The very idea...!

According to the current issue of Harper's, damali ayo, a conceptual artist in Portland, Oregon, put up a website (Rent-a-Negro.com) and has received approximately 500 requests for her services.

The excerpted responses are absolutely astonishing. (Go buy Harper's!) Although, were I African-American, I expect I wouldn't be surprised. I'd probably be inured to the insensitivity, ignorance and downright bigotry of white people.

As a white person, however, I am shocked that society has evolved so little since the Civil Rights Movement. The very idea that someone would, in all seriousness, fill out an online form to "rent a Negro," for a social function!

(Brilliant art project, though!)

Why I don't like Dean....

WASHINGTON - He's known as the anti-war candidate whose appeal is to the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, and some Republicans say if Howard Dean gets the nomination, President Bush will be a sure bet to win a second term.

Not so fast, say some moderate congressional Democrats who would be affected if Dean is at the top of the ticket. He also supports gun rights, the death penalty and a balanced budget.

"Balanced budget," read, "fiscal conservative." Remember, Dean is the guy who implemented "welfare reform" as governor of the state of Vermont.

From what I can ascertain, Dean leans "left" only when it comes to his opposition to the war in Iraq. I'm glad he opposed the war, but I want more. Like universal healthcare, demilitarization of the economy, an infusion of funding into infrastructure, education and other social programs, a commitment to environmental protection, reintegration into the global community (World Court, Kyoto Protocol, etc.), a repeal of the Patriot Act, and much more!

How far Democrats have fallen when the front-running, so-called "left" Democratic candidate is pro-gun and supports the death penalty.

Complete story here.

Actions speak louder than words....

A congressional committee has cut the White House's request for more aid to poor countries next year by $500m (£305m) and reduced contributions to the World Bank to help pay for the remainder.

The decision comes as President George W. Bush, travelling in Africa, continues to stress the US administration's commitment to the developing world.

The House of Representatives' foreign operations appropriations subcommittee allocated $800m next year for the millennium challenge account, the US's flagship aid programme, compared with Mr Bush's request for $1.3bn.

It was more generous on HIV/Aids spending abroad, recommending marginally above the White House's request for $2bn. But it redirected money away from the US government programmes favoured by the administration and towards the Geneva-based Global Aids fund. [which, considering the White House's ideological bent, might be a good thing!]

The final decision on spending rests with the full appropriations committee, which meets next week, and negotiations between the House and Senate.

Jim Kolbe, Republican chairman of the committee, said the total spent on aid next year would be much higher than for this year. But Tom Hart of Data, an aid campaign, said the administration and Congress must share responsibility for breaking their promises.

There seems to be a lot of finger-pointing as to who's to blame, Congress or the White House, for the disparity. My guess is, they all are.

Complete story here.

They should be tried for war crimes....

When your libraries close their doors, you can't negotiate your neighborhood's potholed streets without 4-wheel drive, your kids' schools become nothing more than institutionalized babysitting centers with metal-detectors, you get laid off and find "unemployment insurance" won't pay even a week's rent and you rush to the emergency room with spiking fevers and the worst runs ever after eating a MacD's burger only to find--what emergency room?!--it closed months ago due to bankruptcy, you can thank G.W. Bush, et al., with his tax-cuts to the wealthy and immoral, insane and criminal warmongering.

WASHINGTON, July 9 - Gen. Tommy R. Franks said today that violence and uncertainty in Iraq made it unlikely that troop levels would be reduced "for the foreseeable future," and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld nearly doubled the estimated military costs there to $3.9 billion a month. [emphasis mine]

[...]

Under intense questioning from Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, Mr. Rumsfeld or his aides telephoned Pentagon financial officers during a break and reported back to the committee that cost estimates for the Iraq campaign had reached $3.9 billion per month, on average from this past January through September.

A Pentagon official said the $3.9 billion figure "is the estimated cost to maintain the current force level in Iraq," which includes expenses for military operations, including fuel, transportation, food, ordnance and personnel, but not reconstruction costs. The $3.9 billion figure is almost double the $2 billion per month estimate issued by administration officials in April. In addition, the cost of operations in Afghanistan are now $900 million to $950 million monthly, Mr. Rumsfeld said. [emphasis mine]

Those $$$billions are coming from your pocket and mine, and every dollar of them is money that would be better spent here at home, refurbishing our infrastructure, improving our schools, financing healthcare, manufacturing tangible goods and generally improving on taxpayers' lives.

Not only that, but two more American soldiers were killed by hostile fire in Iraq yesterday, bringing the post May 1 (when Bush triumphantly declared the worst of the fighting over) "coalition" death-toll to 37 (83 if you include non-combat deaths).

Stories here and here.

Former CIA deputy director weighs in....

As David Corn of The Nation rightly points out, Richard Kerr, former deputy director of the CIA, is anything but a friend of Bush's "leftist" critics. Yet even he

...found that the intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction had been somewhat ambiguous, that analysts at the CIA and other intelligence services had received pressure from the Bush administration, and that the CIA had not found any proof of operational ties between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime.

In other words, Bush lied.

Bush had said that intelligence gathered by the United States and other nations had determined--"no doubt"--that Hussein possessed WMDs, and he had declared that the Iraqi dictator was "dealing" with al Qaeda. Kerr's statements undermined these vital assertions Bush had made to justify the war.

Go here for the complete story.

They can't be serious...!

Please tell me the American people aren't going to accept this! I say put Rummy and his ilk on the hot-seat!

WASHINGTON (AP) - Defending the war against Iraq, the Bush administration said Wednesday that information on Saddam Hussein's alleged illicit weapons programs was solid even though one of President Bush's claims was based on a forgery.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the administration decided to use force in Iraq because intelligence about the threat of Saddam's rule was seen in a different perspective after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

"The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq's pursuit of weapons of mass murder," Rumsfeld said while testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee. "We acted because we saw the existing evidence in a new light through the prism of our experience on Sept. 11."

[...]

"I think the intelligence has been quite good, and I don't think the fact that there's an instance where something was inaccurate ought to in any way paint a broad brush on the intelligence that we get and suggest that that's a pattern or something. It's not," Rumsfeld said.

Complete story here.

RESUME: GEORGE W. BUSH....

This has been circulating the net, and while it contains nothing new, seeing Bush's record in one, concise format is quite disturbing. (Thanks, Tamar, for the heads-up!)

RESUME: GEORGE W. BUSH
The White House

PAST WORK EXPERIENCE:

I ran for congress and lost. I produced a Hollywood slasher B movie. I bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas; company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock. I bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money. Biggest move: Traded Sammy Sosa to the Chicago White Sox. With my father's help (and his name) was elected Governor of Texas.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

I changed pollution laws for power and oil companies and made Texas the most polluted state in the Union. I replaced Los Angeles with Houston as the most smog ridden city in America. I cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas government to the tune of billions in borrowed money. I set record for most executions by any Governor in American history. I became president after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes, with the help of my father’s appointments to the Supreme Court.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT:

I attacked two countries. I spent the surplus and bankrupted the treasury. I shattered record for biggest annual deficit in history. I set economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12 month period.

I set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.

I am the first president in decades to execute a federal prisoner. I am the first president in US history to enter office with a criminal record.

In the first year in office I set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history. After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, I presided over the worst security failure in US history.

I set the record for most campaign fundraising trips than any other president in US history.

In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their jobs. I cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in US history.

I signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any president in US history. I presided over the biggest energy crises in US history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed. I presided over the highest gasoline prices in US history and refused to use the national reserves as past presidents have.

I cut healthcare benefits for war veterans.

I set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.

I dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history. Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in US history. (The 'poorest' multimillionaire, Condoleeza Rice has a Chevron oil tanker named after her).

I am the first president in US history to order a US attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation, and I did so against the will of the United Nations and the world community. I created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.

I set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any president in US history. I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the human rights commission. I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the elections monitoring board.

I removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in US history. I rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant. I withdrew from the World Court of Law. I refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.

I am the first president in US history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 US elections).

I am the all-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations. My biggest lifetime campaign contributor, who is also one of my best friends, presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).

I, with a policy of "disengagement," created the most hostile Israeli-Palestine relations in at least 30 years. I am the first US president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability. (NB. I believe that understates the situation here -Stanley)

I am the first US president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the US than their immediate neighbor, North Korea.

I failed to fulfill my pledge to get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive." I failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the United States Capitol building. After 18 months I have no leads and zero suspects. In the 18 months following the 911 attacks I have successfully prevented any public investigation into the biggest security failure in the history of the United States.

I removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in US history. In a little over two years I created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided the US has ever been since the civil war.

I entered office with the strongest economy in US history and in less than two years turned every single economic category heading straight down.

RECORDS AND REFERENCES:

I have at least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available). I was AWOL from National Guard and deserted the military during a time of war. I refuse to take drug test or even answer any questions about drug use. All records of my tenure as governor of Texas have been spirited away to my father’s library, sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view. All records of any SEC investigations into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view. All minutes of meetings for any public corporation I served on the board are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view. Any records or minutes from meetings I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review. For personal references please speak to my daddy or uncle James Baker (They can be reached at their offices of the Carlyle Group for war-profiteering)

Just desserts....

Some good news for a change:

NEW YORK, July 7 — The cable television station MSNBC Monday fired Michael Savage for anti-gay comments. The popular radio talk show host who did a weekend TV show for the cable channel referred to an unidentified caller to his show Saturday as a “sodomite” and said he should “get AIDS and die.”

I never cease to be amazed at the dirt that spews from the mouths of shockjocks like Savage, Limbaugh, Schlessinger, et al. I'm glad MSNBC did the right thing in this case. Although, with Savage's blatant homophobic, misogynist record, they should have known better than to hire him in the first place.

I got the news from a Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting email. Confirmed it here.

And they are....

According to this Reuters article, the American death toll in Iraq has risen to 29 since President Bush declared an end to major hostilities on May 1.

BAGHDAD - Two U.S. soldiers in Iraq were killed and four were wounded in a spate of guerrilla attacks in which at least two Iraqis also died, the U.S. military and witnesses said Monday.

The latest violence, in Baghdad and a town to the west of the capital, was the latest indication that U.S. occupation forces were facing guerrilla warfare in Sunni Muslim central Iraq, once the cradle of support for Saddam Hussein.

A U.S. military spokesman said one soldier was killed while a patrol was pursuing Iraqi gunmen in the Azamiyah district of Baghdad late on Sunday. An Iraqi gunman was killed and another wounded in the clash.

The second U.S. soldier was killed early Monday when a rocket-propelled grenade hit his vehicle in the district of Kadhimiya.

Complete story here via Common Dreams.

Are we any safer...?

And here's how well our fight "against world terrorism" is faring:

06 July 2003

Terror returned to Moscow yesterday as two women suicide bombers blew themselves up near the entrance to a packed open-air rock concert, killing at least 16 people and wounding more than 20.

[...]

When challenged, the woman detonated an explosive belt hidden under her dress. The first blast, equal to half a kilo of TNT, killed more than a dozen bystanders, many of them queuing to enter the festival. Blood and body parts were strewn around the area after the blast, so powerful it wrecked a ticket kiosk and shredded the clothing of people as far as 30 metres away. Then, 10 minutes later a second woman blew herself up near an exit gate.

This carnage is the direct result of the arrogance and bluster of megalomaniac world leaders, Bush among them. It utterly sickens me. When will we common folk wisen up, quit following orders, incarcerate the arms-dealers, destroy the weapons, disband the armies and start solving real problems like world hunger, clean water, AIDS and other deadly diseases?

Yes, I'm a dreamer.

Complete story here.

You can bet they will...!

When I first got wind of this, I thought it must be an exaggeration. I mean, even President Bush wouldn't be this tactless and stupid.

Oh, but I was wrong. When it comes to insensitivity and pure idiocy, the so-called "leader of the free-world" remains Numero-Uno.

From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:

TONY JONES: A defiant president George W Bush has vowed to deal with fighters launching attacks on US troops in Iraq, urging Iraqi militants to "bring it on".

Despite the tough talk, he's refused to commit additional troops to the country, although Poland and the Ukraine will be sending more soldiers.

The President's comments came as US forces were ambushed yet again in Iraq.

Today, at least two Iraqis were killed and ten American soldiers wounded in three separate attacks.

According to NPR this morning, we currently have 200,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq, most of them army troops. Our "coalition" members, on the other hand, have contributed a whopping total of 12,000 troops! Most of them British.

Considering how eager Bush was to fight in Vietnam, he sure plays fast and loose with American lives.

Complete Bush story here.

Feeling their oats....

How magnanimous of the Right to parody itself so.

Must see to believe: here.

(Thanks, Chad, for the link!)

Our fearless leader...?

Check out this 5-minute, real-time video at The Memory Hole of President Bush on 9/11 reacting to the news that the second WTC tower has been hit.

Well, actually, the video is quite boring because our nominal "commander-in-chief" does NOTHING but sit there and look like a total dumbass for more than 5 minutes after learning America is under attack.

As Tom Tomorrow aptly points out, at This Modern World, remember where you were when you found out, how you instantly wanted to do something --anything!-- to help those trapped workers who were jumping 100 stories to their deaths to avoid being burned alive.

The average person couldn't do anything but look on in shock and horror. The president of the United States, on the other hand, could have done a lot. At the very least, he could have looked like he was concerned and in command.

Instead, Bush sat there reading to elementary school students in Florida, unwilling to interrupt his pre-arranged photo-op for something as insignificant as 3,000 people suffering horrible deaths and at least two other jetliners hijacked and gone missing.

Bush and his team have been working like crazy to suppress a full accounting of his actions and whereabouts on 9/11. This footage is twice as long as the previous, truncated video that has been given wide coverage.

Here.

When the EPA says "eat shit," they really mean it....

The farmers outside Augusta, Ga., say the hay had a musty chemical odor and was dark and mottled. But they fed it to the cows. Then the cows started to waste away, growing so thin that their ribs could be counted through their skin, the dairy farmers say. The cows died by the hundreds.

"We just couldn't save them," said Andy McElmurray, whose family has been farming here since 1946. "They wouldn't respond to antibodies. They wouldn't respond to IV fluids. They wouldn't respond to anything. They just ended up dying."

Because they ate hay tainted by sewer sludge, say the farmers.

This NY Times story from Thursday details how the EPA has been pushing the sludge, euphemistically called "biosolids," as fertilizer. Some organic farmers are actually said to prefer it.

And we can't blame Bush totally for this: the practice started in 1992, under Clinton's watch, after Congress (rightfully) banned dumping sewage into the oceans.

In May, the EPA fired award-winning scientist, David Lewis, a 32-year veteran with the agency, after he published an article in the journal Nature raising questions about the policy.

And we call ourselves an "advanced civilization?"

I know! There are proven ways to safely transform human waste into fertilizer. But do you trust the EPA or a for-profit corporation to do it right?

No tears here....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, a one-time Democratic segregationist who helped fuel the rise of the modern conservative Republican Party in the South, died Thursday...

After more than 48 years in office, promoting a rabidly homophobic, sexist, and racist agenda.

The segregationist old guard is passing: Lester Maddox, who violated the nascent Civil Rights Act in 1964 by refusing to serve 3 black students in his Atlanta restaurant and later went on the serve one term as Georgia governor, died on Wednesday.

I wish I could say there wasn't an entire new generation of more subtle, but equally diehard racists, to take their places.

NY Times obits here and here.

Who says America has no aristocracy...?

The 400 wealthiest taxpayers accounted for more than 1 percent of all the income in the United States in the year 2000, more than double their share just eight years earlier, according to new data from the Internal Revenue Service. But their tax burden plummeted over the period.

The data, in a report that the I.R.S. released last night, shows that the average income of the 400 wealthiest taxpayers was almost $174 million in 2000.

$174 million! Have you ever tried to think what you'd do with just $1 million? I did once, and came to realize I could probably quit working, send my kid to college and still live on the interest alone, if I invested wisely. Of course, I have more modest tastes than the average jet-setter.

To put all this into dollars and cents, the NY Times articles goes on:

The rate actually paid by the top 400 in 2000 [with average income of $174 million] was about the same as that paid by a single person making $123,000 or a married couple with two children earning $226,000, according to Citizens for Tax Justice, a labor-backed group whose calculations are respected by a broad spectrum of tax experts.

The group favors higher taxes on the wealthy, and its director, Robert S. McIntyre, said yesterday that the I.R.S. data bolsters that viewpoint. "Regardless of which party these 400 are in, these are the guys Bush wants to help, even though they have so much money they don't know what to do with it," he said. "How Bush feels about the half of the population that doesn't have much money is he got them a tax cut worth an average of $19 each."

And the trickle-downers continue to whine the rich pay too much in taxes, and that's why the economy is stalling.

Complete story here.

It's about time...!

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court struck down a ban on gay sex Thursday, ruling that the law was an unconstitutional violation of privacy.

The 6-3 ruling reverses course from a ruling 17 years ago that states could punish homosexuals for what such laws historically called deviant sex.

Complete story here.

Destined to fail...

President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's misaptly-named "peace plan" for the Middle East couldn't have been more poorly designed if its stated goal was to fail miserably.

Just the pre-condition alone that the besieged and beleaguered Palestinian security forces disarm the "militants" before negotiations proceed would be laughable, if it weren't so utterly tragic.

Israel has turned the Palestinian territories into wastelands, where the IDF roams at will, strikes at whim and murders whomever it wishes. The Palestinian security forces are little more than lightly-armed observers in a hugely mismatched confrontation between civilians and Israeli soldiers. Israel's military superiority is so absolute: imagine U.S. soldiers asking besieged Iraqi police to disarm and subdue their anti-American, extremist cousins as a condition to sitting down for peace talks.

Imperfect as it was, the latest "ceasefire" has just been literally shot down by an Israeli airstrike on a civilian automobile, said to be carrying Hamas militants.

...A man and a woman, both bystanders, were killed and 15 were injured, including the intended target, a member of the military wing of Hamas.

In another disturbing, related development, 5 Israeli Arabs have been charged with funneling an estimated $10 million to Hamas.

For Americans, a little sketchy on the relevance of this latter bit of news, the accused Arabs are Israeli citizens, residing in Israel; not Palestinians, condemned to stateless misery with little or no hope of escape. It's a little like "privileged" slaves living on the plantation financing the Union invasion of the South.

Ok, the analogy breaks down in many ways. Still, how far does this largely American-financed debacle have to go before it is finally termed a "civil war?"

More importantly, how far until American taxpayers say, in large enough numbers, "Not in my name!"?

Complete story here.

EPA doctors climate report....

Do Bush and his oil buddies really believe they can prop up the sky merely by saying it isn't falling? Or do they plan to flee with their children and grandchildren to eco-domes situated on high-ground when the oceans rise, the hurricanes rage, the high temperatures roast people and the crops fail? Their greed and short-sightedness astound me.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House directed a major rewrite of an assessment of climate change, removing references to health and environmental risks posed by rising global temperatures, according to internal draft documents made public Thursday.

Several Senate Democrats, including some running for president, accused the White House of ``doctoring'' the Environmental Protection Agency report to suit President Bush's skeptical views on global warming.

The report on the state of the environment has been an agency priority. It is to be released next week before the agency chief Christie Whitman departs on June 27.

According to EPA officials and internal documents obtained Thursday, most of the original section on climate change was scrapped after the White House directed significant changes and deletions that emphasized the uncertainties surrounding the climate change debate.

The changes demanded by the White House were so extensive that the climate section ``no longer accurately represents scientific consensus on climate change,'' according to an April 29 EPA staff memo....

Complete story here.

Truth in war....

I doubt this angle will be widely reported in US papers.

American troops today admitted they routinely gun down Iraqi civilians - some of whom are entirely innocent.

As distrust of the invading forces increases amongst the local population US soldiers said they have killed civilians without hesitation, shot injured opponents and abandoned them to die in agony.

The testimonies of the troops on the ground further expose George Bush's claims about the role his forces are playing in the failing reconstruction of Iraq.

I'm not at all surprised, although it saddens me greatly.

When the N.Y. Times reported in late March on civilian murders by callous US Marine snipers (here), it caused nary a ripple of noticiable consternation.

Story here. Make sure you read it all the way to the end, where it mentions the soldier's conviction that Iraqis perpetrated 9/11.

Thanks to This Modern World