You know, I'm tempted to post a link to the discussions that pissed me off. Won't do it but it's very tempting. And I've spent part of the afternoon reflecting on the whole mess as one should after recognizing one has made an error.

What I've realized is that the network of social and political commentary blogs are a major improvement on the online discussions of the past. See, FIDO, RIME and Usenet (the first two are personal BBS networks; if you don't recognize them you should be okay with that, trust me) were inaccessible to most folks during the era when they were the electronic atrium. As a result people felt free to get really really stupid. Not having been a big Fidonet user I can't pull up an example of absurdities, but RIME was used as a vehicle for nut-job militias to communicate until it hit the news. I remember when they tossed out that crew and went through messy months rewriting the rules in an attempt to keep them out. And we all are familiar with how foul Usenet became. It's pretty much been poisoned by its own waste products. All that's left of Usenet is a very useful protocol for tech support.

As the Internet opened up and the first discussion sites came online the trolls came with them, of course. Black folks who go back as far as I do remember that Black interest web sites were literally invaded by really fucked up individuals whose sole purpose was to insult and disrupt…it's why so much Black oriented discussion to this day takes place on closed mailing lists. The unfortunate thing about that is the echo chamber effect, of course—Black folks are as vulnerable to that as anyone. But in private, constructive interchange was at least possible and much did take place; much still does take place.

The tech has gotten as simple to implement on the Internet as PCBoard, Wildcat and the like were on dial-up home PCs…in fact, simpler. Add that to all the free host out there and I'm sure there still plenty of low-crawlers. And even in the best of times we have the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory to deal with.

Light and air are the best antiseptics, though and in this case they take the form of search engines. I remember when Digital Equipment created the Altavista search engine. At the time there were indexes, the 800 pound gorilla of which was Yahoo!. You had to submit your site or be noticed by the index maintainers somehow. Altavista was brought to my attention by a guy who as on the Afroam mailing list who entering our own names.

The impact of seeing your every Usenet post pop up was jarring. Suddenly it was possible to be held accountable for your words. Suddenly you could be found. People immediately started using aliases (those that weren't inventing alternate identities to agree with themselves on Usenet already) and handles and made up names.

But to a large extent blogs ARE names. More accurately, personas. Be we personal or political, talking music or cooking or sex or whatever, our personal blog are what we choose to project, what we want the world to see us as. We all visible as hell out here. And very few people want to be seen as fuckwads.

Oh, we have them, of course. We can all name names. We can all point links. We know who's over the top every day. But they don't indulge in conversation, not really. They are public echo chambers.

Where there's conversation, there's far more rationality than there has ever been in the public spaces. So many people are speaking, linking, fact checking that willful ignorance is obvious (though sometimes not to the willfully ignorant). And in Blognet there are actually people who engage opposing ideas and respect those who come correct with them even if they never respect the ideas themselves. This is a pretty new thing in my experience. And among those who share positions, community is developing. And even those with obnoxious positions tend to express them with a little restraint.

The final shape of all this isn't settled. But it's a hell of a lot more promising than I thought it would be…promising enough that I feel no need to deal with echos of RIME, Fido and Usenet.

I had to leave that other spot where I was trying to talk to white folks before they set me hating again.

Ben Sargent shows us a pre-President getting edge-mo-cated.

Tony Auth shows there are worse problems to have than mice.

Jeff Danziger shows the Illinois Republican nominating committee hard at work.

The service is still in beta, after all.

While news of the beta launch of Gmail, Google's free Webmail service, thrilled the public, it sent a few companies running to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office to stake their claims.

According to USPTO records, Google's March 31 news inspired a bit of a land rush, with four other companies filing applications to set their claims in stone.

The news is the latest in a series of missteps that have come to light as Google's IPO approaches. The Mountain View, Calif. search provider expects to raise as much as $3.3 billion in its initial public offering, with trading expected to start the week of August 16.

Google has made multiple revisions to its prospectus, but still has not disclosed that it may not be able to continue using Gmail. The IPO prospectus clearly states, "Our unregistered trademarks include ... Gmail ...."

Gmail is officially in beta, and the company certainly has enough cash to make attractive buy-out offers to the other claimants. It's a serious gaffe.

Google must compete equally with the other claimants.

"The application process is first come, first served," said Sharon Marsh, a USPTO administrator. "Applications are processed as they're received, and the person second in line will get a refusal of registration from our examiner."

Google is fourth in line. First is Cencourse, a Miami, Fla., company that provides multimedia services, with an application filed March 31,2004, the same day Google's news broke. Next up is Precision Research, a Santa Barbara, Calif., company that consults on the design of high-tech equipment, with an application dated April 2. Following them is the British firm Independent International Investment Research (IIIR), formerly known as The Market Age, which operates Pronet Analytics, a stock research service; IIIR applied on April 3. Google didn't file its application until April 7, but at least it beat the Gospel Music Association's April 8 paperwork.

"We will continue to develop and build upon our Gmail brand while pursuing registration of the mark, in class 38, with the USPTO," Cencourse CEO Steve Sikes told internetnews.com. But he isnt feeling litigious. "We prefer to refrain from comments concerning 'infringement.'"

Bush's Michael Moore Moment At Unity
- Emil Guillermo, Special to SF Gate
Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Washington, DC -- President Bush is for "acting affirmatively," though he's not exactly for affirmative action.

For me, this revelation was the highlight of last week's Unity, the convention of more than 6,000 minority journalists that takes place every three to five years.

Normally a marketplace for underrepresented minorities trying to break down barriers in mostly white media organizations, this third convention was an eye opener because of the president's statements during his appearance there.

…Sounds good. But when Bush went off script and began to take questions, the president had what I call a Michael Moore moment.

Actually, he had several of them.

Instead of hearing hard answers to tough questions, we listened to misstatements and soft mush, all pointing to a general inadequacy in the man seen as the leader of the free world.

The first moment came when Mark Trahant of the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) asked him, "What do you think tribal sovereignty means in the 21st century, and how do we resolve conflicts between tribes and the federal and the state governments?"

Said the president, "Tribal sovereignty means that -- it's sovereign. You're a -- you've been given sovereignty, and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. And, therefore, the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities."

This was the president talking. He wasn't kidding.

Some in the audience laughed. I wanted to cry.

…Later, when I talked to NAJA President Patty Talahongva, she wondered why Bush didn't just talk honestly about real sovereignty issues that have an impact on Native Americans.

"The biggest issue in Indian country is the Individual Indian Money trust account," said Talahongva, referring to a scandal that involves the failure of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs to keep track of Indian families owed money for lands leased to the government -- funds amounting to billions of dollars. "It's bigger than any corporate scandal," she added. "It starts from the top. If the leader doesn't say, 'Fix this,' no one down the chain does."

…So, he was asked, should colleges get rid of the legacy system, Bush's ticket to Yale?

"Well, I think so, yes," he said in a surprising moment of candor. "I think it ought to be based upon merit."

Did he realize what he was saying? It was like admitting he would have been lucky to get into North Texas State.

The panel of reporters working the event then pressed him: Is he for affirmative action?

The president said he is for diversity but that he is against quotas. He just couldn't bear to say he is for affirmative action. Or against it.

"I support colleges affirmatively taking action to get more minorities in their school," said Bush.

Was he dodging? Was he being flip? Or did he mean it? Without a prompter, Bush was far too revealing for comfort.

…"We actually misnamed the war on terror," Bush said. "It ought to be 'the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies and who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world.'"

I felt for the president. I think he felt he was connecting intellectually.

But, in his candor, he just seemed to be unraveling. His merit, or lack thereof, was exposed.

…I wanted and expected a leader. Instead, I heard a man who is more confused than ever on the topic of race.

Amending '3-strikes' law has voter support, poll finds
Only serious crimes would count in tally
- Lynda Gledhill, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau
Saturday, August 14, 2004

Sacramento -- Three strikes

Voters appear to support Prop. 66, which would limit sentencing under the three-strikes law. Voters appear ready to change the state's "three strikes" law, a new Field Poll shows. .

Nearly 70 percent said they would vote for Proposition 66, which amends the law to require that only convictions for violent or serious felonies be counted as a "strike."

"People seem to think it is a reasonable compromise," said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll.

Proponents of the initiative say it would restore the initial intent of the law to lock up violent offenders for long periods but not be used against people who have committed minor crimes.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Attorney General Bill Lockyer and many law enforcement officials are opposed to the proposition, believing that it will allow too many repeat offenders to get away with lighter sentences. [P6: Not to mention cutting into the Prison - Industrial Complex' labor supply]

After being read the ballot summary, 69 percent of voters said they would support the change, compared with 19 percent who would not and 12 percent who are undecided.

The poll of 500 Californians was conducted from July 30 to Aug. 8 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

Support for amending the state's three-strikes law crosses across all categories, including Republicans and those who identify themselves as conservatives.

"They are normally the strongest in supporting punitive measures like three strikes, so for the majority of them to be on the yes side is interesting," DiCamillo said. "The question is will that hold up."

The opposition by Schwarzenegger and Lockyer does not have any influence on people's position, the poll showed. Almost 4 in 5 -- 78 percent -- said the politicians' point of view would have no effect on their vote. [P6: Ignoring politicians? Damn, maybe sanity IS breaking out!]

When you inevitably get busted, your whole thing starts unraveling.

"We hope that the government gives Mr. Lindh the same reconsideration they have extended to Mr. Hamdi," the lawyers said in a statement, referring to Yaser Esam Hamdi, an American-born Saudi who is expected to be released soon to return to his family in Saudi Arabia.

Justice Department officials had no immediate comment on the statement.

That "hard-earned money" line hasn't been heard from the right in a while. Progressives should pick it up.

Progressives should go with "I understand that if you work to support a family you have a vital stake in the future of America."

Progressives should point at every tax cut that comes down the pike and say whether it applies to earned income or unearned income, as defined by the IRS.

Call me naïve, but I thought all Americans have a vital stake in the nation's future, regardless of how much property they own. (Should we go back to the days when states, arguing that only men of sufficient substance could be trusted, imposed property qualifications for voting?) Even if Mr. Bush is talking only about the economic future, don't workers have as much stake as property owners in the economy's success?

But there's a political imperative behind the "ownership society" theme: the need to provide pseudopopulist cover to policies that are, in reality, highly elitist.

The Bush tax cuts have, of course, heavily favored the very, very well off. But they have also, more specifically, favored unearned income over earned income - or, if you prefer, investment returns over wages. Last year Daniel Altman pointed out in The New York Times that Mr. Bush's proposals, if fully adopted, "could eliminate almost all taxes on investment income and wealth for almost all Americans." Mr. Bush hasn't yet gotten all he wants, but he has taken a large step toward a system in which only labor income is taxed.

Quote of note:

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made no secret of his annoyance, authorizing an aide, Assaf Shariv, to say: "The prime minister was very angry when he heard of Ehud Olmert's comments. His comments were contrary to the positions of Ariel Sharon. The disengagement plan is the only plan on the table."

I suspect Lt. Gen. Yaalon will choose to spend more time with his family in the next few weeks.

Anyway…

Israel Could Safely Withdraw From Golan, Army Chief Says
By STEVEN ERLANGER

JERUSALEM, Aug. 13 - Israel's senior army commander says his country could safely withdraw from the Golan Heights in any future peace settlement with Syria, without retaining any occupied territory there as a buffer.

Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, the army chief of staff, broke with Israel's traditional position in an interview published Friday in the newspaper Yediot Aharonot, saying: "From the point of view of military requirements, we could reach an agreement with Syria by giving up the Golan Heights. The army could defend Israel's borders wherever they are."

Israel usually argues that a complete withdrawal from the Golan, seized from Syria in 1967 and annexed in 1981, would leave northern Israeli towns once again vulnerable to Syrian missile and infantry attacks.

Scores Killed in Attack on U.N. Camp in Burundi
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 9:04 a.m. ET

BUJUMBURA, Burundi (AP) -- Dozens of attackers raided a U.N. refugee camp in western Burundi, shooting and hacking to death at least 180 Congolese, witnesses and officials said Saturday.

About 150 people were killed in the camp near the border with Congo during the Friday night attack, and another 30 died from their wounds at a hospital, said Isabelle Abric, spokeswoman for the U.N. mission in Burundi.

The assailants screamed war cries as they rushed into the camp and set it ablaze late Friday, local official Louis Niyonzima told The Associated Press.

The camp sheltered Congolese ethnic Tutsi refugees, known as the Banyamulenge, who fled fighting in the country's troubled border province of South Kivu, Niyonzima said. It is located in Gatumba, 12 miles from the Congolese border town of Uvira.

``What we have seen so far are many, many, many bodies of children, women and men,'' said Eliana Nabaa, a spokeswoman with the U.N. mission in Congo. ``People were sleeping when the attack happened. People were killed as they tried to escape.''

``The scene is absolutely horrific. There are many people burnt, families, children, women and men burnt,'' Nabaa said by telephone from Bukavu, capital of South Kivu. She said the attackers were well armed and organized.

The National Liberation Forces, a Burundian rebel faction, said it had raided a Burundian army position less than a mile from the refugee camp but denied attacking the camp itself.

A spokesman, Pasteur Habimana, said the victims were killed by Burundian soldiers who fled into the refugee camp to escape the rebel assault. A spokesman for the Burundian army could not be immediately reached for comment.

The massacre will further complicate U.N. efforts to encourage Congolese refugees to return home, said M'Hand Ladjouzi, head of the U.N. mission in Congo's troubled North Kivu province.

``This is a setback in our efforts to ensure security here,'' Ladjouzi said. ``We are trying to find out who did this. Their aim is to complicate the situation. Obviously, they did this to stop all the efforts the international community is making.''

Burundian President Domitien Ndayizeye visited the camp Saturday and described the massacre as ``a shame.''

The attack occurred one day after Congolese Vice President Azarias Ruberwa visited the camp to encourage the refugees to return home.

In the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, government officials were heading into meetings Saturday to discuss the killings. They had no immediate comment.

U.N. officials are also checking if the attack was carried out with the help of Congolese tribal fighters known as the Mayi Mayi or Rwandan rebels based in eastern Congo, Nabaa said.

The Rwandan insurgents include members of the former army and the extremists Interahamwe militia who fled to Congo after playing a key role in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

More than 500,000 minority Tutsis and political moderates from Rwanda's Hutu majority were killed in the 100-day slaughter organized by the extremist Hutu government then in power.

But of course they did.

This is absolutely mind-boggling, to forbid the distribution of valid safety information to "balance the interests of consumers with the competitive needs of business." This is the same sort of "balance" the press has shown in presenting an "alternate view" held by .5% of the population on an equal footing with on held by 95% of the population.

THERE IS NO BALANCING TO BE DONE HERE.

If a manufacturer has an unsafe product…especially if that product is some 2000 pounds of metal, glass and plastic capable of traveling 100 miles per hour…they NEED to suffer "substantial competitive harm." If they don't HUMANS can suffer substantial PHYSICAL harm.

Jesus, look at the priorities this administration has.

Bush Overhauls U.S. Regulations
By JOEL BRINKLEY

WASHINGTON, Aug. 13 - April 21 was an unusually violent day in Iraq; 68 people died in a car bombing in Basra, among them 23 children. As the news went from bad to worse, President Bush took a tough line, vowing to a group of journalists, "We're not going to cut and run while I'm in the Oval Office."

On the same day, deep within the turgid pages of the Federal Register, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published a regulation that would forbid the public release of some data relating to unsafe motor vehicles, saying that publicizing the information would cause "substantial competitive harm" to manufacturers.

As soon as the rule was published, consumer groups yelped in complaint, while the government responded that it was trying to balance the interests of consumers with the competitive needs of business. But hardly anyone else noticed, and that was hardly an isolated case.

Allies and critics of the Bush administration agree that the Sept. 11 attacks, the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq have preoccupied the public, overshadowing an important element of the president's agenda: new regulatory initiatives. Health rules, environmental regulations, energy initiatives, worker-safety standards and product-safety disclosure policies have been modified in ways that often please business and industry leaders while dismaying interest groups representing consumers, workers, drivers, medical patients, the elderly and many others.

And most of it was done through regulation, not law - lowering the profile of the actions. The administration can write or revise regulations largely on its own, while Congress must pass laws. For that reason, most modern-day presidents have pursued much of their agendas through regulation. But administration officials acknowledge that Mr. Bush has been particularly aggressive in using this strategy.

Heart of Stone


What is Your Heart REALLY Made of?
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Bring Me the Head of Silvino Herrera
'Us vs. Them' and other 'modern' myths of war and civilization

They behead - we do it with smart bombs. There is, of course, an ugly truth to this recently minted axiom: the horror of state terrorism is that the overwhelming machinery of death in the hands of all-powerful governments far outweighs individual atrocities by madmen, groupuscles and non-state entities. While the heathen thugs and killers may indeed be barbarians, such an axiom tacitly concedes, with their beheadings and murders of innocents, it is almost impossible to accomplish the slaughter of half a million children, as did the anglo-american/UN sanctions in Iraq, with such amateur methods.

This is the same reasoning which, fairly convincingly, puts the lie to sanitized concept of war and destruction which makes the self-satisfied "West" so smug and confident of its moral superiority. There is an underlying, and often overt, racism which allows so-called "modern" warmakers and their electorates to tolerate the huge disparities in casualties that have come to define modern conflict. In virtually every case, the brutal repression of movements toward greater human freedom, workers' rights, and a life worth living is ignored, while the "atrocities" of those trying to resist are seen as backward and evidence of cultural and moral inferiority.

I have no idea how this search

http://addurl.altavista.com/web/results?itag=wrx&q;=+classified+2004+email++address+contacts+of+milk+companies+in+korea&kgs;=0&kls;

...found my site.

You want to see what the future used to look like?

"Where information meets humour meets whatever. Explore and enjoy."

That's our motto and we're sticking to it. Here at davidszondy.com you'll find a constantly growing collection of light-hearted looks at current events, pop culture, movies, history, science, evil penguins, and whatever else happens to catch our fancy.

And this could cause the return of Friday Cat Blogging. Don't know how the cats will feel about it…

This page of digital retouching examples made the rounds last year, but it's worth checking out again. Especially the swimsuit model (who I think was kinda fine pre-retouch but I like humans, feel me?), the brother with the instant six-pack, and the blonde, who are interesting because checking the before and after should make a lot of folks feel more secure in their own appearance.

All that, the prison stuff below and hella more stuff is linked from Flat Rock Forests Unitholder Organization. I have no idea what that name means but the site is wild.

A more recent post on the Prison-Industrial System.

Have you noticed that the REALLY OBNOXIOUS SHIT in our economy tend to be Hyphenated Industrial Systems? Anyway…

America's Prison Habit
by Alan Elsner

After 25 years of explosive growth in the US prison system, is this country finally ending its love affair with incarceration? Perhaps, but as in any abusive relationship, breaking up will be hard to do. Since 1980 the US prison and jail population has quadrupled in size to more than 2 million. In the process, prisons have embedded themselves into the nation's economic and social fabric. A powerful lobby has grown up around the prison system that will fight hard to protect the status quo. There are some positive signs: fiscal pressures may indeed slow the growth of the vast US prison system. But reversing the trend of the past quarter-century is another matter.

Major companies such as Wackenhut Corrections Corporation and Corrections Corporation of America employ sophisticated lobbyists to protect and expand their market share. The law enforcement technology industry, which produces high-tech items such as the latest stab-proof vests, helmets, stun guns, shields, batons and chemical agents, does more than a billion dollars a year in business.

With 2.2 million people engaged in catching criminals and putting and keeping them behind bars, "corrections" has become one of the largest sectors of the US economy, employing more people than the combined workforces of General Motors, Ford and Wal-Mart, the three biggest corporate employers in the country. Correctional officers have developed powerful labour unions. And most politicians, whether at the local, state or national level, remain acutely aware that allowing themselves to be portrayed as "soft on crime" is the quickest route to electoral defeat.

In the past two decades, hundreds of "prison towns" have multiplied - places that are dependent on prisons for their economic itality. Take Fremont County, Colorado, where the number 1 employer is the Colorado Department of Corrections, with 9 prisons, and number 2 is the Federal Bureau of Prisons with 4. Towns that once might have hesitated about bringing a prison to town now rush to put together incentive packages. Abilene, Texas, offered the state incentives worth more than $4 million to get a prison. The package included a 316-acre site and 1,100 acres of farmland adjacent to the facility.

Buckeye, 35 miles west of Phoenix, was a sleepy little desert outpost with a population of about 5,000 until it competed successfully for a major state prison. After that the state upgraded the road leading to the town and the population began to explode. A new movie theatre and a $2.5 million swimming complex opened. Because Buckeye was sitting on ample supplies of water, it suddenly became prime real estate. Mayor Dusty Hull reckons the town will reach 35,000 in five years.

According to the Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service, 245 prisons sprouted in 212 rural counties during the 1990s. In West Texas, where oil and farming both collapsed, 11 rural counties acquired prisons in that decade. The Mississippi Delta, one of the poorest regions in the country, got 7 new prisons. Appalachian counties of Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky built 9, partially replacing the collapsing coal-mining industry. If the prisons closed, these communities would quickly collapse again.

When states try to cut prison budgets, they quickly come up against powerful interests. In Mississippi in 2001, Governor Ronnie Musgrove vetoed the state's corrections budget so he could spend more money on schools. The legislature, lobbied by Wackenhut, overrode the veto. In fiscally distressed California, about 6% of the state budget goes to corrections. Yet no senior politician, including Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, has dared challenge the power of the 31,000-member California Correctional Peace Officers Association, which pours 1/3 of the $22 million it collects each year in membership dues into political action committees.

Even efforts by some states to speed up the release of nonviolent offenders are unlikely to reduce the total prison population by much. The Bureau of Justice Statistics has found that 2/3 of those released from prison on parole are re-arrested within 3 years. Released prisoners face institutional barriers that make it difficult for them to find a place in society. Welfare reform legislation in 1996 banned anyone convicted of buying or selling drugs from receiving cash assistance or food stamps for life. Legislation in 1996 and 1998 also excluded ex-felons and their families from federal housing.

Most inmates leave prison with no money and few prospects. They may get $25 and a bus ticket home if they are lucky. Studies have found that within a year of release, 60% of ex-inmates remain unemployed. Several states have barred parolees from working in various professions, including real estate, medicine, nursing, engineering, education and dentistry. The Higher Education Act of 1998 bars people convicted of drug offenses from receiving student loans. Prisoners are told to reform but they are given few tools to do so. Once they are entangled in the prison system, many belong to it for life. They may spend stretches of time inside prison and periods outside but they are never truly free.

Last year Robert Presley, secretary of California's correctional agency, noted that after several years of decline, crime rates were rising again and his state's prison population had resumed its growth. Maximum-security inmates made up the fastest-growing segment. Despite the building boom of the previous 20 years, prisons were at an average of 191% of capacity. This hardly sounds like a recipe for a falling prison population.

Alan Elsner is author of the forthcoming book Gates of Injustice: America's Prison Crisis

Source: www.alanelsner.com from The Washington Post Saturday 24 January 2004

Here's another article from The Next Best Thing to Slaves.

Full-Employment Prisons

A recent Times article about the economic woes of upstate New York towns dependent on prisons raises a nagging little fear about the future of criminal justice reform. As crime has been falling and jailhouse populations stabilising, towns that believed a prison was a recession-proof industry are beginning to worry about layoffs. Advocates who found it difficult enough to convince state legislators that drug treatment is better than incarceration for low-level offenders are wondering if they will also have to fight the perception that a vote for reform is a vote for unemployment.

New York State's Rockefeller drug laws, which mandate long prison terms for nonviolent drug offenders, have persisted since 1973 despite an overwhelming consensus that they are inhumane and expensive, clogging the prison system with people who should be in drug treatment. They have been hard to overturn mainly because state legislators fear making changes that could tag them as soft on crime. In addition, prosecutors, who in effect determine a defendant's sentence when they file charges, do not want to turn this influence over to judges, who would have more sentencing discretion if the Rockefeller laws were rescinded.

But economic issues may start looming large, too, particularly for influential upstate Republicans. Nearly 1/3 of the people in New York's prisons are serving time for Rockefeller drug offenses. A new prison brings a depressed community hundreds of jobs in the facility and around it. Prisons, in fact, are the chief employer in many parts of upstate New York, and a position as a guard pays better than many other jobs.

New York's prisons are built almost exclusively upstate in part because land and labour are significantly cheaper than in the New York City area. But they are also welcomed by upstate areas desperate for jobs. State Senator Dale Volker, who calls himself "the keeper of the keys" for his control of the process that allocates new prisons, said in an interview that legislators competed to get prisons. "No one thought it was a panacea, but they know prisons are helpful," he said.

Mr Volker heads the Senate's Codes committee, and Michael Nozzolio, another senator with a prison-heavy upstate district, leads the Crime Committee. Both men have been influential in quashing challenges to the Rockefeller drug laws. While senators and their aides deny that fear of losing prison population affects their support for the mandatory sentences, it is appropriate to wonder whether economics plays an indirect role.

The connection between prisons and local economies crops up in other ways. The government counts inmates as residents of their prison's town, adding clout to upstate communities and taking it away from cities competing for government services. This is especially important during a redistricting year.

New York's drug-driven prison expansion, while providing jobs to largely white upstate communities, has devastated black and Hispanic neighbourhoods in the cities. Though most drug users are white, 94% of the people jailed for drug offenses are black or Hispanic. These inmates, their families and communities suffer when the state chooses long prison terms for these offenders rather than drug treatment. In addition, inmates serve their sentences in prisons far from their families, weakening ties that help prisoners stay clean after their release. New York's drug policies are costly, ineffective and unfair. It would be tragic if reform was postponed further because these policies benefit a few influential communities.

Source: The New York Times National News Thursday 23 August 2001

In the comments to the post that has the Cringley article downpage, Al-Muhajabah said she'd seen a page or document or something comparing the number of African slaves the USofA had to the number of prisoners we have now. Being me, I go looking for it.

Didn't find it.

Found this, though. The Next Best Thing to Slaves. It's several years old, but page has several good articles:

The Next Best Thing to Slaves

by Jim Hightower

At last US industry has figured out how to compete with Third World wages right here at home. Hire prisoners! No need to mess with the want ads, employment agencies, or job fairs to find cheap workers, just bustle on down to your state prison and cut a deal for some convicts. Since 1990, 30 states have contracted out prison labour to private companies.
bulletJCPenney, Kmart, and Eddie Bauer are getting such products as jeans, sweatshirts, and toys made by prisoners in Tennessee and Washington State.
bulletIBM, Texas Instruments, and Dell Computer all get circuit boards made by Texas prisoners.
bulletHonda has had car parts made in Ohio prisons, McDonald's has uniforms made in Oregon prisons, AT&T; has hired telemarketers in Colorado prisons, and Spalding gets golf balls packed in Hawaii prisons.
bulletCalifornia's correctional system has become a one-stop-hiring hall for corporations: San Quentin inmates do data entry for Chevron, Macy's and Bank-America; Ventura inmates take telephone reservations for TWA (yes, this does mean callers are unwittingly giving their credit card numbers to criminals, and, yes, there have been "incidents"); Folsum inmates work for both a plastics manufacturer and a brass faucet maker; and Aveala inmates run an ostrich-slaughtering facility for an exporter that ships the meat to Europe.

Who says American industry is losing its ingenuity? These free enterprisers not only get labour for minimum wage and less from the state, but they also provide no health care, no pensions, no vacations, none of those other frills that pampered softies on the outside are always crying about. Plus these jailbirds always show up on time for work, they don't call in "sick" to go to a ballgame, if they talk back to you you have 'em thrown in solitary, and they darn sure won't be joining some pesky union. I tell you, it's the next best thing to having slaves - maybe better, since the company doesn't even have to feed and house them.

Oh, and here's the best part of all: You can slap a Made-in-the-USA label on every product they make for you!

Convict-made goods are expected to reach nearly $9 billion in sales by the end of the decade as the prison population swells; as more companies discover the scam, and as more state politicians learn to cash in on it. Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson, never one to pass up a chance to exploit someone's misery, has been especially adept at huckstering his state's prison force: "Can't find workers?" a state mailing asks corporate executives all across the country. No problem, proclaims the brochure, "A willing workforce waits" - conveniently incarcerated for you in Wisconsin.

Most companies pay the minimum wage, but many get away with paying far less - AT&T;, for example, paid only $2 an hour for its imprisoned telemarketers, and Honda got its convict-made car parts from the Ohio prison at $2.05 an hour. The prisoners typically get to keep only 20% of the paycheque, with the state government grabbing the rest, which is why the states are all for it.

Participating firms everywhere sing the praises of this locked-up labour. In an article in Nation magazine, Bob Tessler of DPAS company in San Francisco gushes: "We have a captive labour force, a group of men who are dedicated, who want to work. That makes the whole business profitable." That, plus the fact that California taxpayers also give Tessler a 10% tax credit on the first $2000 of each inmate's wages. Wow, cheap prison labour and a subsidy - if that won't restore your faith in the working of the free market, nothing will! It is such a steal of a deal that Tessler has shut down his operation in Mexico, moving his data processing work inside San Quentin. "Here we don't have a problem with the language, we have better control of our work and, because it's local, we have a quicker turnaround time."

Source: Funny Times November 1998 from There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos, by Jim Hightower

Those Alan Keyes posters are cool but seeing his mug first thing when I hit the site is really twisting my nipples.

I thought, and thought, and thought.

Finally, I figured out what to do about it.

I realized I needed at least one more post.

And it had to be long enough to push da boy out of the initial view of the site.

Yes, I still have to scroll down to get to, say, the recent comments box. But I'll have had time to prepare, spiritually.

Since ol' boy got so little campaigning time left, I thought I'd help him out.

LATER: After several edits, I think I got it.

George dropped this link on Negrophile. I have no idea why it's not in my NY Times RSS feed, but I'm grateful he caught it.

The Color of Mayhem, in a Wave of 'Urban' Games
By MICHEL MARRIOTT

THE screen crackles with criminality as a gang of urban predators itch for a kill. The scene erupts into automatic-weapons fire in a drive-by nightmare of screaming car engines, senseless death and destruction set to a thumping rap soundtrack.

The action is not part of a new film, but of a video game in development - the latest permutation of Grand Theft Auto, one of the most popular game series ever. Partly set in a city resembling gang-ridden stretches of Los Angeles of the 1990's, it features a digital cast of African-American and Hispanic men, some wearing braided hair and scarves over their faces and aiming Uzis from low-riding cars.

The sense of place, peril and pigmentation evident in previews of the game, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, underscores what some critics consider a disturbing trend: popular video games that play on racial stereotypes, including images of black youths committing and reveling in violent street crime.

"Why are you Black people so sensitive?

Check it:

The prominence of black characters in those story lines is all the more striking because of the narrow range of video games in which blacks have been present, if present at all, over the years. A 2001 study by Children Now, for example, found that of 1,500 video-game characters surveyed, 288 were African-American males - and 83 percent of those were represented as athletes.

"Games are attempting to drive market share beyond the traditional 8- to 14-year-old male player," said Michael Gartenberg, research director for Jupiter Research, an Internet consulting firm. Part of that drive, he suggested, involves having video games reflect what has proved to work in popular films. And as in Hollywood, that may mean subject matter that drives sales even as it draws criticism for gratuitous violence, sexual exploitation or racial insensitivity

Others, like the cultural critic Michael Eric Dyson, point out that racial stereotypes conveyed through video games have an effect not only on the self-image of minority youths but also on perceptions among whites. Dr. Dyson, a professor of religious studies and African studies at the University of Pennsylvania, describes some video games as addictive "video crack."

"They are pervasive, and their influence profound," he said.

Not enough? Tired of theory? Need more details?

Rockstar Games, the publisher of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (to be released in October for the Sony PlayStation 2), is known for infusing its games with gritty yet cartoonish violence. Players were famously rewarded in earlier Grand Theft Auto games for killing prostitutes and, more recently, brutalizing Haitians.

Def Jam Fight for NY, from Electronic Arts, a sort of "MTV Raps" meets "W.W.E. SmackDown!" in which mostly hip-hop-style characters (one with the voice of the rapper Snoop Dogg) slap, kick and pummel one another in locations like a 125th Street train station in Harlem.

25 to Life, from Eidos Interactive, an "urban action game" set to a hip-hop soundtrack that allows gamers to play as police officers or criminals, and includes lots of images of young gun-toting black gangsters.

Notorious: Die to Drive, described by its developer, Ubisoft, as featuring "gangsta-style car combat" with players seeking to "rule the streets of four West Coast neighborhoods." Ubisoft's Web site describes the payoff succinctly: "High-priced honeys, the finest bling, and millionaire cribs are just some of the rewards for the notorious few who can survive this most dangerous game. Once you go Notorious, there's no going back."

…The portrayal of blacks as athletes has taken on a new wrinkle in NBA Ballers, released in April by Midway Games (with an "all ages" rating). It not only pits stars of the National Basketball Association, most of them black, in fierce one-on-one matches, but also encourages players to experience a millionaire lifestyle off the court - accumulating virtual cash that can buy mansions, Cadillac Escalades, yachts and attractive "friends." The style of play emphasizes a street-edged aggression, sizzling with swagger and showboating moves on the court.

And I was wondering about that "Def Jam" name, like how's Russell dealing with the trademark infringement? Well, he ain't dealing with it because there's no infringement.

Those associated with the Def Jam games were more forthcoming. Kevin Liles, who recently resigned as president of Island Def Jam, which licensed the games, said they had been good for his company and for hip-hop.

"We have a sense of responsibility, but we know that games are games," Mr. Liles said.

Def Jam's co-founder, Russell Simmons, said the images of hip-hop culture, even those played out in video games, had been good for the country. "The most important thing for race relations in America in the last I don't know how many years is hip-hop."

"Now Eminem and 50 Cent think they are the same people," Mr. Simmons said, comparing a popular white rapper with a popular black rapper. "They're faced with the same struggle, and they recognize their common thread of poverty."

Eminem and Fiddy: "Cuss your mama" and "get yo ass shot up" are not the models for the future.

Unless they are. Which would kind of suck.

But it's bullshit anyway. The mainstream has always absorbed the products of Black culture. And Eminem himself has said he knows he gets a different deal because he's white. And I'm picturing all the white folks in the country whose only exposure the Black folks is TV, movies, music.

Russell got business sense out the yin-yang. He is as responsible a citizen as he is an effective businessman. But the results of the two impulses are not always compatible.

I'm not really trying to dog him and his crew. I just really hate the idea of little white kids pretending to be a Black murderer, getting points for killing Haitians (specifically!), collecting brown ho's, and saying 'Cool, man!"

OfficeMax has these commercials with the Spinners' "Rubber Band Man" theme. Got this lanky, big-haired brother delivering office supplies to da beat, y'all.

I find it highly amusing.

What do I choose to do on my day of slacking?

Read The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. Hah.

But let me say, Darkstar over at Vision Circle is bringing heat already. Between him and Lester, Michael might have second thoughts about the joint. I didn't know Lester before reading his stuff at Vision Circle, but I knew Darkstar. Both brothers are on point though and I almost wish I had the new site up faster. Long as both of them keep bringing it as I know they do, I can accept it wherever it takes place.

The interface between science and public policy is awkward at best. Scientists and academics need money for research, while politicians need research to build better weapons and sometimes to justify intended policy changes. But what happens if you look for scientific support for some new policy and the results of the research show that what you are intending to do is wrong? You can change your plan or ignore the research. This latter decision, one example of which is the topic of this column, brings with it some peril because if it later becomes known that the research was commissioned, completed, and ignored, then someone's job is on the line. So if you are going to bury research findings, it is a good idea to bury them deep.

America does a better job of putting people in prison than any other country. Just over two million Americans are behind bars right now, a number that has been growing far quicker than the overall population for more than 20 years. The impact of this mass imprisonment is felt especially in the African-American community, where one in 12 men are in prison or jail. The reasons given for these high numbers vary, but something that is frequently mentioned in any discussion is the impact U.S. federal sentencing guidelines have had on sending more people to jail for longer periods of time. Those very guidelines are now coming under scrutiny by the courts because their imposition may have denied some inmates their constitutional right to a trial by jury. That will be decided soon by the U.S. Supreme Court, but for the moment, all that I know for sure is that the sentencing guidelines in use now aren't working as intended, and the people who installed those guidelines probably knew this even before we started building so many prisons.

Even if the U.S. Supreme Court shortly finds that the sentencing guidelines are constitutional, THEY DON'T DETER CRIME.

Whut? Don't deter crime?

They did the study in 1982, and the principle players were Block, Nold, and Sandy Lerner, who was their statistician. Block and Nold thought they were headed for the big time, and started a company to do this kind of work.

Then things began to go downhill. The DoJ didn't like what it was hearing as the study progressed, and they may have refused to accept the final paper. Certainly, they refused to pay because Block and Nold went out of business, and Nold went into a deep depression that ended with his suicide in 1983. But Block was actually named to the Sentencing Commission, where he served a six-year term. He also became a law professor at the University of Arizona, and today works at a conservative Arizona think-tank, the Goldwater Institute, and does not reply to my e-mails.

Why should we care about any of this?

Well, for one thing, I knew Fred Nold and hate to think that his work would die with him. But much more importantly, we should care because I'm told the Block and Nold study, which was intended to economically validate the proposed sentencing guidelines, instead showed that the new guidelines would actually create more crime than they would deter. More crime, more drug use, more robbery, more murder would be the result, not less. Not only that, but these guidelines would lead to entire segments of the population entering a downward economic spiral, taking away their American dream.

There is no mention anywhere of this study, which was completely buried by the DoJ under then-secretary Edwin Meese. The proposed sentencing guidelines were accepted unaltered and the world we have today is the result. We spend tens of billions per year on prisons to house people who don't contribute in any way to our economy. We tear apart the black and latino communities. The cost to society is immense, and as Block and Nold showed, unnecessary. AND THE FEDS KNEW THIS AT THE TIME.

This is all good, of course, because as I've noted before this economy needs poor folks to fuel the lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Not to mention all the people employed by the prisons. We used to call them overseers; now they're prison guards.

And all the prisoners shipped to rural areas, red states and the like are counted as residents of the place they are imprisoned for census purposes, hence seriously distorting the various states' representation in Congress. We really should figure out what the House of Representatives would look like if prisoners were NOT counted as local residents. Especially since Republican districts are giving college students grief about voting where they go to school.

It is one thing to make what turns out to have been a mistake and another thing altogether to make what you have reason to believe will be a mistake. Why would the DoJ, having good reason to believe that the new sentencing guidelines would create the very prison explosion we've seen in the last 20 years, go ahead with the new guidelines? My view is that they went ahead because they were more interested in punishment than deterrence. They went ahead because they didn't perceive those in prison as being constituents. They went ahead because it enabled the building of larger organizations with more power. They went ahead because the idea of a society with less crime is itself a threat to the prestige of those in law enforcement.

Where would we be today if the Block and Nold paper had been accepted and acted upon? Well, we'd probably have a few hundred thousand fewer people in prison. We'd probably have hundreds fewer prisons. Our black communities, especially, would probably be more economically productive. We'd probably have less drug use, fewer unwed mothers, it goes on and on.

And while the disappearance of the Block and Nold paper is an opportunity lost, whatever conclusions they made then would probably apply just as well today.

Nold is gone. Block won't talk, at least not to me. There may or may not be a file somewhere at the DoJ. But there is their statistician Sandy Lerner, who remembers well her work on the study. After Block and Nold folded, Sandy's next venture was to start a company with her husband, Len Bosack, that they called Cisco Systems. Maybe you've heard of it.

Today, Cringley hit it out of the park.

I've stayed on all the ex-candidates' mailing lists up until this point. I just got email from Dennis Kucinich's list. They're going to stay active and mail folks on topics they feel are important. But since the focus of the list will shift, the email tells you how to opt out.

IMPORTANT: Dennis is NOT seeking your permission to sell or give your email address to other organizations. He would just like to be able to contact you himself or through his congressional campaign. If you would prefer that he not do so, please opt out

You won't see many post from me today. I wanted to share this stuff before I go pretend my computer doesn't exist.

Couple of days ago I said I'd found another place to play, where I may choose to address the understanding white folks need as regards racial issues. Well, I am in the process of changing my mind. Haven't actually changed it yet, but…

See, the problem is, very few people actually intend an honest examination when such issues arise. The way the dispute runs make sit clear when arguments are intended to deflect change (hint: it looks a LOT like the serial ex post facto explanations of Bushista fame). And though those bubbles are easy to burst, each and every one of them will assume your argument doesn't apply to them until you nail them specifically. And they don't want you to be right. Not specific to race, either, folks just don't want you waking them up.

There is actually very little conversation on race there, except one humongous thread that I don't think turned out too happily for the originator. I, um, participated in that one a little. My understanding of humans leads me to feel if I tried to raise the issue it would reach the point where the see P6 started the thread and they'd just skip it.

In a "Bush Lied" thread I started, though, conservative resistance brought me to this very simple proof that he intentionally misled the nation:

If the current reasons, all well known before before the invasion, are sufficient to invade, then there never was a requirement that WMD exist. And we were undeniably told the only reason we would prosecute the war was the WMD threat.

Sellout of the Year

Some on the left are still deluding themselves about John McCain, as if he were some paper doll on which we can hang whatever clothes we want.

This tells you all you need to know about John McCain.

Anything can be said in the heat of a political race. But remember: The man McCain is embracing here had his henchmen spread rumors in South Carolina in 2000 that McCain's adopted Bangladeshi daughter (who was only like eight years old at the time) was actually the product of a liaison with a black prostitute; and outed McCain's wife as a drug addict (she at one time was addicted to prescription drugs -- just Rush Limbaugh, a man the Rove machine just adores).

What kind of man, other than a complete political whore, embraces and endorses a man who smears his family?

Yes, we bitch-slap white sell-outs too. Don't think there ain't none. And wouldn't it be racist not to?

I still owe some pictures to my girl Nichelle from the Bush for Kerry comediennes. I didn't get everyone, and I forgot everything I once knew about shooting in ambient light. Still I was able to tweak some of them into kinda artsy looking things. And yes, the women were seriously (?) funny.

Trying to be fair, I listened to an Alan Keyes interview on NPR. You know what?

"He speaks so well."

Quote of note:

Judge Richard Leon, who was part of a special fast-track panel that struck down part of the ad restrictions last year, told a lawyer for Wisconsin Right to Life, James Bopp, that the Supreme Court had already issued its verdict on the law.

"The Supreme Court was wrong," Bopp said.

"They're also last!" Judge David Sentelle interjected, to courtroom laughter.

Indeed.

Court rules against anti-abortion group
By Sharon Theimer, Associated Press Writer | August 12, 2004

WASHINGTON --A federal court on Thursday ruled against an anti-abortion group that wants to run ads in Wisconsin that mention Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold, who is up for re-election this year.

Wisconsin Right to Life wants to air the corporate-funded ads, and it asked a three-judge panel in U.S. District Court in Washington to issue a preliminary injunction to let it run such commercials. Feingold supports abortion rights.

The court issued a one-paragraph ruling denying the request, writing without elaboration that Wisconsin Right to Life wasn't entitled to the injunction.

The Supreme Court last year upheld the ad ban, which bars the use of corporate or union money for ads identifying federal candidates in the 30 days before a primary and two months before a general election. Feingold was a lead sponsor of the law.

I'm feeling a little burnt out today, so tomorrow will be a real light day. May unplug the cable modem and watch movies all day.

It occurs to me the more frightening thought may be that everyone knows exactly what a Twinkie is.

BLUE HILL, Maine --A Twinkie standing the test of time on the edge of a blackboard may be a retiring science teacher's lasting legacy.

Roger Bennatti developed a reputation as an innovative teacher during his 31-year career at George Stevens Academy, using new methods to introduce students to subjects he loved. But the legend of the Twinkie looms over all.

Speckled with bits of mold, the bright yellow cake still adorns his lab, but Bennatti only vaguely remembers why he kept the Twinkie so long.

"We wanted to see what the shelf life of a Twinkie was," said Bennatti. "The idea was to see how long it would take to go bad."

The Twinkie stayed on top of the board through his career -- joined in later years by a Fig Newton -- and occasionally inspired new food experiments. Bennatti estimates the ever-yellow Twinkie is about 30-years-old.

"It's rather brittle, but if you dusted it off, it's probably still edible," Bennatti said. "It never spoiled."

Quote of note:

Another administration official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the White House still would have issued the terror alerts that it did nearly two weeks ago even had it known at the time that the surveillance documents did not point to an imminent operation.

Official: No evidence attack is imminent
By Ted Bridis, Associated Press Writer | August 12, 2004

WASHINGTON --The Bush administration has discovered no evidence of imminent plans by terrorists to attack U.S. financial buildings, nearly two weeks after the government issued startling warnings about such possible threats, a White House official said Thursday.

Some documents and computer files seized in al-Qaida raids showing surveillance of U.S. financial buildings had been accessed for unknown purposes this spring, months later than authorities had previously disclosed, the official said.

Officials had said earlier that some files had been reviewed as recently as January.

The seized records included surveillance reports of financial buildings in New York, Washington and Newark, N.J., during 2000 and 2001, which prompted dramatic warnings Aug. 1 from the White House about possible threats to those buildings.

But nothing in the documents themselves has suggested any attack was planned soon, the officials said.

"I have not seen an indication of an imminent operation," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity with reporters from nearly a dozen news organizations. Investigators are still poring over volumes of the seized information.

The very concept of Alan Keyes has set Steve Gilliard off as I have never seen before. Even I have never laid into Black Conservatives™ in like fashion.

I have to say, though, that the number of Black Conservatives I've heard that do not meet his description is vanishingly small.

I keep talking about post-election discussions, and I'm consciously suspending judgment on a number of folks until then. But I'll tell you it was the reading the stuff produced by the first wave of Black Conservatives™ in the early 90s that set me off politically. And yes, Uncle Clarence was the last nail in the coffin bearing any possibility for my respecting the Black Conservative™ phenomenon as currently configured.

Blogdiva at culturekitchen not only linked to Debra Dickerson's article at Salon, but had the NERVE to point it directly at me:

To Prometheus 6: You're not going to like this one, but sugar, you know how I stand on this race thing. It is and it ain't. To y'all, especially my white friends : Read the whole damn thing. It's awesome.

Racist Like Me - Why am I the only honest bigot? By Debra Dickerson

In a way, I'm arguing for class warfare to replace racial warfare. Class conflict makes sense; it keeps the powerful from riding roughshod over senior citizens who can't retire from manual labor in the hot sun. The truth is, I have far more in common with the rich white man than I do with that poor black grandfather (who would never dare to park on private property in this neighborhood). A world of perfect harmony would be lovely, but until the rapture comes I'd rather blue-collar types of all races faced off against us "suits" than one race against the other. There is nothing logical, natural, or beneficial about a world organized by race—the very concept is irrational. Any system divided along racial lines, implicitly or overtly, will be immoral, inefficient, and unstable. (Take, for example, poor whites' hatred of slaves, rather than of slavery, for depressing wages.)

You haven't read "Where We Stand."

Black people had to be broken to be slaves, and White people had to be broken to be masters. How else can you explain slave owners who allowed slaves to buy their own freedom when by law anything the slave owned already belonged to his master?

It is critical for Black people and White people to recognize this, that it is not natural for us to be divided. It is not natural for us to consider our differences to be more than cosmetic. A society was built that trained us to see these differences as significant. The result of that training is ugly.

Now Black people aspire to become all that White people are…never understanding that White people are no more what they should have been than Black people are.

Black people have only been free for two generations. White people have only had free people of other races around them for two generations. Neither group has mastered their situation yet, and who can blame either? Because this society still gives racialized feedback so clearly and strongly that the honorable efforts made by many on both sides of the veil are simply overwhelmed.

This is not going to be the standard P6 hyper-rationality.

I don't like the fact that I feel compelled to be a Black partisan because it shouldn't be necessary. But the FACT is, my family comes up short because of this shit.

Our national psyche is twisted because of race, and avoidance, and denial, and it's not like we don't have enough fucked up stuff to work on that we'd all be bored if we suddenly got real, grew up and dealt honestly with this crap.

It's not happening, though. Look around, tell me it's happening. You can't

So I speak, directly, honestly, make some of you madder than hell. I can't bring things to a close, but maybe I can start it up. And I'm on Black folks' side because dammit someone has to be. I don't lie about things, I don't exaggerate, I don't say anything I'll have to retract. Under those conditions, anyone who's unhappy with what I say can piss off.

But I hear the opposition too. I was going to say no one can claim otherwise, but of course that's not the case. I just got that email from an asshole blogger the other week that said "Why you hate Jews"…apparently he wrote something describing me as an anti-semite, like I give a fuck about anyone stupid enough to read his stuff. Heads bleed, walls don't.

Yeah, white folks don't want to know from racism. Tough. Black folks, well, I'll be coming at y'all in a little bit with all respect but no restraint…but anyone who knows me knows that. Anyone who reads here knows that.

I don't divide things along racial line. I live within a divided system, like all of you do. I'll never be foolish enough to disregard that fact. I live in a system that requires poor people to fuel the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Frankly, I feel the most disruptive thing that could happen in this society is establishment of justice.

But if a chance to help bring justice comes up, I'll jump right on it. Hell, I'm trying to figure out how to shepherd it along. Not for the sake of the disruption. And honestly, not for the sake of the abstract culture, but for the sake of my family.

James at Hobsen's Choice is getting married...

Good man. Lucky woman. I seriously wish you the best.

Tyranny in the Name of Freedom
By DAHLIA LITHWICK

So it has come down to this: You are at liberty to exercise your First Amendment right to assemble and to protest, so long as you do so from behind chain-link fences and razor wire, or miles from the audience you seek to address.

The largely ignored "free-speech zone" at the Democratic convention in Boston last month was an affront to the spirit of the Constitution. The situation will be only slightly better when the Republicans gather this month in New York, where indiscriminate searches and the use of glorified veal cages for protesters have been limited by a federal judge. So far, the only protesters with access to the area next to Madison Square Garden are some anti-abortion Christians. High-fiving delegates evidently fosters little risk of violence.

It's easy to forget that as passionate and violent as opposition to the Iraq war may be, it pales in comparison with the often bloody dissent of the Vietnam era, when much of the city of Washington was nevertheless a free-speech zone.

It's tempting to say the difference this time lies in the perils of the post-9/11 world, but that argument assumes some meaningful link between domestic political protest and terrorism. There is no such link, except in the eyes of the Bush administration, which conflates the two both as a matter of law and of policy.

Retail Sales Rebound While Jobless Claims Dip
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: August 12, 2004

Filed at 1:36 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Retail sales, which had taken a sharp plunge in June, rebounded by 0.7 percent last month while the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell to a five-week low in early August.

Economists saw both the rise in retail sales and a decline of 4,000 in the number of laid-off workers filing for jobless benefits, reported by the government Thursday, as hopeful signs the economy is rebounding from a worrisome pause in activity in the early summer.

The Commerce Department said the 0.7 percent gain in retail sales last month followed a revised 0.5 percent decline in June.

While the July rebound was smaller than the 1 percent advance that many economists had been expecting, the 0.5 percent June drop was revised upward from a much worse 1.1 percent decline that the government had originally reported.

The Labor Department said the number of people filing first-time claims for unemployment benefits fell by 4,000 last week to 333,000, a five-week low and a sign that the labor market in August may be improving after a disappointing July.

Quote of note:

In all, the group has spent $70,000 to buy air time on black radio stations for ads designed to undermine African American support for the Democratic presidential nominee, according to Virginia Walden-Ford, a Republican advocate of school vouchers who runs People of Color United. She described Rooney as the largest donor, adding that her group has received other "smaller contributions."

Walden-Ford said she was disturbed by conversations with people in the black community who said they plan to vote for the Democratic ticket "because we [African Americans] are Democrats. I think that is a bad way to vote. I want people to be informed."

And these tacky-ass ads are, of course, political information.

Rooney disputed that there is a financial motivation behind his support for the People of Color United radio ads.

"I have a long history of involvement with and support of the black community," Rooney said. "For 21 years I have gone to an all-black church. They finally elected me over other black people to their church board. I'm one of them. I don't know what it has to do with health savings accounts."

"I'm one of them."

Take a good look at who's paying for ads on Black radio stations calling Kerry "rich, white and wishy-washy." Hell, if he can be one of us, why can't Theresa Heinz-Kerry? No reason I can see.

The Republican Party is impressing me less by the minute. Chrissy, in one of the comments, said interest in specifically Black issues is by definition liberal, and I said though it does look that way that doesn't have to be the case. I may have misspoken.

A group financed by a major Republican contributor has begun running radio ads in about a dozen cities, many in battleground states, attacking Sen. John F. Kerry as "rich, white and wishy-washy" and mocking his wife for boasting of her African roots.

The D.C.-based group, People of Color United, has substantial financial backing from J. Patrick Rooney, the former chairman of Golden Rule Insurance Co. and the founder of a new firm, Medical Savings Insurance Co. Both firms specialize in medical savings accounts, created by Republican-backed 1996 legislation, and health savings accounts, which were created by President Bush's 2003 Medicare prescription drug legislation.

One of the radio ads addresses Kerry's failure to vote on a bill to extend unemployment benefits for 13 weeks: "It needed 60 votes to pass. Ninety-nine out of 100 senators voted -- Kerry did not! It lost by one vote! Maybe Kerry thought the more of us who are unemployed and hurting, the more likely we would vote Democrat."

Another ad attacks Teresa Heinz Kerry, who, at the Democratic convention last month cited her birth and upbringing in Mozambique and who has described herself as African American. In the radio commercial, the announcer says: "His wife says she's an African American. While technically true, I don't believe a white woman, raised in Africa, surrounded by servants, qualifies."

The Kerry campaign denounced the ads, all of which are being aired on radio stations with largely black audiences. "It's disgusting that the president's political allies are now using race as a political weapon," said Bill Lynch, deputy manager of the Kerry campaign. "First a group of right-wing Swift boat veterans began smearing John Kerry's military service, and now another group has resorted to playing racial politics."

Calif. Court Voids San Francisco Gay Marriages
By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 12, 2004; 4:22 PM

The California Supreme Court today invalidated nearly 4,000 same-sex marriages performed in San Francisco earlier this year, ruling that the city's mayor exceeded his authority in issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples.

The state Supreme Court stressed that its ruling applies to the narrow issue of local executive authority and does not settle the more substantive question of whether a California law limiting marriage to a union between a man and a woman is constitutional.

"We hold only that in the absence of a judicial determination that such statutory provisions are unconstitutional, local executive officials lacked authority to issue marriage licenses to, solemnize marriages of, or register certificates of marriage for same-sex couples, and marriages conducted between same-sex couples in violation of the applicable statutes are void and of no legal effect," the court said in an 81-page majority opinion.

The court voted 5-2 to void the marriages. Two justices issued separate "concurring and dissenting" opinions in which they agreed that San Francisco officials exceeded their authority but said the marriages should not be declared invalid while the constitutionality of California's marriage law is the subject of pending legal challenges.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said he disagrees with the court but would respect its order. In public comments responding to the decision, he said it was time to move "to the next step" of determining the constitutionality of the state law.

"I'm proud of what we've done," Newsom said. "Society needs to wake up and say enough's enough" and end discrimination against gays, lesbians and bisexuals, he said.

Sudan Hard to Assess, Says State Department

As human rights groups demand action against Sudan, the State Department is informing Congress it is difficult to establish that the Khartoum government is trying to destroy the non-Arab community in Darfur.

And even if Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who has been weighing a judgment for weeks, decides that Sudan and an Arab-led militia in the province are committing genocide, the Bush administration would not be required to take legal action, the department said in an informal analysis obtained by the Associated Press.

Still, a finding of genocide could spur the international community to take more forceful and immediate action to respond to ongoing atrocities, the analysis said.

Go to Google News and search on "alien spaceship"

They are seriously going to claim anything that isn't a neo-con-cept will support terrorism.
FDA: Imported Drugs Could Be Terror Target

Tampering with prescription drugs could be a way for terrorists to launch an attack on Americans, acting Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Lester M. Crawford said.

Crawford said possible action by terrorists was the most serious of his concerns about the increasing efforts of states and cities to import drugs from Canada to save money.

Would-be terrorists need only poke around the Internet to learn how, two decades ago, Tylenol, then the nation's leading painkiller, was removed from shelves, filled with cyanide and returned to stores to kill unsuspecting consumers.

A spokesman for the Homeland Security Department said it has received "no specific information" of such a threat.

Nader vs. the ADL
By Brian Faler

Thursday, August 12, 2004; Page A07

Ralph Nader, that master of controversy, has a new bete noire: the Anti-Defamation League. The independent presidential candidate has become embroiled in an ugly exchange with the Jewish organization, after he suggested that President Bush and Congress were "puppets" of the Israeli government.

"The days when the chief Israeli puppeteer comes to the United States and meets with the puppet in the White House and then proceeds to Capitol Hill, where he meets with hundreds of other puppets, should be replaced," Nader said earlier this summer. That prompted an angry letter from the league, which complained that the "image of the Jewish state as a 'puppeteer,' controlling the powerful US Congress feeds into many age-old stereotypes which have no place in legitimate public discourse."

Nader is not backing down. In a letter to the group that will be released today, he reiterated his arguments, challenged the league to cite a recent example of when American leaders have pursued a policy opposed by the Israeli government and pointed to Israeli peace groups that he said share his criticism of that country's leadership. "There is far more freedom in the media, in town squares and among citizens, soldiers, elected representatives and academicians in Israel to debate and discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than there is in the United States," Nader wrote.

The longtime consumer advocate's willingness to criticize Israel may win him some votes, since both Bush and Democratic nominee John F. Kerry strongly support Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. But not if Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the league has anything to say about it. "What he said smacks of bigotry," Foxman said.

AOL to Sell Cheap PCs to Minorities and Seniors
Thu Aug 12, 2004 12:06 AM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - America Online on Thursday said it plans to sell a low-priced PC targeting low-income and minority households who agree to sign up for a year of dialup Internet service.

The online unit of Time Warner Inc will begin selling the computer and service at Office Depot this month.

The launch is part of a broad strategy at the recovering online service, which watched 2.2 million members abandon its service.

Over the past two years, the company has attempted to find new sources of revenue by appealing to different categories of customers including the Spanish-speaking and teen markets.

Executives said it hoped to attract the 27 percent of U.S. households comprised of seniors, African Americans and Hispanics who do not yet own a PC.

James once said, 'Don't start none, won't be none."

U.S. Eases Up on Chavez to Avoid Oil Spike -Analysts
Thu Aug 12, 2004 12:13 PM ET

By Saul Hudson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hugo Chavez says a referendum on his presidency on Sunday is a battle between him and U.S. imperialism, but the Bush administration is ducking a fight because the Venezuelan leader's weapon of choice is oil.

The Bush administration, which has been the populist's most vocal critic and once appeared to welcome a coup against him, has gone tellingly quiet to avoid provoking an oil price spike that could anger U.S. voters, analysts and diplomats said.

The restraint also shows Washington is preparing the ground for some reconciliation should Chavez survive the referendum as Wall Street hopes, they added.

With Democrats blaming Bush for record oil prices as he runs for re-election, Chavez has threatened to cut off supply from the world's No. 5 exporter to energy-hungry America if U.S. "meddling" gets out of hand.

The threats, like his lexicon of insults for President Bush that includes calling him "a**ole," are generally regarded as bluster, and have had little impact on a jittery market. But with world supply tight, the Bush administration does not dare call the bluff of a firebrand who relishes confrontation and risk-taking, analysts said.

"The last thing Bush wants is for his actions on Venezuela to be seen as causing oil prices to rise," said Peter Hakim, head of Washington-based think tank the Inter-American Dialogue.

When we're done privatizing education, they won't know enough to complain anyway.

Quote of note:

The gap has also helped prompt the administration to call, early this month, for an increase in the federal borrowing limit for the third time in four years. Without a hike, Treasury Secretary John Snow warned in a letter to Capitol Hill leaders, the government could run out of financing means in mid- to late-November. That could set the stage for a partisan struggle over raising the ceiling this fall.

Budget Deficit Wider Than Expected in July
Wed Aug 11, 2004 02:59 PM ET

By Jonathan Nicholson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. federal government ran a larger-than-expected budget deficit in July, bringing the year-to-date shortfall between receipts and spending to almost $400 billion, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.

In its monthly budget report, the Treasury said the July deficit was $69.16 billion, based on revenues of $134.42 billion and spending of $203.58 billion. That was above the $61 billion shortfall Wall Street economists had expected and wider than July 2003's $54.24 billion deficit.

With only August and September left in the 2004 federal budget year, the red ink through the first 10 months totaled $395.78 billion. That's ahead of the revised record budget gap in 2003 of $374.27 billion.

Port Job Lottery Buoys Hopes
A shot at a $20.66-an-hour job may attract 30,000 applicants for 3,000 longshore openings.
By Ronald D. White
Times Staff Writer

August 12, 2004

They were lined up by the score early Wednesday morning, even before the doors at the downtown post office in Long Beach opened for business.

Standing in the queue were a 19-year-old who had just lost his minimum-wage job, a 63-year-old unemployed machinist and a 24-year-old single mom.

They had all come for the same thing: the chance to apply for a temporary position at the booming twin ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, with starting pay at $20.66 an hour — a princely sum in an economy where job growth is sputtering.

"I had always heard that it was very hard to get into these jobs," said Kevin Gardner, the 19-year-old who recently lost his $5.15-an-hour post as a greeter for a company selling time shares in Las Vegas. He had been waiting in line since 7 a.m.

"Words can't express it," he said. "Joy just came over me when I heard about this."

Quote of note:

Lichtenstein said that Wal-Mart's business practices are "a legitimate subject of political debate," explaining that the company, with $256 billion in sales last fiscal year, is so big "that its employment policies are public issues."

…damn cheap-labor conservatives…

Battles Over Mega-Stores May Shift to New Studies
Law requiring economic impact reports could set the stage for skirmishes across Los Angeles.
By Jessica Garrison
Times Staff Writer

August 12, 2004

Wal-Mart officials said Wednesday that they are confident that, if they wanted to build a Supercenter in Los Angeles, they could show the store would bring economic benefits to the surrounding area.

But Los Angeles City Council members, who passed a law Wednesday requiring economic impact reports for the enormous discount stores that also sell groceries, expect that Wal-Mart and other retailers could be pressed to pay higher wages and benefits to persuade wary city officials to approve a superstore.

"We don't have to choose between low wages and low prices," said Councilman Eric Garcetti, who pushed for the law along with Councilman Ed Reyes. "We can have a city that has good jobs and that does not have blight."

The new law, rather than ending the fighting, could set the stage for skirmishes over individual development proposals across the city.

Wal-Mart has not yet proposed bringing a Supercenter to Los Angeles. Only one has opened in California, in La Quinta, near Palm Springs. Two more of the massive stores, which combine discount items with groceries, are expected to open this fall, in Hemet and Stockton.

"The legislation passing the City Council does not end the debate," said Nelson Lichtenstein, a history professor at the Center for Work, Labor and Democracy at UC Santa Barbara.

"The reports themselves will undoubtedly become a subject of debate."

There have no experienced guards not vulnerable to the same issues.

Anyway…

State Prisons' Woes Reflected in Guard's Case
Corrections officials promote a veteran employee while, at the same time, accusing him of misconduct.
By Richard Fausset
Times Staff Writer

August 12, 2004

Seven years ago, the state Department of Corrections tried to fire veteran prison employee Jonathan L. Cobbs.

In June, the department promoted him to chief deputy warden at the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi, a job with a $97,700 annual salary.

But the same system is simultaneously disparaging Cobbs in court papers, accusing him of misconduct and refusing to pay for his defense in a lawsuit brought by an inmate.

It's a mixed message no one can fully explain, but which illustrates the internal disorder of a prison bureaucracy burdened by budget shortfalls, inmate lawsuits, and a system for investigating misconduct by guards and supervisors that is widely considered dysfunctional.

Quote of note:

The number of successes needed for a reward varied — one, two or three. A gray bar on the monitor told the seven monkeys in the experiment of their progress, brightening as a drink became imminent.

Before their genetic treatment, the monkeys in the test dawdled when the gray bar was dim. Only when it glowed did they become conscientious.

All that changed after a snippet of DNA known as an "anti-sense expression vector" was injected into a part of the brain known as the rhinal cortex. The vector suppressed the expression of the D2 gene for several weeks, hampering the ability of the rhinal cortex to detect dopamine.

The monkeys no longer understood the meaning of the gray bars. As a result, their interest never waned. They worked their levers like obsessed gamblers, never knowing when the jackpot would be delivered. They stopped only after their thirst was quenched.

To the researchers, the results made sense.

Injections Temporarily Turn Slacker Monkeys Into Model Workers
By Alan Zarembo
Times Staff Writer

August 12, 2004

Laboratory monkeys that started out as careless procrastinators became super-efficient workers after injections into their brains that suppressed a gene linked to their ability to anticipate a reward.

The monkeys, which had been taught a computer game that rewarded them with drops of water and juice, lost their slacker ways and worked faster while making fewer errors.

Government researchers used a new technique to temporarily block a gene, known as D2, that normally produces receptors for the brain chemical dopamine — a component in the perception of pleasure and satisfaction.

Terrence Sejnowski, a neurobiologist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, called the experiment a "tour de force" for opening a new way of modulating brain chemistry. "The ability to block a specific type of receptor in a specific part of the brain could allow a new generation of therapeutics with fewer side effects," he said.

The results, reported Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could also shed light on mental illnesses that involve motivation, such as obsessive compulsive disorder and mania.

It turns out that the work ethic of rhesus monkeys resembles that of many humans.

"If the reward is not immediate, you procrastinate," said Barry Richmond, a neurologist who led the study at the National Institute of Mental Health.

Quote:

A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, gave a different explanation for Hamdi's release. Hamdi had been questioned for more than two years and had no further "intelligence value," the official said. And because the Taliban was no longer a fighting force, the government saw no need to hold him as a captured soldier.

"This is really about the passage of time. He is no longer a threat to the United States," the official said.

'Enemy Combatant' May Soon Be Freed
Officials are in talks to send the U.S.-born detainee to Saudi Arabia after his legal victory.
By David G. Savage
Times Staff Writer

August 12, 2004

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration on Wednesday took the first step toward release of the American-born "enemy combatant" whose case resulted in a landmark Supreme Court defeat for the White House six weeks ago.

Four months after telling the justices in oral arguments that holding Yaser Esam Hamdi in military confinement was crucial to national security and the war on terrorism, administration lawyers told a judge Wednesday that they were negotiating arrangements to send him back to his family in Saudi Arabia.

In a joint motion filed in Norfolk, Va., lawyers for Hamdi and the Bush administration said they hoped "to resolve this matter under terms and conditions … that would allow Mr. Hamdi to be released." They asked the judge for 21 days to work out the details.

The swift turnaround by the government took even some civil liberties advocates by surprise.

"If all goes well, this is a huge victory for the rule of law," said Deborah N. Pearlstein, a lawyer for Human Rights First. "The reality is that the Supreme Court handed the administration a huge defeat, and releasing Hamdi is one way of complying with that ruling."

Step 1:
Write down the actual reason for invading Iraq. Call it variable A (for "Actual").

Step 2:
Write down the reason given for the invasion (no reason given after the invasion counts). Call it variable B (for "Bush").

Step 3:
Compare variables A and B. If they are not the same, you've been misled.

It's really that simple.

Extra Credit:

If A <> B
1: decide if you would trust a random person after they mislead you on such a scale
2: decide if you trust Bush after pushing through a deception on this scale and
3: explain your answers.