Magpie

Saturday, September 20, 2003

Light blogging today.

Magpie is off to a fiddle workshop with Kevin Burke. We'll be very busy hearing about exactly what's wrong with our playing.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:59 AM | Get permalink

Friday, September 19, 2003

Buying friends and influencing people?

US Sen. Ted Kennedy has noticed that Dubya can account for only $2.5 billion of the money that goes down the Iraq rathole each month.

In an interview, Kennedy also said the Bush administration has failed to account for nearly half of the $4 billion the war is costing each month. He said he believes much of the unaccounted-for money is being used to bribe foreign leaders to send in troops.

Kinda sheds a different light on Dubya's failure to get any significant new commitments of troops to help out in Iraq, doesn't it?

Via Body and Soul.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:50 PM | Get permalink

Going back.

To 1991, that is. The Wampum time machine is up and running again today, and brought back a fistful of stories from the first Bush era.

HOW A DEMOCRAT COULD WIN
George F. Will
September 22, 1991

Refuting the arithmetic of fatalism is the challenge to any Democrat who would be president. It is a daunting task, but it can be done.

The arithmetic turns on two numbers, 270 and $500 billion. The former is the number of electoral votes needed to win. The latter is the size the annual deficit, honestly calculated, is approaching. The deficit seems to make winning a barren exercise.

By January 1993, two Republican presidents in a dozen years will have presided over the quadrupling of the deficit...

Magpie continues to be amazed by how little things have changed since 1991.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:44 PM | Get permalink

Seen on the way home today.

A bumpersticker on the car ahead of us on Alberta Street:

Bush/Orwell 2004

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:08 PM | Get permalink

The last Johnny Cash interview.

Sylvie Simmons talked with the Man in Black at his home in Henderson, Tennessee about six weeks ago.

When we talked about his various operations and health issues two years back, Cash had laughed: "You would think death would be bored with me by now." This time, with the wound of his wife's passing still raw, he was more circumspect.

"Isn't life full of passion and woe?" he said to me as we sat and looked out over the empty lake. "It always has been. It's just a different kind of pain when you get older. More physical, less spiritual, pain." His religious faith, he said, was what kept him going - literally what had kept him alive - after June had gone. That and the music, into which all the anger and passion and helplessness and sheer brute force of will was channeled.

"God had other plans for me. I guess there's something more he's got for me to do, and who am I to argue?" His voice trailed off and he stared ahead, quietly for a while. Until I asked him if he was angry with God for being left to do it on his own. He sat upright in his wheelchair. "Never. Never!" His dark eyes blazed. Then he smiled. " My arms", he said "are too short to box with God."

Via UK Guardian.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:50 AM | Get permalink

The Clark-for-President boom.

Magpie has to admit that we never cared much whether Gen. Wesley Clark decided to run for president of the US. To begin with, any candidate whose party affiliation was unknown until a couple of weeks ago just doesn't rate very high on our forthrightness meter. And we have to admit that his closeness to the Clinton-Gore camp doesn't make us overly confident that electing Clark will give the US anything except another Democratic president whose policies would have made him a Republican a couple of decades ago.

Now this post from Burnt Orange Report makes us even more doubtful about whether Clark is a candidate worth supporting.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:37 AM | Get permalink

How are things going in Iraq, Mr. Ambassador?

Well, I think we're fucked.

That's one of the things that US foreign service veteran Joseph Wilson told Josh Marshall in the first part of an interview about Iraq, the Mideast, and the 'war on terrorism' at Talking Points Memo. Among other things, Marshall was acting US ambassador to Iraq during the first Gulf War. More recently, he blew the whistle on Dubya's claims that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger.

You should read the whole interview.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:24 AM | Get permalink

US government employee axed for protecting Indian rights.

The AP reports that the Department of the Interior has fired an employee for telling a court investigator that his department wasn't keeping oil and gas companies from cheating members of the Navajo tribe. In his duties as head of the Indian Minerals Office in Farmington, New Mexico, Kevin Gambrell had been complaining for six years that tribal landowners weren't being paid fairly for use of their land for oil and gas pipline rights-of-way. Gambrell says that higher-ups in the department ignored his complaints.

This year, he contacted Alan Balaran, an investigator appointed by a federal judge presiding in a class-action lawsuit against the Interior Department. The suit alleges that the department has mismanaged Indian money for more than a century.

Balaran filed a report last month that said private landowners near the sprawling Navajo Nation were paid, in some cases, 20 times what the Indians were being paid.

He said those discrepancies and the destruction of records related to the deals constituted a failure by the Interior Department to meet its legal obligation to American Indian landowners to ensure fair payment for the use of their land.

In May, the department put Gambrell on paid administrative leave, saying he had destroyed documents and was insubordinate. On Monday, the department formally fired him. [...]

Gambrell said for years the Indians have been told by oil and gas companies to sign blank leases to build pipelines across their land and the companies would fill in the lease rates later.

In many cases the Navajos would simply make a mark on the forms, since many do not read or speak English.

The Indians were never shown the land appraisals that were required, and the rates they were paid were normally $25 for every 5 1/2 yards of pipeline, much lower than market value, Gambrell said.

Public records show gas pipeline companies were paying some private landowners between $432 and $455 annually for the 5 1/2 yards of pipeline. Indian tribes leased their land for between $140 and $575 a year for the same length.

The leases spanned 20 years, meaning Navajo landowners could lose as much as $11,000 for every 5 1/2-yard length of pipeline across their land during the duration of the contract. A spider's web of pipelines runs across the reservation, carrying natural gas to California.

Indian Country Today reported on the court investigation of the mineral payments in an August story:

President Joe Shirley of the Navajo Nation called the rights-of-way devaluations tantamount to swindling, and part of a recurring pattern of federal control over tribal resources. Attorneys for the plaintiff class of Individual Indian Monies accountholders in the Cobell lawsuit termed it further evidence of Interior mismanagement, and repeated their charge that Interior Secretary Gale Norton is "unfit" for her position. Dan Dubray, communications director for Interior’s office of the BIA, repeated the department’s charges that Balaran is biased against Interior, and added that Balaran has no expertise in the complex field of appraisal.

Via Wampum.

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

Thursday, September 18, 2003

US government says it doesn't care what you're reading.

That's what US Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft says, anyway. The AP reports that Ashcroft told the head of the American Library Association that the Justice Department has not used its power to examine libarary records even once since the Patriot Act went into effect.

Magpie notes that Ashcroft didn't say anything about how he used his authority to look at bookstore records. And we wonder why, if the Justice Department hasn't looked at any libarary records, it needs that power at all.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:31 PM | Get permalink

US 'sexing up' the Iran dossier?

A US official has claimed that Iran has the capability of fitting ballistic missiles with biological warheads. The charge was made by Assistant Secretary of State for Verification and Compliance Paula DeSutter at a meeting of US and Israeli legislators.

This is the first time that the US has officially claimed that Iran has the ability to launch biological warheads. The claim is reminiscent of the pre-war allegations about Iraq's supposed WMDs.

DeSutter told the committee that Iran is in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and has been working to acquire secretly nonconventional weapons of all kinds. She said that Iran's nuclear program is a genuine threat to both the Middle East and the U.S., since the Iranians are constantly working to expand the range of their missiles. America's current strategy for dealing with the problem is to push for a decision by the International Atomic Energy Agency, formally declaring Iran in violation of the NPT, she added.

Other experts warned the meeting that if Iran's efforts continue unchecked, its nuclear capabilities could outstrip those of North Korea.

Magpie imagines that Saddam — er, Iran — can deliver the warheads to a target in 45 minutes, too.

Via Haaretz.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:25 PM | Get permalink

Queer eyes for the Bush guys.

Alison Bechdel's 'Dykes to Watch Out For' do a make-over on Dubya and his minions.

We're going over to the UN first. You'll beg for help cleaning up your mess. Then you'll make whatever concessions they ask for. You've got some sucking up to do and I want you on your knees, buster.

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

Wednesday, September 17, 2003

Weasel words.

When Magpie used to teach aspiring community radio journalists how to write and report the news, we always hoped that people left our classes and workshops with some idea of how their personal biases and assumptions influenced their choice of words when they reported news stories. And even more importantly, we hoped that they learned how to use words with care in order to minimize the effect that those biases had on their listeners. We always repeated something we were taught when we worked in a Pacifica newsroom years ago: While the way you report a story will inevitably influence the conclusions that listeners make, it's never okay to force a listener to a conclusion by deliberately loading your language.

Over the years, Magpie has been appalled by how rarely these basic journalistic understandings are in evidence in mainstream reporting, particularly on television. At Pacific Views, Natasha has a very good example of what happens when language crosses the line:

Last night, to close a report on John Edwards' announcement of his candidacy [for the Democratic presidential nomination], Rudi Bakhtiar read out approximately the following on CNN Headline News:

The millionaire trial lawyer promised to [fight for the working class.]

Why didn't they say something like 'the successful son of a mill worker promised to fight for the working class'?

As you can see, the impression one gets of Edwards is really different depending on which part of his background you choose to talk about. And the characterization of Edwards as a millionaire is pretty damn dismissive. (Although if Bakhtiar was identifiying every millionaire politician that way, Magpie wouldn't have a problem.)

If we were training someone to write news and working with her on this story about Edwards, Magpie might have suggested using 'The North Carolina senator promised ... ', which is much more neutral than describing Edwards as either a 'millionaire' or 'successful son of a mill worker.'

At any rate, Natasha has some suggestions for how Bahktiar's method could have been used to describe Dubya & Co during the 2000 presidential campaign. For example:

The [Republican] ticket, with three drunk driving arrests between them, promises to encourage a culture of personal responsibility.

You can read the rest of her post here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:05 PM | Get permalink

Eating planets.

The Hubble Space Telescope has caught a red giant star in the act of eating three planets. (The pictures alone are well worth taking the time to follow the link.)

"It has been suggested in the past that stars might engulf planets in this way, but we believe we have actually caught this action for the first time," says Alon Retter of the University of Sydney, Australia.

The star, known as V838 Monocerotis, is about 20,000 light years from Earth. In January 2002, it temporarily became the brightest star in the Milky Way, 600,000 times more luminous than the Sun. At the time, astronomers struggled to explain the spectacular explosion.

Retter and colleague Ariel Marom believe their new analysis of light emissions from the star indicates that it was a red giant that expanded and successively swallowed three relatively massive planets in quick succession. The time between the first and the last engulfment was only about two months.

Via New Scientist.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:13 PM | Get permalink

Heil to the chief.

A Reuters photo of Dubya at a fundraiser in Jackson, Mississippi.

Any comment would be stating the obvious.

Via Burnt Orange Report.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:54 PM | Get permalink

Canada to extend hate-crime protection to lesbians and gay men.

By a 141 to 110 vote, the House of Commons has approved a bill adding sexual orientaton to the types of hate propaganda banned by law. The bill still needs approval from the Senate and royal assent before it becomes law. Both are expected.

The existing hate propaganda law, passed in 1970, bans incitement of hatred on the basis of colour, race, religion and ethnic origin, but not "sexual orientation." Conviction carries a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison.

Gays have long protested the omission, citing the fact that homosexuals are frequently targeted for verbal and physical attacks. [New Democrat MP Svend] Robinson has fought for its inclusion since 1981.

"What my bill would do is to recognize that just as we say it's wrong to promote hatred or violence against racial or religious or ethnic minorities, so too, should we say it's just as wrong to promote that hatred or violence directed at gay or lesbian people," Mr. Robinson told CBC Newsworld before the vote.

Via Globe & Mail.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:21 PM | Get permalink

Democrats have a blog.

The US Democrats, that is, not the Aussie ones. It's optimistically named Kicking Ass, and you'll find it here.

Magpie will reserve judgment on Kicking Ass until she's seen a bit more of it. But as MB at Wampum notes, the Democrats' blogroll sure seems heavy on the testosterone. (Okay, MB didn't use those words exactly.)

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:44 PM | Get permalink

The history of Irish music.

All 2000 years of it. Right here.

1792 — The first Blind Harpers' convention is held in Belfast. Edward Bunting is employed to transcribe but can't keep up. He cheats knowing that no one will check.
1796 — First attempt at closed system central heating results in the Uilleann pipes.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:10 PM | Get permalink

Ashcroft to declassify library data.

US Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft says that the Justice Department will release figures about how often the FBI has asked for records from libraries and businesses under provisions of the Patriot Act. The act already requires that this data be reported to Congress twice a year. Ashcroft's decision will make that report public.

Earlier in the week, Ashcroft derided concerns that the Patriot Act would allow the government to pry into citizens' reading habits as 'baseless hysteria.'

Magpie has a hard time believing that the data Ashcroft is now willing to release will be accurate, complete, or useful.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:31 PM | Get permalink

Cashing in on organic foods.

The Christian Science Monitor has two good stories about how the entry of large corporations into the US organic food market is affecting organic food producers and smaller retailers.

One Monitor story looks at the recent purchase of Horizon Organic by Dean Foods. From its beginnings in Wisconsin in 1992, Horizon Organic has become the largest supplier of organic milk in the US. Dean Foods is the largest supplier of milk, period.

[Dairy farmer Robert] Howe had been one of the first dairymen in New England to produce organic milk. At the time, the Tunbridge, Vt., farmer sold his milk to The Organic Cow of Vermont, a small co-op that paid its suppliers a sustainable wage by keeping production to a minimum. But a few years later, Horizon bought The Organic Cow and began distributing Howe's milk down the entire East Coast.

With more organic dairy farmers joining the industry, Horizon began reducing payments to many of its dairy contractors. Just a few weeks ago, Howe received a letter from Horizon explaining that he would receive less money for the milk he gets from his 40 Holstein cows.

Price reductions happen, says Howe, when big corporations gain control of what was once a farmer-run industry. "As they bring more farms on line, and larger farms, they probably don't have as much need for my milk."

Dean's purchase of Horizon is but one example of a larger effort by giant food manufacturers to gain a foothold in the organics market. General Mills, Danone, H.J. Heinz, Kraft, Kellogg, and Nestlé have all purchased small- to mid-size organic-food labels over the past four years.

The story notes that Howe now sells his milk to Organic Valley, a national farmer-owned and farmer-operated co-op (which is now the country's largest independent supplier of organic milk).

The Monitor also looks at the effect that natural foods giant Whole Foods is having on smaller natural food stores.

After years of delivering organic produce to health-food enthusiasts in Washington, D.C., Scott Nash amassed enough money to open a small storefront in nearby Rockville, Md., in 1990.

But a few months later, Mr. Nash's elation with the opening turned to misery when a giant health-food store opened just a mile away. The rival - called Fresh Fields, and later bought by Whole Foods in 1996 - lured customers into its supermarket-size store with advertising and a wide selection of fresh meats and seafood.

Nash's store struggled. Two months after Fresh Fields' opening, he had to sell his motorcycle for $500 to pay his sole employee. Yet he managed to keep the store afloat thanks to what he calls his "scrappy" management style, two expansions that tripled his floor space, and an obsession with matching or beating Whole Foods' prices.

Since opening his first My Organic Market, Nash has seen many of the area's small natural-food stores vanish. Whole Foods Market Inc. now operates 13 stores in and around Washington, and at least 145 nationwide. "They've pretty much stomped down all the competition," he says.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:03 PM | Get permalink

Where are those Iraqi WMDs?

They were destroyed a long time ago, says former chief UN arms inspector Hans Blix. Despite Washington's claims that the Saddam Hussein government possessed WMDs, Blix thinks that the ongoing search for weapons will, at best, turn up some documents.

"The more time that has passed, the more I think it's unlikely that anything will be found," Blix said in the interview, which was broadcast on Wednesday.

"I'm certainly more and more to the conclusion that Iraq has, as they maintained, destroyed almost all of what they had in the summer of 1991," Blix said.

Via Reuters.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:04 AM | Get permalink

Supply Side Jesus.

Over here.

No, James. Leprosy is a matter of personal responsibility. If people knew I was healing lepers, there would be no incentive to avoid leprosy.

Via Shock & Awe.

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

Tuesday, September 16, 2003

The really strange side of technical documentation.

When Magpie isn't blogging, struggling with our fiddle, or avoiding finishing our MA thesis, we write those bad software manuals that you only read if you are completely desperate. (If you worked for Telstra and had to read a manual for McAfee antivirus software a few years ago, we're so sorry.)

At any any rate, we just love weird instructional manuals, and have been collecting examples for years. It turns out we're not the only one. Ladies and gentlemen, Magpie presents the Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness. Check out exhibit 15.

Via MISCmedia.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:55 PM | Get permalink

Oooooooooooh, shiny!

Northern lights and clouds.

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

Eat it or toss it?

We all know the 'five-second rule': If you drop your food and pick it up before it's been on the floor for five seconds, it's safe to go ahead and eat it. We think.

But is it really safe?

A student at the University of Illinois' College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences decided to find out. The short answer: If you drop your Tim Tam, go ahead and eat it. But if you drop your broccoli, forget it.

More details are here.

Via Rebecca's Pocket.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:19 PM | Get permalink

Life in the new Iraq.

The UK Independent's Robert Fisk looks at how the occupation regime's PR about post-Saddam Iraq has little to do with the realities of day-to-day life:

Indeed, anarchic violence is now being embedded in Iraqi society in a way it never was under the genocidal Saddam. Scarcely a day goes by when I do not encounter the evidence of this in my daily reporting work in Baghdad. Visiting the Yarrnouk hospital in Baghdad on Monday to seek the identity of civilians killed by American troops in Mansur the previous day, I came across four bodies lying out in the yard beside the building in the 50C heat.

All had been shot. No one knew their identities. They were all young, save one who might have been a middle-aged man, with a hole in his sock. Three days earlier, on a visit to a local supermarket, I noticed that the woman cashier was wearing black. Yes, she said, because her brother had been murdered a week earlier. No one knew why.
In a conversation with my driver's father--who runs a photocopying shop near Bremer's palace headquarters--a young man suddenly launched into praise for Saddam Hussein. When I asked him why, he said that his father's new car had just been stolen by armed men. Trying to contact an ex-prisoner illegally held by the Americans at his home in a slum suburb of Baghdad, I drove to the mukhtar's house to find the correct address. The mukhtar is the local mayor. But I was greeted by a group of long-faced relatives who told me that I could not speak to the mukhtar--because he had been assassinated the previous night.

So, if this is my experience in just the past four days, how many murders and thefts are occurring across Baghdad--or, indeed, across Iraq?

Via The New Nation.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:48 PM | Get permalink

Want to win an election?

Then don't call your opponent an 'evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet.'

That's the message that voters seem to be sending to Ontario premier Ernie Eves and the provinical Conservative party. Since one of the party's campaign press releases made the 'kitten-eater' charge against Liberal party leader Dalton McGuinty, the Conservatives have dropped 14 points behind the Liberals, after being neck-and-neck with the Grits in an earlier poll. (See this CTV report for more poll details.)

Speaking after a roundtable with victims of crime in which he took shots at both his Liberal rivals and the federal government, Mr. Eves denied running a negative campaign.

But one Tory member called the poor polling results a "self-inflicted gunshot wound," a reference to the party's campaign strategy of relentless attacks on Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty.

"I'm insulted by it," said John O'Toole.

For earlier details on the 'kitten-eater' story, see this Magpie post.

Via Globe & Mail.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:17 PM | Get permalink

What does Dubya really mean?

Knowing how little relationship Dubya's words bear to reality (or even to what Dubya has said before himself), TomPaine.com has done us all a big favor by annotating Dubya's Monday speech in Michigan on energy policy and national security.

We need more of this kind of thing.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:54 PM | Get permalink

Losing the Constitution?

Over the last several decades, one of the strongest and most consistent advocates for civil liberties and the US Constitution's Bill of Rights has been Nat Hentoff. Since Dubya took office — and especially since 9/11 — Hentoff has had his work cut out for him to keep up with the increasingly brazen attacks on civil liberties. At AlterNet, Rachel Neumann interviews Hentoff about Atty. Gen. Ashcroft's recent 'Victory tour' to shore up support for the Patriot Act, and about the growing movement to defend the Bill of Rights against Ashcroft and his ilk.

[Alternet:] One of the key issues discussed in your book is the question of enemy combatants. Does the Bush administration have the constitutional right to declare U.S. citizens enemy combatants, and, if not, how are they getting away with it?

[Hentoff:] What Bush has done is the most radical destruction of civil rights this country has seen. George W. Bush, without consulting with the courts or congress, decides who is an enemy combatant. Currently two U.S. citizens, Jose Padilla and Yasir Hamdi, are being held indefinitely on military brigs, without charges or access to lawyers. This has never happened before.

The issue of enemy combatants is currently before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. The most remarkable brief on the constitution that I have ever seen was recently sent to the Second Circuit. It was signed by judges and lawyers from all political backgrounds ? Republicans, Democrats, Conservatives, and Libertarians ? and it said that Bush is turning the rule of law on its head. This will likely go to the Supreme Court, and if he upholds Bush, it means the President can take any citizen off the streets of America and hold them indefinitely. In effect, anyone could be picked up and disappear. [...]

[Alternet:] How are the current assaults on civil liberties different from those in the past, say during the Second World War? Is it worse now, and if so, how?

[Hentoff:] Not until now, has any administration had the technological capacity to find out what ALL of us are doing and to track all of our personal information. Technologically, has changed everything on two fronts. It has increased the capability of what terrorists could do to us but it has also increased the capability to attack civil liberties.

Nat Hentoff's most recent book is The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance, from Seven Stories Press.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:46 PM | Get permalink

Monday, September 15, 2003

We hope this isn't true.

These are the last sentences in a KRON-TV story about the extended tours of duty that US Army reservists and National Guard members are having to do in Iraq:

Some National Guard troops are coming home earlier. Congress is investigating complaints that they are from states that supported the Bush election campaign.

Does anyone know if this is true, or if KRON is just repeating a rumor?

Via Corrente.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:10 PM | Get permalink

Providing affordable drugs.

It's no secret that drug prices in the US are sky-high, which is a reason why many people cross the border to Canada to fill their prescriptions. Seniors are particularly hard-hit by these prices: they both have a greater need for prescription drugs, and less income with which to pay for those prescriptions. Each house of the US Congress has passed its own version of a plan to help seniors pay prescription costs, but even most supporters of those plans admit that the congressional proposals are only a stopgap.

These plans are also needlessly expensive and still may not deliver any price relief to seniors, points out economist Dean Baker, writing in In These Times . According to Baker, the best way to make drugs affordable is to go the direct route and make them cheap.

The arithmetic here is quite simple. Drugs are actually quite cheap to produce in most cases. The only reason drugs are expensive is that the government grants companies patent monopolies, which allow them to charge whatever they want, without the threat of competition. In the absence of patent monopolies, drug prices would fall by 70 to 80 percent on average, and in some cases considerably more.

Of course, the drug industry rightly points out that patents give them the money and incentive to research new drugs. This is true, but there is a very simple answer—have the government pay for the research directly instead of by granting patent monopolies.

The arithmetic on this one is also simple. According to the drug industry’s own numbers, consumers pay about $4 in higher drug prices for every dollar of industry funded research. The other $3 go to profits, sales promotion, lobbying, and other expenses. Furthermore, much of the industry’s money is wasted researching copycat drugs—drugs that largely duplicate the function of existing drugs.

In a world with patent protection, such drugs provide an element of competition, but in a world where drugs are sold in a competitive market, there would be little reason for most of this research. The industry estimates that close to 70 percent of its research falls into this copycat category.

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

California recall on ice, for the moment.

A three-judge panel of the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the recall election can't be held until California counties get rid of the current punchcard voting system. The judges were convinced by the argument that defects in the current system would disenfranchise 40,000 voters. The case against the recall was filed by the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the American Civil Liberties Union.

[T]he vast weight of the evidence shows that voters in counties using pre-scored punchcard balloting will have a statistically more probable chance that their vote will not be counted than voters in other counties. It is in this intrinsically unequal treatment that the constitutional problem lies.

More importantly, the Secretary of State has already concluded that use of this technology is unacceptable and must be prohibited from future use in California....

As the Supreme Court put it in (Bush v. Gore): 'The press of time does not diminish the constitutional concern. A desire for speed is not a general excuse for ignoring equal protection guarantees.'

Today's decision isn't the end of things, however. The court stayed its ruling for seven days to give recall proponents a chance to appeal to the full 9th Circuit Court or to the US Supreme Court.

A PDF file with the full text of the ruling is here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:22 PM | Get permalink

Is the Patriot Act an albatross around Orrin Hatch's neck?

One of the strongest supporters of the 'anti-terror' policies of US Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft is conservative Republican senator Orrin Hatch of Utah. Hatch has gone on the stump for the Patriot Act, and supports making some of the more noxious provisions of that act permanent, instead of letting them expire in 2005. He is also one of the main architects of the similarly draconian Victory Act.

While Hatch's positions may be playing well at the White House, they put him increasingly out of step with many people in the western states (including legislators), who are growing increasingly nervous that their constitutional rights are being eroded under the guise of fighting terrorism.

The Salt Lake Tribune has an excellent article about how Hatch's support of 'anti-terror' laws is drawing fire from right-wingers.

[C]onservatives question why more drug laws and enforcement powers are needed.

"We're not supportive of illegal drugs, but we would say the federal government has plenty of resources already on hand for this," said Steve Lilienthal of the Free Congress Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank. "The government was seeking a lot of these powers before 9-11, but after the attacks, they seized upon terrorism as a way to get what they had always wanted."

One aspect of Hatch's embrace of broad government police powers that most worries conservatives is not how the Bush administration will use them, but how a White House occupied by a future president might.

"We are concerned not about Ashcroft, but about a possible subsequent attorney general, named by President Hillary Rodham Clinton, who might define as terrorists those of us who peacefully oppose government polices," Free Congress Foundation Chairman Paul Weyrich wrote last week after he and Lilienthal met with top officials of the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security about the act.

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:00 PM | Get permalink

Prosecuting common crimes using 'anti-terror' laws.

The AP reports that state and federal prosecutors in the US are increasingly using provisions of the Patriot Act and copy-cat state laws to investigate and punish day-to-day criminality.

For example, a prosecutor in North Carolina has charged a man accused of running a meth lab with violating a state law against manufacturing chemical weapons. Under that law, a chemical WMD is defined as 'any substance that is designed or has the capability to cause death or serious injury' and contains toxic chemicals. Magpie would suggest that defining meth as such a substance is stretching the definition of WMD to the breaking point. (And lest anyone accuse Magpie of being 'soft on meth,' we'll point out that we helped the police shut down the meth lab that used to be next door to where we live.)

The AP also reports these laws being used to deal with currency smuggling and a Canada-based lottery scam targeted at seniors.

"Within six months of passing the Patriot Act, the Justice Department was conducting seminars on how to stretch the new wiretapping provisions to extend them beyond terror cases," said Dan Dodson, a spokesman for the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys. "They say they want the Patriot Act to fight terrorism, then, within six months, they are teaching their people how to use it on ordinary citizens.".

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:39 PM | Get permalink

Anarchists kick commies' butts.

No, they didn't decide to hold a rematch of the Spanish Civil War. What we're talking about is the results of the second of three anarchist-communist soccer games in Berkeley, California. The final score: Anarchists 4, Communists 2.

The cheerleaders chanting "Give me an A, A, A for Anarchy," wore black motorcycle boots and fashioned their pom-poms from strips of a black garbage bag. One shimmied into a makeshift black skirt -- and because of the cold, donned a friend's black pullover, which she said reeked of the puke-like smell of aged spilled beer.

Instead of advertising, the sign on the sidelines of Gabe's East field was painted half black for the anarchists and half red for the communists, reading "For a World Without Borders. For a World Without Bombs." [...]

The anarchist team, Kronstadt FC, was named for the 1921 revolt of workers of the Kronstadt army base against the Communist government in Russia. The players wore black T-shirts with the insignia of an A with a circle around it, a black star and a soccer ball.

The communist team, Left Wing, sported shiny jerseys in Communist red, of course, with a fist holding a flag with a red star.

But Magpie's favorite part of the story is this:

The first game, held Aug. 17 in Piedmont, tied 2-2 after it was shut down by local officials because the teams were playing on the field without permission.

Via San Francisco Chronicle.

Update: Via the comments, Nora alerts us to the subversive activities of the Commie Sports League in Duluth, Minnesota.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:35 PM | Get permalink

Following the Misleader.

Those helpful folks at MoveOn.org have started a new website to chronicle Dubya's casual attitude toward telling the truth. It's called Misleader, and you can find it here.

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

Sunday, September 14, 2003

Right hand, left hand.

It appears that they might not know what the other is doing.

First, the right hand: US VP Dick Cheney, talking about Iraq's WMDs on 'Meet the Press.'

"The jury is still out in terms of trying to get everything pulled together with respect to what we know," Mr. Cheney said.

He said the U.S. team now searching Iraq for evidence of a nuclear weapons program "will find more evidence ... that in fact (Mr. Hussein) had a robust plan, had previously worked on it and would work on it again."

As for chemical and biological weapons, Mr. Cheney said he believes they are "buried inside its civilian infrastructure."

And the left hand: Members of the UK parliament and sources in UK intelligence say that the much ballyhooed David Kay report on Iraq's WMS has been indefinitely delayed:

British defence intelligence sources have confirmed that the final report, which is to be submitted by David Kay, the survey group's leader, to George Tenet, head of the CIA, had been delayed and may not necessarily even be published, the paper said.

In July, Kay suggested on US television that he had seen enough evidence to convince himself that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, had had a programme to produce weapons of mass destruction.

He expected to find "strong" evidence of missile delivery systems and "probably" evidence of biological weapons.

But last week British officials said they believed Kay had been "kite-flying" and that no hard evidence had been uncovered.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:37 PM | Get permalink

What's a soul worth?

Get a quote on yours.

Magpie won't say what ours is worth, but we will tell you that 76% of humanity has purer souls than we do.

Via Sappho's Breathing.

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:55 PM | Get permalink

Would you vote for an 'evil reptilian kitten-eater'?

One of Magpie's Canadian pals alerts us to some strange things going on in the Ontario provincial election. The Conservative party government of Premier Ernie Eves is facing a strong challenge from the Ontario Liberals in the October 2 election — current polls show the two parties in a statistical dead heat. It looks like this narrow margin is making the Tories a bit nuts, or maybe just desperate.

In a September 12th press release, the Conservatives exceeded their own low standards for campaign rhetoric by labelling Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty an 'evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet.' This, however, isn't the first time the Tories side-stepped issues in favor of name-calling, as this compilation from the Canadian Press shows:

— "Dalton McGuinty. He's still not up to the job." -- Parting shot on most Tory news releases

— "Dalton doesn't get it. He wants your money." -- Premier Ernie Eves, Sept. 7, on alleged plans for tax cuts by the Liberals.

— "Dalton McGuinty is against your kids being in school every day." -- Eves, Sept. 7.

— "Dalton McGuinty is in favour of allowing children to be used as pawns in labour disputes." -- Eves, Sept. 10.

— "We simply can't afford to have Dalton McGuinty's Liberals defending the status quo and their friends in Ottawa while we are risking both the prosperity of our province and our security." -- Eves, Sept. 8.

— "Dalton McGuinty has shown he is too deep in the pockets of teachers' unions to protect the education of Ontario's children." -- Tory news release, Sept. 10.

— "If you truly believe what you're saying, you need professional help." -- Tory news release directed at McGuinty, Sept. 10.

— "Like a boy who goes to the doctor every time he skins his knee, Dalton McGuinty thinks that health care is free." -- Tory news release, Sept. 12.

Premier Eves has refused to apologize for the 'kitten-eater' remark, saying only that he thought that someone in his campaign office either had too much coffee or too much time on their hands.

McGuinty refuses to retaliate. His strategy on the campaign trail is to "take the high road" and make light of the barbs, joking that Premier Ernie Eves would soon be blaming him for every ill to befall society.

"(Eves) is going to announce that I am the cause of premature baldness," McGuinty said.

"You elect McGuinty as premier, he'll sneak into your home and steal the family pet."

Thanks, Deanne!

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:35 PM | Get permalink

Exodus.

Since 9/11, the Pakistani community in the New York area has been shrinking. According to the Pakistani embassy, almost 10 percent of the area's Pakistani residents have gone home, or left the US to make a living in another, more hospitable country. Most of those leaving have been men, and they've gone at the cost of breaking up families and leaving behind businesses.

In the Village Voice, Alisa Solomon looks at why Pakistanis don't feel safe in the US any more.

In a bizarre inversion of the story America likes to tell itself about its splendor as a nation of immigrants, thousands of Pakistanis living in the United States have joined in a mass exodus of business owners, day laborers, students, cabbies, bricklayers, housewives, hairdressers, and peddlers. Historically, notes Nancy Foner, author of From Ellis Island to JFK: New York's Two Great Waves of Immigration, sizable portions of migrants to the U.S. have spent some time working here and then left, having intended all along to return home with their earnings. But the current flight of Pakistanis marks the first time in at least 100 years, she says, when "a group actually feels forced into the decision to leave. It's very alarming."

And those are just the voluntary, though reluctant, departures. Since September 2001, the government has removed five chartered jets' worth of Pakistanis from the U.S. and has sent many more away on commercial flights. And now, this month, immigration hearings are beginning for men who answered last winter's call that they present themselves for interviews, photographs, and fingerprinting as part of the government's "special registration" program. These hearings are likely to result in more forcible deportations....

Some, who had spent years building businesses only to see them falter as customers vanished into detention or deportation—or just plain feared to venture out of their homes—figured that America was no longer a place where entrepreneurial drive and hard work were enough to make a go of it. They left goods on the shelves, middle-class homes, friends, relatives, and even U.S.-citizen children behind, and they purchased one-way tickets to Lahore or Karachi.

Others, terrified that returning to Pakistan would drop them in the middle of sectarian violence or into the hands of a government they had been punished for opposing—or maybe just into an impossible economy with no chance of eking out a living—headed for Canada, saying they were fleeing persecution in Pakistan and America. Like the family of a 25-year-old security guard named Raza, more than 2,200 Pakistanis residing in the U.S. have sought refuge in Canada between January 1 and March 31 of this year; the vast majority are from the New York area. (Whether Canada will grant them refugee status remains to be seen in most cases; the processing can take as much as a year. But in the meantime, at least—unlike in the U.S.—applicants are authorized to work.)

The dwindling of the local population was evident at the annual Pakistan Independence Day parade down Madison Avenue on August 24. In less anxious times, some 80,000 people turned out for the festivities; this year, says Ghulam Chaudhry, one of the event's organizers, 35,000 would be an optimistic count. In Atlantic City, New Jersey, leaders of the community recently reported, the area's Pakistani population has dropped from a vibrant 2,000 to a weary and wary 1,000.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:32 AM | Get permalink

Deficit? What deficit?

Back in the early 1990s, Canada had its big deficit crisis. The country was spending $42 billion (Canadian) more than it was taking in — the largest shortfall in Canadian history. Financial analysts predicted a dire fate for the country if the deficit wasn't brought under control and, as Canadian Auto Workers economist Jim Stanford points out, a whole generation of neo-con politician used the deficit issue to gain office all over the country.

When compared to the current US deficit, the Canadian problem was small potatoes. When measured by the cost per person living in each country, the US deficit is over twice as big. Stanford finds it interesting is how acceptable deficit spending has become to those same conservatives who warned that Canada's deficit would turn the country into a nation of poor sheep farmers.

The financial gurus who railed against Canada's once-spendthrift ways are unconcerned by Bush's deficit mostly because they like what he's spending the money on: a huge dividend tax cut targeted precisely at their own clients. If a government goes into deficit to support EI [unemployment insurance] benefits or social programs, financiers experience paroxysms of alarm. But if a government goes even deeper into deficit to put more money into the pockets of financial investors... well, that's a deficit the Street can learn to love. [...]

What's shocking is the hypocrisy of North America's conservatives, who have suddenly embraced deficits now that they are politically convenient. Just as galling is the blind eye which most of the financial community has turned to this new right-wing profligacy. For both conservatives and financiers, it seems, it's not whether a government spends too much that matters. It's for whom that money is being spent.

Via rabble.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:56 AM | Get permalink

A very sad headline.

From today's Haaretz:

Deputy PM Olmert: killing Arafat is one option for the government

Things have gone this far and we still hear talk that a 'roadmap' to peace exists?

Magpie also suggests this story by Batya Gur, from the same issue of Haaretz.

The three women soldiers who detained an old Palestinian on the main street of the German Colony in West Jerusalem didn't hit him; they didn't spit at him or kick him or shove him against a wall with the butt of a rifle, but there was something in the behavior of these three girls, border policewomen in uniform, detaining an old Palestinian on a narrow stretch of a main street in Jerusalem that made me pause, look at them for a moment, go on walking, then retrace my steps. There was something I couldn't overlook and then go about my business.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:16 AM | Get permalink