Counter-Recruitment Conference

This Web page from the Mennonite Central Committee (somewhat akin to American Friends Service Committee, each brought to you by a historic peace church) also has other resources on conscientious objection.

Purpose

The conference will bring together youth and adults to learn how to counter the lure of military recruiters who promise money for college or job training. With a special focus on areas that are heavily recruited such as communities of color and settings of poverty, the conference will:

• provide good information on the realities behind military advertising and recruitment
• challenge and equip congregations to help youth find meaningful non-military opportunities for education, job training, employment, and leadership development
• discuss strategies for counter-recruitment work in public schools and other public settings
• lodge the work of counter recruitment in our commitment to Christ’s way of peace and reconciliation through worship and biblical study
• provide good opportunity for networking and sharing resources

Who should attend?

All who are eager to make Christ’s way of peace meaningful and accessible to youth in our highly militarized world, including:

[Follow the link for the list and more info. or just to take a look around.]

David Neiwert: Projecting fascism

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Donald Rumsfeld's Aug. 29 speech to the American Legion was a real watermark for the Bush administration, since it finally made official the government's embrace of the "war critics are treasonous appeasers" theme that has been circulating in the right-wing bloodstream for the past several years.

But it was also noteworthy because it became the launching pad for the administration's open embrace of the term "Islamofascism" as a way not only to describe the terrorist threat these officials use to justify every one of its monstrous policies, but to smear the good citizens whose consciences lead them to oppose those policies. As if on cue, the rest of the administration -- including Bush himself -- and their amen chorus in the pundit class began using it endlessly in media appearances, though they had actually been circulating it for some time.

Digby: You Want A Piece 'O Us?

The senate Democratic leadership has released a scathing letter to Robert Iger, president of ABC. Americablog has the whole thing posted, but this passage is just amazing:

Disney and ABC claim this program to be based on the 9/11 Commission Report and are using that assertion as part of the promotional campaign for it. The 9/11 Commission is the most respected American authority on the 9/11 attacks, and association with it carries a special responsibility. Indeed, the very events themselves on 9/11, so tragic as they were, demand extreme care by any who attempt to use those events as part of an entertainment or educational program. To quote Steve McPhereson, president of ABC Entertainment, “When you take on the responsibility of telling the story behind such an important event, it is absolutely critical that you get it right.”

Digby: Mocumentary

For those of us who haven't been given the opportunity to see the "Path to 9/11," Al Franken at Air America has and he will be running extended excerpts on tomorrow's show.

Digby: Mickey's CYA

So Disney/ABC is whining that it's unfair to criticize the movie when nobody's seen the final version. Yet they sent out hundreds of DVD's to Republicans all over the country to review --- and pointedly didn't send any to Democtrats, even the former president and secretary of State whose reputations were being assassinated in the film.

Digby: The American Scene

Atrios suggested earlier today that it might be time to start talking about the Mouse's rather "ugly" past and I agree. Whenever they wingnuts go on about "liberal" Hollywood, I always have to laugh. It's the oldest story in the book.

Here's one of my favorites. Good old Uncle Walt testifying before the HUAC:

SMITH: What is your opinion of Mr. Pomerance and Mr. Howard as to whether or not they are or are not communists?

DISNEY: In my opinion they are communists. No one has any way of proving those things.

Digby: They Care

There is much discussion today about the result of a medical study that shows 70% of people who worked in the WTC center rubble have lung problems. I'm not surprised. I recall writing a post about this back in 2003, when it was first revealed that the administration "edited" the EPA's health recommendations:

There are so many political and policy atrocities associated with the modern GOP and this administration that it becomes hard to feel anything more than a sort of resigned acceptance and hope that the historians will place them in their proper place in history beside other failed radical experiments.

Digby: Who Lost Osama?

As the right tries to spin 9/11 as being the fault of the Democrats, I can't help but wonder how they can do it when something like this is right out there for everyone to see:

Digby: Why It Matters

Dean Barnett, of Hugh Hewitt's blog, is having some second thoughts about "The Path to 9/11:"

THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT “The Path to 9/11” centers on one scene where CIA operatives and Northern Alliance irregulars under the leadership of the awe-inspiring Ahmed Shah Massoud have the opportunity to kill bin Laden. They phone NSA chief Sandy Berger for authorization to make the hit. Berger refuses to make the decision and in the scene actually hangs up on the operatives.

I’ve done a lot of reading and research regarding 9/11, and I have to admit that this story is new to me. The closest parallel I can think of is Tenet’s, Berger’s and Clinton’s irresolute follow-through on the Predator program which had the very real likelihood of knocking off bin Laden assuming the administration was willing to risk the death of innocents. Given the fact that Clinton was willing to take such a risk when the Lewinsky scandal reached its most fevered pitch, the fact that he wasn’t as bold without the looming specter of political calamity is damning. What’s more, the Clinton administration’s lethargic and chronically dilatory efforts to deal with bin Laden are an irrefutable part of the historical record.

Digby: Disney Throws Away Millions For Republican Causes

Jonathan at A Tiny Revolution notices a strange contradiction:

So..."The Path to 9/11" cost $30 million and was written and directed by conservative ideologues. Factually speaking, it's predictably craptastic. And yet Disney is glad to lose at least $30 million on it.

By contrast, this was Disney's treatment of another political movie—one that eventually grossed over $200 million:

Digby: Trials and Tribulations

According to Pete Williams on MSNBC, Bush's announcement that they are moving the 14 terrorists we've had holed up in secret prisons to Guantanamo is a political ploy to force Democrats to have to give "rights" to Khalid Sheik Mohammed if they want to challenge his Guantanamo policies. It's quite clever.

Digby: The Littlest Hero: One Year Ago Today

One year ago today I was as depressed as I'd ever been after watching a week's worth of Katrina aftermath horrors. And then I saw this story on Talk Left:

In the chaos that was Causeway Boulevard, this group of refugees stood out: a 6-year-old boy walking down the road, holding a 5-month-old, surrounded by five toddlers who followed him around as if he were their leader.

They were holding hands. Three of the children were about 2 years old, and one was wearing only diapers. A 3-year-old girl, who wore colorful barrettes on the ends of her braids, had her 14-month-old brother in tow. The 6-year-old spoke for all of them, and he told rescuers his name was Deamonte Love.

Digby: Take Another Look Kewl Kids

Since the press has turned into lobotomy patients with memory deficit disorder on the Plame case, I don't suppose it's even worthwhile to point out that the Armitage revelations of the past week or so in Isikoff and Corn's new book aren't really all that earth shattering compared with this week's bombshell:

A key question was, what did Valerie Wilson do at the CIA? Was she truly undercover? In a subsequent column, Novak reported that she was "an analyst, not in covert operations." White House press secretary Scott McClellan suggested that her employment at the CIA was no secret. Jonah Goldberg of National Review claimed, "Wilson's wife is a desk jockey and much of the Washington cocktail circuit knew that already."

Digby: Selling Credibility

One of the puzzles of the 9/11 movie is the fact that they are so adamant about the fact that this movie was based on the 9/11 Commission Report when they actually optioned two other books and the story is obviously at least partially based on them.

I suspect that this is ABC marketing all the way. This FoxNews story from last summer gives it away:

At the moment, ABC officials are calling the miniseries "Untitled Commission Report" and producers refer to it as the "Untitled History Project."

Digby: 9/11 Spokesmodel

Now that we know "The Path to 9/11" is not actually based on the 9/11 Commission report, it is probably a good idea to take a look at what is actually was based on (aside from the fevered wingnut dreams of its creative team.) ABC had optioned a couple of books for the project. The first is called "The Cell" co-written by John Miller, formerly of ABC's 20/20. It follows the story of John O'Neill, who is played by the star of the movie, Harvey Kietel.

Miller, you'll recall, is the ABC spokesmodel who left the network and went directly work as the head of counterterrorism for the LAPD. This was, as you might imagine, something of a shock to the locals, who expected that their new counterterrorism chief would be someone who had at least a tiny bit of law enforcement experience. LA, after all, is a serious terrorist target, having been the destination of the thwarted Millenium plot. We take our terrorism quite seriously here.

Digby: Disney and The Dobsonites

Are Disney and ABC becoming willing tools of the right wing? Or are they simply currying favor with James Dobson and the far right out corporate necessity? Either way, something very strange is happening in Mouseland.

Earlier this year, you'll remember that they cancelled, at the last minute, a reality TV show called "Welcome To The Neighborhood" which featured a gay couple competing for a house.

Digby: The Real Story

I have been so disappointed about not being allowed to screen the new 9/11 docudrama like all the cool rightwing bloggers who have the inside track to liberal Hollywood, that I was forced to watch the orginal documentary footage.

Digby: Path To Rewriting History

How surprising to learn that the new ABC "event movie" scheduled for next week-end called "The Path To 9/11," touted as being "based on the 9/11 Commission Report," has been selectively screened only by rightwing columnists and bloggers. Why on earth would ABC do that?

When challenged to explain why the right-wing blogosphere is abuzz with praise for the film, director David Cunningham responded that "we are also being accused of being a left wing movie that bashes Bush" — a claim for which there is absolutely no evidence. I searched Technorati for mentions of the film and found 260 references, mostly from conservative websites, every single one of which had nothing but praise for the film. And although I found numerous examples of conservative pundits and bloggers who reported seeing pre-broadcast screenings, no leftist pundits or bloggers had been given a chance to see it (unless you count Salon.com’s roundup of several 9/11-themed movies).

Did the Army favor Raytheon in anti-RPG bid?

NBC News investigation finds contractor enjoyed competitive advantage

By Adam Ciralsky, Lisa Myers & the NBC News Investigative Unit

NBC News

Updated: 9:16 p.m. ET Sept 6, 2006

WASHINGTON - Earlier this year, the U.S. Army awarded one of its favored defense contractors, Raytheon, a $70 million contract to develop a new system to combat rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), which have killed nearly 40 Americans in Afghanistan and more than 130 in Iraq.

The Army insists that Raytheon won the contract fair and square based on its “systems engineering expertise and the discipline which they used in analyzing requirements, threats and potential solutions.”

Book of revelations

As details about the lead-up to the Iraq war are revealed, it's time to ask how much political resonance they really have.

September 7, 2006 11:01 AM

A British editor sent me an email asking whether new revelations about the lead-up to the war in Iraq can cause political damage to President Bush and his Republican comrades in Congress. I knew why he was asking. I have a new book out (co-written with Michael Isikoff of Newsweek), Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, which is loaded with revelations.

The book chronicles the intelligence battles that raged within the hallways and offices of the CIA, the State Department, the White House and Congress in the year before Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq. The book opens with a scene from May 2002, in which Bush tells his aides he intends to "kick [Saddam Hussein's] sorry motherfucking ass all over the Mideast."

The myth of fair elections in America

The debacle surrounding the Republican victory in 2000 demonstrated to the world that America's electoral process is wide open to abuse. But as Paul Harris discovers, the system has actually worsened since then

Thursday September 7, 2006
Observer.co.uk

One person, one vote. Count the totals. The one with the most wins. The beauty of democracy is its simplicity and its inherent fairness. It equalises everyone, even as it empowers everyone. What could go wrong? In America, it turns out, quite a lot.

Everyone remembers the debacle in Florida, 2000. The recounts, the law suits and the eventual deciding of a presidential election - not by the voters - but by the Supreme Court. The memory still causes a collective shudder to America's body politic.

Election 2006 & World War III

By Robert Parry
September 7, 2006

As Americans go to the polls in two months, they should have one thought fixed in their minds: they will be voting on whether to commit the nation to fighting World War III against large segments of the world’s one billion Muslims. Beyond the cost in blood and treasure, this war will mean the end of the United States as a democratic Republic.

Those are the stakes that were made clear by George W. Bush in an alarmist speech to an association of U.S. military officers on Sept. 5. He declared that the United States must battle not only likely or even possible threats from terrorists, but the most fantastical dreams of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda about a mystical global “caliphate.”

Media Misses the Point On C.I.A. Leak Story

By Joe Conason

To observe the Washington press corps is to wonder why so many people who don’t remember what happened yesterday and can’t master basic logic are expected to analyze politics and policy. The latest developments in the Valerie Plame Wilson case—as revealed in Hubris, a new book by Michael Isikoff and David Corn—proved once more that the simplest analysis of facts is beyond the grasp of many of America’s most celebrated journalists.

What Messrs. Corn and Isikoff reveal, among other things, is that the first official to reveal Valerie Wilson’s covert identity as a C.I.A. operative to columnist Robert Novak in June 2003 was Richard Armitage, who then served as Deputy Secretary of State. Unlike other Bush administration figures who were involved in leaking Ms. Wilson’s identity, such as Karl Rove and Lewis (Scooter) Libby, Mr. Armitage was known to be unenthusiastic about the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Lie by Lie: Chronicle of a War Foretold: August 1990 to March 2003

The first drafts of history are fragmentary. Important revelations arrive late, and out of order. In this timeline, we’ve assembled the history of the Iraq War to create a resource we hope will help resolve open questions of the Bush era. What did our leaders know and when did they know it? And, perhaps just as important, what red flags did we miss, and how could we have missed them? This is the first installment in our Iraq War timeline project.

Study says methane a new climate threat

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
Wed Sep 6, 8:06 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Global warming gases trapped in the soil are bubbling out of the thawing permafrost in amounts far higher than previously thought and may trigger what researchers warn is a climate time bomb.

Methane — a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide — is being released from the permafrost at a rate five times faster than thought, according to a study being published Thursday in the journal Nature. The findings are based on new, more accurate measuring techniques.

Issues of privacy at the forefront of concerns for U.S. citizens

Issues of privacy, monitoring and surveillance are now at the forefront of concerns for U.S. citizens.

Milwaukee, Wis. - September 06, 2006 -- Nearly 80% of organizations exercise some form of employee surveillance, according to an article in the latest issue of Communication Theory. The USA PATRIOT Act was implemented in October 2003 with the intention of thwarting terrorist organizations, but the effects the law is having on the general population has now raised concerns for many U.S. citizens and civil liberties organizations.

In the current climate, surveillance is actively supported, which sends a signal to many organizations that surveillance of employees will continue to be tolerated at unprecedented levels. Although current law protects individuals from surveillance of personal communication, exceptions provide work organizations many loopholes that allow them to monitor their employees, sometimes with little or no notice.

Book: Rove withheld crucial CIA leak email for nearly a year

John Byrne
Published: Wednesday September 6, 2006

Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove withheld a crucial email from CIA leak investigators for eleven months, according to an upcoming book that arrives in bookstores today.

In the new book, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, veteran Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff and Nation Washington editor David Corn reveal they obtained a copy of the printed-out email sent by Rove to then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley in July 2003.

Coral Ridge Ministries new "documentary" featuring Ann Coulter attributes Hitler to Charles Darwin

ADL calls it "an outrageous and shoddy attempt by D. James Kennedy to trivialize the horrors of the Holocaust"

The buzz before and after the broadcast of "Darwin's Deadly Legacy" -- on Christian cable networks and about 200 television stations around the country -- centered just as much on the film's assertion that Adolph Hitler grounded his genocidal actions on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, as it did on whether a prestigious scientist was duped into participating in the documentary, the ventures of D. James Kennedy, the powerful pastor of the Ft. Lauderdale, Florida-based Coral Ridge Ministries (CRM) which produced the film. Also in the spotlight is the growing split in the Jewish community over relations with conservative Christian evangelicals.

The documentary aired August 26-27 during Coral Ridge Ministries' "Coral Ridge Hour," accompanied by a book titled "Evolution's Fatal Fruit: How Darwin's Tree of Life Brought Death to Millions." The film "connects the dots between Charles Darwin and Adolph Hitler," a pre-broadcast CRM statement claimed. The statement boasted that "the program features 14 scholars, scientists and authors who outline the grim consequences of Darwin's theory of evolution and show how his theory fueled Hitler's ovens."

Plame headed WMD search, says new book

Julian Borger in Washington
Wednesday September 6, 2006
The Guardian

Valerie Plame, a covert CIA agent whose identity was leaked by the Bush administration at the height of a political feud with her husband, was in charge of operations aimed at finding out if Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, according to a new book.

The Plame affair has dogged the White House since July 2003, when her cover was blown, but the nature of her job had been unknown. In Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal and the Selling of the Iraq War, two Washington journalists, Michael Isikoff and David Corn, say she was the chief of operations of the CIA's joint taskforce on Iraq.

Cursor's Media Patrol - 09/06/06

The Bush administration claims that detainees of the U.S. military will now be "ensured humane treatment" and acknowledges the existence of CIA prisons in announcing the transfer of "14 high-value terrorism suspects" to Guantanamo.

The newly updated "National Strategy For Combatting Terrorism" makes no mention of bin Laden by name, saying instead that "the enemy we face today in the war on terror is not the same enemy we faced on Sept. 11."

In an interview with NPR, the New Yorker's Lawrence Wright, author of "The Looming Tower," discusses the importance of a U.S. attack on Iran to al Qaeda's "20 year master plan" leading to "total apocalyptic war on unbelievers."

Before examining 'Osama's Bank Account,' "Ghost Wars" author Steve Coll participated in an e-mail correspondence with Wright on the relationship between Bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri.

A New Yorker panel surveys 'The World After 9/11,' in which a new Zogby poll finds that almost a third of all Democrats believe there was a link between Saddam Hussein and the attacks on New York and Washington.

Firedoglake rounds up reaction to David Corn's revelation that former CIA agent Valery Plame Wilson was "operations chief of the Joint Task Force on Iraq" -- which was "ramped up several months before 9/11 even occurred."

"Seriously bad news" A New York Times editorial goes 'In Search of Accurate Vote Totals,' and a Mother Jones report challenges citizens in '11 of America's worst places to cast a ballot' to 'Just Try Voting Here.'

The Slow Death of the Middle Class

By Laura Barcella, AlterNet. Posted September 6, 2006.

Conservatives are working hard to dismantle almost every policy that protects average American workers. Air America host Thom Hartmann speaks up about how we can fight back.

In his new book, Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class, Air America host Thom Hartmann provides an exhaustive argument that America's backbone and lifeblood -- its middle class -- is vanishing. (Or being cast out, set aside, and methodically destroyed, depending on your perspective.)

Hartmann blends current affairs with a vital crash course in history to demonstrate the ways in which -- under 25 years of right-wing wonkery -- working people, once treasured as the foundation of our economy, are now neglected to the point of extinction. Through concrete examples of laws passed, unions busted and programs dismantled, Hartmann reminds us how, since Reagan's 1980 ascension to the throne, conservative policiticans have done little except "conserve" their own wealth- and power-grubbing interests.

The Undeclared War on America's Middle Class

By Thom Hartmann, AlterNet. Posted September 6, 2006.

Under the guise of free market capitalism, conservative policies have made 80-hour work weeks the norm. Working harder for less money means middle class families are getting screwed.

This excerpt is reprinted with permission from Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class by Thom Hartmann; Berrett Koehler Publishers, 2006.

You can't be middle class if you earn the minimum wage in America today.

The American dream and the American reality have collided. In America we have always said that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can take care of yourself and your family. But the minimum wage is just $5.15 per hour. With a 40-hour workweek, that comes to a gross income of $9,888 per year. Nobody can support a family, own a home, buy health insurance, or retire decently on $9,888 per year!

Upcoming NIE on Iraq Likely to be Ugly

by clammyc
Mon Sep 4th, 2006 at 09:40:02 PM EST

Nearly six weeks ago, six Senate Democrats, including Harry Reid, Joe Biden and Edward Kennedy sent a letter to John Negroponte (Director of National Intelligence for those who aren't "in the know"...) urging an updated National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. For starters, this was long overdue, considering the last one was in 2004, and wasn't too pretty, offering three possibilities in Iraq, ranging from "continued instability" (or "bad") to civil war ("worst").

Of course, since then things have gotten completely out of hand and we are now stuck in that "worst" scenario, even though many officials still have their heads in their asses the sand and deny the obvious. And just three days ago, Negroponte decided to draft an updated NIE.

How 9/11 changed America: In statistics

Five years after the 11 September attacks, how has America changed? Click through these graphs to explore long-term trends in selected aspects of life. We include the five years preceding 2001 for comparison. Click the arrows below to see key events.

New evidence shows Antarctica has warmed in last 150 years

Despite recent indications that Antarctica cooled considerably during the 1990s, new research suggests that the world's iciest continent has been getting gradually warmer for the last 150 years, a trend not identifiable in the short meteorological records and masked at the end of the 20th century by large temperature variations.

Numerous ice cores collected from five areas allowed scientists to reconstruct a temperature record that shows average Antarctic temperatures have risen about two-tenths of a degree Celsius, or about one-third of a degree Fahrenheit, in 150 years. That might not sound like much, but the overall increase includes a recorded temperature decline of nearly 1 degree in the 1990s, said David Schneider, a University of Washington postdoctoral researcher in Earth and space sciences.

GOP Congress blocked Clinton push for anti-terror legislation

by John in DC - 9/04/2006 11:10:00 AM

CNN, July 30, 1996

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, emerged from the meeting and said, "These are very controversial provisions that the [Clinton] White House wants. Some they're not going to get." ....[Hatch] also said he had some problems with the president's proposals to expand wiretapping.

So Bill Clinton, rather than just breaking the law as Bush did (then again, perhaps this is why Bush broke the law - he knew from history that the Republicans controlling the congress would oppose his efforts to expand wiretapping), decided to go to the Republican congress in 1996 and ask them for increased authority to do more eavesdropping in order to stop the terrorists - stop September 11. Senior Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, one of the GOP's top picks for the Supreme Court and a GOP committee chair, objected.

Deep ice tells long climate story

By Jonathan Amos Science reporter, BBC News, Norwich

Carbon dioxide levels are substantially higher now than at anytime in the last 800,000 years, the latest study of ice drilled out of Antarctica confirms.

The in-depth analysis of air bubbles trapped in a 3.2km-long core of frozen snow shows current greenhouse gas concentrations are unprecedented.

Deadly, Intentional Ignorance on Guns

The Bush administration has blocked collecting data on gun sales and crime. Now Congress wants to go even further.

September 3, 2006

TWO YEARS AGO THIS MONTH, the federal ban on assault weapons expired. Since then, sales of such weapons have almost certainly increased, and the number of crimes in which they have been used has undoubtedly risen. Unfortunately, there's no way to know for sure. That's because the public and law enforcement agencies no longer have access to information they could routinely get just a few years ago.

A decade ago, the federal government was beginning to make some progress in making information about crime and guns more widely available. During the Clinton administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms started analyzing its vast database for the first time and in 2000 released its "Commerce in Firearms" report. This report — which was supposed to be issued annually — was full of information about gun sales as well as sales patterns of weapons used to commit crimes.

Daily Kos: A Liberal Walks Into A Bar...

by georgia10
Sat Sep 02, 2006 at 02:45:25 PM PDT

As many of you know, I spent most of August vacationing on a small Greek island. My nightly ritual included visiting a tiny rock bar owned and inhabited by my friends. Beyond the draw of its brick walls (which remind me of home sweet home), there's four computers tucked into a corner with satellite internet access. Internet access AND a friendly bar. Heaven, some might say.

A few nights before I came back to America, I was finishing up a column, and after a bit, I signed off and went over to the bar. This guy (oh, let's call him Dick, shall we?) approached me. He was a young thing, slightly younger than me, I would say, and it was his first summer in Greece. He was a friend of a friend, and he was about to regret approaching me. Really, really regret it.

Daily Kos: National Missile Defense: The Myth of Succcess (again)

by Yoss

Fri Sep 01, 2006 at 06:06:39 PM PDT

In some of my earlier diaries, I have taken a look at the history of national missile defense programs, the Bush administration's fixation on the concept, and the numerous ways that this administration has incorrectly approached the problem. I also took a look at what I described as the, "Myth of Success."

It appears it is time to revisit the topic.

The U.S. military shot down a target ballistic missile over the Pacific Friday in the widest test of its emerging antimissile shield in 18 months, the Defense Department announced.

The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency said it had successfully completed an important exercise involving the launch of an improved ground-based interceptor missile designed to protect the United States against a limited long-range ballistic missile attack.

Vice President Cheney's 'major rhetorical reversal' on Iraq

Ron Brynaert
Published: Saturday September 2, 2006

About halfway through an article analyzing President Bush's "striking change of tone" in his recent speeches regarding the "grim consequences of failure" in Iraq, New York Times White House Correspondent David E. Sanger also notes a "major rhetorical reversal" by Vice President Dick Cheney.

President Bush "picked up on an approach that Gen. John P. Abizaid, Vice President Dick Cheney and others have refined in the past few months: a warning that defeat in Iraq will only move the battle elsewhere, threatening allies in the Middle East and eventually, Mr. Bush insisted, Americans 'in the streets of our own cities,'" writes Sanger for The Times.

Minuteman money mystery

Anti-immigrant group turns to Alan Keyes and his right wing groups to handle money and media

In late April, Chris Simcox, the head of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC), the anti-immigration organization that thrust itself into the national spotlight last year when it set up citizen patrols along the U.S.-Mexico border, showed up in Bellingham, Washington to testify at a Washington Human Rights Commission hearing. According to a post by David Neiwert at Orcinus, Simcox, who seemed to have undergone an extreme makeover -- sans cosmetic surgery -- was "rather impressive: clean-cut, very straightforward seeming, very smooth. He seemed almost preppy with his new clean-shaven look and crew sweatshirt."

The old Simcox, "who liked to alternate between camos and jeans and sport an American-flag ballcap, spout endless conspiracy theories and quasi-racist fearmongering, and demonstrate his utter idiocy to anyone familiar with gun safety by holstering his pistol down the front of his jeans," was "it appears ... ancient history ... buried under the careful coaching of the D.C.-based public relations firm that Simcox hired," Neiwert noted. "They've done a pretty good job of making Simcox over completely."

Huffington Post: A 1917 History Lesson

Rep. John Murtha

I find it hypocritical and ironic that Secretary Rumsfeld and President Bush, in their latest speeches to spin the war in Iraq, both commented that "many still have not learned history lessons," as they drew inflammatory parallels between Nazism and today's war in Iraq designed only to provoke unreasonable fear in the hearts of Americans.

Clearly it was the ignoring of history that got President Bush and his ideological policymakers into the quagmire that now exists in Iraq. As history dictated, it was absolutely foolish to believe that by occupying Iraq, the United States would transform the country into a beacon of American style democratic ideals. The British failed in its occupation attempts during the early 1900s. You only have to press rewind to hear the now haunting yet familiar words of a British Commander in Baghdad in 1917 say, "Our armies do not come in to your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators." After a decade of fighting with the population they had forcibly "liberated," the British were finally expelled from what is today Iraq by a population who resented foreign occupation and control.

Paul Krugman: The Big Disconnect

--The New York Times, September 1, 2006

There are still some pundits out there lecturing people about how great the economy is. But most analysts seem to finally realize that Americans have good reasons to be unhappy with the state of the economy: although G.D.P. growth has been pretty good for the last few years, most workers have seen their wages lag behind inflation and their benefits deteriorate.

The disconnect between overall economic growth and the growing squeeze on many working Americans will probably play a big role this November, partly because President Bush seems so out of touch: the more he insists that it’s a great economy, the angrier voters seem to get. But the disconnect didn’t begin with Mr. Bush, and it won’t end with him, unless we have a major change in policies.

How Obtuse Is the U.S. Press?

By Robert Parry
September 3, 2006

In the movie “Shawshank Redemption,” the wrongly convicted Andy Dufrense (Tim Robbins) gets frustrated when the corrupt prison warden blocks Dufrense’s chance to prove his innocence. “How can you be so obtuse?” Dufrense asks.

The same question could be addressed today to Washington journalists who are falling over themselves to absolve George W. Bush’s White House of any serious wrongdoing in the three-year-old assault on former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson and the outing of his CIA officer wife, Valerie Plame.

Analysis: U.S. says Iran behind trouble

By ROBERT H. REID
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

CAIRO, Egypt -- Top U.S. officials have made strong charges in recent weeks that Iran is directly stirring up trouble in Iraq. But inside Iraq, it's hard to see any change and some American officials in Baghdad say privately the evidence is not that clear.

Most experts on Iran say there is no question that Iran is funneling support to certain Shiite political parties in Iraq, groups it long supported when they were fighting Saddam Hussein.

Bush’s Shift of Tone on Iraq: The Grim Cost of Losing

By DAVID E. SANGER

Published: September 2, 2006

WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 — President Bush’s newest effort to rebuild eroding support for the war in Iraq features a distinct shift in approach: Rather than stressing the benefits of eventual victory, he and his top aides are beginning to lay out the grim consequences of failure.

It is a striking change of tone for a president who prides himself on optimism and has usually maintained that demeanor, at least in public, while his aides cast critics as defeatists.

I no longer have power to save Iraq from civil war, warns Shia leader

By Gethin Chamberlain and Aqeel Hussein in Baghdad

(Filed: 03/09/2006)

The most influential moderate Shia leader in Iraq has abandoned attempts to restrain his followers, admitting that there is nothing he can do to prevent the country sliding towards civil war.

Aides say Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is angry and disappointed that Shias are ignoring his calls for calm and are switching their allegiance in their thousands to more militant groups which promise protection from Sunni violence and revenge for attacks.

"I will not be a political leader any more," he told aides. "I am only happy to receive questions about religious matters."

Frank Rich: Donald Rumsfeld’s Dance With the Nazis

September 3, 2006

PRESIDENT BUSH came to Washington vowing to be a uniter, not a divider. Well, you win some and you lose some. But there is one member of his administration who has not broken that promise: Donald Rumsfeld. With indefatigable brio, he has long since united Democrats, Republicans, generals and civilians alike in calling for his scalp.

Last week the man who gave us “stuff happens” and “you go to war with the Army you have” outdid himself. In an instantly infamous address to the American Legion, he likened critics of the Iraq debacle to those who “ridiculed or ignored” the rise of the Nazis in the 1930’s and tried to appease Hitler. Such Americans, he said, suffer from a “moral or intellectual confusion” and fail to recognize the “new type of fascism” represented by terrorists. Presumably he was not only describing the usual array of “Defeatocrats” but also the first President Bush, who had already been implicitly tarred as an appeaser by Tony Snow last month for failing to knock out Saddam in 1991.

Top scientist's fears for climate

By Roger Harrabin
BBC environment analyst

One of America's top scientists has said that the world has already entered a state of dangerous climate change.

In his first broadcast interview as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, John Holdren told the BBC that the climate was changing much faster than predicted.

"We are not talking anymore about what climate models say might happen in the future.

"We are experiencing dangerous human disruption of the global climate and we're going to experience more," Professor Holdren said.

The End Times Hits Primetime

By Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com. Posted August 30, 2006.

Karl Rove and Co. may be flirting with selling the public the same thing cult leaders throughout history have sold their followers: the afterlife.

"Now where was I? Oh right, our complete annihilation at the hands of fundamentalist Arabs. I was thinking about this on August 22nd, and some very smart people -- even smarter than me -- thought it was very possible that Iran or one of those other merry pranksters in the Middle East could have made a big move and vaporized every one of us. But August 22nd has passed, and that hasn't happened. Yet... Hezbollah could push the "Launch" button while I'm enjoying some chips and dip and watching that cantankerous House on TV. Maybe it won't happen, but you never know. And by won't happen, I mean the Hezbollah/launch part, not the chips and dip part. Me, some French onion and a bag of Ruffles is so happening." -- Glenn Beck, talk show host, CNN Headline News

It's hard to imagine anything that better encapsulates the spirit of life in America under George W. Bush than primetime CNN pseudo-prophet Glenn Beck's recent warning about the end of the world. A dire warning about Armageddon, strategically issued during election season, that includes -- a plug for Ruffles!

Beck is the new hotness in the world of O'Reilly-Hannity-esque shrieking TV windbags; a former drug addict who is a late convert to Mormonism, Beck's shtick is that he's a conservative but not a Republican, allowing him to claim a kind of objectivity while he does things like fantasize about murdering Michael Moore and call Michael Berg's dad a "scumbag." His TV come-on is part comic, part carnival barker, and one if his favorite themes is End Times -- he's a strong believer in the literal second coming of Jesus and, between cornball jokes, never wastes any opportunity to remind his audience that the end is nigh.

Dollars & Sense Magazine: Other Economies are Possible!

By Ethan Miller, Dollars and Sense. Posted September 1, 2006.

Is the raw capitalism in American society the best possible outcome for our well being? Surely not: It's time to think about an economic system that makes us happy people.

Can thousands of diverse, locally-rooted, grassroots economic projects form the basis for a viable democratic alternative to capitalism? It might seem unlikely that a motley array of initiatives such as worker, consumer, and housing cooperatives, community currencies, urban gardens, fair trade organizations, intentional communities, and neighborhood self-help associations could hold a candle to the pervasive and seemingly all-powerful capitalist economy. These "islands of alternatives in a capitalist sea" are often small in scale, low in resources, and sparsely networked. They are rarely able to connect with each other, much less to link their work with larger, coherent structural visions of an alternative economy.

Indeed, in the search for alternatives to capitalism, existing democratic economic projects are frequently painted as noble but marginal practices, doomed to be crushed or co-opted by the forces of the market. But is this inevitable? Is it possible that courageous and dedicated grassroots economic activists worldwide, forging paths that meet the basic needs of their communities while cultivating democracy and justice, are planting the seeds of another economy in our midst? Could a process of horizontal networking, linking diverse democratic alternatives and social change organizations together in webs of mutual recognition and support, generate a social movement and economic vision capable of challenging the global capitalist order?

Study: Summer is Getting Longer

Sara Goudarzi
LiveScience Staff Writer, LiveScience.com

Thu Aug 31, 8:00 AM ET

The lines between seasons are blurring and summer is getting longer in North America, a new study indicates.

Tracing backwards every known rainfall event on the globe, for a 25-year period ending in 2003, scientists wanted to determine where the moisture that supplied each rainfall came from.

While doing that, they found remarkable trends in what they call recycling over that time period, said study co-author, Paul Dirmeyer from the Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies in Calverton, MD.

Precipitation recycling is the fraction of rain falling over a particular area that originated as evaporation from that same area.