via

Then: Q – Mr. Secretary, on Iraq, how much money do you think the Department of Defense would need to pay for a war with Iraq?

Rumsfeld – Well, the Office of Management and Budget, has come up come up with a number that’s something under $50 billion for the cost. How much of that would be the U.S. burden, and how much would be other countries, is an open question.

And now: The estimated cost to US taxpayers of the Iraq war to date is $250 billion and rising, or $100,000 per minute. Total cost of the Bush doctrine of spreading “democracy” since September 11th — half a trillion dollars, or nearly the cost of the 13 years of the Vietnam War, adjusted for inflation. What else could the USA have done with that kind of money? Also see here.

And now: Bush to seek $120 billion more for war:

“President George W. Bush soon will ask Congress for another $120 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan….That’s enough to buy General Motors Corp. 33 times or Google almost four times, at current stock prices.

The vast majority of the money is for Iraq, where expenses are about $4.5 billion a month, according to administration officials. The U.S. campaign in Afghanistan is costing about $800 million a month.

Joel Kaplan, deputy director of the White House budget office, said Thursday that Bush would seek a quick $70 billion plus another $50 billion as part of the proposed fiscal 2007 federal budget that will go to Congress on Monday.

The Associated Press, citing Pentagon officials and documents, reported Thursday that the 2007 budget request will include $439.3 billion for the Defense Department, a nearly 5% increase over this year. That doesn’t include the war requests.”

What’s it going to take to change America?

Something ordinary people can relate to. Something people can’t ignore. Katrina hurt Bush in ways that have yet to become visible, but even then, mostly it was just one state that was affected. People are pretty damn uncaring about what happens to other people at the moment because they’re mostly worried about keeping themselves afloat, and they’re badly educated to the point that they don’t even know what most of the scandals really mean. Clinton getting a blow job, however, they know what that means. Nixon sponsored a burglary, that they can understand. Lying about the cause of the war, even it costs $250B and thousands of American lives, doesn’t matter to many Americans so long as they can still tell themselves that the U.S. is the “good guy” in this conflict, and most Americans continue to believe that because the evidence against it tends to not be convincing to them on a personal level.

Abu Gharib hurt a bit, but the administration moved to block the release of additional pictures, and ultimately it’s “criminals” who were being punished. Abu Gharib didn’t kill the administration directly for the same reason few people campaign for prison reform: they’re bad people, so they think, so they deserve the awful conditions. That kind of apathy is a difficult nut to crack, and is a great character flaw of the American people.

But it IS still important that these stories come to light, and it IS important that we continue to be indignant about them, because even average people will eventually realize it’s not just partisan bickering, it honestly is a long-term, systemic problem. We yell now not so much to get rid of Bush, (he won’t even get impeached while the Republicans are in control of Congress), but to make sure Bush will never happen again.

The traditional Democratic base – the blue collar workers who now vote Republican – don’t care a crap about the war. They are concerned about Healthcare and Jobs. Pointy-headed elites worry about the war. “Average” people are worried about keeping their job and making their mortgage payments.

As long as the Democrats whine about the war, civil liberties and spying and torture and BUSH, they aren’t talking about the things that will win them an election. It’s the rope-a-dope and the dumb-ass Democrats fall for it time and time again.

The only way the Dems are going to win anything is to appeal to the traditional values of the party – the 1950 values not the 1970 values. Bill Clinton won on Heath Care, Health Care, Health Care and the Economy (and then he famously failed to do anything about the former.)

[Quote:]

Boris Dittrich heeft vrijdagmiddag zijn aftreden als fractievoorzitter van D66 bekendgemaakt. Zijn opvolger wordt Lousewies van der Laan. Dittrich blijft wel actief als Kamerlid. “Ik ben gekozen als volksvertegenwoordiger en wil in de Kamer de idealen van D66 verwezenlijken.”

Dittrich treedt af omdat hij in de Afghanistan-affaire “politiek-tactische fouten” heeft gemaakt.

Dietje, je maakt weer een “politiek-tactische fout”: je blijft gewoon in de kamer, dus iedereen ziet wat een geweldige pluche-plakker je in werkelijkheid bent.

Zak.

[Quote:]

Veterans called on Congressman Bob Beauprez to apologize for publicly parading in a military-issued uniform when selective service records revealed that Beauprez avoided ever serving.

“We are calling on Mr. Beauprez to apologize for misleading us,”  stated retired Sergeant Jim Hudson, a Vietnam Veteran.

This photo of Congressman Bob Beauprez was taken at the Front Range Airport in Watkins, Colorado in June, 2004.

The Selective Service Classification History for Robert Louis Beauprez indicates that he requested and received three different student deferments.

The records also indicate that Beauprez came up for the draft based on his lottery drawing for 1970 of #160.

Yet on August 6, 1970 the records indicate that Beauprez was “excused” because of a “physical reason.”

“Mr. Beauprez appears to want it both ways: he publicly parades in a military-issued uniform, and yet the records show he never served,” stated retired Staff Sergeant Michael D. Collins, a veteran who served in Vietnam with the 1st Air Calvary Division.

[Quote:]

Libraries have warned that the rise of digital publishing may make it harder or even impossible to access items in their collections in the future.

Many publishers put restrictions on how digital books and journals can be used.

Such digital rights management (DRM) controls may block some legitimate uses, the British Library has said.

And there are fears that restricted works may not be safe for future generations if people can no longer unlock them when technology evolves.

[..]

In written evidence, the Libraries and Archives Copyright Alliance (Laca) said there were “widespread concerns in the library, archive and information community” about the potentially harmful effects of DRMs.

“We have grave concerns about the potential use of DRMs by rightholders to override existing copyright exceptions,” its statement said.

In the long term, the restrictions would not expire when a work went out of copyright, it said, and it may be impossible to trace the rights holders by that time.

“It is probable that no key would still exist to unlock the DRMs,” Laca said. “For libraries this is serious.

[..]

In its written submission to the group, the British Library said DRM must not “exert excessive control on access to information”.

“This will fundamentally threaten the longstanding and accepted concepts of fair dealing and library privilege and undermine, or even prevent, legitimate public good access.”

Fair dealing and library privilege must be “re-interpreted and sustained for the digital age”, it added.

I don’t think re-interpretation of fair dealing and the library privilige is needed – simply outlaw DRM and you can maintain the status quo. I’ve yet to see an argument why that would not work.

[Quote:]

[Quote:]

The State of the Union is normally an occasion for boasting about an administration’s achievements. But what’s a speechwriter to do when there are no achievements?

One answer is to pretend that the bad stuff never happened. The Medicare drug benefit is Mr. Bush’s largest domestic initiative to date. It’s also a disaster: at enormous cost, the administration has managed to make millions of elderly Americans worse off. So drugs went unmentioned in the State of the Union.

Another answer is to rely on evasive language. In Iraq, said Mr. Bush, we’ve “changed our approach to reconstruction.�?

In fact, reconstruction has failed.

[..]

In other words, this administration is all politics and no policy. It knows how to attain power, but has no idea how to govern. That’s why the administration was caught unaware when Katrina hit, and why it was totally unprepared for the predictable problems with its drug plan. It’s why Mr. Bush announced an energy plan with no substance behind it. And it’s why the state of the union — the thing itself, not the speech — is so grim.

[Quote:]

A federal judge blasted former Environmental Protection Agency chief Christine Todd Whitman on Thursday for reassuring New Yorkers soon after the Sept. 11 attacks that it was safe to return to their homes and offices while toxic dust was polluting the neighborhood.

U.S. District Judge Deborah A. Batts refused to grant Whitman immunity against a class-action lawsuit brought in 2004 by residents, students and workers in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn who said they were exposed to hazardous materials from the destruction of the World Trade Center.

“No reasonable person would have thought that telling thousands of people that it was safe to return to lower Manhattan, while knowing that such return could pose long-term health risks and other dire consequences, was conduct sanctioned by our laws,” the judge said.

[..]

In her ruling, Batts noted that the EPA and Whitman said repeatedly – beginning just two days after the attack – that the air appeared safe to breathe. The EPA’s internal watchdog later found that the agency, at the urging of White House officials, gave misleading assurances.

Quoting a ruling in an earlier case, the judge said a public official cannot be held personally liable for putting the public in harm’s way unless the conduct was so egregious as “to shock the contemporary conscience.” Given her role in protecting the health and environment for Americans, Whitman’s reassurances after Sept. 11 were “without question conscience-shocking,” Batts said.

Many more here.

You can buy your own battle tank on ebay

[Quote:]

Marie Lindor, a home health aide who has never bought, used, or even turned on a computer in her life, but was nevertheless sued by the RIAA in Brooklyn federal court for using an “online distribution system” to “download, distribute, and/or make available for distribution” plaintiff’s music files, has requested a pre-motion conference in anticipation of making a summary judgment motion dismissing the complaint and awarding her attorneys fees under the Copyright Act.

Zo’n nieuwe fles kost wat, maar dan heb je ook niks.

Dat wordt dus 40% meer Ba in de Co.

It looks like trailer-mashups are the new thing. Check out Brokeback to the Future.

[Quote:]

CBS Corp. has spoken: When it comes to making its reality hit “Survivor” available for downloading, iTunes has been voted off the island.

The company announced Wednesday that it was experimenting with cutting out the Internet middlemen by offering downloads of its popular show for $1.99 an episode on its own website, CBS.com. The service is to be launched tonight, immediately after the show airs on the West Coast.

CBS would be the first broadcast network to sell its shows via its own Internet storefront. The move signals that CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves believes the network is a potent enough brand that it can go it alone — without Apple Computer Inc.’s popular iTunes software and website — and thus not have to split the spoils.

Network executives cautioned that the experiment, allowing buyers to view episodes of “Survivor” for just 24 hours after buying them, did not rule out the possibility that CBS later could strike a deal with Apple, which sells popular shows such as ABC’s “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives” for $1.99 an episode.

Expiration after 24 hours. Sigh. How many repititions of this scenario do we have to see before content providers understand that the paid delivery mechanics can’t under any circumstances be inferior to the free delivery mechanics?
And the fucked up part is: if CBS gets tons of downloads, they’ll figure “The system works!” and not relax the 24-hour timebomb. If no one bothers to download the show, elements in management will go “See! This internet “down-loading” fad is just a bunch of hooey!” and they’ll just go along their merry way.

[Quote:]

The FBI today launched an investigation of the shooting of an apparently unarmed man by a San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy which was caught on videotape and broadcast.

“At our direction, the FBI today is opening an investigation,” said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for U.S. Atty. Debra Wong Yang, the highest ranking federal criminal justice official in Los Angeles. The Justice Department, through the FBI, has investigated some of the most flagrant instances of police misconduct in the last 10 years.

“All I can say about the investigation is that we are looking into potential civil rights violations. I cannot give any timetable for the investigation,” Mrozek said.

The man who was shot three times was an Air Force security officer who, according to the videotape and neighbors, told the deputy that he was in the military and “on your side.”

The videotape of the incident, which was shot on a residential Chino street about 10:30 p.m., was of poor quality, showing only a silhouette of the deputy and the face of the man who was shot — illuminated by the deputy’s flashlight.

But the tape appears to show the deputy opening fire as the man was trying to comply with the officer’s apparent order to stand up.

Senior Airman Elio Carrion, 21, had been riding as a passenger in a Corvette that was involved in a brief, high-speed chase with the deputy that reached speeds of 100 mph before the Corvette crashed into a fence, authorities said.

The videotape, shot by Chino resident Jose Luis Valdes, shows Carrion sprawled on the ground and repeatedly telling the deputy, “I’m on your side.”

The deputy then seems to shout, “Get up!” after which Carrion appears to lean forward.

“I’m going to get up, all right?” he says.

The deputy then fires his gun three or four times from about five feet away.

“Shut … up, you don’t get up …!” he shouts.

Moaning in pain, Carrion responds: “You told me to get up.”

And if you think that is fucked up, check out the video. The news guy spends several seconds of airtime providing a disclaimer due to the “extremely graphic” nature of the video, yet the video bleeps out the swear words.

They show a human being shot three times, but censor the “F- word”. Great priorities…

And then there’s this as well:

[Quote:]

Ruiz said he immediately turned a tape over to the Sheriff’s Department after the incident, but he has retained an attorney because of incidents that have happened since then.

Luis Carrillo, a South Pasadena attorney, said he’s helping Ruiz to make sure his rights are not violated. Carrillo said over a 12-hour period after the video tape was handed over to deputies, Ruiz was pulled over three times by officers.

“His whole vehicle gets searched. It was totally unnecessary,” Carrillo said.

[Quote:]

Tony Blair told President George Bush that he was “solidly” behind US plans to invade Iraq before he sought advice about the invasion’s legality and despite the absence of a second UN resolution, according to a new account of the build-up to the war published today.

A memo of a two-hour meeting between the two leaders at the White House on January 31 2003 – nearly two months before the invasion – reveals that Mr Bush made it clear the US intended to invade whether or not there was a second UN resolution and even if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons programme.