". . . Polarizing Petty Party Politics"

From Monday's PBS NewsHour:

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: The future is about more than noise; it's about being able to go to Washington and make the place work for Connecticut, deliver for Connecticut. I can tell you what my opponent would be if he ever got there, which he won't. He'd be another non-producing, polarizing politician, which is the last thing Washington needs or Connecticut needs representing them.

A man wants to borrow his neighbor's lawnmower and on his way over to ask for it, he starts thinking about all of the reasons his neighbor might turn him down - he forgot to clean out the clippings basket the last time he borrowed the lawnmower, and he was late returning the hammer he borrowed last year. He can hear his neighbor's voice in his mind, his reluctance to loan anything else, and he's starting to feel bad, like a real loser. By the time that he reaches the neighbor's front door and rings the doorbell, he's in a miserable mood, convinced that the neighbor will turn him down. So when the neighbor opens the door, our schnook snarls, "Oh keep your goddamned lawnmower!" and heads back home.

The schnook? That's Joe Lieberman. Joe Lieberman is a defeatist candidate. It's also true of all the DLC Democrats.

That's what Bush-GOP bullying, and shock and awe campaigns, and stonewalling, and delaying tactics set out to accomplish. Discouragement. Defeatism. So that the opposition doesn't even bother. Until finally, "We'll take whatever crumbs Bush and the GOP deign to drop our way, so we don't want to piss off Bush too much."

It's an actual strategy that DLC Democrats defend. Hell, they brag about it! They sell 'defeat' to their constituents as "what a great deal we got for you!"

They have justified it to themselves as "realistic politics," but just beneath the surface of their justification is the fact that they have to live with these people (Republicans) and it's so much more pleasant not to be constantly ducking and looking over their shoulders for the inevitable GOP knife in the back.



For most of their terms in office, these elected politicians don't live in their home districts, with the people who elected them. They live, play and work with others who are away from their home districts, from both parties. They're competitive people living in a city where all of the world's most powerful organizations have come together to do business. Very few of them are there to serve the public's interest. And when their terms are up, very few of them return to their home districts. They remain in Washington and put their years of being on the inside to work for the interests of the rich and powerful.

The politics of polarization as practiced by Republicans can only happen when Joe Lieberman and the DLC Democrats not only don't stand up to condemn, but encourage, bless, and legitimize the brutal and savage policies of Bush-Cheney and the Republican party by going on Fox and hate-rightwing-radio.

What I, personally, find so offensive about Lieberman is his use of religiosity as a credential. One might think that he's the King of the Jews in America, when the truth is that Joe Lieberman is nowhere close to Jewish spirituality. Lieberman wears his religion like a badge, as if only those with his beliefs have a right to weigh in on Israel or are even real Jews.

Any student of Jewish history (or WWII, or political psyops programs) recognize Lieberman's actions (or reactions) in the 103rd-109th Congresses as the same as the Jews who ignored all of the warnings of what was coming only to find themselves trapped inside of Germany with only one way out - death camps. The Holocaust didn't just happen - the Nazis changed laws to provide themselves with the old "rule of law" cover. Beginning in 1933, a series of anti-Jewish laws were passed. Not all at once, but a few at a time. Those Jews who didn't leave immediately, for whatever reason, rationalized that "it wasn't so bad, they could adjust, comply, it can't get any worse than this." Until a few months would go by and more anti-Jewish laws would come down. The laws became increasingly restrictive, limiting a Jewish person's ability to work, support their families, feed themselves and their children, and travel.

Joe Lieberman (and the DLC Democrats) helped Bush and the GOP achieve their goals, get through their agenda of legislation and judges that are bad for the people and devastating to the Constitution.

The shame of Joe Lieberman is that he is a collaborator. For whatever reason. He's no man of the people. He's no democrat, and he's certainly no leader.



Read how much the neocons love Joe! They're welcome to him.


Filed under: Joe Lieberman

This Week at the Animal Farm

A rare two-toned lobster is seen in Bar Harbor, Maine. The lobster caught by Alan Robinson in Dyer's Bay is a typical mottled green on one side; the other side is a shade of orange that looks cooked. Robinson, of Steuben, donated the lobster to the Mount Desert Oceanarium. Staff members say the odds or finding a half-and-half lobster are 1 in 50 million to 100 million.




Willy, a 1-year-old cat is photographed with a display of several pairs of garden gloves that he took from unknown yards in his neighborhood in Pelham, N.Y. Willy has brought home nine pairs of gloves and five singles over several weeks laying them on his owners' front or back porches.



Here's something you don't see everyd, err . . . . ever:


"Cess," short-beaked echidna blows a bubble from her nose while in the care of a zoo keeper at the Wildlife Clinic center at Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia. Cess suffered a broken foot and severe cuts to her nose that required expert veterinary surgery at Taronga Zoo Wildlife Clinic after a road accident.





Katherine Harris, R-Florida, holds up a possum she purchased at the Wausau Possum Festival in Wausau, Florida.


Possum cookbook. Check out the festivities.

Filed under: Katherine Harris, cats, possums, echidna, lobster

Archimedes' Hidden Writings Revealed

Particle accelerator helps decipher fragile 10th century manuscript


"Give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the Earth.”
-Archimedes, the Greek mathematician, upon discovering the principle of leverage

What knowledge of mathematics allows you to do:
Develop the mental skills to create and present a logical argument;
Gain experience in abstracting the essence of problems from a cluttered background;
Mix the systematic with the creative in the solution of problems;
Study the beauty of nature from the formal perspective of patterns and change.

Why Archimedes? Why not? Archimedes and the Roman Army.

Uwe Bermann, Stanford University's physicist, points to words from a manuscript by Greek mathematician Archimedes:

Previously hidden writings of the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes are being uncovered with powerful X-ray beams nearly 800 years after a Christian monk scrubbed off the text and wrote over it with prayers.

Over the past week, researchers at Stanford University's Linear Accelerator Center in Menlo Park have been using X-rays to decipher a fragile 10th century manuscript that contains the only copies of some of Archimedes' most important works.

The X-rays, generated by a particle accelerator, cause tiny amounts of iron left by the original ink to glow without harming the delicate goatskin parchment.

"We are gaining new insights into one of the founding fathers of western science," said William Noel, curator of manuscripts at Baltimore's Walters Art Museum, which organized the effort. "It is the most difficult imaging challenge on any medieval document because the book is in such terrible condition."

Following a successful trial run last year, Stanford researchers invited X-ray scientists, rare document collectors and classics scholars to take part in the 11-day project.

It takes about 12 hours to scan one page using an X-ray beam about the size of a human hair, and researchers expect to decipher up to 15 pages that resisted modern imaging techniques. After each new page is decoded, it is posted online for the public to see.

On Friday, members of the public watched the decoding process via a live Web cast arranged by the San Francisco Exploratorium.

"We are focusing on the most difficult pages where the scholars haven't been able to read the texts," said Uwe Bergmann, the Stanford physicist heading the project.

Born in the 3rd century B.C., Archimedes is considered one of ancient Greece's greatest mathematicians, perhaps best known for discovering the principle of buoyancy while taking a bath.

The 174-page manuscript, known as the Archimedes Palimpsest, contains the only copies of treatises on flotation, gravity and mathematics. Scholars believe a scribe copied them onto the goatskin parchment from the original Greek scrolls.

Three centuries later, a monk scrubbed off the Archimedes text and used the parchment to write prayers at a time when the Greek mathematician's work was less appreciated. In the early 20th century, forgers tried to boost the manuscript's value by painting religious imagery on some of the pages.

In 1998, an anonymous private collector paid $2 million for the manuscript at an auction, then loaned it to the Walter Arts Museum for safekeeping and study.

Over the past eight years, researchers have used ultraviolet and infrared filters, as well as digital cameras and processing techniques, to reveal most of the buried text, but some pages were still unreadable.

"We will never recover all of it," Noel said. "We are just getting as much as we can, and we are going to the ends of the earth to get it."

View the archived live webcast.


The Approximation of Pi

Filed under: Archimedes, Exploratorium, Baltimore, museums

Israeli Warplanes Strike Lebanese Oil Storage Depot - Environmental Catastrophe in Mediterranean Sea

Israel's bombing has triggered an oil spill that has created an environmental disaster. Oil pollution threatens the fishing and resort industries of Turkey, Cyprus, Greece and Lebanon:

Endangered turtles die after hatching from their eggs. Fish float dead off the coast. And flaming oil sends waves of black smoke toward the city.

And cleanup cannot start until the fighting stops, the United Nations says.

Meanwhile in northern Israel, huge swaths of forests and fields have been scorched by thousands of Hezbollah rocket strikes over the last three weeks. Experts said it would take nature at least 50 years to recover.

Charred branches stuck out of the ground like grave markers at the Mount Naftali Forest overlooking the Israeli border town of Kiryat Shemona, where entire fields have been reduced to heaps of ash and countless animals killed.

Amid the hundreds of deaths in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the environmental damage has attracted little attention. But experts warn that the long-term effects could be devastating.

About 110,000 barrels of oil poured into the Mediterranean two weeks ago after Israeli warplanes hit a coastal power plant. One tank is still burning.

An Israeli naval blockade and continuing military operations have made cleanup impossible.

"The immediate impact can be severe, but we have not been able to do an immediate assessment," said U.N. Environment Program executive director Achim Steiner in Geneva. "But the longer the spill is left untreated, the harder it will be to clean up."

The oil so far has slicked about one-third of Lebanon's coast, a 50-mile stretch centered on the Jiyeh plant 12 miles south of Beirut, said the country's environment minister, Yaacoub Sarraf. It has also drifted out into the Mediterranean, already hitting Syria.

Cyprus, Turkey and even Greece could be affected, experts warn.

"Chances are, our whole marine ecosystem facing the Lebanese shoreline is already dead," Sarraf said.

Lebanon, whose flag features a cedar tree and which is known by many as Green Lebanon for its forested mountains, is one of the few countries in the Arab world that pays attention to pollution. Minibuses that run on diesel are banned, and factories must abide by strict rules.

Now, large parts of the country's sandy and rocky beaches, normally a magnet for tourists, are covered with thick black oil. Many fishermen have been forced out of business, and people are growing scared to eat fish. Baby turtles, usually born in late summer, die after they swim into the polluted water shortly after hatching.

Syria was already experiencing similar problems, said Hassan Murjan, who heads the environment department in the Syrian city of Tartous.

"The oil pollution has caused serious environmental damage because our coast is rocky, and this is very dangerous for marine life," Murjan told the official news agency SANA.

Sarraf said last week: "We have no access to Lebanon territorial waters. This means that we are already 10 days delayed and, in terms of oil pollution, 10 days is a century."

Sarraf said it would cost $30 million to $50 million to clean up the shorelines, and possibly 10 times that much for the entire effort. Optimistic assessments suggest it will take at least six months for the shore cleanup and up to 10 years to reestablish "the ecosystem of the eastern Mediterranean as it was two weeks ago," he said.

In northern Israel, incoming rockets have destroyed 16,500 acres of forests and grazing fields, according to Michael Weinberger, the forest supervisor for the Jewish National Fund, the top administrator of Israel's forests. About one million trees were destroyed.

The Mount Naftali Forest was hit by a series of Katyusha rockets last week, setting it ablaze. Afternoon gusts carried the flames, wiping out 750 acres and trapping gazelles, coyotes, jackals, rabbits and snakes. The stench of smoke lingered a day later. What was once green is now black and gray. More rockets pounded the forest Wednesday.

Firefighters have been stretched to the limit battling the blazes caused by rockets in urban areas and are reluctant to enter the dry and potentially deadly terrain of the forest fires.

"With all due respect to nature, I will not risk the lives of my men for it," said Danny Hananiya, the fire department chief in the Northern Galilee, whose men have battled 1,200 fires. "It is painful to see, but I have to decide between nature and the firefighters."

Instead, the task of protecting nature falls on the shoulders of forest rangers, many of whom have risked their lives in recent weeks trying to limit the ecological damage.

"Every green tree standing here is a result of our work," said Ido Rasis, 55. "I am here because we need to save every tree we can."

The rangers are dispatched in teams of four to various locations in the woods, where they wait for the rockets and pounce on fires before they spread out of control. Wearing a wide-brim hat, Rasis awaits the next volley as he watches a fire rage in the distance.

Unlike buildings, bridges and other infrastructure that can quickly be rebuilt, forests take 50 to 60 years to return to what they were before fighting started, said Omri Bonneh, the director of the Jewish National Fund's northern region.

And unlike other services mobilized in this war, such as the army, police and paramedics, the rangers know their real work still lies ahead.

"Our main job will be after the war ends, to rehabilitate the entire system," said Amikam Riglin, chief of law enforcement at the Jewish National Fund.

The destruction of Mount Naftali is all the more painful since it is not a natural forest, but one meticulously planted by man. These mountains were bare when Israel was established in 1948.

Yossi Biton, 53, a Jewish National Fund representative in northern Israel, has been with the service for 20 years, following in his father's footsteps.

"My father planted this forest for 40 years, and now I have to do it all over again," he said. "An entire history has been erased in a single hour. It's like turning heaven into hell."

This is American foreign policy. This is what is being done in our name.

Filed under: Israel, Lebanon, oil spill, environment

A Zionist Can Love a Palestinian, But Where Would They Make Their Home? - No Mixed Marriages in Israel

Freedom and democracy doesn't mean the same thing to Americans as it does to Zionists.



I don't believe that most Americans would agree to support and supply Israel if they knew this and many other policies that Israel has:

In approving an effective ban on marriages between Israelis and Palestinians this week, Israel's Supreme Court has shut tighter the gates of the Jewish fortress the state of Israel is rapidly becoming. The judges' decision, in the words of the country's normally restrained Haaretz daily, was "shameful".

By a wafer-thin majority, the highest court in the land ruled that an amendment passed in 2003 to the Nationality Law barring Palestinians from living with an Israeli spouse inside Israel -- what in legal parlance is termed "family unification" -- did not violate rights enshrined in the country's Basic Laws.

And even if it did, the court added, the harm caused to the separated families was outweighed by the benefits of improved "security". Israel, concluded the judges, was justified in closing the doors to residency for all Palestinians in order to block the entry of those few who might use marriage as a way to launch terror attacks.

Applications for family unification in Israel invariably come from Palestinians in the occupied territories who marry other Palestinians, often friends or relatives, with Israeli citizenship. One in five of Israel's population is Palestinian by descent, a group, commonly referred to as Israeli Arabs, who managed to remain inside the Jewish state during the war of 1948 that established Israel.

As there is no principle of equality in Israeli law, human rights groups who challenged the government's 2003 amendment were forced to argue instead that it violated the dignity of the families. Mixed Israeli and Palestinian couples are not only unable to live together inside Israel but they are also denied a married life in the occupied territories, from which Israeli citizens are banned under military regulations.

Most of the judges, however, seemed incapable of grasping this simple point. In an earlier hearing, Justice Michael Cheshin suggested that mixed couples wanting to build a family "should live in Jenin", a Palestinian city in the West Bank besieged by Israeli military armour.

Cheshin again demonstrated an other-worldly logic this week when he justified the majority view of his colleagues: "Beyond this [measure] stands the state's right not to allow residents of an enemy country to enter its territory during time of war."
The problem is that the Palestinians are not another "country", enemy or otherwise; they are a people who have been living under Israeli military occupation for nearly four decades. As the occupying power, Israel is responsible for their welfare, though it has happily passed on that burden to international players with deeper pockets.
And the suggestion that the Palestinians, who have no army, are waging a war against Israel, one of the world's strongest military powers, expands the idea of war into the realms of doublespeak. Palestinians are resisting Israel's occupation -- some violently, others non-violently -- as they have a right to do under international law.

Few observers in Israel, however, believe that their government passed the law in 2003 on security grounds. Of the 6,000 Palestinians given residency rights in Israel during the Oslo period, a tiny number -- only 25 -- have been questioned on security-related matters, according to figures the government reluctantly published during the case. How many of this number were actually involved in attacks has still not been clarified.

The real reason for the law is to be found elsewhere. It springs from the same impulse that prompted Israel to "disengage" from the 1.3 million Palestinians of Gaza last year and is now spurring the government on to "consolidate" its West Bank settlement blocs behind a wall designed to annex Palestinian land but not the Palestinians themselves.

The ban on marriages and the drawing of final borders share a single guiding vision: one of maintaining Israel as a Jewish state with a "massive Jewish majority", as former prime minister Ariel Sharon phrased it shortly before the Gaza withdrawal.

Until it was amended, the family unification provision in the Nationality Law offered Palestinians in the occupied territories the sole route to Israeli citizenship. But if Israel is building its walls to establish an expanded Jewish state, an ethnic fortress, it is hardly going to leave the back door ajar to let Palestinians achieve what Israelis regard as a right of return, through marriage, to Israel.

The interior ministry has done much to fuel a demographic and racist hysteria by inflating the figures to suggest that more than 100,000 Palestinians from the occupied territories have gained Israeli citizenship through marriage in the past decade. In fact the real number is a few thousand.

If the judges were too embarrassed to admit that demographic concerns prompted the amendment to the Nationality Law, few others in Israel have been as reluctant. A Jerusalem Post editorial this week admitted the government's security arguments for the law were "weak", observing instead: "Israel is openly threatened with annihilation -- not just physically, by a potential Iranian nuclear capability, but demographically, by Palestinian claims of a 'right of return'."

Yoel Hasson of the ruling Kadima party hailed the court's decision as "a victory for those who believe in Israel as a Jewish state", while the immigration absorption minister, Zeev Boim, added: "We have to maintain the state's democratic nature, but also its Jewish nature. The extent of entry of [Palestinian spouses] into Israel's territories is intolerable."

The government's ban on family unification between Palestinians and Israelis is currently a temporary measure (of three years standing) but that is likely to change now that the court has given the law its blessing. This week justice minister Haim Ramon vowed to establish a new Basic Law that would permanently block entry to Palestinians, as well possibly as other non-Jews.

This is in line with the recommendations of the government-appointed Rubinstein Committee, under the chairmanship of Israel's foremost constitutional law expert Amnon Rubinstein, which has been preparing an immigration policy for non-Jews.
In its report, issued in February, the committee proposed draconian limitations on non-Jews' rights to Israeli citizenship through marriage. (All Jews, meanwhile, will continue to qualify for citizenship based on another piece of legislation, the overtly discriminatory Law of Return.)

According to Rubinstein's recommendations, Palestinians and inhabitants of "hostile" (read Arab) states who marry Israelis (read Israel's Palestinian citizens) will be banned from rights to either citizenship or residency in Israel.

Other non-Jewish spouses (read mainly Europeans and Americans) will face age and income requirements and be expected to affirm a loyalty oath -- not to Israel, but to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. In keeping with current policy, non-Jews are unlikely to receive citizenship but may be eligible for residency rights.

As one seasoned Israeli observer, Shahar Ilan, commented in Haaretz: "It is doubtful that there are many issues that elicit such broad consensus in the [Israeli] political system as that of closing the gates to family unification [of non-Jews]."

Such changes will make Israel unlike any state we have seen in modern times. In 1980, at the height of apartheid in South Africa, the courts there refused to approve legislation much like Israel's ban on family unification, arguing that it contravened the right to a family life.

In Israel, on the other hand, faced with a new wave of racist legislation, no one -- not even the country's "liberal" Supreme Court is prepared to safeguard the most basic rights of the land's native people.

Zionism is a very different kettle of fish from Judaism.


Filed under: Israel, zionism, judaism, Palestinians, mixed marriage ban

Report Charges China is Murdering Falun Gong for Organ Sales

Demonstrators enact a drama against what they said was the Chinese communists' killing of Falun Gong followers and harvesting their organs in concentration camps in April 2006. A Canadian team probing claims that China harvested human organs for transplants from unwilling donors has called on Hong Kong activists to pressure Beijing to end the practice.(AFP/Patrick Lin)



The next time anti-choice groups surface, shout them down with this:

"Why aren't you pressuring Bush and the GOP to stop doing business with the nation that the U.S. is most indebted to, China, for murdering their own citizens, members of the spiritual group Falun Gong, and harvesting their organs for sale?"

The Christian Science Monitor reports:

A pair of human rights activists are charging that "a crime against humanity" is happening on a large scale in China. Members of Falun Gong, a spiritual movement banned by the Chinese government since 1999, are being "in effect, murdered for their organs," which are being sold to buyers from China and abroad, says David Kilgour, a former member of the Canadian Parliament and coauthor of the report.

Mr. Kilgour and his partner, Canadian human rights lawyer David Matas, are now traveling the world speaking with governments and professional and human rights organizations urging further investigation of the allegations. Early last month, the pair released a report laying out details of an investigation they undertook on behalf of a Falun Gong support group, the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of the Falun Gong in China.

"Ideally, we would like to pursue further research before we come to any firm conclusions," the two conceded, while noting the difficulty in obtaining accurate information within the closed society of the People's Republic of China.

But while the evidence may not persuade everyone who reads their report, it is strong enough in their minds to render a verdict. "Based on what we now know, we have come to the regrettable conclusion that the allegations are true," the report says. "We believe that there has been and continues today to be large-scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners."

The source of some 41,500 organ transplants in China in the years 2000 through 2005 remains unexplained, leading to the possibility that they may be the result of the execution of Falun Gong members, the report says.

The Chinese government "since 1999 have put to death a large but unknown number of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience," the report alleges. Their vital organs were seized involuntarily "for sale at high prices, sometimes to foreigners, who normally face long waits for voluntary donations of such organs in their home countries."

The Falun Gong movement, whose guiding principles are truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance, was founded in China in 1992 by Li Hongzhi, who now lives in the United States. Its philosophies incorporate ideas from Buddhism and Taoism and include slow-motion meditative exercises. Falun Gong is generally seen as a peaceful and law-abiding movement outside China, but within its borders it is officially deemed a dangerous cult. For several years, Falun Gong followers around the world have been actively protesting the treatment of the movement's adherents inside China.

The Chinese Embassy in Canada issued a reply to the Kilgour-Matas report July 6, the same day the report was released. China abides by World Health Organization principles that prohibit the sale of human organs and require written voluntary consent from donors, the statement said. "It is obvious that their purpose is to smear China's image," the statement continues. "[T]he so-called 'independent investigation report' made by a few Canadians based on rumors and false allegations is groundless and biased."

In a phone call, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, Li Jianhua, also called the allegations "totally fake" and said the Chinese government had already investigated the claims and found them meritless.

But by immediately dismissing their report "out of hand," Kilgour and Mr. Matas said in a reply, the Chinese government has admitted that it has conducted "no investigations to determine whether or not what the report contains is true."

Whether the organ harvesting – taking corneas, livers, hearts, and kidneys for transplantation – is being done as part of the official crackdown on Falun Gong or simply as the result of local corruption in prisons and hospitals around China is not clear, Matas says, and may be a result of both motives. China has a history of harvesting organs from executed prisoners, he says. The number of Falun Gong prisoners in China remains a mystery outside China. The Falun Gong "are completely defenseless in prison: unidentified, no protectors," Matas says. "They become an easy victim for this form of greed."

The Kilgour-Matas report "makes a very convincing case," says Kirk Allison, associate director of the Program in Human Rights and Medicine at the University of Minnesota. He says academic journals and conferences now should take an ethical stand to reject papers and presentations from authors who rely on data derived from transplantations performed in China.

"Given the evidence at hand, international transplant patients who obtain organs in China do so at the cost of benefiting from, and tacitly supporting, the continuance of an ongoing lethal violation of human dignity and human rights," Dr. Allison said in a published statement circulated at the World Transplantation Congress in Boston last week. "Prospective patients should be informed of this fact and actively discouraged from pursing this avenue of treatment."

Kilgour took on the Falun Gong project last spring after retiring from the Canadian Parliament, where he had been elected as a member since 1979. Neither he nor Matas are Falun Gong practitioners.

In March, the Chinese government announced that a new law, to take effect July 1, would ban sales of human organs and require that donors give written permission for their organs to be transplanted. But, according to Kilgour, the fact that a new law was passed "highlights the fact that there is no such legislation in place now."

Kilgour and Matas plan to update and reissue their report in September.

Phone transcripts: Shopping for Falun Gong organs
As part of their report alleging that China was executing Falun Gong prisoners and harvesting their organs for transplantation, Canadian lawyers and human rights activists David Kilgour and David Matas included transcripts of telephone calls made by Mandarin Chinese speakers from North America to hospitals and other institutions in China. The callers inquired about the availability of organs from Falun Gong prisoners. The caller below is identified only as "M" to protect his or her identity. Excerpts from English translations of some of the transcripts follow:

From a call to "Li" at the Mijiang City Detention Center in Heilongjiang Province (June 8, 2006):

M: Do you have Falun Gong [organ] suppliers? ...

Li: We used to have, yes.

M: What about now?

Li: ... Yes.

...

M: Can we come to select, or you provide directly to us?

Li: We provide them to you.

M: What about the price?

Li: We discuss after you come.

...

From a call to Shanghai's Zhongshan Hospital Organ Transplant Clinic (March 16, 2006):

M: ... So how long do I have to wait [for organ transplant surgery]?

Doctor: About a week after you come....

M: Is there the kind of organs that come from Falun Gong? I heard that they are very good.

Doctor: All of ours are those types.

From a call to "Dr. Lu" at Nanning City Minzu Hospital in Guangxi Autonomous Region (May 22, 2006):

M: Could you find organs from Falun Gong practitioners?

Dr. Lu: Let me tell you, we have no way to get [them]. It's rather difficult to get it now in Guangxi. If you cannot wait, I suggest you go to Guangzhou because it's very easy for them to get the organs....

M: Then they use organs from Falun Gong practitioners?

Lu: Correct....

M: ... What you used before [organs from Falun Gong practitioners], were they from detention center[s] or prison[s]?

Lu: From prisons.

M: ... And it was from healthy Falun Gong practitioners...?

Lu: Correct. We would choose the good ones because we assure the quality in our operation.

From a call to "Dr. Dai" at Shanghai Jiaotong University Hospital's Liver Transplant Center (March 16, 2006):

M: I want to know how long [the patients] have to wait [for a liver transplant].

Dr. Dai: The supply of organs we have, we have every day. We do them every day.

M: We want fresh, alive ones.

Dr. Dai: They are all alive, all alive....

...

M: I heard some come from those who practice Falun Gong, those who are very healthy.

Dr. Dai: Yes, we have. I can't talk clearly to you over the phone.

China, a nation that continues to commit widescale human rights violations and atrocities, was allowed "most favored trading nation" status (yet refuses to equalize trade imbalances), has been allowed to host the 2008 Olympics. American politicians who have aided the unconditional acceptance of China into the world community defend their actions by claiming that it will all lead to China becoming a democracy.

What it has all led to is America becoming less of a democracy, poorer and in debt to China. It's time for top-to-bottom change in U.S. foreign policy. That begins with purging these politicians from U.S. government.


Filed under: China, Bush, Republicans, Falun Gong, organ sales, Charles Schumer, Lindsay Graham, Olympics 2008

Mexicans Hit the Streets to Protest Election Fraud

The AP reports:

Over the past month the slogan of Andrés Manuel López Obrador's fight for a recount in Mexico's July 2 presidential election – "vote by vote, polling place by polling place" – has echoed through streets and hung on walls throughout the country.

So the Federal Electoral Court's refusal to recount each of the 41 million ballots cast comes as a severe blow to supporters of the leftist leader and raises the possibility of prolonged unrest.

At a rally after the long-anticipated court ruling Saturday Mr. Obrador promised to uphold his controversial civil resistance campaign. For a week protesters have set up tents along more than five miles of thoroughfare, tying up traffic, hurting businesses, and angering many city residents.

But to many political observers, the court's unanimous ruling to review just 9 percent of the 130,000 polling places in the face of such massive social pressure – even if the decision leads to more protest in the immediate future – will, in the long run, help legitimize Mexico's electoral institutions.

"This ruling does not mean tremendous victory for one side or another. The real victory is for the rule of law in Mexico," says Todd Eisenstadt, an expert on Mexican election law and author of the 2004 book "Courting Democracy in Mexico." "Facing political crisis, they still made a responsible decision per their own established doctrine and case precedent."

Obrador's rival is free-trade advocate Felipe Calderón, who won the election by 0.6 of a percentage point. His team said Saturday that he accepted the court's decision. But Obrador has long maintained that he will settle for nothing less than a full recount. "We insist that the magistrates rectify their decision, because they have the ability and moral obligation to do so," he told a crowd after the ruling.

The July election has highlighted class and geographic polarization in the country, with the industrial north going to Mr. Calderón's National Action Party (PAN) and Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) garnering much of the vote in the poorer south.

It is a schism that has put pressure on the seven-member electoral court, created in 1996 to deal with electoral fraud that had been rampant in a society governed by 71 years of authoritarian rule. This past week's sit-in in Mexico City has reportedly cost businesses and hotels millions of dollars per day. Meanwhile, says Mexico City-based pollster Dan Lund, the PAN has dominated airwaves, dismissing the need for a recount.

"[The judges] were swayed by both and chose the middle ground," he says, by neither certifying Calderón as winner nor choosing a full recount. "It was a good choice."

Indeed, even if the decision appears to diminish Obrador's chances for victory, many experts say the review of 11,800 polling places, set to begin Wednesday, could swing the election in his favor. Arithmetic errors and other irregularities could give Obrador a slight lead. If the local judges who oversee the review find widespread irregularities, the possibility of an annulment also exists.

"This is not a final decision," says Mr. Lund.

The electoral court has until Sept. 6 to certify a winner or invalidate the election.

Legal vs. political concerns
While many here say they are satisfied with the court's decision on legal grounds, some say it is less desirable from a political standpoint. In a recent poll by Ipsos-Bimsa, nearly half the population agreed with a full recount, many believing it would restore people's faith in the legitimacy of the vote.

"I think the decision the court made was a legal and correct decision." But Robert Pastor, director of the Center for Democracy and Election Management at American University in Washington says all parties should have supported a full recount. "From a political standpoint, to dispel any doubts, the best approach would have been a full recount," he says, adding that the ruling will make it hard to get PRD supporters to trust the process as it moves forward.

"Fraud! Fraud!" Obrador supporters chanted Saturday as Obrador took the stage in the main square to criticize the court ruling. Later, Ramiro Morales Perea explained that he has lost faith in the electoral institutions that Mexico has spent so much money creating. "The court has left us with a big doubt," says the retired history teacher from Acapulco who came to Mexico City last week to join the civil resistance campaign. "A full recount is the only way to make the election legitimate in the eyes of the country."

The court's judges ruled that Obrador could not claim a full recount because he did not challenge results in every polling place. "If he had mentioned each and every precinct or ballot box, it would have broadened their jurisdiction," says Mr. Eisenstadt. "The call for a full recount was a mobilization tactic rather than a legal strategy."

For now, many are focused on how far Obrador and his supporters will take their current protest, even if the court eventually declares that Calderón won the election. Mr. Perea says: "If there is not clarity [on who won the election] we will mobilize, with bigger and bigger demonstrations, until they reverse their decision."

Filed under: Mexico, election fraud, Bush, Choicepoint

It's Another "Quit Complaining About YOUR job"-Monday

Filed under: quit complaining about your job, Monday

U.S. Resumes Beef Exports to Japan

What Got Japan's Prime Minister Koizumi to Agree?



Yes, boys and girls, Koizumi sold his people out for a guided tour of Graceland by Elvis' ex-wife and daughter.



The Associated Press reports:

Japan imported its first shipment of American beef since January on Monday, resuming a once-booming business that has been crippled for nearly three years over fears of mad cow disease.

The 5.1 tons of American chilled beef arrived on a cargo flight at Tokyo's Narita airport, and its importer and government officials were expected to inspect it on Tuesday, said Health Ministry official Masanori Imagawa.

Japan banned American beef in December 2003 after the first case of mad cow disease in the United States. That ban was eased in December 2005, but was re-imposed after forbidden spine bones were found in an import shipment of veal in January.

Monday's shipment, which follows the latest lifting of the beef ban on July 27, came from U.S. beef giant Cargill Inc. and was imported by Costco Wholesale Japan, the Japanese unit of the American retailer.

Costco employees, airport inspectors and Health Ministry officials were to scrutinize the entire shipment in a three-tiered process to make sure no banned products slip through, said Imagawa, who is in charge of customs and quarantine.

Previously, officials inspected only part of the shipments.

"We'll go through all boxes to make sure there is no problem, so inspection will probably take all day," Imagawa said.

Japan the U.S. beef industry's most lucrative overseas market before December 2003, importing some $1.4 billion worth of meat. However, concerns over mad cow disease, known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, have severely damaged Japanese faith in the safety of the imports. Those fears were compounded by the faulty shipment in January.

Recent public polls have showed the majority of Japanese consumers are planning to stay away from U.S. beef, and major restaurants and supermarkets have said they have no immediate plans to sell it.

The reopening of the market followed a rigorous series of meetings, public hearings and inspections of American beef processing plants.

Japan so far has approved 33 of 35 such plants visited by government officials. One of the remaining two was deemed eligible for export, but only with follow-up surveillance. The approval for the other was pending.

Under the current agreement, all U.S. beef shipped to Japan must come from cattle aged 20 months or less, and no brain or spinal material can be included because it is considered at risk of carrying the disease.

U.S. officials have expressed interest in expanding the category of eligible beef to cattle aged 30 months or younger, since no cases of BSE have been discovered in cows that old, but Japan officials have rejected that for now.

BSE is a brain degenerative disease in cattle. In humans, eating meat contaminated with BSE is linked to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, a rare and deadly nerve disease.

Koizumi tries on Elvis' sunglasses.

Elvis' 'jungle' room.

Filed under: Bush, Koizumi, beef, Graceland, Elvis, Mad Cow, BSE

Alaskan House of Representatives Passes Witness DETENTION Bill

Here is the slippery-slope that civil libertarians warned that the Patriot Act would lead to - the criminalization of Americans' right to be left alone.



Under Republicans, it is now going to be a crime to refuse to testify against felony defendants. Police can fingerprint and photograph you, incarcerate you if they think you can provide them with material information in a felony investigation.

The AP reports:

The Alaska House on Sunday approved a bill allowing police to detain reluctant witnesses to felonies.

The bill was added to a special session that had been focused on oil and natural gas legislation because of the growing gang violence in Anchorage, where five young men since March 2005 have been shot to death.

Rep. Lesil McGuire, R-Anchorage, said it would be a tool to help police investigate gang violence, but it's just one step.

"In no way is this the silver bullet that solves the gang violence problems," she said.

Under the proposed law, police would be allowed to subpoena, photograph, fingerprint and hold witnesses or people who have information that would provide material aid to felony investigations.

The detention of a witness would be allowed "only as long as reasonably necessary." Photographs and fingerprints taken of a witness could be used only to identify the person and must eventually be destroyed, unless the witness is suspected of a crime that is part of the investigation.

A witness who refuses to be photographed or fingerprinted could be charged with a misdemeanor and receive jail time of up to 10 days.

The House added language to the bill that said if it turns out that person did not have information to aid an investigation, a court could turn the misdemeanor charge into a civil fine up to $1,000.

"Making someone a criminal because they've asserted their rights, I think is a step in the wrong direction," said House Minority Leader Ethan Berkowitz, D-Anchorage.

Representatives turned down another amendment that would have required police who detain witnesses have a policy to protect those witnesses from retaliation. Rep. Les Gara, D-Anchorage, said the new law could be putting people in danger if they are forced to testify, so they should be protected.

Rep. Pete Kott, R-Eagle River, one of the legislators who voted against the amendment, said it would have created an unfunded mandate on police departments and municipalities.

A similar bill passed the Senate last week. The Senate now must concur with the House's changes or the two chambers would have to appoint a conference committee to work out a compromise before Thursday's end of the special legislative session.

Filed under: Alaska, civil rights, Patriot Act, privacy

Oil Tax Bill Goes to Alaskan Senate - Another Giveaway to Oil Companies

This doesn't just affect Alaskan citizens. All Americans pay for energy companies' R&D.

This latest heist as passed by the Bush-loving Alaskan Senate (supported with threats by Alaska's governor, the former U.S. senator, Frank Murkowski, who named his daughter Lisa to fill his senate seat when he left Washington to become Alaska's governor) is a scam favored by dirty-dealing corporations everywhere. "Net" vs. "gross" profit-sharing. In this case, it's the corporations' tax liabilities based on their net profits, instead of their gross profits.

Corporations can make $billion$ in profits, and find more ways to write it off (James Garner vs. Universal Studios) so that when it comes time to pay taxes on the profits, it's a case of "What profits?"


The Associated Press reports:

The Alaska House on Sunday approved a change in the state's production tax system to one based on oil companies' profits.

Moments before the final vote, word circulated that BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. was shutting down Prudhoe Bay, the nation's largest oil field and the center of Alaska's economy, due to transit line corrosion.

House leaders pressed on with the vote anyway, despite protests by House Minority Leader Ethan Berkowitz, D-Anchorage, that it should be delayed to assess the situation.

"It has no relation to the bill," said Rep. Norm Rokeberg, R-Anchorage, after the floor session.

Indirectly, it may. The bill includes a system of tax credits and deductions for direct lease expenditures, under which BP could partially subsidize replacing the corroded transit line, as well as the cost of the shutdown.

The measure passed 31-8, largely on the strength of a bloc of Republican legislators and Bush Democrats. The Bush legislators may not necessarily like the bill, but their rural districts would receive a substantial amount of state money to reduce their energy costs if it passes.

One of those Bush legislators, Rep. Woodie Salmon, D-Beaver, said every year that Republican majority leaders "stack all this money" for them, but then they make receiving it contingent on getting the rural lawmakers' votes on big issues.

"If that's the only way we're going to get money, that's the only way we're going to get money," Salmon said.

The measure next goes to the Senate, where it could change drastically. Sen. Tom Wagoner, R-Kenai, has a proposal to switch the measure from a tax on oil companies' net profits to one based on the gross value of oil and gas production, but it's not known whether he has the votes to get it passed.

Proponents of the gross tax say it's a simpler and more transparent way of calculating taxes, whereas a net-profits tax could be manipulated by the oil companies to drive their tax burden down.

Rep. Eric Croft, D-Anchorage, said he believes the net-profits bill would dismantle the state's production tax completely.

"We're making a tragic mistake," he said.

Sponsors of the bill said the concerns were overstated, and a net-profits tax would encourage exploration and development of new fields in Alaska. Gov. Frank Murkowski, who introduced the net-profits concept in February, has threatened to veto a gross production tax bill if it passes the Legislature.

One of the effects of the net-profits bill would be to partially subsidize the development of the Point Thomson natural gas field, which is operated by Exxon Mobil Corp., one of three companies negotiating with the state to build a gas pipeline to Canada.

Giving Exxon Mobil and the other leaseholders a possible $4 billion tax break drew sharp anger from several legislators. Rep. Max Gruenberg, D-Anchorage, noted the company has still not paid a $4.5 billion punitive damages judgment stemming from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

"The tanker captain has paid for that, the company has not," Gruenberg said.

Some Republicans also expressed unease with the net-profits tax bill, but they united to push through this measure, rather than walk away without a tax rewrite for the third time this year.

Those who were unsure said a provision to re-examine the tax and its effects by 2011 gave them some comfort.

"We're going to know, and if it doesn't work, there's a way for us to come back," said Rep. Paul Seaton, R-Homer.

Under the bill, a tax rate would be set for each company between 20 percent and 25 percent of that company's profits in the state. The actual percentage would be based on the level of capital investment each company makes in the state - the more a company invests, the lower its tax rate.

At about $55 per barrel, the tax rate would begin to rise so the state shares more of the oil wealth at high prices.

The American taxpayer winds up paying for these energy corporations' exploration and development costs - with no price breaks to the consumers at the pump.

Alaskans need to get a whole lot smarter fast, and give Republicans and Bush-loving Democrats the boot.

Filed under: Alaska, BP, oil, energy, Exxon, Murkowski, environment, taxes

BP Shuts Biggest US Oil Field Due To Spill

The Prudhoe Bay oil field spill on Alaska's North Slope is seen on Monday, March 13, 2006. Cleaning up the spill estimated at up to 267,000 gallons in the Prudhoe Bay oil field has been slow going because workers are having to take frequent breaks to protect themselves against extreme conditions. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

Reuter's reports:

The world's second-largest publicly traded oil company is under a U.S. grand jury investigation over an oil spill in Alaska. About 6,400 barrels of oil leaked from a Prudhoe Bay pipeline in March, almost a year after an explosion at a Texas refinery killed 15 workers and led to the biggest fine by U.S. refinery safety regulators.

The discovery of the corrosion and a leak of four to five barrels "have called into question the condition of the oil transit lines at Prudhoe Bay," Bob Malone, BP America President, said in the statement. "We will not resume operation of the field until we and government regulators are satisfied that they can be operated safely and pose no threat to the environment."

BP owns 26.36 percent of the Prudhoe Bay field. Other shareholders include Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips and Chevron Corp. Alaska provides about 10 percent of BP's worldwide oil production.

This is why they can not be trusted:

The oil company blamed for the North Slope's largest oil spill said Tuesday its inspectors were aware of corrosion in a pipeline months before it burst, but believed the threat to be "manageable."

Every eight months, 10.8 million gallons of oil (the same amount of oil that destroyed Prince William Sound when the Exxon Valdez ran aground on rocks in Alaska) washes into our coastal waters, because of runoff from streets and from other areas.

If it's not incompetence, it's intentional corruption. It's time to put these oil companies out of business. We need to get off of oil. It's killing us.

Filed under: oil, BP, environment, Prudhoe, ANWR

Takeru "World's Best Competitive Eater" Kobayashi Breaks Bratwurst Record

Kobayashi's claim to fame in New York is winning the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island for five years in a row.

Kobayashi wins top prize for chomping bratwurst:

There was a whole lot of brat eating in Wisconsin Saturday as the Johnsonville World Bratwurst Eating Championship got underway today.

Participants grinded through dozens of brats Saturday at the Sheboygan Jaycees Brats Days, vying for the tasty title there. But at the end, Takeru Kobayashi took top honors eating 58 brats in 10 minutes.



The 27-year-old Japan native is a seasoned veteran and is considered the world's best competitive eater. Kobayashi reportedly set a new record slicing the 34 and a half record set last year. He earned $8,000 and, of course, bragging rights.

Kobayashi's claim to fame in New York is winning the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island for five years in a row. In 2006, he defended his title against his biggest threat yet, Joey Chestnut of San Jose, CA. Kobayashi ate 53 and three-quarters hot dogs and buns, while Chestnut set a new American record of 52 hot dogs.

After more than eleven plates like this:



. . . . Kobayashi looked like this:



Kobayashi may be the first native of Japan (home to what I consider to be one of the healthiest cuisines on the planet) to actually eat a hot dog. Previously, the Japanese have only used hot dogs in their art.

Filed under: hot dog contest, Kobayashi, Japan, art, culture

Friday Cat Blogging

Sometimes, it just feels like I'm going 'round and 'round in circles.

How's your Friday going?

Filed under: Friday Cat Blogging

Unions Seek to Defeat Minimum Wage Increase in Congress

The Washington Post reports:

For years, organized labor has worked hard to raise the minimum wage, while business groups have campaigned to block such a change. This week in the Senate, however, the AFL-CIO is pushing to kill the wage increase while practically the entire business lobby is demanding that it pass.

The reversal is the product of election-year politics and clever -- critics say devious -- legislative packaging that has been dubbed the "trifecta." In the same bill, senators are being asked to raise the minimum wage (the liberals' goal), cut the estate tax (the conservatives' objective) and approve a laundry list of popular, though narrowly targeted, tax breaks.

"The sides have flipped," said Peter R. Orszag, an economics scholar at the Brookings Institution.

Prodded by moderate Republicans eager to undercut criticism by Democrats that GOP economic programs overwhelmingly favor the rich, the House approved the package last week, including a three-year phased-in boost in the nation's minimum allowable hourly wage to $7.25 from the current $5.15. It would be the first increase in the minimum wage in nine years.

The Senate intends to vote on the package this week, but the outcome is too close to call, lawmakers from both parties agree. Several Republican committee chairmen are unhappy with how the House GOP leadership stitched together the bill, and they may raise objections on the floor. But the biggest obstacle to passage is the strong opposition from Democratic leaders and their labor-union allies to the estate tax provision, which would permanently reduce the federal levy on estates left by the wealthiest Americans.

Labor officials say that their opposition is a matter of economic and social justice. They also say that reduced revenue from estate tax relief could lead to cuts in federal programs for the poor, such as food stamps.

"We don't think minimum-wage workers should have to wait for millionaires to get another tax cut before they receive a long-overdue pay increase," said Bill Samuel, the AFL-CIO's legislative director.

In contrast, business lobbyists are seeking "yes" votes. Dan Danner, executive vice president of the National Federation of Independent Business, the small-business lobby, sent lawmakers a letter of support this week.

"While we have strong concerns about the minimum wage hike, we're supportive of permanent relief of the estate tax," he wrote. "If Congress needs to address the federal minimum wage level this year, we believe it should be addressed in a package that also provides significant relief for small businesses. . . . The bill does just that."

Other longtime opponents of a minimum-wage increase who are now eagerly backing it as part of the larger bill include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors. The Tax Relief Coalition, which represents 1,000 business groups, also supports the plan.

Even the National Restaurant Association, which is among Washington's most entrenched nemeses of a minimum-wage boost, is debating what to do. "We are reserving the right to determine our position on the final package depending on the size of the wage increase and how much help small businesses get," said Steven C. Anderson, president of the association.

Business organizations have long opposed minimum-wage increases, arguing that the higher labor costs would force employers to lay off workers or eliminate some low-paying entry-level jobs. Opponents also say that prosperity is best generated by stronger economic growth rather than a mandated wage increase.

But business lobbyists said the trade-off between a lower estate tax and a higher minimum wage clearly favors the business community and upper-income Americans. The proposed reduction in the estate tax would lower federal tax revenue by $268 billion over the next decade, according to one estimate.

"Every closely held business in America today is either affected by the death tax or could be affected by it," one top business lobbyist said. "At the same time, less than 3 percent of the country's workers get paid at the minimum wage." In addition, the lobbyist said, "people in the business community understand that it is valuable to Republicans standing for election in November to demonstrate that they have compassion for folks at the lowest end of the economic ladder."

C. Eugene Steuerle, an economist at the Urban Institute, said: "Business groups are saying, in effect, the estate tax change is far more important to them than is the consequence of an increase in the minimum wage. And the unions are saying the increase in the minimum wage isn't as important to them as you might have thought it was."

In the Senate, Republican and Democratic leaders are playing hardball over the measure. Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) warned that he will not permit any other votes this year on any major element of the bill if the overall package is blocked this week. Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) has pledged to do everything he can to defeat the bill because it includes estate tax relief.

Democrats have been accusing Republicans of ignoring the plight of low-income families and have used their call for a minimum-wage increase as an effective campaign issue. Polls show that a majority of Americans favor an increase in the minimum wage. But if Congress succeeds in passing an increase as part of the larger package, that will undermine the Democrats' effort and allow the GOP to claim credit for helping low-income Americans, some Democratic aides say.

The Republican Party has pushed for years to make estate tax reductions permanent and would be rewarded by the conservative part of its base if it could make that happen. Democrats, meanwhile, overwhelmingly condemn the estate tax cut as a gift to the rich that a government running a $300 billion budget deficit could ill afford.

The estate tax provision would exempt from taxation all estates worth as much as $5 million -- or $10 million for a married couple -- and apply a 15 percent tax rate to inheritances above that threshold and up to $25 million. For estates exceeding $25 million, the tax rate would be 30 percent.

The tactic of pairing the wage and tax provisions was devised by House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), in consultation with Frist.

To lure some lawmakers whose votes are up for grabs, the bill also includes a slew of special tax benefits. A provision that would provide extra write-offs for timber extraction was included to tempt such timber-state lawmakers as Sens. Mark Pryor (Ark.), Maria Cantwell (Wash.) and Patty Murray (Wash.), three Democrats whose votes may be crucial to passing the legislation.

The AFL-CIO is hoping Democrats can block the trifecta legislation so that organized labor can press Congress to approve a stand-alone minimum-wage increase in September. "We do want a minimum-wage increase, and we think we're going to get it," Samuel said.

Filed under: unions, workers' rights, minimum wage

Marine Accused in Haditha Killings Sues Congressman John Murtha for Defamation

Congressman John Murtha Discussed Killings Involving Serviceman's Squad in Haditha, Iraq:

A Marine Corps staff sergeant who led the squad accused of killing two dozen civilians in Haditha, Iraq, will file a lawsuit today in federal court in Washington claiming that Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) defamed him when the congressman made public comments about the incident earlier this year.



Attorneys for Frank D. Wuterich, 26, argue in court papers that Murtha tarnished the Marine's reputation by telling news organizations in May that the Marine unit cracked after a roadside bomb killed one of its members and that the troops "killed innocent civilians in cold blood." Murtha also said repeatedly that the incident was covered up.

Murtha argued that the questionable deaths of 24 civilians were indicative of the difficulties and overpowering stress that U.S. troops are facing. The congressman, a former Marine, has been a leading advocate for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq.

In the court filing, obtained by The Washington Post, the lawyers say that Murtha made the comments after being briefed by Defense Department officials who "deliberately provided him with inaccurate and false information." Neal A. Puckett and Mark S. Zaid, suing for libel and invasion of privacy, also wrote that Murtha made the comments outside of his official scope as a congressman.

Telephone calls yesterday to Murtha's office in Washington were referred to his district office in Pennsylvania, and calls there were not returned. A Marine Corps spokesman declined to comment yesterday on the Haditha investigation or the lawsuit.

The suit could have interesting legal ramifications because Wuterich and the other members of his squad have not been charged and have not received any official investigative documentation about the Nov. 19 incident. A Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigation is expected to determine possible charges this summer, said officials familiar with the case.

Zaid said the filing is designed partly to force Murtha to disclose what information he received from the Defense Department and the Marine Corps commandant to form his opinion, essentially trying to speed up the discovery process in a potential criminal trial.

"This case is not about money; it's about clearing Frank Wuterich's name, and part of that is to identify where these leaks are coming from," Zaid said in an interview. "Congressman Murtha has created this atmosphere that has already concluded guilt. He's created this environment that really smells, and he's the only one who has done that."

The move by Wuterich is rare, as statements made by members of Congress generally are protected under the "speech or debate" clause in Article I, Section 6, of the Constitution. But legal experts said the clause grants immunity only for what lawmakers say in legislative proceedings and does not apply to news releases, speeches and other public comments.

Rodney A. Smolla, dean of the University of Richmond Law School and a libel expert, said yesterday that Wuterich would have the burden of proving that he is innocent and that Murtha's statements were false, but he added that the quotations appear to be actionable in court. He said the suit shows that Wuterich probably thinks he did nothing wrong.

"Part of the subtext of this is it's a showing of confidence and a preemptive strike of sorts," Smolla said. "The congressman's statement does not sound as if it is merely hyperbole or opinion or name-calling. Instead, it conveys the idea that the Marines violated professional standards and perhaps the law."

Wuterich, through his attorneys, has maintained his innocence and has said that the Marines killed two dozen people that day because they were engaged in a firefight with suspected insurgents. He told his lawyers that he and other Marines used grenades and rifles to clear two houses they thought were hostile. Another Marine's detailed account of the incident, obtained by The Post, corroborates Wuterich's version.

Donald Ritchie, associate historian in the Senate Historical Office, said that such defamation suits happen from time to time but that they tend not to go anywhere because of the constitutional protections members have. He said the most famous case was in 1979, when the Supreme Court ruled that Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wis.) was not protected when he made defamatory statements to constituents in a newsletter.

"The Supreme Court has suggested that speech and debate has limits to it, and that makes people vulnerable in certain areas," Ritchie said.

It's strategies such as the ones being employed by Staff Sergeant Wuterich's that give defense lawyers a bad name.

In a perfect democracy (by and for all people, with liberals at the helm) defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and trials don't get played out in the media. But with Bush-Cheney and Republicans running the show, all systems are upside-down, especially those under direct command and control by the Executive branch, such as the U.S. military.

We're "down the rabbit-hole," and not considering how in the world we're ever going to get out again.

Filed under: war crimes, Wuterich, U.S. Marines, Frank D. Wuterich, John Murtha, Haditha, war in Iraq, The Constant American, Constant American, Technorati Tag, Technorati Tags, tags, categories

Dog Destroys Elvis' Teddy Bear at Museum

The culprit:



An undated handout photo issued by Wookey Hole Caves (AP Photo/Wookey Hole Caves, Ho) Wednesday Aug 2, 2006, of the security guard Greg West and his dobermann Barney who went on the rampage. A 40,000 pound (US $75,000 euros 58,000) teddy bear formerly owned by Elvis Presley was one of the bears destroyed when the guard dog which was supposed to protect it went on the rampage Tuesday. The rare Steiff bear, named Mabel, was due to form the centrepiece of an exhibition at Wookey Hole Caves near Wells, England. The bear was bought at auction in Memphis, Tennessee, by Somerset aristocrat Sir Benjamin Slade and had been loaned to the collection, a Wookey Hole spokesman said.


AP reports:

A guard dog has ripped apart a collection of rare teddy bears, including one once owned by Elvis Presley, during a rampage at a children's museum.

"He just went berserk," said Daniel Medley, general manager of the Wookey Hole Caves near Wells, England, where hundreds of bears were chewed up Tuesday night by the 6-year-old Doberman pinscher named Barney.

Barney ripped the head off a brown stuffed bear once owned by the young Presley during the attack, leaving fluffy stuffing and bits of bears' limbs and heads on the museum floor. The bear, named Mabel, was made in 1909 by the German manufacturer Steiff.

The collection, valued at more than $900,000, included a red bear made by Farnell in 1910 and a Bobby Bruin made by Merrythought in 1936.

The bear with Elvis connections was owned by English aristocrat Benjamin Slade, who bought it at an Elvis memorabilia auction in Memphis, Tenn., and had loaned it to the museum.

"I've spoken to the bear's owner and he is not very pleased at all," Medley said.

A security guard at the museum, Greg West, said he spent several minutes chasing Barney before wrestling the dog to the ground.

The tension caused by the Bush-Cheney-GOP hate and bully-culture has worked its way down to the dogs.

Filed under: dog, Elvis, teddy bear museum

Open Letter to Chris Matthews

Trying to figure out what Chris Matthews really believes can be a full-time job.

On MSNBC's Hardball, he tacks to the right. More often than not, the far right. On Leno, he's almost a liberal. And on his 30-minute Sunday morning show on NBC, he's moderately-Republican, Hardball-lite. Lite-rightwing and lite-mind. But no matter where he's speaking, Matthews is always working one angle, and it's not maintaining journalistic integrity by giving the public the best news and information. Matthews is committed only to keeping his job, no matter how much he has to whore himself.

On Sunday, July 30, 2006, Chris Matthews ended his Sunday morning program [on video] with this commentary:

MATTHEWS: Two years ago, King Abdullah of Jordan warned me of what was coming in the mideast. His prediction was dead on. He spoke of his fears and what the United States was doing in iraq, toppling one government, electing another, was creating what he called a shi’ia crescent, from Tehran through Baghdad to Beirut that threatened to dominate the Arab world, challenging modern Sunni governments in Egypt and Saudi Arabia and others with an axis of Shia power based in Iran.

When I look at the map today, that Shia crescent the King foretold has come to light.



It is hard for us westerners to understand the internal politics of another region when we can’t predict whether the Democrats will take congress from the Republicans three months from now, how could we see the Shi’ia grabbing the high ground from the Sunni in the mideast three years ago? That’s what happened. We converted Iraq from a country which has fought revolutionary Iran for eight years to a bloody stand still to a Shia dominated ally of Iran and created a boulevard of common religion and common regional politics.

Did you hear the new Iraqi leader take sides with Hezbollah in a struggle with Israel? This is the emerging threat, not just to the moderate Sunni countries including Egypt and Jordan who formed and honored treaties to Israel and us. Our brave soldiers have fought, died and been dismembered in Iraq only to connect the disparate pieces of Shi’ia radicalism into a frankenstein monster that has come to life right there on our TV screens and worse yet in the vicarious mideast where young arabs found a hero named Hezbollah.

In the days leading up to the war in Iraq, Chris Matthews was cautiously vociferous against Bush taking the U.S. to war. Just one month before the war began, MSNBC fired Phil Donahue (who had the best ratings out of all of MSNBC's line-up) because of his outspoken opposition to the looming carnage.

The only anti-war opinion we heard out of Matthews after Donahue was fired was in softball interviews that he conducted with pro-war advocates where Matthews would cite someone else's anti-war quotes and ask for a comment. Like in this interview with John McCain on March 12, 2003, just days before Bush began the attack on Iraq:

MATTHEWS: In the "New York Times" this Sunday, former President Jimmy Carter questioned the moral justification for a war in Iraq. Here's what the president wrote.

Quote -- "As a Christian and as a president who was severely provoked by international crises, I became thoroughly familiar with the principles of a just war and it is clear that a substantially unilateral attack on Iraq does not meet these standards."

In today's "New York Times", Senator John McCain of Arizona issued a sharp rebuttal. He wrote - quote - "Our armed forces will fight for peace in Iraq, a peace built on more secure foundations than are found today in the Middle East. Even more important, they will fight for two human conditions of even greater value than peace: liberty and justice."

Senator McCain joins us now. Tell us a little bit more for the people that don't read "The New York Times" either Jimmy Carter's or your -- what's the bottom line difference between you and him on this war on the moral question?

Before Matthews ventured any opinions again on the war, he spent months dancing with GOP spokesmen on his show about people being able to criticize a President's policies without being labeled "a traitor" and "unpatriotic."

So when Chris Matthews says, "It is hard for us westerners to understand the internal politics of another region when we can’t predict whether the Democrats will take congress from the Republicans three months from now, how could we see the Shi’ia grabbing the high ground from the Sunni in the mideast three years ago?", I, in astonishment, have two things to say:

1.) The outcome of the November elections can't be predicted because it will depend on whether Democrats will allow Republicans to steal another one. There is no question at all that more voters will cast legal, but uncounted ballots for Democratic candidates. The X-factor is whether Democrats will allow its' voters to be disenfranchised, provisional ballots to go uncounted, too few voting machines (and bad ones, hacked) to be placed in Democratic strongholds, etc., as has happened the last two election cycles, at least.

2.) If Matthews had spoken with anyone other than GOP stooges intent upon going to war, or if he had done the barest of journalistic research, he would know that if the people in Iraq could vote, like in a democracy, they would most likely elect a Shi'ia government. Because more of them are Shi'a - population of Iraq is 2/3's Shi'a to 1/3 Sunni. [In Iran, it's 89% Shi'a and 9% Sunni. The population in Lebanon is 95% Arab and the religious mix is Muslim 59.7% (Shi'a, Sunni, Druze, Isma'ilite, Alawite or Nusayri), Christian 39% (Maronite Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Melkite Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, Syrian Catholic, Armenian Catholic, Syrian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Chaldean, Assyrian, Copt, Protestant). The U.S./Israel siege on Lebanon is succeeding in driving the Lebanese people to the side of Hezbollah.]

Or was Matthews counting on the CIA doing what they do best (fixing the elections in other countries) in Iraq?

The best that can be said of Chris Matthews is that he's an excellent representative of today's mainstream American journalism. All that is wrong with it.

Filed under: Chris Matthews, King Abdullah, crescent, John McCain, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Shi'a, Sunni, media

What the Rest of the World Knows

We, the trailer:



We, the documentary:



Arundhati Roy on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, with powerful footage of life in an occupied territory.

'We' is a fast-paced 64-minute documentary that covers the world politics of power, war, corporations, deception and exploitation.

Today the world is run by three of the most secretive institutions in the world: The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization, all three of which, in turn, are dominated by the U.S. Their decisions are made in secret. The people who head them are appointed behind closed doors. Nobody really knows anything about them, their politics, their beliefs, their intentions. Nobody elected them. Nobody said they could make decisions on our behalf.

"Donald Rumsfeld said that his mission in the War Against Terror was to persuade the world that Americans must be allowed to continue their way of life. When the maddened king stamps his foot, slaves tremble in their quarters. So, standing here today, it's hard for me to say this, but "The American Way of Life" is simply not sustainable. Because it doesn't acknowledge that there is a world beyond America."

George W. Bush's policy for peace in the Middle East (or anywhere in the world) is like trying to lose weight by bingeing at McDonald's. What we are doing in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and everywhere else in the world that we have identified as vital to America's economic way of life will never prevent terror-attacks like September 11th from happening - it will only guarantee more.

The World will never know peace with Republicans' in charge, and Bush-Cheney at the helm

C-SPAN to Air Historic 9/11 Exposé

9/11 + The Neo-Con Agenda Panel Discussion to Run on Saturday, July 29th at 8PM (EST):

C-SPAN has confirmed that their coverage of the 9/11 + The Neo-Con Agenda Panel Discussion will air on C-SPAN 1 on July 29th at 8PM (EST). The panel features incredible presentations by 9/11 Scholars for Truth founder James Fetzer, BYU Physics Professor Steven Jones, President of the Institute for Space and Security Studies Dr. Robert M. Bowman, Lt. Col., USAF, ret., Filmmaker and Radio Broadcaster Alex Jones, and Terrorism Expert Webster Tarpley.



The appearance of this discussion on the nation’s premiere public affairs cable network is an incredible boon to the 9/11 Truth Movement. None of the 9/11 Truth events that C-SPAN has covered in the past are as hard-hitting as the 9/11 + The Neo-Con Agenda program. This panel discussion cuts to the heart of the issue and exposes the events of September 11th, 2001 as a complex premeditated plot carried out by criminal elements within the U.S. Government as a pretext for launching the endless “War on Terror” in which the globe is currently embroiled. C-SPAN’s coverage of this pivotal information will bring considerable national attention to the 9/11 Truth Movement. It will also lend further credibility to the Scholars for 9/11 Truth, the premiere organization within the movement for peer-reviewed scientific research on 9/11 issues.

Each member of the panel brought their own particular perspective and expertise to the discussion while each maintained throughout their comments that 9/11 was an “inside job.”

Alex Jones, a progenitor of the 9/11 Truth Movement introduced the panel and acted as moderator. Professor Steven E. Jones, an expert in Physics, re-capped his vital new research which has conclusively proven that demolition incendiaries were used to bring down World Trade Center and could have only been placed there in advance of 9/11.

As a Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota and a former Marine Corps officer, James Fetzer cut through the myths surrounding the 9/11 hijackers. Former Air Force Interceptor Pilot Robert Bowman brought up the lack of air defense on the day of 9/11 and shed light on the slough of drills conducted on 9/11 to distract the military and prevent Flights 11 & 77 from being shot down.

Finally Author and Historian Webster Tarpley tied all of the information together to paint a picture of 9/11. He described the drills, Bush’s actions and the blow-by-blow details of that fateful day that revealed what could only be called the horrible truth of a conspiracy fact.

It is crucial that everyone see this historic panel discussion on C-SPAN. Tell your friends and family, email colleagues, and post links on message boards. This is an incredible step in spreading the truth about 9/11.

The program will air on C-SPAN 1 at 8PM EST (7PM CST) on Saturday, July 29th and then air again for the West Coast at 11pm EST (10pm CST).