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An information overload a day keeps the doctor away.
June 30, 2003
Herbert | Oblivious in D.C.
Oblivious in D.C.
By Bob Herbert
The New York Times
Monday 30 June 2003
"Of all the challenges we face, none is more troubling than the fact that thousands of Oregonians — many of them children — don't have enough to eat. Oregon has the highest hunger rate in the nation."
— Gov. Ted Kulongoski, in his State of the State address
Those who still believe that the policies of the Bush administration will set in motion some kind of renaissance in Iraq should take a look at what's happening to the quality of life for ordinary Americans here at home.
The president, buoyed by the bountiful patronage of the upper classes, seems indifferent to the increasingly harsh struggles of the working classes and the poor.
As Mr. Bush moves from fund-raiser to fund-raiser, building the mother of all campaign stockpiles, states from coast to coast are reaching depths of budget desperation unseen since the Great Depression. The disconnect here is becoming surreal.
Full Story...
Link to NYT Original
Read It Rating: 7.5
Left/Right Rating: L6
Freedom Rating: ?
Learning Percentage: 60%
Posted by Lance Brown at 11:55 PM
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Anybody but Bush? Watch out, Dems!
I agree with Alexander Cockburn's conclusions here, and encourage all those who plan to vote Democrat in 2004 to read this.
WorkingForChange-Anybody but Bush? Watch out, Dems!
Let's aim higher than pro-death penalty, pro-drug war Dean
Alexander Cockburn
Creators Syndicate
06.25.03
Here I am, enjoying post-solstice sunrise at 5.48 a.m., and, on California's North Coast, sunset at 8.35 p.m. (probably classified info if you ask Tom Ridge). I'm in the early summer of 2003, and already people are acting as though the first Democratic primary was only a month or two away. Already we're wading deeper into the issues that will pulse with increasing intensity across the next 17 months.
Is the task of booting George Bush out of the White House paramount? Out with the imperial Crusader, the death-penalty-loving, Bill-of-Rights-trashing, drug-war-advocating corporate serf! By all means. But whoa! Who's this we see, galloping out of the mists of rosy-fingered dawn, a knight errant sent by the gods to give the kiss of life to all our fainting hopes? It's … why, it's… yes, it's another imperial Crusader, a death-penalty-loving, Bill-of-Rights-trashing, drug-war-advocating corporate serf. Only he's a Democrat, not a Republican. That changes everything. Or does it?
Take Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont. ...
...
[End:]
People like Dean had better face facts. The Democrats aren't going to win over everyone with the Anyone But Bush line next year.
Full article...
Read It Rating: 9
Left/Right Rating: L6
Freedom Rating: ?
Learning Percentage: 75%
Posted by Lance Brown at 11:27 PM
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Howard Dean, Drug Warrior
I'll be writing about this in the midst of writing about the Democrats soon, probably on my main blog.
I'm very disappointed to find out that Howard Dean is firmly in support of the War on Drugs. He's spoken against medical marijuana as well, as you'll see in the next story I post here.
This one is from On The Issues, and has his position as defined by the National Governors Association policy:
Howard Dean on Drugs
Howard Dean on Drugs
More federal funding for all aspects of Drug War.
Read It Rating: 10
Left/Right Rating: R6
Freedom Rating: -8
Learning Percentage: 90%
Posted by Lance Brown at 11:19 PM
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Krugman | Toward One-Party Rule
Krugman | Toward One-Party Rule
TruthOut permacopy
Toward One-Party Rule
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times
Friday 27 June 2003
In principle, Mexico's 1917 Constitution established a democratic political system. In practice, until very recently Mexico was a one-party state. While the ruling party employed intimidation and electoral fraud when necessary, mainly it kept control through patronage, cronyism and corruption. All powerful interest groups, including the media, were effectively part of the party's political machine.
Such systems aren't unknown here — think of Richard J. Daley's Chicago. But can it happen to the United States as a whole? A forthcoming article in The Washington Monthly shows that the foundations for one-party rule are being laid right now.
In "Welcome to the Machine," Nicholas Confessore draws together stories usually reported in isolation — from the drive to privatize Medicare, to the pro-tax-cut fliers General Motors and Verizon recently included with the dividend checks mailed to shareholders, to the pro-war rallies organized by Clear Channel radio stations. As he points out, these are symptoms of the emergence of an unprecedented national political machine, one that is well on track to establishing one-party rule in America.
Mr. Confessore starts by describing the weekly meetings in which Senator Rick Santorum vets the hiring decisions of major lobbyists. These meetings are the culmination of Grover Norquist's "K Street Project," which places Republican activists in high-level corporate and industry lobbyist jobs — and excludes Democrats. According to yesterday's Washington Post, a Republican National Committee official recently boasted that "33 of 36 top-level Washington positions he is monitoring went to Republicans."
Full article...
Read It Rating: 8.5
Left/Right Rating: L2
Freedom Rating: -3.5
Learning Percentage: 40%
Posted by Lance Brown at 10:20 PM
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Internet Becoming Candidates' Domain
Internet Becoming Candidates' Domain (washingtonpost.com)
Some compelling (to me) excerpts:
"I think [the Internet] could help an underdog with the right message break through," said Michael Cornfield, research director of George Washington University's Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet. "The Internet cannot get you the nomination, but it can get you the resources and organization to make you competitive in ways that are unheard of in American politics."
...
Internet and political experts say that with advances in high-speed Internet access, growth in home computers nationally and a nation far better tech-educated today, the Internet could be a bonanza for a similarly situated insurgent candidates willing to give up control and take risks and who often appeal to a particular disaffected demographic.
Full story...
Read It Rating: 9.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 6
Learning Percentage: 85%
Posted by Lance Brown at 10:06 PM
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June 29, 2003
Experts Question Depth of Iraq Victory
Experts Question Depth of Victory
By Thomas E. Ricks
The Washington Post
Friday 27 June 2003
Attacks Indicate Baath Party Is Not Cowed
The wave of more sophisticated attacks on U.S. troops and civilian occupation forces in Iraq is raising new worries among military experts that the 21-day war that ended in April was an incomplete victory that defeated Saddam Hussein's military but not his Baath political party.
Neutralizing Baathist resistance is proving to be a more difficult job than the Pentagon calculated, and the continuing violence is becoming an embarrassment, one U.S. official in Baghdad said.
Full story...
Read It Rating: 8.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -6
Learning Percentage: 75%
Posted by Lance Brown at 06:02 PM
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The Internet and Political Campaigns
The Globalist | Global Technology -- The Internet and Political Campaigns
This article makes some worthwhile points, but I find their core conclusion questionable. They take the three leaders mentioned below, all of whom were assisted by the Internet in their rise to office, and then try to conclude that there is a connection between that quality, and the qualities which led them to do be unsuccessful in office.
It boils down like this (excerpts):
...the most interesting indictment of the early thesis of information technology's coming political beneficence comes from the few places where it has indeed had an impact.
There, it has tended simply to speed up the political process rather than improve it. And when it comes to selecting effective global leaders — faster often equals worse.
Philippines, Indonesia, Minnesota
Consider the three political leaders aided the most while rising to power by the Internet and information technology: Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in the Philippines, Megawati Sukarnoputri in Indonesia and Jesse Ventura in Minnesota.
...
Simple, easy, wrong
So perhaps they would have risen and fallen on their own — but probably not. And the qualities that have led to their failures are the same ones promoted by IT-driven politics.
All three mainly suffer from having excess style and short substance. All three showed an inability to work with and manage the lower-tier legislators necessary for success. None was able to push through substantial reforms or really govern at all.
As the old adage goes: For every political problem, there's a solution that's simple, easy and wrong. And that's what quick IT-based political movements currently excel at finding.
They might be onto something with the points they make in this article, but I don't buy the dour overall conclusions they are trying to draw. Maybe I'll just have to be the one to prove them wrong. ;-)
Read It Rating: 6
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 2
Learning Percentage: 55%
Posted by Lance Brown at 05:56 PM
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U.S. pullback in S. Korea also alarming to N. Korea
U.S. pullback in S. Korea also alarming to N. Korea
James Brooke, New York Times
Published June 22, 2003
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA -- When the United States announced plans to pull its troops away from the border with North Korea, attention focused mostly on South Korea and its objections to losing the protection of the so-called tripwire. What was largely overlooked were the protests from the party that felt most threatened by the change: North Korea.
The tripwire, it seems, works both ways.
Full Story...
Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -4
Learning Percentage: 50%
Posted by Lance Brown at 04:33 PM
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THE SELLING OF THE IRAQ WAR.
Long and good.
The New Republic Online: The First Casualty (1 of 3)
THE SELLING OF THE IRAQ WAR.
The First Casualty
by John B. Judis & Spencer Ackerman
1 | 2 | 3
Post date 06.19.03 | Issue date 06.30.03
Foreign policy is always difficult in a democracy. Democracy requires openness. Yet foreign policy requires a level of secrecy that frees it from oversight and exposes it to abuse. As a result, Republicans and Democrats have long held that the intelligence agencies--the most clandestine of foreign policy institutions--should be insulated from political interference in much the same way as the higher reaches of the judiciary. As the Tower Commission, established to investigate the Iran-Contra scandal, warned in November 1987, "The democratic processes ... are subverted when intelligence is manipulated to affect decisions by elected officials and the public."
If anything, this principle has grown even more important since September 11, 2001. The Iraq war presented the United States with a new defense paradigm: preemptive war, waged in response to a prediction of a forthcoming attack against the United States or its allies. This kind of security policy requires the public to base its support or opposition on expert intelligence to which it has no direct access. It is up to the president and his administration--with a deep interest in a given policy outcome--nonetheless to portray the intelligence community's findings honestly. If an administration represents the intelligence unfairly, it effectively forecloses an informed choice about the most important question a nation faces: whether or not to go to war. That is exactly what the Bush administration did when it sought to convince the public and Congress that the United States should go to war with Iraq.
Full Article...
Read It Rating: 8.5
Left/Right Rating: L1
Freedom Rating: -7
Learning Percentage: 50%
Posted by Lance Brown at 05:37 AM
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Cheney And The CIA: Not Business As Usual
More on the battle between U.S. intelligence and weapons experts and the White House over evidence of WMD in Iraq.
Cheney And The CIA: Not Business As Usual
CTNow.com
(produced by the Hartford Courant)
June 27, 2003
Ray McGovern
As though this were normal! I mean the repeated visits Vice President Dick Cheney made to the CIA before the war in Iraq. The visits were, in fact, unprecedented. During my 27-year career at the Central Intelligence Agency, no vice president ever came to us for a working visit.
During the '80s, it was my privilege to brief Vice President George H.W. Bush and other very senior policy-makers every other morning. I went either to the vice president's office or (on weekends) to his home. I am sure it never occurred to him to come to CIA headquarters.
The morning briefings gave us an excellent window on what was uppermost in the minds of those senior officials and helped us refine our tasks of collection and analysis. Thus, there was never any need for policy-makers to visit us. And the very thought of a vice president dropping by to help us with our analysis is extraordinary. We preferred to do that work without the pressure that inevitably comes from policy-makers at the table.
Full Op-Ed...
Ray McGovern, a CIA analyst from 1964 to 1990, regularly reported to the vice president and senior policy-makers on the President's Daily Brief from 1981 to 1985. He now is co-director of the Servant Leadership School, an inner-city outreach ministry in Washington.
Read It Rating: 7.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: ?
Learning Percentage: 55%
Posted by Lance Brown at 03:58 AM
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AlterNet: 10 Appalling Lies We Were Told About Iraq
AlterNet: 10 Appalling Lies We Were Told About Iraq
By Christopher Scheer, AlterNet
June 27, 2003
Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: L5
Freedom Rating: -8
Learning Percentage: 25%
Posted by Lance Brown at 03:45 AM
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CNN's self-censorship
This is an interesting little blog post showing how CNN doctored an interview with Donald Rumsfeld, deleting a short interchange where the reporter talks to him about a video they have of his 1983 meeting with Saddam Hussein.
MyDD: Photo of Rumsfeld with Hussein
Read It Rating: 5
Left/Right Rating: L3
Freedom Rating: -4
Learning Percentage: 70%
Posted by Lance Brown at 03:19 AM
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What the Pentagon doesn't want us to know about depleted uranium
Long, informative, disturbing.
In These Times | Weapon of Mass Deception
Weapon of Mass Deception
What the Pentagon doesn't want us to know about depleted uranium.
By Frida Berrigan | 6.20.03
Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: L3
Freedom Rating: -4
Learning Percentage: 68%
Posted by Lance Brown at 02:52 AM
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British Soldier Filmed Punching Iraqi Civilian
t r u t h o u t - 'British Soldier Filmed Punching Iraqi Civilian'
'British Soldier Filmed Punching Iraqi Civilian'
Ananova
The Guardian
Friday 27 June 2003
The BBC claims it has footage of a British soldier punching an Iraqi civilian while handing out water.
The soldier is shown punching a man in the stomach in an apparently unprovoked attack, says a spokesman for the corporation.
It will be shown during the Fighting the War series on Sunday, and comes amid claims heavy-handed weapons searches in Al Majar al-Kabir could have contributed to the riot which left six Royal Military Police officers dead on Tuesday.
The film shows soldiers from the Black Watch handing out water in Az Zubayr in March, before the fall of Basra.
Townspeople had been without fresh water for six days and broke free from a queue when they saw water being handed out from the back of a truck.
Soldiers moved to stop them stampeding the truck, and one of the soldiers allegedly punched an Iraqi in the ribs, leaving him doubled up in pain.
Full Story...
Read It Rating: 5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -5
Learning Percentage: 80%
Posted by Lance Brown at 02:18 AM
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June 28, 2003
Top 20 Most Searched Talk Radio Show Hosts; Boortz at #5
Howard Stern is the Most Popular Radio Talk Personality with Web Users for the Third Straight Year
The Top 20 Most Searched Talk Radio Show Hosts, Reflecting Search Activity from January 1 through June 14, 2003 are (numbers in parentheses reflect rank last year):
1) Howard Stern (1)
2) Tom Joyner (5)
3) Rush Limbaugh (4)
4) George Noory (-)
5) Neal Boortz (9)
6) Bill O'Reilly (12)
7) Clark Howard (13)
8) Art Bell (3)
9) Opie and Anthony (2)
10) Dr. Laura (7)
11) Paul Harvey (8)
12) Mancow (11)
13) Sean Hannity (-)
14) Larry King (15)
15) Click and Clack (20)
16) Don Imus (14)
17) Laura Ingraham (19)
18) Don and Mike (10)
19) Jim Rome (6)
20) Dr. Drew and Adam Carolla (-)
Full Story...
Neal Boortz is a libertarian, but I believe he supported/supports the war in Iraq, which for me indicates either poor judgment or inconsistency in his application of libertarianism. He also rants a lot against liberals, and aligns himself with conservatives. But he also does toe the libertarian line more often than not.
From the article:
"One of the other stand-out radio personalities making a big hit with Web users is Neal Boortz," said Aaron Schatz, writer of The Lycos 50. "Boortz is a nationally-syndicated Libertarian host who also writes a popular blog on his show's Web site. Over the past couple of years, Boortz has gone from number 14 to number nine and now stands at number five."
Read It Rating: 5
Left/Right Rating: R5
Freedom Rating: 4
Learning Percentage: 75%
Posted by Lance Brown at 10:51 PM
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Emily Gimmel: Blonde Ambition
Here's an article about an extraordinarily ambitious and driven young woman journalist. By all accounts, she personifies the term "rising star". I found out about her from Neal Boortz's links page.
http://www.emilygimmel.com - Blonde ambition
Read It Rating: 4
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: ?
Learning Percentage: 100%
Posted by Lance Brown at 10:44 PM
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NJ Senate candidate faces "pretty penis" contest scandal
The naked truth has Democrats concerned (June 26)
Senate candidate creates stir (June 25)
Read It Rating: 2
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: ?
Learning Percentage: 90%
Posted by Lance Brown at 10:39 PM
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"South Park" Duo's Puppet Pic
E! Online News - "South Park" Duo's Puppet Pic
by Josh Grossberg
Jun 25, 2003, 2:00 PM PT
The brain trust behind Cartman, Stan, Kyle, Kenny and those other scatological paper cutouts are pulling some strings for their next project.
South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are joining forces with producer Scott Rudin (The Hours) and Paramount Pictures to make Team America, a spoof that will use marionettes to lampoon the war on terrorism, mindless action movies and celebrities, according to the Hollywood trades.
Full story...
Read It Rating: 6.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 5
Learning Percentage: 70%
Posted by Lance Brown at 09:40 PM
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Study: Pot Doesn't Cause Permanent Brain Damage
Yahoo! News - Study: Pot Doesn't Cause Permanent Brain Damage
Fri Jun 27,12:18 AM ET
By Deena Beasley
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Smoking marijuana will certainly affect perception, but it does not cause permanent brain damage, researchers from the University of California at San Diego said on Friday in a study.
"The findings were kind of a surprise. One might have expected to see more impairment of higher mental function," said Dr. Igor Grant, a UCSD professor of psychiatry and the study's lead author. Other illegal drugs, or even alcohol, can cause brain damage.
Full story...
Read It Rating: 9
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 6
Learning Percentage: 50%
Posted by Lance Brown at 06:05 PM
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Strom Thurmond, Foe of Integration, Dies at 100
This is an extremely comprehensive obituary of a man who's going to inhabit a number of entries in U.S. History books for centuries to come.
There's a lot more to Strom Thurmond than one might think, given the caricature-in-real-life reputation that he's had for as long as I can remember. The article's title even serves as a capsule version of that image.
But there's a lot more to the story of Strom, as this article makes clear.
Strom Thurmond, Foe of Integration, Dies at 100
By Adam Clymer
The New York Times
Friday 27 June 2003
Permacopy at TruthOut
And another version at CNN.
Read It Rating: 10
Left/Right Rating: R7
Freedom Rating: mixed feelings
Learning Percentage: 70%
Posted by Lance Brown at 04:16 AM
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Bush Misled US Into Iraq War--An Official Finding?
Bush Misled US Into Iraq War--An Official Finding?
Bush Misled US Into Iraq War--An Official Finding?
By David Corn
The Nation
hursday 26 June 2003
George W. Bush misled the nation into war.
Who says?
Representative Jane Harman, the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee.
On the basis of what?
On the basis of information preliminarily reviewed by the intelligence committee as part of its ongoing investigation into the prewar intelligence on Iraq.
On June 25, during the House debate on the intelligence authorization bill, Harman delivered an informal progress report on her committee's inquiry. Her remarks received, as far as I can tell, little media attention. But they are dramatic in that these comments are the first quasi-findings from an official outlet confirming that Bush deployed dishonest rhetoric in guiding the United States to invasion and occupation in Iraq. This is not an op-ed judgment; this is an evaluation from a member of the intelligence committee who claims to be basing her statements on the investigative work of the committee. Here's what she says:
Full article...
Read It Rating: 8.5
Left/Right Rating: L2
Freedom Rating: Pretty high, if this all pans out like I think it will.
Learning Percentage: 85%
Posted by Lance Brown at 01:32 AM
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June 27, 2003
Humor (?): The technology behind Google's great results
Pigeons. When you absolutely, positively need accurate search results fast.
Google Technology
The technology behind
Google's great results
As a Google user, you're familiar with the speed and
accuracy of a Google search. How exactly does Google manage to find
the right results for every query as quickly as it does? The heart of
Google's search technology is PigeonRank™, a system for ranking
web pages developed by Google founders Larry
Page and Sergey Brin
at Stanford University.
Building upon the breakthrough work of B.
F. Skinner, Page and Brin reasoned that low cost pigeon clusters
(PCs) could be used to compute the relative value of web pages faster
than human editors or machine-based algorithms. And while Google has
dozens of engineers working to improve every aspect of our service on
a daily basis, PigeonRank continues to provide the basis for all of
our web search tools.
...
Isn't it cruel to keep pigeons penned up in tiny data coops?
Google exceeds all international standards for the ethical treatment of its pigeon personnel. Not only are they given free range of the coop and its window ledges, special break rooms have been set up for their convenience. These rooms are stocked with an assortment of delectable seeds and grains and feature the finest in European statuary for roosting.
Read the rest.
Text (Except first paragraph) and image ©2003 Google.
Posted by Lance Brown at 10:20 PM
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Ship 'em off to (Mormon Boot) Camp
Alex was officially diagnosed with "Oppositional Defiance Disorder"...
Symptoms?
"often losing one's temper, arguing with adults, actively defying or refusing to comply with adults' requests, deliberately annoying people, blaming others for mistakes, being touchy or easily annoyed, and often being spiteful, vindictive, or angry."
Oppositional Defiance Disorder = normal teenager
WIRETAP - Just Call Them Crazy
Just Call Them Crazy
Stevphen Shukaitis, WireTap
June 12, 2003
Alex Asch probably never thought he would be forced by police, private security, his parents, and the weight of the law to leave his choice of studies for a Mormon boot camp -- but on August 10, 2002 that's exactly what happened.
Alex was attending the Institute for Social Ecology, a radically inclined institution of higher education located in Plainfield, Vermont. It was the last day of summer classes when his parents hired two juvenile transport officers to remove him from the Institute. After removing him from the school he was forced to go to Turnabout Stillwater, a juvenile rehabilitation program located in Utah affiliated with the Mormon church. There he will be held against his will until his 18th birthday in June 2004.
...
Alex was officially diagnosed with "Oppositional Defiance Disorder," which is defined as a disorder including symptoms such as often losing one's temper, arguing with adults, actively defying or refusing to comply with adults' requests, deliberately annoying people, blaming others for mistakes, being touchy or easily annoyed, and often being spiteful, vindictive, or angry. In a workshop during the National Conference on Organized Resistance in January it was joked several times that with a definition like that almost all those with radical and anti-authoritarian beliefs could be labeled as "disordered."
Full article...
Individuals who would like to support Alex are encouraged to write letters or if possible to send books about animal liberation, philosophy, and other countercultural topics (keeping in mind that they have to pass by the inspection of their "appropriateness" by staff). Materials for Alex can be sent to Alex Asch c/o Turnabout Stillwater 2738 S. 2000 E. Salt Lake City, UT 84109. Questions about Alex can be directed to Darren by sending a message to info@everreviledrecords.com.
Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: L6
Freedom Rating: -7
Learning Percentage: 55%
Posted by Lance Brown at 10:02 PM
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Scoffing at the U.S. in Hussein Country
A very revealing article.
t r u t h o u t - Scoffing at the U.S. in Hussein Country
Scoffing at the U.S. in Hussein Country
By Alissa J. Rubin
The Los Angeles Times
Friday 20 June 2003
An excerpt:
It is the part of Iraq where Hussein could find shelter in almost any house he approached and be assured that his hosts would not betray him.
Even the graffiti, much of it freshly painted in green Arabic lettering on the low walls that border Tikrit's main street, tell the story. "Congratulations on your birthday, sir, despite the new situation," reads one sign. Another reads, "Saddam still exists, you dog Bush." And one: "Anyone who deals with the Americans should be killed."
Although a local resident almost certainly played a role in Mahmud's capture, the Americans' questioning of people here seems futile to Hussein loyalists.
"They are asking silly things. 'Have you seen Saddam Hussein?' 'Where did you see him?' And the answer they get is, 'No, I haven't seen him.' And that is reality," said Marwan Adnan Nasiri, a 37-year-old lawyer who said six or seven of his cousins have been detained. Some of them have been released.
"If I knew where Saddam was, I would never tell you," he said with a pleasant smile, "because you are an American."
Nasiri's view, widely shared in Tikrit, is that the "the ex-regime is the best. The majority of Iraqis liked Saddam. He has kept our dignity."
Read the whole thing.
Read It Rating: 9.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: ??
Learning Percentage: 85%
Posted by Lance Brown at 09:52 PM
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t r u t h o u t - A Bloody, Deadly Day for US Troops
A recounting of most of the major incidents of violence in Iraq in the past week.
4 Dead, 2 Abducted in Iraq Ambushes
By Nadia Abou El-Magd
The Associated Press
Read It Rating: 7.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -5
Learning Percentage: 75%
Posted by Lance Brown at 09:42 PM
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Thousands of Sub-contractors Fight Over a Share of Iraq's Cake
Thousands of Sub-contractors Fight Over a Share of the Cake
Excerpt:
Halliburton and Bechtel are assailed with requests. Bechtel has been contacted by 87,000 companies! The premier American engineering and construction group carried off a $680 million dollar contract April 17.
Its job will be to coordinate the overhauling of essential infrastructure: electric power stations and the electric network, sewage systems and water transport, airports. “Everything linked to major infrastructure passes through Bechtel today”, confirms Luke Zahner, spokesperson for USAID, the United States Agency for International Development.
Full story...
Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -5
Learning Percentage: 70%
Posted by Lance Brown at 09:36 PM
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t r u t h o u t - Halliburton is Principal Beneficiary of Iraq Reconstruction
Big surprise here.
t r u t h o u t - Halliburton is Principal Beneficiary of Iraq Reconstruction
The article is only semi-competently translated from a French publication.
Read It Rating: 8.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -2
Learning Percentage: 50%
Posted by Lance Brown at 09:19 PM
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F.A.I.R. - Media Silent on Clark's 9/11 Comments
From Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, via TruthOut.
MEDIA ADVISORY:
Media Silent on Clark's 9/11 Comments:
Gen. says White House pushed Saddam link without evidence
June 20, 2003
Sunday morning talk shows like ABC's This Week or Fox News Sunday often make news for days afterward. Since prominent government officials dominate the guest lists of the programs, it is not unusual for the Monday editions of major newspapers to report on interviews done by the Sunday chat shows.
But the June 15 edition of NBC's Meet the Press was unusual for the buzz that it didn't generate. Former General Wesley Clark told anchor Tim Russert that Bush administration officials had engaged in a campaign to implicate Saddam Hussein in the September 11 attacks-- starting that very day. Clark said that he'd been called on September 11 and urged to link Baghdad to the terror attacks, but declined to do so because of a lack of evidence.
Here is a transcript of the exchange:
CLARK: "There was a concerted effort during the fall of 2001, starting immediately after 9/11, to pin 9/11 and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein."
RUSSERT: "By who? Who did that?"
CLARK: "Well, it came from the White House, it came from people around the White House. It came from all over. I got a call on 9/11.
Full advisory...
Read It Rating: 8.5
Left/Right Rating: 3L
Freedom Rating: -4
Learning Percentage: 60%
Posted by Lance Brown at 09:15 PM
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Searching for Saddam
A disjointed but informative article about the efforts to find Saddam Hussein.
t r u t h o u t - 'Saddam' Strike Shows US Desperation
Read It Rating: 6.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: N/A
Learning Percentage: 50%
Posted by Lance Brown at 09:07 PM
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Bush Declares Student an Enemy Combatant
t r u t h o u t - Bush Declares Student an Enemy Combatant
By Eric Lichtblau
The New York Times
Tuesday 24 June 2003
President Bush made a surprise decision today to remove a Qatari student from the criminal justice system and declare him an enemy combatant after prosecutors said new evidence linked him to another round of terrorist plots by Al Qaeda after Sept. 11.
The student, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, 37, had been held in civilian custody since late 2001, first as a material witness in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks and later on charges of lying to the F.B.I. and credit card fraud.
Because he was declared an enemy combatant, Mr. Marri was moved from a prison in Illinois to a military brig in South Carolina, according to Lawrence S. Lustberg, who represented him in the criminal case. As an enemy combatant, Mr. Marri can be held indefinitely, and he has no access to a lawyer unless the military decides to bring charges, officials said.
The case represents the first time that the administration is shifting custody of someone charged by criminal prosecutors to the military as an enemy combatant, administration officials said.
Neither of the other two men publicly identified as enemy combatants, Yaser Esam Hamdi, who was captured in fighting in Afghanistan, and Jose Padilla, suspected in a scheme to set off a "dirty bomb," had faced criminal charges beforehand. Both are Americans
Full story...
Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -10
Learning Percentage: 60%
Posted by Lance Brown at 08:16 PM
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Reason's Ronald Bailey: Why I became a card-carrying member of the ACLU
A Libertarian puts aside his reservations, and joins a new wave of conservatives and libertarians flocking to the ACLU.
(I did too, I just haven't written a piece about it...yet.)
Nadine and Me
Why I became a card-carrying member of the ACLU
June 20, 2003
Ronald Bailey
The American Civil Liberties Union has sent me quantities of junk mail soliciting me to
join for years. No doubt they picked my name from the mailing lists of a lot of
left-leaning publications to which I subscribe—after all you've got to know what
the other guys are up to. I often think of reading The Nation or The American
Prospect as opposition research. And just as surely as those ACLU missives arrived,
they were chucked into my garbage can.
Now, it's not as though I am not sympathetic to a lot of what the ACLU is doing. I am
strongly in favor of its activities in defense of
free speech,
its efforts to maintain the proper separation of
church and state,
and the like.
But I've been less sanguine about its stands on things like private
freedom of association
and the
death penalty.
I agree with the ACLU that it is wrong for the Boy Scouts to exclude gays, but I also
don't think it's the government's business to try to force people to put up with one
another in voluntary organizations. If you don't like the Boy Scouts' homophobic policy,
then don't join and don't contribute. On the other hand, I agree with the ACLU that the
government should be
neutral
with regard to the question of who gets married to whom.
Though reasonable people of good will obviously disagree, my moral intuition tells me,
and the moral intuitions of the majority of Americans tell them, that the only suitable
punishment
for the heinous crime of premeditated murder is death. I hope it goes without saying
that the state must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt before killing someone.
Anyway, when I received another ACLU solicitation last month, I decided to send in my
check and sign up. Why now?
Full article...
Read It Rating: 9
Left/Right Rating: R3
Freedom Rating: 9
Learning Percentage: 55%
Posted by Lance Brown at 08:09 PM
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California's Prop 36: The War Off Drugs
Salon.com News | The war off drugs
The success of a California measure that offers drug offenders treatment before prison points a way out of the drug-war stalemate.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Nell Bernstein
June 26, 2003 | MARTINEZ, Calif. -- Inside Room 175 of the Contra Costa County courthouse, 20 miles east of San Francisco, men and women in yellow jumpsuits press themselves up to the barred windows of a Plexiglas-enclosed jury box that holds in-custody defendants. They are straining to hear drug counselors describe a new twist in the justice system, a change that to some must sound like a dream -- or a trick. Since when is compassion the punishment for drug crimes?
In California, since November 2000, when voters passed the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act, or Proposition 36. Under Prop. 36, people convicted of drug possession are automatically steered to rehab rather than to jail. They still report to a probation officer, and the stick of incarceration hovers over their heads should they rack up three "treatment failures." But the state has effectively shifted its philosophy for dealing with drug offenders, replacing a harshly punitive response with an offer of recovery.
When Prop. 36 became law, it looked like an anomaly in a nation that had recently surpassed Russia as the world's most prolific jailer. But that was before the economy tanked, tax revenues plummeted, and state governments were confronted with the worst budget crisis since World War II. Today -- after two decades of overheated anti-drug rhetoric and skyrocketing prison populations -- prison spending is losing its sacred-cow status, and compromises like Prop. 36 are gaining appeal.
The California measure is still considered an experiment, one that breaks down and even fails from time to time. Cases of ineffective treatment, tangled bureaucracy, and scamming by users in the program have tainted glowing reviews, but so far, the results are encouraging enough: More drug users are getting clean than under the old regime; the population of drug users behind bars for possession is diminishing (by 30 percent in 2001); the state is saving money ($95 million in the first year); and thousands of children are being spared the trauma of parental incarceration.
Can a shotgun marriage between drug treatment and criminal justice become a lasting union? The question is likely to be answered in California. And if the answer is yes, a setting like the Contra Costa County courthouse may represent the next front in a kinder, gentler war on drugs.
Full article...
Read It Rating: 10
Left/Right Rating: L7
Freedom Rating: 6.5
Learning Percentage: 60%
Posted by Lance Brown at 08:02 PM
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Salon.com: Progressive popularity contest
Published before the primary, which was held this Tuesday.
Salon.com News | Progressive popularity contest
Progressive popularity contest
The winner of MoveOn.org's online "primary" could rake in millions of dollars and command an army of volunteers.
Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: L8
Freedom Rating: 2
Learning Percentage: 40%
Posted by Lance Brown at 07:58 PM
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Cal Thomas: The battle for the Constitution
A conservative pundit rails against liberals, and discusses the nature of the Constitution -- whether it's "living", according to the whims of Supreme Court justices, or it has original meaning which is immutable.
(I lean strongly toward the latter view.)
Cal Thomas: The battle for the Constitution
Read It Rating: 4
Left/Right Rating: R8
Freedom Rating: 2
Learning Percentage: 35%
Posted by Lance Brown at 07:54 PM
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Amnesty International Flash Animation on Guatemala's EMP
Flash Animation about Guatemala's brutal EMP military police force
They'd like you to pass it on.
Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: L5
Freedom Rating: 8
Learning Percentage: 90%
Posted by Lance Brown at 07:43 PM
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Savant for a Day: Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
Savant for a Day
By LAWRENCE OSBORNE
In a concrete basement at the University of Sydney, I sat in a chair waiting to have my brain altered by an electromagnetic pulse. My forehead was connected, by a series of electrodes, to a machine that looked something like an old-fashioned beauty-salon hair dryer and was sunnily described to me as a ''Danish-made transcranial magnetic stimulator.'' This was not just any old Danish-made transcranial magnetic stimulator, however; this was the Medtronic Mag Pro, and it was being operated by Allan Snyder, one of the world's most remarkable scientists of human cognition.
Nonetheless, the anticipation of electricity being beamed into my frontal lobes (and the consent form I had just signed) made me a bit nervous. Snyder found that amusing. ''Oh, relax now!'' he said in the thick local accent he has acquired since moving here from America. ''I've done it on myself a hundred times. This is Australia. Legally, it's far more difficult to damage people in Australia than it is in the United States.''
''Damage?'' I groaned.
''You're not going to be damaged,'' he said. ''You're going to be enhanced.''
The Medtronic was originally developed as a tool for brain surgery: by stimulating or slowing down specific regions of the brain, it allowed doctors to monitor the effects of surgery in real time. But it also produced, they noted, strange and unexpected effects on patients' mental functions: one minute they would lose the ability to speak, another minute they would speak easily but would make odd linguistic errors and so on. A number of researchers started to look into the possibilities, but one in particular intrigued Snyder: that people undergoing transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, could suddenly exhibit savant intelligence -- those isolated pockets of geniuslike mental ability that most often appear in autistic people.
Full article...
(Long and fascinating. The NYTymes version of this article has pictures of a person hooked up to the machine, as well as a progression of dog drawings from one subject.)
Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: N/A
Freedom Rating: N/A
Learning Percentage: 90%
Posted by Lance Brown at 07:39 PM
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Charter Schools: A Matter of Choice
In defense of charter schools...
Boston Globe Online: A matter of choice
A couple of weeks ago Milton Academy held its annual commencement. The graduation speaker was Bill Clinton. His speaking fee would be out of the range of just about any high school, public or private, but he spoke to Milton as a favor to a former aide with a child in the graduating class.
The next day, the Academy of the Pacific Rim held its commencement, its first. You've never heard of its speakers. In fact, it's doubtful that you have ever heard of the academy itself, a charter school in Hyde Park. Its signature requirement is that each of its students graduate speaking Mandarin Chinese.
In its way, each of these schools represents a form of school choice. But one of those choices, and you can guess which one, is under siege at the State House.
If many legislators get their way, there will soon be a moratorium on charter schools, the experimental public schools that are free of a lot of the bureaucracy governing traditional schools - and free to try other approaches.
Full Opinion Piece...
Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 7
Learning Percentage: 75%
Posted by Lance Brown at 07:33 PM
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Study: College seniors wary of government jobs
CNN.com - Study: College seniors wary of government jobs - Jun. 3, 2003
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Many college seniors in the United States want jobs that help the public, but are wary of seeking government work with its reputation for bureaucratic delay and waste, according to a study released Tuesday.
"It (government) has a persistent reputation as a place that does not do well in meeting student expectations on most of the things they value in a job," according to the survey conducted for the Brookings Institution, a private think tank.
"It is also seen as less than stellar in helping people, spending money wisely and being fair."
The study was based on a telephone survey of 1,002 seniors majoring in liberal arts and social work taken in April by Princeton Survey Research Associates. It found that the nature of the job, not the size of the paycheck, was still the key consideration in deciding where to work.
But those who want jobs that help people feel that nonprofit companies are much more effective than federal, state and local governments in serving individuals. Many are also confused about how to even apply for government work.
Full Story...
Read It Rating: 6.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 5
Learning Percentage: 70%
Posted by Lance Brown at 07:27 PM
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Report on the 2003 MoveOn.org PAC Primary
Report on the 2003 MoveOn.org PAC Primary
(It's not very in-depth.)
Here's the ballot.
Read It Rating: 4
Left/Right Rating: L6
Freedom Rating: 2
Learning Percentage: 15%
Posted by Lance Brown at 07:24 PM
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Is Lying About The Reason For War An Impeachable Offense?
(Includes compilation of Bush's statements on WMD)
FindLaw's Writ - Dean: Missing Weapons Of Mass Destruction
Is Lying About The Reason For War An Impeachable Offense?
President George W. Bush has got a very serious problem. Before asking Congress for a Joint Resolution authorizing the use of American military forces in Iraq, he made a number of unequivocal statements about the reason the United States needed to pursue the most radical actions any nation can undertake - acts of war against another nation.
Now it is clear that many of his statements appear to be false. In the past, Bush's White House has been very good at sweeping ugly issues like this under the carpet, and out of sight. But it is not clear that they will be able to make the question of what happened to Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) go away - unless, perhaps, they start another war.
That seems unlikely. Until the questions surrounding the Iraqi war are answered, Congress and the public may strongly resist more of President Bush's warmaking.
Presidential statements, particularly on matters of national security, are held to an expectation of the highest standard of truthfulness. A president cannot stretch, twist or distort facts and get away with it. President Lyndon Johnson's distortions of the truth about Vietnam forced him to stand down from reelection. President Richard Nixon's false statements about Watergate forced his resignation.
Frankly, I hope the WMDs are found, for it will end the matter. Clearly, the story of the missing WMDs is far from over. And it is too early, of course, to draw conclusions. But it is not too early to explore the relevant issues.
Full Article... (long)
Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: R3
Freedom Rating: 3
Learning Percentage: 50%
Posted by Lance Brown at 07:07 PM
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Welcome to the Little Brown Reader
Hello, and welcome to "The Little Brown Reader". This is not the English book that's used in high school and college. I was trying to think of a clever name for this new weblog, and that's the best I've come up with so far. Feel free to suggest something equally or more clever, if you have any ideas.
I read a lot of stuff on the Internet. I'm a voracious learner and I'm very politically active, and when you put that together with 7 years of being on the Internet, the result is: I read a lot of stuff on the Internet.
A lot of people probably see many of the same articles and web pages as I do, while for some people almost everything they see here will be new to them. Facing the same dilemma that led me to start E-Actions for Freedom, I decide to create this blog as a rolling online reading list, in case people find the items I read useful. This also helps give people who follow my presidential campaign an idea of what's going through my head, at least some of the time.
I won't be able to take the time to comment much on each item, so I've put together a rating system that will hopefully provide some small insight on what I think about the things I read.
The rating system, which is likely to evolve over time, goes like this:
10 is the highest rating. Ratings will be highly subjective, and rashly decided.
Read It Rating: (scale: 1-10) Measure of how firmly I suggest reading it. May not reflect how glad you will be that you read it.
Left-Right Rating: (scale: 1-10R, 1-10L, 0=neutral) Measure of how much the item leans to the left ("liberal") or the right ("conservative") on the Nolan Chart. Most mainstream news articles will be rated "0" (neutral) by default.
Freedom Rating: (scale: -10 to 10) Fairly arbitrary measure of how pro- or anti-freedom the item is, whether in content or intent.
Learning Percentage: (scale 0-100%) Measure of how much of the item was new information or learning material for me. Your mileage may vary.
And lastly, a copyright note and disclaimer:
All material posted here that is not written by me is the copyrighted material of someone else, and all rights are reserved to them as per the copyright laws. Anything of that nature that's posted here is done so for non-profit informational purposes, and it will do its best to be in compliance with the fair use doctrine. Sometimes when the item comes to me by e-mail, I'll just paste the whole thing in here. I will try to make clear the distinction between my own content and that of others.
I don't necessarily agree with, believe, ascribe to, support, or understand any given item that's posted here, and it's very important not to put too much weight on the ratings I give each entry. They will mostly be done at a moment's thought, after just having finished the item, and in a context of whatever dozen other things I'm doing or reading around that time. Just remember: highly subjective, rashly decided.
Happy reading! If you've got a fixin' for a lot of new info in your inbox, sign up for e-mail updates, over on the left there.
Be well, Be free,
Lance Brown
Posted by Lance Brown at 02:42 AM
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