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. "