Ralph Nader is a phony

Why would Ralph Nader not reveal where his campaign headquarters is? Perhaps because Citizen Works [a Nader 501(c)(3) and the Nader campaign are both operating out of 1400 16th Street in Washington DC.

Of course, nonprofit 501 (c) (3) organizations, even those founded by Ralph Nader to advance justice by strengthening citizen participation in power, aren't supposed to share equipment, expenses or personnel with political campaigns. That's prohibited by federal law. We probably shouldn't hold our collective breath waiting for the Bush Administration's tax authorities to look into this matter, but it sure seems like Nader's presidential campaign may not only be reckless and selfish, but corrupting, too.

There's more in Joe Conason's Salon.com article. (You'll have to click through the ads if you're not a subscriber.)

News Flash: Iraq Arms Inspector Says Search Is a Tangle

The new arms inspector in Iraq, Charles A. Duelfer, says it's much more complicated than I anticipated going in. But we knew Iraq had tons of WMDs; what went wrong? Republicans are "asking for more time before any final judgments are reached." And the Democrats are criticizing the lies:

A top Democratic senator, Carl Levin of Michigan, later complained that the public version of Mr. Duelfer's testimony had omitted information contained in the classified version that would have raised further doubts about whether Iraq possessed illicit weapons at all.

How convenient--the classified version is more skeptical than the public one. Why should we trust these people?

Air America

Well, it sure gets boring listening to Limbaugh and Hannity and various Republican clones. (Whatever happened to the fairness doctrine? And the notion that the public airwaves should be used in the public interest?) Here's a link to a New York Times article about Air America, the new liberal radio network. And here's a link to Air America Radio.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Floor Statement of Sen. Daschle on the Abuse of Government Power

Senator Daschle exposes how members of the Bush Administration attack their critics:

Mr. President, last week I spoke about the White House's reaction to Richard Clarke's testimony before the 9-11 Commission. I am compelled to rise again today, because the people around the President are systematically abusing the powers and prerogatives of government.

We all need to reflect seriously on what's going on. Not in anger and not in partisanship, but in keeping with our responsibilities as Senators and with an abiding respect for the fundamental values of our democracy.

Richard Clarke did something extraordinary when he testified before the 9-11 Commission last week. He didn't try to escape blame, as so many routinely do. Instead, he accepted his share of responsibility and offered his perceptions about what happened in the months and years leading up to September 11.

We can and should debate the facts and interpretations Clarke has offered. But there can be no doubt that he has risked enormous damage to his reputation and professional future to hold both himself and our government accountable.

The retaliation from those around the President has been fierce. Mr. Clarke's personal motives have been questioned and his honesty challenged. He has even been accused, right here on the Senate floor, of perjury. Not one shred of proof was given, but that wasn't the point. The point was to have the perjury accusation on television and in the newspapers. The point was to damage Mr. Clarke in any way possible.

This is wrong–and it's not the first time it's happened.

When Senator McCain ran for President, the Bush campaign smeared him and his family with vicious, false attacks. When Max Cleland ran for reelection to this Senate, his patriotism was attacked. He was accused of not caring about protecting our nation -- a man who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam, accused of being indifferent to America's national security. That was such an ugly lie, it's still hard to fathom almost two years later.

There are some things that simply ought not be done – even in politics. Too many people around the President seem not to understand that, and that line has been crossed. When Ambassador Joe Wilson told the truth about the Administration's misleading claims about Iraq, Niger, and uranium, the people around the President didn't respond with facts. Instead, they publicly disclosed that Ambassador Wilson's wife was a deep-cover CIA agent. In doing so, they undermined America's national security and put politics first. They also may well have put the lives of Ambassador Wilson's wife, and her sources, in danger.

When former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill revealed that the White House was thinking about an Iraq War in its first weeks in office, his former colleagues in the Bush Administration ridiculed him from morning to night, and even subjected him to a fruitless federal investigation.

When Larry Lindsay, one of President Bush's former top economic advisors, and General Eric Shinseki, the former Army Chief of Staff, spoke honestly about the amount of money and the number of troops the war would demand, they learned the hard way that the White House doesn't tolerate candor.

This is not "politics as usual." In nearly all of these cases, it's not Democrats who are being attacked.

Senator McCain and Secretary O'Neill are prominent Republicans, and Richard Clarke, Larry Lindsay, Joe Wilson, and Eric Shinseki all worked for Republican Administrations.

The common denominator is that these government officials said things the White House didn't want said.

The response from those around the President was retribution and character assassination -- a 21st Century twist to the strategy of "shooting the messenger."

If it takes intimidation to keep inconvenient facts from the American people, the people around the President don't hesitate. Richard Foster, the chief actuary for Medicare, found that out. He was told he'd be fired if he told the truth about the cost of the Administration's prescription drug plan.

This is no way to run a government.

The White House and its supporters should not be using the power of government to try to conceal facts from the American people or to reshape history in an effort to portray themselves in the best light.

They should not be threatening the reputations and livelihoods of people simply for asking – or answering – questions. They should seek to put all information about past decisions on the table for evaluation so that the best possible decisions can be made for the nation's future.

In Mr. Clarke's case, clear and troubling double standards are being applied.

Last year, when the Administration was being criticized for the President's misleading statement about Niger and uranium, the White House unexpectedly declassified portions of the National Intelligence Estimate. When the Administration wants to bolster its public case, there is little that appears too sensitive to be declassified.

Now, people around the President want to release parts of Mr. Clarke's earlier testimony in 2002. According to news reports, the CIA is already working on declassifying that testimony – at the Administration's request.

And last week several documents were declassified literally overnight, not in an effort to provide information on a pressing policy matter to the American people, but in an apparent effort to discredit a public servant who gave 30 years of service to his American government.

I'll support declassifying Mr. Clarke's testimony before the Joint Inquiry, but the Administration shouldn't be selective. Consistent with our need to protect sources and methods, we should declassify his entire testimony.

And to make sure that the American people have access to the full record as they consider this question, we should also declassify his January 25 memo to Dr. Rice, the September 4, 2001 National Security Directive dealing with terrorism, Dr. Rice's testimony to the 9-11 Commission, the still-classified 28 pages from the House-Senate inquiry relating to Saudi Arabia, and a list of the dates and topics of all National Security Council meetings before September 4, 2001.

I hope this new interest in openness will also include the Vice President's Energy and Terrorism Task Forces. While much, if not all, of what these task forces discussed was unclassified, their proceedings have not been shared with the public.

There also seems to be a double standard when it comes to investigations.

In recent days leading congressional Republicans are now calling for an investigation into Mr. Clarke. As I mentioned earlier, Secretary O'Neill was also subjected to an investigation. Clarke and O'Neill sought legal and classification review of any information in their books before they were published.

Nonetheless, our colleagues tell us these two should be investigated, at the same time there has been no Senate investigation into the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity as a deep cover CIA agent; no thorough investigation into whether leading Administration officials misrepresented the intelligence regarding threats posed by Iraq; no Senate hearings into the threat the chief Medicare Actuary faced for trying to do his job; and no Senate investigation into the reports of continued overcharging by Halliburton for its work in Iraq.

There is a clear double standard when it comes to investigating or releasing information, and that's just is not right. The American people deserve more from their leaders.

We're seeing it again now in the shifting reasons the White House has given for Dr. Rice's refusal to testify under oath and publicly before the 9-11 Commission.

The people around the President first said it would be unprecedented for Dr. Rice to testify. But thanks to the Congressional Research Service, we now know that previous sitting National Security Advisors have testified before Congress.

Now the people around the President are saying that Dr. Rice can't testify because it would violate an important constitutional principle: the separation of powers.

We will soon face this debate again when it comes time for President Bush and Vice President Cheney to meet with the 9-11 Commission. I believe they should lift the limitations they have placed on their cooperation with the Commission and be willing to appear before the entire Commission for as much time as the Commission deems productive.

The all-out assault on Richard Clarke has gone on for more than a week now. Mr. Clarke has been accused of "profiteering" and possible perjury. It is time for this to stop.

The Commission should declassify Mr. Clarke's earlier testimony. All of it. Not just the parts the White House wants. And Dr. Rice should testify before the 9-11 Commission, and she should be under oath and in public.

The American people deserve to know the truth -- the full truth -- about what happened in the years and months leading up to September 11.

Senator McCain, Senator Cleland, Secretary O'Neill, Ambassador Wilson, General Shinseki, Richard Foster, Richard Clarke, Larry Lindsay ... when will the character assassination, retribution, and intimidation end?

When will we say enough is enough?

The September 11 families – and our entire country – deserve better. Our democracy depends on it. And our nation's future security depends on it.

The other evening on C-SPAN I heard a member of the House being reminded to not refer to the President. What kind of arcane rules do they operate by that they can't directly criticize the President? Apparently, the Senate doesn't have this rule.

Walmart.com - Triumph Of The Will (a.k.a. Triumph Des Willens) (Special Edition)

It is so gratifying that Walmart sells the Nazi propaganda film Triumph Of The Will (a.k.a. Triumph Des Willens) but refuses to stock Robert Greenwald's documentary, "Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War" Criticism of President Bush is apparently "innappropriate for Wal-Mart."

TOMPAINE.com - Willful Ignorance

One cannot have too many useful summaries of the lies of George Bush (Willful Ignorance by David Corn at TomPaine.com).

A year ago—March 17, 2003, to be exact—George W. Bush addressed the nation and the world. He gave Saddam Hussein 48 hours to get out town or face a U.S. military invasion. To defend the war to come, Bush declared, "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraqi regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." There was nothing ambiguous here: "leaves no doubt". Of all the false assertions—or lies—that Bush told before the war, this one was perhaps the most important, for Bush was informing Americans, citizens elsewhere, members of the U.S. armed forces about to be placed in harm’s way and Iraqis who also would pay the ultimate price that his actions, as controversial as they might be, were based on rock-solid, you-can-take-it-to-the-bank information. In essence, Bush was saying we know what we are doing and we know it is absolutely unavoidable.

That was not true. The issue is not merely that Bush apparently spoke falsely when he said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with Al Qaeda. Good-faith mistakes based on incomplete intelligence can happen. But that is not what occurred in this instance. Before the war, Bush claimed he was proceeding with total certainty based on intelligence that was 100 percent reliable and utterly conclusive. He did not say that due to the available intelligence he suspected Hussein possessed WMDs, that he worried Iraq was seeking weapons of mass destruction, that he believed he could not allow the possibility Hussein might develop and amass WMD stockpiles. He maintained that the basis for this elective war—Hussein’s WMDs—was undeniable.

But it is now undeniable that the intelligence was not as absolute as Bush had claimed. Portions of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq—the summation of the intelligence community’s reporting on Iraq—were declassified last year. Various government officials have conducted post-invasion reviews of the prewar intelligence. And CIA director George Tenet, trying to defend his agency in public speeches and congressional testimony, has in recent weeks described the prewar intelligence. All of this provides indisputable evidence that Bush misled the public as to the intelligence on Iraq’s WMDs.

Mr. Corn's article continues with a summary of what is known about pre-war intelligence. And then he lists four big lies that the Bush Administration told about Iraq's supposed WMDs--none backed up by solid intelligence.

The bottom line is clear: there was plenty of uncertainty—not "no doubt"—in the prewar intelligence. And now some members of Bush’s national security team are covering their rear flanks by pointing to that incertitude and noting, well, of course, everybody knows that intelligence is full of iffy information.

According to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said "There’s no debate in the world as to whether they have those weapons... We all know that. A trained ape knows that." (September 2002.) Somebody remind me why we supposed to vote for these liars. . .

Robert Fisk: "Who's in Room 106?"

Robert Fisk reporting from Iraq: "Who's in Room 106?" Winning hearts and minds. . .

24 March 2004 "The Independent" -- I was standing on my balcony in the darkness, puffing on a fine Havana - I had just filed my day's report to The Independent's foreign desk - when I saw the soldiers of the 1st Armoured Division padding down the road outside.

The guys at the rear were walking backwards, two officers in the centre, all moving purposefully towards the hotel entrance. By the time I got downstairs, Mohamed, the receptionist, was incurring the wrath of Iraq's occupying army.

"Show me the hotel register, please, Sir," the officer was saying. "It's in the other building," Mohamed replied innocently. "Don't play games with me, Sir," snapped the soldier. "I want the hotel register."

I've often wondered why American soldiers do this sort of thing - insult a guy and then add "Sir" so they can claim they have been polite. "Mohamed is not playing games," I said. The register is always kept in the other part of the hotel.

The officer - his name was Scheetz - turned back to Mohamed. "Who's in Room 106?" Mohamed looked at me. I looked at Scheetz. Room 106 is the hotel suite occupied by The Independent . I gave Mr Scheetz my card. What on earth did he want, I asked?

Another soldier turned to me. "I guess we don't want any more hotels blowing up," he said. Of course. And so say all of us. But what has Room 106 got to do with it? "Security," another American said. Which, of course, is the excuse for any raid, any military operation, any body search, any decision taken by anyone - even President Bush - if they don't choose to explain their behaviour.

Note Mr. Fisk's wise policy:

And that should have been that. Scheetz went off to search Room 106 in the hotel's second building - it is an empty office - and I started chatting to the hotel staff. In front of these Iraqis, Sunnis, Shias and Christians, I have a firm policy. Don't appear - ever - to be fraternising with the occupying power. It's more than my life is worth. That's when the waiter arrived with a tray covered in a white cloth and - standing upon it - a can of Amstel beer. "It's compliments of Mr Sheetz," he said.

O Lordy, Lordy. The Iraqis looked on in silence. The waiter looked at me sheepishly and shrugged his shoulders. What was this for, the Iraqis were asking themselves? So was I. Mohamed, the receptionist who had been told not to "play games", was watching me like the proverbial hawk. I told the waiter to take the beer back and he did.

So I was left with a couple of questions. What nincompoop sent these young Americans onto the dangerous streets of night-time Baghdad to examine a hotel register which could be looked at quietly by any discreet visitor during the day, and to demand the identity of a guest who's been staying here on and off for the past year? Secondly - and much more seriously - if I could be angry when Mohamed was insulted by the American, what were the Iraqis thinking? Another minuscule thread, I suppose, in the tapestry called the War on Terror.

Accepting a beer from the troops would not be a wise move either.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Phillip Adams: Passion at the forefront of religious bigotry [March 23, 2004]

It seems that columnist Phillip Adams agrees with me about Pasolini's The Gospel According to St Matthew. See the end of this critique of Mel Gibson's Passion:

As an antidote to Gibson's dreadful film, it's time to re-release The Gospel According to St Matthew, made by Italian film-maker Pier Paolo Pasolini. Malcolm Muggeridge, who drew the world's attention to Mother Teresa, regarded it as a masterpiece, although he was somewhat shocked when I told him that Pasolini was (a) homosexual, (b) a communist and (c) an atheist. Pasolini's film is not about Christ on the cross but Christ as the radical – and he was played by a small, dark, intense young man with a hooked nose, not by a six-footer with blue eyes. The contrast between the two films could not be more dramatic or instructive.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Sunday Readings

Isaiah 43:16-21

This is what the LORD says--he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters. Who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together, and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick.

"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the desert and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise.

Philippians 3:8-14

What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Luke 20:9-19

He went on to tell the people this parable: "A man planted a vineyard, rented it to some farmers and went away for a long time. At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants so they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. He sent another servant, but that one also they beat and treated shamefully and sent away empty-handed. He sent still a third, and they wounded him and threw him out.

"Then the owner of the vineyard said, 'What shall I do? I will send my son, whom I love; perhaps they will respect him.'

"But when the tenants saw him, they talked the matter over. 'This is the heir,' they said. 'Let's kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.' So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

"What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others." When the people heard this, they said, "May this never be!"

Jesus looked directly at them and asked, "Then what is the meaning of that which is written:

The stone the builders rejected
has become the capstone'

Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed."

The teachers of the law and the chief priests looked for a way to arrest him immediately, because they knew he had spoken this parable against them. But they were afraid of the people

and a bonus verse that I mis-read and included earlier:I Samuel 4:16-21

He told Eli, "I have just come from the battle line; I fled from it this very day."

Eli asked, "What happened, my son?"

The man who brought the news replied, "Israel fled before the Philistines, and the army has suffered heavy losses. Also your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God has been captured."

When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell backward off his chair by the side of the gate. His neck was broken and he died, for he was an old man and heavy. He had led Israel forty years.

His daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was pregnant and near the time of delivery. When she heard the news that the ark of God had been captured and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she went into labor and gave birth, but was overcome by her labor pains. As she was dying, the women attending her said, "Don't despair; you have given birth to a son." But she did not respond or pay any attention.

She named the boy Ichabod [no glory], saying, "The glory has departed from Israel"--because of the capture of the ark of God and the deaths of her father-in-law and her husband.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Congress is full of Criminals

Well, not exactly. Let Snopes dish out a little truth about the Urban Legend: US Congress is full of criminals:

What is surprising is that so many people willingly circulate the above-cited piece of cheap, inflammatory tripe expecting it to be taken seriously.

No names or dates are mentioned, of course, so trying to match individuals with the vague charges levelled in this text would be a fruitless task (especially since the composition of Congress changes at least every two years, and the piece is undated). In any case that effort would be pointless, for this article is nothing more than a cheap smear: no one in it is cited as actually having done something wrong, but merely of having been "arrested" or "accused," or being a "defendant," or having been "stopped." Isn't our system supposed to be based upon the presumption that a person is innocent until proved guilty?

[snip, on to the conclusion]

As we mentioned at the outset, members of Congress are human beings just like the rest of us, and thus they're subject to the same foibles as everyone else. This doesn't mean that we should meekly accept the wrongdoings of some of them as par for the course or turn a blind eye when they break the law, but neither does it mean they aren't entitled to the same considerations and protections as the rest of us -- including the right to be tried in a court of law rather than a court of public opinion. Many of our Congressional representatives are in fact dedicated, hard-working public servants, and tarring them all with the same brush of anonymous, vague accusation does no one any good.

"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem" the adage goes. Save your efforts for rooting out those who truly breach the public trust instead of wasting time and energy in smearing an institution and everyone who comprises it by passing this cheap bit of scandal-mongering netlore along.

Note to self

Check out Saaraba -- Hot Sounds from New Orleans Reggae Funk Band

The White House Has Played Cover-Up

From Democracy Now! | "The White House Has Played Cover-Up" - Former 9/11 Commission Member Max Cleland Blasts Bush. Click the link and scroll down for a 'rush transcript' of Amy Goodman's interview with Max Cleland:

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to former Senator Max Cleland of Georgia. Max Cleland also served on the 9-11 commission. A pair of public interest groups, the 9-11 Family Steering Committee and the 9-11 Citizens Watch have called for the resignation of the Director of the Independent 9-11 Commission, Phillip Zelikow. It turns out that in Richard Clarke's book, he reveals how Zelikow participated in Bush administration briefings on Al Qaeda prior to 9-11-and they're saying that this compromises him, since the mandate of the commission was to investigate the source of failures. It is now apparent why they said there has been so little effort to assign individual culpability. We can now see that trail would lead to the staff Director himself. Your response.

MAX CLELAND: That's not the staff director's fault, it is the White House's fault. It's president Bush's fault. President Bush personally has nixed the effort of the 9-11 Commission to get all the documents in the White House, especially the Presidential daily briefs, which basically tell the Commission and the American people what the President knew and when he knew it in regards to the potential attack on 9-11 and the attack itself and the follow-up. He has personally nixed that information coming to 9-11. That means to me that all of the members of that commission will never get to see the real documents that I think are sensitive. The President, as I think John Kerry mentioned, had time to go to rodeo, but didn't have time to appear fully before the 9-11 commission.

Read more at the links.

Winning hearts and minds at Gitmo

From Mirror.co.uk - MY HELL IN CAMP X-RAY:

Mar 12 2004


WORLD EXCLUSIVE

By Rosa Prince and Gary Jones


A BRITISH captive freed from Guantanamo Bay today tells the world of its full horror - and reveals how prostitutes were taken into the camp to degrade Muslim inmates.

Jamal al-Harith, 37, who arrived home three days ago after two years of confinement, is the first detainee to lift the lid on the US regime in Cuba's Camp X-Ray and Camp Delta.

[snip]

Prisoners faced psychological torture and mind-games in attempts to make them confess to acts they had never committed. Even petty breaches of rules brought severe punishment.

Medical treatment was sparse and brutal and amputations of limbs were more drastic than required, claimed Jamal.

A diet of foul water and food up to 10 years out-of-date left inmates malnourished.

But Jamal's most shocking disclosure centred on the use of vice girls to torment the most religiously devout detainees.

Prisoners who had never seen an "unveiled" woman before would be forced to watch as the hookers touched their own naked bodies.

The men would return distraught. One said an American girl had smeared menstrual blood across his face in an act of humiliation.

Jamal said: "I knew of this happening about 10 times. It always seemed to be those who were very young or known to be particularly religious who would be taken away.

"I would joke with the other British lads, 'Bring them to us - we'll have them'. It made us laugh. But the Americans obviously knew we wouldn't be shocked by seeing Western women, so they didn't bother.

"It was a profoundly disturbing experience for these men. They would refuse to speak about what had happened. It would take perhaps four weeks for them to tell a friend - and we would shout it out around the whole block."

Of course, this will win us many friends around the world and will end the threat of terrorism.

Let the spin begin

Prediction: everybody will say 'it's not my fault!' and blame somebody else.
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States:

The Commission is holding its eighth public hearing today and tomorrow, March 23-24, 2004, in Washington, DC. Staff Statement No. 5 and Staff Statement No. 6 from the eighth hearing are available online in PDF format.

As an experiment, are there Staff Statements No. 1 [not online], 2 [not online], 3 [not online], and 4 [not online]? Are there hearings 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7? Yes, to all.

Here are some earlier reports by the 9/11 commission (pdf format):
First

Interim Report and press briefing (Tuesday, July 8, 2003)

Second Interim Report and press briefing (Wednesday, September 23, 2003)

Richard Clarke is telling the truth

But the Bush Administration continues to lie by claiming that Richard Clarke is a politically-motivated disgruntled former employee. The Center for American Progress has compiled a timeline of the US Government's counterterrorism efforts before and after 9/11 based on government documents (not reports from the So-called Liberal Media or politically-motivated whistleblowers):

Since September 11, President Bush and his supporters have repeatedly intimated that many of the President's political opponents are soft on terrorism. In his State of the Union address, the President declared: "We can go forward with confidence and resolve, or we can turn back to the dangerous illusion that terrorists are not plotting and outlaw regimes are no threat to us." In comments aimed at those who seek changes in the Patriot Act, Attorney General John Ashcroft said: "Your tactics only aid terrorists." One recent ad asserts, "Some call for us to retreat, putting our national security in the hands of others."

But the real story is far different, as the following internal Department of Justice (DoJ) documents obtained by the Center for American Progress demonstrate. The Bush Administration actually reversed the Clinton Administration's strong emphasis on counterterrorism and counterintelligence. Attorney General John Ashcroft not only moved aggressively to reduce DoJ's anti-terrorist budget but also shift DoJ's mission in spirit to emphasize its role as a domestic police force and anti-drug force. These changes in mission were just as critical as the budget changes, with Ashcroft, in effect, guiding the day to day decisions made by field officers and agents. And all of this while the Administration was receiving repeated warnings about potential terrorist attacks.

The Bush Administration's obsession with Iraq has completely derailed American counterterrorist efforts.

US in dilemma over oil reserve as prices soar - MARCH 19, 2004

Prediction: President Bush will (a) stay the course and lose the election or (b) flip-flop in an attempt at re-election:

Last week the Senate, after hearing arguments that the reserve was diverting oil from the market and helping to drive up prices, voted to sell millions of barrels earmarked for the reserve [ie, the Stategic Oil Reserve] and use the money for homeland security.
On Monday, Senator Barbara Boxer and Congressman Mike Thompson, both Democrats from California, wrote to US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, asking the government to stop filling the reserve.
In addition, the airline industry, faced with rising fuel prices, has been lobbying for an end to the reserve build-up.
But a spokesman for Mr Abraham, Ms Jeanne Lopatto, said the administration would stay on the course set by President George W. Bush soon after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks to fill the reserve to its current capacity, 700 million barrels, 'in a deliberate and cost-effective manner'.
The concern over the diversion of oil into the reserve comes during an election year, when many lawmakers seem eager to find a way to lower petrol prices, to keep them from becoming a campaign issue.

(Story from the Straits Times, emphasis added.) It seems that when crude prices are at the highest level since the 1990-91 Gulf War, now probably isn't the best time to top off the Strategic Oil Reserve. A related story (Oil price up, inventories in US down - Bloomberg Business News via Sydney Morning Herald) notes that

Gasoline inventories were expected to fall by 1 million barrels, based on the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 14 analysts. Demand rose to 9 million barrels a day, the highest since mid-December, the US Energy Department said in a report. Gasoline imports fell 8.5 per cent to 934,000 barrels a day.

US refiners had unexpectedly cut processing to 87.6 per cent of capacity, from 89.1 per cent the previous week.

Analysts had projected an increase in refinery utilisation to 89.6 per cent in order to start building petrol stocks for the US summer.

Why would they "unexpectedly cut processing?" The oil companies are playing tricks on us again.

Movies vs. Reality

Read Claudia Rosett's opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal: Movies (ie The Passion of Christ) vs Reality (ie Auschwitz).
First, the movie:

I'd come to Poland on other business, and I tagged along with two acquaintances to the movie that evening because I was curious. Like many, I'd followed the debate since "The Passion" began its promotional warm-up this past winter. I knew there was friction over Mr. Gibson's ugly portrayal of the Jews, especially at a time when in many parts of the world anti-Semitism is again on the rise. I'd read about the scenes in which Jesus is scourged and crucified--with the most expert special effects that 21st-century filmmaking, on a $25 million budget, can deliver.

What I had not anticipated was that "The Passion," in its frenzy to convey suffering, would inspire an urge not to weep, but chiefly to wince. Whatever faith or beliefs individual moviegoers may bring to the theater, what transpires in the film itself is a Hollywood marathon of dizzyingly bloody close-ups, some in slow motion, some moving along at a music video clip, all set to a hyperventilating score of hypnotic drumbeats and soaring chants.

Earlier that day, Ms. Rosett had visited reality (Auschwitz and Birkenau):

In the 59 years since the liberation of the Nazi death camps, so much has been said about Auschwitz that it may seem there's nothing to add. Perhaps. But some things need saying again and again. Some places need visiting by every generation, and not solely because there are crackpots at the extreme, such as Mel Gibson's father, Hutton Gibson, who would have us believe that the Holocaust was mostly fiction (his logic being, apparently, that the Nazis lacked the fuel to burn the bodies of six million Jews). We tend to remember the Nazi death camps today as a sort of shorthand for evil. I wonder how many Americans contributing to "The Passion's" $200 million take at the box office could find Auschwitz on the map.

[snip]

Auschwitz was just one hub in the sprawling system of concentration and extermination camps operated by the Nazis across Europe during World War II, but it was a big one. Early in the war, the Nazis realized that the original Auschwitz camp, with its one small gas chamber, could not begin to kill human beings on the scale they desired. Just down the road, they set up the vast Auschwitz II-Birkenau complex, equipped with four big gas chambers. At Auschwitz and Birkenau some 1.5 million human beings were murdered, most of them Jews. Those not dispatched immediately to the gas chambers served as slave laborers, usually dying within months, if not weeks, from starvation, exposure, overwork and disease.
Today there is no Technicolor gore to be viewed at Auschwitz or Birkenau. There is no music-swollen sound track. There is a short black-and-white film. There are modest kiosks at the entrances, selling books and postcards, and there are personal guides (if wanted). At Auschwitz, there are exhibits documenting a system designed to utterly dehumanize all who were forced to enter.

Prisoners spared from immediate gassing in order to perform slave labor were stripped not only of their clothes and belongings, but even of their names--replaced by tattooed numbers. A guide explains that when the camps were opened, some of the surviving children used for experiments by the notorious doctor Josef Mengele answered only to numbers; they no longer knew their own names.

A South Korean pastor I know, Benjamin Yoon, who specializes in discovering and disclosing the horrors of North Korea (a nightmare state itself), visited Auschwitz the day after I went there. He tells me he got as far as the exhibit of shoes taken off by people about to enter the gas chambers. He began wondering about the individual stories associated with each pair-and could not bear it. He had to leave.

George Bush's Record on the Environment

Read Crimes Against Nature (Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in Rolling Stone):

George W. Bush will go down in history as America's worst environmental president. In a ferocious three-year attack, the Bush administration has initiated more than 200 major rollbacks of America's environmental laws, weakening the protection of our country's air, water, public lands and wildlife. Cloaked in meticulously crafted language designed to deceive the public, the administration intends to eliminate the nation's most important environmental laws by the end of the year. Under the guidance of Republican pollster Frank Luntz, the Bush White House has actively hidden its anti-environmental program behind deceptive rhetoric, telegenic spokespeople, secrecy and the intimidation of scientists and bureaucrats. The Bush attack was not entirely unexpected. George W. Bush had the grimmest environmental record of any governor during his tenure in Texas. Texas became number one in air and water pollution and in the release of toxic chemicals. In his six years in Austin, he championed a short-term pollution-based prosperity, which enriched his political contributors and corporate cronies by lowering the quality of life for everyone else. Now President Bush is set to do the same to America. After three years, his policies are already bearing fruit, diminishing standards of living for millions of Americans.

Follow the money:

This onslaught is being coordinated through the White House Office of Management and Budget -- or, more precisely, OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, under the direction of John Graham, the engine-room mechanic of the Bush stealth strategy. Graham's specialty is promoting changes in scientific and economic assumptions that underlie government regulations -- such as recalculating cost-benefit analyses to favor polluters. Before coming to the White House, Graham was the founding director of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, where he received funding from America's champion corporate polluters: Dow Chemical, DuPont, Monsanto, Alcoa, Exxon, General Electric and General Motors.

Under the White House's guidance, the very agencies entrusted to protect Americans from polluters are laboring to destroy environmental laws. Or they've simply stopped enforcing them. Penalties imposed for environmental violations have plummeted under Bush. The EPA has proposed eliminating 270 enforcement staffers, which would drop staff levels to the lowest level ever. Inspections of polluting businesses have dipped fifteen percent. Criminal cases referred for federal prosecution have dropped forty percent. The EPA measures its success by the amount of pollution reduced or prevented as a result of its own actions. Last year, the EPA's two most senior career enforcement officials resigned after decades of service. They cited the administration's refusal to carry out environmental laws.

The White House has masked its attacks with euphemisms that would have embarrassed George Orwell. George W. Bush's "Healthy Forests" initiative promotes destructive logging of old-growth forests. His "Clear Skies" program, which repealed key provisions of the Clean Air Act, allows more emissions. The administration uses misleading code words such as streamlining or reforming instead of weakening, and thinning instead of logging.

In a March 2003 memo to Republican leadership, pollster Frank Luntz frankly outlined the White House strategy on energy and the environment: "The environment is probably the single issue on which Republicans in general and President Bush in particular are most vulnerable," he wrote, cautioning that the public views Republicans as being "in the pockets of corporate fat cats who rub their hands together and chuckle maniacally as they plot to pollute America for fun and profit." Luntz warned, "Not only do we risk losing the swing vote, but our suburban female base could abandon us as well." He recommended that Republicans don the sheep's clothing of environmental rhetoric while dismantling environmental laws.

Mr. Kennedy's article includes a brief summary of the history of environmental law, starting with ancient Rome. The article also details Mr. Bush's attacks on science in the promotion of corporate interest. In Novermber, we must get rid of America's worst environmental president by voting him out of office.

Iraq on the Record

Here's a page about the 'Iraq on the Record Report' which details false and misleading statements by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Powell, and National Security Advisor Rice. The report was prepared for Representative Henry Waxman (of the Committee on Government Reform.) The page contains a link to a pdf version of the report you can download.

Orcinus on AWOL

Mr. Bush's files tampered with? See the latest at Orcinus.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Missionaries killed in Iraq

Another BBC News story: Fourth US missionary dies in Iraq

Three of the victims of the drive-by shooting were identified by the Virginia-based Southern Baptist International Mission Board as Larry T. Elliott, 60, Jean Dover Elliott, 58, and Karen Denise Watson, 38.

The fourth dead victim will not be named until his or her family has been informed.

The group's associates in the United States said they were on a humanitarian mission, scouting for a good location for a water purification project.

I just wonder how much missionary activity will be allowed in Iraq after coalition troops leave.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

More from the real War on Terror

Pakistan's army is active in the Northwest Frontier Province, hunting down Taleban and al-Qaeda fugitives (BBC News.) Too bad Mr. Bush was so concerned about the non-threat in Iraq that he couldn't be bothered to track down the real terrorists behind 9/11. Notice the deal proposed for the terrorists that surrender:

On Monday, President Pervez Musharraf said several hundred militants could be sheltering in the remote tribal area.

He issued an ultimatum to the fugitives, whom he described as foreigners, to surrender.

"We have given them the option that if they lay down their arms we will not hand them over to any other country," he told tribal leaders in Peshawar.

Surrender, and we won't hand you over to the Americans. One of the criticisms of Senator Kerry is that he is soft on terrorists--he doesn't support the death penalty for terrorists, etc. Other countries are refusing to extradite fugitives that we want in cases involving the death penalty. So if we insist on the death penalty, we are guaranteeing that some of the bad guys will never be brought to justice in the United States. By pretending to be tough on terrorists, we end up being softer on them. I don't expect the average Republican lawmaker to be able to understand this.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Young men: take your vitamin C

Journal article--"Relation of ascorbic Acid to coronary artery calcium: the coronary artery risk development in young adults study."
Authors: Simon JA; Murtaugh MA; Gross MD; Loria CM; Hulley SB; Jacobs DR Jr
Journal: American Journal of Epidemiology 2004 Mar 15; 159 (6), pp. 581-8.
Abstract:

Ascorbic acid is an antioxidant nutrient possibly related to the development of atherosclerosis. To examine the relation between ascorbic acid and coronary artery calcium, an indicator of subclinical coronary disease, the authors analyzed data from 2,637 African-American and White men and women aged 18-30 years at baseline who were enrolled in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study (1985-2001). Participants completed diet histories at enrollment and year 7, and plasma ascorbic acid levels were obtained at year 10. Coronary artery computed tomography was performed at year 15. The authors calculated odds ratios in four biologically relevant plasma ascorbic acid categories, adjusting for possible confounding variables. When compared with men with high plasma ascorbic acid levels, men with low levels to marginally low levels had an increased prevalence of coronary artery calcium (multivariate odds ratio = 2.68, 95% confidence interval: 1.31, 5.48). Among women, the association was attenuated and nonsignificant (multivariate odds ratio = 1.50, 95% confidence interval: 0.58, 3.85). Ascorbic acid intakes from diet alone and diet plus supplements were not associated with coronary artery calcium. Low to marginally low plasma ascorbic acid levels were associated with a higher prevalence of coronary artery calcium among men but not among women.

What accounts for the difference between men and women? Presumably the researchers are attempting to control for differences in diet and supplementation. Grounds for further research . . .

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

News Flash: Mammalian Females Make Eggs Throughout Reproductive Life

This contradicts everything that was assumed to be true about female mammals: eggs are made one time and in a limited number. Instead, a new study of mice shows that eggs are replenished throughout a female's reproductive life (from New York Times.)

Dr. Jonathan Tilly and his colleagues at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital report in the journal Nature today that they have discovered numerous signposts of so-called germ-line stem cells in the ovaries of young and adult female mice — powerful and multitalented cells capable of generating a fresh batch of immature egg "seeds," as well as the ovarian infrastructure needed to bring these oocytes to fruition.

Moreover, the stem cells appear to be quite active, indicating that they are not a pool of insignificant holdovers from fetal development, but rather are busy creating new little egglets and their follicle housing on the surface of the adult ovary. Follicles are fluid-filled capsules in which oocytes (pronounced OH-oh-sites) ripen into fully formed eggs, capable of being fertilized.

If confirmed by other researchers, the results would upend a doctrine shared by reproductive biologists for 80 years: that a female mammal is born with all the oocytes and follicles she will ever have, and that her stock of eggs is steadily depleted until the procreation pantry is bare.

My question: how did this 'doctrine' get established in the first place? Did no one test this? Aren't scientists supposed to conduct experiments to test hypotheses? The article quotes skeptical scientists saying 'not so fast,' and then continues:

Scientists had long assumed there was no new egg growth after birth because many earlier analyses of animal and human ovarian tissue had failed to find evidence of cell growth or follicle regeneration.

Yet Dr. Tilly believes that the technology has markedly improved in recent years, and that numerous lines of evidence from four distinct experimental approaches in his laboratory all pointed toward egg regeneration. The researchers are known for their studies of programmed cell death — the process known to eliminate unwanted cells from the body, including old eggs and follicles — and they were seeking better ways to regulate cell death during chemotherapy and thus help protect fertility in cancer patients.

As they examined cell death in normal mouse ovaries, however, they began to realize that oocytes and follicles were dying so fast that a female mouse should exhaust virtually her entire natal complement of eggs by young adulthood. Yet the mice would remain fertile for 10 more months.

The scientists then wondered if all the supposed cell death they were seeing was merely an accumulation of old egg corpses. That made little sense: The body is compulsive about quick disposal of dead tissue. "Why should the ovary, of all places, be a garbage heap?" Dr. Tilly said.

Pressing forward, the researchers showed that cells were dividing on the surface of the ovary, indicating the possible replenishment of reproductive tissues. But were those replicating cells making new eggs?

The hallmark of egg creation is meiosis, the process that yields a reproductive cell with only half the number of chromosomes that occur in the rest of the body's cells. That genomically reduced egg is then equipped to merge with a similarly reduced sperm. Examining tissue from adult mouse ovaries, the researchers found signs of genetic activity unique to meiosis.

The researchers also worked with genetically engineered mice bearing jellyfish marker genes that turned their tissues fluorescent green. Grafting ovarian slices from normal mice onto the ovaries of the leprechaun mice, the researchers discovered pockets of white follicular tissue with green eggs inside, indicating that regeneration of the egg-follicle package must be occurring.

Finally, experiments with a chemotherapy drug called busulfan, known to selectively kill off sperm stem cells in men, likewise appeared to obliterate egg replacement in mice without killing existing eggs, leading to severe depletion of their egg stock over time. That busulfan is also known to cause sterility in women more thoroughly than most chemotherapy agents leads Dr. Tilly to suspect that women, too, possess germ-line stem cells vital to their fertility.

Dr. Tilly emphasizes that the most important proof of his premise remains to be captured: isolation of the stem cells proper. "You'd better believe we're working on it arduously night and day," he said.

UPDATE

Here are the citation details:

Title: Germline stem cells and follicular renewal in the postnatal mammalian ovary.

Journal: Nature. 2004 Mar 11;428(6979):145-50.

Authors

Johnson J, Canning J, Kaneko T, Pru JK, Tilly JL.

Abstract:

A basic doctrine of reproductive biology is that most mammalian females lose the capacity for germ-cell renewal during fetal life, such that a fixed reserve of germ cells (oocytes) enclosed within follicles is endowed at birth. Here we show that juvenile and adult mouse ovaries possess mitotically active germ cells that, based on rates of oocyte degeneration (atresia) and clearance, are needed to continuously replenish the follicle pool. Consistent with this, treatment of prepubertal female mice with the mitotic germ-cell toxicant busulphan eliminates the primordial follicle reserve by early adulthood without inducing atresia. Furthermore, we demonstrate cells expressing the meiotic entry marker synaptonemal complex protein 3 in juvenile and adult mouse ovaries. Wild-type ovaries grafted into transgenic female mice with ubiquitous expression of green fluorescent protein (GFP) become infiltrated with GFP-positive germ cells that form follicles. Collectively, these data establish the existence of proliferative germ cells that sustain oocyte and follicle production in the postnatal mammalian ovary.

Black Box Voting is the Death of Democratic Elections

More shenanigans in
Florida. (Source: New York Times.) This time:

results in Bay County showed that with more than 60 percent of precincts reporting, Richard Gephardt, who long before had pulled out of the presidential race, was beating John Kerry by two to one. "I'm devastated," the county's top election official said, promising a recount of his county's 19,000 votes.

Of course, Republicans will tell us that people are too stupid and lazy to vote correctly. That was in a county with paper ballots that can be recounted. How about the electronic voting machines?

Florida's official line is that its machines are so carefully tested, nothing can go wrong. But things already have gone wrong. In a January election in Palm Beach and Broward Counties, the victory margin was 12 votes, but the machines recorded more than 130 blank ballots. It is simply not believable that 130 people showed up to cast a nonvote, in an election with only one race on the ballot. The runner-up wanted a recount, but since the machines do not produce a paper record, there was nothing to recount.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg:

This past Tuesday, even though turnout was minimal, there were problems. Voters were wrongly given computer cards that let them vote only on local issues, not in the presidential primary. Machines did not work. And there were, no doubt, other mishaps that did not come to light because of the stunning lack of transparency around voting in the state. When a Times editorial writer dropped in on one Palm Beach precinct where there were reports of malfunctioning machines, county officials called the police to remove him.

The biggest danger of electronic voting, however, cannot be seen from the outside. Computer scientists warn that votes, and whole elections, can be stolen by rigging the code that runs the machines. The only defense is a paper record of every vote cast, a "voter-verified paper trail," which can be counted if the machines' tallies are suspect. Given its history, Florida should be a leader in requiring paper trails. But election officials, including Theresa LePore, the Palm Beach County elections supervisor who was responsible for the butterfly ballot, have refused to put them in place.

My prediction: 'malfunctions' in the November election will miraculously keep Florida's electoral votes in the Bush column.

Chess player Garry Kasparov criticizes Vladimir Putin on election day in Russia

From the Daily Telegraph 'Our president who rules without checks':

A suggestion to the West, then. If you don't condemn what is going on in Russia just stay away. If you give tacit approval to Mr Putin's actions by "expressing concern" and doing nothing you may as well present him with open congratulations for rigging elections, imprisoning detractors, and taking control of the media.

There can hardly be space in this newspaper to review all of the Kremlin's activities toward centralising power and silencing the opposition, so a few well-chosen examples must suffice. After all, this Putin regime is a new type of police state with a mix of both old and new anti-democratic machinery.

Mr. Kasparov's list:

Chechnya is used a bogeyman

Only Putin loyalists are allowed to run television stations or newspapers

Putin requires bribes from businesses--or they are prosecuted on flimsy pretexts.

In January, the Free Choice 2008 Committee was established to work towards truly free elections for Russia's president in 2008:

We are attempting to call global attention to the disaster that is occurring in Russia.

The committee is working with various non-government organisations inside and outside of the country in order to document the abuses of the Putin regime while there is still time to remedy them.

The committee's central call is for the lawful election of the Russian president in 2008. We seek to prevent any foul play with the constitution that would allow the sitting president to stay in power. The committee hopes to organise a movement toward general, free and fair elections. Without such elections there will be no protection for the rights of the minority, and the rapid slide into completely authoritarian rule will pick up speed.

The Free Choice 2008 Committee is also tackling the many violations that occurred during the December elections. We are meeting to consider challenges in the Russian court system, ending if necessary in the Supreme Court.

We recognise the enormity of the challenge and seek to enlist the aid of the western nations that so often claim to defend democracy wherever it is threatened. It is worth noting that European parliaments have been freer to condemn Russia's failures than the leaders of these countries, all of whom have remained all but silent.

The engagement of countries such as the UK and the US is not only essential for them to avoid charges of hypocrisy; there is a moral imperative at stake as well. As Gladstone said in 1879 regarding Disraeli's foreign policy: "Remember that the sanctity of human life in the hill villages of Afghanistan among the winter snows is as inviolable in the eye of Almighty God as can be your own."

Modifications of Chess for War Research

Researchers in Sweden and Australia are Modifying chess to study the importance of information, materiel, and tempo in warfare (Emma Young in The Guardian):

On the face of it, the bloodless, low-tech game of chess might seem to bear little resemblance to modern warfare. "But it resembles real war in many respects," maintains Jan Kuylenstierna, one of the Swedish researchers. "Chess involves a struggle of will, and it contains what has been termed the essentials of fighting - to strike, to move and to protect." By studying chess and other adversarial abstract games such as checkers (draughts), researchers can strip away some of the confusion of the battlefield and identify the factors that are most important for winning, says Jason Scholz, who leads the Australian work. "The strength of this approach is our level of abstraction," Scholz says.

But neither group is studying standard games. By modifying key variables, such as the number of moves al lowed each turn, or whether one player can see all of the other's pieces, they are investigating the relative importance of a host of factors that translate to the battlefield, such as numerical superiority, a quick advance and the use of stealth.

"There's all sorts of anecdotal evidence that there are certain factors in warfare that are important, and people talk about having a strong operational tempo, and that kind of thing," says Greg Calbert, a mathematician on Scholz's team. "But even today there's debate over what really counts. How important is stealth over tempo, or tempo over numerical strength? That's what we wanted to find out." As well as informing fundamental military theory, this kind of information could have a big impact on how army procurement officers choose to spend their budget. There might be urgent calls for more tanks or better surveillance devices - when, in fact, to win the next war the money might be better spent on faster communications systems, for instance.

One major difference between chess and war is that chess does not contain what the military terms "information uncertainty". Unlike a battle commander, who may have incomplete intelligence about his opponent's level of weaponry or location of munitions depots, one chess player can always see the other's pieces, and note their every move. So Kuylenstierna and his colleagues asked players to compete with a board each and an opaque screen between them. A game leader transferred each player's moves to the other's board - but not always instantaneously. For instance, one game modification resulted in a player being prevented from seeing their opponent's latest two moves.

These games, and other variations on regular play, led the team to a clear conclusion: being stronger and having more "battlespace information" than your opponent are both less valuable when there is little information available overall to both sides - but the advantage of a fast pace remains. "The value of information superiority is strongly tempered by uncertainty, whereas the value of superior tempo is much less affected," says Kuylenstierna.

Uncertainty is often a problem in war. So in practical terms, launching a rapid attack might provide a better chance of winning than trying to gain more information about the battlefield situation, or ensuring that you have numerical strength over your opponent. "To what extent these findings have had any influence on decisions made by the Swedish military I dare not say - but they continue to sponsor our work," Kuylenstierna adds.

Here is a link to a report of the Swedish team's chess research (pdf). And here is a link to a PowerPoint slideshow on the Australian team's conclusions (pdf).

David Kay on WMD

Mr. Kay tells George 'It's not my fault' Bush to admit mistake about Iraq's WMD (Julian Borger, in The Guardian):

David Kay, the man who led the CIA's postwar effort to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, has called on the Bush administration to "come clean with the American people" and admit it was wrong about the existence of the weapons.

In an interview with the Guardian, Mr Kay said the administration's reluctance to make that admission was delaying essential reforms of US intelligence agencies, and further undermining its credibility at home and abroad.

Instead, I predict Mr. Bush and his cronies will continue to claim they were right about Iraq's weapons:

His call for a frank admission is an embarrassment for the White House at the start of an election year. The defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, has dismissed Mr Kay's assertion that there were no WMD at the start of the Iraq war as a "theory" that was "possible, but not likely".

In his state of the union speech in January, George Bush did not refer to his prewar claims that Iraq was an "immediate threat" but instead said the ISG had found "weapons of mass destruction-related programme activities".

Mr Kay, who was formerly a UN weapons inspector, called for the president to go further. "It's about confronting and coming clean with the American people. He should say we were mistaken and I am determined to find out why," he said.

A White House official said it was too early to draw conclusions: "The ISG is still working, and the commission on this has not even started."

File this under "Maybe they should have thought of that sooner"

Now, Paul Bremer has announced new measures to improve Iraq's border security (BBC NEWS.) They are going to reduce the number of crossing points between Iraq and Iran to three, and double the number of border police. Wow, we have occupied Iraq for almost a year, and we finally realize that maybe it's not a good idea to have lawless anarchy at Iraq's borders. The imcompetence of the Bush administration is breathtaking.

'sex boost' muesli

Somehow, muesli with milk and Guinness does not sound like a sex booster to me. (from BBC News.) Sales in the Caribbean have surged 30% as the rumor spreads:

Young men in Jamaica are buying the Super High Fibre muesli to mix it with milk and Guinness for an energy-boosting recipe.

Now Dorset Cereals, based in Prince Charles' model village Poundbury, is gearing up to meet increased demand.

The firm only found out about the story after its exporters were asked to explain the soaring sales.

News flash: scientist says God probably exists

Whatever Dr Stephen Unwin is doing, it isn't science (from The Guardian.)

A scientist has calculated that there is a 67% chance that God exists.

Dr Stephen Unwin has used a 200-year-old formula to calculate the probability of the existence of an omnipotent being. Bayes' Theory is usually used to work out the likelihood of events, such as nuclear power failure, by balancing the various factors that could affect a situation.

The Manchester University graduate, who now works as a risk assessor in Ohio, said the theory starts from the assumption that God has a 50/50 chance of existing, and then factors in the evidence both for and against the notion of a higher being.

Factors that were considered included recognition of goodness, which Dr Unwin said makes the existence of God more likely, countered by things like the existence of natural evil - including earthquakes and cancer.

The unusual workings - which even take into account the existence of miracles - are set out in his new book, which includes a spreadsheet of the data used so that anyone can make the calculation themselves should they doubt its validity. The book, The Probability of God: A simple calculation that proves the ultimate truth, will be published later this month.

South Africa--Quotes in the news

Lip service (News 24, South Africa):

'Does President Mbeki really need five valets to attend to his wardrobe?' - Democratic Alliance chief election spokesperson Douglas Gibson in a statement in reaction to advertisements for 63 new household staff for Mbeki, including five new valets; 13 new housekeeping managers, supervisors and assistants; three drivers; and 11 new catering managers, chefs, and kitchen assistants.

'By contrast, His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, has only two butlers, one valet, five housekeepers and managers, three chefs, and two chauffeurs in his total staff complement.' - Gibson.

'While the Democratic Alliance, without responsibility for governance, seeks votes above all else, the President and government must continue to function at all times.' - The African National Congress, on the sought staff. The ANC said the posts had been budgeted for and did not represent new spending by the government.

News Flash: Coin Toss is Not Random

Toss Out the Toss-Up: Bias in heads-or-tails: Science News Online, Feb. 28, 2004:

A new mathematical analysis suggests that coin tossing is inherently biased: A coin is more likely to land on the same face it started out on.

'I don't care how vigorously you throw it, you can't toss a coin fairly,' says Persi Diaconis, a statistician at Stanford University who performed the study with Susan Holmes of Stanford and Richard Montgomery of the University of California, Santa Cruz.

In 1986, mathematician Joseph Keller [link only has picture and e-mail address], now an emeritus professor at Stanford, proved that one fair way to toss a coin is to throw it so that it spins perfectly around a horizontal axis through the coin's center.

Such a perfect toss would require superhuman precision. Every other possible toss is biased, according to an analysis described on Feb. 14 in Seattle at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The title of Dr. Diaconis' lecture: "The Search for Randomness"

So, how biased is a coin toss?

Their preliminary data suggest that a coin will land the same way it started about 51 percent of the time. It would take about 10,000 tosses before a casual observer would become aware of such a small bias, Diaconis says. "Maybe that's why society hasn't noticed this before," he says.

Sounds like grounds for an experiment!

By the way, Dr. Diaconis has an interesting 'hobby'--he catches so-called psychics cheating:

Diaconis' strong background in magic has proved useful in another area -- catching "psychics" cheating. If a person, even a well-trained scientist, has not had experience with human subjects and with cueing (subtle, body-language hints), then it is extremely difficult to spot what is wrong. Diaconis, however, is an expert at deception and has found cheating, or failure to perform, with every psychic he has been allowed to observe. Statistics is useful for spotting the errors and fallacies in the more 'scientific' parapsychology studies.

(This is from the mini-biography at the AAAS Annual meeting website.)

Translated Text of Iraq's 'Interim Basic Law'

Also known as Iraq's transitional Constitution (from Iraq Today, English language newspaper in Iraq)

Here is Article 4:

The system of government in Iraq shall be republican, federal, democratic, and pluralistic, and powers shall be shared between the federal government and the regional governments, governorates, municipalities, and local administrations. The federal system shall be based upon geographic and historical realities and the separation of powers, and not upon origin, race, ethnicity, nationality, or confession.

It will be interesting to see if this 'federal system' will be able to hold together, or if Iraq will be partitioned into Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish regions.

Here is Article 7:

A) Islam is the official religion of the State and is to be considered a source of legislation. No law that contradicts the universally agreed tenets of Islam, the principles of democracy, or the rights cited in Chapter Two of this Law may be enacted during the transitional period. This Law respects the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people and guarantees the full religious rights of all individuals to freedom of religious belief and practice.

(B) Iraq is a country of many nationalities, and the Arab people in Iraq are an inseparable part of the Arab nation.

I suppose this is politically necessary, but I am opposed to any state having an 'official religion.' This will give Iraq the constitutional grounds to restrict Christian missionary efforts while supposedly protecting "freedom of religious belief and practice" and actually protecting "the Islamic identity of the majority."

Here is Article 14:

The individual has the right to security, education, health care, and social security. The Iraqi State and its governmental units, including the federal government, the regions, governorates, municipalities, and local administrations, within the limits of their resources and with due regard to other vital needs, shall strive to provide prosperity and employment opportunities to the people.

This is similar to the former Soviet Union's constitution--it looks good on paper, but not a reflection of reality.

Here is Article 17:

It shall not be permitted to possess, bear, buy, or sell arms except on licensure issued in accordance with the law.

Uh oh. How did this one slip by the Bush Administration? Shouldn't this read A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed?

Here is Article 23:

The enumeration of the foregoing rights must not be interpreted to mean that they are the only rights enjoyed by the Iraqi people. They enjoy all the rights that befit a free people possessed of their human dignity, including the rights stipulated in international treaties and agreements, other instruments of international law that Iraq has signed and to which it has acceded, and others that are deemed binding upon it, and in the law of nations. Non-Iraqis within Iraq shall enjoy all human rights not inconsistent with their status as non-citizens.

This provision parallels the Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but then extends it to include international law. (gasp!)

Plus, there are the 'nuts and bolts' details about the structure and function and timetable of the Iraqi Government in this transition.

Newest and deepest Hubble image

Hubble image kicks off astronomy race: Researchers rush to translate image of early Universe.:

A new Hubble Space Telescope image has given astronomers their deepest ever view into the Universe - and started a race to decipher it.
The Hubble Ultra Deep Field image reveals some of the farthest and youngest galaxies ever seen, whose light was previously too faint to be detected. It includes objects from a mere 500 million years after the Big Bang; the Universe is thought to be 13-14 billion years old.
To produce the image, Hubble focused on a spot in the sky in the Fornax constellation, below Orion, between September 2003 and January 2004. The collected data were released to eager scientists around the world on Tuesday 9 March.
Scientists say that the image surpasses the telescope's previous efforts: the Hubble Deep Field images taken in 1995 and 1998. It was collected over 410 orbits of the Earth, several hundred more than was used for the earlier images.

Look here for links to the images: Hubblesite. (links to temporary mirror sites for now)
Beautiful.

Bush Administration manipulated Iraq intelligence

From Salon.com, here is a report by Karen Kwiatkowski, a former Air Force lieutenant colonel, showing how the Bush Administration twisted and exagerated intelligence to promote the war with Iraq. (If you're not a subscriber, you'll have to watch an ad for a free day pass to Salon.com)

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Grown ups: do not play with guns!

BBC NEWS: Man killed in Masonic gun ritual

An initiation ceremony at a Masonic Lodge in New York has ended in tragedy after a man was killed during a ritual for new members.
William James was accidentally shot in the head when a lodge member used a real gun instead of a blank pistol by mistake.
[snip]
Cans were placed on a small platform around his head.

When the gun was fired another member was supposed to knock the cans off as if they had been hit by bullets.

The aim was to frighten their new recruit.

But Albert Eid, a long-serving freemason, had two guns in his pocket, one with blanks and one with real bullets.

He apparently pulled the wrong one, killing Mr James.

Which candidate is the waffle?

Future post I am working on--watch for an update.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Republicans waste money on Ghost Town Orange

I hope they're paying big bucks to advertise on my anti-Bush blog; especially since I do not get much traffic since I do absolutely nothing to publicize it. This is just a place to store my thoughts. At least I am glad that cheat services aren't advertising on my blog anymore--I've stopped writing frequently about e**ays and p*pe*s.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Ignore national poll numbers

Look at state-by-state polls of likely voters and the resulting electoral college totals (Zogby Sound Bites! as of February 26, 2004) Senator Kerry comfortably leads in states with a total of 226 electoral votes; President Bush leads in states with 176 electoral votes; another 136 electoral votes are up for grabs in 10 states. Remember, the candidate must get 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.

New theme music for Ghost Town Orange

Great God, attend
Lyrics: Isaac Watts

Great God, attend, while Zion sings
The joy that from Thy presence springs;
To spend one more day with Thee on earth,
Exceeds a thousand days of mirth.

Performed by the Sacred Harp Singers in September 1938.
Recorded by John Work, possibly in Dothan, Tennessee.
MP3 found at the Library of Congress's American Memory website.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Ralph Nader is a Fraud, part 3

For more criticism of the phony Ralph Nader, check out this article THE MYTH OF THE 'GOOD' NADER / Make You Ralph by Jonathan Chait in the March 8 issue of the New Republic. The main point of the article is Mr. Nader's long-standing hostility to liberals and over-all ineffectiveness in the realm of politics:

The qualities that liberals have observed in him of late--the monomania, the vindictiveness, the rage against pragmatic liberalism--have been present all along.

Nader's first crusade: against the Chevy Corvair:

Justin Martin, in his fair-minded 2002 biography, Nader: Crusader, Spoiler, Icon, shows how Nader hounded liberal Connecticut Senator Abraham Ribicoff into investigating whether GM had lied about what it knew in testimony before Congress. In a letter to Ribicoff, Nader wrote, "Now comes decisive evidence which reveals a labyrinthic and systematic intra-company collusion, involving high General Motors officials, to sequester and suppress company data and films." Nader insisted he had an array of inside sources and documents that would reveal this conspiracy. Ribicoff dutifully assigned a pair of staffers to the case, and they spent two years chasing down Nader's leads. None of them panned out. The investigators found no evidence that GM knew of the Corvair's safety flaws. The failure to confirm Nader's suspicions enraged him. "He could not let go of the Corvair issue," one of the staffers told Martin. "He was fixated. And, if you didn't accept or believe the same things he did, you were either stupid or venal."

(my emphasis added.) Do not confuse Mr. Nader with the facts; if you disagree with him you are a part of the corporate conspiracy against him.
In the legislative process, Mr. Nader has a pattern of holding out for the 'perfect bill,' savagely attacking any liberal politician that has any doubts about his proposals. One example of several in Chait's article:

He attacked Colorado liberal Pat Schroeder, who had supported earlier versions of the CPA but had minor reservations this time, as a "mushy liberal" selling her vote to corporate contributors.

I vaguely remember $1 or $2 of UCLA student fees automatically going to something called CALPIRG--now I find out that PIRGs were Nader-sponsored activist groups:

In the 1970s, he worked to establish automatic funding for Public Interest Research Groups (pirg) on campus--proto-Naderite outfits to train the next generation of like-minded activists. Nader's preferred funding mechanism was for every student to automatically contribute $1; those who objected could go to the college administration for a refund.

Mr. Nader's conviction that there is no substantial difference between the Republican and Democratic Parties is at least 20 years old:

In 1980, Nader told Rolling Stone, "In the last year we've seen the 'corporatization' of Jimmy Carter. Whereas he was impotent and kind of pathetic the first year and a half, he's now surrendered. ... The two-party system, by all criteria, is bankrupt--they have nothing of any significance to offer the voters, so a lot of voters say why should they go and vote for Tweedledum and Tweedledee." (Liberals today who anguish over Nader's insistence that no important differences exist between the two parties should note that this belief dates back more than two decades.)

Mr. Chaite concludes his article:

It's therefore both comic and sad when liberals take Nader at his word that he does not believe he affected the outcome of the 2000 race. The website RalphDontRun.net patiently explains how, if Al Gore had netted even 1 percent of Nader's 97,000 Florida votes, he would have overcome Bush's 537-vote margin. Like other liberals, the people behind the website seem to think, if they could only persuade Nader that his candidacy might help reelect Bush, it would dissuade him from running. More likely, it would have the opposite effect. The real mystery is not why Nader would do something so destructive to liberalism. It's why anybody ever thought he wouldn't.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Plame investigation

Karl Rove admits circulating and discussing 'damaging information' about CIA operative Valerie Plame, but denies being the source of the leak to Robert Novak (Murray S. Waas article at The American Prospect website, March 8, 2004.):

Rove and other White House officials described to the FBI what sources characterized as an aggressive campaign to discredit Wilson through the leaking and disseminating of derogatory information regarding him and his wife to the press, utilizing proxies such as conservative interest groups and the Republican National Committee to achieve those ends, and distributing talking points to allies of the administration on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. Rove is said to have named at least six other administration officials who were involved in the effort to discredit Wilson.

Why aren't these people heading to federal prison already?

Discrimination

Britain's MI5 discriminates against tall spies (by Martin Wainright, in the Guardian):

Ignoring the imposing stature of all five actors who have played James Bond, recruiters plan to operate the equivalent of a funfair ride measurement check. Short-listed men are likely to go no further if they top 5ft 11in; women if they stand taller than the 5ft 8in of MI5's current director, Eliza Manningham-Buller.

The warning is part of the ancient spying tradition of 'bland is beautiful', based on the theory that the best agents blend as boringly as possible into their surroundings.

In Bond's exotic world, the 6ft-plus of Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan arguably meets this criterion. However, real-life spies spend less time in casinos, luxury hotels and private pools.

The agency advises on its application forms: 'You should be able to blend into the background. We are looking for average height, build, appearance.'

Alas, I am too tall to blend into the background.

Cancel that powerwebmusic

I notice that Jewel's singing spawns deceptive pop-ups, so I am cancelling Ghost Town Orange's theme music.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Sunday readings

For the second Sunday of Lent:
Jeremiah 26:8-15

But as soon as Jeremiah finished telling all the people everything the LORD had commanded him to say, the priests, the prophets and all the people seized him and said, "You must die! Why do you prophesy in the LORD'S name that this house will be like Shiloh and this city will be desolate and deserted?" And all the people crowded around Jeremiah in the house of the LORD.

When the officials of Judah heard about these things, they went up from the royal palace to the house of the LORD and took their places at the entrance of the New Gate of the LORD'S house. Then the priests and the prophets said to the officials and all the people, "This man should be sentenced to death because he has prophesied against this city. You have heard it with your own ears!"

Then Jeremiah said to all the officials and all the people: "The LORD sent me to prophesy against this house and this city all the things you have heard. Now reform your ways and your actions and obey the LORD your God. Then the LORD will relent and not bring the disaster he has pronounced against you. As for me, I am in your hands; do with me whatever you think is good and right. Be assured, however, that if you put me to death, you will bring the guilt of innocent blood on yourselves and on this city and on those who live in it, for in truth the LORD has sent me to you to speak all these words in your hearing."

Philippians 3:17-4:1

Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you. For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

Therefore, my brothers, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, that is how you should stand firm in the Lord, dear friends!

Luke 13:31-35

At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, "Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you."

He replied, "Go tell that fox, 'I will drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.' In any case, I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day--for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'[Psalm 118:26]

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Bush Campaign Shamelessly Exploits 9/11

The first TV ads reveal the desperation of the Bush campaign:

Bush-Cheney '04
TV: 30

"Safer, Stronger"

President Bush:
I'm George W. Bush and I approve this message.

Graphics:
January 2001: The challenge:
An economy in recession. ["It's not my fault."]
A stock market in decline. ["It's not my fault."]
A dot com boom....gone bust. ["It's not my fault."] Then...
A day of tragedy. A test for all Americans.
Today, America is turning the corner. [by preparing to vote against Mr. Bush?]
Rising to the challenge.
Safer, stronger.
President Bush. Steady leadership in times of change.

Or another:

Bush-Cheney '04
TV: 30

"Tested"

President Bush:
I'm George W. Bush and I approve this message.

VO:
The last few years have tested America in many ways.
Some challenges we've seen before.
And some were like no others.
But America rose to the challenge. [by attacking a country not responsible for 9/11.]
What sees us through tough times?
Freedom, faith, families, and sacrifice. [sacrifice of soldiers' lives--not rich people's taxes]

President Bush. Steady leadership in times of change. [Deficits as far as the eye can see.]

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)