Democrats Abroad New Zealand
8.31.2005
Bush Calls Iraq War Moral Equivalent Of Allies' WWII Fight Against the Axis (WashingtonPost.com)
By Peter Baker and Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 31, 2005; Page A07
CORONADO, Calif., Aug. 30 -- Invoking the spirit of Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Bush on Tuesday cast the war in Iraq as the modern-day moral equivalent of the struggle against Nazi fascism and Japanese imperialism in World War II, arguing that the United States cannot retreat without disastrous consequences.
Bush used a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the victory over Japan to try to fortify public will at a time of unremitting violence in Iraq. It was third time in the last week that he has delivered a stay-the-course speech to counter an energized antiwar sentiment. Speaking at a naval base near the docked USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier, Bush characterized Iraqi insurgents as every bit a "ruthless" enemy as the Germans and the Japanese.
"Now, as then, they are trying to intimidate free people and break our will, and now, as then, they will fail," Bush said to applauding sailors in white uniforms and Marines in camouflage. "They will fail, because the terrorists of our century are making the same mistake that the followers of other totalitarian ideologies made in the last century. They believe that democracies are inherently weak and corrupt and can be brought to their knees." But, he added, "America will not run in defeat, and we will not forget our responsibilities."
(More ... Bush Calls Iraq War Moral Equivalent Of Allies' WWII Fight Against the Axis) ¶ 19:57 0 comments
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 31, 2005; Page A07
CORONADO, Calif., Aug. 30 -- Invoking the spirit of Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Bush on Tuesday cast the war in Iraq as the modern-day moral equivalent of the struggle against Nazi fascism and Japanese imperialism in World War II, arguing that the United States cannot retreat without disastrous consequences.
Bush used a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the victory over Japan to try to fortify public will at a time of unremitting violence in Iraq. It was third time in the last week that he has delivered a stay-the-course speech to counter an energized antiwar sentiment. Speaking at a naval base near the docked USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier, Bush characterized Iraqi insurgents as every bit a "ruthless" enemy as the Germans and the Japanese.
"Now, as then, they are trying to intimidate free people and break our will, and now, as then, they will fail," Bush said to applauding sailors in white uniforms and Marines in camouflage. "They will fail, because the terrorists of our century are making the same mistake that the followers of other totalitarian ideologies made in the last century. They believe that democracies are inherently weak and corrupt and can be brought to their knees." But, he added, "America will not run in defeat, and we will not forget our responsibilities."
(More ... Bush Calls Iraq War Moral Equivalent Of Allies' WWII Fight Against the Axis) ¶ 19:57 0 comments
Ex-Counterterrorism Chief Cites Rise in Attacks (WashingtonPost.com)
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 31, 2005; Page A19
Richard A. Clarke, the former head of counterterrorism in the White House under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, said yesterday that there were twice as many attacks outside Iraq in the three years after the 2001 attacks as in the three preceding years.
Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda group "are no longer the traditional leaders as they were in the 1990s," Clarke said, adding that the terrorist leader had been building ideological groups from Afghanistan before Sept. 11, 2001, and that they had grown in the past few years into 14 to 16 separate networks.
Clarke said that bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, exercise "symbolic control and provide broad-brush themes" and that most of the networks operate independently, but "there are some signs of cooperation among some."
Clarke, now a corporate security and counterterrorism consultant, delivered his assessment of al Qaeda and the jihadist threat at a news conference at the New America Foundation designed to focus attention on a bipartisan, two-day policy forum set for next week in Washington, titled "Terrorism, Security and America's Purpose."
Clarke left the Bush administration in 2003 and has since alleged the Bush White House reacted slowly to warnings of terrorist attacks in early 2001.
(More ... Ex-Counterterrorism Chief Cites Rise in Attacks) ¶ 19:54 0 comments
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 31, 2005; Page A19
Richard A. Clarke, the former head of counterterrorism in the White House under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, said yesterday that there were twice as many attacks outside Iraq in the three years after the 2001 attacks as in the three preceding years.
Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda group "are no longer the traditional leaders as they were in the 1990s," Clarke said, adding that the terrorist leader had been building ideological groups from Afghanistan before Sept. 11, 2001, and that they had grown in the past few years into 14 to 16 separate networks.
Clarke said that bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, exercise "symbolic control and provide broad-brush themes" and that most of the networks operate independently, but "there are some signs of cooperation among some."
Clarke, now a corporate security and counterterrorism consultant, delivered his assessment of al Qaeda and the jihadist threat at a news conference at the New America Foundation designed to focus attention on a bipartisan, two-day policy forum set for next week in Washington, titled "Terrorism, Security and America's Purpose."
Clarke left the Bush administration in 2003 and has since alleged the Bush White House reacted slowly to warnings of terrorist attacks in early 2001.
(More ... Ex-Counterterrorism Chief Cites Rise in Attacks) ¶ 19:54 0 comments
1.1 million More Americans in Poverty in 2004 (CNN.com)
37 million Americans total living in poverty in 2004, according to the Census Bureau.
August 30, 2005: 11:16 AM EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. poverty rate rose in 2004, driven by an increase in the number of poor non-Hispanic whites, while the median income for Americans as a whole remained stable, the government said on Tuesday.
The percentage of the U.S. population living in poverty rose to 12.7 percent from 12.5 percent in 2003, as 1.1 million more people slipped into poverty last year, the Census Bureau said in its annual poverty report.
The ranks of the poor rose to 37.0 million, up from 35.9 million the previous year, the report said.
The poverty rate rose for only one group -- non-Hispanic whites -- which had an 8.6 percent poverty rate for 2004 compared with 8.2 percent in 2003. The poverty rate declined for Asians and remained unchanged for blacks and Hispanics, the report showed.
The real median household income in 2004 totaled $44,389, flat from 2003 and marking the second consecutive year in which income showed no change.
(More ... 1.1 million more Americans in poverty in 2004 - Aug. 30, 2005) ¶ 08:22 0 comments
August 30, 2005: 11:16 AM EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. poverty rate rose in 2004, driven by an increase in the number of poor non-Hispanic whites, while the median income for Americans as a whole remained stable, the government said on Tuesday.
The percentage of the U.S. population living in poverty rose to 12.7 percent from 12.5 percent in 2003, as 1.1 million more people slipped into poverty last year, the Census Bureau said in its annual poverty report.
The ranks of the poor rose to 37.0 million, up from 35.9 million the previous year, the report said.
The poverty rate rose for only one group -- non-Hispanic whites -- which had an 8.6 percent poverty rate for 2004 compared with 8.2 percent in 2003. The poverty rate declined for Asians and remained unchanged for blacks and Hispanics, the report showed.
The real median household income in 2004 totaled $44,389, flat from 2003 and marking the second consecutive year in which income showed no change.
(More ... 1.1 million more Americans in poverty in 2004 - Aug. 30, 2005) ¶ 08:22 0 comments
Greenspan and the Bubble (NYTimes.com)
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 29, 2005
Most of what Alan Greenspan said at last week's conference in his honor made very good sense. But his words of wisdom come too late. He's like a man who suggests leaving the barn door ajar, and then - after the horse is gone - delivers a lecture on the importance of keeping your animals properly locked up.
Regular readers know that I have never forgiven the Federal Reserve chairman for his role in creating today's budget deficit. In 2001 Mr. Greenspan, a stern fiscal taskmaster during the Clinton years, gave decisive support to the Bush administration's irresponsible tax cuts, urging Congress to reduce the federal government's revenue so that it wouldn't pay off its debt too quickly.
Since then, federal debt has soared. But as far as I can tell, Mr. Greenspan has never admitted that he gave Congress bad advice. He has, however, gone back to lecturing us about the evils of deficits.
Now, it seems, he's playing a similar game with regard to the housing bubble.
(More ... Greenspan and the Bubble - New York Times) ¶ 08:20 0 comments
Published: August 29, 2005
Most of what Alan Greenspan said at last week's conference in his honor made very good sense. But his words of wisdom come too late. He's like a man who suggests leaving the barn door ajar, and then - after the horse is gone - delivers a lecture on the importance of keeping your animals properly locked up.
Regular readers know that I have never forgiven the Federal Reserve chairman for his role in creating today's budget deficit. In 2001 Mr. Greenspan, a stern fiscal taskmaster during the Clinton years, gave decisive support to the Bush administration's irresponsible tax cuts, urging Congress to reduce the federal government's revenue so that it wouldn't pay off its debt too quickly.
Since then, federal debt has soared. But as far as I can tell, Mr. Greenspan has never admitted that he gave Congress bad advice. He has, however, gone back to lecturing us about the evils of deficits.
Now, it seems, he's playing a similar game with regard to the housing bubble.
(More ... Greenspan and the Bubble - New York Times) ¶ 08:20 0 comments
8.27.2005
Sheehan's Ad Says Bush Lied About Iraq War (BaltimoreSun.com)
Some stations refuse to air commercial by soldier's mom
By Nick Madigan
Sun Staff
Originally published August 27, 2005
In her effort to elicit an explanation from President Bush as to his reasons for continuing to wage war in Iraq, Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a fallen soldier, has ruffled feathers far and wide, riling the president's supporters unlike anyone since Michael Moore's polemics in Fahrenheit 9/11.
Yesterday, Sheehan - who has returned to her protest post near Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, after tending to a family emergency - launched a national commercial on CNN and Fox News in which she asks the president, "How many more soldiers have to die before we say enough?"
"You were wrong about the weapons of mass destruction," Sheehan says in the ad. "You were wrong about the link between Iraq and al-Qaida. You lied to us and because of your lies, my son died."
The ad had already been running on local stations in the Crawford and Waco markets. It also ran in Salt Lake City and Boise, Idaho, during visits by Bush this week to both areas. But several stations refused to run the ad, in at least one case because there was "no proof" that weapons of mass destruction had not been found in Iraq, a representative of the station said.
"In the spot, Ms. Sheehan accuses the president of the United States of being a liar," said Paul Anovick, vice president of sales at Fisher Broadcasting Inc., which owns KBCI, the CBS affiliate in Boise. "She claims the president lied about, among other things, the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There is no proof that we are aware of regarding the truthfulness of her claim. We require proof of claims such as this. Until that is provided, our station will not carry this ad."
(More ... Sheehan's ad says Bush lied about Iraq war - baltimoresun.com) ¶ 20:30 0 comments
By Nick Madigan
Sun Staff
Originally published August 27, 2005
In her effort to elicit an explanation from President Bush as to his reasons for continuing to wage war in Iraq, Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a fallen soldier, has ruffled feathers far and wide, riling the president's supporters unlike anyone since Michael Moore's polemics in Fahrenheit 9/11.
Yesterday, Sheehan - who has returned to her protest post near Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, after tending to a family emergency - launched a national commercial on CNN and Fox News in which she asks the president, "How many more soldiers have to die before we say enough?"
"You were wrong about the weapons of mass destruction," Sheehan says in the ad. "You were wrong about the link between Iraq and al-Qaida. You lied to us and because of your lies, my son died."
The ad had already been running on local stations in the Crawford and Waco markets. It also ran in Salt Lake City and Boise, Idaho, during visits by Bush this week to both areas. But several stations refused to run the ad, in at least one case because there was "no proof" that weapons of mass destruction had not been found in Iraq, a representative of the station said.
"In the spot, Ms. Sheehan accuses the president of the United States of being a liar," said Paul Anovick, vice president of sales at Fisher Broadcasting Inc., which owns KBCI, the CBS affiliate in Boise. "She claims the president lied about, among other things, the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There is no proof that we are aware of regarding the truthfulness of her claim. We require proof of claims such as this. Until that is provided, our station will not carry this ad."
(More ... Sheehan's ad says Bush lied about Iraq war - baltimoresun.com) ¶ 20:30 0 comments
Bolton Throws UN Summit Into Chaos (Guardian.co.uk)
Bush's envoy demands 750 changes to reorganisation plans
Julian Borger in Washington
Friday August 26, 2005
The Guardian
John Bolton, Washington's new ambassador to the United Nations, has called for wholesale changes to a draft document due to go before a UN summit next month aimed at reshaping the world body.
Mr Bolton, a long-standing UN critic who was given a temporary appointment by George Bush three weeks ago after the United States Senate failed to agree on his nomination, has proposed 750 amendments to the draft and called for immediate talks on them.
The 29-page document has been drawn up by a committee under the UN general assembly president, Jean Ping of Gambia, over the past year, during which time several drafts have been circulated.
Critics complained that the US objections had come towards the end of the drafting process, with only three weeks to go before the summit.
But Benjamin Chang, a spokesman for the American team at the UN, said Mr Bolton had simply been restating long-held US opinions. "Those are not new positions; surprise positions," he said. "We've been engaged in this process, since the first meeting."
The Bolton amendments, published in the US press, seek to play down the emphasis given to alleviating poverty, and expunge all references to the millennium development goals, including the target for wealthy countries to donate at least 0.7 % of national income to the developing world. America currently gives less than 0.2% in such aid.
The changes would also scrap provisions in the draft calling for action against global warming, and remove endorsements of the international criminal court and the comprehensive test-ban treaty - both of which are opposed by the Bush administration.
Instead, Washington is pushing for more emphasis on international measures against terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
(More ... Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Bolton throws UN summit into chaos) ¶ 17:59 0 comments
Julian Borger in Washington
Friday August 26, 2005
The Guardian
John Bolton, Washington's new ambassador to the United Nations, has called for wholesale changes to a draft document due to go before a UN summit next month aimed at reshaping the world body.
Mr Bolton, a long-standing UN critic who was given a temporary appointment by George Bush three weeks ago after the United States Senate failed to agree on his nomination, has proposed 750 amendments to the draft and called for immediate talks on them.
The 29-page document has been drawn up by a committee under the UN general assembly president, Jean Ping of Gambia, over the past year, during which time several drafts have been circulated.
Critics complained that the US objections had come towards the end of the drafting process, with only three weeks to go before the summit.
But Benjamin Chang, a spokesman for the American team at the UN, said Mr Bolton had simply been restating long-held US opinions. "Those are not new positions; surprise positions," he said. "We've been engaged in this process, since the first meeting."
The Bolton amendments, published in the US press, seek to play down the emphasis given to alleviating poverty, and expunge all references to the millennium development goals, including the target for wealthy countries to donate at least 0.7 % of national income to the developing world. America currently gives less than 0.2% in such aid.
The changes would also scrap provisions in the draft calling for action against global warming, and remove endorsements of the international criminal court and the comprehensive test-ban treaty - both of which are opposed by the Bush administration.
Instead, Washington is pushing for more emphasis on international measures against terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
(More ... Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Bolton throws UN summit into chaos) ¶ 17:59 0 comments
Road Map for US Relations With Rest of World (Guardian.co.uk)
Hundreds of deletions and insertions on just about every global issue could undermine the UN summit agreement
Julian Borger in Washington
Saturday August 27, 2005
The Guardian
For any student of the Bush administration's foreign policy, the US version of the draft United Nations summit agreement, leaked earlier this week, is an essential text.
The hundreds of deletions and insertions represent a helpfully annotated map to Washington's disagreements with most of the rest of the world on just about every global issue imaginable.
Most of the disagreements illustrated in this document are longstanding. President Bush was never going to sign a document urging UN member states to support the Kyoto protocol on climate change, or the international criminal court. The mystery is how these differences surfaced only at the end of a long drafting process.
There are two versions of how this happened. The US delegation says it was raising its objections informally at meetings to discuss the draft, and was forced to circulate its blunt list of deletions and additions only after those objections were ignored.
The account provided by European officials at the UN explains the late timing of this intervention by turmoil inside the US foreign policy establishment. For the first seven months of this year, as the draft was being hammered out, the US had no full permanent representative at the UN. John Danforth retired in January, and the White House's attention was focused on persuading the Senate to confirm John Bolton. A career diplomat, Anne Patterson, led the delegation in the interim, but reportedly received little political guidance from Washington.
(More ... Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Road map for US relations with rest of world) ¶ 17:01 0 comments
Julian Borger in Washington
Saturday August 27, 2005
The Guardian
For any student of the Bush administration's foreign policy, the US version of the draft United Nations summit agreement, leaked earlier this week, is an essential text.
The hundreds of deletions and insertions represent a helpfully annotated map to Washington's disagreements with most of the rest of the world on just about every global issue imaginable.
Most of the disagreements illustrated in this document are longstanding. President Bush was never going to sign a document urging UN member states to support the Kyoto protocol on climate change, or the international criminal court. The mystery is how these differences surfaced only at the end of a long drafting process.
There are two versions of how this happened. The US delegation says it was raising its objections informally at meetings to discuss the draft, and was forced to circulate its blunt list of deletions and additions only after those objections were ignored.
The account provided by European officials at the UN explains the late timing of this intervention by turmoil inside the US foreign policy establishment. For the first seven months of this year, as the draft was being hammered out, the US had no full permanent representative at the UN. John Danforth retired in January, and the White House's attention was focused on persuading the Senate to confirm John Bolton. A career diplomat, Anne Patterson, led the delegation in the interim, but reportedly received little political guidance from Washington.
(More ... Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Road map for US relations with rest of world) ¶ 17:01 0 comments
Bush Popularity at All-time Low, Poll Finds (USATODAY.com)
Posted 8/26/2005 5:04 PM Updated 8/26/2005 5:25 PM
From staff reports
In poll results released Friday afternoon, the president's approval rating was 40%, the lowest in his presidency by 4 points.
The poll of 1,007 adults was conducted Monday through Thursday, a period overlapping the president's series of speeches defending his Iraq war policies.
Those surveyed in the poll included 29% Republicans and 35% Democrats.
The Gallup organization said the president's disapproval rating was 56%. That rating, and the 40% approval figure, are the most negative ratings of the Bush administration. Bush's previous low point in approval was 44% in a poll conducted July 25-28.
(More ... USATODAY.com - Bush popularity at all-time low, poll finds) ¶ 11:42 0 comments
From staff reports
In poll results released Friday afternoon, the president's approval rating was 40%, the lowest in his presidency by 4 points.
The poll of 1,007 adults was conducted Monday through Thursday, a period overlapping the president's series of speeches defending his Iraq war policies.
Those surveyed in the poll included 29% Republicans and 35% Democrats.
The Gallup organization said the president's disapproval rating was 56%. That rating, and the 40% approval figure, are the most negative ratings of the Bush administration. Bush's previous low point in approval was 44% in a poll conducted July 25-28.
(More ... USATODAY.com - Bush popularity at all-time low, poll finds) ¶ 11:42 0 comments
Border Emergency (WashingtonPost.com)
EDITORIAL
Friday, August 26, 2005; Page A20
THERE ARE, NO DOUBT, elements of politics and showmanship in the recent moves by the governors of New Mexico and Arizona to declare states of emergency along their borders with Mexico. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano are both Democrats up for reelection next year -- Mr. Richardson harbors presidential ambitions as well -- and illegal immigration is a front-burner issue in both states. The declarations free up state funds to be spent on extra patrols, equipment and other needs. But the acts are even more important as a cage-rattling device -- an "act of desperation," as Mr. Richardson called it, to prod Congress and the Bush administration to pay attention to the growing problem.
To the extent that these declarations are a publicity stunt to get Washington moving, we hope they work. Scores of illegal immigrants are dying in the hot desert. Drug smuggling, human trafficking and associated crimes are on the rise. The system is overwhelmed: Even if there were enough border patrol agents to apprehend all the undocumented workers, which there aren't, there wouldn't be enough other staff to process them or, especially in the case of those from countries other than Mexico, enough beds to hold them until they can be sent home. Meanwhile, as the recent controversy over day laborers in Herndon illustrates, the impact of illegal immigration reaches well beyond border states. As Ms. Napolitano predicted at a luncheon with Washington Post reporters and editors this week, "It's a border state issue now, but it's going to be a national issue."
(More ... Border Emergency) ¶ 11:38 0 comments
Friday, August 26, 2005; Page A20
THERE ARE, NO DOUBT, elements of politics and showmanship in the recent moves by the governors of New Mexico and Arizona to declare states of emergency along their borders with Mexico. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano are both Democrats up for reelection next year -- Mr. Richardson harbors presidential ambitions as well -- and illegal immigration is a front-burner issue in both states. The declarations free up state funds to be spent on extra patrols, equipment and other needs. But the acts are even more important as a cage-rattling device -- an "act of desperation," as Mr. Richardson called it, to prod Congress and the Bush administration to pay attention to the growing problem.
To the extent that these declarations are a publicity stunt to get Washington moving, we hope they work. Scores of illegal immigrants are dying in the hot desert. Drug smuggling, human trafficking and associated crimes are on the rise. The system is overwhelmed: Even if there were enough border patrol agents to apprehend all the undocumented workers, which there aren't, there wouldn't be enough other staff to process them or, especially in the case of those from countries other than Mexico, enough beds to hold them until they can be sent home. Meanwhile, as the recent controversy over day laborers in Herndon illustrates, the impact of illegal immigration reaches well beyond border states. As Ms. Napolitano predicted at a luncheon with Washington Post reporters and editors this week, "It's a border state issue now, but it's going to be a national issue."
(More ... Border Emergency) ¶ 11:38 0 comments
Summer of Our Discontent (NYTimes.com)
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 26, 2005
For the last few months there has been a running debate about the U.S. economy, more or less like this:
American families: "We're not doing very well."
Washington officials: "You're wrong - you're doing great. Here, look at these statistics!"
The administration and some political commentators seem genuinely puzzled by polls showing that Americans are unhappy about the economy. After all, they point out, numbers like the growth rate of G.D.P. look pretty good. So why aren't people cheering?
Some blame the negative halo effect of the Iraq debacle. Others complain that the news media aren't properly reporting good economic news. But when your numbers tell you that people should be feeling good, but they aren't, that means you're looking at the wrong numbers.
American families don't care about G.D.P. They care about whether jobs are available, how much those jobs pay and how that pay compares with the cost of living. And recent G.D.P. growth has failed to produce exceptional gains in employment, while wages for most workers haven't kept up with inflation.
(More ... Summer of Our Discontent - New York Times) ¶ 11:36 0 comments
Published: August 26, 2005
For the last few months there has been a running debate about the U.S. economy, more or less like this:
American families: "We're not doing very well."
Washington officials: "You're wrong - you're doing great. Here, look at these statistics!"
The administration and some political commentators seem genuinely puzzled by polls showing that Americans are unhappy about the economy. After all, they point out, numbers like the growth rate of G.D.P. look pretty good. So why aren't people cheering?
Some blame the negative halo effect of the Iraq debacle. Others complain that the news media aren't properly reporting good economic news. But when your numbers tell you that people should be feeling good, but they aren't, that means you're looking at the wrong numbers.
American families don't care about G.D.P. They care about whether jobs are available, how much those jobs pay and how that pay compares with the cost of living. And recent G.D.P. growth has failed to produce exceptional gains in employment, while wages for most workers haven't kept up with inflation.
(More ... Summer of Our Discontent - New York Times) ¶ 11:36 0 comments
8.25.2005
Sheehan Returns to Crawford (CNN.com)
Dead soldier's mom resumes anti-war vigil before Bush returns
Thursday, August 25, 2005 Posted: 0212 GMT (1012 HKT)
About 40 supporters, and a couple of Bush supporters, greeted Sheehan's return to "Camp Casey," outside Bush's property. The protest site, made up of two campsites, is named after her 24-year-old son, an Army mechanic killed in Baghdad last year.
While she was away, Sheehan's supporters erected a 10-by-10-foot banner with the dates of her son's birth and death and the words: "In loving memory of Army Specialist Casey A. Sheehan."
Sheehan broke down in tears upon seeing it, prompting first aid treatment by medical personnel.
The campsites are lined with crosses bearing the names of American troops killed in Iraq, and Sheehan laid flowers and kissed the markers bearing her son's name.
Since Sheehan left the camp last week when her mother suffered a stroke, Bush has also left his ranch to give two speeches reinforcing why the administration believes it would be wrong to pull out of Iraq at the moment. (Full story)
(More ... CNN.com - Sheehan returns to Crawford - Aug 24, 2005 ¶ 15:10 0 comments
Thursday, August 25, 2005 Posted: 0212 GMT (1012 HKT)
About 40 supporters, and a couple of Bush supporters, greeted Sheehan's return to "Camp Casey," outside Bush's property. The protest site, made up of two campsites, is named after her 24-year-old son, an Army mechanic killed in Baghdad last year.
While she was away, Sheehan's supporters erected a 10-by-10-foot banner with the dates of her son's birth and death and the words: "In loving memory of Army Specialist Casey A. Sheehan."
Sheehan broke down in tears upon seeing it, prompting first aid treatment by medical personnel.
The campsites are lined with crosses bearing the names of American troops killed in Iraq, and Sheehan laid flowers and kissed the markers bearing her son's name.
Since Sheehan left the camp last week when her mother suffered a stroke, Bush has also left his ranch to give two speeches reinforcing why the administration believes it would be wrong to pull out of Iraq at the moment. (Full story)
(More ... CNN.com - Sheehan returns to Crawford - Aug 24, 2005 ¶ 15:10 0 comments
8.24.2005
President Bush's Loss of Faith (NYTimes.com)
EDITORIAL
Published: August 24, 2005
It took President Bush a long time to break his summer vacation and acknowledge the pain that the families of fallen soldiers are feeling as the death toll in Iraq continues to climb. When he did, in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Utah this week, he said exactly the wrong thing. In an address that repeatedly invoked Sept. 11 - the day that terrorists who had no discernable connection whatsoever to Iraq attacked targets on American soil - Mr. Bush offered a new reason for staying the course: to keep faith with the men and women who have already died in the war.
"We owe them something," Mr. Bush said. "We will finish the task that they gave their lives for." It was, as the mother of one fallen National Guardsman said, an argument that "makes no sense." No one wants young men and women to die just because others have already made the ultimate sacrifice. The families of the dead do not want that, any more than they want to see more soldiers die because politicians cannot bear to admit that they sent American forces to war by mistake.
Most Americans believed that their country had invaded Iraq to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, but we know now that those weapons did not exist. If we had all known then what we know now, the invasion would have been stopped by a popular outcry, no matter what other motives the president and his advisers may have had.
It is also very clear, although the president has done his level best to muddy the picture, that Iraq had nothing to do with Sept. 11. Mr. Bush's insistence on making that link, over and over, is irresponsible. In fact, it was the American-led invasion that turned Iraq into a haven for Islamist extremists.
(More ... President Bush's Loss of Faith - New York Times) ¶ 22:15 0 comments
Published: August 24, 2005
It took President Bush a long time to break his summer vacation and acknowledge the pain that the families of fallen soldiers are feeling as the death toll in Iraq continues to climb. When he did, in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Utah this week, he said exactly the wrong thing. In an address that repeatedly invoked Sept. 11 - the day that terrorists who had no discernable connection whatsoever to Iraq attacked targets on American soil - Mr. Bush offered a new reason for staying the course: to keep faith with the men and women who have already died in the war.
"We owe them something," Mr. Bush said. "We will finish the task that they gave their lives for." It was, as the mother of one fallen National Guardsman said, an argument that "makes no sense." No one wants young men and women to die just because others have already made the ultimate sacrifice. The families of the dead do not want that, any more than they want to see more soldiers die because politicians cannot bear to admit that they sent American forces to war by mistake.
Most Americans believed that their country had invaded Iraq to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, but we know now that those weapons did not exist. If we had all known then what we know now, the invasion would have been stopped by a popular outcry, no matter what other motives the president and his advisers may have had.
It is also very clear, although the president has done his level best to muddy the picture, that Iraq had nothing to do with Sept. 11. Mr. Bush's insistence on making that link, over and over, is irresponsible. In fact, it was the American-led invasion that turned Iraq into a haven for Islamist extremists.
(More ... President Bush's Loss of Faith - New York Times) ¶ 22:15 0 comments
9 States in Plan to Cut Emissions by Power Plants (NYTimes.com)
By ANTHONY DePALMA
Published: August 24, 2005
Officials in New York and eight other Northeastern states have come to a preliminary agreement to freeze power plant emissions at their current levels and then reduce them by 10 percent by 2020, according to a confidential draft proposal.
The cooperative action, the first of its kind in the nation, came after the Bush administration decided not to regulate the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Once a final agreement is reached, the legislatures of the nine states will have to enact it, which is considered likely.
Enforcement of emission controls could potentially result in higher energy prices in the nine states, which officials hope can be offset by subsidies and support for the development of new technology that would be paid for with the proceeds from the sale of emission allowances to the utility companies.
The regional initiative would set up a market-driven system to control emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, from more than 600 electric generators in the nine states. Environmentalists who support a federal law to control greenhouse gases believe that the model established by the Northeastern states will be followed by other states, resulting in pressure that could eventually lead to the enactment of a national law.
(More ... 9 States in Plan to Cut Emissions by Power Plants - New York Times) ¶ 21:54 0 comments
Published: August 24, 2005
Officials in New York and eight other Northeastern states have come to a preliminary agreement to freeze power plant emissions at their current levels and then reduce them by 10 percent by 2020, according to a confidential draft proposal.
The cooperative action, the first of its kind in the nation, came after the Bush administration decided not to regulate the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Once a final agreement is reached, the legislatures of the nine states will have to enact it, which is considered likely.
Enforcement of emission controls could potentially result in higher energy prices in the nine states, which officials hope can be offset by subsidies and support for the development of new technology that would be paid for with the proceeds from the sale of emission allowances to the utility companies.
The regional initiative would set up a market-driven system to control emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, from more than 600 electric generators in the nine states. Environmentalists who support a federal law to control greenhouse gases believe that the model established by the Northeastern states will be followed by other states, resulting in pressure that could eventually lead to the enactment of a national law.
(More ... 9 States in Plan to Cut Emissions by Power Plants - New York Times) ¶ 21:54 0 comments
Iraq Pullout Would Weaken America, President Says (USATODAY.com)
Posted 8/23/2005 11:30 AM Updated 8/24/2005 1:07 AM
By Judy Keen, USA TODAY
President Bush said Tuesday that anti-war protesters "are advocating a policy that would weaken the United States." It was his most direct response yet to Cindy Sheehan, who has been camped near his Texas ranch demanding an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
Bush told reporters during a visit to Donnelly, Idaho, that Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq last year, "doesn't represent the view" of many other military families with whom he has met.
Bush meets privately today in Nampa, Idaho, with families of servicemembers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will be his 25th such visit since January 2002.
His comments on Sheehan, in response to a reporter's question, were more critical and personal than his remarks about her in an exchange with reporters on Aug. 11. He said then, "It would be a mistake for the security of this country" to pull out of Iraq now.
(More ... USATODAY.com - Iraq pullout would weaken America, president says) ¶ 21:46 0 comments
By Judy Keen, USA TODAY
President Bush said Tuesday that anti-war protesters "are advocating a policy that would weaken the United States." It was his most direct response yet to Cindy Sheehan, who has been camped near his Texas ranch demanding an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
Bush told reporters during a visit to Donnelly, Idaho, that Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq last year, "doesn't represent the view" of many other military families with whom he has met.
Bush meets privately today in Nampa, Idaho, with families of servicemembers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will be his 25th such visit since January 2002.
His comments on Sheehan, in response to a reporter's question, were more critical and personal than his remarks about her in an exchange with reporters on Aug. 11. He said then, "It would be a mistake for the security of this country" to pull out of Iraq now.
(More ... USATODAY.com - Iraq pullout would weaken America, president says) ¶ 21:46 0 comments
Bush Says Activist Doesn't Speak for Kin of Casualties (WashingtonPost.com)
By Sam Coates
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 24, 2005; Page A03
BOISE, Idaho, Aug. 23 -- President Bush, confronted by antiwar protesters on his travels, Tuesday renewed his refusal to meet with high-profile activist Cindy Sheehan, asserting that she does not speak for the majority of families who have lost relatives in combat.
Bush dismissed demands from Sheehan and others to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq. "I think immediate withdrawal from Iraq would be a mistake," he said. "I think those who advocate immediate withdrawal from not only Iraq but the Middle East are advocating a policy that would weaken the United States."
The vacationing president called reporters to a mountain resort 100 miles north of here to address efforts in Iraq to reach agreement on a constitution. He issued a blunt warning to the Sunni minority, which has yet to agree to a draft of the constitution. "The Sunnis have got to make a choice," Bush said. "Do they want to live in a society that's free, or do they want to live in violence?"
(More ... Bush Says Activist Doesn't Speak for Kin of Casualties) ¶ 21:26 0 comments
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 24, 2005; Page A03
BOISE, Idaho, Aug. 23 -- President Bush, confronted by antiwar protesters on his travels, Tuesday renewed his refusal to meet with high-profile activist Cindy Sheehan, asserting that she does not speak for the majority of families who have lost relatives in combat.
Bush dismissed demands from Sheehan and others to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq. "I think immediate withdrawal from Iraq would be a mistake," he said. "I think those who advocate immediate withdrawal from not only Iraq but the Middle East are advocating a policy that would weaken the United States."
The vacationing president called reporters to a mountain resort 100 miles north of here to address efforts in Iraq to reach agreement on a constitution. He issued a blunt warning to the Sunni minority, which has yet to agree to a draft of the constitution. "The Sunnis have got to make a choice," Bush said. "Do they want to live in a society that's free, or do they want to live in violence?"
(More ... Bush Says Activist Doesn't Speak for Kin of Casualties) ¶ 21:26 0 comments
8.23.2005
War of the Future (MotherJones.com)
Commentary: How oil drives the genocide in Darfur
By David Morse
A war of the future is being waged right now in the sprawling desert region of northeastern Africa known as Sudan. The weapons themselves are not futuristic. None of the ray-guns, force-fields, or robotic storm troopers that are the stuff of science fiction; nor, for that matter, the satellite-guided Predator drones or other high-tech weapon systems at the cutting edge of today's arsenal.
No, this war is being fought with Kalashnikovs, clubs and knives. In the western region of Sudan known as Darfur, the preferred tactics are burning and pillaging, castration and rape -- carried out by Arab militias riding on camels and horses. The most sophisticated technologies deployed are, on the one hand, the helicopters used by the Sudanese government to support the militias when they attack black African villages, and on the other hand, quite a different weapon: the seismographs used by foreign oil companies to map oil deposits hundreds of feet below the surface.
This is what makes it a war of the future: not the slick PowerPoint presentations you can imagine in boardrooms in Dallas and Beijing showing proven reserves in one color, estimated reserves in another, vast subterranean puddles that stretch west into Chad, and south to Nigeria and Uganda; not the technology; just the simple fact of the oil.
This is a resource war, fought by surrogates, involving great powers whose economies are predicated on growth, contending for a finite pool of resources. It is a war straight out of the pages of Michael Klare's book, Blood and Oil; and it would be a glaring example of the consequences of our addiction to oil, if it were not also an invisible war.
(More ... War of the Future) ¶ 18:54 0 comments
By David Morse
A war of the future is being waged right now in the sprawling desert region of northeastern Africa known as Sudan. The weapons themselves are not futuristic. None of the ray-guns, force-fields, or robotic storm troopers that are the stuff of science fiction; nor, for that matter, the satellite-guided Predator drones or other high-tech weapon systems at the cutting edge of today's arsenal.
No, this war is being fought with Kalashnikovs, clubs and knives. In the western region of Sudan known as Darfur, the preferred tactics are burning and pillaging, castration and rape -- carried out by Arab militias riding on camels and horses. The most sophisticated technologies deployed are, on the one hand, the helicopters used by the Sudanese government to support the militias when they attack black African villages, and on the other hand, quite a different weapon: the seismographs used by foreign oil companies to map oil deposits hundreds of feet below the surface.
This is what makes it a war of the future: not the slick PowerPoint presentations you can imagine in boardrooms in Dallas and Beijing showing proven reserves in one color, estimated reserves in another, vast subterranean puddles that stretch west into Chad, and south to Nigeria and Uganda; not the technology; just the simple fact of the oil.
This is a resource war, fought by surrogates, involving great powers whose economies are predicated on growth, contending for a finite pool of resources. It is a war straight out of the pages of Michael Klare's book, Blood and Oil; and it would be a glaring example of the consequences of our addiction to oil, if it were not also an invisible war.
(More ... War of the Future) ¶ 18:54 0 comments
Sen. Reid Reports Suffering Mild Stroke (USATODAY.com)
Posted 8/19/2005 8:42 PM Updated 8/19/2005 9:40 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, suffered a brief mini-stroke Tuesday, but doctors found no complications and he feels fine, aides said Friday.
One of the nation's most powerful elected Democrats, the 65-year-old senator canceled several appearances in Nevada late this week. But his press secretary Tessa Hafen said, "There are no complications or any restrictions on his activities." (Related: Reid mini-stroke not uncommon)
A gold miner's son, Reid has become a visible leader of his party since assuming leadership of the Senate minority last January.
"He has undergone evaluations this week, and his doctors have recommended that he take advantage of the summer congressional recess for some downtime," Hafen added.
Her statement said Reid sought medical attention at the urging of his wife, Landra. He was told he had experienced a transient ischemic attack.
(More ... USATODAY.com - Sen. Reid reports suffering mild stroke) ¶ 18:47 0 comments
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, suffered a brief mini-stroke Tuesday, but doctors found no complications and he feels fine, aides said Friday.
One of the nation's most powerful elected Democrats, the 65-year-old senator canceled several appearances in Nevada late this week. But his press secretary Tessa Hafen said, "There are no complications or any restrictions on his activities." (Related: Reid mini-stroke not uncommon)
A gold miner's son, Reid has become a visible leader of his party since assuming leadership of the Senate minority last January.
"He has undergone evaluations this week, and his doctors have recommended that he take advantage of the summer congressional recess for some downtime," Hafen added.
Her statement said Reid sought medical attention at the urging of his wife, Landra. He was told he had experienced a transient ischemic attack.
(More ... USATODAY.com - Sen. Reid reports suffering mild stroke) ¶ 18:47 0 comments
Don't Prettify Our History (NYTimes.com)
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 22, 2005
The 2000 election is still an open sore on the body politic. That was clear from the outraged reaction to my mention last week of what would have happened with a full statewide manual recount of Florida.
This reaction seems to confuse three questions. One is what would have happened if the U.S. Supreme Court hadn't intervened; the answer is that unless the judge overseeing the recount had revised his order (which is a possibility), George W. Bush would still have been declared the winner.
The second is what would have happened if there had been a full, statewide manual recount - as there should have been. The probable answer is that Al Gore would have won, by a tiny margin.
The third is what would have happened if the intentions of the voters hadn't been frustrated by butterfly ballots, felon purges and more; the answer is that Mr. Gore would have won by a much larger margin.
(More ... Don't Prettify Our History - New York Times) ¶ 18:31 0 comments
Published: August 22, 2005
The 2000 election is still an open sore on the body politic. That was clear from the outraged reaction to my mention last week of what would have happened with a full statewide manual recount of Florida.
This reaction seems to confuse three questions. One is what would have happened if the U.S. Supreme Court hadn't intervened; the answer is that unless the judge overseeing the recount had revised his order (which is a possibility), George W. Bush would still have been declared the winner.
The second is what would have happened if there had been a full, statewide manual recount - as there should have been. The probable answer is that Al Gore would have won, by a tiny margin.
The third is what would have happened if the intentions of the voters hadn't been frustrated by butterfly ballots, felon purges and more; the answer is that Mr. Gore would have won by a much larger margin.
(More ... Don't Prettify Our History - New York Times) ¶ 18:31 0 comments
Panelist Who Dissents on Climate Change Quits (NYTimes.com)
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: August 23, 2005
A scientist who has long disagreed with the dominant view that global warming stems mainly from human activity has resigned from a panel that is completing a report for the Bush administration on temperature trends in the atmosphere.
The scientist, Roger A. Pielke Sr., a climatologist at Colorado State University, said most of the other scientists working on the report were too deeply wedded to particular views and were discounting minority opinions on the quality of climate records and possible causes of warming.
"When you appoint people to a committee who are experts in an area but evaluating their own work," he said in an interview, "it's very difficult for them to think outside the box of their research."
Administration officials said the resignation would not affect the quality or credibility of the report, a draft of which is being finished in the next few weeks.
The report, the first product of President Bush's 10-year climate change research program, is likely to be closely scrutinized by climate scientists and environmental and industry groups for any sign of bias or distortion.
(More ... Panelist Who Dissents on Climate Change Quits - New York Times) ¶ 18:25 0 comments
Published: August 23, 2005
A scientist who has long disagreed with the dominant view that global warming stems mainly from human activity has resigned from a panel that is completing a report for the Bush administration on temperature trends in the atmosphere.
The scientist, Roger A. Pielke Sr., a climatologist at Colorado State University, said most of the other scientists working on the report were too deeply wedded to particular views and were discounting minority opinions on the quality of climate records and possible causes of warming.
"When you appoint people to a committee who are experts in an area but evaluating their own work," he said in an interview, "it's very difficult for them to think outside the box of their research."
Administration officials said the resignation would not affect the quality or credibility of the report, a draft of which is being finished in the next few weeks.
The report, the first product of President Bush's 10-year climate change research program, is likely to be closely scrutinized by climate scientists and environmental and industry groups for any sign of bias or distortion.
(More ... Panelist Who Dissents on Climate Change Quits - New York Times) ¶ 18:25 0 comments
State Is First to Sue Over 'No Child Left Behind' Law (CNN.com)
Monday, August 22, 2005; Posted: 1:56 p.m. EDT (17:56 GMT)
HARTFORD, Connecticut (AP) -- Connecticut filed a federal lawsuit Monday challenging President Bush's No Child Left Behind school reform law because, it says, no money is provided to cover expensive testing and required programs.
The state is the first to go to court over the law.
"The goals of the No Child Left Behind Act are laudable," said the state's attorney general, Richard Blumenthal. "Indeed, Connecticut has pursued these goals for decades, but the federal government has failed in implementing them."
Blumenthal announced plans for the lawsuit this spring, after the federal government repeatedly refused to waive some of the requirements of No Child Left Behind. The law aims to have every student in public schools proficient in reading and math by 2014.
Mandatory annual testing has been Connecticut's chief complaint. The state, which has been administering its own mastery test for 20 years, wants to continue testing every other year.
"This mindless rigidity harms our taxpayers, but most of all our children," Blumenthal said.
(More ... CNN.com - State is first to sue over 'No Child Left Behind' law - Aug 22, 2005) ¶ 18:22 0 comments
HARTFORD, Connecticut (AP) -- Connecticut filed a federal lawsuit Monday challenging President Bush's No Child Left Behind school reform law because, it says, no money is provided to cover expensive testing and required programs.
The state is the first to go to court over the law.
"The goals of the No Child Left Behind Act are laudable," said the state's attorney general, Richard Blumenthal. "Indeed, Connecticut has pursued these goals for decades, but the federal government has failed in implementing them."
Blumenthal announced plans for the lawsuit this spring, after the federal government repeatedly refused to waive some of the requirements of No Child Left Behind. The law aims to have every student in public schools proficient in reading and math by 2014.
Mandatory annual testing has been Connecticut's chief complaint. The state, which has been administering its own mastery test for 20 years, wants to continue testing every other year.
"This mindless rigidity harms our taxpayers, but most of all our children," Blumenthal said.
(More ... CNN.com - State is first to sue over 'No Child Left Behind' law - Aug 22, 2005) ¶ 18:22 0 comments
Scientists Speak Up on Mix of God and Science (NYTimes.com)
By CORNELIA DEAN
Published: August 23, 2005
At a recent scientific conference at City College of New York, a student in the audience rose to ask the panelists an unexpected question: "Can you be a good scientist and believe in God?"
Reaction from one of the panelists, all Nobel laureates, was quick and sharp. "No!" declared Herbert A. Hauptman, who shared the chemistry prize in 1985 for his work on the structure of crystals.
Belief in the supernatural, especially belief in God, is not only incompatible with good science, Dr. Hauptman declared, "this kind of belief is damaging to the well-being of the human race."
But disdain for religion is far from universal among scientists. And today, as religious groups challenge scientists in arenas as various as evolution in the classroom, AIDS prevention and stem cell research, scientists who embrace religion are beginning to speak out about their faith.
"It should not be a taboo subject, but frankly it often is in scientific circles," said Francis S. Collins, who directs the National Human Genome Research Institute and who speaks freely about his Christian faith.
(More ... Scientists Speak Up on Mix of God and Science - New York Times)
(See also: In Explaining Life's Complexity, Darwinists and Doubters Clash) ¶ 18:11 0 comments
Published: August 23, 2005
At a recent scientific conference at City College of New York, a student in the audience rose to ask the panelists an unexpected question: "Can you be a good scientist and believe in God?"
Reaction from one of the panelists, all Nobel laureates, was quick and sharp. "No!" declared Herbert A. Hauptman, who shared the chemistry prize in 1985 for his work on the structure of crystals.
Belief in the supernatural, especially belief in God, is not only incompatible with good science, Dr. Hauptman declared, "this kind of belief is damaging to the well-being of the human race."
But disdain for religion is far from universal among scientists. And today, as religious groups challenge scientists in arenas as various as evolution in the classroom, AIDS prevention and stem cell research, scientists who embrace religion are beginning to speak out about their faith.
"It should not be a taboo subject, but frankly it often is in scientific circles," said Francis S. Collins, who directs the National Human Genome Research Institute and who speaks freely about his Christian faith.
(More ... Scientists Speak Up on Mix of God and Science - New York Times)
(See also: In Explaining Life's Complexity, Darwinists and Doubters Clash) ¶ 18:11 0 comments
8.22.2005
Mother Tips the Balance Against Bush (Observer.Guardian.co.uk)
Cindy Sheehan's vigil outside the President's ranch has galvanised the anti-war movement - and provoked a vicious political slanging match. Paul Harris reports
Sunday August 21, 2005
The Observer
Candles were lit all across America last week in one of the largest single anti-war protests in recent US history. At more than 1,600 vigils tens of thousands of protesters gathered in solidarity with the woman who has been the catalyst for the rebirth of the anti-war movement: Cindy Sheehan.
Her remarkable one-woman stand outside George Bush's Texas ranch has turned into a national phenomenon - and one of the most vicious political slanging matches in recent US history. On the pro-war side, Sheehan has been derided as a traitor to America, betraying her dead soldier son's memory. On the anti-war side she has become a secular saint, laden with the powerful imagery of the avenging mother roused to action. For them, she is the lone soccer mom who is taking on Bush - and winning.
Either way, Sheehan is the most talked-about woman in American politics. She might also be Bush's worst public relations nightmare. For months Washington has been awash in speculation of a 'tipping point', when the majority of American public opinion turns finally and permanently against the war. Many now believe that Sheehan has provided that final push. 'It has definitely tipped now,' said Professor Steve Zunes, a political scientist at the University of San Francisco.
(More ... The Observer | International | Mother tips the balance against Bush) ¶ 21:17 0 comments
Sunday August 21, 2005
The Observer
Candles were lit all across America last week in one of the largest single anti-war protests in recent US history. At more than 1,600 vigils tens of thousands of protesters gathered in solidarity with the woman who has been the catalyst for the rebirth of the anti-war movement: Cindy Sheehan.
Her remarkable one-woman stand outside George Bush's Texas ranch has turned into a national phenomenon - and one of the most vicious political slanging matches in recent US history. On the pro-war side, Sheehan has been derided as a traitor to America, betraying her dead soldier son's memory. On the anti-war side she has become a secular saint, laden with the powerful imagery of the avenging mother roused to action. For them, she is the lone soccer mom who is taking on Bush - and winning.
Either way, Sheehan is the most talked-about woman in American politics. She might also be Bush's worst public relations nightmare. For months Washington has been awash in speculation of a 'tipping point', when the majority of American public opinion turns finally and permanently against the war. Many now believe that Sheehan has provided that final push. 'It has definitely tipped now,' said Professor Steve Zunes, a political scientist at the University of San Francisco.
(More ... The Observer | International | Mother tips the balance against Bush) ¶ 21:17 0 comments
Costello Alarm at Anti-US Teachers (TheAge.com.au)
By Brendan Nicholson
Foreign Affairs Correspondent
August 22, 2005
LEFT-WING teachers have created a "dangerous" anti-American bias in Australian schoolchildren, according to Treasurer Peter Costello.
He warns that undermining a long-time ally and the world's most powerful democracy could leave Australia and the world generally vulnerable to terrorism.
In a speech in Sydney on Saturday about Australia's relationship with the United States, Mr Costello said the situation was so bad that some students were unaware that the US had protected Australia from the Japanese in World War II.
Mr Costello raised his concerns about anti-American feeling at the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue dinner, at which he said the knowledge of the role played by the US in the early 1940s had faded with time.
In a follow-up television interview, Mr Costello said it would be dangerous if anti-Americanism were to rise substantially, because the US was Australia's most important strategic and defence partner.
Anti-Americanism could easily morph into anti-Westernism, which threatened Australia's interests as well, he said.
(More ... Costello alarm at anti-US teachers - National - theage.com.au) ¶ 20:40 0 comments
Foreign Affairs Correspondent
August 22, 2005
LEFT-WING teachers have created a "dangerous" anti-American bias in Australian schoolchildren, according to Treasurer Peter Costello.
He warns that undermining a long-time ally and the world's most powerful democracy could leave Australia and the world generally vulnerable to terrorism.
In a speech in Sydney on Saturday about Australia's relationship with the United States, Mr Costello said the situation was so bad that some students were unaware that the US had protected Australia from the Japanese in World War II.
Mr Costello raised his concerns about anti-American feeling at the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue dinner, at which he said the knowledge of the role played by the US in the early 1940s had faded with time.
In a follow-up television interview, Mr Costello said it would be dangerous if anti-Americanism were to rise substantially, because the US was Australia's most important strategic and defence partner.
Anti-Americanism could easily morph into anti-Westernism, which threatened Australia's interests as well, he said.
(More ... Costello alarm at anti-US teachers - National - theage.com.au) ¶ 20:40 0 comments
8.21.2005
Australia PM to Receive US Honour (TheAge.com.au)
By Phillip Hudson
Political Correspondent
Canberra
August 21, 2005
PRIME Minister John Howard is being honoured by the United States Government with an award for public service.
It will be the first time the Woodrow Wilson Award, which was created by the US Congress, has been presented outside North America or Europe.
President George Bush has recorded a tribute to Mr Howard that will be shown at a $500-a-head dinner tomorrow night in Sydney. Westfield chairman Frank Lowy is also being given an award for corporate citizenship.
The Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars is part of the Smithsonian Institution and was set up in 1968 as a bipartisan memorial to Wilson, who was the 28th US president.
Its trustees include US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
(More ... PM to receive US honour - National - theage.com.au) ¶ 20:31 0 comments
Political Correspondent
Canberra
August 21, 2005
PRIME Minister John Howard is being honoured by the United States Government with an award for public service.
It will be the first time the Woodrow Wilson Award, which was created by the US Congress, has been presented outside North America or Europe.
President George Bush has recorded a tribute to Mr Howard that will be shown at a $500-a-head dinner tomorrow night in Sydney. Westfield chairman Frank Lowy is also being given an award for corporate citizenship.
The Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars is part of the Smithsonian Institution and was set up in 1968 as a bipartisan memorial to Wilson, who was the 28th US president.
Its trustees include US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
(More ... PM to receive US honour - National - theage.com.au) ¶ 20:31 0 comments
Sheehan Plans to Return 'Very Soon' (CNN.com)
'Camp Casey' supporters ponder new site near Bush ranch
Friday, August 19, 2005; Posted: 8:08 p.m. EDT (00:08 GMT)
CRAWFORD, Texas (CNN) -- The California woman who has camped outside President Bush's ranch for nearly two weeks to protest the war in Iraq said Friday she plans to return "very soon" after leaving to tend to her ill mother.
Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq last year, said her 74-year-old mother suffered a stroke. She and her sister went to Los Angeles "to assess the situation," as her supporters continue her protest outside Bush's ranch.
"I plan on returning to Camp Casey very soon, but while I'm in Los Angeles please respect that my sister, brother and I are here focusing on our mother, while the moms in Crawford focus on Bush," the statement from Sheehan said. "The president is not off the hook."
"Camp Casey" is the protest site named for her slain son.
Her departure Thursday came as anti-war demonstrators prepared to move to a spot closer to Bush's property, where the president is in the middle of a five-week vacation. A sympathetic neighbor volunteered the use of his land after the president's neighbors complained about sanitation and traffic problems.
(More ... CNN.com - Sheehan plans to return 'very soon' - Aug 19, 2005) ¶ 20:25 0 comments
Friday, August 19, 2005; Posted: 8:08 p.m. EDT (00:08 GMT)
CRAWFORD, Texas (CNN) -- The California woman who has camped outside President Bush's ranch for nearly two weeks to protest the war in Iraq said Friday she plans to return "very soon" after leaving to tend to her ill mother.
Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq last year, said her 74-year-old mother suffered a stroke. She and her sister went to Los Angeles "to assess the situation," as her supporters continue her protest outside Bush's ranch.
"I plan on returning to Camp Casey very soon, but while I'm in Los Angeles please respect that my sister, brother and I are here focusing on our mother, while the moms in Crawford focus on Bush," the statement from Sheehan said. "The president is not off the hook."
"Camp Casey" is the protest site named for her slain son.
Her departure Thursday came as anti-war demonstrators prepared to move to a spot closer to Bush's property, where the president is in the middle of a five-week vacation. A sympathetic neighbor volunteered the use of his land after the president's neighbors complained about sanitation and traffic problems.
(More ... CNN.com - Sheehan plans to return 'very soon' - Aug 19, 2005) ¶ 20:25 0 comments
The Strategic Class (TheNation.com)
By Ari Berman
August 29, 2005 Issue
In July 2002, at the first Senate hearing on Iraq, then-Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Joe Biden pledged his allegiance to Bush's war. Ever since, the blunt-spoken Biden has seized every opportunity to dismiss antiwar critics within his own party, vocally denouncing Bush's handling of the war while doggedly supporting the war effort itself. Biden carried this message into the Kerry campaign as the candidate's closest foreign policy confidant, and a few days after announcing his own intention to run for the presidency in 2008, he gave a major speech at the Brookings Institution in which he criticized rising calls for withdrawal as a "gigantic mistake."
The Democrats' speculative front-runner for '08, Hillary Clinton, has offered similarly hawkish rhetoric. "If we were to artificially set a deadline of some sort, that would be like a green light to the terrorists, and we can't afford to do that," Clinton told CBS in February. Instead, she recently proposed enlarging the Army by 80,000 troops "to respond to threats wherever danger lies." Clinton, a member of the Armed Services Committee, appears more comfortable accommodating the President's Iraq policy than opposing it, and her early and sustained support for the war (and frequent photo-ops with the troops) supposedly reinforces her national security credentials.
The prominence of party leaders like Biden and Clinton, and of a slew of other potential prowar candidates who support the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, presents the Democrats with an odd dilemma: At a time when the American people are turning against the Iraq War and favor a withdrawal of US troops, and British and American leaders are publicly discussing a partial pullback, the leading Democratic presidential candidates for '08 are unapologetic war hawks. Nearly 60 percent of Americans now oppose the war, according to recent polling. Sixty-three percent want US troops brought home within the next year. Yet a recent National Journal "insiders poll" found that a similar margin of Democratic members of Congress reject setting any timetable. The possibility that America's military presence in Iraq may be doing more harm than good is considered beyond the pale of "sophisticated" debate.
(More ... The Strategic Class) ¶ 19:53 0 comments
August 29, 2005 Issue
In July 2002, at the first Senate hearing on Iraq, then-Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Joe Biden pledged his allegiance to Bush's war. Ever since, the blunt-spoken Biden has seized every opportunity to dismiss antiwar critics within his own party, vocally denouncing Bush's handling of the war while doggedly supporting the war effort itself. Biden carried this message into the Kerry campaign as the candidate's closest foreign policy confidant, and a few days after announcing his own intention to run for the presidency in 2008, he gave a major speech at the Brookings Institution in which he criticized rising calls for withdrawal as a "gigantic mistake."
The Democrats' speculative front-runner for '08, Hillary Clinton, has offered similarly hawkish rhetoric. "If we were to artificially set a deadline of some sort, that would be like a green light to the terrorists, and we can't afford to do that," Clinton told CBS in February. Instead, she recently proposed enlarging the Army by 80,000 troops "to respond to threats wherever danger lies." Clinton, a member of the Armed Services Committee, appears more comfortable accommodating the President's Iraq policy than opposing it, and her early and sustained support for the war (and frequent photo-ops with the troops) supposedly reinforces her national security credentials.
The prominence of party leaders like Biden and Clinton, and of a slew of other potential prowar candidates who support the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, presents the Democrats with an odd dilemma: At a time when the American people are turning against the Iraq War and favor a withdrawal of US troops, and British and American leaders are publicly discussing a partial pullback, the leading Democratic presidential candidates for '08 are unapologetic war hawks. Nearly 60 percent of Americans now oppose the war, according to recent polling. Sixty-three percent want US troops brought home within the next year. Yet a recent National Journal "insiders poll" found that a similar margin of Democratic members of Congress reject setting any timetable. The possibility that America's military presence in Iraq may be doing more harm than good is considered beyond the pale of "sophisticated" debate.
(More ... The Strategic Class) ¶ 19:53 0 comments
The Politics of Ice Cream (RawStory.com)
LESSONS LEARNED
By John Steinberg | RAW STORY CONTRIBUTOR
It is funny what we remember and what memories went AWOL with the brain cells snuffed in the fear-and-loathing days of yore. I was an economics major in college. I can’t remember most of it – the equations, the graphs, the justifications for shafting the poor. But I do remember the lesson about the two ice cream vendors on beach.
Assume a beach that is 100 yards long. (It wouldn’t be an economics story if you were not asked to assume something, right?) Now assume that there are two ice cream vendors working that beach, and that people are uniformly distributed on that beach. Where should the vendors set up? You might think vendor A should set up at the 25-yard mark and vendor B at the 75-yard mark – that way, no one has to walk more than 25 yards to get their ice cream. But look at it from the standpoint of the vendors. Vendor A could move to the 30-yard line and pick up a little business at the other vendor’s expense, and run no risk that the customers who now have to walk 30 yards would choose instead to walk 75 yards to vendor B’s stand. Vendor B then gets more business by moving to the 65, Vendor A to the 40, and pretty soon the two competitors are cheek by jowl, straddling the center. Voilà – a dysfunctional outcome, courtesy of the free market.
It turns out that this concept is pretty commonly taught (something I didn’t know in those pre-Internet days) – it is formally known as Hotelling’s model, after an economist named Harold Hotelling. And its application to politics is rather obvious.
Think of the spectrum of political views as the beach, and citizens as sunbathers. A politician on the left end of the beach knows that if he moves his offering a few steps to the right, he can pick up some middle-of-the-beach customers without losing the folks to his left.
(More ... The Raw Story | Politics of ice cream) ¶ 19:16 0 comments
By John Steinberg | RAW STORY CONTRIBUTOR
It is funny what we remember and what memories went AWOL with the brain cells snuffed in the fear-and-loathing days of yore. I was an economics major in college. I can’t remember most of it – the equations, the graphs, the justifications for shafting the poor. But I do remember the lesson about the two ice cream vendors on beach.
Assume a beach that is 100 yards long. (It wouldn’t be an economics story if you were not asked to assume something, right?) Now assume that there are two ice cream vendors working that beach, and that people are uniformly distributed on that beach. Where should the vendors set up? You might think vendor A should set up at the 25-yard mark and vendor B at the 75-yard mark – that way, no one has to walk more than 25 yards to get their ice cream. But look at it from the standpoint of the vendors. Vendor A could move to the 30-yard line and pick up a little business at the other vendor’s expense, and run no risk that the customers who now have to walk 30 yards would choose instead to walk 75 yards to vendor B’s stand. Vendor B then gets more business by moving to the 65, Vendor A to the 40, and pretty soon the two competitors are cheek by jowl, straddling the center. Voilà – a dysfunctional outcome, courtesy of the free market.
It turns out that this concept is pretty commonly taught (something I didn’t know in those pre-Internet days) – it is formally known as Hotelling’s model, after an economist named Harold Hotelling. And its application to politics is rather obvious.
Think of the spectrum of political views as the beach, and citizens as sunbathers. A politician on the left end of the beach knows that if he moves his offering a few steps to the right, he can pick up some middle-of-the-beach customers without losing the folks to his left.
(More ... The Raw Story | Politics of ice cream) ¶ 19:16 0 comments
Politicized Scholars Put Evolution on the Defensive (NYTimes.com)
By JODI WILGOREN
Published: August 21, 2005
SEATTLE - When President Bush plunged into the debate over the teaching of evolution this month, saying, "both sides ought to be properly taught," he seemed to be reading from the playbook of the Discovery Institute, the conservative think tank here that is at the helm of this newly volatile frontier in the nation's culture wars.
After toiling in obscurity for nearly a decade, the institute's Center for Science and Culture has emerged in recent months as the ideological and strategic backbone behind the eruption of skirmishes over science in school districts and state capitals across the country. Pushing a "teach the controversy" approach to evolution, the institute has in many ways transformed the debate into an issue of academic freedom rather than a confrontation between biology and religion.
Mainstream scientists reject the notion that any controversy over evolution even exists. But Mr. Bush embraced the institute's talking points by suggesting that alternative theories and criticism should be included in biology curriculums "so people can understand what the debate is about."
Financed by some of the same Christian conservatives who helped Mr. Bush win the White House, the organization's intellectual core is a scattered group of scholars who for nearly a decade have explored the unorthodox explanation of life's origins known as intelligent design.
Together, they have mounted a politically savvy challenge to evolution as the bedrock of modern biology, propelling a fringe academic movement onto the front pages and putting Darwin's defenders firmly on the defensive.
(More ... Politicized Scholars Put Evolution on the Defensive - New York Times) ¶ 16:39 0 comments
Published: August 21, 2005
SEATTLE - When President Bush plunged into the debate over the teaching of evolution this month, saying, "both sides ought to be properly taught," he seemed to be reading from the playbook of the Discovery Institute, the conservative think tank here that is at the helm of this newly volatile frontier in the nation's culture wars.
After toiling in obscurity for nearly a decade, the institute's Center for Science and Culture has emerged in recent months as the ideological and strategic backbone behind the eruption of skirmishes over science in school districts and state capitals across the country. Pushing a "teach the controversy" approach to evolution, the institute has in many ways transformed the debate into an issue of academic freedom rather than a confrontation between biology and religion.
Mainstream scientists reject the notion that any controversy over evolution even exists. But Mr. Bush embraced the institute's talking points by suggesting that alternative theories and criticism should be included in biology curriculums "so people can understand what the debate is about."
Financed by some of the same Christian conservatives who helped Mr. Bush win the White House, the organization's intellectual core is a scattered group of scholars who for nearly a decade have explored the unorthodox explanation of life's origins known as intelligent design.
Together, they have mounted a politically savvy challenge to evolution as the bedrock of modern biology, propelling a fringe academic movement onto the front pages and putting Darwin's defenders firmly on the defensive.
(More ... Politicized Scholars Put Evolution on the Defensive - New York Times) ¶ 16:39 0 comments
8.19.2005
Global warming: Will you listen now, America? (Independent.co.uk)
Two of the leading contenders to contest the next US presidential election have delivered an urgent warning to the United States on global warming, saying the evidence of climate change has become too stark to ignore and human activity is a major cause.
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 19 August 2005
On a high-profile and bi-partisan fact-finding tour in Alaska and Canada's Yukon territory, Senators John McCain, a Republican, and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic senator for New York, were confronted by melting permafrost and shrinking glaciers and heard from native Inuit that rising sea levels were altering their lives.
"The question is how much damage will be done before we start taking concrete action," Mr McCain said at a press conference in Anchorage. "Go up to places like we just came from. It's a little scary." Mrs Clinton added: "I don't think there's any doubt left for anybody who actually looks at the science. There are still some holdouts, but they're fighting a losing battle. The science is overwhelming."
Their findings directly challenge President George Bush's reluctance to legislate to reduce America's carbon emissions. Although both senators havetalked before of the need to tackle global warming, this week's clarion call was perhaps the clearest and most urgent. It also raises the prospect that climate change and other environmental issues could be a factor in the presidential contest in 2008 if Mrs Clinton and Mr McCain enter it. Mrs Clinton and Mr McCain, who represents Arizona, are among the leading, and the most popular, likely contenders.
Independent Online Edition > Americas : app1 ¶ 19:59 0 comments
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 19 August 2005
On a high-profile and bi-partisan fact-finding tour in Alaska and Canada's Yukon territory, Senators John McCain, a Republican, and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic senator for New York, were confronted by melting permafrost and shrinking glaciers and heard from native Inuit that rising sea levels were altering their lives.
"The question is how much damage will be done before we start taking concrete action," Mr McCain said at a press conference in Anchorage. "Go up to places like we just came from. It's a little scary." Mrs Clinton added: "I don't think there's any doubt left for anybody who actually looks at the science. There are still some holdouts, but they're fighting a losing battle. The science is overwhelming."
Their findings directly challenge President George Bush's reluctance to legislate to reduce America's carbon emissions. Although both senators havetalked before of the need to tackle global warming, this week's clarion call was perhaps the clearest and most urgent. It also raises the prospect that climate change and other environmental issues could be a factor in the presidential contest in 2008 if Mrs Clinton and Mr McCain enter it. Mrs Clinton and Mr McCain, who represents Arizona, are among the leading, and the most popular, likely contenders.
Independent Online Edition > Americas : app1 ¶ 19:59 0 comments
What They Did Last Fall (NYTimes.com)
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 19, 2005
By running for the U.S. Senate, Katherine Harris, Florida's former secretary of state, has stirred up some ugly memories. And that's a good thing, because those memories remain relevant. There was at least as much electoral malfeasance in 2004 as there was in 2000, even if it didn't change the outcome. And the next election may be worse.
In his recent book "Steal This Vote" - a very judicious work, despite its title - Andrew Gumbel, a U.S. correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent, provides the best overview I've seen of the 2000 Florida vote. And he documents the simple truth: "Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election."
Two different news media consortiums reviewed Florida's ballots; both found that a full manual recount would have given the election to Mr. Gore. This was true despite a host of efforts by state and local officials to suppress likely Gore votes, most notably Ms. Harris's "felon purge," which disenfranchised large numbers of valid voters.
(More ... What They Did Last Fall - New York Times) ¶ 19:57 0 comments
Published: August 19, 2005
By running for the U.S. Senate, Katherine Harris, Florida's former secretary of state, has stirred up some ugly memories. And that's a good thing, because those memories remain relevant. There was at least as much electoral malfeasance in 2004 as there was in 2000, even if it didn't change the outcome. And the next election may be worse.
In his recent book "Steal This Vote" - a very judicious work, despite its title - Andrew Gumbel, a U.S. correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent, provides the best overview I've seen of the 2000 Florida vote. And he documents the simple truth: "Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election."
Two different news media consortiums reviewed Florida's ballots; both found that a full manual recount would have given the election to Mr. Gore. This was true despite a host of efforts by state and local officials to suppress likely Gore votes, most notably Ms. Harris's "felon purge," which disenfranchised large numbers of valid voters.
(More ... What They Did Last Fall - New York Times) ¶ 19:57 0 comments
Weld Tries Again to Be Governor, but in New York (NYTimes.com)
By PATRICK D. HEALY
Published: August 19, 2005
William F. Weld, the colorful former Republican governor of Massachusetts, said yesterday that he planned to run for the same job in New York next year, hoping his platform of tax cuts and social liberalism will make him the first two-state leader since Sam Houston.
Mr. Weld, a native New Yorker who is now an investment adviser in Manhattan, said he had been encouraged to run by former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, an old friend, among others. Karl Rove, the White House political adviser, who worked for Mr. Weld in the 1990's, had also told him to consider running against Eliot Spitzer, the likely Democratic nominee, and the two men agreed that Mr. Spitzer was beatable, according to New York Republicans told about the exchange.
Yet Mr. Weld, who is barely known in New York outside of fund-raising, society and political circles, said his desire to run came strictly from "personal motivation" and a belief that New Yorkers had come to like moderate, tax-cutting Republican leaders.
"My juices are really flowing for this race, and I want to return to public service," Mr. Weld said in a telephone interview from Kentucky, where he was on business with his firm, Leeds Weld & Company.
(More ... Weld Tries Again to Be Governor, but in New York - New York Times) ¶ 19:22 0 comments
Published: August 19, 2005
William F. Weld, the colorful former Republican governor of Massachusetts, said yesterday that he planned to run for the same job in New York next year, hoping his platform of tax cuts and social liberalism will make him the first two-state leader since Sam Houston.
Mr. Weld, a native New Yorker who is now an investment adviser in Manhattan, said he had been encouraged to run by former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, an old friend, among others. Karl Rove, the White House political adviser, who worked for Mr. Weld in the 1990's, had also told him to consider running against Eliot Spitzer, the likely Democratic nominee, and the two men agreed that Mr. Spitzer was beatable, according to New York Republicans told about the exchange.
Yet Mr. Weld, who is barely known in New York outside of fund-raising, society and political circles, said his desire to run came strictly from "personal motivation" and a belief that New Yorkers had come to like moderate, tax-cutting Republican leaders.
"My juices are really flowing for this race, and I want to return to public service," Mr. Weld said in a telephone interview from Kentucky, where he was on business with his firm, Leeds Weld & Company.
(More ... Weld Tries Again to Be Governor, but in New York - New York Times) ¶ 19:22 0 comments
Nationwide vigils call for end to Iraq war (SunTimes.com)
BY ANGELA K. BROWN
August 18, 2005
CRAWFORD, Texas -- Hundreds of candlelight vigils calling for an end to the war in Iraq got under way Wednesday in a national effort spurred by one mother's anti-war demonstration near President Bush's ranch.
The vigils were urged by Cindy Sheehan, who has become the icon of the anti-war movement since she started a protest Aug. 6 in memory of her son Casey, who died in Iraq last year.
Sheehan says she will camp outside Bush's ranch until his monthlong vacation ends or he meets with her and other grieving families.
Bush has said he sympathizes with Sheehan but has made no indication he will meet with her.
(More ... Nationwide vigils call for end to Iraq war) ¶ 10:58 0 comments
August 18, 2005
CRAWFORD, Texas -- Hundreds of candlelight vigils calling for an end to the war in Iraq got under way Wednesday in a national effort spurred by one mother's anti-war demonstration near President Bush's ranch.
The vigils were urged by Cindy Sheehan, who has become the icon of the anti-war movement since she started a protest Aug. 6 in memory of her son Casey, who died in Iraq last year.
Sheehan says she will camp outside Bush's ranch until his monthlong vacation ends or he meets with her and other grieving families.
Bush has said he sympathizes with Sheehan but has made no indication he will meet with her.
(More ... Nationwide vigils call for end to Iraq war) ¶ 10:58 0 comments
Anti-War Protester Sheehan Leaves Crawford to Help Mother (LATimes.com)
From Associated Press
CRAWFORD, Texas -- The grieving woman who started an anti-war demonstration near President Bush's ranch nearly two weeks ago said today she was leaving because her mother had a stroke.
Cindy Sheehan told reporters she had just received the phone call and was leaving immediately to be with her 74-year-old mother at a Los Angeles hospital.
"I'll be back as soon as possible if it's possible," she said. After hugging some of her supporters, Sheehan and her sister, Deedee Miller, got in a van and left for the Waco airport about 20 miles away.
Sheehan, whose 24-year-old son Casey died in Iraq, said the makeshift campsite off the road leading to Bush's ranch would continue. The camp has grown to more than 100 people, including many relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq.
Sheehan had vowed to remain there until Bush met with her or until his month-long vacation ended. Her protest inspired candlelight vigils across the country Wednesday night.
(More ... Anti-War Protester Sheehan Leaves Crawford to Help Mother) ¶ 10:56 0 comments
CRAWFORD, Texas -- The grieving woman who started an anti-war demonstration near President Bush's ranch nearly two weeks ago said today she was leaving because her mother had a stroke.
Cindy Sheehan told reporters she had just received the phone call and was leaving immediately to be with her 74-year-old mother at a Los Angeles hospital.
"I'll be back as soon as possible if it's possible," she said. After hugging some of her supporters, Sheehan and her sister, Deedee Miller, got in a van and left for the Waco airport about 20 miles away.
Sheehan, whose 24-year-old son Casey died in Iraq, said the makeshift campsite off the road leading to Bush's ranch would continue. The camp has grown to more than 100 people, including many relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq.
Sheehan had vowed to remain there until Bush met with her or until his month-long vacation ended. Her protest inspired candlelight vigils across the country Wednesday night.
(More ... Anti-War Protester Sheehan Leaves Crawford to Help Mother) ¶ 10:56 0 comments
8.18.2005
8.16.2005
Husband of 'Peace Mom' Files for Divorce (Guardian.co.uk)
Tuesday August 16, 2005 5:46 AM
AP Photo TXLM105
FAIRFIELD, Calif. (AP) - The husband of Cindy Sheehan, the mother camped outside President Bush's Texas ranch to protest the death of a son in the Iraq war, has filed for divorce, according to court documents.
Patrick Sheehan filed the divorce petition Friday in Solano County court, northeast of San Francisco. His lawyer did not immediately return a call seeking comment Monday.
The couple's eldest child, Casey, 24, was an Army soldier killed in April 2004. Cindy Sheehan has said the stress of the death led to the separation of the couple, who were high school sweethearts.
Sheehan has vowed to remain in Texas through Bush's August vacation, unless he meets with her. She began her protest 10 days ago and has since been joined by more than 100 anti-war activists.
(More ... Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | Husband of 'Peace Mom' Files for Divorce) ¶ 20:30 0 comments
AP Photo TXLM105
FAIRFIELD, Calif. (AP) - The husband of Cindy Sheehan, the mother camped outside President Bush's Texas ranch to protest the death of a son in the Iraq war, has filed for divorce, according to court documents.
Patrick Sheehan filed the divorce petition Friday in Solano County court, northeast of San Francisco. His lawyer did not immediately return a call seeking comment Monday.
The couple's eldest child, Casey, 24, was an Army soldier killed in April 2004. Cindy Sheehan has said the stress of the death led to the separation of the couple, who were high school sweethearts.
Sheehan has vowed to remain in Texas through Bush's August vacation, unless he meets with her. She began her protest 10 days ago and has since been joined by more than 100 anti-war activists.
(More ... Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | Husband of 'Peace Mom' Files for Divorce) ¶ 20:30 0 comments
America's Muslim Ghettos (WashingtonPost.com)
By Salam Al-Marayati
Monday, August 15, 2005; Page A15
Reports that the culprits in the London terrorist attacks were in fact homegrown British Muslim lads are reverberating throughout the U.S. Muslim community. They are forcing Muslims to focus on how to prevent such incidents in this country. The way to do this, it is clear, is to combat the Muslim-ghetto mentality that is proliferating in Western countries these days. This has so far been mostly a European phenomenon, but it could easily take root here.
The word "ghetto" comes from the name of the island near Venice where Italian Jews were made to live in the 16th century. A ghetto is a section of a city occupied by a minority group whose people live there largely because of social, economic or legal pressure. Make no mistake: British Muslims are by and large living under such conditions. And it should come as no surprise that residents living in isolated, homogenous pockets -- such as Leeds, where the suspects resided -- do not feel a sense of belonging to their nation or the West. Social and economic isolation of minority communities makes them more prone to political and religious radicalization.
Throughout Europe, cultural barriers separate Muslim ghettos from mainstream society. In general, European Muslims belong to the underclass. British Muslims are mostly Indo-Pakistani; French Muslims are largely Algerian, Belgian Muslims are immigrants from Morocco, etc. In many of these countries where Muslim populations are largely homogenous, the forces of isolation are stronger than the forces of integration, partly because of the socioeconomic status of Muslim communities throughout Europe and partly because of self-imposed isolation.
In the United States, it has been a different picture and a different reality. Because American Muslims are relatively more educated and affluent than European Muslims, they are typically far more interested in integrating into mainstream society. That American Muslims do not have a "ghetto problem" may be one reason U.S. officials consider al Qaeda more of a threat in Europe than within the United States.
(More ... America's Muslim Ghettos) ¶ 19:46 0 comments
Monday, August 15, 2005; Page A15
Reports that the culprits in the London terrorist attacks were in fact homegrown British Muslim lads are reverberating throughout the U.S. Muslim community. They are forcing Muslims to focus on how to prevent such incidents in this country. The way to do this, it is clear, is to combat the Muslim-ghetto mentality that is proliferating in Western countries these days. This has so far been mostly a European phenomenon, but it could easily take root here.
The word "ghetto" comes from the name of the island near Venice where Italian Jews were made to live in the 16th century. A ghetto is a section of a city occupied by a minority group whose people live there largely because of social, economic or legal pressure. Make no mistake: British Muslims are by and large living under such conditions. And it should come as no surprise that residents living in isolated, homogenous pockets -- such as Leeds, where the suspects resided -- do not feel a sense of belonging to their nation or the West. Social and economic isolation of minority communities makes them more prone to political and religious radicalization.
Throughout Europe, cultural barriers separate Muslim ghettos from mainstream society. In general, European Muslims belong to the underclass. British Muslims are mostly Indo-Pakistani; French Muslims are largely Algerian, Belgian Muslims are immigrants from Morocco, etc. In many of these countries where Muslim populations are largely homogenous, the forces of isolation are stronger than the forces of integration, partly because of the socioeconomic status of Muslim communities throughout Europe and partly because of self-imposed isolation.
In the United States, it has been a different picture and a different reality. Because American Muslims are relatively more educated and affluent than European Muslims, they are typically far more interested in integrating into mainstream society. That American Muslims do not have a "ghetto problem" may be one reason U.S. officials consider al Qaeda more of a threat in Europe than within the United States.
(More ... America's Muslim Ghettos) ¶ 19:46 0 comments
Social Security Lessons (NYTimes.com)
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 15, 2005
Social Security turned 70 yesterday. And to almost everyone's surprise, the nation's most successful government program is still intact.
Just a few months ago the conventional wisdom was that President Bush would get his way on Social Security. Instead, Mr. Bush's privatization drive flopped so badly that the topic has almost disappeared from national discussion.
But I'd like to revisit Social Security for a moment, because it's important to remember what Mr. Bush tried to get away with.
Many pundits and editorial boards still give Mr. Bush credit for trying to "reform" Social Security. In fact, Mr. Bush came to bury Social Security, not to save it. Over time, the Bush plan would have transformed Social Security from a social insurance program into a mutual fund, with nothing except a name in common with the system F.D.R. created.
In addition to misrepresenting his goals, Mr. Bush repeatedly lied about the current system. Oh, I'm sorry - was that a rude thing to say? Still, the fact is that Mr. Bush repeatedly said things that were demonstrably false and that his staff must have known were false. The falsehoods ranged from his claim that Social Security is unfair to African-Americans to his claim that "waiting just one year adds $600 billion to the cost of fixing Social Security."
(More ... Social Security Lessons - New York Times) ¶ 19:31 0 comments
Published: August 15, 2005
Social Security turned 70 yesterday. And to almost everyone's surprise, the nation's most successful government program is still intact.
Just a few months ago the conventional wisdom was that President Bush would get his way on Social Security. Instead, Mr. Bush's privatization drive flopped so badly that the topic has almost disappeared from national discussion.
But I'd like to revisit Social Security for a moment, because it's important to remember what Mr. Bush tried to get away with.
Many pundits and editorial boards still give Mr. Bush credit for trying to "reform" Social Security. In fact, Mr. Bush came to bury Social Security, not to save it. Over time, the Bush plan would have transformed Social Security from a social insurance program into a mutual fund, with nothing except a name in common with the system F.D.R. created.
In addition to misrepresenting his goals, Mr. Bush repeatedly lied about the current system. Oh, I'm sorry - was that a rude thing to say? Still, the fact is that Mr. Bush repeatedly said things that were demonstrably false and that his staff must have known were false. The falsehoods ranged from his claim that Social Security is unfair to African-Americans to his claim that "waiting just one year adds $600 billion to the cost of fixing Social Security."
(More ... Social Security Lessons - New York Times) ¶ 19:31 0 comments
Iraq Constitution Deadline Extended (CNN.com)
National assembly allows extra week for further negotiations
Tuesday, August 16, 2005; Posted: 12:36 a.m. EDT (04:36 GMT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's National Assembly voted unanimously Monday to extend for a week the deadline for negotiators to agree on a draft of the country's new constitution.
The committee drafting the document asked for an extension after it failed to reach a compromise by Monday's deadline after months of talks. The new deadline is August 22.
Without the extension, the government would have dissolved, requiring new elections in December and starting the process again -- a prospect the United States has strongly opposed.
The assembly voted after more than five hours of delay and about a half-hour before the midnight deadline.
U.S. leaders were quick to praise the Iraqi efforts and express confidence in the outcome, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Bush making similar comments.
"We are witnessing democracy at work in Iraq," Rice told reporters, saying the Iraqis had made "substantial progress" on difficult issues. Bush issued a statement applauding the "heroic efforts" of the Iraqis as "a tribute to democracy."
(More ... CNN.com - Iraq constitution deadline extended - Aug 15, 2005) ¶ 19:28 0 comments
Tuesday, August 16, 2005; Posted: 12:36 a.m. EDT (04:36 GMT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's National Assembly voted unanimously Monday to extend for a week the deadline for negotiators to agree on a draft of the country's new constitution.
The committee drafting the document asked for an extension after it failed to reach a compromise by Monday's deadline after months of talks. The new deadline is August 22.
Without the extension, the government would have dissolved, requiring new elections in December and starting the process again -- a prospect the United States has strongly opposed.
The assembly voted after more than five hours of delay and about a half-hour before the midnight deadline.
U.S. leaders were quick to praise the Iraqi efforts and express confidence in the outcome, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Bush making similar comments.
"We are witnessing democracy at work in Iraq," Rice told reporters, saying the Iraqis had made "substantial progress" on difficult issues. Bush issued a statement applauding the "heroic efforts" of the Iraqis as "a tribute to democracy."
(More ... CNN.com - Iraq constitution deadline extended - Aug 15, 2005) ¶ 19:28 0 comments
Top Democrat Says Bush Administration Signals Possible Exit Strategy (CBC.ca)
Last Updated Mon, 15 Aug 2005 08:28:43 EDT
A leading Democrat says Bush administration officials are playing down expectations for a successful democracy in Iraq in order to signal a possible exit strategy.
"They have squandered about every opportunity to get it right," Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Sunday. "The bottom line is, they are significantly lowering expectations." Biden's comments, on NBC's "Meet The Press," came as Iraqi leaders worked to complete a new constitution before Monday's deadline for parliament to approve the charter.
Biden said he has seen no evidence the Sunni-led insurgency in Iraq is losing steam as a political force, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has recently said.
Both Biden and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said it is premature for the United States to begin plans for withdrawing troops from Iraq.
(More ... CBC News: Top Democrat says Bush administration signals possible exit strategy) ¶ 19:24 0 comments
A leading Democrat says Bush administration officials are playing down expectations for a successful democracy in Iraq in order to signal a possible exit strategy.
"They have squandered about every opportunity to get it right," Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Sunday. "The bottom line is, they are significantly lowering expectations." Biden's comments, on NBC's "Meet The Press," came as Iraqi leaders worked to complete a new constitution before Monday's deadline for parliament to approve the charter.
Biden said he has seen no evidence the Sunni-led insurgency in Iraq is losing steam as a political force, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has recently said.
Both Biden and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said it is premature for the United States to begin plans for withdrawing troops from Iraq.
(More ... CBC News: Top Democrat says Bush administration signals possible exit strategy) ¶ 19:24 0 comments
8.15.2005
Filibuster Compromise Pins a Target on Dealmakers (USATODAY.com)
Posted 8/14/2005 10:45 PM Updated 8/15/2005 12:47 AM
By Kathy Kiely, USA TODAY
NAPOLEON, Ohio — In Washington, the debate over Supreme Court nominee John Roberts is being billed as a battle royal. Conservative and liberal interest groups have teed up accusatory television ads. Democratic senators and the White House are skirmishing over documents.
But in this pretty-as-a-Currier & Ives-picture town in northwest Ohio, the matter has created fewer ripples.
"I'm not even versed in who the candidates are," shrugs Michael Plotts, chief of a volunteer fire department, when asked who should sit on the Supreme Court. "This is a rural, small-town area. It's not at the top of our list."
For Sen. Mike DeWine, a two-term Republican who was at Napoleon's fire station recently to celebrate federal firefighting grants he helped obtain, this may be less of a disappointment than a relief.
DeWine, 58, is in the thick of the Supreme Court debate. He's a member of the Judiciary Committee, which will hold hearings starting Sept. 6 on Roberts' nomination. He's also part of the self-styled Gang of 14, a bipartisan group of senators whose negotiations this spring averted a showdown between Senate Democrats and President Bush over judicial nominations. In DeWine's opinion, the deal set the stage for Roberts' likely confirmation.
But it may be creating problems for some of the dealmakers. DeWine is one of six "gang" members up for re-election next year. Several are under fire from important allies who are either unhappy with the deal on judges or with Roberts, the president's choice to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. The pressure comes from both ends of the political spectrum.
(More ... USATODAY.com - Filibuster compromise pins a target on dealmakers) ¶ 22:00 0 comments
By Kathy Kiely, USA TODAY
NAPOLEON, Ohio — In Washington, the debate over Supreme Court nominee John Roberts is being billed as a battle royal. Conservative and liberal interest groups have teed up accusatory television ads. Democratic senators and the White House are skirmishing over documents.
But in this pretty-as-a-Currier & Ives-picture town in northwest Ohio, the matter has created fewer ripples.
"I'm not even versed in who the candidates are," shrugs Michael Plotts, chief of a volunteer fire department, when asked who should sit on the Supreme Court. "This is a rural, small-town area. It's not at the top of our list."
For Sen. Mike DeWine, a two-term Republican who was at Napoleon's fire station recently to celebrate federal firefighting grants he helped obtain, this may be less of a disappointment than a relief.
DeWine, 58, is in the thick of the Supreme Court debate. He's a member of the Judiciary Committee, which will hold hearings starting Sept. 6 on Roberts' nomination. He's also part of the self-styled Gang of 14, a bipartisan group of senators whose negotiations this spring averted a showdown between Senate Democrats and President Bush over judicial nominations. In DeWine's opinion, the deal set the stage for Roberts' likely confirmation.
But it may be creating problems for some of the dealmakers. DeWine is one of six "gang" members up for re-election next year. Several are under fire from important allies who are either unhappy with the deal on judges or with Roberts, the president's choice to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. The pressure comes from both ends of the political spectrum.
(More ... USATODAY.com - Filibuster compromise pins a target on dealmakers) ¶ 22:00 0 comments
Evangelicals Rally to 'Save the Court' (LATimes.com)
# Conservative Christian leaders urge support for Bush nominee John G. Roberts Jr.
By Steven Bodzin, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) joined conservative church leaders Sunday to encourage evangelicals to help advance the nomination of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court.
At a 90-minute Nashville service that featured religious and political leaders, DeLay said, "We're here to protect the court so it can keep protecting us."
Dubbed "Justice Sunday II: God Save the United States and This Honorable Court," the evening service filled the 2,300-seat Two Rivers Baptist Church and was viewed live on the Web, watched at Christian churches around the country and later broadcast on Sky Angel, a Christian satellite network.
Organizer Tony Perkins, president of the conservative advocacy group Family Research Council, told reporters Friday that the event was "not a Roberts rally." In fact, few of the speakers mentioned Roberts by name, and those who did were restrained in their remarks. James Dobson, founder of another advocacy group, Focus on the Family, said, "For now at least, he looks good."
The event's timing was intended to involve the evangelical movement in Roberts' confirmation, which the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to take up in early September.
Urging supporters to call in for a "Save the Court" kit, Perkins characterized the event as "the launch of an effort that will span 2 1/2 to 3 years" to encompass several Supreme Court nominations. "We need to be praying for the future of the court," he said.
(More ... Evangelicals Rally to 'Save the Court' - Los Angeles Times) ¶ 21:44 0 comments
By Steven Bodzin, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) joined conservative church leaders Sunday to encourage evangelicals to help advance the nomination of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court.
At a 90-minute Nashville service that featured religious and political leaders, DeLay said, "We're here to protect the court so it can keep protecting us."
Dubbed "Justice Sunday II: God Save the United States and This Honorable Court," the evening service filled the 2,300-seat Two Rivers Baptist Church and was viewed live on the Web, watched at Christian churches around the country and later broadcast on Sky Angel, a Christian satellite network.
Organizer Tony Perkins, president of the conservative advocacy group Family Research Council, told reporters Friday that the event was "not a Roberts rally." In fact, few of the speakers mentioned Roberts by name, and those who did were restrained in their remarks. James Dobson, founder of another advocacy group, Focus on the Family, said, "For now at least, he looks good."
The event's timing was intended to involve the evangelical movement in Roberts' confirmation, which the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to take up in early September.
Urging supporters to call in for a "Save the Court" kit, Perkins characterized the event as "the launch of an effort that will span 2 1/2 to 3 years" to encompass several Supreme Court nominations. "We need to be praying for the future of the court," he said.
(More ... Evangelicals Rally to 'Save the Court' - Los Angeles Times) ¶ 21:44 0 comments
A Mother and the President (TIME.com)
A woman lost her son in Iraq and won't leave George W. Bush alone until he sees her. Who is she, and why is she stirring such emotion?
By BY AMANDA RIPLEY IN CRAWFORD
Posted Sunday, Aug. 14, 2005
Cindy Sheehan, 48, is not a natural-born revolutionary. She speaks in a high, almost childlike voice. She says like as often as any teenager, as in, "This whole thing was like so freaking spur of the moment." When her supporters gather to discuss strategy, Sheehan is not to be found in the circle of beach chairs; she is 50 yards up the road, doing yet another interview, hugging yet another stranger. But here she is, the mother of Casey, 24, who died in Iraq last year, and now the central character in the strange, swirling protest she initiated two miles down the road from President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas.
Sheehan is unflinching about why she's here. She says George W. Bush killed her son. She demands that U.S. troops come home now, and she insists on telling that to Bush personally. She speaks without caveat. "I'm not afraid of anything since my son was killed," she says. But she has never been one to move quietly through life. Father Michael McFadden, a priest she once worked for, calls her "very defiant, very stubborn, very strong willed" when dealing with authority. When a soldier from the local base comes by to argue with her, she asks him to go for a walk. She puts her arm around him. Soon they are hugging. Her friends call her Attila the Honey.
Back home in California, her family is imploding under its grief. Sheehan lost her job at Napa County Health and Human Services because of all her absences, she says. Husband Pat, 52, couldn't bear having Casey's things at home and put most of them in storage. "We grieved in totally different ways," Cindy says. "He wanted to grieve by distracting himself. I wanted to immerse myself." A car tinkerer, he added two 1969 VW Bugs to his collection recently and diverted some of his sorrow into them. The couple separated in June.
Daughter Carly, 24, wrote a poem that begins, "Have you ever heard the sound of a mother screaming for her son?" Surviving son Andy, 21, supports his mother in principle but recently sent her a long e-mail imploring her "to come home because you need to support us at home," he says. Casey's aunt Cherie Quartarolo e-mailed a California radio station last week to rebuke Cindy, writing, "She appears to be promoting her own personal agenda at the expense of her son's good name."
Outside her family circle, Sheehan's crusade has been just as divisive. Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin has called the protesters "terrorist-sympathizing agitators." But at a time when 56% of the respondents in a CNN poll say they think the war is going poorly, this wandering mother has tapped into a national well of worry: Are our troops dying in vain? "People were looking for something to do," says Sheehan. Now they are calling to see whether they can sign over their Social Security checks to her.
(More ... TIME.com: A Mother And the President -- Aug. 22, 2005 -- Page 1) ¶ 08:10 2 comments
By BY AMANDA RIPLEY IN CRAWFORD
Posted Sunday, Aug. 14, 2005
Cindy Sheehan, 48, is not a natural-born revolutionary. She speaks in a high, almost childlike voice. She says like as often as any teenager, as in, "This whole thing was like so freaking spur of the moment." When her supporters gather to discuss strategy, Sheehan is not to be found in the circle of beach chairs; she is 50 yards up the road, doing yet another interview, hugging yet another stranger. But here she is, the mother of Casey, 24, who died in Iraq last year, and now the central character in the strange, swirling protest she initiated two miles down the road from President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas.
Sheehan is unflinching about why she's here. She says George W. Bush killed her son. She demands that U.S. troops come home now, and she insists on telling that to Bush personally. She speaks without caveat. "I'm not afraid of anything since my son was killed," she says. But she has never been one to move quietly through life. Father Michael McFadden, a priest she once worked for, calls her "very defiant, very stubborn, very strong willed" when dealing with authority. When a soldier from the local base comes by to argue with her, she asks him to go for a walk. She puts her arm around him. Soon they are hugging. Her friends call her Attila the Honey.
Back home in California, her family is imploding under its grief. Sheehan lost her job at Napa County Health and Human Services because of all her absences, she says. Husband Pat, 52, couldn't bear having Casey's things at home and put most of them in storage. "We grieved in totally different ways," Cindy says. "He wanted to grieve by distracting himself. I wanted to immerse myself." A car tinkerer, he added two 1969 VW Bugs to his collection recently and diverted some of his sorrow into them. The couple separated in June.
Daughter Carly, 24, wrote a poem that begins, "Have you ever heard the sound of a mother screaming for her son?" Surviving son Andy, 21, supports his mother in principle but recently sent her a long e-mail imploring her "to come home because you need to support us at home," he says. Casey's aunt Cherie Quartarolo e-mailed a California radio station last week to rebuke Cindy, writing, "She appears to be promoting her own personal agenda at the expense of her son's good name."
Outside her family circle, Sheehan's crusade has been just as divisive. Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin has called the protesters "terrorist-sympathizing agitators." But at a time when 56% of the respondents in a CNN poll say they think the war is going poorly, this wandering mother has tapped into a national well of worry: Are our troops dying in vain? "People were looking for something to do," says Sheehan. Now they are calling to see whether they can sign over their Social Security checks to her.
(More ... TIME.com: A Mother And the President -- Aug. 22, 2005 -- Page 1) ¶ 08:10 2 comments
8.14.2005
Diplomats for Tough Duty (WashingtonPost.com)
By Tom Brokaw
Sunday, August 14, 2005; Page B07
With Karen Hughes moving into the post of assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy, perhaps there will be more attention from the administration, Congress and the public to the difficult mission she is taking on. It has been on the back burner too long.
Defenders and critics of President Bush's war on terrorism agree on very little except this: There is a critical need for a more energetic, imaginative and effective campaign to promote the American ideals of democracy, tolerance, compassion and economic opportunity in the Islamic world.
...
The Special Forces concept -- unconventional warriors chosen for their intelligence, stamina, adaptability and range of skills -- has worked well for the military. Why couldn't it work as well for the Foreign Service?
The State Department could recruit young men and women who want an adventurous life and train them as the Diplomatic Special Forces, a kind of Peace Corps plus. Put them through crash courses in local dialects and skills relevant to the areas where they will be assigned. Place them in military outposts in remote areas, an arrangement that would have the added benefit of forging bonds between the military and the diplomatic corps. Give them extra pay and set the bar high so they have the same elite status as the Pentagon's Special Forces.
(More ... Diplomats for Tough Duty) ¶ 17:30 0 comments
Sunday, August 14, 2005; Page B07
With Karen Hughes moving into the post of assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy, perhaps there will be more attention from the administration, Congress and the public to the difficult mission she is taking on. It has been on the back burner too long.
Defenders and critics of President Bush's war on terrorism agree on very little except this: There is a critical need for a more energetic, imaginative and effective campaign to promote the American ideals of democracy, tolerance, compassion and economic opportunity in the Islamic world.
...
The Special Forces concept -- unconventional warriors chosen for their intelligence, stamina, adaptability and range of skills -- has worked well for the military. Why couldn't it work as well for the Foreign Service?
The State Department could recruit young men and women who want an adventurous life and train them as the Diplomatic Special Forces, a kind of Peace Corps plus. Put them through crash courses in local dialects and skills relevant to the areas where they will be assigned. Place them in military outposts in remote areas, an arrangement that would have the added benefit of forging bonds between the military and the diplomatic corps. Give them extra pay and set the bar high so they have the same elite status as the Pentagon's Special Forces.
(More ... Diplomats for Tough Duty) ¶ 17:30 0 comments
8.13.2005
Safe as Houses (NYTimes.com)
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 12, 2005
I used to live next door to a Russian émigré. One day he asked me to explain something that puzzled him about his new country. "This place seems very rich," he said, "but I never see anyone making anything. How does the country earn its money?"
The answer, these days, is that we make a living by selling each other houses. Since December 2000 employment in U.S. manufacturing has fallen 17 percent, but membership in the National Association of Realtors has risen 58 percent.
The housing boom has created jobs in two ways. Many jobs have been created, directly and indirectly, by a surge in housing construction. And rising home values have fueled a simultaneous surge in consumer spending.
Let's start with home building. Between 1980 and 2000, which was before the housing boom, spending on the construction of new homes averaged 4.25 percent of G.D.P. In the most recent quarter, however, the figure was 5.98 percent. That difference is equivalent to about $200 billion a year in additional spending, generating roughly two million extra jobs.
Then there's the jump in house prices. Over the past five years housing prices have grown much faster than the overall cost of living, adding about $5 trillion to the public's wealth. Typical estimates say that each additional dollar of housing wealth adds about 3 cents to annual consumer spending, as families reduce their savings and borrow against their newly valuable homes. So we're talking about an additional $150 billion in spending, and roughly 1.5 million more jobs.
Does anything else in the U.S. economy rival housing as a source of job creation? Well, there's also the military buildup. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that increased military spending over the past four years has created 1.3 million private-sector jobs.
(More ... Safe as Houses - New York Times) ¶ 19:28 0 comments
Published: August 12, 2005
I used to live next door to a Russian émigré. One day he asked me to explain something that puzzled him about his new country. "This place seems very rich," he said, "but I never see anyone making anything. How does the country earn its money?"
The answer, these days, is that we make a living by selling each other houses. Since December 2000 employment in U.S. manufacturing has fallen 17 percent, but membership in the National Association of Realtors has risen 58 percent.
The housing boom has created jobs in two ways. Many jobs have been created, directly and indirectly, by a surge in housing construction. And rising home values have fueled a simultaneous surge in consumer spending.
Let's start with home building. Between 1980 and 2000, which was before the housing boom, spending on the construction of new homes averaged 4.25 percent of G.D.P. In the most recent quarter, however, the figure was 5.98 percent. That difference is equivalent to about $200 billion a year in additional spending, generating roughly two million extra jobs.
Then there's the jump in house prices. Over the past five years housing prices have grown much faster than the overall cost of living, adding about $5 trillion to the public's wealth. Typical estimates say that each additional dollar of housing wealth adds about 3 cents to annual consumer spending, as families reduce their savings and borrow against their newly valuable homes. So we're talking about an additional $150 billion in spending, and roughly 1.5 million more jobs.
Does anything else in the U.S. economy rival housing as a source of job creation? Well, there's also the military buildup. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that increased military spending over the past four years has created 1.3 million private-sector jobs.
(More ... Safe as Houses - New York Times) ¶ 19:28 0 comments
Bush Motorcade Passes Anti-war Mom's Protest (CNN.com)
Friday, August 12, 2005; Posted: 2:27 p.m. EDT (18:27 GMT)
CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) -- President Bush's motorcade, en route to a political fund-raiser near his ranch, passed Friday by the site of Cindy Sheehan's Iraq war protest where more than 100 people had gathered to support her.
Sheehan -- whose son, Casey, was killed five days after he arrived in Iraq last year at age 24 -- held a sign that read: "Why do you make time for donors and not for me?"
It's unclear whether Bush, riding in a black Suburban with tinted windows, looked at the demonstrators as his caravan passed.
The motorcade did not stop.
Law enforcement agencies used their cars to block two intersecting roads, where the demonstrators have camped out this week, and required them to stand behind yellow tape. They were not asked to leave their makeshift campsite.
He arrived at the fund-raiser before noon CT at a neighbor's ranch for a barbecue where he was expected to raise at least $2 million for the Republican National Committee, said RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt.
(More ... CNN.com - Bush motorcade passes anti-war mom's protest - Aug 12, 2005) ¶ 16:52 0 comments
CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) -- President Bush's motorcade, en route to a political fund-raiser near his ranch, passed Friday by the site of Cindy Sheehan's Iraq war protest where more than 100 people had gathered to support her.
Sheehan -- whose son, Casey, was killed five days after he arrived in Iraq last year at age 24 -- held a sign that read: "Why do you make time for donors and not for me?"
It's unclear whether Bush, riding in a black Suburban with tinted windows, looked at the demonstrators as his caravan passed.
The motorcade did not stop.
Law enforcement agencies used their cars to block two intersecting roads, where the demonstrators have camped out this week, and required them to stand behind yellow tape. They were not asked to leave their makeshift campsite.
He arrived at the fund-raiser before noon CT at a neighbor's ranch for a barbecue where he was expected to raise at least $2 million for the Republican National Committee, said RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt.
(More ... CNN.com - Bush motorcade passes anti-war mom's protest - Aug 12, 2005) ¶ 16:52 0 comments
8.12.2005
Warming Hits 'Tipping Point' (Guardian.co.uk)
Siberia feels the heat It's a frozen peat bog the size of France and Germany combined, contains billions of tonnes of greenhouse gas and, for the first time since the ice age, it is melting
Ian Sample, science correspondent
Thursday August 11, 2005
The Guardian
A vast expanse of western Sibera is undergoing an unprecedented thaw that could dramatically increase the rate of global warming, climate scientists warn today.
Researchers who have recently returned from the region found that an area of permafrost spanning a million square kilometres - the size of France and Germany combined - has started to melt for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.
The area, which covers the entire sub-Arctic region of western Siberia, is the world's largest frozen peat bog and scientists fear that as it thaws, it will release billions of tonnes of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere.
It is a scenario climate scientists have feared since first identifying "tipping points" - delicate thresholds where a slight rise in the Earth's temperature can cause a dramatic change in the environment that itself triggers a far greater increase in global temperatures.
The discovery was made by Sergei Kirpotin at Tomsk State University in western Siberia and Judith Marquand at Oxford University and is reported in New Scientist today.
(More ... Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Warming hits 'tipping point') ¶ 17:34 0 comments
Ian Sample, science correspondent
Thursday August 11, 2005
The Guardian
A vast expanse of western Sibera is undergoing an unprecedented thaw that could dramatically increase the rate of global warming, climate scientists warn today.
Researchers who have recently returned from the region found that an area of permafrost spanning a million square kilometres - the size of France and Germany combined - has started to melt for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.
The area, which covers the entire sub-Arctic region of western Siberia, is the world's largest frozen peat bog and scientists fear that as it thaws, it will release billions of tonnes of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere.
It is a scenario climate scientists have feared since first identifying "tipping points" - delicate thresholds where a slight rise in the Earth's temperature can cause a dramatic change in the environment that itself triggers a far greater increase in global temperatures.
The discovery was made by Sergei Kirpotin at Tomsk State University in western Siberia and Judith Marquand at Oxford University and is reported in New Scientist today.
(More ... Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Warming hits 'tipping point') ¶ 17:34 0 comments
Bush to Mother Who Lost Son in Iraq: 'I Grieve' (Reuters.com)
By Steve Holland
Thursday, August 11, 2005, 6.32pm ET
CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said on Thursday he sympathized with a mother who lost a son in Iraq and has been leading a protest vigil near his ranch, but that he would not pull U.S. troops from Iraq now as she has demanded.
"I grieve for every death," Bush said as Cindy Sheehan remained camped out about five miles away. For six days she has been demanding Bush meet with her about her son, Casey Austin Sheehan, an Army specialist killed in combat in Baghdad in April 2004.
"It breaks my heart to think about a family weeping over the loss of a loved one. I understand the anguish that some feel about the death that takes place," Bush said.
But, he added, "pulling the troops out would send a terrible signal to the enemy."
White House officials said Bush had no plans to meet with Sheehan, saying he met with her in June 2004. National security adviser Stephen Hadley and deputy White House chief of staff Joe Hagin met her on Saturday, the day she started her vigil.
Hadley told reporters on Thursday that Bush understands Sheehan's views on Iraq are deeply felt, but that "he just respectfully disagrees." The White House released a list showing Bush has held 24 meetings with 900 family members of 272 troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since January 2002.
In response, Sheehan said the best way Bush can show compassion is by meeting with her and other mothers and family members gathered alongside Prairie Chapel Road in Crawford.
(More ... Top News Article | Reuters.com) ¶ 17:29 0 comments
Thursday, August 11, 2005, 6.32pm ET
CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said on Thursday he sympathized with a mother who lost a son in Iraq and has been leading a protest vigil near his ranch, but that he would not pull U.S. troops from Iraq now as she has demanded.
"I grieve for every death," Bush said as Cindy Sheehan remained camped out about five miles away. For six days she has been demanding Bush meet with her about her son, Casey Austin Sheehan, an Army specialist killed in combat in Baghdad in April 2004.
"It breaks my heart to think about a family weeping over the loss of a loved one. I understand the anguish that some feel about the death that takes place," Bush said.
But, he added, "pulling the troops out would send a terrible signal to the enemy."
White House officials said Bush had no plans to meet with Sheehan, saying he met with her in June 2004. National security adviser Stephen Hadley and deputy White House chief of staff Joe Hagin met her on Saturday, the day she started her vigil.
Hadley told reporters on Thursday that Bush understands Sheehan's views on Iraq are deeply felt, but that "he just respectfully disagrees." The White House released a list showing Bush has held 24 meetings with 900 family members of 272 troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since January 2002.
In response, Sheehan said the best way Bush can show compassion is by meeting with her and other mothers and family members gathered alongside Prairie Chapel Road in Crawford.
(More ... Top News Article | Reuters.com) ¶ 17:29 0 comments
8.11.2005
Soldier's Mother Takes Protest to Bloggers (WashingtonPost.com)
By Brian Faler
Thursday, August 11, 2005; Page A08
(More ... Soldier's Mother Takes Protest to Bloggers)
Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch ... Trouble on the Home Front
(See Pat Oliphant @ uComics.com)
¶ 16:05 0 comments
(See Pat Oliphant @ uComics.com)
¶ 16:05 0 comments
Every Mother's Son (TruthOut.org)
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 08 August 2005
The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.
- Stephen King
George W. Bush hauled stakes for Texas and a vacation a few days ago. Cindy Sheehan followed. She got off a bus Saturday afternoon and started walking to the Crawford ranch. She wanted some answers and was going to get them.
Sheehan had met Mr. Bush once before. On April 4, 2004, just shy of a year after Bush stood on an aircraft carrier beneath a banner that read "Mission Accomplished," Cindy Sheehan's son, Army Specialist Casey A. Sheehan, was killed in Iraq when his unit was attacked by rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire. He was 24 years old.
After Casey's death, Cindy Sheehan was invited to the White House for a visit with Mr. Bush in June of 2004. Her first memory of Bush's appearance that day was when he walked into the room and said in a loud, bluff voice, "Who we'all honorin' today?"
"His mouth kept moving," Sheehan later recalled of her meeting with Bush, "but there was nothing in his eyes or anything else about him that showed me he really cared or had any real compassion at all. This is a human being totally disconnected from humanity and reality. His eyes were empty, hollow shells." Bush called her "Ma" or "Mom" throughout the whole meeting, and never got around to learning her name.
"The whole meeting was simply bizarre and disgusting," Sheehan said later. "designed to intimidate instead of providing compassion. He didn't even know our names. I just couldn't believe this was happening. It was so surreal and bizarre. Later I met with some of the other fifteen or sixteen families who were at the White House the same day and, sure enough, they all felt the same way I did."
That was it. Cindy Sheehan, who had never been politically active in her life, became an activist. She traveled the country to speak to whomever would listen, she told the story of Casey's life and death, and she threw fire at George W. Bush with the passionate anguish of a mother who was forced to bury her son.
(More ... t r u t h o u t - William Rivers Pitt | Every Mother's Son) ¶ 16:03 0 comments
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 08 August 2005
The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.
- Stephen King
George W. Bush hauled stakes for Texas and a vacation a few days ago. Cindy Sheehan followed. She got off a bus Saturday afternoon and started walking to the Crawford ranch. She wanted some answers and was going to get them.
Sheehan had met Mr. Bush once before. On April 4, 2004, just shy of a year after Bush stood on an aircraft carrier beneath a banner that read "Mission Accomplished," Cindy Sheehan's son, Army Specialist Casey A. Sheehan, was killed in Iraq when his unit was attacked by rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire. He was 24 years old.
After Casey's death, Cindy Sheehan was invited to the White House for a visit with Mr. Bush in June of 2004. Her first memory of Bush's appearance that day was when he walked into the room and said in a loud, bluff voice, "Who we'all honorin' today?"
"His mouth kept moving," Sheehan later recalled of her meeting with Bush, "but there was nothing in his eyes or anything else about him that showed me he really cared or had any real compassion at all. This is a human being totally disconnected from humanity and reality. His eyes were empty, hollow shells." Bush called her "Ma" or "Mom" throughout the whole meeting, and never got around to learning her name.
"The whole meeting was simply bizarre and disgusting," Sheehan said later. "designed to intimidate instead of providing compassion. He didn't even know our names. I just couldn't believe this was happening. It was so surreal and bizarre. Later I met with some of the other fifteen or sixteen families who were at the White House the same day and, sure enough, they all felt the same way I did."
That was it. Cindy Sheehan, who had never been politically active in her life, became an activist. She traveled the country to speak to whomever would listen, she told the story of Casey's life and death, and she threw fire at George W. Bush with the passionate anguish of a mother who was forced to bury her son.
(More ... t r u t h o u t - William Rivers Pitt | Every Mother's Son) ¶ 16:03 0 comments
Chertoff: Privacy Fears Not Justified (USATODAY.com)
Posted 8/10/2005 12:31 AM Updated 8/10/2005 10:19 AM
By Thomas Frank, USA TODAY
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Tuesday that Americans need to ease their concerns about turning over personal information to the government — especially if they want to fly safe from terrorism.
Chertoff said there is too much worry over a plan by the Transportation Security Administration to collect passengers' full names and birth dates before they board.
"The average American gives information up to get a CVS (drugstore discount) card that is far more in-depth than TSA's going to be looking at," Chertoff told reporters and editors at USA TODAY's headquarters in McLean, Va. "But I actually make that case that giving up a little bit more information protects privacy." (Related: Chertoff interview)
"Would you rather give up your address and date of birth to a secure database and not be pulled aside and questioned," he said, "or would you rather not give it up and have an increased likelihood that you're going to be called out of line and someone's going to do a secondary search of your bag and they're going to ask you a lot of personal questions in the full view of everybody else?"
Chertoff vowed to implement Secure Flight, a plan by the federal government to screen out potential terrorists by scrutinizing the backgrounds of passengers. Under the plan, passengers will be encouraged — but not required — to give their full names and birth dates when reserving a seat. The TSA hoped to begin testing Secure Flight this month but that timetable is in doubt.
The current system, in place since before the 9/11 attacks, requires airlines to do the background checks. Passengers must give only their last name and first initial to book a flight.
American Civil Liberties Union legislative counsel Tim Sparapani said collecting more information from passengers is a waste of time and money.
"The public does not get any advanced security by giving up more information," Sparapani said. Would-be hijackers can easily foil background checks, he said, by either keeping a clean criminal record or by stealing someone's identity. Money would be better spent on machines that detect plastic explosives on passengers or in bags, he said.
(More ... USATODAY.com - Chertoff: Privacy fears not justified) ¶ 15:41 0 comments
By Thomas Frank, USA TODAY
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Tuesday that Americans need to ease their concerns about turning over personal information to the government — especially if they want to fly safe from terrorism.
Chertoff said there is too much worry over a plan by the Transportation Security Administration to collect passengers' full names and birth dates before they board.
"The average American gives information up to get a CVS (drugstore discount) card that is far more in-depth than TSA's going to be looking at," Chertoff told reporters and editors at USA TODAY's headquarters in McLean, Va. "But I actually make that case that giving up a little bit more information protects privacy." (Related: Chertoff interview)
"Would you rather give up your address and date of birth to a secure database and not be pulled aside and questioned," he said, "or would you rather not give it up and have an increased likelihood that you're going to be called out of line and someone's going to do a secondary search of your bag and they're going to ask you a lot of personal questions in the full view of everybody else?"
Chertoff vowed to implement Secure Flight, a plan by the federal government to screen out potential terrorists by scrutinizing the backgrounds of passengers. Under the plan, passengers will be encouraged — but not required — to give their full names and birth dates when reserving a seat. The TSA hoped to begin testing Secure Flight this month but that timetable is in doubt.
The current system, in place since before the 9/11 attacks, requires airlines to do the background checks. Passengers must give only their last name and first initial to book a flight.
American Civil Liberties Union legislative counsel Tim Sparapani said collecting more information from passengers is a waste of time and money.
"The public does not get any advanced security by giving up more information," Sparapani said. Would-be hijackers can easily foil background checks, he said, by either keeping a clean criminal record or by stealing someone's identity. Money would be better spent on machines that detect plastic explosives on passengers or in bags, he said.
(More ... USATODAY.com - Chertoff: Privacy fears not justified) ¶ 15:41 0 comments
Roberts Papers Being Delayed (WashingtonPost.com)
Bush Aides Screen Pages for Surprises
By Jo Becker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 10, 2005; Page A01
Thrown on the defensive by recent revelations about Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr.'s legal work, White House aides are delaying the release of tens of thousands of documents from the Reagan administration to give themselves time to find any new surprises before they are turned into political ammunition by Democrats.
Before Roberts's July 19 selection by President Bush, there was no comprehensive effort to examine the voluminous paper trail from his previous tours as an important legal and political hand under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, administration officials said.
Three weeks later, these officials say they recognize that Roberts's record is going to be central to Senate confirmation hearings scheduled to begin Sept. 6, and lawyers and political aides are urgently reviewing more than 50,000 pages -- at the same time denying requests from Democrats for an immediate release.
(More ... Roberts Papers Being Delayed) ¶ 15:37 0 comments
By Jo Becker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 10, 2005; Page A01
Thrown on the defensive by recent revelations about Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr.'s legal work, White House aides are delaying the release of tens of thousands of documents from the Reagan administration to give themselves time to find any new surprises before they are turned into political ammunition by Democrats.
Before Roberts's July 19 selection by President Bush, there was no comprehensive effort to examine the voluminous paper trail from his previous tours as an important legal and political hand under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, administration officials said.
Three weeks later, these officials say they recognize that Roberts's record is going to be central to Senate confirmation hearings scheduled to begin Sept. 6, and lawyers and political aides are urgently reviewing more than 50,000 pages -- at the same time denying requests from Democrats for an immediate release.
(More ... Roberts Papers Being Delayed) ¶ 15:37 0 comments
Schwarzenegger Loses Redistricting Fight (CNN.com)
Wednesday, August 10, 2005; Posted: 12:44 p.m. EDT (16:44 GMT)
SACRAMENTO, California (AP) -- A state appeals court on Tuesday refused to put Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's attempt to change the redistricting process back on November's special election ballot.
The governor's ballot initiative seeks to take away state lawmakers' power to draw congressional and legislative boundaries in California and instead shift that responsibility to a panel of retired judges.
Supporters submitted enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, but they used two different versions of the wording during the certification process. That was a "clear violation of the constitutional and statutory procedures for the circulation of an initiative petition," the 3rd District Court of Appeal wrote in its 2-1 decision.
"The proponents caused the problem in this case by their own negligence in circulating a different version of the initiative measure than that submitted to the attorney general," the majority ruling said.
(More ... CNN.com - Schwarzenegger loses redistricting fight - Aug 10, 2005) ¶ 15:03 0 comments
SACRAMENTO, California (AP) -- A state appeals court on Tuesday refused to put Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's attempt to change the redistricting process back on November's special election ballot.
The governor's ballot initiative seeks to take away state lawmakers' power to draw congressional and legislative boundaries in California and instead shift that responsibility to a panel of retired judges.
Supporters submitted enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, but they used two different versions of the wording during the certification process. That was a "clear violation of the constitutional and statutory procedures for the circulation of an initiative petition," the 3rd District Court of Appeal wrote in its 2-1 decision.
"The proponents caused the problem in this case by their own negligence in circulating a different version of the initiative measure than that submitted to the attorney general," the majority ruling said.
(More ... CNN.com - Schwarzenegger loses redistricting fight - Aug 10, 2005) ¶ 15:03 0 comments
8.10.2005
Have You Seen This Billboard?
New Zealand pizza chain Hell Pizza has come under fire for its use of U.S. President George W. Bush's image on billboards (like the defaced Wellington placard pictured above) alongside claims that its product is "too good for some evil bastards". What do you think? (Of the claim, that is, not the pizza. Unless, of course, you want to share a slice.) ¶ 20:22 0 comments
New Zealand pizza chain Hell Pizza has come under fire for its use of U.S. President George W. Bush's image on billboards (like the defaced Wellington placard pictured above) alongside claims that its product is "too good for some evil bastards". What do you think? (Of the claim, that is, not the pizza. Unless, of course, you want to share a slice.) ¶ 20:22 0 comments
Is US Military Death Count in Iraq Actually Much Higher? (TBRNews.org)
By Brian Harring
Domestic Intelligence Reporter
brianharring@yahoo.com
U.S. Military Personnel who died in German hospitals or en route to German hospitals have very rarely been counted. They total about 6,210 as of 1 January, 2005. The ongoing, underreporting of the dead in Iraq, is not accurate. The DoD is deliberately reducing the figures. A review of many foreign news sites show that actual deaths are far higher than the newly reduced ones. Iraqi civilian casualties are never reported but International Red Cross, Red Crescent and UN figures indicate that as of 1 January 2005, the numbers are just under 100,000.
More from TBRNews.org:
Note: There is excellent reason to believe that the Department of Defense is deliberately not reporting a significant number of the dead in Iraq. We have received copies of manifests from the MATS that show far more bodies shipped into Dover AFP than are reported officially. The educated rumor is that the actual death toll is in excess of 7,000. Given the officially acknowledged number of over 15,000 seriously wounded (and a published total of 25,000 wounded overall,), this elevated death toll is far more realistic than the current 1,800+ now being officially published. When our research is complete, and watertight, we will publish the results along with the sources In addition to the evident falsification of the death rolls, at least 5,500 American military personnel have deserted, most in Ireland but more have escaped to Canada and other European countries, none of whom are inclined to cooperate with vengeful American authorities. (See TBR News of 18 February for full coverage on the mass desertions) This means that of the 158,000 U.S. military shipped to Iraq, 26,000 deserted, were killed or seriously wounded. The DoD lists currently being very quietly circulated indicate almost 9,000 dead, over 16,000 seriously wounded (This figure is now over 24,000 Ed) and a large number of suicides, forced hospitalization for ongoing drug usage and sales, murder of Iraqi civilians and fellow soldiers, rapes, courts martial and so on – I have a copy of the official DoD Army/Iraq casualty list. I am alphabetizing it with the reported date of death following. TBR will post this list and when this is circulated widely by veteran groups and other concerned sites, if people who do not see their loved one’s names, are requested to inform their Congressman, their local paper, us and other concerned people as soon as possible.
The government gets away with these huge lies because they claim, falsely, that only soldiers actually killed on the ground in Iraq are reported. The dying and critically wounded are listed as en route to military hospitals outside of the country and not reported on the daily postings. Anyone who dies just as the transport takes off from the Baghdad airport is not listed and neither are those who die in the US military hospitals. Their families are certainly notified that their son, husband, brother or lover was dead and the bodies, or what is left of them (refrigeration is very bad in Iraq what with constant power outages) are shipped home, to Dover AFB. This, we note, was the overall policy until very recently. Since it became well known that many had died at Landstuhl, in Germany, the DoD began to list a very few soldiers who had died at other non-theater locations. These numbers are only for show and are pathetically small in relationship to the actual figures (which we are now publishing.) You ought to realize that President Bush personally ordered that no pictures be taken of the coffined and flag-draped dead under any circumstances. He claims that this is to comfort the bereaved relatives but is designed to keep the huge number of arriving bodies secret. Any civilian, or military personnel, taking pictures will be jailed at once and prosecuted. Bush has never attended any kind of a memorial service for his dead soldiers and never will. He is terrified some parent might curse him in front of the press or, worse, attack him. As Bush is a coward and in denial, this is not a surprise.
Haven’t we had enough of this? (According to our email, 95% of our viewers’ responses to Mr. Harring’s explosive investigations have commented that they have certainly had enough. We have also been flooded with additions to the casualty lists that have to be carefully checked before a future posting.
TBRNews.org ¶ 20:05 0 comments
Domestic Intelligence Reporter
brianharring@yahoo.com
U.S. Military Personnel who died in German hospitals or en route to German hospitals have very rarely been counted. They total about 6,210 as of 1 January, 2005. The ongoing, underreporting of the dead in Iraq, is not accurate. The DoD is deliberately reducing the figures. A review of many foreign news sites show that actual deaths are far higher than the newly reduced ones. Iraqi civilian casualties are never reported but International Red Cross, Red Crescent and UN figures indicate that as of 1 January 2005, the numbers are just under 100,000.
More from TBRNews.org:
Note: There is excellent reason to believe that the Department of Defense is deliberately not reporting a significant number of the dead in Iraq. We have received copies of manifests from the MATS that show far more bodies shipped into Dover AFP than are reported officially. The educated rumor is that the actual death toll is in excess of 7,000. Given the officially acknowledged number of over 15,000 seriously wounded (and a published total of 25,000 wounded overall,), this elevated death toll is far more realistic than the current 1,800+ now being officially published. When our research is complete, and watertight, we will publish the results along with the sources In addition to the evident falsification of the death rolls, at least 5,500 American military personnel have deserted, most in Ireland but more have escaped to Canada and other European countries, none of whom are inclined to cooperate with vengeful American authorities. (See TBR News of 18 February for full coverage on the mass desertions) This means that of the 158,000 U.S. military shipped to Iraq, 26,000 deserted, were killed or seriously wounded. The DoD lists currently being very quietly circulated indicate almost 9,000 dead, over 16,000 seriously wounded (This figure is now over 24,000 Ed) and a large number of suicides, forced hospitalization for ongoing drug usage and sales, murder of Iraqi civilians and fellow soldiers, rapes, courts martial and so on – I have a copy of the official DoD Army/Iraq casualty list. I am alphabetizing it with the reported date of death following. TBR will post this list and when this is circulated widely by veteran groups and other concerned sites, if people who do not see their loved one’s names, are requested to inform their Congressman, their local paper, us and other concerned people as soon as possible.
The government gets away with these huge lies because they claim, falsely, that only soldiers actually killed on the ground in Iraq are reported. The dying and critically wounded are listed as en route to military hospitals outside of the country and not reported on the daily postings. Anyone who dies just as the transport takes off from the Baghdad airport is not listed and neither are those who die in the US military hospitals. Their families are certainly notified that their son, husband, brother or lover was dead and the bodies, or what is left of them (refrigeration is very bad in Iraq what with constant power outages) are shipped home, to Dover AFB. This, we note, was the overall policy until very recently. Since it became well known that many had died at Landstuhl, in Germany, the DoD began to list a very few soldiers who had died at other non-theater locations. These numbers are only for show and are pathetically small in relationship to the actual figures (which we are now publishing.) You ought to realize that President Bush personally ordered that no pictures be taken of the coffined and flag-draped dead under any circumstances. He claims that this is to comfort the bereaved relatives but is designed to keep the huge number of arriving bodies secret. Any civilian, or military personnel, taking pictures will be jailed at once and prosecuted. Bush has never attended any kind of a memorial service for his dead soldiers and never will. He is terrified some parent might curse him in front of the press or, worse, attack him. As Bush is a coward and in denial, this is not a surprise.
Haven’t we had enough of this? (According to our email, 95% of our viewers’ responses to Mr. Harring’s explosive investigations have commented that they have certainly had enough. We have also been flooded with additions to the casualty lists that have to be carefully checked before a future posting.
TBRNews.org ¶ 20:05 0 comments
Big Brother and the Bureaucrats (NYTimes.com)
By PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE
Published: August 10, 2005
PRESIDENT Bush's use of a recess appointment to install John Bolton as America's representative at the United Nations may have ended an ugly confirmation battle, but it unfortunately left unresolved a significant mystery that had fueled Democratic questions about Mr. Bolton throughout the summer.
In April, Mr. Bolton told Congress that when he was an under secretary at the State Department, he repeatedly circumvented the privacy protections that govern federal eavesdropping on American citizens without a warrant. In Mr. Bolton's defense, it emerged that his actions were in keeping with a widespread - though unacknowledged - practice in Washington.
This was fairly shocking news even to those with long experience overseeing or reporting on our security agencies, and it flies in the face of three decades of assurances by the government that it does not spy on its own citizens. Congress cannot let the controversy be rendered moot by Mr. Bolton's recess appointment. It should begin a broader investigation immediately.
Ever since the Congressional hearings of the 1970's, led by Senator Frank Church of Idaho, revealed that the National Security Agency had spied on Jane Fonda, Dr. Benjamin Spock and thousands of other antiwar protesters, the agency has been at pains to assure the public it does not use its formidable eavesdropping apparatus to listen in on American citizens. According to the standard narrative, the history of American intelligence cleaves neatly into two acts: the free-for-all years that preceded the Church Committee, and the responsible years that have followed.
But even as enshrined in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, the prohibition on domestic spying without a warrant has always been something of a legal fiction: the standard practice is to go ahead and eavesdrop on the conversations of foreigners, even if the party on the other end of the line is an American citizen. Summaries of these conversations are then routinely distributed throughout the relevant government agencies. The privacy of the American citizens involved is putatively preserved by replacing their names with the phrase "U.S. person" in the summary.
...
Heads of the N.S.A. are famous for saying very little about what the agency does, but the one thing that its various directors, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, have said repeatedly is that they do not eavesdrop on American citizens.
We now know that this hasn't been the case - the agency has been listening to Americans' phone calls, just not reporting any names. And Mr. Bolton's experience makes clear that keeping those names confidential was a formality that high-ranking officials could overcome by picking up the phone.
(More ... Big Brother and the Bureaucrats - New York Times) ¶ 17:16 0 comments
Published: August 10, 2005
PRESIDENT Bush's use of a recess appointment to install John Bolton as America's representative at the United Nations may have ended an ugly confirmation battle, but it unfortunately left unresolved a significant mystery that had fueled Democratic questions about Mr. Bolton throughout the summer.
In April, Mr. Bolton told Congress that when he was an under secretary at the State Department, he repeatedly circumvented the privacy protections that govern federal eavesdropping on American citizens without a warrant. In Mr. Bolton's defense, it emerged that his actions were in keeping with a widespread - though unacknowledged - practice in Washington.
This was fairly shocking news even to those with long experience overseeing or reporting on our security agencies, and it flies in the face of three decades of assurances by the government that it does not spy on its own citizens. Congress cannot let the controversy be rendered moot by Mr. Bolton's recess appointment. It should begin a broader investigation immediately.
Ever since the Congressional hearings of the 1970's, led by Senator Frank Church of Idaho, revealed that the National Security Agency had spied on Jane Fonda, Dr. Benjamin Spock and thousands of other antiwar protesters, the agency has been at pains to assure the public it does not use its formidable eavesdropping apparatus to listen in on American citizens. According to the standard narrative, the history of American intelligence cleaves neatly into two acts: the free-for-all years that preceded the Church Committee, and the responsible years that have followed.
But even as enshrined in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, the prohibition on domestic spying without a warrant has always been something of a legal fiction: the standard practice is to go ahead and eavesdrop on the conversations of foreigners, even if the party on the other end of the line is an American citizen. Summaries of these conversations are then routinely distributed throughout the relevant government agencies. The privacy of the American citizens involved is putatively preserved by replacing their names with the phrase "U.S. person" in the summary.
...
Heads of the N.S.A. are famous for saying very little about what the agency does, but the one thing that its various directors, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, have said repeatedly is that they do not eavesdrop on American citizens.
We now know that this hasn't been the case - the agency has been listening to Americans' phone calls, just not reporting any names. And Mr. Bolton's experience makes clear that keeping those names confidential was a formality that high-ranking officials could overcome by picking up the phone.
(More ... Big Brother and the Bureaucrats - New York Times) ¶ 17:16 0 comments
High-tech Voting Accessory: Paper (USATODAY.com)
By Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Three years into a national debate over the security and reliability of computerized voting machines, the skeptics are winning.
In the past month, legislatures in five states — Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York and Oregon — have passed laws requiring computer-based voting machines to produce a paper backup that can be verified by the voter, according to Electionline.org, which monitors voting systems. That brings to 25 the number of states that require a paper trail.
Fourteen other states and the District of Columbia are considering similar legislation. (Graphic: States' paper trails)
Paper printouts could be used to verify the electronic count, or as a fail-safe measure in case a recount is needed.
Advocates of requiring a paper trail say it is a response to voters' concerns about whether their ballots are being accurately tallied. Those concerns, they say, stem from the nation's traumatic experience with the disputed 2000 presidential election in Florida and a continuing close split in the nation's politics.
"We're not getting many landslides these days, so it's crucial that the votes be counted accurately," says Will Doherty, director of VerifiedVoting.org, which lobbies for paper trails on voting machines.
(More ... USATODAY.com - High-tech voting accessory: Paper) ¶ 17:13 0 comments
WASHINGTON — Three years into a national debate over the security and reliability of computerized voting machines, the skeptics are winning.
In the past month, legislatures in five states — Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York and Oregon — have passed laws requiring computer-based voting machines to produce a paper backup that can be verified by the voter, according to Electionline.org, which monitors voting systems. That brings to 25 the number of states that require a paper trail.
Fourteen other states and the District of Columbia are considering similar legislation. (Graphic: States' paper trails)
Paper printouts could be used to verify the electronic count, or as a fail-safe measure in case a recount is needed.
Advocates of requiring a paper trail say it is a response to voters' concerns about whether their ballots are being accurately tallied. Those concerns, they say, stem from the nation's traumatic experience with the disputed 2000 presidential election in Florida and a continuing close split in the nation's politics.
"We're not getting many landslides these days, so it's crucial that the votes be counted accurately," says Will Doherty, director of VerifiedVoting.org, which lobbies for paper trails on voting machines.
(More ... USATODAY.com - High-tech voting accessory: Paper) ¶ 17:13 0 comments
