Prometheus 6

Streaming video on the other side of the link.

Taking the Initiative

In the voting booth this fall, voters in states across the country will find ballot initiatives with titles like "Taxpayers' Bill of Rights" and "SOS - Stop Over Spending."

The aim is to slash state spending, with the potential for deep cuts in health care, education, and other social services. But are these local initiatives really "home" grown? This week, NOW investigates how organizations associated with one wealthy New Yorker, Howard Rich, are secretly providing major funding for ballot measures.

NOW also takes a look at the questionable tactics used to put these issues on your ballot. Is someone manipulating your state's laws, your vote, and you?

Editors Note: Grover Norquist's affiliation was mislabeled in the video broadcast. He's with Americans for Tax Reform, not Americans for Limited Government.

THE TRUTH

Accepting the truth is the only way to be able to change the truth. Accepting the truth is difficult sometimes. We often think things are other than what they are, and that desire makes us search for evidence that something hidden will come to light and prove things were the way we expected them to be all along.

Meanwhile, had we just accepted events as they happened, unpleasant as they may be, we would have been freed immediately to work on changing things.

Choosing which truth to accept and which to reject is just as bad as rejecting all the truth. We accept pleasant truths and deny unpleasant ones. Or we accept unpleasant truths and deny pleasant ones - you know people that do that, don't you? Go on, tell the truth.

How do you know what the truth is, though?

I mean, other than the basic error of paying attention to Gregory Kane.

[new] Re: Michael Steele's No Substance Strategy (3.00 / 3)

Lecturing African-Americans with a broad-brush on the need for partisan loyalty is a knee-jerk and racist comment. African-Americans are the single most loyal Democratic voting group, and have been for many cycles. I didn't see any blacks voting for Nader - that was all liberal white people.

But this comment offends me on more than just that absurd level. The election hasn't happened yet, and yet you're asking the African-American community to forget about race. It's ridiculous to say that race plays no part in our culture, society, and politics. That doesn't mean it is a totally dominant factor, but it must be acknowledged. Practically every black leader is considered 'divisive' and 'controversial' for doing things that white leaders routinely engage in without consequence. Minority candidates are accused of corruption routinely and systematically, and white America buys into it no questions asked.

The abuses described in the report occurred during 2002 and 2003, when Rod Paige was education secretary. John Grimaldi, spokesman for the Chartwell Education Group where Mr. Paige is chairman, said he had not read the report but would seek Mr. Paige’s reaction to it.

Report Says Education Officials Violated Rules
By SAM DILLON

Department of Education officials violated conflict of interest rules when awarding grants to states under President Bush’s billion-dollar reading initiative, and steered contracts to favored textbook publishers, the department’s inspector general said yesterday.

Mayor's Republican, if that helps...

The city is demanding that the veterans repay their gross salaries, even though they never saw about a third of the money, which went for taxes and other deductions...[T]he Police Department, which waited as much as four years to begin asking for the money back in the spring, is stepping up its collection efforts. On Thursday, hundreds of officers received letters in their pay envelopes threatening legal action if they did not make repayment arrangements within 15 days.

New York City’s Reservists Are Asked to Return Iraq Pay
By ANDY NEWMAN

When they were called up for military service in the wake of 9/11, hundreds of uniformed city workers in the Reserves faced the suspension of their city health and pension benefits. The city offered them an option: it would keep paying their salaries and continue their benefits, but when they returned they would have to repay the city their city salary or their military pay, whichever was less.

On its face, the offer made sense. And many reservists had only a few days to get their affairs together before shipping out — hardly enough time to consult accountants. Nearly all took the deal. As the war dragged on, more than 1,600 city employees, mostly police officers, signed up for the benefits program.

Slime-riding strategy developed for intestinal robot
18:43 22 September 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Tom Simonite

A snail-inspired robot could ride gut mucus (Image: Dimitra Dodou)AdvertisementA robot that glides along a layer of mucus inside the human intestine could make medical examinations like colonoscopies less painful for patients, say Dutch scientists. They are working on a snail-inspired robot that should be far gentler on the gut's delicate lining.

Several research groups around the world are working on robots that can remotely explore the intestine but most of these use using tiny legs to pull themselves along (see Worm-inspired robot crawls through intestines).

I'll see your How to Suppress Discussions of Racism and raise you should I use blackface on my blog?

This is a highly complicated question, requiring that one juggle a number of aesthetic, political and racial conundrums. During my time as an internet executive, I learned that basically anything could be explained to anyone using an Excel spreadsheet, so as an aid to bloggers and civilians everywhere I've put together a handy process-flow/spreadsheet that I believe should answer folks' various questions lickity-split.

So: should you use blackface on your blog? Click here to find out! (It's a big file; give it a minute to load if yer using a slow connection.)

- your friend in racial spreadsheeting,
ebogjonson

Here's the report. You can read it online or order a printed copy or pdf.

The panel called for a moratorium on consumer advertising of newly approved classes of drugs until they have been on the market long enough for unrecognized side effects and risks to emerge. Packaging for new types of medications should also carry a special symbol, such as the black triangle required in Britain, to alert patients that the drug's safety profile would not be fully known until it had been more widely studied, the report said.

The FDA should reevaluate safety and effectiveness data of such new drugs within five years after initial approval, the panel added, and the agency needs new powers to impose fines and requirements on drugmakers. In addition, the report called for the agency to have authority to place a wider range of restrictions on drugs it deems risky. 

FDA Told U.S. Drug System Is Broken
Expert Panel Calls For Major Changes
By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 23, 2006; A01

The federal system for approving and regulating drugs is in serious disrepair, and a host of dramatic changes are needed to fix the problem, a blue-ribbon panel of government advisers concluded yesterday in a long-awaited report.

The analysis by the Institute of Medicine shined an unsparing spotlight on the erosion of public confidence in the Food and Drug Administration, an agency that holds sway over a quarter of the U.S. economy. The report, requested by the FDA itself, found that Congress, agency officials and the pharmaceutical industry share responsibility for the problems -- and bear the burden for implementing solutions.

He admitted this kind of campaign "generally fails badly."

"But I'm going to try again because I'm going to present this national slavery museum as a jewel that's missing in a crown."

Cosby: Donate $8 to Slavery Museum
By DIONNE WALKER
The Associated Press
Friday, September 22, 2006; 10:03 PM

RICHMOND, Va. -- Bill Cosby called Friday on each American to contribute $8 to help build a national slavery museum amid the battlefields of the Civil War. Cosby, who already has committed $1 million to the project, joined Richmond Mayor L. Douglas Wilder on Friday in launching a new campaign to raise $100 million toward the Fredericksburg museum's $200 million price tag.

U.S. National Slavery Museum
Center For Learning

At the center of the Museum’s mission is the capacity to present the complex issue of slavery in a more balanced, comprehensive and comprehensible manner. Historians now acknowledge the centrality of slavery to the early economic and political development of the United States of America. Yet, in far too many settings slavery is still viewed in a time worn reactionary and jaded manner. It is for this reason that the U. S. National Slavery Museum will become the national repository for an expanded focus on this topic along with scholarly resources to support revisionist efforts that will be directed towards new knowledge, conciliation and ultimately a much better informed public.

I hate when people do this.

Instead, in a sign of the times, Vernon Robinson, a North Carolina Republican who is running for Congress and calls himself a “black Jesse Helms,” recently ran an ad showing the hands of a black woman crumpling up a rejection letter after a job was given to an “illegal alien so they could pay him under the table.”

Vernon Robinson is a sign of the exact same times that Ann Coulter is.

Come on, man...grade us on a curve. You have to throw out statistical outliers like this idiot.

If affirmative action is no longer the divisive matter it once was, some of the credit must go to the Supreme Court.

I can't believe Macaca said this shit.

Mr. Allen went on the offensive, declaring himself a champion for all minorities. “Now, it’s personal,” he said Thursday in an interview on CNN.

This is the guy who posed with the Konservative Kitzens Kouncil. The guy that had Confederate battle flags and nooses hanging in his California home.

This would be my target="_blank">weapon of choice, I think.

Republished.

Steely resolve

This was going to be a comment elsewhere, but I decided I wanted to say it out loud, in general.

The first requirement is that you pursue what you think is the most important thing in the world. Without purpose there is no resolve. This most important thing can be a person, a principle, whatever. And it doesn't matter why it's the most important thing to you. All that matters is that it's something you enjoy, can see clearly, and see coming about.

Choose carefully…your will in related areas will be as strong as the area's relationship to your focus, and your will in general will get stronger from the exercise but only in this one thing you can be unbreakable.

From: Seeing Reason: Image and Language in Learning to Think
by Keith Stenning
page 73

Logic makes a radical distinction between discovery of a logical or mathematical proof and justification. Logic provides a mechanical criterion of justification. A conclusion is logically justified if it appears in a sequence of steps of derivation all of which follow from the problem statement or earlier derivations from it by one or other of the rules of inference. Each rule application is 'small' enough that it can be checked mechanically. But how we are to find such a chain of rule applications is a matter of discovery. Discovery can be (and historically has been) by dream, hallucination or revelation. Logic does have something to say about discovery, but by far its most intense focus is on the apparatus of justification, and on the very concept of justification itself.

...you think no one should be so sensitive over one little slip.

...you know your friend is a racist, but you don't say anything about it because he's a good guy.

...you can solve all their problems if only they would listen to you.

...your disagreement with conservatives is that you forgive them for their problems.

...you say '<racial slur>' when no <racial slur>s are around.

...you say you're colorblind.

...you know what they want and can say it better than they can (except that one guy who speaks so well...).

Darkstar just showed me how that felt.

Mfume Supports Steele

Sometimes I think the plan is to agitate possible troublemakers until they kill each other. Like putting three or four hungry rats in a box and shaking it up real hard.

Some allegations of torture were undoubtedly credible, with government forces among the perpetrators, he said, citing "very serious allegations of torture within the official Iraqi detention centers."...

..."It's not just torture by the government. There are much more brutal methods of torture you'll find by private militias," he said.

U.N. expert says torture in Iraq may be worse now than under Saddam
Updated 9/21/2006 8:26 PM ET

GENEVA (AP) — Torture in Iraq may be worse now than it was under Saddam Hussein, with militias, terrorist groups and government forces disregarding rules on the humane treatment of prisoners, the U.N. anti-torture chief said Thursday.

Republicans Reach Deal on Detainee Bill
By KATE ZERNIKE

WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 — The Bush administration and Congressional Republicans reached agreement Thursday on legislation governing the treatment and interrogation of terrorism suspects after weeks of debate that divided Republicans heading into the midterm elections.

Under the deal, President Bush dropped his demand that Congress redefine the nation’s obligations under the Geneva Conventions, handing a victory to a group of Republicans, including Senator John McCain of Arizona, whose opposition had created a showdown over a fundamental aspect of the rules for battling terrorism.

Ho, hum, another Friday Surprise...one of those high-impact stories purposely released too late to be properly discussed.

Well, it will be. All we have so far is rumor. Those rumors don't look good, though.

An internal Army document that was provided to The New York Times notes that the demand for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan has greatly exceeded past projections that predicted earlier troop reductions. According to the document, the Army needs $66.1 billion to make up for all of its equipment shortfalls. Referring to the units that are to deploy next to Iraq and Afghanistan, or are in training, the document shows a large question mark to indicate their limited readiness.

The Army had to offer generous new enlistment bonuses of up to $40,000 to attract recruits into such dangerous jobs as operating convoys in Iraq. It was able to meet its active-duty enlistment goals this year with the addition of 1,000 new recruiters.

Strained, Army Looks to Guard for More Relief
By THOM SHANKER and MICHAEL R. GORDON

WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 — Strains on the Army from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have become so severe that Army officials say they may be forced to make greater use of the National Guard to provide enough troops for overseas deployments.

That's all. 

Effort to Combat Child Pornography Would Close Web Sites
By KURT EICHENWALD

As part of the battle against the spread of child pornography on the Internet, an initiative has begun allowing for the shutdown or blocking of sites offering illicit images of minors, even in cases where no criminal investigation is being conducted.

The initiative, expected to be announced today at a Congressional hearing, is part of an effort among a group of Internet service providers and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Until now, the decisions to close child pornography sites were ad hoc, based on thousands of referrals to the service providers and the Cybertipline of the center.

Hijackers Were Not Identified Before 9/11, Investigation Says
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 22, 2006; A13

The Defense Department's inspector general has concluded that a top secret intelligence-gathering program did not identify Mohamed Atta or any other hijacker before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, determining that there is no evidence to substantiate claims that Atta's name and photograph were on charts collected by military officials before the strikes.

In a 90-page report released yesterday, Pentagon officials said that the recollections of several officials involved in the "Able Danger" data-mining operation "were not accurate" and that a chart they said included a blurry image of Atta and his name never existed. The report concluded that there were no efforts to prevent contact between the Pentagon group and the FBI, a finding that challenges assertions by an officer involved in the program.

"I think it's very bad," said Dean Baker, a macroeconomist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. "If the U.S. had experienced really extraordinary growth, then maybe that would be the reason" for all the billionaires. Baker pointed out that U.S. economic growth in the past 25 years -- the period that hatched this crop of billionaires -- is actually slower than in the preceding quarter-century, which produced only 13 billionaires.

"If these people pull away so much wealth," he said, "that means everyone else has less."

The Super-Rich Get Richer: Forbes 400 Are All Billionaires
By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 22, 2006; A01

Commerce being the model by which we judge all our interpersonal relationships, I'm not surprised.

[B]usiness school students described cheating as a necessary measure and the sort of practice they'd likely need to succeed in the professional world.

"The typical comment is that what's important is getting the job done. How you get it done is less important," McCabe said. "You'll have business students saying all I'm doing is emulating the behavior I'll need when I get out in the real world."

And the grad students most likely to cheat are...
Thu Sep 21, 2006 8:08 AM ET

These are, like, the computers that run Batman's utility belt.

Teeny Linux PCs proliferate

A small company has begun building its line of tiny, gumstick-sized single-board computers (SBCs) into miniscule packaged PCs that displace around 68 cc of volume and come with Linux pre-installed. Suggested apps for the teeny "Netstix" Linux PCs include webservers, printer servers, IP-telephony servers, security appliances.

Gumstix formed in Jan. of 2004, and shipped its first tiny SBC and case four months later. Since then, the six-person company has churned out 26 products, most either revisions to its tiny SBC design, or expansion cards for it.