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January 31, 2005
Turnout under 10% in Al Anbar province
NBC News has details, but not the big picture:
RAMADI, Iraq - Voter turnout in Ramadi, the capital of restive Al Ansar Province and in the heart of the Sunni Triangle, was disappointing, but hardly unexpected.According to U.S. military sources, around 1,700 Iraqis, mostly Sunnis, voted here, representing about 1 percent of eligible voters.
The city's main polling site looked like a high security no-man's-land for most of the day....
Figures for the entire province painted a slightly brighter picture. Over 15,000 Iraqis voted, including around 7,500 in Fallujah, scene of a major U.S. counter offensive last November that destroyed much of the city.
While there are no precise census data, U.S. military sources believe that in the end up to 10 percent of Al Ansar's Sunnis voted.
Via the Coalition Provisional Authority web site:
Towns in Al-Anbar Province Population
Falowja 425,774
Al-Kaime 116,129
Ramadi 444,582
Rowtba 24,813
Ana 37,211
Haditha 75,835
Hit 105,825
Total 1,230,169
As you can see, 15,000 voters is about 1% of the population of Al Anbar province. If you had 10% turnout of registered voters, it means at most 20% of the voting age population was registered to vote. (Assuming up to half the population is under age eighteen). Nationwide, 8 million voted, but only 15,000 in the sixth most heavily populated province. 7,500 voted in Falluja (population 435,774) and about 1,700 in Ramadi (population 444,582). It is worth noting that although initial vote tallies are complete, these prelimiary results have not been released. Will they sit on them the full ten days, or only until after the State of the Union?
Iraq Finishes First-Phase Ballot CountBAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's interim leader called on his countrymen to set aside their differences Monday, while polling stations finished the first-phase count of millions of ballots from the weekend election that many Iraqis hope will usher in democracy and hasten the departure of 150,000 American troops.
From the counts by individual stations, local centers will prepare tally sheets and send them to Baghdad, where vote totals will be compiled, election Commission official Adel al-Lami said. Final results could take up to 10 days.
With turnout in the vote still unknown, concern was focused on participation by Iraq's Sunni Arab minority, amid fears that the group that drives the insurgency could grow ever more alienated. Electoral commission officials said turnout in hardline Sunni areas was better than some expected, thought they cited no numbers. A U.S. diplomat warned that Sunni participation appeared "considerably lower" than that of other groups.
Here's another dose of reality from Samarra:
In Samarra, fear keeps voters awaySAMARRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Heavily-fortified polling centres were deserted and streets empty as Iraqis in the restive Sunni Muslim city of Samarra stayed home, too frightened or angry to vote in the country's historic election.
"Nobody came. People were too afraid," said Madafar Zeki, in charge of a polling centre in Samarra, in the Sunni heartland, where the insurgency has been bloodiest.
According to preliminary figures provided by a joint U.S. and Iraqi taskforce who safeguarded Sunday's vote, fewer than 1,400 people cast ballots in the city of 200,000.
The figure includes votes from soldiers and police, most of whom were recruited from the Shi'ite south.
Posted by Mike at 03:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Iraqi exit polls
Officials in the United Iraqi Alliance believe their bloc of mainly Shi'ite parties has won almost half of the 275 assembly seats, based on their own exit polls and 13,000 monitors.Iraqis may have to wait days for the Electoral Commission to declare the results, but if those projections are correct, the Alliance could link with smaller parties to build a two-thirds majority in parliament, enough to choose Iraq's new leaders.
Party exit polls suggest voters ignored most of the 111 choices on their bulky and bewildering ballot papers and plumped for one of three main blocs in contention for power.
A Kurdish grouping is expected to come second behind the United Iraqi Alliance, with a secular bloc led by Shi'ite interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi likely to take third place.
If Sistani's list really got more than one third of the votes, that prevents anyone from choosing the new leaders without their support. So will they ally themselves with the Kurds, who are suspicious of most things Arab, or with Allawi's group which has accused them of being agents of Iran and threatened to arrest members of their list? It should make for some interesting horse trading indeed. I suspect that between the autonomy-minded Kurds in the north, the autonomy-minded Shia in the south, and the wary Sunnis in the west, many of whom did boycott the election, we will not see a strong central government, but several stronger regional governments, instead.
Here are some details from the report:
Even politicians who doubt that the Alliance will gain 50 percent of assembly seats acknowledge it will be well-placed to form a ruling coalition, perhaps with Kurdish groups.The Alliance has dominated the bulk of the mostly Shi'ite south, even its tribal areas, and some parts of Baghdad, including Sadr City and mixed Sunni-Shi'ite neighbourhoods such as Dora and Shaab, according to unofficial party estimates.
Allawi's group did well in Baghdad, Sunni provinces and southern pockets, such as traditionally secular Nassiriya.
The likelihood that no single party will dominate the assembly will mean extensive horse-trading before a prime minister is chosen. Allawi is not out of the running.
"We have won 85 percent in the south and a strong majority in Baghdad. Lots of votes have been already counted and this is what they show," said an independent member in the Alliance.
Meshan al-Jiboury, a Sunni candidate from Mosul, said Sunnis largely shunned the polls, citing the mixed Duluiya region on the Tigris river north of Baghdad, where he said only a few hundred Sunnis voted compared to as many as 60,000 Shi'ites.
"It seems the Alliance will pull it off and Finance Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi could become prime minister, but he will have to work with democratic and Sunni forces suspicious of the Iranian bent of his bloc," Jibouri told Reuters.
Posted by Mike at 11:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 27, 2005
Hersh's Prediction: Panic and Catastrophe
There's a lot of anxiety inside the -- you know, our professional military and our intelligence people. Many of them respect the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as much as anybody here, and individual freedom. So, they do -- there's a tremendous sense of fear. These are punitive people. One of the ways -- one of the things that you could say is, the amazing thing is we are been taken over basically by a cult, eight or nine neo-conservatives have somehow grabbed the government. Just how and why and how they did it so efficiently, will have to wait for much later historians and better documentation than we have now, but they managed to overcome the bureaucracy and the Congress, and the press, with the greatest of ease. It does say something about how fragile our Democracy is. You do have to wonder what a Democracy is when it comes down to a few men in the Pentagon and a few men in the White House having their way. What they have done is neutralize the C.I.A. because there were people there inside -- the real goal of what Goss has done was not attack the operational people, but the intelligence people. There were people -- serious senior analysts who disagree with the White House, with Cheney, basically, that's what I mean by White House, and Rumsfeld on a lot of issues, as somebody said, the goal in the last month has been to separate the apostates from the true believers. That's what's happening. The real target has been “diminish the agency.” I'm writing about all of this soon, so I don't want to overdo it, but there's been a tremendous sea change in the government. A concentration of power.On the other hand, the facts -- there are some facts. We can’t win this war. We can do what he's doing. We can bomb them into the stone ages. Here's the other horrifying, sort of spectacular fact that we don't really appreciate. Since we installed our puppet government, this man, Allawi, who was a member of the Mukabarat, the secret police of Saddam, long before he became a critic, and is basically Saddam-lite. Before we installed him, since we have installed him on June 28, July, August, September, October, November, every month, one thing happened: the number of sorties, bombing raids by one plane, and the number of tonnage dropped has grown exponentially each month. We are systematically bombing that country. There are no embedded journalists at Doha, the Air Force base I think we’re operating out of. No embedded journalists at the aircraft carrier, Harry Truman. That's the aircraft carrier that I think is doing many of the operational fights. There’s no air defense, It's simply a turkey shoot. They come and hit what they want. We know nothing. We don't ask. We're not told. We know nothing about the extent of bombing. So if they're going to carry out an election and if they're going to succeed, bombing is going to be key to it, which means that what happened in Fallujah, essentially Iraq -- some of you remember Vietnam -- Iraq is being turn into a “free-fire zone” right in front of us. Hit everything, kill everything. I have a friend in the Air Force, a Colonel, who had the awful task of being an urban bombing planner, planning urban bombing, to make urban bombing be as unobtrusive as possible. I think it was three weeks ago today, three weeks ago Sunday after Fallujah I called him at home. I'm one of the people -- I don't call people at work. I call them at home, and he has one of those caller I.D.’s, and he picked up the phone and he said, “Welcome to Stalingrad.” We know what we're doing. This is deliberate. It's being done. They're not telling us. They're not talking about it.
We have a President that -- and a Secretary of State that, when a trooper -- when a reporter or journalist asked -- actually a trooper, a soldier, asked about lack of equipment, stumbled through an answer and the President then gets up and says, “Yes, they should all have good equipment and we're going to do it,” as if somehow he wasn't involved in the process. Words mean nothing -- nothing to George Bush. They are just utterances. They have no meaning. Bush can say again and again, “well, we don't do torture.” We know what happened. We know about Abu Ghraib. We know, we see anecdotally. We all understand in some profound way because so much has come out in the last few weeks, the I.C.R.C. The ACLU put out more papers, this is not an isolated incident what’s happened with the seven kids and the horrible photographs, Lynndie England. That's into the not the issue is. They're fall guys. Of course, they did wrong. But you know, when we send kids to fight, one of the things that we do when we send our children to war is the officers become in loco parentis. That means their job in the military is to protect these kids, not only from getting bullets and being blown up, but also there is nothing as stupid as a 20 or 22-year-old kid with a weapon in a war zone. Protect them from themselves. The spectacle of these people doing those antics night after night, for three and a half months only stopped when one of their own soldiers turned them in tells you all you need to know, how many officers knew. I can just give you a timeline that will tell you all you need to know. Abu Ghraib was reported in January of 2004 this year. In May, I and CBS earlier also wrote an awful lot about what was going on there. At that point, between January and May, our government did nothing. Although Rumsfeld later acknowledged that he was briefed by the middle of January on it and told the President. In those three-and-a-half months before it became public, was there any systematic effort to do anything other than to prosecute seven “bad seeds”, enlisted kids, reservists from West Virginia and the unit they were in, by the way, Military Police. The answer is, Ha! They were basically a bunch of kids who were taught on traffic control, sent to Iraq, put in charge of a prison. They knew nothing. It doesn't excuse them from doing dumb things. But there is another framework. We're not seeing it. They’ve gotten away with it.
For me, it's just another story, but out of this comes a core of -- you know, we all deal in “macro” in Washington. On the macro, we're hopeless. We're nowhere. The press is nowhere. The congress is nowhere. The military is nowhere. Every four-star General I know is saying, “Who is going to tell them we have no clothes?” Nobody is going to do it. Everybody is afraid to tell Rumsfeld anything. That's just the way it is. It's a system built on fear. It's not lack of integrity, it's more profound than that. Because there is individual integrity. It's a system that's completely been taken over -- by cultists. Anyway, what's going to happen, I think, as the casualties mount and these stories get around, and the mothers see the cost and the fathers see the cost, as the kids come home. And the wounded ones come back, and there's wards that you will never hear about. That's wards -- you know about the terrible catastrophic injuries, but you don't know about the vegetables. There's ward after ward of vegetables because the brain injuries are so enormous. As you maybe read last week, there was a new study in one of the medical journals that the number of survivors are greater with catastrophic injuries because of their better medical treatment and the better armor they have. So you get more extreme injuries to extremities. We're going to learn more and I think you're going to see, it's going to -- it's -- I'm trying to be optimistic. We're going to see a bottom swelling from inside the ranks. You're beginning to see it. What happened with the soldiers asking those questions, you may see more of that. I'm not suggesting we're going to have mutinies, but I'm going to suggest you're going to see more dissatisfaction being expressed. Maybe that will do it. Another salvation may be the economy. It's going to go very bad, folks. You know, if you have not sold your stocks and bought property in Italy, you better do it quick. And the third thing is Europe -- Europe is not going to tolerate us much longer. The rage there is enormous. I'm talking about our old-fashioned allies. We could see something there, collective action against us. Certainly, nobody -- it's going to be an awful lot of dancing on our graves as the dollar goes bad and everybody stops buying our bonds, our credit -- our -- we're spending $2 billion a day to float the debt, and one of these days, the Japanese and the Russians, everybody is going to start buying oil in Euros instead of dollars. We're going to see enormous panic here. But he could get through that. That will be another year, and the damage he’s going to do between then and now is enormous. We’re going to have some very bad months ahead.
Posted by Mike at 12:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Liberators
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January 24, 2005
State of the Occupation
President George Bush will barely mention it other than to report on "successful" elections in his State of the Union address, so I've gone around the blogs to provide an update on events over in Iraq.
From Newsday via City of Brass:
On the evening of Jan. 18, as we made our way up a broad boulevard, in the distance I could see car making its way toward us. As a defense against potential car-bombs, it is now standard practice for foot patrols to stop oncoming vehicles, particularly after dark."We have a car coming," someone called out as we entered an intersection. We could see the car about a 100 meters away. The car continued coming; I couldn't see it anymore from my perch but could hear its engine now, a high whine that sounded more like acceleration than slowing down. It was maybe 50 yards away now.
"Stop that car!" someone shouted out, seemingly simultaneously with someone firing what sounded like warning shots -- a staccato, measured burst. The car continued coming. And then, perhaps less than a second later, a cacophony of fire, shots rattling off in a chaotic, overlapping din. The car entered the intersection on its momentum and still shots were penetrating it and slicing it. Finally, the shooting stopped, the car drifted listlessly, clearly no longer being steered, and came to a rest on a curb. Soldiers began to approach it warily.
The sound of children crying came from the car. I walked up to the car and a teenaged girl with her head covered emerged from the back, wailing and gesturing wildly. After her came a boy, tumbling onto the ground from the seat, already leaving a pool of blood.
"Civilians!" someone shouted, and soldiers ran up. More children -- it ended up being six all told -- started emerging, crying, their faces mottled with blood in long streaks. The troops carried them all off to a nearby sidewalk....
Meanwhile, the children continued to wail and scream, huddled against a wall, sandwiched between soldiers either binding their wounds or trying to comfort them. The Army's translator later told me that this was a Turkoman family and that the teenaged girl kept shouting, "Why did they shoot us? We have no weapons! We were just going home!"
...The Army told me it will probably launch a full investigation.
An investigation? How about changing policy to at least try waving cars off with a flashlight, before shooting the driver in the head?
Water is like peace- you never really know just how valuable it is until someone takes it away. It’s maddening to walk up to the sink, turn one of the faucets and hear the pipes groan with nothing. The toilets don’t function… the dishes sit piled up until two of us can manage to do them- one scrubbing and rinsing and the other pouring the water.Why is this happening? Is it because of the electricity? If it is, we should at least be getting water a couple of hours a day- like before. Is it some sort of collective punishment leading up to the elections? It’s unbelievable. At first, I thought it was just our area but I’ve been asking around and apparently, almost all of the areas (if not all) are suffering this drought.
I’m sure people outside of the country are shaking their heads at the words ‘collective punishment’. “No, Riverbend,” they are saying, “That’s impossible.” But anything is possible these days. People in many areas are being told that if they don’t vote- Sunnis and Shia alike- the food and supply rations we are supposed to get monthly will be cut off. We’ve been getting these rations since the beginning of the nineties and for many families, it’s their main source of sustenance. What sort of democracy is it when you FORCE people to go vote for someone or another they don’t want?
Allawi’s people were passing out pamphlets a few days ago. I went out to the garden to check the low faucet, hoping to find a trickle of water and instead, I found some paper crushed under the garden gate. Upon studying it, it turned out to be some sort of “Elect Allawi” pamphlet promising security and prosperity, amongst other things, for occupied Iraq. I'd say it was a completely useless pamphlet but that isn't completely true. It fit nicely on the bottom of the cage of E.'s newly acquired pet parakeet.
They say the borders are closed with Jordan and possibly Syria. I also heard yesterday that people aren't being let into Baghdad. They have American check-points on the main roads leading into the city and they say that the cars are being turned back to wherever they came from. It's a bad situation and things are looking very bleak at this point.
It's amazing how as things get worse, you begin to require less and less. We have a saying for that in Iraq, "Ili yishoof il mawt, yirdha bil iskhooneh." Which means, "If you see death, you settle for a fever." We've given up on democracy, security and even electricity. Just bring back the water.
Brief mention from CBS News today:
Engineers have fixed water pipes that were sabotaged this month causing water shortages in Baghdad, the Iraqi government said Sunday."The (western Baghdad) Karkh water plant returned to full capacity after repairs to damaged water pipes in Tarmiyah district," 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Baghdad. "The damage was caused by insurgent bombs" on Jan. 15, the government said.
Since the attack occurred, many Baghdad neighborhoods on both sides of the Tigris River had suffered a critical water shortage.
Posted by Mike at 12:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 19, 2005
Bush's plan IS a benefit cut
Using figures from the CBO report that studied his CSSS Plan 2:
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January 18, 2005
Yahoo's latest attempt at humor?
Notice the photo of Jerry Springer thrown in for no good reason with this story about a possible NY Attorney General contest in the Democratic primary, between Robert F. Kennedy and his estranged brother-in-law Andrew Cuomo.
Yup, the Democratic party is a cesspool. Thanks for noticing, Yahoo.
Posted by Mike at 02:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Remembering the rest of MLK's dream
From the speech he delivered the day before he died:
It's all right to talk about "long white robes over yonder," in all of its symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here. It's all right to talk about "streets flowing with milk and honey," but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can't eat three square meals a day. It's all right to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God's preachers must talk about the New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is what we have to do.Now the other thing we'll have to do is this: Always anchor our external direct action with the power of economic withdrawal. Now, we are poor people, individually, we are poor when you compare us with white society in America. We are poor. Never stop and forget that collectively, that means all of us together, collectively we are richer than all the nations in the world, with the exception of nine. Did you ever think about that? After you leave the United States, Soviet Russia, Great Britain, West Germany, France, and I could name the others, the Negro collectively is richer than most nations of the world. We have an annual income of more than thirty billion dollars a year, which is more than all of the exports of the United States, and more than the national budget of Canada. Did you know that? That's power right there, if we know how to pool it.
We don't have to argue with anybody. We don't have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don't need any bricks and bottles, we don't need any Molotov cocktails, we just need to go around to these stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, "God sent us by here, to say to you that you're not treating his children right. And we've come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda fair treatment, where God's children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you."
And so, as a result of this, we are asking you tonight, to go out and tell your neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola in Memphis. Go by and tell them not to buy Sealtest milk. Tell them not to buy—what is the other bread?—Wonder Bread. And what is the other bread company, Jesse? Tell them not to buy Hart's bread. As Jesse Jackson has said, up to now, only the garbage men have been feeling pain; now we must kind of redistribute the pain. We are choosing these companies because they haven't been fair in their hiring policies; and we are choosing them because they can begin the process of saying, they are going to support the needs and the rights of these men who are on strike. And then they can move on downtown and tell Mayor Loeb to do what is right.
But not only that, we've got to strengthen black institutions. I call upon you to take your money out of the banks downtown and deposit your money in Tri-State Bank—we want a "bank-in" movement in Memphis. So go by the savings and loan association. I'm not asking you something we don't do ourselves at SCLC. Judge Hooks and others will tell you that we have an account here in the savings and loan association from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. We're just telling you to follow what we're doing. Put your money there. You have six or seven black insurance companies in Memphis. Take out your insurance there. We want to have an "insurance-in."
Now these are some practical things we can do. We begin the process of building a greater economic base. And at the same time, we are putting pressure where it really hurts. I ask you to follow through here.
Now, let me say as I move to my conclusion that we've got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end. Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point, in Memphis. We've got to see it through. And when we have our march, you need to be there. Be concerned about your brother. You may not be on strike. But either we go up together, or we go down together.
Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. One day a man came to Jesus; and he wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters in life. At points, he wanted to trick Jesus, and show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew, and through this, throw him off base. Now that question could have easily ended up in a philosophical and theological debate. But Jesus immediately pulled that question from mid-air, and placed it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. And he talked about a certain man, who fell among thieves. You remember that a Levite and a priest passed by on the other side. They didn't stop to help him. And finally a man of another race came by. He got down from his beast, decided not to be compassionate by proxy. But with him, administering first aid, and helped the man in need. Jesus ended up saying, this was the good man, this was the great man, because he had the capacity to project the "I" into the "thou," and to be concerned about his brother. Now you know, we use our imagination a great deal to try to determine why the priest and the Levite didn't stop. At times we say they were busy going to church meetings—an ecclesiastical gathering—and they had to get on down to Jerusalem so they wouldn't be late for their meeting. At other times we would speculate that there was a religious law that "One who was engaged in religious ceremonials was not to touch a human body twenty-four hours before the ceremony." And every now and then we begin to wonder whether maybe they were not going down to Jerusalem, or down to Jericho, rather to organize a "Jericho Road Improvement Association." That's a possibility. Maybe they felt that it was better to deal with the problem from the causal root, rather than to get bogged down with an individual effort.
But I'm going to tell you what my imagination tells me. It's possible that these men were afraid. You see, the Jericho road is a dangerous road. I remember when Mrs. King and I were first in Jerusalem. We rented a car and drove from Jerusalem down to Jericho. And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my wife, "I can see why Jesus used this as a setting for his parable." It's a winding, meandering road. It's really conducive for ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1200 miles, or rather 1200 feet above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you're about 2200 feet below sea level. That's a dangerous road. In the days of Jesus it came to be known as the "Bloody Pass." And you know, it's possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it's possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"
That's the question before you tonight. Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?" The question is not, "If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?" "If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?" That's the question.
Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation. And I want to thank God, once more, for allowing me to be here with you.
You know, several years ago, I was in New York City autographing the first book that I had written. And while sitting there autographing books, a demented black woman came up. The only question I heard from her was, "Are you Martin Luther King?"
And I was looking down writing, and I said yes. And the next minute I felt something beating on my chest. Before I knew it I had been stabbed by this demented woman. I was rushed to Harlem Hospital. It was a dark Saturday afternoon. And that blade had gone through, and the X-rays revealed that the tip of the blade was on the edge of my aorta, the main artery. And once that's punctured, you drown in your own blood—that's the end of you.
It came out in the New York Times the next morning, that if I had sneezed, I would have died. Well, about four days later, they allowed me, after the operation, after my chest had been opened, and the blade had been taken out, to move around in the wheel chair in the hospital. They allowed me to read some of the mail that came in, and from all over the states, and the world, kind letters came in. I read a few, but one of them I will never forget. I had received one from the President and the Vice-President. I've forgotten what those telegrams said. I'd received a visit and a letter from the Governor of New York, but I've forgotten what the letter said. But there was another letter that came from a little girl, a young girl who was a student at the White Plains High School. And I looked at that letter, and I'll never forget it. It said simply, "Dear Dr. King: I am a ninth-grade student at the White Plains High School." She said, "While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I am a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died. And I'm simply writing you to say that I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze."
And I want to say tonight, I want to say that I am happy that I didn't sneeze. Because if I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1960, when students all over the South started sitting-in at lunch counters. And I knew that as they were sitting in, they were really standing up for the best in the American dream. And taking the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around in 1962, when Negroes in Albany, Georgia, decided to straighten their backs up. And whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can't ride your back unless it is bent. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been here in 1963, when the black people of Birmingham, Alabama, aroused the conscience of this nation, and brought into being the Civil Rights Bill. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have had a chance later that year, in August, to try to tell America about a dream that I had had. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been down in Selma, Alabama, been in Memphis to see the community rally around those brothers and sisters who are suffering. I'm so happy that I didn't sneeze.
And they were telling me, now it doesn't matter now. It really doesn't matter what happens now. I left Atlanta this morning, and as we got started on the plane, there were six of us, the pilot said over the public address system, "We are sorry for the delay, but we have Dr. Martin Luther King on the plane. And to be sure that all of the bags were checked, and to be sure that nothing would be wrong with the plane, we had to check out everything carefully. And we've had the plane protected and guarded all night."
And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?
Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
Posted by Mike at 12:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 17, 2005
It's the software reliability, stupid
As someone who has sat in a conference room while a so-called "system reliability" expert explained that software reliability problems are not really such a big concern, then went on to explain his area of expertise, which is server hardware - not software - reliability, I know exactly the mentally that let this Comair disaster happen. They spent millions on high speed, reliable servers, but never upgraded or analyzed for faults the software they had been using for twenty years.
From an anonymous poster at Slashdot:
The computer system in question runs AIX. The box itself is still up and running just fine; this is purely an application error. This application was not written in-house at Comair, but by another large aerospace company -- SBS (http://www.sbsint.com/ [sbsint.com], owned by Boeing.) This bit of software does not use an external database, it tracks everything itself. It is a dedicated system responsible only for flight crew assignments. (The blather in the original submission about passenger reservations is way off-base. Those functions are handled by a completely different system.)The great majority of Comair's traffic flows through the midwest, and the central base of operations is in Cincinnati. The midwest was hit by a major snowstorm this week, causing many, many crew reassignments. It appears right now that the application in question has a hard limit of 32,000 changes per month (ouch). Consider that Comair runs 1,100 flights a day and there are usually 3 crew members on each aircraft. A big storm like this can cause problems for days after the snow stops falling. That's a whole lot of crew changes.
In Comair's defense, this has never happened before and is unlikely to happen again. The crew system was already on the chopping block long before this incident, with its replacement scheduled to go live in January. If this freak storm had happened a month later, this likely never would have occurred.
More confirming details from the Cincinatti Enquirer:
ERLANGER - The technology was working on borrowed time. And on a frigid Christmas Eve, time ran out.When Comair's crew-scheduling computer system failed, it caused a crisis that grounded the airline's 1,160 daily flights during one of the busiest travel times of the year.
The computer failure and Midwest storm disrupted travel for more than 100,000 holiday travelers at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport and dozens of airports around the country.
The grounding was a public relations disaster not only for Comair but for parent Delta Air Lines. It took four days for Comair to get all its jets back in the air, and about that long to clear the piles of luggage and passengers stranded at the airport here.
And now, a federal investigation is under way.
One week after the fleet was grounded, the probe is just beginning. Comair officials initially said that no one could have prepared for the unprecedented chain of events that occurred. But interviews with dozens of company workers, the computer system manufacturer and outside technology experts raise questions about why an aging computer system was still in use - and why its backup failed as well.
It get's better:
However, it was considered state-of-the-art, experts and Jepperson officials say. Still, it could handle only 32,767 transactions in a month. A "transaction" is counted each time a change or new entry is made to crew schedules. Count limits were common when the system was purchased because computer memory was expensive - something that's no longer true.Last week, the system was already near its memory limit, and the end of the month was still a week away. When the storm hit, it caused a huge spike in crew schedule changes. The system worked until it reached its limit on Christmas Eve. Then it simply refused to take more data.
Jepperson spokesman Mike Pound says six SBS advisers worked via phone and online with Comair tech workers in Erlanger throughout the night and came up with a time-intensive solution: Rebuilding the system from scratch in a "fresh computing environment."
"At about 6 a.m. Christmas morning, that re-entry began, but unfortunately it wasn't something that could be done quickly," Pound says.
Comair had no choice but to shut down the airline while the system was rebuilt. Last Sunday, the day after Christmas and typically one of the busiest travel days of the year, only about 15 percent of the company's flights were in the air. Comair didn't fully recover until Wednesday....
Another key question about the week's events is what happened to the backup system. Jepperson spokesman Pound referred questions to Comair, which would not comment.
"If they didn't have something in place when it happened to fix it, it was already too late," says Ellis Johnson, a Georgia Tech industrial and systems engineering professor with extensive experience in airline crew computer programming. "Something like this can't be done on the fly. And it makes no sense that there was no recovery or redundant systems."
Adds Anbil of OHM Technologies: "That is what is blowing everybody's mind - what happened to the backup in the first place. Nobody goes completely down like that without backup."
The need for quality software still by far exceeds the world supply. Unfortunately for all the unemployed software engineers out there, focus on quarterly profits still gives most companies sticker shock.
Posted by Mike at 11:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)
Frosty the Snowman?
Unless Rosenberg turns it around it looks like Frost will be the main competition to Dean, in which case I sure hope Dean wins. The last thing we need is another four years of the status quo. I hope that Simon still has some tricks up his sleeve, but if not, hope Dean wins.
I really hope Dean or Rosenberg wins, not Frist, I mean Frost.
Archived from MartinFrost.com via DailyKos:
“Standing up for North Texas has never been about partisan politics, and it never should be - because that is wrong for the people we represent,” Frost said. “I am a proud Democrat, but I am just as proud to stand with President Bush whenever he is acting in the national interest. I broke with a majority of my own party to support the President’s decision to send American troops to Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein and his murderous regime. Two years ago, I was the only Democrat on the Select Committee on Homeland Security to vote to create the new Department of Homeland Security and, unlike my opponent, I supported President Bush’s bipartisan “No Child Left Behind Act” to improve public education.
Posted by Mike at 05:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 16, 2005
Introducing Adel Abdul-Mahdi
Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, a Shiite cleric who leads Iraq's largest Shiite political party, heads the Sistani-backed ticket, but is not seeking the job of prime minister. Finance Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi, a senior member of Hakim's Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, is the designated candidate for the job.Abdul-Mahdi worked with the Americans who directly ruled Iraq for 14 months until last June, and according to diplomats who know him, he's a seasoned politician who has reached out to Kurds and Sunni Arabs.
Senior Shiite figures, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Abdul-Mahdi's chances of becoming prime minister have improved after two visits to Washington over the past few months, when he met with President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
A Washington-based diplomat close to Iraq's political process said Allawi remained the United States' choice, but Washington would not allow itself to be seen as blocking Abdul-Mahdi if the assembly preferred him as prime minister.
However, many Iraqis are uncomfortable with Abdul-Mahdi's SCIRI because it is Islamic-oriented, was bankrolled by Iran for two decades and was based there until Saddam's ouster enabled it to return to Iraq.
It is not uncommon to hear Farsi, Iran's main language, spoken at party offices. Party leaders frequently visit Iran, and the group's military wing, the now-dissolved Badr Brigade, fought with Iran against Iraq in a ruinous 1980-88 war.
Abdul-Mahdi's chances are helped by the grass-roots campaigning of fellow candidates.
Activists from SCIRI and Dawa, another Shiite party, are going door-to-door and mosque-to-mosque to get out the vote.
Allawi, in contrast, appears to be using his position in government to campaign heavily on television and appears nightly on the air.
Some Allawi allies have scathingly attacked the rival ticket, labeling it an "Iranian slate" and warning that, if elected, it will bring clerical rule to Iraq. Sistani's allies dismiss the charges as scaremongering.
Amer Hassan Fayadh, a political science professor at Baghdad University and a secular candidate in the elections, said the United Iraqi Alliance dealt a devastating blow to competitors by adding Sistani's face to campaign materials. The alliance is widely viewed as the front-runner of about 100 slates of candidates on the ballot."They're trying to fool voters by using Sistani," Fayadh said. "Using Sistani's image is a cunning move to exploit the ignorance of voters to get more votes, but it's a clear violation of the rules."
The independent Iraqi Electoral Commission said Monday that it was investigating many complaints about the use of "religious symbols," which are banned from the campaign, but it's not clear if Sistani's image constitutes a religious symbol....
"Using Sistani's photo gives the impression that there is a religious obligation to vote for the alliance," said Sanaa Kadhim, a Shiite political science graduate student at Baghdad University. "It's a smart political move that confirms Ayatollah Sistani's stance on elections."
The United Iraqi Alliance is anchored by Abdulaziz al Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the largest political party in the country. With well-known running mates and alleged support from Iran, where Hakim and other top candidates were exiled during Saddam Hussein's regime, the mostly conservative Shiite slate stands to wield great power in the new national assembly.
Hakim's representatives acknowledged that they're responsible for printing the posters with Sistani's face. In recent sermons and Arabic-language newspaper columns, clerics allied with the Supreme Council insisted to voters that Sistani supported their ticket.
GOTV, lit, viz, town halls. Do they have SCIRI phone banks, too?
Posted by Mike at 01:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 13, 2005
Interesting perspective on Social Security
You'll be hearing a lot about this in days to come, but this article caught my attention, particularly the sections I highlighted:
Right-wingers endlessly repeat the mantra that when Social Security began, there were 42 people paying into the system for every person receiving benefits and that by 2040 that ratio will fall to 2 working people for every retiree. The logical conclusion is obvious: we can no longer guarantee retirees the level of benefits that they currently receive. The elderly will have to tighten their belts and rely more on their own private savings.Think, however, of the deep pessimism that lies behind this argument. It is like saying that in 1900, there was one farmer or farm worker for every seven Americans, but because that ratio has fallen to one farmer for every 83 people, we should all tighten our belts and eat less food. Rising agricultural productivity has made it possible for fewer people to provide all the food that we need. In the same way, if we can grow our economy and increase productivity over the next forty years, each working person should have no difficulty producing enough extra wealth to provide support for half of a retired person.
Providing economic security to the aged is just a question of how we divide the pie. Today, social security outlays represent 4.5% of our total economic output. If the economy grows strongly over the next forty years, we can support the elderly as generously as we do now with only 5% of the total pie even with further gains in life expectancy. In short, strong economic growth is the key to solving the long-term financing problems of Social Security.
And there is a proven way to grow the economy over the next half century. It is to invest in education and basic research. If we invest in our young people–from early childhood through higher education–we can create a more skilled and productive labor force. And if we also invest more in long term research, we can create the new industries that will employ those highly skilled workers. This is precisely what other nations are doing in their efforts to surpass us as the world’s strongest economic power.
Here’s the problem: the strand of conservatism that currently dominates the Republican Party doesn’t believe in increasing any kind of civilian government spending. They don’t want money going to the elderly and they don’t want spending for young people; all they want to do is reduce taxes and shrink government. As Grover Norquist, one of the most influential conservatives in Washington has said, “I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”
Posted by Mike at 03:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
More on Marvin
Cut and pasted from Eric Zorn:
A coda in my life as a journalist has been saying goodbye to radio personality Jay Marvin.First time was in 1983 when he was sharp but disillusioned country music jock bounced from the unendurably bland WJEZ-FM.
The next time was in 1996 when he left WLS-AM (890) after three years there as the resident liberal firebrand talk-show host and took a higher-profile gig in Denver.
Marvin, now 52, returned to the station in 1999 as a more reflective, measured and libertarian voice, still by far the most left-wing of the daily hosts on the increasingly right-wing talk superstation.
Now he's out the door again.
He says he's happy to be gone from the station, where he was never particularly appreciated or beloved either by management or the listeners.
This is not merely brave posturing on his part.
Jay and I are professional friends, I guess is how you'd describe it, and we've spoken about his frustrations frequently over the years, as well as his desire to move on.
My role in these discussions has always been to urge him to stay and continue to provide counterpoint to the station that, in recent years, has bounced liberals Mike Malloy, Nancy Skinner and Ski Anderson and reduced the role of the iconoclastically progressive newsman Bill Cameron.
It was also to remind him not to take the partisan skirmishes and vicious callers too seriously; to remember that talk-radio is show biz and, at his best, he was a great showman.
But Jay is a restless and politically serious man, and I believe him when he says he's greatly relieved to be gone from the station, which in recent years had paired him with conservative Eileen Byrne in a match that had more on-air chemistry than he seemed to think.
It shocked and pleased me this morning to hear Byrne offer a classy farewell (shocked because once personalities leave WLS, the usual custom is never to mention their names on the air again):
"I just want to say a word about my friend and former partner Jay Marvin. If you didn't already hear the news, Jay Marvin is no longer with the station. I enjoyed working with him very much.But I knew that he was not happy and I did not know how to help him. You know we. this is our first election that we'd gone through. He took the debate very personally. I didn't know how to help him be more positive about what we were doing.
But let me say this as we go forward. That I loved his different perspective. And as we go forward, I'm always going to think of him and look at things from beyond my own eyes and ears and treat everybody who disagrees with respect.
I did talk to Jay, he was going on vacation, he was on his way to Phoenix, and he sounded happier than he did in a very long time. So certainly I wish him all the best."
I do, too. And I suspect that, as before, we haven't heard the last of Jay Marvin.
Posted by Mike at 03:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Don't start to pack yet
While the opening of this DNC email from James Carville sounds like a call for 1 million Democrats to march on Washington, it is actually just another call for Democrats to make donations to the DNC:
Dear Mike,"What are you going to do on Inauguration Day?" At least in Washington, that's a question you hear Democrats asking one another as George W. Bush's inaugural celebration approaches. Do you want to know my answer?
Join the million-strong Democrats who are standing up to fight for what we believe in.
I'm going to stand with over a million grassroots Democrats who have entered 2005 with a fighting spirit by renewing their 2005 financial support for the Democratic Party in advance of January 20.
Look, we Democrats can either swallow all of the Republicans' malarkey about "the people have spoken" and go hide in a corner somewhere. Or we can fully embrace the grassroots power that we so clearly demonstrated in 2004. Renew your support today at:https://www.democrats.org/support
For a minute, my imagination took hold.
Posted by Mike at 03:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
"Powder your nose, or you're fired"
Obliquely via P6, on Alternet:
One of the highest courts in the land, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, has determined that it's legal for an employer to fire a female employee who refuses to wear makeup. Think this through slowly and carefully, girls: if you live in the 9th Circuit (which covers California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho and Montana), you could be fired tomorrow if your boss decides your "uniform" for work includes makeup. Supposedly this ruling doesn't run afoul of discrimination law because it doesn't impose an "unequal burden" on women. Do you want to know why, ladies and germs? Because a rule for women enforcing face paint is "equal" to a rule forbidding men from wearing it. Now there's some real smart logic. Presence is the same as absence! War is peace! Yup, it's the kind of analysis that's gotten very popular in the United States recently....Most important, this is a woman who worked for Harrah's casino for more than two decades, with glowing recommendations from both customers and supervisors, getting fired for refusing to put red dust on her cheeks and pink grease on her lips. Darlene Jesperson brought her case against Harrah's in Reno in 2000 after the company created a "personal best policy" that required all female workers to get an "image consultation," which included a makeover. Photographs of the post-makeover women were taken and placed in their supervisors' files as a "measurement tool" to determine whether the women were properly made up for their job. If a woman failed to live up to her post-makeover self, it was grounds for termination.
Jesperson, who said wearing makeup while bartending at Harrah's sports bar "forced her to be feminine" and made her feel "dolled up" like a sex object, argued that cosmetics undermined her effectiveness as a worker and "took away [her] credibility as a person." When she refused to wear makeup, her supervisors suggested she apply for a job at Harrah's that didn't require makeup; then they fired her.
Posted by Mike at 02:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Shia haters
Saw two things today which raise good, and somewhat funny points.
First this online quiz result from City of Brass:
You are a SHIA. You are devoted to the Prophet and
the 12 Imams, pray on a clay disk, and may or
may not beat yourself in Muharram. Everyone
hates you, by the way.
Then this part of an article in the Weekly Standard. I disagree with many of the things he says where he labels all Sunnis as insurgents, but he does have a few good points in there, too:
At least the Times stops short of arguing that majority rule is ipso facto a bad idea, or that letting Saddam loose would also soothe Sunni sensibilities. I guess we have to wait for his trial for that transformation.There's more than simple fear of freedom at work here. For a long time conventional wisdom about Iraq has insisted upon conflating the differences among Iraqi and Iranian Shia. This Shia-fear stems not only from the American experience of the Iranian Revolution but from many decades of propagandizing by the region's Sunni autocrats and monarchs. But a clear reading of Iraq today reveals not a lumpen Shiatariat but a pluralistic political community ranging from Abdel Aziz al-Hakim to Ahmed Chalabi. What brings them together, after generations of "estrangement" from Iraqi politics, is the chance at a decent life, a taste of liberty, and the pursuit of some happiness.
Ordinary Americans might be forgiven for wondering why it is that toppling a dangerous dictator, liberating a violently suppressed majority, and electing a representative government was a strategic mistake whose consequences should be postponed as long as possible. You have to be a member of the foreign-policy elite to understand these things.
No, I don't read the Weekly Standard. I found that on Google News.
Posted by Mike at 02:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Why I Support Al Hakim
He may be a conservative religious zealot, but so is our President, and at least this guy is not beholden to corporate interests. Secondly, he has a basic belief in democratic systems, which is not the case for any other Arab national leader or ally of the US. Last but not least, these Shia clerics are the only chance Iraq has got.
A little religious zeal sure beats a massive regional crisis.
Posted by Mike at 03:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Average Daily Bankruptcy
As you may know, you're now as likely to file for bankruptcy as you are to file for divorce. Guess who's filing? Not the ones without credit cards, or the ones who pay on time. The odds are that if you usually carry a revolving balance, you'll be filing for bankruptcy at some point. This AP article helps explain why:
Howard Dvorkin, president of Consolidated Credit, said many people have so many credit cards they don't know how much they owe overall. He offers a step-by-step approach to help consumers work on the problem:
First, list all your bills on a single sheet of paper in three columns: who you owe, how much and the minimum monthly payment.Then look at your earnings and spending.
"With earnings, look at every aspect," Dvorkin said. "Can you adjust your (tax) withholding to get a little more in your paycheck each month? Do you need to find a part-time job to supplement your income?"
This guy actually tells people to write down your minimum payments so you can keep track of them all. If you can only afford to make the minimum payments on a balance, you should stop using that card for new purchases immediately. That's step one. Not making a chart of all these minimum payments like they are your guiding light. They are designed to maximum profit! This 2002 CNN/Money article has a few of the key points to remember:
Credit card companies have reduced their minimum payments of late. Most cards now only require a two percent minimum payment, said Brobeck, down from five percent. This makes the offer sound more appealing, but it actually isn't. If you pay only the minimum, you'll pay even more interest for a longer period of time."Mathematically, if you're being charged a penalty interest rate of 24 percent, and only make the minimum payment of two percent, you will never pay off your debt," said Brobeck.
It also explains:
"Some credit cards don't offer a grace period anymore," said Fritz Elmendorf, vice president of communications at the Consumer Bankers Association.According to CardWeb.com, the average grace period on a card from one of the major issuers is about 22 days. But some cards have shortened the period to 20 days, and others have none at all. With no grace period, you're charged interest on the purchase from the day you make it, probably before the credit card company has even paid the store on your behalf....
Your credit card balance is computed using one of three methods: the adjusted balance method, the average daily balance method, and the two-cycle balance method.
The adjusted balance method is the most consumer friendly: interest is charged on the account balance remaining after payments and credits during the billing cycle. The average daily balance method is charges interest on your average balance during the billing cycle.
The one to watch out for is the two-cycle balance method, where the interest on your average daily balance is computed using both your purchases from that billing cycle and those from the month before.
"If I charged a bunch of things in February, even if I paid them off completely, that figure would still be used along with my March purchases in order to calculate my average daily balance for March," said Brad Dakake, a consumer advocate at the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group (MASSPIRG). "The average consumer probably has no idea – it's very sneaky."
The average consumer doesn't understand the difference between the adjusted balance method or the average daily balance method, either. Fortunately, there are no adjusted balance cards left, so no worry.
Posted by Mike at 03:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Start your watches
Now that Air America is beaming into New Hampshire, it's only a matter of time until 2008 candidates start scheduling appearances.
BRATTLEBORO — A southern Vermont-based radio station will trade in the rhetoric of Rush Limbaugh and other conservative talk show hosts for the liberal commentary of Air America next week.WKVT-AM 1490 in Brattleboro will replace four of its weekday syndicated conservative talk shows on Jan. 17 with programs from the fledgling liberal radio network Air America, which launched in March.
The station will be the second in Vermont to broadcast Air America programs, which include shows hosted by comedian Al Franken and actress Jeanne Garofalo.
The Brattleboro area is highly liberal in its political beliefs and the Air America shows will be a better fit for the station's listeners than the conservative programs hosted by Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, said WKVT program director Peter Case.
"We're calling this a right-to-left switch," he said. "For many years, our programming leaned to the right, but Brattleboro is a very liberal area and our lineup had to reflect that."
Added to WKVT's lineup Monday will be "Unfiltered," hosted by Rachel Maddow, Lizz Winstead and Chuck D; the "Al Franken Show;" the "Randi Rhodes Show;" and the "Majority Report," hosted by Garofalo and Sam Seider.
The Air America programs will replace daily radio shows hosted by Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Howie Carr and Joy Brown, Case said.
"This is the 'clearing the air' campaign," Case said. "These new shows will be a better fit for the area."
WKVT-AM 1490, which is owned by Michigan-based Saga Communications, broadcasts in a 15-mile range in the Brattleboro area, hitting nearby towns such as Dummerston and Hinsdale, N.H. A sister station, WKVT-FM 92.7, also broadcasts in the area.
Air America Radio launched in March, and despite a rocky start marked by fired executives and bounced checks, the network has expanded to more than 40 markets across the country. It is also available on two satellite radio networks and over the Internet.
Posted by Mike at 01:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 11, 2005
Projected Social Security Status
Posted by Mike at 12:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 10, 2005
Tamala update
The google news alerts are flooding in. At this rate I'll need a new category. I've really been itching to delete John Kerry's, too.
From the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Edwards scores. For somebody born in Georgia, raised in Texas, and educated in California, WPVI-bound Tamala Edwards knows a lot about Philadelphia.Edwards, coanchor of ABC's overnight World News Now, scored 100 percent on a pop quiz on Now in the wee hours Friday. The quizmaster: fill-in coanchor Jake Tapper, a Philly guy.
Tapper's questions were not slam dunks for a New Yorker:
Who is Terrell Owens? (Not only did Edwards know the answer, she corrected Tapper when he referred to the Eagles' star receiver as a running back.)
What are rivals Pat's and Geno's known for? (Duh.)
Whose statue caused a controversy when it was placed in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art? (Sly Stallone as Rocky.)
What is the name of the comics and musicians who dress up for the city's parades? (Mummers.)
Which Philadelphia movie was not set in the city itself - Philadelphia, Trading Places or The Philadelphia Story? (It was No. 3, set on the Main Line.)
"I was floored," says Tapper, 35, an Akiba Hebrew Academy grad who joined ABC in '02 as a Washington correspondent. "We all know how New Yorkers tend to regard Philadelphians - not very often."
Edwards joins Action News Jan. 25 as morning coanchor. On her finale Friday, she was inducted into Now's Hall of Fame, joining Aaron Brown and Anderson Cooper, both of CNN.
From crosstown rival The Daily Times:
Edwards, who arrives at Channel 6 later this month, is a bit of a surprise. For one thing, Channel 6 usually promotes someone with whom its audience is already familiar, and some of the women already on its staff have been impressive in anchor roles, weekend anchor and health reporter Anita Brikman and consumer reporter Nydia Han among them. For another, Edwards is making an unusual switch from a high-profile national position to a local berth. Given Channel 6’s ratings, this is no come-down, but it the opposite of most people’s career paths, especially at a station like Channel 6 that is a "keeper" address for most people who go to work there.Before she joined Ron Corning at "World News Now," Edwards worked with Peter Jennings as a reporter and White House correspondent on "ABC World News Tonight." You’d more expect to find her doing news cut-ins on "Good Morning America" than anchoring at a local station.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing the matter with leaving the national arena for an important local job. I mention it only because it’s a rare step.
In some ways, Edwards may already have a following with the early risers among Channel 6’s morning news audience. When "World News Now" signs off at 4:30 a.m., Edwards delivers a half-hour newscast, "ABC World News This Morning." In effect, she has been the lead-in to the Channel 6 dawn show she’ll now be anchoring from 5 to 7 a.m. every weekday. Ironically, the Channel 6 assignment probably normalized waking hours for Edwards, who has been on the air from about 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. for most of the last two years.
It will be interesting to see if Edwards is a "keeper," one who plans a career in the Philadelphia market, or if ABC sees Channel 6 as a grooming ground for a more visible anchor role in Edwards’s future.
Posted by Mike at 11:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 09, 2005
Al Qaeda versus Al Hakim?
I am more and more interested in the dynamic forming between conservative Shiite leaders in Iraq on the one hand and the violent extremests supported by Bin Laden on the other. It reminds me of a contrast between Catholic church leaders on one hand and say, armed White Supremist groups on the other. In the end, Al Hakim wins.
Iraq's insurgents, believed to be predominantly Sunni, repeatedly have targeted Shiites in apparent attempts to widen sectarian rifts.The Shiite leaders who spoke Sunday belong to the Unified Iraqi Alliance, a mainstream Shiite coalition running in the election. The group was expected to do well and its leaders likely will have top government posts if the vote goes through.
"The Iraqi Unified Alliance calls for national talks to stand against the civil war or sectarianism conflict," said Sheikh Humam Hamoudy, a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is part of the coalition. "We call for unity particularly with the Sunni brothers because there is a large plan to create a sectarian fight."
The Shiite leaders, who are backed by Iraq's most influential cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, said postponing the vote would only create more chaos in Iraq. They rejected comments purportedly made by Osama bin Laden in a tape released Monday in which the al Qaeda leader urged Muslims not to vote, calling the election illegitimate.
"We believe in the joint participation of all the components of the Iraqi people," said Abdul Aziz Hakim, head of SCIRI. "Bin Laden is interfering in the Iraqi affairs by calling his criminal followers to hinder Iraqis from voting."
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The group of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility Tuesday for the assassination attempt against the leader of Iraq's largest Shiite Muslim party that killed and wounded dozens of people.In a statement posted on an internet web site, al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq said one of its members carried out the suicide attack near Abdel Aziz al-Hakim's office Monday that killed 15 people and wounded more than 50. Al-Hakim, who was not in the office but in his adjacent house, was not hurt.
The assassination attempt came a month before Iraq's general elections in which al-Hakim is running, while most Sunni Muslims are boycotting saying it should not be held under U.S. occupation and amid deteriorating security situation. Shiites, who make up 60 percents of Iraq's 26 million, want to show their strength through elections after living under Sunni domination for decades.
"On Monday morning, one of the lions of the martyrdom seekers brigades, belonging to the military wing of al-Qaida in Iraq launched an attack in order to wipe out one of the symbols of treason for the Americans," the statement said.
It added that "We tell you Hakim that if one arrow missed you we have many more arrows."
U.S. officials have offered a reward of $25 million for the capture of al-Zarqawi. He is believed to be behind numerous high-profile attacks in Iraq, including last year's bombing of the U.N. headquarters, the beheading of several foreign hostages and the August 2003 killing of al-Hakim's elder brother Mohammed Baqir in the Shiite holy city of Najaf.
They may have "many arrows" but Saddam has tried that route before:
NAJAF, Iraq _ After years of praying for mercy and receiving little, Najaf's leaders say their day of deliverance is finally near _ Jan. 30, to be precise.The city of Najaf is the spiritual center for Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority. On election day, clerics and residents pray, Najaf's religious importance will turn into political power.
Barring a delay in the vote, conservative Shiites stand to sweep the Jan. 30 parliamentary elections, opening an era of unprecedented influence for Najaf, whose people suffered for decades under the dictatorial rule of Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority....
Saddam's Sunni-led regime recognized the power of Najaf's ayatollahs and attacked it by filling mass graves with their followers. His government imprisoned, tortured and killed Shiite dissidents and deserters. His men harassed, exiled or assassinated clerics.
A portrait of a young man, often in military uniform, who died or disappeared under the former regime adorns many Najaf living rooms. From the drivers of donkey carts to the American-appointed officials in the governor's office, practically every Najaf native has a story of a "martyred" loved one.
Saddam's fall offered Najaf residents only a brief reprieve from bloodshed. As Shiites asserted their long-marginalized beliefs, Sunni insurgents targeted them. Najaf leaders now fear that election-related violence could result in yet another missed chance for Shiite self-determination.
I would not bet against those conservative clerics in Najaf.
Posted by Mike at 04:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 08, 2005
Isn't negotiating with yourself called thinking?
George W. Bush likes to say, "I'm not going to negotiate with myself."
Of course, it is impossible to "negotiate" with yourself as it requires two different people, by definition.
To confer with another or others in order to come to terms or reach an agreement: "It is difficult to negotiate where neither will trust" (Samuel Johnson).To arrange or settle by discussion and mutual agreement: negotiate a contract.
To have or formulate in the mind.To reason about or reflect on; ponder: Think how complex language is. Think the matter through.
To decide by reasoning, reflection, or pondering: thinking what to do.
To judge or regard; look upon: I think it only fair.
To believe; suppose: always thought he was right.To expect; hope: They thought she'd arrive early.
To intend: They thought they'd take their time.
To call to mind; remember: I can't think what her name was.
To visualize; imagine: Think what a scene it will be at the reunion.
To devise or evolve; invent: thought up a plan to get rich quick.
To bring into a given condition by mental preoccupation: He thought himself into a panic over the impending examination.
To concentrate one's thoughts on: “Think languor” (Diana Vreeland).To exercise the power of reason, as by conceiving ideas, drawing inferences, and using judgment.
To weigh or consider an idea: They are thinking about moving.To bring a thought to mind by imagination or invention: No one before had thought of bifocal glasses.
To recall a thought or an image to mind: She thought of her childhood when she saw the movie.
To believe; suppose: He thinks of himself as a wit. It's later than you think.
To have care or consideration: Think first of the ones you love.
To dispose the mind in a given way: Do you think so?
Entry: think
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: contemplate
Synonyms: analyze, appraise, appreciate, brood, cerebrate, chew, cogitate, comprehend, conceive, consider, deduce, deliberate, estimate, evaluate, examine, figure out, ideate, imagine, infer, intellectualize, judge, logicalize, meditate, mull, mull over, muse, noodle, ponder, rationalize, reason, reflect, resolve, revolve, ruminate, sort out, speculate, stew, study, turn over, weigh
Posted by Mike at 09:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Jay Marvin no longer at WLS
Taking a hint from the WHS (White House Staff), WLS in Chicago is closing ranks and has let Jay Marvin go so that their prime time line up is now free from dissent. I wonder if they are on the dole, too?
Maybe WLS can hire Armstrong Williams, instead?
Effective today Jay Marvin is no longer a member of the WLS on-air staff. For the past two-plus years, Jay has co-hosted the 9am-11am program. We wish Jay the best and thank him for his contribution. Eileen Byrne will continue to host the time slot.John F. Gallagher President and General Manager WLS-AM 890/WRDZ-AM 1300 Chicago IL 60601
If Air America doesn't try to land this guy, they're stupid.
Posted by Mike at 07:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tamala's moving on to Philadelphia
I'm sad to report that Tamala Edwards is moving to a local news post in Philadelphia, well out of reach of any New York cable network. On the bright side, it's probably the first step towards her return to a national news desk somewhere further down the road. Philly is a high ranking media market. Her time slot could be better, but beats 2AM:
Tamala Edwards, coanchor of ABC's overnight World News Now, will join WPVI's Action News as morning coanchor, the network confirms.Edwards' ABC finale is tomorrow; she starts Jan. 25 at 'PVI, with Channel 6 reporter Matt O'Donnell as her coanchor.
'PVI's 5-to-7 a.m. newscast has been without permanent coanchors since Rick Williams and Monica Malpass moved to 5 p.m. in August.
"We are extremely proud of Tamala, and we couldn't be more thrilled that she's staying in the family," an ABC rep says. ABC and Channel 6 are both owned by Disney.
Edwards joined ABC in August 2001 as a White House correspondent. After a stint covering education, religion and culture for Peter Jennings' World News Tonight, she was named to Now in December '03.
She coanchors Now (seen from 2:35 to 4:30 a.m. here) with Ron Corning and goes solo on ABC World News This Morning (4:30 to 5 a.m.).
Georgia native Edwards was a correspondent for Time magazine from 1993 to '97 in New York, then Washington. She graduated from Stanford with a degree in international relations.
If you forget about her days at TIME, check out this piece of prose:
thanks and so long, but never goodbye
Tam_Edwards
Jan 06, 2005 11:19 PMah, you guys are quick and you've figured it out: I am indeed headed to Philly to become the new morning anchor at Action News, Channel Six, the ABC affiliate. It is an amazing opportunity: a chance to continue anchoring, great visibility and support, a powerhouse station with great respect, and a number of lifestyle benefits.
It was wonderful to be wooed and finally won over by the station. And it never would have happened, I believe, if it had not been for the time on WNN and WNTM. I have learned, grown, flourished, and enjoyed every moment. And key to this has been you guys. You are so loyal and involved I always I knew someone, and someone special at that, was out there in the middle of the night...
Life is long and this step opens up so many possibilities. Maybe I'll be a longtime Philly girl...or find my way to other great cities or back to a network or onto the international stage. Whatever it is, I feel great about the future...
I hope you'll keep up with me...check out the WPVI web broadcasts or something. And please do know this time in my life, and having you in it, has been very very special to me...I will miss you...
Much love....Tam
Interesting side note from the forum: Did you know she is 5'4" tall?
And every inch a work of art.
I am skeptical that WPVI actually has 5AM webcasts, but who knows.
Posted by Mike at 06:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
True scope of the Social Security Crisis
There is none.
Posted by Mike at 05:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)