Air America

Air America, the left-wing radio station, debuts today. You can listen in here.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/31/2004 01:54:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Somalia Part Deux

Mogadishu, October 3, 1993:

American troops are caught in caught in a well-organized ambush by more than a 1,000 guerrillas. Two helicopters were shot down and a third crash-landed at Mogadishu's airport. The U.S. troops established a perimeter around the crash site, but found themselves surrounded and under heavy fire for 11 hours.

In that firefight, 18 American troops were killed, 78 were wounded and one helicopter pilot was captured.

The next day, the guerrillas celebrated a great victory over America � dragging the bodies of the U.S. servicemen through the streets of Mogadishu on live television.

October 7, 1993:

President Clinton declares that American troops are to be fully withdrawn from Somalia by March 31.

Fallujah, March 31, 2004 (WARNING - GRAPHIC):

A crowd of cheering Iraqis dragged the charred and mutilated bodies of four contractors working for the U.S.-led coalition through the streets of Falluja Wednesday after they died in an ambush.

Television pictures showed one incinerated body being kicked and stamped on by a member of the jubilant crowd, while others dragged a blackened body down the road by its feet.

As one body lay burning on the ground, an Iraqi came and doused it with petrol, sending flames soaring.

At least two bodies were tied to cars and pulled through the streets, witnesses said.

"This is the fate of all Americans who come to Falluja," said Mohammad Nafik, one of the crowd surrounding the bodies.

Some body parts were pulled off and left hanging from a telephone cable, while two incinerated bodies were later strung from a bridge and left dangling there.

A young boy beat one of the incinerated bodies after it was pulled down with his shoe as a crowd cheered.

"I am happy to see this. The Americans are occupying us so this is what will happen," said Mohammad, 12, looking on.

Will America pull out of Iraq ala Somalia? Doubtful. But these images are not going to do much to increase public support of the Iraqi debacle.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/31/2004 12:25:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

GRAND THEFT AMERICA

Remember Katherine Harris from the 2000 Presidential Election? Do you have any idea what happened to her?

Watch this.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/29/2004 08:15:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Reality vs. Karl Rove

Hundreds of demonstrators swarmed around Karl Rove's Washington DC home yesterday afternoon in an attempt to engage the President's handler in a conversation about immigrant rights:

Several hundred people stormed the small yard of President Bush's chief political strategist, Karl Rove, yesterday afternoon, pounding on his windows, shoving signs at others and challenging Rove to talk to them about a bill that deals with educational opportunities for immigrants.

Protesters poured out of one school bus after another, piercing an otherwise quiet, peaceful Sunday in Rove's Palisades neighborhood in Northwest, chanting, "Karl, Karl, come on out! See what the DREAM Act is all about!"

Rove obliged their first request and opened his door long enough to say, "Get off my property."

"Seems like he doesn't want to invite us in for tea," Emira Palacios quipped to the crowd.

Others chanted, "Karl Rove ain't got no soul."

The crowd then grew more aggressive, fanning around the three accessible sides of Rove's house, tracking him through the many windows, waving signs that read "Say Yes to DREAM" and pounding on the glass. At one point, Rove rushed to a window, pointed a finger and yelled something inaudible.

Shortly thereafter, sirens shot through the neighborhood and Secret Service agents and D.C. police joined the crowd on the lawn. Rove opened his door long enough to talk to an officer, and the crowd serenaded them with a stanza of "America the Beautiful."

The protest was organized by National People's Action, a coalition of neighborhood advocacy groups based in Chicago.

Leaders said they want Bush to advocate for the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, a bill that would permit immigrants who have lived in the United States for at least five years to apply for legal resident status once they graduate from high school. The measure would eliminate provisions of current federal law that discourage states from providing in-state tuition to undocumented student immigrants.

Immigrant activists say that 50,000 to 65,000 undocumented students graduate from U.S. high school each year and that many students can afford college only at the reduced, in-state rates given to legal residents.

It's been a pretty tough week for Karl Rove. If he wasn't such an evil prick I'd almost feel bad for him.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/29/2004 07:47:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

The Beginning of the End

This is really happening:

Court Opens Door To Searches Without Warrants

NEW ORLEANS -- It's a groundbreaking court decision that legal experts say will affect everyone: Police officers in Louisiana no longer need a search or arrest warrant to conduct a brief search of your home or business.

Leaders in law enforcement say it will provide safety to officers, but others argue it's a privilege that could be abused.

The decision was made by the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Two dissenting judges called it the "road to Hell."

The ruiling stems from a lawsuit filed in Denham Springs in 2000.

New Orleans Police Department spokesman Capt. Marlon Defillo said the new power will go into effect immediately and won't be abused.

"We have to have a legitimate problem to be there in the first place, and if we don't, we can't conduct the search," Defillo said.

But former U.S. Attorney Julian Murray has big problems with the ruling.

"I think it goes way too far," Murray said, noting that the searches can be performed if an officer fears for his safety -- a subjective condition.

Defillo said he doesn't envision any problems in New Orleans, but if there are, they will be handled.

"There are checks and balances to make sure the criminal justce system works in an effective manor," Defillo said.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/29/2004 12:06:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Long Weekend

I'm away for the next few days, so blogging will probably be sporadic until Monday.

If anyone has any juicy tidbits for me, feel free to shoot me an email or leave a comment.

O(+->

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/26/2004 12:37:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Update: Four-Eared Kitten Finds 'Normal' Home

Phew:

A four-eared German kitten has been given a new home after a German animal shelter was deluged with requests to adopt the animal born six months ago with the genetic defect.

[...]

Lilly, born on a farm near the winter resort town famous for hosting the 1936 Winter Olympics, has an extra pair of slightly smaller, non-hearing ears just behind the normal two. Vets have attributed the phenomenon to a gene malfunction.

"The front ears are completely normal while the two ears directly behind them are about half the size and not fully developed," a worker at the Garmisch-Partenkirchen animal shelter said.

Tessy Loedermann, head of the shelter, said Lilly will first be neutered and held at the shelter for another two weeks.

Loedermann said the black-and-white cat with the extra set of ears was "not a freak" but rather an energetic, loving and well-adjusted kitten.

"She is not a mutant," Loedermann said. "She's just a plain and ordinary kitten."

If by "plain and ordinary" you mean "has four ears", then yeah, she's perfectly normal.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/26/2004 12:20:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

No Dollar Left Behind

George Bush swooped into Boston this afternoon for a quick fundraiser:

President Bush will swoop into Boston for a quick fund-raiser this afternoon that could net his campaign $1 million and also draw several thousand protesters, force the closure of a school, and disrupt traffic near the Park Plaza Hotel.

[...]

The president's visit unexpectedly canceled classes for 1,425 children at the Boston Renaissance Charter School, a K-8 institution on Stuart Street a block away from the hotel. The Boston Public Schools system, which provides about 30 buses to transport Renaissance students, said it could not guarantee timely pick-up of students at dismissal time, said Dudley Blodget, chief operating officer of the Renaissance School's foundation. The school also feared that the 300 parents who pick up their children would not be able to reach the school.

"It's a sad situation that you have to close off school because of a fund-raising event," said Roger F. Harris, Renaissance headmaster.

Jonathan Palumbo, spokesman for the Boston Public Schools, said his transportation director only found out about the visit yesterday. The school department has few schools in the area, and they will not be directly affected, Palumbo said, although school officials anticipate delays at dismissal time.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/25/2004 03:33:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

You gonna eat the rest of those fries, Mom?

McDonald's has announced it's going to launch a range of children's clothing:

US fast food giant McDonald's is to launch a range of children's clothing in North America and western Europe.

[...]

In a statement McDonald's said the clothing is intended to offer quality fabrics in styles that will endure "season after season".

Larry Light, McDonald's global chief marketing officer, said the move exemplified "a new thinking"

Clothing will come in two sizes: Large and Super-Sized.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/25/2004 02:51:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

14 year old bomber stopped at Israeli border

So sad:

Israel Defense Forces paratroopers caught a Palestinian boy aged 14 wearing an explosive belt at the Hawara roadblock, south of Nablus, in the West Bank on Wednesday afternoon.

Sappers used a remote-controlled robot to pass scissors to the boy, Hussam Abdu from Nablus, so that he could cut the explosive belt off his body, and then safely detonated it in a controlled explosion.

Abdu, who was taken in for questioning, said that he received NIS 100 (approx. $23 USD) to carry out a suicide attack.

[...]

Abdu told soldiers of his dream of receiving 72 virgins in heaven, which his dispatchers had promised him, and said that he had been tempted by the promise of sexual relations with the virgins. He said that he had been bullied at school for his poor academic performance and that he had wanted "to be a hero."

[...]

Soldiers at the checkpoint said they had received intelligence that there was an imminent attack planned there, shut down the crossing and began searching people there.

Suddenly the boy, wearing an oversized red jersey, approached them in a suspicious way, said an officer at the checkpoint.

"We saw that he had something under his shirt," he said. The soldiers dove behind concrete barricades, pointed their guns at him and told him to stop.

They ordered him to take off his jersey, revealing a large gray bomb vest underneath. "He told us he didn't want to die. He didn't want to blow up," the officer said.

The soldiers then sent the robot to hand the scissors to the boy. He cut off part of the vest and struggled with the rest. "I don't how to get this off," Abdu called to the soldiers.

After he dropped the vest, soldiers ordered him to take off his undershirt and jeans, to ensure he had no other weapons on him.

A television image showing the Palestinian boy who was dispatched Wednesday to an IDF roadblock wearing an explosives belt.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/25/2004 08:09:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

9/11 Testimony

Former National Coordinator For Counterterrorism Richard Clarke's opening statement to the 9/11 commission:

"Your government failed you. �Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. �I failed you. �We tried hard, but we failed you...I ask for your understanding, and your forgiveness. "

The full text transcript of Clarke's testimony can be found here. The video can be watched here.

(thanks to Matt for the quote)


UPDATE: Clarke just said under oath that he WOULD NOT ACCEPT a position in the Kerry administration should one be offered to him.

Under oath.

That should put any accusations of partisanship to bed.


UPDATE II: Check out the dig Bob Kerrey took at Fox News during the hearings:

And let me also say this document of Fox News earlier, this transcript that they had, this is a background briefing. And all of us that have provided background briefings for the press before should beware. I mean, Fox should say occasionally fair and balanced after putting something like this out.

(LAUGHTER)

Because they violated a serious trust.

(APPLAUSE)

All of us that come into this kind of an environment and provide background briefings for the press I think will always have this as a reminder that sometimes it isn't going to happen, that it's background.

Sometimes, if it suits their interest, they're going to go back, pull the tape, convert it into transcript and send it out in the public arena and try to embarrass us or discredit us.

So I object to what they've done, and I think it's an unfortunate thing they did.

Note the remarks generated LAUGHTER and APPLAUSE.

The context is that the White House leaked a transcript of a background briefing that Clarke gave in the summer of 2002. In the briefing, Clarke supposedly lauded the administration's conduct of the war against terrorism, in words which are not exactly consistent with the picture painted in his book. For a so-called "news organization" to play such a blatently partisan role is pretty vile, and it's about time someone took them to task for this type of behavior.

Incidentally, Former Illinois Governor Jim Thompson tried to challenge Clarke's credibility with said briefing, and was summarily reduced to a greasy paste by Clarke's calm, lucid and utterly authoritative manner.

It was a hell of a show.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/24/2004 02:40:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Four-Eared German Kitty Seeking Good Home

Lilly, a six-month old black and white house cat with four ears, is seen in a home for animals in Murnau, southern Germany on March 24.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/24/2004 02:38:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Bush administration eases logging rules

Healthy forests my ass:

The Bush administration on Tuesday eased restrictions on logging old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest, completing a rules change that will allow forest managers to begin logging without first looking for rare plants and animals.

[...]

The change was prompted by a timber industry lawsuit and is intended to increase logging on 24 million acres of public land.

The timber industry had complained for years that so-called "survey and manage" rules are intrusive and can take years to complete. Those rules require study of the potential effects of logging on about 300 plant and animal species.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/24/2004 01:26:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

What A Bunch Of Nuts

Former Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson, D-Culver City, kicks Zhang Xiao Ju between the legs during a demonstration performed by Buddhist monks at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif. In their first visit to the United States, a group of Shaolin martial artists from SongShan, China demonstrated acrobatic flips and shows of strength among other things. With the monks urging him on, Wesson made several kicks to the monk who showed no emotion.


-----------------------------




Bullfighter Ivan Garcia looks down at he is caught by the bull's horn during a bullfight in Castellon, Spain, Monday March 22, 2004. Garcia was not hurt and finished the fight.


-----------------------------




George W. Bush barely contains his excitement after a successful landing aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. Bush spent several minutes prancing around the deck of the aircraft carrier before delivering a speech to hundreds of cheering sailors.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/24/2004 10:00:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

It Really IS Ending Marriage As We Know It

Here's an interesting twist to the gay marriage fiasco:

Oregon county bans all marriage

(Reuters) -- In a new twist in the battle over same-sex marriage roiling the United States, a county in Oregon has banned all marriages -- gay and heterosexual -- until the state decides who can and who cannot wed.

The last marriage licenses were handed out in Benton County at 4 p.m. local time (7:00 p.m. EST) Tuesday. As of Wednesday, officials in the county of 79,000 people will begin telling couples applying for licenses to go elsewhere until the gay marriage debate is settled.

"It may seem odd," Benton County Commissioner Linda Modrell told Reuters in a telephone interview, but "we need to treat everyone in our county equally."

Can we please get over this? There are two wars America is currently fighting, Al Qaeda has nuclear weapons, and Medicare is going to be broke in 15 years. I'm a little surprised that of all the crap that's going on right now gay marriage is what's tearing the very fabric of our society apart.

Just remember, the sillier this all gets, the more the sanctity of marriage is being protected.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/24/2004 07:39:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Daschle Comes Out Swinging

Senate Minority leader Tom Daschle released this statement today:

When former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill stepped forward to criticize the Bush Administration's Iraq policy, he was immediately ridiculed by the people around the President and his credibility was attacked. Even worse, the Administration launched a government investigation to see if Secretary O'Neill improperly disclosed classified documents. He was, of course, exonerated, but the message was clear. If you speak freely, there will be consequences.

Ambassador Joseph Wilson also learned that lesson. Ambassador Wilson, who by all accounts served bravely under President Bush in the early 1990s, felt a responsibility to speak out on President Bush's false State of the Union statement on Niger and uranium. When he did, the people around the President quickly retaliated. Within weeks of debunking the President's claim, Ambassador Wilson's wife was the target of a despicable act.

Her identity as a deep-cover CIA agent was revealed to Bob Novak, a syndicated columnist, and was printed in newspapers around the country. That was the first time in our history, I believe, that the identity and safety of a CIA agent was disclosed for purely political purposes. It was an unconscionable and intolerable act.

Around the same time Bush Administration officials were endangering Ambassador Wilson's wife, they appear to have been threatening another federal employee for trying to do his job. In recent weeks Richard Foster, an actuary for the Department of Health and Human Services, has revealed that he was told he would be fired if he told Congress and the American people the real costs of last year?s Medicare bill.

Mr. Foster, in an e-mail he wrote on June 26 of last year, said the whole episode had been "pretty nightmarish." He wrote: "I'm no longer in grave danger of being fired, but there remains a strong likelihood that I will have to resign in protest of the withholding of important technical information from key policymakers for political purposes."

Think about those words. He would lose his job if he did his job. If he provided the information the Congress and the American people deserved and were entitled to, he would lose his job. When did this become the standard for our government? When did we become a government of intimidation?

And now, in today's newspapers, we see the latest example of how the people around the President react when faced with facts they want to avoid.

The White House's former lead counter-terrorism advisor, Richard Clarke, is under fierce attack for questioning the White House?s record on combating terrorism. Mr. Clarke has served in four White Houses, beginning with Ronald Reagan's Administration, and earned an impeccable record for his work.

Now the White House seeks to destroy his reputation. The people around the President aren't answering his allegations; instead, they are trying to use the same tactics they used with Paul O'Neill. They are trying to ridicule Mr. Clarke and destroy his credibility, and create any diversion possible to focus attention away from his serious allegations.

The purpose of government isn't to make the President look good. It isn't to produce propaganda or misleading information. It is, instead, to do its best for the American people and to be accountable to the American people.

The people around the President don't seem to believe that. They have crossed a line -- perhaps several lines -- that no government ought to cross.

We shouldn't fire or demean people for telling the truth. We shouldn't reveal the names of law enforcement officials for political gain. And we shouldn't try to destroy people who are out to make country safer.

I think the people around the President have crossed into dangerous territory. We are seeing abuses of power that cannot be tolerated.

The President needs to put a stop to it, right now. We need to get to the truth, and the President needs to help us do that.

Finally. We need to see organized responses from everyone in the Democratic leadership positions. The GOP has 20 talking heads that they send out on every issue, and we should be able to respond quickly and effectively. This is a great statement, and I hope Daschle keeps it up.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/23/2004 03:59:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

9/11 Commission Webcast

Powell, Rumsfeld, and a whole cast of lively characters are testifying in front of the 9/11 panel today. CSPAN is webcasting it here.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/23/2004 12:08:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Some Thoughts On Credibility

There was a time when David Kay was the Great White Hope of the far right. His name was once bandied about by White House press secretaries, cabinet members, and drug-addled talk show hosts. We were told over and over "David Kay is still looking for WMD in Iraq, and he's already found so much. You'll all be very sorry that you made this an issue."

As most of you probably know, David Kay has since renounced Bush's war. Yesterday he spoke at Harvard, and I don't think he'll be cited by Rumsfeld anytime soon:

The former chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq warned on Monday that the United States is in "grave danger" of destroying its credibility at home and abroad if it does not own up to its mistakes in Iraq.

"The cost of our mistakes ... with regard to the explanation of why we went to war in Iraq are far greater than Iraq itself," David Kay said in a speech at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

"We are in grave danger of having destroyed our credibility internationally and domestically with regard to warning about future events," he said. "The answer is to admit you were wrong, and what I find most disturbing around Washington ... is the belief ... you can never admit you're wrong."

Contrary to what you'll hear from the White House, the WMD hunt is over. It has been abandoned by the chief weapons inspector. And to make matters worse, he is pouring salt in their wounds at the worst possible time:

He cautioned the intelligence community against jumping to premature conclusions, as it did in Iraq. "One of the most dangerous things abroad in the world of intelligence today actually came out of 9/11 ... the insistence of 'Why didn't you connect the dots?' The dots were all there," he said.

"When we finally do the sums on Iraq, what will turn out is that we simply didn't know what was going on, but we connected the dots -- the dots from 1991 behavior were connected with 2000 behavior and 2003 behavior, and it became an explanation and a picture of Iraq that simply didn't exist," Kay said.

Coming on the heels of Dick Clarke's book/60 Minutes appearance is (or at least should be) absolutely devastating. Yet once again, Bush and his cronies appear unable to accept reality. They casually brush off Senior Terrorism Advisor Richard Clarke, Chief Weapons Inpector David Kay, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, Ambassador Joe Wilson, etc. as being nothing more than disgruntled former employees. It seems as though in order to believe the White House, you have to assume that all of these people who've been public servants for decades are all simply liars. The White House expects America to accept that these people have put years of service to the country and their reputations on the line just to wrong Bush.

In today's Washington Post, Richard Cohen sums it up rather well:

Pity poor George Bush. For some reason, he has been beset by delusional aides who, once they leave the White House, write books containing lies and exaggerations and -- this is the lowest blow of all -- do not take into account the president's genius and all-around wisdom. The latest White House aide to betray the president is Richard Clarke, who was in charge of counterterrorism before and after the attacks of Sept. 11. He says Bush "failed to act prior to September 11 on the threat from al Qaeda."

As with former Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill, another fool who had somehow risen to become chairman of Alcoa, Clarke's account of his more than two years in the Bush White House was immediately denounced by a host of administration aides, some of whom -- and this is just the sheerest of coincidences -- had once assured us that Iraq was armed to the teeth with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Among them, of course, was Condoleezza Rice, who on Monday insisted in a Post op-ed column that Bush not only did everything just right, but so, really, did Bill Clinton. Both administrations "worked hard," she wrote.

This is not what Clarke says in his new book and in interviews conducted in tandem with its publication. On the contrary, he says the Bush administration not only belittled the terrorist threat -- China and missile defense were its initial preoccupations -- but it took its own sweet time coming to grips with al Qaeda. From the start, he says, certain White House aides were fixated on Iraq -- and after Sept. 11, apparently so was Bush. He said he encountered the president the next night in the Situation Room. "See if Saddam did it," the president ordered.

"But Mr. President, al Qaeda did this," Clarke says he replied. The president persevered: "I know, I know, but . . . see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred."

[...]

The White House has opened its guns on Clarke. He is being contradicted and soon, as with poor O'Neill, his sanity and probity will be questioned. It's getting to be downright amazing how former White House aides tell the same tale -- a case, the White House wants us to believe, of hysteria or unaccountable betrayal. I'd like to believe my president, but as Clarke quotes him in a different context, "I'm looking for any shred."

As with Saddam Hussein, it doesn't exist.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/23/2004 09:09:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

More of this please

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/23/2004 08:27:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

The Reality of Homeland Security

Time Magazine has an excellent article on the allocation of Homeland Security funds as compared to risk analysis:

International terrorism, as most experts will tell you, is not as unpredictable as it feels. Terrorists follow patterns. And while we can't read the minds of zealots, we can get a good idea of what kind of damage they could do in any given location. We can estimate the cost of an attack on a port in Los Angeles vs. an attack on a port in Prince William Sound. We can calculate where a nuclear blast of a given force would kill 500,000 people as opposed to 50,000. These are the logical estimates that insurers and investment banks are seeking as they try to quantify the risk they face.

But while all this strategic thinking is going on in the private sector, the government has responded to terrorism in a less rational way. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, about $13.1 billion has surged into state coffers from the Federal Government�sorely needed money that has gone for police, fire and emergency services to help finance equipment and training to prevent and respond to terrorist attacks.

That is a 990% increase over the $1.2 billion spent by the Federal Government for similar programs in the preceding three years. But the vast majority of the $13.1 billion was distributed with no regard for the threats, vulnerabilities and potential consequences faced by each region. Of the top 10 states and districts receiving the most money per capita last year, only the District of Columbia also appeared on a list of the top 10 most at-risk places, as calculated by AIR for TIME. In fact, funding appears to be almost inversely proportional to risk. If all the federal homeland-security grants from last year are added together, Wyoming received $61 a person while California got just $14, according to data gathered at TIME's request by the Public Policy Institute of California, an independent, nonprofit research organization. Alaska received an impressive $58 a resident, while New York got less than $25. On and on goes the upside-down math of the new homeland-security funding.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/22/2004 04:58:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Eric Alterman vs. Dennis Miller

You've got to give some credit to anyone who can humiliate Dennis Miller and his paid audience so thoroughly.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/22/2004 04:43:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Clarke Interview on 60 Minutes

The Whiskey Bar has a good take on the Clarke interview here. I don't have much to add, but as always Billmon's stuff is worth a read.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/22/2004 09:10:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Bush's War Continues

Both the Bush administration and the media seem to have completely forgotten, but in case you were wondering 36 Americans have been killed in Iraq so far this month.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/22/2004 08:54:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Washington Post: Congress Not Advised Of Shadow Government

This is from The Washington Post, not some crazy-ass "they can hear me through my fillings" website:

Key congressional leaders said yesterday the White House did not tell them that President Bush has moved a cadre of senior civilian managers to secret underground sites outside Washington to ensure that the federal government could survive a devastating terrorist attack on the nation's capital.

Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) said he had not been informed about the role, location or even the existence of the shadow government that the administration began to deploy the morning of the Sept. 11 hijackings. An aide to House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) said he similarly was unaware of the administration's move.

Among Congress's GOP leadership, aides to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (Ill.), second in line to succeed the president if he became incapacitated, and to Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (Miss.) said they were not sure whether they knew.

Aides to Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.) said he had not been told. As Senate president pro tempore, he is in line to become president after the House speaker.

Bush acknowledged yesterday that the administration had taken extensive measures to guarantee "the continuity of government," after it was revealed that about 100 top officials, spanning every executive branch department, have been sent to live and work in two fortified locations on the East Coast. This system, in which high-ranking administrators are rotating in and out of the two sites, represents the first time a president has activated the contingency plan, which was devised during the Cold War of the 1950s so that federal rule could continue if Washington were struck by a catastrophic attack.

[...]

At least some members of Congress suggested yesterday that the administration should have conferred about its plans, which were first reported in The Washington Post yesterday.

"There are two other branches of government that are central to the functioning of our democracy," said Rep. William Delahunt (D-Mass.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee. "I would hope the speaker and the minority leader would at least pose the question, 'What about us?' "

Let's just pray that Al-Qaeda doesn't get their hands on any serious weaponry. If they do, Bush & his cronies are obviously poised to assume full control of the US government in the case of a catastrophic attack.

I continue to underestimate the Machiavellan audacity of a certain group of people who are determined to govern the world. If the Bush administration gets another term, it could wind up lasting a lot longer than four years.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/22/2004 08:23:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Al-Qaeda Claims to Have Briefcase Nukes

Here's a little something to freak out about:

Osama bin Laden's terror network claims to have bought ready-made nuclear weapons on the black market in central Asia, the biographer of al-Qaida's No. 2 leader was quoted as telling an Australian television station.

In an interview scheduled to be televised on Monday, Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir said Ayman al-Zawahri claimed that "smart briefcase bombs" were available on the black market. It was not clear when the interview between Mir and al-Zawahri took place.

U.S. intelligence agencies have long believed that al-Qaida attempted to acquire a nuclear device on the black market, but say there is no evidence it was successful.

In the interview with Australian Broadcasting Corp. television, parts of which were released Sunday, Mir recalled telling al-Zawahri it was difficult to believe that al-Qaida had nuclear weapons when the terror network didn't have the equipment to maintain or use them.

"Dr Ayman al-Zawahri laughed and he said 'Mr. Mir, if you have $30 million, go to the black market in central Asia, contact any disgruntled Soviet scientist, and a lot of ... smart briefcase bombs are available,'" Mir said in the interview.

"They have contacted us, we sent our people to Moscow, to Tashkent, to other central Asian states and they negotiated, and we purchased some suitcase bombs," Mir quoted al-Zawahri as saying.

Al-Qaida has never hidden its interest in acquiring nuclear weapons.

Do you see the word "Iraq" anywhere in that article? How about "Saddam"? Neither did I. Bush and Cheney got their oil and Al-Qaeda got their nukes.

Even if this doesn't result in the aforementioned "shadow government" assuming power, it's still a pretty bad sign. At the very least, we know that while Bush was prancing around on an aircraft carrier, these guys were busy buying nuclear weapons. And that pretty much sums up Bush's record on national security right there.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/22/2004 08:07:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Science Friday

Today we've got three stories to quench your thirst for scientific knowledge:

• NASA hears words not yet spoken
  

  NASA has developed a computer program that comes close to reading thoughts not yet spoken, by analyzing nerve commands to the throat.
  
  It says the breakthrough holds promise for astronauts and the handicapped.
  
  "A person using the subvocal system thinks of phrases and talks to himself so quietly it cannot be heard, but the tongue and vocal cords do receive speech signals from the brain," said developer Chuck Jorgensen, of NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California.
  
  "So we silently spelled out 'NASA' and then submitted it to a well-known Web search engine. We electronically numbered the Web pages that came up as search results. We used the numbers again to choose Web pages to examine. This proved we could browse the Web without touching a keyboard."
  
  The next trial will command a robot similar to the Rovers currently exploring Mars.
  
  "We can have the model Rover go left or right using silently 'spoken' words.

• Many Species at Risk of Extinction
  

  A steep decline in birds, butterflies and native plants in Britain supports the theory that humans are pushing the natural world into the Earth's sixth big extinction event and the future may see more and more animal species disappearing.
  
  In an effort that sent more than 20,000 volunteers into every corner of England, Scotland and Wales to survey wildlife and plants, researchers found that many native populations are in big trouble and some are gone altogether.
  
  "This is the first time, for instance, that we can answer the question, 'Have butterflies declined as badly as birds?'" said Jeremy A. Thomas, an ecologist with the National Environment Research Council in Dorchester, England, and the first author of a study appearing in the journal Science.
  
  A survey of 58 butterfly species found that some had experienced a 71 percent population swoon since similar surveys taken from 1970 through 1982. Some 201 bird species were tracked between 1968 and 1971, and then again from 1988 to 1991, with a population decline of about 54 percent.
  
  Two surveys of 1,254 native plant species showed a decrease of about 28 percent over 40 years.
  
  Thomas said that other scientists, noting losses of mammals and other animals, have speculated about the loss of insects, but the British butterfly study is the first to actually document over decades such a steep decline.

• Corpse of monk in lotus position who died in 1723 found in Vietnam
  

  The corpse of a Buddhist monk sitting in a lotus position has been uncovered in a pagoda in northern Vietnam over 280 years after he died, a museum official said.
  
  
  
  The body of the monk, Nhu Tri, who died in 1723 in a tower at the Tieu Pagoda in Bac Ninh province, was covered in a layer of special preservative paint.
  
  His internal organs remained intact but one eye socket was damaged and his arms were broken off at the elbow, according to Nguyen Duy Nhat, deputy director of the Bac Ninh Museum.
  
  The corpse was first discovered around 30 years ago during the Vietnam War but local authorities were not in a position to preserve it.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/19/2004 12:04:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

But the Bottle Is So Pretty

Coca-Cola has recalled UK bottled water:

The Coca-Cola Co said on Friday it had recalled its entire Dasani range of bottled water from the British market after levels of bromate, a potentially harmful chemical, were found to exceed legal standards.

"Bromate is a chemical that could cause an increased cancer risk as a result of long-term exposure, although there is no immediate risk to public health," the agency said in a statement.

This comes on the heels of a news release in which Coca-Cola admitted that Dasani is nothing more than purified tap water:

Judith Snyder, brand PR manager for Dasani, confirmed "municipal" water supplies were used but said the source was "irrelevant" because it "doesn't affect the end result".

She said: "We would never say tap water isn't drinkable.

"It's just that Dasani is as pure as water can get - there are different levels of purity."

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/19/2004 12:02:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Voting: Is It REALLY Necessary?

Via The Agonist we learn that Diebold is at it again:

Courtesy of a new friend we have this footage of a video taken in a closed-door meeting concerning Diebold machines in Texas.

Do you feel good about the next election?

Go here to learn more. And feel free to pass that video around to everyone you know.

I've said it before, and I'll say it as many times as I have to - this is the single greatest threat to American democracy. Nothing else even comes close.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/19/2004 11:56:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Tennessee County Decides Not to Ban Gays After All

This pretty much sums it up:

The county that was the site of the Scopes "Monkey Trial" over the teaching of evolution Thursday reversed its call to ban homosexuals.

Rhea County commissioners took about three minutes to retreat from a request to amend state law so the county can charge homosexuals with crimes against nature. The Tuesday measure passed 8-0.

County attorney Gary Fritts said the initial vote triggered a "wildfire" of reaction. "I've never seen nothing like this," he said Thursday.

[...]

But 12-year-old Caitlin Kinney, attending the meeting with her mother, said she supported the commissioners' initial vote.

"I think they should go further, try to see if they can ban them," she said. "It's not a Christian thing."

The politically conservative county holds an annual festival commemorating the 1925 trial at which high school teacher John T. Scopes was convicted of teaching evolution.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/19/2004 11:51:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Doh!

Thank God we've still got 6 months left:

A BULLETPROOF LandCruiser at high speed bursting out of a tribal compound in Pakistan's South Waziristan region was just the latest infuriating setback in the US's quest to bring down the top of the al-Qa'ida tree.

The car, followed by two armoured vehicles and a phalanx of heavily armed militants able to wipe out dozens of crack troops sent to blast the terrorists from their nest, is believed to have contained Ayman al-Zawahiri, right-hand man to Osama bin Laden.

After mounting speculation that US and Pakistani forces ranged on either side of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border were about to pounce on al-Qa'ida's key planner, a senior Taliban spokesman yesterday made the claim Washington least wanted to hear - that both Zawahiri and bin Laden were safe in Afghanistan.

"He may have slipped the net," the official said.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/19/2004 10:12:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

I guess that settles it

Resolved, by a vote of 327 to 93:

House Resolution HR 557

Relating to the liberation of the Iraqi people and the valiant
service of the United States Armed Forces and Coalition
forces.

Resolved, That the House of Representatives�

(1) affirms that the United States and the world have been made safer with the removal of Saddam Hussein and his regime from power in Iraq.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/18/2004 05:05:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Georgia Watch: Tentative Deal Struck

It looks like things might be settling down a bit in Georgia:

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili Thursday defused the worst crisis since he came to power, lifting an economic blockade on the rebellious Adzhara region in return for more of a say in local affairs.

The five-day standoff between central government and the Adzhara region had threatened to spill into armed conflict, blocked oil shipments from the port of Batumi and highlighted strained relations with former Soviet master Russia.

Washington has been watching, keen to see Georgia independent of Russia but concerned that nothing disrupt the construction of a new Western pipeline to deliver oil from the Caspian Sea directly to the Mediterranean Sea.

I seriously doubt this saga is over. I'll keep my eyes out for more information.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/18/2004 04:56:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Unbelievable

I don't even know what to say about this:

The county that was the site of the Scopes "Monkey Trial" over the teaching of evolution is asking lawmakers to amend state law so the county can charge homosexuals with crimes against nature.

The Rhea County commissioners approved the request 8-0 Tuesday.

Commissioner J.C. Fugate, who introduced the measure, also asked the county attorney to find a way to enact an ordinance banning homosexuals from living in the county.

"We need to keep them out of here," Fugate said.

It's a good think there's no law against being an ignorant dick. Something tells me these commissioners wouldn't like prison very much.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/18/2004 04:53:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Speaking of Homeland Security...

Nuclear Security Training Lacking

Nuclear weapons plants have eliminated or reduced training for guards responsible for repelling terrorist attacks, leaving the government unable to guarantee the plants can be adequately defended, the Energy Department's internal watchdog said.

One plant has reduced training hours by 40 percent, and some plants conduct tactical training only in classrooms, according to a report from the department's inspector general.

Some contractors fear that injuries among guards during training exercises could reduce bonus payments from the government, the report said. Guards typically receive 320 hours of training.

Only one of 10 plants surveyed, Hanford, Wash., trains guards in the basic use of a shotgun, according to the report. None of the plants teaches guards how to rappel down buildings or cliffs because of concerns that guards might be injured.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/18/2004 04:48:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Kerry Speech

Doesn't sound particularly weak on defense to me:

So, let me say here today, to every soldier and every soldier's family: This time help is on the way, and it won't be coming from George Bush.

If I am President, never again will parents or husbands or wives of soldiers have to send them body armor instead of photographs and care packages. Last month a young newlywed in Virginia who, as her husband was about to ship out to Iraq, gave him a bullet proof vest for Valentine's Day. I can tell you right now: in a Kerry Administration, no one will be getting body armor as a gift from a loved one; it will come from the Armed Forces of the United States of America. We will supply our troops with everything they need -- and we will reimburse each and every family who has had to buy body armor because this Administration made Valentine's Day part of the procurement process.

Our military is about much more than moving pins on a map or amassing expensive new weapon systems. A strong military depends first of all on the courage of the men and women who stand a post or go out on patrol in places around the globe and who carry on every day until the mission is accomplished for real. We need a Commander-in-Chief who honors and supports them, for real; a Commander-in-Chief who repays their risks on the battlefield by providing them with the best weapons and protections as they go into battle, a Commander-in-Chief who recognizes their commitment and sacrifice, and offers their families a decent life here at home.

To all of the military families who are here today, we say thank you. And to my fellow veterans, the band of brothers who have been with me for so long and to whom I owe so much, I pledge that unlike the time when we fought side by side, I will be a President who does what's right for our men and women in uniform.

I will never forget that our true power is measured not only by the strength of our weapons, but by the spirit of our soldiers.

To me, that is not just rhetoric; it is the reality I lived - and it is central to the work of my life. So I come here today to propose a Military Family Bill of Rights - real and specific guarantees - that will keep faith with those who served and the families who share in their sacrifice.

Full text here.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/18/2004 04:19:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

McCain Says Kerry Is Not Weak On Defense

What the hell is going on here?

Republican Senator John McCain is speaking up in defense of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

McCain tells NBC he doesn't believe that Kerry is "necessarily weak on defense" -- even though he says they disagree on some issues.

McCain serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee and is a friend of the Massachusetts senator. He says Kerry and President Bush should be talking about Medicare and other issues instead of engaging in negative campaigning.

Now, don't get me wrong. I appreciate that John McCain is sticking up for Kerry.

But where's the Democratic Party on this? Where's Bill Clinton? Where's Al Gore? Why is the loudest pro-Kerry voice coming from a Republican Senator?

The Democrats had better get their act together fast. This is going to be a tough election, and the GOP is nothing if not unified. The left (and the center, for that matter) needs to coalesce around John Kerry immediately if we're going to have a shot at beating the Rove machine in November.

We need to set aside our ideological differences and focus our energies with laserlike precision. Getting John Kerry is the only objective that matters at this point, and if we're going to achieve that objective we're going to need a lot of help from the party leaders. We need to see some high profile Democrats rallying around Kerry. Hopefully they'll start coming out sometime soon.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/18/2004 04:03:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Freedom Sausage

Looks like Poland is going to be adopting a strategy of preemptive appeasement:

In a first sign of official criticism in Poland of the US-led invasion of Iraq, President Aleksander Kwasniewski said that his country had been "taken for a ride" about the alleged existence of weapons of mass destruction in the strife-torn country.

That they deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that's true. We were taken for a ride," Kwasniewski said Thursday.

He argued however that it made no sense to pull US-led coalition troops out of Iraq.

His comments marked the first time Poland has publicly criticized Washington's argument for invading Iraq and for winning support from Poland and other European allies such as Britain and Spain.

[...]

The Polish head of state questioned the wisdom of pulling foreign troops from the strife-torn country saying such a move could have a counter effect.

"What would be the point of pulling the troops if it meant a return to war, ethnic cleansing and conflict in neighboring countries," he told a group of visiting French journalists.

"If we protest against the United States' dominant role in world politics and we withdraw our troops knowing they will be replaced by US soldiers, what would be the point of such a move?" he questioned.

For what it's worth, I think this is a pretty sensible approach to the whole Iraq mess. Accept that the Bush Administration lied their way into the war and knowingly deceived our allies, but also acknowledge the reality of the situation. Iraq is completely fucked up, and it's going to take a REAL international coalition to fix it. Bush should be held in utter contempt for his devious and destructive foreign policy, but that's become a separate issue from the Iraq war.

The main focus at this point should be helping Iraq to avoid descending into a hellish civil war. The Iraqi people need to have as much support as possible from a broad base of nations. Hopefully world leaders will be able to forgive America for Bush's egregious transgressions, and will rally around John Kerry when he gets elected this November.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/18/2004 03:40:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Fight the Good Fight

If you're an out of work techie, click here for job listings at the Kerry Campaign.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/18/2004 03:27:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Press Conference on Military Suicides Cancelled

Ignoring it won't make it go away:

While President George W. Bush, his war cabinet and their consultants are making the rounds this week in their current Iraq war anniversary blitz, pushing their message on the benefits of the conflict, a long-awaited media briefing by the army on the cost part was cancelled.

[...]

To date, the Army reports 23 OIF soldiers killed themselves in Iraq and Kuwait in 2003, well above normal Army rates. That number rose very recently because two of five "non-combat" deaths that were under investigation have now been classified as suicides. Then there are the soldiers who have killed themselves back in the United States. That number was six -- until last weekend..

Last Sunday, in Monument, Colo., a 36-year-old Special Forces soldier named William Howell, just three weeks back from Iraq, shot himself in the head. There had been a disturbance; a phone call to the police by his wife. When police arrived at their home, Howell was following his wife around the front yard waving a handgun. "He was ordered to drop his weapon by one of the officers, but instead placed the weapon to his head and pulled the trigger," according to a statement issued by the El Paso County Sheriff's office.

Police said they had no record suggesting there had been any kind of domestic disturbance in the Howell household before William went to Iraq.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/18/2004 03:24:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Gotcha

World Bank President James Wolfensohn (L) covered with green paint, walks with host Slovenian Minister for Finance Dusan Mramor (R) in Ljubljana March 17, 2004. Wolfensohn and Mramor were attacked on the street in front of the government palace with green paint by anti-globalization protestors.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/17/2004 04:39:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Powerful blast shatters Baghdad hotel

Terrible:

A powerful explosion, apparently from a car bomb, went off in the Karrada district of central Baghdad Wednesday, virtually destroying the Mount Lebanon Hotel and damaging a number of houses and offices nearby.

Iraqi police sources said there were "many dead, many injured."

A coalition military official said he believed the blast was caused by a car bomb.

"It's a scene from hell here," CNN Baghdad Bureau Chief Jane Arraf said.

"People are crying and screaming and debris is everywhere," Arraf said.

"I heard the explosion and I ran down the street, and saw many, many people killed. There were children dead," Raad Abdul Karim, 30, told Reuters. "They are ordinary families. I don't know why this happened."

Here's the paragraph that worries me though:

Iraqi police and coalition soldiers cordoned off the area. U.S. soldiers from the nearby "Green Zone" attempted to go into the area to rescue victims but were driven back by angry Iraqis.

That's not a good sign.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/17/2004 01:48:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

The Senator Prank

And you thought Americans weren't funny:



click here for wacky hijinks


Be sure to check out Rick "Man-On-Dog" Santorum's funniest joke. What a laff factory that guy must be.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/17/2004 01:33:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Honduran Troops to Leave Iraq This Summer

The Coalition of the Willing isn't looking so enthusiastic lately:

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) - Honduras will withdraw its 370 troops from a Spanish-led humanitarian and peacekeeping brigade in Iraq this summer - a previously scheduled move that coincides with Spain's planned pullout, top Honduran officials said Tuesday.

El Salvadoran leaders, meanwhile, said they would consider keeping their 380 troops in place beyond a summer deadline for withdrawal if asked by the United States. That could change after Sunday's presidential elections, however: A leftist candidate who is trailing slightly behind the ruling party's conservative politician, has said he would withdraw Salvadoran soldiers if he wins.

And this from Spain:

Spain's new leader intensified his criticism of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq on Wednesday, saying it was "turning into a fiasco." Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero also refused to reconsider his pledge to pull his 1,300 troops out of Iraq by June 30, in a sharp break with the Bush administration.

Zapatero had signaled his dislike of President Bush's policies during the Spanish election campaign when he said he hoped Democratic challenger John Kerry would win in November.

The International Herald Tribune recently quoted Zapatero as saying, "We're aligning ourselves with Kerry. Our allegiance will be for peace, against war, no more deaths for oil, and for a dialogue between the government of Spain and the new Kerry administration."

So, just for the record, there's at least one foreign leader who wants Kerry to win.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/17/2004 12:35:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Al-Qaida Likely Planning Unprecedented Attack by Sea

Great. Just great:

The al-Qaida terror network likely is planning an unprecedented maritime attack, hitting targets on land with ships carrying chemical, biological or dirty bomb weapons, a defense analyst said Wednesday.

The terrorist network could easily exploit weaknesses in shipping companies' crew selection procedures by planting sleeper agents on vessels to eventually seize them, said Michael Richardson, a senior researcher at Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies who writes extensively on Asian security issues.

"The al-Qaida network has serious maritime terrorism plans," Richardson told diplomats, academics and defense officials at the institute.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/17/2004 12:13:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Slow News Day

I'm pretty busy today, and there doesn't seem to be too much going on so blogging will probably be pretty light.

If you're really starving for news go read about the genius who nailed himself to a cross in Maine.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/16/2004 12:22:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Department of Homeland Theatrics

From an excellent TIME article on the dynamics of the 2004 election:

Administration sources tell TIME that employees at the Department of Homeland Security have been asked to keep their eyes open for opportunities to pose the President in settings that might highlight the Administration's efforts to make the nation safer. The goal, they are being told, is to provide Bush with one homeland-security photo-op a month.

Did you get that? The Bush campaign is using the Department of Homeland Security for photo-ops.

Have they caught all the terrorists yet? Is 100% of the baggage being screened at 100% of US airports? Are all of our ports completely secured?

It's one thing to use 9/11 as a political commercial. It's a completely different breed of animal to divert resources away from actual real-life anti-terror efforts so that Bush can pretend to be concerned about National Security.

So let it be known: Next time you see a picture of Bush on top of a pile of bomb-sniffing robotic heterosexual dogs, you know the Department of Homeland Security has just turned in it's monthly photo shoot.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/15/2004 11:38:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

This Can't Be Happening

HR 3920 (link via Atrios):

Congressional Accountability for Judicial Activism Act of 2004 (Introduced in House)

HR 3920 IH

108th CONGRESS

2d Session

H. R. 3920
To allow Congress to reverse the judgments of the United States Supreme Court.


IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

March 9, 2004
Mr. LEWIS of Kentucky (for himself, Mr. DEMINT, Mr. EVERETT, Mr. POMBO, Mr. COBLE, Mr. COLLINS, Mr. GOODE, Mr. PITTS, Mr. FRANKS of Arizona, Mr. HEFLEY, Mr. DOOLITTLE, and Mr. KINGSTON) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committee on Rules, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


A BILL
To allow Congress to reverse the judgments of the United States Supreme Court.


Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Congressional Accountability for Judicial Activism Act of 2004'.

SEC. 2. CONGRESSIONAL REVERSAL OF SUPREME COURT JUDGMENTS.

The Congress may, if two thirds of each House agree, reverse a judgment of the United States Supreme Court--

(1) if that judgment is handed down after the date of the enactment of this Act; and

(2) to the extent that judgment concerns the constitutionality of an Act of Congress.

SEC. 3. PROCEDURE.

The procedure for reversing a judgment under section 2 shall be, as near as may be and consistent with the authority of each House of Congress to adopt its own rules of proceeding, the same as that used for considering whether or not to override a veto of legislation by the President.

SEC. 4. BASIS FOR ENACTMENT.

This Act is enacted pursuant to the power of Congress under article III, section 2, of the Constitution of the United States.

Hopefully this is a showboating bill that stands no chance of being passed, but the fact that it's even being introduced at all is beyond insane.

Just thinking about it though - what happens if the Supreme Court finds this bill unconstitutional? Can Congress find that unconstitutional? Then can the Supreme Court find THAT unconstitutional? Then can Congress find THAT unconstitutional....

You see where this is going.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/15/2004 11:19:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Ashcroft Goes Home to Heal

Attorney General John Ashcroft is going home to heal after surgery.

Isn't it about time for someone to subpoena his medical records? Surely he can't believe he has a right to privacy?

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/15/2004 01:01:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Iraq Soldier to File as Conscientious Objector

A must-read:

In Iraq last April, freshly promoted Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia led squads of Florida National Guard soldiers in the fight against insurgents in the deadly Sunni triangle.

But Mejia became increasingly pained by his war experiences, and when he went on leave in the autumn, he decided not to come back. The staff sergeant--one of about 600 soldiers counted as AWOL by the Army during home leaves from Iraq--eventually was labeled a deserter.

Now, after five months in hiding, Mejia plans to surrender Monday in Boston on the eve of the war's first anniversary, and he aims to become the first Iraq war veteran to publicly challenge the morality and conduct of the conflict. At a time when polls indicate that Americans' support for the war is slipping, Mejia intends to seek conscientious-objector status to avoid a court-martial.

In an interview with the Tribune, Mejia, 28, of Miami, said he found the war and many of his combat orders morally questionable and ultimately unacceptable. He has been living in New York and other Eastern cities, traveling by bus instead of by plane or car to escape the attention of the police and military. He has avoided using his credit cards and cell phone.

Mejia accuses commanders of using GIs as "bait" to lure out Iraqi fighters so that U.S. soldiers could win combat decorations. He also says operations were conducted in ways that sometimes risked injuring civilians. He has accused his battalion and company commanders of incompetence and has reiterated other guardsmen's complaints about being poorly equipped.

Those commanders, however, defended their conduct. His immediate commander described Mejia as a poorly performing soldier who "lost his nerve" as bloodshed intensified in one of Iraq's more violent cities, Ramadi.

Perhaps the turning point for Mejia was the day in Iraq when he was ordered to shoot at Iraqis protesting and hurling grenades toward his position from about 75 yards away, which he considered too far of a distance to be a real threat. Mejia and his men opened fire on one, and he fell, his blood pooling around him.

"It was the first time I had fired at a human being," Mejia recalled. "I guess you could say it was my initiation at killing a human being. . . . One thing I ask myself a lot, `Did I hit him?'

More here.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/15/2004 12:09:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Spain Likely to Pull Troops From Iraq

That didn't take long:

Spain's new prime minister-elect today reiterated that Spain will withdraw its 1,300 troops from Iraq, unless the United Nations "taking charge of the situation."

Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said "the war has been a disaster, the occupation continues to be a disaster. . . . There must be consequences. There has been one already," he said, "the election result. The second will be that Spanish troops will come back."

Zapatero made his comments in a post-election interview Monday with Spain's Cadena SER radio. He elaborated later in a news conference, saying that "the occupation of Iraq has been poorly managed . . . If there isn't a change and the United Nations doesn't take charge of the situation, and the occupying forces don't cede political control, the Spanish troops will return and the deadline for their presence there will be June 30."

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/15/2004 09:39:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Peak Oil

Prices for all grades of gasoline rose 1.34 cents in the last two weeks to a record high nationwide average of $1.77 a gallon, according to a study released Sunday.





For more information, type "peak oil" into any search engine.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/15/2004 08:26:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

The Clean President (Except for the Bloody Hands)

What a sad little man:

For days now, the job at Eisenhower Park in Nassau County has been to follow the order from the White House through the Secret Service and down to the park workers:

"The president's feet are not to touch the dirt."

So all yesterday, large crews drawn from all county parks worked to ensure that, as always in his life, George Bush's feet do not touch the ground when he appears in the big park today.

Bush arrives for a fund-raiser at a restaurant in the park. That is indoors and he doesn't have to worry about his feet there. But he has to go over ground to an administration building where he is to meet with families of 9/11 victims. After that, he has to go over more ground to get to the site of a memorial to the victims.

He doesn't want his feet on the ground and he will be at a groundbreaking ceremony.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/15/2004 08:17:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Nailed to the Wall

Via David Sirota, an actual interview!

SCHIEFFER: Well, let me just ask you this. If they did not have these weapons of mass destruction, though, granted all of that is true, why then did they pose an immediate threat to us, to this country?

Sec. RUMSFELD: Well, you're the--you and a few other critics are the only people I've heard use the phrase `immediate threat.' I didn't. The president didn't. And it's become kind of folklore that that's--that's what's happened. The president went...

SCHIEFFER: You're saying that nobody in the administration said that.

Sec. RUMSFELD: I--I can't speak for nobody--everybody in the administration and say nobody said that.

SCHIEFFER: Vice president didn't say that? The...

Sec. RUMSFELD: Not--if--if you have any citations, I'd like to see 'em.

Mr. FRIEDMAN: We have one here. It says `some have argued that the nu'--this is you speaking--`that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent, that Saddam is at least five to seven years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain.'

Sec. RUMSFELD: And--and...

Mr. FRIEDMAN: It was close to imminent.

Sec. RUMSFELD: Well, I've--I've tried to be precise, and I've tried to be accurate. I'm s--suppose I've...

Mr. FRIEDMAN: `No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world and the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.'

Sec. RUMSFELD: Mm-hmm. It--my view of--of the situation was that he--he had--we--we believe, the best intelligence that we had and other countries had and that--that we believed and we still do not know--we will know.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/15/2004 08:13:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Georgia Watch: Tensions Heighten

Looks like things are coming to a head in Georgia:

Tensions heightened in Georgia after police in the former Soviet republic's semi-autonomous Adjara region barred President Mikhail Saakashvili Sunday, March 14, from entering the coastal province.

Saakashvili's motorcade was met with warning shots as it approached a checkpoint near the town of Cholokhi , Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted the head of Georgia's Security Council as saying in televised comments.

Head of Georgia's Joint Chiefs of Staff, Givi Yukuridze, told AFP that the army has been put on a maximum state of alert.

Saakashvili, a 36-year-old firebrand who is Europe's youngest elected head of state, discussed the situation during an emergency meeting with his top security officials and Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania in Poti, Yukuridze said.

Tanks were out in the streets of Adjara's capital Batumi, where authorities were handing out arms to supporters, Merabishvili said.

�We have reliable information that the process of handing out arms to the civilian population, which began a few days ago, is continuing�, he said.

There were reports inside Adjara that local authorities had mobilized tanks and were arming local people in anticipation of an attack by Georgian government forces.

On Saturday, March 13, Adjara's head Aslan Abashidze charged that the Georgian authorities were planning a coup against his leadership and called on his traditional ally Russia for help.

This is the latest in a series of escalations in the Caspian region. Speaking to a group of oil industrialists in 1998, then-Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney remarked:

�I cannot think of a time when we had a region emerge as suddenly to become strategically significant as the Caspian.�

From the Associated Press we learn that:

Speaking on Georgian television late Sunday from Poti, a port city near the Adzharian border, Saakashvili issued a one-day ultimatum to Adzharian leader Aslan Abashidze to accept Tbilisi's authority and start disarming his paramilitary forces.

Saakashvili said that air, land and sea routes to Adzharia would be closed and the government would also move to freeze foreign bank accounts belonging to Adzharian officials. Both men said they were ready for dialogue, but tensions persisted.

Two Georgian armored personnel carriers could be seen near the Adzharian border, and Adzharian television reported that Georgian forces and heavy weapons were concentrated near Poti, where Saakashvili met with government officials Monday.

I don't want to keep repeating myself, but there's a lot more to this story. For more information, click here.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/15/2004 07:56:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Spanish Intelligence Sees Islamic Group Behind Attack

The latest from Madrid:

Spain's intelligence service is "99 percent certain" that radical Muslims and not the Basque separatist group ETA are responsible for train bombings that killed 200 people, a Spanish radio station said on Saturday

Private radio SER, whose owners have links to the opposition Socialist Party, said the National Intelligence Center (CNI) believes the evidence points to an Islamic group, and that 10 to 15 people left bombs on the trains and fled, the radio said.

"The evidence has wiped out previous indications that led us to believe in ETA," the radio quoted one of its sources as saying.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/13/2004 11:36:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Georgia Watch: The New Great Game

For months now, I've been following a story dealing with the former Soviet province of Georgia, and it's neighboring breakaway province Adjara. Here's some background info, but for a more in depth look click here, here, or here:

• The Adjaran Government (on the SW border of Georgia) is claiming to have uncovered a secret Georgian plot to seize the republic and it's capitol city of Batumi
  
  
• The Head of Emergency Situations Department of Adjara was shot in the head by an unknown gunman on February 22.
  
  
• An intrinsic part of today�s oil transport network is the Batumi Oil Transport Facility.
  
  
• Both Anadarko and Chevron have been "long time users" of the Batumi Oil Transport Facility in Adjara.
  
  
• Condoleeza Rice was on the Board of Directors for Chevron.
  
  
• Bush created/served as a consultant to Anadarko.
  
  
• On February 28, Colin Powell went to Georgia to offer the new president a "symbolic stamp of U.S. approval."

Click for detailed maps of Caspian oil/natural gas pipelines


Today, I came across this article which sums up the situation very well:

In March 2001 Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham told the National Energy Security Summit that �America faces a major energy supply crisis over the next two decades. The failure to meet this challenge will threaten our nation�s economic prosperity, compromise our national security and likely alter the way we lead our lives.�

This taken-for-granted imperial outlook was subsequently spelled out in Dick Cheney�s National Energy Policy statement and George W. Bush�s national security pronouncements. But an energy policy that rests upon controlling the world�s oil, seeking permanent military superiority over all potential rivals, and, in the words of political analyst Tom Barry, pursuing a policy of global �warlordism,� can only be a recipe for disaster.

In no other part of the world is this pursuit of dominion more volatile than in the Caspian Sea Basin, which takes in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Iran and Russia.

Speaking to oil industrialists in 1998, then-Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney remarked, �I cannot think of a time when we had a region emerge as suddenly to become strategically significant as the Caspian.�

Under the cover of its �war on terrorism� the Bush administration has initiated what British Guardian writer Lutz Kelveman refers to as �The New Great Game,� a rerun of the 19th Century imperial rivalry between Czarist Russia and the British Empire. Only now it is the United States that �seeks to control the Caspian oil resources.�

For now Georgia is the epicenter of the new great game. It represents the bridge carrying Caspian oil on its journey to the port destination of Ceyhan, Turkey. The U.S. has invested substantial political-economic resources in Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline venture.

[...]

On Nov. 30 Eric Margolis of the Toronto Sun wrote that the Russians �will try to limit U.S. influence in Georgia and extend its own influence by stirring the pot and finding new Georgian allies. Washington will shore up its man in Tbilisi, Saakashvili, and may send Special Forces troops under the pretext of faux war on terrorism.�

Margolis warns, �The entire Caucasus is near a boil. The sharply increasing rivalry between the U.S. and Russia for political and economic influence over this vital land bridge between Europe and the oil-rich Caspian Basin promises a lot more intrigue, skullduggery and drama.�

In their article entitled �Georgia�s �Rose Revolution�: a Made in American Coup,� Barry Grey and Vladmir Volkov write: �Not only is U.S. policy in the Caucasus predatory, it is reckless in the extreme. The Bush administration is challenging Russian interests in a highly provocative manner, openly working to split away the former Soviet republics from Moscow and virtually surrounding Russia with American military installations.�

A new, very dangerous �great game� has begun.

Indeed. Don't be surprised if the next front in the War on Terror opens up in the Caspian region.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/12/2004 03:55:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Purported Qaeda Letter Says U.S. Strike Near Ready

A letter purporting to come from Osama bin Laden's militant Islamist al Qaeda network said a big attack on the United States was in the final stages of preparation, a London-based Arabic newspaper said on Thursday.

"We bring the good news to Muslims of the world that the expected 'Winds of Black Death' strike against America is now in its final stage...90 percent (ready) and God willing near," the letter said.

The letter, signed by the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades which said it is part of al Qaeda, was sent to the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper. A copy of the letter was faxed to Reuters in Dubai.

It was not possible to independently authenticate the letter.

"Winds of Black Death"? Sounds like a biological attack to me.

I live in Washington DC, and I'd be lying if I said yesterday's scene in Madrid didn't make me think twice about it. Metro Center is the equivalent of Madrid's Atocha station (where the biggest of the bombs went off). My wife changes trains there twice a day.

I can't even write about this. It just fills me with the worst kind of dread.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/12/2004 03:03:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

My Hell In Camp X-Ray

Wow:

A BRITISH captive freed from Guantanamo Bay today tells the world of its full horror - and reveals how prostitutes were taken into the camp to degrade Muslim inmates.

Jamal al-Harith, 37, who arrived home three days ago after two years of confinement, is the first detainee to lift the lid on the US regime in Cuba's Camp X-Ray and Camp Delta.

The father-of-three, from Manchester, told how he was assaulted with fists, feet and batons after refusing a mystery injection.

[...]

He said detainees were shackled for up to 15 hours at a time in hand and leg cuffs with metal links which cut into the skin.

Their "cells" were wire cages with concrete floors and open to the elements - giving no privacy or protection from the rats, snakes and scorpions loose around the American base.

He claims punishment beatings were handed out by guards known as the Extreme Reaction Force. They waded into inmates in full riot-gear, raining blows on them.

Prisoners faced psychological torture and mind-games in attempts to make them confess to acts they had never committed. Even petty breaches of rules brought severe punishment.

Medical treatment was sparse and brutal and amputations of limbs were more drastic than required, claimed Jamal.

There's more, if you think you can take it.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/12/2004 02:58:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Welcome to the Desert of the Real

Why do New York and Wisconsin hate America?

New York and Wisconsin have joined the list of states that have pulled out of an anti-crime database program that civil libertarians say endangers citizens' privacy rights.
Just five states now remain involved in Matrix out of more than a dozen that had signed up to share criminal, prison and vehicle information with one another and cross-reference the data with privately held databases.

[...]

Known formally as Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange, Matrix links government records with up to 20 billion records in databases held by Seisint Inc., a private company based in Boca Raton, Fla.

The Seisint records include details on property, boats and Internet domain names that people own, their address history, utility connections, bankruptcies, liens and business filings, according to an August report by the Georgia state Office of Homeland Security.

Officials with Seisint and the U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

The American Civil Liberties Union has complained that Matrix could be used by state and federal investigators to compile dossiers on people who have never been suspected of a crime. Seisint officials have said safeguards are built into the system to prevent such abuses.

For the record, the five states remaining in the program are Florida, Connecticut, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The states which have left or declined to join after actively considering it are Alabama, California, Colorado, Georgia, Louisiana, Kentucky, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

The Matrix is an offshoot of the Total Information Awareness, an Orwellian program shut down by Congress in 2002.

The Matrix Web site states that the data compiled will include criminal histories, driver's license data, vehicle registration records, and significant amounts of public data record entries. Company officials have refused to disclose more specific details about the nature and sources of the data. According to news reports, the data may also include credit histories, driver's license photographs, marriage and divorce records, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and the names and addresses of family members, neighbors and business associates.

This is some scary shit. Hopefully the remaining five states will come to their collective senses and withdraw from the program. If you live in a state where the Matrix is being actively employed, you'd better hope you don't get caught by a glitch in the Matrix:

Even beyond the very serious privacy issues with the Matrix, there is the important risk of so-called false positives. "Data anomalies" are far from certain indicators of guilt.

The data itself may be in error. As anyone who has ever tried to correct an erroneous credit report may have found, it's not easy to stop an error once it gets into the system. Yet there has been no account of how errors in the Matrix databases can be located and corrected.

Or the data may look bad, but have an innocent explanation. Terrorists are said to be transients, moving frequently, with few fixed addresses. But students, poor people, and the homeless do the same. For that matter, so do travel writers.

The truth is that judgments about reasonable suspicion of criminal activity are fundamentally human judgments that cannot now -- and, perhaps, ever -- be made accurately by computers.

As if all this weren't bad enough -- and it is-- the Matrix lacks safeguards against these predictable problems. The Web site states that "[t]his system will ensure that state and local law enforcement officers -- the individuals most likely to come into direct contact with terrorists or other criminals -- have the best information (accurate and complete) available to them in a timely manner." Despite the promise of accuracy, it does not have an error correction system, at least not one that has been explained to the public. And it does not make clear how, if at all, it will protect privacy.

"Are you with us or against us?!?"

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/12/2004 11:11:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Air America Radio

Check out the schedule for Air America Radio, the new left-leaning radio network.

It sounds great. I really hope it pans out.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/12/2004 11:04:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

New Bush Ad Storyboards

The Poor Man has the storyboards up for the new Bush ad.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/12/2004 09:10:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Bush/Orwell '04

Click here to create your very own W poster!




(thanks to Brett for the linkage)

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/11/2004 03:39:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Let's Give Em Some Grief

Take a gander at the home page for the supposedly bipartisan House Committee on Resources. They're running this paragraph:

Washington, DC - Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry is quoted in today�s edition of Greenwire as saying, �that black stuff is hurting us,� with regard to oil. Members of the House Committee on Resources found the Senator�s comment absurd.

�John Kerry is dead wrong,� Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-CA) said. �Oil doesn�t hurt Americans; John Kerry�s anti-energy policies hurt Americans. In fact, this is exactly the kind of rhetoric and bad policy that has led to the outsourcing of good American energy jobs. Last year alone, the United States outsourced more than $100 billion worth of American jobs, economic growth, and national security to foreign countries for our energy needs. Americans are left with a supply and demand imbalance that creates higher prices at the pump and longer waits on the unemployment line."

The question, in case it isn't obvious, is "Why is a bipartisan committee using their resources to attack John Kerry?"

Give them a call and ask them - (202) 225-2761.

See? Politics is fun!

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/11/2004 03:17:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Oops.

The code words "Broken Arrow" used by the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the most severe level of a nuclear weapon mishap reportedly were invoked Nov. 7 when a Trident I C4 missile was damaged while being removed from the submarine USS Georgia in Bangor.

[...]

According to former Navy officer Walt Fitzpatrick, the Nov. 7 incident happened when the [Trident I C4] missile from tube No. 16 was hauled up and smacked into an access ladder that had been left in the tube, slicing a 9-inch hole in the missile's nose cone.

The ladder is placed inside the silo after the tube hatch is opened so a sailor can climb inside to attach a hoist to lift the intercontinental ballistic missile out of the tube. After attaching the hoist, the sailor climbs out and the ladder is to be removed before the missile is lifted out.

The crew members reportedly took a break, and when they returned, they began to hoist out the missile without removing the ladder, damaging the nose cone. Although there would not have been a nuclear explosion, a radiation release or non-nuclear explosion was possible, Fitzpatrick claims.

Are you fucking kidding me? A nuclear missile "smacked into" an access ladder and tore a 9-inch hole in it? I'm sorry, but this strikes me as a fair bit more terrifying than gay marriage or Janet's nipple.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/11/2004 03:04:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Save the Hubble

In case you missed it, this week the Hubble telescope gave us the deepest view of the universe yet recorded.:

The snapshot of the universe, called the Ultra Deep Field, captured light that streaked through space for more than 13 billion years, starting its journey when the universe was only 5 percent of its 13.7-billion-year age. The view has about 10,000 galaxies, some mixed in a chaos that one astronomer said "looked like a train wreck."

Capturing such faint and distant light, officials at the Space Telescope Science Institute said Tuesday, was like photographing a firefly hovering above the moon.

"For the first time we're looking back at stars that are forming out of the depths of the big bang," said Steven V. W. Beckwith, director of the institute. "We're seeing the youngest stars within a stone's throw of the beginning of the universe."

[...]

The portion in the sky photographed by two Hubble instruments is very small. Astronomers compared the field of view it to looking at the sky through an 8-foot-long soda straw. They said capturing the images is akin to reading the mint date on a 25-cent coin from a mile away.

What the view lacks in width, however, it makes up for in depth. Beckwith said that never before has a telescope captured such detail from such a distance.

"These images will be in astronomy textbooks for years," he said.

Of course, no mention of the Hubble telescope's achievements should go without pointing out that the human race's most spectular telescope is in danger of being cancelled by the Bush Administration. Due to the "Send Halliburton to Mars" program, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe has been forced to let the Hubble Observatory die prematurely:

O'Keefe [has decided] not to conduct Servicing Mission 4, which in 2006 would have extended Hubble's life to the end of the decade and even improved its capabilities.

Instead, with batteries dwindling and gyroscopes failing, Hubble could be rendered useless as early as this year or, more likely, sometime in 2007.

Luckily, a bipartisan group of Senators have taken this on and are currently demanding reviews of NASA's decision. To add your name to a petition asking Congress and NASA not allow the Hubble to be retired go to:




(thanks to Mel for the link)

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/11/2004 12:43:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Maryland Woman Charged as Iraqi Spy

Break out the old tinfoil hats:

An American citizen was arrested Thursday on charges she acted as an Iraqi spy, prosecutors said.
Susan Lindauer, 41, was arrested in her hometown of Takoma Park, Md. [a Washington DC suburb], and was to appear in court later in the day in Baltimore, authorities in New York said.

She was accused of conspiring to act as a spy for the Iraqi Intelligence Service and with engaging in prohibited financial transactions involving the government of Iraq under now-deposed dictator Saddam Hussein.

According to an indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Lindauer made multiple visits to the Iraqi Mission to the United Nations in Manhattan from October 1999 through March 2002.

There, she allegedly met with several members of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, the foreign intelligence arm of the government of Iraq that allegedly has played a role in terrorist operations, including an attempted assassination of former President George H.W. Bush.

Lindauer has not yet been assigned a defense lawyer, prosecutors said.

I wonder if this is the same Susan Lindauer:

Lockerbie: CIA witness gagged by US government

A FORMER CIA agent who claims Libya is not responsible for the Lockerbie bombing is being gagged by the US government under state secrecy laws and faces 10 years in prison if herevealsanyinformation about the terrorist attack.

United Nations diplomats are outraged that the US government is apparently suppressing a potential key trial witness. Diplomats are now demanding that the CIA agent, Dr Richard Fuisz, be released from the gagging order. Fuisz, a multi-millionaire businessman and pharmaceutical researcher, was, according to US intelligence sources, the CIA's key operative in the Syrian capital Damascus during the 1980s where he also had business interests.

One month before a court order was served on him by the US government gagging him from speaking on the grounds of national security, he spoke to US congressional aide Susan Lindauer, telling her he knew the identities of the Lockerbie bombers and claiming they were not Libyan.

Lindauer, shocked by Fuisz's claims, immediately compiled notes on the meeting which formed the basis of a later sworn affidavit detailing Fuisz's claims. One month after their conversation, in October 1994, a court in Washington DC issued an order barring him from revealing any information on the grounds of "military and state secrets privilege".

Congressional aide Lindauer, who was involved in early negotiations over the Lockerbie trial, claims Fuisz made "unequivocal statements to me that he has first-hand knowledge about the Lockerbie case". In her affidavit, she goes on: "Dr Fuisz has told me that he can identify who orchestrated and executed the bombing. Dr Fuisz has said that he can confirm absolutely that no Libyan national was involved in planning or executing the bombing of PanAm 103, either in any technical or advisory capacity whatsoever."

Fuisz's statements to Lindauer support the claims of the two Libyans accused who are to incriminate a number of terrorist organisations, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, which had strong links to Syria and Iran.

I have no idea if Susan Lindauer #1 = Susan Lindauer #2. But the name isn't THAT common, and they both seem to have ties to the Washington DC area. It does strike me as somewhat coincidental that this arrest should come within a month of Libya's sudden transition from rogue state to Exemplary Middle Eastern Ally. It certainly sounds like there's a Susan Lindauer out there somewhere who's got some pretty intense things to say about Libya and the Lockerbie bombing.


UPDATE: More info on the charges against her here.


UPDATE II: Looks like I'm not a ranting crazy guy after all. Lindauer definitely has ties in Washington DC:

A former journalist and ex-congressional press secretary was arrested Thursday on charges she acted as an Iraqi spy before and after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, accepting $10,000 for her work, prosecutors said Thursday.

Susan Lindauer, 41, was arrested in her hometown of Takoma Park, Md., and was to appear in court later in the day in Baltimore, authorities in New York said.

She was accused of conspiring to act as a spy for the Iraqi Intelligence Service and with engaging in prohibited financial transactions involving the government of Iraq.

Lindauer worked at Fortune, U.S. News & World Report and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer before beginning her career as a political publicist. She worked for then U.S. Rep. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., before joining the office of former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun as press secretary in 1996.

Chris Fitzgerald, a spokesman for Wyden, now a senator, said the office had heard Thursday of Lindauer's arrest and expected to issue a statement later in the day.

"She worked for us a short period of time," he said.

Moseley-Braun's current spokesperson, Loretta Kane, said the former senator does not remember Lindauer.

(thanks to BadMatt for the link)

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/11/2004 11:16:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Bombings in Madrid

Spanish 9/11.

Fingers are currently being pointed at Basque seperatist group ETA, but here's an interesting snippet I noticed from the aforementioned article:

A top Basque politician denied the separatists responsibility and blamed "Arab resistance." Many al-Qaida linked terrorists were captured in, or believed to have operated out of, Spain.

Arnold Otegi, leader of Batasuna, an outlawed Basque party linked to the armed separatist group, denied it was behind the blasts and suggested "Arab resistance" elements were responsible, suggesting al-Qaida.

Otegi told Radio Popular in San Sebastian that ETA always phones in warnings before it attacks. The interior minister said there was no warning before Thursday's attack.

"The modus operandi, the high number of victims and the way it was carried out make me think, and I have a hypothesis in mind, that yes it may have been an operative cell from the Arab resistance," Otegi said. Otegi noted that Spain's government backed the Iraq war.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/11/2004 09:56:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

The Great Escape

Most of you are probably familiar with the theory regarding the Bin Laden family's exodus from America immediately following 9/11. Certain people have reported that an airliner was sent around the country rounding up Bin Ladens and members of Saudi royalty during the time when airspace was restricted and all planes were supposedly grounded.

Finally, we get a more complete version of events from Salon. It's worth sitting through the ad to get the free day pass.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/11/2004 09:43:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Inside The Real West Wing

This is kinda interesting:

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/10/2004 02:53:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

An Unbeatable Ticket

But about as likely as JFK/JFK.

Sen. McCain Open to Being Kerry's VP:

Republican Sen. John McCain allowed a glimmer of hope Wednesday for Democrats fantasizing about a bipartisan dream team to defeat President Bush.

McCain said he would consider the unorthodox step of running for vice president on the Democratic ticket � in the unlikely event he received such an offer from the presidential candidate.

"John Kerry is a close friend of mine. We have been friends for years," McCain said Wednesday when pressed to squelch speculation about a Kerry-McCain ticket. "Obviously I would entertain it."

But McCain emphasized how unlikely the whole idea was.

"It's impossible to imagine the Democratic Party seeking a pro-life, free-trading, non-protectionist, deficit hawk," the Arizona senator told ABC's "Good Morning America" during an interview about illegal steroid use. "They'd have to be taking some steroids, I think, in order to let that happen."

I'm not sure how much I agree with McCain's politics, but the fact that he's even entertaining the notion is a loud, hard slap in the face of the Rove Machine. I bet Bush is regretting the whole "John McCain fathered a black baby out of wedlock" thing during the 2000 Republican Primary.

I think the likelihood of a Kerry/McCain ticket is pretty slim, but how sweet would it be if a high profile Republican Senator went out on the campaign trail for John Kerry?

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/10/2004 02:33:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Speaking of flip-flops...

February 27, 1997 (from The Daily Republican):

The health and safety of the nation, its economy and the American people may have been at risk. The president was not attending to the people's business. He became so enthusiastic about selling access to White House coffees and the Lincoln Bedroom that he cancelled policy briefings on the State of the Nation that conflicted with fund-rasing activities carried out on government property.

Meanwhile he was attending to big time political donors to the Clinton-Gore Campaign who bought into White House coffees and nights in the Lincoln Bedroom in exchange for what the CNN news service estimates is $5.4 million paid to the Clinton-Gore Campaign funneled through the Democratic National Committee in the years 1995 and 1996.

[..]

The illegal use of government property for private gain is one of the offenses called high crimes and misdemeanors that are included under the impeachment provisions of the U.S. Constitution Article III.

So renting out the Lincoln Bedroom is an impeachable offense, then? Well bring it on, bitches:

President Bush opened the White House and Camp David to dozens of overnight guests last year, including foreign dignitaries, family friends and at least nine of his biggest campaign fund-raisers, documents show.

In all, Bush and first lady Laura Bush have invited at least 270 people to stay at the White House and at least the same number to overnight at the Camp David retreat since moving to Washington in January 2001, according to lists the White House provided The Associated Press.

Some guests spent a night in the Lincoln Bedroom, historic quarters that gained new fame in the Clinton administration amid allegations that Democrats rewarded major donors like Hollywood heavyweights Steven Spielberg and Barbra Streisand with accommodations there.

At least nine of Bush's biggest fund-raisers appear on the latest list of White House overnight guests, covering June 2002 through December 2003, and-or on the Camp David list, which covers last year. They include:

• Brad Freeman, a venture capitalist who is leading Bush's California fund-raising effort, has raised at least $200,000 for his re-election campaign and is also a major Republican Party fund-raiser
  
  
• Roland Betts, who raised at least $100,000 for Bush in 2000, was a Bush fraternity brother at Yale and a Texas Rangers partner.
  
  
• William DeWitt, a Bush partner in the oil business and Texas Rangers who has raised at least $200,000 for Bush's re-election effort
  
  
• James Francis, who headed the Bush campaign's 2000 team of $100,000-and-up volunteer fund-raisers and was a Bush appointee in Texas when Bush was governor
  
  
• Joseph O'Neill, an oilman and childhood friend who introduced Bush to Laura Bush and raised at least $100,000 for each of Bush's presidential campaigns
  
  
• Colorado Gov. Bill Owens and New York Gov. George Pataki, who each raised at least $200,000 for Bush's re-election campaign.
  
  
• James Langdon, who raised at least $100,000 for Bush, is a Washington attorney specializing in international oil and gas transactions. Langdon, whose clients include the Russian oil company Lukoil, is a member of Bush's foreign intelligence advisory board and served on Bush's 2000 presidential transition team on energy policy

"I believe they've moved that sign, 'The buck stops here,' from the Oval Office desk to 'The buck stops here' on the Lincoln bedroom, and that's not good for the country. It's not right. We need to have a new look about how we conduct ourselves in office."

--George W. Bush, October 4, 2000."

UPDATE: Corrente makes a good point:

Take a look at the lede from the aforementioned article:

"President Bush opened the White House and Camp David to dozens of overnight guests last year..."

Dozens? Well, that's not so bad, is it? But then in the next paragraph we read:

"In all, Bush and first lady Laura Bush have invited at least 270 people to stay at the White House..."

Isn't 270 more like hundreds of guests? Saying Bush had dozens of campaign donors spend the night at the White House is like saying Dick Cheney made thousands of dollars while he was working at Halliburton.

Damn liberal media strikes again.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/10/2004 12:14:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

The Pentagon's Secret Scream

I wonder if they'll be using this on the dozens of protesters that will be at the Republican National Convention in September:

Marines arriving in Iraq this month as part of a massive troop rotation will bring with them a high-tech weapon never before used in combat � or in peacekeeping. The device is a powerful megaphone the size of a satellite dish that can deliver recorded warnings in Arabic and, on command, emit a piercing tone so excruciating to humans, its boosters say, that it causes crowds to disperse, clears buildings and repels intruders.

"[For] most people, even if they plug their ears, [the device] will produce the equivalent of an instant migraine," says Woody Norris, chairman of American Technology Corp., the San Diego firm that produces the weapon. "It will knock [some people] on their knees."

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/10/2004 12:10:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Man Accidentally Killed in Masonic Rite

I'm having a hard time believing that these guys rule the world in :

A Masonic initiation ritual ended in tragedy when a man was shot in the head and killed with a gun thought to contain blanks, police said on Tuesday.

They said 47-year-old William James was accidentally killed when Albert Eid, 76, confused a loaded .38-caliber semiautomatic pistol with another gun during the induction ceremony in Patchogue, on New York's Long Island, on Monday night.

"During the ceremony, an inductee was shot and killed when a lodge member used a real gun instead of a blank pistol," Suffolk County Detective Lt. Jack Fitzpatrick said in a statement.

Police officer Heidi Cummings said Eid pointed a gun at James' head while another member beat a garbage can like a drum as shrouded secrecypart of the rite in the basement of the suburban Southside Masonic Lodge, about 50 miles east of Manhattan.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/10/2004 11:15:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Never Forget

From yesterday's White House press gaggle:

Q In a couple days the President is going to be attending a groundbreaking ceremony for a 9/11 memorial in Long Island. A couple of hours after that, he's going to be at a fundraiser just a short distance away, raising money for his campaign. Is there any concern that the juxtaposition of those two events, the proximity, the close proximity in both time and distance will create at least the appearance of the President using 9/11 for political reasons?

MR. McCLELLAN: September 11th was a tragic and defining moment for our nation. And the President is honored to accept the invitation of the Nassau County 9/11 Memorial Foundation to attend the groundbreaking of their September 11th memorial. This was an invitation that was extended to the President in mid-February. The President is honored to accept the invitation and pay tribute to those who tragically lost their lives on that September day.

The President never forgets September 11th. The President remembers it every, single day. He has met with many families over the course of the last few years and helped to console them and grieve with them. This President is honored to pay tribute to those who tragically lost their lives, this Thursday.

Q There's no sense that it's just even a little bit awkward to be combining on the same afternoon a fundraiser and a 9/11 memorial -- related to criticism --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, again, Ken, he was invited by the Nassau County 9/11 Memorial Foundation and he's honored to accept the invitation.

[...]

Q A couple of follow-ups on Ken's earlier line of questioning. You mentioned that the President received this invitation for this dedication in mid-February. When was the decision made for the fundraiser to follow that?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think the reception was planned back in January.

Q So there's no feeling at all of an image problem in having a fundraising event after what you portray to be, and what is, a solemn ceremony for 9/11?

MR. McCLELLAN: The President was invited to attend it. He's the President of the United States, Peter, and he is going to honor those who tragically lost their lives and pay tribute to them.

Q I understand that, obviously. But, again, the idea of a fundraiser right after that --

MR. McCLELLAN: He has met with many of the families -- he has attended memorials before, and he will continue to attend memorials --

Q I understand those are your talking points, Scott.

MR. McCLELLAN: -- for the reasons I stated. No, this is the President's views. The President never forgets the events of September 11th. They taught us important lessons, and he remembers those events every single day.

Q Well, forgive me, but it would also seem like he never forgets the need for a fundraiser.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I'm not even going to dignify that with a response.

Zing!

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/10/2004 10:39:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

McShit

McDonald's can't even seem to make a salad properly:

Global hamburger giant McDonald's latest line in healthy looking salads may contain more fat than its hamburgers, according to the company's website.

[...]

"You can choose your salad, topping and dressing. You can mix and match to suit your diet and lifestyle," said a McDonald's spokeswoman.

However, consumers hoping to lose weight by switching from burgers to salads may be disappointed, according to the Interactive Nutrition Counter on the McDonald's Web site.

For example, on the new menu to be launched at the end of this month, a "Caesar salad with Chicken Premiere" contains 18.4 grammes of fat compared with 11.5 grammes of fat in a standard cheeseburger.

The British Nutrition Foundation (BNF) told Reuters it welcomed the salad menu but warned that salad dressings bought in fast-food outlets or supermarkets could be very high in fat and calories.

BNF said the recommended daily fat intake for men is 95 grammes per day and for women 70 grammes per day.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/09/2004 01:39:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Want Health Care? Then Bite Your Tongue.

This is an outrage:

An Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran says Army officials at Fort Knox, Ky., refused him medical treatment after he talked publicly about poor care at the base, which helped spark hearings in Congress.

Fort Knox officials charged that soldier, Lt. Jullian Goodrum, with being absent without leave and cut off his pay after he then went to a private doctor who hospitalized him for serious mental stress from Iraq, Goodrum said.

"They are coming after me pretty bad," said Goodrum, 33, a veteran who has served the military for more than 14 years, including the first Gulf War and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/09/2004 12:11:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Election 2004

You decide:

• Check out the Bush Ad here.
  
  
• Check out the Bush Ad Remix here.

While I was writing this post I did a Yahoo search to find the location of the official Bush ad. 19 out of the first 20 were from anti-Bush sites. This strikes me as pretty significant.

The first five results were:

1. Bush in 30 Seconds
   
   
2. Media Research Center CyberAlert -- 10/28/2000 -- Daisy Ad Over Anti-Bush Scare Call
   
   
3. MoveOn.org: Democracy in Action
   
   
4. Vote To Impeach Bush
   
   
5. Bush Watch

By the way, let me know if you can't get to the remix for some reason. I have a copy on my drive so I could post it online if enough people ask for it.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/08/2004 11:17:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Progress in Afghanistan

Atrios points out that things are coming along swimmingly in Afghanistan:

KABUL (CP) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai offered Afghan men a trade today in an attempt to convince them to let their women vote in upcoming elections.
"Please, my dear brothers, let your wives and sisters go to the voter registration process," Karzai told a gathering to mark International Women's Day. "Later, you can control who she votes for, but please, let her go."

Karzai's plea set off a murmur in the crowd of about 500 women and illustrated the fragile grip the democratic process holds in Afghanistan.

Another bold leap for equality!

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/08/2004 03:26:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

"Stupid" doesn't begin to describe it

Aussie Aussie Aussie!!

Oy Oy Oy!:

An Australian handyman admitted he was stupid to shoot himself in the head with a nail gun in a misguided prank that left him with a nail lodged in his brain.

Brad Shorten, a father of three from Victoria state, was enjoying a few beers with friends after working on his house when they began joking about industrial accidents.

Shorten, 33, picked up a nail gun that he thought was empty, pointed it at his head and pulled the trigger.

He later said he had turned off the gun's compressor and taken out its nail cartridge but did not realize there was still enough pressure in the gun to fire a nail.

"My mates and I were talking about construction site accidents and taking your eye out with a nail gun, and I foolishly put the gun to my head and pulled the trigger," Shorten told the Sunday Herald Sun newspaper.

"I did a very stupid thing," he said.

The bizarre mishap left him with a 1.25-inch nail counter-sunk through his skull just behind his temple.

Royal Melbourne Hospital neurosurgeons removed the nail in a delicate four-hour operation even though Shorten, who was expected to make a full recovery, had offered to take the nail out with a pair of pliers.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/08/2004 01:19:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Am I Alone...

...in my total lack of curiousity about the Martha Stewart trial? From what I understand she got convicted of something, but I have absolutely no idea what it was. Nor do I care.

But if it were Ken Lay and some of those guys it would be a different story...

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/08/2004 05:32:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Family Values

Q. What kind of people don't attend their brother's wedding?

A. People like George and Jeb Bush.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/08/2004 05:10:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Kids find 3-Headed, 6-legged Frog

Whoa:

Wildlife experts in Britain are stunned by the apparent discovery of a frog with three croaking heads and six legs, Local 6 News reported Friday night.

The frog was reportedly found at a children's day nursery in the English village of Weston Super-Mare in Somerset, according to the report.

The staff at the Green Umbrella nursery first thought it was three frogs huddled together but after closer inspection they realized the frogs were joined together.

A wildlife biologist said a reason for the three-headed frog�s development could have been damage to the embryo, according to a report.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/06/2004 12:00:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Kerry Nails It

John Kerry on Bush's lackluster job numbers:

"At this rate the Bush administration won't create its first job for another 10 years."

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/05/2004 03:29:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

TGIF

A tough day for young George:

• Shi'ite Objections Delay Iraq Constitution Signing
  
  Last-minute objections by five Shi'ite leaders forced the indefinite postponement of Friday's signing of an interim constitution for Iraq, threatening U.S. plans to hand sovereignty back to Iraqis on June 30.
  
  
  
  
  Pens for the signing ceremony lay unused.
  
  
  
• U.S. Job Growth Anemic in February
  
  The U.S. economy added a paltry 21,000 jobs last month, according to a surprisingly weak government report on Friday that turned up the heat on President Bush as he seeks re-election.
  
  Details in the report were as bleak as the headline figure. Private-sector employment was actually unchanged in February, while the government added 21,000 workers.
  
  It also showed job creation in December and January was weaker than previously thought. The count of job gains for January was revised to 97,000 from 112,000 and for December to just 8,000 from 16,000.
  
  February's unemployment rate held at 5.6 percent, but only because people dropped out of the labor force. Employment as measured by a survey of households actually plummeted.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Victims' Families Press Bush to Pull 9/11 Ads
  
  Families who lost relatives in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks pressed President Bush's re-election campaign on Friday to stop running political ads that use images of the devastated World Trade Center to show him as a strong leader in troubled times.
  
  "As a firefighter who spent months at Ground Zero, it's deeply offensive to see the Bush campaign use these images to capitalize on the greatest American tragedy of our time," New York firefighter Tom Ryan said at a news conference.
  
  
• Oil Prices Rise, Supply Falls During Bush Years
  
  Three years ago, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were seen as the U.S. oil industry's dream team and most capable of tackling America's energy problems, as both were former oil executives.
  
  However, with nationwide gasoline prices expected this month to top a record $1.75 per gallon, government energy data shows many problems still exist. Energy costs -- and smaller supplies -- have pinched the pocketbooks of consumers and pushed up business expenses.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• White House Leak Records Sought
  
  A federal grand jury probing the leak of a CIA officer's identity has subpoenaed the records of phone calls from Air Force One made the week before the name of the officer was published in a July newspaper column, Newsday reported Friday.
  
  The three subpoenas to President Bush's Executive Office also seek the July records created by an internal task force called the White House Iraq Group, which was created to publicize the threat of Saddam Hussein, Newsday said. The newspaper cited documents that it obtained.
  
  In addition, it said, the grand jury wants records of White House contacts with more than two dozen journalists and news organizations.
  
  The subpoenas were issued to the White House on Jan. 22, Newsday said. The grand jury is trying to find out whether there were violations to a federal law that prohibits the intentional disclosure of the identity of an undercover agent by officials with security clearances.

"Wave bye-bye, George!"

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/05/2004 01:56:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Thumb Salad

Yummy:

The severed tip of a restaurant worker's thumb was found in a customer's salad.

Stark County Health Commissioner Bill Franks said an employee at Red Robin Gourmet Burgers in the Canton suburb Jackson Township was chopping lettuce at about 7 p.m. Monday when he cut off a part of his left thumb, including part of the fingernail.

Employees at the restaurant about 70 miles south of Cleveland searched for the tip of his finger, but could not find it. The area was cleaned and sanitized, but the lettuce was placed in the cooler. The lettuce was then used for salads the next day.

"It wound up being served at lunch time Tuesday to a 22-year-old woman," Franks said.

She had eaten most of her salad when she put the human tissue in her mouth, Franks said.

She thought it was a piece of gristle, a health department report said. She then alerted a manager.

Why is it that every article about Paris Hilton is accompanied by a googalimillion pictures, but they can't have one stinking picture when somebody gets served a thumb salad or a drunk nun crashes her tractor???

Life is so unfair.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/05/2004 09:45:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Science Friday

The Hubble space telescope captured an image of a distant star that bears resemblance to the famous Vincent van Gogh painting "Starry Night", NASA and the European Space Agency announced.


The spectacular image taken February 8 showed the star, V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon), surrounded by an expanding halo of light "complete with never-before-seen spirals of dust swirling across trillions of kilometers of interstellar space", a statement from the agencies said.

"The illumination of interstellar dust comes from the red supergiant star at the middle of the image, which gave off a flashbulb-like pulse of light two years ago," the statement added, describing the image as "nature's own piece of performance art".

And in a related story:

Save Hubble Resolution Introduced in House

A Colorado congressman and seven colleagues introduced a resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives March 3 urging NASA to establish an independent panel of experts to review its recent decision to forgo any further servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Rep. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) said in a statement that he introduced the resolution to draw attention to Hubble's scientific contributions to ensure that the telescope is not abandoned in the next several years without someone other than NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe having a say. NASA announced Jan. 16 that it was canceling a planned space shuttle mission to service Hubble, citing the danger of launching the shuttle to a destination other than the international space station.

Udall wants an independent review of that decision, as well as the underlying safety assumptions that prompted O'Keefe to cancel the mission.

"Precisely because of Hubble's extraordinary contributions in the past and promised contributions in the future, I also believe it is important that the decision to cancel the planned servicing mission to Hubble be reviewed by an independent panel of experts and all options for safely carrying it out be examined," Udall said in the statement.

For the record, Administrator Sean O'Keefe is getting a bum rap. It's not his fault they're shutting the Hubble down. Because of Bush's ridiculous Mission to Mars plan, NASA was forced to reallocate funds from all of their existing programs.

By the way, whatever happened to that whole Mars thing? Are we there yet?

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/05/2004 08:59:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Republican Malaise

Right wing cheerleader/Valerie Plame snitch Robert Novak has written an article describing the current feeling among Washington Republicans. Amazingly enough (considering this is a Novak piece) it's pretty harsh:

[There is] deepening malaise among Republicans in the capital. They are neither surprised nor terribly worried by polls that temporarily show George W. Bush trailing John Kerry. What worries the GOP faithful is the absence of firm leadership in their party either at the White House or on Capitol Hill.

The lack of a ready response to Greenspan [and his recent recommendation to cut social security], while Democrats quickly turned his comments into an indictment of President Bush's tax cuts, was not an isolated failing. Today, Republicans on either end of Pennsylvania Avenue seem to be going in opposite directions.

• Disagreement between congressional Republicans and Bush over the size of the highway bill reflects mutual recriminations over runaway federal spending in general. While the president's aides are angered by the lawmakers' addiction to concrete, conservative lawmakers are furious that Bush's budget has preserved and actually increased federal funding for the arts.
  
  
• Bush's call to make his tax cuts permanent and to repeal the estate tax for all time leaves Republicans in Congress perplexed about how they will be able to write a budget without a massive increase in the huge deficit that never will command a majority vote.
  
  
• House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and his allies are bitter that they received no backing from the president and administration in their efforts to keep the independent 9-11 investigation from extending into the campaign season.
  
  
• The president came out for a constitutional amendment to bar gay marriage without consulting congressional Republican leaders, which helps explain the unenthusiastic reception from his own party on Capitol Hill.
  
  
• Congressional Republicans still have not recovered from the shock of the President's Economic Report extolling the outsourcing of industrial jobs -- good economics perhaps, bad politics definitely.

The disaffection is such that over the last two weeks, normally loyal Republicans -- actually including more than a few members of Congress -- are privately talking about political merits in the election of Sen. Kerry.

Their reasoning goes like this: There is no way Democrats can win the House or Senate even if Bush loses. If Bush is re-elected, Democrats are likely to win both the House and Senate in a 2006 midterm rebound. If Kerry wins, Republicans will be able to bounce back with congressional gains in 2006.

To voice such heretical thoughts suggests that Republicans on Capitol Hill are more interested in maintaining the fruits of majority status first won in 1994 rather than in governing the country.

A few thoughtful GOP lawmakers ponder the record of the first time in 40 years that the party has controlled both the executive and legislative branches, and conclude that record is deeply disappointing.

But incipient heresy also reflects shortcomings of the Bush political operation. Its emphasis has been on fund-raising and organization, with deficiencies in communicating and leadership.

The president is in political trouble, and his disaffected supporters who should be backing him aggressively provide the evidence.

First Andrew Sullivan, now Robert Novak. And it's only March! If this continues to be the attitude among those who are supposed to be Bush's supporters then he is in serious trouble.

Thanks to Disillusioned for the link.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/05/2004 08:50:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

The New Face of Disney

George J. Mitchell, Chairman of Walt Disney, Inc.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/05/2004 08:46:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Memories of the President

One of Bush's former professors has this to say about him:

At Harvard Business School, thirty years ago, George Bush was a student of mine. I still vividly remember him. In my class, he declared that "people are poor because they are lazy." He was opposed to labor unions, social security, environmental protection, Medicare, and public schools. To him, the antitrust watch dog, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Securities Exchange Commission were unnecessary hindrances to "free market competition." To him, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal was "socialism." Recently, President Bush's Federal Appeals Court Nominee, California's Supreme Court Justice Janice Brown, repeated the same broadside at her Senate hearing. She knew that her pronouncement would please President Bush and Karl Rove and their Senators. President Bush and his brain, Karl Rove, are leading a radical revolution of destroying all the democratic political, social, judiciary, and economic institutions that both Democrats and moderate Republicans had built together since Roosevelt's New Deal.

Thanks to Bad Attitudes for the link.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/04/2004 05:04:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Firefighters Come Out Fighting

Will somebody please put these people on TV:

WASHINGTON, March 3 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The General President of the International Association of Fire Fighters, AFL-CIO (IAFF), Harold Schaitberger, issued the following statement today after President Bush unveiled new political ads that use images of fire fighters in September 11, 2001 attacks for political gain:

-- As Bush Trades on Heroism of Fire Fighters, His Homeland Security Funding Cuts Hurt Fire Fighters and Communities --

"I'm disappointed but not surprised that the President would try to trade on the heroism of those fire fighters in the September 11 attacks. The use of 9/11 images are hypocrisy at its worst. Here's a President that initially opposed the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and now uses its first anniversary as cause to promote his re-election. Here is a President that proposed two budgets with no funding for FIRE Act grants and still plays on the image of America's bravest. His advertisements are disgraceful.

"Bush is calling on the biggest disaster in our country's history, and indeed in the history of the fire service, to win sympathy for his campaign. Since the attacks, Bush has been using images of himself putting his arm around a retired FDNY fire fighter on the pile of rubble at ground zero. But for two and a half years he has basically shortchanged fire fighters and the safety of our homeland by not providing fire fighters the resources needed to do the job that America deserves.

"The fact is Bush's actions have resulted in fire stations closing in communities around the country. Two-thirds of America's fire departments remain under-staffed because Bush is failing to enforce a new law that was passed with bipartisan support in Congress that would put more fire fighters in our communities. President Bush's budget proposes to cut Homeland Security Department funding for first responders by $700 million for next year and cuts funding for the FIRE Act, a grant program that helps fire departments fund equipment needs, 33 percent by $250 million. In addition, state and local programs for homeland security purposes were reduced $200 million.

"We're going to be aggressive and vocal in our efforts to ensure that the citizens of this country know about Bush's poor record on protecting their safety and providing for the needs of the people who are supposed to respond in an emergency."

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/04/2004 05:04:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Just What Africa Needs

Pakistan continues to spread the love:

Nigeria's Defense Ministry said Pakistan's top military official offered to share unspecified assistance with Nigeria's armed forces, but a Nigerian defense spokesman later retracted a statement that the offer included "nuclear power."

In a late night communique, Nigeria's Defense Ministry claimed the chairman of Pakistan's joint chiefs of staff, Gen. Muhammad Aziz Khan, said during a scheduled visit to Nigeria that Pakistan "is working out the dynamics of how they can assist Nigeria's armed forces to strengthen its military capability and to acquire nuclear power."

However, Nwachukwu Bellu, the Nigerian Defense Ministry spokesman who signed Wednesday's statement, told The Associated Press on Thursday that "it was a mistake" for the communique to have mentioned nuclear power as an area of possible cooperation.

"It was a mistake," Bellu said without further clarification. When asked whether officials from the two countries discussed nuclear cooperation at all, he replied: "Nothing like that happened."

He declined further comment. Other Nigerian officials were not immediately available for comment.

The statement, issued late Wednesday, did not say if Pakistan was offering nuclear weapons, or if Nigeria was seeking them.

[...]

Pakistan came under significant international pressure after one of its top nuclear scientists admitted last month that he sold nuclear technology to Iran, as well as North Korea and Libya � all nations on the U.S. list of terrorism sponsors.

Less than two months ago, Nigeria announced that North Korea had agreed to share missile technology with Nigeria, an offer that was subsequently denied by North Korea.

Nigeria said any North Korean missile help would be used for "peacekeeping" and to protect its territory. It said it was not seeking nuclear technology or weapons of mass destruction.

Under former army dictators, Nigeria's military was viewed as an international pariah for ruthlessly suppressing dissent. Involvement in African peace missions since elections restored civilian rule in 1999 has helped repair its image abroad.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/04/2004 04:00:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Fun With Search Engines

Someone did a google search on "gay men shit worshipers" and it led them to this site. I feel a strange pride in knowing that I'm number 2 out of 515.

Apparently, only "Ten Dollar Video" is a more popular gay male shit worshipper than me.

UPDATE: Whoever it was wound up spending 12 minutes and 14 seconds reading my stuff. Sadly, he or she did not leave a comment.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/04/2004 03:39:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Splitting the Difference

This is Andrew Sullivan's email of the day:

You claim in your blog that 'It looks increasingly as if anyone who cares about fiscal sanity is going to have to sit this election out.' However, isn't it obvious that the only way to impose some sort of fiscal sanity is to vote Kerry -- resulting in a split government that can't reach any sort of agreement as to how to spend money?

Additionally, if we are going to spend money like drunken sailors wouldn't we rather have Kerry, who will at least tax the baby-boomer generation that is benefitting from all this spending, instead of Bush who wants to run up huge deficits and force these problems on future generations... people like ME?

As an uncatered to libertarian in my twenties, I think the answers to both of these questions are 'yes' and 'yes'. I intend to vote Republican except for President, where I intend to vote a big fat 'D'. Then I'll sit back and pray for government gridlock.


I think this guy is right. If you take seriously the fact that this country is headed toward fiscal catastrophe in the next decade, then restraining spending and raising some taxes in the next four years is almost as essential as tackling the entitlement crunch. Neither Bush nor Kerry wants to help. They're both cowards (although Kerry seems to have a better grip on fiscal reality than Bush does). So gridlock is the best option. The combination of Bill Clinton and a Republican Congress was great for the country's fiscal standing. Independents and anyone under 40 concerned with the deficit don't need a Perot. They just need to vote for Kerry and hope the GOP retains control of at least one half of Congress.

First of all, the fact that this is Andrew Sullivan's email of the day is significant in and of itself. One of George Bush's most argent supporters seems to have come almost full circle. If THIS guy can come around to Kerry, anyone can.

Secondly, this seems to echo what I've been feeling recently. I suspect one of the greatest things about the Clinton era was the fact that there was a split government. The deadlock created between a Republican congress and a Democratic presidency allowed the country to expand on it's own accord. Clinton and Newt had to play nice so that things could get done (need I mention the month-long federal shutdown in '95?). There was absolutely no chance of either party pushing an extremist agenda through the process.

In contrast, take a look at how things are right now. The Bush Cabal has managed to pass almost every single thing they've asked for, and he hasn't disagreed with Congress once. W has yet to veto a single bill from the Republican congress.

It seems like the system of checks and balances outlined in the Constitution is simply not enough. We need some kind of insurance policy so that we don't wind up with a small group of people dictating policy across the board. Just imagine how things would be right now if there were even one more additional conservative on the Supreme Court. Four short years could easily be enough to do irretrievable damage to the country.

I'll be absolutely thrilled if Kerry wins the election. We don't need anymore laws or amendments or wars. Let the politicians get back to impeaching each other and let Americans get back to enjoying their lives in freedom.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/03/2004 10:16:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

The Whole Story

From the LA Times:

I am a high school teacher and the daughter of Holocaust survivors. Monday morning, Period 1, a student, age 17, comes into my room. She asks me if I had seen the film "The Passion."

I answer, "No."

She continues, "It was so sad. I cried so much. I hate the Jews."

Very, very sadly, that tells the whole story, Mr. Gibson.

Anna Paikow

Los Angeles

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/03/2004 10:02:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Portrait of America

Courtesy of August J. Pollak:





Color me incredulous.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/03/2004 10:00:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

MoveOn.org/Bush TV ads

In case you haven't seen them yet, here they are:

• MoveOn.org
  
  
• Bush

Thanks for the links, Matt.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/03/2004 09:53:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Jose Padilla Finally Sees a Lawyer

Seems pretty clear to me:

Miranda vs. Arizona, 1966



• You have the right to remain silent and refuse to answer questions.
  
  
• Anything you do or say may be used against you in a court of law.
  
  
• You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to the police and to have an attorney present during questioning now or in the future.
  
  
• If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish.
  
  
• If you decide to answer questions now without an attorney present you will still have the right to stop answering at any time until you talk to an attorney.
  
  
• Knowing and understanding your rights as I have explained them to you, are you willing to answer my questions without an attorney present?

After nearly 2 years, American citizen Jose Padilla has finally been granted access to a lawyer:

Jose Padilla, the American arrested in an alleged al-Qaida plot to set off a radioactive "dirty bomb," was allowed to meet with lawyers Wednesday for the first time in nearly two years.

The U.S. government has designated Padilla an "enemy combatant," meaning he can be held indefinitely without access to lawyers. But the government relented last month, just days before the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear his case.

Donna R. Newman, one of the attorneys for Padilla, said there was a video camera present and military personnel looked on from an adjoining room during the three-hour meeting at the Navy brig near Charleston.

"I'm not saying we were not thrilled to see him, but it was not by any stretch of the imagination" a typical lawyer-client meeting held in confidence, Newman said.

Newman said there was no discussion about specifics of the case.

"It was an informational meeting only - our information for him," she said. She added: "It's hard to say what his spirits were, but he was very happy to see us."

Newman said there were no assurances the government would allow another meeting.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/03/2004 09:32:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Connecticut Rules

It's worth a shot:

MIDDLETOWN, Connecticut (AP) -- A woman charged with causing a fatal car crash in 1999 says that she couldn't have been behind the wheel because she was performing a sex act on the driver at the time.

Heather Specyalski, 33, was charged with second-degree manslaughter in the crash that killed businessman Neil Esposito. Prosecutors allege that she was driving Esposito's Mercedes-Benz convertible when it veered off the road and hit several trees.

But Specyalski claims that Esposito was driving, and she was performing oral sex on him at the time, said her attorney, Jeremiah Donovan. He noted that Esposito's pants were down when he was thrown from the car.

Superior Court Judge Robert L. Holzberg ruled Tuesday that Specyalski can proceed with the defense, despite objections by the prosecutor.

"A defendant has a right to offer a defense no matter how outlandish, silly or unbelievable one might think it will be," Holzberg said. He added: "No one ever told me in law school that we'd be having these kinds of conversations in open court."

Assistant State's Attorney Maureen Platt said the defense is flawed.

"His pants could have been down because he was mooning a car he was drag racing," Platt said. "His pants could have been down because he was urinating out of a window. His pants could have been down because he wasn't feeling well."

"Honey, I'm feeling a little carsick. I'm just going to put the seat back and take my pants off for a while."

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/03/2004 02:51:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Somebody Call Hans Blix

Looks like we finally found some Weapons of Mass Destruction:

A trace amount of sarin nerve agent leaked from a weapons storage bunker at Anniston Army Depot in Birmingham, Alabama, but no one was injured.

Workers were conducting routine checks for leaks Tuesday when a monitor detected the agent outside the airtight bunker where the weapons are stored.

Sarin did not escape the area, and the concentration was not enough to hurt anyone, said Cathy Coleman, a spokeswoman Anniston Chemical Activity, which oversees the stockpile.

Tons of munitions are stored in dirt-covered, concrete igloos at the depot 50 miles east of Birmingham.

Since 1982, the Army has found 897 leaking chemical weapons in storage at the depot, where the military is using an incinerator to destroy the aging weapons.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/03/2004 11:40:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Busy Day

Blogging will be light today. Lots of work to do.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/03/2004 09:16:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Kerry Forward

I know it's cheesy, but I'm reprinting this billmon post in it's entirety because he's absolutely right:

I'm not going to pretend I'm overwhelmed with excitement about our presumptive Democratic nominee, but if we're going to stop Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, Rummy and the gang, we're all going to need to come together, and work hard for JFK II.

Or more to the point: we're going to need to work hard for ourselves, and for our future. For a chance to build a better America -- someday.

So give what you can give. Do what you can do. Support the Popular Front.

And remember St. Igantius's old line:

"Act as ye have faith, and faith shall be given to you."

Update 12:45 AM ET: Atrios notes that the battle for Congress is every bit as important -- if not more important than the presidential race. Maybe we can't give Denny "script boy" Hastert and Tom "fascist pig" Delay the boot this year. But we can make 'em sweat a bit.

So if the spirit moves you, you can contribute to the DCCC (for House races) or the DSCC (for Senate races.)

And if the spirit doesn't move you, just visualize Shrub, DeLay and Bill Frist up on a podium on election night, hands raised in triumph as they celebrate four more years of Republican hegemony.

Maybe that'll help.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/03/2004 07:36:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

9/11 Panel to White House: Cut the Crap

It's about time:

The independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is refusing to accept strict conditions from the White House for interviews with President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and is renewing its request that Mr. Bush's national security adviser testify in public, commission members said Tuesday

The panel members, interviewed after a private meeting on Tuesday, said the commission had decided for now to reject a White House request that the interview with Mr. Bush be limited to one hour and that the questioners be only the panel's chairman and vice chairman.

The members said the commission had also decided to continue to press the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to reconsider her refusal to testify at a public hearing. Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney are expected to be asked about how they had reacted to intelligence reports before Sept. 11, 2001, suggesting that Al Qaeda might be planning a large attack. Panel members want to ask Ms. Rice the same questions in public.

"We have held firm in saying that the conditions set by the president and vice president and Dr. Rice are not good enough," said Timothy J. Roemer, a former Indiana congressman who is one of five Democrats on the 10-member commission.

Bill Clinton and Al Gore are both willing to meet with the commission for as long as necessary. Why aren't Bush, Cheney and the rest of them willing to do the same? What are they afraid of?

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/03/2004 07:26:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Forget Simba... Here Comes Aslan

Sweet:

Walt Disney Studios has sealed a deal with Walden Media to bring to life a live-action film version of British author C.S. Lewis' classic children's fantasy The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Per the deal announced Monday and trumpeted Tuesday in a series of nationwide newspaper ads, the Mouse House will cofinance and distribute the first installment in the Narnia series, which will have a budget of more than $100 million and be directed by Shrek mastermind Andrew Adamson.

[...]

If all goes as planned, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe will start filming in late June or early July and is targeted to hit theaters in Christmas 2005.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/03/2004 07:17:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

N.Y. Mayor to Still Marry Gay Couples

This guy is a hero:

New Paltz's mayor vowed to go ahead with up to two dozen same-sex weddings this weekend, despite being charged with 19 criminal counts and possibly facing jail time for marrying gay couples.

Jason West was scheduled to be in town court Wednesday night to answer charges that he married 19 couples knowing they did not have marriage licenses, a violation of the state's domestic relations law.

West, 26, has called it his moral obligation to wed same-sex couples, joining San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom in the vanguard of the growing gay marriage movement.

"I'm incredibly disappointed," said the Green Party mayor, who added that he will plead innocent at his court hearing. "Apparently, it's a crime to uphold the constitution of New York state."

West married 25 gay couples on Friday, making this small college village 75 miles north of New York City another flash point in the national debate over gay marriage. More than 3,400 couples have been married in San Francisco; West now has about 1,000 couples on a waiting list.

A 26 year old mayor with balls of steel. Keep your eye on this guy. He's going to be a political rock star.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/03/2004 07:09:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

The Next President of the United States of America

In case you haven't heard, John Kerry has swept the primaries on Super Tuesday. Edwards hasn't officially bowed out yet, but pretty much everyone is assuming he'll throw in the towel at some point tonight. It was a good race, and Edwards (not to mention Dean) taught Kerry a lot.

Looking forward, I expect the bloodbath to begin this week. The Bush campaign has announced that they'll begin a massive advertising assault on Thursday, and MoveOn.org will be right there with him:

A Democratic-leaning online group will run television commercials in 17 presidential battleground states starting Thursday to counter President Bush's multimillion-dollar advertising blitz that will begin the same day.

The MoveOn.org Voter Fund has been airing commercials assailing Bush for months in several swing states, but this $1.9 million, five-day effort will be its most far-reaching. The ads will ensure that there is a Democratic presence on the TV airwaves in key states as Bush begins to make his case for re-election.

Bush's campaign plans to spend a large part of its $100 million war chest on ads during spring and summer. It will begin running a positive ad about leadership Thursday on broadcast stations in 17 swing states and nationally on cable networks targeting its GOP base. The campaign is slated to spend at least $4.5 million on cable alone over the next three weeks.

In most states, MoveOn will run a new ad that takes Bush to task for his economic policies, including overtime pay and outsourcing jobs. In others, the group will run a previously released spot that shows images of children toiling on a grocery line and in a tire factory coupled with the text, "Guess who's going to pay off President Bush's $1 trillion deficit?"

Ads will run over five days at medium levels on broadcast stations in 67 media markets in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin. The television industry estimates that the average viewer in each media market would see a MoveOn spot about five times during the group's five-day ad run.

I've been looking forward to this for 3 years. All the money in the world won't be able to buy Bush out of the hole he's dug this country into. He'll spend a gazillion dollars trying to distract America from the mess he's made, but it's not going to work.

Pack your bags, George. You and all your corrupt buddies are about to join the 3 million people who've lost their jobs under your miserable failure of a Presidency.

Bring it on!!

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/02/2004 09:52:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Laugh of the Day

Bush Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

President Bush, Pope John Paul II and the two U.N. officials at the heart of the effort to find weapon of mass destruction in Iraq are among the nominees for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize.

[...]

This year, those nominated include Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac, former Czech President Vaclav Havel, the pope, the European Union, former chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, who still heads the International Atomic Energy Agency.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/02/2004 09:11:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

N.Y. Town's Mayor Charged in Gay Weddings

I suppose we all should have seen this coming:

NEW PALTZ, N.Y. - The village's mayor was charged Tuesday with 19 criminal counts for performing weddings for gay couples, an act of defiance that thrust the small community into the center of the national debate over same-sex marriage.

Jason West was charged with solemnizing marriages for couples who had no licenses, a misdemeanor under the domestic relations law, according to Ulster County District Attorney Donald Williams.

Although West could face a maximum penalty of a year in jail, the prosecutor said a jail term wasn't being contemplated at this point.

The 26-year-old Green Party mayor said he will plead innocent at his court hearing Wednesday and that he would still go through with his plans to marry as many as two dozen gay couples Saturday.

"I'm incredibly disappointed," West said. "Apparently, it's a crime to uphold the constitution of New York state."

West performed wedding ceremonies for 25 gay couples Friday, making him the second mayor in the country to perform same-sex marriages. It also made this small college village 75 miles north of New York City another flash point in the national debate over gay marriage. More than 3,400 couples have been married in San Francisco and West has about 1,000 couples on a waiting list.

[...]

With West vowing to go through with more gay weddings, opponents had hoped Williams would act to stop him. But he said he did not have the legal power to do that, only to file charges after the fact.

West said the prospect of further punishment does not deter him, adding that the newlywed couples inspire him.

"Just the looks on their faces, just the absolute joy of finally being able to be equal," he said. "That is the highest moral calling I could possibly imagine."

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/02/2004 07:42:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Drunken Polish nun crashes her tractor

I couldn't make this shit up if I tried:

WARSAW (AFP) - A Benedictine nun could lose her driving licence after hitting a car parked outside her convent at Krzeszow in southeast Poland while drunk at the wheel of a tractor, a local police spokesman, Dariusz Waluch said.

Waluch said the 45-year nun "was in no fit state to blow into a breathalyser" after the accident and police were waiting for the results of a blood-alcohol test before charging her.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/02/2004 07:37:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

US Borders: More Leaks Than a White House Staff Meeting

Just in case you were starting to feel safe:

Chronic delays in the integration of FBI fingerprint files with databases used by the Border Patrol leave the United States vulnerable to entry by foreign criminals and terrorists, Justice Department investigators found Tuesday.

Glenn A. Fine, the Justice Department inspector general, said the latest projections are that the two systems won't be combined and automated to check every illegal alien until at least 2008, nearly two years behind the original schedule.

Until then, overworked Border Patrol agents must pick and choose which illegal aliens apprehended at U.S. borders to run through FBI databases that contain some 43 million ten-finger sets of prints of known criminals. That means some will slip through the cracks, possibly to commit more crimes, Fine said.

The report focused on the case of Victor Manual Batres, who was stopped by Border Patrol agents twice in January 2002 but each time was returned to Mexico without having his fingerprints run through the FBI files. Had the agents done so, they would have discovered he had a long criminal history and could have turned him over to federal prosecutors.

Instead, Batres made it across the U.S.-Mexico border illegally a third time later in 2002, making his way to Klamath Falls, Oregon, where he raped two Roman Catholic nuns and killed one of them, 53-year-old Sister Helen Lynn Chaska. Batres is now serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to murder and rape.

As I read this article, I couldn't help but notice that over in the sidebar CNN.com had the following article (and ONLY this article) listed under "Related Stories":

Bush: America making progress in terror war

America is "breathing down" the necks of terrorists and will never relent, President Bush said Tuesday, marking the anniversary of the Homeland Security Department.

In a speech to some 200 department employees, Bush said the United States was cutting off the terrorists' money supply, chasing down terrorists leaders and disrupting their networks. This came amid claims that while the administration is more aware of threats, it is not doing enough about them.

"We are relentless," Bush said, adding that two-thirds of the key leaders of the al-Qaeda terrorist network have been captured or killed. "We are strong. We refuse to yield. The rest of them hear us breathing down their neck. We're after them. We will not relent. We will bring these killers to justice."

We will bring these killers to justice... by 2008. Maybe that's going to be his reelection platform. God knows he doesn't have much else.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/02/2004 04:43:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Cheney Says He Supports Gay Marriage Ban

I find this absolutely reprehensible:

Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday he supports President Bush's call for a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages, even though one of his daughters is gay and he has said in the past the issue should be left to the states.

"The president's taken the clear position that he supports a constitutional amendment," Cheney said in an interview with MSNBC. "I support him."

Cheney said during the 2000 campaign, and again last month, that he prefers to see states handle the issue of gay marriage. His openly lesbian daughter, Mary Cheney, is an aide in the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, but the vice president declined to discuss her.

"One of the most unpleasant aspects of this business is the extent of which private lives are intruded upon when these kinds of issues come up," he said. "I really have always considered my private - my daughters' lives private and I think that's the way it ought to remain."

His own daughter is a lesbian, for chrissakes. How could you do something like that to your own kid? It's just disgusting. What an awful human being.

But perhaps I'm being too harsh. Maybe he's just gone off his meds or something.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/02/2004 04:09:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

China to Make Private Property a Right

This is marginally interesting:

Communist China is changing its constitution to embrace the most basic tenet of capitalism, protecting private property rights for the first time since the 1949 revolution.

China's parliament is meeting in an annual session starting Friday to endorse the change, already approved by Communist Party leaders who tout privatization as a way to continue the country's economic revolution and help tens of millions of poor Chinese.

It will bring China's legal framework in line with its market-oriented ambitions by providing a constitutional guarantee for entrepreneurs, once considered the enemy of communism but now pivotal in generating jobs and wealth.

"Since private businesses have been playing an increasingly important role in China's economy, their demand for legitimate protection has also increased," said Wang Hongling, of the Institute of Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government think tank.

"The amendment," he said, "will offer private businessmen a guarantee to their property safety and make them free of worry."

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/02/2004 03:58:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Technical Problems Plague E-Voting

I've been saying it for months - electronic voting machines are a huge threat to American democracy:

Electronic voting made its debut in cities and towns from Maryland to California on Tuesday as election officials beefed up security for the record number of voters expected to cast E-ballots for the first time.

[...]

Overall, some 10 million people in at least two dozen states were expected to cast ballots in primaries this year on machines built by Diebold, Sequoia Voting Systems, Electronic Systems & Software and other vendors.

And the electronic voting trend is accelerating: In November's presidential election, at least 50 million people will vote on touch-screens, compared with 55 million using paper, punch cards or lever machines, according to Washington-based Election Data Services.

One Maryland polling place had to switch to paper ballots Tuesday because its new electronic voting machines didn't work. State elections supervisor Linda Lamone said technicians expected to have the problem fixed quickly.

Voters also had to start out using paper ballots in Georgia's Effingham County. Chris Riggall, a spokesman for Secretary of State Cathy Cox, said county officials apparently forgot to program the encoders � devices used to tell ballot access cards, which voters insert into the machines, what ballot to display.

A security issue also arose in Georgia.

Georgia Tech student Peter Sahlstrom said he found 10 Diebold terminals sitting unprotected in the lobby of the school's student center Monday. Sahlstrom, 22, photographed the machines in their unlocked cases.

"Frankly, this makes me nervous and ... it validates a lot of the concerns I already had," Sahlstrom said in a phone interview.

[...]

"The modernization of the nation's voting infrastructure is long overdue," said Alfie Charles, spokesman for Oakland-based Sequoia, which built the machines being used by as many as 4 million voters in California and Maryland.

But computer scientists have been protesting the switch. They're particularly concerned that few of the computers provide paper records, making it nearly impossible to have meaningful recounts, or to prove that vote tampering hasn't occurred.

Politicians, voter-rights advocates and even some secretaries of state have acknowledged that the systems could theoretically fail � with catastrophic consequences.

In several software and hardware tests, critics have shown it's easy to jam microchip-embedded smart cards into machines, or alter and delete some votes � in some cases simply by ripping out wires. They've cracked passwords to gain access to computer servers and showed that some systems relying on Microsoft Windows lacked up-to-date security patches that should have been downloaded from the Internet.

California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley directed elections officials last month to bolster security in 12 counties using touch-screens. Those counties account for about 41 percent of California's registered voters. Shelley also wants independent, random tests of touch-screen machines.

Maryland, which spent $55.6 million on 16,000 touch-screen computers earlier this year, also took precautions.

Computer experts told Maryland lawmakers in January that the hardware contained "vulnerabilities that could be exploited by malicious individuals." Among their surprises: all of Maryland's machines had two identical locks, which could be opened by any one of 32,000 keys or be easily picked.

For a more in-depth look at how incredibly dangerous electronic voting machines are, click here.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/02/2004 03:16:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

A Turn for the Worse

Bombers in Iraq, Pakistan Kill 184 People on Holy Day, Hurt 590:

Shiite Muslims were attacked by bombers in Iraq and Pakistan on a holy day, killing at least 184 people and wounding about 590. U.S. authorities in Iraq said a man they have described as an al-Qaeda associate, Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, may be behind the Iraqi attacks.

Iraqis marking the observance of Ashura were targeted in almost simultaneous attacks in the Iraqi capital Baghdad and the venerated Shiite city of Karbala about 60 miles south. At least 58 people were killed and 200 wounded in Baghdad and 85 people killed and 230 wounded in Karbala, U.S. Army Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said in Baghdad.

``This was a clear and tragically well-organized act of terrorism,'' Dan Senor, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, said in Baghdad as he answered questions alongside Kimmitt.

At least 41 Shiites were killed and more than 160 wounded in a bomb blast and gun assault near the city of Quetta, Pakistan, according to tallies from two hospitals. City officials imposed a curfew as the assailants were sought.

The Iraq attacks, one of the largest single-day death tolls since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in April, came as the U.S. works toward the transfer of political sovereignty to an Iraqi body by the end of June. The U.S.-picked Iraqi Governing Council concluded negotiations on an interim Iraqi constitution yesterday.

A photograph shot about an hour before a bomb attack shows a procession of participants in the holy Shiite festival of Ashoura walking on the same street that later would be the scene of carnage, in the holy city of Karbala


-------------------------------------




An Iraqi man carries a wounded boy as he runs away from the first of a series of explosions in the holy Shi'ite city of Kerbala


-------------------------------------




An Iraqi looks towards the site of multiple explosions in Baghdad Tuesday, March 2, 2004 where Muslim Shiites had been visiting a shrine, marking the final day of Ashoura, the ten day mourning of important Shiite Saint Imam Hussein. Four large explosions at the site killed scores of Shiite faithful and injured many others.


-------------------------------------


UPDATE: Not that it's any consolation, but it could have been even worse. This report from msnbc.com mentions that a third attack was narrowly averted in Basra:

A third attack in Basra was averted with the arrests of two men and two women, the police sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the AP.

The two men -- a Syrian and an Iraqi -- were arrested after a car bomb was found outside the Seyed Ali al-Musawi Mosque in central Basra, they said.

Tens of thousands of worshipers were in the area when the bombers were discovered just after noon.

Later in the day, in the al-Maqal neighborhood of Basra, police arrested two women who were wearing explosives-laden belts as the marched in a procession to mark Ashoura.

The attacks sparked a wave of Shiite outrage -- much of it directed at U.S. troops in the Iraqi capital. U.S. soldiers who arrived at Kazimiya were attacked by angry crowds throwing stones and garbage, injuring two Americans.

The really tragic part is that things were starting to get better in Iraq. Oil production is poised to surpass prewar levels, American casualties were down significantly, the Iraqi Governing Council passed an interim constitution, and amazingly enough, Sunni clerics had been calling on anti-American forces to put an end to their attacks against both Iraqi civilians and security officers. They issued a fatwa which begins as follows:

"Dear sons of our nation, we call upon you to close ranks and elevate yourselves above your grudges so that we may open a new chapter in the life of our country. We condemn any act of violence against Iraqi state government workers, police and soldiers, because it is aggression under Islamic law."

Now we get this synchronized attack on a Muslim holy day. If Iraq manages to pull itself out of this mess without descending into civil war, it will be a testament to the resilience of the Iraqi people.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/02/2004 12:49:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

U.N.: Iraq had no WMD after 1994

Big surprise:

A report from U.N. weapons inspectors to be released today says they now believe there were no weapons of mass destruction of any significance in Iraq after 1994, according to two U.N. diplomats who have seen the document.
The historical review of inspections in Iraq is the first outside study to confirm the recent conclusion by David Kay, the former U.S. chief inspector, that Iraq had no banned weapons before last year's U.S-led invasion. It also goes further than prewar U.N. reports, which said no weapons had been found but noted that Iraq had not fully accounted for weapons it was known to have had at the end of the Gulf War in 1991.

The report, to be outlined to the U.N. Security Council as early as Friday, is based on information gathered over more than seven years of U.N. inspections in Iraq before the 2003 war, plus postwar findings discussed publicly by Kay.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/02/2004 07:31:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

California Freeway Shootings

I don't live in California, but has this sort of thing become so commonplace that it doesn't even make the news? I haven't seen a single thing about it anywhere, and I read a shitload of news every day.

The number of possible freeway shootings in the East Bay jumped to seven and the California Highway Patrol said Saturday that federal agents were helping the investigation.

All seven incidents were along a stretch of Interstate 580 between San Leandro and Dublin. Six of the incidents, including three in which investigators later found bullet fragments in the victims' cars, all occurred between 6 and 8 p.m. Monday.

The most recent possible shooting to come to light involves a motorist who called CHP officers about 12:30 a.m. Saturday to report an incident at 7: 50 p.m. Monday.

The driver was traveling from southbound Highway 238 to eastbound I-580 when the vehicle's back window suddenly shattered. The driver still doesn't know what caused the window to shatter but initially assumed it was caused by a rock or debris. The driver called investigators after seeing news reports of the other shootings, CHP Officer Shawn Morris said.

Investigators are looking into seven incidents where vehicles were possibly struck by gunfire last week near Interstate 580 between San Leandro and Dublin.


What the hell is going on in this country? People are shooting random cars on the highway and it's not even news? We've got hundreds of thousands of American soldiers deployed across the globe and nobody's even sure how many wars we're fighting (Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti (does that count?), Terror (how about that?)), Our wild-eyed, increasingly unpopular President wants to chuck a horrible, hateful Amendment into the Constitution and people are actually thinking it might not be such a bad idea?

How do we respond to all this rampant insanity? We watch American Idol and talk about the latest Mel Gibson movie.

Is it some kind of self-preservation thing? Does society have a built in "distract-me-from-reality-so-I-don't-lose-my-shit" mechanism? Maybe what we're witnessing is a kind of distributed denial where an entire nation has silently agreed to ignore reality in favor of reality TV. Where we all play along and make believe tap water in expensive bottles is somehow safer than tap water from the sink.

Or am I cutting people too much slack? Perhaps it's not some deep-seated self-preservation subroutine. Maybe we're just so stupid and lazy that we don't care about anything. I hate to think it, but it's possible that we've grown so inured to the psychotic ultraviolence and the constant barrage of bad news that it's all just another thing we click past as we scan the channels for the second-to-last episode of Friends.

I hope not. I'm going to bet that people come out in droves tomorrow to vote in the Democratic Primary. Tonight I'll dream about a record turnout that will show the entire world how fed up Americans are with all this crazy stuff. I desperately want to believe that people are starting to pay attention, and I'm praying that tomorrow will be the first sign of an excited, energized populace.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/01/2004 10:31:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Different Levels of Bullshit

Coca-Cola has admitted Dasani is nothing more than purified tap water:

Coca-Cola says "reverse osmosis", "a technique perfected by Nasa to purify fluids on spacecraft", is then used to filter the water further before minerals are added to "enhance the pure taste".

Finally, "ozone" is injected to keep the water sterile, the company says.

But water industry representatives say consumers do not need to buy Dasani to get "excellent quality, healthy water".

[...]

Judith Snyder, brand PR manager for Dasani, confirmed "municipal" water supplies were used but said the source was "irrelevant" because it "doesn't affect the end result".

She said: "We would never say tap water isn't drinkable.

"It's just that Dasani is as pure as water can get - there are different levels of purity."

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/01/2004 08:20:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

WWJD?

I predict some serious flipping out:

In a precedent-setting decision, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday that a Roman Catholic charity must offer birth-control coverage to its employees even though the church considers contraception a sin.

The 6-1 decision marked the first such ruling by a state's highest court. Experts said the ruling could affect thousands of workers at Catholic hospitals and other church-backed institutions in California and prompt other states to fashion similar laws.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/01/2004 08:02:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Aristide Abducted?

I'm not exactly sure what's going on here, but the (democratically elected) President of Haiti is claiming he was kidnapped by US forces:

Jean-Bertrand Aristide, ousted as Haitian president on Sunday, told U.S. lawmakers and other contacts by telephone on Monday that he was abducted by U.S. soldiers and left his homeland against his will.

Washington immediately denied this, saying Aristide had agreed to step down and leave his country. "It's complete nonsense," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.

[...]

Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY) and Randall Robinson, the former head of the black lobbying group TransAfrica, said in separate interviews with CNN that Aristide called them from the Central African Republic, where he is in temporary exile.

Robinson, speaking from the Caribbean island of St Kitts, said Aristide had telephoned him on a cell phone on Monday morning from a room in the Central African Republic, where he said he was being guarded by African and French soldiers.

"The president said to me that he had been abducted from his home by about 20 American soldiers in full battle gear with automatic weapons and put on a plane" on Sunday morning, Robertson said.

"Across the aisle from him and Mrs. Aristide sat the American soldier who apparently was the commander of the contingent. They were not told where they were going, nor were they allowed to make any phone calls before they left the house or on the plane," he said.

He said Aristide had told him the plane made two stops before landing in the Central African Republic and that the Americans had instructed them not to raise the blinds to look out when the plane was on the ground.

"Not until they arrived did the president learn where he was," Robertson said. "He said to me twice before he had to get off the phone, 'Tell the world that it's a coup. That American soldiers abducted (me)."'

Rangel, a Democratic member of the House (of Representatives) from New York, said he heard a similar account from Aristide by telephone. Aristide told him he was "disappointed that the international community had let him down, that he was kidnapped, that he resigned under pressure."

Again, my knowledge of the Haitian situation (I kick mad rhymes) is virtually null. I'm having trouble figuring out exactly what the motivation would be for the US to stage a coup against Aristide, given that we spent $2 billion getting him elected.

Even if we hadn't installed Aristide, I still don't see what the US would gain by controlling Haiti. They have no oil and they have no natural gas. What's the motivation here?

Anyone who knows anything about this story is welcome to shed some light on it. By all means, feel free to comment.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/01/2004 02:10:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

China slams US human rights record

Looks like our morally superior stance is starting to lose some credibility:

BEIJING (AFP) - China has published a scathing attack on the human rights situation in the United States, retaliating for a similar report issued by Washington last week that accused Beijing of backsliding on its rights record.

Only days after slamming the US report as "interference in its internal affairs," the State Council, China's cabinet, countered with its own criticism.

Allegations of US atrocities in the wars on Iraq and led the way.

"In recent years, the United States has practiced unilateralism on the international stage, wantonly engaged in military adventures, violently invaded the sovereignty of other nations and left the mark of rights violations everywhere," the 2003 US Rights Violation Record said.

"Since the United States initiated the war on Iraq, 16,000 Iraqis have been killed including 10,000 citizens," the report said.

With a 400 billion dollar defense budget, US defense spending is bigger than military expenditures of the rest of the world combined, while the United States is the world's biggest seller of arms.

It was responsible for more than 48 percent of all conventional weapons sales to the developing world in 2002, the report said.

Rights violations were not only restricted to the 364,000 soldiers Washington has based in more than 130 countries, the report said, but also occurred at home where the United States remains one of the world's most violent places to live.

"The United States leads the world in gun ownership, guns are everywhere and crimes involving guns are on the rise," it said.

Of the 15,980 murders committed in the United States in 2001, 63 percent involved guns, while 56 percent, or 16,586 people, who committed suicide in the US in 2000 used guns, it said.

The report also soundly blasted the US Patriot Act which has empowered the government to violate the rights and freedom of ordinary citizens, most notably American minorities, "in the name of national security and fighting terrorism," it said.

Despite routinely refusing to accept criticisms on rights abuses in China from groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, the Chinese report liberally used documentation by such groups on US rights violations.

"According to a Human Rights Watch report in September 2003, one fifth of men in US prisons faced violent and dangerous sexual encounters, while one in 10 were raped," the report said.

The report also cited Amnesty for evidence that police brutality in US jails led to the deaths of at least three prisoners in 2003.

The report further slammed US democratic politics as the politics of the rich and cited the 113 million dollars spent by George W. Bush's election campaign in 2000 and the projected 200 million dollars for this year's presidential elections.

It also blasted the US social welfare network and cited the growing numbers of poor and homeless people.

"The richest one percent of the US have wealth that is equal to the 40 percent of the poorest people in the country," it said.

"While the income of the richest one percent was only 7.5 percent of all income earned in 1979, it was 15.5 percent in 2000."

On Thursday China expressed "indignation" at the US report which alleged a worsening human rights situation in China in 2003.

The annual State Department report accused China's communist leaders of letting their human rights record slip as arrests of democracy activists and extrajudicial killings continued apace.

Also targeted were labour protesters, defense lawyers, journalists, house church members and "others seeking to take advantage of the space created by reforms", according to the US report.

The report also said a "harsh repression" of the Falungong spiritual group continued, that China's record in Tibet remained poor and that the government had used the war on terror to justify a crackdown against Muslim Uighurs.

Regrettably, I don't have time right now to comment on this article (work is really cutting into my strict blogging regimen). All I'm going to say is that you know you're in trouble when China starts coming down on you for your human rights record.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/01/2004 01:37:00 PM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::

Debate Raises Doubts For Kerry-Edwards Run

From the Washington Post:

For many weeks now, Democratic activists and party leaders have talked openly about the attractiveness of such a ticket, and by his performance this year, Edwards has certainly earned himself a spot high up on Kerry's short list of possible running mates. But Democrats watching Sunday's debate may wonder whether the chemistry between the two men would allow that, even if practical political considerations and pressures inside the party argue for it.

Kerry allies say privately that the senator is not a particular fan of Edwards, and a question to Kerry about what he has learned from Edwards about how to be a more likable candidate must have rankled the man who is in control of the Democratic race.

Kerry made no bow to Edwards's talents as a candidate in his answer. What he learned, he said, came from the voters he has encountered along the campaign trail. "I learned it in Iowa, and I learned it in New Hampshire," Kerry said. "And I think the reason I've won 18 or 20 contests so far, and I'm now campaigning hard to win others, is that give me a living room, give me a barn, give me a VFW hall, give me a one-on-one, and I think I can talk to anybody in this country."

CBS anchor Dan Rather then put the question to Edwards in what he said was a Texas vernacular: "Does Senator Kerry have enough Elvis to beat George Bush?" Edwards offered only a minimalist endorsement of his rival. "I know John Kerry," he said. "I like him very much. And he and I have known each other for years."

[...]

Edwards aggressively pointed out differences with his rival that Kerry said do not really exist, challenging Kerry as someone spouting "that same old Washington talk that people have been listening to for decades" and questioning whether the Massachusetts senator could change the status quo in the capital when he is a Washington insider himself.

Kerry in turn suggested that Edwards was being disingenuous on trade and lacked the "experience and proven ability" to get things done in Washington. "I just listened to John talk about Washington, D.C.," he said. "Last time I looked, John ran for the United States Senate, and he's been in the Senate for the last five years. That seems to me to be Washington, D.C."

And that is the question on everyone's lips as we head into Super Tuesday - Does John Kerry have enough Elvis? Is there even such a thing as "enough Elvis?"





I submit that there is not.

:: Little Brother is watching at 3/01/2004 11:11:00 AM :: posted by SmooveJ :: permalink ::