Any WordPress/CSS gurus out there? If you look in the right column here, under “My Activism” and ‘My Other Sites’ you’ll see a little diamond before those titles. These are appearing because (I think) it’s displaying unordered lists, yet the next one, ‘Categories’, is displayed the same way and doesn’t display it.

I’ve tried every code permutation I can think of. Anyone know how to make them go away?

“list-style-type: none” appears to be on for them. Also, IE and Firefox put the diamond in slightly different places.

Update: Solved. The WordPress support forum helped me find an answer, which was adding another rule in style.css. (Well, in IE, it now displays a blank yet works perfectly in Firefox, go figure, just a teensy bit more tweaking needed.)

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ANSWER organizer and PSL editorial board member Richard Becker speaks on the expanded US war drive in the Middle East, focusing on Iran, as well as Iraq, Syria, and Palestine.

From my scribbled notes:

“If you can’t solve a problem, expand it” — Donald Rumsfeld. This would seem to be the strategy the Bushies are following in the Middle East.

Democratic leadership is onboard with the war drive. It’s not that they lack backbone, they are being real Democrats. They are complicit. (The rank and file is not.)

Iran is surrounded by hostile forces, some of whom also have nukes. Why shouldn’t they have the right to defend themselves?

The US is pushing a proposal at the UN to set up a special court to investigate the bombing murder of Hariri in Lebanon hoping to target Syria. This would be the first time such a court was established, and with all the other murders and bombings in the world, the reasons for this are strictly to destabilze Syria, not for any altruistic purpose.

The rise of Hamas is due in part to the 50 year US policy of destroying secular opposition in the Middle East. The Hamas policy of providing hospitals and care plus the deteriorating economy led to their rise. They are anti-imperialist, and while certainly not Taliban, some of their policies are reactionary.

The antiwar movement needs to focus on all the issues, not just Iraq. “It’s not just one country or one war, it’s a system called Imperialism.”.

Recorded in LA 01/27/06 at a PSL meeting.

mp3 (53:39, 18.4 mb)

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Hamas didn’t just gain, they won a clear majority, taking 76 of 132 seats.

They believe Israel is an imposed colonial state that has no right to exist - the state of Israel that is, not the people of Israel. And for them to be called violent when the other side has all the weapons seems a bit hypocritical to me.

Update: Sue says, if people can’t live together in peace and try for compromise, they’re going to have to kill each other until they’re done killing each other, and that the argument that the government and people are separate is specious at best.

I think Palestinians have the right of self-determination. They were forced off their lands and mostly live in large scale prisons now. Their resistance has grown steadily over the decades. Can the Israel/Palestine split be resolved peacefully? I dunno.

What do you think?

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From Dave at Seeing the Forest, his new blog:

Smelling the Coffee: “About coffee, coffee shops, wireless & atmosphere, and blogging. Oh, and dogs.”

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How has this “anti-torture” legislation legalized torture?

First, “The administration has failed to lay out clear - and acceptable – standards of what constitutes torture and CID (cruel inhumane and degrading treatment.”

Just after Bush announced his deal with McCain, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made it crystal clear that the administration would define torture any way it like.

Most damningly,

Second, again according to HRW, “The legislation containing the McCain Amendment…includes another provision – the Graham-Levin Amendment – that would deny the five hundred-some detainees in Guantánamo Bay the ability to bring legal action seeking relief from the use of torture or cruel and inhumane treatment. And it implicitly authorizes the Department of Defense to consider evidence obtained through torture or other inhumane treatment in assessing the status of detainees held in Guantánamo Bay.” HRW also points out that “…this would be the first time in American history that Congress has effectively permitted the use of evidence obtained through torture.”

Third, before the bill was signed two other provisions were added, one which basically gives military personnel accused of torture the right to say they were “just following orders” and the other which extended this defense to the CIA.

Looking more deeply at all this, it becomes clear that the “anti-torture” legislation was really a sophisticated way of legitimating and legalizing torture in essence – while appearing to do just the opposite. Those who held out hope for McCain should take a deep lesson – that when you rely on these people to solve problems, the problems only intensify and multiply.

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Google’s Brin says company will fight U.S. Government

Google Inc. co-founder Sergey Brin said his Internet company will fight the U.S. government for as long as it takes to avoid handing over information on user searches.

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