampling, all sources are listed and available on Lexis.com.
* In a high-profile case in Tampa, he ruled a "county can regulate nudity in private clubs to protect residents from an increase in crime and prostitution as well as the degradation of women." Sarasota Herald-Tribune, January 15, 2003.
* He "denied an adult business owner's attempt to bar the State Attorney's Office from prosecuting him under a state racketeering law if he sets up shop in Polk County." Lakeland Ledger, February 5, 2003. http://talkleft.com/new_archives/010117.html#010117
The Thoroughly Politicized EPA: Mercury
The WaPost fronts the EPA’s ignoring a study that shows that stricter rules than their new, looser ones, would be far more beneficial. The study was funded by the EPA, but somehow…
When the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a rule last week to limit mercury emissions from U.S. power plants, officials emphasized that the controls could not be more aggressive because the cost to industry already far exceeded the public health payoff.
What they did not reveal is that a Harvard University study paid for by the EPA, co-authored by an EPA scientist and peer-reviewed by two other EPA scientists had reached the opposite conclusion. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55268-2005Mar21.html
What’s Happening, Kyrgyzstan: Rigged elections (?), citizen protests that included torching a few government buildings. Kyrgyzstan houses a few U.S. bases, so most of the major papers have noted developments.
Both critics and supporters of Akayev see the growing protests as modeled after peaceful uprisings in Georgia two years ago and in Ukraine last year that forced out governments accused of electoral fraud. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-kyrgyz21mar21.story
Evolution and the [very] big screen.
Several Imax theaters, including some in science museums, are refusing to show movies that mention the subject - or the Big Bang or the geology of the earth - fearing protests from people who object to films that contradict biblical descriptions of the origin of Earth and its creatures.
The number of theaters rejecting such films is small, people in the industry say - perhaps a dozen or fewer, most in the South. But because only a few dozen Imax theaters routinely show science documentaries, the decisions of a few can have a big impact on a film's bottom line - or a producer's decision to make a documentary in the first place.
People who follow trends at commercial and institutional Imax theaters say that in recent years, religious controversy has adversely affected the distribution of a number of films, including "Cosmic Voyage," which depicts the universe in dimensions running from the scale of subatomic particles to clusters of galaxies; "Galápagos," about the islands where Darwin theorized about evolution; and "Volcanoes of the Deep Sea," an underwater epic about the bizarre creatures that flourish in the hot, sulfurous emanations from vents in the ocean floor. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/19/national/19imax.html?pagewanted=print&position=
DeLay Trouble: Even David Brooks is on his case. And, most unusual is that Brooks ignores the Democrats in writing about Masters of Sleaze. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/22/opinion/22brooks.html?hp
CEO Pay: Still over-the-top. Hey, I thought they were ‘suffering’ after the bad p.r. of the last few years?
High-profile meltdowns aside, it still pays to be the boss.
Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Carly Fiorina, recently muscled out of her job over lackluster performance, walked away with an exit package worth $42 million. Boeing Co.'s Harry C. Stonecipher, pushed out over an affair with a female employee, nonetheless is eligible for retirement benefits of about $600,000 per year. Franklin D. Raines bowed out under heavy pressure in December following accounting problems at Fannie Mae. But the firm says he is now owed $114,393 per month in pension benefits.
At many other corporations untouched by scandal, pay continues to climb whether performance is great, lousy or middling. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55305-2005Mar21.html
-R
Sunday, March 20, 2005
Schiavo, Emergency Session, The Right Rejoices: You would think a war was declared, as Congress calls an Emergency Session to address the issue. It’s been 24/7, as the talking points went out noting that this is “a great political issue” that resonates with the Christian conservatives. Tom DeLay wants to distract from the ethics problem; Bill Frist looks to ’08. “Dr.” Frist stated his disagreement with the obvious medical conclusion that there was no hope of recovery, after he viewed Ms. Schiavo on video tape.
Really. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48119-2005Mar18.html
Sunday’s Session:
The Senate passed a bill by voice vote this afternoon giving a federal district court in Florida jurisdiction over the case of a brain-damaged woman whose feeding tube has been removed and the House set debate on the measure for 9 tonight, with a vote expected shortly after midnight.
President Bush, who had been vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., returned today to Washington, where he was expected to remain until early Monday in anticipation of signing the measure on the Terri Schiavo case. The White House said he would sign the bill as soon as it was sent to him.
The House had been scheduled to take up the measure earlier in the day. But with the prospect of opposition from a handful of Democrats, House Republicans called a recess rather than risk more stringent delaying tactics in the case that has fanned emotions nationwide on when medical treatment should be withdrawn and the extent of the role of lawmakers and the judiciary in family matters. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/20/politics/20cnd-debate.html?ei=5094&en=5bedbf8458898fea&hp=&ex=1111381200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&position=
Tom DeLay, in charge:
DeLay public statement: "We should investigate every avenue before we take the life of a living human being, That's the very least we can do for her."
Delay taunting Schiavo's husband: "I don't have a whole lot of respect for a man that has treated a woman in this way. What kind of a man is he?"
The Daily Show and the Bush Administration. The WaPost editorialized that they have much in common: they both [habitually] put out fake news. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38596-2005Mar15.html
Old News, New Report: Iraq Invasion planning started pre-9/11 Greg Palast’s BBC report.
The Bush administration made plans for war and for Iraq's oil before the 9/11 attacks, sparking a policy battle between neo-cons and Big Oil, BBC's Newsnight has revealed.
Two years ago today - when President George Bush announced US, British and Allied forces would begin to bomb Baghdad - protesters claimed the US had a secret plan for Iraq's oil once Saddam had been conquered.
In fact there were two conflicting plans, setting off a hidden policy war between neo-conservatives at the Pentagon, on one side, versus a combination of "Big Oil" executives and US State Department "pragmatists".
"Big Oil" appears to have won. The latest plan, obtained by Newsnight from the US State Department was, we learned, drafted with the help of American oil industry consultants.
Insiders told Newsnight that planning began "within weeks" of Bush's first taking office in 2001, long before the September 11th attack on the US. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/4354269.stm
Bush-Democracy Bandwagon: I’ve noted this previously, how some yearn to believe that the invasion has brought us the expansion of democracy, that regardless of whether the expansion of democracy was at all intended (it wasn’t), whether it was ‘worth it’ (tens of thousands dead, more terrorists vs the ‘plus’ of removing Saddam), it’s a more winsome narrative
Arianna Huffington, idiosyncratic, entertaining thinker, addresses what she calls “infantile reasoning”.
I just got back from a trip to the Happiest Place on Earth. Didn't ride the Teacups, though. Because I wasn't in Disneyland but in Washington, D.C., where everyone is walking on air, swept away by the Beltway's latest consensus: President Bush was right on Iraq, and, as a result, Tomorrowland in the Middle East will feature an E-ticket ride on the Matterhorn of freedom and democracy.
The political and cultural establishment has gone positively Goofy over this notion. In the corridors of power, Republicans are high-fiving, and Democrats are nodding in agreement and patting themselves on the back for how graciously they've been able to accept the fact that they were wrong. The groupthink in the nation's capital would be the envy of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il.
Even heroes of mine like Jon Stewart and my buddy Bill Maher have hopped on the Bush bandwagon. "I've been supportive of President Bush," Maher told Wolf Blitzer this week, "now that I think Iraq is turning around. . . . He had a bigger and better idea than the rest of us."
So: We invaded Iraq. Change is afoot in the Middle East. Therefore, the Middle East is changing because we invaded Iraq...
See how simple it is? And how illogical? The Bush White House has been masterful at this infantile reasoning: America is free and democratic. Terrorists attacked America. Therefore, terrorists hate freedom and democracy. And that's all anyone needs to know. http://www.ariannaonline.com/columns/column.php?id=763
Our Exhausted Military:
Two years after the United States launched a war in Iraq with a crushing display of power, a guerrilla conflict is grinding away at the resources of the U.S. military and casting uncertainty over the fitness of the all-volunteer force, according to senior military leaders, lawmakers and defense experts.
The unexpectedly heavy demands of sustained ground combat are depleting military manpower and gear faster than they can be fully replenished. Shortfalls in recruiting and backlogs in needed equipment are taking a toll, and growing numbers of units have been broken apart or taxed by repeated deployments, particularly in the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve.
"What keeps me awake at night is, what will this all-volunteer force look like in 2007?" Gen. Richard A. Cody, Army vice chief of staff, said at a Senate hearing this week.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48306-2005Mar18.html
Lies. This group doesn’t just do it to the U.S. public. Working on that credibility problem…
U.S. Misled Allies About Nuclear Export
In an effort to increase pressure on North Korea, the Bush administration told its Asian allies in briefings earlier this year that Pyongyang had exported nuclear material to Libya. That was a significant new charge, the first allegation that North Korea was helping to create a new nuclear weapons state.
But that is not what U.S. intelligence reported, according to two officials with detailed knowledge of the transaction. North Korea, according to the intelligence, had supplied uranium hexafluoride -- which can be enriched to weapons-grade uranium -- to Pakistan. It was Pakistan, a key U.S. ally with its own nuclear arsenal, that sold the material to Libya. The U.S. government had no evidence, the officials said, that North Korea knew of the second transaction. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50241-2005Mar19.html
Labor: PTO, Paid Time-Off Bank, the combining of sick and vacation time. Not new, but getting more widespread. This LA Times opinion piece notes the “broad assault on labor”, that these policies “do tend to force more people onto public assistance, “ and that benefits of corporate executives “have grown more lavish.”
Paid time-off banks combine sick leave and vacation days, creating what at first looks like a jackpot — extra vacation days and more flexibility. But the winnings are subject to the vagaries of chance — your health — and corporate sleight of hand. Once your sick days are used up, further absences not covered by short-term disability come out of your holiday hide.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-sickdays20mar20,0,3926752.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
Bill McGibben on Christie Whitman. Full disclosure: I’ve never liked her. She did a book tour last month and had the gall to claim that she was courageous in opposing the Radical Righties of the Bush Administration. Bill takes her apart.
Christie Whitman's autobiography is, as always with politicians, about her courage. She stands up to sexism, she stands up to class-ism (ceasing, for instance, to wear pearls to work because it just encouraged all those nasty stereotypes about "wealthy women who enter politics"). Mostly the former New Jersey governor and onetime head of the Environmental Protection Agency stands up to "social fundamentalists" who seek to impose "rigid litmus tests" on their fellow Republicans.
Well, bully for her. But in fact, Whitman had the chance that few politicians ever get. She found herself in a place where actual courage would have done great — maybe even historic — good. And she punted spectacularly. It's a story worth rehashing for the light it sheds on how easily moderates and centrists are run over by zealots, a subject that bears on current debates such as the one over Social Security..
In a spectacular display of political cowardice, she settled down at the EPA, devoting herself to minor pieces of legislation such as the one that extended limits on diesel emissions to vehicles for "non-road uses," like tractors and backhoes. Not a bad law, but in the end no big deal. Whitman had a chance to make a real difference on what one panel of Nobelists after another has called the worst dilemma human civilization yet has faced, and she'd passed it up.
Imagine what would have happened if she had simply quit, accusing the president of reneging on a promise, undermining relations with our allies and, more to the point, neglecting the most crucial environmental challenge that's ever appeared. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-mckibben20mar20,0,1369788,print.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
Frank Rich: This week’s column notes Kenny Boy Lay’s return to public view, wonders whether the timing will hurt Bush, that both built their “success” through extensive p.r. / propaganda. Within are details of the carefully choreographed events for Bush’s Social Security Sell.
…the preparations are even more elaborate than the finished product suggests; the seeming reality of the event is tweaked as elaborately as that of a television reality show. Not only are the panelists for these conversations recruited from administration supporters, but they are rehearsed the night before, with a White House official playing Mr. Bush. One participant told The Post, "We ran through it five times before the president got there." Finalists who vary just slightly from the administration's pitch are banished from the cast at the last minute, "American Idol"-style. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/20/arts/20Rich.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Bush Popularity Sinks. And, not just re Social Security. Newsweek:
Although President George W. Bush has been traveling the country touting a new plan to overhaul the Social Security system, campaigning in 15 states over six weeks, the majority of Americans remain unswayed, according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll. Only one-third of all Americans (33 percent) approve of his proposal to create investment accounts under Social Security, the poll found, while 59 percent disapprove. More Americans (44 percent) trust Congressional Democrats with managing the 70-year-old program. The poll also found that, with the exception of his handling of terrorism and homeland security, his approval numbers are down across the board. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7240970/site/newsweek/
-R
Really. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48119-2005Mar18.html
Sunday’s Session:
The Senate passed a bill by voice vote this afternoon giving a federal district court in Florida jurisdiction over the case of a brain-damaged woman whose feeding tube has been removed and the House set debate on the measure for 9 tonight, with a vote expected shortly after midnight.
President Bush, who had been vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., returned today to Washington, where he was expected to remain until early Monday in anticipation of signing the measure on the Terri Schiavo case. The White House said he would sign the bill as soon as it was sent to him.
The House had been scheduled to take up the measure earlier in the day. But with the prospect of opposition from a handful of Democrats, House Republicans called a recess rather than risk more stringent delaying tactics in the case that has fanned emotions nationwide on when medical treatment should be withdrawn and the extent of the role of lawmakers and the judiciary in family matters. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/20/politics/20cnd-debate.html?ei=5094&en=5bedbf8458898fea&hp=&ex=1111381200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&position=
Tom DeLay, in charge:
DeLay public statement: "We should investigate every avenue before we take the life of a living human being, That's the very least we can do for her."
Delay taunting Schiavo's husband: "I don't have a whole lot of respect for a man that has treated a woman in this way. What kind of a man is he?"
The Daily Show and the Bush Administration. The WaPost editorialized that they have much in common: they both [habitually] put out fake news. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38596-2005Mar15.html
Old News, New Report: Iraq Invasion planning started pre-9/11 Greg Palast’s BBC report.
The Bush administration made plans for war and for Iraq's oil before the 9/11 attacks, sparking a policy battle between neo-cons and Big Oil, BBC's Newsnight has revealed.
Two years ago today - when President George Bush announced US, British and Allied forces would begin to bomb Baghdad - protesters claimed the US had a secret plan for Iraq's oil once Saddam had been conquered.
In fact there were two conflicting plans, setting off a hidden policy war between neo-conservatives at the Pentagon, on one side, versus a combination of "Big Oil" executives and US State Department "pragmatists".
"Big Oil" appears to have won. The latest plan, obtained by Newsnight from the US State Department was, we learned, drafted with the help of American oil industry consultants.
Insiders told Newsnight that planning began "within weeks" of Bush's first taking office in 2001, long before the September 11th attack on the US. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/4354269.stm
Bush-Democracy Bandwagon: I’ve noted this previously, how some yearn to believe that the invasion has brought us the expansion of democracy, that regardless of whether the expansion of democracy was at all intended (it wasn’t), whether it was ‘worth it’ (tens of thousands dead, more terrorists vs the ‘plus’ of removing Saddam), it’s a more winsome narrative
Arianna Huffington, idiosyncratic, entertaining thinker, addresses what she calls “infantile reasoning”.
I just got back from a trip to the Happiest Place on Earth. Didn't ride the Teacups, though. Because I wasn't in Disneyland but in Washington, D.C., where everyone is walking on air, swept away by the Beltway's latest consensus: President Bush was right on Iraq, and, as a result, Tomorrowland in the Middle East will feature an E-ticket ride on the Matterhorn of freedom and democracy.
The political and cultural establishment has gone positively Goofy over this notion. In the corridors of power, Republicans are high-fiving, and Democrats are nodding in agreement and patting themselves on the back for how graciously they've been able to accept the fact that they were wrong. The groupthink in the nation's capital would be the envy of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il.
Even heroes of mine like Jon Stewart and my buddy Bill Maher have hopped on the Bush bandwagon. "I've been supportive of President Bush," Maher told Wolf Blitzer this week, "now that I think Iraq is turning around. . . . He had a bigger and better idea than the rest of us."
So: We invaded Iraq. Change is afoot in the Middle East. Therefore, the Middle East is changing because we invaded Iraq...
See how simple it is? And how illogical? The Bush White House has been masterful at this infantile reasoning: America is free and democratic. Terrorists attacked America. Therefore, terrorists hate freedom and democracy. And that's all anyone needs to know. http://www.ariannaonline.com/columns/column.php?id=763
Our Exhausted Military:
Two years after the United States launched a war in Iraq with a crushing display of power, a guerrilla conflict is grinding away at the resources of the U.S. military and casting uncertainty over the fitness of the all-volunteer force, according to senior military leaders, lawmakers and defense experts.
The unexpectedly heavy demands of sustained ground combat are depleting military manpower and gear faster than they can be fully replenished. Shortfalls in recruiting and backlogs in needed equipment are taking a toll, and growing numbers of units have been broken apart or taxed by repeated deployments, particularly in the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve.
"What keeps me awake at night is, what will this all-volunteer force look like in 2007?" Gen. Richard A. Cody, Army vice chief of staff, said at a Senate hearing this week.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48306-2005Mar18.html
Lies. This group doesn’t just do it to the U.S. public. Working on that credibility problem…
U.S. Misled Allies About Nuclear Export
In an effort to increase pressure on North Korea, the Bush administration told its Asian allies in briefings earlier this year that Pyongyang had exported nuclear material to Libya. That was a significant new charge, the first allegation that North Korea was helping to create a new nuclear weapons state.
But that is not what U.S. intelligence reported, according to two officials with detailed knowledge of the transaction. North Korea, according to the intelligence, had supplied uranium hexafluoride -- which can be enriched to weapons-grade uranium -- to Pakistan. It was Pakistan, a key U.S. ally with its own nuclear arsenal, that sold the material to Libya. The U.S. government had no evidence, the officials said, that North Korea knew of the second transaction. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50241-2005Mar19.html
Labor: PTO, Paid Time-Off Bank, the combining of sick and vacation time. Not new, but getting more widespread. This LA Times opinion piece notes the “broad assault on labor”, that these policies “do tend to force more people onto public assistance, “ and that benefits of corporate executives “have grown more lavish.”
Paid time-off banks combine sick leave and vacation days, creating what at first looks like a jackpot — extra vacation days and more flexibility. But the winnings are subject to the vagaries of chance — your health — and corporate sleight of hand. Once your sick days are used up, further absences not covered by short-term disability come out of your holiday hide.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-sickdays20mar20,0,3926752.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
Bill McGibben on Christie Whitman. Full disclosure: I’ve never liked her. She did a book tour last month and had the gall to claim that she was courageous in opposing the Radical Righties of the Bush Administration. Bill takes her apart.
Christie Whitman's autobiography is, as always with politicians, about her courage. She stands up to sexism, she stands up to class-ism (ceasing, for instance, to wear pearls to work because it just encouraged all those nasty stereotypes about "wealthy women who enter politics"). Mostly the former New Jersey governor and onetime head of the Environmental Protection Agency stands up to "social fundamentalists" who seek to impose "rigid litmus tests" on their fellow Republicans.
Well, bully for her. But in fact, Whitman had the chance that few politicians ever get. She found herself in a place where actual courage would have done great — maybe even historic — good. And she punted spectacularly. It's a story worth rehashing for the light it sheds on how easily moderates and centrists are run over by zealots, a subject that bears on current debates such as the one over Social Security..
In a spectacular display of political cowardice, she settled down at the EPA, devoting herself to minor pieces of legislation such as the one that extended limits on diesel emissions to vehicles for "non-road uses," like tractors and backhoes. Not a bad law, but in the end no big deal. Whitman had a chance to make a real difference on what one panel of Nobelists after another has called the worst dilemma human civilization yet has faced, and she'd passed it up.
Imagine what would have happened if she had simply quit, accusing the president of reneging on a promise, undermining relations with our allies and, more to the point, neglecting the most crucial environmental challenge that's ever appeared. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-mckibben20mar20,0,1369788,print.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
Frank Rich: This week’s column notes Kenny Boy Lay’s return to public view, wonders whether the timing will hurt Bush, that both built their “success” through extensive p.r. / propaganda. Within are details of the carefully choreographed events for Bush’s Social Security Sell.
…the preparations are even more elaborate than the finished product suggests; the seeming reality of the event is tweaked as elaborately as that of a television reality show. Not only are the panelists for these conversations recruited from administration supporters, but they are rehearsed the night before, with a White House official playing Mr. Bush. One participant told The Post, "We ran through it five times before the president got there." Finalists who vary just slightly from the administration's pitch are banished from the cast at the last minute, "American Idol"-style. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/20/arts/20Rich.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Bush Popularity Sinks. And, not just re Social Security. Newsweek:
Although President George W. Bush has been traveling the country touting a new plan to overhaul the Social Security system, campaigning in 15 states over six weeks, the majority of Americans remain unswayed, according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll. Only one-third of all Americans (33 percent) approve of his proposal to create investment accounts under Social Security, the poll found, while 59 percent disapprove. More Americans (44 percent) trust Congressional Democrats with managing the 70-year-old program. The poll also found that, with the exception of his handling of terrorism and homeland security, his approval numbers are down across the board. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7240970/site/newsweek/
-R
