Progressive News Digest - Jan 14, 2008
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Date: Mon, January 14, 2008
PROGRESSIVE NEWS DIGEST
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(from slightly left of center)
updated daily on the web at
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Volume IV, Issue #32 Monday, Jan 14, 2008
Welcome to another edition of Progressive News Digest, still rolling along in
its fourth year (just over the halfway-mark of Year 4, BTW, and with rare
exception this has appeared every week at some point).
Meanwhile, over at the "parent company" (Rational Review News DIgest),
we're engaged in our quarterly fundraising effort, aiming for $5,000 in total
this time (Dec. 23st marked our FIFTH year overall in operation, without
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We are just slightly under HALFWAY to that goal ... and have now LOWERED
the bar, seeking only $3,000, as was usually the quarterly goal. However,
fundraising will now continue until we reach that mark ...
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* * * * * * *
I continue to publish this now with a 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.
Here you go ... enjoy and see you next week! Check the site for constant
updates each day:
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NEWS
01 - CA: Anti-violence activist slain outside daughter’s game
02 - Threats to US ships in Gulf came from “heckler”?
03 - AZ: McCain’s daughter blogging for Dad
04 - CA: Welfare drug-screening bill put forth
05 - Fertilizer, frustration fuel Gaza’s rockets
06 - MA: Bill proposes cellphone restrictions in cars
07 - FBI wiretaps dropped due to unpaid bills
08 - Feds: 102 lawsuits to build one border fence
09 - Hazing prevention among topics at NCAA convention
10 - Colombia: Guerrillas free two high-level hostages
11 - SCOTUS: Judges dissect challenge to voter ID law
12 - TN: City offers free identity theft protection to voters
13 - Iran: US “fabricated” Gulf confrontation video
14 - CA Gov.: Time to “face our budget demons”
15 - WA: Diploma mill operators printed fake college degrees
16 - Israel steps up warnings to Bush on Iran
17 - Air Force may shrink its F-15 fleet
18 - Survey: Non-attendees find faith outside church
19 - Pentagon won’t probe KBR rape charges
20 - CA: Schwarzenegger wants state spending limit
21 - Nation’s health spending hit $2.1 trillion in 2006
22 - Thailand: Drug trafficking revival brings harsh crackdown
23 - MA: Harvard uncovers ID scam that may involve debit cards
24 - Tennessee ending surveillance for cigarettes from other states
25 - Private security contractors look to Africa for recruits
26 - Did insects kill off dinosaurs?
27 - MA: Boston firemen getting enhanced pensions
28 - Energy organization to be proposed
29 - CA: Berkeley preacher calls abortion “the Darfur of America”
30 - Woman booted from Army for breast implants
COMMENTARY
31 - Let there be light crude
32 - Mr./Ms. Change goes to Washington
33 - The Democrats’ strategic challenge
34 - The collective punishment model
35 - Electoral politics as sport
36 - Don’t pave Cambodia’s flawed path to justice
37 - Directors Guild enters WGA negotiation scene
38 - Giving without complaint
39 - Your right to vote on the ballot
40 - Where have you gone, George Bailey?
41 - We’re mad as hell and the Dems aren’t listening
42 - The sure thing
43 - Torture is illegal, immoral and ineffective
44 - An old Democratic fault line
45 - Recession — who cares?
46 - Anti-war lessons from New Hampshire
47 - Next-Gen donors
48 - A comeback for competence
49 - Democracy’s Rules: Make voting easier
50 - Repress-U: How to build a Homeland Security campus
51 - Is there a doctor in the mouse?
52 - Deadly Diyala
53 - License and (voter) registration, please
54 - Pentagon, Big Pharma: Drug troops to numb them
55 - RoboCop in Iraq
56 - About New Hampshire …
57 - Campaign promises empty until the war ends
58 - The “change” campaign
59 - In the Middle East, no time to spare
60 - Let Hillary be Hillary
NEWS
01 - CA: Anti-violence activist slain outside daughter’s game
San Francisco Chronicle
“Police are searching for two gunmen who shot and killed an anti-violence activist Saturday night outside the packed San Francisco gymnasium where he had been watching and rooting for his daughter, a star player on the nation’s top-ranked high school basketball team. Terrell ‘Terray’ Rogers, whose daughter is a top-rated junior guard for Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory, had walked across the street from the school during halftime when he was attacked in a parking lot in the Cathedral Hill neighborhood, police said. Investigators have made no arrests in the slaying of the 39-year-old father of two from Pacifica, while those who knew Rogers are struggling to understand why he was apparently targeted. Rogers, they said, grew up in a tough part of San Francisco and got into some trouble, but later dedicated himself to helping young people.” (01/14/08)
=====
02 - Threats to US ships in Gulf came from “heckler”?
Raw Story
“Threatening comments heard at the end of a Pentagon-released audio recording designed to prove harassing maneuvers by Iranian patrol boats in the Strait of Hormuz may have come from a local heckler known as the ‘Filipino Monkey,’ The Navy Times reported. The 36-minute video aired Friday included footage of Iranian boats following the US ships at some distance. It includes a shot of a dark object floating in the water, but it could not be determined whether this was one of the box-like objects that the Pentagon claims were dumped in the path of a US warship by two speedboats.” (01/13/08)
=====
03 - AZ: McCain’s daughter blogging for Dad
Arizona Republic
“Tabloids give a snapshot of the lives of political children. Jenna was caught drinking. Chelsea has a steady. But largely their lives are a mystery. Meghan McCain is trying to beat the paparazzi to the punch. She’s using a personal blog to give a backstage pass to voters, who normally see nothing more from a candidate, and his or her children, than a stump speech and glad-handing. At mccainblogette.com, the 23-year-old talks about her adventures, however big or small, along the campaign trail. Her honest, sometimes wide-eyed, voice describes reels of photos and offers narration and confessionals in videos. She’s tired from the whirlwind of campaign stops. She admires the campaign volunteers … and she loves shoes.” (01/14/08)
=====
04 - CA: Welfare drug-screening bill put forth
Palm Springs [CA] Desert Sun
“A Mira Loma high school sophomore born with a disabling condition brought on by his mother’s drug abuse will see his proposal to screen welfare applicants for narcotics introduced this year before the state Assembly, a lawmaker announced Friday. R.J. Feild, a student at Jurupa Valley High School, competed with more than 200 students from campuses across Riverside County in Assemblyman John J. Benoit’s ‘There Ought To Be a Law’ contest. The youths composed 500-word essays stating what new laws they believe should be put on the books. The teen’s essay was well-written, the most compelling and met feasibility criteria, according to Benoit, a Republican who represents the 64th District that encompasses part of the Coachella Valley and western Riverside County.” (01/14/08)
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05 - Fertilizer, frustration fuel Gaza’s rockets
Christian Science Monitor
“After a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip on Jan. 3 landed 17 kilometers (10 miles) inside Israel — deeper than any has penetrated so far — the Israeli press was full of speculation of where the weapon may have come from and how it got into Gaza. The Israeli army first said the missile was made in Russia. Later it said it had come from Iran. Israeli officials said the weapon was further evidence that the smuggling tunnels between Egypt and Gaza needed to be closed. Israel’s Yediot Aharanot newspaper quoted an unnamed Israeli security official alleging the rocket had been smuggled into Gaza by boat.” (01/15/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0115/p06s01-wome.html
=====
06 - MA: Bill proposes cellphone restrictions in cars
Boston Globe
“Days after Christmas, a 13-year-old boy walking down a Taunton road was struck and killed by a driver who told police he was trying to type a text message on his phone. The parents of Earman Machado and Amanda Martin say Massachusetts should enact a ban on the use of hand-held devices while driving. In October, a 17-year-old Southbridge girl driving to school crashed and died when she veered off the road just after receiving a text message. State lawmakers this week are preparing to debate banning the use of all hand-held calling devices while driving. … Violators would be fined $100 for the first offense, $250 for the second, and $500 thereafter.” (01/14/08)
=====
07 - FBI wiretaps dropped due to unpaid bills
Fox News
“Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau’s repeated failures to pay phone bills on time. A Justice Department audit released Thursday blamed the lost connections on the FBI’s lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. Poor supervision of the program also allowed one agent to steal $25,000, the audit said. In at least one case, a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation ‘was halted due to untimely payment,’ the audit found. FISA wiretaps are used in the government’s most sensitive and secretive criminal investigations, and allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists or spies. ‘We also found that late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence,’ according to the audit by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine. More than half of 990 bills to pay for tele
communication surveillance in five unidentified FBI field offices were not paid on time, the report shows.” (01/10/08)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,321847,00.html
=====
08 - Feds: 102 lawsuits to build one border fence
Arizona Republic
“The government is readying 102 court cases against landowners in Arizona, California and Texas for blocking efforts to selected sites for a fence along the Mexican border, a Homeland Security Department official said Wednesday. With the lawsuits expected soon, the legal action would mark an escalation in the clash between the government and the property owners. The Bush administration wants to build 370 miles of fencing and 300 miles of vehicle barriers by the end of the year. A number of property owners have granted the government access to their land, but others have refused. The agency sent letters to 135 of hem last month, warning they had 30 days to comply. Thirty-three did so. The deadline for many passed on Monday or should expire this week for others. Resistance is most intense in Texas, which accounts for 71 cases; there are 20 in California and 11 in Arizona, said Russ Knocke, a Homeland Security spokesman.” (01/10/08)
=====
09 - Hazing prevention among topics at NCAA convention
Tennessean
“One of the highlighted discussions at the opening of the five-day NCAA convention on Thursday was about athlete hazing. Some of the most compelling information was presented by Alfred University’s Dr. Norm Pollard, who was involved in a research study on hazing after a freshman rookie football party resulted in five football players being taken to the hospital for severe alcohol poising in 1998. In that case, players were leashed to furniture in a plastic-covered room and made to stay there until they consumed enough alcohol (or water) that they threw up. ‘When we were first involved in hazing, we felt we were the only school affected,’ Pollard said. ‘But what happened at Alfred is not unique.’” (01/10/08)
=====
10 - Colombia: Guerrillas free two high-level hostages
Christian Science Monitor
“Colombian leftist guerrillas released two of their most prized hostages Thursday, in a deal brokered by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez that could pave the way for a broad agreement for the liberation of dozens of others being held in rebel camps. Politicians Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez were whisked from the jungles of southern Colombia where they had been held for six years to the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, into the embrace of their families. ‘They are finally safe, they are free,’ Ms. Gonzalez’s daughter Patricia Perdomo told Colombian radio from her hotel room in Caracas, her voice trembling with emotion.” (01/10/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0111/p25s01-woam.html
=====
11 - SCOTUS: Judges dissect challenge to voter ID law
Boston Globe
“The Supreme Court appeared unmoved yesterday by arguments that an Indiana law requiring voters to present photo identification imposes an unconstitutional burden. Some justices, however, appeared to search for a middle ground on the divisive and partisan political issue. The issue goes far beyond Indiana, as states with Republican-majority legislatures are pushing similar laws, saying they combat fraud. Voting rights specialists see the legal battle over Indiana’s toughest-in-the-nation voter identification law as the most starkly partisan case to reach the court since Bush v. Gore decided the presidential election in 2000. And the court’s questioning during an hourlong oral argument broke quickly along its own ideological divide. But the justice most often in recent years to play the decisive role — Anthony Kennedy — made it clear that he did not share the challengers’ view of the burden that producing a photo ID imposes.” (01/10/08)
=====
12 - TN: City offers free identity theft protection to voters
Nashville City Paper
“Metro Nashville is contracting with Debix Identity Protection Network to provide citizens effected [sic] by the recent theft of two Davidson County Election Commission laptops a full year of identity theft coverage for free, according to Mayor Karl Dean’s office. Voters will receive a letter containing detailed instructions on how to enroll with Debix no later than next week, according to the Mayor’s office and an enrollment form and activation code will be included. The laptops were stolen Dec. 23 and contained the complete Social Security numbers of 337,000 registered Davidson County voters.” (01/10/08)
http://www.nashvillecitypaper.com/news.php?viewStory=58495
=====
13 - Iran: US “fabricated” Gulf confrontation video
Fox News
“Iran accused the United States on Wednesday of fabricating video and audio released by the Pentagon showing Iranian boats confronting U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf. The video from Sunday’s incident shows small Iranian boats swarming around U.S. warships in the Strait of Hormuz. In the recording, a man speaking in heavily accented English threatened, ‘I am coming to you. … You will explode after … minutes.’ … ‘The footage released by the U.S. Navy was compiled using file pictures and the audio has been fabricated,’ an official in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards was quoted as saying by the state-run English-language channel Press TV. State TV did not give the name of the Revolutionary Guard figure and did not offer any evidence that the footage was fabricated.” (01/09/08)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,321227,00.html
=====
14 - CA Gov.: Time to “face our budget demons”
San Francisco Chronicle
“Weary of boom-and-bust state government financing, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday proposed a constitutional amendment to keep the state from spending more than it collects in taxes. In his fifth State of the State speech since taking office, the Republican governor struck a somber tone in addressing California’s projected $14 billion deficit for the next fiscal year and the possibility of across-the-board cuts in services from education to health care. ‘Our budget problem is not because California’s economy is in trouble,’ he told a joint session of the Legislature in a televised address. ‘In spite of a weakness in housing … we remain a powerhouse of technology, of agriculture, advanced research, venture capital, international trade and innovation.’ But the issue, the governor said, is that demands on state services — driven by voter-approved mandates — are escalating faster than the state’s income.” [editor’s note: So the Governator actually DOES comprehend the evils of “t
rue demoncrazy”? - SAT] (01/09/08)
=====
15 - WA: Diploma mill operators printed fake college degrees
Tennessean
“A former deputy U.S. marshal accused of using a bogus college degree to get a $16,000-a-year job promotion is the first customer charged in an expanding federal investigation of an alleged Spokane-based diploma mill. David Floyd Brodhagen, who retired Dec. 23 from the Marshals Service, was charged four days later with making and delivering as true a statement knowing it contained false information. In addition, new court filings allege that Dixie and Steve Randock, of Colbert, counterfeited and sold degrees and transcripts from some of the largest universities in the United States, including the University of Tennessee, as well as cranking out degrees from 125 fictitious schools.” (01/09/08)
=====
16 - Israel steps up warnings to Bush on Iran
Christian Science Monitor
“President Bush arrives here Wednesday to propel forward the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. But Israeli leaders seem more interested in focusing on Iran’s nuclear program. Several senior Israeli officials, analysts, and military experts have been increasingly vocal about concerns that the recent National Intelligence Estimate report, which said Iran halted a secret nuclear arms program in 2003, takes the pressure off Iran and will spur them toward nuclear military capability. Some here have said the NIE has put Israel on the defensive, making it feel isolated in its assessment of the threat. That could prompt Israel to act unilaterally against Iran, analysts say, a move that would certainly be resisted by Washington. Still, Mr. Bush has indicated that Iran is a key issue as he visits the region.” (01/09/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0109/p01s03-wogn.html
=====
17 - Air Force may shrink its F-15 fleet
Los Angeles Times
“The Air Force will probably order dozens of its F-15 fighter jets permanently grounded because of crucial structural flaws, significantly reducing the number of planes available to protect the United States, officials said Tuesday. After one of the jets broke apart during a simulated dogfight in November, Air Force officials grounded the entire F-15 fleet, nearly 700 planes in all, fearing such a defect. The newest versions of the fighter jets were allowed to resume flying shortly afterward, but 440 of the older model F-15s have remained out of service. The Air Force plans to allow about 260 of the remaining grounded planes to return to duty today. But about 180 more will remain idle because of suspected structural flaws.” (01/09/08)
=====
18 - Survey: Non-attendees find faith outside church
USA Today
“A new survey of U.S. adults who don’t go to church, even on holidays, finds 72% say ‘God, a higher or supreme being, actually exists.’ But just as many (72%) also say the church is ‘full of hypocrites.’ Indeed, 44% agree with the statement ‘Christians get on my nerves.’ LifeWay Research, the research arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, based in Nashville, conducted the survey of 1,402 ‘unchurched’ adults last spring and summer. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. The survey defines ‘unchurched’ as people who had not attended a religious service in a church, synagogue or mosque at any time in the past six months. More than one in five (22%) of Americans say they never go to church, the highest ever recorded by the General Social Survey, conducted every two years by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. In 2004, the percentage was 17%.” (01/09/08)
=====
19 - Pentagon won’t probe KBR rape charges
ABC News
“The Defense Department’s top watchdog has declined to investigate allegations that an American woman working under an Army contract in Iraq was raped by her co-workers. The case of former Halliburton/KBR employee Jamie Leigh Jones gained national attention last month. An ABC News investigation revealed how an earlier investigation into Jones’ alleged gang-rape in 2005 had not resulted in any prosecution, and that neither Jones nor Democratic and Republican lawmakers have been able to get answers from the Bush administration on the state of her case. In letters to lawmakers, DoD Inspector General Claude Kicklighter said that because the Justice Department still considers the investigation into Jones’ case open, there is no need for him to look into the matter.” (01/08/08)
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4099514&page=1
=====
20 - CA: Schwarzenegger wants state spending limit
San Francisco Chronicle
“With California’s government facing a $14 billion deficit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will call in his State of the State speech this afternoon for a constitutional amendment aimed at forcing state spending to conform to tax revenue. In excerpts released by the governor’s office in advance of the 3:30 p.m. speech, the Republican governor gave little detail about the proposed amendment, although it would appear to be similar to a measure he proposed in 2005 that voters rejected. But after three years of economic boom in California, state revenue is plummeting as a result of a slumping housing market and Schwarzenegger will say that something has got to be done.” (01/08/08)
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21 - Nation’s health spending hit $2.1 trillion in 2006
Arizona Republic
“Seniors and the disabled flocked to the pharmacy counter in 2006 with their new Medicare drug cards, fueling a 6.7 percent increase in health spending, the federal government reported Monday. In most other areas of health care, there was a welcome slowdown in spending. It still cost more to go to the hospital or doctor, but the increase was not as great as in the previous year. … The increase in drug spending occurred even as consumers relied more on generic drugs and as prices remained relatively stable for many brand names. Nearly two out of every three prescriptions filled were generics, which helped restrain drug expenditures. But that restraint was offset by the new Medicare benefit. Those with insurance are more likely to access the health-care system. Under the drug benefit, people who once had to forgo or cut back on medicine had the means to fill more prescriptions in 2006 because of the new government subsidy.” (01/08/08)
=====
22 - Thailand: Drug trafficking revival brings harsh crackdown
Christian Science Monitor
“By day, Bangkok’s largest slum broils under a scorching sun. Schoolchildren in crisp uniforms scuttle past sidewalk food vendors. But at night, say local activists, the dockside lanes of Khlong Toey belong to peddlers of methamphetamine pills, known to Thais as ya ba, or crazy medicine. Wanlop Hirikul, a community leader and radio broadcaster, has been here before. Until 2003, his district was overrun with dealers hawking meth pills. Then came a violent but popular antidrug campaign led by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra that disrupted trafficking networks and forced tens of thousands of addicts into rehabilitation camps. Today, the situation is reversing. ‘It’s getting worse. The drugs are coming back to our community … where there used to be one dealer on the street, now there are three,’ Mr. Wanlop says.” (01/09/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0109/p06s01-woap.html
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23 - MA: Harvard uncovers ID scam that may involve debit cards
Boston Globe
“Harvard University police and the Middlesex district attorney’s office are investigating a security breach at the school after an undergraduate allegedly manufactured phony driver’s licenses and university identification cards that can be used as debit cards and to enter residence halls, the university announced yesterday. The student, who was not named by school or law enforcement officials and was not arrested, came to police attention after university police learned that their identification system was compromised, said Corey Welford, spokesman for Middlesex District Attorney Gerard T. Leone Jr.” (01/08/08)
=====
24 - Tennessee ending surveillance for cigarettes from other states
Tennessean
“The state Revenue Department says it is ending its surveillance program to catch people bringing too many cigarettes into Tennessee to avoid higher taxes. Commissioner Reagan Farr tells The Associated Press that the program accomplished its goal of educating people that only 20 packs can legally be transported across state lines. Farr says his department will still enforce the law, but it won’t conduct scheduled surveillance of tobacco stores in neighboring states. Revenue agents seized more than 31,000 packs of cigarettes from September through the end of December. The state launched the program because its cigarette tax in July jumped higher than its eight neighbors — from 20 cents a pack to 62 cents.” [editor’s note: Much better than digging up Ness and Anslinger to lead the “surge” against the bootleggers - SAT] (01/07/08)
=====
25 - Private security contractors look to Africa for recruits
Christian Science Monitor
“Human rights activist Phil ya Nangolo started hearing rumors in the fall about an American security group opening shop here, with plans to recruit thousands of former Namibian soldiers to work in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many ex-fighters, he recalls, were excited about the arrival of the Special Operations Consulting-Security Management Group (SOC-SMG), an ‘international force protection’ company with clients that include the US Army and Marine Corps. After all, this sparsely populated country in southwest Africa struggles with a 35 percent unemployment rate, and thousands of the country’s former independence fighters are jobless. But Mr. Nangolo, the director of Namibia’s National Society for Human Rights, was concerned.” (01/07/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0108/p06s01-woaf.html
=====
26 - Did insects kill off dinosaurs?
Fox News
“Some of the smallest animals on Earth may have been responsible for the extinction of some of the biggest. A new book argues that the demise of the dinosaurs was due not to an asteroid impact, nor massive volcanic eruptions in India, but instead to tiny biting disease-spreading insects and arachnids — mosquitoes, mites, ticks and biting flies. ‘There are serious problems with the sudden-impact theories of dinosaur extinction, not the least of which is that dinosaurs declined and disappeared over a period of hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years,’ entomologist George O. Poinar, Jr., said in a press release from Oregon State University in Corvallis, Ore., last week.” (01/07/08)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,320590,00.html
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27 - MA: Boston firemen getting enhanced pensions
Boston Globe
“In the last six years, 102 Boston firefighters have substantially enhanced their tax-free disability pensions by claiming career-ending injuries while they were filling in for superiors at higher pay grades, according to a Globe review of city retirement and payroll records. By making their injury claims while on temporary assignment, the firefighters were able to boost their pensions an average of $10,300 a year, to $61,737 apiece. The average lifetime increase for the 102 firefighters works out to $248,000, according to actuarial tables. The supplements, made possible by a provision in the firefighters contract, will cost the city $25 million over time.” (01/07/08)
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28 - Energy organization to be proposed
Arizona Republic
“Japan, the United States and European countries will jointly propose at this year’s Group of Eight summit meeting that an international organization be established to study and evaluate the energy-saving measures of countries including China and India. The launch of the organization is part of international efforts to provide emerging large consumers of energy with the advanced energy-saving know-how of developed countries, and to study the effectiveness of such measures. The new organization would be funded by Japan, the United States and European countries, with the International Energy Agency in Paris being considered as a possible location for the new body’s headquarters.” (01/07/08)
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29 - CA: Berkeley preacher calls abortion “the Darfur of America”
San Francisco Chronicle
“Saying they are faced with a civil rights crisis that demands immediate attention, African American anti-abortion advocates will hold three events in the Bay Area later this month in an aggressive push to combat the high number of abortions among black women. ‘The abortion issue is huge. It is the Darfur of America,’ and it’s time to educate the public about it, said Walter Hoye, a Berkeley preacher who founded the Issues4Life Foundation, a recently formed Union City-based organization intent on drafting more African Americans into the fight against abortion. Issues4Life has organized the events to coincide with the Jan. 22 anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Jan. 18 and Black History Month in February.” (01/07/08)
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30 - Woman booted from Army for breast implants
Fox News
“A woman has been kicked out of army training because she has silicone breast implants. Alessija Dorfmann, 23, said: ‘I am devastated. It has always been my dream to be a soldier and have a great figure. Now my fake boobs have cost me my job.’ She has appealed against the ruling by top brass in Hamburg, Germany, who said implants increased risk of injury.” (01/05/08)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,320494,00.html
COMMENTARY
31 - Let there be light crude
Mother Jones
Mariah Blake
“When James Cojanis heard the first rumblings of Armageddon, he was sitting in his San Jose home with the radio tuned to a popular Christian show called The Prophecy Club. Featured that day was a charismatic Texas oilman named Harold ‘Hayseed’ Stephens. Speaking in the rousing cadence of a Southern preacher, he told listeners that ‘the greatest oil field on Earth is under the southwest corner of the Dead Sea’ — and that his company, Ness Energy International, was about to tap into it. In doing so, he said, it would drain the oil fields of the Persian Gulf, prompt Arab countries to attack Israel, and at last touch off the great battle that would usher in the end of days. As soon as the show was over, Cojanis got on the phone to find out how to invest in the venture. Days later the 70-year-old retiree received a form letter addressed, ‘Dear End Time Servant.’” (01/08)
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32 - Mr./Ms. Change goes to Washington
In These Times
David Moberg
“If Mr. or Ms. Change were a candidate for president, they would be the Democratic nominee by now. But we would not know precisely what candidate Change looks like. It’s an idea — or image — that is as ambiguous as it is popular with voters. Polling and early votes in the presidential race show that Democrats, many independents and some Republicans want a sharp break with the Bush era on both domestic and foreign policy. The data also show that they’re ready for a departure from the conservative paradigm that started with President Reagan’s declaration that ‘government isn’t the solution; government is the problem’ and went on to encompass President Clinton’s supine acceptance that ‘the era of big government is over.’” (01/14/08)
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33 - The Democrats’ strategic challenge
The American Prospect
Paul Starr
“We may be on the verge of one of those moments when the underlying currents in American politics change directions. The conservative agenda is exhausted, public opinion has unmistakably swung away from the right, and although there are no guarantees about the outcome of the election, 2009 may find Democrats in control of both the White House and Congress. But if ever there were a time when liberals needed to be strategic about their goals and the ways of achieving them, this would be it. In the past two years, anger against the Republicans has driven moderates and independents toward the Democrats and stirred an awakening among progressives. Yet all that energy will dissipate if after a Democratic victory at the polls, the new administration proves to be faltering and ineffectual. A durable shift in our politics will depend on what the new president and Congress are actually able to accomplish and whether they can frame those accomplishments as elements of a coherent vision.” (01/
14/08)
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34 - The collective punishment model
TCS Daily
Brian T. Schwartz
“Remember how in grade school, the teacher would punish the whole class for the actions of just a few disruptive students? This is an early lesson in collective punishment, which is usually practiced during wartime or under martial law. Collective punishment has now arrived with compulsory medical insurance. Known as an ‘individual mandate,’ politicians of both major parties have supported it. Compulsory politically-defined insurance is law in Massachusetts, is up for consideration in California and Colorado, and Democratic presidential candidates endorse it nationally. Politicians peddle compulsory insurance under the guise of ‘personal responsibility.’” (01/14/08)
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=010708B
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35 - Electoral politics as sport
Boston Globe
James Carroll
“Over the next three weeks, America will be in thrall to its cult of masculinity. Weekends will be defined by the NFL playoffs, culminating in the Super Bowl Feb. 3. What remains of the nation’s attention, after football, will be seized by presidential politics, leading up to the decisive primaries on Super Tuesday, Feb. 5. The first process is a celebration of a peculiar notion of manliness, while the second is a prisoner of it. It does not take an anthropologist to understand that professional football occupies its central place in the American imagination as a sublimation of violence. That may be its main virtue. Indeed, games in which males draw up lines on fields and then contest those lines with balls date to the dawn of history, when such activities took the place of actual combat. Struggles between tribes were ritualized with primitive games, sometimes to the death. The first balls may have been decapitated heads.” (01/14/08)
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36 - Don’t pave Cambodia’s flawed path to justice
Christian Science Monitor
John A. Hall
“Five high-profile members of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge government are finally in detention awaiting trial. It’s historic progress toward long-awaited justice for the brutal regime that caused the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians in the late 1970s. The United Nations-backed tribunal set up in Cambodia to try these men is running out of money and is seeking additional funds from donor nations. The United States indicated last month that it may reverse policy and begin funding the court. There remain, however, legitimate concerns about the potential for corruption and the lack of judicial independence in Cambodia. A shift in US policy would be premature.” (01/15/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0115/p09s02-coop.html
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37 - Directors Guild enters WGA negotiation scene
San Francisco Chronicle
Tim Goodman
“The Writers Guild of America strike is either on the verge of ending or blowing up in spectacular fashion. Several rapidly changing events have fueled speculation that the strike is about to take a big turn, chief among them: Saturday’s early start of negotiations between the Directors Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the group at odds with the striking WGA. Conventional wisdom — or constantly repeated rhetoric — is that the DGA never actually starts negotiations unless it believes a deal is close. How does this happen? Super secret (or not) backdoor meetings meant to cut the nonsense and get to the fine points, or at least to the point where the fine points are visible and nearly agreeable.” (01/14/08)
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38 - Giving without complaint
The Free Liberal
Paul Jacob
“Complain, complain, complain. It’s gotten so bad that a billionaire, Warren Buffett, bemoans that he doesn’t pay enough in taxes. And former President Clinton, after rewriting his history on Iraq, complains, ‘I still resent that I was not asked or given the opportunity to support those soldiers.’ Clinton meant ‘by paying higher taxes.’ But taxes don’t have to be raised on everyone for Mr. Buffett or Mr. Clinton to make a contribution. It is perfectly legal to send the federal government more money than demanded in your tax bill. Really.” (01/14/08)
http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/003174.html
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39 - Your right to vote on the ballot
Fox News/Heritage
James Sherk
“As American voters go to the polls to select the Republican and Democratic presidential nominees, few are aware that their right to vote in private — at least in the workplace — may be in danger. It seems too bizarre to be true, but union bosses want to end secret ballot elections, and many members of Congress are willing to go along. If they succeed, more than 100 million workers would lose their right to a private vote on whether to join a union. Secret ballot elections are a fundamental American right. They ensure that every voter expresses his or her choice without peer pressure or harassment and that the choice of the majority prevails. That’s why we use private ballots to elect the president and members of Congress. It’s also why American workers choose to join — or not join — unions in secret ballot elections.” (01/11/08)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,322105,00.html
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40 - Where have you gone, George Bailey?
Boston Globe
Stephen A. Marglin
“Another holiday season has come and gone with more reruns of Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. We could sure use banker George Bailey now that the mortgage mess threatens to do what the rapacious Mr. Potter, the town’s richest citizen, could not: end the nonsense of providing mortgages for the working poor. For some time to come, people in the real world of 21st-century America without a good deal of money in the bank and super-secure jobs will find it difficult to qualify for mortgage loans. George Bailey isn’t coming to the rescue. If you are a borrower, you may send your monthly payment to Bailey’s bank, but Bailey is long since out of the picture. Shortly after originating your loan, Bailey sold it to a consolidator, very likely a government-sponsored agency such as Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac that packages individual mortgages into a mortgage-backed security.” (01/14/08)
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41 - We’re mad as hell and the Dems aren’t listening
AlterNet
Jim Hightower
“It is not some vague funk that’s afflicting the public, not some general ennui caused by seven years of Bushdom. Rather, it’s a growing despair — and a rising national embarrassment — brought on by an ongoing series of specific, disheartening collapses by Democrats, who are turning out to be weaker than Canadian hot sauce.” (01/14/08)
http://www.alternet.org/story/72875/
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42 - The sure thing
Reason
Jeff Taylor
“Even though the Democrats go to the polls a week later than the Republicans, who vote next Saturday, the Democratic race is somewhat easier to read. At least for now. John Edwards’s return to his storied home of Seneca will not be a happy one. Edwards is almost certain to drop out of the race following a Palmetto state tilt in which he is an afterthought, despite winning the state in the 2004 primary. His ’son-of-a-mill worker’ spiel has fallen flat in state that is either solidly Republican where the mills once were and/or too prosperous for Edwards’ brand of class warfare to find purchase.” (01/14/08)
http://www.reason.com/news/show/124354.html
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43 - Torture is illegal, immoral and ineffective
Capital Times
Bonnie Block
“Torture is not going to keep us safe. In fact, there is a strong likelihood that it will make us less safe, because the practice of torture results in extremism and a desire for revenge. Furthermore, there is absolutely no way of finding every single person plotting a terrorist attack even in a police state — which is exactly what we will become if we try to swoop up anyone who might be a potential terrorist. Fortunately our choice is not between practicing torture and becoming victims of terrorism. Torture is a response of fear and despair. We can choose instead to respond with courage and hope.” (01/12/08)
http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/column/266719
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44 - An old Democratic fault line
The American Prospect
Harold Meyerson
“All 50 states hold elections, but only New Hampshire raises the dead. John McCain and Hillary Clinton, like Bill before her, have now been saved from political extinction by Granite State voters, who have managed in the process to set up a protracted contest for the Democratic presidential nod. (The Republicans were never going to avoid one.) The battle in the Democratic Party features divisions that the world’s oldest political party has never before experienced, just as it has never before seen candidates like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The gender gap, up to now a phenomenon that distinguished one party’s supporters from the other’s, has become a phenomenon that distinguishes one Democrat’s supporters from another’s.” (01/10/08)
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45 - Recession — who cares?
Huffington Post
Barbara Ehrenreich
“The soothsayers have slaughtered the ox and are examining the gloppy entrails for signs: Rising unemployment, a falling dollar, weak consumer spending, the credit crisis, a swooning stock market. Could there be something wrong here? Could we actually be approaching a, god forbid, recession? To which the only sane response is: Who cares? According to a CNN poll, 57 percent of Americans thought we were already in a recession a month ago. Economists may complain that this is only because the public is ignorant of the technical — or at least the newspapers’ standard — definition of a recession, which specifies that there must be at least two consecutive quarters of negative growth in the GDP. But most of the public employs the more colloquial definition of a recession, which is hard times. If hard times have already fallen on a majority of Americans, then ‘recession’ doesn’t seem to be a very useful term anymore.” (01/09/08)
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46 - Anti-war lessons from New Hampshire
The Nation
Tom Hayden
“Thousands of idealists marched door-to-door through the snows and delivered a decisive message that the times were changing. From that moment forward, the establishment and its war policies began disintegrating from within. The year was 1968. The insurgent campaign was on behalf of Senator Eugene McCarthy. I am wondering if anyone in New Hampshire even remembered the McCarthy campaign in the blur that was last week in New Hampshire. Did Senator Hillary Clinton remind voters that she was one of those volunteers who took on President Johnson and his war? Did Senator Barack Obama invoke the memory of that last great youth crusade? Did Senator John Edwards remember that it was principally the Vietnam War, not domestic issues, that aroused those populist passions?” [editor’s note: What’s more significant about this piece is the name it does NOT mention - SAT] (01/09/08)
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080121/hayden2
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47 - Next-Gen donors
Christian Science Monitor
staff
“Charities know that young people volunteer. Over 90 percent of college-bound high school seniors have done community service — partly to be attractive to colleges, but partly out of goodwill. How to turn that goodwill into donations and foster a habit of financial giving? Technology can help. Young people are connected to each other in ways that their parents weren’t. The same bonds are there, but they are facilitated and widened by the Internet and cell- phones. Combine that with awareness of events, such as hurricane Katrina and the Pakistan earthquake in 2005, and the potential for financial support is significant. Politicians discovered the intersection of technology and youth in the last presidential election cycle, and now they turn to it in fundraising. Campaigns attract small donations over the Internet from many people — especially from enthused, Web-savvy 20- and 30-somethings. In the end, that adds up to big bucks. Now nonprofits are starting to catch on.” (01/11/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0111/p08s01-comv.html
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48 - A comeback for competence
Boston Globe
staff
“As the presidential campaign decamps from New Hampshire and the focus moves south and west, new issues will take command of the debate: immigration, a looming recession, probably some iteration of ‘family values.’ And now that everyone has established his or her bona fides as a change agent, different themes will emerge. But one subtext for 2008 was audible Tuesday night in the speeches of candidates from both parties, and that is a rejection of the incompetence and ideological extremism that has defined the Bush era in Washington. John McCain is a proud Republican, and he believes in a limited role for government. But, he added pointedly in his victory speech, ‘What government is expected to do it must do with competence, resolve, and wisdom.’ McCain didn’t mention the words ‘Iraq’ or ‘Katrina.’ He didn’t have to.” (01/10/08)
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49 - Democracy’s Rules: Make voting easier
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
staff
“Justices’ questions suggest the conservative U.S. Supreme Court majority doesn’t feel it should even be bothered with a general challenge to laws demanding voters provide identification at polling places. The attitude of the justices on the court that selected a president in 2000 ought to push Congress and the Washington Legislature to do the right thing on their own. Make it easier rather than harder for people to vote. That starts with Washington repealing the identification requirement lawmakers and Gov. Chris Gregoire approved in the wake of the 2004 counting problems. As a recent Brown University study showed, identification laws suppress turnout among minority, lower-income and less-educated populations.” (01/10/08)
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/346897_votered.html
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50 - Repress-U: How to build a Homeland Security campus
Tom Dispatch
Michael Gould-Wartofsky
“Free speech zones. Taser guns. Hidden cameras. Data mining. A new security curriculum. Private security contractors … Welcome to the new homeland security campus.” (01/10/08)
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/10/6308/
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51 - Is there a doctor in the mouse?
Salon
Rahul K. Parikh, MD
“Arrogant doctors criticize their patients who go online to research ailments. But they’re wrong. The best health sites are a boon to patients and doctors alike.” (01/10/08)
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/01/10/web_doctor/
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52 - Deadly Diyala
Slate
Phillip Carter
“If your media diet for the last two weeks consisted exclusively of watching network news shows and reading the front pages of the major newspapers, you might have missed the fact that America is still at war. Although nearly every poll places Iraq at the top of voters’ minds, and nearly every presidential candidate makes references to Iraq on the campaign trail, the war no longer dominates the daily headlines or the American consciousness. Recent dispatches from Iraq should change that.” (01/09/08)
http://www.slate.com/id/2181788
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53 - License and (voter) registration, please
Mother Jones
Stephanie Mencimer
“[A] Missouri court ruled in 2006 that a state law requiring photo ID to cast a ballot was an unconstitutional infringement on the right to vote akin to a poll tax because the paperwork required to get the ID was not free. But federal courts have also upheld several of these laws, including one in the state of Indiana considered the strictest in the country. That law will get the scrutiny of the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, in what promises to be a bitter partisan legal brawl of the sort the court has been avoiding since it put George W. Bush into office in 2000. It could well be the most significant voting rights case since Bush v. Gore and could have a direct impact on the outcome of the 2008 presidential election. If the court upholds the law, other states will be free to pass similarly strict laws that could potentially shut out millions of voters from exercising their constitutional right to vote.” (01/08/08)
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54 - Pentagon, Big Pharma: Drug troops to numb them
AlterNet
Penny Coleman
“The DoD is flirting with the idea of medicating soldiers to desensitize them to combat trauma — will an army of unfeeling monsters result?” (01/10/08)
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/72956/
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55 - RoboCop in Iraq
In These Times
Allen McDuffee
“Improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, have killed 1,678 U.S. military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan since July 2003, according to Georgia-based Iraq Coalition Casualty Count. The death toll could have been much higher without the help of 5,000 IED-detecting robots that, according to CBS News, have found 10,000 roadside bombs in Afghanistan and Iraq. But the next step in the evolution of wartime robots looks to go from saving lives to taking them. The U.S. Army soon plans to deploy armed robots with firepower into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Designed by Foster-Miller, these robots, known as SWORDS (Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detections Systems), are operated and fired by remote control.” [editor’s note: But is it “RoboCop” … or “Terminator?” - SAT] (01/09/08)
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3463/robocop_in_iraq/
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56 - About New Hampshire …
The American Prospect
Ezra Klein
“What I am about to say is so deeply radical, so fundamentally extreme, that it may be unfit for children, unsafe for work, and unhealthy for pets. Please adjust your environment accordingly. It would appear that 227,000 caucus goers in Iowa do not get to decide the Democratic nomination. The fact that they cast votes for ‘change’ rather than ‘experience,’ for Barack Obama rather than Hillary Clinton, proved prelude rather than prophecy, thus disproving the First Law of Political Physics: Election results equal momentum squared. Last night, Hillary Clinton edged out Barack Obama to win the New Hampshire primary. It was an unexpected victory (this reporter, for one, would like his crow prepared medium-rare, and set atop a bed of wilted spinach). In the week before the election, Obama held an eight percent lead in the polls and seemed to hold a monopoly on momentum. His events were better attended, his crowds louder, his debate performance surer. But he lost.” (01/09/08)
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=about_new_hampshire
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57 - Campaign promises empty until the war ends
AlterNet
Bill Boyarsky
“When Hillary Clinton, seriously set back by the Iowa caucuses, landed in New Hampshire to resuscitate her presidential campaign, the first question from the audience was unsparingly blunt: ‘When will the troops come home?’ She replied, as she has done before, that she hopes to begin bringing them home a brigade or two a month, but will leave enough troops in Iraq to protect themselves, American civilians and Iraqis who have helped the United States. That’s not too much different from what has been proposed by Barack Obama and John Edwards. In other words, no matter who wins, Democrat or Republican, get ready for an extended war, a nagging pain that won’t go away. That simple, infuriating thought has been lost in the deluge of analysis, vote figures, handicapping and moments of drama that accompanied the Iowa caucuses and are carrying over into the New Hampshire’s primary.” (01/09/08)
http://www.alternet.org/election08/73158/
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58 - The “change” campaign
Fox News
Mike Baker
“The biggest argument against democracy is a five minute discussion with the average voter, Winston Churchill … Welcome to the new year. Apparently 2008 is the year of Change. Change and Hope. Change, Hope and New Direction. Change, Hope, New Direction and Fixin’ Up Washington. How? Well shame on you for asking. Isn’t it enough that we’re hearing speech after flowery speech promising these things? Why, I get all misty just thinking about all the change that’s on its way. Confound it man, don’t be asking how these fabulous Agents of Change intend to do it all. Let’s just spend some time feeling good and excited about the bright and shiny changed future.” (01/08/08)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,321168,00.html
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59 - In the Middle East, no time to spare
Christian Science Monitor
George Moffett
“As President Bush commences his twilight foray into Arab-Israeli diplomacy, he is confronted by a singular and regrettable fact: Israel’s long-term survival is not necessarily a given. Threatened by Islamic radicalism, demographic trends, and advances in missile technology, the Jewish state may be living on borrowed time. If he is to help redeem Israel from a tenuous future, Mr. Bush must reiterate one message above all: There will be no peace without a viable Palestinian state. Bush’s nine-day, six-nation tour of the region will be overshadowed by the irony that the outlines of the only realistic solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict have been in place since 1947, the year before Israel was founded. Impelled by the moral imperative of creating a haven for Jews after the Nazi Holocaust, the United Nations proposed that geographical Palestine be divided into Jewish and Arab (Palestinian) states. Sixty years later, a two-state solution remains an indispensable basis for peacemaking.
” (01/09/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0109/p09s01-coop.html
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60 - Let Hillary be Hillary
Boston Globe
Jeff Jacoby
“For eight years, it has been a popular myth that if it hadn’t been for the 22nd Amendment, Bill Clinton wouldn’t have had to leave the White House in January of 2001. ‘If the Constitution had not barred him from running again,’ The New York Times remarked in a Page 1 story three weeks before Clinton’s second term ended, ‘polls suggest he might well be preparing for a third term.’ That myth became the basis of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, and of the widely held conviction that her nomination was an inevitability. And if Hillary was running for Bill’s third term — well, then naturally it made sense to get Bill on the campaign trail, to remind Democrats how much they had loved those first two terms.” (01/09/08)
Until next week ...
Peace, Love and Liberty
Steve Trinward, Editor