tom_thinks

Some time ago I posted the link to this petition, but they've now reached a crucial stage. They have compiled 250,000 signatures, and now has enough petitions certified by the Florida Secretary of State to allow Florida Supreme Court review. But they need 480,000 to get on the ballot. This constitutional amendment (Florida's constitution) would restrict sales tax exemptions to special interests. Here's how the Florida PIRG describes the contents of the amendment:

All sales tax exemptions will automatically expire in July, 2007, unless the Legislature votes to renew them.
Tax exemptions would STAY for food, prescription drugs, health services, residential rent and utilities, resale, sales of real property and employee salaries and benefits. It specifically says so in the amendment text.
All other exemptions would be voted on separately (to avoid legislative shenanigans), and three-fifths of the Legislature would have to vote to keep an exemption. So, if a lawmaker wants to keep the current exemption on ostrich feed, for example, he or she will have to publicly vote to do it. The Legislature will review the exemptions every ten years to make sure they are in the public interest.

I've seen people out collecting signatures for this, but they could always use some more help. Download the petition here.

Check this out

High-tech voting systems need quick fixes if they are to be used in the November election, according to a report released yesterday by a coalition of civil rights groups and computer security experts...
But Aviel D. Rubin, a computer security expert at Johns Hopkins University who consulted with the authors of the report and endorsed its conclusions, said the machines have a long way to go before they can be considered reliable. "If your child was going to drink and drive no matter what you did," he said, carrying out the recommendations of the report "would be like convincing them to wear a seatbelt."

There is a scary new copyright law going through congress called the INDUCE Act. This law threatens to make any device capable of copying copyrighted material a thing of the past. The law would make manufacturers of such devices liable for any infringement of copyright by users of the devices. Read more about the INDUCE act here. In reaction to this proposed law, the Save the Ipod site has an online campaign to fax your senators, telling them not to support this bill. Go do it! Thanks to Chris for pointing all this out.

The hand-over of 'sovereignty' to the self-appointed Iraqi government happened yesterday, in a blatant effort to disrupt plans by insurgents for massive attacks. Strangely enough some press is reporting, to the administration's delight, that the hand-over happened early or ahead of schedule because things are going so well over there. I recommend reading .Juan Cole's take on this.

This entire exercise is a publicity stunt and has almost no substance to it. Gwen Ifill said on US television on Sunday that she had talked to Condaleeza Rice, and that her hope was that when something went wrong in Iraq, the journalists would now grill Allawi about it rather than the Bush administration. (Or words to that effect). Ifill seems to me to have given away the whole Bush show. That's what this whole thing is about. It is Public Relations and manipulation of journalists. Let's see if they fall for it.
...
So that some group of Iraqis now control the budget and can set key policy in some regards may be significant. But the caretaker government is hedged around by American power. Negroponte (the US ambassador to Baghdad who has just arrived in the country) will control $18 bn. in US AID to Iraq. Rumsfeld will go on controlling the US and coalition military. There isn't much space left for real Iraqi sovereignty in all that.

The early hand-over also had the added benefit of stealing Monday press from the success of Fahrenheit 9/11 and the Supreme Court rulings to allow 'enemy combatants' to obtain access to the courts and legal counsel.

This weekend I was one of the many who helped Fahrenheit 9/11 set a box office record. Playing in fewer than 900 theaters, the film made 21.6 million dollars, the most ever for a documentary. (Moore's last film, 'Bowling for Columbine' made 21.9 million in 9 months) Way to raise the bar, Mike. It's probably no surprise to any one that has read this blog, that I greatly enjoyed the film. While there's not too much new information presented, Fahrenheit 9/11 is a compelling essay, revealing the corruption and hypocrisy of this administration. Every one I saw in the theater (and I went twice) seemed to cry at least once and laugh a few times more. Without the humor, the tragedy of our recent history might have been too much for any one to take. While Moore doesn't shy away from adding in his own opinion, more times then not, he lets his collection of video speak for itself. One particularly notable quotation is from Condoleeza Rice, explicitly stating a link between Saddam and 9/11. There's so much more I could say about this film, so many issues raised, so much footage to comment upon and such good storytelling, but I'd rather encourage you to go see it for yourself. I will say this, Moore's conclusion that the administration is capitalizing upon fear to enact its dubious agenda could not be more accurate.
Here in Gainesville, the film sold out every night. They had to open an additional theater. I passed out about 50 flyers on Friday, a combination flyer for Democracy For America, Move On PAC, ACT4Victory, the League of Conservation Voters and some tips on what to do to oust Bush. The next day, there was a sheriff at the exit to the theater. He was looking for someone. I quickly realized that person was me, so I backed up into the theater and passed out 60 or so more flyers. I wish I had brought more, as people grabbed them from my hands so quickly. As I was exiting, there were shouts by the theater staff urging whoever is passing out those flyers to stop and leave the premises, but by then I was already done. Two of my friends had headed out of the theater and attempted to pass out flyers outside, but were stopped by the staff, backed up by a sheriff's deputy. It was great to hear my fellow movie-goers coming to our defense, many expressing their desire for flyers long after I had run out.
After watching the movie Saturday, I was surprised at the effect it had on people. One of my friends who hasn't really ever been active or involved with politics, became a woman on a mission. She engaged everyone we came into contact with. Telling people to see the movie, discussing war policies, even handing out some of the flyers we had left. Other people who had seen the movie and many that hadn't came over and joined the discussion. I only hope that this enthusiasm lasts through Nov. 2.
There's some misleading press reports about this movie, Moore refutes them here. If you haven't seen the movie yet, get tickets here.

The MoveOn PAC house party w/conference call to Michael Moore is at:
318 NW 24th Street
Gainesville, FL 32607
Monday, June 28, 08:00 PM
Go to MoveOnPAC.org to register, although you can just show up if you want.

Democracy For America Gainesville

Contact Brenda gvillegrassroots (at) bellsouth dot net
We meetup at Market Street Pub twice a month, I think the next Meetup is July 7TH at 7pm.
Go to DFA.MeetUp.com and sign up for Democracy For America.

More Gainesville Info coming soon. Stay tuned.

Gore seems to be tearing it up lately, with his speech to MoveOn PAC (see previous post) awhile back and this one he gave yesterday,Al Gore | Our Founders and the Unbalance of Power

I am convinced that our founders would counsel us today that the greatest challenge facing our republic is not terrorism but how we react to terrorism, and not war, but how we manage our fears and achieve security without losing our freedom. I am also convinced that they would warn us that democracy itself is in grave danger if we allow any president to use his role as commander in chief to rupture the careful balance between the executive, the legislative and the judicial branches of government. Our current president has gone to war and has come back into 'the city' and declared that our nation is now in a permanent state of war, which he says justifies his reinterpretation of the Constitution in ways that increase his personal power at the expense of Congress, the courts, and every individual citizen.

There's plenty more in the speech; highly recommended if you want to get your fire burning.

Finally some good news this week!
Heres the message I got from Common Cause today (abbreviated):

With the help of all of you who care deeply about diverse and dynamic media in America, we have landed a decisive blow in beating back the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).A federal court on Thursday ordered the FCC to redo many of the controversial media ownership rules it passed last June. In addition, the court strongly criticized the agency's methods for arriving at its conclusions in justifying increased media concentration. Under the ruling, the FCC will have to revisit the legal framework it operated under, and begin its deliberations anew....
The court's decision offers a stinging rebuke to the FCC's disregard for public participation in the rulemaking process, and underscores the importance of true media diversity. It also gives us another chance to work for real reform and to oppose media concentration as the FCC reconsiders its ruling under the court’s new direction.

More on this story here.

It's about time somebody did.
t r u t h o u t - AP Sues for Access to Bush National Guard Records: "Washington - The Associated Press sued the Pentagon and the Air Force on Tuesday, seeking access to all records of George W. Bush's military service during the Vietnam War."

Help shut down the School of the Americas.
Recently renamed, this military institution is responsible for teaching death squads the skills of their trade. Write your Representatives. This action isn't set up to do with one click, but follow the link to congress at the top of the page, type in your zip code, click on the email link for your rep and then copy the text from the SOA Watch page into your letter. From SOA Watch.

Register to Vote
I'd hope all my informed readers have done this long ago, but in case you haven't register here. From Your Vote Matters & Working Assets

Unsatisfied with the new Medicare Bill?
Sign this petition. Thanks to Brenda from Gainesville's Democracy For America contingent for sending this out.

Stop the Bush Administration's Toxic Mercury Proposal
Mercury is bad for just about everything. Need I say more? Take action here. From the League of Conservation Voters.

Protect the Constitution and Civil Rights for Gays, Lesbians & Everybody else
Stop congress from going forward on the Federal Marraige Amendment. Don't allow discrimination to be written into the Constitution. Send a letter to your reps now. From the ACLU.

Get out the Single Woman Vote
This isn't an online action, but its still interesting. This group, 1000 Flowers is trying to register single woman, a segment of voters with the highest undervote. If anyone joins up with this group, I'd love to hear about it.

Save the Florida Manatee
Tell Jeb Bush to veto the anti-manatee bill. Jeb has only until June 30th to do this, so turn up the heat now. From Defenders of Wildlife.

Protect Sea Turtles
There is a new type of hook that could prevent longline fisherman from accidently killing sea turtles. Unfortunately the National Marine Fisheries Service, who determined the hooks to be effective in reducing sea turtle deaths are actually recommending the use of a different hook in their new regulations. Tell them to stop ignoring their own science and protect the sea turtles. From Oceana.

Tell Cheney to Show the Proof or Resign
Personally, I prefer resign, even if there was proof. (See my previous post about Cheney language wrangling on the al-Qaeda Iraq non-connection.) Send that Machiavellian bastard a message. From Working Assets.

Protect Women's Health (among other things)
From the site "UNFPA is a life-saving program that prevents HIV/AIDS and provides family planning and maternal health care to the world's neediest people. But for purely political reasons, the US has withheld funding from this extremely effective program for the past two years." Tell Colin Powell to release the funding Sent to me by Care2.com

Protect your Privacy
Stop Ashcroft and the Bushies from getting into your health records. Sign this petition. Also from Care2.

Stop Junk Mail
The Center for a New American Dream is beginning a campaign to create a "do-not-mail" list similar to the do-not-call list for telemarketers. Tell your reps to get on board.

I know there's a lot of actions in this post, but all except the 1000 flowers and the SOA Watch actions require only a few clicks and a little typing. So get on it.

From the InterPress Service via Commondreams

UNITED NATIONS - Faced with the prospect of a humiliating defeat, the United States abandoned its proposal to seek Security Council exemption for U.S. soldiers from possible war crime charges in future U.N. peacekeeping operations overseas.
Unable to muster the necessary nine votes in the 15-member Security Council, Washington jettisoned the draft resolution Wednesday following widespread opposition from an overwhelming majority of member states.

But thats not going to stop Bush's America! From today's Washington Post

The Bush administration has decided to take the unusual step of bestowing on its own troops and personnel immunity from prosecution by Iraqi courts for killing Iraqis or destroying local property after the occupation ends and political power is transferred to an interim Iraqi government, U.S. officials said.

Once again the world thinks we're acting like a**holes, but we keep on doing it anyway. Obviously the U.N. is aware of the abuses perpetrated by American troops and, rightly, believes they should be held accountable. The whole concept of American immunity from international law, in effect cripples the law. This policy of American exceptionalism is damaging to our interests and is one reason (among many) that this country is hated across the globe.
Bush is now saying to the Iraqis that American troops cannot be punished for any crimes they commit by Iraqis and that they'll have to trust the American authorities to deal with any incidents. So much for sovereignty.
This week there was a mass release of documents by the Bush administration in an attempt to quell complaints of secrecy. Bush is now attempting to distance himself from such documents. Wouldn't you?(Check out the National Security Archives to see them and lots of other stuff.)
Tom Englehardt has a great post on the subject, definitly worth reading. Also at the end of the post is a reprinting of an article by Jonathan Schell about the Bush administrations creative twisting of words and lanquage, also worth reading.

Read this post, John B. Judis was guest blogging on talking points memo

Bremer arrived in Baghdad in May after the Pentagon fired General Jay Garner. According to Garner, the Pentagon objected to his plan to hold early elections before Iraq's economy had been privatized. Bremer's mandate was, above all, to privatize. In June, as Bremer returned to Baghdad aboard a U.S. military transport plane after speaking at an international economic conference, he discussed his plans for Iraq with Washington Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran. According to Chandrasekaran, Bremer spoke of privatization 'with such fervor that his voice cut through the din of the cargo hold.' 'We have to move forward quickly with this effort,' he said.

The administration's plan to privatize Iraq's industries has been known for sometime, but its worth remembering.

A new documentary by Deborah Kaufman and Alan Snitow called Thirst deals with a frightening phenomenon; water privatization.

AlterNet: EnviroHealth: The New Blue Gold: "In point of fact, American cities and towns are the new staging ground for rapid and strategic power plays over who controls water supply. In 2004, 85% of U.S. municipal water systems are publicly owned, with a shocking 15% already in the hands of corporations. Unbeknownst to most residents, municipal governments are being heavily courted in the here and now to turn over control of their water supply to multinational companies like Suez Water, whose U.S. subsidiary took control of Atlanta's water in 1999.

Obviously I haven't seen this yet; it premieres on July 13TH on P.O.V., check your local PBS listings, but I highly recommend watching it.

As captured in Thirst, John Briscoe, the Senior Water Advisor to The World Bank, puts it this way to an assembly at the Third World Water Forum in Kyoto, Japan.
"What does it mean to say that water is a human right?" he asks." Those who proclaim it so would say that it is the obligation of [governments] to provide free water to everybody. Well, that's a fantasy."

Water is essential to life. We cannot live without it and when its in the hands of global corporations, we'll have to whatever price they demand. Check back for a review of this documentary after it premieres.

Will the Boss take on the Chimp in a head-to-head competition for media attention on Sept. 1? The Republican National Convention will be taking place that day, and George Bush will be accepting the nomination (barring a massive party-wide epiphany). So the media will obviously be focusing attention on the event. But what if there was another massive event in the same area (Giants Stadium)with the goal of defeating Bush? Could a massive concert with Bruce Springstein and others offset the media coverage of Bush? Well, I'm an optimist, so I've signed the petition toDraft Bruce. Maybe if the boss signs on others will follow. This site has only been up a few days and already over 8,000 people have signed up. See this Reuters article for more info, or just visit the site.

Greg Palast has a new version of his book "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy". I've read the old version and its a great book, a real investigation into the corruption of or government and particularly the theft of the 2000 election. There's an excerpt of the book at AlterNet: Election 2004: The Sour Smell of Spoiled Ballots

In the 2000 presidential election, 1.9 million Americans cast ballots that no one counted. 'Spoiled votes' is the technical term. The pile of ballots left to rot has a distinctly dark hue: About 1 million of them -- half of the rejected ballots -- were cast by African Americans although black voters make up only 12 percent of the electorate.
This year, it could get worse.

Why Shouldn't Iran Seek Nuclear Weapons? A good question; exactly what is their incentive? The U.S. answer to the question seems to be, "because we told you not to." But when two countries on your border are occupied by the worlds lone(-ranger) superpower and the rest have some military presence by that power, is it in your best interest to surrender your weapons? Tad Daley writes:

Looming over Iran's immediate perception of American threat is the 800-pound gorilla of America's nuclear double standard. George Bush insists that selected other countries have no right to possess nuclear weapons, while at the same time making abundantly clear that we intend to retain thousands into perpetuity. (To be fair, so have other presidents before him -- Republican and Democrat alike.) To the rest of the world this is sanctimonious and self-righteous, suggesting that in our view the U.S. can be 'trusted' with these weapons while others cannot. Such a position is factually questionable. It is morally indefensible. And it is utterly politically unsustainable.
This is especially true when the original Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is understood in its original context. The NPT was not just a framework to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. It was, instead, a grand bargain -- where the great many 'nuclear have-nots' agreed to forego nuclear weapons while the few 'nuclear haves' agreed eventually to get rid of theirs. Moreover, the United States recommitted itself to this covenant at the 30-year NPT Review Conference in spring 2000, where the NPT's nuclear signatories pledged 'an unequivocal undertaking '

The political firestorm over the invasion of Iraq has probably delayed any immediate invasion of Iran, but the U.S. won't be removing its military bases in Iraq or Afghanistan anytime soon. In 2002, George Bush described an 'axis of evil.' So far we have invaded one of these countries (Iraq), surrounded another (Iran) and actually started to remove some troops bordering the other (North Korea). North Korea is the only country in this 'axis' that we know actually has nuclear weapons. What more encouragement could we give Iran to develop its own nuclear stockpile? The U.S. government seems to be saying, "Trust us, we won't use our nuclear weapons on you; don't mind the troops on your borders, we won't invade you, just give up your weapons and we'll help ourselves to that tasty oil."

Ok, its actually one article in two parts. Read You are who you know, and then read part 2 Way too much info to discuss it all here, and considering this blog isn't really about the subject, I'll keep it short. The article is about social software and presents some interesting ideas about it catching on, its usefulness and what it might mean for the future.Heres one exerpt that makes me think of a previous post about Baltimore's security cameras.

And that is exactly what an online social network enables. When we sign up on a social networking site, we are diving into the petri dish, and gladdening the heart of every scientist with a key to the lab. If the network can figure out what groups you are part of simply by the patterns of e-mail sent back and forth, imagine what it can learn when it knows every last bit of data you have input into a five-page profile, which might include everything from your favorite breed of dog, your sexual orientation and marital status, to your turn-ons, bedroom accessories, and tastes in music, movies and books?

But that's only the tip of the data iceberg. What if, in addition to that, it knows everything you've ever searched for on the world's most popular search engine, it has access to your blog and it has been scanning the content of your e-mails so as to better target ads to you? Researchers with access to that network -- to that online neighborhood where modern men and women spend ever greater amounts of their disposable time -- will know more about you than you do about yourself.

Big Brother might not have to try so hard to get an all encompassing file on someone if people are willingly providing the information. Could these social networks be linked to things such as surveillance cameras in the real world? <---Just my paranoia creeping in, the article doesn't really dwell on these issues. It does get into what this software means for the future of human interactions however. Ok one more quote (this is for you Chris)

The ensuing debut of Gmail, which for some raised the terrifying specter of e-mail content scanned so as to better allow targeted advertising, was followed by the revelation that Google was using the same software cookie to register user identities on all its services.
The alarm went out, across the blogs and mailing lists of the Net: A new 8,000-pound terror of privacy invasion had been born. Call it Googlezilla.
At first glance, Googlezilla is scary indeed. Google appears better positioned than any other Net service to successfully amass a truly staggering database of user behavior

I think I'll be deleting that cookie now.

Usually I'm not one to call politicians 'stupid' or 'crazy' as I believe they are usually smart, cunning and quite often a bit evil; but then there's Bush. So for your Bush-bashing-browsing pleasure, I present this article:Capitol Hill Blue: New Information Shows Bush Indecisive, Paranoid, Delusional. Apparently Dr. Justin Frank, director of psychiatry at George Washington University has written a book about Bush's mental stability; Bush On The Couch: Inside the Mind of the President. In the book Frank argues that Bush is delusional, indecisive and paranoid.

Dr. Carolyn Williams, a psychoanalyst who specializes in paranoid personalities, is a registered Republican and agrees with most of Dr. Frank’s conclusions.
“I find the bulk of his analysis credible,” she said in an interview. “President Bush grew up dealing with an absent but demanding father, a tough mother and an overachieving brother. All left indelible impressions on him along with a desire to prove himself at all cost because he feels surrounded by disapproval. He behavior suggests a classic paranoid personality. Additionally, his stated belief that certain actions are 'God's Will' are symptomatic of delusional behavior.”
Ryan Reynolds, a childhood friend of Bush, concurs.

Obviously since they've gotten a token Republican to agree, it must be true! Whether or not Bush is truly delusional ("We found the weapons of mass destruction," "welcome us as liberators",) or paranoid (a lot of people are out to get him), really doesn't concern me too much, but I'd have to agree with the Doctor's prescribed treatment;"removal from office."
I came across this story thanks to the American Assembler NewsBlog.

The head of Shell oil has made some interesting remarks lately

Oil Chief: My Fears for Planet; Shell Boss's 'Confession' Shocks Industry: No one can be comfortable at the prospect of continuing to pump out the amounts of carbon dioxide that we are pumping out at present ... with consequences that we really can't predict but are probably not good.'

He also advocated carbon sequestration, a complex process of capturing Carbon Dioxide and trapping it under the sea. However he doesn't seem to be talking too much about renewables, instead he focuses on how oil in hard to reach spots can be made economically viable as long as the price of oil is high.
This is making me wish I drove a diesel, so I could switch to vegetable oil or biodiesel.
For another oil related rant read this about SUVs.

Go read this. Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: June 13, 2004 - June 19, 2004 Archives:

Q Has the President been asked to answer questions before the CIA leak investigation?
MR. McCLELLAN: I don't have any update at this point. But those are the types of questions that you need to direct to the prosecutors who are overseeing that investigation. And I'll see if there's any further update beyond what we said previously.
Q Why can't you tell us? I mean, he's the President of the United States. You aren't going to tell us if he's been questioned in a criminal investigation>
MR. McCLELLAN: I just said I don't have any update from where he -- what he previously responded to, Terry.
Q Right, but we'd like it from you, please.

It must be hell for poor Scott McClellan, so many lies and scandals to cover up. This guy is overworked.

Lots of action out there today, so get clicking.
Tell your representatives to Support these Amendments to the Interior Appropriations bill
1. The Yellowstone Amendment offered by Representatives Rush Holt (D-NJ), Christopher Shays (R-CT), Nick Rahall (D-WV), and Tim Johnson (R-IL) to protect the health of America's first national park, its wildlife, employees, and guests, by continuing to phase-out snowmobile use inside Yellowstone.
2. The Tongass Subsidy Amendment offered by Representatives Steve Chabot (R-OH) and Robert Andrews (D-NJ), to protect pristine areas of the Tongass National Forest by ending taxpayer subsidies of destructive new logging roads.
3. The Forest Wildlife Conservation Amendment, offered by Representative Tom Udall (D-NM), to protect wildlife in our National Forests by halting harmful changes to rules governing forest management practices.
From SaveOurEnvironment.org.
Bush's Judicial Nominee William Haynes appointed the authors of the memo arguing rules against torture do not apply. Demand that Bush withdraw this nomination.I posted this action a while back, but now with this memo out I think its worth posting again. From People for the American Way.
Send Bush Your Student Loan Bill--
MoveOn.org and The Campaign for Americas Future have started a project to hit Bush on his education policies. It seems that "The President's plan to eliminate fixed interest rate consolidation on federal student loans will cost the average student borrower about $5,500 more in interest payments, according to the Congressional Research Service. Nonpartisan groups like the United States Student Association, Consumers Union, the Consumer Federation of America, and PIRG vehemently oppose the Bush plan." So they way they figure it, Bush should pay the difference. Its his plan right? So Send Bush your student loan bill.
Urgent Action to Advance Universal Health Care

On June 22, the California Legislature will consider
Senator Sheila Kuehl’s proposal to establish a single-payer
health insurance system in California (SB 921). This bill
has gone farther than any other single-payer bill in the
nation, but a few conservative Democrats are holding it up.
Take action today for universal coverage in California.(California activists only.)
[Sponsored Text by ACLU of Southern California]

Sent to me by Alternet
Oppose Flag Burning Amendment
I thought this was the one country where the freedom to burn the flag was more important than the flag itself. If the flag truly is a symbol of freedom, why should there be an amendment that limits freedom attached to it? With all the Flag-waivers since 9/11 its no suprise this amendment is gaining traction. Join the ACLU in opposing this amendment.
Union of Concerned Scientists Fuel Economy Consumer Survey
As gas prices skyrocket past the $2.00 mark, cars and trucks with better fuel economy are becoming more attractive to U.S. consumers. But as drivers attempt to find a more efficient car or truck from a selection that on average has sunk to a 20-year low in fuel economy, are they even getting accurate gas mileage data? In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) 30-year-old tests are so outdated that automobile fuel economy is overestimated by more than 20 percent!
Here's your chance to participate by sending your own mileage results to the EPA.
See Fahrenheit 9/11 when it comes out
Join MoveOn PAC in making Fahrenheit 9/11 the number one movie in the country on June 25TH. Sign the pledge to say you'll be there. There is also a group called "Move America Forward" that is trying to lobby theater chains to cancel any screenings of Fahrenheit 9/11 or face boycotts. The great thing about this site is that they list all the email addresses for various theater chains. So go visit the site, copy the addresses and tell them to support the movie and ask that they play it in your area. I know I'm not alone in subverting the purpose of this site, my thanks to the blogger that alerted me to this subversive usage... sorry I forgot where I read it.

Somehow the obvious often eludes the Bush Administration, fortunately the Coalition Provisional Authority has conducted this poll to help them out.

The Associated Press - Washington in Depth: WASHINGTON (AP) - A poll of Iraqis commissioned by the U.S.-backed government has provided the Bush administration a stark picture of anti-American sentiment - more than half of Iraqis believe they would be safer if U.S. troops simply left.
The poll, commissioned by the Coalition Provisional Government last month but not released to the American public, also found radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is surging in popularity, 92 percent of Iraqis consider the United States an occupying force and more than half believe all Americans behave like those portrayed in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse photos.

The poll also shows that 67% of Iraqis support Muqtada al-Sadr compared to Iyad Allawi, the newly appointed prime minister who enjoys only 23% support. For a more in depth reading of these poll results check out Juan Cole's take on it.

Remember back during the 'golden years' of Ronald Reagan, when they tried to classify ketchup as a vegetable? In a possible attempt to further exploit the current nostalgia for those glory days of old, Bush's USDA has ruled that frozen French fries are "fresh vegetables." See, Bush is just like Ronald Reagan!!! From the L.A. Times (via CommonDreams)

The Frozen Potato Products Institute appealed to the USDA in 2000 to change its definition of fresh produce under PACA to include batter-coated, frozen French fries, arguing that rolling potato slices in a starch coating, frying them and freezing them is the equivalent of waxing a cucumber or sweetening a strawberry.
The USDA agreed and, on June 2, 2003, the agency amended its PACA rules to include what is described in court documents as the "Batter-Coating Rule." ... A federal judge in Texas last week endorsed the USDA's decision in a court case.
U.S. District Judge Richard Schell said the term "fresh vegetables" was ambiguous.

While down in Orlando Monday, Cheney found some time between fundraising and plotting world domination to tell one of his now famous tall tales. From the AP via POENEWS(thanks to Rustin for sending me this)

He was a patron of terrorism," Cheney said of Hussein during a speech before The James Madison Institute, a conservative think-tank based in Florida. "He had long established ties with al Qaida." ... The vice president offered no details backing up his claim of a link between Saddam and al Qaida.

Could it be he offered no evidence because,

There is "no credible evidence" that Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq collaborated with the al Qaeda terrorist network on any attacks on the United States, including the Sept. 11, 2001 hijackings, according to a new staff report released this morning by the commission investigating the hijacking plot. (From today's Washington Post)

I have to applaud Cheney's timing. Only two days before the 9/11 commission's report on Iraq's connections to al Qaeda, he starts spouting off the same lies he told last year; as if just to remind us that he's a liar. Dick, you need to get some new material.

So there is some good news today after all.

League of Women Voters Drops Support of Paperless Voting Machines: "The League of Women Voters rescinded its support of paperless voting machines after hundreds of angry members voiced concern that paper ballots were the only way to safeguard elections from fraud, hackers or computer malfunctions.
About 800 delegates who attended the nonpartisan league's biennial convention in Washington voted overwhelmingly Monday in favor of a resolution that supports 'voting systems and procedures that are secure, accurate, recountable and accessible.'"

While not quite an endorsement of a 'paper-trail,' its definitely a step in the right direction. Now if only the American Association of People with Disabilities and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights would rescind their endorsements. (see my previous post on this here)

Bush's campaign is airing ads making false statements about John Kerry (suprise!!).They claim he supports a 900 billion dollar tax increase and a $0.50 gas tax. While this type of crap is certainly expected from this corrupt group of individuals; we shouldn't stand for it. America Coming Together (ACT) has started circulating a petition demanding that the FCC step in and force Bush to remove the false statements from his ads. I think its a great idea, but isn't fraud their prime campaign strategy? Its how they won the last time anyway. Don't expect them to be giving it up anytime soon. But for now, you can make your voice heard by signing this petition to the FCC. Tell a friend about it.

As time goes on Americans are slowly becoming aware that there has been systematic and widespread abuses concerning military prisoners. The indefinite detentions, lack of legal counsel, sexual humiliation, and even torture have forced many Americans to question the acceptable boundaries for the governments power. Many people, including some in my office, have tried to claim that torture could be justified under certain circumstances. Hypothetical questions arise like "What if there was a nuclear bomb in New York City, set go off and only this terrorist knew how to stop it. Could you torture him?" The guy in my office who asked that question of me obviously said the answer was yes. Fred Hiatt writes in the Washington Post

It's a useful challenge to critics of the administration. There is a danger of complacency as Sept. 11 recedes, and anyone who pretends that the answer on torture is easy probably has never borne the burden of protecting the nation from attack.
But I think something more than the passage of time has happened since we asked ourselves the is-torture-ever-justified question nearly three years ago. We're beginning to see that it may not be possible, once you accept the moral legitimacy of torture, to limit it to those rare circumstances that we may have had in mind. And this is not because there will always be a few sadists or bad apples who push the limits. It's because there will be many good apples, true patriots, who believe they have an obligation to take every step legally available to them to fulfill their duty and protect their country.
Imagine, for example, that you are a general in Iraq, watching as several of your soldiers are killed or maimed every day by roadside bombs. You are frustrated by how little you know about the enemy and by how little you are learning from prisoners you have captured. In the old days -- that is, before the second Bush administration -- you nonetheless knew that you could not subject prisoners to 'force, mental torture, threats . . . [or] inhumane treatment of any kind,' as a Defense Department analysis of interrogation law explained a year ago. But if, suddenly, the old rules do not apply, can you responsibly not threaten your prisoners with dogs or shackle them to bedposts, if there's a chance it may save American lives?

And so the cycle of violence continues. The victims become the perpetrators once again. The policies, guidelines and actions of the Bush Administration have not only allowed for, but encouraged abuse.
Hiatt goes on

After Sept. 11, many of us might have answered the letter writer's question by saying: Yes, there may be a time, an exceptional case, when the president should assume responsibility and give an order to torture a prisoner to save thousands of lives. It would be an awesome responsibility, and maybe it would be wrong, but those are the choices leaders must face.
Instead, we see a president who ducks responsibility and gives lawyers' answers. And the difficult choices are kicked down the chain of command, where they do not belong.

While I've never been in such a situation and I'm unlikely to ever have to make a decision authorizing torture, I believe the key phrase in that statement is "assume responsibility." Assuming responsibility means accepting the consequences of authorizing an illegal action. If the president were to indeed authorize torture he should assume responsibility and resign, possibly serving prison time. If the president truly felt that the benefit of saving lives justified committing torture, then surely resigning from office and standing trial before a court would also be justified. This does not appear to be the way Bush & Co. are handling this. I agree with Hiatt that they are ducking responsibility; but they also seem to have authorize illegal treatment and possibly torture in many more instances then the 'exceptional case.' Further, these policies have eroded the moral character of the military forcing them into a situation where not performing these techniques of abuse translates to not doing all they can to protect American lives.
For more on the torture scandal read this. It includes links to the memos and the testimony of the ever-dodgy Attorney General, John Ashcroft (who should be held in contempt of congress for his refusal to release these memos).

It seems like every couple months some crazy Republican wants to destroy the Artic Refuge. This time the forces of environmental destruction are claiming increased gas prices as their justification for drilling. Opening up the refuge might take the price of gas down a penny in 10 years when the oil starts to flow, but not only will we quickly use up all that oil; we will have destroyed one of the last truly wild places on this continent. Take action to Protect the Artic Refuge, courtesy of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Is someone watching you? It's a question most people would dismiss as paranoia, but not for residents of Baltimore, Md. Big Brother has got a lucky break, he's getting a new "regional network of 24-hour surveillance cameras that will first go live this summer in Baltimore." From the Baltimore Sun

The city wants companies capable of building the system to submit bids by the end of this month. "The purpose of the ... system is to provide for the homeland defense ... while also reducing crime and public disorder," reads the request for proposals. "Cameras will only observe and record that which a police officer or private citizen could legally see."
At a surveillance center in the Atrium Building on Howard Street, 13 to 15 retired police officers or criminal justice college students will monitor images, said Elliot Schlanger, Baltimore's chief information officer.
The system will be owned by the city and managed by Schlanger's office. The network would be able to connect with the state's existing system of closed-circuit cameras that monitor highways, he said.
Eventually, Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford and Howard counties would plug their systems into the city's hub.
The city would also work to link its network with the closed-circuit television systems in use by the University of Maryland, the Downtown Partnership, Oriole Park at Camden Yards and other private institutions on downtown's west side.
The network could also hook up to closed-circuit cameras in city schools during a possible terrorist attack, according to the city's request for proposals.

Isn't it comforting to know that from one central location you could watch the goings on of an entire city? Will they soon add the digital cameras in police patrol cars to their plethora of video streams? While this system doesn't include the many private security feeds from businesses in Baltimore, is such a system looming in the future?
I realize that this isn't the first time or place that outdoor surveillance cameras are being used. As a matter of fact, here in Gainesville, the new traffic lights have built in cameras. Their official purpose is monitoring traffic and I'll admit they would be pretty inefficient in trying to watch people; but the idea of public video surveillance seems to be catching on.

There are currently cameras in most large retail stores, every ATM, traffic lights, cop cars, public buildings and even home security systems. In many cases one could argue that there isn't much of an expectation of privacy in public spaces and the existence of these systems only furthers the erosion of that expectation. However as such surveillance systems grow in usage and scope other concerns arise. Information from these systems can be recorded and thus any privacy we may have assumed due to the fleeting nature of our public behavior, will also be lost. (currently I do not believe these feeds to be recorded due to the sheer size of the data, but data storage is becoming cheaper and easier by the minute)As is the case with home videos, embarrassing moments can be immortalized. Since such systems are not widely in use its hard to say what the legal uses of surveillance technology will be. Would sometime in the future, video recordings of public places become public information or would it be solely controlled by the government? When crimes are caught on tape by these systems they will undoubtedly be used as evidence in court; but will access be granted to those wishing to use such tapes to prove their innocence or as evidence in civil suits? (An interesting related story;'Curb Your Enthusiasm' clears murder suspect)
Will Big Brother share? Would these video recordings be available to private companies? Even without attaching personally identifying information like names and blurring faces these video feeds could be used for behavioral research much the way they are used by marketers in department stores. (Yes, they are watching and analyzing your behavior in the mall and Wal-Mart.) Marketers have used such information to design product displays and arrange their sales floors. They use alterations in the store environment to encourage more spending (They know how long you compare prices and how often you look on the bottom shelf. For a great book on this subject read Douglass Rushkoff's Coercion).

Two pieces of note today concerning this topic. The first concerns the League of Women Voters. Apparently this group, with a long history of supporting voting rights, is officially against requiring a paper trail. Fortunately the rank and file members aren't standing for it From the AP:

E-voting Issue Splits League of Women Voters Some local chapters are so angry that they are flouting regulations and planning to speak against the national stance Friday and Saturday at the league's biennial convention in Washington. They're threatening to nominate new board members and a new candidate for president who would rescind the league's support for paperless voting systems.
``We think the league has in some way failed us,'' said Genevieve Katz, 74, a member of the Oakland, Calif., chapter who has collected more than 700 signatures from members upset with the league's national stance on paperless terminals. ``I can't remember an issue that has gotten members so upset.''
The 130,000-member nonpartisan organization, a champion of social reforms and voting rights since 1920, weighed in on the e-voting controversy last year. Leaders said paperless terminals, which about 30 percent of the electorate will use in the November election, were reliable.
They had ``no reason to believe'' computer terminals would ``steal your vote,'' the league said officially.

'No reason to believe' eh? Shouldn't an organization like this try err on the side of vote integrity? Again from the AP:

In a January special election for a Florida state house seat, 134 people using paperless voting terminals in Broward County failed to cast votes for any candidate. The race was decided by a margin of 12 votes. It's unclear why some voters didn't select candidates; a without a paper trail, poll workers couldn't figure out voters' intentions.
In North Carolina's 2002 general election, a software bug deleted 436 electronic ballots from six paperless machines in two counties. Election Systems & Software Inc., which built the terminals, determined that the machines erroneously thought their memories were full and stopped counting votes, even though voters kept casting ballots.
Earlier this year, California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley banned the use of a paperless system made by Diebold Inc. after he found uncertified software and other problems that ``jeopardized'' the outcome of elections in several counties. At least 20 states have introduced legislation requiring a paper record of every vote cast.

These are only a few examples.
The league's endorsement of paper-less voting is a serious obstacle to creating a verifiable paper trail. Their reasons for supporting these computer voting machines are that they are more accessible to the disabled and that adding printers before the November elections would be far too costly. I also came across this editorial in the NY Times today

The National Federation of the Blind, for instance, has been championing controversial voting machines that do not provide a paper trail. It has attested not only to the machines' accessibility, but also to their security and accuracy — neither of which is within the federation's areas of expertise. What's even more troubling is that the group has accepted a $1 million gift for a new training institute from Diebold, the machines' manufacturer, which put the testimonial on its Web site.

This is truly disturbing, Diebold has coopted this group into supporting their non-verifiable machines. Something that has always bothered me about Diebold (besides the open endorsement of George W. Bush by its CEO), is the fact that Diebold doesn't seem to want to SELL the printers to its voting machines. Would they not stand to make quite an additional profit by adding these printers to their machines? Counties that have already bought Diebold touch-screen machines seem pretty likely to go ahead and buy printers from Diebold, especially if they have a limited time to get these printers operational. Something isn't right here.
Having the disability lobby in their corner seems to be working for paperless voting machine manufacturers, but it really shouldn't be. I strongly agree with the Times on this

The real issue, though, is that disability-rights groups have been clouding the voting machine debate by suggesting that the nation must choose between accessible voting and verifiable voting.
It is well within the realm of technology to produce machines that meet both needs. Meanwhile, it would be a grave mistake for election officials to rush to spend millions of dollars on paperless electronic voting machines that may quickly become obsolete.
Disabled people have historically faced great obstacles at the polls, and disability-rights groups are right to work zealously for accessible voting. But they should not overlook the fact that the disabled, like all Americans, also have an interest in ensuring that their elections are not stolen.

There are many ways to make your voice heard on Electronic Voting; and here's one of them, courtesy of Democracy For America (previously posted May 26TH).

Who's the wild conspiracy nut now? Huh? The administration has denied it, the FBI has denied it, conspiracy nuts everywhere swore by it, and now Tampa International Airport is finally admitting it;

Tampabay: TIA now verifies flight of Saudis: "TAMPA - Two days after the Sept. 11 attacks, with most of the nation's air traffic still grounded, a small jet landed at Tampa International Airport, picked up three young Saudi men and left.
The men, one of them thought to be a member of the Saudi royal family, were accompanied by a former FBI agent and a former Tampa police officer on the flight to Lexington, Ky.
The Saudis then took another flight out of the country. The two ex-officers returned to TIA a few hours later on the same plane.
For nearly three years, White House, aviation and law enforcement officials have insisted the flight never took place and have denied published reports and widespread Internet speculation about its purpose.

Hmmm. Let's add a bit to that 'internet speculation'. Why would the U.S. Government allow Saudi nationals leave the country on private flights after several Saudi's were beleived to have blown up the World Trade Center? Well I've got plenty of theories(I dare not share them all, less I find myself in a hood squatting for days on end in Guantanamo). Could it be that Bush and his famliy have been deeply involved with the Saudi royalty for some time? Perhaps Craig Unger's book House of Bush House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties. has some answers

As Unger claims in this incisive study, the seeds for the "Age of Terrorism" and September 11 were planted nearly 30 years ago in what, at the time, appeared to be savvy business transactions that subsequently translated into political currency and the union between the Saudi royal family and the extended political family of George H. W. Bush. On the surface, the claim may appear to be politically driven, but as Unger (a respected investigative journalist and editor) probes--with scores of documents and sources--the political tenor of the U.S. over the last 30 years, the Iran-Iraq War, the war in Afghanistan, the birth of Al Qaeda, the dubious connection between members of the Saudi Royal family and the exportation of terror, and the personal fortunes amassed by the Bush family from companies such as Harken Energy and the Carlyle Group, he exposes the "brilliantly hidden agendas and purposefully murky corporate relationships" between these astonishingly powerful families. His evidence is persuasive and reveals a devastating story of Orwellian proportions, replete with political deception, shifting allegiances, and lethal global consequences. Unger begins his book with the remarkable story of the repatriation of 140 Saudis directly following the September 11 attacks. -Review from Amazon.com

I haven't read this book yet, but after hearing this guy on Air America today I think I just might buy it.
I've always been one to believe that there's been a cover-up regarding 9/11. There are so many conflicting stories and theories; obviously some of them are from whackos. However, this new evidence points out the fact that we aren't getting the whole story.
Speaking of whacko conspiracy nuts, Michael Moore's new film Fahrenheit 9/11 is comning out June 25TH (Just kidding Mike, you're my hero). From what I've heard he includes details on this flight and others in the film. We need to start hearing more of these alternate narratives to the story of 9/11; the governments version has never seemed complete anyway (this is the Bush Admininstration). Check out the trailer for the movie here.

For those of you who don't read TomDispatch, it's a great time to start. Here's a nice snippet from the latest post

TomDispatch: For all of you, including the military officials cited below, who express amazement that the Bush administration -- despite its own Secretary of State's 'Powell doctrine' -- had no 'exit strategy,' there is a reason for this, though seldom discussed. Amid all the half-baked planning for and fantasizing about occupied Iraq, the lack of an exit strategy was in every meaningful sense planned for -- at least as much as the permanent military bases being built in Iraq by private 'contractors' and the Army Corps of Engineers to the tune of billions of our dollars. There was no exit strategy because the strategists of the Bush administration never planned on leaving. This wasn't just their mistake; this was their intent, and so is the most essential truth of our war in Iraq.

The main part of that post is a speech by Chalmers Johnson, which is quite good, concerning militarism and imperialism. Also this post made me aware of an interesting blog Baghdad Burning, by a woman in Iraq.

From the Council for a Livable World Due to the events commemorating the life of President Reagan, the Senate will not be holding any votes this week. Majority Leader Frist announced yesterday a new unanimous consent agreement to schedule for Tuesday, June 15, the Senate vote on the Kennedy-Feinstein amendment to eliminate funds to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons. Before the vote, there may be up to 50 minutes debate in support of the Kennedy-Feinstein amendment and 50 minutes in opposition. Thus that first vote should occur around Noon on June 15. Scroll down to read yesterday's post to take action on this item.
From the National Resource Defense Council
PROTECT THE TONGASS NATIONAL FOREST: Tell the EPA not to authorize log dumping in Ward Cove.
SAVE CASTLE-BIGHORN: Tell Shell Canada to shelve its plans for new sour gas wells in the Castle.
From the Drug Reform Coordination Network
An amendment sponsored by Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), cosponsored by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), would have forbid the US Dept. Of Justice
from using its resources to interfere with state medical
marijuana laws. Though the Hinchey amendment was defeated, the number of members who voted for it, 152, represented a 150% increase in Congressional support for medical marijuana since the only previous House vote on the issue five years before. Rep. Hinchey is again championing his amendment this summer, and it is anticipated that a vote on it will take place sometime next month. Tell your Representative to support the amendment.
Keep on clicking and if you've got any actions you think I should post, email me.

Take action NOW! The Senate votes today on funding for more nuclear weapons, including the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator. Tell your senators to drop funding for a new nuclear arms race. You can do it at the Friends Committee for National Legislation or at the Council for a Livable World(CLW has a better letter).

It seems every day that goes by we find out about more evil coming from the Bush Administration. I have previously stated my belief that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were not just a "few bad apples," but a more systematic corruption of values, brought about by the policies of the Bush administration. The evidence for that belief is mounting; check out this Wall Street Journal article

Lawyers Said Bush Not Bound by Torture Laws-WSJ: "Bush administration lawyers contended last year that the president wasn't bound by laws prohibiting torture and that government agents who might torture prisoners at his direction couldn't be prosecuted by the Justice Department.
The advice was part of a classified report on interrogation methods prepared for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld after commanders at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, complained in late 2002 that with conventional methods they weren't getting enough information from prisoners."

Disturbing enough, but there's more.

The working-group report elaborated the Bush administration's view that the president has virtually unlimited power to wage war as he sees fit, and neither Congress, the courts nor international law can interfere. It concluded that neither the president nor anyone following his instructions was bound by the federal Torture Statute, which makes it a crime for Americans working for the government overseas to commit or attempt torture, defined as any act intended to "inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering." Punishment is up to 20 years imprisonment, or a death sentence or life imprisonment if the victim dies.
"In order to respect the president's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign ... (the prohibition against torture) must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his commander-in chief authority," the report asserted. (The parenthetical comment is in the original document.) The Justice Department "concluded that it could not bring a criminal prosecution against a defendant who had acted pursuant to an exercise of the president's constitutional power," the report said. Citing confidential Justice Department opinions drafted after Sept. 11, 2001, the report advised that the executive branch of the government had "sweeping" powers to act as it sees fit because "national security decisions require the unity in purpose and energy in action that characterize the presidency rather than Congress."

Bush and his cronies have denied any policy that would seek to circumvent or violate the Geneva Conventions. Add that to their list of lies. Will this latest deception be enough to convince the Supreme Court to rule against the administration, and grant constitutional protections to prisoners at Guantanamo? Will this lead to charges against senior administration officials for the Abu Ghraib prison abuses? Shouldn't Bush be impeached for this? Have the hearts and minds of American citizens been so stoked with fear that they are willing to accept torture?
We cannot stand four more years of this. As many have said before, 'This is the most important election of your life.' I urge everyone to get involved in this election process. Vote. Register your friends, neighbors and co-workers (skip any closet Republicans, of course). Donate to advocacy groups working to defeat Bush, or even campaign for John Kerry. Unfortunately half of this country is brain-washed enough to vote for Bush, and there will probably be a bunch of dirty tricks (blackbox voting, purge lists, etc.), so its up to you to get out there and stop this shit from happening. Send Bush back to Texas or better yet to a Texas prison.

So, Ronald Reagan is dead. I guess we should name an airport after him, or a turnpike, or a high school. No wait, we already did that a million times. Maybe I could write some mindless praise of the former president, and forget all about what a horrible president he was. I mean he did have Alzheimer's Disease, it wouldn't be very nice to point out his flaws, mistakes and the general harms he has perpetrated upon the world, would it? Too bad. Reagan's death at 93 only adds proof to the saying "only the good die young," as Greg Palast said in his recent editorial. So now that he's dead, the media is going on and on about how great he was, further establishing the great Reagan myth. As William Rivers Pitt points out;

Reagan was able, by virtue of his towering talents in this arena, to sell to the American people a flood of poisonous policies. He made Americans feel good about acting against their own best interests. He sold the American people a lemon, and they drive it to this day as if it was a Cadillac. It isn't the lies that kill us, but the myths, and Ronald Reagan was the greatest myth-maker we are ever likely to see.

William Rivers Pitt's editorial is definitely worth reading. It includes a 'dirty' laundry list of Reagan's presidency including such accomplishments as: 138 officials convicted, indicted or investigated for misconduct and/or criminal activities; the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine, paving the way for the corporate media takeover; environmental deregulation and degradation; allowing AIDS to fester; Iran-Contra; embracing dictators such as Marcos, Duarte, Rios Mont and Duvalier; propping up Saddam Hussein; giving Saddam biological weapons; funding and creating bin Laden.
This is the type of resume it takes to get highways and airports named after you? Maybe when you consider the presidency of George W. Bush, this doesn't seem all that bad. How will Reagan's death influence the presidential race? Will Bush ride Reagan's legacy to another 4 years? Hell if I know, but it does seem to be that people are buying into the idea Reagan's legacy is all roses. The NYtimes writes,

WASHINGTON, June 6 — From the shores of Normandy to President Bush's campaign offices outside Washington, Mr. Bush and his political advisers embraced the legacy of Ronald Reagan on Sunday, suggesting that even in death, Mr. Reagan had one more campaign in him — this one at the side of Mr. Bush.
In France, Mr. Bush heralded the late president as a "gallant leader in the cause of freedom," and lionized him in an interview with Tom Brokaw. In Washington, Mr. Bush's aides said that it was Ronald Reagan as much as another president named Bush who was the role model for this president, and they talked of a campaign in which Mr. Reagan would be at least an inspirational presence.
Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, Mr. Bush's likely Democratic challenger, was no less warm in praising Mr. Reagan, with a speech and a tribute on his Web site. Mr. Kerry's campaign canceled five days of events, in what aides described as both a gesture of respect to Mr. Reagan and a bow to the reality that the world would not be paying much attention to Mr. Kerry this week.
Mr. Bush's advisers said Sunday that the intense focus on Mr. Reagan's career that began upon the news of his death on Saturday would remind Americans of what Mr. Bush's supporters have long described as the similarities between the two men as straight-talking, ideologically driven leaders with swagger and a fixed idea of what they wanted to do with their office.
"Americans are going to be focused on President Reagan for the next week," said Ed Gillespie, the Republican national chairman. "The parallels are there. I don't know how you miss them."

They also point out that some Republicans are worried about the comparison,

Some Republicans said the images of a forceful Mr. Reagan giving dramatic speeches on television provided a less-than-welcome contrast with Mr. Bush's own appearances these days, and that it was not in Mr. Bush's interest to encourage such comparisons. That concern was illustrated on Sunday, one Republican said, by televised images of Mr. Reagan's riveting speech in Normandy commemorating D-Day in 1984, followed by Mr. Bush's address at a similar ceremony on Sunday.
"Reagan showed what high stature that a president can have — and my fear is that Bush will look diminished by comparison," said one Republican sympathetic to Mr. Bush, who did not want to be quoted by name criticizing the president.
Another senior Republican expressed concern that by identifying too closely with Mr. Reagan, Mr. Bush risked running a campaign that looked to the past, which this adviser described as a recipe for a loss.

Alzheimer's Disease is a horrible way to die, and I'm sure has inflicted great pain upon the Reagan family, but we cannot allow the pain & suffering caused by this disease to allow the truth of Reagan's legacy to be forgotten.

:Two More Reagan Articles:
Reagan Redux, Alternet.
Reagan's Politics of Passion, The Nation

Isn't it great to live in a peace-loving country like the United States? Depending on who you are it might be great living in the US, but history tells us that this country isn't really very peace-loving. In fact we've been involved in more armed conflicts then any other country in the last 50 years. The folks at Adbusters have put together a Flash presentation on the history of military interventions by the US. They call it Hope and Memory. Definitely worth checking out. Flash is required. And since it's Flash I can't quote the text here, you'll just have to go read it yourself.

Here's two more actions for today, targeting two specific people who both happen to be favorites of Right-wingers.
Apparently Rush Limbaugh is aired on Armed Forces Radio; Tell them to drop his punk ass here.
And then there's good ol' Ahmed Chalabi. Do you think he should go to jail for spying for Iran, lying about WMD and goading the foolish war hawks into invading Iraq? Well then, take action here.
A big thank you to Act for Change for organizing these actions.

Bush opens up trade in Endangered Species
Once again the Bush administration is trying to gut another environmental regulation. This time they want to allow for the importation of endangered species (whole or in parts) into the United States. This would only increase the rate of extinction for these species as they would once again become valuable commodities. Stop them here.
You know about Dirty Diamonds but what about Gold?
The Center for a New American Dream(a great resource for families and conscious consumers) is hoping you'll sign their pledge not to buy dirty gold. In many instances gold mining is wrecking the environment, ruining communities and exploiting workers. Join them in calling for reform of the gold mining industry.
Stop the Right-wing take over of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
We all know there's not too many great news shows on television, and now the best one has been cut in half. NOW with Bill Moyers has been reduced from 1 hour to 30 minutes and two new shows hosted by conservatives will be airing this year. Bush has packed the CPB with big donors to the Republican party. Join CommonCause in telling the CPB that we won't stand for politicizing Public Broadcasting.
Two quick actions from Defenders of Wildlife
It's hard to believe that people actually do this, but in Alaska they are gunning down wolves from the air; 147 dead this year and more to come. Sign this petition to President Bush to have him stop the killing. Also, the federal Bureau of Land Management is working on plans that
could allow road building, drilling, pipelines and more to invade
Montana's Rocky Mountain Front. This is area is rated as the top 1% of wildlife habitat in the United States. Stop these harmful plans.

Remember back in 2000 when George Bush somehow was determined to be the winner of the presidential election? Well we all know he couldn't have done it without a little help from his friends (5 0f 9 on the Supreme Court) or his little brother Jeb and his conspiring Secretary of State for Florida, Katherine Harris.
In Florida, convicted felons are denied the right to vote. This has traditionally been a great benefit to the Republican party because in other states, where felons can vote, they heavily favor Democrats. Enter Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris. They conceived of a plan to eliminate these felons from trying to vote in the 2000 election. They decided to purge the voter rolls. But to do this, they had to investigate and track down who these people were. They purposefully created a list that contained many thousands more names than there were convicted felons on the rolls. People with similar names to felons were purged. People who's voting rights had been restored in other states were purged. Coincidently, most of those purged were of African-American descent (majority voting Democrat). Thousands of people were wrongly denied their right to vote and George Bush is the President of the United States as a direct result. (For more background on this, check out Greg Palast's excellent site)
Now Florida is purging its rolls again. The state refuses to allow anyone but "government officials, candidates for office, and political parties" to see the new purge list. Fortunately some other people see how absurd this is and CNN is suing the state.

The state Monday denied a CNN request for a copy of the list of up to 48,000 people. These people, according to the state, could be ineligible to vote because they are felons or have multiple registrations -- or have died since the last election....
Florida's 2000 felon purge program resulted in over 50,000 legal voters being disenfranchised," said Leon County elections supervisor Ion Sancho in a written statement. "When asked for assurances that the [2004 felon list] was 90 percent accurate -- the minimum level local supervisors of elections requested for such a list -- we were told that it was better than the 2000 list, with no data to support its accuracy."

We cannot allow another election to be hijacked by Bush and his cronies. Hopefully this lawsuit will result in the release of the purge list, however this doesn't really address the central issue, a felon's right to vote. Why, after paying their debt to society, can a convicted felon not participate in democracy? Would they vote against tough crime laws or to legalize assault or robbery? What exactly are we afraid would happen? Or should we be asking, "What are those in power afraid of?"
Current reports indicate that 1 in 75 American males are currently in prison. With our prison population on the rise, an ever increasing number of people will be denied the right to vote under this archaic practice. Crimes as minor as simple possesion of prescription drugs without a prescription can result in a felony conviction.
Convicted felons are overwhelmingly of the lower class, a majority are racial minorities and precisely of the groups that are under-represented in government.
Going to prison can mean not only losing your freedom for a time, but being forever banned for life from participating in the decisions that will govern you and your children. That is not democracy, and that is not right.
If this country is to truly be a democracy, the right to vote must be restored to every felon after their time is served.

Over the weekend the Iraqi Governing Council announced it's choice for Prime Minister of the Interim Government. They nominated a former Iraqi exile with ties to MI6 and the CIA, Ayad Allawi. However, the Washington Post reports that Mr. Allawi was not the first choice of the Americans.

One of the working assumptions among senior foreign policy officials in the Bush administration had been that Iraq's new prime minister, the most important of the 30 jobs to be filled, would not come from the Governing Council. None of the 25 council members, all handpicked by the U.S.-led coalition, has rallied significant popular support, according to several public opinion surveys over the past few months.
In an attempt to ensure that the new government would enjoy a degree of legitimacy in the eyes of Iraq's 25 million people, U.S. officials also thought they needed to find someone who would not be seen as a surrogate of the United States -- representing a "clean break from the occupation," as a diplomat from a coalition country said. Allawi is among those with close U.S. ties, including to the U.S. intelligence community.

Is this a not-so-covert attempt by the U.S. to install a friendly puppet or could this be a power play by the Iraqi Governing Council, seeking to ensure positions of power for themselves?

From the Independent (UK)The appointment of Iyad Allawi as Iraq's interim Prime Minister this weekend was being seen as an American-backed coup which wrong-footed Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations envoy supposed to be putting together the interim government which will wield "sovereignty" after 30 June.
The more that is learnt, however, about the sudden emergence of Mr Allawi, a man close to the CIA and MI6, the more it appears the appointment of the new government has been hijacked by the ambitious politicians of the Iraqi Governing Council - the very body it was meant to replace. The only question is whom the IGC was conspiring with as its members picked jobs for themselves.

The idea of eliminating members of the IGC from positions in the new interim government seems to have been abandonded after unsucccessful efforts to have Mr. Hussain Shahristani become the new Prime Minister

Shiite Politicians' Objections Lead Candidate to WithdrawShahristani, 62, a nuclear scientist who was imprisoned by Hussein's government for more than a decade after he refused to help Iraq build nuclear weapons, has little political experience. Shahristani escaped Iraq in 1991, but unlike many other Iraqis who lived in exile, he was not active in opposition political parties, choosing instead to focus his energies on helping Iraqi refugees. For the past year, he has avoided politics and worked on humanitarian aid projects in southern Iraq.

It seems like the United States is going to have a rough time convincing people that this government is legitimate with their appointees all scrambling to get their piece of the power structure. It seems pretty obvious that you can't bake a great tasting cake with rotten eggs, but apparently the US is going through with this plan anyway.
The new Prime Minister, Allawi, has a lot in common with another corrupt individual Ahmed Chalabi (see previous posts). Allawi is reported to be responsible for the 45-minute WMD claim and he and Ahmed seem to be cousins according to Salon's Andrew Cockburn. Once again Cockburn has a great article on this subject A man for all intrigues

There could be no more perfect evidence of the desperation among U.S. officials dealing with Iraq than the choice of veteran Baathist and CIA hireling Iyad Allawi as prime minister of the "sovereign" government due to take office after June 30. As one embittered Iraqi told me from Baghdad on Friday: "The appointment must have been orchestrated by Ahmed Chalabi in order to discredit the entire process." He was not entirely joking, given the fact that Chalabi joined the rest of the Governing Council in voting for Allawi despite their long and vicious rivalry.
Though he is Shiite, Allawi was once upon a time an active Baathist, a member of Saddam Hussein's political party, and is thought to enjoy much support among the officer corps of the old Iraqi army, and by extension among many former Baathists and influential Sunni. Indeed, there are reports that the reason Ahmed Chalabi, the neoconservative favorite, urged his friends in the White House to dissolve the army last year -- a decision now acknowledged to be the most disastrous of the occupation -- was Chalabi's fear of the support enjoyed by his rival (and cousin -- everyone in Baghdad is related) within the military.

Meanwhile Chalabi's old neocon friends have been lobbying to get him back into the good graces of the Bush administration (see nytimes.)
Obviously things are a big mess in Iraq, and at this point there are no easy answers, but it does seem clear that having power hungry US appointees voting themselves into top positions is not going to make things any better.
In related news: Some people have speculated that Chalabi's Iran connections may be a fabrication by the Bush administration to justify an invasion against Iran. If the Iranians were found to be subverting the Iraqi government, could the Administration make such a justification? William Rivers Pitt of Truthout.org believes such ploy would fortunately be doomed to failure. In his recent OP/ED, The Deep Game he disputes the claim,

Is this Chalabi story a calculated ruse by the Bush administration to create an environment where war against Iran would be acceptable? Clearly, they would like this conflict to become a reality. But reality, in this matter, interferes. Consider a call for war in Iran. The immediate questions would be:
With whose army? Our troops in Iraq are badly stretched, and there aren't many Reserves left. The UN won't have anything to do with another invasion. It is difficult to believe that we would dare use Israel as a proxy force, because we'd lose every other country in the region overnight, including Pakistan, which actually has nuclear weapons.
With whose vote? Congresspeople have constituents, and the constituents are badly disturbed by Iraq already. The war is a mess, and Congress has more than enough political cover to say 'no' this time around. It isn't 2002 anymore.
With what money? Bush has spent hundreds of billions on Afghanistan and Iraq, and has failed (quietly on the first and spectacularly on the second). Because of Iraq, Congress can, and almost certainly will, say no to Iran spending.
With which Pentagon? If you believe Sid Blumenthal's report that the officer corps in the Pentagon is on the edge of revolt because of what has taken place already, it is difficult to imagine a scenario in which they would sit still for yet another military action.

I for one hope he's right, we've got more than enough problems without another war.