I couldn't stay for the student activism session. But it was a very worthwhile seminar to me. I think I see a couple of places my skills can be useful. I have a very interesting narrative composed of a fusion of the sessions I attended. You will see that or summaries of each session…the latter is most likely. I made some very interesting contacts as well, and missed one…Frederick J. Streets, Yale's chaplain. He was speaking with two other gentlemen I had specific "now" things to address with and Chaplain Streets slipped out on me before I could mention a "later" thing to him. Fortunately, it's real easy to find the address of officials, professors and such at Ivy League schools.

And I kicked in 25 bucks to the Black student alumni thing by way of a t-shirt. Says "BL

Bush Relatives for Kerry
Because blood is thinner than oil

"Bush Relatives for Kerry" grew out of a series of conversations that took place between a group of people that have two things in common: they are all related to George Walker Bush, and they are all voting for John Kerry. As the election approaches, we feel it is our responsibility to speak out about why we are voting for John Kerry, and to do our small part to help America heal from the sickness it has suffered since George Bush was appointed President in 2000. We invite you to read our stories, and please, don't vote for our cousin!

Want an example? Too bad, you get one anyway.

Jeanny House (Wisconsin): I'm voting for John Kerry because I'm a Christian. I know that my second cousin, George Bush, claims that he is the anointed leader of the American people and that God told him to run for office. I believe he may even believe that. I don't.

Mary Frances Berry was there. Seems one unnamed person on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights…one of the Republican members…wrote to a whole bag full or major research institutions (those are the guys that give out graduate degrees) requesting chapter and verse on how they run their affirmative action programs since the Michigan decisions. Wrote using official Commission stationary. This Commissioner's intent was to turn it all over to one of the organizations currently suing the hell out of anyone thinking "affirmative action" too loudly.

This Commissioner was acting under color of authority. If that's not illegal outright, there ought to be a civil suit in it.

Voting and Counting
By PAUL KRUGMAN

If the election were held today and the votes were counted fairly, Senator John Kerry would probably win. But the votes won't be counted fairly, and the disenfranchisement of minority voters may determine the outcome.

…A broad view of the polls, then, suggests that Mr. Bush is in trouble. But he is likely to benefit from a distorted vote count.

Florida is the prime, but not the only, example. Recent Florida polls suggest a tight race, which could be tipped by a failure to count all the votes. And votes for Mr. Kerry will be systematically undercounted.

Last week I described Greg Palast's work on the 2000 election, reported recently in Harper's, which conclusively shows that Florida was thrown to Mr. Bush by a combination of factors that disenfranchised black voters. These included a defective felon list, which wrongly struck thousands of people from the voter rolls, and defective voting machines, which disproportionately failed to record votes in poor, black districts.

Quote of note:

The main reason the recent American slowdown has gone undiscussed is that neither candidate wants to bring up the subject. To President Bush, such a question concedes that the recovery that seemed so impressive early this year has faded. For Senator John Kerry, such a question admits there was a recovery.

But the fact is that starting in May, the economic data began to provide unhappy surprises. American growth now is adequate, but it does not match what the administration or most private forecasters expected.

So these unhappy surprised started around the time any "economic growth" began, eh?

Is It Time to Stem Asia Deficits With a Weak Dollar?

Quote of note:

Underlying all of the political maneuvering is a rich debate over whether and how much candidates' philosophies and records influence what kind of judge they will be.

If that's the subject of the "rich debate" then someone was really successful in changing the topic. Of course candidate's philosophy has impact on what kind of judge they'll be. And one's record is evidence of one's philosophy

Mixed Results for Bush in Battles Over Judges
By NEIL A. LEWIS

…Now, after more than three years of battles over judicial appointments, Mr. Bush's ambitions for the courts are clear, but his record is mixed. He has succeeded in placing staunch conservatives on the bench in many cases but has been foiled in others by Senate Democrats like Charles E. Schumer of New York who charge him with trying to "create the most ideological bench in history."

http://filmstripinternational.com/

Remember this? Be sure to read the couple few comments.

No "request" ever came forth. It seems someone was just looking for an email server to annoy me with, probably be propagating bad MX records via DNS. And since I contacted someone via the same account whose disablement caused me no difficulties (which should be unsurprising since I said I was on my guard) there was no point in continuing.

Three strikes.

I am no longer interested in rapproachment with Black Conservatives.

I have some techie stuff to do today, and a two day thing on the Black presence in the Ivy League tomorrow and Saturday so posting may be thin.

Driver pays record $360,000 for city taxi
October 20, 2004

NEW YORK -- If the price of riding in a New York taxi seems high, try buying one. A Bangladeshi immigrant put himself in the driver's seat by paying a record $360,000 at a city auction Monday for a New York taxi medallion, which is required by the city to own a taxicab. Most cabdrivers in the city work for taxi fleets or lease time from a medallion owner. Mohammed Shah, 44, mortgaged his house in Queens to help finance the purchase of one of 116 new taxi medallions sold to the highest bidders. Shah, a father of three, has been driving a cab since 1996. The previous top price for an individual medallion was $311,770 paid at auction in April. (Reuters)

Quote of note:

Christopher Wolfe, a political science professor at Marquette University and a critic of Marshall's ruling on same-sex marriage, said Marshall's comments were calculated to influence the political debate, and that she was "intellectually dishonest" to invoke John Adams because the author of the Massachusetts constitution never envisioned the legalization of gay marriage.

Whereas I feel Christopher Wolfe is "intellectually dishonest" because John Adams died long before anyone had a chance to ask him the question. It is entirely possible that John Adams himself was gay or bisexual. There's no way to call it one way or the other.

SJC chief justice counters 'judicial activism' charge

Kerry's words sometimes someone else's
By Mary Dalrymple, Associated Press Writer | October 20, 2004

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. -- Democrat John Kerry shows a fondness for quoting ordinary and famous people to voters who come to hear his ideas and outlook for the country.

Peres: Sharon Risks Assassination for Gaza Plan
Tue Oct 19, 2004 08:30 PM ET

By Matt Spetalnick
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Opposition leader Shimon Peres said on Tuesday he feared Israeli extremists might try to assassinate Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the target of growing far-right fury over a planned withdrawal from Gaza next year.

Peres, head of the center-left Labour party, said the divisive atmosphere recalled the climate when Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was killed in 1995 by an ultra-nationalist Jew opposed to his peace deals with the Palestinians.

"I am very fearful of the incitement, of the harsh things that are being said," Peres, Israel's leading dove and a key supporter of Sharon's pullout plan, told the daily Maariv.

Microsoft Sets Licensing Policy for New Chips
Tue Oct 19, 2004 12:13 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) on Tuesday agreed to require only a single license for server software that runs on computers powered by a new generation of chips that squeeze multiple processors into a single package.
Chipmakers Intel Corp. (INTC.O: Quote, Profile, Research) and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD.N: Quote, Profile, Research) both hailed the move, which they said could speed the adoption of multiple-core processors that they plan to introduce next year.

The move to multiple cores has thrown a wrench into the licensing policies of server software makers, which generally charge per processor.

Recognizing Iran's right to peaceful nuclear development (it still strikes me as curious to talk of "rights" in this regard) does not require giving up the right to defend oneself (i.e. bomb the shit out of them) if they get out of pocket (like they'd be stupid enough to drop nukes where the fallout would get them as well).

Especially since we now know for a documented fact Muhammad el-Baradai and his boys at the IAEA set up monitoring programs that work.

So how about we drop this "Axis of Evil" nonsense and get back to the work that keeps us all from glowing in the dark and breeding children with three arms? Or did you reall like the X-Men movies that much?

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Iran Says It's Ready to Prove Not Pursuing Nuke Weapons

Quote of note:

Senate majority leader Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee, a heart surgeon, sent letters urging his 99 colleagues to get the shots because they mingle and shake hands with so many people, said spokeswoman Amy Call.

Then again, they could stay their asses away from people and actually do their jobs. In my opinion there's a backlog of work on necessary legislation caused by political posturing in the House of Representatives.

No shortage on Capitol Hill
By Washington Post | October 20, 2004

WASHINGTON -- While many Americans search in vain for flu shots, members and employees of Congress are able to obtain them quickly and at no charge from the Capitol's attending physician, who has urged all 535 lawmakers to get the vaccines even if they are young and healthy.

This championship series is one for the record books. Since the masses in the streets of New York don't know me by face I can safely say I wish the Boston Red Sox luck…the first time I've ever extended that sentiment to any team from Boston.

It'll pass, so they better suck up the positive karma while I'm in the mood to dispense it.

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On to a Game 7 showdown
Schilling leads Sox to third win in row over N.Y.
By Dan Shaughnessy, Globe Staff | October 20, 2004

NEW YORK -- Sunday night the Red Sox were three outs from being swept from the playoffs by the hated Yankees. They had lost a playoff game at Fenway Park by the humiliating score of 19-8 Saturday night and some members of their loyal Nation felt betrayed and abandoned.

I'm not a Yankees or Red Sox fan. Not really even a baseball fan.

But these last two games got me. So I'm done for the night.

Cheney: Terrorists Could Attack With Nuclear Bombs
Vice President Questions Sen. Kerry's Ability to Combat Threat

By Andrew Welsh-Huggins
The Associated Press
Tuesday, October 19, 2004; 12:24 PM

CARROLL, Ohio -- Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday evoked the possibility of terrorists bombing U.S. cities with nuclear weapons and questioned whether Sen. John Kerry could combat such a threat, which the vice president called a concept "you've got to get your mind around."

"The biggest threat we face now as a nation is the possibility of terrorists ending up in the middle of one of our cities with deadlier weapons than have ever before been used against us -- biological agents or a nuclear weapon or a chemical weapon of some kind to be able to threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans," Cheney said.

U.S. Finishes A 'Strong Second' In Iraq War

BAGHDAD—After 19 months of struggle in Iraq, U.S. military officials conceded a loss to Iraqi insurgents Monday, but said America can be proud of finishing "a very strong second."

"We went out there, gave it our all, and fought a really good fight," said Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq. "America's got nothing to be ashamed of. We outperformed Great Britain, Poland, and a lot of the other top-notch nations, but Iraq just wouldn't stay down for the count. It may have come down to them simply wanting it more."

American tanks and infantry surged out to an impressive early lead in March 2003, scoring major points by capturing Baghdad early in the faceoff. The stage seemed set for a second American victory in as many clashes with Iraq, with commentators and generals alike declaring the contest all but decided with the fall of Tikrit in April 2003.

In tomorrow's Village Voice Rick's article, "Sucking Democracy Dry: The End of Democracy" jacks the Democratic Party

It's a telling formulation: Highly placed D.C. Democrats accept Bush's public image as a fait accompli—a kind of semiotic unilateral disarmament. So they don't even bother to case the weapons in their arsenal. I remind Shesol of the NBC report last spring—never effectively rebutted by the White House—that revealed the most Orwellian face of the administration imaginable: that "before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out" the terrorist operations of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, but didn't because it "feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam."

Quote of note:

Glickenhaus & Co., a Wall Street investment firm holding 6,100 shares of Sinclair stock, is taking action against Sinclair on behalf of its clients holding shares in Sinclair. General partner Jim Glickenhaus mounted the action based on Sinclair's CEO and directors having a financial obligation to shareholders.

"We are not partisan. We are investors," Glickenhaus explained today. "Sinclair's decision has caused harm to the value of our investment in Sinclair. We believe Sinclair must give equal time to an opposing point of view. Otherwise the company is placing its future and the value of our investment in jeopardy, by putting the renewal of its FCC licenses at risk, alienating local advertisers, and opening itself up to libel suits against the company."

Since Sinclair's decision to air Stolen Honor became public on October 9, the company's stock has fallen nearly 13 percent, as of the close of the market yesterday, October 18, wiping out nearly $90 million in shareholder value.

Quote of note:

"Short of a significant fall in overall household income or in home prices, debt servicing is unlikely to become destabilizing," Greenspan said.

Greenspan said that it would take "a large, and historically most unusual" decline in home prices to wipe out the equity that Americans have in their homes. He said about three-fourths of all mortgages are taken out by buyers who put up a 20 percent downpayment, which would be enough to cover even a very significant drop in home prices.

The problem is there are so many people who've already taken out second mortgages, who have (in the words of the commercials) "cashed out their equity," which sounds ever so much like you'll never have to pay it back. Then there's all the reverse mortgages that allow you to borrow 115 or so percent of your equity, which actually puts you in the hole.

Please read the whole article. We've been getting away with economic murder for a long. long time because we issue the world's "currency of record." But if oil starts trading in euros it would be a change that's tectonic is scope. And it could happen.

Bearish on Uncle Sam?
As Foreign Investment Shows Decline, Economists Keep Watch
By Jonathan Weisman and Ben White
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, October 19, 2004; Page E01

NEW YORK -- On Sept. 9, as it must frequently do, the U.S. government turned to Wall Street to raise a little cash, and Paul Calvetti bet that demand for $9 billion worth of long-term Treasury bonds would be "huge."

But at 1 p.m., as the auction opened and the numbers began streaming across his flat-panel screens, the head of Treasury trading at Barclays Capital Inc. slumped in his chair. Foreign investors, who had been voraciously buying Treasury bonds, failed to show up. Bond prices cascaded downward, interest rates rose, and in five minutes, Calvetti, 38, who makes money by bidding on bonds at one price and hoping market demand lets him quickly resell them at a profit, had lost $1.5 million.

Is Every Memory Worth Keeping?
Controversy Over Pills to Reduce Mental Trauma
By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 19, 2004; Page A01

Kathleen Logue was waiting at a traffic light when two men smashed her car's side window, pointed a gun at her head and ordered her to drive. For hours, Logue fought off her attackers' attempts to rape her, and finally she escaped. But for years afterward, she was tormented by memories of that terrifying day.

So years later, after a speeding bicycle messenger knocked the Boston paralegal onto the pavement in front of oncoming traffic, Logue jumped at a chance to try something that might prevent her from being haunted by her latest ordeal.

Brother asks "Though I don't believe we need to pass a global test when national security interests are involved, we must keep in mind we are not an island. We live in a global village. What do we do to correct that, to regain the leadership and respect we once had?"

Blitzer turns to the panel and says "I'm going to rephrase that question, is it more important for the US to be loved or to be respected?"

Which was SOOOOO not the question.

I'm watching American Agenda on CNN. Two points:
This is the show Crossfire should be
I fall deeper in love with Susan Rice every time she speaks.

A.C.L.U. Rejects Foundation Grants Over Terror Language
By STEPHANIE STROM

The American Civil Liberties Union has rejected $1.15 million from the Ford and Rockefeller foundations, saying their effort to ensure that none of their money inadvertently underwrites terrorism or other unacceptable activities is a threat to civil liberties.

The organization has also returned to Ford $68,000 that it accepted in April and that was governed by the same restrictions as those on the two grants the board decided to decline at a contentious meeting on Sunday.

Anthony D. Romero, the A.C.L.U.'s executive director, said the language of the contracts governing the Ford and Rockefeller grants was broad and ambiguous, leaving them open to interpretation that could impede free speech and limit advocacy work not only at his organization but also at other nonprofits.

I'm glad this woman lives in a community that pulled together for her.

We got about 1,100 more fundraisers to do. So far.

Anyway…

Slain hostage knew risks, loved work
Widow shares grief, thanks for supporters
By DON PLUMMER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 10/18/04

Jack and Pati Hensley knew the risks, but decided it was a chance they had to take.

Jack Hensley took a high-paying job in war-torn Iraq to repair his family's crumbling finances and build college savings for his 13-year-old daughter.

"For two years we both worked at any and everything just to maintain," Pati Hensley said Monday in her first newspaper interview since her husband was beheaded by Arab terrorists Sept. 20.

Hip-hop's influence expected at polls
BY EVELYN McDONNELL
[email protected]

Lucianne Florveus turned 18 -- voting age -- earlier this year. On Saturday, the only thing perhaps more precious to the Miami native than her newfound suffrage was her cellphone and its photo of her with Russell Simmons.

Florveus ran into the founder of Def Jam Records, Phat Farm clothing and the nonpartisan Hip-Hop Summit Action Network at the USA Flea Market in Miami. Simmons and his brother, the Rev. Run of the seminal rap group Run-DMC, and members of the HSAN and America Coming Together were cruising the air-brush and jewelry stalls, encouraging marketgoers to vote.

"What he's doing is very great,'' said Florveus, who says she is a registered voter. "He inspires us to vote.''

New Jersey Lawsuit Challenges Electronic Voting
By TOM ZELLER Jr.

With just two weeks remaining before the Nov. 2 presidential election, a coalition of private citizens and local elected officials in New Jersey plan to file a lawsuit today to block the state's use of electronic voting machines.

At its heart, the complaint - a draft of which was provided to The New York Times - will ask the State Superior Court in Trenton to block the use of nearly 8,000 electronic voting machines, because they "cannot be relied upon to protect the fundamental right to vote."

More than three million registered voters in 15 of New Jersey's 21 counties are scheduled to use the electronic voting machines, which have been dogged nationwide by concerns over their reliability and fairness. Five New Jersey counties use the old mechanical lever machines, like the ones in use in New York and Connecticut. One New Jersey county uses optically scanned ballots. Most counties also have optical scan machines in place for handling absentee ballots, and the draft lawsuit suggests the expanded use of these in lieu of the electronic machines.

When Soldiers Say No

From the safe vantage point of America, it is scarcely possible to imagine the fears and concerns that spurred 18 Army reservists in a platoon in Iraq to disobey orders to deliver a fuel shipment to a distant airbase in the heart of an insurgent zone last week. Soldiers in combat cannot pick and choose their missions, no matter how grave the risks they are asked to face. Legal direct orders must be obeyed. But those giving the orders and the civilian Pentagon officials running this war also have unshirkable responsibilities. These include seeing to it that all units sent on hazardous missions have the equipment and support they need to accomplish their assignments and return safely.

Feeling the Draft
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Those who are worrying about a revived draft are in the same position as those who worried about a return to budget deficits four years ago, when President Bush began pushing through his program of tax cuts. Back then he insisted that he wouldn't drive the budget into deficit - but those who looked at the facts strongly suspected otherwise. Now he insists that he won't revive the draft. But the facts suggest that he will.

…Mr. Bush's assurances that this won't happen are based on a denial of reality. Last week, the Republican National Committee sent an angry, threatening letter to Rock the Vote, an organization that has been using the draft issue to mobilize young voters. "This urban myth regarding a draft has been thoroughly debunked," the letter declared, and quoted Mr. Bush: "We don't need the draft. Look, the all-volunteer Army is working."

Army Is Told to Plan for Shorter Tours in Iraq
By THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 - The acting secretary of the Army has told the service to begin drawing up plans to shorten the 12-month tour lengths of soldiers sent to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The memo dated Oct. 8 from Les Brownlee, the acting Army secretary, makes clear that those reductions would not be taken until the insurgency in Iraq diminishes and the capabilities of Iraqi security forces improves.

But the memo clearly emphasizes the urgency of having plans ready. It comes as the Army wrestles with two powerful, competing needs: finding enough soldiers to fulfill commitments in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and finding ways to make those tours less onerous for the soldiers and their families.

Insurance Investigation Widens to Include Costs
By JOSEPH B. TREASTER

An investigation into the insurance business is expanding, investigators said yesterday, as Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney general, increasingly turns his attention to whether American corporations and their employees are paying more for life, disability and accident insurance than they should be.

In California, John Garamendi, the state insurance commissioner, said last night that he, too, was concerned about extra costs to individuals for life, disability and accident insurance and that he was considering legal action against at least one broker and several insurance companies that sell what are known as employee benefits.

Melanie at Just a Bump in the Beltway has a grip on the flu vaccine thing too, though not as specific as mine. But I need to bitch about one line:

The Media Misses the Point (yet again, v.10.6)
Let me try to pull together a few threads and try to explain why the flu vaccine flap is actually one honking big serious deal, and why Kerry should be pounding, pounding, pounding on it.

First of all, our vaccine manufacturing system has been in trouble for years and our public health infrastructure has been undergoing systematic dismantling since the Reagan administration. Clinton didn't do much about it, other than beefing up the system for AIDS (now fallen into complete disrepair, by the way, and we are on the verge of having another raging AIDS epidemic in this country. In women, who get it from men, this has got serious racial overtones. If you don't know about the "down low" in black culture, educate yourself.)

via AllAboutGeorge I find Michael Bérubé says it all

Juliette says her email has nothing to do with the subject at hand. Fine. I've been wrong before. I'll be wrong again. I like my work. And fact is it's a case where I'd rather be wrong.

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I am being tested.

I wrote Foolish, foolish mortals yesterday in response to a post at Baldilocks that celebrates an absurd one at BlackConservative.net.

I left a brief comment:

Cmon, Juliette. Being WHITE and of modest means is a dead end street in the USofA.

I got ta go.

To which Juliette, an LGFer, replied:

A disturbing comment requires a very public response.

I look at the coming election, and all I can think is that if George steals this one, many of us will remember our oaths and "do what ever is necessary" to restore the Republic.

I understand your passion. Now understand my dispassion.

If you are willing to "do what ever is necessary," let me tell you the first thing that is necessary a realistic assessment of humans and the current situation. The reality is that violence can compel individuals but it doesn't work against systems unless it's severe enough to disrupt the system entirely. If you consider all the system makes possible…like, say, aspirin or social assistance recovering from national disasters or my personal favorite, insulin…I don't think you really want that level of disruption.

<set mode="Chaos Lord" state="on" />
I'm watching the Yankees vs the Red Sox and as it goes into extra innings the color guy says the Red Sox have never lost an extra innings home game during the play-offs. He says their record under those conditions is 6-0-1, and the 1 happened in 1912.

1912?

Not a single active player in the whole Major Leagues was even born then. And how many people on any team, in any sport, was playing for that team even ten years ago? Enough to claim it's the same team?

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General Motors introduced a new car named Impala, what, two-three years ago. The first ad had this guy walking around the car talking about how his father had an Impala, how he's glad they brought the Impala back.

This car has an inline six, electronic fuel injection and a visual style that would have been laughed off the street the last year his fathers car (which was also called Impala) was produced.

Quote of note:

Officers who have shot at suspects three or more times represent less than 1% of the force. But they were involved in 20% of all LAPD shootings since 1985.

Little is known about why they pull the trigger so often. Few researchers have paid attention to the phenomenon. The LAPD does not track frequent shooters. It does not even know who they are.

The Times discovered the cadre of repeat shooters through a computer analysis of 1,437 officer-involved shootings from 1985 through mid-2004.

Of an estimated 16,000 officers who worked field assignments during that time, only 103 fired at suspects on three or more occasions, the analysis revealed. Among 9,100 active officers, just 69 have three or more shootings.

Some of these officers serve in SWAT teams, narcotics squads or other high-risk units. But that does not explain their propensity to fire. In their use of deadly force, they stand out even when compared with officers in identical assignments in the same parts of the city.

He's the first president to fund stem cell research only because he happened to have been assigned his seat as the research reached the point where it couldn't be denied. But every scientist actually involved in the work says we need more lines of stem cells to work with.

And anyone who says using the excess frozen blastocysts that result from in vitro fertilization is murder should be insisting those women that pay for the procedure carry every one of them to term.

Anyway…

Stem Cells Secrete Healing Chemicals

Many stem-cell researchers hope to treat diseases by recruiting these adaptable cells to replace others that have been damaged. A report published today in Science demonstrates a different approach, which rescued mice that otherwise would have died from a genetic heart defect before birth. Instead of replacing the defective cells, embryonic stem (ES) cells released chemical signals that caused the defective heart tissue to grow properly.

Washington insiders expose own agencies
From EPA to Park Service, whistleblowers raise policy questions in a tense election year.
By Brad Knickerbocker | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

As the election approaches, insiders and former insiders at government agencies are raising issues, revealing data, and making charges that are creating pointed disputes about the Bush administration at a crucial time in the election campaign.

Some observers believe the closeness of the presidential race may be a factor prompting the disgruntled to speak out on a wide variety of issues from environmental regulations to homeland security to civil rights.

Whether the critiques come from principled whistleblowers or from people with partisan axes to grind, they are coming in unprecedented numbers, indicating that bureaucrats and other insiders have become more willing to go out on a limb to criticize the White House and agencies headed by political appointees than they may have been in the past.

Quote of note:

But critics, some in the Labor Party, questioned why Washington thought the redeployment of a small number of British troops was so vital at this time.

"I and many others ... do not take kindly to the idea that we are being engaged with President Bush and the Pentagon in order to bail them out," said Labor parliamentarian Dennis Skinner.

Britain Considers U.S. Request for Iraq Troop Help
Mon Oct 18, 2004 01:18 PM ET
By Katherine Baldwin

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain said Monday it will respond soon to a U.S. request to send troops to more dangerous areas of Iraq, a politically charged issue that has revived anger over Prime Minister Tony Blair's support for the war.

UN Urged to Ignore Bush Plea for Human Cloning Ban
Sun Oct 17, 2004 10:08 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's national academy of science urged the United Nations on Monday to ignore a call by President Bush to ban all forms of human cloning.
The Royal Society said the United States should be allowed to decide whether therapeutic cloning, creating embryos as a source of stem cells to cure diseases, is prohibited within its own borders.

"But other countries, including the UK, have now passed legislation to allow carefully regulated therapeutic cloning while introducing a ban on reproductive cloning," Lord May of Oxford, the president of the society said in a statement.

Quote of note:

In 1997, when Coburn was serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, he earned the wrath of his own Republican party by attacking NBC for its broadcast of the Oscar-winning Holocaust movie "Schindler's List."

Coburn said the broadcast was an outrage to "decent-minded individuals." He cited "the violence of multiple-gunshot head wounds, vile language, full frontal nudity and irresponsible sexual activity."

In July, the Daily Oklahoman newspaper criticized Coburn in an editorial for saying abortion doctors should receive the death penalty.

Recent gaffes include calling lawmakers in Oklahoma City "crapheads," saying lesbianism was rampant in some of the state's schools and making comments that insulted Cherokee Indians in the state, which has a large American Indian population in the country.

Supreme Court Orders Texas Redistricting Review
Mon Oct 18, 2004 10:54 AM ET

By James Vicini
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court ordered on Monday further consideration of a challenge by Democrats and minority groups to a controversial Republican-backed congressional redistricting plan in Texas.

The justices in a brief order granted an appeal by those challenging the plan and set aside a ruling by a federal three-judge panel in January that upheld the bitterly contested map.

The justices ordered further consideration by the federal panel in view of their ruling in April that upheld a Pennsylvania redistricting case. They did not elaborate further.

Here I am, getting ready for my post election shift and I see shit like this:

GOP in Philly: Block the Vote
"It's predominantly, 100 percent black. I'm just not going in there to get a knife in my back."

-- Matt Robb, Republican ward leader in South Philadelphia, on his last-minute request to move five Philly polling places in African-American neighborhoods.

Pennsylvania and its 21 electoral votes are the second-biggest "battleground" prize after Florida. John Kerry can't win here without a huge turnout in Philadelphia, especially in black neighborhoods that vote 90 percent Democratic. As a result, it's the first place you'd expect a GOP voter suppression effort.

I know I'm just crying out in the wilderness. But damn…

This excerpt ought to drive you to the read the entire article.

The Vaccine Conflict
UPI Investigates
by Mark Benjamin, UPI Investigations Editor

The following article is the result of a four-month investigation by the authoritative United Press International (UPI) news service. The article contains disturbing information about our public health system, information that millions of Americans would be very concerned about. But, as far as we can ascertain from web and library searches, this article was not printed by a single daily newspaper or any mainstream news source.

While daily newspapers and TV news have recently hyped flu vaccines (without exploring their ineffectiveness and harmful side-effects), they have also largely ignored one of the greatest potential public health disasters of modern history: the for-profit vaccination system.