So, I’m happy about old Tom, but let’s do a quick pass over some other news:
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Colorado parents burn books – Wikinews
Norwood, Colorado parents recently burned copies of Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima after having them pulled from the area high school’s curriculum. Millie Davis, of the National Council of Teachers of English, said “I’m flabbergasted that something like this would be happening in this day and age”. The Hispanic coming-of-age story is commonly included as part of high school curriculums, and won the Premio Quinto Sol national Chicano literary award. The novel explores some minority religious views such as paganism.
Wow, book-burning. That’s so very 21st century, isn’t it.
For extra irony, note that it is ALA’s Banned Books week. I guess I’ll have to come up with something to do in support of banned books–I wonder where I might get some ideas.
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John Scalzi is just as worried as I am (see my thing about the Rubicon several posts back) about Bush dicking around with Posse Comitatus.
Some additional linkage for your reference:
Wikipedia page on Posse Comitatus
Two views from “the other side”:
The Myth of Posse Comitatus
The Posse Comitatus Act and Homeland Security
For your own sanity, do not go to www(dot)posse-comitatus(dot)org — it’s a link to crazy White Power people.
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Schneier brings news that the government is tracking your DNA:
The Beginnings of a U.S. Government DNA Database
From the Washington Post:
Suspects arrested or detained by federal authorities could be forced to provide samples of their DNA that would be recorded in a central database under a provision of a Senate bill to expand government collection of personal data.
The controversial measure was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee last week and is supported by the White House, but has not gone to the floor for a vote. It goes beyond current law, which allows federal authorities to collect and record samples of DNA only from those convicted of crimes. The data are stored in an FBI-maintained national registry that law enforcement officials use to aid investigations, by comparing DNA from criminals with evidence found at crime scenes.
[…]
The provision, co-sponsored by Kyl and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), does not require the government to automatically remove the DNA data of people who are never convicted. Instead, those arrested or detained would have to petition to have their information removed from the database after their cases were resolved.
That’s great. Even better will be when the government can take preemptive actions based on genetic tendencies, or when it will begin selling the information to targeted marketers, etc. Yarg.
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Stolen from MetaFilter:
“Operation Offset”
is what the Republicans are calling their budget cut plan to pay for
Hurricane Katrina. Will there be tax cuts for the rich? Nope. The great
majority of the proposed cuts target the elderly and the poor, heavily targeting Medicare.
Among the things from which all federal funding is being eliminated:
- energy conservation
- the “Energy Star” program
- energy efficient vehicles
- hydrogen vehicles
- high-speed rail
- light rail
- PBS
- the National Endowment for the Arts
- the National Endowment for the Humanities
- AmeriCorps
- the “Even Start” program
- the Presidential Election Campaign Fund
- security/anti-drug funding for innercity schools
- all federal loans to grad students
We can’t have a reduction in dependence on fossil fuels, especially not after the profit jump that the current price spike has brought to the oil companies. You wouldn’t want to lessen American dependence on Middle Eastern oil, would you? Oh, and that global warming thing, and the link to increased storm activity? That’s a myth.
Public support for the arts? That only plays in the blue states anyway. The voting base for the current administration likely doesn’t watch McNeil/Leherer, and probably thinks of the NEA and NEH as “giving my tax money to queer New York City artists”.
Having a well-organized community and national service organization is just silly. I mean when could the country potentially need something like that? Especially given the absolutely sterling performance of the more “official” agencies like FEMA.
I suspect that the notion of a functionally illiterate public, which would have a higher level of voter apathy, and would be easier to influence were they interested, would not be seen as a bad thing by Karl Rove & co. So why should the government be involved in literacy programs that will actually raise the likelihood of producing a functional citizen?
Really, you can’t run for President unless you are backed by fabulous wealth anyway. Why pretend differently?
Again, this crazy notion of making education accessible to the public, not just to children of privilege. It’s madness. That way lies an informed electorate and high national productivity.
Facing cuts, but not totally eliminated:
- the Global AIDS Initiative
- the EPA
- the Center for Disease Control
- pensions and healthcare plans for retired federal workers
- job programs and revitalization funds for poor neighborhoods
- the school lunch program
- community health centers
- health care for soldiers
I’m almost out of sarcasm. Let’s let this one stand on it’s own. (Note though, that the US was already seriously underfunding this.)
Heh. This actually, seriously, makes sense to me. If the EPA is going to be powerless and futile anyway, because the administration has zero concern for the environment (one more debt to lay on our grandchildren, this one much worse than the credit card budgets) you might as well not spend the money.
Wow. Again, that’s pretty short-sighted. Even laying aside the whole “God damn the flu epidemic is coming soon” stuff, what about all the disease ramifications of the two recent hurricanes?
…because the Bush administration is all about rewarding loyalty–if what you gave was tall dollars.
Look, do you really expect the government to able to let Karl Rove give $60 billion in reconstruction contracts to the important corporations, and have the current tax cuts maintained, and still have money left over for the quality of life issues of the average American? Really?
…because the Bush administration is all about rewarding loyalty–if what you gave was tall dollars.
I wonder how many people read the headlines about the huge reconstruction funds and feel good about Bush, et. al., without evey realizing the set of things that the cons can now cut using Katrina as an excuse. (Or without realizing how much of the money will make it’s way to Haliburton and other profit-based, connected, enterprises, instead of actually making it to the ground, as it were.)
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Speaking of the continuing Katrina stories, check out this nightmare from the always elegant Body and Soul:
As the flood waters rose, hundreds of prisoners in New Orleans were simply abandoned:
According to inmates interviewed by Human Rights Watch, they had no food or water from the inmates’ last meal over the weekend of August 27-28 until they were evacuated on Thursday, September 1. By Monday, August 29, the generators had died, leaving them without lights and sealed in without air circulation. The toilets backed up, creating an unbearable stench.
“They left us to die there,” Dan Bright, an Orleans Parish Prison inmate told Human Rights Watch
…
So, it wasn’t just the poor. It was also the prisoners. You figure being trapped in an open sewer without food for 5 days counts as “cruel and unusual”? (Not that it matters anymore, since I think that guideline probably went out when the Attorney General explained how torture was OK.)
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Expect some of those guideline changes to be made official soon, since Bush’s cipher nominee for Chief Justice just got confirmed.
Roberts to Be Confirmed As Chief Justice
Roberts has the potential of leading the Supreme Court for decades. Not since John Marshall, confirmed in 1801 at 45, has there been a younger chief justice.
Roberts also will hold a record of sorts — nominated to succeed two different Supreme Court justices within seven weeks. Bush originally named him to succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in July. Rehnquist’s death led to the second nomination on Sept. 6, and Roberts now will be confirmed as chief justice while O’Connor remains on the court until the president selects a new replacement.
The idea of a Bush appointee leading the court for decades depresses me even more than the rest of the links in this post of misery.
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Finally, speaking of torture and mistreatment, see this other post at Body & Soul:
“What you allowed to happen happened”
I finally found a spare hour this morning to sit down and read the Human Rights Watch report on abuse of prisoners by the 82nd Airborne Division at Camp Mercury, near Fallujah. Over the weekend both the New York Times and Los Angeles Times carried articles on Captain Ian Fishback, one of three members of the 82nd Airborne who reported the abuse to HRW, as well as to aides to John Warner and John McCain (and, according to the LAT, Carl Levin).
Today’s Washington Post follows up by printing the letter Fishback wrote to McCain, and, in a related editorial, notes that the confusion about what soldiers considered permissible at Camp Mercury is directly attributable to this administration’s “evasive legalisms in response to simple questions about uncivilized conduct.”
Basically, this administration has said to American soldiers: We’re not going to tell you what the policy on treatment of prisoners is. You can guess. If you guess wrong…well…you lose.
…
I strongly advise you to read that whole post.
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Wow, it’s a good thing I’ve built up my tolerance for depression by listening to a lot of Leonard Cohen, or that list might have done me in.
