I had a visit yesterday from a Tico neighbor who hasn't been by to see me in quite some time. I spent a good deal of time discussing with him my plans for the move and all. And then he told me why he came by - to invite me to his daughter's wedding next Saturday. That means I have to get all gussied up and go to the Catholic Church for the wedding. It will be the first time I have attended an official church ceremony in a Catholic church. Growing up as I did in a predominantly Mormon community, there was only one Catholic church in that city, and I used to pass by it on the way between my home and my own Mormon church - for many years in fact - but never once went in. In fact, I don't think I was ever even in a Catholic church until I attended a concert in one, when I moved to Salt Lake City in my mid-twenties. So it is definitely going to be a cultural experience for me.
Well, after inviting me to the wedding, he invited me up to his house for the afternoon. And I went up about one o'clock. Turns out his cat had just begun giving birth to a new batch of kittens, so I got to watch that whole process, too. They had spread an old blanket out under a bush in front of the house, and the cat had taken to it without a complaint. It is a very small cat, not much more than an adolescent cat in size, her first litter, and was having a bit of a time with it. She was cleaning up the afterbirth on the third kitten when I left.
I mentioned to my neighbor that I had heard that a couple of houses were being built on the hill above his house, and asked if they were being built by Ticos. He replied in the affirmative, and asked if I would care to walk up and see them. Since I was feeling pretty good, and my heart wasn't complaining, I said yes, and we slowly walked up the hill for a look. Turns out there were three new houses, not big but quite nice, and all were being built by the long-time owners of the property, who were replacing some fairly old shacks. There is lots of new money in Arenal these days, most of it coming from gringos moving here. And some is clearly filtering down to the locals.
Weather has continued its dry-season-like pattern, with only a few brief thunderstorms to relieve the heat and dryness. The unusual weather is nationwide, and prompted an article in the Tico Times on Friday, in which the Meteorological Institute says it is due to the El Nino, as I had surmised. They expect the El Nino to be a weak one and dissipate sometime after the first of the year, and if that happens, normal weather should resume early next year. In the mean time, it is going to be an early dry season, with below-average rainfall during the dry. In spite of the dry weather, though, the temperatures have been moderate, dropping to a 78 high today, after a 72 overnight low. Most of the preceeding days, it has been much warmer - with a high of 83 to 85, and overnight lows of 72-74.
CAFTA Protests - A Semi-Dud Or Semi-Riot?
The paper this morning is full of news of the Central America Free Trade Agreement protests that have been taking place in San Jose on Monday and again yesterday. Protesters, mostly University of Costa Rica students, public employees union members employed by ICE and the state-owned insurance monopoly, INS, have been in the streets, protesting loudly and long about how the agreement, which has been signed but not ratified by Costa Rica, Newly installed president Oscar Arias Sanchez has reiterated his support and urged protesters to maintain the right of the citizens to navigate the streets of the capital. There has been some violence, mostly fisticuffs, but one person has died as the result of an ambulance being blocked and not allowed through to take an accident victim to the hospital.
The protestors blocked off several streets, and maintained their blockade through most of the day on each day. They had said they were going to bring the country to a halt for two days, but it didn't happen. Out here in the campo (countryside), where I live, all that is in another world. You would hardly know anything is happening if you weren't seeing it on the news each night.
In the meantime, the big mystery epidemic of disease in Panama that killed 26 people there, and put several dozen in the hospital, has finally been solved. Turns out that it was bad medicines - including a popular locally-made cough syrup had been contaminated with an industrial chemical, diethylene glycol, a highly toxic ingredient closely related to the chemical used in automotive antifreeze. The investigation showed that the contamination was apparently deliberate, and at least five people have now been arrested. More than 10,000 bottles of the medicine have been removed from store shelves in Panama, but 40,000 were produced, so the health agencies are concerned that the deaths may continue as syrup already purchased is used by people who don't know about the recall.
The election campaign up in Nicaragua is getting more heated. Daniel Ortega, the leader of the Sandinista party, and Washington's arch-nemesis, is now leading in the polls, but not by enough that he would likely win a first round. Meanwhile, Smirkey's crowd is getting really nervous about that, and is doing their best to prevent an Ortega victory. First, it was the American ambassador, Paul Trivelli, who made some comments about a month ago about how awful it was that Hugo Chavez was interfering in the elections, and, oh, by the way, you'd better not vote for the Sandinistas if you know what's good for you. Then Dan Burton, that carpetbagging right-winger congressman from Illinois came down to Nicaragua yet again (his third trip this year), and made similar comments - or should I say, threats - about how sad it would be if the Contra War were to resume. And now, just yesterday, none other than convicted felon and hero of the American right, Oliver North was in town, also making the same veiled threats about a resumption of the Contra War. What none of them seem to understand, however, is that the Nicaraguan people have the right to choose their own presidents, without American meddling, and so deeply resent the interference that they are increasingly supporting the Sandinistas just to spite the American right wing. Even the former Contra fighters have largely joined up with the Sandinistas. And as for the United States sanctimoniously giving lessons on democracy to their Ignorant Brown-Skinned Brothers To The South, it need only be pointed out that the U.S. hasn't had a free and fair national election in this century, and the one scheduled for next month doesn't look to be any better - a fact not lost on the Nicaraguans, who can - and do - read the papers, too.
My preparations for my upcoming move are proceeding apace. I have been getting some bids on the move, and the prices I have been getting (other than one) have been about what I have expected. Other than my books and electronics, I could sell most of what I have and buy new when I land wherever I land, but that is going to be a real hassle. But given the price of hauling it, I am not sure that I would be better off to keep it. Just can't bear to abandon my library, though. This would be the third time, and both times in the past, I have regretted it. So this time, I am determined to keep it, one way or another. The furniture and appliances are another matter. Those I could sell and not miss.
The weather has continued its dry-season-like pattern, with one day's exception, and that was on Sunday, when an intense tropical wave came through, and dumped rain and cold on us all day long. But now we're back to what has become the usual bright, sunny days, occasional afternoon thunderstorms, and warm temperatures. There has even been a lot of trash-burning going on around here lately, unusual for this time of year. Highs have been in the low 80's and overnight lows 72 to 73 each night.
I made a run yesterday to Canas to buy a new tire for my SUV. The tread separation on the old one was bad enough that I figured I had best not drive on it at all, so I took it over to the gasolinera and had them put the spare on. It was a good thing I did - the separation had grown noticeably worse just in the mile I drove from my house to the gasolinera. My war plan was to get the spare put on, then drive on it to Canas for a new tire, and drive home with a stop in Tilaran for groceries. As usual, I had to wait at the gasolinera, but the wait was not inordinate - about 20 minutes. With the spare on my wheel, I drove to Canas and bought a new tire at the big Bridgestone store there. They had just the right tire, and the price was the same as last time - $99. So on it went. I drove the car into the service bay, and was the only customer in the place, so all five tire gorillas went to work on it, and had me out of there in less than ten minutes. The stop for groceries in Tilaran worked out well, though they were out of the smoked palmito cheese that I so dearly love, but otherwise, the trip went smoothly and without a hitch. I was back home by noon.
The colon, the Costa Rican unit of currency is now floating. Sort of. As of Tuesday, the central bank of Costa Rica has been allowing the currency to fluctuate in value within a certain "trading band" rather than in the fixed-rate system it has used for many years. While this has brought a certain amount of prestige to the system, it also creates uncertainty, and some observers are predicting it will only lead to further dollarization of the economy. We'll see. The first day's trading was encouraging - the currency did not hit either the floor or the ceiling, and that indicates that the central bank has the value close to right.
The weather continues its awfully dry and unusually warm (72-84 degrees) "rainy season" pattern - and now, in viewing the satellite image for the last week or so, it appears that the Intertropical Convergence Zone, the band of thunderstorms that goes around the planet and defines the "heat equator," has moved south of us, out into the Pacific. That means that the dry season is essentially here. Two to three months early. Bad news. The El Nino is already having more of an effect than the Meteorological Institute had predicted, and I can't help but wonder if the reason is that all-purpose Scapegoat For All Unusual Weather Phenomena - global warming.
Well, as promised, when something so egregious, so outrageous arises in the States that it demands a comment, I have promised to comment on it. So here goes. From the New York Times editorial page, as quoted in Truthout:
"Voters in Ohio can be forgiven if they feel they have been beamed out of the Midwest and dropped into a third-world autocracy. The latest news from the state's governor's race is that the Republican nominee, Kenneth Blackwell, who is also the Ohio secretary of state, could rule that his opponent is ineligible to run because of a technicality. We'd like to think that his office would not ultimately do that, or that if it did, such a ruling would not be allowed to stand. But the mere fact that an elected official and political candidate has the authority to toss his opponent out of a race is further evidence of a serious flaw in our democracy.
"Ted Strickland, the Democratic nominee, is leading Mr. Blackwell by as much as 28 points, according to one recent poll. In their panic, some Blackwell supporters have hit on the idea of trying to prevent the election from occurring. One of them filed a complaint alleging that Mr. Strickland, who is a member of Congress, does not live in the apartment where he is registered to vote. Mr. Strickland owns a condominium in another part of Ohio, and the complaint alleges that he actually lives there. If Mr. Strickland was not a qualified voter, he would be prohibited from running for governor.
"The complaint itself is without merit. No one disputes that Mr. Strickland lives in Ohio, or that he is registered. The only issue is which of his two homes he chose to register from, and the law gives voters with multiple homes broad discretion in choosing among them."
For those of you who don't know who Kenneth Blackwell is, he is the Secretary of State for Ohio, who, while simultaneously serving as that state's chief election officer as well as George Bush's state campaign co-chair in the 2004 election (and now the Republican candidate for governor), managed to engineer a minimum of six percentage point fraudulent vote-count shift in the election results to allow Smirkey to win Ohio - and with it, of course, the election. For this election, he has issued further regulations that skew the vote - including draconian rules on election registration drives. Can we say "conflict of interest," boys and girls? These antics are why he is running 28 points behind in the polls in a largely Republican state.I went to town today to mail some letters and pick up some medicine at the farmacia. They had the medicine I needed, and I was quite happy to get some letters mailed that have been needing to be sent since Thursday, but I couldn't because of the holiday weekend. The post office has been closed since Thursday closing, and didn't re-open till this morning. Columbus day. Here it is celebrated as Multiculture Day or some such. But whatever, it had the country pretty much shut down.
I figured on the way back home, I would run past the new Austrian Bakery to pick up some bread. I normally buy it at the German Bakery, but they are closed, as the owner is on vacation, and will be through this week. So I stopped at the Austrian Bakery to pick up some baguettes. I have bought some there before in the past, and they are OK, pretty good but not as good as the German Bakery, since they are baked in Liberia and trucked here, and are therefore not as fresh.
Well, as it turns out, the Austrian Bakery here is having its goods made by the Panaderia Alemania in Liberia. Until now, they have been OK but not really great - when the German Bakery is closed or out of stock, it has been sufficient to get by. But, in my opinion, nothing to write home about. Well, now, it turns out that the Panaderia Alemania has apparently turned to subcontracting, and the subcontractor has changed the recipe. The baguettes are now being made with the standard Costa Rican bread recipe, which omits the eggs - and that leaves the bread with a pasty, crumbly consistency and a rather weird, bland taste. No better, really, than the grocery-store bread, and certainly not worth the premium that the Austrian Bakery charges. Martha (owner of the Austrian Bakery) is in the States with some health issues - and if you're reading this, Martha, you need to get back down here and knock some heads together and get this thing sorted out. So I still have a week before the German Bakery re-opens on Monday. I can't wait. Sorry, Martha.
Arriving back home, I discovered that I have an incipient tread separation starting in one of the tires on my truck. I suspect I have hit a sharp rock or something, so I am going to have to go to the gas station and get the spare put on, then go to Canas and get a new tire. One more thing to do. One more unneeded expense.
The weather for the last few days has been continuing its dry rainy-season pattern, with almost uninterrupted sunshine. The heat has been increasing as well, with temperatures in the upper 80's the last few days, and the overnight low dropping only to 74. No rain since the day before yesterday, and that was only a brief shower during the evening. As I write this at ten in the morning, it is already 85, and headed up. Global warming arrives in Arenal.The weather the last couple of days has continued its end-of-rainy-season regime. An increase in the trade winds, sunny skies for the most part and a lack of rain (by Arenal standards, anyway), has continued, indicating that the El Nino brewing out there in the Pacific is having its effects. No rain last night - in fact a brilliantly clear sky - is just not what we would expect this time of year. Temperatures continue to warm up a bit - it is already in the 80s as I write this at ten in the morning, and the overight low last night was 72.
Well, the results of my readership survey are in. I have made a final decision to discontinue the "More Reasons" section of this blog. The responses I have received amounted to about a third of what I was expecting and hoping to see. Most of the responses have indicated that their main focus in reading my blog is keeping up to date on what my life in exile is like, and I am grateful to you for your interest. And I pledge to continue the blog as time permits during my pending move, just without the politics. I may make a comment from time to time, or quote a particularly egregious story I run across, but it will no longer be a running feature.
Some readers, however, have suggested that I explain how it was researched and provide the sources, so readers can go there for themselves. I think that is an excellent solution, so here is an explanation of how I have been doing the research for those who wish to peruse the sources themselves.
I have taken full advantage of the power of RSS. With it, the blog research is accomplished in just a few minutes, and is done automatically, and the big, time consuming job has been simply selecting from among the hundreds of new items, excerpting them and plugging them into the blog.
For those of you who don't know what RSS is, it is a way of alerting end users to new content on a web site automatically. Many web sites, including this one, provide a special file called an "RSS feed" which lists new items on the web site and (in many cases) a brief summary of them. The file is updated each time a new item is added. The feed is then read by the end user using software called an "RSS reader" or "feed reader" - versions of which are built into both the Firebird web browser and the Thunderbird email program. I have used both, but find them inadequate and frankly rather buggy and unreliable, so I looked around for a standalone feed reader I like, and have settled on "Feed Reader," free software you can obtain at www.feedreader.com.
Once you have a feed reader installed, you need to "subscribe" to the feeds of interest. For my blog research, my feed reader is currently set up to check 29 different web sites (and checks all 29 for new content in about three minutes - that is the power of RSS!). But only a half dozen of those account for about three fourths of the items I have been including in the More Reasons section.
If you use Feedreader or a similar RSS reader, you can add the following links to your feed list and get most of the information I have been using from my more important sources. Asterisks indicate feeds that I find are particularly useful:
Citizens for Legitimate Government *
Truthout *
Human Rights Watch International
Project For The Old American Century *
Truthdig *
An additional site that is highly useful but does not provide an RSS feed and therefore has to be checked manually, is TVNewsLies.org.
For activists, many of you will already recognize some of these sites, and for others, most may be new to you. But they are all good sites for uncovering the malfeasance of Smirkey and the gang, and can help you keep on top of what the mainstream media is simply not telling you.
I hope that helps. And if I can be of further assistance in helping those of you who are interested in keeping up to speed on these matters, please feel free to write, and I will offer the benefit of whatever wisdom I can provide.
Thanks again to all of you who have been loyal readers of my "More Reasons" section all these years. And I apologize for the inconvenience of no longer having this section for your perusal.
The weather has been late rainy season. Late is kinda strange, because this should be just the peak of it. But there has been little rain (except for a brief but intense thunderstorm yesterday afternoon) and for the most part, even sunny and bright, right into the evening, with grand, orange-lit thunderclouds off in the distance. Unusual for Arenal at any time of the year, but almost unheard of in the rainy season. Going days at a time with no rain in the middle of the rainy season is just not our kind of weather. The last couple of days have seen some increase in temperatures, too, with an overnight low of 73, and a high today of 85.
About a year ago, I was in a chain supermarket in Tilaran when a busload of gringo tourists was disgorged in front of the place, and most of them came in to experience a "real" Costa Rican supermarket and buy a few souvenir local food products (unbeknownst to them, that store is actually owned by none other than Wal Mart, and at least two thirds of what it sells is imported by that company from the States under local-brand labels). As I was cruising the aisles making my usual purchases, I happened on a couple of women examining a small bottle of vanilla flavoring, and wondering aloud in English if it was artificial or genuine vanilla extract. Well, it was one of the cheaper store brands, so I knew the answer before I translated the label for them - sure enough, it was ordinary, imported artificial vanilla. Ever since then, though, for some reason, I have just kept my eyes open for the real deal. I have known for some time that there are vanilla plantations here, but had no idea if it was being processed locally. Well, yesterday, I found some in the local supermarket here in Arenal, and on examination of the label, found it is not only the real deal, but is made in Costa Rica as well, and was made by a proprietary water extraction method by a 78-year old local company, and contained no alcohol. I just had to buy a bottle and give it a try - the price was right, about $3 for barely under a half liter - not much more than the imported artificial stuff.
What to try it in, that was the question. Well, I figured the obvious choice was a betido (a fresh-fruit smoothie made with milk), and so I made up a batch of my famous banana betidos. I mixed in a teaspoon and a half of the extract in the full blender, figuring that would be about what I would use of the artificial stuff - I like a lot of vanilla in things.
Wow! What a mistake that was! The flavor of the vanilla simply overwhelmed the bananas, and it was about all I could taste! Having never used real vanilla before, I had no idea what to expect, and using genuine, top quality natural extract for the first time, I was quite amazed at how powerful it is. After diluting everything down a good deal, it proved to be a wonderful addition, with a full, round flavor that the artificial stuff just doesn't have and will now become a standard ingredient for my banana betidos. Yeah, that bottle of vanilla is going with me, wherever I end up after my move. I think I have got a new best friend.
I am still considering my decision as to whether to discontinue the "More Reasons" section below. If you have not weighed in on this, please let me know right away.
More Reasons Why I Am Glad I Am Out Of The States: The National Security Archive at George Washington University has uncovered a dirty little secret of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts: one of every four veterns of the of the Bush regime's global war on terror has filed a disability claim with the Veteran's Administration. Perhaps just as importantly, the VA stonewalled the NSA's FOIA request for nearly nine months. What do the actual numbers look like? In a release today, the NSA said: "...Only after the Archive administratively appealed the VA's 'no documents' claims and advised the VA that it was prepared to file a lawsuit did the agency manage to locate the records. One is a January 30, 2006, document: "Compensation and Pension Benefit Activity Among 464,144 Veterans Deployed to the Global War on Terror." It reports that more than 150,000 deployed Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq) veterans, out of more than 560,000 veterans of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), filed disability compensation and pension benefits claims with the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA)... According to Veterans for America, the newly released data suggests official estimates dramatically understate the future cost of the current Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. If the current trend continues, then VA could receive as many as 400,000 disability claims from the 1.6 million deployed active duty and reserve service members in the Global War on Terrorism..."
It seems increasingly clear that the GOP congressional leadership, eager for every safe incumbent in the House to run for re-election, looked the other way as evidence accumulated that Mark Foley had a thing for pages. Holding onto his seat became more important than confronting him over his extracurricular activities. But there's more to the story of why Foley stood for re-election this year. Yesterday, a source close to Foley explained to THE NEW REPUBLIC that in early 2006 the congressman had all but decided to retire from the House and set up shop on K Street. "Mark's a friend of mine," says this source. "He told me, 'I'm thinking about getting out of it and becoming a lobbyist.'" But when Foley's friend saw the Congressman again this spring, something had changed. To the source's surprise, Foley told him he would indeed be standing for re-election. What happened? Karl Rove intervened. According to the source, Foley said he was being pressured by "the White House and Rove gang," who insisted that Foley run. If he didn't, Foley was told, it might impact his lobbying career. "He said, 'The White House made it very clear I have to run,'" explains Foley's friend, adding that Foley told him that the White House promised that if Foley served for two more years it would "enhance his success" as a lobbyist. "I said, 'I thought you wanted out of this?' And he said, 'I do, but they're scared of losing the House and the thought of two years of Congressional hearings, so I have two more years of duty.'"
Why I Am Embarrassed To Present My Passport: The Court of Tegucigalpa (Honduras) charged the US company Your Solutions of buying off 142 Honduran nationals hired as security guards, who were forced to go fight in Iraq. The Human Rights Court report says the soldiers claim they were cheated by the company, since of their $1,200 dollar monthly salary, $200 were deducted for company "expenses" and another $200 supposedly sent to their families, which never arrived. Fourteen guards returning home told the Human Rights Court that the company violated their rights and lied about the true intent of their contracts. They were hired to work as private security guards in Iraq but once there, were forced to join the fighting. Due to this situation's international repercussions, a UN commission visited Honduras to interview different institutions and check on the charges. Although Honduras has not signed the Anti-Mercenary Convention, Art. 317 of its Penal Code includes the crime, hence the General Attorney's Office and Human Rights Court will sue. In addition, the UN Anti-Mercenary Group urged Honduras to keep track of such contracts because the contingent departed without institutional protection.
The creation of a special group to toughen the blockade against Cuba, announced by the US government Wednesday, has been Washington's reaction to the imminent UN condemnation of the siege against the island. The announcement, made by the federal attorney of southern Florida, added new measures are being taken involving numerous governmental agencies and other instances "to punish lawbreakers." The group is formed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Department of the Treasury, the FBI, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Department of Commerce, the Coast Guard, and border protection units. That huge mobilization of resources, to stiffen the anti-Cuba blockade and includes threats of substantial fines and up to ten-year prison sentences, is taking place less than a month before the UN General Assembly will once again consider the issue. The new US move demonstrates that for the Bush administration, the rejection of the anti-Cuba blockade expressed by the international community at the UN clearly has little value.
What Your Aid-To-Israel Tax Dollars Are Paying For: Sawsan Salameh, a Palestinian from the West Bank, was thrilled to get a full scholarship from Hebrew University of Jerusalem to begin a doctorate in theoretical chemistry. But a recent move by the Israeli Army to ban new Palestinian students from Israeli universities for "security" reasons is keeping her from studying at the campus, just three kilometers, or two miles, from her home. "The first time I applied for a permit I was rejected," said Salameh, 29, a Muslim wearing a head scarf and a black denim skirt that skimmed the floor. "I was shocked, because I thought there must be some kind of mistake, so I kept trying. I kept hoping." Her situation is familiar to many Palestinians, whose freedom of movement has been limited in recent years because of the continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Salameh said that after she appealed six times to the Israeli government agency that handles Palestinian affairs, she decided to turn to the Supreme Court. On Tuesday, Gisha, an Israeli group that is an advocate for Palestinian rights, submitted a petition on her behalf to the court, calling the ban illegal. "Gisha calls upon Israel not to prevent Palestinian students from studying just because they are Palestinian," the group's director, Sari Bashi, said.
Spin Cycle: With casualties rising in the Iraqi chaos abroad and the congressional page scandals at home, President Bush wants to change the subject to taxes and the economy. "Our nation has got this choice to make," he said in Macon, Ga., Tuesday at yet another Republican fundraiser: "Keep taxes low - or let the Democrats in Washington raise taxes." These are dog days for conservative Republican incumbents. The growing din of civil war in Iraq drowns out the president's tough talk about the war on terror. The Mark Foley page scandal puts a damper on the conservative indictment of licentious liberals. Stagnant wages and growing pressures on working and middle-income families make the president's celebration of the "strong economy" sound out of touch. So the president and conservative incumbents are trotting out the old staple - the threat that Democrats will raise your taxes. There are limits to the argument. With fighting escalating in Afghanistan and Iraq, with deficits still consuming the Social Security trust fund surplus and more, the president doesn't promise new tax cuts. He doesn't really say what he'll do for the economy, but merely what he's against: Democrats raising your taxes. He doesn't explain how Democrats will do that when he's armed with veto power in the White House. One problem with the argument: The conservatives in charge of Washington have already been picking the pockets of most American families. Their corporate tax and trade policies have added to the flight of good jobs abroad and the downward pressure on wages at home. Their full-bore assault on unions and opposition to the minimum wage contributes directly to a distorted economy in which profits and CEO salaries are up but workers are falling behind.
Bill Of Rights Death Watch: A California man who appeared in al-Qaeda propaganda videos has been charged with treason by a US court. Adam Gadahn, 28, has become the first US citizen to be charged with treason since World War II, officials said. Mr Gadahn, who is also known as Azzam al-Amriki or Azzam the American, is believed to be a fugitive in Pakistan. Previously known as Adam Pearlman, he converted to Islam as a teenager and most recently appeared in a video with al-Qaeda ideologue, Ayman al-Zawahiri. In the video released last month, he exhorted his fellow Americans to convert to Islam and said US soldiers fighting in the Iraqi and Afghan conflicts should switch sides. No Muslim, he said, should "shed tears" for Westerners killed in terrorist attacks. The indictment against Mr Gadahn said he had "knowingly adhered to an enemy of the United States... with intent to betray the United States". A deputy US attorney described the treason charge as "exceptionally severe". The charge carries penalties ranging from a five-year prison term to death. Mr Gadahn grew up on a goat farm near Los Angeles.
The United States Of America, A Third-World Nation: Cow manure from a ranch in California's Salinas Valley carries E. coli bacteria that match the strain that sickened 200 Americans and killed three, U.S. health officials said on Thursday. Samples taken from three cattle at a ranch precisely match the strain of E. coli 0157:H7 taken from patients and from bags of spinach linked to the outbreak, Dr. Kevin Reilly, Deputy Director of the Prevention Services Division at the California Department of Health told reporters. "This is a significant finding and it is the first time that we have linked an E. coli 0157:H7 outbreak to a specific ranch in the Salinas Valley," Reilly said.
Republican Policies Build A Strong America: The US trade deficit widened by more than expected during August, raising concerns about the state of the world's largest economy. The deficit was $69.9 billion in August, up from July's $68 billion level, the US Commerce Department said. The deficit is on course to set a new record, totalling $784.2 billion at the end of August, 9.4% higher than a year ago. One of the main causes of the shortfall has been high oil prices, which have pushed up petroleum import costs. The total value of imports rose by 2.4% to $192.3 billion in August, while exports rose by 2.3% to $122.4 billion. During August, the politically charged trade deficit with China rose by 12.2% to a monthly high of $22bn. The is on course to top last year's record figure of $202 billion.
If We Ignore Global Warming Long Enough, Maybe It Will Go Away: Africa's two highest mountains - Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya - will lose their ice cover within 25 to 50 years if deforestation and industrial pollution are not stopped, environmentalists warned Thursday. Kilimanjaro has already lost 82 percent of its ice cover over 80 years, said Fredrick Njau of the Kenyan Green Belt Movement. Mount Kenya, one of the few places near the equator with permanent glaciers, has lost 92 percent over the past 100 years. "This is a major issue because declining ice caps mean the water tap is effectively going to be turned off and that is a major concern," said Nick Nuttall from the U.N.'s Environment Program. All the evidence shows climate change is underway and Africa is the must vulnerable continent to this, he said, adding that foreign aid must address the threat of climate change.
News From The Talibaptist Jihad: Max Blumenthal, writing in The Nation: "Immediately after the Mark Foley scandal broke, some anti-Republican gay-rights activists composed a memo containing the names of closeted gay Republican Congressional staffers and sent it to leading Christian-right advocacy groups. The founder and chairman of one of those groups, the Rev. Don Wildmon of the American Family Association, told me he has received that memo, which he referred to simply as "The List." Based on The List's contents, Wildmon is convinced that a secretive gay "clique" boring within the Republican-controlled Congress is responsible for covering up Foley's sexual predation toward teenage male House pages. Moreover, Wildmon calls on the Republican Party leadership to promptly purge the "subversive" gay staffers. "They oughtta fire every one of 'em," Wildmon told me in his trademark Mississippi drawl. 'I don't care if they're heterosexual or homosexual or whatever they are. If you've got that going on, that subverts the will of the people; that subverts the voters. That is subversive activity. There should be no organization among staffers in Washington of that nature, and if they find out that they're there and they're a member, they oughtta be dismissed el pronto.' Wildmon claimed that an investigation by Congressional Republican leaders into the gay menace lurking in their midst will clear House Speaker Dennis Hastert of allegations that he repeatedly ignored warnings about Foley's behavior. "I think the identification of the members of the homosexual clique is going to come out," Wildmon declared. "I think it's going to come out whether or not Hastert knew what he says, and at this point I'm inclined to believe he's telling the truth. I'm beginning to think that the homosexuals shielded their former Congressman Foley and that Denny Hastert did not know the depth of what's going on up there.'"
More than five years after President Bush created the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, the former second-in-command of that office is going public with an insider’s tell-all account that portrays an office used almost exclusively to win political points with both evangelical Christians and traditionally Democratic minorities. The office's primary mission, providing financial support to charities that serve the poor, never got the presidential support it needed to succeed, according to the book. Entitled "Tempting Faith," the book is not scheduled for release until Oct. 16, but MSNBC’s "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" has obtained a copy. "Tempting Faith's" author is David Kuo, who served as special assistant to the president from 2001 to 2003. A self-described conservative Christian, Kuo's previous experience includes work for prominent conservatives including former Education Secretary and federal drug czar Bill Bennett and former Attorney General John Ashcroft.
The weather is beginning to show evidence of the end of the rainy season. Dry weather during the day, including the afternoon, with spectacular sunsets and heavy evening showers. Last night a really big thunderstorm brought a rip-snorting downpour that lasted two hours and wiped out satellite TV reception during that time. Temperatures haven't changed that much, though, with an 82 high and a 72 low.
Last night's downpour brought two roof leaks to my attention. Both appeared along troughs in the roof, and were only leaking during the heavy part of the rain, so that leads me to believe that they are being caused by moss and llianas damming up the troughs, not allowing them to drain properly It has been two years since I cleaned the moss off the roof, and it is clearly ready for it again, so that is going to be the big project in the next week or two. I fully expect that will clear the leaks. I'll keep you advised - we're heading into the ripsnorter season, so I should soon find out.
Well, I screwed up. I wasn't paying close attention to my bill-paying account, and it ran out of money. I didn't know about it until a phone outage yesterday that lasted about 8 hours, and when the phones came back on, mine didn't. When I went to dial out to the Internet to do research for today's blog entry, I got an intercept, which said in Spanish: "Esteemed, customer, your service has been temporarily suspended. Please contact ICE management regarding this matter. You may call from this phone, the call is free." That could only mean one thing - the phone bill was overdue. So I went down to the bank that pays my bills this morning, and sure enough, the account was about $16 short of enough to pay the bill, so it had gone unpaid. I put some money in the account, paid the phone bill and asked when the phone would likely be turned back on. Twenty minutes, I was told. While in town, I did a bit of grocery shopping, and when I got home, the phone was on. That is why the blog was uploaded a day late. Sorry about that.
I still need to hear from you if you have not written me already regarding the future of this blog. So far, the response has been somewhat sparse, and I so am still reconsidering my commitment to keeping this blog (or at least the More Reasons section) alive. If you haven't written yet, please take the time to write me and let me know if you are reading More Reasons, and if so, how much of it you read, and how often. This will help me determine whether the readership is broad enough to justify the rather considerable effort in putting it together.
More Reasons Why I Am Glad I Am Out Of The States: Kellogg Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, is constructing a huge facility at an undisclosed location to hold tens of thousands of Bush's "unlawful enemy combatants." Americans are certain to be among them. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 governing the treatment of detainees is the culmination of relentless fear-mongering by the Bush administration since the September 11 terrorist attacks. Because the bill was adopted with lightning speed, barely anyone noticed that it empowers Bush to declare not just aliens, but also U.S. citizens, "unlawful enemy combatants." Bush & Co. has portrayed the bill as a tough way to deal with aliens to protect us against terrorism. Frightened they might lose their majority in Congress in the November elections, the Republicans rammed the bill through Congress with little substantive debate. Anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on Bush's list of "terrorist" organizations, or who speaks out against the government's policies could be declared an "unlawful enemy combatant" and imprisoned indefinitely. That includes American citizens. The bill also strips habeas corpus rights from detained aliens who have been declared enemy combatants. Congress has the constitutional power to suspend habeas corpus only in times of rebellion or invasion. The habeas-stripping provision in the new bill is unconstitutional and the Supreme Court will likely say so when the issue comes before it. In his 1928 dissent in Olmstead v. United States, Justice Louis Brandeis cautioned, "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding." Seventy-three years later, former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, speaking for a zealous President, warned Americans "they need to watch what they say, watch what they do."
North Korea will view US pressure to rein in its nuclear program as "a declaration of war", the isolated communist regime said today in its first official statement since announcing it had carried out a nuclear test. Separately, the country's number two leader also warned that it would conduct a second test unless Washington softened its stance. "If the US keeps pestering us and increases pressure, we will regard it as a declaration of war and will take a series of physical corresponding measures," Pyongyang's foreign ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. "We were compelled to prove that we have nuclear weapons to prevent the increasing threat of war by the US and protect our sovereignty and survival," the statement added, saying the country was "ready for both dialogue and confrontation".
Two weeks ago? In the spring? Last fall? Try the year 2000. A spokesman for Rep. Jim Kolbe has told the Washington Post that the Arizona Republican learned six years ago that Rep. Mark Foley had engaged in inappropriate electronic exchanges with a former page. Kolbe spokeswoman Korenna Cline says that her boss personally confronted Foley about the messages at the time. If the Post's story holds up, it pretty much obliterates the timeline that House Speaker Dennis Hastert's office put out on Sept. 30 - the one that implied that House Republicans got their first hint of Foley's problems in the fall of 2005. That said, it's not clear yet whether Kolbe communicated with anyone in the House aside from Foley himself about the 2000 e-mail messages. Cline tells the Post that "corrective action" was taken in 2000, but that she doesn't know yet whether it involved anyone beyond Kolbe and Foley. It's also not yet clear how explicit the 2000 messages were - that is, if they were like the instant messages that ended Foley's career a week ago or more like the "overfriendly" e-mail messages House Republicans saw but didn't do much about over the course of the last year. A source with "direct knowledge" of Kolbe's involvement in the episode has read the messages in question to the Post, but the paper stops short of characterizing them one way or another. The Post says its source describes the messages as sexually explicit but that Cline denies that characterization.
On one night in 2002 or 2003, an allegedly inebriated Foley showed up at the pages' dorm after a 10 p.m. curfew and tried to gain entry, according to an account provided by two congressional sources, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter. Foley was turned away by a guard. It is not known if the pages were ever aware that Foley lurked outside their door, but word of the incident reached the House Clerk, who notified Foley's chief of staff, Kirk Fordham. This was not the first time that Fordham had learned of his boss's behaving, in that modern all-purpose euphemism, "inappropriately." Fordham decided that it was time to go to a higher authority, so he went to see Scott Palmer, chief of staff to the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert. That, at least, is what Fordham is prepared to tell investigators, according to a knowledgeable source who requested anonymity in discussing the probe. Palmer has already accused Fordham of dissembling, and Washington is settling in for one of its periodic melodramas of moralizing and prurience. The secret world of Mark Foley - and the denial and bumbling of the House leaders who possibly did not want to know too much about that world - is beginning to emerge in bits and pieces of lurid detail. What actually happened - from the moment that Hill staffers first became aware of Congressman Foley's unusual interest in teenage congressional pages - is the source of intrigue, finger-pointing, shock, fear and loathing on Capitol Hill and of endless fascination around the country. No wonder: the political fortunes of the Republican Party hang in the balance.
A former House page says he had sex with then-Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) after receiving explicit e-mails in which the congressman described assessing the sexual orientation and physical attributes of underage pages but waiting until later to make direct advances. The former page, who agreed to discuss his relationship with Foley with the Los Angeles Times on the condition that he not be identified, said his electronic correspondence with Foley began after he finished the respected Capitol Hill page program for high school juniors. His sexual encounter was in the fall of 2000, he said. At the time, he was 21 and a graduate of a rural Northeastern college.
Mike Rogers, blogACTIVE and PageOneQ.com editor and publisher, appeared Monday on FOX News' The O'Reilly Factor with host Bill O'Reilly. They discussed the effects the growing Mark Foley scandal, speculation around which O'Reilly described as "partisan nonsense." Rogers told O'Reilly that he has more members of Congress he will be reporting on as closeted and anti-gay before the election. "If the right wing thinks that homosexuality is tied to pedophilia, which we know is not true, what will they say in the next week or two when I release the names of other closeted gay memebrs of Congress in the Republican Party?" Rogers asked the host. "It's going to happen. What will their response be?" he also asked. A couple of days ago, Americablog reported rumors of another secretly gay Republican congressperson involved in scandal. John Aravosis refused to divulge the name (even in private correspondence - yes, I was nebby enough to ask), although his published piece cleverly hinted that the "mystery gay" was House Speaker Denny Hastert himself. Now, a number of web sites - and even Randi Rhodes - have reported that Hastert is indeed the man on the hot seat.
You'd think that the evangelists would understand by now that well-paid advisors brief W on which insider terms to use in order to thrill the hearts of fundamentalists. You'd think that they would notice that "their" president rarely attends religious services. Recent books have portrayed GWB as a foul-mouthed and ill-tempered bundle of resentment, likelier to say "motherfucker" than "maranatha," likelier to raise the finger than to bend the knee. Alas, most evangelicals still cling to their hallucinations of Republican piety. Maybe this revelation by Tucker Carlson - no liberal, he - will finally awaken the entranced: CARLSON: It goes deeper than that though. The deep truth is that the elites in the Republican Party have pure contempt for the evangelicals who put their party in power. Everybody in... MATTHEWS: How do you know that? How do you know that? CARLSON: Because I know them. Because I grew up with them. Because I live with them. They live on my street. Because I live in Washington, and I know that everybody in our world has contempt for the evangelicals. And the evangelicals know that, and they're beginning to learn that their own leaders sort of look askance at them and don't share their values. MATTHEWS: So this gay marriage issue and other issues related to the gay lifestyle are simply tools to get elected? CARLSON: That's exactly right. It's pandering to the base in the most cynical way, and the base is beginning to figure it out.
Five state prison systems in the United States permit the use of aggressive, unmuzzled dogs to terrify and even attack prisoners in efforts to remove them from their cells, Human Rights Watch said today in a new report. The 20-page report, "Cruel and Degrading: The Use of Dogs for Cell Extractions in U.S. Prisons," publicly reveals this practice for the first time. It also shows that the practice is not only cruel, but wholly unnecessary as there are safer, more humane alternatives that corrections officers can use - and most across the country do use - to remove prisoners from their cells.
In Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, South Dakota and Utah, if a prisoner will not voluntarily leave his cell when ordered to do so, officers may bring a trained attack dog to the cell front to terrify the prisoner into compliance. If the prisoner still refuses, the dog is let into the cell to bite the prisoner. While the prisoner tries to fend off the dog, correctional officers place restraints on him and then remove him from the cell. "The entire world has seen the photo of an Abu Ghraib detainee crouched in terror before a snarling dog, but the use of attack dogs against prisoners here in the U.S. has been a well-kept secret," said Jamie Fellner, director of the U.S. Program of Human Rights Watch. "Longtime corrections professionals were appalled when we told them that guards in some states use dogs on prisoners." The state prison systems in Connecticut and Iowa frequently use dogs for cell extractions. In Utah, they have been used extremely rarely. In Delaware and South Dakota, although state corrections policies permit the use of dogs for cell extractions, prison officials say they are not in fact used for this purpose.
The tracer software that Hewlett-Packard investigators used to try to sniff out boardroom leaks sounded like it had been ripped from the pages of a bad science-fiction novel. That is, until the company began talking about it in detail at a congressional probe into the spying scandal. The technology tool the company used, called a Web bug, is designed to allow email senders to track the path a message takes, including whether a recipient opens the message and forwards it to another party. And it turns out the technology is widely used in email newsletters to track readers and also by law enforcement in investigations, security experts say. A spokesman for the California attorney general's office said that HP's use of Web bugs is not linked to the Oct. 4 charges of five people, including former HP Chairwoman Patricia Dunn and contractors, on allegations that they used false pretenses to access individuals' phone records. That case is about the practice of so-called pretexting.
Public health advocates are questioning why the federal government is continuing to permit the use of a toxic and potentially deadly insecticide contained in shampoos and lotions marketed to treat skin ailments. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced in August that it was banning lindane, an organochlorine pesticide and possible human carcinogen widely produced since the 1940s, for agricultural uses. The agency said the companies making the insecticide "requested to voluntarily cancel all remaining pesticide registrations." But the insecticide, which the EPA states is "quite toxic for humans," is still approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a treatment for head lice and scabies. Despite the FDA’s own admission of multiple deaths and neurological side effects linked to the use of the pesticide by humans, the agency states that "lindane products have benefits that outweigh risks." The FDA blames some of the deaths and disabilities resulting from lindane on "product misuse." According to the FDA, up to one million prescriptions for lindane are written each year to treat new cases of head lice and scabies.
An alleged operative for Al Qaeda imprisoned for 3 1/2 years as an enemy combatant is saying he was tortured and forcibly medicated with "a sort of truth serum" while in a Navy brig. Jose Padilla, 35, was arrested in 2002 on suspicions that he was plotting a radioactive explosion, also known as a dirty bomb. He spent several years in a military jail in Charleston, S.C., without facing criminal charges. As legal wrangling over his fate continued, prosecutors in Miami charged him late last year with providing material support to a terrorist group and conspiring to murder, maim, and kidnap Americans abroad.
What Your Aid-To-Israel Dollars Are Paying For: The gift that keeps on giving: Twenty-one Lebanese have been killed and more than 100 wounded by unexploded Israeli bombs and bomblets dropped by Israel in the July-August war, the United Nations and Lebanese police said Sunday. As of October 3, 124 people had been killed or wounded by unexploded bombs, mostly submunitions that landed indiscriminately in civilian areas, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said. Lebanese police said that 21 people have been killed by the bomblets, including 16 civilians and five army bomb-disposal experts, since the 34-day conflict ended on August 14. On Sunday, 57-year-old Ali Khalil Arbani became the latest reported casualty after he was wounded by a bomblet as he gardened in the village of Zawtar Sharqieh in the South, losing a finger, police said.
Hizbullah will resume its military campaign unless Israel withdraws from the disputed Shebaa farms area and other pockets of territory occupied during this summer's 34-day war, Nabih Berri, the speaker of the Lebanese parliament, has warned. "If Israel does not pull out we will have to drive them out," Mr Berri, who acted as a link to the militant organisation during this summer's war with Israel, said in an interview with the Guardian. Shebaa farms has been occupied by Israel since 1967, but both Syria and Lebanon claim ownership of the land. Hizbullah will remain armed and fully operational in south Lebanon, despite the newly deployed UN forces, until Israel withdraws from all Lebanese territory and ceases its air, sea and land violations, Mr Berri said. "The Unifil presence will not hinder Hizbullah's defensive operations. The resistance doesn't need to fly its flags high to operate. It's a guerrilla movement; it operates among the people," he said. But Fouad Siniora, the Lebanese prime minister, told journalists last week that the Lebanese army had clear instructions to seize any weapons found in the south. "We reiterate our respect for all those who struggled and fought in the south, but there will be no weapons in the south apart from the army's," he said. Mr Berri also expressed concern that UN forces could be involved in gathering information that could fall into the hands of Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad. "We don't want to interfere in their work, but we will be watching closely. We have to be careful, but we have a very effective intelligence service and we are used to watching for Israeli spies."
Spin Cycle: Neo-Cons have seized upon doubts about the scale of North Korea's nuclear test to craft a talking point that the blast was a dud in an attempt to conceal the hypocrisy of hyping a war with a non-nuclear Iran in the face of North Korea's open proliferation, and the fact that Kim Jong-il bought his weapons from arms networks that were protected by the Bush administration. Bill Gertz and the Washington Times, usually the first to spit out volleys of rampant fearmongering, especially concerning Iran's alleged nuclear agenda, are leading a chorus of government media mouthpieces in downplaying Sunday's underground atomic test. "U.S. intelligence agencies say, based on preliminary indications, that North Korea did not produce its first nuclear blast yesterday," writes Gertz. "The underground explosion, which Pyongyang dubbed a historic nuclear test, is thought to have been the equivalent of several hundred tons of TNT, far short of the several thousand tons of TNT, or kilotons, that are signs of a nuclear blast, the official said." The U.S. seems to be alone in its assessment that the blast was non-nuclear - with Russia even claiming the explosion was comparable to the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Why are these bootlicking Neo-Con hacks, breaking from their usual feverish exaggeration of anything that makes the world more dangerous, changing the script and attempting to poo-poo North Korea's actions? The wild card of the test could potentially derail planned air strikes on Iran because, as Mike Rivero pointed out, "It will be hard for Bush to sell an invasion of Iran because it might someday make nuclear weapons when North Korea definitely has them now." The Neo-Con spin, that North Korea has not advanced to the point it claims and that the threat is diminished compared to more pressing targets of the Bush war machine, is intended to shield the hypocrisy of ignoring a nuclear-capable dictatorship that has threatened to destroy the world and fired test missiles that have hit Alaska, while obsessing about Iran, completely surrounded by U.S. client states and as much as fifteen years away from the bomb. It is also an effort to offset questions about how Kim Jong-il acquired his arsenal in the first place.
It's hard to believe that twelve years have passed since the Newt Gingrich-led Republican Revolution of 1994. In that year, GOP candidates launched a successful effort to take control of both the House and Senate, something they had not been able to accomplish in the previous forty-two years. Their campaign focused heavily on the Contract with America, a list of objectives that Republicans promised to pursue in Congress if elected into the majority. One of the key proposals of the document was the Citizen Legislature Act, a measure which would amend the Constitution to place limits on the number of terms members of both the House and Senate could serve. The argument was that career politicians become too distant from the people and need to be replaced by "citizen legislators." In a show of support for the proposed amendment, which eventually failed in the House, several GOP candidates pledged to limit their own terms (independent of any legislation forcing them to do so) if elected. Small numbers of candidates followed this trend in future elections as well. Of course, it is one thing to make a promise, and quite another to keep it. For the first ten years following the '94 campaign, slightly more than half of those with a pledge honored it when it came time to do so.
Republican campaign officials said yesterday that they expect to lose at least seven House seats and as many as 30 in the Nov. 7 midterm elections, as a result of sustained violence in Iraq and the page scandal involving former GOP representative Mark Foley. Democrats need to pick up 15 seats in the election to take back control of the House after more than a decade of GOP leadership. Two weeks of virtually nonstop controversy over President Bush’s war policy and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert’s handling of the page scandal have forced party leaders to recalculate their vulnerability and placed a growing number of Republican incumbents and open seats at much greater risk. GOP officials are urging lawmakers to focus exclusively on local issues and leave it to party leaders to mitigate the Foley controversy by accusing Democrats of trying to politicize it. At the same time, the White House plans to amplify national security issues, especially the threat of terrorism, after North Korea’s reported nuclear test, in hopes of shifting the debate away from casualties and controversy during the final month of the campaign. These efforts are aimed largely at prodding disaffected conservatives to vote for GOP candidates despite their unease. Still, GOP leaders privately said that Democrats are edging much closer to locking down a majority of House seats because a small but significant number of conservatives are frustrated with Republican governance, while independent swing voters are turning against GOP candidates. "These polls seem to suggest the public has decided to just 'throw the bums out,'" said Karlyn Bowman, a public opinion analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. "These are huge, huge, numbers and they are very bad for Republicans," she said. "There is not a shred of good news in these polls for Republicans." They are all but writing off GOP open seats in Arizona, Colorado, Texas and Florida (the one previously held by Foley). Party officials said that three GOP incumbents in Indiana are trailing in private polling and that seats thought safe suddenly appear imperiled. These include the open Florida seat vacated by Rep. Katherine Harris, who is running for senator. "It is unquestionably closer than we would like," said Rep. Adam Putnam (R-Fla.).
Suddenly, like the fierce "blue northers" that sweep across Texas each autumn, the political winds have turned bleaker for Republicans - and Smirkey's private mood has blackened accordingly... [F]riends, aides and close political allies tell the Daily News Bush is furious with his own side for helping create a political downdraft that has blunted his momentum and endangered GOP prospects for keeping control of Congress next month. Some of his anger is directed at former aides who helped Watergate journalist Bob Woodward paint a lurid portrait of a dysfunctional, chaotic administration in his new book, "State of Denial." In the obsessively private Bush clan, talking out of school is the ultimate act of disloyalty, and Bush feels betrayed from within. "He’s ticked off big-time," said a well-informed source, "even if what they said was the truth." Bush has complained, these sources said, that the scandal torpedoes furious GOP efforts to reenergize a dispirited political base - especially Christian conservatives. "There’s steam coming out of his ears over the Foley thing," someone who talks to the President regularly said. "The base is starting to get turned off again."
A story appearing in the American Spectator claims that news of then-Congressman Mark Foley's (R-FL) inappropriate communication with pages was supposed to be released by Democratic "party operatives" at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington or American Family Voices just ten days prior to the election. C.R.E.W. has contended that they received Foley emails many months ago, and turned what they had over to law enforcement, rather than passing it along to journalists. The organization plans to release a "fact sheet" detailing their account of involvement in the affair later today. "The RNC is shipping reams of information to conservative radio hosts, television commentators and bloggers," Jim VandeHei and Chris Cillizza wrote for the Post. "Those GOP talking points detail the Democratic connections of groups including the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and American Family Voices, which are working to turn the scandal into an issue with national implications." The C.R.E.W. rebuttal includes a response to these "lies" among many others: LIE: The email messages between Rep. Foley and a former page have been in CREW’s possession as far back as April. FACT: CREW received the emails on July 21, 2006 and promptly sent them to the FBI, and no one else, that same day. CREW did not discuss the email messages or their content with anyone else. The only call CREW's Executive Director Melanie Sloan made regarding the matter was to the Washington FBI agent to whom she sent the emails to confirm receipt of the messages. LIE: CREW provided the FBI with incomplete information and heavily redacted emails. CREW refused to disclose the page’s name and contact information to the FBI. FACT: The emails Ms. Sloan sent to the FBI were not edited or redacted in any way. The page's full name and email address were in the emails, as was the name and email address of the Congressional staffer to whom the page was sending the emails. LIE: The FBI investigation into Rep. Foley was hampered because CREW refused to comply with the agency's request for additional information. FACT: After CREW sent the emails to the FBI, CREW's only subsequent contact with the Bureau was one telephone call from the special agent to whom CREW had sent the material confirming that the emails were from Rep. Foley. CREW had no further contact with the FBI. According to several government officials, the FBI sent the emails to three squads: a public corruptions squad, a criminal squad and a cyber-squad. After reviewing the matter, the FBI determined that there wasn't enough evidence at the time to suggest any criminal activity and did not move forward with an investigation.
Commenting on the congressional page scandal surrounding former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) on the October 6 broadcast of Focus on the Family, James Dobson, founder and chairman of Focus on the Family, declared that the Foley affair has "turned out to be what some people are now saying was a -- sort of a joke by the boy and some of the other pages" who had reportedly come forward with sexually explicit instant messages that Foley allegedly sent. Similarly, in his October 6 column, Wall Street Journal deputy editorial page editor Daniel Henninger wrote that "a rumor emerged that in fact Mark Foley had been pranked by the House pages" and then added: "It is the first plausible thing I've heard in seven days." Media Matters for America recently noted that in defense of Foley's alleged actions, Internet gossip Matt Drudge and nationally syndicated radio host Michael Savage also attempted to shift the blame to the former pages who communicated with the former congressman. On his website, Drudge has elaborated on his suggestion that at least one of the former pages was complicit.
If We Ignore Global Warming Long Enough, Maybe It Will Go Away: The world's glaciers and ice caps are now in terminal decline because of global warming, scientists have discovered. A survey has revealed that the rate of melting across the world has sharply accelerated in recent years, placing even previously stable glaciers in jeopardy. The loss of glaciers in South America and Asia will threaten the water supplies of millions of people within a few decades, the experts warn. Georg Kaser, a glaciologist at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, who led the research, said: "The glaciers are going to melt and melt until they are all gone. There are not any glaciers getting bigger any more." Loss of land-based ice is one of the clearest signals of global temperature rise, and the state of glaciers has become a key argument in the debate over climate change. Last year, New Scientist magazine published a letter from the television botanist David Bellamy, a renowned climate sceptic, which claimed that 555 of 625 glaciers measured by the World Glacier Monitoring Service have been growing since 1980. His claim was quickly discredited, but the perception that glaciers are both growing and shrinking remains.
We Conservatives Are More Moral Than You: J. Kenneth Blackwell, the man who stole Ohio’s 2004 presidential election, was out campaigning October 4, 2006 with a man widely viewed as one of America’s leading white supremacists. Blackwell is an African-American. He is also the Republican nominee for governor of Ohio. As Secretary of State, he was the GOP point man for stealing the 2004 presidential vote that gave George W. Bush a second term. As co-chair of the state’s Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, Blackwell engineered a complex strategy of confusion, disenfranchisement and theft that mirrored what was done by Katherine Harris in Florida 2000. Harris was rewarded with a safe Congressional seat, and is now the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate. Polls show Blackwell trailing between 12-20 points in his gubernatorial race, but few Ohio insiders doubt his ability to steal the necessary votes, if he can get away with it. Currently, Blackwell operatives are stressing that he’s "only 12 points down" and that they believe the race will tighten significantly by Election Day. Blackwell toured the state with Larry Pratt, author of "Armed People Victorious" which advocates the creation of militant right-wing militias. Pratt has spoken and shared platforms in the past with Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi Aryan Nation members. He was forced to take a leave of absence from Pat Buchanan’s 1996 presidential campaign over charges of white supremacist and anti-semitic views. Pratt’s 150,000-member Gun Owners of America is proudly to the right of the National Rifle Association. According to the Columbus Dispatch, Pratt says he couldn’t be a racist because he is campaigning with Blackwell, an African-American. Blackwell is "our kind of guy," says Pratt, in reference to Blackwell's support of gun owners' rights. Blackwell campaign spokesperson attorney Eric Seabrook, conceded on Sunday, October 8 to the Khari Enaharo show listeners on 98.9FM radio that Pratt was a white supremacist but, he stressed "it was all about the gun rights issue."
Stock options that Senator George "Macaca" Allen described as worthless were worth as much as $1.1 million at one point, according to a review of Senate disclosure forms and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings. The records appear to contradict remarks he made to the Associated Press. "I got paid in stock options which were worthless," AP quoted him as saying. Allen served as a board member of Chantilly, Virginia-based Xybernaut Corp. from 1998 until December 2000 and was awarded options on 110,000 shares during that period. His Senate financial disclosure form for 1999, required for candidates as well as officeholders, doesn't report that he owned the options. The stock options issue didn't arise during a televised debate last night between Allen, a 54-year-old Republican, and Democratic nominee Jim Webb, 60. Nevertheless, Mark Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia, said the issue poses a problem for Allen, who polls show is in a close race with Webb.
In an interview with Tim Russert, Bob Woodward has said that Dick Cheney cursed him and hung up on him after finding out about some of the content in Woodward's new book. From NBC: MR. RUSSERT: Have you spoken to the president or the vice president since this book came out? MR. WOODWARD: The vice president called me I guess as it was coming out 10 days ago. MR. RUSSERT: And? MR. WOODWARD: Well, he called to complain that I was quoting him about the meetings with Henry Kissinger that he and the president had. I had interviewed Vice President Cheney last year a couple of times at length about material I'm gathering on the Ford administration, on-the-record interviews, but he volunteered, he said, "Oh, by the way, Henry Kissinger comes in" and he, Dick Cheney, sits down with him once a month and the president every two or three months. And Cheney was upset I was quoting him. And I said, "Look, this--on-the-record doesn't have anything to do with Ford, you volunteered that." He then used a word which I can't repeat on the air. And I said, "Look, on the record is on the record," and he hung up on me. Woodward called it a "metaphor" of how the White House reacts these days to news it doesn't like.
Our decidedly dry rainy season continues with bright sunshine this morning, and only a brief sprinkle last night. The recent string of tropical waves have long since passed, and the weather is back to its sunny best - just about the last thing you would expect this time of year. Highs have been around 83, and lows around 71.
My health is clearly on the mend, and I am glad to be up and around a bit, after being laid low by the gambu that has been going around lately. I think that the antibiotics have helped, as the rawness in my throat is gone, and I am down to just a bit of hoarseness and chest congestion. In any event, I am clearly getting over this thing.
My preparations are continuing for my move. I have not yet decided on a final destination, but have things down to two possibilities, and I may decide to do an exploratory trip before making a final decision. But neither of the possibilities includes staying here in Costa Rica.
I am frankly considering going underground after my move. That would mean the More Reasons section of this blog, at minimum, would have to end, which I regret. As my health has been poor since the assassination attempt, doing the blog has become something of a difficult burden, and where I anticipate living, I expect to have poorer Internet access than I have now. I would appreciate hearing from my readers just whether or not you would really like to see me continue with this blog, even improve it with some changes I am considering (moving the More Reasons section to an improved front page), but if I don't hear from a sufficient number of readers to justify the rather considerable effort that putting it together entails, then I will probably cut the thing off and return the blog to an occasional entry solely about life in exile. At minimum, I will have to go on hiatus for a considerable period of time during the upcoming move. I know what the "hit" statistics are, as I get that from my hosting provider, but that doesn't tell me how much of the daily entry is actually read, or how much having it available means to the individual reader. So please, if you want to see the "More Reasons" section continue, let me know. How often do you read it? How much of the More Reasons section do you actually read? If it is to continue, what changes would you like to see made?
More Reasons Why I Am Glad I Am Out Of The States: The Washington Times: "A former Navy intelligence officer weighs in on how the world will stop Iran from building nuclear bombs: "I really believe the Israelis are going to strike [Iran's] several uranium processing factories soon. They cannot survive a first strike. This time, unlike when they sent eight F-16s to destroy the Iraqi reactor Osirak, I think they will use the Jericho missiles and the submarine-launched, nuclear-tipped Tomahawks to do nuclear strikes. Most of the factories are 150 meters underground and too deep for bunker busters."
A new Newsweek poll reveals that a majority of Americans think that House Speaker Dennis Hastert tried to cover up the Foley scandal. And more bad news for the Republicans, Smirkey's approval rate has now dropped to thirty-three percent, a new all-time low for the Newsweek poll. For the first time since 2001, the NEWSWEEK poll shows that more Americans trust the Democrats than the GOP on moral values and the war on terror. Fully 53 percent of Americans want the Democrats to win control of Congress next month, including 10 percent of Republicans, compared to just 35 percent who want the GOP to retain power. Newsweek reports that the "Foley fiasco is jeopardizing the party’s monopoly on faith and power." "While 52 percent of Americans believe Hastert was aware of Foley’s actions and tried to cover them up, it’s part of a larger loss of faith in Republican leadership, thanks mostly to the war in Iraq," Marcus Mabry writes. "For instance, for the first time in the NEWSWEEK poll, a majority of Americans now believe the Bush administration knowingly misled the American people in building its case for war against Saddam Hussein: 58 percent vs. 36 percent who believe it didn’t." "And pessimism over Iraq is at record highs on every score: nearly two in three Americans, 64 percent, believe the United States is losing ground there; 66 percent say the war has not made America safer from terrorism (just 29 percent believe it has); and 53 percent believe it was a mistake to go to war at all, again the first time the NEWSWEEK poll has registered a majority in that camp," the article continues. Only 25 percent of Americans are satisfied with the direction of the country, while 67 percent say they are not.
President Bush’s overall approval rating, according to TIME’s poll, now stands at just 36%, down from 38% in August. Two-thirds of Americans aware of the congressional-page sex scandal believe Republican leaders tried to cover it up—and one quarter of them say the affair makes them less likely to vote for G.O.P. candidates in their districts come November. Those are among the findings of a new TIME poll conducted this week among 1,002 randomly-selected voting-age Americans.
Hundreds of people called the Bush administration's policies a crime and held up yellow police tape along a three-block stretch in front of the White House on Thursday as part of a nationwide day of protest against the president. The 500 demonstrators were among many who gathered for similar events in more than 200 cities to protest Bush on issues ranging from global warming to the war in Iraq. "We are turning the corner in bringing forward a mass movement of resistance to drive out the Bush regime," said organizer Travis Morales with the activist group World Can't Wait. Some dressed in costume, including a hooded prisoner in an orange jumpsuit, a devilish rendition of President Bush and two grim reapers. One man wore a red cheerleader outfit with "Radical" emblazoned on the jersey. Thousands of protesters clogged New York City's streets as they marched from the United Nations headquarters. Some people lay down in the middle of the street, while others carried signs saying "Expose 9/11" and "This war should be over." They also handed out fliers reading, "Drive out the Bush regime."
Vice President Dick Cheney made a quick trip into Northern Virginia yesterday to raise money for the campaign of U.S. Sen. George "Macaca" Allen. The Allen campaign did not announce the visit, made to a private home in McLean. It was announced on the vice president's daily schedule. Polls show that Cheney is one of the most unpopular politicians in the country. The home was that of Thomas L. Phillips, founder and chairman of Eagle Publishing, described on the Web site of its subsidiary, Regnery Publishing Co., as dedicated to conservative and pro-American ideals. President Bush went to Northern Virginia in August to speak at a private fundraiser for Allen. The campaign of Allen's Democratic opponent, Jim Webb, described Allen and Cheney as "two peas in a pod." "It is embarrassing that Allen has to sneak the president and vice president through the back door in Virginia," said Kristian Denny Todd, a spokeswoman for Webb.
Guards at Guantanamo Bay bragged about beating detainees and described it as common practice, a Marine sergeant said in a sworn statement obtained by The Associated Press. The two-page statement was sent Wednesday to the Inspector General at the Department of Defense by a high-ranking Marine Corps defense lawyer. The lawyer sent the statement on behalf of a paralegal who said men she met on Sept. 23 at a bar on the base identified themselves to her as guards. The woman, whose name was blacked out, said she spent about an hour talking with them. No one was in uniform, she said. A 19-year-old sailor referred to only as Bo "told the other guards and me about him beating different detainees being held in the prison," the statement said. "One such story Bo told involved him taking a detainee by the head and hitting the detainee's head into the cell door. Bo said that his actions were known by others," the statement said. The sailor said he was never punished. The statement was provided to the AP on Thursday night by Lt. Col. Colby Vokey. He is the Marine Corps' defense coordinator for the western United States and based at Camp Pendleton. Calls left for representatives at Guantanamo Bay on Friday were not immediately returned. A Pentagon spokesman declined immediate comment. Other guards "also told their own stories of abuse towards the detainees" that included hitting them, denying them water and "removing privileges for no reason." "About 5 others in the group admitted hitting detainees" and that included "punching in the face," the affidavit said. "From the whole conversation, I understood that striking detainees was a common practice," the sergeant wrote. "Everyone in the group laughed at the others stories of beating detainees." The Pentagon said Friday that it will investigate the statement that guards at Guantanamo Bay bragged about beating detainees and described it as a common practice. The Marine, a paralegal who was at the U.S. Navy station in Cuba last month, alleges that several guards she talked to at the base club said they routinely hit detainees.
At least five more Republican Congressional seats are now in serious contention, analysts said Friday, an unwelcome development for Republicans as they begin to confront a political environment further darkened for them by the Congressional page scandal. The fury over sexually charged messages sent to male teenage pages by Representative Mark Foley of Florida is undercutting Republican support among elderly voters, suburbanites and women, analysts from both parties said. More immediately - and more alarmingly for Republican strategists who have looked to the party's powerful voter turnout operation to save the party this year - there are signs that the furor is sapping the enthusiasm of a group essential to Republican victories in 2002 and 2004: religious conservatives. "The social conservatives are frustrated with what's going on," said Saulius Anuzis, the chairman of the Republican Party in Michigan, where, he said, one-third of his volunteers are social conservatives. "We have heard disappointment and disenchantment. The level of commitment isn't as fierce as it ought to be." The political uproar is playing out in races across the country and comes with Republicans already struggling against the political weight of more bad news from Iraq. The page scandal has left leaders and candidates in both parties to come up with new strategies a month from Election Day. Democrats need to capture 15 House seats to take control of Congress; until the last week or two, about 40 Republican seats had been judged in play, of which 20 had been considered highly competitive. But analysts said at least five more Republican seats, and as many as eight, that had once been considered relative long shots for Democrats had now swung firmly into play.
Lynn Sunde, an evangelical Christian, is considering what for her is a radical step. Come November, she may vote for a Democrat for Congress. Sunde, 35, manages a coffee shop and attends a nondenominational Bible church. "You're never going to agree with one party on everything, so for me the key has always been the religion issues - abortion, the marriage amendment" to ban same-sex unions, she said. That means she consistently votes Republican. But, she said, she is starting to worry about the course of the Iraq war, and she finds the Internet messages from then-Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) to teenage boys "pretty sickening." When she goes into the voting booth this time, she said, "I'm going to think twice.... I'm not going to vote party line as much as to vote issues." Even a small shift in the loyalty of conservative Christian voters such as Sunde could spell trouble for the GOP this fall. In 2004, white evangelical or born-again Christians made up a quarter of the electorate, and 78 percent of them voted Republican, according to exit polls. But some pollsters believe that evangelical support for the GOP peaked two years ago and that what has been called the "God gap" in politics is shrinking. A nationwide poll of 1,500 registered voters released yesterday by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 57 percent of white evangelicals are inclined to vote for Republican congressional candidates in the midterm elections, a 21-point drop in support among this critical part of the GOP base. Even before the Foley scandal, the portion of white evangelicals with a "favorable" impression of the Republican Party had fallen sharply this year, from 63 percent to 54 percent, according to Pew polls. In the latest survey, taken in the last 10 days of September and the first four days of October, the percentage of evangelicals who think that Republicans govern "in a more honest and ethical way" than Democrats has plunged to 42 percent, from 55 percent at the start of the year.
Wall Street has shifted its allegiance in the 2006 election cycle by donating more to Democrats than Republicans who have been the investment banks' usual benefactors, U.S. Federal Election Commission data show. Five leading firms Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bear Stearns Companies Inc.,Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch & Co. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. have contributed $6.2 million so far to candidates before the November elections, with about 52 percent going to Democrats. "People give ideological money and they give money to people they think are going to win," said Maurice Carroll, director of Quinnipiac University's Polling Institute in Hamden, Connecticut. "It looks like it's going to be a good year for Democrats."
In a letter sent out Friday by the Investigative Subcommittee for the House Ethics Committee, part of a probe of the House GOP leadership's handling of a scandal involving sexually explicit communications that former Congressman Mark Foley (R-Fla.) sent to teenage pages, House members are being asked to contact all current and former pages to see if they had "inappropriate communications or interactions" with anyone in the House. "In order to assist the Investigative Subcommittee with its inquiry, we also request that you contact current and former House Pages sponsored by your office for the purpose of learning whether any of those individuals had any inappropriate communications or interactions with former Representative Foley or any other Member of the House," the letter reads. "You should advise all Pages contacted that any information gained pursuant to your inquiry will be shared with the Investigative Subcommittee, and will be maintained by the Investigative Subcommittee in a confidential manner consistent with House and Committee rules," the letter continues. So far, the subcommittee has prepared forty-four subpoenas for records and testimony.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) wrote to the Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General’s (I.G.) office today to ask for an investigation into why the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has fabricated and disseminated a cover-up story as to why it never investigated the Foley emails sent to it by CREW. CBS News has reported that according to the FBI when CREW gave the Bureau the original set of emails from Rep. Mark Foley to a former House page, they were "heavily redacted." The FBI is also claiming that it came back to CREW and asked for more information so that it could follow up, but that CREW refused to provide anything further. Reporters from several other news organizations have repeated this allegation. The FBI is lying. On Monday, October 2, CREW sent a letter to the DOJ I.G.'s office, attaching exact copies of the emails CREW had sent to the FBI on July 21, 2006. Both the former page’s name and the person to whom the page forwarded Rep. Foley’s emails were clearly visible. Moreover, after CREW sent the emails to the FBI, CREW’s only subsequent contact with the Bureau was one telephone call from the special agent to whom CREW had sent the material confirming that the emails were from Rep. Foley. CREW had no further contact with the FBI.
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's chief of staff confronted then-Rep. Mark Foley about his inappropriate social contact with male pages well before the speaker said aides in his office took any action, a current congressional staff member with personal knowledge of Foley and his behavior with pages said yesterday. The staff member said Hastert's chief of staff, Scott Palmer, met with the Florida Republican at the Capitol to discuss complaints about Foley's behavior toward pages. The alleged meeting occurred long before Hastert says aides in his office dispatched Rep. John M. Shimkus (R-Ill.) and the clerk of the House in November 2005 to confront Foley about troubling e-mails he had sent to a Louisiana boy. The staff member's account buttresses the position of Foley's onetime chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, who said earlier this week that he had appealed to Palmer in 2003 or earlier to intervene, after Fordham's own efforts to stop Foley's behavior had failed. Fordham said Foley and Palmer, one of the most powerful figures in the House of Representatives, met within days to discuss the allegations.
Pat Buchanan expressed his outrage with the Foley scandal to MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, turning the blame onto Democrats and ABC News and using a demeaning term for homosexuals in the process. His voice raised, Buchanan said to Scarborough, "We now hear that this flamer, Mr. Foley, was going after kids as early as 1998. I mean, you knew Foley. Did you know he was this kind of flamer who's after pages?" Buchanan also questioned the moral standing of prominent Democrats who have associated publicly with gays. He targeted House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in particular, alleging, "Mrs. Pelosi has marched in gay pride parades with the North American Man Boy Love Association, NAMBLA, which are pedophiles that are trying to get the laws repealed for sex between men and boys. If she's been marching with pedophiles, is she credible standing up there, saying, 'I'm shocked, shocked, that some Republican is after 17 year old pages'?"
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is allowing the Army to approach White House budget officials by itself to argue for substantial increases in resources, a significant divergence from initial plans by Mr. Rumsfeld and his inner circle to cut the Army to pay for new technology and a new way of war. Mr. Rumsfeld’s current acquiescence is viewed within the Pentagon as reflecting both the reality of the Army’s needs to increase its size and repair or replace current equipment and a decision not to cross swords with the service - or with the Army’s staunchest supporters in Congress, some of whom are sharply critical of the defense secretary’s management of the war effort and have called for him to step aside. But Mr. Rumsfeld is requiring the Army to make its own case. The defense secretary has broken Pentagon precedent by allowing the Army to make its financial case directly to the president’s Office of Management and Budget, a task normally managed by the defense secretary and his staff rather than by the individual military services. The Air Force and the Navy also asked to present their budgets directly to the budget agency and the requests were granted.
U.S. Senate candidate Benjamin L. Cardin yesterday voiced a lack of confidence in Maryland's voting system and worried that the problems that plagued the primary election could discourage voters from turning out in November. "I am not convinced that they know how to run this election so that voters will not be inconvenienced to a point where they don't participate," Cardin (D) said during an interview with Washington Post reporters and editors.
Many adults in the United States believe their president was not truthful in his rationale to launch military action against Iraq, according to a poll by SRBI Public Affairs published in Time. 54 per cent of respondents think George W. Bush deliberately misled Americans to build his case for war, up six points since December. The coalition effort against Saddam Hussein’s regime was launched in March 2003. At least 2,735 American soldiers have died during the military operation, and more than 20,600 troops have been wounded in action.
One of the highest-ranking generals in the U.S. military yesterday stood by views attributed to him in a controversial new book about the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq but said it was important to understand the context in which those views were expressed. Marine Gen. James L. Jones, the U.S. commander for Europe, is quoted in "State of Denial," by The Washington Post's Bob Woodward, as believing that the war in Iraq is a "debacle" and that "The Joint Chiefs have been systematically emasculated by Rumsfeld." As Marine commandant, the post he held before moving to Europe, Jones was a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The book also quotes Jones as delivering a warning about working with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to Marine Gen. Peter Pace, who was about to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs. "You should not be the parrot on the secretary's shoulder," Jones reportedly told Pace.
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, in town for a fund-raiser for Sen. Rick Santorum, had a close encounter with a large group of anti-Republican protesters as he was making his way to the Duquesne Club, Downtown in Pittsburg. It was about 4:15 yesterday when Mr. Bush met up with the protesters near the corner of Liberty and Sixth avenues. The protesters were marching to join other pickets already gathered in front of the exclusive club, a little more than a block away at 325 Sixth Ave. Protesters said Gov. Bush blew them a kiss, acknowledging the crowd of about 30 chanting pickets that was made up of United Steelworkers and members of Uprise Counter Recruitment, a tour traveling through 22 cities to support anti-war efforts. The protesters came closer. "Jeb, go home," they shouted. "It was a very tense situation. They were very close to the governor and shouting on top of him." As a precaution, the governor was ushered into a T-station supply closet and stayed there until the crowd left. No arrests were made and no citations were issued, Mr. Grove said. Mr. Bush was not injured.
Thousands of people have been mistakenly linked to names on terror watch lists when they crossed the border, boarded commercial airliners or were stopped for traffic violations, a government report said Friday. More than 30,000 airline passengers have asked just one agency - the Transportation Security Administration - to have their names cleared from the lists, according to the Government Accountability Office report. Hundreds of millions of people each year are screened against the lists by Customs and Border Protection, the State Department and state and local law enforcement agencies. The lists include names of people suspected of terrorism or of possibly having links to terrorist activity. "Misidentifications can lead to delays, intensive questioning and searches, missed flights or denied entry at the border," the report said. "Whether appropriate relief is being afforded these individuals is still an open question." When questions arose about tens of thousands of names between December 2003 and January 2006, the names were sent back to the agencies that put them on the lists, the GAO said. Half of those were found to be misidentified, the report found. In December 2003, disparate agencies with counterterrorism responsibilities consolidated dozens of watch lists of known or suspected terrorists into the new Terrorist Screening Center run by the FBI. People are considered "misidentified" if they are matched to the database and then, upon further examination, are found not to match. They are usually misidentified because they have the same name as someone in the database. People are considered "mistakenly listed" if they were put on the list in error or if they should no longer be included on the list because of subsequent events, the report said.
A Pentagon project to modify its deadliest nuclear missile for use as a conventional weapon against targets such as North Korea and Iran could unwittingly spark an atomic war, two weapons experts warned Thursday. Russian military officers might misconstrue a submarine-launched conventional D5 intercontinental ballistic missile and conclude that Russia is under nuclear attack, said Ted Postol, a physicist and professor of science, technology and national security policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Pavel Podvig, a physicist and weapons specialist at Stanford. "Any launch of a long-range nonnuclear armed sea or land ballistic missile will cause an automated alert of the Russian early warning system," Postol told reporters. The triggering of an alert wouldn't necessarily precipitate a retaliatory hail of Russian nuclear missiles, Postol said. Nevertheless, he said, "there can be no doubt that such an alert will greatly increase the chances of a nuclear accident involving strategic nuclear forces." Podvig said launching conventional versions of a missile from a submarine that normally carries nuclear ICBMs "expands the possibility for a misunderstanding so widely that it is hard to contemplate." Mixing conventional and nuclear D5s on a U.S. Trident submarine "would be very dangerous," Podvig said, because the Russians have no way of discriminating between the two types of missiles once they are launched. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that the project would increase the danger of accidental nuclear war.
The city's population has dropped by nearly 60 percent since Hurricane Katrina, far more sharply than recent optimistic estimates had suggested, according to an authoritative post-storm survey released this week. The population of New Orleans is now only 187,525, well under half the pre-storm population of 454,863, according to the survey, commissioned by several state agencies. The United States Census Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised those who carried out the door-to-door population count this summer. "We actually knocked on doors and asked how many people lived there," said Dr. Alden Henderson of the centers. About 490 households were surveyed, and researchers went to more than 1,100 dwellings, he said. Mayor C. Ray Nagin has suggested that about half of New Orleans's former residents had returned, basing his projections partly on utility users. But the new numbers indicate that repopulation will take awhile to reach that level. "The recovery is going to be slower than we anticipated," said David Bowman, an official with the Louisiana Recovery Authority, which helped commission the survey. "It's going to take time to get the housing stock back online." The margin of error for the survey was relatively high, plus or minus 12 percentage points. The new figures also suggest that many more whites than blacks have returned to New Orleans. The white and black populations here are now separated by less than three percentage points, according to the survey - a gap much smaller than previously thought, and far less than the pre-hurricane divide, when New Orleans was 67 percent black. Whites now make up 44 percent of the population and blacks 46 percent, according to the new survey.
President Bush this week asserted that he has the executive authority to disobey a new law in which Congress has set minimum qualifications for future heads of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Congress passed the law last week as a response to FEMA's poor handling of Hurricane Katrina. The agency's slow response to flood victims exposed the fact that Michael Brown, Bush's choice to lead the agency, had been a politically connected hire with no prior experience in emergency management. To shield FEMA from cronyism, Congress established new job qualifications for the agency's director in last week's homeland security bill. The law says the president must nominate a candidate who has ``a demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management" and ``not less than five years of executive leadership." Bush signed the homeland-security bill on Wednesday morning. Then, hours later, he issued a signing statement saying he could ignore the new restrictions. Bush maintains that under his interpretation of the Constitution, the FEMA provision interfered with his power to make personnel decisions. The law, Bush wrote, "purports to limit the qualifications of the pool of persons from whom the president may select the appointee in a manner that rules out a large portion of those persons best qualified by experience and knowledge to fill the office." The homeland-security bill contained measures covering a range of topics, including terrorism, disaster preparedness, and illegal immigration. One provision calls for authorizing the construction of a 700-mile fence along the Mexican border.
Spraying the bubbles from sparkling wine across the enormous gray bow of the USS George H.W. Bush, the Bush family on Saturday christened the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier named after the 82-year-old former president. "I know you join me in saying to our father, President Bush, your ship has come in," the current president said during a ceremony for the last of the Nimitz-class carriers, the CVN 77. "She is unrelenting, she is unshakable, she is unyielding, she is unstoppable," Bush said, lauding the warship's state-of-the-art design before pausing for a punch line aimed at his mother's well-known steely constitution. "As a matter of fact, probably should have been named the Barbara Bush."
Researchers for the Centers for Disease Control released a report Wednesday that found perchlorate - a toxic chemical used to produce rocket fuel - is more dangerous than originally thought. Perchlorate is one of the main synthetic ingredients defense contractors use to make rocket and missile fuel, and it has leeched into drinking-water supplies According to the Environmental Protection Agency, perchlorate has been found in drinking water in 25 states. Most contamination appears to be from manufacturing by contractors as well as usage and dumping by the military. The chemical has also been discovered in milk, as well as fruit and vegetables that have been irrigated with contaminated water. The researchers found that perchlorate lowers thyroid hormones in women who have ingested even minute amounts. Currently, the EPA does not have standards to regulate perchlorate in drinking water.
Frustrated by their government's position on the environment, climate change and stem cell research, a group of US scientists have decided to take matters into their own hands and actively promote the election of a president in 2008 who is more receptive to science. Scientists and Engineers for America plunged into politics last week with the aim of campaigning for particular candidates, starting with the 2006 mid-term elections. SEA says that "scientists and engineers have a right, indeed an obligation, to enter the political debate when the nation's leaders systematically ignore scientific evidence and analysis." SEA's main targets will be the Bush administration and the Republican leadership, says executive director Mike Brown. "[They] are the source of a lot of the problems we've identified." So far, the pitch has struck a responsive chord. Within days of the group being announced on27 September, nearly 2500 people had signed up as members. SEA's advisory board includes two of Bill Clinton's former science advisers - John Gibbons and Neal Lane - and eight Nobel laureates.
Why I Am Embarrassed To Present My Passport: The Canadian government filed an official complaint with the United States over the treatment of Maher Arar, the Canadian the United States rendered to Syria for interrogation that included torture on the basis of false terrorism allegations. Prime Minister Stephen Harper told reporters that he wanted the United States to acknowledge "inappropriate conduct" and to commit that such an incident would not happen again. Maher Arar, a Canadian software engineer, was detained at New York's Kennedy Airport in 2002 because Canadian officials had asked that he be placed on a watch list. The U.S. transferred him without court approval to Syria where he was tortured and imprisoned for a year. A Canadian inquiry found that Arar should not have been on the list because he didn't do anything wrong.
Liberal Biased Media Watch: On October 5 and 6, news accounts on National Public Radio and NBC's Today uncritically reported baseless accusations by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) and others that Democrats are behind the scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL). None of these accounts noted a report in The Hill newspaper that a House Republican aide provided Foley's alleged emails to the media or a statement by ABC News investigative reporter Brian Ross that the sources for his initial Foley report -- to the extent they had partisan affiliations -- were Republicans, as Media Matters for America has noted. On the October 5 broadcast of NPR's All Things Considered, host Melissa Block interviewed former House ethics committee chair Joel Hefley (R-CO) about the Foley scandal. After Hefley said the ethics committee should look at whether House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi's (CA) office was involved in the scandal, Block asked whether Hefley agreed that there was merit to Hastert's accusations that "these revelations are the work of Democratic operatives." She did not mention the news reports that have contradicted Hastert; Hefley admitted that while he "can't say" that the charges are true, he "think[s] it's a possibility." numerous media outlets -- including CNN, NBC, and the Associated Press -- uncritically reported House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's (R-IL) recent claims that Democratic operatives knew "all along" of Rep. Mark Foley's (R-FL) alleged behavior toward underage congressional pages and have orchestrated the ongoing scandal. But these outlets ignored a new report in The Hill that a House Republican aide provided Foley's alleged emails to the media. And they overlooked a recent statement by ABC News investigative reporter Brian Ross that the sources for his initial Foley report -- to the extent they had partisan affiliations -- were Republicans. During an October 3 appearance on The Rush Limbaugh Show, Hastert entertained the theory that Democrats were behind the Foley scandal, alleging that they "put this thing forward to try to block" the Republican agenda, as Media Matters for America noted. In an October 4 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Hastert continued to push the theory that Democrats "knew about this all along."
In spite of falling ratings, Fox nonetheless remains the number one cable news station. In a few short years, it has almost entirely rewritten the rules of American television news coverage, influencing its ideological nemeses as much as its bedfellows with its penchant for presenting politics as a form of gladiatorial sport – all sound, fury and popular entertainment, in which fact and reasoned analysis are ditched in favour of outrage, anger and patriotic pride. Sometimes the spin is so dizzying it is almost funny. Back in February, Neil Cavuto's daytime show asked the question: "All-out civil war in Iraq: could it be a good thing?" Then, four days later, the same show framed the issue an entirely different way. "'Civil war' in Iraq: made up by the media?" The Fox News formula may be good for ratings, but its effect on the public has been little short of toxic. A University of Maryland poll taken six months after the Iraq invasion demonstrated that Fox News viewers were more ignorant about world affairs than any other category of news consumers, but also had a stronger belief than anyone else in how well informed they were.
The United States Of America, A Third-World Nation: An Nebraska woman has become the third person to die from an E. coli outbreak from tainted spinach that has sickened nearly 200 U.S. residents. Ruby Trautz, 81, died Aug. 31 at an Omaha hospital after eating fresh spinach contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 bacteria, CNN reported, citing the state Health and Human Services System. Two other deaths -- a Wisconsin adult and a 2-year-old Idaho boy -- have also been attributed to the outbreak. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said 199 people in 26 states had been sickened by the strain. Public health officials said it is estimated for every E. coli case reported, 20 go unreported, Dr. Patricia Griffin of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told CNN.
Republicans Believe In Fair Play And The Rule Of Law: Rick Bolanos, the Democratic candidate for Congress, filed a lawsuit Thursday alleging U.S. Rep. Henry Bonilla's campaign illegally bought at least a dozen Web sites Bolanos would have used for his campaign's online site. Bolanos told reporters that his opponent's campaign is "cybersquatting" in violation of a U.S. statute in an attempt to hurt Bolanos' campaign by making it appear Bolanos does not have a working site. "He's taken our laws and he's become a part of that corruption," Bolanos said of Bonilla, R-San Antonio. "It's a win-at-all-costs, do-whatever-you-can-to-win-a-political-campaign."
Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff intends to load up his criminal trial with information about nine national security matters, the names of foreign leaders and details about various terrorist groups, say court filings in the Valerie Plame leak case. The papers filed this week hint at what has been taking place behind closed doors as Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald tries to limit the amount of classified data that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is permitted to use at his trial in January. US District Judge Reggie Walton is asking whether classified evidence would overlap Libby's likely trial testimony. Libby's lawyers have already said he will take the witness stand to deny lying to the FBI in its investigation of the Plame leak. Even if prosecutors agreed ahead of time about the importance of "the nine national security matters" he wants to disclose, Libby would be entitled to introduce additional evidence, his lawyers wrote. In court documents, prosecutors argued that it would be "unnecessarily wasteful of time" to allow Libby to present "names of foreign leaders or government officials of other countries, or the names and histories of various terrorist groups."
Republicans Believe In Protecting Our Natural Resources: Using language that suggests they are fed up with the Bush administration, federal judges across the West have issued a flurry of rulings in recent weeks, chastising the government for repeated and sometimes willful failure to enforce laws protecting fish, forests, wildlife and clean air. In decisions in Oregon, California, Montana and Wyoming, judges have criticized the judgment, expertise and, in some cases, integrity of the federal agencies that manage natural resources on public lands. The rulings come at a time when an emerging bipartisan coalition of western politicians, hunters, anglers and homeowners has joined conservation groups in objecting to the rapid pace and environmental consequences of President Bush's policies for energy extraction on federal land.
Long considered natural gems, America’s national parks may soon serve as a different kind of treasure trove. The National Park Service is planning to open national parks, including potentially millions of acres of protected wilderness, to "bioprospecting" - a process by which private businesses extract organisms from natural habitats in the search for useful biochemicals or genetic information. The plans center on "thermophiles," organisms living in ecologically rich thermal pools and geysers, such as those found in Yellowstone National Park. Companies have for years sought to derive lucrative products using the microorganisms. Environmental organizations have in turn campaigned against such extraction as a raid of public natural resources by industrial interests. Last month, the Park Service presented a Draft Environmental Impact Statement outlining the economic and environmental implications of bioprospecting operations, and opened a public comment period that will last through mid-December. The agency only agreed to issue the assessment after public-interest groups launched a court battle in the late 1990s. According to the Edmonds Institute and the International Center for Technology Assessment, two groups that originally sued the Park Service, the organisms and enzymes derived from them can be used to create products like beer, meat tenderizers and paper. Bioprospecting could also be a boon to pharmaceutical manufacturers: Swiss drug company Hoffman-LaRoche used one type of enzyme discovered through bioprospecting to aid in its patented DNA research.
Republicans Believe In Free, Fair, Honest and Transparent Elections: A canvassing group hired by the Republican National Committee is responsible for at least 12 phony voter-registration forms found in Davidson and Williamson counties (TN), election officials said Friday. Liberty Consultants also worked in Rutherford County, where the elections administrator said he fielded calls from residents who complained canvassers with the group made them sign a petition before registering, though the 800 forms submitted by the group were legitimate. Several other Midstate county election commissions reported no contact with the group. RNC spokesman Danny Diaz confirmed Friday that his organization hired the company to register Tennesseans to vote and said it is monitoring the situation. "It's a good thing this has been brought to our attention," Diaz said. "If anyone has done any wrongdoing, they should be held responsible." Liberty Consultants workers were banned from Tennessee Wal-Marts in late August because of the group's partisan nature, namely its connection to former Arizona GOP leader and Christian Coalition activist Nathan Sproul. Sproul denied wrongdoing in 2004 when some of his former workers said they were asked not to register Democrats and reported Democrat forms were thrown away, The Associated Press reported.
In a move voting-reform advocates say could disenfranchise millions of citizens, the House of Representatives passed a bill last month that would require citizens to present government-issued photo identification to vote, such as a driver’s license. Starting in 2010, that photo ID must also prove citizenship. Voters who do not have the documentation would be able to fill out a provisional ballot, but would have to submit identification within 48 hours of casting a vote. Voting reform advocates