Wednesday, 31 March 2004

Air America

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 31, 2004 at 01:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Somalia Part Deux

Mogadishu, October 3, 1993:

American troops are caught in caught in a well-organized
ambush by more than a 1,000 guerrillas. Two helicopters were shot down
and a third crash-landed at Mogadishu's airport. The U.S. troops
established a perimeter around the crash site, but found themselves
surrounded and under heavy fire for 11 hours. In that firefight, 18
American troops were killed, 78 were wounded and one helicopter pilot
was captured. The next day, the guerrillas celebrated a great victory
over America � dragging the bodies of the U.S. servicemen through the
streets of Mogadishu on live television.

President Clinton declares that American troops are to be fully withdrawn from Somalia by March 31.

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

A crowd of cheering Iraqis dragged the charred and
mutilated bodies of four contractors working for the U.S.-led coalition
through the streets of Falluja Wednesday after they died in an ambush.
Television pictures showed one incinerated body being kicked and
stamped on by a member of the jubilant crowd, while others dragged a
blackened body down the road by its feet. As one body lay burning on
the ground, an Iraqi came and doused it with petrol, sending flames
soaring. At least two bodies were tied to cars and pulled through the
streets, witnesses said. "This is the fate of all Americans who come to
Falluja," said Mohammad Nafik, one of the crowd surrounding the bodies.
Some body parts were pulled off and left hanging from a telephone
cable, while two incinerated bodies were later strung from a bridge and
left dangling there. A young boy beat one of the incinerated bodies
after it was pulled down with his shoe as a crowd cheered. "I am happy
to see this. The Americans are occupying us so this is what will
happen," said Mohammad, 12, looking on.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 31, 2004 at 12:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 29 March 2004

GRAND THEFT AMERICA

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 29, 2004 at 08:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Reality vs. Karl Rove

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

Several hundred people stormed the small yard of President
Bush's chief political strategist, Karl Rove, yesterday afternoon,
pounding on his windows, shoving signs at others and challenging Rove
to talk to them about a bill that deals with educational opportunities
for immigrants.
Protesters poured out of one school bus after another, piercing an
otherwise quiet, peaceful Sunday in Rove's Palisades neighborhood in
Northwest, chanting, "Karl, Karl, come on out! See what the DREAM Act
is all about!" Rove obliged their first request and opened his door
long enough to say, "Get off my property." "Seems like he doesn't want
to invite us in for tea," Emira Palacios quipped to the crowd. Others
chanted, "Karl Rove ain't got no soul." The crowd then grew more
aggressive, fanning around the three accessible sides of Rove's house,
tracking him through the many windows, waving signs that read "Say Yes
to DREAM" and pounding on the glass. At one point, Rove rushed to a
window, pointed a finger and yelled something inaudible.
Shortly thereafter, sirens shot through the neighborhood and Secret
Service agents and D.C. police joined the crowd on the lawn. Rove
opened his door long enough to talk to an officer, and the crowd
serenaded them with a stanza of "America the Beautiful." The protest
was organized by National People's Action, a coalition of neighborhood
advocacy groups based in Chicago. Leaders said they want Bush to
advocate for the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors
Act, a bill that would permit immigrants who have lived in the United
States for at least five years to apply for legal resident status once
they graduate from high school. The measure would eliminate provisions
of current federal law that discourage states from providing in-state
tuition to undocumented student immigrants. Immigrant activists say
that 50,000 to 65,000 undocumented students graduate from U.S. high
school each year and that many students can afford college only at the
reduced, in-state rates given to legal residents.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 29, 2004 at 07:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Beginning of the End

This is really happening:

Court Opens Door To Searches Without Warrants

NEW ORLEANS -- It's a groundbreaking court decision that legal experts say will affect everyone: Police officers in Louisiana no longer need a search or arrest warrant to conduct a brief search of your home or business.
Leaders in law enforcement say it will provide safety to officers, but
others argue it's a privilege that could be abused.
The decision was made by the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of
Appeals. Two dissenting judges called it the "road to Hell." The
ruiling stems from a lawsuit filed in Denham Springs in 2000.
New Orleans Police Department spokesman Capt. Marlon Defillo said the
new power will go into effect immediately and won't be abused.
"We have to have a legitimate problem to be there in the first place,
and if we don't, we can't conduct the search," Defillo said.
But former U.S. Attorney Julian Murray has big problems with the
ruling.
"I think it goes way too far," Murray said, noting that the searches
can be performed if an officer fears for his safety -- a subjective
condition.
Defillo said he doesn't envision any problems in New Orleans, but if
there are, they will be handled.
"There are checks and balances to make sure the criminal justce system
works in an effective manor," Defillo said.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 29, 2004 at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 26 March 2004

Long Weekend

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

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

O(+->

Posted by flow Frazao on March 26, 2004 at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Update: Four-Eared Kitten Finds 'Normal' Home

Phew:

A four-eared German kitten has been given a new home after
a German animal shelter was deluged with requests to adopt the animal
born six months ago with the genetic defect.
[...]
Lilly, born on a farm near the winter resort town famous for hosting
the 1936 Winter Olympics, has an extra pair of slightly smaller,
non-hearing ears just behind the normal two. Vets have attributed the
phenomenon to a gene malfunction. "The front ears are completely normal
while the two ears directly behind them are about half the size and not
fully developed," a worker at the Garmisch-Partenkirchen animal shelter
said. Tessy Loedermann, head of the shelter, said Lilly will first be
neutered and held at the shelter for another two weeks. Loedermann said
the black-and-white cat with the extra set of ears was "not a freak"
but rather an energetic, loving and well-adjusted kitten. "She is not a
mutant," Loedermann said. "She's just a plain and ordinary kitten."

Posted by flow Frazao on March 26, 2004 at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 25 March 2004

No Dollar Left Behind

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

President Bush will swoop into Boston for a quick
fund-raiser this afternoon that could net his campaign $1 million and
also draw several thousand protesters, force the closure of a school,
and disrupt traffic near the Park Plaza Hotel.
[...]
The president's visit unexpectedly canceled classes for 1,425 children
at the Boston Renaissance Charter School, a K-8 institution on Stuart
Street a block away from the hotel. The Boston Public Schools system,
which provides about 30 buses to transport Renaissance students, said
it could not guarantee timely pick-up of students at dismissal time,
said Dudley Blodget, chief operating officer of the Renaissance
School's foundation. The school also feared that the 300 parents who
pick up their children would not be able to reach the school.
"It's a sad situation that you have to close off school because of a
fund-raising event," said Roger F. Harris, Renaissance headmaster.
Jonathan Palumbo, spokesman for the Boston Public Schools, said his
transportation director only found out about the visit yesterday. The
school department has few schools in the area, and they will not be
directly affected, Palumbo said, although school officials anticipate
delays at dismissal time.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 25, 2004 at 03:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

You gonna eat the rest of those fries, Mom?

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

US fast food giant McDonald's is to launch a range of
children's clothing in North America and western Europe.
[...]
In a statement McDonald's said the clothing is intended to offer
quality fabrics in styles that will endure "season after season". Larry
Light, McDonald's global chief marketing officer, said the move
exemplified "a new thinking"

Posted by flow Frazao on March 25, 2004 at 02:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

14 year old bomber stopped at Israeli border

So sad:

Israel Defense Forces paratroopers caught a Palestinian boy
aged 14 wearing an explosive belt at the Hawara roadblock, south of
Nablus, in the West Bank on Wednesday afternoon. Sappers used a
remote-controlled robot to pass scissors to the boy, Hussam Abdu from
Nablus, so that he could cut the explosive belt off his body, and then
safely detonated it in a controlled explosion.
Abdu, who was taken in for questioning, said that he received NIS 100 (approx. $23 USD) to carry out a suicide attack.[...]
Abdu told soldiers of his dream of receiving 72 virgins in heaven,
which his dispatchers had promised him, and said that he had been
tempted by the promise of sexual relations with the virgins. He said
that he had been bullied at school for his poor academic performance
and that he had wanted "to be a hero."
[...]
Soldiers at the checkpoint said they had received intelligence that
there was an imminent attack planned there, shut down the crossing and
began searching people there.
Suddenly the boy, wearing an oversized red jersey, approached them in a
suspicious way, said an officer at the checkpoint.
"We saw that he had something under his shirt," he said. The soldiers
dove behind concrete barricades, pointed their guns at him and told him
to stop.
They ordered him to take off his jersey, revealing a large gray bomb
vest underneath. "He told us he didn't want to die. He didn't want to
blow up," the officer said.
The soldiers then sent the robot to hand the scissors to the boy. He
cut off part of the vest and struggled with the rest. "I don't how to
get this off," Abdu called to the soldiers.
After he dropped the vest, soldiers ordered him to take off his
undershirt and jeans, to ensure he had no other weapons on him.

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 25, 2004 at 08:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 24 March 2004

9/11 Testimony

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

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

(thanks to Matt for the quote)

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

Under oath.

That should put any accusations of partisanship to bed.

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

And let me also say this document of Fox News earlier, this
transcript that they had, this is a background briefing. And all of us
that have provided background briefings for the press before should
beware. I mean, Fox should say occasionally fair and balanced after putting something like this out.
(LAUGHTER) Because they violated a serious trust. (APPLAUSE) All of us
that come into this kind of an environment and provide background
briefings for the press I think will always have this as a reminder
that sometimes it isn't going to happen, that it's background.
Sometimes, if it suits their interest, they're going to go back, pull
the tape, convert it into transcript and send it out in the public
arena and try to embarrass us or discredit us. So I object to what
they've done, and I think it's an unfortunate thing they did.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 24, 2004 at 02:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Four-Eared German Kitty Seeking Good Home

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 24, 2004 at 02:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Bush administration eases logging rules

Healthy forests my ass:

The Bush administration on Tuesday eased restrictions on
logging old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest, completing a rules
change that will allow forest managers to begin logging without first
looking for rare plants and animals.
[...]
The change was prompted by a timber industry lawsuit and is intended to
increase logging on 24 million acres of public land.
The timber industry had complained for years that so-called "survey and
manage" rules are intrusive and can take years to complete. Those rules
require study of the potential effects of logging on about 300 plant
and animal species.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 24, 2004 at 01:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

What A Bunch Of Nuts

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 24, 2004 at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

It Really IS Ending Marriage As We Know It

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

Oregon county bans all marriage
(Reuters) -- In a new twist in the battle over same-sex marriage
roiling the United States, a county in Oregon has banned all marriages
-- gay and heterosexual -- until the state decides who can and who
cannot wed.
The last marriage licenses were handed out in Benton County at 4 p.m.
local time (7:00 p.m. EST) Tuesday. As of Wednesday, officials in the
county of 79,000 people will begin telling couples applying for
licenses to go elsewhere until the gay marriage debate is settled.
"It may seem odd," Benton County Commissioner Linda Modrell told
Reuters in a telephone interview, but "we need to treat everyone in our
county equally."

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 24, 2004 at 07:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 23 March 2004

Daschle Comes Out Swinging

Senate Minority leader Tom Daschle released this statement today:

When former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill stepped forward
to criticize the Bush Administration's Iraq policy, he was immediately
ridiculed by the people around the President and his credibility was
attacked. Even worse, the Administration launched a government
investigation to see if Secretary O'Neill improperly disclosed
classified documents. He was, of course, exonerated, but the message
was clear. If you speak freely, there will be consequences.
Ambassador Joseph Wilson also learned that lesson. Ambassador Wilson,
who by all accounts served bravely under President Bush in the early
1990s, felt a responsibility to speak out on President Bush's false
State of the Union statement on Niger and uranium. When he did, the
people around the President quickly retaliated. Within weeks of
debunking the President's claim, Ambassador Wilson's wife was the
target of a despicable act.
Her identity as a deep-cover CIA agent was revealed to Bob Novak, a
syndicated columnist, and was printed in newspapers around the country.
That was the first time in our history, I believe, that the identity
and safety of a CIA agent was disclosed for purely political purposes.
It was an unconscionable and intolerable act. Around the same time Bush
Administration officials were endangering Ambassador Wilson's wife,
they appear to have been threatening another federal employee for
trying to do his job. In recent weeks Richard Foster, an actuary for
the Department of Health and Human Services, has revealed that he was
told he would be fired if he told Congress and the American people the
real costs of last year?s Medicare bill.
Mr. Foster, in an e-mail he wrote on June 26 of last year, said the
whole episode had been "pretty nightmarish." He wrote: "I'm no longer
in grave danger of being fired, but there remains a strong likelihood
that I will have to resign in protest of the withholding of important
technical information from key policymakers for political purposes."
Think about those words. He would lose his job if he did his job. If he
provided the information the Congress and the American people deserved
and were entitled to, he would lose his job. When did this become the
standard for our government? When did we become a government of
intimidation?
And now, in today's newspapers, we see the latest example of how the
people around the President react when faced with facts they want to
avoid.
The White House's former lead counter-terrorism advisor, Richard
Clarke, is under fierce attack for questioning the White House?s record
on combating terrorism. Mr. Clarke has served in four White Houses,
beginning with Ronald Reagan's Administration, and earned an impeccable
record for his work. Now the White House seeks to destroy his
reputation. The people around the President aren't answering his
allegations; instead, they are trying to use the same tactics they used
with Paul O'Neill. They are trying to ridicule Mr. Clarke and destroy
his credibility, and create any diversion possible to focus attention
away from his serious allegations.
The purpose of government isn't to make the President look good.
It isn't to produce propaganda or misleading information. It is,
instead, to do its best for the American people and to be accountable
to the American people.
The people around the President don't seem to believe that. They have
crossed a line -- perhaps several lines -- that no government ought to
cross.
We shouldn't fire or demean people for telling the truth. We shouldn't
reveal the names of law enforcement officials for political gain. And
we shouldn't try to destroy people who are out to make country safer.
I think the people around the President have crossed into dangerous
territory. We are seeing abuses of power that cannot be tolerated. The
President needs to put a stop to it, right now. We need to get to the
truth, and the President needs to help us do that.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 23, 2004 at 03:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

9/11 Commission Webcast

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 23, 2004 at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Some Thoughts On Credibility

There was a time when David Kay was the Great White Hope of the far
right. His name was once bandied about by White House press
secretaries, cabinet members, and drug-addled talk show hosts. We were
told over and over "David Kay is still looking for WMD in Iraq, and
he's already found so much. You'll all be very sorry that you made this
an issue."
As most of you probably know, David Kay has since renounced Bush's war.
Yesterday he spoke at Harvard, and I don't think he'll be cited by Rumsfeld anytime soon:

The former chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq warned on
Monday that the United States is in "grave danger" of destroying its
credibility at home and abroad if it does not own up to its mistakes in
Iraq. "The cost of our mistakes ... with regard to the explanation of
why we went to war in Iraq are far greater than Iraq itself," David Kay
said in a speech at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of
Government. "We are in grave danger of having destroyed our credibility
internationally and domestically with regard to warning about future
events," he said. "The answer is to admit you were wrong, and
what I find most disturbing around Washington ... is the belief ... you
can never admit you're wrong."

He cautioned the intelligence community against jumping to
premature conclusions, as it did in Iraq. "One of the most dangerous
things abroad in the world of intelligence today actually came out of
9/11 ... the insistence of 'Why didn't you connect the dots?' The dots
were all there," he said. "When we finally do the sums on Iraq, what
will turn out is that we simply didn't know what was going on, but we
connected the dots -- the dots from 1991 behavior were connected with
2000 behavior and 2003 behavior, and it became an explanation and a
picture of Iraq that simply didn't exist," Kay said.

Pity poor George Bush. For some reason, he has been beset
by delusional aides who, once they leave the White House, write books
containing lies and exaggerations and -- this is the lowest blow of all
-- do not take into account the president's genius and all-around
wisdom. The latest White House aide to betray the president is Richard
Clarke, who was in charge of counterterrorism before and after the
attacks of Sept. 11. He says Bush "failed to act prior to September 11
on the threat from al Qaeda." As with former Treasury secretary Paul
O'Neill, another fool who had somehow risen to become chairman of
Alcoa, Clarke's account of his more than two years in the Bush White
House was immediately denounced by a host of administration aides, some
of whom -- and this is just the sheerest of coincidences -- had once
assured us that Iraq was armed to the teeth with nuclear, chemical and
biological weapons. Among them, of course, was Condoleezza Rice, who on
Monday insisted in a Post op-ed column that Bush not only did
everything just right, but so, really, did Bill Clinton. Both
administrations "worked hard," she wrote.
This is not what Clarke says in his new book and in interviews
conducted in tandem with its publication. On the contrary, he says the
Bush administration not only belittled the terrorist threat -- China
and missile defense were its initial preoccupations -- but it took its
own sweet time coming to grips with al Qaeda. From the start, he says,
certain White House aides were fixated on Iraq -- and after Sept. 11,
apparently so was Bush. He said he encountered the president the next
night in the Situation Room. "See if Saddam did it," the president
ordered. "But Mr. President, al Qaeda did this," Clarke says he
replied. The president persevered: "I know, I know, but . . . see if
Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred."
[...]
The White House has opened its guns on Clarke. He is being contradicted
and soon, as with poor O'Neill, his sanity and probity will be
questioned. It's getting to be downright amazing how former White House
aides tell the same tale -- a case, the White House wants us to
believe, of hysteria or unaccountable betrayal. I'd like to believe my
president, but as Clarke quotes him in a different context, "I'm
looking for any shred." As with Saddam Hussein, it doesn't exist.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 23, 2004 at 09:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

More of this please

Posted by flow Frazao on March 23, 2004 at 08:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 22 March 2004

The Reality of Homeland Security

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

International terrorism, as most experts will tell you, is
not as unpredictable as it feels. Terrorists follow patterns. And while
we can't read the minds of zealots, we can get a good idea of what kind
of damage they could do in any given location. We can estimate the cost
of an attack on a port in Los Angeles vs. an attack on a port in Prince
William Sound. We can calculate where a nuclear blast of a given force
would kill 500,000 people as opposed to 50,000. These are the logical
estimates that insurers and investment banks are seeking as they try to
quantify the risk they face. But while all this strategic thinking is
going on in the private sector, the government has responded to
terrorism in a less rational way. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, about
$13.1 billion has surged into state coffers from the Federal
Government�sorely needed money that has gone for police, fire and
emergency services to help finance equipment and training to prevent
and respond to terrorist attacks. That is a 990% increase over the $1.2
billion spent by the Federal Government for similar programs in the
preceding three years. But the vast majority of the $13.1 billion was
distributed with no regard for the threats, vulnerabilities and
potential consequences faced by each region. Of the top 10 states and
districts receiving the most money per capita last year, only the
District of Columbia also appeared on a list of the top 10 most at-risk
places, as calculated by AIR for TIME. In fact, funding appears to be almost inversely proportional to risk.
If all the federal homeland-security grants from last year are added
together, Wyoming received $61 a person while California got just $14,
according to data gathered at TIME's request by the Public Policy
Institute of California, an independent, nonprofit research
organization. Alaska received an impressive $58 a resident, while New
York got less than $25. On and on goes the upside-down math of the new
homeland-security funding.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 22, 2004 at 04:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Eric Alterman vs. Dennis Miller

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 22, 2004 at 04:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Clarke Interview on 60 Minutes

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 22, 2004 at 09:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Bush's War Continues

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 22, 2004 at 08:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Washington Post: Congress Not Advised Of Shadow Government

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

Key congressional leaders said yesterday the White House
did not tell them that President Bush has moved a cadre of senior
civilian managers to secret underground sites outside Washington to
ensure that the federal government could survive a devastating
terrorist attack on the nation's capital.
Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) said he had not been
informed about the role, location or even the existence of the shadow
government that the administration began to deploy the morning of the
Sept. 11 hijackings. An aide to House Minority Leader Richard A.
Gephardt (D-Mo.) said he similarly was unaware of the administration's
move.
Among Congress's GOP leadership, aides to House Speaker J. Dennis
Hastert (Ill.), second in line to succeed the president if he became
incapacitated, and to Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (Miss.) said
they were not sure whether they knew. Aides to Sen. Robert C. Byrd
(D-W. Va.) said he had not been told. As Senate president pro tempore,
he is in line to become president after the House speaker.
Bush acknowledged yesterday that the administration had taken extensive
measures to guarantee "the continuity of government," after it was
revealed that about 100 top officials, spanning every executive branch
department, have been sent to live and work in two fortified locations
on the East Coast. This system, in which high-ranking administrators
are rotating in and out of the two sites, represents the first time a
president has activated the contingency plan, which was devised during
the Cold War of the 1950s so that federal rule could continue if
Washington were struck by a catastrophic attack.
[...]
At least some members of Congress suggested yesterday that the
administration should have conferred about its plans, which were first
reported in The Washington Post yesterday. "There are two other
branches of government that are central to the functioning of our
democracy," said Rep. William Delahunt (D-Mass.), a member of the House
Judiciary Committee. "I would hope the speaker and the minority leader
would at least pose the question, 'What about us?' "

Posted by flow Frazao on March 22, 2004 at 08:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Al-Qaeda Claims to Have Briefcase Nukes

Here's a little something to freak out about:

Osama bin Laden's terror network claims to have bought
ready-made nuclear weapons on the black market in central Asia, the
biographer of al-Qaida's No. 2 leader was quoted as telling an
Australian television station.
In an interview scheduled to be televised on Monday, Pakistani
journalist Hamid Mir said Ayman al-Zawahri claimed that "smart
briefcase bombs" were available on the black market. It was not clear
when the interview between Mir and al-Zawahri took place.
U.S. intelligence agencies have long believed that al-Qaida attempted
to acquire a nuclear device on the black market, but say there is no
evidence it was successful.
In the interview with Australian Broadcasting Corp. television, parts
of which were released Sunday, Mir recalled telling al-Zawahri it was
difficult to believe that al-Qaida had nuclear weapons when the terror
network didn't have the equipment to maintain or use them.
"Dr Ayman al-Zawahri laughed and he said 'Mr. Mir, if you have $30
million, go to the black market in central Asia, contact any
disgruntled Soviet scientist, and a lot of ... smart briefcase bombs
are available,'" Mir said in the interview.
"They have contacted us, we sent our people to Moscow, to Tashkent, to
other central Asian states and they negotiated, and we purchased some
suitcase bombs," Mir quoted al-Zawahri as saying.
Al-Qaida has never hidden its interest in acquiring nuclear weapons.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 22, 2004 at 08:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 19 March 2004

Science Friday

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

• NASA hears words not yet spoken
  

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

• Many Species at Risk of Extinction
  

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

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

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 19, 2004 at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

But the Bottle Is So Pretty

Coca-Cola has recalled UK bottled water:

The Coca-Cola Co said on Friday it had recalled its entire
Dasani range of bottled water from the British market after levels of
bromate, a potentially harmful chemical, were found to exceed legal
standards.
"Bromate is a chemical that could cause an increased cancer risk as a
result of long-term exposure, although there is no immediate risk to
public health," the agency said in a statement.

Judith Snyder, brand PR manager for Dasani, confirmed
"municipal" water supplies were used but said the source was
"irrelevant" because it "doesn't affect the end result". She said: "We
would never say tap water isn't drinkable. "It's just that Dasani is as
pure as water can get - there are different levels of purity."

Posted by flow Frazao on March 19, 2004 at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Voting: Is It REALLY Necessary?

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

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

Do you feel good about the next election?

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 19, 2004 at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tennessee County Decides Not to Ban Gays After All

This pretty much sums it up:

The county that was the site of the Scopes "Monkey Trial"
over the teaching of evolution Thursday reversed its call to ban
homosexuals. Rhea County commissioners took about three minutes to
retreat from a request to amend state law so the county can charge
homosexuals with crimes against nature. The Tuesday measure passed 8-0.
County attorney Gary Fritts said the initial vote triggered a
"wildfire" of reaction. "I've never seen nothing like this,"
he said Thursday.
[...]
But 12-year-old Caitlin Kinney, attending the meeting with her mother,
said she supported the commissioners' initial vote. "I think they
should go further, try to see if they can ban them," she said. "It's
not a Christian thing." The politically conservative county holds an
annual festival commemorating the 1925 trial at which high school
teacher John T. Scopes was convicted of teaching evolution.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 19, 2004 at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Doh!

Thank God we've still got 6 months left:

A BULLETPROOF LandCruiser
at high speed bursting out of a tribal compound in Pakistan's South
Waziristan region was just the latest infuriating setback in the US's
quest to bring down the top of the al-Qa'ida tree.
The car, followed by two armoured vehicles and a phalanx of heavily
armed militants able to wipe out dozens of crack troops sent to blast
the terrorists from their nest, is believed to have contained Ayman
al-Zawahiri, right-hand man to Osama bin Laden. After mounting
speculation that US and Pakistani forces ranged on either side of the
Afghanistan-Pakistan border were about to pounce on al-Qa'ida's key
planner, a senior Taliban spokesman yesterday made the claim Washington
least wanted to hear - that both Zawahiri and bin Laden were safe in
Afghanistan. "He may have slipped the net," the official said.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 19, 2004 at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 18 March 2004

I guess that settles it

Resolved, by a vote of 327 to 93:

House Resolution HR 557

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

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 18, 2004 at 05:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Georgia Watch: Tentative Deal Struck

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

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili Thursday defused the
worst crisis since he came to power, lifting an economic blockade on
the rebellious Adzhara region in return for more of a say in local
affairs.
The five-day standoff between central government and the Adzhara region
had threatened to spill into armed conflict, blocked oil shipments from
the port of Batumi and highlighted strained relations with former
Soviet master Russia.
Washington has been watching, keen to see Georgia independent of
Russia but concerned that nothing disrupt the construction of a new
Western pipeline to deliver oil from the Caspian Sea directly to the
Mediterranean Sea.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 18, 2004 at 04:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Unbelievable

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

The county that was the site of the Scopes "Monkey Trial"
over the teaching of evolution is asking lawmakers to amend state law
so the county can charge homosexuals with crimes against nature. The
Rhea County commissioners approved the request 8-0 Tuesday.
Commissioner J.C. Fugate, who introduced the measure, also asked the
county attorney to find a way to enact an ordinance banning homosexuals
from living in the county. "We need to keep them out of here," Fugate
said.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 18, 2004 at 04:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Speaking of Homeland Security...

Nuclear Security Training Lacking

Nuclear weapons plants have eliminated or reduced training
for guards responsible for repelling terrorist attacks, leaving the
government unable to guarantee the plants can be adequately defended,
the Energy Department's internal watchdog said.
One plant has reduced training hours by 40 percent, and some plants
conduct tactical training only in classrooms, according to a report
from the department's inspector general. Some contractors fear that
injuries among guards during training exercises could reduce bonus
payments from the government, the report said. Guards typically receive
320 hours of training. Only one of 10 plants surveyed, Hanford, Wash.,
trains guards in the basic use of a shotgun, according to the report.
None of the plants teaches guards how to rappel down buildings or
cliffs because of concerns that guards might be injured.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 18, 2004 at 04:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Kerry Speech

Doesn't sound particularly weak on defense to me:

So, let me say here today, to every soldier and every
soldier's family: This time help is on the way, and it won't be coming
from George Bush. If I am President, never again will parents or
husbands or wives of soldiers have to send them body armor instead of
photographs and care packages. Last month a young newlywed in Virginia
who, as her husband was about to ship out to Iraq, gave him a bullet
proof vest for Valentine's Day. I can tell you right now: in a Kerry
Administration, no one will be getting body armor as a gift from a
loved one; it will come from the Armed Forces of the United States of
America. We will supply our troops with everything they need -- and we
will reimburse each and every family who has had to buy body armor
because this Administration made Valentine's Day part of the
procurement process. Our military is about much more than moving pins
on a map or amassing expensive new weapon systems. A strong military
depends first of all on the courage of the men and women who stand a
post or go out on patrol in places around the globe and who carry on
every day until the mission is accomplished for real. We need a
Commander-in-Chief who honors and supports them, for real; a
Commander-in-Chief who repays their risks on the battlefield by
providing them with the best weapons and protections as they go into
battle, a Commander-in-Chief who recognizes their commitment and
sacrifice, and offers their families a decent life here at home. To all
of the military families who are here today, we say thank you. And to
my fellow veterans, the band of brothers who have been with me for so
long and to whom I owe so much, I pledge that unlike the time when we
fought side by side, I will be a President who does what's right for
our men and women in uniform. I will never forget that our true power
is measured not only by the strength of our weapons, but by the spirit
of our soldiers. To me, that is not just rhetoric; it is the reality I
lived - and it is central to the work of my life. So I come here today
to propose a Military Family Bill of Rights - real and specific
guarantees - that will keep faith with those who served and the
families who share in their sacrifice.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 18, 2004 at 04:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

McCain Says Kerry Is Not Weak On Defense

What the hell is going on here?

Republican Senator John McCain is speaking up in defense of
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. McCain tells NBC he
doesn't believe that Kerry is "necessarily weak on defense" -- even
though he says they disagree on some issues. McCain serves on the
Senate Armed Services Committee and is a friend of the Massachusetts
senator. He says Kerry and President Bush should be talking about
Medicare and other issues instead of engaging in negative campaigning.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 18, 2004 at 04:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Freedom Sausage

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

In a first sign of official criticism in Poland of the
US-led invasion of Iraq, President Aleksander Kwasniewski said that his
country had been "taken for a ride" about the alleged existence of
weapons of mass destruction in the strife-torn country. That they
deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that's true. We were
taken for a ride," Kwasniewski said Thursday. He argued however that it
made no sense to pull US-led coalition troops out of Iraq. His comments
marked the first time Poland has publicly criticized Washington's
argument for invading Iraq and for winning support from Poland and
other European allies such as Britain and Spain.
[...]
The Polish head of state questioned the wisdom of pulling foreign
troops from the strife-torn country saying such a move could have a
counter effect. "What would be the point of pulling the troops if it
meant a return to war, ethnic cleansing and conflict in neighboring
countries," he told a group of visiting French journalists. "If we
protest against the United States' dominant role in world politics and
we withdraw our troops knowing they will be replaced by US soldiers,
what would be the point of such a move?" he questioned.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 18, 2004 at 03:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Fight the Good Fight

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 18, 2004 at 03:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Press Conference on Military Suicides Cancelled

Ignoring it won't make it go away:

While President George W. Bush, his war cabinet and their
consultants are making the rounds this week in their current Iraq war
anniversary blitz, pushing their message on the benefits of the
conflict, a long-awaited media briefing by the army on the cost part
was cancelled.
[...]
To date, the Army reports 23 OIF soldiers killed themselves in Iraq and
Kuwait in 2003, well above normal Army rates. That number rose very
recently because two of five "non-combat" deaths that were under
investigation have now been classified as suicides. Then there are the
soldiers who have killed themselves back in the United States. That
number was six -- until last weekend.. Last Sunday, in Monument, Colo.,
a 36-year-old Special Forces soldier named William Howell, just three
weeks back from Iraq, shot himself in the head. There had been a
disturbance; a phone call to the police by his wife. When police
arrived at their home, Howell was following his wife around the front
yard waving a handgun. "He was ordered to drop his weapon by one of the
officers, but instead placed the weapon to his head and pulled the
trigger," according to a statement issued by the El Paso County
Sheriff's office. Police said they had no record suggesting there had
been any kind of domestic disturbance in the Howell household before
William went to Iraq.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 18, 2004 at 03:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 17 March 2004

Gotcha

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 17, 2004 at 04:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Powerful blast shatters Baghdad hotel

Terrible:

A powerful explosion, apparently from a car bomb, went off
in the Karrada district of central Baghdad Wednesday, virtually
destroying the Mount Lebanon Hotel and damaging a number of houses and
offices nearby. Iraqi police sources said there were "many dead, many
injured." A coalition military official said he believed the blast was
caused by a car bomb.
"It's a scene from hell here," CNN Baghdad Bureau Chief Jane Arraf
said.
"People are crying and screaming and debris is everywhere," Arraf said.
"I heard the explosion and I ran down the street, and saw many, many
people killed. There were children dead," Raad Abdul Karim, 30, told
Reuters. "They are ordinary families. I don't know why this happened."

Here's the paragraph that worries me though:

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 17, 2004 at 01:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Senator Prank

And you thought Americans weren't funny:

click here for wacky hijinks

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 17, 2004 at 01:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Honduran Troops to Leave Iraq This Summer

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

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) - Honduras will withdraw its 370 troops from
a Spanish-led humanitarian and peacekeeping brigade in Iraq this summer
- a previously scheduled move that coincides with Spain's planned
pullout, top Honduran officials said Tuesday.
El Salvadoran leaders, meanwhile, said they would consider keeping
their 380 troops in place beyond a summer deadline for withdrawal if
asked by the United States. That could change after Sunday's
presidential elections, however: A leftist candidate who is trailing
slightly behind the ruling party's conservative politician, has said he
would withdraw Salvadoran soldiers if he wins.

Spain's new leader intensified his criticism of the
U.S.-led occupation of Iraq on Wednesday, saying it was "turning into a
fiasco." Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero also refused
to reconsider his pledge to pull his 1,300 troops out of Iraq by June
30, in a sharp break with the Bush administration.
Zapatero had signaled his dislike of President Bush's policies during
the Spanish election campaign when he said he hoped Democratic
challenger John Kerry would win in November.
The International Herald Tribune recently quoted Zapatero as saying,
"We're aligning ourselves with Kerry. Our allegiance will be for peace,
against war, no more deaths for oil, and for a dialogue between the
government of Spain and the new Kerry administration."

Posted by flow Frazao on March 17, 2004 at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Al-Qaida Likely Planning Unprecedented Attack by Sea

Great. Just great:

The al-Qaida terror network likely is planning an
unprecedented maritime attack, hitting targets on land with ships
carrying chemical, biological or dirty bomb weapons, a defense analyst
said Wednesday. The terrorist network could easily exploit weaknesses
in shipping companies' crew selection procedures by planting sleeper
agents on vessels to eventually seize them, said Michael Richardson, a
senior researcher at Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
who writes extensively on Asian security issues. "The al-Qaida network
has serious maritime terrorism plans," Richardson told diplomats,
academics and defense officials at the institute.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 17, 2004 at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 16 March 2004

Slow News Day

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

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 16, 2004 at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 15 March 2004

Department of Homeland Theatrics

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

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 15, 2004 at 11:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

This Can't Be Happening

HR 3920 (link via Atrios):

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

HR 3920 IH

108th CONGRESS

2d Session

H. R. 3920
To allow Congress to reverse the judgments of the United States Supreme Court.IN
THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
March 9, 2004
Mr. LEWIS of Kentucky (for himself, Mr. DEMINT, Mr. EVERETT, Mr. POMBO,
Mr. COBLE, Mr. COLLINS, Mr. GOODE, Mr. PITTS, Mr. FRANKS of Arizona,
Mr. HEFLEY, Mr. DOOLITTLE, and Mr. KINGSTON) introduced the following
bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in
addition to the Committee on Rules, for a period to be subsequently
determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such
provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

Posted by flow Frazao on March 15, 2004 at 11:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Ashcroft Goes Home to Heal

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

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 15, 2004 at 01:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Iraq Soldier to File as Conscientious Objector

A must-read:

In Iraq last April, freshly promoted Staff Sgt. Camilo
Mejia led squads of Florida National Guard soldiers in the fight
against insurgents in the deadly Sunni triangle.
But Mejia became increasingly pained by his war experiences, and when
he went on leave in the autumn, he decided not to come back. The staff
sergeant--one of about 600 soldiers counted as AWOL by the Army during
home leaves from Iraq--eventually was labeled a deserter. Now, after
five months in hiding, Mejia plans to surrender Monday in Boston on the
eve of the war's first anniversary, and he aims to become the first
Iraq war veteran to publicly challenge the morality and conduct of the
conflict. At a time when polls indicate that Americans' support for the
war is slipping, Mejia intends to seek conscientious-objector status to
avoid a court-martial. In an interview with the Tribune, Mejia, 28, of
Miami, said he found the war and many of his combat orders morally
questionable and ultimately unacceptable. He has been living in New
York and other Eastern cities, traveling by bus instead of by plane or
car to escape the attention of the police and military. He has avoided
using his credit cards and cell phone. Mejia accuses commanders of
using GIs as "bait" to lure out Iraqi fighters so that U.S. soldiers
could win combat decorations. He also says operations were conducted in
ways that sometimes risked injuring civilians. He has accused his
battalion and company commanders of incompetence and has reiterated
other guardsmen's complaints about being poorly equipped. Those
commanders, however, defended their conduct. His immediate commander
described Mejia as a poorly performing soldier who "lost his nerve" as
bloodshed intensified in one of Iraq's more violent cities, Ramadi.
Perhaps the turning point for Mejia was the day in Iraq when he was
ordered to shoot at Iraqis protesting and hurling grenades toward his
position from about 75 yards away, which he considered too far of a
distance to be a real threat. Mejia and his men opened fire on one, and
he fell, his blood pooling around him. "It was the first time I had
fired at a human being," Mejia recalled. "I guess you could say it was
my initiation at killing a human being. . . . One thing I ask myself a
lot, `Did I hit him?'

Posted by flow Frazao on March 15, 2004 at 12:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Spain Likely to Pull Troops From Iraq

That didn't take long:

Spain's new prime minister-elect today reiterated that
Spain will withdraw its 1,300 troops from Iraq, unless the United
Nations "taking charge of the situation."
Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said "the war has been a disaster, the
occupation continues to be a disaster. . . . There must be
consequences. There has been one already," he said, "the election
result. The second will be that Spanish troops will come back."
Zapatero made his comments in a post-election interview Monday with
Spain's Cadena SER radio. He elaborated later in a news conference,
saying that "the occupation of Iraq has been poorly managed . . . If
there isn't a change and the United Nations doesn't take charge of the
situation, and the occupying forces don't cede political control, the
Spanish troops will return and the deadline for their presence there
will be June 30."

Posted by flow Frazao on March 15, 2004 at 09:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Peak Oil

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

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 15, 2004 at 08:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Clean President (Except for the Bloody Hands)

What a sad little man:

For days now, the job at Eisenhower Park in Nassau County
has been to follow the order from the White House through the Secret
Service and down to the park workers:
"The president's feet are not to touch the dirt."
So all yesterday, large crews drawn from all county parks worked to
ensure that, as always in his life, George Bush's feet do not touch the
ground when he appears in the big park today.
Bush arrives for a fund-raiser at a restaurant in the park. That is
indoors and he doesn't have to worry about his feet there. But he has
to go over ground to an administration building where he is to meet
with families of 9/11 victims. After that, he has to go over more
ground to get to the site of a memorial to the victims.
He doesn't want his feet on the ground and he will be at a
groundbreaking ceremony.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 15, 2004 at 08:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Nailed to the Wall

Via David Sirota, an actual interview!

SCHIEFFER: Well, let me just ask you this. If they did not
have these weapons of mass destruction, though, granted all of that is
true, why then did they pose an immediate threat to us, to this
country?
Sec. RUMSFELD: Well, you're the--you and a few other critics are the
only people I've heard use the phrase `immediate threat.' I didn't. The
president didn't. And it's become kind of folklore that that's--that's
what's happened. The president went...
SCHIEFFER: You're saying that nobody in the administration said that.
Sec. RUMSFELD: I--I can't speak for nobody--everybody in the
administration and say nobody said that.
SCHIEFFER: Vice president didn't say that? The...
Sec. RUMSFELD: Not--if--if you have any citations, I'd like to see 'em.
Mr. FRIEDMAN: We have one here. It says `some have argued that the
nu'--this is you speaking--`that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not
imminent, that Saddam is at least five to seven years away from having
nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain.'
Sec. RUMSFELD: And--and...
Mr. FRIEDMAN: It was close to imminent.
Sec. RUMSFELD: Well, I've--I've tried to be precise, and I've tried to
be accurate. I'm s--suppose I've...
Mr. FRIEDMAN: `No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate
threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world and
the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.'
Sec. RUMSFELD: Mm-hmm. It--my view of--of the situation was that he--he
had--we--we believe, the best intelligence that we had and other
countries had and that--that we believed and we still do not know--we
will know.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 15, 2004 at 08:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Georgia Watch: Tensions Heighten

Looks like things are coming to a head in Georgia:

Tensions heightened in Georgia after police in the former
Soviet republic's semi-autonomous Adjara region barred President
Mikhail Saakashvili Sunday, March 14, from entering the coastal
province.
Saakashvili's motorcade was met with warning shots as it approached a
checkpoint near the town of Cholokhi , Agence France-Presse (AFP)
quoted the head of Georgia's Security Council as saying in televised
comments.
Head of Georgia's Joint Chiefs of Staff, Givi Yukuridze, told AFP that
the army has been put on a maximum state of alert.
Saakashvili, a 36-year-old firebrand who is Europe's youngest elected
head of state, discussed the situation during an emergency meeting with
his top security officials and Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania in Poti,
Yukuridze said.
Tanks were out in the streets of Adjara's capital Batumi, where
authorities were handing out arms to supporters, Merabishvili said.
�We have reliable information that the process of handing out arms to
the civilian population, which began a few days ago, is continuing�,
he said.
There were reports inside Adjara that local authorities had mobilized
tanks and were arming local people in anticipation of an attack by
Georgian government forces.
On Saturday, March 13, Adjara's head Aslan Abashidze charged that the
Georgian authorities were planning a coup against his leadership and
called on his traditional ally Russia for help.

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

Speaking on Georgian television late Sunday from Poti, a port city near the Adzharian border, Saakashvili issued a one-day ultimatum to Adzharian leader Aslan Abashidze to accept Tbilisi's authority and start disarming his paramilitary forces. Saakashvili said that air, land and sea routes to Adzharia would be closed and the government would also move to freeze foreign bank accounts belonging to Adzharian officials. Both men said they were ready for dialogue, but tensions persisted. Two Georgian armored personnel carriers could be seen near the Adzharian border, and Adzharian television reported that Georgian forces and heavy weapons were concentrated near Poti, where Saakashvili met with government officials Monday.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 15, 2004 at 07:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Saturday, 13 March 2004

Spanish Intelligence Sees Islamic Group Behind Attack

The latest from Madrid:

Spain's intelligence service is "99 percent certain" that
radical Muslims and not the Basque separatist group ETA are responsible
for train bombings that killed 200 people, a Spanish radio station said
on Saturday
Private radio SER, whose owners have links to the opposition Socialist
Party, said the National Intelligence Center (CNI) believes the
evidence points to an Islamic group, and that 10 to 15 people left
bombs on the trains and fled, the radio said. "The evidence has wiped
out previous indications that led us to believe in ETA," the radio
quoted one of its sources as saying.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 13, 2004 at 11:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 12 March 2004

Georgia Watch: The New Great Game

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

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

Click for detailed maps of Caspian oil/natural gas pipelines

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

In March 2001 Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham told the
National Energy Security Summit that �America faces a major energy
supply crisis over the next two decades. The failure to meet this
challenge will threaten our nation�s economic prosperity, compromise
our national security and likely alter the way we lead our lives.�
This taken-for-granted imperial outlook was subsequently spelled out in
Dick Cheney�s National Energy Policy statement and George W. Bush�s
national security pronouncements. But an energy policy that rests upon
controlling the world�s oil, seeking permanent military superiority
over all potential rivals, and, in the words of political analyst Tom
Barry, pursuing a policy of global �warlordism,� can only be a
recipe for disaster. In no other part of the world is this pursuit of
dominion more volatile than in the Caspian Sea Basin, which takes in
Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan,
Iran and Russia. Speaking to oil industrialists in 1998,
then-Halliburton CEO Dick
Cheney remarked, �I cannot think of a time when we had a region
emerge as suddenly to become strategically significant as the
Caspian.� Under the cover of its �war on terrorism� the Bush
administration has initiated what British Guardian writer Lutz Kelveman
refers to as �The New Great Game,� a rerun of the 19th Century
imperial rivalry between Czarist Russia and the British Empire. Only
now it is the United States that �seeks to control the Caspian oil
resources.� For now Georgia is the epicenter of the new great game.
It represents the bridge carrying Caspian oil on its journey to the
port destination of Ceyhan, Turkey. The U.S. has invested substantial
political-economic resources in Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline venture.
[...]
On Nov. 30 Eric Margolis of the Toronto Sun wrote that the Russians
�will try to limit U.S. influence in Georgia and extend its own
influence by stirring the pot and finding new Georgian allies.
Washington will shore up its man in Tbilisi, Saakashvili, and may send
Special Forces troops under the pretext of faux war on terrorism.�
Margolis warns, �The entire Caucasus is near a boil. The sharply
increasing rivalry between the U.S. and Russia for political and
economic influence over this vital land bridge between Europe and the
oil-rich Caspian Basin promises a lot more intrigue, skullduggery and
drama.� In their article entitled �Georgia�s �Rose
Revolution�: a Made in American Coup,� Barry Grey and Vladmir
Volkov write: �Not only is U.S. policy in the Caucasus predatory, it
is reckless in the extreme. The Bush administration is challenging
Russian interests in a highly provocative manner, openly working to
split away the former Soviet republics from Moscow and virtually
surrounding Russia with American military installations.� A new, very
dangerous �great game� has begun.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 12, 2004 at 03:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Purported Qaeda Letter Says U.S. Strike Near Ready

A letter purporting to come from Osama bin Laden's militant Islamist al Qaeda network said a big attack on the United States was in the final stages of preparation, a London-based Arabic newspaper said on Thursday. "We bring the good news to Muslims of the world that the expected 'Winds of Black Death' strike against America is now in its final stage...90 percent (ready) and God willing near," the letter said. The letter, signed by the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades which said it is part of al Qaeda, was sent to the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper. A copy of the letter was faxed to Reuters in Dubai. It was not possible to independently authenticate the letter.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 12, 2004 at 03:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

My Hell In Camp X-Ray

Wow:

A BRITISH captive freed from Guantanamo Bay today tells the
world of its full horror - and reveals how prostitutes were taken into
the camp to degrade Muslim inmates.
Jamal al-Harith, 37, who arrived home three days ago after two years of
confinement, is the first detainee to lift the lid on the US regime in
Cuba's Camp X-Ray and Camp Delta.
The father-of-three, from Manchester, told how he was assaulted with
fists, feet and batons after refusing a mystery injection.
[...]
He said detainees were shackled for up to 15 hours at a time in hand
and leg cuffs with metal links which cut into the skin.
Their "cells" were wire cages with concrete floors and open to the
elements - giving no privacy or protection from the rats, snakes and
scorpions loose around the American base.
He claims punishment beatings were handed out by guards known as the
Extreme Reaction Force. They waded into inmates in full riot-gear,
raining blows on them.
Prisoners faced psychological torture and mind-games in attempts to
make them confess to acts they had never committed. Even petty breaches
of rules brought severe punishment.
Medical treatment was sparse and brutal and amputations of limbs were
more drastic than required, claimed Jamal.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 12, 2004 at 02:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Welcome to the Desert of the Real

Why do New York and Wisconsin hate America?

New York and Wisconsin have joined the list of states that have pulled out of an anti-crime database program that civil libertarians say endangers citizens' privacy rights. Just five states now remain involved in Matrix out of more than a dozen that had signed up to share criminal, prison and vehicle information with one another and cross-reference the data with privately held databases. [...] Known formally as Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange, Matrix links government records with up to 20 billion records in databases held by Seisint Inc., a private company based in Boca Raton, Fla. The Seisint records include details on property, boats and Internet domain names that people own, their address history, utility connections, bankruptcies, liens and business filings, according to an August report by the Georgia state Office of Homeland Security. Officials with Seisint and the U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately return calls seeking comment. The American Civil Liberties Union has complained that Matrix could be used by state and federal investigators to compile dossiers on people who have never been suspected of a crime. Seisint officials have said safeguards are built into the system to prevent such abuses.

The Matrix Web site
states that the data compiled will include criminal histories, driver's
license data, vehicle registration records, and significant amounts of
public data record entries. Company officials have refused to disclose
more specific details about the nature and sources of the data.
According to news reports, the data may also include credit histories,
driver's license photographs, marriage and divorce records, Social
Security numbers, dates of birth, and the names and addresses of family
members, neighbors and business associates. This is some scary shit.
Hopefully the remaining five states will come to their collective
senses and withdraw from the program. If you live in a state where the
Matrix is being actively employed, you'd better hope you don't get
caught by a glitch in the Matrix:

Even beyond the very serious privacy issues with the
Matrix, there is the important risk of so-called false positives. "Data
anomalies" are far from certain indicators of guilt. The data itself
may be in error. As anyone who has ever tried to correct an erroneous
credit report may have found, it's not easy to stop an error once it
gets into the system. Yet there has been no account of how errors in
the Matrix databases can be located and corrected. Or the data may look
bad, but have an innocent explanation. Terrorists are said to be
transients, moving frequently, with few fixed addresses. But students,
poor people, and the homeless do the same. For that matter, so do
travel writers. The truth is that judgments about reasonable suspicion
of criminal activity are fundamentally human judgments that cannot now
-- and, perhaps, ever -- be made accurately by computers. As if all
this weren't bad enough -- and it is-- the Matrix lacks safeguards
against these predictable problems. The Web site states that "[t]his
system will ensure that state and local law enforcement officers -- the
individuals most likely to come into direct contact with terrorists or
other criminals -- have the best information (accurate and complete)
available to them in a timely manner." Despite the promise of accuracy,
it does not have an error correction system, at least not one that has
been explained to the public. And it does not make clear how, if at
all, it will protect privacy.

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 12, 2004 at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Air America Radio

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

It sounds great. I really hope it pans out.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 12, 2004 at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

New Bush Ad Storyboards

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 12, 2004 at 09:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 11 March 2004

Bush/Orwell '04

Click here to create your very own W poster!

(thanks to Brett for the linkage)

Posted by flow Frazao on March 11, 2004 at 03:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Let's Give Em Some Grief

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

Washington, DC - Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry
is quoted in today�s edition of Greenwire as saying, �that black
stuff is hurting us,� with regard to oil. Members of the House
Committee on Resources found the Senator�s comment absurd.
�John Kerry is dead wrong,� Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-CA) said.
�Oil doesn�t hurt Americans; John Kerry�s anti-energy policies
hurt Americans. In fact, this is exactly the kind of rhetoric and bad
policy that has led to the outsourcing of good American energy jobs.
Last year alone, the United States outsourced more than $100 billion
worth of American jobs, economic growth, and national security to
foreign countries for our energy needs. Americans are left with a
supply and demand imbalance that creates higher prices at the pump and
longer waits on the unemployment line."

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

See? Politics is fun!

Posted by flow Frazao on March 11, 2004 at 03:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Oops.

The code words "Broken Arrow" used by the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the most severe level of a nuclear weapon mishap reportedly were invoked Nov. 7 when a Trident I C4 missile was damaged while being removed from the submarine USS Georgia in Bangor. [...] According to former Navy officer Walt Fitzpatrick, the Nov. 7 incident happened when the [Trident I C4] missile from tube No. 16 was hauled up and smacked into an access ladder that had been left in the tube, slicing a 9-inch hole in the missile's nose cone. The ladder is placed inside the silo after the tube hatch is opened so a sailor can climb inside to attach a hoist to lift the intercontinental ballistic missile out of the tube. After attaching the hoist, the sailor climbs out and the ladder is to be removed before the missile is lifted out. The crew members reportedly took a break, and when they returned, they began to hoist out the missile without removing the ladder, damaging the nose cone. Although there would not have been a nuclear explosion, a radiation release or non-nuclear explosion was possible, Fitzpatrick claims.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 11, 2004 at 03:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Save the Hubble

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

The snapshot of the universe, called the Ultra Deep Field, captured
light that streaked through space for more than 13 billion years,
starting its journey when the universe was only 5 percent of its
13.7-billion-year age. The view has about 10,000 galaxies, some mixed
in a chaos that one astronomer said "looked like a train wreck."
Capturing such faint and distant light, officials at the Space
Telescope Science Institute said Tuesday, was like photographing a
firefly hovering above the moon. "For the first time we're looking back
at stars that are forming out of the depths of the big bang," said
Steven V. W. Beckwith, director of the institute. "We're seeing the
youngest stars within a stone's throw of the beginning of the
universe." [...]
The portion in the sky photographed by two Hubble instruments is very
small. Astronomers compared the field of view it to looking at the sky
through an 8-foot-long soda straw. They said capturing the images is
akin to reading the mint date on a 25-cent coin from a mile away. What
the view lacks in width, however, it makes up for in depth. Beckwith
said that never before has a telescope captured such detail from such a
distance. "These images will be in astronomy textbooks for years," he
said.

O'Keefe [has decided] not to conduct Servicing Mission 4,
which in 2006 would have extended Hubble's life to the end of the
decade and even improved its capabilities. Instead, with batteries
dwindling and gyroscopes failing, Hubble could be rendered useless as
early as this year or, more likely, sometime in 2007.

(thanks to Mel for the link)

Posted by flow Frazao on March 11, 2004 at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Maryland Woman Charged as Iraqi Spy

Break out the old tinfoil hats:

An American citizen was arrested Thursday on charges she
acted as an Iraqi spy, prosecutors said.
Susan Lindauer, 41, was arrested in her hometown of Takoma Park, Md. [a
Washington DC suburb], and was to appear in court later in the day in
Baltimore, authorities in New York said.
She was accused of conspiring to act as a spy for the Iraqi
Intelligence Service and with engaging in prohibited financial
transactions involving the government of Iraq under now-deposed
dictator Saddam Hussein.
According to an indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan,
Lindauer made multiple visits to the Iraqi Mission to the United
Nations in Manhattan from October 1999 through March 2002.
There, she allegedly met with several members of the Iraqi Intelligence
Service, the foreign intelligence arm of the government of Iraq that
allegedly has played a role in terrorist operations, including an
attempted assassination of former President George H.W. Bush.
Lindauer has not yet been assigned a defense lawyer, prosecutors said.

Lockerbie: CIA witness gagged by US governmentA
FORMER CIA agent who claims Libya is not responsible for the Lockerbie
bombing is being gagged by the US government under state secrecy laws
and faces 10 years in prison if herevealsanyinformation about the
terrorist attack.
United Nations diplomats are outraged that the US government is
apparently suppressing a potential key trial witness. Diplomats are now
demanding that the CIA agent, Dr Richard Fuisz, be released from the
gagging order. Fuisz, a multi-millionaire businessman and
pharmaceutical researcher, was, according to US intelligence sources,
the CIA's key operative in the Syrian capital Damascus during the 1980s
where he also had business interests.
One month before a court order was served on him by the US government
gagging him from speaking on the grounds of national security, he spoke
to US congressional aide Susan Lindauer,
telling her he knew the identities of the Lockerbie bombers and
claiming they were not Libyan.
Lindauer, shocked by Fuisz's claims, immediately compiled notes on the
meeting which formed the basis of a later sworn affidavit detailing
Fuisz's claims. One month after their conversation, in October 1994, a
court in Washington DC issued an order barring him from revealing any
information on the grounds of "military and state secrets privilege".
Congressional aide Lindauer, who was involved in early negotiations
over the Lockerbie trial, claims Fuisz made "unequivocal statements to
me that he has first-hand knowledge about the Lockerbie case". In her
affidavit, she goes on: "Dr Fuisz has told me that he can identify who
orchestrated and executed the bombing. Dr Fuisz has said that he can
confirm absolutely that no Libyan national was involved in planning or
executing the bombing of PanAm 103, either in any technical or advisory
capacity whatsoever."
Fuisz's statements to Lindauer support the claims of the two Libyans
accused who are to incriminate a number of terrorist organisations,
including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General
Command, which had strong links to Syria and Iran.

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

A former journalist and ex-congressional press secretary
was arrested Thursday on charges she acted as an Iraqi spy before and
after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, accepting $10,000 for her work,
prosecutors said Thursday.
Susan Lindauer, 41, was arrested in her hometown of Takoma Park, Md.,
and was to appear in court later in the day in Baltimore, authorities
in New York said.
She was accused of conspiring to act as a spy for the Iraqi
Intelligence Service and with engaging in prohibited financial
transactions involving the government of Iraq.
Lindauer worked at Fortune, U.S. News & World Report and the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer before beginning her career as a political
publicist. She worked for then U.S. Rep. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., before
joining the office of former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun as press
secretary in 1996.
Chris Fitzgerald, a spokesman for Wyden, now a senator, said the office
had heard Thursday of Lindauer's arrest and expected to issue a
statement later in the day.
"She worked for us a short period of time," he said.
Moseley-Braun's current spokesperson, Loretta Kane, said the former
senator does not remember Lindauer.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 11, 2004 at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Bombings in Madrid

Spanish 9/11.
Fingers are currently being pointed at Basque seperatist group ETA, but
here's an interesting snippet I noticed from the aforementioned
article:

A top Basque politician denied the separatists
responsibility and blamed "Arab resistance." Many al-Qaida linked
terrorists were captured in, or believed to have operated out of,
Spain.
Arnold Otegi, leader of Batasuna, an outlawed Basque party linked to
the armed separatist group, denied it was behind the blasts and
suggested "Arab resistance" elements were responsible, suggesting
al-Qaida.
Otegi told Radio Popular in San Sebastian that ETA always phones in warnings before it attacks. The interior minister said there was no warning before Thursday's attack.
"The modus operandi, the high number of victims and the way it was
carried out make me think, and I have a hypothesis in mind, that yes it
may have been an operative cell from the Arab resistance," Otegi said.
Otegi noted that Spain's government backed the Iraq war.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 11, 2004 at 09:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Great Escape

Most of you are probably familiar with the theory regarding the Bin
Laden family's exodus from America immediately following 9/11. Certain
people have reported that an airliner was sent around the country
rounding up Bin Ladens and members of Saudi royalty during the time
when airspace was restricted and all planes were supposedly grounded.
Finally, we get a more complete version of events from Salon. It's worth sitting through the ad to get the free day pass.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 11, 2004 at 09:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 10 March 2004

Inside The Real West Wing

This is kinda interesting:

Posted by flow Frazao on March 10, 2004 at 02:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

An Unbeatable Ticket

But about as likely as JFK/JFK.

Sen. McCain Open to Being Kerry's VP:

Republican Sen. John McCain allowed a glimmer of hope
Wednesday for Democrats fantasizing about a bipartisan dream team to
defeat President Bush.
McCain said he would consider the unorthodox step of running for vice
president on the Democratic ticket � in the unlikely event he
received such an offer from the presidential candidate. "John Kerry is
a close friend of mine. We have been friends for years," McCain said
Wednesday when pressed to squelch speculation about a Kerry-McCain
ticket. "Obviously I would entertain it."
But McCain emphasized how unlikely the whole idea was. "It's impossible
to imagine the Democratic Party seeking a pro-life, free-trading,
non-protectionist, deficit hawk," the Arizona senator told ABC's "Good
Morning America" during an interview about illegal steroid use. "They'd
have to be taking some steroids, I think, in order to let that happen."

Posted by flow Frazao on March 10, 2004 at 02:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Speaking of flip-flops...

February 27, 1997 (from The Daily Republican):

The health and safety of the nation, its economy and the
American people may have been at risk. The president was not attending
to the people's business. He became so enthusiastic about selling
access to White House coffees and the Lincoln Bedroom that he cancelled
policy briefings on the State of the Nation that conflicted with
fund-rasing activities carried out on government property. Meanwhile he
was attending to big time political donors to the Clinton-Gore Campaign
who bought into White House coffees and nights in the Lincoln Bedroom
in exchange for what the CNN news service estimates is $5.4 million
paid to the Clinton-Gore Campaign funneled through the Democratic
National Committee in the years 1995 and 1996.
[..]
The illegal use of government property for private gain is one of the
offenses called high crimes and misdemeanors that are included under the impeachment provisions of the U.S. Constitution Article III.

President Bush opened the White House and Camp David to
dozens of overnight guests last year, including foreign dignitaries,
family friends and at least nine of his biggest campaign fund-raisers,
documents show.
In all, Bush and first lady Laura Bush have invited at least 270 people
to stay at the White House and at least the same number to overnight at
the Camp David retreat since moving to Washington in January 2001,
according to lists the White House provided The Associated Press. Some
guests spent a night in the Lincoln Bedroom, historic quarters that
gained new fame in the Clinton administration amid allegations that
Democrats rewarded major donors like Hollywood heavyweights Steven
Spielberg and Barbra Streisand with accommodations there.
At least nine of Bush's biggest fund-raisers appear on the latest list
of White House overnight guests, covering June 2002 through December
2003, and-or on the Camp David list, which covers last year. They
include:

• Brad Freeman, a venture capitalist who is leading Bush's
  California fund-raising effort, has raised at least $200,000 for his
  re-election campaign and is also a major Republican Party fund-raiser
  
• Roland Betts, who raised at least $100,000 for Bush in 2000, was a Bush fraternity brother at Yale and a Texas Rangers partner.

• William DeWitt, a Bush partner in the oil business and Texas
  Rangers who has raised at least $200,000 for Bush's re-election effort
  
• James Francis, who headed the Bush campaign's 2000 team of
  $100,000-and-up volunteer fund-raisers and was a Bush appointee in
  Texas when Bush was governor
  
• Joseph O'Neill, an oilman and childhood friend who introduced
  Bush to Laura Bush and raised at least $100,000 for each of Bush's
  presidential campaigns
  
• Colorado Gov. Bill Owens and New York Gov. George Pataki, who each raised at least $200,000 for Bush's re-election campaign.

• James Langdon, who raised at least $100,000 for Bush, is a
  Washington attorney specializing in international oil and gas
  transactions. Langdon, whose clients include the Russian oil company
  Lukoil, is a member of Bush's foreign intelligence advisory board and
  served on Bush's 2000 presidential transition team on energy policy

"I believe they've moved that sign, 'The buck stops here,' from the
Oval Office desk to 'The buck stops here' on the Lincoln bedroom, and
that's not good for the country. It's not right. We need to have a new
look about how we conduct ourselves in office."
--George W. Bush, October 4, 2000."

UPDATE: Corrente makes a good point:

Take a look at the lede from the aforementioned article:

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

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

Damn liberal media strikes again.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 10, 2004 at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Pentagon's Secret Scream

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

Marines arriving in Iraq this month as part of a massive
troop rotation will bring with them a high-tech weapon never before
used in combat � or in peacekeeping. The device is a powerful
megaphone the size of a satellite dish that can deliver recorded
warnings in Arabic and, on command, emit a piercing tone so
excruciating to humans, its boosters say, that it causes crowds to
disperse, clears buildings and repels intruders.
"[For] most people, even if they plug their ears, [the device] will
produce the equivalent of an instant migraine," says Woody Norris,
chairman of American Technology Corp., the San Diego firm that produces
the weapon. "It will knock [some people] on their knees."

Posted by flow Frazao on March 10, 2004 at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Man Accidentally Killed in Masonic Rite

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

A Masonic initiation ritual ended in tragedy when a man was
shot in the head and killed with a gun thought to contain blanks,
police said on Tuesday. They said 47-year-old William James was
accidentally killed when Albert Eid, 76, confused a loaded .38-caliber
semiautomatic pistol with another gun during the induction ceremony in
Patchogue, on New York's Long Island, on Monday night. "During the
ceremony, an inductee was shot and killed when a lodge member used a
real gun instead of a blank pistol," Suffolk County Detective Lt. Jack
Fitzpatrick said in a statement. Police officer Heidi Cummings said Eid
pointed a gun at James' head while another member beat a garbage can
like a drum as shrouded secrecypart of the rite in the basement of the suburban Southside Masonic Lodge, about 50 miles east of Manhattan.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 10, 2004 at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Never Forget

From yesterday's White House press gaggle:

Q In a couple days the President is going to be attending a
groundbreaking ceremony for a 9/11 memorial in Long Island. A couple of
hours after that, he's going to be at a fundraiser just a short
distance away, raising money for his campaign. Is there any concern
that the juxtaposition of those two events, the proximity, the close
proximity in both time and distance will create at least the appearance
of the President using 9/11 for political reasons? MR. McCLELLAN:
September 11th was a tragic and defining moment for our nation. And the
President is honored to accept the invitation of the Nassau County 9/11
Memorial Foundation to attend the groundbreaking of their September
11th memorial. This was an invitation that was extended to the
President in mid-February. The President is honored to accept the
invitation and pay tribute to those who tragically lost their lives on
that September day.
The President never forgets September 11th. The President remembers it
every, single day. He has met with many families over the course of the
last few years and helped to console them and grieve with them. This
President is honored to pay tribute to those who tragically lost their
lives, this Thursday. Q There's no sense that it's just even a little
bit awkward to be combining on the same afternoon a fundraiser and a
9/11 memorial -- related to criticism -- MR. McCLELLAN: Well, again,
Ken, he was invited by the Nassau County 9/11 Memorial Foundation and
he's honored to accept the invitation.
[...]
Q A couple of follow-ups on Ken's earlier line of questioning. You
mentioned that the President received this invitation for this
dedication in mid-February. When was the decision made for the
fundraiser to follow that? MR. McCLELLAN: I think the reception was
planned back in January. Q So there's no feeling at all of an image
problem in having a fundraising event after what you portray to be, and
what is, a solemn ceremony for 9/11? MR. McCLELLAN: The President was
invited to attend it. He's the President of the United States, Peter,
and he is going to honor those who tragically lost their lives and pay
tribute to them. Q I understand that, obviously. But, again, the idea
of a fundraiser right after that -- MR. McCLELLAN: He has met with many
of the families -- he has attended memorials before, and he will
continue to attend memorials -- Q I understand those are your talking
points, Scott. MR. McCLELLAN: -- for the reasons I stated. No, this is
the President's views. The President never forgets the events of
September 11th. They taught us important lessons, and he remembers
those events every single day. Q Well, forgive me, but it would also
seem like he never forgets the need for a fundraiser. MR. McCLELLAN:
Well, I'm not even going to dignify that with a response.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 10, 2004 at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 09 March 2004

McShit

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

Global hamburger giant McDonald's latest line in healthy
looking salads may contain more fat than its hamburgers, according to
the company's website.
[...]
"You can choose your salad, topping and dressing. You can mix and match
to suit your diet and lifestyle," said a McDonald's spokeswoman.
However, consumers hoping to lose weight by switching from burgers to
salads may be disappointed, according to the Interactive Nutrition
Counter on the McDonald's Web site. For example, on the new menu to be
launched at the end of this month, a "Caesar salad with Chicken
Premiere" contains 18.4 grammes of fat compared with 11.5 grammes of
fat in a standard cheeseburger. The British Nutrition Foundation (BNF)
told Reuters it welcomed the salad menu but warned that salad dressings
bought in fast-food outlets or supermarkets could be very high in fat
and calories. BNF said the recommended daily fat intake for men is 95
grammes per day and for women 70 grammes per day.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 9, 2004 at 01:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Want Health Care? Then Bite Your Tongue.

This is an outrage:

An Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran says Army officials at
Fort Knox, Ky., refused him medical treatment after he talked publicly
about poor care at the base, which helped spark hearings in Congress.
Fort Knox officials charged that soldier, Lt. Jullian Goodrum, with
being absent without leave and cut off his pay after he then went to a
private doctor who hospitalized him for serious mental stress from
Iraq, Goodrum said. "They are coming after me pretty bad," said
Goodrum, 33, a veteran who has served the military for more than 14
years, including the first Gulf War and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 9, 2004 at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 08 March 2004

Election 2004

You decide:

• Check out the Bush Ad here.

• Check out the Bush Ad Remix here.

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

The first five results were:

1. Bush in 30 Seconds

2. Media Research Center CyberAlert -- 10/28/2000 -- Daisy Ad Over Anti-Bush Scare Call

3. MoveOn.org: Democracy in Action

4. Vote To Impeach Bush

5. Bush Watch

Posted by flow Frazao on March 8, 2004 at 11:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Progress in Afghanistan

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

KABUL (CP) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai offered Afghan
men a trade today in an attempt to convince them to let their women
vote in upcoming elections.
"Please, my dear brothers, let your wives and sisters go to the voter
registration process," Karzai told a gathering to mark International
Women's Day. "Later, you can control who she votes for, but please, let
her go."
Karzai's plea set off a murmur in the crowd of about 500 women and
illustrated the fragile grip the democratic process holds in
Afghanistan.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 8, 2004 at 03:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

"Stupid" doesn't begin to describe it

Aussie Aussie Aussie!!

Oy Oy Oy!:

An Australian handyman admitted he was stupid to shoot
himself in the head with a nail gun in a misguided prank that left him
with a nail lodged in his brain. Brad Shorten, a father of three from
Victoria state, was enjoying a few beers with friends after working on
his house when they began joking about industrial accidents. Shorten,
33, picked up a nail gun that he thought was empty, pointed it at his
head and pulled the trigger. He later said he had turned off the gun's
compressor and taken out its nail cartridge but did not realize there
was still enough pressure in the gun to fire a nail. "My mates and I
were talking about construction site accidents and taking your eye out
with a nail gun, and I foolishly put the gun to my head and pulled the
trigger," Shorten told the Sunday Herald Sun newspaper. "I did a very
stupid thing," he said. The bizarre mishap left him with a 1.25-inch
nail counter-sunk through his skull just behind his temple. Royal
Melbourne Hospital neurosurgeons removed the nail in a delicate
four-hour operation even though Shorten, who was expected to make a
full recovery, had offered to take the nail out with a pair of pliers.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 8, 2004 at 01:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Am I Alone...

...in my total lack of curiousity about the Martha Stewart trial? From
what I understand she got convicted of something, but I have absolutely
no idea what it was. Nor do I care.
But if it were Ken Lay and some of those guys it would be a different story...

Posted by flow Frazao on March 8, 2004 at 05:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Family Values

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

A. People like George and Jeb Bush.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 8, 2004 at 05:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Saturday, 06 March 2004

Kids find 3-Headed, 6-legged Frog

Whoa:

Wildlife experts in Britain are stunned by the apparent
discovery of a frog with three croaking heads and six legs, Local 6
News reported Friday night.
The frog was reportedly found at a children's day nursery in the
English village of Weston Super-Mare in Somerset, according to the
report.
The staff at the Green Umbrella nursery first thought it was three
frogs huddled together but after closer inspection they realized the
frogs were joined together.
A wildlife biologist said a reason for the three-headed frog�s
development could have been damage to the embryo, according to a report.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 6, 2004 at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 05 March 2004

Kerry Nails It

John Kerry on Bush's lackluster job numbers:

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 5, 2004 at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

TGIF

A tough day for young George:

• Shi'ite Objections Delay Iraq Constitution Signing
  Last-minute objections by five Shi'ite leaders forced the indefinite
  postponement of Friday's signing of an interim constitution for Iraq,
  threatening U.S. plans to hand sovereignty back to Iraqis on June 30.
  

  Pens for the signing ceremony lay unused.

  
  

• U.S. Job Growth Anemic in FebruaryThe
  U.S. economy added a paltry 21,000 jobs last month, according to a
  surprisingly weak government report on Friday that turned up the heat
  on President Bush as he seeks re-election.
  Details in the report were as bleak as the headline figure.
  Private-sector employment was actually unchanged in February, while the
  government added 21,000 workers. It also showed job creation in
  December and January was weaker than previously thought. The count of
  job gains for January was revised to 97,000 from 112,000 and for
  December to just 8,000 from 16,000. February's unemployment rate held
  at 5.6 percent, but only because people dropped out of the labor force.
  Employment as measured by a survey of households actually plummeted.
  

  
  

• Victims' Families Press Bush to Pull 9/11 AdsFamilies
  who lost relatives in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks pressed President
  Bush's re-election campaign on Friday to stop running political ads
  that use images of the devastated World Trade Center to show him as a
  strong leader in troubled times.
  "As a firefighter who spent months at Ground Zero, it's deeply
  offensive to see the Bush campaign use these images to capitalize on
  the greatest American tragedy of our time," New York firefighter Tom
  Ryan said at a news conference.
  
• Oil Prices Rise, Supply Falls During Bush YearsThree
  years ago, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were seen as
  the U.S. oil industry's dream team and most capable of tackling
  America's energy problems, as both were former oil executives.
  However, with nationwide gasoline prices expected this month to top a
  record $1.75 per gallon, government energy data shows many problems
  still exist. Energy costs -- and smaller supplies -- have pinched the
  pocketbooks of consumers and pushed up business expenses.
  

  
  

• White House Leak Records SoughtA
  federal grand jury probing the leak of a CIA officer's identity has
  subpoenaed the records of phone calls from Air Force One made the week
  before the name of the officer was published in a July newspaper
  column, Newsday reported Friday.
  The three subpoenas to President Bush's Executive Office also seek the
  July records created by an internal task force called the White House
  Iraq Group, which was created to publicize the threat of Saddam
  Hussein, Newsday said. The newspaper cited documents that it obtained.
  In addition, it said, the grand jury wants records of White House
  contacts with more than two dozen journalists and news organizations.
  The subpoenas were issued to the White House on Jan. 22, Newsday said.
  The grand jury is trying to find out whether there were violations to a
  federal law that prohibits the intentional disclosure of the identity
  of an undercover agent by officials with security clearances.

"Wave bye-bye, George!"

Posted by flow Frazao on March 5, 2004 at 01:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thumb Salad

Yummy:

The severed tip of a restaurant worker's thumb was found
in a customer's salad. Stark County Health Commissioner Bill Franks
said an employee at Red Robin Gourmet Burgers in the Canton suburb
Jackson Township was chopping lettuce at about 7 p.m. Monday when he
cut off a part of his left thumb, including part of the fingernail.
Employees at the restaurant about 70 miles south of Cleveland searched
for the tip of his finger, but could not find it. The area was cleaned
and sanitized, but the lettuce was placed in the cooler. The lettuce
was then used for salads the next day. "It wound up being served at
lunch time Tuesday to a 22-year-old woman," Franks said. She had eaten
most of her salad when she put the human tissue in her mouth, Franks
said. She thought it was a piece of gristle, a health department report
said. She then alerted a manager.

Life is so unfair.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 5, 2004 at 09:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Science Friday

The Hubble space telescope captured an image of a distant star
that bears resemblance to the famous Vincent van Gogh painting "Starry
Night", NASA and the European Space Agency announced.
The spectacular image taken February 8 showed the star, V838
Monocerotis (V838 Mon), surrounded by an expanding halo of light
"complete with never-before-seen spirals of dust swirling across
trillions of kilometers of interstellar space", a statement from the
agencies said. "The illumination of interstellar dust comes from the
red supergiant star at the middle of the image, which gave off a
flashbulb-like pulse of light two years ago," the statement added,
describing the image as "nature's own piece of performance art".

Save Hubble Resolution Introduced in House
A Colorado congressman and seven colleagues introduced a resolution in
the U.S. House of Representatives March 3 urging NASA to establish an
independent panel of experts to review its recent decision to forgo any
further servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Rep. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) said in a statement that he introduced the
resolution to draw attention to Hubble's scientific contributions to
ensure that the telescope is not abandoned in the next several years
without someone other than NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe having a
say. NASA announced Jan. 16 that it was canceling a planned space
shuttle mission to service Hubble, citing the danger of launching the
shuttle to a destination other than the international space station.
Udall wants an independent review of that decision, as well as the
underlying safety assumptions that prompted O'Keefe to cancel the
mission.
"Precisely because of Hubble's extraordinary contributions in the past
and promised contributions in the future, I also believe it is
important that the decision to cancel the planned servicing mission to
Hubble be reviewed by an independent panel of experts and all options
for safely carrying it out be examined," Udall said in the statement.

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 5, 2004 at 08:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Republican Malaise

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

[There is] deepening malaise among Republicans in the
capital. They are neither surprised nor terribly worried by polls that
temporarily show George W. Bush trailing John Kerry. What worries the
GOP faithful is the absence of firm leadership in their party either at
the White House or on Capitol Hill. The lack of a ready response to
Greenspan [and his recent recommendation to cut social security], while
Democrats quickly turned his comments into an indictment of President
Bush's tax cuts, was not an isolated failing. Today, Republicans on
either end of Pennsylvania Avenue seem to be going in opposite
directions.

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

The disaffection is such that over the last two weeks, normally loyal
Republicans -- actually including more than a few members of Congress
-- are privately talking about political merits in the election of Sen.
Kerry. Their reasoning goes like this: There is no way Democrats can
win the House or Senate even if Bush loses. If Bush is re-elected,
Democrats are likely to win both the House and Senate in a 2006 midterm
rebound. If Kerry wins, Republicans will be able to bounce back with
congressional gains in 2006. To voice such heretical thoughts suggests
that Republicans on Capitol Hill are more interested in maintaining the
fruits of majority status first won in 1994 rather than in governing
the country. A few thoughtful GOP lawmakers ponder the record of the first time
in 40 years that the party has controlled both the executive and
legislative branches, and conclude that record is deeply disappointing.
But incipient heresy also reflects shortcomings of the Bush political
operation. Its emphasis has been on fund-raising and organization, with
deficiencies in communicating and leadership. The president is in
political trouble, and his disaffected supporters who should be backing
him aggressively provide the evidence.

Thanks to Disillusioned for the link.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 5, 2004 at 08:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The New Face of Disney

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 5, 2004 at 08:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 04 March 2004

Memories of the President

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

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 4, 2004 at 05:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Firefighters Come Out Fighting

Will somebody please put these people on TV:

WASHINGTON, March 3 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The General
President of the International Association of Fire Fighters, AFL-CIO
(IAFF), Harold Schaitberger, issued the following statement today after
President Bush unveiled new political ads that use images of fire
fighters in September 11, 2001 attacks for political gain:
-- As Bush Trades on Heroism of Fire Fighters, His Homeland Security
Funding Cuts Hurt Fire Fighters and Communities --
"I'm disappointed but not surprised that the President would try to
trade on the heroism of those fire fighters in the September 11
attacks. The use of 9/11 images are hypocrisy at its worst. Here's a
President that initially opposed the creation of the Department of
Homeland Security and now uses its first anniversary as cause to
promote his re-election. Here is a President that proposed two budgets
with no funding for FIRE Act grants and still plays on the image of
America's bravest. His advertisements are disgraceful.
"Bush is calling on the biggest disaster in our country's history, and
indeed in the history of the fire service, to win sympathy for his
campaign. Since the attacks, Bush has been using images of himself
putting his arm around a retired FDNY fire fighter on the pile of
rubble at ground zero. But for two and a half years he has basically
shortchanged fire fighters and the safety of our homeland by not
providing fire fighters the resources needed to do the job that America
deserves.
"The fact is Bush's actions have resulted in fire stations closing in
communities around the country. Two-thirds of America's fire
departments remain under-staffed because Bush is failing to enforce a
new law that was passed with bipartisan support in Congress that would
put more fire fighters in our communities. President Bush's budget
proposes to cut Homeland Security Department funding for first
responders by $700 million for next year and cuts funding for the FIRE
Act, a grant program that helps fire departments fund equipment needs,
33 percent by $250 million. In addition, state and local programs for
homeland security purposes were reduced $200 million.
"We're going to be aggressive and vocal in our efforts to ensure that
the citizens of this country know about Bush's poor record on
protecting their safety and providing for the needs of the people who
are supposed to respond in an emergency."

Posted by flow Frazao on March 4, 2004 at 05:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Just What Africa Needs

Pakistan continues to spread the love:

Nigeria's Defense Ministry said Pakistan's top military
official offered to share unspecified assistance with Nigeria's armed
forces, but a Nigerian defense spokesman later retracted a statement
that the offer included "nuclear power." In a late night communique,
Nigeria's Defense Ministry claimed the chairman of Pakistan's joint
chiefs of staff, Gen. Muhammad Aziz Khan, said during a scheduled visit
to Nigeria that Pakistan "is working out the dynamics of how they can
assist Nigeria's armed forces to strengthen its military capability and
to acquire nuclear power." However, Nwachukwu Bellu, the Nigerian
Defense Ministry spokesman who signed Wednesday's statement, told The
Associated Press on Thursday that "it was a mistake" for the communique
to have mentioned nuclear power as an area of possible cooperation. "It
was a mistake," Bellu said without further clarification. When asked
whether officials from the two countries discussed nuclear cooperation
at all, he replied: "Nothing like that happened." He declined further
comment. Other Nigerian officials were not immediately available for
comment. The statement, issued late Wednesday, did not say if Pakistan
was offering nuclear weapons, or if Nigeria was seeking them.
[...]
Pakistan came under significant international pressure after one of its
top nuclear scientists admitted last month that he sold nuclear
technology to Iran, as well as North Korea and Libya � all nations on
the U.S. list of terrorism sponsors. Less than two months ago, Nigeria
announced that North Korea had agreed to share missile technology with
Nigeria, an offer that was subsequently denied by North Korea. Nigeria
said any North Korean missile help would be used for "peacekeeping" and
to protect its territory. It said it was not seeking nuclear technology
or weapons of mass destruction. Under former army dictators, Nigeria's
military was viewed as an international pariah for ruthlessly
suppressing dissent. Involvement in African peace missions since
elections restored civilian rule in 1999 has helped repair its image
abroad.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 4, 2004 at 04:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Fun With Search Engines

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

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

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 4, 2004 at 03:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 03 March 2004

Splitting the Difference

This is Andrew Sullivan's email of the day:

You claim in your blog that 'It looks increasingly as if anyone who
cares about fiscal sanity is going to have to sit this election out.'
However, isn't it obvious that the only way to impose some sort of
fiscal sanity is to vote Kerry -- resulting in a split government that
can't reach any sort of agreement as to how to spend money?
Additionally, if we are going to spend money like drunken sailors
wouldn't we rather have Kerry, who will at least tax the baby-boomer
generation that is benefitting from all this spending, instead of Bush
who wants to run up huge deficits and force these problems on future
generations... people like ME?
As an uncatered to libertarian in my twenties, I think the answers to
both of these questions are 'yes' and 'yes'. I intend to vote
Republican except for President, where I intend to vote a big fat 'D'.
Then I'll sit back and pray for government gridlock.
I think this guy is right. If you take seriously the fact that this
country is headed toward fiscal catastrophe in the next decade, then
restraining spending and raising some taxes in the next four years is
almost as essential as tackling the entitlement crunch. Neither Bush
nor Kerry wants to help. They're both cowards (although Kerry seems to
have a better grip on fiscal reality than Bush does). So gridlock is
the best option. The combination of Bill Clinton and a Republican
Congress was great for the country's fiscal standing. Independents and
anyone under 40 concerned with the deficit don't need a Perot. They
just need to vote for Kerry and hope the GOP retains control of at
least one half of Congress.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 3, 2004 at 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Whole Story

From the LA Times:

I am a high school teacher and the daughter of Holocaust
survivors. Monday morning, Period 1, a student, age 17, comes into my
room. She asks me if I had seen the film "The Passion."
I answer, "No."
She continues, "It was so sad. I cried so much. I hate the Jews."
Very, very sadly, that tells the whole story, Mr. Gibson.
Anna Paikow
Los Angeles

Posted by flow Frazao on March 3, 2004 at 10:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Portrait of America

Courtesy of August J. Pollak:

Color me incredulous.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 3, 2004 at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

MoveOn.org/Bush TV ads

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

• MoveOn.org

• Bush

Posted by flow Frazao on March 3, 2004 at 09:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Jose Padilla Finally Sees a Lawyer

Seems pretty clear to me:

Miranda vs. Arizona, 1966




• You have the right to remain silent and refuse to answer questions.

• Anything you do or say may be used against you in a court of law.

• You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to
  the police and to have an attorney present during questioning now or in
  the future.
  
• If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish.

• If you decide to answer questions now without an attorney
  present you will still have the right to stop answering at any time
  until you talk to an attorney.
  
• Knowing and understanding your rights as I have explained
  them to you, are you willing to answer my questions without an attorney
  present?

Jose Padilla, the American arrested in an alleged al-Qaida
plot to set off a radioactive "dirty bomb," was allowed to meet with
lawyers Wednesday for the first time in nearly two years. The U.S.
government has designated Padilla an "enemy combatant," meaning he can
be held indefinitely without access to lawyers. But the government
relented last month, just days before the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to
hear his case. Donna R. Newman, one of the attorneys for Padilla, said
there was a video camera present and military personnel looked on from
an adjoining room during the three-hour meeting at the Navy brig near
Charleston. "I'm not saying we were not thrilled to see him, but it was
not by any stretch of the imagination" a typical lawyer-client meeting
held in confidence, Newman said. Newman said there was no discussion
about specifics of the case. "It was an informational meeting only -
our information for him," she said. She added: "It's hard to say what
his spirits were, but he was very happy to see us." Newman said there
were no assurances the government would allow another meeting.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 3, 2004 at 09:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Connecticut Rules

It's worth a shot:

MIDDLETOWN, Connecticut (AP) -- A woman charged with
causing a fatal car crash in 1999 says that she couldn't have been
behind the wheel because she was performing a sex act on the driver at
the time. Heather Specyalski, 33, was charged with second-degree
manslaughter in the crash that killed businessman Neil Esposito.
Prosecutors allege that she was driving Esposito's Mercedes-Benz
convertible when it veered off the road and hit several trees. But
Specyalski claims that Esposito was driving, and she was performing
oral sex on him at the time, said her attorney, Jeremiah Donovan. He
noted that Esposito's pants were down when he was thrown from the car.
Superior Court Judge Robert L. Holzberg ruled Tuesday that Specyalski
can proceed with the defense, despite objections by the prosecutor. "A
defendant has a right to offer a defense no matter how outlandish,
silly or unbelievable one might think it will be," Holzberg said. He
added: "No one ever told me in law school that we'd be having these
kinds of conversations in open court." Assistant State's Attorney
Maureen Platt said the defense is flawed. "His pants could have been
down because he was mooning a car he was drag racing," Platt said. "His
pants could have been down because he was urinating out of a window.
His pants could have been down because he wasn't feeling well."

Posted by flow Frazao on March 3, 2004 at 02:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Somebody Call Hans Blix

Looks like we finally found some Weapons of Mass Destruction:

A trace amount of sarin nerve agent leaked from a weapons
storage bunker at Anniston Army Depot in Birmingham, Alabama, but no
one was injured. Workers were conducting routine checks for leaks
Tuesday when a monitor detected the agent outside the airtight bunker
where the weapons are stored. Sarin did not escape the area, and the
concentration was not enough to hurt anyone, said Cathy Coleman, a
spokeswoman Anniston Chemical Activity, which oversees the stockpile.
Tons of munitions are stored in dirt-covered, concrete igloos at the
depot 50 miles east of Birmingham. Since 1982, the Army has found 897
leaking chemical weapons in storage at the depot, where the military is
using an incinerator to destroy the aging weapons.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 3, 2004 at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Busy Day

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 3, 2004 at 09:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Kerry Forward

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

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

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

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

And remember St. Igantius's old line:

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

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

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

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

Maybe that'll help.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 3, 2004 at 07:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

9/11 Panel to White House: Cut the Crap

It's about time:

The independent commission investigating the Sept. 11
attacks is refusing to accept strict conditions from the White House
for interviews with President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and
is renewing its request that Mr. Bush's national security adviser
testify in public, commission members said Tuesday
The panel members, interviewed after a private meeting on Tuesday, said
the commission had decided for now to reject a White House request that
the interview with Mr. Bush be limited to one hour and that the
questioners be only the panel's chairman and vice chairman.
The members said the commission had also decided to continue to press
the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to reconsider her
refusal to testify at a public hearing. Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney are
expected to be asked about how they had reacted to intelligence reports
before Sept. 11, 2001, suggesting that Al Qaeda might be planning a
large attack. Panel members want to ask Ms. Rice the same questions in
public.
"We have held firm in saying that the conditions set by the president
and vice president and Dr. Rice are not good enough," said Timothy J.
Roemer, a former Indiana congressman who is one of five Democrats on
the 10-member commission.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 3, 2004 at 07:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Forget Simba... Here Comes Aslan

Sweet:

Walt Disney Studios has sealed a deal with Walden Media to
bring to life a live-action film version of British author C.S. Lewis'
classic children's fantasy The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the
Witch and the Wardrobe. Per the deal announced Monday and trumpeted
Tuesday in a series of nationwide newspaper ads, the Mouse House will
cofinance and distribute the first installment in the Narnia series,
which will have a budget of more than $100 million and be directed by
Shrek mastermind Andrew Adamson.
[...]
If all goes as planned, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe will start
filming in late June or early July and is targeted to hit theaters in
Christmas 2005.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 3, 2004 at 07:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

N.Y. Mayor to Still Marry Gay Couples

This guy is a hero:

New Paltz's mayor vowed to go ahead with up to two dozen
same-sex weddings this weekend, despite being charged with 19 criminal
counts and possibly facing jail time for marrying gay couples.
Jason West was scheduled to be in town court Wednesday night to answer
charges that he married 19 couples knowing they did not have marriage
licenses, a violation of the state's domestic relations law. West, 26,
has called it his moral obligation to wed same-sex couples, joining San
Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom in the vanguard of the growing gay
marriage movement. "I'm incredibly disappointed," said the Green Party
mayor, who added that he will plead innocent at his court hearing.
"Apparently, it's a crime to uphold the constitution of New York
state." West married 25 gay couples on Friday, making this small
college village 75 miles north of New York City another flash point in
the national debate over gay marriage. More than 3,400 couples have
been married in San Francisco; West now has about 1,000 couples on a
waiting list.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 3, 2004 at 07:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 02 March 2004

The Next President of the United States of America

In case you haven't heard,
John Kerry has swept the primaries on Super Tuesday. Edwards hasn't
officially bowed out yet, but pretty much everyone is assuming he'll
throw in the towel at some point tonight. It was a good race, and
Edwards (not to mention Dean) taught Kerry a lot.
Looking forward, I expect the bloodbath to begin this week. The Bush
campaign has announced that they'll begin a massive advertising assault
on Thursday, and MoveOn.org will be right there with him:

A Democratic-leaning online group will run television
commercials in 17 presidential battleground states starting Thursday to
counter President Bush's multimillion-dollar advertising blitz that
will begin the same day.
The MoveOn.org Voter Fund has been airing commercials assailing Bush
for months in several swing states, but this $1.9 million, five-day
effort will be its most far-reaching. The ads will ensure that there is
a Democratic presence on the TV airwaves in key states as Bush begins
to make his case for re-election.
Bush's campaign plans to spend a large part of its $100 million war
chest on ads during spring and summer. It will begin running a positive
ad about leadership Thursday on broadcast stations in 17 swing states
and nationally on cable networks targeting its GOP base. The campaign
is slated to spend at least $4.5 million on cable alone over the next
three weeks. In most states, MoveOn will run a new ad that takes Bush
to task for his economic policies, including overtime pay and
outsourcing jobs. In others, the group will run a previously released
spot that shows images of children toiling on a grocery line and in a
tire factory coupled with the text, "Guess who's going to pay off
President Bush's $1 trillion deficit?" Ads will run over five days at
medium levels on broadcast stations in 67 media markets in Arizona,
Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New
Mexico, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington,
West Virginia and Wisconsin. The television industry estimates that the average viewer in each media market would see a MoveOn spot about five times during the group's five-day ad run.

Bring it on!!

Posted by flow Frazao on March 2, 2004 at 09:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Laugh of the Day

Bush Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

President Bush, Pope John Paul II and the two U.N.
officials at the heart of the effort to find weapon of mass destruction
in Iraq are among the nominees for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize.
[...]
This year, those nominated include Bush and British Prime Minister Tony
Blair, French President Jacques Chirac, former Czech President Vaclav
Havel, the pope, the European Union, former chief U.N. weapons
inspector Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, who still heads the
International Atomic Energy Agency.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 2, 2004 at 09:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

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

I suppose we all should have seen this coming:

NEW PALTZ, N.Y. - The village's mayor was charged Tuesday
with 19 criminal counts for performing weddings for gay couples, an act
of defiance that thrust the small community into the center of the
national debate over same-sex marriage.
Jason West was charged with solemnizing marriages for couples who had
no licenses, a misdemeanor under the domestic relations law, according
to Ulster County District Attorney Donald Williams. Although West could
face a maximum penalty of a year in jail, the prosecutor said a jail
term wasn't being contemplated at this point. The 26-year-old Green
Party mayor said he will plead innocent at his court hearing Wednesday
and that he would still go through with his plans to marry as many as
two dozen gay couples Saturday. "I'm incredibly disappointed," West
said. "Apparently, it's a crime to uphold the constitution of New York
state." West performed wedding ceremonies for 25 gay couples Friday,
making him the second mayor in the country to perform same-sex
marriages. It also made this small college village 75 miles north of
New York City another flash point in the national debate over gay
marriage. More than 3,400 couples have been married in San Francisco
and West has about 1,000 couples on a waiting list.
[...]
With West vowing to go through with more gay weddings, opponents had
hoped Williams would act to stop him. But he said he did not have the
legal power to do that, only to file charges after the fact. West said
the prospect of further punishment does not deter him, adding that the
newlywed couples inspire him. "Just the looks on their faces, just the
absolute joy of finally being able to be equal," he said. "That is the
highest moral calling I could possibly imagine."

Posted by flow Frazao on March 2, 2004 at 07:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Drunken Polish nun crashes her tractor

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

WARSAW (AFP) - A Benedictine nun could lose her driving
licence after hitting a car parked outside her convent at Krzeszow in
southeast Poland while drunk at the wheel of a tractor, a local police
spokesman, Dariusz Waluch said. Waluch said the 45-year nun "was in no
fit state to blow into a breathalyser" after the accident and police
were waiting for the results of a blood-alcohol test before charging
her.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 2, 2004 at 07:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

US Borders: More Leaks Than a White House Staff Meeting

Just in case you were starting to feel safe:

Chronic delays in the integration of FBI fingerprint files
with databases used by the Border Patrol leave the United States
vulnerable to entry by foreign criminals and terrorists, Justice
Department investigators found Tuesday. Glenn A. Fine, the Justice
Department inspector general, said the latest projections are that the two systems won't be combined and automated to check every illegal alien until at least 2008,
nearly two years behind the original schedule. Until then, overworked
Border Patrol agents must pick and choose which illegal aliens
apprehended at U.S. borders to run through FBI databases that contain
some 43 million ten-finger sets of prints of known criminals. That
means some will slip through the cracks, possibly to commit more
crimes, Fine said.
The report focused on the case of Victor Manual Batres, who was stopped
by Border Patrol agents twice in January 2002 but each time was
returned to Mexico without having his fingerprints run through the FBI
files. Had the agents done so, they would have discovered he had a long
criminal history and could have turned him over to federal prosecutors.
Instead, Batres made it across the U.S.-Mexico border illegally a third
time later in 2002, making his way to Klamath Falls, Oregon, where he
raped two Roman Catholic nuns and killed one of them, 53-year-old
Sister Helen Lynn Chaska. Batres is now serving a life sentence after
pleading guilty to murder and rape.

Bush: America making progress in terror war
America is "breathing down" the necks of terrorists and will never
relent, President Bush said Tuesday, marking the anniversary of the
Homeland Security Department. In a speech to some 200 department
employees, Bush said the United States was cutting off the terrorists'
money supply, chasing down terrorists leaders and disrupting their
networks. This came amid claims that while the administration is more
aware of threats, it is not doing enough about them. "We are
relentless," Bush said, adding that two-thirds of the key leaders of
the al-Qaeda terrorist network have been captured or killed. "We are
strong. We refuse to yield. The rest of them hear us breathing down
their neck. We're after them. We will not relent. We will bring these
killers to justice."

Posted by flow Frazao on March 2, 2004 at 04:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Cheney Says He Supports Gay Marriage Ban

I find this absolutely reprehensible:

Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday he supports
President Bush's call for a federal constitutional amendment banning
same-sex marriages, even though one of his daughters is gay and he has
said in the past the issue should be left to the states.
"The president's taken the clear position that he supports a
constitutional amendment," Cheney said in an interview with MSNBC. "I
support him."
Cheney said during the 2000 campaign, and again last month, that he
prefers to see states handle the issue of gay marriage. His openly
lesbian daughter, Mary Cheney, is an aide in the Bush-Cheney
re-election campaign, but the vice president declined to discuss her.
"One of the most unpleasant aspects of this business is the extent of
which private lives are intruded upon when these kinds of issues come
up," he said. "I really have always considered my private - my
daughters' lives private and I think that's the way it ought to remain."

Posted by flow Frazao on March 2, 2004 at 04:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

China to Make Private Property a Right

This is marginally interesting:

Communist China is changing its constitution to embrace the
most basic tenet of capitalism, protecting private property rights for
the first time since the 1949 revolution.
China's parliament is meeting in an annual session starting Friday to
endorse the change, already approved by Communist Party leaders who
tout privatization as a way to continue the country's economic
revolution and help tens of millions of poor Chinese.
It will bring China's legal framework in line with its market-oriented
ambitions by providing a constitutional guarantee for entrepreneurs,
once considered the enemy of communism but now pivotal in generating
jobs and wealth.
"Since private businesses have been playing an increasingly important
role in China's economy, their demand for legitimate protection has
also increased," said Wang Hongling, of the Institute of Economics at
the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government think tank.
"The amendment," he said, "will offer private businessmen a guarantee
to their property safety and make them free of worry."

Posted by flow Frazao on March 2, 2004 at 03:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Technical Problems Plague E-Voting

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

Electronic voting made its debut in cities and towns from
Maryland to California on Tuesday as election officials beefed up
security for the record number of voters expected to cast E-ballots for
the first time.
[...]
Overall, some 10 million people in at least two dozen states were
expected to cast ballots in primaries this year on machines built by
Diebold, Sequoia Voting Systems, Electronic Systems & Software and
other vendors. And the electronic voting trend is accelerating: In
November's presidential election, at least 50 million people will vote
on touch-screens, compared with 55 million using paper, punch cards or
lever machines, according to Washington-based Election Data Services.
One Maryland polling place had to switch to paper ballots Tuesday
because its new electronic voting machines didn't work. State elections
supervisor Linda Lamone said technicians expected to have the problem
fixed quickly. Voters also had to start out using paper ballots in
Georgia's Effingham County. Chris Riggall, a spokesman for Secretary of
State Cathy Cox, said county officials apparently forgot to program the
encoders � devices used to tell ballot access cards, which voters
insert into the machines, what ballot to display. A security issue also
arose in Georgia. Georgia Tech student Peter Sahlstrom said he found 10
Diebold terminals sitting unprotected in the lobby of the school's
student center Monday. Sahlstrom, 22, photographed the machines in
their unlocked cases. "Frankly, this makes me nervous and ... it
validates a lot of the concerns I already had," Sahlstrom said in a
phone interview.
[...]
"The modernization of the nation's voting infrastructure is long
overdue," said Alfie Charles, spokesman for Oakland-based Sequoia,
which built the machines being used by as many as 4 million voters in
California and Maryland. But computer scientists have been protesting
the switch. They're particularly concerned that few of the computers
provide paper records, making it nearly impossible to have meaningful
recounts, or to prove that vote tampering hasn't occurred. Politicians,
voter-rights advocates and even some secretaries of state have
acknowledged that the systems could theoretically fail � with
catastrophic consequences.
In several software and hardware tests, critics have shown it's easy to
jam microchip-embedded smart cards into machines, or alter and delete
some votes � in some cases simply by ripping out wires. They've
cracked passwords to gain access to computer servers and showed that
some systems relying on Microsoft Windows lacked up-to-date security
patches that should have been downloaded from the Internet. California
Secretary of State Kevin Shelley directed elections officials last
month to bolster security in 12 counties using touch-screens. Those
counties account for about 41 percent of California's registered
voters. Shelley also wants independent, random tests of touch-screen
machines. Maryland, which spent $55.6 million on 16,000 touch-screen
computers earlier this year, also took precautions. Computer experts
told Maryland lawmakers in January that the hardware contained
"vulnerabilities that could be exploited by malicious individuals."
Among their surprises: all of Maryland's machines had two identical
locks, which could be opened by any one of 32,000 keys or be easily
picked.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 2, 2004 at 03:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A Turn for the Worse

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

Shiite Muslims were attacked by bombers in Iraq and
Pakistan on a holy day, killing at least 184 people and wounding about
590. U.S. authorities in Iraq said a man they have described as an
al-Qaeda associate, Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, may be behind the Iraqi
attacks. Iraqis marking the observance of Ashura were targeted in
almost simultaneous attacks in the Iraqi capital Baghdad and the
venerated Shiite city of Karbala about 60 miles south. At least 58
people were killed and 200 wounded in Baghdad and 85 people killed and
230 wounded in Karbala, U.S. Army Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said
in Baghdad. ``This was a clear and tragically well-organized act of
terrorism,'' Dan Senor, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq,
said in Baghdad as he answered questions alongside Kimmitt. At least 41
Shiites were killed and more than 160 wounded in a bomb blast and gun
assault near the city of Quetta, Pakistan, according to tallies from
two hospitals. City officials imposed a curfew as the assailants were
sought. The Iraq attacks, one of the largest single-day death tolls
since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in April, came as the U.S.
works toward the transfer of political sovereignty to an Iraqi body by
the end of June. The U.S.-picked Iraqi Governing Council concluded
negotiations on an interim Iraqi constitution yesterday.

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 2, 2004 at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

U.N.: Iraq had no WMD after 1994

Big surprise:

A report from U.N. weapons inspectors to be released today
says they now believe there were no weapons of mass destruction of any
significance in Iraq after 1994, according to two U.N. diplomats who
have seen the document.
The historical review of inspections in Iraq is the first outside study
to confirm the recent conclusion by David Kay, the former U.S. chief
inspector, that Iraq had no banned weapons before last year's U.S-led
invasion. It also goes further than prewar U.N. reports, which said no
weapons had been found but noted that Iraq had not fully accounted for
weapons it was known to have had at the end of the Gulf War in 1991.
The report, to be outlined to the U.N. Security Council as early as
Friday, is based on information gathered over more than seven years of
U.N. inspections in Iraq before the 2003 war, plus postwar findings
discussed publicly by Kay.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 2, 2004 at 07:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 01 March 2004

California Freeway Shootings

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

The number of possible freeway shootings in the East Bay
jumped to seven and the California Highway Patrol said Saturday that
federal agents were helping the investigation. All seven incidents were
along a stretch of Interstate 580 between San Leandro and Dublin. Six
of the incidents, including three in which investigators later found
bullet fragments in the victims' cars, all occurred between 6 and 8
p.m. Monday. The most recent possible shooting to come to light
involves a motorist who called CHP officers about 12:30 a.m. Saturday
to report an incident at 7: 50 p.m. Monday. The driver was traveling
from southbound Highway 238 to eastbound I-580 when the vehicle's back
window suddenly shattered. The driver still doesn't know what caused
the window to shatter but initially assumed it was caused by a rock or
debris. The driver called investigators after seeing news reports of
the other shootings, CHP Officer Shawn Morris said.

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

Posted by flow Frazao on March 1, 2004 at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Different Levels of Bullshit

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

Coca-Cola says "reverse osmosis", "a technique perfected by
Nasa to purify fluids on spacecraft", is then used to filter the water
further before minerals are added to "enhance the pure taste". Finally,
"ozone" is injected to keep the water sterile, the company says. But
water industry representatives say consumers do not need to buy Dasani
to get "excellent quality, healthy water".
[...]
Judith Snyder, brand PR manager for Dasani, confirmed "municipal" water
supplies were used but said the source was "irrelevant" because it
"doesn't affect the end result". She said: "We would never say tap
water isn't drinkable. "It's just that Dasani is as pure as water can
get - there are different levels of purity."

Posted by flow Frazao on March 1, 2004 at 08:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

WWJD?

I predict some serious flipping out:

In a precedent-setting decision, the California Supreme
Court ruled Monday that a Roman Catholic charity must offer
birth-control coverage to its employees even though the church
considers contraception a sin.
The 6-1 decision marked the first such ruling by a state's highest
court. Experts said the ruling could affect thousands of workers at
Catholic hospitals and other church-backed institutions in California
and prompt other states to fashion similar laws.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 1, 2004 at 08:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Aristide Abducted?

I'm not exactly sure what's going on here, but the (democratically elected) President of Haiti is claiming he was kidnapped by US forces:

Jean-Bertrand Aristide, ousted as Haitian president on
Sunday, told U.S. lawmakers and other contacts by telephone on Monday
that he was abducted by U.S. soldiers and left his homeland against his
will. Washington immediately denied this, saying Aristide had agreed to
step down and leave his country. "It's complete nonsense," White House
spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.
[...]
Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY) and Randall Robinson, the former head
of the black lobbying group TransAfrica, said in separate interviews
with CNN that Aristide called them from the Central African Republic,
where he is in temporary exile. Robinson, speaking from the Caribbean
island of St Kitts, said Aristide had telephoned him on a cell phone on
Monday morning from a room in the Central African Republic, where he
said he was being guarded by African and French soldiers. "The
president said to me that he had been abducted from his home by about
20 American soldiers in full battle gear with automatic weapons and put
on a plane" on Sunday morning, Robertson said. "Across the aisle from
him and Mrs. Aristide sat the American soldier who apparently was the
commander of the contingent. They were not told where they were going,
nor were they allowed to make any phone calls before they left the
house or on the plane," he said. He said Aristide had told him the
plane made two stops before landing in the Central African Republic and
that the Americans had instructed them not to raise the blinds to look
out when the plane was on the ground. "Not until they arrived did the
president learn where he was," Robertson said. "He said to me twice
before he had to get off the phone, 'Tell the world that it's a coup.
That American soldiers abducted (me)."' Rangel, a Democratic member of
the House (of Representatives) from New York, said he heard a similar
account from Aristide by telephone. Aristide told him he was
"disappointed that the international community had let him down, that
he was kidnapped, that he resigned under pressure."

Posted by flow Frazao on March 1, 2004 at 02:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

China slams US human rights record

Looks like our morally superior stance is starting to lose some credibility:

BEIJING (AFP) - China has published a scathing attack on
the human rights situation in the United States, retaliating for a
similar report issued by Washington last week that accused Beijing of
backsliding on its rights record.
Only days after slamming the US report as "interference in its internal
affairs," the State Council, China's cabinet, countered with its own
criticism. Allegations of US atrocities in the wars on Iraq and led the
way. "In recent years, the United States has practiced unilateralism on
the international stage, wantonly engaged in military adventures,
violently invaded the sovereignty of other nations and left the mark of
rights violations everywhere," the 2003 US Rights Violation Record
said. "Since the United States initiated the war on Iraq, 16,000 Iraqis
have been killed including 10,000 citizens," the report said. With a
400 billion dollar defense budget, US defense spending is bigger than
military expenditures of the rest of the world combined, while the
United States is the world's biggest seller of arms. It was responsible
for more than 48 percent of all conventional weapons sales to the
developing world in 2002, the report said. Rights violations were not
only restricted to the 364,000 soldiers Washington has based in more
than 130 countries, the report said, but also occurred at home where
the United States remains one of the world's most violent places to
live. "The United States leads the world in gun ownership, guns are
everywhere and crimes involving guns are on the rise," it said. Of the
15,980 murders committed in the United States in 2001, 63 percent
involved guns, while 56 percent, or 16,586 people, who committed
suicide in the US in 2000 used guns, it said. The report also soundly
blasted the US Patriot Act which has empowered the government to
violate the rights and freedom of ordinary citizens, most notably
American minorities, "in the name of national security and fighting
terrorism," it said. Despite routinely refusing to accept criticisms on
rights abuses in China from groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty
International, the Chinese report liberally used documentation by such
groups on US rights violations. "According to a Human Rights Watch
report in September 2003, one fifth of men in US prisons faced violent
and dangerous sexual encounters, while one in 10 were raped," the
report said. The report also cited Amnesty for evidence that police
brutality in US jails led to the deaths of at least three prisoners in
2003. The report further slammed US democratic politics as the politics
of the rich and cited the 113 million dollars spent by George W. Bush's
election campaign in 2000 and the projected 200 million dollars for
this year's presidential elections. It also blasted the US social
welfare network and cited the growing numbers of poor and homeless
people. "The richest one percent of the US have wealth that is equal to
the 40 percent of the poorest people in the country," it said. "While
the income of the richest one percent was only 7.5 percent of all
income earned in 1979, it was 15.5 percent in 2000." On Thursday China
expressed "indignation" at the US report which alleged a worsening
human rights situation in China in 2003. The annual State Department
report accused China's communist leaders of letting their human rights
record slip as arrests of democracy activists and extrajudicial
killings continued apace. Also targeted were labour protesters, defense
lawyers, journalists, house church members and "others seeking to take
advantage of the space created by reforms", according to the US report.
The report also said a "harsh repression" of the Falungong spiritual
group continued, that China's record in Tibet remained poor and that
the government had used the war on terror to justify a crackdown
against Muslim Uighurs.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 1, 2004 at 01:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Debate Raises Doubts For Kerry-Edwards Run

From the Washington Post:

For many weeks now, Democratic activists and party leaders
have talked openly about the attractiveness of such a ticket, and by
his performance this year, Edwards has certainly earned himself a spot
high up on Kerry's short list of possible running mates. But Democrats
watching Sunday's debate may wonder whether the chemistry between the
two men would allow that, even if practical political considerations
and pressures inside the party argue for it. Kerry allies say privately
that the senator is not a particular fan of Edwards, and a question to
Kerry about what he has learned from Edwards about how to be a more
likable candidate must have rankled the man who is in control of the
Democratic race. Kerry made no bow to Edwards's talents as a candidate
in his answer. What he learned, he said, came from the voters he has
encountered along the campaign trail. "I learned it in Iowa, and I
learned it in New Hampshire," Kerry said. "And I think the reason I've
won 18 or 20 contests so far, and I'm now campaigning hard to win
others, is that give me a living room, give me a barn, give me a VFW
hall, give me a one-on-one, and I think I can talk to anybody in this
country." CBS anchor Dan Rather then put the question to Edwards in
what he said was a Texas vernacular: "Does Senator Kerry have enough Elvis to beat George Bush?"
Edwards offered only a minimalist endorsement of his rival. "I know
John Kerry," he said. "I like him very much. And he and I have known
each other for years."
[...]
Edwards aggressively pointed out differences with his rival that Kerry
said do not really exist, challenging Kerry as someone spouting "that
same old Washington talk that people have been listening to for
decades" and questioning whether the Massachusetts senator could change
the status quo in the capital when he is a Washington insider himself.
Kerry in turn suggested that Edwards was being disingenuous on trade
and lacked the "experience and proven ability" to get things done in
Washington. "I just listened to John talk about Washington, D.C.," he
said. "Last time I looked, John ran for the United States Senate, and
he's been in the Senate for the last five years. That seems to me to be
Washington, D.C."

I submit that there is not.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 1, 2004 at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack