Magpie

Saturday, August 16, 2003

Bad news for Ahhnold's campaign.

Natasha at Pacific Views has been quite the busy blogger since she and Magpie had tea in Seattle this afternoon. She has a nice roundup of development's in the California gubernatorial recall, including a Washington Post report on the new Field Poll showing Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante leading Arnold Schwarzenegger by three percentage points, providing more evidence that the election is Arnold's to lose.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:20 AM | Get permalink

Friday, August 15, 2003

Magpie predicts!

When Magpie left Portland, we just knew that all hell would break loose once we were away from our blog for more than a few hours. And sure enough, the power grid in eastern Canada and the northeastern US crashes.

Magpie was pleasantly surprised to see that nobody has claimed that Osama bin Laden was seen running from a smoldering power station just before the outage. However, Dubya's remarks about the 'antiquated' US power grid makes us almost certain that the blackout will become a political tool for the furtherance for what the administration likes to call an energy policy.

We predict that some or all of the follwing will be suggested as solutions in the next two or three months:

— Making it easier to license and construct nuclear power plants.
— Further reducing the emission controls on coal-fired plants.
— Loosening what's left of the environmental regulation of coal strip mines and mountain-top removal.
— Making it more difficult for citizens to go to court to block energy development plans.
— Giving more tax breaks to electric untilities and energy companies.
— Not implementing rules that would prevent Enron-type energy trading scams.

Later: For an interesting note on Dubya and energy grid modernization, see this post at TalkLeft. We can't say that we're at all surprised.

Even later: And this post at Daily Kos.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:42 PM | Get permalink

Travel note.

When visiting Seattle during the summer, never make the mistake of assuming that the ferries can get you to the west side of Puget Sound in less then three hours. Especially the year after the state ferry system has had massive budget cutbacks.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:28 PM | Get permalink

Thursday, August 14, 2003

Off to Seattle!

Magpie is taking a few days off for her birthday, so blogging will be light to nonexistent between now and Monday. (But do check in once in awhile — we find ourselves in front of a computer in the oddest places while travelling.)

We'll be heading off shortly to the Emerald City to play lots of tunes, take a workshop with Noel Hill at Dusty Strings, get a chocolate fudge milkshake at Zesto's (allowing that it's still there), take our ritual visit to Archie McPhee, and have tea with the mysterious Natasha (from Pacific Views).

While we're on our trip, Magpie suggest that you might want to take your own trip, too. Recall Island is beckoning.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:08 AM | Get permalink

Supporting the troops.

The San Francisco Chrionicle reports that the Pentagon is about to cut back the pay of US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unless reversed by Congress, 157,000 troops will be losing $75 a month in 'imminent danger pay' and another $150 a month in 'family separation allowances.' Those pay increases were approved last April just after the beginning of the Iraq war.

The Defense Department supports the cuts, saying its budget can't sustain the higher payments amid a host of other priorities. But the proposed cuts have stirred anger among military families and veterans' groups and even prompted an editorial attack in the Army Times, a weekly newspaper for military personnel and their families that is seldom so outspoken.

Congress made the April pay increases retroactive to Oct. 1, 2002, but they are set to expire when the federal fiscal year ends Sept. 30 unless Congress votes to keep them as part of its annual defense appropriations legislation. [...]

Susan Schuman of Shelburne Falls, Mass., said her son, Army National Guard Sgt. Justin Schuman, had told her "it's really scary" serving in Samarra, a town about 20 miles from Saddam Hussein's ancestral hometown of Tikrit.

[Schuman] has become active in a group of military families that want service personnel pulled out of Iraq, said the pay cut possibility didn't surprise her.

"It's all part of the lie of the Bush administration, that they say they support our troops," she said.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:51 AM | Get permalink

About Dubya's tax cut on dividends.

It's not exactly creating a ton of jobs or fixing the economy, says Molly Ivins.

Still on the general theme of the country going to hell in a handbasket, what happy effect do you suppose President Bush's tax cut on dividends is already having? If you guessed the rich are getting richer, right you are, to an eye-popping extent. Time magazine reports, "Since May, more than 200 firms have raised their payouts to shareholders and -- in a time of scrutiny over pay packages -- the increases are minting riches for bosses who own a lot of company stock."

Sandy Weill of Citigroup will get $27 million a year in after-tax income, up from $11 million. Bill Gates will get an after-tax windfall of $82 million a year, just what he needs. Of course, that's $82 million less for a treasury that's now running a $455 billion deficit.

Make sure to read her comments on the Fox News/Al Franken lawsuit, too.

Via Working for Change.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:40 AM | Get permalink

The Fox News lawsuit against Al Franken and Penguin Books.

FindLaw has posted the complete text. Magpie finds the 'Background' section, in which Fox describes its style of news reporting, to be particularly amusing.

14. FNC was launched in October 1996. From the time of its launch until the present, FNC has been dedicated to presenting news in what it believes to be an unbiased fashion, eschewing ideological or political affiliation and allowing the view to reach his or her own conclusions about the news....

Via TalkLeft.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:17 AM | Get permalink

Happy birthday.

To us.

(CrowGirl, that is. Magpie still has a bit over 7 months to go.)

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:07 AM | Get permalink

Wednesday, August 13, 2003

US says 'No' to UN role in Iraq.

Despite recent reports that the US might invite the UN to have a role in post-war Iraq, the NY Times says that Washington is abandoning any thought of UN participation in running the country. Without UN sanction for the occupation, however, the US has had trouble getting countries with significant militaries (other than the UK) to contribute troops for the occupation. (For example, India, France, and Germany have refused to send troops except under UN auspices.) Faced with this reluctance, and its own unwillingness to cede any authority to the UN, the US is now having to try to cobble together additional occupation troops with expected contributions from Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Mongolia, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Portugal, and Thailand. Given the security situation in Iraq, it's unlikely that the US can remove any of its own troops until significant replacements come from somewhere.

The Bush administration has been reluctant to give the United Nations more than minimal authority in the reconstruction of Iraq. Many administration members say that France, Germany, Russia and other countries demanding such a role are actually doing so to try to get more contracts and economic benefits for themselves.

The desire for more U.N. involvement by many countries echoes the debate that preceded the war. Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others were openly disdainful of getting U.N. authorization for the war, even after Bush had sided with Secretary of State Colin Powell to pursue that route.

Rumsfeld, according to administration officials, vehemently opposes any dilution of military authority over Iraq by involving the United Nations, either through U.N. peacekeepers or indirectly in any U.N. authorization of forces from other countries.

American military officials say they fear that involving the U.N., even indirectly, will hamper the latitude the United States must have in overseeing Iraqi security and pursuing anti-American guerrilla forces or terrorist actions.

This crowgirl wonders if US soldiers in Iraq should kiss off the promise that their tours of duty will last 'only' 12 months.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:35 PM | Get permalink

More sleaze from Dubya's administration.

Magpie has a pair of items for you:

WorldNetDaily reports on how the acting head of the US Energy Department's intelligence office, Thomas Rider, overruled his own experts to support the contention that Iraq had restarted a nuclear program. The really sleazy part is that, shortly after that action Rider (a political appointee) received a $13,000 'peformance bonus' from Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham (another political appointee). This is in addition to another $7500 bonus Rider got closer to the date of his decision to overrule his experts.

His officers argued at a pre-briefing at Energy headquarters that there was no hard evidence to support the alarming Iraq nuclear charge, and asked to join State Department's dissenting opinion, Energy officials say.

Rider ordered them to "shut up and sit down," according to sources familiar with the meeting.

As a result, State was the intelligence community's lone dissenter in the key National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, something the Bush administration is quick to remind critics of its prewar intelligence.

Number Two on the sleaze parade is an AP story about how Dubya's administration may have solicited a lawsuit against itself in order to invalidate a report on global warming. The attorneys general of Connecticut and Maine are asking the US Attorney General John Ashcroft to investigate the matter. (Magpie will refrain from any remarks about foxes and chicken coops here.)

The lawsuit was filed last week by the Competitive Enterprise Institute against the White House Office on Science and Technology.

[Connecticut Attorney General Richard] Blumenthal said a June 2002 e-mail between a CEI executive and White House staffers "indicates a secret initiative by the administration to invite and orchestrate a lawsuit against itself to discredit an official United States government report on global warming dangers."

Such action, Blumenthal said, could constitute improper and possibly illegal conduct.

[Maine Attorney General G. Steven] Rowe said the idea the administration is inviting a lawsuit from a special interest group in order to undermine the federal government’s own work under an international treaty "is very troubling."

Via Suburban Guerrilla.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:48 PM | Get permalink

Finding the WMDs.

From the Gulf Daily News in Bahrain comes this cheery little item, which we quote in its entirety:

SYDNEY: US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said yesterday US troops would not leave Iraq until they found weapons of mass destruction there.

"We will (find them). I have absolute confidence about that," he told an Asia Society lunch in Sydney - after talks with Australia's Prime Minister John Howard on Tuesday.

While the US did not want to remain in Iraq any longer than necessary, "we are not going to leave until we find and destroy Iraq's capability to launch biological, chemical and nuclear weapons," Armitage said.

He said the fact that no weapons had so far emerged was a "chilling" reminder that they were "far too easy to move and far too easy to hide."

This crowgirl figures that the WMDs would have been found by now, but it hasn't been as easy to move them in from US stockpiles as quickly as Washington had expected.

Via Talking Points Memo.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:17 PM | Get permalink

We really must check our mail more often.

In Magpie's mailbox today was a missive from Ayn Clouter. (Gee, what famous reactionary writer does that name remind us of?) She wants us to know about the new book she's writing, Jaywalking, which promises to blow the lid off a nasty Democratic plot against the freedom and liberty of other Americans.

Think about it: why did Jimmy Carter, later to disgrace himself by accepting the Ignoble Prize, get out of his car and walk down the middle of the street at his inauguration? And since this was clearly against the law, why wasn't he arrested for jaywalking?

Irrational leftists, unable to do more than fume helplessly about my books, have turned to personal attacks on me (obviously jealousy over my svelte profile) and sideswipes against my titles. One said the logical progression of my series about the crimes of Democrats and liberals (so far: Libel, Sedition, and Lese Majesty) would lead me next to trivial things like jaywalking. On the assumption that anything one of these ranters tries to dismiss as unimportant may be very important indeed, I took another look at this generally ignored offense and found a key to much of Democratic scheming for decades.

The book I'm writing now will show how Carter's flaunting of the law went a long step beyond even Andrew Jackson's disgusting opening of the doors of the White House to the unwashed Democratic masses at his own inauguration in 1829. Carter actually violated the rights of the natives of Washington, D.C. in 1977 by blocking traffic. (He did this, with typical Democratic hypocrisy, despite his frequent profession of concern that they should have their own votes in Congress.) Why? This was a symbolic act, sending the message that the leftists are in control of the very streets, and that there is nothing we can do about it. Our right to travel and thereby to trade was forced to wait upon the whim of this faux-Christian hick.

More juicy details about Clouter's book can be found here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:04 PM | Get permalink

Visitor Information Department.

For the person who came by looking for the flag that features a magpie on a branch, we do believe that what you are looking for is the state flag of South Australia. The best picture we could find is here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:30 PM | Get permalink

California: It's not funny.

In the NY Observer, Joe Conason connects the upcoming recall election in California to a Repubican drive to grab power in as many states as possible, no matter what the means. Despite the humor inherent in some aspects of the recall, Conason says, nobody should be laughing.

Consider the abuse of the recall amendment, a Progressive-era good-government innovation that was designed to remove officeholders who were corrupt, not merely unpopular. Its provisions were added to the California constitution at a time when collecting the signatures of 12 percent of the voters was a far more daunting task -- and were created, ironically, by opponents of corporate power who would have been appalled by the very idea of Darrell Issa, the Congressman and car-alarm magnate who paid for all those petitions.

Forced to depart the contest abruptly, tearfully and rather mysteriously in Mr. Schwarzenegger’s wake, Mr. Issa got what he deserved when the opportunistic, Austrian-born bodybuilder leaped into the void created by his mischief. Blustering Arnold had mulled aspirations to the statehouse for years, but lacked the courage to risk a real election. Now the White House appears to be helping him muscle his way into power in a manner that has more legality than legitimacy.

Even if the Bush administration wasn’t behind the original recall movement, its operatives have encouraged every step and are scheming to reap the results. (Mr. Issa’s recall counselor was Ben Ginsberg, the prominent G.O.P. election lawyer who oversaw the Bush team in the Florida courts three years ago.)

The President and his advisers don’t care whether the will of last November’s electorate is overturned, or whether this fiasco sets an awful precedent, or whether Mr. Schwarzenegger is qualified to hold office -- or even whether the actor shares their conservative social views. What they do care about is getting and holding power.

Via Working for Change.

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:28 PM | Get permalink

Him, Al Franken.

The humorist says he doesn't mind Fox News' lawsuit over the use of 'Fair and Balanced' in the title of his current book.

Via AP.

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:10 PM | Get permalink

Ravens and the Tower of London.

Magpie is always please to find stories about our corvid relatives. The one that's caught our eye today comes from a piece about the people who work at the UK's summer attractions in the Guardian. As part of the story, the paper talked to Derrick Coyle, the raven master at the Tower of London (scroll down about halfway through the story). It's been law since the 17th century that at least a half-dozen ravens live at the Tower; otherwise, the Tower would fall, and England would join it soon after.

Ravens are traditionally regarded as birds of ill omen. Why does Coyle think they get such a bad press? 'Well, it was Edgar Allan Poe that gave ravens a bad name.'

Coyle concedes, however, that there was good reason. 'Ravens have been associated with death,' he says, 'because after a battle in medieval times, they would descend on to the battlefield and rip the flesh from the dead and dying soldiers.' But there are so many good things about ravens, he insists. 'I may be a little biased, but I would think they are the most intelligent of all birds.'

And then there is their sense of fun. Coyle says that, on a good day, he can have a riot with the ravens. 'We used to have one raven here, Rhys, and he would wait until there was a group of people on Tower Green and then he would get right into the middle of them, no one would see him there, and he'd start barking like a dog. And, of course, everybody looked round to see where the dog was and Rhys would just run off, cackling to himself.'

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:58 PM | Get permalink

Trees grow there.

Lots of them. In the middle of the Bronx, no less.

The LA Times introduces us non-New Yorkers to the New York Botanical Garden's 50-acre forest .

A stroll through the forest can be a time to refresh and contemplate. The first weekend after the start of the war against Iraq in March, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his wife, Nane, spent several hours walking amid the towering trees.

Officials say the forest not only is a tribute to the tenacity of nature, but is also a living laboratory — a community of competing species. Some are like the giant oaks that have stood for 300 years.

Others, far more recent arrivals, blew in from somewhere else. The tree of heaven, a species that some people regard as a weed, can be traced to China.

"There have been very few things planted here," said Charles Peters, curator of botany at the Botanical Garden. " This is a relic of the way things used to be."

[Free reg. req'd.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:40 PM | Get permalink

No surprise here.

From Reuters, via MSNBC:

American troops acted properly in self defense when they fired a tank round into the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, accidentally killing a Reuters TV cameraman and another journalist, the U.S. Central Command said on Tuesday. [...]

The hotel served as a main base for dozens of international journalists covering the war in Baghdad. [...]

The U.S. military has said it was fired upon first from the hotel. But journalists there have questioned that version of events. Earlier this year, the New-York based Committee to Protect Journalists said the incident could have been avoided.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:25 PM | Get permalink

Breeding 'better' Americans.

One of the saddest and least-known aspects of the US in the twentieth century was the widespread practice of forced sterilization. Magpie's current home, Oregon, sterilized over 2600 people between 1917 and 1983, under the auspices of a Eugenics Board that had this charge:

"To examine into the innate traits, the mental and physical conditions, the personal records, and the family traits and histories, of all feeble-minded, insane, epileptic, habitual criminals, moral degenerates and sexual perverts reported to it who will probably become social menaces or wards of the state, and to direct the superintendent of the institution in which the inmate is confined to perform or cause to be performed such type of sterilization as may be deemed best by said board."

How this tended to translate out in the real world, of course, was that sterilization was meted out almost exclusively to poor women and women of color.

For some reason, the records of the Oregon Eugenics board were shredded. In North Carolina, however, the records were just waiting to be found, and the Winston-Salem Journal used them in as part of an extensive series of reports that brought to light the state's eugenics activities. That series has been turned into a compelling website.

They were wives and daughters. Sisters. Unwed mothers. Children. Even a 10-year-old boy. Some were blind or mentally retarded. Toward the end they were mostly black and poor. North Carolina sterilized them all, more than 7,600 people.

For more than 40 years North Carolina ran one of the nation's largest and most aggressive sterilization programs. It expanded after World War II, even as most other states pulled back in light of the horrors of Hitler's Germany.

Contrary to common belief, many of the thousands marked for sterilization were ordinary citizens, many of them young women guilty of nothing worse than engaging in premarital sex.

I don't want it. I don't approve of it, sir. I don't want
a sterilize operation.... Let me go home, see if I get along all right.
Have mercy on me and let me do that.
— A woman pleading with the eugenics board, 1945.

The sterilization program ended in 1974, but its legacy will not go away. Many of its victims are still alive and they bear witness to a bureaucracy that trampled on the rights of the poor and the powerless.

The Journal's reporting did more than make people aware of the awful history of the sterilization program. In response to the paper's articles, Gov. Mike Easley officially apologized to sterilization victims, and a committee is looking into paying reparations.

Thanks to Michelle for the heads-up on the Journal series.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:35 PM | Get permalink

VICTORY over the federal judiciary.

There's been a lot of talk in the blogosphere recently about how the US Justice Department is compiling lists of federal judges who give sentences shorter than those required by federal law. These lists are one of the results of the PROTECT Act, which went into effect earlier this year. While most people know the act for its 'Amber Alert' child protection provisions, amendments tacked onto the law also put set strict sentencing requirements for federal offenses.

A new 'anti-terrorism' bill currently going the rounds in Congress — the VICTORY Act — would tighten these restrictions even further. At Findlaw, Mark Allenbaugh analyzes the effect on federal judges of both the PROTECT Act and the proposed VICTORY Act. It's not pretty.

Now circulating in Congress, but not yet introduced, is the Vital Interdiction of Criminal Terrorist Organizations Act of 2003, or the VICTORY Act. (Ironically, or appropriately, the 'Y' is missing.)

The Act does have one redeeming feature: It would reduce the much derided 100-1 sentencing ratio between crack and powder cocaine to 20-1. That, at least, is a step in the right direction. But this small softening is accompanied by a large crackdown: With respect to the sentencing of drug offenders, the Act would reduce the impact of certain mitigating factors, and increase the impact of certain aggravating factors - predictably leading to longer sentences.

Otherwise, the VICTORY Act continues the assault on the federal judiciary that the PROTECT Act and the Ashcroft memo embody. It would further reduce the discretion of federal judges when sentencing drug offenders. It would also make it more difficult for federal judges to invoke the "safety valve" - a legal mechanism whereby judges can sometimes sentence a first-time drug offender below the mandatory minimum sentence. (Technically, the "safety valve" is not a downward departure mechanism, though it has the same effect.)

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:03 PM | Get permalink

Fair and balanced.

You might have noticed the change up at the top of this column. Never being one to miss a ride on a good bandwagon, especially when its directed against Fox News, Magpie is claiming our godgiven right to be as fair and balanced as Fox News.

But, as usual, Billmon's Whiskey Bar is even more fair and balanced than we are.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:20 AM | Get permalink

Another Dubya action figure.

Okay, sometimes Magpie isn't that swift. Tonight we kept seeing other blogs link to a 'Texas ANG George W Bush Action Figure.' Having recently linked to a Dubya action figure ourselves, we figured it was more of the same.

When we saw yet another link to the figure at Pacific Views (nee The Watch), we finally remembered the details of Dubya's service in the Air National Guard. And we followed the link.

You should follow it, too.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:52 AM | Get permalink

Defending traditional marriage.

A visit tonight to The Mad Prophet reminded Magpie that we'd meant to blog this cartoon here, but somehow forgot to do it.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:45 AM | Get permalink

What is a neo-con, anyway?

With all the talk about how neoconservatives are driving policy in Dubya's administraton, Jim Lobe reminds us about the origins of neoconservatism and of the neo-con worldview.

Although neo-cons profess devotion to liberal democracy, they have never hesitated to assail ”liberalism”, or what they sometimes call with their Christian Right allies ''secular humanism'', whose relativism, in their view, can lead to ”a culture of appeasement”, nihilism or worse. So, even while supposedly defending ”liberal” and democratic ideals, their attitude is at best ambivalent.

Appeasement is prevented by a powerful military capable of defeating any foe, the constant anticipation of new threats, and the willingness to pre-empt them. Thus, neo-cons have consistently favoured big defence budgets, a stance shared by the right-wing Machtpolitikers with whom they formed an alliance in the 1970s to end détente with Moscow.

In their view, peace is to be distrusted, and peace processes are inherently suspect. ”Peace doesn't come from a 'process',” wrote 'Wall Street Journal' editorial writer Robert Pollock last year in a column that denounced the 1990s as a ”decade of appeasement”.

In this view, war is a natural state, and peace is a utopian dream that induces softness, decadence and pacifism, embodied by Bill Clinton whose ”corruption of the national mission, combined with the myth that peace is normal, produces a solvent strong enough to dissolve the strength of our armed forces and the integrity of our political and military leaders”, Ledeen wrote in 2000.

Similarly, enemies cannot be negotiated with. ”Before the U.S. can worry about rebuilding Iraq, it has to win militarily, and decisively so,” the Journal wrote just before the war. ”Arab cultures despise weakness in an adversary above all” is a refrain echoing past neo-con descriptions of the Soviet Union, China, and other geo-political foes.

Finally, U.S. engagement in world affairs is absolutely indispensable in preventing catastrophe, according to neo-con ideology, which, in the words of another Perle intimate, Ken Adelman, sees ”isolationism (as) the default option” in U.S. foreign policy. Indeed, many neo-cons, fearing that the Cold War's end would revive isolationism, spent most of the 1990s hawking policies designed to maintain Washington's international engagement, even if that meant supporting Clinton when he deployed troops abroad.

Why? If evil is embodied by Hitler and similar threats, the United States comes as close to moral goodness as can be found in the world today, say neo-cons.

Via Inter Press Service.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:19 AM | Get permalink

Tuesday, August 12, 2003

Gov. Davis' new advisor.

It's Bill Clinton. The NY Times reports that the ex-president has been giving California governor Gray Davis advice about how to defeat the recall attempt against him.

Mr. Clinton met privately with Mr. Davis and his wife, Sharon, at an A.F.L.-C.I.O. convention in Chicago last week, offering a political tutorial on how Mr. Davis should beat back the effort to remove him. (Points 1, 2, and 3: act gubernatorial, make sure the fight is about the recall initiative and not about Mr. Davis, and do not get baited by the news media into a fight with Arnold Schwarzenegger, one participant said.)

Over the past week, Mr. Clinton has spoken regularly with Mr. Davis by telephone, in conversations that last up to an hour, Democrats here [Los Angeles] said.

Mr. Davis's aides leave the office and close the door behind them when a secretary announces that Mr. Clinton is on the phone, and Mr. Davis has told them he does not want to share details of their consultations.

Mr. Clinton, who has turned down several requests from Democratic presidential candidates to share a stage, was described as willing to campaign on Mr. Davis's behalf, should the two men conclude that it would help. A joint appearance could happen as soon as early September, Democrats said, when Mr. Clinton is scheduled to be in the state for a speech.

[Free reg. req'd.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:40 PM | Get permalink

Dubya's intelligence.

Magpie's always been suspicious about where Dubya gets those intelligence reports he's always talking about, but now Tom Tomorrow confirms our worst fears.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:34 PM | Get permalink

Archive problems solved. We hope.

If you had trouble getting anything except the current 20 Magpie posts for the last week, Now, though, Blogger tells us that our archives work again. Since our evil employer's firewall blocks anything at Blogspot, we can't look to see if the archives are really there, so we'll just take it on faith that they're working.

Later: And they are indeed working.

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

Monday, August 11, 2003

A slow week.

Magpie has a bunch of tunes that we have to learn by this weekend, which means we have to spend our time playing the fiddle, rather than blogging. And then Magpie is taking our first vacation since last fall, so we'll be gone from Thursday to Sunday as well.

We'll do our best not to make you go totally cold turkey, but the pickings here will likely be slim until the beginning of next week. Unless, of course, Dubya does something that really pisses Magpie off between now and Monday.

In the meantime, go take a look at this thing here that Ruminate This called to our attention.

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

Sunday, August 10, 2003

Killer D's and redistricting may be going to the Texas Supremes.

Both sides in the Texas redistricting dispute are asking the state's Supreme Court to intervene, reports the Christian Science Monitor. Republicans are asking the court to decide whether the Democratic state senators who are on the lam in New Mexico can be forced to come back to Texas and participate in an 'emergency' legislative session. Democrats have also sued, saying that the Republican governor's convening of 'emergency' sessions to deal with redistricting violates the Texas Constitution, which allows such sessions only for actual emergencies.

The whole issue is the result of an attempt by Texas Republican's to redraw the districts for the US House of Representatives. Currently, a majority of the state's representatives in Washington are Democrats. Under the proposed redistricting, the delegation would become overwhelmingly Republican. Although Texas Republicans deny any string-pulling from Washington, there are strong reasons to believe that Dubya advisor Karl Rove is pushing redistricting in Texas and several other states in order to guarantee a permanent Republican majority in Congress. Political needs have led to some strange district boundaries. The Democratic stronghold of Austin would lie in several districts under the new plan, one of which runs all the way to the Mexican border.

Whether it will intervene will soon become clear. The Texas Supreme Court has given the Democrats until Monday to respond to the Republicans' lawsuit, but some are questioning whether the all-Republican high court can serve as an impartial referee.

"The justices are going to be tugged between their Republican inclinations and this very strong judicial practice of declining to mess in political affairs," says Gary Keith, a lecturer in the department of government at University of Texas at Austin.

But M. Renea Hicks, the lawyer who is working on the Democrats' response, says Texas has one of the most rigid separation of power provisions of any state and believes the conservative justices will follow those provisions closely.

"The judiciary in Texas has no basis and no constitutional authority for intervening in this argument," says Mr. Hicks. "The only authority for compelling a legislator to appear falls to the legislative branch."

He says courts have shied away from intervening in similar cases. Judges in general are reluctant to get involved in political matters involving another branch of government.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:12 PM | Get permalink

Magpie knows we always tell you to 'Just go look.'

But you really have to see the Elite Force Aviator: George W. Bush - U.S. President and Naval Aviator - 12" Action Figure to believe it. We know it will be hard to wait, but you won't be able to buy your own action figure until mid-September.

And 12 inches is the size of the doll, not of the 'package' — which is believed to be considerably smaller. Meeeeowwwww!

Thanks, Kathleen!

Update: Billmon has the best comment we've seen.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:13 AM | Get permalink

Yes, the US did use napalm in Iraq.

The UK Independent reports that US planes dropped napalm on Iraqi soldiers as the US-led invasion approached Baghdad. Until recently, the Pentagon had denied all reports of napalm use.

The Pentagon said it had not tried to deceive. It drew a distinction between traditional napalm, first invented in 1942, and the weapons dropped in Iraq, which it calls Mark 77 firebombs. They weigh 510lbs, and consist of 44lbs of polystyrene-like gel and 63 gallons of jet fuel.

Officials said that if journalists had asked about the firebombs their use would have been confirmed. A spokesman admitted they were "remarkably similar" to napalm but said they caused less environmental damage.

But John Pike, director of the military studies group GlobalSecurity.Org, said: "You can call it something other than napalm but it is still napalm. It has been reformulated in the sense that they now use a different petroleum distillate, but that is it. The US is the only country that has used napalm for a long time. I am not aware of any other country that uses it." Marines returning from Iraq chose to call the firebombs "napalm".

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:20 AM | Get permalink

Stop the presses!

In a huge surprise to everyone, a Congressional report warns that the color-coded 'terror warnings' from the US government don't have much credibility with the public.

"The vagueness that characterized the four increases in the threat condition in the past two years has raised concerns that the public may begin to question the authenticity of the H.S.A.S. threat level," the report said. "Questions about the credibility of the threat, say other observers, might cause the public to wonder how to act or whether to take any special action at all."

Via NY Times.

[Free reg. req'd.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:09 AM | Get permalink

Spreading around a bit too much understanding.

Over at the Muslim Wake Up! Blog, a Christian Science Monitor story about progressive Islam written by MWU!'s editor has stirred up some controversy, at least in certain quarters.

One self-described "Muslim sister" writes:

Let me tell you something you already know. You are NOT Muslims, no matter what you say. You are apostates who are trying to pervert, manipulate, and brain wash Muslim minds. You will not accomplish your goals with Muslims except those who are like you in the first place. And I am certain that you and your website are being funded by Jews and Christians.

Although to hear that we are being funded at all--never mind by whom--is very heartening to us, our non-existent bank balance tells another story.

Some very interesting things are being said in the comments. Make sure to check them out.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:01 AM | Get permalink

Another sleepless night in Kingsley, Hampshire.

Not only that, reports The King's Blog, but the British Army has been scaring the sheep.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:00 AM | Get permalink