DEMOCRACY STRIKES BACK! As Diebold Goes Down for the Count...
December 30th, 2005
While you were out... and while Bush's sleight-of-hand averted your eyes towards Iraq for a quick "democracy" fix, the real fight for democracy -- back here in America -- has made some important headway at years' end...Here's a few very notable developments you may have otherwise missed while you were busy sipping your yuletide egg nog:
THREE WEEKS AGO...
THURSDAY: I warned Diebold stockholders and lovers of democracy that a Securities Fraud Class Action Suit was coming.
TWO WEEKS AGO...
MONDAY: Walden O'Dell, CEO of Diebold (he, of 'committed to delivering the electoral votes of Ohio to George W. Bush' fame) suddenly resigned.
TUESDAY: Securities Fraud Litigation Class Action Suit filed against the once-great, now-disgraced Diebold, Inc. of North Canton, OH along with 8 current and former top execs (including both O'Dell and the new CEO Swidarski). Amongst the complaints: artificial manipulation/inflation of stock prices, insider trading, concealment of major flaws and security vulnerabilities in voting machines. Can't say we didn't warn ya!
TUESDAY: Test Election in Leon County, FL is hacked! Results completely reversed! Tally should have been 2 to 6, flipped to 7 to 1 without a trace! Elections Director vows Diebold will never be used in another election in the county (where state capital Tallahassee is) again, requests funds for new voting equipment. Can't say we didn't warn ya!
FRIDAY: In light of Leon County hack, and after long drawn out law suits, Volusia County, FL joins suit and dumps Diebold too!
LAST WEEK...
SUNDAY: Jeb Bush's expresses concern about FL voting systems in light of Leon County hack (that, after both the acting FL SoS and Diebold tried to blame Leon County). Unspoken irony abounds.
SUNDAY: NY Times editorializes about Diebold's grave misunderstanding of democracy. They correctly point out that "The counting of votes is a public trust. Diebold, whose machines count many votes, has never acted as if it understood this." That's the good news from the editorial which led off buy mentioning the "tumultuous week for Diebold." Unfortunately, aside from this editorial, and a quick hit elsewhere in the paper by Dan Mitchell the day before mentioning all of this as "conspiracy theories" and "black helicopter" stuff, the NY Times failed to do any actual reporting of its own on any of the items mentioned above.
TUESDAY: CA Sec. of State sends Diebold packing! Delays re-certification of previous de-certified Diebold, "punts" machines back to Feds for further testing in light of what the SoS called "unresolved significant security concerns".
THURSDAY: Amidst Intense Last-Minute Drama, St. Louis County, MO Rejects Diebold! (Plus, a Diebold lobbyist is overheard inquiring to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter about me and my family!)
THURSDAY: After failure to get a court order for a special exemption from state law, Diebold sends a letter informing North Carolina they're pulling out of the state! They refuse to comply with a NC state law requiring submission of software source code! (Though they kindly offer again to help NC rewrite its law to accommodate Diebold.)
FRIDAY: CA Sec. of State discovered to have threatened ES&S (Diebold's evil twin) with decertification after documented failures in November Election: Touch-screen votes flipped, voters can't verify that ballot is accurate, incorrect reported counts of voter turnout -- but the problems were hidden from citizens until a letter discovered by AP!
What will this and the next week bring? Stay tuned...
Miss anything of note? You can catch up here...
Caught up now? Good...But from now on, please try to pay attention. How many times do I have to tell you? Democracy -- American democracy! You remember that dontcha? -- is at stake here and I can't do all the heavy lifting for you! Please join those of us who give a damn and make some noise, write some letters to the editor, donate to those organizations and blogs and websites fighting the good fight, call your politicians, annoy the crap out of your Boards of Elections and do anything you can to make a difference here.
We're still David. They're still Goliath. But....
Friday, December 30, 2005
from NY Times Op-Ed, "While You Were Sleeping", by William Falk+commentary by Sven
Here is most of it; click on the title for the whole thing:
THE DAY AFTER TODAY One of the more alarming possible consequences of global warming appears to be already under way. The rapid melting of the Arctic and Greenland ice caps, a new study finds, is causing freshwater to flood into the North Atlantic. That infusion of icy water appears to be deflecting the northward flow of the warming Gulf Stream, which moderates winter temperatures for Europe and the northeastern United States. The flow of the Gulf Stream has been reduced by 30 percent since 1957, the National Oceanography Center in Britain found. Perhaps you'll remember that in the film "The Day After Tomorrow," the collapse of the Gulf Stream produces a violent climate shift and a new ice age for much of the Northern Hemisphere. Climatologists don't foresee a future quite that catastrophic, but something worrisome, they say, is afoot.
THE SPANISH FLU LIVES! Scientists have resurrected the Spanish flu virus that killed an estimated 25 million people in 1918. The reborn virus, pieced together from fragments found in tissue samples of the flu's victims, was injected into a group of laboratory mice. It proved incredibly lethal, producing 39,000 times more copies of itself than regular flu and killing all the mice in six days. This viral Frankenstein, perhaps the most deadly pathogen in human history, now lives on in quarantine. Many experts were alarmed when scientists published the flu's genetic blueprint; it would not be hard, they said, for a terrorist group or a madman to hire scientists to make the virus, quietly unleash it and kill more people than several nuclear weapons could.
FORBIDDEN VACCINE Ever year, about 500,000 women throughout the world develop cervical cancer. In the United States alone, the disease kills about 3,700 women annually. This year, scientists developed a vaccine against human papillomavirus, a sexually transmitted disease that is the primary cause of cervical cancer. The vaccine produced 100 percent immunity in the 6,000 women who received it as part of a multinational trial. As soon as the vaccine is licensed, some health officials say, it should be administered to all girls at age 12. But the Family Research Council and other social conservative groups vowed to fight that plan, even though it could virtually eliminate cervical cancer. Vaccinating girls against a sexually transmitted disease, they say, would reduce their incentive to abstain from premarital sex.
["How can some people be so fucking brutally evil?! ", says Sven. "How can some people be so self-centered in their
minds that they'd fuck up somebody else's life?"]
FORBIDDEN IDEAS With more than 100 million users, the Internet is booming in China. The American Web giants Microsoft, Yahoo and Google have all grabbed a piece of the lucrative Chinese market - but only after agreeing to help the government censor speech on the Web. In providing portals or search engines, all three companies are abiding by the government's censorship of certain ideas and keywords, like "Tiananmen massacre," "Taiwanese independence," "corruption" and "democracy." Most foreign news sites are blocked. This year, Yahoo even supplied information that helped the government track and convict a political dissident who sent an e-mail message with forbidden thoughts from a Yahoo account; he was sentenced to 10 years in jail. "Business is business," said Jack Ma, Yahoo's chief in China. "It's not politics."
AMERICA'S MOST WANTED Why is Osama bin Laden still at large more than four years after 9/11? The new C.I.A. director, Porter J. Goss, provided a big hint. He said that the United States had a good idea of where Mr. bin Laden was hiding, but that sovereign states would not let a proper manhunt be mounted. Mr. Goss's statement seemed to confirm the widespread suspicion that Mr. bin Laden was hiding in the mountains of northern Pakistan but that President Pervez Musharraf, fearing the reaction of Islamic militants, was not eager for him to be captured. Mr. Musharraf himself lent support to that theory, telling an interviewer: "One would prefer that he's captured somewhere outside Pakistan. By some other people."
MOM WAS RIGHT Scientists have always scoffed at the notion that getting a chill can lead to a cold. Viruses cause colds, they say, not cold air. But a new study found that dormant infections can be activated when certain parts of the body, particularly the feet and the nose, get wet and cold. In the study, 90 volunteers spent 20 minutes with their feet in a bucket of cold water. Over the next five days, 29 percent came down with colds, compared with 9 percent of a control group. Researchers said that getting a chill might constrict blood vessels and reduce the circulation of white blood cells that fight infection.
IT WON'T LAST Falling madly in love significantly changes our body chemistry - but not for long. Researchers from Italy studied a group of people who had fallen in mad, passionate love in the past six months, comparing them with people in longer-term relationships and with single people. The group consumed with passion had more of a stimulating protein called nerve growth factor in their blood. The more intense the feelings of infatuation, the more nerve growth factor there was. But when these same lovers were tested a year later, the levels had dropped back down to normal. Someone should warn Brad and Angelina: their year is up.
William Falk is the editor in chief of The Week magazine.
Next Article in Opinion (2 of 7) >
THE DAY AFTER TODAY One of the more alarming possible consequences of global warming appears to be already under way. The rapid melting of the Arctic and Greenland ice caps, a new study finds, is causing freshwater to flood into the North Atlantic. That infusion of icy water appears to be deflecting the northward flow of the warming Gulf Stream, which moderates winter temperatures for Europe and the northeastern United States. The flow of the Gulf Stream has been reduced by 30 percent since 1957, the National Oceanography Center in Britain found. Perhaps you'll remember that in the film "The Day After Tomorrow," the collapse of the Gulf Stream produces a violent climate shift and a new ice age for much of the Northern Hemisphere. Climatologists don't foresee a future quite that catastrophic, but something worrisome, they say, is afoot.
THE SPANISH FLU LIVES! Scientists have resurrected the Spanish flu virus that killed an estimated 25 million people in 1918. The reborn virus, pieced together from fragments found in tissue samples of the flu's victims, was injected into a group of laboratory mice. It proved incredibly lethal, producing 39,000 times more copies of itself than regular flu and killing all the mice in six days. This viral Frankenstein, perhaps the most deadly pathogen in human history, now lives on in quarantine. Many experts were alarmed when scientists published the flu's genetic blueprint; it would not be hard, they said, for a terrorist group or a madman to hire scientists to make the virus, quietly unleash it and kill more people than several nuclear weapons could.
FORBIDDEN VACCINE Ever year, about 500,000 women throughout the world develop cervical cancer. In the United States alone, the disease kills about 3,700 women annually. This year, scientists developed a vaccine against human papillomavirus, a sexually transmitted disease that is the primary cause of cervical cancer. The vaccine produced 100 percent immunity in the 6,000 women who received it as part of a multinational trial. As soon as the vaccine is licensed, some health officials say, it should be administered to all girls at age 12. But the Family Research Council and other social conservative groups vowed to fight that plan, even though it could virtually eliminate cervical cancer. Vaccinating girls against a sexually transmitted disease, they say, would reduce their incentive to abstain from premarital sex.
["How can some people be so fucking brutally evil?! ", says Sven. "How can some people be so self-centered in their
minds that they'd fuck up somebody else's life?"]
FORBIDDEN IDEAS With more than 100 million users, the Internet is booming in China. The American Web giants Microsoft, Yahoo and Google have all grabbed a piece of the lucrative Chinese market - but only after agreeing to help the government censor speech on the Web. In providing portals or search engines, all three companies are abiding by the government's censorship of certain ideas and keywords, like "Tiananmen massacre," "Taiwanese independence," "corruption" and "democracy." Most foreign news sites are blocked. This year, Yahoo even supplied information that helped the government track and convict a political dissident who sent an e-mail message with forbidden thoughts from a Yahoo account; he was sentenced to 10 years in jail. "Business is business," said Jack Ma, Yahoo's chief in China. "It's not politics."
AMERICA'S MOST WANTED Why is Osama bin Laden still at large more than four years after 9/11? The new C.I.A. director, Porter J. Goss, provided a big hint. He said that the United States had a good idea of where Mr. bin Laden was hiding, but that sovereign states would not let a proper manhunt be mounted. Mr. Goss's statement seemed to confirm the widespread suspicion that Mr. bin Laden was hiding in the mountains of northern Pakistan but that President Pervez Musharraf, fearing the reaction of Islamic militants, was not eager for him to be captured. Mr. Musharraf himself lent support to that theory, telling an interviewer: "One would prefer that he's captured somewhere outside Pakistan. By some other people."
MOM WAS RIGHT Scientists have always scoffed at the notion that getting a chill can lead to a cold. Viruses cause colds, they say, not cold air. But a new study found that dormant infections can be activated when certain parts of the body, particularly the feet and the nose, get wet and cold. In the study, 90 volunteers spent 20 minutes with their feet in a bucket of cold water. Over the next five days, 29 percent came down with colds, compared with 9 percent of a control group. Researchers said that getting a chill might constrict blood vessels and reduce the circulation of white blood cells that fight infection.
IT WON'T LAST Falling madly in love significantly changes our body chemistry - but not for long. Researchers from Italy studied a group of people who had fallen in mad, passionate love in the past six months, comparing them with people in longer-term relationships and with single people. The group consumed with passion had more of a stimulating protein called nerve growth factor in their blood. The more intense the feelings of infatuation, the more nerve growth factor there was. But when these same lovers were tested a year later, the levels had dropped back down to normal. Someone should warn Brad and Angelina: their year is up.
William Falk is the editor in chief of The Week magazine.
Next Article in Opinion (2 of 7) >
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Polling in Iraq: Who's Right? by FactCheck.org
Bush says 70 per cent of Iraqis see their lives going well, but MoveOn.org says most Iraqis want US troops out. Both sides are right, up to a point.
December 22, 2005
Summary
President Bush says a large majority of Iraqis think things are going well and that they expect things to get even better. But wait, a new TV ad from the liberal group MoveOn.org says most Iraqis think US troops should get out. Who's right?
In fact, both are correct – as far as they go. But each presents an incomplete and misleading picture of Iraqi public opinion, which is more complex than either side portrays.
For example, the most recent poll shows that while nearly 65 percent of Iraqis oppose the US presence in Iraq, only 26 per cent want US troops to "leave now. " The rest generally prefer that US forces remain until a new Iraqi government is in place, at least, or until security is restored or until Iraqi troops can operate on their own.
Analysis
In a televised address from the Oval Office on Dec. 18, President Bush said that “seven in ten Iraqis say their lives are going well, and nearly two-thirds expect things to improve even more in the year ahead.”
MoveOn Political Action Ad
"Polls Show"
Announcer: A shopkeeper in Baghdad. A family in Mosul. Kurds. Shiites. Sunnis.
(On screen: images of Iraqis)
Announcer: Some are glad we came. Some aren't. Iraqis rarely agree on anything. But, a recent poll shows that most Iraqis think our troops should leave their country.
(On Screen: The Capitol Building with the words: "Call your Representative: (202) 225-3121"
Announcer: Their election is over, yet George Bush doesn't have an exit timeline. So it's up to Congress to bring our troops home. Call your representative today.
MoveOn.org Political Action is responsible for the content of this advertisement
The next day, Dec. 19, MoveOn.org Political Action released a new ad entitled "Polls Show" that said “a recent poll shows that most Iraqis think our troops should leave their country.” MoveOn said the ad will run in the districts of six Republican House members: Heather Wilson of New Mexico, Jim Gerlach, Curt Weldon and Mike Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Deborah Pryce of Ohio and Dave Reichert of Washington.
Iraqis: Life is good & getting better
Bush drew from results of a poll released on Dec. 12. It was sponsored by ABC, Time magazine, the British Broadcasting Corporation and several other foreign media outlets. It was conducted by Oxford International Research.
It showed 71 per cent of those Iraqis who were polled, when asked how "things are going in your life these days," said either "very good" or "quite good."
And when asked how things will be in their lives a year from now, 64 per cent said either "much better" or "somewhat better."
So Bush's optimistic figures were accurate, but he ignored another facet of Iraqi public opinion - the unpopularity of US forces there.
Iraqis: Yankee go home! But not quite yet.
The MoveOn ad, saying "most Iraqis think our troops should leave their country," also is supported by the ABC/Time /BBC poll. It found that 65 per cent of Iraqis said they either "somewhat" or "strongly" oppose the presence of coalition forces in Iraq.
What MoveOn ignores is that most Iraqis don't want the US to leave immediately.
The poll asked "How long do you think the US and other coalition forces should remain in Iraq?" The results:
26 per cent said "leave now."
19 per cent said "remain until the Iraqi government elected in December is in place."
16 per cent said "remain until the Iraqi security forces can operate independently."
31 per cent said "remain until security is restored."
3 per cent said "remain longer but leave eventually."
1 per cent said "never leave."
4 per cent expressed no opinion.
The interviews were conducted in October and November, before Iraq's December election. The results are still being counted, and a new government should be in place within weeks. That means – according to this poll – that 45 per cent of Iraqis would like the US to leave fairly soon. That's a high number, but not "most."
The 'Secret' British Poll
MoveOn also cites another "poll" in support of its ad. According to the press release the ads are based on a report by the London Sunday Telegraph on Oct. 23. The Telegraph reported a "secret" poll commissioned by the British Ministry of Defence and conducted by an Iraqi university research team. The Telegraph said that they had "seen" it – but full results were not published.
The Telegraph said the poll showed 82 per cent of Iraqis "strongly" oppose the presence of coalition forces – a much higher figure than any of the other Iraqi polls published to date. The 82 per cent figure has been cited uncritically by Democrats including Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania and party chairman Howard Dean.
But that "poll" is dubious at best. The British government won't confirm or deny whether such a poll actually exists, or comment on the accuracy of the figures the newspaper reported. The Telegraph gave no information on how large the sample was, or what the statistical margin of error might be, or even exactly what questions were asked. Without such information there's no basis on which to judge how reliable such a poll might be. The margin of error in the ABC/BBC poll, for example, is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points, and the sample size was 1,711. The exact wording of each question is reported.
In an email to FactCheck.org, MoveOn also cites a Zogby Poll from January 2005 and an Oxford Research Poll from June 2004. Both show majorities of Iraqis opposing the presence of US forces in their country, though the polls are by no means "recent."
Iraq: A complicated picture
Neither the optimistic picture presented by Bush nor the pessimistic view reported in the MoveOn ad accurately paints the full complexity of Iraqi public opnion, at least as measured by the recent ABC/Time /BBC poll.
For one thing, there is a great gap in opinion between Sunnis and Shiites: 86 per cent of Shiites polled say things are going well in their lives, while only 43 per cent of Sunnis do. Asked how things are going in the country as a whole, 53 of Shiites say "good" but only 9 per cent of Sunnis say the same.
It may surprise Americans to learn that 63 per cent of Iraqis say they feel "very safe" in their own neighborhoods, despite almost daily reports of bombings. But that includes 80 per cent of Shiites, and only 11 per cent of Sunnis. Asked about confidence in the Iraqi army, 87 per cent of Shiites said they felt confident, compared to 37 per cent of Sunnis.
Iraqis report strong economic improvements as well. The number of Iraqi households saying they have mobile phones has increased tenfold – to 62 per cent – since a previous ABC/Time /BBC poll was conducted in February 2004. The number of households saying they have satellite dishes has nearly tripled to 86 per cent. Monthly income is now $263, up nearly $100 since the previous poll.
On the other hand, 54 per cent still say they have electricity for only eight hours per day or less. Fuel is also a persistent problem in this oil-rich nation: of those Iraqis who drive, 7 in 10 say they encounter lines at the pump. Nearly half say they must wait for hours, and a quarter report waits measured in days.
-by Justin Bank
Sources
Transcript: "President's Address to the Nation ," Oval Office, the White House 18 Dec 2005
Rayment, Sean. "Secret MoD Poll: Iraqis Support Attacks on British Troops," Sunday Telegraph, 23 Oct 2005.
Langer, Gary and Cohen, Jon. "Poll: Broad Optimism in Iraq, but Also Deep Divisions Among Groups," ABC News, 12 Dec 2005.
December 22, 2005
Summary
President Bush says a large majority of Iraqis think things are going well and that they expect things to get even better. But wait, a new TV ad from the liberal group MoveOn.org says most Iraqis think US troops should get out. Who's right?
In fact, both are correct – as far as they go. But each presents an incomplete and misleading picture of Iraqi public opinion, which is more complex than either side portrays.
For example, the most recent poll shows that while nearly 65 percent of Iraqis oppose the US presence in Iraq, only 26 per cent want US troops to "leave now. " The rest generally prefer that US forces remain until a new Iraqi government is in place, at least, or until security is restored or until Iraqi troops can operate on their own.
Analysis
In a televised address from the Oval Office on Dec. 18, President Bush said that “seven in ten Iraqis say their lives are going well, and nearly two-thirds expect things to improve even more in the year ahead.”
MoveOn Political Action Ad
"Polls Show"
Announcer: A shopkeeper in Baghdad. A family in Mosul. Kurds. Shiites. Sunnis.
(On screen: images of Iraqis)
Announcer: Some are glad we came. Some aren't. Iraqis rarely agree on anything. But, a recent poll shows that most Iraqis think our troops should leave their country.
(On Screen: The Capitol Building with the words: "Call your Representative: (202) 225-3121"
Announcer: Their election is over, yet George Bush doesn't have an exit timeline. So it's up to Congress to bring our troops home. Call your representative today.
MoveOn.org Political Action is responsible for the content of this advertisement
The next day, Dec. 19, MoveOn.org Political Action released a new ad entitled "Polls Show" that said “a recent poll shows that most Iraqis think our troops should leave their country.” MoveOn said the ad will run in the districts of six Republican House members: Heather Wilson of New Mexico, Jim Gerlach, Curt Weldon and Mike Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Deborah Pryce of Ohio and Dave Reichert of Washington.
Iraqis: Life is good & getting better
Bush drew from results of a poll released on Dec. 12. It was sponsored by ABC, Time magazine, the British Broadcasting Corporation and several other foreign media outlets. It was conducted by Oxford International Research.
It showed 71 per cent of those Iraqis who were polled, when asked how "things are going in your life these days," said either "very good" or "quite good."
And when asked how things will be in their lives a year from now, 64 per cent said either "much better" or "somewhat better."
So Bush's optimistic figures were accurate, but he ignored another facet of Iraqi public opinion - the unpopularity of US forces there.
Iraqis: Yankee go home! But not quite yet.
The MoveOn ad, saying "most Iraqis think our troops should leave their country," also is supported by the ABC/Time /BBC poll. It found that 65 per cent of Iraqis said they either "somewhat" or "strongly" oppose the presence of coalition forces in Iraq.
What MoveOn ignores is that most Iraqis don't want the US to leave immediately.
The poll asked "How long do you think the US and other coalition forces should remain in Iraq?" The results:
26 per cent said "leave now."
19 per cent said "remain until the Iraqi government elected in December is in place."
16 per cent said "remain until the Iraqi security forces can operate independently."
31 per cent said "remain until security is restored."
3 per cent said "remain longer but leave eventually."
1 per cent said "never leave."
4 per cent expressed no opinion.
The interviews were conducted in October and November, before Iraq's December election. The results are still being counted, and a new government should be in place within weeks. That means – according to this poll – that 45 per cent of Iraqis would like the US to leave fairly soon. That's a high number, but not "most."
The 'Secret' British Poll
MoveOn also cites another "poll" in support of its ad. According to the press release the ads are based on a report by the London Sunday Telegraph on Oct. 23. The Telegraph reported a "secret" poll commissioned by the British Ministry of Defence and conducted by an Iraqi university research team. The Telegraph said that they had "seen" it – but full results were not published.
The Telegraph said the poll showed 82 per cent of Iraqis "strongly" oppose the presence of coalition forces – a much higher figure than any of the other Iraqi polls published to date. The 82 per cent figure has been cited uncritically by Democrats including Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania and party chairman Howard Dean.
But that "poll" is dubious at best. The British government won't confirm or deny whether such a poll actually exists, or comment on the accuracy of the figures the newspaper reported. The Telegraph gave no information on how large the sample was, or what the statistical margin of error might be, or even exactly what questions were asked. Without such information there's no basis on which to judge how reliable such a poll might be. The margin of error in the ABC/BBC poll, for example, is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points, and the sample size was 1,711. The exact wording of each question is reported.
In an email to FactCheck.org, MoveOn also cites a Zogby Poll from January 2005 and an Oxford Research Poll from June 2004. Both show majorities of Iraqis opposing the presence of US forces in their country, though the polls are by no means "recent."
Iraq: A complicated picture
Neither the optimistic picture presented by Bush nor the pessimistic view reported in the MoveOn ad accurately paints the full complexity of Iraqi public opnion, at least as measured by the recent ABC/Time /BBC poll.
For one thing, there is a great gap in opinion between Sunnis and Shiites: 86 per cent of Shiites polled say things are going well in their lives, while only 43 per cent of Sunnis do. Asked how things are going in the country as a whole, 53 of Shiites say "good" but only 9 per cent of Sunnis say the same.
It may surprise Americans to learn that 63 per cent of Iraqis say they feel "very safe" in their own neighborhoods, despite almost daily reports of bombings. But that includes 80 per cent of Shiites, and only 11 per cent of Sunnis. Asked about confidence in the Iraqi army, 87 per cent of Shiites said they felt confident, compared to 37 per cent of Sunnis.
Iraqis report strong economic improvements as well. The number of Iraqi households saying they have mobile phones has increased tenfold – to 62 per cent – since a previous ABC/Time /BBC poll was conducted in February 2004. The number of households saying they have satellite dishes has nearly tripled to 86 per cent. Monthly income is now $263, up nearly $100 since the previous poll.
On the other hand, 54 per cent still say they have electricity for only eight hours per day or less. Fuel is also a persistent problem in this oil-rich nation: of those Iraqis who drive, 7 in 10 say they encounter lines at the pump. Nearly half say they must wait for hours, and a quarter report waits measured in days.
-by Justin Bank
Sources
Transcript: "President's Address to the Nation ," Oval Office, the White House 18 Dec 2005
Rayment, Sean. "Secret MoD Poll: Iraqis Support Attacks on British Troops," Sunday Telegraph, 23 Oct 2005.
Langer, Gary and Cohen, Jon. "Poll: Broad Optimism in Iraq, but Also Deep Divisions Among Groups," ABC News, 12 Dec 2005.
What's Next? What They Were Thinking
I don't want to be alarmist, but click on this title to see the economic under-pinnings for a
possible future attack on Iran from the Energy Bulletin.
possible future attack on Iran from the Energy Bulletin.
Bill Clinton Sounds the Call to Battle Global Warming
Please click on the above title for Clinton's Montreal speech in connection with the
United Nations Climate Change Conference.
United Nations Climate Change Conference.
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Voting Reform: The Most Important Thing You Can Do
I am so sick of hearing Kerry was lame, Kerry didn't win by enough, Hillary is triangulating too far to the right in an
attempt to win the presidency and then lefter-leaning liberals won't vote for her. Boo Hoo! Kerry won by plenty. It's too bad
the country had many people too stupid to see the difference between Gore and Bush or Kerry and Bush. [What can I say to someone if their choice is Bush and Kerry and they thought Kerry was "too boring"? Or they thought Gore was "wooden"?]] BUT, THE COUNTRY WAS REALLY NOT THAT STUPID. Gore and Kerry both won. All right. So what do we do? Agitate for fair elections!
Here's something simple but far-reaching that you can do right here in NY State, from a DFNYC action list:
"(9) Tell The Board of Elections to Certify PB/OS Before It's Too Late
"PB/OS" (paper ballots with precinct-based optical scanners) is the safest, most reliable and most cost-effective choice for a voting system in NY State. And yet, the state Board of Elections has recently taken two outrageous steps against this system:
- Allowing the vendors NOT to submit optical scanners, effectively taking away the PB/OS option, and
- Jump-starting certification testing on an incomplete DRE machine (no paper ballot)
TAKE ACTION TODAY!
Mail or fax a letter to the State Board of Elections demanding that they (1) require vendors to submit NYS full face ballot compatible optical scanners for certification and (2) stop planned testing of the incomplete and illegal Liberty DRE machine. Remind the Board that they work for us, not the voting machine vendors.
Don't let the voting machine vendors decide what machines we vote on. Please write the State Board of Elections today.
By mail: NYS Board of Elections, 40 Steuben Street, Albany, NY 12207-2108
By fax: 518-486-4068
By e-mail: ldaghlian@elections.state.ny.us
Please address your letter to:
Peter Kosinski, Co-Executive Director
Stanley Zalen, Co-Executive Director
Neil W. Kelleher, Chair
Evelyn J. Aquila, Commissioner
Helena Moses Donohue, Commissioner
"
attempt to win the presidency and then lefter-leaning liberals won't vote for her. Boo Hoo! Kerry won by plenty. It's too bad
the country had many people too stupid to see the difference between Gore and Bush or Kerry and Bush. [What can I say to someone if their choice is Bush and Kerry and they thought Kerry was "too boring"? Or they thought Gore was "wooden"?]] BUT, THE COUNTRY WAS REALLY NOT THAT STUPID. Gore and Kerry both won. All right. So what do we do? Agitate for fair elections!
Here's something simple but far-reaching that you can do right here in NY State, from a DFNYC action list:
"(9) Tell The Board of Elections to Certify PB/OS Before It's Too Late
"PB/OS" (paper ballots with precinct-based optical scanners) is the safest, most reliable and most cost-effective choice for a voting system in NY State. And yet, the state Board of Elections has recently taken two outrageous steps against this system:
- Allowing the vendors NOT to submit optical scanners, effectively taking away the PB/OS option, and
- Jump-starting certification testing on an incomplete DRE machine (no paper ballot)
TAKE ACTION TODAY!
Mail or fax a letter to the State Board of Elections demanding that they (1) require vendors to submit NYS full face ballot compatible optical scanners for certification and (2) stop planned testing of the incomplete and illegal Liberty DRE machine. Remind the Board that they work for us, not the voting machine vendors.
Don't let the voting machine vendors decide what machines we vote on. Please write the State Board of Elections today.
By mail: NYS Board of Elections, 40 Steuben Street, Albany, NY 12207-2108
By fax: 518-486-4068
By e-mail: ldaghlian@elections.state.ny.us
Please address your letter to:
Peter Kosinski, Co-Executive Director
Stanley Zalen, Co-Executive Director
Neil W. Kelleher, Chair
Evelyn J. Aquila, Commissioner
Helena Moses Donohue, Commissioner
"
Monday, December 12, 2005
SLIP SLIDING AWAY
SLIP, SLIDING AWAY by Barbara Carr
It's like watching a "B" movie with bad actors. The hero (our
beloved country) is hanging over the cliff, grasped by the fragile
grip of her citizens. With enough of them to help, it would be
possible to pull the hero back onto firm ground. But the bad guys
have weapons of mass deception, and they fool too many of those who
would help if they knew the truth, and our hero slips further and
further out of reach into the abyss.
One of their bad actors went to the United Nations environmental
treaty talks in Montreal. The conference wrapped up this past
weekend with the calamitous walkout of the American representative,
who left last minute midnight-oil discussions aimed at finding some
common ground that could move the process of reducing "greenhouse gas
emissions" forward. The United States and China, the two worst
oreductions. Former U.S. President, Bill Clinton spoke to the
thousands of delegates, noting the "precautionary approach" the Bush
administration had taken to fighting terrorism, saying, "There is no
more important place in the world to apply the principle of
precaution than the area of climate change........We know what's
happening to the climate, we have a highly predictable set of
consequences if we continue to pour greenhouse gases into the
atmosphere, and we know we have an alternative that will lead us to greater prosperity."
With the close of this environmental conference, the focus shifted to
the International Peace Conference which began on Dec. 10 in London,
a gathering of people from the US, UK and IRAQ who want
PEACE.......not WAR. This gathering follows closely on the high
heels (and high horse) of Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's trip
around the continent trying to reassure those who are anxious and
concerned (all) that the president was telling the truth when he said
"The U.S. does not torture." Rice applied the usual tactic of
repetition + repetition = truth. The wary and weary world did not
fall for her hollow and false assertions, which made matters worse
instead of better. British playwright Harold Pinter had some words
for her and the president in his lecture upon receiving the Nobel
Prize for literature, raining shame down on all the lies, distortions
and deceptions that our country and the world have endured since our
fateful contested elections of 2000 and 2004. He reminds us that the
U.S. now occupies 702 military installations throughout the world in
132 countries, and has 8,000 active and operational nuclear warheads,
2,000 of which are on hair trigger alert, ready to be launched with
15 minutes warning. Maybe those are different from the NUCULAR
weapons George talks about, and he doesn't know he already has gobs?
Maybe George and Condi didn't see the photographs taken of the
TORTURE at Abu Garib prison. Maybe they are hiding the rest of the
photographs the American courts ordered released to the public. We
all know they're too horrible to see - precisely why they must be
seen. The ACLU has a lawsuit pending to hold Rumsfeld and other high
officials accountable for torture documented in 77,000 pages of
records they have obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
In trying to accuse Europe of complicity with the U.S. on the
rendition of hundreds of suspected terrorists to "black sites" and
spread the guilt, Rice caused a firestorm of fury among those she
sought to mollify. The Italians, who have issued indictments of 22
current and former CIA operatives for the rendition of an Egyptian
suspect, say emphatically that they are not involved. The UK also
scrambled to deny involvement and clarify their policies. In a lead
opinion, Lord Bingham of Britain's highest court, the Law Lords,
ruled that evidence obtained through torture, no matter by whom, is
not admissible in British courts. This ruling overturns the existing
tacit acceptance that torture can be condoned under certain
circumstances, and renews adherence to the UN 1994 Convention Against
Torture.
In a rebuke of the fuzzy definitions employed by the Bush administration,
Lord Bingham states that "prohibition against torture
has become one of the most fundamental standards of the international
community.....an absolute value from which no one must deviate."
Germany is intensely investigating the U.S. regarding our rendition
activities, and claims it has records of 400 U.S. rendition flights
over European airspace. Most shameful was Rice's attempt to mend
fences with Germany's Chancellor Merkel, who applauded Rice's
admission to her of the U.S. "mistake" in the rendition of German
citizen, Khaled el-Masri, to the CIA jail "the Salt pit" in
Afghanistan. el-Masri was tortured there for 5 months in a case of
"mistaken identity." After their meeting, Rice denied she had
admitted the mistake. The European Council declared that any member
nation harboring a CIA prison would be put under sanctions by the
European community.
In America, the press broke the story of the Al Queda operative, Ibn
al-Shaykh al-Libi, who was tortured into providing the
mis-information of a 9/11 Al Queda and Saddam Hussein connection, and
says he gave the information he thought they wanted to hear so they
would stop the torture. The president used his mis-information to
make the case for war, even though it was discredited at the time by
the CIA. Claiming that our invasion of Iraq is a necessary part of
the War on Terror, our military has spent $277 BILLION on the War on
Iraq to make the world a safer place because of the danger of Saddam
Hussein to the U.S.. According to Representative John Murtha, who
knows, the military will ask for an additional $100 Billion for
operations in Iraq next year. U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
says the Geneva Convention is "quaint." Dick Cheney insists that the
CIA needs an exemption from John McCain's proposed anti-torture
legislation. McCain says that there is no information obtained by
torture worth the shame it would cause the United States. Over last
weekend he and others tried and tried to broker a solution to this
impasse with the White House, so far to no avail.
We are obviously witnessing a colossal clash of values, both within
and without our borders. As citizens of this noble nation, we are
left with a terrible quandary. Shamed by our leaders, who control
all three branches of our government and repeat lies in order to
create truth out of falsehoods, our power is limited. We have only
our voices. Harold Pinter has some words for us to consider: " I
believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching,
unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define
the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation
which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory. If such a
determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope
of restoring what is so nearly lost to us - the dignity of man." Men
and women, mere citizens all, are gathered in the pursuit of peace in
London. Iraqis who want their country healed will be there.
Americans and Brits who long for peace and the return of their brave
soldiers will be there. The future will be there.
Barbara Carr
>>
It's like watching a "B" movie with bad actors. The hero (our
beloved country) is hanging over the cliff, grasped by the fragile
grip of her citizens. With enough of them to help, it would be
possible to pull the hero back onto firm ground. But the bad guys
have weapons of mass deception, and they fool too many of those who
would help if they knew the truth, and our hero slips further and
further out of reach into the abyss.
One of their bad actors went to the United Nations environmental
treaty talks in Montreal. The conference wrapped up this past
weekend with the calamitous walkout of the American representative,
who left last minute midnight-oil discussions aimed at finding some
common ground that could move the process of reducing "greenhouse gas
emissions" forward. The United States and China, the two worst
oreductions. Former U.S. President, Bill Clinton spoke to the
thousands of delegates, noting the "precautionary approach" the Bush
administration had taken to fighting terrorism, saying, "There is no
more important place in the world to apply the principle of
precaution than the area of climate change........We know what's
happening to the climate, we have a highly predictable set of
consequences if we continue to pour greenhouse gases into the
atmosphere, and we know we have an alternative that will lead us to greater prosperity."
With the close of this environmental conference, the focus shifted to
the International Peace Conference which began on Dec. 10 in London,
a gathering of people from the US, UK and IRAQ who want
PEACE.......not WAR. This gathering follows closely on the high
heels (and high horse) of Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's trip
around the continent trying to reassure those who are anxious and
concerned (all) that the president was telling the truth when he said
"The U.S. does not torture." Rice applied the usual tactic of
repetition + repetition = truth. The wary and weary world did not
fall for her hollow and false assertions, which made matters worse
instead of better. British playwright Harold Pinter had some words
for her and the president in his lecture upon receiving the Nobel
Prize for literature, raining shame down on all the lies, distortions
and deceptions that our country and the world have endured since our
fateful contested elections of 2000 and 2004. He reminds us that the
U.S. now occupies 702 military installations throughout the world in
132 countries, and has 8,000 active and operational nuclear warheads,
2,000 of which are on hair trigger alert, ready to be launched with
15 minutes warning. Maybe those are different from the NUCULAR
weapons George talks about, and he doesn't know he already has gobs?
Maybe George and Condi didn't see the photographs taken of the
TORTURE at Abu Garib prison. Maybe they are hiding the rest of the
photographs the American courts ordered released to the public. We
all know they're too horrible to see - precisely why they must be
seen. The ACLU has a lawsuit pending to hold Rumsfeld and other high
officials accountable for torture documented in 77,000 pages of
records they have obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
In trying to accuse Europe of complicity with the U.S. on the
rendition of hundreds of suspected terrorists to "black sites" and
spread the guilt, Rice caused a firestorm of fury among those she
sought to mollify. The Italians, who have issued indictments of 22
current and former CIA operatives for the rendition of an Egyptian
suspect, say emphatically that they are not involved. The UK also
scrambled to deny involvement and clarify their policies. In a lead
opinion, Lord Bingham of Britain's highest court, the Law Lords,
ruled that evidence obtained through torture, no matter by whom, is
not admissible in British courts. This ruling overturns the existing
tacit acceptance that torture can be condoned under certain
circumstances, and renews adherence to the UN 1994 Convention Against
Torture.
In a rebuke of the fuzzy definitions employed by the Bush administration,
Lord Bingham states that "prohibition against torture
has become one of the most fundamental standards of the international
community.....an absolute value from which no one must deviate."
Germany is intensely investigating the U.S. regarding our rendition
activities, and claims it has records of 400 U.S. rendition flights
over European airspace. Most shameful was Rice's attempt to mend
fences with Germany's Chancellor Merkel, who applauded Rice's
admission to her of the U.S. "mistake" in the rendition of German
citizen, Khaled el-Masri, to the CIA jail "the Salt pit" in
Afghanistan. el-Masri was tortured there for 5 months in a case of
"mistaken identity." After their meeting, Rice denied she had
admitted the mistake. The European Council declared that any member
nation harboring a CIA prison would be put under sanctions by the
European community.
In America, the press broke the story of the Al Queda operative, Ibn
al-Shaykh al-Libi, who was tortured into providing the
mis-information of a 9/11 Al Queda and Saddam Hussein connection, and
says he gave the information he thought they wanted to hear so they
would stop the torture. The president used his mis-information to
make the case for war, even though it was discredited at the time by
the CIA. Claiming that our invasion of Iraq is a necessary part of
the War on Terror, our military has spent $277 BILLION on the War on
Iraq to make the world a safer place because of the danger of Saddam
Hussein to the U.S.. According to Representative John Murtha, who
knows, the military will ask for an additional $100 Billion for
operations in Iraq next year. U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
says the Geneva Convention is "quaint." Dick Cheney insists that the
CIA needs an exemption from John McCain's proposed anti-torture
legislation. McCain says that there is no information obtained by
torture worth the shame it would cause the United States. Over last
weekend he and others tried and tried to broker a solution to this
impasse with the White House, so far to no avail.
We are obviously witnessing a colossal clash of values, both within
and without our borders. As citizens of this noble nation, we are
left with a terrible quandary. Shamed by our leaders, who control
all three branches of our government and repeat lies in order to
create truth out of falsehoods, our power is limited. We have only
our voices. Harold Pinter has some words for us to consider: " I
believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching,
unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define
the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation
which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory. If such a
determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope
of restoring what is so nearly lost to us - the dignity of man." Men
and women, mere citizens all, are gathered in the pursuit of peace in
London. Iraqis who want their country healed will be there.
Americans and Brits who long for peace and the return of their brave
soldiers will be there. The future will be there.
Barbara Carr
>>
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Something else I noticed about that vote-fix story
That video is from a year ago, Dec. 13, 2004. No wonder one reader says she's heard it before!
Amazing how this stufff gets swept under the rug.
Amazing how this stufff gets swept under the rug.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Correction of previous post, and another terrible Ohio voting story
I wasn't totally clear. Clint Curtis testimony WAS to a congressional judiciary committee,
but the hearing took place IN Ohio. I didn't think that looked like Congress!
A fmaily member says this story is huge IF it holds.
A friend wonders why this story hasn't been picked up by larger media today. Was the man's
story discredited?
For today's story you can click on the above title of this post. Does it shed any light on why that story hasn't been picked up? Here's an excerpt:
"House Bill 3 has already passed the Ohio House of Representatives and is about to be approved by the Republican-dominated Senate, probably before the holiday recess. Republicans dominate the Ohio legislature thanks to a heavily gerrymandered crazy quilt of rigged districts, and to a moribund Ohio Democratic party. The GOP-drafted HB3 is designed to all but obliterate any possible future Democratic revival. Opposition from the Ohio Democratic Party, where it exists at all, is diffuse and ineffectual.
HB3's most publicized provision will require positive identification before casting a vote. But it also opens voter registration activists to partisan prosecution, exempts electronic voting machines from public scrutiny, quintuples the cost of citizen-requested statewide recounts and makes it illegal to challenge a presidential vote count or, indeed, any federal election result in Ohio. When added to the recently passed HB1, which allows campaign financing to be dominated by the wealthy and by corporations, and along with a Rovian wish list of GOP attacks on the ballot box, democracy in Ohio could be all but over."
but the hearing took place IN Ohio. I didn't think that looked like Congress!
A fmaily member says this story is huge IF it holds.
A friend wonders why this story hasn't been picked up by larger media today. Was the man's
story discredited?
For today's story you can click on the above title of this post. Does it shed any light on why that story hasn't been picked up? Here's an excerpt:
"House Bill 3 has already passed the Ohio House of Representatives and is about to be approved by the Republican-dominated Senate, probably before the holiday recess. Republicans dominate the Ohio legislature thanks to a heavily gerrymandered crazy quilt of rigged districts, and to a moribund Ohio Democratic party. The GOP-drafted HB3 is designed to all but obliterate any possible future Democratic revival. Opposition from the Ohio Democratic Party, where it exists at all, is diffuse and ineffectual.
HB3's most publicized provision will require positive identification before casting a vote. But it also opens voter registration activists to partisan prosecution, exempts electronic voting machines from public scrutiny, quintuples the cost of citizen-requested statewide recounts and makes it illegal to challenge a presidential vote count or, indeed, any federal election result in Ohio. When added to the recently passed HB1, which allows campaign financing to be dominated by the wealthy and by corporations, and along with a Rovian wish list of GOP attacks on the ballot box, democracy in Ohio could be all but over."
Monday, December 05, 2005
"Computer Expert Testifies That Florida Elections Were Fixed"
Please click on the above title for video of Clint Curtis' testimony in a congressional judiciary committee
hearing IN Ohio.
COMPUTER EXPERT TESTIFIES THAT FLORIDA ELECTIONS WERE FIXED
12-01-05
Computer expert testifies elections in Florida were fixed. The programmer claims under oath that he designed and built a "vote rigging" software program at the behest of then Florida Congressman, now U.S. Congressman, Republican Tom Feeney of Florida's 24th Congressional District.
Clint Curtis, 46, claims that he built the software for Feeney in 2000 while working at a sofware design and engineering company in Oviedo, Florida (Feeney's home district).
Curtis, in his affidavit, says that as technical advisor and programmer at Yang Enterprises, Inc. (YEI) he was present at company meetings where Feeney was present "on at least a dozen occasions".
Feeney, who had run in 1994 as Jeb Bush's running-mate in his initial unsuccessful bid for Florida Governor, was serving as both corporate counsel and registered lobbyist for YEI during the period that Curtis worked at the company.
Feeney was also concurrently serving as a Florida state congressman while performing those services for YEI. Feeney would eventually become Speaker of the Florida House before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2002. He is now a member of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.
At an October 2000 meeting with Feeney, according to the affidavit and BRAD BLOG interviews with Curtis over the past three days, Feeney inquired whether the company could build a "vote fraud software prototype".
At least three YEI employees are said to have been present at that meeting; Curtis, company owner, Mrs. Li Woan Yang, and her executive secretary, Mike Cohen. Two other YEI employees may have come in and out at different points of the meeting according to Curtis.
Curtis says that Feeney "was very specific in the design and specifications required for this program."
"He detailed, in his own words, that; (a) the program needed to be touch-screen capable (b) the user should be able to trigger the program without any additional equipment (c) the programming to accomplish this needed to stay hidden even if the source code was inspected."
Though there was no problem with the first two requirements, Curtis explained to the Congressman that it would be "virtually impossible to hide such code written to change the voting results if anyone is able to review the uncompiled source code"
Nonetheless, he was asked at the meeting by Mrs. Yang to build the prototype anyway.
Curtis, "a life-long Republican" at the time, claims that it was his initial belief that Feeney's interest was in trying to stop Democrats from using "such a program to steal an election". Curtis had assumed that Feeney, "wanted to be able to detect and prevent that if it occurred."
Upon delivery of the software design and documentation on CD to Mrs. Yang, Curtis again explained to her that it would be impossible to hide routines created to manipulate the vote if anybody would be able to inspect the precompiled source code.
Mrs. Yang then told him, "You donÃt understand, in order to get the contract we have to hide the manipulation in the source code. This program is needed to control the vote in South Florida."
Mrs. Yang then took the CD containing the software from Curtis, reportedly for later delivery to Feeney.
In other meetings with Feeny prior to the 2000 elections, it became clear to Curtis that Feeney had plans to suppress the vote in strong Democratic precincts. In the affidavit, Curtis claims that in those meetings Feeney had "bragged that he had already implemented 'exclusion lists' to reduce the 'black vote'." Feeney also mentioned that "proper placement of police patrols could further reduce the black vote by as much as 25%."
Curtis says that he submitted his resignation to YEI effective December 2000, but stayed on until they had found someone to replace him in February of 2001. He eventually became employed by the Florida Dept. of Transportation (FDOT) after leaving YEI.
hearing IN Ohio.
COMPUTER EXPERT TESTIFIES THAT FLORIDA ELECTIONS WERE FIXED
12-01-05
Computer expert testifies elections in Florida were fixed. The programmer claims under oath that he designed and built a "vote rigging" software program at the behest of then Florida Congressman, now U.S. Congressman, Republican Tom Feeney of Florida's 24th Congressional District.
Clint Curtis, 46, claims that he built the software for Feeney in 2000 while working at a sofware design and engineering company in Oviedo, Florida (Feeney's home district).
Curtis, in his affidavit, says that as technical advisor and programmer at Yang Enterprises, Inc. (YEI) he was present at company meetings where Feeney was present "on at least a dozen occasions".
Feeney, who had run in 1994 as Jeb Bush's running-mate in his initial unsuccessful bid for Florida Governor, was serving as both corporate counsel and registered lobbyist for YEI during the period that Curtis worked at the company.
Feeney was also concurrently serving as a Florida state congressman while performing those services for YEI. Feeney would eventually become Speaker of the Florida House before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2002. He is now a member of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.
At an October 2000 meeting with Feeney, according to the affidavit and BRAD BLOG interviews with Curtis over the past three days, Feeney inquired whether the company could build a "vote fraud software prototype".
At least three YEI employees are said to have been present at that meeting; Curtis, company owner, Mrs. Li Woan Yang, and her executive secretary, Mike Cohen. Two other YEI employees may have come in and out at different points of the meeting according to Curtis.
Curtis says that Feeney "was very specific in the design and specifications required for this program."
"He detailed, in his own words, that; (a) the program needed to be touch-screen capable (b) the user should be able to trigger the program without any additional equipment (c) the programming to accomplish this needed to stay hidden even if the source code was inspected."
Though there was no problem with the first two requirements, Curtis explained to the Congressman that it would be "virtually impossible to hide such code written to change the voting results if anyone is able to review the uncompiled source code"
Nonetheless, he was asked at the meeting by Mrs. Yang to build the prototype anyway.
Curtis, "a life-long Republican" at the time, claims that it was his initial belief that Feeney's interest was in trying to stop Democrats from using "such a program to steal an election". Curtis had assumed that Feeney, "wanted to be able to detect and prevent that if it occurred."
Upon delivery of the software design and documentation on CD to Mrs. Yang, Curtis again explained to her that it would be impossible to hide routines created to manipulate the vote if anybody would be able to inspect the precompiled source code.
Mrs. Yang then told him, "You donÃt understand, in order to get the contract we have to hide the manipulation in the source code. This program is needed to control the vote in South Florida."
Mrs. Yang then took the CD containing the software from Curtis, reportedly for later delivery to Feeney.
In other meetings with Feeny prior to the 2000 elections, it became clear to Curtis that Feeney had plans to suppress the vote in strong Democratic precincts. In the affidavit, Curtis claims that in those meetings Feeney had "bragged that he had already implemented 'exclusion lists' to reduce the 'black vote'." Feeney also mentioned that "proper placement of police patrols could further reduce the black vote by as much as 25%."
Curtis says that he submitted his resignation to YEI effective December 2000, but stayed on until they had found someone to replace him in February of 2001. He eventually became employed by the Florida Dept. of Transportation (FDOT) after leaving YEI.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Did Bush Score One For The Republican Side?
Well, I haven't been reading the papers as much lately. Not sure why. But it has come to
my attention that Bush is supposed to have made some sort of hole-in-one using a motto
along these lines: "We'll bring the troops home when the military decides it's right and not when
some politicians say so." And apparently the democrats went "Oof!" or were supposed to.
By "politicians" Bush refers to Rep. Murtha, Kerry, Obama, Nancy Pelosi and the like. The problem is,
except for Barack Obama, who IS a truly great politician, Bush is much more of a politician
than any of these other democrats.
It is my claim(and some voting rights specialists') that Kerry won the election fairly and Bush stole it;
but no one thinks Kerry is a good politican. He is a sincere and good policy wonk, but few
can understand him well enough to judge his views in detail. Murtha came from the army.
And Nancy can be abrasive. Bush is totally where he is today because he's more of a pol,
and precisely in the cynical sense that he is trying to convey to the amercian people about
the democrats. [He can remember names like nobody's business!]
The democrats I mention above, with their various plans for getting us out of Iraq are politicians
but they're also serious about stopping the victimization of another culture, of our own troops and
of this country's position and good name in the world. W is much more a politician than they; and
that's ALL he is.
What the Army in Iraq really thinks is not clear to me. Murtha hears a lot of discontent; but David Brooks,
a conservative commentator on the Lehrer Report says 55% of them want to stay there. I'm just not
sure by whose poll. All facts are suspect these days. People like Paul Gigot and even Bob Woodward are
lying on TV. So check it out, first!
It's widely believed Murtha wanted to "cut and run"! What he wants to do is withdraw most of the troops
to the perimeter of the country to get them out of the bloodshed, and then send in smaller units to put out
fires within as they arise. Kerry wants to draw troops down slowly. Democrats' positions are routinely
distorted and vilified, for just the reasons Bush claims to be criticzing: politics.
It has also been brought to my atttention that the administration is feeling a bit more chipper now that democrats are
disagreeing with each other. They call it a "split". Well, I say to you(with Barack): Having different opinions is the good
thing about a democracy. Pressuring your whole party(the republicans) to stay "on message" by rote, and not allowing any dissenting voice at town meetings, is the beginnings of fascism and weakmindedness. Might as well be smug that your
enemy at school beat you on a standardized test, because you know the bullies will beat him up.
my attention that Bush is supposed to have made some sort of hole-in-one using a motto
along these lines: "We'll bring the troops home when the military decides it's right and not when
some politicians say so." And apparently the democrats went "Oof!" or were supposed to.
By "politicians" Bush refers to Rep. Murtha, Kerry, Obama, Nancy Pelosi and the like. The problem is,
except for Barack Obama, who IS a truly great politician, Bush is much more of a politician
than any of these other democrats.
It is my claim(and some voting rights specialists') that Kerry won the election fairly and Bush stole it;
but no one thinks Kerry is a good politican. He is a sincere and good policy wonk, but few
can understand him well enough to judge his views in detail. Murtha came from the army.
And Nancy can be abrasive. Bush is totally where he is today because he's more of a pol,
and precisely in the cynical sense that he is trying to convey to the amercian people about
the democrats. [He can remember names like nobody's business!]
The democrats I mention above, with their various plans for getting us out of Iraq are politicians
but they're also serious about stopping the victimization of another culture, of our own troops and
of this country's position and good name in the world. W is much more a politician than they; and
that's ALL he is.
What the Army in Iraq really thinks is not clear to me. Murtha hears a lot of discontent; but David Brooks,
a conservative commentator on the Lehrer Report says 55% of them want to stay there. I'm just not
sure by whose poll. All facts are suspect these days. People like Paul Gigot and even Bob Woodward are
lying on TV. So check it out, first!
It's widely believed Murtha wanted to "cut and run"! What he wants to do is withdraw most of the troops
to the perimeter of the country to get them out of the bloodshed, and then send in smaller units to put out
fires within as they arise. Kerry wants to draw troops down slowly. Democrats' positions are routinely
distorted and vilified, for just the reasons Bush claims to be criticzing: politics.
It has also been brought to my atttention that the administration is feeling a bit more chipper now that democrats are
disagreeing with each other. They call it a "split". Well, I say to you(with Barack): Having different opinions is the good
thing about a democracy. Pressuring your whole party(the republicans) to stay "on message" by rote, and not allowing any dissenting voice at town meetings, is the beginnings of fascism and weakmindedness. Might as well be smug that your
enemy at school beat you on a standardized test, because you know the bullies will beat him up.
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Barack Obama disagrees with Murtha AND Bush on Iraq
Please click on the above title for a well considered speech on the Iraq
War by this popular and respected young senator.
War by this popular and respected young senator.
Saturday, November 19, 2005
A Friend Writes on the Dalai Lama's Op-Ed
God bless the Dalai Lama (so to speak : ) This whole issue is deeper
than just whether Creationism is kept out of schools (or at least out of
Science class, which I would prefer); religion has no business trying
to explain natural phenomena but science has no business trying to talk
about god or moral values, which we sometimes do.
On my VertPaleo list serve, every time creationism comes up, certain
people take the opportunity to blast religion from a scientific point of
view. Science has to do with physical explanations of things in ways
that are testable. You can't test belief or moral values in the same
way that you can test the existence of dinosaurs. These are
transcendental values that perhaps should be tested but tested in ways
that are valid to us as individuals and not in the scientific sense.
I understand the wish of religious people to make the world better but
they are mistaken in their belief that science has made the world worse.
In the days of Galileo, when even scientists took for granted that the
world was created and there was a god and an afterlife and all the rest,
the world was still full of violence, greed and injustice. The common
belief did nothing to improve behavior.
than just whether Creationism is kept out of schools (or at least out of
Science class, which I would prefer); religion has no business trying
to explain natural phenomena but science has no business trying to talk
about god or moral values, which we sometimes do.
On my VertPaleo list serve, every time creationism comes up, certain
people take the opportunity to blast religion from a scientific point of
view. Science has to do with physical explanations of things in ways
that are testable. You can't test belief or moral values in the same
way that you can test the existence of dinosaurs. These are
transcendental values that perhaps should be tested but tested in ways
that are valid to us as individuals and not in the scientific sense.
I understand the wish of religious people to make the world better but
they are mistaken in their belief that science has made the world worse.
In the days of Galileo, when even scientists took for granted that the
world was created and there was a god and an afterlife and all the rest,
the world was still full of violence, greed and injustice. The common
belief did nothing to improve behavior.
Thursday, November 17, 2005
The Dalai Lama's Original Op-Ed from 11/12/05
Please click on the above title to see what the letters below are addressing. I guess
I missed it at the time!
I missed it at the time!
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Dalai Lama's Amazing Good Sense
Please click on the title of this post.
We feel these letters, which comment on the recent post 9-11 Declaration of Human Rights by the Dalai Lama, the
Bishop Desmond Tutu and other religious leaders, are very important.
We feel these letters, which comment on the recent post 9-11 Declaration of Human Rights by the Dalai Lama, the
Bishop Desmond Tutu and other religious leaders, are very important.
Monday, November 07, 2005
Finding Hope in the Rubble of Rage
FINDING HOPE IN THE RUBBLE OF OUTRAGE
Many residents of Damariscotta traveled to Bowdoin College November 1st
to attend a lecture by Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist
who has made four trips to Iraq. Accompanied by
an interpreter, he blended into their culture to record that war
torn country. His discussion was peppered with staggering
statistics and information. His photographs showed images of battle scarred
hospitals depleted of even the most basic supplies to care for the
ill and wounded overwhelming their services. Too many patients
were innocent civilians, particularly children. We learned
that white phosphorous, a form of napalm, has been used in
US airstrikes, that the cancer rate for children in Bagdad has
increased 26%, and that so much depleted uranium has been spread
throughout the country by American bombs that the radiation residue is
more than that left by both atomic bombs dropped on Japan. The
investigating U.S. official is himself dying of cancer from his exposure and
many returning veterans develop problems.
The audience was hushed to silence broken only by falling tears as we watched
"Caught in the Crossfire", the 18 minute film he showed of the American attack,
well named Phantom Fury, on Falluja. The outrage in the room was palpable, as the
knowledge of the violence unleashed on that city of 250,000 people in the
name of the American people became the truth and shame that all who
watched must now grapple with. 60% of their once beautiful city
was completely destroyed, most of their homes uninhabitable,
50,000 residents now living in tent cities in the desert outskirts.
What may have started with an insurgent stronghold has now
enraged the population. The problem has increased ten fold as civilians
have become furious freedom fighters, angered by the loss of their
city. American troops have attacked Falluja 6 times without
lasting success.
This weekend Operation Steel Curtain unleashed the awesome power of
American military force on Husayba, a town of 30,000 on the Syrian
border, another deadly assault that could do more to expand war in
the Middle East and alienate the people, than solve it. We know
little about what is really going on in Iraq because the media is
unable to go very far afield from the dubious safety of the well
protected Palestine Hotel in Bagdad, itself recently hit by devious
bombers clever enough to penetrate the perimeter of safety.
We all know the litany of distress we now struggle with, the outrage we all feel
no matter what our affiliations. This week's USA/CNN/GALLUP poll shows that
63% of Americans want the U.S. to get out of Iraq. There is momentum building for
change. Some cry that it's not enough or the right kind, but I search
for hope wherever I can find it....... so my TOP TEN list of hopeful signs this week:
1. Peace protests by hundreds of thousands of people all across America, increasingly
including high school and college students. Hundreds were held last Wednesday, and
sadly went unreported in the press.
2. The call this week by the United Methodist
Church, of which both
Bush and Cheney are members, for an end to the
Iraq War.
3. House Resolution #505, The Inquiry into the
White House Iraq
Group, proposed by Dennis Kucinich, demanding
congressional inquiry into the build-up to war.
In four days, support has grown from 9 to 63
co-sponsors, including our Representative Tom
Allen.
4. House Resolution #4232, The End the War in
Iraq Act of 2005, proposed Friday by Jim McGovern of
Massachusetts, a 27 year veteran of the CIA. It would allow
Defense Dept. funds to be used only for the safe and orderly
withdrawal of all troops, for consultations regarding
international forces, and for financial assistance and equipment
for either Iraqi or international security forces. It would not
prohibit or restrict funds for reconstruction.
5. The indictment of Scooter Libby, which although likely to drag
on over months and years, may yet expose the truth behind the lies.
6. The courage of "Give Em Hell" Harry Reid who, despite the
controversy over who slapped whom, at least drew attention to the
Republican stonewalling, resulting in the restart of the Phase II
investigation to begin next week.
7. USA Today/CNN/Gallup polls released this week show that 63% of
Americans want the U.S. out of Iraq. Bush's approval rating is a
record low 35%, Cheney's a dismal 19%.
8. The rising call for Impeachment. According to a Zogby
International poll taken this week, Americans favor Impeachment of
the President 53% to 42%.
9. The support for John McCain's anti-torture legislation. The
president says he will veto it, no matter what, that the CIA needs
to be able to use torture. Congress says they will override his veto.
10. A UK Parliamentary inquiry into Tony Blair's conduct in the
run-up to war, with special focus on the failure to plan for the
aftermath.
I don't take any pleasure from these sad signs of hope. I consider
myself a patriot, and except for those who violate our established
standards of conduct, I will always support those heroic troops who
do their duty to our country. My great, great grandfather won the
Congressional Medal of Honor. My father, uncle and grandfather all
went to West Point. My uncle was a 4 star general in the Vietnam
War, my grandfather wore 3 stars in WWII. I consider myself a
veteran of the Vietnam War, who as a young wife of a Navy jet pilot
was left behind with an infant to wait for the dreaded phone call
for two 8 month deployments and 200 combat missions. My family just
bade good-bye to a young husband and father who left his bride of a
West Point wedding the summer before last and 3 month old daughter
to go to Iraq for the third time. He'll be gone 14 months.
Dahr Jamail asked everyone in his audience to make a commitment to do
something to end the Iraq War. I rant. I hope my words inspire readers to
find their own commitment. It will take every single one of our voices, however
we choose to raise them, to soothe our outrage and find the peace we so desperately
crave. Barbara Carr New Harbor, Maine 677-2859
Many residents of Damariscotta traveled to Bowdoin College November 1st
to attend a lecture by Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist
who has made four trips to Iraq. Accompanied by
an interpreter, he blended into their culture to record that war
torn country. His discussion was peppered with staggering
statistics and information. His photographs showed images of battle scarred
hospitals depleted of even the most basic supplies to care for the
ill and wounded overwhelming their services. Too many patients
were innocent civilians, particularly children. We learned
that white phosphorous, a form of napalm, has been used in
US airstrikes, that the cancer rate for children in Bagdad has
increased 26%, and that so much depleted uranium has been spread
throughout the country by American bombs that the radiation residue is
more than that left by both atomic bombs dropped on Japan. The
investigating U.S. official is himself dying of cancer from his exposure and
many returning veterans develop problems.
The audience was hushed to silence broken only by falling tears as we watched
"Caught in the Crossfire", the 18 minute film he showed of the American attack,
well named Phantom Fury, on Falluja. The outrage in the room was palpable, as the
knowledge of the violence unleashed on that city of 250,000 people in the
name of the American people became the truth and shame that all who
watched must now grapple with. 60% of their once beautiful city
was completely destroyed, most of their homes uninhabitable,
50,000 residents now living in tent cities in the desert outskirts.
What may have started with an insurgent stronghold has now
enraged the population. The problem has increased ten fold as civilians
have become furious freedom fighters, angered by the loss of their
city. American troops have attacked Falluja 6 times without
lasting success.
This weekend Operation Steel Curtain unleashed the awesome power of
American military force on Husayba, a town of 30,000 on the Syrian
border, another deadly assault that could do more to expand war in
the Middle East and alienate the people, than solve it. We know
little about what is really going on in Iraq because the media is
unable to go very far afield from the dubious safety of the well
protected Palestine Hotel in Bagdad, itself recently hit by devious
bombers clever enough to penetrate the perimeter of safety.
We all know the litany of distress we now struggle with, the outrage we all feel
no matter what our affiliations. This week's USA/CNN/GALLUP poll shows that
63% of Americans want the U.S. to get out of Iraq. There is momentum building for
change. Some cry that it's not enough or the right kind, but I search
for hope wherever I can find it....... so my TOP TEN list of hopeful signs this week:
1. Peace protests by hundreds of thousands of people all across America, increasingly
including high school and college students. Hundreds were held last Wednesday, and
sadly went unreported in the press.
2. The call this week by the United Methodist
Church, of which both
Bush and Cheney are members, for an end to the
Iraq War.
3. House Resolution #505, The Inquiry into the
White House Iraq
Group, proposed by Dennis Kucinich, demanding
congressional inquiry into the build-up to war.
In four days, support has grown from 9 to 63
co-sponsors, including our Representative Tom
Allen.
4. House Resolution #4232, The End the War in
Iraq Act of 2005, proposed Friday by Jim McGovern of
Massachusetts, a 27 year veteran of the CIA. It would allow
Defense Dept. funds to be used only for the safe and orderly
withdrawal of all troops, for consultations regarding
international forces, and for financial assistance and equipment
for either Iraqi or international security forces. It would not
prohibit or restrict funds for reconstruction.
5. The indictment of Scooter Libby, which although likely to drag
on over months and years, may yet expose the truth behind the lies.
6. The courage of "Give Em Hell" Harry Reid who, despite the
controversy over who slapped whom, at least drew attention to the
Republican stonewalling, resulting in the restart of the Phase II
investigation to begin next week.
7. USA Today/CNN/Gallup polls released this week show that 63% of
Americans want the U.S. out of Iraq. Bush's approval rating is a
record low 35%, Cheney's a dismal 19%.
8. The rising call for Impeachment. According to a Zogby
International poll taken this week, Americans favor Impeachment of
the President 53% to 42%.
9. The support for John McCain's anti-torture legislation. The
president says he will veto it, no matter what, that the CIA needs
to be able to use torture. Congress says they will override his veto.
10. A UK Parliamentary inquiry into Tony Blair's conduct in the
run-up to war, with special focus on the failure to plan for the
aftermath.
I don't take any pleasure from these sad signs of hope. I consider
myself a patriot, and except for those who violate our established
standards of conduct, I will always support those heroic troops who
do their duty to our country. My great, great grandfather won the
Congressional Medal of Honor. My father, uncle and grandfather all
went to West Point. My uncle was a 4 star general in the Vietnam
War, my grandfather wore 3 stars in WWII. I consider myself a
veteran of the Vietnam War, who as a young wife of a Navy jet pilot
was left behind with an infant to wait for the dreaded phone call
for two 8 month deployments and 200 combat missions. My family just
bade good-bye to a young husband and father who left his bride of a
West Point wedding the summer before last and 3 month old daughter
to go to Iraq for the third time. He'll be gone 14 months.
Dahr Jamail asked everyone in his audience to make a commitment to do
something to end the Iraq War. I rant. I hope my words inspire readers to
find their own commitment. It will take every single one of our voices, however
we choose to raise them, to soothe our outrage and find the peace we so desperately
crave. Barbara Carr New Harbor, Maine 677-2859
Friday, October 28, 2005
GAO report on vote fraud, not just Ohio
This is big, guys!
Check out this excerpt form the article:
"Powerful Government Accounting Office report confirms key 2004 stolen election findings":
by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
October 26, 2005
"# The exit polls showed Kerry winning in Ohio, until an
unexplained last minute shift gave the election to Bush
Similar definitive shifts also occurred in Iowa, Nevada and
New Mexico, a virtual statistical impossibility."
Click on the title of this post for the whole story!
Check out this excerpt form the article:
"Powerful Government Accounting Office report confirms key 2004 stolen election findings":
by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
October 26, 2005
"# The exit polls showed Kerry winning in Ohio, until an
unexplained last minute shift gave the election to Bush
Similar definitive shifts also occurred in Iowa, Nevada and
New Mexico, a virtual statistical impossibility."
Click on the title of this post for the whole story!
Monday, October 24, 2005
On Stolen Election, called "The Most Important Thing I Ever Sent You"
Please click the above title for a very concrete telling of the rigging of the 2004 election in Ohio and a bit
on why simply employing "I Hate Bush" rhetoric doesn't do the trick.
on why simply employing "I Hate Bush" rhetoric doesn't do the trick.
Let's Get Out of Here: The View from Maine
Let's get out of here......
Well, the US is poised for two new hurricanes. No..... not Wilma and Alpha. The potentially far more potent "Fitzgerald" is predicted to come ashore in Washington, D.C. as early as this Wednesday. Expected landfall is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the White House. All the talk about Plame, Wilson, Novak, and Miller suddenly switched this past week to Libby, Rove, Cheney, and even Bush.
While the speculation has swirled about who would be indicted for what, the War in Iraq is the eal story here. The larger question is how did the lies concocted among all these players find their way into the fraud that became the case Bush made
for the war. It's serious, maybe even treasonous. Whether indictments or convictions are brought or succeed is really immaterial. The American public is now discussing the War in Iraq as not only a blundering disaster leaving thousands of lives, Iraqi and American alike, in its wake.......but also as a travesty, indeed a crime.
The second hurricane is barreling it's way into America's "heart" land. That is 2000, not a named storm (although
it will have a name), but a number marking another milestone in the Iraq War, the death of the 2000th soldier. As the millenium held us in its thrall of anticipation of a new beginning, this 2000 holds us in dread of another bitter ending.
With an average of two lives lost forever each day, and the toll standing as I write on Sunday at 1996, that terrible goal
will be reality by the time readers see this ink.
Cindy Sheehan's plans to go to see George again at the People's House will have made news, and peace vigils planned in
cities around the nation will have left candle light's waxy residue on cement, along with tears, broken hearts, and frustration. The internet video, "What does 2000 look like", shows a blink by blink look at what 2000 faces of lost soldiers look like, moving through your sight so fast that they become a blur, and ending long minutes later with the statement "you've just seen 500. In order to understand 2000, you would have to watch this video three more times". Everyone should see it. George Bush should see it.
Many families have created websites in memorial to their fallen loved ones lost in Iraq, including the family of Lt. Ken Ballard. The photos of Ken as a child and then as a soldier make you wish you could know him. He was a hero. He is dead. The website invites comments from people who have visited it. 11,000 people have written their heart-felt thanks
and sympathy.
When George Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" on May 1, 2003, the death toll stood at 139. Obviously the war has
escalated since then. The death throes of the insurgency have become another Cheney lie, and a nightmare of reality. Cold statistics show that of those lost in Iraq, 49% are Army soldiers, 25% Marines, and 15% Army National Guard. Over 1/2 are from only10 states:California, Texas, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Florida, Illinois,Georgia, Michigan, and Virginia. 80% were Staff Sargents or below. 28% were killed by Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's), including 40 in August, a record, and 35 so far in October.
Despite Bus and Blair declaring success after success in the face of failure after failure, the UK Ministry of Defense commissioned a poll, reported in this Sunday Telegraph, which lays bare the collapse of the "hearts and minds" policy they said was essential for victory. 45% of Iraqis support attacks against coalition troops, 65% in the British occupied sectors. Less than 1% think that US/UK military involvement is helping improve security in their country. 82% are strongly opposed to the presence of coalition troops, and 67% feel less secure because of the occupation. Their personal lives don't get favorable marks either. 71% rarely get safe drinking water. 47% never have enough electricity. 70% say their sewage system rarely works. Iraqis have waited day after day, already over a week, to finally learn their election results. So far, fraud has been ruled but...... one can't help but wonder if by the same methods used in Ohio in 2004.
Distraction and diversion seem to be favorite tactics of the Bush administration. In late December Gary Berntsen,
the CIA field commander at Tora Bora, will say in his book, which the CIA has tried to keep from publication for over two years, that he and other U.S. commanders had definitive intelligence that Osama bin Laden was there. He had been tracked, and could have bee caught. It would appear that bin Laden wasn't the goal, that Saddam was. The war shifted to Iraq, the original plan anyway, and bin Laden slipped out of grasp. Bush didn't finish one war before he began another. Now,
we have a $25,000,000 bounty on al-Zakari, who started as a local terrorist based in Jordan, fomenting insurgency
in Iraq.
Since we launched these twin wars against terrorism, Al Queda has spread to 40 countries, with Iraq now its epicenter. These two murderous thugs must be smiling at their success at our expense. It seems now that Syria may become our next household name. Bush and Blair are pushing a UN investigation into the killing of Lebanese leader, Hariri, and coalition troops are plying and penetrating the Syria/Iraq border searching for insurgents, all reminiscent of the run-up to the Iraq war. Sec. of State Rice has launched unspecific but aggressive threats against Syria, while British Foreign Secretary Straw has pointed out "false testimony being given by senior people" in Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's regime.
Hmmmmmm.......................
While America squares off this week with these two hurricanes, one carrying winds of truth, the other of death, the
war machine drones on and on, 2000 and counting. While death and failure are tolled in numbers, so is the hope and demand for peace as it spreads across America. We must bring stronger, louder voices forward to demand both
truth and peace. While we are so often distracted by one scandal or another or incompetence we can't ignore, we must
keep focused. We either get the leadership we insist on.......or deserve. If we don't demand peace, we're sure to get war and more war. Barbara Carr New Harbor, Maine
Well, the US is poised for two new hurricanes. No..... not Wilma and Alpha. The potentially far more potent "Fitzgerald" is predicted to come ashore in Washington, D.C. as early as this Wednesday. Expected landfall is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the White House. All the talk about Plame, Wilson, Novak, and Miller suddenly switched this past week to Libby, Rove, Cheney, and even Bush.
While the speculation has swirled about who would be indicted for what, the War in Iraq is the eal story here. The larger question is how did the lies concocted among all these players find their way into the fraud that became the case Bush made
for the war. It's serious, maybe even treasonous. Whether indictments or convictions are brought or succeed is really immaterial. The American public is now discussing the War in Iraq as not only a blundering disaster leaving thousands of lives, Iraqi and American alike, in its wake.......but also as a travesty, indeed a crime.
The second hurricane is barreling it's way into America's "heart" land. That is 2000, not a named storm (although
it will have a name), but a number marking another milestone in the Iraq War, the death of the 2000th soldier. As the millenium held us in its thrall of anticipation of a new beginning, this 2000 holds us in dread of another bitter ending.
With an average of two lives lost forever each day, and the toll standing as I write on Sunday at 1996, that terrible goal
will be reality by the time readers see this ink.
Cindy Sheehan's plans to go to see George again at the People's House will have made news, and peace vigils planned in
cities around the nation will have left candle light's waxy residue on cement, along with tears, broken hearts, and frustration. The internet video, "What does 2000 look like", shows a blink by blink look at what 2000 faces of lost soldiers look like, moving through your sight so fast that they become a blur, and ending long minutes later with the statement "you've just seen 500. In order to understand 2000, you would have to watch this video three more times". Everyone should see it. George Bush should see it.
Many families have created websites in memorial to their fallen loved ones lost in Iraq, including the family of Lt. Ken Ballard. The photos of Ken as a child and then as a soldier make you wish you could know him. He was a hero. He is dead. The website invites comments from people who have visited it. 11,000 people have written their heart-felt thanks
and sympathy.
When George Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" on May 1, 2003, the death toll stood at 139. Obviously the war has
escalated since then. The death throes of the insurgency have become another Cheney lie, and a nightmare of reality. Cold statistics show that of those lost in Iraq, 49% are Army soldiers, 25% Marines, and 15% Army National Guard. Over 1/2 are from only10 states:California, Texas, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Florida, Illinois,Georgia, Michigan, and Virginia. 80% were Staff Sargents or below. 28% were killed by Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's), including 40 in August, a record, and 35 so far in October.
Despite Bus and Blair declaring success after success in the face of failure after failure, the UK Ministry of Defense commissioned a poll, reported in this Sunday Telegraph, which lays bare the collapse of the "hearts and minds" policy they said was essential for victory. 45% of Iraqis support attacks against coalition troops, 65% in the British occupied sectors. Less than 1% think that US/UK military involvement is helping improve security in their country. 82% are strongly opposed to the presence of coalition troops, and 67% feel less secure because of the occupation. Their personal lives don't get favorable marks either. 71% rarely get safe drinking water. 47% never have enough electricity. 70% say their sewage system rarely works. Iraqis have waited day after day, already over a week, to finally learn their election results. So far, fraud has been ruled but...... one can't help but wonder if by the same methods used in Ohio in 2004.
Distraction and diversion seem to be favorite tactics of the Bush administration. In late December Gary Berntsen,
the CIA field commander at Tora Bora, will say in his book, which the CIA has tried to keep from publication for over two years, that he and other U.S. commanders had definitive intelligence that Osama bin Laden was there. He had been tracked, and could have bee caught. It would appear that bin Laden wasn't the goal, that Saddam was. The war shifted to Iraq, the original plan anyway, and bin Laden slipped out of grasp. Bush didn't finish one war before he began another. Now,
we have a $25,000,000 bounty on al-Zakari, who started as a local terrorist based in Jordan, fomenting insurgency
in Iraq.
Since we launched these twin wars against terrorism, Al Queda has spread to 40 countries, with Iraq now its epicenter. These two murderous thugs must be smiling at their success at our expense. It seems now that Syria may become our next household name. Bush and Blair are pushing a UN investigation into the killing of Lebanese leader, Hariri, and coalition troops are plying and penetrating the Syria/Iraq border searching for insurgents, all reminiscent of the run-up to the Iraq war. Sec. of State Rice has launched unspecific but aggressive threats against Syria, while British Foreign Secretary Straw has pointed out "false testimony being given by senior people" in Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's regime.
Hmmmmmm.......................
While America squares off this week with these two hurricanes, one carrying winds of truth, the other of death, the
war machine drones on and on, 2000 and counting. While death and failure are tolled in numbers, so is the hope and demand for peace as it spreads across America. We must bring stronger, louder voices forward to demand both
truth and peace. While we are so often distracted by one scandal or another or incompetence we can't ignore, we must
keep focused. We either get the leadership we insist on.......or deserve. If we don't demand peace, we're sure to get war and more war. Barbara Carr New Harbor, Maine
Sunday, October 23, 2005
"Three Men and a Party"--excerpt from Slate Magazine
We always hear the dems have no ideas. I'm sick of it! Have you ever looked at the daily congressional record?
Most of the democratic ideas die in the republican Congress. Anyway, read on!
"On Sunday, Tim Russert was gobsmacked to discover that when he asked his usual showstopper, "But what are the Democratic ideas?", Illinois congressman and ex-has-been Rahm Emanuel actually had an answer.
Rahm could have said, "Three things: Convict DeLay. Filibuster Miers. Stick pins in our voodoo dolls of George Bush and Karl Rove." Instead, he spelled out five real ideas: making college universal, demanding a budget summit, cutting energy dependence in half with a hybrid economy, creating a science and technology institute to rival NIH, and making health care universal over the next 10 years.
You might have your own ideas, but that's the point—when you listen to a Democrat with ideas, you don't fall into a deep funk or get hungry again half an hour later. (Full disclosure: Rahm Emanuel is my best friend in Congress, and next to him, I am his biggest promoter.)
You're Hired: If you do have a new idea, Andy Stern and the Service Employees International Union just created a platform for it. This week, Stern launched a Web site called www.sinceslicedbread.com, which will host a nationwide competition over the next two months to find the best new idea to promote economic opportunity for ordinary people.
The winner will receive a prize of $100,000; two runners-up will win $50,000. In the past, Democrats only gave that kind of money to consultants who had no ideas. Now everybody has an incentive to solve the country's problems.
Wherever it leads, the competition itself is such a great idea that Fox and the other networks must be kicking themselves for not coming up with it. Real people going head to head in a cross between the Nobel Prize and American Idol. It's just what Democrats need: reality thinking.
As if a nationwide search for ideas weren't encouraging enough, it's especially intriguing that Stern and his union are behind it. When Gary Hart first whetted Democrats' appetite for new ideas 20 years ago, his argument was that traditional Democratic interests were the ones standing in the way.
One key to Clinton's success in 1992 was persuading Democrats across the spectrum to be the party of change, not the status quo. Democrats can only win back a majority if they learn that lesson again, and Stern understands it better than anybody.
Truth Teller: Last Friday, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., posted a brilliant essay on Daily Kos called "Tone, Truth, and the Democratic Party." Obama used the split over John Roberts, whom he opposed, as an occasion to warn activists that hostility toward Democrats who don't always share their views is actually an impediment to a progressive majority.
Obama explains that "the storyline that drives many advocacy groups and Democratic activists"—that Democrats must grow a backbone, enforce Rove-like ideological purity, and polarize the electorate along our terms—plays right into Republicans' hands:
"Whenever we exaggerate or demonize, or oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. A polarized electorate that is turned off of politics, and easily dismisses both parties because of the nasty, dishonest tone of the debate, works perfectly well for those who seek to chip away at the very idea of government."
Obama points out that like litmus tests, arguments over "framing" and labels are beside the point. Instead of striving to be pure or predictable, Democrats need to be bold and unorthodox. That means being willing to "innovate and experiment with whatever ideas hold promise," and giving voters the benefit of "a real and authentic debate about the issues that matter."
Ironically, the desire to be bold and unorthodox may once again be the best bond to unite the Democratic Party. Like most Americans, most Democrats are profoundly disappointed by the performance of both parties in Washington. Whatever differences we might have over tactics, young guns like Kos and Has-Been reformers like me share an abiding contempt for the status quo, and want Democrats to state boldly and clearly what we stand for and what we'll do for the country.
The Obama essay may be the most intelligent advice Democrats have been given in the Bush era. There's nothing wrong with the Democratic Party or the country that can't be turned around by an honest debate, a civil tone, and above all, a bold, unorthodox agenda.
Iconoclasts like Andy Stern, Rahm Emanuel, and Barack Obama are the future of the Democratic Party. If the party listens to them, Democrats will prosper even if none of our favorite Republican bogeymen ends up rotting in jail. ... 8:43 A.M. "
Most of the democratic ideas die in the republican Congress. Anyway, read on!
"On Sunday, Tim Russert was gobsmacked to discover that when he asked his usual showstopper, "But what are the Democratic ideas?", Illinois congressman and ex-has-been Rahm Emanuel actually had an answer.
Rahm could have said, "Three things: Convict DeLay. Filibuster Miers. Stick pins in our voodoo dolls of George Bush and Karl Rove." Instead, he spelled out five real ideas: making college universal, demanding a budget summit, cutting energy dependence in half with a hybrid economy, creating a science and technology institute to rival NIH, and making health care universal over the next 10 years.
You might have your own ideas, but that's the point—when you listen to a Democrat with ideas, you don't fall into a deep funk or get hungry again half an hour later. (Full disclosure: Rahm Emanuel is my best friend in Congress, and next to him, I am his biggest promoter.)
You're Hired: If you do have a new idea, Andy Stern and the Service Employees International Union just created a platform for it. This week, Stern launched a Web site called www.sinceslicedbread.com, which will host a nationwide competition over the next two months to find the best new idea to promote economic opportunity for ordinary people.
The winner will receive a prize of $100,000; two runners-up will win $50,000. In the past, Democrats only gave that kind of money to consultants who had no ideas. Now everybody has an incentive to solve the country's problems.
Wherever it leads, the competition itself is such a great idea that Fox and the other networks must be kicking themselves for not coming up with it. Real people going head to head in a cross between the Nobel Prize and American Idol. It's just what Democrats need: reality thinking.
As if a nationwide search for ideas weren't encouraging enough, it's especially intriguing that Stern and his union are behind it. When Gary Hart first whetted Democrats' appetite for new ideas 20 years ago, his argument was that traditional Democratic interests were the ones standing in the way.
One key to Clinton's success in 1992 was persuading Democrats across the spectrum to be the party of change, not the status quo. Democrats can only win back a majority if they learn that lesson again, and Stern understands it better than anybody.
Truth Teller: Last Friday, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., posted a brilliant essay on Daily Kos called "Tone, Truth, and the Democratic Party." Obama used the split over John Roberts, whom he opposed, as an occasion to warn activists that hostility toward Democrats who don't always share their views is actually an impediment to a progressive majority.
Obama explains that "the storyline that drives many advocacy groups and Democratic activists"—that Democrats must grow a backbone, enforce Rove-like ideological purity, and polarize the electorate along our terms—plays right into Republicans' hands:
"Whenever we exaggerate or demonize, or oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. A polarized electorate that is turned off of politics, and easily dismisses both parties because of the nasty, dishonest tone of the debate, works perfectly well for those who seek to chip away at the very idea of government."
Obama points out that like litmus tests, arguments over "framing" and labels are beside the point. Instead of striving to be pure or predictable, Democrats need to be bold and unorthodox. That means being willing to "innovate and experiment with whatever ideas hold promise," and giving voters the benefit of "a real and authentic debate about the issues that matter."
Ironically, the desire to be bold and unorthodox may once again be the best bond to unite the Democratic Party. Like most Americans, most Democrats are profoundly disappointed by the performance of both parties in Washington. Whatever differences we might have over tactics, young guns like Kos and Has-Been reformers like me share an abiding contempt for the status quo, and want Democrats to state boldly and clearly what we stand for and what we'll do for the country.
The Obama essay may be the most intelligent advice Democrats have been given in the Bush era. There's nothing wrong with the Democratic Party or the country that can't be turned around by an honest debate, a civil tone, and above all, a bold, unorthodox agenda.
Iconoclasts like Andy Stern, Rahm Emanuel, and Barack Obama are the future of the Democratic Party. If the party listens to them, Democrats will prosper even if none of our favorite Republican bogeymen ends up rotting in jail. ... 8:43 A.M. "
Three Men and a Party
We keep hearing the dems have no ideas. Really they have so many. Click the above title and read on!
Saturday, October 15, 2005
RE: "Harriet Miers" flap: Whaddya expect from the GOP?
Sven says there is no point in asking even the rhetorical question in the post below, since republican
politics have been full of hypocrisy since Nixon. He adds, "And it's not just the republican
elite who made Bush 43 president. It was half the country which voted for him twice. Don't
you think I want to shake each and every one of them and ask them, "What were you thinking?!"
politics have been full of hypocrisy since Nixon. He adds, "And it's not just the republican
elite who made Bush 43 president. It was half the country which voted for him twice. Don't
you think I want to shake each and every one of them and ask them, "What were you thinking?!"
Saturday, October 08, 2005
Harriet Miers
Any schadenfreude for the GOP aside, my husband and I are watching the news this week
like the moon is in the seventh house!
Harriet Miers not qualified?
I'd like to know something:
Where were these same people who say this now-- when Karl Rove first said, "I can make this guy president"?
like the moon is in the seventh house!
Harriet Miers not qualified?
I'd like to know something:
Where were these same people who say this now-- when Karl Rove first said, "I can make this guy president"?
Re: "Kerry Won": A Reader Responded:
Common Cause is biased. Let's assume Kerry won.
His Supreme Court picks would have been more to our
liking. But I doubt he would have been a distinguished
president re Iraq, nuclear disarmament, global
warming, universal health care, race, poverty and any
other big ones. FDR was described as having a
second-class mind but a first-class personality. He
surrounded himself with eggheads, listened to their
competing ideas, and chose what he liked and thought
he could sell to the country, e.g. social security.
Kerry is 180-FDR: fine mind, terrible personality. I
doubt he could have sold even Paradise to his
advisors, to Congress and most important, to the
American people. I hope the Dems can come up with a
candidate better than either Kerry or Gore for 2006.
Too bad Obama's so young and green.
I answered:
Well, you know, I want to take some time and
consider what you're saying. Jimmy Carter also had trouble selling
some of his prescient ideas. You're basically saying Kerry wasn't
politcal enough, that he's not a people person. And it definitely matters.
But in my blog I'm talking about something more
basic, like the issue of whether the election was stolen.
I think Gore had the environmental background to
move us to de-couple from the huge degree that we depend
on oil and therefore the mid-east. And I'm not
entirely sure Gore is really so apolitcal as he came off in the
public media of the time. I don't buy it[Wouldn't
any intelligent person sigh talking to Bush 43?]
But I agree these things matter.
On the other hand, Bush 43 packing the Supreme Court
is a huge, huge issue. The presidential election is not a test, as
the WSJ has told us, and we lost(or did we win?) it.
The reader replied:
When a reporter asked George Meany his opinion of
President Nixon, labor's big jefe replied: "Please,
dere's ladies present."
His Supreme Court picks would have been more to our
liking. But I doubt he would have been a distinguished
president re Iraq, nuclear disarmament, global
warming, universal health care, race, poverty and any
other big ones. FDR was described as having a
second-class mind but a first-class personality. He
surrounded himself with eggheads, listened to their
competing ideas, and chose what he liked and thought
he could sell to the country, e.g. social security.
Kerry is 180-FDR: fine mind, terrible personality. I
doubt he could have sold even Paradise to his
advisors, to Congress and most important, to the
American people. I hope the Dems can come up with a
candidate better than either Kerry or Gore for 2006.
Too bad Obama's so young and green.
I answered:
Well, you know, I want to take some time and
consider what you're saying. Jimmy Carter also had trouble selling
some of his prescient ideas. You're basically saying Kerry wasn't
politcal enough, that he's not a people person. And it definitely matters.
But in my blog I'm talking about something more
basic, like the issue of whether the election was stolen.
I think Gore had the environmental background to
move us to de-couple from the huge degree that we depend
on oil and therefore the mid-east. And I'm not
entirely sure Gore is really so apolitcal as he came off in the
public media of the time. I don't buy it[Wouldn't
any intelligent person sigh talking to Bush 43?]
But I agree these things matter.
On the other hand, Bush 43 packing the Supreme Court
is a huge, huge issue. The presidential election is not a test, as
the WSJ has told us, and we lost(or did we win?) it.
The reader replied:
When a reporter asked George Meany his opinion of
President Nixon, labor's big jefe replied: "Please,
dere's ladies present."
Take Back Jesus
"Oct. 7, 2005 | Harriet Miers, should she be confirmed to the Supreme Court, will be the resident evangelical Christian. She shares her religious background with George W. Bush, whose claim to have chosen her based on "knowing her heart" has as much to do with the born-again faith he shares with her as with her long service in his inner circle. This choice might have left secular conservatives perplexed or downright dissatisfied, but is an obvious crowd-pleaser with the Christian right. Above all, it reflects the importance of Christianity for Bush, widely described as the most devout president in history.
But as we brace for more battles over abortion rights, gay marriage, stem cell research and so forth, it's time for ask just how Christian the supposedly pious Bush administration really is. Because what happened in New Orleans, and what has been happening in Iraq, raises serious questions about whether Bush & Co. deserve to be called Christian at all."
This excerpt is from an Article by Alessandro Camon on http://www.salon.com
I have been thinking this myself for a couple of years at least, but worried tht such an argument made in the public eye
might backfire against liberals. Howard Dean has not been afraid to say this.
But as we brace for more battles over abortion rights, gay marriage, stem cell research and so forth, it's time for ask just how Christian the supposedly pious Bush administration really is. Because what happened in New Orleans, and what has been happening in Iraq, raises serious questions about whether Bush & Co. deserve to be called Christian at all."
This excerpt is from an Article by Alessandro Camon on http://www.salon.com
I have been thinking this myself for a couple of years at least, but worried tht such an argument made in the public eye
might backfire against liberals. Howard Dean has not been afraid to say this.
(Not Only Gore but also) Kerry Won
Please click on the above post title for the stud by a team of academics.
If you agree with the idea of verifiable voting, encourage your representatives in the house to pass
H.R. 550, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2005, which insures individual
permanent records(paper ballots) before votes are cast.
Sven heard somehwere tht there may be a movement to re-draft Gore for 2008. If so, let's all be ready
with responses to the superficial and stupid argument that is no argument: "Gore's so wooden."
If you agree with the idea of verifiable voting, encourage your representatives in the house to pass
H.R. 550, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2005, which insures individual
permanent records(paper ballots) before votes are cast.
Sven heard somehwere tht there may be a movement to re-draft Gore for 2008. If so, let's all be ready
with responses to the superficial and stupid argument that is no argument: "Gore's so wooden."
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Global Warming? You Better Believe It
Global warming? You Better Believe It
Boston Globe
By Derrick Z. Jackson | September 24, 2005
AS THE MEDIA screams about the one-two punch of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the question becomes how many more times does America need to be knocked to the canvas before we answer the bell on global warming.
The only talk from our leaders is about rebuilding. In his address to the nation from a ghostly New Orleans, President Bush said, ''When one resident of this city who lost his home was asked by a reporter if he would relocate, he said, 'Naw, I will rebuild but I'll build higher.' That is our vision of the future, in this city and beyond. We will not just rebuild, we will build higher and better."
It figures that Bush would talk about building higher in the lowest city in the United States, in a presidency where he has ignored the rising waters of the planet. He said, ''Americans have never left our destiny to the whims of nature and we will not start now."
Actually, there is no better time to start understanding that nature is at the mercy of our whimsy. Our destiny depends on it.
In this tragic season of hurricanes, research continues to increasingly tie global warming to an increase in the intensity of tropical storms.
One was published last month in the journal Nature by Kerry Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Another was published last week in the journal Science by atmospheric researchers at Georgia Tech and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
While there has been no increase in the actual number of storms worldwide, the Georgia Tech/NCAR study found the number of hurricanes that reached categories 4 and 5, with winds of at least 131 miles per hour, have gone from comprising 20 percent of hurricanes in the 1970s to 35 percent today. This is with only a half-degree centigrade rise in tropical surface water temperatures.
The percentage of big storms in the North Atlantic has increased from 20 percent to 25 percent. The rise is much worse in the rest of the world, where millions of less fortunate people cannot flee the coast in SUVs on interstate roads.
In the 1970s, no ocean basin saw more than 25 percent of hurricanes become a 4 or 5. Today, that percentage is 34, 35, and 41 percent, respectively, in the South Indian, East Pacific, and West Pacific oceans. The biggest jump was in the Southwestern Pacific, from 8 percent to 25 percent.
Emanuel, who formerly doubted that hurricane intensity was tied to global warming, said that he was stunned when his research showed that just that half-degree rise in tropical ocean temperatures has also seen a 50 percent rise in average storm peak winds in the North Atlantic and East and West Pacific in the last half century.
The accumulated annual duration of storms in the North Atlantic and the western North Pacific has shot up by 60 percent.
''I wasn't looking for global warming," Emanuel said by cell phone in Spain where he is conducting research on Mediterranean storms. ''But it stuck out like a sore thumb."
Emanuel originally thought that a half-degree rise in ocean temperatures should have resulted in wind speeds much lower than that. Emanuel said he hoped the more recent findings would be taken as a signal for action. The average hurricane, he said, releases the equivalent of worldwide electrical capacity. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita are 10 times stronger.
Not surprisingly, these new findings have drawn skepticism from scientists who cling to past climate models and flat denials from a Bush administration that has all but censored serious talk about global warming.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's website says, ''The strongest hurricanes in the present climate may be upstaged by even more intense hurricanes over the next century as the earth's climate is warmed by increasing levels of greenhouse gases,"
But Max Mayfield, director of NOAA's National Hurricane Center, testified this week before a Senate committee that increased hurricane activity ''is due to natural fluctuations" and is ''not enhanced substantially by global warming."
The one-two punch of Katrina and Rita does not yet have us reaching for the smelling salts. We are still waiting for global warming to hit us below the belt.
Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com.
© Copyright 2005 Globe Newspaper Company.
© 20 The New York Times Company
Boston Globe
By Derrick Z. Jackson | September 24, 2005
AS THE MEDIA screams about the one-two punch of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the question becomes how many more times does America need to be knocked to the canvas before we answer the bell on global warming.
The only talk from our leaders is about rebuilding. In his address to the nation from a ghostly New Orleans, President Bush said, ''When one resident of this city who lost his home was asked by a reporter if he would relocate, he said, 'Naw, I will rebuild but I'll build higher.' That is our vision of the future, in this city and beyond. We will not just rebuild, we will build higher and better."
It figures that Bush would talk about building higher in the lowest city in the United States, in a presidency where he has ignored the rising waters of the planet. He said, ''Americans have never left our destiny to the whims of nature and we will not start now."
Actually, there is no better time to start understanding that nature is at the mercy of our whimsy. Our destiny depends on it.
In this tragic season of hurricanes, research continues to increasingly tie global warming to an increase in the intensity of tropical storms.
One was published last month in the journal Nature by Kerry Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Another was published last week in the journal Science by atmospheric researchers at Georgia Tech and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
While there has been no increase in the actual number of storms worldwide, the Georgia Tech/NCAR study found the number of hurricanes that reached categories 4 and 5, with winds of at least 131 miles per hour, have gone from comprising 20 percent of hurricanes in the 1970s to 35 percent today. This is with only a half-degree centigrade rise in tropical surface water temperatures.
The percentage of big storms in the North Atlantic has increased from 20 percent to 25 percent. The rise is much worse in the rest of the world, where millions of less fortunate people cannot flee the coast in SUVs on interstate roads.
In the 1970s, no ocean basin saw more than 25 percent of hurricanes become a 4 or 5. Today, that percentage is 34, 35, and 41 percent, respectively, in the South Indian, East Pacific, and West Pacific oceans. The biggest jump was in the Southwestern Pacific, from 8 percent to 25 percent.
Emanuel, who formerly doubted that hurricane intensity was tied to global warming, said that he was stunned when his research showed that just that half-degree rise in tropical ocean temperatures has also seen a 50 percent rise in average storm peak winds in the North Atlantic and East and West Pacific in the last half century.
The accumulated annual duration of storms in the North Atlantic and the western North Pacific has shot up by 60 percent.
''I wasn't looking for global warming," Emanuel said by cell phone in Spain where he is conducting research on Mediterranean storms. ''But it stuck out like a sore thumb."
Emanuel originally thought that a half-degree rise in ocean temperatures should have resulted in wind speeds much lower than that. Emanuel said he hoped the more recent findings would be taken as a signal for action. The average hurricane, he said, releases the equivalent of worldwide electrical capacity. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita are 10 times stronger.
Not surprisingly, these new findings have drawn skepticism from scientists who cling to past climate models and flat denials from a Bush administration that has all but censored serious talk about global warming.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's website says, ''The strongest hurricanes in the present climate may be upstaged by even more intense hurricanes over the next century as the earth's climate is warmed by increasing levels of greenhouse gases,"
But Max Mayfield, director of NOAA's National Hurricane Center, testified this week before a Senate committee that increased hurricane activity ''is due to natural fluctuations" and is ''not enhanced substantially by global warming."
The one-two punch of Katrina and Rita does not yet have us reaching for the smelling salts. We are still waiting for global warming to hit us below the belt.
Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com.
© Copyright 2005 Globe Newspaper Company.
© 20 The New York Times Company
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Voting Reform is in the Cards
Please click on the title above for Jimmy Carter and James Baker's Op-Ed last week.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Monday, September 19, 2005
B. Clinton's Response to Bush's Handling of Katrina
Please click on the above title to see a write-up of an ABC George Stephanopolous interview with President Clinton
criticizing Bush's ongoing response to the Gulf-Coast Hurricane.
They also discussed our stand-off in Iraq. Clinton feels we should try to make the new Iraqi government work, and any time-tables of troop withdrawl would only discourage the Sunnis from getting involved in the Constitution-making process, but on the other hand, if we were about to lose stablility in Afghanistan, THEN we should forget all about Iraq and secure Afghanistan
because it is in fact the real terror hotspot.
Nw blog coming soon: The Hairy Think Tank
criticizing Bush's ongoing response to the Gulf-Coast Hurricane.
They also discussed our stand-off in Iraq. Clinton feels we should try to make the new Iraqi government work, and any time-tables of troop withdrawl would only discourage the Sunnis from getting involved in the Constitution-making process, but on the other hand, if we were about to lose stablility in Afghanistan, THEN we should forget all about Iraq and secure Afghanistan
because it is in fact the real terror hotspot.
Nw blog coming soon: The Hairy Think Tank
Monday, September 05, 2005
Saturday, September 03, 2005
FactCheck.org(independently funded) asks if Bush is to Blame for the New Orleans flooding
> Is Bush to Blame for New Orleans Flooding?
>
> He did slash funding for levee projects. But the Army Corps of
> Engineers says Katrina was just too strong.
>
> September 2, 2005
> Summary
>
> Some critics are suggesting President Bush was as least partly
> responsible for the flooding in New Orleans. In a widely quoted
> opinion piece, former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal says that "the
> damage wrought by the hurricane may not entirely be the result of
> an act of nature," and cites years of reduced funding for federal
> flood-control projects around New Orleans.
>
> Our fact-checking confirms that Bush indeed cut funding for
> projects specifically designed to strengthen levees. Indeed, local
> officials had been complaining about that for years.
>
> It is not so clear whether the money Bush cut from levee projects
> would have made any difference, however, and we're not in a
> position to judge that. The Army Corps of Engineers – which is
> under the President's command and has its own reputation to defend
> – insists that Katrina was just too strong, and that even if the
> levee project had been completed it was only designed to withstand
> a category 3 hurricane.
>
> Analysis
>
> We suspect this subject will get much more attention in Congress
> and elsewhere in the coming months. Without blaming or absolving
> Bush, here are the key facts we've been able to establish so far:
>
> Bush Cut Funding
>
> Blumenthal's much-quoted article in salon.com carried the headline:
> "No one can say they didn't see it coming." And it said the Bush
> administration cut flood-control funding "to pay for the Iraq war."
>
> He continues:
>
> Blumenthal: With its main levee broken, the evacuated city of
> New Orleans has become part of the Gulf of Mexico . But the damage
> wrought by the hurricane may not entirely be the result of an act
> of nature.
>
> …By 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project
> essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In 2004,
> the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans
> district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the
> waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional
> cuts at the beginning of this year…forced the New Orleans district
> of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze.
>
> We can confirm that funding was cut. The project most closely
> associated with preventing flooding in New Orleans was the U.S.
> Army Corps of Engineers’ Hurricane Protection Project, which was
> “designed to protect residents between Lake Pontchartrain and the
> Missisippi River levee from surges in Lake Pontchartrain,”
> according to a fact sheet from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
> (The fact sheet is dated May 23, long before Katrina). The multi-
> decade project involved building new levees, enlarging existing
> levees, and updating other protections like floodwalls. It was
> scheduled to be completed in 2015.
>
> Over at least the past several budget cycles, the Corps has
> received substantially less money than it requested for the Lake
> Pontchartrain project, even though Congress restored much of the
> money the President cut from the amount the Corps requested.
>
> In fiscal year 2004, the Corps requested $11 million for the
> project. The President’s budget allocated $3 million, and Congress
> furnished $5.5 million. Similarly, in fiscal 2005 the Corps
> requested $22.5 million, which the President cut to $3.9 million in
> his budget. Congress increased that to $5.5 million. “This was
> insufficient to fund new construction contracts,” according to a
> U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ project fact sheet. The Corps
> reported that “seven new contracts are being delayed due to lack
> funds” [sic].
>
> The President proposed $3 million for the project in the budget for
> fiscal 2006, which begins Oct. 1. “This will be insufficient to
> fund new construction projects,” the fact sheet stated. It says the
> Corps “could spend $20 million if funds were provided.” The Corps
> of Engineers goes on to say:
>
> Army Corps of Engineers, May 23: In Orleans Parish, two major
> pump stations are threatened by hurricane storm surges. Major
> contracts need to be awarded to provide fronting protection for
> them. Also, several levees have settled and need to be raised to
> provide the design protection. The current funding shortfalls in
> fiscal year 2005 and fiscal year 2006 will prevent the Corps from
> addressing these pressing needs.
>
> The Corps has seen cutbacks beyond those affecting just the Lake
> Pontchartrain project. The Corps oversees SELA, or the Southeast
> Louisiana Urban Flood Control project, which Congress authorized
> after six people died from flooding in May 1995. The Times-Picayune
> newspaper of New Orleans reported that, overall, the Corps had
> spent $430 million on flood control and hurricane prevention, with
> local governments offering more than $50 million toward the
> project. Nonetheless, "at least $250 million in crucial projects
> remained," the newspaper said.
>
> In the past five years, the amount of money spent on all Corps
> construction projects in the New Orleans district has declined by
> 44 percent, according to the New Orleans CityBusiness newspaper,
> from $147 million in 2001 to $82 million in the current fiscal
> year, which ends Sept. 30.
>
> A long history of complaints
>
> Local officials had long complained that funding for hurricane
> protection projects was inadequate:
>
> *
> October 13, 2001: The New Orleans Times-Picayune reported
> that “federal officials are postponing new projects of the
> Southeast Louisiana Flood Control Program, or SELA, fearing that
> federal budget constraints and the cost of the war on terrorism may
> create a financial pinch for the program.” The paper went on to
> report that “President Bush’s budget proposed $52 million” for SELA
> in the 2002 fiscal year. The House approved $57 million and the
> Senate approved $62 million. Still, “the $62 million would be well
> below the $80 million that corps officials estimate is needed to
> pay for the next 12 months of construction, as well as design
> expenses for future projects.”
> *
> April 24, 2004: The Times-Picayune reported that “less money
> is available to the Army Corps of Engineers to build levees and
> water projects in the Missisippi River valley this year and next
> year.” Meanwhile, an engineer who had direct the Louisiana Coastal
> Area Ecosystem Restoration Study – a study of how to restore
> coastal wetlands areas in order to provide a bugger from hurricane
> storm surges – was sent to Iraq "to oversee the restoration of the
> ‘Garden of Eden’ wetlands at the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates
> rivers,” for which President Bush’s 2005 gave $100 million.
> *
> June 8, 2004: Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for
> Jefferson Parish, told the Times-Picayune:
>
> Walter Maestri: It appears that the money has been moved in
> the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in
> Iraq , and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is
> happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing
> everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue
> for us.
>
> *
> September 22, 2004: The Times-Picayune reported that a pilot
> study on raising the height of the levees surrounding New Orleans
> had been completed and generated enough information for a second
> study necessary to estimate the cost of doing so. The Bush
> administration “ordered the New Orleans district office” of the
> Army Corps of Engineers “not to begin any new studies, and the 2005
> budget no longer includes the needed money.”
> *
> June 6, 2005: The New Orleans CityBusiness newspaper reported
> that the New Orleans district of the Corps was preparing for a
> $71.2 million reduction in overall funding for the fiscal year
> beginning in October. That would have been the largest single-year
> funding loss ever. They noted that money “was so tight" that "the
> New Orleans district, which employs 1,300 people, instituted a
> hiring freeze last month on all positions,” which was “the first of
> its kind in about 10 years.”
>
> Would Increased Funding Have Prevented Flooding?
>
> Blumenthal implies that increased funding might have helped to
> prevent the catastrophic flooding that New Orleans now faces. The
> White House denies that, and the Corps of Engineers says that even
> the levee project they were working to complete was not designed to
> withstand a storm of Katrina's force.
>
> White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, at a press briefing on
> September 1, dismissed the idea that the President inadequately
> funded flood control projects in New Orleans :
>
> McClellan: Flood control has been a priority of this
> administration from day one. We have dedicated an additional $300
> million over the last few years for flood control in New Orleans
> and the surrounding area. And if you look at the overall funding
> levels for the Army Corps of Engineers, they have been slightly
> above $4.5 billion that has been signed by the President.
>
> Q: Local people were asking for more money over the last couple
> of years. They were quoted in local papers in 2003 and 2004, are
> saying that they were told by federal officials there wasn't enough
> money because it was going to Iraq expenditures.
>
> McClellan: You might want to talk to General Strock, who is the
> commander of the Army Corps of Engineers, because I think he's
> talked to some reporters already and talked about some of these
> issues. I think some people maybe have tried to make a suggestion
> or imply that certain funding would have prevented the flooding
> from happening, and he has essentially said there's been nothing to
> suggest that whatsoever, and it's been more of a design issue with
> the levees.
>
> We asked the Corps about that “design issue.” David Hewitt, a
> spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers, said McClellan was
> referring to the fact that “the levees were designed for a category
> 3 hurricane.” He told us that, consequently, “when it became
> apparent that this was a category 5 hurricane, an evacuation of the
> city was ordered.” (A category 3 storm has sustained winds of no
> more than 130 miles per hour, while a category 5 storm has winds
> exceeding 155 miles per hour. Katrina had winds of 160 mph as it
> approached shore, but later weakened to winds of 140 mph as it made
> landfall, making it a strong category 4 storm, according to the
> National Hurricane Center.)
>
> The levee upgrade project around Lake Pontchartrain was only 60 to
> 90 percent complete across most areas of New Orleans as of the end
> of May, according to the Corps' May 23 fact sheet. Still, even if
> it had been completed, the project's goal was protecting New
> Orleans from storm surges up to "a fast-moving Category 3
> hurricane,” according to the fact sheet.
>
> We don't know whether the levees would have done better had the
> work been completed. But the Corps says that even a completed levee
> project wasn't designed for the storm that actually occurred.
>
> Nobody anticipated breach of the levees?
>
> In an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on September 1,
> President Bush said:
>
> Bush: I don’t think anyone anticipated breach of the levees
> …Now we’re having to deal with it, and will.
>
> Bush is technically correct that a "breach" wasn't anticipated by
> the Corps, but that's doesn't mean the flooding wasn't forseen. It
> was. But the Corps thought it would happen differently, from water
> washing over the levees, rather than cutting wide breaks in them.
>
> Greg Breerword, a deputy district engineer for project management
> with the Army Corps of Engineers, told the New York Times:
>
> Breerword: We knew if it was going to be a Category 5, some
> levees and some flood walls would be overtopped. We never did think
> they would actually be breached.
>
> And while Bush is also technically correct that the Corps did not
> "anticipate" a breach – in the sense that they believed it was a
> likely event – at least some in the Corps thought a breach was a
> possibility worth examining.
>
> According to the Times-Picayune, early in Bush's first term FEMA
> director Joe Allbaugh ordered a sophisticated computer simulation
> of what would happen if a category 5 storm hit New Orleans. Joseph
> Suhayda, an engineer at Louisana State University who worked on the
> project, described to the newspaper in 2002 what the simulation
> showed could happen:
>
> Subhayda: Another scenario is that some part of the levee would
> fail. It's not something that's expected. But erosion occurs, and
> as levees broke, the break will get wider and wider. The water will
> flow through the city and stop only when it reaches the next higher
> thing. The most continuous barrier is the south levee, along the
> river. That's 25 feet high, so you'll see the water pile up on the
> river levee.
>
> Whether or not a "breach" was "anticipated," the fact is that many
> individuals have been warning for decades about the threat of
> flooding that a hurricane could pose to a set below sea level and
> sandwiched between major waterways. A Federal Emergency Management
> Agency (FEMA) report from before September 11, 2001 detailed the
> three most likely catastrophic disasters that could happen in the
> United States: a terrorist attack in New York, a strong earthquake
> in San Francisco, and a hurricane strike in New Orleans. In 2002,
> New Orleans officials held the simulation of what would happen in a
> category 5 storm. Walter Maestri, the emergency coordinator of
> Jefferson Parish in New Orleans , recounted the outcome to PBS’ NOW
> With Bill Moyers:
>
> Maestri, September 2002: Well, when the exercise was completed
> it was evidence that we were going to lose a lot of people. We
> changed the name of the [simulated] storm from Delaney to K-Y-A-G-
> B... kiss your ass goodbye... because anybody who was here as that
> category five storm came across... was gone.
>
> --by Matthew Barge
>
> Sources
>
> Sidney Blumenthal, “No one can say they didn’t see it coming ,”
> http://www.salon.com
31 August 2005
>
> Deon Roberts, “Bush budget not expected to diminish New Orleans
> district’s $65 million,” New Orleans CityBusiness, 07 February 2005
>
> Manuel Torres, “Flood work to slow down; Corps delays new
> projects,” Times-Picayune, 13 October 2001
>
> Mark Schlefistein, “Corps sees its resources siphoned off; Wetlands
> restoration officials sent to Iraq ,” Times-Picayune, 24 April 2004
>
> “Mark Schleifstein, “Ivan stirs up wave of safety proposals;
> Hurricane-proofed stadium is one idea,” Times-Picayune, 22
> September 2004
>
> Deon Roberts, “Bush budget not expected to diminish New Orleans
> district’s $65 million ,” New Orleans CityBusiness, 07 February 2005
>
> Mark Schleifstein, “Bush budget cuts levee, drainage funds; Backlog
> of contracts waits to be awarded,” Times-Picayune, 08 February 2005
>
> “Bush budget fails to fund flood control in New Orleans ,” New
> Orleans CityBusiness, 14 February 2005
>
> Deon Roberts, “ New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of
> Engineers faces ,” New Orleans CityBusiness, 06 June 2005
>
> Will Bunch, “Did New Orleans catastrophe have to happen? ‘Times-
> Picayune’ had repeatedly raised federal spending issues,” Editor &
> Publisher, 31 August 2005
>
> Toby Eckert, “Could disaster have been prevented?,” Copley News
> Service, 02 September 2005
>
> Jim VandeHei and Peter Baker, “ Critics say Bush undercut New
> Orleans flood control ,” Washington Post, 02 September 2005
>
> “The City in a Bowl ,” Transcript, NOW, Public Broadcasting
> Service, 20 September 2002
>
> Jon Elliston, “ A Disaster Waiting to Happen ,”
> bestofneworleans.com, 28 September 2004
>
> Scott Shane and Eric Lipton, “ Government saw flood risk but not
> levee failure ,” New York Times, 02 September 2005
>
> Paul Krugman, “ A can’t-do government ,” New York Times, 02
> September 2005
>
> “Lake Pontchartrain, LA and Vicinity Hurricane Protection Project,
> St. Bernard, Orleans, Jefferson, and St. Charles Parishes, LA ,”
> Project Fact Sheet, US Army Corps of Engineers New Orleans
> District, website, 23 May 2005
>
> “Fiscal Year 2006: Civil Works Budget for the U.S. Army Corps of
> Engineers ,” Department of the Army, February 2005
>
> “Press Briefing by Scott McClellan ,” whitehouse.gov, 01 September
> 2005
> Karen Turni, “Upgrade of levees proposed by corps; gulf outlet
> levee may be too low, officials worry,” Times-Picayune, 12 November
> 1998
> John McQuaid and Mark Schleifstein, “The big one: A major hurricane
> could decimate the region, but flooding from even a moderate storm
> could kill thousands. It’s just a matter of time,” Times-Picayune,
> 24 June 2002
>
>
> This message was sent by: FactCheck.org, 320 National Press
> Building, Washington, DC 20045
>
> Manage your subscription: http://www.intellicontact.com/icp/mmail-
> mprofile.pl?l=&s=EXP1&r=860058789&m=1018410
>
> He did slash funding for levee projects. But the Army Corps of
> Engineers says Katrina was just too strong.
>
> September 2, 2005
> Summary
>
> Some critics are suggesting President Bush was as least partly
> responsible for the flooding in New Orleans. In a widely quoted
> opinion piece, former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal says that "the
> damage wrought by the hurricane may not entirely be the result of
> an act of nature," and cites years of reduced funding for federal
> flood-control projects around New Orleans.
>
> Our fact-checking confirms that Bush indeed cut funding for
> projects specifically designed to strengthen levees. Indeed, local
> officials had been complaining about that for years.
>
> It is not so clear whether the money Bush cut from levee projects
> would have made any difference, however, and we're not in a
> position to judge that. The Army Corps of Engineers – which is
> under the President's command and has its own reputation to defend
> – insists that Katrina was just too strong, and that even if the
> levee project had been completed it was only designed to withstand
> a category 3 hurricane.
>
> Analysis
>
> We suspect this subject will get much more attention in Congress
> and elsewhere in the coming months. Without blaming or absolving
> Bush, here are the key facts we've been able to establish so far:
>
> Bush Cut Funding
>
> Blumenthal's much-quoted article in salon.com carried the headline:
> "No one can say they didn't see it coming." And it said the Bush
> administration cut flood-control funding "to pay for the Iraq war."
>
> He continues:
>
> Blumenthal: With its main levee broken, the evacuated city of
> New Orleans has become part of the Gulf of Mexico . But the damage
> wrought by the hurricane may not entirely be the result of an act
> of nature.
>
> …By 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project
> essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In 2004,
> the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans
> district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the
> waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional
> cuts at the beginning of this year…forced the New Orleans district
> of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze.
>
> We can confirm that funding was cut. The project most closely
> associated with preventing flooding in New Orleans was the U.S.
> Army Corps of Engineers’ Hurricane Protection Project, which was
> “designed to protect residents between Lake Pontchartrain and the
> Missisippi River levee from surges in Lake Pontchartrain,”
> according to a fact sheet from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
> (The fact sheet is dated May 23, long before Katrina). The multi-
> decade project involved building new levees, enlarging existing
> levees, and updating other protections like floodwalls. It was
> scheduled to be completed in 2015.
>
> Over at least the past several budget cycles, the Corps has
> received substantially less money than it requested for the Lake
> Pontchartrain project, even though Congress restored much of the
> money the President cut from the amount the Corps requested.
>
> In fiscal year 2004, the Corps requested $11 million for the
> project. The President’s budget allocated $3 million, and Congress
> furnished $5.5 million. Similarly, in fiscal 2005 the Corps
> requested $22.5 million, which the President cut to $3.9 million in
> his budget. Congress increased that to $5.5 million. “This was
> insufficient to fund new construction contracts,” according to a
> U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ project fact sheet. The Corps
> reported that “seven new contracts are being delayed due to lack
> funds” [sic].
>
> The President proposed $3 million for the project in the budget for
> fiscal 2006, which begins Oct. 1. “This will be insufficient to
> fund new construction projects,” the fact sheet stated. It says the
> Corps “could spend $20 million if funds were provided.” The Corps
> of Engineers goes on to say:
>
> Army Corps of Engineers, May 23: In Orleans Parish, two major
> pump stations are threatened by hurricane storm surges. Major
> contracts need to be awarded to provide fronting protection for
> them. Also, several levees have settled and need to be raised to
> provide the design protection. The current funding shortfalls in
> fiscal year 2005 and fiscal year 2006 will prevent the Corps from
> addressing these pressing needs.
>
> The Corps has seen cutbacks beyond those affecting just the Lake
> Pontchartrain project. The Corps oversees SELA, or the Southeast
> Louisiana Urban Flood Control project, which Congress authorized
> after six people died from flooding in May 1995. The Times-Picayune
> newspaper of New Orleans reported that, overall, the Corps had
> spent $430 million on flood control and hurricane prevention, with
> local governments offering more than $50 million toward the
> project. Nonetheless, "at least $250 million in crucial projects
> remained," the newspaper said.
>
> In the past five years, the amount of money spent on all Corps
> construction projects in the New Orleans district has declined by
> 44 percent, according to the New Orleans CityBusiness newspaper,
> from $147 million in 2001 to $82 million in the current fiscal
> year, which ends Sept. 30.
>
> A long history of complaints
>
> Local officials had long complained that funding for hurricane
> protection projects was inadequate:
>
> *
> October 13, 2001: The New Orleans Times-Picayune reported
> that “federal officials are postponing new projects of the
> Southeast Louisiana Flood Control Program, or SELA, fearing that
> federal budget constraints and the cost of the war on terrorism may
> create a financial pinch for the program.” The paper went on to
> report that “President Bush’s budget proposed $52 million” for SELA
> in the 2002 fiscal year. The House approved $57 million and the
> Senate approved $62 million. Still, “the $62 million would be well
> below the $80 million that corps officials estimate is needed to
> pay for the next 12 months of construction, as well as design
> expenses for future projects.”
> *
> April 24, 2004: The Times-Picayune reported that “less money
> is available to the Army Corps of Engineers to build levees and
> water projects in the Missisippi River valley this year and next
> year.” Meanwhile, an engineer who had direct the Louisiana Coastal
> Area Ecosystem Restoration Study – a study of how to restore
> coastal wetlands areas in order to provide a bugger from hurricane
> storm surges – was sent to Iraq "to oversee the restoration of the
> ‘Garden of Eden’ wetlands at the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates
> rivers,” for which President Bush’s 2005 gave $100 million.
> *
> June 8, 2004: Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for
> Jefferson Parish, told the Times-Picayune:
>
> Walter Maestri: It appears that the money has been moved in
> the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in
> Iraq , and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is
> happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing
> everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue
> for us.
>
> *
> September 22, 2004: The Times-Picayune reported that a pilot
> study on raising the height of the levees surrounding New Orleans
> had been completed and generated enough information for a second
> study necessary to estimate the cost of doing so. The Bush
> administration “ordered the New Orleans district office” of the
> Army Corps of Engineers “not to begin any new studies, and the 2005
> budget no longer includes the needed money.”
> *
> June 6, 2005: The New Orleans CityBusiness newspaper reported
> that the New Orleans district of the Corps was preparing for a
> $71.2 million reduction in overall funding for the fiscal year
> beginning in October. That would have been the largest single-year
> funding loss ever. They noted that money “was so tight" that "the
> New Orleans district, which employs 1,300 people, instituted a
> hiring freeze last month on all positions,” which was “the first of
> its kind in about 10 years.”
>
> Would Increased Funding Have Prevented Flooding?
>
> Blumenthal implies that increased funding might have helped to
> prevent the catastrophic flooding that New Orleans now faces. The
> White House denies that, and the Corps of Engineers says that even
> the levee project they were working to complete was not designed to
> withstand a storm of Katrina's force.
>
> White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, at a press briefing on
> September 1, dismissed the idea that the President inadequately
> funded flood control projects in New Orleans :
>
> McClellan: Flood control has been a priority of this
> administration from day one. We have dedicated an additional $300
> million over the last few years for flood control in New Orleans
> and the surrounding area. And if you look at the overall funding
> levels for the Army Corps of Engineers, they have been slightly
> above $4.5 billion that has been signed by the President.
>
> Q: Local people were asking for more money over the last couple
> of years. They were quoted in local papers in 2003 and 2004, are
> saying that they were told by federal officials there wasn't enough
> money because it was going to Iraq expenditures.
>
> McClellan: You might want to talk to General Strock, who is the
> commander of the Army Corps of Engineers, because I think he's
> talked to some reporters already and talked about some of these
> issues. I think some people maybe have tried to make a suggestion
> or imply that certain funding would have prevented the flooding
> from happening, and he has essentially said there's been nothing to
> suggest that whatsoever, and it's been more of a design issue with
> the levees.
>
> We asked the Corps about that “design issue.” David Hewitt, a
> spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers, said McClellan was
> referring to the fact that “the levees were designed for a category
> 3 hurricane.” He told us that, consequently, “when it became
> apparent that this was a category 5 hurricane, an evacuation of the
> city was ordered.” (A category 3 storm has sustained winds of no
> more than 130 miles per hour, while a category 5 storm has winds
> exceeding 155 miles per hour. Katrina had winds of 160 mph as it
> approached shore, but later weakened to winds of 140 mph as it made
> landfall, making it a strong category 4 storm, according to the
> National Hurricane Center.)
>
> The levee upgrade project around Lake Pontchartrain was only 60 to
> 90 percent complete across most areas of New Orleans as of the end
> of May, according to the Corps' May 23 fact sheet. Still, even if
> it had been completed, the project's goal was protecting New
> Orleans from storm surges up to "a fast-moving Category 3
> hurricane,” according to the fact sheet.
>
> We don't know whether the levees would have done better had the
> work been completed. But the Corps says that even a completed levee
> project wasn't designed for the storm that actually occurred.
>
> Nobody anticipated breach of the levees?
>
> In an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on September 1,
> President Bush said:
>
> Bush: I don’t think anyone anticipated breach of the levees
> …Now we’re having to deal with it, and will.
>
> Bush is technically correct that a "breach" wasn't anticipated by
> the Corps, but that's doesn't mean the flooding wasn't forseen. It
> was. But the Corps thought it would happen differently, from water
> washing over the levees, rather than cutting wide breaks in them.
>
> Greg Breerword, a deputy district engineer for project management
> with the Army Corps of Engineers, told the New York Times:
>
> Breerword: We knew if it was going to be a Category 5, some
> levees and some flood walls would be overtopped. We never did think
> they would actually be breached.
>
> And while Bush is also technically correct that the Corps did not
> "anticipate" a breach – in the sense that they believed it was a
> likely event – at least some in the Corps thought a breach was a
> possibility worth examining.
>
> According to the Times-Picayune, early in Bush's first term FEMA
> director Joe Allbaugh ordered a sophisticated computer simulation
> of what would happen if a category 5 storm hit New Orleans. Joseph
> Suhayda, an engineer at Louisana State University who worked on the
> project, described to the newspaper in 2002 what the simulation
> showed could happen:
>
> Subhayda: Another scenario is that some part of the levee would
> fail. It's not something that's expected. But erosion occurs, and
> as levees broke, the break will get wider and wider. The water will
> flow through the city and stop only when it reaches the next higher
> thing. The most continuous barrier is the south levee, along the
> river. That's 25 feet high, so you'll see the water pile up on the
> river levee.
>
> Whether or not a "breach" was "anticipated," the fact is that many
> individuals have been warning for decades about the threat of
> flooding that a hurricane could pose to a set below sea level and
> sandwiched between major waterways. A Federal Emergency Management
> Agency (FEMA) report from before September 11, 2001 detailed the
> three most likely catastrophic disasters that could happen in the
> United States: a terrorist attack in New York, a strong earthquake
> in San Francisco, and a hurricane strike in New Orleans. In 2002,
> New Orleans officials held the simulation of what would happen in a
> category 5 storm. Walter Maestri, the emergency coordinator of
> Jefferson Parish in New Orleans , recounted the outcome to PBS’ NOW
> With Bill Moyers:
>
> Maestri, September 2002: Well, when the exercise was completed
> it was evidence that we were going to lose a lot of people. We
> changed the name of the [simulated] storm from Delaney to K-Y-A-G-
> B... kiss your ass goodbye... because anybody who was here as that
> category five storm came across... was gone.
>
> --by Matthew Barge
>
> Sources
>
> Sidney Blumenthal, “No one can say they didn’t see it coming ,”
> http://www.salon.com
31 August 2005
>
> Deon Roberts, “Bush budget not expected to diminish New Orleans
> district’s $65 million,” New Orleans CityBusiness, 07 February 2005
>
> Manuel Torres, “Flood work to slow down; Corps delays new
> projects,” Times-Picayune, 13 October 2001
>
> Mark Schlefistein, “Corps sees its resources siphoned off; Wetlands
> restoration officials sent to Iraq ,” Times-Picayune, 24 April 2004
>
> “Mark Schleifstein, “Ivan stirs up wave of safety proposals;
> Hurricane-proofed stadium is one idea,” Times-Picayune, 22
> September 2004
>
> Deon Roberts, “Bush budget not expected to diminish New Orleans
> district’s $65 million ,” New Orleans CityBusiness, 07 February 2005
>
> Mark Schleifstein, “Bush budget cuts levee, drainage funds; Backlog
> of contracts waits to be awarded,” Times-Picayune, 08 February 2005
>
> “Bush budget fails to fund flood control in New Orleans ,” New
> Orleans CityBusiness, 14 February 2005
>
> Deon Roberts, “ New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of
> Engineers faces ,” New Orleans CityBusiness, 06 June 2005
>
> Will Bunch, “Did New Orleans catastrophe have to happen? ‘Times-
> Picayune’ had repeatedly raised federal spending issues,” Editor &
> Publisher, 31 August 2005
>
> Toby Eckert, “Could disaster have been prevented?,” Copley News
> Service, 02 September 2005
>
> Jim VandeHei and Peter Baker, “ Critics say Bush undercut New
> Orleans flood control ,” Washington Post, 02 September 2005
>
> “The City in a Bowl ,” Transcript, NOW, Public Broadcasting
> Service, 20 September 2002
>
> Jon Elliston, “ A Disaster Waiting to Happen ,”
> bestofneworleans.com, 28 September 2004
>
> Scott Shane and Eric Lipton, “ Government saw flood risk but not
> levee failure ,” New York Times, 02 September 2005
>
> Paul Krugman, “ A can’t-do government ,” New York Times, 02
> September 2005
>
> “Lake Pontchartrain, LA and Vicinity Hurricane Protection Project,
> St. Bernard, Orleans, Jefferson, and St. Charles Parishes, LA ,”
> Project Fact Sheet, US Army Corps of Engineers New Orleans
> District, website, 23 May 2005
>
> “Fiscal Year 2006: Civil Works Budget for the U.S. Army Corps of
> Engineers ,” Department of the Army, February 2005
>
> “Press Briefing by Scott McClellan ,” whitehouse.gov, 01 September
> 2005
> Karen Turni, “Upgrade of levees proposed by corps; gulf outlet
> levee may be too low, officials worry,” Times-Picayune, 12 November
> 1998
> John McQuaid and Mark Schleifstein, “The big one: A major hurricane
> could decimate the region, but flooding from even a moderate storm
> could kill thousands. It’s just a matter of time,” Times-Picayune,
> 24 June 2002
>
>
> This message was sent by: FactCheck.org, 320 National Press
> Building, Washington, DC 20045
>
> Manage your subscription: http://www.intellicontact.com/icp/mmail-
> mprofile.pl?l=&s=EXP1&r=860058789&m=1018410
Friday, September 02, 2005
"Man-Made Disaster"
Click on the above title for an editorial in today's NY Times.
On the same site, see also Paul Krugman's "A Can't-Do Government", for more on lack of preparation for the hurricane.
On the same site, see also Paul Krugman's "A Can't-Do Government", for more on lack of preparation for the hurricane.
8/31 AP article, "Bush Gives New Reason for Iraq War"
"Bush Gives New Reason For Iraq War"
Says US must prevent oil fields from falling into hands of terrorists
By Jennifer Loven, Associated Press | August 31, 2005
CORONADO, Calif. -- President Bush answered growing antiwar protests yesterday with a fresh reason for US troops to continue fighting in Iraq: protection of the country's vast oil fields, which he said would otherwise fall under the control of terrorist extremists.
The president, standing against a backdrop of the USS Ronald Reagan, the newest aircraft carrier in the Navy's fleet, said terrorists would be denied their goal of making Iraq a base from which to recruit followers, train them, and finance attacks.
''We will defeat the terrorists," Bush said. ''We will build a free Iraq that will fight terrorists instead of giving them aid and sanctuary."
Appearing at Naval Air Station North Island to commemorate the anniversary of the Allies' World War II victory over Japan, Bush compared his resolve to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's in the 1940s and said America's mission in Iraq is to turn it into a democratic ally just as the United States did with Japan after its 1945 surrender. Bush's V-J Day ceremony did not fall on the actual anniversary. Japan announced its surrender on Aug. 15, 1945 -- Aug. 14 in the United States because of the time difference.
Democrats said Bush's leadership falls far short of Roosevelt's.
''Democratic Presidents Roosevelt and Truman led America to victory in World War II because they laid out a clear plan for success to the American people, America's allies, and America's troops," said Howard Dean, Democratic Party chairman. ''President Bush has failed to put together a plan, so despite the bravery and sacrifice of our troops, we are not making the progress that we should be in Iraq. The troops, our allies, and the American people deserve better leadership from our commander in chief."
The speech was Bush's third in just over a week defending his Iraq policies, as the White House scrambles to counter growing public concern about the war. But the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast drew attention away; the White House announced during the president's remarks that he was cutting his August vacation short to return to Washington, D.C., to oversee the federal response effort.
After the speech, Bush hurried back to Texas ahead of schedule to prepare to fly back to the nation's capital today. He was to return to the White House on Friday, after spending more than four weeks operating from his ranch in Crawford.
Bush's August break has been marked by problems in Iraq.
It has been an especially deadly month there for US troops, with the number of those who have died since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 now nearing 1,900.
The growing death toll has become a regular feature of the slightly larger protests that Bush now encounters everywhere he goes -- a movement boosted by a vigil set up in a field down the road from the president's ranch by a mother grieving the loss of her soldier son in Iraq.
Cindy Sheehan arrived in Crawford only days after Bush did, asking for a meeting so he could explain why her son and others are dying in Iraq. The White House refused, and Sheehan's camp turned into a hub of activity for hundreds of activists around the country demanding that troops be brought home.
This week, the administration also had to defend the proposed constitution produced in Iraq at US urging. Critics fear the impact of its rejection by many Sunnis, and say it fails to protect religious freedom and women's rights.
At the naval base, Bush declared, ''We will not rest until victory is America's and our freedom is secure" from Al Qaeda and its forces in Iraq led by Abu Musab alZarqawi.
''If Zarqawi and [Osama] bin Laden gain control of Iraq, they would create a new training ground for future terrorist attacks," Bush said. ''They'd seize oil fields to fund their ambitions. They could recruit more terrorists by claiming a historic victory over the United States and our coalition."
_____________________
Says US must prevent oil fields from falling into hands of terrorists
By Jennifer Loven, Associated Press | August 31, 2005
CORONADO, Calif. -- President Bush answered growing antiwar protests yesterday with a fresh reason for US troops to continue fighting in Iraq: protection of the country's vast oil fields, which he said would otherwise fall under the control of terrorist extremists.
The president, standing against a backdrop of the USS Ronald Reagan, the newest aircraft carrier in the Navy's fleet, said terrorists would be denied their goal of making Iraq a base from which to recruit followers, train them, and finance attacks.
''We will defeat the terrorists," Bush said. ''We will build a free Iraq that will fight terrorists instead of giving them aid and sanctuary."
Appearing at Naval Air Station North Island to commemorate the anniversary of the Allies' World War II victory over Japan, Bush compared his resolve to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's in the 1940s and said America's mission in Iraq is to turn it into a democratic ally just as the United States did with Japan after its 1945 surrender. Bush's V-J Day ceremony did not fall on the actual anniversary. Japan announced its surrender on Aug. 15, 1945 -- Aug. 14 in the United States because of the time difference.
Democrats said Bush's leadership falls far short of Roosevelt's.
''Democratic Presidents Roosevelt and Truman led America to victory in World War II because they laid out a clear plan for success to the American people, America's allies, and America's troops," said Howard Dean, Democratic Party chairman. ''President Bush has failed to put together a plan, so despite the bravery and sacrifice of our troops, we are not making the progress that we should be in Iraq. The troops, our allies, and the American people deserve better leadership from our commander in chief."
The speech was Bush's third in just over a week defending his Iraq policies, as the White House scrambles to counter growing public concern about the war. But the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast drew attention away; the White House announced during the president's remarks that he was cutting his August vacation short to return to Washington, D.C., to oversee the federal response effort.
After the speech, Bush hurried back to Texas ahead of schedule to prepare to fly back to the nation's capital today. He was to return to the White House on Friday, after spending more than four weeks operating from his ranch in Crawford.
Bush's August break has been marked by problems in Iraq.
It has been an especially deadly month there for US troops, with the number of those who have died since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 now nearing 1,900.
The growing death toll has become a regular feature of the slightly larger protests that Bush now encounters everywhere he goes -- a movement boosted by a vigil set up in a field down the road from the president's ranch by a mother grieving the loss of her soldier son in Iraq.
Cindy Sheehan arrived in Crawford only days after Bush did, asking for a meeting so he could explain why her son and others are dying in Iraq. The White House refused, and Sheehan's camp turned into a hub of activity for hundreds of activists around the country demanding that troops be brought home.
This week, the administration also had to defend the proposed constitution produced in Iraq at US urging. Critics fear the impact of its rejection by many Sunnis, and say it fails to protect religious freedom and women's rights.
At the naval base, Bush declared, ''We will not rest until victory is America's and our freedom is secure" from Al Qaeda and its forces in Iraq led by Abu Musab alZarqawi.
''If Zarqawi and [Osama] bin Laden gain control of Iraq, they would create a new training ground for future terrorist attacks," Bush said. ''They'd seize oil fields to fund their ambitions. They could recruit more terrorists by claiming a historic victory over the United States and our coalition."
_____________________
How Bush Underfunded Flood Preparations in New Orleans
Please click the above title to see a more in depth article on the slashing in hurricane preparedness funds
which bears directly on my friend's letter two posts ago, in "Come Hell or Highwater".
In a WSJ article recently, the administration wouldn't comment on the cutting of these funds, including a study to
determine how the city could be better prepared for a flood. Apparently the admin. thought the Army Corps of
Engineers had a lot of "pork barrel" projects and "cost overruns", especially when you compare it to their pet
project of the horrific and unnecessary war in Iraq, now confessed by Bush to be a fight over control of oil there. To paraphrase a recent speech of Bush's in response to the anti-war movement: "We can't let the terrorists get our oil or use Iraq as a safe haven for terrorists."
I quote him only extremely ironically. Bush created that haven, and the terrorists are only active there because we're there.
His speech was a last-ditch attempt to try to stem the tide of anti-war opinion here.
which bears directly on my friend's letter two posts ago, in "Come Hell or Highwater".
In a WSJ article recently, the administration wouldn't comment on the cutting of these funds, including a study to
determine how the city could be better prepared for a flood. Apparently the admin. thought the Army Corps of
Engineers had a lot of "pork barrel" projects and "cost overruns", especially when you compare it to their pet
project of the horrific and unnecessary war in Iraq, now confessed by Bush to be a fight over control of oil there. To paraphrase a recent speech of Bush's in response to the anti-war movement: "We can't let the terrorists get our oil or use Iraq as a safe haven for terrorists."
I quote him only extremely ironically. Bush created that haven, and the terrorists are only active there because we're there.
His speech was a last-ditch attempt to try to stem the tide of anti-war opinion here.
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Re: Administration's Position on Global Warming
Jim Heffler writes:
"It's not so much whether or not Bush is still denying global
warming. I believe the administration has admitted to global warming.
It's more like they're still dragging their feet in doing something
about it, still protecting their corporate sponsors and string pullers
from the economic consequences of that warming and still placing
corporate interests ahead of the public good."
"It's not so much whether or not Bush is still denying global
warming. I believe the administration has admitted to global warming.
It's more like they're still dragging their feet in doing something
about it, still protecting their corporate sponsors and string pullers
from the economic consequences of that warming and still placing
corporate interests ahead of the public good."
Is There A God?
Last night Sven and I were discussing the problem of whether or not we say we think there is a god.
"The real question," opines Sven, "Is not 'Is there a god?", but 'Whatever one's god is, what are a
believer's responsibilities TO it?'"
"If there is a god, he's probably wishing that people would simply be good to each other, without all
the bells and whistles. He's probably like, 'Why don't you use your GOD-given gifts, and use your
head for something besides a HAT-RACK?!'"
"The real question," opines Sven, "Is not 'Is there a god?", but 'Whatever one's god is, what are a
believer's responsibilities TO it?'"
"If there is a god, he's probably wishing that people would simply be good to each other, without all
the bells and whistles. He's probably like, 'Why don't you use your GOD-given gifts, and use your
head for something besides a HAT-RACK?!'"
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
"Come Hell or High Water"--A Friend Writes Re: Hurricane
I can't sleep. If it wasn't cloudy, the sun would be coming up soon. The first humidity drenched tendrils of Hurricane Katrina are just reaching Newark NJ and I breathe the heavy, death-soaked droplets and they make me very wary. The other day I watched the hurricane on TV, and New Orleans continues to be deluged by broken levees, even as I write.
Doesn't that sound bizarre? That I "watched the hurricane on TV"? Imagine that, that you can witness such an event "live". And the feeling I had was not unlike the feeling I had while I watched the WTC explode on 9-11 - it was the unmistakable feeling of dread, devastation, and inevitability.
What's the difference in these situations? Well, not much, according to FEMA. Here's a quote from
http://www.americanprogressaction.org:
In 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency ranked a major hurricane strike on New Orleans as
"among the three likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country," directly behind a terrorist strike on New York City.
Imagine that! And to continue the idiocy:
Two months ago, President Bush took an ax to budget funds that would have helped New Orleans prepare
for such a disaster. The New Orleans branch of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers suffered a "record $71.2 million"
eduction in federal funding, a 44.2 percent reduction from its 2001 levels. Reports at the time said that thanks
to the cuts, "major hurricane and flood protection projects will not be awarded to local engineering firms. ...
Also, a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now."
As I watched the hurricane, on TV, from my cozy air-conditioned bedroom on a sunny morning, one thought kept running through my head: "What's to say that New York City is immune from this kind of disaster?" But the consequences of that scenario were just too too unimaginable for my brain to comprehend. I could not create a reaction scenario for my hypothetical action scenario, as the creators of the movie, "The Day After" were able to do. I hope their scenario was way, way, way over the top!
The fact that the Bush Administration refuses to acknowledge Global Warming as a problem is .... what - Wrong? Well, yes, to me it is. But that's because I value life, I value the world we live in, I value my child's future. But his (their) agenda is different from mine, and to him/them it is NOT wrong. It's not "wrong" to kill hundreds of thousands and maim millions of people via the cloak of "collateral damage", create untold chaos and abject poverty around the world, and wreck the fragile infrastructure of our earth so that a welcome mat is put out for natural disasters that could be avoided with a little prudence.
[To see the whole letter please click on the title of this post.]
Doesn't that sound bizarre? That I "watched the hurricane on TV"? Imagine that, that you can witness such an event "live". And the feeling I had was not unlike the feeling I had while I watched the WTC explode on 9-11 - it was the unmistakable feeling of dread, devastation, and inevitability.
What's the difference in these situations? Well, not much, according to FEMA. Here's a quote from
http://www.americanprogressaction.org:
In 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency ranked a major hurricane strike on New Orleans as
"among the three likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country," directly behind a terrorist strike on New York City.
Imagine that! And to continue the idiocy:
Two months ago, President Bush took an ax to budget funds that would have helped New Orleans prepare
for such a disaster. The New Orleans branch of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers suffered a "record $71.2 million"
eduction in federal funding, a 44.2 percent reduction from its 2001 levels. Reports at the time said that thanks
to the cuts, "major hurricane and flood protection projects will not be awarded to local engineering firms. ...
Also, a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now."
As I watched the hurricane, on TV, from my cozy air-conditioned bedroom on a sunny morning, one thought kept running through my head: "What's to say that New York City is immune from this kind of disaster?" But the consequences of that scenario were just too too unimaginable for my brain to comprehend. I could not create a reaction scenario for my hypothetical action scenario, as the creators of the movie, "The Day After" were able to do. I hope their scenario was way, way, way over the top!
The fact that the Bush Administration refuses to acknowledge Global Warming as a problem is .... what - Wrong? Well, yes, to me it is. But that's because I value life, I value the world we live in, I value my child's future. But his (their) agenda is different from mine, and to him/them it is NOT wrong. It's not "wrong" to kill hundreds of thousands and maim millions of people via the cloak of "collateral damage", create untold chaos and abject poverty around the world, and wreck the fragile infrastructure of our earth so that a welcome mat is put out for natural disasters that could be avoided with a little prudence.
[To see the whole letter please click on the title of this post.]
Friday, August 26, 2005
Roberta Piket's jazz blog hits politics sometimes
A jazz pianist we know has some great blog entries recently. Please click on the title of this blog to see.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Re: None Dare Call it Stolen
A retired journalist writes:
"I did see this article and read it in some detail -- pretty shocking detail of skull duggery in Ohio voting. Plenty of evidence of vote blocking and machine manipulation. It should still be investigated bya proper inquiry, even if the electoral college vote is over and done."
I finally read the article today, Saturday the 13th of August. It's a very good, damning round-up of tons of evidence of illegal
election procedures in OH. Did anyone ever think to themselves, "I wonder if Jimmy Carter could monitor Florida this year?"
Well, the State Department DID invite foreign vote monitors in 2004, some for Ohio, but those monitors were not allowed to watch any closer than 100 feet.
Not good news, but it's nice to see this finally coming out in a mainstream article.
"I did see this article and read it in some detail -- pretty shocking detail of skull duggery in Ohio voting. Plenty of evidence of vote blocking and machine manipulation. It should still be investigated bya proper inquiry, even if the electoral college vote is over and done."
I finally read the article today, Saturday the 13th of August. It's a very good, damning round-up of tons of evidence of illegal
election procedures in OH. Did anyone ever think to themselves, "I wonder if Jimmy Carter could monitor Florida this year?"
Well, the State Department DID invite foreign vote monitors in 2004, some for Ohio, but those monitors were not allowed to watch any closer than 100 feet.
Not good news, but it's nice to see this finally coming out in a mainstream article.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Summary of Article in August Harper's which puts 2004 Ohio Vote Fraud reports into the Mainstream
I've bought the magazine, and not yet read the whole article, but check it out!
Click on the title of this post.
Harper's magazine website is:
http://www.harpers.org
We think that 2000 was stolen, but Gore made a bad legal decision not to ask for a recount of all of Florida.
Of course, that would have been even less likely to have been allowed. But here....
Click on the title of this post.
Harper's magazine website is:
http://www.harpers.org
We think that 2000 was stolen, but Gore made a bad legal decision not to ask for a recount of all of Florida.
Of course, that would have been even less likely to have been allowed. But here....
Friday, August 05, 2005
First Letter to the Blog re: Gore's "Current" channel
Jim Heffler writes:
"Podcasts??? Can you download the audio?
What would you expect from the Wall Street Journal reviewing Al Gore?
Have you watched the WSJ panel on Ch 13 right after "Now" on Friday
nights? I can't watch it. The bias comes right through."
No, these podcasts have been uploded to the station. You can just watch them.
I can see the logic in letting the WSJ have an editorial show on 13, because you'd think it would stop them from revoking PBS funds since they're getting an equal voice, and they do present it as editorial; but I happen to think that it's Tucker Carlson who's so under-prepared and unqualified. That's the one that steams me. Plus, Congress was still trying to revoke PBS funds despite their WSJ show after "NOW".
The latest thing, correct me if I'm wrong, is that they have a neo-con named Tomlinson in charge of Public Broadcasting, and progressive groups are worried that there will now be too much bias to the right. Until now the conservatives always complained it was too liberal. I'd have to defer to Sven on the current state of things (13), but he still seems to appreciate "The Jim Lehrer News Hour" and "NOW" is still great. I do see that, too. Keep me posted.
About "What do you expect?" from the WSJ on Gore's new station: Well, I know. But lots of people read the WSJ and even though we all know it's conservative, I want to be vigilant that they don't let down their guard just because it's "only the Arts and Leisure page" or the Taste page. Their entertainment pages are as conservative as their editorial postitions.
Jim replies:
What perhaps bothers me more than the right wing shows that have been
forced on PBS is the notion that they are showing more and more
entertainment and less and less political or social commentary.
"Antiques Road Show" every night, 60's rock and folk stars, the "Celtic
Woman" show last night. I suppose you can argue these shows bring in
viewers (and I'm not knocking the quality of the shows. I watch them
too.) But I can't help thinking that they're on because they're safer
than political/social stuff. Part of the "duck and cover" that Public
Radio and Television have been practising for some time now.
"Podcasts??? Can you download the audio?
What would you expect from the Wall Street Journal reviewing Al Gore?
Have you watched the WSJ panel on Ch 13 right after "Now" on Friday
nights? I can't watch it. The bias comes right through."
No, these podcasts have been uploded to the station. You can just watch them.
I can see the logic in letting the WSJ have an editorial show on 13, because you'd think it would stop them from revoking PBS funds since they're getting an equal voice, and they do present it as editorial; but I happen to think that it's Tucker Carlson who's so under-prepared and unqualified. That's the one that steams me. Plus, Congress was still trying to revoke PBS funds despite their WSJ show after "NOW".
The latest thing, correct me if I'm wrong, is that they have a neo-con named Tomlinson in charge of Public Broadcasting, and progressive groups are worried that there will now be too much bias to the right. Until now the conservatives always complained it was too liberal. I'd have to defer to Sven on the current state of things (13), but he still seems to appreciate "The Jim Lehrer News Hour" and "NOW" is still great. I do see that, too. Keep me posted.
About "What do you expect?" from the WSJ on Gore's new station: Well, I know. But lots of people read the WSJ and even though we all know it's conservative, I want to be vigilant that they don't let down their guard just because it's "only the Arts and Leisure page" or the Taste page. Their entertainment pages are as conservative as their editorial postitions.
Jim replies:
What perhaps bothers me more than the right wing shows that have been
forced on PBS is the notion that they are showing more and more
entertainment and less and less political or social commentary.
"Antiques Road Show" every night, 60's rock and folk stars, the "Celtic
Woman" show last night. I suppose you can argue these shows bring in
viewers (and I'm not knocking the quality of the shows. I watch them
too.) But I can't help thinking that they're on because they're safer
than political/social stuff. Part of the "duck and cover" that Public
Radio and Television have been practising for some time now.
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