Sunnis and Shia Working Together

This is very hopeful: “Please don’t ask me if I am a Shiite or a Sunni. We don’t have such distinctions,” Kadhim said, though he earlier said he was a Shiite and a former member of the Iraqi army. When a Sunni mosque in Jihad was attacked by men “in commando uniforms” after the Samarra bombing, Shiites and Sunnis repelled the assailants, Kadhim said.

Massive Increase In Average US Spending Power

Leftists like Tom and Nadir claim that the average American worker's income has stagnated over the past 30 years; plenty of Harvard studies and New York Times articles make this claim. Plenty of free market economists -- notably Thomas Sowell -- counterthat claim, showing that very few people today working in low income jobs have been doing so for 30 years, and very few people 30 years ago working those jobs continue to do so now.

For example, Thomas Sowell 30 years ago was a homeless person working as a dishwasher. The New York Times and the socialist economists point out that dishwashers today make hardly any more money then did dishwashers 30 years ago; stated another way, the "lowest 10% incomes haven't much raised in 30 years. Sowell refutes these claims as accurate, but misleading, since the majority of Americans at any given time working as dishwashers or otherwise qualifying for the "lowest 10%" incomes are tomarrow's middle class home owners.

In this article, one of my Cafe Heyak free market heros from George Mason's economics dept refutes the socialist interpretation from another, equally valid perspective: diswashers today can buy much more, and much better, stuff than did their counterparts 30 years ago. Contrast this with a socialist nation like Cuba, where today's dishwashers aren't just buying the same stuff as they did 30 years ago, they are literally buying the same cars!

Sports Don't Even Boost Applications

Of the many myths that falsely buttress Intercolligiate Sports, this blog entry examines the often-cited, but never-examined claim that winning sports programs boost applications. One poster broaches the subject that this might not even be a good thing, even if it were true, since applicants attracted to a school due to successful sports teams are likely to be of low quality. But don't worry: successful sports programs have very little affect on increasing applications.

Since intercolligiate sports progams don't increase money or students for a school, why do school officials, students, and alumni so passionately insist upon having them? The only reason I can imagine: they like them. And thus they act irrationally and emotionally. And since they like them, they accept myths that support them.

This is similar to why so many whites in the south supported slavery, despite its net negative economic impact (in comparassion to a wage labor economy): they just liked it. (Though millions disliked it enough to simply move to the non-slave states.) This also explains why people insist upon eating hydrogenated oils, refined sugars, etc.: they just like these things, even though these things undermine their health.

No Denying It: The US is the World's Jailer

Despite Condoleeza's statements that the US has no desire to be the world's jailer, the defendant is guilty as charged. With the largest prison population on the planet, a high profile terror/torture camp on an illegally occupied plot of land in Cuba, and secret prisons in God knows how many countries, the United States imprisons more people than any other nation.

Certainly there are some bad folks in US jails who cannot be rehabilitated, even if the system actually worked toward rehabilitation, but many of these prisoners should not have been incarcerated in the first place. There are political prisoners like Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu-Jamal, thousands of non-violent drug offenders, local by-standers who were picked up in sweeps in Afghanistan, exiles like Assata Shakur, scores of Arab Americans who were "disappeared" after 911 for whom whereabouts are still unknown, and folks who just didn't do the crime. Not to mention the large numbers of people who are held metaphorically captive by US economic, domestic and foreign policies.

Perhaps America's greatest contradiction is that the supposed bulwark of freedom holds more human beings in chains than any society in human history. The defendant should plead "no contest".

Rape Allegations Unravelling?

Now come facts that cast doubt on the charges. If this proves to be a Twanna Brawly situation, will the shrieking champions of justice at Duke stage some new rallies, hoisting the lacross team on their shoulders, demanding arrests and sure-handed prosecution of the the stripper accusers? The same "fact" that pulled me towards the accusations now seems to implicate the accusers.

The righteous crusaders against the overwhelming tsunami of American anti-black racism might take note at how long it took presumably white cops to respond to the 911 call from a black woman asserting that some white boys called her a nigger: 2 minutes. They might also note how many cop cars appeared: two. And how long they investigated: 11 minutes. (How many cop cars would come out to my home if I called 911 and said the guy accross the street called me a motherfucker? Or even a cracker?)

It seems that black women in the vicinity of Duke have excellent police support against getting called ugly names (which isn't even against the law, as far as I know). Now we move to what the cops found at the lacross house: nothing. No party. No activity.

Fifteen minutes later the rape report gets called in. These ain't the only inconsistencies and super-convienient coincidences...

George Mason, the Man

He refused to sign the Constitution because it lacked a Bill of Rights; he urged it to abolish slavery. He wrote the Bill of Rights in the Virginia constitution, and this was the eventual template for what would become the US Constitution's first ten ammendments. These were radical, novel ideas: codified individual "inalienable" rights that the state could not breech; a ban on slavery. No nation on earth at that time, or before, instituted such concepts. Not the Azteks, the Myans, the Etheopians, the Egyptians, the Romans, the Greeks, pan-islamia, the Persians, the Zulus, nobody.

Rape Allegations at Duke

Did Duke University lacross players rape a black stripper and call her racial names? That's what she says. Could there have been a dispute over money and she retaliated with a false allegation? Only she and some of the players know. But that hasn't stopped thousands of Duke students from declaring with 100% certainty that her allegations are 100% accurate, and transforming those allegations into an opportunity to rant about what a horrible nation we sadly find ourselves in (along with the hundreds of thousands of other shreiking protesters simultaneously denouncing the US and demanding citizenship).

The men who hire strippers and hookers are negative people, at least, and especially when, they are engaged in this activity. The stripper/hookers are also a negative bunch, and especially so, as they participate in these activities regularly. I have seen these activities; I have known customers of strippers, and strippers. I disdain the activity, and can authoritatively tell those of you who don't know first hand: it is a seedy activity, it attracts negative people and negative behavior on both end of the financial transaction. Customers and stripper/hookers both on occassion behave abhorently towards each other; they are, afterall, behaving abhorrently by definition to begin with.

Sometimes heated arguments errupt over money, and terms of service. Sometimes customers attack the strippers; sometimes they rape the strippers; sometimes they kill the stripper/hookers. But sometimes the strippers attack the cusomters; or steal form the customers; Sometimes one or the other lies on the other. It is an ugly, sorted business. But it is *NOT* one soley charactorized by asshole male customers behaving abhorrently towards innocent, honest young ladies trying to make an decent living. It is an activity in which two groups of sorted individuals engage each other in activities that demean themselves and each other.

Are the Duke strippers telling the truth? I don't know. And neither do all the shrieking student protesters who are using this incident to instruct the rest of us about what a horrible country we live in. This country contains some men who rape. It also contains some women who lie about such things. But mostly it contains people living in safety, working productively, and prospering.

Farrakhan Calls for Regime Change in US

The controversial African American leader defended Iran's right to develop a nuclear energy program to reduce dependence on oil and said Washington's opposition was a pretext for a war.

"The Muslim world should unite against America's desire for a preemptive strike against Iran and Syria," he said at a news conference.

Farrakhan said a similar pretext was used by Washington to invade Iraq "to rape the treasuries of the United States of hundreds of billions of dollars to be doled out to the friends of President Bush, Halliburton and Bechtel and associates."

Maybe It's Just the Conspiracy Theorist in Me, But...

Okay...

When Obsanjo agreed that he would let authorities pick up his partner in crime, Charles Taylor, last week, we should have smelled a rat. Why would they give Taylor a week's head start? No conspiracy there.

But...

Could we soon see a special forces strike in Nigeria? It's Africa, so my first inclination would be to say "No", but Nigeria has oil...

Nah! No way! It'll never happen!!!

Pat Buch: Islamic Democracy?

Pat Buchannon is a great writer, and he makes great points against the neocon campaign of nation building.

Hitchy: Isreal doesn't dictate US policy

Here's Hitchy's take: US policy often counters the wishes of zionists, and US policy no more matches the wishes of zionists than it does anti-castro Cubans or the current govts in Pakistan and Turkey. He also points out that people upset by the internal and external actions of Isreal's govt should be equally appalled -- and for the same reasons -- by the actions of Pakistan and Turkey's govts. Why aren't they?

DeLay's Buddy Profits From Kwame-style "Charity"

We should all abhore fake charities that exist to enrich employees. Kwame Kilpatrick does this quite a bit in Detroit; here's one of DeLay's buddies doing it. Like Kwame's various fake charities, this one benefits this guy's family members.

Dick Morris: Bush Will Succeed in Iraq as Clinton did in Bosnia

Dick Morris says that Bush is succeeding Iraq, and will succeed just as -- he says -- Clinton succeeded in Bosnia. Look for an earlier rendition of a Moa aphorism favored by Nadir...

US Military Spreads More Democracy at Baghdad Killing 20

The US military in Iraq is facing growing political pressure over a raid on a Baghdad mosque complex that left about 20 people dead on Sunday evening.

US officials said 16 insurgents had been killed and 18 captured, along with a significant weapons cache.

However, members of Iraq's ruling Shia Islamist bloc say many of the dead were civilians taking part in prayers.

More collateral damage in a senseless war.

Black Rednecks

Thomas Sowell says that the dysfunctional aspects of black culture began in southern England, among people called "rednecks" and "crackers" before they even came to the US. He attributes these cultural factors as explaining why the descendants of US slaves -- but not blacks from Africa or descendants of Caribean slaves -- lag behind other groups in education and wealth.

France: GIVE ME CITIZENSHIP! NOW!

Six: Let's, you, me, and 500,000 fellow Americans go to Mexico City or Paris illegally, with a big USA flag, march through the streets demanding citizenship and social services, chanting "USA! USA!" and "I'm In My Homeland!" and "I'm Not A Criminal!" And of course let's take our kids out of school to participate in our activity.

I think this strategy might backfire

Feingold's Censure Call Gives Him Boost

While only two Democrats in the Senate have embraced Sen. Russ Feingold's call for censuring President Bush, the idea is increasing his standing among many Democratic voters as he ponders a bid for the party's presidential nomination in 2008.

More evidence that Democratic leadership is out of touch with its base.

Scalia Should Recuse Himself From Gitmo Case

The Supreme Court this week will hear arguments in a big case: whether to allow the Bush administration to try Guantánamo detainees in special military tribunals with limited rights for the accused. But Justice Antonin Scalia has already spoken his mind about some of the issues in the matter.

During an unpublicized March 8 talk at the University of Freiburg in Switzerland, Scalia dismissed the idea that the detainees have rights under the U.S. Constitution or international conventions, adding he was "astounded" at the "hypocritical" reaction in Europe to Gitmo. "War is war, and it has never been the case that when you captured a combatant you have to give them a jury trial in your civil courts," he says on a tape of the talk reviewed by NEWSWEEK.

"This is clearly grounds for recusal," said Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a human-rights group that has filed a brief in behalf of the Gitmo detainees. "I can't recall an instance where I've heard a judge speak so openly about a case that's in front of him—without hearing the arguments."

Hitchy's Ideal War

Many of Hitchy's points make lots of sense to me. Had Russia, France, and Germany stood with the US initially, maybe Hussein would have finally submitted to the 1992 cease-fire agreement. We can imagine also how the embargo against Iraq would have worked had those nations honored it, rather than profitted from it for ten years, then worked to have it lifted after 911.

Hithcy also points out that we have not yet analyzed all the captured documents, one of several reasons that nobody can be certain that Hussein really did lack those banned weapons that so many peaceniks insisted would be employed against invading US troops (as one of their endless objections to the invasion).

Hitchy's entire essay warrents a read by Unreformed Leftists...

Dean Attacking GOP But Lawmakers Won't Follow

This article on the Democratic Party website shows that Howard Dean is staging a full frontal attack on the Republican party. Recent evidence, however, suggests that Democratic lawmakers are not following his lead.

During the 2004 race Dean proved that he was more in tune with the base of Dems, and this is how he was chosen to head the party. However, the cats with the real power, those in Congress, have been slow to challenge their rivals across the aisle. Perhaps because they are guilty of the same corruption. But that's a different story altogether.

The 2006 election is more important than the 2008 presidential race. This November will set the direction that the country will take for the next six years. Why aren't the Democrats attacking when their opponent is down? Why did Kerry fail to do the same thing in '04? Why did Gore fail to use a similar tact in 2000, choosing instead to go after a weaker Ralph Nader when Bush was the real threat?

I accuse the conservative punks in the DLC of sabotaging the Democratic party and America's
hope for a future free of neoconservative hegemony. Bill Clinton was their only real star. He was someone who (as Tom thoughtfully observed) could sell Reagan-esque policy to the left and make them think it was the best thing since sliced bread. The party has no one else with that type of "lie in your face" charisma.

So what is going to happen over the next six months if the Democratic leadership doesn't pull together with a cohesive message that succeeds in energizing an already united base? They are going to phuk around and lose the whole kit and kaboodle.

Mao said "Politics is war without bloodshed." American Democrats don't seem to realize they are in a fight.

An effective weapon against terrorists: Ridicule

"Is America taking terrorists too seriously? In the wake of continued threats, that might seem like a ridiculous question. But in terms of the psychology of the war on terrorism, it's a question that needs to be asked."

SPL Hate Group Map

Linked above is a map showing the location of officially recognized "hate groups" as listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

I would dispute the inclusion of the Nation of Islam and the New Black Panther Party as "black separatist groups" on this list. The NOI has toned down it's separatist rhetoric, though black nationalism is still a theme. It is rare that you will hear a Nation minister refer to white folks as devils like they did 40 years ago.

The New BPP is probably on this list because it was chaired by the late Khalid Muhammad, a former NOI minister who made many of the NOI's most recent "hate" speeches (receiving condemnation from Clinton andGore in 1993). Khalid died from a suspicious illness in 2001. Most of the New BPP's activities have centered around community activism and videotaping police patrols in several urban cities.

The United Nuwabian Nation is a strange cult-like organization that mixes a philosophy of radical Islam, black separatism and outer space mythology in their creed. Weird folks indeed, but dangerous? Well, they were stockpiling guns in their rural Georgia headquarters until the police raided a few years ago. I can't vouch for those cats.

Does US Military in Iraq Target Journalists?

Nadir has claimed that the US military has targetted journalists for lethal attacks. I am unconvinced of this; to the contrary, I find the claim perposterous. If this is occurring:

1. Why aren't more journalists getting killed, if the world's mightiest military in history is targetting them?

2. Why are the reports from Iraq so uniformly contrary to the interests of the military that is supposedly targetting the journalists?

The negative coverage certainly provides an incentive for the military to target the journalists, but this alleged targetting has been totally ineffective, both in terms of killing any journalists and in intimidating them.

Pimping Really Ain't Easy

This Detroit News columnist shares my contempt for black folks celebrating retardation and counter-productivity and self-destruction (pimping, fighting, gangstering, speaking illiteratly, dressing gangsterishly or whoreishly, etc.) and white folks embracing this celebration, cheering it on. But she thinks that "pimps have it easy." I assume that she might also think that selling drugs really is a way to make serious cash and "get out of the hood."

My best friend growing up, Vassar, was a drug dealer and -- breifly -- a pimp. I used to hang out with him while he was pimping and "slinging cane". I lived in his apt (I was a sophomore in college), and absolutely loved joining with him while he was with his pimp buddies. They lived a pathetic life, just like the drug dealers. A bunch of flash, a bunch of money in your pocket that (1) isn't all yours and (2) the portion of it that is yours constitutes all of your wealth (which isn't manifested as jewelry, clothes, and your car).

I agree that the bitches had it worse than the pimps. But the pimps's life wan't easy. It was horrible and led to nowhere. Nadir and my friend Andrew grew up in poverty, which Vassar did not. Andrew worked at school and is today much more wealthy than Vassar (or *ANY* of his drug-slinging or pimping buddies). He deeply regrets wasting his early years learning to sling cane and pimp. Any body who says that "drug dealing is one of the only ways out of the ghetto" is incorrect; actually, drug dealling is one of the surest ways to confine yourself to the ghetto... forever. You're better off selling your food stamps to buy lottery tickets.

More Rare Race Crimes

Here's a deranged mental case going after an Arabian person in a Detroit-area gas station. The article refers to earlier incidents in the area months ago, including a cross burned on the house of family comprising a black and a white spouse in Taylor, Mi, and racist defacing of black family's home in Dearborn. We all deplore these actions, but debate if they represent a significant phenomenon. I still say these are rare incidents, and that non-white people in the US rarely encounter them. Heck, we in Westland, Mi live in the Nazi's freakin' US headquarters (but not so's you'd notice!), in a state once heavily active with KKKers, in a city and area that formerly had few or no blacks, and none of us have ever been targetted, or even heard of anybody getting targetted.

Before anybody says that I wouldn't be targets of the KKK, Nazis, or similar sorts, please read-up on their stated views on, and histories involving, "race traitors" and "race mixers." The confederates executed white Union troops serving with black troops; Slave state laws regarding insurrections, and plots for slave insurrections, mandated executions for all white accomplices; and of course I have my own memories of terrorism from KKKers and similar sorts in just this situation.

Blacks in Detroit still will, on average, find MUCH more security (for their property and persons) moving into subburban honkey neighborhoods. That's why annually a net of about 10,000 blacks leave Detroit for those refuges.

A Hitchy Two-fer

One from Slate and another from the WSJOJ.

US College Grad Job Market Excellent

While college-age Frenchmen demand centralized market controls to guarantee jobs (which actually results in fewer jobs!) by burning down their cities (further driving away businesses!), Americans who trouble themselves to get a university degree face a great job prospect.

GOP: While Iraq burns, let's ban gay marriage!

And while we're at it, let's take a poke at abortion and come out solidly in favor of the Pledge of Allegiance!
From the venerable right-wing Weekly Standard:

Change the Subject
By Fred Barnes
POLITICS IS PRETTY SIMPLE. If the debate in an upcoming election puts your party at a disadvantage, it makes sense to try to change the debate. At the moment, the 2006 midterm election is framed as a referendum on the Bush administration and congressional Republicans, putting Republican candidates on the defensive. Party strategists, led by chairman Ken Mehlman, want to rejigger the debate so it's about a choice between candidates, putting Democratic candidates on the defensive as well. In short, they want it to be a choice election, not a referendum election.
...
House Republicans, for their part, intend to seek votes on measures such as the Bush-backed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, a bill allowing more public expression of religion, another requiring parental consent for women under 18 to get an abortion, legislation to bar all federal courts except the Supreme Court from ruling on the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance, a bill to outlaw human cloning, and another that would require doctors to consider fetal pain before performing an abortion.

US Invasion Brings Democracy to Iraq - NOT!

An Afghan man is being tried in a court in Kabul for his conversion from Islam to Christianity. He could be sentenced to death for the act and his refusal to recant.

Yet, the notion has been advanced repeatedly (here and elsewhere) that a US invasion of Afghanistan and the "democratic elections" there brought democracy to this country.

So what gives?

"We do not torture"

Gotcha!
This isn't yet another post documenting how the Bush administration instituted an explicit--and evidently ongoing--policy of torturing prisoners and then denied it, cravenly letting privates take the fall. (For the latest evidence, see this piece from yesterdays NYT.
(For the latest delusional babble from the White House, go here).

Nope, this piece is about a politician who's actually telling the truth--and making his Democratic colleagues and the allegedly liberal media squirm in the process. This is William Grieder writing in The Nation.

A Peculiar Politician
Senator Russ Feingold is an embarrassment to the US Senate, which makes him an authentic hero of the Republic. The Wisconsin senator gets up and says out loud what half of the country is thinking and talks about every day. This President broke the law and lied about it; he trashed the Constitution and hides himself in the flag. Feingold asks: Shouldn't the Senate say something about this, at least express our disapproval? He introduces a resolution of censure and calls for debate.

Well, that tore it in the august chamber of lawmakers. Democrats scurried away like scared rats. And Republicans chortled at the thought. You want to censure our warrior President, the guy who defends us every day against terrorist attacks? Let's have a vote right now, the Republican leader demanded. Yuk, yuk.

The joke is obvious to everyone in the Washington club--politics trumps principle, especially when it is about something as esoteric as the Constitution. It's a nonstory, the club agrees, not a constitutional crisis.

The Washington Post runs an obligatory account on page 8, quoting Mr. Anonymous Democrat Strategist on the unwisdom of Feingold's gesture. The New York Times story on page 24 quotes the esteemed constitutional authority Dick Cheney. The House Repubican leader (who replaced the corrupt House leader who resigned) denounces Feingold's resolution as "political grandstanding of the very worst kind." Like the Republican impeachment of Bill Clinton for fellatio in the White House? Go away, Feingold, let us get back to the people's business.

The real story--naturally overlooked by cynical editors--is that an honest truth-teller is loose in the fun house and disturbing the clowns. Man bites dog, senator defends Constitution.

Anti-firing laws, rioting stymie French economy

Let's start a business in Paris! We have to be very, very reluctant about hiring anybody, because if we have a problem with the employee or slow business, we can't fire anybody. And if we lobby to have the right to hire and fire whom we want, we can expect riots, which may result in destruction of our business. Is it any wonder that the French economy drastically lags nations where employers have more rights?

"With commerce snarled in some cities, people asked whether Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin would stand firm on implementing the change that he says is needed to encourage hiring." Do these rioters understand economics?

US Puppet Govt in Iraq?

Leftists insist that Bush has installed a puppet govt in Iraq. Yet the most pro-US candidates keep losing the lections. And now Iraq's interim president -- whom the US liked, but lost in the regular election -- has contradicted Bush's claims that a civil war isn't occuring now in Iraq. I leave it to the leftists to demonstrate how the Iraqi govt is a US puppet, and if they can't, to forgo this declaration.

'Crash,' the movie vs. race relations, the reality

What I find hillarious is that the depiction of race relations in Crash is hailed by those who claim that people who reject this view "can't understand because they're white" (for white objectors; they have different explanations for blacks who reject this view). Yet, surprise, the entire creative team of Crash is honkey! Tom, do you object to these crackers lecturing Nadir about racism in the US? Here's a black person who has my view of the film. He's a black person who lives in LA, the location of Crash. According to Nadir's ostensible view on such matters, only a black person in LA is qualified to to critique this guy's assessment!

South Park vs. Scientology

I dislike South Park. I find it very unfunny. But I admire that its creators have lampooned christians and muslims, and now scientologists. I wonder if they will have the guts to continue lampooning islam and mohammad. I understand that they've depicted mohammad in years past, and hope they have the guts to re-broadcast those episodes, or even more courageously ressurect him in new episides. Now they are battling the scientologists, and in some very funny comments here explain that they will not back down. Perhaps George Clooney can pick up some points about being courageous.

Prussian Blue: Teen White Power Singing Duo

Lamb and Lynx Gaede, adolescent twin girls who make up the band Prussian Blue, have gained recognition in white supremacist circles while preteens by singing about preserving the white race and Nazi heroes.

Prussian Blue is the name of the blue residue left over by the use of Zyklon B, the poison the Nazis employed to kill millions of Jews and others in concentration camps during World War II. The two girls learned their white supremacist ideology from their mother, April Gaede, who home schooled them and is their manager.

Nadir's Ancestors Celebrated Today

Nadir's ancestors are noted for their singing, dancing, and athleticism. Maligned for much of history by Europeans for being lazy, drunken and prone to fighting and criminal activity, they have suffered nearly countless rounds of brutal conquest, with waves of subjugators stripping them of their native toungues, suppressing other cultural practices while imposing others, to say nothing of wholesale slaughter, land grabs, rape, and slavery. But they are also noted comics!

Fishing for a Pretext to Squeeze Iran

Iran is a midsize country of some 70 million, with a per capita income of only about $2,000 a year. It has no weapons of mass destruction, and its conventional military forms no threat to the United States. From an Iranian point of view, the Americans are simply being unreasonably aggressive. Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei has given a fatwa or formal religious ruling against nuclear weapons, and President Ahmadinejad at his inauguration denounced such arms and committed Iran to remaining a nonnuclear-weapons state.

Tehran denies having military labs aiming for a bomb, and in November of 2003 the IAEA formally announced that it could find no proof of such a weapons program. The U.S. reaction was a blustery incredulity, which is not actually an argument or proof in its own right, however good U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton is at bunching his eyebrows and glaring.

"Exporting Democracy" Makes Many in GOP Nervous

Even as it presents an updated national security strategy, the Bush administration is facing fresh doubts from some Republicans who say its emphasis on promoting democracy around the world has come at the expense of protecting other American interests.

It's just a poem, an ugly, hateful, divisive, misleading poem

Maybe the little Ashante girl would "understand" the hurt feelings if a white kid delivered a poem blaming blacks for today's (and yesterday's) problems, expounding only on the black past conquerers and cultural rapists, creating the impression that whites lived peaceful and just lives prior to contact with blacks, and commanding only the white kids to stand and pledge allegiance to each other.

Aren't these kids supposed to be learning grammar, math, literature, and history? And no, this was no history lesson. Teaching about what Columbus did is fine with me. But personalizing Columbus's outrages with the children in an American classroom in 2006 is ugly and unneccessarily unsettling, as is singling out one "race" as the cause of past and current problems, and other "races" as being more just and peaceful, ruined only by the bad actions of the single "bad" race.

This is really terrible, and I certainly don't want my children exposed to this nonsense. Let history teachers teach the full truth not only of Columbus, but also of the African, Arab, American, and Asian societies at that time. It was a savage and brutal world. The mythical African "villiages" that the Ashante girl describes... lack descriptions! Let's fill in the whole picture, and not personalize the horrors of European and African cultures with today's children in the US, where the awful cultural practices of the past are now banished to historical accounts (except for people still living in barbaric circumstances).

The Black Panther pledge made sense during its day, when blacks lacked full rights, and official governemnt entities used their powers to suppress blacks trying to realize those rights. The pledge now creates a conflict that otherwise does not exist.

It's Just a Poem

“It’s just a poem,” Autumn Ashante, 7, explained of her “proud and powerful” lyrical offering that has set off a firestorm of controversy and a media feeding frenzy.

While saying that the “Black and Spanish” students cheered, a handful of white students did walk out, Ashante replied, “I think it was sad and I am confused because they are making a big fuss about a poem.”

She understands however that the official response means that, “It was effective to them.”

In a Related Story: Peekskill police investigate postcards with "hate material" - anti-black, anti-Semetic, anti-Hispanic - which were found in various locations around the city, but do not believe it is related to Autumn's poem.

Civil War in America

Every year the Sons of Confederate Veterans use the North Carolina statehouse to celebrate their annual confederate flag day ceremony. It has become more common in recent years for some white southerners to openly wax nostalgic for the days when their ancestors fought and died to preserve slavery.

It is easy to see a connection between present day yearnings for a return to Dixieland and renewed efforts to threaten voting rights. It is less obvious to see similar connections with trends elsewhere in the country. South Dakota is a long way from South Carolina, but that state recently joined the battle to turn back the clock on civil rights and return to the bad old days when white men ruled and everyone else was subservient.

Bush Uses Diplomacy to Win Friends and Influence People...NOT!

In a 49-page national security report, the president said diplomacy is the U.S. preference in halting the spread of nuclear and other heinous weapons.

"If necessary, however, under long-standing principles of self defense, we do not rule out the use of force before attacks occur — even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack," Bush wrote.

The report had harsh words for Iran, North Korea, Russia and China and called Syria a tyranny that harbors terrorists and sponsors terrorist activity.

"Effective multinational efforts are essential to solve these problems. Yet history has shown that only when we do our part will others do theirs. America must continue to lead."

TP publishes on counterpunch.org

Check it out.

Bush and U.S. supremacy

The neocons have explicitly laid out strategies for "promoting U.S. supremacy"--an effort that has been applauded and deplored here, depending on political orientation. Aside from such polemics, let's ask ourselves, how's it going? Has Bush been a good steward of empire? Wait, that's too polemical. Let me ask, Has Bush furthered or hindered the national interest? I've always thought that a cagey character like Clinton was a great captain of the US ship--if the desired destination was "empire" or "supremacy" (put it how you like). He knew how to run the world while inspiring its leaders (and many of its citizens) to nod their head, "yes." Bush, however, has most of the world, including US voters, shaking their head, "no."

Here is the perspective of that great pariah Noam Chomsky on the question of Bush as captain of the good ship America. In the days ahead, I'll be finding other perspectives. Below find the first few paragraphs.

he prospect that Europe and Asia might move towards greater independence has troubled US planners since the second world war. The concerns have only risen as the "tripolar order"--Europe, North America and Asia--has continued to evolve.
Every day Latin America, too, is becoming more independent. Now Asia and the Americas are strengthening their ties while the reigning superpower, the odd man out, consumes itself in misadventures in the Middle East.
Regional integration in Asia and Latin America is a crucial and increasingly important issue that, from Washington's perspective, betokens a defiant world gone out of control. Energy, of course, remains a defining factor--the object of contention--everywhere.
China, unlike Europe, refuses to be intimidated by Washington, a primary reason for the fear of China by US planners, which presents a dilemma: steps toward confrontation are inhibited by US corporate reliance on China as an export platform and growing market, as well as by China's financial reserves--reported to be approaching Japan's in scale.
In January, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah visited Beijing, which is expected to lead to a Sino-Saudi memorandum of understanding calling for "increased cooperation and investment between the two countries in oil, natural gas and investment", the Wall Street Journal reports.
Already much of Iran's oil goes to China, and China is providing Iran with weapons that both states presumably regard as deterrent to US designs. India also has options. India may choose to be a US client, or it may prefer to join the more independent Asian bloc that is taking shape, with ever more ties to Middle East oil producers. Siddharth Varadarjan, the deputy editor of the Hindu, observes that "if the 21st century is to be an 'Asian century,' Asia's passivity in the energy sector has to end".
The key is India-China cooperation. In January, an agreement signed in Beijing "cleared the way for India and China to collaborate not only in technology but also in hydrocarbon exploration and production, a partnership that could eventually alter fundamental equations in the world's oil and natural gas sector", Varadarjan points out.

Meanwhile, over in Nigeria...

From Reuters:

In last month's attacks, heavily-armed fighters bombed several oil pipelines, sabotaged production platforms and crippled one of the main tanker loading platforms, all located on the western side of the vast wetlands region.
The group has vowed another large-scale attack on oil facilities in another area of the delta, and repeated the threat on Wednesday, advising foreign workers to leave.
``We will attack the most heavily fortified installations so the Nigerian government cannot claim to have been caught unawares,'' they said.
Royal Dutch Shell has evacuated its staff from the entire western delta, cutting 455,000 barrels per day (bpd) of its own output and 100,000 bpd pumped by other companies.
Western multinationals in the eastern delta, including ExxonMobil, ENI unit Agip, Chevron and Total are on a heightened state of alert.

And from the Atlantic (via Gristmill):

With an ethnically and religiously combustible population of 130 million, Nigeria is lurching toward disaster, and the stakes are high -- for both Nigeria and the United States. An OPEC member since 1971, Nigeria has 35.9 billion barrels of proven petroleum reserves -- the largest of any African country and the eighth largest on earth. It exports some 2.5 million barrels of oil a day, and the government plans to nearly double that amount by 2010. Nigeria is the fifth-largest supplier of oil to the United States; U.S. energy officials predict that within ten years it and the Gulf of Guinea region will provide a quarter of America's crude.
It is hardly surprising, then, that since 9/11 the Bush administration has courted Nigeria as an alternative to volatile petro-states in the Middle East and Latin America. In 2002, the White House declared the oil of Africa (five other countries on the continent are also key producers) a "strategic national interest" -- meaning that the United States would use military force, if necessary, to protect it. In short, Nigeria's troubles could become America's and, like those of the Persian Gulf, cost us dearly in blood and money.
...
[Nigerian president Olusegun] Obasanjohas has shown scant appetite for tackling the crime, neglect, and inefficiency rampant in the oil sector. "Bunkering" -- tapping into pipelines and siphoning oil into makeshift tankers hidden in the swamps of the Niger River Delta -- is widespread; it is responsible for the loss of some 200,000 barrels a day and for catastrophic fires that have incinerated locals attempting to scoop up the runoff. Criminal gangs with government connections are said to be behind the practice -- who else could hire the needed equipment?
During his first term, Obasanjo established a development commission to distribute oil revenues among the country's indigenous peoples, but its efforts have come to naught; most of the windfall oil profits of the last few years have gone toward refurbishing mansions for the elite. Oil spills and gas flares blight the delta, ruining farmland and poisoning fishing grounds. Owing to the abysmal state of its few refineries, Nigeria remains an importer of gasoline. Officials divert gas from the pumps and sell it on the black market. Fuel shortages are endemic.

Iraq: the Phillipines analogy

Paul likes to paint the Iraq War as a replay of the Civil War, with GWB as Lincoln and Hussein as, I don't know, John C. Calhoun. The analogy never made much sense to me. Here is an attempt to draw an analogy from another period of US history: the conquest of the Phillipines. From an article by Tom Bissell in the Jan. 2006 Harpers, "Improvised, Explosive, and Divisive: Searching in vain for a strategy in Iraq":

Although the war in Vietnam is the usual metric used to compare what is today occurring in Iraq, the U.S. war in the Philippines at the turn of the twentieth century is a far more appropriate point of comparison. The United States occupied the Philippines on exquisitely false pretexts, as President William McKinley's lovely, godstruck thoughts to visiting clergymen on why the United States had moved into the archipelago reveal: "I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance on more than one night." God told McKinley that "there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the best we could by them.., and then I went to bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly." The Bush Doctrine, a century foretold. (The Philippines, incidentally, had been Christianized already.) The debate about what to do next became paramount. President McKinley dispatched a commission to the increasingly insurgent-plagued islands. It came back with this report: "Should our power by any fatality be withdrawn, the commission believe that the government of the Philippines would speedily lapse into anarchy. … Only through American occupation, therefore, is the idea of a free, self-governing, and united Philippines Commonwealth at all conceivable." Harper's Weekly shortly published a dispatch from the islands: "Some of this territory we have occupied; the rest we have returned to the insurgents in a more or less mutilated condition, depending on whether the policy of the hour was to carry on a bitter war against a barbarous enemy, or to bring enlightenment to an ignorant people, deceived as to our motives."

The war in the Philippines was won through several tactics. "In this country," William Howard Taft, McKinley's appointed head of the Philippine Commission, argued, "it is politically most important that Filipinos should suppress Filipino disturbances and arrest Filipino outlaws." Another tactic was brutality. As one U.S. general had it, "An eight p.m. curfew went into effect. Any Filipino found on the streets after that hour would be shot on sight. Whenever an American soldier was killed, a native prisoner would be chosen by lot and executed." A young lieutenant witness to these atrocities later wrote, "The American soldier in officially sanctioned wrath is a thing so ugly and dangerous that it would take a Kipling to describe him." In time, Taft's softer hand--trials rather than executions, infrastructure-building rather than crop-razing--generally won the day. Although the insurgency lasted for another decade and a half, by 1902 the most organized and deadly of the insurgent groups had been defeated. More than 4,000 American soldiers had been killed in combat, thousands more perished of disease, and close to 200,000 Filipino civilians were left dead. As a U.S. senator said on the Senate floor, "What has been the practical statesmanship which comes from your ideals and sentimentality? You have wasted six hundred millions of treasure. You have sacrificed nearly ten thousand American lives. … You have slain uncounted thousands of the people you desire to benefit …. Your practical statesmanship has succeeded in converting a people … into sullen and irreconcilable enemies, possessed of a hatred which centuries cannot eradicate."

Iran Freedom Concert

Maybe those kooky, krazy WCW kidz could make this worthwhile rally. Distorted Soul could perform!

Nahhhh.

No Freedom To Rock

Last Updated: March 6, 2006 The essential elements of the Iran Freedom Concert are illegal in Iran: live singing, females singing to males, mixed dancing, social messages, and performing without a permit. Indeed, "underground" music has a different meaning in Iran. After the 1979 Islamic revolution, most Western music and musical instruments were banned. The mullahs have now eased restrictions, but nightclubs are illegal and musical performances must be approved by the Ministry of Islamic Guidance. Most bands can get permission to perform as along as their music is instrumental. Fans have to stay seated - dancing and even moving energetically in your seat - is forbidden. O-Hum, a popular band from Tehran, was banned from releasing a record because it was deemed "culturally incompatibile". Another popular band called 127 (see photo) has to practice in a soundproof bunker inside and has been allowed to play only four concerts in the past four years. The hard-rock band Mine cannot play in public at all, due to the Iranian government's recently imposed ban on the performance of Western music (rock songs are now banned from Iranian radio). To make matters worse, they have a female vocalist. The all-female band Orkideh was granted a permit to perform - but for women only.

7 year-old Banned for Practicing Academic Freedom

A 7-year-old prodigy unleashed a firestorm when she recited a poem she wrote comparing Christopher Columbus and Charles Darwin to "pirates" and "vampires" who robbed blacks of their identities and human rights.

Autum, who is home-schooled in Mount Vernon and speaks several languages, prefaced her performance at the high school with a Black Panthers' pledge asking black youngsters to not harm one another.

It did not sit well with parents.

In a telephone interview with The Post, [music teacher Melvin] Bolden said Autum has been "unofficially" banned from performing in a district school again and that school officials would review transcripts of future speakers.

"It's unfortunate, because some teachers said they wanted this little girl to explain the things she said to their students, but some parents don't want her on school grounds," Bolden said.

"[The poem] might have been a little too aggressive for what the middle-school kids are ready to handle," Bolden added.

A 7 year-old's poem was too aggressive for middle-schoolers? Sounds like her parents are doing a great job...

"There's no civil war in Iraq"

From a page-one piece in yesterday's WSJ:

It's been one of the U.S.'s biggest goals since the invasion of Iraq: build safeguards that would prevent the country from falling into pieces.
Now, in a few weeks of vicious fighting, those safeguards have reached a breaking point, and the divisions between sects and ethnic groups have hardened in ways that will be hard to reverse. Creating a unifying central government that would divvy up oil revenues, field an army and resolve sectarian differences has suddenly become a much tougher task than many imagined heading into 2006.
The safeguards had been eroding even before the recent wave of violence, but the process became markedly worse beginning with the bombing of a landmark Shiite shrine in Samarra three weeks ago, presumably at the hands of Sunni insurgents. Today, some Shiite and Sunni Arabs are retreating to areas dominated by their own religious sect. The national security forces are increasingly taking on a Shiite tint, infuriating Sunnis and helping to foment their insurgency. In the north, Kurds effectively run their own region and are signing independent oil deals with foreign companies. [Emphasis added.]

Note that these "national security forces" are the same ones Bush keeps insisting are almost ready to restore order in Iraq without 150,000 U.S. troops--and thousands more U.S.-funded contractors--behind them.

Fire the wonton professors: PC past and present

From an article last year in the Nation by Russell Jacoby, one of my favorite writers.

The New PC
By Russell Jacoby,
The Yale student did not like what he heard. Sociologists derided religion and economists damned corporations. One professor pre-emptively rejected the suggestion that "workers on public relief be denied the franchise." "I propose, simply, to expose," wrote the young author in a booklong denunciation, one of "the most extraordinary incongruities of our time. Under the "protective label 'academic freedom,'" the institution that derives its "moral and financial support from Christian individualists then addresses itself to the task of persuading the sons of these supporters to be atheistic socialists."

For William F. Buckley Jr., author of the 1951 polemic God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of "Academic Freedom" and a founder of modern American conservatism, the solution to this scandal was straightforward: Fire the wanton professors. No freedom would be abridged. The socialist professor could "seek employment at a college that was interested in propagating socialism." None around? No problem. The market has spoken. The good professor can retool or move on.

Buckley's book can be situated as a salvo in the McCarthyite attack on the universities. Indeed, even as a Yale student, Buckley maintained cordial relationships with New Haven FBI agents, and at the time of the book's publication he worked for the CIA. Buckley was neither the first nor the last to charge that teachers were misleading or corrupting students. At the birth of Western culture, a teacher called Socrates was executed for filling "young people's heads with the wrong ideas." In the twentieth century, clamor about subversive American professors has come in waves, cresting around World War I, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and today. The earlier assaults can be partially explained by the political situation. Authorities descended upon professors who questioned America's entry into World War I, sympathized with the new Russian Revolution or inclined toward communism during the cold war.

"There's no civil war in Iraq"

From today's NYT:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 14 — The bodies of more than 85 executed men have surfaced across Baghdad in the past two days, in Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods, providing graphic proof, yet again, of sectarian mayhem.

The bodies of victims of apparent sectarian violence in Baghdad today were brought to a hospital.

Many bodies bore marks of torture — badly beaten faces, gagged mouths and rope burns around the neck — though it remains unclear who is responsible.

The wave of unchecked killings comes at a time when the American government is insisting that Iraqi security forces can reverse the slide toward chaos. But less than a month after an assault on a Shiite shrine nearly plunged Iraq into all-out civil war, the blood continues to flow, just as freely.

Many of the street executions happened in the same areas where Shiite militiamen rampaged in the days after the shrine attack, suggesting that no one is able, or willing, to stop them.

Islamic Crusade

I'm reading a book, "India: A History." The chapter on the Arabian invasion and conquest (by people reportedly from an area called, "Arabia", Nadir!) includes an overview of the Islamic Empire:

"The urgency with which the followers of the Prophet carried his teachings out of Arabia (!) resulted in one of the campainging wonders off world history. Within twenty years of his death in 632, Arab forces had overrun much of tghe Byzantine empire (white folks!) in Syria (Arabs!) and Egypt (Africans!), and all of the Sassanid empire in Iran (Persians!) and Iraq (more Arabs!). Forty years later, with the addition of North Africa (more Africans!), Spain (honkies!), most of Afganistan (more non-honkies), and vast areas of central Asia (Asians!), Alexander had been upstaged, Caesar overshadowed."

I haven't read about slavery yet (non-whites enslaving both non-whites... and even some whites!), but I have read about "ravaging India's norther cities", "the idolaters were sore afflicted" and "easily routed". "The carnage endured for three days" " the temple was demolished and the priests were massacred." And I love this phrase, written by a muslim recording a battle: "the idolators fled and the Mussulmans glutted themselves with massacre." Acts of bestiality abound. One execution is as cruel as it is novel: sewing a live man inside a hide, where he resides for about two days until he dies of very slow suffication.

You'd almost think that all peoples on earth have equally cruel histories as both victims and perpetraters. Before we feel too sorry for the Indians getting so awefully conquered by the Arabs, let's remember that before the Arabian arrival, India consisted of a region roughly as large as Europe, with about as many nations and kingdoms cruelly conquering each other.

Gutless Daily Show Blasphemes Christianity but not Islam

After Jon Stewart impressed me by going to hollywood and lampooning that crowd to its humorless face, I've made an effort to watch him more. Tonight one of his reporters filed a sketch responding to the muslim cartoon mauraders by lampooning christianity and those who censor blaspheming of it. The sketch showed cartoons of Jesus and the reporter painted a picture of Jesus using cow dung and urine. What cowards. What about showing the same of islam? The sketch quoted aweful proclaimations from the old testiment (of course there none to quote from the new testiment!), but none from the koran. Turns out they're not so brave afterall.

Bird Hysteria

This article claims that half the US population could die from the bird flu. My rock-solid prediction: no deadly infectious epidemic will ever materialize in any modern society. Don't even try suggesting to me that "AIDS" is a deadly infectious epidemic, by the way! "AIDS" ain't even infectious, and it isn't an epidemic; it never has been.

ABC News: Death squads roam Iraq

Rumsfeld denies there's a civil war in Iraq. Meanwhile, the mainstream media and the State Department are describing what's essentially a dirty war being waged by the majority Shiite government against the Sunni minority.
From the above-linked article:

Some Sunnis call it a dirty war. While many Americans may be under the impression that most violence here is from car bombs and improvised explosive devices, experts say most murders are executions. John Pace, the former director of the United Nations' human rights office in Baghdad, said up to 2,000 are being executed a month — handcuffed, shot in the head. Six more were discovered in Baghdad this morning.

"Certainly, the Ministry of Interior is well-known to be responsible for this kind of summary execution and torture," Pace said, "and also the militias."

Here's more:

n its annual report on human rights this week, the U.S. State Department reported that in Iraq, "Members of sectarian militias dominated police units … there were a number of deaths either at police hands or at the hands of militia members and criminals wearing police uniforms."

Sounds like Rumsfeld's "what civil war?" claim will go the same way as his "WMDs pose imminent danger" claim; and his promise that "they'll greet us with flowers." Not to mention his declaration that the Iraqi insurgency was composed of a "bunch of dead-enders" who would quickly succumb to US military might. That claim came going on three years now. Maybe it's time for Rumsfeld to follow his absurd declarations into history's dustbin.

Bush Ineptitude Kills 7 In Hawiian Dam Bust

Why didn't George Bush fix this Hawiian damn? Does he think that black people live down from it? How long will it take FEMA to get there? (Prediction: 7 days). Will Bush stop whatever he's doing to take charge of this situation? Has Bush yet fixed all the infrastructure problems on the west coast that will guarantee zero deaths in the face of a massive earthquake there?

Myths of Iraq

Slightly different perspective from someone with first-hand experience on the ground there.

Best PC is a Mac (again, as always)

Nadir: When will you join Six, Tom, and me in updating to a superior computer? You already pay more to have the best in other aspects of your life, including your purchase of a non-US car, your guitar, and shopping and Whole Foods. Why use the Ford of computers? This is especially offensive since you use computers to produce your art.

Thomas Sowell: Classroom Brainwashing

"Academic freedom is the freedom to do academic things -- teach chemistry or accounting the way you think chemistry or accounting should be taught. It is also freedom to engage in the political activities of other citizens -- on their own time, outside the classroom -- without being fired. "

"All across the country, from the elementary schools to the universities, students report being propagandized. That the propaganda is almost invariably from the political left is secondary. The fact that it is political propaganda instead of the subject matter of the class is what is crucial."

"Inbred ideological narrowness shows up, not only in hiring and teaching, but also in restrictive campus speech codes for students, created by the very academics who complain loudly when their own "free speech" is challenged."

No Requiem for a Black Conservative

"Conservatives desperately need blacks such as Allen to maintain the public illusion that black conservatives have real clout and a popular following in black communities. Their great value is that they promote the myth that a big segment of blacks support political conservative principles."

Federal aid programs expand at record rate

A USA TODAY analysis of 25 major government programs found that enrollment increased an average of 17% in the programs from 2000 to 2005. The nation's population grew 5% during that time.

Spending on these social programs was $1.3 trillion in 2005, up an inflation-adjusted 22% since 2000 and accounting for more than half of federal spending. Enrollment growth was responsible for three-fourths of the spending increase, according to USA TODAY's analysis of federal enrollment and spending data. Higher benefits accounted for the rest.

Robert Greenstein, head of the liberal Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, says the growth in the number of people in many programs is due to a rise in the poverty rate from 11.3% in 2000 to 12.7% in 2004, the most recent year available. "It's certainly better that people falling into poverty can get Medicaid, but I'd prefer fewer poor people and employers not dropping medical coverage," he says.

Rep. Gil Gutknecht, a conservative Republican from Minnesota, says the number of people in entitlement programs should not be growing when unemployment is near a record low. "It's probably time to revisit food stamps and its goals and costs," says Gutknecht, chairman of the subcommittee that oversees food stamps. Food stamp enrollment climbed from 17.2 million in 2000 to 25.7 million in 2005.

The unemployment number is always dubious because it only measures new claims. It doesn't account for the number of people who are unable to find work or who are underemployed. At any rate, the Republican penchant for slashing spending on social programs doesn't seem to be happening as poverty increases.

Another question not answered by the article: How much of the increase can be accounted for by families of National Guard and Reserve members on public assistance?

S Korea PM quits after golf gaffe

South Korea's Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan has resigned for playing golf when he was supposed to be dealing with a national railway strike.

Honor is so much more important in other countries. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney refused to leave their vacations of golfing and fly fishing while thousands were in danger in New Orleans. Why haven't they done the honorable thing??

Cheney's Task Force, Banned Weapons and Record Oil Profits

The following post was written by Tom Philpott in the comments of the RL article on Banned Iraqi Weapons being Shuttled to Syria. He raises some excellent points that should be highlighted and addressed by the Reformed Leftists who also post here.

From the above-linked article:

James Inhofe, R-Okla., recently said, " ... This old argument of weapons of mass destruction, which has always been a phony argument from the beginning, now that we have information that's been testified ... in closed session, by this Gen. Sadas [sic] – all kinds of evidence as to the individuals who transported the weapons out of Iraq into Syria."

What in the world is this supposed to mean? In what sense was WMD a "phony argument"? Who used it to justify war in the first place? The evidence comes from an Iraqi general serving at the pleasure of the US occupation, filtered through a sub-literate GOP congressman? And what precisely is this "all kinds of evidence"?

Here's something to chew on. In 2001, prior to Sept. 11, Cheney convened an Energy Task Force with the express purpose of making energy policy for the US. It was composed (evidently) solely of big-time energy execs (including pre-disgrace "Kenny Boy" Lay). At that meeting the men looked at maps of Iraq--divided not according to political boundaries, but rather by oil-production centers. I'm fully prepared to believe other explanations than that Cheney was planning, pre-9/11, to invade Iraq. All the VP has to do is release minutes--something he has refused to do despite persistent pressure. Why? Why do citizens not have the right to review the policy proceedings of our elected leaders? What is he hiding, and under what principle is he hiding it? How do you guys justify his refusal to reveal the energy task-force proceedings. Is energy policy, like monetary policy in our system, somehow to take place away from the public gaze? As i've asked before, *these* are the guys who have elected themselves to go around imposing democracy at the barrel of a gun?

Let's start with a little openness at home.

Let's also discuss how instability in Iraq affects world oil prices. Let's talk about record profits for oil conglomerates. Let's talk about how the invasion of Afghanistan affected the natural gas pipeline deal that Clinton failed to close. The people in that meeting with Cheney have been the beneficiaries of the Bush administration's imperial excursions.

I repeat Tom's question: How do you guys justify his refusal to reveal the energy task-force proceedings? Especially when ordered to do so by the GAO?? This was the first sign that the Bush regime had no regard for legal procedure or for the other branches of government.

What say ye?

And Now For Some Really Important News...

From the "Why can't this happen to me?" file:

Woman Gets Beer From Her Kitchen Faucet

47 minutes ago

It almost seemed like a miracle to Haldis Gundersen when she turned on her kitchen faucet this weekend and found the water had turned into beer.

Two flights down, employees and customers at the Big Tower Bar were horrified when water poured out of the beer taps.

By an improbable feat of clumsy plumbing, someone at the bar in Kristiandsund, western Norway, had accidentally hooked the beer hoses to the water pipes for Gundersen's apartment.

"We had settled down for a cozy Saturday evening, had a nice dinner, and I was just going to clean up a little," Gundersen, 50, told The Associated Press by telephone Monday. "I turned on the kitchen faucet and beer came out."

However, Gundersen said the beer was flat and not tempting, even in a country where a half-liter (pint) can cost about 25 kroner ($3.75) in grocery stores.

Per Egil Myrvang, of the local beer distributor, said he helped bartenders reconnect the pipes by telephone.

"The water and beer pipes do touch each other, but you have to be really creative to connect them together," he told local newspapers.

Gundersen joked about having the pub send up free beer for her next party.

"But maybe it would be easier if they just invited me down for a beer," she said

Adali Stevenson, Worth Naming a School For?

My damn kid's middle school is named for Adali Stevenson. Who was he? I read about him in history books, and all I can remember is that he was a senator who unsuccessfully ran for president, and served as UN ambassador. When my kid started at the school I looked him up, figuring I must have missed something important. I can't find anything more than what I wrote above. Is he worth naming a school after? Maybe if he wad from our neighborhood. Can anybody convince me that he's worth naming a Michigan school after?

My kid's previous school was named for James Madison. Now there's a worthwhile white guy; I proudly told my kid that he's one of the guys who penned the revolutionary Federalist Papers, which I keep by my bedside. But Adali Stevenson?

Sopranos, Must Watch Art

There is nothing better than The Sopranos; there is nothing even possibly better. It is a perfect artistic achievement. Why aren't you bastards watching?

Death squads in iraq

The Iraqi government's recent hanging of 12 accused insurgents, applauded on RL by Sixstringslinger, may be the public face of an official, underground campaign that includes use of death squads. According to the Guardian on March 2 (linked above):

Faik Bakir, the director of the Baghdad morgue, has fled Iraq in fear of his life after reporting that more than 7,000 people have been killed by death squads in recent months, the outgoing head of the UN human rights office in Iraq has disclosed.

"The vast majority of bodies showed signs of summary execution - many with their hands tied behind their back. Some showed evidence of torture, with arms and leg joints broken by electric drills," said John Pace, the Maltese UN official. The killings had been happening long before the bloodshed after last week's bombing of the Shia shrine in Samarra.

Note that the 7,000 bodies emerged before the outbreak of open Sunni-Shiite hostilities sparked by shrine bombing in Samarra.

Unreformed leftists will remember the prodigious use of death squads in the 1980s by U.S. proxy governments in El Salvador, Honduras, and--most appallingly--in Guatemala. There's even a direct link from those bloody days and these: John Negroponte. He served as ambassador to Honduras from 1981-1985; and ambassador to Iraq from June 04 to April 05. Read all about this illustrious patriot's career here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Negroponte#Ambassador_to_Honduras_.281981_-_1985.29

Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill of Bush

A Republican loyalist is fired for sticking to principle.

From the article:

Knowing what I know now, I would not have supported the war. But sometimes leaders must take action based on incomplete and inconclusive evidence. Where I really fault the White House is on its extreme reluctance to admit error and for inadequately preparing for the postwar operation. A willingness to admit honest error has always seemed to me to be a hallmark of great leadership. Sadly, this White House failed that test.

As someone primarily concerned with economic policy, enactment of the Medicare drug benefit hit me the way the failure to find WMD hit supporters of the war, especially on the Left, or the way Harriet Miers’s nomination affected judicial conservatives. This is going to cost taxpayers trillions upon trillions of dollars and will eventually lead to massively higher taxes, while doing little to improve the health of those who will benefit from the program or the political fortunes of the Republican Party, which sold its soul just to buy one lousy election.

Impeaching George W. Bush

Since September 11th, 2001, there has been no shortage of news regarding this administration’s involvement in torture, lies, secrecy and obstruction of the law. Yet, there has been little discussion in the mainstream media of holding those in power accountable for the actions so diligently catalogued by the press. It is a conspicuous vacuum that helps to explain why calls for impeachment are rapidly gaining currency.

In fact, the case for the impeachment of President Bush is arguably the strongest in American history. The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) makes this amply clear in its recent book, a concise indictment of President Bush that lays out four clear legal arguments that point to impeachment as a necessary remedy for the gross violation of our Constitution. The Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush covers illegal wiretapping, torture, rendition, detention and the Iraq war. An appendix compares the impeachment proceedings of Andrew Johnson, Nixon and Clinton to the comparatively more powerful case against Bush.

Watch What You Say

Two months after the New York Times revealed that the Bush Administration ordered the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless surveillance of American citizens, only three corporations--AT&T, Sprint and MCI--have been identified by the media as cooperating. If the reports in the Times and other newspapers are true, these companies have allowed the NSA to intercept thousands of telephone calls, fax messages and e-mails without warrants from a special oversight court established by Congress under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Some companies, according to the same reports, have given the NSA a direct hookup to their huge databases of communications records. The NSA, using the same supercomputers that analyze foreign communications, sifts through this data for key words and phrases that could indicate communication to or from suspected terrorists or terrorist sympathizers and then tracks those individuals and their ever-widening circle of associates.

Despite the President's rigorous defense of the program, no company has dared to admit its cooperation publicly. Their reticence is understandable: The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation of the government officials who leaked the NSA story to the Times, and many constitutional scholars and a few lawmakers believe the program is both illegal and unconstitutional. And the companies may be embarrassed at being caught--particularly AT&T, which spent millions advertising its global services during the Winter Olympics. "It's a huge betrayal of the public trust, and they know it," says Bruce Schneier, the founder and chief technology officer of Counterpane Internet Security, a California consulting firm.

You Know It's Hard Out Here Being Pimped

From the article:

"I can't get Three 6 Mafia's Academy Award winning lyrics out of my head: 'You know it's hard out here for a pimp. When he tryin' to get this money for the rent. For the Cadillacs and gas money spent.'

"And every now and then, keeping the same beat with the same mood, thinking of pimp and pimping in a non-sexual way, with the pimp being the president of the USA, I find myself also humming and singing: 'And you know it's hard out here being pimped. And our pimp don't have to worry 'bout his rent. He gets a nice percent of gas money spent.'

"And whereas the pimp in Hustle and Flow was trying to leave the pimping life, our pimp is ever on the go. Pimping is all that he knows. Our pimp, too, "Done seen people killed, done seen people deal. Done seen people live in poverty with no meals." But "staying the course" is how this pimp feels. This pimp lied about Iraq and Katrina standing behind the presidential seal. This pimp has "seen some crazy thangs in the streets" but he, unlike the pimp in the movie, can walk right by it all, spouting platitudes about "being safe," without missing a beat. And if you don't watch what you say and who you say it to, this pimp will listen in on you and the next thing you know you're pricing a prison tattoo or two."

British Soldier Quits in Disgust at 'Illegal' American Tactics in Iraq

After three months in Baghdad, Ben Griffin told his commander that he was no longer prepared to fight alongside American forces.

	Ben Griffin told commanders that he thought the Iraq war was illegal

He said he had witnessed "dozens of illegal acts" by US troops, claiming they viewed all Iraqis as "untermenschen" - the Nazi term for races regarded as sub-human.

In Perspective

Islam's God is a Monster

From the article:
"The Jews have come from the [Holocaust] and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror; with their work, not with their crying and yelling. We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people."

"Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them."

"The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions or a clash of civilizations," Dr. Sultan said. "It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality. Knowledge has released me from this backward thinking. Somebody has to help free the Muslim people from these wrong beliefs."

She said she no longer practiced Islam. "I am a secular human being," she said.

Hear No Evil

The Sept. 11 hijackers made dozens of telephone calls to Saudi Arabia and Syria in the months before the attacks, according to a classified report from the office of German Chancellor Angela Merkel," the Chicago Tribune reports:

According to the report, 206 international telephone calls were known to have been made by the leaders of the hijacking plot after they arrived in the United States--including 29 to Germany, 32 to Saudi Arabia and 66 to Syria.

These are calls between al Qaeda terrorists and their associates, in which one side of the call is in the U.S. and the other is in another country--that is, just the kind of call the National Security Agency listened to under the terrorist surveillance program. Had such a program existed in 2001, it might have prevented 9/11--but if some journalists and Democrats are scandalized now, imagine how they would have howled in outrage if 9/11 hadn't happened.

Crash Crap; Syriana Mythsteria

I'm unhappy with "Crash" as best picture. I saw it, and found it to be a liberal's fantasy of America as comprised of white people who are essentially racist, and who constantly act on their racism, causing non-whites to regularly experiance tangable, un-ambiguous examples of overt racism that they could easily prove, and successfully articulate, to any human on earth. Since this violates what I have come to understand about America, most of the film's story fell dead flat with me. I notice that all the film's producers and writers are honkies, a group that some would insist lack qualifications to expound on racism in the US. If "Crash" accurately depicted the US, Nadir would have no trouble rattling off a list of recent outrages visitted upon him by the many whites scared of his existance in their neighborhood and stores, and Tom would be able to relay a similar list of all the nasty things random white folks say when blacks aren't around.

If you remove that essential element from the film, I think what's left was pretty good, though. I certainly agree with the point that the same person in different situations can act heroicly or horribly.

Syriana fell flat for me for similar reasons, depicting another aspect of the world that liberals imagine to exist: a massive international conspiracy wherein shady charactors pull levers that dictate all world events, which we are all powerless to affect, and in which The Rich Get Richer and The Poor Get Poorer. The truth is out there! When that brave young man at the end of the film goes off to impliment a suicide bombing, it reminded me of what it must have been like for neo-confederate apologists explaining why those poor white guys go lynch a nigra every now and then.

I loved Capote. There's a world that truly exists for me. A wierd, gay NY writer covering a sensational murder, acting in bizarre and contradictory ways.

Bareback Mountain I didn't see. I admit that I'm off-put by the prospect of seeing manlove manifested. And I'm disappointed that the "gay cowboy" movie was really about sheep herders. What a cop-out! If the original story was about sheep herders, was the author scared to make cowboys gay? And if so, why not for the purposes of the film have the guts to make the gay guys cowboys.

And why have them find love on Double Entendre Mountain? Why feed all the idiot jokesters like me such easy ammunition, "Brokeback Mountain"? There's an infinite number of titles that don't demand sendups.

Walk the Line was a lot of fun, just like Ray; nothing great, but lots of fun. Nothing untrue or repulsive about it. I could have lived with it winning anything.

Good Night and Good Luck, I didn't see. Mostly because I've lost my enthusiasm for 100% opposition to McCarthism, now that I have come to learn that there really were commies in the govt and they really did want to end democracy and support Stalin. We're very lucky that the anti-commies won, at least I think so. I haven't examined this topic enough to have a firm opinion on McCarthy; I simply no longer hold my previous 100% opposition to McCarthy, which -- upon reflection -- wasn't based on a great deal of consideration, and certainly no critical thought. I percieved that Good Night was -- like Siriana and Crash -- premised on a reality that would ring falsely with me (assmumed villians and assumed heros that I could not assume). So I made no effort to see it.

I see that the top 10 grossing movies of 2005 were either repulsive enough on their face that I refused to see, or that I saw and declare unwatchably aweful. I don't even remember what came out in 2005 other than what got nominated or was on the top money list.

The Three T's

Cubicles: The great mistake

Robert Oppenheimer agonized over building the A-bomb. Alfred Nobel got queasy about creating dynamite. Robert Propst invented nothing so destructive. Yet before he died in 2000, he lamented his unwitting contribution to what he called "monolithic insanity."

Propst is the father of the cubicle. More than 30 years after he unleashed it on the world, we are still trying to get out of the box. The cubicle has been called many things in its long and terrible reign. But what it has lacked in beauty and amenity, it has made up for in crabgrass-like persistence.

The End of Neverland

I'm sure Peter and Wendy will be devastated...

Israel Spies on US

Let us be clear here. There is nothing benign about Israel spying on the United States. When Jonathan Pollard stole our nuclear secrets (which your taxes paid to develop) and sent them to Israel, Israel did not hesitate to trade those secrets to the USSR in exchange for increased emigration quotas.

The story of the uncovering of the largest spy ring ever discovered inside the United States should be the story of the century, if indeed the US media is looking out for the best interests of the American people. That this spy ring helped drug smugglers evade investigators should be a major scandal, if indeed the US media is looking out for the best interests of the American people. That the spy ring includes companies able to track and tap into any phone in America, including the White House, should be a cause celebre', if indeed the US media is looking out for the best interests of the American people.

Iraq Hangs 13 Insurgents Amid More Attacks

Get caught attempting to foment civil war, then here's your fate.

Banned Iraqi Weapons Shuttled to Syria?

I have always said that I supported Bush's invasion of Iraq independant of the baathist govt having banned weapons as of 911. And I have always taken seriously the numerous claims that no such weapons then existed. Will Tom, Nadir, and the other peaceniks just as seriously consider the reports that such weapons got transported to Syria in the year or so prior to the invasion? This claim is a lot less contrived (it's not even contrived at all) than the numerous anti-Bush charges (such as the Valarie Plame episode, or invading to steal oil). The claim here is simple: all the people who believe that Huissein had those weapons were correct, Huissein evaded weapons inspectors because he had those weapons, but he spirited them to his neighboring baathist ally in the year between Bush's announcement of invasion and the start of the invasion.

If this is true, Tom and Nadir, what will your reaction be? "Bush lied about other things, and people died"? Will the people who were wrong in claiming that Huissein lacked those weapons, will you accuse them of lying?

School Vouchers in Baltimore

Here's a documentary about 20 Baltimore kids from a ghetto school who essentially get vouchers to go get taught at a boarding school run by volunteer crackers out in the country. One of the 20 kids after just one year goes from having a horrible attitude to getting Maryland's top score on a math test. I don't see 95% of the parents of such kids voting democrat/anti-voucher forever.

Free Speach for Teachers

Let's discuss the high school teacher who told his class that Bush was just like Hitler. The school board and conservatives (including some parents and students) want him fired. I want him put back into the classroom. As long as he covers the required material, I think it is fine for him to tell the students that he believes that Bush is just like Hitler. I think that his students should challange him -- and each other -- on this topic. Such discussions are excellent often result in people learning more about Hitler and Bush than they otherwise would. They can also help people learn to tolerate the expression of veiws that oppose their own without wanting to fire or force appologies the expressor of such views.

And I'm confident that about half of his students will oppose his view and present credible facts and logic to support themselves.

Child Support Rights for Men

I developed this idea years ago, and have articulated it ever since: Since women have 100% choice in "keeping" or "aborting" their pregnancy, unwed fathers should have a similar choice. And non-costodial parents who pay child support should have lots of rights in decision-making. Currently, if an unwed women gets pregnant, she holds all of the cards. The unwed father is at her mercy. If she wants to abort the pregnancy, he cannot force her to keep the baby. If she chooses to have the baby, she has an inducement: 20% of the schmuck's paycheck, for 18 years. The only choice that the father has is upon birth he can sue for custody. But if the woman has a choice that will nullify that option: don't tell the dad she's pregnant until the baby is born and has lived with the mom long enough to establish primary residence. At such a point, custody transfer is very hard.

Rumsefeld: What civil war in Iraq?

Oh yeah, and we don't torture, either. And this whole thing was about democracy. And Iraq posed an imminent danger to U.s. security before the war. And...

Thomas Sowell: Oily Politics

Another brilliant piece from one of Paul's heroes (and mine).

More Proof that Republicans Respect the Power of the Black Vote More Than Democrats

Republican leaders, preparing a strategy for several critical elections this year, are expanding their outreach efforts to black voters by offering a two-day training session for minorities interested in running for public office, becoming political advisors or facilitating GOP campaigns.

This is something the Democrats should have been doing for the past 40 years...

With Friends Like These, Who Are the Enemies?

Dick Cheney, the man who admittedly shot his friend in the face, addresses the lobbying organization that was found guilty of spying on the United States and giving secrets to Israel.

With friends like these...

Conduct Unbecoming of the Commander-In-Chief

After viewing the nearly homo-erotic “pornographic” like photos and video clips, one could put an “E” rating—for morally evil-- on this sequel to the 2004 prison abuse scandal. There are many versions as to how this troubling incident happened in an Iraqi chicken coop, guarded by U.S. military foxes, but the origin is the most telling and indisputable.

Seymour M. Hersh wrote in “The Gray Zone,” “The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved by… Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.” Called by U.S. black ops in code names (i.e., “Copper Green” in Afghanistan), interrogation of prisoners in Iraq is based on research presented by the late cultural anthropologist Raphael Patai in his 1973 “The Arab Mind.”

The book, which defined the psychological make-up of Arab peoples, became the bible for how to break them down psychologically and morally. Patai claims Arabs only understand force, and an Arab’s weakness is shame and humiliation. Thus, techniques for coerced sexually explicit humiliation were openly enforced in the prisons, and photographed to the delight of the U.S. MP guards.

RIP Gordon Parks, Sr.

Photographer, filmmaker, poet, musician, author, activist, businessman.

Gordon Parks was one bad mutha-shut-yo-mouf...

Real "Courage": Courage To Speak The Truth

#1050 - Arab-American Psychologist Wafa Sultan: There Is No Clash of Civilizations but a Clash between the Mentality of the Middle Ages and That of the 21st Century
Al-Jazeera TV (Qatar) - 2/21/2006 - 00:05:28

The "Courage" of Hollywood

Actor/Commedian/Lawyer/Invester Ben Stein on the 2005 Academy Awards.

This Week's "Rare" Racist Hate Crime Story

UNC Attacker Will Use Trial to Proselytize

The Muslim psychology graduate who allegedly drove an SUV into a crowd of students at UNC-Chapel Hill appeared in court today and said he intends to use his trial to tell people about Allah: UNC attacker appears in court.

HILLSBOROUGH — Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, the 22-year-old former UNC student charged with trying to run down other students at the University of North Carolina on Friday, thanked the judge Monday during his first appearance for the opportunity tell people about Allah.

“I’m thankful you’re here to give me this trial to learn more about the will of Allah, the creator and the merciful,” Taheri-azar said to the judge during the short hearing in Orange County District Criminal Court.

Taheri-Azar, wearing the typical orange jumpsuit of jail inmates, was escorted into the crowded courtroom under tight security by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office and was immediately seated in the defendant’s chair.

Orange-Chatham District Attorney Jim Woodall told Judge Pat DeVine that Taheri-Azar had been charged with nine counts of attempted murder and nine counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury. He then read through each of the 18 warrants, naming each of the nine victims.

Taheri-Azar sat quietly, only glancing once to his right at the phalanx of deputies who stood nearby. He answered each of DeVine’s questions politely as she explained his rights and the procedures. Susan Seahorn, an assistant public defender, stood behind his chair.

When DeVine asked Taheri-Azar if he wanted to hire his own attorney or have one appointed for him, he answered, “I am representing myself.”

Taheri-Azar spoke softly and it was difficult to hear exactly what he said. Woodall, who was standing near him during the first appearance, later said Seahorn spoke to Taheri-azar as he was sitting in the defendant’s chair. “She whispered in his ear to stop talking, and he said he would decide when to stop talking,” Woodall said.

Although Taheri-Azar said he would represent himself, DeVine still appointed the Public Defender’s office to represent him “out of an abundance of caution,” she said.

DeVine told Taheri-Azar that his bond would remain at $5.5 million and that he would remain in custody under a safekeeping order at Central Prison in Raleigh.

After speaking briefly in a backroom with two representatives of the Public Defender’s office, deputies escorted Taheri-Azar to a sheriff’s car that was waiting to transport him back to the prison. As news reporters shouted questions at him about representing himself, Taheri-Azar replied, “Allah is my lawyer.”

Mohammad said he tried to rent the largest SUV he could, in order to kill as many people as possible. It’s a good thing Hertz doesn’t rent 747s.

Meanwhile, the University is urging students to understand the root causes so they can take constructive action, and not to jump to any conclusions about “terrorism,” even though Mohammad Taheri-azar attempted to commit mass murder in the name of Allah. In his own words.

Students To Protest UNC’s Reluctance To Label Pit Incident Terrorism.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Protests are planned for Monday in the same area of campus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where, authorities said, a former student plowed a sport utility vehicle into nine people Friday afternoon.

The College Republicans, Americans for an Informed Democracy and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies are sponsoring the event, scheduled for 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. Monday in “The Pit,” a central area of the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. The event is open to the public and free of charge.

Police said Mohammad Taheri-azar, a 2005 UNC-Chapel Hill graduate, admits he acted to “avenge the death of Muslims around the world.” UNC police and local authorities, however, say they have not taken a stance on that interpretation, but are simply repeating what the suspect has told them.

UNC-Chapel Hill student leaders said that Monday’s protest is aimed at the reluctance of the university to label Friday’s incident as an act of terrorism. “This is innocent people being attacked by an SUV, driven by a man who was doing it for retaliation for treatment of Muslims around the world,” said Jillian Bandes, with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. “To me, that spells terrorism.”

Taheri-azar, who is currently in Raleigh’s Central Prison under a $5.5 million bond, is charged with nine counts of attempted first-degree murder and nine counts of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury with intent to kill. ...

But were Taheri-azar’s alleged actions acts of terrorism?

“I think (what Taheri-azar did) is extreme,” said Dan VanAtta, a friend of the suspect. “But then again, I don’t know what was going through his head. ... Mohammed was a good guy.”

David Schanzer, the director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security at Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill, said it is fine for students to voice their dismay, but that they should be cautious. “(They should) understand the roots of it and understand the strategies for addressing it in a constructive way,” Schanzer said.

He takes the same position as officials at the Islamic Center of Raleigh...