What has happened to the American "Rule of Law" and belief in the rights of humanity?? I am ashamed of our government....

New York Times: Dec 18th"Saddam Hussein is now prisoner No. 1 in what has developed into a global detention system run by the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency, according to government officials.

It is a secretive universe, they said, made up of large and small facilities scattered throughout the world that have sprouted up to handle the hundreds of suspected terrorists of Al Qaeda, Taliban warlords and former officials of the Iraqi government arrested by the United States and its allies since the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the war in Iraq.

Many of the prisoners are still being held in a network of detention centers ranging from Afghanistan to the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. Officials described it as a prison system with its own unique hierarchy, one in which the most important captives are kept at the greatest distance from the prying eyes of the public and the media. It is a system in which the jailers have refined the arts of interrogation in order to drain the detainees of crucial information"

Molly Ivins

RELEASE: THURSDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2003, AND THEREAFTER

AUSTIN, Texas -- I do not think it premature to conclude that the entire financial industry of this country is riddled with fraud. As Allan Sloan of Newsweek observed, this is not a case of "a few bad apples," it's the Cockroach Theory -- you see one, you know there's a whole nest of the nasty maggots.

Jim Hightower
Thursday, December 11, 2003
"WRITING TELEVISION DRAMA"

Calling law and order! I don't mean the America ideal of justice – in this case, I'd settle for the "Law and Order" television show.

I'm talking about a corporate story that would've made great television news, but the media missed it. Perhaps they were too busy covering George W posing with the Queen of England on this same day, to be able to cover a story about the theft of billions of dollars from us taxpayers.

So why not call on fiction to give us the news? After all, Mark Twain observed that "The difference between fact and fiction is that fiction has to be believable." This factual story of finagling seems unbelievable, but the fictitious "Law and Order" show would not have to stretch to dramatize it, for Senator Carl Levin provided all the drama a producer could want.

KPMG, the accounting giant, was caught illegally designing and selling tax shelters whose sole purpose was to allow the wealthiest Americans to escape paying their taxes to Uncle Sam. In just four years, these rich folks dodged $1.4 billion in taxes they owed – and KPMG collected $124 million from them in tax-avoidance fees.

In November, KPMG was grilled by Senator Levin. In an investigative hearing, a supervising partner of KPMG's tax scam ducked and dodged, claiming he knew nothing. But Levin had internal e-mails, including one written by this guy saying that the scams were "designed" to dodge taxes. The guy shucked and jived, trying to blame subordinates, while also claiming that these were legitimate investments that only coincidentally allowed tax avoidance.

But Levin leaned in, asking: "Did you write 'designed,' yes or no?" The guy's voice grew tighter, Levin pressed harder, the senate hearing room grew silent, and KPMG's man finally whined: "I don't know how to change my answer."

Then, in a made-for-TV moment, Levin dryly said: "Try an honest answer."

Now that would've been great TV.

Rev. William Sloane COFFIN:

" In defense, the big secret is not to lose from within what you're trying to defend from without. And now in this country, the fact that we incarcerate more people than any other country in the world, the fact that we have inner cities that are deteriorating -- When I was at Riverside Church those ten years, I watched in New York City the deterioration of everything in that city not connected with profit making, and largely because all that money was going into that arms race. "

"But I was getting worried that the United States was arrogating to itself a right it would never accord any other nation; namely, the right to decide who lives, who dies, and who rules in Third World countries thousands of miles away. Anybody who knew anything about that situation, anyone who cared enough to do his homework, was patriotic enough to see that good Americans weren't asked to die bravely in a bad cause should have known that this was an enormous mistake. "

Coffins own axis of evil consists of environmental degradation, pandemic poverty, and a world awash with weapons.

As Americans, we should love America, but pledge allegiance to the earth, to the flora and fauna and human rights

"All of us want Al Qaeda stopped. But there's a choice: by the law of force or by the force of law, international law, which means multinational coalition building, sharing intelligence, freezing assets, even by forceful extradition of terrorists, if internationally sanctioned, and by trials not in Guantamo Bay but before an international court such as the International Criminal Court which almost alone we refuse to recognize."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has won this year's "Foot in Mouth" award for the most baffling statement by a public figure.

The top prize went to Rumsfeld for this logic-twister he gave at a press briefing on Iraq :

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns, there are things we know we know," Rumsfeld said.

"We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know."

How Bush and his coal industry cronies are covering up one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history. (www.salon.com)

Nov. 13, 2003 | INEZ, Ky. -- The EPA called the Inez spill the worst environmental catastrophe in the history of the Eastern United States. Far more extensive in damage than the widely known 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska, the Martin County Coal slurry spill dumped an estimated 306 million gallons of toxic sludge down 100 miles of waterways.


Within days of Bush's inauguration a new team leader was brought in to head the Martin County Coal investigation. The scope of the investigation was dramatically narrowed -- offering yet another dramatic example of how the wholesale takeover of the White House by the energy industry is having a real impact on real lives, not just on the whistle-blowers like Jack Spadaro but on the people he's trying to protect.

Report by YellowTimes.org
NewsFromtheFront.org

WASHINGTON (NFTF.org) -- Amnesty International reports that U.S. forces are destroying homes of suspected insurgents, including the demolition of at least 15 homes in Tikrit since November 16.

"The U.S. government should clarify whether it has officially permitted house demolitions as a form of collective punishment or deterrence," Amnesty International stated in a letter sent to the U.S. government. "If such proved to be the case, it would constitute a clear violation of international humanitarian law."

Articles 33 and 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention expressly prohibit destruction of civilian property by Occupying Powers.

Red Pigs in Snow
By Verlyn Klinkenborg
Copyright © 2002 by The New York Times

A couple of weeks ago I found a small settlement of lice on one of the pigs. It was only about the width of a pencil eraser, but even that was too big. I got out a stiff horse brush and gave that pig and her companion a serious brushing, which is one of the great joys in a pig's life. Then I raked out all the old hay in the pig house, closed the two pigs inside with a fresh hay bale to tear apart, and hauled the house off to a different part of the pasture. I brush them every time I feed them now, and I haven't seen any lice since. Eventually, as I'm brushing, the pigs flop over on their sides and lie there, barely breathing, eyes closed, legs practically quivering with pleasure. I try to remember to watch just how much affection I let myself feel for them.

Affection is what we're really farming up here, farming it mostly in ourselves. Snow fell late the other afternoon, and as it thickened all around me, I realized that there is nothing more definite in the world than the top line of a red pig against the snow. I can always see the self-interest in the animals, and perhaps they see it in me too.

The Rural Life
by Verlyn Klinkenborg

Turning Northeast Wyoming Upside Down in the Hunt for Coal-Bed Methane
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG

Published: December 1, 2003

I've come to think of the coal-bed methane industry as a metaphor for something deeper that's going on in our country. The methane play, as the industry likes to call it, is being sold on the grounds of energy security, as a way of ensuring that the American lifestyle can continue uninterrupted and undiminished. But what that means is turning everything upside down. All that drilling and scarring, all that animosity and moral erosion lead to one year's supply of natural gas and the waste of billions of gallons of water.

Americans could essentially create that amount of energy through conservation, which is the true source of energy security. But conservation turns no profits, not to the owners of subterranean mineral rights or the gas companies or the pipelines or the lobbyists who drive this kind of extraction through the highest levels of government. No. The methane play is about short-term profits, not long-term security. A deal gets done, and soon you no longer recognize the country you live in.

Baghdad Burning: "Difficult Days...
They've been bombing houses in Tikrit and other areas! Unbelievable� I'm so angry it makes me want to break something!!!! What the hell is going on?! What do the Americans think Tikrit is?! Some sort of city of monsters or beasts? The people there are simple people. Most of them make a living off of their land and their livestock- the rest are teachers, professors and merchants- they have lives and families� Tikrit is nothing more than a bunch of low buildings and a palace that was as inaccessible to the Tikritis as it was to everyone else! "

World Toilet Organization - World Toilet Support Centre (WTSC): "World Toilet Support Centre (WTSC)

The support centre assists toilet Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) around
the world "

Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage: "The two-year-old World Toilet Organisation (www.worldtoilet.org), which aims to raise global awareness of toilet and sanitation standards, marked its annual World Toilet Day on Wednesday with a call for people to speak out against poorly designed or filthy latrines."

The Miami Herald | 11/16/2003 | Manatees remain threatened: "But listen to this: ``The reality is the manatees are flourishing. They're doing great.''
This sunny and surprising announcement comes from a fellow named John Rood, quoted in the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. Rood is not a biologist; he's a developer and broker of apartment buildings in Jacksonville.
And his definition of ''flourishing'' is somewhat peculiar. Last year, 95 manatees in Florida were killed by watercraft -- the most ever, and the toll is rising proportionally faster than the mammals' population."

Reason: Defending Tolerance: Values, liberty, and democracy: "Why, then, should the state deny itself the power to drain bogs and fence off precipices so as to save the unwise and unwary from themselves?
Here is one answer: People have different concepts of the good life, and any attempt to impose one favored view will be contentious. Contention leads to war, and war is the antithesis of civil peace. So better to leave people to their own ways, wayward though they be.
Here is another response: We are fallible beings who do not always judge correctly concerning matters of right and wrong. Therefore we do well to let people go their own ways rather than take the risk of imposing on them what might be mistaken moral concepts."

Reason: Defending Tolerance: Values, liberty, and democracy: "Why, then, should the state deny itself the power to drain bogs and fence off precipices so as to save the unwise and unwary from themselves?
Here is one answer: People have different concepts of the good life, and any attempt to impose one favored view will be contentious. Contention leads to war, and war is the antithesis of civil peace. So better to leave people to their own ways, wayward though they be.
Here is another response: We are fallible beings who do not always judge correctly concerning matters of right and wrong. Therefore we do well to let people go their own ways rather than take the risk of imposing on them what might be mistaken moral concepts."

A Shortage of Energy: "resident Bush seems to have been the recipient of poor intelligence again. Last weekend, he claimed that the energy bill approved by Republican leaders would make the country 'more secure.' Senator John McCain's description of the bill as a 'leave no lobbyist behind' barrel of pork for selected industries and campaign contributors was closer to the truth. So was Senator Robert Byrd's unsparing judgment that the bill would 'do about as much to improve the nation's energy security as the administration's invasion of Iraq has done to stem the tide of global terrorism.'"

Forums - The Real US Jobs Numbers: "This slump saw the longest duration of job loss?28 months.
This slump is the first time in which there was not a full recovery of jobs 31 months after the recession began.
This slump is the worst in terms of the rise of the unemployment rate (after adjustment for the 'missing' labor force) 31 months after the recession began?up 3.2 percentage points.
The current slump has also been the most severe in terms of the loss of aggregate real wage and salary income 30 months after the recession began?down 1.2 percent. "

Op-Ed Contributor: Regulation Begins at Home: "With two decisions in the last two weeks, the Bush administration has sent its clearest message yet that it values corporate interests over the interests of average Americans. In the Securities and Exchange Commission's settlement with Putnam Investments, the public comes away short-changed. In the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to forgo enforcement of the Clean Air Act, the public comes away completely empty-handed."

High Risks in Afghanistan: "A revived Taliban army, flush with new recruits from Pakistan, is staging a frightening comeback. Major cities remain in the hands of the corrupt and brutal warlords. Much of the countryside is too dangerous for aid workers. The postwar pro-American government led by Hamid Karzai rules Kabul and little else. Opium poppies are once again a major export crop. And Osama bin Laden remains at large.
This alarming state of affairs is not mainly the result of hidden conspiracies or bad luck. It flows from a succession of bad American policy decisions. These began with the Bush administration's reluctance to commit enough American troops to Afghanistan. Then it prematurely declared victory in its rush to a war of choice with Iraq."

ibiblio - It's North Carolina month!: "When we consider the Latitude and convenient Situation of Carolina, had we no farther Confirmation thereof, our Reason would inform us, that such a Place lay fairly to be a delicious Country, being placed in that Girdle of the World which affords Wine, Oil, Fruit, Grain, and Silk, with other rich Commodities, besides a sweet Air, moderate Climate, and fertile Soil; these are the Blessings (under Heaven's Protection) that spin out the Thread of Life to its utmost Extent, and crown our Days with the Sweets of Health and Plenty, which, when join'd with Content, renders the Possessors the happiest Race of Men upon Earth.

John Lawson, 1714 "

TheStar.com - Sometimes `quiet diplomacy' just isn't effective: "But even democratic governments that claim to honour the rule of law and international conventions on prisoners' rights can ignore them when it serves their purposes. The Bush administration demonstrated that following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, blatantly violating the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war by holding prisoners in total isolation under primitive conditions in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, despite an international outcry.
Among those imprisoned was 16-year-old Canadian-born Omar Khadr. Despite a longstanding consular agreement between the U.S. and Canada guaranteeing access to detained Canadian citizens, the Bush administration flatly refused to grant Canadian representatives access to the young prisoner. "

Sea Shepherd: "President Bush Declares War on the Whales and Dolphins.
Only weeks after new scientific studies revealed that U.S. Navy sonar testing is lethal to whales, the Bush administration won approval on November 7 to authorize the use of military sonar whenever and wherever Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfied wishes to deploy it.
The Bill moves to the Senate next week and it is expected to pass.
'Whales and dolphins are now to be sacrificed to George Bush's ridiculous strategies to combat terrorism.' Said Captain Paul Watson. 'The President says that the security of the United States from terrorism justifies these extreme measures but I can't think of one terrorist organization deploying nuclear submarines and that is the only thing that justifies low frequency sonar detection. This is simply another pork barrel windfall for the defense industry.'
Earlier this year Navy sonar testing near the Strait of Juan de Fuca in the Pacific Northwest stressed Orca populations and killed several harbor porpoises."

TalkLeft: Bush Seeks to Expand Patriot Act Powers: "'They that can give up essential liberty for a little safety deservue neither liberty nor safety' -Benjamin Franklin
'The chain reaction of evil-hate begetting hate, wars producing wars-must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.' -Martin Luther King Jr."

Op-Ed Columnist: This Can’t Go On: "Stein's Law, a principle enunciated by the late Herbert Stein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Nixon administration. The law comes with various wordings; my favorite is: 'Things that can't go on forever, don't.' Believe it or not, that's a useful reminder."

CFBCI - Faith-Based Organization Booklet: "U.S. Department of Labor
Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives"
Your tax dollars at work....

Swift-Footed W.: "Homer's most powerful lessons include the need to restrain hubris, to cooperate with allies, to engage the real world rather than black-and-white caricatures. If Achilles and Odysseus can learn those lessons, maybe there's hope for Mr. Rumsfeld or even the mighty Mr. Bush"

Financial Sense University ~ A Statisticians Indictment of Economists 08/21/2003: "Deceptive Indoctrination of Economic Definitions
Redefine important terms and concepts for a debt-based economy
Apparent full cooperation from the press & media, mute opposition
Exploits ignorance and illiteracy among the public
Conscious attempt to abuse “framing” -- psychological technique
Redefined (framed) terms legitimize the debt-based economy
* Legal tender, now money
* Credit access, now wealth
* Monetary inflation, now Fed liquidity
* Deflation, now poor pricing power
* Foreign dependence, now recycled trade gap
* Indebted currency, now dollar reserve
* Rising unemployment, now increased productivity
* general market risk, now volatility
* Stock investment, now channeled savings
* Mortgage investment, now hard real estate asset
* Accounting fraud, now financial engineering
* Derivatives, now off-loaded risk
* Cutting interest income, now reducing interest expense
* REFI consumption bubble, now managing home equity
* Fiscal bankruptcy, now federal stimulus
* Slow-motion recession, now jobless recovery
* Capital hemorrhage, now global trade
* Herbert Hoover, now Sir Alan Greenspan "

Lost American Jobs.com: "Introduction...
In the last few years, the drive towards outsourcing many company functions has become a drive towards outsourcing offshore in countries such as India and the Philippines or near-shore in countries such as Canada. A few decades ago, we witnessed our manufacturing economy migrate into a service economy as millions of these jobs were relocated around the world."

The Sweet Spot: "George W. Bush is like a man who tells you that he's bought you a fancy new TV set for Christmas, but neglects to tell you that he charged it to your credit card, and that while he was at it he also used the card to buy some stuff for himself. Eventually, the bill will come due — and it will be your problem, not his."

American Civil Liberties Union : Secret Service Ordered Local Police to Restrict Anti-Bush Protesters at Rallies, ACLU Charges in Unprecedented Nationwide Lawsuit: "Secret Service Ordered Local Police to Restrict Anti-Bush Protesters at Rallies, ACLU Charges in Unprecedented Nationwide Lawsuit - Sept 23, 2003"

On Listening: "Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein issue messages from their caves through Al Jazeera, and Mr. Cheney issues messages from his bunker through Fox. America is pushing democracy in Iraq, but our own leaders won't hold a real town hall meeting or a regular press conference."

Baghdad Burning: "For those not interested in reading the article, the first line summarizes it perfectly, “US soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from loudspeakers, have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as orange and lemon trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of collective punishment of farmers who do not give information about guerrillas attacking US troops.”

…which reminds me of another line from an article brought to my attention yesterday…
“A dozen years after Saddam Hussein ordered the vast marshes of southeastern Iraq drained, transforming idyllic wetlands into a barren moonscape to eliminate a hiding place for Shiite Muslim political opponents…”

Déjà vu, perhaps? Or maybe the orchards differ from the marshlands in that Saddam wasn’t playing jazz when he dried up the marshlands… "

Wellstone World Music Day

What a waste of taxpayer dollars. PR for $20s ??? Marketing efforts for the new $20 - Sep. 18, 2003: "The Department of the Treasury will spend $53 million over the next five years on a public relations campaign to market new money (in addition to the new $20, the budget includes expenditures to promote the planned releases of a new $50 in 2004 and a new $100 in 2005). To do the job, it has signed up a few of Hollywood's leading image makers"

The Snowmobile Quagmire: "Yellowstone National Park — another winter of health risks for park workers and visitors, pollution haze over the west entrance and Old Faithful, the din of a fleet of noisy machines in an otherwise silent park and daily harassment of winter-stressed animals. By siding with the snowmobile industry and overturning a Clinton-era plan to phase out snowmobiles, the Bush administration would continue a practice that violates the conclusions of its own Environmental Protection Agency, the better judgment of many National Park Service employees, the public will and common sense. In its own small way, the snowmobile issue demonstrates once again that when it comes to public lands the administration is always willing to sacrifice public good for private interest."

New America Foundation : article -1313- "White Collar Blues": "More balanced, full-spectrum private-sector development, including a more sophisticated approach to trade, immigration and growth controls, would reduce many of these risks. Imports from countries that don't maintain reasonable environmental or labor standards could be limited, for example, or legal immigration levels more strictly enforced. Yet America's two major political parties seem unable to escape their ideologies and consider policy alternatives that would help diversify the economy.
Democrats have largely abandoned their New Deal, pro-industrial political legacy in favor of an elite-dominated, anti-development sensibility. The powerful public-sector unions that now dominate the party have little incentive to expand the private sector, in no small measure because they disproportionately benefit from the accumulation of massive wealth in a small number of pockets.
Across the aisle, Republican economic thinking is increasingly shaped by what political commentator Michael Lind calls 'Southernomics' -- a primitive commodity capitalism inspired by 19th century industries like cotton and oil production. Its adherents are unlikely to be troubled by the expansion of a concentrated, aristocratic-style wealth distribution. The party's once vocal advocacy for entrepreneurial, egalitarian development is today rarely heard.
It may be that America's flexible labor force is enough to stimulate an unexpected creative breakthrough, reinvent the U.S. economy, replace the nation's dwindling supply of quality jobs and pay off the nation's huge public deficits. But it's just as likely that the next boom will be even more volatile and short-lived than the last one. If so, the pathologies latent in the U.S. economy may become even more entrenched and increasingly difficult to treat."

Salon.com | When big media gets bigger: "When big media gets bigger
Bill Moyers: 'The effort to reverse the FCC is dead in the water, sinking the democratic process with it.'
Editor's note: Bill Moyers, former special assistant to President Lyndon Johnson, is the host of PBS' 'NOW with Bill Moyers.' Below is the full text of his commentary for PBS Friday on media deregulation."

Amnesty International - Library - Afghanistan: "No-one listens to us and no-one treats us as human beings". Justice denied to women.: "Two years after the ending of the Taleban regime, the international community and the Afghan Transitional Administration (ATA), led by President Hamid Karzai, have proved unable to protect women. Amnesty International is gravely concerned by the extent of violence faced by women and girls in Afghanistan. The risk of rape and sexual violence by members of armed factions and former combatants is still high. Forced marriage, particularly of girl children, and violence against women in the family are widespread in many areas of the country. These crimes of violence continue with the active support or passive complicity of state agents, armed groups, families and communities. This continuing violence against women in Afghanistan causes untold suffering and denies women their fundamental human rights. "

Census Shows Ranks of Poor Rose by 1.3 Million: "Sept. 2 — The number of Americans living below the poverty line increased by more than 1.3 million last year, even though the economy technically edged out of recession during the same period, a Census Bureau report shows.
The spike in economic hardship hit individuals and families alike. The report indicated that the total percentage of people in poverty increased to 12.4 percent from 12.1 percent in 2001 and totaled 34.8 million. At the same time, the number of families living in poverty went up by more than 300,000 in 2002 to 7 million from 6.6 million in 2001.
The number of children in poverty rose by more than 600,000 during the same period to 12.2 million. The rate of increase in children under age 5 jumped a full percentage point to 19.8 percent living below the poverty line from 18.8 percent a year earlier."

Looks Like a Recovery, Feels Like a Recession: "'What's unique about the economy today is that even though the recession started in March 2001 and ended apparently in November 2001, here we are in August-September of 2003, and we have far fewer jobs than when we started this whole process,' said Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute. 'That has never happened since the Great Depression.'"

Looks Like a Recovery, Feels Like a Recession: "Looks Like a Recovery, Feels Like a Recession
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE


ven though the recession ended nearly two years ago, polls show that American workers are feeling stressed and shaky this Labor Day because the nation continues to register month after month of job losses and wages are rising more slowly than inflation.
One factor above all has fueled the insecurity: the nation has lost 2.7 million jobs over the last three years. The recovery has been so weak since the recession ended in November 2001 that the nation's payrolls are down one million jobs from when economic growth resumed. "

NYTimes - Magazine Money Edition: The Sink-or-Swim Economy: "What's weird, and deeply unsettling, about today's economy is that the big picture bears so little resemblance to the small picture, that is, to everyday life. The big picture shows the economy tracing a gentle, rather lazy slope -- a few tenths of a percentage point up or down, nothing too drastic. Closer to ground level, meanwhile, the action is nonstop and frenetic. At any given moment, some people and businesses are enjoying outrageous good fortune. Others are falling under a rain of slings and arrows. "

"… Congress represents the constituency of the frightened rich—not the will or the spirit of what was once a democratic republic but the interest of a scared and selfish oligarchy anxious to preserve its comforts in the impregnable vaults of military empire. The grotesque maldistribution of the country’s wealth over the last thirty years has brought forth a class system fully outfitted with the traditional accessories of complacency, stupidity and pride. People supported by incomes of $10 or $15 million dollars a year not only mount a different style of living than those available to an income of $50,000 or even $150,000, they acquire different habits of mind—reluctant to think for themselves, afraid of the future, careful to expatriate their profits in off shore tax havens, disinclined to trust a new hairdresser or a new idea, grateful for the security of gated residential protectorates, reassured by reactionary political theorists who say that history is at an end and that if events prove otherwise (angry mobs rising up in the Third World slums to beg a chance at freedom or demand a piece of the action) America will send an army to exterminate the brutes…
It’s conceivable that we might soon see a change in the program. The American citizenry isn’t as dumb as the American elites condescendingly like to think and believe, and if it can be generally understood that an ill conceived war with Iraq comes to us courtesy of the same feeble-mindedness that set up the Enron and WorldCom swindles, we might learn to elect politicians, who speak to our courage and intelligence rather than our weakness and fear.
From 'Hail Caesar' by Lewis Lapham, Harper’s December 2002"

"THE BIGGEST BLOGGERS
- Minnesota journalist James Lileks, who writes about his family life and the way of the world in Minneapolis.
- Opinionated Australian journalist giving the lowdown on Down Under.
- the homeless guy = a 40-something man who lives on the streets of Nashville, Tennessee, and uses the library to update his blog."

Unreliable Facts from The Brains Trust: "World Wide Worm
The next version of MS Windows is to be sold bundled with nearly 1Gb of new worms and viruses in attempt to stop the world's servers on the internet being overloaded by ones that other people have written. However, inside sources reveal that over 60% of these will require a service pack that can only be downloaded - via the internet - before they will work."

Baghdad Burning: "The Beginning...
So this is the beginning for me, I guess. I never thought I'd start my own weblog... All I could think, every time I wanted to start one was 'but who will read it?' I guess I've got nothing to lose... but I'm warning you- expect a lot of complaining and ranting. I looked for a 'rantlog' but this is the best Google came up with.

A little bit about myself: I'm female, Iraqi and 24. I survived the war. That's all you need to know. It's all that matters these days anyway.

Riverbend"

If true... this is the problem.....Baghdad Burning: "The Myth: Iraqis, prior to occupation, lived in little beige tents set up on the sides of little dirt roads all over Baghdad. The men and boys would ride to school on their camels, donkeys and goats. These schools were larger versions of the home units and for every 100 students, there was one turban-wearing teacher who taught the boys rudimentary math (to count the flock) and reading. Girls and women sat at home, in black burkas, making bread and taking care of 10-12 children.

The Truth: Iraqis lived in houses with running water and electricity. Thousands of them own computers. Millions own VCRs and VCDs. Iraq has sophisticated bridges, recreational centers, clubs, restaurants, shops, universities, schools, etc. Iraqis love fast cars (especially German cars) and the Tigris is full of little motor boats that are used for everything from fishing to water-skiing. ........
Listen to this little anecdote. One of my cousins works in a prominent engineering company in Baghdad- we’ll call the company H. This company is well-known for designing and building bridges all over Iraq. My cousin, a structural engineer, is a bridge freak. He spends hours talking about pillars and trusses and steel structures to anyone who’ll listen.

As May was drawing to a close, his manager told him that someone from the CPA wanted the company to estimate the building costs of replacing the New Diyala Bridge on the South East end of Baghdad. He got his team together, they went out and assessed the damage, decided it wasn’t too extensive, but it would be costly. They did the necessary tests and analyses (mumblings about soil composition and water depth, expansion joints and girders) and came up with a number they tentatively put forward- $300,000. This included new plans and designs, raw materials (quite cheap in Iraq), labor, contractors, travel expenses, etc.

Let’s pretend my cousin is a dolt. Let’s pretend he hasn’t been working with bridges for over 17 years. Let’s pretend he didn’t work on replacing at least 20 of the 133 bridges damaged during the first Gulf War. Let’s pretend he’s wrong and the cost of rebuilding this bridge is four times the number they estimated- let’s pretend it will actually cost $1,200,000. Let’s just use our imagination.

A week later, the New Diyala Bridge contract was given to an American company. This particular company estimated the cost of rebuilding the bridge would be around- brace yourselves- $50,000,000 !! "

Urban Legends Reference Pages: (Recent Additions): "This page lists recent updates and additions to the Urban Legends Reference Pages"

SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Neil Morgan -- Tiptoeing across the news in San Diego: "A special tax case?
The developer Doug Manchester deserves a new tax form for reporting his gross income from leaving people alone. The port pays him $5 million not to build the next bay-front hotel. Now Oceanside pays him $2.2 million to go away and never come back. Ted Geisel wrote it first: 'Marvin K. Mooney, won't you please just go?'"

The Bush Administration certainly does not seem to "walk the talk"... harsh reality vs sound bites...Global Women's Issues Scorecard on the Bush Administration

American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 - 1940

MIT OpenCourseWare | OCW Home

Bob's Fridge Door from Cybersatirist Bob Hirschfeld Bob Hirschfeld ...."I launched this humble, self-serving, ego-stroking site in 1998. When it was immediately featured in Newsweek and newspapers around the country and received numerous awards such as PC Magazine Top 100, I quickly realized there are no standards online. "

Fix the American Economy.... Duct tape to the rescue !!!!! Duct Tape Clothing, fashion, wallets, purses, and more!

Broken Newz - Satire News

May we all live in (survive) interesting times....Ironic Times - August 25, 2003

Ann Coulter Spontaneously Combust: ah...wishful thinking...BOROWITZ report.com

Ok... thanks to Dave Barry Blogs... here's some mindless entertainment...
jellygames - Shockwave and Flash arcade

We're losing the war in Afghanistan, too
A human rights worker reports from the other front in the U.S. war on terror, where warlords rule supreme, music is once again banned, journalists hide from gunmen, and even the streets of Kabul are filled with fear.

Another good guy.....
Extra! Articles by Norman Solomon

Wow... it's been weeks since I last wrote...

Since then:
the lights went out over the NE.... thanks to the emphasis on "making more money" vs "maintaining the infrastructure for the best good". I guess we NEVER will learn that Greed is not a good thing.
Looks like Schwarzenegger will be our next gov... he a bit to tied to the Bushies but has been a boon for the comedy acts and journalists. Name's hard to spell, but he's definitely got that cartoon quality so lacking in most politicians.
The good Texas politicians are seeing much more of Albuquerque than they wish. and I'm sure that they will all have listened to many more "Texan" jokes than they wanted. I don't think that a month's vacation in the New Mexican desert was high on anyones schedule. but hey... Albuquerque is a great city....
Viruses and worms all over the internet.
The UN was targeted in Iraq: and the good old US diplomacy contiues stomping around making more enemies than friends. My heart hurts for everyone in Iraq and Afganistan including our troops..
Ashcroft is stumping the nation.... trying to sell the "Patriot Act" as a "good thing"....
The FCC is trying to backpedal and sell "localization" and what they REALLY REALLY meant when they gave another chunk of the public airwave exclusively to the BIG MEDIA.... all for the little guy??

On the local front:
Brother Charlie and Jan stopped by on their way from Australia to NY... Big reunion in NC.. guess I need to help plan. Presently it looks like well have between 12 and 14 people sharing 3 beds... hmmmmm...... camping in the mountains in Sept is a great idea. Should be fun once I get over my normal hermit's preference for solitude...
Figs are ripe: can't keep up with them... tried drying but failed completely.. got lots of lovely mold. Made fig/raspberry preserves... tasty.. but have no idea when we'll actually consume it. Woud take it to the reunion but don't think I want to try to get it through airport security...
The birds like the figs... but the foxes like the birds... and the birds don't like the foxes... the foxes also prefer the cat's food to the figs and the cats don't eat figs ... so I will have LOTS of rotten figs soon...

today reading by/about:
Paul Begula
Dubyas' World
The Smirking Chimp
Peter Hart @ Fair.org

all for now....

The Heartbreak continues.

Guatemala's Constitutional Court made a fateful mistake this week when it ruled that Efrain Rios Montt can run for president in November. Rios Montt has already proved his unfitness for the job - he was Guatemala's dictator in 1982 and 1983. Backed by clandestine security forces, his victory could once again allow fear to rule Guatemala.
Rios Montt's misrule was disastrous for Guatemala. The truth commission in Guatemala concluded that during his brief time as president, 400 Mayan villages were destroyed and some 17,000 people murdered. These were the worst atrocities of the country's 36-year civil war - the truth commission called them acts of genocide. (from International Herald Times)

The past lessons seem to have little impact? PBS special Discovering Dominga paints the picture .... but this isn't the mainstream "Reality" show that the public want's to hear.

Short comment on Bushies' speech this morning....
In response to a question about unemployement and the transfer of US jobs overseas.. Bush advised the unemployeed to go get retrained. "community college are doing a great thing"....

So let me see if I understand the advise... My college degree and 15 years of experience and technology training, certifications, etc. should now be declared defunct and I should go to a community college and learn a trade. Let's see: I spent 15 years working my way up from $7/hour to a managerial position at $30/hour and now with retraining I might be able to find a job as Day care worker = $ 5 to $8 per hour , Admin assistant = $ 6 to 12 per hour.....while IT jobs are outsourced to someone in India because it's cheaper....
Great advice !

Good response from Hal Crowther in Charlotte Creative Loafing
Counter-Intelligence
FBI questionee Marc Schultz was the lucky one
BY HAL CROWTHER
I quote:
""I'd like to assume that everyone who reads this will sympathize with Marc Schultz, and no one with the nameless sneak who turned him in. I sympathize with Schultz especially because I wrote the subversive essay he was reading. It was called "Weapons of Mass Stupidity," and it was about America's amazing gullibility, about the hapless majority that George Bush and Rupert Murdoch find so easy to bully and deceive. A "scathing screed" it may have been -- I hope so -- but far short of a radical manifesto. More disparaging assessments of the president's integrity can be found this week in Harper's and The New York Times. And if the FBI can spare the time to read 25 years of political commentary published under my byline, they'll find me uniquely consistent on the subject of terrorism. I always maintained that terrorists are common murderers, regardless of their causes or their politics, and merit no more respect or glamour than a monster who kills one child at a time. That sets me at sharp odds with such Bush lieutenants as Richard Perle and Admiral Poindexter, supporters and even paymasters of terrorists like the Nicaraguan contras who were perceived to be on "our side."Marc Schultz doesn't even belong to my underground army of loyal readers (my throng holds its annual convention in a high school cafeteria in Wichita). He told me, sheepishly, that he'd never heard of me, though I turn up fairly often in his hometown newspaper. His chief misfortune, besides drinking coffee in close proximity to a head case, was his physical appearance. I saw an earlier draft of his published article, titled "Reading While Bearded."

"Yeah, I'm kind of a lefty-looking guy," he told me. "I'm dark, fairly long black hair, a beard. I'm Jewish. Maybe the sight of a dark, bearded man reading in public is enough in itself to strike fear into the heart of a patriotic citizen."

Most of the victims of the Patriot Act have been Muslims and Arabs. With appearance profiling it's obvious that the next wave of suspects will be Jews, Greeks, Italians and Latinos, and so on until no one's safe unless he looks like a Viking, which takes us back to Aryan Supremacists and Hitler's Master Race. In America. I don't know about you, but members of my family fought in every American war of the last century, and they didn't fight for that weasel's right to finger people who look insufficiently Nordic, or who might read something to the left of The New York Post.

Schultz asked me if I thought it was wise to go public with his grievance, or wiser to shut up and count himself fortunate that he wasn't arrested. I told him what I believe to be true for myself and for anyone the government might lean on: Daylight is the best defense. Injustice flourishes in the dark. There's an imbalance of power in any society, and people who abuse it. Add fear -- the legacy of 9/11 -- and you have a climate where freedoms are fragile. Add secrecy and you have the recipe for despotism, for gulags and Gestapos.

Call me Chicken Little. But Marc Schultz was one of the fortunate suspects. He's middle-class, educated and articulate, connected through his father, a lawyer, to people with influence. The FBI might have picked a better patsy than a stringer for Time magazine. Not so fortunate was a middle-aged man identified only as M., profiled by Elizabeth Amon in the current Harper's. Arrested by the FBI on no charge (a co-worker said he wore a surgical mask "more than necessary"), denied bail, M. spent five months in a New Jersey jail with rats, roaches, and rapists, by his description. He was released still uncharged, $30,000 in debt from the experience, guilty only of being a resident alien and a Pakistani.

The cover headline for Amon's article is "Lost in Ashcroft's Dungeons." Under the abominable Patriot Act, Franz Kafka's The Trial is coming true in America, in comic and tragic versions, just under the mass media radar, just off the front page.

Wounded, we're fast becoming the Saddam Husseins, the Robert Mugabes we pretend to deplore. The Department of Justice reported 1,182 arrests under the Patriot Act; from those prisoners, its inspector general received 1,072 accusations that FBI agents and other department employees had violated their civil liberties, and in many cases physically abused them. ""

From NPR:
Apparently, it’s no longer enough to watch what you write. In times such as these, it’s also wise to watch what you read. This week, FBI agents paid a visit to Atlantan Marc Shultz after being tipped off about suspicious behavior. Eventually, Shultz realized his offense –- reading an article called "Weapons of Mass Stupidity" in public. He tells all to NPR's Brooke Gladstone

It would be good copy to have a list of all the "leads" the FBI must now respond to. As a youngster growing up in rural NC, the FBI became good friends with my mother. There was a lady up river from us... crazy as a coot.. who would call them periodically and report Mom for sending telepathic messages to Russia.. This was during the late 50's and early 60's... height of the Cold War. The FBI was requested to stop Mom from sending the messages because they were keeping Essie (not her real name...) from sleeping at night... and causing other sorts of electrical interference. .... I don't know how offen Essie called the FBI, but every so often an agent had to be dispatched to the mountains to do an interview. They'd end up having a lovely cup of coffee with my Mom who was a most gracious, kind lady.

Not quite so funny..... these crazy reports turned up in a file the FBI kept of me during the Nixon years and caused pain..

Well.... the chance to gamble on death and mayhem won't be sponsored by DARPA this week.. The tempest stirred caused a retraction... but hey... DARPA will have other lovely surprises for us later... stay tuned...

Consumer confidence down today... gee wonder why.... all the unemployed white collar and manufacturing folk that had a GOOD job last year ($50K+) and now have to fight for the $10/hr job are becoming visible. ....

And the risks for all the past investments are becoming uninsurable: " Merrill Lynch & Co., Charles Schwab Corp. and dozens of U.S. brokers that buy extra insurance to protect client assets from bankruptcy are losing the coverage because insurers say it's too risky. " Insurers drop bankruptcy coverage on brokerage assetsBy Jed Horowitz Bloomberg News.....

The newest from our Pentagon's DARPA that our tax dollars are paying for... thanks to Poindexter... the select few may soon be able to bet on assignations, terrorists activities, etc.... bizarre and gross. (NYTimes)

Link from The new Paul Krugman website on our election here in California: FRANK (WOLAK) THOUGHTS ON THE CALIFORNIA CRISIS