10.28.2005
It's Like Griswold v State of Connecticut ALL Over Again
This law will, as the attorney writes, come up again. Look at the far right's smugness that they get to handpick the Supreme Court.
From FindLaw:
Two weeks ago, the State of Indiana was on its way to considering astatute that would have confined the use of assisted reproduction to married couples. Sponsored by State Senator Patricia Miller of Indianapolis, the law would have requiredpeople who wished to utilize assisted reproductionto obtain licensing, and would have denied suchlicensing to unmarried people. In addition,criminal penalties would have followed for the "unlicensed" reproducer.Griswold (I believe I have the name right) v State of Connecticut was the landmark case that ultimately cut down states' rights to tell women they could not use birth control. Many states had laws that basically forbade use of contraceptives.
Miller withdrew the bill after a firestorm of controversy. Yet this law, or one like it, might well reappear soon, in Indiana or elsewhere.
The proposed bill raises important and novel questions about what the Constitution has to say about the use of new technologies in procreation.
I'm rather over simplifying here, but tonight's not my best night ever.
[Ed. note: For more info on Griswold, see here.]
Gag Me With a Lardball Hardball
Chris Matthews is on TV now telling us how noble Mr. Bush is, telling us what a "man" he is because - just before Mr. Bush left for another vacation weekend on the heels of indictment - Mr. Bush said he was going to keep doing his job.
If Mr. Bush's job is to ruin this country and the world, he's doing a bang-up job. Otherwise, there is nothing noble about the stink or the shit-for-brains serving as the titular head.
Dick Cheney's Reaction
From the WaPo:
-- Reaction from Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday to the resignation of his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, as released by the White House:Note Dick's supreme apology to the American people and to sacrificing national security to lie us into war.
"Mr. Libby has informed me that he is resigning to fight the charges brought against him. I have accepted his decision with deep regret.
Scooter Libby is one of the most capable and talented individuals I have ever known. He has given many years of his life to public service and has served our nation tirelessly and with great distinction.
In our system of government an accused person is presumed innocent until a contrary finding is made by a jury after an opportunity to answer the charges and a full airing of the facts. Mr. Libby is entitled to that opportunity.
Still, if he's behind the wheel of a car tonight, I'd stay out of his way. Mr. Cheney has a history of DUI incidents.
All the President's Men? Please
Libby works ... er... worked not just for the vice president, Dick Cheney, but also for the president. That's important.
But you know what's more critical?
Bush, Cheney, Libby, Rove, etc. are all ostensibly supposed to be serving us. A more self-serving, only-us crew, however, you cannot find!
Just the Distinction You've Always Craved
From Achenblog at WaPo:
To those of us with a firm grasp of the law, the difference between a charge of "perjury" and a charge of "making false statements" is as obvious as the difference between a creature that is active in twilight and one that is crepuscular. But a lay person might get confused as he or she reads the reports this morning that H. W. Scooter "Irving" Libby, the Vice President's chief of staff, will be charged with making false statements to a federal grand jury -- but not charged with perjury [though we now know he's been charged with both--JA]. Herewith, a primer on the laws governing non-truthful communication under oath:All clear now?
Perjury: Lying. Bald-faced prevarication. Telling one whopper after another in a brazen attempt to deceive investigators. Often accompanied by elevated heart rate, increased kidney function and crossed fingers. Punishable by life in prison.
Making False Statements: Lying in a non-perjuritive manner. Usually involves strategic forgetfulness. The statement could be true if other factors were different and if standards of honesty were dramatically lowered. Often accompanied by bouncing eyebrows. Punishable by expulsion from the community.
Scuttlebutt: Documents Related to Plamegate May Appear As Early as Noon
This is Fitzgerald's official site.
Now I've gotta go Scooter my Libby back to work.
Tracking Code Found in Color Printers
I TOTALLY missed this, but it comes as no surprise.
You'd be amazed how much of your equipment and software can be traced right back to you. Hewlett Packard has been very, very, very helpful to the government, for example, in IDing you on your computer.
FBI Dealt Cell Phone Surveillance Blow
I'm waiting for them to tap our toilets. They could slip the devices into our Toilet Ducks; pretty blue water and lots of labored grunting (er.. not that I ever grunt).
From WaPo:
The FBI may not track the locations of cell phone users without showing evidence that a crime occurred or is in progress, two federal judges ruled, saying that to do so would violate long-established privacy protections.WaPo also reports here about new initiatives for Internet wire-tapping by the feds and organizations concerned about same (me too!).
In separate rulings over the past two weeks, judges in Texas and New York denied FBI requests for court orders that would have forced wireless carriers to continuously reveal the location of a suspect's cell phone as part of an ongoing investigation. Other judges have allowed the practice in other jurisdictions, but the recent rulings could change that.
Depending on a wireless phone's capabilities, carriers can determine either precise or rough locations of users when they make or receive calls, a feature primarily used for emergencies.
The rulings come as controversy mounts over the federal government's ability to conduct domestic surveillance. Privacy advocates continue to criticize the Patriot Act, enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. That law broadened the powers of law enforcement to monitor citizens under suspicion of terrorist activity.
On Tuesday, a coalition of technology and privacy groups filed suit challenging a Federal Communications Commission order that would make it easier for law enforcement to monitor e-mail and other Internet-based communication.
Not the End of Plamegate?
John Nichols of The Nation (author of "Dick, The Man Who is President) is saying that CIA operative outing DoJ special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, expected to announce the indictment of Dick Cheney's #2 man, Scooter Libby, at 2 PM:
- has requested an extension of the grand jury
- has just leased SIGNIFICANTLY larger office space than he currently occupies in Washington
- has indicated information Fitzgerald has learned in the last few days requires far more exploration (queue cliffhanger music)
This was just on Democracy Now!
Commerce Dept: Economy is Just Peachy!
In a word, utter bullshit (bush shit?)- unless you're heavy into oil, Halliburton, Roche, Bechtel, et al.
Loving Bill O'Reilly (in a Completely Platonic, Brotherly Way, of Course)
No, not me! Heavens to Betsy, no!
From General JC Christian:
I love Bill O'Reilly (in a very heterosexual, almost Leavittown, Buenos Aries Hilton combat experienced kind of way, of course) and nothing gives me more joy than to see him rant about Media Matters. I just can't resist watching as his face deepens in color until it's like an over-ripe tomato swollen to the point where the skin begins to tear. And the eyes, my God the eyes, growing larger with each angry sentence he utters until finally they seem as if they are struggling to tear themselves loose from their sockets to do a grotesque swan dive into the puddle of drool forming on the desktop beneath his chin.
One of these days, while he's in the middle of a particularly harsh diatribe, his head is going to explode. It'll be Fox's greatest moment, one that will be replayed more often than even Howard Dean's scream. Hannity will call it a Hillary plot, Hume will cite it as a reason to drill for oil in Yosemite, and Greta will declare a portion of O'Reilly's skull to be white, female and missing.
That's why it's important to contribute to Media Matters during their fund drive.
They may be as French as shredded green beans, but by God, they're going to give us the greatest of all television moments.
The God of War Looms Close
No, not Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, nor Mr. Rumsfeld.
Mars - the planet - comes very close to us (comparatively speaking) around 11:25 PM EDT Saturday. Only second time in 60,000 years (so they say) it's been this close.
Damned, we're supposed to be snowy up here so we won't see it. But wow, has Venus been beautiful coming up over the studio at the other side of my yard right after dinner. It's actually hurt my naked eyes with its brilliance more than once, although I am not complaining.
Skywatchers, btw, do themselves a disservice if they don't take a cold weather vacation to some place like Vermont. Our cold night skies can almost look more yellow-white than black because you can see so damned much. I kid you not: I've manually counted as many as (roughly) 517 stars, planets, etc. in just one patch of sky. Meteor showers truly ARE out of this world.
While my partner, John, has a big telescope set up so it wheels out of the house and does some through-scope photography (he's gotten some stunning stuff), I like just looking with my eyes. I'm not an avid celestialist, either. The beauty, however, catches me every time and hooks me until my eyes can no longer focus.
We've been known to bundle up in parkas, grab thermal cups of coffee, and camp out on the lawn chairs in the middle of the lawn
Say Hello to Hurricane Beta
It's just about to achieve hurricane status off Central America with talk of it hitting the US.
Wow, another chance to prove that FEMA and Michael Chertoff (the boss of FEMA in his position as Homeland Security Chief) are partisan, incompetent, and a complete sham to filter money toward Halliburton, et al under the Bush Administration.
Of course, when most of Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire plus upstate New York were out of power and phones, buried under ice and snow, from a Wilma-driven nor'easter, it didn't get that much press play and we certainly didn't get - or ask for - any FEMA help. But as a blue state, Vermont would get nothing from the Bushies anyway.
AND we not only had all the (nature-supplied) ice we needed, we're warehousing in New England tons and tons of ice that sat outside New Orleans not being delivered when Katrina began to strike two months ago today.
And Even Yet...
BREAKING NEWS
Bush reacts to reporters this morning.
Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the CIA leak probe, plans to ask a grand jury to indict Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, a lawyer involved in the case told CNN today. President Bush's top political strategist Karl Rove will not be indicted today, but is not out of legal jeopardy, according to sources. Fitzgerald is expected to hold a news conference at 2 p.m.
('lefted from CNN)
Dubya grins awkwardly.
Remember him assuring us NO ONE in the White House was involved? That he had investigated this himself (heh) and everybody was squeakier clean than a 1st-day noviate at an abbey?
When It Says Libby....
Anyone recall that rather annoying old Libby canned food commercial?
When it says Libby Libby Libby
on the label label label
You can indict indict indict
him 'round a table table table...
With All the Real News to Report....
CNN's home page gives you not one, not two, but THREE different links to the George Takei (Sulu, of Star Trek fame) "admission" that he is gay.
I never understand the word "admit" in reference to gay.
For example, you can admit you're wrong, admit you're guilty, admit you ate the last piece of pie.
But about your sexual orientation?
Appeals Court Overturns Georgia's Voting ID Law
I agree with the judge; the way this is instituted, this Georgia law (not much of a smooth, delectable peach) amounts to a poll tax which has the effectively keeps the poor and others out of the voting booth.
And We Wait....
Nothing yet posted on DoJ Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's Web site.
WaPo, however, indicates the White House is very concerned that Libby will be indicted. Both they and Reuters report Karl Rove will be "spared" indictment.
That's a shame, since the White House really should be concerned with all the others who took part in outing a CIA operative, namely Valerie Plame Wilson, working actively on weapons of mass destruction (WMD, or in the Bushies' case, whirlpools of mass distraction).
Robert Novak and Judith Miller (the White House covert spokeswoman) should be indicted, in my humble opinion.
OK, How Did This Cat Get to France?
Here's the cat story.
Then there's the suicide who hung herself and was mistaken for a Halloween decoration.
House GOP Guts Programs
Most of their aim so far has been on the poor.
From CNN:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Republicans voted to cut student loan subsidies, child support enforcement and aid to firms hurt by unfair trade practices as various committees scrambled to piece together $50 billion in budget cuts.
More politically difficult votes -- to cut Medicaid, food stamps and farm subsidies -- are on tap Thursday as more panels weigh in on the bill.
It was originally intended to cut $35 billion in spending over five years, but after pressure from conservatives, GOP leaders directed committees to cut another $15 billion to help pay the cost of hurricane recovery.
President Bush met with House and Senate GOP leaders and said he was pleased with the progress.
A Reminder
Plamegate Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's newly-minted Web site is here.
Today's the day, whatever happens or not.
Evolution: 10,000 pts; Kansas: 3 pts
Also from WaPo:
In an escalation of the nation's culture war over the teaching of evolution, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Teachers Association announced yesterday that they will not allow Kansas to use key science education materials developed by the two organizations.You know, there are many sane, intelligent people in Kansas.
The refusal came after the groups reviewed the latest draft of the Kansas State Department of Education's new science education standards and concluded that they overemphasize uncertainties about the theory of evolution and fail to make it clear that supernatural phenomena have no place in science.
Until those issues are properly dealt with, the two groups said in a letter to state Assistant Education Commissioner Alexa Posny, the state will not be granted permission to use their science curriculum materials.
Those include the National Science Education Standards, which serve as the foundation for science curricula in virtually every state in the nation and which were written by the academy's affiliate, the National Research Council. They also include the science teachers' Pathway to the Science Standards, which help translate the NRC's guidelines for everyday use. Both are protected by copyrights.
The new draft of the Kansas education standards, written by a committee appointed by the former state education commissioner and subject to an up-or-down vote by the state education department early next month, "inappropriately singles out evolution as a controversial theory despite the strength of the scientific evidence supporting evolution as an explanation for the diversity of life on Earth and its acceptance by an overwhelming majority of scientists," the science groups said in a joint statement.
Unfortunately, it's some of the others you hear loudest from.
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Today's the day. It's shit or get off the pot.
Libby? Rove? We dare not hope for Cheney, Bolton, and Robert Novak.
But thanks for playing the Plame Blame Game.
Dionne on Miers, Bush, and Failure
He's hot, too:
The damage President Bush and the conservative movement have inflicted on their drive to pack the Supreme Court with allies will not be undone by Harriet Miers's decision to withdraw her nomination.Who believes, as I do, that the next Supreme Court candidate is going to make Robert Bork look sane, Scalia humble, and Pat Buchanan moderate?
In picking such a vulnerable nominee, Bush single-handedly undercut the conservatives' long-standing claim that the Senate and the rest of us owed great deference to a president's choice for the court. Conservatives displayed absolutely no deference to Bush when he picked someone they didn't like. The actual conservative "principle" was that the Senate should defer to the president's choice -- as long as that choice was acceptable to conservatives. Some principle.
Republicans had railed against Democratic efforts to press court nominees (including Chief Justice John Roberts) for their views on legal issues. Back in July The Post disclosed a planning document circulated among Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee. The document said nominees for the Supreme Court should avoid disclosing "personal political views or legal thinking on any issue."
Liberals were terribly gauche and inappropriate for wanting to know someone's opinions before awarding that person life tenure on the nation's most powerful court.
But it was neither gauche nor inappropriate for conservatives to de mand that Miers clarify her views on a slew of issues, notably Roe v. Wade . When liberals asked for clarity, they were committing a sin. When conservatives asked for clarity, they were engaged in a virtuous act. Thus are conservatives permitted to alter their principles to suit their own political situation.
There was also that small matter of a nominee's religious views. Conservatives condemned liberals who suggested it was worth knowing how Roberts's religious convictions might affect his judging. But when Miers started running into trouble with conservatives, the Bush administration encouraged its allies to talk up Miers's deep religious convictions to curry favor among social conservatives. I guess it's okay for conservatives to bring up religion whenever they want, but never appropriate for liberals to speak of spiritual things.
Shipments of TamiFlu to the US Suspended
TamiFlu is the "flu symptom reducer" that's all the rage right now because of worry over the Avian flu. As dudlee has pointed out here, Donald Rumsfeld has his dirty little hands in TamiFlu.
Suspending shipments will only increase the demand and thus, the profits.
Just remember last flu season.
Then remember that in any given year, 36,000 Americans die from the flu - 12 times plus the number who died on 9/11.
Let Me Get My Violin...
From the Washington Post:
President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers on Oct. 3 was made from a position of weakness by a White House beset by political problems and eager to avoid a fight over the Supreme Court. Twenty-four excruciating days later, the supposed safe choice crashed, exposing the president as even weaker than before.The whole thing stinks to high heaven... worse even than the next candidate - no doubt someone who will proclaim he (yes, he) believes anyone who isn't a Christian conservative is not an American.
Bush now has an opportunity to recover from one of the biggest political miscalculations of his term, the failure to anticipate the backlash Miers would cause with his own conservative base. But in repairing that breach, he risks a new confrontation with Democrats and further estrangement from the political center -- precisely the situation he hoped to avoid when he tapped his loyal and unassuming personal lawyer in the first place.
Few Republicans in Washington saw the timing of Miers's withdrawal as coincidental. With potential indictments of senior White House officials looming in the CIA leak case, the president could ill afford a sustained and increasingly raw rupture within the GOP coalition.
The Miers nomination was more than a humiliation for Bush, however. It was an episode that seemed wholly out of character with the president's style. No Republican president -- not even Ronald Reagan -- has catered to the right more methodically than Bush. But on a matter of first-order significance to many conservatives, the president let personal loyalty override what had been a central tenet of his political strategy.
And again and again, the press gives us the sense of "poor Mr. Bush". Lied us into war, the worst possible deficit at the time of tax cuts for the wealthiest, record oil profits at a time of record prices, out of civil liberties, and still people want to paint the Lord Emperor as a victim.
Technorati Blogger Enthusiasts
Is there some less half-assed way to include Technorati tags than coding them in each time?
I'm trying them for the third time, but I've already lost all patience again.
10.27.2005
As I Watch it Snow (Literally)
I'm dreaming of a white Fitzmas.
I can't celebrate Halloween this year and Christmas does not look good, but Fitzmas might bring us nearer to the Downing Street Memo.
Cheney and Libby Lied by Omission, Too
Josh Marshall also has this:
Spiro Agnew fell on the sword for less, if I recall correctly.Murray Waas in National Journal: "Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, overruling advice from some White House political staffers and lawyers, decided to withhold crucial documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004 when the panel was investigating the use of pre-war intelligence that erroneously concluded Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, according to Bush administration and congressional sources."
We'll have more on this shortly. But there's more to be said about why this is coming out now, especially since the chairman of the committee, Sen. Roberts (R-KS) was doing his best already to cover for the vice-president.
Technorati Tags: Bush, Current events, News and politics, Opinion
So Italy Helped Bake the "Niger Yellow Cake" for Bush
Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo discusses it as do several other of the blogs.
But where's the surprise? We heard from spring 2003 if not sooner, well before the outing of Plame, that Italy was tied into the documents and the documents had no integrity. In fact, some experts said as far back as then that these were very likely forged and smacked specifically of an Italian hand, with a bit of implication that someone in the US might be dictating.
In other words - for the Fox crowd - Bush didn't write the fake documents himself, he had his friend and fellow royal bully autocrat, Silvio Berlusconi (Italian prime minister), forge them instead. Italy's a good place for that because he owns and controls a nice big chunk of the media, which is also sorta like here.
Uh oh... Did Dubya Finally Send His "What? Me Worry?" T-Shirt to the Cleaners?
I love how Bush turned the Koolaid Intelligensia In-swelled-head-sia sinking of his gal pal, Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, into how the mean Democrats kept her from her rightful seat because she thinks he's the smartest man she's ever met (Harriet needs to meet more people; all that inbreeding among the Bushies and Cheneys and all can slip a gene here or there).
Harry Reid said he'd vote for her. The Senate Dem Minority Leader.
No Dem had to say boo about Harriet because the obvious craven nutwingers were pushing and shoving the "pretend not to be a nutwinger" nutwingers to see who could get to a microphone to defile this woman fastest. People like:
- Brownback (there's a real think tank; he should be named Brownnose)
- Krauthammer (thank God he doesn't practice psychiatry anymore)
- David ("My Republican handlers believe I can best compensate for being Jewish by writing complete party pablum in arguably the world's most powerful and quoted paper, The New York Times. They've also asked me to obstain from wearing my yamica around the president because Mr. Bush keeps asking where he can get a beanie like mine.") Brooks
- Bill (Not the funny one unless you consider nutwingery and the whole People for a New American Century crowd a laugh riot) Kristol
But Bush blames the Dems for torpedoing her.
Even if you're willing to give this crowd the benefit of the doubt, that they aren't lying through their teeth about everything, aren't you at least worried about how they reality test?
To the Bush crowd:
- Iraq's going swell!
- Undoing posse comitatus to move a member of the military into your home to forcibly quarantine you from the rich, white folk when the Avian flu pandemic hits is a FANTASTIC idea. Halliburton's already no-bid contracted to supply the bullets to shoot grandma if she tries to drive to bingo and what's good for Halliburton is good for our (Dick Cheney's) economy!
- Tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans at a time of soaring, unchecked deficits is GREAT for the economy!
- That it's the job of a great nation to have we the people pay the federal government a fortune in taxes to provide services in the event of a national emergency only to have them fail abysmally at every turn and smirk while they do so.
- Just because Mr. Bush is the leader of the free world doesn't mean he's responsible for any of his actions. I mean, where did you get that silly idea?
Technorati Tags: Bush, Current events, Media, News and politics, Opinion
Need a Writer or Editor? Need a Great Ghostwriter? Or Just Embarrassingly Rich and Want to Underwrite?
I always cringe at the idea of appealing for blog donations. Yes, I put in a lot of time blah blah blah but still... See previous (below) post if you like Lifetime Network (ehhhhh).
However, if you're reading this and happen to be in any of the following situations (or know someone so situated who might be interested), I would be humbly grateful if you'd reach out and connect:
- You need an experienced, dynamic, online analyst and community expert
- You are desperate for someone to ghost write, edit, or write (I've done pretty much everything and my reviews are very solid)
- Your corporate Internet or intranet craves a unifying presence, strong new content, material that can bridge the distance to enrich, educate, and endure
- You seek a blogger (you'd be surprised who I've "ghost" blogged for, but NDA prevents me from saying), a remote content developer and/or manager, a fabulous customer relationship manager (CRM)
- You want the best expert-to-user/user-to-expert documentation for your dollar
- You are fabulously comfortable, have a few dollars burning a hole in your pocket, and you'd like to help keep the blog going by being sure the writer doesn't fold (there's an Amazon donation box down along the right column; I do PayPal too)
If you're not the primary party but "happen to know someone", I'd be very happy to pay an appropriate finder's fee should there be a successful connection; the primary party will get a great worker (priceless).
Technorati Tags: Blogs, Blogging, book, books, Bush, Computers, Computers and Internet, Current events, Hardware, Media, News and politics, Opinion, broadcasting, Projects, Publishing, Technology, Website, Writing, Work
I'm Not Ignoring You
Power has been ignoring us. That Nor'easter killed us. No power. No phone. No satellite. The tree damage looked rather Katrina-like. All of my old apple trees were completely uprooted, and they hadn't even changed fall colors yet although the maples, oaks, and most of the ash have been bare awhile.
This 35 hour outage on top of our 17 hour outage over the weekend on top of the 32 hour outage three weeks ago has literally killed my business, perhaps permanently. I can't keep competitive in a situation where publishers expect 24/7 turn-around and then pay very late, kill timeliness bonuses if you're a second late (and I've never been late; I kept three books on deadline through three weeks in ICU hooked up to oxygen and on a painkiller drip) and then actually lie about the situation (I can be woefully naive; I do actually expect people to behave decently, even after the "blue dress" situation and six years of Dubya) so a middle manager pockets it. I just had someone do this without so much as letting me know it would not be paid until I waited months and asked several times, and incurred extra expenses to produce with the guarantee it would be paid.
I'm a damned good writer. Sadly, this blog isn't always a good representation of that because my "free" time is short and there's so much ground to cover but...
I do not know any other writers - and I know a lot of them in many areas- who can move in and out of styles, subjects, various media, target audience, and message etc CONCURRENTLY as I can.
I do not know any writers who are faster than I am (necessity: few tech and consumer books allow a schedule of more than two months to write and revise) or who can juggle as many concurrent projects as I can. Not so many years ago time, I've written 1,800 tutorials that eventually ended up on Lycos at the same time I was writing four books myself, ghostwriting for another author, and managing an 80 hour a week job. The last few months, I've written or co-authored five books, ghost wrote a shitload of material for a company in New Orleans that seems to have floated away with my pay, came up with PR and marketing material for a non-profit (pro bono), recorded two video instruction series (unfortunately, also for a Gulf coast company that has declared bankruptcy post Katrina), wrote two feature newspaper articles, one white paper (ghost write), and more than a dozen consumer articles that will begin appearing at an online news service.
And yet, for all that work, for the many times the copy and technical edits came in squeaky clean because I do my job, for all the times I've worked all night and stayed up by candlelight in a very cold office to keep writing on laptop, I just found out no one is going to pay me for at least another month (more than a few are past 60 days late). They all have different excuses, none of which will fly with my mortgage holder, phone company, fuel company, or others.
Yes, this is a long preamble to the next post (up).
Technorati Tags: Blogs, Blogging, book, books, Bush, Computers, Computers and Internet, Current events, Hardware, Media, News and politics, Opinion, broadcasting, Projects, Publishing, Technology, Website, Writing, Work
10.25.2005
Tomorrow's Candlelight Vigil for the Dead Soldiers of Iraq
Folks in association with MoveOn.org, Democracy for America, and True Majority (and damn, I'm proud to say the latter two have Vermont DNA all over 'em: DFA with Howard Dean and TM with Ben and Jerry's co-founder Ben Cohen) come together with who ever else would like to join them to:
1) pay our respects to the 2,000 US military members officially dead in Iraq and honor their memory, and
2) demand our leaders do better by those still alive and forced to fight an unjust war
The time is 6:30 PM and there will be more than 300 communities around the country participating. To learn where your nearest vigil is or to announce your own, visit here.
For those of you in my area of Vermont being buried in snow by the nor'easter, there are assemblages in Montpelier (where from 6 AM on, a flag for every dead soldier will be planted on the statehouse grounds as each soldier's name is read) as well as the Peace Park in Hardwick, which is, I believe, located next to the Yummy Wok.
A Grave and Utterly Avoidable Statistic
We have now reached 2,000 official US military deaths in Iraq.
More than 80% of the deaths have occurred since Mr. Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" and active combat over in May, 2003.
It is estimated that no less than between 30,000 and more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians with no known link to insurgency have died. And we don't prove the links to the others.
deMore on Rosa Parks
I found myself crying with pride at footage from the first major effects of the Civil Rights Movement after Rosa Parks moment. Amazing what can happen when people say no to people who feel they can rule them.
Here's a good piece in the The Post (I said good, I didn't say perfect) and I encourage you to listen to Park's 1956 interview being played on DemocracyNow's podcast (as well as on LINK and FreeSpeech TV and Pacifica Radio and now hundreds of others of places, too).
I've read the text from one of the interviews before. But I loved hearing it. As Rosa always pointed out, contrary to first newspaper reports, she was NOT arrested because she sat in the front of the bus or in the "white" section and refused to give up her seat. She was sitting in her usual seat on that bus at the front of the "colored" section and was told she had to get up from that seat to give it to a white man who was standing.
- who never sat in the damned front of the bus or the "white" section of the bus, as she's been telling us lo these many years -
Frog Marching 101: Plamegate Prosecutor Gets a Web Site
Rowe at Dayton vs San Francisco lets us know that Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor investigating the Valerie Plame/Robert Novak (traitor) CIA leak case, has set up Web shop. Not too much there, but the special grand jury recesses October 28th unless there's an extension.
Dobson May Be Asked to "Testify" Re: Miers
The Washington Post also has this of (some) interest:
The Senate Judiciary Committee is likely to summon a leading conservative Christian to explain the private assurances he says he received from the White House about Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, the committee's chairman said yesterday.Subpoena his fat ass and if he doesn't answer right, there's always Guantanamo Bay, right?
Testimony by Focus on the Family founder James C. Dobson would heighten the political and religious overtones of the already-high-stakes confirmation hearing for Miers, scheduled to start two weeks from today.
Dobson is among several evangelical leaders enlisted by the White House to vouch for Miers's conservative credentials among right-leaning groups unhappy with her nomination. He spoke with Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove shortly before President Bush announced the nomination, and later hinted he had received privileged information. "When you know some of the things that I know -- that I probably shouldn't know -- you will understand why I have said, with fear and trepidation, that Harriet Miers will be a good justice," Dobson said told his national radio audience Oct. 5.
The Great Screwing of the American Worker
From Time Magazine.
And, tell me about it. I'm a contractor; we're treated even less human.
10.24.2005
Conservatives Will NOT Cease Until Harriet Miers is Four Feet Shorter Than She is Now
From the Washington Post (with many conservatives on TV assuring us that Miers will step aside realizing she's incompetent):
Conservative activists intensified their opposition to the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers yesterday, launching two Web sites and planning radio and television advertising aimed at forcing her withdrawal.
The advocacy groups, which had expected to use their vast mailing lists and fundraising networks to support President Bush's Supreme Court nominees, instead are employing those tools to sow concern about Miers's conservative credentials and lack of judicial experience among their constituents outside Washington.
The public effort against Miers is supported by a wide range of well-known conservative figures and organizations, whose individual misgivings about the nomination have now coalesced into a coordinated effort to derail it.
Bush, speaking to reporters, again rallied to the defense of the troubled nomination, but he warned that he would not accede to requests from senators for documents detailing Miers's White House work. He said this would violate his right to receive confidential advice, but senators in both parties said the documents might allay concerns about her qualifications.
Good Night, Rosa Parks
And thank you for helping us remember it's not always our place to move, that preconceived notions and silly laws should be challenged.
What a Dick!
From The Times:
WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 - I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.
Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Mr. Libby's testimony to a federal grand jury that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from journalists, the lawyers said....The notes, taken by Mr. Libby during the conversation, for the first time place Mr. Cheney in the middle of an effort by the White House to learn about Ms. Wilson's husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was questioning the administration's handling of intelligence about Iraq's nuclear program to justify the war.
Shorter Kay Bailey Hutchinson
1999: "Lying is bad. It's evil. We can't allow this."- 2005: "Well, it's not like perjury is a real crime."
Yes, there's a reason why one is redder than the other.
Non-Bushies: We've Been Going About This All Wrong
If we'd done this in 2000, even rigged voting machines wouldn't have gotten Bush in.
John, my partner, just walked into my office and said:"Let's start a rumor that George W. Bush is a Manchurian candidate put forth by evil Democrats to bring down the conservatives and the Republican Party."
We've Been Mooned
A partial list of the Rev. Moon's MANY holdings by industry, state, and country.
BUSY, BUSY man.
10.23.2005
"Until I'm Indicted or Something"
From the Washington Post on I Lewis "Scooter" Libby:
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is known for his sarcastic, world-weary and at times dark sense of humor. He once quipped to an aide that he planned to stay as Vice President Cheney's top adviser until "I get indicted or something."Wapo is also saying that resignations (plural) may follow indictments (also plural), as in "No shit, Sherlock!"
That was during President Bush's first term, brighter days for the administration and, more to the point, before a special prosecutor was investigating Libby's possible role in disclosing the identity of a covert CIA officer, Valerie Plame.
The joke -- recounted by the aide, who no longer works in the administration -- sounded absurd at the time, given Libby's renown for canniness and prudence. He adheres to a favorite Cheney maxim that the vice president credits to the late Sam Rayburn, a longtime House speaker: "You never get in trouble for something you don't say."
Harriet Miers, Supreme Deal Maker
Posted by Pudentilla at Skippy:
miers family received 'excessive' sum in land case - supreme court nominee harriet miers collected more than 10 times the market value for a small slice of family-owned land in a large superfund pollution cleanup site in dallas where the state wanted to build a highway off-ramp.
the windfall came after a judge who received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from miers' law firm appointed a close professional associate of miers and an outspoken property-rights activist to the three-person panel that determined how much the state should pay.
the resulting six-figure payout to the miers family in 2000 was despite the state’s objections to the "excessive” amount and to the process used to set the price. the panel recommended paying nearly $5 a square foot for land that was valued at less than 30 cents a square foot.
Cunning Little Rat
Let me guess: the scientists are with the Bush Administration and the rat is named Osama bin Laden, or al Zarqawi or whatever bogeyman the Bushies dream up this week.
Now That Things Are Going SOOOO Well in Afghanistan and Iraq AND New Orleans, Let's Go After Syria
Bush America: Freeing the world one Muslim-affiliated country at a time.
Lawyers Demanding Strike of Hussein Trial
From the Candified News Network, CNN:
A former Iraqi intelligence officer who is critically ill testified before the Iraqi Special Tribunal in a special session Sunday in the case against former dictator Saddam Hussein, the chief investigative judge told CNN.
The testimony came as the Iraqi Lawyers Union called on all Iraqi lawyers to refuse to appear before the tribunal until the killing of Sadoon al-Janabi -- an attorney for a Hussein co-defendant -- is solved.
Wadha Ismail al-Sheikh, 55, testified from a Baghdad hospital in the first case against Hussein taken up by the tribunal.
The trial, which began Wednesday but was adjourned until November 28, centers on the torture and killings of citizens 23 years ago in the town of Dujail, north of Baghdad.
See "Good Night, Good Luck"!
MissM gives it two thumbs and a fifth of Maker's Mark up!
And it's delightful to hear a theater for this was packed in uh... wait... MissM? Aren't you in a red state?
Oooooohhhh! The South might rise again.
Second Vermont Republic Convention: This Friday
Posted in Comments (I'll be there if anyone wants to arrange to meet - I'll be the really tall one):
For Immediate Release.Monday, October 17, 2005
To register for this free event, please contact Jane Dwinell at 802.229.4008/info@vermontrepublic.orgFor press inquiries, please contact Dr. Rob Williams at 802.279.3364/webeditor@vtcommons.org
THE VERMONT INDEPENDENCE CONVENTION
An Impossible Dream or a Vision of the Future?
State HouseMontpelier, VermontOctober 28, 2005
James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency, will be the keynote speaker at The Vermont Convention on Independence to be held in the House Chamber of the State House in Montpelier on Friday October 28th. Sponsored by the Second Vermont Republic, the convention, which will begin at 9:00 a.m. and conclude at 5:00 p.m., is open to the public and free of charge.
This historic event will be the first statewide convention on secession in the United States since North Carolina voted to secede from the Union on May 20, 1861.Other speakers will include Professor Frank Bryan, UVM; Kirkpatrick Sale, author of Human Scale, J. Kevin Graffagnino, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society; Professor Eric Davis, Middlebury College; Shay Totten, editor, Vermont Guardian; Antoine Robitaille, journalist Le Devoir (Quebec City); G. Roderick Lawrence, CEO, Stevenson Kellogg (Canada); (Rev.) Ben T. Matchstick; and General Ethan Allen (aka Jim Hogue). General Allen is expected to travel by horse to the State House.
The objectives of the convention are twofold. First, to raise the level of awareness of Vermonters of the feasibility of independence as a viable alternative to a nation which has lost its moral authority and is unsustainable. Second, to provide an example and a process for other states and nations which may be seriously considering separatism, secession, independence, and similar devolutionary strategies.
The Second Vermont Republic is a peaceful, democratic, grassroots, libertarian populist movement committed to the return of Vermont to its status as an independent republic as it once was between 1777 and 1791.
For additional information, contact Thomas H. Naylor at 802-425-4133 or Jane Dwinell at 802-229-4008, info@vermontrepublic.org.
Is Anyone Else Having Trouble Posting to Blogger
...or am I just my usual lucky (the dark, dark, dark kind) self?
I really must have been someone nasty in a previous life.
When I Recite the Wonders of Vermont
... remind me to tell you how much fun it is to have your power off for more than 52 hours in much less than four weeks.
I made coffee on the barbecue grill this morning while it was snowing hard then spilled it down my front as I slipped on ice going back into the house. The last outage took my laptop with it: dead dead dead and trust me, if somebody can make hardware work, it's me.
Maybe civilization isn't so overrated after all.
1996
Not the year.
That's the official US soldier in Iraq death count as of tonight.
In other words, we're one car bomb away from 2,000 young men and women dead, just among Americans. And we know how the Department of Don..er.. Defense likes to play with numbers.
Oh, Apparently Judith Miller isn't Maureen Dowd's Favorite Either
From Crooks and Liars:
We've been all waiting for an op-ed to come out about Judy from the NY Times. Maureen Dowd is the first to answer the call.
Gilliard has some analysis. Let's just say that Maureen didn't hold back:"The traits she has that drive many reporters at The Times crazy - her tropism toward powerful men, her frantic intensity and her peculiar mixture of hard work and hauteur - have never bothered me. I enjoy operatic types."
You can see where she's going.
"Judy admitted in the story that she "got it totally wrong" about W.M.D. "If your sources are wrong," she said, "you are wrong." But investigative reporting is not stenography....read on .
Where Are Our Edward R Murrows and Fred Friendlys?
Ah, but we have them. They're just not on CNN, MSNBC or necessarily in the best papers read here.
Men like Robert Fisk telling it like it is in Iraq on Democracy Now the other morning...
Some of the initial reports out of NOLA where people let the government have it...
Seymour Hersh
And Helen Thomas still has a bigger set of cojones than 50 men in a White House press briefing
Even someone like George Clooney helping get the Edward R. Murrow vs. McCarthy movie, "Good Night and Good Luck" made.
There's a bit of Murrow in Olbermann.
Judith Miller, Traitor
See, my take on Miller goes further than journalistic. If Judith Miller knowingly helped to cook this war, this is as traitorous an act against national security as blatant as anything the labeled Bushies have done. Perhaps more so.
This isn't ALL about Valerie Plame. It NEVER was until the Bushies outed her to get back at Joe Wilson for taking an assignment the Bushies gave him and had the nerve to remind the White House that Wilson found NO credibility in the yellow cake story. That Plame was outed is a very serious, potentially treasonous event (as the Bushies keep telling us, we're at war, after all) but that's just the frosting on a rotten cake of lying to the American people and the rest of the world as a justification for iRocky (er...) Iraqi II: or George, Dick, and Don's Egg-cellent Adventure.
Saddam was about to launch weapons at our coasts. Lie.
Saddam makes Osama look like a governess. Lie.
WMD. Lie.
Chemical weapons mobile labs. Lie.
Iraqi Democracy. Lie.
See, I'm not sure Ethel Rosenburg, contrary to popular myth, was necessarily executed for an act of treason.
But Judith Miller definitely belongs on an increasingly LONGER list of possible traitors to what we SAY America is. From Dubya to Dicky to Donny to Turd Blossom (Karl Rove) to John Revolten... er Bolton... to Dr Darling (Rice), these may be the real terrorists, the real tyrants, and the real traitors. Talk about your unAmerican activities, folks.
Smoke 'Em if You Got 'Em, I Guess
Stolen artlessly from Crooks and Liars:
DeLay's staff disclosed that he flew to Houston on Thursday morning on a corporate jet owned by R.J. Reynolds, a longtime contributor that has flown him to Puerto Rico and other destinations; they said the jet was "used in compliance with regulations." The company, which has also given $17,000 to DeLay's legal defense fund, did not have a comment Friday...read on
I wonder who has more influence over this country and the government, R.J. Reynolds or MoveOn.Org?
Subscribe to:
Comment Feed (RSS)
