Magpie

Saturday, April 3

Taking a few days off.

We'll be away until sometime Wednesday, so you can expect light to nonexistent blogging between now and then.

(If something earthshaking happens, like Dubya's unexpected resignation after aliens kidnap Cheney and the Republican members of Congress, this magpie will definitely get ourself online to talk about it. But don't hold your breath.)

In the meantime, maybe Natasha has a few things on her mind (hint, hint). Failing that, there are plenty of lovely places to visit listed in the blogroll.

See you later!

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:45 AM | Get permalink

The 308,000 new US jobs last month.

Guess where they came from?

According to Wells Fargo Bank’s chief economist Sung Won Sohn, seasonal factors such as better weather led to the growth in retail and construction. And the termination of the Southern California grocery workers’ strike had a lot to do with the better numbers also. But Sohn makes it very clear that the “vast majority” of the increase in job numbers last month came from workers giving up looking for full-time work and accepting whatever part-time work was available. And this is what Bush took credit for yesterday as evidence that his policies are working.

The end of the grocery strike alone could have accounted for 47,000 of those jobs.

Via Left Coaster.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:42 AM | Get permalink

Ooooooh, shiny!

Album covers re-drawn from memory using MS-Paint. Big fun!

(And if you poke around the links a bit, there's at least one other series of re-drawn covers.)

'Mysterious album cover

This one looks familiar but we can't quite place it.

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

Friday, April 2

White House gives in on Clinton documents.

The White House is turning over thousands of pages of Clinton-era documents to the 9/11 commission. Those documents had been held back by the White House on claims that some of them were duplicates and others would compromise national security. The turnaround comes after charges that the administration was trying to obstruct the 9/11 commission's investigation.

Via Reuters.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:36 PM | Get permalink

Canadian arrest tied to arrests in UK.

On Tuesday, we posted on the arrest in Ottawa of Mohammad Momim Khawaja on charges of aiding terrorists. At the time, we passed on speculation that Khawaja's arrest was related to earlier arrests of nine men in the UK on suspicion of terrorist activities. Today, the RCMP confitmed that the arrests are connected. Because of a ban on publication of details, however, Canada's national police released no further information.

Khawaja's lawyer, Steven Greenberg, is reluctant to discuss the evidence against his client. But he did acknowledge the prosecution has shown him documents that clearly claim Mohammad Momin Khawaja is linked to the British men of Pakistani origin, arrested this week in London. The documents also refer to a half ton of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer that can be used to make explosives, found in a London storage depot.

But Greenberg said the evidence is sketchy and incomplete. "I haven't seen anything that would support a charge, lets put it that way," he said.

Greenberg also complained that Khawaja has been denied proper access to legal help. He says police "continued questioning him, although he expressed his wish to have a lawyer present."

Via CBC.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:19 PM | Get permalink

It's not like nobody else has said this.

But it's good that this sort of comment on the joint Dubya/Cheney appearance before the 9/11 commission is coming from such a high-placed Democrat — in this case, House minority leader Nacy Pelosi.

"I think it speaks to the lack of confidence that the administration has in the president going forth alone, period," Pelosi, D-California, said Friday. "It's embarrassing to the president of the United States that they won't let him go in without holding the hand of the vice president of the United States."

"I think it reinforces the idea that the president cannot go it alone," she said. "The president should stand tall, walk in the room himself and answer the questions."

Via CNN.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:59 PM | Get permalink

A sneaky way to slant a news story.

When this magpie was a radio news reporter, one of our early lessons was in how much a story could be helped along by carefully selected and relevant ambient (background) sounds. For example, we once did a long feature on how chain natural food operators (such as Wild Oats and Whole Foods) were putting the squeeze on the smaller natural food stores the created the market. The piece began and ended with the sounds of a person buying groceries at a Minneapolis food co-op: the chat between the customer and clerk, the beeping of the cash register, etc. By using this sound, we hoped to make the story more vivid to listeners.

Over the years, we've thought a lot about bias in news reports, particularly how a reporter's choice of words or pictures can influence the way a listener will undersand a story. To be honest, though, we'd never considered the use of ambient sound to do the same thing.

(The closest we'd ever heard was the infamous recording of Howard Dean's 'barbaric yawp.' From the very first time we heard that recording, we were almost certain that it was an artifact of Dean being recorded with a directional microphone. That kind of mike picks up what it's aimed at (Howard Dean, in this case) and ignores everything else (the loud room that Dean was trying to be heard in). Other recordings that became available later showed that this was exactly the case: Dean's 'yawp' could hardly be heard.)

Today, though, we ran into a case of bias using ambient sound that was so clear it was impossible to ignore. We were listening to the hourly ABC radio news at 2 pm (Portland time). One of the stories was about the March job figures issued today by the US Labor Department, which showed an increase of 308,000 jobs. But, as we mentioned earlier, two thirds of those jobs — 230,000 of them — were service jobs. Only 71,000 of the new jobs were in construction. That's less than 25 percent.

So what sound did the ABC reporter use at the beginning of her report? A construction jackhammer. And what impression do you think that many listeners went away with? We'd be willing to bet that the casual listener thinks that the US is getting full up with high-paid construction jobs.

Now we can understand that the more accurate ambient sounds — someone saying 'Would you like fries with that? or a greeter at Wal-Mart &#!51 wouldn't be as dramatic and ear-grabbing as the jackhammer. But when the alternatives are using a sound that misleads listeners, or using no ambient sound at all, we think that the ABC reporter made the wrong choice. And that her editor should have caught the problem.

As we like to say, we wouldn't put up with that kind of work from the rawest volunteer that we've supervised in a community radio newsroom. And you shouldn't, either.

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

Stealing from wolves.

It's a big week for corvid news! On Monday, we found out about the nesting instincts of hooded crows. Today, we're switching species and looking at the relationship between one corvid and that top canine predator, the wolf.

One of the prime areas for wolf research in North America is Isle Royale in Lake Superior, where scientists have been studying the resident wolves for 27 years. In looking at the data on pack size and kills, however, Thomas Waite of Ohio State University noticed an interesting fact: While the economics of feeding should make packs of two the most common, Isle Royale packs tended to contain six wolves. Why the difference between the predicted pack size and the actual pack size?

One word: Ravens.

Ravens are efficient and aggressive scavengers, and eat a sizable portion of animals killed by predators, especially those killed by wolves (with whichravens have been observed to have a close relationship). Waite believes that one reason why wolves hunt in packs is to cut down the amount of meat lost to scavenging ravens.

A moose is such large prey, however, that one or two wolves can't eat it all at once. When researchers calculated that a wolf hunting with one partner loses more moose meat to ravens than a wolf hunting in a big group does, the big packs made sense. A pair of wolves typically loses about 37 percent of a carcass to ravens, whereas a pack of six loses only 17 percent.

According to raven specialist Bernd Heinrich of the University of Vermont in Burlington, ravens arrive within a minute of a kill. "It's not what they eat on the spot, it's what they haul off," he explains. He says that he finds it plausible that these birds could have a "major effect" on wolves' diet.

Via Science News.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:13 PM | Get permalink

That revolving door between government and business.

Sometimes it has really scary results, as Susan at Suburban Guerrilla points out.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:14 PM | Get permalink

The 'bored kid' story continues.

Now Campaign Desk reports that the phone call to CNN that questioned the authenticity of the 'bored kid' tape came from CNN's own White House unit, not the White House itself.

If this story is true, it sure makes CNN look like a bunch of rank amateurs. Or worse.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:08 PM | Get permalink

How low will Wal-Mart go?

This low.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:57 PM | Get permalink

Welcome to the United States of America.

Smile for the camera and put two fingers in this scanner.

Via Washington Post.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:29 PM | Get permalink

Putting today's US job figures into perspective.

The headline on this post at Corrente gets it about right:

Job numbers finally improve, despite Bush policies

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

Has the 'bored kid' tape touched a nerve?

Since our series of posts linking to stories on the video of that kid yawning while Dubya made a speech, visits to Magpie have more than tripled. Already — and it's only a bit past noon, Portland time — we've had well over three times our usual number of daily hits. And almost all of those hits are coming to Magpie via Google searches using terms like 'letterman kid bush yawn video.'

How come there's all the interest in this video?

The obvious answer is that it's pretty funny. The kid couldn't have been more dramatic in his tiredness (or boredom) if he'd tried. And there's been a ton of publicity about the video since CNN aired it and said that the White House had called it a fake.

But, remembering that ill-fated tank ride taken by Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis back in 1988, we wonder whether the video of a kid's apparent boredom with the president is tapping into a lot of existing bad feelings toward Dubya, and not just among those who already dislike him. Part of the reason why the tank photo had such a devastating effect on Dukakis' campaign against Bush the First was that the photo put into a picture the doubts that many voters had about Dukakis' suitability for the presidency. Admittedly, the Republican attack machine used the photo with a vengeance, but the fact is inescapable that Dukakis looked silly in the tank.

So is part of the reason why there's so much interest in the 'bored kid' video have to do with a perception that Dubya is a dull lad? Or that someone (the kid) has finally expressed publicly an opinion of Dubya already had but weren't talking about? Will the 'boring kid' video have the same effect on Dubya's re-election that the tank photo did on Dukakis' run in 1988?

Or is this magpie just grasping at straws? Only time will tell, we guess.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:44 PM | Get permalink

Could 9/11 have been anticipated?

You've probably already heard this, but former US senator Gary Hart twice warned the White House about an impending terrorist attack in 2001. His second warning was delivered in person to national security advisor Condoleezza Rice the week before the attack.

See this Salon interview for the details.

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

Multnomah County re-affirms same-sex marriages.

Multnomah County commissioners have re-affirmed their March 3 determination that the Oregon constitution requires the county to issue marriage licenses to lesbian and gay couples. The 4-1 vote came Thursday night, at the finish of four sessions of public testimony on the issue.

Via AP.

More: b!X has posted details of the most recent hearing at the Portland Communique.

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

Interesting news from the Mass. same-sex married front.

While the state's governor continues to look for ways to stop the issuance of marriage licenses to lesbian and gay couples (scheduled to start on May 17), a proposal to put lesbian/gay and straight couples on the same legal footing is circulating in the state legislature. And circulated by a Republican, no less..

Under Rep. Paul Loscocco's propsal, Massachusetts would issue licenses for civil unions for all couples, with the unions carrying all of the legal rights and benefits currently associated with marriage. The marriages could then be solemnized by religious institutions, whose clergy could choose whether they wanted to perform a ceremony.

The proposal ... closely resembles the system set up by the government of France, which has separated the civil and religious aspects of marriage while allowing same-sex couples a full array of rights and benefits. Loscocco, a harsh critic of the proposed amendment approved by the Legislature Monday, said his bill would address perceived problems with the amendment [against same-sex marriage]: that it creates a "separate but equal" system for same-sex couples and that it fails to address concerns of churches and synagogues that they might be forced to marry same-sex couples.

"It's absolutely radical, but it's consistent," Loscocco said. "In my view, this is something the Legislature has to weigh. There is going to be confusion and acrimony as people fight, whether they realize it or not, over a word. Words mean things, but to a certain degree, the problem here is that the word [marriage] has meaning religiously. I am confident that we in the Commonwealth can call this institution whatever we want, as long as it is clearly the legal equivalent of marriage."

Via Boston Globe.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:22 AM | Get permalink

US economy finally creates some jobs.

The Labor Department reports that 308,000 more jobs were added to the US economy in March. The especially good news is that the figures show that the loss of manufacturing jobs may have stopped. The downside is that more than two-thirds of the jobs added in March were service jobs, which are generally low-paid.

Last month's increase was the biggest in four years. It should be noted, however, that the March figured would have been a slightly above average month under the second Clinton presidency.

While this magpie is happy to see that the economy might be starting to turn around, we wonder what the March figures will look like after the Labor Department does its usual 'adjustment.'

Via BBC.

More: Over at Wampum, MB does her usual excellent job of putting today's job figures into perspective. We note that she's wondering about the 'adjusted' figures, too.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:55 AM | Get permalink

The Letterman 'bored kid' video, continued.

A whole lot of people have been visiting today, looking for a place to view the video. Our old link isn't working, but (as of 10:30 am, Pacific Time) this link works just fine.

Have fun, and don't forget to read our earlier post about the White House response to the video.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:34 AM | Get permalink

An interesting bit of 'forgotten' US history.

Masscahusetts enacted a law against the Vietnam War:

On April 2, 1970, the Governor of Massachusetts signed into law an anti-Vietnam War bill providing that no inhabitant of Massachusetts inducted into or serving in the armed forces "shall be required to serve" abroad in an armed hostility that had not been declared a war by Congress under Article I, Section 8, clause 11 of the United States Constitution. Supporters of the legislation hoped that the US Supreme Court would seize on the obvious conflict that the bill created between state and federal law and would rule on the constitutionality of the Vietnam War itself, but the Court refused to exercise original jurisdiction, forcing the case into the lower federal courts. See Anthony D'Amato, Massachusetts In The Federal Courts: The Constitutionality Of The Vietnam War [PDF], 4 Journal of Law Reform (1970).

Via Paper Chase.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:15 AM | Get permalink

Thursday, April 1

'Big fat commie pinko'

The Christian Science Monitor takes a look at one of Magpie's fave political blogs, Wonkette!

Original reporting would not be the wonkette's forte. "I don't get paid enough to go out every night," she says. As a consequence, perhaps, she is not the best informed blogger around town - and is first to admit it. "I don't claim to have the most sources or the best news. But I'm funny, and that's what's missing elsewhere. People like being shocked and I have a job to do that."

Mischiefmaking is part of her job description, and some antics have been attention-getters. Take the "sloganator" episode, in which she encouraged her readers to take up the Bush campaign's online invitation to create slogans for printing on a Bush-Cheney poster. Think "Read my lips. No new jobs." Her trick caught national attention, and the Bush team pulled the feature.

(After seeing Wonkette's picture, we wonder whether she's single and how she feels about dating older corvids.)

If you've never read Wonkette!, git!

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:05 PM | Get permalink

The investigation of the Plame leak is widening.

The federal prosecutors trying to determine whether someone in Dubya's administration leaked CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity to the press have broadened their inquiry. Now they're also dealing with the question of whether someone in the White House lied to investigators or mishandled classified information related to the Plame case. The NY Times reports that contradictions have been found between the statements that various witnesses made to the FBI, and that these conflicts also appear in documents turned over to investigators by the White House.

The broadened scope is a potentially significant development that represents exactly what allies of the Bush White House feared when Attorney General John Ashcroft removed himself from the case last December and turned it over to Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney in Chicago.

Republican lawyers worried that the leak case, in the hands of an aggressive prosecutor, might grow into an unwieldy, time-consuming and politically charged inquiry, like the sprawling independent counsel inquiries of the 1990's, which distracted and damaged the Clinton administration. [emph. added]

Wooooooohooooooo!

Via NY Times.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:32 PM | Get permalink

Not that the White House is being obstructive or anything.

But we see that Dubya's adminstraion is blocking the release of anti-terror and intelligence files from Bill Clinton's presidency. Clinton had offered 11,000 pages of files to the 9/11 commission to help its work, but the Dubya White House has prevented three-quarters of those files from getting to the commission.

Dubya's mouthpiece was in fine form, trying to explain away the problem:

Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said some Clinton administration documents had been withheld because they were "duplicative or unrelated," while others were withheld because they were "highly sensitive" and the information in them could be relayed to the commission in other ways. "We are providing the commission with access to all the information they need to do their job," Mr. McClellan said.

And then there's the other way of looking at it:

The general counsel of Mr. Clinton's presidential foundation, Bruce Lindsey, who was his deputy White House counsel, said in an interview that he was concerned that the Bush administration had applied a "very legalistic approach to the documents" and might have blocked the release of material that would be valuable to the commission.

Mr. Lindsey said he first complained to the commission in February after learning from the archives that the Bush administration had withheld so many documents.

"I voiced a concern that the commission was making a judgment on an incomplete record," he said. "I want to know why there is a 75 percent difference between what we were ready to produce and what was being produced to the commission."

The 9/11 commission is requesting a full explanation from the White House as to why so many documents are being withheld.

This magpie looks forward to heraring the explanation. With great relish, in fact.

Via NY Times.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:23 PM | Get permalink

Iraqi reaction to the Fallujah killings.

USA Today has a a few person-on-the-street comments from Baghdad.

The mere mention of Fallujah prompted grocer Salam al-Graizi, 57, to raise his sleeve and display the goose bumps on his left arm.

"I feel ashamed for all of us in Iraq," he said, referring to images of Iraqis desecrating American bodies and hanging blackened corpses from a nearby bridge. "I am ashamed even for myself. Heathens would not approve of such acts. I only wish all of Iraqi people are not held responsible. It makes my skin shrink."

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:01 PM | Get permalink

The 'bored kid' tape on Letterman, continued.

The tale gets curiouser and curiouser.

Via Campaign Desk.

More: The story of the 'bored kid' tape has made Paul Krugman's latest column for the NY Times, which deals with the continuing smears of Dubya's critics by administration officials.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:50 PM | Get permalink

Deadline to destroy WMDs won't be met.

No, not Iraq's WMDs, or Iran's, or North Korea's. We're talking about the WMDs in Utah. And Maryland. And Washington state. And at several other locations in the US.

According to congressional inestigators, the US won't meet its deadline for destroying 28,000 tons of chemical weapons. That deadline is mandated by an international treaty. As of March 15, only 7,800 tons had been destroyed.

The US Army is responsible for desstroying the remaining stockpiles of chemical weapons and, say Investigators, the Army is not only making little progress in that destruction, but it continues to fall farther and farther behind schedule. And as the schedule lags, the cost of desroying the weapons goes up. According to testimony to the House Armed Services Committee submcommittee on terrorism, the current US $25 billion pricetag will grow substantially if the delays continue.

Via AP.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:41 PM | Get permalink

No! No! Watch the other hand!

While officials from Dubya's administration are all over the media, trying to show how tough the prez is on terror, the White House has killed a plan to increase the number of investigators looking how terrorists finance their activities.

The Internal Revenue Service currently has 160 investigators working to trace the worldwide financial networks used by groups such as al-Qaeda. The IRS asked for an additional 80 investigators in its 2005 budget request. Dubya's 2005 budget, however, doesn't include funding for the new positions. The government is saving US $12 million by turning down the IRS request.

We just love how an administration official explains this decision:

Juan C. Zarate, the deputy assistant Treasury secretary for terrorist financing, said that "the I.R.S. certainly had a clear vision of how they wanted to allocate the funds, but there is a clear balance that needs to happen in the I.R.S., where they have to balance terrorist-financing investigations with other responsibilities, like drug trafficking and, perhaps most important, enforcement of the tax laws.''

"And,'' he continued, "the administration has to keep its hand on the pulse of that balance."

Did you get that? Neither did Democatic US Representative Earl Pomeroy, whose question about one line on the last page of a routine report to Congress led to the disclosure of the funding denial:

"The zeroing out of resources here made my jaw drop open," Mr. Pomeroy said. "It just leaps out at you."

"There are some very tough questions that have to be answered about why the decision was made to eliminate these positions because going after the financial underpinnings of terrorist activity is crucial to rooting terrorism out and defeating it," Mr. Pomeroy said.

Via NY Times. Thanks to Bad Attitudes for the link.

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

The Letterman show, the White House, and the 'bored kid' video.

Yesterday, we posted about the airing on Late Night with David Letterman of a video clip showing a very bored kid yawning and trying to stay awake during one of Dubya's speeches. When that clip later aired on CNN, the network reported that the White House said the clip was a fake, a charge that Letterman and his production company denied.

So what's the truth here?

Campaign Desk's Thomas Land did some digging, and here's what he's determined about the 'bored kid' video and its airing on CNN:

• Had the tape been 'doctored'? Nope.

• Did the White House call CNN and say the tape was faked? Nobody is talking.

You can read all the details here.

And, courtesy of Wonkette, you can see some stills of Dubya and the kid here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:07 PM | Get permalink

Wednesday, March 31

Those awful deaths in Fallujah.

We haven't known what to say that wouldn't be trite or insensitive. We think Chris Allbritton hit the right balance in these words at the end of his post on today's events in Iraq:

While the deaths of those soldiers and contractors falls squarely on the a group of savage killers, the deaths of soldiers’ souls rests — in part — on the war planners and politicians in Washington. You know who you are.

Allbritton's blog, Back to Iraq, is an excellent source of information and informed comment on what goes in in Iraq.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:41 PM | Get permalink

We don't usually care much for NY times columnist Maureen Dowd.

But Dowd's column about the rules for the upcoming Dubya/Cheney appearance before the 9/11 commission is a winner. And really funny.

The Vice President will not address any queries about why no one reacted to George Tenet's daily "hair on fire" alarms to the President about a coming Al Qaeda attack; or why the President was so consumed with chopping and burning cedar on his Crawford ranch that he ignored the warning in an Aug. 6, 2001, briefing that Al Qaeda might try to hijack aircraft; or why the President asked for a plan to combat Al Qaeda in May and then never followed up while Richard Clarke's aggressive plan was suffocated by second-raters; or why the President was never briefed by his counterterrorism chief on anything but cybersecurity until Sept. 11; or why the Administration-in-amber made so many cold war assumptions, such as thinking that terrorists had to be sponsored by a state even as terrorists had taken over a state; or why the President went along with the Vice President and the neocons to fool the American public into believing that Saddam had a hand in the 9/11 attacks; or why the Administration chose to undercut the war on terrorism and inflame the Arab world by attacking Iraq, without a plan to protect our perilously overextended forces or to exit with a realistic hope that a democracy will be left behind.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:12 PM | Get permalink

What's happening with Pacific Views?

The latest word is that we are waiting for the Movable Type folks to do a re-install. Our current wild guess is that Pacific Views will return to life no later than sometime next week.

Keep your fingers crossed.

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

What's left of Russian democracy takes a hit.

By a more than 2-to-1 vote, Russia's parliament has given first approval to legislation that would ban demonstrations in most public places. If the bill passes two more readings and becomes law, it will be illegal to demonstrate outside government buildings, embassies, and international organizations; on major roads; near schools, hospitals, stadiums, concert halls, and religious centers; and at pipelines and environmentally hazardous sites.

A member of the Communist party said that the bill would 'be the end of political life in the streets.' (Talk about irony here.)

The liberal Yabloko Party, which was shut out of Parliament in an election in November, protested, saying, "The bill is aimed at eliminating the right of citizens for peaceful meetings, demonstrations and pickets" granted by the Constitution.

Yabloko Party members were among the demonstrators who rallied outside Parliament with signs reading, "No to a police state." Rally organizers had not obtained the necessary permit, and the demonstration was broken up by the police.

Via NY Times.

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

The Cleansing of the Temple.

At Beliefnet, John Spaulding has gotten hold of excerpts from the script of Mel Gibson's next film about Jesus:

Jesus strides into the temple in slow motion, bathed in a white light and flanked by his 12 disciples, six on each side. He stops before a row of merchants selling pigeons. The crowd goes silent.

Jesus: [In Aramaic] You have turned my house into a den of thieves! Get out!

No one moves. Jesus pulls a whip from his belt, and lets out a war yelp.

Jesus: Aaaaaaaaah!

As he and the disciples charge the pigeon peddlers. Jesus leaps up on a table and strikes one of the Jews hard, knocking him back out of his chair at least 10 feet. A flurry of pigeons flies up toward heaven.

Another Jew jumps up on the tables and runs toward Jesus from behind. He dives at the Christ, who ducks just in time. The Jew sails headfirst into a stone pillar, cracking open his skull and splattering blood and bone fragments everywhere.

Jesus flays every merchant in reach, lacerating faces and exposed arms. The disciples kick ass: John smashes a jug of olives over a temple scribe's head; Philip holds a sheep salesman's arms from behind while Bartholomew pummels him in the stomach; Peter chases an ox trader around one of the beasts of the field, circling the ox one way, then the other. Finally, Peter leaps over the animal, tackling the man to the ground.

Jesus: Now let us get the moneychangers!

The Disciples: Yaaaaaaaah!

The Revealer (which is where we found the link) swears this isn't an April Fool's joke or anything.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:04 PM | Get permalink

Dubya & Cheney at the 9/11 commission hearings.

Scott Bateman has seen into the future.

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

Dubya's speeches make us yawn, too.

We don't know which of the following is more entertaining:

• This video clip of an obviously bored kid standing behind Dubya during a speech, which aired on David Letterman's program on Monday night [RealPlayer required for clip], or

• The fact that, after the clip also aired on CNN, the White House claimed that the clip was a fake.

Last night we showed a clip of the President giving a speech. Behind him stood a lad who was obviously bored silly. The 14-year-old or so yawned, scratched, yawned, yawned, checked his watch, bent over, stared at the ceiling, and then fell asleep during the President's speech. It was very funny. So funny, in fact, that CNN replayed the clip Tuesday during their broadcasts. But, but, but, the first time is was shown, CNN anchorwoman Daryn Kagan reported that the White House said the clip was a total fake, it was merely the Late Show having fun with their ability to edit and do TV tricks. Dave says what the CNN reporter said was an out and out 100% lie. A couple hours later, CNN anchor person Kyra Phillips reported that the kid was at the speech but not where the Late Show had him. Dave again makes the claim, "That's an out and out absolute 100% lie. That kid was exactly where we said he was." It's true. The speech was at a Florida Rally on March 20th at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. Dave is irked that the White House was trying to make him look like a jerk. But he's glad he got his side of the story out in the open.

Via MetaFilter.

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:35 PM | Get permalink

More secretive and authoritarian than the Nixon administration.

That's what John Dean says, and he ought to know. Dean was Nixon's White House counsel, and was privy to a good deal of the Watergate chicanery that eventually forced Tricky Dick to resign. Dean has a new book, Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, in which he argues that the current administration is 'frighteningly dangerous.'

Today's Salon includes an interview with John Dean by David Talbot. For those of you who are not Salon subscribers, or who don't want to sit through an ad to get a day pass, here's a taste of that interview:

[Salon:] [Dubya advisor] Karl Rove first came to your attention during Watergate. In what ways is he the reincarnation of Nixon dirty tricksters like Charles Colson and Donald Segretti?

[Dean:] He is way beyond anything Nixon had at his disposal. He is closer to a behind-the-scenes Nixon operator named Murray Chotiner, who could cut off an opponent at the knees so quickly the person did not immediately realize he had been crippled. As I note in the book, the first time I heard the name Karl Rove was when I was asked if I knew anything about him by one of the Watergate special prosecutors who was investigating campaign dirty tricks. I didn't have any knowledge. But I recalled that question when working on this book, and located a memorandum in the files of the Watergate prosecutor's office that indicates they were asking others as well about Rove. Based on my review of the files, it appears the Watergate prosecutors were interested in Rove's activities in 1972, but because they had bigger fish to fry they did not aggressively investigate him.

Colson was brutal, cruel and vicious before he found God (during Watergate). While he once famously said he would run over his grandmother to get Nixon reelected, today I suspect he'd run over his grandmother to convert a few heathens to Christ. Segretti did not engage in the kind of dirty politics that Colson liked to play. Segretti was a political prankster, who only by accident got associated with Watergate. Nothing that Segretti did, that I know of, could be called sinister. Colson, on the other hand, was as nasty a political operative as could be found. Indeed, to this day we don't know the full extent of Colson's activities. He even refused to tell Nixon some of the things he had done (while boasting to Nixon he had done things he didn't want to tell the president). Colson walked out of the White House with any of his papers and records that might cause him a problem. Karl Rove, from what I've seen, makes Colson look like a novice.

[Salon:] Bush has managed to stay above the ugly tactics used against opponents like John McCain and now John Kerry. Does he privately give them his blessing?

[Dean:] Of course. All candidates control their campaigns, and if they don't want such activity, it doesn't occur. As I discovered in talking to people about Bush, he is a highly sophisticated political operator. I've noted in the book that Rove gets the credit for being Bush's political brain. It's an arrangement both men like, because it raises Rove's importance as a political operator, and lowers Bush's exposure. In truth, Bush is probably more politically savvy than Rove. Both men learned their politics from Lee Atwater, who ran Bush senior's 1988 campaign. Atwater made dirty politics into an art form, by which I mean he provided those for whom dirty deeds were done deniability while Atwater's people tore up an opponent's pea-patch and everything else. I expect the 2004 presidential campaign to make Richard Nixon look like a high-road campaigner.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:31 PM | Get permalink

CNN cracks down on video news releases. Maybe.

Back on March 18th, we told you about a video news release about Dubya's Medicare 'reforms' that was made to look like a real news report. That release got considerable coverage from the press and press critics, including this NY Times article and these two posts at Campaign Desk.

One of the things that came out in that coverage is the role of CNN. Basically, CNN sells space on its news feed to the producers of video new releases (such as the Medicare 'news story'), but these releases aren't consistently tagged as being essentially propaganda pieces or advertising.

Today, Campaign Desk's Zachary Roth tells us that CNN is going to clean up its act around video news releases. Acording to Roth, CNN will 1) identify the producer of all video news releases (VNRs), as well as labelling each release as a VNR; 2) provide VNRs to stations separately from genuine news stories; and 3) let stations opt out of receiving VNRs altogether, but let them continue to get the rest of the stuff on the CNN newsfeed.

Campaign Desk isn't riding off into the sunset just yet on this issue. CNN is still "working out the kinks" in the new system, according to another station news director, and we got conflicting reports about just how consistently the new policy is being applied. In addition, CNN is far from the only provider of VNRs to local stations -- Fox, CBS, and others do the same thing -- and each provider has its own policy.

But we're gratified to hear about CNN's new procedure, and we hope that it serves to keep some unlabeled VNRs that haven't been scrutinized by real editors off the air.

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

Feds to support right to wear hijab.

The US Justice Department says that federal lawyers will support the right of a Muslim girl in Oklahoma to wear a head scarf (hijab) in her public school.

Authorities in the Muskogee Public School District have ordered sixth-grade student Nashala Hearn not to wear her hijab at school, maintaining that the hijab violates her school's dress code. Hearn twice refused to remove the scarf, and she was twice suspended from school. Hearn's parents appealed those suspensions, but the district's administrative hearing committee upheld the suspensions. Hearn's parents then filed suite in federal court.

On Tuesday the federal government filed a motion in a federal court in Muskogee to intervene in support of Nashala's position.

"No student should be forced to choose between following her faith and enjoying the benefits of a public education," Acosta said in a statement accompanying the government's court filing.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations -- which has often been critical of the Bush administration's policies -- praised the government's support in the case.

"This moves comes in a time when the Muslim community feels like they are being singled out and their civil rights threatened," a statement from the group said.

"The news also sends out a message to the international community, especially some European countries where the wearing of the head scarf is being banned, that America will defend its citizens' religious freedoms."

While we're pleased to hear that the feds are doing the right thing in Hearn's case, we are pretty certain that we're smelling election-year politics here. While US Muslims voted heavily for Dubya in the 2000 elections, that support has dropped dramatically since 9/11. From where we sit, the administration's decision to support the right to wear the hijab in school looks like the result of political calculation, rather than an expression of principle.

The US is not the only country where the wearing of the hijab in schools is an issue. A recent law in France, for example, bans all religious symbols from that country's schools — but it's an open secret that the law was enacted to stop the wearing of the hijab. Al-Muhajabah at veiled4allah has been following the hijab issue closely (as in this post). We recommend her blog highly.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:48 AM | Get permalink

Air America's first day.

As we write this, Al Franken's first program on the new liberal US network should be starting in about a half an hour, at least on the East Coast. ~~We'll have to see if Air America's programs are broadcast live over the whole network, or if each time zone gets them on tape delay as the appropriate time rolls around.~~ The network's programs are live — we're listening to The O-Franken Factor right now in Portland.

Thanks to MetaFilter, we finally have the real location of the Air America homepage, as opposed to the placeholder we found yesterday. You'll find tons of info about the schedule, program hosts, and the network in general.

Since we've had a ton of visitors this morning who are looking for info about Air America, here's where you can hear Air America over the air:

New York: WLIB - 1190 AM

Los Angeles: KBLA - 1580 AM

Chicago: WNTD - 950 AM

Portland, OR: KPOJ - 620 AM

Inland Empire, CA: KCAA - 1050 AM

XM Satellite: Radio Channel 167

If you aren't in one of those cities, and don't have satellite radio, Air America is streaming its programming live over the web. The link is on the Air America homepage.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:41 AM | Get permalink

Get used to seeing this headline (2).

US petrol prices hit record highs.

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

Happy birthday to us! Happy birthday to us!

One year ago today, Magpie crept into the blogosphere with this earthshaking post:

'Magpie's first post

Since then, we've had somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 visitors (we're not sure of the figure — Sitemeter keeps losing our stats), and we've made who knows how many hundreds of posts.

And we'll be damned: Magpie is still here.

We were going to write a fancy post, and talk a lot about the things that have changed since last March, many of them for the better. (The drop in Dubya's popularity and his adminstration's increasing political problems, for example.) But we decided that what we really wanted to do was to think all of you who've offered this magpie your comments, suggestions, and support over the past year.

Thanks to the following blogs, which were the very first ones to link to us (and to think that Magpie had something worth saying): The King's Blog (Hello, Kingsley!), Mad Prophet, Pedantry, StoutDemBlog, Reach'M High, Geodog's MT Weblog, and The Poison Kitchen.

Thanks also to all the other blogs that have linked to us, and to the blogs that Magpie ~~steals from~~ links to. And to the community of bloggers who are always digging for that next interesting idea or piece of information.

We also want to say thanks to MB at Wampum, Lisa at Ruminate This, amp at Alas, a Blog, and skippy at, well, skippy for their kind words and encouragement (and for much-needed links) when we were but a fledgling blogger.

A really huge thank you goes to Mary and Natasha, our compatriots at Pacific Views, for pulling us out of a terrible bloggers' slump at the end of last year, and for being the best blogmates a magpie could ever have. If they hadn't offered us an additional roost at their blog, Magpie might not have lasted until the end of 2003, let alone be marking a first anniversary today.

And a million thanks to everyone who's visited Magpie over the last year. We wouldn't be here without you.

We have every intention of still being here on March 31, 2005 — if only to see that Magpie outlasts the presidency of that bastard Dubya. We'll try to make that year a good one.

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

Tuesday, March 30

Pot, kettle, black.

The lead sentence on this AP story:

Ralph Nader has some campaign advice for Democrat John Kerry: Loosen up.

Funny, that's pretty much the advice we'd give Nader.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:34 PM | Get permalink

'Cooke was always a king.'

The UK Guardian's Peter Preston reminisces about the life and career of the late Alistair Cooke, along the way painting us a picture of what the news biz was like before satellites and television.

If you worked abroad for the Guardian, then you queued and importuned and bribed at grimy cable offices - or picked up a hotel phone and called Shirley in her Manchester cubicle, shorthand pad at the ready, typewriter (for the subsequent typing-up of copy) at her side. "Right, Shirley? Catchline: 'Chaos'. Story begins ..."

But those were the easy bits. Desk editors had it tougher. They had to hunt down their correspondents each morning, pin them to lengths and times and intros. They had, among other things, to keep track of Alistair Cooke.

Now it is, in a sense, wholly unfair to take pot shots at Cooke. A Guardian leader writer may once, playfully, have put into print the opinion that "Cooke was a nuisance", that "if all his colleagues were like him, then production of the paper would cease", but in fact he was by no means the worst internal communicator. He had a phone, for one thing, and often answered it. Later on in his Guardian life, he could usually be found in that sumptuous Fifth Avenue apartment - the one with a view of Central Park and a blissfully controlled rent - or round at the Manchester Guardian Weekly office a few blocks away.

A few other, more cantankerous foreign reporters had no home phones at all; indeed, refused to install them. Who wanted a wretched foreign editor on the line in the middle of a good dinner? Others simply dropped out of sight for days on end.

We really liked this line from Preston's article, referring to a 1937 collection of short pieces by Cooke: 'He writes like Fred Astaire danced.'

(Ginger Rogers, of course, did all of that backwards while wearing heels. But then she never had to write to deadline.)

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:21 PM | Get permalink

It's here. It's queer.

It's a new issue of Blithe House Quarterly.

Now in its eighth year, Blithe House continues to publish some of the best lesbian and gay fiction available anywhere. We just got the announcement of the current issue's contents, which include stories by Sandra L. Beck, tefanie Dunning, Drew Gummerson, Bethany Harvey, Trebor Healey, Reed Hearne, Martin Hyatt, Buzz Mauro, Dawn Paul, and Patrick Roscoe.

You can bet that when we get done blogging this evening, we're going over to read the new issue. Highly recommended.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:55 PM | Get permalink

Aussie Labor Party, Prime Minister in row over Iraq.

The row over Australian Labor Party leader Mark Latham's announcement that he will withdraw Australian troops from Iraq if Labor wins the next election is continuing. (See this Magpie post for more info about Latham's announcement.)

The latest developments center on two briefings that Latham received from intelligence and defense officials in January. In attacking Latham's troop withdrawal plans, Prime Minister John Hough told Parliament that neither of the January briefings included substantive discussions on the role of Aussie troops in Iraq.

Latham has accused Hough of misrepresenting his position and is asking the PM to apologize:

"My briefing with ASIS on the 11th of February included substantial security matters relevant to Iraq - these are the facts," Mr Latham said.

"This is the truth and I again ask the Prime Minister to apologise and withdraw." [...]

Mr Latham told Parliament that in January he had a lengthy meeting with the Deputy Secretary of the Australian Intelligence and Security (ASIS) in the Department of Defence, and was also briefed by the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIO).

"The meeting was scheduled to go from 5:00pm to 5.45pm, and my recollection was that it went longer than that," Mr Latham said.

"Mr Bonighton briefed me on several subjects, one was the situation in Iraq," he said.

"We had lengthy discussions that dealt with a range of security and intelligence matters in Iraq and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction."

Via ABC News (Australia).

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:42 PM | Get permalink

Why are oil prices so high?

MB at Wampum has been tracking oil and energy prices for over a year now. After reading the current press reports that point to production cutbacks by OPEC countries, MB is pretty sure that OPEC isn't to blame.

So if Saudi Arabia and Kuwait don't give a fig whether production cuts might spell the end of Bush's re-election plans, what about Bush's oilman buddies? Are they willing to reduce their own profit in order to throw a sop to the increasingly irate masses, looking to fix blame for the pain they feel every time they fill up at the gas pump? It seems to me that Ted Kennedy and others needs to rethink their own target when urging Bush to "jawbone" OPEC. Americans are more than willing to blame "feriners" for our economic distress, even when the true culprits are much closer to home. Bush and his cronies are plenty happy to play this game of bait and switch; Democrats are foolish if they don't understand that by simply enabling this ploy, and are in fact throwing away an immense opportunity, if they allow OPEC to become the bulls eye for US consumer ire.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:24 PM | Get permalink

The RCMP has been busy in Ottawa.

Can any Canadian readers tell us more about the round-up of an entire Canadian family of Pakistani background, which happened at the same time the RCMP stormed the family home?

On the strength of just what's in the CBC report, it sounds like the RCMP may have some explaining to do.

More: The Ottawa Citizen says that one family member, Mohammad Momin Khawaja, has been arrested on charges of 'facilitating terrorist activity' in Ottawa and London, England. Khawaja's arrest is apparently connected with the arrests of eight men in the UK on charges relating to the possession of half a ton of ammonia fertilizer, which can be used in bomb-making.

Mr. Khawaja was charged with participating or contributing to, "directly or indirectly, an activity of a terrorist group for the purpose of enhancing the ability of the terrorist group to facilitate or carry out a terrorist activity" on or between Nov. 10, 2003 and Monday. He was also charged with facilitating a terrorist activity.

In a press conference outside their home on Princess Louise Drive, members of the Khawaja family said they were bewildered by the RCMP raid, in which officers took computer equipment and hard drives, money, passports, and other personal documents. [...]

Mr. Khawaja, a software developer, was arrested at his workplace, said his brother, Qasim, the eldest son in the family.

"It’s a sad, sad day for Canadian democracy," he said.

"We have no idea why, when we’ve been living here over 10 years, they’re doing this to us now."

Still more: From a slightly later report from the CBC:

Qamar Masood, a family friend and president of the regional Canada-Pakistan Association, says it's all a case of mistaken identity. "Just imagine how they're going to live through this ordeal. And after that, living in a neighbourhood with so many eyes looking at them, it's very hard."

The RCMP said it "does not target individuals or groups based on their racial, cultural or religious backgrounds. The actions taken (Monday) were directed at criminal activity with respect to national security."

Qasim Khawaja denies the family has any links to terrorism. He says when the family was allowed to return home after spending the night in a motel, their house was a shambles. Personal papers, passports, money and computer equipment were missing.

Yet more: Here's the RCMP news release on Mohammad Momin Khawaja's arrest.

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

'I just want to get married and get back to work.'

Theo Emery of the AP has written a very nice profile of Julie and Hillary Goodridge, the lead plaintiffs in the Massachusetts same-sex marriage case. It was their 2001 lawsuit in Suffolk Superior Court that eventually led to the state high court's decision that 'barring an individual from ... civil marriage solely because that person would marry a person of the same sex violates the Massachusetts Constitution.'

The Goodridges were Julie Wendich and Hillary Smith when they met in 1985 at a Harvard lecture. As their relationship progressed and they contemplated buying a home and having a child together, legal obstacles materialized.

They drew up living wills, took as their surname the maiden name of Hillary's grandmother, and penned legal documents spelling out their relationship.

After Julie gave birth to Annie, Hillary was barred from seeing them in the hospital because she was legally attached to neither. She wheedled her way to their bedsides, at one point saying she was Julie's sister, at another resorting to tearful pleas.

"At the time, it certainly didn't occur to me that 'Gosh, if I was married, this wouldn't have happened,"' Hillary said.

Then, one day when Annie was 5, the little girl heard the Beatles song "All You Need is Love" and began listing people she knew who loved one another.

Julie and Hillary were not among them.

"What about Ma and Mommy?" Hillary asked.

"You two don't love each other," Annie said, adding: "If you loved each other, you'd be married."

Recalling the episode, Julie asked: "What do you do when your kid says that to you?"

"Go get married," Hillary said.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:13 PM | Get permalink

BC's provincial goverment continues its war on women.

Under the guise of bringing the 'excesses' of the province's previous NDP government under control, British Columbia's Liberal Party government has cut off funding for the the province's women's centers. At least half of the 37 centers, most of them outside the Lower Mainland (Vancouver area), will close on March 31.

What strikes many observers (including us) interesting is the small dollar amount involved. The centers had received CAN $1.7 million per year (about CAN $48,000 per center) from the provincial government to pay basic expenses such rent, phones, and salaries. As as rabble's Gina Whitfeld points out, this is about CAN $1 for each woman in the province. And, as she also points out, the total amount of funding received by the women's centers pales against the CAN $1.5 billion tax cut the Liberals handed out when they took office.

BC's women's centers have provided a variety of services to wormen, including crisis counseling, referral services, and emergency shelters.

[It] is women with the most limited options, specifically working class and poor women, who will feel the pain of the closures most acutely, because they used the centres as a life-line to access services such as transition houses, rape relief, and health services. In fact, women's centres across the province have reported a 30 per cent increase in users since Campbell took office. Like any overused service, it makes some sense to shut it down entirely. At least then you can pretend the problem doesn't exist. Women can always call the 1-800 number that they find on the government website.

With cuts this blatant, it should come as no surprise that Campbell is out of favour with women in the province. The latest opinion poll shows that a whopping 71 per cent of women disapprove of Gordo's performance in office. This disapproval is a result of three years of explicitly anti-woman policies

Via rabble.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:31 PM | Get permalink

The One True b!X.

The Portland Oregonian has a very nice article on the blogger behind the Portland Communique.

Since December 2002, b!X (pronounced "bix") has published a weblog called "Portland Communique" (http://communique.portland.or.us), an earnest and at times obsessive "experiment in amateur reporting" that touches on everything from near-stenographic accounts of the public involvement standards task force to up-to-the-minute accounts of the latest turn in the same-sex marriage saga.

But unlike most bloggers, who typically link to previously reported material and then offer their own analysis, b!X is unusual because he's going out and doing his own legwork. Armed with a black spiral notebook, a laptop and a homemade press pass, the admittedly shy and soft-spoken Frankonis has become a familiar face at City Council hearings, county task force meetings and news conference crushes, quietly forging something that is one step beyond the Fourth Estate.

The official headquarters of "Portland Communique" is a spartan one-bedroom apartment in Southeast Portland that smells faintly of tobacco and Scully, the delicate tabby that b!X adopted not long after he moved to Portland seven years ago from San Francisco and who mewls sweetly as b!X taps away at his laptop. But b!X, who is skinny with dark eyes, thick and long lashes and the ever-present hat that has the feel of a modern take on the pressman's fedora, spends much of his time at Stumptown Coffee's downtown Portland outpost, where he begins each morning with two mugs of espresso, sweetened with a generous glug of sugar, and the crossword puzzle, which he fills out in ink, all caps.

This magpie cannot recommend the Portland Communique highly enough. b!X often does a better job of covering the city than the 'real' journalists who collect paychecks for their work.

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

A friendly visit.

Over at the Muslim Wake Up! blog, Ahmed Nassef tells us how a nice man from FBI-NYPD Joint Terrorist Taskforce dropped by to see him today.

[D]etective McGhee said he got an anonymous tip that I had connections to Al Qaeda and Hamas. He wanted to know if I did. I suggested he take a look at this website.

Judging by the fact that .gov and .mil domains are regular fixtures in our log files (over 11,000 hits in March alone from US government and military domains), I'm surprised he said he hadn't already.

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

Mass. attorney general derails attempt to stop same-sex marriages.

Massachusetts attorney general Thomas Reilly has refused a request from the governor to try to keep the state supreme court's ruling on same-sex marriages from being implemented. Under that ruling, Massachusetts is expected to begin offering these marriages in May.

Reilly told Govenor Mitt Romney that, because the state's high court has ruled in favor of same-sex marriage twice, legal arguments aimed at delaying that ruling's effect have no validity: 'It is very clear to me as attorney general that the majority of the SJC have made up their mind.... That is the law of the state. My job as attorney general is to implement that law, and I will not compromise. The attorney general, incidentally, disapprove's of the court's ruling.

Reilly's decision, which he delivered personally to Romney in a phone conversation just before the governor went on live television to announce his plans, creates a major legal and political hurdle for the governor, who is intent on blocking the May 17 implementation of the court ruling.

Under state law, the governor can be represented in the courts only by the attorney general's office or lawyers who are appointed as special assistant attorneys general, according to personnel in Reilly's office familiar with the process. A senior Romney administration official said the governor's staff agreed with that reading of the law.

It was unclear last night whether Romney had asked Reilly to appoint a special assistant attorney general to represent him in seeking the stay. But senior aides to Reilly said he would reject such a request. Former attorney general James Shannon said that Romney has no legal recourse to press his appeal to the SJC without Reilly. "I don't think the governor has any option to get around the attorney general here," said Shannon, who supports gay marriage. "I think that's it as far as a stay is concerned."

Via Boston Globe.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:18 PM | Get permalink

Let's say it again: Music 'piracy' doesn't hurt CD sales.

A new study of music file downloading has found that illegal music downloads haven't caused the recent drop in CD sales. For the study, Felix Oberholzer-Gee of the Harvard Business School and Koleman Strumpf at the University of North Carolina tracked millions of music files downloaded via OpenNap and compared them with sales figures for CDs of the same music.

According to Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf downloads account for, at best, only a fraction of the drop in CD sales. They suggest that falling sales may be better explained by a weak US economy and increasing CD prices.

Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf monitored 680 albums, chosen from a range of musical genres, downloaded over 17 weeks in the second half of 2002. They used computer programs to automatically monitor downloads and compared this data to changes in album sales over the same period to see if a link could be established.

The most heavily downloaded songs showed no decrease in CD sales as a result of increasing downloads. In fact, albums that sold more than 600,000 copies during this period appeared to sell better when downloaded more heavily.

For these albums each increase of 150 downloads corresponded to another legitimate album sale. The study showed only a slight decline in sales as a result of online trading for the least popular music.

"From a statistical point of view, what this means is that there is no effect between downloading and sales," say Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf.

Via New Scientist.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:53 AM | Get permalink

The Sloganator's greatest hits.

The Bush/Cheney campaign's do-it-yourself campaign poster kit is long departed, but the slogans live on. Get 'em here. [Big download, Flash required]

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

Air America Radio.

The new liberal US radio network has its debut ~~today~~ tomorrow (Wednesday) at noon on these stations.

New York: WLIB - 1190 AM

Los Angeles: KBLA - 1580 AM

Chicago: WNTD - 950 AM

Portland, OR: KPOJ - 620 AM

Inland Empire, CA: KCAA - 1050 AM

XM Satellite: Radio Channel 167

We understand that you'll also be able to listen by downloading a feed from Air America's website, but there wasn't much of anything there when we just looked. [Update: The real location of Air America's home page is here.]

The first show is Al Franken's The O'Franken Factor. (We bet Bill O'Reilly loves that name.)

An aside: We find it interesting that a liberal radio network would name itself after a Vietnam-era airline, owned and operated by the CIA.

More: The American Street has the full schedule for Air America here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:30 AM | Get permalink

Cutting down the giant trees.

No, we don't mean about another assault by loggers on California's redwoods. We're talking about the logging of the giant eucalyptus in Tasmania's Styx Valley to feed Japan's wood-chip industry. (For the geographcially impaired, Tasmania is that big island just south of the Australian mainland.)

While Tasmania's Eucalyptus regnans aren't as well known as the gaint redwoods in the US, they are equally as grand. Commonly growing to a height of 250 feet, at least one specimen of E. regnans was recorded at 490 feet. By contrast, lhe largest redwoods top out at less than 400 feet.

The logging of E. regnans is a major political issue in Tasmania, where the state's Green Party (the first in the world) has a substantial presence in the legislature and local government. The Tassie Greens are trying to make the logging of the Styx (and logging practices in general) a federal issue. They stand some chance of success, as a recent national poll showed that 85% of Australians favored federal intevention to save the old-growth forests in Tasmania.

Sen. Bob Brown of Tasmania, the Green Party leader, contends that the state government is bankrolling the destruction of the forest by the private logging company Gunns Ltd.

"We grow the trees for 400 or 500 years and get less than 1% of the enterprise," Brown says. "The Tasmanian government is subsidizing the cutting of these forests. It's a tremendous waste of a magnificent resource."

Environmentalists charge that the government is not so much interested in obtaining timber from the aging giants as it is in clearing the land to plant larger numbers of faster-growing trees that will provide a greater yield.

Creak of Forestry Tasmania acknowledges that is partly true. [...]

Also known as the swamp gum or mountain ash, the giant eucalyptus typically rots from the inside, becoming hollow as it matures. One of the Styx giants targeted for logging has a cavity in its trunk large enough to hold 50 people.

The hollows provide homes for wildlife but make the trees less valuable as timber. During logging operations, as much as a third of a mature tree is discarded as waste. Creak says much of the wood in the old trunks is rotten and it would cost too much to salvage the usable timber.

Of the wood that is harvested, environmentalists say, only 6% ends up as sawed logs or veneer, while 80% of the hardwood is chipped and exported to Japan to make paper products.

Once an area has been clear-cut, it is set on fire by helicopters dropping pingpong balls filled with flammable jelly. Creak says the high-intensity fire is necessary to regenerate eucalyptus seedlings.

Often, tree farmers replace the E. regnans with another variety of eucalyptus. Brown argues that the state wants to eliminate native plants in favor of a monoculture in which one species is grown for its timber.

Via LA Times.

More: Want to see how big E. regnans can get? There's a good picture of a giant tree in the Styx Valley here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:36 AM | Get permalink

White House caves on Rice testimony.

In a letter to the two commission chairs, the White House has agreed to allow national security advisor Condoleezza Rice to testify in a public session of the 9/11 commission, under oath. Previously, Rice had been allowed to give only a private interview (unsworn) at a closed session.

The letter also agrees to a joint appearance in private by both Dubya and VP Dick Cheney. All commission members will be able to be present for that session, and a commission staff member will be able to keep notes. The session will also be without time constraints — previously the White House had agreed to a private, one-hour interveiw with the prez.

To get these concessions, however, the commission chairs had to agree that 1) Rice's appearance before the commission does not set a precedent and 2) the commission would not ask for additional public testimony from any White House officials.

The White House must have looked at some polls and figured out the political damage it was taking by not allowing Rice to testify. While it would be easy to interpret the removal of the time limit on Dubya's interview and the addition of Cheney (buy one, get one free!), we suspect that Cheney is being brought in to cover in case Dubya says anything really stupid to the commission.

You'll find the full text of the letter from White House counsel Alberto Gonzales here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:33 AM | Get permalink

It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's ...

... the June 1938 issue of Action Comics, scanned and put online. That issue marked the first appearance of Superman in a comic book.

Via Boing Boing.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:11 AM | Get permalink

Monday, March 29

Alistair Cooke, 1908–2004.

The head man said, 'Why don't you talk about the things you talk to me about? American children, the chemistry of the New England fall, out west, anything?' I said, 'Well, it opens quite a field.' He said, 'Well, we'll set you up for thirteen weeks, and if it's a wild success another thirteen weeks.'
— Alistair Cooke, 1997 (describing the beginning of 'Letter from America' in 1946)

The BBC has announced the death of veteran journalist and broadcaster Alistair Cooke. He was 95.

Although most people in the US probably know Alistair Cooke best for his many years of hosting Masterpiece Theater on public television (and for the loving Muppet parody of Alistair Cookie on 'Monsterpiece Theater'), most of the world knows Cooke because of his 'Letter from America' that aired on the BBC for more than 50 years. This magpie heard our first 'Letter from America' sometime in the mid-1980s and — especially because we worked in radio ourself — we were hooked on his masterful ability to use radio to actually communicate. From then on, if we were by a radio when it was time for the newest of Cooke's letters, we were right there listening.

We will miss Alistair Cooke very much.

From the BBC's report of Cooke's death:

For more than 50 years Cooke entertained radio listeners with his weekly series Letter from America.

In 1973 he received an honorary knighthood for his contribution to Anglo-American understanding.

This month Cooke, who joined the BBC as a film critic in 1934, announced his retirement after 58 years of presenting Letter from America.

Cooke started up the US current affairs and historical programme in 1946.

The show is the world's longest-running speech radio programme.

From the BBC obituary:

The Queen awarded him an honorary knighthood in 1973 and the following year, for a journalist, he received the ultimate recognition - he was asked to address the United States Congress on its 200th anniversary.

He told his audience he felt as if he was in a dream, standing naked before them and there was only one thing he could find to say.

Teasing, he exclaimed to the assembled legislators, "I gratefully accept your nomination for President of the United States!"

Naturally, he brought the house down.

The BBC has links to a slew of Cooke's radio letters, and to other of Cooke's work on the 'Letter from America' homepage. If you never had the chance to hear Cooke's radio work while he was alive, take the time to go to the BBC and listen. You'll never hear better.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:37 PM | Get permalink

Customers? We don't have to care about no stinkin' customers.

The Washington Post has a rather depressing article about the decline of customer service among US businesses. The quick summary: Companies are greedy and getting greedier. They figure that once they've sold you something, you're stuck. The Post, of course, takes considerably longer to get there than we just did.

The most interesting part of the article was this quote:

"We've allowed it [bad customer service] because we've become tolerant of mediocrity," said Ron Rosenberg, head of Quality Talk, a North Carolina training and consulting firm that sponsors driveyounuts.com, a Web site where consumers can post complaints and compliments as well as seek advice. "If you have a car that's supposed to be ready at 2 p.m. and it's not, then you need to do something to make it right," Rosenberg said. But most people don't, he said. They will sit around, usually patiently, until it's ready. "People will accept bad service and inconvenience."

That's right: If you get bad service, it's your fault. Have a nice day.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:33 PM | Get permalink

Cherry-picking Clarke's 2002 testimony.

CNN reports that the CIA is reviewing Richard Clarke's 2002 testimony before Congress to see what portions can be made public. Clarke testified in front of a joint hearing of the House and Senate Intelligence committees when he was still one of Dubya's senior anti-terror experts.

What do you bet that the parts that make Clarke look bad are released, and the parts that make Dubya and his minions look bad stay classified?

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:19 PM | Get permalink

Taking the air out of democracy.

In Tuesday's NY Times, Paul Krugman ties together seveal of the abuses of power that Dubya's administration so loves:

Last week an opinion piece in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz about the killing of Sheik Ahmed Yassin said, "This isn't America; the government did not invent intelligence material nor exaggerate the description of the threat to justify their attack."

So even in Israel, George Bush's America has become a byword for deception and abuse of power. And the administration's reaction to Richard Clarke's "Against All Enemies" provides more evidence of something rotten in the state of our government.

The truth is that among experts, what Mr. Clarke says about Mr. Bush's terrorism policy isn't controversial. The facts that terrorism was placed on the back burner before 9/11 and that Mr. Bush blamed Iraq despite the lack of evidence are confirmed by many sources — including "Bush at War," by Bob Woodward.

And new evidence keeps emerging for Mr. Clarke's main charge, that the Iraq obsession undermined the pursuit of Al Qaeda. From yesterday's USA Today: "In 2002, troops from the Fifth Special Forces Group who specialize in the Middle East were pulled out of the hunt for Osama bin Laden to prepare for their next assignment: Iraq. Their replacements were troops with expertise in Spanish cultures."

That's why the administration responded to Mr. Clarke the way it responds to anyone who reveals inconvenient facts: with a campaign of character assassination.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:42 PM | Get permalink

Another handy household hint.

Snake venom cleans up blood stains.

Via CBC.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:09 PM | Get permalink

Nesting instinct.

In our never-ending search for prime corvid news, we turn to this report from Arab News about a rash of thefts in a neighborhood in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It seems that wire coathangers were disappearing from clotheslines, balconies, and other places. While there is an active trade in used coathangers in Jeddah, the 'bin ladies' who collect them appeared to be innocent.

Then somebody looked up.

The photo accompanying the article is more than worth a trip to the Arab News site.

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

Cracking Magpie up.

Lots of folks are doing it today. The latest to hit the mark is this post by Tim at Road to Surfdom.

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

A visit to a friend in 'liberated' Iraq.

At Baghdad Burning, Riverbend tells a story that we couldn't possibly excerpt. Go read it.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:01 PM | Get permalink

Wonkette.

She just cracks us up.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:58 PM | Get permalink

And speaking of funny posts ...

... Susan at Suburban Guerrilla cracks us up too. (You have to follow her links.)

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:57 PM | Get permalink

Sexual healing.

Given the current fracas over the use of scripture in politics, and especially the way religion is being used as a weapon to deny full civil rights to lesbian and gay people in the US, we found Rivka's post about the Religious Declaration on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing at Respectful of Otters to be quite timely. Like Rivka, we'd never heard of the Declaration before, but it certainly needs to be more widely circulated.

Sexuality is God's life-giving and life-fulfilling gift. We come from diverse religious communities to recognize sexuality as central to our humanity and as integral to our spirituality. We are speaking out against the pain, brokenness, oppression, and loss of meaning that many experience about their sexuality.

Our faith traditions celebrate the goodness of creation, including our bodies and our sexuality. We sin when this sacred gift is abused or exploited. However, the great promise of our traditions is love, healing, and restored relationships.

Our culture needs a sexual ethic focused on personal relationships and social justice rather than particular sexual acts. All persons have the right and responsibility to lead sexual lives that express love, justice, mutuality, commitment, consent, and pleasure. Grounded in respect for the body and for the vulnerability that intimacy brings, this ethic fosters physical, emotional, and spiritual health. It accepts no double standards and applies to all persons, without regard to sex, gender, color, age, bodily condition, marital status, or sexual orientation.

You can read the whole Declaration here. A list of over 2200 ministers, priests, and rabbis in the US who have endorsed the Declaration is here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:43 PM | Get permalink

Same-sex marriage ban moves forward in Massachusetts.

In session as a constitutional convention, the Massachusetts legislature has approved a draft constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage, but allowing civil unions. This action prevents consideration of other amendments, including one that would have allowed the state's voters to decide separately on same-sex marriage and civil unions.

The legislature must has to vote on the amendment two more times before it's considered approved. Once that happens, it has to be approved again at the next regular session of the legislature before going to the voters in the fall of 2006.

Under a ruling by the state's high court, however, Massachusetts must start allowing same-sex marriages until such time as the constitution is amended. Those marriages are expected to begin in May, unless Gov. Milt Romney attempts to find a way to prevent them.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:33 PM | Get permalink

Kerry's Bible quote.

We see that officials in Dubya's campaign are frothing at the mouth over John Kerry's Bible quote criticizing leaders who have 'faith but no deeds.' According to a Dubya spokesperson, Kerry's comment was 'beyond the bounds of acceptable discourse and a sad exploitation of Scripture for a political attack.'

We'd started compiling a list of times that Dubya has either quoted scripture or made references to biblical teachings in order to further his political agenda, but we stopped looking when we followed a link at Just a Bump in the Beltway and found Kevin Raybould's response to the attacks on Kerry, posted at Lean Left. Raybould's words are far more eloquent than our list of Dubya quotes would have been.

As usual, when faced with a criticism, the Bush Administration runs from the substance and attempts to smear the critic. Anyone who says their favorite political philosopher is Jesus Christ had best be prepared to defend his actions in the light of Jesus' teachings.

And that, of course, is the real rub. For far too long, the right wing has gulled the media and the country into thinking that its religion was the only acceptable face of Christianity. It has used the respect for all religions on the left as evidence of the left's irreligiosity. That has never been the case. The teachings of Jesus Christ are at the core of how millions define their support for liberal causes, myself included. John Kerry, with one small statement, has reminded the nation of that fact. Millions of us are liberal because of our religion. Millions of us are not represented by Opus Dei, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, or any of the other right wing talking heads the media turns to when it wants to "discuss" religion in this country. Antonin Scalia does not speak for all Catholics.

And Kerry's statement is also a very Catholic statement. Catholics grow up immersed in the doctrine of works -- that faith alone will not save you, your own efforts are required. Catholic doctrine also highlights the biblical injunctions to aid your neighbors, and the defense of life and dignity throughout a person's entire time on this earth. Kerry, like so many of us, has merged those strands of theology into a world view that compels us to be liberals, in action and thought if not always in name. Kerry's statement shows a depth of understanding about Catholicism that a million of Karl Rove's carefully crafted photo-ops could never hope to discredit. Every Catholic who hears that speech will hear a little bit of their upbringing.

The language of religion has always been spoken comfortably on the left, even if the principle of tolerance has caused it to occasionally be spoken too quietly. John Kerry is not speaking quietly now. Whatever George W. Bush may desire, whatever the editors of the Washington Post and New York Times may decree, Christianity and faith are not the property of the right wing. I have a faith, too, as does John Kerry and millions of others. It is strong, and sincere, and, as Kerry has reminded us, powerful. And in the face of provocation and distortion, it has no reason to be silent.

More: Continuing onward through the web, we see that Mark Kleiman has a shorter response to the brouhaha:

John Kerry, without mentioning names, cited a verse from the Epistle of James asking what good it was to have faith without works. George W. Bush immediately took offense. I wonder what made him think the verse applied to him?

As to "exploiting Scripture for political attack," are we to understand that reading the Bible is good but that applying it to the real world is not?

And The Right Christians offers some trenchant comments:

Another member of the Bush seemed to warn Kerry that lightning might follow if he dared enter a church again:

Nicolle Devenish, a Bush spokeswoman, said Mr. Kerry was "walking a fine line'' by campaigning in a church, adding, "I think that's a sacred thing.''

Apparently, religious venues and language are off-limits only for Democrats. Schmidt, Devenish and Pickler voiced no concern when Bush took the pulpit at Bethel Union A.M.E. church in New Orleans back in January:

Bush used himself as an example of the good that religion can do, referencing his own decision to stop drinking at age 40 "because I changed my heart."

"My attitude is, the government should not fear faith-based programs -- we ought to welcome faith-based programs and we ought to fund faith-based programs," he said from the pulpit of the packed Union Bethel A.M.E Church in a run-down, crime-plagued neighborhood near this city's downtown. "Faith-based programs are only effective because they do practice faith. It's important for our government to understand that."...At Union Bethel, in a speech laced with religious references - and at a meeting with community leaders -- Bush renewed his push to open more federal spending on social programs to religious groups.

Contrary to what some Republicans will claim, "Christian Democrat" is not an oxymoron. Kerry is on the right track by using allusions and quotes that resonate with religious progressives. One thing though: his speechwriters need to get a gender inclusive translation.

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

Fact-checking Condoleezza Rice's interview.

The folks over at the Center for American Progress have gone through the interview and compared Condoleezza Rice's major assertions to facts on record. From the looks of the comparison, we'd suggest that Rice has a good reason to avoid testifying under oath before the 9/11 commission.

RICE CLAIM: "The administration took seriously the threat" of terrorism before 9/11.

FACTS: President Bush himself acknowledges that, despite repeated warnings of an imminent Al Qaeda attack, before 9/11 "I didn't feel the sense of urgency" about terrorism. Similarly, Newsweek reports that Bush's attitude was reflected throughout an Administration that was trying to "de-emphasize terrorism" as an overall priority. As proof, just two of the hundred national security meetings the Administration held during this period addressed the terrorist threat, and the White House refused to hold even one meeting of its highly-touted counterterrorism task force. Meanwhile, the Administration was actively trying to cut funding for counterterrorism, and "vetoed a request to divert $800 million from missile defense into counterterrorism" despite a serious increase in terrorist chatter in the summer of 2001.

Source: "Bush At War" by Bob Woodward
Source: Newsweek & vetoed request - http://foi.missouri.edu/terrorismfoi/whatwentwrong.html
Source: Refusal to hold task force meeting - http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8734-2002Jan19?language=printer
Source: Only two meetings out of 100 - http://www.detnews.com/2002/politics/0207/01/politics-526326.htm

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