:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::

:: 6.30.2005 ::

:: RE the Plame Name Game ::

Time magazine will turn over reporter's notes
From Newsday, NY

NEW YORK (AP) -- Time Inc. said Thursday it would comply with a court order to deliver the notes of a reporter threatened with jail in the probe of the leak of a CIA officer's name. The New York Times said it was "deeply disappointed" at the move, which came days after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the journalists' appeal.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan is threatening to jail Matthew Cooper, Time's White House correspondent, and Judith Miller of The New York Times for contempt for refusing to disclose their sources.

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear the reporters' appeal and the grand jury investigating the leak expires in October. The reporters, if in jail, would be freed at that time.

In a statement, Time said it believes "the Supreme Court has limited press freedom in ways that will have a chilling effect on our work and that may damage the free flow of information that is so necessary in a democratic society." ' But it also said that despite its concerns, it will turn over the records to the special counsel investigating the leak.

"The same Constitution that protects the freedom of the press requires obedience to final decisions of the courts and respect for their rulings and judgments. That Time Inc. strongly disagrees with the courts provides no immunity," the statement said.

In a statement, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of The New York Times, said: "We are deeply disappointed by Time Inc.'s decision to deliver the subpoenaed records." He noted that one of its reporters served 40 days in jail in 1978 in a similar dispute.

"Our focus is now on our own reporter, Judith Miller, and in supporting her during this difficult time," Sulzberger said.

On Wednesday, Hogan agreed to hold a hearing next week to consider arguments against jailing the two. But he expressed skepticism that any new arguments would change his mind.

"It's curiouser and curiouser; I don't understand" why the reporters are asking for more time, Hogan said. "It seems to me the time has come. Much more delay and we will be at the end of the grand jury."

Time magazine's lawyers had revealed Wednesday that the company was considering turning over the documents sought by the grand jury, a step that Cooper said he hoped the magazine did not take.

Fitzgerald said that the documents are Cooper's notes of his interviews.

"On balance, I think I'd prefer they not turn over the documents but Time can make that decision for itself," Cooper said outside the courthouse.

Meanwhile, columnist Robert Novak, who was the first to identify CIA officer Valerie Plame in print, told CNN he "will reveal all" after the matter is resolved, adding that it is wrong for the government to jail journalists.

Novak, who has not been held in contempt, has not commented on his involvement in the grand jury leak investigation.

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 10:11:00 AM [+] ::
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:: "We needed an exit plan, not another pep talk" ::

From The San Jose Mercury News

On the one-year anniversary of when the Iraqis took back control of their government, Americans deserved to hear a plan for getting out of Iraq. Not a firm deadline, mind you, but at least a clear strategy for a phased withdrawal.

Instead, on Tuesday, President Bush gave a plea for patience and a pep talk based on an underlying deception. It was a frustrating speech to listen to.

Bush had nothing new to offer. He went on prime time because support for the war is waning, and skepticism within his party is rising.

The president soberly acknowledged the ongoing chaos in Baghdad. He did not repeat the lie of his vice president, who characterized the insurgency last week as in its ``last throes.''

But Bush once again offered a false justification for the war by tying it to Sept. 11. Iraq, he said, is the latest battleground in the war against Al-Qaida, from which there can be no retreat.

There are thousands of foreign jihadists wreaking havoc in Iraq, which is why American troops are stuck there for now.

There was no Al-Qaida link to prewar Iraq, just as there were no weapons of mass destruction. The American occupation has become a magnet for Islamic terrorists. They've infiltrated borders that U.S. troops failed to seal and have been armed with weapons that the coalition failed to seize.

Iraq must be stable and safe, under Iraqis' control, before all can leave. But the administration is to blame for jihadists' presence.

``And we fight today because terrorists want to attack our country,'' Bush said, ``and kill our citizens, and Iraq is where they are making their stand.''

His statement implies that the jihadists are a finite number that can be wiped out, ignoring the possibility that it's a growing movement the war in Iraq has inspired. It's too early to know whether Iraq will become a graveyard or a vast training ground for foreign insurgents.

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 7:48:00 AM [+] ::
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:: "Bush and Rummy's Tired Acts" ::

By Arianna Huffington

If you could distill this administration down to one a single thing it would be this: a complete inability--indeed a pathological aversion--to changing course, even when the current course is taking us over the cliff.

Combine that with rank incompetence and you’ve got quite a potent--and deadly--combo. It was in full display last night during the president’s speech on Iraq and last week during Donald Rumsfeld’s multiple public appearances.

First the president’s speech.

The president’s “new direction in Iraq” speech was actually a rehashing of the same tired material he’s been using on Iraq for years. Indeed, it was a veritable Greatest Hits collection. He even invoked the terrorist formerly known as Osama Been Forgotten two times. Even more shockingly--though not unexpectedly--he played the conflate-9/11-and-Iraq card again and again and again and again and again. Five mentions in all for the terrorist attack that had absolutely nothing to do with the war in Iraq--supposedly the topic of the speech. Here’s a sample: “The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lesson of Sept. 11.”

And now onto the secretary of defense.

It’s time to cancel the Rummy show. Remember when it was fun to watch Don Rumsfeld come out and do his preening Master of the Universe act? Actually, I never thought it was that much fun--and I was always surprised by how much the self-loathing press loved Rummy’s cocky, cutesy little putdowns and the jabberwocky nonsense answers he’d use to duck a question without uttering a single word of substance.

But he intimidated them, humiliated them, and so they subserviently accepted their role in the kabuki theater performances his appearances became.But with two to three soldiers and dozens of Iraqis dying each and every day, his smug verbal pirouettes are no longer so endearing. As time goes on, it's become clear that he sees his role less as making sure our soldiers vanquish the enemy than making sure he vanquishes the press and the straw men he puts so much rhetorical energy into creating.

There he was at the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, spinning and spinning. But no one's laughing anymore. “Timing in war is never predictable,” he said. “There are no guarantees,” he said. That wasn't what Rumsfeld was saying back at the beginning, when he said he “doubted” it would last as long as six months.

Rumsfeld then propped up this latest made-of-straw beauty: “ Success in this effort cannot be defined by domestic tranquility.” Who on earth is saying “domestic tranquility” is the goal? How about: “An end to dozens of deaths a day, with the carnage continuing as far as the eye can see.”

It’s now beyond dispute that the enemy Rumsfeld is most suited to fight is the latest straw enemy he has created in his mind. It’s then that he’s at his most effective--like a 9-year-old at the arcade, delighting in mowing down his imaginary foes with his BB gun. Then he wants a little prize for his efforts. Tragically, we’ve got a real enemy to fight, and Rumsfeld is clueless about how to do it. One person who has clearly had his fill of Rummy is Ted Kennedy, who pointedly asked: “Isn’t it time for you to resign?” After a pregnant pause, Rumsfeld answered: “I’ve offered my resignation to the president twice.”

He should keep trying. Bush has already gotten a four-year pickup, but it's time to pull the plug on the Rummy dog and pony show. Or, better yet, move his all-too-real reality show from the Pentagon to Fox--where the body count will be significantly lower. And they can use a laugh track to sweeten the deadly silence his tired routine now provokes.

© 2005 Arianna Huffington

posted by me

:: 10:11:00 PM [+] ::
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:: "Bush slammed for Iraq link to 9/11" ::

From CNN International

Critics of the U.S. war in Iraq have condemned President George W. Bush for attempting to link the insurgency there with the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

In a televised address marking a year since the U.S. handover of sovereignty in Iraq, Bush urged Americans not to "forget the lessons of September 11."

Speaking before a military audience at Fort Bragg, North Carolina Tuesday, the president set out his strategy for victory against the insurgency, including foreign groups such as that led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

He also pledged that American troops would stay in Iraq until their job was done and that the U.S. would not "yield the future of the Middle East" to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terror network.

In a bid to shore up flagging domestic support for the war, Bush said the war against terror had "reached our shores" on September 11 and that sacrifices in Iraq were "vital to the future security of our country."

But Democrats accused the president of reviving a questionable link between Iraq and 9/11.

"I think the American people are a lot smarter than that," Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden said. "They've figured this out."

And in Britain, Lynne Jones, a lawmaker in Prime Minister Tony Blair's ruling Labour Party, said any attempt to suggest that Iraq was a response to the September 11 attacks was "absolute nonsense."

"There is absolutely no connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda," she said.

"What they have ensured, in invading Iraq, is they have actually promoted al Qaeda's involvement in other countries, including Iraq."

Read more here.

ALSO

Bush Insists Iraq War Is 'Worth It' In Sober Speech
MTV.com

Bush Criticized for Linking 9/11 and Iraq
San Francisco Chronicle

Bush criticised for linking 9/11 with Iraq
Telegraph.co.uk, UK

AND FYC (for your consideration)
Bush Flops in Prime Time
Dissident Voice

In case your eyes glazed over and left you in a comatose state of vacuity, that was George W. Bush at the podium last night giving the most abysmal performance of his five-year presidency. For a moment, it seemed like General Westmorland was back among the living giving his immortal “light in the tunnel” speech. Nothing in Bush’s palavering even approached that level of discourse. Instead, Bush droned on endlessly, exhuming the same bedraggled bromides in the most mind-numbingly dreadful speech of all time.

posted by me

:: 8:59:00 AM [+] ::
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:: "Bloggers Fighting Government Regulations" ::

WASHINGTON (AP) - Bloggers who built their Internet followings with anti-establishment prose are now lobbying the establishment to protect their livelihoods from federal regulations.

Some are even working with lawyers, public-relations consultants and a political action committee to do it.

"I like to think of myself as just a guy with a blog, but it's clear that 'just a guy with a blog' is different today than it was when I started three years ago," said Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, founder of the Web log www.DailyKos.com. "One sign of having arrived is when government regulators start wanting to poke their fingers into what you do."

Moulitsas was to testify Tuesday at a hearing on a Federal Election Commission proposal that would extend some campaign finance rules to the Internet, including bloggers.

Moulitsas also is working with a lawyer who volunteered to help bloggers fight new government regulations and whose efforts were promoted in a PR firm press release Monday. He is prepared to lobby Congress himself if necessary, and he is the treasurer of BlogPac, a political action committee formed last year by bloggers.

Duncan Black - who founded the www.atrios.blogspot.com blog - featured a headline Monday on his Web site, "Bite me, Congressman," that linked to a diatribe against a Republican House committee chairman over global warming.

Asked whether the use of hearing testimony and PACs is a sign that bloggers are succumbing to mainstream political techniques, Black said he and his colleagues have no choice.

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 8:29:00 AM [+] ::
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:: So Weird ::

From Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird (.907)

Science on the Cutting Edge

Recent scholarly findings (reduced to their essence in a May Wall Street Journal column): It's much easier to identify someone if he is physically near you than if he is up to 450 feet away (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, February). People who choose their careers carefully, rather than on a whim, experience greater job satisfaction (Journal of Economic Psychology, vol. 26, no.3). College students tend to drink more alcoholic beverages than they realize (Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, April). If patients voluntarily tell a doctor about a bad side effect of a medicine, they are more likely to be switched to a safer one than if they don't (Archives of Internal Medicine, January). [Wall Street Journal, 5-27-05]

The Entrepreneurial Spirit

(1) British entrepreneur Colin Dowse recently introduced Sprayonmud (about US$14 a quart), dirty water chemically treated for greater stickiness, mainly for urban SUV owners to pass themselves off as all-terrain adventurers. (2) The maker of Doggles (which for several years has sold sunglasses for dogs at about $25) now offers corrective-lens Doggles starting at $75, which veterinary ophthalmologists can prescribe as alternatives to $2,000 lens-replacement surgery, according to a March report by KMGH-TV in Denver. [Wired.com, 6-10-05] [KMGH-TV (Denver), 3-3-05]

In the last few years, Taiwan entrepreneurs have opened restaurants with motifs such as prisons, zombies and Mao Zedong, but the latest is Eric Wang's "Marton," in Kaohsiung, whose theme is the toilet. All seats are what you would think, with food served on a glass tabletop resting on a bathtub, and some of the delicacies are presented in miniature toilet bowls (among them, curry hot pot, and disturbingly, chocolate ice cream). [Agence France-Presse, 5-23-05]

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

posted by me

:: 11:23:00 PM [+] ::
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:: "US General Sees No Ebb in Fight" ::

From The New York Times
By DAVID S. CLOUD and ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON, June 23 - The top American commander for the Middle East said Thursday that the insurgency in Iraq had not diminished, seeming to contradict statements by Vice President Dick Cheney in recent days that the insurgents were in their "last throes."

Though he declined during his Congressional testimony to comment directly on Mr. Cheney's statements, the commander, Gen. John P. Abizaid, said that more foreign fighters were coming into Iraq and that the insurgency's "overall strength is about the same" as it was six months ago. "There's a lot of work to be done against the insurgency," he added.

His more pessimistic assessment, made during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, reflected a difference of emphasis between military officers, who battle the intractable insurgency every day, and civilian officials intent on accentuating what they say is unacknowledged progress in Iraq.

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 10:32:00 PM [+] ::
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:: RE Roger ::

Ebert Gets Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame
June 23, 2005 9:56 PM EDT

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert isn't a movie star but he critiques them on TV - so memorably that on Thursday he received his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

A crowd of family, friends and fans cheered as Ebert's star was unveiled in front of Hollywood's El Capitan Theatre. Attendees included director Werner Herzog, actress Virginia Madsen and actor Tony Danza.

"When I watch movies, I can feel what it's like to walk in another person's shoes," Ebert, 65, told the crowd. "Movies make us more decent people. This is a wonderful day for me."

Ebert, who began his journalism career as a 15-year-old sports writer for The (Champaign, Ill.) News-Gazette, was named the Chicago Sun-Times film critic six months after joining the paper in 1966. In 1975, he became the first film critic to receive a Pulitzer for arts criticism.

That same year Ebert teamed with the late Chicago Tribune film critic Gene Siskel on the TV show "Sneak Previews," which would evolve into the long-running "Siskel & Ebert and the Movies." Their "thumbs up, thumbs down" system of rating films became so popular that Ebert eventually trademarked his right thumb.

Ebert now co-hosts "Ebert & Roeper" with fellow Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper.

A humorously unapologetic critic who once called a film "an assault on the eyes, the ears, the brain," Ebert has written 17 books, including "Roger Ebert's Book of Film" and "I Hated, Hated, HATED This Movie."

He has also dabbled as a screenwriter, with credits including "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" and "Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens."

posted by me

:: 10:21:00 PM [+] ::
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:: "Just Say Noruba" ::

From an e-newsletter
By Arianna Huffington

I was thinking a lot over the weekend about the news and about how the news becomes the news, and then I read Jay Rosen's brilliant take on the Downing Street Memo coverage [to read Jay Rosen's whole piece go to huffingtonpost.com]. Rosen elaborates on Josh Marshall's assertion that "news stories have a 24-hour audition on the news stage, and if they don't catch fire in that 24 hours, there's no second chance." Rosen's theory is that blogs have become the news cycle's appeals court, and that the Downing Street Memo story is still alive because it won on appeal. And thank God.

But, unlike a traditional court, the Blog Circuit Court of Appeals lacks an enforcement arm. The only way its decisions can be enforced is by constant reiteration of the decision.

Which brings me back to this weekend. If you were to get your news only from television, you'd think the top issue facing our country right now is an 18-year-old girl named Natalee who went missing in Aruba. Every time one of these stories comes up, like, say, Michael Jackson, when it's finally over I think, what a relief, now we can get back to real news. But we never do. When one of these big league non-stories ends, they just call up a new one from the minors . . . and off they go with another round of breathless reporting. Anything to not have to actually report actual news.

Here are the number of news segments that mention these stories: (from a search of the main news networks' transcripts from May 1-June 20).

-- ABC News: "Downing Street Memo": 0 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 42 segments; "Michael Jackson": 121 segments.

-- CBS News: "Downing Street Memo": 0 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 70 segments; "Michael Jackson": 235 segments.

-- NBC News: "Downing Street Memo": 6 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 62 segments; "Michael Jackson": 109 segments.

-- CNN: "Downing Street Memo": 30 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 294 segments; "Michael Jackson": 633 segments.

-- Fox News: "Downing Street Memo": 10 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 148 segments; Michael Jackson": 286 segments.

-- MSNBC: "Downing Street Memo": 10 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 30 segments; "Michael Jackson": 106 segments.

When defending these choices, news execs inevitably fall back on the old "we're just giving the people what they want." But are they? Fox News averages around two and a quarter million viewers in primetime; CNN hovers just under a million; MSNBC pulls in a quarter million. We have 280 million people in the country. That means that tens of millions of people actually don't want what they're being given -- and that there are huge slices of audience a real news operation could go after.

The mainstream media regularly confuse interesting with important. What's more, they don't even do the former very well, and they largely ignore the latter.

One wonders what happens to all those enterprising young broadcast journalists being pumped out by J-schools across the country. I speak to them occasionally, and they all seem to be truly dedicated to reporting the news. So what happens to them between grad school and the moment they do their fiftieth windswept, beachfront update on Natalee Holloway? Surely no one actually aspires to spend their life describing the pre-verdict scene outside the Santa Maria courthouse or filling up airtime with a feature on the party scene in Aruba. This can't be what they wanted to do with their lives, can it?

In any case, here's my suggestion: Go cold turkey. Just say no. Every time you see or hear the word " Aruba" or "Holloway" on the screen in the next few weeks, turn off the TV, or change the channel. I've been trying it -- and it's not easy (I've found the Cartoon Network is a pretty safe -- if nerve-rattling -- escape valve).

This is not to minimize the tragic elements of Natalee Holloway's disappearance. It is tragic -- but it's not news in the way the Downing Street Memo is news. Or multiple deaths in Iraq are news. The deaths of 19 year-old Lance Cpl. Adam J. Crumpler, 26 year-old Lance Cpl. Erik R. Heldt and 36 year-old Capt. John W. Maloney were confirmed by the Pentagon in the last two days, but you won't hear their names repeated on Fox or CNN.

But be warned: Even if you try really hard to go cold turkey, the Scandalous Non-News Story of the Day still has a way of seeping into your consciousness. It's some kind of tabloid osmosis. Despite my best efforts, and an incredibly quick remote control technique, I've still found myself starting to offer an opinion on one of them at a dinner party before pulling up short. "Wait a second," my brain starts to shout, "I don't even care about this story -- why do I know so much about it!?"

But it's worth a try. And until the Blog High Court gets a better enforcement mechanism, we, as viewers, will just have to practice jury nullification.

© 2005 ARIANNA HUFFINGTON.

posted by me

:: 4:21:00 PM [+] ::
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:: "By jingo, buy America" ::

House Approves Flag-Burning Amendment
June 22, 2005 3:45 PM EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) - The House on Wednesday approved a constitutional amendment that would give Congress the power to ban desecration of the American flag, a measure that for the first time stands a chance of passing the Senate as well.

By a 286-130 vote - eight more than needed - House members approved the amendment after a debate over whether such a ban would uphold or run afoul of the Constitution's free-speech protections.

Approval of two-thirds of the lawmakers present was required to send the bill on to the Senate, where activists on both sides say it stands the best chance of passage in years. If the amendment is approved in that chamber by a two-thirds vote, it would then move to the states for ratification.

Supporters said the measure reflected patriotism that deepened after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and they accused detractors of being out of touch with public sentiment.

"Ask the men and women who stood on top of the (World) Trade Center," said Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham, R-Calif. "Ask them and they will tell you: pass this amendment."

But Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said, "If the flag needs protection at all, it needs protection from members of Congress who value the symbol more than the freedoms that the flag represents."

The measure was designed to overturn a 1989 decision by the Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 that flag burning was a protected free-speech right. That ruling threw out a 1968 federal statute and flag-protection laws in 48 states. The law was a response to anti-Vietnam war protesters setting fire to the American flag at their demonstrations.

The proposed one-line amendment to the Constitution reads, "The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States." For the language to be added to the Constitution, it must be approved not only by two-thirds of each chamber but also by 38 states within seven years.

Each time the proposed amendment has come to the House floor, it has reached the required two-thirds majority. But the measure has always died in the Senate, falling short of the 67 votes needed. The last time the Senate took up the amendment was in 2000, when it failed 63-37.

But last year's elections gave Republicans a four-seat pickup in the Senate, and now proponents and critics alike say the amendment stands within a vote or two of reaching the two-thirds requirement in that chamber.

By most counts, 65 current senators have voted for or said they intend to support the amendment, two shy of the crucial tally. More than a quarter of current senators were not members of that chamber during the last vote.

The Senate is expected to consider the measure after the July 4th holiday.

The amendment is H.J. Res 10.

On the Net:
House of Representatives.
Senate.

posted by me

:: 4:05:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: In tech news ::

Security Software Leakier Than Windows
Vulnerabilities up 50 percent in one year, Yankee Group study says.
By Matthew Broersma, Techworld.com

LONDON -- Security software is becoming as riddled with holes as some of the products it is supposed to protect, according to new figures from the Yankee Group. The number of vulnerabilities found in security applications has risen sharply for the third year in a row and now outnumbers those identified in all Microsoft products, according to the research firm.

In 2004, researchers uncovered 60 vulnerabilities in security software, up from 31 in 2003, according to the study. In May of this year, researchers had already turned up 23 security bugs, compared with 22 bugs in Microsoft applications. The figures through May 2005 are up 50 percent over the same period last year, Yankee Group said. The figures were reported by Business Week. You can read the report here.

Yankee Group's findings confirm a trend that has become increasingly visible in recent months, as vulnerability researchers and malicious attackers put more effort into finding cracks in the programs intended to protect systems. As Microsoft has discovered in the past few years, the more companies rely on your products, the likelier you are to be attacked.

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 4:21:00 PM [+] ::
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:: "Family Doc in Hot Water After HMO Jab" ::

AUBURN, Maine (AP) - A family physician who runs a humor magazine for doctors got into hot water over an item poking fun at HMOs.

posted by me

:: 4:12:00 PM [+] ::
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:: "Your ISP as Net watchdog" ::

From CNET News.com
By Declan McCullagh

The U.S. Department of Justice is quietly shopping around the explosive idea of requiring Internet service providers to retain records of their customers' online activities.

Data retention rules could permit police to obtain records of e-mail chatter, Web browsing or chat-room activity months after Internet providers ordinarily would have deleted the logs--that is, if logs were ever kept in the first place. No U.S. law currently mandates that such logs be kept.

In theory, at least, data retention could permit successful criminal and terrorism prosecutions that otherwise would have failed because of insufficient evidence. But privacy worries and questions about the practicality of assembling massive databases of customer behavior have caused a similar proposal to stall in Europe and could engender stiff opposition domestically.

Read more here.

ALSO from CNET News.com

Microsoft Meets the Hackers
Gentoo Linux founder to 'educate' Microsoft

posted by me

:: 2:23:00 PM [+] ::
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:: "House Votes to Limit Patriot Act Rules" ::

WASHINGTON (AP) - Advocates of rewriting the USA Patriot Act are claiming momentum after the House, despite a White House veto threat, voted to restrict investigators from using the anti-terrorism law to peek at library records and bookstore sales slips.

posted by me

:: 11:13:00 AM [+] ::
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:: "Not Your Father's Anti-War Movement" ::

From an e-newsletter
By Arianna Huffington

“What Korea was to Truman, and Vietnam was to LBJ, Iraq will be to George W. Bush,” Arthur Schlesinger told me last week. In all three cases, the public grew weary of a drawn-out war with no end in sight. History shows that there is nothing sacrosanct about wartime presidents. There is no guaranteed immunity for them. Rally round the president when the nation is at war is the American tradition -- but only for a time. The Korean War forced Truman to pull out of the 1952 race. Vietnam forced Johnson to pull out in 1968.

Bush was able to keep Iraq at bay long enough to get re-elected, but the debacle threatens to derail his second term. Just look at the latest polls. According to Washington Post/ABC News, for the first time a majority of Americans feel that the war has not made the U.S. safer. Fifty-eight percent disapprove of Bush's handling of it. Fifty-eight percent say the war was not worth fighting. And 73 percent consider the number of casualties unacceptable.

But poll numbers are not the only figures the White House should be worrying about. Dick Cheney's “last throes” delusion is being rebutted by the figures coming out of Iraq every day. May was the fifth deadliest month of the war for U.S. troops. And in just the first two weeks of June, 41 Americans have been killed and 75 wounded.

This is clearly not a war that is waning or winnable. Yet the Bush administration continues to refuse even to consider the idea of developing an exit strategy. And don’t tell me it’s when Iraqi troops are ready to take over the fight; at the rate they’re going, Ahmed Chalabi’s great-grandchildren will be leading the first all-Iraqi push against the insurgents.

Like LBJ with Vietnam, Bush appears to be losing touch both with reality and with the sentiments of a growing majority of Americans. But, unlike Johnson, he seems strangely unaffected by the disconnect. Perhaps because he's so convinced that God put him there. That he saved him from drinking and drugs so he could spread democracy in Iraq. But a combination of hubris and incompetence-always a dangerous cocktail-could well be his undoing. Unlike Truman and Johnson, he doesn't have any more elections to lose-but his party does. If only the Democrats would find their voice on the subject as 2006 approaches.

With memos pouring out of the U.K. showing there was no planning for what to do after Baghdad fell and that “intelligence and facts were being fixed,” and with the number of dead American soldiers now over 1,700, what is the Democratic leadership waiting for before they finally stand up to the White House? Where are Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Howard Dean on a moral issue of this magnitude, on which the majority of Americans oppose the administration?

This is definitely not your father's anti-war movement.

Unlike Vietnam, opposition to the war in Iraq is not being driven by the “make love, not war” crowd. A growing number of voices are being raised -- and asking whether the ongoing disaster in Iraq is draining precious resources from the war on terror (remember that?) and efforts to secure the homeland. So this is not war vs. peace; it's war vs. security.

While Democrats are crisscrossing the country, holding conclaves in search of what the party should stand for, Russ Feingold introduced a resolution in the Senate on Tuesday calling on the president to create a timetable for withdrawing American troops from Iraq. Thank God at least one prominent Dem has the good sense to know what the party should stand for-and, just as importantly, the cojones to act on that knowledge.

As for the House, the leadership against the war in Iraq is now in the hands of Mr. “Freedom Fries” himself, Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.). After being a staunch supporter of the war -- “There is no question,” he said in November 2002, “that Saddam Hussein is a threat to the security of not only our nation, but of every nation across the globe” -- Jones now believes we went to war “with no justification.” He even voted for the Woolsey Amendment, which calls on President Bush to develop an exit strategy as soon as possible. So he voted yes while 79 Democrats -- including Nancy Pelosi -- voted no.

On last week’s “Meet the Press,” Sen. Joe Biden said that a military draft “ is going to become a subject if in fact there is a 40 percent shortfall in recruitment. It’s just a reality.” But the best thing for the health of our Army would be to institute a draft for an opposition party. Right now, it seems, there aren't enough willing to serve voluntarily.

posted by me

:: 11:12:00 AM [+] ::
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:: "Batman Begins on the Right Foot" ::

From Wired News
Movie Review » The latest turn in the superhero saga does the caped crusader's back story right, but things start to fray when the action starts. Jason Silverman reviews Batman Begins.

posted by me

:: 12:15:00 PM [+] ::
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:: "'Rocky' Earth-Like Planet Discovered" ::

It May Be First Such Body Scientists Have Found Outside Solar System
By Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 14, 2005; Page A03

Astronomers said yesterday they have discovered what could be the first "rocky" Earth-like planet found outside the solar system. It is a lifeless, oven-like world about 7 1/2 times the size of Earth, orbiting a small star in the constellation Aquarius.

The team detected the new "extra-solar" planet by observing a tiny wobble induced in the star by the planet's gravity. The team made more than 150 observations over three years with precision measuring instruments before announcing its findings.

"This new technology has revealed the most terrestrial planet ever found," said team leader Geoffrey W. Marcy, an astronomer at the University of California at Berkeley. "For the first time, we are finding our planetary kin among the stars."

Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution in Washington said he, Marcy and other team members began close observations of the star Gliese 876 several years ago. Gliese 876 is 15 light-years from Earth, an "M-dwarf" star about one-third the size of the sun. M-dwarves are the most common stars in the galaxy.

In 1998, Marcy and Butler reported detecting a "gas giant" planet about twice the size of Jupiter orbiting Gliese 876. Three years later, they reported a second gas giant about half the size of Jupiter. Astronomers do not "see" extra-solar planets; they deduce their presence by measuring the wobble.

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 10:21:00 AM [+] ::
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:: "Civil War Era Grips Tintype Rebel" ::

From Wired News
Photographer John Coffer lives in a hand-built cabin in rural New York and makes a living taking old-fashioned metal-plate photographs.

For years, he's eked out a living taking portraits of Civil War re-enactors from the back of a horse-drawn wagon. Now, his distinctive pictures are becoming popular on the chic New York art scene.

Which must mystify Coffer, who embraces a Civil War lifestyle free of electricity, plumbing, phone or internet.

For a good part of his life, Coffer was a nomad, traveling the roads with his horse "Brownie" and an ox-drawn wagon.

To earn a living, he taught himself a 19th-century photographic technique called "tintyping," which involves taking photos on metal plates.

Read more here.

ALSO from Wired News
Artist Cranks Up No-Name Rants
The One Free Minute project lets callers vent anonymously over a loudspeaker in public. Free speech, indeed. By Rachel Metz.

posted by me

:: 11:15:00 AM [+] ::
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:: "Poll: Bush Job Approval Dips to New Low" ::

WASHINGTON (AP) - As the war in Iraq drags on, President Bush's job approval and the public's confidence in the direction he's taking the nation are at their lowest levels since The Associated Press-Ipsos poll began in December 2003.

About one-third of adults, 35 percent, said they think the country is headed in the right direction, while 43 percent said they approve of the job being done by Bush. Just 41 percent say they support his handling of the war, also a low-water mark.

"There's a bad mood in the country, people are out of sorts," said presidential scholar and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution Charles Jones, who lives near Charlottesville, Va. "Iraq news is daily bad news. The election in Iraq helped some, and the formation of the government helped some, but dead bodies trump the more positive news."

California retiree Carol Harvie was quick to mention Iraq when asked about how Bush was doing his job.

"I don't think he's read his history enough about different countries and foreign affairs," said Harvie, a political independent who lives near San Diego, a region with several military bases. "Anything they try to do in Iraq has spelled trouble. I think he bit off more than he can chew."

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 9:59:00 AM [+] ::
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:: "This Blog Is 100 Percent Solar" ::

From Wired News
Your website keeps sucking electricity even when your mom's not reading it. Fortunately, green energy can generate the power to host it. By Amit Asaravala.

ALSO on Wired News

News Junkies Need It Now

Movie Cameras at Your Disposal

Academic Journals Open to Change

posted by me

:: 3:27:00 PM [+] ::
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:: "Bush Says Patriot Act Makes America Safer" ::
Guardian Unlimited, UK

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - President Bush, facing efforts by some in his own party to scale back the post-Sept. 11 Patriot Act, says it has made America safer and should be made permanent.

``The Patriot Act closed dangerous gaps in America's law enforcement and intelligence capabilities, gaps the terrorists exploited when they attacked us on September the 11th,'' Bush said.

Lisa Graves, the ACLU's senior counsel for legislative strategy, said the lack of a documented case of abuse doesn't mean the law doesn't violate civil liberties. She said the Justice Department's inspector general reported that 7,000 people have complained of abuse and countless others don't even know they've been subjected to a search because the law requires that they be kept secret.

The ACLU wants the government to show evidence of a connection to terrorist activity before being allowed to search records.

Read the entire story here.

posted by me

:: 2:44:00 PM [+] ::
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:: RE "MF" ::

The birth of 'Deep Throat'
By Bob Woodward
The Washington Post
via The San Jose Mercury News

WASHINGTON - In 1970, when I was serving as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy and assigned to Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, the chief of naval operations, I sometimes acted as a courier, taking documents to the White House.

One evening I was dispatched with a package to the lower level of the West Wing of the White House, where there was a little waiting area near the Situation Room. It could be a long wait for the right person to come out and sign for the material, sometimes an hour or more, and after I had been waiting for a while, a tall man with perfectly combed gray hair came in and sat down near me. His suit was dark, his shirt white and his necktie subdued. He was probably 25 to 30 years older and was carrying what looked like a file case or briefcase. He was distinguished-looking and had a studied air of confidence, the posture and calm of someone used to having orders obeyed instantly.

I could tell he was watching the situation very carefully. There was nothing overbearing in his attentiveness, but his eyes were darting about in a kind of gentlemanly surveillance. After several minutes, I introduced myself. ``Lieutenant Bob Woodward,'' I said, carefully appending a deferential ``sir.''

``Mark Felt,'' he said.

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 10:26:00 AM [+] ::
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:: Tha Patriot Act on Steroids? ::

Senate Gives FBI More Patriot Act Power
WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI would get expanded powers to subpoena records without the approval of a judge or grand jury in terrorism investigations under Patriot Act revisions approved Tuesday by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Opponents said the new powers, part of the Bush administration's effort to renew and expand the 2001 law, violated basic civil rights.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she did not support the bill in a closed committee meeting because it left open the possibility that such power could be used in criminal, rather than intelligence-gathering, inquiries.

The panel rejected one amendment that would have required that investigations have "as a significant purpose the collection of intelligence."

The American Civil Liberties Union released a statement criticizing both the substance of the bill and the closed-door meetings to write it.

"When lawmakers seek to rewrite our Fourth Amendment rights, they should at least have the gumption to do so in public," said Lisa Graves, the ACLU's senior counsel for legislative strategy. "Americans have a reasonable expectation that their federal government will not gather records about their health, their wealth and the transactions of their daily life without probable cause of a crime and without a court order."

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and the panel's ranking Democrat, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., had no immediate comment.

The bill also must be considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Feinstein and other Democrats planned to again offer their amendments.

Portions of the Patriot Act - signed into law six weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks - are set to expire at the end of 2005.

Related links
Senate Intelligence Committee

As Panel Reviews Patriot Act in Secret, ACLU Calls for Fixes, Not Expansions
A Senate committee held secret deliberations Monday, including proposals to expand and make permanent controversial Patriot Act provisions such as FBI power to issue search orders without prior judicial approval. "When lawmakers seek to rewrite our Fourth Amendment rights,” said ACLU senior counsel Lisa Graves, “they should at least have the gumption to do so in public."
REFORM THE PATRIOT ACT >>

posted by me

:: 7:09:00 PM [+] ::
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Films Capture Iraq's Brutal Truth

Movie Review » found @ Wired News
Vivid documentaries like The Dreams of Sparrows challenge U.S. media portrayals of the Iraq war -- and spark an unusual indie revolution. By Jason Silverman.

ALSO on Wired News

Hollywood Foots Bill for Spy Cams

posted by me

:: 6:59:00 AM [+] ::
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:: "A Tale of Two Hackers" ::

From Wired News
Our reporter braves sweet, fizzy alcoholic drinks and leeches to get up close and personal with Kevin Mitnick and one of his lesser known accomplices in crime. Patick Gray reports from Sydney, Australia.

posted by me

:: 7:01:00 AM [+] ::
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:: "Rubbish?" ::

Collector's Trove of Podcasts
From Wired News
A man makes it his mission to archive every scrap of online amateur radio, even though he thinks most of it is rubbish. By Ryan Singel.

A filmmaker who has been collecting digital artifacts for 25 years is amassing the world's largest collection of podcasts, though he has little interest in actually listening to them.

Jason Scott, a 34-year-old documentary filmmaker from the Boston area, has saved and cataloged more than 340 GB of online amateur radio since he started in February.

Scott is currently monitoring and archiving some 1,500 podcasters using a $300 computer running a handwritten script that automatically downloads audio files to cheap hard drives.

"Podcasting is the largest self-service anthropology project under way," Scott said. "I've learned the value in anything."

Scott doesn't podcast himself, nor does he think it is revolutionary. And he only listens to one out of every 3,000 files he collects.

Scott says the point is simply to capture history, even if most of it isn't very interesting today or the projects don't last very long.

Scott compares the historical worth of an ordinary podcast to that of a letter from a soldier in the Civil War to his wife.

"The actual content of that letter is boring like a LiveJournal blog or an audio blog," Scott said. "But what people might not realize is that the stationery he wrote the letter on had a watermark from a company that claimed it never gave aid to that side or he used a word we didn't know people used back then."

He added: "It's all this stuff you can't tell is important back at the time. You can't say it's all detritus because you don't know."

Read more here.

Related links:

Scott's early Internet audio file collection

Scott's Textfiles.com site

Scott's BBS DOCUMENTARY DVD SET

The University of California History Digital Archives

The Etext Archives

Scene.org

HackerMedia

posted by me

:: 1:23:00 AM [+] ::
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:: How do you spell pure happiness? ::

Eighth-Grade Boy Wins U.S. Spelling Bee

WASHINGTON (AP) - "Appoggiatura" was music to 13-year-old Anurag Kashyap's ears. Correctly spelling the word that means melodic tone, he clinched the 2005 national spelling bee championship.

An eighth-grader in Poway, Calif., Anurag ran into his father's arms and burst into tears. He said he felt "just pure happiness."

Beating out 272 other competitors, Anurag won Thursday in the 19th round of the 78th annual National Scripps Spelling Bee. His prize: $30,000 in cash, scholarships and books.

During the day, Anurag whizzed through relatively common words such as "prosciutto," an Italian dry-cured ham, and difficult ones such as "sphygmomanometer," an instrument for measuring blood pressure.

posted by me

:: 10:45:00 PM [+] ::
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:: "Deep Throat Cover Blown..." ::

Washington Post Still Sucks
From an e-newsletter
By Greg Palast

I've been gagging all morning on the Washington Post's self-congratulatory preening about its glory days of the Watergate investigation.

Think about it. It's been 33 years since cub reporters Woodward and Bernstein pulled down the pants of the Nixon operation and exposed its tie-in to the Watergate burglary. That marks a third of a century since the Washington Post has broken a major investigative story. I got a hint of why the long, dry spell when I met Mark Hosenball, "investigative" reporter for the Washington Post's magazine, Newsweek.

It was in the summer of 2001. A few months earlier, for the Guardian papers of Britain, I'd discovered that Katherine Harris and Governor Jeb Bush of Florida had removed tens of thousands of African-Americans from voter registries before the 2000 election, thereby fixing the race for George Bush. Hosenball said the Post-Newsweek team "looked into it and couldn't find anything."

Nothing at all? What I found noteworthy about the Post's investigation was that "looking into it" involved their reporters chatting with Florida officials -- but not bothering to look at the voter purge list itself.

Yes, I admit the Washington Post ran my story -- seven months after the election -- but with the key info siphoned out, such as the Bush crew's destruction of evidence and the salient fact that almost all those purged were Democrats. In other words, the story was drained of anything which might discomfit the new residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Let's not pick on the Post alone. Viacom Corporation's CBS News also spiked the story. Why? "We called Jeb Bush's office," a CBS producer told me, and Jeb's office denied Jeb did wrong. End of story.

During the Clinton years, the Washington Post and Newsweek allowed reporter Mike Isikoff to sniff at the President's zipper and write about our Commander-in-Chief's Lewinsky. But when it came to a big story about dirty energy industry money for Clinton's campaigns, Mike told me his editors didn't "give a sh--" and so he passed the material for me to print in England.

Today, Bob Woodward rules as the Post's Managing Editor. And how is he "managing" the news? After the September 11 attack, when we needed an independent press to keep us from hysteria-driven fascism, Woodward was given "access" to the president, writing Bush at War,a fawning, puke-making fairy tale of a take-charge president brilliantly leading the war against Terror.

Woodward's news-oid story is a symptom of a disease epidemic in US journalism. The illness is called, "access." In return for a supposedly "inside" connection to the powers that be, the journalists in fact become conduits for disinformation sewerage.

And woe to any journalist who annoys the politicians and loses "access." Career-wise, they're DOA.

Here's a good place to tote up part of the investigative reporter body count. There's Bob Parry forced out of the Associated Press for the crime of uncovering Ollie North's arms-for-hostages game. And there's Gary Webb, hounded to suicide for documenting the long-known history of the CIA's love-affair with drug runners. The list goes on. Even the prize-laden Seymour Hersh was, he told me, exiled from the New York Times and now has to write from the refuge of a fashion magazine.

And notice someone missing in the Deep Throat extravaganza? Carl Bernstein, the brains and soul of the All-the-President's-Men duo, is notably absent from the staff of the Post or any other US newspaper.

But before we get too weepy about the glory days of investigative journalism gone by, we should remember that the golden era was not pure gold.

Newspapers are part of the power elite and have never in US history gone out of their way to rock the clubhouse. Let's go back to Hersh's stellar story of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.

The massacre was first uncovered by the greatest investigative reporter of our era, the late Ron Ridenhour. Then a soldier conducting the investigation on his own, Ridenhour turned over his findings to Hersh, hoping to give it a chance for exposure. That wasn't so easy.

Ridenhour told me that he and Hersh pushed the story -- with photos! -- at dozens of newspapers. No one would touch it until Ridenhour threatened to read the story from the steps of the Pentagon.

It's only gotten worse. After all, Hersh's latest big story, about Abu Ghraib prison, was buried by CBS and other news outlets before Hersh put it in the New Yorker.

The Washington Post has no monopoly on journalistic evil. If anything, the Post is probably better than most of the bilge contaminating our news outlets. This is about the death-march of investigative journalism in America; or, at least, its dearth under the "mainstream" mastheads.

Why don't we read more "Watergate" investigative stories in the US press? Given that the Woodwards of today dance on their hind legs begging officialdom for "access", news without official blessing doesn't stand a chance.

The Post follows current American news industry practice of killing any story based on evidence from a confidential source if a government honcho privately denies it. A flat-out "we didn't do it" is enough to kill an investigation in its cradle. And by that rule, there is no chance that the Managing Editor of the Washington Post, Bob Woodward, would today run Deep Throat's story of the Watergate break-in.

And that sucks.

****

posted by me

:: 11:03:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: re THE REAL DEEP THROAT ::

Ex-FBI official Felt is 'Deep Throat' - Wash Post
Wired News

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former FBI deputy director Mark Felt is "Deep Throat," the legendary source who leaked Watergate scandal secrets to the Washington Post and helped bring down President Richard Nixon, the newspaper said on Tuesday.

Bob Woodward, one of the Washington Post reporters who broke stories on key elements of the Watergate scandal that led to Nixon's August 1974 resignation, confirmed Felt was the source after a Vanity Fair magazine report said he had admitted his role, the Post said on its Web site.

ALSO
'Washington Post' Confirms Deep Throat's Identity
NPR (audio)

Ex-FBI Official IDs Self As 'Deep Throat'
Guardian Unlimited, UK

Bush Anxious to Learn More of Deep Throat
Washington Post

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush said on Wednesday the disclosure that the former No. 2 official at the FBI was Watergate's "Deep Throat" source caught him by surprise and he's anxious to learn more details about his relationship with the news media.

"It's hard for me to judge" whether former deputy FBI Director Mark Felt provided a valuable public service or acted improperly, Bush told reporters.

"I'm learning more about the situation," he said.

Felt's revelation that he was the source for The Washington Post's reporting that helped to bring down the presidency of Richard Nixon in the early 1970s "caught me by surprise," Bush said. "It's a brand new story for a lot of us who have been wondering for a long time who he was."

"For those of us who grew up -- got out of college in the late '60s -- the Watergate story was a relevant story. And a lot of us have always wondered who Deep Throat might have been. And the mystery was solved yesterday," said Bush, 58. "It's a brand new story."

"I'm looking forward to reading about it, reading about his relationship with the news media," Bush said.

posted by me

:: 10:22:00 AM [+] ::
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