JUST A QUICK REVIEW OF THE SUNDAY NEWS DUMP ... TOOK ABOUT FIVE MINUTES TROLLING FOR NEWS TO GET THIS SNAPSHOT.
And a call to revive my diary on how The Internet Cannot Stop Fascism:
more at the fold
IRAN PLANS DEFENSE OF NUCLEAR PROGRAM: U.S. IS SET TO DELIVER ULTIMATUM AT MEETING
By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 2, 2005; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...
Iran is planning to mount a staunch defense of its nuclear energy program at an international conference beginning today and will insist on rights to the same technology afforded to all members of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a senior Iranian official said in an interview yesterday.
The high-level counteroffensive, to be led by Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, comes in anticipation of a tough speech the Bush administration is preparing to give today calling for international measures against Tehran unless it gives up sensitive aspects of its nuclear program.
M. Javad Zarif, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, said his country's efforts are peaceful and well within its rights. Kharrazi, who will address the gathering tomorrow, will spend much of this week discussing the issue with diplomats from around the world.
The White House decided several days ago to send a mid-level delegation to the United Nations, where diplomats will review ways to strengthen the nonproliferation treaty. But efforts were underway late yesterday to persuade Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to deliver the U.S. address today. U.S. officials did not rule out raising the profile of the delegation but said it would be difficult for Rice, who returned Saturday from Latin America and is scheduled to accompany President Bush to Europe tomorrow.
DECLASSIFICATION BOARD: NAMED BUT UNFUNDED: Panel On Government Secrecy Unable To Operate
By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 2, 2005; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...
In Washington, it takes many ingredients to make a bureaucracy: a measure of authorizing legislation, a pinch of personnel and, of course, money to help it rise.
The five-year-old Public Interest Declassification Board is still one element short of the recipe, leaving a bad taste in the mouths of advocates of open government.
Congress created the nine-member advisory panel in late 2000 to help the executive branch sort out which classified government documents should be made public, and when. It's a mission that has increased in importance since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, as the government struggles to find a balance between the secrecy sometimes needed for national security and the openness a democracy depends on to work properly.
The declassification board was the only recommendation of a two-year commission on government secrecy led in the mid-1990s by then-Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) that made it into law. Passed partly as a tribute to Moynihan before he retired, the board existed in name only.
REPUBLICAN CHAIRMAN EXERTS PRESSURE ON PBS, ALLEGING BIASES NYT
Go to NYT link to look at this smug bastard's mug:
The Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is aggressively pressing public television to correct what he and other conservatives consider liberal bias, prompting some public broadcasting leaders - including the chief executive of PBS - to object that his actions pose a threat to editorial independence.
Without the knowledge of his board, the chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, contracted last year with an outside consultant to keep track of the guests' political leanings on one program, "Now With Bill Moyers."
In late March, on the recommendation of administration officials, Mr. Tomlinson hired the director of the White House Office of Global Communications as a senior staff member, corporation officials said. While she was still on the White House staff, she helped draft guidelines governing the work of two ombudsmen whom the corporation recently appointed to review the content of public radio and television broadcasts.
...
Pat Mitchell, president and chief executive of PBS, who has sparred with Mr. Tomlinson privately but till now has not challenged him publicly, disputed the accusation of bias and was critical of some of his actions.
A MEGACHURCH'S LEADER SAYS MICROSOFT IS NO MATCH
http://nytimes.com/2005/05/02/arts/television/02public....
snip>
Now Dr. Hutcherson, 52, known as "Hutch," and by his self-chosen nickname, "the black man," claims to be the person who forced Microsoft, located near his Antioch Bible Church, to withdraw its support of a gay rights bill before the State Legislature, one it had supported the two previous years.
...
But officials at Microsoft vehemently deny that the minister had anything to do with their decision not to support the bill this year; gay rights groups and employees have since criticized Microsoft, which had long enjoyed a reputation as one of the nation's most gay-friendly companies.
"We respect Dr. Hutcherson's right to his beliefs and opinions, but he does not speak for Microsoft, and he certainly does not set Microsoft's legislative agenda," said Mark Murray, a company spokesman. "We're proud of our antidiscrimination policies and benefits for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees, and we are committed to diversity at every level of our company."
...
Asked if he thought that he alone could have changed the giant corporation's mind, Dr. Hutcherson said in an interview Friday: "I don't think. I know."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/02/national/02minister.h...
COMMERCIAL BREAK: WAIT, WHAT'S THIS? COUNTRIES IN OUR HEMISPHERE FALLING TO THE DOMINOE OPTION?
FINAL DECLARATION - Cuba and Venezuela
Digital Granma International
April 29, 2005
Havana, Cuba
http://granmai.cubaweb.com/ingles/2005/abril/vier29/19d...
From the First Cuba-Venezuela Meeting for the application of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas
THE delegations of Cuba and Venezuela meeting in Havana, Cuba on April 27 and 28, 2005, and inspired by the historical Joint Statement and the Agreement for a Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), signed by Hugo Chávez Frías, president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, and President Fidel Castro Ruz, president of the Council of State and Ministers, have drawn up and approved a Strategic Plan for the application of ALBA, in accordance with the Article 3 of the above-mentioned agreement.
The article establishes: "The two countries will produce a strategic plan to guarantee the most beneficial productive complementation on the bases of rationality, exploiting existing advantages on one side or the other, saving resources, extending useful employment, access to markets or any other consideration sustained in genuine solidarity that will promote the strengths of the two countries."
ECUADOR'S GOVERNMENT GETS SHOW OF SUPPORT FROM OAS
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3265662a12,00.html
Keep in mind that Bush and Rice were demanding that Ecuador hold new elections just last week. Something to do with Bush losing his ass on the CAFTA thing.... We know how our lil dictator hates to lose! And this assessment by OAS comes after Lula blew a bunch of smoke up Condi's ass about how he and the OAS would work real hard to foment `democracy usa-style' in latin america... so this is a big finger to the USA from the OAS....
QUITO: Ecuador's new government received a show of support from an Organisation of American States mission on Saturday, boosting its campaign to shore up international confidence over its legitimacy. Ecuadorean President Alfredo Palacio, named last week by Congress after lawmakers dismissed ex-leader Lucio Gutierrez, has deflected calls for early elections and rejected criticism his appointment was unconstitutional.
. . .
The mission will present its initial report on Ecuador's political situation to the OAS next month. Mission representatives brushed aside questions on whether they considered the new government constitutional.
Former army colonel Gutierrez fled Quito for asylum in Brazil on Sunday four days after intense street protests against his government prompted Congress to oust him. Gutierrez, the third Ecuadorean president forced out amid unrest in eight years, had promised reforms to help the poor. But his popularity collapsed after he turned to free-market policies soon after his 2002 election.
The international community had appeared cautious in openly accepting the newly installed government in Ecuador, South America's No. 5 oil producer and the region's second oil exporter to the United States.
BACK TO HITLER'S AMERICA....
FRIST: SHOWDOWN WITH DEMOCRATS OVER COURT NOMINEES MAY BE 'INEVITABLE'
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-05-01-fris...
By Kathy Kiely, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist says he's "running out of options" in a fight with Democrats over President Bush's judicial nominees.
In an interview with USA TODAY, the Tennessee Republican said he believes a showdown over Bush's federal appellate court nominees is "almost inevitable." He said he'll push for a vote on the judicial candidates before Memorial Day because the "extreme partisanship" in the Senate justifies the move.
"There are times in history where you have to change either the rules or the precedent based on external behavior," he said Friday.
The battle is over how much power the Senate's Democratic minority should have in the confirmation process of Bush's judicial nominees. The appellate courts are important because they set legal precedent in cases that don't make it to the Supreme Court. Federal judges are appointed for life.
"He also said he's concerned about Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid's threats to retaliate by slowing down legislative activity, which could jeopardize presidential priorities such as the energy bill and an overhaul of Social Security. But Frist predicted Democrats will cave to political pressure and end such blockade."
I ACTUALLY THINK FRIST IS RIGHT!
BUT AT LEAST BUSHCO IS WORKING ON THE NO. 1 ISSUE IN AMERICA - THE ECONOMY. OH, WAIT....
SNOW'S ROAD SHOW TAKES TREASURY ON A PATH LESS TRAVELED: A Traveling Salesman Far From the Treasury
(Willie Loman to the rescue .. of the, uh, ROTARY?)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-sn...
WASHINGTON -- When President Bush decided two months ago to step up his campaign for Social Security restructuring, he assembled his Cabinet. Everyone was expected to play a part, Bush said, but the principal pitch man would be Treasury Secretary John W. Snow.
"You need to be the guy on the Hill. ...You need to be the guy doing the private meetings.... You need to be the guy doing the media and traveling," the president told Snow, according to one administration official's account of the session.
...
"I like John Snow and I respect him, but I think he's been put in an untenable position where he's been asked by the president to do things that someone else ought to be doing," said economist Bruce Bartlett, an assistant Treasury secretary in the administration of the first President Bush.
Snow should be spending most of his time managing the government's finances, monitoring currency flows and developing economic and fiscal policy, Bartlett said. "Instead, the secretary is out giving talks to Rotary clubs and high school students."
U.S. HAS NEW TRADE WAR: EU, CANADA FIRE FIRST SHOTS AIMED AT BYRD AMENDMENT
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/31617...
WASHINGTON - U.S. clothing, paper products and sweet corn will soon be more expensive for Europeans. For Canadians, American cigarettes, hogs, oysters and fish will cost more. For the U.S., it's all part of a new trade war that will mean lost sales and probably lost jobs.
Starting today, American exporters of a wide range of products will be hit with penalty tariffs of 15 percent levied by Canada and the 25-nation European Union because of U.S. government payments to American companies that have been ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization. Given current feelings in Congress, those penalties and additional sanctions pending in other countries could stay in effect for a long time, despite the Bush administration's opposition to it.
. . .
Under the Byrd amendment, passed in October 2000, companies that bring successful cases against foreign firms alleging that their competitors' products are being sold in this country at unfairly low prices not only get the benefit of higher penalty tariffs placed on the competing products but also receive the tariff revenue that the government collects. wow, corps actually MAKE money!
Before the Byrd amendment, the extra border taxes went into the government's coffers instead of being turned over to U.S. companies. Foreign companies complain that the new process amounts to double jeopardy. Not only are their products being hit with penalty tariffs but their U.S. competitors are getting a windfall from those tariffs.
TIME FOR SOME FANATASY....IT IS SUNDAY NIGHT AFTERALL -
WITH LITTLE FANFARE, A NEW EFFORT TO PROSECUTE EMPLOYERS THAT FLOUT SAFETY LAWS
http://nytimes.com/2005/05/02/politics/02osha.html?hp&e...
snip>
With little fanfare and some adept bureaucratic maneuvering, a partnership between the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and a select group of Justice Department prosecutors has been forged to identify and single out for prosecution the nation's most flagrant workplace safety violators.
The initiative does not entail new legislation or regulation. Instead, it seeks to marshal a spectrum of existing laws that carry considerably stiffer penalties than those governing workplace safety alone. They include environmental laws, criminal statutes more commonly used in racketeering and white-collar crime cases, and even some provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a corporate reform law.
The result, those involved say, should be to increase significantly the number of prosecutions brought against dangerous employers, particularly in cases involving death or injury.
....
The value of that coordination became obvious, he and other officials said, during a recent federal investigation into a New Jersey foundry owned by McWane Inc., the nation's largest manufacturer of cast-iron pipe. The investigation was prompted by articles in The Times and a companion documentary on the PBS television program "Frontline" that described McWane as one of the most dangerous employers in America....
That Pbs Show Was Aired A Few Years Ago....
BUT, WAIT, WHAT'S A COUNTRY TO DO? IT'S HARD WORK BRINGING PEACE AND PROSPERITY AND DEMOCRACY TO THE GALAXY...
AFGHAN PRESIDENT URGES U.S. TO USE CAUTION IN HUNTING MILITANTS FOLLOWING CIVILIAN DEATHS
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBDY51W78E.html
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai on Sunday urged U.S.-led forces to use "extreme caution" in their pursuit of Taliban and al-Qaida militants after at least two civilians were killed in an airstrike.
While the Afghan government is committed to helping foreign forces fight terrorism, it is also "aware of its responsibility to the Afghan people to ensure their safety," Karzai's office said in a statement. snip
The U.S. military initially said three civilians and four militants were killed in the airstrike on Friday during a two-day offensive in central Uruzgan province, the latest in a series of incidents to result in noncombatant deaths.
U.S. spokeswoman Lt. Cindy Moore on Sunday cut the official civilian toll from the airstrike to two - a woman and a child. She had no explanation for the revision. Two wounded civilians were still being treated at a U.S. base, she said.
more
NEW IRAQ COULD BECOME A NEST OF CORRUPTION
http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/New-Iraq-could-become-...
By Paul McGeough in Baghdad
Over lunch of chicken and kebabs on a sultry Baghdad day, the Iraqi businessman Mohammed Jawad talks camels and corruption.
"Iraq is like a sick camel," he says. "If it is healthy, no one can kill it. But when it is sick on the ground, the camel dies by a thousand knives."
The knives are wielded by corrupt ministers and their cronies - tribal and family - who force local and foreign contractors to inflate tender bids for contracts worth billions of dollars so that they can gouge millions for themselves.
SNIP
Like so many other Iraqis, businessmen invariably make then-and-now comparisons with the days of Saddam Hussein. The deposed leader ran his own massive corruption of the United Nations' oil-for-food program and he and his cronies regularly demanded a cut of any new business or contract.
But Mr Jawad, a Shiite with no brief for his former leader, says: "I'd say that about 10 per cent of business was corrupt under Saddam."
That's probably an underestimation, but Mr Jawad is making a point: "Now it's about 95 per cent - we used to have one Saddam, now we have 25 of them."
GOOD THING THERE IS NO WAR THREAT OUTSIDE OF THE NOW EMASCULATED AFGHANISTAN'S AND IRAQ'S OF THE WORLD....
N. KOREA MISSILE TEST RAISES NEW FEARS
lost the link, sorry....
By SOO-JEONG LEE, Associated Press
Last updated: 2:35 p.m., Sunday, May 1, 2005
snip
"It appears that there was a test of a short-range missile by the North Koreans and it landed in the Sea of Japan. We're not surprised by this. The North Koreans have tested their missiles before. They've had some failures," Andrew Card told the cable network.
snip
The Sunday test-firing occurred on the eve of a crucial gathering at the United Nations to review global progress on curbing nuclear proliferation. North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 2003. The United States, however, is expected to seek a consensus for tough action against the North Koreans as well as the Iranians -- both accused by Washington of having nuclear weapons or ambitions to build them -- during the U.N. session.
snip
The Sunday test, however, occurred at an especially worrisome time as the North appeared to have resumed efforts to move forward with its nuclear weapons program. South Korean officials said last month that Pyongyang had recently shut down a nuclear reactor, possibly to harvest more weapons-grade plutonium.
snip
Six-nation talks aimed at persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions have been stalled since last June.
I AM NOT REALLY WORRIED, THOUGH. WE ALWAYS HAVE THE PREEMPTIVE NUKE OPTION. OH WAIT, THAT'S NEW.....*scratching head, wondering why the USA didn't think to have this policy years ago.... we've had the technology. But no real will, it seems *
DRAFT U.S. PAPER ALLOWS COMMANDERS TO SEEK PREEMPTIVE NUKE STRIKES
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/050501/kyodo/d89qa7lo0.html
The U.S. military plans to allow regional combatant commanders to request the president for approval to carry out preemptive nuclear strikes against possible attacks on the United States or its allies with weapons of mass destruction, according to a draft new nuclear operations paper.
The paper, drafted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. Armed Forces, also revealed that submarines which make port calls in Yokosuka, Sasebo and Okinawa in Japan are prepared for reloading nuclear warheads if necessary to deal with a crisis.
"There are numerous nonstate organizations (terrorist, criminal) and about 30 nations with WMD programs, including many regional states," the paper says in allowing combatant commanders in the Pacific and other theaters to maintain an option of preemptive strikes against "rogue" states and terrorists and "request presidential approval for use of nuclear weapons" under set conditions.
Citing North Korea, Iran and some other countries as threats, the report set out contingencies for which U.S. nuclear strikes must be prepared and called for developing earth-penetrating nuclear bombs to destroy hidden underground military facilities, including those for storing WMD and ballistic missiles.
THIS IS FIVE MINUTES TROLLING AMERICAN NEWS THIS SUNDAY NIGHT!!!
We have a first rate clusterf*ck on our hands. We are going to have to think about handling this in an entirely different manner, people. Or give up. This in-between `make do' till the next election isn't going to cut it, I am afraid.
I compiled the above stories much earlier in the evening. Since then, there is yet another story out on a suicide bomb that killed 20 (or is it 35; the story keeps changing) people in Kurdistan. The funeral was for a Kurdish official who was killed this past weekend. 30 people are wounded. This is in light of about 15 other car bombs this weekend in Baghdad. And this is what they are telling us! What don't we know?
LE PIECE D'RESISTANCE? OUR BAND OF THUGS CAN'T EVEN LOOT SUCCESSFULLY!!!!!!! Given all of the above nightmares which were all for oil, you would think that we would at least get boatloads of oil! Wouldn't you? (pardon my french!)
A PROMISE UNFULFILLED: IRAQ'S OIL OUTPUT IS LAGGING
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/02/international/middleeast/02ministry.html
With vast reservoirs of oil and the potential to rival Saudi Arabia as a megaproducer, Iraq has long tantalized the world's energy industry, as well as economists and political leaders worried about the impact of high oil prices.
But the new Iraqi government's glaring failure last week to agree on an oil minister and the sectarian bargaining over this crucial appointment, as well as the unabated insurgency, have been new reminders of the political faults that keep the country's petroleum promise unrealized.
Snip
As recently as this April, a senior Iraqi leader evoked the eternal dream that Iraq could produce 10 million barrels a day - close to the Saudi levels - within 10 to 15 years.
Far less progress than that could alter the global oil market and aid consumers everywhere.
But two years after Saddam Hussein was toppled production is limping along at about two million barrels a day, less than before the war, and even at that rate it may be causing long-term damage to poorly maintained fields.
More at snip