The Current Events/Issues Thread - Read the First Post

[Kieli]

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What a load of patronizing bullshit! Since when is homosexual offensive? Who did they ask, Prince Charles? I would rather be known as a homosexual rather than whatever that patronizing mouthfull means.

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Depends on the person. I agree with you 100%. It's like some person deciding that I should not be "black" because as an African American I'd be offended. Really that whole deal is just annoying to me. My skin is actually brown....sorta on the mocha side Seriously though, all labels are rather annoying but that's in our nature.....to attempt to define things that defy definition or are not within the constraints of a cut-and-dried explanation. I'm gay, homosexual, queer, lesbian, whatever the hell you want to come up with. But I am also a black woman, a spouse, a techie, a daughter and many other things. Words only have power when someone or some group lends them that power. To someone who is not out nor has any intention of being out, being called a "homosexual" could be tantamount to being slapped in the face. It's hard to say.....depend on the individual.

Time flies by when the Devil drives.
It's not the pace of life that concerns me, it's the sudden stop at the end.

[justin]

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To someone who is not out nor has any intention of being out, being called a "homosexual" could be tantamount to being slapped in the face. It's hard to say.....depend on the individual.

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But for these people would being told that they have "orientation towards people ofe the same sex" be any less offensive?

Postel's Prescription: Be generous in what you accept, rigorous in what you emit.

[Kieli]

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But for these people would being told that they have "orientation towards people ofe the same sex" be any less offensive?

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Probably...which is why I put the caveat "depends on the person". The problem lies with the practice of labeling itself as well as the intent when doing so. The mostly heterosexual institution doesn't know what to do to make things acceptable so....they get silly with the labeling. Which begs the question, why hasn't any GLBT group come to fore with any suggestions on how this could be handled properly? If any have done so, I'm not aware of it.

Time flies by when the Devil drives.
It's not the pace of life that concerns me, it's the sudden stop at the end.

[justin]

The Bush administration has come up with an "exciting and new" way to help get people out of poverty - Marriage.



They will put 1.5 billion dollars (money that America can obviously afford, it's not as if it's got a budget deficit or anything) into helping the various schemes around the country set up to promote marriage.



This is objectionable on many levels. Firstly there is the thought of the government interfering in peoples lives about such a personal matter.



Also there is the two facedness of the government promoting marriage for one group of people while denying another group the right to marry



You can read more

here

Postel's Prescription: Be generous in what you accept, rigorous in what you emit.

[Kieli]

My dear Justin, don't you know? It's Election Season! (akin to Hunting Season and the quarry is those damned irritating voters...always asking questions and wanting their politicians to actually be honest! ) Get ready for all manner of shocking, pandering, obsequious and fawning behaviour as well as lots of mud slinging. *sigh* Personally, I don't think the government should be involved in "marriage" period. I believe that they should hold sway over civil unions and common-law partnerships but that's pretty much about it in the personal relationships department. I know that the whole deal started out well meaning (hmm...kind of like Affirmative Action) but it's gotten to the point where it's out of hand and hideously intrusive.

Time flies by when the Devil drives.
It's not the pace of life that concerns me, it's the sudden stop at the end.

[maudmac]

About "homosexual" - outdated, probably, offensive, no. At least, it's never offended me and I've never heard or read anything from other gays or lesbians that they found it offensive. I do remember an activist push, back in the day (early '90s-ish), from bi folks who found the "-sexual" part somewhat misleading in a kind of offensive way, due to the pervasive stereotype that bisexuals aren't so much people who are attracted to both sexes, as they are really just sluts. I still do see some organizations using terms like "biaffectionate" even now, but not so much as I did a decade or so ago. I never saw "homoaffectionate" or "heteroaffectionate."



I think it can be as confusing and sometimes frustrating for people within a particular group as without when there's an effort mounted to change the language used to describe that group. From the outside, there might be a sense of "God, will they please finally decide once and for all what they want to be called!" From the inside, it's probably obvious that there's no consensus within the group on what exactly we want to be called.



No doubt, a lot of the language used in the past (and, of course, in the present, but usually in secret) to describe a group was/is offensive and/or highly inaccurate and was very much in need of being changed. The question is, then, are the terms replacing those old derogatory terms also offensive and/or inaccurate? Who decides what a whole group of people will be called, when even within that group, there's disagreement about what's the most correct name?



This is a really interesting issue, I think. Because every single one of us is described with many words by many different sorts of people, so we're all affected by it.



Especially interesting to me is the reclamation issue. For instance, I don't mind a bit being called a "dyke" (or other offensive terms for lesbians) by most LGBT folks when it's obvious it's not meant as an insult. I also don't mind straight friends using it, when I know them very well, trust them, and am certain they also aren't using it as an insult. (I have a straight friend who has a lesbian couple as neighbors. She refers to them as "the dyke girls" and I'm fine with that, because she's friends with me and her lesbian neighbors and I know she has no issues with lesbians.) For me, it's like we have two sets of boundaries. Our in-group is within the first boundary. Trusted, included members of our out-group are within the second. Within both, I personally don't mind derogatory terms being used for me, when I understand them to be used without malice.



It's complicated, though, because I know that sort of thing (any straight people using "dyke") would be offensive to some lesbians. Plenty of lesbians don't like the term at all, no matter who's using it or why.



That's the case for pretty much any term once used as an insult for any group. Some folks within the group want to reclaim it or are at least tolerant of its use and some folks are offended by that very reclamation effort. The subtleties of determining which terms are acceptable under which circumstances are often lost on members of out-groups, leading to confusion and some very serious social faux-pas. "But...but...but...they call each other that all the time!!!" really doesn't make it okay to use any given term. And, if perhaps your particular circle of friends does allow your use of that term, it would behoove you to remember that it only applies to your particular circle of friends. I could take my "dyke"-saying straight friend to plenty of places where her use of that word would be immensely unwelcome.



Seems to me that it probably has as much to do with the history of a term and the group it's been used to define as it does with one individual person's perspective on that term. I know my relationship with derogatory terms is certainly very different from many of you, so I might be more willing to be accepting of them in certain situations.



This is all really interesting to me and apologies to those of you who are probably .

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go         donut           go

[Gatito Grande]

It's funny how these things tend to by cyclical, too. I think it was back in the 50s (pre-Stonewall) that some of the first "homosexual" activists made a push to be known as homophile (presumably to get away from the obsession---by outsiders---with same-sex sex). Maybe this latest attempt at labelling "those w/ orientations toward . . . " (Yeesh, think of how many more trees will die in paperwork w/ that on it!) was done w/ the same thought in mind.



Also, things vary so much according to every possible subset and cohort. It's not just in-group/out-group, it's which in-group and which out-group. For example, I read a couple of years ago that the black gay community (in this case, in Detroit) really hates the word "queer" (still a slur, not reclaimed in their eyes). Probably all of the "re-claimed" words are reclaimed by a younger cohort than the one which heard them as slurs, also.



GG And then there's "in-group by association," which may be temporary. For example, I've had to purge from my vocabulary certain in-group phrases (that I learned from my ex) that I could say when I was married to someone from that group, but which might sound highly dubious (if not offensive) since we divorced. It's complicated. Out

[justin]

Kellog Brown and Root have won the contract to repair Iraq's oil lines.



This is despite the fact they have been accused of overcharging for fuel during the conflict.



You can read more here

Postel's Prescription: Be generous in what you accept, rigorous in what you emit.

[Diebrock]

In the words of Media Whores Online:

"Bush's War Puts Iraqi Women Back in their Place

Liberal Civil Code to be Replaced with Islamic Fundie Law

Bush, American Taliban Hail Return to Proper Social Order

Bush: 'I Made the Right Decision. The Men of Iraq are Free'"



Found here

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Women in Iraq Decry Decision To Curb Rights

Council Backs Islamic Law on Families

By Pamela Constable

Washington Post Foreign Service

Friday, January 16, 2004; Page A12





BAGHDAD, Jan. 15 -- For the past four decades, Iraqi women have enjoyed some of the most modern legal protections in the Muslim world, under a civil code that prohibits marriage below the age of 18, arbitrary divorce and male favoritism in child custody and property inheritance disputes.



Saddam Hussein's dictatorship did not touch those rights. But the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council has voted to wipe them out, ordering in late December that family laws shall be "canceled" and such issues placed under the jurisdiction of strict Islamic legal doctrine known as sharia.



This week, outraged Iraqi women -- from judges to cabinet ministers -- denounced the decision in street protests and at conferences, saying it would set back their legal status by centuries and could unleash emotional clashes among various Islamic strains that have differing rules for marriage, divorce and other family issues.



"This will send us home and shut the door, just like what happened to women in Afghanistan," said Amira Hassan Abdullah, a Kurdish lawyer who spoke at a protest meeting Thursday. Some Islamic laws, she noted, allow men to divorce their wives on the spot.



"The old law wasn't perfect, but this one would make Iraq a jungle," she said. "Iraqi women will accept it over their dead bodies."



The order, narrowly approved by the 25-member council in a closed-door session Dec. 29, was reportedly sponsored by conservative Shiite members. The order is now being opposed by several liberal members as well as by senior women in the Iraqi government.



The council's decisions must be approved by L. Paul Bremer, the chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, and aides said unofficially that his imprimatur for this change was unlikely. But experts here said that once U.S. officials turn over political power to Iraqis at the end of June, conservative forces could press ahead with their agenda to make sharia the supreme law. Spokesmen for Bremer did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.



"It was the secret way this was done that is such a shock," said Nasreen Barawi, a woman who is Iraq's minister for social welfare and public service. "Iraq is a multiethnic society with many different religious schools. Such a sweeping decision should be made over time, with an opportunity for public dialogue." There is no immediate threat of the decision becoming law, Barawi said, "but after June 30, who knows what can happen?"



In interviews at several meetings and protests, women noted that even during the politically repressive Hussein era, women had been allowed to assume a far more modern role than in many other Muslim countries and had been shielded from some of the more egregiously unfair interpretations of Islam advocated by conservative, male-run Muslim groups.



Once Hussein was toppled, several women noted wryly, they hoped the new authorities would further liberalize family law. Instead, in the process of wiping old laws off the books, they said, Islamic conservatives on the Governing Council are trying to impose retrograde views of women on a chaotic postwar society.



Although it remained unclear which members of the council had promoted the shift of family issues from civil to religious jurisprudence, the decision was made and formalized while Abdul Aziz Hakim, a Shiite Muslim who heads the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was chairing the council under a rotating leadership system.



This week, several moderate council members spoke strongly against the decision in public forums, calling it a threat to both civilized progress and national unity. Nasir Chaderchi, a lawyer and council member who heads the National Democratic Party, criticized the council's action at a professional women's meeting Thursday. "We don't want to be isolated from modern developments," Chaderchi told the gathering of the Iraqi Independent Women's Group. "What hurts most is that the law of the tyrant Saddam was more modern than this new law." He said he hoped women would continue to protest until the order was reversed.



The council's new policy decree was brief and vague, mentioning neither particular family issues nor individual branches of Islamic law that would replace current civil law. But lawyers and other experts from Iraqi women's groups said the ambiguity of the decision was especially worrisome, since rival Islamic sects in Iraq espouse different policies for women's legal and marital rights.



Some critics said the proposed law might exacerbate tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, already divided over other power-sharing issues in postwar Iraq, and could even destroy families that have intermarried between the two strains of Islam. Under Hussein, they said, the universal application of civil family law prevented such issues from sparking sectarian strife.



Zakia Ismael Hakki, a female retired judge and outspoken opponent of the new order, said Thursday that since 1959, civil family law had been developed and amended under a series of secular governments to give women a "half-share in society" and an opportunity to advance as individuals, no matter what their religion.



"This new law will send Iraqi families back to the Middle Ages," Hakki said. "It will allow men to have four or five or six wives. It will take away children from their mothers. It will allow anyone who calls himself a cleric to open an Islamic court in his house and decide about who can marry and divorce and have rights. We have to stop it."

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_________________

How can you kill people who killed people, to show that killing people is wrong?

I've kissed her best friend. I've reached into her best friend's pocket and fished around for keys. And I gave her best friend my number. I must be doing something totally, totally wrong... - TBSOL by Dreams

[Gatito Grande]

[This is a couple of days late, but I just got e'd it by a friend.]



The message of Martin Luther King Jr. has never been more important than it is now---as dramatized in this flash video here: www.bushflash.com/mlk.html



GG The organizations and/or event mentioned at the end not necessarily endorsed Out

[Diebrock]

Do you think Martin Luther King would have been allowed to fly?

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All US airline passengers to undergo government background checks

By Jamie Chapman

21 January 2004



The US Transportation Security Agency (TSA) gave the go-ahead last week to a new screening system for airline passengers. The Computer Assisted Passenger PreScreening program, known as CAPPS 2, involves a two-stage process for determining who will be subject to additional security checks at airports, and who will be denied the right to fly altogether.



Stage one has the airlines turn over each passenger’s reservation data, including name, address, telephone number, and travel itinerary to the government, which will now also require airlines to obtain the passenger’s date of birth when he or she makes a reservation. The data is given in turn to a private contractor, who checks it against large databases developed commercially from public records and other sources such as credit bureaus and marketing lists. Social Security numbers are added to the passenger data from these records.



The contractor assigns a numerical value to each traveler, designed to rate the likelihood that he is the person he says he is. The rating is passed back to the TSA, which then crosschecks the information against federal “do-not-fly” lists. Finally, a color code is assigned to each passenger—green for normal screening, yellow for extra searches, and red for not being allowed to fly. In addition, “red” passengers may be subject to police interrogation and possible arrest.



Although dozens of peace activists and other opponents of the Bush administration have found themselves caught up in the “do-not-fly” lists, up until now the government has claimed that only suspected terrorists were tracked. Now, however, the TSA has expanded the list to include supposedly violent criminals. The TSA has not said whether a conviction or simply an arrest will earn someone a place on the list, nor exactly what crimes are considered violent.



This expansion of the list has the effect of making the detention of a passenger seem more routine and even justified. Anyone targeted, either mistakenly or strictly for their political activities, will be even more isolated as they are being led away, since they will be assumed to be a common criminal.



Hand in hand with CAPPS 2 will come another program for “trusted travelers,” under which business people and other frequent flyers will submit their personal data—possibly to include a fingerprint scan—in advance to the TSA, which will issue them an identity card that automatically earns them “green” status when they check in. This creation of a preferred class of travelers will automatically throw greater suspicion on those who have not obtained the special ID, adding to the pressure for people to participate. One would expect that soon the identity card would be used in other business sectors—perhaps to check in to a hotel—as well.



In the works for over a year, the implementation of CAPPS 2 has been delayed because of passenger resistance to turning their personal information over to the government. When Delta Airlines initially agreed to submit its passenger data to use in testing the system, opponents of the plan set up a web site promoting a boycott, and Delta withdrew. Then in September, when JetBlue Airways acknowledged releasing 1.5 million passenger records to a military contractor, angry passengers filed a class action lawsuit over the violation of their privacy.



Northwest Airlines, the fourth-largest US carrier, has now admitted that it secretly provided the government with three months of confidential passenger data for use in a security project of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Ames Research Center. The reservation data covered the period from October to December 2001, when close to 11 million people traveled on the airline. As recently as September 23, 2003, Northwest denied that it had turned over the information, but last week admitted it had done so.



To overcome public opposition to providing such data to the government, the TSA has indicated it will order all airlines to uniformly turn over the requested information. In the meantime, it will conduct tests using data that European airlines have agreed to provide, despite concerns about possible violations of European Union privacy rules. The program is expected to be fully implemented by this summer.



CAPPS 2 represents a major buildup of the police-state apparatus that the Bush administration has been developing under the guise of the “war on terror.” Turning airports into internal checkpoints, similar to roadblocks, it creates a blanket system for monitoring and controlling the comings and goings of citizens and non-citizens alike.



No information is being released on the criteria established for assigning a “red” or “yellow” rating. In addition to being an extensive identity check, the stage one numerical rating incorporates an assessment of whether the traveler is “rooted in the community.” Does this mean that someone without a long credit or shopping history will be considered a high risk? Will those who recently moved be more likely to be denied the right to travel than those who have not? How this is determined remains secret, supposedly to prevent terrorists from figuring out how to “work” the system.



Such secrecy invites abuse. The government can target political opponents to be put in the “red” category without having to make any accounting for the action. Someone who finds himself banned from travel has no recourse. In truly Kafkaesque fashion, he cannot find out how his name got on the “do-not-fly” list, nor how he would be able to get it removed. The TSA claims it will have an ombudsman to whom those who feel they have been erroneously subjected to restrictions can complain, but there is no indication as to what authority the ombudsman will actually have.



TSA spokespeople expect that the new system will reduce the number of passengers subjected to additional searches to be reduced from the current 14 percent to as low as 5 percent. However, the computerized background and criminal record checks are expected to significantly increase the number of people who are denied permission to fly.



Civil liberties and privacy protection groups have condemned CAPPS 2, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) terming it “dragnet profiling.” As Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU’s program on technology, put it, “CAPPS 2 will be an even more intrusive form of data mining that, like the [current] no-fly list, will rely on both secret and inevitably incorrect information to make accusations against individuals.” He denounced the imposition of sanctions—interference with the constitutional right to travel—without due process.



In California, the ACLU has filed a lawsuit on behalf of two peace activists who were detained at San Francisco International Airport in August 2002, after being told their names appeared on a “master” list. They were not allowed to board their flight until police could question them and they were subjected to additional searches.



Documents received from the FBI under Freedom of Information Act requests suggest that the “no-fly” lists are being shared with embassies and military offices around the world. They also reveal discussion of posting the lists in the National Crime Information Center database, which is accessed every time police stop a motorist for a routine traffic violation. A misspelling, or just a similarity in names, could then subject innocent people to police harassment anywhere, not just at airports.



Security experts also express concerns that the new programs will detract from rather than enhance the safety of air travel. Besides the possibility of identity theft, they point out that determined terrorists can patiently develop a profile for themselves that develops a “green” rating, giving screening agents a false sense of security towards them.



Once in place, CAPPS 2 is not expected to be limited to the nation’s 26,000 daily airline flights. In 2002, the US Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta described the program as “the foundation” for broader measures, such as the screening of truck drivers, railroad conductors and other transportation workers. In fact, there is no reason to think that such screening might not become as common as the use of drug tests as part of pre-employment reviews.

Found here

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_________________

How can you kill people who killed people, to show that killing people is wrong?

I've kissed her best friend. I've reached into her best friend's pocket and fished around for keys. And I gave her best friend my number. I must be doing something totally, totally wrong... - TBSOL by Dreams

[Kieli]

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Ohio Senate Approves Gay-Marriage Ban

AP

1 hour, 9 minutes ago

Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo!



By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS, Associated Press Writer



COLUMBUS, Ohio - Lawmakers gave final approval Wednesday to a measure banning gay marriage and prohibiting state employees from getting benefits for domestic partners.



The bill is considered among the most far-reaching in the nation because of the benefits ban, which applies to unmarried heterosexual and homosexual couples.



The Senate passed the legislation on an 18-15 vote Wednesday. The House has already approved the bill and Gov. Bob Taft has said he will sign it, pending a legal review.



The measure says same-sex marriages are "against the strong public policy of the state," and aims to counter a 1934 U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) ruling requiring states to recognize marriages from other states in most circumstances.



Thirty-seven states have passed laws recognizing marriage as a sacrament between men and women.



Ohio is the second state, after Nebraska, that would prohibit benefits for state employees' unmarried partners, said Seth Kilbourn, national field director for the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington-based gay and lesbian lobbying group.



Ohio lawmakers struggled with the issue for seven years, when then-Rep. Jay Hottinger introduced a bill in the House. Hottinger, now a senator, said the bill was not an attack on homosexuals but rather meant to protect a traditional definition of marriage.



"Ohio must be able to clearly establish and define our own laws rather than have another state or country define something as important as marriage," said Hottinger, a Republican.



Sen. Eric Fingerhut, a Cleveland Democrat, said the bill will hurt Ohio by limiting the ability of businesses and universities to attract talented people.



"If we pass this bill, get up tomorrow and look in the mirror," Fingerhut said. "Smiling back at you is someone who has slowed Ohio's progress by putting up a sign to people that says, 'We don't want you here.'"



The vote came despite opposition by some large companies. Dayton-based NCR Corp. sent a letter to lawmakers Dec. 12 saying the bill could hurt the company's ability to attract and retain employees.



Similar bills have been introduced in each session since Hottinger first introduced the legislation. But former Senate President Richard Finan, a Republican, blocked its passage. He said state law already took care of the matter.

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Time flies by when the Devil drives.
It's not the pace of life that concerns me, it's the sudden stop at the end.

[justin]

According to the head of the US army, yes it is.



In an interview with AP news he said that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had helped the army to focus.



He also said that a silver lining to the 9/11 attack was it had given the army this focusing opporunity and that it had given the army some oomph

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War is a tremendous focus... Now we have this focusing opportunity, and we have the fact that [terrorists] have actually attacked our homeland, which gives it some oomph."

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I have one comment



You can read the whole thing here

Postel's Prescription: Be generous in what you accept, rigorous in what you emit.

[Kieli]

I thought this was interesting:

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Dean Jokes About 'Screeching' in Iowa

2 hours, 7 minutes ago



By Patricia Wilson



LEBANON, N.H. (Reuters) - A hoarse Howard Dean (news - web sites) joked on Thursday about his nationally televised outburst, saying his voice had not recovered from his "screeching" after he lost in Iowa, the first major prize for Democrats seeking the White House. In fact, the former Vermont governor is fighting a heavy cold.



Dean is trying to get past the arm-waving, screaming speech he delivered after finishing a distant third in Monday's Iowa caucuses to Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) and Sen. John Edwards (news - web sites) of North Carolina.



His performance has been widely lampooned on the Internet, and late-night talk shows, but it also has become a distraction and a problem for his campaign, reinforcing Dean's image among some as an "angry" candidate who does not have the temperament to be president. Many of his advisers were dismayed when they saw replays of the speech.





"I have still not recovered my voice from my screeching in Iowa," Dean told a town hall meeting in Lebanon. "I have my warts and sometimes I say things that get me into trouble."





Dean has been dogged by the fist-pumping, sleeve-rolling, shrieking remarks. He has been asked about it in more than a dozen radio and satellite television interviews.





"The context was 3,500 kids waving American flags who'd worked their hearts out for us for three weeks, and I really felt I owed them an uplifting speech, so, I don't know what it looked like on television," he said in the interviews. "But I understand the audience wasn't shown, which is really too bad because it was really a terrific rallying cry."





In Lebanon, Dean tried a softer, more humble touch, acknowledging he had flaws, but asking voters to look past them because he believed he was the only candidate who could beat President Bush (news - web sites) on Nov. 2.





"I wear suits that are cheap," he said. "But I say what I think. I believe what I say ... I lead with my heart and not my head and that's the only chance we have against George Bush."





"I'm not blow-dried, I'm not coached. I obviously don't look at the polls and if I did, they didn't do me any good anyway in Iowa."





Dean, once the front-runner among seven Democrats vying to challenge Bush, has fallen behind Kerry in polls in New Hampshire, which holds its primary on Tuesday. He once held a 20 point lead.





Kerry, riding a wave of momentum from his Iowa victory, has grabbed a three-point lead over Dean five days before the primary, according to a Reuters/MSNBC/Zogby poll released on Thursday.





Dean spokesman Jay Carson dismissed the numbers and said the former governor would not apologize for Monday night's in-your-face performance, telling CNN Dean was "energizing" his supporters and volunteers.





"A lot can change in five days ... He's going to be pointing out that he stands up for what's right -- regardless of whether it's popular -- and that he's delivered results and not just speeches," Carson said.





But Dean has toned down his rhetoric and his delivery. Instead of rousing rallies, he is holding town hall meetings, methodically answering questions and forgoing the "red meat" of previous appearances.





In Lebanon, Dean was on the verge of losing his voice completely. The Democratic candidates meet on Thursday night for a televised debate that could be critical to the New Hampshire vote and to Dean's chances.





"I'm going to become a frog if I keep this up," he croaked.

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Time flies by when the Devil drives.
It's not the pace of life that concerns me, it's the sudden stop at the end.

[4WiccanLuv]

More on Dean.

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'Yeagh,' the Remix

The Internet wave Dean rode to popularity comes crashing down around him as his goofy wild speech is sampled and looped online



By Bret Begun

Newsweek

Jan. 22, 2004



Jan. 21 - You live by the Internet, you die by the Internet. Just ask Howard Dean. One minute, the Democratic presidential hopeful is harvesting new voters, and campaign contributors, online. The next, he’s being haunted by tech-savvy turntablists. Since his kinda-crazy concession speech in Iowa on Monday night, a bunch of audio files mixing music to his exhortations have been circulating on the Web. "We’re going to South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico. We’re going to California and Texas and New York!" It's the type of stuff you’d hear at nightclubs, not political rallies. The highlight? Repeated splicing and dicing of Dean’s "Yeagh!" outburst.



Howard Stern might have been the first to sample Dean—he put the speech to some AC/DC early Tuesday morning. Right Magazine, an online political journal for students at Wheaton College, outside Chicago, also posted a two-minute clip Tuesday morning, called the "Dean Goes Nuts Remix." (Thanks for inventing the Internet, Al!) Jonathan Strong, 20, the song’s creator, had been doing homework, but abandoned that after listening to Dean’s speech. He estimates that the tune he mixed instead got downloaded more than 7,000 times between Tuesday morning and early evening. The music is from an Aphex Twin song called "Wax the Nip," says Strong, who complied with a request to take the copyrighted material down from his site. "It took me two hours in the middle of the night, until 2 or 3 in the morning," he says. "I came back from class Tuesday afternoon and it was all over the Internet. I purchased seven more gigs of bandwidth, took a nap, and, when I woke up, my site was down again."



James Lileks’s version is simply named "Yeagh," (homepage.mac.com/lileks/....Yeagh.mp3) and it’s a minute long. For sheer dance value, his track might be the best. ("Are we sick of the Dean yelp yet?" Lileks, a Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist, asks on his Web site, The Bleat. "We are." If you just need a quick fix, however, Jonathan Barlow’s clip (barlowfarms.com/howarddean.wav) is considerably shorter—just 15 seconds. Barlow says that he picked up the Dean audio from The Drudge Report. The music is his own. "It’s got a funky, hip-hop-type beat with an acoustic baseline and jazz horns," says Barlow, 29, a grad student at St. Louis University who is getting a Ph.D. in the history of religion in America. "I’m not a Dean fan, but it’s not nasty. He just looked real cheesy. The thing that cheesed me up the most was when he rolled up his sleeves and threw his jacket to [Iowa Sen. Tom] Harkin." Strong says he used a software called Cubase to produce his clip. Barlow says he used Apple’s new GarageBand audio program, which has only been available to the public in the last week. Lucky you, Howard Dean!

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I don't think Dean will recover from his lively speech in Iowa. Seems he sorta had a "Dukakis" moment.

"Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others." - Groucho Marx

[sam7777]

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Ohio is the second state, after Nebraska, that would prohibit benefits for state employees' unmarried partners

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This for me underscores the importance of gay marriage. Without this right, it's easy for states to take away "domestic partner" rights. In addition, gays should have these rights nation wide not granted by states or companies. I fear that this is the penng salvo in a war to erradicate gay rights by tying benefits and adoption to a concept of "marriage" defined to exclude gays and lesbians.

_____________________

I see dead lesbian cliches

Edited by: sam7777  at: 1/22/04 5:57 pm

[justin]

This is something that occurred to me while I was reading a report about Maher Arar (His story has been mentioned on this board before but you can read more about it here)



The point of terrorism is to create fear (one definition is kill one, scare thousands) and that is what they have done. America (and other countries) have been in a state of fear ever since september the 11th. The government might be able to boast about how many terrorists cells they've captured but that's meaningless. The truth is that as long as the presence of international terrorists makes people act out of fear and to cause injustices like what happened to Mahet Arar, or to bring in legislation like the Patriot act, then they're winning.

Postel's Prescription: Be generous in what you accept, rigorous in what you emit.

[maudmac]

If Maher Arar is a Canadian citizen, why in the world wasn't he deported to Canada?!?



I think you're right, justin. Here in the US with the Patriot Act and such, it's becoming more and more obvious that "the terrorists have won." We already had measures in place that should have stopped the 9/11 hijackers from flying and it didn't. Are we really safer with all this new Orwellian stuff the government is doing? Doubtful.



I've been wondering, what sorts of laws or security measures are going on in other places? Are there measures comparable to the US Patriot Act (expanding the law enforcement and intelligence communities' ability to gather information on its own citizens and chipping away at civil liberties) in the UK? Or Europe, Asia, South America, Africa, wherever? I've seen little in the news about whether other parts of the world are turning into Big Brother. Most of what I've seen was about resistance to demands made by the US, things like having armed sky marshals on international flights originating in other countries, fingerprinting and photographing travellers from certain other countries, etc. (I really cannot imagine why the US would be so upset with Brazil for giving us a taste of our own medicine. As much as I wouldn't want to be treated like a suspected terrorist if I went to Brazil, I couldn't blame them one bit, since I know Brazilians would be receiving the same treatment coming here. Quid pro quo.)

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go         donut           go

[Diebrock]

maudmac said:

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I really cannot imagine why the US would be so upset with Brazil for giving us a taste of our own medicine.

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Well see, it's like this. Brazil's action is discriminatory because it singled out specific nations, while the US administration's position is "universal, with admitted exceptions" (Powell).

_________________

How can you kill people who killed people, to show that killing people is wrong?

I've kissed her best friend. I've reached into her best friend's pocket and fished around for keys. And I gave her best friend my number. I must be doing something totally, totally wrong... - TBSOL by Dreams

[justin]

Well in the UK there have been various anti terrorism laws for quite a long time. Primarily because of the problems in Ireland.



I think it was Britain that first started the idea of locking up suspected terrorists indefinitely without charging them with any crime. There are about 30 people being held in what is now called the British Guantanamo Bay.

Postel's Prescription: Be generous in what you accept, rigorous in what you emit.

[Gatito Grande]

Quote:

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Infiltration of files seen as extensive

Senate panel's GOP staff pried on Democrats

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff, 1/22/2004



WASHINGTON -- Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe.



From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics.



The office of Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle has already launched an investigation into how excerpts from 15 Democratic memos showed up in the pages of the conservative-leaning newspapers and were posted to a website last November.



With the help of forensic computer experts from General Dynamics and the US Secret Service, his office has interviewed about 120 people to date and seized more than half a dozen computers -- including four Judiciary servers, one server from the office of Senate majority leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, and several desktop hard drives.



But the scope of both the intrusions and the likely disclosures is now known to have been far more extensive than the November incident, staffers and others familiar with the investigation say.



The revelation comes as the battle of judicial nominees is reaching a new level of intensity. Last week, President Bush used his recess power to appoint Judge Charles Pickering to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, bypassing a Democratic filibuster that blocked a vote on his nomination for a year because of concerns over his civil rights record.



Democrats now claim their private memos formed the basis for a February 2003 column by conservative pundit Robert Novak that revealed plans pushed by Senator Edward M. JFK, Democrat of Massachusetts, to filibuster certain judicial nominees. Novak is also at the center of an investigation into who leaked the identity of a CIA agent whose husband contradicted a Bush administration claim about Iraqi nuclear programs.



Citing "internal Senate sources," Novak's column described closed-door Democratic meetings about how to handle nominees.



Its details and direct quotes from Democrats -- characterizing former nominee Miguel Estrada as a "stealth right-wing zealot" and describing the GOP agenda as an "assembly line" for right-wing nominees -- are contained in talking points and meeting accounts from the Democratic files now known to have been compromised.



Novak declined to confirm or deny whether his column was based on these files.



"They're welcome to think anything they want," he said. "As has been demonstrated, I don't reveal my sources."



As the extent to which Democratic communications were monitored came into sharper focus, Republicans yesterday offered a new defense. They said that in the summer of 2002, their computer technician informed his Democratic counterpart of the glitch, but Democrats did nothing to fix the problem.



Other staffers, however, denied that the Democrats were told anything about it before November 2003.



The emerging scope of the GOP surveillance of confidential Democratic files represents a major escalation in partisan warfare over judicial appointments. The bitter fight traces back to 1987, when Democrats torpedoed Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court. In the 1990s, Republicans blocked many of President Clinton's nominees. Since President Bush took office, those roles have been reversed.



Against that backdrop, both sides have something to gain and lose from the investigation into the computer files. For Democrats, the scandal highlights GOP dirty tricks that could result in ethics complaints to the Senate and the Washington Bar -- or even criminal charges under computer intrusion laws.



"They had an obligation to tell each of the people whose files they were intruding upon -- assuming it was an accident -- that that was going on so those people could protect themselves," said one Senate staffer. "To keep on getting these files is just beyond the pale."



But for Republicans, the scandal also keeps attention on the memo contents, which demonstrate the influence of liberal interest groups in choosing which nominees Democratic senators would filibuster. Other revelations from the memos include Democrats' race-based characterization of Estrada as "especially dangerous, because . . . he is Latino," which they feared would make him difficult to block from a later promotion to the Supreme Court.



And, at the request of the NAACP, the Democrats delayed any hearings for the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals until after it heard a landmark affirmative action case -- though a memo noted that staffers "are a little concerned about the propriety of scheduling hearings based on the resolution of a particular case."



After the contents of those memos were made public in The Wall Street Journal editorial pages and The Washington Times, Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, made a preliminary inquiry and described himself as "mortified that this improper, unethical and simply unacceptable breach of confidential files may have occurred on my watch."



Hatch also confirmed that "at least one current member of the Judiciary Committee staff had improperly accessed at least some of the documents referenced in media reports." He did not name the staffer, who he said was being placed on leave and who sources said has since resigned, although he had apparently already announced plans to return to school later this year.



Officials familiar with the investigation identified that person as a legislative staff assistant whose name was removed from a list of Judiciary Committee staff in the most recent update of a Capitol Hill directory. The staff member's home number has been disconnected and he could not be reached for comment.



Hatch also said that a "former member of the Judiciary staff may have been involved." Many news reports have subsequently identified that person as Manuel Miranda, who formerly worked in the Judiciary Committee office and now is the chief judicial nominee adviser in the Senate majority leader's office. His computer hard drive name was stamped on an e-mail from the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League that was posted along with the Democratic Senate staff communications.



Reached at home, Miranda said he is on paternity leave; Frist's office said he is on leave "pending the results of the investigation" -- he denied that any of the handwritten comments on the memos were by his hand and said he did not distribute the memos to the media. He also argued that the only wrongdoing was on the part of the Democrats -- both for the content of their memos, and for their negligence in placing them where they could be seen.



"There appears to have been no hacking, no stealing, and no violation of any Senate rule," Miranda said. "Stealing assumes a property right and there is no property right to a government document. . . . These documents are not covered under the Senate disclosure rule because they are not official business and, to the extent they were disclosed, they were disclosed inadvertently by negligent [Democratic] staff."



Whether the memos are ultimately deemed to be official business will be a central issue in any criminal case that could result. Unauthorized access of such material could be punishable by up to a year in prison -- or, at the least, sanction under a Senate non-disclosure rule.



The computer glitch dates to 2001, when Democrats took control of the Senate after the defection from the GOP of Senator Jim Jeffords, Independent of Vermont.



A technician hired by the new judiciary chairman, Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, apparently made a mistake that allowed anyone to access newly created accounts on a Judiciary Committee server shared by both parties -- even though the accounts were supposed to restrict access only to those with the right password.

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www.boston.com/news/natio...ve?mode=PF



GG For all their loud, patriotic declarations of love for "the American Way," any belief the GOP has in democracy is purely coincidental (i.e. as long as *they* are getting---and counting---the votes) Out

[Kieli]

I totally agree. Any kind of democracy we might think we have is a farce. The GOP Dirty Tricks division has apparently earned their keep this year. Whatever happened to "May the best man/woman win?" Apparently the GOP is not so certain of their guy's position that they'd leave him up to his own devices to try to win his own re-election. I'm thoroughly disgusted with the whole deal. Our government is getting more corrupt by the second. So much for those Christian values the politicians keep spouting they have and uphold. Moral majority, my ass Since when has thievery, lying and cheating been the "right" thing to do?

Time flies by when the Devil drives.
It's not the pace of life that concerns me, it's the sudden stop at the end.

[justin]

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Our government is getting more corrupt by the second.

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I'm not sure what you mean when you say the government is getting MORE corrupt. This sort of eves dropping on your opononent is hardly a new thing, or are you forgetting about Watergate.



The sad truth is, IMHO, politicians (and that's not just republicans) can't get any more corrupt.

Postel's Prescription: Be generous in what you accept, rigorous in what you emit.

[werewolf123]

Never say they can not get more corrupt, someone will prove

you wrong.

[Kieli]

Quote:

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I'm not sure what you mean when you say the government is getting MORE corrupt. This sort of eves dropping on your opononent is hardly a new thing, or are you forgetting about Watergate. The sad truth is, IMHO, politicians (and that's not just republicans) can't get any more corrupt.

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Oh I've not forgotten our government's past sins. However, if our politicians are so intent on making history, they should take care not to repeat history's many mistakes. Sadly, they've not bothered to do so because we've not taken them to task enough for these breaches of ethics. Everyone just assumes that this must always be the way we should practice politics, instead of putting the onus of responsibility for proper political conduct on those we elect into office. We focus too much on this nonsensical crap like how many children they have or if they're happily married or of they go to church. I don't bloody care about all of that detritus so long as they can govern well enough to earn my respect.



They can get more corrupt...they could sink right back down into the abyss that started the Third Reich. And we so don't want our history to take that little detour. It can always get worse. All of the little hideous that you could possibly imagine but say could never happen just might if we become any more lackadaisical than we already have been this past century.

Time flies by when the Devil drives.
It's not the pace of life that concerns me, it's the sudden stop at the end.

[Gatito Grande]

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are you forgetting about Watergate.

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Yeah, and back then the Democrats (*majorities* in both House and Senate) investigated the hell out of it, indicted and convicted people, and a President resigned one step ahead of impeachment (and near-certain removal). But back then, you had to send "plumbers" into do their dirty tricks in person. Now, you can do it electronically: harder to prove, w/ even less political will . . . and even if there were, the Democrats are a far more powerless minority now, than the GOP was then.



American electoral democracy is in a downward-spiral: in Florida 2000, at least there was some hue-and-cry about the uncounted ballots, but very little over the even-larger number of indubitably Democratic voters who were purged from the electoral rolls, and denied the opportunity to vote when they showed up on Election Day. In 2002, there already is evidence of computer-based electoral tampering in the Georgia Senate race (where Dem incumbent Max Cleland had a *substantial* lead in all the polls going into the election, yet somehow---absent any rational explanation for a collapse of support---"inexplicably" lost), and yet what we've heard in investigation of it has been precisely jack squat.



If there are any more controversies approaching these this year, I rationally fear that "Contested Electoral Decisions" will become the New Normal. What does it mean, that the government that theoretically is supposed to make and enforce the laws, are intrinsically breaking them just to be where they are?



GG "governments are instituted from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it": what 'Angry Man' said this? Howard Dean? Al Sharpton? Try Thomas Jefferson: The Declaration of Independence, 1776 Out

[Kieli]

One more scary thing to add....Republicans are now redistricting several midwestern states to their favour. Especially in Texas. Texan Democratic State Reps had to flee the state in order to keep from being arrested for disagreeing with this policy and trying to block it. The redistricting of counties in Texas was pretty much ensuring that the majority of voters in that state would be in Republican districts.



See more info on redistricting Here,

Here,

Here (Texas Redistricting), HERE,

and Here (a very good link to look at).

Time flies by when the Devil drives.
It's not the pace of life that concerns me, it's the sudden stop at the end.

Edited by: Kieli  at: 1/26/04 12:07 pm

[justin]

Quote:

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Yeah, and back then the Democrats (*majorities* in both House and Senate) investigated the hell out of it, indicted and convicted people, and a President resigned one step ahead of impeachment (and near-certain removal).

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Except as far as I know it was Nixon who instigated the investigation into Watergate, not the Democrats.



Also the idea of electoral descisions being contested isn't new either. In the 1960 election between JFK and Nixon, Nixon was origionaly declared the winner of the Hawaii vote. JFK contested this descision and after a recount a few hundred votes for Nixon were disgarded because people had put two crosses instead of just one. Becuase of this the descision was reversed and Kenned was declared the winner.



Though this didn't have any effect on the presidential election as JFK had won that anyway. The only reson that the vote was investigated was that the judge in charge believed that any electoral anomaly should be fully investigated in order to maintain confidence in the system, which is different from what happened in 2000.



So maybe the change isn't that these things are happening more but that people are getting away with it more.

Postel's Prescription: Be generous in what you accept, rigorous in what you emit.

[Warduke]

Read this at Yahoo...

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Part of Patriot Act Ruled Unconstitutional

       

By LINDA DEUTSCH, AP Special Correspondent



LOS ANGELES - A federal judge has declared unconstitutional a portion of the USA Patriot Act that bars giving expert advice or assistance to groups designated foreign terrorist organizations.



The ruling marks the first court decision to declare a part of the post-Sept. 11 anti-terrorism statute unconstitutional, said David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor who argued the case on behalf of the Humanitarian Law Project.



In a ruling handed down late Friday and made available Monday, U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins said the ban on providing "expert advice or assistance" is impermissibly vague, in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments.



John Tyler, the Justice Department attorney who argued the case, had no comment and referred calls to the department press office in Washington. A message left there was not immediately returned.



The case before the court involved five groups and two U.S. citizens seeking to provide support for lawful, nonviolent activities on behalf of Kurdish refugees in Turkey.



The Humanitarian Law Project, which brought the lawsuit, said the plaintiffs were threatened with 15 years in prison if they advised groups on seeking a peaceful resolution of the Kurds' campaign for self-determination in Turkey.



The judge's ruling said the law, as written, does not differentiate between impermissible advice on violence and encouraging the use of peaceful, nonviolent means to achieve goals.



"The USA Patriot Act places no limitation on the type of expert advice and assistance which is prohibited and instead bans the provision of all expert advice and assistance regardless of its nature," the judge said.



Cole declared the ruling "a victory for everyone who believes the war on terrorism ought to be fought consistent with constitutional principles."

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Firebird: One Browser To Rule Them All.

[Gatito Grande]

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Except as far as I know it was Nixon who instigated the investigation into Watergate, not the Democrats.

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???



Oh, you mean the one Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox started, before Nixon fired him!



"Left Hand" asked Right Hand, "what have you been up to?" Executive branch investigations of the Executive branch (or any kind of "party on party" investigations) are useless---even *if* above-board, there's still that "appearance of conflict of interest" pall hanging over them.



GG Just as we're never going to find out which Bush Admin hack leaked Joseph Wilson's CIA wife's identity to the media, as long as the Bush Justice Dept. is doing the "investigating"! Out



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