Quote For The Day

"It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others."

---http://despair.com/store.html

-Rise Of The Conqueror Crab-

The Sessile And The Motile

It's common knowledge that an asteroid gave rise to the young and the restless, but...

"...The greatest 'great dying,' 251 million years ago, erased 95 percent of species in the oceans (and most vertebrates on land). But new research suggests that it was followed by an explosion of complexity in marine life, one that has persisted ever since.

"...They found that marine life before the biggest global die-off, the Permo-Triassic extinction, was evenly split into two types of communities: simple ones, in which most species were anchored in place and got by without interacting with neighbors (like eating them or being eaten by them), and complex ones, with many interrelationships.

"But since then, complex communities filled with grazers, scavengers, predators, burrowers and other mobile creatures have been three times as common as simple ones, said Peter J. Wagner, the lead author of the study..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/28/science/28mari.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

Remember Florida 13

The race in Forida's 13th CD represents one of the clearest examples of electronic voting idiocy:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/opinion/26sun2.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Hand-counted paper ballots tallied in public Now. Accept no substitutes.

-The Face Of Modern Enforcement-

At $2.5B, the NYPD annual budget is 10 times that of the UN global peacekeeping force.

Bloomberg Addresses Latest Cop Riot

In response to the latest police shooting of an apparently unarmed minority, NYC CEO Michael Bloomberg faced the cameras today with his police commissioner, surrounded by the obligatory ocean of black faces (I counted 16 on CNN's coverage). He promised the obligatory investigation and offered the obligatory defense of his commissioner. As usual, no one can say anything meaningful about anything that is under investigation, the subject of a legal proceeding, or otherwise best obfuscated.

5 officers are on the obligatory paid administrative leave.

In short, all due consideration was made that the cops will continue to riot only against appropriate individuals and groups.

Quote For The Day

"Military needs aside, some politicians simply love the thought of mandatory service to the federal government. The political right favors sending young people to fight in aggressive wars like Iraq. The political left longs to send young people into harm's way to save the world in places like Darfur. But both sides share the same belief that citizens should serve the needs of the state-- a belief our founders clearly rejected in the Declaration of Independence.

"To many politicians, the American government is America. This is why, on a crude level, the draft appeals to patriotic fervor. Compulsory national service, whether in the form of military conscription or make-work programs like AmeriCorps, still sells on Capitol Hill. Conscription is wrongly associated with patriotism, when really it represents collectivism and involuntary servitude..."

---Ron Paul

http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2006/tst112706.htm

Winning/Losing Hearts And Minds

This video, supposedly shot by some of our troops who missed the class on native relations, is being circulated by TomPaine, so I am taking it as genuine. It may not be so shocking as Abu Ghraib or so horrifying as the highway shootings, but it is sad.

Out of Iraq Now.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/11/theyll-be-greeting-us-with-flowers.html

Profile Of a New MultiMillionaire

I have rarely seen so much egotism, rationalization, selfishness, whoring, and bad sociology packed into one article. O'Rourke was wrong to advocate eating the rich; they should be dragged into the streets and fed to the dogs.

As a youngster the oge was privileged to know a dedicated cancer researcher who worked for most of her professional life in a basement lab at Hood College, maintaining a modest life for herself and two children. Maybe the great gray rag should try profiling that type of role model.

Credit to D for this shameful example:

"A decade into the practice of medicine, still striving to become 'a well regarded physician-scientist,' Robert H. Glassman concluded that he was not making enough money. So he answered an ad in the New England Journal of Medicine from a business consulting firm hiring doctors.

"And today, after moving on to Wall Street as an adviser on medical investments, he is a multimillionaire.

"Such routes to great wealth were just opening up to physicians when Dr. Glassman was in school, graduating from Harvard College in 1983 and Harvard Medical School four years later. Hoping to achieve breakthroughs in curing cancer, his specialty, he plunged into research, even dreaming of a Nobel Prize, until Wall Street reordered his life..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/27/business/27richer.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

A Glimmer For The Palestinians?

Three blows struck at the sacred cow:

ONE

"As a longtime activist for peace between Israel and Palestine and against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, I'm well used to one of the most dreary aspects of the American media. The violence gets coverage, the ongoing daily grind of occupation doesn't. I don't know why, but this week that changed.

"Tuesday (The NYTimes) published an in-depth article on Highway 60, one of the main arteries of transportation for ordinary Palestinians, well within the West Bank, far from the Israeli border, and on the kafkaesque difficulties of transversing it on a daily basis...

“'We’re seeing an increasing fragmentation of the West Bank,' said David Shearer, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which monitors the West Bank. 'The whole fabric of life for the Palestinians has been disrupted.' His office says Palestinians traveling within the West Bank now face 542 obstacles, 83 of which are guarded by soldiers, compared with fewer than 400 a year ago. The obstacles have effectively divided the West Bank into three sectors — northern, central and southern — and limited movement among them.

TWO

"And it wasn't a one-off. Today the Times gave front-page treatment to Israeli anti-occupation group Peace Now's latest report on settlements. Steven Erlanger wades into one of the conflict's knottiest (and yet most basic) problems: land.

"An Israeli advocacy group, using maps and figures leaked from inside the government, says that 39 percent of the land held by Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank is privately owned by Palestinians..."

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/11/21/whose_land_for_peace.php

THREE

Jimmy Carter's Palestine Peace, Not Apartheid

-Frankenrice-

Microphotograph of the bacterium used in the genetic engineering of Bayer's special long grain variety, currently banned by the rest of the world.

Ag Revisits Frankenrice

Frankenrice is a notorious instance of misbegotten genetic engineering gone amok. Many environmentalists regard it as an inept attempt to address one wrong with another.

Now it also offers an example of taking care of abusive industry. It is closing the barn door after the horse is gone and adjudicating the place secure. It is a jackass case of bad priorities. It is your government at work:

"The Department of Agriculture declared safe for human consumption yesterday an experimental variety of genetically engineered rice found to have contaminated the U.S. rice supply this summer.

"The move by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to deregulate the special long-grain rice, LL601, was seen as a legal boon to its creator, Bayer CropScience of Research Triangle Park, N.C. The company applied for approval shortly after the widespread contamination was disclosed in August and now faces a class-action lawsuit filed by hundreds of farmers in Arkansas and Missouri.

"The experimental rice, designed to resist Bayer's Liberty weedkiller, escaped from Bayer's test plots after the company dropped the project in 2001. The resulting contamination, once it became public, prompted countries around the world to block rice imports from the United States, sending rice futures plummeting and farmers into fits..."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/24/AR2006112401153.html?referrer=email

McCain Creates Creative Wiggle Room

This is the most clever little piece of equivocation I have seen on Iraq yet. It could also give bush---inadvertently, I suspect---a way out, if he had the brains to understand it: submission to the will of the American people. Who's to blame in that scenario?

"'I believe victory is still attainable,' the Arizona Republican says. 'But without additional combat forces we will not win this war.'

"In carefully scripted language, McCain then adds: If the country does not have the will to do what it takes to win in Iraq - send in more forces - then U.S. troops should not be made to serve more tours of duty.

'"As troubling as it is, I can ask a young Marine to go back to Iraq,' he said last week. 'What I cannot do is ask him to return to Iraq, to risk life and limb, so that we might delay our defeat for a few months or a year. That is more to ask than patriotism requires.'"

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20061122/D8LI0I7O0.html

Karpinski Does Rummy

OK, so they both probably strike you as nutty and incompetent, tied in a wet rat Caucus-race. Here's her dirt:

"Former U.S. Army Brigadier General Janis Karpinski told Spain's El Pais newspaper she had seen a letter apparently signed by Rumsfeld which allowed civilian contractors to use techniques such as sleep deprivation during interrogation.

"Karpinski, who ran the prison until early 2004, said she saw a memorandum signed by Rumsfeld detailing the use of harsh interrogation methods.

'"The handwritten signature was above his printed name and in the same handwriting in the margin was written: 'Make sure this is accomplished,"' she told Saturday's El Pais."

El Pais?

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=2006-11-25T164527Z_01_L25726413_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-RUMSFELD.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C2-TopNews-newsOne-4

Hillary's $36M Campaign

She didn't throw away all that money just because of Spencer, a patent loser whose defeat was a given. She was also mindful of Tasini's 17% showing in the primary, and she needed to demonstrate (quietly) that in Hawkins there was no threat from the left to her centrist positioning for 2008. As a fringe benefit, her spending helped assure a sweep by the Democratic line, securing more party loyalty. It all worked, and the veil is in place.

There was a revelatory, if under-remarked, moment in the debate, when Spencer tried to paint her ultra-liberal, accusing her of promoting a single-payer, universal health plan. She paused for a moment, perceiving the trap he never intended, and then acknowledged that although she had tried to enact universal health care, it was a privately funded proposal (read, profits for the insurance industry). What Congress gave us was actually a wider field of competing HMOs, sans universal enrollment.

If I could disabuse Dem liberals of a single myth regarding the Clinton years, it would be that lingering one; Bill and Hillary betrayed the movement for public-funded, universal health care, which was 100 votes strong in the House at the time of his election.

Of course, there's also their desertion of labor, general corporate sell-out, disastrous promotion of unregulated trade, Yugoslav aggression, establishment of the elitest DLC, creative bookkeeping on the budget, and contribution to media conglomeration (Telecommunications Act of 1996), for which Rupert remains profoundly and publicly grateful, even if he can't always juggle his millions among his overlapping holdings, dropping it sometimes, as between Fox's O'Reilly and the foxy OJ, which just goes to show you how despicable a devil it takes to make the no-spin fraud look righteous.

As we move forward toward 2008, it's well to remember that the job of the 110th is not just to undo the mischief of bush, but that of the Clintons as well, who did much to set the stage for his tyranny.

I'm not giving any odds. Our best "hope" lies not so much in compromised political deliberations as in bigger events like Iraq and Katrina which may force some relief.

Thanks to D for the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/21/us/politics/21donate.html?hp&ex=1164171600&en=1cf680b27f8bb06f&ei=5094&partner=homepage

LETTER TO AN OPPONENT OF WIND

I don't know your sources or their biases, but we need to look at benchmarks and use our terminology carefully in rejecting any alternative energy generation.

For example, I don't know what you mean by undefined terms such as environmental impact or total devastation. Most windmills going up here and in Europe don't clear forests but seek naturally smooth areas including offshore and land under agricultural use. I also have a problem comparing wind energy to nuclear plants, which host a whole additional set of problems and impacts. One Chernobyl translates into a lot of wind farm disasters.

Regarding the alleged storage problem, wind energy does not have to use storage, and even home systems can direct surplus electricity into the grid rather than store it. I certainly agree that smaller-scale applications are preferable in many respects (particularly in driving home the reality of energy production and consumption, and in controlling the economics), but even here I would have to compare the relative efficiency of the units and be prepared to sacrifice scale.

We do have benchmarks. Denmark, by most accounts, produces 20% of her electricity from wind, and rising. It is almost impossible to get a clear picture from the politics of the situation in this country. The intrusion of the technology in the hands of giant corporations was the worst way to introduce it to communities, but that's the nature of things here at the moment. Before we even begin to arbitrate the mess stateside, why wouldn't we look at the large applications available in Europe?

Esthetics, I have suggested, still seems to me to be the main objection in most arguments I have heard in town meetings and other fora, once you get past the mechanics of corporate exploitation. Unless you posit a scenario of dwellings set in the midst of a large wind array, noise as an objection goes away pretty easily, leaving the visual factor, which I think is the dominant objection behind the opposition.

What can you say about that? I don't have a personal problem with giant turbines on our ridges. I would have a big problem with a nuclear plant in my county. If that's the choice, no question where my vote goes. But I wouldn't try to persuade someone on a point of esthetics. Some people hang prints of de Kooning's women in their houses. That's fine for them, but I wouldn't choose to live with that species of violence on a constant basis.

Esthetics is often a question of acclimation. Hardly anyone objects to the visuals of the traditional Dutch windmill, even the giant ones. And most people find the American farm windmill picturesque, if somewhat homely.

There is nothing more or less "natural" about a modern turbine than a Dutch stone pile from the last century. One is taller, the other is thicker. They probably obscure about the same amount of visual space. That's just esthetics, and we should acknowledge it. I find the modern turbine to be oddly "natural" in its slender, candid, almost tendril-like proportions. But then again, I don't object to the Manhattan skyline or the silhouette of the Eiffel tower, which strike or have struck rare individuals as unnatural obscenities.

Too many years ago I remember being oddly confused at discovering that Crete was dotted with windmills, the most conspicuous feature in the villages, followed by the beehive ovens. It was mildly disconcerting simply because I didn't expect them. That was esthetics, and my visual sense adjusted and accepted them in a few days.

The immediate alternatives that you advocate are coal plants, opening even as we argue, and nuclear plants, on the drawing board. You have only to view the mountaintopping in Appalachia and to consider the outpouring of CO2 to pass sentence on coal. As for nuclear, I leave it to you to tell us where you would store the radioactive waste. It is an underappreciated fact that all nuclear waste is currently stored in interim (non-permanent) status. This includes well over 30,000 metric tons of spent nuclear rods alone. (I personally don't believe there is any such thing as permanent storage, given the half-life of some isotopes, exceeding 20,000 years).

Yucca Mountain remains the only immediate storage "solution." To give some sense of the scale of the storage problem, consider that your tax dollars have already supported $10B of research for this single site, generating 5.6M pages of data. And given the legislated capacity for Yucca (which could in fact be a political concession), if Yucca opened today, it would reach its storage limit by 2010.Our 103 reactors produce 200 metric tons of waste per year. Sure, we can dump it underground, or in someone else's mountain. We can alleviate the problem by recycling more waste products, but that increases costs (by about 10% in most scenarios), and in an economy driven by an overwhelming imperative to show shortterm profits, I don't bank on any measures that entail higher costs.

The other point to remember with nuclear is that storage of the products of energy generation are in constant competition or accomodation with defense waste, which conservatively comprises another 380,000 cubic meters, depending in part on decommissioning rates. If you oppose the use of depleted uranium in munitions (as we should), add that in.

We are well past the point where we can suffer our esthetics to dictate energy preferences. Should we be embracing wind for whatever percentage of electric generation it yields? It is the reverse of the ostrich metaphor. Nuclear waste is out of sight, but wind turbines are visible. CO2 is invisible, but turbines are not. If you can look at a clean horizon devoid of turbines and ignore the hidden destruction of someone else's mountains, and the menace of CO2 and radioactive waste, then be happy. Others look at a turbine, find elegance and benignity, and comfort that we and the planet are spared that portion of poison.

There is poetry in the formula that wind power is proportional to the cube of wind velocity. And there is some salvation in its application. Only conservation is more beautiful.

Raimondo: The Mugging Of Murtha

"...The Great Realignment of 2006 lasted a little over a week before it turned into the Great Sellout. It is a perfect illustration of how the War Party controls the leadership of both major parties and maintains its grip on the levers of power. Given near-monopoly status on account of repressive ballot access laws in most states, the parties can thwart the popular will. Given a mandate for peace, the Democratic Party leadership has effectively rejected it and reversed the election results.

"Americans voted for peace, and they're going to get more war. That's how our Bizarro democracy works, and all I can say is God bless Bizarro America, land of the duped and home of the cowed.

"Back when the Democrats were AWOL on the Iraq issue, Murtha changed the debate over the war by coming out for a rapid American withdrawal. His stance caused a sensation: here was a conservative Democrat, a veteran Marine, whose campaign chest is heavy with cash from the defense sector, surely no Dennis Kucinich – and he wants us out now! Close to the military establishment, Murtha is seen to reflect opinion in the senior ranks that this war is unwinnable and likely to spread, stretching the fighting capacity of the world's last superpower to the breaking point. His high-profile stance represented a threat and had to be smashed – as it was.

"...Now we hear talk of a 'final push,' a sudden increase in the number of troops to leave some sort of semi-permanent imprint on the chaos. How many more have to die in order to save the face of the Washington know-it-alls?

"This once again underlines the basic principle at the heart of any peace movement worthy of the name: put not your trust in politicians. The people voted to get us out of Iraq, and instead the Democrats will stand idly by – at best – while we get in deeper. They can concentrate on extending the welfare state and wait for the Baker Commission to somehow magically come up with a comfortably 'bipartisan' solution. It isn't going to happen..."

http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=10025

Party Over Pol

Another voice describes the ascendancy of the party system and its destruction of the individual:

"THE midterm elections have been widely viewed as a sudden change of direction, with Democrats seizing the wheel from Republicans. While that may be true, the big electoral news — news that has gone largely unnoticed — is this: After decades of weakness, after sideswipes from independent candidates, the two major parties are back. Indeed, they are more potent and influential than at any time in the past century..."

What Rohde does not go into is the common interests of the parties---far greater than their differences. When one considers their corporate subservience and interventionist foreign policy, they are merely siblings in the same household. Voters seduced by the "anything for a majority victory" mantra will have to reckon with rule by the lowest common denominator---whatever particularly laothsome profile that is assuming.

New Yorkers were complicit in this nonsense in several remarkable instances, notably in their neglect of McCourt. While I for one would never represent the old windbag as a serious candidate, and scold the Greens for the silliness of his selection, I certainly contributed to his vote tally in an effort to get the party on future ballots. His Green positions on the issues were a given. Spitzer's election, if you desired that, was never in question. Yet, the Greens could not even get 50K votes for governor, and will have to hustle petitions over and over, face exclusionist debating rules, and generally fend as the bastard relative who can't even get lodged in the stable. Liberals and progressives should be horse whipped for this failure alone.

There is no reasonable alternative to supporting individual candidates of merit and independence---where you can find them---and rejecting party hacks. Unfortunately, voter performance in 2006 achieved its victory of a Democratic majority at the prohibitive cost of strengthening the party establishment and its hacks. Now it will be even harder for independent-minded candidates of any party at any level to launch and run effective campaigns.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/18/opinion/18rohde.html?th&emc=th

-Woman III-

Last of de Kooning's Woman series in private hands, changing hands:

from Geffen
to Cohen
for 137.5M

moral: the commodification of their own epitaph

-Genome Within Sight-

Neanderthals Yielding DNA

"Unleashing a new kind of DNA analyzer on a 38,000-year-old fragment of fossilized Neanderthal bone, scientists have reconstructed a portion of that creature's genetic code -- a technological tour de force that has researchers convinced they will soon know the entire DNA sequence of the closest cousin humans ever had.

"Such a feat, deemed impossible even a few years ago, could tell a lot about what Neanderthals were like, such as their hair and skin color and their relative facility with language, according to scientists in Germany and California who released the new results yesterday. It could also clear up what sort of relationship existed between Neanderthals and the first modern humans -- including whether the two interbred after their evolutionary trajectories diverged..."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/15/AR2006111501042.html?referrer=email

More Investigation Of bush Ed Programs

Thanks to M for this one:

"Dr. Cupp has proved to be a canny businesswoman; she sells her reading kits to 80 of Georgia’s 1,267 elementary schools. She has also emerged as something of a giant-killer. With relentless sleuthing, she has become one of several whistle-blowers who uncovered evidence of conflicts of interest and favoritism in the Bush administration’s $6 billion Reading First program.

"The program, which was intended to ensure that all lower-income children learned to read, awarded grants to states to buy reading textbooks and tests. It turned out to be a bonanza for certain textbook publishers and authors. A half-dozen experts setting guidelines for which reading textbooks and tests could be purchased by schools were also the authors of textbooks and tests that ended up being used.

"DR. CUPP’S complaints about the program helped propel an investigation by the inspector general for the United States Department of Education that has resulted in three reports condemning 'a lack of integrity and ethical values' in Reading First. The program’s director resigned in September. More reports are anticipated, and Representative George Miller, the ranking Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, likely to become its new chairman, has called for a criminal investigation..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/15/education/15education.html?ref=education

"You Are Not Coat Racks:" Judge On Another Prison Death

And thanks to M for this item:

"A federal judge on Monday ordered sweeping mental health care reforms for Michigan's prisons in Jackson to prevent the mistreatment and death of inmates.

"'...Any earthly help comes far too late for them,' he said in a scathing opinion in that he chastised health-care providers in the prison for collecting their pay while ignoring the needs of those in their care. 'Here is the basic message: You are valuable providers of life-saving services and medicines. You are not coat racks who collect government paychecks while your work is taken to the sexton for burial.'

"Coming after a series of articles in the Free Press that examined the worsening state of care in Michigan's prisons, including the death of a mentally ill 21-year-old who had been left strapped naked to a concrete table for most of four days before he died, Enslen banned the use of non-medical punishment restraints in the prison complex in Jackson...

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061113/NEWS99/61113045/1008/NEWS06












http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/15/us/15prison.html

-Faulkner Does Dracula-

Not here, but his Nosferatu screenplay apparently will be reset in the gothic South.

Faulkner Vampire Script Headed For Screen

"As the exclusive representative of the William Faulkner Literary Estate, producer Lee Caplin ("Ali") has had access to the vaunted Mississippi writer's letters, sketches, notes and other literary works for years. So when Jill Faulkner Summers, the novelist's daughter, found a manuscript seven years ago in the piles of material her father left behind when he died in 1962, she passed it on to Caplin. He was stunned by what she'd found: Faulkner's only un-produced, feature-length screenplay..."

http://www.calendarlive.com/printedition/calendar/cl-et-scriptland15nov15,0,7934795.story?track=tothtml

Werther Previews The Baker Report

In conclusion:

"...There will be more in the report, but it will amount to cotton-wool packing, filigree, and cathedral gargoyles.

"The politicians will rush to praise the report's sagacity, and heed it, more or less. For the Establishment, which stretches back through Clifford and Nitze, through Henry Stimson, Colonel House, Albert Beveridge, back through the Morgans and the Astors, through the founding of Skull & Bones, and finally alighting on Alexander Hamilton, the prototypical oligarch of the new North American republic, it will be a Bromo-Seltzer after the nightmarish hangover of a failed scion's rebellion against his illustrious father. It will be an assurance, like a bank vault slamming shut, that in Washington, everything will be fundamentally the same for all eternity."

http://www.counterpunch.org/

"Green Is The New Red:" Animal Terrorism, Some More

"The administration is slowly replacing communists lurking in every shadow with terrorists. And terrorism may become an even better brand than communism for demonizing dissent. In March, six green activists found themselves among the first victims of a new front in the War on Terror, and of an old PR game.

"They were convicted on 'animal enterprise terrorism' charges — that’s right, terrorism — for campaigning to shut down an animal testing lab. On June 7, they will be sentenced: two defendants face up to a year in federal prison, and others likely face five to 10 years.

Did their terrorist campaign involve anthrax? Pipe bombs? A plot to hijack an airplane? Nope. They ran a website. They posted news about the campaign — legal actions like protests and illegal actions like stealing animals from labs — and unabashedly supported all of it. Since the feds haven’t been able to catch the saboteurs, they’re now cracking down on those in the spotlight. Think red baiting, with a green twist."

http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/

The following is an account by Dr. Alex Hershaft (FARM's President/Founder), and co-founder of the Equal Justice Alliance, of last night's House passage of the new, expanded Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA):

"Today (11/13/06), a dozen of us from Equal Justice Alliance, FARM, League of Humane Voters, and Compassion Over Killing spent five hours visiting Congressional offices and urging them to vote against AETA, which had been scheduled over the weekend for a sudden vote at 6:30 pm. We were carrying suporting statements from the National Lawyers Guild, the New York City Bar Association, and the Natural Resources Defense Council. At each office, we were told that the mail and calls were running overwhelmingly in our favor.

"Around 3pm, one of the legislative aides said that the bill was just being debated on the House floor. He gave me a pass, and I rushed to the Capitol across the street. I was astonished to see only about six House members present. House Judiciary Chairman Sensenbrenner spoke in favor of AETA, quoting Jerry Vlasak's and other's past extreme statements. Dennis Kucinich joined in abhorring violence, but noted that the bill infringed on civil liberties of people conducting civil disobedience or undercover investigations. Sensenbrenner invoked lack of opposition from the ACLU. Then the chair called for a voice vote, and Kucinich cast the only no vote. It was all over in 15 minutes.

"After the vote, I rode the elevator with Sensenbrenner and chief AETA sponsor Petri. I told them I was there to lobby against their bill. Sensenbrenner replied 'don't blame me; I was just managing the bill for this guy,' pointing to Petri, who smiled sheepishly. The whole thing was absolutely surreal.

"We played the game by their rules, we generated an overwhelming outpouring of opposition to the bill on short notice, and they kicked us in the face through underhanded maneuvers. Then they wonder why people lose faith in the system and take the law into their own hands. Today, Congress brought shame on itself by turning animal activists into 'terrorists."'

http://noaeta.org/report.htm

Here is the ACLU's position:

ACLU Letter to Congress Urging Opposition to the Animal Enterprise Act, S. 1926 and H.R. 4239 (3/6/2006) Re: Animal Enterprise Act, S. 1926 and H.R. 4239

Dear Member of Congress:

On behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, a non-partisan organization with hundreds of thousands of activists and members and 53 affiliates nation-wide, we write today to explain our opposition to the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, S. 1926 and H.R. 4239 (AETA), a bill that amends the Animal Enterprise Protection Act (AEPA), now 18 U.S.C. § 43. The AETA criminalizes First Amendment activities such as demonstrations, leafleting, undercover investigations, and boycotts. The bill is overly broad, vague, and unnecessary because federal criminal laws already provide a wide range of punishments for unlawful activities targeting animal enterprises.

It’s important to let the reader know what conduct is criminal under current law, too. What are the elements of the crime? Setting them forth now is useful to make your point that the bill criminalizes speech. The AEPA, which passed in 1992, created a penalty of $10,000 or 10 years to life imprisonment for any physical disruption that leads to $10,000 in damages to an animal enterprise. AETA expands the class of criminal behavior in 18 U.S.C. § 43, by changing the term used to described activity “for the purpose of causing physical disruption” to activity “for the purpose of damaging or disrupting” an animal enterprise. The overbroad class of “disruptive” activities apply to any and all activities that result in “losses and increased costs” in excess of $10,000.

Lawful and peaceful protests that, for example, urge a consumer boycott of a company that does not use humane procedures, could be the target of this provision because they “disrupt” the company’s business. This overbroad provision might also apply to a whistleblower whose intentions are to stop harmful or illegal activities by the animal enterprise. The bill will effectively chill and deter Americans from exercising their First Amendment rights to advocate for reforms in the treatment of animals.

Alarmingly, the bill would also make the expanded crime a predicate for Title III federal criminal wiretapping. This provision could be used for widespread domestic surveillance of animal rights organizations. A court will be far more likely to find probable cause for a vague crime of causing economic damage or disruption to an animal enterprise than for a crime that requires some evidence that the organization plans to engage in activity causing illegal “physical disruption.”

While the bill provides an exemption for “lawful public, governmental, or business reaction to the disclosure of information about an animal enterprise,” that exemption applies only to claims of economic “disruption” and not claims of economic “damage.” It also does not necessarily cover the entire range of expression protected by the First Amendment, which covers more than a lawful “reaction” to a “disclosure of information.” Ordinary persons would not understand which activities are prohibited and which are lawful.

The bill AETA also expands the types of facilities covered by the AEPA. The bill adds facilities that sell animals, expands the class of criminal behavior to include threatening conduct (which could have a chilling effect on legitimate whistleblowers) and expands the class of entities protected from the enterprise itself to persons connected to the enterprise. Finally, AETA doubles the criminal penalties and criminalizes attempts to disrupt, which creates a greater danger of encompassing protected speech.

Amendments to AEPA are unnecessary. The Department of Justice has successfully used the existing Animal Enterprise TerrorismProtection Act to obtain indictments of members of animal rights organizations alleged to have engaged in violent behavior. The ACLU urges you to oppose the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, S. 1926 and H.R. 4239.

We thank you for your consideration of our views.

Sincerely,

Caroline FredricksonDirector, Washington Legislative Office
Lisa Graves,Senior Counsel on Legislative Strategy

I could not ascertain if there was a subsequent action by ACLU supporting Sensenbrenner's claim that they did not object, but it seems unlikely.


1) One of the reasons these things can be slopped through in the evening on a voice vote is the presentation of bipartisan support. In the Senate action, Democratic voodoo goddess Diane Feinstein collaborated in this mischief with facile remarks highlighting the direst aspects of animal activism. (If you are into vomit, visit some of the industry homesites---fur ranchers and pork packers are an appropriate start---praising her, Inhofe, and Sensenbrenner.)

The details:

Majority Press Release

INHOFE-FEINSTEIN INTRODUCE BI-PARTISAN ANIMAL ENTERPRISE TERRORISM ACTWASHINGTON, DC

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Chairman of the Environment & Public Works Committee together with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Cal.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today introduced bi-partisan legislation that will enhance the effectiveness of the U.S. Department of Justice’s response to recent trends in the animal rights terrorist movement. The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) was drafted with technical assistance from counter-terror experts at the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Senators Inhofe and Feinstein are committed to passing legislation this year.Sen.

Inhofe Statement: “Our bi-partisan legislation will provide law enforcement the tools they need to adequately combat radical animal rights extremists’ who commit violent acts against innocent people because they work with animals. This is terrorism and must not be tolerated. As a result of my committee hearings on this topic, I became aware of the need for legislation to combat this growing violent phenomenon. With eco-terrorist attacks in Oklahoma and California, Senator Feinstein and I share a commitment to passing legislation that will help end these terrorist attacks.”

Senator Feinstein Statement: "The tactics used by animal rights extremists have evolved in the face of our current laws, and consequently, the scope of their terror is widening,” Senator Feinstein said. “We need the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act to fight these tactics, including the latest trend of targeting any business and associate working with animal research facilities.

“Just three months ago, extremist activists acting in the name of animal rights attempted to firebomb the home of a UCLA primate researcher. The home where they placed their bomb actually belonged to a 70-year-old neighbor of the scientist. Thankfully, the device did not ignite. But it did lead another prominent UCLA researcher to quit in fear. We must recognize that scientific research is not only a legitimate career, but also an invaluable facet of medical advancement, conducted by respectable professionals deserving our support. The deplorable actions of these eco-terrorists threaten to impede important medical progress in California and across the country.

“Unfortunately, this type of activity has been going on for awhile. In August 2003, two bombs were placed at the Emeryville offices of Chiron Corporation, a pharmaceutical company in the Bay area that employs 4,400 employees as our nation's 2nd largest manufacturer of flu vaccines."

The picture was just as bad in the House, where 10 of the bill's 44 sponsors were Democrats:

Nov 4, 2005 Sponsor: Rep. Thomas Petri [R-WI]

Cosponsors: Rep. Robert Andrews [D-NJ]Rep. Tammy Baldwin [D-WI]Rep. Bob Beauprez [R-CO]Rep. Rob Bishop [R-UT]Rep. Marsha Blackburn [R-TN]Rep. Henry Bonilla [R-TX]Rep. Dan Boren [D-OK]Rep. Ken Calvert [R-CA]Rep. Christopher Cannon [R-UT]Rep. Chris Chocola [R-IN]Rep. John Coble [R-NC]Rep. Michael Conaway [R-TX]Rep. Barbara Cubin [R-WY]Rep. Randall Cunningham [R-CA]Rep. John Doolittle [R-CA]Rep. John Duncan [R-TN]Rep. Thomas Edwards [D-TX]Rep. Jo Ann Emerson [R-MO]Rep. Philip English [R-PA]Rep. Michael Ferguson [R-NJ]Rep. Samuel Graves [R-MO]Rep. Mark Green [R-WI]Rep. Ralph Hall [R-TX]Rep. Robert Hayes [R-NC]Rep. Walter Herger [R-CA]Rep. Darrell Issa [R-CA]Rep. Ronald Kind [D-WI]Rep. John Kline [R-MN]Rep. John Kuhl [R-NY]Rep. Rick Larsen [D-WA]Rep. Thaddeus McCotter [R-MI]Rep. Charles Norwood [R-GA]Rep. Otter [R-ID]Rep. Steven Pearce [R-NM]Rep. Collin Peterson [D-MN]Rep. Dennis Rehberg [R-MT]Rep. Paul Ryan [R-WI]Rep. Allyson Schwartz [D-PA]Rep. James Sensenbrenner [R-WI]Rep. Fortney Stark [D-CA]Rep. Bart Stupak [D-MI]Rep. John Sullivan [R-OK]Rep. Curtis Weldon [R-PA]Rep. Addison Wilson [R-SC] Cosponsorship information sometimes is out of date.

Last Action: May 23, 2006: Subcommittee Hearings Held.

Kucinich, from what I can gather, was practically alone in warning of the dangerous aspects of the legislation.

There are several points here that need emphasis. One is that congress is as much a part of the systemic villainy as bush---and maybe more significantly, because it survives in the rotation of members.

The second is that this government is operating in a bipartisan manner no matter how much the two "sides" want us to believe otherwise. With a handful of exceptions, both parties are bought and owned by big money. AETA is a good example here; despite opposition by a large array of legal and animal rights groups, the donations from industry interests easily prevailed.

The third is that the active, incremental promotion of a totalitarian exercise of power, whether intentional or merely incidental to corporate interests, is real. AETA is a text-book instance of protecting industry by curtailing and criminalizing personal freedoms.

There is little reason to think that the introduction of 29 new Democrats whose positions expand the centrist/conservative profile of the party will change much of anything, starting out as they do in hock to the party establishment and big money. It seems there is always that 20-25% available to join in the bipartisan conquest of our freedoms.

The challenge is to stop electing compromised candidates. The job is to convince ourselves that this is possible.

Preston On The Root Of Terror

We pretend that withdrawing from Afghanistan or Iraq will do the hearts-and-minds trick. We pretend (with America's triumphant Democrats as the worst offenders, alas) that Israel can somehow be set to one side while the al-Qaida terror debate rages. We kid ourselves that a Middle East solution - permanent, guaranteed and enforced - is separate and optional. It isn't.

---Peter Preston, "The Root of Terror is Clear"

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1113-33.htm

Jensen's Populist Politics

A quick summing up of his argument:

"Here's the unavoidable reality: Our train is on an unsustainable course in cultural, political, economic, and ecological terms.

"...let's assume that Democratic Party rule could slow down the train and buy us more time. If nothing is done to change the direction of the train, the end remains the same. So, the important question is, what can we do with that time -- not off in an abstract future, but now?

"The small amount of time we might gain will be meaningful only if we confront the harsh reality that the systems that shape our world -- capitalism and empire, rooted in white supremacy and patriarchy -- are fundamentally bankrupt and indefensible, yet deeply rooted in our culture.

"When I make this point, I'm often told...I'm not being realistic, that ordinary people won't listen to such analysis... Of course not everyone agrees...but one wouldn't expect that in this affluent society in which many people are still insulated from the consequences of these systems. But more and more people, from many sectors of society, are facing these realities, and we are searching for a community in which to confront this together.

"Our political work should focus on connecting with people on common ground, and then working to shape a radically new vision of justice and sustainability.

"I think that in the two years to come before the presidential election, pressing this kind of analysis is the crucial political work for those committed to left/feminist/antiracist values and progressive politics. Rather than fussing about how to persuade Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean of the need for radical action, let's take that message to ordinary people, who are more likely to listen... Such an approach cannot promise political transformation in the short-term, but I believe it is the only hope for our future."

http://www.counterpunch.org/jensen11092006.html

Relief From Plantar Fasciitis

Here's Dr. DiGiovanni's new exercise:

"The following exercise can speed recovery from plantar fasciitis. The best time to do the stretch is immediately after the foot has been immobilized for a while, such as when you first get out of bed or the car.

• Sit upright in a chair, barefoot. Place the ankle of the affected foot on the opposite knee.
• Using the same hand as the affected foot, reach across and grab the toes.
• Flex the ankle forward and pull the toes toward shin.
• To test the stretch, place the thumb of your other hand on the bottom of the foot. You should be able to feel the cord-like plantar fascia running the length of the foot.
• Hold the stretch for a count of 10, then relax. Repeat 10 times. Perform the sequence at least three times a day.

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-plantar13nov13,0,241644.story?track=tothtml

-Palance 1919-2006, With Bardot In 1963-

Pug-ugly Majesty: Jack Palance, R.I.P.

"'Most of what I do is garbage,' he told a reporter once. And as for the directors he worked for, 'most of them shouldn't even be directing traffic.'"

He played Jack the Ripper and Jesus Christ.

"(After winning) a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1992 (at age 73) he performed a series of one-hand push-ups while (Billy) Crystal looked on in mock amazement."

He pissed on the great George C. Scott in Oklahoma Crude. Or vice versa.

"He was born in Lattimer Mines, Pa., in the bone-chilling middle of February 1919, and got slapped with Vladimir Palahniuk."

And under the direction of Jean Luc Goddard he bossed Fritz Lang and seduced Bridgette Bardot.

"It was always Palance's role to be the dead guy in the final reel. He was the hero's best friend, in a way. After you shot Palance dead, there wasn't much left to do except walk into the sunset. You had gunned down Palance; you were the man..."

Dead yesterday at 87 of natural causes, at home in Montecito, Calif. Rest in Peace.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/10/AR2006111001862.html?referrer=email

Dead Woman Wins South Dakota Election

"A dead woman, whose name was on the ballot paper in a local US election, has won the poll in a small town in South Dakota.

"Marie Steichen, who died of cancer in September, beat a Republican rival by 100 votes to 64 and became a county commissioner posthumously. The election list closed on 1 August, but Ms Steichen's name was kept on the list for Tuesday's election.

"Voters knew she was dead but wanted to make a point, a local official said.

'"They just had a chance to make a change, and we respect their opinion,' Jerauld County Auditor Cindy Peterson told the Associated Press news agency...'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6133190.stm

Gates And The Election Industry

One of the first consequences of the Dem sweep was the sacrifice of Rummy, to be replaced (pending confirmation) by a retread from the Reagan/bush I wars on America. In place of the relatively transparent Rummy with his incipient senility, we have been offered an eminence grise dragged from his academic penumbra. Is Nancy, no matter how many staffers and interns she will command, no matter her skills as a player, up to this task? There are more threads in the tapestry of deceit and intrigue woven by the masters of industry and government than a Sferra Burano bedsheet. She will be running her investigations and hearings in units of lightyears.

Updating us since the HBO doc, Bev Harris of blackbox links Gates with the eVote drama, if you have the appetite (and stomach) for more background on this, the first unfolding drama spawned by the Wave.

"Beyond Iran / Contragate; Gates & voting fraud Date: Thu, 09 Nov 2006 14:16:13 -0000 Permission to excerpt or reprint granted, with link to http://www.blackboxvoting.org

"Rumsfield replacement (Robert Gates) was director of voting company, by Bev Harris

"Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfield will resign, reportedly to be replaced by former CIA director Robert Gates.

"Gates was on the board of directors of VoteHere, a strange little company that was the biggest elections industry lobbyist for the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). VoteHere spent more money than ES&S, Diebold, and Sequoia combined to help ram HAVA through. And HAVA, of course, was a bill sponsored by by convicted Abramoff pal Bob Ney and K-street lobbyist buddy Steny Hoyer. HAVA put electronic voting on steroids. You can find copies of the VoteHere lobbying forms here: http://sopr.senate.gov/cgi-win/m_opr_viewer.exe?DoFn=0 ..."

Rory Stewart On Leaving Iraq: An Actual Example

"...Democrat positions range from support for the Bush administration's decisions to calls for withdrawal. But almost all fear that Iraq will sink into deeper anarchy if coalition forces leave, endangering the interests of the United States.

"I felt the same when I handed my post as coalition deputy-governor of Dhi Qar province to my Iraqi successor, Muhammad Abbas, in June 2004. I had spent about a year in the Shiite south working with U.S. colleagues to dispense millions of dollars of development aid, hold elections and bolster the state..."

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1108-22.htm

Summing Up: A Negative Victory

Twice in a week I actually agree with a NYTimes editorial:

"There was only one explanation for the crazy-quilt combination of victories around the country that gave the Democrats control of the House of Representatives last night: an angry shout of repudiation of the Bush White House and the abysmal way the Republican majority has run Congress.

"It was a satisfying expression of the basic democratic principle of accountability. A government that performs badly is supposed to be punished by the electorate. And this government has performed badly on so many counts.

"...The Democrats won a negative victory, riding on the wave of public anger about Republicans. The new House majority will certainly call the administration to account on any number of issues, but it will have to do far more than run investigations if it is to build on its victory.

"...They will have to pass bills — bills that might not make it into law, but that would provide a clear idea of what their party would do if it were really in control.

"And while they are trying to build a new majority, the Democrats need to remember what happens when a party in power loses its way."

The war will grind on. It is hard to imagine that after a decade of outright abuse at the hands of dismissive House Republicans, the Dems will not crave revenge. And it is unlikely they can resist the lucre of K Street, even though it is Main Street that carried them into office. And everything will be subordinated to their march toward the White house in 2008.

The best we can expect of the new majority is some obstruction of bushite policies and practices. Anything beyond that is a bonus.

The little fraud in the oval office has just thrown in Rummy. To preserve his wretched cowardly ass he will throw in anything and anyone.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/opinion/08wed5.html?th&emc=th

Ron Paul Warns Us

With hours to go before the elections, why has congressman Ron Paul, the most consistent voice in Washington against the abuses of the neocons and the foolishness of faux liberals, chosen this citizen alert?

"The gun control debate generally ignores the historical and philosophical underpinnings of the Second amendment. The Second amendment is not about hunting deer or keeping a pistol in your nightstand. It is not about protecting oneself against common criminals. It is about preventing tyranny. The Founders knew that unarmed citizens would never be able to overthrow a tyrannical government as they did. They envisioned government as a servant, not a master, of the American people. The muskets they used against the British Army were the assault rifles of that time. It is practical, rather than alarmist, to understand that unarmed citizens cannot be secure in their freedoms..."

Who else in government is telling you this?

http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2006/tst110606.htm

NYTimes Pulls The Covers On WFP

At best, I agree with the great rag's editorials 40% of the time. But this one has it more right than wrong. The WFP is presently a fraud; the idea that voting for Hillary on their line does anything to persuade her of the tentative nature of your support is another political myth. It only confirms her in the success of her triangulation of voter blocs. Third parties that exist only to support candidates of the major parties are perpetrating the myth in order to empower their own self-serving leadership, as the Times argues.

Save your vote for true third parties that front their own candidates. Vote Libertarian, Green, or Socialist. Or write-in:

"...The Working Families Party, which has had a great deal of success in recent years, says it exists to pressure Democrats (and an occasional rogue Republican) into supporting progressive principles. But there are lots of ways to push for change in Albany or in local government that are not such blatant invitations to abuse. The cross-endorsement system is basically a permission slip to sell lines on the New York ballot to the highest bidders.

"At its best, the system rewards parties with little or no accountability outside of a small group of organizers with a disproportionate amount of power. Their key to electoral success does not lie in developing candidates who can appeal to the voters. It lies in picking a really good name. (Who could be against independence? Or working families?) After that, all that is necessary is to cross-endorse Republicans or Democrats who are hungry for extra positions on the ballot — or afraid that the third-party line could be handed over to a genuine candidate who might siphon away needed votes.

"If you want to vote for a real third-party candidate, the ballot is going to be full of them. The Libertarian, Green and Socialist Workers Parties all have their own nominees for governor. Qualifying through petition signatures is easy enough that even the Rent Is Too High party made the cut. But if you want to vote for Eliot Spitzer or John Faso, stick to the parties they really belong to."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/05/opinion/nyregionopinions/CIthirdparty.1.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=nyregionopinions&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1162824354-aloExxQ2k717tOB7zazoGQ

"No Third Way In Iraq"

Frederick W. Kagan, in the new isue of The Weekly Standard:

"The United States has two options in Iraq: stay and try to win, or cut, run, and lose. Attempts to chart a middle course--partial withdrawal or redeployment, accelerated hand-over to the Iraqis, political deals with Syria or Iran--ignore the realities of the military situation. The real choice we face is this: Is it better to accept defeat than to endure the pain of trying to succeed?

"...The Iraqi military, unfortunately, is still a work in progress. Although there are growing numbers of trained Iraqi soldiers formed into increasingly competent tactical units, those units remain highly dependent on American logistical support for food, shelter, ammunition, and transportation. This situation is not entirely the fault of the American military. It stems also from the failure of the Iraqi government to establish ministries capable of performing their assigned tasks--a failure abetted by woefully inadequate assistance from the nonmilitary agencies of the U.S. government.

"...Wherever the blame for this failure lies, there is no denying that it has occurred. The Iraqi military cannot function without a significant American logistical presence. It cannot continue to improve in quality without a significant American training presence, which includes a partnership between Iraqi combat units and coalition combat units conducting counterinsurgency operations. These facts make nonsense of any idea of significantly reducing the American presence as a way to 'incentivize' the Iraqi military. Redeployment on any significant scale will not incentivize the Iraqi military. It will lead to its collapse..."

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/902lfnxh.asp

Another Worm Turns

Richard Perle is just the latest in a pathetic parade of bougeois intelligentsia seeking shamelesly to shift blame and distance itself from the Iraq disaster it helped create.

"...the former Pentagon advisor regarded as the intellectual godfather of the Iraq war, now believes he should not have backed the U.S.-led invasion, and he holds President Bush responsible for failing to make timely decisions to stem the rising violence, according to excerpts from a magazine interview.

"Perle — a leading neoconservative who chaired the Pentagon's defense advisory board for the first three years of the Bush administration — is quoted in January's Vanity Fair as saying the U.S. might have been able to strip Saddam Hussein of his ability to build unconventional weapons 'by means other than a direct military intervention.'

"'I think if I had been Delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said 'Should we go into Iraq?' I think now I probably would have said, 'No, let's consider other strategies...'"

Tell it to the dead, you shameless dirtbag.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-neocons4nov04,0,7333576.story?track=tottext

Women and War: A New Tactic In Gaza

This dramatic episode demonstrates the devotion of the Palestinian people to Hamas, and the bloody folly of the Israeli government's bankrupt campaign of ongoing aggression in the face of another emergent democracy that no one outside of Gaza expected. But beyond that?

"GAZA CITY — About 200 Palestinian women broke through an Israeli troop and tank cordon around a mosque Friday to serve as human shields, allowing dozens of armed militants to flee an Israeli siege, but only after two of the women were killed. Answering a call from the Hamas radio station, the women took to the streets in a mass public intervention of a kind rarely seen in this conservative Muslim society. They carried extra robes and veils with them to disguise some of the militants holed up in the mosque.

The idea to call on the women emerged from a 2 a.m. meeting of the Hamas leadership, according to Jamela Shanti, 45, one of two Gazan women in the parliamentary delegation of Hamas, which leads the Palestinian government. Two hours later, as organizers coordinated by cellphone with the gunmen in the mosque, Shanti began recruiting other women.

"...The lead group of women approached the besieged mosque on foot on a wide street, shouting at the Israelis to leave Gaza. Soldiers turned from the mosque and opened fire.

"An Israeli army spokesman said soldiers had spotted two male militants hiding among the women and fired at them. Footage filmed by Reuters and other news organizations showed no men in the crowd at the time..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mideast4nov04,0,3000120.story?track=tottext

Signs Of Emerging Civilization

"A TURKISH court yesterday acquitted a 92-year-old archaeologist for claiming that Islamic-style head scarves were first worn more than 5,000 years ago by priestesses initiating young men into sex.

"In a trial that lasted less than an hour, the court in Istanbul acquitted Muazzez Ilmiye Cig, an expert on the Sumerian civilisation of Mesopotomia of around the third millennium BC, of insulting religious feelings. The diminutive, pro-secular academic, who was born in 1914 - the waning years of the Ottoman Empire - was the latest person to go on trial for expressing her views, despite intense European Union pressure on Turkey to expand freedom of expression."

Have some chocolate covered halvah and relax. Or is that Greek?

http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1620302006

Suicide-By-Dysfunctional-Government, Some More

"The New York Times headline for Friday reads, 'US Web Archive Is Said to Reveal a Nuclear Primer.' Bad enough all by itself, true, but this headline does not entirely convey the insane and astonishing and absurd and awful realities behind this story.

"The Times article continues, 'The site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq's secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb. The documents, roughly a dozen in number, contain charts, diagrams, equations and lengthy narratives about bomb building that nuclear experts who have viewed them say go beyond what is available elsewhere on the Internet and in other public forums. For instance, the papers give detailed information on how to build nuclear firing circuits and triggering explosives, as well as the radioactive cores of atom bombs.'

"Translation: We have spent the last five years being terrorized by our own government - 'We do not want the evidence to be a mushroom cloud' - and yet these nitwits somehow conclude that publishing detailed directions for the building of nuclear bombs is perfectly fine. You have to wonder if North Korea's sudden leaps forward in their own nuclear program came because they got a chance to read the user's manual for the nuclear club. Note well, by the way, that the data published is from before the first Gulf War, which means it has nothing to do with Iraq's WMD program in 2003, said program having been utterly decimated by sanctions and targeted bombing runs..."

---William Rivers Pitt

Iraq: Even The Profiteers Are Fleeing

I don't usually have much use for Paul Krugman, but his column in the Times today adds a bit to the picture:

"Bechtel, the giant engineering company, is leaving Iraq. Its mission - to rebuild power, water and sewage plants - wasn't accomplished: Baghdad received less than six hours a day of electricity last month, and much of Iraq's population lives with untreated sewage and without clean water. But Bechtel, having received $2.3 billion of taxpayers' money and having lost the lives of 52 employees, has come to the end of its last government contract.

"As Bechtel goes, so goes the whole reconstruction effort. Whatever our leaders may say about their determination to stay the course complete the mission, when it comes to rebuilding Iraq they've already cut and run. The $21 billion allocated for reconstruction over the last three years has been spent, much of it on security rather than its intended purpose, and there's no more money in the pipeline..."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/110306M.shtml