Magpie

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Deferring to history or making history?

The Supreme Court of New Jersey is currently hearing arguments in the case of Lewis v. Harris, a suit filed by seven lesbian and gay couples who have been denied marriage licenses by the state. The couples lost their case in a lower court, and it's anyone's guess how the New Jersey Supremes will rule on this one.

Knight Ridder's Stephen Henderson has filed an excellent story on the court arguments, putting them squarely in a tradition of debate over who in society has rights and who doesn't, and about the role of historical precedent in deciding that and other legal issues.

One of the key questions for the justices in New Jersey, and for courts all over the nation, is whether the long traditions surrounding marriage trump demands to eliminate eons-old gender restrictions in the name of equality.

"I think people who talk about history as a reason to deny gay marriage just don't really know what the history is," said Jon Davidson, legal director for Lambda Legal Defense Fund, the advocacy group that represents the gay couples seeking marriage licenses in New Jersey.

"People need to recognize that throughout our history, there were all sorts of people not allowed to marry."

But Katherine Spaht, a law professor at Louisiana State University and an expert on family law, said permitting gay marriage would constitute a change more profound than any other in history.

"Most of the changes, historically, have been at the edges of the concept of marriage, not at its core," Spaht said. "We've changed lots of things about the relationship between married people, but not as much about the fundamental idea of what marriage is."

For their part, at least four of the seven justices in New Jersey expressed serious doubts that history was a compelling reason to deny marriage rights to gays.

Chief Justice Deborah Poritz bluntly challenged the argument.

"It's a historical fact that marriage has been between a man and a woman, but it's also a historical fact that women were property and that women couldn't accuse their husbands of rape," Poritz said. "Why should we just defer to the historical basis?"

We strongly recommend reading the entire story.

If you want to find out more about the Lewis v. Harris case, Lambda Legal has links to briefs, the appeals court decision that's being appealed, newspaper articles about the case, and much more info if you go here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:39 AM | Get permalink

What's wrong with ...

... this picture, in about every way you can name?

Who ought to be apologizing, hmmm?

Is this the face of someone who should be apologizing?
[Photo: Reuters]

In case you can't read the small type in the story's first paragraph, it says: The lawyer shot by Vice-President Dick Cheney during a hunting trip was discharged from a hospital today and told reporters he was sorry for all the trouble Cheney had faced over the past week.

Via The Age [Melbourne].

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

Friday, February 17, 2006

Blogging is pointless.

Really.

Actually, I shouldn't dismiss the article so cavalierly. Author Trevor Butterworth makes good points about the small audiences for most blogs and their lack of financial viability. But assumes that making money is the main purpose of blogging and the only sensible yardstick of for measuring the success of a blog — dubious propositions at best. And he totally ignores the influence of blogs in US politics, which is sometimes considerable.

Worth a read if you have the time. And the inclination to engage in a bit of tooth-gnashing.

Via Financial Times.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:19 PM | Get permalink

Say hello to our Dear Leader.

Political cartoonist Mike Luckovich knows who the real boss of the US is.

Our real Dear Leader

[Cartoon © 2006 Mike Luckovich]

You can see more of Luckovich's cartoons here.

Via Association of American Editorial Cartoonists.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:09 AM | Get permalink

Dubya Administration 1, Human Rights 0.

A US federal judge has ruled against Syrian-Canadian Maher Arar in a case involving Arar's claim that several former government officials — including Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and Homeland Security Tom Ridge — violated his right to due process and his right not to be tortured. Before I give details of the court decision, though, it'll help to go through the backstory.

Arar's case involves events that began in 2002, when he had a layover at New York's JFK airport on his way home to Canada after a visit to Tunisia. Arar, who was born in Syria, was detained by US authorities on suspicion of being connected to al-Qaeda, held incommunicado, and then shipped off to Syria. In Syria, he was tortured at the hands of the intelligence service for 10 months. Syria finally released Arar, saying that he had no connection to terrorists.

Maher Arar press conference, 2003

Maher Arar and wife Monia Mazigh at a press conference
after his release from a Syrian prison in 2003. [Photographer unknown]

Arar has not been charged with a crime in Canada or in the US. And he has not received any explanation from either government as to what information was used to justify his detention, and who decided to send him to Syria. The Canadian Parliament has ordered in inquiry into Arar's case, and the US has pointedly refused to cooperate with it.

In an attempt to get justice for Arar, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed suit against the US government on his behalf in 2004. CCR claims that US officials violated Arar's right to due process under the US Constitution and his right not to be tortured under color of foreign law as guaranteed by the Torture Victim Protection Act. As the case progressed, the US government has argued that Arar's lawsuit must be dismissed , arguing that the law suit must be dismissed because further action would result in the disclosure of sensitive information that would threaten national security or diplomatic relations if made public.

Yesterday, a federal judge in New York swallowed the government's argument whole:

Judge David Trager said he can't interfere in the case because it involves crucial national security and foreign relations issues in the anti-terror fight.

"The need for much secrecy can hardly be doubted," Trager wrote in his 88-page ruling.

"One need not have much imagination to contemplate the negative effect on our relations with Canada if discovery were to proceed in this case and were it to turn out that certain high Canadian officials had, despite public denials, acquiesced in Arar?s removal to Syria."

He also noted Congress has yet to take a position on court reviews of cases like Arar's, saying judges should be "hesitant" to hold officials liable for damages without "explicit direction" from legislators, "even if such conduct violates our treaty obligations or customary international law."

Not surprisingly, Arar finds the judge's decision 'very disappointing':

"I was not expecting the judge to dismiss the entire case. I was hoping that he could let at least part of it proceed to discovery," he said.

"It is giving the green light to the Bush administration and the CIA to continue with their practice of rendition. Basically they?re telling people . . . if you?re ever wronged by our politicians or intelligence people, you are on your own, good luck."

[For more on how rendition works, see this earlier post.]

The Center for Constitutional Rights has blasted the decision, calling it a 'dark day' for the US Constitution.

"This ruling sets frightening precedent. U.S. officials sent Maher Arar to Syria to be detained and interrogated through torture. To allow the Bush Administration to continue to evade accountability and continue to hide behind the smokescreen of 'national security' is to do grave and irreparable damage to the Constitution and the guarantee of human rights that people in this country could once be proud of," said Mr. Arar's Center for Constitutional Rights Attorney Maria LaHood....

"There can be little doubt that every official of the United States government knew that sending Mr. Arar to Syria was a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution, federal statutes, and international law. How can this Administration argue before a Federal Court Judge that its practice of outsourcing for interrogation under torture constitutes a state secret? This is a dark day indeed. We will not accept this decision and are committed to continuing our campaign to obtain the truth about what happened to Maher and demand accountability on behalf of the Administration," said Barbara Olshansky, Deputy Legal Director with the Center for Constitutional Rights.

CCR Cooperating Attorney and Georgetown Law School Professor David Cole said, "We don't think whether government officials can send a human being to another country to be tortured is a political question. It's a legal question, appropriate for resolution by the courts. Torture is absolutely prohibited by international law and by our law, and if courts are not willing to protect individuals like Arar, who will?"

Arar, meanwhile, has not decided whether he wants to appeal the decision:

"One thing I can tell you is, I will never give up.... Whether it's appealing, or going to the UN or something else, I don't know at this point. But I'll let this go like that, never."

You can read the full text of Judge Trager's dismissal of Arar's lawsuit here [PDF file]. The CCR's original complaint in Arar's case is here.

Via Toronto Star.

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

The lion is sleeping much better tonight.

Back in 2003, when this blog was only a few months old, we posted the song, 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight.' Arguably the most famous song to come out of Africa in the 20th century, it was written by Zulu musician Solomon Linda and recorded in 1939. Linda received 10 shillings from the record producer for the song, and never got a penny's worth of royalties. Linda died in poverty in 1962, even though his recording alone had sold over 100,000 copies by that time.

The guys who did the original 'Lion Sleeps Tonight'

The guys who did the original 'Lion Sleeps Tonight'

Solomon Linda [left] and the Evening Birds. [Publicity photo, probably 1940s]

Linda's song did well over the years, making more than US $75 million from dozens of recorded versions — including major hits by the Weavers, the Tokens, and the Kingston Trio. More recently, 'Lion Sleeps' has been part of the Disney musical, 'The Lion King.' [Go here for a more complete history of the song.] But, in the tradition of all those blues and R&B songwriters who were paid little or nothing for rights to songs that later made millions for other people, Linda's family couldn't establish a legal right to 'Lion Sleeps' until 2003, when it was discovered that an obscure provision of British Imperial Copyright Law provided that all rights to a song revert to a composer's estate 25 years after her or his death. Since Linda died in 1962, that meant that his three surviving daughters were entitled to royalties from 'Lion Sleeps' dating back to 1987.

Naturally, the process of dealing with the current holders of the song's copyright has been a complicated process. However, the major part of that process ended today with the announcement that Linda's family has settled its lawsuit over the song's royalties:

South African lawyer Owen Dean said the settlement was reached with New Jersey-based Abilene Music, which holds the copyright to The Lion Sleeps Tonight which in turn licenced it to the Walt Disney Corporation.

"All of the parties to the litigation plus Abilene are part of the settlement and in terms of it all, the litigation will be withdrawn," Dean told Agence France-Presse.

"The settlement involves a payment of back royalties to the family and the right to participate in the royalties in the future and that's on a worldwide basis," he said.

The lawyer declined to disclose the amount paid by Abilene Music, simply stating: "We are satified with it."

Justice delayed is certainly better than none at all. But it should not have taken 75 years for Linda and his family to get the money that was rightfully theirs.

Via Mail & Guardian.

More: The Independent Lens series on US public broadcasting aired a documentary about 'Lion Sleeps' a few years ago. You can find more info about the documentary, 'A Lion's Trail,' and about the song if you go here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:38 AM | Get permalink

Dubya's budget idiocy.

The prez can't even make his budget cuts make sense. For example, the 2007 budget slashes funding for the Environmental Protection Agency's library system, cutting the current US$ 2.5 million budget down to only US $500,000. Importantly, this includes the entire budget for the electronic catalog that makes it possible for EPA employees and the public to search for documents in the agency's library network — the bulk of which are available at the EPA and nowhere else.

The main users of the EPA libraries are the agency's scientists and enforcement staff, who use the materials to research questions the safety of chemicals and the environmental effects of new technologies, and to find technical information to support prosecution of environmental crimes.

As you can see, the library cuts would be bad enough on their own, and substantially reduce the EPA's ability to protect the natural environment in the US. But the perversity of Dubya's budget isn't done with the EPA yet. At the same time the prez is cutting the libraries and catalog, he's proposing to raise the EPA's funding for research into nanotechnology, air pollution, and drinking water system security. These new intitiatives are going to involve substantial amounts of research studies and other documentation — none of which will be accessible because the EPA's libraries and electronic catalog will be gone.

Cute, huh?

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) calls Dubya's handling of the EPA budget 'penny wise and pound foolish.'

"How are EPA scientists supposed to engage in cutting edge research when they cannot find what the agency has already done?" asked PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch.... "The President's plan will not make us more competitive if we have to spend half our time re-inventing the wheel...."

PEER has more info on the effects of the EPA library cuts here [PDF file].

Via Common Dreams.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:09 AM | Get permalink

Ooooooh, shiny!

A movie of the Quintet of the Hot Club of France [12 mb QuickTime file], with Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli!

The tune they're playing is called J'Attenndrai [I Will Wait], and it was recorded in the Netherlands in 1937.

Le jazz hot!

Stéphane Grappelli [left] and Django Rheinhardt [front center].

A newsreel-style announcer introduces the band as they lounge around a room, smoking and playing cards while a young Django and Stéphane Grappelli lightly jam.... You can get a good view of Django's fret hand, which was missing two fingers from a fire he suffered when he was eighteen. Despite losing two fingers, Django went on to be one of the main innovators of using the guitar as a melody instrument, along with Charlie Christian, Lonnie Johnson and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

I'd never seen film of Reinhardt playing before, which isn't surprising as he died in the early 1950s, well before the advent of easily available home movie cameras and [later] video equipment made movies of musicians far more common. Reinhardt's guitar playing is even more amazing when you can actually see him doing more with two fingers on the frets than most players can do with four.

From Djangobooks, via WFMU's Beware of the Blog.

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

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Woolf one down ...

... at the most literary hot dog stand in Toronto.

What did it mean to her, this thing she called life? Oh, it was very queer.

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.
[Photo: Joshua Errett, we think]
For the literarily challenged, the name of the stand is the title of a novel by Virgina Woolf. The photo caption is from Woolf's A Room of One's Own.

Via Torontoist.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:01 PM | Get permalink

Of course it's the woman's fault.

She shouldn't have been in the park. And she shouldn't have been ther with her boyfriend. And she shouldn't have fought back. And it must have been something she was wearing.

So let's execute her.

An Iranian court has sentenced a teenage rape victim to death by hanging after she weepingly confessed that she had unintentionally killed a man who had tried to rape both her and her niece.

The state-run daily Etemaad reported on Saturday that 18-year-old Nazanin confessed to stabbing one of three men who had attacked the pair along with their boyfriends while they were spending some time in a park west of the Iranian capital in March 2005.

Nazanin, who was 17 years old at the time of the incident, said that after the three men started to throw stones at them, the two girls? boyfriends quickly escaped on their motorbikes leaving the pair helpless.

She described how the three men pushed her and her 16-year-old niece Somayeh onto the ground and tried to rape them, and said that she took out a knife from her pocket and stabbed one of the men in the hand.

As the girls tried to escape, the men once again attacked them, and at this point, Nazanin said, she stabbed one of the men in the chest. The teenage girl, however, broke down in tears in court as she explained that she had no intention of killing the man but was merely defending herself and her younger niece from rape, the report said.

The court, however, issued on Tuesday a sentence for Nazanin to be hanged to death.

From Iran Focus, via Feministing.

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

I was going to call this one 'No comment,' but ...

... but there's no way I can let this one go by without saying something.

The Defense Department has expressed concern that the release of more photos, and some videos, of prisoner abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib Prison more than two years ago could incite what it calls "unnecessary violence."

The problem is that the photos have been released????

Don't you think that maybe, just maybe, the problem is that Dubya, Rumsfeld, and the Pentagon brass looked created conditions in which torture was condoned, if not inevitable? And that the 'unnecessary violence' that the Pentagon is so worried about is a result of the really unnecessary violence perptetrated by US troops on the prisoners at Abu Ghraib?

Just a thought.

Via Voice of America.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:57 AM | Get permalink

Okay, so it's not Valentine's Day any more.

But this magpie just loves cheap shots — especially when the ... uh ... shooter is so deserving.

Be Cheney's valentine!

[Image: Jen Collins]

Via JenCollins.com.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:07 AM | Get permalink

The 'new' Abu Ghraib photos, continued.

The US-based online magazine Salon has obtained a DVD containing what is believed to be the full set of photos and documents viewed by members of the US Congress after the torture of prisoners held at Abu Ghraib by the US became public in 2004. Those photos and documents have been the subject of a court fight between Dubya's administration and the ACLU. Even though the ACLU won that fight, the administration had been engaging in delaying tactics to prevent the release of the images to the public.

Could he possibly be more casual?

A soldier identified as Sgt. Evans writes on a wall next to an 'unknown' hooded, naked detainee.
Photo taken shortly before 10 p.m. on the night of Dec. 5, 2003.

None [of the photos in the Salon set], as far as we know, have been published elsewhere. They include: a naked, handcuffed prisoner in a contorted position; a dead prisoner who had been severely beaten; a prisoner apparently sodomizing himself with an object; and a naked, hooded prisoner standing next to an American officer who is blandly writing a report against a wall. Other photographs depict a bloody cell.

The DVD also includes photographs of guards threatening Iraqi prisoners with dogs, homemade videotapes depicting hooded prisoners being forced to masturbate, and a video showing a mentally disturbed prisoner smashing his head against a door. Oddly, the material also includes numerous photographs of slaughtered animals and mundane images of soldiers traveling around Iraq.

Accompanying texts from the CID investigation provide fairly detailed explanations for many of the photographs, including dates and times and the identities of both Iraqis and Americans. Based on time signatures of the digital cameras used, all the photographs and videos were taken between Oct. 18, 2003, and Dec. 30, 2003.

It is noteworthy that some of the CID documents refer to CIA personnel as interrogators of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. But no CIA officers have been prosecuted for any crimes that occurred within the prison, despite the death of at least one Iraqi during a CIA interrogation there.

Salon has posted 17 of the 'new' Abu Ghraib images, and the set has no overlap with the photos posted to the web earlier by the Sydney Morning Herald. [See this Magpie post for more info.]

[Paid sub or ad view req'd for Salon]

More: A group of the 'new' photos were first made public by the Dateline program on SBS TV in Australia. You can view the program segment with the photos here [RealPlayer needed.] The transcript of that segment is available here.
Abu Ghraib photos

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:49 AM | Get permalink

Let's go on a little trip ...

... to the pleasant land of Amnesia, that backward Third World nation. Political cartoonist Kirk Anderson takes us there:

Who's that at the window?

[Cartoon © 2006 Kirk Anderson]
To see the rest of this cartoon, go here.

Anderson's cartoons, which I'd never seen before today, are very good — especially his 'Banana Republic' series. You can see more of his work here.

Via Association of American Editorial Cartoonists.
spying
political cartoons

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:32 AM | Get permalink

This is the Library Police! Drop that book slowly and assume the position!

The governing board of the Crestwood, Illinois public library apparently think that scenes like that are in its future. According to the Daily Southtown, the six trustees have bought themselves law enforcement badges and leather badge holders. And, says the paper, they won't say why library officials need badges.

The badges were US$ 63.00 each, by the way, and the badge holders another US$ 23.00 apiece.

Perhaps the trustees are planning to get really serious about dealing with overdue books? Or maybe Homeland Security has advised them that al-Qaeda has been casing the Crestwood library, and the trustees are expecting to make some arrests?

Via LISNews.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:28 AM | Get permalink

Being vice president means that you never have to say you're sorry.

We defy you to find Cheney apologizing for shooting his friend — or for the 22-hour delay in reporting the shooting — anywhere in this transcript of the veep's Fox News interview with Britt Hume.

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

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Aren't you proud of living in Dubya's USA?

From a CNN story:

About a fifth of Americans think federal agents have listened in on their phone calls, a CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll released Tuesday suggests.

Isn't there something very wrong with this picture?

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

Sometimes it's just got to be said.

And this t-shirt was inevitable.

Lousy t-shirt

Shirts are available here.

From Jesse Berney via Tennessee Guerilla Women.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:22 AM | Get permalink

No comment.

From a Bloomberg News story:

Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. has taken the unusual step of hiring as a law clerk a veteran lawyer who was a top aide to former attorney general John Ashcroft.

Adam Ciongoli, 37, was a counselor to Ashcroft and helped develop the Bush administration's legal response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Ciongoli, an attorney at Time Warner Inc., was a clerk for Alito on the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit a decade ago. Most clerks are younger, recent law school graduates with little if any experience in policy-making positions. [Emphasis added.]

''It might raise some eyebrows," said Todd Peppers, author of a forthcoming book on Supreme Court clerks called ''Courtiers of the Marble Palace." ''I can think of no other example in the modern history of the court of someone with this type of experience coming on and being a law clerk."

Via Boston Globe.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:11 AM | Get permalink

It's a PR problem. Really.

Does Dubya's administration or the US military's leadership ever learn anything? Apparently not.

The United States should launch a major covert information campaign to promote the nation's image in the Middle East and sow division among radical Muslim groups, according to a West Point critique of U.S. terrorism policy.

The strategy, amounting to a secret campaign for hearts and minds, could involve paying for favorable publications and schools that promote moderate Islamic philosophies.

The report also proposes using Muslim allies, or at least groups hostile to the more militant Islamic movements, to exploit ideological rifts within terrorist groups.

Through it all, however, "it is essential that the U.S. hand not be seen," said the report by the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. military academy.

The authors of the unpublished report, civilian scholars Jarret Brachman and William McCants, confirmed the authenticity of the report obtained by USA TODAY. Though not an official U.S. military document, it has circulated widely among U.S. intelligence officials and officers on the Pentagon's Joint Staff. The authors regularly brief Pentagon officials on terrorism issues.

The report, completed Monday, says the United States should rely on "proxies" for military action in the Middle East, if force is necessary.

We'll let you make up your own mind about the irony of this story's appearance at the same time as the new pictures from Abu Ghraib showed up [see below].

Via USA Today.

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

More horrors from Abu Ghraib.

The US government is currently in court trying to prevent the release of 60 photographs taken at Abu Ghraib. Those photos were seen by members of the US Congress when the original Abu Ghraib photos were leaked to the press in 2004. They we] re not, however, viewed by Dubya's administration as being suitable for viewing by the general public.

A bloody cell at Abu Ghraib

In some ways, we find this image far more awful than those with people in them.
[Photo: SBS/Dateline.]

The Dateline program on Australia's SBS TV network has obtained copies of the 60 photos and will be showing them on its next program, scheduled to air on Wednesday night, Australian time. Details are here.

Taken at the same time as the notorious photographs from Abu Ghraib, which were leaked in 2004, these images reveal further widespread abuse including new incidents of homicide, torture and sexual humiliation. The extent of the abuse shown in the photos suggests that the torture and abuse that occurred at Abu Ghraib in 2004 is much worse than is currently understood.

You may remember the Aussie Dateline as the program that released the horrific images of the bodies of two suspected Taliban fighters being burned by US troops in Afghanistan. [See this earlier post.] This magpie wishes that the more of the US press showed some of the same willingness to tackle hard stories.

Fifteen of the Abu Ghraib photos are currently up on the website of the Sydney Morning Herald. The photos can be seen here; the Herald's article about the photos is here.

More: Raw Story has posted the 15 photos here, in case you are having trouble accessing the Herald website.

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

Dubya's gonna have to find a really big rug to sweep that scandal under.

Despite much noise in Congress about an investigation into Dubya's illegal NSA surveillance operation, the Washington Post is reporting that White House pressure on wavering GOP senators may be close to killing any probe.

If you live in the US and your senator is on the Senate Intelligence Committee [list here], we suggest that you give them a call or send them an email [list here]. Some public pressure may help convince the waverers to ignore Dubya and support the Constitution.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:22 AM | Get permalink

There's no way to avoid being censors.

That's pretty much the argument that a number of US-based internet and networking companies have been making about doing business in China.

The more detailed version of the argument goes like this: China is the biggest single market in the world, and it will within a few years have more internet users than any other country — including the US. In order to survive and prosper, US-based companies need to be major players in the Chinese market. The Chinese government requires media and internet technology companies to comply with its strict policies on what information can and can't be disseminated over the internet. Therefore, US companies must help the Chinese government implement and enforce its censorship policies in order to be players in the Chinese market.

AOL's China Portal

AOL's new Chinese-language website

Many major US internet players are doing business in China, and a number of them have recently garnered unpleasant publicity for their part in aiding the Chinese government in quashing free speech:

Microsoft has shut down blogs critical of the Chinese government.
Google has set up a censored version of its site for China.
Cisco Systems has provided the hardware infrastructure used by China's police and security forces to conduct surveillance of internet users.
Yahoo allegedly provided Chinese authorities with info they used to arrest the author of an anti-government website.

The rationale usually given by these countries is that their presence in China can be used to help move the Chinese government toward less restrictive policies regarding the internet and free speech in general — a claim that many observers, including this Magpie, find naive at best.

One major US internet company may be taking a different route. With little publicity, AOL went live earlier this week with an uncensored Chinese-language version of its internet portal. Although AOL says that the new site is aimed at Chinese Americans, it's [at least so far] easily accessible from the Chinese mainland.

I'm certainly not an expert on Chinese censorship or internet usage, so I immediately went to Rebecca MacKinnon's excellent blog RConversation to see what she thinks of the new AOL portal:

I can confirm: the search engine on this portal is uncensored. Searches for "Falun Gong" and "Tiananmen Square Massacre" turn up the full range of results from dissident and human rights websites. I can also report that according to my friends in China, so far the AOL Chinese portal is not blocked from within the People's Republic....

The timing of AOL's release is pretty interesting — one wonders if they are launching the portal now to gain maximum praise for not censoring at a time when their competitors are in the censorship doghouse. It will be very interesting to see how much traffic they end up getting from mainland China despite their claims that mainland Chinese are not the target users.

One is also reminded that AOL has in the past opted not to get into the Chinese censorship business. [You'll find the info in the comments for the post. — Magpie]

Companies have choices. Despite what they may claim.

And one of the choices that AOL had, as MacKinnon points out, is introducing its Chinese site at a time when many of its rivals are in the hot seat for the way that they operate in China.

There's more on AOL's China Portal in this USA Today article.

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

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

The new killing ground for journalists.

I'm sure you won't be surprised when I tell you that it's Iraq. That new distinction comes from 'Attacks on the Press,' the report on world press freedom during 2005 issued today by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

According to CPJ, 60 journalists have lost their lives in Iraq since the US-led invasion that country in 2003. This total surpasses the number killed during the three years of the Algerian civil war. And, reflecting CPJ's findign that murder is now the top killer of journalists worldwide, the report shows that more than a third of the journalist deaths in Iraq last year were caused by murder, not by combat-related causes.

CPJ's analysis also documented a long-term trend — those who murder journalists usually go unpunished. Slayings were carried out with impunity about 90 percent of the time in 2005, a figure consistent with data collected by CPJ over more than a decade. Less than 15 percent of journalist murders since 1992 have resulted in the arrest and prosecution of those who ordered the killings....

"Too many journalists have lost their lives just because they were doing their jobs, and unresponsive governments bear responsibility for the toll," CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper said....

Iraq accounted for 22 deaths in 2005, or nearly half of the year's total, CPJ found. Yet even in that conflict zone, murder accounted for more than 70 percent of the deaths documented by CPJ. The prevalence of targeted killings reflected the evolving threat in Iraq, where crossfire had been the leading cause of death the previous two years. Fatal abductions emerged as a particularly disturbing trend as at least eight journalists were kidnapped and slain in 2005, compared with one fatal abduction the previous year.

Iraqi journalists bore the brunt of these attacks as it became increasingly hazardous for foreign reporters and photojournalists to work in the field. American freelancer Steven Vincent was the only foreign journalist to be killed in Iraq in 2005; five foreigners died there a year earlier.

CPJ's 2005 report also includes extensive information on imprisonment of journalists — the US is holding five, in Iraq and at Guantánamo — and on attempts to intimidate the media. Yoou can read a summary of the report's findings here, and the full report here.

The NY Times has a story on the report, which you can read here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:40 AM | Get permalink

Cheney's real crime.

This crime wasn't an accident, says cartoonist John Sherffius. And the prognosis for Deadeye Dick's real victim is very grave.

Scene of the crime

[Cartoon © 2006 John Sherffius]

You can see more of Sherffius' cartoons here.

Via Association of American Editorial Cartoonists.

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

Monday, February 13, 2006

Cult of personality.

What do Dubya's followers believe in?

Nothing that resembles conservatism, says Glenn Greenwald. Or any other coherent political philosophy, for that matter.

[As] many Bush followers themselves admit, the central belief of the Bush follower's "conservatism" is no longer one that ascribes to a limited federal government — but is precisely that there ought to be no limits on the powers claimed by Bush precisely because we trust him, and we trust in him absolutely. He wants to protect us and do good. He is not our enemy but our protector. And there is no reason to entertain suspicions or distrust of him or his motives because he is Good.

We need no oversight of the Federal Government's eavesdropping powers because we trust Bush to eavesdrop in secret for the Good. We need no judicial review of Bush?s decrees regarding who is an "enemy combatant" and who can be detained indefinitely with no due process because we trust Bush to know who is bad and who deserves this. We need no restraints from Congress on Bush?s ability to exercise war powers, even against American citizens on U.S. soil, because we trust Bush to exercise these powers for our own good.

The blind faith placed in the Federal Government, and particularly in our Commander-in-Chief, by the contemporary "conservative" is the very opposite of all that which conservatism has stood for for the last four decades. The anti-government ethos espoused by Barry Goldwater and even Ronald Reagan is wholly unrecognizable in Bush followers, who — at least thus far — have discovered no limits on the powers that ought to be vested in George Bush to enable him to do good on behalf of all of us.

And in that regard, people like Michelle Malkin, John Hinderaker, Jonah Goldberg and Hugh Hewitt are not conservatives. They are authoritarian cultists. Their allegiance is not to any principles of government but to strong authority through a single leader....

A movement which has as its shining lights a woman who advocates the death of her political opponents, another woman who is a proponent of concentration camps, a magazine which advocates the imprisonment of journalists who expose government actions of dubious legality, all topped off by a President who believes he has the power to secretly engage in activities which the American people, through their Congress, have made it a crime to engage in, is a movement motivated by lots of different things. Political ideology isn't one of them.

Whenever I post a long excerpt from something, I know that I'm always telling you to go and read the whole thing. But this time, you really should go read the whole thing.

More: Also make sure to check out Greenwald's follow-up post.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:21 AM | Get permalink

Some animals are more equal than others.

As usual.

Via NY Times.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:02 AM | Get permalink

In the future ...

... every war will be fought using cartoons.

Ted Rall has the skinny.

Next thing, they'll be using sarcasm

[Cartoon: © 2006 Ted Rall]

You can see the whole cartoon here. And if you want to see more of Rall's work, check out his website.

Via Association of American Editorial Cartoonists.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:07 AM | Get permalink

What, me torture?

Yes, the US tortures. That's the conclusion of a draft UN human rights report on the treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo.

According to the LA Times, the report says that the way prisoners are treated at Guantánamo 'violates their rights to physical and mental health and, in some cases, constitutes torture.' The report charges that holding prisoners at Guantánamo violates international law, and it urges the US to close the prison and bring all the prisoner to trial in the US.

The report was compiled by five U.N. envoys who spent 18 months talking to former prisoners, lawyers and families of current prisoners, and US officials. Although the investigation was ordered by the UN's Commission on Human Rights, the US did not allow the envoys to have access to prisoners at Guantánamo. [See this earlier post for details.]

[The] U.N. team concluded that there had been insufficient due process to determine whether the more than 750 people who had been detained at Guantanamo Bay since January 2002 were "enemy combatants," and determined that the primary purpose of their confinement was for interrogation, not to prevent them from taking up arms....

It also rejected the premise that "the war on terrorism" exempted the U.S. from international conventions on torture and civil and political rights.

The report said some of the treatment of detainees met the definition of torture under the U.N. Convention Against Torture: The acts were committed by government officials, with a clear purpose, inflicting severe pain or suffering against victims in a position of powerlessness.

The findings also concluded that the simultaneous use of several interrogation techniques — prolonged solitary confinement, exposure to extreme temperatures, noise and light; forced shaving and other techniques that exploit religious beliefs or cause intimidation and humiliation — constituted inhumane treatment and, in some cases, reached the threshold of torture.

Nowak said that the U.N. team was "particularly concerned" about the force-feeding of hunger strikers through nasal tubes that detainees said were brutally inserted and removed, causing intense pain, bleeding and vomiting.

The report on the Guantánamo prisoners is currently being revised to reflect 'comments and clarifications' from the US. This input is not expected to change the report's overall conclusions.

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

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Lock and load.

US VP Dick Cheney accidentally shot a hunting companion while out looking for quail in Texas. I guess the veep wanted to try out a little 'friendly fire' for himself.

Now if I can just get Scooter to go hunting ...

Now if I can just get Scooter to go hunting ...

Cheney fondles rifle in April 2004. [Photo: Gene J. Puskar/AP]

I'll note without comment that the shooting wasn't reported until 24 hours after it happened.

Via USA Today.

More: Over at Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall has an interesting post about how the shooting accident probably happened and who was likely ther person at fault.

Still more: Meanwhile, Mark Kleiman has all those facts about the shooting that the mainstream media aren't telling us.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:16 PM | Get permalink

Bird on a wire.

This magpie works day and night to bring you the most complete coverage of corvid news possible. These days, however, our corvid cousins seem to be taking a low profile, and it's been quite awhile since the last corvid news item appeared here.

The likely culprit.
[Photo: John Milbank]

But never fear! We've finally come up with this Feb 2 story about an Australian magpie in New South Wales:

Offices in Armidale's Central Business District were plunged into darkness on Monday morning after a magpie brought down the power network.

The errant bird apparently landed on one of the live potheads on top of the wires at 9.22, causing a blackout which affected most of the Mall as well as thousands of homes in the area.

"The blackout affected around five to six thousand customers, mostly in the south eastern area of Armidale," said Paul Brial, northern regional manager of Country Energy....

Via Armidale Express.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:03 PM | Get permalink