Magpie

Saturday, May 24, 2003

'We aim to help the world understand Iraq, and to help Iraq understand the world.'

A new, independent newspaper — the only one in the city — has hit the streets of Baghdad. Salon's Michelle Goldberg takes a look at Al-Muajaha and at the high school and college students who write for and publish it.

Published in both Arabic and English, Al-Muajaha mirrors the conversations heard everywhere in Baghdad. Its three big subjects are security, Saddam's crimes and America's motives. The lead story is a first-person tale of being carjacked in a taxi near the Palestine Hotel. "For now I feel I'm not living in a city, but in a jungle of buildings and man-beasts," writes Salaam Talib Al-Onaibi. Another piece profiles the Committee for Free Prisoners, an organization that has combed through Saddam's vast prison files to try to provide families with information on disappeared loved ones. Inside, there's a list of American companies awarded contracts in postwar Iraq, capsule bios of American officials involved in the reconstruction, and reprints of egregious quotes by people like Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and ex-CIA chief James Woolsey. The kids who produce Al-Muajaha have been able to talk openly about their country and their lives for only a little more than a month, and they have no experience of a free press, but they have an intuitive ability to capture the mood of the streets in their two-color pages.

Of course, the mood on the streets is conflicted, and Al-Muajaha reflects the disoriented, ever-shifting view many Iraqis have toward their liberation/occupation. Amanj Husam Ferzali begins a series on the world's dictators by saying, "It's my first time, ever, to write in public, being shy to express my thoughts. I'm confused, trying to answer the question: what do the people want?"

As the article points out, Al-Muajaha is also publishing online, via IndyMedia. You can read the online version here.

[Subscription or ad view req'd. for Salon]

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:33 AM | Get permalink

We know where Raed was.

Salam Pax has been on the road in southern Iraq with his brother Raed. The story of the trip, copiously illustrated, is here.

When we were in Nasiriyah someone made a joke about saddam and the money we are using. Assel responded: “Ha! So now you find your voice?”. Yes we are all finding our voices now, suddenly everyone has an opinion. Everyone thinks he/she should be involved. Talking to all the volunteers in the cities we’ve been to really gives you a push. There was an article before the war, I think by makiya but I am not sure, saying that Iraqis after all this time have been depoliticized. You wouldn’t think so after walking in the streets these days. The people we deal with are my age or younger, we are not apathetic about the politics of this country. The University of Baghdad will be a very interesting place to be in these days.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:23 AM | Get permalink

[Big sigh]

The Peking Duck is taking an extended leave from blogging.

This crowgirl is sure going to miss reading him.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:09 AM | Get permalink

Another bright idea in Iraq.

The NY Times reports that US forces in Iraq plan to disarm all militias in the country — except for the Kurds. This plan is not going over well with Shiite leaders.

"Maybe we didn't fight with the coalition, but we didn't fight against them," said Adel Abdul Mahdi, an official of the largest Shiite group, which is headed by Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim. "We want conditions where all militias are dissolved and we will not accept that other militias will be allowed to stay there with their weapons while we will not be there with ours."

Under the draft order, obtained by The New York Times, "militias that assisted coalition forces who remain under the supervision of coalition forces" will be authorized "to possess automatic or heavy weapons."

In a press conference today, Lt. Gen. David D. McKiernan, commander of allied land forces in Iraq, said that under the directive there "will be no militias inside of Iraq," but then added that the Kurdish forces, known as pesh merga, "are a different story."

This crowgirl can see big problems in places like Mosul, where Kurdish forces would be the only armed group left, other than the US forces.

[Free reg. req'd.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:38 AM | Get permalink

Another reason why Baghdad is still in poor shape.

According to a report in the UK Guardian, Britain is blaming 'heavy-handed tactics' by the US military for its failure to gain full and effective control of Baghdad. Failure of US troops to mingle with the population, as British forces have done in Basra, has increased the level of tension between troops and Baghdad residents. British observers in Baghdad believe that this failure has slowed reconstruction efforts in the capital.

The failure to secure Baghdad, which contrasts with successes by US and British forces in other parts of Iraq, will have grave consequences for reconstruction. It is understood that US corporations, such as Bechtel and the USAid government department, are reluctant to start repairing Iraq's infrastructure until Baghdad is safer.

Britain is pinning its hopes on the US 4th Armoured Division, which is due to replace the 3rd Infantry Division [in Baghdad]. "The US knows what they have to do but it is a question of effecting it," the source said.

There are signs that America is changing its tactics before the arrival of the new troops. In the past week US forces have stepped up patrols to crack down on crime and there is said to be evidence that random crime is reducing.

The change in American tactics is understood to be behind a decision by British commanders not to send troops to Baghdad. After days of agonising - and growing resistance from soldiers and their families - Britain has decided that the US can cope without UK reinforcements, though a final decision has yet to be made.

Senior defence sources said that British commanders have been caught between a desire to maintain good relations with the Americans and concern about being sucked into a situation it would be hard to get out of. "It is not in our interests to be drawn in," one source said.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:21 AM | Get permalink

Friday, May 23, 2003

The black sheep.

It being Friday, Wampum cranked up the time machine again and found the following gem:

QUEEN ELIZABETH AND THE BUSH BLACK SHEEP

Donnie Radcliffe, Washington Post
Column: WASHINGTON WAYS
May 21, 1991

The Queen of England got two George Bushes for the price of one when she arrived at the White House last Tuesday. What she didn't know was that the president's eldest son, George Walker Bush, so unpredictable that the family never knows what he'll say in polite society, was under strict orders from his parents not to address the queen. Somehow, though, he and the queen got to talking anyway. About boots, the new pair he was wearing, made especially for the occasion. Usually he has them printed with something like "Texas Rangers." Was that on these boots, the queen wanted to know.

"No, ma'am," George replied. "God Save the Queen."

The queen thought that so jolly good that she further fueled their exchange with another question. Was he the black sheep in the family? she inquired.

"I guess so," he admitted.

"All families have them," observed the queen.

"Who's yours?" asked George.

"Don't answer that!" cut in Barbara Bush, appearing from out of nowhere.

And in her queenly manner as she walked away, Elizabeth II did not.

By the way, Wampum has moved into a new place — with Movable Type, no less — at wampum.wabanaki.net. Reset your bookmarks appropriately. (You do have Wampum bookmarked, don't you? Hmmm?)

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:51 PM | Get permalink

Senator Robert Byrd.

He just doesn't know when to shut up. Thankfully.

AlterNet has posted the full text of the remarks Byrd made on the Senate floor about the lies and deceit inherent in Dubya's Iraq policy.

[M]embers of Congress are reluctant to ask questions which are begging to be asked. How long will we occupy Iraq? We have already heard disputes on the numbers of troops which will be needed to retain order. What is the truth? How costly will the occupation and rebuilding be? No one has given a straight answer. How will we afford this long-term massive commitment, fight terrorism at home, address a serious crisis in domestic healthcare, afford behemoth military spending and give away billions in tax cuts amidst a deficit which has climbed to over $340 billion for this year alone? If the President's tax cut passes it will be $400 billion. We cower in the shadows while false statements proliferate. We accept soft answers and shaky explanations because to demand the truth is hard, or unpopular, or may be politically costly.

But, I contend that, through it all, the people know. The American people unfortunately are used to political shading, spin, and the usual chicanery they hear from public officials. They patiently tolerate it up to a point. But there is a line. It may seem to be drawn in invisible ink for a time, but eventually it will appear in dark colors, tinged with anger. When it comes to shedding American blood – when it comes to wreaking havoc on civilians, on innocent men, women, and children, callous dissembling is not acceptable. Nothing is worth that kind of lie – not oil, not revenge, not reelection, not somebody's grand pipedream of a democratic domino theory.

And mark my words, the calculated intimidation which we see so often of late by the "powers that be" will only keep the loyal opposition quiet for just so long. Because eventually, like it always does, the truth will emerge. And when it does, this house of cards, built of deceit, will fall.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:19 PM | Get permalink

Saying 'No' to the Patriot Act, Alaska-style.

Alaska is now the second state in the union to have its legislature go on record against the Patriot Act. A resolution passed by both houses says that some of the provisions of the act go against the US Constitution, and it calls on the Congress to 'to correct the act and to oppose future legislation that would infringe on civil liberties.'

"When we stand on this floor and we salute that flag, the final words that we use are 'One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all," said Sen. Robin Taylor, R-Wrangell. "I take it deadly serious when we start removing groups of people from 'justice for all.'"

The full text of the Alaska resolution is here.

Via librarian.net.

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:15 PM | Get permalink

This week's racist Republican legislator.

A Republican member of the US House of Representatives is under fire for a prop he used at a press conference, reports the LA Times. Rep. Thomas Tancredo is trying to stop the use of consular identification cards by Mexican citizens living in the US. These cards are issued by the Mexican government, and are accepted by many banks local governments as proper documentation for undocumented immigrants.

At the press conference, Tancredo and others appeared in front of a poster showing a card issued by the 'Office for the Issuance of Illegal Alien ID.' The card bore a photo of Mexican president Vicente Fox, and listed his job as 'El Presidente.' The card also said the citizenship of Fox's parents was 'Unknown.'

Not everyone found the poster appropriate:

"I call it anti-Hispanic. You can quote me on that," said Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (D-Texas). Hinojosa, who said that the ID cards are forgery-resistant and should be honored in this country, held his own improvised news conference following the one that Tancredo held.

The Mexican Embassy also jumped into the fray, issuing a statement decrying what an official termed "little respect" by Tancredo in his use of Fox's image.

As you might expect, Tancredo just doesn't understand why some people are so upset.

"There is nothing anti-Hispanic about having the picture of the Mexican president superimposed on a Mexican ID," Tancredo said in an interview after the news conference.

"It's got nothing to do with race; it's got nothing to do with ethnicity whatsoever," Tancredo added.

He asked what other kind of picture he should have used. "Somebody who looks like a Swede?" Tancredo asked.

The congressman said he would "absolutely" use the same poster again.

Magpie found what she believes to be the card that Tancredo used on this rather nasty anti-immigrant website.

[Free reg. req'd.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:43 AM | Get permalink

Why broadcast diversity matters.

In an interview in the Fairfield County [CT] Weekly, folk artists Maura and Pete Kennedy talk about the disappearance of independent radio since 'broadcast deregulation' took hold in the mid-90s.

Maura: We see it ourselves because we travel so much. Five years ago we used to set our radio dial to all the public stations across the country so as we'd go up the East Coast we'd push another button and you'd have WXPN in Philadelphia or WRNR in Baltimore, WUMB in Boston, we had all these stations. Now, when you travel down South and out West, you look for those NPR stations and they're gone. They're replaced by right wing talk shows or religious right Christian channels and it's weird . . . that's all there is on the dial. A lot of this public radio, eclectic programming, college programming is disappearing. It's a loss for people.

Pete: It will be sad when you can't go to Louisiana and here Cajun music, Boston and hear folk singers, New York and hear jazz. Indigenous regional music is going to disappear. The only way to get the whole history of American music is to listen to non-commercial radio, because they don't have to play the latest hits. That's the only way to hear Miles Davis, Hank Williams and whatever you want to learn about from American music. Kids need to grow up hearing all that stuff and there has to be a source for it.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:56 AM | Get permalink

Next stop: Iran?

The Knight Ridder newspapers are reporting serious discussions in Washington about whether the US should destabilize Iran. The immediate issues are Iran's alleged sheltering of al-Qaeda members (which Iran denies) and its nuclear program, which the US claims is aimed at producing nuclear weapons (which Iran also denies).

Officials in Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's office are using both issues to press their view that the United States should adopt both overt and covert measures to undermine the Islamic regime in Tehran, said the officials, who are involved in the debate. Other officials argue that such a campaign would backfire by discrediting the moderate Iranians who are demanding political reforms.

Although one senior official engaged in the debate said "the military option is never off the table," others said no one was suggesting an invasion of Iran, although some officials think the United States should launch a limited air strike on Iran's nuclear weapons facilities if Iran appears on the verge of producing a nuclear weapon. By some estimates, Iran could have a nuclear weapon within two years.

Some Pentagon officials suggested using the remnants of an Iranian opposition group once backed by Saddam Hussein, the Mujahedeen Khalq (MEK), to instigate armed opposition to the Iranian government. U.S. military forces in Iraq have disarmed the roughly 6,000-strong MEK, which is on the State Department's list of foreign terrorist groups. But the group's weapons are in storage and it hasn't disbanded.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:53 AM | Get permalink

More victims of 9/11.

The last couple of years have been difficult for small media operations. Often marginal in the best of times, they've had to try to survive in a stagnant economy that has taken down much bigger media fry. According to Pacific News Service, the economic struggles faced by newspapers and other media that serve Arab Americans have been especially difficult.

"Sept. 11 did not just destroy the Twin Towers. It took us down as well," says Nouhad Elhajj, whose Detroit, Mich.-based bi-weekly Arab American Journal eventually folded in 2002.

With the demise of the journal, the Arab American community lost an important gateway into America. Elhajj feels that the post-9/11 interest in all things Muslim spawned more seminars and interfaith meetings but little advertising. His ad revenues fell 35 percent in the four weeks following Sept. 11, 2001. The trend never reversed.

It is, of course, hard to distinguish between those who pulled their ads because of a general economic malaise and those who refused to advertise in Arab media specifically. "But when people who have advertised for several years stop returning calls or meeting face to face, you get the message," says Elhajj.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:13 AM | Get permalink

Thursday, May 22, 2003

The US may not need the Saudis any more.

In Foreign Policy in Focus, Stephen Zunes wonders how much the close relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia has helped or hurt US interests in the region. He suggests that recent moves by Saudi leaders to distance their country from US foreign policy have ended Saudi Arabia's usefulness to the world's only superpower. It is not out of the question, says Zunes, that the Saudis could find themselves on the wrong end of another US military adventure.

Both Democratic and Republican administrations have revealed their blatant hypocrisy by wailing about the plight of Afghan women while being dismissive of the treatment of Saudi women; by condemning the rigid Islamic laws in Iran as human-rights violations while defending the even more repressive variants in Saudi Arabia as somehow an inherent part of their culture; by demanding that Palestinian statehood be dependent on establishing a leadership committed to democracy and accountability, while backing the corrupt and autocratic Saudi leadership.

Human-rights activists for years have been raising doubts about the close strategic relationship both Democratic and Republican parties have had with the Saudi regime, particularly the massive arms transfers and military training, including its repressive internal security apparatus. Such critics have railed against the regime's misogyny, theocratic fascism, and links to terrorism, but to no avail. Despite the close ties between Washington and Riyadh, there have never been any congressional hearings - under either Republican or Democratic leaderships - regarding human-rights abuses by the Saudi government.

F Gregory Gause III, a contemporary specialist on Saudi Arabia at the University of Vermont, notes, "The truth is the more democratic the Saudis become, the less cooperative they will be with us. So why should we want that?" Such a policy raises both serious moral questions as well as serious doubts about whether the US really cares about freedom for Iraq while it helps make possible repression by other Arab governments.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:52 PM | Get permalink

'Localism, competition and diversity of views.'

William Safire of the NY Times delivers a broadside against the proposed FCC broadcast ownership rules.

We've already seen what happened when the F.C.C. allowed the monopolization of local radio: today three companies own half the stations in America, delivering a homogenized product that neglects local news coverage and dictates music sales.

And the F.C.C. has abdicated enforcement of the "public interest" requirement in issuing licenses. Time was, broadcasters had to regularly reapply and show public-interest programming to earn continuance; now they mail the F.C.C. a postcard every eight years that nobody reads.

Ah, but aren't viewers and readers now blessed with a whole new world of hot competition through cable and the Internet? That's the shucks-we're-no-monopolists line that Rupert Murdoch will take today in testimony before the pussycats of John McCain's Senate Commerce Committee.

The answer is no. Many artists, consumers, musicians and journalists know that such protestations of cable and Internet competition by the huge dominators of content and communication are malarkey. The overwhelming amount of news and entertainment comes via broadcast and print. Putting those outlets in fewer and bigger hands profits the few at the cost of the many.

Does that sound un-conservative? Not to me. The concentration of power — political, corporate, media, cultural — should be anathema to conservatives. The diffusion of power through local control, thereby encouraging individual participation, is the essence of federalism and the greatest expression of democracy.

[Free reg. req'd.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:16 PM | Get permalink

Is it just me?

Or have weblogs hosted on Blogspot been mighty hard to access today?

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:46 PM | Get permalink

IndyMedia.

Has Google dropped references to the open-access newswire from the results of Google News searches? See if you can find one dated after May 16th.

Via little red cookbook.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:40 PM | Get permalink

Giving away the (US) public airwaves.

Opposition to the proposed new FCC rules on media ownership is growing to the point that members of Congress are noticing it. Ruminate This tells you how you can add your voice to the chorus. And skippy points to this page, where all you can enter your ZIP code to find out where & when your members of Congress are having public meetings about the issue.

And if you go here, MoveOn.org has a big mess of information on what the broadcast deregulation of the mid-1990s did to US broadcasting, and what we can expect to see if the new rules go into effect.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:09 PM | Get permalink

What's wrong with this picture?

At the same time the Republican Congress is rolling back taxes, they're raising the national debt ceiling by almost US $1 trillion.

Republicans want as little as possible to do with the borrowing spree because it angers many conservatives who form the base of their party.

Accentuating that, the GOP-run House reinstated a rule this year -- initiated years ago by Democrats — that makes House approval of an increased debt limit automatic when Congress completes the final version of its annual budget. Thus, the House never had a direct vote this year on boosting borrowing, but has signed off on doing so.

In another sign of the political heat involved, the proposed $984 billion boost likely would provide enough money to carry the government until late next year. That would let Congress avoid the issue again until after the November 2004 elections, when Bush will seek re-election and the GOP will defend its House and Senate majorities.

Perhaps this crowgirl is naive, but isn't raising the debt ceiling while cutting taxes sorta like maxing out all of your credit cards when you're about to file for bankruptcy?

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:45 PM | Get permalink

Who cares about the truth when you're protecting the unborn?

Magpie was going to post this one earlier, but it made her so angry she couldn't type. The short of it: A new Texas law requires (among other things) that women seeking an abortion must be told that abortions are linked to cancer. Which, of course, isn't true. Unless you figure that the National Institutes for Health and the American Cancer Society are liars.

After years of failed attempts to outlaw abortion outright, social conservatives across the nation are now finding success in limiting abortions by requiring so-called counseling of patients. Among the most aggressive tactics is the attempt to link abortion with breast cancer, a move that many conservative organizations have undertaken, but rarely with the success they have found in Texas.

"They don't care what science says," said Claudia D. Stravato, chief executive of Planned Parenthood of Amarillo and the Texas Panhandle. "It's like talking to the Flat Earth Society."

The bill's author, state Rep. Frank Corte Jr., a San Antonio-area Republican, titled the bill the Women's Right to Know Act.

"This is an issue that many folks see as something we need to do," Corte said. "We think these are standards that should be set."

[Free reg. req'd.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:34 PM | Get permalink

Fiddler Magazine.

Magpie loves it.

We were trawling the back issues, and ran into a lovely 1998 interview with Scottish trad musicians Jennifer and Hazel Wrigley.

Do you have any tips for beginning fiddlers?

Jennifer: Just stick at it, I suppose. It's very disheartening to start with. It sounds so awful to start with! But it does get better. Work at tapping your feet when you're playing that helps you to keep your rhythm, because a lot of people suffer from speeding up and slowing down, especially if you play on your own. Tap your feet, and give every note its full value, don't cut it too short.

Hazel: It's really a good idea to practice with somebody. Or if you don't have anyone to play with, play along to a tape or a CD or a metronome. Timing is so important. And the other thing is, if you're an adult and you're learning any instrument, you should always try to totally open your mind. Imagine that you're a child. Children find it much easier to learn, because if you show them something, you say, "Do this," and they'll do it, and they don't say, "Why am I doing this?" or "That sounds horrible, I can't bear to listen to that," which an adult would doDon't try to get everything perfect every time.

Jennifer: And don't hope to be a Johnny Cunningham in five minutes, because it will just destroy your ambitions really quickly!"

This crowgirl (who took up the fiddle a year or so ago) was never that impatient. She knew that it would take at least ten minutes.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:06 PM | Get permalink

Can you say 'quagmire'?

Molly Ivins can.

Meanwhile, Iraq looks more and more as though it will be costing us the high-end estimate of $20 billion a year, for which they have yet to appear noticeably grateful. The Shiites hate us, the Kurds are killing the Arabs, we're hiring old Ba'athite thugs to run things and generally becoming about as popular over there as a whore trying to get into the SMU School of Theology. As John Henry's cousin Eddie used to say of the Vietnamese, "If they don't like what we're doin' for 'em, why don't they just go back where they come from?" [...]

Since I am in the happy position of having predicted a short, easy war and the peace from hell, I think I'm looking like a genius prognosticator about now. I can't figure out why the Republicans are happy about this. Sure, it was a great photo-op for the president on the aircraft carrier, but if you think the American people won't notice $20 billion a year because of some nice pictures, you have sadly underestimated the common sense of this nation. I realize that what we see depends on where we stand, but there is a substantial body of emerging fact here, none of it encouraging for optimists.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:48 PM | Get permalink

Turning commemoration into a cry of revenge.

In Haaretz, Meron Benvenisti examines the way in which remembrance of the dead is being turned into a political statement about the struggle of Jews against Arabs. The example at hand: the names on a memorial for 'victims of hostile acts and terrorist acts' since the year 1860 in what is now Israel.

The list of names engraved on the walls of the memorial raises many questions. Who is responsible for engraving of the name of Avraham Shlomo Zalman Tzoref, the father of the Salomon family, who was murdered in 1851 by Arabs who took revenge on him for dispossessing them when he received a permit from the Turks to rebuild the Hurva synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City? Has he also been enlisted for the "Zionist settlement enterprise"? Fifty years before the First Zionist Congress? And who is responsible for engraving the names of some of the Jewish casualties of the explosion at the King David Hotel in 1946? Is the explosion - caused by the Etzel [a pre-state, right-wing Jewish underground] - defined as an "act of terror" or a "hostile act"? And why wasn't Haim Arlosoroff's name engraved? Do those who did the research for the memorial know what the legislative committee that investigated the murder of Arlosoroff did not [Haim Arlosoroff was a Zionist leader assassinated in 1933; his murder was never solved]? Rehavam Ze'evi's name does appear, although he would certainly be insulted if he knew that it appears among people who were killed by chance, during a terrorist attack in a city street; the bullet that hit him had a clear address.

But it would seem that learned criticism regarding the inclusion or deletion of names of the dead "since 1860" isn't relevant, and that a profound discussion of the question of how to define "hostile acts" under the conditions that prevailed in the Land of Israel in the 19th century is unimportant in the eyes of those who built the memorial; their entire purpose was to blur the distinction between a fighter and a victim, the difference between the era preceding the establishment of the State of Israel and the sovereign independence of the Jewish people.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:34 PM | Get permalink

Those lucky Aussies.

They're getting a homeland security department of their very own, reports the Sydney Morning Herald. They'll undoubtedly start feeling safer almost immediately.

The office will be headed by a senior bureaucrat and will give advice directly to Mr Howard and cabinet's national security committee.

It will also liaise with the states and territories to better co-ordinate a national response to terrorism.

This crowgirl is sad to note that part of why Prime Minister John Howard acted now is because of Labour party demands for an Aussie equivalent of the US Dept. of Homeland Security. She guesses that the US isn't the only country where you can't tell the difference between the major parties.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:24 PM | Get permalink

This time.

Blogger thinks they have the problem nailed. (Magpie was down again for another 24 hours.)

Keep your fingers crossed.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:13 PM | Get permalink

Ooooooh, shiny!

The Earth, the Moon, and Jupiter, taken from the orbit of Mars.

An AP story about the photo is here. A description of how NASA/JPL made the photo is here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:53 PM | Get permalink

Wednesday, May 21, 2003

Doesn't this make you feel a lot better?

The Department of Homeland Security is changing the name of its deservedly maligned Total Information Awareness system to the (cue the drum roll) Terrorist Information Awareness system.

The officials said the name was changed because the earlier version created a false impression that system was being created "for developing dossiers on U.S. citizens."

There's no change, of course, to the mission of the TIA system, which is to use information from commercial and law enforcement databases to develop dossiers on US citizens.

This crowgirl wants to know who came up with the demented 'TIA vision' graphic on the TIA website.

Via This Modern World.

[Free reg. req'd.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:44 PM | Get permalink

Blurring more lines.

The California Anti-Terrorism Information Center (CATIC) seems to have a hard time telling the difference between protest and terrorism. The Oakland Tribune reports that before the recent anti-war demonstrations at the Oakland docks, CATIC was sending out memos to law enforcement warning about the danger of violent protests — without, apparently, offering any evidence for the claim.

CATIC spokesman Mike Van Winkle said such evidence wasn't needed to issue warnings on war protesters.

"You can make an easy kind of a link that, if you have a protest group protesting a war where the cause that's being fought against is international terrorism, you might have terrorism at that (protest)," said Van Winkle, of the state Justice Department. "You can almost argue that a protest against that is a terrorist act."

In fact, CATIC -- touted as a national model for intelligence sharing and a centerpiece of Gov. Gray Davis and Attorney General Bill Lockyer's 2002 re-election bids -- has quietly gathered and analyzed information on activists of various stripes almost since its creation.

This crowgirl has real trouble being surprised by anything 'anti-terror' officials say any more.

Via Null Device.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:16 PM | Get permalink

Now that Ari's leaving the White House . . .

Magpie wonders who will replace him?

Via Electrolite.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:02 PM | Get permalink

Texas state cops deep-six 'Killer Ds' documents.

The Texas Department of Public Security has destroyed all of the documents that show what took place during the agency's hunt for the boycotting Democratic members of the state legislature. That search, you'll recall, included a request for help to the Department of Homeland Security, under the guise that a plane carrying legislators was missing.

DPS officials say that a federal rule required them to destroy the documents because no crime was committed. However, the US Justice Department told the Dallas Morning News that the rule only covers the information that can go into law enforcement databased — it has nothing to do with documents.

Needless to say, Texas Democrats are angry and suspicious:

"You don't just go out and destroy evidence," said Rep. Solomon Ortiz of Corpus Christi, a former Nueces County sheriff.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Austin said the destruction of records smacked not only of cover-up, but also of willful political abuse of a federal department with vast police powers. "There is no requirement whatsoever to justify the immediate destruction of this information," he said.

Rep. Martin Frost of Arlington noted that they were destroyed just hours after the first news accounts revealed that DPS had contacted the Homeland Security Department for help in finding the lawmakers.

Democrats called it hypocritical for the DPS to justify the destruction of evidence on the basis that no crime had been committed. If there was no crime, they said, then the resources activated to find the missing lawmakers weren't lawfully justified.

"It was never proper. It was never within the law to use [the federal system] to begin with," said Rep. Max Sandlin of Marshall.

Update: The NY Times has more details about the decision to destroy the records.

Today's uproar began after The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that a commander at the Department of Public Safety issued an e-mail notice instructing that all "notes, correspondence, photos, etc." concerning the search "be destroyed immediately." [...]

The Democrats in Washington demanded their investigation [as to why the federal Department of Homeland Security was called in on the case] on May 14. That was the same morning a commander at the Department of Public Safety sent the e-mail notice.

A copy of the notice shows that it was forwarded to the lieutenant identified by the office of the Texas House speaker as the public safety officer who had called the Homeland Security Department about the plane. The aircraft belonged to Representative James E. Laney, a Democrat who had been the House speaker until Republicans gained control after last year's elections.

[Free reg. req'd for NY Times.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:27 PM | Get permalink

Iraq: A wholly owned subsidiary of Bechtel?

Asia Times looks at how US corporations are dividing up the multi-billion-dollar Iraq reconstruction pie. It isn't pretty.

Many of these companies were hired even before the invasion began on March 20. For example, BP engineers traveled with the troops as the war was launched, to help them seize the oil wells.

Halliburton had 1,800 employees in the Kuwaiti desert setting up tent cities, providing food and washing clothes for the soldiers before the invasion, while Dyncorp employees patrolled the perimeters of army bases to keep out angry civilians.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:09 PM | Get permalink

Back on the air again.

Or so it appears.

Magpie was caught up in a major problem with the new version of Blogger, so were unable to publish new posts for six days. Despite the interruption, we found lots of tasty items for your perusal. And they're all here online now, so you might want to check out the last 10 posts or so.

Thanks to Eric at Blogger for keeping me posted on things, once I'd managed to get his attention.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:41 PM | Get permalink

'Lebanon is not an email address.'

Paul Belden of Asia Times talks with a member of Lebanon's parliament about his country, Islam, and American intentions in the Mideast.

[Fares] Soueid likes America. "I don't always agree with the US, but I can't be blind to the good things that America has done. You can make free elections, you can make a scandal to [Bill] Clinton, you can make a scandal to [Richard] Nixon, you can abolish slavery." He just wishes that America would be a little careful "about what you give and take in this region".

Also, when it comes to playing well with others, particularly others who follow the religion of Islam, he wishes that America would look around and realize that others have walked this road before, and that there may be lessons to learn from their experiences. Take Israel: "Think about the history of Israel," he says. "It is a military country that, in its entire history, has been at a permanent war for independence. Since 1948, it has been in a permanent war. Is this how a country should be? Is this what America wants for her sons and daughters? This is a very bad model for living with Islam."

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:26 PM | Get permalink

Tuesday, May 20, 2003

Reporting science badly.

New Scientist looks at a study of how press reports in the UK inaccurately portrayed the state of scientific opinion on an important public health issue.

The specific issue was is that of the safety of the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) combination vaccine. A paper published in 1998 in the UK medical journal The Lancet proposed a link between the vaccine and increased incidence of autism and bowel disease in children. Subsequent research in the UK and US could not verify this link, and the overwhelming view of researchers is that there is no such link.

A study of UK media, however, showed that reporting at the time made it look at though the evidence for a link between MMR and childhood problems had the same weight as the evidence that there was no such connection:

[W]hile the bulk of evidence was in favour of MMR's safety, only half of TV reports and a third of those in the broadsheet press used this fact to balance the autism claims. "Attempts to balance claims about the risks of the MMR jab tended merely to indicate that there were two competing bodies of evidence," the report says.

This sort of mistake is a common feature of science and medical reporting, sadly. While there are some wonderful exceptions (medical reporter Laurie Garrett comes to mind), journalists generally don't know any more about science or medicine than the general public. So when a scientific or medical issue become a matter of public debate, reporters generally tend to treat the various scientific positions as they would differing positions on types of issues they are more familiar with, such as matters based in personal taste or competing claims in the 'soft' science of economics. The problem is that scientific evidence can't be evaluated in the same way as opinions about whether the new Eminem CD is any good, or the credibility of Dubya's claims that he's got the economy well in hand. Even worse, sometimes stories about medicine or the sciences are reported without any notice that there is any difference of opinion among scientists or doctors.

With scientific evidence, the measuring stick is the real world. Does the data accurately describe an event or process that can be observed? Is it the new data consistent with other observations of the same thing, or does it conflict with them? If it conflicts, why might that be the case? Can it be demonstrated, through testing and experiment, that the new data cannot be correct? And, most importantly, can the observation forming the basis of the new scientific claim be repeated by other scientists? This last is especially critical when the new data casts doubt on an existing body of observations. If you say you are disproving 'accepted knowledge,' you had better have the data to back up your claim. Opinions don't count.

An example of how reporters ignore the way science is done is the coverage of global warming. Every time a researcher finds data indicating that global warming may not be taking place, the media tends to portray that new data as a stake in the heart for global warming. The general run of stories will contain no inkling that conflicting or discordant data is a common when scientific theories are being developed — often as the result of badly constructed experiments or misinterpreted results. (And yes, sometimes the result of fraud on the part of the researchers.) Instead, the new claim that global warming is bunk is given equal weight with the overwhelming amount of evidence that global temperatures are increasing as a result of human activity.

While discordant evidence sometimes does indicate that the 'accepted' scientific order needs to be changed — the acceptance of continental drift and seafloor spreading is a good example — these cases are very rare. Despite what you might think from reading the papers or watching television, almost no scientists believe that the evidence against global warming is at all persuasive. If science reporting were better, the general public would have no trouble realizing this, and public policy could not be easily manipulated by corporate and political interests that benefit from the lack of a concerted plan to deal with global warming.

Magpie should note that she doesn't have an opinion as to whether there's a link between MMR and autism and bowel disease. She does think that if the report cited in New Scientist is correct, the UK media did a lousy job of helping the public determine whether to believe that a link exists.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:33 PM | Get permalink

Another reason why the war didn't work.

The Toronto Star reports that many European experts on terrorism believe that, instead of being a stern US warning against terrorism, the war in Iraq made terrorists acts against the US and its allies more likely.

The Iraq war "clearly increased the terrorist impulse," said Jonathan Stevenson, senior fellow for counter-terrorism at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The U.S.-led invasion, at least in the short term, drew more people toward Osama bin Laden's vision of a global clash between Islam and the West, Stevenson said yesterday. [...]

"The political masters in the U.S. and Europe underestimated the extent to which bin Laden would use the war in Iraq as a propaganda weapon to rejuvenate the movement and attract more funds," said Paul Wilkinson, head of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St. Andrew's University in Scotland.

"As far as the war against Al Qaeda goes, it possibly has been counterproductive. We face turbulent times ahead," Wilkinson told Sky TV.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:49 AM | Get permalink

Canadians are increasingly not Americans.

A popular belief in the US is that Canadians and Americans are pretty much alike. Attitude research conducted over the last twenty years suggests that the differences between people in the two countries are getting more and more pronounced. Writing in the Globe & Mail, Michael Adams of the Environics Research Group looks at attitudes towards religion, nationalism, and authority in the two countries.

To monitor orientation to nationalism, we asked respondents in each country if they enjoyed showing foreigners how much smarter and stronger "we" are than "they." Reflecting our increasingly modest place on this planet, only 17 per cent of Canadians in 1992 said they enjoyed demonstrating Canadian superiority, a proportion that dropped to 14 per cent in 2000. Consistent with the view from CNN and Fox News, the numbers in the U.S. are much higher: 27 per cent in 1992, and 31 per cent in 2000, more than double the proportion in Canada.

American deference to patriarchal and hierarchical authority in the hyperpatriotic post-9/11 environment has led to much rallying about the flag. Even half of Democrats polled feel it is unpatriotic to question their president, and the American Civil Liberties Union warns of a climate of severely muffled dissent and debate in that country. Just ask the Dixie Chicks.

Canada has a leader of the opposition whose job it is to question the prime minister and his government. Not questioning the prime minister is seen as a failure if not of democratic verve, then of intelligence. Who is the leader of the opposition in the United States — Michael Moore? Our research suggests that it is the supposedly bold, individualistic Americans who are the nodding conformists, and the supposedly shy, deferential and law-abiding Canadians who are most likely to assert their personal autonomy and political agency.

Adams is also the author of Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada and the Myth of Converging Values, just published in Canada by Penguin.

This crowgirl notes with dismay that the book apparently has no US publisher.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:56 AM | Get permalink

Homeland insecurity.

Last week, someone in Texas used the resources of the Department of Homeland Security to find out where a plane carrying some of the boycotting Democrats had gone to. In the LA Times, columnist Patt Morrison looks at just how wrong this abuse of federal power was.

This isn't just about one phone call to a decommissioned air base in the California desert. It's about the feeling that here's one more seamy page in the bad-government journal:

J. Edgar Hoover wiretapped Martin Luther King's sex life. President Lyndon Johnson wiretapped his own vice president, Hubert Humphrey, when Humphrey ran for president in 1968. IRS employees thumbed through celebrities' tax files like copies of People magazine at the dentist's office. And of course the many-tentacled Watergate scandal, the "third-rate burglary," made a first-rate lesson in federal power loosed on political enemies.

And now this specter of another kind of abuse of power: that in the face of a real enemy, the nation's resources could be diverted to hunt for phony enemies, among Americans themselves.

[Free reg. req'd.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:37 AM | Get permalink

What is it with the Republicans, anyway?

Have they decided that it's finally safe to let out those racist and homophobic remarks without impunity? The AP reports the latest one, out of the mouth of US Representative Howard Coble of North Carolina. He defended the internment of citizens of Japanese descent during the Second World War:

"We were at war,'' Coble said. "For many of these Japanese-Americans, it wasn't safe for them to be on the street.'' [...]

Coble's comments amounted to a rewriting of history, said Democratic Assemblyman George Nakano, who was interned at age 6 and released when he was 10.

"I still remember guards' rifles pointing inward to the camp -- not to protect us, but to keep us in,'' he said.

Nakano and the majority of the California State Assembly have demanded that Coble resign his position as chair of the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security.

Try as she might, this crowgirl just can't work up any surprise over the fact that the head of that particular subcommittee would think that tossing citizens into prison camps does them a favor.

[Free reg. req'd.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:37 AM | Get permalink

Let's make everyone jumpy.

The FBI says that the US could see new attacks from al-Queda any time now. How do we know? Just ask Ari:

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, asked about this Tuesday, said "chatter'' picked up by U.S. agencies suggested new attacks were possible.

This crowgirl is trying to count all the times that Dubya's lot has warned us about'chatter,' and then nothing has happened. Her guess is that Homeland Security will raise the terror alert level to orange in the next day or so, too.

Update: They raised it.

[Free reg. req'd.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:28 AM | Get permalink

Monday, May 19, 2003

Opium fields.

They're popping up all over in Afghanistan, reports Mother Jones magazine.

American led security and reconstruction efforts are stumbling, say observers, leaving a vacuum that has increasingly been filled with the most profitable and deadly of crops. Last year opium production in Afghanistan increased 18 fold to 3,400 tons, leaving the fragile country once again responsible for more than 75 percent of the world's heroin. The harvest this summer is expected to break new records, owing to high prices and new poppy fields in the country's most remote reaches.

This resurgence is among the greatest threats to the country's stability. Ashraf Ghani, the nation's finance minister, recently warned that Afghanistan could soon revert to a "narco-mafia" state. As it stands, the lawless and tribal foes of Hamid Karzai's government outside Kabul have become the country's primary moneymen. Warlords and militias oversaw a crop harvest worth more than $1.2 billion in 2002, according to the United Nations, more than twice as much as the Afghan government's annual operating budget.

Via TalkLeft.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:10 PM | Get permalink

Another huge surprise!

The US Justice Department is using the Patriot Act against people who aren't terrroists. Out of 56 people charged with terrorism during this past January and February, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports that 41 of them were accused of crimes that have nothing to do with terrorism. And that prosecutors acknowedge this.

28 Latinos charged with working illegally at the airport in Austin, Texas, most of them using phony Social Security numbers.

Eight Puerto Ricans charged with trespassing on Navy property on the island of Vieques, long a site of civil protests of ordnance testing.

A Middle Eastern man indicted in Detroit for allegedly passing bad checks who has the same name as a Hezbollah leader.

A Middle Eastern college student charged in Trenton with paying a stand-in to take his college English-proficiency tests. He received a one-month jail sentence after pleading guilty.

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:09 PM | Get permalink

Uh, the dog ate them?

The San Francisco Chronicle reports on the continuing waste and mismanagement by the US military:

Though Defense has long been notorious for waste, recent government reports suggest the Pentagon's money management woes have reached astronomical proportions. A study by the Defense Department's inspector general found that the Pentagon couldn't properly account for more than a trillion dollars in monies spent. A GAO report found Defense inventory systems so lax that the U.S. Army lost track of 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, and 36 Javelin missile command launch-units. [...]

GAO reports detail not only the woeful state of Defense fiscal controls, but the cost of failed attempts to fix them.

For instance, in June 2002 the GAO reviewed the history of a proposed Corporate Information Management system, or CIM. The initiative began in 1989 as an attempt to unify more than 2,000 overlapping systems then being used for billing, inventory, personnel and similar functions. But after "spending about $20 billion, the CIM initiative was eventually abandoned," the GAO said.

Via Cursor.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:09 PM | Get permalink

We won't have Ari to kick around any more.

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer is quitting his job to return to the private sector.

His meatless pronouncements on Bush policy are generally in keeping with a White House that keeps a tight lid on information.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:49 AM | Get permalink

Another stop on the Trail of Broken Treaties.

Before the Columbia River was dammed, and before Europeans arrived in the Pacific Northwest in any great numbers, Celilo Falls was for thousands of years a major fishing, trading, and ceremonial center for the tribes in the region. The trading network centered on the falls extended to California, the Great Plains, and well into Canada.

When a treaty between the US and Britain made the lower reaches of the Columbia American territory, one of the first tasks of the military governor was to negotiate treaties with local tribes, acquiring the bulk of their land for white settlement. During the negotiations for the series of treaties of 1855, one of the points on which native leaders would not yield was the retention of the traditional tribal fisheries. As a result, the treaties guarantee the right of tribal members to fish in all of their 'usual and accustomed' places. What the tribes couldn't anticipate in 1855 was that someday the US would destroy many of those places.

In 1957, the US Army Corps of Engineers closed the gates on the new Dalles Dam, and within hours the fishing place at Celilo Falls was under water. It remains there today.

Some members of the fishing tribes chose to remain as close as possible to the drowned falls. The Corps provided those people with 'temporary' housing of 'dubious quality.' The tribes, aided by elected state and federal officials, have been trying to get that housing replaced for almost 50 years. This AP story describes the current effort to do so.

"Every three or four years they tell us we're going to get new houses, and nothing happens,'' Jim said.

"They told us the houses would be temporary. It's been 50 years now and they're still temporary,'' Heemsah said.

Treaty fishing access site legislation passed in 1988 lists sites eligible for refurbishing. But Celilo Village was left off the list, for reasons that are unclear. Weber said all that is needed is an amendment to the law adding, "and Celilo Village.''

He said Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith have asked the Senate Indian Affairs Committee to correct the omission, but the committee hasn't acted. The estimated $10 million for refurbishing already exists -- money left over from similar projects that came in under budget. [...]

While some hope to have the village spruced up in time for the height of the Lewis and Clark bicentennial, William Pitt, government affairs and planning director for the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs, said that is not a priority.

"We don't give a hoot about Lewis and Clark. They were just a couple of lost white guys,'' he said. "For us this is a treaty celebration. We're still here. It's our way of life as a tribal people and we would like to tell our own story.

"We're part of the dream, too. People forget that.''

This crowgirl took a peek at the 'History & Culture' page at the Corps of Engineers' web site for the Dalles Dam. She noticed that, while 'History' portion of the page describes the activities of white settlers around Celilo Falls over the last 150 years in some detail, it doesn't mention native people at all. The thousands of years of continuing tribal presence at the falls is described last, briefly, in the 'Cultural Resources' section.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:07 AM | Get permalink

Sunday, May 18, 2003

Grrrrrrr.

Stealing from libraries isn't the lowest thing there is, but it's not all that far removed from it. And stealing rare stuff from libraries is even lower.

The UK Guardian looks at the increasingly common theft of rare maps and prints from European libraries.

Scotland Yard says it is estimated that 4,500 maps, which can be sold for anything up to £10,000, are missing from libraries across Europe.

The thieves are thought to steal to order for collectors across the world - the maps are especially sought after in the US and far east - or dealers who do not ask too many questions. The atlases they are taken from are ruined for ever.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:13 PM | Get permalink

Living in a glass house.

Magpie's other fave columnist, Katha Pollitt of The Nation gets in a few licks against the sanctimonious William Bennett:

Bennett's point was never just that people ought to obey the law: Sure, drink yourself into a daily stupor, as long as you're not driving. No, The Book of Virtues evoked the old Aristotelian/ Stoic/Christian/Early American civic values: piety, sobriety, temperance, honesty, prudence, self-control, setting an example. It's hard to imagine John Bunyan or George Washington giving Bennett a high five on his way to private rooms at various Las Vegas casinos, where he was such a loyal and lavish customer he was comped for limos, rooms and Lord knows what else.

Bennett's defense that his family didn't suffer may be true, or it may be denial, but it misses the point. As Michael Kinsley observes in the Washington Post, Bennett has always argued that being good is a form of noblesse oblige; even minor vices indulged in by the privilege-cushioned elite corrupt those lower down the social scale, who have less to fall back on. Let Muffy toke up on some hydro at Harvard, and before you know it Charlene is on crack in the projects. Let same-sex love flourish, and by some mysterious process, it will wreak havoc on heterosexual marriage. [...]

Bennett's defenders make much of the fact that he never condemned gambling and so was not actually a hypocrite. Leaving your own pet vice off a long, long list of sins, and then, when you are found out, exempting that vice as practiced by you but not as practiced by others--that's not exculpation from charges of hypocrisy, that's what hypocrisy is.

Via little red cookbook.

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:42 PM | Get permalink

Bleeding jobs faster than a head wound.

Over at Wampum, MB examines the supposed truism that, if you care about whether the economy runs well, you should vote the Republicans into office. After taking a look at Labor Department statistics for the last five presidents, MB shows pretty conclusively that — at least in terms of jobs — Dubya has taken care of the economy real good.

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:13 PM | Get permalink