Saturday, November 26, 2005
VIRGIN MARY SEZ: FASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS
Believers Flock to 'Crying' Virgin Mary
SACRAMENTO, Calif., Associated Press - Carrying rosary beads and cameras, the faithful have been coming in a steady stream to a church on the outskirts of Sacramento for a glimpse of what some are calling a miracle: A statue of the Virgin Mary they say has begun crying a substance that looks like blood.
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It was first noticed more than a week ago, when a priest at the Vietnamese Catholic Martyrs Church spotted a stain on the statue's face and wiped it away. Before Mass on Nov. 20, people again noticed a reddish substance near the eyes of the white concrete statue outside the small church, said Ky Truong, 56, a parishioner.
Since then, Truong said he has been at the church day and night, so emotional he can't even work. He believes the tears are a sign.
"There's a big event in the future — earthquake, flood, a disease," Truong said. "We're very sad."
On Saturday, tables in front of the fenced-in statue were jammed with potted plants, bouquets of roses and candles. Some people prayed silently, while others sang hymns and hugged their children. An elderly woman in a wheelchair wept near the front of the crowd.
A red trail could be seen from the side of the statue's left eye to about halfway down the robe of concrete.
"I think that it's incredible. It's a miracle. Why is she doing it? Is it something bothering her?" asked Maria Vasquez, 35, who drove with her parents and three children from Stockton, about 50 miles south of Sacramento.
Thousands of such incidents are reported around the world each year, though many turn out to be hoaxes or natural phenomena.
The Diocese of Sacramento has so far not commented on the statue, and the two priests affiliated with the church did not return a telephone message Saturday.
The Rev. James Murphy, deacon of the diocese's mother church, the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, said church leaders are always skeptical at first.
"For people individually seeing things through the eyes of faith, something like this can be meaningful. As for whether it is supernatural or a miracle, normally these incidences are not. Miracles are possible, of course," Murphy said. "The bishop is just waiting and seeing what happens. They will be moving very slowly."
But seeing the statue in person left no doubt for Martin Operario, 60, who drove about 100 miles from Hayward. He took photos to show to family and friends.
"I don't know how to express what I'm feeling," Operario said. "Since religion is the mother of believing, then I believe."
Nuns Anna Bui and Rosa Hoang, members of the Salesian Sisters of San Francisco, also made the trek Saturday. Whether the weeping statue is declared a miracle or not, they said, it is already doing good by awakening people to the faith and reminding them to pray.
"It's a call for us to change ourselves, to love one another," Hoang said.Friday, November 25, 2005
GLOBAL WARMING JUST A "NATURAL CYCLE"? THINK AGAIN!
Study: More CO2 Now Than Past 650K Years
WASHINGTON, Associated Press - Scientists are looking back to a time when "greenhouse gases" were not the problem they are today, and it is giving them a clearer picture of how people are making it worse.
A team of European researchers analyzed tiny air bubbles preserved in Antarctic ice for millennia and determined there is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now than at any point during the last 650,000 years.
The study by the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica, published Friday in the journal Science, promises to spur "dramatically improved understanding" of climate change, said geosciences specialist Edward Brook of Oregon State University.
Today, scientists directly measure levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which accumulate in the atmosphere as a result of fuel-burning and other processes. Those gases help trap solar heat, like the greenhouses for which they are named, resulting in a gradual warming of the planet.
Those measurements are disturbing: Levels of carbon dioxide have climbed from 280 parts per million two centuries ago to 380 ppm today. Earth's average temperature, meanwhile, increased about 1 degree Fahrenheit in recent decades, a relatively rapid rise. Many climate specialists warn that continued warming could have severe impacts, such as rising sea levels and changing rainfall patterns.
Skeptics sometimes dismiss the rise in greenhouse gases as part of a naturally fluctuating cycle. The new study provides ever-more definitive evidence countering that view, however.
Deep Antarctic ice encases tiny air bubbles formed when snowflakes fell over hundreds of thousands of years. Extracting the air allows a direct measurement of the atmosphere at past points in time, to determine the naturally fluctuating range.
A previous ice-core sample had traced greenhouse gases back about 440,000 years. This new sample, from East Antarctica, goes 210,000 years further back in time.
Today's still rising level of carbon dioxide already is 27 percent higher than its peak during all those millennia, said lead researcher Thomas Stocker of the University of Bern, Switzerland.
"We are out of that natural range today," he said.
Moreover, that rise is occurring at a speed that "is over a factor of a hundred faster than anything we are seeing in the natural cycles," Stocker added. "It puts the present changes in context."
The team, which included scientists from France and Germany, found similar results for methane, another greenhouse gas.
Researchers also compared the gas levels to the Antarctic temperature over that time period, covering eight cycles of alternating glacial or ice ages and warm periods. They found a stable pattern: Lower levels of gases during cold periods and higher levels during warm periods.
The bottom line: "There's no natural condition that we know about in a really long time where the greenhouse gas levels were anywhere near what they are now. And these studies tell us that there's a strong relationship between temperature and greenhouse gases," said Oregon State's Brook. "Which logically leads you to the conclusion that maybe we should worry about temperature change in the future."
A lengthening history of greenhouse gas concentrations should help climate specialists build better models about what the future might bring, Stocker said. It also may help answer additional questions such as how long ago humans started influencing greenhouse gas accumulations, and what impact other factors such as ocean currents play in the complexities of climate change.
Just a decade ago, scientists weren't sure it was possible to trace greenhouse gas concentrations back so far in ice. Now, Brook is part of another international research team preparing to hunt an ice-core sample dating back a million years or more, hoping to reach eras when Earth's temperature was significantly warmer.
___
On the Web:
Science: http://www.sciencemag.orgFriday, November 25, 2005
ONE WORLD - AGAINST 'THEM'
Former Canadian Minister Of Defence Asks Canadian Parliament Asked To Hold Hearings On Relations With Alien "ET" Civilizations
OTTAWA, CANADA (PRWEB) November 24, 2005 -- A former Canadian Minister of Defence and Deputy Prime Minister under Pierre Trudeau has joined forces with three Non-governmental organizations to ask the Parliament of Canada to hold public hearings on Exopolitics -- relations with “ETs.”
By “ETs,” Mr. Hellyer and these organizations mean ethical, advanced extraterrestrial civilizations that may now be visiting Earth.
On September 25, 2005, in a startling speech at the University of Toronto that caught the attention of mainstream newspapers and magazines, Paul Hellyer, Canada’s Defence Minister from 1963-67 under Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Prime Minister Lester Pearson, publicly stated: "UFOs, are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head."
Mr. Hellyer went on to say, "I'm so concerned about what the consequences might be of starting an intergalactic war, that I just think I had to say something."
Hellyer revealed, "The secrecy involved in all matters pertaining to the Roswell incident was unparalled. The classification was, from the outset, above top secret, so the vast majority of U.S. officials and politicians, let alone a mere allied minister of defence, were never in-the-loop."
Hellyer warned, "The United States military are preparing weapons which could be used against the aliens, and they could get us into an intergalactic war without us ever having any warning. He stated, "The Bush administration has finally agreed to let the military build a forward base on the moon, which will put them in a better position to keep track of the goings and comings of the visitors from space, and to shoot at them, if they so decide."
Hellyer’s speech ended with a standing ovation. He said, "The time has come to lift the veil of secrecy, and let the truth emerge, so there can be a real and informed debate, about one of the most important problems facing our planet today."
Three Non-governmental organizations took Hellyer’s words to heart, and approached Canada’s Parliament in Ottawa, Canada’s capital, to hold public hearings on a possible ET presence, and what Canada should do. The Canadian Senate, which is an appointed body, has held objective, well-regarded hearings and issued reports on controversial issues such as same-sex marriage and medical marijuana,
On October 20, 2005, the Institute for Cooperation in Space requested Canadian Senator Colin Kenny, Senator, Chair of The Senate Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, “schedule public hearings on the Canadian Exopolitics Initiative, so that witnesses such as the Hon. Paul Hellyer, and Canadian-connected high level military-intelligence, NORAD-connected, scientific, and governmental witnesses facilitated by the Disclosure Project and by the Toronto Exopolitics Symposium can present compelling evidence, testimony, and Public Policy recommendations.”
The Non-governmental organizations seeking Parliament hearings include Canada-based Toronto Exopolitics Symposium, which organized the University of Toronto Symposium at which Mr. Hellyer spoke.
The Disclosure Project, a U.S.– based organization that has assembled high level military-intelligence witnesses of a possible ET presence, is also one of the organizations seeking Canadian Parliament hearings.
Vancouver-based Institute for Cooperation in Space (ICIS), whose International Director headed a proposed 1977 Extraterrestrial Communication Study for the White House of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who himself has publicly reported a 1969 Close Encounter of the First Kind with a UFO, filed the original request for Canadian Parliament hearings.
The Canadian Exopolitics Initiative, presented by the organizations to a Senate Committee panel hearing in Winnipeg, Canada, on March 10, 2005, proposes that the Government of Canada undertake a Decade of Contact.
The proposed Decade of Contact is “a 10-year process of formal, funded public education, scientific research, educational curricula development and implementation, strategic planning, community activity, and public outreach concerning our terrestrial society’s full cultural, political, social, legal, and governmental communication and public interest diplomacy with advanced, ethical Off-Planet cultures now visiting Earth.”
Canada has a long history of opposing the basing of weapons in Outer Space. On September 22, 2004 Canadian
Prime Minister Paul Martin declared to the U.N. General Assembly,” "Space is our final frontier. It has always captured our imagination. What a tragedy it would be if space became one big weapons arsenal and the scene of a new arms race.
Martin stated, "In 1967, the
United Nations agreed that weapons of mass
destruction must not be based in space. The time has come to extend this ban to all weapons..."
In May, 2003, speaking before the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada Lloyd Axworthy, stated “Washington's offer to Canada is not an invitation to join America under a protective shield, but it presents a global security doctrine that violates Canadian values on many levels."
Axworthy concluded, “There should be an uncompromising commitment to preventing the placement of weapons in space.”
On February 24, 2005, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin made official Canada's decision not to take part in the U.S government’s Ballistic Missile Defence program.
Paul Hellyer, who now seeks Canadian Parliament hearings on relations with ETs, on May 15, 2003, stated in Toronto’s Globe & Mail newspaper, “Canada should accept the long-standing invitation of U.S. Congressman
Dennis Kucinich of Ohio to launch a conference to seek approval of an international treaty to ban weapons in space. That would be a positive Canadian contribution toward a more peaceful world.”
In early November 2005, the Canadian Senate wrote ICIS, indicating the Senate Committee could not hold hearings on ETs in 2005, because of their already crowded schedule.
“That does not deter us,” one spokesperson for the Non-governmental organizations said, “We are going ahead with our request to Prime Minister Paul Martin and the official opposition leaders in the House of Commons now, and we will re-apply with the Senate of Canada in early 2006.
“Time is on the side of open disclosure that there are ethical Extraterrestrial civilizations visiting Earth,” The spokesperson stated. “Our Canadian government needs to openly address these important issues of the possible deployment of weapons in outer war plans against ethical ET societies.”
Word Count: [1011
Canadian Exopolitics Initiative
http://www.peaceinspace.net
Click here to send your letter to the Parliament of Canada requesting public “ET” Hearings
http://exopolitics.blogs.com/star_dreams_initiative/2005/10/the_senate_of_c.html
CONTACT NOW:
Toronto, Canada: Victor Viggiani, Exopolitics Toronto Symposium
Tel: 905-278-5628
http://www.exopoliticstoronto.com
Winnipeg, Canada: Randy Kitchur
Tel: 204-582-4424
Washington, D.C.: Dr. Steven Greer, The Disclosure Project
Tel: (540) 456-8302 (Office)
http://www.disclosureproject.org
Vancouver, Canada: Alfred Lambremont Webre, JD, MEd
ICIS-Institute for Cooperation in Space
Tel: 604-733-8134
http://www.peaceinspace.net
###
ICIS
Alfred Webre
604-733-8134
E-mail InformationThursday, November 24, 2005
DAY OF THE BIOMACHINES IS COMING
Bacteria Can Take Pictures of Themselves
SAN FRANCISCO, Associated Press - The notorious E. coli bug made its film debut Wednesday. That's when researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and the University of Texas announced in the journal Nature that they had created photographs of themselves by programming the bacteria — best known for outbreaks of food poisoning — to make pictures in much the same way Kodak film produces images.
It's the latest advance in "synthetic biology," a disputed research movement launched largely by engineers and chemists bent on genetically manipulating microscopic bugs into acting like tiny machines, creating new, powerful and inexpensive ways to make drugs, plastics and even alternatives to fossil fuel.
The field seeks to go beyond traditional genetic engineering feats where a single gene is spliced into bacteria and other cells to manufacture drugs. Synthetic biologists are trying to create complex systems that function as logically and reliably as computers.
Mainstream biologists, however, scoff that biology — life itself — is too unpredictable and prone to genetic mutation to understand, let alone tame and turn into miniature factories.
Bioethicists, meanwhile, fret that synthetic biologists are attempting to create new living creatures and are inventing technology that can readily be used by terrorists.
Still, a growing number of engineers are jumping into the nascent field, whose chief goals include breaking down microbes and other living things into smaller components and reassembling those parts into useful machines.
"There is kind of a hacker culture behind all of this," said Chris Voigt, a University of California, San Francisco researcher who, at 29, was the senior author on the bacteria-as-film paper in Nature.
Voigt and colleagues took from algae light-sensitive genes that emit black compounds and spliced them into a batch of E. coli bacteria. The organisms were then spread on a petri dish that resembles a cookie sheet and placed in an incubator. A high-powered projector cast photographic images of the researchers through a hole on top of the incubator, exposing some of the bacteria to light.
The result: Ghostly images like traditional black-and-white photographs of the researchers responsible for the invention, at a resolution Voigt said was about 100 megapixels, or 10 times sharper than high-end printers.
The work, though, isn't intended for commercial markets.
"They aren't going to put Kodak out of business any time soon," said Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Drew Endy, a leading synthetic biologist.
Instead, the creation will be used as a sensor to start and stop more complex genetic engineering experiments. The idea is to create a genetically engineered cell that lays dormant until a laser is shined on it, prompting it into action.
Such an accomplishment would add to the growing success of a field that is making strides around the world, in such projects as:
_Scientists in
Israel made the world's smallest computer by engineering DNA to carry out mathematical functions.
_J. Craig Venter, the entrepreneurial scientist who mapped the human genome and launched the Rockville, Md.-based research institute named after himself, is attempting to create novel organisms that can produce alternative fuels.
_With a $42.6 million grant that originated at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Berkeley researchers are engineering the E. coli bug with genes from the wormwood plant and yeast to create a new malaria drug.
Even as they wrestle with scientific hurdles like controlling genetic mutations, thorny ethical issues are cropping up.
It's cheap and easy to buy individual genes online. They cost about $1 each, down from the $18 apiece charged just a few years ago. Researchers last year created a synthetic polio virus by simply stitching together these mail-order genes.
National security experts and even synthetic biologists themselves are concerned that rogue scientists could create new biological weapons — like deadly viruses that lack natural foes. They also worry about innocent mistakes: organisms that could potentially create havoc if allowed to reproduce outside the lab.
Researchers are casting about for ways to self-police the field before it really takes off. Leaders in the field have organized a second national conference to grapple with these issues this coming May and the Arthur P. Sloan Foundation in June handed out a $570,000 grant to study the social implications of the new field.
"This is powerful work and we live in an age that many tools and technologies can be turned into weaponry," said Laurie Zoloth, a bioethicist at Northwestern University. "You always have the problem of dual-use in every new technology. Steel can be used to make sewing needles or spears."Thursday, November 24, 2005
FUCKTHESOUTH.COM
Fuck the South. Fuck 'em. We should have let them go when they wanted to leave. But no, we had to kill half a million people so they'd stay part of our special Union. Fighting for the right to keep slaves - yeah, those are states we want to keep.
And now what do we get? We're the fucking Arrogant Northeast Liberal Elite? How about this for arrogant: the South is the Real America? The Authentic America. Really?
Cause we fucking founded this country, assholes. Those Founding Fathers you keep going on and on about? All that bullshit about what you think they meant by the Second Amendment giving you the right to keep your assault weapons in the glove compartment because you didn't bother to read the first half of the fucking sentence? Who do you think those wig-wearing lacy-shirt sporting revolutionaries were? They were fucking blue-staters, dickhead. Boston? Philadelphia? New York? Hello? Think there might be a reason all the fucking monuments are up here in our backyard?
No, No. Get the fuck out. We're not letting you visit the Liberty Bell and fucking Plymouth Rock anymore until you get over your real American selves and start respecting those other nine amendments. Who do you think those fucking stripes on the flag are for? Nine are for fucking blue states. And it would be 10 if those Vermonters had gotten their fucking Subarus together and broken off from New York a little earlier. Get it? We started this shit, so don't get all uppity about how real you are you Johnny-come-lately "Oooooh I've been a state for almost a hundred years" dickheads. Fuck off.
Arrogant? You wanna talk about us Northeasterners being fucking arrogant? What's more American than arrogance? Hmmm? Maybe horsies? I don't think so. Arrogance is the fucking cornerstone of what it means to be American. And I wouldn't be so fucking arrogant if I wasn't paying for your fucking bridges, bitch.
All those Federal taxes you love to hate? It all comes from us and goes to you, so shut up and enjoy your fucking Tennessee Valley Authority electricity and your fancy highways that we paid for. And the next time Florida gets hit by a hurricane you can come crying to us if you want to, but you're the ones who built on a fucking swamp. "Let the Spanish keep it, it’s a shithole," we said, but you had to have your fucking orange juice.
The next dickwad who says, "It’s your money, not the government's money" is gonna get their ass kicked. Nine of the ten states that get the most federal fucking dollars and pay the least... can you guess? Go on, guess. That’s right, motherfucker, they're red states. And eight of the ten states that receive the least and pay the most? It’s too easy, asshole, they’re blue states. It’s not your money, assholes, it’s fucking our money. What was that Real American Value you were spouting a minute ago? Self reliance? Try this for self reliance: buy your own fucking stop signs, assholes.
Let’s talk about those values for a fucking minute. You and your Southern values can bite my ass because the blue states got the values over you fucking Real Americans every day of the goddamn week. Which state do you think has the lowest divorce rate you marriage-hyping dickwads? Well? Can you guess? It’s fucking Massachusetts, the fucking center of the gay marriage universe. Yes, that’s right, the state you love to tie around the neck of anyone to the left of Strom Thurmond has the lowest divorce rate in the fucking nation. Think that’s just some aberration? How about this: 9 of the 10 lowest divorce rates are fucking blue states, asshole, and most are in the Northeast, where our values suck so bad. And where are the highest divorce rates? Care to fucking guess? 10 of the top 10 are fucking red-ass we're-so-fucking-moral states. And while Nevada is the worst, the Bible Belt is doing its fucking part.
But two guys making out is going to fucking ruin marriage for you? Yeah? Seems like you're ruining it pretty well on your own, you little bastards. Oh, but that's ok because you go to church, right? I mean you do, right? Cause we fucking get to hear about it every goddamn year at election time. Yes, we're fascinated by how you get up every Sunday morning and sing, and then you're fucking towers of moral superiority. Yeah, that's a workable formula. Maybe us fucking Northerners don't talk about religion as much as you because we're not so busy sinning, hmmm? Ever think of that, you self-righteous assholes? No, you're too busy erecting giant stone tablets of the Ten Commandments in buildings paid for by the fucking Northeast Liberal Elite. And who has the highest murder rates in the nation? It ain't us up here in the North, assholes.
Well this gravy train is fucking over. Take your liberal-bashing, federal-tax-leaching, confederate-flag-waving, holier-than-thou, hypocritical bullshit and shove it up your ass.
And no, you can't have your fucking convention in New York next time. Fuck off.Thursday, November 24, 2005
FUCK THE SOUTH
Definition of South, Southern Is Changing
CARY, N.C., Associated Press - The joke around here is that this town's name is really an acronym for "Containment Area for Relocated Yankees." As far as Vernon Yates is concerned, they haven't been contained well enough.
Nearly surrounded by pricey subdivisions, the cinderblock Yates Grocery and Farm Supply sells neither anymore. As if things weren't bad enough, style maven Martha Stewart has chosen this Raleigh suburb to build a signature neighborhood of houses designed after her homes in Maine and New York.
Holding court near a potbellied stove, the 69-year-old man in the suspenders and NASCAR shirt laments that his old customers have been replaced by fast-talking, SUV-driving Northerners who don't seem to be able to read a STOP sign.
"It's all gone," Yates, pausing for another spit of tobacco juice, says of the Southern town of his youth. "Everything is completely different from what it used to be."
Things are indeed changing in the South. And so is the notion of what it means to be "Southern."
In this most maligned and mused-upon of American regions, the term conjures a variety of images. Magnolias, front porch swings and sweet tea for some; football, stock cars and fried chicken for others; lynchings, burning crosses and civil rights marches for still others.
We've had the Solid South, the Old South and the New South.
But are we heading toward a "No South"?
As the South's population booms — projected to comprise 40 percent of the nation's population by 2030 — a new Associated Press-Ipsos poll finds that the percentage of people in the region identifying themselves as "Southerners" is slowly shrinking.
The AP-Ipsos poll conducted this past month found 63 percent of people living in the region identified themselves as Southerners. That mirrors a trend from a University of North Carolina analysis of polling data that found a decline of 7 percentage points on the same Southern identity question between 1991 to 2001, to 70 percent.
"Does it mean that being a Southerner no longer has any meaning? I don't think it does," says Larry Griffin, a sociologist at North Carolina who analyzed the AP polling data. "It just has a very different kind of meaning."
Are the qualities that have long been ascribed to the South really true anymore? Are Southerners really more hospitable than other Americans? Does family really count for more down South? Are depth of faith, loyalty to home, reverence for history and sense of place identifiably "Southern" traits?
The South has become "sort of like a lifestyle, rather than an identity anymore," James Cobb, author of the newly published "Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity," would argue. "The things now we would base Southern distinctiveness on are so ethereal."
And sometimes contradictory: In a region that once tried to break away from the Union, people are generally considered more patriotic than the rest of Americans; in a place where blacks were oppressed for hundreds of years, poll after poll shows them identifying themselves as "Southern" even more often than whites do.
"The South is a region of irony," says Bill Ferris, co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. "It's both un-American and deeply American."
New York City-born Bob Petrolino has lived in Raleigh for 30 years and has heard his share of snide remarks about "damned Yankees." When the local paper recently ran a landfill story with the headline "N.C. set to become Yankee dump," he fired off an angry letter wondering when we'd finally get beyond the Civil War references.
"I find a lot of people who are still fighting that war," the 71-year-old IBM retiree told the AP. "They still have that chip on their shoulder, like, `Hey, we would have been better off if you'd never come here.'"
About a third of the Southern residents responding to the AP poll say they were born outside the region. But of those born in and living in the South, only 77 percent choose to call themselves Southern.
William Andrew Johnson was born in Savannah, Ga., and lives just outside Charleston, S.C. — where the first shot of the Civil War was fired. But he rejects the label "Southerner."
Why? Because of the political baggage he associates with the term.
"I'm not a red-stater at all," says the 61-year-old retired investment banker from Mount Pleasant, whose family has been in the region since the 1800s. "You know how a Southerner defines `patriotic'? He supports any and every war."
So how do you measure patriotism?
Studies have found that people in the region enlist in the military out of proportion to their percentage of the overall population. But that could be as much a factor of economics or the predominance of military installations in the region as love of country.
And what about the so-called Bible Belt? Are Southerners really more religious than other Americans?
Church attendance figures compiled by David Olson, director of the American Church Research Project, show Southerners are much more likely than the average American to go to church — though, as a region, their Midwestern brethren have a slight edge. The Arbitron broadcast rating service finds that Southern dwellers are 48 percent more likely than people in the rest of the country to listen to religious radio programming.
And what of the closeness of extended families associated with the South?
Six of the states in the top 10 for highest divorce rates are in the South. And the Census Bureau recently reported that the South is home to 7 of the top 10 states with the highest percentages of out-of-wedlock births. (The Census counts Delaware and Maryland as Southern states.)
According to the AP poll, geographic Southerners appear to have a higher opinion of themselves than do others.
Of those asked whether Southerners were more courteous than other Americans, 55 percent of those living in the region said yes, while only 35 percent of non-Southerners felt that way. And non-Southerners have a much dimmer view of race relations in the region.
From the earliest days of the Union, social scientists say, the South emerged as a kind of "internal other."
"It became kind of like a negative subreference ... where any American problem or the worst American problems could always be identified with the South," says Cobb, a historian at the University of Georgia. This was the South of Jim Crow laws, bottom-of-the-list school test scores, the backwoods of "Deliverance."
Sometime in the 1970s, the region morphed into what author Fred Hobson called the "suddenly virtuous" South. Today, many of our notions about the South seem based on some long-gone reality. This is the South of country music lyrics, carefree Sunbelt retirement, schoolkids who answer "yes, ma'am."
The South is now the nation's most industrialized region; though traditional textile employment and the like has largely moved offshore, the region has attracted high-profile employers such as automakers. About three quarters of Southerners now live in metropolitan areas.
But if you're looking for the "real South," retired Dallas salesman Patrick Phillips says don't bother going to Charlotte, N.C., Birmingham, Ala., or even Atlanta, the presumptive capital of the New South. It's not there.
"I think the true Southerner is pretty much lost in the metropolitan area in today's time," says the 56-year-old Tulsa, Okla., native, who identifies himself as a Southerner. "I think you have to get off in the back roads of the Southern states to really get into it again."
The AP found that people who live in rural areas are much more likely than their urban and suburban counterparts to consider themselves Southern.
For novelist Cassandra King, who grew up on a southern Alabama peanut farm, the South will always be "the agrarian South of the hardworking, reddened-neck farm family."
"Southern identity," she says, "comes from the red clay or white sand or black dirt which produces our peanuts and corn and okra and field peas and sweet potatoes."
The region is still set apart by its poverty, and some old stereotypes hold water. Eight of the top 10 states with the highest percentages of mobile homes are in the South, as are nine of the states with the highest rates of adult toothlessness.
Other stereotypes are way off.
States with the highest percentage of households without indoor plumbing? Six of the top 10 are in the West and Northeast. And while you can marry your first cousin in Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island, it's legally taboo in Kentucky, Mississippi and West Virginia.
John Shelton Reed, author of numerous books on the region, says the South has stopped being "the regional odd man out" in some important ways. In terms of income, literacy and the racial attitudes of whites, "the differences between Southerners and other Americans have now become so small, by historical standards, that they hardly matter at all."
And, Reed says, some "ancient regional differences" have reversed themselves. The region has gone from having a higher birthrate than the national norm to a lower one, from net out-migration of blacks to net in-migration.
In many ways, he says, the rest of the country is starting to look more like our image of the South — particularly in its tastes in music, sports and food.
"We have exported country music, NASCAR, and the Southern Baptist Convention so successfully," he says, "that they may not be `Southern' institutions much longer."
Rather than being pleased with this so-called "Southernization" of the country, some are more concerned about what they see as the blandification of the South.
Graham Banks, chairman of the pro-secession Southern Party of South Carolina, says there's something wrong when the Country Music Awards are being presented in New York and Southern stock-car tracks lose race dates in the name NASCAR expansion.
"Every time there's something good that people like, it becomes `American,'" says the 38-year-old investor and writer from Bamberg, S.C. "They co-opt it and then call it something else and then begin to slowly morph it into something that isn't Southern, and then it dies."
Oddly, when asked by the AP whether the South is a distinct region with its own culture, only 58 percent of native Southerners considered the region significantly different from the rest of the United States, compared to 66 percent of people born elsewhere.
We're now a couple generations removed from the Voting Rights Act, and the last Confederate widow has finally passed on. But for Ferris, the South will always be more than just a convenient grouping of states for statistical analysis — because history matters.
"I think the region is, always has been and always will be different — distinctly different — from the rest of the nation," he says. "We have a long memory here. ... The memory of a war lost, and occupation and Jim Crow and civil rights. These are powerful memories that shape our everyday lives."
___
The AP-Ipsos poll was conducted by telephone Oct. 21-26 among 658 adults in the South and 1,345 in other parts of the country. Sampling error was plus or minus 4 points for people in the South, 3 points for people elsewhere.Wednesday, November 23, 2005
REACH OUT AND TOUCH SOMEONE
Police Hit Man in Genitals With Taser
FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla. - Police accidentally hit a naked man in the genitals with a Taser after he was caught breaking windows and asking women to touch him, authorities said.
Jeremy J. Miljour, 26, tried to run away when sheriff's deputies approached so one of them shot their Taser, said Cpl. Matt Chitwood. But one of the gun's prongs accidentally hit Miljour's genitals and got stuck, Chitwood said.
"The Taser is relatively accurate, but when someone is moving like that, it doesn't matter if you have a Taser, or a pistol. (Officers) can't aim," Chitwood said.
Miljour was treated at a hospital before being taken to the Lee County jail. He was charged with indecent exposure, resisting an officer and criminal damage.Tuesday, November 22, 2005
GET THE FUCK OUT, OPPRESSIVE INFIDEL INVADERS
Iraqi Leaders Call for Pullout Timetable
CAIRO, Egypt, Associated Press - Iraqi leaders at a reconciliation conference reached out to the Sunni Arab community by calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces and saying the country's opposition had a "legitimate right" of resistance.
A day after the communique was finalized by Iraqi Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni leaders, Washington reiterated Tuesday that the United States would stay only as long as it takes to stabilize Iraq.
The communique condemned terrorism but was a clear acknowledgment of the Sunni position that insurgents should not be labeled as terrorists if they don't target innocent civilians or institutions that provide for the welfare of Iraqis.
The leaders agreed on "calling for the withdrawal of foreign troops according to a timetable, through putting in place an immediate national program to rebuild the armed forces ... control the borders and the security situation" and end terror attacks.
The preparatory reconciliation conference, held under the auspices of the Arab League, was attended by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Iraqi Shiite and Kurdish lawmakers as well as leading Sunni politicians.
Sunni leaders have been pressing the Shiite-majority government to agree to a timetable for the withdrawal of all foreign troops. The statement recognized that goal, but did not lay down a specific time — reflecting instead the government's stance that Iraqi security forces must be built up first.
On Monday, Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr suggested U.S.-led forces should be able to leave Iraq by the end of next year, saying the one-year extension of the mandate for the multinational force in Iraq by the U.N. Security Council this month could be the last.
"By the middle of next year we will be 75 percent done in building our forces and by the end of next year it will be fully ready," he told the Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera.
On Tuesday, the State Department "the United States supports the ongoing transitional political process in Iraq, and encourages participation by all Iraqis in the political process."
"President Bush has made our position very clear," department spokeswoman Julie Reside said. "The coalition remains committed to helping the Iraqi people achieve stability and security as they rebuild their country. We will stay as long as it takes to achieve those goals and no longer."
Debate in Washington over when to bring troops home turned bitter last week after decorated Vietnam War vet Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), D-Pa., called for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, and estimated a pullout could be complete within six months. Republicans rejected Murtha's position.
In Egypt, the final communique's attempt to define terrorism omitted any reference to attacks against U.S. or Iraqi forces. Delegates from across the political and religious spectrum said the omission was intentional. They spoke anonymously, saying they feared retribution.
"Though resistance is a legitimate right for all people, terrorism does not represent resistance. Therefore, we condemn terrorism and acts of violence, killing and kidnapping targeting Iraqi citizens and humanitarian, civil, government institutions, national resources and houses of worships," the document said.
The final communique also stressed participants' commitment to Iraq's unity and called for the release of all "innocent detainees" who have not been convicted. It asked that allegations of torture against prisoners be investigated and those responsible be held accountable.
The statement also demanded "an immediate end to arbitrary raids and arrests without a documented judicial order."
The communique included no means for implementing its provisions, leaving it unclear what it will mean in reality other than to stand as a symbol of a first step toward bringing the feuding parties together in an agreement in principle.
"We are committed to this statement as far as it is in the best interests of the Iraqi people," said Harith al-Dhari, leader of the powerful Association of Muslim Scholars, a hard-line Sunni group. He said he had reservations about the document as a whole, and delegates said he had again expressed strong opposition to the concept of federalism enshrined in Iraq's new constitution.
The gathering was part of a U.S.-backed league attempt to bring the communities closer together and assure Sunni Arab participation in a political process now dominated by Iraq's Shiite majority and large Kurdish minority.
The conference also decided on broad conditions for selecting delegates to a wider reconciliation gathering in the last week of February or the first week of March in Iraq. It essentially opens the way for all those who are willing to renounce violence against fellow Iraqis.
Shiites had been strongly opposed to participation in the conference by Sunni Arab officials from the regime of
Saddam Hussein or from pro-insurgency groups. That objection seemed to have been glossed over in the communique.
The Cairo meeting was marred by differences between participants at times, and at one point Shiite and Kurdish delegates stormed out of a closed session when one of the speakers said they had sold out to the Americans.Tuesday, November 22, 2005
BUT ITS STILL COOL TO WEAR DRESSES
Vatican: Sexually Active Gays Unwelcome
VATICAN CITY, Associated Press - The Vatican says homosexuals who are sexually active or support "gay culture" are unwelcome in the priesthood unless they have gotten over their homosexual tendencies for at least three years, according to a church document posted on the Internet by an Italian Catholic news agency.
The long-awaited document is scheduled to be released by the Vatican on Nov. 29. A church official who has read the document confirmed the authenticity of the Internet posting by the Adista news agency.
The document said that "the church, while deeply respecting the people in question, cannot admit to the seminary and the sacred orders those who practice homosexuality, present deeply rooted homosexual tendencies or support so-called gay culture."Tuesday, November 22, 2005
WHAT FAITH, SPARKY? THEY *ALL* SUCK!
Is our faith in government dying?
By Ross K. Baker, USA Today
Republicans in the White House and Congress who are facing a host of legal and ethical problems resemble a patient suffering from multiple, but unrelated, ailments who might be able to fight off one affliction but is ultimately killed by the debilitating effects of all of them.
This somber diagnosis is based on:
• The indictment of vice presidential aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby for alleged perjury and obstruction of justice in an attempt to discredit a report that cast doubt on Saddam Hussein's efforts to acquire uranium. After former ambassador Joseph Wilson filed the report, sources exposed his wife's job as a CIA officer.
• The cloud of suspicion that hangs over White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove in that outing of the ambassador's wife.
• The September indictment in Texas of Tom DeLay, then the majority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, for allegedly violating the state's campaign finance laws.
• An investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into the fortuitous timing of the sale of stock of a family corporation by Senate Republican leader Bill Frist.
• The sprawling scandal associated with the recently indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. It has already resulted in a charge of conspiracy against his public relations sidekick and former DeLay aide, Michael Scanlon, and the arrest of one White House official. The scandal has also raised questions about the actions of DeLay, House Administration Committee Chairman Bob Ney, R-Ohio, Ralph Reed, former director of the Christian Coalition and candidate for lieutenant governor of Georgia, and anti-tax activist Grover Norquist.
• E-mail revelations, at hearings of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, that a former deputy secretary of the Interior Department might have asked for preferential treatment for Abramoff's clients, Indian tribes with interests in gambling casinos, about the same time that Abramoff says he was courting the official to join his firm.
• E-mail messages that have come to light revealing that Michael Brown, initially praised by President Bush for the Federal Emergency Management Agency's response to Hurricane Katrina, was more concerned with his wardrobe than with a relief effort in New Orleans.
Political scandals and intrigues often occur in clusters and cast a pall of suspicion over the party in power. Sometimes, they are traceable to a single source. Such was the case in the Nixon White House with its Watergate burglary and coverup, its enemies list, and its effort to unearth dirt on former Defense Department analyst Daniel Ellsberg - who revealed the Pentagon Papers that turned public opinion against the Vietnam War - by breaking into the office of his psychiatrist.
At other times, they are unconnected but just happen to crop up simultaneously, thereby taking on the appearance of a single seamless scandal. So while not even the most ingenious Democratic conspiracy theorist could connect the alleged efforts by Libby and Rove to discredit former ambassador Wilson with then-FEMA director Brown's halting response to Hurricane Katrina, these revelations can cross-contaminate each other in the eyes of the public and acquire more sinister dimensions.
These problems, some related and others independent, have enabled Democrats to decry a "culture of corruption," a slogan that will certainly be a rallying cry for the congressional elections of 2006. But the Democrats have yet to come up with an agenda comparable to "Contract With America," which Republicans used to reclaim both houses of Congress in 1994 after 40 years of Democratic dominance.
Former president Bill Clinton, for whom the 1994 election was a major setback, can well appreciate the problems consuming Republicans today. He took office in the wake of the House bank scandals with public approval of the Democratic Congress at an unprecedented low of 17%. But Clinton quickly got into problems of his own with Travelgate, the firing of some employees in the White House travel office to make way for Clinton loyalists.
No sooner was that fire quenched than the White House had to cope with the suicide of presidential aide Vincent Foster and the epidemic of conspiracy theories his death inspired.
And little less than a year from his inauguration, Clinton found himself needing to request a special prosecutor to look into his and the first lady's investments in the Whitewater land transaction. To add to his troubles, an important ally, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski, was indicted and pleaded guilty to mail fraud.
Combined with missteps on gays in the military and a failed health care initiative, the election of 1994 was a debacle for Democrats.
Unrelated or not, multiple scandals and blunders of public officials come to resemble a pandemic. The percentage of Americans who regard President Bush as honest and trustworthy has fallen to 46%, according to the latest USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll. This number alone is eloquent evidence of the toxicity of these scandals and investigations.
The most afflicted, however, is not the Bush administration and the congressional Republicans up for re-election in 2006. It is the faith of Americans in their government, and it encompasses the entire range of government activities from disaster relief to the war in
Iraq.
The much-discussed bird flu will become truly dangerous only if it mutates in a way that allows it to spread easily from person to person. Then and only then might we be hit by a global pandemic.
The bird flu is an apt metaphor for what's going on in Washington today. The question is: Will the virus of scandal and corruption leave the capital and infect our populace beyond the Beltway, undermining our trust in government from coast to coast?
It might be too late for a vaccine to immunize the American population against this debilitating condition.
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Ross K. Baker is a political science professor at Rutgers University. He also is a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.Tuesday, November 22, 2005
PROBLEM WITH LEAKS? BOMB THE NEWSPAPERS!
Report: Bush Talked of Bombing Al-Jazeera
LONDON, Associated Press - A civil servant has been charged under Britain's Official Secrets Act for allegedly leaking a government memo that a newspaper said Tuesday suggested that Prime Minister Tony Blair persuaded President Bush not to bomb the Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera.
The Daily Mirror reported that Bush spoke of targeting Al-Jazeera's headquarters in Doha, Qatar, when he met Blair at the White House on April 16, 2004. The Bush administration has regularly accused Al-Jazeera of being nothing more than a mouthpiece for anti-American sentiments.
The Daily Mirror attributed its information to unidentified sources. One source, said to be in the government, was quoted as saying that the alleged threat was "humorous, not serious," but the newspaper quoted another source as saying that "Bush was deadly serious, as was Blair."
Blair's office declined to comment on the report, stressing it never discusses leaked documents.
In Qatar, Al-Jazeera said it was aware of the report, but did not wish to comment.
The White House said it wouldn't dignify what it called "something so outlandish" with a response.
The document was described as a transcript of a conversation between the two leaders.
Cabinet Office civil servant David Keogh is accused of passing it to Leo O'Connor, who formerly worked for former British lawmaker Tony Clarke. Both Keogh and O'Connor are scheduled to appear at London's Bow Street Magistrates Court next week.
According to the Crown Prosecution Service, Keogh was charged with an offense under Section 3 of the Official Secrets Act relating to "a damaging disclosure" by a servant of the Crown of information relating to international relations or information obtained from a state other than the United Kingdom.
O'Connor was charged under Section 5, which relates to receiving and disclosing illegally disclosed information.
According to the newspaper, Clarke returned the memo to Blair's office. Clarke did not respond to calls from The Associated Press seeking comment.
Press Association, the British news agency, said Clarke refused to discuss the contents of the document. PA quoted Clarke as saying his priority was to support O'Connor who did "exactly the right thing" in bringing it to his attention.
Peter Kilfoyle, a former defense minister in Blair's government, called for the document to be made public.
"I think they ought to clarify what exactly happened on this occasion," he said. "If it was the case that President Bush wanted to bomb Al-Jazeera in what is after all a friendly country, it speaks volumes and it raises questions about subsequent attacks that took place on the press that wasn't embedded with coalition forces," the newspaper quoted Kilfoyle as saying.
Sir Menzies Campbell, foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition Liberal Democrats, said Tuesday that, if true, the memo was worrying.
"If true, then this underlines the desperation of the Bush administration as events in Iraq began to spiral out of control," he said. "On this occasion, the prime minister may have been successful in averting political disaster, but it shows how dangerous his relationship with President Bush has been."
Al-Jazeera offices in Iraq and Afghanistan have been hit by U.S. bombs or missiles, but each time the U.S. military said they were not intentionally targeting the broadcaster.
In April 2003, an Al-Jazeera journalist was killed when its Baghdad office was struck during a U.S. bombing campaign. Nabil Khoury, a State Department spokesman in Doha, said the strike was a mistake.
In November 2002, Al-Jazeera's office in Kabul, Afghanistan, was destroyed by a U.S. missile. None of the crew was at the office at the time. U.S. officials said they believed the target was a terrorist site and did not know it was Al-Jazeera's office.Sunday, November 20, 2005
OK, HE *SOUNDS* LIKE A REASONABLE GUY
Vienna cardinal draws lines in Intelligent Design row
VIENNA (Reuters) - When Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn waded into a heated debate over evolution in the United States, his goal was not to persuade American schools to teach that God created the world in six days.
Nor was it to condemn Charles Darwin and his "The Origin of Species," a book that Schoenborn, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Vienna, considers a great work in the history of ideas.
His concern, Schoenborn told Reuters at his episcopal palace in central Vienna, was to stand up for common sense in a debate that had become ideological. He wanted to make clear where the Church thinks scientists overstep their bounds.
"The Church's task now is to defend reason," he explained, citing as his inspiration his former theology professor Joseph Ratzinger, now
Pope Benedict.
"The theory of evolution is a scientific theory," he said. "What I call evolutionism is an ideological view that says evolution can explain everything in the whole development of the cosmos, from the Big Bang to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony."
Often tipped as a potential future pope, Schoenborn, 60, came under stinging attack by U.S. scientists after he published an op-ed article in the New York Times last July backing the "Intelligent Design" view of the world's origins.
The harsher critics charged he was a simpleton trying to replace science with creationism -- the view that God made the world exactly as laid out in Genesis, the first book of the Bible -- and throw American education back by a century.
Dismissing this censure with a smile, the cardinal spelled out a position that respects Darwin's achievements but rejects neo-Darwinist views he said go beyond what science can prove.
"The biblical teaching about creation is not a scientific theory," he said, restating a Catholic view that contrasts with the literal reading of some conservative U.S. Protestants opposed to Darwin. "Christian teaching about creation is not an alternative to evolution."
INTELLIGENT DESIGN
Schoenborn agrees with the Intelligent Design theory that the complexity of life clearly points to a superior intelligence that must have devised this system. He based this on reason, not science, as Intelligent Design theorists claim to do.
"The next step is to ask -- which intelligence? As a believer, of course I think it is the intelligence of the Creator," he said."
Asked about the debate on teaching Intelligent Design in U.S. schools, Schoenborn declined to comment directly. A Pennsylvania school board was voted out this month for backing Intelligent Design in science classes, but Kansas decided to teach it.
He thought private and state schools in Austria should include in their science classes a mention of the "intelligent project that is the cosmos," as Pope Benedict put it last week in apparent backing for Intelligent Design.
Schoenborn, a good-humored Dominican who was the editor for the Church's authoritative Catechism published in 1992, expressed surprise at the barrage of criticism he got for saying Darwin could not explain everything.
DEFENDS CRITICISM
"If this is a scientific theory, it must be open to scientific criticism," he said. "What I'm criticizing is a kind of strategy to immunize it, as if it were an offence to Darwin's dignity to say there are some issues this theory can't explain.
"There's a kind of ban on discussing this and critics of the evolution theory are discredited or discriminated against from the start," he said.
"What I would like is to see in schools is a critical and open spirit, in a positive sense, so we don't make a dogma out of the theory of evolution but we say it is a theory that has a lot going for it but has no answers for some questions."
He questioned neo-Darwinism, the scientifically updated version of Darwin's thesis first published in 1859, and its argument that natural selection -- the so-called "survival of the fittest" -- created life out of matter randomly.
"Can we reasonably say the origin of man and life can only be explained by material causes?" he asked. "Can matter create intelligence? That is a question we can't answer scientifically, because the scientific method cannot grasp it."
"Common sense tells us that matter cannot organize itself," he said. "It needs information to do that, and information is a manifestation of intelligence."
Although his reading on evolution has covered several scientific disciplines, Schoenborn stressed his objections to neo-Darwinism were essentially philosophical.
Like his mentor Pope Benedict, he is deeply concerned that materialism -- the science-based view that matter is the only reality -- is crowding out religious and spiritual thinking in modern man's perception of the world.
"It's all about materialism, that's the key issue," he said.Sunday, November 20, 2005
BUSHCO FLUNKIES WADING IN DEEP DOODOO
Security adviser named as source in CIA scandal
London Times - The mysterious source who gave America’s foremost journalist, Bob Woodward, a tip-off about the CIA agent at the centre of one of Washington’s biggest political storms was Stephen Hadley, the White House national security adviser, according to lawyers close to the investigation.
Woodward, the Washington Post reporter who broke the Watergate scandal that forced President Richard Nixon out of office, has refused publicly to divulge the name of his informant without permission, which has thus far been withheld.
The naming of CIA agent Valerie Plame as the wife of Joseph Wilson, the former US ambassador sent to Niger to investigate disputed claims that Saddam Hussein was trying to purchase uranium yellowcake for the manufacture of nuclear weapons, led to the indictment last month of Vice-President Dick Cheney’s top aide, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, for lying to a grand jury.
It is an offence in America to reveal the identity of a covert agent, although doubts remain about Plame’s precise status.
A spokeswoman for the National Security Council (NSC) denied that Hadley was the journalist’s source. However, in South Korea on Friday during an official visit with President George W Bush, Hadley dodged the question.
“I’ve also seen press reports from White House officials saying that I am not one of his sources,” Hadley said with a smile. Asked if this was a yes or no he replied: “It is what it is.”
A White House official said the national security adviser’s ambiguity was unintentional and repeated that Hadley was not Woodward’s source. But others close to the investigation insisted that he was.
If so, according to Woodward’s timeline, he will have disclosed the information in mid-June 2003, roughly a week before Libby talked to other reporters on June 23. Supporters of Cheney’s disgraced aide are jubilant that this casts doubt on special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s contention that Libby was the first to spread the word about Plame.
When Woodward realised this, he went back to his informant. “My source said he or she had no alternative but to go to the prosecutor. I said, ‘If you do, am I released?’ The source said yes, but only for the purpose of discussing it with Fitzgerald.” Woodward testified under oath to the special prosecutor last Monday.
Woodward said the unnamed official told him about Plame in “an offhand, casual manner . . . almost gossip” and “I didn’t attach any importance to it”. He never wrote up the story.
With more journalists in the loop than previously identified, it will be harder for Fitzgerald to prove Libby was deliberately lying when he said he first learnt of Plame from a journalist rather than the CIA.
Two years ago, when Plame’s identity was first revealed, Hadley was Condoleezza Rice’s deputy at the NSC. He is also thought to have been a key source for two books by Woodward on the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
Other potential suspects have been denying they are Woodward’s source. Cheney has come under suspicion, although sources close to the investigation claim he is not in the frame.
Fitzgerald may want to interview Woodward’s informant and declared in court filings on Friday that proceedings would continue under a new grand jury. Supporters of Karl Rove, the top White House adviser known as “Bush’s brain”, also fear Fitzgerald may still be investigating him.
Woodward declined to confirm or deny that Hadley had leaked him the information.
It is familiar territory for the Washington Post journalist, who kept the name of Deep Throat, his Watergate informant, secret for more than three decades until Mark Felt, the former deputy director of the FBI, outed himself this year.
Yet colleagues at the Washington Post have been criticising him on their internal message board. One accused Woodward of being the “800-pound elephant in the room”, adding: “I admire the hell out of Bob, but this looks awful.”Sunday, November 20, 2005
BUT NOT OUR PROFITS - BLING BLING BABY
Saudi King: Oil Importers Should Cut Taxes
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia , Associated Press - Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah said Saturday that oil-consuming nations should cut taxes on petroleum products when oil prices rise.
In a speech to a gathering of oil ministers, the world's major oil companies and energy organizations, Abdullah restated his commitment to fair and reasonable oil prices and pledged to provide adequate oil supplies to the world market.
But the monarch, whose nation is the world's largest oil exporter, issued strong advice for oil-consuming nations: reduce taxes on oil products and stop speculating.
"Reduce the burden on citizens by reducing taxes on oil products when prices rise," he told participants. "Limit the speculation, refute rumors and misleading information that could distort the realities of the market."
Oil prices fell 4 percent in the past week and settled Friday at a five-month low just above $56 a barrel.
In a separate speech, Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi blamed the instability of the oil market on excessive and inaccurate speculation.
"The absence of clear and accurate information is one of the biggest problems facing the market," he said.
Abdullah was attending the opening of the permanent headquarters for the International Energy Forum, an organization aimed at promoting dialogue between oil producers and oil importers. After his speech, participants held closed-door talks on oil pricing and other energy issues.
The king said his country's oil policies and practices were characterized by "honesty and transparency" and that Saudi Arabia had adopted a relatively "moderate" position within the 11-member Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
"Our oil policy is based on two principles: ensuring a reasonable and just price for oil and providing sufficient supplies for all consumers," Abdullah said.Sunday, November 20, 2005
GIVE 'EM HELL, RABBI
Jewish Leader Blasts 'Religious Right'
HOUSTON, Associated Press - The leader of the largest branch of American Judaism blasted conservative religious activists in a speech Saturday, calling them "zealots" who claim a "monopoly on God" while promoting anti-gay policies akin to Adolf Hitler's.
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the liberal Union for Reform Judaism, said "religious right" leaders believe "unless you attend my church, accept my God and study my sacred text you cannot be a moral person."
"What could be more bigoted than to claim that you have a monopoly on God?" he said during the movement's national assembly in Houston, which runs through Sunday.
The audience of 5,000 responded to the speech with enthusiastic applause.
Yoffie did not mention evangelical Christians directly, using the term "religious right" instead. In a separate interview, he said the phrase encompassed conservative activists of all faiths, including within the Jewish community.
He used particularly strong language to condemn conservative attitudes toward homosexuals. He said he understood that traditionalists have concluded gay marriage violates Scripture, but he said that did not justify denying legal protections to same-sex partners and their children.
"We cannot forget that when Hitler came to power in 1933, one of the first things that he did was ban gay organizations," Yoffie said. "Yes, we can disagree about gay marriage. But there is no excuse for hateful rhetoric that fuels the hellfires of anti-gay bigotry."
The Union for Reform Judaism represents about 900 synagogues in North America with an estimated membership of 1.5 million people. Of the three major streams of U.S. Judaism — Orthodox and Conservative are the others — it is the only one that sanctions gay ordination and supports civil marriage for same-gender couples.
Yoffie said liberals and conservatives share some concerns, such as the potential damage to children from violent or highly sexual TV shows and other popular media. But he said, overall, conservatives too narrowly define family values, making a "frozen embryo in a fertility clinic" more important than a child, and ignoring poverty and other social ills.
One attendee, Judy Weinman of Troy, N.Y., said she thought Yoffie was "right on target."
"He reminded us of where we have things in common and where we're different," she said.
Yoffie also urged lawmakers to model themselves on presidential candidate John F. Kennedy, who famously told a Houston clergy group in 1960 that a president should not make policy based on his religion.
On other topics, Yoffie asked Reform synagogues to do more to hold onto members, who often leave after their children go to college. He also said the Reform movement, which is among the most accepting of non-Jewish spouses, should make a greater effort to invite spouses to convert.
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