Prometheus 6

In a telephone interview, Mr. Levine said the city was concerned that access to the database could expose law enforcement techniques. “It might give away information about specific policing methods, such as location, frequency of stops, and patterns,” he said.

Yeah, I think that's the point.

Blacks made up more than half of the 469,000 stops in 2007, even though they make up only one-quarter of the city’s population, and Latinos, 30 percent, according to the civil liberties group. It said 88 percent of the people stopped that year did not get summonses or were not arrested. 

Police Told to Give Street-Stop Data
By CHRISTINE HAUSER

A state judge in Manhattan has ordered the Police Department to release its database on hundreds of thousands of civilians stopped by officers.

The decision, by Justice Marylin G. Diamond of State Supreme Court, was released on Friday in response to a lawsuit filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union that asked the department to make public its electronic database on 756,514 stops from the beginning of 2006 through the first half of 2007.

Judge Approves Credit Bureau’s Settlement Plan
By BLOOMBERG NEWS

TransUnion, the credit reporting agency, won preliminary court approval to pay $75 million to settle lawsuits filed on behalf of as many as 150 million people accusing it of improperly selling consumer credit information. The company would allow qualified consumers six months of unlimited free access to their credit reports and an as-yet undetermined cash award, under the terms of the accord approved by a Federal District Court judge, Robert Gettleman, in Chicago.

The cash award is fifty cents per person.

The lawsuits accuse the company of selling marketing lists grouping consumers by their credit profiles, in violation of the federal law. TransUnion admits no wrongdoing in the settlement.

Of COURSE they admit no wrongdoing.

Greg Coleman, the attorney who represented the Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. One, said he is "looking very carefully at the possibility" of appealing the decision.

"The idea that people in Austin, Texas, are somehow more prejudiced than people in most of the country is just a false idea," he said. 

Judges Uphold Voting Rights Act
Challenge to Law Called Key Test Case
By Del Quentin Wilber
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 31, 2008; A02

A federal court yesterday rejected the first legal challenge to a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, in a case that legal scholars view as an important test of one of the country's seminal pieces of civil rights legislation.

The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by a municipal utility board in Texas, which argued that part of the law is costly and unconstitutional. Congress reauthorized the law in 2006.

The utility board is likely to appeal directly to the Supreme Court, offering opponents a chance to test the Voting Rights Act before a court that has grown more conservative in recent years.

"This has been about getting it to the Supreme Court," said Richard Hasen, a professor at Loyola University Law School in Los Angeles who specializes in election law. "Conservative opponents of the law have put a lot of eggs in this basket. This was set up as a test case."

via Digby, who says

Obviously, he can't actually overturn laws, but he certainly can overturn executive orders, so this is good news. If we can get him to promise to make all this stuff public it would be even better news. I have no doubt that we will see a much more transparent and open administration. But part of the new transparency must be telling the public what was done in their name.

...which I agree with wholeheartedly, given that Bush is now taking steps to make it more difficult to undo the damage he's caused.

Bush’s laws will be scrutinized if I become president, Obama says
Posted by: Deborah Charles

DENVER - Maybe it’s his background teaching constitutional law.

If elected president, Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama said one of the first things he wants to do is ensure the constitutionality of all the laws and executive orders passed while Republican President George W. Bush has been in office.

Those that don’t pass muster will be overturned, he said.

Memo to Scott McClellan: Here's what happened

Until now, we've resisted the temptation to post on former White House press secretary Scott McClellan's new book, which accuses the Bush White House of launching a propaganda campaign to sell the war in Iraq.

Why? It's not news. At least not to some of us who've covered the story from the start.

(Click here, here and here to get just a taste of what we mean).

Second, we find it a wee bit preposterous -- and we are being diplomatic here -- that a man who slavishly - no, robotically! -- defended President Bush's policies in Iraq and elsewhere is trying to "set the record straight" (and sell a few books) five years and more after the invasion, with U.S. troops still bravely fighting and dying to stabilize that country.

But the responses to McClellan from the Bush administration and media bigwigs, history-bending as they are, compel us to jump in. As we like to say around here, it's truth to power time, not just for the politicians but also for some folks in our own business.

I remember when O'Donnell absolutely gutted Mitt Romney over the racist history of the Mormon church (no link, since YouTube obliterated the account I used to use). This time it's Pat Buchanan who gets got. Crooks and Liars has a nice tight clip; Me, I'm posting the official MSNBC clip.

The raw feelings that the negotiations engender among many Iraqis — who view the prospects of a long-term American troop presence as demeaning and humiliating — underscore the political risks the negotiations hold for Mr. Maliki’s government....

“This isn’t an Iraqi government, it’s an American government,” said Muhammad Mohsin, a 25-year-old laborer who attended prayers in Sadr City, where clerics delivered sermons condemning the negotiations and demonstrators later burned American flags. “The Americans keep pressuring Maliki to carry out what they want. The agreement will only serve the Americans’ interests.” 

Growing Opposition to Iraq Security Pact
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and STEPHEN FARRELL

BAGHDAD — Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is facing growing opposition to a proposed security agreement that would set out how long American forces and military bases stayed in Iraq.

Some senior Iraqi political leaders said they had serious concerns over the central issues under negotiation, including what sort of military operations and arrests of Iraqis the American troops could carry out without Iraq’s permission, legal immunities sought for American troops and security contractors and what the Iraqi officials characterized as demands for a long-term American military presence.

The Iraqi leaders also say they have reservations about rushing the talks, partly because they believe it makes little sense to negotiate with a lame-duck American president. Their concerns raise questions about whether a new security pact can be negotiated by the end of July, as American officials have suggested. The United Nations resolution governing the presence of United States troops expires at the end of the year.

“This agreement is between Iraq and the United States president, and the American policy is not clear,” said Ali Adeeb, a senior member of the Shiite Dawa Party and a close ally of Mr. Maliki’s. “We can wait until the American elections to deal with a Democratic or Republican president.”

They could have used a BNY mellon credit card to shop at a TJX subsidiary  

Blumenthal said that he is working with the New York and New Jersey attorneys general and the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection to investigate the breach. Further, he said that he is pressing the bank to explain how some backup tapes disappeared while others on the same van arrived intact at the Archive America facility.

Bank loses tapes with data on 4.5M clients
Brian Fonseca

May 30, 2008 (Computerworld) Bank of New York Mellon Corp. officials last week confirmed that a box of unencrypted data storage tapes holding personal information of more than 4.5 million individuals was lost more than three months ago by a third-party vendor during transport to an off-site facility.

The bank informed the Connecticut State Attorney General's Office that the tapes belonging to its BNY Mellon Shareowner Services division were lost in transport by off-site storage firm Archive America on Feb. 27. The missing backup tapes include names, birth dates, Social Security numbers, and other information from customers of BNY Mellon and the People's United Bank in Bridgeport, Conn., according to a statement by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.

Greensdale, WI, May 28, 2008.

"I can tell you that it [the Surge] is succeeding. I can look you in the eye and tell you it's succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels. Basra, Mosul and now Sadr City are quiet."
--John McCain, Town Hall meeting, May 28, 2008.

John McCain got ahead of events this week in claiming that the United States military has gone down to "pre-surge levels" in Iraq. That will not happen until later this year, even by the most optimistic scenario. He is also wrong about the city of Mosul being "quiet", unless you exclude car bombs and other mayhem. His advisers attempted to spin his remarks as a simple matter of "verb tense." But there is a big difference between "Mission Accomplished" and "We expect the mission to be accomplished soon."

A classmate of Hillary's from Wellesley told me she never considered herself a feminist: "I never marched … but this campaign turned me into one." She is furious about the Hillary nutcracker, which has stainless steel thighs and is available for purchase at the newsstand at many airports.

Hillary, You Didn’t Win. Now Don’t Whine
The sense of grievance that permeates the Clinton campaign hurts her and the Dems.
Eleanor Clift
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Updated: 11:49 AM ET May 30, 2008

The key to the winner winning is how the loser loses. Those cautionary words were spoken some weeks ago by Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who is close to both the Clintons and Barack Obama and whose hardball style of politics helped win back the House for the Democrats. However the nomination fight is resolved, it must be seen as fair by supporters of the two candidates, who have run an excruciatingly close race.

Clinton: 'You Can't Tell How Far a Frog Will Jump Until You Punch Him'
May 29, 2008 4:53 PM

ABC News' Eloise Harper Reports: Facing an increasingly improbable candidacy for the White House, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., showed no signs of stopping on the trail in South Dakota and cited an old Arkansas, saying in an off-handed reference to her campaign: "you can't tell how far a frog will jump until you punch him."

Is that REALLY an old Arkansas saying? Do they punch frogs often in Arkansas?

I would say Ferraro can't help it, but that lets her off the hook a bit.

Healing the wounds of Democrats' sexism

Okay, sounds good so far...

Here we are at the end of the primary season, and the effects of racism and sexism on the campaign have resulted in a split within the Democratic Party that will not be easy to heal before election day. Perhaps it's because neither the Barack Obama campaign nor the media seem to understand what is at the heart of the anger on the part of women who feel that Hillary Clinton was treated unfairly because she is a woman or what is fueling the concern of Reagan Democrats for whom sexism isn't an issue, but reverse racism is.

Heifer went right off the rails...

9/11 trial sought during presidential campaign
By CAROL ROSENBERG

Defense lawyers for the alleged 9/11 conspirators on Thursday accused the Pentagon prosecutor of rushing to begin the complex Sept. 11, 2001, mass-murder trial in the height of the presidential campaign season.

The U.S. military attorneys included the claim in a 20-page brief asking the military judge to dismiss the capital charges against alleged al Qaeda kingpin Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other Guantánamo detainees.

The document includes an e-mail from a civilian member of the prosecution team proposing to set the trial date for Sept. 15, the Monday after the seventh anniversary of the suicide attacks.

''Not coincidentally,'' the defense attorneys say, ``that would force the trial of this case in mid-September, some seven weeks before the general elections.''

Since Jan. 1, 12-month fixed-rate electric prices have gone up nearly 40 percent for residential customers, according to an analysis by an online electricity shopping site.

And those prices will probably continue going up this summer and beyond, said Chris Brewster, a consumer representative at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the state's power grid.

Brewster blamed increasing fuel costs and said that wholesale market spikes also put pressure on retailers. 

Surge in power prices may portend long, costly summer in Texas
By R.A. DYER
Star-Telegram staff writer

AUSTIN -- In a sign of tough times ahead for ratepayers, electric wholesale prices have spiked to nearly unprecedented levels this week, and regulators now warn that thousands of Texans who have been involuntarily switched to alternative power providers may end up with shockingly high bills.

A white collar riot is better than real votes sometimes.

The Next Clinton Battleground: DNC Rules Committee Meeting
Posted May 30, 2008 | 08:26 AM (EST)

What you'll see televised from the DNC's Rules and By-laws Committee meeting on Saturday, May 31, will be a swarm of irate Hillary Backers carrying signs and protesting any possible outcome of the Mich./Fl. debacle other than a no-fault decision with the votes going to HRC. She needs 'em. And she needs the rules changed, despite the fact that she agreed with the DNC's decision last fall. But that was when she was still "inevitable".

While Camp Clinton bats their collective baby blues and denies organizing a mini-mob scene to influence the decision (Those pesky volunteers do the darnedest things without any encouragement!), they've been actively urging Clinton supporters to pressure the DNC to fix the game Hillary's Way.

One of the publicly unstated reasons that Clinton is remaining in the race is to be positioned to step in immediately in the increasingly unlikely event that damaging new material emerges about Obama. In such an event, retaining the right to force pre-nomination fights over credentials becomes crucial to a delaying strategy to allow any conceivable controversy to gain momentum.

Ickes At The Alamo: Clinton's Delegate Counter Warns Of Defections At DNC Meeting
May 29, 2008 11:13 PM

The major dispute over the Florida and Michigan delegations to the Democratic convention in Denver has now boiled down to Hillary Clinton's demand for full seating with no sanctions, and an alternative proposal, likely to be backed by Obama, to seat the delegations with either half a vote granted to each delegate, or to cut each delegation in half.

It is true that Jesus was not a political activist; he joined no party and issued no Contract With the Roman Empire. But it is a stretch to interpret his personal challenge to the rich young ruler as a biblical foundation for libertarianism.

The Jewish tradition in which Jesus lived and taught demanded that just rulers make a minimal provision for the poor, including no-interest loans and the distribution of agricultural commodities. (Look it up: Exodus 22:25-27 and Deuteronomy 24:19-21.) The apostle Paul held a high view of government's role in promoting justice and urged the willing payment of taxes -- a biblical demand more severe, for some of us, than all those sexual prohibitions. And Jesus's followers, fanning out along Roman roads, eventually expressed strong views on slavery, infanticide and the debasement of women -- political views that followed naturally from their belief in a radical equality before God.

The Libertarian Jesus
By Michael Gerson
Friday, May 30, 2008; A13

Compassionate conservatism began with some questions: Is it possible to apply conservative and free-market ideas -- school vouchers, the promotion of community and faith-based institutions, the encouragement of wealth-building and social mobility -- to the task of helping marginalized Americans? In the wake of liberal failures, do conservatives offer any hope to addicts and the homeless, to disadvantaged children in need of mentors and adequate education, to people living among the broken glass of durable poverty?  [P6: No, but keep reading anyway]

Short version  

The news in the survey is NOT the terrible political environment – you already are aware of that, and if you are not, please retire. The news is NOT that John McCain has a slight deficit when matched against Barack Obama, despite stronger support for McCain from Republicans than Obama gets from Democrats (see my April memo for why that is a challenge for ALL Republican campaigns). NOR is the news that voters are angry about gas prices and think the Democrats are better able to handle the economy.

Instead, the news is the four match-ups between the Republican message and the Democrats’ message on the key issues of the economy, Iraq, trade, and taxes. The Democratic message consistently won out over the GOP message by eleven to 25 points.

Details

Speaking on “The Early Show” on CBS, Ms. Couric said the lack of skepticism shown by journalists about the Bush administration’s case for war amounted to “one of the most embarrassing chapters in American journalism.” She also said she sensed pressure from “the corporations who own where we work and from the government itself to really squash any kind of dissent or any kind of questioning of it.” At the time, Ms. Couric was a host of “Today” on NBC....

Ms. Couric made her comments in an unusual on-camera tour of network morning programs — along with her two evening news competitors, Brian Williams of “NBC Nightly News” and Charles Gibson of “World News” on ABC — to promote a cancer research telethon.

“I think the questions were asked,” Mr. Gibson, who was a host of “Good Morning America” before the war began, said in response to Ms. Couric. “It was just a drumbeat of support from the administration. It is not our job to debate them. It is our job to ask the questions.” 

Was Press a War ‘Enabler’? 2 Offer a Nod From Inside
By BRIAN STELTER

In his new memoir, “What Happened,” Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary, said the national news media neglected their watchdog role in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, calling reporters “complicit enablers” of the Bush administration’s push for war.

Surprisingly, some prominent journalists have agreed.

Back, sort of

I’m still on the road (just talked at the Trento Festival in Italy, Barcelona next) — and mysteriously unable to post images to this blog. But I have a bit more time now. I assume that most readers have gotten over their Two Minutes Hate; anyway, I expect to be posting a few pieces about economics over the weekend.

Stick to economics and we got nuttin' but love for ya.

I know I mention how stupid this is already, but look at this headline. "Terror scarf."

Really? Terror scarf? Who is scared of a damn scarf? Americans, that's who.

And who is scared of people who are scared of a scarf? I guess that depends on how fat their asses are , when your business involves keeping those asses all plump and juicy. Not that Dunkin' Donuts is wrong...far less trouble to pull the spot than to discuss it with crazies...

US chain drops 'terror scarf' ad
By James Coomarasamy
BBC News, Washington

The US chain Dunkin' Donuts has pulled an advert following complaints that the scarf worn by a celebrity chef offered symbolic support for Islamic extremism.

The online advert for iced coffee featured the well-known US television chef Rachael Ray.

Recognizing that title will make no sense in a couple of weeks...then again , maybe it will.

Mars Lander Starts Moving Its Robotic Arm
By KENNETH CHANG

NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander has successfully lifted its robotic arm, mission managers announced Thursday.

“All of the joints are healthy, and we’re raring to go,” Matthew L. Robinson, the lead engineer for the mission’s robotic arm flight software, said at a news conference Thursday. Overcoming one of the few glitches in the mission so far, the arm was able to free itself from a protective sheaf that did not fully unwrap after landing.

The primary mission for the lander is to dig into an ice layer believed to exist a few inches beneath the surface and look for signs that this region of Mars, in the far northern plains, might have been warm and wet in the past.

Testing the arm will take a few days, and the first scoops of Martian soil are to be dug up next week.

His bottle labels follow a long tradition of exploiting the town's name. Even city officials do it.

A sign posted on the way out of town reads, "Temporarily Out of Weed," while another says "100 Percent Pure Weed." Dillmann noted those examples in an appeal letter he sent to the alcohol bureau.

Once, Dillmann said, his wife, a former teacher, was delayed on a field trip to San Francisco as tourists clamored to pose next to the school bus, which said "Weed High."

Come on...laugh.

Drug references on alcoholic beverages were banned in 1994, agency spokesman Art Resnick said.

"We protect consumers of alcohol beverages against misleading advertising and labeling," he said.

Dude, we know the difference between beer and weed. Weed is this town in California.

Brewer ordered not to use ‘Legal Weed’ caps
Says it’s just a play on where he makes beer; regulators call it misleading
The Associated Press
updated 9:25 p.m. ET April 23, 2008

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Vaune Dillmann thought the wording on his bottle caps was just a clever play on the name of the Northern California town where he brews his beer — Weed.

Federal alcohol regulators thought differently. They have ordered Dillmann to stop selling beer bottles with caps that say "Try Legal Weed."

What types of ad hominems might then be justified? Walton argues that an ad hominem is valid when the claims made about a person’s character or actions are relevant to the conclusions being drawn. Consider, for example, former New York governor Eliot Spitzer, who was caught on a wiretap arranging to hire a prostitute for $4,300. Because this behavior ran counter to Spitzer’s anticorruption platform, its unveiling would prevent Spitzer from governing successfully; thus, criticizing this aspect of his character was relevant and fair. In an earlier scandal, in 1987, televangelist Jimmy Swaggart was seen at a motel with a prostitute. Because his behavior undercut his preaching and status as a Christian role model, a character attack based on this incident would have been spot-on.

Character Attacks: How to Properly Apply the Ad Hominem
A new theory parses fair from unfair uses of personal criticism in rhetoric
By Yvonne Raley 

A doctor tells her patient to lose weight, and the patient thinks: “If my doctor really believed that, she wouldn’t be so fat.” A movie aficionado pans the latest Tom Cruise flick because Cruise is a Scientologist. A home­owner ignores a neighbor’s advice on lawn care because the neighbor is a ... you name it: Democrat, ­Re­publican, Christian or atheist. These examples illustrate classic uses of ad hominem attacks, in which an argument is rejected, or advanced, based on a personal characteristic of an individual rather than on reasons for or against the claim itself.

Putting the focus on the arguer or person being discussed can distract us from the issues that matter. Rather than concentrating on an individual’s character, we should, in these cases, be asking ourselves questions such as, Is the doctor’s advice medically sound? Is the Cruise film entertaining? Is the neighbor’s lawn healthy? Meanwhile ad hominem attacks can also unfairly discredit an individual, especially because such critiques are often effective.