By MARY PEREA, Associated Press Writer 49 minutes ago
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - A Georgia bride-to-be who vanished just days before her wedding turned up in New Mexico and fabricated a tale of abduction before admitting Saturday that she had gotten cold feet and "needed some time alone," police said.
Jennifer Wilbanks, 32, was in police custody more than 1,420 miles from her home on what was supposed to be her wedding day.
"It turns out that Miss Wilbanks basically felt the pressure of this large wedding and could not handle it," said Randy Belcher, the police chief in Duluth, Ga., the Atlanta suburb where Wilbanks lives with her fiance. He said there would be no criminal charges.
Wilbanks, whose disappearance set off a nationwide hunt, called her fiance, John Mason, from a pay phone late Friday and told him that she had been kidnapped while jogging three days before, authorities said. Her family rejoiced that she was safe, telling reporters that the media coverage apparently got to the kidnappers.
But Wilbanks soon recanted, according to police.
Ray Schultz, chief of police in Albuquerque, said Wilbanks "had become scared and concerned about her impending marriage and decided she needed some time alone." He said she traveled to Las Vegas by bus before going to Albuquerque.
"She's obviously very concerned about the stress that she's been through, the stress that's been placed on her family," he said. "She is very upset."
The mood outside Wilbanks' home went from jubilant to somber after Wilbanks changed her story. Family members ducked inside and the blinds were drawn, but friends expressed relief that Wilbanks was safe.
"Having cold feet is a joy compared to what the alternative might have been," friend Melinda Larson, who had planned to attend the wedding, told CNN.
The wedding was going to be a huge bash. The couple had mailed 600 invitations, and the ceremony was to feature 14 bridesmaids and 14 groomsmen.
Wilbanks' uncle, Mike Satterfield, thanked people who had helped in the search and supported the family.
"Jennifer had some issues the family was not aware of. We're looking forward to loving her and talking to her about these issues," he said.
This is a prime reason Nancy Grace needs to be kept off TV.
She basically had the woman in a ditch as the vicitim of some nefarious sex crime on last night's show. She looked like she was going to break down in tears when she talked to the woman's father.
The idea that she flipped and ran was discounted.
Obviously, this woman is a massive coward. Kidnapping? Leaving her boyfriend as the next Scott Peterson? Come on. One phone call would have cut this bullshit out. Someone could have been killed behind this. Once you get the cops involved, anything could have happened. An innocent man chased and cornered as a suspect, anything.
They have this insanely large wedding planned, and then she runs like she owes her book five grand she doesn't have. Jennifer definitely has some issues, moral courage being the first one.
If I were her fiance, I'd be preparing for a honeymoon with his new best friend, Jack Daniels. Because anyone running out on a big wedding like that either has stage fright like you wouldn't believe or doesn't want to marry you. And I'd bet on number 2.
Democrats have good reason to be aghast at President Bush's new proposal for Social Security. Someone has finally called their bluff.
They tried yesterday to portray him as just another cruel, rich Republican for suggesting any cuts in future benefits, but that's not what the prime-time audience saw on Thursday night. By proposing to shore up the system while protecting low-income workers, Mr. Bush raised a supremely awkward question for Democrats: which party really cares about the poor?
......................
"The amount of income-related redistribution in Social Security is a lot less than people think," said Jeffrey Liebman, a Harvard economist and a former official in the Clinton administration. "If you get the details right, you can design a personal-account retirement system in which groups with high risks of poverty in old age come out at least as well as with the current system."
So why are his fellow Democrats so dead set against it? Their usual answer has been that any move to privatization would doom the poor along with the whole Social Security program. If you let the middle and upper classes opt out and finance their own retirement, the argument has gone, there will be no political support for even the modest subsidies that Social Security now provides to low-income workers - just look at what Republicans did to welfare and public housing programs.
But the elderly poor are different from the younger poor. For one thing, they're more likely to vote, a fact not lost on even the most hardhearted Republican. They also arouse much more public sympathy. Kicking 25-year-olds off welfare was popular because it was thought to be good for them. Nobody claims that forcing that widow to eat cat food will build character.
That's why even the most ardent free-marketeers are not trying to eliminate the safety net for the elderly. The libertarians at the Cato Institute are trying to strengthen it with a proposal that has been introduced by Republicans in Congress. If your individual account left you with a paltry pension, their plan would guarantee you a subsidy to lift you above the poverty line - and well above what many retirees are now getting from Social Security.
Democrats like to portray Mr. Bush as King George or Marie Antoinette. But on Thursday night, when he promised to improve benefits for the poor while limiting them for everyone else, he sounded more like Robin Hood, especially when he rhapsodized about poor people getting a chance to build up assets that they could pass along to their children.
It was the kind of talk you might expect to hear from a Democrat, except that Democrats don't talk about much these days except the glories of the New Deal. They know that Social Security doesn't even have the money to sustain a program that leaves millions of elderly people in poverty. But it's their system, and they're sticking to it.
I never liked John Tierney.
He has been advocating overturning rent control in New York for years. When it was tried in the mid-90's, landlords, among the stupidest businessmen on the planet, were planning hundreds of dollar rent increases. Of course, since the tenent lobby is the second largest in the state, the plan was stillborn.
And he's an idiot.
Bush's "plan" would cut benefits to everyone who makes more than $20K a year. Which is 70 percent of America. Think about that for a minuite. Nearly three out of four American workers would take a benefits cut. That's Robin Hood alright, if you're King John.
Because Bush has not planned to raise benefits for the poor, but simply not cut them. So in this mythical world where the market never crashes, people might make more money, some might come out better, but most Americans would be screwed like a Thai hooker visiting Neil Bush in his hotel room.
Let's be for real: nothing stops working class people from investing today. They can buy wide screen TV's and rims, they can invest in the stock market, and don't. Over 40 percent of people eligible to participate in 401K's, don't. Across the finanical and educational board. Why? Because they don't trust Wall Street. Simple as that. The complexities of investment would cause some people to live in utter poverty.
A WaPo article had an interview with a woman getting her masters in accounting. Hardly a financial illiterate. And she just said she didn't have the time, between her kids and school to worry about investing in social security.
And Tierney is also wrong in assuming the conmen at Cato aren't trying to screw the elderly. What they want to do is move this to 100 market-based investing. So everyone has to eventually jump in the market place.
In states where this plan has been tried, investment rates have been well under 10 percent, with many people moving back into the state-secured system.
If poor people want assest to pass on to their kids, being healthy and not living off them because they have a social security check is a wonderful gift. And there is no law against bank accounts. The utter selfishness of Bush's plan is amazing to behold. Robin Hood is right, but he's King John coming for your gold.
WASHINGTON, April 27 - The House passed a bill on Wednesday making it a federal crime for any adult to transport an under-age girl across state lines to have an abortion without the consent of her parents. A vote on a similar bill is expected in the Senate later this spring or early this summer, and backers says its chances are good.
The measure, the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, passed 270 to 157 and was a victory for abortion opponents, who have been pushing an ambitious agenda now that Congress is under greater Republican control.
"This legislation will close a loophole that allows adults not only to help minors break state laws by obtaining an abortion without parental consent, but also contributes to ending the life of an innocent child," said the chief sponsor, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Republican of Florida.
The bill, intended to prevent minor girls from going to different states to circumvent more restrictive laws in their home states, applies to adults who accompany girls 17 and under. It also, for the first time, requires doctors who perform abortions on under-age girls to comply with state notification laws, and in some cases to notify the girl's parents in person. Violators could face a $100,000 fine and a year in jail.
The bill also imposes a 24-hour waiting period for young women who travel to another state for an abortion, in some cases even if they are accompanied by their parents.
Supporters characterize the measure as pro-family, saying it will prevent abusive boyfriends and others from taking vulnerable young women across state lines to receive "secret abortions" against their will. They say that the decision to have an abortion should rest solely with the parents. Amendments that would have allowed grandparents or members of the clergy to accompany the young women were rejected.
The measure has the strong backing of the White House, which issued a statement on Wednesday saying the bill "is consistent with the administration's view that parents' efforts to be involved in their children's lives should be protected and the widespread belief among authorities in the field that the parents of pregnant minors are best suited to provide them with counsel, guidance and support."
Opponents call the measure misguided and say it would violate a Supreme Court ruling that required state parental notification laws to include alternatives, like permitting abortions with a judge's consent. And they say it would put some young women, like those who are the victims of sexual abuse by their fathers, in serious danger.
"Thankfully, most young women involve their parents in the decision to seek an abortion," said Representative Nita M. Lowey, Democrat of New York. "But under this legislation, those who feel they cannot turn to their parents when facing an unintended pregnancy will be forced to fend for themselves without any help from a responsible adult. Some will seek unsafe abortions close to home. Others will travel to unfamiliar places seeking abortions by themselves."
Jen
Yes, I'm sure a 16-year old will have no problem whatsoever getting her Mom to drive her to a clinic if her stepfather rapes her. Yeah.
Unless she's a 13 year old foster care child in Florida and then the state will force her to carry the baby to term no matter what she wants.
A pregnant 13-year-old girl in Florida has been told she cannot have an abortion because she lacks the maturity to make such a decision.
A state court granted an injunction which prevents the girl from terminating her pregnancy.
She is three months pregnant and had planned to have an abortion on Tuesday of this week.
The American Civil Liberties Union says it will launch an urgent appeal against the ruling.
'Too young to choose'
Florida's department of children and families intervened and took the matter to court, arguing the teenager, who is under the care of the state, is too young and immature to make an informed medical decision. Judge Ronald Alvarez in Palm Beach accepted that argument and has granted a temporary injunction and psychological evaluation, which effectively blocks her from terminating the pregnancy.
It is a case which, once again, plays into the heated and divisive debate about abortion in America.
The judge's ruling comes in spite of Florida state law which specifically does not require a minor to seek parental consent before an abortion.
At what point do the wingnuts go too far with this "culture of life" bullshit and harm someone. Is the State of Florida going to raise the baby? What is she is injured for life in childbirth or dies during it? Where will Jeb! be then?
My friend David Pescovitz recently appeared on a panel addressing the question of whether bloggers were "real journalists." Then I had one of those experiences that made that abstract question all too shockingly real.
I was preparing my application for a USC Annenberg School for Communication media fellowship, which paid tuition for a weekend seminar on "Covering Entertainment in the Digital Age." I noticed that the application required a lot of information to come from my "supervisor," so I called them up to ask how I as a freelancer should handle this. I'd already obtained a letter of recommendation from my editor of six years at Photo District News, for whom I've written dozens of features about how digital technology was transforming the visual arts. Several years ago when I was awarded two media fellowships from CASE, including one on art and technology, they were extremely accommodating, so I was not prepared to hear that while USC would accept applications from people like me, I might as well not bother because they really couldn't prove I was a "real journalist." When I listed all the publications I've written for over the years, they said it didn't matter. If I didn't work in a newsroom, I apparently wasn't a real journalist in their book.
I was angry at first, of course. But on further contemplation, it made a little sense. The "real journalists," newsroom reporters who are responsible for some of the sloppiest, most fear-mongering reporting around when it comes to the digital/information age we live in, are probably more in need of a thoughtful, informative seminar than writers such as myself, who cannot cruise by knowing my paycheck will come every two weeks no matter what half-assed dreck I publish. It made me realize that the most thoughtful, provocative journalism today is, in fact, coming from independents writing for magazines, writing books, an in some cases maintaining blogs. That's not to say all television and news reporters suck, of course, but I'm not the first to intimate a serious decline in standards.
In fact, I can't even remember the last time I referred to myself as a journalist. In my view, the word has an almost tawdry ring to it. I consider myself an independent writer who, in addition to writing fiction, doing some creative consulting and fun stuff like this blog, provides high-quality journalism for some great publications. If USC doesn't think that's even worth investing in, then I hope they enjoy going down with the sinking ship they've chosen to cast their lot with.
Ah, it's a quiet, cool Friday night and when I read this, I just shake my head. Because while I was thinking about the joys of blended drinks, I was saddened to see yet another example of how the MSM is missing the boat. There are few rules left. The modern Casablanca of journalism, the White House Press Corps, is so corrupt that Jerry Springer pointed out something simple: they are slaves to power. The fact is that they aren't just not doing the job, they are failing so badly that people are refusing to even engage them. They just stop watching CNN, MSNBC.
How cluless are they?
Jon Stewart is probably the most respected newsman in America, and he does fake news. While the media does glowing portraits of him, they don't seem to get his mere presence refutes them.
Unlike the British news satires, like Public Eye and Not the Nine O Clock News, which goes hammer and tongs after celebrities and politicians, The Daily Show goes after the media. It is a daily cry for a responsible media, one which does what it should. But the newsmen keep laughing. They don't get the joke is on them.
When the clowns of Crossfire realized people were laughing at them and not with them, they were shocked. They didn't get that people didn't like the screaming and thought Stewart was dead on. They didn't get that people were happy to cheer him on berating these people.
The reason that being a journalist matters is that it has legal implications. It wouldn't matter if there wasn't the law behind the rights of journalists. But other than that, the MSM is in need of reform. Not just a bullshit here and there patch. But deep and serious reform where the way they cover the news has to change.
But this post indicates something else, journalism is moving away from the corporation and to the individual. It was one thing when newspapers were owned by the rich and crazy, now they're just profit centers and the romance of reporting, that one thing which draws people in and keeps them around, is disappearing. It's not that politics and crappy editors have ruined the day, they've always existed. But there is just something fowl, like rotten chicken skin deep in a pile of garbage, which is coming from today's journalism. It's incomplete, it's dishonest. When a long time liberal like Sheryl McCarthy can cheer on taking money from a disability check, in the liberal Newsday, and no editor said "woah, this is kinda mean, and not in the good way" then you know you can smell the stink.
A mentally unbalanced lunatic like Nancy Grace gets two hours a night to rant about crime, nearly on the verge of a breakdown every freaking day on a news channel. It's like watching a speeding car crash into an exploding building. But this is a news show. On a news channel and no one cares. Once upon a time, people would have been embarassed to have this show on. Paddy Chayefsky was partially kidding with Network, but even he would have recoiled at Fox and freakshows like Grace.
You watch this shit, night after night and you want to beat your head against the wall, because you know this isn't what is supposed to be on. American journalists can rise to heroism when needed, but too often, their deskbound editors are undermining them. And this isn't new either. The Vietnam era had the same conflicts and people quit in frustration over the same issues. Peter Arnett hung on the longest, but was eventually backstabbed out of a job in the end.
And commentary? Shit it's turned into a partisan nightmare. Once, it was the establishment, now it's cruel pikers like Ann Coulter and Bill Kristol. They lie without pause or remorse. Every word they utter is as tainted as day old tuna. And they have gotten rich from it, obscenely rich.
Jenn Shreve is, of course, as much a journalist as me or anyone else. It has nothing to do with a newsroom. But the fact that some people think so is well, as sad as it is frustrating.
By TINI TRAN, Associated Press Writer 39 minutes ago
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam - Vietnam celebrated the communist victory over a U.S.-backed government Saturday, parading its troops down the same boulevard along which tanks rolled to smash into the Presidential Palace of South Vietnam 30 years ago. ADVERTISEMENT click here
Watched by the country's top leaders and legendary figures like Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, soldiers, government workers and performers marched with red flags waving toward the palace gates. Hundreds of aging veterans, their chests dripping with medals, watched from the sidelines.
Giant billboards of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam's revolutionary leader, dominated the parade ground and adjoining streets which had been blocked off to the public because of security concerns.
On April 30, 1975, North Vietnamese tanks barreled through the gates of the palace, the heart of the U.S.-backed Saigon government. The fall of Saigon marked the official end to the Vietnam War, and the U.S.'s decade-long involvement in Southeast Asia. The war claimed some 58,000 American lives and an estimated 3 million Vietnamese.
"I was listening to the radio with my family and heard that Saigon had been liberated. I was very happy because for many years we weren't free. After 30 years we have rebuilt our country. Our land is safe and secure and I think the future will be better for my children," said To Thanh Nghia, 51, a government worker marching in the parade.
But the atmosphere in the country three decades later has been mostly festive, focusing on Vietnam's economic rejuvenation in recent years. Memories of the war and its aftermath are little more than anecdotes in history books for the majority of the country's population who were born after it ended.
Hmmm, I wonder how we will get our Iraqi collaborators out? By C-130?
It was the Vietnam War in microcosm....Good intentions marred by fatally flawed follow-through.
By Col. Harry G. Summers, Jr
It was not a proud day to be an American. As our CH-46 Marine helicopter lifted off the roof of the American Embassy in Saigon at 5:30 a.m., April 30, 1975--taking the last of the Americans, except for the Marine guards, to USS Okinawa and safety--the full extent of our betrayal struck home. The 420 evacuees below, whom we had given our solemn promise not to abandon, began to press at the Marine guards then withdrawing into the embassy.
But it was too late. America had not only fecklessly abandoned its erstwhile ally in its time of most desperate need but also had shamefully abandoned the last several hundred of those evacuees who had trusted America to the very end. Included were the local firemen who had refused earlier evacuation so as to be on hand if one of the evacuation helicopters crashed into the landing zone in the embassy courtyard; a German priest with a number of Vietnamese orphans; and members of the Republic of Korea (ROK) embassy, including several ROK Central Intelligence Agency officers who chose to remain to the end to allow civilians to be evacuated ahead of them and who would later be executed in cold blood by the North Vietnamese invaders.
The worst of it was that it was all unintentional, the result of a breakdown in communication between those on the ground running the embassy evacuation, those offshore with the fleet controlling the helicopters, and those in Honolulu and Washington who were making the final decisions. In short, it was the Vietnam War all over again.
............
On April 29, 1975, we moved from our headquarters at the DAO compound to the U.S. Embassy in downtown Saigon, fully prepared to remain in-country. No sooner had we arrived there, however, than it was found that Secretary of State Kissinger, reportedly in a fit of pique, had ordered all U.S. personnel out of Vietnam, including the FPJMT and the embassy staff.
While the evacuation at the DAO compound had already begun, the only evacuation from the embassy had been by a few Air America UH-1 helicopters from the roof, shuttling key people to the DAO evacuation point. The plan had called for the evacuation of the 100 or so U.S. personnel from the embassy in this manner. All other evacuees were to be bused or helilifted by Air America helicopters to the main evacuation point at the DAO. But that plan had broken down, and already some 3,000 people, about half of them Vietnamese, had crowded within the embassy walls. With the streets of Saigon becoming impassable, there was no way they could be bused to the Tan Son Nhut evacuation point.
There was a large tamarind tree in the embassy courtyard that made it unusable as a landing zone, and Ambassador Martin, evidently seeing the tree as a symbol of his determination not to abandon his post, had refused to have it cut down. But now the end was inevitable, and the tree was finally felled. The landing zone was still blocked, however, by the mass of civilian evacuees. To alleviate the chaos, Colonel Madison volunteered our services to Wolfgang Lehmann, the deputy chief of mission (DCM).
While Marine Major James Kean and his embassy security detail, augmented by some 130 U.S. Marines from the Ground Security Force at the DAO compound, manned the walls to prevent more people from entering the compound, we set about clearing a landing zone in the embassy courtyard and organizing the evacuees for departure. Uneasiness had begun to spread, as the crowd saw the Air America helicopters lifting off the embassy roof. Our worst fear throughout the evacuation was a repeat of the experience at Da Nang earlier in the month, where panic had taken over and it had become impossible even to land, lest the aircraft become mobbed and be unable to take off. .............. But that never happened at the embassy. For one thing, the Marine security guards were able to secure the walls and prevent the thousands in the streets outside from overrunning the compound. For another, Captain Herrington, Sergeants Herron and Pace and Specialist Bell (all of whom spoke Vietnamese) were able to assure the crowd that they were not going to be abandoned.
The first task was to clear the embassy courtyard. Under the control of Gunnery Sgt. Pace (our "inside man"), most of those in the courtyard area were sent into the embassy itself, later to be evacuated from the roof as CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters began arriving from the fleet offshore. The rest were herded into the CRA (Combined Recreation Association) compound next door. Site of the embassy club and swimming pool, it was separated from the embassy itself by the firehouse and a chain-link fence.
With the help of a local missionary, Reverend Tom Stebbins, who spoke Vietnamese, I circulated among the crowd in the CRA compound, assuring them that all would be eventually evacuated. Meanwhile a loading zone for the larger Marine CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters was laid out in the embassy courtyard. Even with two landing zones operating simultaneously, the evacuation began slowly and sporadically, for the main evacuation point at Tan Son Nhut had priority. By midnight some 1,800 people had been evacuated from the embassy, but then the helicopter flow came to a temporary halt as the choppers refueled aboard ship after completing the DAO evacuation. Panic began to spread among the evacuees still in the CRA compound.
The Marine guards securing the gate between the CRA compound and the embassy courtyard were becoming hard pressed. Captain Herrington came to their rescue, entering the CRA compound to restore order, followed by myself and Sergeant Herron. "Khong ai se bi bo lai!" Herrington said. "No one will be left behind!"
Over and over again he reassured them, "I'm in here with you, and I'll be on the last helicopter. They will not leave me behind. No one is abandoning you. In a little while the helicopters will begin arriving again." Finally the panic subsided. As soon as it did, we moved the 1,100 remaining evacuees from the CRA compound through the gate and onto the roof of the firehouse, where they could see what was going on.
At about 2 a.m. on April 30, the helicopter flow resumed. After forcing them to abandon their luggage, we found we could put 90 Vietnamese on board the CH-53s. At 4:15 a.m. Colonel Madison informed Wolfgang Lehmann that only six lifts remained to complete the evacuation. Lehmann told him no more helicopters would be coming. But Colonel Madison would have none of it. We had given our word.
Madison and his men would be on the final lift after all the evacuees under our care had been flown to safety. Lehmann relented and said the helicopters would be provided. That message was later reaffirmed by Brunson McKinley, the ambassador's personal assistant. But McKinley was lying. Even as he reassured us, he knew the lift had been canceled, and he soon fled, along with the ambassador and Lehmann, his DCM.
It was the only time in my 38-year military career that I had been lied to on an operational matter. For a military officer such an act would be unthinkable. But the State Department obviously had different standards, and McKinley later became a high-ranking officer at State in charge of refugee affairs
The end of the Vietnam War came quickly. It was a surprise that the ARVN collapsed so quickly and anyone alive then cannot forget the sea being littered with helicopters. It was the final tragic act of a tragedy. It was a sad, shameful end to a horrible policy
One hopes when we abandon Iraq, the same story will not be told again.
April 29, 2005 -- A day after 3-year-old Clarence Ricky Davis Jr., sneaked out of his Queens home and hopped a bus by himself to a movie theater, the tyke went to the pictures again yesterday — this time with his family and The Post.
It was our treat.
The pint-size nomad also got the good news that his dad — arrested the previous night for allowing little Ricky to wander off — had been released with no charges filed.
The "sequel" to Ricky's adventure began yesterday with breakfast at IHOP before the family headed to see "Robots" at the Jamaica Multiplex Cinemas, the destination of Wednesday's solo sojourn.
"It's this way!" shouted the exuberant boy, pointing the way.
"We're there!" he shouted gleefully when he got to the theater.
But the roaming rug rat kept mainly silent during the flick, preferring to munch popcorn and slurp soda, cackling joyfully throughout the 91-minute film — even though he'd already seen portions of it during his solo trip out.
Ricky's mother, Sherrie Williams, obviously relieved to have him back, barely let the boy out of her sight all day.
And the AWOL tyke nodded shamefacedly when his mother asked, "So you're not going to go anywhere without Mommy anymore, right?"
The wandering whippersnapper frightened his family and amazed investigators Wednesday when he slipped out of his Springfield Gardens home — wearing a suit jacket, no less — took the Q5 bus 31/2 miles to Jamaica and slipped into the theater by tagging along with another family.
Theater staff notified police after the mystified mother of that family told them the boy didn't belong to her. ............................
He said he'd installed a new lock on the front door — high above the reach of a 3-year-old — and another on the rear door.
I was wondering why the guys and gals and muffin stumps over at NRO's The Corner were flagging down motorists and accosting strangers to drag them into attending NRO's "Atlantafest."
This gala evening with the conservative no-stars costs $500!
No wonder they're worried about empty tables and waiters standing around with nothing to do.
Today, in an effort to whip up enthusiasm (only to churn dead air), K'Lo listed some cool reasons why You'd want to sup among the gods.
Such as (actual example), "You want to drink Jonah under the table."
Is it really responsible of the National Review, which once subscribed to Irving Babbitt's notion of the "inner check," to encourage the sort of Viking binge drinking that triggered such moral alarm among readers of Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons?
Only a few weeks ago, conservatives were mocking the boozehound exploits of the late Hunter Thompson as evidence of a desolate soul and psyche, and now they're encouraging fans to drink themselves insensible as Jonah paws the linoleum under the card table, puking up his dignity and leaving a dimpled pool for the staff to mop up later.
I hope the NRO crew are prepared for what will greet them once they deboard from the chartered Peter Pan bus with the special pinochle table in the rear. They should be made aware that there are a lot of black people in Atlanta. A lot. To those used to seeing a J. C. Watts or an Armstrong Williams sticking out like a chocolate chip in a vanilla cookie, this may come as a cultural shock. There is no reason for them to feel threatened or besieged, but if anxiety gets the better of them they can clump together in a protective scrum and move like a plump centipede from the Boss Hogg motel to the Carson McCullers Memorial Sad Cafe, where the fest is being held.
I look forward to the digital pix from "Atlantafest" that they'll no doubt post on the site next week showing Jonah and Derb with their arms flung around two Hooters waitresses who are doing their best to bury their shame and smile
They had to mock Thompson, he was more man than any of them. But then so are most women.
Atlantans are nice people, but I think Jonah better play down the Goldberg part with that crew. I think some of those folks are more likely to have issues with him or ask when he will accept Jesus Christ in his life.
Schedule of events:
Saturday 8 AM: Wench Breeding. Come and get a comely negro wench to satiate your needs
8:10 AM Finish negro wench, have her prepare your clothes for breakfast
9 AM: Breakfast: grits and gravy, eggs, sausages, bacon, the circumsized penises of bulls
10 AM-12 AM: Containing the Jewish Hollywood threat
12 Noon: Lunch: Fried Chicken, watermelon, ice tea, served by the Dancing Minstrels who will perform after the meal.
1:30-3 PM: Making the most of your mexican slaves: A Wal Mart-sponsored talk.
3-4 PM: Abortion clincs and car bombs: bringing new technology to the culture of life
4-5 PM: Michael Schiavo: deranged killer, wife-beating sadist
5-7PM: Activist judges and the Barrett .50 rifle: together at last
8:30-Midnight: An old fashioned southern ball, where the glories of the Confederacy are recounted
Sunday 8 AM: Wench breeding
8:15 AM: Have satisified wench prepare clothes for breakfast
9 AM: Breakfast. Waffles, sauasages, eggs, and rocky mountain oysters.
10 AM: Devotional service. All non-Christians are given the chance to convert
11 AM: Slavery: Not as the bad as the liberal left says it was
12 Noon: Lunch catfish, hush puppies, pulled pork, cornbread, served by black Confederate reenactors
1-3 PM: Affirmative action: curtailing opportunies for whites
3-5 PM: Confederate reenactors stage the Battle of Ft. Pillow
5-6 PM: Deroy and Jonah run for their lives in the dual recreations of the Emmitt Till and Leo Frank lynchings.
Son, when you see a warblogger, get the legs first, they may have a little shit running down them, but since they won't fight back, you have to stop them from running, that's the key, stop the cowards from running, then eat
Charles Johnson, Marc Danziger and I have been sneaking around over the last few months, trying to turn blogs into a business. We have enlisted some others with names familiar to you with the intention of working in two areas - aggregating blogs to increase corporate advertising and creating our own professional news service.
With respect to advertising, we do not wish to go into competition with Henry Copeland's BlogAds, which we fully support. (Some of us even have them!) We are working on another model that will sell ads en masse, not blog-by-blog. We expect this model to go live within a few weeks.
As for the Blog News Service, a lot of work needs to be done and a lot of questions answered. An editorial board consisting of Glenn Reynolds, PowerLine, Lawrence Kudlow, Hugh Hewitt, Marc Cooper, Wretchard of the Belmont Club and Tim Blair, as well as the founders, is already in place with other bloggers in many countries having signed on as contributors.
This is no way meant to be exclusive. We invite you all to join us. On the advertising end, any blogger -- whether political or not -- is welcome. We would be delighted to place ads on your blog and pay you for them. You may find out more and, we hope, join by simply emailing us at join@pajamasmedia.com.
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Tbogg's reply:
Yes. This would be a "news service" if by "news service" you mean a loosely confederated group of individuals who don't necessarily go out and cover events so much as read the traditional news sources about them and then they...retype it. God knows you can't find that on the internets. Of course, check out that editorial board and the advertisers are sure to come a'running
They should call this this racist bullshiters, cowards and liars service.
I'm sure they should get plenty of ads for Celebrate Diversity and kill the sand niggers T-shirts. Assrocket and friends are idiots of the first order and Simon cowers at the sight of a Pakistani school girl. The shit runs down his legs when he goes to Westwood.
And in other words, they want to do what Kos and Atrios have already done. They might start writing true things and going from there. But that's too hard. So they have to lie.
Editorial board my as, more like a Confederacy of Dunces.
In the 13 years that Sean Narayanan lived in the US, he earned a masters degree from Oklahoma University, worked with a top consulting firm and served at senior positions in technology companies.
Three years ago, he sold off his 3,800 sq ft plush house in Virginia and returned to India.
"India today offers the best of both worlds," Mr Narayanan says.
"Global experience seems essential in the infotech industry and there's no better place than India to get it."
He now works as a major division head at Cognizant, a Nasdaq-listed infotech services provider.
'Brain gain'
Santanu Paul is another Indian who spent 13 years in the US, obtaining a doctorate in computer science from Michigan University, working with IBM in New York and leading two technology start-up companies.
Infosys Firms like Infosys have been enjoying huge profits
In 2003, he decided to return to India to become the general manager at a Hyderabad-based software services firm.
"Right now, India feels like an exciting start-up company, while the West feels like a plodding large company," says Dr Paul.
Less than a decade ago, people like Mr Narayanan and Dr Paul would have been rare exceptions in a generation that fancied the West as the land of opportunity.
Today, they are among the over 25,000 expatriate Indian infotech professionals estimated to have returned home in the last four years.
That figure comes from the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom), the premier trade body of India's booming infotech industry.
Around 40% of these professionals are believed to have returned last year alone.
They got what they needed, experience in America.
The fact is simple, though, American racism will prevent them from becoming CEO's and major division heads. So they go back home and take what they have earned. When I studied who ran tech companies in the 1990's, you had Asian run companies and white run companies, but few companies where Asians were senior and whites their junior, much less promoted over whites to run companies.
To anyone out there with an old student loan that you have "neglected" to pay, the federal government has three words for you: Start paying now.
The case of James Lockhart, which has made its way up to the Supreme Court and will be decided sometime during the coming term, should serve as a warning to all you student- loan deadbeats.
The court will decide if the government can legally deduct from Social Security checks debts owed on student loans more than 10 years in default. I hope the court will say, "Yes, it can."
Lockhart, a Washington State man in his late 60s, took out nine guaranteed student loans to attend four institutions of higher learning between 1984 and 1990. He had become unemployed in 1981 and never worked for more than a few months after that. He also never paid back his loans.
Guaranteed student loans are made by private lenders and are guaranteed by the federal government if the student defaults. They're the means by which millions of students finance their college and graduate-school education.
The government paid off Lockhart's loans, and in 2002 Lockhart, who by then was suffering from a heart condition and diabetes and collecting a monthly disability check, was told the government would start deducting a portion of his monthly check to pay back the more than $80,000 he owed.
The deductions continued when he became eligible for Social Security retirement, coming to $143 out of his $874 monthly check. Lockhart went to court, claiming he needed the money to pay his medical and living expenses, and that the statute of limitations on his debt had already run.
Two lower courts have ruled against him, but there seems to be a discrepancy between a federal law that says Education Department officials should aggressively pursue defaulters by garnishing their wages and other sources of income, and another law that says the government can't dun Social Security benefits to repay debts more than 10 years old.
................. Having paid off many thousands of dollars in student loans myself, I'm annoyed by those who drink generously from the well but then duck out on the government's request to pay back the money. If somebody lends you the money for something as beneficial as your education - whether it's a private donor or the government through the taxpayers - you have a moral obligation to repay it.
Most people take out student loans when they're young, so they have plenty of time to pay them off before old age and infirmity set in. But even if you're a late bloomer, you shouldn't be allowed to walk away from your obligations. James Lockhart should get a part-time job.
Huh?
What got up her ass today? This is crazy.
OK, so the guy is a bit of a deadbeat, but her cruelty here is amazing. I mean stunning. It's not easy to get disability and taking money from it is downright cruel if nothing else. But her suggestion: get a part-time job, beggars description. She's not wingnut, but this is just wrong. This man CANNOT WORK. He has a heart condition and diabetes, what the fuck is he supposed to do for a living? Drop dead?
My God, there are plenty of working, well off people who don't pay off loans, go after them. But this kind of stuinning advocacy of cruelty is amazing.
You would think she was cheated out of an education.
This woman has a job which pays quite well and an education. Yet, she cheers on taking money from a chronically ill man. Is this society so cruel that this kind of meanspiritedness is now acceptable in a liberal newspaper? How would she like to live on $731 a month? Man, this kind of just intense meanness seems to be all the rage these days.
It's not that he's right, but he certainly didn't make himself sick, did he? He could be a complete loser screwball for all I know, but it is unseemly for a well-off, educated woman cheering on the seizure of a SSI check.
Students have been protesting round-the-clock outside the Frist Campus Center at Princeton University, denouncing the "Nuclear Option" being pushed by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Class of 1974. Yes, it's that Frist's campus center...
The protest started at 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, April 26, and it will continue as long as students, faculty, and members of the community step forward to protest one-party rule (we're booked solid through Saturday). Speakers are going all night - despite rain, drunken heckling, and attempts by campus security and Princeton borough police to shut down the protest. We've been gathering outside the Frist Campus Center, a building funded by a $25 million donation from Bill Frist and his family.
Students and a few faculty members have read from biographies of the judicial nominees, poetry, the Constitution, Monty Python, the Declaration of Independence, Princeton's "Rights Rules and Responsibilities" policy, the Princeton University student phonebook, articles and editorials on "Justice Sunday," Wendell Berry essays, and children's books. We've also enjoyed some lighter moments of ad-libbing.
The protest has been shown on CNN's "Inside the Blogs" feature, written up in the AP News Wire, covered by Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo, and discussed on the nationally syndicated Thom Hartmann radio program. We've been live-blogging at the Princeton Progressive Review, and we've jury-rigged a webcam with a live video stream of the protest.
Bush's Social Security Theft Plan relies on one thing, selfishness.
He simply cannot conceive of the idea that grandparents might want their grandchildren to be secure. Only those out for themselves, with no thought of their family, would think his plan is a good idea. His repeated statements "your checks will be protected" raises one question for many people: what about my children and grandchildren? Do they get a secure future?
Bush cannot answer that. And that is why his plan is failing. The elderly know they will get their checks, the problem for Bush is that the believe his plan will deny that to their heirs.
By Caryle Murphy and Fred Barbash Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, April 28, 2005; 10:03 AM
BAGHDAD, April 28 -- Iraq's National Assembly approved a list of cabinet appointees Thursday, giving life to the country's new government after almost three months of negotiations.
Rather than prolong the paralysis that had held up the process of forming a government since the Jan. 20 elections, Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari submitted a cabinet list that included five acting ministers along with 27 ministers.
Despite the approval Thursday, Sunni politicians remained deeply dissatisfied with the makeup of the government.
The assembly vote, by a show of hands, ratified the choices worked out by Jafari and political leaders representing Iraq's main religious and ethnic interest groups in a delicate balancing act complicated by a dispute about the role, if any, of politicians formerly associated with Saddam Hussein's ruling Baath Party.
The Cabinet was approved by 180 lawmakers out of the 185 present in the 275-member parliament, Speaker Hajim Hassani announced to applause.
Jafari, a Shiite, will be acting defense minister, a position that was supposed to go to a Sunni Arab. Ahmed Chalabi, a secular Shiite leader and onetime favorite of the Pentagon, will be one of four deputy prime ministers and acting oil minister.
As soon as the assembly approved the new cabinet, however, leaders of the Sunni Arab community issued complaints about how the new government had been chosen.
Though Sunni Arabs boycotted January's landmark elections, the Shiites and Kurds were keen to have them participate in the government in the hope that this would help defuse the Sunni-led insurgency.
"It was very disappointing for us that most of our candidates has been sent back," said Iraqi vice president Sheikh Ghazi Yawar, who had been negotiating for the Sunni Arab community with Jafari's predominantly Shiite Muslim political coalition.
He said that contrary to what the Shiites alleged, none of the Sunni candidates had ties to the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein. The Sunni candidates, he added, "are all non-Baathist."
For example, Yawar said, Sadoun Al Dulame, who was rejected by the Shiites for minister of defense, is a sociologist who left Iraq. He was sentenced to death by Hussein, and worked closely with U.S. officials in 2003 on planning post-war reconstruction in Iraq.
People who "pirate" music and movies on the internet in the US face up to three years in jail under a new law signed by President Bush on Wednesday.
The bill targets file-sharers who put copies of new songs and films online before their commercial release.
It also introduces tough new penalties for anyone caught in a cinema filming a movie with a video camera.
The movie and music industries both complain that hi-tech piracy stops fans paying for their products.
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) said 90% of pirated films were "stolen" by people in cinemas with camcorders taping films to put online or on DVDs.
They will also now face up to three years in jail.
Jen
Perhaps this is another reason why Micro$oft is kissing Bush Buttocks?
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID The Associated Press Thursday, April 28, 2005; 11:13 PM
WASHINGTON -- The ivory-billed woodpecker, once prized for its plumage and sought by American Indians as magical, was thought to be extinct for years. Now it's been sighted again and conservationists are exulting.
The striking bird, last seen in 1944, has been rediscovered in the Big Woods area of Arkansas, scientists and conservationists reported Thursday.
This artist rendering provided by the journal Science shows the ivory-billed woodpecker, thought to be extinct, that has reportedly been sighted in eastern Arkansas, a Cornell University researcher says in a paper released Thursday, April 28, 2005. John W. Fitzpatrick of Cornell University said there have been several independent sightings of a bird that appears to be an ivory-billed woodpecker. (AP Photo/Science) This artist rendering provided by the journal Science shows the ivory-billed woodpecker, thought to be extinct, that has reportedly been sighted in eastern Arkansas, a Cornell University researcher says in a paper released Thursday, April 28, 2005. John W. Fitzpatrick of Cornell University said there have been several independent sightings of a bird that appears to be an ivory-billed woodpecker. (AP Photo/Science) (AP)
"This is thrilling beyond words ... after 60 years of fading hope that we would ever see this spectacular bird again," John W. Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, said at a news conference.
Since early 2004 there have been several independent sightings, including one caught on videotape, of one or more of the birds, Fitzpatrick said.
That video of the bird's 3-foot wingspan and distinctive black-and-white markings confirmed the presence of the creature that seemed to have vanished after logging destroyed its habitat.
The discovery of living examples of an animal believed to be extinct is rare, said Tess Present, director of science at the National Audubon Society. "Wow," she said. "This is tremendous."
Interior Secretary Gale Norton said, "Second chances to save wildlife once thought to be extinct are rare. ... We will take advantage of this opportunity."
To make the president Ivory beaked Woodpecker stew.
Aside from the lion factor, the trial shows an ugly side to South Africa
The conviction of two South Africans for throwing a black man into a lion enclosure is a reminder of the deep-rooted racial antagonisms that remain in South Africa's rural areas, BBC News's Justin Pearce reports from Johannesburg.
South Africa has just celebrated the 11th anniversary of democratic rule under a human rights-based constitution.
Yet on Thursday, a white man and his black employee were convicted for feeding a former black employee to lions.
Outsiders could be forgiven for wondering what happened to the "rainbow people" vision expressed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the end of the apartheid era.
In fact, what limited racial integration has happened in South Africa has been confined to the cities.
If anything, racial tensions in the countryside have increased since the end of white minority rule.
Slow change
Under apartheid, black people dispossessed of their land had little option but to work for white landowners who could hire and fire employees at will.
Police were at the service of the white farmers, helped by the "commandos", civil defence units manned by the farmers themselves.
The landowners also controlled access to housing, in a system that bore many of the characteristics of feudalism.
On the one hand, this system has been slow to change; on the other hand, those changes that have taken place have been regarded with deep suspicion by whites who are keenly aware of the large-scale expropriation of land from white farmers in Zimbabwe.
South African land reform legislation, allowing black people to reclaim land from which they or their ancestors were dispossessed, has added to white fears; at the same time, the slow implementation of these laws has deepened black frustration.
Violence
At the same time, attacks against white landowners have become more frequent.
This sounds familiar to me: Reconstruction, anyone?
The American people have a bad habit of seeing all enemies as the next Hitler, the one man to stop, and with Al Qaeda, that is the wrong way to approach them.
Of course, the only discussion of terrorism in America is on JAG and 24, discussion as in thinking about the subject, as opposed to mouthing platitudes about the subject. Now people are pissed that Maggie Gyllenhaal actually had the nerve to suggest that the US might have actually enraged people with their policies.
The never blame America crowd, the people who endorse torture and murder, don't make the connection. They get up on their high horse and say "I love "Merika, we ain't do nothin'", while the rest of the world is indifferent to our very real struggle with people who want to,if not destroy this country, kill a bunch of Americans to make their point.
You cannot piss on your neighbor's lawn without people noticing. How many dictatorships have we propped up, how many AQ recruits did that create? More than one.
And when someone says anything which suggests this, they get shat on. Why? Because American exceptionalism is the thing that must be protected above all else. We can't be guilty of anything, so the people against us are just crazy terrorists.
And the understanding of these people is well, retarded by politics. Serious adults use the words "islamofascist" like the word means anything. It makes people like the always drunk Chris Hitchens feel like a man, like his naval officer daddy did on the bridge of a ship. But he didn't risk being sunk or seasickness or anything else remotely dangerous. He uses this word which not only sounds stupid, but makes no sense. Makes the user sounds as brave as jack lighting deer poachers but means nothing.
Osama Bin Laden is not a fascist. He is not seeking to dominate the world. Attaching islam to it makes no sense. WHy? Because that isn't what they're about.
Osama and friends are Islamic revivalists. Which means that they want to return to the 13th Century and the days of the Caliphate. This is not a new movement, but a repeated challenge to state power for at least 200 years, but it is utopian in nature. It has a history predating fascism and little in common with it. It is just a cheap way for chickenhawks to feel they are engaged in some new struggle.
And then, out of fear and political expediency, we conflated the threat of Al Qaeda and refused to deal with it's taliban allies seriously.
Afghanistan was used as the testbed of Donald Rumsfeld's theories of war. Which worked against the hillbillies who then went back into the hills and stayed there. Then they declared victory. Afghanistan was going to show how powerful the US was, and then every few months, we get a video from Osama and friends. Because Rumsfeld found out, at the cost of hundreds of Americans and the security of this country, his ideas on transformational warfare were seriously wrong. As much as I respect Special Forces, they are men, not supermen and there are limits as to what they can do. To think a few A teams can run around a country and win a war is insane.
Instead of investing the two to three divisions of paratroops and light infantry we needed there, they're now patrolling Iraq and losing. No matter what happens in Iraq, we will be in Afghanistan for years to come.
The fact that Bush and the GOP has shamelessly used Al Qaeda to get reelected has obscured the real threat from Al Qaeda.
First, AQ is not some vast network of millions of angry Arabs. Osama is the religious Che. People use his image as a way to stick it to the man. His image basically says fuck the state. While there are hard core supporters of Osama, the reality is that AQ is the new Bader-Meinhoff gang or the Japanese Red Army, disaffected graduate students who are pissed that they do not rule the world.
The 19 men who attacked the twin towers were middle class Saudis and Egyptians, people who could have had good lives in their countries or the west, but they were so pissed, that they decided to use violence to create their utopia. Why? Becuase it was a lot more fun to play terrorist than work for a living. There are thousands in their ranks, but the few people who are dangerous are able to hide in the masses of the disaffected. And since we have mangled our relations with the Arab world so seriously, AQ membership is a status symbol, like being a Black Panther.
Second, they are showboats.
If they had decided to set up 20 car and suicide bombs in Manhattan, instead of the WTC attacks, they could have shut the city down. But car bombs aren't flashy, and they want the world to notice them. Attacking the WTC was serious, but they had no capacity for follow on, and like graduate students, they hunt for the best theoretical solution and not the simple one. They can do one big attack every year or so, but a campaign of terror is beyond their grasp so far. Which is why the concentration on chemical and bioweapons is so rendolent of people who are still wedded to school solutions.
The resistance in Iraq is much more direct, they load up cars with RDX and blow people up.
But that isn't what Al Qaeda is interested in.
Osama Bin Laden has one goal and it isn't the destruction of the United States. It is to replace the Saud family with the Bin Laden family in running Saudi Arabia. No matter how much he cloaks his intentions in religion, his real goal is power. Osama is like so many rich dillitants who tire of a life of rent girls and casinos, and gets attached to a cauise. The life he should have lead would have made him a rich sybarite, with European mistresses and fat bank accounts. But with that life, he would have to obey the Sauds, and coming from the second family of Saudi Arabia, he wondered why it wasn't the first.
His plan to overthrow the Sauds comes through the US. If he can weaken the US, then the Sauds have no place to turn. And given the complete corruption of that family, AQ gains in Saudi Arabia have been profound.
And of course, Bush has inflated then ignored Osama as it served his purposes. He wanted to overthrow Saddam for any number of reasons, none of which had anything even remotely related to the security of the United States, but when time for the switch came, he told the American people and the Congress that Saddam was the real mastermind behind 9/11. A story only wingnut crackpots believed, but a lie which served their purposes all too well. The only problem was that Iraq was the best thing that ever happened to Saddam Osama. Not only is it a live fire training ground for the motivated, it has trapped a large proportion of the US Army in Iraq. Every soldier patrolling Tikrit is one not patrolling the Hindu Kush. Osama couldn't be happier with this turn of events. Not only are US troops occuiped in a soul-killing, machine-destroying war, one which is shrinking the pool of potential recruits, he has 150,000 targets.
While the warmongers like to talk about the flypaper theory as if there are a finite number of terrorists, the reality is that it's more compost heap than flypaper. Iraq is training a new generation of hard core terrorists, nuturing and educating them. While the US has tried to pretend that there have been thousands of foriegn nationals flocking there, the reality is that the group is much smaller, but that much more dedicated.
And of course, while we are dying in Iraq, AQ grows stronger in Saudi Arabia. How many attacks have there been since 2003? 10, 20? All suicidal, but scary all the same. Before Iraq, this was rare, now, with the battleground of Iraq a handy training ground, Saudi Arabia can have any number of terrorists ready to kill Saudis after a few months of killing Americans.
The only way to protect the American people is to have Muslims realize that Revivalists will harm them more than help them. The racism of American policy shines through. We want freedom in Lebanon, but don't care if Egypt ever has free elections. We talk about elections in Iraq, but never say a word about the disnefranchisement of Saudi women. Arabs are not stupid, they are not blind. They see the hypocrisy and the lies and the abuse of the Palestinians and they treat our words as lies. American policy under Bush has hindered our war on terror not enhanced it.
The one greatest thing we could do to enhance our standing within the Arab world would be to ensure justice and stability for the Palestinians. This is the signature issue in the Arab world. They don't care about the farce of the Iraqi parliment or Lebanon. They care about Palestine and as long as Israel tries to deal with the Palestinians as subjects and not equals, AQ will always have a cause to rally around.
But something important has happened since President Bush's inauguration. America's moderates may not be screaming, but they're in revolt. Many who reluctantly supported the president and the Republicans in 2004 are turning away. The party's agenda on Social Security, judges and the Terri Schiavo case is out of touch with where moderate voters stand. Worse for Bush and his party, most moderates have a practical, problem-solving view of government and think these issues are far less important than shoring up a shaky economy and improving living standards.
The moderates have rebelled before. This period in American politics is beginning to take on the contours of the years leading up to the 1992 election. That's when Ross Perot led an uprising of the angry middle and Bill Clinton waged war on the "brain-dead politics of both parties." Bush's decision to read the 2004 election as a broad mandate for whatever policies he chose to put forward now looks like a major mistake. In fact, Bush won narrowly in 2004, and he won almost entirely because just enough middle-of-the-road voters decided they trusted him more than they did John Kerry to deal with terrorism.
The latest poll to bring home this message was released late last week by the Democracy Corps, a Democratic consortium led by pollster Stan Greenberg and consultant James Carville. Greenberg and Carville are not triumphalist. They are careful to note that "Democrats are not yet integral to the narrative" of American politics and that the decline in the Republicans' public image "is not accompanied by image gains for the Democrats." Democrats still have a lot of work to do.
But one finding deserves more attention than it has received: The "biggest drops" in the Republicans' standing, the pollsters noted, "have come from people who do not identify with a party," with "those who describe themselves as ideologically moderate" and with "mainline Protestants," that is, Protestants outside the ranks of the evangelical and fundamentalist churches. These are classic middle-of-the-road groups.
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In light of the revolt of the center, Senate Republican leader Bill Frist sent exactly the wrong signal at the worst possible time by speaking over the weekend to a group of Christian conservatives who see Senate filibusters of judicial nominees as blocking "people of faith" from the courts. The fight over judges is, for pragmatic voters, a distraction from issues that matter. And moderates are uneasy with the pressure some Republicans have sought to bring on judges by way of moving court decisions in a conservative direction. The president, in the meantime, cannot seem to persuade middle-of-the-road Americans that Social Security needs far-reaching changes -- or even that Social Security's troubles constitute one of the most important problems facing the country.
All this, in turn, explains why Republican charges that Democrats are "obstructionist" have not worked. As long as moderate voters believe that Democrats are blocking measures that are immoderate, middle-of-the-roaders will welcome, or at least tolerate, a fair bit of obstruction.
That's why we may soon see a shift in the GOP's approach: Shrewd Republican strategists aren't saying much publicly, but they are seeing some of the same things that Greenberg and Carville are seeing. And those smart Republicans are very worried.
The GOP radically overplayed their hand with the fundies. The Schiavo thing blew up on them and now they are trying to recover and it is just digging them deeper in the hole. When a US Senator called James Dobson the antichrist, and then modifies it to anti-Christian, someone is not living in fear of them.
These people make the sane nervous, with their end time babbling and attacks on contraceptives and the like.
I'm writing this entry with a great deal of sadness, mixed with anger. Whenever I hear of an individual or a group of individuals engaging in bigoted behavior because of race, or gender, or age, or religious or national origin, usually I want to dismiss it as the behavior of someone who's generally ignorant.
Today, I can no longer do that.
No one should be bigoted, or wishing to engage in discriminatory acts against ANYONE. Yet, they do, and it is not only hurtful for the party to whom that ignorance is directed, but also for the party engaging in it. This morning, I awoke to hear on the radio that a gay bar in San Francisco, the "SF-Badlands" have been engaging in bigoted practices against African-American patrons and African-American applicants. A GAY bar. Who would have thought it, in the 21st Century?
I'm saddened because at this point in time, gays and lesbians are targeted by religious whackjobs who have taken it upon themselves in trying to help God out, when the reality is, God can handle His business, just fine. I'm angry because I know if the shoe were on the other foot, I would be defending a gay or lesbian's right to live their lives the way they want, work where they want; in other words, the civil liberties and freedoms that I enjoy and that my ancestors fought and died for.
So I am puzzled by the fact that the homosexual community, usually a blantant target for bigots everywhere, have a few bad apples engaging in the same destructive behavior that makes them no better than any bigoted person of color.
In a time where the government is considering everyone who's not white, heterosexual males, fair game and open season on bigotry and hate, I am speaking out, now, because the price of bigotry is too high a price for mankind to pay.
I am a Christian, and I'm aware of what the Bible says about homosexuality. Yet, I'm also aware that because of the history of my people; the trials, the struggles, the outright racial wars, I cannot afford to allow myself to be engulfed by hatred of someone else because they don't look like or act like me. The beauty of human creation is that with our differences, with our uniquenesses, we give this world a vibrancy and colorfulness that it would not otherwise have if we all looked like, or acted the same. Therefore, as a Christian, I'm required to treat anyone I encounter with the dignity, honor and respect that they are deserving of.
It does not matter if you are gay or straight, person of color, or caucasian; I have an obligation to treat you with dignity, honor and respect. I have no opinion of the homosexual and the life they choose to lead. But I will fight to defend your right to have it.
My Christian friends say I'm a fool and that I'm not doing God's will. I don't think God's will includes beating the hell out of someone, or denying them jobs and the choice to live their lives however they want, because WE don't agree with it. This is the same treatment we were subjected to as African-Americans; denied the right to live where we wanted and with whom; where to send our children to school, where to work, whom to marry. Our heritage and culture were methodically stripped from our ancestors as slaves for over 400 years.
Asian-Americans, especially those of Japanese descent - many of you were born in America, yet during World War II, your family was stripped of your businesses, your property, your jobs - all because the Government thought you would become sympathetic to Japan and help them out in the war effort.
Latinos and Native Americans - most of America was your land. Some of your ancestors fought, bled and died to keep it from being stripped from you, not to mention your heritage and your culture.
Women - until 1920, you were considered your husband's property. You couldn't say jack about what to do and when to do it. You didn't even have a say about who got to go to Elected office until a mere 85 years ago. Your men stood on your back and elevated himself to position of prestiege, honor and glory, while knowing damned well he couldn't have achieved his accomplishments without YOU.
I may not always agree with you, but I will always defend your right to your opinion, your beliefs, your values, your principles. The bottom line is, those of us who have been subjected to bigoted remarks or behavior, discrimination or hate crimes - we cannot afford to repay hate with more hate. It is too costly.
All of us are the group that Should Not be Bigoted.
The Microsoft Corporation, under sustained fire from gay rights activists, employees, bloggers, and the national media after The Stranger reported last week that the company had withdrawn its support for a state gay rights bill under pressure from a Christian pastor, is disputing fresh claims by the minister that the company shifted its position on the bill in response to his demands.
The Stranger informed the company late Monday afternoon, April 25, that the minister at the center of the controversy, Dr. Ken Hutcherson of the Antioch Bible Church in Redmond, had provided the paper with his recollections of two conversations with Microsoft Senior Vice President and General Counsel Bradford L. Smith during an hour-long interview at the church office that afternoon.
Over the course of the interview, Hutcherson sharply contradicted the company’s public stance in recent days that it had decided to take a neutral stance on the bill prior to meeting with him.
Microsoft, however, continues to stress that this was the case. On Tuesday, April 26, Smith, who is traveling in Europe on company business, contacted The Stranger to offer his own account of what took place. He restated the company’s contention that Microsoft had taken a neutral stand on the bill before ever meeting with the minister, and said that the bulk of the meeting was devoted to clearing up confusion about whether the company officially backed the bill. Smith reiterated that Microsoft had not supported the bill this year, and said the decision to remain neutral on the bill was made last December, well before his initial meeting with the pastor.
“They’re lying,” Hutcherson said flatly when asked about Microsoft’s assertion that its position on the bill was not revised because of the pressure he brought to bear on the company. Hutcherson asserted that the company withdrew its support only after he threatened to organize a national boycott of Microsoft products.
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Hutcherson expressed disappointment with Ballmer’s statement—“Steve Ballmer, I believe, is a liar”—and said in no uncertain terms that Microsoft was not being forthright about the substance of the conversations company executives had with him, and about the timing of the company’s decision. “The company lied, and ‘the Black Man’ is not going to lie down and say ‘okay,’” he said, referencing his nickname around the church office. He added, “Evidently they don’t know that I won’t keep my mouth shut about unrighteousness.”
Hutcherson said that he asked for a meeting with Microsoft after becoming upset that two company employees had testified in favor of the bill on February 1. He first met with Smith and three other lower-ranking executives on February 23.
At that meeting, Smith made it clear to the pastor that the company supported the bill, Hutcherson said. Smith told him, he said, that the company had recently been asked by GLEAM, the gay and lesbian employees group at Microsoft, to come out in favor of same-sex marriage, but the company had said no. Smith went on to say that Microsoft did support the anti-discrimination legislation, and he described it as a “civil rights issue”—a red flag for Hutcherson, who is African American—Hutcherson said. The pastor recalled asking Smith a question: “You won’t stand up for two men or two women getting married, but you will put your power behind a guy who wants to dress up in a dress and come to work?”
Smith replied, according to Hutcherson’s recollection, “That’s our policy. We thought this is a good bill to stand behind.” Hutcherson then said he told Smith he would organize a national boycott of the company if it did not withdraw its support for the bill. “You’re not going to like me in your world. I am going to give you something to fear Christians about,” he said he told Smith. “I told him, ‘You have a week,’” to decide, Hutcherson said.
Hutcherson acknowledged that he had suggested that if he were in charge at Microsoft, he would have fired the employees, not for their testimony, but for misrepresenting the company. When Smith told him, at their second meeting in mid-March, that the employees would not be fired, Hutcherson emphasized that he said he told Smith he was fine with that decision, and thought firing them would have been too harsh a punishment. .......................
“He told me that he thought that we should fire the employees,” Smith said. He added, “It didn’t strike me as a situation where it was appropriate to fire people.” He did agree with Hutcherson that the testimony “created the impression that the company was supporting a bill when the company wasn’t involved,” he said, adding, “In my mind, that was what the meeting was about.” Smith also added that Hutcherson had requested that the company issue a letter stating that it was neutral on the bill, or that the bill was unnecessary, but that he declined.
When Smith met with Hutcherson a second time in March, he told the minister that he would not fire the employees, and said he had realized Microsoft need to “tighten up” its government-affairs processes. He told Hutcherson that he had asked the two employees to write a letter to the chair of the House committee that heard their testimony in favor of the bill in which they clarified that they had spoken there as individuals.
.................... Hutcherson said he did not hear back from Smith within a week. He offered a “shot across the bow” by talking about Microsoft’s support for the bill in his church and on the KTTH 770 radio show that he hosts. Some Microsoft employees who worship at his church contacted Smith to let him know that the pastor was being serious, Hutcherson said. He said that eventually Smith agreed to meet with him again sometime in mid-March.
........................ Now Hutcherson is upset with Microsoft, saying company executives are not returning his calls and are trying to back away from their meetings with him. “I’ve called them so many times, more times than Van Camp’s has got pork and beans,” he said. “I want to get Brad [Smith], Steve [Ballmer], and [Bill] Gates to sit down in a room with me so we can get this cleared up real quick.”
Asked if he regrets meeting with Hutcherson, Smith was circumspect. “I think it’s unfortunate the way this whole issue has evolved,” he said. He offered a strong endorsement of the company’s heavy emphasis on diversity. “I regret the company is being depicted by some as a company not committed to those principles.”
Now this is clear as a bell.
First of all, I know why Microsoft dealt so delicately with him. Because he was black. Microsoft has tried very hard to work with black groups to increase computer use, making alliances with Tom Joyner and Tavis Smiley. So when he came stomping in, they were very sensitive to his concerns. But then , like white people, they missed one major fucking point: Hutcherson IS BLACK. Any call for a boycott would have exposed him to widespread ridicule in the black community for being a Republican tool. If their governmental affairs people had more blacks in it, they would have shut his ass down within days. Other Seattle-area pastors could have been rallied to support the company. Because any pastor so worried about gay marriage is a wingnut.
Maybe some white churches would have gone along, but given the endemic racism of most of them, they would have either ignored him or tried to bigfoot him.
The idea that people take him seriously is well, ridiculous. He's a black minister in Seattle. Which isn't exactly the heart of black culture in America. Come on. I get why MS was trying to deal with him, but the smart move would have been to dare him to call his boycott and send an Apple store rep to meet with him. Because this man has no power to organize shit. He may be a big deal in Seattle, but that doesn't carry much weight anywhere outside of Puget Sound. I think they were fooled into thinking this guy had much more juice than he did.
Now, MS is handling him right, ignoring him. They don't need to straighten shit out with him. They need to ignore him, and get some pastors on their side, which should be as easy as funding some computer rooms in their churches.
I understand why gays flipped out, and helped that process along. But if I had known the good reverend was black, I would have had a different response. Because I would have realized that his threat had no teeth. Give black people a choice of computers or homophobia, they're gonna choose computers every time. If he had dared to organize a national boycott, the black media would have ridiculed him as an idiot. He would have been hammered on shows like Tom Joyner for his idiocy. Wasting time on such a tangential issue would have been seen as playing into the hands of the GOP. Instead of causing Microsoft pain, it might have split his church instead.
The only reason they even listened to this crackpot was because he was black. Now, they realize his mega church is just a church and gays can cause them infinitely more pain.
I mentioned Focus for the Fuhrer once and now I get their e-mail.
Focus Says Salazar's 'Antichrist' Comments a Smokescreen
Senator is using "overheated rhetoric" to divert attention from his record, ministry says
Colorado Springs, Colo. -- Focus on the Family today dismissed as "overheated rhetoric" and "suspect theology" comments from U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar that the ministry is the "antichrist of the world."
Salazar, a first-term Democrat from Colorado, made the comments during a Tuesday interview with a Colorado Springs television station, in a report reviewing his recent public disagreements with Focus, which has urged Coloradans to question the senator on his support of judicial filibusters.
"In my view," Salazar said of the ministry, whose 1,400 employees he represents, "they are the antichrist of the world."
Tom Minnery, Focus on the Family's vice president of government and public policy, said "this appears to be just the latest example of what is fast becoming a pattern with Sen. Salazar."
"He's using overheated rhetoric to draw attention away from his broken campaign promises," Minnery said. "He told the voters of Colorado, when he was trying to win their votes, that he supported up-or-down votes for judicial nominees; now, he's backing his party's filibusters.
Of course James Dobson is working for the devil. He certainly isn't working for God.
Marist's polls show a disaster for Ferrer, with a near total collapse of his black support.
Mayor Bloomberg rebounds against potential Democratic rivals: In a major turnabout in this year’s race for New York City mayor, Michael Bloomberg outpaces all of his Democratic contenders. Mayor Bloomberg, who trailed Former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer just last month, now leads him by 13 points in the race for mayor among New York City’s registered voters. Bloomberg receives the support of 51% of the city’s registered voters compared with 38% for Ferrer. Mayor Bloomberg also leads potential rivals Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields, Congressman Anthony Weiner, and Council Speaker Gifford Miller.
While the nmumbers don't show this outright, Field's support has solidified. What is clear is that Ferrer's statement about the Diallo murder not being a crime was been a political disaster for his campaign. While it is still early, only an apology has any chance of saving his mayoral bid.
How bad is it? An 11 point drop and the first lead that Bloomberg has had against him since the winter. Which means one thing: blacks have abandoned his campaign in large numbers.
And it is this issue, because Bloomberg's stadium plan is still unpopular.
Without question, blacks across the economic strata feel Ferrer's comments constitute an abandonment of them and their concerns. Yet, his pandering to the police will gain him no votes either. So he chose the worst possible action. How his staff could not understand how sensitive this issue is and how deeply the black community feels the police got away with murder, shows incredibly inept staffwork. What the numbers also show is some slippage in Latino support as well.
With numbers like these, people are seriously going to consider running for mayor. While Bob Kerrey passed, and is now kicking himself, others may see an opportunity.
S enate majority leader Bill Frist appeared through a telecast as a speaker at "Justice Sunday," at the invitation of the event's main sponsor, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins. "Justice Sunday" was promoted as a rally to portray Democrats as being "against people of faith." Many of the speakers compared the plight of conservative Christians to the civil rights movement. But in sharing the stage with Perkins, who introduced him to the rally, Frist was associating himself with someone who has longstanding ties to racist organizations.
Four years ago, Perkins addressed the Louisiana chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), America's premier white supremacist organization, the successor to the White Citizens Councils, which battled integration in the South. In 1996 Perkins paid former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke $82,000 for his mailing list. At the time, Perkins was the campaign manager for a right-wing Republican candidate for the US Senate in Louisiana. The Federal Election Commission fined the campaign Perkins ran $3,000 for attempting to hide the money paid to Duke.
....................... James Dobson, who founded the Family Research Council as the Washington lobbying arm of his Focus on the Family, invoked the Christian right's persecution complex. On an evening when Jews were celebrating the second night of Passover, Dobson claimed, "The biggest Holocaust in world history came out of the Supreme Court" with the Roe v. Wade decision. On his syndicated radio show nearly two weeks earlier, on April 11, Dobson compared the "black robed men" on the Supreme Court to "the men in white robes, the Ku Klux Klan." By his logic, the burden of oppression had passed from religious and racial minorities to unborn children and pure-hearted heterosexuals engaged in "traditional marriage."
Bishop Harry Jackson, from Hope Christian Church in College Park, Maryland, was Justice Sunday's only black speaker. Jackson had recently unveiled his "Black Contract With America," a document that highlights wedge issues like gay marriage that would presumably pry black churchgoers away from the Democratic Party. But so far he has been disappointed. "Black churches are too concerned with justice," Jackson lamented in his speech. Nonetheless, his association with the right wing has done wonders for his personal profile. Just after Bush's second inauguration, he was among a contingent of black clergy members invited to the White House for a private meeting.
Justice Sunday also featured a token Catholic, William Donohue, who heads the nation's largest "Catholic civil rights organization," the Catholic League. In the battle to confirm far-right judicial nominees like William Pryor, who happens to be Catholic, Donohue has become a key asset for the Christian right's evangelical faction. ..............
But for all his concern with anti-Catholicism, Donohue had no qualms about sharing the stage with Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Dr. Albert Mohler. "As an evangelical, I believe that the Roman Catholic Church is a false church," Mohler remarked during a 2000 TV interview. "It teaches a false gospel. And the Pope himself holds a false and unbiblical office." Donohue, who has protested against Democrats who have made no such comments about Catholics, was silent about Mohler. In fact, the site of Justice Sunday, Highview Baptist Church, in Louisville, Kentucky, is Mohler's home church.
The same people behind this anti-gay pogrom are the same people who used to run with the Segs back in the day.
Jackson is a special kind of fool for supporting these people, "black churches are too concerned with justice". What the fuck is that? Too concerned? Shit, that's why they exist. I think that people who support his ministry are fucking morons. Because he cares more about his wallet than your children and their futures.
This crosses my mind because I was watching Dr. Phil and he had on two women. One, 44, was drinking so hard, she was coming home and passing out. The other, 17, was taking cheesecake shots.
Neither came across as sexy as they thought they were, because they were kinda cheap.
Now, I have to admit, everyone has a different answer, but for me, I have a preference for glasses and business suits. But that varies for other people.
And intelligence. I cannot abide stupid women. No matter how attractive they are.
I was just wondering how other people define this.
Because one of the sexiest movies I've ever seen was Something about Mary. Why? Because how could you not fall for a football-loving doctor who caredfor her retarded brother and watched Sportscenter every night. I don't know a guy who didn't love that movie.
I mean it's been a hell of a week since the wingnuts decided to do their poor Christian act, so I've been quite busy.
But today, I decided to run some errands and go to Target.
Now, for most people, that's a hop in the car and avoiding the hoopties outside Wal Mart, but when you live in New York, it is a production, or two train rides, to Atlantic Avenue, as opposed to two train rides to Queens Plaza, which is what Jen did today in her quest for a new TV. She had asked me to accompany her, which I would have done, but then she decided to make it a solo quest. Which was fine by me, because I wanted to go early and come back early, and I don't call Jen sleepyhead for no reason. And it allowed me to take two, instead of three trains to get to Target. However, my wise counsel would be needed later in the day.
Jen is unlike oh, my mother, in the sense that she can actually derive pleasure from shopping for electronics. Now, we've been to Target in the past, but when we go together, it's on her schedule, which is fine, because she has sleep issues. But I don't. So when I go I'm out before noon so I can get back and write. Besides, she wanted to go to the Union Square Greenmarket and then go back to Queens. Which is also cool, but a pain in the ass for me. So I went to one end of New York and she went to the other.
So I'm in the Target on Atlantic Avenue, and I haven't been to Brooklyn in two years. It's nice, but lacks places to eat, unless you like a Target hotdog or a jammed packed McDonalds. And that hot dog kicked my ass for over a day. I will spare you the details, but it was ugly.
But the odd thing about Target over Wal-Mart or K Mart is this: they're well lit, really well lit. Both Wally World and KMars can be dingy to say the least. You can look around and read everything without being stuck in some dim aisle. Now, why would I go to Target over K Mart, there is no Wal Mart within city limits and unlikely to be for years, unless they like unionization drives. Simple, because K Mart blows.
The problem with New York these days is that everything is a production. You want paint, you have to go to Home Depot, you want casual wear, K Mart or Target. When Woolworths was still around, if you needed a sweatshirt and a spatula, you could buy both. Now, I can go to Modell's for one, but for both, it's either Target or K Mart and that means a train ride. Jen, having grown up in the 'burbs, talks about how she would go to Target and pick things up. When I do that, I'm lugging a gym bag on the train. Good exercise, but still. Even my sister who lives in Boston can drive five minutes to Target and back.
So, while we went to opposite ends of the city, she called me on my cell, as I was buying a heat-resistant rubber spatula. I had e-mailed her earlier, so she didn't look for me at home. So we're talking and she reccommends their detergent. Now, usually, when I do my laundry, I use Tide, but she said try Motion, which is their house brand. I said, OK, wondering how I would port this bottle home, but thankfully it was only 32 ounces.
I bought a smoothies blender, not because I like smoothies, but because I didn't own a blender. I also didn't own a heat resistant spatula or tongs. Unbelivable, right? Well, yes. For my limited blending, I didn't need a kitchen aid on a metal base. But the tongs, well, that's bad.
So I get home, lugging this crap, and Jen calls. Seems she needs to choose between two TV's, a Phillips 27" and a Sony 27". Having bought a smaller Sony a few months ago I suggested she go with the Sony because the picture is really nice. Three phone calls later, she had the Sony and a TV table. She then thanked me for my advice, which was unnecessary, because I did find the weight of the TV, 95.9 pounds, so she could get the table from her Target.
But it's been a mundane week personally, except for the Nintendo DS I bought for my mother.
Don't worry, that came from ad sales, not site contributions.:) I mean, I never did get my mother a Christmas gift, so with my nephew's able advice, we decided to get her a Nintendo DS. My mother loves games, she used to play Burgertime before work every morning. So when I saw that I had made a couple hundred from ad sales, I thought a Nintendo DS would be a nice gift. Although I didn't realize that it could play Game Boy Advanced cartridges as well. Because I didn't realize that it was also made by Nintendo. I had a bit of a brain fart.
I mean, if you're going to buy a gaming system, who better to ask than a nine year old boy. It's not like they talk about anything else. I mean, they're not going to go on about their weekend getting hammered and picking up chicks. Video games is their conversation, unless sports gets involved. Let me put it this way: when he was seven, he took the money he got for Christmas and bought another PS2 game. Then he got the Game Cube for his birthday, and a Game Boy Advanced somewhere. He doesn't have the PSP or Nintendo DS, yet, but I think it may land in his gift box at some point.
My father has no such use for gaming devices if they do not involve gambling. Models, sure, but video games? I've wanted to get him a computer for a couple of years, but no such luck. My mother however, has been pestering me to be taught how to use the computer so she can play games. I had bought her a book which I thought was simple, but aparently not. I then got her a childrens computer book. That seems to have done the trick.
We come from a family which loves games. So much so that her birthday gift will also be games. I will get flowers, though.
And she likes puzzles, not GTA or Medal of Honor. If she did, I'd have gotten her an Xbox.:)
We come from a gaming family, and my mother loves video games. It's not just the kids.
I mean, it's not like my mother is watching Sponge Bob and drinking Hi-C, but she likes video games, like many adults. Now, she's kinda lost in a game store, but she knows what she likes. I mean she's always loved puzzles. So now that they move, she still loves them. It's also about the only subject my nine year old nephew will expound on at length, in detail. My niece likes movies and art, I got her a book of Degas ballerina drawings and paintings, which she loved and I find remarkable for an eight year old. She, otoh, likes to talk. She likes words like siblings and overdramatic.
But when I talk to my nephew I'm always surprised at the depth of knowledge he has on games. It's amazing.
Which is why I'm always surprised when people talk about video games for kids. My sisters occasionally play, but it is common ground for me, mother, my niece and nephews. It's a multigenerational pleasure, except when I lose to the 9 year old. I won't play the 17 year old. Ever.
John Wiley & Sons, a leading publisher of technology books, said Apple Computer has removed all its titles from the shelves of Apple stores in apparent retaliation for the upcoming publication of a biography of Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
The books disappeared from Apple stores last week after a month of increasingly contentious discussions about publication of the book, ``iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business,'' said author Jeffrey S. Young. The book, co-written with William L. Simon, offers an unflinching account of the rise, fall and rebirth of one of Silicon Valley's most charismatic figures.
The dust-up with Wiley comes as Apple is embroiled in a legal battle with three Web sites over their right to publish information about unreleased company products. The Cupertino company went to court to discover the source of information leaked to the Apple news sites. Several news organizations, including the Mercury News, have filed a brief in support of the sites' right to publish.
Wiley executive Kitt Allan said Monday, ``It became increasingly clear that Apple was not happy with the publication of the book.
``Recently, the meaning of that became clear when Apple told us that our technology books were immediately being pulled from their Apple retail stores. But, of course, Wiley stands behind our authors,'' added Allan, publisher for Wiley's general-interest books.
Apple spokesman Steve Dowling declined to comment on Young's book or whether the company had removed Wiley publications from its stores. An Apple executive was provided with an advance copy of the book, a person familiar with the situation said.
Wiley books were not on the shelves of a Newport Beach Apple store Monday. Clerks at 11 other Apple stories said Wiley books were ``out of stock'' or otherwise unavailable.
The removal of the Macintosh-related titles, including New York Times columnist David Pogue's popular ``Macs for Dummies, 8th Edition'' book, reflects the company's fierce efforts to manage its public image.
.............................. Branding experts warned that Apple's approach to the unauthorized biography could backfire by stimulating sales.
........................... Andy Ihnatko, a Boston-based author of six Mac books, including ``The Mac OS X Panther Book,'' said a Wiley executive called last week to inform him of Apple's decision.
``He explained the situation and apologized to me,'' Ihnatko said.
Although Apple's actions will probably cost Ihnatko money, he has no qualms. ``I'm very, very proud that my publisher decided to stick by an author and not decide to pull a book,'' Ihnatko said.
Apple sure does like to hurt their friends.
How do you sell Macs and not sell Wiley Books?
I like the Dummies series, so do most Mac users, because they work. And unlike with the Que series, there are really not a wide range of alternatives for Mac users. The Idiot's series is not nearly as comprehensive, and the other lines are also essential for using a Mac. I know that was the first book I bought for my sister when she got a Mac and it was the first book I bought when I got a Mac.
Who cares about another business book? Big deal. It would get the obligatory reviews and then fade from memory.
Not now.
The Mac authors hurt by this, like Pogue and Ihnakto, have been among the company's biggest boosters for nearly a decade or more. But like with the bloggers, if Jobs can't control it, it must be crushed.
I would suggest this: who do you think is more responsive to criticism, Apple or Microsoft? Because I have no idea why Microsoft wants to hurt it's own users in an act of spite.
As you may have noticed, the site has been slowing down over the past few weeks, and today it's not doing so hot.
After the election, I expected traffic to trail off significantly, giving me a year to catch my breath from my pre-election aggressive (and expensive) infrastructure upgrades (i.e. more servers). Well, traffic is skyrocketing for no obvious reason, no major external news events to drive this craazy growth, so it's clear that my vaunted server rack is in need of some serious upgrading.
So I'll be investing in new servers, as well as bolstering my existing ones (i.e. adding memory) over the coming months to work through these performance issues. I know slow load times can be frustrating, so I appreciate your patience as we work these problems out.
I have to admit, I am amused by this.
Not the site problems, but Kos's modesty.
No reason? Hmmm, let's explore that for a minute.
You have a media which is so slavish that almost every story can be questioned. You have politicians who forgot to fight for the people who elected them until they had no choice.
Since I wrote for Kos, the site has exploded. You have activists from around the Western world using the site to get attention, Congress members posting regularly, the knowledge that every Washington newsroom hits this site daily.
And Kos wonders why his site is exploding?
There are a couple of simple reasons: community and intergrity.
For such an open site, it has a remarkable lack of moonbats. Bad ideas don't last long there, because of the community. It's self-protecting in a rather clever way.
And to his credit, Kos has a high standard of integrity, which sometimes pisses people off, like with the Ohio vote count. A lot of people would have bent to the will of the loudest voices, but he didn't, no matter how mad people got. And they got very mad. He didn't shut down comments, kick people out or ignore it. He let people speak their piece and kept things going. That takes a lot of moral strength.
The obvious reason, at least to me is this: it is the one blog where you can go and find out what is going on, not just in Washington, but around the country and even other countries. There are millions of words of information used by ordinary people to have a conversation about politics they were excluded from. And anyone can participate and be read. Sometimes the reaction isn't the one they have planned, but they get one.
And it is a community, one where people discuss problems as well as politics, but unlike USENET, it isn't obsessive. You check in, look around, see what's up and then go about your day.
The reason his site is growing is, in the end, simple: it provides a service people want and need.
REDMOND, Wash. (AP) - Microsoft Corp. may rethink its decision to withdraw support for state legislation that would ban discrimination against gays and lesbians, Chairman Bill Gates says.
In an interview with The Seattle Times, Gates said he was surprised by the fierce criticism that followed the company's decision to no longer back a state gay rights bill it had supported in previous years.
The legislation failed by one vote in the state Senate on Thursday, spurring outrage among advocates who accused Microsoft of caving to political pressure from an evangelical pastor.
``Next time this one comes around, we'll see,'' Gates said in the story published Tuesday. ``We certainly have a lot of employees who sent us mail. Next time it comes around that'll be a major factor for us to take into consideration.''
Microsoft, one of the first companies to offer domestic partner benefits to gay employees, has denied that the pastor or anyone else outside the company influenced its decision. Gates said executives hadn't expected a backlash.
....................... Gates said he and Ballmer both support the measure personally but, ``We won't always pick every issue for the company to have a position on.''
Gay rights groups have said they feel betrayed.
On Friday, the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center asked Microsoft to return a civil rights award it gave the company in 2001. Liberal Web bloggers have urged their critics to organize their own Microsoft boycott.
If Microsoft had never taken a position on the bill, no one would care. But backing down pissed off some of the company's most loyal supporters. Microsoft supported gays when homophobia in the old line tech companies was standard. The company doesn't get that many of their employees like working for a company which sees them as equal human beings, and not lesser animals.
There was a sense of personal betrayal which was profound.
And I think the sharp, negative reaction showed that people do care. They would have never done this to any other group, from single moms to Asians, but when it comes to gay, one wingnut can get the company to turn it's back on one of it's most positive policies. We're talking people who want the Free BSD demon changed. Why cave into them at the time their movement is coming under serious scrutiny.
The wingnuts think TV is too racy, you can never satisfy their demands. So why even try? You won't make them happy, no matter what you do and you won't keep your friends.
AMERICAblog.com has learned that Microsoft is currently paying a $20,000 a month retainer to former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed's consulting firm Century Strategies. Which now begs the question of whether Reed was in any way involved with Microsoft's recent decision to abandon its decades long support for gay civil rights in order to curry favor with anti-gay bigots of the radical right.
Interestingly, Microsoft had Reed on retainer during the presidential election of 2000 to apparently help lobby then-candidate Bush on their anti-trust suit (he was actually first hired in the fall of 1998). The contract was terminated after Reed was criticized for a conflict of interest - Reed was working on Bush's campaign. The question arises when Microsoft and Reed revived their work relationship (most observers I've spoken to thought the contract ended five years ago), and what exactly Reed is working on now that the anti-trust issue is over.
Now, just think a minute. Microsoft finds itself under criticism from the local evangelical leader, religious right shareholders, bigoted employees and who knows who else. They don't know what to do. Who do they turn to? Well, if I'm in a religious right pickle, I'd turn to my $20,000 a month retainered religious right consultant, the former leader of the religious right, Ralph Reed.
And which side do we think the former head of the religious right would favor were he advising Microsoft what do when trapped between the Scylla and Charybdis of the gays vs. the religious right?
A. Stick to your guns and defend the gays? or B. Find a way to stiff the gays and move more in line with the religious right?
Well, shiver my timbers, Microsoft ended up going with option B.
Microsoft tried to play both sides of the fence, but forgot one thing: the fundies don't care. Gays do. The fundies can live with MS being gay friendly, Gays cannot live with MS not being gay friendly. The stakes are vastly different. Microsoft cannot afford the open hostility of the gay community or the wider creative community. They just cannot afford it. And besides, no matter how you appease the fundies, like their master Satan, they want more. Lots more.
And for people who say: I'll get a Mac, remember, Apple is suing their most loyal supporters and trying to abrogate their free speech rights.
So you have two corporations with fairly odious policies, you just have to decide which is worse.
At this point, and it's a close one for me, I'd say Microsoft is the winner by a length.
So my idea is very simple: protest Gates and his executives when they speak and show the economic power of the gay community. They don't care if you buy Macs or not, they still sell Office. What they would care about is if you started to use Linux and BSD instead of Windows Server 2003. That would hurt them a lot more. When people start making executive level decisions to avoid MS products in their core business areas, then they might realize they've made a mistake.
........... As for their whole idea of a band of armed volunteers fanning out across the southern Arizona desert to keep illegals out? The evidence is now quite clear: A difficult situation along the border was made just a little bit worse.
Tripping the U.S. Border Patrol's electronic sensors.
Leaving footprints on dirt paths the agents had carefully swept clear.
Creating a constant rush of false alarms.
"They have made things more difficult for us," said U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Andres Adame.
Gee, thanks, Minutemen!
"They're taking credit for securing the border, and surely no one with any credibility believes that," Michael Nicley, chief of the federal agency's Tucson sector, said in one interview.
"It's frustrating to have outsiders bring their tensions here," Charlie Austin, police chief in Douglas, Ariz., said in another. His town was a major staging area for the Minutemen.
There is some evidence that border traffic declined briefly in the area where the Minutemen were. And the group's leaders lavished credit upon themselves for that. But on closer inspection, the real picture grew murky real fast.
The big media presence seemed to have deterred some border-crossers. Even more so did a major massing of the Mexican Army on the border's southern side.
If the Minutemen had any impact, Border Patrol officials said, they simply shifted the immigrants a few miles east or west, funneling the human traffic to less-guarded entry posts.
The whole stunt was "very superficial and clearly insincere," said Douglas Mayor Ray Bornae. "It doesn't surprise me that they ended it. As soon as the media packed up and left, they left as well."
................
As long as the jobs are here and people to the south need them, it's hard to imagine that anyone will ever be able to shut the border down.
A sanitation worker was ordered held without bail Monday after he pleaded not guilty in the death of a pregnant woman who was found floating in the Hudson River off Manhattan earlier this month.
Roscoe Glinton, 42, of Brooklyn, was arraigned on a second-degree murder charge in the death of Lisa Eatmon, 33, who was pulled from the water near West 21st Street off Chelsea on April 3. An autopsy showed that she died of a gunshot wound to the head.
Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon told the court that Eatmon, who also lived in Brooklyn, was more than eight months pregnant and "days away from delivering a healthy baby boy when she was shot in the head."
Glinton's lawyer, Steven B. Kirschner, said after court that he knew of no proof, as published reports allege, that the baby Eatmon was carrying was fathered by his client. "Even if it is Roscoe's baby," Kirschner said, "that doesn't make him a murderer."
Glinton is married and has a daughter about a year old. He also has three children from a previous marriage to Deborah Glinton, 39, who was reported missing in June 1998 after she failed to show up for work at a doctor's office in upstate Newburgh. ..................... Illuzzi-Orbon told State Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon that Glinton was likely to flee. She said he knew police were looking for him so he hid in an apartment in Queens near Kennedy Airport, where he was arrested on Friday evening.
Glinton, a sanitation worker for 13 years, was apparently planning to go to Florida, and from there to his native Bahamas, where he has family, the prosecutor said. She said he had $20,000 in cash, which the police confiscated.
Lawyers should refrain from stupid statements, because DNA can always be taken.
The amazing thing about this case is that the man's son says he murdered his mother and the local media didn't treat the victim as another statistic. They were on his tail from the time the woman was found dead.
Two women dead, stories about his abuse temper well known, and then he fled from the cops down the wrong way on a highway, which is a major deal in New York.
He's been called the black Scott Peterson, because of his arrogance and being caught with money while trying to run.
Even as a Web site devoted to her was overwhelmed with scathing criticism, actress Maggie Gyllenhaal refused Monday to back down from her statement that the United States "is responsible in some way" for the attacks on the World Trade Center.
"Not to have the courage to ask these questions of ourselves is to betray the victims of 9/11," she said in a new statement issued by her publicist yesterday in response to the controversy.
The actress appears in "The Great New Wonderful," which features five stories about people living in the aftermath of the Twin Towers attack.
It began screening last week at the Tribeca Film Festival, which actor Robert DeNiro helped get off the ground in 2002 to help Lower Manhattan recover.
Gyllenhaal said on Friday on NY1, the all-news cable channel, that the movie dealt with complexities and subtleties of life after Sept. 11, 2001.
"Because I think America has done reprehensible things and is responsible in some way and so I think the delicacy with which it's dealt allows that to sort of creep in," she said on the channel.
A Web site on the actress, www.maggie-gyllenhaal.net, was besieged Monday with harsh words, some of them from city firefighters. The site posted a note saying the actress does not view the site.
Did we not back repressive governments like Saudi Arabia? Did we not turn our back on the Taliban?
The firefighters are in no position to talk about appropriate attitudes about 9/11, given the way they banged widows and denied stealing from Ground Zero by intimidation. Who was it who got into a fistfight with the cops?
The fact is that Osama Bin Laden and friends had real grievences against the US and pretending they just thunk this up and did it is delusional. Americans have acted for too long as if we were innocent actors and have no clue that some people hate us.
Which is why I find the idea of an American Foreign Legion staffed by Central Americans amusing. We may not know our history, but others do. And it is not a cheery one.
I know telling the truth is out of fashion, but I don't think anyone in Iraq has any illusions about how the Iraqis really see us and it isn't with love and affection.
As long as we lie to ourselves about how many in the world see us, we will continue to lose the War on Terror.
Washington lobbyist Shawn Vasell, a former aide to Montana Sen. Conrad Burns, has already attracted some unwanted media attention in our nation's capital as a key link between Burns and controversial lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Now we've come across an interesting little story on the Web (with photos) about Mr. Vasell and his Thanksgiving deer that if true, is not likely to endear him even to loyal Republicans.
Vasell, who Burns’ spokesman J.P. Donovan said worked as the office’s state director for about a year before stepping down in December of 2002 to go back to Abramoff's firm, was named and pictured on a Web site about hunting and fishing written by one J.R. Reger. Reger, in what can only be read as a fit of macho hubris, details the rockin' good time that he, Mike Reger and Vasell apparently had on a spur-of-the-moment, day-after-Thanksiving hunting outing. Only problem is, the story depicts the boys in apparent violation of at least four Montana hunting laws.
In particular, Vasell allegedly shot a deer from the window of a pickup truck, a clear no-no. And, a quick phone call to the Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks licensing department tells us that state records (which search back to 2002) show there have been no hunting licenses issued to a Shawn Vasell in the state of Montana. So if that's his deer he's posing with in the photos ...
Reger, reached on Saturday via phone, would not comment on the story or confirm or deny its accuracy, but told New West he would have time to talk about it later. Alas, he has not returned repeated phone calls since then and - surprise - his site had been taken down by Sunday morning. We figured this might happen, so we made sure we recovered it through Google's cache of pages, which is where you can read it here. (As for the general attitudes displayed in the story, we'll let you decide what to think of them).
The story certainly doesn't read like something that was made up, though it's a bit of a mystery as to why Reger would be so eager to brag publicly about things like his hunting buddy shooting a deer on someone else's land after dark. There is one clue though. Elsewhere on his site, Reger writes: "Every Monday morning I look forward to reading the paper. Moreover, I look forward to reading about one of my delinquent friends or acquaintances getting into trouble with the Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department. For the fine amount paid, and trust me on this one, the amount of good press you get from doing something wrong is totally worth it. I highly recommend poaching a little or doing something minor to get your name in the paper at least once a year."
Vasell, we'd wager, would beg to differ. The lobbyist, who did not return several messages left at his office Sunday and Monday and whose home phone is not listed, has had some recent experience getting his name in the paper: he's been referenced in the Washington Post and elsewhere as being one of the major links between Jack Abramoff, a prominent Republican lobbyist currently under investigation for sundry improprieties, and Sen. Burns.
That relationship came under heavy scrutiny after Susan Schmidt of the Post reported that Burns used his position overseeing the budget of the Bureau of Indian Affairs to effectively secure a $3 million grant for the Saginaw Chippewas of Michigan tribe, which, at the time, was one of Abramoff's major clients. Vasell was part of Abramoff's lobbying team then, but told the Post that he was not lobbying in 2003 because of a one-year ban after working for Burns. He is still listed today as working for Abramoff's former firm, Greenberg Traurig LLP.
Burns has directly denied that there was any impropriety in the dealings, saying that the push for the money to the Chippewas came from the Michigan Congressional delegation and not from lobbying by Abramoff or his associates. He has called the allegations “political slander.”
The Post reports that Abramoff and his associates have been major contributors to the Burns’ campaign.
And, according to the the Greenberg Traurig Web site Vasell's areas of expertise there include American Indian Policy and among his successes, he “developed, drafted and joined successful passage of Indian school construction cost share and obtained federal monies for participating clients.”
At least the the bio doesn't mention his hunting prowess.
Folks who live in the country dislike poachers. Which is what this is. Poaching. Not a mistake.
I need to take some time to comment on this type of situation. Mike and I have taken guys deer hunting before. Sometimes these guys aren't willing to take a life. They are weak, they will always be weak. They miss on purpose. Those of you who are reading this, you know who you are and what you are. Nothing is as weak as missing a deer on purpose. Once again, I digress
The way Mike and I hunt is very efficient. We know where they live, we know where they hide. We can drive to both places. We pulled up near the little house at the ranch and let Shawn's window face our big buck. Shawn rolled down his window, Mike turned down the volume of Willie Nelson's "Fallen Angel", and with one slick move Shawn brought the gun bolt back and loaded a 7mm bullet into the chamber. Shawn drew a bead on the deer, only about 130 yards away give or take 100 yards. Mike and I covered our ears. And.....
Here are some brief thoughts that went through my head the few seconds before it happened.
- Does he have it in him to kill this animal?
- If he misses, will it be on purpose?
- If he shoots the animal, will he hit it right so it doesn't die in pain or run off and die later?
- Seriously, who did shoot Liberty Valan
BAMMMMM
Shawn fired the gun. Mike and I took our hands off our ears. The deer bucked on his hind legs and then fell dead to the ground. Shawn had put the bullet right behind the front shoulder and killed the deer instantly. This, I really did not expect.
Mike and I got out of the car whoopin' and hollerin'. We high-fived Shawn and went over to his kill. A very large mule deer with very large horns. Here is the part that is a little weird, the horns were the size of mule deer, but the shape of a whitetail's. Could this deer have been a half-breed? Look at the pictures and you make the call.
We gut the deer and threw him into the truck bed. It was 3:30PM and time to get to the Rosebud again.
When we got to the Rosebud, we didn't see a damn buck at all. We might have spooked them earlier in the day. But still, nothing. So we waited and waited. By 5:00 it was damn near dark. We were to meet Randy and Deborah at the Grizzly Bar at 5:30. Mike wanted and needed to kill his deer so he said he would come back the next morning. The light was all but gone and we were on our way.
A few yards off our property, give or take a few miles, we finally saw what we had been looking for. A whitetail buck, albeit small, still a good eating animal. I looked at the clock, it was 5:20. Dark. Mike got out of the car and the deer walked away. Mike actually whistled at the deer and he stopped and turned broadside.
BAMMMMM
I'll never forget what Mike said next. "Gentlemen, do you mind dragging that deer back to the truck? We need to throw it into the bed and go clean him on our property." Well put I must say. We threw the deer into the back of the truck and drove back to our property. Mike gut the deer, threw the cock and balls at Shawn, we had a good laugh and we were done.
We arrived at the Grizzly Bar at 5:36, exactly 16 minutes after killing the deer. The food was great, wine was pretty good and the conversation was excellent.
Mike and I desperately wanted to hang Shawn's deer in the front yard of Fritz and Judene Pierce's home on M.L.K. Shawn begged us not to. Something about making his life really really hard for awhile. Mike and I would have done it if we could have found some proper rope in my garage. Of course it would have been tough on Shawn, but in 20 or so years we would have really laughed about it.
The next day we processed the tenderloins of both deer. We give the rest away to the "Hunters for the Hungry" program. An excellent program. The loins were vacuum packed and most was sent home with Shawn and Mike.
So if you are in D.C., call Shawn up. He will regale the story of his deer, perhaps over a tenderloin filet and some red wine.
I have to make one further comment. The type of man who can make a kill shot on a deer can make a kill shot on anything. Be it business, life, love or anything. This is an impressive man. Mike Reger and Shawn Vasell, my hat is off to you both.
Ah, shooting at night on someone else's land. Dangerous? Illegal? Stupid as all fuck?
Yes to all of the above.
I don't hunt, I fish. But I also obey the law and don't fucking poach.
These are the kind of guys who would shit their pants in a really dangerous situation. Their machismo is revolting, because it is so fake.
Look at the grim visage of this pet. Sure its owner is from the lower orders
Michael Getler explains why the mainstream press is becoming increasingly irrelevant:
I don't like write-in campaigns. I don't like my e-mail queue, and the e-mail of others writing in about other things, overwhelmed by hundreds of people saying essentially the same thing, in large part because somebody alerted them to something and suggested what to say. For that comment, I will now get 700 more e-mails asking how dare I impugn their assessment. I much prefer original commentary from readers, or one letter directly from FAIR laying out its critique. On the other hand, even though such campaigns are annoying, and frequently partisan, it doesn't mean that the points raised are not legitimate challenges.
Why not say it like this:
Who are you peons to hold me and my employer accountable? You certainly are not gentlemen and women of standing. How dare you inform others of our lauditory profile of a segregation-friendly senator as if your opinions matter? Why Strom Thurmond was old and things said praising old people doesn't count, unless they're Nazis. But you have no right to cause 700 e-mails to be sent to my precious mailbox. My intern has enough to do between backrubs and making reservations at the Palm. Why force my comely young assistant to read your deranged rantings.
If you dare to e-mail me, you should do it on hand rolled vellum and gold script and have your messenger boy send it over.
And of course, I will be assaulted by you ruffians for daring to question your crude methods of interupting my coq au vin and chardonnay lunch, served on my comely young assistant's finely sculpted ivory back, her luchious blonde hair serving as my napkin. A man of such refinements only deals with you lot with the truncheon, with a sharp rap across the back of your haircovered necks. And if that fails, a shot or two of the water cannon usually drives you back to your beer-sodden cellars and dismal boarding houses.
If it were up to me and not my lord and master, Mr. Graham, I would send the constabulary against this FAIR and lock these anarchists up in the filthy prisons where they belong.
But since I cannot do that, these sharp words will have to serve as punishment enough
A man named Joe Huffington was chosen by Simmons and other top Klan officials to start organizing the Klan in Indiana. Huffington’s first base of operations was located in Evansville, Indiana. In the late summer of 1920 he began preparations to bring the Klan to Indiana. It was not long before Huffington met a young man named D.C. Stephenson.
D.C. Stephenson was born, probably, in Texas and soon would become the most powerful and influential man in Indiana. Stephenson found himself, eventually, in Evansville working as a salesman of bonds for the L.G. Julian Coal Company. By 1921 he was helping Huffington recruit for the newly formed Indiana chapter of the Klan. He was making a pretty good living with both jobs.
The Klan had a large vocabulary of secret words and titles that Stephenson had to learn. William Simmons was known as the imperial wizard, the top office of the Klan. Other office titles included: kligrapp, kludd, nighthawk and Cyclops. Their secret meetings and gatherings were known as klonvocations. Membership fees were called klecktoken.
D.C. Stephenson, like all other new members, had to swear an oath of allegiance to the Klan and a vow of secrecy. New recruits were asked 9 questions:
1. Is the motive prompting your ambition to be a Klansman serious and unselfish? 2. Are you native born, white, Gentile, American citizens? 3. Are you absolutely opposed to and free of any allegiance of any nature to cause, government, people, sect, or ruler that is foreign to the United States of America? 4. Do you esteem the United States of America and its institutions above any other government, civil, political, or ecclesiastical in the whole world? 5. Will you, without mental reservations, take a solemn oath to defend, preserve, and enforce these same? 6. Do you believe in Klannishness and will you faithfully practice same toward your fellow Klansmen? 7. Do you believe in and will you faithfully strive for the eternal maintenance of White Supremacy? 8. Will you faithfully obey our constitutions and laws, and confirm willingly to all our usages, requirements, and regulations? 9. Can you always be depended on?[5]
Did D.C. Stephenson take the oath seriously? No one really knows. Stephenson's public speeches aren't filled with the racist rhetoric as many of the other leaders of the Klan. He usually left the hate speeches up to others in the power structure of the Klan. His talent was centered around organizing the Klan in Indiana and collecting new recruits.
Membership in the Indiana division of the Klan began soaring with each new speech that Stephenson made. The group began to expand to the western states and industrial cities of the Midwest, the Klan was no longer a southern sensation.
The Klan even made inroads into Indiana churches. The Reverend William Forney Harris of the Grand Avenue Methodist Church preached in 1922 that secret societies like the Ku Klux Klan would not get his support. However, these were times of "moral decay," and as such, any organization that stood for decency and order ought not to be shunned. Other clergy found themselves offering similar endorsements to their congregations as the Klan membership began to grow locally.6
D.C. Stephenson went on to become a powerful political figure in Indiana. His rise to power was short-lived, however. In 1922 David Curtis Stephenson was appointed Grand Dragon of the KKK for Indiana. In 1925 he had met a statehouse secretary, Madge Oberholtzer, at an inaugural ball for Governor Ed Jackson. She was later abducted from her home in Irvington, a neighborhood of Indianapolis and taken by Stephenson and some of his men to the train station. While on a trip to Hammond, Indiana, Stephenson repeatedly attacked and raped Oberholtzer in one compartment of his Pullman railcar. In Hammond she took poison to frighten Stephenson into letting her go. He immediately rushed her back to Indianapolis where she died a month later, either from the effects of the poison or the severe bite marks she incurred during the rape.
Stephenson was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. The sensational trial took place in Noblesville, Indiana in 1925. His conviction sent Stephenson to the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, Indiana for the next 31 years (the longest imprisonment in this state for that crime). He was released from prison in 1956 and faded into obscurity. However, not before causing the shocking downfall of many corrupt political officials within Indiana. When he went to jail he was convinced that Governor Ed Jackson, who he had helped elect, would pardon him. Governor Jackson never came through with the pardon and Stephenson began to talk.
With help from The Indianapolis Times (which won a Pulitzer Prize for its investigations), the structure of Indiana politics would be shaken. Stephenson began to talk about who had helped him rise to power and began to name names. The aftermath was shocking, indictments were filed against Governor Ed Jackson, Marion County Republican chairman George V. "Cap" Coffin, and attorney Robert I. Marsh, charging them with conspiring to bribe former Governor Warren McCray. Even Mayor of Indianapolis John Duvall was convicted and sentenced to jail for 30 days (and barred from political service for 4 years). Some Marion County commissioners also resigned from their posts on charges of accepting bribes from the Klan and Stephenson.
This was not the image that Indiana wanted to portray during its "golden age." Stephenson at the peak of his political career and influence had remarked, "I am the law in Indiana."
When you think about the fundies, keep DC Stephenson in mind.
Why? Because he had far more power than any fundie leader has ever had. Jerry Falwell was a joke, Pat Robertson, a daddy's boy, James Dobson, a creepy freak. If charisma could be bought, these men would go broke trying to get some.
Stephenson rose quickly because he was a charismatic leader. He amassed an incredible amount of power in a short time because he managed to give politicians what they wanted, votes. Stephenson had his hand on votes and from that came his power. As the article explains, the Klan soon made their weay into churches.
Stephenson's rise came because he served the needs of politicians. He was their tool, but as soon as he was in trouble, he was abandonded to his fate. Now, the fundies have the same hold over politicians, and Tom DeLay may well find himself abandonded to his own fates. While the article says his rise to power was short, he was the most powerful man in Indiana for three years. That is a hell of a long time for the head of a terrorist organization to run a state. The Taliban ran Afghanistan for only six.
Which is why people have to keep the fundies in perspective. None of their leaders can run for anything and win. Robertson was a short-lived joke when he ran in 1988. Which is why they need pols. They need politicians to enact their will. They are also disunified. Does anyone seriously think that Robertson would let Dobson become the leader of the fundies. And while useful fools like Bill Donahue thinks these people are his allies, the strain of anti-catholic hatred runs as deep as their anti-semitism with these folks. The more power they have, the more fighting will occur. If the GOP is splintered, the fundies are splintered as well. You have Babtists, Assemblies of God, Episcopalians and Catholics and they all disagree. Evangelical is a catch-all for some very different beliefs, all of which will come into conflict. Just like Donahue can let slip his anti-semitic canards, the fundies will go on and on about the Pope of Rome. Ian Paisley wasn't a featured speaker at Bob Jones University for no reason.
They need the Frists and the Santorums because they don't have the power. They can get them votes, but when the chips are down, their agenda is useless without them. While they have a few true believers in Congress, they wouldn't be reduced to pathetic pleas to enact their agenda, if they had real power. DC Stephenson didn't beg anyone, he gave orders.
What they do have the ability to do is create the image of great power. Which they don't actually have. They hit the media in their weakspots, and the media is scared that someone will stop their license to make money. But the fundies are minority, even in the South. There are plenty of people, Lutherans, Seven Day Adventists, Methodists, Baptists, who while sympathetic to some of the fundies arguments, consider the whole thing a low-class white trash affair. Remember Bush's family is Methodist, not Assemblies of God. They have no plans on giving up their country clubs and mistresses because of the demand of a few snake handling trailer trash.
Stephenson's downfall is one awaiting the fundies. Only Billy Graham was smart enough to protect himself from women, by simply never being alone with them.
Stephenson literally chewed Madge Olberholter to death. He raped her and bit on her like a chewtoy. The attack was savage, only his Klan connections kept him from being charged with first degree murder. If a black man had did that, they would have lynched random people and burned down neighborhoods.
I think is only a matter of time before a scandal sticks to one of these people. Tom DeLay is a thief, but unless he's a pervert, that will merely end his career. I don't think Jimmy Swaggert is the only hooker loving preacher. The more these people raise the moral stakes, the more brutal their own foibles will be treated.
The point is that what Stephenson did was simple; he was caught with violating the core tenent of the Klan's reason for existance-protecting white women. It was the negro who was dangerous, not a fine, upstanding white man like Stephenson. When he turned out to be a beast, it undermined the Klan as nothing else could. One of these fundie leaders will be caught with a cock in his mouth at a truck stop, sooner rather than later.
But the danger of the fundies is not raw, naked power, but the illusion of great power, and the fear people have of it. Unless people stand up to it, a fundie will have the power Stephenson had and we will have to rely on their undoing to save the day.
UK music lovers are getting frustrated with restrictions placed on digital music tracks once they buy them from online stores, says PC Pro magazine.
The magazine reported that people are also being turned off net music stores because of pricing and disappointing sound quality compared to CDs.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said legal music downloads rose by 900% in 2004.
Last week, the UK's official singles chart included sales of legal tracks.
Yet legal downloads are still fledglings in the music industry, accounting for two percent of the market, according to PC Pro's Nick Ross.
"What people don't understand is that when they buy an iPod or other digital music player, they're being tied into a system," said Mr Ross, deputy labs editor at PC Pro.
"Many of our readers have already been caught out, buying tracks but being unable to play them on their player."
The technology magazine had so many e-mail comments from dissatisfied people it decided to test and compare the main services.
Send us your views on net music stores
One confused reader said he had spent £40 in an online store. Although his MP3 player played Windows Media Audio (WMA) files that he created, it would not play the copyright-protected WMA files he had purchased.
Playing fair
Another revealed to the magazine how he had to pay twice to download a song because of an error with the online store.
When he tried to swap the song onto another computer he found he was restricted from doing so.
PC Pro says people are growing increasingly dissatisfied with restrictions on tracks they have paid for, especially if the price they pay is similar to that which is paid for a physical CD.
You know, when you download music from Limeware, it plays on whatever you want it to.
There is no DRM in their collection.
Until it is as easy to buy music as it is to just download it, this crap will continue.
In the case of the remote and isolated Marine base at Husaybah, the insurgents massed a force estimated to number more than 100 men and distracted the defenders with mortar and rocket-propelled grenade attacks as a dump truck loaded with explosives blew apart a roadblock at the entrance to the base.
Marine defenders, their ears ringing from that blast, then saw a bright red fire truck, loaded with propane tanks filled with explosives, come thundering through the thick smoke aiming at the gap opened by the dump truck suicide bomber. A Marine sentry poured fire into the fire truck and it exploded 40 yards short.
The insurgents then attacked in force, attempting to overrun the American base. They were thrown back after losing an estimated 19 killed and 15 wounded as fighter-bombers and helicopter gunships summoned by the Marines raked their positions. Only three Marines were lightly wounded.
....................
American commanders long ago recognized the ability of the terrorist leaders to adapt quickly to changing conditions and exploit any perceived weakness. Some U.S. commanders privately hoped that this day would come when the poorly trained terrorists would go head-to-head with American regulars. If terrorists come out in the open in large numbers, it makes it easier to find them and kill them.
The insurgent and terrorist leaders score points for being able to pull a company-size attack force together quickly in so open and barren a terrain, and to plan and coordinate a complicated, precisely timed assault. But it’s good their fighters are all volunteers for martyrdom. When a hundred of them charge a hard-core battalion of 700-plus Marines, that’s what awaits.
Some Pentagon officials say that the bigger scale attacks reflect the frustration of terrorist commander and al Qaeda ally Abu Musab Zarqawi at the lack of attention the roadside bombs receive at this stage of the war .....................
That analyst added, “The argument about ‘bigger targets equals easier to find and hit’ to a degree fails to explain if we are looking as hard as we should be, how did the ‘bigger targets’ get formed up without detection?”
Mr. Galloway is the senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers.
I see it differently.
First of all Zarqawi don't know dick about military tactics, this is nothing he's a part of. The people who are executing this have been training, hard, for weeks if not months, and have a command structure. This has the hand of the ex-Iraqi Army all over it, not some Jordanian fat man who likes bombs.
Second, the Iraqis know exactly how many people they're facing when they attack, they can tell you what they had for breakfast and what PS2 games they play. They aren't trying to overrun a base with 100 men, they are demonstrating to the US that they are not safe in their bases. They want the US to know that they can be attacked in force anytime, anywhere.
What would worry me is when those hundred guys show up, not outside the base, but in a town, and ambush a patrol. The Iraqis have now demonstrated the ability to keep the Americans pinned in their bases and to form up without being seen. Now, what day do they do this and ambush a convoy or hit a small post in town with the same level of skill. The failed attacks are no big deal. The skill behind them is worrisome to say the least. And Zarqaqi ain't nowhere in the picture. He can do some car bombings, but company-sized attacks? Nope.
Eassier to find and kill? Sure, if you think there's a small pool. But in a country so deeply militarized as Iraq, that's a pretty big pool to drain. And easy? Not if they trap them on a highway or overrun them on patrol, which surely is rhe next step. The E-ring says "wheee, another failed attack. Our boys rock" and all I can think is that's some pretty slick work for rag-tag guerrillas. They're already slick, when do they get successful?
By Charles Babington Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, April 25, 2005; Page A01
Frist's comments were more moderate than those of several religious leaders headlining "Justice Sunday: Stopping the Filibuster Against People of Faith."
Charles W. Colson, head of Prison Fellowship Ministries, also appeared by videotape. He said Senate Democrats are trying to use the filibuster "to seize what they lost at the ballot box and to prevent the appointment of judges, holding the judiciary hostage." Their actions, he said, "are destroying the balance of power, which was a vital Christian contribution to the founding of our nation."
James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, spoke from the church's pulpit and criticized the Supreme Court, seven of whose nine members were named by Republican presidents. The court's majority, Dobson said, "are unelected and unaccountable and arrogant and imperious and determined to redesign the culture according to their own biases and values, and they're out of control."
The court's majority does not care "about the sanctity of life," he said. Pornography is a growing problem, he said, "plus this matter of judicial tyranny to people of faith, and that has to stop."
Dobson said the Senate has "six or eight very squishy Republicans" who have not committed to helping change the filibuster rule. Throughout the program, the names and phone numbers of senators scrolled across the screen, and speakers urged listeners to call and demand that the filibusters be stopped. Among the senators whose photos were shown were Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), John McCain (R-Ariz.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.).
Frist's role in the broadcast drew criticism.
"I think Senator Frist may have made as big a strategic political blunder in embracing Justice Sunday as he did in the Terri Schiavo case," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. He was referring to Congress's effort to intercede in a brain-damaged Florida woman's case, which polls showed to be unpopular.
"The people he's dealing with are not going to rest until there's a constitutional Armageddon in which the religious right controls all three branches of government," Lynn said.
The fact that most judges are conservative and many of Clinton's moderate choices were delayed if not outright refused a vote means nothing.
Frist had no business being near this wingnut fest, given his postion. None.
Because these people want Jesus to run the US, not politicians. Bush is not serious enough for them. He speaks their language, but he isn't one of them. These people are as serious as a heart attack.
This recklessness reminds me of the rise of the Klan in the 1920's.
The Klan claimed "to speak for the great mass of Americans of old pioneer stock." Their ancestors, "hardy, adventurous and strong men and women," won a continent and created the American nation. Their "remarkable race character," passed on to their descendants, "made the inheritance of the old-stock Americans the richest ever given to a generation of men." In spite of this, "these Nordic Americans for the last generation have found themselves increasingly uncomfortable, and finally deeply distressed." What had gone wrong? Evans' initial formulation in "The Klan's Fight for Americanism" was intentionally vague:
There appeared first confusion in thought and opinion, a groping and hesitancy about national affairs and private life alike, in sharp contrast to the clear, straightforward purposes of our earlier years. There was futility in religion, too, which was in many ways even more distressing. Presently we began to find that we were dealing with strange ideas; policies that always sounded well, but somehow always made us still more uncomfortable.
Finally came the moral breakdown that has been going on for two decades. One by one all our traditional moral standards went by the boards, or were so disregarded that they ceased to be binding. The sacredness of our Sabbath, of our homes, of chastity, and finally even of our right to teach our own children in our own schools fundamental facts and truths were torn away from us. Those who maintained the old standards did so only in the face of constant ridicule.
........................
Similarly, although immigrants might use the same words as patriotic Nordic Americans, they could rarely, if ever, achieve genuine Americanism. "Americanism, to the Klansman, is a thing of the spirit, a purpose and a point of view, that can only come through instinctive racial understanding." Most "aliens" do not "understand those principles, even when they use our words in talking about them." On the other hand, Nordic Americans, even when unable to express their beliefs, still embodied the purest Americanism.
...................
As a simple statement of fact, this was wildly incorrect. But it was true, as Klan recruiters kept reminding potential members, that Irish Catholics and others who were not "real" Americans dominated city government in Boston, New York, and other major cities. Irish Catholic women dominated the ranks of school teachers, their brothers the ranks of the police. Little wonder, Klan spokesmen charged, that Catholics had enjoyed such success keeping Bible reading out of the schools or that bootleggers openly flouted the Volstead Act.
Who were "they"? Who had stolen the Nordic Americans' patrimony? First and foremost, "they" were Catholics. The "Roman Church" is "fundamentally and irredeemably, in its leadership, in politics, in thought, and largely in membership, actually and actively alien, un-American and usually anti-American." "Old stock Americans . . . see in the Roman Church today the chief leader of alienism, and the most dangerous alien power with a foothold inside our boundaries," Evans wrote. [Click on handbill to view its complete text.]
This, like the Klan's appropriation of eugenics, sounded a theme broadly heard in American public life. William Robinson Pattangall, defeated Democratic candidate for governor of Maine in 1924, ran on a platform sharply critical of the Klan. He later admitted that he had seriously underestimated the salience of anti-Catholicism. "I did not even know it [hatred from "the long-dead days of the religious wars"] existed, did not realize at all how persistent such a hatred could be when there was nothing to excite it" except "the Klan's brilliant incendiarism." Yet Pattangall himself stated in a 1925 article in The Forum that the Klan's "complaints made against the Catholics and foreign-born are very largely true." More specifically:
The most valid of all the charges the Klan brings against the Roman hierarchy is that secretly it does not accept the American principle of the separation of church and state, but furtively goes into politics as a church and attempts to use its spiritual hold on its members as a means for political control.
The Forum had, in its preceeding issue, August 1924, sponsored an "impartial discussion of the Americanism of the Roman Catholic Church" and its reporter who most frequently wrote critically about the KKK, Stanley Frost, warned in the June 1928 issue that Al Smith's "inevitable" defeat, should he gain the nomination, would likely lead to the creation of a "Catholic Party" modelled on those of Europe. Similar discussions of the "Catholic influence" upon American politics filled the newspapers and magazines of the 1920s.
When not Catholic, "they" were often Jews. Interestingly, Evans steered clear of some anti-Semitic stereotypes. In 1923, when warning of "The Menace of Modern Immigration" at the Texas State Fair (on Klan Day), he conceded that Jews were a talented people who obeyed "eugenic" laws. They could not become real Americans, however, because centuries of persecution had engrained in them a congenital inability to feel patriotism. No Jew, no matter if he and his descendants lived in the U.S. for a thousand years, could experience the sentiments of love for his new country an immigrant from Britain might feel within a year. By 1926, in his North American Review essay, Evans conceded that some Jews might indeed become true Americans. The Jew's abilities are great, he contributes much to any country where he lives. This is particularly true of the Western Jew, those of the stocks we have known so long. Their separation from us is more religious than racial. When freed from persecution these Jews have shown a tendency to disintegrate and amalgamate. We may hope that shortly, in the free atmosphere of America, Jews of this class will cease to be a problem.
Not so with "the Eastern European Jews of recent immigration." They were not "true Jews." Anthropologists "now tell us that these are . . . only Judaized Mongols -- Chazers." Unlike the "true Hebrew," there was little hope that such people could assimilate. Evans' anti-Semitism was mild compared to that voiced by Henry Ford who turned his Dearborn Independent into an organ for the most vicious and irresponsible accusations. It was Ford who popularized the spurious Protocols of the Elders of Zion by using it as the basis for The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem. Published first as articles in the Dearborn Independent and then in four volumes, The International Jew attributed all of the nation's ills and every feature of modern life of which Ford personally disapproved to a Jewish conspiracy. [It is widely available on the internet, as with the link above, courtesy of present-day anti-Semitic and white supremacist organizations.]
............................
In the final analysis, "they" proved to be anyone whose view of America did not correspond to the "racial instincts" of the Nordic American as expressed by the Klan. "They" even included some Nordic Americans, those whose "liberalism" deviated from the Klan's own "progressive conservativism."
As Paxton pointed out, none of these propositions were original to the fascist agitators of the interwar period. They were literally "in the air," as their appearance throughout the developed world demonstrates quite clearly. So, even as Evans claimed to be seeking to articulate the "half conscious impulses" of the Klan's membership, he was sounding changes on very familiar themes. Why, we need to ask, did these changes on these themes resonate so clearly and so loudly for so many? Why, that is, were so many "Nordic Americans" so aggrieved?
MacLean puts considerable stress upon the economic upheavals occasioned by the war and the postwar recession. Wartime inflation had eaten away at the purchasing power of the average consumer. Then the sharp downturn in the economy during 1919-1920 had made a bad situation worse. Yet, the Klan grew most rapidly during the early years of the 1920s boom, in 1923 and 1924. This does not mean that economic stress was not a factor, merely that it cannot by itself explain the growth of the Klan. .................. Emperor and Imperial Wizard Hiram Wesley Evans had hinted darkly at an apocalyptic struggle between "Nordic" Americans and lesser breeds in his "The Klan's Fight For Americanism:
We can neither expel, exterminate nor enslave these low-standard aliens, yet their continued presence on the present basis means our doom. Those who know the American character know that if the problem is not soon solved by wisdom, it will be solved by one of those cataclysmic outbursts which have so often disgraced -- and saved! -- the race.
The "outburst" never came. Instead the Klan steadily lost members and influence. In part this was due to scandal. Grand Dragon David C. Stephenson, head of the Indiana Klan which claimed 500,000 members, kipnapped and raped a young state employee. Sentenced to twenty-five years to life for second-degree murder, Stephenson turned against state officials, including the governor, he had helped elect. This was the worst, but by no means the only, scandal involving Klan leaders. In part, the decline of the Klan came from the continued success of the Republican Party in meeting the political needs of "Nordic" Americans and from the success of non-Nordics in making a permanent home for themselves in the Democratic Party. In part, it came from the Klan's perceived ineffectualness. It could not make good on its promises to enforce Prohibition or reform morals, except in localities where its members expressed deeply held community values. It could not "take back" political control of American cities. In some, such as Worcester, opponents made it all too clear who was in charge. Nor could it reduce the role of Catholics or immigrants in American public life.
In the end, the Klan was important not for what it did but for what it signified. It accomplished little but, as Evans appreciated, it expressed the otherwise inarticulate rage and resentment of millions. At bottom its members' quarrel was with modernity. In particular, they objected to the rise of Catholics and Jews to positions of power and prominence; they feared that science would undermine the moral authority of the Bible; they worried that a "New Woman" would refuse to the submit to patriarchal authority; they worried that a "New Negro" would reject white supremacy. In matters trivial and profound they found themselves threatened with being passed by. The Klan captured perfectly, as did the Eugenics movement, their simultaneous sense of being entitled and endangered.
For a time the Klan captured too the restrictive notion of national identity the war and the Red Scare fostered. Hiram Wesley Evans, while in no sense a Wilsonian, was a beneficiary of the new and narrow nationalism Wilson promoted, of federally-sanctioned vigilanteism, of Wilson's ringing endorsement of D.W. Griffith's glorification of the first Klan. He also benefitted from the rising tide of anti-Semitism, the scientific legitimacy granted eugenics, the growing frustration with the failure of Prohibition. Not least, he benefitted from the legal immunity granted to the rioters in Tulsa, Washington, D.C., and Chicago, and to lynch mobs everywhere. He benefitted too from the intellectual respectability of anti-Catholicism. Evans spoke the simple truth when he claimed to speak for millions. What he said most loudly was that "Americanism" was a matter of blood and creed. Americans were white Protestants, lineal descendants of the Revolutionary generation and of the pioneers who settled the West. They were members of the "Great Race."
Substitute homosexuality for Catholicism and today's fundies sounds a LOT like the Klan of the 1920's. Not in the racism, but the sense of victimization and the anger at modernity.
But it has to be understood that these people have much less power than the Klan did. Later on we'll look at how the Klan took over the state of Indiana. The fundies gain power from being outsiders and victims, no matter how much power they get.
Felicity Lawrence and Katharine Quarmby Monday April 25, 2005 The Guardian
The school meals revolution set in motion by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has already run into difficulties as long-term contracts with private companies prevent schools getting rid of junk food.
The Guardian has learned that new schools locked into 25-year contracts through private finance initiatives are finding that they cannot rid their menus of junk food despite the government's pledge.
Other schools are also running into problems as they discover that they face substantial financial penalties if they try to opt out of long-running contracts with private catering companies.
The poor standard of many school meals and their detrimental effect on children's behaviour was exposed last month by Oliver's TV series.
The government responded to the public outcry that followed by rushing out an announcement this month promising to impose new nutritional standards on caterers and improve all children's school meals.
But the practical difficulties of forcing change on private contractors appear to have been underestimated.
A campaign group in Merton, set up in the wake of the series on school meals, told the Guardian that its local educa tion authority has said that the six new PFI schools in the south London borough may be exempt from the new guidelines because of their contracts.
Most Merton secondary schools are locked into a 25-year PFI contract with a company called New Schools. It has subcontracted all services for 25 years to Atkins Asset Management. Atkins has subcontracted again, giving a 25-year catering contract for the schools to Scolarest catering.
Parents, governors and teachers have expressed dissatisfaction with the level of service and the quality of food provided by Scolarest.
There are some 450 PFI schools and many will be tied into similar long-term agreements to provide services. The profits made on these service deals provide the return to private investors in the public sector and have helped fund the government's schools rebuilding programme.
Confidential letter reveals Ratzinger ordered bishops to keep allegations secret
Jamie Doward, religious affairs correspondent Sunday April 24, 2005 The Observer
Pope Benedict XVI faced claims last night he had 'obstructed justice' after it emerged he issued an order ensuring the church's investigations into child sex abuse claims be carried out in secret.
The order was made in a confidential letter, obtained by The Observer, which was sent to every Catholic bishop in May 2001.
It asserted the church's right to hold its inquiries behind closed doors and keep the evidence confidential for up to 10 years after the victims reached adulthood. The letter was signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was elected as John Paul II's successor last week.
Lawyers acting for abuse victims claim it was designed to prevent the allegations from becoming public knowledge or being investigated by the police. They accuse Ratzinger of committing a 'clear obstruction of justice'.
The letter, 'concerning very grave sins', was sent from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office that once presided over the Inquisition and was overseen by Ratzinger.
It spells out to bishops the church's position on a number of matters ranging from celebrating the eucharist with a non-Catholic to sexual abuse by a cleric 'with a minor below the age of 18 years'. Ratzinger's letter states that the church can claim jurisdiction in cases where abuse has been 'perpetrated with a minor by a cleric'.
The letter states that the church's jurisdiction 'begins to run from the day when the minor has completed the 18th year of age' and lasts for 10 years.
It orders that 'preliminary investigations' into any claims of abuse should be sent to Ratzinger's office, which has the option of referring them back to private tribunals in which the 'functions of judge, promoter of justice, notary and legal representative can validly be performed for these cases only by priests'.
'Cases of this kind are subject to the pontifical secret,' Ratzinger's letter concludes. Breaching the pontifical secret at any time while the 10-year jurisdiction order is operating carries penalties, including the threat of excommunication.
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent 12 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Majority Leader Bill Frist said Sunday it was not "radical" to ask senators to vote on judicial nominees as he hardened his effort to strip Democrats of their power to stall President Bush's picks for the federal court.
Frist, speaking at an event organized by Christian groups trying to rally churchgoers to support an end to judicial filibusters, also said judges deserve "respect, not retaliation," no matter how they rule.
A potential candidate for the White House in 2008, the Tennessee Republican made no overt mention of religion in the brief address, according to a text of his videotaped remarks released before the event in Louisville, Ky.
Instead, Frist seemed intent on steering clear of the views expressed by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and other conservatives in and out of Congress who have urged investigations and even possible impeachment of judges they describe as activists.
"Our judiciary must be independent, impartial and fair," Frist said.
Feel free to live-blog this event, or comment along.
David Broder and various other DC mandarins say that Democrats are asking for trouble if they bring the senate to a standstill over the nuclear option. They point to
Advertisement the fact that Newt Gingrich's Republicans took the blame for the government shutdowns in 1995-96, not Bill Clinton.
I should say first that I worry about the politics of the Democrats doing this too. But there's not nearly as much cause for worry as these worthies' imagine.
Some of their confusion stems from the fact that few of them could ever quite get their heads around the idea that the Republicans took the hit for Gingrich's government shutdown -- in part because most of them were secretly enraptured with Newt at the time.
Broder's reference to the power of the president's bully pulpit as the lever that will shift public opinion against the Democrats is just another example of his inability to grasp that the public turn against the Republicans in late 1995 and early 1996 was a reaction, on the merits, to Republican excesses, not the result of some inscrutable black magic Bill Clinton managed to pull off with a few press availabilities.
The more obvious flaw in Broder's reasoning stems from another bit of Washington myopia. What killed the Republicans on the government shutdown, in addition to the pure recklessness of the stunt, was that the government did shut down. National parks closed. Various government services and functions stopped operating. It had an immediate and direct effect on people's lives.
Shutting down the senate does nothing of the sort. The government and all its essential services will go right on functioning as usual.
Broder also thought Clinton would be driven from office.
Look, the GOP is scaring people, the Dems are expected to fight back. And Harry Reid is no Newt Gingrich. The Beltway Kool Kids Klub is clueless.
Before I went out for a morning of laundry and breakfast, I heard Tweety, whole drooling over Katty Kay of the BBC, name some of the most reactionary senators as 2008 candidates, Brownback, Santorum and Frist and all I could think as I headed toward breakfast, was that it was as if Abby Hoffman, Tom Hayden were running for president and Michael Harrington had an exploratory committee. If this who is going to run for president, the theocratic right, who at best represents 15 percent of America, the GOP is headed for a long decline.
One of the things about Bush is that moderates believe he holds their beliefs. Those men allow for no such delusions. Santorum is batshit crazy and Brownback will probably run on the Dominionist ticket if he fails with the GOP.
Of course, with today being Just-Us Sunday, such lunacy must be in the air.
Dennis Cook / AP Hot seat: Bolton faces a steady stream of criticism, even from some Republicans
By Michael Hirsh
The incident illustrates a key allegation that now bedevils Bolton's nomination to be America's next ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton's critics contend that he has consistently taken an extreme and uncompromising line on issues and that he has bullied subordinates and intel analysts who disagreed with him. President Bush last week stood by his embattled nominee, blaming "politics" for Bolton's difficult confirmation process. But it was members of the president's own party who were holding things up. After GOP Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, unexpectedly blocked a vote last week, it was clear that Bolton's nomination was in trouble. Powell himself, in reported remarks to several senators, expressed worries about Bolton's temperament. Because the eight Democrats on the 18-person committee are solidly against Bolton, a single GOP defector could kill the nomination when it comes to a vote on May 12. The White House still believes that only a hard-liner like Bolton can reform the U.N.
But the London story is further evidence that Bolton and the White House have their work cut out for them. On several occasions, America's closest ally in the war on terror, Britain, was irked by what U.S. and British sources say were efforts by Bolton to undermine promising diplomatic openings. Perhaps the most dramatic instance took place early in the U.S.-British talks in 2003 to force Libya to surrender its nuclear program, NEWSWEEK has learned. The Libya deal succeeded only after British officials "at the highest level" persuaded the White House to keep Bolton off the negotiating team. A crucial issue, according to sources involved in the affair, was Muammar Kaddafi's demand that if Libya abandoned its WMD program, the U.S. in turn would drop its goal of regime change. But Bolton was unwilling to support this compromise. The White House agreed to keep Bolton "out of the loop," as one source puts it. A deal was struck only after Kaddafi was reassured that Bush would settle for "policy change"—surrendering his WMD. One Bush official called the accounts of both incidents "flatly untrue."
As the Senate hearings continue, the fired-up Democrats are focusing not just on Bolton's allegedly abusive treatment of intel analysts. They are also examining whether Bolton has told the truth under oath in recent weeks in responding to his critics. And the committee is examining fresh allegations that Bolton misused or hyped flawed intelligence against Syria, China and Iran. The steady rain of complaints about Bolton may or may not finish him, but there's no sign that the clouds are clearing.
He's done. Bolton is the most extreme of the neocons, and the reason he was nominated was because Dick Cheney thought it was a good idea to reward one of his boys. As odious as Paul Wolfowitz is, he's not insane. John Bolton's creepiness borders on sexual harassment and hostile work environment.
The problem with the Bush theory is that Bolton is no Jeane Kirkpatrick, odious views but sane. Bolton's behavior would have gotten him sued in private industry.
But as I said before, he fucked with INR, and that made him enemies. The stories about him using SCI intercepts of Americans is far scarier. SCI is secure, compartimentalized intelligence, above top secret. Communications between US officials fall into this catagory. Bolton shouldn't have been near it, much less using it for office politics.
By R. Jeffrey Smith Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, April 24, 2005; Page A01
The airfare to London and Scotland in 2000 for then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was charged to an American Express card issued to Jack Abramoff, a Washington lobbyist at the center of a federal criminal and tax probe, according to two sources who know Abramoff's credit card account number and to a copy of a travel invoice displaying that number.
DeLay's expenses during the same trip for food, phone calls and other items at a golf course hotel in Scotland were billed to a different credit card also used on the trip by a second registered Washington lobbyist, Edwin A. Buckham, according to receipts documenting that portion of the trip.
House ethics rules bar lawmakers from accepting travel and related expenses from registered lobbyists. DeLay, who is now House majority leader, has said that his expenses on this trip were paid by a nonprofit organization and that the financial arrangements for it were proper. He has also said he had no way of knowing that any lobbyist might have financially supported the trip, either directly or through reimbursements to the nonprofit organization.
The documents obtained by The Washington Post, including receipts for his hotel stays in Scotland and London and billings for his golfing during the trip at the famed St. Andrews course in Scotland, substantiate for the first time that some of DeLay's expenses on the trip were billed to charge cards used by the two lobbyists. The invoice for DeLay's plane fare lists the name of what was then Abramoff's lobbying firm, Preston Gates & Ellis.
Multiple sources, including DeLay's then-chief of staff Susan Hirschmann, have confirmed that DeLay's congressional office was in direct contact with Preston Gates about the trip itinerary before DeLay's departure, to work out details of his travel. These contacts raise questions about DeLay's statement that he had no way of knowing about the financial and logistical support provided by Abramoff and his firm.
Yesterday, DeLay's lawyer, Bobby R. Burchfield, said that DeLay's staff was aware that Preston Gates was trying to arrange meetings and hotels for the trip but that DeLay was unaware of the "logistics" of bill payments, and that DeLay "continues to understand his expenses" were properly paid by the nonprofit organization, the National Center for Public Policy Research.
In 2000, Abramoff was a board member of the group. In a telephone interview yesterday, Hirschmann said the contacts between DeLay's office and persons at Preston Gates occurred because Abramoff "was a board member of the sponsoring organization." Hirschmann added: "We were assured that the National Center paid for the trip."
House rules do not exempt such nonprofit organization board members from the prohibition on lobbyist payments for travel. They also state that this prohibition "applies even where the lobbyist . . . will later be reimbursed for those expenses by a non-lobbyist client."
Jesus fucking Christ.
Is there ANYTHING DeLay will pay for?
And today is Just-us Sunday, when all the wingnuts gather to spit on the Constitution. Well, if I was going to face a multi-count indictment which would land me in jail for years, I'd hate judges too. I think DeLay's campaign of intimidation has an ulterior motive, making sure they think twice before sending him to the pokey.
And they got rid of Jim Wright for what.....
DeLay wouldn't pay for a hamburger if he didn't have to.
Yeah, Ronnie Earle is on a witch hunt. You betcha. The only problem for DeLay is that he's a warlock.
A CIA photo of their friends opium crop. The CIA says no to drugs on their website, except when your warlord allies grow it
Using marceneries is hardly a simple solution for military problems. After all, there is little to guarantee that they actually act within the mission parameters. While the mercenaries may seem like a simple, if expensive solution, they can create far more problems than they are able to solve.
It was the first day of Afghanistan's new opium eradication program and the quiet town of Maiwand in Kandahar province had been chosen for action.
Hundreds of Afghan eradicators under the command of American private security contractors were going to head into the fields around the town and destroy the beautiful red and white blooms days before they could be harvested for their narcotic sap.
But instead of the peaceful, model operation that was promised as an example to demonstrate the Kabul government's serious intentions, Maiwand and its surrounding villages exploded into violence in what could be a foretaste of resistance to Western-backed efforts to bring Afghanistan's opium industry under control.
By the end of yesterday four government soldiers had been wounded by gunfire from farmers, American security contractors were said to be sheltering behind razor wire in a protected camp, and Afghan police and counter-narcotics forces had fought fierce battles which local people said left five dead. Plans to eradicate poppies were temporarily shelved in the area as political bigwigs shuttled to and fro trying to ease tensions and broker some kind of deal with the angry opium farmers.
One of the problems with mercenaries is that they can start far more trouble than they can finish. If they get attacked in force, it's the 10th Mountain who will have to save their asses. Merceneries are a short cut for the real and prolongued military and paramilitary solutions needed.
At their nadir, you get people like Jack Idema, now cooling his heels in an Afghan jail, for basically playing Rambo and kidnapping and torturing people. Idema was running around Afghanistan in desert BDU's and God knows what kind of DOD/CIA contacts he had.
But even the professionals like Blackwater USA operate outside the law.
While private, profit-motivated military actors are as old as the history of organized warfare, the international laws of war that specifically deal with their presence and activity are largely absent or ineffective. Particularly with regard to PMFs, what little law exists has been rendered outdated by the new ways in which these companies operate.18 In short, international law, as it stands now, is too primitive in this area to handle such a complex issue that has emerged just in the last decade.
The earliest formalized international laws of war in the modern state system were the Hague Conventions, established at the turn of the twentieth century. The 1907 Hague Convention on Neutral Powers established certain legal standards for neutral parties and persons in cases of war.19 However, it did not impose on states any obligation to restrict their own nationals from working for belligerents. In fact, any national who chose to hire themselves out to a foreign power had committed no international crime and was to be treated the same as any soldier serving in the indigenous force. The only proviso was that these individuals could not have it both ways; that is, anyone fighting in a war could not also claim the neutrality protections of their home state.20 This reluctance to control the actions of individuals, even in the military field, was based on the philosophic distinction that held at the time: governments and individuals were considered to be two mutually exclusive spheres. This norm gradually disappeared in the following decades, as it soon became evident that the private actions of individuals could have a major influence on interstate relations and vice versa.21 The next major legal regime to deal with private military actors was set up by the 1949 Geneva Conventions.22 Importantly, its purpose was to create conditions of fair treatment of prisoners of war (“POWs”) and establish proper activities in war, not to ban or control private forces.23 As long as the mercenaries were part of a legally defined armed force (which originally meant state militaries, but was later expanded to include any warring parties), they were entitled to POW protection.24 POW protection is an important status, as it ascribes to the holder special protection and treatment, including immunity from prosecution for normal acts of war.25 As a result of the postcolonial experience, the general feeling towards mercenaries began to turn more negative. Mercenary units directly challenged a number of nascent state regimes in Africa, as well as fought against the U.N. in the course of the United Nations Operation in Congo (“ONUC”) from 1960 to 1964. The most notable of these were known by the nickname “Les Affreux” (“The Terrible Ones”) and included such “notorieties” as the Irish-born commando “Mad” Mike Hoare and Frenchman Bob Denard.26 Denard would make coups his own cottage industry and later lead a series of violent coups in the Comoros Islands and the Seychelles from the 1970s on; his last coup attempt was as recent as 1995.27
In response to these episodes, international law sought to bring the practice of mercenarism under greater control. In 1968, the U.N. passed a resolution condemning the use of mercenaries against movements of national liberation. The resolution was later codified in the 1970 Declaration of Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation Among States (“1970 Declaration”).28 The U.N. declared that every state has the duty to prevent the organization of armed groups for incursion into other countries. The 1970 Declaration represented an important transition in international law, as mercenaries became “outlaws” in a sense. However, it still placed the burden of enforcement exclusively on state regimes, failing to take into account that they were often unwilling, unable, or just uninterested in the task.29 The legal movement against private military actors was followed by a definition of mercenaries in the 1977 Additional
Protocols to the Geneva Conventions.30 Article 47 of Protocol I states that a mercenary shall not have the rights of a legal combatant or a prisoner of war. It defined a mercenary as any person who: Is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict; Does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities; Is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party; Is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict; Is not a member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict; and Has not been sent by a State which is not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.31
In an article in Foriegn Policy, Deborah Avant discusses issues around the private military corporation
“Private Security Companies Are Mercenaries”
No. The term “mercenary” describes a wide variety of military activities, many of which bear little resemblance to those of today's private security companies. The mercenary activity associated with entities such as the British East India Company came about when nation-states chartered companies to establish colonies and engage in long-distance trade. Mercenary units that fought in the American Revolution were effectively leased to the British Army by the Hessians. The soldiers of fortune that ran riot over the African continent in the 1960s were individuals or small ex-military groups that operated in the shadows.
Modern contractors most resemble the military enterprisers of the late Middle Ages. Before the rise of the nation-state, nearly all force was contracted. From the 12th century through the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, military contractors often employed soldiers trained within feudal structures, sending them to whomever could pay, from Italian city-states to the Vatican. Fighting wars, maintaining order, and collecting taxes were among the various political tasks filled by these military enterprises. Some historians link the rise of contracted forces in the late Middle Ages to the inability of the feudal system to address the increasingly complex needs of a modernizing society, such as the protection of trade routes for merchants. Similar reasons exist today: The market pressures, technology, and social change of a globalized world create multiple demands that national militaries have difficulty meeting.
Today's private security companies are corporate endeavors that perform logistics support, training, security, intelligence work, risk analysis, and much more. They operate in an open market, work for many employers at once, and boast of their professionalism. These companies staff their projects not with permanent employees, but with individuals drawn from vast databases of ex-military and former law enforcement personnel. These databases list individuals by experience and specialty, so contractors can custom-fit each job with qualified employees. Individuals may appear in several databases, move easily from one contract (and company) to the next, and freelance when not under contract. Although many of these individuals are quite honorable, the industry's structure allows ample opportunity for some who bear disturbing similarities to the 1960s-style soldiers of fortune to enter the corporate mix.
...................
“Contractors Are Accountable to No One”
An exaggeration. Many governments regulate security contractors to greater or lesser degrees. In the United States, for example, the Federal Acquisition Regulations and additional Department of Defense rules govern contracts with private security firms. The fact that contractors can be fired makes them at least minimally accountable for their actions. For instance, former Sierra Leone dictator Valentine Strasser fired U.K.-based Gurkha Security Guards (GSG) for refusing to provide security for army training facilities in 1995.
That said, market accountability differs from accountability in well-run military organizations. Military forces are beholden only to their governments, which can use several methods, from withholding funds to personnel discipline, to hold an organization or individual to account. Contractors are accountable to a range of employers and respond most effectively to market incentives. When deciding how to respond to a request, for example, contractors consider how that request might affect their other customers, broader market reputation, and, ultimately, their earnings. GSG managers reportedly worried that training Sierra Leone's troops would give the company a mercenary reputation that might endanger future contracts. Given its work with employers such as the British government, this concern made good business sense.
The use of contractors to avoid governmental accountability is more worrisome. In the United States, for instance, the executive branch hires contractors. Although the U.S. Congress approves the military budget, its access to information about contracts is often limited. The president can use this advantage to evade restrictions on U.S. actions, effectively limiting congressional checks on foreign policy.
Furthermore, contractors can facilitate foreign policy by proxy, allowing the government (or parts of it) to change events on the ground, but at a distance that allows for plausible deniability. In 1994, the United States licensed U.S. company Military Professional Resources International (MPRI) to provide advice and training to the Croatian government. The country's president, Franjo Tudjman, received the advantages of U.S. military assistance, but through a private entity. The British government has encouraged similar contracts with states in which British firms have commercial interests. For example, in 1986 the British government loaned money to Mozambique's government to hire British security firm Defense Systems Limited, which in turn trained soldiers to protect a British company's tea and sugar estates from rebels ............... “Contractors Operate Outside the Law”
Frequently. The legal status of contractors varies considerably. Sometimes they are subject to the laws of the territory in which they operate and other times to those of their home territory, but too often the distinction is unclear. Last March, Zimbabwe arrested some 70 employees associated with British private security firm Logo Logistics, who were accused of plotting to depose President Téodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea. Their legal status remains a matter of dispute.
The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the U.S.-led entity charged with governing Iraq through June 2004, stipulated that contractors are subject to the laws of their parent country, not Iraqi law. Even U.S. legislation created to address this issue (the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000) lacks specifics and entrusts the U.S. secretary of defense with initiating prosecutions. Countries that opposed the war may have a particularly hard time prosecuting contractors for crimes committed in Iraq. That is especially true of countries such as South Africa that claim contractors from their country are exporting services without the government's permission.
The status of contractors is even more contentious under international law. Most security company activity falls outside the purview of the 1989 U.N. Convention on Mercenaries, which governs only such egregious soldier-of-fortune activities as overthrowing a government. Human rights law generally binds only states, reducing the formal legal responsibilities of contractors. For example, when personnel from the U.S. outsourcing firm DynCorp (hired by the United States to train police officers in the Balkans) were implicated in sex-trade schemes, neither the contractors nor the U.S. government was subject to international legal action. These legal muddles can also restrict the rights of private security personnel. Long concerned about the status of contractors on the battlefield, the U.S. military worries that even as contractors become more involved in the use of lethal force, they are also less likely to receive prisoner-of-war (POW) status if captured by enemy forces. Yet, when the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group took three U.S. military contractors hostage in 2003 and granted them POW status, the U.S. government still officially designated the contractors as kidnapees.
Avant is playing semantic games. Just because Blackwater USA comes to the table with a range of capabilities, doesn't mean they aren't still mercenaries. The fact is that they are non-state actors which use military force and are largely unaccountable. Being fired is one thing. Being jailed for rape and murder like soldiers would be, is quite another.
And given the background of some of these people, the murderous RecceCommandos and Chilean commandos, you have to wonder, strongly, if being fired is enough.
As with any boom business, there is no guarantee that the people being hired are skilled or even stable. Some merely talk big. Even people within the military fake credentials and tell tall tales about awards and decorations. So with only the ability to be fired, and them subject only to home country laws, that creates leeway for a lot of misbehavior.
This dubious legal status means that the guerrillas who shot that Bulgarian pilot in cold blood may have not committed a crime under Iraqi law. As a noncombatant carrying arms, he had no legal status or protection. The guerrillas, even under the rules of law, were not bound to take him prisoner.
1794 The refusal to confer prisoner-of-war status to those persons or categories of persons to whom this status should, in principle, be accorded, has been the subject of a number of regrettable precedents in the practice of States. (16) In general, humanitarian law endeavours to extend the protection of the Third Convention to new categories of combatants or to new situations, and not to refuse this protection, as is evident from Articles 43 ' (Armed forces), ' 44 ' (Combatants and prisoners of war) ' and 45 ' (Protection of persons who have taken part in hostilities) ' of the Protocol. The provision under consideration here goes the other way because of the shameful character of mercenary activity.
[p.575] 1795 However, by providing that a mercenary "shall not have the right" to be a combatant or a prisoner of war, the Conference still resisted the most extreme demands. In fact, many delegations wished the wording to be more stringent, viz., that the mercenary "shall not be accorded" this status. (17) This would have led to a surprising situation for a humanitarian text, since any Contracting Party according such status to a mercenary, would then have violated the Protocol. The result would have been all the more shocking, as the problem was broached in the Protocol in a wider context than that of other international texts relating to the same subject. In the Protocol the problem of mercenaries is actually dealt with without taking into account the cause they serve, which is not the case in the United Nations resolutions. (18) Thus, like Article 46 ' (Spies) ' concerning spies, the present provision permits a Party to the Protocol to deny the status of combatant and prisoner of war to a mercenary; it does not oblige the Party to deny such status, irrespective of the cause served. (19)
1796 The effect of the denial of the status of combatant and prisoner of war in case of capture is to deprive the mercenary of the treatment of prisoner of war as laid down in the Third Convention, and to make him liable to criminal prosecution. Such prosecution can be instigated both for acts of violence which would be lawful if performed by a combatant, in the sense of the Protocol, and for the sole fact of having taken a direct part in hostilities (paragraph 2(b)). This is where the crucial question of guarantees arises.
1797 Deprived of the status of combatant and prisoner of war, a mercenary is a civilian who could fall under Article 5 of the fourth Convention. It is precisely this article which removes an important part of the guarantees from any person under legitimate suspicion of being engaged in an activity endangering State security. (20) Some delegates, who were anxious that Article 47 might be given a [p.576] dissuasive character, wished to leave it at that. However, it still remained necessary for the mercenary status of the person concerned to be established on the basis of the definition of paragraph 2. Meanwhile, i.e., pending determination of the status of such a person by a competent tribunal (Third Convention, Article 5 , paragraph 2; Protocol, Article 45 -- ' Protection of persons who have taken part in hostilities, ' paragraphs 1 and 2), he is presumed to be a prisoner of war (Protocol, Article 45 -- ' Protection of persons who have taken part in hostilities, ' paragraph 1) and is consequently protected by the Third Convention (Article 5 , paragraph 2).
1798 If the tribunal comes to the conclusion that the person concerned is a mercenary in the sense of paragraph 2 of Article 47 , Article 75 ' (Fundamental guarantees) ' applies, and his rights of communication continue to be guaranteed, even in occupied territory, notwithstanding the provisions of Article 5 of the fourth Convention (Article 45 , paragraph 3, of the Protocol). It is regrettable that this qualification is not expressly included in the text of Article 47 . (21) However, it is understood, as the Rapporteur's report reveals that
"although the proposed new article makes no reference to the fundamental protections of Article 65 [75], it was understood by the Working Group that mercenaries would be one of the groups entitled to the protections of Article 65 [75] [ ]" (22) ............
The reason this protection was stripped from mercenaries was to discourage people from joining armed conflicts for profit.
How much protection they get is a matter of debate.
If you could be treated as a spy and shot out of hand, that would cool the ardor for a quick buck. So while it may serve a political purpose to grow irate over the death of contractors, they have placed themsevles in a risky position with no legal protection. While it may make little difference in Iraq, people who attack mercenaries may, in fact, not be committing an act of war.
Executive Outcomes, the now defunct mercenary firm based in Pretoria, South Africa, that was manned mostly by former members of the South African Defense Force, proved to be a decisive factor in the outcome of some civil wars in Africa. Involved in forcing rebels to the negotiating table in Sierra Leone and more well-known for contributing to the Angolan government's success in forcing UNITA to accept the Lusaka Protocol in 1994, Executive Outcomes reportedly had a web of influence in Uganda, Botswana, Zambia, Ethiopia, Namibia, Lesotho and South Africa.
Even though the firm's expertise lay in fighting bush wars, it diversified and reportedly operated as many as 32 companies, whose interests range from computer software to adult education. The firm's tactic of quickly regaining control of a client country's mineral-rich regions is well-documented. Within a month of Sierra Leone's hiring of Executive Outcomes in May 1995, government forces had regained control of the diamond-rich Kono district, which produces two-thirds of Sierra Leone's diamonds. In Angola, oil- and diamond-producing regions were the first areas secured by government forces trained by Executive Outcomes. The firm also reportedly mined gold in Uganda, drilled boreholes in Ethiopia and had a variety of interests in the other countries noted above.
Executive Outcomes claimed that its sole purpose was to bring stability to the region by supporting legitimate governments in their defense against armed rebels. Nevertheless, rumors persisted that the firm was connected to either the South African DeBeers Diamond Corporation or the South African government. These claims were denied by all parties, and the South African government tried to restrict Executive Outcomes' business ventures.
The intermixing of paramilitary and commercial ventures made it difficult to determine the number of mercenaries involved in various countries. Most reports indicated there were between 150 and 200 in Sierra Leone, while reports from Angola varied, indicating between 500 and 4,000 members in that country.
The problem with groups like EO is that they have their own agendas and the means to carry it out.
When the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency hosted it's one-day symposium on the privatization of national security functions in sub-Saharan Africa, the guest list included five representatives of Sandline/Executive Outcomes, Eeben Barlow, Michael Grunberg, Col. Bernie McCabe (USA-ret.), Tim Spicer, and Nic Van Den Bergh. The British targeted the special forces capabilities of the famed South African Defence Force 32 Battalion, which worked with Savimbi in Angola to hold the large Cuban troop presence there at bay. With its disbanding, elements went into the Executive Outcomes hiring hall data base, for potential service for the mining cartels, and others were used for the countergang teams that conducted the blind massacres in the early 1990's. In both cases, the deployments signaled that there was a faction of the Afrikaner elite, putting itself, like General Smuts, at the service of the Empire. In a recent interview, Van den Bergh, spokesman for EO, poured out derision for the United States, lying that it was the U.S. who had replaced one dictator for another in Zaire, a blatant falsehood which covers for Britain's central role in the Great Lakes genocide.
Executive Outcomes' famous contracts in Angola and Sierre Leone were coordinated by SAS veteran Tony Buckingham with EO's Eeben Barlow. Buckingham had been set up with a pocket oil company, Heritage Oil and Gas in Oman, a traditional British Intelligence/SAS staging point. George Bush's intelligence shadow, Theodore Shackley, worked closely with the British and the Lord Cayzer freight/shipping empire apparatus out of Oman. Shackley supervised Dutchman John Deuss's oil smuggling to South Africa, which was supplied in large part from Oman. Sitting on the board of Heritage was Privy Council member David Steel. Steel spent his teenage years at the Prince of Wales school in colonial Nairobi, Kenya--in the middle of the so-called Mau Mau rebellion--where his father was head of the Church of Scotland.
Much of EO's armament came from former East Bloc suppliers. EO head Eeben Barlow, stationed in Europe in the mid-1980's for the Civil Cooperation Bureau, maintained contact with East Bloc intelligence services. Given South Africa's sale of the G5 into the Iran/Iraq weapons bazaar, which was jointly supervised by Bush and Thatcher, and the KGB and STASI, such a procurement channel should be of no surprise. The Soviet Union was also a prominent supplier of oil to South Africa, under the watchfull eye of the notoriously British influenced Africa Institute in Moscow. The East German STASI officer for black market and covert weapons sales, Schalck-Golodkowski, preferred to do much of his weapons dealing via South Africa. His point man for this, Dieter Uhlig, coordinated closely with the Empire's Lonrho concern, as the January 1986 protocol of Uhlig's meeting win London with Lonrho's executives, in the possession of EIR, documents. Defense Systems Ltd protected several Lonrho plantation operations in Mozambique, in one case using their Gurkha subsidiary.
In both Angola and Sierre Leone, diamonds and DeBeers were the name of the game. EO's armaments and officers were the core, with the addition of some local soldiers, which moved rebel groups out of dimaond areas. DeBeers runs in London the 4,000 employee strong Central Selling Organization (CSO) which maintains the global monopoly structure of the diamond business..
The problem with using merceneries is that they back the people who are paying them without regards to consequenes.
Mercenaries expelled from Papua New Ginea in 1997 had worked a year earlier in West Papua assisting Indonesia's notorious Kopassus special forces troops in an operation that caused many civilian deaths.
By PETER CRONAU
THE SOUTH AFRICAN mercenary group, Executive Outcomes, provided both training and operational advice to the Indonesian special forces Kopassus in a hostage rescue operation in West Papua (Irian Jaya) in 1996, the former chief executive officer has revealed. Nick van den Bergh informed me that he led a team of five "military advisers" who travelled to Indonesia to provide training in "special techniques" to Kopassus special forces troops. Van den Bergh says he reported directly to the Kopassus head, now-disgraced Indonesian Major-General Prabowo Subianto.
The five Executive Outcomes "consultants" also advised Prabowo's Kopassus troops on operational aspects of the execution of the May 1996 rescue operation. This assistance took place "in field" at an advance military base at Keneyam in West Papua.
In 1997, it was Van den Bergh who led the Executive Outcomes military team into Papua New Guinea, as sub-contractors under the prime contract of Tim SpicerÕs Sandline International. This operation was to capture the Panguna gold mine operated by British/Australian mining giant Rio Tinto. The massive copper and gold mine in the Papua New Guinea island territory of Bougainville had been closed by the independence-minded Bougainville Revolutionary Army in 1989.
In West Papua in January 1996, guerilla soldiers of the OPM (Free Papua Movement), led by Kelly Kwalik, had kidnapped British, Dutch, German and Indonesian hostages to attract international publicity to their independence campaign. The kidnapping occurred in the highlands of West Papua where indigenous communities have been disrupted by the huge Freeport McMoRan copper and gold mine which is partly owned by Rio Tinto, the owner of the Bougainville mine.
The Kopassus troops, trained and advised by Executive Outcomes, were responsible for a deadly helicopter assault on the West Papuan village of Geselema on May 9, 1996, in which many civilians were murdered and numerous others wounded. This was the start of an Indonesian retribution campaign aimed at capturing the OPM responsible and punishing the local civilian population. These actions over several months reportedly led to the deaths of hundreds of West Papuans displaced from their lands by the military operation.
One of the helicopters involved in the attack on Geselema was seen carrying Red Cross markings while carrying Kopassus troops and a number of white soldiers. This long rumoured presence of "white soldiers" on a white helicopter was confirmed in Mark DavisÕs Four Corners programme on ABC TV first shown on 12 July 1999 in Australia. [See "Blood on the Cross", pp 10-32]
Ooops. Working with the brutal Indonesian military? What a shock. When you need help in repression, who better to have called.
Executive Outcomes is the most infamous mercenary company in operation today. Unlike traditional mercenary companies, it operates as the heavy partner in a web of related companies. Sandline international is such a sister company: 170 elite South African dogs of war were hired to crush the Bougainville freedom Fighters for $22m. Just another job for the likes of Sandline international? Paul Vernon investigates...
Set up in 1993 by Tony Buckingham and Simon Mannl [1], Executive outcomes (EO) has worked in Asia, Africa and South America. Most of it's personnel are hired from South Africa.
Buckingham is the chief executive of Heritage Oil and Gas, which is now registered in the (tax-free) Bahamas. When EO was hired by the Sierra Leone government to crush people's revolt, Heritage received much of the payment in the form of mining rights. Sir David Steel MP happens to be a director of Heritage as well as a close friend of Buckingham. Recently Sierra Leone was thrown back into chaos with another military coup.
Eeben Barlow, the present CEO of Executive Outcomes, is a veteran of the Civil Co-operation Bureau, which allegedly assassinated antiapartheid activists. Barlow is the frontman for the group he told Newsweek (2) in February: "I'm a professional soldier. It's not about politics. I have a job to do. I do it." EO is thought to have a annual turnover of more that £20 million.
The South African government, with help from officials from the United Nations, has begun to draft proposals of legislation aimed to counter what officials called "the increasing frequency with which our soldiers-of-fortune are operating overseas".(7)
Executive Outcomes made the news again in Angola where they swung the civil war in the early 1990s. Heritage now has considerable drilling interests in Angola.
In 1969 our favourite ozzie mining corp CRARTZ opened a copper mine on Bougainville, Papua New Guinea (PNG). The island's inhabitants protested against the environmental and social devastation to no avail until 1988 when they formed the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA). They have held their own, against mounting military pressure, armed with home-made rifles, WW2 machine guns and bows and arrows (3).
The PNG government then decided to hire Sandline International to deal with the rebels once and for all. This plan was accidentally discovered by the Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, when he noticed two military cargo planes at the Port Moresby airfield. (4)
The Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, denounced the use of mercenaries as "absolutely and completely unacceptable." Australia currently gives about £150m in aid each year to PNG.
So what was life like for the EO employee between arms training and repressing guerrilla movements? A 2002 post sheds some light on their world.
Many people wonder, how exactly do mercenaries live? The image they have in their head is of a bunch of half-wild criminals and thugs dressed in colourful disarray, and armed like Rambo in First Blood II.
Actually, the reality is very different. Mercenary armies are mostly legal. They also often pay higher than normal armies, so we get really talented professionals applying. Training is important and mandatory, but one has a lot more free time than if one were in a traditional army.
In my first SA stint, I was posted with Executive Outcomes, a private South African mercenary army. Let me describe briefly how it looks like.
The base I lived at was in a South Africa ranch in the middle of about 10 kilometers of wildland. The ranch had a large number of small bungalows, and each bungalow had 16 inhabitants : 7 footsoldiers each in two rooms, and a sergeant and his aide in the other room. Meals were doled out at a central location, but one could eat anywhere, usually in the TV room. Outside, there were the usual outdoor training equipment, like crawl-barbs and logs. Inside was a very well equiped gym. On the left, about 1 kilometer distant was the shooting range. On the right about 5 kilometers distant, and confined with barbed wire to a 3 kilometer square was the warplay zone. If you went in there without authorisation, and got shot, nobody would care. In other words, you always had to register to enter that zone because of the risk of flying bullets. It was dug into the ground about 2 meters deep to prevent bullets from hitting camp.
The daily routine mostly consisted of morning training, lunch, and then you read a book, go for a conference, or go off into town. You could also go off to practise shooting or something. Every few weeks, we would get a job.
Mercenary Jobs are of different kinds. There are open missions, such as when we fought in Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Congo, or Ivory coast. In these cases, the government invited us, and we go fight on the side of the government, using local troops as backup, and it is known openly that we are mercenaries. In such cases, almost everybody would go, and only the 'crack team' would stay behind.
The 'crack team' was usually sent when the second kind of job came up. These are covert missions where we do not openly pose as mercenaries. For example, in Columbia, we have fought for both the government and for the rebels. We go there and fight in plain clothes. Mercenaries are usually not called in for banal tasks such as taking a town, but for specific tasks, like killing a certain leader.
And why are mercenaries so succesful? It is a combination of skill and some really bad-ass weapons. EO had some of the best bp-vests I have ever seen. They were very very light, and almost as thin as a normal shirt. I saw them stop .375s easily. EO also had RPGs with heat tracking grenades. They had a few copters, but I never saw those being used. They had a single spy plane, and it was used all the time.
Against that arsenal, it is no wonder that an army of 40 000 surrendered to a group of 300 mercs in Sierra Leone.
Now, you have to wonder how much is real and how much is fiction here, but the fact is that companies hire these folks for protection and they mean protection.
yesterday, South African Defense Forces, today, Blackwater USA
Who are these mercenaries?
In the last part, the members of the Congolese militias tended to come from unsavory backgrounds, like the SS and the OAS. But of course, times change, after all, those men are in their 60's and beyond.
But there were no shortage of right-wing regimes and their soldiers, but many of them are just looking for a buck and come from the remnants of the British empire.
The first indication of the transfer of Indian personnel to Iraq was from the south Indian state of Kerala, which is the hub of Indians heading for the Middle East in general as engineers, construction workers and other skilled jobs. The reports said that around 500 ex-servicemen, who had served in various fighting units of the Indian Army (artillery, infantry armored core), had been recruited from the central districts of Kerala for deployment in Iraq. The contingent was termed as the first-ever "Indian regiment" to work as a mercenary force for the US, with the recruitment done by a Kuwaiti company working for the US Army. The entire process was done without the knowledge of the central government in Delhi, or bodies responsible for the welfare of ex-servicemen.
What followed was a series of similar details emerging from the north Indian states of Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana, where the maximum numbers of retired soldiers reside. These ex-servicemen are approached by Indian private security agencies which front for the sub-contractors appointed by the US and British forces in Iraq.
The money, by Indian standards, is very good, due to which many ex-soldiers, who have to make do with low pensions, are willing to take the risk. A sepoy (private) is being offered as much as $750 a month, a captain $1,250, major/lieutenant-colonel $1,750, a colonel $2,500 and brigadier $3,500. A serving brigadier in the Indian Army earns much less than $1,000 a month - a private almost nothing. Most of the ex-servicemen chosen are below the age of 55 and medically fit. Preference is given to those who have been involved in counter-insurgency operations, fighting guerrilla attacks in northeast India or experience of war.
Action in Iraq
However, as everyone knows, life is not all that easy in Iraq. In an interview that has appeared in the weekly Outlook magazine, Colonel T Kapoor, among the first to serve in Iraq, spoke about his experience. Kapoor returned to India recently after being injured in a guerilla attack. "It's good money, but it's not all hunky-dory. You never know what you may encounter because it's a very volatile situation. Besides, the guerrillas have superior weapons, like rifle-fired grenades, while security personnel like us are given inadequate weapons like AK-47 rifles. Ordinary Iraqis are generally nice to Indians, but when you are working with the occupying forces, you get targeted by the resistance fighters," says Kapoor.
However, unlike illegal trafficking of humans, the transfer of ex-army personnel is an organized process with care taken to ensure that the interests of the individual are well protected. Executives (mostly former army men) of some of the of the security agencies, such as Trig Guardforce, based in Mumbai, and Gemini Veteran Global Placements, based in New Delhi, have spoken to the media detailing the organization. The sub-contractors pass on the Indian bio-datas to the US general office for screening and selection. Insurance cover ranges from $10,000 to $50,000, while valid visas-holders are usually routed through Kuwait into US bases in Iraq.
The Indian government has obviously got wind of these developments, but there has been no overt clampdown as of yet. There have been murmurs of protest within the Indian army establishment, with some serving officers feeling that it is wrong to indulge in mercenary activities when the Indian government has taken a strong stand against sending troops to Iraq. Others have voiced concern about ex-serviceman being privy to sensitive information related to national security.
But there are others, within the army as well, who are not averse to the idea and see it as an opportunity for ex-servicemen to find employment. More importantly, the sainik (soldier) welfare boards that are quite active in the north Indian states have come out in support of the deployment, given the abysmal state of the retired Indian soldier, who has to struggle to make ends meet.
Retired officers, too, are not averse. The Indian armed forces follow a steep hierarchical structure due to which several officers take premature retirement. Though young, the best years are behind them, the experience and training of these officers are often underutilized and they find employment in relatively lower-skilled jobs involving man-management. Heading to Iraq is harking back to the earlier days when life was a risk in any case, as well as another chance to utilize their skills for a decent salary.
As the war in Iraq turns bloodier by the day, there are going to be winners and losers, wherein economic compulsions may override other risks. But, a life lost, whether American, Iraqi or Indian, will always be a tragedy.
The Indians are well-regarded professionals who are disciplined soldiers. The most like recruits come from the Ghurka units. The former members of the British regiments have routinely hired out as private merceneries and it is like the Indians are in on that deal, since being an Indian Ghurka doesn't pay all that well. Having also fought the Tamil Tigers and insurgents in Kashmir, this makes them valued additions to any mercenary force
But not all these men have such professional and relatively clean backgrounds. Some, like their SS and OAS mercenary predecessors, come from a less savory background.
Now, while Americans may get the press, they are far from the only ones working in Iraq as merceneries.
Mercenaries 'R' U.S. Private Pentagon contractors are paying soldiers of fortune from Chile and South Africa up to $4,000 per month for stints in Iraq
On March 31, four retired Special Operations forces employed by the private security firm Blackwater Security Consulting were ambushed, killed, and their bodies mutilated in Fallujah. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, an estimated 15,000 "private security agents" are currently operating in Iraq.
With the U.S. casualty toll ticking ever upward, and its troops stretched thin on the ground, the Bush administration is looking to mercenaries to help control Iraq. These soldiers-for-hire are veterans of some of the most repressive military forces in the world, including that of the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and South Africa's apartheid regime.
In February, Blackwater USA, a North Carolina-based Pentagon contractor, began recruiting "former commandos, other soldiers and seamen" from Chile, offering them up to $4,000 a month "to guard oil wells against attack by insurgents," the Guardian reported. The company "flew a first group of about 60 former commandos, many of who had trained under the military government of Augusto Pinochet, from Santiago to a... [large] training camp in North Carolina," wrote Jonathan Franklin, reporting from Santiago, Chile.
These recruits will eventually wind up in Iraq, where they will spend six months to a year: "We scour the ends of the earth to find professionals -- the Chilean commandos are very, very professional and they fit within the Blackwater system," Gary Jackson, the president of Blackwater USA, told the Guardian.
Michelle Bachelet, Chile's defense minister, told Franklin that she was concerned about "whether paramilitary training by Blackwater violated Chilean laws on the use of weapons by private citizens," and she "ordered an investigation." Bachelet also was troubled by stories that "people on active duty were involved." According to Franklin, "Many soldiers are said to be leaving the army to join the private companies."
While Blackwater USA is not nearly as well known as Halliburton or Bechtel -- two mega-corporations making a killing off the reconstruction of Iraq -- it nevertheless is doing quite well financially, Gary Jackson said. "We have grown 300% over each of the past three years and we are small compared to the big ones. We have a very small niche market, we work towards putting out the cream of the crop, the best."
The company was founded in 1998, and at the time, it was like playing "roulette, [it was] a crapshoot," Jackson, the former Navy seal, told Mother Jones reporter Barry Yeoman.
"Their investment paid off," Yeoman wrote. "Since the attacks of September 11, the company has seen its business boom -- enough to warrant a major expansion of its training facility this year. 'To contemplate outsourcing tactical, strategic, firearms-type training -- high-risk training -- is thinking outside the box,' Jackson said. 'Is this happening? Yes, this is happening.'"
Ah, Chlieans. Who's experience in combat is near nil, but in torture and repression? Well, that they have experience in. But Chile is a small country. And there are other countries with pools of combat vets who aren't all that particular about human rights.
There are currently 130,000 US soldiers, 9000 British, and 15,000 other coalition soldiers operating in Iraq. With estimates of more than 30,000 private 'security experts,' mercenaries now compose the second largest military force in the country. The vast oil resources and uncontainable resistance have made the country a magnet for mercenaries. War profiteers such as Bechtel and Halliburton hire private armies to protect their assets, paying mercenaries up to $1000 a day for special assignments quelling uprisings in Iraqi cities.
The number of South Africans in Iraq is estimated to range from 5000 to 10 000. According to a recent United Nations report, South Africa is among the top three suppliers of personnel for private military companies operating in Iraq next to the US and the UK. At least 10 South African based companies have been sending people to Iraq. Most of those recruited operate as drivers and bodyguards, protecting supply routes and valuable resources. Yet several hundred South Africans are alleged to have fought alongside the Americans and the British in Fallujah and other hotspots. Members of special police units, such as the South African Police Services' Elite Task Force, who protect senior state officials like President Mbeki, have sought early retirement to join private military companies in Iraq.
The most heavily recruited South Africans are those with backgrounds in the elite apartheid-era special forces. Many members of Apartheid-era security groups such as the Civil Cooperation Bureau (CCB), the 32 Buffalo Battalion, the Parachute Brigade, Reaction Unit 9, the Reconnaissance Commandos, Koevoet, and Vlakplaas - many of whom received amnesty from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission - are now in Iraq. This fact emerged last January when a bomb in Baghdad killed Francois Strydom and maimed Deon Gouws.
Strydom and Gouws were recruited by Erinys International to provide bodyguard services to a US general. In the 1980s, Strydom worked for Koevoet, a brutal wing of the South African military whose members were reportedly paid bounties for the bodies of SWAPO activists in Namibia. A former member of Vlakplaas, Gouws, admitted to the TRC that he petrol-bombed the homes of 40-60 anti-apartheid activists, assassinated KwaNdebele homeland Cabinet minister and ANC activist Piet Ntuli, firebombed the home of the late Fabian Ribiero, and murdered nine activists.
Gouws has recently changed his mind about mercenary activity and is now discouraging South Africans from going to Iraq. In a recent interview he is quoted as saying, "To go to Iraq is to sign a death warrant it is hell, people do not want us there, no amount of money is worth it". Thus far, 13 South Africans have been killed in Iraq.
Last April, Gray Branfield, working for a contractor called the Hart Group was killed in the eastern Iraqi city of Kut. After spending the 1970s in an elite Rhodesian paramilitary unit, Branfield was recruited by the SA Defence Force in the 1980s. Part of 'Project Barnacle,' he helped track down and assassinate top anti-apartheid leaders in Southern Africa - including Joe Gqabi, the ANC representative in Zimbabwe. During one covert operation in Zimbabwe, Branfield kidnapped a police officer, strapped explosives to his body, and took his family hostage in order to secure the release of a captured South African commando. He also helped plan an attack on an ANC safe house in Botswana in which 14 people, including a child, were killed in their sleep.
The brutal foot soldiers of the Apartheid era are much in demand. In fact, building on a long tradition of mercenary activity throughout Africa, South Africans pioneered the re-packaging of mercenary activity as 'legitimate' private business. In the late 1980s, Executive Outcomes (EO) was formed and drew heavily on members of the 32 Buffalo Battalion and operatives of the notorious Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB). During the 1990s, EO conducted 'counter-insurgency' operations throughout Africa in exchange for mining and oil concessions. In the late 1990s, EO morphed into Sandline International, which later shut down and re-emerged as Aegis Defense Systems. Last June, Aegis was awarded a massive $300 million contract by the US authorities to protect the 'Green Zone' in downtown Baghdad and to coordinate the activities of all private security companies operating in Iraq.
Just because the SS is old and gray, who says you can't hire savage war criminals to fight for you. They're huntting down Selous Scouts, Rhodesian SAS, RecceCommandos and the other elite of the apartheid era. Elite meaning people who would murder women and children without pause. And these people are now working for the US government in Iraq.
Don't be confused by the names of the units, they specialized, more or less, in terror. Destroying villages, hunting down guerrillas, in short, war crimes of various natures and types. And now they work for us.
Our next part will look at the birth of the new "private military corporation" Executive Outcomes.
This is the first of three parts on mercenaries in modern warfare
Mercenaries are as old as warfare. Someone has always been willing to pick up a weapon for a paycheck. But the modern mercenary started in with the end of colonialism in Africa in the 1960's.
The military aspects of the 1960-1963 Congo conflict with secessionist Katanga Province were complex: As a U.N. force arrived on U.S. Air Force transports to support the Congolese government, Americans were providing air power and mercenary forces to assist Tshombe's secessionist forces and the Belgian paratroops, who had begun arriving on 10 July.51 The CIA's use of mercenaries dated from the first American involvement in the newly independent Congo. The lessons learned from the Congo crisis would influence American covert policy long afterward; Lawrence Devlin, described as the "éminence grise of the Congo program," would subsequently be given control of the American paramilitary operations in Laos, return in the early 1970s to take charge of the CIA's Africa Division, and dominate the CIA's African operations until his retirement in 1974.52
In January 1961, Tshombe's "government" was bolstered by a gendarmerie with a core of some 250 former Belgian Force Publique officers and from 30 to 40 army "officers on loan," who had remained behind after most Belgian troops left the province in August 1960. At that time, from 50 to 100 mercenaries of varying nationalities were integrated into the gendarmerie.54 By the end of February, some 200 Englishspeaking mercenaries were reportedly recruited, primarily from South Africa and Rhodesia, but including veterans of military service in Malaya. Belgian and French recruits, probably numbering several hundred more, were integrated into mixed AfricanEuropean units of the gendarmerie.55
The Katanga mercenaries were recruited both through high rates of pay and through the local information services' depiction of Katanga as a bastion of European civilization against communism. French counterinsurgent Roger Trinquier later claimed he had been encouraged to go to Katanga by French Defense Minister Pierre Messmer but was ultimately thwarted by opposition from the French Foreign Ministry (he did in fact go, but did not stay). Although Trinquier's reputation made his direct involvement in Katanga problematic for French authorities, junior officers fresh from the debacle of Algeria and extremist advocates of the theory of guerre révolutionnaire faced fewer obstacles in going south to Katanga.56 Although conflicts with U.N. forces ensued, the principal mercenary tasks in Katanga after the death of Lumumba were to subdue ethnic groups resisting Tshombe's "independent" government. Operations in the Ba-Luba areas, where poorly armed resistance groups had emerged, took the form of traditional punitive raids and routine atrocities.57 The mercenary force in place by the end of February 1961 typified the CIA-sponsored mercenaries that would appear elsewhere around the world in subsequent decades:
[A] band of soldiers who ranged from hard-bitten professional killers to wild-eyed idealists who were convinced that they were saving the world from communism. Their motives varied from the need for money and the desire for a fight to a quite genuine feeling that they were conducting a crusade to defeat communism and protect the white man in Africa .... Whatever their motives, these soldiers were for the most part ruthless, tough, and unscrupulous and they were known locally as "les affreux"-the terrible ones.58
The level of terror would rise dramatically after the secession crisis, with Tshombe's assumption of national leadership.
The death of Lumumba removed the primary rationale for Western support for an independent Katanga, and in January 1963, what had become a military stalemate ultimately ended. In July 1964, a U. S.backed military initiative installed Moises Tshombe himself as prime minister of the independent Congo.59 By that time, however, major revolts against the central government were in progress in the eastern regions around Stanleyville-which was captured by rebels in August l964-and elsewhere. The three years of conflict that ensued saw the American unconventional war become "a classic counterinsurgency campaign."60
Sometimes called "Lumumbist" the rebel movements that broke out after the death of Lumumba were armed, in part, by neighboring nationalist governments (against alleged promises of replacement by the Soviets)!' However, they appeared neither national in scope nor nationalist in orientation, but rather disjointed and politically inchoate. Although not a single unified force, they did, by late 1964, dominate almost half the country. The principal rebel group, known as the "Simbas" ("Lions"), saw the expulsion of Europeans from their dominions in the northern region around Stanleyville as their principal task, to be performed with the utmost ferocity.62 The American counterinsurgents turned to the same tactics employed by their Belgian colleagues: mercenary massacres and punitive bombing, strafing and shelling.
The counterinsurgency campaign was a joint operation between the United States and Belgium, and on much the same terms as the previous collaboration in Katanga. President Johnson's Secretary of State Dean Rusk approved a 7 August 1964 policy paper requiring an "immediate effort . . with Belgians to help Tshombe raise gendarme-mercenary force along with bolstering whatever force there is to hold present strong points and to start rebel roll back."63 Already in progress, however, was a CIA/Defense Department program to provide the Congolese with what the New York Times later dubbed "an instant air force."64 Early in 1964, the CIA had begun providing Cuban exile pilots through a Miami proprietary (Caribbean Marine Aero Corporation)65 "to fly armed Italian T6 training planes against 'Muleist' insurgents in the western Kwilu Province"; and by April the Defense Department had agreed to provide six T-28 fighters, ten C-47 transports, six H-21 heavyduty helicopters, spare parts, 100 technicians, as well as "several" counterinsurgency advisers!66
What one author calls "the interdependent covert-overt pattern of support"67 was exemplified by the CIA's provision of covert Cuban pilots (and no doubt others) to make use of the overt grants of aircraft (by Defense)-a pattern of CIA/Defense interaction still apparent in the 1980s Nicaragua intervention and most obvious at its Honduran end. The CIA's paramilitary specialists were also augmented by regular military trainers attached to a military mission in the capital: By June 1964, the number of foreign trainers had been boosted to ninety Belgians, seventy Americans, and ten Israelis .611 The CIA's assessment of their main contribution provides a telling insight into the real role of "military advisers" in insurgency/unconventional warfare situations: "As trainers, these men can have little short-term effect... but as tactical advisers they are already useful."69
The fall of Stanleyville prompted an increased level of U.S. involvement, including the prompt arrival of four C-130 military transports, a group of B-26 bombers (totaling seven or eight by January 1965), and arms and equipment for the ground war.70 Fast patrol boats were provided to interdict arms shipments (and personnel movement) across Lake Tanganyika. Even maintenance was provided for, with a staff of 50 to 100 Europeans employed by another CIA proprietary, the Liechtenstein-registered company WIGMO (Western International Ground Maintenance Organization).71 The Belgians also brought in supplies and a force of 300 to 400 men to provide command and logistics assistance.72 Much of the buildup was directed at the mercenary dimensions of the "counterinsurgency": The new air power and weaponry was intended to support a force of some 700 mercenaries (Europeans, South Africans, and Rhodesians) assembled by Tshombe, the CIA, and the Belgians.73 A CIA officer later described the project as "bringing in our own animals."74 Not all the U.S.-backed "mercenaries" in the Congo-and later in Angola-were mercenaries per se. Marchetti and Marks's landmark CIA study notes: "By 1964, the CIA had imported its own mercenaries into the Congo, and the agency's B-26 bombers, flown by Cuban exile pilots . . . were carrying out regular missions against insurgent groups," including regular bombing missions.71 These authors described the Cubans interchangeably as "under contract" or as "mercenaries," a perhaps frivolous distinction. One study of the Congo crisis defined mercenaries as individuals who were "recruited on an individual basis and owed no direct allegiance to any foreign Government a definition that would rule out forces "on loan" from second governments. Some of the better-known of the Congo mercenaries, like the former French NCO Bob Denard, who took over command of the French-speaking Six Commando that had fought for the Katangans in the war of secession, were later recruited by the United States to work in Angola.77
The terror of the subsequent months was reciprocal: The rebels killed thousands in a rampage apparently driven by interethnic rivalries, hostility toward Congolese officials of any kind, and a response in kind to the colonial racial policies of the past. Their adversaries combined bombing and strafing with ground campaigns of annihilation, or "counterterror":
[T]he Congo air force bombed villages in rebel-held areas and the white mercenary columns advanced, slaughtering wholesale those presumed to be rebel supporters. In one town alone, Kindu, the mercenaries killed some three thousand people, according to one of their numbers. [Joseph-Dsiré] Mobutu's army, which followed in the wake of the mercenaries, was considered even more brutal.78
The campaign against the Simba rebels climaxed as ground forces approached rebel-held Stanleyville in the north. Rebels held some 1,000 white hostages, including about fifty Americans, and threatened their execution should the advance continue. The response was again a joint BelgianAmerican operation: Belgian paratroopers dropped on the city on 24 November 1961 from U.S. aircraft. Although some fifty of the hostages were killed by their captors as the paratroopers moved in, the operation was generally deemed successful in the West: Some of the hostages had, in fact, been rescued, and the rebel forces largely annihilated. For America's African policy, however, the effect of the affair was two-edged. African leaders like Kenya's Jomo Kenyatta, who had sought to bring about the negotiated release of the hostages and an end to the conflict, felt betrayed by American's resort to blatant colonialist intervention.
The "insurgency" continued in the Congo for another three years before it was finally extinguished. American CIA pilots (most of the "Cubans" were naturalized Americans) and some 100 WIGMO contract pilots were still based there as of 1966, with major American involvement in operations ending around mid-1967.79 A last episode of direct intervention occurred in July 1967, when, ironically, Mobutu (now Sese Seko-who had finally taken power for good in a November 1965 coup) called for help to put down a rebellion of white mercenaries. The United States graciously did so, flying in three aircraft, with "supporting personnel," to aid in crushing the mutiny. Congressional concern over possible escalation of U.S. involvement forced the withdrawal of two of the aircraft in August and the third in December, and won a pledge from President Johnson that future direct involvement in Africa would only be occasioned by "the most overwhelming necessity."80 The next major covert engagement of the United States in Africa would be in Angola.
BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 22 - Some leading Kurdish political figures are trying to stall the formation of a new Iraqi government in an effort to force out Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Shiite chosen two weeks ago as prime minister, Iraqi and Western officials said.
Such an effort could further delay forming a government at a sensitive time. The past week has seen a sharp increase in insurgent violence, including the downing Thursday of a commercial helicopter that left 11 people dead. One of the victims was apparently executed by the attackers.
American officials say the continuing failure to form a new government - almost three months after elections - could be contributing to the resurgent violence.
The political momentum generated by the elections has "worn off a bit," an American official here said Friday, and that "has given the insurgents new hope. The best thing to undermine the insurgency is to maintain momentum on the political process."
A spokesman for the Kurdish alliance denied Friday evening that there was any effort to unseat Dr. Jaafari. But Kurdish leaders have never been comfortable with religious figures like Dr. Jaafari, the leader of one of Iraq's best-known Shiite religious parties. Any successful campaign against him could derail the pact between the Shiite and Kurdish alliances that emerged two months ago, opening the possibility of a new alignment that would favor more secular figures like the departing prime minister, Ayad Allawi.
The American official said Friday that he expected that a new government would be formed within the next week with Dr. Jaafari as prime minister.
But several Iraqi political figures said they doubted that would happen. They cited strong opposition to Dr. Jaafari in the Kurdish alliance, which has agreed to form a coalition government with the Shiite majority. Under Iraq's transitional law, Mr. Jaafari will automatically lose his position if he does not name a cabinet by May 7, a month after his appointment.
"The Kurds are intent on delaying the government so that Jaafari will fall," said Sami al-Askari, a member of the Shiite alliance. A Western diplomat in Baghdad confirmed the effort to "filibuster" the negotiations.
Shiite officials say Kurds who oppose Dr. Jaafari offer several reasons, including a growing conviction that he does not favor the kind of federal arrangement that would allow for strong Kurdish autonomy.
If Dr. Jaafari is displaced, Iraq's new president, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and his deputies would then be forced to choose a new prime minister, the most powerful job in the government.
That would be a significant setback for the national assembly, which took more than two months just to agree on a new leadership. The delay sowed deep anger and disillusionment among ordinary Iraqis, who risked their lives to vote.
Juan Cole comments
The New York Times even speculates that the Kurds are deliberately obstructing the formation of a government in hopes of running out the clock on Ibrahim Jaafari (a leader of the religious Shiite Dawa Party) and bringing Iyad Allawi back in as prime minister. I suppose there may be Kurdish politicians stupid enough or perverse enough to try this trick (though I doubt President Jalal Talabani is among them). Talabani expressed his concern about the failure to appoint a cabinet on Friday. If the Shiite religious majority in parliament is thwarted in this way, I am sure that Shiite leaders will bring tens of thousands of protesters into the streets, and the country will end up even more destabilized than it is.
The press keeps saying that the failure to finalize the government may be giving momentum to the guerrillas. Again, there is no particular connection between the guerrilla war and the political process. No one is blowing up a Shiite mosque because Ibrahim Jaafari hasn't appointed a minister of public works yet. They are blowing up the mosques in hopes of making Iraq ungovernable, chasing the Americans out, killing Jaafari et al., and then making a putsch.
This is just fucked. Amateur night in the Green Zone.
.... Then there’s convicted felon Sgt. Shawn Kenny – profiled late last year in a brilliant cover piece by investigative journalist Leslie Blade for the Cincinnati newspaper CityBeat (“Cincinnati’s Links to the Oklahoma City Bombing”) – who will be up for promotion to master sergeant next month.
Even though the Army grants waivers for exceptional prospects, Kenny was carrying exceptionally heavy baggage. And curiously, when Blade reported that Kenny had been convicted for packing heat, and that prior to joining the Army in 1995, he had the dubious distinction of having been the coordinator for the Southern Ohio chapter of the Aryan Nations and was still sporting tattoos – including a crucified skinhead on one arm and the German death head with SS on the other – when he joined up, there was never an official Army response. Although, Blade says, she was told, “Sergeant Kenny will be promoted.”
A vet who knows Kenny confirmed to me that “Kenny gets promoted under different rules. You see someone promoted that fast, well, it’s just odd.”
..................... That’s probably because, as one former recruiter puts it: “The local recruiter had to have followed up on the Nazi tattoos – which would have led to questions to local law enforcement about Kenny’s background and associates, which would have clearly disqualified him. Something’s really bizarre about who approved this guy’s swearing-in. It was most definitely above the local level.”
Bizarre indeed, since Kenny’s wife, Tabatha, told the police he not only was physically abusive, he was a pro at forging fake IDs and robbed banks – as he himself testified later before a grand jury – to buy guns and ammo and fund illegal Aryan Republican Army missions.
But Blade mentions that Tabatha “also said the Army has greatly benefited her family. She means the U.S. Army.”
Why? Because Somebody Up There, probably FBI agent Ed Woods, now retired, has been watching over Kenny, at least since he turned snitch when caught red-handed – literally – passing dye-stained bills related to a bank robbery. Tabatha says: “Thank God my husband was never charged. God was looking out for him.”
God and the U.S. government.
For example, when the Secret Service searched Kenny’s trailer back in the bad ol’ days and found unauthorized weapons, Kenny got a pass even though it’s a serious violation of the law for convicted felons to possess firearms.
And Kenny’s buddies ranged from the neo-Nazi bank robbers to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. But while they all got their due, Kenny got the Army – and the Army apparently got the Snitch Promotion Program.
After joining up, Kenny became a shooting star: In 2004, he was promoted to sergeant first class with less than 10 years of service – not far outside of normal promotions if Kenny hadn’t been charged in 1996 with providing alcohol to his 11-year-old niece and inappropriately touching and kissing the kid. But he received only an Article 15 nonjudicial punishment for actions that would have led to administrative separation, if not court-martial, for any less-connected soldier.
The fact is that people have been booted from the service for the tats alone. Child molestation should have gotten him booted as well.
There has to be someone pulling strings for this guy to keep serving. Has to.
Empty tables are common at the Howard Johnson's in Times Square. The restaurant will close soon, and the building will most likely become "a great retail box."
THE longtime manager of the last Howard Johnson's in the city had only a moment to spare. He seemed distracted, even harried, as though he sensed a clamor for menus from all those empty orange-and-brown booths surrounding him.
First, he wanted to know something: What is this about?
When posed inside the time warp that is the Howard Johnson's, this question takes on greater weight somehow; it is mystically dipped in a metaphysical Frialator before being presented with garnish on a chipped ceramic plate. What is this about?
One answer came from the aquarium-like view of Times Square that his restaurant's large windows offered. There, on the other side of the glass, the Broadway parade flowed past, its participants oblivious to the massive HOWARD JOHNSON'S sign above, blinking in neon orange and blue and featuring that familiar trio: Simple Simon, the Pieman, and a salivating dog.
People did not stop to read the sun-faded advertisements whose words strive to be Rat Pack cool, yet ache with Perry Como earnestness. It's Happy Hour from 4 to 7, with all drinks just $3.75 - "except for premium brands." May we suggest a decanter of manhattans, or martinis, or daiquiris? Your Host of Broadway Welcomes You.
Around the corner, on West 46th Street, another ad promotes the seafood at Howard Johnson's - "A Wish for Fish!" - with an artist's rendition of a clam strip platter that even Simple Simon's slobbering dog would pass up. Oh, and free hors d'oeuvres served from 4 to 9.
What is this about?
For nearly a half-century, this Howard Johnson's has been an orange-and-blue stitch in the crazed Times Square quilt, dispensing clam strips and milkshakes to the wide-eyed masses.
In many ways it has served as a mooring for visitors adrift in the asphalt Midtown sea.
Here was a Howard Johnson's, nearly identical in ambience and cuisine to the hundreds of others scattered like rainbow sprinkles along the highways of America. Daddy, can we stop? The answer was sometimes yes and sometimes no, but you had to ask. After all, they had 28 flavors of ice cream.
Today, only a dozen or so of the restaurants remain. And soon that will be minus the one with the best location of them all, the Howard Johnson's in Times Square
People still eat there?
It was kind of like New York's ghost ship, always there, but never used. I remember HoJo's from childhood vacations in Atlantic City, but the New York City location always seemed out of place, odd and not in a good way. Dark, grim, dreary, I never had a thought of eating in a place with the ambiance of the Subway Inn, with cleaner drunks.
A box store, maybe even a Target, would be a welcome relief to that dreary place.
You have to understand something about New York, the past is never far away. I can eat the same Nathan's hot dog my parents at Coney Island, I can take the wooden esclator in Macy's, I can have a drink in McSorely's. Old New York still exists, even in Times Square. The HoJo's, at least to me, always seemed out of place.
By Ann Scott Tyson Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, April 23, 2005; Page A01
BAGHDAD -- Cruising toward Baghdad in the belly of a Spanish turboprop plane with a dozen other private security contractors from Blackwater USA, Rich, a 43-year-old former Navy commando, squinted out the window at the Euphrates River.
The Casa 212 dove 12,000 feet toward Baghdad airport in a drunken, corkscrew landing. A short while later, Rich was riding shotgun in the back of one of Blackwater's South African-made armored Mamba vehicles along the main highway to the capital, one of the most dangerous roads in Iraq.
Blackwater employee and ex-Marine John "Tool" Freeman uses an armored vehicle to drive visitors from Baghdad airport to the downtown Green Zone. (Ann Scott Tyson -- The Washington Post)
"I like being some place where stupidity can be fatal, because here you work with people who think about their actions," said Rich, who asked for security reasons that only his first name be used. He and his colleagues voice disdain for what they consider the soft, even pampered lives of most Americans in a society he sums up as one that "puts warnings on coffee cups."
Rich is typical of the men drawn to Blackwater USA and scores of other private security firms now doing a booming business in Iraq. They're driven by money and a lust for life on the edge, but also by a self-styled altruism. Sporting blue jeans, wraparound sunglasses and big tattoos, they look the part of gun-slinging cowboys -- but most are experienced enough to know that a hot-dog attitude is the fastest way to get yourself and others killed.
With more hired guns in Iraq than in any other U.S. conflict since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Rich and other armed contractors also admit their role is cloudy and controversial. They do shoot to kill, but they aren't legally considered combatants. U.S. military officials have expressed concern about violence in which the private contractors open fire. The contractors' mission is to protect the lives of individuals and cargo but not necessarily to support the broader interests of the U.S. counterinsurgency.
For more than a year now, Rich has traveled across Iraq, guarding the former U.S. occupation authority chief, L. Paul Bremer, and other high-ranking diplomats. He plans to make a career at Blackwater despite the fact that 18 of his close co-workers have now perished on the job, including four whose bodies were hung in Fallujah last April from what is now called Blackwater Bridge and six who were killed when a helicopter they were riding in was shot down outside Baghdad on Thursday.
Indeed, with an estimated 240 deaths among some 20,000 armed private security contractors in Iraq, Rich's work is statistically riskier than that of the U.S. military, as firms such as Blackwater take on a historically unprecedented role in the Iraq war. Blackwater has an average of 1,300 employees on a given day, spread out over seven countries, the firm says. That number includes hundreds in Iraq.
"We have to be willing to go abroad to fight, to go after these guys here so my family at home can stay safe," Rich said. He left the Navy SEALs in the mid-1990s to save his marriage, he said. But after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he said he felt compelled to leave the Virginia cell phone company he worked for and put his military skills to use.
Action junkies.
Mercenaries in combat can expect no protection from the Geneva Conventions nor timely rescue from the US military. Now, you can use the word contractor, but let's get real, they engage in combat for six figure salaries. The only difference between this and Mad Mike Hoare's 5 Commando lunatics is the corporate nature of their work. They are the children of Executive Outcomes, the famed South African mercenary force which the Mandela government shut down.
Every mercenary in Iraq is a danger to the US forces. Simple as that.
Why?
Because they can start trouble which the US has to finish. (ie, fallujah). This reliance on outside security is desperation pure and simple. And it can lead to truly disasterous results. They aren't under the command of anyone but their bosses and if they go nuts, who can stop them? If they kill innocents, who can stop them. They are unaccountable to anyone or any thing, which is insane.
Denise Delgado of the upper East Side says alluring pictures helped draw dating prospects to her MySpace blog. As people put more details of their lives online, they're also finding love - or at least a little lovin'.
"Blog hookups" are becoming more common as more people read Web logs on everything from media gossip to online diaries, bloggers say.
"Find any attractive female blogger and I'm sure she's been asked out," said Jessica Coen, 25, editor of Gawker.com. "People say anything behind the keyboard."
Rose Yndigoyen, 25, a fund-raising professional from Inwood, said she met her girlfriend of two years after a post on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
"We just started having a conversation, and I didn't think much of it, except that she's such an intelligent person; I'm glad she likes my writing," said Yndigoyen, author of the Livejournal blog FantasyFantastik.
Eventually, Yndigoyen invited her online friend to a literary reading - and was smitten. It turned out to be mutual.
"I really wasn't looking, but then I met her, and she was so cute," said the woman, Jen Nagle, 32. "I think there's this attitude that the people you meet that way won't be attractive."
...........................
Denise Delgado, 23, of the upper East Side, who has dated several men she has met from her MySpace blog, said there's a secret to attracting dates online.
"I find you can write as well as you want, but if you don't have a photo, you're not going to meet anybody," she said. "If they think you're cute, you could be talking about a rodeo in Podunk, it doesn't matter, they're going to think you have a connection."
Ah, the wit and wisdom of 23 year old women.
I think all she had to do was post her picture online.
I have found, however, the writing does actually work. I met Jen years ago on a mail list.
But I think that the best way to meet people online is to actually talk about things other than dating. That way, you get to know people in a different way than you do on dating sites. Which is to say by not trying to hook up with them from the outset.
A lawyer has threatened to sue police officers who handcuffed an allegedly uncontrollable five-year-old after she acted up at a Florida kindergarten.
The officers were called by the school after a teacher and assistant principal failed to calm down the little girl.
The incident was caught on a video camera which was rolling in the classroom as part of a self-improvement exercise at the St Petersburg school.
A lawyer for the girl's mother said the episode was "incomprehensible". ................ Three officers rushed to the scene, and apparently oblivious to the fact they were dealing with a child, handcuffed the screaming girl by pinning her arms behind her back.
They finally drove her to her mother in the back of a police cruiser.
The St Petersburg Police Department declined to comment on the incident and said an investigation was under way.
They weren't oblivious. She was black.
File this under things which don't happen to white people.
SEATTLE, April 21 - The Microsoft Corporation, at the forefront of corporate gay rights for decades, is coming under fire from gay rights groups, politicians and its own employees for withdrawing its support for a state bill that would have barred discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Many of the critics accused the company of bowing to pressure from a prominent evangelical church in Redmond, Wash., located a few blocks from Microsoft's sprawling headquarters.
The bill, or similar versions of it, has been introduced repeatedly over three decades; it failed by one vote Thursday in the State Senate. Gay rights advocates denounced Microsoft, which had supported the bill for the last two years, for abandoning their cause. Blogs and online chat rooms were buzzing on Thursday with accusations that the company, which has offered benefits to same-sex partners for years, had given in to the Christian right.
"I think people should feel betrayed," said Tina Podlodowski, a former Microsoft senior manager and former Seattle city councilwoman who now runs an advocacy group for AIDS patients. "To me, Microsoft has been one of the big supporters of gay and lesbian civil rights issues, and they did it when it wasn't an issue of political expediency, when it was the right thing to do."
Microsoft officials denied any connection between their decision not to endorse the bill and the church's opposition, although they acknowledged meeting twice with the church minister, Ken Hutcherson.
Dr. Hutcherson, pastor of the Antioch Bible Church, who has organized several rallies opposing same-sex marriage here and in Washington, D.C., said he threatened in those meetings to organize a national boycott of Microsoft products.
After that, "they backed off," the pastor said Thursday in a telephone interview. "I told them I was going to give them something to be afraid of Christians about," he said. ............. But State Representative Ed Murray, an openly gay Democrat and a sponsor of the bill, said that in a conversation last month with Bradford L. Smith, Microsoft's senior vice president and general counsel, Mr. Smith made it clear to him that the company was under pressure from the church and the pastor and that he was also concerned about the reaction to company support of the bill among its Christian employees, the lawmaker said.
There is only one thing to say: nothing you give them will be enough.
A boycott of Microsoft? Steve Jobs has tried that for two decades, and it really hasn't worked. What were all the fundies gonna do? Switch to Linux? Refuse to use MSN? Jesus, Disney had more balls in defending their family days.
But now that Microsoft has caved and pissed off their own employees, as well as the large Seattle gay community, and been seen to be giving in to the right, what's next? Removing evolution references from Encarta?
Once you cave in to a bully, then you will find them making more and more demands. Then, it's the removal of benefits for partners, then it's a refusal to hire openly gay people. Their list of demands has no end and no limit.
This guy is going to run around the country and talked about how Microsoft is his bitch. How they hop to his demands. MS thought they were buying peace, but they were only creating a monster on their doorstep. Once they see Microsoft back down once, they expect backdowns to continue.
Microsoft needs to understand that appeasing the right will both cost them support among formerly friendly gays and will never appease the fundies.
Marshall's fundraiser: bake sales have their limits
They need to be fed
Josh Marshall is raising momey to expand his site. After the work he's done on Social Security, I figured he could use $25 for his plans, which sound ambitious and clever
As I've mentioned several times now, we're launching a new site, TPMCafe.com, a companion site to Talking Points Memo. It will include a new group blog with an exciting list of contributors, a handful of topic-specific blogs like our Special Edition Bankruptcy Blog and discussion areas where we're going to try to facilitate more of what readers allowed us to do in tracking the Social Security debate in the first months of this year.
We're hoping to launch next month.
It will be a work-in-progress and, with your feedback, we'll make changes and let the site evolve as we go.
But we need your help to get started. Simple as that. Even small contributions go a long way. Click here to contribute.
And please accept our sincere thanks and appreciation in advance.
So, when will all those big liberal fundraisers start supporting the people doing the heavy lifting of challenging the GOP. It is absolutely ridiculous that Josh has to ask for money for a project. He should just be able to get a grant from a foundation and go on his way. It's time they actually do more than watch us work our asses off. The right supports their people with money and jobs. Not just good words.
There is a limit to how much support we can ask for or give, we're not politicians. Now I disagree with Josh on a lot of issues, but this is about social security and bankruptcy. No one has worked harder to challenge the GOP lies and he gets my support for that.
So I sent him $25 to do just that. But stuff like this, projects, should be granted, not funded by gifts. I can see if people want to or not want to support people to live, but this, an expansion of his site, after the work he's done, should be funded by a nice check and a handshake, not a fundraiser.
So where are the rich liberals? Why aren't they supporting us. Hell, Atrios had it right, we're talking about a few grand.
Now, I love the idea that people send in money, but if I wanted to set up a site to teach blogging to journalists or evaluate blogging tools or other internal stuff like that, I should be able to get a grant. I should be able to walk into a meeting, explain my plan and get support.
This isn't about money as much as support. Where are the think tanks and institutions? They could do as little as help us raise money, nothing else. And given the hours people put in, they need the support from foundations if they expect to grow. We can't continue to fight the right on good will and contributions and ads. We need more support from people who have the means to do so.
I am astonished every time people send me a dime. I truly am. And it is a good thing. But where are the large fundraisers, people who can send thousands without noticing. Josh Marshall should have had a check in his mailbox to fund this whole thing.
Now we'll make it happen, because it's a good idea, but if you like grassroots democracy, why not support it like the right does their people?
For GIs in ‘throat of Baghdad,’ any mission could be their last By Ann Scott Tyson The Washington Post Updated: 8:45 a.m. ET April 21, 2005
LATIFIYAH, Iraq - Sgt. Joshua Haycox steered our Humvee forward at a slow march, carefully keeping his distance from the vehicle ahead and scanning the road for bombs as the Army convoy pushed deeper into the chaotic region known to soldiers as the Triangle of Death.
The largely ungoverned swath of farmland and villages south of Baghdad is cluttered with old munitions factories and compounds of elite Iraqi army units that formed Saddam Hussein's military-industrial base. Today, these backlands are also called the "throat of Baghdad" by the military, because a paucity of U.S. and Iraqi forces here has allowed insurgents to take root and stage attacks on the capital.
"Hey, see that town on your left? That's a real bad place," said Col. H.R. McMaster of Philadelphia, commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. "Keep a sharp lookout," he told his men as the convoy approached the dusty, seemingly deserted outpost of Mullafayad.
Within seconds, a powerful blast ripped into the Humvee a few yards ahead of us, shooting a cloud of debris high into the air.
McMaster swore loudly, then yelled, "Stop!" We braced for additional blasts. When they didn't come, McMaster ordered Haycox to pull forward away from the area where the bomb went off and get into position in case of more attacks. The bombed Humvee swerved off the shoulder into a ditch and jolted to a halt. Two soldiers staggered out, one covered with blood. Seeing the men's shocked faces, I instantly realized theirs was the vehicle I had been riding in 10 minutes earlier. The Humvee's right rear door was ripped off, the surrounding metal burned black, and the gunner was sprawled face down on the side of the road.
"Look for the triggerman! Where's the triggerman?" shouted McMaster's gunner, Cpl. Thomas Dillard, 26, of Beeville, Tex.
Bursts of rifle fire rang out. The injured soldiers opened up with M-4 rifles; Dillard fired in the direction of the shooting with his .50 caliber machine gun.
Haycox jumped out, fired back to keep the insurgents down and sprinted to the disabled Humvee. Back a few minutes later, he brought bad news. "Roger, we got casualties, sir. Sergeant major's hit and the gunner's hurt real bad."
Talisman for the road Before the attack Sunday morning, we had all gathered round and bowed our heads while the chaplain, Maj. David Causey, of Fort Carson, Colo., prayed to God to keep us safe. "Lord, we're not so naïve as to believe we'll go through war unscathed, but we pray again for a safe mission."
Then he reached into a cardboard box and pulled out plastic bags filled with lollypops, chocolate bars and sheets of paper bearing inspirational stories. To those who reached out their hands, he offered another bag, this one holding a small metal and wood crucifix.
I gave the bag of candy to a soldier who didn't get any, and kept the one with the cross.
We climbed into four armored Humvees and rolled down a dusty gravel road, pausing at the gate to the men's camp while they loaded their weapons with a sharp click-clack. We then headed onto the main highway leading south from Baghdad.
"Fasten your seat belt so you won't get thrown if we roll," Sgt. 1st Class Donald Sparks, 38, told me. The amiable native of Houston advised against using the combat lock on the door, a metal rod that keeps the door shut during fighting. "I want to be sure that if I have to, I can get out real fast," he said.
Soldiers here have refined the deadly calculus of traveling Iraqi roads. They know the rear seat on the driver's side is the safest in a Humvee. They know the lead vehicle in a convoy is often the least likely to get hit. They have memorized the worst stretches of highway, and the twists in the road that leave them vulnerable by forcing them to slow down. They also understand that no matter how hard they try, any mission could be their last.
McMaster is one of the Army's best commanders, and is well regarded, according to people who seved with him.
The crash site of a commercial helicopter contracted by the U.S. Defense Department which was shot down by missile fire north of the Iraqi capital, Thursday, April 21, 2005, the Bulgarian Defense Ministry said in a statement. The crash killed at least six Americans and three Bulgarians, officials said.
By THOMAS WAGNER, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 15 minutes ago
Insurgents brought down a Russian-made helicopter carrying 11 civilians with missile fire north of the capital Thursday and said they captured and shot to death the lone crew member who survived. The dead from the crash included six American bodyguards for U.S. diplomats.
The chartered flight was believed to be the first civilian aircraft shot down in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion two years ago.
An Internet statement by a group identifying itself as the Islamic Army in Iraq was accompanied by a video showing the repeated shooting of a man who was found in tall grass and forced to stand up and walk. The video showed burning wreckage just before the shooting.
"One of the crew members was captured and killed," the statement said.
The man who was shot to death in a grassy field spoke English with an accent and was wearing a blue flight suit, indicating he was one of the three Bulgarian crew members. Two Fijian helicopter security guards were also on board the flight.
The video also showed two charred bodies near the burning wreckage, about 12 miles north of Baghdad.
Ok, now that we have established that the Iraqi resistance is effective and the people here blathering about purple fingers and democracy are blithering idiots, let's explain why:
* The military was unprepared to fight a guerrilla war.
Simply put, we'd contracted out the nasty bits of guerrilla fighting, the endless patrols and the observation posts, to large, infantry heavy armies like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nigeria. So when you need someone to sit in a town, you send some SF A Team members to coordinate support, and let these guys do their job. Which is daily patrolling, basic security and the like. Meanwhile the US would provide special ops and quick reaction teams. The Nigerians get bogged down, A Ranger platoon or airborne shows up all piss and vinegar killing everything that moves. After a while, the locals get tired of the visiting spacemen who kill at night and their magic helicopters. So the boys move to another district or get killed.
Iraq is not Haiti or Somalia, it is intensely militarized. Most men have some military training. They don't scare easy, after all Saddam needed 12,000 bodyguards to stay alive. So when the US rolls up into an Iraqi neighborhood, one where every adult male has an AK at home, there is no fear, well, not the kind of fear that makes people grovel.
US troops haven't seen anything like this since the Philippines in 1898. So they are wandering around blind in a country they still don't understand.
Once the Iraqis saw the US wasn't serious about their occupation, that just fueled the resistance.
* Regime elements
This fiction remains because the US doesn't want to admit that they are facing a significant portion of the Iraqi population. 5,000 guerillas, 20,000, all those munbers are lies. It could be 100,000 for all it matters. When an idiot like Assrocket at poweline says Iraq is a desert, it shows he's map illiterate. First of all, Iraqis live in cities, not the desert. They are urban people. So this guerrilla war started in the cities and moved to the countryside unimpeded because the US didn't have enough forces to contain it.
The fact is that most of the hard core died in as Fedeyeen in the early days of the war. Sure, there are some baathists up in arms, but the worrisome part is that the recruits don't stop coming, and not from outside.
* The open dumps
When the US came up on the open dumps of Iraqi munitions, any idea of securing them was washed away in politics. The thinking was that the exiles would soon get the country in order. Instead of whistling up some B-52's, the chairborne warriors in thr E-Ring took the exiles seriously. Thus was born the best armed guerrilla movement in history. Every man an automatic weapon, every squad an RPG. The Viet Cong would have killed for such lavish weaponry. Because we didn't destroy these dumps, Iraq roads are mine-ridden dangers, the US cannot use helicopters in assaults, every flight may be painted with a SAM. Mortars hit US firebases every night. All because of the open dumps.
* Blind, deaf and dumb
The Iraqi resistance hasn't been truly successful in taking on the US in combat, but in something far more important, controlling who works for the US. It is clear that cooperating with the occupation is a death sentence for anyone who chooses it. This has done more damage than any attack could. Because it makes real intelligence impossible, Everyone who works for the US is under sentence of death, because their neighbors rat them out. The kind of assasinations taking place in Baghdad are impossible without inside knowledge. While the idiots on the right try to figure out what is happening, the resistance grows in sophistication. Not just smarter attacks, but using the Internet, and targeting attacks. The mercenary copter which fell from the sky was no accident. The US is flying combat mission profiles with every flight, but the Bulgarian pilots flew at the right attitude to get blown out of the sky.
The use of the internet is a powerful tool. Video cameras, web cameras, all allow the resistance to get their side out, with the added bonus that the US is powerless to stop them. Wired News had an article on the US's super hackers, the usual mix of military, intelligence and private consultants the US likes to use for intelligence missions, yet these websites routinely show video of resistance successes. It's as if they don't take it seriously when it has already shaped the battle for opinion in the Arab world.
* The wrong equipment for the wrong war
The US has never truly gotten over the bloodless collapse of the Group of Soviet Forces Germany. Depsite the fact that it was clear our future wars would require infantry and close contact, the big issues have been new ships and fighters. The divisional structure of the US Army is collapsing before our eyes. You've got the 25th Infantry and 10th Mountain split around the world. You have the 82nd deployed in brigade stregnth to toss bodies around. National Guard brigades providing much of the manpower in Iraq. Yet, not ONE unit is specificaly trained for counter insurgency warfare. Yes, you have Special Forces, but you need more than that. We're trying to build Iraqi units to handle that role, but they are so penetrated with spies their movements are hardly secret. The US commanders say nice things, but considering that Iraqi troops have led US forces into ambushes and they dislike how we treat them, one can say the good words are for public consumption.
But the critical problem is that the US doesn't have the vehicles to fight this war. The tanks are too big, Humvees rolling targets and weighted down with field-expedient armor, too few troops with the right rifles and body armor and most of all not enough infantry. And what is the US debating? Missile systems and new ships. The Iraqis have infantry and artillery and they are doing pretty well for themselves. The US is still talking about systems which cannot help fight the wars of the future. But the, light armored cars don't cost enough to make someone stand out as a manager.
* The limits of airmobile
The reason the US doesn't have fleets of armored cars and trucks is simple: helicopters. The plan was to use hwlicopters for patrols and area denial. Well, except for the SAM's the resistance has in force.
The Army sent their Apache battalions off to war, and well, the Iraqi Army wasn't stupid. They set up flak traps and one of these battalions ran right into one and lost two Apaches ina few minutes. Then there was a sudden rethink of tactics. Ever wonder why the 101 spent their tour in trucks instead of their Blackhawks? Well, because of the rpg and the SAM. People were suprised that $20 grenades can blow million dollar machines out of the sky. Well, they can. I guess the Iraqis saw Black Hawk Down. What was a desperation tactic in Somalia is now SOP for the Iraqis.
However, this operational victory is never mentioned in the US. The only time the US can use copters in force is in the desert where they won't be ambushed by a flak trap. By forcing the US to the roads and the IED's the Iraqis created a military advantage. If the US could fly around and ambush guerrilla units, the war would be fought very differently and lives would have been saved. Denying the helicopter was a major advantage. Now, this doesn't mean helicopters are grounded, they aren't. But the mass flights that US likes to do...not happening. Why? Because the more targets you have, the more likely you are to hit one.
* Declining morale
When you have recruiters going AWOL, you do not have a happy Army. The letters column of Stars and Stripes is a cavalcade of complaints. Soldiers for the Truth has story after story of rank incompetence, from unit commanders willing to risk lives to suck up to their bosses to near blackmail for reenlistments to angry parents chasing recruiters away. And of course, they're now taking the dropouts. A story in the Washington Post about the conflicts between the 25th ID's Stryker Brigade and the 11th ACR. While the reporter made light of the Stryker's BC being shot, his men were not so kindly disposed. Plus all the chickenshit they brought with them, like not cursing. But when you read a story like that, you have to remember one thing: these guys are trapped. The ONLY way to leave a US base in Iraq is by Medivac, when your tour is up, when you're on leave or when you go on patrol. No trips to the local bazaar on your off time, no hitting bars and finding hookers. So little things like cursing and wearing caps can set the trigger for real conflict.
Then there are the 5,000 deserters, with maybe 100 cooling their heels in Canada.
What you have is an army grinding itself to death, slowly. The sand, the extreme danger, the heat, the need for constant vigilence, makes Iraq a brutal place to serve. There's a reason one third of Iraq vets have mental health issues. Then there is tours that extend on short notice. And of course, second tours in Iraq.
There is a limit to the stress men can take, and send them back to intense combat is one way to ensure they fail and unless the extremely unpopular draft is reinstituted, the pool of new recruits is limited. Even poor kids would rather work in Wal Mart than patrol Iraq.
How bad is it?
All war brings tragedy, but here's a story from a recent Nightline.
A soldier was in Iraq four days before he was wounded. He was sent home and in short order was found to have uncontrolled shakes and PTSD. He lives alone on his farm. He can't work. His wife left him, after she came out of the bathroom one night with a towel wrapped around her head and he pointed a gun at her. He wants to finish his degree, but he can't concentrate long enough to attend school. So he lives, alone and scarred on a Texas farm.
When the warbloggers talk about how we "liberated" Iraq, remember that soldier. He, not Assrocket and Goldberg, is paying the price for this war. It's easy to talk tough and cheer others on. It is very difficult to climb into a truck with an M-4 and drive around an Iraqi town every day for a year. And for some people, it never, ever ends. Even if they have all their limbs.
Pope Benedict XVI Gets E-Mail Address By Associated PressPublished April 21, 2005, 8:44 AM CDT VATICAN CITY --
"Got a prayer or a problem for the new pope? Now you can e-mail him. Showing that Pope Benedict XVI intends to follow in the footsteps of John Paul II's multimedia ministry, the Vatican on Thursday modified its Web site so that users who click on an icon on the home page automatically activate an e-mail composer with his address. In English, the address is benedictxvi@vatican.va. In Italian: benedettoxvi@vatican.va. Vatican spokesmen could not immediately be reached for comment on how many messages Benedict may have received already... "
So how in the name of all that is Holy could I have possibly stopped myself from writing this:
FROM: Pope Benedict XVI E-MAIL: benedictxvi@vatican.va BUSINESS PROPOSAL
ATTN: PRESIDENT/CEO, My name is Pope Benedict XVI, head of a Major Religion as well as head of a Task Force on Priest Pedophilia Clean-up. As you might have read, late last Century there was a major outbreak of Priest Pedophilia in the United States Region of North America which rendered over 70% of our Dogma ludicrous. The cleanup/cover-up was handled by a Vatican Firm but because of the huge monetary amounts involved we decided to over-invoice the contract sum.
Now the cover-up has been completed and the original contractor has since been paid, but the contract balance of US$38 million, which resulted from the over invoiced contract sum that has been left in a suspense account with the BANCO AMBROSIANO of ITALY, is what me and my partners are planning to take out of the coffers for ourselves. The problem is as Princes of the Church, we are not suppose to own fat bank accounts, much less talk of having foreign ones.
To this end, we are soliciting your assistance as a foreign partner who can assist us and receive this amount into your account. We are ready to share this money with you on the basis of participation. We also have plans to invest part of this money in any viable business in your country under your care, as although we are only recently installed, we are nonetheless also nearing our retirement age.
In any case, I got your contact through network on line hence decided to write you if you can assist us on this transaction. Please if you accept my proposal do not hesitate to send me an e-mail on: benedictxvi@vatican.va, so that I can provide you with the basic procedures for the release of the fund.
It does not matter whether you or your company does Pedophilic Cover-ups of the nature described here, the assumption is that you won a major contract and subcontracted it to another company, more often than not, big trading companies or individuals of unrelated field win major contracts here in ITALY and subcontracts same to more specialized firms for execution.
BENEFIT: For providing the account where we shall remit this money, you will be entitled to 25% of the entire funds, 70% will be for me and my partners, while 5% has been set aside to cover any expenses that may be incurred by both parties during this transaction, both local and international.
Please I enjoin you to handle this transaction with utmost degree of maturity and confidentiality because, although Infallable on matters of Doctine, I am still liable for Administrative matters as head of the Church of Christ. If I receive your response on time, this whole transaction could be accomplished within the shortest possible time based on your interest and determination, since the money is already in transit.
Please, if you are capable and willing to participate in this transaction, don`t forget to reach me with my e-mail address soonest. Alternatively Feel free to call me on my private telephone line at the VATICAN OFFICE OF SPECIAL INQUIRY soon as you received this mail. The lines may be busy, but keep trying till you get through.
Andrea Mackris, the former associate producer for Fox News Channel who made headlines by suing talking head Bill O’Reilly for sexual harassment, recently purchased an Upper West Side condo for $809,500, according to deed-transfer records.
Ms. Mackris, an alumna of Columbia University’s journalism school, had worked as a producer on The O’Reilly Factor before leaving for CNN in January 2004. However, in July of that year, she returned to Fox, reportedly at a $93,000-a-year salary.
Hours before Ms. Mackris filed her $60 million suit, Mr. O’Reilly sued for extortion. In the week that followed, the lurid details of the case—complete with explicit phone-sex allegations—served as endless fodder for late-night monologues (and fake news shows). On Oct. 28, Mr. O’Reilly agreed to settle the suit for an unspecified amount.
The approximately 750-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment is a rarity in this prewar condominium, but hardly an extravagant post-settlement purchase.
According to property records, Ms. Mackris signed the contract in mid-November, almost three weeks after a settlement was reached in her suit against Mr. O’Reilly.
And perhaps a few Fox News jokes may be overheard in the elevator: Saturday Night Live’s Tina Fey and her husband, Jeff Richmond, purchased an apartment in the building in May 2004.
Ms. Mackris could not be reached for comment.
Listing broker Iva Spitzer declined to comment. At the time of the sale, Ms. Spitzer was working for Prudential Douglas Elliman, before splitting to rival Corcoran Group in March, becoming executive vice president in their new development sales and marketing division
Atrios pointed this out.
It's hard to be reached when you're wintering on the Riviera or Greek Isles.
She got millions. Boy I never knew that a penis could cause so much trouble. But she didn't even have to fuck him and it worked out great.
I wonder if O'Reilly still likes Greek food. I know Elvis had a $1000 sandwich, but this......
Remind me, if I ever say anything bad about Eric Alterman to uh, e-mail him first. Because the beating John Cloud is getting is well, pretty fucking severe. I would like to avoid it if I could.
To take these one by one may appear a bit tiresome and self-serving, but there are larger issues involved, including, admittedly, defending my reputation, but more importantly, having to do with defending the tenets of honest journalism and fair-minded media criticism. So I will, as briefly as I can, engage Cloud on the facts:
Cloud insists that Coulter and I are peas in a pod, guilty of the same sins, up to the same shenanigans. OK, let’s compare me with Ann Coulter. True, we both have B.A.s from Cornell, where we both attended many Dead concerts, (though I don’t pretend I refused to partake in the local customs). More to the point, I went on to earn an M.A. in international relations from Yale and a Ph.D. in U.S. history from Stanford. I’ve written six books, two published by university presses, containing many thousands of footnotes. None of these books have been substantially challenged on the basis of the evidence they employ, even by those who strongly disagree with my arguments. This is not true of Coulter.
I am also a professor of journalism at the City University of New York, a senior fellow of two think tanks, a professional blogger for the most trafficked Internet news site in the world and the media columnist for oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. I am pretty sure none of the above is true of Coulter, either.
What’s more, Coulter has twice either wished for, or joked about the mass murder of American journalists. She has called for, or joked about, the assassination of a sitting American president. She has called for, or joked about, the mass murder of entire populations of Moslem nations. She has referred to the president of the United States and his wife as “pond scum,” among many other things. She has called Christie Todd Whitman a "birdbrain" and a "dimwit"; Jim Jeffords a "half-wit"; and Gloria Steinem a "deeply ridiculous figure" who "had to sleep" with a rich liberal to fund Ms. magazine--all of which makes her "a termagant." I have never called publicly for the death of any one, nor joked about anyone’s murder, nor called any president or any senator any names like those listed above, though I admit, not all of them—including the current president--are among my favorite people.
While Cloud vouches for Coulter’s accuracy, an entire industry has sprung up demonstrating that accuracy plays no role whatever in her work. You can find dozens, if not hundreds, of lies, mistakes, misattributions, and unsupported allegations in Coulter’s work catalogued here, here, here and here, to name just a few. Cloud insists that his “job in this story was not to be a fact-checker.” Funny, that’s just exactly the excuse the White House offered in July 2003. ("The president of the United States is not a fact-checker.” See The Book on Bush, p.330.) Well, I always thought Time Magazine was pretty proud of its fact-checking capabilities, but OK, that’s quite an admission. Still it misses the point. If Cloud could not be bothered with checking the accuracy of Coulter’s work, he should not have vouched for it and his editors should have published him doing so. Deploying the authority of America’s most influential magazine, Cloud declared the work of Ann Coulter to be “mostly accurate.” This is the heart of the scandal of its publication in Time and the reason his name will now be forever synonymous with a kind of craven, dishonest journalism that seeks to apologize for those who hold the values for which Time professes to stand in contempt. It is not about liberals attacking conservatives nor vice-versa. For all of Cloud’s attacks on my political orientation, it had nothing to do with my criticisms of his piece. Those dealt exclusively with Cloud’s journalism. For some reason he does not seem to get this, so let me spell it out:
Nobody really cares about Mr. Cloud personally, or the fact that he found Ms. Coulter so charming and “ironic” sipping her white Bordeaux and throwing her blonde locks back as she downed her Nicorette. The issue that engages those of us who are invested in protecting and defending the honesty and integrity of American journalism is that Mr. Cloud has used the powerful and influential pages of Time magazine to declare Ms. Coulter’s work “mostly accurate” while admitting that neither he, nor Time’s minions, did the necessary work to defend that pronouncement.
Ow. Atrios wonders why journalists aren't used to this kind of response.
Simple: editors. Editors serve as a shield between the reporter and reader. So Cloud, who was just happy to work as a minion for Time, is shocked that he's being ridiculed withg such venom. Because he probably didn't get how detested Coulter was and how people would respond. Of course, he fucked up even worse in his CJR interview by attacking David Brock and Eric Alterman. Stupid doesn't even begin to explain his error.
Cloud's silly article would have been fine if it had been about someone else, like David Brooks, but Coulter likes to make enemies and they like to hate her back. And he walked right into it.
John Piccolo (above), who won $175,000 Mega Million prize, refuses to share his winnings with co-worker Veronica Edmondson (below). Beware the office lottery pool.
Three hospital employees who thought they were about to split a second-place Mega Millions jackpot worth $175,000 are suing a co-worker who insists he bought the winning ticket for himself.
"I felt betrayed," said Veronica Edmondson, who is among the trio of Mount Sinai Medical Center office workers suing John Piccolo, the office's regular designated lottery ticket buyer. "We trusted him with our money."
Edmondson, 30, of the Bronx, said joy turned to anger when Piccolo called in late for work on Nov. 3 - a day after the drawing.
"Don't be mad at me, but I just won the Mega Million second prize," he told her, according to court papers.
"I exclaimed: 'We won, John!' to which Mr. Piccolo responded: 'No, I won,'" Edmondson said in an affidavit.
Edmondson told the Daily News yesterday that Piccolo offered to give her a Mega Millions umbrella that officials handed him when he picked up his check.
"He said, 'There is nothing you can do. The courts won't take it.' He even had the nerve to come to work and show us the receipt for the money with the taxes taken out of it," she added.
Piccolo, 34, bought $3 worth of tickets for the Nov. 2, 2004 drawing. And while he admits taking part in the office pool, he insists the winning ticket he purchased at a Queens supermarket was bought for himself.
.................................
She refused to throw out the lawsuit and froze $81,750 of the $109,000 Piccolo collected after taxes.
Piccolo offered each person in the pool $1,000 - but later halved it to $500 saying he needed money for a down payment on a house. "He offered some money because he thought it was the right thing to do," said his lawyer, Thomas Weiss.
...................... "I guess he got amnesia when he got the money," said attorney Joey Jackson, who represents Edmondson, Beaulieu and Pitcan.
Black people have no sense of humor about lotteries. As the Daily News well knows from their own contest troubles. Did he think he could work in an office of black women (this is a hospital) and cheat them out of the lottery?. Please. He's lucky he still has a home instead of a pile of ashes. It would have been cheaper to just give up the money than to pay a lawyer. Because there is no forgive and forget here. They ran to sue his ass when he waved that money in their faces.
It's stupid to be in an office pool and then buy tickets for yourself. Just stupid. Do one or the other. I mean, those women have families and that money solves some of their problems. Being a dick about it is bad karma as well as ensures a lawsuit.
Progressive religious leaders from around the country are joining with DriveDemocracy to take the fight to GOP Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and the far right’s unprecedented attack on the constitution and the judiciary.
We’re going to Louisville, Kentucky, just down the street from where the Family Research Council and Frist launch their theocratic telecast. We’ll be staging a massive rally at 2:30 p.m., Sunday, April 24, at Central Presbyterian Church. Joining us is the Clergy and Laity Network, whose national committee includes Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, Sister Joan Chittister, Rabbi Steven Jacobs, Rev. Dr. Otis Brown, Jr., Rev. Dr. Albert Pennybacker, Dr. Susannah Heschel and many more. Invites to other speakers from across the nation are going out today.
Many of you will remember George Lakoff’s plea last week on Kos that we step up and answer the right’s outrageous abuse of power. We listened (in fact we were with George in Dallas when he posted his diary). We listened to you, too. The theme is “Freedom AND Faith,” and we’ll be hammering the wingers’ efforts to stack the court against average Americans.
Their attack on the faith(s) of progressives has been widely condemned. Undeterred, the far right is continuing its effort to pack the federal judiciary with its theocratic supporters. Frist and company would outlaw the filibuster and trash the constitutional separation of church and state.
Spread the word. Help us raise a buck or two to cover our expenses. You can follow developments at DriveDemocracy.org, and we’ll keep you up to date here as well
Join the fight. I know the Antichrist Dobson doesn't speak for me, I hope other people agree.
NOTE: This post is long because it's important. What I describe in detail below, Microsoft caving to religious right extremists, is not just outrageous
and unprecedented, it's downright dangerous for all of our civil rights considering the precedent Microsoft has just set for other businesses that follow its lead. We have a little over 24 hours for Microsoft make things right, otherwise Microsoft may have just killed a major gay rights bill out west.
If anyone out there has inside phone numbers and email addresses for the Microsoft brass, please email them to me. I have some email and phone contacts at the end of this post, PLEASE USE THEM. Thanks. ----------
MICROSOFT SECRETLY PULLS SUPPORT FOR GAY RIGHTS BILL IN WASHINGTON STATE TO CURRY FAVOR WITH RELIGIOUS RIGHT
Microsoft Corporation pulled its support for a gay rights bill in Washington state last month after complaints from a single radical right anti-gay leader, according to an article just published in the Seattle paper, The Stranger (the article is on the news stands already, online Thursday).
My sources in Washington state tell me that the vote on the bill, expected in two days (Friday), is SO CLOSE that Microsoft's actions may be pivotal in KILLING THE PRO-GAY LEGISLATION.
The radical right activist reportedly told Microsoft it had better pull its support for the gays or anti-gay bigots would launch a nationwide boycott of Microsoft, and guess what - Microsoft caved. A single anti-gay jerk, and Microsoft chose to reverse over ten years of policy and bash gays.
This is outrageous. It's also incredibly dangerous. For over a decade Microsoft, along with hundreds of other corporate leaders, has endorsed gay rights legislation in the states and nationally. And now, suddenly, because ONE ANTI-GAY ACTIVIST COMPLAINED, they've suddenly changed their minds ON A CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE. A rather big "oops" after ten years of being in favor of civil rights, don't you think?
WILL MICROSOFT NOW PULL ITS SUPPORT FOR OTHER GAY RIGHTS?
What other "oopsies" does Microsoft now have in store for America's civil rights community?
- Does Microsoft now regret having endorsed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act at the federal level, something it did years ago?
- Does Microsoft regret having received a friggin' gay rights award from the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Community Center back in 2001? I know I regret their receiving it.
- And does Microsoft now regret having bragged ON THEIR OWN WEB SITE that they're such a big supporter of local and national gay rights legislation? I certainly hope THAT Web page is coming down, and soon.
Come on Microsoft, you can't have your fags and bash them too.
Are you pro-gay or not? Do you support civil rights or not? You clearly did support gays, for over 12 years now that I've been involved in gay politics, yet now suddenly we give you the willies? And what's worse, the statements your company has made about this specific issue are terrifying in terms of what they imply for how you're going to treat civil rights issues nationwide in the future.
Let me give you a taste of what Microsoft said, per the article (an astute AMERICAblogger in Seattle got a copy of the paper and faxed me the article, not gonna transcribe the whole thing, you can read it online on Thursday).
EXCERPTS FROM "THE STRANGER" ARTICLE ON MICROSOFT
From The Stranger:
In a move that angered many of the company's gay employees, the Microsoft Corporation, publicly perceived as the vanguard institution of the new economy, has taken a major political stand in favor of age-old discrimination.
The Stranger has learned that last month the $37-billion Redmond-based software behemoth quietly withdrew its support for House bill 1515, the anti-gay-discrimination bill currently under consideration by the Washington State legislature, after being pressured by the Evangelical Christian pastor of a suburban megachurch.
The pastor, Ken Hutcherson of Antioch Bible Church in Redmond, met with a senior Microsoft executive in February and threatened to organize a national boycott of the company's products if it did not change its stance on the legislation, according to gay rights activists and a Microsoft employee who attended a subsequent April 4 meeting where Bradford L. Smith, Microsoft's senior vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary, told a group of gay staffers about Hutcherson's threat....
At the April 4 meeting, Smith told members of GLEAM, the gay and lesbian employees group at Microsoft, that the company had switched its official stance to "neutral" on the bill, and took personal responsibility for the decision. He characterized the shift as part of a broader general review of company policy designed to more precisely formulate criteria for determining when Microsoft should involve itself in "social issues," but also disclosed the pressure that had been brought to bear on him by Hutcherson....
MICROSOFT SAYS ANTI-GAY POLICY SHIFT IS NOT ISOLATED INCIDENT
What you just read in the quote above is important for two reasons. First, later on you'll see that Microsoft tries to lie about why it dropped its support for gay civil rights in Washington state.
But more importantly, read what Microsoft is really saying. This isn't just an isolated incident. Microsoft having chucked the gays in Washington is part of a "broader general review of company policy" - i.e., they didn't do this in a vacuum, but rather, this is a sign of a bigger shift in Microsoft's policies, policies that have clearly now moved away from their past support of the civil rights of their gay and lesbian employees.
More from The Stranger:
That one of the world's best-known corporations, synonymous with cutting-edge workplace innovation, would reverse its stance on such a basic piece of legislation because of threats from one minister seems to be yet another sign of the ongoing reverberations of last November's presidential election, when "moral values" voters were widely - if probably erroneously - perceived to have played the role of kingmaker in ensuring the reelection of President Bush.
"The pastor of a megachurch gets a meeting in two weeks with one of the top executives at one of the world's most powerful corporations. He makes these idle threats and he gets everything he wants," the GLEAM member who reported Smith's comments says. "Microsoft just got taken to the cleaners on this issue."
WHAT THE BILL DOES & OTHER COMPANIES WHO ENDORSE IT
From the Stranger:
House Bill 1515 would protect gays and lesbians from discrimination in employment, housing, banking, insurance, and other matters by adding sexual orientation to a state law which already bars discrimination on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender, marital status, and mental or physical handicap. More than a dozen states currently have similar laws on the books....
The list of high-profile companies that endorsed the bill this year reads like a who's who of the Pacific Northwest corporate world. It includes the Boeing Company, Nike, Coors Brewing, Qwest Communications, Washington Mutual, Hewlett-Packard, Corbis, Battelle Memorial Institute, Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen's Vulcan Inc., and others. And as late as February 1, Microsoft, which issued a letter in support of the bill last year, appeared poised to do so again....
MICROSOFT BRAGS "NO ONE WILL KNOW" IF COMPANY'S ACTIONS KILL PRO-GAY BILL
From the Stranger:
DeLee Shoemaker, an aide to former Governor Gary Locke who now handles state-level government relations for Microsoft, had issued a letter in support of the bill. "We are going to be providing copies of that letter to the committee," he said. McCurdy spoke too soon. Murray says that beginning on February 7 he began receiving calls from company employees informing him that Hutcherson was pressuring the company to change its position on the bill. Murray eventually contacted Shoemaker. She admitted to him that Microsoft was planning to change its position on the bill. "I told her, 'This is a crisis. It will kill the bill,'" he says. "She said no one will know."....
SEE MICROSOFT LIE. LIE, MICROSOFT, LIE.
From the Stranger:
[A]ccording to Microsoft corporate communications spokesperson Tami Begasse... "Microsoft's position on the bill this year was not the result of "any external factors... In this case there was some apparent confusion surrounding some employees who testified as individual citizens in Olympia in February, and the company felt it was appropriate for the employees to make their roles clear as they were not representing or speaking for the company
."
Excuse me, but the "apparent confusion" wasn't over Microsoft's employees testifying and saying that Microsoft supported the legislation. That's all true and incontrovertible. According to the Stranger article, Microsoft supported the legislation last year:
"Microsoft, which issued a letter in support of the bill last year..."
No confusion there. And Microsoft endorsed the bill this year too, before it changed its mind. Again from the Stranger:
At the April 4 meeting, [Microsoft's general counsel] told members of GLEAM, the gay and lesbian employees group at Microsoft, that the company had switched its official stance to "neutral" on the bill, and took personal responsibility for the decision.
DeLee Shoemaker, an aide to former Governor Gary Locke who now handles state-level government relations for Microsoft, had issued a letter in support of the bill.... She admitted to him that Microsoft was planning to change its position on the bill. "I told her, 'This is a crisis. It will kill the bill,'" he says. "She said no one will know."
The confusion was not surrounding what the employees said. The confusion is because Microsoft was for the bill before it was against it.
Not to mention, you gotta love the last part of that Microsoft quote. Yes, that's right, no one will know - hee hee hee - if Microsoft is secretly responsible for callously killing legislation granting gays and lesbians their share of the American dream. Pretty sneaky of you, Microsoft. Too bad you got caught.
Which begs a much larger question. Why did Microsoft, which has been so good on gay issues for at least 13 years that I know of, suddenly pull the plug and apparently change their entire corporate outlook on civil rights issues simply because one right-wing kook walked into their offices. Makes you wonder if something else isn't going on here, some quid pro quo or something.
Could the Bush Administration have had a hand in this? Remember, Bush worked out a backroom deal with the Salvation Army a few years back to kill local gay rights laws. Did something like that happen here too? Did Microsoft's decision to change its pro civil rights stance have anything to do with the larger issue of the feds dropping their anti-trust investigation of Microsoft? Something doesn't smell right about Microsoft's sudden about face on civil rights. These are questions that need to be answered.
And in the meantime, Microsoft can go to hell. If it wants to throw minorities and our civil rights to the back of the bus in order to pander to bigots, then Microsoft can now pay the full price of its prejudice. And I promise you, it will be costly.
********** TAKE ACTION **********
1. Call Microsoft's director of Government Relations, Jack Krumholtz, at tel. 202-263-5900 and tell him:
- You know about Microsoft secretly pulling its support for the Washington state gay rights bill, and you're not happy about Microsoft kissing up to anti-gay bigots.
- You demand that Microsoft IMMEDIATELY and PUBLICLY endorse the gay rights bill in Washington state, and demand that Microsoft publicly repudiate its new policy of backing-off of support for the civil rights of gays and lesbians and other Americans.
- Tell him that if the Washington state gay rights bill dies on Friday, Microsoft's reputation goes down with it.
2. Contact these other contacts for Microsoft and its public relations reps and tell them the same thing:
- Jim Desler, Microsoft US 425-703-6061 jdesler@microsoft.com
- Dirk Delmartino, Microsoft Europe +32 (0)2 550 06 21 dirkdelm@microsoft.com
- The firm handling public policy for Microsoft in DC: The Glover Park Group Washington, DC 202-337-0808
- The firm handling Microsoft's "rapid response" to questions: Waggener Edstrom Rapid Response Team rrt@wagged.com 503-443-7070
- Media Relations for Microsoft Global Communications & Television (212) 339-9920 mediarelations@gctv.com
- Microsoft Investor Relations Curt Anderson (425) 706-3703
Carlos de Leon,tel. 425-703-3824, or carlosde@microsoft.com
Katie Goldberg, tel. 206-268-2244, or katie.goldberg@edelman.com
2. Demand that Microsoft return the award it received from the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. We don't give corporate bigots awards, and we don't expect them to keep such awards under false pretenses. If Microsoft has now rethunk its position on defending civil rights, then give back the damn award:
Per Microsoft's own Web site:
Microsoft has been honored for its pioneering work on behalf of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community with the annual Corporate Vision Award of the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center.
Yeah, I don't think so.
And finally, maybe it's time I gave some serious thought to buying that Mac Mini, and testing the waters as to whether it's time to go Mac and never go back.
An Apple a day keeps the bigot away?
Microsoft is not Apple, they have NO room for manuver.
The idea that the fundies are going to boycott Microsoft is ridiculous. These people laready think the FreeBSD logo supports Satan. My God, people are stupid to back down on this. Gays are a much more lucrative market than fundies, people who don't much like science.
God, a chance to beat up on MS, ah, this is a good thing. Usually they aren't this stupid. But since they are, send 'em mail.
By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer 6 minutes ago
The bodies of more than 50 people have been recovered from the Tigris River and have been identified, President Jalal Talabani said Wednesday. He said the bodies were believed to have been those of hostages seized in a region south of Baghdad earlier this month.
In a separate discovery, another 19 Iraqis were shot to death and left lined up against a bloodstained wall in a soccer stadium in the town of Haditha, about 140 miles northwest of Baghdad, an Iraqi reporter and residents said.
Talabani did not specify when or where the bodies were recovered from the Tigris. However, he gave the information in response to a question about the search for hostages reportedly seized from the area around Madain, 14 miles south of Baghdad.
Shiite leaders and government officials claimed last week that Sunni militants had abducted as many as 100 Shiite residents from the area and were threatening to kill them unless all Shiites left. But when Iraqi forces moved into the town of about 1,000 families over the weekend, they found no captives, and residents said they had seen no evidence anyone had been seized.
"Terrorists committed crimes there. It is not true to say there were no hostages. There were. They were killed, and they threw the bodies into the Tigris," Talabani said. "We have the full names of those who were killed and those criminals who committed these crimes."
In Haditha, taxi drivers Rauf Salih and Ousama Halim said they rushed to the stadium after hearing gunshots and found the bodies lined up against a wall. The reporter and other residents counted 19 bodies and said all appeared to have been shot.
Residents said they believed the victims — all men in civilian clothes — were soldiers abducted by insurgents as they headed home for a holiday marking the birthday of the prophet Muhammad.
Let's look at this for a minute.
Every month, you read a story like this: Iraqi soldiers or recruits murdered en masse.
How does that happen?
Intelligence failure.
Now, the warbloggers, who are fuzzy on the details of the actual war, like to believe that we're winning in Iraq. They're about the only ones who do.
A quick glance at the Iraq Order of Battle shows NG units carrying a major portion of the fighting.
Let's take a look at the map of major convoy routes in Iraq.
.
Most days, large stretches of these highways are vunerable to attack. And notice something else: all roads lead to Baghdad. So if you wage a road denial campaign against the US military, every attack in Baghdad has a multiplier. Because it slows down the whole network.
.
This is the commerical road net.
Notice the general overlap with the main convoy route. Remember there is one main highway from Iraq to Kuwait and the US Army has to travel it every day. It doesn't take a genius to wait and ambush stuff on it.
Now let's look at the force disposition in July 2003
There are 156K troops in Iraq, including most of the US's mobile divisions.
This is the April 2004 dispostion of forces in Iraq, with 138k troops.
This is the area of operations of various guerrilla groups
Now what does our picture show demonstrate?
The Army's own charts show a resistance which is widespread and capable of attacking the US across the country. While there is no overall command, there is a great deal of evidence that there is some coordination with some groups.
How effective is this?
Thousands of attacks per month.
This isn't news because Iraq is so dangerous that reporters cannot get out to cover the news, unless escorted by US troops. And there is every reason to believe units just don't report attacks which miss or don't cause damage.
But what this shows is that the pace of combat is intense. One can conclude that US troops are under heavy combat daily and as a result, this pace of combat is wearing out men and equipment at a fairly high rate.
What people don't want to do is put it together. You have declining enlistments, recruiters going AWOL, up to 5000 desertions, massive complaints about equipment and supply.
So let's draw some conclusions:
* Rumsfeld's eagerness to use Iraq as a test bed for his transformation of the military was a disaster. While the US handled stage one capably, his indifferent to disorder set the stage for stage two.
* Leaving open the ammo dumps set the bed for the resistance. The Iraqi resistance is the most lavishly equipped in history. Every unit well armed with modern weapons.
*Poor planning left the US without their Third World auxillary armies to provide basic security. Without the large Pakistani and Nigerian units to patrol towns and provide basic area denial, US units have had to do two jobs, security and quick reaction.
* Disbanding the Army set the stage for the resistance to have trained people running it. These men didn't learn war from textbooks. The senior folks learned in combat and passed those lessons down
* US forces have adapted to tactics only to have those tactics shift.
* The Iraqis have minimized the use of helicopter units and limited them to observation and attack.
* The Iraqi resistance has also limited the use of the roadnet. Without convoys, resupply is impposible. This control is so dominant that US units now get some supplies by air.
* They have also thoroughly penetrated US assets in Iraq. No Iraqi unit can move without the guerrilas eventually finding out.
* US units are unable to leave their bases except on patrol. During the Vietnam War, Americans could frequent bars and live in the cities. No American can live in Iraq without security at the risk of kidnapping and death.
* The lack of infantry leaves the US unable to sustain military successes when they do occur. The scarest military resource is not armor, but trained combat infantry. Sure, you can send artillerymen out on patrol and get tankers on foot. But infantry is irreplacable for guerrilla warfare.
Every day, US forces go out, take casualities and go back to their bases, trying to survive yet another attack that night. The US, in two years, have lost lives and material, but gained little. There is not one area the US can say that guerrillas cannot operate. And that is the most important fact. After two years and 1500 dead, the guerrillas control the highway to the airport, Baghdad's main drags and the country's highways.
The White House accused Senate Democrats on Wednesday of trumping up "unsubstantiated accusations" against John Bolton in a bid to derail his nomination to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
In a setback toPresident Bush, Republicans on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday were forced to delay a vote on the nomination to examine new allegations against Bolton of abusive conduct
"I think what you have are Democratic members of the committee who continue to bring up unsubstantiated accusations. These allegations are unfounded," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
McClellan singled out Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record) of Delaware, the committee's top Democrat, for bringing up the allegations, which he said Bolton had already answered in hours of congressional testimony.
McClellan and other White House officials said they were confident Bolton, the top U.S. diplomat for arms control, ultimately would be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
"Democrats continue to bring these accusations up and trump them up and make unfounded allegations, and we need to get John Bolton to the United Nations because this is an important position. We need to get him there sooner rather than later," McClellan said.
Biden said a woman who worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Kyrgyzstan contacted the committee to report that Bolton angrily chased her through the halls of a Russian hotel, threw things at her and shoved threatening letters under her door. He said she was prepared to sign an affidavit.
Democrats said accusations were building that indicated Bolton had displayed a pattern of abusive behavior toward subordinates and tried to force intelligence analysts into writing their analyzes to suit his views.
The committee agreed to postpone the vote until next month after Ohio Republican Sen. George Voinovich (news, bio, voting record) said he was not yet prepared to vote for Bolton.
Fuck that nonsense. Besides the fact that Bolton is completely unsuited for the job and is unhinged, his real problem is Carl Ford, Jr, the former head of INR who ripped into Bolton.
INR is the most respected of the intelligence agencies and has a habit of getting things right. It's small, efficient and does relatively good work. When it was found out that Bolton was fucking with their analysts, that set people on edge. Because they do good work and people respect it.
The only reason Bolton is getting this job is as a reward. He is in no way suited for this job based on his actions. The problem for Bush is that once you claim a trumped up charge, you're likely to draw out witnesses. Voinovich is pissed because Bolton went after one of his staffers and this Move America Forward PAC wants to go after him for this. What kind of insanity is that?
This insanity follows:
Wife: Honey, were you watching C-SPAN today? Did you hear how disloyal Senator Voinovich was to Republicans and President Bush? Voinovich stood with the Democrats and refused to vote for John Bolton, the man President Bush has chosen to fight for the United States at the UN
Husband: No, I was streaming it on the Internet at the office, but from what I could tell, Senator Voinovich played hookey from the hearings?
Wife: Yeah that’s right. He’s missed most of the Bolton confirmation hearings, but then shows up at the last minute and stabs the President and Republicans right in the back.
Husband: That’s ridiculous – the United Nations needs reform, we need someone who will stand up for the United States and fight the UN’s corruption and anti-Americanism.
Wife: Shame on Senator Voinovich. After the Democrats smeared Condoleeza Rice for Secretary of State and Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General, how could Voinovich side with the Democrats in smearing John Bolton?
Husband: It seems like Senator Voinovich has become a traitor to the Republican Party.
Wife: Enough’s enough. I’m logging on to Move America Forward dot com to register my protest with Senator Voinovich’s office.
Husband: What was that site? Move America Forward dot com ?
Wife: Yep, Move America Forward dot com
I guess we're past the days of honest differences. Now, a legitimate disagreement is political treason. I hope he isn't arrested under the Patriot Act for being objectively pro-terrorist. If you're not with us, you're against us.
Message to Vichy Dems: If this is how they treat one of their own for a legitimate disagreement, hell, what will they do to you?
Women throughout Canada should soon have access to the so-called morning-after pill without having first to obtain a prescription from their doctor.
Health Canada announced today that the drug, levonorgestrel — sold under the brand name Plan B — has been approved for sale directly from pharmacies, where the drug will be kept behind the counter.
Women will need to speak with a pharmacist to ensure they are good candidates for the drug, which must be taken within 72 hours of intercourse to prevent pregnancy.
Currently three provinces — British Columbia, Quebec and Saskatchewan — allow pharmacists to dispense the drug without a prescription.
The Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada welcomed the move to make the drug available in this manner across the country, noting an estimated one in two pregnancies is unintended.
"Emergency contraception has the potential to significantly reduce the incidence of unintended pregnancy and the number of abortions performed," said Dr. Andre Lalonde, executive vice-president of the society.
"Given the significant psychological, social and economic impact of improving access to emergency contraception for women across Canada, this is a significant step forward in women's rights and health."
A recent study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal showed use in British Columbia, where the drug has been available without prescriptions since 2000, may have prevented hundreds of abortions.
The study found that almost 18,000 B.C. women used emergency contraception in 2002, compared with an average of 8,800 in 1999.
The study, by Judith Soon of the faculty of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of British Columbia, found that women used emergency contraceptive rationally and promptly.
Washington -- Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, citing reports that pharmacists have turned away women seeking birth control pills, has introduced legislation that she says would protect American women's access to contraception. Boxer's proposal would require all pharmacies to fill all prescriptions or refer customers to someone who will, despite pharmacists' religious or ethical objections to the nature of the prescription.
The legislation, similar to a proposal in California that two state Senate committees will consider next week, came in response to reports from a dozen states that women have been turned away by pharmacists who wouldn't fill doctors' prescriptions for birth control pills or for "morning-after pills," which are known as emergency contraceptives. In some cases, women say they were also lectured by pharmacists. ..........................
She said proposals like Boxer's respect druggists' rights. "It's not like we're saying you have to violate your conscience. These bills put the requirement on pharmacies, not pharmacists," Waxman said. Ortiz said allowing pharmacists to go unchallenged in refusing to fill contraceptive prescriptions could have much broader and serious implications. "Does a doctor get to not prescribe Viagra for a single man or AIDS medicine to a gay man because he objects to the gay lifestyle? We have to define procedures to provide access," she said.
Jen
Wa-Hoo! The floodgates have opened! Hooray for Canada for getting this right
Do you realy want to have pharmacists dictate which medicines you get for what medical needs? What happens when the Jehovahs Witness decides not to give a hemophiliac blood clotting factor? Or the vegan doesn't hand over hormones?
Wednesday, April 20, 2005 Posted: 1:34 PM EDT (1734 GMT)
SPOTSYLVANIA, Virginia (AP) -- A woman pleaded not guilty Wednesday in the death of an 82-year-old woman attacked by a pack of roaming pit bulls.
Deanna Large faces charges of involuntary manslaughter and three misdemeanor counts of allowing a dangerous dog to run loose in Spotsylvania, Virginia. If convicted of all charges, she faces up to 13 years in prison.
Large, 36, was free on $10,000 bond. She refused to comment after her arraignment in Circuit Court. Relatives of the victim, Dorothy Sullivan, wept and embraced outside the courthouse.
Judge William Ledbetter Jr. appointed attorney Eugene Frost to represent Large and set an August 16 trial date.
Sullivan was out for a walk in her front yard with her little dog Buttons, a Shih Tzu, when they were attacked by three unleashed pit bulls. Buttons was also killed. Sullivan's daughter found her mother's body when she stopped by for a visit soon after the March 8 attack. .......... While Large admitted owning one of the dogs, Commonwealth's Attorney William Neely has said an investigation revealed she owned all three and had been warned to keep them under better control. Authorities shot and killed two of the pit bulls, and a third was captured and euthanized.
Jen
Sorry, this woman belongs IN JAIL. She was repeatedly warned to lock up her dogs, and she didn't. This incident was bound to happen eventually.
Gotta say, I hate all the "it's not the species, it's the owner" talk that invariably follows attacks like this--you breed dogs that are SO aggressive that they can ONLY mate via artificial insemination while unconscious (true!!) there's no way to predict what even the "best behaved" ones will do.
Years ago, when PBS would hold its audience hostage during its interminable fundraising drives, the pitch was that the public should donate to support programming "you coudn’t find anywhere else".
Well, PBS can’t make that claim anymore. Not only can you find historical docs elsewhere (History Channel, A&E), not to mention costume dramas (ditto) and fine British comedies (BBC America), but nowadays you can rent ARE YOU BEING SERVED?, SHERLOCK HOLMES and the like to watch in the privacy of your own home, unmolested by annoying pleas. Yes, there’s still FRONTLINE, which is as outstanding as ever, but nowadays good muckraking journalism and opinion can mainly be found on the Web.
The leftie blogosphere has thrived despite the lack of support of the sorts of sugardaddies who prop up the network of "think" tanks, "media" organizations and publishing houses the right has come to depend on. Those of us who blog from the left depend on support from our readers to keep going, so I’m asking you to please donate to keep DCMG, which is my labor of love, up and running. I’ve made the "donate" button nice and large to facilitate giving. Or you can send your contribution to me via PayPal at dcmediagirlmail@gmail.com. I’ll be soliciting contributions all week, so you might as well get it over with now. Your money will fund some much-needed upgrades that my site desperately needs. I thank you in advance.
Clara does good work and deserves support, support she gave me not two weeks ago.
I know you folks gave to me generously, so I can't assume that there is more money to spare, but I plan on sending her some cash and even if you're tapped out, let people know she's raising cash. Now it may seem silly to give someone money who just gave you money, but the point is that we're going to support each other. She's smart, funny and deserves my support. A
Like I have always said, I don't ask people to contribute, I show them where I contribute.
Amount:$25.00 USD Shipping & Handling: $0.00 USD Item Title: Blog Contributions Quantity: 1 Total Amount: $25.00 USD
Contact Information
Business Name: DCMediagirl Contact Email: dcmediagirlmail@gmail.com
In the interest of disclosure, I have contributed to the following blogs in the last few months:
Cooking for Engineers Atrios (in his last drive) Back to Iraq AMERICABlog
There may be more, but that is what comes to mind.
To call the new pope a Nazi demeans the most courageous act in the man's life, running from a Luftwaffe AA battery in a fit of common sense. The Nazis were big on roadside executions and unlike some of the Hitler Youth, he wasn't going to die for Hitler. There were plenty of people willing to ensure that you did. So he deserves ample credit for refusing to fight and to surrender to the Americans instead.
With that said, Pope Benedict XVI is probably the second worst possible choice for a Church which has some real issues. Only the head of Opus Dei could have been worse. Like child rape, gay priests, a loss of American financial support. Hell, the BBC reported that even the Germans can't stand the guy.
Nazi is the cheap word, he was a kid press ganged into the war and ran when he got a chance. The right phrase is Cold War reactionary. His opposition to change allowed John Paul II to maintain his conservative doctrine, yet be popular.
It was amusingly ironic to see all these young people cheering a pope many of them will disagree with. Benedict XVI has a past where bashing gays is part of his doctrine.
6. Providing a basic plan for understanding this entire discussion of homosexuality is the theology of creation we find in Genesis. God, in his infinite wisdom and love, brings into existence all of reality as a reflection of his goodness. He fashions mankind, male and female, in his own image and likeness. Human beings, therefore, are nothing less than the work of God himself; and in the complementarity of the sexes, they are called to reflect the inner unity of the Creator. They do this in a striking way in their cooperation with him in the transmission of life by a mutual donation of the self to the other.
In Genesis 3, we find that this truth about persons being an image of God has been obscured by original sin. There inevitably follows a loss of awareness of the covenantal character of the union these persons had with God and with each other. The human body retains its "spousal significance" but this is now clouded by sin. Thus, in Genesis 19:1-11, the deterioration due to sin continues in the story of the men of Sodom. There can be no doubt of the moral judgement made there against homosexual relations. In Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, in the course of describing the conditions necessary for belonging to the Chosen People, the author excludes from the People of God those who behave in a homosexual fashion.
Against the background of this exposition of theocratic law, an eschatological perspective is developed by St. Paul when, in I Cor 6:9, he proposes the same doctrine and lists those who behave in a homosexual fashion among those who shall not enter the Kingdom of God.
In Romans 1:18-32, still building on the moral traditions of his forebears, but in the new context of the confrontation between Christianity and the pagan society of his day, Paul uses homosexual behaviour as an example of the blindness which has overcome humankind. Instead of the original harmony between Creator and creatures, the acute distortion of idolatry has led to all kinds of moral excess. Paul is at a loss to find a clearer example of this disharmony than homosexual relations. Finally, 1 Tim. 1, in full continuity with the Biblical position, singles out those who spread wrong doctrine and in v. 10 explicitly names as sinners those who engage in homosexual acts.
The problem is that his clergy is filled with said sodomites. He's wedded to a past which does not exist any longer. Most Catholic parents would be scared shitless if their kids wanted to be priests, because most normal men want families. Those who seek the priesthood are well, flawed in ways. Not all of them, but enough where you have to wonder about their true motivations. The clergy in the West is shrinking and yet, Benedict XVI has been wedded to same destructive policies. The conflicts which John Paul II smoothed over with his immense charm will have a much rougher cast to it under the new pope.
The guy is even detested in Germany, where a poll showed that 36 percent of Germans dislike him. So when he starts prattling on about the gays and the priesthood and divorce, expect to see the west stop giving money.
If you wanted a pope to make all the current problems worse, he's the man. John Paul II coated his reactionary policies with oodles of charm, which made them easy to ignore, like the rantings of grandpa about shooting Germans at Cassino. But Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, has no such charm. Many of the people smiling today will ramp up their calls for fundamental change in the church tomorrow.
AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. (AP) -- Less than two years after it was plunged into a rape scandal, the Air Force Academy is scrambling to address complaints that evangelical Christians wield so much influence at the school that anti-Semitism and other forms of religious harassment have become pervasive.
There have been 55 complaints of religious discrimination at the academy in the past four years, including cases in which a Jewish cadet was told the Holocaust was revenge for the death of Jesus and another was called a Christ killer by a fellow cadet.
The 4,300-student school recently started requiring staff members and cadets to take a 50-minute religious-tolerance class.
''There are things that have happened that have been inappropriate. And they have been addressed and resolved,'' said Col. Michael Whittington, the academy's chief chaplain.
More than 90 percent of the cadets identify themselves as Christian. A cadet survey in 2003 found that half had heard religious slurs and jokes, and that many non-Christians believed Christians get special treatment.
''There were people walking up to someone and basically they would get in a conversation and it would end with, `If you don't believe what I believe you are going to hell,''' Vice Commandant Col. Debra Gray said.
Critics of the academy say the sometimes-public endorsement of Christianity by high-ranking staff has contributed to a climate of fear and violates the constitutional separation of church and state at a taxpayer-supported school whose mission is to produce Air Force leaders.
They also say academy leaders are desperate to avoid the sort of uproar that came with the 2003 scandal in which dozens of women said their complaints of sexual assault were ignored.
''They are deliberately trivializing the problem so that we don't have another situation the magnitude of the sex assault scandal. It is inextricably intertwined in every aspect of the academy,'' said Mikey Weinstein of Albuquerque, N.M., a 1977 graduate who has sent two sons to the school. He said the younger, Curtis, has been called a ''filthy Jew'' many times.
The superintendent, Lt. Gen. John Rosa, conceded there was a problem during a recent meeting of the Board of Visitors, the civilian group that oversees the academy.
''The problem is people have been across the line for so many years when you try and come back in bounds, people get offended,'' he said.
The board chairman, former Virginia Gov. James Gilmore, warned Rosa that changing things could prove complicated. He said evangelical Christians ''do not check their religion at the door.''
Other critics point to a series of incidents, including:
--The Air Force is investigating a complaint from an atheist cadet who says the school is ''systematically biased against any cadet that does not overtly espouse Christianity.''
--The official academy newspaper runs a Christmas ad every year praising Jesus and declaring him the only savior. Some 200 academy staff members, including some department heads, signed it. Whittington noted the ad was not published last December.
--The academy commandant, Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida, a born-again Christian, said in a statement to cadets in June 2003 that their first responsibility is to their God. He also strongly endorsed National Prayer Day that year. School spokesman Johnny Whitaker said Weida now runs his messages by several other commanders.
--Some officer commission ceremonies were held at off-campus churches. In a letter dated April 6, Weida said the ceremonies would be held on campus from now on.
Rosa and other academy leaders say some among the large number of Christian cadets -- nearly 2,600 are Protestant, some 1,300 are Roman Catholic, and about 120 are Mormon -- may not realize that evangelism is unwelcome among their fellow students. The corps of cadets also includes 44 Jews, 19 Buddhists and a few Muslims, Hindus and others. There are 15 chaplains and one rabbi.
Rosa himself intervened when Christian cadets began promoting ''The Passion,'' Mel Gibson's movie about the crucifixion of Christ. He told cadets they should not use government e-mail or other facilities to promote their personal agendas.
What? The evangelicals don't hate Jews. They just hate the cultural elite. If that cultural elite just happens to be filthy, Christ-killing Jews, well, that's just how it worked out.
Watch the fundies scream discrimination. How dare they object to open anti-semitism in the ranks.
This is crazy, this is the second scandal which says the Air Force Academy is run by zealots.
So what part of Christianity includes calling someone a filthy Jew, Governor Gilmore?
Two reporters facing up to 18 months in jail for refusing to testify about their sources lost another round in the courts yesterday. The reporters, Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, now have only one appeal left, to the United States Supreme Court.
The decision, by the full federal appeals court in Washington, declined to reconsider a unanimous decision of a three-judge panel of the court.
The earlier decision, in February, required the reporters to testify about conversations they may have had with government officials concerning Valerie Plame, an undercover C.I.A. agent whose identity was first disclosed by Robert Novak, the syndicated columnist.
Seven judges participated in yesterday's decision, which noted only that a majority of the court's active judges had not voted in favor of a rehearing. Two active judges did not participate, for unexplained reasons. One judge, David S. Tatel, published an explanatory concurrence. None of the judges noted a dissent.
Speaking to the Newspaper Association of America in San Francisco yesterday, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher of The Times, emphasized the importance of allowing reporters to keep their promises to confidential sources.
"This is not a New York Times or a Time magazine issue," Mr. Sulzberger said. "What's at stake here is journalism at the grass-roots level."
The two reporters have remained free while they pursue their cases in the appeals court. Under the usual procedural rules, they could face jail as soon as a week from now, when the appeals court will issue its mandate and return jurisdiction in the case to the trial court.
But legal experts say the reporters may try to make a deal with the special prosecutor in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, or ask one of the courts involved to issue a stay. In exchange for their continued freedom, the reporters may agree to move quickly enough for the Supreme Court to be able to decide whether to hear the case before its summer recess.
Mr. Fitzgerald has consistently urged the courts to take quick action, adding in a recent filing that his investigation into the disclosure of Ms. Plame's identity is all but complete. A spokesman for Mr. Fitzgerald declined to comment yesterday.
Judge Thomas F. Hogan, the chief judge of the Federal District Court in Washington, ordered the reporters jailed in October unless they agreed to testify. Judge Hogan said a 1972 decision of the Supreme Court, Branzburg v. Hayes, provided reporters with no First Amendment protection when grand juries sought their sources.
Judy, Judy, Judy.......well, if you can't go to jail for lying......
SAN FRANCISCO - A woman who founded a humanitarian group to aid civilian casualties in Iraq has died in a car bombing in Baghdad, officials said Sunday.
Marla Ruzicka, founder of Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, died Saturday in the blast, which also killed an Iraqi and another foreigner, officials said. She had been in Iraq conducting door-to-door surveys trying to determine the number of civilian casualties in the country.
Ruzicka, 28, founded CIVIC in 2003 to “mitigate the impact of the conflict and its aftermath on the people of Iraq by ensuring that timely and effective life-saving assistance is provided to those in need,” according to the group’s Web site.
Marla Ruzicka was a contributor to the World Socialist Web Site and an admirer of Fidel Castro, as James Taranto pointed out in July 2002.
So what is this Global Exchange, which Filkins describes only as “an American organization”? A look at its Web site makes clear it’s a far-left outfit that opposed any military intervention in Afghanistan. Blogger Michael Moynihan has more details on Marla Ruzicka, who turns out to be a fervent admirer of Fidel Castro. There’s also a “report” on the 2000 election dispute from the World Socialist Web Site, which quotes her as suggesting Republicans are terrorists:
Marla Ruzicka, 23, an officially accredited observer from the Green Party, commented on the tactics of the Bush supporters. She described them as “really nasty. There was one guy with a bald head, like a skinhead. They surrounded me and called me a baby killer, because of my support for the right to abortion. When I pointed out Bush’s presiding over the death penalty, they said: no, no, that’s justice. They’re scary. Maybe they’re the ones who should be on the terrorist lists.”
Ruzicka, of course, is entitled to her opinions—but surely her extremist political agenda is relevant to Filkins’s readers in determining how much weight to give to her comments. Meanwhile, buried in the 16th paragraph of Filkins’s story is an admission that the whole thing is trumped up: “Indeed, the extraordinary accuracy of American airstrikes since they began in October has produced few of the types of disasters that plagued past wars, when bombs aimed at one target hit something else instead.” Oh well, never mind.
UPDATE at 4/17/05 9:07:34 pm:
Marla Ruzicka’s anti-war organization was paid for by George Soros, and subsidized by Human Rights Watch. (Hat tip: Van Impe.)
Ruzicka’s organization operates on an annual budget of about $100,000, funded now in large part by the Open Society Institute, a George Soros organization, with low-cost rental space provided by Human Rights Watch.
God, it's bad enough the woman burned alive and the general who was on the scenes was nearly in tears at the gruesome scene, but that these trolls want to spit on her grave for the crime of helping children and widows. Yep, these useless fucks who wear their leather daddy jackets and talk tough do not have this woman's courage.
She might have been naive, but her intentions were honorable.
The cowards at LGF certainly aren't in Iraq, or doing anything useful, but they love war. The fact that even basement dwelling losers can become 11B's, but they have no plans on doing that. Instead, they go after a dead woman who mitigated some of the suffering we caused.
The fruit of Fiona's labor Unreleased Apple CD, 'Extraordinary Machine,' spills out on Web, fanning dispute with label
BY RICHARD CROMELIN Los Angeles Times
April 19, 2005
Who upset the Apple cart? Nobody's taking credit for spilling Fiona Apple's unreleased (and possibly unfinished) third album all over the Internet, but the action has upped the ante in what's become pop music's biggest art-versus-commerce dust-up since Wilco vs. Reprise Records and Danger Mouse vs. the Beatles.
Now Apple's record company is cracking down, she has clammed up and fans are still manning the barricades.
The New York-bred singer-songwriter whose first two albums, 1997's "Tidal" and 1999's "When the Pawn Hits ..." made her a commercial and critical success is a perfect centerpiece for this drama. Edgy and vulnerable, mercurial and uncompromising, she's the heroine of a fervent cult and a classic potential victim of the crass music business.
Despite her initial impact - "Tidal" sold nearly 3 million copies and earned her a Grammy for the song "Criminal" - Apple was a high-maintenance renegade, refusing to play by the record industry's rules. That earned her ridicule from the mainstream, and intense loyalty from fans who identified with her idealism and emotional openness.
So it's understandable that there would be high anticipation for her first new music in six years. Trouble is, with both Apple and her label, Sony's Epic Records, declining interview requests, it's unclear what really happened to it.
Mixed signals
Fans who are protesting with demonstrations at Sony headquarters and petitions at www.freefiona.com and by sending apples to Epic executives say that the singer turned in her album, "Extraordinary Machine," in May 2003 and that the label decided not to release it because they didn't think it would sell enough to justify its costs. Sources at the label contend that Apple's submission was a work-in-progress, not a completed recording.
The matter became an issue when two tracks from the collection appeared on the Internet last year, followed by the entire 11-song album earlier this year. A Seattle disc jockey, Andrew Harms, also obtained a copy of the album and began playing it.
An Epic response
Epic's only comment has been two vague statements. The first, issued in February, concluded, "Fiona has not yet delivered her next album to Epic, but we join music lovers everywhere in eagerly anticipating her next release." A shorter statement, released last week, said simply: "Epic is continuing to work with Fiona's management toward the release of this project."
And for the last couple of weeks the company has been warning Web sites that have posted the music to remove those files or face legal action. Many have pulled the songs, though disc jockey Harms said last week that he is still playing the album on Seattle's End Radio (KNDD/107.7 FM) and has heard nothing from the label.
If the saga is cloudy, the music itself is unambiguously potent. One rumor floating through the instant mythology of "Extraordinary Machine" is that Apple herself wasn't happy with it. But if the album eventually comes out in anything close to the form that could be downloaded from the Internet, it will mark a striking artistic advance for an already formidable musician.
............. And in the six-minute blues-noir epic "Oh Sailor," she offers what may be her ultimate self-defining verse: "Everything good I deem too good to be true/Everything else is just a bore/Everything I have to look forward to/Has a pretty painful and very imposing before."
The fans might be chanting "Free Fiona," but it's pretty clear from this music that she's been freed as an artist.
The interesting part about this is that her music somehow just made it to the net. It just appeared online. Sure it did.
Once something is online, then it is out there forever.
It took about a week for the machine to come, and about 10 minutes to move things around. Then it worked right out of the box.
Here is the final config for my box:
Case( Coolermaster WaveMaster Case w/420W Power Supply Black ) Meter Display ( Thermal Temperature LCD Display Blue ) Flash Media Reader/Writer ( 6-In-1 Internal Flash Media Card Reader/Writer Blue ) Case Lighting ( None ) Power Supply ( Standard Case Power Supply ) Processor ( [939-pin] AMD® Athlon-64 3200+ CPU w/ Hyper Transport Technology ) Free Software/Game ( Free Half Life 2 Download Coupon Free Half Life 2 download coupon with purchase of AMD-64 based systems ) Operation System ( MS Windows XP Professional Edition ) Processor Cooling ( Certified CPU Fan and Heatsink + 2 Extra Case Fans ) Motherboard ( Gigabyte GA-K8NF9 nVidia nForce4 Chipset w/LAN, 7.1 Sound, IEEE-1394, USB 2.0 PCI-E Motherboard ) Case Round Cable ( Professional wiring for all cables inside the system tower ) USB Port ( Build-in USB 2.0 Ports ) Memory ( 1024 MB [512MB X2] DDR-400 PC3200 Memory Module Geil or Major Brand ) Video Card ( [PCI-Express 16x] Nvidia Geforce 6600GT 128MB w/DVI + TV Out Video ) IEEE-1394 Fire Wire Card ( None ) USB Flash Drive ( None ) Hard Drive ( [Special !!!] 160 GB HARD DRIVES [S-ATA] Western Digital 160 GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache Hard Drive ) 2nd Hard Drive ( [Special !!!] 160 GB HARD DRIVES [S-ATA] Western Digital 160 GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache Hard Drive ) MP3 Player ( None ) TV Tuner ( None ) Raid Controller ( None ) Raid Configuration ( None ) Video Camera ( None ) Power Protection ( None ) CD/DVD Drive ( 16x DVD-ROM Drive Blue ) CD-RW/DVD-RW Drive ( [** Special !!! ***] 16X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive Blue ) Headset ( None ) Printer ( None ) Sound Card ( 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard ) Speaker System ( None ) Printer Cable ( None ) Fax Modem ( None ) Network Card ( 10/100 Network Onboard ) Floppy Drive ( None ) Zip Drive ( None ) Monitor ( None ) Keyboard ( None ) Mouse ( None )
Now that the floor is open, what is your favorite Windows software?
BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 18 - A high-ranking adviser in the Iraqi Defense Ministry was assassinated late Monday night by gunmen at his house in Baghdad, Iraqi officials said.
The official, Maj. Gen. Adnan Qaragholi, was killed just after 11 p.m. when 10 gunmen forced their way into his house in the Doura neighborhood in southern Baghdad and shot him to death, Interior Ministry officials said.
Insurgents try to assassinate the leaders of Iraq's fledgling military and the police almost daily, and many officers have been killed. It was not clear on Monday night how the assassins, who arrived in three cars, got into General Qaragholi's house, or whether there was a firefight. The gunmen escaped, the officials said.
The killing of General Qaragholi was one of at least two on Monday. A businessman who runs a travel agency was also shot dead in the western neighborhood of Ghazaliya at noon, Interior Ministry officials said. The businessman, Tariq Hasoun Khadim, was the manager of the Travel Call Company, based in the Green Zone, the fortified compound that houses Iraq's government.
The killings came as Iraqi soldiers continued to search an area south of Baghdad on Monday where mass kidnappings had been reported over the weekend.
Three Iraqi Army battalions in Madaen, 10 miles south of the capital, found a weapons cache and a shooting range that might have been used by terrorists, but no hostages, Interior Ministry officials said.
The departing prime minister, Ayad Allawi, who had joined other political leaders on Sunday in denouncing the reported kidnappings in Madaen, issued a statement on Monday saying that no hostages had been found and that the city was peaceful.
Some Shiite political figures said over the weekend that Sunni Arab kidnappers had taken dozens of Shiite hostages and threatened to kill them unless Shiites left the town. The episode was widely described in news media reports as a sectarian crisis. But as it unraveled Sunday, with army and Interior Ministry officials saying the reports were false, reactions by political figures took on their own sectarian hue.
They raided his house and shot him. How? Doesn't he have protection? I guess not.
By Steve Fainaru Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, April 19, 2005; Page A01
QAIM, Iraq -- Marine Lance Cpl. Joshua Butler shook himself from the rubble of a suicide truck bombing. He staggered to the ledge of his three-story guard tower and stared into a cloud of white smoke.
Butler, 21, of Altoona, Pa., was temporarily deafened by the blast, but he recalled what came next with cinematic clarity. The white smoke parted to reveal a clean red fire engine. It sped past a mural bidding travelers "Goodbye From Free Iraq" and hurtled directly toward Butler, who shot at the fire engine until it exploded about 40 yards away from him.
This true-life nightmare occurred last Monday. The attack on this remote Marine outpost abutting the Syrian border caused only minor injuries, but it signaled a dramatic change in the methods of the insurgents, who have staged mostly guerrilla-style hit-and-run attacks against the U.S. military for two years.
In interviews and in after-action reports, Marines who successfully defended the base that morning described a sophisticated assault that involved 50-100 insurgents.
The insurgents distracted Marine guards with well-aimed mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, then launched three successive suicide bombing strikes in an attempt to blow up the base and overrun it. The fire engine had both a driver and a spotter, a bullet-proof windshield and was packed with dozens of propane tanks filled with explosives. The blast rained jagged red shrapnel for over a minute and unhinged doors and cracked the foundation of buildings well inside the Marine base.
The attack "demonstrates an extremely mature and capable insurgency," said Maj. John Reed, executive officer for the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, which commands U.S. troops here. "It showed its ability to mass a very complex attack very quickly."
Ask yourself a simple question: how long does it take to train people to attack as a company? Weeks of dedicated training? At a minumum? We're talking a level of skill which takes time to develop. What it looks like is that the guerrillas are going to shift their attacks largely to US forces.
She is quite possibly the most divisive figure in the public eye. But love her or hate her, you don't know the real Ann Coulter By JOHN CLOUD
Posted Sunday, April 17, 2005
Ann Coulter and I were well into a bottle of white Bordeaux—and I believe she was chewing her fourth piece of Nicorette—when it happened. From what little I knew of her—mainly her propensity for declamations such as "liberals love America like O.J. loved Nicole"—I thought it impossible for Coulter to blush. Many of her fans would later tell me it was her fearlessness they admired, her fully unburdened sense of outrage against liberalism, against anyone left of Joseph McCarthy (whom Coulter flattered in her best-selling book Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism).
Then they went back to her apartment to watch a DVD.
While they were watching Amilie, Coulter remarked how lonely she was, how it was so hard to find a boyfriend. Cloud then mentioned that his career created the same problems.
Two hours later, Cloud left the apartment more than motivated to write a glowing piece about Coulter, although he would have to leave out the part about her firm breasts, soft kisses and giggling orgasms. I bet he knows Coulter real well....
Because unless there was pussy involved, how could he write such an unhinged article. Coulter's racist screeds are legendary. The real Ann Coulter would have led a lynch mob at Ol' Miss. She would have fed Joe McCarthy his booze.
What the fuck is up with Time anyway. They name the assholes at Powerline best blog, now this. What's next, a guide to scaring the shit out of judges and glowing articles on Jenna and Not Jenna?
MR. BROOKLYN by REBECCA MEAD Marty Markowitz—the man, the plan, the arena.
On a bitterly cold Tuesday in December, Markowitz’s schedule took him to Kings Highway, where he attended a party hosted by an organization called the Federation of Employment and Guidance Services, which provides support to recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Sixty partygoers crowded into a conference room. Markowitz showed up just fifteen minutes behind schedule. Many in the audience, mostly elderly, appeared not to know who he was. He told the crowd that it was important to learn English and to stay young; and that he loved Georgian food, because it had a little spice; and that Brooklyn has always welcomed immigrants. He hoped that tourists would discover the variety and ethnic wealth that the borough had to offer. “Only in Brooklyn can you go from China to Russia in fifteen minutes,” he said, his enthusiasm overruling any memory of geography class, where he might have been taught that those two countries share a border for more than twenty-two hundred miles.
Markowitz’s car was waiting for him on Kings Highway, and he leaped in. (Having a driver is one of the perks of the job, and Markowitz uses his a lot; last year, one of his three drivers earned thirty-four thousand dollars in overtime pay, on a base salary of forty thousand dollars, while another driver was on a lengthy medical leave.) He met next with a group from Boerum Hill, the residential district of brownstones and town houses near downtown Brooklyn. The residents were campaigning for street plantings at the site of a recently restored subway kiosk dating from 1908, at the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues. Markowitz’s driver approached the intersection from Fourth Avenue, heading down what was formerly an industrial strip that was recently rezoned to permit the construction of apartment buildings.
The gilded cupola of the Williamsburgh Savings Bank was gleaming in the late-afternoon sun. The tower, built two years before the Empire State Building, is Brooklyn’s most magnificent skyscraper from New York’s golden age of construction and, at the time it was erected, the tallest four-sided clock tower in the nation. Just south of the tower lies the proposed site of Atlantic Yards. The project, designed by Frank Gehry, is slated to include several towers, the tallest of which, at six hundred and twenty feet, will loom more than a hundred feet above the golden cupola. Markowitz claims to be confident that the older building will not be overshadowed—“From what I understand, there are ways in architecture to design a building in a way that enhances the view of the Williamsburgh building,” he says. (Forest City Ratner has provided few details of what the larger housing development will look like, though an architect’s model of the arena displays Gehry’s signature wavy metallic walls and a roof garden overlooking Flatbush Avenue.)
In the car, Markowitz’s cell phone rang, and the voice of a female assistant announced that “Bruce” was on the line.
“Yes, sir, how are you doing, Bruce?” Markowitz said, picking up the handset and falling silent as he listened. Bruce Ratner, it appeared from Markowitz’s responses, had some urgent questions about the way discussions concerning waterfront development in Williamsburg and Greenpoint might affect his own project. Markowitz, whenever he could get a word in, tried to be both conciliatory and upbeat. “I understand,” he said; and then, “I wish I knew, but I don’t know”; and “It’s hard for me”; and “That’s absolutely right.” Finally, he told Ratner to call someone in his office—better yet, he would have that someone call Ratner.
Across the street, a small huddle of Boerum Hill residents handed Markowitz a sheaf of plans showing an arrangement of planters and greenery they would like to see in front of the restored subway kiosk. Perhaps, a resident suggested, Forest City Ratner might be persuaded to contribute the funds.
“Does Ratner want to prove he cares?” someone asked.
“I haven’t asked him,” Markowitz replied testily. Then he went to look at the other side of the kiosk, which, another member of the group was telling him, would be a perfect place for a Christmas tree next year.
Last year, Markowitz went to a basketball game for the first time in his life, at the Meadowlands, with Ratner. “He bought his own ticket, as he is required to do,” Ratner says. “He might even have nodded off now and then. But he does call me when the Nets win. He is very encouraging.” When he was campaigning for the borough presidency, Markowitz said that he wanted to bring an N.B.A. team to Brooklyn, and the idea was taken about as seriously as his appeals for Brooklyn’s secession. But in the fall of 2002, when it became clear that the New Jersey Nets were likely to come on the market, Markowitz picked up the phone. He had done that before: during his first few weeks in office, he called Peter O’Malley, the son of Walter O’Malley, who had moved the Dodgers to California in the nineteen-fifties. “I heard that the team was up for sale, and I said, ‘Mr. O’Malley, it would be great for your family name and everything if you would consider moving the L.A. Dodgers back to Brooklyn,’ ” Markowitz says. “I must tell you, that conversation was very brief.”
Markowitz said of his Nets-related scheming, “I thought to myself, Who can I call who has a dedication to Brooklyn, and that has got the economic ability, because, let’s face it, someone who builds two-family homes is not going to be in a position to buy a team and to build an arena.” He considered Donald Trump, but feared that Trump might move the team closer to Atlantic City and his casino investments. Markowitz did, however, call Bruce Ratner, whose company, over the past two decades, has built the massive Metro Tech development—more than two million square feet of office space—not far from the proposed site of the arena. “Bruce had no interest, absolutely no interest,” Markowitz said. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to look at this fella and know that he’s not a jock.” (Ratner, who is sixty, looks more like the Consumer Affairs Commissioner he was during the Koch administration.) “But I was very persistent with him, and didn’t take no for an answer.”
“He called every two to three weeks,” Ratner says. “I would make up little white lies, and I would wait a day or two to call him back. I am sure I said to my assistant, ‘Oh, my God, it’s Marty.’ ” Eventually, Ratner was convinced of the wisdom of the notion, but not before augmenting the Borough President’s ambitions with his own calculations—“the recognition that there is an opportunity to do what my business is, which is real estate and large-scale economic development.”
Thus the arena imagined by Markowitz became only part of a much larger development, which will stretch six blocks along the border of Prospect Heights. Ratner says that he had looked at the site years ago, but dismissed the idea as unworkable. In the past five to seven years, however, the neighborhood’s profile changed, as the handsome brownstones attracted new residents. “A lot of it stems from the safety, and security, and resurgence of Brooklyn,” Ratner said.
Markowitz believes that the Atlantic Yards development will provide jobs for thousands of Brooklyn residents, particularly those for whom the much discussed rebirth of the borough has meant little more than being priced out of apartments they once could afford. But the proposal has strong opponents, too, including Letitia James, the council member whose district encompasses Prospect Heights, and who, while commending Markowitz for his general efforts on behalf of the borough—“If I had a party, the first person I would invite is Marty,” she says—is skeptical that Ratner’s project is in the borough’s best interests. “This arena is really for the executives who are employed at Metro Tech, and it is across the street from the largest transportation hub for Long Island in the borough,” she says, referring to the L.I.R.R. station at Atlantic Avenue. “It has nothing to do with Brooklynites.”
Neighborhood opposition to the project has ranged from anger at the suggestion that the state may invoke powers of eminent domain to the argument that a privately owned real-estate development is not the best use of the land, a large chunk of which is owned by the M.T.A., and will alter the character of the neighborhood. But the right of the gentrifying class to preserve its property values in blocks close to the arena is not one around which much mass support can be rallied in Brooklyn; and, meanwhile, Forest City Ratner has demonstrated a keen understanding of community politics in lining up support among representatives of the neighborhood’s less affluent populations. While fifty per cent of the housing will be for the luxury market, Ratner says, the rest will be set aside for residents whose incomes are between eighteen thousand and a hundred thousand dollars a year. (There have been similar promises that minority-owned and women-owned businesses will get priority when it comes to applying for construction contracts.) “I never want to see a time in Brooklyn when there are multimillionaires and there are those who live in public housing, and nothing in between,” Markowitz says. He does not mention that the wealthiest new property owner in the neighborhood will be Bruce Ratner.
And only idiots believe that. There has NEVER been a project in New York, where minorities have benefited as much as the people doing the contracting.
People, not just the gentrifyers, don't like that use of the land and the crowds that will come. There is no popular rising for the Nets any more than the Jets. It's about developers making money, nothing more.
. 
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