You will determine whether rage or reason guides the United States in the struggle to come. You will choose whether we are known for revenge or compassion. You will choose whether we, too, will kill in the name of God, or whether in His name, we can find a higher civilization and a better means of settling our differences. -- Wes Clark

www.clarkbuttons.com (did I mention they're free?)

There was a brief moment where Santos (the Dem) was going over a position or speech or something and he said, "That should say, 'Securing America's Future.'"

www.clarkbuttons.com (did I mention they're free?)

Brewster Jennings Protects America

http://www.brewsterjennings.com/

Remember playing "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego" as a kid?  Well now the new game Brewster Jennings Protects America brings this classic adventure into the 21st century by merging the game play with Google maps technology*.  In the web-based Brewster Jennings Protects America game you race around the globe as a government agent trying to  stop a deadly terror attack from taking place....

The story so far:  You are an undercover CIA agent claiming to work for the fictitious "Brewster Jennings & Associates" company.  You were just awoken at three in the morning by a phone call from The Chief telling you to report to your office immediately.  From what he told you it looks like a terrorist is set to attack today and you are the country's last and only hope.  Click "Start New Game".  It's time to save America.

Posted on the site...

Oh crap, here comes the Slashdotting..  The server probably won't be able to take the beating so if the game doesn't work now bookmark us and return in a few days time.  Sorry about that!

"One of the embarrassing problems for the early nineteenth-century champions of the Christian faith was that not one of the first six Presidents of the United States was an orthodox Christian."--The Encyclopedia Brittanica

CM is really hammering the administration...not letting the pundits on the Right get away with anything....very good...

Prosecutor, White House at Odds Over Libby

By LARRY MARGASAK and PETE YOST, Associated Press Writers
Sun Oct 30, 7:27 AM ET
 
WASHINGTON - The prosecution's conclusion: Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff zealously pursued information about a critic who said the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to make the case for war. The view of the president and vice president: I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is a dedicated public servant who has worked tirelessly on behalf of his country.

~SNIP~

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald drew his detailed portrait of Libby based on a two-year investigation that pulled dozens of witnesses in for questioning, including President Bush and Cheney.

~SNIP~

In 1992, Libby and former  Pentagon deputy Paul Wolfowitz wrote a paper favoring the use of pre-emptive force to prevent countries from developing weapons of mass destruction. The paper later won praise from the neoconservative Project for the New American Century, which called it "a blueprint for maintaining U.S. pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival."

Notwithstanding Fitzgerald's insistence Friday that the criminal case is not about Iraq, he probably will seek to cast Libby as an architect of the U.S.-led invasion, said Scott Fredericksen, a former prosecutor who now represents white-collar defendants.

~SNIP~ 

Fitzgerald summed up the charges:

"At the end of the day what appears is that Mr. Libby's story that he was at the tail end of a chain of phone calls, passing on from one reporter what he heard from another, was not true. It was false. He was at the beginning of the chain of phone calls, the first official to disclose this information outside the government to a reporter. And then he lied about it afterward, under oath and repeatedly."

Libby's case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, nominated by Bush in 2001.

              A lot of WH spin in the full article.

Blackwell’s Un-American Scheme:
 
Under the Guise of “Character and Civic Renewal”
Ohio State Foists a Religious Moral Code upon Its Citizens

"One of the embarrassing problems for the early nineteenth-century champions of the Christian faith was that not one of the first six Presidents of the United States was an orthodox Christian."--The Encyclopedia Brittanica

has the news (how did he get it? I ask) that Fitz wants Cheney as a witness in the Libby trial in open court. Anybody thinking about Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men? I so want this to happen in open court, but the WH is fighting it with executive privilege. If Cheney witnessed or was part of a crime, how does he get excused? That's the question.
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash6fi.htm

October 24, 2005 
Whistleblower Has Elite Interests Running Scared
 
by Christian Nicholson
 
If people know of Sibel Edmonds at all, they know her as an FBI whistleblower. Since mid-2002, her face has graced newspapers across America; she's testified before numerous senators and had her deposition subpoenaed by family members of 9/11 victims; as late as September 2005, Vanity Fair devoted 11 pages to her. Yet almost no one can tell you what she has to say. Like a star in a silent movie, Edmonds has been cast as the heroine in a legal drama whose details are obscure.

That's because Sibel Edmonds is the most gagged person in the history of the United States, at least according to her ACLU lawyers. If gag orders were nickels, she'd be rich. Since her dismissal from the FBI in March 2002, Edmonds has borne the burden of state censorship with relative aplomb, working constantly within the law to make her story heard. After she gave a brief spate of interviews, John Ashcroft invoked the "state secrets" privilege, silencing her before the press and denying Edmonds her day in court. Apparently, her lawsuit involves secrets so secret that not even Edmonds' lawyers are allowed to know the reasons why her case cannot be tried. Aside from an independent investigator, the Supreme Court is her only remaining option, and the Court will decide whether or not to hear her case in mid-October.

~SNIP~ .... long article

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/nicholson.php?articleid=7738

is sad. This business has aged him.

Bob Woodward, Lost in Cronyism? by Larry Johnson

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/10/30/22044/596

"Can I just say something straight-up here?

Having Ann Coulter on your network debating the "meaning" of the Fitzgerald investigation isn't relevant. It isn't useful. It's like watching a dog crap to music. There's some percentage of the country that would probably tune in to that too, but it doesn't make it "news" or even "analysis"."..........more

http://www.dailykos.com/

Our 20-week old Halloween kitten (BeeBee, who we adopted sight-unseen, all black) has recovered from her declaw/spay/chipping and is back to being Little Monster alternating with Lap Kitty. 

She didn't ask to be born, literally in a barn, in a world with too many kittens.  She was just being feline when at 3 weeks, she bit the farmer & was brought to the vet for euthanasia.  Fortunately the vet made her a clinic kitty (entertaining the patients) for 8 weeks until my sister-in-law adopted her, unaware that her Greyhounds (they adopt slow ones) saw just a snack.  So she's ours now, and Big Brother Toivo (5-year old male cat, the name means "hope" in Finnish) is very patient playing with his new little sister.  When exhausted, he sits & twitches his tail, which is attacked relentlessly. 

She has virtually no control over her life.  She's stuck in a cage and hauled somewhere where she might be killed, spayed, or given a warm, 3-story big cage where there's good food, playmates, birds to watch through the windows, and warm laps. 

Do we control our lives more than BeeBee?  Sometimes, sometimes not.  And the "sometimes not" is usually a choice in itself.  

 We make choices for BeeBee, hopefully for our mutual benefit.  I wish our leaders' choices were so motivated.

Is it me, or am misinterpreting of what the spin pundits are analyzing about Fitzgeralds' analogy to baseball?  As special prosecutor, Fitz was the umpire. But Libby, wasn't the pitcher, imo

Fitz (umpire) has not have made the final call (charges);  but he's trying to assess (investigate) the 'play, esp against pitcher (ie Rove, aka "Official A"), since sand was thrown in his face.

------------------------------ 

Pitcher: Karl Rove

Batter: Robert Novak 

Umpire: Patrick Fitzgerald

Pitching Coach: VP Dick Cheney

Coach: President Bush

General Manager: Condi Rice 

Ball Boy (tossing sand):  "Scooter" Libby

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

"Debate, Dialogue, Discussion, Disagreement - that's not wrong -that's not unpatriotic, that's one of the highest forms of patriotism and love of country, and we need to say it!" - Gen. Wesley Clark (US Ret.)

Cheney staffer-turned-reporter now covering Libby indictment for NBC News

Over at the Huffington Post, Dan Carol asks a great question: how can NBC's Pete Williams be allowed to cover the Scooter Libby story for the network, considering Williams was a longtime former staffer for Dick Cheney?

That's right – according to Williams' biography on NBC's website, Williams is "a native of Casper, Wyoming" – where Cheney is from. In 1986, Williams "joined the Washington, DC staff of then Congressman Dick Cheney as press secretary and a legislative assistant. In 1989, when Cheney was named Assistant Secretary of Defense, Williams was appointed Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs."

Now Williams is being allowed to report on the indictment of Cheney's chief of staff for NBC News, as if he was just a regular old nonpartisan objective journalist. And, as Carol points out, Williams seems to be using his position on TV in some pretty questionable ways when it comes to the case.

UPDATE: I received a hysterical, breathless email from a well-known NBC reporter complaining about the fact that I raised questions about Williams' objectivity. He whined that I am overlooking "14 years of spotless, impartial work for NBC News" by Williams. But as I told him, here's the deal: Dick Cheney's former longtime flack is reporting for NBC on a scandal surrounding Dick Cheney. If you can't see the conflict there...well, then the media really has bigger problems than even I had originally thought. Regardless of Williams' previous reporting (which has been fine), this is about as blatant a conflict-of-interest as you can get. It's one thing for him to be reporting on the Bush administration in general, despite being a former Republican flack. But it is quite another for him to be reporting directly on a scandal surrounding his longtime former boss. It's right out of Journalism 101 in terms of what not to allow. Period. Not only has Dan Carol raised questions about it, but so has the New York Times, and plenty of others. The media is quick to demand politicians recuse themselves from any situation that even appears to look like a conflict of interest. But when the public asks the same of the media - surprise surprise - the media goes and cries. Pathetic.

http://tinyurl.com/88z4b
 

Posted by David Sirota at 10:28 AM | Link
categories: Media Bias/Idiocy

A Grass-Roots Group Is Helping Hurricane Survivors Help Themselves
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL

HOUSTON, Oct. 30 - With Hurricane Rita bearing down on this city of refuge packed with survivors of Hurricane Katrina, a tense drama played out last month at the Reliant Arena, where hundreds of families from New Orleans, concentrated from the Astrodome and other shelters, were once again facing emergency evacuation.

Relief officials were lining them up for trips to yet other shelters as far afield as Fort Chaffee, Ark., when the officials ran into a storm of their own: a demand that vacant houses and apartments in secure inland areas be made available instead.

The agitation worked. Housing priority lists were hurriedly revised. Buses and taxis carried many families from the arena to their new homes around town.

And the Metropolitan Organization counted another victory. "As long as they're American citizens, they're not going to be forced to go to Arkansas," said Renee Wizig-Barrios, the group's lead organizer, who played a central role in the standoff.

In the two months since Hurricane Katrina hit, the Metropolitan Organization, a group of professional organizers affiliated with the Industrial Areas Foundation, a grass-roots network founded by the Chicago radical Saul D. Alinsky, has been busy sowing nonpartisan political activism and mobilizing survivors to champion their own interests in resettlement and rebuilding decisions.

Early on, with at least a quarter-million people finding refuge in the Houston area alone, it helped organize evacuees in the Astrodome, winning a playground for children and secure areas for the elderly. It persuaded the Federal Communications Commission to maintain evacuees' cellphone service even if they fell behind in their bills.

It held a seat on the emergency planning council convened by Houston and Harris County officials to cope with the disaster. And despite the challenges of organizing evacuees dispersed around the country, it is trying to collect 50,000 signatures on a petition setting forth reconstruction goals to influence the New Orleans election for mayor early next year.

"T.M.O. has been a great source of grass-roots wisdom on a variety of issues," said Mayor Bill White of Houston, who invited Mrs. Wizig-Barrios to attend the daily strategy sessions on disaster planning. "It was natural to look to them to be part of overall community efforts."

Mayor White said "there was only one particular time we weren't on the same page": the confrontation at Reliant Arena. But "it was an isolated case," he said, and "we don't mind a level of accountability."

The Metropolitan Organization, active for 25 years in Houston, has toned down the confrontational playbook applied by Mr. Alinsky and his followers in the Depression-ravaged 1930's and the revolutionary 1960's. Today, organizers seek alliances with partners like religious groups, schools and unions, while identifying and grooming local leadership.

"The iron rule in organizing is, 'Don't do for people what they can do for themselves,' " Broderick Bagert, one of the group's organizers, said at a meeting at a church last month that brought survivors of Hurricane Katrina face to face with public officials.

One woman from New Orleans, Sandra Nelson, was blunt. "Y'all just received $40 billion," Ms. Nelson said to a chorus of approving hoots from the audience that quickly turned to laughter. "My question is, 'Where's that money?' "

Others wanted to know why evacuees were being offered housing, often in decrepit areas, on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. "I don't want my son to fight and duck bullets," said Deborah Brown, who wore a cap with a T.M.O. button. "I want a choice where I live."

Helping to lead the gathering was one of the first evacuees chosen for leadership, Linda Jeffers, a former New Orleans businesswoman who ran a company called Leg Work, which guided citizens through the governmental bureaucracy.

Plucked from the roof of her flooded house by neighbors in a purloined boat, Ms. Jeffers had landed in the Astrodome when the Metropolitan Organization called for volunteers. She ended up as a rallying presence for her fellow survivors. "We got some opportunities here - I don't want to say problems," she told the officials at the church.

Stoked by anger over bungled relief efforts, similar organizing efforts are under way in Louisiana and other states where evacuees are concentrated.

"This gives us an opportunity to show what we can do," Ernesto Cortes Jr., the southwest regional director for the Industrial Areas Foundation, said at a strategy session several weeks ago in Los Angeles. "We want to shape the political dialogue."

Sister Christine Stephens, a Roman Catholic nun with the Congregation of the Sisters of Divine Providence of San Antonio, and the foundation's lead organizer for Louisiana and Texas, said: "Katrina has ripped the mask off of major cities so that people can understand the need for health care, the need for education. Katrina has opened up a conversation that, before, many people were not willing to have."

After the session, organizers fanned out to their districts. In a recent meeting in another Houston church, the Rev. Rodney Armstrong, a Roman Catholic priest from the refinery area around Baytown, was going through his litany - a litany of complaints about the runaround hurricane survivors were getting - when Mrs. Wizig-Barrios cut him off.

"What do you want to do about it, Father?" she said.

Father Armstrong wanted the federal government held accountable, he said. "Somebody should --" He got no further.

"How about you?" she said, recruiting him to arrange a meeting with a local congressman.

Anger had its place, but it had to be channeled, Mrs. Wizig-Barrios said: "We take our anger and figure out how we can make things better."

Bill Dawson contributed reporting from Houston for this article, and Ron Soble from Los Angeles.

http://tinyurl.com/bjmtw

Not going to apologise for the length of this article because it is so uplifting to see people take a stand and make a difference.

Did you know that Michael Brown is still on their payroll?

Why?

Let's hope Judge Reggie Walton will not be available to try Scooter when the time comes.  Maybe he will want to "spend more time with his family"???

This reporter is not exactly complimentary

snip.......

"The White House leak scandal has put some other sites on the map even though they lack Ms. Huffington's name recognition. Steven C. Clemons, a fellow at the New America Foundation, drew a fair amount of cross-linking to his blog, the Washington Note (thewashingtonnote.com), with reliable coverage throughout the affair. So too did the group blog FireDogLake (firedoglake.blogspot.com), which drew nearly 200 comments in just 90 minutes after a post about the news conference held by the special prosecutor in the leak case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Friday afternoon. And with some original reporting on the affair last week, the JustOneMinute blog, run by Tom Maguire (justoneminute.typepad.com), was identified by Technorati as an "aggregation point" for chatter on the topic."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/31/technology/31blog.html

great to start the day with further info from Ms and Jackie's terrific photos of the LA event.  Loved Wes's comments on media coverage--Thanks, Ms!

I wonder if someone would care to play the Newt-role re the current situation as if the administration was Democratic.  In other words, what do we suppose the Repugs would be saying if the same series of events, lies and bungles had occurred under Democrats.  (Not that they would or could, mind you--I hope.)  Would this exercise help the Dems to sharpen their message, ya think?

The General gets it right. Competence--What a concept!

"In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies."

-- Gregory S. Paul, in the Journal of Religion & Society

"One of the embarrassing problems for the early nineteenth-century champions of the Christian faith was that not one of the first six Presidents of the United States was an orthodox Christian."--The Encyclopedia Brittanica

A worm found spreading via America Online's Instant Messenger is carrying a nastier punch than usual, a security company has warned.

The unnamed worm delivers a cocktail of unwanted software, including a so-called rootkit, security experts at FaceTime Communications said Friday. A rootkit is a tool designed to go undetected by the security software used to lock down control of a computer after an initial hack.

"A very nasty bundle is downloaded to your machine" when you click on the worm link, said Tyler Wells, senior director of engineering at FaceTime. "This is the first time that we have seen a rootkit as part of the bundle of applications that is sent to your machine. It is a disturbing trend."

IM worm and malicious code attacks are happening more than ever before. The number of threats detected for instant-messaging and peer-to-peer networks rose 3,295 percent in the third quarter of 2005, compared with last year, according to a recent report from security provider IMlogic.

In addition to the "lockx.exe" rootkit file, the new worm delivers a version of the Sdbot Trojan horse, said FaceTime, which sells products to protect instant-messaging traffic. Sdbot opens a backdoor on the infected PC. The worm also places several spyware and adware applications, including 180Solutions, Zango, the Freepod Toolbar, MaxSearch, Media Gateway and SearchMiracle, the company added.

All that unwanted software can eat up system resources, slowing down the PC, Wells said. Also, the malicious applications will attempt to disable security programs and change the search page on the user's Web browser, FaceTime said.

 The worm was spotted in an AOL IM chatroom and infected one of the PCs that FaceTime uses for worm bait. The company said it also has seen the pest hit other computers. "It is still out there, and it is definitely something the user should be leery of," Wells said. "The rootkit is designed to not be detected, and that is the scary part."

Worms on IM networks can spread rapidly. They appear as a message from a buddy with a link that looks innocent, but in fact points to malicious code somewhere on the Internet. Once the user clicks on the link, malicious code is installed and runs on the computer. The worm then spreads itself by sending messages to all names on the victim's contact list.

The advice to users is to be careful when clicking on links in IM messages--even when they seem to come from friends--and to use up-to-date antivirus software. When receiving a link in an instant message, the best practice is to verify with the sender if the link was sent intentionally or not.

"One of the embarrassing problems for the early nineteenth-century champions of the Christian faith was that not one of the first six Presidents of the United States was an orthodox Christian."--The Encyclopedia Brittanica

President Bush to nominate 3rd Circuit Appeals Court Judge Samuel Alito to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, sources tell CNN.

Good Morning WesPeople!

By RON FOURNIER, AP Political Writer 39 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - President Bush, stung by the rejection of his first choice, will nominate Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, selecting a conservative federal judge to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a moderate. The choice, confirmed by two senior Republican official, was likely to spark a political brawl. Unlike the nomination of Harriet Miers, which was derailed by Bush's conservative allies, Alito will face opposition from liberal Democrats.

More...

Raw story says he is called Scalito because of his conservatism.  

http://www.walmartmovie.com/

"One of the embarrassing problems for the early nineteenth-century champions of the Christian faith was that not one of the first six Presidents of the United States was an orthodox Christian."--The Encyclopedia Brittanica

55% in Survey Say Libby Case Signals Broader Problems

(More here)

to be up and about.  He's stumbling and bumbling all over his script to announce Judge Alito to the Supreme Court.  He sounds like such a doofus!  How embarrassing!!!