Powell knew he was lying to the U.N.

“Straw, Powell had serious doubts over their Iraqi weapons claims

Jack Straw and his US counterpart, Colin Powell, privately expressed serious doubts about the quality of intelligence on Iraq’s banned weapons programme at the very time they were publicly trumpeting it to get UN support for a war on Iraq, the Guardian has learned.”

So much for any lingering thoughts about Colin Powell being an honorable man.

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Sojourners

Christians for Justice and Peace

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Touchscreen voting

The Holy Grail for the Green Party (and other third parties) is to get Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) and Proportional Representation (PR) implemented in this county. Doing so would insure that third parties get their fair share of representation.

Proportional representation is a system where, if you get 12% of the vote, you get 12% of the seats. Here in the U.S., of course, 12% of the votes means you get no seats, which makes us an aberration compared to the rest of the democracies of the world.

IRV is a voting system that eliminates the need for runoff elections and also eliminates the spoiler effect.. Sounds great, doesn’t it! And many countries already have it. Here in the U.S., Vermont now uses it for town hall meetings and San Francisco recently voted to start using it in local elections. Check our newly updated IRV page for complete details, and an example, explaining how IRV works.

For IRV and PR to work here, we need touchscreen voting - the new voting machines that allow voting by touching a screen and which also eliminate the paper ballet - as they can tabulate faster, especially for IRV ballots..

Ah, but that’s when the trouble starts. Eliminate the paper ballot? Then where’s the audit trail? What happens if the touchscreen system fails, or there’s a power outage, or the computer code is tampered with? These are some of the questions posed by quite serious, reputable computer security professionals. Many now call for a paper ballot as well, as that is the only way to have an audit trail. And, oh yes, touchscreen systems have failed and have sometimes miscounted votes, so these questions are hardly just theoretical.

There’s a major Black Helicopter element here too. The companies that make voting machines are quite secretive. They refuse to allow outside people to audit the source code to determine if the computer program is doing what it should be doing, and not, oh, ignoring votes from Democrats. Did I mention that one major voting machine company is (or was) partly owned by a Republican Senator? Do you hear the whoop-whoop-whooop of helicopter blades now?

You can read more about all of this on our Voting machine page.

Greg Palast and Martin Luther King III just endorsed a petition that, in effect, says let’s go slowly here and make sure that touchscreen is completely reliable, and while we’re at it, no more Florida vote-theft debacles too. Their lack of enthusiam for touchscreen has severely honked off the pro-touchscreen/IRV/PR people.

The Democratic establishment is, naturally, opposed to IRV, PR, and to anything that might give third parties their fair share. Expect them to do their best to make sure the closely watched upcoming San Francisco IRV vote fails.

And here you probably thought the whole subject was deadly dull and boring…

I strongly favor IRV, PR, and touchscreen. However we need to insure that touchscreen voting systems can not be compromised. At all. Ever.

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“Because it’s there”

Sir Edmund Hillary, on this the 50th anniversary of his ascent of Everest, is rightfully being honored worldwide, most especially in Nepal, where Everest is.

Through the years he has continually and steadily stated that ascents of Everest would not be possible without Sherpas, who weigh about 130-140 pounds and trek up Everest with 75-100 pound packs in dangerous conditions, providing crucial logistical support and expertise. I’ve done 60 pound backpacks in the High Sierras, and lemme tell you, it’s exhausting. I can not comprehend how Sherpas do it.

I think it was Hillary who said “You can’t see a Sherpa when they stand next to you. Then they inhale - and block the horizon”.

Hillary has devoted much of his life to helping Sherpas; aiding in bringing hospitals, schools, building bridges, and has done so with little publicity. I’ve always felt he did this simply because they were his friends and he wanted to help.

A while back I heard Jamling Norgay speak. He’s the son of Tensing Norgay, the Sherpa who accompanied Hillary to the top. He showed photos of them the day of the final ascent. Their tents were canvas, the kind that when it rains and you touch the canvas, the tent leaks. They wore huge weighty boots and were each carrying fifty pounds of oxygen. A few hours later, they summitted Everest and the planet cheered.

PS. Another mountaineer (whose name I momentarily forget) says, “You don’t conquer Everest. You sort of sneak up on it, then get the hell down”.

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More on the “tyranny of structurelessness”

From Murray Bookchin, founder of the Institute for Social Ecology

“If anything, functioning on the basis of consensus assures that important decision-making will be either manipulated by a minority or collapse completely. And the decisions that are made will embody the lowest common denominator of views and constitute the least creative level of agreement.

I speak, here, from painful, years-long experience with the use of consensus in the Clamshell Alliance of the 1970s. Just at the moment when this quasi-anarchic antinuclear-power movement was at the peak of its struggle, with thousands of activists, it was destroyed through the manipulation of the consensus process by a minority. The ‘tyranny of structurelessness’ that consensus decision-making produced permitted a well-organized few to control the unwieldy, deinstitutionalized, and largely disorganized many within the movement.”

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Iraq war ‘not over,’ general warns

“The commander of coalition ground forces in Iraq said Thursday that continuing attacks on U.S. forces were being orchestrated by Baath Party groups loyal to ousted President Saddam Hussein.”

But this can’t be! Dubya said a few weeks ago the war was over. So therefore, it must be…

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No bunker where U.S. Bombs targeted Saddam

“The Baghdad bunker which the United States said it bombed on the opening night of the Iraq (news - web sites) war in a bid to kill Saddam Hussein never existed,  CBS Evening News reported Wednesday.”

So why didn’t U.S. media check the facts about this before they initially published it? As I recall, they practically tripped over each other proclaiming how glorious our attack was and how Saddam was surely dead. Now, weeks later, they finally investigate? Pathetic.

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UK Iraq weapons dossier rewritten to make it ’sexier’

“A dossier compiled by the government on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction was rewritten to make it “sexier”, a senior British official has told the BBC.

The intelligence official told the BBC the dossier had been “transformed” a week before it was published on the orders of Downing Street.

He said: “The classic example was the statement that weapons of mass destruction were ready for use within 45 minutes. “That information was not in the original draft.

It was included in the dossier against our wishes because it wasn’t reliable. He said “most people in intelligence” were unhappy about the changes because they “didn’t reflect the considered view they were putting forward”.

I believe that this making a report “sexier” is also known as “lying”.

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The Klingon Language Institute

Learn to speak and write Klingon!

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Massachusetts bishops lead fight against gay marriage

“The four Catholic bishops of Massachusetts are asking every pastor in the state to remind worshipers this weekend that the church opposes same-sex marriage, and to urge lay Catholics to lobby the Legislature for a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as being solely between a man and a woman.”

I’m thinking these bishops should focus on why priests in Massachusetts have been buggering little boys, rather than on this ugly piece of bigotry. But then hypocrisy knows no bounds.

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Kazaa most downloaded program ever

“2.5 million downloads last week.

A free computer program used for file-sharing, Kazaa ,has now been downloaded more than 230 million times, placing it ahead of instant messaging program ICQ in the list of all time downloads. According to a software download site it was downloaded more than 2.5 million times in the last week, while ICQ was downloaded 330,000 times.
File-sharing program is ‘most downloaded ever’ “

However, Kazaa is filled with spyware and other such nasties, so I advise not using it.

“Terms of service have long been a source of controversy, especially when they involve consumer privacy. But the issue was raised to alarming levels this month when consumers using the Kazaa program learned that they had unwittingly agreed to install software that could help turn their computers into nodes for a peer-to-peer network controlled by another company.”

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2004 Presidential race

Some candidates and possible candidates I’m watching.

Greens

Ralph Nader
Has expressed interest in running, and thus is the presumptive front-runner. Whether this is a good idea, I don’t know. He’s already run twice, and some may, fairly or not, consider him damaged goods after the 2000 election.
Draft Nader 2004

Cynthia McKinney 
McKinney was a member of the House from Georgia until her outspoken views on Bush and Israel got her un-elected. I’ve heard conflicting stories about whether she’s interested in running as a Green. A black woman Presidential candidate would certainly grab attention, though she’d unquestionably be viciously attacked by Republicans and the mini-me Democrats.  
Cynthia McKinney 2004

Democrats

Howard Dean
Ex-governor of Vermont. The only Democratic candidate who has seriously attacked Bush. The craven, powerful Democratic Leadership Council is already attacking him, which automatically makes me like him more. His campaign slogan is “Take back our country”!

He’s heads and shoulders above the rest of the front runners, in my opinion.
Official site
Weblog

Dennis Kucinich
A genuine progressive. Reputed to be advised by deeply New Age people, something which, depending on your views, you may find either appalling or fascinating. He’s vegan, wants a Department of Peace. After announcing his candidacy he immediately went pro-Choice after years being pro-Life, a move that left many wondering about him.
Kucinich 2004

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Bush’s poodle facing revolt

Gosh, it appears there are no MWD’s in Iraq. And there probably never were any. I am SO suprised.

The British parliament has an actual spine, and is now confronting Blair about his rush to war - and they are confronting him hard. May Blair fall from power. May some of our Senators grow a spine too - and then confront Bush about his by-now-obvious lies about Iraqi MWD’s.

“Tony Blair’s post-war tour of Iraq today ran into trouble before he had even set foot in the country when Robin Cook served notice that the prime minister faces a growing crisis over the failure to uncover weapons of mass destruction.

Seizing on the “breathtaking” admission by Donald Rumsfeld that Saddam Hussein may have destroyed his weapons, the former foreign secretary issued a blunt warning to the prime minister that he took Britain to war on a false basis.

Saying that they can’t find the weapons, and they may never find the weapons, blows an enormous gaping hole through the case for war that was made on both sides of the Atlantic,” Mr Cook told Channel 4 News last night. “That has to be investigated - a [Commons] select committee is one way of pursuing it.”

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iSwitched.org

“Why we joined the Green Party and how we’re working within it to change the world “

Includes an article by friend and Green compatriot, Kevin McKeown, Mayor Pro Tem of Santa Monica.

This excellent, just-launched site promises to be a fun, useful resource for Greens and for organizing.

Although the posting directly following this criticizes the Green Party for its lack of organization, two things remain important. 1) In the words of a friend who works for an ad agency, “Greens have a great brand”. In other words, everyone knows who we are. 2) As Saul Alinsky said, “Power is not only what you have, it’s what the enemy thinks you have”. Our influence greatly outweighs our numbers.

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Greg Palast and MLK III oppose touchscreen voting

From the Greg Palast listserv

“Petition: stop the Florida-tion of the 2004 election.

Today, there is a new and real threat to voters, this time coming from touchscreen voting machines with no paper trails and the computerized purges of voter rolls.

Join SCLC President Martin Luther King III and investigative reporter Greg Palast in a nationwide petition drive through Working Assets, to oppose the “Florida-tion” of the 2004 Presidential election. Sign this petition! Pass it on!

A complete copy of the petition will be delivered by Working Assets to Attorney General John Ashcroft.”

Full petition and more info

Sign the petition

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Code Pink protest against Clear Channel and FCC

“Join CodePink this Thursday, May 29, for a protest at Clear Channel radio stations everywhere to stop the FCC from deregulating the media on June 2. Join planned protests and phone-in campaigns in Washington DC, San Francisco and Los Angeles or contact your local CodePink for details on protests in your area:”

In L.A. the protest is at noon at KFI AM 640 Radio, 610 S. Ardmore Ave (1 blk northeast of Wilshire & Normandie, east of Western)

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Exxonmobil busted by Greenpeace Global Warming Crimes Unit!

“Global Headquarters Shut Down Day Before Annual Meeting

Business at the international headquarters of the world’s most powerful company ground to a halt this morning as the Greenpeace Global Warming Crimes Unit converged on ExxonMobil’s compound in Irving, Texas. Some members of the Unit are positioned across the entrance while others have entered the building to serve a list of charges against the company. The move comes as ExxonMobil’s Board of Directors and international executives attempt to gather from across the world for tomorrow’s Annual General Meeting”

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Street swarming, text swarming

From Smart Mobs

Geneva Braces for G8 Smartmobbing.

According to textually.org, rumors are flying that Geneva authorities will take anti-smartmob measures when 300,000 demonstrators appear to protest the G8 summit

The city of Geneva is expecting up to 300′000 demonstrators (for a city of 300′000 inhabitants). Rumors are flying, such as the cell phone network being cut off if demonstrators get out of hand, to disrupt their re-grouping and organizing on the fly. According to Christian Neuhaus, a popular spokesperson for Swisscom operator, “Swisscom has no intention of disabling their network. If they did, it would only by police order, but we have heard of no such thing”.

It’s not such a wild idea, as local cellphone networks in Mumbai, the financial center of India, were asked in March of 2002 to disable their SMS service during the day, to help reduce social unrest and avoid the organization of illegal demonstrations, according to Cellular News.

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Pigs fly?

“Occupation” must end, Sharon says

 ”It is not possible to continue holding 3 1/2 million people under occupation,” Sharon told an assembly of enraged lawmakers from his Likud Party. “You may not like the word, but what’s happening is occupation. This is a terrible thing for Israel, for the Palestinians and for the Israeli economy.”

For Sharon to even use the word “occupation” is a huge change, however, I’m listening to Democracy Now as I type this, and Rabbi Michael Lerner just said that the area of the West Bank Sharon is willing to give up is so small that Palestinians almost certainly can not and will not accept the plan.

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FTAA

Hey, let’s  create a “free market” zone throughout the Americas, disembowel environmental rules and even the laws of nations, AND do the whole thing in secret!

Well, that’s what they’re trying to do…

FTAA FAQ

“The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is the expansion of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to every country in Central America, South America and the Caribbean, except Cuba.

The FTAA relies on NAFTA rules for guidance in the negotiations. The proposed agreement is essentially NAFTA on steroids. But NAFTA has proven a nightmare for working families and the environment.”

What’s wrong with the FTAA?

“The FTAA allows corporations to bypass democratically adopted environmental or worker protection laws, increasing corporate power while endangering the lives of millions of people, disproportionately affecting women and people of color.

The FTAA threatens to commodify our lives by turning over the control of our schools, electricity, water, and food to corporations whose only interest is more profit.

The FTAA is being negotiated in secret. Initiated in 1994 by the 34 countries of North and South America (excluding Cuba), governments have included the business sector in FTAA talks every step of the way, but have kept the text of the treaty secret from regular people and their elected representatives. 50 members of the US House of Representatives have written to the Bush administration demanding that the text be released.

From the same site, “On Oct 31, the seventh summit of the Free Trade Area of the Americas will take place in Quito, Ecuador, home turf for what are perhaps the strongest social movements in the Americas. Ecuador’s indigenous, campesino, labor, womens’, environmental, and youth organizations have vowed to shut the summit down, and are calling for solidarity actions across the continent.”

But there’s more!
On July 28-30, there will be a mini-summit of the WTO in Montreal. Peoples Global Action, a group on the ground there has started organizing to greet them.

Plus, on Nov 20-22 in Miami, there will be yet another meeting, this one a ministerial summit. And you guessed it, the imps of chaos will be there in force.

One major organizer in the US against FTAA is the Communication Workers of America union who have a useful email newsletter about what’s going on. They will be in Miami in force, no doubt.


More links
Top Ten reasons to oppose FTAA
Activist resources
The belly of the beast

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Indymedia up and running in Baghdad!

Right here

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All war all the time

Legislators: Iran needs regime change

And we all know what “regime change” means, right?

“Iran’s hard- line government, accused by the Bush administration of harboring top al Qaeda members, poses a big problem for the United States and should be replaced, lawmakers said yesterday.

Democrats and Republicans urged extreme care in working toward that end, in order to avoid fomenting an anti-American reaction among Iranians who admire the U.S. way of life.

In Tehran, Iran’s foreign minister insisted his country does not and would not shelter al Qaeda terrorists, and even has jailed some members of Osama bin Laden’s network and plans to prosecute them.”

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US atrocities and war crimes

“War crimes” is indeed a strong phrase. Yet it applies. If any other country was planning death camps, or shooting war prisoners, the sanctimonious US adminstration would be screaming. Yet war crimes like these are precisely what the US is committing.

US plans death camp

“The US has floated plans to turn Guantanamo Bay into a death camp, with its own death row and execution chamber without leaving its boundaries, without a jury and without right of appeal”

“Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death”

“Broadcast for the first time ever in the US: eyewitnesses testify that US troops were complicit in the massacre of up to 3,000 Taliban prisoners during the Afghan war

The film has been broadcast on national television in countries all over the world and has been screened by the European parliament. Human rights lawyers are calling for investigation into whether U.S. forces are guilty of war crimes. But no U.S. media outlet has broadcast the film.

Today, on Democracy Now!, the U.S. broadcast premiere of a documentary film called “Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death.”  The film provides eyewitness testimony that U.S. troops were complicit in the massacre of thousands of Taliban prisoners during the Afghan War.

It tells the story of thousands of prisoners who surrendered to the US military’s Afghan allies after the siege of Kunduz. According to eyewitnesses, some three thousand of the prisoners were forced into sealed containers and loaded onto trucks for transport to Sheberghan prison. Eyewitnesses say when the prisoners began shouting for air, U.S.-allied Afghan soldiers fired directly into the truck, killing many of them. The rest suffered through an appalling road trip lasting up to four days, so thirsty they clawed at the skin of their fellow prisoners as they licked perspiration and even drank blood from open wounds.

Witnesses say that when the trucks arrived and soldiers opened the containers, most of the people inside were dead. They also say US Special Forces re-directed the containers carrying the living and dead into the desert and stood by as survivors were shot and buried. Now, up to three thousand bodies lie buried in a mass grave. “

Red Cross denied access to POWs

The United States is illegally holding thousands of Iraqi prisoners of war and other captives without access to human rights officials at compounds close to Baghdad airport

The International Committee of the Red Cross so far has been denied access to what the organisation believes could be as many as 3,000 prisoners held in searing heat. All other requests to inspect conditions under which prisoners are being held have been met with silence or been turned down.

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Joshua Tree National Park

I just returned from two days camping with friends in Joshua Tree, a national park over 500,000 acres in size which contains two separate deserts, a Colorado type desert and a Mojave type desert. Contrary to what you might think, deserts are quite alive and are magical places. There’s lots of flowering cactus and succulents, lizards, rabbits, tortoises, coyote, big horn sheep, and, of course, rattlers.

It was about 100 on Saturday and the temperature peaks out at about 115 during July (“But it’s a dry heat!”) . JTree is knows for its immense rock formations and draws rock climbers from all over the world during the winter months when the rock isn’t too hot to climb. There are many abandoned mines, primarily from the 1940’s.

A Joshua Tree. The flower is edible with no preparation needed. Indians used it for food.

Rock piles like this are common in JTree. Note size of car. Many rock piles are orders of magnitude larger.

Desert flowers bloom in a spectacular manner when/if the spring rains come.

Tombstone. “Here is where Worth Bagley bit the dust at the hand of W.F. Keys. May 14, 1943.”  The green was painted in recently by a film crew. Bagely was shot over a dispute of ownership of a dirt road that led to a gold mill. Keys did five years, then was released when a judge said it was self-defense. He returned to the area and ranched until he died in 1969.

Desert tortoise about 2 1/2 feet long

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I’m gone (again)

I’m off to Joshua Tree National Park this weekend. I’ll be back Sun afternoon.

Mormons who went looking for a place to call home thought Joshua Trees looked like the prophet Joshua with his arms outspread. I think they may have been in the sun far too long.

Joshua Tree is a wonderful place. Yes, we Californians LIKE to go camping  in deserts!

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