The New York Times > Technology > Pentagon Redirects Its Research Dollars: "The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency at the Pentagon - which has long underwritten open-ended 'blue sky' research by the nation's best computer scientists - is sharply cutting such spending at universities, researchers say, in favor of financing more classified work and narrowly defined projects that promise a more immediate payoff."

...

"The shift away from basic research is alarming many leading computer scientists and electrical engineers, who warn that there will be long-term consequences for the nation's economy. They are accusing the Pentagon of reining in an agency that has played a crucial role in fostering America's lead in computer and communications technologies."

(Via /.)

Instructions to the Soldiers by William Fisher: "The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is charging that U.S. Army documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that the mistreatment of detainees in Iraq was much more widespread than the government has admitted.

The advocacy group also accused the Army of failing to comply with a court order to release the documents and of manipulating the media 'to minimize coverage and public access.'

The ACLU said the reason for the delay in delivering the more than 1,200 pages of documents was 'evident in the contents,' which include reports of brutal beatings, 'exercise until exhaustion,' and sworn statements that soldiers were told to 'beat the f**k out of' detainees. One file cites evidence that military intelligence personnel in Iraq 'tortured' detainees held in their custody.

The treatment was reportedly meant to 'soften up' detainees for interrogation. It occurred at the same time guards at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad were carrying out similar tactics."

...

"And the ACLU has disclosed a Sept. 14, 2003 memo signed by Lt. Gen. Ricardo A. Sanchez, then senior commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, authorizing 29 interrogation techniques, including 12 that 'far exceeded limits established by the Army's own Field Manual.'

The Sanchez memo allows for interrogation techniques including the use of military dogs specifically to 'exploit Arab fear of dogs,' sensory deprivation, and stress positions.

'At a minimum, the documents indicate a colossal failure of leadership,' ACLU attorney Jameel Jaffer told IPS. 'The documents provide further evidence that abuse of prisoners was pervasive in Iraq. The government's contention that abuse was aberrational is completely unhinged from reality.'"

(Via Lew Rockwell.)

Editor's Cut: "Proving that the Republicans have no problem ignoring Biblical strictures against usury, the Congress passed a bankruptcy bill that makes life far more profitable for credit card companies and far more onerous for people who have fallen into debt. The government hasn't started building debtor's prisons or shipping off Mastercard defaulters to Australia yet, but more and more Americans will find themselves indentured servants to Visa as a result of this bill."

(Via The Nation Weblogs.)

the killers inside you: "To almost universal media indifference, the American Cancer Society released a study reporting that more than 60% of cancer deaths could be prevented if we stopped smoking, ate better, and got more exercise.    That's 372,000 lives, or nearly 300 times the number of American lives lost to terrorism -- and that's just one year.  Cigarettes alone  killed 168,000 people in that year.    Many of us are willing to suspend our Constitution, our democratic values,  and our way of life to protect another 3,000 lives, but are not willing to change our smoking and eating habits to save hundreds of times as many people every year. Why? Because preventing cancer deaths does not give power-hungry politicians more control over the state apparatus, nor does it increase ratings for television news. Terrorists don't have a Washington lobby, either.  So everybody's strung out:  Politicians are addicted to the power that anti-terrorism brings, and the contributions that big tobacco and food companies give.  Viewers are addicted to the drama of the ‘War on Terrorism.'  And without a 'War on Cancer,' diners will stay addicted to their French fries (or are they still ‘freedom fries’?)  The deaths will continue."

(Via Night Light.)

Apr 2, 2005: Playing pretend: "E.J. Dionne Jr. makes a great point based on the White House response in today's Washington Post:

The White House's explanation for the treatment of the Denver Three was not reassuring. 'If they want to disrupt the event, then I think that obviously they're going to be asked to leave the event,' said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. But this is free speech preemption. The three had not disrupted the event. Do we live in a country where the president's representatives are authorized to read citizens' minds to determine who is suitable to hear his speeches?

Doesn't it do more harm to kick out the people who disagree with you? How do they plan to convince anyone if they only speak to those who agree with them?"

(Via DNC: Kicking Ass.)

Martini Republic - Lead, follow, or have a drink.: "That, excepting inauguration day, there hasn't been even a single terror alert since George Bush was re-elected. . .

'We don't do politics in the Department of Homeland Security' Tom Ridge"

(Via Martini Republic.)

Salon.com Politics: "If the U.S. doesn't invest in hybrid cars, the terrorists have already won. Or so says a group of national security hawks, who have formed an unlikely alliance with enviro-friendly outfits like the Energy Futures Coalition and the National Resources Defense Council to call for reduced dependency on foreign oil. In an open letter to the President on Monday, such unlikely Prius advocates as former CIA director James Woolsey, Reagan administration national security advisor Robert C. (Bud) McFarlane, and Center for Security Policy head and Reagan-era Defense Department official Frank Gaffney, asked that the Bush administration pledge $1 billion over the next five years for hybrid technology research."

...

"Americans are all too familiar with the high consumer cost of depending on foreign fossil fuels. But, McFarlane argued, the total costs are even higher. 'The price at the pump is not all we're paying right now. We are also paying $400 billion for a defense budget,' he said."

(Via Salon.)

Capital Games: "On Thursday, President Bush's commission on weapons of mass destruction intelligence released a 692-page report that harshly criticizes the US intelligence establishment. It notes that 'the Intelligence Community was dead wrong in almost all of it pre-war judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. This was a major intelligence failure.' That's no news flash. The Senate intelligence committee issued a report last July that said the same. But like the Senate committee, Bush's commission--cochaired by Judge Laurence Silberman, a Republican, and former Senator Chuck Robb, a Democrat--ignored a key issue: whether Bush and his aides overstated and misrepresented the flawed intelligence they received from the intelligence agencies."

(Via The Nation Weblogs.)

what he worry?: "It is with relief and pleasure that we note the departure of Ted Koppel from network television.  Pomposity's loss is our gain.   Koppel found it distasteful that Jon Stewart's show might have more credibility than the network news, without conducting any self-examination to find out why that might be.

You want to know why 'it's no joke anymore' that people turn to the Comedy Channel for credibility, Ted?   It's because you're Henry Kissinger's bitch -- the Kissinger phone transcripts show him playing you like a cheap victrola - and you're not even ashamed to say so. "

(Via Night Light.)

Bloomberg.com:Former Clinton Aide Berger Admits Removing Documents: "April 1 (Bloomberg) -- Former U.S. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger pleaded guilty today to removing classified documents from the National Archives while reviewing anti-terrorism efforts by President Bill Clinton's administration.

In pleading guilty to the misdemeanor in federal court in Washington, Berger, 59, reversed his earlier claim that he took the documents inadvertently. He agreed to surrender his security clearance and cooperate in the government's continuing investigation, the Justice Department said."

(Via Google News.)

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Okay, We Give Up : "There's no easy way to admit this. For years, helpful letter writers told us to stick to science. They pointed out that science and politics don't mix. They said we should be more balanced in our presentation of such issues as creationism, missile defense and global warming. We resisted their advice and pretended not to be stung by the accusations that the magazine should be renamed Unscientific American, or Scientific Unamerican, or even Unscientific Unamerican. But spring is in the air, and all of nature is turning over a new leaf, so there's no better time to say: you were right, and we were wrong.

In retrospect, this mag-azine's coverage of so-called evolution has been hideously one-sided. For decades, we published articles in every issue that endorsed the ideas of Charles Darwin and his cronies. True, the theory of common descent through natural selection has been called the unifying concept for all of biology and one of the greatest scientific ideas of all time, but that was no excuse to be fanatics about it."

(Via /.)

59 Former Diplomats Agree: Bolton is a Dick: "Steve Clemons has the full text of the letter by 59 former diplomats to Senator Lugar opposing John Bolton’s nomination as Taiwan, er, US Ambassador to the UN."

(Via ArmsControlWonk.com.)

A Financial Link in that AQ Khan-North Korea-Libya UF6 Daisy Chain?: "David Sanger and Bill Broad have a summary of the North Korea UF6 story based on recent interviews with administration officials and foreign diplomats.

The big revelation: Libyan officials have surrendered financial ledgers that reveal front companies for the AQ Khan network and may link North Korea directly to the shipment of UF6 that turned up in Libya."

Quick Reminder: UF6 - Uranium Hexafluoride: What you get after processing "Yellow Cake" Uranium

(Via ArmsControlWonk.com.)

Martini Republic - Lead, follow, or have a drink.: "Not exactly news that the Bush Administration and the Intelligence Community were dead wrong about Iraq's supposed WMD programs, but the question of 'why' still should predominate the television press, which is instead consumed with promoting agenda-furthering lies and distortions about the Schiavo tragedy.

The disastrous failure has its genesis in the Bush administration's eagerness to go to war with Iraq on any pretext.  In today's article  in the Post on the commission's findings:

. . .the commission described a kind of echo chamber in which plausible hypotheses hardened into firm assertions of fact, eventually becoming immune to evidence.

Leading analysts accepted at face value data supporting the existence of illegal weapons, the commission said, and discounted counter-evidence as skillful Iraqi deception.

Of course, if you dismiss hard facts which contradict your thesis, and posit the inevitable truth of information from questionable sources, you will reach a wrong conclusion.  The source in this case was a drunk named 'Curveball', the brother of an aide to Neocon darling, liar, and racketeer Ahmed Chalabi."

(Via Martini Republic.)

reason prevails: "In a press conference yesterday that focused primarily on Iraq and the Terri Schiavo situation, President Bush  publicly apologized for intelligence failures leading up to to the war.  'In retrospect,' the President said, 'we could have protected our country more effectively through other means, had we been more forthcoming about the information we had.   But we are in this effort now, and we intend to see it through to the best possible end.'   The President indicated that he would seek more active U.N. participation in Iraq's democratization process, adding that 'the recent report exonerating Kofi Annan of wrongdoing' will help him spur domestic support for closer U.S./U.N. collaboration in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Regarding Terri Schiavo, the President said that 'Americans of all beliefs can join together in supporting the family in their moment of tragedy.'   He added,  'Belief is a personal matter.  The Federal government should not seek to impose the beliefs of politicians on individuals, nor should it ride roughshod over the sanctity of the family, states' rights, or an independent judiciary.'   He added, 'While my personal beliefs are pro-life, the Schiavo case was essentially a family matter, and it is unfortunate that it was treated as a political one.'"

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The President's press secretary, Scott McClellan, reiterated the President's support for active investigations of corruption, wherever they occur, adding 'Of course, it is April Fool's Day.'"

(Via Night Light.)

AlterNet: Rights and Liberties: What Makes a Mother: "A Pennsylvania appeals court has re-united a non-biological lesbian mother who has been estranged from her daughter. The two have been unable to carry on any kind of a relationship because the child's biological mother has worked to keep her daughter and former partner apart ever since the two women split. The non-biological mother, thanks to a Pennsylvania Superior Court ruling, will now get to see the daughter she helped raise for three years.

In addition to the immense personal relationships at stake, this case is important because of the strong wording"

(Via AlterNet.)

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins - review: "'This is what we EHMs, (Economic Hitmen), do best: we build a global empire. We are an elite group of men and women who utilize international financial organizations to foment conditions that make other nations subservient to the corporatocracy running our biggest corporations, our government and our banks. Like our counterparts in the Mafia, EHMs provide favors. These take the form of loans to develop infrastructure, electric generating plants, highways, ports, airports, or industrial parks. A condition of such loans is that engineering and construction companies from our own country must build all these projects. In essence, most of the money never leaves the United States; it is simply transferred from banking offices in Washington to engineering offices in New York, Houston or San Francisco.' 

'Despite the fact that the money is returned almost immediately to corporations who are members of the corporatocracy (the creditor), the recipient country is required to pay it all back, principle plus interest. If an EHM is completely successful, the loans are so large that the debtor is forced to default on its payments after a few years. When this happens, then like the Mafia, we demand our own pound of flesh. This often includes one or more of the following: control over United Nations votes, the installation of military bases, or access to precious resources such as oil or the Panama Canal. Of course, the debtor still owes us the money and another country is added to our global empire.'"

(Via LewRockwell.com Blog.)

AlterNet: Rights and Liberties: More Sex, Please: "That was then. These days, rather than challenging the idea of sexual normality of any sort, we merely want to tweak its definition so that we're considered appropriate too. The current political triumphalism of right-wing 'values' has sparked a lot of soul-searching among gay politicos. One of the more remarkable things this inward look has produced is a joint statement of purpose, signed in January by 22 national gay groups, representing a broad range of issues and identities within the community. It's a powerful affirmation of political unity, but it is also a distressing reminder of what we all agree on: The libido's off limits. The word sex appears in the document only when framed by marriage or disease.

Our movement, the statement boldly declares, 'opens America's eyes to the true family values that LGBT couples, parents and families are living and demonstrating every day.' So much for fun at the YMCA.

We've sacrificed sexual pluralism on the altar of civil rights. "

(Via AlterNet.)

Mar 29, 2005: Ask the RNC for a correction: "The RNC recently put out a document full of quotes highlighting 'what is being said across the country about strengthening Social Security.' The folks at Think Progress started looking at those quotes - all supportive of the Republican efforts to kill the program - and realized that some had been selectively cropped from, well, people who didn't like the plan at all."

(Via DNC: Kicking Ass.)

DNC Special Reports: Tom DeLay Case File: "Tom DeLay is at the center of a bewildering array of investigations into corruption, abuse of power, and ethics violations."

Some Highlights:

• The Westar Scandal
• The House Medicare Vote Bribery Scandal
• The Texas Redistricting Scandal
• The K Street Scandal
• The TRMPAC Scandal
• The Travel Scandal
• The Ethics Committee Scandal

(Via DNC: Kicking Ass.)

Mar 30, 2005: Kicked out: "President Bush has been traveling the country trying to sell his Social Security privatization scheme, but no matter how many audiences he talks to, he just can't seem to convince anyone that his plan is a good idea.

But then, it could be because he refuses to talk to anyone who doesn't already support his risky plan. Three Colorado residents were kicked out of a Bush Social Security rally not because they were making a disturbance or displaying anti-Bush messages, but simply because the car they arrived in had a bumper sticker protesting the Iraq war."

(Via DNC: Kicking Ass.)

Mar 31, 2005: Scandal man: "One thing you can say for sure about Tom DeLay: the more people know about him, the worse off he is. With the Republican House Majority Leader piling up scandal after scandal, any news for DeLay is bad news.

But it's getting hard to keep track of all the ethics violations and power grabs DeLay has his hands in. So we created this handy DNC Special Report to make sense of the many scandals."

(Via DNC: Kicking Ass.)

The Nation | Blog | The Daily Outrage | Benefits Down, Deficit Up | Ari Berman: "The only bright spot of the Senate's passage of President Bush's atrocious 2006 budget came when Democrats and moderate Republicans blocked a proposed $15 billion cut to Medicaid. Following the vote, incredulous GOP Senators, attempting to reclaim the lost mantle of fiscal responsibility, denounced the proposal for supposedly bloating the deficit. But giving the lie to their rhetoric, Republican Senator Jim Bunning then went ahead and passed a tax break on Social Security benefits for the wealthiest Americans that was four times larger than the Medicaid amendment."

(Via The Nation Weblogs.)

Warner Signs Anti-Immigrant HB 1798: "Democratic Virginia Governor Mark Warner dealt a significant blow to Latino and poverty activists in Virginia yesterday when he signed HB 1798, patroned by Fairfax County Republican Dave Albo, which requires proof of legal presence from those seeking government assistance. 'It's very disappointing,' the Washington Post quotes Arlington County Board member Walter Tejada (D) chairman of the Virginia Latino Advisory Commission, 'It serves no other purpose but to fan the flames of anti-immigrant sentiment . . . and that is simply wrong.'

Social service workers have been concerned that the anti-immigrant sentiment the bill embodies will effect many more people than the adult illegal immigrants who are the new law's targets. Many immigrants are already afraid that if they seek services like the FAMIS child health coverage assistance programs (for which all children are eligible regardless of immigration status) they will be turned in to federal officials and deported."

(Via Democracy for Virginia.)

The Nation | Blog | The Daily Outrage | Outrageous Outtakes | Ari Berman: "As Congressional Republicans obsessed over Terry Schiavo, Rep. Dan Lungren of California quietly reintroduced a constitutional amendment banning gay-marriage. The disastrous effects of this proposal are already apparent in states that have the ban--like Ohio, where a judge recently ruled that unmarried people cannot file domestic violence charges. The public defender for a man accused of slapping and pushing his girlfriend over a pack of cigarettes successfully argued that prosecuting his client would 'create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried people.' Let's call it the Jerry Springer exemption."

(Via The Nation Weblogs.)

Fake Reporter, Real Man-Whore turns out to be Fake Marine: "From a diary over on Kos, via Tex at UnFairWitness.  It seems (fake agency) TalonNews' James Guckert aka Jeff Gannon was full of shit about being a Marine, as well."

(Via Martini Republic.)

Salon.com Life | "You're supposed to marry the person you love, Mom": "My 7-year-old son's best friend is a 59-year-old lesbian from Brooklyn, N.Y. Zeke and Laura share a passion for the San Francisco Giants, dark chocolate truffles and New York frankfurters, and have spent every Wednesday afternoon together since he was 6 weeks old. Other than his dad, Zeke would rather be with Laura than pretty much anybody else, including me, and who can blame him. He and Laura go to ballgames, take classes at the science museum, do his homework over brownie sundaes at Fenton's ice-cream parlor, and have a circuit of toy stores they visit on a regular basis."

(Via Salon.)

The GoogleSmear as Political Tactic: "It seems to me that David Horowitz and some far rightwing friends of his have hit upon a new way of discrediting a political opponent, which is the GoogleSmear. It is an easy maneuver for someone like Horowitz, who has extremely wealthy backers, to set up a web magazine that has a high profile and is indexed in google news. Then he just commissions persons to write up lies about people like me (leavened with innuendo and out-of-context quotes). Anyone googling me will likely come upon the smear profiles, and they can be passed around to journalists and politicians as though they were actual information. "

(Via Informed Comment.)

Salon.com Books | How Paul Wolfowitz can save the world: "The United States has traditionally picked the World Bank's chiefs, so it's perhaps not exactly shocking that foreigners didn't fight Wolfowitz very hard; after so many battles with the Bush administration, the world is no longer in a fighting mood. But the quick concession on the Wolfowitz nomination may reflect something deeper, too. International development, which the World Bank is charged to pursue, is a confounding business these days. About 1.1 billion people around the world live in conditions of persistent, extreme poverty, and there sometimes seem to be just as many ideas, ranging from the radical to the reactionary, over what to do about this awful state of affairs. Among residents of rich nations, there's a sense that everything we've done to help the underdeveloped world during the past half-century has failed, and that now, in the age of AIDS, the poor world's problems look nearly unsolvable. We need new ideas and new leaders, the thinking goes. Wolfowitz, who's done little development work during his long career in government, is a blank slate, and he's got good connections. As Gerhard Schroeder, the German chancellor and dependable Bush critic, remarked to his countrymen this week, 'People could be pleasantly surprised by his performance.'"

(Via Salon.)