MY POV

IF YOU'RE NOT OUTRAGED, YOU'RE NOT PAYING ATTENTION!

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Benjamin Franklin

How Bush really feels about you.

"If there were such a thing as Intelligent Design, we wouldn't have George W. Bush."

Christy Marx

The Mars Society

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969)
34th President of the USA
a Republican, in a letter written to his brother on November 8, 1954

"...The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone...."

Benito Mussolini

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country... Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."

Abraham Lincoln
November 12, 1864

"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided man."

Martin Luther King Jr., 1963

"CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility."

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries."

James Madison
(1751-1836)
4th President of the United States

"Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings."

Heinrich Heine
Almansor, 1823

"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."

Sir Winston Churchill
(1874-1965)

"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

Hermann Goering, Nazi Reichsmarschall

"Authoritarian societies inevitably crumble because they silence the critics who could save them from errors of blind hubris. Dissent is not a luxury to be indulged in the best of times, but rather an obligation of free people, particularly when the very notion of dissent is unpopular."

Robert Scheer

"FASCISM: a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership together with belligerent nationalism."

American Heritage Dictionary

Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?
Expediency asks the question - is it politic?
Vanity asks the question - is it popular?
But conscience asks the question - is it right?
And there comes a time when one must take a position that is
neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it
because it is right.

Dr. Martin Luther King

"My life is my message."

Gandhi

Posted: 25 Aug. 2005

What if the actual death toll in Iraq is thousands more soldiers than you think? If this is true, it is obscene.

Nearly 9,000 U.S. troops dead? A NATIONWIDE CALL FOR INFO FROM SURVIVORS.

Has the Bush administration drastically understated the U.S. military death count by redefining "death"? The following article suggests that it has, and it calls for a nationwide campaign to honor deceased service members by naming and counting them.

According to the article: "...DoD lists currently being very quietly circulated indicate almost 9,000 [U.S. military] dead"; this far exceeds the "official" death count of 1,831. How can this be? It's largely because "U.S. Military Personnel who died in German hospitals or en route to German hospitals have not previously been counted."

In other words, "death" has been redefined.

WHAT YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW:

1. If you know (or know of) service members who've died in Bush([search])'s wars, look for their names on the full, alphabetized "official" Pentagon death list, at www.tbrnews.org/Archives/list.htm. IF THEIR NAMES ARE NOT INCLUDED, PLEASE SEND A REPORT TO: tbrnews (at) hotmail.com. You're also encouraged to notify your Congress members, your local newspaper, and other interested parties.

( Note that the alphabetized list is updated regularly at tbrnews.org. It currently includes deaths reported up through early June. )

2. FORWARD THIS WEB PAGE TO ANYONE YOU KNOW WHO MAY KNOW SERVICE MEMBERS WHO'VE DIED.

3. Forward this web page to veterans' groups, other organizations, responsible journalists and respectable elected officials.

///////////////////////////

"The Bush Butcher’s Bill: Officially, 80 US Military Deaths in Iraq from 1 through 21 May, 2005 – Official Total of 1,831 US Dead to date (and rising)"

( THE FOLLOWING TEXT IS FROM www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a1682.htm )

U.S. Military Personnel who died in German hospitals or en route to German hospitals have not previously been counted. They total about 6,210 as of 1 January, 2005. The ongoing, underreporting of the dead in Iraq, is not accurate. The DoD is deliberately reducing the figures. A review of many foreign news sites show that actual deaths are far higher than the newly reduced ones. Iraqi civilian casualties are never reported but International Red Cross, Red Crescent and UN figures indicate that as of 1 January 2005, the numbers are just under 100,000.

by Brian Harring, Domestic Intelligence Reporter

Note: There is excellent reason to believe that the Department of Defense is deliberately not reporting a significant number of the dead in Iraq. We have received copies of manifests from the MATS that show far more bodies shipped into Dover AFP than are reported officially. The educated rumor is that the actual death toll is in excess of 7,000. Given the officially acknowledged number of over 15,000 seriously wounded, this elevated death toll is far more realistic than the current 1,400+ now being officially published. When our research is complete, and watertight, we will publish the results along with the sources In addition to the evident falsification of the death rolls, at least 5,500 American military personnel have deserted, most in Ireland but more have escaped to Canada and other European countries, none of whom are inclined to cooperate with vengeful American authorities. (See TBR News of 18 February for full coverage on the mass desertions) This means that of the 158,000 U.S. military shipped to Iraq, 26,000 either deserted, were killed or seriously wounded. The DoD lists currently being very quietly circulated indicate almost 9,000 dead, over 16,000 seriously wounded* (See note below. This figure is now over 24,000 Ed) and a large number of suicides, forced hospitalization for ongoing drug usage and sales, murder of Iraqi civilians and fellow soldiers , rapes, courts martial and so on –

I have a copy of the official DoD casualty list. I am alphabetizing it with the reported date of death following. TBR will post this list in sections and when this is circulated widely by veteran groups and other concerned sites, if people who do not see their loved one’s names, are requested to inform their Congressman, their local paper, us and other concerned people as soon as possible.

The government gets away with these huge lies because they claim, falsely, that only soldiers actually killed on the ground in Iraq are reported. The dying and critically wounded are listed as en route to military hospitals outside of the country and not reported on the daily postings. Anyone who dies just as the transport takes off from the Baghdad airport is not listed and neither are those who die in the US military hospitals. Their families are certainly notified that their son, husband, brother or lover was dead and the bodies, or what is left of them (refrigeration is very bad in Iraq what with constant power outages) are shipped home, to Dover AFB. You ought to realize that President Bush personally ordered that no pictures be taken of the coffined and flag-draped dead under any circumstances. He claims that this is to comfort the bereaved relatives but is designed to keep the huge number of arriving bodies secret. Any civilian, or military personnel, taking pictures will be jailed at once and prosecuted.

...This listing program is finished so act accordingly. If there is an actual variance of, say, 10 names, that is acceptable. 50 would indicate sloppiness and anything over 100 a positive sign of lying. As of June 16, TBR has received 32 new, unlisted names

*The latest on the wounded: “Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, is a 150-bed hospital that's already seen over 24,000 wounded military patients from Iraq and Afghanistan since the commencement of hostilities “. Knight Ridder Newspapers June 6, 2005 (Note: The Pentagon refuses to publish accurate lists of any wounded. Ed)

LINK TO FULL, "OFFICIAL" ALPHABETICAL LIST: www.tbrnews.org/Archives/list.htm (The list is updated regularly.)

Made me snicker.

Bill Moyer Wears Protective Device To Bush's Monday Speech...

I love it. Stick that up your backside, Pat Robertson.

Chavez Offers Cheap Gas to Poor in U.S.
By David Pace

HAVANA, Cuba - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, popular with the poor at home, offered on Tuesday to help needy Americans with cheap supplies of gasoline.

Venezuela could supply gasoline to Americans at half the price they now pay if intermediaries who "speculated ... and exploited consumers" were cut out.

"We want to sell gasoline and heating fuel directly to poor communities in the United States," the populist leader told reporters at the end of a visit to Communist-run Cuba.

Chavez did not say how Venezuela would go about providing gasoline to poor communities. Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA owns Citgo, which has 14,000 gas stations in the United States.

The offer may sound attractive to Americans feeling pinched by soaring prices at the pump but not to the U.S. government, which sees Chavez as a left-wing troublemaker in Latin America.

Gasoline is cheaper than mineral water in oil-producing Venezuela, where consumers can fill their tanks for less than $2. Average gas prices have risen to $2.61 a gallon in the United States, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Chavez said Venezuela could supply gasoline to Americans at half the price they now pay if intermediaries who "speculated ... and exploited consumers" were cut out.

Venezuela supplies Cuba with generously financed oil and plans to help Caribbean nations foot their oil bills.

Chavez, in Cuba to attend the graduation of Cuban-trained doctors from 28 countries, was seen off at the airport by Cuban President Fidel Castro. Washington has accused the two leaders of being a destabilizing influence in South America.

Chavez and Castro offered to give poor Americans free health care and train doctors free of charge.

© 2005 Reuters

From the Grist email newsletter.

World population heading rapidly toward 7 billion

The global population will reach 7 billion by about 2012 and continue to rise for many decades, according to a new report from the Population Reference Bureau, a private research organization. "Almost 99 percent of population growth today and for the foreseeable future will be in ... developing countries," said Carl Haub, a demographer with the bureau. In contrast, birthrates are declining in many developed countries, a trend that could ultimately lead to wealthy nations having less money to spend on foreign aid for poorer nations, according to Haub. In the U.S., though, fertility rates are holding steady and population is expected to rise from 296 million today to 420 million by 2050, meaning the nation would hold onto its status as the world's third most-populous country. India is expected to overtake China and assume the No. 1 slot by the middle of the century.

Northeast states crafting plan to cut CO2 emissions from power plants

The cantankerous Northeast -- last seen suing the U.S. EPA over mercury regulations -- is at it again. Fed up with the feds, nine states in the region have preliminarily agreed to reduce their carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants. The coalition -- organized by New York Gov. George Pataki (R), whose presidential ambitions are no secret -- proposes to cap annual CO2 output from the region's power plants at 150 million tons beginning in 2009, then cut that figure 10 percent by 2020. Each state's legislature would have to approve the market-based scheme, which could land on their desks by September. Though proponents acknowledge that the move won't single-handedly solve the looming global climate crisis, they hope other states will admire their "American ingenuity" and follow suit; California, Oregon, and Washington are already considering a similar measure. As for the big guys, "We welcome all efforts to help meet the president's goal for significantly reducing greenhouse-gas intensity," said James Connaughton of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Replied the Northeast: "Pfft."

Once-vast marshlands being restored in Iraq

The marshlands of Iraq, drained nearly dry by Saddam Hussein, are making a surprisingly robust comeback. Seen by some as the inspiration for the biblical Garden of Eden, the lush wetlands once covered nearly 3,600 square miles near the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers. Mid-century drainage projects took a toll, but the marshes were primarily destroyed by Hussein -- and that was the least of his retaliation against the local Marsh Arabs, who supported a Shiite Muslim rebellion following the 1991 Gulf War. Locals began breaching the dikes after Hussein's government fell in 2003, and about 37 percent of the area has been reflooded -- a "phenomenal rate," according the United Nations. Japan is funding an $11 million project to provide clean drinking water and sanitation to about 100,000 Iraqis who still live in the marsh area, help renew the marshes, and train 250 Iraqis in wetlands management.

From The Center for American Progress

Demonizing Dissent

As dissatisfaction with the administration's Iraq policy mounts, President Bush's approval ratings have plummeted to just 36 percent -- three points lower than President Nixon's approval ratings during the height of the Watergate scandal in the summer of 1973. According to Gallup, "Americans have become negative about the war in Iraq more quickly than they did for the Vietnam War." The most recent quarterly data found "50% say it was a mistake to send troops. ... In the comparable quarter for the Vietnam War, Gallup found 41% saying the conflict was a mistake." On the surface, Bush claims to respect people who disagree with him. On Monday, a White House spokesperson said Bush "believes that Americans, obviously, have a right to express their views. That’s part of being American. That’s one of the things we’re fighting for.” In actuality, the administration has launched an effort to demonize Bush's critics. It's an underreported aspect of a coordinated public relations campaign by President Bush and his allies to rebuild support for the war. Real leadership means accepting real debate.

BUSH SPOKESMAN SAYS CRITICS WANT TERRORISTS TO WIN: Aboard Air Force One Monday, "Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman ... said that President Bush believes that those who want the U.S. to begin to change course in Iraq do not want America to win the overall 'war on terror.'" Duffy said that Bush "can understand that people don't share his view that we must win the war on terror ... but he just has a different view."

RUMSFELD COMPARES CRITICS TO COMMUNISTS, STALINISTS: In a press briefing yesterday Donald Rumsfeld, referring to Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), noted that "it's been alleged that we're not winning" in Iraq. Rumsfeld made it clear that he has no respect for people who question his policies or progress in Iraq. He noted that "[t]hroughout history there have always been those who predict America's failure just around every corner. At the height of World War II ... [m]any Western intellectuals praised Stalin ... [f]or a time, Communism was very much in vogue." Rumsfeld added, "those being tossed about by the winds of concern should recall that Americans are a tough lot and will see their commitments through." Apparently, our most important commitment is a reflexive acceptance of Rumsfeld's policies.

BUSH SAYS SHEEHAN DOESN'T SPEAK FOR MOST FAMILIES: The White House touts the "private meetings" President Bush has with the families of fallen soldiers. Yesterday, at a resort in Donnelly, Idaho, Bush dispensed with confidentiality to score political points. Speaking with reporters, Bush claimed Cindy Sheehan -- a war critic who lost her son in Iraq -- "doesn't represent the view of a lot of the families I have met with." Bush was met in Donnelly, a town of 130 people, by more than 200 protesters.

ETHICS -- BUSH ADMINISTRATION DEMOTES CAREER EMPLOYEE FOR TELLING THE TRUTH: In yet another example of the Bush administration acting with retribution against those who don't toe the party line, the New York Times reports that the administration has demoted the Justice Department's director of Justice Statistics, Lawrence Greenfeld. His crime? Complaining that senior political officials were downplaying data on the aggressive police treatment of black and Hispanic drivers. Four months ago, political supervisors in the Office of Justice Programs ordered Greenfeld to delete references to statistical data showing that once they were stopped by police Hispanics were searched 11.4 percent of the time and blacks were searched 10.2 percent of time, compared to only 3.5 percent for white drivers. Greenfeld refused to delete the references from the news release, so the DoJ attempted to bury the report by not issuing a release of the report's findings. A source familiar with the dispute said, "Larry wanted to ensure that the integrity of the data was not compromised, and that's what's causing a lot of anxiety. We've seen a desire for more control over B.J.S. [Bureau of Justice Statistics] from the powers that be, and that's what seemed to get Larry in trouble."

WAR ON TERROR -- REST IN OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM: President Bush often appears to use troops as props for photo opportunities; now he’s figured out a way to use them as propaganda even after death. In a break from precedent, the Pentagon is inscribing headstones at Arlington National Cemetery with more than the traditional name, rank and date of death. Now the Defense Department is including its ad slogan operation names --“Operation Enduring Freedom,” “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” Many families were upset that the grave of their loved one was given the “special inscription” even when the family did not want it. Others were simply taken aback by the Pentagon’s willingness to put PR slogans on graves. "It just seems a little brazen that that's put on stones," said Jeff Martell, who makes headstones for the cemetery. "It seems like it might be connected to politics.”

LEGION DECLARES WAR ON ANTIWAR: The American Legion, a veterans’ organization with 2.7 million members, has “declared war” on antiwar protestors, Editor and Publisher reports. During remarks at the group’s national convention in Honolulu, the Legion’s commander Thomas Cadmus called for an end to all “public protests” and “media events” against the war, even though they are protected by the Bill of Rights. “The American Legion,” he said, “will stand against anyone and any group that would demoralize our troops, or worse, endanger their lives by encouraging terrorists to continue their cowardly attacks against freedom-loving peoples.” The delegates at the convention then voted to use whatever means necessary to “ensure the united backing of the American people to support our troops and the global war on terrorism.”

NATIONAL SECURITY -- CIA LEAK INVESTIGATION PROVIDES VALUABLE GLIMPSE INTO SMEAR TACTICS OF WHITE HOUSE: The Los Angeles Times reports that the information which has become public to date through the investigation of the Valerie Plame outing reveals a White House that is adept at smearing its critics. "Beyond the whodunit, the affair raises questions about the credibility of the Bush White House, the tactics it employs against political opponents and the justification it used for going to war." Meanwhile, Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin continues to reinvent facts in an effort to defend his client. "The one thing that's absolutely clear is that Karl was not the source for the leak and there's no basis for any additional speculation," Luskin said. Recall this is the same Luskin who said Rove "did not disclose any confidential information about anybody to [Time reporter Matt] Cooper" and that Rove had testified "absolutely truthfully" about all his conversations with reporters about Plame.

Posted: 22 Aug. 2005

From the Grist email newsletter.

The Gray Lady discovers peak oil

The peak-oil phenomenon made a mainstream-media splash this weekend in an extensive New York Times Magazine cover story. Devotees of this once-obscure issue won't find much that's new, but the article effectively summarizes the grim state of affairs. Output at many of the world's biggest oil fields has been declining steadily, and all eyes are now turned to Saudi Arabia, by far the world's largest oil producer, which refuses to allow independent audits of its reserves. The country's regime says it can still boost supply considerably, but many oil analysts have come to doubt those claims. Global oil supply and demand have been converging for years and are now tightly matched, which means any disruption in supply -- a natural disaster, terrorist attack, or unexpected decline in production at one of the big oil fields -- could mean sudden price spikes and catastrophic oil shocks throughout the world. If, as many expect, total supply begins an inexorable decline, the developed world's entire way of life could be jeopardized. Whee!

straight to the source: The New York Times Magazine, Peter Maass, 21 Aug 2005

see also, in Grist: A review of Kenneth Deffeyes' Beyond Oil

Posted: 19 Aug. 2005

From www.democrats.org

GEORGE W. BUSH'S ROSE COLORED GLASSES:
"I'm Not Worried About Things in Washington."

In a press conference earlier this summer, President Bush declared, "I'm not worried about things in Washington." Apparently, the American people do not have the same pair of rose colored glasses as President Bush. The American people are rightfully worried about shrinking wages, rising "kitchen table costs", and skyrocketing gas prices.

KITCHEN TABLE COSTS: Families Faced Higher "Kitchen Table Costs". "Families are paying much more for "kitchen table costs" including health care and education. Brand name drug prices rose last year by more than twice the rate of inflation, the largest increase in the five years it has monitored prices according to a study released by the AARP. Under President Bush, health care costs for families have skyrocketed almost 50 percent and college tuition has gone up about 36 percent, even taking inflation into account." In fact, health insurance costs are expected to rise by 12.6 percent this year alone--increasing the burden on both employers and employees in making ends meet. [KFF, 2004; College Board, 2004; Bloomberg, 8/15/05]

THE STRUGGLING ECONOMY: "Ellen Westbrook, an employment counselor in Asheville, North Carolina, says she just rolls her eyes when she hears about how the U.S. economy is strong and getting stronger. 'I've seen 300 manufacturing jobs disappear down here in the last three weeks,' she says. 'How can I think the economy is good when I am watching high-paying jobs disappear overseas?'" [Bloomberg, 5/31/05]

GAS PRICES: Americans Face Higher Gas Prices and Their Negative Effect on Economy. Retail gas prices hit another record high over the past three weeks, mirroring a rapid increase in the cost of crude oil. The average price for all three grades rose nearly 22 cents to $2.53 in the three-and-a-half weeks ending August 16. Higher prices for gasoline and other energy products caused inflation to shoot up in July, even as output at the nations' factories, mines and utilities slowed sharply. [Energy Information Administration, 8/16/05; Lundberg, 8/15/05; BusinessWeek, April 15, 2005; AP, 8/16/05]

HOME FORECLOSURES: Home Foreclosures Rose to Yearly High in June 2005--the Latest Figures Available. "The number of properties entering foreclosure nationwide increased to 67,024 in June compared to 62,432 in May. That was the highest number of new foreclosures reported in any one month in 2005, and caused a 7.4-percent increase in the nation's foreclosure rate, with one new foreclosure for every 1,726 households." [PR Newswire US, 7/27/05; http://www.realtytrac.com/]


QUOTES FROM WHEN PRESIDENT CLINTON WAS COMMITTING TROOPS TO BOSNIA:

"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is."
--Governor George W. Bush (R-TX)

"You can support the troops but not the president."
--Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)

"[The] President...is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy."
--Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)

"I had doubts about the bombing campaign from the beginning...I didn't think we had done enough in the diplomatic area."
--Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)

Posted: 14 Aug. 2005

This country should be growing hemp. It was one of our major crops right up until the 1950s when the government anti-drug insanity took over.

Joel Makower
While You Were Sleeping: The Hemp Bill

You may be forgiven for missing it, but several weeks ago, amid the hubbub of a Supreme Court nomination, a White House scandal, corporate welfare in the form of energy and transportation bills, and more terrorist uprisings than one cares for during the slow summer season, an historic bill was introduced: H.R. 3037, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2005.

This legislation -- sponsored by Reps. Sam Farr (D-CA), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Jim McDermott (D-WA), George Miller (D-CA), Ron Paul (R-TX) (yes, that's a Texas Republican on the docket), and Pete Stark (D-CA) -- is the first bill ever to be introduced in Congress to repeal the federal ban on the cultivation of industrial hemp as a commercial crop.

If passed, H.R. 3037 would allow states the legal authority to license and regulate hemp cultivation without conflicting with federal law. So far, several states have passed legislation authorizing industrial hemp cultivation for research and commercial purposes only. But farmers in these states can't legally grow hemp without federal permission to do so. The House bill -- assuming it is passed by the House and Senate and signed by you-know-who -- would remove this federal hurdle by granting states "exclusive authority" to regulate the growing and processing of industrial hemp.

Environmentalists have long praised hemp -- not for what you're thinking, but for its environmental benefits. The widespread use of industrial hemp, they say, could result in numerous environmental benefits, including less reliance on fossil fuels, especially from foreign sources; more efficient use of energy; fewer greenhouse gas emissions; forest conservation; agricultural pesticide use reduction; dioxin and other pollution reduction; and landfill use reduction. Hemp is superior to many other plants for many uses, from cosmetics to clothing to carpet.

According to conservation writer Andy Kerr:

Hemp, because of its very long fibers, rapid growth, and the versatile oil from seed, can be manufactured into many products. It can competitively -- both economically and technically -- replace industrial feedstocks which are inherently polluting and unsustainable. Hemp fiber can be used to make bio-based plastics and construction materials. The long fibers of hemp can be used in making composite plastics which, while not as strong as fiberglass, is strong enough for many applications. There are also worker safety benefits, it's recyclable and is priced lower than glass.

Currently, the U.S. is the only developed nation that fails to cultivate industrial hemp as an economic crop, according to a 2005 Congressional Research Service report (Download in PDF). The U.K. lifted its ban in 1993 and Germany followed suit in 1996. To help reestablish a hemp industry, the European Union instituted a subsidy program in the 1990s for hemp fiber production.

And these and other countries are eating our hemp lunch! For example, consider a collaborative effort of the National Research Council of Canada and Hemptown Clothing, Inc., to develop a new enzyme technology to produce a softer and whiter hemp fabric, among other things. A classic public sector-private sector partnership -- the type that created the Internet, Velcro, and so many other wonders of our modern world.

But not in the U.S. At least not until H.R. 3037 becomes law.

"It is unfortunate that the federal government has stood in the way of American farmers, including many who are struggling to make ends meet, competing in the global industrial hemp market," said Rep. Paul, the Texan legislator who's been described as "the libertarian-leaning congressman from East Texas" and who is the bill's chief sponsor. "Indeed the founders of our nation, some of whom grew hemp, surely would find that federal restrictions on farmers growing a safe and profitable crop on their own land are inconsistent with the constitutional guarantee of a limited, restrained federal government."

From the Democratic National Committee.

Social Security: A CRITICAL LEGACY FOR AMERICA'S WOMEN
On August 14, 1935, Americans will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the signing, by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, of the Social Security Act, the historic legislation that created Social Security. Since its creation, Social Security has helped millions of Americans retire in dignity and ensured that disabled workers and their families aren't cast into poverty. Social Security safeguards Americans' independence and economic security when they get older. More that 90 percent of seniors receive Social Security benefits and it is the only source of income for nearly one in five seniors.

As we approach this key anniversary of the Social Security program, let's keep in mind the accomplishments and work of Frances Perkins. Social Security has become one of FDR's most enduring legacies, but few remember the crucial role of Perkins in pushing to make the dream of Social Security a reality for all Americans. Perkins was the Secretary of Labor for President Roosevelt and the first woman to hold a cabinet-level position. Perkins led the team that created the Social Security plan and guided the bill through the perilous political waters of Capitol Hill. For more information, visit http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4795737

Perkins created a vehicle to bring the vision of social justice and economic opportunity for all to the Congress. Accepting an invitation for tea with the wife of then-Associate Justice Harlan Stone, Perkins found herself seated next to Justice Stone and took the opportunity to admit she was stuck on what vehicle to found the new program on that would pass constitutional muster. The Justice whispered that the taxing power of the government would be the way to go and she readily took this advice to her staff and moved the Social Security program through Congress based on the government's power to levy payroll taxes. During a 1937 Court challenge, the Supreme Court did find the program, based on the government's power to tax, was constitutional. More on this story can be found at http://www.ssa.gov/history/tea.htm.

Frances Perkins spent her entire career fighting for average working Americans. At a time when the Republicans in congress are attempting to jeopardize Social Security, we cannot allow them to gamble with the program and principles she fought so hard for. Here are some facts to remember about women and Social Security from the report by the Democratic Policy Committee

Without Social Security, more than half of female seniors would live in poverty
Women are less likely to have retirement income from employer-sponsored pension plans or private savings
Women live longer than men and rely more heavily on the guaranteed, inflation-protected benefits of Social Security
Women benefit disproportionately from widow and spouse benefits

WHAT'S GOOD FOR JOHNNY SHOULD BE GOOD FOR JANE TOO!
This month, President Bush got a renewed clean bill of health during his annual. Doctors pronounced the President to be in "superior" physical condition, which media reports attributed to his rigorous, six day a week exercise routine. While President Bush has made physical fitness a personal priority, his cuts to education funding have forced schools to roll back physical education classes and his Administration's efforts to undermine Title IX sports programs have threatened thousands of women's college sports programs. President Bush's personal habits indicate that physical fitness is not just fun and games for him. Our students are heading back to class this month - Don't our kids deserve the same opportunities to be physically fit?

BUSH ROLLING BACK ATHLETIC OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN
Bush Weakened Title IX Rules. The Bush Administration's Education Department quietly issued a new clarification of the regulations interpreting Title IX. The new rules allow colleges to demonstrate that they are satisfying the demand for women's sports with an online survey showing that female students have no unmet sports interests. Even if the non-response rate is high in the survey, non-response is to be interpreted as a lack of interest according to the Education Department. [New York Times, 3/23/05]

NCAA President Says Rules Could "Reverse the Progress Made Over the Last Three Decades." NCAA President Myles Brand joined in condemning the guidelines, saying they could 'reverse the progress made over the last three decades.' He added his disappointment that officials issued the clarification 'without benefit of public discussion and input.'" [Los Angeles Times, 3/23/05]

Bush Recommended Undermining Title IX Rules In 2002 As Well. In June 2002, Bush's Education Secretary Roderick Paige created the Commission on Opportunity in Athletics to review Title IX, the federal law that has expanded athletic opportunities for women and girls for 30 years by barring sexual discrimination. This January the commission came back with recommendations that would ease the regulations of Title IX. A statement by the National Women's Law Center opposed the Bush Commission's proposals, "Some have characterized the Commission's long list of proposed changes as minor and moderate. Nothing could be further from the truth. Make no mistake about it. If accepted by the Bush Administration, the Commission's proposals would dramatically reduce the sports participation opportunities and scholarships to which women and girls are entitled under the law." [Washington Post, 6/27/02; New York Times, 1/31/03; NWLC Statement, 2/5/03, http://www.nwlc.org ]

From the Grist email newsletter.

House GOPers oppose legislative maneuver to open Arctic Refuge

Two dozen House Republicans have publicly criticized the GOP leadership's plan to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling by attaching language to a filibuster-proof budget measure. In a letter to Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and other House leaders, the rebel GOPers -- including three committee chairs -- wrote that the budget process "is an inappropriate venue to be debating this important environmental issue." While the House has repeatedly approved plans to drill in the Arctic Refuge in recent years, the threat of a filibuster in the Senate has always stymied such efforts. Drilling proponents believe that attaching refuge-drilling language to budget-reconciliation legislation that can't be filibustered would give them their best chance yet. That move, expected in mid-September, is generating feverish activity among drilling opponents. "We're organizing like we have never before," said Athan Emanuel of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

straight to the source: CNN.com, Associated Press, 10 Aug 2005

NEW IN GRIST Nein Lives
Germany says auf Wiedersehen to nuclear power, guten Tag to renewables

When fans of nuclear energy in the U.S. get all het up about the promise of atomics, they tend to point to Europe. "Hey," they say, "look how well it works over there!" But across the sea, Germany has decided it's time to shut its entire nuclear-power industry down. As nuke plants begin going off-line, the government is spurring a massive effort to boost renewable energy and efficientize the whole darn country. Will it work? Michael Levitin investigates.

new in Main Dish: Nein Lives

This is a long article, but I encourage reading the entire thing.

No Paper Trail Left Behind:
The Theft of the 2004 Presidential Election

By Dennis Loo, Ph.D.
Cal Poly Pomona
ddloo@csupomona.edu

"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." (Through the Looking Glass)

In order to believe that George Bush won the November 2, 2004 presidential election, you must also believe all of the following extremely improbable or outright impossible things.

1) A big turnout and a highly energized and motivated electorate favored the GOP instead of the Democrats for the first time in history.

2) Even though first-time voters, lapsed voters (those who didn’t vote in 2000), and undecideds went for John Kerry by big margins, and Bush lost people who voted for him in the cliffhanger 2000 election, Bush still received a 3.5 million vote surplus nationally.

3) The fact that Bush far exceeded the 85% of registered Florida Republicans’ votes that he got in 2000, receiving in 2004 more than 100% of the registered Republican votes in 47 out of 67 Florida counties, 200% of registered Republicans in 15 counties, and over 300% of registered Republicans in 4 counties, merely shows Floridians’ enthusiasm for Bush. He managed to do this despite the fact that his share of the crossover votes by registered Democrats in Florida did not increase over 2000 and he lost ground among registered Independents, dropping 15 points.

4) Florida’s reporting of more presidential votes (7.59 million) than actual number of people who voted (7.35 million), a surplus of 237,522 votes, does not indicate fraud.

5) The fact that Bush got more votes than registered voters, and the fact that by stark contrast participation rates in many Democratic strongholds in Ohio and Florida fell to as low as 8%, do not indicate a rigged election.

6) Bush won re-election despite approval ratings below 50% - the first time in history this has happened. Truman has been cited as having also done this, but Truman’s polling numbers were trailing so much behind his challenger, Thomas Dewey, pollsters stopped surveying two months before the 1948 elections, thus missing the late surge of support for Truman. Unlike Truman, Bush’s support was clearly eroding on the eve of the election.

7) Harris' last-minute polling indicating a Kerry victory was wrong (even though Harris was exactly on the mark in their 2000 election final poll).

8) The “challenger rule” - an incumbent’s final results won’t be better than his final polling - was wrong;

9) On election day the early-day voters picked up by early exit polls (showing Kerry with a wide lead) were heavily Democratic instead of the traditional pattern of early voters being mainly Republican.

10) The fact that Bush “won” Ohio by 51-48%, but this was not matched by the court-supervised hand count of the 147,400 absentee and provisional ballots in which Kerry received 54.46% of the vote doesn’t cast any suspicion upon the official tally.

11) Florida computer programmer Clinton Curtis (a life-long registered Republican) must be lying when he said in a sworn affidavit that his employers at Yang Enterprises, Inc. (YEI) and Tom Feeney (general counsel and lobbyist for YEI, GOP state legislator and Jeb Bush’s 1994 running mate for Florida Lt. Governor) asked him in 2000 to create a computer program to undetectably alter vote totals. Curtis, under the initial impression that he was creating this software in order to forestall possible fraud, handed over the program to his employer Mrs. Li Woan Yang, and was told: “You don’t understand, in order to get the contract we have to hide the manipulation in the source code. This program is needed to control the vote in south Florida.” (Boldface in original).

12) Diebold CEO Walden O’Dell’s declaration in a August 14, 2003 letter to GOP fundraisers that he was "committed to helping Ohio to deliver its electoral votes to the president next year" and the fact that Diebold is one of the three major suppliers of the electronic voting machines in Ohio and nationally, didn’t result in any fraud by Diebold.

13) There was no fraud in Cuyahoga County, Ohio where the number of recorded votes was more than 93,000 larger than the number of registered voters and where they admitted counting the votes in secret before bringing them out in public to count. [See appendix – attached herein]

14) CNN reported at 9 p.m. EST on election evening that Kerry was leading by 3 points in the national exit polls based on well over 13,000 respondents. Several hours later at 1:36 a.m. CNN reported that the exit polls, now based on a few hundred more - 13,531 respondents - were showing Bush leading by 2 points, a 5-point swing. In other words, a swing of 5 percentage points from a tiny increase in the number of respondents somehow occurred despite it being mathematically impossible.

15) Exit polls in the November 2004 Ukrainian presidential elections, paid for in part by the Bush administration, were right, but exit polls in the U.S., where exit polling was invented, were very wrong.

16) The National Election Pool’s exit polls were so far off that since their inception twenty years ago, they have never been this wrong, more wrong than statistical probability indicates is possible.

17) In every single instance where exit polls were wrong the discrepancy favored Bush, even though statistical probability tells us that any survey errors should show up in both directions. Half a century of polling and centuries of mathematics must be wrong.

18) It must be merely a stunning coincidence that exit polls were wrong only in precincts where there was no paper ballot to check against the electronic totals and right everywhere there was a paper trail.

READ THE REST.

Posted: 11 Aug. 2005

A bit of historical perspective is always useful.

Policy of the Absurd
First Bush hijacked the 9/11 catastrophe, then he interjected even more duplicity and demagoguery into our Middle East policy.
By Mark Biskeborn

"This is all a theater," says Saddam Hussein. The former dictator of Iraq begins trial in two months who accuses President G.W. Bush for waging war simply to win re-election. Although Hussein is a monster, the words from his mouth expose some embarrassing truths.

Iraqi Justice Minister Shandal says that U.S. officials aim to limit access to Saddam because the Americans have their own secrets to protect. Among other things, they funneled money and support to the despot during his rule. "It seems,” says Shandal, “there are lots of secrets they want to hide."

Dirty Little Secrets

Many of these so-called secrets dried in the press’s ink long ago. But most of the general public has long since forgotten how the U.S. attempts to influence the governments of Middle Eastern oil producers.

Reports indicate that the U.S. provided Saddam with military and financial support during many years of his regime. Especially beginning with the Reagan Administration in 1981, support continued through Iraq’s gas bombings of Kurds and Shiites (1988).

These reports show how U.S. public servants, such as Rumsfeld, readily say one thing to the U.S. public while shaking the hands of fascists behind the scenes. “Among the people instrumental in tilting U.S. policy toward Baghdad during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war was Donald H. Rumsfeld, …whose December 1983 meeting with Hussein…paved the way for normalization of U.S.-Iraqi relations” (Washington Post, 29 Dec. 2002).

READ THE REST.

From the Grist email newsletter.

Feds create million-year health standard for Yucca Mountain dump

The U.S. government has no plan for getting out of Iraq, balancing the budget, or repairing a hemorrhaging health-care system, but nuclear waste? It's got that covered for the next million years. Yes, responding to a 2004 federal court ruling that the previous standard of 10 millennia was insufficient, the U.S. EPA has revised its plan for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste dump in Nevada to account for earthquakes, climate change, and other potential upsets for an additional 990,000 years. The new standard has provoked outrage from Nevada politicians, including Sen. John Ensign (R), who said he was "appalled at the complete arrogance of the EPA in announcing these standards." Maybe he'll take comfort in recent news from Chernobyl: Though the region won't be safe for human habitation for hundreds of thousands of years, animals and plants there appear to be thriving. It's "evolution on steroids," said one excited ecologist, "a fantastic experiment."

straight to the source: The New York Times, Michael Janofsky, 10 Aug 2005

straight to the source: Nature.com, Michael Hopkin, 09 Aug 2005

From The Center for American Progress

Kool-Aid Economics

Although "the nation's faith in him is clearly tailing off, [President] Bush still seems pretty pleased with himself." The President and other administration officials have launched a public relations blitz in order "to win credit for the rash of positive economic news." If President Bush thinks the recent economic growth should be heralded as a victory for his fiscal policies, then he is suffering from "the soft bigotry of low expectations." "[Relative] to comparable past periods, the current economic recovery has, on balance, been worse than average." Not only is the most recent economic recovery inferior to previous ones in history but also it is leaving out a notable section of the citizenry. Treasury Secretary John Snow recently acknowledged, "the fruits of strong economic growth are not spreading equally to less educated Americans." Taken together, "the economy’s overall performance does not make up for the adverse fiscal effects of the recent tax cuts or the unusually uneven distribution of the economic gains from this recovery."

THE REALITY BEHIND THE "RECOVERY": While administration officials are busy slapping themselves on the back for the recent positive signs of economic growth, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities has presented a more sobering picture. Looking at seven economic indicators -- including gross domestic product, income from wages and salaries, and employment -- experts ranked this economic recovery against previous ones. "For six of the seven indicators, growth rates over the current period are below the average of the growth rates for the comparable post-war periods." What was the one indicator not growing below average? Corporate profits. In short, "relative to comparable past periods, the current economic recovery has, on balance, been worse than average."

TAX CUTS FROM MAGIC LAND: Wherever he goes and whatever happens, President Bush can’t seem to stop praising his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. He certainly hasn't missed the opportunity to do so when talking about the most recent economic numbers. But as Center for American Progress fellow Gene Sperling notes, President Bush embraces the idea “that any bad economic news has nothing to do with Bush fiscal policies, but that any good news is due solely to the magic of tax cuts.” However, a study conducted by "the independent economic research firm Economy.com finds the tax cuts were poorly designed for [the] purposes of stimulating the economy." Furthermore, the tax cuts disproportionately benefit high-income Americans, "exacerbate income inequality," and lead to higher taxes at the state level." And although President Bush claims to be "[working] with Congress to reduce our deficit," "the tax cuts have played a larger role than all other legislation enacted since the start of 2001 in the emergence of the current sizable budget deficit [and] account for the majority of the current deficit." Despite all this, the President is continuing in his push to make the tax cuts permanent. Such a move will directly cost nearly two trillion dollars over the next ten years and increase the deficit by trillions, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

TRYING TO KILL THE ESTATE TAX: While President Bush fights to make his own tax cuts permanent, he is working just as hard to get rid of the estate tax. In the face of an ever-widening gap between the haves and have-nots, the estate tax stands as a powerful check against the growth of an American aristocracy and getting rid of it would constitute the most regressive tax cut ever. It would violate core American values including fairness and a belief in a meritocracy while simultaneously denying core American priorities, such as the Social Security solvency gap. Additionally, a repeal of the estate tax weakens our nation’s fiscal health -- adding hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt -- at a time when Congress has already started cutting Medicaid and other programs for those most in need. But, instead of the facts, President Bush is trying to appeal to the sympathy of small businesses and farmers, claiming that Congress needs to repeal the tax "for the sake of family farmers." In actuality, the estate tax affects a miniscule number of farmers. Its repeal would not benefit farmers but rather place an even heavier tax burden on the backs of the middle class, all for the benefit of the heirs of a handful of multi-millionaires.

JONESING FOR A JOB: Trying to repeal the estate tax is not the only way the administration demonstrates a callous attitude towards the economic reality of millions of struggling Americans. At yesterday's "Ask the White House," Director of the National Economic Council and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy Al Hubbard showed his "compassionate conservative" side. A reader from Texas wrote in, " Everybody keeps talking about how the economy is growing and so good yet I have been out of work for 6, 12 months now. I am a legal assistant with 15 years of experience...I need a job now, what help is there for me?" To that question, Hubbard railed off some statistics before responding, "My suggestion to you is to remain persistent in your job hunt and I am sure you will find the right job for you." The fact is "employment and wage and salary growth are especially slow in the current period, underperforming not only the historical average but, in the case of employment growth, every comparable period since the end of World War II.” A study by American Progress shows minority youth and other vulnerable groups have been hit hardest by the weak labor market.

D'OH FOR JOHN DOE: President Bush doesn't just appeal to family farmers in his stump speeches; he also likes to invoke the "average American" when discussing who is feeling the effects of recent economic growth. This political maneuver -- playing to the interests of John Doe -- belies a reality that Treasury Secretary John Snow recently acknowledged, "the fruits of strong economic growth are not spreading equally to less educated Americans." A notable characteristic of the recent economic growth is the "unusually uneven" economic gains distribution: "exceptionally fast growth in corporate profits [has been] coupled with exceptionally slow growth in wages and salaries." In what Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan referred to as "a very disturbing trend," the income gap has widened to a chasm that "by some measures is the biggest in the United States since the Roaring '20s." Though infamous for his belief in the free-market, Greenspan testified to Congress that "a free market, democratic society is ill-served by an economy in which the rewards are distributed in a way" that excludes the majority. How much of the majority? According to the Labor Department, "the nearly 80 percent of Americans who rely mostly on hourly wages [have] barely maintained their purchasing power." Unfortunately, President Bush continues to champion his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, despite the fact that they "were too slanted toward upper earners to be particularly effective economic medicine."

DROWNING IN DEBT: Although the administration itself has admitted the recovery isn't being enjoyed by all Americans, officials still have gone on the offensive, attacking those who do not share their "rosy" outlook on the economy. "Snow and other administration officials say strong consumer demand for housing, cars and other big-ticket items indicates that the negative message voters are giving pollsters on the economy is belied by their open wallets." Actually, an increasing number of Americans are taking a page out of President Bush's playbook on how to "afford" their spending: excessive borrowing. "More and more Americans are turning to debt to pay for lifestyles their current incomes can't support...Since 1990, income for the median American household has risen only 11 percent after adjusting for inflation, while median household spending has jumped at 30 percent, according to an analysis by Economy.com. How could the typical family afford to spend so much? Median household debt outstanding leaped by 80 percent."

Under the Radar

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS -- FOR SAUDIS, BUSH ADMINISTRATION IGNORES U.S. LAW: Last September, after years of foot dragging, the Bush administration designated Saudi Arabia a “country of particular concern” for “severe religious freedom violations” pursuant to International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA). The designation was based “not only on the Saudi government’s violations of religious freedom within its own borders, but also based on reports of its propagation and export of an ideology of religious hate and intolerance throughout the world." Under the IRFA, the administration is required to “take action to oppose religious freedom violations” in Saudi Arabia within 90 days of making the designation. The administration can choose from among 15 actions, ranging from a condemnation to significant economic sanctions. But, more than 5 months after the 90 day deadline expired, the Bush administration has done nothing.

IRAQ -- 'ONE MOTHER'S LOSS BECOMES A PROBLEM FOR THE PRESIDENT': "President Bush draws antiwar protesters just about wherever he goes," the New York Times reported on Monday, "but few generate the kind of attention that Cindy Sheehan has since she drove down the winding road toward his ranch here this weekend and sought to tell him face to face that he must pull all Americans troops out of Iraq now." Cindy's son Casey was killed last year in Sadr City, just five days after arriving in Iraq. Now she has ignited a major new debate about the war by vowing "to camp out on the spot until Mr. Bush agrees to meet with her, even if it means spending all of August under a broiling sun by the dusty road." Conservatives have already gone to great lengths to discredit Sheehan's efforts. Bill O'Reilly said Sheehan bore "responsibility" for those who feel her "behavior borders on treasonous," and Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report began a false rumor that Sheehan had "changed her story on Bush" that was quickly spread around the Internet and onto the cable news shows. (Listen to an interview with Sheehan on our blog, ThinkProgress.)

NATIONAL SECURITY -- BUSH QUIETLY DISMANTLES ARMS CONTROL OFFICES: Harvard specialist Graham Allison has noted that the “consensus in the national security community” is that “if policy makers in Washington keep doing what they are currently doing about the threat, a nuclear terrorist attack on America is likely to occur in the next decade.” Moreover, “if one lengthens the time frame, a nuclear strike is inevitable.” But such warnings don’t seem to bother the White House. Global Security Newswire reported last week that "[w]hile Congress is on vacation, the Bush administration is planning to quietly eliminate most State Department arms control offices, phasing out senior positions and merging personnel and functions with nonproliferation and other units." What’s more, this phase-out isn’t an issue of funding. It’s actually the Bush administration’s strategy: "The changes, many of which could begin in less than two weeks, appear to reflect a determined shift by the administration away from decades of U.S. focus on promoting international arms control agreements toward ad hoc, less universal efforts to prevent the spread of restricted weapons to terrorists and certain regimes." The ghost of John Bolton — champion of the ad hoc, “coalition of the willing” approach to nonproliferation — lives on.

IRAQ -- SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO? In an indication of the president's continuing mishandling of Iraq, the Bush administration is sending incoherent signals on how long our troops will stay there. In March of this year, General John Abizaid told Congress that Iraqi forces would be able to take over most of Iraqi security by the end of 2005, thereby allowing the U.S. to withdraw forces. Then, last week, it was announced that a coalition task force headed by U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, had agreed on major drawdowns by year's end. This Monday, we heard from top military commanders in Iraq that we could expect "some fairly substantial reductions" in troops by next spring. But a new twist was added to the announcement - the reductions would only come after "a short-term bulge in troop levels" in preparation for December's elections. But today, all those reports were presumably laid to waste as military officials told the Washington Post that a significant withdrawal of forces remains more than a year away. To explain these inconsistencies, White House counselor Dan Bartlett explains that the White House has "a rolling target" for troop reductions which apparently changes day-to-day.

SUPREME COURT -- ROBERTS FULL OF SURPRISES: There appears to be a pattern emerging with John Roberts - he conveniently forgets things about his past which might engender opposition. The AP reports, "Supreme Court nominee John Roberts didn't disclose that he once lobbied for cosmetics makers, or mention that he'd once given a TV interview about justices' independence. And questions about his connections with the conservative Federalist Society have lingered for weeks." Also, Roberts failed to disclose pro bono work he had done on behalf of gay rights activists, a disclosure which has engendered some hostility from the right-wing. The White House is now furiously combing through documents from Roberts' tenure in the Reagan White House to "give themselves time to find any new surprises."

PUBLIC OPINION -- IT'S NOT EASY AT THE TOP: New polling this week showed, in rather stark terms, just how unpopular President Bush and his agenda have become. First, a Gallup poll released on Monday found that 57% percent of Americans now say the war in Iraq has made them more vulnerable to terrorism; 56% say the war is going badly. Then on Tuesday, a New York Times op-ed chart put Bush’s popular decline--his approval rating stands at a meager 44%--in context by comparing it to that of other two-term presidents. Only the scandal-ridden Nixon has fared worse, and not by much.

Posted: 10 Aug. 2005

Beware. The right-wing religious agenda is stealthily infilitrating our media. This is from the Cynopsis e-newsletter

The Federal Communications Commission has named Penny Nance as a special advisor for its Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis, which crafts FCC policy. Nance, a conservative, is expected to serve as an advisor and likely as a liaison between Congress, the broadcast industry and public groups. She is known as a vocal advocate against indecency in all media focusing on issues concerning programming on both cable and broadcast networks, specifically those programs and images considered illicit, inappropriate. Nance served as a member of the board for Concerned Women for America, a 25+yr old organization that says it aims to "help our member across the country bring Biblical principles into all levels of public policy." Nance was previously a lobbyist and is the founder of Kids First Coalition, a nonprofit organization that says it works, "…to promote and encourage traditional families as well as to help those in crisis pregnancies…," in addition to being, "…dedicated to advancing pro-child, pro-family public policy and to educate the country on the needs of children."

I saw Cindy Sheehan interviewed on CNN. She described how she and her family were treated during an earlier meeting with Bush right after the death of her son in combat. She said he breezed into the room and behaved as though it were a party. He didn't know the name of her son, didn't want to hear his name, didn't want to look at the photos they brought with them and generally behaved with what sounded to me like a clear lack of empathy or respect. It shows once again the Bush is a cold, uncaring hypocrite.

And now they're threatening to have this woman arrested?! It's despicable. Please give her your support. Here is info from Act for Change and from Progressive Democracts of America. I left my opinion with the White House switchboard. I hope you will, too.

President and Laura Bush: Meet With Cindy Sheehan

The President and First Lady are spending their five-week vacation this summer at the ranch in Texas. Meanwhile, Cindy Sheehan's son Casey won't be spending a five week vacation anywhere this summer -- he was killed in April of 2004 outside Baghdad.

Click here to ask that the President and First Lady meet with Cindy Sheehan.

Cindy Sheehan has now traveled to Crawford, Texas, and is waiting for the President to have a few minutes of free time. She would like the President to fully explain just what the "noble cause" is that he keeps mentioning in his speeches, and how sacrificing even more troops in the Iraq quagmire will "honor the sacrifices of the fallen."

Cindy Sheehan deserves answers to these questions; so does the American public.

Now, the Secret Service is threatening to arrest Cindy Sheehan when Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Rice arrive at the ranch on Thursday. They say her campsite on the side of the road poses a "threat to national security."

President and Mrs. Bush -- meet with Cindy Sheehan; don't have her arrested.

Progressive Democrats of America
Field and Political Report

Tell Bush to Meet with Cindy Sheehan
He must explain his rationale for sending American sons and daughters to risk their lives in Iraq. Cindy Sheehan, mother of Casey Sheehan, an American soldier killed in Iraq, is waiting outside of Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas for answers. She wants Bush to answer for the war that took her son, to explain the lack of weapons of mass destruction and explain the Downing Street Memos. Cindy has been a friend and ally to Progressive Democrats of America, speaking at our Iraq War Teach-In about the need to end this “immoral war.” Write and call Bush demanding that he talk to a true patriot, Cindy Sheehan.

To support Cindy, join her in Crawford Texas or Join Reverend Yearwood (PDA Board Member and Hip Hop Caucus President) in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. Click here for details. You can also flood the Whitehouse switchboard on Wednesday morning between 10:00AM and 1:00PM EST.

Call Here: (202) 456-1414
Washington office of President George Bush
(please call between 9am & 5pm)
Ask For: White House switchboard

Talking Points:
1) You cannot send people's children off to risk their lives and then not give them the dignity of explaining why. Though you have given 'reasons' for the death of Casey Sheehan and almost 2000 others, claiming they died heroes in the quest for freedom, those explanations have become hollow as it becomes clear that our 'reasons' for going to war weren't reasonable at all. There are no weapons of mass destruction and we have not brought stability to the region. The Downing Street Memos make it clear that you had no plans for creating stability.

2) Cindy Sheehan's son died in this ill-conceived war, along with many other sons and daughters, and she wants to meet with you about it. You were given the power by Congress to begin this war, and thus you are the one accountable for it. If you are, indeed, interested in military families and their welfare, you MUST listen to what Cindy Sheehan has to say.

Posted: 9 Aug. 2005

Do you want fries with this?

Watching the Economy Crumble
By Paul Craig Roberts

The US continues its descent into the Third World, but you would never know it from news reports of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ July payroll jobs release.

The media gives a bare bones jobs report that is misleading. The public heard that 207,000 jobs were created in July. If not a reassuring figure, at least it is not a disturbing one. On the surface things look to be pretty much OK. It is when you look into the composition of these jobs that the concern arises.

Of the new jobs, 26,000 (about 13%) are tax-supported government jobs. That leaves 181,000 private sector jobs. Of these private sector jobs, 177,000, or 98%, are in the domestic service sector.

Here is the breakdown of the major categories: 30,000 food servers and bartenders, 28,000 health care and social assistance, 12,000 real estate, 6,000 credit intermediation, 8,000 transit and ground passenger transportation, 50,000 retail trade and 8,000 wholesale trade.

(There were 7,000 construction jobs, most of which were filled by Mexicans.)

Not a single one of these jobs produces a tradable good or service that can be exported or serve as an import substitute to help reduce the massive and growing US trade deficit. The US economy is employing people to sell things, to move people around, and to serve them fast food and alcoholic beverages. The items may have an American brand name, but they are mainly made off shore. For example, 70% of Wal-Mart’s goods are made in China.

Where are the jobs for the 65,000 engineers the US graduates each year? Where are the jobs for the physics, chemistry, and math majors? Who needs a university degree to wait tables and serve drinks, to build houses, to work as hospital orderlies, bus drivers, and sales clerks?

READ THE REST.

From Black Box Voting.

REAL PEOPLE, REAL SOLUTIONS: Attend the upcoming online think tank:
"THINK OUTSIDE THE BLACK BOX" -- just go to
http://www.blackboxvoting.org any time during Aug. 27-Sep.5 and you'll be guided into the think tank.

THINK TANK TOPICS:
- Problem-solving action on hand-counted paper ballots
- How to roll back the HAVA deadlines
- Improving diversity in elections reform -- minorities, political belief diversity, and youth

NEW CONSUMER REPORT --
EXACTLY WHAT YOU DON'T WANT: YOUR ELECTIONS ON DIEBOLD'S SERVER

Black Box Voting has obtained information on a new product that Diebold will try to sell to elections officials. The "AccuProject" election management software seems like a fine idea, until you look at the feature which seems to involve keeping your sensitive elections documents on Diebold's server. Do you really want the Diebold guy this close to your elections as they are prepared, planned, and carried out?

14-page internal Diebold document about the new product: http://www.bbvdocs.org/diebold/accuproject.pdf

"File Upload Application -- Web-based storage and delivery"

A chart depicts the kinds of files to keep on the Diebold server: "gbf" files (GEMS central tabulator files containing ballot configuration, passwords, and vote data); ballot proofs, and "DIMS extracts" (Voter Registration database information).

What the literature does not mention is that the above files could provide Diebold with information on everything needed to fudge an election ahead of time.

The system allows for uploading files up to 200mb, with SSL/role/PGP security.

The security of this system (from Diebold) appears to depend entirely on where the private key is stored, and how the PGP is implemented in this system. PGP can be used in correct or incorrect ways. Based on this documentation, we do not know anything about how the keys are handled, nor how much access Diebold will have to our elections.

What we do know is that many elections jurisdictions are not sufficiently staffed with IT personnel, nor sophisticated about such matters, and are likely to trust Diebold to take care of their files for them.

"Both project managers and state officials can view election progress across all areas of responsibility" documents state, indicating that this software may be aimed at less local control, more state involvement in election management.

Documents also hint at continued, or even greater roles that Diebold can play to manage local elections.

"Everything seems to be in perfect order. Thanks, Diebold!" says a task panel, leading one to wonder just who is talking to whom. If local elections officials are managing their own elections, why is Diebold inside their project planner viewing thank-you notes?

This product underlines two troubling trends:

1) Even more privatized control of public functions, now to include the storage of public files on servers held by a private company

and

2) A strange myopia about the fact that major security breaches tend to come from inside. By placing security-sensitive documents onto a server owned by a private company in Ohio, the number of inside access participants may increase to include Diebold.

The AccuProject product appears to fall into an unregulated area of elections, requiring no certification and very little scrutiny.

* * * * *

To sign up for "Think Outside the Black Box", go to: http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-profile.cgi?action=register (Real first and last name required).

* * * * *

To donate: Send to 330 SW 43rd St Suite K, PMB 547, Renton WA 98055 or online: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/donate.html

From the Grist email newsletter.

As the world gets hotter, migratory animals move north

Reports are piling up of odd animal sightings in northern regions: salmon swimming through the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia; birds like the Cape May warbler moving from U.S. spruce forests to cooler Canadian climes; a fish usually found off the coasts of Africa or southern Europe swimming in a Norwegian fjord; Texas political hatchet men passing pork-filled legislation in Washington, D.C. Scientists are increasingly worried about the impacts such species shifts may have on delicately balanced ecosystems. Those wandering warblers eat a lot of spruce budworm caterpillars, for example, and warbler-free forests will be more vulnerable to wood-drying infestation and subsequent fires. Though many observers link the migrations to global warming, not everyone is convinced. "If you want to measure temperatures, you use a thermometer, not a bird," said noted climate-change skeptic Fred Singer. "Birds have all sorts of reasons for moving north, south, sideways, or whatever." Ah, those whimsical birds.

straight to the source: Planet Ark, Reuters, Alister Doyle, 09 Aug 2005

Posted: 8 Aug. 2005

Do YOU want a ruthless mega-corporation controlling everything you eat?

Monsanto files patent for new invention: the pig
Greenpeace researcher uncovers chilling patent plans

Geneva, Switzerland — It's official. Monsanto Corporation is out to own the world's food supply, the dangers of genetic engineering and reduced biodiversity notwithstanding, as they pig-headedly set about hog-tying farmers with their monopoly plans. We've discovered chilling new evidence of this in recent patents that seek to establish ownership rights over pigs and their offspring.

In the crop department, Monsanto is well on their way to dictating what consumers will eat, what farmers will grow, and how much Monsanto will get paid for seeds. In some cases those seeds are designed not to reproduce sowable offspring. In others, a flock of lawyers stand ready to swoop down on farmers who illegally, or even unknowingly, end up with Monsanto's private property growing in their fields.

One way or another, Monsanto wants to make sure no food is grown that they don't own -- and the record shows they don't care if it's safe for the environment or not. Monsanto has aggressively set out to bulldoze environmental concerns about its genetically engineered (GE) seeds at every regulatory level.

So why stop in the field? Not content to own the pesticide and the herbicide and the crop, they've made a move on the barnyard by filing two patents which would make the corporate giant the sole owner of that famous Monsanto invention: the pig.

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Funny, what ever happened to taking Bin Laden "dead or alive"?

Exclusive: CIA Commander: U.S. Let bin Laden Slip Away
Cornered? Bin Laden was in Tora Bora, a new book says

Aug. 15, 2005 issue - During the 2004 presidential campaign, George W. Bush and John Kerry battled about whether Osama bin Laden had escaped from Tora Bora in the final days of the war in Afghanistan. Bush, Kerry charged, "didn't choose to use American forces to hunt down and kill" the leader of Al Qaeda. The president called his opponent's allegation "the worst kind of Monday-morning quarterbacking." Bush asserted that U.S. commanders on the ground did not know if bin Laden was at the mountain hideaway along the Afghan border.

But in a forthcoming book, the CIA field commander for the agency's Jawbreaker team at Tora Bora, Gary Berntsen, says he and other U.S. commanders did know that bin Laden was among the hundreds of fleeing Qaeda and Taliban members. Berntsen says he had definitive intelligence that bin Laden was holed up at Tora Bora—intelligence operatives had tracked him—and could have been caught. "He was there," Berntsen tells NEWSWEEK. Asked to comment on Berntsen's remarks, National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones passed on 2004 statements from former CENTCOM commander Gen. Tommy Franks. "We don't know to this day whether Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001," Franks wrote in an Oct. 19 New York Times op-ed. "Bin Laden was never within our grasp." Berntsen says Franks is "a great American. But he was not on the ground out there. I was."

In his book—titled "Jawbreaker"—the decorated career CIA officer criticizes Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department for not providing enough support to the CIA and the Pentagon's own Special Forces teams in the final hours of Tora Bora, says Berntsen's lawyer, Roy Krieger. (Berntsen would not divulge the book's specifics, saying he's awaiting CIA clearance.) That backs up other recent accounts, including that of military author Sean Naylor, who calls Tora Bora a "strategic disaster" because the Pentagon refused to deploy a cordon of conventional forces to cut off escaping Qaeda and Taliban members. Maj. Todd Vician, a Defense Department spokesman, says the problem at Tora Bora "was not necessarily just the number of troops."

—Michael Hirsh

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From the Grist email newsletter.

Rarely Is the Question Asked: Is Our Democrats Learning?
Passage of pork-laden energy bill shows both parties at their worst

After years of roadblocks and drama, the energy bill will be signed into law by President Bush today. The pork-stuffed package -- with $14.5 billion in industry subsidies -- contains little of the energy agenda laid out by Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.). Nonetheless, the legislation got yes votes from over half of Senate Democrats, highlighting once again failure on the left of the aisle to muster unified opposition when pork is on the line. Muckraker conducts a postmortem.

new in Muckraker: A Broken Reid

Malpractice Made Perfect
Don't blame lawyers for malpractice costs. Blame an epidemic of medical errors.
By Ross Eisenbrey

If we want to improve health care in the United States, cut costs, and reduce malpractice litigation, “tort reform” -- now one of President Bush's top four priorities -- is the wrong place to look. The right place to look -- in fact, the first, second, and third place to look -- is the way doctors and hospitals practice medicine and the millions of things some of them do wrong each year that lead to bad, sometimes fatal, results. Cutting medical errors by 25 percent would save far more than any tort-law change Congress has considered, all without doing damage to our system of justice or the rights of victims.

The president, the Congress, insurance companies and most doctors have focused their attention almost exclusively on the problems that arise after medical errors have occurred and patients have died or been injured. Their solution -- federal legislation to restrict the rights of patients or their survivors to sue and recover for the damage done to them -- has passed the House but faces an uphill battle in the Senate. Tort-law changes that limit recoveries by victims might lead to lower malpractice insurance premiums for doctors, especially if they’re coupled -- as they were in California -- with tough limits on the right of insurance companies to raise premiums. But caps on damages have perverse effects, including making it less likely that entire classes of deserving victims will recover anything for their losses. And as the Congressional Budget Office concluded in January 2004, such changes -- even if they do hold down insurance premiums -- will have an insignificant effect on total health-care spending. (Medical malpractice claims account for less than 1 percent of total federal health-care spending.)

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Posted: 7 Aug. 2005

The world's most powerful women, according to Forbes magazine. An interesting list.

Here's another fascinating article. Or am I lying to you? ;)

Natural-Born Liars
Why do we lie, and why are we so good at it? Because it works
By David Livingstone Smith

Deception runs like a red thread throughout all of human history. It sustains literature, from Homer's wily Odysseus to the biggest pop novels of today. Go to a movie, and odds are that the plot will revolve around deceit in some shape or form. Perhaps we find such stories so enthralling because lying pervades human life. Lying is a skill that wells up from deep within us, and we use it with abandon. As the great American observer Mark Twain wrote more than a century ago: "Everybody lies ... every day, every hour, awake, asleep, in his dreams, in his joy, in his mourning. If he keeps his tongue still his hands, his feet, his eyes, his attitude will convey deception." Deceit is fundamental to the human condition.

Research supports Twain's conviction. One good example was a study conducted in 2002 by psychologist Robert S. Feldman of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Feldman secretly videotaped students who were asked to talk with a stranger. He later had the students analyze their tapes and tally the number of lies they had told. A whopping 60 percent admitted to lying at least once during 10 minutes of conversation, and the group averaged 2.9 untruths in that time period. The transgressions ranged from intentional exaggeration to flat-out fibs. Interestingly, men and women lied with equal frequency; however, Feldman found that women were more likely to lie to make the stranger feel good, whereas men lied most often to make themselves look better.

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Posted: 6 Aug. 2005

Gosh, I'm just soooo surprised by this.

Civil-liberties board struggles into existence
By Caroline Drees, Security Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A civil-liberties board ordered by the U.S. Congress last year has never met to discuss its job of protecting rights in the fight against terrorism, and critics say it is a toothless, underfunded shell with inadequate support from President Bush.

Lawmakers including some Republicans, civil-rights advocates, a member of the Sept. 11 Commission and a member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board have expressed concerns.

Lanny Davis, the only prominent liberal among the five people Bush nominated after a six-month delay, said he had not received a call from anyone related to the board since it was formally announced in June. Davis said he could not comment on specifics because the members had not yet met.

All four other panel members declined to comment.

The inactivity comes at a time when Congress is nearing reauthorization of several provisions of the Patriot Act, a controversial law that gave the government new powers to go after suspected terrorists.

Asked why it was taking so long to set the board up, Connecticut Republican Rep. Christopher Shays charged, "It's not a priority for the administration."

The intelligence reform law of December 2004 called for the oversight board in response to a recommendation from the Sept. 11 Commission, which feared increased governmental powers needed to fight terrorism could erode civil liberties.

Top White House officials have said the board would address those concerns, and get the resources needed to do the job.

But almost eight months after its inception, the critics say the panel still only exists on paper, and lacks the money, power and presidential backing to ensure the entire government respects Americans' rights.

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I wouldn't mind one of these for local commuting.

Fuel Cell Motorbike to Hit U.S. Streets
John Roach
for National Geographic News
August 2, 2005

A sleek, almost silent, nonpolluting fuel cell-powered motorcycle is set to begin gliding down U.S. streets by the end of 2006.

The bike is dubbed the ENV (pronounced "envy"), short for Emissions Neutral Vehicle. The London-based company Intelligent Energy decided to develop the bike itself after years of cool reception to its fuel cell technology from manufacturers.

The motorcycle has a top speed of 50 miles an hour (80 kilometers an hour) and can run for 100 miles (160 kilometers) or up to four hours on a tank of compressed hydrogen. A fill-up costs about four dollars (U.S.).

ENV makes no more noise than a home computer and emits only heat and water.

"If you go for a ride in the countryside, as you ride through it, you can smell the countryside, hear the birds singing, and you are not disturbing nature," Eggleston said. "Birds will not fly out of the way because they are terrified of the noise."

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From the Grist email newsletter.

Toyota plans 10 new hybrids, invites automakers to eco-summit

Toyota is developing 10 new hybrid models and aims within the next few years to be selling 1 million of the gas-electric vehicles annually worldwide. That, says the company's U.S. head, Jim Press, will mean about 600,000 new Toyota hybrids each year on American roads, including hybrid versions of nearly every model it offers. The auto honcho pooh-poohed recent complaints that hybrid tech is being used to increase engine power instead of fuel economy, blaming that fact on automotive software and consumer driving habits. He predicts drivers will someday be able to push a button to choose between performance and mileage. Press is also inviting fellow automakers to join Toyota for a closed-door corporate summit on global warming and other issues, to proactively develop strategies for fuel-economy standards before regulators beat them to it -- although regulators in California did beat them to it, and Toyota has joined the lawsuit against the state. But whatevs.

straight to the source: The New York Times, Danny Hakim, 04 Aug 2005

straight to the source: The Seattle Times, Bloomberg News, Bill Koenig, 04 Aug 2005

From The Center for American Progress

"Isn't that the decline of values in language that is...poisoning America?"
-- Robert Novak, referring to profanity from "foul mouth" James Carville, CNN, 7/11/02

VERSUS

"You know I think that’s bull****. And I hate that. Just let it go."
-- Robert Novak to James Carville, live on CNN, 8/4/05

Plame Strains

Right-wing pundit Robert Novak stunned viewers of CNN's "Inside Politics" yesterday when he shouted an expletive at fellow commentator James Carville and stormed off the set during a live interview (watch the video). The dramatic breakdown is just the latest sign of strain seen in both Novak and his accomplices in the White House, who together exposed the identity of former CIA operative Valerie Plame. (The White House is trying hard to avoid that impression. In an article yesterday detailing how White House officials are "bracing for a new round of attacks on Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove's involvement in the CIA leak probe," U.S. News and World Report printed a blind quote from a "senior White House adviser" insisting that "Rove is cool as a cucumber.") But who can blame them? Possible criminal indictments hang over the heads of some of the most senior Bush administration officials; Robert Novak's 40-year career in journalism appears to be permanently stained by his infamous July 2003 column; President Bush has lost the trust of the majority of the American people; and now new public opinion data has discredited the canard that Americans aren't interested in the leak investigation.

NOVAK WAS ABOUT TO BE ASKED ABOUT PLAME CASE: Novak's outburst came abruptly, in the midst of a ho-hum discussion about Florida Rep. Katherine Harris. But was it really just James Carville's teasing that set him off? Perhaps not. "Inside Politics" host Ed Henry ended the segment with the following foot-note: "Thanks, James Carville. And I’m sorry as well that Bob Novak left the set a little early. I had told him in advance that we were going to ask about the CIA leak case, he was not here for me to be able to ask him about that. Hopefully, we’ll be able to ask him about that in the future."

WHAT ABOUT THE WHO'S WHO?: What did Ed Henry plan to ask Novak about the Plame case? A clue is suggested by the fact that a copy of the directory Who's Who in America was sitting atop the studio table. Remember that on more than one occasion, Novak wrote that he could have obtained Valerie Wilson's maiden name from that book, "which used that name in identifying her as the wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV." In a story last week, the New York Times noted that by continually referencing the listing, Novak "seemed to suggest more directly that the scrutiny that has focused on which of his sources had provided him the name might have been misplaced, and that he might well have figured it out by himself." Perhaps Ed Henry was going to ask him whether this was actually what he meant to imply. After all, when Novak was first asked about how he learned of Plame's identity in 2003, he said nothing about having to track down Plame's name himself. Novak told Newsday, "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me. They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."

NOVAK ONCE NOTED THE 'DECLINE OF VALUES IN LANGUAGE': Robert Novak's profanity should come as quite a surprise, considering his past remarks about how vulgar language is coarsening our culture. During a July 2002 debate on CNN's "Crossfire" about whether police had the right to arrest a woman who had cursed at an officer, Novak explained, "I can understand what the cops go through, because I have to deal with Begala and Carville." He told the guest, "I'd like you to listen to a little -- just a little small selection of what I have to put up with," and CNN producers played a series of clips featuring James Carville and Paul Begala uttering profanities. Novak then asked, "Isn't that the decline of values in language that is -- that is poisoning America?"

AMERICANS CARE WHEN THE WHITE HOUSE EXPOSES A CIA OPERATIVE: A main right-wing talking point over the last several weeks has been that Americans simply aren't interested in the Plame case. But a new poll by CBS News shows otherwise. Asked how important they think the investigation is "to the nation," fully 80 percent of the respondents said it was of "great" (41 percent) or "some" (39 percent) importance.

AMERICANS SEE THROUGH THE COVER-UP: Two weeks ago, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed that for the first time in his presidency, "more Americans give Bush a low rating (45 percent) on being 'honest and straightforward' than give him a high rating (41 percent)." This sentiment is echoed in the CBS poll. Respondents were asked whether they think "members of the Bush Administration are telling the entire truth, are mostly telling the truth but are hiding something, or are mostly lying?" A mere 12 percent think the White House is telling the whole truth. Fifty-five percent believe that Bush officials are hiding something; another 22 percent believe they're mostly lying.

Under the Radar

PUBLIC OPINION -- SUPPORT FOR BUSH IRAQ POLICY AT ALL TIME LOW: According to a new AP-Ipsos poll, "Americans' approval of President Bush's handling of Iraq is at its lowest level yet." Just 38 percent of Americans approve of how Bush is handling the Iraq war. Moreover, 50 percent of Americans don't consider President Bush "honest." The president's overall job approval rating "was at 42 percent, with 55 percent disapproving."

CIVIL LIBERTIES -- PROTECTING RIGHTS IN NAME ONLY: In December 2004, Congress ordered the creation of a civil liberties board charged with "protecting rights in the fight against terrorism." Eight months later, the board still hasn't even met. President Bush didn't even announce the five members until June. Since that time, the board has never met. The inactivity "comes at a time when Congress is nearing reauthorization of several provisions of the Patriot Act, a controversial law that gave the government new powers to go after suspected terrorists." President Bush proposed just $750,000 in funding, when similar boards operate on a budget of over $10 million. Critics from both sides of the aisle characterized it as a "a toothless, underfunded shell with inadequate support from President Bush."

NIGER – FAMINE HITS CHILDREN HARD: For each 1,000 Nigerien children born this year, 262 will fail to reach their fifth birthday, recent reports show. "Children will likely die from malnourishment, but a substantial proportion is probably dying from conditions related to poor water quality, or other non-food-related problems," FEWS Net, a famine warning service, reported late last month. Famine and drought continue to ravage the world's second poorest country, affecting 1.2 million of the nation's 3.6 million rural farmers. Many say the tragedy -- which was predicted in detail nearly nine months ago -- is the result of a belated response by the outside world. In November of 2004, the United Nations and the Niger government issued warnings after discovering a 7.5 percent decrease in the normal harvest. By May, Niger had received only 7,000 of the 71,000 requested tons of food, and one $323,000 donation, from Luxembourg.

SUPREME COURT -- CONSERVATIVES TRY TO REASSURE BASE ABOUT ROBERTS: To those worried about Supreme Court nominee John Roberts' previous work against the right to privacy and the civil rights struggle, the White House has continually countered that Roberts was simply representing a client -- rather than advocating his own personal interests. It seems that argument works both ways. In response to conservatives' concerns over Roberts' work with the homeless, death row inmates, environmentalists, and gay rights activists during his time in private practice, "conservative groups have been busy spreading the word to their members and the broader public about what they should think of Roberts's work in private practice: Pay it no mind." On the contrary, it seems the White House is reversing course and trying to use Roberts' private work to paint him as less of a "rigid ideologue."

Posted: 4 Aug. 2005

From the Grist email newsletter.

Arsenic levels in U.S. rice could pose health risk

U.S.-grown rice contains an average of 1.4 to 5 times the amount of arsenic found in rice from Europe, India, or Bangladesh. According to a study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, people consuming American rice at a "subsistence level" -- about one pound of dry rice a day -- may get a dose of arsenic over the maximum recommended by the World Health Organization. It's unclear whether or not this level of exposure is dangerous: Arsenic taken up into plants can bind to carbon-based molecules, creating organic arsenic that's less toxic than the inorganic variety that typically contaminates drinking water. However, a Taiwanese study has linked arsenic-tainted rice to increased bladder cancer. Much of the land now used in the U.S. for rice cultivation once grew cotton, and researchers think that arsenic-based pesticides used in cotton farming have persisted in the soil.

straight to the source: Nature.com, Mark Peplow, 02 Aug 2005

From The Center for American Progress

Being Intelligent About Intelligent Design

On Tuesday, just a few weeks after the 80th anniversary of the famous Scopes trial, President Bush expressed his support for teaching intelligent design in public schools, saying, "[b]oth sides ought to be properly taught...so people can understand what the debate is about." In so doing, he "invigorated proponents of teaching alternatives to evolution." That's where the problem lies. While there is nothing wrong with intelligent design as an idea, it is not a scientific theory. Treating it as such for political purposes does a disservice to the nation's children.

DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN SCIENCE AND NON-SCIENCE: "American society supports and encourages a broad range of viewpoints," the American Association for the Advancement of Science correctly notes. And while this diversity unquestionably enriches students' educational experiences, it is of critical importance that our educators distinguish between information acquired through rigorous scientific methods and those founded upon belief systems. As President Bush's science advisor, John H. Marburger III, acknowledges, "intelligent design is not a scientific concept." Although its proponents often point to supposed empirically based "gaps" in the science of evolution, intelligent design theory also necessarily involves positing extra-natural (if not religious) phenomena. "Outside the precincts of the religious right, though, the scientific consensus about evolution is very close to unanimous." The National Academy of Sciences, "the nation's most prestigious scientific organization," declares evolution "one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have." A recent National Geographic ran a cover story asking, "Was Darwin Wrong?" and then provided the answer in the subhead: "No. The Evidence for Evolution Is Overwhelming." Evolution is, to again quote Bush science advisor John Marburger, "the cornerstone of modern biology."

SCIENCE CLASSES SHOULD TEACH SCIENCE: Commenting on President Bush's remarks, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly said, "Whatever your belief, it should be respected. But the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science both reject intelligent design and don't want it mentioned in science classes. That, in my opinion, is fascism." O'Reilly added: "There is no reason the students cannot be told that more than a few people, including some scientists, believe the creation of the world, no matter how it occurred, involved a higher power. ... Just state the facts, whether it be science or any other subject." This is a red herring. For one, despite the widespread confidence in evolution theory, virtually all involved in the debate believe that teachers must present a thorough, probing analysis of its scientific merits and demerits. Moreover, many believe that intelligent design could play an important role in public school curricula. Students should be and are taught about theories like intelligent design -- they learn of various belief systems in philosophy and humanities classes, and of the levels of religious belief in our society in sociology classes. (Indeed, consider the recent struggle over evolution in Dover, PA: the school board candidates who opposed the teaching of ID in science classes also strongly supported its inclusion in humanities curricula. "Paradoxically," the New York Times observed, "that may mean that if [those candidates] win, intelligent design would be examined more thoroughly, and critically, than under current policy," which was crafted by ID proponents.) But, contrary to O'Reilly's claim, intelligent design and similar theories should not be taught by scientists, and not in science classes.

BELIEF IN GOD AND EVOLUTION ARE NOT INCOMPATIBLE: As physics professor Lawrence Krauss observes, "One can choose to view chance selection as obvious evidence that there is no God, as Dr. Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and uncompromising atheist, might argue, or to conclude instead that God chooses to work through natural means." In the latter case, he notes, "the overwhelming evidence that natural selection has determined the evolution of life on earth would simply imply that God is 'the cause of causes,'" as Pope Benedict XVI, when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, stated when he presided over the church's International Theological Commission. Indeed, "when a researcher from the University of Georgia surveyed scientists' attitudes toward religion several years ago, he found their positions virtually unchanged from an identical survey in the early years of the 20th century. About 40 percent of scientists said not just that they believed in God, but in a God who communicates with people and to whom one may pray 'in expectation of receiving an answer.'"

THE CONSTITUTIONAL END-RUN: In 1987, the Supreme Court ruled in Edwards v. Aguillard that the teaching of creationism in public schools violated the First Amendment's Establishment Clause. "[T]he doctrine seemed to be shut out of public schools once and for all," Michelle Goldberg writes for Salon.com. But now "intelligent design" -- "an updated version of creationism couched in modern biological terms" -- is giving advocates of creationism new hope that they can circumvent the high court's ruling. Proponents of "intelligent design" insist, of course, that the theory is distinct from creationism, and does not posit the existence of God. Yet the most fierce advocates of "intelligent design," led by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute (which praised Bush's remarks), clearly have a religious agenda. The institute's main financial backer, savings and loan heir Howard Ahmanson, spent 20 years on the board of the Chalcedon Foundation, "a theocratic outfit that advocates the replacement of American civil law with biblical law." A 1999 fundraising proposal that was leaked online stated, "The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western civilization was built"; the institute's goal, it said, was "nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies."

ID PROPONENTS SHOULD ADVANCE THEIR THEORY THE RIGHT WAY: If proponents of "intelligent design" wish for their theory to hold the same stature in the scientific community as evolution, there is an appropriate course of action. Like any other researchers, they should subject their critiques and theories to repeated testing and submit their findings to be reviewed by their peers. Instead, as it stands now, "church groups and other interest groups are pursuing political channels&q