Magpie

Saturday, April 30, 2005

Another 'fair and balanced' network in the works?

Paul McLeary has an excellent piece on how the US media is missing the story on the right wing's attempt to rein in the supposed liberal bias in public broadcasting. Given the appointment of Ken Ferree as temporary head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting [CPB], this isn't just paranoia. Ferree was an advisor to the outgoing FCC chair Michael Powell, who was no friend of public media or journalistic freedom.

[The CPB] is pushing forward with its purported plans to overhaul public broadcasting's programming to make it more "fair" and "balanced." But there's a new wrinkle that calls into question the CPB's reasoning: According to two public opinion studies commissioned by CPB itself, Americans appear to like public broadcasting just the way it is.

On Wednesday, the Center for Digital Democracy reported that two unreleased surveys conducted for the CPB by polling firms Tarrance Group and Lake Snell Perry Associates in 2002 and 2003 have neither been officially released to the press nor shared with PBS and NPR. (Some of their findings were included in CPB's annual report to Congress, but the original reports remain under wraps -- CJR Daily was provided a copy by the Center.) The surveys were followed by four focus groups to further explore the issue of bias.

Despite the bellyaching coming from some conservatives about liberalism run amok in public broadcasting, both surveys came to the same conclusion: The majority of the U.S. adult population doesn't see any real bias in public broadcasting. But CPB apparently remains unconvinced. According to an article published in the Washington Post last week:
CPB this month [April] appointed a pair of veteran journalists to review public TV and radio programming for evidence of bias, the first time in CPB's 38-year history that it has established such positions. PBS officials were unaware that the corporation intended to review its news and public affairs programs, such as "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" and "Frontline," until the appointments were publicly announced.

As for those polls -- were the results so close that the CPB thought that there was some question as to what Americans really think? Not quite. The July 2003 poll of 1,008 adults found that public broadcasting garnered an 80 percent "favorable" rating, a 10 percent "unfavorable" rating and a 10 percent "unsure." More than half surveyed felt that PBS's news programming was more trustworthy than news shows on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and CNN. A full 55 percent said that PBS programming was "fair and balanced," while a whopping 79 percent said the same about NPR. As far as reporting the Iraq war -- that great bellweather of bias in reporting -- 26 percent felt that PBS's reporting was fair, 7 percent felt it was "slanted" and 63 percent had "no opinion." (NPR's numbers are about the same.)

This, of course, raises a question -- is CPB's appointment of two ombudsmen to scour public broadcasting's content for bias little more than the corporation's new leadership fishing for results that confirm its own dark suspicions?

Via CJR Daily.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:02 AM | Get permalink

Dubya's new Social Security plan.

In a nutshell.

Getting the shaft from Dubya

[Cartoon: Scott Bateman]
You can find more of Scott Bateman's editorial cartoons here.

[Originally posted yesterday, but bumped up to work better with next (and newer) post.]

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

Dubya's new Social Security plan (2).

Then we have this longer summary of the proposal:

From Bush@whitewash.gov

Subject: UREGENT SOCIAL SECURITY PROPOSAL

ATTN: AMERICAN TAXPAYER

Dear Sir, madam or other

With due respect, trust and humility, I write to you this proposal, which I believe would be of great interest to you. I find your contact while I was doing a private research for a reliable and capable partner that will assist my party and I to transfer fund to his personal or private account social security account and for investment purpose. I am Mr. George Bush the son of Mr. George Bush.

During the current "Crisis of Social Security" supporters of our president to claim all the Social Security money in our country, he ordered all the wage earners to voluntarily surrender their FICA to his friends on Wall Street and their followers. My father was one of the best presidents in the country and even he knew better than to bankrupt the country by trying to confiscate Iraq. So I am in personal crisis and need to have access to your Social Security Account immediately.

Before all of us Republican presidents ran up unsustainable debt to by aircraft carriers, FDR took created a system to supplement money that people had deposited in banks for their retirement. The money he deposited is now sitting in worthless IOUs called "Treasury Bonds". This money was meant for helping Americans have a safer retirement, or some small degree of comfort in their old age.

My family and I took over the White House where we are currently residing as office seekers. Of late, when we decided to invest this money in the Stock Market , we discovered that the laws of this country prohibit us the right to investment or to operate any form of private retirement account as part of Social Security. Hence I contacted you to assist us in transferring this money out of Treasury Bonds to your Private Retirement account for our investment.

I must let you know that this business is 100% risk-free. The nature of your business does not necessarily matter in this transaction. So, if you are willing and interested to assist us, my family and I have agreed to give you 20% of the total sum for your assistance, 75% will be for my family investment in your country and the remaining 5% will be mapped out for all expenses we may incur during the course of the transaction. Note that you would also assist us in investing our own share of the money in your country.

If you are interested to assist us in this business, we need your urgent reply through the above Telephone and Fax numbers. Do not forget to include your private telephone and fax numbers for easier communication.

Please, treat this business proposal with absolute confidentiality.

Best Regards,

George W Bush,
President, The United States of Texas Inc.

Via BOPnews.

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

Friday, April 29, 2005

The man in the hood.

Tonight in the US, public television viewers have the chance to see an interview with Haj Ali, the man under the hood in the infamous photo from Abu Ghraib.

Before the US-led invasion, he was mayor of a district near Baghdad and a member of the Ba'ath Party (a requirement for holding office). He was removed from office after the fall of the Saddam Hussein government, as part of the ill-conceived 'de-Baathification' program of the Coalition Provisional Administration of Iraq. Haj Ali was arrested in October 2003 and sent to Abu Ghraib, where Iraqi prisoners were tortured and abused by their US jailers. Since his release, he has worked for the Victims of the American Occupation Prisoners Association, which helps former prisoners held in Abu Ghraib and other places.

Man in the hood

Q: How confident are you that you are the man in that photo?

HAJ ALI: Actually the hood covered my head, and they took almost a hundred photos. Because all those who were present-as those who speak English were telling me- that whenever a soldier is visited by a friend of his, they would pull a prisoner and take a photograph with him. They would put the prisoners in some abnormal positions and take photos with them. I experienced this situation. I am 100% sure of that.

I remember the American bean box, even the pipes behind me which were used to conduct electricity, they used two wires. I'm telling you what I remember from when they took the hood off my head, I saw the electric wires, one of them was black and the other was red. The end of the electric wires were hook shaped....

HAJ ALI: We were surprised that that an American [television] station broadcasted these photos. But we have two reasons to explain why the photos were released; the first is not that they admired the human rights, but because of the polarity of the American elections. And the second explanation for doing that is to instill fear in the Iraqi resistance, but it backfired on them to the nth degree.

Before that, a person was able to negotiate with them, but then these photos were published and the facts became clear about what the American Army is doing in Iraq and what the real occupation is.

What is more, is that the people who appeared in the photo and the process of their punishment occurred in such a jeering way. This meant the method insulted all of humanity. These have to be punished according to the Geneva [Conventions] or according to the American law....

Q: When you were released, did anyone ever apologize to you? To this day, has anyone from the US military ever apologized?

HAJ ALI: No, never, they just said you were arrested by mistake ? and they put a hood over my head. Then they put us in a truck with about 30- 40 other people. And they just pushed me off the truck.

The interview with Haj Ali runs on the PBS program NOW tonight. You can find out the exact time by checking here.

Via TalkLeft.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:00 PM | Get permalink

We have a little list.

Or, rather, we've lifted a list from 5ives, who offers us five terrible fake congressional honorifics:

1. The distinguished cocksmoker from that hellhole, Mississippi
2. The obsequious bootlicker from Virginia
3. The exalted pederast from Kentucky
4. The noisome harpy from California
5. The fat-assed blowhard from that one flyover state

Then, of course, there's always that 'coke-snorting prevaricator from Texas.' But we guess he's not on the list because he isn't in Congress.

Via Grow-a-Brain.

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

How's your index?

Your personal economic index, that is.

Mikhaela has kindly provided us with some examples:

Personally, we're dealing with the 'We Want To Quit This Wretched Job But Dubya's Economy Is So Bad That There's No Other Work Out There' index.

You can see more of Mikhaela's political cartoons here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:51 AM | Get permalink

Did you miss Dubya's press conference?

If so, you made an excellent choice. We missed it, too.

But in the interests of journalism, we read the transcript later in the evening. And Dubya sure was in fine semi-coherent form:

QUESTION: Mr. President, recently the head of the Family Research Council said that judicial filibusters are an attack against people of faith. And I wonder whether you believe that, in fact, that is what is nominating Democrats who oppose your judicial choices. And I wonder what you think, generally, about the role that faith is playing, how it's being used in our political debates right now.

BUSH: I think people are opposing my nominees because they don't like the judicial philosophy of the people I've nominated. And some would like to see judges legislate from the bench. That's not my view of the proper role of a judge.

Speaking about judges, I certainly hope my nominees get an up-or- down vote on the floor of the Senate.

They deserve an up-or-down vote.

I think, for the sake of fairness, these good people I've nominated should get a vote. And I'm hoping that will be the case as time goes on.

Role of religion in our society? I view religion as a personal matter. I think a person ought to be judged on how he or she lives his life or lives her life.

And that's how I've tried to live my life: through example.

Faith plays an important part in my life individually. But I don't ascribe a person's opposing my nominations to an issue of faith.

QUESTION: Do you think that's an inappropriate statement? And what I ask is...

BUSH: No, I just don't agree with it.

QUESTION: You don't agree with it?

BUSH: No. I think people oppose my nominees because of judicial philosophy.

QUESTION: Sir, I asked you about what you think of...

BUSH: No, I know what you asked me.

QUESTION: ... the way faith is being used in our political debates, not just in society generally.

BUSH: Well, I can only speak to myself. And I am mindful that people in political office should say to somebody, You're not equally American if you don't happen to agree with my view of religion.

As I said, I think faith is a personal issue. And I take great strength from my faith. But I don't condemn somebody in the political process because they may not agree with me on religion.

The great thing about America is that you should be allowed to worship any way you want. And if you chose not to worship, you're equally as patriotic as somebody who does worship. And if you choose to worship, you're equally American if you're a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim.

And that's the wonderful thing about our country and that's the way it should be.

If the prez actually said anything of substance in there — let alone answered the reporter's question — we couldn't find it.

And the rest of the Q&A in the press conference is just the same.

Via NY Times.

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

The long march.

It's a commonplace that the far right in the US has been far better than the left (at least in recent decades) in terms of thinking in the long term. Beginning in the mid-20th century, right wingers began organizing at the grass roots to take control first of the Republican party and, once their hold on the GOP was secure, of the nation. The story of how they did this is complex, and has been the subject of many books and articles.

One of the best short overviews we've seen recently is this one be Eric Alterman. He manages to hit most of the important points in a very short piece.

[The 1964 Republican convention in] San Francisco marked not merely the successful culmination of right-wing hopes to dominate the Republican Party but also just the beginning of their hopes to win the country as well. Members of the mainstream media in attendance, however, found these newly politicized minions alternately frightening?Teddy White likened them to "shock troops" and John Chancellor declared himself to be "somewhere in custody" when caught inside one of their noisy demonstrations?and ridiculous. Following Goldwater's landslide defeat, The New York Times' James Reston wrote that Goldwater's conservatism "has wrecked his party for a long time to come." The Los Angeles Times interpreted the election outcome to mean that if Republicans continued to hew to the conservative line, "they will remain a minority party indefinitely." Political scientists Nelson Polsby and Aaron Wildavsky speculated that if the Republicans nominated a conservative again he would lose so badly "we can expect an end to a competitive two-party system." Unbeknownst to just about everyone at the time, however, was the fact that the old-fashioned Eastern Establishment Republicans so favored by both academics and media mavens were on their way to extinction. A new species of Republican had been born, and soon, it would rule the earth.

Indeed, this reflected a consistent tendency both in the elite media and among liberal intellectuals of the moment to look with disdain upon right-wing advocates of unfettered laissez-faire; John Kenneth Galbraith thought the right wing of the GOP "the stupid party." In The End of Ideology, Daniel Bell, like Lionel Trilling and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. before him, focused exclusively on the consequences of left-wing ideas. Liberals were therefore caught entirely unready for the right-wing resurgence of the late '70s and beyond.

It's a really great article. Read it all. And when you get done with that, read Alterman's related piece, 'Bush's Attack on the Press,' over here in The Nation.

Via Center for American Progress.

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

Thursday, April 28, 2005

Trying to have it both ways.

Dubya administration officials are making some amazingly contradictory arguments for renewing the 'library provision' of the Patriot Act. This Section 215 of the act allows the government to have 'access to certain business records' including papers, books, and documents. The section has been strongly opposed by library professionals and bookstores, who say it violates the right to privacy of people who check out or buy books.

The usual argument of the administration has been that Section 215 doesn't mention libraries, and that federal law enforcement agencies have no reason to need these records. And, according to the government, this section has not been used to obtain library records. (Of course, if this isn't true, the Patriot Act makes it a crime for affected library or bookstore workers to say otherwise.)

Today on Capitol Hill, however, the US attorney for Washington, DC told members of Congress that libraries could become 'a safe haven for terrrorists and spies' if Section 215 isn't renewed. As proof, he offered the long-known fact that some of the 9/11 hijackers were seen in libraries. He didn't address the question of why the renewal of this provision could be so important when it hasn't been used by investigators in all the time it's been available.

But then consistency has never been one of the current administration's strong points.

Via Reuters.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:10 PM | Get permalink

Exploding toads?

Or is it exploding frogs? The news stories have said both. Whatever these poor creatures actually are, over 1000 of them have exploded in a pond in Hamburg, Germany and in a nearby part of Denmark.

Why are they exploding? No one seems to know.

Exploded by design?

[Photo: AP]
Well, nobody knew until those savants at The Panda's Thumb turned their mighty intellects toward a solution to the mystery:

Let’s assume that frogs really are exploding. Unexplained phenomena like this are a great chance to test William Dembski’s Explanatory Filter to see if it detects intelligent design. Let see: Is the phenomenon specified? You bet. In fact, it is specifiable in advance. Humans have been blowing up animals for some time now — for example, in 1970, the Highway Department of my beloved home state of Oregon decided to dispose of a stinky eight-ton whale carcass with 20 cases of dynamite. See the Exploding Whale Website for the video. Can known natural laws account for the explosion of live frogs? Apparently not. The known natural laws say that frogs, particularly live ones in a cool climate, shouldn’t be exploding (dead ones in the hot sun might be another matter — see the story about the natural exploding of a 60-ton sperm whale in Singapore in 2004). Can chance explain exploding frogs? Nope. Chance might explain some dead toads, but I estimate the chance of 1,000 dead toads, exploding rather than just dying, and all in Hamburg, to be less than 1 in 10^1,000 (and this is very generous probability estimate). Furthermore, we know that intelligent designers can and do blow animals up intentionally. So, we can safely conclude intelligent design is the best explanation for Hamburg’s exploding toads. QED. Somebody alert the authorities.

We won't have none of that godless Darwinist nonsense exploding no frogs. Nosirreee.

Via The Panda's Thumb.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:44 PM | Get permalink

How many times do we have to say 'Words fail us'?

With each new revelation about how US authorities treat prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, and at Guantanamo, we are stunned by what Dubya's administration tolerates or actively condones.

Today, CBS News released some excerpts from an interview with ex-Army Sgt. Erik Saar, who was an interrogator at Guantanamo for six months.

Saar spent six months at Guantanamo and believes "only a few dozen" of the 600 detainees at the base were real terrorists, and that little information was obtained from them. Visiting authorities were led to believe otherwise, says Saar.

"Interrogations were set up so the VIPs could come and witness an interrogation...a mock interrogation, basically," he tells Pelley. "They would find a detainee that they knew to have been cooperative. They would ask the interrogator to go back over the same information...and they would sit across a table and talk...[it was] a fictitious world they would create for these VIPs."

The reality, says Saar, was sometimes in complete contrast. Detainees didn't always cooperate, he says, and many were treated harshly. He recalls translating for one female interrogator who used sex against a devout Muslim who had taken flight lessons in the United States, and was probably a dangerous terrorist with potentially crucial information.

When touching her breasts through her T-shirt to make him "feel unclean in an Islamic way" failed to make him talk, the female officer went further, says Saar.

"She...put her hands in her pants...she pulled out her hand which was red and said, 'I'm actually menstruating right now and I'm touching you. Does that please your God?'" recalls Saar.

It was really red ink, says Saar, but "[the detainee] got pent up and shied away from her and she then took the ink and wiped it on his face."

The interrogator ended the session telling the detainee that the water would be turned off in his cell, "so that he then could not go back and become ritually clean...[and] therefore could not pray," says Saar.

The full interview is schedule to run on 60 Minutes this coming Sunday.

Via CBS News.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:41 PM | Get permalink

Death on the (US) job.

For the last 14 years, the AFL-CIO has issued an annual report on workplace health and safety. Given that the report is called Death on the Job, you can guess that its contents tend to be pretty grim. They've gotten even grimmer since Dubya and the Republican Congress have settled in, as the summary of the report [PDF file] makes eminently clear:

Overall reported rates and numbers of workplace injuries, illnesses and fatalities have fallen slightly or stagnated, but certain groups of workers, including Hispanic and foreign-born workers, face greater risk of injury and death. The dollar amounts of both federal and state OSHA penalties are woefully inadequate.

There continues to be no substantial regulatory activity by the Bush administration at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) or the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). Important standards close to completion at the end of the Clinton administration — including a standard on employer payment for personal protective equipment — have been withdrawn or delayed repeatedly by the Bush administration. Overall, dozens of OSHA and MSHA standards have been pulled from the administration's regulatory agenda. Budget cuts in job safety agency programs proposed by the administration will, if enacted, reduce the already inadequate resources devoted to workers? safety and health.

According to Liberty Mutual, the nation's largest workers' compensation insurance company, the direct cost of occupational injury and illness is $1 billion per week. The annual cost of these injuries is between $198.4 billion and $297.6 billion in direct and indirect costs?and these are conservative estimates.

At a time when challenges, problems and costs are mounting, the nation's commitment to protecting workers from job injuries, illnesses and death has faltered, while a high priority is put on protecting employers from meaningful regulations and enforcement.

While this magpei has only had time to read the summary of the report, Jordan Barab at Confined Space has read the whole thing. Since he spent 16 years running AFSCME's health and safety program, we're going to lean on his expertise, and steal some of the points he thinks are important.

— In 2003, 4.4 million injuries and illnesses were reported in private-sector workplaces, a slight decrease from 4.7 million in 2002, as well as 585,300 injuries and illnesses among state and local employees in the 30 states and territories where these data are collected.

— Injuries and Illnesses are Underestimated: While government statistics show that occupational injury and illness are on the decline, numerous studies have shown that government counts of occupational injury and illness are underestimated by as much as 69 percent.

— Musculoskeletal disorders continue to account for one-third of all injuries and illnesses with days away from work The occupations that reported the highest number of MSDs involving days away from work in 2003 were nursing aides, orderlies and attendants. MSDs are underreported by the BLS by at least a factor of two.

— Immigrant Workers: Fatal injuries to Hispanic or Latino workers decreased for the second year in a row, although Hispanic workers continue to record the highest rate of fatal injuries among the racial/ethnic groups reported.

A PDF file containing the full AFL-CIO report is here.

Via Confined Space.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:08 PM | Get permalink

More good economic news for the US.

New figures show that the US economy is running at the weakest rate in since 2003. The deficit is up, inventories are growing, business spending is down, and inflation is speeding up.

This good news brought to you by Dubya's administration, which is too busy saving social security to worry about mundane matters like the economy. Or about the lives of people who depend on that economy.

Via NY Times.

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

Making themselves perfectly clear.

Right-wing Christian fundamentalists in the US are fond of using rhetoric about 'saving the children' and 'protecting morality.' After all, who's going to defend child abuse or promotion of immorality, right? This language hides the real fundamentalist agenda, however: forcing their religious views on the rest of the country, no matter what the cost. And sometimes that cost is very high.

Here's a case in point. The sexually transmitted human papilloma virus (HPV) is epidemic among young women in the US. Current estimates are that half of all sexually active women between the ages of 18 and 22 contract the disease. Luckily, HPV usually goes away; but for a certain percentage of women, an early infection with HPV leads to cervical cancer in later life. (In fact, most cases of cervical cancer are caused by HPV.)

The good news about HPV is that there's a vaccine under development. Two variations of that vaccine are currently under development by pharmaceutical companies, and each is 90 percent effective at preventing new infections and re-infections. The bad news is that, despite the fact that 80 percent of parents would want their daughters vaccinated against the disease, the religious right is gearing up to oppose HPV vaccination.

"Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV," says Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council, a leading Christian lobby group that has made much of the fact that, because it can spread by skin contact, condoms are not as effective against HPV as they are against other viruses such as HIV.

"Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a licence to engage in premarital sex," Maher claims, though it is arguable how many young women have even heard of the virus.

Did you get that? The Family Research Council cares less about preventing cancer than it does about making sure that young women aren't being 'bad.' Their proposed solution for the problem of HPV transmission is — you guessed it — abstinence-only sex education:

As public health organizations promote condoms, HPV infections increase, and the cost for treatment of all STDs mounts. Ten billion dollars per year is spent treating selected major STDs, other than Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Including HIV, the cost for treating STDs rises to $17 billion a year. All Americans share this expense through higher health care costs and taxes. Considering the physical and financial toll that STDs, such as cancer-causing HPV, are taking on society, we must ask why abstinence until marriage is not being taught as the only foolproof method to stop this epidemic - and why condoms are being sold as "safe sex" to unsuspecting youngsters.

This neatly ignores the fact that abstinence-only sex education programs have no effect on teen sexual activity. And that's the optimistic view: some studies show that sexual activity among teens in abstinence-only programs increase their sexual activity.

The mind just boggles, doesn't it?

Via New Scientist.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:44 AM | Get permalink

It's not every day ...

... that we can report some good environmental news. But we can today.

Ivory-billed woodpecker

Ivory-Billed Woodpecker [Painting: Carl Brenders]
It turns out that the probably extinct ivory-billed woodpecker isn't.

Via Seattle Times.

More: The best evidence of the existence of the bird is a sighting in Arkansas this past Monday. That sighting was captured on video, and New Scientist has the movie (.MOV format) here. It's blurry and only four seconds long, but experts say the bird in the video is definitely an ivory-billed woodpecker.

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

Rub 'em here. Rub 'em there.

Rub em' everywhere.

Rub 'n' play!

Interesting how time can totally change a context, isn't it?

Via Everlasting Blort.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:36 AM | Get permalink

And in more (not) surprising news.

Saddam Hussein didn't have any WMDs. And they weren't moved to Syria, either.

We'd love to live in a country where lying about stuff like this would bring the government down. Oh well.

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

The Dear Leader.

He's selling computers on television. In Russia.

Oh, not our Dear Leader. North Korea's Dear Leader.

[QuickTime req'd]

Via North Korea Zone.

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

Is Aljazeera coming to a television near you?

The answer is 'Yes,' with a number of articles we've seen confirming the longstanding rumor: the Arab broadcaster will soon be launching a worldwide Aljazeera news service in English.

Since it went on the air at the end of 1996, Aljazeera has had a tremendous impact on the Arab world. With roots in the BBC's defunct Middle East service, the station's independent and relatively balanced approach to the news immediately set it apart from other broadcasters in the region, most of which are tightly controlled by their governments. For many Arabs, Aljazeera brought them their first taste of 'real' and uncensored news.

Aljazeera has also made enemies. Its coverage of the Palestinian struggle has pissed off Israel's government to no end. And, before and during the invasion of Iraq, Aljazeera had the distinction of being banned and/or harassed by both the Saddam Hussein regime and by the 'coaliton' occupation force. Aljazeera's journalists have come under fire in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and several of them have been killed on the job.

While Arab speakers have had access to Aljazeera in much of the world for some time now, English speakers have only been able to read Aljazeera's website. As Danny Schechter explains, however, the broadcaster will be extending its reach very soon:

[The] big news — and the buried lead in this article — is that Al-Jazeera is going global, launching an international channel in English that plans to be on the air in 2006. Its goal is nothing less than to "revolutionize viewer choice." It is a bold challenge to western TV hegemony.

This is good news for the vast audiences defecting from network and cable news for its tepid and celebrified and sanitized coverage. Al-Jazeera promises a fresh approach with news features and analysis that it insists will be "accurate, impartial and objective." It will show hard-hitting documentaries, air live debates from bases in Doha, Washington, London and Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital.

It has assembled a team of TV pros from BBC, APTN, ITV, CNN and CNBC, among others, and will have 40 bureaus worldwide.

"Al-Jazeera International is a World Channel for the 21st Century and it is the channel the world is waiting for," according to its idealistic proclamation. Its programmers are already buying up documentaries and seem to relish having a go at the news companies they have departed, at least according to a spirited conversation I had with programming director Paul Gibbs, who worked with BBC and the Discovery Channel. I was very impressed with the multinational members of the corporate strategy team that are gearing up a sophisticated approach to build a new, more global Al-Jazeera.

The conservative news world will be waiting and watching, and so will alternative media channels like Link Television or the new International World Television channel, which hope to do something similar.

Unlike the alternative media groups, Al-Jazeera does not seem to be lacking in money.

But challenges remain: Can they get carriage for their channel on cable and satellite systems controlled by Western media cartels? Getting their signal up is far easier than bringing it down into people's homes.

More importantly, can the Al-Jazeera approach, which has been associated with controversy and terrorism, find a receptive audience among viewers who have never really seen its news product (and couldn't understand it if they did), but have been prejudiced against it all the same? Will they/we tune it in and give it a chance?

It's always hard to be the last kid on the block but these kids (a) are not such kids; (b) have a lot to say; and (c) know how to say it.

There's more on Aljazeera's expansion plans here at Salon.

Aljazeera's English-language news site is here.

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

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Chipping away at Roe v. Wade.

The US House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed a bill that would make it illegal for anyone other than a parent to take a minor across state lines to help her get an abortion. The bill would also require parental notification if a young woman attempts to get an abortion on her own — even in those states that do not have such a requirement.

The bill faces an uncertain fate in the Senate.

Any number of things about this story disgust us. For starters, we're mightily pissed off at the 50 Democrats who voted for it, joining most of the GOP members of the House. They should know better. But worse is the attitude of the bill's Republican backers. When Democrat Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York tried to attach an amendment that exempted grandparents or clergy from prosecution if they helped a girl travel to get an abortion, the committee report described that amendment as something that 'could be used by sexual predators to escape conviction.'

We'd suggest that if the Republicans in the House were so worried about sexual predators, perhaps they wouldn't have voted for a piece of legislation that will help render young women powerless against the sexual predators in their own family. But then, these oh-so-noble legislators probably don't believe that such things happen, unless the girl deserved it.

Via Reuters.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:32 PM | Get permalink

News flash!

US House majority leader Tom DeLay apologizes. As well he should.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, already embattled over charges involving fundraising and luxurious trips paid for by influential lobbyists, faced new criticism on his return to the capital after a controversial appearance at a Columbia, [South Carolina] church.

DeLay's appearance at the Church of the Covenant was part of a massive GOP effort to press for changes in how federal judges are approved, though political opponents charge that the Texas congressman is merely looking for ways to get the spotlight off himself....

"God commands me, indeed God commands all of us to disembowel these traitors to His Holy Law. God commands us to take these communists and pederasts, whether they're in the Senate, or in the House, or on the federal bench, or in Hollywood, or in the NEA or wherever they might be, and to haul them before a crowd of righteous Americans to be guillotined. They deserve nothing less. If you spit in God's face, don't be surprised at the price you will pay," stated DeLay, who received a standing ovation for his remarks.

The scary thing about this is that DeLay and his ilk probably say stuff just about this bad for real, when they don't think that anyone can hear them.

Via Democratic Underground.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:14 PM | Get permalink

Is it hot in here?

These days, this magpie feels a lot like the proverbial frog in a pot of water. You know, the frog that thinks everything is going okay while the heat under the pot is turned up very slowly so that the frog won't notice. At some point, the water goes from hot to boiling hot, and it's too late for the frog to jump out of the pot.

The situation of those of us who live in the US under Dubya's government is more like that of the frog than most of us care to believe. Bit by bit, Dubya and the Republicans are putting into place the framework of a one-party authoritarian state, gambling that everyone will be spending so much energy fighting the implementation of small pieces of the framework that they won't notice the prison that's being built around them until it's too late.

Some examples of what the administration is doing are obvious: The attempts to control the news by intimidating the press and deluging it with fake news stories. The increase in government secrecy and the erosion of civil liberties that are taking place under the guise of fighting terrorism. The election fraud that put Dubya into office. The attempt to pack the federal courts with right-wing ideologues.

We could go on and on.

But not everything the administration is doing to grab power is obvious. A case in point is something we first heard about yesterday: a few sentences buried in the current budget law that give future administrations the power to terminate existing federal programs without a vote in Congress:

The proposal, spelled out in three short sentences, would give the president the power to appoint an eight-member panel called the "Sunset Commission," which would systematically review federal programs every ten years and decide whether they should be eliminated. Any programs that are not "producing results," in the eyes of the commission, would "automatically terminate unless the Congress took action to continue them."

The administration portrays the commission as a well-intentioned effort to make sure that federal agencies are actually doing their job. "We just think it makes sense," says Clay Johnson, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, which crafted the provision. "The goal isn't to get rid of a program -- it's to make it work better."

In practice, however, the commission would enable the Bush administration to achieve what Ronald Reagan only dreamed of: the end of government regulation as we know it. With a simple vote of five commissioners -- many of them likely to be lobbyists and executives from major corporations currently subject to federal oversight -- the president could terminate any program or agency he dislikes. No more Environmental Protection Agency. No more Food and Drug Administration. No more Securities and Exchange Commission.

"Ronald Reagan once observed, 'The closest thing to immortality on this earth is a federal government program,'" says Rep. Kevin Brady, a Republican from Texas who has been working for the past nine years to establish a sunset commission. "We need it to clear out the deadwood."

Without many of those programs, however, American consumers, workers and investors would be left to the mercy of business. "This is potentially devastating," says Wesley Warren, who served as a senior OMB official in the Clinton administration. "In short order, this could knock out protections that have been built up over a generation."

Others note that the provision goes beyond anything attempted by conservatives in the past. "When you look at this," says Marchant Wentworth, a lobbyist for the Union of Concerned Scientists, "it's almost like the Reagan administration was a trial run."

Here's what this means: Suppose that the Republicans can't gut Social Security in the current Congress. All that needs to happen is for a future Republican administration to use the power granted in this budget provision to terminate the program. A decision that sticks, unless Congress specifically overrules it. And, if the GOP continues to control both houses of Congress as they do now, how likely do you think it will be that the decision will be reversed. So kiss Social Security goodbye. Or environmental programs. Or the Occupations Safety and Health Administration. Or almost any federal program you can name.

This kind of unchecked power is dangerous. Very dangerous.

The pot is getting closer to a boil, we think.

Thanks to little red cookbook for finding the source for this story (which we were unable to locate ourself).

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

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

That picture of Dubya and Abdullah.

We thought the picture of the handholding couple that we found yesterday was pretty good. But the Dallas Morning News added a twist of their own in today's edition:

Dubya and Abdullah

We just love the juxtaposition of the picture and the headline to its right.

Via The Gadflyer.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:54 PM | Get permalink

Another milestone for women in Afghanistan.

Oops, sorry. We misread the news report. It wasn't a milestone — it was just regular stones.

An Afghan woman has been stoned to death for adultery, police said on Sunday, the first such incident in Afghanistan since the Taliban's ouster from power.

Amina, a 29 year-old married woman, was publicly stoned to death on the basis of a district court's decision on Thursday in Argo district to the west of Faizabad, the provincial capital of Badakhshan, they said....

A witness, Mujibur Rahman, told Reuters that Amina was dragged out of her parent's house by local officials and her husband who stoned her to death while the man was flogged, whipped 100 times and then freed.

We're sure that the fact she had the right to vote in the last election was a great consolation to Amina when the court in Argo condemned her to death.

More: While this is the first post-Taliban stoning in Afghanistan, it's just an extreme example of the difficult conditions faced by women under the current government. Here's what Human Rights Watch told the UN Commission on Human Rights recently:

Women and girls continue to suffer the worst effects of Afghanistan?s insecurity. Conditions are better than under the Taliban, but women and girls continue to face severe discrimination, and are struggling to take part in the political life of their country. Women who organize politically or criticize local rulers still face threats and violence. Soldiers and police routinely harass women and girls, even in Kabul city. Many women and girls continue to fear leaving their homes without wearing a burqa.

You can read HRW's general statement on human rights in Afghanistan here.

Via Reuters.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:25 AM | Get permalink

Ooooooh, shiny!

Yep, it's another dust devil whirling its way through the desert. Except that this whirlwind and that desert are on Mars.

[Image: Mars Exploration Rover Mission, JPL/NASA]
The image here is just one part of an animated GIF of a dust devil passing by the vantage point of the Spirit Rover, currently near the Columbia Hills on Mars. You can view the image sequence here. And you can read more about Martian dust devils and about how the animated GIF was put together if you go here. A much bigger version of the photo is here.

There's another picture of a Martian dust devil for you to look at here.

Via Astronomy Picture of the Day.

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

Monday, April 25, 2005

USA! USA!

We're number one!

Via Reuters.

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

We have to wonder ....

How this wire service photo of Dubya and Saudi crown prince Abdullah is going over with some people in the US?

Hand in hand

[Photo: Reuters]
This magpie knows that its common for Arab men to hold hands and, in particular, that it's common for Saudi men to walk and hold hands with relatives and close friends while conversing. But we bet that xenophobic right-wingers (especially ones of the fundamentalist Christian variety) don't have the same appreciation of cultural differences as we do.

More: We just have to move this comment up into the main post:

Oh Godess, I really don't want to read any of the slash fic that's going to inspire.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:35 AM | Get permalink

Why doesn't this surprise us?

This post comes from Big Brass Blog:

According to the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act of 2005 (Senate Bill 51 and House Bill 356, if you're curious), it's the ova and the uterus and nothing else. The Act, which has been criticized for its possible effects on abortion law, has been referred to committee in both the House and the Senate. It contains this excellent definition:

WOMAN- The term `woman' means a female human being who is capable of becoming pregnant, whether or not she has reached the age of majority.

This definition of 'woman' was considered appropriate by both House and Senate. There are several interesting implications to this:

A. A female human being who is not capable of becoming pregnant does not qualify as a woman under this definition.

B. This definition implies that a woman is not, as any dictionary will tell you, an 'adult female human.' A thirteen-year-old female child is a woman if she has reached puberty. Fertility is the sole measure of womanhood, not maturity and the capacity to make one's own decisions.

C. This definition could be used in other laws if this bill is passed and signed.

All of this reminds me of the definition of 'woman' in Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale, wherein infertile women were considered Unwomen.

Kinda fits in with how the religious right is oh-so-concerned about the unborn, but doesn't care a whit about anyone who's made it out of the womb, doesn't it?

Via feministe.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:15 AM | Get permalink

Good deeds are always punished.

When you piss off the current regime in Washington, that is.

Under pressure from Dubya's administration, the UN has fired its top human rights investigator in Iraq. His offense? Producing a report that accused the US military of detaining suspects without trial and holding them in secret prisons.

Cherif Bassiouni had needled the US military since his appointment a year ago, repeatedly trying, without success, to interview alleged Taliban and al-Qa'ida prisoners at the two biggest US bases in Afghanistan, Kandahar and Bagram....

The UN eliminated Mr Bassiouni's job last week after Washington had pressed for his mandate to be changed so that it would no longer cover the US military.

Just days earlier, the Egyptian-born law professor, now based in Chicago, had presented his criticisms in a 24-page report to the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.

The report, based on a year spent travelling around Afghanistan interviewing Afghans, international agency staff and the Afghan Human Rights Commission, estimated that around 1,000 Afghans had been detained and accused US troops of breaking into homes, arresting residents and abusing them.

The actions of the US to get Bassiouni fired are even more reprehensible when you take a look at his previous work in the areas of international justice and human rights. Here's just a part of his online bio at DePaul University, where he is a law professor:

He has served the United Nations in a number of capacities, including as: Member and then Chairman of the Security Council's Commission to Investigate War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia (1992-94); Commission on Human Rights' Independent Expert on The Rights to Restitution, Compensation and Rehabilitation for Victims of Grave Violations of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1998-2000); Vice-Chairman of the General Assembly's Ad Hoc Committee on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court (1995); and Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the 1998 Diplomatic Conference on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court. In 2004, he was appointed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights as the Independent Expert on the Situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan.

In 1999, Professor Bassiouni was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in the field of international criminal justice and for his contribution to the creation of the International Criminal Court.

We don't think we need to comment any further.

Via UK Independent.

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

Sunday, April 24, 2005

Can we say 'Enemies List'?

Does this remind anyone else of this?

And before anyone suggests that Nixon's paranoid presidency fell apart in its second term, so maybe Dubya's will take a similar dive, this magpie would ask them how far they think Nixon's impeachment would have gotten had the Democrats not controlled both houses of Congress?

More: You might want to read Kevin Drum's take on this.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:42 PM | Get permalink