Magpie

Saturday, April 17, 2004

Big changes to the blogroll and elsewhere.

For awhile, we've known that our blogroll wasn't a good reflection of what we read every day, but we never seemed to get around to fixing it.

Well, today we fixed it.

There are a whole bunch of new blogs listed — way too many to list here, in fact. But we've put New! after each of the new ones to make them easy to spot. Go check these blogs out. They're some of the best there are.

We've also added a couple of items to the Comment & Analysis listing. Current deals with US public radio and televison. It has an interesting blog on its main page. And Editor & Publisher covers the US newspaper industry, with frequent excellent articles on how the news is covered.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:23 PM | Get permalink

Taking back the White House, one pie at a time.

As we mentioned yesterday, today was MoveOn PAC's national bake sale to raise money to defeat Dubya in November. According to the AP, over 1100 bake sales across the country brought in at least US $250,000. Thousands of people (including this magpie) went away with yummy goodies, and the knowledge that the money they just spent on junk food had a higher purpose.

Around mid-day, we stopped at two sales in Portland: One was winding down because they'd sold out down to the last crumb, raising US $750 in the process. The other still had hours to go, and had already brought in US $400.

One of the sales was at the Groundswell Cafe in NE Portland, which those of you who are Pacific Views readers might remember. They had another good sign today:

Somebody doesn't like Dubya

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:35 PM | Get permalink

Things fall apart.

In the Washington Post, a report from Iraq correspondents Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Karl Vick presents an unusually blunt description of recent political and military events in Iraq, and how those events are forcing the to US re-evaluate its strategy. Here are the first few paragraphs:

In the space of two weeks, a fierce insurgency in Iraq has isolated the U.S.-appointed civilian government and stopped the American-financed reconstruction effort, as contractors hunker down against waves of ambushes and kidnappings, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.

The events have also pressured U.S. forces to vastly expand their area of operations within Iraq, while triggering a partial collapse of the new Iraqi security services designed to gradually replace them.

The crisis, which has stirred support for the insurgents across both Sunni and Shiite communities, has also inflamed tensions between Arabs and Kurds.

U.S. officials said they are reconsidering initial assessments that the uprisings might be contained as essentially military confrontations in Fallujah, where Marines continue their siege of a chronically volatile city, and Najaf, where the militant Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr has taken refuge in the shadow of a shrine.

"The Fallujah problem and the Sadr problem are having a wider impact than we expected," a senior U.S. official involved in Iraq policy said. In Baghdad and Washington, officials had initially concluded that addressing those problems would not engender much anger among ordinary Iraqis. "Sadr's people and the people of Fallujah were seen as isolated and lacking broad support among Iraqis," the official added.

Instead, the official said, "The effect has been profound."

The article goes on from there to give details to back up the framework laid out in the opening paragraphs and, as we said earlier, it does so with unusual candor for US press reports on Iraq. It's well worth reading in its entirety.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:26 PM | Get permalink

The blackout of Air America Radio may not have been an accident.

Joe Trippi thinks that pulling the plug on Air America's LA and Chicago stations was a calculated move to shut the liberal network up.

It turns out there's more to MultiCultural than meets the eye. The CEO Arthur Liu, a Republican supporter, retained the firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher -- a firm that lists Ken Starr and Ted Olsen as its alumni.

This is a right-wing blackout, and we can't let it happen. Ken Starr tried to overturn the results of one presidential election with Whitewater; Ted Olsen successfully overturned another when he represented Bush and Cheney in Bush v. Gore in 2000. Their cronies are trying to silence our voices.

Go read it all.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:04 PM | Get permalink

And to add to the bad news from the Mideast.

Israel's assassination of Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi is being condemned in the Arab world. Hamas is vowing retaliation for the killing of Rantisi by Israel.

"We declare the status of alert and public readiness within all our fighting cells...until the 100 retaliations, which will shake the criminal entity, are done," its military wing Izz al-Deen al-Qassam said in a statement.

While the Hamas reaction is no surprise, what will surprise some in Washington is the strong condemnation of Israel's action by moderate Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi:

Israel has been given a free hand by the United States to continue its policy of destruction, of siege, of assassination. Right now what is happening is very dangerous. You are closing off all options. You are saying to the Palestinians: 'You have no political recourse, no recourse to the law, no justice anywhere'.

You can read more reaction here and here.

Via Reuters, Al-Jazeera, and BBC.

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:31 PM | Get permalink

As if this week's agreement between Sharon and Dubya ...

... wasn't enough to anger Palestinians, the BBC is reporting that Israeli missiles have killed Hamas leader Abdul Aziz Rantisi. Rantisi headed the militant Islamic group in Gaza. His son and at least one other person were also killed.

The attack came hours after a suicide bomber killed himself and an Israeli soldier at the Erez checkpoint just north of the city.

The BBC's Peter Greste, in Gaza City, says people are speculating that the attack was in response to the suicide bombing.

The militant Hamas leader was one of Israel's top targets after it assassinated Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in an air strike last month.

More: From CNN:

Israeli Foreign Ministry official Gideon Meir said this was not the first time Israel has targeted Rantisi.

"We tried to do it a few months ago. At that time, he managed to run away. This time we got him," Meir said....

Immediately after news of the killing swept through the territory, thousands of Hamas activists, in shock and panic, spilled into the streets.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat condemned the killing saying: "We hold the Israeli government fully responsible for the consequences of such actions.

"At the end of the day violence will breed more violence, hatred will breed more hatred."

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:40 PM | Get permalink

'Potty-mouthed' blogger makes the NY Times.

Wonkette gets a rather nice write-up from the Times, too. Cool, huh?

In a relatively short time, she has drawn her share of detractors. Mr. Leiby described her as a "foulmouthed, inaccurate, opinionated little vixen." Jack Shafer of Slate called Ms. Cox a "heaving puke" in a column that also lambasted Gawker.com, the New York-based gossip blog created in 2002 by Nick Denton, the publisher behind Wonkette. "Her enthusiasm for penis jokes cannot be as great as her blog suggests," Mr. Shafer wrote. The Columbia Journalism Review scolded Ms. Cox for covering the Kerry intern rumor as if it were true, a criticism Ms. Cox was eager to point out. "They accused me of trying to out-Drudge Drudge," she said triumphantly. "Which I love, and I'd do it if I could."

If you're not already reading Wonkette, you'll find her here.

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

Get used to seeing this headline (5).

U.S. Gasoline Pump Price Sets Record, Above $1.80.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:20 AM | Get permalink

Is Dubya still the Log Cabin's fave straight guy?

The largest group of lesbian/gay Republicans in the US — the Log Cabin Republicans — is currently holding its annual conference in Palm Springs, California. With about 10,000 members, the group is not particularly large compared to other parts of the Republican base. However, the Log Cabin Republicans are influential among the country's more conservative gay men and lesbians, whose votes could be important if November's election turns out to be a close one..

Later today, the Log Cabin Republicans will decide whether to endorse Dubya's re-election bid. Given Dubya's recent announcement that he supports aconstitutional amendement against same-sex marriage, the Log Cabin endorsement is nowhere near a sure thing, as it was in 2000.

"What we have here today is a sign that there is a culture war going on between us and the radical right," said Patrick Guerriero, Log Cabin executive director. "And this convention sends a message back to Washington, D.C., and to Republican leaders: We're here to stay, we're gonna win this battle and we're on the right side of history. We're a very conservative group on just about every issue, except we're not going to be treated as second-class citizens."

Via LA Times.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:58 AM | Get permalink

Friday, April 16, 2004

Pacific Views is back!

Our other roost has been in technical hell for over a month, but as of this evening, Pacific Views is back. Natasha has the details.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:12 PM | Get permalink

The Israeli 'withdrawal' from Gaza.

The more details we hear about how Israel's pullback from some of Palestine will work, the more that pullback sounds like US plans for Iraqi 'sovereignty':

Under the plan, Israel will withdraw its troops from all of Gaza except for the border zone with Egypt, which may be expanded....

It will also retain full control of the Erez border crossing, the only point at which Palestinians can cross into Israel. Gaza's airspace would remain under Israeli control, and Israel's navy would continue to patrol its coastline.

Israel says it would reserve the right to invade Gaza for security reasons.

Via UK Guardian.

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

Trashing the 9/11 commission.

US Republicans have already started the task of discrediting the 9/11 commission as 'partisan', well before the commission finishes its hearings, let alone issues its report.

Via BBC.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:26 PM | Get permalink

Iraq and Vietnam.

Since the US press as a whole doesn't seem to be doing much self-examination about how it has been covering the war in Iraq, William Greider does some of the heavy lifting for then in an article in The Nation. Greider suggests that little of the news from Iraq should be a surprise: The stories that journalists reported during the Vietnam War were very similar — only the scale of the current war is different.

Iraq is a "little war" compared with Vietnam, but Americans are learning, once again, that the indigenous people we "liberated" do not love us. Many want our occupying army to withdraw. Insane as it may seem to Americans, they are willing to die for this objective. But what about the schools and roads we built for them?

Every day I hear echoes from the past. George W. Bush even invokes the same phrase--"stay the course"--that four decades ago was understood, ironically, as an expression of official obstinacy and ignorance. A prominent newspaper columnist, one of the most ardent advocates of this war-for-democracy, scolds the "silent majority" in Iraq, urging them to stand up against the killers and proclaim their solidarity with the US troops. He seems angry at their cowardice. His kind of frustration was a constant theme during Vietnam too.

When popular resolve among the Vietnamese disappointed Washington, US strategists would change the government in Saigon. The US proconsul in Baghdad, Paul Bremer, fired the interior minister in charge of the Iraqi police we trained to maintain civil order, because they fled the police stations rather than shoot it out with their countrymen. The "hearts and minds" thing was never resolved in Vietnam either. After the Americans withdrew, they discovered that some of their Vietnamese employees (even in news bureaus) had been Vietcong agents all through the war.

What did you learn from that war, Grandpa? Like most Americans, I never saw the battlefield in Indochina, but I did learn painful, indelible lessons as a citizen. My grandchildren are watching this war on television, so I will tell them: I learned that the government sometimes lies to the people--big lies with awful consequences--and sometimes government begins to believe its own lies. As a reporter, I learned with embarrassment to listen to the people in the street, because sometimes they tell you things the government is concealing. Again and again, antiwar dissenters and civil-rights activists told me the FBI and CIA were spying on them, tapping their phones, infiltrating their ranks and disrupting their organizations. The stories I dismissed as paranoia all turned out to be true. I also learned that military conquest, regardless of the stated intentions, seldom succeeds in creating democracy.

The war in Iraq is different from Vietnam in one fundamental respect: A substantial portion of Americans (and others around the world) were in the streets protesting this venture before the shooting started. The media generally dismissed them and often caricatured the protesters as aging hippies on a sixties nostalgia trip. It's a pity reporters didn't listen more respectfully. Virtually every element of what has gone wrong in Iraq was cited by those demonstrators as among the reasons they opposed the march to war.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:46 PM | Get permalink

Not that Dubya's administration would do something unethical ....

But why is the paragraph at the bottom of this US Treasury Department press release (paid for by tax dollars) the same as the next-to-last paragraph of this Republican Party 'Fact Sheet'?

Just asking.

Via Demagogue and Pandagon.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:00 PM | Get permalink

Don't you just love pie?

Or maybe some nice warm cookies?

If you're in the US, you can satisfy your craving for baked goods and help ruin Dubya's day at the same time tomorrow (Saturday) as members of the MoveOn PAC hold bake sales to raise money to help the PAC defeat Dubya in November.

The PAC was kind enough to send us this reminder about tomorrow's bake sales:

Tomorrow, from Lincoln City, OR to Kent, OH to Peaks Island, ME, MoveOn members will holding over 1,000 bake sales to help raise some dough (sorry) and take our country back. It's a great way to demonstrate the contrast between Bush's millionaire-backed campaign and our grassroots movement.

If you need a piece of pie or a cookie or two tomorrow -- and who doesn't -- you can find a bake sale in your area by going to: http://action.moveonpac.org/bakesale/

All the money raised will help MoveOn PAC run ads and get out the vote this November to support John Kerry.

The creativity and energy folks are putting into their sales is just astounding. Over 11,000 bakers have signed up to help. And just take a look at some of the sales' titles:

Beat Bush Bake Bash in Los Angeles, CA
Mountaineer Bake Sale for Democracy in Charleston, WV
Cheekypotato's Home-made Aussie Cookies, Cakes, Pizzas & Calzones for
Democracy in Phoenix, AZ
No CARB (Cheney, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Bush) Bake Sale in Seattle, WA
Have Your Cake and Beat Bush II in Storrs, CT
Sweet Eating, Bush Beating in Brooklyn, NY
Hippies against Hoodlums (HAH!) in Boulder, CO
Afternoon Tea for Democracy in Princeton, NJ
Goodies for Good in Davie, FL

. . and the list goes on.

With over 1,000 bake sales, it’s likely there’s a bake sale you can drop by near you. To find out, go to: http://action.moveonpac.org/bakesale/

We did a search on bake sales within 20 miles of downtown Portland, Oregon and our favorite sale names were these:

Taking Back the White House One Lemon Bar at a Time
3734 SE Hawthorne Blvd. (in front of In Other Words Women's Books and Resources), Portland, OR.
[No times listed]

Bake Back the White House
1310 NW 46th St, Vancouver, WA
Noon til 5.

Where's the Yellow Cake?
Groundswell Café 1800 NE Alberta St., Portland, OR
Starts at 9 am.
[Groundswell, by the way, is the cafe that put up this sign out front a few weeks ago.]

We think we'll be looking for marionberry pie, ourself. If you're from Portland, maybe we'll see you at a sale!

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:35 PM | Get permalink

Pride comes before a fall, we hope.

We just love it when Dubya advisor Karl Rove admits a mistake:

President Bush's top political adviser said this week he regretted the use of a "Mission Accomplished" banner as a backdrop for the president's landing on an aircraft carrier last May to mark the end of major combat operations in Iraq.

"I wish the banner was not up there," said White House political strategist Karl Rove. "I'll acknowledge the fact that it has become one of those convenient symbols."

Of course, Rove then went on to tell the editorial board of the Columbus Dispatch that 'Mission Accomplished' was really referring to the carrier crew completing their 10-month mission, not the successful completion of the war in Iraq. As near as we can tell, he didn't tell the editors why the White House was so excited by the crew finishing their mission that it had the 'Mission Accomplished' banner designed, printed, and delivered to the carrier. And why Dubya's speech was choreographed so that the banner was almost always visible behind him.

We're sure those are all coincidences.

Via AP.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:11 PM | Get permalink

When did Dubya start planning to invade Iraq?

A new book on Washington's preparatons for the war in Iraq provides even more evidence that they started before the end of 2001.

According to Bob Woodward's book, 'Plan of Attack,' Dubya asked for a war plan against Iraq in November 2001, barely two months after US troops began fighting in Afghanistan. The prez kept these plans secret even from his own senior officials. The account presented by Woodward lends weight to charges by former anti-terror advisor Richard Clarke and others that Dubya's administration began planning for the war in Iraq almost immediately after the 9/11 attacks.

"I knew what would happen if people thought we were developing a potential war plan for Iraq," Bush is quoted as telling Woodward. "It was such a high-stakes moment and ... it would look like that I was anxious to go to war. And I'm not anxious to go to war." [...]

Woodward says Bush pulled Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld aside November 21, 2001 -- when U.S. forces and allies were in control of about half of Afghanistan -- and asked him what kind of war plan he had on Iraq. When Rumsfeld said it was outdated, Bush told him to get started on a fresh one.

The book says Bush told Rumsfeld to keep quiet about it and when the defense secretary asked to bring CIA Director George Tenet into the planning at some point, the president said not to do so yet.

Even Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was apparently not fully briefed. Woodward said Bush told her that morning he was having Rumsfeld work on Iraq but did not give details.

In an interview two years later, Bush told Woodward that if the news had leaked, it would have caused "enormous international angst and domestic speculation."

Via AP.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:00 PM | Get permalink

San Francisco librarians make (very memorable) lemonade.

With the help of 200 artists from around the US.

Starting in 2001, workers at the San Francisco Public Library began finding mutilated books hidden away in the libary's shelves. The mutilations weren't random, though: the person responsible was using the library catalog to locate books on lesbian, gay, and transgender subjects.

The mutilations continued for almost a year, until a librarian put herself on stakeout in an area the vandal favored for dropping off the damaged books. She spotted a man carrying a pink book and followed him back into the shelves. There, on a bottom shelf, she found a mutilated copy of Becoming Visible—An Illustrated History of Lesbian and Gay Life in Twentieth-Century America. The man was arrested, and later convicted of committing a hate crime.

With the mutilations at an end, the library was faced with the question of what to do with all the damaged books. Throwing them out was not an option, as librarians felt that would just achieve the end that the book vandal was trying to achieve.

On a whim, Jim Van Buskirk, program manager of the library's James C. Hormel Gay & Lesbian Center (where much of the destruction occurred), discussed the subject with a few artist friends. They came up with the idea for what developed into the "Reversing Vandalism" exhibit. Artists interested in the project would be sent a damaged book, with the agreement that they would create a new piece of artwork from it. As Van Buskirk and the rest of the library staff spread word of the project to the art community, the response—from straight and gay artists—was staggering. That the hate crime, seemingly fueled by religious zeal, had been directed specifically at the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender populations certainly stirred many to respond. But response was also driven by a deep anger at the notion that someone would so viciously harm books.

Slate has an outstanding slideshow essay on the 'Reversing Vandalism' exhibit by Lisa Davis (from which the quotes above and below are taken).

'Blackbird Singing

Sherry Karver: Blackbird Singing
(Courtesy of San Francisco Public Library)
Sherry Karver, a ceramics teacher in Oakland, Calif., whose work in various mediums is exhibited throughout the country, heard a report on the evening news about "Reversing Vandalism" and called the library to find out more. When she received a damaged copy of the book Fighting Words: Personal Essays by Black Gay Men from the library, Karver thought that the remaining shape of the book resembled a bird. So, in her work titled Blackbird Singing, the artist rested the book on a branch.

The 'Reversing Vandalism' exhibit is on view at the SF Public Library through May 2. The SF Public Library's page on the exhibit is here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:46 AM | Get permalink

And while we're on the subject of art.

We see that those Philistines at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts are selling off our favorite painting in the whole museum: William-Adolphe Bouguereau's Bohémienne.

Tenuki at MetaFilter comments:

The painting, Bohémienne was originally purchased for $3,500 by the MIA back in the early 1970's for the purpose of reselling it at some future date for a better work of art. Christie's expects it to sell for between $700,000 and $900,000. The sale of this painting has angered some who feel that a museum's role is to protect important artwork not risk losing it to private collection for a questionable gain. Does a museum have an ethical responsibility to prevent art from disappearing from public view?

While we wouldn't agree with these opponents of the sale that Bohémienne is the most important work of 19th century painting, but we have to admire their enthusiasm.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:45 AM | Get permalink

'We told you so.'

Those liberal defeatists at The Economist continue to show how they just can't understand Dubya's brilliant policy moves in Iraq. Just because the US is facing a few minor problems, they run an article saying that events in Iraq are living up to the warnings that countries in the region gave the US before the war. And while the governments of Iraq's neighbors are getting a perverse satisfaction out of being right in their predictions, says The Economis, they're also very worried about the effects of all the 'untidiness next door.'

The tarnishing of American prestige reflects directly and badly on the governments of its allies: Turkey, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. What is worse, from their point of view, is that by recharging the symbolism of popular resistance to alien rule, Iraq's creeping intifada risks empowering the Islamist extremists who, to varying degrees, threaten them all.

Israel, which was alone in backing the war wholeheartedly, has other reasons to be anxious. An American failure in Iraq could create a vacuum that Israeli analysts assume would be filled by forces hostile to the Jewish state. Zeev Schiff, a seasoned Israeli military correspondent, gives warning of eventual Iranian intervention, and with it the unspoken spectre of possible nuclear weapons close to Israel's own.

What Israel might do in such circumstances becomes, in turn, a worry for Iran and Syria too, a worry to be added to the existing fear they share with Turkey that a collapse in Iraq could lead to the creation of a breakaway Kurdish state that would stir up their own Kurdish minorities....

On the Arab street, emotions have risen to a pitch not seen since the war itself. Media coverage of the siege of Fallujah includes newspaper photos of stray dogs chewing on unburied corpses, and dramatic televised appeals from inside the stricken city. For a time after the deflatingly swift capture of Baghdad, public opinion on Iraq had been confused. But the mass killings in Fallujah, plus the stoking of pan-sectarian anger, have once again produced a seemingly clear narrative.

Press commentary, from the Gulf to Morocco, has noted, with striking uniformity, the parallels between the Fallujah carnage and Israel's efforts to crush Palestinian resistance....

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:02 AM | Get permalink

Our cats made us post this.

From the sketchbook of cartoonist Scott Bateman :

'Complaining cat

If the Iron Chef reference escapes you, take a look at this and this.

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

How does Portland get to be so lucky?

We guess it's because homophobe and bigot Rev. Fred Phelps thinks that Oregon is 'a Sodomite whorehouse' in great need of his ministry. He'll be visiting churches and the godless in and around Portland this weekend.

One of Phelps' appearances on Sunday will be at the Portland State University campus (this magpie's academic roost) at 11 am. Emily at Strangechord (another Portland blog) tells us that anti-Phelps protesters will be meeting up at 10 am on Sunday, between Shattuck Hall and Neuberger Hall at PSU. Like Emily, we expect to be there.

Phelps' visit brings up a question, though. If Oregon really is a sodomite whorehouse, how come this magpie misses out on all the fun?

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:49 AM | Get permalink

Coffee rituals, Arab style.

We have to admit to being charmed by this post from the personal blog of Mohammed Ali Abtahi, Iran's vice president:

One of the current protocols in Arab countries is that in any official meeting, some servants enter and serve small cups of coffees to the guests and others right at the time the enter. When the coffee is drunk, if the person wouldn’t want any more, then he should shake the cup to two sides in a special way and if he doesn’t do it, then they will pour it again and again. If someone has no idea of this, then he should drink that bitter coffee many times!

One of the responsible bodies of United Arab Emirates was telling that an Ambassador of one of the Western countries had gone to their official meeting. Then he had drunk a cup, two and three cups of coffee but when he found out that the servant is still pouring coffee into his cup, he found an initiative [innovative?] solution. Guess what he did? He took a tissue and wrapped the cup by it. Then put it into his pocket!!! Everybody had laughed at the time and that ambassador had said: "I saw that this servant wouldn’t leave me! Then I decided to find a way!!" They then thought [taught] her the protocol.

I shouldn’t hide it that the same thing had happened to me as well but I never put the cup in my pocket and just straightforwardly said that I don’t want coffee anymore! They thought [taught] me the protocol too. It's a strange and funny world at the same time. Mean [?] the world of political protocols.

We suppose things would be clearer if the translation from Farsi to English was via something other than Babelfish (or similar), but the blog wouldn't be half as fun.

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

Right-wing radio may be trashing Air America Radio ...

But at least some people at National Public Radio are listening to Air America with great interest, despite the dismissive review that the new US liberal radio network received on NPR's All Things Considered last week.

NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin gives Air America a pretty good review in his current column, and offers some thoughts about the effect that a successful Air America could have on NPR:

I listened to Air America online the other day and I found it to be lively, smart and surprisingly energetic radio, if still a little rough around the technical edges. A recent edition of Unfiltered had some very funny riffs on Wal-Mart, the need for a new logo for the Green Party and a wickedly tough analysis of the Blair-Bush connection from London journalist and one-time Trotskyite activist Tariq Ali.

As a purveyor of opinion, Air America seems designed to provide a refreshing view from the liberal chattering classes. There are lots of good one-liners, but those start to feel a little thin and repetitious after a while. What passes for wit at the beginning of a program sounds a lot like "smarty pants" radio after an hour. But there are points-of-view (Tariq Ali for example) you don't hear anywhere else -- even on NPR.

Will Air America be a short-lived election year phenomenon, or will it draw listeners away from NPR? Some listeners say NPR has become more cautious in recent years. NPR would do well to pay close attention to Air America's fortunes to see if monolithic and conservative commercial radio has begun to run its course.

A greater worry for NPR might not be from Air America but from an attitude of complacency that ignores what else is interesting and valuable to Americans.

At least in one other respect, Air America seems very savvy, and ironically it's in the realm of marketing. Their programs were launched at the beginning of the spring 2004 ratings season. NPR may know in August whether Air America has found its audience and whether it used to belong to NPR.

Via Current.

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

Slums just aren't what they used to be.

The new slum in Portland, Oregon is made up of dozens of old motels, built in pre-Interstate days to serve highway travelers. Once the freeways were built, the traffic disappeared and the original motel owners moved on. Successive owners have had to find new customers, working their way down the income scale as their properties deteriorated. The current owners of what Willamette Week calls Portland's 'no-tell motels' have found a captive audience: poor people who can't afford to live anywhere else.

In an excellent article in the current issue of Willamette Week, Dan Cook and Michael Nicoloff describe what life is like for residents of Portland's no-tell motels and tell why the city hasn't dealt with the poor living conditions and wrack-renting landlords.

Big cities like Portland all have slums and probably always will. But in the past few years, a disturbing trend has developed in Portland. Slum housing has been replaced by slum motels--establishments that attract the poorest of the poor because they demand neither a security deposit nor reference or credit checks. And because of a legal loophole and a city inspector's office that appears to be less than diligent, these motels operate almost outside the law. To make matters worse, some of them are subsidized with tax dollars.

With the jails full, mental institutions shut down, shelters jammed and low-income housing in critically short supply in the city, these motels are the dumping grounds for the dregs of our society: drug addicts, sex offenders, drifters, prostitutes and hardened criminals. Toss into the mix the increasing number of families for whom the no-tell motel represents the only option short of a doorway, and these places become "the breeding ground for our next generation of criminals," says Cassandra Garrison, public policy director for the Oregon Food Bank, which includes motels in its hunger outreach work.

According to advocates for the working poor, there are approximately 50 hotels in the city of Portland that are functioning as apartments, and they house, on any given night, at least 2,000 people.

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

Thursday, April 15, 2004

Lummi Nation settles grave descration lawsuit.

The Lummi Nation has settled a lawsuit over the desecration of graves at a former Lummi village near Blaine, Washington. Without either side having to admit fault, the Lummis have agreed to accept US $4.25 million from Atlanta-based Golder Associates. The city of Blaine had hired a Golder archaeologist to observe construction during expansion of the city's sewage treatment plant, which is located at the village site.

[However], workers dug through human remains and Lummi artifacts, hauling 400 truckloads to three acres of nearby private property for use as fill and leaving several huge piles at the spit.

The archaeologist even loaded remains into the back of his pickup and drove to Denver, allegedly without notifying the tribe.

The settlement legitimized the company's apology and ensured the tribe would be able to afford to rebury its dead, said Tribal Chairman Darrell Hillaire. It also brought some relief to a people still grieving the displacement of more than 100 members of their families.

"There's this collective release of tension, I guess, that I sense," Hillaire said.

The settlement includes $3.5 million to the tribe itself, plus $750,000 to be divided among 1,236 tribal members whose ancestors were buried at Semiahmoo. Those tribal members can keep the money or donate their $606 portion to a park commemorating the tribal village or the reburial effort.

Members of the Lummi Nation are currently sifting through the dirt removed from the village site, looking for bones and artifacts. The Lummis plan to re-bury what they've unearthed at the village site in July.

The disturbance of Indian graves and remains (whether intentional or unintentional) is a serious matter, and is the subject of both federal law and Washington state law, as is the disposition of any Indian remains and associated artifacts that are found. In general, the law requires that a tribe be notified if ancestral graves or remains are discovered, and any remains and artifacts that are unearthed must be turned over to tribal representatives for reburial. The alleged behavior of the Golder archaeologist didn't even come close to obeying the law.

For more information on the Lummi Nation, you can check out the Lummis' (sadly minimal) tribal website here. Other online sources of information on Lummis are scanty, but you can find some historical information here and here.

Via Seattle Times.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:46 PM | Get permalink

The president's brain is missing.

Well, that's what it says.

Via Political Animal.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:50 PM | Get permalink

Is Iraq the new Vietnam?

No, says economist Paul Krugman in his current NY Times column. Iraq is worse than Vietnam.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:57 PM | Get permalink

US Justice Department intervenes in hijab lawsuit.

A federal judge has agreed to let the US Justice Department join a lawsuit against an Oklahoma school district that suspended a Muslim student for wearing a hijab (head scarf).

Nashala Hearn was suspended twice last autumn for wearing the hijab, which officials of the Muskogee Public School District said violated the district's dress code. That code bans all head coverings in the interest of stopping gang activity. A suit was filed on Hearn's behalf, asking the court to order the district to change its dress code to accomodate religious dress, and the remove Hearn's suspensions from her record.

The court decision to let the feds join the lawsuit is expected to lend weight to Hearn's case. The department accuses the district of violating the 14th amendment of the US Constittution, which guarantees all citizens the equal protection of the law.

A hearing in Hearn's suit is expected in mid-May.

While we are happy to see that Hearn's family was able to secure legal help it needed to fight the school district, we have to say that the Rutherford Institute (the group who filed the suit on Hearn's behalf) is a rather questionable ally, as a look at their home page will attest. The bulk of the Institute's legal cases seem to be predicated on the assumption that that the fundamentalist Christians are a persecuted group whose rights are threatened by the evil forces of secularism.

Via AP.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:46 PM | Get permalink

Nuclear facilities in Iraq are ungaurded.

Not only that, but radioactive materials from those unguarded nuclear facilities are being taken out of Iraq. These are the conclusions reached by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) after it studied satellite photos of Iraq and examined nuclear-related equipment that's turned up in Europe.

In letters to the UN Security Council and US officials, IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei said that satellite photos show 'extensive removal of equipment and in some instances, removal of entire buildings', and that 'large quanitities of scrap, some of it contaminated, have been transfered out of Iraq' from sites that the IAEA monitored before the Iraq war.

In January, the IAEA confirmed that Iraq was the likely source of radioactive material known as yellowcake that was found in a shipment of scrap metal at Rotterdam harbor.

Yellowcake, or uranium oxide, could be used to build a nuclear weapon, although it would take tons of the substance refined with sophisticated technology to harvest enough uranium for a single bomb. [...]

The yellowcake in the shipment was natural uranium ore which probably came from a known mine in Iraq that was active before the 1991 Gulf War.

A small number of Iraqi missile engines have also turned up in European ports, IAEA officials said.

''It is not clear whether the removal of these items has been the result of looting activities in the aftermath of the recent war in Iraq or as part of systematic efforts to rehabilitate some of their locations,'' ElBaradei wrote to the council.

The US has refused to allow IAEA inspectors to enter Iraq since it ousted Saddam Hussein last spring, by the way.

After reading the AP story about the IAEA's findings, we were certain that we'd heard about unguarded nuclear sites in Iraq before. Sure enough, a Google search on 'iraq nuclear site unguarded 2003' was really productive. Right at the top of the results, we found this Baltimore Sun story from April 11, 2003:

Three Iraqi warehouses filled with 2,500 barrels of uranium that could be enriched for nuclear weapons - plus 150 radioactive isotopes that could be used for "dirty bombs" - lay unguarded for several days this week as Iraqi mobs swirled around.

The facility, known as Location C, was Iraq's only internationally sanctioned storage site for nuclear material. It thus was a potential prize for U.S. forces - or for anyone seeking to steal radioactive material for sale to other countries or to terrorists.

Iraqi Republican Guard troops abandoned the site late last week as U.S. forces approached the nearby Tuwaitha nuclear research center south of Baghdad....

We also found this Washington Post report from April 24, 2003:

Nearly three weeks after U.S. forces reached Iraq's most important nuclear facility, the Bush administration has yet to begin an assessment of whether tons of radioactive material there remain intact, according to military officials here and in Washington.

Before the war began last month, the vast Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center held 3,896 pounds of partially enriched uranium, more than 94 tons of natural uranium and smaller quantities of cesium, cobalt and strontium, according to reports compiled through the 1990s by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Immensely valuable on the international black market, the uranium was in a form suitable for further enrichment to "weapons grade," the core of a nuclear device. The other substances, products of medical and industrial waste, emit intense radiation. They have been sought, officials said, by terrorists seeking to build a so-called dirty bomb, which uses conventional explosives to scatter dangerous radioactive particles.

Defense officials acknowledge that the U.S. government has no idea whether any of Tuwaitha's potentially deadly contents have been stolen, because it has not dispatched investigators to appraise the site. What it does know, according to officials at the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command, is that the sprawling campus, 11 miles south of Baghdad, lay unguarded for days and that looters made their way inside.

So it appears that while the US was busy looking for WMDs and granting lucrative business deals to companies run by Dubya's pals, nobody thought that keeping an eye on Iraq's nuclear facilities was a particularly high priority. We haven't heard any reaction from Washington yet, but we're sure that some administration spokesperson will blame the unguarded nuclear sites on President Clinton.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:09 PM | Get permalink

Air America Radio coming back to Chicago.

A New York court has granted Air America Radio's request for a restraining order against Multicultural Radio. Air America has leased time for broadcast of its programming on two of Multicultural's stations, but that programming was turned off by Multicultural because of alleged bounced checks. The court ruling would appear to put an end to rumors that Air America is in financial trouble.

According to the Air America website, they will be back on the air in Chicago as soon as they gain physical access to WNTD. The situation with KBLA, Multicultural's station in Los Angeles is apparently not yet resolved.

More: The AP reports that Air America will be back on the air in Chicago tomorrow (Friday).

Air America chairman Evan Cohen said the company had not asked the court to act in Los Angeles, and was pursuing other options there, including finding a new "more responsible and mature" business partner.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:34 PM | Get permalink

Welcome to ~~Transkei~~ Palestine.

In Haaretz, Akiva Eldar compares the Israeli plan for 'disengagement' from parts of Palestine to the 'homeland' plan implemented by the former apartheid regime in South Africa

The disengagement plan's states "there will no longer be a basis for the claim that the Gaza Strip is occupied territory (Article 2.A.3). Thus Israel releases itself from legal-political, moral, and economic responsibility for the Strip and transforms it into an independent entity. However the plan removes only the responsibility, together with its few citizens and its many soldiers. Other than that, control of the Gaza Strip stays in its hands. Israel will continue to control all international passages (Article 2.A.1, and Article 12). The "independent" entity will not be allowed to invite international forces to exercise control unless Israel - which will no longer be responsible for 1.3 million Gazans - agrees....

Note on the headline: Transkei was the first of the black homelands to be granted 'independence' by the former apartheid government of South Africa.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:12 PM | Get permalink

More on Air America Radio.

The LA Weekly's Howard Blume fills in some more details about the dispute that took Air America Radio off the air in LA and Chicago.

Wednesday's bad news came one day after an upbeat press release announcing [Air America's] expansion into six new markets, which, at the time, gave the network 16 stations. Air America had started on March 31 with four stations. Yesterday's new additions included stations in Sacramento (1240 AM), West Palm Beach and Portland, Maine.

The network's business plan contemplated losing money for as much as four years, so presumably, investors were prepared for the financial pain of keeping the doors open in L.A. and Chicago. Which is one reason why Wednesday's events were so puzzling.

So can this be seen as a strike by the vast right-wing conspiracy? Or perhaps an unfortunate misunderstanding? Or hardball business tactics that spiraled to a confrontation?

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:43 PM | Get permalink

Why Dubya caved to Sharon.

The Washington Post reveals the not-so-surprising truth about Dubya's reversal of decades of US policy on Israel. (For those who've been hiding from the news for a few days, Dubya told Israeli PM Ariel Sharon that a settlement with the Palestinians no longer needs to include a drawback to Israel's pre-1967 borders, or allow the right of return of Palestinians expelled from Israeli territory.)

In declaring that Israel should be able to keep some of the occupied territories and block Palestinian refugees from settling in Israel, Bush followed a familiar pattern of finding common cause with Jews and increasingly pro-Israel Christian conservatives.

However, the Post neglected to add these important words to the end of that paragraph: '... who Dubya now expects will vote for him in November.'

The consequences that Dubya's policy change will have for US relations with Arab countries are just beginning to be seen, as are the effect that it will have on the level of anti-US terrorism worldwide. We predict that Dubya has reaped yet another whirlwind — something he seems to be particularly good at doing.

Since yesterday, we've just been waiting for someone in the 'real' press to point out the real reason for Dubya's policy turnaround. Thanks to Susan at Suburban Guerrilla for pointing us to the Post article.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:31 AM | Get permalink

Army drops all charges against Guantanamo chaplain.

All charges against Capt. James Yee have been dropped, and all record of his arrest and conviction on minor charges are being erased from his Army record. Yee had originally been charged with espionage, after a highly publicized arrest last September.

We were going to write more ourself, but Sisyphus Shrugged's post on Yee is much cattier than ours would have been.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:17 AM | Get permalink

The elusive US economic recovery.

Observers report that it's gone back into hiding again.

The US Labor Department reports that the number of new unemployment claims in the US have made their biggest jump in two years. The Labor Department recorded 360,000 new claims last week, which is an increase of 30,000 claims over the week before. Economists had predicted only 7,000 new claims.

The Labor Department is trying to put the best face possible on the new figures, saying that the first week of a new quarter is always volatile. Nonetheless, the big jump in new claims undercuts Washington's claims that the economy is improving.

Via AP.

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

Blame Canada.

Dubya's drug czar John Walters is charging that those evil Canadians are exporting high-quality marijuana to the US. Walter's remarks appear to be the latest US salvo against the proposed relaxing of laws governing marijuana possession in Canada.

Canada denies being a major contributor the United States' drug problem.

Ottawa says Washington's own data shows that of all the illegal marijuana seized by US agents, only 1.5% came from Canada.

Via BBC.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:31 AM | Get permalink

Wednesday, April 14, 2004

More on Air America Radio's problems in LA and Chicago.

As we posted earlier, Air America's programming is off the air in Los Angeles and Chicago because of a dispute with Arthur Liu (the owner of Multicultural Radio Broadcasting) over fees that Liu claims are owed for the purchase of airtime. Liu told the Chicago Tribune that checks from Air America had bounced, an allegation that Air America head Evan Cohen denies.

The continuing dearth of independently verified details about the dispute have fueled speculation about a political motive for Liu's decision to abruptly pull the plug on Air America, which unabashedly identifies itself as liberal. At least one Air America program hosts has (carefully) suggested such a connection while on the air.

Meanwhile, the NY Times has added a few more details to what's known.

[Air America head Evan] Cohen, however, said that Multicultural owed money to Air America. He said that Mr. Liu's company had recently deposited a check from Air America for $315,000, and that it had cleared. But Mr. Cohen said that Air America had stopped payment on a second check, for $156,000, after Air America discovered that Multicultural had leased air time on its Los Angeles station to another programmer in February and March, before Air America went on the air on March 31.

While not broadcasting during that time, Mr. Cohen said, Air America had already leased that time from Multicultural and was thus entitled to any fees collected.

The Air America programming could still be heard yesterday in nearly a dozen markets, including New York City. It said it was preparing last night to ask a judge in New York to order Multicultural to put the programming back on the air on its stations in Chicago and Los Angeles.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:47 PM | Get permalink

But Mom, we just had trilobites for dinner last night ...

US, French, and Chinese scientists have found evidence that trilobites were on the dinner menu of other Paleozoic animals. Paleontologists have long suspected that the ubiquitous trilobite was prey for other creatures, but the discovery of cracked trilobite parts in the gut of a half-billion year old fossil marine animal is the first time there's been hard evidence that trilobites were a major food item.

Via BBC.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:30 PM | Get permalink

Supporting the troops.

21,000 US troops in Iraq are having their tours of duty extended by three months so they can continue to fight Iraqi insurgents.

The decision, which has not been announced publicly, breaks the Army's promise to soldiers and their families that assignments in Iraq would be limited to 12 months. The affected soldiers already have been in Iraq for a year.

Via AP.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:48 PM | Get permalink

Sovereignty? What sovereignty?

Last night, Dubya made the June 30th transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi government one of the main points of his statement to the US public about Iraq.

The nation of Iraq is moving toward self-rule, and Iraqis and Americans will see evidence in the months to come. On June 30th, when the flag of free Iraq is raised, Iraqi officials will assume full responsibility for the ministries of government. On that day, the transitional administrative law, including a bill of rights that is unprecedented in the Arab world, will take full effect.

The United States, and all the nations of our coalition, will establish normal diplomatic relations with the Iraqi government. An American embassy will open, and an American ambassador will be posted.

The prez painted a pretty nice picture, didn't he? From what he said, you'd expect that the post-June 30 Iraqi government will be totally in charge of the country, wouldn't you?

Bzzzzzzt!! Wrong.

From a Reuters story about the transfer of sovereignty:

Iraq will have no control over its foreign policy nor over its troops when the United States hands over sovereignty on June 30 and will therefore have little say about its own future, analysts said. [...]

The United States rules Iraq through the Coalition Provisional Authority and this form of direct rule from Washington will likely persist through plans to run a large U.S. embassy in Baghdad.

Analysts said it was inevitable Washington would insist on control of Iraqi forces, some of which have refused to fight in the fierce clashes over the past week, if only to ensure that U.S. forces and their Iraqi allies do not shoot one another.

But it is also the most obvious example of how Iraq is unlikely to exercise full sovereignty come July 1.

"You can't really have an independent government going out there and doing things that are going to have to be supported by our military, whether that means for example closing down a mosque or a newspaper," said Edward Walker, a former U.S. ambassador to Egypt and Israel. "I don't see how we could expose our troops to decisions that are not in our control."

So after we compare what the analysts say with Dubya's speech last night, we have a few more terms that we can add to our glossary of Dubyaspeak:

• Sovereignty: Occupation business as usual, but the Iraqi flag will fly in front of the building.

• Self-rule: Iraqi officials run things, as long as what they do isn't forbidden by the US ambassador.

• American embassy: Governor's mansion.

• American ambassador: The guy who pulls the strings and holds all the cards.

Via Reuters.

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:25 PM | Get permalink

What's destroying Irish traditional music? (2)

[Wow. We're posting on Irish music twice within 24 hours. We think this is a record.]

When we last tuned in to the debate, Mayo Comhaltas secretary, Seamus O Dubhthaigh (Duffy) had just fired his broadside about the decline of Irish traditional music in the Irish newspaper, the Western People. To refresh your memory, here's some of what Duffy said:

I am often amazed and also annoyed by music artistes and radio presenters who introduce various recordings of Irish music as being traditional. In fact, the latter adjective must be the most abused, relative to Irish music, that exists. By its very nature, Irish traditional music is a folk music, simple and uncomplicated.

Unfortunately, in many modern recordings we get elements which are not within the tradition such as lavish attempts at arrangements, in some cases overtures, with a callithumpian concert of guitars, bodhrans and basoukis in the background - instruments of low or no musical quality which tend to obscure and distract from the central artiste. This feature of the recording business seems to worsen on an annual basis. I can assure all and sundry that this is not an Irish influence but a commercial one, and largely American.

In the current Western People, Frank Kilkelly of Castlebar rebuts Duffy quite nicely, we think (look about halfway down the page):

As we all know, there are two human components in the making of music. There is the musician, and there is the listener. Without both, nothing happens. Musicians make the music, and the listeners respond by attending concerts, sessions, buying records, etc. If the music is not what they want to hear, they don't respond.

Mr Duffy seems to ignore the fact that if the majority of people felt as he does, that "noise is substituted for actual music", (with the addition of accompaniment), the revival [of Irish traditional music in the 1970s] would never have happened, and with it, most probably, the worldwide profile of all strands of Irish traditional music would not be anywhere as high as it is today.

On a musical level, accompanists have made huge leaps in the quality of what they do, and major exploration into the rhythmic and harmonic possibilities of jigs and reels have helped to add a new dimension to the beauty of the music. Mr. Duffy's reference to these instruments as having "low or no musical quality" displays a degree of deafness and/or closed-mindedness that is hard to imagine.

I personally enjoy traditional music played without accompaniment. The sound of one melody instrument, or many played in unison, can be sweet and beautiful. How good it sounds depends on the quality of the players. With accompaniment, the same is true. This would be obvious to many, but Mr. Duffy prefers to brand all accompanists as "people of low esteem and undiscerning musical tastes", a comment which I find to be insulting, myopic, and ignorant.

It must be remembered that folk culture is a living thing, always evolving. To attempt to give a stamp of authenticity to only one stage in the development of the music is extremely myopic.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:37 PM | Get permalink

Air America taken off the air in two cities.

The owner of two Air America affiliate stations pulled the plug on the new liberal radio network in LA and Chicago. The station owner, Arthur Liu of Multicultural Radio Broadcasting, says Air America hasn't paid its bills. Air America says that Liu and Multicultural are violating their contractual obligations to the liberal network.

Listeners who tuned into WNTD-950, Air America's Chicago affiliate, Wednesday morning heard Spanish-language talk radio instead of "Morning Sedition" and "Unfiltered," the network's morning talk shows.

A Chicago source familiar with the situation said a Multicultural representative showed up at WNTD's offices this morning, kicked out Air America's lone staffer overseeing the network's feed to the station from New York, switched over to a Spanish-language feed, and changed the locks on the doors.

Liu said the same thing happened at KBLA in Los Angeles.

Morons.org has more on the dispute, which seems very baroque indeed.

Here's Air America's press release:

Air America Radio is temporarily unable to be heard on WNTD in Chicago and KBLA in Los Angeles, but Chicago and Los Angeles listeners can still hear our broadcast on the web at airamericaradio.com and on XM Satellite Radio (channel 167).

MultiCultural Radio Broadcasting's conduct in this matter has been disgraceful. To shut off a broadcast that listeners rely on without warning and in the middle of discussions is the height of irresponsibility and a slap in the face of the media industry. In addition, it is a clear violation of their contractual obligations, and we are seeking legal remedies against them in court.

We really hope that only financial disagreements are involved here, and that no political strings are being pulled from ... well, from places that would pull political strings to make life difficult for a non–right-wing broadcaster.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:39 PM | Get permalink

Today's increase in the US inflation rate.

MB at Wampum and Mary at the Left Coaster have kindly saved us the trouble of writiing our own post on the subject.

The crux of the biscuit: Rising gas prices and flat wages may take down the US economic 'recovery.' And maybe the housing market, too.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:28 PM | Get permalink

Enter stage right: The camel's nose.

According to the latest reports, radical Shiite cleric al-Sadr has dropped his insistence that US forces pull back from the holy city of Najaf before negotiations can begin. Currently a massive US force is sitting just outside Najaf, and that force's commander has said that he plans to either arrest or kill al-Sadr.

While this apparent drawback from a potential bloodbath is good news, al-Sadr's change of heart apparently comes through the assistance of the Iranian government. .Juan Cole offers an interesting comment on Iran's role in the negotiations at Najaf:

The Iranians also seem pleased to be drawn into a role in resolving the issue. I am frankly amazed that the US is willing to countenance this, and it seems a sign of real desperation on the part of the Bush administration to turn to the Axis of Evil for help. I am also amazed that Khamenei agreed to it on the Iranian side, and can only imagine that he thinks that it is a good thing to have the Americans owe him one so that he can continue to crush the reformists and reconsolidate conservative control of Iran. But once Iran is drawn into a formal role in Iraqi Shiite politics, the Bush administration should be aware that it will not be easy to push them back out. There is a story about the desert camel that is cold and its master lets it put its nose under the tent. But then it slides in its head, slowly slowy. Then its hump. And finally there is only a camel in the tent and the hapless owner has been pushed out into the cold night. We may be witnessing the insertion of the camel's nose.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:16 PM | Get permalink

Dolly goes to Washington.

Today in Washington, DC, country music legend Dolly Parton is receiving the 'Living Legend' award from the US Library of Congress for her creative contributions to the nation's cultural life. (If the only song Dolly Parton had written was 'Coat of Many Colors,' she'd still be a living legend in this magpie's book.)

The award is as good a reason as any to post this cool promo photo of a rather young Parton:

'A very young Dolly Parton

We think it's the only photo of her we've seen where she wasn't wearing one of her signature wigs.

If you don't know much about Parton, the Library of Congress has an excellent site on her contribution to country music if you go here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:34 AM | Get permalink

Who has a successful strategy for Iraq?

It appears that only al-Qaeda has one that's working.

Events in Iraq in the past couple of weeks have brought new attention to a document published last December on a radical Islamic website, that was translated from Arabic by researchers at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment. Those researchers believe that the document outlines a resistance strategy to be used by insurgents in Iraq — a belief reinforced by the document's recommendations for encouraging Spain to withdraw from the 'Coalition of the Willing.'

The document therefore offers a number of specific "policy recommendations" in order to increase the economic impact of the insurgency and the jihadi campaign in Iraq. The most important of these recommendations consists of trying to limit the number of American allies present in Iraq, because America must not be allowed to share the cost of occupation with a wide coalition of countries. If the mujahidin can force US allies to withdraw from Iraq then America will be left to cover the expenses on her own, which she cannot sustain for very long. The intermediary strategic goal is therefore to make one or two of the US allies leave the coalition, because this will cause others to follow suit and the dominos will start falling.

The document then analyses three countries (Britain, Spain and Poland) in depth, with a view to identifying the weakest link or the domino piece most likely to fall first. The author provides a surprisingly informed and nuanced analysis of the domestic political map in each country. He argues that each country will react differently to violent attacks against its forces because of domestic political factors:

Poland, for example, is unlikely to withdraw from the coalition because there is political consensus on foreign policy, and the country has a very high tolerance for human casualties.

Britain is easier to force out of Iraq, because the popular opposition to the war and the occupation is so high. However, the author estimates that Britain will only withdraw from Iraq in one of two cases: either if Britain suffers significant human casualties in Iraq or if Spain and Italy withdraws first.

Spain on the other hand is very vulnerable to attacks on its forces, primarily because public opposition to the war is almost total, and the government is virtually on its own on this issue. The author therefore identifies Spain as the weakest link in the coalition.

The Norwegian analysts believe that the March 11 attack in Spain, and the resulting replacement of the pro-war Aznar government by the Socialists is evidence both that the strategy outlined in the document is being used, and that the strategy is effective.

While the Nowegians are somewhat hesitant about making direct links between the situation on the ground in Iraq and the jihadist document, Pakistani journalist and diplomat Husain Haqqani believes that the connections are clear. Writing in Salon, he argues that Washington's obsession with ousting Saddam Hussein and its failure to create a strong coalition before the Iraq war have played right into the hands of the jihadists. Haqqani says that the recent attacks on US allies in Iraq are clear evidence that the strategy outlined in the December 2003 document is being put into practice:

In addition to the Spanish, personnel from Ukraine, Germany and Japan have been targeted in Iraq. Terrorist attacks around the world have also become more frequent, as if fulfilling a strategic design for wider mayhem. Instead of dismantling the networks of terror cell by cell, the United States is trying to dissuade terrorism by demonstrating its greater military might. The number of terrorist cells, however, is continuing to multiply.

Historically, terrorism flourished in the chaos of the wars in Lebanon and Afghanistan. Iraq is now evoking memories of Lebanon, with the added feature of American military presence. The military presence is large enough to attract charges of occupation but not so big that it can keep the place fully under control. By waging war in Iraq to topple an evil regime that was not directly responsible for the 9/11 attacks, the United States has run the risk of overextending itself militarily. Combating the Shiite uprising in most of Iraq, for example, is not a necessary element of the war against terrorism. It is, however, antagonizing Shiite Muslims in Iraq and elsewhere and creating potentially active enemies for the United States where none existed before.

Al-Qaida and other extremists know the Muslim mind and seem also to have some understanding of the Bush administration's approach. They attract massive American military retaliation through violent acts, such as the murder of American civilians in Fallujah, because the collateral damage of military operations adds to the resentment of the U.S. occupation. The administration's sledgehammer approach loses America critical goodwill of existing and potential allies.

Last night at his press conference, Dubya re-affirmed the existing administration policy in Iraq, and made it clear that the US will use military means to end the insurgency. It looks to us like the al-Qaeda strategy is moving right along.

For those of you who read Arabic, a PDF file containing the December 2003 jihadist document is here.

[Ad view or paid sub req'd for Salon]

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:08 AM | Get permalink

How do you describe an Irish music session?

One way is to show a picture, and tell people to look at the faces of the musicians (especially that fiddler in the front left):

'Irish musicians playing on street corner

'Irish musicians playing on street corner

Street-corner session in County Mayo (Photographer unknown)
Another way is to refer to these words from a discussion about playing in sessions that's going on over at TheSesssion.org:

Imagine that each tune is actually an object on the table in the middle of us -- but you can't see it. Each of our instruments, when played, casts a light onto the object and illuminates it. Each instrument emits a slightly different hue and shines onto the object (tune) from a different angle lighting it up from all sides so it sparkles like a jewel. The back-up instruments light it up from underneath so that it appears to float, and the bodhrán (stay with me now) makes it dance around in the air.

That's a lovely way to think of a session, don't you think? And on the good nights, they're just like that. Even without the whiskey.

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

Tuesday, April 13, 2004

Not impressed.

From the NY Times editorial on Dubya's press conference:

While repeatedly expressing his grief over the deaths related to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, Mr. Bush seemed to entertain no doubts about the rightness of his own behavior, no questions about whether he should have done something in response to the domestic terrorism report he received on Aug. 6, 2001.

The United States has experienced so many crises since Mr. Bush took office that it sometimes feels as if the nation has embarked on one very long and painful learning curve in which every accepted truism becomes a doubt, every expectation a question mark. Only Mr. Bush somehow seems to have avoided any doubt, any change.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:54 PM | Get permalink

So much for the idea that no one could predict using a plane as a weapon ...

... even though Dubya repeated that plaint at his news conference earlier this evening.

A government watchdog groups says that months before 9/11, wargamers in the US military proposed a scenario in which a hijacked airliner was crashed into the Pentagon:

According to an email obtained by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), members of the U.S. military responsible for defending America's airspace were in fact concerned that a terrorist group would "hijack a commercial airline [sic] (foreign carrier) and fly it into the Pentagon."

Officials at the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in April 2001 - five months prior to 9/11 - wanted to develop a response in the event that a terrorist group would use an airliner as a missile to attack the Pentagon, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff rejected the scenario as "too unrealistic. [...]

POGO has learned that this scenario was being suggested by Special Operations personnel who are trained to think like terrorists.

Pentagon officials told the NY Times that the wargame scenario reported by POGO was indeed suggested before 9/11.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:49 PM | Get permalink

Dubya's press conference.

Dubya was just asked whether there is a comparison between Iraq and Vietnam. His answer: No. Just no — no explanation at all. But the prez added that making the comparison sends the wrong message to our troops. That's right: asking whether Iraq is anything like Vietnam means that you don't support the troops. Does this guy have no shame?

We were going to post more, as Dubya speaks, but we're starting to froth at the mouth. Lies, lies, and more lies.

Much later: It occurs to us that something we posted in a comment over at Corrente is probably worth mentioning here, too:

After watching the first part of the press conference, we turned off the TV and turned on the radio. Something that was immediately noticeable was a whiny tone in Dubya's voice that got quite annoying very quickly. When seeing a picture, this tone wasn't anywhere near as apparent. Our guess is that people who only heard Dubya came away from the press conference with far different, and much more negative, opinions on how well the prez did.

Did anyone else notice that whiny tone of voice?

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:55 PM | Get permalink

Puzzling deformities hitting Alaskan birds.

Our corvid news today isn't very good. Researchers ireport that the incidence of beak deformities among Alaska's bird is increasing, with the latest victims being crows in the Alaskan southeast. While the cause of the deformities is still unknown, there is strong suspicion that environmental pollution is to blame.

Outsized curved beaks up to three times their usual size have been spotted in some 30 species of bird so far. In many cases, the beak is so long that the bird is unable to feed or preen effectively, and ultimately dies.

Isolated cases of beak deformation have been seen in other places before, but not in such startling numbers, experts say.

The latest sightings bring the total number of Alaskan cases to around 1,800 since the first deformities were spotted in black-capped chickadees near Anchorage during the 1990s. Crows in southeastern Alaska are the latest to fall victim, says Colleen Handel of the US Geological Survey's Alaska Science Center in Anchorage, who has been tracking the outbreak....

But no one yet knows what is responsible for the birds' blighted beaks. Handel and her colleagues have few leads to work on - the large number of different birds affected rules out a species-specific cause, and the team has so far found no evidence of a disease.

Via Nature.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:20 PM | Get permalink

A decent newspaper in Crawford, Texas?

Yep.

Campaign Desk spills the beans on the Lone Star Iconoclast, published weekly in Dubya's Texas hometown.

One Texas journalist who covers Crawford says the media tends to oversimplify the nature of the town's inhabitants. "You see the same story over and over -- a bunch of yokels in their overalls with straw between their teeth," she says. "But as small towns go it's a really impressive group of people, well read and articulate. Certainly more impressive than most towns of 700." Most reporters don't see that, she says, because they don't put in the effort. "Not one reporter that I knew of bothered to cross the railroad tracks and talk to black residents who weren't necessarily happy the president had moved to Crawford."

The Iconoclast's website is here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:51 PM | Get permalink

More links to today's 9/11 commission testimony.

The AP has links to all of the Q & A sessions, as well as to the prepared statements.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:05 PM | Get permalink

Why did 9/11 happen?

According to attorney general John Ashcroft, it was Clinton's fault.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:00 PM | Get permalink

Questions that the press should ask Dubya. But probably won't.

John Doble has 13 of 'em in a handy guide that members of the press can use to prep for Dubya's press conference later today..

Given that finding no WMDs in Iraq represents an intelligence failure of the greatest magnitude, why was no one dismissed?

Do think it was wise for the U.S. commander in Iraq to vow on Monday to "kill or capture" Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr, since the shutting down of the newspaper that supports him precipitated the recent uprising in Iraq?

With commanders in Iraq now saying that U.S. troops may have to "re-take," over and over, some of the cities conquered last spring, what do you say to the families of the more than 600 Americans killed and 3,000 wounded in Iraq since then?

Via Editor & Publisher.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:55 PM | Get permalink

Paranoid news report of the day.

If this report from Iran's Mehr news agency is true, the US could be making sure that some WMDs finally turn up in Iraq. Of course, this could just be tinfoil hat stuff, but ...

Fifty days after the first reports that the U.S. forces were unloading weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in southern Iraq, new reports about the movement of these weapons have been disclosed.

Sources in Iraq speculate that occupation forces are using the recent unrest in Iraq to divert attention from their surreptitious shipments of WMD into the country.

An Iraqi source close to the Basra Governor’s Office told the MNA that new information shows that a large part of the WMD, which was secretly brought to southern and western Iraq over the past month, are in containers falsely labeled as containers of the Maeresk shipping company and some consignments bearing the labels of organizations such as the Red Cross or the USAID in order to disguise them as relief shipments.

You can find a copy of the earlier Mehr report on WMDs here.

Via Susan at Suburban Guerrilla.

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

Proudly doing their best to muzzle freedom of speech.

It's Thomas Jefferson's birthday today, which means it's also the day that the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression announces its 2004 Jefferson Muzzles, which are awarded to groups or organizations who have committed "the most ridiculous or egregious acts of censorship" in the US during 2003.

This year, the winners included the CBS television network, which is making its third appearance on the list:

Two very different events, some months apart, occasion this citation... In the fall of 2003, the network announced plans to broadcast a mini-series about former President and Mrs. Ronald Reagan, production of which had begun at ABC and taken four years. The series would have enhanced CBS' audience appeal during sweeps week, and had been highly touted. But two weeks before the broadcast date, the network cancelled "The Reagans" following a barrage of criticism from friends and family of the revered former President, who had learned of material they viewed as unsympathetic and/or inaccurate. Michael Reagan, a conservative talk-show host, charged that the series "is all about dismantling my father, dismantling the conservative movement and tearing down Ronald Reagan as we go into an election year." Other conservatives expressed similar dismay, threatened boycotts of CBS and demanded the series' cancellation.

Yet "The Reagans" was not to be withdrawn completely from viewers. CBS executives soon announced that the series would be broadcast on Showtime, a cable channel controlled by parent company Viacom. Some critics saw this shift as partially mitigating the initial cancellation. Others, however, perceived such a switch as transparently hypocritical. Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, one of the initial protestors, found little virtue in relegating the series to cable - at best, in his view, "misleading a smaller audience of viewers."

Several months later, CBS again displayed a double standard in a programming decision. Although the network has freely aired a wide range of commercial messages for products and services, as well as public service announcements for various causes and viewpoints, CBS executives adamantly refused to sell time during the 2004 Super Bowl for the airing of one message that was critical of the Bush administration's fiscal policies.

The message's sponsor, MoveOn.org, had unsuccessfully submitted a tasteful 30-second message, already broadcast on CNN, that depicted children performing a variety of manual labor occupations. The ad contained no dialogue, simply a tag near the end that read, "Guess who's going to pay off President Bush's $1 trillion deficit?" (To view the commercial, click .) CBS officials justified this rejection on the basis of a fifty-year old policy against airing "controversial" messages - specifically designed to "prevent those with means to produce and purchase network advertising from having undue influence on 'controversial issues of public importance.'" Under such a policy, or even without a policy, a privately owned broadcast network is of course free to accept or reject submitted material as it wishes. Indeed, any governmental attempt to commandeer airtime for a particular message would almost certainly abridge a broadcaster's First Amendment freedoms. Yet the very power and authority that the major television networks possess impose a certain responsibility to exercise such power conscientiously and in the public interest. It is just that expectation which CBS seems, once again, to have disregarded.

For its handling of "The Reagans," and for barring a tasteful if provocative public service message, while granting Super Bowl time to advertise three different erectile dysfunction medicines, among a welter of commercial products, not to mention a half-time performance the climax of which could hardly be deemed less "controversial" than the banned PSA, CBS amply deserves yet another Jefferson Muzzle.

Read the full 2004 list of Muzzle 'honorees' here.

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

9/11 commission testimony.

No, nobody's fast enough to have the questions and answers online yet, but here are links to PDF files containing the prepared statements by former FBI directers Janet Reno and Louis Freeh, and former acting FBI director Thomas Pickard.

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

What US intelligence knew about terrorist threats just before 9/11.

One of the most useful resources we've found for breaking legal and government information is Paper Chase, run by the Jurist. Today, Paper Chase has really proved its worth by getting hold of an copy of a 9/11 commission staff report before its offical release.

This staff report gives details on the various threats of terrorism known to US intelligence agencies and relayed to high administration officials — including Duyba — just before 9/11.

We haven't had time yet to go through the document ourselves, so in the interests of quick posting, we're presenting the extended excerpts from the Paper Chase. [All emphasis is theirs.] It's a long post, but you really need to read it:

In spring 2001, the level of reporting on terrorist threats and planned attacks began to increase dramatically, representing the most significant spike in activity since the Millennium. At the end of March the Intelligence Community disseminated a Terrorist Threat Advisory, indicating there was a heightened threat of Sunni extremist terrorist attacks against U.S. facilities, personnel, and other interests in the coming weeks. In April and May 2001 the drumbeat of reporting increased. Articles presented to top officials contained headlines such as: "Bin Ladin planning multiple operations." "Bin Ladin public profile may presage attack." "Bin Ladin network's plans advancing." By late May there were reports of a hostage plot against Americans to force the release of prisoners, including Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the "Blind Sheikh," who was serving a life sentence for his role in the 1993 plot to blow up sites in New York City. The reporting noted that the operatives may opt to hijack an aircraft or storm a U.S. embassy. The reporting also mentioned that Abu Zubaydah was planning an attack and expected to carry out more if things went well. The U.S. government redoubled efforts, ongoing since late 1999, to capture Abu Zubaydah. National Counterterrorism Coordinator Clarke also called National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice?s attention to possible plots in Yemen and Italy, and by an alleged cell in Canada that might be planning an attack against the United States.

Reports similar to these were made available to President Bush in morning meetings with DCI Tenet, usually attended by Vice President Cheney and National Security Adviser Rice as well. None of these reports mentioned that the attacks might occur in the United States. At the end of May, Counterterrorist Center (CTC) Chief Cofer Black told Rice that the current threat level was a "7" on a scale of 10, as compared to an "8" during the Millennium.

The threat reports surged again in June and July, reaching an even higher peak of urgency. A Terrorist Threat Advisory in late June indicated that there was a high probability of near-term "spectacular" terrorist attacks resulting in numerous casualties. Headlines from intelligence reports were stark: "Bin Ladin threats are real." "Bin Ladin planning high profile attacks." The intelligence reporting consistently described the upcoming attacks as occurring on a catastrophic level, indicating that they would cause the world to be in turmoil, consisting of possible multiple "but not necessarily simultaneous" attacks. A late June report stated that Bin Ladin operatives expect near-term attacks to have dramatic consequences of catastrophic proportion.

Rice told us Clarke and his Counterterrorism and Security Group (CSG) were "the nerve center" in coordinating responses but that principals were also involved. In addition to his daily meetings with President Bush, and weekly meetings to go over other issues with National Security Adviser Rice, Tenet continued his regular meetings with Secretary Powell and Secretary Rumsfeld. The foreign policy principals talked on the phone every day on a variety of subjects, including the threat. The summer threats seemed to be focused on Saudi Arabia, Israel, Bahrain, Kuwait, Yemen, and possibly Rome, but the danger could be anywhere - including a possible attack on the G-8 summit in Genoa, where air defense measures were taken. Disruption operations were launched involving twenty countries. Several terrorist operatives were detained by foreign governments, possibly disrupting operations in the Gulf and Italy and perhaps averting attacks against two or three U.S. embassies. U.S. armed forces in at least six countries were placed on higher alert. Units of the Fifth Fleet were redeployed. Embassies were alerted. Vice President Cheney contacted Crown Prince Abdullah to get more Saudi help. DCI Tenet phoned or met with approximately twenty top security officials from other countries. Deputy National Security Adviser Hadley apparently called European counterparts. Clarke worked with senior officials in the Gulf.

At Rice's request, on July 5 the CIA briefed Attorney General John Ashcroft on the al Qaeda threat, warning that a significant terrorist attack was imminent, and a strike could occur at anytime. That same day, officials from domestic agencies, including the FAA, met with Clarke to discuss the current threat. Rice worked directly with Tenet on security issues for the G-8 summit. In addition to the individual reports, on July 11 top officials received a summary recapitulating the mass of al Qaeda-related threat reporting on several continents. Tenet told us that in his world "the system was blinking red," and by late July it could not have been any worse. Tenet told us he felt that President Bush and other officials grasped the urgency of what they were being told.

On July 27 Clarke informed Rice and Hadley that the spike in signals intelligence about a nearterm attack had stopped. He urged keeping readiness high during the August vacation period, warning that another report suggested an attack had just been postponed for a few months. On August 3 the Intelligence Community issued a Threat Advisory warning that the threat of impending al Qaeda attacks would likely continue indefinitely. The advisory cited threats in the Arabian Peninsula, Jordan, Israel, and Europe, and suggested that al Qaeda was lying in wait and searching for gaps in security before moving forward with the planned attacks.

During the spring and summer of 2001, President Bush had occasionally asked his briefers whether any of the threats pointed to the United States. Reflecting on these questions, the CIA decided to write a briefing article summarizing its understanding of this danger. The article, which the President received on August 6, is attached to this staff statement.

Despite the large number of threats received, there were no specifics regarding time, place, method, or target. Disruption efforts continued. An al Qaeda associate from North Africa, connected to Abu Zubaydah, was arrested in the United Arab Emirates on August 13. He had apparently been planning an attack against the U.S. Embassy in Paris.

CIA analysts who have recently reviewed the threat surge of the summer of 2001 told us they believe it may have been related to a separate stream of events. These threats may have been referring to the 9/11 attack, the planned assassination of Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, or other operations.

In July 2001, the CSG alerted federal law enforcement agencies and asked the FAA to send out security advisories. Beginning on July 27 the FAA issued several security directives to U.S. air carriers prior to September 11. In addition, the FAA issued a number of general warnings about potential threats, primarily overseas, to civil aviation. None of these warnings required the implementation of additional aviation security measures. They urged air carriers to be alert.

Although there was no credible evidence of an attack in the United States, Clarke told us, the CSG arranged for the CIA to brief senior intelligence and security officials from the domestic agencies. The head of counterterrorism at the FBI, Dale Watson, said he had many discussions about possible attacks with Cofer Black at the CIA. They had expected an attack on July 4. Watson said he felt deeply that something was going to happen. But he told us the threat information was "nebulous." He wished he had known more. He wished he had had "500 analysts looking at Usama Bin Ladin threat information instead of two."

Rice and Hadley told us that, before 9/11, they did not feel they had the job of handling domestic security. They felt that Clarke and the CSG were the NSC's bridge between foreign and domestic threats.

In late August, working-level CIA and FBI officials realized that one or more al Qaeda operatives might be in the United States. We have found no evidence that this discovery was ever briefed to the CSG, to principals, or to senior counterterrorism officials at the FBI or the CIA. Nor was the White House told about the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui.

The 9/11 staff report also discusses threat awareness by the FBI and recounts a summer 2001 conversation between Acting FBI Director Thomas Pickard and Attorney General Ashcroft in which Pickard said Ashcroft told him he did not want to hear the threat information anymore:

On April 13 FBI Headquarters alerted field offices to a heightened threat from al Qaeda against U.S. interests. The communication detailed the threats against U.S. interests abroad, but made no mention of any possible threat inside the United States. The field offices were asked to "task all resources to include electronic databases and human sources for any information pertaining to the current operational activities relating to Sunni extremism."

On July 2 the FBI Counterterrorism Division sent a message to federal agencies and state and local law enforcement agencies that summarized information regarding threats against U.S. interests from Bin Ladin. The message reported that there was an increased volume of threat reporting indicating a potential for attacks against U.S. targets abroad from groups "aligned with or sympathetic to Usama bin Ladin." It further stated, "[t]he FBI has no information indicating a credible threat of terrorist attack in the United States." However, it went on to emphasize that the possibility of attack in the United States could not be discounted. It also noted that the July 4 holiday might heighten the threats. The report asked the recipients to "exercise vigilance" and "report suspicious activities" to the FBI.

Acting FBI Director Thomas Pickard...said in late June and through July he met with Attorney General Ashcroft once a week. He told us that although he initially briefed the Attorney General regarding these threats, after two such briefings the Attorney General told him he did not want to hear this information anymore. The Justice Department has informed us that Attorney General Ashcroft, his former deputy, and his chief of staff deny that the Attorney General made any such statement to Pickard.

Ashcroft told us that he asked Pickard whether there was intelligence about attacks in the United States. Pickard said he replied that he could not assure Ashcroft that there would be no attacks in the United States, although the reports of threats were related to overseas targets. Ashcroft said he therefore assumed that the FBI was doing what it needed to do. He acknowledged that, in retrospect, this was a dangerous assumption.

Prior to 9/11 neither Ashcroft nor his predecessors received a copy of the President's Daily Brief. After 9/11 Ashcroft began to receive portions of the brief that relate to ccounterterrorism.

A PDF of the full staff report to the 9/11 commission is here.

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