01 August 2003


"Hunting for Bambi...."

Apparently, a couple of weeks ago a story broke in Las Vegas about an alleged local business, called “Hunting for Bambi, that sold men the opportunity to hunt nude women with paint-balls. Whether or not the business exists remains to be seen, but violence against women is real. This op-ed on Common Dreams makes the point that the light-hearted media banter about HFB is indicative of the denial and ignorance that perpetuates domestic violence.
...To expose the invisibility of the cultural acceptance of violence against women in an “easier” way, just ask the following question: Would the opening question on the site have been the same if the video had been titled, "Hunting for Muslims?" Or how about, “Hunting for Jews?” or “Hunting for African-Americans?” Or, Hunting for _____________ (insert the name of your favorite minority group). Would it still be depicted as a “big put-on” if named any of these and if it was “only” a video? No outrage? No condemnation? Hardly, there would be collective national and possibly even international outrage if this had been the case. This is not hard to see. Seeing how the same should apply to women, however, reveals the invisibility and unacknowledged cultural acceptance of VAW [violence against women].

[...]

When hearing about someone being abused by a partner, the first question usually asked is, “Well, hell, why doesn’t she just leave?” Well, she doesn't “just leave” for some very good reasons. Reasons, in fact, that reflect her being in her “right mind.” For instance, she will be homeless, she will have no financial resources, her children will have no home, their school will be disrupted, she will be seen as "breaking up the family," she may be threatened with deportation, she might be reported to child protective services, her family of origin will disown her, her church group will shun her, she will be "sinning," etc.

[...]

Actually, the question of “Why doesn’t she just leave?” is the entirely wrong question to ask. The real question is, "Why isn't the abuser held accountable?" Why does everyone expect the victim of the abuse to do something about it? When it comes to other violent crimes, do we expect the victim to do something about it? Imagine someone having just been assaulted in their home during a burglary and the police saying to the victim, "Sorry, Mr. Smith, you have to leave your home now because you have been assaulted and your home has been burglarized." Huh? Or what about a neighbor, after finding out that someone down the street had his car stolen, asking the question, “Good lord, we all know that this is a high crime area, why doesn’t John just move?”
Go read the full story here.

For shame...!
Israel's Parliament has passed a law preventing Palestinians who marry Israelis from living in Israel. The move was denounced by human rights organizations as racist, undemocratic and discriminatory.

Under the new law, rushed through yesterday, Palestinians alone will be excluded from obtaining citizenship or residency. Anyone else who marries an Israeli will be entitled to Israeli citizenship.

Now Israeli Arabs who marry Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza Strip will either have to move to the occupied territories, or live apart from their husband or wife. Their children will be affected too: from the age of 12 they will be denied citizenship or residency and forced to move out of Israel.
Complete story here via Common Dreams.

Liberation...but only if you've got a penis....
NAJAF, Iraq, July 30 — The United States Marine colonel supervising the reconstruction of this Shiite holy city's government indefinitely postponed the swearing in of its first-ever female judge today after her appointment provoked a wave of resentment, including fatwas from senior Islamic clerics and heated protests by the city's lawyers.
Protestors, some of them women, accused Americans of invading Iraq in order to undermine Islam. (Actually, that's more plausible than Bush's claim of WMD.)

According to the NYT, the 45-year-old lawyer who was to be nominated, Nidal Nasser Hussein, has a history of setting precedents. She was the first female lawyer to work in Najaf when she started 16 years ago--now there are 50.
"There were demonstrations against the first elementary schools for women, too, but everything needs a beginning," she said to the colonel. "Don't just talk to the people who are shouting, talk to sensible people."
One female protestor insisted that a woman cannot be a judge because "women are always ruled by their emotions."

So, tell me, who would you prefer sitting in legal judgment over you?

One of these "unemotional" men, observing a religious holiday in the city of Karbala, Iraq, in late April of this year? (Those are self-inflicted scimitar wounds, by the way.) Story here.)



Or, Nidal Nasser Hussein?




Complete story here.

31 July 2003


Poindexter is out....

WASHINGTON, July 31 — The Pentagon official who oversaw the development of a plan for the military to operate a terrorist futures-trading market is resigning under pressure, a senior defense official said today.

John M. Poindexter, a retired rear admiral who was President Ronald Reagan's national security adviser, is stepping down "in the next few weeks," the official said, following disclosure of a proposal that outraged lawmakers and embarrassed senior Pentagon officials. The plan was to create in essence an online betting parlor that would have rewarded investors who forecast terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups.
As if there weren't quite a few other--better--reasons to oust the guy. Or never appoint him in the first place. Like, duh, he's a felon! In 1988, he was convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of Congress and making false statements, all in connection to Iran-Contra. The convictions were reversed on a technicality in 1991.

Of course, our current head-of-state is a military deserter who actually lost the election....

I'm glad Poindexter's out. Now, when are we going to impeach Bush?

Complete story here.

30 July 2003

Divine intervention in Iraq…?   

This Aussie columnist argues convincingly that for Bush and others like him, a belief in divine election has been conflated with the idea that America itself is a God-directed project, placing the rest of the world in grave danger.
...What is lacking in the Pentagon and the White House is not intelligence (or not, at any rate, of the kind we are considering here), but receptivity. Theirs is not a failure of information, but a failure of ideology.

To understand why this failure persists, we must first grasp a reality which has seldom been discussed in print. The US is no longer just a nation. It is now a religion. Its soldiers have entered Iraq to liberate its people not only from their dictator, their oil and their sovereignty, but also from their darkness.

As Bush told his troops on the day he announced victory: "Wherever you go, you carry a message of hope - a message that is ancient and ever new. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, 'To the captives, come out, and to those in darkness, be free."'

So US soldiers are no longer merely terrestrial combatants; they have become missionaries. They are no longer simply killing enemies; they are casting out demons.
Similarly, he says, the presidency is turning into a priesthood.
So those who question Bush's foreign policy are no longer merely critics; they are blasphemers, or "anti-Americans". Those foreign states which seek to change this policy are wasting their time: you can negotiate with politicians; you cannot negotiate with priests. The US has a divine mission, as Bush suggested in January: "to defend ... the hopes of all mankind".
Check it out here. (Thanks, Emily, for the heads-up!)

Why are they so scared...?

WASHINGTON -- President Bush said Wednesday he has government lawyers working on a law that would define marriage as a union between a woman and a man, casting aside calls to legalize gay marriages.

"I believe marriage is between a man and a woman and I believe we ought to codify that one way or the other and we have lawyers looking at the best way to do that," the president said a wide-ranging news conference at the White House Rose Garden.

Bush also urged, however, that America remain a "welcoming country" -- not polarized on the issue of homosexuality.

"I am mindful that we're all sinners and I caution those who may try to take a speck out of the neighbor's eye when they got a log in their own," the president said. "I think it is important for our society to respect each individual, to welcome those with good hearts."

"On the other hand, that does not mean that someone like me needs to compromise on the issue of marriage," he added.
When he says "someone like me," does he mean a callous, vain, holier-than-thou, devious and hypocritical charlatan?

And, for the record, in September, 1996, President Clinton signed the misleadingly-named "Defense of Marriage Act," that requires the federal government to ignore legal marriages between same-sex couples and allows states to do likewise. What Bush is talking about here is an amendment to the Constitution stipulating the same thing.

Complete story here.

California has a budget...!

Capping the lengthiest legislative session in state history, the Assembly on Tuesday approved a $100 billion spending plan and sent it to Gov. Gray Davis.

[...]

While the new plan closes a $38.2 billion shortfall through a combination of borrowing, tax shifts, fees and spending cuts, lawmakers acknowledged it will also leave California with an $8 billion gap between income and spending in the next fiscal year.

"Make no mistake, this is a budget that will, in fact, hurt people," said Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson, D-Culver City, who kept sleep-deprived lawmakers in the building all night, refusing to let them leave without a deal.
Wesson actually "locked down" the chambers to force lawmakers to come to a deal. Any legislator who tried to leave could be arrested by the sergeant at arms!

Complete story here.

"Living the American dream...."

It seems that the conservative Republican from north San Diego county, who single-handedly financed the campaign to put the recall of Governor Gray Davis on the California ballot, has been a bit loose and careless with the facts regarding his youth, military-service record and business career.
...In his short political career, Issa — so far the only declared Republican candidate for governor in the special election this fall — has faced both small and large questions about his record in business and the military and his brushes with the law. Republican and Democratic opponents have accused him of concealing arrests as a youth and embellishing his personal story.

The [L.A.] Times examined Issa's statements and campaign literature over the past 13 years and compared them with military records and other public documents. The review reveals a number of claims contradicted or were unsupported by records and verifiable facts.
Like Bush, not only has Issa frequently embellished his credentials and life-story, but when confronted with the facts, he follows the time-tested strategy that the best defense is a strong offense:
Issa now attributes some of these discrepancies to misunderstandings or omissions from his Army records. He blames Gov. Gray Davis for the questions about his resume, some of which were first raised by fellow Republicans in his 1998 run for the U.S. Senate.[Emphasis mine.]

"Gray's job is to get you to ask 30-year-old questions," he angrily told a Times reporter Saturday at a Sacramento rally, where he accused Davis of "felony behavior."

"If you want to be a shill for Gray Davis' opposition questions, go ahead. We've moved on."
Even Issa’s whiny petulance is reminiscent of Bush.

Well, lying has worked incredibly well so far for the president, so why shouldn’t Issa go for it?

Check out the real story behind the guy whose efforts to wrest office from a duly-elected governor is going to force Californian taxpayers to foot a $30 to $60 million bill for a recall election here.

29 July 2003


Why not...?

It's like this in Canada and most of western Europe. Why not here?
...So-called healthy competition can only be possible in an environment where healthcare workers have strong unions and patients have strong consumer advocates fighting for their interests. Unions and advocacy groups are crucial to the American way of life. But currently, the situation in healthcare is different. HMOs all look the same, they all offer similar inefficient, ineffective, insincere products at a premium cost to the patients. To be sure, they are constantly decreasing what they pay to providers, but the savings goes into their own pockets, not back into the system. The term for this uniformly poor product is not competition but collusion. Expanding this private system to include the elderly and the infirm would be to expand the problem, not its solution.

The solution is to centralize healthcare under governmental control, where there is at least a basic health insurance available for all. The government bureaucracy may have many inefficiencies, but it nonetheless better serves the public than a corporation motivated strictly by profit. Patients are a large constituency and can, and should, influence re-election if the system is not going well.

Second: Prescription drugs should be covered for all elderly, but the first question that must be addressed is, At what cost? Many of these drugs are overpriced duplicates of one another. The government should not be asked to swallow these prices but should use the entire group of elderly as a cohort to force lower, more reasonable prices. This is the current system throughout much of Western Europe, and one of the main reasons drug prices are so much lower there.
I know this has been said before, but Dr. Marc Siegel, at The Nation, said it so passionately and articulately that I got all inspired again!

Complete column here.

Why don't they just become Republicans...?
PHILADELPHIA, July 28 — The moderate Democratic group that helped elect Bill Clinton to the White House in 1992 warned today that Democrats were headed for defeat if they presented themselves as an angry "far left" party fighting tax cuts and opposing the war in Iraq.

The warning, by the Democratic Leadership Council, an organization of moderate [sic] Democrats that helped move the party to the center 10 years ago, was largely a response to the popularity enjoyed in early presidential primary states by Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont.

Dr. Dean has attracted wide notice for his criticism of the Democratic Party for supporting the Iraq war and some of President Bush's tax cuts. [emphasis mine]
This story lays bare the true heart of the modern Democratic Party. Mark J. Penn, a Democratic pollster who worked for Mr. Clinton and now advises Senator Lieberman, is quoted, "We're at a postwar historic low of Democratic Party membership." The conclusion he and other DNC loyalists draw, however, is that the Democratic Party must move even further right.

Why don't they get it?! In historic numbers, voters are opting out precisely because the Democrats' Republican-Lite fare repels them. If they're as conservative as the DLC, they can vote Republican, for crissakes! Whereas, we leftists can only turn to underdogs, like Kucinich.

As for Dean, he doesn’t deserve the moniker of “liberal.” He’s pro-gun, pro-death-penalty and fiscally conservative. Twenty years ago, his stands would have made him a Republican!

Complete story here.

Bush fights former P.O.W.'s over Iraqi money....
When 21 freed American P.O.W.'s returned home from the Persian Gulf war in March 1991, Dick Cheney, then secretary of defense, welcomed them at Andrews Air Force Base, Md.

"Every man and woman who cares for freedom," Mr. Cheney said, "owes you a very special measure of gratitude."

Of those 21 former prisoners of war, 17, who had been tortured by their Iraqi captors, would like something more tangible. This month they won a court award of almost $1 billion against Iraq, and a federal law says they may be paid from frozen Iraqi funds.

The Bush administration has expressed sympathy for the plaintiffs over what they endured but is fighting them about the money, saying it is urgently needed to rebuild Iraq.
The government is citing "foreign policy interests in ensuring a safe and successful transition in Iraq," as justification for trying to stiff the P.O.W.'s out of their money.

Whenever the Bush administration starts saying how grateful they are, grab hold of your wallets!

Complete story here.

Stranger than fiction....
WASHINGTON, July 29 - The Pentagon office that proposed spying electronically on Americans to monitor potential terrorists has quickly abandoned an idea in which anonymous speculators would have bet on forecasting terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups in an online futures market.

[...]

Under the discarded plan, traders bullish on a biological attack on Israel, say, or bearish on the chances of a North Korean missile strike would have had the opportunity to bet on the likelihood of such events on a new Internet site established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

The Pentagon called its latest idea a new way of predicting events and part of its search for the ``broadest possible set of new ways to prevent terrorist attacks.'' But two Democratic senators who disclosed the plan on Monday called it morally repugnant and grotesque. The senators said the program fell under the control of Adm. John M. Poindexter, President Ronald Reagan's national security adviser.

One of the two senators, Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota, said the idea seemed so preposterous that he had trouble persuading people it was not a hoax. ``Can you imagine,'' Mr. Dorgan asked, ``if another country set up a betting parlor so that people could go in - and is sponsored by the government itself - people could go in and bet on the assassination of an American political figure?''

After Mr. Dorgan and his fellow critic, Ron Wyden of Oregon, spoke out, the Pentagon sought to play down the importance of a program for which the Bush administration has sought $8 million through 2005. The White House also altered the Web site so that the potential events to be considered by the market that were visible earlier in the day at www.policyanalysismarket.org could no longer be seen.
Oddly enough, the principle behind this actually works. Markets have been amazingly successful at predicting seemingly random events, because they are effective tools at collecting dispersed and even hidden information on a grand scale.

That said, betting on the potential assassination of a foreign leader or the likelihood of a deadly hijacking is, to say the least, ethically questionable and morally offensive. I don't know how the White House or the Pentagon could have thought this program, euphemistically called the "Policy Analysis Market," and intended to start registering traders on Friday--would fly politically. Especially with John Poindexter, of Iran-Contra infamy, in charge!

Complete story here.

28 July 2003


And this is not...!

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- The Vatican hopes to rally public opposition to gay marriages in a worldwide campaign spurred by its alarm over growing legal acceptance of same-sex unions in Europe and North America.

Pope John Paul II has been speaking out for months against legislative proposals to legalize same-sex marriages. But instructions to be released this week go a step further by outlining a course of action for politicians and other lay people to oppose extending the rights accorded to traditional couples, Vatican officials told The Associated Press.
This makes me so angry! Any group purporting to be in favor of "family values," should welcome gay marriage as it increases the potential for more stable families.

Moreover, if the Catholic hierarchy devoted even a fraction of the hypocritical attention they waste opposing gay rights to protecting children from sexually-predatory priests, the world would be a safer and happier place for all.

The article states that the Vatican is concerned about "the waning influence of the church in Europe." If so, the Pope and his hidebound clerics should remove their collective heads from the sands of medieval denial and join the 21st Century!

Complete story here.

This is so cool...!

After 70 years of helping brides walk down the aisle, Condé Nast's Bride's magazine has crossed a threshold of its own. Its September-October issue, on newsstands now, contains a full-page article on same-sex weddings. This is the first time that any of the five top-selling bridal magazines has published such a feature.
Okay, I know it's profit-driven, but still!

Complete story here.

Saudi cakewalk….

Think this has anything to do with the U.S. Congressional report on the intelligence failures related to 9/11, critical of the Saudis, released here last week?
JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia -- Six suspected militants were killed Monday in a firefight with Saudi police, who raided a farm where they were hiding out. Two police also were killed.

The shootout, which came amid an anti-terror crackdown in the kingdom, took place in al-Qassim, 220 miles north of the capital, Riyadh, state-run TV quoted a Ministry of Interior statement as saying.
The article later suggests as much. (Check out the quote from the defense minister! Isn't he as much as saying that the Saudis have gotten a free pass from the Bush family?)
A U.S. Congress report on Sept. 11 released last week accused Saudi Arabia of not doing enough to counter terrorism.

The unclassified version of the report also said that one suspected organizer still at large paid many of the expenses of two Sept. 11 hijackers and "had access to seemingly unlimited funding from Saudi Arabia." It did not say if Saudi government funds were involved.

Saudi officials have rejected those conclusions.

"We are confident about ourselves and it is just a matter of mere talk," Defense Minister Prince Sultan was quoted by the official Saudi Press Agency as saying Sunday night. "The American administration under the leadership of Bush has declared officially that the kingdom is not a party in these issues."
Complete story here.

27 July 2003


Time to bring up 9/11....

Bush’s slipping popularity, the MIA WMDs in Iraq, and the rising numbers of Americans coming home in body-bags seems to be spooking Bush and his minions. So, in true NeoCon fashion, they’re stoking the fires of fear.
WASHINGTON, July 27 — Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, defending the Bush administration's justification of the Iraq war, said today that intelligence on terrorism is by its nature "murky," and that the United States may have little choice in the future but to "act on the basis of murky intelligence" if terror attacks are to be prevented.

Mr. Wolfowitz appeared on three television programs today, carrying a message about the progress [???]he had witnessed on a recent tour of Iraq. But he was pressed on each to defend the intelligence that portrayed Iraq as holding banned weapons that posed an imminent threat — weapons that have yet to be found.

"I think the lesson of 9/11 is that if you're not prepared to act on the basis of murky intelligence, then you're going to have to act after the fact, and after the fact now means after horrendous things have happened to this country," Mr. Wolfowitz said on "Fox News Sunday," referring to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States.
One implication of Wolfowitz's statement is that Americans are safer from terrorist attacks now than we were before the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan: an assertion I strongly challenge.

Also, when will Americans balk at the hypocritical and cynical use of the innocent deaths on 9/11 to advance a political agenda on the books of the Project for the New American Century long before the 9/11 attacks?

We are currently squandering $5 billion a month of taxpayers money on military costs alone in Iraq and Afghanistan. That sum doesn’t begin to tally the costs of infrastructure repair—money also flowing from taxpayers’ wallets into the pockets of the business associates of George Bush Sr. and Jr., Dick Cheney and assorted other administration officials and hangers-on.

In the same NY Times article, Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is said to have called on the administration for a budget plan for security, aid and reconstruction costs that would cover four years. Do the math: that’s $240 billion dollars, over the next four years for the military costs alone. Consider what that will do to our domestic budget.

Of course, we may pull out of Afghanistan, which could save $1 billion/year. Then again, we may invade Iran, Syria, North Korea or the Philippines. With the fanatics currently in control of the White House, who knows? Especially if it looks like Bush might lose the 2004 election.

Complete story here.