Bob Morris @ Feb 28th 2005 10:03 - Category: Unfiled ;
Iraq car bombing causes carnage, 114 dead
Iraq’s northern oil pipeline destroyed
With the elections over, and thus the massive US presence pulled back a bit, the insurgents have resumed their attacks, which appear to be increasing markedly in ferocity. Remember when the insurgency began, when it was rock-throwing and little else? US troops probably wish for such peaceful days.
Bob Morris @ Feb 28th 2005 09:47 - Category: Unfiled ;
Anti-Syrian protesters fill Beirut streets
The assassination of Hariri has intensified world and Lebanese opposition pressure for Syria to withdraw its 15,000 troops from Lebanon.
Update. Lebanon government resigns
Israel launches PR campaign against Syria
Islamic Jihad leaders in Damascus have claimed responsibility for a weekend suicide attack that killed five Israelis outside a Tel Aviv nightclub, but the Israeli government insists the Syrian government is responsible, too, because it allows the terrorists to operate in its capital.
Sounds like Israel, working with the neocons, are looking for a pretext, any excuse, to attack Syria. Was Syria responsible for the assassination and the suicide bombings? Could be, but this roiling of the waters seems a familiar pattern. The WMD’s in Iraq were imaginary, so also could be this demonization of Syria, and as we all know, the fictitious WMDs were used an an excuse for war.
And Sharon, no surprise here, is already backtracking on his announced plans for peace.
Bob Morris @ Feb 28th 2005 09:37 - Category: Unfiled ;
Investigations by Greenpeace and Rainforest Action Network have confirmed that JP Morgan Chase client BlueLinx, America’s largest building products distributor, is smuggling legally disputed, undocumented timber out of Indonesia’s critically endangered rainforests and flooding the U.S. marketplace with artificially cheap lauan plywood.
The conservation community is calling on JP Morgan Chase and BlueLinx to immediately comply with a voluntary corporate embargo of Indonesian forest products already in place at Centex Corporation, International Paper and Lanoga Corporation.
This press release is from Rainforest Action Network. Through the years their nonviolent direct action campaigns have proven to be incredibly effective in forcing recalcitrant corporations to change their errant ways.
Bob Morris @ Feb 27th 2005 12:57 - Category: Unfiled ;
County school officials are backing a principal’s decision to bar a picture of a lesbian student dressed in a tuxedo from the high school yearbook.
Others applauded Ward’s decision, including Karen Gordon, who said, “When uniformity is compromised, then authority no longer holds.”
What bizarre Big Brother-ish authoritarian doublespeak. Do not question. Do not deviate from Christian fundamentalist edicts (no matter how bigoted and contrary to the actual teachings of Christ they may be.) It should come as no surprise that this particular school is in Florida, that land of extremist Christianity and stolen elections.
The student editor of the yearbook, Keri Sewell, was fired after refusing her adviser’s order to take the picture out.
Bob Morris @ Feb 27th 2005 09:49 - Category: Podcasts Tags: Cuban Five;
Los Angeles premiere of the new documentary film, Mission Against Terror, on the Cuban Five, Feb 26, 2005.
Speakers:
Ian Thompson - Committee to Free the Five.
Father Geoff Bottoms: Awarded Cuban Friendship Medal, Cuba solidarity organizer in England
Bernie Dwyer: Co-director of film, Reporter with Radio Havana
The film features interviews with former CIA agent Phillip Agee, Cuban Five attorney Leonard Weinglass, Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon, family members of the Cuban Five, Miami Cuban progressive activist Andres Gomez and others.
MP3 (9.5 MB, 27:09 min.)
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Bob Morris @ Feb 27th 2005 09:43 - Category: Podcasts Tags: Cuban Five;
Father Geoff Bottoms, Cuba solidarity organizer in England, and filmmaker Bernie Dwyer, who co-directed Mission Against Terror, a documentary about the Cuban Five, answer questions from the audience after the Los Angeles premiere of the film on Feb. 26, 2005.
MP3 (12.45 MB, 35:25 min.)
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Bob Morris @ Feb 27th 2005 08:43 - Category: Unfiled ;
From Boing Boing
Why John Gilmore won’t show his ID at airports. Pittsburgh’s Post-Gazette has an amazing, balanced, in-depth profile on John Gilmore, the guy who Sun hired to write their first code, the guy who co-founded EFF, the guy who won’t show ID to get on an airplane:
In post 9/11 America, asking “Why?” when someone from an airline asks for identification can start some interesting arguments. Gilmore, who learned to argue on the debate team in his hometown of Bradford, McKean County, has started an argument that, should it reach its intended target, the U.S. Supreme Court, would turn the rules of national security on end, reach deep into the tug-of-war between private rights and public safety, and play havoc with the Department of Homeland Security.
At the heart of Gilmore’s stubbornness is the worry about the thin line between safety and tyranny.
“Are they just basically saying we just can’t travel without identity papers? If that’s true, then I’d rather see us go through a real debate that says we want to introduce required identity papers in our society rather than trying to legislate it through the back door through regulations that say there’s not any other way to get around,” Gilmore said. “Basically what they want is a show of obedience.”
On a recent podcast, Adam Curry, who lives in England and who was in San Francisco at the time, said the security procedures at US airports were absurd, humiliating, and that, as a long-time pilot, he said there were so many ways to get on a tarmac that these ludicrous security checks do nothing to make people safer and seem designed to instill fear instead. And he’s not a flaming liberal, either.
Bob Morris @ Feb 27th 2005 08:36 - Category: Unfiled ;
From Dave Winer, who played a major role in the invention of blogs, rss feeds, and now, podcasting.
Thanks to Halley for the kind words about my contribution to podcasting, as well as Adam’s. This gives me a chance to say that I’ve not tried to write Adam out of the story. Quite the opposite, I think his contribution was essential, and not just in the last half-year. Podcasting appears to everyone but a small number of people, to be an instant wonder. But the trail goes back a long way. It took a lot of iteration and patience to make it happen. As I write this a bunch of other future “instant wonders” are in gestation.
There will be a time when they will move to the top of the stack and be the engines of growth for the tech industry. Markoff will write stories about them too, explaining how his friends have finally figured out how to make money from them as if it was the responsibility of every technology to make John Doerr even richer. I’d like people to be more open-minded about these ideas, while they need help to get started. In hindsight, podcasting could have happened much sooner if people just would have listened.
Bob Morris @ Feb 26th 2005 10:00 - Category: Unfiled ;
The ashes of the 2004 election battle have finally settled, and sadly the Green Party is buried in the rubble still grasping for air.
The Greens could, and should have been vociferously opposing the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. But they opted for a “smart-growth” (read: safe-state) strategy instead, where they’d stay well below the electoral radar. They should have been on the frontlines of the campaign scene, denouncing John Kerry and George Bush’s neoliberalism and their handling of the downward economic spiral, civil liberties infringements, and environmental catastrophes. But instead the Green Party caved, and regardless of what Ted Glick and others claim, they paid a steep price, getting pounded at the polls as a result. A miserable sixth place.
The GP stood for nothing in the 2004 campaign because it was deliberately and by design, invisible.Goodness, the leadership sell-outs shrieked, we can’t do anything that might possibly hurt Kerry, so they rolled over, played dead, and Kerry got beaten anyway. Now the party is Dead Man Walking.
An example of the ruin: In Minnesota, the Green Party has enjoyed majority status since 2000, but is now heading back to the political fringe. Cobb’s poor vote total disqualified the Greens from $400,000 in public subsidies and automatic ballot access in the state. Looks like they will have to start over from scratch in the state, as well as Connecticut, Montana, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, and Rhode Island, where the Green Party lost the presidential ballot access they had acquired during the 2000 election.
They couldn’t have demolished the party better if they’d had a deliberate plan to do so. Although I’m sure Democrat operatives were hoping to do precisely that.
Sources at the Green Party headquarters reveal they are in dire straits financially. It isn’t likely that the Green Party’s DC office will have to close in the immediate future. Nevertheless if money doesn’t start rolling in soon, sources admit, it may well happen down the road.
The party is teetering financially yet some of the main safe-states proponents now are with think tanks that just got 6 figure grants from liberal Democrat donors.
What is interesting is that Green Party “think tanks” have recently received big bucks from significant Democratic contributors, Richard and Marilyn Mazess of Wisconsin.
Nonetheless, two spanking new Green Party nonprofits are now robust and thriving. The Green Institute, which is headed by ex-GP Operations Director Dean Myerson, and the Liberty Tree Foundation for Democratic Revolution, which is headed by ex-GP chair Ben Manski (both Cobb backers) have collected a combined $500,000 from the Mazess duo.
To no surprise, David Cobb has parked his ass on the Board of Directors at the Green Institute “think tank.” And akin to Theodore Glick, Mr. Cobb still claims his losing campaign strategy was a winner. Narcissism runs rampant indeed.
Indeed, internal Green Party politics often seem dislocated from reality. Endless internal squabbles over process. A broken consensus process that does nothing but allow those who know how to game the system to do exactly that, blocking the majority from acting, and, oh maybe even rigging convention rules to favor their candidate. Not that the major parties don’t have that kind of thing happening, but when it does, they deal with it fast and get it resolved. Not so in the GP. Internal fights drag on for years, as witness the onging psychodrama in LA County (the details aren’t important) that has poisoned and debilitated the party for five years now, with no resolution in sight. And LA is hardly unique in its GP dysfunction.
Let’s hope that Camejo, the Green Alliance and other like-minded Greens can join forces and topple the current party “leadership.” If they aren’t successful, 2004 won’t be the worst election the Greens will ever endure.
Bob Morris @ Feb 26th 2005 09:36 - Category: Unfiled ;
Thompson shot self while on phone with wife
Although journalist Hunter S. Thompson’s wife wasn’t home at the time of his suicide, she heard him take his own life over the phone.
“I was on the phone with him, he set the receiver down and he did it. I heard the clicking of the gun,” says Anita Thompson, reports the Aspen Daily News. Even after she heard an unidentified muffled noise, she remained on the line. “I was waiting for him to get back on the phone,” she said.
They had been discussing her returning home from the health club on Sunday, Feb. 20 when Hunter S. Thompson merely set down the phone without saying goodbye and shot himself.
A noted writer leaves no suicide note? And just shoots himself while on the phone with his wife, no explanation given? Most bizarre, especially given that Thompson certainly seemed to be the type who would focus the rage and pain outward, and maybe want to shoot you, rather than inward and shoot himself.
Bob Morris @ Feb 25th 2005 14:48 - Category: Unfiled ;
Here in the San Fernando Valley, we are having a surprise hail storm, complete with thunder and lightning (rare for L.A.)
Last night, on the Westside of L.A., where multiple closures on Pacific Coast Highway plus many canyon road closures have forced even more traffic into this already terminally traffic-clogged area, it took us 25 minutes to drive 1/2 a mile. We finally parked and walked. More than a few friends have left L.A., not because they didn’t love the city, but because the traffic is so appalling - and getting worse every month.
We’re going to see Carter Tutti tonight at the Disney Hall downtown. And will take the subway to get there! It’s a 22 minute ride for $3 roundtrip vs. at least 45 minutes to an hour by car, plus no parking hassles. Yes, there is a subway in L.A., it doesn’t go many places, but for this performance, the subway drops us two blocks away.
Members of the legendary group Throbbing Gristle, artists, musicians and subcultural collaborators Cosey Fanni Tutti and Chris Carter give their first U.S. performance in a decade.
Bob Morris @ Feb 25th 2005 09:16 - Category: Unfiled ;
The Canadian government has rejected US orders that it comply with the incredibly dangerous and wrongheaded waste of resources euphemistically called the “missile defense shield“
Prime Minister Paul Martin said Thursday that Canada would not join the contentious U.S. missile defense program, a decision that will further strain brittle relations between the neighbors but please Canadians who fear it could lead to an international arms race.
That Dubya, not only has he aliented most the planet with his arrogant muddle-headed wars and invasions, now even Canada, that most placid of US allies, wants nothing to do with his insane militaristic plans.
Will the Bushies now, with Life imitating Art, launch a slime campaign against Canada, darkly hinting they are terrorist? Will the South Park movie come true? “Blame Canada,” then invade?
Stay tuned.
Bob Morris @ Feb 25th 2005 09:13 - Category: Unfiled ;
In the US, the Anglican Church, the Church of England, is known as the Episcopalian Church..
Anglican primates agreed Thursday that the U.S. Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada would withdraw from a key body of the global Anglican Communion after failing to overcome internal church disagreements about the election of a gay bishop in the United States and the blessing of same-sex unions there and in Canada.
The agreement marked the first formal breach in the communion over the explosive issues of sexuality and biblical authority.
Can they reconcile? Should they reconcile? I doubt it. The split is too deep for that. This fight for gay rights mirrors the civil rights fights of the 50 and 60’s, when most established churches and institutions either opposed integration or were silent on the issue. After several years of protests in the streets, public opinion changed, and what was once considered a moderate stance, “well, they can drink from the same water fountain as us, but would you want your daughter to marry one”, was finally seen as the racist statement it was. The same will happen with gay rights too. In ten years, people will look at this fight now and be appalled by the rampant homophobia, wondering how people could have been so blind.
Conn. legislative panel backs civil unions
Connecticut’s legislature moved closer to legalizing civil unions for same-sex couples, as a key panel approved a measure that could make it the first state in the country to recognize gay unions through legislative action rather than court order.
New England is where the push for legalizing gay marriage began. Vermont was first, legalizing civil unions for gays. Massachusetts followed, permitting gay marriage for residents. Now Connecticut, where I grew up, may make it legal, period. Why New England? Because of a long history of belief in personal freedom combined with little influence from or respect for the religious right.
Bob Morris @ Feb 25th 2005 08:30 - Category: Unfiled ;
A man who says his former lover deceived him by getting pregnant using semen obtained through oral sex can sue for emotional distress but not theft, an appeals court has ruled.
“She asserts that when plaintiff ‘delivered’ his sperm, it was a gift,” the decision said. “There was no agreement that the original deposit would be returned upon request.”
Bob Morris @ Feb 25th 2005 08:28 - Category: Unfiled ;
“While still too much in its infancy to be considered an immediate threat to the radio industry, podcasting does present the prospect of a growing army of iPod-toting commuters who take programming decisions out of the hands of broadcasters and customize their own listening.” [Scripting News]
Bob Morris @ Feb 25th 2005 08:27 - Category: Unfiled ;
From Podcastingnews
IndiePodcasting.com has announced a new service devoted to promoting unsigned and indie artists using a combination of podcasting technology, syndication, and viral marketing. It uses a format which is unlike most podcasts currently being generated.
IndiePodcasting.com hopes to “bring podcasting out of the realm of web blogging and audio blogs and into the hands of mainstream web surfers.”
Bob Morris @ Feb 24th 2005 11:51 - Category: Unfiled ;
My cable modem is from Roadrunner / Times Warner. They called last week, said my connection appeared to be slow, and could they come and fix it free. Today, they replaced the wire from the pole to the house, and swapped the old 3 mbps modem for a new, faster, 5 mbps modem. No charge. I’m impressed.
Sure, they’re doing this because they need a bigger pipe to feed more customers, however their service, in the several years I’ve had it, has been rock-solid with practically zero downtime. And when I call tech support, they know the answer. This is a company that gets it.
Friends with DSL usually say their connection can be a bit flaky, with highly varied response times and download speeds. Cable modems appear to be both faster and more dependable.
On downloads, I generally get 300-400 kps. With the new modem, it’ll probably be faster. I’ve noticed that Firefox downloads way faster than Internet Explorer, like sometimes it’s so fast I can’t believe it downloaded a 4 MB file in 2 seconds, so I check and sure enough, it’s there. Anyone else notice this?
Update: The new modem just downloaded a 3.8 MB file at 560 kps!
Bob Morris @ Feb 24th 2005 08:54 - Category: Unfiled ;
Dr. Bonner’s wins DEA battle to allow hemp in its soap.
(Actually, commercial hemp, which is legally grown in Europe and Canada, has no THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, and is all stalk and no leaf, which makes it completely useless for getting high.)
And I for one, am not even slightly startled by learning that Dubya smoked weed. He grew up in the 60’s. Next question. That he lied about it is unsurprising, given his general penchant for lying and the hypocrisy of most middle aged politicians, including Bill “I didn’t inhale” Clinton, about their past.
Full disclosure: I consumed mass quantities of alcohol and drugs and have had neither for many years now.
Update: (emphasis added)
California Legislature Considers Industrial Hemp
NORML is pleased to announce that Assembly Bill 1147, an act to legalize the licensed cultivation of industrial hemp, has been introduced in the California Assembly. Now is the time to contact your state Assembly Member and urge him or her to allow licensed farmers to cultivate this important agricultural commodity.
The United States is the only developed nation that fails to cultivate industrial hemp as an economic crop, according to a 2005 Congressional Resource Service (CRS) report. Hemp is a distinct variety of the plant species cannabis sativa that contains only minute (less than 1%) amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. Farmers worldwide grow hemp commercially for fiber, seed, and oil for use in a variety of industrial and consumer products, including food.
Bob Morris @ Feb 24th 2005 07:52 - Category: Unfiled ;
Hunter Thompson’s political instincts and radar were scary. There were few in American politics anywhere near him. A couple years ago, he released two volumes of letters from the 50s and 60s. In 1965, Thompson was living in San Francisco and had covered the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. The Hippies weren’t even happening yet, and General Electric’s Ronald Reagan was just beginning to add politics to his long running television career. But in a letter he wrote that year, 1965, Thompson looked into America’s future, he didn’t see Berkeley, he saw Reagan – that’s deep, heavy political mojo Bubba.
Bob Morris @ Feb 24th 2005 07:50 - Category: Unfiled ;
A US marine, captured on film shooting a wounded Iraqi at point blank range during last year’s assault on Falluja, will not be formally charged.
Bob Morris @ Feb 23rd 2005 09:49 - Category: Unfiled ;
1) “The world faces ‘the gravest possible danger‘ of a bird flu pandemic, a WHO official warns.”
2) “Scientists on Tuesday reported that perchlorate, a toxic component of rocket fuel, was contaminating virtually all samples of women’s breast milk and its levels were found to be, on average, five times greater than in cow’s milk.”
Bob Morris @ Feb 23rd 2005 00:13 - Category: Unfiled ;
David Horowitz’s new website, Discover the Network, is unintentionally hilarious. He, of Frontpage Magazine, spends much time of foaming in rage at the hordes of Lefties he must fear are hiding under his bed. So, with this site, done with great seriousness and righteous indignation, he’s going to expose us all - with, y’know, research and stuff, naming names, etc.
Except that the “research” here is so shoddy and inaccurate, you wonder why he bothered. But then, someone who went from being a hardcore leftist to ultra-reactionary without even pausing for breath in the middle - well, that’s a True Believer isn’t it? Such types tend to be utterly convinced of their correctness (even when their views change radically), devoid of humor, and hugely intolerant of others.
If you are convinced of your inerrant correctness, then factual errors concern you not. Although they may well (and should) concern others.
The following are facts I know to be true, while Distort the Network, er, Discover the Network, managed to get them wrong. I found these errors in five minutes on the site.
1) The ANSWER Coalition is not a Workers World front. I’ve been volunteering with ANSWER for 2 1/2 years now. The statement is laughably untrue to anyone involved with ANSWER or even to someone who has been to a few ANSWER meetings - but I guess they prefer circulating tired old lies to actual investigation.
2) Leslie Feinberg is not a man. “He runs Transgender Warrior.” Dear God, transgender issues must terrify them so much that they can’t even get her gender correct. Leslie is a woman and refers to herself as ’she’, something that ten minutes of lazy research would show.
There’s many more factual errors on their site. But then, the loony right never allows bothersome facts get in the way of a good witch hunt.
Researchers. Send me their inaccuracies as you find them!
Bob Morris @ Feb 22nd 2005 12:57 - Category: Unfiled ;
Checks and Balances and the “F-Word”
Is there enough going on to make you nervous yet? The Vice President of the United States was the keynote speaker at a conference where other speakers called for “a new McCarthyism” to bring “terror” to intellectuals, saying “let’s oppress them [liberals],” and “the entire Harvard faculty” are “traitors.” A Congressman said, “America’s Operation Iraqi Freedom is still producing shock and awe, this time among the blame-America-first crowd,” ? Then he said, “We continue to discover biological and chemical weapons and facilities to make them inside Iraq.”
This is an excellent post from a blogger who is getting real concerned about the direction of the ruling class. There’s nothing here that is news to us in the ANSWER Coalition, because we’ve been saying this for years. Yes, there is a ruling class. Yes, they have shifted to the hard right. But no, the public has not shifted. The populace has turned against the war, favors gay unions, etc. etc,- hardly a sign that the country has moved sharply to the right. The neocons, extremist to the core, are trying to control the government, while their lumpen howl loudly in blogdom. But they do not speak for the country. They are not the majority.
Meanwhile, right-wing commentators talk about killing American journalists, their premier blogs talk about former president Carter as being on the side of the enemy and leftists have “seamlessly taken up the cause of Islamic fascism”. I have provided only a few examples.
When you hear threatening talk like this, in the company of the country’s leadership, you know that whatever comes next isn’t going to be pleasant. Things do not appear to be heading in a good direction at all. If you have been following this in the blogs, you know that more and more people are becomming concerned that the Right’s rhetoric is growing ever more violent and totalitarian. Serious people have started referring to the “f-word.” (See also here, here, here, here and many other places.)
The rhetoric of the Left is also heating up. “Two cultures clash.” The Left has already won the culture war. Now we need to win the political war. And it is a war.
I think we are entering a new phase of American history. These are not normal times, the pendulum is not swinging back, and historical trends of American politics no longer apply.
Get in the streets. Organize. Get loud. Take risks. Major change in this country always starts with people in the streets. Whether it was women’s sufferage, labor union, civil rights, or the Vietnam war, the dissent started in the streets, spread, and eventually was victorious. We’ve done it before and we can do it again.
Bob Morris @ Feb 22nd 2005 09:33 - Category: Unfiled ;
From reader Ben
I read an article recently; a Democratic caucus for children and the family met to discuss how to improve education, health, nutrition, and reduce the effect of crime on young children. The Republican caucus for children met to discuss how to get SpongeBob Squarepants off tv.
Family values. Glad I don’t have a family I value like the Republicans value theirs.
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