Quiet New Year's Eve - For A Change
The dry season like weather has returned, and it has been sensationally sunny in Arenal the last two days. Other than the usual night-time showers, brief as they were, there has been essentially no rain, and for the most part, it has been bright and sunny. The temperature today made it to 80 today, after an overnight low of 69, and a high yesterday of a sunny 79. Today started off quite windy, but the wind gave up by noon and this afternoon was quite pleasant.
I spent the afternoon yesterday visiting with a local gringo couple, friends of mine since I have been in the country, discussing our various experiences here, and catching up on some of the local gossip, especially among the local gringos. We sat on the front porch, watching the tourists going by on the main highway, and enjoying the sunny, warm weather. My main reason for going to town didn't work out - I tried to get some oil added to the transfer case on my car, but when the gas station attendant noted that he didn't have the proper wrench and picked up a chisel to open the transfer case, I decided that it would be better to take the car to Tilaran. I am planning a trip there next week, and I'll just get the transfer case filled there at that time. But it meant cancelling my trip to the Venado Caverns tomorrow. Not a really big deal, though I had to give my neighbors the bad news that the trip was not going to be possible.
This afternoon was spent doing laundry, which I had been putting off, and so I had a huge pile to do. In between trips to the pila (laundry room), I was enjoying some brief sorties out into the garden to enjoy the spectacular weather. Several things in the garden have started to respond vigorously to the dry season weather - several more orchid species are in bloom, and there are new growth flushes on my little cacao tree. It has a tremendous growth flush happening - and I think it is finally established in its new home and doing well. It is about twice the size it was when I moved it there. The avocado tree I planted is doing well, too.
This evening has been quiet here in Arenal. Much quieter than I expected, and certainly more quiet than last New Year's Eve. Christmas was quiet too, without the wild partying that happened last year that kept me up till one AM. This is the big firecracker night. Private fireworks are illegal here, but that doesn't seem to stop many people who buy fireworks from street vendors in the side streets of all the bigger towns. Most are smuggled in from Nicaragua, where they are legal and common. But while they are quite illegal here, they are so much a part of the culture that few police would dare arrest anyone for them, so they go on, and every year, there are several fires around the country as a result. But Ticos like to party, and few are willing to give up this long-standing part of Tico New Years Eve party traditions. So the fireworks continue - as do the house fires and injuries.
The evening was so pleasant that I took a midnight walk up and down the street a bit, to enjoy the starlit night. It is about as clear a night as I can remember in Arenal, and the starry night is a delight to see. The Pleiades are passing almost directly overhead, and Orion is high in the Southern sky. Quite a display - or at least they would be, if it weren't for all the darned streetlights lighting up my front yard like a Wal-Mart parking lot.
More Reasons Why I Am Glad I Am Out Of The States: Recent reports in the German media suggest that the United States may be preparing its allies for an imminent military strike against facilities that are part of Iran's suspected clandestine nuclear weapons program. German diplomats began speaking of the prospect two years ago -- long before the Bush administration decided to give the European Union more time to convince Iran to abandon its ambitions, or at the very least put its civilian nuclear program under international controls. But the growing likelihood of the military option is back in the headlines in Germany thanks to a slew of stories that have run in the national media here over the holidays. The most talked about story is a Dec. 23 piece by the German news agency DDP from journalist and intelligence expert Udo Ulfkotte. According to Ulfkotte's report, "western security sources" claim that during CIA Director Porter Goss' Dec. 12 visit to Ankara, he asked Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to provide support for a possibile 2006 air strike against Iranian nuclear and military facilities. More specifically, Goss is said to have asked Turkey to provide unfettered exchange of intelligence that could help with a mission. DDP also reported that the governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman and Pakistan have been informed in recent weeks of Washington's military plans. The countries, apparently, were told that air strikes were a "possible option," but they were given no specific timeframe for the operations.
The US justice department has launched an investigation into the leaking of George Bush's domestic spying program. Officials told Associated Press that the inquiry would concentrate on disclosures to the New York Times about the surveillance of US citizens without warrants conducted by the National Security Agency since the September 11 attacks. Smirkey's critics say he acted illegally, but he argues that the constitution gave him authority because the country is at war. The investigation was initiated after a request from the NSA. But Smirkey better be careful what he wishes for - it is not illegal to disclose the commission of an illegal act (in fact, some laws even require it), and if the courts rule that the program was illegal, he could find himself being sued for vexatious prosecution by the targets of the investigation.
The effort President Bush authorized shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, to fight al Qaeda has grown into the largest CIA covert action program since the height of the Cold War, expanding in size and ambition despite a growing outcry at home and abroad over its clandestine tactics, according to former and current intelligence officials and congressional and administration sources. The broad-based effort, known within the agency by the initials GST, is compartmentalized into dozens of highly classified individual programs, details of which are known mainly to those directly involved. GST includes programs allowing the CIA to capture al Qaeda suspects with help from foreign intelligence services, to maintain secret prisons abroad, to use interrogation techniques that some lawyers say violate international treaties, and to maintain a fleet of aircraft to move detainees around the globe. Other compartments within GST give the CIA enhanced ability to data-mine international financial records and eavesdrop on suspects anywhere in the world. Over the past two years, as aspects of this umbrella effort have burst into public view, the revelations have prompted protests and official investigations in countries that work with the United States, as well as condemnation by international human rights activists and criticism by members of Congress. Still, virtually all the programs continue to operate largely as they were set up, according to current and former officials. These sources say Bush's personal commitment to maintaining the GST program and his belief in its legality have been key to resisting any pressure to change course. "In the past, presidents set up buffers to distance themselves from covert action," said A. John Radsan, assistant general counsel at the CIA from 2002 to 2004. "But this president, who is breaking down the boundaries between covert action and conventional war, seems to relish the secret findings and the dirty details of operations." The administration's decisions to rely on a small circle of lawyers for legal interpretations that justify the CIA's covert programs and not to consult widely with Congress on them have also helped insulate the efforts from the growing furor, said several sources who have been involved.
Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has written Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in response, reported in this space Thursday, to the recent revelation that the Pentagon has not acted on presidential and congressional orders to stop doing business with companies that traffic in humans, The Chicago Tribune reports. The Tribune reported last week that lobbyists for Halliburton's KBR and other companies objected to language in the orders that required them to monitor sub-contractors for use of slavery or prostitution. In a letter expected to go to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Friday, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich said he is troubled by the Pentagon's inaction on human trafficking and called on Rumsfeld to take aggressive measures to protect human rights. "The time to act is now," Blagojevich told Rumsfeld, according to a copy of the letter provided by the governor's office. The letter also touts a new Illinois law, which takes effect Sunday, that Blagojevich says will create stiff new penalties for anyone engaged in trafficking. To date, no response has been received.
The White House said Friday its Web site will keep using Internet tracking technologies, deciding that they aren't prohibited after all under 2003 federal privacy guidelines. The White House's site uses what's known as a Web bug -- a tiny graphic image that's virtually invisible -- to anonymously keep track of who's visiting and when. The bug is sent by a server maintained by an outside contractor, WebTrends Inc., and lets the traffic-analysis company know that another person has visited a specific page on the site. Web bugs themselves are not prohibited. But under a directive from the White House's Office of Management and Budget, they are largely banned at government sites when linked to cookies, which are data files that let a site track Web visitors.
Stubborn opposition to provisions of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) will keep the pact from going into effect on the first of the year as planned by the Bush administration. The delay has enlivened efforts to undo the deal by groups who fear the pact could have a crippling effect on workers, small farmers and the economies of the nations involved. Many of the six smaller states – the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica – have failed to come into full compliance with CAFTA’s requirements on the treatment of foreign companies, customs laws, telecommunications services, public-health services and other matters. In addition, Costa Rica has yet to approve the deal. News of CAFTA’s troubles has sparked renewed hope among opponents that the deal could be significantly altered or ultimately fall apart. In a statement yesterday, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), a US-based grassroots group that opposes free trade, joined with the Quixote Center, a nondenominational humanitarian organization, in heralding the delay in CAFTA’s launch.
President George W Bush and his advisers are reported to be planning a 2006 relaunch, emphasizing a newly cautious White House. With the critical annual state of the union address to Congress only weeks away, aides are already hammering out versions of what the president will say. The administration has been seeking the advice of Right-wing legislators, think-tank analysts and businessmen. White House insiders who have been briefing American reporters say that ideas were still being juggled. However, the speech is expected to contrast starkly with Mr Bush's 2005 state of the union address, which promised an extremely ambitious program of domestic reform. "The White House has realised it had too ambitious an agenda and is re-tooling as we speak," the Republican congressman Fred Upton told The Los Angeles Times. "They are looking at what is achievable, versus the grand big picture."
Governors in states that accepted Katrina evacuees are being urged to locate about 2,000 registered sex offenders who fled the Gulf region during the hurricane's mayhem and may have vanished from legally required tracking. "When sex offenders know they're being watched, when they know they're being monitored, they are less likely to offend again," said Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at the Health and Human Services Department. "When they no longer believe they are being monitored or watched, they can be tempted to offend again." The Administration for Children and Families estimated that about 30 states are affected. In November, agency officials matched the names on sex offender registries in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama with the names of evacuees who applied for disaster assistance.
Two 16-year-olds who were expelled from a Lutheran high school because they were suspected of being lesbians have sued the school for invasion of privacy and discrimination. The lawsuit, filed last week in Riverside County Superior Court, seeks the girls' re-enrollment at the small California Lutheran High School, unspecified damages and an injunction barring the school from excluding gays and lesbians. Kirk D. Hanson, an attorney for the girls, said the expulsion traumatized and humiliated them. The lawsuit alleges that the school's principal, Gregory Bork, called the girls into his office, grilled them on their sexual orientation and "coerced" one girl into saying she loved the other. Hanson said the 142-student school in Wildomar, Calif., must comply with state civil rights laws because it functions as a business by collecting tuition. "There's a lot of hypocrisy going on here," Hanson said. "The school is claiming the girls were expelled because their conduct wasn't within the Christian code. But at the same time, (the school) has students who aren't Christians and are even Jewish."
Swallowing his pride with the realization it was all he was going to get, Smirkey on Friday signed legislation extending key provisions of the USA Patriot Act until February 3, despite earlier objecting to anything short of a permanent renewal. Smirkey had initially threatened to veto legislation that contained that provision, but backed off after congressional votes showed overwhelming support for the amendment pushed by Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican who was a former prisoner of war in the Vietnam conflict. On the Patriot Act, Smirkey had strongly pushed for a permanent renewal, but Congress passed a temporary extension to allow more time to consider civil liberties protections. "Our law enforcement community needs this, he's not satisfied with a one-month extension. But we've got to get that in place, and we've got to work with them to get it permanently re-extended," White House spokesman Trent Duffy said. The debate over whether some of the provisions infringe too much on civil liberties became more heated after the revelation that Smirkey authorized the National Security Agency to conduct a domestic eavesdropping operation on Americans with suspected terrorism ties without seeking court approval.
A family of three Hurricane Katrina evacuees facing eviction were found dead Friday in their North Texas apartment in what police said appears to be a double murder-suicide. The discovery was made after police were called by the apartment complex to assist in the eviction, Grapevine police Sgt. Todd Dearing said. He didn't know how long the Louisiana family had not been paying rent. Found with gunshot wounds were a 40-year-old man, a 37-year-old woman and a 14-year-old boy. Dearing said police found a shotgun believed to be the weapon. Dearing said the scene inside the apartment "had the appearance" of a murder-suicide, but he couldn't say for certain. He said police were searching for a 16-year-old daughter who they believe was living away from the family. Identifications were withheld pending notification of relatives.
Sony Watch: Free music downloads and cash refunds could soon be offered to owners of Sony BMG CDs loaded with controversial anti-piracy software. The offers are part of a proposed settlement of lawsuits against Sony BMG over the use of software aimed at thwarting illegal copying of CDs. The programs used left consumers open to attack from viruses that hijacked the music maker's software. The proposed deal also forces Sony to stop using the controversial software. Millions of CDs are thought to have been sold that use the controversial programs. Sony BMG has released a list of the 52 discs that use XCP and the 34 that used MediaMax. All the affected CDs were only sold in North America. Consumers will be able to download from the Apple iTunes store. The publicity about the anti-piracy programs prompted class action lawsuits from aggrieved consumers. Now a month of negotiation between Sony BMG and lawyers representing all the consumers that filed cases has resulted in the proposed settlement. The document outlining the deal is due to be approved by a US judge on 6 January, but few expect it to be rejected. Owners of a CD with the XCP program are being offered a replacement disc free of anti-piracy software, $7.50 in cash and a free download of a Sony BMG album from an online music service. Consumers can forgo the cash and get three album downloads instead. Those owning CDs that use MediaMax only get downloads rather than cash. Significantly the deal also includes Apple's iTunes music store as previously Sony offered little help for consumers that wanted to put copy-protected music in their iPod. Consumers that bought CDs using early versions of the anti-piracy programs only get replacement discs.
Rats Deserting The U.S.S. Bush: There is a small but growing number of soldiers who have become disillusioned with the war in Iraq and are trying to get out of their required service. Increasing numbers of men and women in uniform are seeking honorable discharges as conscientious objectors. Others are suing the military, claiming their obligation has been wrongfully extended. Many have simply deserted, refusing to appear for duty. Some are more desperate: Last December, Army Spc. Marquise J. Roberts of Hinesville, Ga., persuaded a cousin to shoot him in the leg. The cousin was sent to jail, Roberts to the stockade. "You sign a contract and you're required to serve for whatever time period you've agreed to," said a Pentagon spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke. "There are certain standards the enlistment contracts oblige soldiers to, and they are required to fulfill them." But Pentagon policies do have exceptions, and soldiers are increasingly challenging their mandatory service.
The leftist "dominos" are falling: Peru appears to be headed for the next leftist rebellion against American hegemony in the region. A former army officer who led a brief revolt against Peru's government in 2000 has officially registered to run in presidential elections next year. Recent opinion polls have shown growing support for Ollanta Humala, who has argued for a nationalist energy policy. Mr Humala was forced into exile and retirement after a revolt against former President Alberto Fujimori. Correspondents say he is similar to leftist Venezuelan head Hugo Chavez, who also led a failed military coup. Mr Humala has said he is outraged at the way some of Peru's traditional parties are exploiting a current debate over pardoning military officers blamed for human rights abuses in the fight against Shining Path guerrillas in the 1980s and 1990s. Mr Humala will lead the Peruvian Nationalist Party to the polls on 9 April next year. He has called for tighter central control over Peru's energy assets and has pledged to cut the presidential salary. The former army lieutenant colonel has also said he will introduce what he describes as a more participatory form of democracy and will limit investment in Peru by companies from Chile.
Habeas Corpus Death Watch: There are credible allegations that Guantanamo hunger strikers are being force-fed in a cruel manner, the UN special rapporteur on torture has said. Manfred Nowak's comments came after it emerged that the number of detainees refusing food at the prison camp had more than doubled since 25 December. Some 84 inmates are now refusing food, according to the US military. But a Pentagon official said there was no evidence that they had been treated in an inappropriate way. Mr Nowak has not been to Guantanamo, and turned down an invitation to the camp because the US refused to give him unrestricted access to the detainees. If these allegations are true then this definitely amounts to an additional cruel treatment. He told the BBC that he had received reports that some hunger strikers had had thick pipes inserted through the nose and forced down into the stomach. This was allegedly done roughly, sometimes by prison guards rather than doctors. As a result, some prisoners had reported bleeding and vomiting he said.
Free, Unregulated Markets Solve All Problems: A consumer advocacy group has found that more than a decade ago, medical-malpractice insurers reported inflated costs to state regulators, used those numbers to charge higher rates to doctors and hospitals, and then later reported costs far below the initial estimates. In a comprehensive analysis, the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) found that insurance companies reported loss expectations of nearly $40 billion to state insurance regulators from 1986 to 1994 but paid out less than $27 billion in claims for the period. Comprehensive data is unavailable for 1995 and later. "By inflating their estimated ‘losses’ as much as 66 percent, medical-malpractice insurance companies have misled regulators, lawmakers and the public and overcharged physicians and other healthcare providers," FTCR founder Harvey Rosenfield said in a statement announcing the study. "Because all insurance companies use the same flawed accounting practices, it is likely that the insurance industry is responsible for several billion dollars in premium overcharges over the last few years, a period during which premiums have soared." The FTCR study closely matches the findings of a Center for Justice and Democracy report released last summer showing that the nation’s largest insurers are taking in more than double what they did just five years ago while paying claims at or barely above the same level as 2000. That study, conducted by former Missouri Attorney General Jay Angoff using recent data reported to state insurance regulators, found that companies have been increasing premiums at rates far exceeding projected losses.
A major AIDS advocacy and treatment group asked drugmaker Pfizer Inc. Friday to pull advertisements encouraging use of the impotence pill Viagra on New Year's Eve, blasting the ads as recklessly encouraging recreational use of the drug. "What are you doing on New Year's Eve?" a smiling gray-haired man asks in a full-page advertisement that ran in the Wall Street Journal Thursday. The ad reads: "Fact: Viagra can help guys with all degrees of erectile dysfunction -- from mild to severe." The Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation criticized the latest print ads as promoting Viagra as a party drug and encouraging risky sexual behavior. "Not only does sending this reckless message contribute to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, but it is also part of a pattern of irresponsible direct-to-consumer advertising by the drug industry," said Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDs group, in a statement.
Governator Watch: California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to propose a $1 increase in the state's minimum wage after vetoing similar legislature this year, a further indication that he is cultivating a more moderate image as he begins his re-election year. An aide to the governor said the proposal will be included in Schwarzenegger's State of the State speech on Thursday. Under the plan, the hourly wage would rise from $6.75 to $7.25 in September and to $7.75 in July 2007. Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill last September that would have provided the same wage increase but also mandated automatic hikes to keep pace with inflation. In his veto message, the governor said he believed it was time to raise the minimum wage but did not support the annual increase.
Republicans Believe In Responsible Fiscal Management: Treasury Secretary John Snow has warned that unless Congress raises the national debt limit, the US government will run out of cash to finance its daily work in two months. In a letter to Senate leaders Thursday, Snow said the statutory debt limit imposed by Congress of 8.184 trillion dollars would be reached in mid-February and the government would then lose its borrowing power. "At that time, unless the debt limit is raised or the Treasury Department takes authorized extraordinary actions, we will be unable to continue to finance government operations," said the letter, seen by AFP. Snow warned that even if the Treasury took "all available prudent and legal actions" to avoid breaching the ceiling, "we anticipate that we can finance government operations no longer than mid-March. Accordingly, I am writing to request that Congress raise the statutory debt limit as soon as possible." The Republican-led Congress last voted to increase the debt limit in mid-November 2004, despite opposition from Democrats who demanded the free-spending federal government tighten its belt instead.
Republicans Believe In Free Speech: Throughout the United States, people working for social change use public-access television to bypass corporate media and reach broad local viewerships. Constituents use public-access TV to discuss what they expect from politicians. Immigrants use it to share news from home. Small cities shadowed by big cities use it to report stories that never make it into the major-market newscasts. People from every background use public-access channels as training ground for media production skills. The funding for public-access stations usually comes though "franchise agreements" between local governments and cable companies. Through these contracts, cable companies pay fees for laying their wires under sidewalks and streets, or "public rights of way." Now, with a wash of telecommunications legislation wending its way through Congress, public-access television users may have to fight for its survival in 2006. As technology evolves, companies like Verizon and AT&T – which already use public rights of way to provide telephone and Internet services – want to offer TV and video services over their telephone wires. These companies are not currently regulated by local franchise agreements. In order to address this issue, lawmakers have introduced four bills in recent months that could dramatically alter, or even eliminate, the funding sources for local public-access channels. Two other Senate bills call to eliminate franchise fees entirely. John Ensign (R–Nevada) introduced the Broadband Consumer Choice Act in July, and Jim DeMint (R–South Carolina) introduced the Digital Age Communications Act on December 15. Presumably, legislative analysts say, control over public rights of way would shift to the Federal Communications Commission.
Trickle-Down Economics Trickling On You: An analysis by a progressive research organization predicts that soon to be enacted tax and budget cuts may further erode the standard of living for low- and middle-income people and leave the United States in worse economic shape. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a think tank focusing on the needs of low-income people, has found that the recently passed tax cuts and soon-to-be approved budget cuts will overwhelmingly benefit more affluent people and corporations. Meanwhile, the congressional economic policy is slated to feed a deficit that could top $150 billion in ten years. The CBPP report is based on an analysis of information provided by the centrist Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center. Topping the CBPP’s list of concerns are reductions in taxes enacted during the administration of George H.W. Bush that were aimed at alleviating the deficit. The cuts to those taxes were approved with the 2001 tax-cut package and go into effect at the beginning of 2006, alone carry a $27 billion price tag over the next five years. The cost of the cuts quintuples during the five years after that.
If We Ignore Global Warming Long Enough, Maybe It Will Go Away: Tropical Storm Zeta formed in the eastern Atlantic Ocean on Friday, a month after the official end of a record busy hurricane season but forecasters said the straggler storm did not threaten land. Zeta was the 27th named storm of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, which officially ended on November 30. At noon EDT (1700 GMT), Zeta was centered about 1,070 miles southwest of the Portuguese islands of the Azores and moving northwest near 8 mph (13 kph). Zeta closed out a record-setting year that forced forecasters to choose storm names from the Greek alphabet after exhausting their annual list of 21 names. The old record for most tropical storms was 21, set in 1933. Fourteen of this year's storms strengthened into hurricanes, breaking the old record of 12 set in 1969. The year also saw the most expensive hurricane on record when Hurricane Katrina swamped New Orleans and the U.S. Gulf coast in August, killing at least 1,300 people and causing more than $80 billion of damage.
Scandals R Us: More trouble for indicted Texas Republican congressman Tom DeLay: The U.S. Family Network, a public advocacy group that operated in the 1990s with close ties to Rep. Tom DeLay and claimed to be a nationwide grass-roots organization, was funded almost entirely by corporations linked to embattled lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to tax records and former associates of the group. But the records show that the tiny U.S. Family Network, which never had more than one full-time staff member, spent comparatively little money on public advocacy or education projects. Although established as a nonprofit organization, it paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees to Buckham and his lobbying firm, Alexander Strategy Group. There is no evidence DeLay received a direct financial benefit, but Buckham's firm employed DeLay's wife, Christine, and paid her a salary of at least $3,200 each month for three of the years the group existed. Richard Cullen, DeLay's attorney, has said that the pay was compensation for lists Christine DeLay supplied to Buckham of lawmakers' favorite charities, and that it was appropriate under House rules and election law. During its five-year existence, the U.S. Family Network raised $2.5 million but kept its donor list secret. The list, obtained by The Washington Post, shows that $1 million of its revenue came in a single 1998 check from a now-defunct London law firm whose former partners would not identify the money's origins. Two former associates of Edwin A. Buckham, the congressman's former chief of staff and the organizer of the U.S. Family Network, said Buckham told them the funds came from Russian oil and gas executives. Abramoff had been working closely with two such Russian energy executives on their Washington agenda, and the lobbyist and Buckham had helped organize a 1997 Moscow visit by DeLay (R-Tex.).
We Conservatives Are More Moral Than You: The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston has offered to settle about 200 lawsuits from the pedophile priest scandal there, offering average payments of $75,000, lawyers for the accusers said on Friday. The payments are worth about half the $155,000 average payment made to more than 500 other area parishioners in a landmark 2003 settlement, the lawyers said. Mitchell Garabedian, a lawyer representing 55 of the cases, called the offer "cold and callous." "As far as the church is concerned, the sexual abuse scandal has blown over," he said. The Archdiocese of Boston confirmed it is in talks to settle the cases but declined further comment. Claims of sexual abuse by priests surfaced in Boston in 2002, then spread to other U.S. parishes, prompting a drop in donations at churches across America. Squeezed by the cost of settlements, the Boston diocese has shut more than 60 churches and schools, triggering protests by churchgoers. It is not yet clear how many of the 200 plaintiffs would be entitled to awards, the lawyers said. The average payment would be $75,000, said Carmen Durso, who is representing 33 plaintiffs.
News Of The Weird: Good to the last dropping: Would you pay $175 for a pound of coffee beans which had passed through the backside of a furry mammal in Indonesia? Apparently, some coffee lovers wanting to treat themselves to something special are lapping it up. Kopi Luwak beans from Indonesia are rare and expensive, thanks to a unique taste and aroma enhanced by the digestive system of palm civets, nocturnal tree-climbing creatures about the size of a large house cat. "People like coffee. And when they want to treat themselves, they order the Kopi Luwak," said Isaac Jones, director of sales for Tastes of The World, an online supplier of gourmet coffee, tea and cocoa. Despite being carnivorous, civets eat ripe coffee cherries for treats. The coffee beans, which are found inside of the cherries, remain intact after passing through the animal. Civet droppings are found on the forest floor near coffee plantations. Once carefully cleaned and roasted, the beans are sold to specialty buyers. Jones said sales for Kopi Luwak rose three-fold just before the Christmas holiday compared with the first half of the year. The company started selling the rare coffee in February 2005. He expects to sell around 200 pounds of the coffee this year, with orders coming from North America and Europe. So far, most of the orders have been from California. Indonesia produces only about 500 kilograms, or roughly 1,100 pounds, of the coffee each year, making it extremely expensive and difficult to find. "It's the most expensive coffee that we know about in the world," said Jones.
After reviewing the number of hits top local stories at his newspaper's Web site got in 2005, Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat concludes today, "As I look back at the year in news, it's clear I should have focused more on people having sex with horses." Indeed, four of the most-clicked stories on the Web site this year, including the No. 1 finisher ("by far"), had to do with the same incident: the man who died from a perforated colon while having sex with a horse in nearby Enumclaw. The farm was known on the Internet as a "destination site" for all kinds of sex with animals. Westneat says, referring to the most popular list, "It's not a survey of what news you say you read. It's what you actually read. "In fact, the No. 1 horse sex story may have been "the most widely read material this paper has published in its 109-year history. I don't know whether to ignore this alarming factoid or to embrace it." He added: "Or, maybe, some of us are not giving readers enough of what you really want."
Maybe A Buyer - Or Just A Looker
The stormy weather of the last few days is over now, and this morning, after some rather heavy fog, it cleared off and warmed up. The cold front has passed and we're back to lovely warm weather today. Yesterday was chilly and rainy all day, never making it past 74 all day, and last night as the storm faded, it only dropped to 70. This afternoon, with bright sunny weather, the temperature climbed hesitantly to 79, and now, even at nine PM, it is still only down to 73.
We had a thunderstorm this afternoon, a rather brief if somewhat violent one, but the heavy rain was all over in only about 15 minutes. But there was enough lightning that I found it expedient to unplug things. As soon as it was over, however, the sun came out and it warmed back up nicely. First thunderstorm of any consequence in several months - unlike last year, when they were a daily occurrence.
There was an earthquake in Puriscal yesterday morning, a 5.1. Not a really big one, but it was just strong enough here to be a bit unsettling. Lasted about ten seconds, and was a slow rolling motion that just sort of faded away. There was some minor damage at the epicenter, but nothing here, didn't even knock so much as a book off the shelves.
I had another visitor this afternoon, a buyer looking at the house. The fellow just showed up with the real estate agent unannounced, not long before the thunderstorm. The fellow didn't seem to be overly interested, but that is the way the more crafty buyers are - they'll not tip their hand until an offer is submitted. But he did ask a lot of questions about the status of the title to the place - covenants, mortgages, etc., and how quickly he could get title. So I suspect that he is thinking about the place as an investment if he is considering it at all. He spent a good deal of time looking the place over, but did not do any haggling. He simply left with the real estate agent after having a good look around. We'll see if anything comes of it. Seems that most of the people who are buying in this town these days are investors, with just a comparative handful of people looking for retirement residences. I guess that is because this town has been pegged as the prime area to become the highlands answer to Manuel Antonio - the place for people to come, but when they are tired of the heat, humidity and bugs of the beach towns.
More Reasons Why I Am Glad I Am Out Of The States: Smirkey's domestic snooping policy has failed to make a dent in the war against al Qaeda. U.S. law enforcement sources said that more than four years of surveillance by the National Security Agency has failed to capture any high-level al Qaeda operative in the United States. They said al Qaeda insurgents have long stopped using the phones and even computers to relay messages. Instead, they employ couriers. "They have been way ahead of us in communications security," a law enforcement source said. "At most, we have caught some riff-raff. But the heavies remain free and we believe some of them are in the United States." But despite the huge amount of raw material gathered under the legislation, the FBI has not captured one major al Qaeda operative in the United States. Instead, federal authorities have been allowed to use non-terrorist material obtained through the surveillance program for investigation and prosecution. Documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union confirm that the FBI has monitored and infiltrated a range of Muslim and Arab groups peace groups and even environmental activists. In more than one case, the sources said, a surveillance target was prosecuted on non-terrorist charges from information obtained through wiretaps conducted without a court order. They said the FBI supported this policy in an attempt to pressure surveillance targets to cooperate. In several cases, the victims of the illegal prosecution are appealing to have their convictions overturned on the basis that the evidence against them was gathered illegally.
The National Security Agency's Internet site has been placing files on visitors' computers that can track their Web surfing activity despite strict federal rules banning most of them. These files, known as "cookies," disappeared after a privacy activist complained and The Associated Press made inquiries this week, and agency officials acknowledged Wednesday they had made a mistake. Nonetheless, the issue raises questions about privacy at a spy agency already on the defensive amid reports of a secretive eavesdropping program in the United States. A 2003 memo from the OMB prohibits persistent cookies for all but very limited circumstances.
Smirkey and other top officials in his administration used the National Security Agency to secretly wiretap the home and office telephones and monitor private email accounts of members of the United Nations Security Council in early 2003 to determine how foreign delegates would vote on a U.N. resolution that paved the way for the U.S.-led war in Iraq, NSA documents show. Two former NSA officials familiar with the agency's campaign to spy on U.N. members say then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice authorized the plan at the request of President Bush, who wanted to know how delegates were going to vote. Rice did not immediately return a call for comment.
The Israeli masters are demanding action from their American quislings: An Israeli politician warned Tuesday that if Iran's nuclear proliferation is not halted, the country will have a nuclear weapon ready within two years. The warning came from Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuval Steinitz, who said such a development would pose a threat not only to Israel's very existence, but the entire world, Ha'aretz reported. "Within one to two years, they will have a nuclear bomb, and then there will be a new Middle East - threatening, black and dangerous," he said. He called on the global community, under U.S. leadership, to take steps to monitor and thwart the Iranian program, the report said.
The US has imposed sanctions on nine foreign companies, six of them Chinese, for allegedly selling missile goods and chemical arms material to Iran. None of the sanctioned companies is a Halliburton affiliate, of course, which not only does business in Iran, but actually maintains an office in Tehran. A US State Department spokesman said the measures were based on "credible evidence" but gave no details. The US will not provide export licences to the firms involved, two of them Indian and one Austrian, and has banned the US government trading with them. China has in the past denied selling weapons-related material to Iran. The US and EU suspect Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons and are considering whether to refer it to the UN Security Council. Tehran says its nuclear program is for civilian energy use.
Government records show that the administration was encountering unprecedented second-guessing by the secret federal surveillance court when President Bush decided to bypass the panel and order surveillance of U.S.-based terror suspects without the court's approval. A review of Justice Department reports to Congress shows that the 26-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court modified more wiretap requests from the Bush administration than from the four previous presidential administrations combined. The court's repeated intervention in Bush administration wiretap requests may explain why the president decided to bypass the court nearly four years ago to launch secret National Security Agency spying on hundreds and possibly thousands of Americans and foreigners inside the United States, according to James Bamford, an acknowledged authority on the supersecret NSA, which intercepts telephone calls, e-mails, faxes and Internet communications. "They wanted to expand the number of people they were eavesdropping on, and they didn't think they could get the warrants they needed from the court to monitor those people," said Bamford, author of "Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency" and "The Puzzle Palace: Inside America's Most Secret Intelligence Organization." "The FISA court has shown its displeasure by tinkering with these applications by the Bush administration."
Defense lawyers in some of the country's biggest terrorism cases say they plan to bring legal challenges to determine whether the National Security Agency used illegal wiretaps against several dozen Muslim men tied to Al Qaeda. The expected legal challenges, in cases from Florida, Ohio, Oregon and Virginia, add another dimension to the growing controversy over the agency's domestic surveillance program and could jeopardize some of the Bush administration's most important courtroom victories in terror cases, legal analysts say. The question of whether the N.S.A. program was used in criminal prosecutions and whether it improperly influenced them raises "fascinating and difficult questions," said Carl W. Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond who has studied terrorism prosecutions. "It seems to me that it would be relevant to a person's case," Professor Tobias said. "I would expect the government to say that it is highly sensitive material, but we have legal mechanisms to balance the national security needs with the rights of defendants. I think judges are very conscientious about trying to sort out these issues and balance civil liberties and national security." The first challenge is likely to come in Florida, where lawyers for two men charged with Jose Padilla, who is jailed as an enemy combatant, plan to file a motion as early as next week to determine if the N.S.A. program was used to gain incriminating information on their clients and their suspected ties to Al Qaeda. Kenneth Swartz, one of the lawyers in the case, said, "I think they absolutely have an obligation to tell us" whether the agency was wiretapping the defendants.
A new group, discussed previously in this space, has been put together by the same P.R. company who put together the "Swiftboat Veterans" group, and it has begun to run ads designed to reverse Smirkey's credibility as a result of his WMD lies. The television commercials are attention-grabbing: They claim that "newly found Iraqi documents" show that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, including anthrax and mustard gas, and had "extensive ties" to al Qaeda. The "discoveries" are being covered up by those "willing to undermine support for the war on terrorism to selfishly advance their shameless political ambitions." The hard-hitting spots are part of a recent public-relations barrage aimed at reversing a decline in public support for President Bush's handling of Iraq. The group grew out of the successful 2003 Republican National Committee's P.R. effort to recall Democratic California Gov. Gray Davis. It was officially founded in 2004 by Mr. Russo, whose company provides office space for the organization; Melanie Morgan, a conservative San Francisco radio host; and Howard Kaloogian, a Republican former state assemblyman seeking the congressional seat of former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who resigned recently after admitting to taking bribes from defense contractors. One of their early efforts was a campaign supporting John Bolton's contentious nomination as United Nations ambassador. Another involved backing U.S. detention policies at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by selling "I [Heart] Gitmo" bumper stickers.
Haiti's constitution is being violated by both the U.S.-backed interim government and by the candidacy of a Haitian American millionaire running strongly in the polls in a long delayed election, analysts say. "The government has not been paying much attention to the constitution," said Brian Concannon, a U.S. lawyer who worked in Haiti and helped prosecute military leaders accused of a peasant massacre. The first round of voting in the troubled Caribbean nation is scheduled for January 8 with a run-off, if needed, on February 15. But elections officials have said another delay seems likely. Dumarsais Simeus, the Haiti-born founder of a Texas food company, has been running second to former President Rene Preval, but the Provisional Electoral Council, which organizes elections, has twice said Simeus cannot run because he is an American citizen. Haiti's 1987 constitution, a point of pride when it was written in an impoverished nation struggling to recover from decades of dictatorship, requires presidential candidates to be Haitian citizens. It also says citizenship is lost by "naturalization in a foreign country."
Evo has Washington worried. Very worried. The socialist president-elect of Bolivia, Evo Morales, has said he will cut his salary by half when he takes office next month. Mr Morales said his cabinet would follow suit and that members of Bolivia's parliament would be expected to cut their allowances. He also reaffirmed his commitment to change Bolivia's economic system. Announcing the salary cut, he said that in a country as poor as Bolivia, the president and his cabinet should share the burden. The money saved will go on social programmes, particularly in the field of education. Mr Morales also confirmed that his government plans to introduce a new tax on the wealthy as soon as possible. His advisors say they are planning to revoke a decree from 1985 which switched Bolivia to the sort of free-market economy recommended by Washington.
Marriott International Inc.'s time-share division said yesterday that it is missing backup computer tapes containing credit card account information and the Social Security numbers of about 206,000 time-share owners and customers, as well as employees of the company. Officials at Marriott Vacation Club International said it is not clear whether the tapes, missing since mid-November, were stolen from the company's Orlando headquarters or whether they were simply lost. An internal investigation produced no clear answer. The company notified the Secret Service over the past two weeks, and has also told credit card companies and other financial institutions about the loss of the tapes. The company began sending letters to time-share owners and customers Saturday, and issued a press release about the loss yesterday. Company officials said they delayed making the matter public until they had researched what information was on the tapes and whom it affected, and determined the issue was sensitive enough to warrant a broad disclosure. "At this point, we are taking all things into consideration," company spokesman Ed Kinney said. "The tapes may have been taken, but they could have been misplaced. We're still investigating the situation." The Vacation Club has told time-share owners, customers and the division's employees to be on the alert for changes to their credit histories or accounts. So far no one has reported any misuse, Kinney said. Those affected have been offered free credit monitoring services.
School districts desperate to plug budget holes are turning their buses into billboards for soft drinks, credit unions and car dealerships. Advertisements have popped up on buses in Arizona and Massachusetts. New ones are set to appear in Michigan and Colorado. Dozens more districts from Florida to Pennsylvania may join them. "This will spread across the nation, because there's so much money that will come into schools as a result of doing this," says Daniel Shearer, director of transportation at the Scottsdale Unified School District. The Arizona city just outside Phoenix began displaying ads on the sides of its buses last December. Advertisers include real estate agencies, a local toy store and an ambulance company. The district anticipates the ads will bring in $300,000 this year and up to $900,000 in a few years.
They're America's flying enforcers, the federal air marshals - the last line of defense in the case of an attack on an airborne plane. But since two marshals shot and killed an unarmed mentally ill man earlier this month, problems within the small, secretive agency have again come to light. The Federal Air Marshal Service is beset by persistent challenges from morale to training to top-heavy management, sources say - so much so that the nation risks having too few marshals to protect commercial aviation. Although the exact number of air marshals is a closely guarded secret because of national-security concerns, two officials within the service provided estimates to the Christian Science Monitor out of concern that, as one of them put it, "the public is at risk." Both sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they risked sanctions by speaking openly. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which oversees the service, counters that the public, even during the heavily traveled holiday season, is adequately protected.
The Homeland Security Department, created in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, has failed to fulfill 33 of its own pledges to better protect the nation, according to a report released Tuesday by House Democrats. The report concludes that gaps remain in federal efforts to secure an array of areas, including ports, borders and chemical plants. There also are still delays in the department's sharing terror alerts and other intelligence with state and local officials, the review said. Compiled for 13 Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee, the report analyzes public statements and congressional testimony on Bush administration security goals since 2002. Responding, Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said the department is prioritizing resources and programs based on "today's greatest threats."
A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group today announced the filing of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for all government records relating to a secret government program that monitored the radiation levels at more than 100 Muslim homes, businesses and mosques in the capital region and in other areas nationwide. According to an exclusive online article by U.S. News & World Report: "In search of a terrorist nuclear bomb, the federal government since 9/11 has run a far-reaching, top secret program to monitor radiation levels at over a hundred Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area, including mosques, homes, businesses, and warehouses, plus similar sites in at least five other cities, U.S. News has learned. In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the program. Some participants were threatened with loss of their jobs when they questioned the legality of the operation, according to these accounts...No dirty bombs or nuclear devices have ever been found—and that includes the post-9/11 program. 'There were a lot of false positives, and one or two were alarming,' says one source. 'But in the end we found nothing.'" The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) filed the FOIA request with the Department of Justice, including the FBI, and the Department of Energy.
A former coca farmer and street protester expects to be surrounded by Nobel laureates, presidents and social activists when he assumes Bolivia's highest office Jan. 22. President-elect Evo Morales is inviting three Nobel Peace Prize laureates - Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Rigoberta Menchu of Guatemala and Adolfo Perez Esquivel of Argentina - along with Nobel literature prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Morales' spokesman Alex Contreras said. The 46-year-old Aymara Indian, who promised during his campaign to be Washington's "worst nightmare," is planning two separate inaugurations - the official one at the Congress building, followed by one organized as a traditional Indian ritual. Morales has also drawn the attention of the American government with his pledges to halt the U.S.-backed campaign to end the growing of coca leaf, which is used to make cocaine. Morales has asked outgoing President Eduardo Rodriguez to also send inauguration invitations to the leaders of the Landless' Movement of Brazil, Indian movements of Ecuador and the leaders of the "piqueteros," a social protest movement of the jobless in Argentina, Contreras said. President-elect Evo Morales will reject U.S. economic and military aid if the United States requires continued coca-eradication efforts to get the money, a close aide to the former coca growers' leader said Tuesday. Morales also plans to withdraw Bolivia's military from anti-drug efforts and leave the job to police, said Juan Ramon Quintana, a member of the Morales' transition team.
The number of people indicted in a scheme that bilked thousands of dollars from a Red Cross fund designated for Hurricane Katrina victims has risen to 49, federal authorities said. At least 14 suspects worked at a Red Cross call center in Bakersfield, California and are accused of helping family and friends file false claims for aid money, said Mary Wenger, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott in Sacramento. Six have pleaded guilty to federal wire fraud charges since the first indictments were announced in October, she said Tuesday. The fake claims drained at least $200,000 from the fund, with an average payout of about $1,000, Red Cross spokeswoman Devorah Goldburg said. The total could rise as the investigation continues, she said. The Bakersfield site is the largest of three Red Cross centers set up to handle hurricane calls. Others are in Niagara Falls, N.Y., and Falls Church, Va. Operators provided qualifying victims with a personal identification number they then presented to receive aid funds from Western Union, authorities said. The Red Cross contacted the FBI after it performed an audit of the call center and discovered an unusually high number of claims were being paid out at Western Union outlets in the Bakersfield area. "It was the Red Cross that found this problem," Jack McGuire, the national group's interim president, said Wednesday on NBC's "Today." "We put into effect these call centers to speed up delivery of support to people that needed it. As part of that, we put into place mechanisms to look for fraud up front and to find fraud after the fact." None of the indicted employees worked directly for the Red Cross. Officials of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Spherion, which operates the call center, have said the company didn't have time to run background checks on its 1,200 workers.
U.S. Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito argued against asking the high court to quash a Black Panther lawsuit in the early 1980s when he was working as a government lawyer, documents released on Wednesday show. The Black Panther party had sued former officials in Democratic and Republican administrations for $100 million, alleging an illegal decade-long conspiracy to wipe out the militant black-liberation organization. Alito, who worked in the Justice Department's solicitor general's office, in a November 19, 1981 five-page memo argued on narrow technical grounds that the case would be better fought in lower courts.
The U.S. government reportedly plans to spend $500 million over five years to make the Sahara Desert a vast new front in its "war on terrorism". The operation is called the Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Initiative, begun in June to provide military expertise, equipment and development aid to nine Saharan countries. This is an area where lawless swaths of desert are considered fertile ground for militant Muslim groups, the San Francisco Chronicle said. Algeria, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Morocco, Nigeria and Tunisia were listed as participants in the initiative. During the first phase of the program, dubbed Operation Flintlock, 700 U.S. Special Forces troops and 2,100 soldiers from nine North and West African nations led 3,000 ill-equipped Saharan troops in tactical exercises designed to better coordinate security along porous borders and beef up patrols in ungoverned territories.
Why I Am Embarrassed To Show My Passport: The Chicago Transit Authority is refusing an opportunity to alleviate commuting costs for hundreds of thousands in the Windy City's low-income neighborhoods. Instead of accepting deeply discounted fuel from the Venezuela-owned Citgo Petroleum Corporation, the city is instead raising fares to solve budget shortfalls. In an October meeting with representatives from the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), the city's Department of Energy and other city officials, Citgo unveiled a plan to provide the Chicago with low-cost diesel fuel. The company's stipulation, at the bidding of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, was that the CTA, in turn, pass those savings on to poor residents in the form free or discounted fare cards. But two months later, despite claims of a looming budget crisis, the CTA president "has no intent or plan to accept the offer," according to CTA spokesperson Ibis Antongiorgi. She gave no explanation.
Habeas Corpus Death Watch: Lawyers for Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen held as an "enemy combatant" for nearly four years, want the Supreme Court to resolve how much power a president has while the nation is at "war." Lawyers Donna Newman and Andrew Patel told the high court in papers filed Tuesday that the justices must step in "to preserve the vital checks and balances" on the president. They cited the Bush administration's interpretation of the president's war powers to justify its decision to hold Padilla - until recently - without charges in a military brig in South Carolina. Padilla's lawyers also said President Bush abused his war powers authority by approving warrantless surveillance of conversations between people in the United States and abroad who had suspected terrorist ties.
"Extraordinary Rendition" Watch: The CIA's independent watchdog is investigating fewer than 10 cases where terror suspects may have been mistakenly swept away to foreign countries by the spy agency, a figure lower than published reports but enough to raise some concerns. After the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush gave the CIA authority to conduct the now-controversial operations, called "extraordinary renditions," and permitted the agency to act without case-by-case approval from the White House or other administration offices. Some 100 to 150 people have been snatched up since 9/11. Government officials say the action is reserved for those considered by the CIA to be the most serious terror suspects. The CIA's inspector general, John Helgerson, is looking into fewer than 10 cases of potentially "erroneous renditions," according to a current intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigations are classified. Others in the agency believe it to be much fewer, the official added. Said Tom Malinowski, Washington office director of Human Rights Watch: "I am glad the CIA is investigating the cases that they are aware of, but by definition you are not going to be aware of all such cases, when you have a process designed to avoid judicial safeguards." He said there is no guarantee that Egypt, Uzbekistan or Syria will release people handed over to them if they turn out to be innocent, and he distrusts promises the U.S. receives that the individuals will not be tortured.
Conservatives Fight Hard Against Slavery And Prositution: Three years after a 2002 Presidential Directive demanding an end to trafficking in humans for forced labor and prostitution by U.S. contractors, the Pentagon is still yet to actually bar the practice, The Chicago Tribune reports. Congress approved a similar ban one year later, which was reauthorized by the Senate just last week. The President and Congress have demanded that government agencies include anti-trafficking provisions (covering forced labor and prostitution) in all overseas company contracts. It also extended the ban to subcontractors. According to the Tribune, the concerns of five lobbying groups - including representatives of Halliburton subsidiary KBR and DynCorp - are stalling Pentagon action. These companies are specifically targeting provisions requiring companies to monitor their overseas contractors for violations. Both KBR and DynCorp have been linked to human trafficking cases in the past.
Trickle-Down Economics Trickling On You: Pilots at troubled US airline Delta have voted to approve a 14% pay cut to help the bankrupt carrier survive an expected cash crunch. Atlanta-based Delta, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September, said the interim measure would save $143m a year. This was the second double-digit salary cut Delta's 6,000 airline pilots have accepted in the last 13 months. Their average salary of about $170,000 a year will now fall to about $146,000.
News From Smirkey's Wars: It is not really going the way Smirkey has been claiming in his recent charm offensive. Political assassinations, party headquarters burned, abductions (all largely unreported by Western corporate media). A former prime minister, Iyad Allawi - widely known in Baghdad as "Saddam without a moustache" - saying on the record that human rights in President George W Bush's Iraq are worse than they were under Saddam. Current Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari's Da'wa Party accusing Allawi of defending the occupiers. Allawi accusing Jaafari's government of corruption. Former Pentagon asset Ahmad Chalabi's campaign posters with the inscription, "We liberated Iraq" (he didn't garner even one percent of the vote - see below) A network of secret torture prisons and charnel houses. Fear and loathing in militia hell. American military operations to "secure peaceful voting". All traffic circulation prohibited by the occupiers (to prevent increasingly frequent car bombings). The borders with both Syria and Jordan, as well as Baghdad's airport, all closed. That's the daily reality, so if you are inclined to think that things are getting better over there, think again.
Unexpectedly low support from overseas voters has left Ahmed Chalabi - the returned Iraqi exile and convicted bank fraudster once backed by the United States to lead Iraq - facing a shutout from power in this month's vote for the country's first full-term parliament since the 2003 invasion. Rebounding violence, which included bombings, assassination attempts and other attacks, claimed at least 19 lives in Iraq on Monday, including that of an American soldier. Eight members of a single Iraqi SWAT team were wiped out in what Iraqi authorities described as an hour-long shootout with better-armed insurgents. With 95 percent of a preliminary tally from the Dec. 15 vote now completed, Chalabi remained almost 8,000 votes short of the 40,000 minimum needed for him or his bloc to win a single seat in the 275-seat National Assembly, according to election officials. Without a seat in the assembly, Chalabi would presumably be unable to obtain a post in the resulting government. Chalabi's supporters here had hoped he would do well among exile voters who were allowed to cast ballots overseas. But results announced Monday showed he received just 0.89 percent of the "special vote,'' from Iraqi citizens in foreign countries, hospitals, the army and prisons. Kurdish politicians received the largest share of the special vote, with the backing of millions of Iraqi Kurdish exiles and members of the security forces, while the current governing coalition of Shiite religious parties has so far won the most votes overall.
A senior Iraqi official has said the government is incapable of managing prisons, hours after an attempted jail break left at least nine people dead. Deputy Justice Minister for Prisons Bhushu Ibrahim Ali said the authorities lacked the technical and financial capacities needed to supervise prisons. The failed Baghdad escape bid was the result of negligence, he told the BBC. He accused the government of asking the US to hand over control of Iraqi jails for domestic political purposes. The shootings in Baghdad come only days after the US said it would not hand over detainees to the Iraqi authorities until they raised levels of care in prison facilities. Yet as these allegations are being made, a former prisoner held by the United States military with senior officials of Saddam Hussein's ousted Iraqi regime charged on Wednesday that fellow detainees in U.S. custody had been tortured, some of them to death. Abdel Jabbar al-Kubaisi, a onetime opposition figure who rallied to Saddam's regime shortly before the 2003 invasion, said that during his 16 months in custody, three former Saddam officials had died under questioning, although he had not faced physical torture. US officials were not immediately available for comment.
Five days of interviews with Kurdish leaders and troops in the region suggest that U.S. plans to bring unity to Iraq before withdrawing American troops by training and equipping a national army aren't gaining traction. Instead, some troops that are formally under U.S. and Iraqi national command are preparing to protect territory and ethnic and religious interests in the event of Iraq's fragmentation, which many of them think is inevitable. The soldiers said that while they wore Iraqi army uniforms they still considered themselves members of the Peshmerga - the Kurdish militia - and were awaiting orders from Kurdish leaders to break ranks. Many said they wouldn't hesitate to kill their Iraqi army comrades, especially Arabs, if a fight for an independent Kurdistan erupted. "It doesn't matter if we have to fight the Arabs in our own battalion," said Gabriel Mohammed, a Kurdish soldier in the Iraqi army who was escorting a Knight Ridder reporter through Kirkuk. "Kirkuk will be ours." The Kurds have readied their troops not only because they've long yearned to establish an independent state but also because their leaders expect Iraq to disintegrate, senior leaders in the Peshmerga - literally, "those who face death" - told Knight Ridder. The Kurds are mostly secular Sunni Muslims, and are ethnically distinct from Arabs.
News From The Talibaptist Jihad: The "American Family Association" is outraged. NBC is readying a winter replacement series that has Christian fundamentalists apoplectic. The AFA says on its web site: "NBC is touting the network's mid-season replacement series 'The Book of Daniel' with language that implies it is a serious drama about Christian people and Christian faith. The main character is Daniel Webster, a drug-addicted Episcopal priest whose wife depends heavily on her mid-day martinis. Webster regularly sees and talks with a very unconventional white-robed, bearded Jesus. The Webster family is rounded out by a 23-year-old homosexual Republican son, a 16-year-old daughter who is a drug dealer, and a 16-year-old adopted son who is having sex with the bishop's daughter. At the office, his lesbian secretary is sleeping with his sister-in-law. Network hype - and the mainstream media - call it 'edgy,' 'challenging' and 'courageous.' The hour-long limited drama series will debut January 6 with back-to-back episodes and will air on Friday nights. The writer for the series is a practicing homosexual. The homosexual son will be network prime-time's only regular male homosexual character in a drama series."
Good News: Former top Enron Corp. accountant Richard Causey pleaded guilty to securities fraud Wednesday and agreed to help pursue convictions against Enron founder Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling. Lay, Skilling and Causey were scheduled to be tried together Jan. 17 on conspiracy, fraud and other charges related to the scandal-ridden company's collapse more than four years ago. The deal leaves Lay and Skilling with another opponent rather than an ally who has been part of their united defense front since the trio was first indicted last year. Causey will serve seven years in prison and forfeit $1.25 million to the government, according to the plea deal. However, if the government is happy with his cooperation, prosecutors can ask that his sentence be reduced to five years. The maximum penalty for securities fraud is 10 years in prison, followed by three years of probation.
Well, just as I was marvelling at what a wonderfully dry rainy season we were having here in Arenal, the weather changed - big time. The weather turned cold late last night as a weak cold front passed through the country, and temperatures here dropped to a rather chilly 66 degrees, and the wind whipped up to speeds I have not seen in quite a while. Today, the temperature rose to only 69, and with the steady drizzle, interrupted by occasional heavy rain, meant that the day was pretty grim.
During the day, one of my neighbors came by and asked if it would be possible for me to take him and his family up to the Venado Caverns, so we agreed on a time and date, and they will share the cost of the gas. It is one of the prime tourist attractions around here, though the road getting there is a bit rough - 15km of rather poor gravel, and it requires a 4WD, so I was targeted as the only owner of a suitable high-clearance 4WD vehicle. I agreed mostly because it is a tourist attraction I have been wanting to see.
I needed to take care of some business in town, and went to town to fill up the car, as there is a gasoline price increase pending. I wanted to get all I could at the currently lower price, and did that, but found the bank closed, so I could not take care of my other business. Unfortunately, they were apparently closed until the second of January. So I will have to shine that one on. I tried the pulperia (country store) for a paper, and no cigar on that one, either. Not too surprising - the whole country closes down between Christmas and New Years, so not being able to get a paper was not much of a surprise. Manana, I was told. Oh well...
Back at the house, I had a telephone call inviting me up to that same neighbor's house for Christmas tamales. That was an opportunity I was not about to pass up. In this country, tamales are very much a Christmas food, not like in the States, where they are not particularly seasonal. And instead of being wrapped in corn leaves, they are much larger and are wrapped in cooked banana leaves. No chile, either - here, they are rather bland, with the omnipresent cilantro as about the only seasoning. The prodigious size normally means that they are served one per guest, and that's a meal. And they are really good - usually filled with shredded beef or chicken, with boiled carrots or another vegetable, a hint of cilantro, then covered in corn masa about a half-inch thick, wrapped in the boiled banana leaf and tied in a bundle, then boiled until ready and served hot. Oh, how good they are! One of my favorite Costa Rican foods. We had a good time socializing until the rain let up, and then I beat a hasty retreat back to my house. I really appreciated the invite. And the hospitality. The Ticos really are a remarkable people, welcoming into their humble homes a stranger from a half a world away.
More Reasons Why I Am Glad I Am Out Of The States: President Bush has been summoning newspaper editors lately in an effort to prevent publication of stories he considers damaging to national security - mostly those related to his warrantless domestic spying. The efforts have failed, but the rare White House sessions with the executive editors of The Washington Post and New York Times are an indication of how seriously the president takes the recent reporting that has raised questions about the administration's anti-terror tactics. Leonard Downie Jr., The Post's executive editor, would not confirm the meeting with Bush before publishing reporter Dana Priest's Nov. 2 article disclosing the existence of secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe used to interrogate terror suspects. Bill Keller, executive editor of the Times, would not confirm that he, publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Washington bureau chief Philip Taubman had an Oval Office sit-down with the president on Dec. 5, 11 days before reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau revealed that Bush had authorized eavesdropping on Americans and others within the United States without court orders. But the meetings were confirmed by sources who have been briefed on them but are not authorized to comment because both sides had agreed to keep the sessions off the record. The White House had no comment. "When senior administration officials raised national security questions about details in Dana's story during her reporting, at their request we met with them on more than one occasion," Downie says. "The meetings were off the record for the purpose of discussing national security issues in her story." At least one of the meetings involved John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, and CIA Director Porter Goss, the sources said. "This was a matter of concern for intelligence officials, and they sought to address their concerns," an intelligence official said. Some liberals criticized The Post for withholding the location of the prisons at the administration's request.
Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has said that it would not have been "that hard" for President Bush to obtain warrants for eavesdropping on domestic telephone and Internet activity, but that he saw "nothing wrong" with the decision not to do so. "My own judgment is that it didn't seem to me, anyway, that it would have been that hard to go get the warrants," Mr. Powell said. "And even in the case of an emergency, you go and do it. The law provides for that." But Mr. Powell added that "for reasons that the president has discussed and the attorney general has spoken to, they chose not to do it that way. I see absolutely nothing wrong with the president authorizing these kinds of actions," he said.
Congressional officials said Saturday that they wanted to investigate the disclosure that the National Security Agency had gained access to some of the country's main telephone arteries to glean data on possible terrorists. "As far as Congressional investigations are concerned," said Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, "these new revelations can only multiply and intensify the growing list of questions and concerns about the warrantless surveillance of Americans." Members of the Judiciary Committee have already indicated that they intend to conduct oversight hearings into the president's legal authority to order domestic eavesdropping on terrorist suspects without a warrant. But Congressional officials said Saturday that they would probably seek to expand the review to include the disclosure that the security agency, using its access to giant phone "switches," had also traced and analyzed phone and Internet traffic in much larger volumes than what the Bush administration had acknowledged. Leading telecommunication companies have been saving information on calling patterns and passing it along to the government. "We want to look at the entire program, an in-depth review, and this new data-mining issue is certainly a part of the whole picture," said a Republican Congressional aide, who asked not to be identified because no decisions had been made on how hearings might be structured.
The admission by two columnists that they accepted payments from indicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff may be the tip of a large and rather dirty iceberg. Copley News Service last week dropped Doug Bandow -- who also resigned as a Cato Institute scholar -- after he acknowledged taking as much as $2,000 a pop from Abramoff for up to two dozen columns favorable to the lobbyist's clients. "I am fully responsible and I won't play victim," Bandow said in a statement after Business Week broke the story. "Obviously, I regret stupidly calling to question my record of activism and writing that extends over 20 years. . . . For that I deeply apologize." Peter Ferrara of the Institute for Policy Innovation has acknowledged taking payments years ago from a half-dozen lobbyists, including Abramoff. Two of his papers, the Washington Times and Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader, have now dropped him. But Ferrara is unapologetic, saying: "There is nothing unethical about taking money from someone and writing an article." Readers might disagree on grounds that they have no way of knowing about such undisclosed payments, which seem to be an increasingly common tactic for companies trying to influence public debate through ostensibly neutral third parties. When he was a Washington lawyer several years ago, says law professor Glenn Reynolds, a telecommunications carrier offered him a fat paycheck - up to $20,000, he believes - to write an opinion piece favorable to its position. He declined.
One of the most hated and feared symbols of Apartheid South Africa is back - this time in Iraq. Black South Africans gave them a slang term, recalls Les Switzer, naming them the "Saracens". They were large, ominous six-wheeled armor-covered trucks, designed to carry troops safely into a hostile environment. And when they were called in to break up a protest, he also remembers the terror they brought. "The mere presence of a Saracen struck fear in the people," said Switzer, a long-time journalism professor at the University of Houston in the U.S. state of Texas. "(They) were like an evil presence wandering through the township." Following the funeral of an anti-apartheid martyr in 1980, he says the Eastern Cape township had a short fuse, and an uprising would soon engulf it. "The South African government, not trusting the local police, had sent in armed troops and Saracens to monitor the proceedings, and the result was a foregone conclusion," he said. The Saracens, says Switzer, author of "South Africa's Alternative Press: Voices of Protest and Resistance, 1880s-1960s", are the huge and unmistakable armored trucks the South African government used to quell uprisings. Their official name was the "Buffel", which is Afrikaans for Buffalo. When he recently heard the U.S. military was implementing a heavily-armored truck very familiar to the Saracen, he wasn't surprised. At this moment, the Pentagon is rushing these U.S.-made trucks into battle. There are two types, and one is called the "Buffalo."
A federal judge on Thursday ruled that he does not have authority to order the release of two ethnic Uighur prisoners from China detained at Guantanamo Bay, even though the U.S. military declared they are no longer "enemy combatants." U.S. District Judge James Robertson said he finds that "a federal court has no relief to offer" Abu Bakker Qassim and A'del Abdu Al-Hakim, who are being held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba while the United States searches for a country to take them in. "An order requiring their release into the United States, even into some kind of parole 'bubble,' some legal-fictional status in which they would be here but would not be 'admitted,' would have national security and diplomatic implications beyond the competence or the authority of this court," Robertson said in a 12-page ruling. The two men have been detained since June 2002 at Guantanamo Bay, where the United States hold suspects in its war against terrorism launched after the attacks of September 11, 2001. A U.S. military tribunal ruled nine months ago that the Uighurs should "no longer be classified as enemy combatants." A lawyer working with the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights had urged Robertson to order the men released while the government continues its search for a country that will grant them asylum.
Breathing while black: The government spent a decade creating risk scores to identify communities with potential health hazards from industrial air pollution, but many local officials didn't even know they existed. In a widely published story last week, The Associated Press mapped those scores to neighborhoods in a computer analysis that found the risks from industrial air pollution disproportionately affect minorities and the poor. The story has stirred both controversy and intrigue in communities across America. In Grand Rapids, Mich., the mayor has requested his local air pollution experts learn more about the risk scores, which were created by the Environmental Protection Agency in the Risk Screening Environmental Indicators project. "It caught me completely by surprise, which shouldn't be for a mayor," George Heartwell said of the AP report on the EPA health risk scores. AP obtained the scores for the entire country from EPA under a Freedom of Information Act request and then, working with agency scientists, mapped the scores from the square kilometer grids used by EPA to the Census neighborhoods used to count the population in 2000. EPA's public affairs office sent "talking points" to state regulators and regional EPA offices after the AP story ran, suggesting they refer questions to the news agency and insisting the federal agency didn't know how AP conducted its analysis. In fact, AP obtained the data directly from EPA and developed the methodology for its story through extensive consultation with agency scientists. Hassur said EPA should have known that "AP followed EPA's general guidance, both verbal and published" in conducting its analysis.
The president has, by executive order, changed the order of succession for Secretary of Defense. In the event of incapacitation, death or resignation of the Secretary, the new order of succession provides for acquisition, technology, logistics, policy, and intelligence posts edging out Army, Navy and Air Force. Intelligence comes in at number two - evidence of how much Smirkey is depending on military intelligence to maintain his authoritarian rule over the country.
Demand from local listeners returned syndicated talk host Rush Limbaugh to his midday time slot on WWL AM-870 in New Orleans last Wednesday, so imagine the reaction of all but his most fervid acolytes to his opening-day gut-punch to New Orleans. Limbaugh, the most listened-to radio talker in the land, introduced caller "Ray from New Orleans," where, said the host, "They're getting back to normal in the city." "Things are not returning to normal," said Ray. "I wish you would come down here to see for yourself." And thus began an extended segment, interrupted by a commercial break, in which Limbaugh, on his first day back on the air here after three months of local recovery talk, addressed New Orleans' problems both political and geophysical. Ray set the tone by criticizing President Bush's fabulously framed Jackson Square TV speech to the nation. "All lies," the caller said. "None of the things that he promised are happening."
Though Christopher Flickinger calls himself "dean" and poses in parodistic photos waving a small American flag and looking stern, he says he's never been more serious about eliminating what he claims is pervasive anti-conservatism on college campuses today. "When I was on campus, I had no help," the recent Ohio State University graduate told FOXNews.com. "I was harassed, intimidated, shouted down." Flickinger, schooled in broadcast journalism, said he wants to provide the support he never had as a lonely conservative in college. That's why in November he launched the Network of College Conservatives to act in part as "a link for these conservative students, to let them know they are not alone." Running the Web site solo from his Pittsburgh, Pa., home, Flickinger said he wants the network to be much more than a shoulder to cry on. Conservative students are still easy targets of liberal intimidation, he claims, but more than ever, they have a growing body of legal and activist support groups to turn to — and he wants his organization to be top among those resources. But not everyone believes that conservative students are as harassed or marginalized as they say they are or might have been in the past. Megan Fitzgerald is director of the Center for Campus Free Speech , described on its Web site as an organization "dedicated to preserving the marketplace of ideas on college campuses across the country." Fitzgerald said her center defends speech by liberals and conservatives alike, and her own experience at the University of Wisconsin found that conservatives were vocal, organized and enjoyed the same platform as any other ideological movement on campus. "I would say, my senior year, the student government, probably a majority of the members would have identified themselves as conservative," said the 2003 graduate. Other critics add that plenty of examples can be offered of anti-liberal attacks on campuses, most of them tacitly permitted by college administrators. "There is a real blind spot on the part of conservatives, where they think conservatives are the only ones being repressed," said John K. Wilson, a graduate student in Chicago and author of "The Myth of Political Correctness: the Conservative Attack on Higher Education." He noted several recent incidents of anti-Iraq war protesters being shut down and penalized across the country, including a group of Hampton College students who barely avoided expulsion this month for handing out "unapproved" fliers critical of the Bush administration. He also cited numerous examples of thwarted protests and students being manhandled by campus security for questioning the presence of military recruiters on campus.
A proposal to change long-standing federal policy and deny citizenship to babies born to illegal immigrants on U.S. soil ran aground this month in Congress, but it is sure to resurface - kindling bitter debate even if it fails to become law. At issue is "birthright citizenship" - provided for since the Constitution's 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868. Section 1 of that amendment, drafted with freed slaves in mind, says: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States." Some conservatives in Congress, as well as advocacy groups seeking to crack down on illegal immigration, say the amendment has been misapplied over the years, that it was never intended to grant citizenship automatically to babies of illegal immigrants. Thus they contend that federal legislation, rather than a difficult-to-achieve constitutional amendment, would be sufficient to end birthright citizenship. With more than 70 co-sponsors, Georgia Republican Rep. Nathan Deal tried to include a revocation of birthright citizenship in an immigration bill passed by the House in mid-December. GOP House leaders did not let the proposal come to a vote.
Why I Am Embarrassed To Show My Passport: Federal appeals court judges across the United States have repeatedly excoriated immigration judges this year for what they call a pattern of biased and incoherent decisions in asylum cases. In one decision last month, Richard Posner, a prominent and relatively conservative federal appellate judge in Chicago, concluded that "the adjudication of these cases at the administrative level has fallen below the minimum standards of legal justice." Similarly, the federal appeals court in Philadelphia said in September that it had "time and time again" been forced to rebuke immigration judges for their "intemperate and humiliating."
A senior US senator has criticised the handling of the trial of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, just before meeting the judge heading the court. Arlen Specter, the Republican chairman of the US Senate Judiciary Committee, said he was disappointed the court had allowed Saddam "to dominate the proceedings". Sen Specter said he would urge Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin to quell Saddam's outbursts by holding him in contempt. He said he would press the judge to use international and US law to hold Saddam in contempt or have him tried in his absence. The BBC's John Simpson in Baghdad says Judge Rizgar's refusal to respond with force to Saddam Hussein's outbursts is a sign of strength rather than failure. To treat the former Iraqi leader roughly would be to risk making him seem a martyr, the BBC correspondent says.
Prosecutors in the Philippines are set to file rape charges on Tuesday against four US marines over an alleged assault on a 22-year-old woman in November. Charges against two other marines have been dropped while the Filipino driver of the van in which the alleged attack took place also faces charges. Prosecutor Prudencio Jalandoni is seeking an arrest warrant and jurisdiction over the marines. The four, who are in the custody of the US embassy in Manila, deny the charges. Mr Jalandoni is due to file his charges at a court in the town of Olongapo, north-west of Manila, near where the alleged rape took place on 1 November. The Americans have denied participating in or witnessing the incident, which allegedly took place inside a van at Subic Bay free port, a former US naval base.
Rats Deserting The U.S.S. Bush: Barron's Magazine, normally a staunch supporter of conservative causes, has come out and editorialized strongly in favor of the impeachment of George W. Bush. Barron's writes: "Surely the 'strict constructionists' on the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary eventually will point out what a stretch this is. The most important presidential responsibility under Article II is that he must 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed.' That includes following the requirements of laws that limit executive power. There's not much fidelity in an executive who debates and lobbies Congress to shape a law to his liking and then goes beyond its writ. Willful disregard of a law is potentially an impeachable offense. It is at least as impeachable as having a sexual escapade under the Oval Office desk and lying about it later. The members of the House Judiciary Committee who staged the impeachment of President Clinton ought to be as outraged at this situation. They ought to investigate it, consider it carefully and report either a bill that would change the wiretap laws to suit the president or a bill of impeachment. It is important to be clear that an impeachment case, if it comes to that, would not be about wiretapping, or about a possible Constitutional right not to be wiretapped. It would be about the power of Congress to set wiretapping rules by law, and it is about the obligation of the president to follow the rules in the Acts that he and his predecessors signed into law."
"Extraordinary Rendition" Watch: After being caught in a bald-faced lie by the US ambassador to Britain about American renditions to Syria, the American embassy in Britain has issued a statement that stops just short of a confession. A US embassy spokeswoman contacted the BBC on Friday to say the ambassador "recognized that there had been a media report of a rendition to Syria but reiterated that the United States is not in a position to comment on specific allegations of intelligence activities that appear in the press". She "underscored that the president and secretary Rice have made clear that even in today's circumstances, where we are confronting a new kind of threat, the United States does not condone torture, its officials do not participate in such activities anywhere, and we do not hand over anyone in our custody to anywhere where we believe that they will be tortured. Full stop. We take our actions in the fight against terrorism with full respect for our international obligations and with full respect for the sovereignty of our partners." The embassy's statement is close to an admission of at least one flight to Syria as it would be unlikely to embarrass the ambassador by referring to a media report it considered inaccurate. Maher Arar, a Canadian software engineer of Syrian descent, says he was arrested in New York in 2002 and transferred to Jordan, then to Syria, where he said he was tortured. The US use of Syria for rendition sits uneasily with Washington's portrayal of the country as a pariah state.
Despite repetitive claims by the U.S. President George W. Bush and his National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice that America does not employ torture as a method of obtaining information from detainees. Vice President Dick Cheney went before Congress to try to exempt the CIA from proposed anti-torture legislation. And recently, the Human Rights Watch stated that eight men held at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, and five of whom were identified by name, have separately given their lawyers "consistent accounts" of being tortured at a secret prison, they called the "dark prison" or "prison of darkness," in Afghanistan at various periods from 2002 to 2004. The detainees said they were arrested in various countries, mostly in Asia and the Middle East, and some of them were taken to Afghanistan and then driven just a few minutes from the landing strip to the prison, which means that they were near Kabul. They were chained to walls, deprived of food and drinking water, and kept in total darkness with heavy metal music blaring for weeks at a time. Benyam Mohammad, an Ethiopian who grew up in the UK and one of the eight detainees who were subject to torture, told his lawyer that he was "hung up" in a lightless cell for days at a time, as his legs swelled and his hands and wrists became numb. Benyam also complained of loud music and "horrible ghost laughter" that was blasted into his cell at the prison. Other prisoners could be heard "knocking their heads against the walls and doors, screaming their heads off," he said. HRW says that "the prison may have been operated by personnel from the Central Intelligence Agency," as, according to the detainees’ accounts, Afghans and Americans in civilian clothes were responsible for the prison. Even American interrogators did not wear uniforms. The U.S. military declined to comment on HRW report. The New York Times said it was told by midlevel Afghan intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, that they were aware of several places where U.S. forces detain people, some named Camp Eggers, in Kabul, and the Ariana Hotel, which is close to the presidential palace that CIA officials have occupied in 2001.
Turns out that those extraordinary rendition teams that go around kidnapping people apparently live high on the hog while they're doing it: Italian prosecutors wrote in court papers that the CIA spent "enormous amounts of money" during the six weeks it took the agency to figure out how to grab a 39-year-old Muslim preacher called Abu Omar off the streets of Milan, throw him into a van and drive him to the airport. First to arrive in Milan was the surveillance team, and the hotels they chose were among the best Europe has to offer. Especially popular was the gilt-and-crystal Principe di Savoia, with acres of burnished wood paneling and plush carpets, where a single room costs $588 a night, a club sandwich goes for $28.75, and a Diet Coke adds another $9.35. According to hotel records later obtained by the Milan police investigating Abu Omar's disappearance, two CIA operatives managed to ring up more than $9,000 in room charges alone. The CIA's bill at the Principe for seven operatives came to $39,995, not counting meals, parking and other hotel services. Another group of seven operatives managed to spend $40,098 on room charges at the Westin Palace, a five-star hotel across the Piazza della Repubblica from the Principe, where a club sandwich is only $20. A former CIA officer who has worked undercover abroad said those prices were "way over" the CIA's allowed rates for foreign travel. "But you can get away with it if you claim you needed the hotel `to maintain your cover,'" he said. "They would have had to pose as high-flying businessmen." Judging from the photographs on the passports they displayed when checking into their hotels and the international driving licenses they used to rent cars, not many of the Milan operatives could have passed as "high-flying businessmen." In all, records show, the CIA paid 10 Milan hotels at least $158,000 in room charges. Although the Milan police obtained the hotel bills of 22 alleged CIA operatives, they say at least 59 cellphones were used in the weeks leading up to the abduction. Even allowing for the possibility that some operatives used more than one phone, prosecutors believe that a significant number of operatives remain unidentified. A senior U.S. official said the agency's deployment in Milan was "about usual for that kind of operation." But in December 2001, when the CIA arrived in frigid Stockholm to transport two suspected Islamic militants to Cairo, it sent eight rendition experts to do the job, according to a Swedish television documentary.
The US embassy in London has moved to clarify remarks made by its ambassador about the extraordinary rendition to other countries for interrogation. Robert Tuttle told the BBC there was no evidence of "extraordinary renditions" to Syria, which has been criticised by Washington for its human rights record. The US embassy later said Mr Tuttle recognised there had been a media report of a rendition to Syria. It did not condone torture, nor did US officials take part, it added. The embassy said it did not comment on specific cases. Canadian citizen Maher Arar was detained as a terrorist suspect in New York in 2002 and then flown to Jordan, before being transferred to Syria. He was released a year later following the intervention of the Canadian government. Mr. Arar claims he was tortured while in Syrian custody.
Free Markets Solve All Problems: In an unusually candid admission, the federal chief of AIDS research says he believes drug companies don't have an incentive to create a vaccine for the HIV and are likely to wait to profit from it after the government develops one. And that means the government has had to spend more time focusing on the processes that drug companies ordinarily follow in developing new medicines and bringing them to market. "We had to spend some time and energy paying attention to those aspects of development because the private side isn't picking it up," Dr. Edmund Tramont testified in a deposition in a recent employment lawsuit obtained by The Associated Press. Tramont is head of the AIDS research division of the National Institutes of Health, and he predicted in his testimony that the government will eventually create a vaccine. He testified in July in the whistleblower case of Dr. Jonathan Fishbein. "If we look at the vaccine, HIV vaccine, we're going to have an HIV vaccine. It's not going to be made by a company," Tramont said. "They're dropping out like flies because there's no real incentive for them to do it. We have to do it. They will eventually - if it works, they won't have to make that big investment. And they can make it and sell it and make a profit," he said.
Republicans Believe In Free And Fair Elections: In mid-August 2003, Walden W. O'Dell, the chief executive of Diebold Inc., sat down at his computer to compose a letter inviting 100 wealthy and politically inclined friends to a Republican Party fund-raiser, to be held at his home in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. ''I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year,'' wrote Mr. O'Dell, whose company is based in Canton, Ohio. That is hardly unusual for Mr. O'Dell. A longtime Republican, he is a member of President Bush's ''Rangers and Pioneers,'' an elite group of loyalists who have raised at least $100,000 each for the 2004 race. Well, he delivered on his promise. Even with the polls showing Smirkey trailing Kerry by two percentage points in Ohio, Republicans were so confident of victory that in the last two weeks running up to the election, that Smirkey didn't bother to put in an appearance. How could they have been so sure? Because they were massively rigging the elections, and they knew that their plan would succeed - which it did brilliantly. Now, whatreallyhappened.com has published a complete, careful analysis of how O'Dell and the Republican election officials in Ohio succeeded in pulling off one of the most massive election frauds in U.S. history. Using a wide variety of techniques, at least five, probably as much as six percent of the vote was fraudulent.
Amid questions about the reliability and security of electronic voting machines, elections officials in two states are taking strong measures against two of the nation’s largest e-voting machine manufacturers. Two weeks ago, elections commissioners in Florida’s Leon and Volusia counties voted to dump Diebold Electronics Systems due to security weaknesses in the company’s machines. In tests, elections officials and a computer-security expert determined that the machines could be easily hacked, opening the way for electoral manipulations, the Miami Herald reported. Last week, California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson warned Election Systems & Software that the state will decertify the company’s machines if it does not take immediate measures to correct certification and vote-counting problems found during a special election last November. That letter, which was obtained by the Associated Press, came as McPherson also placed Diebold’s certification in limbo, stating that federal officials would test the company’s memory cards, the Sacramento Bee reported. According to a Government Accountability Office report released in September, e-voting machines and the 2002 enactment of the Help America Vote Act have led to uneven results in counties throughout the nation. The report recommended that the Elections Assistance Commission, formed to help implement HAVA, create and maintain a system of standards, assessment and assistance for state and local elections officials. EAC commissioners agreed with the recommendation but have yet to implement it.
Republicans Believe In Accountability And Transparency In Government: A closer examination of documents released by the Pentagon which log all requests filed under the Freedom of Information Act shows that various individuals connected to the Republican party - including at least five former staff members for the National Republican Senatorial Committee - filed requests on Democratic congressmembers without identifying their employer. Democrats, on the other hand, were more likely to state their affiliation: the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee made eight requests of the Pentagon by name since 2000 as RAW STORY reported last week. Those familiar with "disguising" political Freedom of Information Act filings say that campaigns will sometimes have others sign off on the requests. Housemates or friends who are not employed by a political party at the time are sometimes called on to file. Such requestors often go on to become party officials.
Republicans Believe In Helping The Most Needy: Once the new Medicare prescription drug program goes live Jan. 1, some North Carolina Research Triangle employers will receive a federal, tax-free windfall - in most cases worth millions - for doing absolutely nothing. The largest local payment will go to the State Health Plan, which has applied for an estimated $63 million. The payment is a subsidy the federal government will pay in exchange for an organization maintaining its own drug program and not relying on Medicare. Among private employers, Duke University could receive as much as $1.8 million, GlaxoSmithKline $3.3 million, and IBM $6.6 million based on their number of Medicare-eligible retirees and the estimated $660 average annual payment per retiree. Some employers may opt to drop their retiree drug benefits altogether, in which case they would not receive a subsidy payment. It's not clear yet how many will go that route, but the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will release more detailed information in January. Meanwhile, in California, the US government magnanimously awarded a raise of $10/month to SSI recipients, and in California, Gov. Ahnold quickly deducted the same amount from the state's portion of the payment, even though the CA state treasury is now in the black. So these disabled people do not get their cost-of-living increase. About two weeks ago, MediCare notified its beneficiaries and pharmacies, but not physicians, that patients would have to cough up a co-pay for their drugs, and some would no longer be covered. This set off a panic among this population. Three days before Christmas, National Public Radio announced that as of January 1st, due to the MediCal cuts in the Federal budget- MediCal no longer will cover prescription drugs.
Trickle-Down Economics Trickling On You: Employers froze nearly one in 10 pension plans insured by the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. in 2003, according to a study released Wednesday. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., the federal agency that guarantees worker pension benefits, said 9.4 percent of the 29,000 plans it insures and for which it had data were "hard-frozen" in 2003, the most recent year for which numbers were available. Hard-frozen means employees can no longer accrue benefits under a pension plan. The study comes amid a steady stream of headlines about companies, including Sears Roebuck & Co., Motorola Inc. (MOT) and IBM Corp., freezing pensions to cut costs. Among the latest was Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ), which recently said it would freeze the pensions of 50,500 managers. The study, however, found that as of 2003 the frozen plans covered just 2.5 percent of all workers in insured plans. Most of the more than 2,700 plans hard-frozen in 2003 had fewer than 100 participants, it said. That finding comes on the heels of other studies that have suggested in the last year a steep uptick in the number of firms that are freezing - either fully or partially - employee pension plans. They include one conducted by the consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide that found that 71 of the nation's 1,000 largest companies last year either froze or terminated their pension plans, up from 45 in 2003. Nearly all were freezes.
Winter in America’s coldest climates may be idyllic and cozy in holiday movies and Christmas carols, but many of the nation’s poor weather the season in frigid and drafty homes, forced to make difficult choices between warmth and other necessities like food and health care. In previous years, emergency heating assistance has already fallen short, and this winter promises to be especially icy for those without means to pay for warmth. As applications for help increase to 5.6 million – the highest level in twelve years – at least eight states predict they will run out of funds in the coming weeks, including New York, Indiana, Maryland and North Carolina. In Wiscosin, if an application is accepted, their portion of the $93 million in state and federal heat assistance available to Wisconsin residents will likely only make a small dent in their bills. The program has about enough money to provide each person living in poverty with one $150 subsidy this year. That’s equal to the average November utility bill for a two-bedroom Wisconsin home – before frigid December temperatures dropped below freezing during the day and below zero at night.
We Conservatives Are More Moral Than You: A Tennessee state lawmaker is warning business owners not to advertise in a weekly newspaper that reported he is dating a woman while waiting for his divorce to come through. Republican Sen. Jeff Miller, who has represented this town of about 38,000 people 20 miles from Chattanooga for 11 years, sent the warning in a letter Dec. 13. Some business owners said they resented the threatening tone of the letter, but Miller said he was trying to call attention to what he considers unfair treatment from the free Bradley News Weekly. In the letter, Miller wrote: "Myself and many others are going to be watching in the next several weeks to identify and remember those in this community that wish to subsidize the destructive nature of this type of publication in our community." In an interview, Miller did not dispute the newspaper's report about his girlfriend, but said he and his wife are working toward a divorce settlement and his "personal life should be left just that." The newspaper said Miller's personal life is fair game because the lawmaker had a "family values" platform. "Your platform is that of a guy who believes in the sanctity of marriage, and that marriage should be between one man and one woman. And your behavior doesn't support your platform. So, we report it," editor Barry Graham wrote in an open letter in the Dec. 21 issue.
News From Smirkey's Wars As American troops marked their third Christmas in Iraq since the war began in March 2003, the highest-ranking U.S. military officer said their number could decline in 2006 but that there is no specific target for withdrawals, and they could even rise. He cautioned that more troops could be needed to cope with insurgent activity. Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: "We do not have a plan that specifically says we'll be down below 100,000 by the end of the year. What we have is a plan that allows us to keep what we have today for the foreseeable future and then off-ramps and on-ramps based on conditions on the ground." But, in a tacit acknowledgment that the U.S. military presence is still crucial to staving off insurgents, Pace said: "The enemy has a vote in this, and if they were to cause some kind of problems that required more troops, then we would do exactly what we've done in the past, which is give the commanders on the ground what they need. And in that case, you could see troop level go up a little bit to handle that problem." However, an opinion survey conducted in Iraq in October and November by ABC News and a pool of other US and foreign media outlets showed that despite some improvements in security and living standards, US military operations in the country were increasingly unpopular with Iraqis. Two-thirds of those polled said they opposed the presence of US and coalition forces in Iraq, up 14 points from a similar survey taken in February 2004. Nearly 60 percent disapproved of the way the United States has operated in Iraq since the war began in March 2003, with most of those expressing "strong disapproval," the poll found. When asked to suggest a timing for the US pullout, 26 percent said US and other coalition forces should "leave now," while 19 percent opted for a withdrawal after the Iraqis formed a new government based on the results on the December 15 election.
Thousands of Iraqis have staged a protest in Baghdad about results from the recent parliamentary elections, which they say were tainted by fraud. Demonstrators chanted slogans alleging the polls were rigged in favor of the governing Shia religious bloc. Some politicians have been calling for a campaign of civil disobedience if their complaints about the election are not properly investigated. Marchers carried banners supporting Sunni Arab and secular Shia candidates.
The Bush administration suggested Tuesday that prisons in Iraq where hundreds of detainees apparently were abused were only "nominally" under the control of the central government in Baghdad. While the central government, with U.S. help, is trying to take charge of these prisons the Interior ministry, which runs them may have its own way of doing things, suggested State Department spokesman Adam Ereli. "The problem has clearly not been solved and the problem is widespread," Ereli said. "We and the Iraqi government continue to have concern about the way prisoners are treated in Iraqi facilities and in facilities nominally under the control of the Iraqi government," the spokesman said. "And the United States, for its part, is going to do everything it can to ensure that the rights of Iraqi citizens are respected," Ereli added. The statement acknowledged weakness in the Iraqi government, but also credited it with trying to address a problem that undercuts the administration's case that reform is taking hold since the toppling of President Saddam Hussein.
A top Taliban commander said more than 200 rebel fighters were willing to become suicide attackers against U.S. forces and their allies - a claim dismissed as propaganda Monday by Afghanis