Prometheus 6

My father is the kind of sick that only ends when the laws of thermodynamics take full effect...and that may not be for a while. I'm kinda hiding behind writing and coding right now.

I can stand up and do what I have to do, but I wish I knew how to comfort people rather than just help. I wish I was capable of being comforted. I keep seeing with my memory instead of my eyes. Probably because I don't really want to see with my eyes.

My parents have been married for over 50 years. I can't imagine what my mom is feeling.

And what's really fucked up is I can't stop being clinical in my observations of my father. I can't help recognizing every fragment that falls away.

Quote of note:

The Staten Island Task Force last made headlines in 2003, when one of its members, Officer Bryan Conroy, allegedly shot and killed Ousmane Zongo, an unarmed African immigrant, inside a Manhattan storage warehouse.

Conroy and other officers were at the warehouse to bust DVD pirates.

POLICE PAYOFF PROBE
By JAMIE SCHRAM

Two NYPD veterans are being investigated by Internal Affairs for allegedly accepting payoffs from the motion-picture industry to arrest vendors of pirated DVDs, law-enforcement sources told The Post.

One officer, a sergeant on the force since 1992, has been transferred from the Staten Island Task Force to the 122nd Precinct pending the internal investigation.

Army clears top brass of Abu Ghraib wrongdoing
Former top commander in Iraq, 3 others overseeing Iraqi prisons are exonerated
- Eric Schmitt, New York Times
Saturday, April 23, 2005

Washington
-- A high-level Army investigation has cleared four of the most senior
Army officers overseeing prison policies and operations in Iraq of
responsibility for the abuses of prisoners there, congressional and
administration officials said on Friday.

Among those exonerated
was Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who was the top commander in Iraq from
June 2003 to June 2004. He was the highest-ranking officer to face
allegations of leadership failure in connection with the scandal, but
has not been accused of criminal misconduct.

Quote of note:

"What we once called porn is just mainstream sex now, and what we now think of as pornography has shrunk to a tiny, tiny area," Herdt said. "We've expanded the envelope of normative sex so much that there's not much room for 'porn' anymore."

Just the Facts of Life Now
Pornography is so common in the Digital Age that teens see it as 'part of the culture.' But if it's corrupting them, the data don't show it.
By Shawn Hubler
Times Staff Writer
April 23, 2005

Mike Clark figures he was just a little kid when he saw his first sexy pop-up ad on the Internet, and somewhat older when he saw his first sexy pop-up that he understood. First X-rated spam? Let's see   when did he first learn to use e-mail? First videogame with sexy images? Probably the first time he played Grand Theft Auto. First glimpse of an online porn site?

That means it's time to sneak in one of those posts.

Roughly simultaneously I got email from Nichelle asking:

"Why don't we see more African American and Latino bloggers getting the amount of press in MSM as the melanin-challenged (White) bloggers?" 

and got pointed to this thread by Memer

You want in on some of this?...
http://sandhill.typepad.com/sandhill_trek/2005/04/happy_birthday_.html
Should more black folk be making a fuss about not being on more white blogrolls?

The questions feel similar but they're different enough that I could respond to the first briefly and without much deep analysis (though there's depth to the topic). The second I've said nothing about yet, largely because my actual involvement in it means I'd have to review my own history. Plus there's that "should"...I'm always careful about whether or not I even respond to questions with "should" in them (STATEMENTS with "should" in them are immediately fair game).

US accused of trying to block abortion pills
Sarah Boseley, health editor
Thursday April 21, 2005
The Guardian

The US government is trying to block the World Health Organisation from endorsing two abortion pills which could save the lives of some of the 68,000 women who die from unsafe practices in poor countries every year.

The WHO wants to put the pills on its essential medicines list, which constitutes official advice to all governments on the basic drugs their doctors should have available.

Last month, an expert committee met to consider a number of new drugs for inclusion on the list. They approved for the first time two pills, to be used in combination for the termination of early pregnancy, called mifepristone and misoprostol. In poor countries where abortion is legal, doctors currently have no alternative to surgery.

Quote of note:

It's easy to see why Wal-Mart and its conservative defenders discard ideology: money. By ignoring free market principles, the left-wing Harvard Business School estimates that Wal-Mart reduces its procurement costs by 10-20 percent, primarily by taking advantage of the artificially suppressed labor market in China. One can't help note the delicious irony that Wal-Mart's market leadership is powered by an authoritarian regime that still refers to itself as communist.

Wal-Mart's Free Market Fallacy
Jonathan Tasini
April 21, 2005

Jonathan Tasini is president of the Economic Future Group and writes his "Working In America" columns for TomPaine.com on an occasional basis.

Quote of note:

When House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi attacked what she called Bush's "misleading privatization plan," a Washington Post news story immediately noted that "Bush has never advocated privatizing the entire program." This is the formulation that newspapers use when they want to alert readers that a politician is lying.

Mouthing the GOP's Words
Jonathan Chait
April 22, 2005

President Bush and his allies are probably going to lose his fight to privatize Social Security. But in the course of losing they have won an astonishing victory: They have established the precedent that a political party can unilaterally force the news media to change its terminology essentially. Push them hard enough, and the media will render verboten any previously agreed-upon phrase, no matter how widely accepted.

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It has never made sense that Americans should pay more than Canadians, Britons or Spaniards for drugs made by U.S. companies, which often use research financed by U.S. taxpayers. Common sense, however, doesn't maximize drug profits.

Cracks in High Drug Prices
Change is in the air as Congress looks at legalizing orders from foreign companies.
April 22, 2005

The thick political wall put up by pharmaceutical companies around their U.S. pricing is showing cracks.

It has never made sense that Americans should pay more than Canadians, Britons or Spaniards for drugs made by U.S. companies, which often use research financed by U.S. taxpayers. Common sense, however, doesn't maximize drug profits.

Based on this I have decided it's time for another open thread.

Suppose I told you that I worship a god that empowers you to cast spells that enrich you personally or punish your enemies. Suppose I told you this god I worship will give you control over worldly affairs if you execute the proper rituals. Suppose I told you there's nothing you need do but cast those magic spells.

Quote of note:

He said the station's management insisted he do an interview with Pastor Butler, even after the pastor repeatedly refused an invitation from the show's producer, Tony Motley. But he finally agreed to the interview, which centered on his anti-gay marriage platform and his preaching of prosperity messages, i.e., that faith (and giving money to the church) could translate into a Mercedes Benz or a luxury house in suburban and affluent Grosse Pointe Woods.

A strong supporter of President George Bush, Rev. Butler is a leading Black conservative minister. During the interview, Mr. Dawsey questioned why the pastor has not stood up against Pres. Bush' cuts to programs important to Blacks instead of focusing on polarizing issues like gay marriage.

Pastor Butler got upset and said he would not answer any more questions.

Detroit PBS station dumps popular Black host
By Bankole Thompson
The Michigan Citizen
Updated Apr 20, 2005, 02:35 pm

Storm bills would benefit insurers
Legislators have proposed hurricane insurance bills that would give insurers the right to refuse to pay for damage caused by floods after a hurricane.
BY BEATRICE E. GARCIA AND MARY ELLEN KLAS

TALLAHASSEE - Massive insurance regulation bills moved quickly through their last committee stops in the Florida House and Senate on Thursday, with provisions that could severely curtail homeowners' ability to collect the full value of their policies in case of a catastrophe.

A key measure in these bills -- one the insurance industry emphasizes as the most important issue before lawmakers -- would require insurers to be responsible only for damage they specifically cover in their policies.

This one cause problems on unsuspected levels.

I was checking the referral logs and found a search from http://local.google.com. That struck me as unusual, possibly one of those private projects Google insists their employees run. So I followed the search link.

It turned out to be a search for a term that maps the result to a location. Interesting concept, but serendipity caused this particular one to be hilarious. You see, there search term was "asshole" and the location was Washington D.C. So you should be able to find the location of the assholes in Washington, D.C.

I expected Guckart to pop up in there, but the first location listing returned was:

Quote of note:

"There's more than one way to skin a cat, and there's more than one way to take a black robe off the bench," said Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, according to an audiotape of a March 17 session.

2 Evangelicals Want to Strip Courts' Funds
Taped at a private conference, the leaders outline ways to punish jurists they oppose.
By Peter Wallsten
Times Staff Writer
April 22, 2005

WASHINGTON   Evangelical Christian leaders, who have been working closely with senior Republican lawmakers to place conservative judges in the federal courts, have also been exploring ways to punish sitting jurists and even entire courts viewed as hostile to their cause.

An audio recording obtained by the Los Angeles Times features two of the nation's most influential evangelical leaders, at a private conference with supporters, laying out strategies to rein in judges, such as stripping funding from their courts in an effort to hinder their work.

The discussion took place during a Washington conference last month that included addresses by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who discussed efforts to bring a more conservative cast to the courts.

Quote of note:

Ayala hired a lawyer and filed a claim against the Wendy’s franchise owner, Fresno-based JEM Management. But after police searched her home in Las Vegas and continued to question her family, she dropped the lawsuit threat, saying the whole situation was just too stressful.

“Lies, lies, lies, that’s all I am hearing,” Ayala said after police started questioning her. “They should look at Wendy’s. What are they hiding? Why are we being victimized again and again?”

Woman behind Wendy’s chili claim arrested
Reason for arrest unclear; she allegedly had found finger in food
The Associated Press
Updated: 8:04 a.m. ET April 22, 2005

His people are, as we speak, trying to craft a statement that works around all the legitimate complaints against his appearance while still throwing red meat at the the fundies. Unfortunately, it's going to wind up sounding something like this:

GS: Do you believe Senator Schumer and other Democrats are using the filibuster against people of faith?

TL: People of faith have been abused, I don't think it's because of their faith.

GS: By whom?

TL: Ah, well, no, a lot of the nominees were men and women, or are men and women of strong faith, now, remember what I said, people of faith were abused, but not perhaps because of their faith., although people do get nervous about a pattern that sets in there, but here's the thing about Frist.

Quote of note:

Religious groups, including the National Council of Churches and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, plan to conduct a conference call with journalists on Friday to criticize Senator Frist's participation in the telecast. The program is sponsored by Christian conservative organizations that want to build support for Dr. Frist's filibuster proposal.

Among those scheduled to speak in the conference call is the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, a top official of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., in which Dr. Frist is an active member.

Frist Draws Criticism From Some Church Leaders
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, April 21 - As the Senate battle over judicial confirmations became increasingly entwined with religious themes, officials of several major Protestant denominations on Thursday accused the Senate Republican leader, Bill Frist, of violating the principles of his own Presbyterian church and urged him to drop out of a Sunday telecast that depicts Democrats as "against people of faith."

Quote of note:

"Instead of dealing with the facts and dealing with them in an intelligent fashion, they try to hide their facts from the American public," charged Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department terrorism expert who first disclosed the decision to eliminate the report in The Counterterrorism Blog, an online journal.

Bush administration eliminating 19-year-old international terrorism report
By Jonathan S. Landay
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered.

Dept of Ed Goes Silent on FOIA Requests after Facing Criticism in Vouchers Report

PFAW Foundation Files Suit, Seeks Unlawfully Withheld Records

Washington, DC – Yesterday, People For the American Way Foundation (PFAWF) filed suit against the U.S. Department of Education in federal court in the District of Columbia over the Department’s unlawful failure to disclose certain records concerning the new federally funded school voucher program in the District of Columbia. The law firm of Jenner & Block is co-counsel with PFAWF in this lawsuit.

PFAWF requested the records under two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Over the span of seven months the Department disclosed a number of records in response to the first FOIA request. However, after PFAWF published a report concerning the implementation of the DC voucher program that was critical of the Department -- a report based in part on the previously disclosed records -- the Department stopped responding to PFAWF’s outstanding second FOIA request, despite prior representations that additional responsive records had been collected and would be disclosed. Furthermore, the Department has not responded to any communications from PFAWF about its failure to comply with its FOIA obligations, leaving PFAWF with no choice but to file suit.

Quote of note:

Still, Oxfam commends the recent aid increases, and Fraser admits that there is a renewed effort on the part of the international community to provide financing for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),  and this marks a real change in comparison to the aid cuts of the 1990s. 

Three Decades of Missed Aid Targets
Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 18 (IPS) - The world's 22 rich nations claim that their collective official development assistance (ODA) to developing countries has risen significantly: from an average of about 55 to 60 billion dollars in the late 1990s to 69 billion in 2003 and 78.6 billion dollars in 2004.

But in a new report released Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warns against any premature rejoicing over the rising numbers.

 While the nominal figures for increases in ODA are encouraging,  he admits,  they have to be interpreted with some caution. 

Adjusted for depreciation of the fast-falling U.S. dollar and worldwide price inflation, the 18.4 percent annual increase of ODA reported for 2003 relative to 2002  falls to around a quarter of that figure,  he notes.

Arabella Fraser, policy advisor for the international humanitarian organisation Oxfam, is equally guarded.

 Rich country self-congratulation is unwarranted,  Fraser told IPS.  Aid levels are still pitiful, at an average of 0.25 percent of national income, and way below the promise of 0.7 percent, which was made 35 years ago. 

Still, Oxfam commends the recent aid increases, and Fraser admits that there is a renewed effort on the part of the international community to provide financing for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),  and this marks a real change in comparison to the aid cuts of the 1990s. 

However, rich countries have not yet committed themselves to provide the additional 50 billion dollars a year needed to meet the MDGs and help end poverty, Fraser said.

Quote of note:

During the detentions, border agents confiscated cell phones when they learned that those being held were attempting to contact lawyers or the media,  the suit charges.

Religious Profiling Sparks Federal Lawsuit
William Fisher

NEW YORK, Apr 20 (IPS) - Three influential civil rights groups charged Wednesday that border control tactics used by the Department of Homeland Security discriminate against U.S. citizens solely on the basis of their religion and ethnicity, in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

In simultaneous news conferences held in New York City and Buffalo, on the Canadian border, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the New York Civil Liberties Union and the American Civil Liberties Union announced that they were suing the head of the Department of Homeland Security over the practice of targeting U.S. citizens participating in religious conferences outside the United States.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. district court on behalf of five Muslim-Americans who, along with dozens of others, were detained for six and a half hours, interrogated, fingerprinted, and photographed at the Canadian border crossing to Buffalo as they returned home from an annual Islamic conference in Toronto.