Evict Bush!

Saturday, January 18, 2003  

In the Arab News:

Saudi businesswomen push for larger role.

Their coverage of the day's protests.

North Korea dictating terms, Washington being very conciliatory.

Digby gives us this flashback from the 2000 debates, followed by a satirical snapshot of the talking head response. In the words of REM, it's crazy what we could have had. And keep reading after that, he's got some good stuff up.

EU tries to put fears over possible attack on Iran, the other 'axis of evil' nation, to rest. Word from EU correspondents indicates there's fear that war with Iraq could escalate unpredictably if Israel is drawn into the war through Iraqi attacks and escalated bombings from groups based in southern Lebanon, possibilities that would increase the longer any conflict goes on. Iran and Syria would be prime Israeli targets for their governments' support of Palestinian militants. Regional leaders are engaged in hurried talks to try averting a possible war.

Protests abound around the world. More here, here, and here.

Weapons of Mass Distraction finds Huge Iraqi Warhead. Heh.

As the Bushies engage in class warfare, Ari 'Mouth of Sauron' Fleischer had this to say:

...At the January 9 White House briefing, a reporter asked, "The President used the phrase 'class warfare' again today, alluding to criticism of his tax plan. Why is it class warfare to point out that the overwhelming majority of the tax cut would go to the wealthiest people in the country?" Fleischer answered, "Well, I'll tell you, it's class warfare to say that there are wrong people in America and these wrong people are not deserving of tax relief. The President doesn't look at the American people and say, I'm from the government, I know who the right people are -- I'm from the government, I know who the wrong people are. The President believes that's a divisive approach." ...

The Bushies do, however, seem to think that a childless single like myself making under $100,000/yr is one of the wrong people. I do not deserve a tax cut, but I do deserve to have my state's services cut, increasing the chance that my local economy will start sinking even faster. They seem to think that I deserve to live near the steady increase of crime that always accompanies such downturns. They think I deserve even greater job insecurity than I currently enjoy, a harder time finding one if I should lose mine, and reduced unemployment benefits if I'm unable to find one. Thanks guys, I love you too.

Meanwhile, Bill Gates Sr. argues that it would be very irresponsible to eliminate the estate tax and other taxes that affect mostly the wealthy, especially in a time of deficits as far as the eye can see. But then, Mr. Gates earned his money, as opposed to having it handed to him courtesy of the charity of his father's friends. He doesn't seem to believe that government largesse like roads, schools, and libraries just spring up out of the ground.

...Proposals to reform the tax have been blocked since 2000 by the "all or nothing" repeal lobby, which understands the peril of not having smaller estates as camouflage. Once exemptions rise above $3 million, it becomes impossible to find a credible and photogenic farmer or restaurant owner who will complain about what opponents call the "death tax." It's hard enough to find them now. The pro-repeal American Farm Bureau was asked to produce an example of a farmer who had lost a farm because of the estate tax. It could not identify a single one.

Lost in this debate are the benefits to our country of maintaining an estate tax. Originally passed in 1916, the estate tax was a fundamentally American response to the excesses of the Gilded Age. Populist reformers labored for the three decades before 1916 to pass federal income and estate taxes in order to shift the tax burden, mostly in the form of nineteenth-century tariff duties and excise taxes, off of Midwestern and Southern farm states and onto the wealthy Northeastern states. But underlying the movement for an estate tax was a recognition that too much concentrated wealth and power was putting our democracy at risk. We had fought a revolution to reject hereditary political and economic power--and the dizzying inequalities of the Gilded Age violated a fundamental American ideal of equality of opportunity. ...

Ruminate This is back from a brief hiatus, and found this story on the FCC proposal to scrap media ownership rules.

If you haven't done so already, go to the Center for Digital Democracy where they'll usher you through the process of emailing your dissatisfaction to your congresscritters.

It's the Saturday Morning Funnies with your favorite Jesus freaks*:

Ccorporations that honor marriage and family are hounded out of business or prosecuted. Really.

Pro-life group will out the dirty dozen, twelve Catholic Senators who are pro-choice, in a series of ads.

Inside abortion clinics, which are really just a service for irresponsible males, women regularly are sexually assaulted and raped. Oh yeah, and they're dirty, foul places, where they don't care about the patients at all.

The lunatics at WorldNetDaily are apparently privy to our North Korea contingency plans. God, I hope not.

Humanists, socialists, and pedophiles are using sex education to destroy American morals.

The peace movement has been hijacked! Hijacked I say. By communists who support dictators and terrorists, hate both Israel and the US, and consort with... Democrats!

Pat Robertson's age-defying protein pancakes. Because when you wake up in the morning, the first thing you want is a processed pancake mix that will let you, too, enjoy as well preserved a visage as that saintly gentleman.

Okay, there's more, but I've reached my pain threshold.

* No offense intended to followers of Jesus who are non-freaky.

Mark Morford notes Bush's commitment to the sanctity of life, so long as that life is American, and so long as it hasn't taken its first breath. Besides that, like if you're an Iraqi or a grown person who joined the military, you're on pretty shaky ground with respect to the sanctity of your own life. Teaser, or, why newly minted atheists are springing up all over:

...Dubya actually said it. He actually went so far as to pledge his administration's commitment to "build a culture that respects life," saying this with a straight face, no violent lightning bolt striking him dead on the spot, no gnarled filthy hell-beasts reaching with clawed fingers up from the ground and dragging him under, isn't that just the sweetest thing and don't you just feel the sentiment deep in your heart? Or perhaps your colon? ...

Now I ask you, can there really be a god if he doesn't get struck down for saying that? Well, maybe. But it posits some scenarios for that entity; either god is completely disinterested, is having a good belly laugh, or it's on their side. If the latter, well, we're all ****ed.

...So there it is. National Sanctity of Life Day. The perfect opportunity for the rest of us sentient, sexually attuned self-defined being on the planet to declare each of the other 364 days of the year either "Pipe Down And Keep Your Whiny Religious BS Out Of My Sex Life Day," or "Spank an Uptight Anti-Choice Groupthink Dinkmonkey Whilst Embracing And Sucking The Toes of Your Own Funky Gorgeous Ability to Think For Yourself Day," -- either of which, I think we can all agree, will look absolutely fabulous on a greeting card.

Body and Soul talks about human rights, and the role that the US example plays in holding them up. The post below that regards a Martin Luther King speech which is as relevant today as it was when he first gave it.

Fox News has apparently noticed the peace movement, though they report response thus far as 'modest.' They place this Sean Hannity quote in the article:

..."Why don't you and all you kum-ba-ya liberals out there accusing the president of genocide, why don't you go to Iraq?" Fox News' commentator and Hannity and Colmes host Shawn Hannity recently asked members of the Green Party, which is against the war. "And why don't you protest the 1.5 million people slaughtered by this man? I have pictures of dead babies that he used chemical weapons on. Why don't you go protest him?"...

Apparently, slaughtering another million and a half Iraqis will make everything even in his eyes?

Venezuela Update:

Strike beginning to backfire as shops are forced to open, while street vendors get windfall profits.

Yesterday's UN talks don't seem to have changed anything.

IMF blames situations in Iraq, Venezuela for damaging world economy.

National guard seizes beverages from firm accused of hoarding.

Venezuela Archives

Saudis try to convince Saddam to go into exile to avoid war.

Eschaton reminds us about Afghanistan. Remember them, the people we were supposed to liberate?

Seyed Razavi of MonkeyX, who's debuting on the blogroll today, pulls together links to some good articles on our collective Iraqi madness. His blog covers a wide range of subjects, from culture and politics to science and technology. Enjoy.

Also, courtesy of the MonkeyX blogroll, we find the news page at Payvand, for up to date stories regarding Iran. The country has been a major player in Middle East and Central Asian politics for a very long time, and will probably continue in that role.

In Government Executive:

Sen. Russ Feingold will introduce legislation* to kill the Total Information Awareness project led by pardoned felon John Poindexter. (Read more in this post at WarBlogging, a site that also has loads of information about Poindexter.)

...“The administration’s assurances that a data mining system will not abuse our privacy rights ring hollow,” Feingold said, “particularly to those of us who questioned the breathtaking new federal powers in the USA Patriot Act.” That law, as well as other measures undertaken in the name of homeland security and the war on terrorism, have expanded the government’s ability to share intelligence information among agencies and to place individuals under law enforcement surveillance. ...

Check out the Homeland Security Appointments Watch to see who's being tapped for the new department. For extra credit, readers can look up these names and report back with any relevant horror stories. While many of them are undoubtedly fine public servants, they're Bush appointments, hence there's bound to be at least a couple Moonies, Federalist Society members, Christian Coalition folks, etc.

In the face of underfunding and massive backlogs, Veterans Affairs is forced to suspend enrollment for certain categories of veterans for one year.

After savaging the Clinton administration for closing military bases, the Bush administration proposes a new round of base closures. Understandably, Capitol Hill is going nuts over the proposal.

...The Bush administration is eager to close as many installations as in the previous four rounds combined, reasoning that the billions of dollars used to maintain excess capacity would be spent better on improving the military's war-fighting capabilities. ...

* While looking for a link to WarBlogging the long way around, I found that Sen. Feingold's abnormal growth of spine has also been noted by The Agonist.

In Military.com:

David Hackworth on why North Korea damn well is a crisis, and why any eventual 'victory' would be so in name only:

...Because North Korea -- with its nukes, long-range missiles and a million armed-to-the teeth, fanatically obedient soldiers forward-deployed on South Korea's border and backed up by almost 8 million reservists -- ain't a military pussycat like Iraq. The North Korean army has almost 40,000 cannons, mortars and missiles right behind its DMZ foxholes that are capable of pummeling the 14 million citizens of Seoul, the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division and elements of the South Korean army with 10,000 rounds a minute for at least eight hours with surprise preparatory fire. ...

Oliver North on liberty delayed. He appears to be under the delusion that we intend to make a western democracy out of the country by way of bombing it back to the Stone Age. (We've only managed to get it back to the Iron Age thus far.) But then, he also appears to be under the delusion that he's an honorable servant of his country, instead of a weaselly, pardoned criminal.

...Yet delay is all we hear these days. Hans Blix and his blind mice weapons inspectors want a six-month delay in any action so that they may "finish their work." France and Germany want to delay military action against Saddam until the UN Security Council votes another resolution. And our State Department and CIA apparently want the Iraqi Resistance to delay forever their "Declaration of Independence." President Bush needs to remind them all that delay is not the friend of liberty.

Marketers of baby formulas are flouting marketing rules in developing countries. This is important because in countries where there isn't fresh, treated water running to every house, thousands of children die every year from waterborne diseases that they wouldn't get from breastfeeding.

An egregious example of such corporate carelessness can be seen in the actions of the Gerber corporation in Guatemala, emphasis ours:

...For four years between 1990 and 1995, U.S. based-Gerber Products Company launched a campaign to force Guatemala to eliminate an infant health law that banned the use of baby pictures on labels for baby food for children under two years of age. The Guatemalan law implemented the WHO-UNICEF Infant Formula Marketing Code, which was developed to help protect the lives of infants by promoting breast feeding over artificial breast milk substitutes, including through elimination of packaging that would induce illiterate parents to associate formula with healthy, fat babies.

All of Guatemala's domestic and foreign suppliers of infant formula and other breast milk substitutes made the necessary changes to their packaging to comply with the Guatemalan law, except Gerber. Guatemalan infant mortality rates dropped significantly after the law passed, with UNICEF holding up Guatemala as a model of the Code's success in its literature.

Upon passing the law, the Guatemala Ministry of Health negotiated with Gerber to seek compliance. After several years of watching Gerber refuse to abide by its regulations, the government of Guatemala considered a ban on the company's products altogether. It was at this point that Gerber threatened the Guatemalan government with a challenge under the GATT/WTO.(22) Although Gerber cannot personally launch a GATT challenge to the Guatemalan law, it was able to get the U.S. State Department to repeat its WTO threat in a face-to-face meeting with Guatemalan officials. The tactics intimidated the Guatemalan government eager to avoid the expense of defending a GATT challenge.

According to Gerber's letter to the President of Guatemala, the TRIPs rules forbid enforcement of a conflicting domestic health law that limits use of a trademark protected under TRIPs. By 1995, Gerber's threats of trade sanctions succeeded. The Guatemalan Supreme Court ruled that imported baby food products could be exempted from Guatemala's stringent infant health laws. ...

Yet another example of corporate greed rolling over such human concerns as having your children survive past the age of 2. It would be nice if it were finally settled on that the welfare of human beings carries greater weight than massive profits.

Swiss police prepare for demonstrations at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The protest organizers say that they can't guarantee a lack of violence, saying that, "For the police, a sit-down protest can be violent." The capper of this piece was really irritating:

...Walter Angst of the Olten Alliance says the high security, and the example of previous anti-globalisation demonstrations, such as the rioting at the G8 summit in Genoa in 2001, are even more reason to avoid conflict in Davos.

Why irritating? Because as was pointed out on this site barely a week ago, the Genoa police made up charges, planted evidence, and actively incited confrontation. And it took them long enough to admit it.

Venezuela update:

The Economist proves that they, too, can engage in knee-jerk propaganda:

...Mr Chávez seems to be winning his battle to abort a non-binding referendum on his rule, scheduled by the electoral authority for February 2nd after the opposition gathered the necessary signatures. The government claims, controversially, that this is unconstitutional; it says a referendum cannot be held before August. The Supreme Court (which was hand-picked by the president's allies) seems likely to agree. ...

In fact, it is unconstitutional, as in not mandated or provisioned for. It's about as controversial as saying that it's unconstitutional for Congress to make a law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The current mediation summits by former Columbian autocrat Cesar Gaviria are now beginning to circle around the idea of amending the country's constitution to make it legal. You don't get to just call an election whenever you want to in any country.

And, as president Chavez told Kofi Annan, a February referendum would be nearly impossible to organize with less than a month's notice. The constitutionally mandated and binding referendum is scheduled to be held in August.

The power behind the Venezuelan media, the billionaire Cisneros family, tells the president off and a VHeadlines reader responds. Cisneros will be privately meeting with Jimmy Carter when the ex-president visits Venezuela, and is suing Chavez for defamation.

The opposition softens as the Washington Post goes back to getting their facts mixed up. While mentioning in the beginning of the article that Chavez was twice-elected, they say towards the end that a referendum would be the first public sounding on his four year term in office. Yet industry analysts say that the restructuring Chavez has proposed could make the company even more attractive to foreign capital. Certainly, as one source suggested, it would remove the threat of work stoppages by employees who think they can take down a government at will.

More on the motivations of the middle class, in a country where 65% of the public lives around or below poverty level.

A brief history of Iran-Contra participant Otto Reich. The assistant secretary of state who declared his approval for the April coup, and likely had a hand in staging it, was recently removed from his post. He's not considered able to pass confirmation hearings even in a Republican-led Senate, and his possible successor doesn't sound much better. The acting secretary chimes in.

Venezuela Archives

In the Nation:

The FCC will soon vote on whether to eliminate media consolidation rules for television, cable, and newspapers. Why this matters:

...What will happen if these rules disappear or are significantly loosened? We have some history to guide us. The FCC eliminated many of its radio consolidation rules in 1996. This action has already caused real problems, according to numerous media experts. Conglomerates now own hundreds of stations across the country. One company, Clear Channel, owns more than 1,200. Today there are 30 percent fewer radio station owners than there were before the commission abandoned its rules in 1996. Most local radio markets are oligopolies. More and more programming originates outside local stations' studios--far from listeners and their communities. ...

Katha Pollitt on the joys of government spying on its citizens. Spying, in fact, which likely takes away resources from monitoring known criminals and internationally wanted terrorists. These are some of the charming things discovered in existing government files, that monitor people performing perfectly legal activities:

...But there are more serious items, too. Glenn Morris, chair of the political science department at the University of Colorado, Denver, and member of the leadership council of the Colorado American Indian Movement (AIM), had a death threat listed in his files: The police knew about it but never passed it on. While Cassandra Medrano and Pavlos Stavropoulos were in Greece, another couple used their car to drive to an antiglobalization demonstration; that couple's 9-year-old child--listed as a "reliable" source in the files--gave a police officer information about her parents that the DPD misassigned to Medrano and Stavropoulos; using this "information," the DPD started a file on Medrano and added to its file on Stavropoulos. Do we want to live in a society where fourth-graders are considered reliable sources, and in which cops probe children for information about their parents on the basis of political beliefs and activities that are legal? ...

Not that spying on the nonviolent would ever be right, but it's worth noting that the Denver debacle was facilitated by the police's lack of training in the use of the Orion Scientific Systems software program: Crucial decisions about how to categorize and input information (what constituted "criminal extremism," for example) were made in an unprofessional, whimsical way. Other cities in which secret police files have been uncovered tell a similar story of inept paranoia: Until the mid-1980s, four years after passage of a state law barring police spying on nonviolent political activities, Portland police kept tabs on a wide variety of groups, including the Northwest Oregon Voter Registration Project, a food co-op, a bicycle repair collective, a group setting up a rape hotline and a battered women's shelter. ...

Iraq FAQ. The straight story on UN involvement, alleged terror links, human rights abuses, inspections, the Israeli-Palestinian question, preemptive war, US spying, the whole ball of wax.

Naomi Klein on the fortress continents being constructed in Europe and the US. In part:

...It took the events of September 11 for North America to get serious about building a fortress continent of its own. After the attacks, it wasn't an option for the US simply to build higher walls at the Canadian and Mexican borders; in the Nafta era, the business community wouldn't stand for it. General Motors claims that for every minute its fleet of trucks is delayed at the US-Canadian border, it loses about $650,000.

On the other US border, dozens of industries, from agriculture to construction, are reliant on "illegal" Mexican workers - a fact not lost on George Bush, who knows that, after oil, immigrant labour is the fuel driving the southwest economy. If he suddenly cut off the flow, the business sector would rebel. So what's a wildly pro-business, security-obsessed government to do? ...

Joe Biden was on the Hardball college tour last night, you can read the transcript here. He mentioned that he'd consider running for president, and I actually liked him. He had a lot to say on international affairs, clearly no slouch, and that will be important in the next election. He didn't seem to have the usual flaws that the press likes to pick on Democrats for, especially that he wouldn't put anyone to sleep. This bit on the affirmative action question, I thought, was great (Portions in [] ours):

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you this. It’s a hot question, it’s not an easy answer. How many in this room think that race should be an advantage, you should get an extra 20 points or whatever being black when you apply to law school or undergrad? How many think you should get an advantage for being black? Applaud.

(APPLAUSE)

MATTHEWS: How many think that we should be race blind in applications and acceptances?

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) let me ask you this. How many think if your daddy went to this school you should have an advantage? Guess what, you do if your daddy went to this school. [silence from crowd]

MATTHEWS: Even in a state university like this?

BIDEN: Even in a state university like this and every university. How many of you think if you lived in a rural community as opposed to New York City, you should have an advantage? Raise your hand. [no hands] Give me a break. How many of you-how many of you think if you’re a better athlete, not a star, the better athlete than the guy next to you is a [hell] of a lot smarter than you should get into this school? Raise your hand. [no hands] So come on, come on, I’m not saying that race should be determinate. It should not be determinate. ...

There's a longer discussion in the transcript where he makes some excellent points, but I was impressed by the way he handled the crowd. He seemed very comfortable, very personable. Which is good, because while we now have our second teflon Republican president, they don't seem to make teflon Democrats.

Mark Morford wonders if the absurdity of SUVs has reached its maddening apex in the Hummer H2. While he makes a number of amusing and, apparently, supported statements about the mentality of the SUV, the best part was the skewering of their much touted safety factor:

...In truth, SUVs kill a great many more passengers than they save. They crush other cars, and study after study proves they themselves have shockingly high fatal rollover rates and lethal side-impact dangers. And, given the horrible visibility from SUVs, their drivers have a rather unfortunate habit of running over their own children in the driveway. True.

In fact, the "kill rate" for SUVs is truly appalling. To paraphrase the Washington Monthly article, for every one life saved by driving an SUV, five others will be taken. And research has proved that a tank like the four-ton Chevy Tahoe kills 122 people for every 1 million models on the road; by comparison, the Honda Accord kills only 21 per 1 million such vehicles. ...

Venezuela update:

Testify found this Washington post article which is a striking departure from mainstream reporting in that, get this, it was written by someone who walked around in Caracas!

...If any leaders have a penchant for dictatorship in Venezuela, it is the opposition's. On April 12 they carried out a military coup against the elected government. They installed the head of the business federation as president and dissolved the legislature and the supreme court, until mass protests and military officers reversed the coup two days later.

Military officers stand in Altamira Plaza and openly call for another coup. It is hard to think of another country where this could happen. The government's efforts to prosecute leaders of the coup were canceled when the court dismissed the charges in August. Despite the anger of his supporters, some of whom lost friends and relatives last year during the two days of the coup government, Chavez respected the decision of the court. ...

...Now consider how people in Caracas's barrios see the opposition, a view rarely heard in the United States: Led by representatives of the corrupt old order, the opposition is trying to overthrow a government that has won three elections and two referendums since 1998. Its coup failed partly because hundreds of thousands of people risked their lives by taking to the streets to defend democracy. So now it is crippling the economy with an oil strike. The upper classes are simply attempting to gain through economic sabotage what they could not and -- given the intense rivalry and hatred among opposition groups and leaders -- still cannot win at the ballot box.

From the other side of the class divide, the conflict is also seen as a struggle over who will control and benefit from the nation's oil riches. Over the last quarter-century PDVSA has swelled to a $50 billion a year enterprise, while the income of the average Venezuelan has declined and poverty has increased more than anywhere in Latin America. Billions of dollars of the oil company's revenue could instead be used to finance health care and education for millions of Venezuelans.

Now add Washington to the mix: The United States, alone in the Americas, supported the coup, and before then it increased its financial support of the opposition. Washington shares PDVSA executives' goals of increasing oil production, busting OPEC quotas and even selling off the company to private foreign investors. So it is not surprising that the whole conflict is seen in much of Latin America as just another case of Washington trying to overthrow an independent, democratically elected government. ...

It's all good, go read the whole thing.

Brazil's Lula calls for peace in Venezuela at the Ecuadorian inauguration (which is interesting in itself). This article speaks about the occasion a little more, and gives other figures for Venezuela's oil production than were reported in other stories as posted yesterday. They say that Venezuela is pumping around 800,000 bpd out of a typical 3.2 million. This quote was also telling, emphasis ours:

...The Venezuelan opposition has already rushed to reject the [mediation group] promoted by Lula, which is built around the OAS formula of keeping any solution confined within the bounds of the constitution, and endorsed the one being peddled by the US government, which puts the emphasis on an `electoral solution' (in what appears to be a reprise of the proposal that was shot down recently by the OAS). Both Washington and Brasília deny that there is any rivalry between their initiatives. ...

New board for PDVSA.

The management lockout and oil worker strike has now cost Venezuela four billion dollars, as its currency hits bottom, while that country's 'brutal dictator' has yet to take military or police action against the opposition. It's mentioned in the former article that the 800,000 bpd figures come from the government, while the 400,000 bpd figures gleaned from the US press yesterday comes from the strikers.

Venezuela Archives

The US government, that champion of free trade and scourge of the welfare state, enters the second year of the tariff-funded corporate compensation program. Precisely the sort of thing that foreign nations are advised will make their industries flabby, corrupt, and uncompetitive. Instead of all tariffs going into the Treasury, since 2001, some are now paid out to companies who file 'injury claims' with the government.

The US Customs Service has already sent out letters to 1,200 American firms notifying them how much money they can pocket from tariffs on foreign companies that sell their products in the United States. ...

The program has become instantly popular: According to Jeff Laxague, the program’s director at US Customs, the number of claims rose to 1,200 in 2002 from 900 the previous year, and the award money increased to $329 million from $230 million in 2001.

The awards for the companies this year will range from hundreds of dollars to more than $60 million. This represents a huge incentive, and therein lies the program’s biggest problem. ...

Now taking bets on how long it will be until the program becomes unsupportably popular...

In the Asia Times:

Family planning struggles to take hold in the Phillippines, a country where the poorest citizens may have as many as 10 children. Predictably, the Catholic establishment in the country vehemently opposes any contraception methods or education, and would instead like to rely on the charitable benevolence of the wealthy for the uplifting of the masses.

Pakistani opposition to US presence in their country increases with each FBI arrest, though it's known that many Al-Qaida fighters fled there during the fighting in Afghanistan.

Vietnam prepares for ASEAN integration.

Even as international public opinion hardens against war in Iraq, the US military buildup makes it seem inevitable.

Iran today:

Iran and Azerbaijan will have new talks on dividing the Caspian sea. Here's more background on the issue. Former treaties determining the sovereignty over the area between Iran and the USSR have been declared null and void by Russia and the other former Soviet republics surrounding the oil and sturgeon rich body of water.

Kabul and Tehran have signed a deal for Iran to provide electricity to the western Afghan province of Herat. They will be assisting with other reconstruction projects in the shattered country, as well as enlisting the help of the Karzai government to further their long-time fight against heroin smuggling in the region.

Iran may insist on the return of territories occupied by Armenia.

Sports stadiums open to women.

Human Rights Watch says that significant progress has been restricted over the past year due to power struggles, even though the elected reformists have attempted to lift many restrictions.

US adamantly opposes Russian cooperation on the Bushehr nuclear reactor, even though the IAEA has supervised the entire process, and all spent fuel will be returned to Russia.

Iran and the Phillippines in talks to ensure a steady oil supply to the island nation in the case of war with Iraq. The countries have signed two bilateral trade agreements, which also addressed Phillippine imports of other Iranian products besides oil. Which would be right in line with the country's worries about how to wean their economy from oil exports.

Matthew Yglesias recommends this month's issue of Atlantic magazine, and having just looked over some of the articles in their State of the Union section, I'd have to agree.

Our sponsors agreed to let us host a page of theirs on the topic of emergency contraception. What it is, how to use it, where to get it. This form of back-up birth control is good for two years, and can prevent pregnancy with a high success rate if the first dose is taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex. It's also known as the "Morning After Pill."

Billmon at Daily Kos discusses the dividend tax cut proposal, and why it may be a back door removal of corporate income tax. Links to a Paul Krugman column, where he describes it as the "Tax Complication Act of 2003." Apparently, while the Bush administration has a virulent hatred for trial lawyers, they're pretty fond of tax lawyers and accountants.

Venezuela today:

Soldiers remove weapons and riot gear from the Caracas police station.

Kofi Annan urges both sides to resolve conflict peacefully, lawfully. Chavez will be at the UN thursday to hand over the leadership of the G-77 to Morocco.

More on the class warfare nature of the elite-led national 'strike.' The corporate chains and the banks are closed, but the farmers' markets and small shops are open for business. Activism and involvement in community is reported to be at an all time high as those newly empowered by the Chavez government begin to participate on the process of renovating their society.

In a rare display of lucidity, the Bush administration has demoted Otto Reich, a Cuban American with a rabid hatred of leftist governments, from his position as the assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere policy. His presence is seen as worsening relations between the US and newly elected populist governments in the region, who probably remember him as aiding the Contra terrorists in the 80s. He was the administration official who publicly welcomed the April coup and said recently: "An election is not sufficient to call a country a democracy." While many of the people who voted for Al Gore might agree with that statement, I think he had something else in mind.

Venezuela Archives

In the BBC:

The US trend of letting human rights slip in the name of security has emboldened nations around the world to step up abuses in the name of fighting terror.

Police officer killed in Manchester, UK, in a raid on a suspected North African terrorist cell.

Afghanistan not yet secure.

Palestinian delegates teleconference with peace summit in London after being banned from traveling. The group condemned the suicide bombings, and promises a new draft of a Palestinian constitiution shortly.

Kuwait allows female share traders at its stock exchange. If demand is high, they say, they will allow female stockbrokers. Previously women had to trade shares through a male intermediary.

The scandal surrounding Ariel Sharon widens to South Africa, where that countries investigators suspect that he took an inappropriate loan from a friend to pay back illegal campaign contributions.

The three month old civil war in the Ivory Coast may be coming to a close.

China attracted record 2002 investment.

War on Republicans. About time.

Is North Korea really as crazy as all that?

China looks at major political reform to go along with it's economic reform. In part:

Twenty-two years ago an unpromising area of farmland just over the border from Hong Kong was designated as China's special economic zone, a laboratory for the Communist giant's first capitalist reforms. That laboratory is now a lot less bucolic. The paddy fields and water buffaloes have given way to the skyscrapers and jackhammers of a cacophonous new city called Shenzhen.

The economic reforms that Shenzhen pioneered were subsequently applied to the rest of China, unleashing the biggest growth surge in history. The economy of one-fifth of mankind has expanded at more than an average of 9 per cent annually since 1980.

But until now, China's transformation has lacked a crucial dimension: political reform. The images of the People's Liberation Army massacring protesters around Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989 served as harrowing indicators of political dysfunction. Corruption runs rife through the corridors of power, government regulators own companies they are supposed to regulate, and the power of a secretive, aloof Communist party remains almost unchecked. In a few weeks, however, this may start to change. ...

The article goes on to talk about the local elections held in some 800,000 villages, where local party officials must meet the approval of constituents before attaining higher office. The government has even looked into separation of powers between different branches of government in order to combat the corruption that forward thinking officials see as a major obstacle to growth.

This may all be going a bit slowly to our eyes, but it represents tremendous shifts in thinking on the part of the leadership. Seeing the pain caused around the world by rapid and poorly thought out 'reforms,' like rapid capital market liberalization, China may be proceeding at just the right pace. As the article goes on to say, the 'appeasement' policies of trade engagement seem to slowly but surely be producing reforms that will make life better for ordinary Chinese citizens. Let's hope that no one will have to get killed over it.

As an aside, this all reminded me that China isn't the only country in the world where corruption comes from the regulators and the regulated having too cozy a relationship. Eh, Kenny Boy?

Back to Iraq on military deployment in the Gulf. Other good information as well, rummage around a bit.

The Agonist pulled together in one post all the links to his excellent ongoing coverage and commentary on the North Korea situation. Loads of good reading, moreso because of Sean-Paul's experience in South Korea.

Not to be made to feel lazy without a fight, I've finally put links to this site's Venezuela postings together on one page. I have no experience in Latin American affairs at all, but the story itself is pretty compelling. Lots of links to the writings of people who've been there.

Today's Venezuela update:

Opposition leaders given the gloss in Forbes as they come to the US to meet with senior officials. (As an aside in the ongoing 'what if it happened here' comparison, in the US such behavior would be prosecuted under the Logan Act, which forbids private diplomacy.)

This is the VHeadlines take on the self-appointed diplomats and coup supporters.

The opposition has begun to wonder if there may be public backlash from shutting down schools, clinics, and threatening the livelihood of small business owners as the strike enters its sixth week. D'ya think?

OPEC firms up higher quotas to help make up for Venezuela's shortfall, though some members are skeptical that production will come back online quickly. Also, more information on plans to split the state owned PDVSA into two companies.

International insurers have refused to insure ships that dock at Venezuelan ports during the strike. Now, even if the country can get their oil out of the ground, they must rely on their own small fleet for exports. The financial strangulation proceeds apace. Don't mistake the object lesson this is becoming for other countries in the region who've elected leftist leaders. The article closes thusly:

...Mr. Chavez's critics blame his left-leaning policies for the country's deepening economic crisis, as the economy likely contracted about 8% last year amid unemployment of 17% and inflation of 31% sparked by the bolivar's 46% devaluation. He has said the country's problems are due to an "economic coup" led by his opponents.

A country in the middle of a seven week management lockout over the last couple months, hit with a coup last April, the recent shutdown of their banks, and capital flight throughout last year, owes its problems to left-leaning policies. Where's the coup in Norway, Sweden, France, or Germany, you neoliberal toads?

So far the country has managed to bring production back up to 400,000 bpd, from an average pre-strike of 2 million bpd.

Venezuela Archives

Avedon Carol at the Sideshow with a good, long post on why cutting social assistance doesn't help the budget. And this one on why redistributionist economies work better.

A British newspaper on the death of the American 'liberal' media: "The supposedly liberal American press has become a dog that never bites, hardly barks but really loves rolling over and having its tummy tickled. ..."

The administration will compassionately aid the suffering British Petroleum Co as they start a pipeline in Baku. That's some Christian charity, right there. Brings a tear to my eye.

In a brutal crackdown, President Chavez of Venezuela dispersed protestors with tear gas, threatened legal action against tax revolters, and sternly warned protestors not to close banks and schools, or hoard food. I'm sure the press will begin the rabid demonization shortly.

Venezuela Archives

OPEC acts to raise production quotas to meet Venezuela's shortfall.

Fuel cell car by 2005? Hydrogen economy, here we come.

A UK panel calls for work flexibility for working fathers.

Talk Left talks about the new Justice Department recruitment program, wherein career civil service positions are now being handed to graduates based on how tight they are with the Federalist Society.

A Gulf War veteran talks about the human shield movement he's started to try to stop the looming war in Iraq. His thoughts on individual responsibility in these situations:

...Actually I intend to go to Palestine after Iraq. I want a global mass movement to begin. It has already begun but I want to mass migration to these areas where imperialist powers like the United States are fighting oil wars and global domination wars. I think if we as people continue to wait for our politicians who do not represent us to fix the problems, we will be waiting until we destroy ourselves. It is up to us, the people, to stand up now and act, and I think the best act we could commit at this point is to make a mass migration to Iraq and stop this war. And if we can stop this war, we can stop any war. If we can stop this war in Iraq, then we should go to Palestine and stop the occupation, stop the curfews, stop the roadblocks and stop the killing of Palestinians. And from there let's go to Chechnya, or let's do all at the same time. I think we need to have mass migrations of people. Stop waiting for others to fix the problems. We, as people, need to solve the problems ourselves. ...

I post this knowing that I'm not personally going to do any such thing. I think I'd last 20 minutes in a foreign, non-english speaking, country. About as long as it would take to get from the plane to the taxi stand. I'm glad someone is though, it's one of those things that restores faith in humanity. I wish, somewhat ridiculously maybe, that there was something I could do from where I am.

I don't know how much use it would be to attend an unreported peace vigil in a park. I've written letters, called congresscritters, voted for Democrats. What more can be done that would make a difference, instead of just making me feel better? I don't know. I have no idea whatever.

Al-Muhajabah is back from vacation. An Islamic student going to law school in the US, her opinions and commentary are interesting. Wander over for a more in-depth perspective of Muslim culture, shari'a law, and human rights issues.

As the fur flies... Heavy hitting four way debate over the true nature of the situation in Venezuela. This scathing commentary on capital market 'liberalization' (it's okay if the capital is free, but the people must know their place) as it affects democratic institutions was especially noteworthy:

...Business elites can make life hell for governments regardless of whether or not the people support the governments. Lula was already having to deal with a bunch of currency speculators selling out the Real and driving down its value even before he took office. The speculators are worried that, God forbid, Lula might try to embark on some redistributive policy that could adversely affect their interests. Neoliberalism and the "liberalization of capital markets" has brought us the horrible scourge of what James Mahon calls the "Virtual Senate," whereby elites can veto pretty much any redistributive economic policy -- land reform, increased income taxes on the rich or whatever -- through capital flight and disinvestment.

I say to hell with neoliberalism. I'll support any government in Latin America that attempts to buck the Washington Consensus and build regional alliances to alter the international financial structure, which is in dire need of alteration. ...

The thing that's been running through my mind the last few times that I've posted on Venezuela has been to think how Chomskyesque this has become. I've read some of his books, I've read criticisms of some of his work, and I figured that while he had some good points he was probably a little paranoid.

But I've been watching this thing unfold like a parody of a Chomsky case study; the initial support for the coup, the funding and support of the opposition, and the media whitewash. It differs only in being less bloody thus far. Even the portrayal of the opposition as democratic freedom fighters, champions of the workers, when they're absolutely the opposite. I've read the glowing endorsement of actions that, had they happened in any developed country, would be cause for universal condemnation. The more information I find about it, the worse it stinks.

I'm obviously no expert on Latin American issues (or much of anything else), but this is our era's Nicaragua. This is something we should try to understand better, because we need to know that this is the way things work once you get past the borders of the 'Free World.' We need to know that when people from outside look at us, they see Venezuela, Nicaragua, Chile, Zaire, Afghanistan in the 80's, etc. This is how they know our government acts, this is how they know our media lies about it, and I imagine they must despair just a little.

Venezuela Archives

Read this article about our incredible shrinking media, scheduled to get even smaller if the FCC gets its way. It makes an important point, emphasis ours:

...The F.C.C. argues that technologies like the Internet offer Americans access to more information than ever and thus worries about monopolies are unfounded. But studies also show that most Americans receive their news from a handful of outlets. Beyond this, much of what appears on the Internet is repackaged from those outlets. The number of operations that gather original news is small and now may become smaller. ...

To find out how to make your voice heard on this issue, go to the Center For Digital Democracy.

Israel sends war criminal to ask for US loan for the country.

The Guardian publishes an examination of a new prehistoric hominid species discovered in Spain. The article closes:

...What is also not generally understood is that there were various branches of hominids in competition with each other. Neanderthals were not our direct ancestors but another branch of the genus that was in all probability wiped out by us Homo sapiens. Ugly battles must have taken place between grunting troglodytes with thick necks and protruding foreheads - a bit like when Millwall fans turn up at Chelsea. The remains discovered this week in Spain are also of a sub-species that was killed off, and now we are presented with the depressing conclusion that our particular branch of humankind may not have triumphed because we were the only highly intelligent branch of the family, as we'd arrogantly presumed, but because we were the most vicious and brutal.

We know that early Homo sapiens looked like a chimp and was dangerous and aggressive. And when you look at President Bush you can see how far we have come. On the same day that this prehistoric discovery was announced, the respected Worldwatch Institute in Washington declared that we only have one generation to save the planet. A million years getting to this point and we are going to blow it all away in less than a century. This week the anthropologists were excitedly debating when the first intelligent humans appeared. But somehow when you look around you can't help thinking that we're still waiting.

On Alternet:

In the ongoing search for spine among the theoretically liberal, there are at least a couple White House reporters who remember that such things exist.

Jim Hightower points out that in a longstanding tradition of the Bush family, Jr is sending arms to Algeria. A repressive, totalitarian country, one who's in position to make a whole lot of trouble for our allies. 100,000 people have died in the country's civil war. Is the plan to save up a dictator for a rainy day when a future Bush scion will need someone to trounce, or is it just a diabolical plan to piss off the French?

The 'informal economy' is picking up, even as the 'real' one is tanking. The IRS wants to know how much you made at that last yardsale, and btw, how much do you get tipped?

So, to clarify: If I want to sell a dresser, the IRS wants me to tell them about it. But according to the Bush plan, they wouldn't want to know about income from dividend yielding investments, and they wouldn't dream of closing the loopholes that only people with expensive accountants can even figure out how to use. This is just like the Information Awareness Office, where they do want to know what you're reading, but they don't want to know if you've bought any guns. Never in all my life seen a group of people whose heads were so firmly stuffed up their bums. Plexiotomy* candidates, every one.

*Plexiotomy: An operation to replace the abdominal wall with plexiglass so that you can see out should you be unfortunate enough to find your head up your bum.

the bitter shack of resentment points us to a Christian Science monitor article about the cold-blooded murder of a Palestinian grandmother. She was doing embroidery on the porch, next to her husband who was sorting herbs. The neighborhood was quiet at the time.

PLA on the George who cried 'Wolf'.

Also, we are pointed to a piece on Wampumblog, where it appears that the lawsuit protection amendment for Eli Lilly will be removed. Though they may put it back in a more comprehensive 'vaccine reform' bill. Why is it these days that I just get a chill down my spine everytime a Republican starts talking about reforming things?