Magpie

Saturday, May 31

Powell pressured to 'massage' his UN report.

More evidence of how Dubya's administration used questionable intelligence to back up its case for invading Iraq continues to surface. This time, it's a report from US News & World Report that's being carried by numerous media outlets, saying that the White House was putting heavy pressure on Secretary of State Colin Powell to load up his report to the UN Security Council with unsubstantiated allegations about Iraq's WMDs. The report identifies Vice President Richard Cheney's chief of staff as the author of a first draft that was so bad that Powell wouldn't use it.

[T]he draft contained such questionable material that Powell lost his temper, throwing several pages in the air and declaring, "I'm not reading this. This is bullshit."

Cheney's aides wanted Powell to include in his presentation information that Iraq has purchased computer software that would allow it to plan an attack on the United States, an allegation that was not supported by the CIA, US News reported.

The White House also pressed Powell to include charges that the suspected leader of the September 11 hijackers, Mohammed Atta, had met in Prague with an Iraqi intelligence officer prior to the attacks, despite a refusal by US and European intelligence agencies to confirm the meeting, the magazine said.

Update: The full US News story is now online here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:59 PM | Get permalink

In praise of rank amateurs.

John Naughton of the UK Observer explains why good weblogs make mainstream journalism so nervous.

Second is the assumption that anything written by an amateur is, by definition, worthless. Yet journalism has always been, as Northcliffe observed, 'the art of explaining to others that which one does not oneself understand'.

In fact, when it comes to many topics in which I have a professional interest, I would sooner pay attention to particular blogs than to anything published in Big Media - including the venerable New York Times. This is not necessarily because journalists are idiots; it's just that serious subjects are complicated and hacks have neither the training nor the time to reach a sophisticated understanding of them - which is why much journalistic coverage is inevitably superficial and often misleading, and why so many blogs are thoughtful and accurate by comparison.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:25 PM | Get permalink

Dubya's advisors worry about the growing Iraq quagmire.

An article in the San Jose Mercury News gives a good overview of the problems that Dubya's administration is facing in Iraq — both in terms of how the occupation is not going smoothly, and in terms of the growing uproar over the nonexistent WMDs.

This paragraph is particularly telling:

"The postwar period in Iraq is messy. We haven't found what we said we'd find there and there are unpleasant questions about assumptions we made and intelligence we had,'' said a senior national security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "If many more months go by and our troops are still there, the Iraqis are still fighting each other and us, and we still haven't found any WMD'' -- weapons of mass destruction -- "there will be hell to pay.''

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:45 PM | Get permalink

Shelter from the storm.

In Editor & Publisher, reports Craig Nelson writes about the penchant for journalists of all sorts to compulsively listen to music when covering a war. The list of music that people listened to is as interesting as Nelson's musings about why they listened. (Nelson, incidentally, was in a war reporter in Baghdad for the Cox Newspapers.)

Music also softens the edge of the emptiness and exhaustion that invariably follows the suffering, destruction and bloodshed firsthand. "The blues, along with the Chieftains and any traditional Irish music, helps me come off the high slowly," another reporter said. "It's emotionally painful to careen from one extreme to another."

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:24 PM | Get permalink

What's the phase of the moon right now?

One bull runs amok in an English china shop, and another storms into the parliament chambers in Yemen.

This crowgirl couldn't have made those up if she tried.

The UK story via Making Light.

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:34 PM | Get permalink

New to the blogroll (part 2).

And about time, too. Give a hearty hello to:

Alas, a Blog

Ampersand has a bunch of links to some interesting stuff going on in Israel. Be sure to go check them out.

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:07 PM | Get permalink

New to the blogroll.

Magpie is pleased to present:

Road to Surfdom

Make sure to check out today's post on Iraq's vanishing WMDs.

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

US still toughest kid on the block.

Vice President Dick Cheney told the graduating class at the US Military Academy that any country that 'shelters terrorists' better watch out.

"We cannot allow ourselves to grow complacent, we cannot forget that the terrorists remain determined to kill as many Americans as possible both abroad and here at home, and they are still seeking weapons of mass destruction to use against," he said.

"With such an enemy, no peace treaty is possible, no policy of containment or deterrent will prove effective -- the only way to deal with this threat is to destroy it completely and utterly, and President Bush is absolutely determined to do just that."

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:05 PM | Get permalink

Lawsuits ahoy!

From Time:

Certain employees of the Justice Department have been advised to hire lawyers to defend them in a spate of lawsuits that could be filed shortly by people who were detained in the wake of 9/11.

Read the rest here.

Via The Agonist.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:49 AM | Get permalink

Making assumptions.

Salam Pax answers answers an email sent by a reader of his weblog. If I were you, I wouldn't be satisfied with what Magpie is excerpting — I'd go read the whole thing.

"It seems your writing is dedicated to proving two points, first, minimizing the American contribution to removing Saddam and then, proving what terrible things the US did to get rid of Saddam, so as to paint a picture that it wasn't worth it."

As to the first. There is no way to "minimize" the contribution of the USA in removing saddam. The USA waged a friggin’ war, how could you "minimize" a war. I have said this before: if it weren’t for the intervention of the US, Iraq would have seen saddam followed by his sons until the end of time. But excuse me if I didn’t go out and throw flowers at the incoming missiles. As for the second point, I don’t think anyone has the right to throw cluster bombs in civilian areas and then refuse to clean up the mess afterwards.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:43 AM | Get permalink

Gendered chocolate?

Yep. Alas a Blog tells us about about the Nestle's ad campaign for two of its UK chocolate bars.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:27 AM | Get permalink

Dubya's bogus tax cut figures.

The excellent Spinsanity looks at Dubya's claims about the tax cuts that the average taxpayer will receive and compares them to data compiled by the Tax Policy Center. As you might expect, Dubya has been stretching the truth just a tiny bit.

The President also touted the bill's benefits for seniors, saying, "12 million seniors will receive an average tax reduction of $1,401." Once again, though, most of the benefits go to the upper end of the income spectrum. Tax Policy Center data shows that 89.4 percent of senior taxpayers will receive less than $1,401.

The same goes for small businesses. Bush's statement: "23 million small business owners will receive an average tax cut of $2,209." Reality (according to CBPP): "The Tax Policy Center analysis finds that nearly 83 percent of those with small businesses income will receive less than this average amount."

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

US 'bad cop' slams Canada and Germany, too.

US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice continues on her tear against countries that didn't support the US-led invasion of Iraq. The Globe & Mail reports on a Friday press conference where Rice laid into both Canada and Germany for refusing to sign on to the invasion.

"I think there was disappointment in the United States that a friend like Canada was unable to support the United States in what we considered to be an extremely important issue for our security," she said.

The U.S. position was taken "for the security of the international community, and to try and spread freedom. Those are values that we share with our long-time friends."

She said differences with Canada had put bilateral relations through "some difficult times."

"And so, yes, there was some disappointment that there seemed to be some questioning of American motives, and some lack of understanding that we were simply trying to do this in support of our own security, in support of everyone else's security.

"And that disappointment will, of course, not go [away] easily. It will take some time, because when friends are in a position where we say our security's at stake, we would have thought, as we got from many of our friends, that the answer would have been, 'Well, how can we help?' " [...]

Germany received a similar mark of disapproval. "An important and good relationship" has been tarnished by Germany's outspoken opposition to U.S. policy on Iraq, Ms. Rice said.

As for Mr. Bush's dealings with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who will be at the G8 summit in Évian, France, "I can't answer the question of whether personal relations between the President and the Chancellor will ever be the same. We will have to see."

Go on to the next post for Rice's comments about France.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:26 AM | Get permalink

Good cop, bad cop.

Washington seems to be trying to have it both ways in how its treating the US-France relationship.

Consider first this CNN report from May 23 about a meeting between the US and French foreign ministers.

When asked Friday about the current status of French-U.S. relations, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin responded with an enthusiastic "Excellent!" as he patted the back of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Powell responded: "The United States and France have been friends and allies for many years, more than two centuries, and we remain friends and allies.

"We have had serious disagreement in recent months -- we're not going to paper over it and pretend it didn't occur. It did occur and we will work our way through that."

And now this Reuters story from May 31 containing comments about France from U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, given in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde.

"There were times that it appeared that American power was seen to be more dangerous than, perhaps, Saddam Hussein. I'll just put it very bluntly," Rice said, according to an English- language transcript of the interview.

"We simply didn't understand it."

Rice complained that France had not only criticized the war but actively tried to rally other countries to provide "checks and balances" against the United States.

"What was to be checked?" she asked. "Perhaps Americans couldn't understand why it was not considered a worthy cause to liberate Iraq... there is a lot of consternation about the way that this was posed (by Paris)."

Without identifying Chirac by name, Rice criticized his angry dressing down of eastern European countries that sided with the United States before the U.S.-led war:

"We couldn't quite understand why the East Europeans were told to behave themselves, and that they shouldn't somehow choose to support the United States, it would somehow undermine their European identity. We just couldn't understand it."

Rice also lashed out at France's post-Iraq diplomacy, when asked about Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin's meeting last week with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

"I do not understand the continuing interest in Arafat in this regard," she said. "The fact is that the Palestinian people need leadership that is committed to fighting terrorism. That has never been Arafat."

As Reuters notes, Rice made her comments just hours before Dubya and French President Jacques Chirac were to meet.

Update: Steve Gaillard has a excellent response to Rice's comments at Daily Kos.

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

Those trailers in Iraq.

What we know for sure is that two trailers with a lot of equipment, including fermenters, were found by US forces in Iraq. Since the answer to the question of whether these trailers were used as mobile biological warfare labs is the linchpin of the US case for WMD in Iraq, Magpie thought it would be good to look at how the story has developed so far in the press.

Pay attention to the little details that seem to change over time, and to the changes in the qualifications that US spokespeople make when saying whether the trailer are definitely biowarfare labs. You can make up your own mind what you think.

May 7, Associated Press:

"While some of the equipment on the trailer could have been used for purposes other than biological weapons agent production, U.S. and U.K. technical experts have concluded that the unit does not appear to perform any function beyond what the defector said it was for, which is the production of biological agents," Cambone said.

The Bush administration said destroying Iraq's suspected chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs was the main reason for the war. Despite weeks of searches of suspected sites, nothing conclusive has been reported found so far.

And although Pentagon officials suggested before the war that some Iraqi units were armed with chemical weapons, none was found when those units were overrun.

May 8, USA Today:

A trailer found in northern Iraq has the necessary specifications and equipment to be a mobile biological weapons laboratory, but more tests are needed before a final conclusion is reached, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

If the trailer turns out to be a weapons lab, it will be the first major piece of evidence to support U.S. allegations that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction. Those charges were a key justification for launching the Iraq war.

Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 5 that Iraq had as many as 18 such mobile labs and that one of them could create enough biological weapons in a month to kill "thousands upon thousands."

One month after the end of most of the fighting in Iraq, however, no biological or chemical weapons — or the compounds that might be used to make them — have been found, including in the trailer, U.S. officials said. [...]

The trailer that U.S. officials believe is a weapons lab was seized by Kurdish forces on April 19 at a checkpoint outside the northern Iraqi town of Tall Kayf. It was turned over to U.S. forces and is being taken to Baghdad for further testing.

Technical experts believe the trailer was designed to produce biological agents, and "they have not found another plausible use for it," Cambone said. [...]

Aboard the trailer was equipment that can be used to make biological weapons, including a fermenter, Cambone said. Other equipment included gas cylinders to supply clean air for agent production and a system to capture and compress exhaust gases to evade detection of weapons production, he said.

Pentagon officials said three biological agents could have been made on the trailer: anthrax, botulinum toxin and staphylococcus.

May 12, Associated Press:

U.S. forces found another trailer in northern Iraq that appeared to be a mobile biological weapons laboratory, Pentagon officials said Monday.

The trailer was similar to one seized last month that U.S. officials believe may have been a germ weapons workshop for the Iraqis, two officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. [...]

Pentagon officials have pointed to the discovery of the first trailer — seized at a checkpoint near Mosul by Kurdish forces on April 19 — as possible proof that Iraq indeed had active programs to produce weapons of mass destruction. Saddam and other officials said Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons in the 1990s.

Weapons experts aren't sure if the latest trailer is connected with the first, but it appears to have many of the same components, one official said.

May 21, compiled from news services:

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that two mysterious trailers found in Iraq were mobile units to produce germs for weapons, but they have found no evidence that the equipment was used to make such arms, according to senior administration officials.

As for the trailers, "the experts who have crawled over this again and again can come up with no other plausible legitimate use," said one senior official who examined the evidence in detail. One theory that was rejected had recently been put forward by Iraqi scientists, who said one of the units was used to produce hydrogen.

Officials in Iraq and Washington stressed in interviews that because the unit studied in greatest detail had been thoroughly decontaminated with a still unidentified caustic agent, it was impossible to say whether it had ever produced agents for bioweapons.

"It may have. We don't know," a senior administration official said. "What we know is that it is equipped to do that."

May 28, USA Today:

Though fermenting tanks inside the trailers could have non-military uses, such as the manufacture of pesticide or hydrogen for weather balloons, the CIA report concluded that biological weapons production "is the only consistent, logical purpose for these vehicles."

No trace of biological agent has been found in the tanks or other hardware mounted on two military-style heavy equipment transporters in U.S. possession in Iraq. Some of the equipment had been looted and some of what was left was rusted and showing signs of having been hastily abandoned. One of the tanks had a manufacturing date of 2003, suggesting it was in use only a matter of weeks by the time the war started.

May 29, Washington Post:

The two trailers cited by intelligence officials yesterday have been under examination since they were found in northern Iraq last month. The officials said that key equipment in the trailers -- fermenters needed to produce biological agents -- was manufactured in 2002 and 2003, indicating that the units were recently built. They said Iraqi employees at the al-Kindi Research, Testing, Development and Engineering facility where the fermenters were constructed told them they were used to produce hydrogen gas for weather balloons and other purposes.

But an intelligence official called that "a cover story," and said it would be an "inefficient" use of the facilities. Instead, U.S. officials said the labs closely resembled the description of mobile biological trailers provided in 1999 by an Iraqi defector whose information was the basis for Powell's presentation.

David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security and a former U.N. weapons inspector, said yesterday that "the government's finding is based on eliminating any possible alternative explanation for the trucks, which is a controversial methodology under any circumstances." In the absence of "conclusive evidence," Albright suggested that an independent, international investigation was needed, and that "the logical group to perform this investigation is UNMOVIC."

May 30, Washington Post:

President Bush, citing two trailers that U.S. intelligence agencies have said were probably used as mobile biological weapons labs, said U.S. forces in Iraq have "found the weapons of mass destruction" that were the United States' primary justification for going to war. [...]

"You remember when [Secretary of State] Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons," Bush said in an interview before leaving today on a seven-day trip to Europe and the Middle East. "They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two.

"And we'll find more weapons as time goes on," Bush said. "But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them." [...]

U.S. authorities have to date made no claim of a confirmed finding of an actual nuclear, biological or chemical weapon. In the interview, Bush said weapons had been found, but in elaborating, he mentioned only the trailers, which the CIA has concluded were likely used for production of biological weapons.

The agency reported that no pathogens were found in the two trailers and added that civilian use of the heavy transports, such as water purification or pharmaceutical production, was "unlikely" because of the effort and expense required to make the equipment mobile. Production of biological warfare agents "is the only consistent, logical purpose for these vehicles," the CIA report concluded.

May 30, CBC:

The CIA released a six-page report concluding the only logical purpose for the equipment in the trailers is to produce biological weapons agents.

No chemical or biological agents, such as sarin or anthrax, were found in the mobile trailers.

Before the war, the U.S. and Britain cited Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as the reason to go to war, suggesting the Hussein regime was developing nuclear weapons.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer insists the CIA evidence backs up U.S. intelligence that Secretary of State Colin Powell provided to the UN in February.

"Iraq had, contrary to their protestations to the United Nations, trucks for the purpose of producing biological weapons. They said they didn't have them. They got caught. Proof perfect that they had them," said Fleischer.

But the CIA report isn't conclusive evidence, say weapons experts at Harvard and the Institute for Science and International Security, who are calling for an independent investigation of the trucks.

The U.S. has no direct evidence of chemical or biological agents in Iraq.

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

Revolting librarian.

Friction interviews activist libararian Jessamyn West about libraries, politics, freedom of information, and blogging. (West is the woman behind librarian.net.)

[Friction:] Now that there are a lot more radical/progressive library sites on the web, and getting some attention, do you think that's helping to change the public's view of librarians, that maybe more people see the connection between libraries and activism?

[West:] Yeah, It's interesting, I gave a talk in November about what I perceive as the "third wave" of library activism. It used to be that when libraries were filled with women because it was easier to pay them less, women started organizing [for pay equity], and then it shifted into '60s and '70s workplace and labor activism, with people unionizing and demanding rights on the job. It's moved beyond the library now, so a lot of activist-librarians are known as activists almost more than they are known as librarians. A lot of activism is about freedom and perceived attacks on freedom. When people see attacks on the library it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that's an attack on democracy. As public spaces are becoming more and more privatized, and big companies who own, for example, the mall, tell you what you can or can't do there, [anyone] aware of the Constitution and the First Amendment knows the library is not a place like that. I don't think everyone feels that way, I have a lot of friends that just don't go to the library, and that depresses me, but I think [generally] more and more people are becoming aware of what libraries stand for.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:27 AM | Get permalink

Newfoundlanders, not Canadians?

When non-Canadians put the words 'Canada' and 'secession' together, they are usually pointing to the French-speaking province of Quebec. But secession talk comes from other parts of Canada, too, from provinces resentful of the federal government in Ottawa. (The oil-rich western province of Alberta is a good example of this.)

These days, talk of secession is growing in Newfoundland, Canada's newest and easternmost province. Newfoundland has only been a province since 1949 — before then, it was a separate and self-governing British colony. Many Newfoundlanders still argue that the decision to join Canada was forced on them by the colony's chronic financial and economic woes, and by British pressure. Whether this is true or not, it's undeniable that the province has had a number of grievances against Ottawa, ranging from the management of the offshore fisheries to the share of the province's oil and gas revenues that must be sent to Ottawa. Even as part of Canada, Newfoundland still struggles economically; its unemployment rate of 19 percent is the highest in the country.

The major issue dividing Newfoundland from Ottawa recently has been the closure of the cod fisheries. Although compartively few Newfoundlanders still make their living from the sea, fishing was historically one of the island's major industries, and it still has great emotional appeal to most Newfoundlanders.

Newfoundland premier Roger Grimes is currently touring Canada, trying to drum up support for a Newfoundland proposal to change the constitutional balance of power between the federal government and the provinces. He's warning about the growing secessionist sentiment in his province:

"There is a constituency base for it in the province today," Grimes said yesterday, when asked if Newfoundland might try to leave the country.

"It wouldn't take too much for a skilled political person who wanted to ... go out and lead a movement. I think someone could do it within the next decade."

In a wide-ranging interview, Grimes made it clear he is not interested in leading Newfoundland out of Canada but said the mood in his province has soured dramatically in recent years, with many voters furious at Ottawa over a series of natural resource decisions.

"There is a strong undercurrent of people saying: `I'm not so sure I want to be in Canada any more.' ..."

"People are questioning it and getting stronger in the belief we could probably go on our own ..."

This crowgirl spent time in Newfoundland last fall. Even then, the anti-Ottawa attitude of Newfoundlanders was very noticeable. (And she also found that it was indeed true that Newfoundlanders are about the nicest and friendliest people in Canada.)

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

Speaking out against post-9/11 racial targeting.

Tram Nguyen of Color Lines magazine reports on recent forum at which immigrants and refugees described the impact of the 'war on terrorism' on their communities. These impacts have included harassment, firings, interrogations, deportations, and jailings.

Abdul Hatifie hosts a weekly radio show broadcast to the Afghan community in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. Along with announcements of community events and discussions of Afghan culture, the Alameda doctor tries to talk about discrimination and anti-immigrant scapegoating.

"(Listeners) hear me talk of people's stories and politics and they ask, 'Why do you say these things? Why can't you just stay quiet?'" I try to explain to them that to say the truth is not a crime," Hatifie said. "I am a person who has the right to speak, but now, in this country, we are taking out the Constitution, we are taking away our rights. The U.S. is not supposed to be like this."

Via AlterNet.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:21 AM | Get permalink

Yankee go home.

Over at Back to Iraq, Chris Allbritton is posting occasional, but always very interesting, pieces about the situation in Iraq. The most recent (posted May 30) is about what he thinks may be a brewing Iraqi intifada.

So here’s what we’re looking at. Iraq is turning into a tarbaby in the middle of a briar patch, a significant minority of Americans don’t know and may not want to know the truth about the war, and the crosshairs of the American war machine are swiveling to the east toward Tehran. (But don’t expect another war before next year’s election. Even Gen. Rove thinks three wars in one term might be a bit much.)

(For those of you not familiar with Allbritton, he was the Internet's correspondent in Iraq. He raised the money to go to Iraq as an independent corresondent from online readers.)

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:16 AM | Get permalink

Friday, May 30

US media shows teeth with the story of Iraq's nonexistent WMDs.

Magpie is being very pleasantly surprised to see that the mainstream media are not letting the fact that no significant quantities of banned weapons have turned up in Iraq slip by unnoticed. As current and former members of US intelligence agencies talk to the press, more details of why Iraq's supposedly immense weapon capabilities were chosen as the main reason for the war are emerging.

This report from Reuters describes how the adminstration 'massaged' intelligence reports into the desired shape:

This team, self-mockingly called the Cabal, "cherry-picked the intelligence stream" in a bid to portray Iraq as an imminent threat, said Patrick Lang, a former head of worldwide human intelligence gathering for the Defense Intelligence Agency, which coordinates military intelligence.

The DIA was "exploited and abused and bypassed in the process of making the case for war in Iraq based on the presence of WMD," or weapons of mass destruction, he added in a phone interview. He said the CIA had "no guts at all" to resist the allegedly deliberate skewing of intelligence by a Pentagon that he said was now dominating U.S. foreign policy.

Vince Cannistraro, a former chief of Central Intelligence Agency counterterrorist operations, said he knew of serving intelligence officers who blame the Pentagon for playing up "fraudulent" intelligence, "a lot of it sourced from the Iraqi National Congress of Ahmad Chalabi."

The INC, which brought together groups opposed to Saddam, worked closely with the Pentagon to build a for the early use of force in Iraq.

"There are current intelligence officials who believe it is a scandal," he said in a telephone interview. They believe the administration, before going to war, had a "moral obligation to use the best information available, not just information that fits your preconceived ideas."

And this report from the Knight-Ridder Newspapers shows how the venerable NY Times was used to validate the skewed intelligence:

Much of the administration's public rationale for the war, and much of its planning for both the war and its aftermath, these critics say, appears to have been based on fabricated or exaggerated intelligence that was fed to civilian officials in the Pentagon by Iraqi exiles who were eager for the United States to oust Saddam Hussein.

The exiles' intelligence network, intelligence officials said, told Pentagon officials that, among other things, many Iraqi Shiites would welcome American troops as liberators, that some key Iraqi generals would surrender their entire units and that Saddam had sent a key operative to work with a small militant Islamic group, Ansar al Islam, that had ties to al-Qaida.

Officials in the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the State Department all warned repeatedly that past experience with the exiles, led by Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress, indicated that the intelligence they provided was unreliable at best.

But Iraqi defectors produced by the INC and other intelligence supplied by the group got a ready hearing in two important places: a special intelligence group set up by Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, and The New York Times.

The INC, said U.S. intelligence officials, bypassed the skeptics in the CIA and DIA and fed the same information about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and links to al-Qaida to both places so Pentagon officials would confirm what the newspaper was hearing and the nation's most powerful newspaper would confirm what the Pentagon was hearing.

An internal Times e-mail reported by The Washington Post said Chalabi "has provided most of the front-page exclusives on WMD to our paper" and added that a team of U.S. troops searching for chemical and biological weapons in Iraq was "using Chalabi's intell (intelligence) and document network for its own WMD work."

Marine Lt. General James Conway's comments that he's surprised that no banned weapons have been found has appeared broadly, as in this AP story.

Conway added that it was too soon to say whether this amounted to a U.S. intelligence failure or whether it meant that the Bush administration had been wrong about Iraq's weapons programs.

The administration's main justification for attacking Iraq was the assertion yet to be validated that Iraq possessed chemical, biological or other weapons of mass destruction and that it was actively pursuing a nuclear weapons capability.

''What the regime was intending to do in terms of its use of the weapons, we thought we understood, or we certainly had our best guess, our most dangerous or most likely courses of action that the intelligence folks were giving us,'' Conway said. ''We were simply wrong.''

''Whether or not we're wrong at the national level I think still very much remains to be seen,'' he added.

Also getting wide coverage are Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz's comments about the 'real' reasons for the invations of Iraq, as in this other AP story.

"The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason,'' Wolfowitz was quoted as saying in a Pentagon transcript of the interview.

Vanity Fair provided a slightly different version in the article: "For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.''

In the interview, Wolfowitz cited one outcome of the war that was "almost unnoticed--but it's huge'': it removed the need to maintain American forces in Saudi Arabia as long as Saddam was in power. Vanity Fair interpreted Wolfowitz to say that the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Saudi Arabia was one major reason for going to war, rather than just an outcome.

Of course, all of this is going on against the background of Washington's continued propaganda barrage and manipulation of the media, which has resulted in 62 percent of the public believing that the US will find WMDs in Iraq, and almost 40 percent either being uncertain whether WMDs have been found, or thinking that the US has actually found them. As a result, it's anyone's guess as to whether the current crop of stories on Iraq' vanished WMDs will change public opinion on Dubya's war performance.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:06 PM | Get permalink

Help not wanted.

The number of help-wanted ads in the classified sections of US newspapers is at a 41-year low.

Via Eschaton.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:02 PM | Get permalink

Robert Fisk.

Some of the best reporting from Iraq (and elsewhere) has come from the UK Independent's Robert Fisk. But, alas, the newspaper has made Fisk's columns part of its paid content. As much as she would like, Magpie is one of those who can't afford the approximately US $50 it takes to subscribe to his column for a year.

The every-handy Cursor, however, points out that if one were to type "by Robert Fisk" into Google News, they would get a nice selection of his recent columns as published in other newspapers around the world. So Magpie did just that.

You can expect to see pointers to Fisk's articles again in Magpie, starting with this one about how the US was able to demoralize the Iraqi army.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:35 PM | Get permalink

Russia and Iraq.

Why has Russia so vociferously backed up Iran against US charges that it's trying to develop nuclear weapons? (Just today, for example, Russia suggested that the US help construct Iran's nuclear industry.) In Asia Times, international affairs consultant Hooman Peimani grapples with the question. Magpie finds his conclusion disturbing:

Moscow's loss of its Iranian strategic ally, if it happened, would seriously endanger its security at a time that it requires a long period of peace and security to revitalize its devastated economy. Such loss will complete its encirclement by hostile or potentially hostile pro-American states hosting the American military. The American government's behavior since late 2001 has indicated its pursuit of a plan to ensure its uninterrupted access to energy resources and strategically important regions, such as the Persian Gulf, its unchallenged power and its leadership of a unipolar international system. That requires eliminating the potential "troublemakers", the current and future "rogue" states.

Given this reality, Russia should have every reason to believe it to be one of the next states, if not the next one, on the American list of targets if Washington restores its influence in neighboring Iran. Fear of such a scenario seems to be a major reason for the Russians to continue their multi-dimensional ties with Iran, including in the nuclear realm, to prevent its weakness and isolation, two tempting prerequisites for any future American designs on Iran.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:22 PM | Get permalink

Canadians continue to not be Americans.

At rabble, Andrew Potter deals with the continuing question as to whether people in Canada and the US are different. And if they are different, how come?

Potter thinks the answer lies in Canada's political institutions. His argument is worth reading in its entirety, especially if you (like Magpie) are from the US.

It is often claimed that Canada is a more “socialist” country than the United States. Whatever truth there is to that, it clearly has nothing to do with our culture, since our culture is pretty much American culture. What we do have is much more activist government at all levels, willing and able to implement programs and policies that are in the broad public interest.

To put it bluntly, with a majority government Parliament can ride roughshod over the particular interests that might otherwise block collective action.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:17 PM | Get permalink

Dubya isn't always as dumb as he appears.

Magpie was reading some weblogs she hadn't seen in awhile when she ran into this quote from Dubya at Occasional Subversion.

PRESIDENT BUSH: And the poverty problem -- listen, this nation is committed to dealing with poverty. First, let me make it very clear, poor people aren't necessarily killers. Just because you happen to be not rich doesn't mean you're willing to kill.

She thought this sounded pretty lame, even for the current occupant of the White House. So she went off to Whitehouse.gov and did a search. The quote, it appears, comes from a press conference that Dubya did with President Gloria Arroyo of the Philippines on May 19. The two presidents had been fielding questions about the link between poverty and the various insurgencies going on in the Philippines. Here's Dubya's full quote:

And the poverty problem -- listen, this nation is committed to dealing with poverty. First, let me make it very clear, poor people aren't necessarily killers. Just because you happen to be not rich doesn't mean you're willing to kill. And so it's important to understand -- people are susceptible to the requirement by these extremists, but I refuse to put a -- put killers into a demographic category based upon income. After all, a lot of the top al Qaeda people were comfortable middle-class citizens. And so one of the things you've got to do is to make sure we distinguish between hate and poverty.

So while you can argue about Dubya's point of view here, what he said in nowhere near as terminally stupid as the out-of-context version making the rounds. (Jeez, does it ever feel weird defending Dubya!)

So where did the context get lost? At Slate, as the Bushism of the Day for May 21. (Magpie isn't the first to figure this out, by the way. Volokh caught the context problem the same day Slate posted it.)

Magpie did searches through Daypop and Google, and found that quite a few weblogs have run the out-of-context quote. Perhaps this context problem teaches all of us that we should check out our sources, eh?

By the way, Occasional Subversion is a fine blog. You should take a look if you've never read it.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:58 PM | Get permalink

Giving new meaning to the word 'callous.'

Thousands of employees of a UK insurance claims firm were fired via SMS messages, the UK Independent reports.

Today, employees at The Accident Group, which in the past has been accused of aggressive selling methods, were told of their fate by a text message with a number to ring at head office.

An answer machine message from administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), said: "All staff who are being retained will be contacted today.

"If you have not been spoken to you are therefore being made redundant with immediate effect."

It added: "Unfortunately there are effectively no funds available to pay the salaries for May."

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:06 PM | Get permalink

Back down to yellow again.

The Homeland Security Department has dropped the terrorism alert level.

This crowgirl figures the alert level will go back up to orange the next time Dubya is facing too much heat for his domestic policies.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:05 PM | Get permalink

Saving the Rainbow.

Over at Ruminate This, Lisa English has an appreciation of the US public televison program Reading Rainbow, and a plea for its survival. Hosted by Lavar Burton (best known as Jordi from Star Trek), the program exposes children to all sorts of books in ways that are funny, entertaining, and challenging.

My daughter, and later her little brother, were captivated by Reading Rainbow. Their library wish-list was developed in part by exposure to the program. After awhile, Barbie hit the road and Anne of Green Gables and Treasure Island moved in. Today, my kids - like millions of other Reading Rainbow alum - are both voracious readers and critical thinkers. And I'm not exaggerating when I say millions. We're talking multitudinous millions of American kids who learned to love reading, thanks to this innovative program.

After 20 years, the program is having trouble finding funding — there was money to produce only four new shows last season. Reading Rainbow may be facing the end of the line, as the AP's David Bauder details:

"Reading Rainbow" has several strikes against it in the battle for funding. For starters, it has no access to merchandise licensing deals, an increasingly important part of PBS' funding scheme for children's shows. There are no "Reading Rainbow" action figures to sell, no "Reading Rainbow" jammies to keep kids warm at night.

The series is also 20 years old when many corporate benefactors prefer being involved with something new. And the show's narrow audience — children 6 to 8 who are just learning to read — doesn't give sponsors the broad exposure they're seeking, said Amy Jordan, senior researcher on children and the media at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center.

Other programs, like "Clifford the Big Red Dog," have book series attached to them. But "Reading Rainbow" is the only one that introduces children to a wide range of literature, Jordan said.

"What `Reading Rainbow' saw, before anybody else saw it, is that you can use this medium of television to get kids excited about reading," she said.

And if you don't like the idea of a media world that doesn't have room for Reading Rainbow, you might want to let the FCC know what you think.

It's been a long time since this crowgirl was learning to read, but whenever she is home from work on a weekday, she always watches Reading Rainbow.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:21 AM | Get permalink

Mikhaela Reid.

She has a new cartoon.

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

Dispatches regarding the dismal science.

Wampum has lots of good stuff on the economy today (here, here, and here). Among other things, she points out that the US is currently in the longest run of weeks when weekly unemployment claims exceeded 400,000 since the early months of the first Clinton administration.

This crowgirl is sure that doesn't mean we're still in a recession or anything.

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

That's $44 trillion.

Dubya and the Republicans are ensuring the delivery of an early present to the people of the US: a long-term budget deficit of US $44 trillion.

The $44 trillion figure is a key finding of a study commissioned by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. The administration conveniently omitted any mention of that study (or that figure) when it was arguing for the just-passed US $350 billion tax cut. Dubya's minions, of course, deny that the omission was intentional.

The study’s analysis of future deficits dwarfs previous estimates of the financial challenge facing Washington. It is roughly equivalent to 10 times the publicly held national debt, four years of U.S. economic output or more than 94 percent of all U.S. household assets. Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve chairman, last week bemoaned what he called Washington’s “deafening” silence about the future crunch.

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

Murdoch = Media monopoly?

With the June 2nd deadline for the FCC vote on changing the media ownership rules just a few days away, Common Cause and MoveOn.org are launching an ad campaign accusing Rupert Murdoch of News Corp. of trying to take control of the media in the US. AdWeek has an article about the campaign here.

Both organizations are concerned that the FCC is likely to loosen media ownership rules further and that it will put Murdoch in a position to take further control of U.S. media. News Corp media holdings include the Fox TV network, eight cable networks, 34 TV stations, newspapers, movie studios, publishing and record companies.

The TV spot focuses on Murdoch and a channel surfer's inability to get the octogenarian media mogul off his screen regardless of which channel he visits. A voiceover then declares, "On June 2nd, the Republicans on the FCC plan to get rid of an important regulation so that Rupert Murdoch can buy more TV stations, radio stations and newspapers, giving him control over much of the news you hear." The spot ends with the tagline, "This monopoly is no game."

MoveOn.org has links to the TV and print ads here.

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

Thursday, May 29

Dutch dope smokers aghast!

A new Dutch law may ban smoking marijuana in the Netherlands' popular cannabis cafes, reports the BBC. This appears to be an unintended consequence of a law protecting workers from second-hand smoke in their workplaces. The law goes into effect in January.

Patrons have reacted to the new law with alarm.

"They've got to be out of their minds," said Annemiek van Royan, a regular smoker in the Kashmir Lounge coffee shop.

"I bought a joint for now and a little more for later at home. The best part is coming here to relax. It makes my day!"

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:47 PM | Get permalink

Looking at the microbes on parade.

NZ Bear at The Truth Laid Bare has been maintaining the Blogosphere Ecosystem since well before Magpie was even a vague idea. Every day, the blogosphere is scanned, and a numerical list of blogs compiled, based on their incoming links from other blogs. (In case you are wondering, Magpie is #1172 today, making her a 'Flippery Fish.')

A problem with the ecosystem is that it has the effect of drawing more attention (and links) to the blogs near the top of the list, thus helping ensure that the blogs at the top remain on the top. And also making it hard for deserving new blogs to get noticed.

To correct this, NZ Bear has established the Showcase, in which new blogs can submit their best post for everyone's consideration. The showcase blog that gets the biggest number of links over the course of the week gets to spend the following week listed above blog #1 in the Ecosystem.

Magpie took a look at this week's blogs, and these are the two she liked best.

Skeptical Notion
Prometheus 6

If you want to see the submissions from all of the entrants, they're over here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:38 PM | Get permalink

Salam Pax.

The 'Baghdad Blogger' will have a bi-weekly column in the UK Guardian, beginning on Wednesday, June 4.

The Guardian has a nice profile of Salam Pax here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:13 PM | Get permalink

Howdy.

To The Daily Special.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:24 PM | Get permalink

Recently added to the blogroll.

Mac-a-ro-nies, The Eyeranian, and little red cookbook.

Magpie says 'Check 'em out!'

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:22 PM | Get permalink

No diplomats need apply.

The US State Department is discouraging other countries from sending diplomats to Iraq. The official reason is that the lack of an Iraqi government means that the usual protections accorded to diplomats — including immunity from arrest — are not in force.

(You may recall that US forces arrested the Palestinian charge d'affaires yesterday.)

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the United States, as the controlling authority in Iraq, "reserves the right to exclude people who we don't think belong there." [...]

He added that the United States does welcome foreign diplomats who are in Iraq to help in reconstruction.

Given US reluctance to allow any significant role for the UN in Iraq, this crowgirl translates Boucher's State Department-ese as something like: 'You furriners better keep your noses out of Iraq unless you want to end up in the hoosegow.'

[Free reg. req'd]

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:09 PM | Get permalink

Senator not buying the official story on Iraq's WMDs.

The senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee is challenging Washington's line on the banned weapons supposedly possessed by Iraq. According to the AP, Senator Jay Rockefeller says that if Iraq had so many of these weapons to be a threat great enough to warrant a war, those weapons should have turned up by now.

"You can't quite say that it's going to take a lot more time [to find the weapons] if the intelligence community seemed to be in general agreement that WMD was out there," Rockefeller said in an interview.

Rockefeller said that if the weapons were so well concealed, the United States should have considered giving U.N. inspectors more time to find them.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:08 PM | Get permalink

Northern (and Southern) lights tonight!

A group of sunspots has been shooting solar flares in the direction of the Earth for the last day or so. ('Coronal mass ejections' is the technical term.) What this means is that there's an excellent chance for auroral displays over the next 24 to 48 hours. If you've never seen the aurora before, Magpie recommends that you go outside tonight and take a look.

Here's part of the AstroAlert that Magpie just recieved:

OVERALL OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVATIONS FROM MIDDLE LATITUDES: GOOD TO VERY GOOD

AURORAL ACTIVITY *MAY* BE OBSERVED APPROXIMATELY NORTH OF A LINE FROM...

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA TO NORTHERN NEVADA TO NORTHERN UTAH TO NORTHERN
COLORADO TO NORTHERN KANSAS TO MISSOURI TO KENTUCKY TO VIRGINIA.

ACTIVITY *MAY* ALSO BE OBSERVED APPROXIMATELY NORTH OF A LINE FROM...

FRANCE TO SOUTHERN BELGIUM TO CENTRAL GERMANY TO CENTRAL POLAND TO BELARUS
TO CENTRAL RUSSIA.

NEW ZEALAND AND SOUTHERN REGIONS OF AUSTRALIA MAY ALSO OBSERVE PERIODS OF
MODERATE TO STRONG ACTIVITY.

You can look at cool pictures of the current solar flares here. You might also want to look a the photos of auroras and other things in the sky here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:25 PM | Get permalink

The US and Iran.

Asia Times has two excellent articles on the growing tensions between Iran and the US.

International affairs consultant Hooman Peimani looks at the history of Iran's democratic movement, and explains why the US should not think that Iran is the same as Iraq or Afghanistan.

Although the majority of Iranians support normal relations with the United States, they do not desire to help build an American puppet regime. For those who are not convinced, the Iranians overthrew such a system in 1979. As a result, the desired ties as stated by the Iranians are those based on equality of the two sides and their recognition of each other's interests, like the ones they have with two other nuclear powers, Russia and France. The American hoped-for puppet regime, like that of the Shah, cannot be established in Iran - with or without B-52s.

And strategic analysit Ehsan Ahrari looks at the hows and whys of the case Washington is trying to build against Iran.

But simply lumping Iran in the so-called "axis of evil" category with Iraq and North Korea will not become a sound enough rationale for invading that country. After encountering the strongest opposition from its closest allies prior to the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration knows that it has to do a lot of groundwork before preparing for any semblance of regime change in Iran. Incidentally, regime change for Iran is not limited to a military campaign. Other options, such as an intense propaganda war, also are being considered, given the already noticeable degree of tensions inside Iran. The thinking in Washington is - wishful to be sure - that merely calling on Iranian youth to overthrow the existing government will result in another implosion in Iran a la the Islamic Revolution of 1978. Even if such a development were to materialize, no one is thinking about its implications for regional stability, especially with no governmental authority in neighboring Iraq.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:03 AM | Get permalink

Life after wartime.

So what sort of country will UK Prime Minister Tony Blair be visiting when he arrives in Iraq? The UK Guardian looks for one answer in the provincial capital of Khalis.

Correspondent Rory McCarthy reports that people in Khalis are suffering from water-borne diseases, and the town's doctors are running out of medicine. The hospital has electricity, but is almost out of fuel for its generators. The While the town's sewage treatment plant has been repaired, there's no power to run it. (Power for Khalis in general is on only one hour per day.) And the water treatment plant runs only intermittently.

At the heart of the problem, aid workers say, is that the highly centralised system of the former regime has been replaced by a power vacuum, run ad hoc by the US-led authority in Baghdad.

"There was a system before. It didn't work very well, but it worked," said Majeed Waleed, Care's programme manager for Iraq. "We welcome the change. But what the authorities are doing now is dismantling it and starting from zero. This is the biggest risk. It has become so politicised that the basic structure to run the country is not yet there. This is now the emergency."

When the US military swept into Iraq they expected after a brief battle to find a government decapitated but otherwise largely intact. Instead the structure has fallen apart, its collapse sped by the US-led de-Ba'athification programme, which excludes up to 30,000 senior government officials from any role in the state.

Many of the problems are the chronic result of 13 years of UN sanctions and Saddam's corruption and mismanagement. Yet under the Geneva conventions, Britain and America, as the occupying powers of Iraq, are obliged to provide basic services such as health, clean water, power and security.

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

Surprise!

You just gotta love that Republican Congress. During the last-minute negotiatons to reconcile the Senate and House versions of Dubya's tax cut bill, they dropped the increased child tax credit for low-income families.

Because of the formula for calculating the credit, most families with incomes from $10,500 to $26,625 will not benefit. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal group, says those families include 11.9 million children, or one of every six children under 17.

This crowgirl figures that if she had a good grip on what's really important, she'd understand why they had to take money away from poor families to make sure that rich families got their dividend tax breaks.

[Free reg. req'd. for NY Times]

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

Wednesday, May 28

Ratcheting up the pressure on Iran.

Adding to its claims that al-Qaeda is operating in Iran, the US is now claiming that Iran is meddling in Iraq. In an interview with (US) ABC, occupation government head Paul Bremer said that Iranian activity has been steadily increasing.

"What you see at the most benign end of it is Iranian efforts to sort of repeat the formula which was used by Hizbollah in Lebanon," Bremer said in the interview, due to be broadcast in full Thursday.

"(That) is to send in people who are effectively guerrillas and have them get in the country and try to set up social services and decide that these social services are their ticket to popularity," Bremer said.

"And then they start to arm themselves and you wind up with a serious problem if you let it go too far."

Bremer is probably alluding to the fact that the Hezbollah model of providing social services has been followed by some Iraqi Shiite groups since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Bremer's claims had Magpie scratching her head, wondering what sounded so familiar. Then she remember reading this earlier today:

When asked what they think of the resurgence of Shiite Islam in Iraq, the Iranians point out that for them, this is a phenomenon in its own right, rather than their doing per se. They depict Shiite Islam as a minority position in the wider Islamic community that has struggled to survive over generations.

Most telling, Iranians say that since their revolution, they have been identified as a security threat — an identity that they do not recognise and yet cannot change. Further, Shiite Islam has been equated with Iran when, they contend, Shiism is actually a decentralised and pluralistic expression of the faith. Now the revitalisation of Shiite consciousness in Iraq is likely to suffer the same fate as the Islamic Republic and be branded a security threat by association.

The quote comes from this article by Rosemary Hollis, which Magpie cited earlier in this post.

This crowgirl wonders whose story will be believed.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:25 PM | Get permalink

Remember that bunker?

The one bombed on the first night of the war? that supposedly had Saddam Hussein inside?

It didn't exist.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:12 PM | Get permalink

Lies, lies, and more lies.

In the Columbia Journlism Review, John MacArthur writes about the barrage of lies that the White House orchestrated to justify the US invasion of Iraq, and how those lies went largely unchallenged by the press.

The real heart of the piece is its last paragraph:

Unfortunately, the politicians and their p.r. people know all too well the propaganda dictum related nearly twenty years ago by Peter Teeley, press secretary to then Vice President George H.W. Bush. Teeley was responding to complaints that the elder Bush, during a televised debate, had grossly distorted the words of his and Ronald Reagan’s opponents, the Democratic candidates Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro. As Teeley explained it to The New York Times in October 1984, "You can say anything you want during a debate, and 80 million people hear it." If "anything" turns out to be false and journalists correct it, "So what. Maybe 200 people read it, or 2,000 or 20,000."

John MacArthur is publisher of Harper's.

Via Woods Lot.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:56 PM | Get permalink

Another cattle call.

Wampum is beginning regular analysis of the race for the Democratic nomination for president. If the first installment is any indication, it's going to be must-read stuff, and an interesting comparison with the similar work being done at Daily Kos.

For months now, I've been following Kos' Cattle Call over at his popular and informative site. Once in a while I've participated, but find that any site's comments just aren't the forum to do a decent analysis of the current standings in the Democratic horserace for the nomination in Boston next summer. In addition, I've been mentally kvetching over how, as a woman/minority/Democratic official/disabled advocate/yadda-yadda, my salient points are often dismissed by the legions of mostly-white, mostly-male dKos commentators. Not that there's anything wrong with that: How does that old adage go, "Many of my best-friends are white guys". But the Democratic Party is the big tent party; over two-thirds of its membership are non-white and/or female, and there are different issues and concerns which often drive us to the polls, or away from particular candidates. Our voices need to be part of the nominating chorus.

I thought, hey, that's why I have my own blog!

So now, every week or so, Wampum readers will be ~~forced to suffer through~~ graced with my perceptions of the primary race as it unfolds. While I do have personal preferences and biases, as a long-time Democratic hack, I expect I will either work around them, like any responsible columnist, or incorporate them into my analysis, as they are probably similar to the biases of many Democratic women of color. But I won't be pulling my rankings out a hat; at this point in the contest, opinions of candidates are still namely shaped by the media - the more ink a candidate gets, good or bad, shapes the public perception. This is particularly true in those states outside of Iowa or New Hampshire which may never see all the candidates, other than fundraising stopovers. Thus, I'll be listing the significant news stories in which the candidates are headlined. Also included will be new policies, important legislation, scandals, bloopers or staffing coup d'etat. And then there is the "buzz factor"; which campaigns are generating interest in the media corps, so that the stories they want covered, are in fact covered.

This crowgirl loves Wampum.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:45 PM | Get permalink

Aussie ABC in trouble over war coverage.

Australian Communications Minister Richard Alston has attacked the Iraq war coverage of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation—the country's only national noncommercial broadcaster. Specifically, Alston is questioning the journalistic ethics of Max Uechtritz, the ABC's head of news and current affairs.

The thing that's really raised Alston's ire is a remark that Uechtritz reportedly made at a broadcasters' conference last September. Talking about the war in Aghanistan, he said: '"We now know for certain that only three things in life are certain - death, taxes and the fact that the military are lying bastards.'

Alston's criticisms of the ABC seem to be much of the same cloth as those made by the US right when talking about, say, CNN:

Asked whether there were specific examples of unbalanced war reporting, the minister said there were some reports that appeared cynical about the US.

The dossier of alleged examples is heavily critical of AM presenter Linda Mottram, instancing a series of reports in which the journalist referred to the US Government's "propaganda war" and described the death of three journalists as a "body blow" to the coalition's campaign that "undermined the Pentagon's claim that it is waging a compassionate war".

This crowgirl wishes that Uechtritz was in charge of news & current events at the US ABC network.

Via Null Device.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:28 PM | Get permalink

How it looks from Iran.

The Eyeranian has posted a nice bunch of links to articles about the growing tension between the US and Iran. Magpie was particularly struck by this opinion piece (originally from the Jordan Times) which tries to see things from the Iranian perspective.

[T]he British, as other Europeans too, are urging the Iranians to abandon their nuclear programme and scale back support for Hamas and Hizbollah. Such moves, they believe, can get the Iranians off the hook in Washington. But if the hawks in the Pentagon keep piling on the pressure for regime change, rather than simply a policy shift, the British, let alone the rest of Europe, cannot ultimately shield Tehran.

If the Iranians are correct and Washington tends to equate Iran with Shiism and both with a threat to its interests, then the only kind of regime change that would satisfy the Americans would be one that turns Iran into a secular US ally. But they have been there before, under the shah, and a replay of that experience would do no one any good.

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

No such thing as a free lunch.

Molly Ivins takes a look at the last days of the recent session of the Texas legislature. Along the way, she drops a couple of paragraphs about privatization—that process where 'private enterprise' takes over some function previously performed by government.

Let's be very clear about this: People who want to privatize prisons and schools and social services are in it for the money. The real questions of government are always: Who benefits, and who pays? And the answer given this session with jaw-dropping regularity is private corporations profit, while people pay the price in worse services.

If government provides a certain service -- say prisons -- for X dollars, how does a private corporation do the same job and make a profit? You ask that question, and you get a lot of pious piffle from the right about private industry is more efficient and less bureaucratic than government. Dilbert and I doubt that.

This crowgirl is pleased to see someone with as high a profile as Ivins pointing out the inherent silliness of privatization. How any person with an understanding of basic math and experience working in any large company could ever believe that privatization would make anything cheaper and more efficient is totally beyond this crowgirl's comprehension.

Via Working for Change.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:27 PM | Get permalink

Ending the economic pillage.

In the first installment of a two-part article in In These Times, economist Dean Baker looked at the three bubbles that drove the boom economy in the US during the 1990s. The stock bubble has already burst. The remaining two—the housing and dollar bubbles—won't last for much longer. When all three have burst, the US economy is going to be in big trouble.

In part 2 of the article, Baker outlines an economic agenda that progressives can rally around in the coming years of uncertainty.

Finally, it is important to remember how completely the events of the past few years should discredit the existing elite and the U.S. system of corporate capitalism. We now know that corruption and incompetence are the norm at the highest levels of corporate America. The top executives of huge companies like Enron, WorldCom and Global Crossing are desperately trying to convince the public that they had no idea what their companies were doing in order to keep themselves out of jail. The high-powered boards of these companies are all making similar claims of incompetence. The stock analysts, investment fund managers, the business press and the economic and policy analysts somehow all failed to see any signs of this wreckage coming. The exact division between incompetence and corruption can be sorted out later, but one thing is clear: The current system desperately needs to be overhauled. There is no check on the theft and corruption by those at the top.

Baker is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. His weekly review of media reporting on economic issues appears at TomPaine.com.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:08 PM | Get permalink

Rumblings from the right.

While we all know that the US left isn't very happy with Dubya and Ashcroft, there's mroe and more evidence that the duo's penchant for expanding government power in the name of 'anti-terrorism' is alienating people on the right as well. James Bovard's cover story for the current issue of The American Conservative is a case in point. In that story, Bovard criticizes the Patriot Act and other Dubya/Ashcroft excesses in terms that Magpie wouldn't normally expect to see in a right-wing magazine.

[T]he administration rewarded failure by the FBI and intelligence agencies with bigger budgets, more power, and presidential commendations. There is nothing in the Patriot Act that can solve the problem of FBI agents who do not understand the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or solve the shortage of CIA and National Security Agency employees who can read intercepted messages in the languages of prime terrorist threats. Neither does the legislation compensate for lackadaisical federal agents who failed to add promptly the names of al-Qaeda members to terrorism watch-lists or of analysts who ignored the cascading warnings of terrorists using stolen airplanes as flying bombs. The success of the 9/11 hijackers was due far more to a lack of government competence than to a shortfall in government power. Yet the Bush administration has successfully suppressed investigations and revelations of federal failures, thereby permitting Ashcroft and others to portray new government powers as the key to national safety.

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

More fallout from the 'war on terrorism.'

According to the annual report on human rights just issued by Amnesty International, that latest victim of the 'war' is human rights.

Throughout 2002 the international political agenda and media headlines were driven by the "war on terrorism" and the threat of war on Iraq. In the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks in the USA, and in the name of combating "terrorism", governments stepped up the repression of their political opponents, detained people arbitrarily, and introduced sweeping and often discriminatory laws that undermined the very foundations of international human rights and humanitarian law.

Meanwhile, in the pursuit of security, politics and profit, fundamental human rights were trampled on the world over – and the resulting suffering of millions of people was largely ignored.

The section of the report on the United States is particularly interesting reading:

More than 600 foreign nationals – most arrested during the military conflict in Afghanistan – were detained without charge or trial or access to counsel or family members in the US naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The USA refused to recognize them as prisoners of war or allow their status to be determined by a "competent tribunal" as required under the Geneva Conventions. There were concerns about the situation of others taken into US custody outside the USA, some of whom were held in undisclosed locations. Many of the 1,200 foreign nationals detained in the USA during investigations into the 11 September 2001 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center were also deprived of safeguards under international law, as were two US nationals held incommunicado in military custody in the USA as "enemy combatants". Death sentences continued to be imposed and carried out under state and federal law. There were reports of police brutality, deaths in custody and ill-treatment in prisons and jails.

Amnesty's full report is here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:09 PM | Get permalink

You have spam!

The Portland Oregonian reports on the special problems that blind people have with spam, which floods their email just like it does that of everyone else. Unlike other email users, however, a blind person must listen to at least part of an email before deciding to discard it.

Reading spam may not be laborious for people who can see it, but those who can't must listen to their screen readers attempt to pronounce the jumbled advertising. Opening some spam launches attachments, further bogging down screen readers.

[Frank] Synoground said it takes up to two minutes for him to delete each spam message he opens, and he resents the speed bumps in his communications.

Before he used a screen reader, an assistant spent about five hours a week reading correspondence to him. E-mail has cut that to less than an hour, but spam has eroded the time savings, he said.

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

Dubya's tax policies leave cities in the lurch.

While Dubya's massive tax cut sends US $20 billion in aid to cash-strapped states, it doesn't send a cent to cities, whose financial positions are just as dire.

The LA Times reports on a meeting called by the National League of Cities called to discuss cities' precarious finances. Many cities are finding that they can't afford to provide basic services to their residents, even after several years of budget and staff cutbacks. These cutbacks, economists warn, could further erode the national economy.

Most cities surveyed by the league already have imposed or increased fees for services and have dipped into their cash reserves. One-quarter of the 330 cities polled said they had increased property taxes, while 13% had raised other taxes.

Now, with revenues down 1% and spending up almost 3%, cities are cutting closer to the bone — delaying road and sewer projects, for example, while shrinking their workforces and services.

At the same time that the federal government is requiring cities to spend much more on public safety and homeland security measures — officials said cities have spent $3 billion on security since Sept. 11, 2001 — cash-strapped states have delayed and reduced their aid to local governments.

[Free reg. req'd]

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:05 PM | Get permalink

Yet another bright idea in Iraq.

This one comes from US troops in Baghdad, who have arrested a Palestinian diplomat.

Rueters reports that Charge d'Affairs Najah Abdul Rahman and four other men were taken into custody yesterday outside the Palestinian embassy, on charges that they possessed illegal weapons. The arrest comes at the same time that the US is trying to broker talks between the Palestinians and Israelis, and it's almost certain to inflame Arab opinion.

[I]t was not clear what had prompted them to disarm a Palestinian diplomat in a city awash with arms seven weeks after Saddam's overthrow.

As a military truck took him away, Abdul Rahman denied he had been carrying a gun. "They searched the embassy... They are targeting the embassy," he shouted to reporters.

As of this writing, neither Palestinian or US officials have commented on the arrest.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:03 AM | Get permalink

Tuesday, May 27

Need a job?

Maybe you should consider a career in the US federal judiciary. Over at TomPaine.com, Nan Aron suggests four ways to get Dubya's minions to notice your judicial qualifications:

Fight against reproductive freedom. Administration officials cry "litmus test" whenever Democrats suggest they want judges who would uphold Roe v. Wade. Yet Bush's nominees share a remarkable consistency in their opposition to choice. Alabama Atty. Gen. William H. Pryor, a Bush nominee to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, says the day the case was decided was "the day seven members of our highest court ripped out the life of millions of unborn children."

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:07 PM | Get permalink

Scottish students beat Microsoft to the punch.

When your language is Scots Gaelic, which only has 58,000 speakers, you're probably used to using computer software that's not written in your language. The Scotsman reports on a group of Gaelic-speaking students on the island of Tiree who decided to do something about the fact that they couldn't spellcheck their Gaelic documents. The students put together a company to enter the Young Enterprise contest, and they successfully created a Gaelic spellchecker.

Michael Holliday, 17, the marketing manager of the students’ company Luchag-Ink (luchag is the Gaelic word for mouse), explained what was behind their success.

He said: "We decided to make a Gaelic spellchecker as we realised there was a gap in the market, particularly for schools and universities.

"It took four weeks to develop and it runs like a normal Microsoft document.

"CNAG [Scotland's Gaelic development agency] asked Microsoft if it could do something like this but we have beaten them to it."

Wired recently had a story about the campaign to get Microsoft to build a Scots Gaelic spellchecker.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:26 PM | Get permalink

Punishing the victim.

US colleges and universities may be making it harder for students to report rapes, according to a story at Women's eNews. Despite a federal law requiring that schools compile and report the incidence of rape and other crimes on campus, a recent study indicates that 60 percent aren't making figures available to law enforcement, let alone to their students. In addition, some schools are adopting policies and procedures that make reporting a rape complicated and unpleasant.

Catherine Bath, program director for Security On Campus, Inc. says that data collected by her King of Prussia, Pennsylvania-based nonprofit group indicated the number of campus rapes has remained relatively steady over the decade. What she does see, however, is an alarming increase in the tactics schools use to minimize reporting.

"We've seen victims outright discouraged from reporting rape because they've been told they could be found guilty of drinking or having sex in the dorm," says Bath. She adds that campus rape victims are "afraid of even going through the campus judicial system, for fear of being sanctioned."

Two such cases have been in the headlines recently. Last year, Boston University student Meghann Horner reported a sexual assault and told campus authorities she had smoked marijuana with her assailant. The university cleared the alleged rapist but charged Horner with illegal drug use. Those charges, later overturned, came on the heels of protests over the treatment of another Boston University rape victim. In that case, Kristin Roslonski was suspended for drinking on campus after she had reported being raped by a fellow student. Roslonski has filed a $1.4 million civil suit against Boston University.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:14 PM | Get permalink

Listening to the drumbeat of war.

Pacific News Service commentator William Beeman looks where the latest round of US charges against Iran are likely to be leading.

The latest accusation seems to hinge on the possible presence of Saif al Adel, an Egyptian who may or may not be hiding out in northern Iran, having possibly sneaked over the border from Northern Iraq during the American invasion. Adel has been accused of masterminding the recent Saudi attacks.

No one has demonstrated whether Adel is in Iran, whether he really is an al Qaeda operative, or whether he really had anything to do with the Saudi attack. The accusation seems to stem from the opinion of a lone expert: Rohan Gunaratna, a former U.N. terrorist specialist and author of a recent book on al Qaeda.

Even if evidence that Adel is in Iran and masterminded the attacks comes to light, there is no proof of Iranian state complicity in any of this. In fact, the Iranian regime has been opposed to Osama bin Laden and to his hosts in Afghanistan, the Taliban, since the early 1990s. In 2002, Iranian officials repatriated Saudi al Qaeda members to Saudi Arabia almost as soon as they crossed the Iranian border.

So what kind of a game is the Bush administration playing? The only reasonable conclusion is that this volley of accusations is a pre-emptive justification for some political or military action against Iran.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:01 PM | Get permalink

How do help the UN evaluate Iraq's libraries and archives?

If you're the US occupation government in Iraq, you start by barring the senior expert on the UNESCO team from entering the country.

Jean-Marie Arnoult from the Bibliotheque National de France, the national library located in Paris, had been included in the UNESCO (United nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural organisation) team that visited Baghdad earlier this month.

He was denied a visa because he is French, and because France had opposed the war on Iraq, a leading expert told IPS.

The team went ahead with its inspection of libraries and archives without the expert they had enlisted to help them.

Inter Press Service has the rest of this shameful story here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:55 PM | Get permalink

The war continues?

Asia Times reports that Saddam Hussein has an organization poised to begin a campaign against the occupation of Iraq on July 27th. Asia Times sources its story to intelligence received by the CIA and confirmed by the Free Arab Voice web newsletter.

Will it be a guerrilla war, a jihad, or both? No one knows for sure. But the new information suggests that Saddam may already posses all the ingredients necessary for waging a guerrilla war. He may still exercise some kind of power, and some kind of command and control over a number of his (disappearing) troops, and he has managed to access his network of hiding places in a number of central provinces. He and his new leadership may have access to weapons, ammunition, military supplies and foodstuffs, scattered in urban and also rural bases. And his new Iraqi jihadis may be totally enmeshed in the local population, acting like dormant cells, waiting for attack orders while carrying out reconnaissance missions and bringing intelligence from the leadership to the base. There's a possibility that they are being helped by retired Russian guerrilla experts.

Magpie isn't sure how to evaluate this report. On the one hand, the nebulous sourcing doesn't inspire confidence. On the other, the attacks on US troops in Iraq in the last 24 hours may indicate that something is up.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:45 PM | Get permalink

Collateral damage.

On April 8 of this year, a US tank shelled the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. One shell hit a 15th floor balcony, killing two journalists and injuring three more. US forces claimed that they were responding to hostile fire. Journalists on the scene said there was no such firing coming from the hotel, and they (as well as several journalists' associations) accused US forces of deliberately shelling a hotel where they knew there were journalists.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has looked into the event, and has released report on the shelling. CPJ's conclusion is that while the shelling wasn't deliberate, it still shouldn't have happened.

CPJ has learned that Pentagon officials, as well as commanders on the ground in Baghdad, knew that the Palestine Hotel was full of international journalists and were intent on not hitting it.

However, these senior officers apparently failed to convey their concern to the tank commander who fired on the hotel. [...]

There is simply no evidence to support the official U.S. position that U.S. forces were returning hostile fire from the Palestine Hotel. It conflicts with the eyewitness testimony of numerous journalists in the hotel.

While all indications are that the tank round was directed at what was believed to be an Iraqi spotter, other questions emerge. For example, how is it possible for a tank officer to observe a person or persons with binoculars, wait 10 minutes for authorization to fire, according to the tank sergeant, and, during that interval, not notice journalists with cameras and tripods located on other balconies, or the large, English-language sign reading "Hotel Palestine"? Moreover, the France 3 video shows that the tank had pointed its turret at the hotel earlier in the morning before the shelling occurred—possibly indicating that U.S. forces had the opportunity to obtain a good view of members of the media on balconies—but turned away.

According to Tomlinson, the effort by the tank officer to pass on the location of the alleged spotter occurred at a time when the brigade commander, Colonel Perkins, was frantically trying to locate the Palestine Hotel in order to avoid hitting it in an air strike. Why was the tank commander not instructed to recheck his target and make sure it was not the Palestine Hotel? And even before that, why were military units not made aware of a major civilian location on the battlefield?

CPJ is calling for the US military to hold a 'thorough and public investigation' of the incident.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:56 PM | Get permalink

Dixie Chicks & the state of country music.

The UK Guardian's man in LA, Duncan Campbell, headed up to Las Vegas for the Academy of Country Music awards, at which the Dixie Chicks were conspicuously absent from the list of winners. Campbell uses the recent treatment of the Chicks by the country music establishment to reflect on the generally sad state of mainstream country music these days.

The sad thing is that country music, at its best, used to celebrate outsiders, people who bucked the system. The awards ceremony showed that it has now passed completely into the hands of the kind of folks who look up suspiciously in westerns when a stranger comes into the saloon. Much of the music sounds as though it has been written by a self-pitying computer.

Still, whatever happened in Las Vegas, the Dixie Chicks are playing to sold-out houses on their national tour. Country music, at least the kind that was on display in Las Vegas, needs them more than they need country music.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:38 PM | Get permalink

Hey, we didn't hit you hard.

Coerced confessions are A-OK if the cops aren't too mean, and the information they get isn't used in court. That's according to the US Supreme Court.

In a blow to the 'Miranda rights' of persons detained by the police, the justices ruled 6-3 that the constitution allows police to compel persons to talk, but that this compulsion must stop short of torture. The Court also said that if a person is tortured by police, they have the right to sue.

The farm worker, Oliverio Martinez, was questioned in a hospital emergency room after he had been shot five times by police. He had not been told of his rights to remain silent, or to have a lawyer's assistance, and he has maintained that a police sergeant questioned him after he said he did not want the questioning to continue.

The police supervisor pressed him to explain his version of the events leading to the shooting.

In a transcript of the interview, Martinez is said to have responded: "I am choking. I am dying, please."

The officer said: "If you are going to die, tell me what happened."

Martinez was not charged with a crime; the violence left him blind and paralyzed and he sued the police sergeant and the City of Oxnard for, among other things, coercive questioning.

The Court's decision continues the erosion of the Miranda decision, a legal scholar told the Knight-Ridder New Service:

Miranda, said Mary Cheh, a law professor at George Washington University, "has been scaled back to such an itty-bitty little protection that you begin to wonder whether it's worth it."

Cheh said that to prove a 14th Amendment violation, Martinez would have to show that his treatment was so cruel as to "shock the conscience" of the court. [...]

"Unfortunately, courts have generally said the police have to go really, really far before they reach that level," Cheh said.

[Free reg. req'd. for LA Times]

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:49 PM | Get permalink

An economy run by lunatics.

Once again, Paul Krugman gets to the heart of the matter: Maybe Dubya's crew actually do know what they are doing, he suggests, and they're deliberately trying to cause an economic trainwreck.

Here's one way to look at the situation: Although you wouldn't know it from the rhetoric, federal taxes are already historically low as a share of G.D.P. Once the new round of cuts takes effect, federal taxes will be lower than their average during the Eisenhower administration. How, then, can the government pay for Medicare and Medicaid — which didn't exist in the 1950's — and Social Security, which will become far more expensive as the population ages? (Defense spending has fallen compared with the economy, but not that much, and it's on the rise again.)

The answer is that it can't. The government can borrow to make up the difference as long as investors remain in denial, unable to believe that the world's only superpower is turning into a banana republic. But at some point bond markets will balk — they won't lend money to a government, even that of the United States, if that government's debt is growing faster than its revenues and there is no plausible story about how the budget will eventually come under control.

At that point, either taxes will go up again, or programs that have become fundamental to the American way of life will be gutted. We can be sure that the right will do whatever it takes to preserve the Bush tax cuts — right now the administration is even skimping on homeland security to save a few dollars here and there. But balancing the books without tax increases will require deep cuts where the money is: that is, in Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.

[Free reg. req'd. for NY Times]

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:33 AM | Get permalink

Monday, May 26

Fantasy roadmap.

Both the Palestinian and Israeli govenments have accepted Dubya's 'roadmap' as the basis to negotiate the creation of a Palestinian state and the end of the current cycle of violence. However, Haaretz commentator Danny Rubenstein suggests that these agreements are meaningless because implmentation of the roadmap is impossible.

Since the beginning of the bloody events of the Al-Aqsa intifada more than two and a half years ago, there have been quite a few plans and proposals that have been accepted with various conditions by the two sides. The problem was that it has been impossible to implement them.

In the current political circumstances that prevail on the Palestinian side and on the Israeli side, there is apparently no possibility of implementing the road map either. The Israeli government is building an extensive system of fences, roadblocks and roads in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip that allow more or less normal life for the 200,000 Israelis there.

But this system in effect prevents any kind of normal life for nearly 3 million Palestinians. To put it more simply, in order to ensure what are perceived as Israel's security needs on both sides of the Green Line (1967 borders), the state of Israel is making life hell for the Palestinians.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:26 PM | Get permalink

UN official warns of 'backlash' against US in Iraq.

A top UN official in Iraq says that recent US actions in the country have been driven by ideology. These decisions, says humanitarian coordinator Ramiro Lopes da Silva, could lead to a violent backlash against US forces.

According to the UK Guardian, da Silva is particularly critical of the occupation government's disbanding of Iraq's military without providing other jobs for ex-soldiers, and of the decision to fire 30,000 bureaucrats because they had been members of the Ba'ath Party.

"The way the decision was taken leaves them in a vacuum," he said. "Our concern is that if there is nothing for them out there soon this will be a potential source of additional destabilisation."

Even US generals admitted at the time they feared the decision could worsen the lawlessness and looting. Mr Lopes da Silva said the demobilisation, along with tightened security in the capital, could force looters into the less well-guarded countryside.

"What you are potentially going to create is more banditry and a low-intensity conflict in the rural areas," he said. "These edicts are seen very much just as ideological statements."

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:14 PM | Get permalink

Your (US) Homeland Security Department at work. Again.

Over at Road to Surfdom, Tim Dunlop tells about the interesting sight he encountered while on his Memorial Day drive.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:56 PM | Get permalink

Your (US) Homeland Security Department at work.

They're sending memos to local police, advising them on how to tell if someone is a terrorist

In a recent memo to police, the Homeland Security Department said local officers should watch for anyone who "may show arrogance and hatred toward Americans through bragging, expressed dislike of attitudes and decisions of the U.S. government, superiority of religious beliefs and difficulty tolerating proximity to those he hates."

"E.G., Waiting in a grocery store line becomes intolerable." [...]

A terrorist, Homeland Security officials wrote, may be detected by his "Pale face from recent shaving of beard," or by "No obvious emotion seen on the face" or "May appear to be in a 'trance.'"

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:13 PM | Get permalink

And this is something to be proud of?

The Washington Times reports that Dubya is expecting to have at least US $175 million for his re-election campaign.

Just days after the president announced his intention to run for re-election, the Republicans brought in $22 million at a dinner Wednesday for congressional candidates. A few days before the President's Dinner, top Republicans had projected the take at about $7 million.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:26 PM | Get permalink

California strong-arming Indian tribes?

Like other US states, California is facing a budget deficit. And given that the state is the most populous in the country, that deficit is really big, estimated at US $38 billion this year. Indian Country Today reports on Governor Grey Davis' attempt to make up for some of that deficit by trying to collect US $638 million from California's gaming tribes.

California’s gaming tribes are already among the nation’s most generous. They currently pay into two state-administered funds: One, unique in Indian country, is for the benefit of tribes that conduct minimal or no gaming activity; the other is to pay regulatory costs and to reimburse local governments for other expenses related to the presence of Indian casinos within their jurisdictions. [...]

So, is it safe to say tribes within California pump considerably more into Sacramento’s coffers than other Indian nations share within their respective state governments? "Absolutely," said Susan Jensen, spokeswoman for the California Nations Indian Gaming Association.

California tribes also support treatment programs for compulsive gamblers and, according to recent study by the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, compensate their employees with the highest wages and benefits among Indian casinos nationwide. Many tribes have also negotiated or have tried to negotiate payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreements, or memorandums of understanding, with nearby local governments.

So, it’s not that Indian nations are unwilling to fairly share some of their new wealth with their non-Indian neighbors. But, as many people seem to need this reminder, here it is - under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988, proceeds from tribal gaming are, first and foremost, to be used for tribal governmental programs and to improve the welfare of the tribe’s membership. IGRA did not anticipate that states would try to balance their budgets on the back of Indian gaming.

To be fair, many states face fiscal problems that are not entirely of their own making. Non-funded federal mandates and shrinking tax revenue are just two of the challenges causing governors and state legislatures from coast to coast to scramble for any spare dollars they can find. Indian gaming has become fair game, right in the center of the radar screen.

For more background on Indian gaming, see the websites for the California Nations Indian Gaming Association and the National Indian Gaming Association.

This crowgirl reported on Indian gaming issues in Minnesota in the early 1990s. Two things still stay in her memory: The first was how casino revenue helped provide jobs, housing, and education to members of the state's historically impoverished Ojibwe and Dakota bands. The other was how the state government was always trying to get its hands on some of that gaming money.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:02 PM | Get permalink

Oooooh, shiny!

The other day, Magpie posted about another version of this view of the Earth and Moon from the orbit of Mars. But this one here is much nicer to look at.

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:33 PM | Get permalink

Death camp at Guantanamo?

Several other weblogs have been linking to this story from the Courier-Mail newspaper in Brisbane, Australia. The story claims that the US is planning to set up a 'death camp' at its Guantanamo Bay base in Cuba, with its own death row and execution chamber.

While Magpie is second to none in believing the worst about the current government in Washington, she hasn't posted a link to the death camp story until now, more than 24 hours after she first saw it. Magpie has been unable to track down the original story in the UK Mail on Sunday newspaper (cited in the Courier-Mail story), and the version of the story carried yesterday on news.com.au has disappeared. In addition, there's nothing on the camp story on the website for Fair Trials Abroad — which is suspicious, given that the story quotes their director, Steven Jakobi.

While it's not impossible that the death camp story is true, Magpie finds the lack of independent corroboration (outside the Courier-Mail story) and coverage in other media outlets is more typical of a rumor. If any reader can point to more sources on this story, please use the comment link to let Magpie know.

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:09 PM | Get permalink

Gossip! Libel!

And it's all in The King's Blog, in the village of Kingsley, Hampshire. While no one's been offended today (so far), that's not always true. The blog admin has been musing over what a blog should do in a small village.

Browsing through some recent items on the blog, I notice that there are indeed some postings which would count as "gossip" - none of them are "slanderous" though they might be "libellous" - but there are also contributions such as this review of The Tempest or this warning about horses, advance notice of summer balls, as well as informative coverage of local planning issues ... which, I believe, make a positive contribution to village life.

So is "gossip" a bad thing, or is it just a normal ingredient of village life? The thing is:- if the blog didn't exist, the gossip will continue by more traditional means, the things said on the blog would simply be said in other ways. The blog provides a fast and open conduit for information, including gossip, to travel around the village.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:41 PM | Get permalink

Setting the strings on fire.

Despite the annoying lead sentence, Scott Alarik has fine article in the Boston Globe about how younger fiddlers such as Eileen Ivers and April Verch are putting some flash and showmanship into traditional fiddling.

[Fiddler Eileen] Ivers says the showmanship of ''Riverdance'' came as a revelation for young Celtic players like herself, weaned on performing the music in reverent ways. She had to be coaxed by director John McGloclan into strutting around, playing to the crowd, and allowing her enormous charisma to take center stage.

''For me and the rest of the `Riverdance' musicians,'' she says, ''it was just about giving it our all every night, but now you're starting to see how that really influenced people. The next generation is coming up thinking about this music as a performing art, thinking about lighting and staging, design and clothes, and pacing a set.''

And what was the 'annoying lead sentence'?: 'A new wave of young fiddle stars is reinventing the way Celtic traditional music is performed, exploding the stereotype of musicians hunkered down on hard-backed chairs performing jigs and reels as if playing for a wake.'

This crowgirl suspects that she and Alarik don't go to the same Irish music sessions.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:30 PM | Get permalink

But there's plenty of money for the 'war on terrorism.'

The UK Guardian reports on how federal spending priorities in the US are forcing state governments to cut back drastically on education and social services.

According to some analysts, the states, which control most public services, are going through their worst crisis since the Depression. While the US is at the zenith of its global power, its health and education systems would be grounds for a scandal in poorer countries.

The Oklahoma Education Association reports that secondary-school class sizes are in the 40s and heading for the 50s. Oregon is closing its schools several weeks before the end of term and laying off public prosecutors to balance its budget. Missouri has ordered every third light bulb to be removed from official buildings to save money.

As a result of the cuts, 275,000 fewer Texan children will receive health care, and in Nebraska almost 25,000 low-income mothers have lost medical cover for their families because eligibility thresholds have been raised. Over this year and next, 1.7m Americans risk losing their health insurance.

The Bush administration argues that this is a crisis of the states' making. It says that during the Wall Street boom of the 1990s state governments expanded their budgets with the proceeds of capital gains and other property taxes. Now the boom is over, they will have to scale back. President Bush initially refused to bail out the states, but the Senate forced him to set aside $20bn (£12.5bn) in rescue money as a condition for agreeing last week to a $350bn tax cut. The money would have been almost enough to close the shortfall in this financial year but it will come too late to help sacked teachers such as Ms Kelly. And the package falls well short of the states' needs next year. Meanwhile, the federal government has piled spending obligations on the states without commensurate funding.

This crowgirl notes that her state has had to gut its health plan for low-income Oregonians because of lack of funds. That plan had been viewed as a national model for ensuring that no one would go without health care.

Via also not found in nature.

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

Young and poor in Australia.

Poverty is growing fast among Australians between the ages of 15 and 24, with more than 145,000 young Australians currently living below the poverty line. This is the conclusion of a report to the Australian Senate from the social service group Mission Australia.

The report puts the main blame for the rise of poverty to the increase in part-time and casual jobs in the country. As in the US, these jobs are creating a group of people who remain poor despite the fact they are working.

The report also shows that while the nation is enjoying strong economic growth, young people are not sharing in this prosperity. While over the last decade the Australian labour force increased by 16%, the overall participation rate for 15-19 year olds only increased by 5% and for 20-24 year olds the participation rate actually declined by 8%.

A key factor for young people has been the huge shift in the past decade from full-time employment to casual and part-time jobs. From 1992-2002 the number of 20-24 year olds in full-time jobs had fallen by over 11% but those in part-time work had soared 56%. [...]

"People usually associate poverty with street homelessness and substance misuse, and while it's true these are very significant parts of youth poverty, there is an increasing number of young people who are experiencing hardship because of workforce changes and the lack of access to education and training," said Dr [Marie] Leech. [Leech is head of community services for Mission Australia.]

"The consequence is that many young people are unable to enjoy the benefits of Australia's growing economy. This leads to a widening of the gap between the 'haves' and 'have nots'.

"If we continue in this way, an ever increasing number of dispossessed Australians will have no stake in the success of their communities - which ultimately leads to social isolation and problems such as crime.

"We can't talk about the notion of egalitarianism in Australia if we are not prepared to invest in the strategies that make this a reality rather than just a sound bite," Dr Leech said.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:13 PM | Get permalink

Does al-Qaeda exist?

The president of Syria doubts that it does. In an interview with the Kuwait newspapr Al-Anbar, President Bashar Assad expressed doubts that al-Qaeda existed in Afghanistan, let alone now.

Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born Islamic extremist who heads Al Qaeda, "cannot talk on the phone or use the Internet, but he can direct communications to the four corners of the world?" Assad said. "This is illogical."

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:45 AM | Get permalink

Life for women in 'liberated' Baghdad.

The LA Times reports on how a tradition of 'protecting' women's honor, and the fear of rape on Baghdad's still largely lawless streets has taken women out of public life. Instead, many women are virtual prisoners in their family homes, unable to leave for fear for their own safety.

In one of the most secular capitals in the Arab world, where women were until recently a visible and integrated part of public life, females have all but disappeared. Men are the ones doing the shopping, turning up for what jobs remain and helping plan the future of Iraq with the U.S. reconstruction authority.

"There's so little security, and they are vulnerable as girls," said Abdel-Hassan. "We hear rumors constantly of kidnappings and rape."

In fact, the recorded numbers are small, but in a city with few police on the street and where law and order are at best tenuous, even talk of such crimes is enough to stir worry.

The fear of rape in the city is now so widespread that families are rearranging their daily activities around providing security for their daughters. Dedicated fathers such as Abdel-Hassan take personal steps to ensure their safety at school, but many who are unable or disinclined to take on an additional burden are simply opting to keep their daughters at home.

[Free reg. req'd.]

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

Chinese Net censorship not what it's cracked up to be.

Just how much control does the Chinese government exert over what Chinese internet users can say in chat rooms and bulletin boards? The Online Journalism Review reports on a project that intends to answer the question. Sponsored by Reporters Without Borders, the project is determining what people can and can't say in the reader-discussion areas that are wildly popular among Chinese net surfers.

China’s largest news site, Sina.com, generally receives Gao’s approval. "It takes a long time to register with them, but the debate is fantastic. Very wide-ranging, and they are quite tolerant," he explains.

But that tolerance is still only relative, and Sina.com is by no means a safe haven for unfettered speech, says Gao, who revealed the precise limit of Sina’s tolerance when he was kicked out of its media forum after posting an appeal to release a cyber dissident.

"See this?" Gao asks, pointing to a fresh post on Sina.com. "This is a copy of a Reuters report about the closure of a newspaper, 21st Century World Herald. It’s associated with the popular Southern Weekly group of newspapers, and this closure is upsetting many people working in the Chinese media."

"Complaining about newspaper suspensions is not something the authorities generally tolerate. But look at this! This message was posted by the moderator himself. You can see his sympathy is with the paper."

Via Null Device.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:27 AM | Get permalink

Sunday, May 25

US turns up pressure on Iran. Iran resists.

The US is demanding that Iran cooperate with the investigation into the bombings in Riyadh, including turning over any al-Qaeda agents in its custody. It is not clear from the NY Times report whether the US is demanding custody, or whether it wants Iran to turn the agents over to Saudi investigators.

The demand is part of escalating US pressure on Iran in the belief that Riyadh bombing may have been planned on Iranian territory.

There is also a debate in intelligence circles about the reliability of the links between the Saudi bombings and Al Qaeda in Iran. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld suggested last week that there was "no question" of such links, but others are said to disagree.

"There is a dispute in the intelligence community about what the latest evidence represents," an administration official said. He said that intercepts and so-called chatter of talk about the bombings could be interpreted different ways, and that there was disagreement over "whether it represents a link to the Saudi bombings or to the Iranian regime."

Administration officials also said there was uncertainty about the exact nature of the links between the Iranian government and Qaeda members, who are apparently operating in northern Iran after being driven from northern Iraq by American and other forces in the recent war.

It could be, some officials said, that such groups use Iranian territory temporarily but not necessarily with the approval of the government in Tehran, or that while some parts of the Iran government want them to leave, others want them to stay. This complex reality offers a particular challenge to American policy makers, various officials said.

Meanwhile, the Iranian government denies that al-Qaeda is operating from its territory:

“We have had a number of Al-Qaeda people in custody, and we continue to keep them in detention, and we continue to interrogate them, and once we have any information from them, we will pass them to friendly governments,” [Iranian UN ambassador Jaran Zarif told ABC News in an interview from Tehran.

Zarif said Iran wants to reduce tensions with the United States. “If the United States is interested in the reduction of tensions then Iran is prepared to do the same,” he said. “At the same time if the United States only wants to speak through the language of pressure then Iran will resist.”

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| | Posted by Magpie at 11:17 PM | Get permalink

Library blues.

EurasiaNet reports on the troubles that libraries are having in the former Soviet republics in central Asia.

[M]any of the libraries that the now independent states of Central Asia inherited after the collapse of the Soviet Union have -- over the past 12 years -- fallen victim to neglect, theft, and inadequate funding.

In a recent interview with RFE/RL in Tashkent, Uzbek political scientist Rustam Djumayev says there has been a decline in the professional qualifications of library staff over the past decade, especially in the provinces. He said this may be one of the reasons why rare books are being stolen and offered for sale.

In some cases, desperate thieves are motivated by a desire to raise money to feed their families. But other thefts are part of a more sophisticated criminal operation to steal rare books and offer them for sale to wealthy collectors.

Itar-Tass reported earlier this month that Kyrgyz and Russian intelligence officials cooperated to arrest a criminal group that had stolen some 40 rare volumes from libraries in Kyrgyzstan and taken them to Moscow for resale. Some of the volumes bore the autograph of Russian Czar Nicholas II and were worth an estimated $1,000 each.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:07 AM | Get permalink

Making money.

Lots of people are doing it these days, reports Science News. Unfortunately, they're doing it with high-res inkjet color printers.

Modern inkjet printers are often dirt cheap or are given away with PCs. Canon, Epson, Hewlett-Packard and Lexmark are now making "all-in-one" machines that combine a printer, copier, scanner and fax for around £100. And resolution is very high at least 4800 dots per inch. Anyone can copy just about anything.

"These low-cost devices have completely changed the nature of counterfeiting," says Mark Cricket, bank note security specialist with De La Rue.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:56 AM | Get permalink

Where SARS is.

SARS Watch Org has a new graph, showing the number of SARS cases reported daily, worldwide. There's also a pointer to the graph page at disapoir.net, which gives a country by country breakdown.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:52 AM | Get permalink

They look familiar, don't they.

The Iranian artists' site, kargah.com, has posted a collection of Yalda Moaiery's photos of young people at a Tehran shopping mall. Remember: these are the people that Rumsfeld et al. want people in the US to be afraid of.

For an interesting contrast, also take a look at these photos of women taken during the latter part of Iran's Qajar period (which ran from around 1800 until 1925).

Via The Eyeranian.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:39 AM | Get permalink

'Faith-based' agencies aren't better, despite Dubya's rhetoric.

One of Dubya's favorite initiatives is his attempt to move spending for social services from public agencies to religious groups — or, as he calls them, 'faith-based' groups. A new study from Indiana, however, shows that . doesn't appear to have any basis 'faith-based' programs may not be particularly good at running job placement programs.

The study by researchers at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis is among the first attempts to compare the effectiveness of faith-based and secular organizations using objective data.

The researchers looked at 2,830 people who went through job training programs run by 27 government-funded organizations in two Indiana counties. They found no difference between secular and religious programs in job placement rates or starting wages. But clients of faith-based groups worked fewer hours, on average, and were less likely to receive health insurance.

The researchers warn that their data is accurate only for the specific types of charities they studied in Indiana. However, the numbers will undoubtedly provide ammunition for opponents of Dubya's attempts to provide more federal money for religious groups that provide social services.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:52 AM | Get permalink

Look out, Iran!

Rumsfeld's crowd at the Defense Department appears to have seized control of US policy towards Iran from the diplomats in the State Department. And, reports the Washington Post, the US is moving ahead with plans to foment a 'popular uprising' in Iran.

Magpie points out the key sentence in the story, which doesn't show up until the end of the third paragraph:

But State Department officials are concerned that the level of popular discontent there is much lower than Pentagon officials believe, leading to the possibility that U.S. efforts could ultimately discredit reformers in Iran.

Update: The Eyeranian has an interesting post about meeting of exiled Iranian monarchists going on in Florida this weekend.

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

The CIA and Saddam's ex-spies.

Salam Pax continues to come up with fascinating tidbits at Where is Raed?. Like this one, for example:

One tiny bit of interesting news before I end this post.

The CIA is contacting Mukhabarat agents for possible cooperation. I swear I am not making this up. Officially there is something called a black list and gray list and pick-ur-color list, but what is happening behind the scenes is that they want to get three different groups.

The agents who were involved in work concerning the USA, they get shaken down for whatever they know and probably will be put on trial for various crimes.

The people who were involved in work concerning Russia, they are being called to interviews selectively.

And the people whose specialty was Iran, they are welcomed, asked if they would be kind enough to contact their colleagues and would they be interested in coming aboard the groovy train?

Sorry this is just wrong, Mukhabarat? You wouldn’t get your Mukhabarat ID if they didn’t know you were a sick fuck who would slit his mother’s throat to get up the party ladder. Or does Bremer’s “de-baathification plan” not include the secret service types?

So exactly who are these Mukhabarat folks, Magpie hears you ask. Take a gander:

The Iraqi Intelligence Service - IIS [Mukhabarat] is also known as the Department of General Intelligence or the General Directorate of Intelligence (Al-Mukhabarat Al-A'ma). It is the most notorious and possibly the most important arm of the state security system. It is the main state intelligence body and is primarily concerned with political and security problems. It consists of two major departments covering internal and external activities respectively. It is the equivalent of the CIA and the FBI rolled into one (or MI5 and MI6).

At the top of the pyramid, the Mukhabarat is responsible for watching the other police networks and controlling the activities of state institutions, the army, government departments and "non-governmental" organisations (youth, women, labour, etc.). A special security section of the Mukhabarat commands the party's paramilitary groups. [...] Mukhabarat agents operate in State structures, in the various organisations and associations, in the diplomatic corps and abroad.

Nice, huh? More details about the pleasant activities of the Mukhabarat are here, here, and here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:12 AM | Get permalink

Your (US) tax dollars at work.

A month after 9/11, the US government arrested eight Egyptian men living in Evansville, Indiana on suspicion of being terrorists. Guess what? It was all a big mistake, reports the Washington Post.

Business plummeted after the restaurant's owner, Tarek Albasti, was arrested by the FBI with seven other Egyptian men as alleged terrorists plotting attacks against the United States. Pictured in prison stripes, the men were splashed across the front pages, ridiculed and shunned even after their release by people who assumed their guilt. Whispers about flying lessons and money trails from Evansville to Egypt spread rapidly.

But the FBI said it had all been a mistake. And at a meeting last month with more than 100 people in the Muslim community here, the FBI offered a rare apology because suspicion about the arrests -- which resulted from a bogus tip -- hung over the men's heads for so long and disrupted their lives.

"The situation that happened to you was horrible," Thomas V. Fuentes, the FBI's agent in charge in Indiana, said during a meeting at the Islamic Center of Evansville. "On behalf of the FBI, I will apologize. . . ."

The gesture clears their names in a town they have struggled to make their permanent home. But it doesn't mend a once-thriving business or restore the community's trust. The men acknowledge the FBI was understandably wary and cautious after Sept. 11, 2001. But their understanding has its limits.

As part of a national roundup in the weeks after the terrorist attacks, the "Evansville 8" were among 50 people held as material witnesses in maximum security jails without being charged with a crime. Thousands of more men from Middle Eastern countries were questioned, some arrested and detained, allegedly for links to terrorism, only to be let go or deported on immigration violations. Civil liberties groups protested that the arrests amounted to racial stereotyping.

"It didn't make any difference if I was a citizen or not as long as you fit the profile of an Arab or Muslim who has taken flying lessons," said Albasti, 31, surveying his near-empty restaurant. Albasti was arrested along with his uncle and six friends and co-workers on Oct. 11, 2001.

Via TalkLeft.

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:50 AM | Get permalink

Once again: Remember Afghanistan?

In the UK Observer, Peter Oborne reports that Afghanistan continues to fall apart, and that the main reasons for this collapse are broken promises of aid from the US and UK, and poor — if not actually incompetent — choices by international donors and aid agencies as to where the money that has shown up is being spent.

Oborne's observations on the current situation in the country are broad-ranging and incisive. You should read the full article instead of just the excerpts here.

Even the niggardly World Bank accepts that Afghan reconstruction requires $10bn rather than the $5bn made available at Tokyo, while US Senator Joseph Biden argues that $20bn would be nearer the mark. Earlier this year the aid organisation Care International produced a devas tating study which contrasted Afghanistan to other post-conflict zones. In a table of aid per person donated by the West, Bosnia came up top, receiving $326 per head. Kosovans received an average $288 while citizens of East Timor got $195 each. Afghans are scheduled to receive just $42 per head over the next five years. This is despite the fact that Afghanistan is almost, as Karzai says, 'the poorest country in the world' and in a far worse state than either Bosnia or Kosovo. [...]

Once again, statistics highlight the staggering scale of the Western betrayal. In Bosnia there was one peacekeeper for every 113 people, in East Timor every 66, in Kosovo every 48. There is one Isaf soldier for every 5,380 Afghans. Without an international security presence the Afghan countryside has fallen back into the hands of the warlords and their militias, conservatively estimated at some 200,000 strong. The international presence is feebly trying to counter-balance the power of the warlords by building up the central government security framework. So far those attempts have been at worst disastrous and at best meaningless.

Oborne was in Afghanistan to produce a documentary for the UK's Channel 4. That program, 'Afghanistan: Here's One We Invaded,' is scheduled to run on Saturday, May 31.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:33 AM | Get permalink

Every dark cloud has a darker lining.

Over at Wampum, MB discusses Paul Krugman's current column in the NY Times, in which he talks about the danger of a 'liquidity trap' taking down the US economy.

In trying to figure out exactly which article MB was referring to, Magpie got lost. (Yes, this happens frequently.) And instead of turning up the current article, she ran into one that Krugman wrote just after 9/11. In that article, he warned about the problems he saw facing the US economy over the next few years, including the danger of deflation currently being worried about by economists.

What struck Magpie most about Krugman's older article was the conclusion:

Let me be clear: I don't think that the United States is at any imminent risk of following Japan into deep slump. What I do fear is that a combination of factors -- the legacy of our bubble economy, the trouble in Japan and maybe the psychological impact of the terrorist action -- will drag us into a prolonged period of stagnation.

Here's my nightmare: America's recovery from its current slump, whenever it comes, is tentative and short-lived, because the business investment that drove our boom in the 1990's remains stagnant. Eventually the housing bubble bursts and we have another slump; then we have another weak recovery, this time driven by deficit spending, but that, too, fades out. Eventually we look around and realize that it's 2009, and the economy still hasn't fully recovered from the slowdown that began at the end of the previous decade.

And we also realize that while the government's subsequent attempts to sustain the economy, mainly through tax cuts and subsidies to energy companies, have arguably staved off depression -- the unemployment rate has risen, but only to 8 percent -- they have also devastated the environment and left a huge government debt. The fiscal 2010 budget deficit is projected at $800 billion, and nobody has any idea how we will manage in a couple of years, when millions of baby boomers start collecting their Social Security checks. [...]

A truly worst-case scenario would be if the United States not only fell into a Japanese-style economic trap but also exhibited a Japanese-style unwillingness to do whatever it takes to get out of that trap. But I think, or at least hope, that our economic leaders would be bolder and more imaginative. The Fed, in particular, is a smarter institution than the Bank of Japan, with a lot more talent on hand, and historically has shown a willingness to take responsibility for the economy rather than interpret its job narrowly.

So should we be worried about the world economy in the aftermath of the terrorist attack? Yes, we should -- but not because of the attack. In fact, I've been worried about the world economy for several years, ever since I realized that depression-style economic problems could happen in the modern world, and even here in America.

It has become a cliche to say that everything is different now. What worries me is the prospect that some things may be the same -- the same as they were here in the 1930's, the same as they have been in Japan for the last 10 years.

What would make things really different, in a good way, would be effective leadership that recognizes the gravity of the situation, does not fail to act for fear of political repercussions or, worse yet, try to exploit the crisis for political ends -- leadership that is prepared to try unorthodox remedies if conventional solutions fail. Do we have that kind of leadership? We may find out.

As pessimistic as this conclusion was, the economic choices made by Dubya's administration — and especially by the Fed — have been at least as unimaginative as Krugman feared.

[Free reg. req'd. for NY Times]

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

Bushonomics continues to serve the people.

The demand for aid from food pantries, soup kitchens and similar services has dramatially increased in the past three years. For example, the NY Times reports that the number of meals provided by the Salvation Army has increased by 20 percent, from 51 million in 2000 to 61 million last year. And the demand is still growing. Similarly, America's Second Harvest, which coordinates food distribution to food pantries around the country, says that the number of people using its services has tripled since 9/11.

To help meet the demand through a program that provides about 25 percent of the food that Second Harvest manages, the United States Department of Agriculture says it spent $380 million in the 2002 fiscal year, about $200 million more than in the 2000 fiscal year. But the other sources of food are not keeping pace with the demand.

One reason is the slow economy. Donations to pantries of private money from foundations, businesses and individuals have stalled. "People still give to us," Virginia White, president of the Kansas Foodbank Warehouse in Wichita, said. "People who used to give $100 are giving $10, $20."

But there are other reasons beyond shifts in the economy. The 1996 overhaul of the welfare system and the law's tighter eligibility standards for food stamps are one. In moving more than half of the 12 million recipients off the rolls and into jobs, advocates of the poor say many former recipients still fail to earn enough to cover basic needs.

Another is changes in the food industry. Supermarkets and food processing companies are using technology to control their inventories better. Many are also using better handling technology to cut down on the dented cans and scratched cartons that they give pantries. More stores and companies also sell excess and damaged supplies to a growing secondary market of discount stores rather than give them away.

This crowgirl figures that if the problem of hunger has risen to the level of being noticed by the Times, things are likely worse than they are reporting.

[Free reg. req'd. for NY Times]

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

The bright ideas just keep coming in Iraq.

A few days ago, the news was full of how the US occupation regime in Iraq had disbanded most of the country's main security institutions, including Ministry of Defense, the Republican Guards, and the military. Apparently nobody in Washington or in the occupation government thought much about all of the implications of that decision.

The NY Times reports that former Iraqi soldiers in Baghdad and Basra have demonstrated against this decision.

"If they don't pay us, we'll start problems," said Lt. Col. Ahmed Muhammad, 41, a 25-year navy veteran based in Basra and a leader of the disgruntled Iraqi soldiers. "We have guns at home. If they don't pay us, if they make our children suffer, they'll hear from us."

Other soldiers made similar threats. They said they followed the instructions laid out in the leaflets dropped by allied aircraft before the war encouraging them not to fight on behalf of Mr. Hussein.

"The U.S. planes dropped the papers telling us to stay in our homes," said an Iraqi tank driver here who refused to give his name. "They said our families would be fine."

Some of the soldiers say that they joined the military to get money to support their families and, because of this, they should be treated like former civil servants — many of whom are now on the payroll of the occupation government.

[Free reg. req'd.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:47 AM | Get permalink