Progressive News Digest - Nov 12, 2007
stri...@comcast.net
Date: Mon, November 12, 2007
PROGRESSIVE NEWS DIGEST
The latest news, commentary & event listings
(from slightly left of center)
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Volume IV, Issue #23 Monday, Nov. 12, 2007
Welcome to another edition of Progressive News Digest, still rolling along in
its fourth year without an appreciable pause. If the impulse strikes you,
we could still use donations, both here and at our parent-site:
http://www.rationalreview.com/news
We appreciate your support, in any amount … but subscribing contributors really
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* * * * * * *
This week, I've again shifted to posting the contents list, without attempting a
summary of the highlights. It still takes a little time to prepare this, and
then let
you do the browsing. This may pertain for the foreseeable future, due to your
editor's full-time day-job and his return to having a more successful life
otherwise.
Here you go ... enjoy and see you next week! Check the site for constant
updates each day:
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NEWS
01 - AZ: Outspoken ASU prof draws ire
02 - “10 Commandments”: Even the Mafia has ‘em
03 - IA: Clinton accused of planting questions … again?
04 - As one mafia fades, Italy faces another
05 - NH: Romney, Clinton hold shaky leads in poll
06 - Feinstein: Oil spill response shows disturbing lack of readiness
07 - Paul shatters fundraising record with $4.2 million day
08 - AZ: Voters say “no” to continuing higher taxes
09 - Reagan Library missing 80,000 items
10 - This time, vets return to welcome
11 - Wide worries over oil prices
12 - UK: Kids win suit to stay out of France
13 - What’s behind Ron Paul’s huge ‘08 fundraising haul?
14 - CA: Student “civility code” squelches free speech
15 - Rosanne Cash facing elective brain surgery
16 - Schumer: No $1 million for Woodstock museum
17 - MA: Lawmakers consider ending Sunday hunting ban
18 - UK: Anti-war activists do battle over intervention in Iran
19 - Veterans make up 1 in 4 homeless in US
20 - FL: County cops issue “drug warning” on “good sh**”
21 - AZ: Initiative would roll back property taxes
22 - CT cops: No smoking applies to pot, too
23 - TN: Belcourt Theatre sold to preservationists
24 - Scientists reveal “cousin” solar system
25 - Maneuver gave Bush a conservative rights panel
COMMENTARY
26 - The new road to serfdom
27 - Musharraf must go
28 - Back road to Bali
29 - Deal with the devil
30 - The kitchen strategy won’t cut it
31 - A plan to keep needed foreign laborers
32 - The revolt of the comic books
33 - Robert Nozick and the immaculate conception of the State
34 - Rudy’s new best friend
35 - Remote control
36 - In Iowa, it’s Clinton pragmatism vs. Obama fever
37 - Preparing for life after oil
38 - AMT alternatives
39 - Too suspicious in suburbia
40 - The John Bolton agenda
41 - 14 months of danger
42 - AZ: Tempe tattoos a stereotype on couple
43 - Hillary: The Everywoman behind the Superwoman
44 - Democrats’ year of living fecklessly
45 - Blacks must drop victimhood & reclaim dignity
46 - When Cleveland turned history on its hinge
47 - Our man in Pakistan
48 - The vision thing
49 - Something new under the sun
50 - Iraq named “War of the Year!”
51 - The Internet is making us stupid
52 - Dirty Obama e-mail
53 - Giuliani wins the nutcase primary
54 - The war on medical marijuana
55 - The Ron Paul phenomenon
NEWS
01 - AZ: Outspoken ASU prof draws ire
Arizona Republic
“Arizona State University climatologist Robert Balling attended the premiere of Al Gore’s global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. He served on the United Nations’ climate-change panel and studies how drought and warmer temperatures will affect the West. He bikes to work and eats organic food. But environmentalists hate him. Balling, 54, has spoken and written extensively against the widely held scientific view that the documented rise in global temperatures is the result of human activity and that serious consequences will result. Even if humans are warming the planet by causing the buildup of greenhouse gases, he says, the doomsday scenarios forecast by many climate scientists may never happen.” [editor’s note: And so he’s an evil demon to the enviro-thugs whose industry is being threatened, just as this editor once was to the early days of the stop-animal-cruelty movement (PETA’s origins), due to my wearing of leather belts and shoes, and non-vegan eating habits - SAT]
(11/11/07)
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1111balling1111.html
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02 - “10 Commandments”: Even the Mafia has ‘em
Los Angeles Times
“Even mobsters, it seems, must mind their manners. Police searching the property of a newly arrested Mafia boss say they have found a typewritten code of conduct, a list the Italian media quickly dubbed the mob’s Ten Commandments. Never look at the wives of your friends, says one rule. Avoid pubs and nightclubs. Always keep your appointments. And, of course, never be seen with a cop. Many of the commandments appear aimed at maintaining security and the secrecy for which the Sicilian Mafia, or Cosa Nostra, is well-known. Others address courteous behavior. The list of rules was discovered by anti-Mafia police in Sicily who were searching documents and other property seized after the arrest of Salvatore Lo Piccolo, according to Italian media reports from the Sicilian capital of Palermo.” (11/11/07)
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03 - IA: Clinton accused of planting questions … again?
Fox News
“For the second time in as many days, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign has had to deal with accusations of planting questions during public appearances, FOX News has learned. In a telephone interview Saturday, Geoffrey Mitchell, 32, said he was approached by Clinton campaign worker Chris Hayler to ask a question about how she was standing up to President Bush on the question on funding the Iraq war and a troop withdrawal timeline. The encounter happened before an event hosted by Iowa State Sen. Gene Frais on a farm outside Fort Madison, Iowa.” [editor’s note: While we are hardly Hillary fans, we’re also kinda skeptical of most of what Faux News reports as an “exclusive” story - SAT] (11/11/07)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,310417,00.html
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04 - As one mafia fades, Italy faces another
Christian Science Monitor
“This past August, the fatal shooting of six Italian men exiting a restaurant in Duisburg, Germany, informed the world of what Italian authorities already knew: Italy’s ‘Ndrangheta crime syndicate had come of age as an international force. The Cosa Nostra, Italy’s Sicilian mafia, used to be the country’s most notorious and feared organization. But the capture this week of Salvatore Lo Piccolo showed how far they have fallen: For the second time in less than two years, their top boss was arrested. As the Cosa Nostra wilted under the focused efforts of Italy’s antimafia forces, however, the ‘Ndrangheta quietly flourished. But after the assassination of a politician in the ‘Ndrangheta’s home province in 2005, the government vowed to crack down on the syndicate. An antimafia youth group — Ammazzateci Tutti — also rose up, vowing to hold the government to its promise.” [editor’s note: And just as Prohibition I fostered the CN, today’s War on (Some) Drugs produces another crime syndicate
… Well, DUH! - SAT] (11/09/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1109/p06s01-woeu.html
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05 - NH: Romney, Clinton hold shaky leads in poll
Boston Globe
“Republican Mitt Romney and Democrat Hillary Clinton remain the clear front-runners in the New Hampshire presidential primary, but both have vulnerabilities that could erode their support among voters in the weeks ahead, a new Boston Globe poll indicates. Two months before the New Hampshire primary, Romney leads his nearest rival, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, 32 percent to 20 percent, with Senator John McCain of Arizona third at 17 percent. Among Democratic voters, Clinton, the New York senator, leads Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, 35 percent to 21 percent, with former senator John Edwards of North Carolina third at 15 percent.” (11/11/07)
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06 - Feinstein: Oil spill response shows disturbing lack of readiness
San Francisco Chronicle
“Senator Dianne Feinstein flew into San Francisco today to lambaste the oil-spill response effort of the past week as inadequate, saying it revealed a disturbing lack of readiness for disasters in the Bay Area. ‘It’s pretty clear cities around the bay should have been brought in faster than they were,’ Feinstein said after being briefed on the response details by federal and state officials. ‘We will see what we can do about the management systems of the San Francisco Bay to prevent these types of incidents from ever happening again.’ The senator said she would meet with national Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Monday to discuss what can be done to improve the communications and preparedness systems in the Bay Area.” (11/11/07)
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07 - Paul shatters fundraising record with $4.2 million day
Casino Gambling Web
“Ron Paul will certainly now always remember the 5th of November as upon the day’s conclusion his campaign raised more than $4.2 million dollars from more than 37,000 different contributors. That is more than Mitt Romney raised in one day in January, which was previously the top day in fundraising for a Republican candidate. Maybe the most amazing part about the amount of money raised is that it was all raised online. Paul’s website reports that his campaign only needs $12 million by December 31st in order to win the primaries in New Hampshire, Iowa, Michigan, South Carolina, and Nevada. As of midnight November 6th they were at $7.1 million and the numbers were rising quickly by the hundreds of thousands.” (11/06/07)
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08 - AZ: Voters say “no” to continuing higher taxes
Arizona Republic
“Voters in 17 of 22 Maricopa County districts decided to cut the amount of taxes they send to their neighborhood schools. Budget overrides give school districts permission to tax property owners over the maximum limit set by the Arizona Legislature. They allow school districts to offer more than the bare minimum afforded by the state, such as lower class sizes and art and music. Voters in Tempe Elementary and Fountain Hills, Gilbert, Scottsdale and Queen Creek unified districts agreed to continue paying for the extras. But educators, policymakers and lobbyists are scrambling to figure out why thousands of voters in 17 districts, who have long said yes to such taxes, this year said no.” [editor’s note: Might it have some relationship to the recent news about cost overruns in the county’s lawdog kennel? - SAT] (11/08/07)
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09 - Reagan Library missing 80,000 items
Los Angeles Times
“The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library is unable to find or account for tens of thousands of valuable mementos of Reagan’s White House years because a ‘near universal’ security breakdown left the artifacts vulnerable to pilfering by insiders, an audit by the National Archives inspector general has concluded. Inspector General Paul Brachfeld said that his office was investigating allegations that a former employee stole Reagan memorabilia but that the probe had been hampered by the facility’s sloppy record-keeping. ‘We have been told by sources that a person who had access capability removed holdings,’ Brachfeld said in an interview. ‘But we can’t lock in as to what those may be.’” (11/08/07)
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10 - This time, vets return to welcome
Christian Science Monitor
“In the eyes of many critics, the war in Iraq has become a ‘quagmire’ — reminiscent of Vietnam. But as the nation prepares to mark the fifth Veterans Day since the US-led invasion, the two lengthy and controversial conflicts are very different in one crucial way. This time, combat vets are being welcomed back by Americans of all political persuasions. Around the country, community groups, local businesses, service organizations, clubs, and faith groups are helping build homes with special features or providing vehicles to accommodate wounded GIs. They’re donating to educational scholarships and providing airline tickets so soldiers on leave from the war zone can get all the way home. And veterans themselves — some of them old-timers, some recently returned from war themselves — have organized to provide a comradely ear as difficult experiences are related.” (11/08/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1109/p01s04-usmi.html
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11 - Wide worries over oil prices
Boston Globe
“The price of crude oil is poised to cross the $100-a-barrel threshold, raising the prospect that the burden on consumers and businesses could be the final straw to tip the US economy into a recession. How the oil market got to this historic milestone — with prices nearly doubling from their 2007 low of $50.48 and more than tripling since 2003 — is a twisting tale of hurricanes, speculators, refinery constraints, and geopolitical jitters. Many fear the fallout, long cushioned by robust growth, soon may be felt in everything from rising gasoline and heating bills to higher air fares to reduced corporate earnings.” (11/08/07)
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12 - UK: Kids win suit to stay out of France
Reuters
“Ask most Britons if they would rather live in France and they’d probably answer ‘oui.’ But British judges have ruled that two English boys who hate living there don’t have to. The boys, 11 and 16, who have a French mother and a British father, were taken to live in France after the parents’ marriage broke down. But during a visit to England they asserted their ‘Britishness’ and refused to return to live with their mother. The mother took the case to court, arguing that she had a right to decide where they should live and that the father had put the children up to it, the Times newspaper reported. But three of Britain’s most senior judges decided the boys had an inherent right to refuse to live in France, where nearly 300,000 Britons have chosen to live.” (11/08/07)
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13 - What’s behind Ron Paul’s huge ‘08 fundraising haul?
Christian Science Monitor
“Suddenly, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has become a money-making machine. As of 11:44 Wednesday morning, the libertarian-leaning, ‘get out of Iraq now’ congressman from Texas had pulled in $7,556,621.90 in the quarter beginning Oct. 1. His website, RonPaul2008.com, posts minute-to-minute updates in big, hard-to-miss numbers. Mr. Paul’s goal is to raise $12 million this quarter. But his supporters have already made their point: They fervently believe in the man, and have figured out a way to get the mainstream media to pay attention to him. On Monday, an independent effort by Paul backers raised a stunning $4.2 million for his campaign, nearly all of it online. At the rate Paul is going, he will have a fourth-quarter funding total that rivals or even surpasses the top-tier GOP candidates. The third quarter provided a hint of things to come: He raised $5.3 million.” (11/08/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1108/p02s01-uspo.html
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14 - CA: Student “civility code” squelches free speech
San Francisco Chronicle
“The 417,000 students at California State University’s 28 campuses are expected to be civil to one another, the university says in its policy manual. It sounds innocuous — but a federal magistrate says it’s an unconstitutional restriction on speech when the policy is used to investigate or discipline students, such as the College Republicans whose members stomped on two flags bearing the name of Allah during an anti-terrorism rally at San Francisco State last year. ‘It might be fine for the university to say, ‘Hey, we hope you folks are civil to one another,” U.S. Magistrate Wayne Brazil said last week at a hearing in his Oakland courtroom. ‘But it’s not fine for the university to say, ‘If you’re not civil, whatever that means, we’re going to punish you.” Brazil said he would issue a preliminary injunction barring the university from enforcing the civility standard in any disciplinary proceeding.” (11/07/07)
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15 - Rosanne Cash facing elective brain surgery
BeliefNet Blog
“Country music Rosanne Cash is facing brain surgery for a rare but benign [sic] condition and must cancel the last four dates on her ‘Black Cadillac’ tour. The announcement was made Tuesday by Manhattan Records, the 52-year-old singer’s music label. Cash is expected to make a full recovery and resume recording and touring next spring. ‘She does want everyone to know that it’s a benign condition, and it’s not life-threatening,’ said her manager, Danny Kahn. … Kahn said Cash has been diagnosed with chiari I malformation … a congenital malformation of the skull that affects the brain and spinal cord.” [editor’s note: Having known someone who suffered from this ailment for years before her own surgeries, and is still recovering from the effects, I find the “benign” label a bit misleading - SAT] (11/06/07)
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16 - Schumer: No $1 million for Woodstock museum
Fox News
“In the ongoing saga of whether or not taxpayers will ever have to cough up $1 million for a museum honoring Woodstock, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer has brought this long, strange trip to an end. Schumer called Sen.Tom Coburn, R-Okla., to pledge to him that the money laid out in a labor spending bill will never be used for the ‘hippie museum’ … ‘I trust him. This isn’t a partisan issue. My goal is just to fix the problems,’ Coburn said. Coburn, who had originally engineered a ban on the museum funds last month, had been adamant the Labor-Health and Human Services spending bill be more clear about the use of undesignated taxpayer money and was planning to propose a vote to change the bill’s language to make sure that it could never be used on the Woodstock museum.” (11/07/07)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,309210,00.html
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17 - MA: Lawmakers consider ending Sunday hunting ban
Boston Globe
“Jim Wallace likes nothing more than a day out in the woods, listening to the birds, scanning the tree line for pheasants or grouse, and taking aim with his 20-gauge shotgun. But with all the meetings and programs he runs as the director of a nonprofit organization, he has little time to fire his Ruger. Making it harder is a law more than a century older than the United States that prohibits him from hunting on Sundays, often the only time he has available. The ban is one of the last of the blue laws — the same code that outlaws frightening pigeons from another person’s property, exhibiting albinos for profit, and kissing in public — and one of the few actually enforced. Lawmakers on Beacon Hill will consider a bill today that would repeal the hunting ban, sending it the way of the Sunday ban on alcohol sales and other Puritan-era laws.” (11/08/07)
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18 - UK: Anti-war activists do battle over intervention in Iran
Independent [UK]
“An acrimonious war of words has broken out between notable luminaries within the anti-war movement after the Stop the War Coalition refused to allow a group that campaigns against military intervention in Iran to join its ranks.The decision has prompted a number of prominent activists, including Peter Tatchell and Michael Mansfield QC, to accuse the coalition of being apologists for the Iranian government by ‘refusing to allow any criticism’ of the Tehran regime. … Opposition to military intervention in Iran has now become one of the major issues occupying anti-war groups in Britain but those who vocally criticise the Iranian regime say they are regularly shouted down and even spat at on marches by fellow protesters.” (11/08/07)
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article3138378.ece
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19 - Veterans make up 1 in 4 homeless in US
Yahoo! News
“Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population, according to a report to be released Thursday. And homelessness is not just a problem among middle-age and elderly veterans. Younger veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are trickling into shelters and soup kitchens seeking services, treatment or help with finding a job. … Some advocates say the early presence of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan at shelters does not bode well for the future. It took roughly a decade for the lives of Vietnam veterans to unravel to the point that they started showing up among the homeless. Advocates worry that intense and repeated deployments leave newer veterans particularly vulnerable.” (11/07/07)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071108/ap_on_re_us/homeless_veterans
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20 - FL: County cops issue “drug warning” on “good sh**”
Fox News
“An implausible story about a natural high derived from human waste is causing a stink on the Internet and has forced a local sheriff’s department to issue a warning about the ‘drug.’ The Collier County Sheriff’s Office in Tampa, Fla., recently released a bulletin warning of a new drug threat in America — jenkem — made by fermenting human feces and urine and huffing the gas produced. ‘We wouldn’t classify it as a drug so much because it’s feces and urine,’ said Garrison Courtney, a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington, D.C. ‘You’ve pretty much hit the bottom of the barrel if you’re experimenting this,’ he added. The confidential memo, dated Sept. 26, was meant ‘for officer safety and awareness,’ but it was leaked and found its way online, where it was posted Monday on the Smoking Gun, which questioned ‘what they’re inhaling down in Collier County.’” [editor’s note: sounds more like that “smugness” episode of South Park - SAT] (11/06/07)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,308841,00.html
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21 - AZ: Initiative would roll back property taxes
Arizona Republic
“Hoping to capitalize on homeowners’ angst over rising property-tax bills, another citizens group is targeting the tax with a Proposition 13-style initiative planned for the 2008 state ballot. Calling itself Prop 13 Arizona, the group filed language Monday for an initiative modeled after its California namesake. The measure would roll back property valuations, for tax purposes, and institute strict limits on future value increases and tax bills. ‘All we’re really doing is protecting property owners from tax increases,’ Prop 13 Arizona Chairwoman Lynne Weaver said. ‘We’re just putting property owners and government on equal footing.’” (11/06/07)
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22 - CT cops: No smoking applies to pot, too
Danbury News-Times
“Who said smoking pot can make you stupid? Whoever it was probably won’t get much of an argument from Danbury police after a Brookfield man allegedly walked into the Main Street station early Saturday puffing on a marijuana-filled cigar and, in effect, dared them to do something about it. They did. They arrested him. … Not only was 24-year-old Scott Snow of Homestead Lane charged with possession of marijuana after police said officers found two bags of green, plant-like material in his pants pockets, they also filed an additional charge of possession within 1,500 feet of a school zone, because St. Peter’s Elementary School is only a half-block away. Myles said Snow strolled into the police station lobby just after 4:20 a.m., walked up to the bullet-resistant partition separating desk officers from the public, and blew a lungful of smoke through the small opening in the glass. Initially unaware of exactly what Snow was doing, an officer advised him that smoking in the building was p
rohibited. Snow’s response, Myles said, was to take another drag on the cigar, discharge another cloud of smoke through the opening, then pointedly grind out the cigar on the counter in front of the window.” [editor’s note: This might be an interesting tactic, if we could find 50 people to do it at each precinct house in the country, and then demand jury trials! - TLK] (11/06/07)
http://www.newstimes.com/ci_7382708
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23 - TN: Belcourt Theatre sold to preservationists
Tennessean
“The nonprofit group Belcourt YES!, a group of concerned citizens formed eight years ago to save the theatre, has purchased the venue for $1.4 million and changed its name to Belcourt Theatre, Inc. Originally built in 1925, Belcourt was the first theatrical home to the Grand Ole Opry from 1934 to 1936 and the original space for the Nashville Children’s Theatre. In 1966, a second theatre was added and The Belcourt became one of several neighborhood movie theatres scattered throughout Nashville. The Belcourt is now the last of the neighborhood theatres to remain operational, officials said.” (11/06/07)
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24 - Scientists reveal “cousin” solar system
Fox News
“Scientists announced on Tuesday the discovery of a fifth planet in a distant star system that now looks like a ‘cousin’ to our own. Known as 55 Cancri, the sun-like star harbors the most number of planets ever discovered outside our solar system. ‘We now know that our sun and its family of planets is not unusual,’ study team member Geoffrey Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley told reporters in a teleconference. … Four of the planets had been previously detected, but the existence of the fifth planet took 18 years to confirm. It is about 45 times more massive than Earth and might be similar to Saturn in its composition and appearance.” (11/06/07)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,308740,00.html
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25 - Maneuver gave Bush a conservative rights panel
Boston Globe
“The US Commission on Civil Rights, the nation’s 50-year-old watchdog for racism and discrimination, has become a critic of school desegregation efforts and affirmative action ever since the Bush administration used a controversial maneuver to put the agency under conservative control. Democrats say the move to create a conservative majority on the eight-member panel violated the spirit of a law requiring that no more than half the commission be of one party. Critics say Bush in effect installed a fifth and sixth Republican on the panel in December 2004, after two commissioners, both Republicans when appointed, reregistered as independents. ‘I don’t believe that [the law] was meant to be evaded by conveniently switching your voter registration,’ said Commissioner Michael Yaki, one of the two remaining Democrats.” (11/06/07)
COMMENTARY
26 - The new road to serfdom
In These Times
Christopher Hayes
“In the early ’80s, as Margaret Thatcher attempted to hack away at England’s substantial public sector, she found a frustrating degree of public resistance. The closer she got to the bone, the more the patient wriggled and withdrew. Thatcher doggedly persisted, yet her pace wasn’t fast enough for right-wing Austrian economist Friedrich von Hayek, her idol and ideological mentor. You see, in 1981, Hayek had traveled to Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s Chile, where, under the barbed restraints of dictatorship and with the guidance of University of Chicago-trained economists, Pinochet had gouged out nearly every vestige of the public sector, privatizing everything from utilities to the Chilean state pension program. Hayek returned gushing, and wrote Thatcher, urging her to follow Chile’s aggressive model more faithfully. In her reply, Thatcher explained tersely that ‘in Britain, with our democratic institutions and the need for a higher degree of consent, some of the measures adopted in Chile
are quite unacceptable. Our reform must be in line with our traditions and our Constitution. At times, the process may seem painfully slow.’” [editor’s note: It may be disconcerting to some libertarians to see their free-market icons exposed as imperfect in both theory and practice in this way, but it is important that we know these indiscretions in order to put them in context … as well as we can - SAT] (11/09/07)
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27 - Musharraf must go
TPM Cafe
William Hartung
“General Pervez Musharraf’s crackdown on lawyers, judges, and democracy and human rights activists has spawned a flurry of ‘yes, but …’ commentary. Yes, we’re against what he has done, BUT we need him in the fight against Al Qaeda. Yes, we’re against what he has done, but the military is the only force that can hold the country together, and we can’t afford to let a nuclear armed state with a significant jihadist element implode. And so forth. Lee Smith’s recent article in Slate makes some of these points in defense of Musharraf, among others. It all reminds me a bit of the statement attributed to Franklin D. Roosevelt with respect to the first Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua: ‘he’s an S.O.B., but at least he’s our S.O.B.’ The enemy of the moment is terrorism, not communism, but one part of the equation is the same: the notion that dictatorships are somehow better equipped than democracies to promote U.S. interests.” (11/09/07)
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28 - Back road to Bali
Frank O\'Donnell
Tom Paine
“In the Paramount Pictures classic, The Road to Bali, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby play song and dance men who get gigs diving for underwater treasure. During their zany adventure, they meet up with hoodlums, a giant squid, and, of course, Dorothy Lamour. Though not exactly a remake, another drama involving a road to Bali is playing out in the United States Senate. In this case, it involves political theatrics leading up to a big United Nations meeting in Bali, staring December 3, to plan a post-Kyoto strategy for dealing with global warming. Like the original, this story has three leading characters: Senators Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., John Warner, R-Va., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.” (11/09/07)
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29 - Deal with the devil
Tennessean
Carol Swain
“Two cents! That’s exactly what I hope the value of Pat Robertson’s endorsement of Rudy Giuliani is for president. Robertson and some other members of the Christian Right seem to be more swayed by public opinion polls, perceived candidate viability, and anti-Hillaryism than core Christian values. In a pinch, Robertson and others are willing to ditch Christian values in favor of a ‘man’ who looks like he might be able to beat a Democrat. Robertson is the head of Christian Broadcasting Network and the 700 Club, which have potential influence over thousands of Christians. Although both organizations do good works, their leader is a bit of a wild card. To Robertson, God is a Republican. As a Republican, God hates Democrats. Until recently, Robertson’s God sought to protect the country from gays and lesbians, terrorists, liberal judges and radical feminists. Now, Robertson’s God has no problem with a pro-choice, thrice-married liberal who has flip-flopped on current issues and shown int
olerance for racial minorities.” (11/11/07)
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30 - The kitchen strategy won’t cut it
Boston Globe
Joan Vennochi
“Take off that apron, Hillary. Democrats want a winning presidential candidate, not a gourmet cook. As first lady-to-be, Clinton once said, ‘I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession.’ The same woman, now running for president, is telling voters, ‘I’m very much at home in the kitchen.’ In this case, pandering to female voters is a big mistake. The sisterhood is famously fickle. Besides, in order to win, Clinton must grow her vote. She already has a gender gap problem. More than half the married men in a new USA Today/Gallup Poll said they definitely wouldn’t vote for her. And the most recent New Hampshire primary poll taken by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion underscores Clinton’s dilemma.” (11/11/07)
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31 - A plan to keep needed foreign laborers
Christian Science Monitor
Lionel Sosa
“Twelve and a half million undocumented immigrants populate the United States today. Some of us want them gone. But really they are here for one simple reason: We invited them, by offering them a job and then hiring them. We need immigrant labor. So instead of spending money to deport immigrants and build a border wall, we should do what’s best for us and what makes sense — create an orderly system to keep the workers we need here. Americans pay undocumented workers several times more than they earn in their own country to do the work we don’t want to do — the work we don’t want our children to do. These workers clean our offices. They take care of our elderly and our children. They help build our homes and roads. They pick our fruits and vegetables. They process the meat and poultry we eat. They do our nails. They do this and more.” (11/09/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1109/p09s02-coop.html
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32 - The revolt of the comic books
The American Prospect
Julian Sanchez
“A superhero killed the president this summer. Moments later, a shocked White House press corps watched as John Horus, his gleaming white-and-gold costume still soaked in blood, explained why. Because ‘the war in Iraq is illegal and predicated on lies,’ because ‘our people and theirs are dying for corporate gain,’ because of the ‘use of torture by our elected authorities,’ and because the president ’stole the last two elections,’ the most powerful member of the Seven Guns could no longer ’stand by while this administration commits crimes.’ In response, a terrified government imposed martial law, launching a nationwide manhunt for Horus’ estranged teammates, whose reactions to the act ranged from horror to sympathy. That bit of propaganda-by-the-deed launched acclaimed British scribe Warren Ellis’ Black Summer, an eight-issue comic book miniseries from Avatar Press.” (11/09/07)
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33 - Robert Nozick and the immaculate conception of the State
Ludwig von Mises Institute
Murray N. Rothbard
“Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia is an ‘invisible hand’ variant of a Lockean contractarian attempt to justify the State, or at least a minimal State confined to the functions of protection. Beginning with a free-market anarchist state of nature, Nozick portrays the State as emerging, by an invisible hand process that violates no one’s rights, first as a dominant protective agency, then to an ‘ultraminimal state,’ and then finally to a minimal state.” (posted 11/09/07)
http://www.mises.org/story/2650
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34 - Rudy’s new best friend
Salon
Joe Conason
“‘Having [Pat Robertson] aboard gives us a great deal of confidence because he has a tremendous amount of insight into what the main issues are and how they should be dealt with. His advice is invaluable and his friendship is even more invaluable,’ said Giuliani, who went on to add that they don’t agree about everything. He probably doesn’t agree, for example, that Robertson possesses the power to turn away hurricanes or cure sick people who donate money to the 700 Club. He probably doesn’t agree that 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina were heavenly punishments for the sinfulness of American society, and of abortion and gay rights in particular, as Robertson has implied more than once. He probably doesn’t agree, as Robertson once suggested in a bestselling book, that the first President Bush was an unwitting instrument of Lucifer. And he probably doesn’t even think that we should abolish Halloween, as Robertson once insisted, because it is a ’satanic’ holiday. But there are more serious qu
estions to be addressed here. So now that Robertson is officially ‘on board’ as an advisor to Join Rudy 2008, perhaps we should ask the would-be president to explain exactly where he and his new best friend agree — and where they don’t.” (11/09/07)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2007/11/09/giuliani_robertson/
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35 - Remote control
Slate
Chadwick Matlin
“Headquarters and the ‘real campaign’ don’t communicate all that much. Ron Paul supporters make their own signs, fliers, and banners, instead of using official campaign literature. They sponsor fund-raising drives within their own networks to take out their own ads in newspapers. In other words, money is being raised for Paul behind Paul’s back. The ideas are concocted, nurtured, and executed within the grass-roots community. Take the ‘moneybomb,’ for example. To garner press coverage, a supporter named Trevor Lyman had the idea to synchronize fundraising on Nov. 5 and proposed it on a Ron Paul forum. The community helped make it happen, which led to 4.2 million dollars and dozens of headlines. There’s obviously a danger here. The two campaigns don’t always agree.” (11/08/07)
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36 - In Iowa, it’s Clinton pragmatism vs. Obama fever
Mother Jones
Jonathan Stein
“Hillary Clinton’s campaign stops are tightly-scripted affairs, more professionally run and grander in their pageantry (and, often, attendance) than those of any other candidate in the Democratic field. They are, in a word, presidential, and seem designed to project that image to voters. Indeed, as Clinton makes a campaign swing through Iowa this week, voters planning to caucus for her on January 3 say they are drawn to one specific aspect of her candidacy: her electability. Clinton is banking on such pragmatism — as opposed to her competitors who are pushing the passion button.” (11/08/07)
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37 - Preparing for life after oil
AlterNet
Michael T. Klare
“This past May, in an unheralded and almost unnoticed move, the Energy Department signaled a fundamental, near epochal shift in US and indeed world history: we are nearing the end of the Petroleum Age and have entered the Age of Insufficiency. The department stopped talking about ‘oil’ in its projections of future petroleum availability and began speaking of ‘liquids.’ The global output of ‘liquids,’ the department indicated, would rise from 84 million barrels of oil equivalent (mboe) per day in 2005 to a projected 117.7 mboe in 2030 — barely enough to satisfy anticipated world demand of 117.6 mboe. Aside from suggesting the degree to which oil companies have ceased being mere suppliers of petroleum and are now purveyors of a wide variety of liquid products — including synthetic fuels derived from natural gas, corn, coal and other substances — this change hints at something more fundamental: we have entered a new era of intensified energy competition and growing reliance on the use
of force to protect overseas sources of petroleum.” (11/08/07)
http://www.alternet.org/audits/66625/
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38 - AMT alternatives
Los Angeles Times
staff
“Another year, another tizzy in Washington over the alternative minimum tax, that odd wrinkle in the tax code that forces millions of middle-income taxpayers to compute their taxes twice and, in an ever-growing number of cases, face huge increases on their bills from the IRS. Congress failed to index the AMT to inflation in 1969, when it introduced the tax to prevent 155 ultra-rich families from avoiding paying taxes altogether. This year, if Congress doesn’t abolish the AMT outright or write a new temporary ‘patch’ to make up for this failure, more than 20 million middle- and upper-middle-class taxpayers will owe [sic] an additional $50 billion to the government.” (11/08/07)
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39 - Too suspicious in suburbia
Boston Globe
Joan Vennochi
“Could the irony get any deeper? An international human rights activist stops for pizza and ends up under arrest for disorderly conduct. The arrest of Hillel C. Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based UN Watch, is clearly a case of wrong place, wrong time. But it’s also a case of something more — a tendency toward hysteria and overkill that appears to be a product of the current mood. Neuer was visiting the United States at the invitation of Yale University. On Nov. 2, he was meeting with local supporters in Needham. He spent time at the Needham Post Office, where he mailed copies of a report he had just delivered at Yale. Later, he went to a Needham pizza shop. He did not know that police in that town were searching for an armed killer. The overlay of the manhunt explains some, not all, of what happened next.” (11/08/07)
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40 - The John Bolton agenda
The American Prospect
Mark Leon Goldberg
“Most Americans have likely never heard of Emyr Jones-Parry, but he is a legend at the United Nations. From 2003 until Tony Blair left office this summer, Jones-Parry served as the United Kingdom’s UN Ambassador …. In that role, Jones-Parry was soft-spoken and prone to diplomatic niceties — as most ambassadors are. Yet Jones-Parry was an effective diplomat whose words carried great weight with America’s allies in Europe and beyond. When Emyr Jones-Parry spoke, foreign ministers in Europe, Africa, and Asia listened. One would assume, therefore, that Tony Blair’s man at the UN would be an essential asset to an American seeking to sell his or her diplomatic priorities to the world at large. … But when John Bolton served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations from August 2005 to December 2006 American diplomacy was anything but normal. Adversaries became allies and allies were treated as foes. Jones-Parry was no exception.” (11/08/07)
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_john_bolton_agenda
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41 - 14 months of danger
Tom Paine
Marcus Raskin & Robert Spero
“After the 2006 congressional elections, pundits declared that President Bush was a lame duck. Each day his power and capacity to pursue his neoconservative agenda was supposed to drain away until he went back to Crawford Texas, a beaten man. But like so much in politics, those who tie themselves to conventional wisdom are often very wrong. George W. Bush is as strong now as he was when he gained office for his second term. He is determined — ferociously, like a bulldog with a bone — to pursue his agenda even if it becomes a millstone around the country¹s neck for years and decades. Why is Mr. Bush, in the remaining 14 months of his presidency, defying the wishes of the people, when 75 percent believe the country is heading down the wrong track? For all the obsessive secrecy of the Bush administration, the president has been remarkably open about his guide in matters of state and as a personal cleanser to his previous alcohol addiction: Jesus.” [editor’s note: It’s pretty clear tha
t if JC came back today, he’d be more likely to bury Dubya than praise him! - SAT] (11/08/07)
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42 - AZ: Tempe tattoos a stereotype on couple
Arizona Republic
E. J. Montini
“Tattoo parlor owner Tom Preston and those who support him, including the conservative Goldwater Institute, believe that he is the victim of discrimination by the Tempe City Council. All that they ask is for Preston to be judged by the content of his character and not by the colors of his skin. ‘These people are going after me because of a perception that isn’t true,’ Preston told me. ‘That’s not how we’re supposed to do things.’ Last month, the council voted 7-0 to deny Preston the opportunity to open a tattoo parlor on Scottsdale Road. The shop was opposed by the North Tempe Neighborhood Association. … Preston and his wife, Elizabeth, have operated the Virtual Reality tattoo studio in Mesa for 14 years. They point to a clean record and to their work trying to establish statewide health standards for businesses like theirs.” (11/08/07)
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43 - Hillary: The Everywoman behind the Superwoman
Fox News
Susan Estrich
“I hate superwomen. Newspapers and magazines are filled with them. You know who I mean. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t read an interview with some glamorous, successful, beautiful, rich, thin, brilliant woman explaining how she really was chubby or thin or friendless in ninth grade. But not since. No, now she has it all: the adoring husband, the beautiful children, the stunning and perfectly appointed home or apartment, and the love and respect of all who encounter her. I have come to find such profiles more depressing than obituaries.” (11/07/07)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,309358,00.html
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44 - Democrats’ year of living fecklessly
Consortium News
Robert Parry
“One year ago, Democrats won control of Congress, stirring hopes across the country that the Iraq War might end and George W. Bush’s arrogant governing style would be checked. But Democratic leaders have failed to stand up to Bush in a year of living fecklessly.” (11/07/07)
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/110707.html
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45 - Blacks must drop victimhood & reclaim dignity
Christian Science Monitor
Bill Cosby & Alvin F. Poussaint
“Martin Luther King had a dream that some day his children would ‘live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.’ He wanted his children to become strong, beautiful people. But what we see today in poor African American neighborhoods is a nightmare. We know there are forces that make the ability to escape poverty seem bleak: overburdened single-parent homes, a high dropout rate, joblessness, gangs, drugs, crime, incarceration, deaths at an early age from guns fired by angry black men. We know that systemic racism and governmental neglect still exist. Yet we in the black community must look at ourselves and understand our own responsibility. We sometimes inflict ourselves with a victim mentality, feel hopeless, and do self-destructive things that make our lives even worse. Many people who are trying to make it find themselves struggling against fellow African Americans so lost in self-destructive behaviors that they b
ring down other people as well as themselves.” (11/08/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1108/p09s01-coop.html
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46 - When Cleveland turned history on its hinge
Boston Globe
Jeff Jacoby
“No historical moment could ever capture in its entirety the promise of American equality. But if you had to choose just one date, you might go with Nov. 7, 1967. It was on that Election Day in Cleveland 40 years ago that Carl B. Stokes, great-grandson of a slave, became the first black mayor of a major American city by defeating Seth Taft, grandson of a president. Today, the National Conference of Black Mayors has close to 50 members, including the chief executives of Philadelphia, Detroit, Washington, Atlanta, and Columbus. At a time when a black US senator is running for president, the election of a black candidate to a Rust Belt mayor’s office may seem like decidedly small potatoes. In 1967, it was huge.” (11/07/07)
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47 - Our man in Pakistan
The Nation
Robert Scheer
“So, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, treated ever so respectfully by George Bush throughout his Administration, in which he became the first Pakistani leader to visit Camp David, has turned out to be just another crummy dictator. But he was our dictator, kind of a modern, even westernized one who could stand up to all those bearded Islamic terrorists. Well, not exactly. Not that anyone bothered to remember, but Musharraf seized power in Pakistan, ending democratic rule, two years before the 9/11 attacks and did nothing to end his nation’s support of the Taliban rulers next door, who were harboring Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda.” (11/07/07)
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071119/truthdig
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48 - The vision thing
Tom Paine
Alan Jenkins
“One year from now, our country will choose a new president. And while the candidates have debated extensively on individual issues like health care, the war, the economy, and the environment, they have offered far less in terms of a positive, overarching vision for our country that both addresses and transcends individual issues. While candidates’ positions on the issues of the day are crucially important, it’s equally important to take their measure on what George H. W. Bush called ‘the vision thing’: the clarity of ideals, values, and principles that inspire and shape a president’s approach to a broad range of issues, including ones that no one could have anticipated on the day he or she was elected. A new book by The Opportunity Agenda offers such a vision on the domestic front; one to which we hope the presidential contenders of both parties will respond.” (11/07/07)
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49 - Something new under the sun
The American Prospect
Paul Waldman
“We sometimes think of local governments in strongly progressive communities as ineffective nearly to the point of being comical. While potholes go unfilled, the collection of aging hippies on the town council debates passionately how they’re going to respond to the crises in Darfur or Burma, and whether the town should retain a chakra consultant. This is a caricature, sure, but it contains more than a little truth. But the city council of Berkeley, California — where run-of-the-mill leftists are considered positively conservative — just did something extraordinary. Under a plan they unanimously approved yesterday, Berkeley will become the first city in the country to pay to install a solar power system for any homeowner or business who wants it.” (11/07/07)
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50 - Iraq named “War of the Year!”
San Francisco Chronicle
Mark Morford
“Hot on the heels of Time magazine naming the Apple iPhone ‘Invention of the Year’ and just as many newspapers, blogs and TV programs prepare to unleash their various ‘Top 10′ and ‘Best Of’ lists for 2007, comes the news that you, your ravaged and saddened heart, and the world at large have all just awarded George W. Bush’s disastrous, embarrassing, profoundly disgusting occupation of Iraq ‘War of the Year,’ for the fourth consecutive year. ‘On behalf of myself and my boss who will both go down in history as two of the most insipid and deleterious world leaders you will ever have the displeasure of miserably recalling all your sad and pathetic days, I can only say, who the f- are you people and how did you get past security?’ snarled Vice President Dick Cheney, from the side of his mouth, appearing in a ragged black bathrobe with little pink hand grenades stitched all over it, and carrying a shotgun. ‘Get off my lawn!’” (11/07/07)
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51 - The Internet is making us stupid
Salon
Ben Van Heuvelen
Interview with Cass Sunstein. Sunstein: “There probably is a more or less objective standpoint, for example, that al-Qaida’s statements are unreliable, while the Chicago Tribune, to give you an example of a not very partisan paper, is more reliable. And from the same standpoint that justifies greater faith in the Chicago Tribune than al-Qaida, we deserve to have greater faith in the conclusions of those who have read both conservative and liberal positions than those who restrict themselves to just one. Now, what I’ve just said depends on believing that neither conservatives nor liberals have a monopoly on wisdom. As a law professor I would say, If you think there’s nothing to be learned from Justice [Antonin] Scalia’s opinions, then there’s a real problem. Because some of his opinions are really good. And some of them are even right. And those that are wrong, you improve your thinking a lot if you grapple with what he has to say.” (11/07/07)
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/11/07/sunstein/
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52 - Dirty Obama e-mail
Slate
John Dickerson
“A scurrilous new e-mail is circulating about Barack Obama. Over the last few months there were the ones that suggested he was secretly hiding his Muslim faith. The messages suggest he refused to pledge allegiance this summer at a steak fry hosted by Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin. Nutty rumors are always circulating about candidates. The Republicans spread their own in the run-up to the August straw poll. Usually campaigns can ignore them. To engage a made-up claim only gives it unwanted attention. What makes this one a problem is that it appears to have penetrated deeply into the pool of voters Obama is courting. They asked about the pledge at the first two town halls kicking off his five-day tour here. Since building support for the Iowa caucuses relies on word-of-mouth, rumors are all the more dangerous.” (11/07/07)
http://www.slate.com/id/2177669/
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53 - Giuliani wins the nutcase primary
Mother Jones
David Corn
“What a day for Rudy Giuliani. After Mitt Romney was recently endorsed by Paul Weyrich, a founding father of the religious right (and the Heritage Foundation) and John McCain got the thumbs up from Senator Sam Brownback, a social conservative champion, Giuliani nabbed one of the biggest fish in the Christian right ocean: Pat Robertson. And unlike Brownback or Weyrich, Robertson has a television network. … But there’s something else about Robertson: He is nutty. I’m not merely referring to his belief that God sent a hurricane toward Disney World because the theme park had held a Gay Day. His conspiratorial view of global politics is — how to put it? — insane. He once claimed that President George H.W. Bush was doing the bidding of Satan. Literally.” (11/07/07)
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54 - The war on medical marijuana
Consortium News
Patrick McCartney and Martin A. Lee
“For the past 11 years, state and local officials sworn to uphold the state ballot measure have instead proven to be willing — sometimes eager — accomplices in a concerted U.S. attack on a state law. The landmark California law remains under siege. Within days after Prop 215 was enacted in the fall of 1996, top California law enforcement officials huddled privately with America’s drug war high command in Washington, D.C., where they plotted to sabotage a voter initiative they were unable to defeat at the ballot box.” (11/06/07)
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/110607a.html
55 - The Ron Paul phenomenon
Salon
Glenn Greenwald
“Regardless of how much attention the media pays, the explosion of support for the Paul campaign yesterday is much more than a one-time event. The Paul campaign is now a bona fide phenomenon of real significance, and it is difficult to see this as anything other than a very positive development. There are, relatively speaking, very few people who agree with most of Paul’s policy positions. In fact, a large portion of Americans — perhaps most — will find something in his litany of beliefs with which they not only disagree, but vehemently so. Paul has a coherent political world-view and states his positions clearly and unapologetically, without hedges, and that approach naturally ensures greater disagreement than the form of please-everyone obfuscation which drives most candidates.” (11/06/07)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/11/06/paul/
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All for now,
Steve Trinward, Editor