bush's third term

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U.S. military spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker confirmed that the hospital was searched last week but had no other details. She said the military was looking into the incident.

"We are investigating, and we take allegations like this seriously," she said. "Complaints like this are rare."

Fange said U.S. troops kicked in doors, tied up four hospital guards and two people visiting hospitalized relatives, and forced patients out of beds during their search late Wednesday night.

They also barged into the women's wards, he said, adding that strange men entering rooms where women are in beds is a serious insult to the local Muslim culture and word of it could turn the community against international troops.

When they left two hours later, the soldiers ordered hospital staff to inform coalition forces if any wounded insurgents were admitted, and the military would decide if they could be treated, he said.

The staff refused. Fange said informing on patients would be an ethical breach, put the staff at risk and make the hospital a target. He demanded guarantees the military would not enter hospitals without permission in future.

"If the international military forces are not respecting the sanctity of health facilities, then there is no reason for the Taliban to do it either," he said. "Then these clinics and hospitals would become military targets."

the real boon of the internet

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I don't think the internet is going to be good for getting better people in office. That's clearly as delusory as it has been through any other medium. I think we are stuck with it for news, but will have to work many times harder than almost anyone is willing to work to come up with stuff most closely resembling cogent and true. That will forever remain better than the alternative, but it's still way too hard and time consuming for most. The internet is the perfect tool for covert ops, agents provocateurs and disinformation campaigns. It is a spectacular medium for character assassination and for the elevation of ill-motivated charming people to gather more rubes.

The place where it will end up having done the very most good, beside all the entertainment and community stuff, is to get higher education to more people. It will be full of all the same pitfalls as the rest of our lives online, but, especially for autodidacts, the education opportunities online are already outright dazzling and can only get better.

show me the way

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Things are going very, very hard on my father, and I am very taken up with this right now. I am sorry to leave you dangling here so much lately, but, whoa, this is a very upsetting situation.

We visited with him all afternoon, and then went to my aunt and uncle's place for dinner. There was a huge fireworks show across the lake and the moon just past full. We sat on the deck with drinks and watched the beautiful show, but my whole essence was across the lake in my dad's room in the "Memory Unit". He is scared and hurt and confused and this is completely unfair to him. He's not dotty. He just can't speak cogently from the word soup all those little strokes left him with. He knows what's going on and he is hurt and afraid. I can't have it, and I can't do anything about it. I can't stay there with him. It's a long drive even from here and SIX hours from my house. And, yet, none of that matters. This must get fixed anyway.

can pitchforks and torches fix sick and wrong?

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norman finkelstein, my hero, quits the gaza freedom march

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Why I resigned from the Gaza Freedom March coalition:

The original consensus of the International Coalition to End the Illegal Siege of Gaza was that we would limit our statement to a pair of uncontroversial, basic and complementary principles that would have the broadest possible appeal: the march to break the siege would be nonviolent and anchored in international law. I agreed with this approach and consequent statement and decided to remove myself from the steering committee in order to invest my full energies in mobilizing for the march. During the week beginning August 30, 2009 and in a matter of days an entirely new sectarian agenda dubbed "the political context" was foisted on those who originally signed on and worked tirelessly for three months. Because it drags in contentious issues that--however precious to different constituencies--are wholly extraneous to the narrow but critical goal of breaking the siege this new agenda is gratuitously divisive and it is almost certain that it will drastically reduce the potential reach of our original appeal. It should perhaps be stressed that the point of dispute was not whether one personally supported a particular Palestinian right or strategy to end the occupation. It was whether inclusion in the coalition's statement of a particular right or strategy was necessary if it was both unrelated to the immediate objective of breaking the siege and dimmed the prospect of a truly mass demonstration. In addition the tactics by which this new agenda was imposed do not bode well for the future of the coalition's work and will likely move the coalition in an increasingly sectarian direction. I joined the coalition because I believed that an unprecedented opportunity now exists to mobilize a broad public whereby we could make a substantive and not just symbolic contribution towards breaking the illegal and immoral siege of Gaza and, accordingly, realize a genuine and not just token gesture of solidarity with the people of Gaza. In its present political configuration I no longer believe the coalition can achieve such a goal. Because I would loathe getting bogged down in a petty and squalid public brawl I will not comment further on this matter unless the sequence of events climaxing in my decision to resign are misrepresented by interested parties. However I would be remiss in my moral obligations were I not humbly to apologize to those who, either coaxed by me or encouraged by my participation, gave selflessly of themselves to make the march a historic event and now feel aggrieved at the abrupt turn of events. It can only be said in extenuation that I along with many others desperately fought to preserve the ecumenical vision that originally inspired the march but the obstacles thrown in our path ultimately proved insurmountable.

My heart is heavy for him. No one has worked as hard and sacrificed so much for peace and justice where the bloodstain of aggression and oppression grows ever wider.

On the one hand, how could he be so falsely modest as to trust the leadership of this to passion-addled others, but on the other, he was right to want to concentrate on getting the people to this because he's the one most of us trust in this. I just can't stand that once again something with such a huge potential for changing the world has been ruined by our good old standard greed, hate and delusion.

It's like quicksand here... or a cosmic pit full of glue and grease.

american-bought mole plays gandhi in iran

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Our guys must have given him some intense body guard action to get this out of him. Long as he has a bunch of frustrated Iranians to make excuses for him, it's just too tempting to resist letting that go to waste. Still, he's stupid to rely on it because the regime grabbing his sorry ass and slamming him in jail, or just shooting him, would be much better for our purposes. In fact, now we can do a Neda on him and the entire world will revile the "murdering theocracy" that "wants to nuke Israel".

He's obviously no Einstein and he's obviously no Gandhi either.

When I said he was looking like the Iranian Obama, I had no idea how precisely I'd whacked that nail on its head....

Iran's Mousavi calls for more civil disobedience

The statement from the nation's opposition leader comes two days after parliament voted to mostly approve a Cabinet of hard-liners loyal to Ahmadinejad.

By Borzou Daragahi
September 5, 2009 | 5:15 a.m.

Reporting from Beirut - Iran's leading opposition figure today called on his supporters to continue acts of peaceful civil disobedience in his first major communiqué in weeks.

Mir Hossein Mousavi also demanded that authorities launch an independent probe of Iran's disputed presidential elections and punish those who allegedly abused protesters and detainees in the unrest afterward.

"We shouldn't leave any stone unturned and live up to our commitments in our struggle against cheaters and liars," he said in a statement published to his news website, Kalamenews.com. "In pursuing our cause we should brave all the accusations, and we shouldn't duck any act of courage or daring."

Mousavi, a former prime minister, ran and lost against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a June 12 election marred by allegations of massive vote rigging that continue to roil the nation. Though Mousavi's deputies have been hauled before televised mass tribunals for questioning the results and his allies threatened with arrest by the Revolutionary Guard, he has remained unbowed.

The statement came two days after parliament voted to mostly approve a Cabinet of hard-line loyalists to Ahmadinejad, disappointing opposition figures who had hoped the battered president would be further weakened in a lengthy brawl over the formation of his government.

Ahmadinejad met today with visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who voiced support for Iran's nuclear program in an attempt to counter the image of Tehran's diplomatic isolation as world powers prepare to consider a course of action.

The website of the German magazine Der Spiegel, citing unnamed diplomats, today reported that Russia and China have rejected a U.S. and West European proposal to begin discussions on upping sanctions on Iran.

Mousavi unveiled no new plan of action or strategy for his "Green Path of Hope," the grassroots political movement he announced in mid-August. But he implicitly called for a continuation of nightly rooftop anti-government chants and demonstrations. "There is no way but praying to God and calls of [Allah Akbar] in small and big gatherings with all-out efforts and endeavors," he said in the statement.

Earlier this week, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the hard-line Revolutionary Guard, delivered a speech defining Iranian reformists such as former President Mohammad Khatami as enemies of the state.

Their refusal to back down in the face of such threats and ongoing pressure suggests no quick resolution of Iran's greatest domestic political crisis since the early years after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

"Despite the smear campaign of the state-run propaganda machine, it is we who are calling for the restoration of confidence and peace in society," Mousavi said in his statement. "It is we who want to avoid any kind of extremism and violence."

Authorities continue to be unnerved by Mousavi's green movement. They have barred fans from entering certain soccer matches, apparently afraid that Mousavi supporters would turn the televised games into opposition rallies.

This week plainclothes security officials crushed a Ramadan supper gathering of detainees' families and supporters outside Evin Prison as well as a boisterous rally outside a downtown Tehran mosque.

Authorities announced the unprecedented first-ever cancellation of annual mid-Ramadan ceremonies at the tomb of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran's revolutionary founder, after Mousavi supporters threatened to turn the event into an opposition rally.

Now authorities nervously watch as opposition supporters announce plans to chant anti-government slogans during annual Qods Day commemorations Sept. 18, which is marked by officially sanctioned rallies against Israel.

To defuse the political crisis, Mousavi announced a nine-point plan that includes creating a fact-finding committee to investigate election irregularities, reforming electoral laws, punishing alleged violent elements in the security forces, restitution to victims of official violence, lifting pressures on independent media and barring military officials from interfering in politics.

"Now our people have felt in their skin, flesh and bones that the only way to save the country is peaceful coexistence of different tastes, walks of life, ethnicities, religions and schools of thought in this vast country whose diversity of lifestyles and communities was part and parcel of her identity since ancient times," Mousavi said.

I mean, as long as people can keep thinking Obama is a great man who will restore America to the people, and Hugo Chàvez a heartless dictator who abuses his people, why not keep playing these games to dupe the rest of the world's population?

The key to our enslavement has been perfectly cut and polished.

prison industrial complex feeling the pinch

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Cash-strapped states revise laws to get inmates out
Mandatory sentencing laws are relaxed, parole is accelerated, and time off for good behavior is increased as states scramble to save money.

By Nicholas Riccardi
September 5, 2009

Reporting from Denver - After decades of pursuing lock-'em-up policies, states are scrambling to reduce their prison populations in the face of tight budgets, making fundamental changes to their criminal justice systems as they try to save money.

Some states are revising mandatory-sentencing laws that locked up nonviolent offenders; others are recalculating the way prison time is counted.

California, with the nation's second-largest prison system, is considering perhaps the most dramatic proposal -- releasing 40,000 inmates to save money and comply with a court ruling that found the state's prisons overcrowded.

Colorado will accelerate parole for nearly one-sixth of its prison population. Kentucky has already granted early release to more than 3,000 inmates. Oregon has temporarily nullified a voter initiative calling for stiffer sentences for some crimes, and has increased by 10% the time inmates get off their sentences for good behavior.

The flurry of activity has led to an unusual phenomenon -- bureaucrats and politicians expressing relief at the tight times. "The budget has actually helped us," said Russ Marlan, a spokesman for the Corrections Department in Michigan, which increased its parole board by 50% this year to speed up releases.

"When you're not having budget troubles, that's when we implemented many of these lengthy drug sentences and zero-tolerance policies [that] really didn't work," he said.

Though prison budgets grew steadily over the last 20 years, a recent survey found that 26 states cut their corrections budgets this year. The reductions range from the small-scale -- such as putting in energy-efficient lightbulbs -- to sweeping changes like the early releases.

"States are saying, 'We can't build our way to public safety, especially when budgets are tight,' " said Adam Gelb, head of the Pew Center on the States' Public Safety Performance Project. "For the most part, state leaders are not holding their noses and making these changes just to balance their budgets. They're beginning to realize that research-based strategies can lead to less crime at far less cost than prison."

Many states have expanded credit for good behavior. Others have made legal tweaks, such as raising the minimum amount of damage required for a property crime to be a felony. Some, like New York, have overhauled long-criticized mandatory sentencing laws that sent nonviolent, first-time drug offenders to state prison.

These efforts, however, have already run into resistance.

In Ohio, a bill to quintuple the time inmates can earn for good behavior stalled in the state Senate over objections from prosecutors and some Republicans. The bill's sponsor, GOP state Sen. Bill Seitz, said that even Democrats in the state House were wary of helping out.

"They conjure up images of possible Willie Horton ad campaigns," said Seitz, referring to the notorious ad that accused 1988 Democratic presidential candidate Michael S. Dukakis of letting a rapist out of prison prematurely.

Still, Seitz has vowed to try to get his bill passed this fall. He says that a raft of mandatory-sentencing laws left state prisons dangerously overcrowded. "We are putting 10 pounds in a 5-pound bag."

Corrections has become the second-fastest-growing item in state budgets, second only to Medicaid. And, unlike Medicaid and many other programs, states pay for prisons with almost no help from Washington.

In Colorado, 9% of the state budget goes to corrections. More taxpayer dollars go to house its 23,000 prisoners than to educate the 220,000 students at Colorado's public universities, noted Evan Dreyer, a spokesman for Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter Jr.

The state has gone through severe cuts already this year -- it lopped 10.5% off of its budget in June. Ritter later cut an additional $320 million and counted on saving $44 million over two years by letting 2,600 ex-cons end their probation early and having the parole board consider earlier parole for 3,500 inmates.

A nonpartisan commission recommended the moves in December, and Dreyer noted that inmates eligible for faster parole were already nearing release. "These are people who are getting out of prison anyway within six months," he said.

The parole board has started considering whom to let out, but Republicans have attacked the plan as too risky. "It's inevitable these people will commit crimes," said state Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, who hopes to challenge Ritter in next year's governor's race.

In Oregon, legislators closed a $78-million shortfall in the public safety budget this summer by delaying the implementation of a measure that increases sentences for certain drug and property crimes.

They also raised the credit that inmates get for good behavior from 20% of their sentence to 30%, starting next year.

"We needed to save some money, at least in the short term," said state Rep. Jeff Barker, a former police lieutenant. "It wasn't easy." Indeed, anti-crime activists are preparing a ballot measure to reverse the changes.

In Kentucky, the budget has been pressed for some time, but it was a finding that the state had the fastest-growing prison population in the country that spurred Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear and the Legislature to act.

The state recalculated the time that convicts who have violated their parole must serve in prison. If convicts have not committed new crimes and violated only a technical term of their parole (failing a drug test, for example), they are credited for time they spent on parole out of prison before the violation.

Jennifer Brislin, a spokeswoman for the state's Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, said officials decided that offenders who do not commit new crimes while on probation deserve some reward. "That should be worth as much as sitting on the state's dime, behind a fence," she said.

State Atty. Gen. Jack Conway sued to overturn the thousands of early releases, arguing that a retroactive change to sentences is illegal and risky. The case was heard before the Kentucky Supreme Court in August.

"To go back retroactively as a budget-saving measure and . . . release violent offenders is, to me, irresponsible," Conway said.

Still, Conway said that he too was concerned about the prison population, and that he wanted to bring it down by targeting nonviolent offenders for early release and expanding drug courts.

"If we're going to deal with the issue," he said, "we have to be smart about it."

masterful foreign policy

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who'da thunk it?

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POLITICS: Taliban's Tank-Killing Bombs Came from U.S., Not Iran
By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON, Sep 3 (IPS) - In support of the official U.S. assertion that Iran is arming its sworn enemy, the Taliban, the head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Dennis Blair, has cited a statement by a Taliban commander last year attributing military success against NATO forces to Iranian military assistance.

But the Taliban commander's claim is contradicted by evidence from the U.S. Defence Department, Canadian forces in Afghanistan and the Taliban itself that the increased damage to NATO tanks by Taliban forces has come from anti-tank mines provided by the United States to the jihadi movement in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The Taliban claim was cited by ODNI in written responses to questions for the record from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence following testimony by Blair before the Committee Feb. 12, 2009. The responses were released to the Federation of American Scientists under the Freedom of Information Act Jul. 30.

ODNI wrote that Iran was "covertly supplying arms to Afghan insurgents while publicly posing as supportive of the Afghan government". As evidence of such covert Iranian arms supply, the ODNI said, "Taliban commanders have publicly credited Iranian support for their successful operations against Coalition forces".

That statement was taken almost word for word from the subtitle of an article in The Telegraph Sep. 14. "A Taliban commander has credited Iranian-supplied weapons with successful operations against coalition forces in Afghanistan," read the subtitle.

The single Taliban commander quoted became plural in the ODNI version.

In the article, British journalist Kate Clark quoted an unnamed Taliban commander as saying, "There's a kind of landmine called a Dragon. Iran's sending it. It's directional and it causes heavy casualties."

The commander said the new mine would "destroy" large tanks "completely", whereas "ordinary" anti-tank mines had only caused "minor damage".

If true, the revelation that an improved Iranian anti-tank weapon had been killing U.S. and NATO troops in larger numbers would have been a major development in the war in Afghanistan. Roadside bomb attacks are acknowledged by U.S. and NATO officials to be the cause of most of the casualties and deaths of foreign troops in the country.

The rapid rise in casualties over the past two years is attributed in part to the increased lethality of the Taliban mines.

But according to the Pentagon agency responsible for combating roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, the increased Taliban threat to U.S. and NATO vehicles comes not from any new technology from Iran but from Italian-made mines left over from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's military assistance to the anti-Soviet jihadists in the 1980s.

In response to an inquiry from IPS, the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) said in an e-mail that Italian-manufactured TC-6 anti-tank mines are "very common" in the Taliban-dominated areas of the country and that they have been modified to increase their lethality in IED attacks.

The JIEDDO response said TC-6 mines are being "arrayed in two or three in tandem to ensure the charge is large enough to inflict damage against Coalition vehicles." The TC-6 mines "continue to pose a significant threat to Coalition Forces", JIEDDO said.

The combining of two or three anti-tank mines into a single, more destructive bomb would account for the increased lethality of the anti-tank mines being used by the Taliban.

The claim by the alleged Taliban commander of new, more effective weaponry supplied by Iran appears to have been deliberate misinformation for the Western press.

British writer Jason Elliot, who has traveled extensively in Afghanistan since 1979, reported in a 2001 book "Min(d)ing Afghanistan" that the Italian-made TC-6 was the most commonly used anti-tank mine used in Afghanistan. The 15-pound charge of TNT, wrote Elliot in the TC-6, he wrote, could "flip a tank the way a seagull flips a baby turtle."

Millions of mines remained buried in the ground from the Soviet occupation period, Elliot observed. However, only some 20,000 anti-tank mines have been destroyed since 1989, according to the United Nations.

Further evidence that the Taliban are relying heavily on the TC-6 to damage NATO tanks is a picture published by al-Jazeera on May 1, 2007 in a Taliban storeroom of explosives in Helmand province. The photograph, taken by a cameraman accompanying correspondent James Bays, showed two insurgent bomb-makers working on what was clearly identifiable as an Italian TC-6 anti-tank mine.

The insurgents told the photographer that the explosives in the room were in the process of being converted into "anti-tank bombs".

Canadian forces in Kandahar province have encountered some of the heaviest Taliban use of anti-tank mines in Afghanistan. According to casualty data on the website of the Canadian Forces, since the beginning of 2007, 57 of 81 deaths of Canadian troops in Afghanistan have come from roadside bombs and anti-tank mines.

Capt. Dean Menard, a spokesman for Canadian forces in Kandahar, told IPS in a telephone interview that some of the ordnance used by the Taliban against Canadian tanks "are definitely attributable to the Soviet occupation era" – a reference to mines supplied by the United States through Pakistan during the anti-Soviet war.

The insurgents have obtained anti-tank weapons from "legacy minefields" dating from the period of Soviet occupation, according to Menard. Canadian forces also have intelligence that the Taliban obtain such mines from a "vast black market", he said.

The Canadian spokesman confirmed that the Taliban are "making bigger mines" from the ordnance obtained from those sources.

In 2007 and 2008, Afghan military and police discovered two major caches of weapons in Herat province on the Iranian border that included anti-tank mines which some Afghan officials suggesting had originated in Iran.

But one picture of mines discovered in Herat, published by the Revolutionary Women's Association of Afghanistan, clearly shows nine Italian TC-6 mines and one which resembles the top from a U.S. M-19 landmine, which was among those found in Afghanistan over the past two decades.

One mine cannot be clearly identified from the picture, but it does not resemble any known Iranian mine.

A picture of the 2007 cache in Herat published by AFP shows more Italian C-6 mines, along with a number of what appear to be U.S. M-19 anti-tank mines. The picture shows an Afghan policeman pointing to a mark on one of the latter, suggesting that it is of Iranian origin.

A copy of the U.S. M-19 mine has been manufactured by Iran, according to Jane's Mines and Mine Clearance 2005-2006. However, long-buried Iranian-made M19s provided to the Jamiat-I Islami Mujahedin faction fighting more extremist Hezb-e Islami fighters in the 1992-96 period exploded accidentally in Kabul as recently as 2006.

Moreover, a 2009 study of arms deliveries to Afghanistan in the 1990s by the Moscow-based Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies shows that Iran's large-scale arms aid to the Northern Alliance forces in 1999 included anti-tank mines.

The prominence of the Italian-made mines among weapons found in Herat indicate that the anti-tank mines discovered in Herat in 2007 and 2008 were not assistance from Iran to the Taliban but weapons provided either to the Mujahedin during the Soviet occupation or to the Northern Alliance troops fighting the Taliban in the late 1990s.

Former CIA officer Phil Giraldi, who monitors U.S. intelligence analysis on Iran, told IPS he doubts the ODNI statement on Iranian policy in Afghanistan accurately reflects the analysis.

"If you were to read the original analytical report," said Giraldi, "you would probably find that it's caveated like mad."

department of no bottom to it

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And get him a date with this slut....

why is this psycho still in charge?

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maybe

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Antibodies found that prevent HIV from causing severe AIDS
Scientists were able to isolate two antibodies responsible for resistance to the disease in an African patient. The discovery could be key to the development of a vaccine.

By Thomas H. Maugh II
September 4, 2009

After nearly two decades of futile searching for a vaccine against the AIDS virus, researchers are reporting the tantalizing discovery of antibodies that can prevent the virus from multiplying in the body and producing severe disease.

They do not have a vaccine yet, but they may well have a road map toward the production of one.

A team based at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla reports today in the journal Science that they have isolated two so-called broadly neutralizing antibodies that can block the action of many strains of HIV, the virus responsible for AIDS.

Crucial to the discovery is the fact that the antibodies target a portion of HIV that researchers had not considered in their search for a vaccine. Moreover, the target is a relatively stable portion of the virus that does not participate in the extensive mutations that have made HIV able to escape from antiviral drugs and previous experimental vaccines.

"This is opening up a whole new area of science," said Dr. Seth F. Berkley, president and chief executive of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, which funded and coordinated the research.

At least 33 million people worldwide are infected with HIV, and at least 25 million have died from AIDS, according to the World Health Organization. Two large trials of experimental vaccines have failed -- the most recent, in 2007, because the vaccine apparently made people more susceptible to infection.

To find the neutralizing antibodies, researchers collected blood samples from more than 1,800 people in Thailand, Australia and Africa who had been infected with HIV for at least three years without the infection proceeding to severe disease. Such individuals are most likely to produce antibodies that interfere with the replication of the virus.

Researchers at Monogram Biosciences in South San Francisco studied the samples most resistant to infection, then a team from Theraclone Sciences in Seattle isolated the antibodies responsible for the resistance.

They ultimately isolated two antibodies, called PG9 and PG16, from one African patient. The antibodies were able to block the activity of about three-quarters of the 162 separate strains of HIV they tested it against.

Immunologist Dennis Burton of Scripps and his colleagues then showed that the antibodies bind to regions of two proteins on the surface of the virus, called gp120 and gp41, that help the virus invade cells. These regions had never before been considered as targets for vaccines.

Researchers still have a long way to go to produce a vaccine, however.

The antibodies themselves could potentially be used as a treatment for infected patients who develop severe disease.

But the long-term hope is to find molecules, either synthetic or natural, that can stimulate the body to produce the broadly neutralizing antibodies. Such molecules could potentially be the basis for a successful vaccine.

white house to start keeping two sets of books

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White House will publicly release visitor logs
(AP) – 3 hours ago

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said Friday that his administration will start releasing the names of people who visit the White House, reversing a long-standing policy transcending both Democratic and Republican presidents.

The move, which could shed light on who influences White House decision-making, comes following a White House review of its disclosure policy and legal pressure from the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Until now, the Obama had sided with the Bush administration's stand of refusing to release records, in contrast with Obama's pledge of transparency.

But Obama said Friday: "We will achieve our goal of making this administration the most open and transparent administration in history, not only by opening the doors of the White House to more Americans, but by shining a light on the business conducted inside."

"Americans have a right to know whose voices are being heard in the policymaking process," the president said.
No records will be released right away.

Going forward, the policy covers visits starting Sept. 15, and each bunch of records will cover visits from the previous 90 to 120 days.

That means first wave of records should be posted to the White House Web site around Dec. 31.

The White House said that each monthly release will include "tens of thousands of electronic records."

Obama said the policy will apply to virtually every visitor who comes to the White House for "an appointment, a tour, or to conduct business."

Some names will be kept private, though. Those include people who are attending meetings of particularly sensitivity, such as possible Supreme Court nominees, and those who identity cannot be disclosed because of what the White House called national security imperatives.

The White House will not release records related to "purely personal guests" of the president's family and the vice president's family.

The records of visitors from the Jan. 20 start of Obama's presidency through Sept. 15 will not be covered by the policy. Instead, the White House's counsel office will respond to individual requests for records during that time, but only if those requests are deemed to be reasonable, narrow and specific.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which has long sought public access to White House visitor logs, has dropped all pending litigation.

"The Obama administration has proven its pledge to usher in a new era of government transparency was more than just a campaign promise," said the group's executive director, Melanie Sloan. "The Bush administration fought tooth and nail to keep secret the identities of those who visited the White House. In contrast, the Obama administration — by putting visitor records on the White House web site — will have the most open White House in history."

Donna Leinwand, president of the National Press Club, applauded the move, saying that "although the president has limited the disclosures, it is a step toward more transparency in government and a reversal of this administration's previous policy. We hope in time that the administration will allow more timely and broader access."

"We hope the president will continue to choose greater transparency and access without news organizations and public interest groups having to go to court to force such access," Leinwand said.

Tell me how it took nearly eight months to get THIS one handled? And... actually... do you CALL this "handled"?

smart cities for dumb humans

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he loves this music

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Mom and I sat out on the deck by the lake, with the geese and the ducks honking and quacking, sipping drinks, watching the full moon shine on the water... glum. Dinner sucked.

I think I'm just going to go lie down on that cement slab in there and try again tomorrow....

so hard, so very hard

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I wonder if anyone knows how hard my Poppa worked to give me a good life, to get me everything I needed, everything he could get for me, for Mom, for my bratty little sister.... How many people know about a brilliant man who had to quit school to support his mother and brother and sister... and then to marry and raise his own family. He worked SEVEN days a week. Twelve-hour shifts on workdays because the overtime was at time and a half. Ten-hour shifts on Saturdays because it was double time for eight and double time and a half for the other two. Eight hours on Sundays because it was triple time for all eight. He worked himself stupid. He went to night school to ace trigonometry so he could become a tool and die maker. He made parts of the Friendship Seven. He was a star.

And right now he's alone in a little room of the "Memory Unit" of a strange establishment, scared.

He thought Mom was moving with him.

They've been married for SIXTY years.

All I want is to jump in Goldie and go back there and hug him... just never stop hugging him.

aging is not for wimps

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three guesses

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maybe this will get the fascists off their asses

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qualified for office

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mad doctors

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groupthink mentions the shouldn't be american story

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Rebecca Johnston, the mother of four featured in Barack Obama's 30-minute campaign infomercial last fall, will be shipping off to boot camp next Wednesday.

In the ad, Obama promised a "rescue plan for the middle class." But it hasn't come soon enough for the Johnstons of Kansas City, Mo., portrayed in the video as struggling to pay bills and cover the kids' expenses -- and having to put off knee surgery for Rebecca's husband, Brian, who worked in a tire-retreading factory.

Johnston, who does administrative work at Liberty Hospital, joined the Army Reserves in June to get some financial security for her family.

"My kids' ages range between 15 to 3," she told the Huffington Post in May, back when she was preparing to sign up. "At this point I look at it like I can't contribute anything to their college, I can barely make their health care costs, we're just skimming by paycheck to paycheck."

This time next week Johnston will be starting basic training at Fort Jackson, S.C., gaining health and educational benefits for her brood. It might not be the most fun for Johnston, who stands a little over five feet tall and will turn 35 in September. She'll be with a bunch of 19- and 20-year-olds.

"I just have to remember not to compare myself because I'm older and slower, and having four kids, my abs aren't the same," she said this week. "I heard it's pretty tough because the men don't appreciate training with the women...I've been warned by several sergeants that I'll probably be teased quite heavily."

Johnston said she went through some drills in June and July, got her uniform and learned a few things, like how to stand at attention. Basic training will finish up in November, at which point she'll go to Virginia for training in her specific job as a transportation management coordinator until February. After basic training, Johnston will face the prospect of a war-zone deployment every few years in a six-year commitment.

At first, Johnston said her parents disapproved of her plan. But, she said, "They've come around to appreciate what I'm doing and really see the effort I'm making."

It'll be her parents who watch the kids while she's gone; she said her enlistment, on top of their weak finances, put too much of a strain on her marriage, and she and Brian separated a few weeks ago. She said she's maintaining a positive and confident outlook for the sake of her kids.

"I tend to be the rock," she said. "I come from a long line of rocks."

monster escalation in pakistan

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not without a hitch....

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"Oh, you can do traffic school online at your convenience."

Pfeh.

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Homie-banoo forwards a great bit of advice for Obummer:

Dear Mr. President:

Please find below my suggestion for fixing America 's economy. Instead of giving billions of dollars to companies that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan. You can call it the "Patriotic Retirement Plan".

There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force. Pay them $1 million apiece severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:

1) They MUST retire. Forty million job openings - Unemployment fixed.

2) They MUST buy a new American CAR. Forty million cars ordered - Auto Industry fixed.

3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage - Housing Crisis fixed.

It can't get any easier than that! If more money is needed, have all members of Congress and their constituents pay their taxes...

Even the people of Iran know better how to run this country than Obummer does....

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Who's running this place, anyway?

i'll be driving away to go help my poppa now

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... catch you later tonight.

This time I'm bringing my Mac....

the suspense is killing me

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even groupthink is catching on

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This made their front page headline today.

Impeach Obama.

why you don't want greed-deranged fucks having robotic troops

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And you believe that there are dangers if we fool ourselves into believing the AI myth...

It is likely to accelerate our progress towards a dystopian world in which wars, policing and care of the vulnerable are carried out by technological artefacts that have no possibility of empathy, compassion or understanding.

in other words, panic or don't, mox nix, just keep spinning yer wheels

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A swine flu epidemic this fall and winter is likely to infect more people than a normal flu, but the virus will not be abnormally lethal. If it spreads rapidly after schools open, we will have to face it without vaccine, which will not arrive in substantial quantities until the swine flu epidemic has peaked.

The report that sparked concern was issued by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. The council stressed that it was not predicting what would happen but was simply offering a scenario to help the government develop responses to a potential epidemic.

The report posited an epidemic that could produce symptoms in 60 million to 120 million people and cause as many as 90 million to seek medical attention; up to 1.8 million could be hospitalized, 300,000 could flood into crowded I.C.U.’s, and 30,000 to 90,000 people could die.

Even some members of the advisory panel think their estimates may be a bit high. In any case, this is a virus that is no more lethal, and possibly less lethal, than normal flu strains.

this means war

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Mexico and Argentina move towards decriminalising drugs
In a backlash against the US 'war on drugs', Latin America turns to a more liberal policy

Rory Carroll in Caracas, Jo Tuckman in Mexico and Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
guardian.co.uk | Monday, 31 August 2009 | 14.07 BST


Argentina and Mexico have taken significant steps towards decriminalising drugs amid a growing Latin American backlash against the US-sponsored "war on drugs".

Argentina's supreme court has ruled it unconstitutional to punish people for using marijuana for personal consumption, an eagerly awaited judgment that gave the government the green light to push for further liberalisation.

It followed Mexico's decision to stop prosecuting people for possession of relatively small quantities of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs. Instead, they will be referred to clinics and treated as patients, not criminals.

Brazil and Ecuador are also considering partial decriminalisation as part of a regional swing away from a decades-old policy of crackdowns still favoured by Washington.

"The tide is clearly turning. The 'war on drugs' strategy has failed," Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a former Brazilian president, told the Guardian. Earlier this year, he and two former presidents of Colombia and Mexico published a landmark report calling for a new departure.

"The report of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy has certainly helped to open up the debate about more humane and efficient policies. But, most of all, the facts are speaking by themselves," said Cardoso.

Reform campaigners have long argued that criminalisation enriched drug cartels, fuelled savage turf wars, corrupted state institutions and filled prisons with addicts who presented no real threat to society.

The US used its considerable influence to keep Latin America and the UN wedded to hardline policies which kept the focus on interdictions and jail sentences for consumers as well as dealers. The "war" was first declared by the Nixon administration.

The economic and social cost, plus European moves towards liberalisation, have emboldened some Latin American states to try new approaches.

Argentina's supreme court, presented with a case about youths arrested with a few joints, ruled last week that such behaviour did not violate the constitution. "Each adult is free to make lifestyle decisions without the intervention of the state," it said.

The government, which favours decriminalisation, is expected to amend laws in light of the ruling. The court stressed, however, that it was not approving complete decriminalisation, a move that would be fiercely resisted by the Catholic church and other groups.

The previous week the government of Mexico, which has endured horrific drug-related violence, made it no longer an offence to possess 0.5g of cocaine (the equivalent of about four lines), 5g of marijuana (about four joints), 50mg of heroin and 40mg of methamphetamine.

Three years ago, Mexico backtracked on similar legislation after the initiative triggered howls of outrage in the US and predictions that Cancún and other resorts would become world centres of narcotics tourism.

Now, however, the authorities quietly say they need to free up resources and jail space for a military-led war on the drug cartels, even while publicly justifying that offensive to the Mexican public with the slogan "to stop the drugs reaching your children". They also argue corrupt police officers will be deterred from extorting money from drug users.

Washington did not protest against the announcement, which was kept deliberately low key. "They made no fanfare so as not to arouse the ire of the US," said Walter McKay, of the Mexico City-based Institute for Security and Democracy. "I predict that when the US sees its nightmare has not come true and that there is no narco-tourist boom it will come under more pressure to legalise or decriminalise."

Some US states have decriminalised the possession of small amounts of marijuana and the Obama administration has emphasised public health solutions to drug abuse, giving Latin America more breathing room, said Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, director of the Global Drug Policy Programme. "My hope is that Latin America will be the next region, after most of Europe, where evidence and science will be the basis for policy-making."

Argentina and Mexico's moves may encourage other governments to follow suit. A new law has been mooted in Ecuador, where President Rafael Correa last year pardoned 1,500 "mules" who had been sentenced to jail. His late father was a convicted mule.

Brazil's supreme court, as well as elements in Congress and the justice ministry, favour decriminalising possession of small quantities of drugs, said Maria Lúcia Karam, a former judge who has joined the advocacy group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

She welcomed the moves towards decriminalisation but said repression remained a cornerstone of drug policy. "Unfortunately the 'war on drugs' mentality is still the dominant policy approach in Latin America. The only way to reduce violence in Mexico, Brazil or anywhere else is to legalise the production, supply and consumption of all drugs."

This rocks very hard. Bravissimo, boyz and girlz. That UNASUR summit must have been smoking. I'm allowing myself to fantasize about a sane world....