Collective punishment is what this is:

“This could be interpreted as collective punishment,” complained Rabbi Michael Melchior, chairman of the Parliament’s education committee, during the hearing. “This policy is not in keeping with international standards or with the moral standards of Jews, who have been subjected to the deprivation of higher education in the past. Even in war, there are rules.”

The life of one woman who had been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship:

Hadeel Abukwaik, a 23-year-old engineering software instructor in Gaza, had hoped to do graduate work in the United States this fall on the Fulbright that she thought was hers. She had stayed in Gaza this past winter when its metal border fence was destroyed and tens of thousands of Gazans poured into Egypt, including her sister, because the agency administering the Fulbright told her she would get the grant only if she stayed put. She lives alone in Gaza where she was sent to study because the cost is low; her parents, Palestinian refugees, live in Dubai.

“I stayed to get my scholarship,” she said. “Now I am desperate.”

She, like her six colleagues, was in disbelief. Mr. Abdullah, who called the consulate in Jerusalem for further explanation after receiving his letter, said to the official on the other end, “I still cannot believe that the American administration is not able to convince the Israelis to let seven Palestinians out of Gaza.”

I read Nobel Prize winner Richard P. Feynman's biography, "Genius", a passage in which there was a Jewish woman talking about the fact that she had a successful dinner when Feynman and several prominet politicians, generals came to have a lively intellectual discussion.  It is shocking that  Palestinians from Gaza who are Fulbright Scholarship winners would not be given the right to visit the United States for attaining their fullest intellectual attainment because of where they live.

There could be hope:

But when a query about the canceled Fulbrights was made to the prime minister’s office on Thursday, senior officials expressed surprise. They said they did, in fact, consider study abroad to be a humanitarian necessity and that when cases were appealed to them, they would facilitate them.

It surely wouldn't hurt to have our elected Representatives and Senators know about this situation and to have those scholarships restored this academic yer to those seven Palestinians who live in the prison called Gaza- Perlmutter, DeGette, Udall, and the Salazars (even Allard, Tancredo, Musgrave, and Lamborn) will you listen?

Tell me why does our corporate media continue to protact the war in Iraq?  The majority of American people want us out of Iraq.  The majority of Iraqi people want us out of their country.  But the media continues to play this game of keeping us (like mushrooms) in the dark about the reality of Iraq.

Without information on what is happening in Iraq with clear analysis of the political situation there can be no informed consent on which political candidate will offer the best solution for all parties involved.  The local news that I have watched, and has been statistically backed up, shows that there is a media black out.  What we do see is the once in a while glimpse of the U.S. military ground actions by the local newscasts.  What is absent in local and national newscasts (including the complete lack of coverage by Nightline) of the stepped up pace of the air war in Iraq.   [One only has to look in the history of strategic bombing as championed by Gen. Curtis LeMay and the German Lutfwaffe's Reichmarsh Goering.  This has been the case now in which it has not been strategically effective in "breaking the will" of the Iraqi (Sunni, Shia, and Kurds) people's "insurgency" or al Queda terrorists operations]. 

What is missing is the fact that al Maliki and the coalition government, with the backing of U.S. military might, has not found effective political solutions.  This is due, in part, to the fact that Mr. Bush and the media continue to portrary the people of Iraq as "needing" help in forming an effective representational type of government which is modeled on what has proven effective for the United States.  This portrayal of Mr. Bush as the "bringer of democratic government with the intermingling of free market idealism" to a people who lived in relative stability and safety albeit under a dictatorship through the violent means of military conquest as being a "good" action in U.S. media commentators to the American public.

The underlying imperial, western civilization's cultural/political/military chauvinism as personified by the British Empire's "White Man's Burden" is untentable and unsustainable for the American Experiment.  Mr. Bush and his cohort have proven that.  The lack of religious understanding by Mr. McCain's comment of the religious differences between Sunni and Shia as nothing more than "B.S." is akin to what al Maliki might state that Catholics and Protestant denominations should "get over" their "B.S." too.   This is what is driving U.S. media commentary that is just cultural chauvinism.

When the people are not being shown the reality through the active misleading by politicians and the corporate media then it is time for for real action to create new communications to inform the people of America.  The fact is that corporate media is prolonging the war through the absence of reporting on the reality of Iraq and having analysis of the political situation which affects how people think of Iraq.  The problem is compounded by our inherent view that Western culture is superior to the culture of the Iraqi people.  

What to do?  You tell me! 

The CEOs and board of directors knew, or should have known from their legal counsels, that working with Mr. Bush's intelligence agencies to spy on American citizens without a court order (warrant) was illegal under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillence Act (FISA).  But they still went ahead and worked with our intelligence agencies to implement hardware, manpower, and software programs to illegally gather our private conversations and economic transactions without probable cause as is required under our judicial system.

What is happening now is that the Senate bill (S.B.2248) on FISA contains retroactive immunity for those companies that cooperated with Mr. Bush's illegal spying on private citizens programs.  Eric Lichtbau, New York Times reporter, writes:

The Senate plan also adds one provision considered critical by the White House: shielding phone companies from any legal liability for their roles in the eavesdropping program approved by Mr. Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks.

But, while the House version has no retroactive immunity for telecom companies that broke the law, we cannot be complacent in this small victory.

Why do I call this a small victory?  Again, I must refer to the hard work that Glenn Greenwald has done to make us aware of the enormous increase in surveillence in our society by both government and corporations to the detriment of what we should have involiate- our right to privacy in our homes and our lives because telecoms are working hard to protect themselves from lawsuits that have sprung up since the public has been made aware of the fact that your conversations on the phone are being recorded and fed into hundreds of supercomputers at the National Security Agency's Langley complex.

Glenn writes:

Just in the first three months of 2008, recent lobbyist disclosure statements reveal that AT&T spent $5.2 million in lobbyist fees (putting it well ahead of its 2007 pace, when it spent just over $17 million). In the first quarter of 2008, Verizon spent $4.8 million on lobbyist fees, while Comcast spent $2.6 million. So in the first three months of this year, those three telecoms -- which would be among the biggest beneficiaries of telecom amnesty (right after the White House) -- spent a combined total of almost $13 million on lobbyists. They're on pace to spend more than $50 million on lobbying this year -- just those three companies.

So while we are paying outrageous charges for phone service(s) those corporations are using those fees to lobby your Congressional Representative on giving them immunity from their own illegal actions of spying on their own customers at Mr. Bush's behest (and for money).

What is bad is the fact that the "Blue Dog" Democrats are, in part, supporting the Senate bill.  As Glenn notes:

And then there's the whole sleazy, rapidly growing "Blue Dog lobbying network." The C2 Group is a lobbying firm that includes Jeff Murray, former chief of staff to Blue Dog Rep. Bud Cramer of Alabama, and Robert Van Heuvelen, former chief of staff to Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad (who happens to be the Chair of the Senate Budget Committee and who voted in favor of telecom amnesty). Comcast has paid the C2 Group $90,000 in the first three months of this year and more than $300,000 last year...

Beyond C2, the Quinn Gillespie firm -- referenced in that passage as the firm of the aide to Blue Dog Rep. Tim Holden -- received $60,000 from AT&T in the first quarter this year and more than $300,000 last year. Holden was also one of the 21 Blue Dogs writing to Pelosi to demand amnesty for the client of his former top aide....

It is absolutely crucial to have the knowledge that corporate money, from what comes out of our pocketbooks, is going to "fix" the crimes that have been committed by those same companies against their own customers- us.  Those crimes are against us.  It is not some nebulous "legal theory" but against our laws.  

Daniel W. Reilly, Politico.com, writes:

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said Wednesday a FISA deal is “still in flux” but he described the latest developments as “promising” and said he hoped to have a solution soon.

House officials declined to discuss the specifics of the proposed immunity language by the telecoms.

This shows that the Democratic leadership is willing to negotiate with defendants in the 40 class action lawsuits that have been filed against those companies, and are willing to work against the people who voted them into power.

Glenn, again, concludes:

But in another sense, it's perhaps even more remarkable -- given the forces lined up behind telecom amnesty -- that those who have been working against it, with far fewer resources and relying largely on a series of disruptive tactics and ongoing efforts to mobilize citizen anger, have been able to stop it so far.

We cannot lose our right to privacy.  It is critical that we continue to keep the pressure on House Democrats and the Democratic leadership in House and Senate not to aborgate our right to privacy in our phone calls simply on the say so any one individual.

Stop by our Colorado Representatives and Senate offices and talk to the elected official or their staffs.

I read and have been reading about the complicity of the corporate media to whitewash and/or ignore any and all view points that it disagrees with.  This is writing is from tristero, Hullabaloo blog:

The press has the power to bamboozle its constituency, the American people. And they have, over and over again. It is extremely dangerous for a country half as powerful as the United States to have a media as dysfunctional as this one.

As Glenn Greenwald has pointed out about the almost complete lack of corporate television news coverage of a major component to the bamboozlement of the American public about the Pentagon program of using retired generals and admirals, fed information, to promote a pro war view in the guise of being "objective" commentators for the major networks.   As MediaMatters.org has done a survey of network coverage and has shown that:

...experts more than 4,500 times on ABC, ABC News Now, CBS, CBS Radio Network, NBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, and NPR.

Journalism is not about making the corporate bottom line black.  When the press does not do it's constitutional duty to hold accountable the government then it has failed in it's only job.

Roslyn Zinn passed away almost a week ago.  If I hadn't noticed the article on the Commondreams.org website I wouldn't have known at all.

From the Boston Globe obit:

She was a passionate person, passionately committed to the causes of peace and justice, and she was anguished by what was happening in the world,” her husband said. “At the same time, she was a very sunny, happy, warm person.”

“The woman exuded love and openness,” said James Carroll, an author and columnist for the Globe’s opinion pages and a friend of the Zinns. “I felt it, but everyone who met her felt it. She was just an affirming person.”

He added: “Radical politics could be intimidating and frightening because the questions are so hard, but Roz Zinn made it all seem like the most natural thing in the world to ask the tough questions. She took the threat away.”

Blending the arts with activism, Ms. Zinn worked for many years as a social worker and was an actor and musician. While her husband rose to prominence as a writer and a professor at Boston University, hers was the unseen hand shaping sentences that inspired his readers and students.

She was 85.  My sympathies to Howard.

What good is having plenty to eat and drink, nice car and house, and a job when there is omnipresent surveillence of what you do, where you go, what you think?  The rapid expansion of spy technologies both in the private and government sectors is the antithesis of the concept of what "privacy" should be for you and I.

Defunding the Total Information Awareness Project, under development by the Department of Defense and intelligence agencies, headed by ex-con John Poindexter, did not stop the pursuit of implementing a surveillence state that would supercede the constitutional guarantees of blocking government from gaining monarchial powers over the individual.  

How did Mr. Bush get around this defunding?  Although there has been little reportage and public awareness of "Continuity of Government" programs [I first became aware of this kind of program(s) from a investigatory report in Playboy magazine in the mid-1980's that dealt with FEMA's powers to suspend local government.] it is now becoming readily apparent that these programs are the means by which government, in conjunction with surveillence corporations, are implementing a police state without our knowledge or approval under the guise of Mr. Bush's faux "global war on terror".

Christopher Ketcham, Radar Magazine, reports:

According to a senior government official who served with high-level security clearances in five administrations, "There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived 'enemies of the state' almost instantaneously." He and other sources tell Radar that the database is sometimes referred to by the code name Main Core.

As the article points out, and has been briefly reported elsewhere throughout the last seven years, KBR has built "temporary" detention camps in remote areas in the United States.  For example, the natural disaster Hurricane Katrina was a test run for this detention camp system. 

What is known is that Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney are deeply involved in these COG programs and have been for over twenty five years.  In  2006 Maureen Farrell wrote:

In 1987, the Miami Herald gave us a glimpse of what the lead counsel for the Senate Iran-contra committee called a "secret government-within-a-government" and alerted readers to standby legislation, which, as columnist Jack Anderson had previously warned, was meant to "suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights." Even so, when a memo from the Director of Resource Management for the Department of the Army emerged, discussing "civilian inmate labor camps" to be built on Army installations, only conspiracy buffs on the far fringes of the Internet paid it any mind.

In 1998, World Net Daily's Geoff Metcalf addressed such "classic right wing paranoia," trying not to sound paranoid himself. "For several years now I have been getting all sorts of wild reports about 'Government Internment Camps,' he wrote, before disclosing two reasons he began sensing substance behind the rumors: 1) The labor camp memo was authentic, he said and 2) A U.S. congressman substantiated such claims. "The truth is yes -- you do have these standby provisions, and the plans are here ... whereby you could, in the name of stopping terrorism ... evoke the military and arrest Americans and put them in detention camps," Rep. Henry Gonzalez said in an interview.

But wait, it doesn't affect the common man and woman.  Or does it?  The mere fact that such programs, under whatever reasoning, is gravely damaging to the core concepts of "freedom" and "privacy".  If we understand the Constitution to be about restricting the power of the state because such power, as witnessed by our forebearers from a monarchy, will be corrupting and too strong a fruit for anyone not to be tempted to use such power against you and I.  Christopher Ketcham concludes:

But even if we never face a national emergency, the mere existence of the database is a matter of concern. "The capacity for future use of this information against the American people is so great as to be virtually unfathomable," the senior government official says.
In any case, mass watch lists of domestic citizens may do nothing to make us safer from terrorism. Jeff Jonas, chief scientist at IBM, a world-renowned expert in data mining, contends that such efforts won't prevent terrorist conspiracies. "Because there is so little historical terrorist event data," Jonas tells Radar, "there is not enough volume to create precise predictions."

One of the more gut-wrenching depravations of the Republican Legislature and Republican Governor of 2003 was the agreement to raid the Colorado Veterans Trust Fund to the tune of $2.3 Million. With the benefit of reports from several sources I've pieced together an "oh really?" tale of the day this fund was restored, with interest. This boosted the Trust Fund by a total of $2.9 Million.

The Grand Junction Sentinel provided the best coverage of last Friday's bill signing.  With the benefit of January to May hindsight any meddling or opposition to this legislation is questionable.

http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/05/16/051708_3a_Vets_bill_signed.html

At the center of the drama are GOP representatives Douglas Bruce and Kevin Lundberg. Back on January 14, 2008 Douglas Bruce became an even greater historical curiosity during morning prayers. Two days later, January 16, it was Bruce who weighed-in as a benefactor of the Veterans Trust Fund cause in the House Finance Committee.  it was through Bruce's amendment that approximately $600,000 in interest was added.  And, Lundberg who failed with an amendment to paint the pay-back as a new general fund appropriation.

In an additional context of Douglas Bruce and John Kefalas acting in agreement on a bill the Fort Collins, Colorado Rocky Mountian Chronicle originally covered the event.

http://www.rmchronicle.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1872

By the end of the committee hearing Rep. Lundberg has flipped back to the supporter and cast a rare vote with the majority to pass the bill.  While Bruce and Kefalas were consistent supporters of the bill, Lundberg's move for fiscal re-packaging is yet another dubious entry in his spotty record.

From Slashdot.org comes this:

Regular speech is controlled by a section of the brain called Broca's area. Once the precise location is determined in the subject, a magnetic pulse can temporarily disrupt speech without impairing other cognitive functions.

One can only imagine what the Pinheads at the CIA are thinking up in terms of implementated this latest idea through the techniques of surgical implantation or psychopharmacological cocktail for their enhanced interrogation arsenal.

What I was reminded of was the classic scene in "The Matrix":

Neo : You can't scare me with this Gestapo crap. I know my rights. I _want_ my phone call.

Agent Smith : And tell me, _Mr._ Anderson, what good is a phone call...if you are unable to speak.

The question unnerves Neo and strangely, he begins to feel the muscles in his jaw tighten.  The standing agents snicker, watching Neo's confusion grow into panic. Neo feels his lips grow soft and sticky as they slowly seal shut, melding into each other untilall trace of his mouth is gone.

We have been, through the tactics of Big Brother, dragged backwards from the Age of Enlightment that placed human reason as the basis for authority, especially governing.  

This backwards movement has been abetted by the technologies of communication which enhances command functions of authoritarian governments.  I will point out that Mr. Bush's Total Information Awareness project was never killed but Phoenix like arose from the dead to become a Hydra headed colossus.  Part of which was exposed from the numerous lawsuits that have resulted from the illegal warrantless spying done by the telecommunications corporations at the behest of Mr. Bush's administration on U.S. citizens.

But what of other countries?  Well, I would point out that China is not sitting still they are implementing a program called "Golden Shield".  Again from Slashdot.org there is this:

This is the most important element of all: linking all these tools together in a massive, searchable database of names, photos, residency information, work history and biometric data. When Golden Shield is finished, there will be a photo in those databases for every person in China: 1.3 billion faces.

The notion that we, as individuals, have "privacy" is rapidly being eroded.  The notion of what privacy is as understood through the Constitution and through SCOTUS decisions that are based upon the Fourth Amendment is in a precarious position. 

Technology for better or worse will have a direct impact on how little privacy we will have in the future if left unimpeded.  Our privacy must be aggressively protected.  How?  It must come us, the citizens, who will be ever vigiliant and from those watchdog agencies like Electronic Freedom Foundation, American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Constitutional Rights who are at the frontlines between our right to privacy versus corporations who want unregulated control and the ever intrusive government organs who want to spy without judicial oversight on you and I on their whim that we must support.

What will Mr. Bush leave for the children when families go to our national parks?  Under the radar he is having his EPA rewrite long standing rules that will encourage coal power plants to be constructed much closer to our national parks.

Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post reporter, writes:

The new regulations, which are likely to be finalized this summer, rewrite a provision of the Clean Air Act that applies to "Class 1 areas," federal lands that currently have the highest level of protection under the law. Opponents predict the changes will worsen visibility at many of the nation's most prized tourist destinations, including Virginia's Shenandoah, Colorado's Mesa Verde and North Dakota's Theodore Roosevelt national parks...

For 30 years, regulators have measured pollution levels in the parks, over both three-hour and 24-hour increments, to capture the spikes in emissions that occur during periods of peak energy demand. The new rule would average the levels over a year so that spikes in pollution levels would not violate the law...

"It's like if you're pulled over by a cop for going 75 miles per hour in a 55 miles-per-hour zone, and you say, 'If you look at how I've driven all year, I've averaged 55 miles per hour,' " said Mark Wenzler, director of the National Parks Conservation Association's clean-air programs. "It allows you to vastly underestimate the impact of these emissions."

Why is this important to the health impact on our national parks?

Yesterday, the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy group, issued a report estimating that the rule would ease the way for the construction of 28 new coal-fired power plants within 186 miles of 10 national parks. In each of the next 50 years, the report concludes, the new plants would emit a total of 122 million tons of carbon dioxide, 79,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, 52,000 tons of nitrogen oxides, and 4,000 pounds of toxic mercury into the air over and around the Great Smoky Mountains, Zion and eight other national parks.

I would argue that the most noticeable sign is visible but there are invisible signs that would adversely impact the national parks, including higher levels of fallout of mercury and increased acidity in local water sources which will lead to higher mortality rates of wildlife and vegetation die off.

It is immoral for Mr. Bush and his cohort to only act in their own economic interest because he won't live long enough to see the harm that his policies will do to our children and grandchildren.

So fire up your phones and email and call and write your elected representatives to tell them that they must halt through legislative means this act of betrayal to our children.

Nothing is more infuriating than to see Republicans using the voter fraud meme to steal the right to vote from elderly Americans.  This is the truth of the matter: The efforts of Republicans to have picture I.D. with birth certificates at polling centers is disenfranchising the elderly from their right to vote. 

What is amazing is that the largest senior citizen organization, A.A.R.P., is  doing little to halt this Republican led movement to disenfranchise the elderly at least at the national level. (I will point out that the 2008 Advocacy Agenda by AARP does list voter I.D. as a "burdensome document requirement".)  State A.A.R.P. organizations are more on the ball: 

The A.A.R.P. of Texas, in January of 2008, released this:

AUSTIN, TX – As many as 18 percent of voters age 65 or older could be negatively impacted by efforts to enact stricter voter identification requirements, an AARP Texas official said today in testimony before the House Elections Committee.

Amanda Fredriksen, AARP Texas manager of advocacy, noted there has been little if any evidence of election fraud in Texas to date to justify any such measure, calling voter ID proposals “a solution in search of a problem.”

The Michigan A.A.R.P. has filed an amicus brief in 2006:

AARP has filed a friend of the court brief in the Michigan Supreme Court challenging a state law that would require voters to produce a photo ID in order to cast a ballot at the polls.The case, In re Request for Advisory Opinion Regarding Constitutionality of 2005 PA 71, was initiated by the Court itself, which has called for briefs to be filed on the matter by the state’s Attorney General and other interested parties.Based on these submissions, the Court will issue an “advisory opinion” regarding the 2005 law.

The Indiana A.A.R.P., in 2005, expressed concern:

The head of Indiana's chapter of the American Association of Retired Persons says a new state law requiring Hoosier voters to show an ID at the polls could put a burden on older, ailing Hoosiers who don't have driver's licenses.
State AARP director Nancy Griffin said a recent survey by the group found that 10 percent of registered Indiana voters age 60 and older lack driver's licenses.

In 2002 the A.A.R.P. of Pennsylvania held this position:

HARRISBURG, Pa. -- AARP Pennsylvania opposes Senate Bill 824 which would require Pennsylvanians to produce photo identification in order to vote in the Commonwealth.

Digby has a story:

Perhaps no one knows that as well as 97-year-old Shirley Freeda Preiss. She was born at home in Clinton, Kentucky in 1910, before women had the right to vote, and never had a birth certificate. Shirley has voted in every presidential election since FDR first ran in 1932, and proudly describes herself as a "died-in-the-wool Democrat." After living in Arizona for two years, she was eagerly looking forward to casting her ballot in the February primary for the first major woman candidate for President, Hillary Clinton. But lacking a birth certificate or even elementary school records to prove she's a native-born American citizen, the state of Arizona's bureaucrats determined that this former school-teacher who taught generations of Americans shouldn't be allowed to vote.

"I have a constitutional right to vote, don't I?" she asks with her soft Southern drawl. "I didn't get to vote because of a birth certificate. What am I going to do now?"

Her strong-willed 78-year-old son, Nathan "Joey" Nemnich, a World War II veteran, is infuriated. "I'm pissed. She's an American citizen who worked her whole life and I want her to vote," he says. He went down to the local Motor Vehicle Division to get her an Arizona ID and register her to vote, armed with copies of his mother's three drivers' licenses from her previous home in Texas, along with copies of her Social Security and Medicare cards. All that wasn't good enough for the state of Arizona. "The sons of bitches are taking away our Constitution," Nemnich says.

The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights states in 2007:

First, no citizen should have to pay to vote. This basic principle, a key inspiration for the Twenty-Fourth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, would be greatly undermined by the McConnell amendment. While it is difficult for most people to imagine living without a photo ID, it is indisputable that many individuals do not have one – and it costs time and money to obtain it...

The right to vote, and to have your vote counted, is the most important civil right that we Americans have. And photo ID requirements are one of the greatest threats to fair and equal voting rights today. Congress should be in the business of encouraging full participation of our citizenry, not developing ways to limit the right to vote.

Amy Silverman, Salon.com, from a 1999 report, writes:

...vintage John McCain. His MO is this: Get the story out -- even if it's a negative story. Get it out first, with the spin you want, with the details you want and without the details you don't want...

Candor is the McCain trademark, but what the journalists who slobber over the senator fail to realize is that the candor is premeditated and polished...

And only a handful of people remember the details of Cindy McCain's 1994 "outing" for drug addiction and drug pilfering, and the work of the McCain machine to protect her.

Will the media question the flip flop of McCain on our troops in Iraq?  I doubt it. 

We have all been horrified by the scenes of devastation in China from the 7.9 Richter scale quake.  What we are seeing is a massive effort by the Chinese government to come to the rescue of its citizens during this time of national emergency.  With 100,000 troops and police being sent to aid in the rescue efforts in the province of Sichuan there has been extensive coverage by Chinese media.

I am wondering at what will Sichuan province look like in a few years? 

The worst natural disaster to hit an American region was Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  The city of New Orleans is being rebuilt to a very different standard than what pre-Katrina NOLA was in both population demographics and urban planning to meet that demographic.

Why cannot New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward be restored and why cannot undamaged public housing be simply cleaned up and made livable for those who are now refugees?  There is no need to destroy those thousands of units of housing that had sustained minimal damage.  What is the plan except to raze them for housing that will have no tax burden to the City of New Orleans but will generate income for the city?  Even now there is the underground of protest against the destruction of the city that is called the soul of America. 

Will the province of Sichuan go the way of NOLA?  How will the Chinese deal with this great disaster?  Will the cities of Sichuan still be in a state of rubble and inattention like the Lower Ninth Ward of NOLA in three years?  (Because the residents of the Lower Ninth Ward are seeking the right of return to their homes still.)  Will the Chinese government see this as an opportunity to remove "undesirables" like the communities of New Orleans have done?

China should not imitate the dishonor and shame that is now the hallmark of the recovery of our American City of New Orleans. 

We have read, in the back pages of the paper, that the Army has met it's recruiting goal for FY2007:

All of the active duty branches met or exceeded their recruiting goals for the fiscal year. On the Reserve side, four of the six reserve componants met or exceeded their recruiting goals.

If that is true then why does this happen?  Colby Buzzell writes:

That was a little over five years ago. After serving in Iraq, I elected to use my GI Bill to enroll in a photography course at San Francisco City College. I felt good, and I had a feeling that the days to come were all going to be good as well.

On way out of my building two weeks ago, I checked my mailbox and found a letter from the Department of the Army with "Important Document" printed in all caps on the middle. I immediately felt sick, so I went back to my room, locked the door, grabbed a beer from the fridge and stared out my window for a while...

I'm now going back to Iraq for a second time because people like me - existing service members - are the only people at the Army's disposal.

I've read Colby's book, which was based in part on his blog, My War.  It was an excellent book about the "boots on the ground" life of an infantryman in Iraq, which had little to do with the "grand strategy" but only with the necessities of living and surviving in a war zone.  What I found in reading Colby's book was the vivid retelling of his first firefight and how he was astonished that an Iraqi was still alive after his squad had fired so many rounds at the man and how in the excitement of the andrenaline rush the time elapsed that seemed so long was so short.

[BTW- the only other method is stop-loss by the Army.  The CS Monitor states that in 2006 "currently stop-loss is being used to extend the duty of 12,500 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan".]

I wish Colby Buzzell that he survive his second tour of duty because this war will not end.  (Remember that Rep. Rangel floated the proposal to reinstate the draft and was quickly shot down by Pelosi and Hoyer?)  The only way to end it quickly is what Colby believes:

Many people believe that the draft ended the Vietnam War. I'm convinced that reinstating the draft would definitely end this war. Rich, connected people will always find a way to evade mandatory service, but what about the rest of America? The middle class - people with good jobs and nice lives - would perhaps riot if the government even suggested that it expected from them what the Army expects from veterans.

Never more...or is it one more time before the Statue of Liberty is beheaded?  What else can one make of this assault on the Constitution and the rule of law?  Mr. Bush follows the dictum of Joseph Stalin"s "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything."

As close followers of our democracy and election process has shown that there is an impasse with the seating of new FEC members due to the fact that Mr. Bush wants to seat Mr. Hans von Spakovsky.  Paul Kiel, Talkingpointsmemo.com, reporter writes:

It is because of that record -- one of ignoring, marginalizing, and intimidating career lawyers in order to institute restrictive voting laws all over the country, a pattern amounting to "institutional sabotage" as one former career attorney there put it -- that Senate Democrats (Barack Obama and Russ Feingold in particular) opposed his nomination to the Federal Election Commission.

In other words, Hans von Spakovsky is utilizing methods to suppress voters that is against the historic mission of the Voting Rights Division in the Department of Justice of increasing access to voting for all citizens.

What is happening now is that there is not enough members of the FEC to take any action(s) whatsoever.  This includes the fact that Mr. McCain is violating election laws, including his own McCain-Feingold law of campaign financing limits.  But, Mr. Bush has just sent Congress a revised list of nominees to fill out the FEC board.  

It is important to let the media and your Senator know that this "compromise" by Mr. Bush is nothing of the sort.  He has nominated the vote suppressor Hans von Sakovsky again.  What is telling is that he has not renominated David Mason.  Paul Kiel continues:

Mason is one of the only two seated commissioners, and it just so happens that he's been creating a whole lot of trouble for John McCain lately...

In February, the McCain campaign notified the FEC that it was withdrawing from the public financing system for the primary. Although McCain had once opted in, his campaign said that it had never received public funds and so could opt out. The move meant that McCain would not be bound by the $54 million spending limit for the system.

But Mason balked. McCain couldn't just opt out -- the FEC had to approve his request before he could. And Mason also indicated that a tricky bank loan might mean that McCain had locked himself in to the system...

And now Mason is getting the boot.

If the compromise means that Republicans agree to a seperated vote for commissioners then von Spakosky will be out for good.  But getting rid of Dave Mason can only be good for Mr. McCain because it will forestall any action on the criminal actions by his campaign.

I would point out that Mr. McCain may have a new headache.  Judicial Watch has filed a suit about Mr. McCains fundraiser held on a foreign nation's soil- Britain.  Klaus Marre, TheHill.com, reports:

Judicial Watch argues that providing a venue for the event free of charge was an illegal in-kind contribution from two foreign nationals — Lord Rothschild OM GBE and The Honorable Nathaniel Rothschild.

“While it is, as yet, unclear how much money was raised during the luncheon, had the venue not been donated to the McCain campaign, the net profit from the event would have been significantly reduced,” the group said in a statement.

What does this mean?  Is it going to be that foreign investors in Mr. McCain's campaign will have influence on foreign policies that impact their respective countries? 

Mr. McCain has a lot of serious questions to answer to the American people for when he is willing to hold fundraisers on foreign soil for his campaign.

There has been much criticism of Thomas Friedman and his stance with regard to Mr. Bush's Iraq war, but I will give credit where credit is due.  I could not agree more with his most recent column entitled, "Who Will Tell the People?"  It seems that if he is reaching out to the pulse of the public versus living in the D.C. echo chamber it is refreshing to read this:

Traveling the country these past five months while writing a book, I’ve had my own opportunity to take the pulse, far from the campaign crowds. My own totally unscientific polling has left me feeling that if there is one overwhelming hunger in our country today it’s this: People want to do nation-building. They really do. But they want to do nation-building in America.

What do we ask of ourselves?  What will this generation leave for the sons and daughters?  It is a wail and gnashing of teeth and beating of breast to know that this nation, our country is on a path towards decay.  Mr. Friedman writes:

A few weeks ago, my wife and I flew from New York’s Kennedy Airport to Singapore. In J.F.K.’s waiting lounge we could barely find a place to sit. Eighteen hours later, we landed at Singapore’s ultramodern airport, with free Internet portals and children’s play zones throughout. We felt, as we have before, like we had just flown from the Flintstones to the Jetsons. If all Americans could compare Berlin’s luxurious central train station today with the grimy, decrepit Penn Station in New York City, they would swear we were the ones who lost World War II.

We are bombarded with the corporate media drum beat of "We, America, U.S. of A., is the greatest nation on the planet."  But then when those in power who are afraid to confront Americans with hard truths it is a disservice to this nation.  Mr. Bush and his cohort is afraid of the truth because it is only the truth that will bring the unblinding of the American people to understand that we now must roll up our sleeves for the hard work of justice.  To heal the wounds that have been inflicted on the bedrock of this nation- the Constitution, rule of law, and the dignity of being human.

This is what Thomas Friedman leaves out when he writes:

Much nonsense has been written about how Hillary Clinton is “toughening up” Barack Obama so he’ll be tough enough to withstand Republican attacks. Sorry, we don’t need a president who is tough enough to withstand the lies of his opponents. We need a president who is tough enough to tell the truth to the American people. Any one of the candidates can answer the Red Phone at 3 a.m. in the White House bedroom. I’m voting for the one who can talk straight to the American people on national TV — at 8 p.m. — from the White House East Room.

I'm sick of listening to the demagogery by two of the presidential candidates and that it is only an external "Other" which threatens us.  I am not afraid of the motley band of "evil doers" because our belief in our ideals is our strength not in the billions of dollars that have been spent on weapons and standing armies.  

I stand with the Founders of this nation on bedrock principals embodied within the three documents- the Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.  We have come to grief only when we deviate from our ideals.

Amy Goodman had an interview with ILWU officer Jack Heyman about the May Day strike.  Jack Heyman said:

...but really, the most stunning solidarity came from the port workers in Iraq, who struck in solidarity with us. And that was really a very courageous move, because they’re literally under the gun of a military occupation there.

That little bit of information I had not seen at all until Friday.

I seen this posted to other list serves on the longshore union staging a strike to shut down west coast ports.

However the media has not covered this important new alliance by unions with the anti-war movement in America.  This adds a powerful force to the anti-war movement.  The only newspaper that has covered the event from the anti-war reason for the work stoppage is the Seattle Post Intelligencer but only in the business section via Alex Veiga, AP business writer, reports:

LOS ANGELES -- West Coast cargo traffic came to a halt Thursday as port workers staged daylong anti-war protests to commemorate May Day, terminal operators said Thursday.

Thousands of dockworkers did not show up for the morning shift, leaving ships and truck drivers idle at ports from Long Beach to Seattle, Pacific Maritime Association spokesman Steve Getzug said.

This is how the DenverPost.com has edited the May Day strike by the ILWU:

SAN FRANCISCO, May 1 /PRNewswire/ -- The International Longshore and Warehouse Union today struck West Coast ports from Southern California to the Pacific Northwest, bringing cargo operations to a virtual standstill, as the Union's leadership defied orders from the independent Coast Arbitrator to "notify its Locals and members of its contractual obligation and direct all members to report to work as they normally do during the day shift on May 1, 2008."

The Denver Post has done a disservice to its readership by leading with a plain Jane headline "Longshore Union Strikes West Coast Ports" that is followed by a misleading opening paragraph.  One reads the corporate view until the fifth paragraph:

Today's action, which essentially shut down all major ports along the coast, culminates a series of events that began when ILWU members passed a resolution opposing the U.S. war in Iraq. After seeking permission under contract rules to stop work during the day shift on May 1st, ILWU leaders later retracted their request, and claimed that any decision not to work on May 1st would be made by individual workers.

The reportage is muddy for the reader to see a clear connection between the union action and the anti-war movement.  The impression is that the union is using the anti-war movement as a bargaining chip in typical labor-management negotiations.  Go to the ILWU website and read their statement for May Day.

A quick search of the Rocky Mountain News website shows nothing.  No mention at all using the search terms "West Coast Strike" and "ILWU".

So the Denver Post posits an anti-union spin by the management (the strike is for ulterior motives) that drives a wedge between the union and the anti-war movement.

The Rocky Mountain News leaves it readership in the dark about an important step in bringing unions into the antii-war movement.

Why don't you write a letter to the Rocky Mountain News?