*Ø* Blogmanac | What next? - This

Oh my sainted aunt ... !

OSLO (Reuters) -- "President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are among nominees for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize before a Sunday deadline for nominations despite failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

"'Nominations are pouring in,' said Geir Lundestad, director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute. He said he gets letters and up to 1,500 e-mails a day from people either supporting or denouncing candidates."

However:

"Nobel watchers say Bush or Blair's chances of winning are close to nil ...

"Lundestad said many people wrongly believed being a 'Nobel prize nominee' was itself a kind of honor.

"Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic have made it to the list -- every member of all the world's parliaments, university professors from law to theology, ex-winners and committee members can submit names."

Source

*Ø* Blogmanac | This one's for you, J-9!

Our dear friend J-9 (Jeannine) isn't feeling very well these days (see Tell J-9 You've Read It, above left, this blog) and this song (one of her favorites) is dedicated to her with all our love and healing thoughts.


Eyes Of The World
The Grateful Dead

Right outside this lazy summer home
you ain't got time to call your soul a critic no.
Right outside the lazy gate of winter's summer home,
wond'rin' where the nut-thatch winters,
wings a mile long just carried the bird away.

Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world,
the heart has its beaches, its homeland and thoughts of its own.
Wake now, discover that you are the song that the mornin' brings,
But the heart has its seasons, its evenin's and songs of its own.

There comes a redeemer, and he slowly too fades away,
And there follows his wagon behind him that's loaded with clay.
And the seeds that were silent all burst into bloom, and decay,
and night comes so quiet, it's close on the heels of the day.

Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world,
the heart has its beaches, its homeland and thoughts of its own.
Wake now, discover that you are the song that the mornin' brings,
But the heart has its seasons, its evenin's and songs of its own.

Sometimes we live no particular way but our own,
And sometimes we visit your country and live in your home,
sometimes we ride on your horses, sometimes we walk alone,
sometimes the songs that we hear are just songs of our own.

Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world,
the heart has its beaches, its homeland and thoughts of its own.
Wake now, discover that you are the song that the mornin' brings,
But the heart has its seasons, its evenin's and songs of its own.

*Ø* Blogmanac | A bit of good news!

From one of the most admired among our alternative news writers from TruthOut.org, William Rivers Pitt:

You have an Audio Postcard(TM). To get your
Audio Postcard, turn up your speakers, and
click on this link. Or paste this link into your web browser:

http://members.audiogenerator.com/postcards/?2321401

*Ø* Blogmanac | Oh, brother! What next?

The current U.S. administration is breeding some strange bedfellows!


Justice Antonin Scalia in 'Duck Season'
Supreme Court Justices Need Friends Too
Mark Fiore Audio Visual Animation


* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Trip With Cheney Puts Ethics Spotlight on Scalia
Friends hunt ducks together, even as the justice is set
to hear the vice president's case.
By David G. Savage, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON ? Vice President Dick Cheney and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spent part of last week duck hunting together at a private camp in southern Louisiana just three weeks after the court agreed to take up the vice president's appeal in lawsuits over his handling of the administration's energy task force.

While Scalia and Cheney are avid hunters and longtime friends, several experts in legal ethics questioned the timing of their trip and said it raised doubts about Scalia's ability to judge the case impartially.

But Scalia rejected that concern Friday, saying, "I do not think my impartiality could reasonably be questioned."

Federal law says "any justice or judge shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might be questioned." For nearly three years, Cheney has been fighting demands that he reveal whether he met with energy industry officials, including Kenneth L. Lay when he was chairman of Enron, while he was formulating the president's energy policy.

A lower court ruled that Cheney must turn over documents detailing who met with his task force, but on Dec. 15, the high court announced it would hear his appeal. The justices are due to hear arguments in April in the case of "in re Richard B. Cheney."

Continue, please

*Ø* Blogmanac | BBC stars back defiant media campaign

John Plunkett, The Guardian
30 January

"Some of the BBC's biggest names including Jonathan Ross and John Simpson have given their support to an unprecedented newspaper campaign in which the corporation vows to carry on making challenging and provocative programmes.

"The full-page advert, which is due to appear in the Daily Telegraph tomorrow [Saturday], was paid for entirely by BBC employees, presenters and reporters, as well as outside contributors.

"The ad says staff are 'dismayed' by the departure of the director general, Greg Dyke, who resigned after scathing criticism of the corporation in the Hutton report.

"'Greg Dyke stood for brave, independent BBC journalism that was fearless in its search for the truth. We are resolute that the BBC should not step back from its determination to investigate the facts in pursuit of the truth,' reads the ad."

Full text

*Ø* Blogmanac | Clinton ignored Gore's invention?

"LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) -- The archives of the Bill Clinton presidential library will contain 39,999,998 e-mails by the former president's staff and two by the man himself.

"'The only two he sent,' Skip Rutherford, president of the Clinton Presidential Foundation, which is raising money for the library, said on Monday.

"One of them may not actually qualify for electronic communication because it was a test to see if the commander in chief knew how to push the button on an e-mail ..."
Source

Religious money making. Does it get much worse than this?

*Ø* Blogmanac | A baby dragon, or a bad joke?

By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
(Filed: 24/01/2004)

"A pickled 'dragon' that looks as if it might once have flown around Hogwarts has been found in a garage in Oxfordshire.

"Yesterday the baby dragon, in a sealed 30in jar, was in the office of Allistair Mitchell, who runs a marketing company in Oxford. He was asked to investigate by his friend, David Hart, from Sutton Courtenay, who discovered it.

"A metal tin found with the dragon contained paperwork in old-fashioned German of the 1890s. Mr Mitchell speculates that German scientists may have attempted to use the dragon to hoax their English counterparts in the 1890s, when rivalry between the countries was intense.

"'At the time, scientists were the equivalent of today's pop stars. It would have been a great propaganda coup for the Germans if it had come off.

"'I've shown the photos to someone from Oxford University and he thought it was amazing. Obviously he could not say if it was real and wanted to do a biopsy.'

"The documents suggest that the Natural History Museum turned the dragon away, possibly because they suspected it was a trick, and sent it to be destroyed. But it appears a porter intercepted the jar and took it home. The papers suggest the porter may have been Frederick Hart – David Hart's grandfather.

"Mr Mitchell said: 'The dragon is flawless, from the tiny teeth to the umbilical cord. It could be made from indiarubber, because Germany was the world's leading manufacturer of it at the time, or it could be made of wax. It has to be fake. No one has ever proved scientifically that dragons exist. But everyone who sees it immediately asks, "Is it real?"'

Yesterday the Natural History Museum said that it was interested in following up the find ..."
Source: Telegraph UK

*Ø* Blogmanac | Judge who cleared Blair, blamed BBC, accused of "whitewash"

"LONDON (AFP) - The judge who probed the suicide of arms expert David Kelly was accused of a 'whitewash' by much of Britain's daily press for clearing Prime Minister Tony Blair's government of wrongdoing while rebuking the BBC.

"The rightwing Daily Mail said that judge Brian Hutton's long-awaited verdict, delivered Wednesday, had attracted 'widespread incredulity.'

"'Justice?' the paper asked in a front page headline. It said Hutton's report 'does a great disservice to the British people. It fails to set its story in the context of the BBC's huge virtues and the government's sore vices.'

The British Broadcasting Corporation was plunged into turmoil, with its chairman Gavyn Davies resigning, after Hutton severely criticised the world's biggest public broadcaster.

"The judge said that a BBC radio report claiming that the government deliberately exaggerated the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction before the US-led invasion on March 20 last year was 'unfounded'.

"'We're faced with the wretched spectacle of the BBC chairman resigning while Alastair Campbell crows from the summit of his dungill. Does this verdict, my lord, serve the real interest of truth?' asked the Daily Mail ..."
Source: Yahoo! News

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

"Again and again, he comes down on the side of politicians and officials."

Who is Judge Hutton?

"The 72 year old Baron Hutton of Bresagh, County of Down, North Ireland, is a classic representative of the British ruling establishment. A member of the Anglo-Irish elite, he was educated at Shewsbury all boys boarding school, and then Balliol, Oxford, before entering the exclusive club of the British Judiciary. Whilst British judges are overwhelmingly conservative, upper class, white, male and biased, Hutton's background is even more compromised ...

"His name will be familiar to residents of the Six Counties of Ulster. During the bloody thirty years war Hutton was an instrument of British state repression, starting in the late 1960's as junior counsel to the Northern Ireland attorney general, and by 1988 rising to the top job of Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland ...

"However, he will be remembered in the rest of the UK for his role in the 1999 Pinochet affair. Another senior Judge, Lord Hoffman had contributed to the decision to arrest and extradite the notorious former dicator of Chile and mass murderer General Pinochet during his visit to Britain.

"As a law lord, Hutton led the rightwing attack on Lord Hoffman, on the excuse that Hoffman's links to the human rights group amnesty international invalidated Pinochets arrest! Lord Hutton said "public confidence in the integrity of the administration of justice would be shaken" if Lord Hoffman's ruling was not overturned ..."
Source: Indymedia UK

*Ø* Blogmanac | Life once existed on Mars, Australian scientists say

"Australian scientists believe they have found evidence that life once existed on Mars.

"They have found that microscopic fossils of primitive bacteria-like organisms in a Mars meteorite match characteristics of bacteria found in mud in Queensland.

"The research is published today in the Journal of Microscopy ..."
Source: ABC Oz

*Ø* Blogmanac January 29, 1688 | Emanuel Swedenborg

1688 Emanuel Swedenborg, Swedish philosopher, naturalist and theosophist, (d. 1772)

Swedenborg’s remote viewing
The philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote that a friend of his was witness in 1756 (it was actually 1759), on a Saturday in late February, at about 6 pm, to an extraordinary occurrence in the town of Gottenburg. 

Swedenborg had become agitated. He described in perfect detail a large fire that he said was burning in Stockholm, and that the house of his friend was burnt down, and his own was in danger. On the Monday evening, the news reached Swedenborg and his friends in Gottenburg that every detail as described by the esoteric philosopher was perfectly correct. Kant's information of the event led him to believe it completely. 

Aha! :: Synchronicity Central :: Log your synchronicities and coincidences


This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Ireland's all-male delegation unacceptable in Europe

Denis Staunton, Irish Times
29 January

"The Council of Europe has suspended the voting rights of the entire Irish delegation to its Parliamentary Assembly because Ireland's delegates are all men.

"The council agreed last September that each national delegation should include at least one woman, an instruction that all countries obeyed, except Ireland and Malta.

"The council wrote to all national delegations last November, reminding them that their team for 2004 must include members of both sexes. However, the Government Chief Whip, Ms Mary Hanafin, told the Dáil last Thursday that the all-male delegation, in place since the last general election, had been renominated ...

"The delegation will not be allowed to vote in the council's Parliamentary Assembly until its composition is changed to include a woman."

Full text

*Ø* Blogmanac | Doctors question Kelly 'suicide'

"Fresh doubts about the death of Dr David Kelly, the British weapons expert, were raised yesterday by three doctors who questioned whether he took his own life.

"The doctors suggested that the former United Nations weapons inspector could not have committed suicide in the way described to the inquiry chaired by Lord Brian Hutton.

"Kelly was found dead in a copse near his Oxfordshire home in July after being named as the source of a BBC report claiming that the Government had sexed up an intelligence dossier on the threat from Iraq.

"A forensic pathologist, Dr Nicholas Hunt, told the Hutton inquiry that Kelly had bled to death from a self-inflicted wound to his left wrist. But Dr David Halpin, a former consultant in trauma and orthopaedic medicine at Torbay Hospital, Devon, and two colleagues, question this account ..."
Source: New Zealand Herald

Suicide "improbable": Doctors


I have an open mind on the cause of David Kelly's controversial death. However, I have my suspicions. The following is something I haven't fully read, but intend to today. I log it here not as an endorsement (Blogmanac posts never are) but as background material to this week's media overload over the Hutton Report: The Murder of David Kelly

*Ø* Blogmanac | Kay calls for independent inquiry

Former US Weapons Inspector: Intelligence on Iraqi Weapons Was Inadequate

"Former chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay is calling for an independent inquiry into the U.S. intelligence failure over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

"Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee Wednesday, Mr. Kay blamed faulty intelligence for the failure to find weapons of mass destruction ..."
Source: VOA

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Last of the believers
Only Blair now insists there were Iraqi WMDs. But even claiming an honest mistake will no longer wash

Jonathan Freedland

"It's getting embarrassing. Anybody who's anybody now admits that there are no, and were no, weapons of mass destruction worth the name in Iraq. The roll-call of converts to what used to be the exclusive position of the anti-war camp gets more impressive by the day ..."
Source: Guardian

*Ø* Blogmanac | Mr Phoenix lives to fight another day

With the Hutton report's exoneration, Tony Blair has sailed through yet another potential political crisis, writes Kamal Ahmed
January 28

"'It was so good for them, maybe Alastair Campbell gave Lord Hutton advice on how to write it,' muttered one disgruntled journalist as he left court 76 of the royal courts of justice.

"Anyone expecting 'a plague on all your houses' report from Lord Hutton on the death of Dr David Kelly or even a smoking gun that would go the heart of the government machine would have been sorely disappointed by today's events.

"Lord Hutton, in his measured brogue, delivered a damning indictment of BBC editorial processes and governance. At the same time, he flourished a 'get out of jail card' for Downing Street, saying that he understood the reasons for the infamous naming strategy and that the BBC's claims against the prime minister were 'unfounded'. Tony Blair and Alistair Campbell must have been slapping themselves on the back at such a wholehearted endorsement of their position ...

"Later, Mr Davies [BBC Chairman] took the only route open to him and resigned ...

"Journalists muttered 'whitewash' as they left court 76 at just before 1.45pm this afternoon. Lord Hutton has successfully opened a flank on the BBC that Campbell, even in his most optimistic moods, must have barely thought possible."

Full text at the Guardian

[A poll at Sky.com asking the public if "Hutton has got to the truth" is currently indicating "No" 64% and "Yes" 36% -- N]

*Ø* Blogmanac January 28, 1706 | John Baskerville

1706 John Baskerville, English printer and typefounder whose fonts (including the famous 'Baskerville', above) were so successful, his competitors claimed they damaged the eyes (d. 1775).

His masterpiece was a folio Bible, published in 1763. Among Baskerville's publications held in the British Museum are Aesop's Fables (1761), the Bible (1763), and the works of Horace (1770).

A native of Worcestershire, Baskerville made a fortune in a japanning business in Birmingham. He devoted his resources to the art of printing and development of typefaces, was said to be a great perfectionist and made his own ink, presses, moulds for casting, and all the apparatus.  

Baskerville enjoyed a lasting friendship with Benjamin Franklin, who had built up a successful printing business in Philadelphia, and who visited Baskerville in Birmingham. 

"His typography is extremely beautiful, uniting the elegance of Plantin with the clearness of the Elzevirs; in his Italic letters he stands unrivalled," wrote one commentator.

He was a man of eccentric tastes: he had each panel of his carriage painted with a picture of one of his trades. John Baskerville was buried in his own garden; in 1821 his remains were accidentally disturbed, the leaden coffin was opened and his body and shroud were in a nearly perfect state of preservation.

People were actually charged sixpence for a look at the wonder. Baskerville was an atheist and wished not to be interred in a churchyard. His body had several moves before it found its final resting place. As Deborah Cooper writes in John Baskerville: A man with a mission, writes,

Just as his typeface is now recognized as one of the greatest ever designed, so his body is more or less where he would want it, in a place where there is no church. Perhaps he would have been happy about this as it proves that if you keep persevering, you will eventually get what you want. This was John Baskerville to the letter.


This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Monkey business too costly for Cambridge

Press Association
January 27

"Cambridge University is rethinking its controversial plans for a government-backed primate research centre because of the expected cost of protecting it from animal rights activists.

"The laboratory has become a focus of the growing battle between anti-vivisectionists opposed to the use of monkeys for science and academics who said the centre was vital for research into diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

"The decision to put the development on hold was made after costs grew from £24m to more than £32m ...

"South Cambridgeshire District Council had earlier refused planning permission after police raised fears about public safety at the site. Animal rights campaigners today welcomed the news."

Full text

*Ø* Blogmanac | Ireland revives hope for EU Constitution

By George Parker, Financial Times
January 27

"European foreign ministers gave new impetus yesterday to talks on the proposed European Union constitution, six weeks after negotiations collapsed at the Brussels summit. The Irish EU presidency said the mood among ministers was 'positive and helpful' as they held their first talks on the draft treaty since last December's divisive meeting.

"Many foreign ministers argued it was vital to resolve the constitutional debate quickly, to allow the EU to focus on economic reform, future spending plans and other priorities. Many diplomats expressed admiration for Ireland's low-key attempts to revive the constitution, which aims to streamline decision-making in an enlarged EU, increase democratic scrutiny and enhance Europe's role on the world stage."

Full text

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Meanwhile ...

Taoiseach may be asked to attend bomb hearings

Conor Lally, Irish Times

"The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, may be invited to appear before the Oireachtas subcommittee to explain why he was not more insistent with the British and Northern Irish authorities when they refused Mr Justice Barron access to files on the Dublin-Monaghan bombings of 1974 ...

"Mr Paul Murphy, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, has also been invited to appear as has a number of his predecessors, including Mr Peter Mandelson and Mr John Reid. Mr Hugh Orde, chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, has also been asked to attend.

"All are scheduled to appear before the subcommittee in mid-February. However, it is unlikely that any of the British and Northern Irish officials and former officials will agree to attend. The subcommittee will report back to the Government in March on whether it believes a public tribunal of inquiry into the Dublin-Monaghan bombings is warranted."

Source

[No one was ever prosecuted for the attacks, in which 33 people died. There are suggestions of possible involvement of British agents in the bombing plot by the UVF -- N]

*Ø* Blogmanac | Nifty site revealer

javascript:alert("The real URL of this site is: " + location.protocol + "//" + location.hostname + "/");

If you want to know the actual URL of a site (you might want to one day), just paste all of the above code over the URL in the address bar. Then click Go.

Thanks to my good mate Mary Ann Sabo, an Almaniac in the US of A.

*Ø* Blogmanac January 27, 1832 | Lewis Carroll

1832 Lewis Carroll, English mathematician and author (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland), (d. 1898)
?
Carroll's words
The English mathematician coined dozens of words in Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass and his nonsense poems, many of which have become part of the English language, such as 'chortle' (a cross between a chuckle and a snort) and 'galumph'. He called them 'portmanteau' words, a term still used by linguists today, and wordmongers today still use Carroll?s technique of combining two words to form a new one, as in 'smog' and 'brunch'.

Questions over his sexual preferences
Evidence abounds that Carroll was a paedophile though not whether he ever indulged his sexual preference. He photographed many pretty little girls – some languidly stretched out on beds, and some nude. He is famously quoted as saying, "I am fond of children (except boys)?. However, according to all evidence, Carroll remained beyond reproach in his behaviour and the girls without exception seem to have adored him.

Morton Cohen, a pre-eminent Carroll scholar conducted interviews in the 1960s with several elderly women who were once Carroll's child-friends, but even when pressed for details of possible indiscretions, all of them affirmed that Carroll was the nicest, most gentle, and kindest man they had ever known. Perhaps the Victorian English scholar is often judged harshly by 21st-Century values. Maybe Chicka is chortling in his grave.

This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Muslim refusenik

This looks pretty interesting. I was doing some weeding and pool cleaning for Baz le Tuff today and he told me about the Muslim Refusenik website by Irshad Manji. She's a lesbian feminist Muslim whose books are causing quite a stir. Booklist's review of her new book said:

Uganda-born Manji fled with her Muslim family of South Asian extraction to Canada when she was two. Growing up there, she was affected as much by North American as by Muslim social conventions, and she became a woman with a career (in broadcasting) and an out lesbian. She remains Muslim, though "hanging on by my fingernails." She questions the sexism, anti-intellectualism, moral superiority and evasion, anti-Semitism, and Arab chauvinism she sees in Islam's public face.

I've put The Trouble With Islam in the Almanac's Cafe Diem store (it's discounted by 30% although only released on January 14).

Thanks Monsieur le Tuff for putting me onto this site and book. BTW, I slept for two hours after doing your garden. Of course, I was almanacking till nearly dawn before I went there. Those yellowing palms need a feed.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Let's at least get ONE thing straight!

Just as a point of interest, although they're all saying different now, Dennis was the ONLY one who stood up against the claim of Iraq having WMDs from the very beginning.

Kucinich: 5 Dem Candidates Promoted WMD Claims

Please forward this to every Democrat you know.

Democratic Presidential Candidate Dennis Kucinich today said that based on the public record five of his fellow candidates promoted the idea that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

"The implications of this are enormous," Kucinich said. "They were either misled or looked the other way while President Bush was using the alleged presence of weapons of mass destruction as a reason to go to war against Iraq. Either way, these candidates have seriously undermined their ability to win in the general election when President Bush is obviously running for reelection based on his Iraq policies.

"Yesterday the leader of the U.S. search for Iraq's alleged stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons said he didn't think there were any. Secretary of State Colin Powell now claims we went to war to find out whether such weapons existed.

"Senators Kerry, Lieberman and Edwards, Dr. Dean, and General Clark, all claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and, therefore, contributed to the political climate which falsely justified a war.

"In September of 2002, before five of my fellow candidates joined the President in claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, I repeatedly and insistently made the point that no proof of that claim existed and as such that there was no basis to go to war. Six months later, even Dr. Dean was still claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. "

The Institute for Public Accuracy has compiled the following quotes, listed in chronological order:

[August 4, 2002] Sen. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: "Every day Saddam remains in power with chemical weapons, biological weapons, and the development of nuclear weapons is a day of danger for the United States."
[See: http://www.counterpunch.org/wmd05292003.html , http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,59538,00.html ]

[Sept. 12, 2002] Rep. DENNIS KUCINICH: "Since 1998 no credible intelligence has been brought forward which suggests that Iraq is manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. . . "
[See: http://www.house.gov/kucinich/press/pr-020912-avoidwar.htm , http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/oh10_kucinich/030604WMDinqres.html ]

[Oct. 9, 2002] Sen. JOHN KERRY: "Why is Saddam Hussein attempting to develop nuclear weapons when most nations don't even try? According to intelligence, Iraq has chemical and biological weapons . . . Iraq is developing unmanned aerial vehicles capable of delivering chemical and biological warfare agents. . ."
[See: http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0826-03.htm , http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2002_1009.html ]

[Oct. 10, 2002] Sen. JOHN EDWARDS: "We know that he [Hussein] has chemical and biological weapons."
[See: http://www.senate.gov/~edwards/statements/20021010_iraq.html ]

[Jan. 18, 2003] Gen. WESLEY CLARK: "He [Hussein] does have weapons of mass destruction. " When asked, "And you could say that categorically?" Clark responded: "Absolutely. " (on CNN, Jan. 18, 2003). On finding the alleged weapons Clark said: "I think they will be found. There's so much intelligence on this. " (on CNN, April 2, 2003)
[See: http://www.fair.org/press-releases/clark-antiwar.html , http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0301/18/smn.05.html , http://www-cgi.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0304/02/lt.08.html ]

[Jan. 31, 2003] Rev. AL SHARPTON: "I think that the present administration is bent on war. There has been no, in my judgment, evidence presented there has been any weapons of mass destruction. " (on NPR, Jan. 31, 2003)

[March 17, 2003] Dr. HOWARD DEAN: "[He and others] have never been in doubt about the evil of Saddam Hussein or the necessity of removing his weapons of mass destruction. "
[See: http://www.wtv-zone.com/Morgaine_OFaery/HDean4pres/deantrpswar.html ]

Kucinich, who led the effort in the House of Representatives in challenging the Bush Administration's march toward war attempted repeatedly to warn America that there was no basis to go to war:

On Sep. 3, 2002, on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Dennis Kucinich said, "I don't think there's any justification to go to war with Iraq. There's no evidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. There's no. . . there's nothing that says that they have the ability to deliver such weapons, if they did have them. There's been no stated intention on their part to harm the United States. "

On Sep. 4, 2002, on Buchanan and Press, Buchanan asked "Congressman Kucinich, does not the President have a clear, factual point here? Saddam Hussein is developing these weapons of mass destruction, he agreed to get rid of them, he has not gotten rid of them. Kucinich replied: "Well, frankly we haven't seen evidence or proof of that, and furthermore we haven't seen evidence or proof that he has the ability to deliver such weapons if he has them, and finally, whether or not he has the intent. I think that what we need to be doing is to review this passion for war, that drumbeat for war, that's coming out of the White House, and to slow down and to let calmer heads prevail and to pursue diplomacy…. "

On Sep. 7, 2002, Dennis Kucinich gave a speech in Baraboo, Wisconsin, called "Architects of New Worlds," in which he said "There's no evidence Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, or the ability to deliver such weapons if it had them or the intention to do so. There is no reason for war against Iraq. Stop the drumbeat. Stop the war talk. Pull back from the abyss of unilateral action and preemptive strikes." [See: http://www.house.gov/kucinich/press/sp-020907-newworlds.htm ]

Please forward this to every Democrat you know.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Nothing but the truth

Leader
January 26, The Guardian

"Nearly 12 months on, the Iraq war continues to cast its shadow over everything about Tony Blair's premiership. At the start of this momentous week in British politics, it remains the determining event of this government. It is also an open wound in the body of the Labour cause.

"Depending on what Lord Hutton says on Wednesday, this fateful conflict could shortly claim the political scalps of a defence secretary, and even conceivably a prime minister, to go with the two other senior cabinet ministers, Robin Cook and Clare Short, who have been its victims already.

"Cabinet divisions did not end when those two resigned last year; a new biography of Mr Blair by Philip Stephens suggests that the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, was a reluctant warrior himself. Nor is the effect confined to events, like Hutton, that are themselves directly linked to Iraq.

"If enough Labour MPs vote with the opposition parties to overturn the higher education bill tomorrow evening -- which we again strongly urge them not to do -- they will do so in part because they lost their patience with Mr Blair over his determination to go to war alongside the United States last year. Iraq, in short, remains unfinished and live business."

Continue here

*Ø* Blogmanac | Howard defiant over Iraq war involvement

"[Australian] Prime Minister John Howard says he did the right thing in sending Australian troops to Iraq last year, despite new claims that the Gulf state did not have any so-called weapons of mass destruction at the time.

"Chief weapons inspector David Kay quit last week, saying he believes Iraq probably got rid of its banned weapons some years ago.

"And United States' Secretary of State Colin Powell has now conceded Saddam Hussein's regime may not have had any chemical or biological weapons when it was attacked ...

"But the Federal Opposition says it is now clear that Australia went to war in Iraq on a false premise ...

"Labor's foreign affairs spokesman, Kevin Rudd, has seized on Mr Kay's resignation.

"'For Mr Kay to come out and say quite plainly that in his view these stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons simply did not exist at the time Mr Howard took Australia to war against Iraq fundamentally torpedoes the credibility of Mr Howard and Mr Downer and Senator Hill in taking this country to war on the argument they put to the Australian people at the time,' Mr Rudd said."
Source: ABC Oz

*Ø* Blogmanac | Somebody stop them!

As if the unfair media exposure of all candidates wasn't bad enough, or the unfair interpretation of Dean's pep talk for his staffers during which he was laughing, described as "angry!" Yeah--we sure don't want an angry man as president! As Bill Maher said on Real Time " . . . he might START A WAR!" Every single negative thing the media chooses to pick on about the candidates already applies to the Little Napoleon from Crawford!


Two Eyeopeners From Bruce:

The End Of Democracy in the United States?
By Bob Zanelli

A question which hasn't got near enough attention, in my opinion, is the GOP's effort to make their control of power election proof. We got a taste of this when the current war criminal in the White House was elected. Is this paranoia? Or is this a real threat this country faces. Is there a vast right wing conspiracy, or is American Democracy safe? Below is a helpful link from those wild eyed alarmists, the American Humanist Association. Don't expect to hear about this from the already corporate controlled American media. -- Bob Zannelli

Apparently democracy is safe only in Iraq.


---0---0---0---

The Bush plan to promote marriage? (In case you missed it.)


Call It The Divorce Belt
By Ellis Henican

Holy Britney Spears!

Here's a fact I couldn't find anywhere in George W. Bush's $1.5-billion plan to prop up American marriage.

The pro-Bush red states, especially those in the rural South, have a far higher divorce rate than Al Gore's blue states.

This is the Bible Belt?

Actually, it's more like the Divorce Belt, where the pro-marriage president's staunchest supporters tend to congregate.

For this little nugget, we are indebted to the insightful research of George Barna, who is probably America's leading pollster of religious attitudes. The Barna Research Group of Ventura, Calif., has spent the past 18 years tracking various church and cultural trends.

Trends like Baptists (29 percent) and nondenominational Christians (34 percent) getting divorced more frequently than do atheists/agnostics (21 percent).

Forget all that family-values talk from the Religious Right.

"Divorce rates among conservative Christians were much higher than for other faith groups," Barna says flatly.

And to think: I'd always heard that godless relativists in places like New York were undermining marriage.

Well, not so you'd notice on the marital-political map.

Full story . . . read on

*Ø* Blogmanac January 26 | Australia Day

Happy Oz Day, folks, and thanks Nora for the greetings and the great anim. Made me laff!

As you can see in the Coffs Harbour weather sticker at the foot of this blog, the temperature here is a bit higher than zero. It's a glorious day here.

Australia Day is a good time to think about our environment. These frightening statistics come from Worldwide Fund for Nature's Threatened Species Network:

Until recently, 50% of the world's mammal extinctions in the last 200 years occurred in Australia. Unfortunately the rest of the world is now catching up and the number has dropped to 25%. Since the settlement of Australia by Europeans in 1788, at least 50 species of mammals and birds and about 68 species of plants have become extinct in Australia, and there are probably many more that we know nothing about. At least another 100 species of mammals, birds, reptiles, frogs, and fish are now nationally listed as endangered, and over 500 plants. Invertebrates (creatures without internal skeletons) are not included in these statistics, as relatively little information is known about these animals. However, it is likely that there are hundreds under threat (a small few have been listed). Many of our listed species could become extinct within 10 to 20 years. The total number of species nationally listed in Australia as threatened is nearing 1500.
Additionally, 75% of our rainforests and 43% of our forests have been cleared – homes for many Australian species. There are also many important ecological communities under threat. For example less than 1% of the lowland native grasslands of south-eastern Australia remains intact.

A barbecue would be nice, but today I'm busy with January 26 at the Book of Days, which I've nearly finished. Our American readers might be interested in a quaint item there, a connection between General Douglas Macarthur, Australia and Wrigley's chewing gum.

Australia Day is a rather controversial topic here, for many reasons. I've tried to cover the topic at the Australia Day page.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Happy Australia Day

... to Pip, and to all our Australian readers!



Enjoy the barbies, folks. It's 0 degrees Celsius in Dublin as I write -- N

*Ø* Blogmanac | Jethro Tull musician has sex swap op

"A former member of seventies band Jethro Tull has had a sex-change operation and become a woman called Dee.

"Once bearded keyboard player David Palmer now has long blonde hair and wears make-up and black leggings, reports the Evening Standard.

"She broke the news to flute playing frontman Ian Anderson by saying: 'There's something I need to get off my increasingly ample chest.'"
Source

*Ø* Blogmanac January 25, 1992 | Happy birthday Rem!

I just want to wish a big happy birthday to my son, Remy, and lots of good wishes as he starts high school this week. Remy's one of the nicest kids you could hope to meet.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Bush's long, hot summer to come

Local Activists Organize for "New York Summer"
While George Bush Jr. pandered to rightwing extremists during Tuesday night's State of the Union address, local activists with the No RNC Clearinghouse packed Judson Memorial Church to continue planning massive street protests for this August when Bush comes to New York to receive the Republican nomination.

Various working groups discussed everything from guerrilla theatre to the logistics of housing hundreds of thousands of visiting protesters to the training of legal observers and street medics. The outreach working group announced it would be organizing community forums around the city this spring in advance of a New York Summer full of activism.
Source: Indymedia

*Ø* Blogmanac January 25 | A big day in world folklore

Burns Day
All over the world, Scots will gather tonight for the annual Burns Supper.

There they will honour the life and work of their national poet Robert Burns. Usually they will enjoy a great feast and there will be the singing of national songs, many of them from the pen of Burns himself. It may be that these revels have their origins in the ancient Norse Disting festival of the Dísir, protective maternal deities or guardian goddesses.

And there's a hand, my trusty fiere!
And gie's a hand o' thine!
And we'll tak' a right guid-willie waught,
For auld lang syne.

Disting (Disirblot)
The dísir may be considered ancestors of humans and they are associated with the Norse goddess Freya. They are valkyrie-like guardians of the dead. One of the dísir’s functions was to assist women in childbirth, leading to these deities holding an important position as agents of destiny. The Disting was held at the beginning of February and the end of October, and is still celebrated by various Neopagan religions such as Asatru and Germanic heathenism ...

Tenjin Matsuri (festival), Japan
This festival, popularly known as Kitano Tenjin, is held at Kitano Shrine at Osaka. It is dedicated to Sugawara-no-Michizane (845-903), a highly-gifted official of the Heian court (794-1185) who instituted many reforms of great benefit to the fledgling Japanese nation. He was deified under the name of Tenjin and is the god of scholarship, language and calligraphy, having taught humans to write. This is the first of Tenjin’s festivals for the year at this shrine. There are many shrines to him in Japan, and students go to them to ask his blessing on their studies.

Feast day of St Dwynwen, the 'St Valentine' of Wales
Saint Dwynwyn’s Day is celebrated in Wales as a kind of St Valentine's Day, particularly among women who will send cards to their lovers today ...

These are just snippets of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.

*Ø* Blogmanac | US government dusts off 1800s law in targeting Greenpeace

By Catherine Wilson, Associated Press

"MIAMI — When prosecutors brought charges against Greenpeace for protesting a shipment of Amazon mahogany, they dusted off a 19th century federal law enacted to stop pimps from clambering aboard ships entering port.

"Environmentalists call the charges a heavy-handed attempt to stifle free speech and say the government is retaliating against Greenpeace for previous in-your-face protests against the Bush administration.

"The federal government has never successfully prosecuted an entire activist organization on criminal charges over its protest methods — not even the Ku Klux Klan.

"'It's an incredible abuse of power, and this is nothing short of political retribution,' said Sierra Club spokesman Eric Antebi. 'We think this sets a horrible precedent for political intimidation of public interest groups' ..."
Source: ENN

*Ø* Blogmanac | Of course the White House fears free elections in Iraq

Only an appointocracy can be trusted to accept US troops and corporations

Naomi Klein, The Guardian
January 24

"'The people of Iraq are free,' declared President Bush in his state of the union address on Tuesday. The previous day, 100,000 Iraqis begged to differ. They took to Baghdad's streets, shouting: 'Yes, yes to elections. No, no to selection.'

"According to Iraq occupation chief Paul Bremer, there really is no difference between the White House's version of freedom and the one being demanded on the street. Asked whether his plan to form an Iraqi government through appointed caucuses was heading towards a clash with Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's call for direct elections, Bremer said he had no 'fundamental disagreement with him' ...

"Bremer wants his Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to appoint the members of 18 regional organising committees. These will then choose delegates to form 18 selection caucuses. These will then select representatives to a transitional national assembly. The assembly will have an internal vote to select an executive and ministers, who will form the new government. This, Bush said in the state of the union address, constitutes 'a transition to full Iraqi sovereignty'.

"Got that? Iraqi sovereignty will be established by appointees appointing appointees to select appointees to select appointees. Add the fact that Bremer was appointed to his post by President Bush and Bush to his by the US Supreme Court, and you have the glorious new democratic tradition of the appointocracy: rule by an appointee's appointee's appointees' appointees' appointees' selectees.

"The White House insists its aversion to elections is purely practical; there just isn't time to pull them off before the June 30 deadline. So why have the deadline? The favourite explanation is that Bush needs a 'braggable' on the campaign trail: when his Democratic rival raises the spectre of Vietnam, Bush will reply that the occupation is over, we're on our way out.

"Except that the US has no intention of actually getting out of Iraq; it wants its troops to remain, and it wants Bechtel, MCI and Halliburton to stay behind and run the water system, the phones and the oilfields. It was with this goal in mind that, on September 19, Bremer pushed through a package of economic reforms that the Economist described as a 'capitalist dream'."

Continue here

*Ø* Blogmanac | We've got work to do!

Thoughts on the Coming 'Discovery' of Bin Laden
The Best Propaganda Money Can Buy
By Eric A. Smith

Unless preparations are made for its eventuality, the announcement of Bin Laden's capture will be the death-knell for the 2004 Democratic campaign. And, like the "heroic rescue" of Jessica Lynch or the toppling of Hussein's statue by "jubilant throngs" of Iraqis, it needn't even be real:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/correspondent/3028585.stm

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-scheer20may20,1,2187120.column

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2838.htm

So Democrats must have a pre-emptive strategy in place; the most obvious being, early in the game, to accuse the White House of sitting on Bin Laden for political gain.

A better one is to launch an independent investigation to find Bin Laden first and announce the discovery before Rove's political operatives; this would be a huge coup.

In case you haven't been paying attention, this election year, Republicans are playing a deadly game of attrition — death by a thousand tiny cuts, so to speak: extreme gerrymandering in Texas, the recall of a governor in California, the installation of inauditable, easily "preprogrammed" DRE e-vote machines in as many counties as will allow them to be stuffed down their throats, relentless and bloody character assassinations in a bought-and-paid-for Murdoch-dominated media empire, absentee ballots counted by an untouchable firm in Kuwait, stacked courts ready to deliver decisions for which 2000's Gore vs. Bush set the precedent.
[Emphasis added. -v]

The odds look dire for Democrats (and, by extension, the majority of Americans, though they are as yet blissfully unaware of the slender thread from which all our liberties hang).

But, in case you haven't connected the dots, this time the GOP is playing for keeps.

Once the fix is in, there will be no turning back: by an invisible, carefully planned coup, the neoconservatives will have transformed America into an autocracy, and any remaining political opposition will be window dressing.

And so, I challenge you: this is a battle we perhaps cannot win, but, at all costs, MUST NOT LOSE.

The consequences of surrender will be incalculable: one by one, like dominos, institutions we cherish will fall — environmental laws, social security, independent media, healthy advocacy groups, assistance for the unemployed, impoverished and disenfranchised — and, foremost, the right to choose our leaders. [Emphasis added. -v]

CONTINUE, PLEASE!

*Ø* Blogmanac January 24 | Cornish Tinners' and Seafarers' Day

Or Paul Pitcher Day
An old labour day, celebrating new season of sailing and mining in Cornwall, Great Britain. Cornish tin miners traditionally set up a pitcher in a public place and threw stones at it to destroy it.

A replacement pitcher was then bought and filled with beer, which was replenished throughout the day as they drank from it.

The miners were great inventors of reasons to celebrate, this one being a rebellion against the rule that only water was to be drunk during work time.

Was Jesus a tin man too?
Old Cornish tradition has it that Jesus Christ went to Cornwall with his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea. There is even an old local song that says "Joseph was a tin man". Legend has it that at Glastonbury, which was also known as Avalon (resting place of King Arthur), Joseph stuck his staff in the ground, and from it sprung the famous 'Glastonbury thorn' tree which always flowered on Christmas Day.

Cornwall has long been a centre of tin mining, known even to ancient Phoenician traders who travelled from the Mediterranean to Britain for the tin they sold in North Africa, the Middle East and other areas of their influence. It is not impossible that the ancient Cornish tradition about Jesus and his uncle might be true. We know from the Bible that Joseph was a wealthy man (he provided the tomb that Jesus was buried in), and he could quite feasibly have travelled to the British Isles.

This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Believe It!

Truth? You can't handle the truth!

Here's the truth in a brillliant animation from our friend Eric Blumrich. You'll want to play it a couple of times, then share it with your pro-war and pro-Bush friends.


* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Snake of the Union Address


GOP Chairman Ed Gillespie sent me my very own personal copy of Bush's State of the Union Address. To be courteous I dashed off the following reply:

1/21/04 -- Barry Crimmins responds to the 2004 SOTU Address.
(Barry's remarks are preceded by" BC". Bush's remarks are by "GWB:")


The State of the Union Address
President George W. Bush
January 20, 2004

GWB: Mr. Speaker, Vice President Cheney, Members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens: America this evening is a Nation called to great responsibilities. And we are rising to meet them.

BC: Particularly in New Hampshire.


GWB: As we gather tonight, hundreds of thousands of American servicemen and women are deployed across the world in the war on terror. By bringing hope to the oppressed, and delivering justice to the violent, they are making America more secure.

BC: They are delivering justice, alright. They are delivering it by telling the truth about the neglect, shoddy equipment, dangerous circumstances and muddled mission that has been inflicted upon them. The wounded, who've returned to abysmally poor treatment and benefits, will soon gather enough strength to seek some justice of their own. The dead, although brought into our nation under the shroud of darkness in an attempt to minimize the significance of their sacrifice, have filled some 600 graves that will forever remind the world of your callous wasting of their lives. Thousands and thousands of more such graves bespeak the same needless horror in Afghanistan and Iraq.


GWB: Each day, law enforcement personnel and intelligence officers are tracking terrorist threats; analysts are examining airline passenger lists; the men and women of our new Homeland Security Department are patrolling our coasts and borders. And their vigilance is protecting America.

BC: In the meantime while using all of this personnel to handle an unwieldy and hopelessly inefficient method of allegedly keeping us safe, you have caught thousands of innocents in your driftnet of paranoia. In the process you have done savage harm to the very civil liberties that should be a top priority of any decent homeland security operation.


GWB: Americans are proving once again to be the hardest working people in the world.

BC: Those not looking for work 24 hours a day simply can't because their multiple part-time, benefit-less jobs won't allow them to do so.


GWB: The American economy is growing stronger. The tax relief you passed is working.

BC: Glad to hear tax relief, unlike millions of Americans, is working. If we continue to create jobs at the rate of 1,000 per month (last month's total) it will only take 3,000 more years of your giveaways to the rich for us to regain the THREE MILLION jobs we have lost under your court-appointed presidency.


GWB: Tonight, Members of Congress can take pride in great works of compassion and reform that skeptics had thought impossible. You are raising the standards of our public schools; and you are giving our senior citizens prescription drug coverage under Medicare.

BC: Compassion for Big Pharmaceutical companies in guaranteeing them retail list price in perpetuity. Compassion for insurance hucksters that spend more money figuring out how to deny coverage than provide it. And reform by stealing funds from public schools so that they can be used to indoctrinate children in religious dogma at private institutions. Yeah, those are some real proud achievements.

CONTINUE

*Ø* Blogmanac | Unbelievable!

Wars 'useful', says US army chief

BBC:

"The head of the United States army has said that the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have provided a 'tremendous focus' for the military ...

"General Schoomaker said the attacks on America in September 2001 and subsequent events had given the US army a rare opportunity to change.

"'There is a huge silver lining in this cloud,' he said.

"'War is a tremendous focus ... Now we have this focusing opportunity, and we have the fact that [terrorists] have actually attacked our homeland, which gives it some oomph.'

"He said it was no use having an army that did nothing but train."

Read full text here

*Ø* Blogmanac | Campaign Warns of Cannabis Dangers

By Kate Holton

London (Reuters) -- "The British government launched a one million pound campaign Thursday to warn people of the dangers of taking cannabis, a week before it downgrades the legal status of the recreational drug.

"Young people will be targeted by radio adverts and leaflets to remind them that cannabis is still illegal ...

"'Cannabis is a drug that can kill,' Dr Peter Maguire, deputy chairman of the BMA's [British Medical Association's] board of science told Reuters. 'People are making the conclusion that it is safe where in fact it is actually more dangerous than tobacco.'

"A cannabis joint without tobacco contains a third more tar than a normal cigarette, Maguire said, while the blood of someone who smoked a cannabis joint contained five times more carbon monoxide than that of a person who smoked a normal cigarette.

"Mental health charities have also highlighted the link between cannabis and schizophrenia."

Full text

*Ø* Blogmanac | Ex-Arms Hunter Kay Says No WMD Stockpiles in Iraq

"I don't think they existed" Kay tells Reuters

By Tabassum Zakaria

"WASHINGTON - David Kay stepped down as leader of the U.S. hunt for banned weapons in Iraq on Friday and said he did not believe the country had any large stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons.

"In a direct challenge to the Bush administration, which says its invasion of Iraq was justified by the presence of illicit arms, Kay told Reuters in a telephone interview he had concluded there were no Iraqi stockpiles to be found.

"'I don't think they existed,' Kay said. 'What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the last (1991) Gulf War, and I don't think there was a large-scale production program in the nineties,' he said.

"David Kay, who stepped down as leader of the U.S. hunt for weapons of mass destruction, said on January 23, 2004 that he does not believe there were any large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq. 'I don't think they existed,' Kay told Reuters in a telephone interview ...

"The CIA announced earlier that former U.N. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer, who has previously expressed doubts that unconventional weapons would be found, would succeed Kay as Washington's chief arms hunter.

"Kay said he believes most of what was going to be found in the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has been found and that the hunt would become more difficult once America returned control of the country to the Iraqis.

"The United States went to war against Baghdad last year citing a threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. To date, no banned arms have been found ..."
Source: Common Dreams

*Ø* Blogmanac |

URGENT! IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUESTED!

Dear Friend of MoveOn.org,

During this year's Super Bowl, you'll see ads sponsored by beer companies, tobacco companies, and the Bush White House. But you won't see the winning ad in MoveOn.org Voter Fund's Bush in 30 Seconds ad contest. CBS refuses to air it.

Meanwhile, the White House is on the verge of signing into law a deal which Senator John McCain (R-AZ) says is custom-tailored for CBS and Fox, allowing the two networks to grow much bigger. CBS lobbied hard for this rule change; MoveOn.org members across the country lobbied against it;* and now our ad has been rejected while the White House ad will be played. It looks an awful lot like CBS is playing politics with the right to free speech. [Emphasis added. -v]

Of course, this is bigger than just the MoveOn.org Voter Fund. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) submitted an ad that was also rejected. But this isn't even a progressive-vs.-conservative issue. The airwaves are publicly owned, so we have a fundamental right to hear viewpoints from across the ideological spectrum. That's why we need to let CBS know that this practice of arbitrarily turning down ads that may be "controversial" -- especially if they're controversial simply because they take on the President -- just isn't right. [Emphasis added. -v]
Watch the ad that CBS won't air and sign our petition to CBS.

We'll deliver the petition by email directly to CBS headquarters.

You also may want to let your local CBS affiliate know you're unhappy about this decision. We've attached a list of the CBS affiliates in your state at the bottom of this email. Remember, a polite, friendly call will be most effective -- just explain to them why you believe CBS' decision hurts our democracy.

CBS will claim that the ad is too controversial to air. But the message of the ad is a simple statement of fact, supported by the President's own figures. Compared with 2002's White House ad which claimed that drug users are supporting terrorism, it hardly even registers.

CBS will also claim that this decision isn't an indication of political bias. But given the facts, that's hard to believe. CBS overwhelmingly favored Republicans in its political giving, and the company spent millions courting the White House to stop FCC reform. According to a well-respected study, CBS News was second only to Fox in failing to correct common misconceptions about the Iraq war which benefited the Bush Administration -- for example, the idea that Saddam Hussein was involved with 9/11.

This is not a partisan issue. It's critical that our media institutions be fair and open to all speakers. CBS is setting a dangerous precedent, and unless we speak up, the pattern may continue. Please call on CBS to air ads which address issues of public importance today.

Sincerely,
--Adam, Carrie, Eli, James, Joan, Laura, Noah, Peter, Wes, and Zack
The MoveOn.org Team
January 23rd, 2003

P.S. Our friends at Free Press have put together a page which explains simply how CBS and the FCC rule change are integrally linked. Check it out here.
___________

* American citizens across the board spoke out against it! Republicans and Democrats alike. It was the issue that drew the most dissent of any, other than the war on Iraq, such legislation in many years. But the lobbies and their money are getting their way.

*Ø* Blogmanac | The Long and the Short of It

From Shara:

Subject: Only part of the universe

Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida has put up a very interesting Java applet on their site. It begins as a view of the Milky Way Galaxy viewed from a distance of 10 million light years and then zooms in towards Earth in powers of ten of distance. 10 million, to one million, to 100,000 light years and so on and then when it finally reaches a large oak tree leaf. But that is not all; it zooms into the leaf until it reaches to the level of the quarks viewed at 100 attometers.

Molecular Expressions: Science, Optics and You - Powers Of 10: Interactive Java Tutorial

[Bookmark this! It's great to bring out when you're wondering about your place in the universe. Heck, it's great to contemplate when we think ANYthing in our little lives is important. -v]

*Ø* Blogmanac | Does Hicks stand a chance?

[Aussie David Hicks has languished without trial in Guantanamo for more than two years. This report from the 7.30 Report, ABC TV, Oz]

Hicks lawyer unimpressed with legal process

MAXINE McKEW: And I spoke to Major Michael Mori from the ABC's Washington bureau earlier today.

Major Mori, you've made the point today that the military commission that will try David Hicks has been created, as you've said, by those with a vested interest in conviction.

What is your basis for that claim?

MAJOR MICHAEL MORI, DAVID HICKS' MILITARY LAWYER: I think you have to look at the rules and procedures, is really what I addressed, and I believe that they created a system of justice that will not provide a full and fair trial.

There are certain aspects of this system that are missing from a regular, constituting criminal court.

There is no independent judge.

There is not the type of independent appellate review that you would find in the US civilian courts or under the uniform code of military justice.

I think, most shocking is the rule that prohibits the commission members from ruling on issues that would dismiss a charge or would invalidate part of the commission process.

Instead, those types of issues have to go to the appoint authority, who is the person who started the charges and approved the prosecution in the first place ...

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Legal community expresses concern over fairness of Hicks trial

ELIZABETH JACKSON: But first today, to the surprising comments by the American military lawyer representing the Australian David Hicks detained in Cuba that the Pentagon system of justice is neither fair nor just.

The lawyer's claims have prompted the Australian legal community to express its concerns that the alleged Australian terror suspect might not get a fair trial.

David Hicks has been detained at Guantanamo Bay for more than two years amidst debate about how he should be charged and what he should be charged with.

Well, now the lawyer representing him has challenged and even criticised the very system the Pentagon has put in place to hear the allegations against the Australian.

And while the Federal Government has dismissed the criticisms as the tactics of a defence lawyer, many others are now deeply concerned about the trial ...
Source: The World Today, ABC Radio, Oz

*Ø* Blogmanac | Watching the juggernaut: Australia

I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.
Mark Twain

Big drug corps are trying to do to Oz what they've done to poor countries for years

The big US pharmaceuticals firms are using Australia's public medicine supply scheme for target practice, writes David Fickling

"If you are reading this in the UK, Australia, Canada or Maine, you may be the victim of a conspiracy you have scarcely guessed at.

"Your government is preventing you from getting access to life-saving drugs. Diabolically, it is insisting that you only receive the medication you need if pharmaceutical companies give subsidies to the rich.

"Welcome to the world as seen through the eyes of big drugs firms. Public pharmaceuticals programmes, by which governments drive down prescription costs by bulk-buying common medicines, are a mainstay of public health systems across the developed world. To the lunatic fringe of the pharmaceuticals lobby, they are a menace: patients under such programmes may be healthier and financially better off but (the argument goes), intangibly, they are less free.

"Top of the liberation hit-list at the moment is Australia, which is embarking on the final round of free trade negotiations with the US in Washington this week. The country's Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) is likely to become a key target of US trade negotiators over the next fortnight.

"Drugs companies contributed ?10m to George Bush's election campaign in 2000 and are determined to get their money's worth out of any free trade agreement. The grumbles of the drugs and farming lobbies have already delayed the signing of the deal, which President Bush had previously scheduled for before Christmas.

"US companies' principal lobbyist, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association (Phrma), views the trade talks as a vital opportunity to tackle what it regards as Australian protectionism.

"Phrma's version of capitalism is bizarre. Public pharmaceuticals programmes are to drugs as Wal-Mart is to kitchenware and camping gear: they push down prices by buying in volumes that none of their competitors can match. There are no laws in Australia banning non-PBS medicines from the market, and no tariffs are imposed on drugs that are not listed.

"Nonetheless, Phrma argues that the very existence of a government agency whose purpose is to depress the prices of drugs is anti-competitive. Before a drug is listed on the PBS, its worth must first be evaluated by committee, using criteria of provable effectiveness, value and safety; all of which means that prescribing doctors are unable to take other considerations into account - say, whether the manufacturer has bought them a golf club membership.

"Australia's conservative Coalition government is not widely trusted on public health issues, but ministers have been keen to proclaim their commitment to the PBS. Interviewed on ABC radio last week, the prime minister, John Howard, stressed that certain issues would not be up for negotiation: any deal, he explained, 'means the protection of the essentials of things like the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme'.

"Mr Howard's use of language is famously circumspect, and it is always worth thinking hard about his choice of words. Here it is important to note that he is not talking about protecting the scheme as a whole, only certain undefined 'essentials' ...
Source: The Guardian (UK)

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Opposition to US-Australia Trade Agreement

The Australia US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) has been negotiated behind closed doors since March 2003. Read How will a USA-Aus Free Trade Agreement Affect You?. A number of large US Environmental organisations have said the AUSFTA may undermine environmental protection initiatives within Australian and U.S jurisdictions. Their concerns are echoed by the Australian Conservation Foundation and independent research: a report released in October by Ozprospect.org which argues that a free trade agreement with the United States will generate significant and to date unreported negative environment impacts, including an increase in Australian water use by up to 1.3 trillion litres per year ? almost as much as the entire national domestic water use. (Report in PDF Format).

According to Health and Welfare organisations Medicines are still threatened. Further, the Australia Institute released a report (PDF)in December discussing the US's targeting of Australia's intellectual property laws as part of the USFTA, and the impact this would have on pharmaceutical prices.
Source: Indymedia Melbourne, Australia

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

One lump, or two?

"Thanks, 'Ossies', for sending your kids to die in Iraq for our gas-guzzling autos"

US takes hard line on Australian sugar
"The United States has asked Australia to accept a free trade agreement which does not include any increase in access for Australian sugar.

"A US trade official is being quoted as saying Bush administration negotiators have asked Australian negotiators to settle for a free trade agreement which does not open the US market to any more Australian sugar.

"But the official denied US trade representative Robert Zoellick had told a North Dakota radio station that sugar has been taken off the table.

"Dozens of Australian negotiators are in Washington this week trying to hammer out a free trade deal.

"The hard line US position on sugar is being seen as a major concession by the Bush administration to the powerful sugar beet and sugar cane industry in the US ..."
Source: ABC Australia

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

What can you do?

- Go to http://www.nofta.org and register your vote against the FTA (IT ONLY TAKES A MINUTE!) – please only vote once!
- Go to http://www.tradewatchoz.org for more information and form letters you can send to key politicians.
- Send a short letter/email (that’s all that’s needed!) to the Prime Minister, the Trade Minister Mark Vaile, the shadow trade minister Stephen Conroy or your member of Parliament. You can use the points listed above. Be sure to include your full name and address.
- Speak to family and friends about this issue, it has got very little and superficial coverage in the media, and the government is trying to keep all the details secret.
- Get involved in the campaign!

*Ø* Blogmanac | Interactive Crossword

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT . . .

From Mad Kane:

State of the Disunion

In honor of George W. Bush's 2004 State of the Union Address, I'm pleased to present my first interactive crossword puzzle.



Mad

Madeleine Begun Kane, Humor Columnist
MadKane.com
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*Ø* Blogmanac January 22, 1561 | Mysteries of Francis Bacon

Was he Elizabeth I's bastard son? Did he write Shakespeare?

1561 Francis Bacon, early English philosopher, who shares a birthday with Lord Byron – Bacon on January 22, 1561, and Byron on that day in 1788 (d. April 9, 1626). Some allege that he was the illegitimate son of Queen Elizabeth I of England.

Bacon was Lord Chancellor of the realm, and man of letters, author of the Rosicrucian-inspired utopian New Atlantis (1627). The English poet Alexander Pope called him "The wisest, greatest, meanest of mankind". Pope also wrote, in 1741, “Lord Bacon was the greatest genius that England, or perhaps any country, ever produced.”

Many respectable scholars believe that it was actually Bacon who wrote the plays of William Shakespeare, claiming that the supposedly uneducated Shakespeare could not possibly have done so. While the theory is perhaps fanciful (we can deduce a little about Shakespeare’s probable education), it certainly has persisted for a long time.

In 1621 Lord Bacon was accused of accepting bribes as Lord Chancellor. To this, he pleaded guilty and was fined £40,000, banished from the court and disqualified from holding office. He was also sentenced to imprisonment in the Tower of London. The banishment, fine, and imprisonment were remitted, but his career as a public servant was finished. However, such was his popularity and the public perception of his relative innocence, his disfavour with the Crown, the Lords and the people did not last long.

When he was 21, Bacon met the alchemist and original 007, John Dee ...

This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.

*Ø* Blogmanac January 22, 1720 | Nothing new under the sun

The South Sea Bubble

1720 The beginning of the infamous South Sea Bubble – the name given to the economic bubble that occurred due to overheated speculation in and subsequent disastrous collapse of the South Sea Company.

In 1717 in England, a group of speculative merchants (including the English statesman Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford, and Edward Gibbon, the grandfather of the famous historian), who had formed a huge corporation called the South Sea Company, proposed to the government that they should take on the national debt of 30,981,712 pounds. The public had confidence in the scheme and stock rose from 130 per cent to 300. Only soon-to-be Prime Minister Robert Walpole opposed the scheme, and he warned the country of the likely consequences, but was ignored.

The speculators spread rumours about their prospects in places such as Mexico and Peru, and stock went to 400, then settled at 330. Soon after the bill was passed by parliament, the stocks went up to 340. Crafty speculators made huge profits with sham or 'bubble' companies. The Prince of Wales was said to have reaped 40,000 pounds. Such investors merely put money in to raise the public hope, only to pull it out again as stocks rose. One of the schemes was "A company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is."

Satirists as eminent as Swift produced caricatures of bubble companies in verse and on playing cards. By May 28 the shares sold at 890; soon they hit 1000. The inevitable happened, and stock slumped. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had profited by nearly 800,000 pounds. The poet John Gay was one of those wiped out. Many prominent members of the establishment were bankrupted for their fraud and speculation.

This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.

*Ø* Blogmanac | WHAT Environment?

MIA in the SOU
Bush stops pretending that he cares about the environment.
By Timothy Noah
Posted Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2004, at 8:45 PM PT

In a famous memo to Republican politicians about how to talk about the environment, pollster Frank Luntz warned against using the phrases "risk assessment" and "cost-benefit analysis," and urged them to instead use the words, "safer," "cleaner," and "healthier." But in President Bush's State of the Union address, the words "cleaner" and "healthier" were never uttered, and the word "safer" was spoken only in the context of the overthrow of
Saddam Hussein.

Here are some other words and phrases that did not appear in the speech: "environment," "pollution," "natural resources," "global warming," "clean air," "clean water," and "Clear Skies," which is what Bush calls his main initiative on air pollution. The word "conservation" appeared once in a plea to pass the energy bill, which takes various steps to encourage more oil drilling. This in a speech where Bush found time to call for an end to steroid abuse in professional sports, an issue completely outside the realm of government at the federal, state, or local level.

Apparently Karl Rove has decided that the environment isn't even worth paying lip service to anymore. [Emphasis added. -v]

SOURCE


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The Earth's life-support system is in peril
by: Wire Services
1/21/2004
Excerpts from Margot Wallström, Bert Bolin, Paul Crutzen and
Will Steffen's article in the International Herald Tribune

Our planet is changing fast. In recent decades many environmental indicators have moved outside the range in which they have varied for the past half-million years. We are altering our life support system and potentially pushing the planet into a far less hospitable state.

Such large-scale and long-term changes present major policy challenges. The Kyoto Protocol is important as an international framework for combating climate change, and yet its targets can only ever be a small first step. If we cannot develop policies to cope with the uncertainty, complexity and magnitude of global change, the consequences for society may be huge.

Evidence of our influence extends far beyond atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and the well-documented increases in global mean temperature. During the 1990's, the average area of humid tropical forest cleared each year was equivalent to nearly half the area of England, and at current extinction rates we may well be on the way to the Earth's sixth great extinction event.





CONTINUE

[See also related article.]

*Ø* Blogmanac | SOTU

THE REAL STATE OF THE UNION

232: Number of American combat deaths in Iraq between May 2003 and
January 2004. . .

0: Number of American combat deaths in Germany after the Nazi surrender
to the Allies in May 1945. . .

0: Number of funerals or memorials that President Bush has attended for
soldiers killed in Iraq. . .

100: Number of fund-raisers attended by Bush or Vice President Dick
Cheney in 2003. . .

2: Number of nations that Bush has attacked and taken over since coming
into the White House. . .

9.2: Average number of American soldiers wounded in Iraq each day since
the invasion in March last year. . .

1.6: Average number of American soldiers killed in Iraq per day since
hostilities began. . .

16,000: Approximate number of Iraqis killed since the start of war. . .

10,000: Approximate number of Iraqi civilians killed since the beginning
of the conflict. . .

92%: Percentage of Iraq's urban areas that had access to drinkable water
a year ago. . .

60%: Percentage of Iraq's urban areas that have access to drinkable
water today. . .

10: Number of solo press conferences that Bush has held since beginning
his term. His father had managed 61 at this point in his administration,
and Bill Clinton 33. . .

28: Number of days holiday that Bush took last August, the second
longest holiday of any president in US history (Record holder: Richard
Nixon). . .

13: Number of vacation days the average American worker receives each
year. . .

$10.9 million: Average wealth of the members of Bush's original
16-person cabinet. . .

88%: Percentage of American citizens who will save less than $100 on
their 2006 federal taxes as a result of 2003 cut in capital gains and
dividends taxes. . .

$42,000: Average savings members of Bush's cabinet are expected to enjoy
this year as a result in the cuts in capital gains and dividends taxes. . .

$42,228: Median household income in the US in 2001. . .

$116,000: Amount Vice President Cheney is expected to save each year in
taxes. . .

SOURCE