Horse Race

Is it over yet? Almost. Here are the numbers from the Green Papers:

Candidate              hard      soft

John F. Kerry        1,187   1,324.5

John Edwards         452      476 (has withdrawn)

Howard Dean           66      120.5 (has withdrawn) 

Wesley K. Clark        63        68 (has withdrawn)

Alfred C. Sharpton    20        20 (probable quit soon)

Dennis J. Kucinich     12        19 (says he will continue)

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.)

Big Brother is Watching

Phillip Adams (one of my favorite columnists and host of 'Late Night Live' on Australia's Radio National [recent shows available on demand using RealPlayer) has a column in the Australian commenting on Tony Blair's bugging of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. After speculating about the probability of other opponents of the war in Iraq being bugged by MI5, CIA, etc., Mr. Adams comments on the ubiquity of 'bugs' and how the battle to protect our privacy has been lost:

Those of us on the political Left are used to it. They've been bugging us since the early '60s. It hardly compares with what the Stasi was doing in East Germany during the Cold War, but you got used to hearing all sorts of odd clicks on your phone line. Decades later, I'm still trying to get my ASIO files. At first there was a blanket denial that they existed. More recently, ASIO admitted that they couldn't be handed over – for fear of revealing the identity of their dobbers. As Labor icon Jim Cairns once warned me, some of our best friends were enemies.

So one hopes that the surveillance of the Secretary-General and other upper echelon UN figures won't be hastily erased by Bush and Blair. Let's demand the right to hear this material, to be taken backstage in this mightiest of power plays.

Few, if any, can escape the electronic net. It's not just that you're under surveillance from cameras that watch you misbehaving on railway stations or shoplifting in department stores. It was revealed years ago that the US has an immense filtering system – a technology that screens and sifts every electronic communication on the planet.

Scores of satellites, with a little help from ground stations such as Pine Gap, check out the billions of emails, trying to separate spam from terrorist traffic. But can we be sure that all those offers of penis enlargement and discounted Viagra aren't, in fact, coded messages from al-Qa'ida operatives?

So make no mistake. Your personal emails are being read before you can open them. Can you keep a secret? I don't suppose you can.

I recently attended an international conference of privacy commissioners, hundreds of them, from across the world. Although some of them were still urging their respective governments to pass privacy laws, most conceded that the battle is lost.

Just as sexual censorship is impotent in the face of all-at-once, show-and-tell technologies, the notion of secrecy is becoming anachronistic. Like it or not, transparency applies to your life. Only the machinations of our governments remain opaque.

. . . no-bid contracts; 'unvarnished advice' in secret meetings; denouncing armed thugs and drug dealers while putting them in power (Haiti) . . .

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.)

Republican lies about Senator Kerry

Over the past couple of weeks I have heard Sean Hannity constantly accuse Senator Kerry of voting against every weapons system that is being used in the war on terror. Also, Mr. Hannity accuses Senator Kerry of voting to "gut" American intelligence. All Republican lies and distortions (follow the link to Fred Kaplan's story in Slate, which explains all.) I am sorry that Mr. Hannity has so many listeners that believe everything he says--he is a liar.

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.)

My Representative in Congress is an Idiot

Rep. Tom Cole claims a vote against the re-election of President Bush is like supporting Adolph Hitler during World War Two.

I promise you this, if George Bush loses the election, Osama bin Laden wins the election, it's that simple. It will be interpreted that way by enemies of the United States around the world

I wonder if any Republicans voted against President Roosevelt during WWII? They must have been Hitler supporters too.

Mr. Cole just recently mailed me some constituent mail campaign literature informing me how hard he is working at reducing the Federal deficit. He mailed thousands of these postcards at government expense--and their obvious purpose is to help him get re-elected. Only in Washington can you contribute to the deficit while claiming that you're against it--and getting the taxpayers to subsidize your re-election campaign at the same time.

Egad! The Republican National Committee is advertising on Ghost Town Orange

[Please do not contribute to Republicans. Thank you.]

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 2

Another in my occasional series. This installment features an article in LA Weekly by Doug Ireland-- "Nader and the Newmanites":

Nader has now jumped into bed with the ultrasectarian cult-racket formerly known as the New Alliance Party and its guru, Fred Newman: Ralph was the star attraction at a January conference of “independents” that was just a front for the Newmanite crazies. By rejecting the Greens’ ballot line, Nader will have huge difficulties getting his name on the ballot. So he went shopping for help in ballot access from the Newmanites. The New York Times reported Nader says he’ll “link up” with existing “independent” parties in New York and elsewhere — which can only mean the Newmanites (who control New York’s Independence Party and similar remnants of the Reform Party in many states).

This cult is the antithesis of every value Nader holds dear. A Maoist grouplet in the ’70s, the Newmanites morphed into supporters of Pat Buchanan in the Hitler-coddling commentator’s 2000 takeover of the Reform Party. Newman recruits and controls his followers through a brainwashing scheme baptized “social therapy,” designed to create blind allegiance to Newman. He has frequently dipped his rhetoric in the poisonous blood-libel of anti-Semitism, denouncing Jews as “storm troopers of decadent capitalism.” By French-kissing the cultists to get on the ballot, Nader has allowed himself to be used as bait to lure the unsuspecting into the Newmanite orbit, where they risk being sucked into the cult. That’s a betrayal of the many young people to whom Nader is still a hero. And an acid commentary on Nader’s judgment.

The groundswell of support Nader claims exists only in his mind. When the Times asked him if he wasn’t troubled by the fact that, on Meetup.com, only 375 people had registered for him — compared to 188,000 for Dean, 45,000 for Kerry, 23,000 for Kucinich and 9,000 for Edwards — Nader’s mind-boggling response was: “I really don’t deal with the Web. There isn’t time in the day to go into virtual reality.”

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.)

Democracy Now! | EXCLUSIVE BREAKING NEWS:PRESIDENT ARISTIDE SAYS 'I WAS KIDNAPPED' 'TELL THE WORLD IT IS A COUP'

If there's any doubt, Aristide was taken out in a US led coup d'etat: Democracy Now! | EXCLUSIVE BREAKING NEWS:PRESIDENT ARISTIDE SAYS 'I WAS KIDNAPPED' 'TELL THE WORLD IT IS A COUP'

Representative Maxine Waters spoke with former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide this morning:

He said that he was kidnapped; he said that he was forced to leave Haiti. He said that the American embassy sent the diplomats; he referred to them as, to his home where they was lead by Mr. Moreno. And I believe that Mr. Moreno is a deputy chief of staff at the embassy in Haiti and other diplomats, and they ordered him to leave. They said you must go NOW. He said that they said that Guy Phillipe and U.S. Marines were coming to Port Au Prince; he will be killed, many Haitians will be killed, that they would not stop until they did what they wanted to do.

I'm going to put two and two together and say that Mr. Moreno is an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Notice what this article tells about the anti-Aristide plotting in the US government:

The departure of Haiti's Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a victory for a Bush administration hard-liner who has been long dedicated to Aristide's ouster, U.S. foreign policy analysts say.

That official is Roger Noriega, assistant U.S. secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, whose influence over U.S. policy toward Haiti has increased during the past decade as he climbed the diplomatic ladder in Washington.

"Roger Noriega has been dedicated to ousting Aristide for many, many years, and now he's in a singularly powerful position to accomplish it," Robert White, a former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador and Paraguay, said last week.

White, now president of the Center for International Policy, a think tank in Washington, said Noriega's ascent largely has been attributed to his ties to North Carolina Republican Jesse Helms, an arch-conservative foe of Aristide who had behind-the-scenes influence over policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean before retiring from the Senate two years ago.

"Helms didn't just dislike Aristide, Helms loathed Aristide because he saw in Aristide another Castro," said Larry Birns, director of the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs, which has been strongly critical of the Bush administration's policy on Haiti.

Working hand in hand with Noriega on Haiti has been National Security Council envoy Otto Reich, who, like Noriega, is ardently opposed to Cuban leader Fidel Castro, say analysts such as Birns. Washington diplomats have seen Aristide as a leftist who is often fierce in his denunciations of the business class and slow to make recommended changes such as privatizing state-run industries.

"On a day-to-day basis, Roger Noriega [has been] making policy, but with a very strong role played by Otto Reich," Birns said.

Reich is a controversial Cuban-American criticized by some who have lingering concerns about his contacts with opposition figures who plotted a short-lived coup against Venezuela's leftist president, Hugo Chávez, two years ago. Reich also is linked to the Iran-contra scandal of two decades ago that was part of President Ronald Reagan's policy of defeating Marxists in Central America.

The Bush Administration is still itching to remove Venezuela president Hugo Chávez.

American Beef Industry would rather commit suicide than test cattle for BSE

One Producer of U.S. Beef Wants to Test All Its Cattle

Sunday readings

For the first Sunday of Lent:
Deuteronomy 26:5-10

Then you shall declare before the LORD your God: "My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous. But the Egyptians mistreated us and made us suffer, putting us to hard labor. Then we cried out to the LORD, the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice and saw our misery, toil and oppression. So the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and with miraculous signs and wonders. He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey; and now I bring the firstfruits of the soil that you, O LORD, have given me." Place the basket before the LORD your God and bow down before him.

Romans 10:8b-13

"The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,"[Deut. 30:14] that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame."[Isaiah 28:16] For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile--the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."[Joel 2:32]

Luke 4:1-13

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.

The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread."

Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone.'"[Deut. 8:3]

The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, "I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours."

Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.'"[Deut. 6:13]

The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down from here. For it is written: "'He will command his angels concerning you
to guard you carefully;
they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'"[Psalm 91:11,12]

Jesus answered, "It says: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"[Deut. 6:16]

When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.

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.)

Here's something the 'liberal media' will bury

John Kerry's speech:
Fighting a Comprehensive War on Terrorism Here are some excerpts:

This war isn’t just a manhunt – a checklist of names from a deck of cards. In it, we do not face just one man or one terrorist group. We face a global jihadist movement of many groups, from different sources, with separate agendas, but all committed to assaulting the United States and free and open societies around the globe.

As CIA Director George Tenet recently testified: “They are not all creatures of bin Laden, and so their fate is not tied to his. They have autonomous leadership, they pick their own targets, they plan their own attacks.”

At the core of this conflict is a fundamental struggle of ideas. Of democracy and tolerance against those who would use any means and attack any target to impose their narrow views.

The War on Terror is not a clash of civilizations. It is a clash of civilization against chaos; of the best hopes of humanity against dogmatic fears of progress and the future.

Like all Americans, I responded to President Bush’s reassuring words in the days after September 11th. But since then, his actions have fallen short.

I do not fault George Bush for doing too much in the War on Terror; I believe he’s done too little.

Here are some of the main points of Senator Kerry's plan:

First, if I am President I will not hesitate to order direct military action when needed to capture and destroy terrorist groups and their leaders. George Bush inherited the strongest military in the world – and he has weakened it. What George Bush and his armchair hawks have never understood is that our military is about more than moving pins on a map or buying expensive new weapons systems.

America’s greatest military strength has always been the courageous, talented men and women whose love of country and devotion to service lead them to attempt and achieve the impossible everyday.

[snip: the Bush administration's failures]

Second, if I am President I will strengthen the capacity of intelligence and law enforcement at home and forge stronger international coalitions to provide better information and the best chance to target and capture terrorists even before they act.

But the challenge for us is not to cooperate abroad; it is to coordinate here at home. Whether it was September 11th or Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction, we have endured unprecedented intelligence failures. We must do what George Bush has refused to do – reform our intelligence system by making the next Director of the CIA a true Director of National Intelligence with real control of intelligence personnel and budgets. We must train more analysts in languages like Arabic. And we must break down the old barriers between national intelligence and local law enforcement.

In the months leading up to September 11th, two of the hijackers were arrested for drunk driving – and another was stopped for speeding and then let go, although he was already the subject of an arrest warrant in a neighboring county and was on a federal terrorist watch list. We need to simplify and streamline the multiple national terrorist watch lists and make sure the right information is available to the right people on the frontlines of preventing the next attack.

[snip: the Bush administration's failures]

Third, we must cut off the flow of terrorist funds. In the case of Saudi Arabia, the Bush Administration has adopted a kid-glove approach to the supply and laundering of terrorist money. If I am President, we will impose tough financial sanctions against nations or banks that engage in money laundering or fail to act against it. We will launch a "name and shame" campaign against those that are financing terror. And if they do not respond, they will be shut out of the U.S. financial system.

Fourth, because finding and defeating terrorist groups is a long-term effort, we must act immediately to prevent terrorists from acquiring nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. I propose to appoint a high-level Presidential envoy empowered to bring other nations together to secure and stop the spread of these weapons. We must develop common standards to make sure dangerous materials and armaments are tracked, accounted for, and secured. Today, parts of Russia’s vast nuclear arsenal are easy prey for those offering cash to scientists and security forces who too often are under-employed and under-paid. If I am President, I will expand the Nunn/Lugar program to buy up and destroy the loose nuclear materials of the former Soviet Union and to ensure that all of Russia’s nuclear weapons and materials are out of the reach of terrorists and off the black market.

[snip: our responsibility in Iraq and Afghanistan]

But nothing else will matter unless we win the war of ideas. In failed states from South Asia to the Middle East to Central Africa, the combined weight of harsh political repression, economic stagnation, lack of education, and rapid population growth presents the potential for explosive violence and the enlistment of entire new legions of terrorists. In Saudi Arabia and Egypt, almost sixty percent of the population is under the age of 30, unemployed and unemployable, in a breeding ground for present and future hostility. And according to a Pew Center poll, fifty percent or more of Indonesians, Jordanians, Pakistanis, and Palestinians have confidence in bin Laden to “do the right thing regarding world affairs”

We need a major initiative in public diplomacy to bridge the divide between Islam and the rest of the world. For the education of the next generation of Islamic youth, we need an international effort to compete with radical Madrassas. We have seen what happens when Palestinian youth have been fed a diet of anti-Israel propaganda. And we must support human rights groups, independent media and labor unions dedicated to building a democratic culture from the grass-roots up. Democracy won't come overnight, but America should speed that day by sustaining the forces of democracy against repressive regimes and by rewarding governments which take genuine steps towards change.

We cannot be deterred by letting America be held hostage by energy from the Middle East. If I am President, we will embark on a historic effort to create alternative fuels and the vehicles of the future – to make this country energy independent of Mideast oil within ten years. So our sons and daughters will never have to fight and die for it.

[snip: more on the homeland security front]

And our children’s future demands that we also do everything in our power to prevent the creation of tomorrow’s terrorists today. Maybe there’s no going back to the days before baggage checks and orange alerts. Maybe they’re with us forever. But I don’t believe they have to be. I grew up at a time of bomb shelters and air raid drills. But America had leaders of vision and courage in both parties. And today, the Cold War is memory, not reality.

I believe we can bring a real victory in the War on Terror. I believe we must, not only for ourselves but for all who look to America as “the last best hope of earth.” I believe we can meet that ideal – and that’s why I’m running for President.

NPR checks the facts for Juan Williams

NPR : Bush's Military Service
But I'm not giving any money as long as Juan Williams and Mara Liasson are on the air kissing up to Republicans. And complaining to NPR's ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin is worthless. And I'm not a mindless zombie following orders from the blogosphere--I've been contributing to NPR for most of the last ten years. The one exception: the year Canadian wacko rightwinger David Frum was a frequent 'analyst.' Here is a typical hack-job from Mr. Frum, a review of Al Gore's book Joined at the Heart:

Hacker contends that Joined at the Heart follows in the tradition of Earth in the Balance: another Gore production written in a voice of almost terrifying frankness. In 1992, Gore told us that if he ever became president, he would dismantle the American economy in the name of environmental regulation. Ten years later, he is ready to execute similar destruction on the American family.

Mr. Frum, who was a speechwriter for George W. Bush, coined the phrase 'axis of evil.'

He could discover no sign of the promised transfiguration.

Descriptions of the absurd snuff porn movie The Passion of the Christ reminded me of In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka--here is an excerpt translated by Ian Johnston. (Full public domain text here.)

The Traveler, by contrast, was very upset. Obviously the machine was breaking up. Its quiet operation had been an illusion. He felt as if he had to look after the Officer, now that the latter could no longer look after himself. But while the falling gear wheels were claiming all his attention, he had neglected to look at the rest of the machine. However, when he now bent over the harrow, once the last gear wheel had left the inscriber, he had a new, even more unpleasant surprise. The harrow was not writing but only stabbing, and the bed was not rolling the body, but lifting it, quivering, up into the needles. The Traveler wanted to reach in to stop the whole thing, if possible. This was not the torture the Officer wished to attain. It was murder, pure and simple. He stretched out his hands. But at that point the harrow was already moving upwards and to the side, with the skewered body--just as it did in other cases, but only in the twelfth hour. Blood flowed out in hundreds of streams, not mixed with water--the water tubes had also failed to work this time. Then one last thing went wrong: the body would not come loose from the needles. Its blood streamed out, but it hung over the pit without falling. The harrow wanted to move back to its original position, but, as if it realized that it could not free itself of its load, it remained over the hole.

"Help," the Traveler yelled out to the Soldier and the Condemned Man and grabbed the Officer’s feet. He wanted to push against the feet himself and have the two others grab the Officer’s head from the other side, so he could be slowly taken off the needles. But now the two men could not make up their mind whether to come or not. The Condemned Man turned away at once. The Traveler had to go over to him and drag him to the Officer’s head by force. At this point, almost against his will, he looked at the face of the corpse. It was as it had been in his life. He could discover no sign of the promised transfiguration. What all the others had found in the machine, the Officer had not. His lips were pressed firmly together, his eyes were open and looked as they had when he was alive, his gaze was calm and convinced. The tip of a large iron needle had gone through his forehead.

How much do the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion dwell on the physical torture of Jesus? Not much. How much more the Gospels focus on the spiritual battle that Jesus was fighting! Jesus wasn't crying "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" merely because of the physical pain he was feeling--he was feeling the pain of separation from his Father. The burden of all of humanity's sins and guilt was placed on Jesus shoulders, and its just punishment:

Tell me, all who hear him groaning,
Was there ever grief like this?
Friends through fear his cause disowning,
Foes insulting his distress;
Many hands were raised to wound him,
None would intervene to save;
But the deepest stroke that pierced him
Was the stroke that justice gave.

--2nd verse of "Stricken, smitten, and afflicted" by Thomas Kelly, 1769-1854.

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.)