Magpie

Saturday, October 30, 2004

Someone has way too much time on their hands.

Really!

http://hugeurl.com/?NDQwNGRlNDRjM2I2ZTMyNDAwMzg3Y2U1MTI1OTI5
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bE5XUlZVNQ==.

But it still made this magpie grin.

Via Everlasting Blort.

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

We interrupt this weblog ...

... for an important message from Magpie's kitties:

Save that kitten!

We now return you to normal blogging. Meow.

Via World O'Crap.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:44 PM | Get permalink

Ooooooh, shiny!

The Milky Way, as it looked through a fisheye lens recently on a very dark night in Port-au-Saumon, Québec.

The Milky Way

[Photo: Philippe Moussette]

The Milky Way is our home galaxy. It's 100,000 light years across, and contains over 250 billion stars.

Just a bit of something to help us in the US keep the new Osama bin Laden tape in perspective.

Via Earth Science Picture of the Day.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:50 AM | Get permalink

Now here's a big surprise for you.

Fox News is reporting that the US terror alert level is being moved up to orange.

We've never for a moment doubted that Dubya would find some reason to play the terror alert card just before the election — especially given a recent study in which Cornell University researchers found that alerts bump up the prez's popularity. According to the study, Dubya's approval rating in the Gallup poll jumped by 2.75 points each time the government increased the terror alert level or warned of an increase in terrorist 'chatter.'

It is, of course, just a coincidence that an increase of a couple of points in Dubya's popularity could change the results of the presidential election.

The full report of the study's findings is available in PDF form here.

More: And now Fox is reporting that the feds have decided not to raise the terror alert level. We were getting suspicious of the initial report, given that none of the other networks were picking it up.

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

Friday, October 29, 2004

It's desperation time for Dubya's campaign.

You know they have to think their back is against the wall when they start pulling out images of the burning World Trade Center to use against John Kerry, despite Dubya's 2002 promise not to use 9/11 as a political issue. Via Blue Lemur, take a look at the latest GOP mailing being received by voters in Pennsylvania:

GOP anti-Kerry mailer

Blue Lemur has more about the mailer here.

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

We promise we'll never do it again.

Honest.

Don't touch that wire!

[Photo: Steve Jurvetson]

Via Boing Boing.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:40 AM | Get permalink

Thursday, October 28, 2004

Short.

And right to the point.

Help!

[Flash/Shockwave req'd.]

Via MetaFilter.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:58 PM | Get permalink

Given the discovery of Homo floresiensis ....

What are we to make of stories like this one, carried by the BBC in September?

Admittedly, Flores (where H. floresiensis was discovered) is hundreds of miles from Sumatra (where the reports of orang pendek come from). Nevertheless, we'd think that the discovery of a small human species on one Indonesian island increases the credibility of the persistent sightings of a possible small hominid on another island.

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

How come the polls don't make any sense?

During the current US presidential election season, voters have grown increasingly skeptical of polls. Providing fuel for this skepticism are revelations that the Gallup poll skews its sampling in favor of GOP voters and the fact that 65 million US cell phones aren't called by pollsters.

This week has seen a couple of good articles on polling in the US press. In the 'standard' media, the Washington Post takes a stab today at explaining the problems that pollsters face when gathering data. Here's a tidbit that we thought particularly interesting:

At least one news organization has decided to stop doing pre-election polls altogether. Not because they're inaccurate but because they're addictive.

"They suck all of the oxygen out of the coverage by reducing the whole thing to who's up and who's down," says Tony Burman, chief news editor of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. "Besides, the methodology is really becoming suspect. The response rate has become low, and reliability has suffered. So we decided not to commission them on our own and be very restrained in covering them."

The CBC abruptly quit pre-election polling in May, weeks before the Canadian national election. The goal, Burman wrote in an e-mail to staff, was "to ensure that more coverage and attention during the campaign will be devoted to the actual issues in front of the electorate -- leaving the determination of actual 'voter preference' to the voters on election day."

Burman urges his counterparts in this country to do the same. "There is a lot of empty coverage in the United States devoted to horse-race polls that just fill up the airtime. It's the quintessential example of lazy journalism." He says he's "not lecturing anyone on it. We're just happy that we're getting the balance right."

Online, Slate produced a consumer's guide to US polls, which we're finding a big help in determining how credible we think a poll is. The guide tells you in detail what to look for in a poll, and then lays out the data for 15 major US polls.

Democracy Corps (Greenberg Quinlan Rosner)

Publishes entire questionnaire with results: Yes.

Where: Here. Click to read any survey.

Screens people out based on past failure to vote: Yes.

Likely voter test: If you were old enough to vote in 2000, you must have voted in 2000 or 2002, be registered, and say you will probably vote in 2004. Exceptions: If you were too young in 2000, or if you were unregistered in 2000 or 2002 but have registered since then, you can still be counted as a likely voter as long as you say you will probably vote.

Raises these questions before asking whom you'd vote for: Right/wrong track, Bush job approval.

Presses undecideds to pick a candidate: Yes.

Average boost from pressing, last three samples: Bush +1.33, Kerry +1.67.

Disclosure of boost factor: Published.

May weight your vote differently based on your: sex, age, education.

Adjusts results to fit expected party shares of electorate: No.

Fox News

Publishes entire questionnaire with results: Yes, except for screening and demographic questions.

Where: Here. Click any link in the "archive" box to see the summary of a previous poll. From there, scroll to the bottom and click "full poll results" to read the questionnaire.

Screens people out based on past failure to vote: Yes.

Likely voter test: Unspecified.

Raises these questions before asking whom you'd vote for: Whether you view each candidate favorably.

Presses undecideds to pick a candidate: Yes.

Average boost from pressing, last three samples: Unknown.

Disclosure of boost factor: Not published.

May weight your vote differently depending on your: Race, age.

Adjusts results to fit expected party shares of electorate: No.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:13 PM | Get permalink

Depressed and disillusioned.

On a flight back from Europe, Steve Clemons of the Washington Note sat next to a US soldier, a member of the 82nd Airborne Division. This soldier came from a military family, and served in Afghanistan, and Iraq — and he'll soon be going back to Iraq. The soldier had a lot of very interesting things to say:

According to him, 75% of all soldiers want Bush defeated in the election and don't care who defeats him; anger and resentment are high. He says that 90% of the officers remain far out of harm's way. From lietenants all the way up, there is general understanding that the officers are hiding in holes, or holding back in well-defended buildings and quite cavalier about sending troops out for assignments and errands that are frequently stupid, poorly planned, and dangerous....

He said that in contrast to Vietnam where U.S. soldiers were killing other U.S. soldiers and officers whom they didn't like -- that is not happening in Afghanistan or Iraq. But he said people are getting depressed and disillusioned. They don't know what their objectives are -- and they see lots of dead children, dead innocent men and women, grieving families, whose early appreciation for Americans has given away to profound hate and resentment.

He said that if he were one of the Iraqi citizens experiencing what an occupying force was doing, he'd be fighting too. He said that the only way to win is to get out of there -- let the Iraqis resolve the issues they need to resolve internally. Give them money, give them resources, give them advice if asked -- but get the U.S. troops out.

The soldier had a lot more to say, which you'll find here. Make sure to read the comments.

Like Clemons says, there is no way to tell whether what this soldier told him is representative of US troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan — or, as at least one commenter thinks, whether his story is credible at all — but his account certainly makes one wonder how much that 'conventional wisdom' saying that the troops support Dubya has to do with reality.

Via Political Animal.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:21 PM | Get permalink

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Once a frat boy, always a frat boy.

It's a cheap shot, we know. But there's no way we could pass up Dubya's 'one-finger victory salute':

Dubya tell us what he thinks

Yes, it's for real. It's part of some video shot at an Austin video studio while Dubya was still governor of Texas.

You can watch the whole clip it came from here.

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

Where does Magpie keep going?

We've only had erratic access to Magpie ourselves since last evening, which is why we've barely posted so far today. The problem has apparently been due to a major hacker attack on Blogger, who hosts this blog. They've apparently had to shut down and restart their servers several times in order to clean up the problems caused by the attack.

Things appear to be back to normal now. But keep your fingers crossed for us anyway, will you?

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:19 PM | Get permalink

The human family just got a bit bigger.

Say hello to Homo floresiensis:

New human on the block

[Photo: Peter Brown]
H. floresiensis is on the left; a modern human skull on the right.

The remains of a tiny and hitherto unknown species of human that lived as recently as 13,000 years ago have been discovered on an Indonesian island.

The discovery has been heralded as the most important palaeoanthropological find for 50 years, and has radically altered the accepted picture of human evolution.

The skull and bones of one adult female, and fragments from up to six other specimens, were found in the Liang Bua limestone caves on Flores Island, which lies at the eastern tip of Java.

The female skeleton, known as LB1 - or by the nickname "Ebu" - has been assigned to a new species within the genus Homo - Homo floresiensis. Examination of the remains shows members of the species stood just 1 metre tall and had a brain no bigger than a grapefruit.

Via New Scientist.

More: National Geographic has an excellent story on the discovery here, which includes a depiction of what H. floresiensis may have looked like.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:53 PM | Get permalink

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

Blood for oil.

No, we're not talking about Iraq. We're talking about the US funding and 'advisors' helping to secure Colombia's oil. Under Dubya's administration, a Clinton-era aid program called 'Plan Colombia' — originally conceived as a program for helping Colombia eradicate coca and other illicit crops — has turned into a counterinsurgency program. Uner that program, the US is working directly and indirectly with right-wing militias and death squads:

U.S. tax dollars are now being used directly for counterinsurgency purposes, with $98 million being allocated to train elite units to guard oil pipelines and infrastructure. Colombia is one of the top eight oil exporters to the United States.

On Oct. 9, Congress voted to raise the cap on the number of military advisors allowed in Colombia from 400 to 800, and the number of contract workers from 400 to 600.

According to Francisco Ramirez, president of the miner's union Sintraminercol, the strategy of the military and paramilitaries under Plan Colombia is to "enter the areas, get rid of the people and secure the region for multinational corporations." Ramirez says the petroleum and mining industries have direct connections to the paramilitaries, armed groups such as the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia that commit over 70 percent of the human rights abuses in the country, as documented by Amnesty International.

In addition, according to Human Rights Watch, the Bush administration continues to break the law as specified in the Leahy Amendment, which states that Colombian military units may not receive U.S. aid until they break ties with the paramilitaries. The "paras" work in collusion with the military, feeding off and gaining strength from U.S. military aid, paychecks from wealthy landlords and their own illicit drug operations.

Via Pacific News Service.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:18 PM | Get permalink

Another poll shows high US voter angst.

A new AP/Ipsos poll shows that US voters are worried about whether there will be a clear winner in next week's presidential election. This finding parallels that of the Economist poll cited in the post below.

Six in 10 of those surveyed in an Associated Press poll say it's likely there will not be a clear winner in the presidential race by November 3 -- the day after the election. About half say they fear the results will be challenged in court, according to the poll conducted for the AP by Ipsos Public Affairs.

Both Democrats and Republicans worry about the possibility of an unresolved election -- though Democrats express more worries. About seven in 10 Democratic voters, 69 percent, say they think it's likely there won't be a clear winner by Election Day, while almost six in 10 Republican voters, 56 percent, say they feel that way.

As in the Economist poll, voters' opinions of election fairness vary widely according to party affiliation. For example, the AP/Ipsos poll found that more than three quarters of Republicans feel that the vote tally in their state will be fair, while just under half of Democrats feel that way.

A big factor in the nervousness about election results is the ghost of Florida in 2000:

More than half in the poll, 54 percent, say they think the vote count in Florida was not fair and accurate, with Republicans overwhelmingly saying it was and Democrats overwhelmingly saying it was not. Independents say by a 2-to-1 margin that it was not fair.

Pamela Martin, a 52-year-old Democrat from Miami, says she was "not too confident" that 2004 will be any better in Florida than the last time around. Martin, who is black, says she heard plenty of stories about blacks who had trouble voting the last time.

Via CNN.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:58 AM | Get permalink

Can you say 'banana republic'?

Via Political Animal, we have this graphic showing the results of an Economist poll of US voters on whether the upcoming presidential election will be fair:

Will the US election be fair?

What's really interesting (and, frankly, scary) is how the results for Democrats and Repubicans are opposite: While almost all Republicans are sure the election will be conducted fairly, almost two-thirds of Democrats think the elections will be loaded against them.

This kind of difference between opposing political parties over the essential fairness of the electoral system is not healthy for the continuance of democracy in the US. God help the county if the Republicans steal this one like they did in 2000 and are clearly seen to steal it. The consequences of that theft will be dangerous, unpredicatble, and almost certainly unpleasant.

The Economist article containing the poll results is here, but can be viewed only by subscribers or by paying a fee.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:47 AM | Get permalink

Monday, October 25, 2004

Wolfpacks for Truth speaks out.

They were had by Bush/Cheney '04.

They told us we were shooting a Greenpeace commercial!

When the camera crew showed up, we wondered why they were all driving Hummers. Our agent assured us it was a Greenpeace commercial and they paid TWICE our hourly steak rate. Little did we know we were being tricked into this vicious campaign attack ad.

We are not Terrorists!

Via NewPages.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:59 PM | Get permalink

One Iraqi woman's view of the US elections.

Over at Baghdad Burning, Riverbend has an open letter to US voters:

Who am I hoping will win? Definitely Kerry. There?s no question about it. I want Bush out of the White House at all costs. (And yes- who is *in* the White House *is* my business — Americans, you made it my business when you occupied my country last year) I?m too realistic to expect drastic change or anything phenomenal, but I don?t want Bush reelected because his reelection (or shall I call it his ?reassignment?) will condone the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq. It will say that this catastrophe in Iraq was worth its price in American and Iraqi lives. His reassignment to the White House will sanction all the bloodshed and terror we?ve been living for the last year and a half.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:48 PM | Get permalink

It's business as usual ....

... for women in the US military. Suzanne Goldenberg reports on how female soldiers continue to be raped and sexually assaulted, and how the military is doing almost nothing about it.

According to the Miles Foundation (an advocacy organization for victims of violence in the military), rape in the military follows the pattern of rape in civilian life: the rapist is most likely to be someone the woman knows. For the period from August 2002 to August 2003, the foundation has reports of rape or sexual assault from 243 service women in Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Afghanistan. Another 431 women were assaulted in other locations. The foundation believes that these reports are only the tip of the iceberg: Like their civilian counterparts, servicewomen are often afraid of reporting rape or sexual assault — and, not surprisingingly, this fear seems to be highest among the lowest-ranking women who are the most exposed to retaliation from senior officers.

"We have known for a long time that there is a problem with sexual assault in the military. There have been more than 40 surveys in 16 years," says Carolyn Maloney, a New York congresswoman, "yet sexual assaults have gone up 19 percent since 1991. What is very frustrating is that the military has allowed these problems to get worse. What we have to do is to move past the acknowledgment that there is a problem and try to address it."

In recent months, women's organizations have pressed the Pentagon for reform, demanding amendments to military law to encourage prosecution for assault, and urging new procedures in the war zone. By the Pentagon's admission, the U.S. military's record on sexual assault -- from protecting victims and their privacy to prosecuting assailants -- is "inconsistent and incomplete."

In a report issued in May, the Pentagon noted that there was no uniform definition of rape or sexual harassment under military law. The military had also failed to institute widespread sensitivity training for commanding officers, or to make counseling services available to women who had been assaulted. It is not even properly equipped to investigate such crimes: In the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, fewer than 100 rape-detection kits (which collect crucial DNA evidence) have been distributed to field hospitals. The backlog for DNA testing in rape investigations is 16 months, and overstretched commanders are disinclined to investigate reports of assault.

Via Salon.

[Paid sub or ad view req'd.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:41 AM | Get permalink

Sunday, October 24, 2004

If you're a US citizen and still don't know who to vote for.

Think on this for awhile.

Not our future, hopefully

[Cartoon: Mikhaela]

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:12 PM | Get permalink

How badly do some Republicans want Tom Daschle out of the US Senate?

This badly.

Pretty dirty, even by Republican standards.

Via Sioux Falls (SD) Argus Leader.

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:12 PM | Get permalink

Get used to seeing this headline (9).

The last post in this series was in late May, just before we went on hiatus. At that time, US gas prices had just hit $2.064 per gallon — a US record at that point in time time. Then prices dropped off some over the summer months. (Summer for those of us in the northern hemisphere, that is.)

Today, we have this headline:

Gas Average Tops $2 Per Gallon - Survey

The US price at the pump hit $2.408, easily surpassing the May peak and likely to keep rising, given that prices have risen over US $.05 since October 8. (And those of you in Europe, please try to keep from laughing when we in the US complain about how high our gas prices are.)

We trust Dubya's cronies in the oil industry are enjoying their windfall.

Via Reuters.

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

A home again. Finally.

For the first time since 1855, the Samish Indian nation has their own tribal land. The purchase of 80 acres near Anacortes in northwest Washington state, and placement of that land into trust status by the US government, caps a 27-year struggle by the Samish people. In that fight for federal recognition, the Samish had to show that their tribe wasn't extinct, as US authorities had decided as the result of a mid-19th century clerical error.

In 1855, when Samish territory stretched throughout the San Juan Islands, the Samish and 14 other tribes signed the Point Elliott Treaty, which meant ceding their lands in exchange for cash, access to traditional hunting and fishing grounds, and reservations.

A Samish reservation, though, was never officially conferred.

Then came the struggle for recognition. In the century after the treaty, the Samish considered themselves the signatory's descendants and believed they were a federally recognized tribe.

But in 1969 a clerk at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, typing up a government list of tribes, inadvertently left it out.

As a result, federal officials cut off its services. The Samish lost their fishing rights. Legal battles ensued and courts ruled the Samish were not a distinct, separate, cohesive cultural or political group.

"We've always known who we were," says [Samish tribal treasurer Dee] Branson, whose mother was among a core group of Samish who fought for recognition. "We were a group of Indians who practiced our culture. It made us so angry. We had to pursue this and find a way."

The tribe finally won federal recognition in 1996, but then had to fight local government in Washington over the tribe's acquisition of their own land. After the Samish bought their land in Skagit County, the county government fought the Samish request for the federal government to put the land into trust status, making it part of federally recognized 'Indian Country' — and excempt from state and local taxes, and from local zoning laws. To end the dispute, and prevent the loss of federa housing funds, the Samish agreed to cut back their plans for tribal housing on the land, and to agree to consult with the county on any future development plans.

There are currently about 1100 Samish in Washington and British Columbia.

Via Seattle Times.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:59 PM | Get permalink