Magpie

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

No comment.

From the transcript of an interview with Dubya, done on Monday by NBC's Brian Williams:

Williams: A lot of people have seen in this series of speeches you're giving on Iraq, a movement in your position. They call it an acknowledgement that perhaps the mission has not gone as it was originally planned — three points: That the U.S. would be welcomed as liberators, that General Shinsecki, when he said this would take hundreds of thousands of troops in his farewell speech, might have been right. And third, that it wasn't a self-sustaining war in terms of the oil revenue. Do you concede those three points might not have gone as planned?

President Bush: Review them with me again.

Williams: Number one — that we'd be welcomed as liberators?

President Bush: I think we are welcomed. But it was not a peaceful welcome.

[Note: The excerpt above appears on the third page of the interview transcript.]

Via MSNBC.

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

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Your [US] Homeland Security Department at work.

A miniature golf course in San Jose, California was placed on the US government's list of the most attractive targets for terrorists.

Seriously.

Feel safer now?

Via AP.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:39 AM | Get permalink

The last roundup.

It's coming up for at least 800 species worldwide.

According to data from the Alliance for Zero Extinction [AZE], these endangered species are found on every continent except Antarctica — and we imagine that Antarctica has missed the extinction list mainly because so few humans live there. The 595 sites that AZE has identified represent the last remaining strongholds for 800 species, almost all of which are threatened by habitat loss.

Unless quick measures are taken, all of these species will be history.

Going extinct

Part of map showing where 800 species are in danger.
[Data: AZE/PNAS; Graphic: BBC]
AZE has cost estimates for protecting each site. While some will be expensive — up to US$ 3.5 million — many sites can be protected for less than US $1000.

[AZE researchers have] drawn up a list of 595 sites which contain at least one species classified as "endangered" or "critically endangered" according to criteria laid down in the Red List of threatened organisms.

Each is either the only place where that creature resides, or contains at least 95% of the known population.

Some of the sites contain more than one endangered species.

Because not every organism on the planet has been studied or even identified, the 794 species include only birds, mammals, amphibians, conifers, and some groups of reptiles.

The majority of the key sites are in tropical regions of the world, and most in developing countries.

The full AZE report on the 800 threatened species can is available here in PDF form.

You can download a detailed map of the sites where species are endangered [PDF file] here. The map includes information about which species are present at each site. [A somewhat less useful and informative online interactive map is here.] Links to detailed region-by-region maps can be found here.

Via BBC.

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

If it ain't over over until it's over ...

The current boundaries for for Texas' 32 US House districts may be in some jeopardy. Those boundaries were re-drawn as part of Tom DeLay's plan to put most of them into GOP hands.

Surprising many, the US Supreme Court said on Monday that it will hear a case challenging the Texas redistricting plan. While the Supremes allowed a similar Republican redistricting plan in Pennsylvania to stand in a ruling last year, the changing composition of the Court could lead to a different outcome this time around — especially given that the Texas GOP made no bones about its partisan intentions.

For all the legal and constitutional claims involved, the controversy is political at its core. DeLay and his allies helped elect a Republican majority to the Texas Legislature in 2002, then pushed for new congressional district lines in an unusual middecade reapportionment. The adjustment in congressional district boundaries was completed in 2003. The plan coincided with a Republican gain of six House seats between the 2002 and 2004 elections. The GOP now represents 21 of the state's 32 House districts.

Legal critics include Democrats, local governments, and organizations representing Hispanics and blacks. They allege that in redrawing the state's congressional district boundaries three years after the 2000 census, the Republican-controlled Legislature ignored population changes that had occurred in the meantime, running afoul of one-man, one-vote requirements. Opponents also say the Legislature acted purely for partisan gain when it threw out the district boundaries that had been used in the 2002 elections.

In addition, they argue that the congressional district boundaries used in the 2004 elections diluted the voting strength of Hispanic and black Texans, in violation of the Voting Rights Act. The justices issued their brief announcement less than two weeks after the disclosure that the DeLay-engineered plan had been allowed to take effect when political appointees at the Justice Department overruled the objections of career attorneys....

We'll definitely be keeping an eye on this case.

Via AP.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:20 AM | Get permalink

We're not going to rant about racist justice in Mississippi ...

... since we have little doubt that defendants of color get the shaft regularly in pretty much any US state you can name. But the case of Corey Maye — currently on Mississippi's death row for killing a police officer — really seems to take the cake.

As we understand them, here are the essentials: In December, 2001, a drug raid was conducted in Prentiss, Mississippi. At about 11:30 pm, police raided both units of a duplex, one of which was the home of Corey Maye and his 18-month-old daughter. As they broke into Maye's apartment, one of the officers — Ron Jones — was shot and killed by Maye, who had just awakened. It's important to note that Maye is black and Jones was white. And that Jones' father is the police chief of Prentiss, Mississippi.

And there's more:

The warrant for the raid was issued on the basis of testimony from an unnamed informant, whose identity died with officer Jones. Maye was not named in the warrant and had no criminal record before the raid.
The police say that they announced themselves before breaking in to Maye's apartment. Maye says he had no idea that the people breaking in were cops, and that he fired at officer Jones out of fear for his safety and for that of his daughter.
Evidence sheets for both apartments in the raid appear to have been altered. Police reports of what was found in Maye's apartment range from 'traces' of illegal drugs to a single joint.
There are also questions about the quality of Maye's legal representation. His family hired two attorneys: the first of which appears to have been competent, but lacked experience in death-penalty cases; the second of which has failed to file for appeals in a timely manner.
At least two jurors [from the almost all-white jury that heard the evidence] have apparently told Maye's first attorney that the reasons why the jury found him guilty had nothing to do with the evidence for his having committed the crime he was accused of.

Rodney Balko at The Agitator has been all over Maye's case since last week. You can read his initial post here, and important subsequent posts here, here, here, and here. [You might just want to read almost everything he's posted since Thursday the 8th if you want to really come up to speed.]

It's not hard to construct a scenario in which Maye is an innocent man, who was the victim of a legal railroading. At the least, his case deserves a re-hearing before he's executed. Especially interesting is the fact it isn't just the lefty blogosphere that finds this case troubling — even right-wing blogs such as Instapundit are pissed. [Battle Panda is keeping track of blog coverage of Maye's case. Her list is here.]

If the way Maye's case has been handled by Mississippi authorities disturbs you, you might want to write Governor Haley Barbour and suggest [politely] that his office intervene in the matter. Here are his various addresses:

P.O. Box 139 Jackson, MS 39205
Phone: 601.359.3150
Fax: 601.359.3741

We haven't been able to find an email address.

More: Here's the email: governor@governor.state.ms.us

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:14 AM | Get permalink

Monday, December 12, 2005

Carnival of Feminists 4.

We're a few days late with this — the world just refused to stop while we were away from the web — but better late than never. Or something.

At any rate, the current Carnival is available for your perusal here at The Happy Feminist. As usual, this one is just chock-full of feminist linky goodness. [If you haven't caught the Carnival before, it's a semi-monthly roundup of the best feminist posts from around the web, appearing on the first and third Wednesday of each month.]

This time around, we're excerpting the part on violence against women. But there are plenty other links for you to check out if you head over here.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND RAPE

The Countess (aka Trish Wilson) argues that the attacks by fathers' rights activists upon a PBS documentary about abused women and children mirror the tactics abusive fathers use in court. Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money explains how resilient myths about rape impede the enforcement of Canada's rape shield law, including this lovely quotation from one hostile judge who noted that the complainant did not present herself to the defendant "in a bonnet and crinolines." Ally at Ducking for Apples provides a very personal account of rape, including how she herself internalized the belief that she must have "led him on." Lindsay at Makjikthise tells us about the troubling case in which reporting a rape became a crime. The Evil Li-brul Overlord rants about this case too (as well as the notion that everyone must get married or civilization will collapse and John Derbyshire's contention that women are only attractive for a brief period after puberty) Laurelin in the Rain describes the Reclaim the Night rally in London. The folks at Mind the Gap collect signatures for a petition to the Welsh Assembly for specific measures to help fight rape and domestic violence—and they provide photos of their efforts.

The fifth Carnival is coming up on Wednesday, December 21, and it will be hosted by Scribbling Woman. If you want to recommend a post for consideration — you can even recommend one of your own — send it to jones AT unbsj DOT ca by December 18th.

And if you want to keep posted on what's up with the Carnival in general, bookmark the home page.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:18 PM | Get permalink

We're back.

We think.

This December has been the roughest we've had in years. The stretch of holidays starting with Thanksgiving and ending with New Year's has always been a struggle to get through, but our being out of work since late August — and ineligible for unemployment — has really knocked us for a loop. [If you know any writing gigs we could do from Portland, OR, do drop us a line.]

Of course, it's all really Dubya's fault, you know ....

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:47 PM | Get permalink