:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::

:: 9.30.2004 ::

:: "Don't believe the hype..." ::

Read a transcript of the first 2K4 presidential debate @ Fox News.

posted by me

:: 10:58:00 PM [+] ::
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:: CNN Quickvote ::

(Again, I participated in a poll & immediately raced back here to post the results.)

Who do you think won the first U.S. presidential debate?
President George W. Bush -- 18% 14715 votes
Sen. John Kerry -- 78% 64874 votes
Evenly matched -- 4% 3089 votes
Total: 82678 votes

This QuickVote is not scientific and reflects the opinions of only those Internet users who have chosen to participate. The results cannot be assumed to represent the opinions of Internet users in general, nor the public as a whole. The QuickVote sponsor is not responsible for content, functionality or the opinions expressed therein.

posted by me

:: 10:48:00 PM [+] ::
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:: UPDATE: "Who won the presidential debate?" ::

From a CBS News poll as of a few moments ago
John Kerry -- 90.44%
President Bush -- 8.75%
Neither man. It was a draw -- 0.81%

NOTE: This is not a scientific poll. The results above are for information purposes only, and should not be confused with the results of the scientific polls conducted by CBS News.

posted by me

:: 10:34:00 PM [+] ::
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:: "Who won the debate?" ::

From MSNBC as of a few moments ago:
* 81329 responses
Pres. Bush -- 27%
Sen. Kerry -- 73%

posted by me
(one of the 73 =)

:: 9:52:00 PM [+] ::
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:: "Politically Speaking" ::

What's at Stake in the First Debate
By Mara Liasson
From NPR

When George W. Bush and John Kerry square off tonight in Coral Gables, Fla., it will be their first face-to-face encounter and the voters' first chance to see the two men side by side. Instead of watching short clips of each man attacking the other, pitching to big crowds of enthusiastic supporters, viewers will see the two up close in a neutral setting, performing without a net.

The results could be enormously important for the outcome of the campaign. The debates have been key events in five of the last seven presidential campaigns (dating back to 1976), and at a minimum they set the mood and momentum for the closing weeks.

But this won't be a classic debate in the sense of a true unbridled exchange. The rules the two campaigns agreed to ensure that what we'll hear is much of what we've been hearing for the last several weeks on the stump, except with more focus on a subject (foreign policy in the first debate) and with the intervention of a moderator (Jim Lehrer of PBS).

But there should be two very different views the reality right now in Iraq. Kerry will continue to insist that Mr. Bush's misguided policies in Iraq have created chaos and higher American casualties. He will say that in a second term, Mr. Bush would be fixated on Iraq and diverted from bigger terrorist threats -- including Osama bin Laden.

Kerry, although not the get-out-of-Iraq-now candidate, is emphasizing that he has a plan to get Americans out of Iraq in four years and that Mr. Bush has none. For his part, the president will continue the attacks on Kerry that have proved effective so far in the summer and fall. He will say that Kerry's past statements on Iraq are contradictory and incoherent and that electing such a man will put Americans in greater peril.

Polls show that the incumbent has a solid lead (although still in single digits in most polls) going into the first debate. But they also show something else, something that seems counter-intuitive and that poses a more difficult challenge to Kerry.

The conundrum is this: While more voters agree with Kerry's assessment of the Iraq situation right now, they still prefer Mr. Bush because of his attributes of "leadership." Even though more voters think Iraq has not been worth the cost in American lives and dollars, they are not ready to dismiss the president as punishment unless they have sufficient confidence in (and personal preference for) the alternative.

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 5:40:00 PM [+] ::
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:: "Debate Dissemination" ::

Bush Team Prepares Net Assault
From Wired News
The Bush campaign is setting up an extensive war room to monitor Thursday's debate with John Kerry. The plan? Pounce on Kerry misstatements or exaggerations and send responses to thousands of partisan websites through a live feed. By Louise Witt.

ALSO from Wired News

Diebold Rep Now Runs Elections

Arnold Vetoes Privacy Bill

posted by me

:: 1:42:00 PM [+] ::
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:: "U.S.: Secret Search Ruling Appeal Likely" ::

NEW YORK (AP) - The Justice Department will likely appeal a court ruling that declared unconstitutional a Patriot Act provision allowing secret and unchallengeable searches of Internet and telephone records, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Thursday.

In a blow to the Justice Department's post-Sept. 11 powers, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero on Wednesday struck down the provision that let the FBI gather phone and Web customer records but barred service providers from ever disclosing the search took place.

Ashcroft, in the Netherlands to meet with European Union officials, said he would study the decision upon returning to Washington, but "it's almost a certainty it will be appealed."

The decision is the second time a judge has ruled unconstitutional part of the Patriot Act, a package of prosecution and surveillance tools passed shortly after the terrorism of Sept. 11, 2001.

In January, a federal judge in Los Angeles struck down a section of the act that made it a crime to give "expert advice or assistance" to groups designated foreign terrorist organizations. The judge said the language was too vague, threatening First and Fifth Amendment rights.

American Civil Liberties Union attorney Jameel Jaffer called the latest ruling a "landmark victory, and "a wholesale refutation of excessive government secrecy and unchecked executive power."

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 10:02:00 AM [+] ::
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:: RE Dubya ::

FYC (for your consideration) --
from today's inbox clutter:

Dear BushRecall.org Supporter,

President Bush's handlers have ferociously negotiated every last detail of formats for the presidential debates. Their extreme attention to detail isn't a product of Bush's subpar debate skills. On the contrary, he's quite good - especially when the format doesn't allow for suitable follow-up from an opponent or moderator to refute all his super-spun answers. By now, we all know that President Bush can do nothing if not stick to a script with the best of them.

But President Bush's script hasn't included real answers to real problems facing real Americans - and it's time to demand them from him. With that in mind here's a handy primer to use for scoring the debates while watching from home. It's an easy game to play, but the total score might make soccer look like a high scoring affair. Here's how it works: When President Bush does any of the following, add one point.

-- Acknowledges the true extent of the mess in Iraq.
-- Acknowledges that the "Mission Accomplished" banner and "Bring 'em on" comment were big mistakes.
-- Presents a plan to fix the mess in Iraq.
-- Explains how his current troop rotation program is sustainable, despite GAO estimates.
-- Presents a plan for dealing with North Korea.
-- Explains how Halliburton rose from the 22nd-largest military contractor in 2000 to seventh in 2003.
-- Explains why we haven't found the source of the Valerie Plame leak.
-- Explains why we haven't found Osama bin Laden.
-- Mentions Osama bin Laden.
-- Offers a full explanation for the WMD argument.
-- Offers a full apology for the WMD argument (this is worth double).
-- Offers a full apology for Abu Ghraib.
-- Unveils a plan for rebuilding America's stature and respect throughout the world.

Sounds easy enough, doesn't it? Well, here's a second list: Whenever President Bush does any of these things, subtract one point:

-- Uses the phrase "stay the course."
-- Bad-mouths our traditional allies (bonus points if he specifically mentions France).
-- Calls John Kerry a flip-flopper.
-- Calls his opponents weak.
-- Mentions "the lessons of September the 11th"
-- Talks of supporting the troops without mentioning shortages of armored Humvees, clean water and body armor.
-- Uses the phrase "Coalition of the Willing."
-- Utters any of the following: thugs, assassins, madman.

That's it, now you have a ready-made guide to the debate proceedings for tomorrow night. As you can see, you'll probably end up in red numbers - just like the Bush budget.

Above all else, remember this: George W. Bush is the incumbent, so it's up to him to answer all of the public's questions about his failed policies. He hasn't so far - here's guessing he won't tomorrow night, either.

We'll be back to you on Friday with our post-debate analysis.

Sincerely,
Mike Lux
President, BushRecall.org

Paid for by the Fair and Balanced PAC, BushRecall.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidates committee.

* * * * *

posted by me

:: 9:31:00 PM [+] ::
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:: Tech report ::

From CNET News.com
Simpsons swallowed whole by DVD of the future
Imagine getting more than a dozen seasons of Homer and Bart all on one disc. Or, sure, you could back up a terabyte of corporate data.

posted by me

:: 11:31:00 AM [+] ::
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:: "Britain's Blair Looks to Poll After Iraq Apology" ::

BRIGHTON, England (Reuters) - Britain's Labour Party leaders are to try to shift the focus from Iraq to domestic policy on Wednesday, after Tony Blair offered a partial apology for the war.

Violence in Iraq -- where two more British soldiers died on Tuesday -- and the fate of a British hostage being held there have cast a shadow over Labour's annual conference, where Blair had hoped to concentrate on a campaign for a third term.

Labour will showcase its policies on crime, asylum and immigration on Wednesday -- all key battlegrounds for an election expected in May -- when Home Secretary David Blunkett addresses the party faithful in the seaside town of Brighton.

Irish rock icon Bono, frontman of U2, is also to speak.

Bono is expected to press Labour to do more on debt relief for Africa, international aid and fair trade -- themes that hit a chord with grassroots Labour supporters, many of whom have been alienated by the Iraq war.

Many conference delegates on Tuesday said Blair's apology, in his crucial setpiece speech, went far enough to persuade them to put aside differences over Iraq and focus on the next election, but anti-war stalwarts were not won over.

The prime minister came his closest yet to a mea culpa when he accepted intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction -- the primary Anglo-American motive for war -- had been wrong.

But he refused to apologize for ousting Saddam Hussein.

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 1:21:00 AM [+] ::
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:: P2P update ::

File Traders Could Do Hard Time
From Wired News
Reuters, 04:23 PM Sep. 28, 2004 PT
The House of Representatives passes a bill that would sic the feds on people using peer-to-peer networks to swap songs or movies. Copyright infringers may face up to three years in prison.

ALSO
Law Sends Sharers to Slammer

posted by me

:: 10:30:00 PM [+] ::
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:: E-Voting update ::

Trial Ordered in Fla. E-Ballot Lawsuit

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Just five weeks before Election Day, a federal appeals court Monday revived a lawsuit demanding that all Florida voters who use touchscreen machines receive a paper receipt, in case a recount becomes necessary.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals told a federal judge in Fort Lauderdale to reopen the case, which could affect 15 Florida counties whose electronic voting terminals do not issue paper records.

It was not immediately clear if the case could be decided before the Nov. 2 presidential election.

The three-judge panel in Atlanta wrote that Judge James Cohn misapplied a 35-year legal doctrine when he threw out the lawsuit filed by Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla.

"What's known for certain is we have won the battle in the long term," Wexler said. "There will be a paper trail in Florida. The only question is when."

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 8:41:00 PM [+] ::
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:: There's always room for Jello ::

From AlternativeTentacles.com
Jello supports US soldier's blog from Iraq
Remember the blog run by a US soldier serving in Iraq that the military was trying to shut down? Well, now the soldier cannot add new content to the site but he's reposting old posts and Jello wrote an e-mail of support for the soldier and the troops which is collecting a fascinating series of comments here.

Here's your chance to read unfiltered true life stories of the troops on the ground in Iraq- this is just one of many blogs maintained by military members overseas. Dig in!

ALSO from AT
Quote of the Day
09/23/04: Simple tax truths in business-speak...
"The fact that America's companies were allowed to report less than half of their actual U.S. profits to the I.R.S., while ordinary wage earners have to report every penny of their earnings, has to undermine public respect for the tax system."
- Robert S. McIntyre, lead author of the brand new study, "Corporate Income Taxes in the Bush Years. (New York Times, "Study Finds Accelerating Drop in Corporate Taxes," Lynnley Browning, New York Times, 9-23-04)

posted by me

:: 2:45:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: Feel Safe, Snug, Secure...? ::

Spy Imagery Agency Watching Inside U.S.

BETHESDA, Md. (AP) - In the name of homeland security, America's spy imagery agency is keeping a close eye, close to home. It's watching America. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, about 100 employees of a little-known branch of the Defense Department called the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency - and some of the country's most sophisticated aerial imaging equipment - have focused on observing what's going on in the United States.

Their work brushes up against the fine line between protecting the public and performing illegal government spying on Americans.

Roughly twice a month, the agency is called upon to help with the security of events inside the United States. Even more routinely, it is asked to help prepare imagery and related information to protect against possible attacks on critical sites.

For instance, the agency has modified basic maps of the nation's capital to highlight the location of hospitals, linking them to data on the number of beds or the burn unit in each. To secure the Ronald Reagan funeral procession, the agency merged aerial photographs and 3D images, allowing security planners to virtually walk, drive or fly through the Simi Valley, Calif., route.

The agency is especially watchful of big events or targets that might attract terrorists - political conventions, for example, or nuclear power plants.

Everyone agrees that the domestic mission of the NGA has increased dramatically in the wake of Sept. 11, even though laws and carefully crafted regulations are in place to prevent government surveillance aimed at Americans.

The agency is not interested in information on U.S. citizens, stresses Americas office director Bert Beaulieu. "We couldn't care less about individuals and people and companies," he said.

But that's not good enough for secrecy expert Steven Aftergood, who oversees a project on government secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists. "What it all boils down to is 'Trust us. Our intentions are good,'" he said.

Adds Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington: "As a general matter, when there are systems of public surveillance, there needs to be public oversight."

Geospatial intelligence is the science of combining imagery, such as satellite pictures, to physically depict features or activities happening anywhere on the planet.

Outside the United States, it can be a powerful tool for war planners who may use imagery to measure soil wetness to determine if tanks could travel an area. It can help weapons proliferation experts look for ground disturbances that can indicate new underground bunkers.

Before Sept. 11, the NGA's domestic work often meant things like lending a hand during natural disasters by supplying pictures of wildfires and floods.

But now the agency's new Americas Office has been called on to assemble visual information on more than 130 urban areas, among scores of other assignments, including maps of the national mall, the country's high-voltage transmission lines and disaster exercises.

Sometimes, agency officials may cooperate with private groups, such as hotel security offices, to get access to video footage of lobbies and hallways. That footage can then be connected with other types of maps used to secure events - or to take action, if a hostage situation or other catastrophe happens.

The level of detail varies widely, depending on the threat and what the FBI or another agency needs.

"In most cases, it's not intrusive," said the NGA's associate general counsel, Laura Jennings. "It is information to help secure an event and to have people prepared to respond should there be an attack, or to analyze the area where a threat has been made."

According to Executive Order 12333, signed by President Reagan in 1981, members of the U.S. intelligence community can collect, retain and pass along information about U.S. companies or people only in certain cases.

Information that is publicly available or collected with the consent of the individual is fair game, as is information acquired by overhead reconnaissance not directed at specific people or companies.

The NGA says it has aggressive internal oversight and its employees go through annual training on what is and isn't allowed.

"If they deviated from their own rules, how would it be discovered?" asks secrecy expert Aftergood. "I am not satisfied that they have an answer to that question."

One oversight committee in Congress noticed after Sept. 11 that an intelligence agency was snapping pictures of the United States, said a congressional aide, speaking on condition of anonymity. A staff member is now monitoring the issue, and the aide said so far problems have not been spotted.

But Aftergood notes that while intelligence budgets have increased dramatically in the last five years, congressional oversight budgets have not.

Even the agency concedes gray areas do emerge.

Generally, for example, intelligence resources can't be used for law enforcement purposes. So the FBI or another agency could use an NGA-produced aerial photograph to solve a domestic crime. But the NGA couldn't take actions to target a specific individual, such as highlight a suspect's home, unless the information was linked directly to a national security issue.

Agency officials call that "passive assistance" and say certain legal tests must be met.

Law enforcement officials occasionally ask if the agency has information that could provide evidence about a crime - say, for example, whether a white truck was at a location at a certain time, Beaulieu said hypothetically.

"Yes, we will do a check," he said. "But I can't remember a single case where we actually even had an image for that day."

Jennings concedes that toeing such fine lines can be difficult.

"We look, we check, and it just so happens that we haven't had a situation where there is a smoking gun," she said. "We would analyze each one, case by case."

"Everybody wants to do the right thing and provide the information that is appropriate without overstepping their authority," she later added.

The NGA says it is working to build trust - with the public and with private companies.

Before Sept. 11, for instance, chemical plants and other critical sites weren't as cooperative as they are today, out of fear that aerial photographs might be shared with federal environmental regulators. NGA officials say the Homeland Security Department has been careful to protect proprietary information.

What if NGA analysts were to see an environmental crime?

"I don't think any of my people know enough to know an environmental crime," Beaulieu said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2004 Associated Press.

posted by me

:: 11:21:00 PM [+] ::
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:: So Weird ::

From Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird
(There are no new posts this week, so here's a gem from last. =)

Almost All True
Three of these four things really happened, just recently. Are you cynical enough to figure out the made-up story? (a) A British couple who hadn't been able to break their two-pack-a-day cigarette habit gave it up when their pet parrot developed a respiratory illness. (b) A leading British museum announced an experiment to cover a substantial portion of its utility expenses by converting visitors' excrement from museum rest rooms into electricity. (c) A local Islamic extremist organization in France, with ties to al-Qaeda, filed several lawsuits against the city of Paris for what it called "discriminatory tax harassment." (d) Meteorological officials in one Chinese province accused their counterparts in another province of "stealing" "their" clouds, in order to seed them for rain.

[Psst. Answer to "Almost All True:" c]

Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or WeirdNews@earthlink.net

posted by me

:: 10:59:00 PM [+] ::
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:: Recycling & Strange Days ::

Human Remains Used in Artificial Reefs
OCEAN CITY, N.J. (AP) - As if shooting a loved one's ashes into space or pressing them into artificial diamonds were not sufficiently offbeat, relatives of the deceased now can have their ashes mixed into concrete to help form ocean habitats.

posted by me

:: 10:59:00 PM [+] ::
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:: "Swiss referendum tests virtual democracy" ::

From TheAge.Com.AU
Swiss authorities have hailed as a success what they said was the world's first binding internet vote in a national referendum.

About 2720 people in four Geneva suburbs - about one in five voters in the region who took part in the referendum - cast their ballots online on Sunday on issues including naturalisation laws, maternity leave and postal reform.

It took officials 13 minutes and five seconds to count the contents of the "virtual ballot box", cantonal (state) officials said.

Swiss authorities decided to organise the internet vote following a string of successful local online polls in Geneva and other cities.

"The success of this first pilot in the framework of a federal ballot is an important milestone for remote electronic voting in Switzerland," said Annemarie Huber-Hotz, head of Switzerland's federal chancellory.

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 10:21:00 PM [+] ::
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:: "Violence in Iraq Belies Claims of Calm, Data Show" ::

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, September 26, 2004; Page A01

BAGHDAD, Sept. 25 -- Less than four months before planned national elections in Iraq, attacks against U.S. troops, Iraqi security forces and private contractors number in the dozens each day and have spread to parts of the country that had been relatively peaceful, according to statistics compiled by a private security firm working for the U.S. government.

Attacks over the past two weeks have killed more than 250 Iraqis and 29 U.S. military personnel, according to figures released by Iraq's Health Ministry and the Pentagon. A sampling of daily reports produced during that period by Kroll Security International for the U.S. Agency for International Development shows that such attacks typically number about 70 each day. In contrast, 40 to 50 hostile incidents occurred daily during the weeks preceding the handover of political authority to an interim Iraqi government on June 28, according to military officials.

Reports covering seven days in a recent 10-day period depict a nation racked by all manner of insurgent violence, from complex ambushes involving 30 guerrillas north of Baghdad on Monday to children tossing molotov cocktails at a U.S. Army patrol in the capital's Sadr City slum on Wednesday. On maps included in the reports, red circles denoting attacks surround nearly every major city in central, western and northern Iraq, except for Kurdish-controlled areas in the far north. Cities in the Shiite Muslim-dominated south, including several that had undergone a period of relative calm in recent months, also have been hit with near-daily attacks.

In number and scope, the attacks compiled in the Kroll reports suggest a broad and intensifying campaign of insurgent violence that contrasts sharply with assessments by Bush administration officials and Iraq's interim prime minister that the instability is contained to small pockets of the country.

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 10:34:00 AM [+] ::
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:: Let's Call the Whole Thing Off ::

You Say Yusuf, I Say Youssouf...
From Time Mag online
The Yusuf Islam incident earlier this week, in which the former Cat Stevens was denied entry into the U.S. when federal officials determined he was on the government's "no-fly" antiterror list, started with a simple spelling error. According to aviation sources with access to the list, there is no Yusuf Islam on the no-fly registry, though there is a "Youssouf Islam." The incorrect name was added to the register this summer, but because Islam's name is spelled "Yusuf" on his British passport, he was allowed to board a plane in London bound for the U.S. The Transportation Safety Administration alleges that Islam has links to terrorist groups, which he has denied; British foreign minister Jack Straw said the TSA action "should never have been taken."

The incident points up some of the real problems facing security personnel as they try to enforce the "no-fly" list. One issue is spelling; many foreign names have several different transliterations into English. And the sheer size of the list is daunting; thousands of names have been added in the last couple months, says one government official, bringing the total up to more than 19,000 names to look out for. That makes it difficult for airlines and government agencies to check all passengers. Within the past six months, several people on the no fly list have been mistakenly allowed to fly.

Still, the TSA is learning. It recently acknowledged that a Federal Air Marshall, unable to fly for weeks when his name was mistakenly put on the "no-fly" list, was in fact not a threat, and removed his name from the list.

posted by me

:: 10:11:00 PM [+] ::
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:: "Friends Remember American Slain in Iraq" ::

MARIETTA, GA (AP) - About 800 friends and family members gathered Saturday to remember the humor and kindness of Jack Hensley, an American executed by terrorists in Iraq on his 49th birthday.

Hensley, who had accepted a construction job in Iraq to support his wife and daughter, was kidnapped on Sept. 16 with American Eugene Armstrong and Kenneth Bigley of Britain. On Wednesday, Hensley's family learned he was killed.

Hensley, friends said, was a man who loved to smile and make others laugh. He played golf in his sandals, sent clean versions of e-mail jokes to his pastor and wore a grass skirt for two days when he organized a trip with friends to a Jimmy Buffett concert. But friends also say the Marietta man also knew the importance of helping others have a better life.

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 9:44:00 PM [+] ::
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:: "Kerry: Allawi Abets Bush in Putting on 'Best Face'" ::

From Wired News
By Patricia Wilson

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) - Democratic White House challenger John Kerry said on Thursday interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi had abetted President Bush in putting the "best face" on an Iraq policy in disarray.

Pounding his Republican rival on the war and its chaotic aftermath for a fourth consecutive day, Kerry also ridiculed Bush for leaving New York after his address to the U.N. General Assembly this week without meeting enough foreign leaders.

The Massachusetts senator questioned assertions by Allawi, a key ally of the Bush administration, that Iraq would hold elections in January despite the flaring insurgency and that "we are succeeding in Iraq."

"I think the prime minister is obviously contradicting his own statement of a few days ago when he said that terrorists are pouring into the country," Kerry told reporters.

"The prime minister and the president are here obviously to put their best face on the policy, but the fact is that the CIA estimates, the reporting, the ground operations and the troops all tell a different story."

Read more here.

ALSO from Wired News
E-Vote Fears Soar in Swing States
The Bush and Kerry campaigns, along with a range of advocacy groups, are concerned with the integrity of voting technology -- particularly in the states where votes matter most. By Jacob Ogles.

posted by me

:: 9:31:00 PM [+] ::
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:: "Mike's Words : Mike's Message" ::

From MichaelMoore.com
Mr. Bush and His 10 Ever-Changing Different Positions on Iraq: "A flip and a flop and now just a flop."

Dear Mr. Bush,

I am so confused. Where exactly do you stand on the issue of Iraq? You, your Dad, Rummy, Condi, Colin, and Wolfie -- you have all changed your minds so many times, I am out of breath just trying to keep up with you!

Which of these 10 positions that you, your family and your cabinet have taken over the years represents your CURRENT thinking:

1983-88: WE LOVE SADDAM. On December 19, 1983, Donald Rumsfeld was sent by your dad and Mr. Reagan to go and have a friendly meeting with Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq. Rummy looked so happy in the picture. Just twelve days after this visit, Saddam gassed thousands of Iranian troops. Your dad and Rummy seemed pretty happy with the results because ‘The Donald R.’ went back to have another chummy hang-out with Saddam’s right-hand man, Tariq Aziz, just four months later. All of this resulted in the U.S. providing credits and loans to Iraq that enabled Saddam to buy billions of dollars worth of weapons and chemical agents. The Washington Post reported that your dad and Reagan let it be known to their Arab allies that the Reagan/Bush administration wanted Iraq to win its war with Iran and anyone who helped Saddam accomplish this was a friend of ours.

1990: WE HATE SADDAM. In 1990, when Saddam invaded Kuwait, your dad and his defense secretary, Dick Cheney, decided they didn't like Saddam anymore so they attacked Iraq and returned Kuwait to its rightful dictators.

1991: WE WANT SADDAM TO LIVE. After the war, your dad and Cheney and Colin Powell told the Shiites to rise up against Saddam and we would support them. So they rose up. But then we changed our minds. When the Shiites rose up against Saddam, the Bush inner circle changed its mind and decided NOT to help the Shiites. Thus, they were massacred by Saddam.

1998: WE WANT SADDAM TO DIE. In 1998, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and others, as part of the Project for the New American Century, wrote an open letter to President Clinton insisting he invade and topple Saddam Hussein.

2000: WE DON'T BELIEVE IN WAR AND NATION BUILDING. Just three years later, during your debate with Al Gore in the 2000 election, when asked by the moderator Jim Lehrer where you stood when it came to using force for regime change, you turned out to be a downright pacifist:


“I--I would take the use of force very seriously. I would be guarded in my approach. I don't think we can be all things to all people in the world. I think we've got to be very careful when we commit our troops. The vice president [Al Gore] and I have a disagreement about the use of troops. He believes in nation building. I--I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders. I believe the role of the military is to fight and win war and, therefore, prevent war from happening in the first place. And so I take my--I take my--my responsibility seriously.” --October 3, 2000

2001 (early): WE DON'T BELIEVE SADDAM IS A THREAT. When you took office in 2001, you sent your Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and your National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, in front of the cameras to assure the American people they need not worry about Saddam Hussein. Here is what they said:


Powell: “We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they have directed that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was 10 years ago when we began it. And frankly, they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors.” --February 24, 2001


Rice: “But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.” --July 29, 2001

2001 (late): WE BELIEVE SADDAM IS GOING TO KILL US! Just a few months later, in the hours and days after the 9/11 tragedy, you had no interest in going after Osama bin Laden. You wanted only to bomb Iraq and kill Saddam and you then told all of America we were under imminent threat because weapons of mass destruction were coming our way. You led the American people to believe that Saddam had something to do with Osama and 9/11. Without the UN's sanction, you broke international law and invaded Iraq.

2003: WE DON’T BELIEVE SADDAM IS GOING TO KILL US. After no WMDs were found, you changed your mind about why you said we needed to invade, coming up with a brand new after-the-fact reason -- we started this war so we could have regime change, liberate Iraq and give the Iraqis democracy!

2003: “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!” Yes, everyone saw you say it -- in costume, no less!

2004: OOPS. MISSION NOT ACCOMPLISHED! Now you call the Iraq invasion a "catastrophic success." That's what you called it this month. Over a thousand U.S. soldiers have died, Iraq is in a state of total chaos where no one is safe, and you have no clue how to get us out of there.

Mr. Bush, please tell us -- when will you change your mind again?

I know you hate the words "flip" and "flop," so I won't use them both on you. In fact, I'll use just one: Flop. That is what you are. A huge, colossal flop. The war is a flop, your advisors and the "intelligence" they gave you is a flop, and now we are all a flop to the rest of the world. Flop. Flop. Flop.

And you have the audacity to criticize John Kerry with what you call the "many positions" he has taken on Iraq. By my count, he has taken only one: He believed you. That was his position. You told him and the rest of congress that Saddam had WMDs. So he -- and the vast majority of Americans, even those who didn't vote for you -- believed you. You see, Americans, like John Kerry, want to live in a country where they can believe their president.

That was the one, single position John Kerry took. He didn't support the war, he supported YOU. And YOU let him and this great country down. And that is why tens of millions can't wait to get to the polls on Election Day -- to remove a major, catastrophic flop from our dear, beloved White House -- to stop all the flipping you and your men have done, flipping us and the rest of the world off.

We can't take another minute of it.

Yours,
Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com

posted by me

:: 4:44:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: "THE LYNCHING OF DAN RATHER" ::
On British TV, Dan feared the price of "asking questions"
From an e-newsletter
By Greg Palast

"It's that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions," the aging American journalist told the British television audience.

In June 2002, Dan Rather looked old, defeated, making a confession he dare not speak on American TV about the deadly censorship -- and self-censorship -- which had seized US newsrooms. After September 11, news on the US tube was bound and gagged. Any reporter who stepped out of line, he said, would be professionally lynched as un-American.

"It's an obscene comparison," he said, "but there was a time in South Africa when people would put flaming tires around people's necks if they dissented. In some ways, the fear is that you will be necklaced here. You will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck." No US reporter who values his neck or career will "bore in on the tough questions."

Dan said all these things to a British audience. However, back in the USA, he smothered his conscience and told his TV audience: "George Bush is the President. He makes the decisions. He wants me to line up, just tell me where."

During the war in Vietnam, Dan's predecessor at CBS, Walter Cronkite, asked some pretty hard questions about Nixon's handling of the war in Vietnam. Today, our sons and daughters are dying in Bush wars. But, unlike Cronkite, Dan could not, would not, question George Bush, Top Gun Fighter Pilot, Our Maximum Beloved Leader in the war on terror.

On the British broadcast, without his network minders snooping, you could see Dan seething and deeply unhappy with himself for playing the game.

"What is going on," he said, "I'm sorry to say, is a belief that the public doesn't need to know -- limiting access, limiting information to cover the backsides of those who are in charge of the war. It's extremely dangerous and cannot and should not be accepted, and I'm sorry to say that up to and including this moment of this interview, that overwhelmingly it has been accepted by the American people. And the current Administration revels in that, they relish and take refuge in that."

Dan's words had a poignant personal ring for me. He was speaking on Newsnight, BBC's nightly current affairs program, which broadcasts my own reports. I do not report for BBC, despite its stature, by choice. The truth is, if I want to put a hard, investigative report about the USA on the nightly news, I have to broadcast it in exile, from London. For Americans my broadcasts are stopped at an electronic Berlin wall.

Indeed, Dan is in hot water for a report my own investigative team put in Britain's Guardian papers and on BBC TV years ago. Way back in 1999, I wrote that former Texas Lt. Governor Ben Barnes had put in the fix for little George Bush to get out of 'Nam and into the Air Guard.

What is hot news this month in the USA is a five-year-old story to the rest of the world. And you still wouldn't see it in the USA except that Dan Rather, with a 60 Minutes producer, finally got fed up and ready to step out of line. And, as Dan predicted, he stuck out his neck and got it chopped off.

Is Rather's report accurate? Is George W. Bush a war hero or a privileged little Shirker-in-Chief? Today I saw a goofy two page spread in the Washington Post about a typewriter used to write a memo with no significance to the draft-dodge story. What I haven't read about in my own country's media is about two crucial documents supporting the BBC/CBS story. The first is Barnes' signed and sworn affidavit to a Texas Court, from 1999, in which he testifies to the Air Guard fix -- which Texas Governor George W. Bush, given the opportunity, declined to challenge.

And there is a second document, from the files of US Justice Department, again confirming the story of the fix to keep George's white bottom out of Vietnam. That document, shown last year in the BBC television documentary, "Bush Family Fortunes," correctly identifies Barnes as the bag man even before his 1999 confession.

At BBC, we also obtained a statement from the man who made the call to the Air Guard general on behalf of Bush at Barnes' request. Want to see the document? I've posted it here.

This is not a story about Dan Rather. The white millionaire celebrity can defend himself without my help. This is really a story about fear, the fear that stops other reporters in the US from following the evidence about this Administration to where it leads. American news guys and news gals, practicing their smiles, adjusting their hairspray levels, bleaching their teeth and performing all the other activities that are at the heart of US TV journalism, will look to the treatment of Dan Rather and say, "Not me, babe." No questions will be asked, as Dan predicted, lest they risk necklacing and their careers as news actors burnt to death.

"Bush Family Fortunes," the one-hour documentary taken from Greg Palast's BBC investigative reports, including the story of George Bush and Texas Air Guard, can be viewed, in part, here.

posted by me

:: 9:44:00 AM [+] ::
...

:: "Invitation to a Mashup" ::

Outfoxed Offered for Remix
From Wired News
The maker of a documentary about Fox News offers raw footage of his film online for others to re-edit into new "mixes." With the spread of broadband and cheap filmmaking software, film may become remixers' favored medium. By Daniel Terdiman.

posted by me

:: 9:13:00 AM [+] ::
...

:: "Kerry steps up attack on 'reckless mistakes'" ::

From The Independent (UK)
By David Usborne in New York

Senator John Kerry made his most aggressive and comprehensive attack yet against George Bush and his pursuit of the war in Iraq - accusing him of "outright incompetence" and "reckless mistakes" - one day before the President was due to deliver a major foreign policy address at the United Nations.

Speaking at New York University yesterday, Mr Kerry was trying to recover the initiative and put the President on the defensive on Iraq and foreign policy. They remain issues on which Mr Bush holds a strong edge in the opinion polls.

The Democrat senator charged him with consistently misleading the public about both the rationale for invading Iraq and the consequences of it, failing to win meaningful support from other nations and losing the focus on the more important war against terrorism. "Iraq was a profound diversion from that war and the battle against our greatest enemy, Osama bin Laden and the terrorists," Mr Kerry declared. "Invading Iraq has created a crisis of historic proportions and, if we do not change course, there is the prospect of a war with no end in sight."

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 8:51:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: "Senators Urge Bush to Rethink Iraq Policy" ::

WASHINGTON (AP) - Senators from both parties urged the Bush administration on Sunday to make a realistic assessment of the situation in Iraq and adjust its policies aimed at pacifying the country.

A major problem, said leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was incompetence by the administration in reconstructing the country's shattered infrastructure.

The chairman, Sen. Richard Lugar, noted that Congress appropriated $18.4 billion a year ago this week for reconstruction. No more than $1 billion has been spent. "This is the incompetence in the administration," Lugar, R-Ind., said on ABC's "This Week."

"Exactly right," interjected Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden, the committee's top Democrat. He said later: "This has been incompetence so far. Five percent of the $18.4 billion that George Bush keeps ... beating the other candidate up and about the head for how he voted and didn't vote, and he's released 5 percent."

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 12:45:00 AM [+] ::
...

:: So Weird ::

From Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird

LEAD STORY
Business prospects are improving for Christopher Lindhoist and Arshad Chowdhury, who recently opened their Metronaps lounge on the 24th floor of New York City's Empire State Building and whose clients pay $14 to relieve stress by dozing off for 20 minutes in private, specially made, reclining chair-pods with an array of vibrations and sounds to drown out the hubbub of the city. Chowdhury said he studied the science of napping at Carnegie-Mellon University and found a "tremendous amount of research" showing the rejuvenative value of the short "power nap," which he said improves memory, mood and learning. The Metronaps chair-pods (cost: $8,000) are being separately sold to companies overseas and may soon appear in airport lounges. [BBC News, 9-9-04; Boston Globe, 8-3-04]

Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or WeirdNews@earthlink.net

posted by me

:: 10:11:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: "The Daily Mislead" ::

From MoveOn.org
Administration Misleads on Prospects in Iraq
In late July, a report prepared for the President by his National Intelligence Counsel spelled out "a dark assessment of prospects for Iraq."1 According to the New York Times, "the estimate outlines three possibilities for Iraq through the end of 2005, with the worst case being developments that could lead to civil war, the officials said. The most favorable outcome described is an Iraq whose stability would remain tenuous in political, economic and security terms."2 But that didn't stop Bush and other members of the administration from telling the American people that Iraq was headed in the right direction.

On August 5, President Bush said, "[Iraq is] on the path to lasting democracy and liberty."3 On August 24, Vice President Cheney told voters in Iowa that "We're moving in the right direction [in Iraq]."4 And this Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said Iraqis were "working at making a success out of that country...And I think they've got a darned good crack at making it."

Sources:
"U.S. Intelligence Shows Pessimism on Iraq's Future," New York Times, 9/16/04.
Ibid.
"President Signs Defense Bill," The White House, 8/05/04.
"Remarks by the Vice President and Mrs. Cheney Followed by Question and Answer at a Town Hall Meeting," The White House, 8/24/04.
"Secretary Rumsfeld Town Hall Meeting at Ft. Campbell, Ky.," U.S. Department of Defense, 9/14/04.

posted by me

:: 9:13:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: "GOP Mailing Warns Liberals Will Ban Bibles" ::

WASHINGTON (AP) - Campaign mail with a return address of the Republican National Committee warns West Virginia voters that the Bible will be prohibited and men will marry men if liberals win in November.

The literature shows a Bible with the word "BANNED" across it and a photo of a man, on his knees, placing a ring on the hand of another man with the word "ALLOWED." The mailing tells West Virginians to "vote Republican to protect our families" and defeat the "liberal agenda."

Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie said Friday that he wasn't aware of the mailing, but said it could be the work of the RNC. "It wouldn't surprise me if we were mailing voters on the issue of same-sex marriage," Gillespie said.

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 12:47:00 AM [+] ::
...

:: "Judge Orders U.S. to Find Bush Records" ::

WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal judge has ordered the Pentagon to find and make public by next week any unreleased files about President Bush's Vietnam-era Air National Guard service to resolve a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by The Associated Press.

U.S. District Judge Harold Baer Jr. handed down the order late Wednesday in New York. The AP lawsuit already has led to the disclosure of previously unreleased flight logs from Bush's days piloting F-102A fighters and other jets.

Pentagon officials told Baer they plan to have their search complete by Monday. Baer ordered the Pentagon to hand over the records to the AP by Sept. 24 and provide a written statement by Sept. 29 detailing the search for more records.

"We're hopeful the Department of Defense will provide a full accounting of the steps it has taken, as the judge ordered, so the public can have some assurance that there are no documents being withheld," said AP lawyer David Schulz.

Bush's critics say Bush got preferential treatment as the son of a congressman and U.N. ambassador. Critics also question why Bush skipped a required medical examination in 1972 and failed to show up for drills during a six-month period that year.

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 5:15:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: "SPECIAL DELIVERY ... "::

A HOGWARTS HOWLER FOR THE AMERICAN VOTER
From a e-newsletter
By Arianna Huffington

Oh, how I wish this column were capable of special effects. If it were, the newspaper or computer screen you’re reading it on would suddenly morph into a Howler, one of those bright red envelopes in the Harry Potter books that, when opened, begin to shout at the recipient in the sender’s voice. In this case, my Greek-accented cry would fill the air:

WAKE UP! WAKE UP!! WAKE UP!!!

The reason for my distress is simple: I’ve just seen another round of polls showing that, by a hefty 23-point spread, voters think George W. Bush will make the country safer and more secure than John Kerry. Karl Rove’s VBD (Vote for Bush or Die) strategy is clearly working.

And I’m left Howlering:

SAFER AND MORE SECURE? IN WHAT UNIVERSE???

For the public to be so dead wrong on this central issue of the campaign, two things had to happen: The GOP had to relentlessly hammer home their lies, and the other side had to let them get away with it.

Last month, John Kerry said: “More than 30 years ago, I learned an important lesson. When you’re under attack, the best thing to do is turn your boat into the attack.”

The good news is that once he turns his boat into this attack, he will absolutely never run out of ammunition. The facts that prove that George Bush’s prosecution of the War on Terror has been an unmitigated disaster are profuse and irrefutable.

But this Howler has to come in John Kerry’s voice — and the message has to be delivered not just now and then but pounded home, Rove-style, day after day, week after week, until it sinks in.

Kerry simply cannot, as some are advising, look at the poll numbers, cede national security to the other side, and hope to win by going after Bush on health care and jobs.

He needs to hit the president — again and again and again — right smack in the middle of his supposed strength: Bush’s “strong,” “steadfast, “unwavering,” “decisive” leadership in the War on Terror. This frontal assault on Bush’s terror strategy centers on all the ways this president has failed us. So, let me review them:

For starters, there is his disastrous decision to invade — for all intents and purposes unilaterally — Iraq, an operation Bush termed a “catastrophic success.” More like a catastrophic diversion — of troops and money and focus that would have been better spent, oh, I don’t know, going after the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11.

Right after those attacks, Bush said that capturing Osama bin Laden was “our number one priority.” But three years later, bin Laden is still on the loose and plotting to attack us again, a fact that Bush and Cheney keep trying to make us forget — first by turning him into He Who Must Not Be Named, and second by continuing to trot out the lies connecting Saddam Hussein to 9/11. Lies so thoroughly discredited that even loyal soldier Colin Powell felt compelled last Sunday to shoot them down.

Yet, hard though it is to believe, a Newsweek poll last week found that 42 percent of Americans still think Saddam was “directly involved in planning, financing or carrying out the terrorist attacks.”

I feel another Hogwarts Howler coming on: REPEAT AFTER ME: THERE WAS NO CONNECTION BETWEEN SADDAM AND 9/11. NONE! ZERO! ZIP! AAAAAH!

Bush’s lust for Iraq kept us from securing Afghanistan, most of which is now under the rule of barbaric warlords, with the Taliban and the country’s drug trade — a major source of funding for terrorist efforts worldwide — making a comeback.

What’s more, Bush’s Baghdad folly has allowed the terrorists to regroup. At his convention, the president had the gall to claim that “more than three-quarters of al-Qaida’s key members and associates have been detained or killed,” which makes it sound like the war on terror is all but won: “75 percent down; just a measly 25 percent to go!”

In truth, according to a study by the respected International Institute for Strategic Studies: “Al-Qaida has fully reconstituted and set its sights firmly on the USA.” The report also found that the war on Iraq had “helped al-Qaida recruit more members.”

Still feeling safer? Then let’s take a trip down nerve-racking memory lane, back to October 2001, when President Bush held a photo op at FBI headquarters and announced a list of America’s 22 Most Wanted Terrorists — a terrifying lineup he called “the first 22” in a long-term struggle, “leaders and key supporters … planners and strategists.” Three years later, just three of these Most Wanted have been captured or killed. The other 19 are still on the loose.

So is it really any surprise that the number of people killed and wounded in worldwide terrorist attacks is on the rise?

Bush has also failed to stem the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and materials. Take North Korea and Iran. The president’s all-consuming focus on Iraq has allowed the other two spokes on the Axis of Evil to push forward with their nuclear programs. While we were spending billions looking for Saddam’s nonexistent WMD, Kim Jong Il was building more nukes and the mullahs in Tehran were racing to do the same.

As if that weren’t bad enough, Bush has dragged his feet on efforts to keep loose nukes in the former Soviet Union from falling into the wrong hands.

Still thinking Bush is the man to keep us safe and secure? Then consider just a few of the ways he has robbed our Homeland Security Peter to pay his foreign occupation Paul:

Our ports are still woefully unprotected and underfunded. Since 9/11, Bush has allocated just $441 million of the $7.5 billion the Coast Guard says it will cost to protect our ports from terrorist attacks. And, obviously not having learned the lessons of Madrid, he’s earmarked just $100 million for rail security — about what we spend on eight typical hours in Iraq. The president has likewise shortchanged airport security: Only eight of America’s 440 airports have state-of-the-art baggage screening machines.

And how’s this for a kick in the teeth? The president’s cutbacks have actually left fewer police and first responders on the streets today than were there on 9/11. That’s right: Bush has responded to the worst attack on American soil by making us less prepared to deal with another one.

So let’s recap: Under George Bush, the guy who is going to keep us safer, Osama has gone free; al-Qaida has reloaded; terrorist attacks continue unabated; nukes keep on spreading; the Muslim world is ferociously united against us (and the rest of the world isn’t too crazy about us either); our ports, railways, roads and borders remain unsecured; our police, firefighters and first responders remain underequipped; and our armed forces have been stretched perilously thin.

I’m all for having the election be a referendum on which candidate will make the country safe and secure — but only after Kerry’s inner Howler has had his say.

Said Howler is on cinematic display in a powerful new documentary coming to a theater near you the day after the first — and only? — presidential debate. For me, the highlight of George Butler’s “Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry” is the story of Kerry’s courageous and inspiring efforts as a leader of the Vietnam veterans’ antiwar movement.

If Kerry can make the case against Bush’s tragic failures in Iraq and the War on Terror with half as much urgency and moral clarity as he did against Nixon’s failures in Vietnam, the American people will be able to enter the voting booth on Election Day with their eyes wide open.

© 2004 ARIANNA HUFFINGTON.
DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

posted by me

:: 10:02:00 AM [+] ::
...

:: So Weird ::

From Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird

People Different From Us
The legendarily devoted anthropologist John Peabody Harrington passed away in 1961 and left six tons of disorganized belongings in various warehouses, attics, basements, and even chicken coops. Most of the items were quixotic, inexplicable junk. However, according to a July 2004 Los Angeles Times report, there are also 1 million pages of valuable notes in nearly indecipherable code, which will require 20 years to organize and are strewn amongst, apparently, everything Harrington ever possessed, including dirty laundry, half-eaten food, and "a box of birds stored for 30 years without the benefit of taxidermy." According to anthropologists, Harrington's records are absolutely crucial because in some cases his work forms the only written evidence of certain Native American languages. [Los Angeles Times, 7-2-04]

Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or WeirdNews@earthlink.net

posted by me

:: 6:23:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: "Bill Seeks Civil Liberties Board" ::

From Wired News
Legislation introduced in the Senate to implement 9/11 Commission recommendations would create an executive-level board to investigate and advise on civil liberties and privacy issues. President Bush recently created a similar board with fewer powers. By Ryan Singel.

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 10:11:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: "SEPTEMBER 11: WHAT YOU 'OUGHT NOT TO KNOW'" ::

DOCUMENT 199-I AND THE FBI'S WORDS TO CHILL THE SOUL
From an e-newsletter
by Greg Palast

On November 9, 2001, when you could still choke on the dust in the air near Ground Zero, BBC Television received a call in London from a top-level US intelligence agent. He was not happy. Shortly after George W. Bush took office, he told us reluctantly, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the FBI, "were told to back off the Saudis."

We knew that. In the newsroom, we had a document already in hand, marked, "SECRET" across the top and "199-I" - meaning this was a national security matter.

The secret memo released agents to hunt down two member of the bin Laden family operating a "suspected terrorist organization" in the USA. It was dated September 13, 2001 -- two days too late for too many. What the memo indicates, corroborated by other sources, was that the agents had long wanted to question these characters ... but could not until after the attack. By that time, these bin Laden birds had flown their American nest.

Back to the high-level agent. I pressed him to tell me exactly which investigations were spiked. None of this interview dance was easy, requiring switching to untraceable phones. Ultimately, the insider said, "Khan Labs." At the time, our intelligence agencies were on the trail of Pakistan's Dr. Strangelove, A.Q. Khan, who built Pakistan's bomb and was selling its secrets to the Libyans. But once Bush and Condoleeza Rice's team took over, the source told us, agents were forced to let a hot trail go cold. Specifically, there were limits on tracing the Saudi money behind this "Islamic bomb."

Then we made another call, this time to an arms dealer in the Mideast. He confirmed that his partner attended a meeting in 1995 at the 5-star Hotel Royale Monceau in Paris where, allegedly, Saudi billionaires agreed to fund Al Qaeda fanatics. We understood it to be protection money, not really a sign of support for their attacks. Nevertheless, rule number one of investigative reporting is "follow the money" -- but the sheiks' piggy banks were effectively off-limits to the US agents during the Bush years. One of the men in the posh hotel's meeting of vipers happens to have been a Bush family business associate.

Before you jump to the wrong conclusion, let me tell you that we found no evidence -- none, zero, no kidding -- that George Bush knew about Al Qaeda's plan to attack on September 11. Indeed, the grim joke at BBC is that anyone accusing George Bush of knowing anything at all must have solid evidence. This is not a story of what George Bush knew but rather of his very-unfunny ignorance. And it was not stupidity, but policy: no asking Saudis uncomfortable questions about their paying off roving packs of killers, especially when those Saudis are so generous to Bush family businesses.

Yes, Bill Clinton was also a bit too tender towards the oil men of Arabia. But this you should know. In his last year in office, Clinton sent two delegations to the Gulf to suggest that the Royal family crack down on "charitable donations" from their kingdom to the guys who blew up our embassies.

But when a failed Texas oil man took over the White House in January 2001, demands on the Saudis to cut off terror funding simply stopped.

And what about the bin Laden "suspected terrorist organization"? Called the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, the group sponsors soccer teams and summer camps in Florida. BBC obtained a video of one camp activity, a speech exhorting kids on the heroism of suicide bombings and hostage takings. While WAMY draws membership with wholesome activities, it has also acted as a cover or front, say the Dutch, Indian and Bosnian governments, for the recruitment of jihadi killers.

Certainly, it was worth asking the bin Laden boys a few questions. But the FBI agents couldn't, until it was too late.

In November 2001, when BBC ran the report on the spike of investigations of Saudi funding of terror in November 2001, the Bush defenders whom we'd invited to respond on air dismissed the concerns of lower level FBI agents who'd passed over the WAMY documents. No action was taken on the group headed by the bin Ladens.

Then, in May this year, fifty FBI agents surrounded, invaded and sealed off WAMY's Virginia office. It was like a bad scene out of the 'Untouchables.' The raid took place three years after our report and long after the bin Ladens had waved bye-bye, it is not surprising that the feds seized mostly empty files and a lot of soccer balls.

Why now this belated move on the bin Laden's former operation? Why not right after the September 11 attack? This year's FBI raid occurred just days after an Islamist terror assault in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Apparently, messin' with the oil sheiks gets this Administration's attention. Falling towers in New York are only for Republican convention photo ops.

The 199-I memo was passed to BBC television by the sleuths at the National Security News Service in Washington. We authenticated it, added in our own sleuthing, then gave the FBI its say, expecting the usual, "It's baloney, a fake." But we didn't get the usual response. Rather, FBI headquarters said, "There are lots of things the intelligence community knows and other people ought not to know."

Ought not to know?

What else ought we not to know, Mr. President? And when are we supposed to forget it?

**************

posted by me

:: 12:54:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: "A Failed Investigation" ::

From a Washington Post Editorial
A DAY OF congressional hearings yesterday confirmed two glaring gaps in the Bush administration's response to hundreds of cases of prisoner abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan. The first is one of investigation: Major allegations of wrongdoing, including some touching on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other senior administration officials, have yet to be explored by any arms-length probe. The second concerns accountability. Although several official panels have documented failings by senior military officers and their superiors in Washington, those responsible face no sanction of any kind, even as low-ranking personnel are criminally prosecuted. To use the phrase of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), this "is beginning to look like a bad movie."

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 12:43:00 AM [+] ::
...

:: RE Dubya's 'Nam Daze ::

New Bush military memos released
From BBC News online

New memos state President George W Bush was suspended from flying for the Texas air national guard in Vietnam because he failed to meet their standards.
The documents released by the White House show the suspension also resulted from his failure to take his annual medical test as required.

The memos add details to the row over Mr Bush's military service in the war.

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 9:21:00 AM [+] ::
...

:: "HEROES AND VILLAINS" ::

REFRAMING THE 2004 RACE
From an e-newsletter
By Arianna Huffington

John Kerry is suddenly being bombarded with more advice than an obese,
alcoholic, unwed teenage mother seated between Dr. Laura and Dr. Phil on a
cross-country bus trip.

Spurred by Bush's convention bounce, jittery Democrats of every stripe --
including a hospital-bound Bill Clinton -- are urging him to "throw
caution to the wind," "start smacking back," "hammer home jobs, the
economy, health care and education," and concentrate on domestic issues.

So the party faithful have gone from expecting John Kerry to beat George
Bush by outmachoing the counterfeit cowboy from Crawford to expecting him
to win by offering a better Medicare plan.

The truth is neither of these strategies addresses the greatest challenge
facing the Kerry camp: the need to change the frame in which the campaign
is conducted -- a frame thus far constructed by Karl Rove and the
Bush/Cheney brain trust.

A new poll by CNN/USA Today/Gallup makes it clear that, unlike 2000,
issues are not driving this year's election. Voters are more concerned
with leadership skills than the candidates' issue-by-issue positions.

There is no doubt that Kerry wins on the issues. Indeed, among the
minority of voters making their decision based on the issues, Kerry has a
20-point lead. But Bush has opened a 20-point lead among the majority
that's focused on leadership.

Of course, leadership is about more than "a spine of tempered steel".
It's about character, values, priorities, and a clear vision of where the
country should be heading. So Kerry needs to offer a compelling,
overarching narrative tying his strength -- and Bush's weakness -- on
issues like jobs, the economy, the environment, and health care to his
vision for America's future.

Thankfully -- and ironically -- during its convention, the Bush/Cheney
team delivered the very narrative that can defeat it. It was offered to
Kerry on a platter in Madison Square Garden when speaker after speaker
relentlessly and shamelessly ridiculed the undeniable reality that we are
two Americas, separated by an ever-widening gulf -- not just in income but
in educational opportunities, access to health care, and the ability to
realize the American Dream.

Rudy Giuliani and Dick Cheney even went so far as to use the notion of two
Americas as the set up for jokes.

"Senator Kerry says he sees two Americas," said Cheney. "It makes the
whole thing mutual. America sees two John Kerrys." And according to
Giuliani, Democrats need "two Americas -- one where John Kerry can vote
for something and another where he can vote against the same thing."
Hardee-har-har.

It's worth noting that this frivolity at the expense of the Other America
came just days after the release of a devastating report from the Census
Bureau showing that over 12 percent of the American people -- 35.9
million, 12.9 million of them children -- now live below the poverty line,
and that the number of Americans with no health insurance has increased by
5.8 million under Bush, bringing the total to 45 million. Pretty funny,
eh boys?

And the growing chasm between the Two Americas is chillingly documented in
a report released this week by the Economic Policy Institute which shows
how over the last few years "income shifted extremely rapidly and
extensively from labor compensation to capital income (profits and
interest)." As Jared Bernstein, co-author of the report, put it: "The
economic pie is growing gangbusters and the typical household is falling
behind."

And yet Arnold Schwarzenegger had the gall to tell us at the convention
that "America is back!" The fact that the Republicans chose not only to
render the increasing pain of increasing millions invisible but to use it
as a punchline tells you all you need to know about the current mindset of
the Grand Old Party. And, even more importantly, it offers an
unparalleled opportunity for the Kerry campaign to stop defending itself
against the flip-flopping caricature of Kerry that Rove has created and
start defining who George Bush really is -- a callous leader whose
regressive policies have made America a crueler and more dangerous place.

The Two Americas narrative shows that, far from providing strong
leadership, Bush has turned his back on the traditional American values of
fairness, opportunity, and responsibility.

What's more, it's impossible to talk about the reality of the Two Americas
without talking about Bush's miserable failures in Iraq, as Kerry did on
Labor Day, pointing out to a crowd in Cleveland that this "wrong war in
the wrong place at the wrong time… cost all of you $200 billion that could
have gone to schools, could have gone to health care, could have gone to
prescription drugs, could have gone to our Social Security."

It's the Other America that's paying this cost in forgone opportunities
and investments. And it's the Other America that's also paying the
highest price of all in lost lives and maimed bodies. There are precious
few denizens of Bush's America slogging through the bloody streets of
Najaf and Fallujah -- other than the occasional Halliburton executive,
there to check on the company's investment in democracy.

It was a great relief to hear Kerry slam Bush on Iraq, and ignore the
siren song of those advising him to cede the foreign policy front to the
president and stick to domestic issues. This, of course, is the same
strategy Democrats followed in 2002, when they went along with Bush on
Iraq in the hope they could take it off the table as a campaign issue and
win on the economy. And we all remember how well that turned out. For
the GOP.

The storyline of this campaign is really about heroes and villains. John
Kerry and John Edwards are running because they are committed to the most
important and heroic task facing our country: the building of one
indivisible nation. They desperately want to make us one America. Bush
and Cheney are running so they can continue to make life easier, plusher,
and more privileged for the only America they choose to see. To succeed,
they have to convince enough people between now and Election Day that the
Other America is somehow a pessimistic figment of the Democratic
imagination.

The people who flock to John Kerry's rallies know the truth. People like
Lori Sheldon, a 45-year old mother of two who approached Kerry at a Labor
Day rally in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania where he spoke of the struggle of
middle-class Americans no longer even trying to get ahead but just to hang
on.

"You told our story," she said, sobbing. Sheldon's husband is a baggage
handler for financially strapped US Airways and faces being laid off this
fall. So her story is the story of one more family the Republican
convention had no time for, living paycheck to paycheck, in fear of losing
it all.

This is the voice of the Other America. And no matter how vehemently and
blithely the president and his surrogates insist that it doesn't exist, it
does. And if John Kerry continues to tell its story, amplify its voice,
and give the Other America a reason to turn out in November, he'll win in
a landslide.

© 2004 ARIANNA HUFFINGTON.

---

:: 12:59:00 AM [+] ::
...

:: "THE GRINCH THAT STOLE LABOR DAY FROM VETERANS" ::

From a Greg Palast e-newsletter:
I know you won't believe this, but our President told a whopper in New York
by Greg Palast
An update of our report from last Labor Day.

Monday, September 6, 2004 - In celebration of the working person's holiday, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao has announced the Bush Administration's plan to end the 60-year-old law which requires employers to pay time-and-a-half for overtime.

I'm sure you already knew that -- if you happened to have run across page 15,576 of last year's Federal Register.

According to the Register, where the Bush Administration likes to place its little gifts to major campaign donors, 2.7 million workers will lose their overtime pay for a "benefit" of $1.53 billion. I put "benefit" in quotes because, in the official cost-benefit analysis issued by Bush's Labor Department, the amount employers will now be able to slice out of workers' pockets is tallied on the plus side of the rules change.

President Bush announced in his convention acceptance speech in New York this week that he was changing overtime rules to give workers "comp time" off, instead of pay. He forgot to mention that a couple of days before, on August 23, his Labor Department had already put in half the plan -- eliminating overtime pay for millions -- while failing to put into the regs one word about comp time. In the pre-September 11 days, we used to call what the President said, "lying."

Nevertheless, workers getting their pay snipped shouldn't complain, because they will all be receiving promotions. These employees will be re-classified as managers exempt from the law. The change is promoted by the National Council of Chain Restaurants. You've met these 'managers' - they're the ones in the beanies and aprons whose management decisions are, "Hold the lettuce on that."

NO OVERTIME IN BAGHDAD

My favorite of Chao's little amendments would re-classify as "exempt professionals" anyone who learned their skill in the military. In other words, thousands of veterans will now lose overtime pay. I just can't understand why Bush didn't announce that one when he landed on the aircraft carrier.

Now I should say that, according to Chao's press office, the changes will actually extend overtime benefits to 1.3 million burger flippin' managers. How does that square with the billion dollar "benefit" to business owners? Simple: The Chao hounds at the Labor Department suggest that employers CUT WAGES so that, added to the new "overtime" pay, the employees won't actually take home a dime more.

I can hear the moaners and bleeding hearts saying this sounds like the Labor Department is telling Big Business how to evade the law. Yep, that's what the Department is doing. Right there on page 15,576 of the Federal Register it says,

"Affected employers would have four choices concerning potential payroll costs: ... (#4) converting salaried employees' basis of pay to an hourly rate that result in virtually no changes to the total compensation paid those workers."

And in case some employer is dense as a president and doesn't get the hint, Comrade Chao repeats, "The fourth choice above results in virtually no (or only a minimal) increase in labor costs."

For decades the courts have thrown the book at cheapskate bosses who chisel workers out of legal overtime by cutting base pay this way -- but now they'll have a new defense: Bush made me do it.

But then, there likely will not be any cases against employers anyway since Chao herself is supposedly the labor cop whose job it is to stop paycheck theft. She's well qualified for that job. Her resume reads, "Married to Republican Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky." I called her press office to ask if she qualifies for overtime, but they'd left the office early.

And there is good news for our sporting President. Word from the White House is he'll be golfing on the Labor Day weekend. Under Chao's rules he need not worry if he wants to replay that hole. "Exempt professionals" who cannot earn overtime - once defined as doctors, lawyers and those with specialized college degrees - will now include anyone who provides skilled advice ... like caddies ("You might try the other end of the club, Mr. President").

**********

posted by me

:: 10:47:00 AM [+] ::
...

:: So Weird ::

From Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird

LEAD STORY
Among the reality-TV series being batted around in London, according to recent reports in the Daily Telegraph and The Independent, is "Make Me a Mum," in which a woman reduces a field of men to the two whom she believes will make her the genetically best offspring. At that point, producers will inseminate the woman with sperm from both men and, using intravaginal micro technology, will attempt to record a "race" to see which sperm gets to the egg first. Said Remy Blumenfeld, the creative director for the Brighter Pictures production house, "(This show is) much more about the rule of science than the rules of attraction." [The Independent (London), 8-7-04]

Punk Science
A U.S. Army laboratory in Natick, Mass., has developed a lightweight, dried-food meal that can be safely hydrated by adding virtually any kind of liquid, from dirty swampwater to a soldier's own urine, according to a July report in New Scientist. A membrane with ultra-tiny gaps allows only water molecules to pass, filtering out "99.9" percent of any bacteria and most chemicals. (While urine will theoretically work in a pinch, the developers discourage its use since urea is not blocked and will build up in the kidneys over time.) [New Scientist, 7-21-04]

Readers' Choice
In August in a camping area of Baker Lake, Wash., Fish and Wildlife agents found a black bear passed out amidst three dozen empty (clawed- and bitten-open) cans of locally brewed Rainier Beer. "And (the bear) definitely had a preference," said an officer, noting that only one can of Busch beer had been drunk, though many unopened ones were nearby. [KING-TV (Seattle), 8-18-04]

Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or WeirdNews@earthlink.net

posted by me

:: 12:59:00 AM [+] ::
...

:: RE Dubya's service ::

Bush's National Guard File Missing Records

WASHINGTON (AP) - Documents that should have been written to explain gaps in President Bush's Texas Air National Guard service are missing from the military records released about his service in 1972 and 1973, according to regulations and outside experts.

For example, Air National Guard regulations at the time required commanders to write an investigative report for the Air Force when Bush missed his annual medical exam in 1972. The regulations also required commanders to confirm in writing that Bush received counseling after missing five months of drills.

No such records have been made public and the government told The Associated Press in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that it has released all records it can find.

Outside experts suggest that National Guard commanders may not have produced documentation required by their own regulations.

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 8:44:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: Rock for Sudan ::

Primal Scream and REM lend songs to Darfur appeal album
By Ciar Byrne

Some of the biggest names in music, including REM, Primal Scream and David Gray, have joined forces with Oxfam to raise money for the crisis in Sudan.

Oxfam has followed in the footsteps of ventures such as Band Aid and War Child to produce a charity album.

Songs For Sudan features 14 tracks, including exclusive songs from Badly Drawn Boy, Jet and Ash.

"Men, women and children are still dying every day in Sudan," said Damon Gough, aka Badly Drawn Boy.

"People like us might not have the power to stop the violence there, but at least we can try and help people who are affected by it."

The artists have all agreed to forgo royalties ...

Read more here.

The album will only be available via download.

SONGS FOR SUDAN
[Track listing]
Decent Days and Nights - The Futureheads
Starcrossed (Acoustic) - Ash
The Lifting (Live) - REM
Come Together (BBG Mix) - Primal Scream
All over this town - the Upper Room
Bashment Boogie - Roots Manuva
Club Foot (jagz kooner remix edit) - Kasabian
Shrimp - Mr. Scruff
I want 2 - Ty
Promised Land - Paddy Casey
Cigarettes and Cola - Jet
All Comes True - Tom Baxter
Ballad of Easy Rider - Kathryn Williams
Static in The City - Hope of the States
Everything Will Be Alright Tomorrow - Faithless
Baltimore (Randy Newman cover at 2003 V Festival) - David Gray
Slow Jam - Four Tet
Celebrate - Badly Drawn Boy

posted by me

:: 8:21:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: Enough GOP crap ::

Kerry Hits Back
The stung Democratic candidate goes on the offensive
From Sunday Herald online UK
Neil Mackay in New York

THE Republicans call him Lurch – a cruel jibe about the size of his lantern jaw. John Kerry’s nickname, comparing him to the Frankenstein monster butler in the 1960s TV show The Addams Family, was pretty apt last week as the Massachusetts senator and Democratic Party nominee for the presidency took punch after punch right on the tip of his famous chin from Dubya and the rest of the Republicans.

He’s weak, they said, and he’s wobbly – he shamed his military buddies by speaking out against the Vietnam war. He won’t fund the troops. He’s the kind of guy, the convention heard, who’d arm the troops with “spitballs” not guns.

But Kerry is showing he doesn’t have a glass jaw. He has come out fighting. His famous New England diplomacy kept his wrath in check for the four days of the Republican convention, even though his reputation was being whacked around harder than a baseball at Yankee Stadium. But as soon as the ribbons and balloons fell to earth inside Madison Square Garden Kerry – a many times decorated navy veteran – returned fire in an election campaign which promises to be the ugliest and most personal in US electoral history.

Vice-President Dick Cheney launched one of the most scathing character assassination bids during the convention, but Kerry wasn’t having it. “The Vice- President even called me unfit for office,” Kerry said. “I’ll leave it up to the voters whether or not five deferments [from military service] makes someone more qualified to defend this nation than two tours of combat duty.”

When Kerry was getting shot at up the Mekong Delta, Cheney dodged the draft. Sick and tired of the humiliating barrage of political flak that he’s come under in recent days, Kerry went on to call Bush and Cheney “unfit for duty”.

They had misled America into the war in Iraq, he said. Kerry also blasted Bush’s administration for letting 45 million Americans go without health care, allowing the Saudi royal family to control the nation’s energy and handing out “billions of government contracts to Halliburton” – Cheney’s former oil firm.

“They can’t talk about their record because it’s a record of failure. If you believe America needs to move in a new direction, join with us,” he said.

Will his fight back work? The latest opinion polls give Bush an 11% lead. That could be down to a post-convention bounce – the party rally was, after all, brutally slick and showed a mastery of spin which may have wooed floating voters. The poll showed that Bush was scoring best on the issues he’s made the heart of his campaign – strong leadership and fighting the war on terror.

ALSO from the Herald

"We don’t want our loved ones who died in 9/11 used as an excuse to start war"

posted by me

:: 8:11:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: About freaking time... ::

U.S. Near Seizing bin Laden, Official Says

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - The United States and its allies have moved closer to capturing Osama bin Laden in the last two months, a top U.S. counterterrorism official said in a television interview broadcast Saturday.

"If he has a watch, he should be looking at it because the clock is ticking. He will be caught," Joseph Cofer Black, the U.S. State Department coordinator for counterterrorism, told private Geo television network.

Asked if concrete progress had been made during the last two months - when Pakistan has arrested dozens of terror suspects including some key al-Qaida operatives - Black said, "Yes, I would say this."

Black, who briefed a group of Pakistani journalists after talks with officials here Friday, said he could not predict exactly when bin Laden and other top al-Qaida fugitives would be nabbed.

"What I tell people, I would be surprised but not necessarily shocked if we wake up tomorrow and he's been caught along with all his lieutenants. That can happen because of the programs and infrastructure in place," he told Geo.

Read more here.

**** Nice. Had we avoided a certain distraction that rhymes with 'my rack' -- one that continues to cost the lives of US soldiers & others -- perhaps we could have done this over two years ago! ******

posted by me

:: 6:59:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: "Cleaning Up After Ourselves" ::

From Wired News
By Amit Asaravala

SAN FRANCISCO -- Most people try to ward off disease by exercising and eating well. Dr. Dick Luthy is trying to do it by standing ankle-deep in toxic mud.

The Stanford University professor and his team of graduate and postdoctoral students put on waders and sloshed out into the mud at the edge of the San Francisco Bay early Tuesday morning to begin testing a new technique for ridding toxic waste sites of carcinogenic chemicals.

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 10:42:00 AM [+] ::
...

:: P2P update ::

Copyright Office pitches anti-P2P bill
By Declan McCullagh
CNET News.com

A hotly contested wrangle in Congress over how to outlaw file-swapping networks just took a new twist.

The U.S. Copyright Office has drafted a new version of the Induce Act that it believes will ban networks like Kazaa and Morpheus while not putting hardware such as portable hard drives and MP3 players on the wrong side of the law.

The original Induce Act has been severely criticized for possibly jeopardizing products such Apple Computer's iPod that could "induce" people to commit piracy.

An Aug. 19 decision from a federal appeals court that said the Grokster and Morpheus file-swapping networks were legal to operate has sent shock waves around Capitol Hill. Now groups like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and their allies in Congress are scrambling for legislation such as the Induce Act that would overturn the 9th Circuit's ruling.

The Copyright Office's four-page "discussion draft," dated Thursday and seen by CNET News.com, appears to back away from the broad sweep of the original Induce Act by making it more difficult for companies to be found liable for copyright violations. It says anyone who "intentionally induces" copyright violations can be found liable, with "induce" defined as one or more "affirmative, overt acts that are reasonably expected to cause or persuade another person or persons" to violate copyright law.

But the Copyright Office's proposal is raising eyebrows among consumer groups and Internet providers, who fear that it suffers from many of the same defects as the original.

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 12:51:00 PM [+] ::
...