Prometheus 6

Rockets hit hotel where Americans are based, unknown number of casualties
CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent
Saturday, October 25, 2003
©2003 Associated Press

(10-25) 23:09 PDT BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) --

Six to eight rockets on Sunday struck the Al Rasheed Hotel that is home to many U.S. military and civilian employees, the U.S. military said. Preliminary, unconfirmed reports showed that one American was killed and several information, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said

Wolfowitz, appearing shaken during a hastily called news conference, expressed "profound sympathy" to victims of the attack.

Wolfowitz said that danger persists Iraq "as long as there are criminals out there staging hit and run attacks."

The 6:10 a.m. attack caused some damage to the hotel however U.S. troops prevented reporters from reaching the scene, located in a heavy guarded area near coalition headquarters.

Wolfowitz, one of the architects of the war that ousted Saddam Hussein, arrived in Iraq on Friday for a three-day visit.

He said the U.S.-led coalition was achieving success in stabilizing Iraq despite actions of "criminals who are trying to destabilize this country." He described them as "a few who refuse to accept the reality" of the new Iraq.

Study on bad eating habits finds children under 2 eating fries, drinking soda
T.A. BADGER, Associated Press Writer
Saturday, October 25, 2003
©2003 Associated Press

(10-25) 13:30 PDT SAN ANTONIO (AP) --

Even before their second birthday, many American children are developing the same bad eating habits that plague the nation's adults -- too much fat, sugar and salt and too few fruits and vegetables.

A new study of more than 3,000 youngsters found significant numbers of infants and toddlers are downing french fries, pizza, candy and soda.

Children aged 1 to 2 years require about 950 calories per day, but the study found that the median intake for that age group is 1,220 calories, -- an excess of nearly 30 percent. For those 7 months to 11 months old, the daily caloric surplus was about 20 percent.

"By 24 months, patterns look startlingly similar to some of the problematic American dietary patterns," said an overview of the Feeding Infants & Toddlers Study, commissioned by baby-food maker Gerber Products Co.

Article published Oct 21, 2003
N.C. woman killed as she tries to protect friend

A Monroe woman was killed when she was beaten over the head with a shovel as she tried to protect a friend from her estranged husband, authorities say.

Tracey Helms, 25, died Saturday in her own front yard. She was the 47th victim of domestic violence this year in North Carolina, the North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence said.

It is unclear how many were killed trying to protect someone else, but experts said she's not the first.

"Domestic violence is all about power and control," said Union County district attorney Ken Honeycutt, who has led a prosecution program to stem domestic violence. "When the abuser sees someone interfering with this ability to control, they lash out at that person."

So has my head.

Currently feeling like shit. I let my diabetic discipline slip and I feel like this for a couple of days.

Since I don't feel like being smart I have to let someone else do it.

Eugene Volokh

Crime-facilitating speech: I'm finally finishing up a rough but distributable draft of my Crime-Facilitating Speech article. There's much that I'm not satisfied with: For instance, it's way too long (100 pages at this point), and I still don't have a clear solution to propose, though I might stick by proposing a few alternatives and explaining the pluses and minuses of each.

…When should speech be punishable because it provides information that facilitates crimes, or other harms? This question arises in many different cases:

…These are not incitement cases: The speech isn?t persuading some readers to commit bad acts. Rather, the speech helps some readers more effectively commit bad acts—acts that they already want to commit.

Surprisingly, the Supreme Court has never squarely confronted this issue, and lower courts and commentators have only recently begun to seriously face it. And getting the answer right here is quite important: Because these cases are structurally quite similar—a similarity that hasn?t been generally recognized—a decision about one of them will affect the results in others. If one of these restrictions is upheld (or struck down), others may be unexpectedly validated (or invalidated) as well.

In this article, I?ll try to analyze the problem of crime-facilitating speech, a term I define to mean

1. any speech that,
2. intentionally or not,
3. makes it easier for some listeners or readers to (a) commit crimes or (b) other harmful acts (such as torts, hostile acts of foreign nations, or suicide), or (c) to get away with committing crimes or harmful acts.

---

This is here because the idea of criminalizing speech that is recognized as not inciting crime is disturbing to me. That "intentionally or not" part is particularly bad.

U.S. Case for Helping Iraq Suffers a Setback
By ALEX BERENSON

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 26 -- In purely military terms, the rocket attack Sunday morning on a hotel being used by Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense and a leading architect of the war against Saddam Hussein, meant little.

But the strike is a serious setback for the Bush administration as it tries to persuade the world to focus on the positives of the American occupation, on falling crime and new schools, on cleaner streets and freer speech.

Instead, it is a reminder that after easily toppling Mr. Hussein, the United States is struggling against a continuing guerrilla resistance, and struggling even though the guerrillas are badly trained and ill equipped.

But the guerrillas have two great advantages. First, the United States has been reluctant to use its full might against them, for fear of turning civilians against the occupation and inflaming public opinion worldwide.

Second, the guerrillas can win merely by creating chaos. As long as they are killing soldiers and Iraqi civilians, the Bush administration will have a difficult time convincing Americans that Iraq is becoming more stable -- and in winning the foreign investment that Iraq's economy needs.

By that score, the attack on Sunday, which killed an American colonel and wounded 16 other people, was especially damaging. Mr. Wolfowitz came to Iraq hoping to underscore the progress the administration has made, and to persuade investors to come and help Iraq rebuild. He did not back away even after he and his rattled aides were evacuated from the smoking floors of their hotel.

But the attack sent the opposite message, by underscoring the vulnerability of even the best-protected part of the capital.

Libertarians Pursue New Goal: State of Their Own
By PAM BELLUCK

KEENE, N.H. -- A few things stand out about this unprepossessing city. It just broke its own Guinness Book world record for the most lighted jack-o'-lanterns with 28,952. It claims to have the world's widest Main Street.

And recently, Keene became the home of Justin Somma, a 26-year-old freelance copywriter from Suffern, N.Y., and a foot soldier in an upstart political movement. That movement, the Free State Project, aims to make all of New Hampshire a laboratory for libertarian politics by recruiting libertarian-leaning people from across the country to move to New Hampshire and throw their collective weight around. Leaders of the project figure 20,000 people would do the trick, and so far 4,960 have pledged to make the move.

The idea is to concentrate enough fellow travelers in a single state to jump-start political change. Members, most of whom have met only over the Internet, chose New Hampshire over nine other states in a heated contest that lasted months.

(The other contenders were Alaska, Delaware, Idaho, Maine, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming. One frequently asked question on the project's Web site was "Can't you make a warmer state an option?")

Once here, they plan to field candidates in elections and become active in schools and community groups, doing all they can to sow the libertarian ideals of curbing taxes, minimizing regulation of guns and drugs, privatizing schools and reducing government programs.

---

Let's say not all the people interviewed for this article are as rational as they think they are.

Kind of , anyway.

Whenever something happens to me, I automatically assume something I did was involved. This time, though…

There's two types of insulin I'm dealing with, regular and NPH. The NPH has something of a time-release effect, and I take it twice per day. I take the regular insulin after meals to get past the immediate blood glucose spike eating causes. I don't take very much insuling, I'm told. I just need to take it just so.

It's not always that simple, though. Some days it's like I'm more resistant to insulin than other days. And if that happens on a day where I'm out and don't have my insulin with me when I eat (say, because I just didn't expect to be out that long) I can be in for a problem. And because one's blood sugar can be somewhat high with no symptoms (say, as high as one's glucose level normally spikes after eating) I can suddenly find myself at a blood glucose level that's just not a good thing.

There's a Catch: Jobs
By BOB HERBERT

The president tells us the economy is accelerating, and the statistics seem to bear him out. But don't hold your breath waiting for your standard of living to improve. Bush country is not a good environment for working families.

In the real world, which is the world of families trying to pay their mortgages and get their children off to college, the economy remains troubled. While the analysts and commentators of the comfortable class are assuring us that the president's tax cuts and the billions being spent on Iraq have been good for the gross domestic product, the workaday folks are locked in a less sanguine reality.

It's a reality in which:

? The number of Americans living in poverty has increased by three million in the past two years.
? The median household income has fallen for the past two years.
? The number of dual-income families, particularly those with children under 18, has declined sharply.

The administration can spin its "recovery" any way it wants. But working families can't pay their bills with data about the gross domestic product. They need the income from steady employment. And when it comes to employment, the Bush administration has compiled the worst record since the Great Depression.

Safire writes on drug costs today. There's much I take exception to in the editorial, but I want to point out two specific issues for now.

Since marketing drugs at the level the manufacturers choose to costs as much as developing drugs, one could as easily say new prescription drugs cost so much mainly because it includes the producers' huge investment in marketing.

Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield published a series of reports on prescription drug usage in Iowa and South Dakota that has some interesting information that applies outside its market as well.

This direct to consumer advertising is medically unnecessary, because consumers are not qualified to judge whether or not these new drugs are applicable to whatever condition thet have…their sole purpose is to interest consumers in the most expensive treatment option.

As in the run-up to the Iraq war, spin rather than truth is the order of the day.

It will not lower prices here because management philosophy calls to seeking maximum, not reasonable, or even optimal, profit.

Safire's suggestion could start a trade war, one that (like the war in Iraq) we'd readily win on paper but could become a quagmire. That's because a large fraction (70-80%, according to a December 2000 NY Times article) of key components in the manufacture of generic drugs come from overseas.

Walter Washington Dies at 88

By Martin Weil
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 28, 2003; 7:53 AM

Walter E. Washington, 88, who led the District through the turbulence of the 1960s and 1970s and served as the city's first elected mayor in modern times, died early today at Howard University Hospital.

His death was announced by a spokesman for Mayor Anthony A. Williams' office.

The cause of death was not immediately available, but he had been hospitalized for several weeks.

As the first black person to head the government of a major U.S. city, Washington was a symbol of the great changes that were to come in American society, as the gains of the civil rights struggle were translated into political reality.

There's this website, The Black Conservative that's just, well, stupid. I was going to do this great introduction, but in the end the site is best summed up as, well, stupid. At least if it's an attempt to speak to Black folks, and I don't think it is. I can't remember the last Black Conservative© I felt wanted to help Black people rather than make guilty liberal white folks change their political party.

Okay, Glen Loury.

Anyway, the first article on the site today is an excellent example of why I feel the site is just, well, stupid. "The Black KKKommentator" is written by Bob Parks, who in the process demonstrates why he is a former California congressional candidate rather than a former (or current) California congressperson.

Erica at Swirlspice had an open door policy this past weekend, and I missed it. Something about it making the rounds, folks setting up a guest account and letting random folks post with the understanding that she can pull what she don't want to see on her blog.

It was amusing, and I went backwards through some of the links folks left behind. I'm not that trusting, though.

He pointed out the RNC's retraction, to wit:

First of all, there's hella difference between The Black Commentator, PFAW and the NAACP's sites. It reflects poorly on SOMEbody's intelligence to get them crossed up.

Secondly, I wish I had thought of the cartoon.

Third, Aaron's commentary is superior to mine.

Now that the World Series is over, you people have NO EXCUSE for watching Fox during the week. We excuse you for football, but after the Super Bowl, that's it.

Check out the robots.txt file for http://www.whitehouse.gov/. It's like anything related to Iraq should not be looked at by search engines.

Too late. We know already.

LATER: Kicking Ass figured out why.

I think the thing that annoys me about Conservatives the most is they all write as though there's no context except their own individual view.

What about The Angry Right?

I used to like Arnold Kling when he talked about economics…

See Michael at Move The Crowd.

LATER: Oh, that was Ferengi Rules of Acquisition. I didn't notice the difference (though I did wonder about the lobes…)

See if you don't agree.

"You mean that back before civilization economics was much simpler?" asks the Ten-Year-Old.

"Yes," says the Thirteen-Year-Old. "Back then, Principles of Economics books were really simple. They said: '(1) Find a rock. (2) Throw the rock to kill some small furry creature. (3) Eat the small furry creature.' That was it."

"But then things became more complicated. People invented farming, and some people became peasant farmers who grew the crops."

"And other people became workers who made pots," says the Ten-Year-Old. "And other people became blacksmiths who made spears."

"And," says the Thirteen-Year-Old, "then the people who got the spears told the peasants and the workers to give them half their crop--or else!"

via Atrios

There's Baghdad Burning by Riverbend. The real thing.

Then there's this. Url is http://riverSbendblog.blogspot.com/ instead of http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/. Template, graphics everything stolen from the original.

Just so's ya know.

He has a great suggestion on how to respond to the Republican culture wars offensive.

Jay Allen has version 1.5 of MT-Blacklist ready for you.

This IS to be an independant investigation, right?

---

Bush Weighing Decision on Release of Documents to Sept. 11 Panel
By PHILIP SHENON

WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 ? President Bush declined on Monday to commit the White House to turning over highly classified intelligence reports to the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, despite public threats of a subpoena from the bipartisan panel.

The president said in a brief meeting with reporters that the documents were "very sensitive" and that the White House was still discussing the issue with the panel's chairman, Thomas H. Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey.

Mr. Bush's remarks and subsequent comments from his press secretary suggested that the White House might ultimately refuse the commission's demand for access to the documents, setting up a possible showdown between the White House and the independent investigators.

Last week, Mr. Kean said for the first time that he was prepared to issue a subpoena and risk a courtroom battle with the White House if the documents were not turned over within weeks.

Officials for the commission say the documents include copies of the so-called Presidential Daily Briefing ? the summary prepared each morning by the Central Intelligence Agency for the Oval Office ? that Mr. Bush received in the weeks before the attacks. The White House refused to provide the reports to House and Senate investigators last year for their investigation of the attacks, citing executive privilege.

A Willful Ignorance
By PAUL KRUGMAN

According to The New York Times, President Bush was genuinely surprised to learn from moderate Islamic leaders that they had become deeply distrustful of American intentions. The report on the "perception gap" suggests that the leader of the war on terror has no idea how badly that war ? which must, ultimately, be a war for hearts and minds ? is going.

Mr. Bush's ignorance may reflect his lack of curiosity: "The best way to get the news," he says, "is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff." Two words: emperor, clothes.

But there's something broader going on: a sort of willful ignorance, supposedly driven by moral concerns but actually reflecting domestic politics. Surely it's important to understand how others see us, but a new, post 9/11 version of political correctness has made it difficult even to discuss their points of view. Any American who tries to go beyond "America good, terrorists evil," who tries to understand ? not condone ? the growing world backlash against the United States, faces furious attacks delivered in a tone of high moral indignation. The attackers claim to be standing up for moral clarity, and some of them may even believe it. But they are really being used in a domestic political struggle.

Last week I found myself caught up in that struggle. I wrote about why Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia's prime minister ? a clever if loathsome man who adjusts the volume of his anti-Semitism depending on circumstances ? chose to include an anti-Jewish diatribe in his speech to an Islamic conference. Sure enough, I was accused in various places not just of "tolerance for anti-Semitism" (yes, I'm Jewish) but of being in Mr. Mahathir's pay. Smear tactics aside, the thrust of the attacks was that because anti-Semitism is evil, anyone who tries to understand why politicians foment anti-Semitism ? and looks for ways other than military force to combat the disease ? is an apologist for anti-Semitism and is complicit in evil.

Yet that moral punctiliousness is curiously selective. Last year the Bush administration, in return for a military base in Uzbekistan, gave $500 million to a government that, according to the State Department, uses torture "as a routine investigation technique," and whose president has killed opponents with boiling water. The moral clarity police were notably quiet.

I think Israel should stop even pretending they want a two state solution to their security problems. It's just prolonging a situation that can't come to a good end.

---

Israel May Give Utility Services to Settlements Built Recently
By GREG MYRE

JERUSALEM, Oct. 27 ? Eight recently erected Jewish settlement outposts in the West Bank could soon receive government services like electricity and phones lines, a Defense Ministry official said Monday. Palestinians denounced the proposal as a violation of the stalled Middle East peace plan.

The plan calls for Israel to dismantle all settlements built since Prime Minister Ariel Sharon came to power in March 2001. Since it was formally introduced in June, only a handful have been removed, and about 60 remain, according to Peace Now, an Israeli monitoring group.

The Israeli official, Ron Shechner, who advises the defense minister on settlements, said it was not his position to determine whether the recently built settlements should remain or be torn down.

But as long as Israelis "are there on the ground, you have to give them the basic security means," Mr. Shechner said on Israeli radio. He cited electricity, phones, fences and schools as services the government could soon deliver. Most settlement outposts consist of only a few mobile homes on desolate hilltops.

---

In point of fact, if the building of new settlements is against the current national policy, the new settlers are criminals, and as such you are WRONG to provide them with "basic security means."

If the building of new settlements is against the current national policy.

BUt, of course, I'm sure the situation is too complex for me to judge from such a remove.

What the fuck is wrong with New Jersey that they keep putting kids in fucked up situations like this?

What the fuck is wrong with New Jersey that they can send case workers around, get positive reports back, and still shit like this goes on?

---

New Jersey Couple Held in Abuse; One Son, 19, Weighed 45 Pounds
By LYDIA POLGREEN and ROBERT F. WORTH

COLLINGSWOOD, N.J., Oct. 26 ? The parents of four boys adopted from New Jersey's troubled foster care system were arrested Friday, two weeks after the police found that the children, ages 9 to 19, had been starved to the point that none of them weighed more than 50 pounds, according to the Camden County prosecutor.

The boys were so badly malnourished that their shriveled bodies gave no hint of their ages, investigators said. At 19, the oldest was 4 feet tall and weighed 45 pounds. The police initially thought he was just 10 years old. The boys' condition was discovered when a neighbor called the police because the 19-year-old, Bruce, was looking for food in the neighbor's trash at 2:30 a.m. on Oct. 10, according to the county prosecutor, Vincent P. Sarubbi. The boys were removed from the home later that day.

The boys had been locked out of the kitchen of the house in this blue-collar Philadelphia suburb and were fed a diet of pancake batter, peanut butter and breakfast cereal. They ate wallboard and insulation to sate their hunger, investigators said.

A caseworker from the Division of Youth and Family Services, the state agency that oversees the foster care system, had visited the house at 318 White Horse Pike 38 times in the past 2 years, investigators said. The parents, Raymond Jackson, 50, and his wife, Vanessa, 48, rented the house, which passed a safety assessment by the caseworker and her supervisor in June.

The Modular Computing Core (MCC) is the most advanced mobile computer on the market. It contains all the normal features of a desktop computer: a processor, a hard drive, memory, video card, audio card, Windows XPTM Professional, and more. But it is an amazingly compact replacement for that big computer box under your desk.

Aside from the small size, what is unique is the modularity. The external power supply, the visual display, the communications and input/output connectors are all packaged separately from the core, and are transformed into modular shells and accessories that you choose based on your individual preferences and work environment.

The MCC has the functionality of a normal desktop computer, but it is condensed into a small 7.6 x 12.7 x 1.9 cm (3" x 5" x 3/4") package that is very similar to the size of a PDA or laptop battery. Low power consumption makes it ideal for portable applications that allow you to be in locations other than your desk. The MCC is also very intelligent, automatically identifying and adapting to attached Shells and devices. Its operating system, power management, thermal, software and user interface behavior will automatically match your attached shell or accessory.

The MCC runs the full Windows XP^TM Professional operating system, so when you use it with the desktop cradle or handheld, you'll be using the same user interface and applications that you've come to depend on. It also makes possible a broad range of mobile, fixed location, industrial and non-traditional computing experiences.

I had a cartoon to run with this, but that seems to bother folks for some reason, so…

---

NAACP Ridicules Republican Election Day Intimidation
Urges voters of color to go to the polls and defend their rights

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) today ridiculed the Republican Party for planning to place Election Day challengers at 59 voting precincts in predominantly Black neighborhoods in Kentucky. Voters there will cast ballots in the hotly contested race for governor on Tuesday, November 4, 2003.

Kweisi Mfume, NAACP President and CEO said: "The use of challengers at majority African American precincts amounts to nothing but blatant voter intimidation by the Republican Party. All Kentucky voters deserve to cast their ballots without the presence of this type of threat or harassment. The GOP must not be allowed to frighten voters of color away from exercising their constitutional rights in Kentucky or any other jurisdiction in the nation."

William E. Cofield, NAACP National Board of Directors, who represents Kentucky, said: "It is reprehensible. Anytime the GOP can target just Black precincts and not place challengers at all of the polling places is racist. We are going to fight it."

Kentucky law allows each political party to place one challenger at any precinct on Election Day to question the credentials of any voter who they have "a reason to believe" is not registered, not who they claim to be or not a resident in the precinct. Challenged voters must sign an oath asserting their legitimacy before receiving a ballot. Those who refuse to sign would not be allowed to vote unless an election officer intervenes on their behalf. The Democratic Party does not plan to use challengers.

Mfume encouraged African American voters to carry a picture ID with a current address to their voting precincts "go to the polls prepared to defend your right to vote and armed with your photo identification," he said.

The NAACP, a non-partisan organization, has conducted voter registration drives and get-out-the vote campaigns for 94 years. It is a prominent and active leader in guaranteeing voting rights across the country.

Founded in 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is the nation?s oldest and largest civil rights organization. Its half-million adult and youth members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, conducting voter registration drives and monitoring equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.

…that by placing:
<a name="<$MTEntryID pad="1"$>" href="http://<$MTBlogHost$>/path-to/mt.cgi?__mode=view&_type=entry&id=<$MTEntryID$>&blog_id=<$MTBlogID$>" onclick="OpenComments (this.href); return false"> </a>

in a strategic place you will have an invisible link that will open a window that allows you to edit the MT post you've embedded the link in?

Or that by placing:
<a name="<$MTCommentID pad="1"$>" href="http://<$MTBlogHost$>/path-to/mt.cgi?__mode=view&_type=comment&id=<$MTCommentID$>&blog_id=<$MTBlogID$>" onclick="OpenComments (this.href); return false"> </a>

in a strategic place you can do the same with comments?

Advantage: with entries, when you see that stupid misspelling you can fix it on the fly, with the text (minus all those distracting markup tags that probabl made you miss the error in the first place). Same with comments, plus you can delete assholes without searching for them.

Actually, the OpenComments javascript function makes the window kind of small for editing posts, so I have a seperate function that opens an 800px wide window (hey, it fits on my screen and no one else will use it anyway). Or you can just change OpenComments() so that it creates a resizeable window,

I have something to work on this morning, but I also have a concept that's been gnawing at the back of my forehead trying to get out. It's a thought/question for the Christian evangelicals of the world.

The Bible pretty much makes it clear the majority of folks aren't going to make it out of life alive, while the true Children of God, the true Body of the Church will.

That being the case, why are Christian Evangelicals trying to become the majority?

See, making The Word available, that I can understand. But requiring adherance to The Word of others, even for their own benefit, denies the free will that God gave all humans…the free will, without which, one can't choose God. And that choice is necessary for salvation to be real, yes?

Taking away choice, denying the gift of God…now, who would do that sort of thing? Who has been doing it all along?

Teach your faith, share you knowledge. But in the end, it's you and your true community to whom you are responsible. And remember that even if the teachings are true, the way you teach them can be wrong.

You've heard by now of this organization. It's just starting up, but looks to have potential. At minimum is can help raise the profile of issues important to progressives. I'd say they're intending to be the left's equivalent to The Cato Society, while the American Constitution Society is our Federalist Society.

I've signed up for all the content email the Center for American Progress will produce. I'm not intending to be an official organ or anything like that—it's a news-junkie think. But I do share their overarching goals and so will pass along anything I find important (with my personal amplifications, of course).

This was going to be a comment, but I decided I want it to have a higher profile.

The flyer Republicans used to recruit its poll watchers in Kentucky refers to the A. Phillip Randolph Institute as "the black militant division of the AFL-CIO and funded in part by the DNC." Pure race-card politics, and the right wingers out there that constantly claim Democrats play the race card need to repudiate this.

But this should not be taken as an implication that progressives should back away from the Institute. People are always "sending messages," so sometimes I feel the need to counter what they will try to extract as a "message" from a statement that means no more than what is said.

Back when I started Prometheus 6, the motto under the banner read,

Who can disagree with that?

And when he's being embarrassed by his own statements, he gets out of it by lying some more!

This is from the White House's own web site:

NTodd (who I know from Open Source Politics) reminded the dKos crew about this gem, though:

Isn't that precious?

Let's see if we can convice Al Franken's publishers to put Bush on the cover of the next press run of his book.

via dKos

On the Today Show this morning, one of the anchors (Al Roker?) said at any given moment there were about 500 guys out fighting those fires at his location in California, and they could use five times that number. But they weren't going to get them

How many guys could we mobilize to help if they weren't all in Iraq, mopping up behind an optional war?

How much fire fighting equipment could be mobilized if it weren't fighting pipeline fires in Iraq?

I'm not sure. But seriously, couldn't the National Guard and the Reserves pour hella resources into this…if they were here?

I had gotten comfortable NOT receiving notice of the comments I enter here. So after installing MT-Blacklist 1.5 I hacked it a little, changing line 3496 from

MT::Mail->send(\%head, $body);
to

MT::Mail->send(\%head, $body) unless $author->email eq $comment->email;

This very post is the test.

Natalie at All Facts & Opinions spotted an interview with Jim Hightower wherein Mr. Hightower has some good advice for Greens and Dems:

With Tyler Cowen's admiration of Charles Murray, I've decided that, though there's meat on them Volokhian bones, much of it is rancid.

Truth in advertising—that second link is to Orcinus, wherein David Niewart explains the deeply troubling roos of the methods Cowen says he has no problem with.

Let me point out this post:

Even better is the "minister" that wrote this tripe

If by "intimacy" he means rape and by "harmony" he means brutal suppression, yeah it was intimate and harmonious.

Buy a fucking clue. Picture you great grandparents in that condition, fucking fools. And I can see you feeling it all worked well for YOUR forebears, but Black folks HATED those lazy, cheating, lying, selfish, violent, brutal, manipulating, collaborating-even-when-not-actually-holding-the-whip mother fuckers. And if you believe otherwise, you are either self-deluding or just plain stupid.

Now. Any confederate flag flying bastard got something to say? Because if you want to claim it's all about the culture, you betta understand what that culture really was before you step to me. To claim your culture wasn't about suppressing Black folks is like claiming your house has nothing to do with the basement it's on, the ground the foundation is sunk into.

I'd be much less sanguine about this if any of my people had been on the ferry. But my ex, my daughter's mom, was on the ferry that crashed—with this crew—the very run before the crash.

---

Doubt Is Cast on Accounts About Crash of Ferry
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM

Two witnesses to the Staten Island ferry crash this month said they saw the ferry's assistant captain erect and alone at the controls about a minute before the vessel slammed into a pier, killing 10 people, an official briefed on the investigation said yesterday.

The witnesses ? a crew member and a man on a nearby tugboat ? also said that the ferry's captain, Michael J. Gansas, was not in the Staten Island pilothouse of the Andrew J. Barberi, as he told investigators, the official said.

The witness on the tugboat saw Captain Gansas running across the top of the ferry ? from the Manhattan pilothouse to the Staten Island pilothouse ? after the accident, and the crew member, who was in the Staten Island pilothouse, said Captain Gansas was not there roughly a minute before the boat crashed, the official said.

The two accounts throw into question some of the earlier versions of events that led up to the Oct. 15 crash. Those include one provided by the assistant captain, Richard J. Smith, who suggested to the police in a brief initial statement that he had lost consciousness, and another by Captain Gansas, who said on the day of the crash that he was in the pilothouse and tried to stop the boat from ramming into the pier.

Over on Tacitus, m. scott eiland is waiting to see how the Democratic Presidential candidates will blame Dubya for this huge solar flare heading our way.

Over on MaxSpeaks, Max is waiting for liberals to catch the blame for it.

_sigh

I was going to say Digby fileted Lord Saleton. But then I read his view of George Lakoff's framing the Conservative/Progressive axis as Strict Father/Nurturing Parent…though as he say, nuturing mother is the more accurate way of saying it.

Since Saleton's statement was all fat and no bone, "filet" is the wrong image. So:
Digby sliced up Lord Saleton's attempt to denigrate Clark by equating Kosovo and Iraqi.

Now I think I'll give some thought to how Progressives can frame issues this Presidential season.

Marty wakes up at home with a huge hangover.

He forces himself to open his eyes, and the first thing he sees are a couple of aspirins and a glass of water on the side table.

He sits down and sees his clothing in front of him, all clean and pressed. Marty looks around the room and sees that it is in perfect order, spotless, clean. So's the rest of the house.

He takes the aspirins and notices a note on the table, reading

"Honey, breakfast is on the stove. I left early to go shopping. Love you!"

He goes to the kitchen and sure enough, there is a hot breakfast and the morning newspaper. His son is also at the table, eating.

Marty asks, "Son, what happened last night?"

His son says, "Well, you came home after 3 a.m., drunk and delirious. Broke some furniture, puked in the hallway, and gave yourself a black eye when you stumbled into the door."

Confused, Marty asks, "So, why is everything in order and so clean, and breakfast is on the table waiting for me?"

His son replies, "Oh, that! Mom dragged you to the bedroom, and when she tried to take your pants off, you yelled, 'Lady, leave me alone, I'm a married man'!"

LatinoPundit points to an article on the dispute between those Hispanic folks who prefer to be called "Latino" and those Latino folks who prefer to be called "Hispanic."

And where does "Chicano" fit into all this?

I have to admit, as an Colored/African/Negro/Black/Afr(ican-or-o)-American/Nubian/Afrikan/Nigga I can only look on with bemusement and offer this advice:

It's only as deep as you let it be.

Same reason Chris Rock wouldn't.

Shedding light on slavery in America

Oct. 28, 2003

KALAMAZOO -- A traveling exhibit of 18th- and 19th-century slavery-related artifacts will be the focal point of a series of Western Michigan University events designed to shed light on the history of slavery in America and to promote a community dialog on racism today.

The Middle Passage and African American History Museum exhibit, which is based in Gulfport, Miss., will be on campus Monday, Nov. 3, through Friday, Nov. 14, on the third floor of Waldo Library's atrium area. The display may be viewed from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Parking is available in the ramp and lots near Miller Auditorium.

Just weeks after the exhibit's brief September stop in Kalamazoo, WMU's Graduate Student Advisory Committee is sponsoring an encore appearance with support from the University's Lewis Walker Institute for Race and Ethnic Relations. Admission is free, and donations in any amount are welcome.

Cobb:

Where you just don't feel political? Yeah, Bush put his foot in his mouth. Yeah, Luskin's people sent Atrios a toothless threat. Yeah, Conservatives are complaining that the Democratic candidates haven't given a detailed plan on Iraq when they ain't the ones that was supposed to have one in advance.

So what do you want from me?

I'm thinking psychological recently. I need a refresher reading of Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind.

This will help me think about how to frame stuff for the upcoming election…for which I WILL be political, whether I feel like it or not.

'Well, You Try To Reconstruct Iraq,' Says U.S. Defensive Dept.

WASHINGTON, DC?Responding to recent criticism of reconstruction efforts in Iraq, the U.S. Defensive Department released a statement to the public Monday suggesting that perhaps they could do better, since they're obviously so smart.

"Well, it looks like you American people have figured it all out, then," the statement read in part. "There's no need for the old government to do anything, because the citizens know just how to handle this whole reconstruction-of-Iraq thing. Well, go ahead! If it's so simple, and if you're so smart, then what's stopping you? Come on."

"Oh, gosh!" the statement continued. "Wait! It looks like Iraq is a whole big country! And it seems that someone just fought a war there, to oust a despotic regime! So, gee, this might take a while, huh?"

---

Yeah, but you know what?

"Pettibone" has a point, don't he?

So fourth-grade NYC teacher Gail Kaplan sees a picture of a gorilla on a kids folder and says "You took a picture of your family and put it on the front of your folder."

Told the girl not to tell her parents about the "joke," so she knew it was wrong.

And when called in to a "conference," apologizes thusly:

"I always joke that way with my husband and family"

Always calls her family gorillas?

"If I had known it was [the girl], I wouldn't have said it."

If she has known WHAT was the girl? She knew WHO she was talking to.

Fire the bitch.

I'll do this one time.

---

IRAQ
Corporations Gone Wild
Using the deteriorating security situation in Iraq as cover, the Bush Administration today announced it was extending Halliburton's $2 billion no-bid contract - while indefinitely postponing two competitively bid contracts. The Administration also shockingly claimed that rebuilding "will cost twice as much as the government has anticipated." The move highlights just how much of a feeding frenzy Iraq has become for private corporations with close ties to the White House. The latest Harper's magazine writes that, although "as much as one third of the rapidly expanding cost of the Iraq war is going into private U.S. bank accounts," there is virtually no accountability or oversight. Newsweek calls Iraq the "$87 Billion Money Pit" and reports the U.S. government gave these private corporations contracts on a "limited-bid or no-bid basis. It bypassed the Iraqis and didn't worry much about accountability to Congress." (Click HERE for American Progress fellow Gayle Smith's analysis of transparency issues in Iraq).

There isn't even coordination between the corporations, as efforts devolve into
a moebius strip of ineffectuality. Power stations, like those controlled by Bechtel, need gas and oil to run. The fuel refineries, run by Halliburton, need that power to run in order to supply that fuel, yet, Newsweek reports, there is little coordination between the corporations. One of the few things that can be detected is price gouging. As Reuters reports the U.S. government is paying Vice President Dick Cheney's former firm Halliburton "enormous sums'' - $2.65 a gallon - for gasoline imported into Iraq from Kuwait, according to Reps. Henry Waxman and John Dingell. The "gross overpayment" was made worse by the fact that the "U.S. government was turning around and reselling the gasoline in Iraq for four to 15 cents a gallon."

NEW REPORT - 'THE WINDFALLS OF WAR': The Center for Public Integrity releases a new report today showing that "more than 70 American companies and individuals have won up to $8 billion in contracts for work in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan over the last two years." Those companies "donated more money to the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush—a little over $500,000—than to any other politician over the last dozen years." For example, "Kellogg, Brown & Root, the subsidiary of Halliburton—which Vice President Dick Cheney led prior to being chosen as Bush's running mate in August 2000—was the top recipient of federal contracts for the two countries, with more than $2.3 billion awarded to the company. Bechtel Group, a major government contractor with similarly high-ranking ties, was second at around $1.03 billion."

HAZARD PAY FOR CORPORATE CONTRACTORS, NOT FOR U.S. TROOPS: Why are the price tags for outside contractors so outrageously expensive? This week's Newsweek magazine reports, "One reason U.S. taxpayers are forking over top dollar to have [private U.S. contractors in Iraq]...Much of what companies are charging is for hazardous duty (at major engineering companies, that means 45% extra, taking engineers up to nearly $900 for a 10-hour day)." While private contractors soak up tax dollars in hazard pay, however, the White House has tried to cut hazard pay for American soldiers actually in harm's way, fighting the war. The Army Times wrote in June that, "The Bush administration announced that on Oct. 1 it wants to roll back recent modest increases in monthly imminent-danger pay (from $225 to $150) and family-separation allowance (from $250 to $100) for troops getting shot at in combat zones." (For more on the Administration's mistreatment of U.S. troops, click HERE .

IRAQ SPENDING BILL GETS CLOSER TO PASSAGE: Congress is about to approve President Bush's $87 billion package, even though criticism over lack of
transparency and hesitation over the use of the money still swirls. AP reports, "Lawmakers have been increasingly uneasy about the rising human toll and financial costs of U.S. involvement in Iraq. They have questioned whether the Bush administration has done enough to win international assistance and how long U.S. troops will have to remain there."
Republicans defeated a Democratic proposal to require "confirmation for Bush's
civilian administrator in Iraq, the position held by L. Paul Bremer," which
would have required the Administration to become more accountable in Iraq. And while the House approved legislation yesterday authorizing an increase in the paltry, Vietnam-era $6,000 death benefit for families of servicemen killed in action, there is no funding to make it a reality in the spending bill.

THIS IS GETTING EMBARRASSING: The WSJ's Al Hunt writes, "the Bush administration's mistakes and misrepresentations since May 1 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/iraq/20030501-15.html) are continuing unabated. There's the pretense the war is over, that the press is hiding all the good stuff, and the region and the world are safer and more secure. The president's rare Tuesday news conference was embarrassing. Administration insiders privately talk about a downward 'glide' of U.S. forces in Iraq next year, but when asked if there will be lower troop levels next year Mr. Bush declared that's 'a trick question.' More troops now, given the increasing violence? That's Gen. Abizaid's task, not mine."

The post below is titled CAP Daily Briefing because it came from the Center for American Progress' Progress Report, which is a daily message they send out. Credit where due. And the corporate theft isn't all it covered.

I'll be using them as a source, but I doubt posting that big a chunk of their stuff on the regular. I can, since I'll be reading it every day anyway (in fact, if five people ask for it, I will). And I understand there are people who don't like to leave their email addresses laying about. But the fact is there's a bunch of stuff there…they even quote the Staten Island Advance, which NOBODY ever heard of.

Whatever I give you is filtered thru my head...which means you may miss stuff you'd have been interested if had you known about it. Plus I believe in giving folks enough to engage their curiousity, not to sate it.

It will be of assistance when Atrios guest blogs here tomorrow. But after that, folks REAL should look into the Center for American Progress for themselves.

This from TalkLeft, so you KNOW it's the real deal.

Several folks are of the opinion this is a shot across the bow of the left BlogNet. I suggest the TalkLeft post become THE most link-to post in the history of the Internet. If everyone knows this is an empty threat then we can just continue the rather important business of savaging exposing the Republican Extremists out there.

The first two issues of Justice League vs. The Avengers ain't half bad.

Hi. Sorry I'm late.

My hardware AND the Net have been really flaky 'round these parts. Flaky to the point that I'm still not sure I've teased them apart. P6's load time sucked, but that was because a graphic in the "search for your legislator or media" box--which you'll note ain't there right now--was hanging. It's hosted remotely, one of those cut-and-paste-the-HTML dealies, which I forgot. So I'm looking at Mozilla's status bar saying it's getting something from fff.capwiz.com, and I'm like "WTF? I didn't post anything hosted there!"

The night light's reflection glinted brightly off the peak of the tin-foil hat.

Want to see an interesting story about the Justice Department hiding stuff?

WIth Ashcroft in charge, is anyone surprised? Surprised at the bias or the hiding of the report? Half the report blacked out. ["dag, man. they couldn't even use wite-out, man...they had to BLACK that shit out, know what I'm saying?. It's racist, dawg, know what I'm saying?"]

And check THIS:

Trend-setter. That's kinda values-neutral, yo.

And it's not complimentary. It just says private industry will follow Justice's lead, figuring you can't be breaking the law if Justice is doing it too.

See why we didn't want Ashcroft's ass in the to begin with? Trend-setter.

Now, let me show you some REAL scary shit.

Who, exactly, are they trying to kid?

I haven't read the report yet. I need to, and will. Already downloaded it. But you have to admit, the news report is a bad sign…and all too in keeping with the way the whole administration functions.

The WaPo has this picture of the Northern Lights, currently enhanced by solar flare activity.

And I just KNOW Dubya's gonna think God is waving the American flag and go bomb somebody.

When I'm bitter, I give you Ted Rall links.

The Unbearableness of Being Tom Freidman
My Plan for Post-War Iraq, by G.W.Bush
On the Campaign Trail (had to come up with that title myself)