Aristide kidnapped?

Frpm NarcoNews (who have a way of being quick with news like this) 

According to Agence France Press:

A man who said he was a caretaker for the now exiled president told France’s RTL radio station the troops forced Aristide out.

“The American army came to take him away at two in the morning,” the man said.

“The Americans forced him out with weapons.

“It was American soldiers. They came with a helicopter and they took the security guards.

“(Aristide) was not happy. He did not want to be taken away. He did not want to leave. He was not able to fight against the Americans…”

First newspaper to run with this is in Australia. <Note: The url is dead, no Page Not Found, just nothing, a sure sign that many are trying to get through to it>

 Now, his own foreign minister was on CNN earlier today confirming the resignation. But, come to think of it, we haven’t seen any resignation letter, we haven’t seen or heard audio or video from Aristide since he supposedly “resigned” and…

In the comments to the story comes: “The New York Times posted a story by Tim Weiner and Lydia Polgreen that describes Aristide’s exit as ‘fleeing by jet at dawn under heavy American guard,’“ which doesn’t sound much like a voluntary exit.

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“Antiwar Kerry” calls Bush sissy boy on war

That’s right. Kerry, the presumed lefist in the race says Bush is just meandering about when it comes to national defense, and that a Kerry in the White House would mean more occupations and more invasions!

In perhaps the most hallucinatory headline in weeks, Kerry says Bush “weak on defense”.  Yessirree, Kerry wants increased troops and tighter surveillance!!

Kerry said in his address Friday that, since America is in Iraq, the nation must finish its work there. He called for adding 40,000 active-duty Army troops temporarily and for reforming the U.S. intelligence system.

And screw other countries and the UN.

Kerry struck back, arguing that, as president, he would work with America’s allies to make the nation and the world safer, but he would not be hampered by them or beholden to them.

“Allies give us more hands in the struggle, but no president would ever let them tie our hands and prevent us from doing what must be done,” Kerry said.

Kerry appears to be running to the RIGHT of Bush on the war.

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Aristide leaves Haiti

Which means no one in is charge.

Update:

The head of Haiti’s supreme court said he was taking charge. A key rebel leader, meanwhile, said he would be sending his forces to the capital soon “to give security to the people.”

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Slow motion coup?

Bush increases push for Aristide to leave office

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Immigrants Rights March. LA 2/28

ANSWER helped with the sound system. Several thousand marched. Those marching were almost entirely recent immigrants, mostly Latino. What struck me the most was these were regular working class people, those who are most directly impacted by the unjust, often racist policies of California and the US towards immigrants.

Dennis Kucinich, to his credit, spoke to the crowd about the need for real justice and workers rights. This was not a huge rally. He didn’t have to come. But he did. I can’t imagine any other presidential candidate (except Sharpton) doing this.

Juan Jose Gutierrez, director of Latino Movement USA, introduces Kucinich.

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Mozilla Thunderbird

An important note on my converting from Outlook to Mozilla Thunderbird for my mail reader - Thunderbird converted all my Outlook addresses and 25 mb of archived mail absolutely flawlessly and quickly. I was impressed. (I did have 70 mb of archived mail, but most of it, I found, wasn’t all that important, so I deleted it before doing the import.)

A tip: You run the import by doing Tools/Import off the Thunderbird menu. You must have the Outlook files and Outlook installed on that PC. If you get an error saying Outlook must be the default mail client for the import to work, go to Internet Explorer, Tools/Internet Options/Prpgrams, and change Email  to Outlook. Thanks to Ben Schorr for the tip how to do this, and check out Ben’s highly useful tech blog too!

And ain’t that just like Microsoft to put the configuration setting for the default mail reader in the browser, not in the mail reader!

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You heard it here first

President Chavez on Venezuela is expected to announce Sunday that one million signatures signed for his recall are invalid. And indeed, observers noted that some people signed the petitions multiple times, children signed them, and, shades of Chicago, so did dead people.

You can assume this will lead to some, um, interesting times in Venezuela, as the US, having failed once in a coup attempt, will no doubt try again.

Meanwhile, the Bushies are making lots of growling noises at Aristide in Haiti, but seem oddly quiet about the insurgents who have been looting towns. I wonder who’s been supplying the insurgents with their guns?

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This train has left the station!

California gay weddings can go on

California’s Supreme Court has refused a request from the state’s attorney general to halt gay weddings.

And 21 gay couples marry in New Paltz NY

The country favors gay marriage. Bush, to appease the homophobes on his right flank, is asking for that constitutional amendment. Thus, he is in a very dicey spot. Good.

Meanwhile the two marshmallow Democrats in the lead for the nomination, Kerry and Edwards, managed to talk out both sides of their mouths at once on this issue.

But the two found common ground in opposing gay marriages as well as Bush’s request to make them unconstitutional.

Wow, glad to see these two titans can take such a principled, courageous stand on this.

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Grocery strike deal reached

Details of the pact weren’t immediately available, but both sides came away with a contract that they could defend in light of a dispute that was extremely costly to both sides, according to people familiar with the settlement.

The stores accomplished such goals as installing a two-tier system of employee compensation, under which new hires would earn considerably less in wages and benefits than current employees, the sources said.

There also would be a cap on how much the supermarkets contribute to their employees’ healthcare coverage.

I suspect it’ll be a long time before management holds out this long in a strike. The grocery chains lost 1.5 billion in sales, and many customers have gone elsewhere, maybe for keeps.

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News shocker: US supports coup attempt while mouthing democracy

The US lawyer representing the government of Haiti charged today that the US government is directly involved in a military coup attempt against the country’s democratically elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Ira Kurzban, the Miami-based attorney who has served as General Counsel to the Haitian government since 1991, said that the paramilitaries fighting to overthrow Aristide are being backed by Washington.

“I believe that this is a group that is armed by, trained by, and employed by the intelligence services of the United States,” Kurzban told the national radio and TV program Democracy Now!. “This is clearly a military operation, and it’s a military coup.”

Meanwhile, it’s do-or-die time in that nation’s capitol.

Killing and looting broke out today in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, as supporters of President Jean- Bertrand Aristide prepared for a possible assault by rebels who want to oust him, Agence France-Presse reported.

A few years back, Aristide disbanded the army, a move he probably now regrets.

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Leaving Microsoft monoculture

Thanks to those who left helpful comments to my post about going to non-Microsoft browsers and mail clients. By using non-Microsoft products, one greatly decreases the chances of being hit by nasty viruses and malware.

I’ve decided to go with Mozilla Firefox for the browser and Mozilla Thunderbird for email. Both are open source, and thus free, and are lean, fast, smart versions of the main Mozilla products. Importing my voluminous Favorites from Internet Explorer and Address Book from Outlook was a no-brainer and went flawlessly. Whew. These are not tasks one wants to do manually!

Both have nifty features not found in the Microsoft products. The mail reader, Thunderbird, is intuitive, amazingly easy to set up, and comes with spam filter and spell checker. Both also have dozens of extensions, which are little applets that you can install to perform various handy tasks.

Eudora is also a powerful, highly configurable mail client which is definitely worth checking out.

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Thank you!

Polizeros is now averaging over 1200 visits per day, with spikes up to 2200.

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Democrats need to aim much higher

From moderate Democrat LA Times columnist Steve Lopez

I thought President Bush got off a pretty good line Monday when he went after his challengers. It’s an interesting crowd, he said, because it’s for and against his tax cuts, for and against NAFTA, for and against the Patriot Act, and for and against the Iraq war.

“And that’s just one senator from Massachusetts.”

Bush’s line was aimed at John Kerry, of course, but it neatly summed up the entire Democratic Party, which lost its way when Bill Clinton got one look at Monica Lewinsky’s thong and went crazy.

Ever since that hallmark moment — if not when Clinton started shoplifting Republican ideas like ending the welfare state — Democrats have been like teenagers suffering through adolescence.

They’re rebels who aren’t sure what the cause is any longer, which is why they appear on the verge of a nervous breakdown over gay marriage, and don’t have much in their arsenal beyond trashing George Bush.

I’m asking the Democratic candidates, beginning with tomorrow night’s debate, to put their own package together and start hammering away at it as Republicans do.

A total healthcare overhaul.
A fearless defense of the environment.
A guaranteed living wage.
A chicken in every pot.
A fat surtax on everyone in Dick Cheney’s income bracket.

Something bold. Anything.

Lashing out at George Bush is great sport, sure, and certainly worth the effort. But I don’t think it gets you the keys to the White House.

Oh, it might, but why take the chance? Kerry needs to highlight positive reasons why we should vote for him, and simply saying that he isn’t George Bush is, I think, risky.

Of course with George Soros (remember him? He’s been quiet these past few weeks) pledging to spend whatever is needed to defeat Bush - and Soros has seven billion - this could, and probably will, change the entire race. He can out-spend the Republicans, and other centi-millionaires and billionaires have pledged to do the same.

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Rapes reported by servicewomen in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere

United States military is facing the gravest accusations of sexual misconduct in years, with dozens of servicewomen in the Persian Gulf area and elsewhere saying they were sexually assaulted or raped by fellow troops, lawmakers and victims advocates said on Wednesday.

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The documentary: Negroes With Guns: Rob Williams & Black Power

An International Action Center Black History Month Forum
Los Angeles Premiere Film Showing
7:30 pm, Friday, Feb. 27th
422 S Western Ave, Rm 114, L.A.

Dinner at 6:30 pm. $5 donations
No one turned away for lack of funds
213-487-2368

This documentary by the University of Florida’s noted College of Journalism & Communications details the extraordinary life of Robert Williams.

Robert Williams, a NAACP leader in Monroe, North Carolina in 1958, played a pivotal role in the struggle for respect, dignity & equality by advocating an oppressed people’s right to defend themselves against Klan & police terror. He believed in & practiced armed resistance in opposing the Ku Klux Klan who routinely drove into Black communities and opened fire. The attacks stopped when Williams, and those he trained, returned the fire.

He played a major role in making an international cause of the 1958 “Kissing Case”. The case involved two Black boys, 7 & 9-years old, accused of rape for the “crime” of kissing a 9-year-old white girl. (Yes, that’s how insane things were then.)

In 1962, Williams wrote his now famous book, “Negroes With Guns”, which had a major influence on Huey Newton & the Black Panthers.

To escape an FBI frameup, Williams moved to Cuba. From Cuba, he broadcast progressive programs into the U.S. on a radio station he started & named, “Radio Free Dixie”. From there he went to China, where he was a honored guest of the government.

He returned to the US in 1969, and worked as a China scholar. In that rarest of all occurrences for a revolutionary and freedom fighter, he died peacefully and in his retirement years - in 1996 at age 71 holding hands with his wife of forty nine years.

He was buried in a suit given to him by Mao Zedong. Rosa Parks spoke at the funeral, saying she and those who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in Alabama “always admired Robert Williams for his courage and his commitment to freedom. The work he did should go down in history and never be forgotten”.

Indeed.

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Settlement near in grocery strike

Looks like it’ll be two-tiered. New workers get less pay, and benefits will be cut. We shall see.

Whether the grocery companies can get back their previous business is an open question. I’ve found I don’t need Ralph’s, where I used to do quite a lot of shopping. Nor am I inclined to return after the strike is over.

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Microsoft monoculture

I’m taking those monoculture warnings about Microsoft products seriously. If everyone runs the same software, especially software notorious for having security holes, then a serious virus could take everyone out. Everyone, that is, except those not running Internet Explorer and Outlook.

Because via IE and Outlook are the ways most viruses and malware attack Windows users.
 
So, on my new computer I’m running Firefox as the default browser and playing with converting my six email accounts from Outlook to Eudora. So far, I’ve got two accounts in Eudora, and am testing it to see how I like it. (The other email accounts are in Outlook on the other computer). Firefox is open source and free. Eudora has a free sponsored version with unobtrusive ads.

My primary reason for using Outlook had been the calendar, but I now do calendaring online with Yahoo Calendar, which can notify me via email and/or cell phone text message of upcoming meetings - an amazingly useful feature.

Anyone out there using Eudora? Or have ideas for other email programs? And yes, I may get a Mac or a Linux box one day!

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Fuck you, Alan!

Greenspan urges future Social Security cuts.

Well, that won’t affect him, now will it? He’s wealthy and already of retirement age. Maybe it’s time he did just that.

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Tenet spouts the old and obvious as news

CIA Director George J. Tenet warned Tuesday that a wave of smaller, scattered terrorist organizations was eclipsing Al Qaeda as the most serious threat to the United States and its allies, and that Iraq was increasingly seen as a “golden opportunity” for jihadist groups to rally their cause.

None of which is news. Al Qaeda said months ago they deliberately were morphing into new unrecognizable forms.

All three intelligence officials said economic stagnation, repression and exploding youth populations in Islamic countries could fuel the terrorist threat for years. Jacoby cited polling numbers showing that anti-American sentiment is soaring in countries including Morocco, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Note how nothing is said about the quite possibly legitimate grievances people in those countries may have against US occupations.

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Beyond tacky…

Mel Gibson’s “official licensed products” website for The Passion of Christ is selling nail pendants - as in crucifixion nail pendants.

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Feds fail in blocking money transfers for Free the Five ad

From Free The Five.org

The National Committee to Free the Cuban Five is pleased to announce that the wire transfers seized by the U.S. Department of Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control, and Wachovia Bank have been released into the bank account held by “International Peace for Cuba Appeal.”

These transfers came from the Coordinadora Andaluza de Solidaridad con Cuba, from Andalucía, Spain, and the National Coordinator for the French Committee to Free the Cuban Five, and will help pay for the upcoming ad in the New York Times publicizing the case of the Cuban Five.

The Committee celebrates the release of the funds as a major victory, and condemns the U.S. government’s unjust policy of abridging the free speech rights of organizations working in solidarity with Cuba.
 
REMINDER - LOOK OUT FOR THE CUBAN FIVE AD IN THE NY TIMES: a full page ad on the Cuban Five will appear in the New York Times on any day from February 26 to March 10 (except Saturdays and Sundays).

Several dedicated lawyers worked tirelessly and without pay behind-the-scenes to get these funds unblocked. They are to be congratulated!

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Nader

The Village Voice opines:
 
If the DLC wonks, unimaginative leftists, and others devoted to the “Beat Bush” agenda can manage to stop gnashing their teeth over Ralph Nader’s “betrayal” long enough to really think about it, they might just find that the consumer advocate’s candidacy can help, rather than hurt, their cause.

The Republican political strategists apparently believe that the election could be decided by the base supporters of both parties. If the Democratic candidates want to lose more of their base than they already have, then they should go ahead and attack Nader for being a spoiler.

From The Guardian:

Don’t blame Ralph Nader for President George Bush. Blame Al Gore, or Hillary Clinton, or better still George Bush. Clarence Thomas, the US supreme court judge, had more responsibility for elevating Bush than Nader did. So don’t try to lock up poor old Ralph. Let him run around in the yard a bit. He won’t go far.

Actually, Nader will probably do quite well in getting his message across. He’s survived, and survived well for 40 years in DC against powerful wealthy opponents who’d like to see him be smoking rubble.  He knows, and can play the game better than most Senators.

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The Doonesbury 10K

Doonesbury is offering $10,000 to anyone who can confirm Dubya’s story about being in the National Guard, saying “His teeth were there. Was he?”

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Global warming story was hyped

From the Sam Smith’s Progressive Review, Sam being a long time hardcore Green.

A journalist reader writes - I spoke with the co-author of the “secret” Pentagon report [on climate change] yesterday and he said the Observer report you ran (and which I was about to do a story on) is almost entirely fallacious. For one thing, it’s not a secret report– it’s on the web. For another, it was already reported in Fortune.

And most important, it’s not a “prediction” but a “extremely unlikely worst-case scenario.” What’s still interesting is that Bush’s two favorite interests, defense and oil, are now apparently at odds if the Pentagon is interested enough in global warming to be commissioning studies about it. They aren’t exactly an alarmist environmental group.

The Observer clearly hyped the story and was wrong about it being secret  - in fact, the Review had earlier cited the Fortune article - but this is a story about what scientists call ‘phase transitions’ - a sudden alteration in state as when water turns to ice or steam - and while we can’t predict when or where or how they may occur in nature they are far less than a “worst case scenario.” In fact, they are quite predictable except for knowing when, where and how.

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Bloggers. Atom to RSS

This is geek talk. Non-geeks may wish to skip this!

Atom is a new form of XML that not all blogs can yet handle. Isen.blog, which just switched to Atom from RSS, explains how RSS blogs can effortlessly convert Atom feeds to RSS.

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