Prometheus 6

Of course they did, because they only love unborn children. YOUR kids, they could shiv a gitz...

As part of last-minute budget crunching, the Republican-controlled Congress in that same act reduced by 20 percent the child-support enforcement money it gives to the states, starting this fall. Many states say the effort to force them to pay more of the enforcement costs will impede collections and prevent them from passing more money on to needy families.

Mothers Scrimp as States Take Child Support
By ERIK ECKHOLM

MILWAUKEE — The collection of child support from absent fathers is failing to help many of the poorest families, in part because the government uses fathers’ payments largely to recoup welfare costs rather than passing on the money to mothers and children.

Close to half the states pass along none of collected child support to families on welfare, while most others pay only $50 a month to a custodial parent, usually the mother, even though the father may be paying hundreds of dollars each month.

I'm more shocked than grateful. 

Mr. Giuliani and the Tax Fairy
Sorry to tell you, Mr. Mayor, but she's not going to deliver.
Saturday, December 1, 2007; A14

"I KNOW THAT reducing taxes produces more revenues," Republican presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani declares in a new television ad launched Thursday. "Democrats don't know that. They don't believe it."

There's a good reason for that: It's not true. Produces more revenue than what? Than if taxes had not been cut? No -- and no matter how many times Republican politicians caught up in the thrill of supply-side thinking pronounce that tax cuts pay for themselves, they cannot will it to be correct.

Juan Wiliams put a lot of work into Obama's Color Line...so much that some of it may be salvageable.

But to say the least, it is very odd that black voters are split over Mr. Obama’s strong and realistic effort to reach where no black candidate has gone before. Their reaction looks less like post-racial political idealism than the latest in self-defeating black politics.

Just not this part.

He builds his case for this by drawing on the Pew Push Poll, and confounding even that.

Fifty percent of black Americans say Mr. Obama shares their values, according to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center. But that still leaves another half who dismiss him as having only “some” or “not much/not at all” in common with the values of black Americans.

I forgot the web host had scheduled maintainence last night...and it ran on MUCH longer than it should have.

We are, apparently, back on the air. I got a few things to post today, but I'm deep into techie land right now. So deep, they may wait until tomorrow.

Those laws have not deterred other youths from committing crimes, nor have they rehabilitated the youths sentenced under them, said Robert L. Johnson, dean of the New Jersey Medical School, a member of the Task Force on Community Preventive Services, which was assembled by the CDC.

"Not only does it not deter youth crime, it actually makes them more violent," Johnson said. "It may salve our desire to punish. But don't get that confused with rehabilitation. Don't make the mistake of believing that punishment will help anything."

Adult System Worsens Juvenile Recidivism, Report Says
By Robert E. Pierre
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 30, 2007; A14

Youths tried as adults and housed in adult prisons commit more crimes, often more violent ones, than minors who remain in the juvenile justice system, a panel of experts appointed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a new report.

Longer sentences and the transfer of juvenile offenders to the adult system gained traction in the 1980s and 1990s as youth crime increased. The trend raised fears in statehouses and in Congress about young predators, and laws to push more juvenile offenders into the adult system flourished.

Those laws have not deterred other youths from committing crimes, nor have they rehabilitated the youths sentenced under them, said Robert L. Johnson, dean of the New Jersey Medical School, a member of the Task Force on Community Preventive Services, which was assembled by the CDC.

Bloch's office confirmed a Wall Street Journal report that he had hired Geeks On Call, a commercial computer service, to "scrub" the hard drive of his computer, and that the technicians scrubbed the hard drives of laptop computers used by two aides. Bloch said he took that action after malfunctions led him to believe a virus was destroying his files.

But the process used by the technicians to wipe the hard drives, Bloch's office confirmed, was more thorough than necessary to kill a virus. The effort raised questions, two officials close to the case said, about whether Bloch was attempting to obstruct the OPM investigation -- an allegation that he denies. 

U.S. Special Counsel Says He Won't Provide Files
Official Calls Personal Records Not Relevant to OPM Probe
By Elizabeth Williamson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 30, 2007; A03

A U.S. official overseeing a probe of potential White House misconduct declared through a spokesman yesterday that he will not give federal investigators copies of personal files that he deleted from his office computer.

The decision by Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch escalates the confrontation between the Bush appointee and the White House, each of which is investigating the other.

Bloch's office is tasked with upholding laws against whistle-blower retaliation and partisan politicking in federal agencies. Earlier this year, Bloch directed lawyers in his office to look into charges that former Bush adviser Karl Rove inappropriately deployed government employees in Republican political campaigns.

And since Pulitzers require accuracy, you can kiss it goodbye . 

The few facts we have tell a story that's very different from the chosen narrative. Sean Taylor is hardly a typical product of those fabled "mean streets" -- he grew up with his father, a suburban police chief, in a middle-class neighborhood. He did spend weekends with his mother in a tougher area and acquired some sketchy friends. But at the same time he was attending an exclusive private high school, where he met his girlfriend, Jackie Garcia, a niece of the actor Andy Garcia.

Taylor's home, with its expansive yard and big swimming pool, is in an upper-middle-class suburb. There's nothing remotely "mean" about the street.

A Person, Not A Plot Device
By Eugene Robinson
Friday, November 30, 2007; A23

Why do you suppose so many people were so quick to blame Sean Taylor for his own murder?

Relax, that's a rhetorical question. There's no need for self-exculpatory huffing and puffing, no need to point out that the verdict of suicide-by-bad-attitude -- pronounced so often this week, and so coldly -- was usually couched in broad hints or softened by the nebulous fog of the conditional mood. Everyone knew what was really being said, and everyone knew why.

Taylor instantly became not a person but a character, one whose purpose was to advance a narrative about young black men and their manifold failings.

Almost forgot.

This was an important segment. But I have to note how "institutional racism, baked into the system" is blamed while it is individual humans making every bad assumption. Overall though, the correct conclusions (they gotta change but you can't wait for them to do it) was drawn.

Tonight's will be posted a day late, too. 

He just said he should have mentioned the papers he used in his attack on Black folks were written by open racists. Should have told you the open racists have a nice glossy magazine, American Renaissance, check your newsstand in business districts and suburban shopping malls.

You should check out at least one issue of the magazine. Not a pointy-head sheet in sight.

Just as there is a vast right wing conspiracy, there is a vast white wing conspiracy, and it's just as open as the wingnut one because they have considerable overlap. And they operate the same way...by cloaking vileness in reasonable-enough sounding terms that it becomes a set of thinkable thoughts. By insinuating them into common conversation. And they don't care much about the details as long as at the end of the discussion negroes are stupid.

For instance, Racism Review posted an interesting thing titled, The Pseudoscience of “Intelligence” Testing. Check this comment:

No, I'm not going to do it daily, but I bet I could...

Amusing as it was to learn that somehow those obscure agencies were billed more than $400,000 for the mayor's covert visits to Southampton -- and that the bizarre billings had later been referred to the city Department of Investigation for a quiet burial -- this story tells us little we did not already know about Giuliani. He denies knowing anything about the billing procedures for his trips, and there is no proof that he did. And he was entitled to police protection wherever he went, even to his girlfriend's condo.

Nevertheless, CNN chose to include a question about the Long Island trips in the Republican YouTube debate.

<a href="http://judo.salon.com/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.cgi/www.salonmagazine.com/opinion/content/large.html@Right"><img src="http://judo.salon.com/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.cgi/www.salonmagazine.com/opinion/content/large.html@Right" width="300" height="250" border="0" alt="" /></a>

Meanwhile, Barrett's latest article -- probing the lucrative relationship between Giuliani's security firm and the emirate of Qatar -- prompts questions that "America's Mayor" might have found truly hard to answer. With Qatar's troubling record as both an American ally and a longtime haven for al-Qaida terrorists, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or "KSM," the little Gulf sheikdom is a curious client indeed for Giuliani Security and Safety, a division of Giuliani Partners.

Sarkozy Says Riots Were 'Thugocracy,' Not a Social Crisis
By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, November 30, 2007; A17

PARIS, Nov. 29 -- President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday blamed this week's rioting in the Paris suburbs on "thugocracy" and said the violence would not be rewarded by dumping taxpayers' money into the troubled neighborhoods.

"I reject the kind of naive, wishful thinking that makes every delinquent a victim of society and every riot a social problem," Sarkozy said. "What happened in Villiers-le-Bel has nothing to do with a social crisis and everything to do with thugocracy.

"The correct answer to riots is not more taxpayers' money," he said in a speech to hundreds of police officers at a conference. "The correct response is to arrest the rioters."

However, Altes said he is not a racist."

I have friends of every color and creed," he said. 

Would they be your friends if they knew that's how you felt? Or do you mean "I have people I do business with of every color and creed"?

This reminds me of those children that rolled in the mud and "reenacted" the penultimate Jena 6 confrontation.

Headline is wrong, though. He compared immigrants (read: Mexicans) to "Blacks".

State Sen. Under Fire For Racial E-Mail
Altes Compared Whites To Blacks After Revolutionary War
POSTED: 7:38 am MST November 29, 2007
UPDATED: 8:14 am MST November 29, 2007

I'm late posting this morning because there's a great load of stupid to deal with.

Most U.S.-Born Latinos Speak Fluent English
By N.C. Aizenman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 30, 2007; A14

Almost all Hispanic adults born in the United States to immigrant parents speak fluent English, even though most of their parents do not, according to a report released yesterday.

I read that in my RSS reader decided I didn't need much more to indicate teh stupid. Little did I realize how much stupid followed immediately that first sentence.

In a recent Washington Post poll of Virginia residents, for instance, 70 percent of respondents said they believe recent immigrants are not doing enough to learn English and fit in with American culture and values.

Bush Urges Emergency War Funds to Avoid Defense Layoffs
By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 30, 2007; A04

President Bush warned Congress yesterday that the Pentagon will soon have to start laying off civilian employees and reducing operations at U.S. military bases unless lawmakers send him an emergency war funding bill that does not mandate troop withdrawals from Iraq.

Escalating a dispute with Democratic lawmakers over his request for $196 billion in supplemental funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush complained that a delay in providing the money is jeopardizing important military efforts.

Raheema Ellis only does the episodes that beat on brothers. The science episodes are all done by white women.

Unless they catch this note somehow and do a quick change-up... 

Meet the competition.

There's this blog that actively promotes the idea of Black women abandoning the Black communities and chasing white men. This isn't just a matter of accepting people's free choice in the matter, which is only sane. I visit the site about as often as I visit Stormfront.

I visited it today, in preparation for Saturday's episode. Got pointed to this. 

I am a sucker for pictures of Flagg Bros. gear...nevermind Bill the Hatter, who I believe was the official costumer for Black Exploitation Films.

Before you check out Fashion ads from Ebony Magazine, 1970 - '76, just remember...these are leisure suits, from which we all suffered.

The 9 Most Badass Bible Verses

If the Bible had been written by King Leonidas and the rest of the Spartans from 300, it would probably read pretty much the same as it does now.

I join Scott McLemee at Crooked Timber in disputing the ranking. If you call down bears to kill 42 kids for calling you "baldhead," you are a pretty badass mofo.

Christians are constantly asking for prayer in schools to help get today's kids in line, but we beg to differ. We need bears in schools. If every teacher had the power to summon a pair of child-maiming grizzly avengers, you can bet that schoolchildren nowadays would be the most well-behaved, polite children, ever. It's a simple choice: listen to the biology lesson, or get first-hand knowledge of the digestive system of Ursus horribilis.

...or, make them toss salads.

For every one percentage point increase in a neighborhood’s foreclosure rate, violent crime rises 2.3 percent, according to a recent study by Dan Immergluck of the Georgia Institute of Technology and Geoff Smith of Woodstock Institute, a research and advocacy organization in Chicago.

Yeah, do something about foreclosures. Just not foreclosures on investment properties and non-primary residences. In fact, I'd push them under. 

Spreading the Misery

The nation’s foreclosure crisis is metastasizing, and communities are in harm’s way as property values and tax bases decline and crime increases.

In the third quarter, there were 635,000 foreclosure filings, a 30 percent increase from the previous quarter and nearly double from a year ago, according to RealtyTrac, a national real estate information service. That works out to one for every 196 households. Michigan and Ohio, which were hit early and hard by a combination of economic weakness and reckless lending, continue to reel. Foreclosures rose last year in Colorado, Georgia and Texas and are now surging in California, Nevada, Arizona and Florida. In those states unsustainable mortgages are at the root of the problem.

Pledge of Allegiance
By Tobin Harshaw

In Defense of Ron Paul*
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted November 29, 2007

*Ron Paul's a wingnut, yes, but he's an anti-empire, anti-war wingnut who doesn't believe the president should be king.

Ron Paul opposed all civil rights legislation, so this is an article I wouldn't have written, even on a bet or as a joke.

Go straight to Too Sense, where this is thoroughly dismembered.

Washington Post Stokes False Rumors About Obama's 'Muslim Ties'

I don't know how any journalist can sleep at night after writing an article legitimizing a falsehood under the pretense of simply "reporting that the rumors are out there."

Despite his denials, rumors and e-mails circulating on the Internet continue to allege that Obama (D-Ill.) is a Muslim, a "Muslim plant" in a conspiracy against America, and that, if elected president, he would take the oath of office using a Koran, rather than a Bible, as did Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the only Muslim in Congress, when he was sworn in earlier this year.

CIA Operation "Pliers" Uncovered in Venezuela
Psyop aims to destabilize Venezuela and overthrow President Chavez
by Eva Golinger
Global Research, November 28, 2007

...On a scarier note, an internal CIA memorandum has been obtained by Venezuelan counterintelligence from the US Embassy in Caracas that reveals a very sinister - almost fantastical, were it not true - plan to destabilize Venezuela during the coming days. The plan, titled "OPERATION PLIERS" was authored by CIA Officer Michael Middleton Steere and was addressed to CIA Director General Michael Hayden in Washington. Steere is stationed at the US Embassy in Caracas under the guise of a Regional Affairs Officer. The internal memorandum, dated November 20, 2007, references the "Advances of the Final Stage of Operation Pliers", and confirms that the operation is coordinated by the team of Human Intelligence (HUMINT) in Venezuela. The memo summarizes the different scenarios that the CIA has been working on in Venezuela for the upcoming referendum vote on December 2nd. The Electoral Scenario, as it's phrased, confirms that the voting tendencies will not change substantially before Sunday, December 2nd, and that the SI (YES) vote in favor of the constitutional reform has an advantage of about 10-13 points over the NO vote. The CIA estimates abstention around 60% and states in the memo that this voting tendency is irreversible before the elections.

via racism review  

Many whites and some blacks aren't comfortable recognizing that racial bigotry is more than just a personal psychic flaw...Too many Americans are reluctant to deal with racism on any level. Exploring it scientifically has met resistance from funding sources.

Effects of racism show up in poorer health of its victims
Those who think it is only an attitude that can be ignored don't know the facts.
Leigh Donaldson
November 26, 2007

...There has been a quickly emerging field of research that demonstrates that racism hurts the health of the body. According to Madeline Drexler, a medical columnist and visiting lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health, more than 100 studies now document the effects of racial discrimination on physical health.

According to Drexler, research has suggested that racism acts a classic stressor in the same physiological ways as job strain and marital conflict; elevating heart rates, increasing levels of the stress hormone cortisol and suppressing immunity.