money for nothing..

when a recent cover story from American Conservative magazine sounds like i could have been written by Naomi Klein (well, if she were more focused on fiscal responsibility and less on social justice) you know bush and co. are not doing so great.

The American-dominated Coalition Provisional Authority could well prove to be the most corrupt administration in history, almost certainly surpassing the widespread fraud of the much-maligned UN Oil for Food Program. At least $20 billion that belonged to the Iraqi people has been wasted, together with hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. Exactly how many billions of additional dollars were squandered, stolen, given away, or simply lost will never be known because the deliberate decision by the CPA not to meter oil exports means that no one will ever know how much revenue was generated during 2003 and 2004.

Some of the corruption grew out of the misguided neoconservative agenda for Iraq, which meant that a serious reconstruction effort came second to doling out the spoils to the war’s most fervent supporters. The CPA brought in scores of bright, young true believers who were nearly universally unqualified. Many were recruited through the Heritage Foundation website, where they had posted their résumés. They were paid six-figure salaries out of Iraqi funds, and most served in 90-day rotations before returning home with their war stories. One such volunteer was Simone Ledeen, daughter of leading neoconservative Michael Ledeen. Unable to communicate in Arabic and with no relevant experience or appropriate educational training, she nevertheless became a senior advisor for northern Iraq at the Ministry of Finance in Baghdad. Another was former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer’s older brother Michael who, though utterly unqualified, was named director of private-sector development for all of Iraq.

in the interest of public safety..

"The industry absolutely has been extraordinarily helpful [to law enforcement]," Pagano says.

quotes like the above scare me.

im glad the amazing folks over at the electronic frontier foundation are here to let us all know that the FBI can use secret information encoded in each document a laser printer or copier prints to track the activities of its citizenry.

In an effort to identify counterfeiters, the US government has succeeded in persuading some color laser printer manufacturers to encode each page with identifying information. That means that without your knowledge or consent, an act you assume is private could become public. A communication tool you're using in everyday life could become a tool for government surveillance. And what's worse, there are no laws to prevent abuse.

The ACLU recently issued a report revealing that the FBI has amassed more than 1,100 pages of documents on the organization since 2001, as well as documents concerning other non-violent groups, including Greenpeace and United for Peace and Justice. In the current political climate, it's not hard to imagine the government using the ability to determine who may have printed what document for purposes other than identifying counterfeiters. Your freedom to speak anonymously is in danger.

Yet there are no laws to stop the Secret Service -- or for that matter, any other governmental agency or private company -- from using printer codes to secretly trace the origin of non-currency documents. We're unaware of any printer manufacturer that has a privacy policy that would protect you, and no law regulates what people can do with the information once it's turned over. And that doesn't even reach the issue of how such a privacy-invasive tool could be developed and implemented in printers without the public becoming aware of it in the first place.

anonymous sources..

..are not always the most credible ones, but this one says that bush knew that rove had leaked valerie plame's name to the media over two years ago when it happened.

As special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald nears a decision, perhaps as early as today, on whether to issue indictments in his two-year probe, Bush has already circled the wagons around Rove, whose departure would be a grievous blow to an already shell-shocked White House staff and a President in deep political trouble.

"Karl is fighting for his life," the official added, "but anything he did was done to help George W. Bush. The President knows that and appreciates that."

Other sources confirmed, however, that Bush was initially furious with Rove in 2003 when his deputy chief of staff conceded he had talked to the press about the Plame leak.

Bush has always known that Rove often talks with reporters anonymously and he generally approved of such contacts, one source said.

But the President felt Rove and other members of the White House damage-control team did a clumsy job in their campaign to discredit Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, the ex-diplomat who criticized Bush's claim that Saddam Hussen tried to buy weapons-grade uranium in Niger.

A second well-placed source said some recently published reports implying Rove had deceived Bush about his involvement in the Wilson counterattack were incorrect and were leaked by White House aides trying to protect the President.

"Bush did not feel misled so much by Karl and others as believing that they handled it in a ham-handed and bush-league way," the source said.

None of these sources offered additional specifics of what Bush and Rove discussed in conversations beginning shortly after the Justice Department informed the White House in September 2003 that a criminal investigation had been launched into the leak of CIA agent Plame's identity to columnist Robert Novak.

reclaiming public space can be luscious!

god, how great is this:

When three professors from CalArts discovered that by California law, any fruit growing on or over public land is available to the public, they founded Fallen Fruit, a project that promotes urban food gathering. Fallen Fruit, based in Los Angeles, charts "public" fruit trees throughout the city, organizes group foraging expeditions, and plans to expand into other cities and venues, including a program called "Buddy Bags" in New York, which would collect bakery and restaurant refuse and assemble bags of clean, sanitary food to be given to the homeless.

http://www.fallenfruit.org

from the news of good things happening department.

another exciting day..

...over at cnn. check out these three hot headlines.

Arrest warrant issued for DeLay
U.S. soldiers charged with murder of journalist
Miers' answers 'incomplete to insulting'

gotta love how we can look to our leaders in govt. to set a moral example to the masses.

"i do whatever the voices in my rice crispies tell me to."

our president might want to have his hearing checked.

i feel a chilling effect...

the irony is mindboggling - in this story (via www.dailykos.com) about a high school student doing a project on the bill of rights in north carolina.

Selina Jarvis is the chair of the social studies department at Currituck County High School in North Carolina, and she is not used to having the Secret Service question her or one of her students.

But that's what happened on September 20.

Jarvis had assigned her senior civics and economics class "to take photographs to illustrate their rights in the Bill of Rights," she says. One student "had taken a photo of George Bush out of a magazine and tacked the picture to a wall with a red thumb tack through his head. Then he made a thumb's down sign with his own hand next to the President's picture, and he had a photo taken of that, and he pasted it on a poster."

According to Jarvis, the student, who remains anonymous, was just doing his assignment, illustrating the right to dissent.

But over at the Kitty Hawk Wal-Mart, where the student took his film to be developed, this right is evidently suspect. An employee in that Wal-Mart photo department called the Kitty Hawk police on the student. And the Kitty Hawk police turned the matter over to the Secret Service. On Tuesday, September 20, the Secret Service came to Currituck High.

"At 1:35, the student came to me and told me that the Secret Service had taken his poster," Jarvis says. "I didn't believe him at first. But they had come into my room when I wasn't there and had taken his poster, which was in a stack with all the others." She says the student was upset.

"He was nervous, he was scared, and his parents were out of town on business," says Jarvis. She, too, had to talk to the Secret Service. "They asked me, didn't I think that it was suspicious," she recalls. "I said no, it was a Bill of Rights project!"

At the end of the meeting, they told her the incident "would be interpreted by the U.S. attorney, who would decide whether the student could be indicted," she says.

The student was not indicted, and the Secret Service did not pursue the case further. "I blame Wal-Mart more than anybody," she says. "I was really disgusted with them. But everyone was using poor judgment, from Wal-Mart up to the Secret Service."

Jarvis uses one word to describe the whole incident: "ridiculous."

more flag waving!

get your free flags from the wonderfully creative people at made you think.

the plot thickens...

nyt reporter judith miller is out of jail after being granted permission to testify from her source - which appears to be not karl rove, but cheney's chief of staff lewis 'scooter' libbey. i cant say i have a clue what is really going on here. but i smell a fish of some sort.

im fascinated by this case for a million reasons, its pretty clear by now that bush co. is linked to the leak of undercover cia op valerie plame's name to the media, but not clear how. and of course dubya's promise that heads will roll remains unfulfilled. beyond that, theres the issue of of protecting confidentiality of sources, yet another right eroding away like the new orleans levee. and then theres the issue of judy miller's slimey journalism (theres a whole chapter eviscerating her in amy goodman's 'exception to the rulers'), which makes her taking an ethical stand rather suprising.

anyhow.. what is there to do but wait and see.