AlterNet: Recycled Christmas

"Though we really enjoyed coming together for a mid-winter celebration, the very thought of shopping ruined Christmas. Wasn't there another option? Didn't we have the right to reclaim the holiday and create our own family tradition?"

[Full article linked to title above]

CQ: New House Intel Committee Chair unfamiliar with Al Qaeda

Apparently, Silvestre Reyes, soon to be the next House Intelligence Committee chair, doesn't know a most basic fact about Al Qaeda -- that it is a Sunni organization.

Reyes was chosen by Nancy Pelosi, passing over the more senior Rep. Jane Harmon, with whom she has strained relations.

[Full story linked above]

Padilla case crumbling?

Andrew Sullivan sums up the status of the Jose Padilla case:

So an American citizen, detained without due process for three years, accused of terribly serious crimes, and allegedly tortured, may not be found guilty, after all. And people wonder why many of us have concerns about the way the Bush administration has handled military detainees.

NYT: Bush to Ask Lame Duck Congress...

Big surprise -- Bush wants to push through not only major nominations and pass spending bills (before Democrats try to put pay-as-you-go rules back in place), energy legislation (read: more money for Exxon/Mobil), and surveillance measures (read: more civil liberties violations).

Bush to Ask Lame Duck Congress to Confirm Gates - New York Times: "Earlier, Mr. Bush listed spending bills, energy legislation and a measure authorizing surveillance of terrorist suspects as issues that need to be addressed soon. He did not mention immigration legislation, which stalled in Congress recently."

I know I have to say something...

I know I have to say something about Ted Haggard, but I don't even know where to start. Here's a guy who started and grew a 14,000- member church, and met with the Bush admini- stration on a weekly basis. He associated with leaders of the most vehement of gay-bashing organizations, Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council.

There is this very short video of Haggard (from the frightening documentary "Jesus Camp" about American madrassas), apparently confronting his own homosexuality. There's this May 2005 Harper's profile of him.

One pastor blames Haggard's wife, noting that wives of preachers often let themselves go, assuming that they don't have to work for their husbands' fidelity (I am not kidding!). Then there's David Frum, who thinks it's more moral to be a hypocritical homosexual than an honest one (apparently there is an unwritten commandment about homosexuality that trumps the one about false witness).

So there you have it folks. It doesn't matter how often it becomes clear that gays can be conservative, and even religious, and still be driven by their innate sexuality. It doesn't matter how many hyper-homophobic politicians, preachers, and priests are outed (Rick Santorum -- your day is coming!). The U.S. is so hung up about sex, and particularly gay sex, that it was easier for Haggard to admit to buying the deadly, addictive, illegal drug that is killing people and truly ruining families, than to admit to being gay. His followers will continue to put their blinders on and cover their ears and insist that these are anomolies, and move on to the next charismatic charlatan.

---

On the bright side... Doogie Howser came out. :-)

---

Business Week: Can Design Change the World?

A new book - an outgrowth of the popular worldchanging.com Web site - focuses on simple and complex innovations that could solve global crises. Publisher Abrams set an example by printing the 600-page book on recycled, acid-free paper and purchasing wind credits (from www.renewablechoice.com) equal to the amount of electricity needed to manufacture the book.

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Global Warming Will Devastate World Economy, Report Says

"LONDON -- Unchecked global warming will devastate the world economy on the scale of the world wars and the Great Depression, a major British report said Monday."

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Lobbyists Won't Like What Pelosi Has in Mind

In case you need another good reason to vote Democratic...

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Bush Appointee Said to Reject Advice on Endangered Species

A senior Bush political appointee at the Interior Department has rejected staff scientists' recommendations to protect imperiled animals and plants under the Endangered Species Act at least six times in the past three years, documents show.

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NY Mag: Stephen Colbert Has America by the Ballots

Stephen Colbert Has America by the Ballots -- New York Magazine:

The former Jon Stewart protoge created an entire comic persona out of right-wing doublespeak, trampling the boundary between parody and politics. Which makes him the perfect spokesman for a political season in which everything is imploding.

La Crosse (WI) Tribune: Quaker statement on gay marriage

Quaker statement on gay marriage
By DAVE CHAKOIAN | Viroqua, Wis.
La Crosse Tribune
Published - Friday, October 20, 2006

On November's ballot, Wisconsin will vote on a constitutional ban on same-gender marriages. We of Religious Society of Friends believe the movement to isolate and scapegoat homosexuals, to promote hatred against them, and to impose in law one group's religious beliefs on us all, is blatantly immoral and contrary to Jesus' teachings.

With half of marriages ending in divorce, unquestionably the right thing to do is to strengthen marriages. But diverting the question to whether two people of the same sex can have legal rights together completely loses track of the problem of frail marriages.

The proposed constitutional amendment really has nothing to do with marriage; it is a thinly veiled attack on gays and lesbians, part of a pattern of discrimination and institutionalized hatred. It is a strategy of power practiced by would-be tyrants throughout history.

Some have portrayed persecution and hatred of gays as a Christian thing to do. We can find nowhere that Jesus said anything about homosexuality. Nor did Jesus ever suggest encoding Christian teachings into a Sharia-like law to force religious beliefs on society.

We believe that God loves us all equally, and that we are called to treat each other with the same love in which God created us. We have no need to hate, or to discriminate against, any group for any reason. It is simply not Christian to do so.

David Chakoian is clerk of the Kickapoo Valley Monthly Meeting, Religious Society of Friends (Quaker).

"...different families or something"

New York Times
October 17, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor

Can You Tell a Sunni From a Shiite?
By JEFF STEIN
Washington

FOR the past several months, I've been wrapping up lengthy interviews with Washington counterterrorism officials with a fundamental question: "Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?"

A "gotcha" question? Perhaps. But if knowing your enemy is the most basic rule of war, I don't think it's out of bounds. And as I quickly explain to my subjects, I'm not looking for theological explanations, just the basics: Who's on what side today, and what does each want?

[...]

But so far, most American officials I've interviewed don't have a clue. That includes not just intelligence and law enforcement officials, but also members of Congress who have important roles overseeing our spy agencies. How can they do their jobs without knowing the basics?

[read the full story for all of the frightening details]

YoBimbo: What Would Happen if Humans Disappeared from the Earth Today?

A fascinating timeline of the effect of the extinction of humans from Earth:

What Would Happen if Humans Disappeared from the Earth Today?

Bush denies Congressional infringement on incompetent hires

Bush cites authority to bypass FEMA law
Signing statement is employed again
By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff October 6, 2006

WASHINGTON -- President Bush this week asserted that he has the executive authority to disobey a new law in which Congress has set minimum qualifications for future heads of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Congress passed the law last week as a response to FEMA's poor handling of Hurricane Katrina. The agency's slow response to flood victims exposed the fact that Michael Brown, Bush's choice to lead the agency, had been a politically connected hire with no prior experience in emergency management.

To shield FEMA from cronyism, Congress established new job qualifications for the agency's director in last week's homeland security bill. The law says the president must nominate a candidate who has "a demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management" and "not less than five years of executive leadership."

Bush signed the homeland-security bill on Wednesday morning. Then, hours later, he issued a signing statement saying he could ignore the new restrictions. Bush maintains that under his interpretation of the Constitution, the FEMA provision interfered with his power to make personnel decisions.

The law, Bush wrote, "purports to limit the qualifications of the pool of persons from whom the president may select the appointee in a manner that rules out a large portion of those persons best qualified by experience and knowledge to fill the office."

The homeland-security bill contained measures covering a range of topics, including terrorism, disaster preparedness, and illegal immigration. One provision calls for authorizing the construction of a 700-mile fence along the Mexican border.

But Bush's signing statement challenged at least three-dozen laws specified in the bill. Among those he targeted is a provision that empowers the FEMA director to tell Congress about the nation's emergency management needs without White House permission. This law, Bush said, "purports . . . to limit supervision of an executive branch official in the provision of advice to the Congress." Despite the law, he said, the FEMA director would be required to get clearance from the White House before telling lawmakers anything.

Bush said nothing of his objections when he signed the bill with a flourish in a ceremony Wednesday in Scottsdale, Ariz. At the time, he proclaimed that the bill was "an important piece of legislation that will highlight our government's highest responsibility, and that's to protect the American people."

The bill, he added, "will also help our government better respond to emergencies and natural disasters by strengthening the capabilities of the Federal Emergency Management Agency."

Bush's remarks at the signing ceremony were quickly e-mailed to reporters, and the White House website highlighted the ceremony. By contrast, the White House minimized attention to the signing statement. When asked by the Globe on Wednesday afternoon if there would be a signing statement, the press office declined to comment, saying only that any such document, if it existed, would be issued in the "usual way."

The press office posted the signing-statement document on its website around 8 p.m. Wednesday, after most reporters had gone home. The signing statement was not included in news reports yesterday on the bill-signing.

[...]

Bush's use of signing statements has attracted increasing attention over the past year. In December 2005, Bush asserted that he can bypass a statutory ban on torture. In March 2006, the president said he can disobey oversight provisions in the Patriot Act reauthorization bill.

In all, Bush has challenged more than 800 laws enacted since he took office, most of which he said intruded on his constitutional powers as president and commander in chief. By contrast, all previous presidents challenged a combined total of about 600 laws.

At the same time, Bush has virtually abandoned his veto power, giving Congress no chance to override his judgments. Bush has vetoed just one bill since taking office, the fewest of any president since the 19th century.

Earlier this year, the American Bar Association declared that Bush's use of signing statements was "contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional separation of powers."

Last month, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service concluded that Bush's signing statements are "an integral part" of his "comprehensive strategy to strengthen and expand executive power" at the expense of the legislative branch.

© Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

[Full story here]

Cancel the elections-- the REAL contest is for money anyway

Isthmus
Oct 5, 2006
Madison, WI

Cancel the elections!
Let's put all that TV ad money to better use
Bill Lueders on Thursday 10/05/2006,

If we were honest about the sorry state of our democracy, we would admit that elections have become mostly irrelevant. In almost every contest, we could avoid a lot of fuss and bother - and get the same result - if, instead of holding an Election Day vote, we just tallied which candidate raised the most money and declared that person the winner.

"It would save us the facade of going through the motions," agrees Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin. Who spends the most wins the race. That's almost always the case."

[...]

For the big, important races, money rules the day. And nearly all of this money goes to the same end: buying ads on TV. Our democracy has been subverted into a battle for the hearts and minds of people so politically shallow they actually make choices based on 15- and 30-second TV spots.

Since you're reading Isthmus, you're probably not in this category. But if you know folks who are - people who cite a TV ad when explaining how they plan to vote - you need to grab them by the shoulders, shake them violently and scream into their face: "You should not be voting! You don't know enough! Stay home, and leave the job to those who know what's going on."

It's probably hopeless. There are multitudes of Americans who feel entitled to vote even though they don't pay any real attention to the issues or candidates. Most of the media encourage this irresponsible behavior at every turn. As a result, our democracy is being destroyed from within.

"Studies show that 75% to 80% of voters in the country get most of their political information from television, and most of that is from commercials," says Heck, adding that the public's level of political engagement has been declining for decades. "Most people, their lives are too busy, too distracted. They don't tune into politics until the very end." And then the ubiquitous TV ads are there to tell them how to vote.

[...]

Maybe the argument could be made that the system is working as it should — that candidates win by getting individuals and special interests to give more money to them than to the other guy. If that's the kind of democracy we want, we should be thrilled with the one we have.

But why bother with the voting? Let's just pick the winner based on cash totals and give the money that would have gone to those commercials to worthy causes...

Full article at http://thedailypage.com/isthmus/article.php?article=4369

NYTimes.com: "The Underbelly of Globalization"

A tragic story that highlights just how much we take for granted as we eat and burn and build and acquire the goods that produce hazardous waste.

INTERNATIONAL / AFRICA | October 2, 2006
Global Sludge Ends in Tragedy for Ivory Coast
By LYDIA POLGREEN and MARLISE SIMONS
To save costs, a global oil company dumped toxic waste on the doorstep of some of the world’s poorest people, spreading illness and killing eight.

NYT: Trading Votes for Pork Across the House Aisle

Trading Votes for Pork Across the House Aisle

Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania is best known on Capitol
Hill for turning pet spending projects into power....

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/washington/02murtha.html

Krugman on Foley scandal

From today's Paul Krugman editorial in the NY Times about the demise of the right-wing coalition.

It will be interesting, by the way, to see how Dr. Dobson, who declared of Bill Clinton that “no man has ever done more to debase the presidency,” responds to the Foley scandal. Does the failure of Republican leaders to do anything about a sexual predator in their midst outrage him as much as a Democratic president’s consensual affair?

Full Story: http://select.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/opinion/02krugman.html

The environmental impact of owning multiple cars

Grist's "Ask Umbra" on the environmental impact of owning multiple cars... even if you don't drive them all regularly.

If you want to consider alternatives, consider public transportation and car sharing.

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YouTube: Stephen Colbert Mocks Senate Compromise

Stephen Colbert shames the rebel Republicans for their "compromise" with the Bush Administration over enemy combatants.

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AP: Rare bird causes logging frenzy

I am so glad that I could not make sense of this article at first... why, upon discovering an endangered species, would people intentionally cut down their habitat? For money, of course!

Rare Woodpecker Sends a Town Running for Its Chain Saws
(AP)
Landowners in a North Carolina town have been clear-cutting thousands of trees to keep them from becoming homes for the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker.

NYT: E.P.A. Chief Rejects Recommendations on Soot

E.P.A. Chief Rejects Recommendations on Soot
By FELICITY BARRINGER
Published: September 22, 2006

WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 — The Environmental Protection Agency’s administrator on Thursday rejected the recommendations of his staff — and an unusual public plea from independent science advisers — choosing instead to tighten only one of two standards regulating the amount of lethal particles of soot in the air.

The short-term daily standard, intended to control acute exposure to the minute particles, was cut nearly in half. But the annual standard, which affects chronic exposure, remains at its original 1997 level.

[Full story at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/22/us/22soot.html ]

NYT: Measures Seek to Restrict Detainees' Access to Courts

I am at a loss to explain why the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" has found so little voice in the conversation about military tribunals and Guantanamo detainees. Instead, we hear about the impact of civil right abrogations on OUR innocents should they be captured abroad!

Did we learn nothing from the internment of Japanese (both US citizens and foreigners) in WWII? Are we so frightened of terrorists that we are willing to risk having innocents detained indefinitely, or forced to defend themselves against secret evidence and hearsay?

Measures Seek to Restrict Detainees' Access to Courts: "WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 — Although the effort has been partly obscured by the highly publicized wrangling over military commissions for war crimes trials, the Bush administration and its allies in Congress are trying to use the same legislation to strip federal courts of their authority to review the detentions of almost all terrorism suspects."

NYT: Iran's Leader Relishes 2nd Chance to Make Waves

Ahmadinejad continues to call the bluffs of the "superpowers," as the full extent of their weakness and inability to cooperate is increasingly exposed.

Iran's Leader Relishes 2nd Chance to Make Waves: "Iran's president sparred with the Council on Foreign Relations, exasperating his questioners and angering the Bush administration and Jewish groups."

NYT: Activism Is in the Eye of the Ideologist

Good to see this coverage in the Times; I've long bemoaned the ignorance on display when partisans complain about judges doing their job -- that is, overturning unconstitutional and porrly-crafted legislation.

"Activism is not necessarily a bad thing. The Supreme Court is supposed to strike down laws that are unconstitutional or otherwise flawed. Clearly, all nine justices, from across the political spectrum, believe this, since they all regularly vote to strike down laws. What is wrong is for one side to pretend its judges are not activist, and turn judicial activism into a partisan talking point, when the numbers show a very different story."

[Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/11/opinion/11mon2.html]

Nagin to citizens of New Orleans: Make it work, people!

"We chose to go forward with a market-driven recovery effort," Mr. Nagin said. "I believe citizens can make intelligent decisions about where to live. It is my position that government investment will follow citizen investment."

In practice, this means, as Mr. Nagin put it, that "for the most part the redevelopment of our city is going to be done by our citizens." With more than half the city's pre-hurricane population still elsewhere, including many of its poorest citizens, early indications are that it is mostly those with some resources who have been able to move back.

[Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/13/us/politics/13orleans.html]

NYT: Osama's Spin Lessons

Tierney explains why, having already won the larger battle against Al Qaeda, the the U.S. proceeded to throw away its gains by setting impossible goals -- and contrasts it with bin Laden's canny spin which raised his prestige amongst jihadists (and would-be jihadists) even as his operation was decimated.

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NYT Editorial: President Bush's Reality

[A brief but outstanding analysis of last night's speech and the Bush administration's foreign policy.]

Editorial: President Bush's Reality: "If a strategy to end the violence in Iraq exists, it seems unlikely that President Bush could see it through the filter of his fantasies."

WMD or Not, Bush Would have Ordered an Invasion of Iraq, says VP Cheney

President Bush would have ordered an invasion of Iraq even if the CIA had told him that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday during an interview with Tim Russert on "Meet the Press"

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AP: Senate Approves $63 Billion More for War in Iraq

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/08/washington/08defense.html

September 8, 2006
Senate Approves $63 Billion More for War in Iraq
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 (AP) — The Senate agreed on Thursday to spend an additional $63 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as it passed a bill to finance military spending.

The measure was approved, 98 to 0, after senators added money to help track down Osama bin Laden and to fight the opium trade in Afghanistan, which is helping the Taliban’s resurgence. The overwhelming support came despite Democrats’ increasing criticism of the Bush administration’s handling of the war in Iraq.

The bill now totals $469.7 billion. It grew more than $16 billion during a debate that began in July and was suspended for the lawmakers’ four-week August recess.

Lawmakers expect $7 billion to be added during House-Senate talks on a compromise bill. The House passed its version of the Pentagon budget bill in June.

With the latest infusion of money, Congress will have approved about $500 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other antiterrorism efforts in the five years since the Sept. 11 attacks, according to the Congressional Research Service. The Pentagon spending bill, a domestic security measure and, perhaps, legislation with money for veterans’ programs will probably be the only appropriations bills to pass Congress by the Oct. 1 start of the new budget year.

The rest of the spending bills for government agencies will wait until a session after the Nov. 7 elections.

The military bill contains $99 billion for personnel, $126 billion for operations and maintenance, $81 billion for weapons procurement and $73 billion for research and development.

NYT: GAO reports minimal accounting of hurricane relief spending

A report by the Government Accountability Office reveals that no one knows exactly how much has been spent across agencies for disaster recovery from hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. So there is no way to know how much has been spent, much less how much more might be needed now or in the future.

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How much less are you making?

A map showing how far median incomes have dropped over the past six (ahem) years. Of course the DC area is doing okay, thanks to "defense" work...

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NYT: USDA intervenes in horse torture

Horse Show Ends in Uproar Over U.S.D.A. Inspections

As pleased as I was to see the USDA enforcing the laws it has available, it is heartbreaking to read the practices (boots and ankle chains on the horses to force a peculiar gait for the benefit of horse show audiences) that are still permitted. I would love to have a conversation with the people who defend themselves by noting that the ankle chains (legal) can cause scarring similar the the outlawed practice of "soring" (burns, cuts, injected chemicals, and caustic or blistering agents applied to the horses' ankles).

Sickening and absolutely indefensible.

If you'd like to thank USDA secretary Johanns for their enforcement of the law (details are in the article linked above), you may do so here.

Guardian: UN Slams Israel's Use of US Cluster Bombs

UN Slams Israel's Use of US Cluster Bombs: "The UN humanitarian chief on Wednesday accused Israel of 'shocking' and 'completely immoral' behavior for dropping large numbers of cluster bombs on Lebanon when a cease-fire in its war with Hezbollah was in sight."

Freakonomics blog: Need some foreign aid from the US? Make sure to get your country on the UN Security Council

Need some foreign aid from the US? Make sure to get your country on the UN Security Council: "Seven years ago a Harvard undergrad named Ilyana Kuziemko emailed me asking if I had any summer research positions available. At the time, nobody ever sent me this kind of email, so I hired her and she spent the summer in Chicago doing research with me. It was clear then that she had a very special talent for economics. Consequently, it comes as no suprise that now, as a Ph.D. student at Harvard, she is producing cutting-edge economic research.

With co-author Eric Werker, she has written a paper entitled “How Much is a Seat on the Security Council Worth? Foreign Aid and Bribery at the United Nations.” In this paper, they find that when a country takes over one of the rotating seats on the UN Security Council, U.S. foreign aid jumps by almost 60%. When the country leaves the Security Council, the aid falls back to the old levels. The impact on aid is even larger when there are important international events (like invasions of Iraq) that put the Security Council in the spotlight."

Keith Olbermann Commentary on Rumsfeld

Keith Olbermann's impassioned pespective on Rumsfeld's attacks on dissenters in his speech to the American Legion.

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TNR: ONE QUICK THOUGHT ON DONALD RUMSFELD

ONE QUICK THOUGHT ON DONALD RUMSFELD: "In mid-1967, Robert McNamara recognized the Vietnam war, which he had argued for so vociferously and prosecuted with such zeal, was unwinnable. Yet the war continued. When Lyndon Johnson, the following year, fired him as defense secretary and appointed him to the World Bank presidency, McNamara, feeling the burden of what he had done to the country, cried at his press conference. One looks at Donald Rumsfeld’s spittle-flecked speech calling millions of antiwar Americans traitors and Nazi-appeasers, and thinks: At least Robert McNamara had a sense of shame."

NYT: Where Have All the Protesters Gone?

August 31, 2006
Editorial Observer

There Is Silence in the Streets;
Where Have All the Protesters Gone?
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL

Student protesters helped drive Lyndon Johnson — in so many ways a powerful, progressive president — out of office because of his war. In 2004, George W. Bush — in so many ways a weak, regressive president — was re-elected despite his war. And the campuses were silent.

[Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/opinion/31observer.html]

Consider seeing the documentary "The War at Home" for a good depiction of the protests over the Vietnam war, focusing on the anti-war movement in Madison, WI. As I watched it, I couldn't help but wonder why there is so little outrage today, when we are at war not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in a proxy war in Lebanon, but battling for our civil liberties here at home.

NYT: Police Chiefs Want Federal Help in Crime Fight

WASHINGTON, Aug. 30 - Mayors and top police officials from around the nation urged the federal government on Wednesday to engage in a more coordinated effort to combat a recent increase in violent crime.

At a meeting here organized by the Police Executive Research Forum, a research and public policy group, the officials said a spike in the rate of violent crime, for aggravated assaults, robberies and murders, reflected a growing crisis.

"Crime is coming back," said Chief William J. Bratton of Los Angeles, who was formerly police commissioner in New York City.

[...]

Mayor Douglas H. Palmer of Trenton, vice president of the United States Conference of Mayors, called for more debate on crime.

"We need a national movement that recognizes that while homeland security is important, hometown security is equally important," Mr. Palmer said. "I'm hopeful that we can come up with a blueprint for making violent crime an issue in the 2008 presidential election. We want to put this on the front burner so that candidates will talk about it with the same focus that they put on terrorism."

Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/us/31crime.html

More on George Allen

I can't even figure out how this guy got past Northern Virginians, nor how Bush got elected (much less re-elected), so I am still concerned that this guy could end up contending for the Presidency.

Need for Water Could Double in 50 Years, U.N. Study Finds

"A deepening water crisis would fuel violent conflicts, dry up rivers and increase groundwater pollution, their report says. It would also force the rural poor to clear ever more grasslands and forests to grow food and leave many more people hungry."

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Refuse to be Terrorized

The people terrorists kill are not the targets; they are collateral damage. The real targets of terrorism are the rest of us: the billions who are not killed but are terrorized because of the killing. The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but our reaction to the act. And we're doing exactly what the terrorists want.

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What a Moronic Presidential Press Conference!

Slate analyzes Bush's recent press conference at which Bush stated that critics don't understand the world, then in the same press conference Bush goes on to demonstrate that he doesn't understand Iraq, or Lebanon, or Gaza, or apparently what the word "strategy" means. Just the picture of an exasperated Bush at the conference is worth a click...

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Bush: Iraq Had Nothing To Do With 9/11

President Bush was in the midst of explaining how the attacks of 9/11 inspired his "freedom agenda" and the attacks on Iraq until a reporter, Ken Herman of Cox News, interrupted to ask what Iraq had to do with 9/11. "Nothing," Bush casually answered.

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Bush on Iraq: 'We're Not Leaving So Long As I'm The President' (Video)

At a press conference today, President Bush said, "We're not leaving [Iraq] so long as I'm the president. That would be a huge mistake." His term ends almost two-and-a-half years from now, in January 2009.

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VA Sen. George Allen on Damage Control After Racist Remarks

Fuel is added to the fire of allegations that Va. Senator and presidential hopeful George Allen is racist (or "racially insensitive" as the Washington Post so delicately states it).

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Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision

A coalition re-focuses the gay marriage debate: "Rather than focus on same-sex marriage rights as the only strategy, we believe the LGBT movement should reinforce the idea that marriage should be one of many avenues through which households, families, partners, and kinship relationships can gain access to the support of a caring civil society."

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9/11 Detainee released after 5 years of not being charged with any crime

The date was Sept. 12, 2001, but Benemar "Ben" Benatta was clueless about the death and destruction one day earlier. About a week before, Canadian officials had stopped Benatta as he entered the country from Buffalo to seek political asylum.

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Is it just me?

All the discussion about Lebanese civilians dying because Hezbollah has the nerve to establish themselves in their midst... Why is it taken for granted that Israel has no obligation to conduct its war any differently as a result?

Is Hezbollah well-integrated into the civilian population? By all accounts. But to me, that doesn't mean opponents are free to pummel those civilian areas -- it means, instead, that they must follow the Geneva Conventions and take care not to injure civilians. This means fewer bombs from the air and putting their troops more in harm's way, but they, unlike the Lebanese civilians, chose put themselves at risk for their country. If they hadn't, or don't in the future, perhaps diplomatic efforts could be more successful...

Be careful what you wish for...

What's happening in Lebanon is a reflection of one of the most troubling aspects of the democracy project: the tendency to celebrate democracy without regard for stability.

http://www.slate.com/id/2145892/

WP: In Land of Giants, Smallest Houses Larger Than Ever

In Land of Giants, Smallest Houses Larger Than Ever
Home Buyers Redefine Concept of Starter Home
By Alec MacGillis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 9, 2006; A01

A young family came recently to Vienna real estate agent Reza Rofougaran with what should have been a simple request: They wanted a small house.

But in the Washington suburbs, that's easier said than done. The family -- an Iranian doctor waiting for his U.S. credentials, his wife and their child -- couldn't find what they were looking for, a townhouse of about 1,400 square feet, a size that in earlier eras easily accommodated a three-bedroom layout. They settled for buying a two-bedroom apartment.

"There is a lot of demand for smaller houses, but you cannot find any of them on the new market," Rofougaran said.

[Full story at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/08/AR2006070801072_pf.html]

MONEY...

...not wars or environmental devastation... it's money that motivates most Americans.

No, I'm not surprised, just expressing my exasperation...

Drivers May Have to Shift Gears
By Tomoeh Murakami Tse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 15, 2006; D01

Will the upheaval in the Middle East and the latest spurt in oil prices finally tip gas-price-wary motorists into making wholesale changes in their driving habits?

Many drivers already have made small gestures toward saving money, such as checking online message boards for cheap gasoline stations and pumping regular gasoline instead of premium. Now some are doing more out of fear that high gas prices are here to stay. Some analysts say uncertainty over prices is pushing drivers toward a new attitude.

Predicting turning points in human behavior is notoriously unreliable, and analysts said that any strong movement would dissipate if oil prices fall.

Driving habits and interest in alternative-fuel vehicles have fluctuated with the cost of gasoline in recent decades. But signs of change, by some measures, are evident.

For the first five months this year, U.S. gasoline consumption fell 0.8 percent from the comparable period in 2005, according to the American Petroleum Institute. The decline followed years of increases of 1.5 to 2 percent.

"Prices are significantly higher than they were last year, and they were already higher then," said Ronald J. Planting, an economist with the institute. "The effects are sinking in."

Analysts say that if high gas prices prompt a widespread movement toward fewer road trips and a migration away from large vehicles, the automotive landscape could undergo a radical makeover.

David Portalatin, an automotive analyst with NPD Group, sees big changes on the horizon -- if prices hold steady or rise further.

[Contnued at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/14/AR2006071401739_pf.html]

WP: U.S. Struggles to Rank Potential Terror Targets

Securing All Sites Is Not Financially Feasible,
but Choices Are Fraught With Uncertainty
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 16, 2006; A09

The U.S. government has made limited headway in identifying and securing the domestic targets whose destruction would pose the greatest threat to American lives and national defense, experts and former government officials said.

The Department of Homeland Security's inspector general reported last week that a department target list has grown exponentially -- from 160 in 2003 to 28,000 in 2004 to 77,069 today -- but it is filled with bean festivals, car dealerships, small-town parades and check-cashing stores.

Indiana has the most potential terrorism targets in the National Asset Database: 8,591, nearly three times as many as California. Washington state lists 65 national monuments and icons, nearly twice as many as the District of Columbia.

[Full story at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/15/AR2006071500726_pf.html ]

Grist: Varmint Cong

Organic farmers in Colorado ask state to blast rodents out of their holes

They say life imitates art, but until now, life had stubbornly refused to imitate Caddyshack. Behold! Organic farmers in Colorado have asked the state Division of Wildlife to look into controlling prairie dogs and other burrowing critters by ... blowing them up. Why? Because, in the immortal words of Carl Spackler, "a varmint will never quit -- ever." The idea is to flood burrows with explosive gases and then, um, explode them, knocking the critters dead and collapsing the tunnels. "This is a way for [the farmers] to avoid using toxic substances to help them remain certified as organic," says a DOW spokesdetonator. We bet if more people knew that going organic meant you could blow stuff up, there'd be a lot more organic farms.

straight to the source: Denver Post, Kim McGuire, 12 Jul 2006
Grist: http://www.grist.org

NYTimes.com: Too Good for Marriage

OPINION July 14, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor: Too Good for Marriage
By KENJI YOSHINO
New York's highest court ruled that marriage is built to protect unstable heterosexuals.

NYTimes.com: Redefining American Beauty, by the Yard

HOME & GARDEN July 13, 2006
Cuttings: Redefining American Beauty, by the Yard
By PATRICIA LEIGH BROWN
Edible landscaping, which dates to Washington, has a revival, but put tomatoes where the grass used to be and some neighbors get upset.

TNR: APOCALYPSE BAGHDAD

APOCALYPSE BAGHDAD: "I know people are fixated right now on alarming violence elsewhere, but the litany of violence in this New York Times dispatch--all from one day in Baghdad--is as astonishing as it is soul-crushing:"

New study: pesticides related to Parkinson's Disease

HealthDay reports that a new study indicates that "exposure to pesticides... may boost the long-term risk for developing Parkinson's disease by 70 percent."

For me, the only surprise is how willingly people expose themselves to pesticides. Consider buying organic when you can (minimizes pesticides in the environment, and on your food), and try alternatives to pesticides and herbicides.

Louisville, KY: Facing the city's health inequities

The Louisville (KY) Courier-Journal reports that "Mayor Jerry Abramson and the Louisville Metro Health Department are establishing the Center for Health Equity. Located in historic Hampton House, the center will set up best practices models that can be replicated in other cities throughout America. The Center for Health Equity will focus on the social determinants of health such as a person's job, neighborhood, income and education, as well as personal responsibility. It will also examine the potential for discrimination in the delivery of health care and seek solutions."

More at http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006606290354

Rush Limbaugh's hypocrisy

Um hmmm, the unmarried spokesman for conservatism admits to using Viagra. Whatever is the world coming to? Great summary of the Rush Limbaugh's hypocrisy by Debra Haffner.

Carville and Penn on why Hillary can Win

I'm not buying what they're selling -- for one thing, I find Hillary to be swayed by the political breeze rather than standing by her convictions as portrayed in the article -- but it's an interesting read.

The Power of Hillary
By James Carville and Mark J. Penn

We've heard all this "Hillary can't win" stuff before. We don't know if she'll run -- but if she runs, she can win.

[Entire article]

washingtonpost.com: Big Pharma abuses FDA petition procedure for gain

Petitions to FDA Sometimes Delay Generic Drugs
By Marc Kaufman

A procedure designed to alert the Food and Drug Administration to scientific and safety issues is getting a hard look from members of Congress, who say they are concerned that it may be getting subverted by the brand-name drug industry.

To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/02/AR2006070200840.html?referrer=emailarticle

washingtonpost.com: Carter on Gov't Secrecy

We Need Fewer Secrets
By Jimmy Carter

While the United States retreats, the international trend toward transparency grows, with laws often more comprehensive and effective than our own.

To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/02/AR2006070200674.html?referrer=emailarticle

Palestinian prisoner's daughter to Shalit's mother: End suffering

16:53 , 07.02.06
Both Suffering
Palestinian prisoner's daughter to Shalit's mother: End suffering
Ali Waked

In personal letter to Gilad Shalit's mother, girl implores: 'You can take one step and we will take a matching step, in order to return our loved ones. Stop our suffering and yours'

When Iman was born, 14 years ago, her father Mohammad, along with 400 other Hamas leaders and operatives, was in the Maraj a-Zohar camp in Lebanon, where they were exiled by Israel after being accused of terrorism. She was made famous as the first baby born to an exile and today, with her father now imprisoned in Israel, she once again takes the stage as the daughter of a Palestinian convict: Her uncle, Abdallah, is also imprisoned in Israel for membership in Hamas.

Even before the press conference was expected to hold Sunday afternoon in Ramallah, Iman passed along to Ynet a letter she wrote to the mother of Gilad Shalit, the soldier kidnapped in the attack on the Kerem Shalom outpost. Gaza kidnapping - special coverage

The letter, published in full:

Madam, mother of the hostage soldier, Gilad Shalit: I am one among thousands of children doomed never to enjoy a smile, a kiss on the cheek in the morning, a comforting hand to soothe our pain and encourage us to advance in life. I am a girl whose foundation stone was taken from her home, her father.

Madam, I am writing to you and waiting tensely to hear of the fate of your son who was in a tank, not to protect a cause or a principle, but rather to obey the instructions of his commanders without thinking if those instructions were right or not.

Madam, it's your right to hurt, to be sad, to yell out loud, 'Return my son to me! What sin has my son committed?' But do you have it in you to think of the important issue? This is the issue of our prisoners in your prisons, whose only sin was picking up a stone or a pen to protect their faith and their homeland, to protect a cause and principles in which they believe and will continue to believe. Not out of a motivation to kill or terrorize, as your leaders claim, but in order to protect our land and our faith.

Madam, tens of thousands of prisoners are locked in cells of suffering (your prisons), under fire of murder and cruelty, in rotten cells that burned their youth, their hope and their ambitions. Our prisoners, Madam, do not receive humane treatment, but rather treatment that cannot be described in words; the sole purpose of the treatment is to bring them slow death, and this is after most of them did not even receive permission for us to visit them. Compare your suffering, which has only gone on for a few short days, to our suffering, which has lasted more than 20 or 30 years. I'm sure that your son is receiving treatment due to a prisoner of war, decent treatment as is demanded by our faith and our principles.

Madam, that's all I have to say and the choice, in the end, is in your hands and the hands of your nation and their leaders to put an end to this suffering. These things can only be understood by someone who suffers and hurts. Military and political leaders such as your leaders will not understand them; they have not experienced in their hearts what we are both experiencing, for everyone whose son is under their wing lives in ease and tranquility.

I call on Allah to protect our fathers and children. We are at a point where you can take one step and we can take a matching step in order to return our loved ones and hold them close to us. Stop our suffering and yours.

Iman, daughter of a Palestinian prisoner

seattlepi.com: Organic dairies, consumers wary of 'feedlot milk'

---------------------------------------------------------------

Organic dairies, consumers wary of 'feedlot milk'
A different kind of organic dairy farm is emerging out West --
corporate-owned feedlot operations with thousands of cows that
are fed organic grain but, critics say, get little chance to
graze.

* Read the full article at:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/276175_organic03.html

---------------------------------------------------------------

Grist: New initiatives from Whole Foods

New initiatives from Whole Foods
Posted by David Roberts at 2:31 PM on 29 Jun 2006

I wrote a post a little while back about the exchange going on between food writer Michael Pollan and Whole Foods Market honcho John Mackey. The subject has been some claims about Whole Foods' relationship to "industrial organic" made in Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma. Read that previous post for background.

Mackey has written another detailed letter to Pollan. It's interesting throughout, but the big news comes at the end, when Mackey announces a series of new initiatives the company is undertaking. They will be attempting to build up a system of animal-compassionate small farms, buying more local food, setting up a loan program for small farmers, opening their parking lots for local farmers to sell directly to consumers (!), and increasing consumer education on the subject of local food. Pretty radical stuff.

I haven't seen this picked up in the mainstream media yet, but I expect it will be.
Here's the relevant part of the letter:

[full story at http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/6/29/143121/559 ]

Detroit Free Press: Humanitarian crisis is looming in Gaza

Fighting threatens water supply, power
June 30, 2006
FREE PRESS NEWS SERVICES

The 1.4 million residents of the Gaza Strip will face a humanitarian crisis within days unless fighting between Israelis and Palestinians stops, United Nations officials said Thursday.

"We are heading into the abyss," Under-Secretary-General Jan Egeland said in New York.

Israel destroyed Gaza's only power station on Wednesday, leaving 40% of the population without electricity and the other 60% dependent on power from Israel. Fuel for generators that power 130 water wells will run out in three days, leaving thousands without access to water, Egeland said.

"With no water and also considering the weather, it will be a life-threatening situation rather quickly," said Christer Nordahl, deputy director of the UN refugee office in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli jets hit the power plant, along with key bridges, as the precursor to a slowly building invasion of the Gaza Strip intended to secure the release of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, a French-Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian militants Sunday in a cross-border raid.

Sami Abadiah, a power plant engineer, said it could take at least six months and $11 million to rebuild the plant. And that's if Israel allows replacement equipment into Gaza.

Maged Abu Ramadan, Gaza City's mayor, said he's relying on generators to keep some power flowing. But when fuel runs out, he said, the streets could begin filling with raw sewage, and residents may have only dangerously dirty water to drink.

A short-term solution would be for Israel to allow more fuel into Gaza and increase the amount of electricity flowing to Gaza. But Israeli officials said they're more concerned with getting their soldier back.

[full story at http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060630/NEWS07/606300371/1009 ]

seattletimes.com: Cowgirls rehabilitate and ride "throw-away" horses

Cowgirls rehabilitate and ride "throw-away" horses

Sadie and Buster were the ugliest horses Susan Hammon had ever seen. Thin, malnourished and easily agitated, they stood for sale at an Enumclaw horse auction in March 2005 ready to head to a slaughterhouse. These were not the elegant animals Hammon had envisioned as part of the competitive riding team she and her friend were starting in Sammamish.

But she saw hope flicker behind the horses' eyes. So she and her teammates purchased the two Arabians for a total of $300.

Full story: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003095358_horse30e.html

seattletimes.com: Feel lonely? You're not alone

Feel lonely? You're not alone
By Ely Portillo
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- Americans, who shocked pollsters in 1985 when they said they had only three close friends, today say they have just two. And the number who say they have no one to discuss important matters with has doubled to 1 in 4, according to a nationwide survey released today.

It found that men and women of every race, age and education level reported fewer intimate friends than the same survey turned up in 1985. Their remaining confidants were more likely to be members of their nuclear family than in 1985, according to the study, but intimacy within families was down, too. The findings are reported in the June issue of the American Sociological Review.

Full story: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003080031_lonely23.html

WP: Bush's Use of Signing Statements to Reinterpret Law Is Criticized

Bush's Use of Tool to Reinterpret Law Is Criticized
By Jonathan Weisman

A bipartisan group of senators and scholars denounced President Bush yesterday for using scores of "signing statements" to reserve the right to ignore or reinterpret provisions of measures that he has signed into law.

To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/27/AR2006062700145.html?referrer=emailarticle

MSNBC.com: Apple iPod factories reportedly 'sweatshops'

Apple iPod factories reportedly 'sweatshops'
Apple Computer Inc. is having an iPod-related public relations headache this week, following a report by a British newspaper on working conditions at Chinese factories where the popular music player is built.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13357555/from/ET/

Grist: Fee to be carbon free

Fee to be carbon free
Posted by Clark Williams-Derry at 4:42 PM on 30 May 2006

Summer is upon us, unofficially at least. So to usher in the driving season, may I introduce Carbonfund.org, a new way to offset your personal carbon emissions from driving -- as well as from flying, and heating, cooling, and powering your house.

Obviously, Carbonfund.org isn't the only carbon offset program in town; Terrapass is more established and better known. But one thing about Carbonfund.org is unique: it's cheap. I mean, really, really cheap. A ton of CO2 costs just $5.50 U.S., which is, oh, about a quarter of the current price on the European Union carbon futures market, and substantially less than other carbon offset programs I've found (see here and here for a rundown).

In fact, Carbonfund.org is so cheap it made me wonder: is it for real? With some caveats, I'm inclined to think it is.

continued at http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/5/30/164235/746

NYTimes.com: Bush Plans Vast Protected Sea Area in Hawaii

June 15, 2006
Bush Plans Vast Protected Sea Area in Hawaii
By ANDREW C. REVKIN

President Bush will create the world's largest protected marine area today, designating as a national monument a 1,200-mile-long chain of small Hawaiian islands and surrounding waters and reefs that are home to a spectacular array of sea life, senior administration officials said last night.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/15/science/earth/15hawaii.html

TNR: George Allen's Race problem

Pin Prick:
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20060508&s=lizza050806

GEORGE ALLEN'S RACE PROBLEM.

Pin Prick

by Ryan Lizza
Post date: 04.27.06
Issue date: 05.08.06

enator George Allen is the only person in Virginia who wears cowboy boots. It's a warm and bright spring day in the swampy southeastern Virginia town of Wakefield, site of the annual Virginia political fest known as Shad Planking. Once a whites-only event where state Democrats picked their nominees, Shad Planking is now a multiracial affair where candidates from both parties come to show off their regular-guy bona fides and trade lighthearted barbs. Beer flows freely. Knots of tailgaters gossip about state politics. In a clearing amid tall pines, shad is cooked on long wooden boards. Though the two Democrats fighting for a shot to challenge Allen this year in his Senate reelection campaign both show up for the event, Allen clearly owns the crowd, as the sea of royal blue allen t-shirts and baseball caps makes clear. The senator has emerged as the principal conservative alternative to John McCain in the early jockeying among 2008 Republican presidential candidates, and today's event is a reminder of what conservatives love about him.

But nobody else wears cowboy boots. The guy passing out the stickers that say i support confederate history month is in sneakers. The libertarian who asks me to ask Allen about industrial hemp and abolition of the IRS is in very sensible shoes. The pink and pudgy sports-radio host drawling friendly questions at Allen is in loafers. A guy walks up to Allen and sticks a piece of paper in his hand. "Some people are handing out these, saying you aren't pro-gun enough," he tells the senator, a little menacingly. I look down at his feet. High-tops.

There is a guy in a bolo tie. This excites Allen, who is quoted in the newspaper the next day approvingly advising bolo guy, "If you're going to wear a tie, that's the one to wear." Allen has lots of finely honed opinions about red-state cultural aesthetics, and he is always eager to share them. He talks with the radio host about the merits of Virginia's different country music stations. Allen is dismayed about the modern country played on one AM station. "I like the real country music," he says.

It's credible enthusiasm given that, this afternoon, Allen resembles a froufrou version of Toby Keith. He is wearing a blue button-down shirt and brown pants accented with a fat brass belt buckle that says virginia in stylized, countrified letters. And, of course, he's wearing the cowboy boots. They are black, broken in, and vaguely reptilian. From his back pocket, he removes a tin of Copenhagen--"the brand of choice for adult consumers who identify with its rugged, individual and uncompromising image," according to the company--and taps a fat wad of the tobacco between his lip and gum using an impressive one-handed maneuver. As the scrum breaks up, Allen turns away and spits a long brown streak of saliva into the dirt, just missing one of his constituents, a carefully put-together, blonde, ponytailed woman approaching the senator for an autograph. She stops in her tracks and stares with disgust at the bubbly tobacco juice that almost landed on her feet. Without missing a beat, Allen's communications director, John Reid, reassures her: "That's just authenticity!"

It's a word they use a lot it the Allen world--"authenticity." His aides and the growing ranks of conservative backers hungry for someone to take out McCain emphasize Allen's down-home credentials and cowboy-boot charisma far more than his voting record. A glowing National Review cover story, to take one recent example, trumpeted Allen's preternatural fluency in the sports metaphor-laden language of American masculinity. This gift for communicating in the vernacular of John Madden doesn't just distinguish him; it makes him the ideal vehicle for a particular brand of Republican campaign strategy. As the GOP has grown increasingly adept at turning elections into contests about style and character rather than issues and ideas, some Republicans have become obsessed with finding candidates who can project the cultural identity of a red-state everyman. It sometimes seems that pro-nascar has replaced pro-life as the party's litmus test.

While Allen's shit-kickin' image may be the subject of certain Republican consultant fantasies, it may not be ideal in the current political climate. A certain someone has, after all, used that shtick before, effectively bludgeoning his Democratic opponents with his Texas brand of cultural populism. But, by now, that folksy act looks a little spent. And, although Allen is undoubtedly the hot new thing within the Beltway's conservative establishment, some denizens of K Street and right-wing newsrooms have begun doubting whether he represents their best hope to snuff out the burgeoning campaign of their enemy, McCain. "If my choice is, 'Who do I want to go out with to a fun dinner to drink our brains out,'" says one of the party's top fund-raisers who has met with Allen many times, "there's no question, it'd be Allen. He's a guy's guy, but he didn't blow me away in terms of substance."

Fortunately for Allen, he has a protean ability to shift political personas to adapt to the prevailing political fashions. In the 1980s, he was a Reagan revolutionary. As governor of Virginia at the height of the Gingrich insurgency, he promoted his own version of the Contract with America throughout his state. As Virginia modernized, with high-tech eclipsing the tobacco economy, he remade himself as a traveling-salesman governor, luring new companies to the state.

Even in these early days of his budding presidential campaign, he has slipped out of the self-styled image of Bush's most loyal foot soldier. He now says the president is welcome to campaign for him but expresses no enthusiasm for the idea. He tells reporters he is more like Ronald Reagan than George W. Bush. But it's not Bush from whom Allen ultimately needs to distance himself. There is a graveyard of old Allen personas--unpresidential personas, downright ugly ones--that could threaten his political ascendance. Even his authentic self--or, rather, the man described by his own family--might prove just as great a liability. His identity crisis has created the most intriguing duel of 2008: Before he runs for president, George Allen has to run against himself.

t's mid-April, and the private plane carrying Allen and his entourage has just landed at the Stafford Regional Airport. After months of out-of-state fundraising and sojourns into Iowa and New Hampshire, the senator is suddenly taking care of business back home with a three-day, eleven-city reelection announcement tour. Jim Webb, Reagan's Navy secretary, is running in the Democratic primary, Bush's job approval rating in the state is in the 30s, and there is some cautious talk about Virginia, once a presumed gimme for Allen, becoming a competitive race.

After all the heady presidential planning--the hiring of big-name consultants like Mary Matalin, Ed Gillespie, and Dick Wadhams and the first-place finish in fund-raising last quarter--nothing could bring Allen down to earth faster than the Stafford event. There are less than three dozen people here, including numerous Allen aides. The wind knocks over the American and Virginia flags that form Allen's backdrop. And then there is Craig Ennis, who says he's an independent candidate here to debate Allen. His t-shirt says u.s. special forces: motivated, dedicated, lethal. He positions himself in front of the platform on which Allen and his wife, Susan, stand and holds a homemade sign: why do you hide from me?

Allen delivers a stump speech that rests heavily on his record as governor from 1994 to 1998 and skips rapidly over the details of his five years in the Senate. The soft-peddling of his legislative record may have struck the audience as a strange tack for an incumbent. But it has its own compelling political logic. Allen knows that senators have a dismal record as presidential candidates. There is, however, an equally compelling reason why Allen might not want to revisit his years in Richmond.

In the early '90s, Allen exuded the revolutionary spirit of the Republican insurgency. His 1994 inaugural address as governor promised to "fight the beast of tyranny and oppression that our federal government has become." That year, he also endorsed Oliver North for the Senate even as Virginia Senator John Warner and others in the party establishment shunned the convicted felon. At North's nominating convention, Allen proposed a somewhat overwrought approach for beating Democrats: "My friends--and I say this figuratively--let's enjoy knocking their soft teeth down their whining throats."

But, while Allen may have genuflected in the direction of Gingrich, he also showed a touch of Strom Thurmond. Campaigning for governor in 1993, he admitted to prominently displaying a Confederate flag in his living room. He said it was part of a flag collection--and had been removed at the start of his gubernatorial bid. When it was learned that he kept a noose hanging on a ficus tree in his law office, he said it was part of a Western memorabilia collection. These explanations may be sincere. But, as a chief executive, he also compiled a controversial record on race. In 1994, he said he would accept an honorary membership at a Richmond social club with a well-known history of discrimination--an invitation that the three previous governors had refused. After an outcry, Allen rejected the offer. He replaced the only black member of the University of Virginia (UVA) Board of Visitors with a white one. He issued a proclamation drafted by the Sons of Confederate Veterans declaring April Confederate History and Heritage Month. The text celebrated Dixie's "four-year struggle for independence and sovereign rights." There was no mention of slavery. After some of the early flaps, a headline in The Washington Post read, "governor seen leading va. back in time."

Allen has described those early years as a learning experience. Indeed, he sanded off the rough edges and began molding himself to the Bush era, when conservatives began abandoning the crudeness of their old Southern strategy. During the second half of his gubernatorial term, Allen began positioning himself as the next cool thing in Republican politics, a governor more interested in results than partisanship. Indeed, at the Stafford Airport stump speech, there are no confederate flags or coded racial appeals. Instead, Allen talks about energy independence and the competitive challenge from rising economies like China's and India's. If it weren't for some of the rhetoric about "tax commissars," one might mistake Allen's stump speech for a Tom Friedman column.

Even if the moderate turn leads voters to remember the governor of fiscal responsibility rather than the Confederate history booster, there's still a problem. Before there was a Governor Allen, there was a state legislator Allen. Allen became active in Virginia politics in the mid-'70s, when state Republicans were first learning how to assemble a new political coalition by wooing white Democrats with appeals to states' rights and respect for Dixie heritage.

Allen was a quick study. In his first race in 1979--according to Larry Sabato, a UVA professor and college classmate of Allen's--he ran a radio ad decrying a congressional redistricting plan whose main purpose was to elect Virginia's first post-Reconstruction black congressman. Allen lost that race but was back in 1982 and won the seat by 25 votes. He spent the next nine years in Richmond, where his pet issues, judging by the bills he personally sponsored, were crime and welfare. But he also found himself repeatedly voting in the minority on a series of racial issues that he seems embarrassed by today. In 1984, he was one of 27 House members to vote against a state holiday commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported, "Allen said the state shouldn't honor a non-Virginian with his own holiday." He was also bothered by the fact that the proposed holiday would fall on the day set aside in Virginia to honor Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. That same year, he did feel the urge to honor one of Virginia's own. He co-sponsored a resolution expressing "regret and sorrow upon the loss" of William Munford Tuck, a politician who opposed every piece of civil rights legislation while in Congress during the 1950s and 1960s and promised "massive resistance" to the Supreme Court's 1954 decision banning segregation.

None of this means Allen is a racist, of course. He is certainly not the same guy today that he was in the '80s. But his interest in Southern heritage and his fetish for country culture goes back even further. And what's truly improbable is how someone with his upbringing ever acquired such backwoods tastes.

eorge Allen is the oldest child of legendary football coach George Herbert Allen, and, when his father was on the road, young George often acted as a surrogate dad to his siblings. According to his sister Jennifer, he was particularly strict about bedtimes. One night, his brother Bruce stayed up past his bedtime. George threw him through a sliding glass door. For the same offense, on a different occasion, George tackled his brother Gregory and broke his collarbone. When Jennifer broke her bedtime curfew, George dragged her upstairs by her hair.

George tormented Jennifer enough that, when she grew up, she wrote a memoir of what it was like living in the Allen family. In one sense, the book, Fifth Quarter, from which these details are culled, is unprecedented. No modern presidential candidate has ever had such a harsh and personal account of his life delivered to the public by a close family member. The book paints Allen as a cartoonishly sadistic older brother who holds Jennifer by her feet over Niagara Falls on a family trip (instilling in her a lifelong fear of heights) and slams a pool cue into her new boyfriend's head. "George hoped someday to become a dentist," she writes. "George said he saw dentistry as a perfect profession--getting paid to make people suffer."

Whuppin' his siblings might have been a natural prelude to Confederate sympathies and noose-collecting if Allen had grown up in, say, a shack in Alabama. But what is most puzzling about Allen's interest in the old Confederacy is that he didn't grow up in the South. Like a military brat, Allen hopscotched around the country on a route set by his father's coaching career. The son was born in Whittier, California, in 1952 (Whittier College Poets), moved to the suburbs of Chicago for eight years (the Bears), and arrived in Southern California as a teenager (the Rams). In Palos Verdes, an exclusive cliffside community, he lived in a palatial home with sweeping views of downtown Los Angeles and the Santa Monica basin. It had handmade Italian tiles and staircases that his eccentric mother, Etty, designed to match those in the Louvre. "It looks like a French château," says Linda Hurt Germany, a high school classmate.

Even the elder George Allen wasn't Southern--he grew up in the Midwest--but the oddest part of the myth of George Allen's Dixie rusticity is his mother. Rather than a Southern belle, Etty was, in fact, French, and, as such, she was a deliciously indiscreet cultural libertine. She would do housework in her bra and panties. She wore muumuus and wraparound sunglasses and once won a belly button contest. According to Jennifer, "Mom prided herself for being un-American. ... She was ashamed that she had given up her French citizenship to become a citizen of a country she deemed infantile." When her husband later moved the family to Virginia, Etty despised living in the state. She was also anti-Washington before her son ever was, albeit in a slightly more continental fashion. "Washingtonians think their town resembles Paris," she once scoffed. "If Paris passed gas, you'd have Washington."

Allen is now so associated with football--he played at Palos Verdes High School and at UVA, speaks in famously complicated football metaphors, and frequently tosses around the pigskin at campaign events--that he is most often described in relation to his father. But his siblings have said he actually takes after mom. Like Etty, George saw himself as disconnected from the culture in which he lived. He hated California and, while there, became obsessed with the supposed authenticity of rural life--or at least what he imagined it to be from episodes of "Hee Haw," his favorite TV show, or family vacations in Mexico, where he rode horses. Perhaps because of his peripatetic childhood, the South's deeply rooted culture attracted him. Or perhaps it was a romance with the masculinity and violence of that culture; his father, who was not one to spare the rod, once broke his son Gregory's nose in a fight. Whatever it was, Allen got his first pair of those now-iconic cowboy boots from one of his father's players on the Rams who received them as a promotional freebie. He also learned to dip from his dad's players. At school, he started to wear an Australian bush hat, complete with a dangling chin strap and the left brim snapped up. He wore the hat for a yearbook photo of the falconry club. His favorite record was Johnny Cash's At Folsom Prison. Writing of her brother's love for the "big, slow-witted Junior" on "Hee Haw," Jennifer reports, "[t]here was also something mildly country-thuggish about Junior that I think George felt akin to."

In high school, Allen's "Hee Haw" persona made him a polarizing figure. "He rode a little red Mustang around with a Confederate flag plate on the front," says Patrick Campbell, an old classmate, who now works for the Public Works Department in Manhattan Beach, California. "I mean, it was absurd-looking in our neighborhood." Hurt Germany, who now lives in Paso Robles, California, explodes with anger at the mention of Allen's name. "The guy is horrible," she complains. "He drove around with a Confederate flag on his Mustang. I can't believe he's going to run for president." Another classmate, who asks that I not use her name, also remembers Allen's obsession with Dixie: "My impression is that he was a rebel. He plastered the school with Confederate flags."

Politically, Allen's years in Palos Verdes were dominated by the lingering racial tensions from the riots in nearby Watts in 1965--when that neighborhood was practically burned to the ground--and the nationwide riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, which left other parts of Southern California in flames. It is with that context in mind that four former classmates and one former administrator at Allen's high school described to me an event for which Allen is most remembered--and the first glimpse that the château-raised Californian might grow up to become a defender of the South's heritage.

It was the night before a major basketball game with Morningside High. The mostly black inner-city school adjacent to Watts was coming to the almost entirely white Palos Verdes High to play. When students arrived at school on game day, they found graffiti spray-painted on the school library and other places. All five people who described the incident say the graffiti was racially tinged and meant to look like the handiwork of the black Morningside students. But it was actually put there by Allen and some of his friends. "It was something like die whitey," says Campbell. The school administrator, who says he is a Republican and would "seriously consider" voting for Allen for president, says the graffiti said, "burn, baby, burn," a reference to the race riots.

Soon after, Allen finally got the chance to become a Southerner. In 1971, his dad was hired to coach the Redskins, and the Allens relocated to Virginia. Allen transferred from ucla, where he spent his first year of college, to UVA. The old "Hee Haw" fan was like a pig in slop. Even at Virginia's own state school, Allen stood out for his showy brand of good ol' boyness. Under the headline "allen and country living," a 1973 profile in the school paper noted his penchant for country music had earned him the campus nickname of "Neck." He drove a pickup truck (paid for by the Redskins). He wore cowboy boots. He supported Richard Nixon and the war in Vietnam. He once shot a squirrel on campus, skinned it, ate it, and hung its pelt on his wall. "He was trying to be more Virginian than the average Virginian," says Sabato.

After graduating, Allen stuck around UVA for three years of law school. Professors remember him as the guy in the back row of class spitting tobacco into a cup. "He was Mr. Cool," says a UVA law professor who taught him. "But, if you would have said he would go on to be governor, senator, and then run for president, people would have said that was the least probable thing that would ever happen."

am standing in front of George Allen, but he doesn't seem to notice me. He's seated behind a tank-sized wooden desk in his Senate office, buried in paperwork. In front of him is a white spit cup, the outside of it stained a little brown by some errant saliva. Though I've been announced and walked the length of his football field of an office to greet him, he is distracted. I stand for an awkward moment before he finally bounds out of his chair, opening up his six-foot-four frame--perhaps five with cowboy-boot heels--and welcomes me with a hearty shake and a tobacco-specked smile.

His office might be called classically senatorial. In the reception area, there are three walls of power photos, political cartoons, and action shots of Allen. There's Allen driving a race car. Allen on a horse. Allen throwing a football. A cover story from Richmond magazine features his wife: "what vips drive--first lady susan allen ♥ her 4wd."

Allen and I talk a little about being a senator versus a governor. He seems determined to keep his outsider cred in hopes of surviving the anti-incumbent wave building in Virginia. He casts his lot in with the angry voters. "I'm aggravated," he says. "I get frustrated by the slow pace of the Senate, as are most Virginians and most Americans. I like action. I like to see things get done."

But, mostly, Allen and I talk about race. It's a subject that's much on his mind these days, as he tries to make amends for his old pro-Dixie stances. He's trying to get more money for historically black colleges. And he has spent the last few years in what might be called civil rights boot camp. In 2003, he traveled to Birmingham, Alabama, on a "civil rights pilgrimage." "I wish I had [gone] sooner," he says. "I was listening to the old civil rights movement, the strategies, the foundations, the tactics, and--in watching all of it, and in my point of view--I don't see how you can stand being knocked off a stool at a lunch counter and just take it. My reaction is, 'I don't see how you can take it.' And they say, 'You understand, it's all peaceful and nonviolent.' And I say, 'I just don't understand this.'" Allen bonded at the event with a former Black Panther who agreed with his take on nonviolence. "Of course, he played linebacker, I find out, and we became wonderful friends for the rest of the pilgrimage." Allen says that, in a few days, he will travel to Farmville, Virginia, for another reconciliation pilgrimage--this one with Representative John Lewis, the heroic civil rights activist.

Allen also tells me about the anti-lynching resolution he sponsored and helped pass in 2005, launching into a soliloquy about what he's learned in recent years about genocide. Back when he was governor, a series of black churches in Virginia were burned down, and Allen attended a meeting with President Clinton and Vice President Gore on the matter. "I went to the Holocaust Museum, which is the best museum in this country," he says. "And you recognize that people knew what was going on." He thought about that experience when he decided to champion the anti-lynching apology.

Allen knows the trouble spots in his record and has ready answers. We talk about his sister's book ("It's the perspective of the youngest child, who is a girl"), about the noose ("It had nothing to do with anything other than the Western motif in my office"), and about the Confederate flag once hanging in his living room ("I have a flag collection"). As for his mischievous attempt to scare his classmates into believing that his school was going to be burned to the ground, Allen, who, as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, co-sponsored a resolution calling for a crackdown on school vandalism, denies the incident had anything to do with race. "It was something like eat crap or something like that," says Allen, who was suspended for the incident. "Your school sucks, and so forth. It wasn't racial. Bad enough what I did--didn't have that to it. The purpose was to get your team riled up against a rival."

We move away from race and onto energy independence. But there was one nagging question that, even as I sat there listening to Allen go on about soy diesel fuel and lithium ion batteries, I still wasn't sure I would ask. Two days earlier, while preparing for this interview, I had Allen's high school yearbook open in front of me. I kept thinking about the creepy game day prank and the classmates who described the rebel flag on the car and the e-mail from Patrick Campbell: "Some of my classmates and I became rather disturbed a few years ago when we learned that George was rising in the political scene," he had written me. "Mr. Allen is known as a racist in our Southern California society which is why we feel he relocated to an environment which was more supportive of his view points." Maybe I had just stepped into the middle of a revenge-of-the-nerds type spat; Allen was, after all, the quarterback of the football team, and Campbell was a biology lab assistant. And did anything that happened in high school really matter today?

I stared closely at Allen's smirk in his photo, weighing whether his old classmates were just out to destroy him. And then I noticed something on his collar. It's hard to make out, but then it becomes obvious. Seventeen-year-old George Allen is wearing a Confederate flag pin.

Still, I wasn't sure I'd ask him about it. And then he says something that changes my mind. As a child, Allen tells me, before he even moved to California, he learned about the painful history of the South when his dad would take the kids on long drives from Chicago to New Orleans and other Southern cities for football bowl games. There was one searing memory from those trips he shares with me. "I remember," Allen says, "driving through--somehow, my father was on some back road in Mississippi one time--and we had Illinois license plates. And it was a time when some of the freedom riders had been killed, and somehow we're on this road. And you see a cross burning way off in the fields. I was young at the time. I just remember the sense of urgency as we were driving through the night, a carload of people with Illinois license plates--that this is not necessarily a safe place to be."

Now the pin seemed even worse. Why would a young man with such a sensitive understanding of Southern racial conflict and no Southern heritage wear a Confederate flag in his formal yearbook photo?

I finally ask him if he remembers the pin, explaining that another of his classmates had the same one in his photo, a guy named Deke. "No," Allen says with a laugh. "Where is this picture?" He leans forward over his desk and tightens his lip around the plug of Copenhagen in his mouth. "Hmmm." He pauses. He speaks slowly, apparently searching his memory. "Well, it's no doubt I was rebellious," he says, "a rebellious kid. I don't know. Unless we were doing something for the fun of it. Deke was from Texas. He was a good friend. Let me think." He stretches back in the chair, his boots sticking out from underneath his desk. "Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. I'll have to find it myself." Another pause. "I don't know. We would probably do things to upset people from time to time."

He stammers some more, says he saw Deke in an airport recently. "I don't know, I don't know," he continues. "It could be some sort of prank, or one of our rebellious--we would do different things. But I remember we liked Texas."

The next day, at Allen's request, I send him a copy of the yearbook photo. A few hours later, his office confirms that the pin was indeed a Confederate flag. In an e-mail sent through an aide, Allen says, "When I was in high school in California, I generally bucked authority and the rebel flag was just a way to express that attitude." And then he's off. He explains that he "grew up in a football family where life was integrated sooner than most of the rest of the country." He reminds me of his parole, education, and economic achievements as governor. He also tells me about the money he's trying to secure for minority institutions and an upcoming speaking gig at St. Paul's College, a historically black school in Virginia. "Life is a learning experience," he muses. In fact, he says, he's continuing his education this very weekend at the civil rights pilgrimage. But, in the Allen versus Allen primary, every time the new Allen has the upper hand, the old Allen comes punching back. After Allen's stirring statement, an aide adds a coda to the e-mail: The senator doesn't remember the Confederate flag on his Mustang, "but it is possible."

Ryan Lizza is a senior editor at The New Republic.

WP: From the Embassy, a Grim Report

From the Embassy, a Grim Report

A cable from the U.S. Embassy in Iraq outlines in spare prose the daily-worsening conditions for those who live outside the heavily guarded international zone.

Washington Blade: A real marriage debate

EDITORIAL washingtonblade.com

A real marriage debate
The Senate debate on gay marriage was almost substance-free, but behind the slogans, the real issue is there waiting.

By CHRIS CRAIN
Jun. 08, 2006

THE UNITED STATES Senate considers itself the world’s most important deliberative body, but you wouldn’t know it from the debate this week on a constitutional amendment banning gays from marrying.

President Bush was right about one thing. The issue is one of “great significance,” as he acknowledged Monday, about which “opinions are strong and emotions run deep.”

Whether because of those emotions or the depressing state of political discourse generally these days, the real issues got precious little attention in two days of Senate debate and even less from mainstream media coverage.

Instead, encouraged by Democrats and their gay activist allies, the focus was predictably on the horserace, and whether the amendment was a really diversionary tactic designed to shore up the conservative base in time for the fall elections.

Undoubtedly true, but beside the point. The Senate was debating our future and that of our relationships and families, and yet we were almost entirely missing from the discussion.

It goes without saying that there are no openly gay senators, so only heterosexuals plotted our destiny. And of 100 senators only two — Democrats Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin — actually spoke out in favor of our freedom to marry.

So instead of a debate on the real issues, we were treated to substance-free sloganeering — “activist judges!” vs. “diversionary tactic!” — that makes the abortion debate — “baby killers!” vs. “it’s a woman’s body!” — look almost thoughtful.

WHAT WOULD A real debate on the Marriage Protection Amendment have sounded like?

First of all, our senators would have talked about the amendment itself and whether it actually prevents “marriage from being redefined by activist judges,” as its backers from the president on down keep insisting.

If those advocating “judicial restraint” only wanted to ensure that “activist judges” did not force states to marry gay couples, then they would have drafted a very different amendment; one that resembles the second sentence of the one proposed.

It would say something like: “Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status be conferred upon any relationship other than the union of a man and a woman.”

An amendment like that would block federal and state judges from striking down hetero-only marriage laws, while allowing democratically elected state legislatures — “the people!” — to enact laws allowing gays to marry.

But the so-called Marriage Protection Amendment goes much further than that. Its first sentence sets a national standard: “Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.” So “the people” of one state cannot enact a law allowing gays to marry, so long as three-fourths of the other states ratify an amendment setting a national hetero-only standard.

So much for talk about “activist judges.” It’s just a lie, or more charitably a ruse, intended by the president and his conservative base to short-circuit the very “democratic debate” by “the people” they claim the judges want to steal.

A REAL DEBATE on gay marriage would also involve someone actually standing up for those “activist judges,” who in many states were elected themselves and in all others appointed by elected officials — many of whom are Republicans.

Those judges swore an oath to protect and defend the federal and state constitutions, and in decisions on gay marriage they have fulfilled their historical role, protecting equal rights from a discriminatory law “democratically enacted” by “the people.”

In every state where the highest court has ruled on gay marriage in the last couple of decades — from sea (Hawaii and Alaska) to shining sea (Vermont and Massachusetts) — justices have ruled that laws that allow only opposite-sex couples to marry violate the constitutional guarantee of equal protection.

President Bush has never uttered a word about the substance of those rulings, and pitifully enough, our defenders have been cowered away from doing so as well.

The justices in these states considered every argument offered up to justify marriage laws that segregate the rights, benefits and protections of marriage to opposite-sex couples only. And in every case, a majority has concluded that those justifications lack any rational basis — the easiest legal test for a law to pass.

In so ruling, these judges weren’t “legislating from the bench” or, as conservatives accuse them in Roe vs. Wade, creating new rights out of whole cloth. They were protecting equal rights, just as judges before them did for African Americans, women and other groups facing irrational discrimination.

THE DEBATE OVER gay marriage is most frustrating, however, because it’s so rare that the advocates on either side ever get down to talking about marriage itself.

President Bush came close on Monday. “For ages, in every culture, human beings have understood that marriage is critical to the well-being of families,” he said. “And because families pass along values and shape character, marriage is also critical to the health of society. Our policies should aim to strengthen families, not undermine them.”

Exactly! Gay couples wishing to marry could not agree more! We seek for our relationships and our families those same protections and values that the president cherishes. Why would anyone who believes in the power of those values wish for gay couples anything different?

The president has an answer, and at its heart is the core of the real issue, though it is almost never discussed.

“Changing the definition of marriage would undermine the family structure,” said the president, though he really meant “the heterosexual family structure.”

The answer our defenders offer to that argument is typically along these lines offered tongue in cheek by Senator Feingold on Wednesday.

“All over the country,” he said, “married heterosexual couples are shaking their heads and wondering how exactly the prospect of gay marriage threatens the health of their marriages.”

He’s right, as far as he goes. But the real reason most conservatives think “changing the definition of marriage would undermine the family structure” is because gay marriage goes against their religious beliefs.

They hint at that real motive by calling marriage a “sacred institution” while shying away from saying more because that so obviously runs afoul of the First Amendment prohibition against an official state religion. Still, our defenders ought to call them out on it.

In reality, opening up civil marriage to gay couples will not force any church, synagogue or mosque to marry gay couples.

But back to the president’s words. More thoughtful gay marriage opponents have openly worried that, with heterosexual marriage in a shambles and divorce rates so high, it’s too risky right now for social experimentation that might further weaken the institution.

We should acknowledge that it’s difficult to know the impact of allowing gays to marry, just as it was difficult to know the impact of allowing interracial couples to marry or the impact on public education of desegregation.

But back then as now, those judges were doing what the constitutions required when “the people” would not.

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© 2006 The Washington Blade A Window Media Publication