I defy anyone to reveal how White Amerikkka is not totally accountable for the travesties in all of Liberia's history!
Liberia's Taylor faces war crimes trial at Hague

By Alexandra Hudson Sun Jun 3, 6:21 PM ET

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Former Liberian President Charles Taylor goes on trial before a U.N.-backed court at
The Hague on Monday charged with instigating murder, rape and mutilation during Sierra Leone's civil war.

Prosecutors and human rights campaigners hope the case will send a message that no leaders, including heads of state, should expect to escape punishment for atrocities.

Taylor, 59, has pleaded not guilty to the 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity he faces at the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Some 50,000 people were killed in the West African country's 1991-2002 civil war.

Even among Africa's horrific wars, the fighting in Sierra Leone stood out for its exceptional brutality -- casual murder, mass rapes, the hacking of limbs from civilians and the forced recruitment of child soldiers as young as eight.

Taylor, driving force behind a tangle of conflicts in West Africa, was brought to The Hague because of fears that a trial in Freetown could spark new regional instability.

"We view this trial as one where we have an opportunity to get it right -- to show how one can go about prosecuting a chief of state at international level and do so in a way which is accessible," said prosecutor Stephen Rapp, an American.

"Some of these crimes involve the most horrendous things human beings can do to one another."

DIAMONDS

Prosecutors state in the indictment that Taylor sought to gain control of Sierra Leone's mineral wealth, particularly its diamond mines, and destabilize the Freetown government, to boost his own regional influence.

They argue that Taylor supported and directed Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels as they carried out a campaign of terror against Sierra Leone's civilians. Prosecutors say he failed to use his power to prevent war crimes being committed.

Taylor's defense does not dispute the horrors, but says he was not giving orders to fighters in Sierra Leone, supplying weapons to the rebels or recruiting child soldiers.

It says the prosecution cannot prove his involvement during the period of the charges, which start from 1996, and says his contacts with the RUF after that were solely aimed at bringing regional peace.

Taylor invaded Liberia with a rebel force in 1989 to end a dictatorship and was elected president in 1997. His enemies regrouped abroad and their fighters forced him from Monrovia in 2003, first to refuge in Nigeria.

Taylor was handed over by the Nigerians under international pressure. In the past, ousted African rulers often lived out their lives in comfortable exile.

The Special Court aims to complete Taylor's trial quickly and hopes to avoid the disappointment felt when former Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic died months before a verdict after a trial of more than four years.

Sic 'em, Larry!
Hustler offers $1 million for sex smut on Congress

Sun Jun 3, 1:44 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hustler magazine is looking for some scandalous sex in Washington again -- and willing to pay for it.

"Have you had a sexual encounter with a current member of the United States Congress or a high-ranking government official?" read a full-page advertisement taken out by Larry Flynt's pornographic magazine in Sunday's Washington Post.

It offered $1 million for documented evidence of illicit intimate relations with a congressman, senator or other prominent officeholder. A toll-free number and e-mail address were provided.

The last time Flynt made such an offer was in October 1998 during the drive to impeach President
Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

In the following months, the pornographic publishing mogul threatened to expose one or two members of the Republican Congress pushing for the impeachment, according to media reports at the time.

That long-awaited expose, published months after Clinton's trial, dropped no bombshells, according to a 1999 Slate.com article, but Flynt's efforts played a role in the resignation of House-speaker designate Bob Livingston of Louisiana.

Flynt's target this time, if he has one, was not immediately known.

Saddly, Cindy has left the building...!
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/5/28/12530/1525/


Story Updated.
Daily Kos
"Good Riddance Attention Whore"
by CindySheehan
Mon May 28, 2007 at 09:57:01 AM PDT

I have endured a lot of smear and hatred since Casey was killed and especially since I became the so-called "Face" of the American anti-war movement. Especially since I renounced any tie I have remaining with the Democratic Party, I have been further trashed on such "liberal blogs" as the Democratic Underground. Being called an "attention whore" and being told "good riddance" are some of the more milder rebukes.

* CindySheehan's diary :: ::
*

I have come to some heartbreaking conclusions this Memorial Day Morning. These are not spur of the moment reflections, but things I have been meditating on for about a year now. The conclusions that I have slowly and very reluctantly come to are very heartbreaking to me.

The first conclusion is that I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a "tool" of the Democratic Party. This label was to marginalize me and my message. How could a woman have an original thought, or be working outside of our "two-party" system?

However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the "left" started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of "right or left", but "right and wrong."

I am deemed a radical because I believe that partisan politics should be left to the wayside when hundreds of thousands of people are dying for a war based on lies that is supported by Democrats and Republican alike. It amazes me that people who are sharp on the issues and can zero in like a laser beam on lies, misrepresentations, and political expediency when it comes to one party refuse to recognize it in their own party. Blind party loyalty is dangerous whatever side it occurs on. People of the world look on us Americans as jokes because we allow our political leaders so much murderous latitude and if we don’t find alternatives to this corrupt "two" party system our Representative Republic will die and be replaced with what we are rapidly descending into with nary a check or balance: a fascist corporate wasteland. I am demonized because I don’t see party affiliation or nationality when I look at a person, I see that person’s heart. If someone looks, dresses, acts, talks and votes like a Republican, then why do they deserve support just because he/she calls him/herself a Democrat?

I have also reached the conclusion that if I am doing what I am doing because I am an "attention whore" then I really need to be committed. I have invested everything I have into trying to bring peace with justice to a country that wants neither. If an individual wants both, then normally he/she is not willing to do more than walk in a protest march or sit behind his/her computer criticizing others. I have spent every available cent I got from the money a "grateful" country gave me when they killed my son and every penny that I have received in speaking or book fees since then. I have sacrificed a 29 year marriage and have traveled for extended periods of time away from Casey’s brother and sisters and my health has suffered and my hospital bills from last summer (when I almost died) are in collection because I have used all my energy trying to stop this country from slaughtering innocent human beings. I have been called every despicable name that small minds can think of and have had my life threatened many times.

The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning, however, was that Casey did indeed die for nothing. His precious lifeblood drained out in a country far away from his family who loves him, killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think. I have tried every since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful. Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives. It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many years and Casey paid the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the most.

I have also tried to work within a peace movement that often puts personal egos above peace and human life. This group won’t work with that group; he won’t attend an event if she is going to be there; and why does Cindy Sheehan get all the attention anyway? It is hard to work for peace when the very movement that is named after it has so many divisions.

Our brave young men and women in Iraq have been abandoned there indefinitely by their cowardly leaders who move them around like pawns on a chessboard of destruction and the people of Iraq have been doomed to death and fates worse than death by people worried more about elections than people. However, in five, ten, or fifteen years, our troops will come limping home in another abject defeat and ten or twenty years from then, our children’s children will be seeing their loved ones die for no reason, because their grandparents also bought into this corrupt system. George Bush will never be impeached because if the Democrats dig too deeply, they may unearth a few skeletons in their own graves and the system will perpetuate itself in perpetuity.

I am going to take whatever I have left and go home. I am going to go home and be a mother to my surviving children and try to regain some of what I have lost. I will try to maintain and nurture some very positive relationships that I have found in the journey that I was forced into when Casey died and try to repair some of the ones that have fallen apart since I began this single-minded crusade to try and change a paradigm that is now, I am afraid, carved in immovable, unbendable and rigidly mendacious marble.

Camp Casey has served its purpose. It’s for sale. Anyone want to buy five beautiful acres in Crawford , Texas ? I will consider any reasonable offer. I hear George Bush will be moving out soon, too...which makes the property even more valuable.

This is my resignation letter as the "face" of the American anti-war movement. This is not my "Checkers" moment, because I will never give up trying to help people in the world who are harmed by the empire of the good old US of A, but I am finished working in, or outside of this system. This system forcefully resists being helped and eats up the people who try to help it. I am getting out before it totally consumes me or anymore people that I love and the rest of my resources.

Good-bye America ...you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can’t make you be that country unless you want it.

It’s up to you now.

Tags: Recommended, Cindy Sheehan, GBCW, Camp Casey, Peace, Heroine (all tags)

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Search for intelligent life continnues...
Planet-hunters find bonanza of new solar systems

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor Mon May 28, 4:09 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Planet-seekers who have spotted 28 new planets orbiting other stars in the past year say Earth's solar system is far from unique and there could be billions of habitable planets.

The most recent planet discoveries bring the number of known exoplanets -- planets outside our solar system -- to 236, the researchers told a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Honolulu on Monday.

"We are beginning to see that our home is not a rarity in the universe," said Geoffrey Marcy, a professor of astronomy at the University of California Berkeley, who led the team.

"We are easily able to detect giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn around other stars. Most orbit far from the star like our own Jupiter and Saturn orbit from the sun," Marcy said in a telephone interview.

"It's a common structure among planetary systems."

New techniques allow astronomers to detect planets that are not enormous although Earth-sized objects cannot yet be seen, said the researchers, who have posted details of their findings on the Internet at http://exoplanets.org.

Four of the systems also have multiple planets, like Earth's own with its sun, eight planets (Pluto was demoted from planet status) and smaller orbiting objects.

"We are finding that most stars have not just one planet but when we find one there is a second or a third or a fourth," Marcy said.

"The ... attribute which really has us the most excited is this new planet which we found three years ago," Marcy said. The Neptune-like planet orbiting the star Gliese 436 has intrigued scientists because it appears to be covered with water -- albeit rock-hard, hot water in a most un-Earthlike chemical state because of the intense pressures on the planet.

"JUMPING OUT OF OUR CLOTHES"

Earlier this month, Swiss and Belgian researchers imaged the star as this planet crossed between it and the Earth. The tiny change in the star's light gave them the planet's diameter and density.

"From the density of two grams per cubic centimeter -- twice that of water -- it must be 50 percent rock and about 50 percent water, with perhaps small amounts of hydrogen and helium," Marcy said.

"Now we are very sure it has a rocky core and this giant thick envelope of water," he added.

"This is why we are jumping out of our clothes. It is the first time we have determined the structure of one of these extrasolar planets. It is rocky like Earth but it has a lot of water which is the essential ingredient for life."

This is almost certainly happening over and over again, Marcy said. Scientists had theorized this for decades but now the hard evidence is starting to pour in.

"Our Milky Way galaxy has 200 billion stars. I would estimate that 10 percent of them, perhaps, have planets that are habitable," Marcy said.

"There are hundreds of billions of galaxies, all of which are more or less like our Milky Way Galaxy, which is tens of billions of planets like our own."

There is one unusual property to our solar system: the nearly circular orbits of the planets, which gives a consistent dose of radiation from the Sun.

Other solar systems seen so far are not usually like this. "Most of the planets are not in circular orbits around the host star but in elongated ones called elliptical orbits," Marcy said.

"We enjoy nearly constant temperatures throughout the year," he added. "If the Earth got too close to the Sun, the Earth would heat up, the water would boil off and that would be bad." Too far, and it would freeze.

"An elongated orbit could not sustain life," Marcy said.

It's business as usual for embattled House speaker

Posted on Sun, May. 27, 2007

By JAY ROOT and AMAN BATHEJA
Star-Telegram staff writer
If House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, was worried about becoming the first speaker since 1871 to get the boot, it didn't show.
If House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, was worried about becoming the first speaker since 1871 to get the boot, it didn't show.

* External Link Local delegation speaks on fight

AUSTIN -- His enemies call him a dictator, unfit for high state office. But on Saturday it was hard to argue with House Speaker Tom Craddick's staying power. Never mind the resignation of two top aides hours earlier. Forget the coup plotters.

The Midland Republican gaveled in the House at 11:15 a.m. as if he weren't facing the political fight of his life, as if the state police hadn't been ordered to the chamber to beef up security -- as if he had absolute power.

"The House will come to order," Craddick said calmly. He then instructed members to start debating legislation while his parliamentarians -- hurriedly sworn in Friday night to replace the two who quit in protest -- methodically blocked opponents from taking him out.

If Craddick was worried about becoming the first speaker since 1871 to get the boot, it didn't show. He laughed and joked while state photographers snapped pictures of him and his wife, Nadine, posing with the staff of the House sergeant-at-arms.

The previous night, those same security officers were scrambling to keep an angry band of lawmakers from storming the podium to protest what they see as Craddick's iron-fisted rule. Then, and again Saturday, Craddick asserted absolute authority to cut off any talk of removing him from his powerful job.

So did many of his supporters, from both political parties, who took turns wielding the speaker's gavel while Craddick worked the members on the floor and behind closed doors.

"There is no appeal," said Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, echoing Craddick's assertion of unqualified authority.

"You don't have the power to overrule my appeal," said Rep. Tommy Merritt, R-Longview.

The reply -- silence -- said it all.

Surreal replay

It was a replay of the surreal events of Friday night, complete with whispering huddles and a House gallery full of nervous lobbyists, who fear uncertainty more than anything else. Rumors have swirled for weeks that Craddick, accused of despotic tendencies and chaotic lawmaking, would face the rare spectacle of an internal move to oust him before the waning legislative session ends.

But when the moment of truth came shortly after midnight Friday, Craddick was ready with a brand-new legal argument, courtesy of his brand-new rules experts.

The denouement came after Rep. Fred Hill, R-Richardson, tried to make a formal motion to remove Craddick as speaker. Craddick cited "absolute discretion" to ignore Hill.

That left the coup against Craddick in limbo, and, depending on whom you talk to, threatens to stop passage of the state budget, which could spark a special session this summer.

The only thing that seemed safe to predict was a steady stream of uncertainty and bitterness. Saturday saw the announcement of a fifth Republican Craddick challenger, veteran Rep. Delwin Jones of Lubbock.

Many of the Democrats, meanwhile, wasted no time accusing the new parliamentarian, Terry Keel, and new assistant parliamentarian, Ron Wilson, both former state representatives, of conflicts of interest.

They also said Craddick was using the House security guards and state troopers to watch certain Democratic members and keep them from getting to the podium and other areas in the chamber. Craddick denied that.

Show of force

In an unusual show of force, uniformed Department of Public Safety officers guarded entrances at the front and rear of the chamber. Craddick spokeswoman Alexis DeLee said Rep. Tony Goolsby, R-Dallas, appointed to oversee internal administration matters, requested their presence.

Craddick aides stressed their desire to keep order and minimize distractions. "The speaker's position is that he will see to it that the House conducts the important business of the state," DeLee said. "The other side wants to go outside the House rules to carry out a speaker's race during the session, and we are not going to play that game."

The fight started Friday about 7:30 p.m. after Craddick was asked about procedures related to the removal of the House speaker. Over shouts and objections, the speaker declared a temporary recess, denying opponents any chance to challenge or even question him.

Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, said he decided then and there to run for re-election. He had been planning to retire. "I want to serve under a speaker, not a dictator," Geren said.

In parliamentary terms, Craddick says the rules give him unchecked discretion to "recognize" members. Members who aren't recognized can't cause trouble.

"The power to recognize is absolute," Craddick said.

That interpretation of the rules directly contradicted the advice he was given by House parliamentarian Denise Davis, several House members said. A couple of hours later, she resigned in protest and took her deputy, Chris Griesel, with her.

Craddick, after swearing in Keel and Wilson as the new in-house lawyers, laid out his updated legal theory. He said the only way to remove a speaker is through impeachmentlike proceedings and a two-thirds vote of the House.

'Dirty Thirty'

Some saw shades of the Sharpstown era in the early 1970s, except that back then Craddick was a member of the reformist "Dirty Thirty" members who opposed the heavy-handed tactics of House Speaker Gus Mutscher.

Now Craddick "has essentially ruled he can shut off the flow of speech on the floor by simply not recognizing a member," political analyst Harvey Kronberg said. "It's extraordinary. There is nothing even resembling this since 1971."

At least five Republicans are now seeking the speaker's ouster before the session ends, by law, on Monday. Only once has the House voted to remove its speaker -- in 1871, when Ira Hobart Evans, the first Republican speaker of his generation, was canned by the colleagues who had elected him.

The Republicans hold an 81-69 majority in the House, but there are members of both parties on each side of the Craddick divide. Several "Craddick D's" expressed dismay and embarrassment at the mutiny on the House floor. But four Democratic representatives said Craddick should remain speaker for the session so that the House can finish its work.

Staff writers R.A. Dyer, John Moritz, Patrick McGee and John Kirsch contributed to this report.

Milestones in Craddick's career

Republican Rep. Tom Craddick rose from a rank-and-file West Texas lawmaker to be the powerful speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. Here are some significant events in Craddick's long legislative career.

November 1968: Craddick is elected to the Texas House at age 25, one of eight Republicans in the 150-member House.

May 1971: A legislative session concludes after the "Dirty Thirty," of which Craddick is a member, continually criticizes Speaker Gus Mutscher over the Sharpstown stock fraud scandal. The "Dirty Thirty" is made up of liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans. Mutscher was a conservative Democrat.

November 2002: After years of planning his rise to power, Craddick announces immediately after the November election that he has enough pledges of support from House members to be elected speaker over incumbent Democrat Pete Laney when the Legislature convenes.

Jan. 14, 2003: Craddick is elected speaker as Republicans take control of the House. Craddick is the first Republican to hold the job in 130 years.

May 12, 2003: House Democrats, complaining about Craddick's attempt to push a GOP congressional redistricting through the chamber, secretly flee to Ardmore, Okla., to break a quorum and block the bill. The Democrats said they crossed the state line to be out of reach of state troopers Craddick sent to apprehend them.

June 2, 2003: Craddick's first session as speaker ends with the Legislature passing a Republican-pushed lawsuit limitation bill and deep budget cuts to cope with a $10 billion shortfall. The redistricting bill, however, is dead for the moment. It is approved in a special session later in the year.

May 30, 2005: The regular legislative session ends with Craddick and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, a fellow Republican, butting heads over school funding. Negotiations between the House and Senate leaders break down. Craddick later claims there was no tension between them, but Dewhurst jokes that he wanted to kill Craddick the last month of the session.

May 15, 2006: After two failed special sessions the previous year, lawmakers adjourn a 30-day special session after approving an overhaul of public school funding. Craddick, who had been at loggerheads with Dewhurst and Republican Gov. Rick Perry in previous attempts to pass school funding, leads his chamber to approve the plan.

Jan. 9, 2007: Craddick narrowly defeats a GOP insurgency and survives a close re-election battle.

May 8, 2007: Craddick suffers a rare rebuke over a rules dispute, sparking rumors of rebellion.

May 25, 2007: Facing a mutiny, Craddick declares he has absolute power to block a motion to remove him. Two top aides resign.

-- Staff writer Jay Root, The Associated Press

Noriega compared to terrorist

In a dispute over what exactly happened Friday night in a chaotic Texas House, Rep. Jodie Laubenberg, R-Parker, compared Rep. Rick Noriega, D-Houston, to a terrorist in Afghanistan. Laubenberg was speaking at a news conference Saturday evening in which she condemned Noriega for rushing the dais reserved for Speaker Tom Craddick on Friday night, after Craddick abruptly adjourned to boos and protests. Noriega said he was trying to turn the microphones back on so that debate could continue on whether a motion should be made to replace Craddick as speaker. Laubenberg, referencing Noriega's recent stint in Afghanistan, said she had feared he might have been trying to install himself as speaker in Craddick's absence. "Representative Noriega just came from Afghanistan ... trying to establish a rule-of-law system ... yet he used the same tactics last night that those who would destroy that democracy in Afghanistan [would use], which is just amazing," she said. Noriega called the comparison "irresponsible." -- Aman Batheja

A history lesson from a century ago

The Texas House of Representatives at least once before has forced out a sitting speaker during a legislative session. Austin M. Kennedy, elected speaker in 1909, ultimately resigned before completing his first term after being accused of improper spending for staff and furniture. Kennedy stepped down as speaker but was re-elected and served two more terms.
jroot@star-telegram.com
Jay Root, 512-476-4294

Can I get the Bush clan to move in next door to me?
PARAGUAY: Solidarity Lending Bolsters Community Development

David Vargas, Inter Press Service (IPS) Fri May 25, 7:08 PM ET

ASUNCION, May 25 (IPS) - Esperanza Santos Aranda, who lives in a poor neighbourhood in the Paraguayan capital, used to sell vegetables at a precarious market stall. But thanks to a 60-dollar loan, she was able to open up her own small clothes-selling business.

Aranda is a resident of Banado Tacumbu, an area in Asuncion that has one of the highest poverty rates in this land-locked South American country of six million, and which is flooded every year when the Paraguay River overflows its banks. Her husband is a construction worker who only finds casual work, and she supports her 21-year-old daughter, a single mother.

Four years ago, Aranda heard about a community organisation that granted low-interest loans to people who wanted to set up small businesses, and she did not hesitate: she applied for and immediately obtained 60 dollars to open a small clothing shop in her home.

Her business prospered and grew into one of the most popular neighbourhood clothing shops, which offers clients the possibility of paying in "comfortable, widely-spaced" installments, Aranda told IPS.

"I often visited banks and other financial institutions to apply for credit, but no one wanted to lend me money because I'm poor, or they asked me for collateral or a guarantor and a ton of documents," she added.

Now Aranda buys clothes wholesale at a popular market in Asuncion, mainly contraband items brought in from Brazil or Argentina. She earns around 200 dollars a month, below the minimum monthly wage of 240 dollars, but four times the estimated value of the basic basket of food items.

She is one of the beneficiaries of ACRES (Area de Creditos Solidarios, or solidarity lending branch) of the non-governmental CAMSAT (Health for All Mutual Aid Centre), which has been operating for 17 years in Banado Tacumbu.

"CAMSAT emerged with the aim of undertaking activities that provide training and help organise the neighbourhood, with the ultimate aim of overcoming poverty," Catholic priest Pedro Velasco told IPS.

Velasco set up the organisation along with volunteers from the Catholic Church's Social Pastorate. The commission that runs it is made up of local residents who are elected by assembly every three years.

Based on a census that it carried out last year, CAMSAT estimates that 85 percent of the more than 10,000 people living in this poor neighbourhood have no formal employment.

Most are involved in precarious activities, like informal waste collection and recycling, fishing or the artisanal manufacturing of bricks and tiles. And of the 15 percent who are employed in the formal economy, only one-tenth earn the official minimum monthly wage of 240 dollars or more.

Some 750 families are members of CAMSAT, paying a monthly quota equivalent to three cents of a dollar, which entitles them to medical care, medicines from a low-cost pharmacy, tutoring classes for children, a soup kitchen for children, and skills training courses for adults.

A
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) publication in February (part of the Human Development Publication Series) described CAMSAT as a model of community development and organising against poverty.

The official poverty rate in Paraguay is 38 percent.

The ACRES credit programme is one of the pillars of CAMSAT. It was organised in 2000, emulating the idea of Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus, who in the 1970s put into practice the concept of microcredit for poor people without access to commercial bank loans to start up their own small businesses.

Last year, Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his Grameen Bank, or "bank for the poor".

ACRES currently benefits 650 local clients, and moves around 60,000 dollars a year. The loans have an annual interest rate of 1.6 percent, and the payoff rate is 97 percent.

In Paraguay, interest rates for loans are regulated by the Central Bank and range between 20 and 26 percent a year in banks and 25 and 30 percent in finance companies.

ACRES' loans are granted to groups of five people, under the solidarity group lending model, in which peer pressure and collective group responsibility help ensure that the payments are made. The initial microcredit is 60 dollars -- an amount that can grow as the initial loan is paid off and the client builds a strong repayment history.

The quotas are paid weekly and in accordance with what each beneficiary can afford. The profits derived from interest allow ACRES to maintain the flow of credit, cover administrative costs, and absorb the unpaid loans.

One peculiarity of the programme is that it does not require loan applicants to live up to specific requirements or sign any document: all that is needed is a personal commitment. "The less they have, the better. Because those who have nothing are the people we want to help," said Father Velasco.

Another innovative aspect is that the programme's loan officers actually go out to knock on doors in search of clients, constantly combing the neighbourhood in search of new business opportunities for people, and providing advice to candidates on the possibilities of new activities that they could get involved in.

"We are more like social workers than bank employees," Zulma Garcia, the ACRES administrator, joked to IPS.

The programme has enabled many poor people, who had no access to the financial system, to free themselves of loan sharks who charge up to 30 percent a week interest, making their loans a practically unpayable burden.

One of the most dynamic initiatives to come out of the solidarity credit programme was the "Banado Poty" bakery run by a local women's organisation.

The company was set up in 2001 with a 100-dollar loan. "We took out the first credit to buy the raw materials," Vicenta Rodriguez, who coordinates the bakery, told IPS.

The business now employs 19 people, most of whom are women, and produces between 600 and 800 kgs of baked goods a day, enough to supply over 90 percent of the neighbourhood's food stores. The company bills around 8,000 dollars a month.

"For the women in the bakery, one of the main achievements of this project was that they don't leave the neighbourhood to work, and they don't have to leave their children alone for hours on end," said Rodriguez.

The UNDP report said the opening of the bakery was a fundamental step towards achieving autonomy for the women involved. The members "are now aware of their rights; they stand up for themselves and demand respect, and tell the men that 'I also have rights; we are equal'," Rodriguez added.

The loans benefit families on various levels, one of which is to encourage people to continue studying. An adult literacy programme, for example, is being carried out by means of a community radio station that operates in the neighbourhood, a joint initiative with the Catholic organisation Fe y Alegria (Faith and Happiness), which is active in 14 countries of Latin America in popular education and social development and has been working in Paraguay since 1992.

ACRES' main challenge is to grow.

"When we had 30 or 40 (solidarity loan) groups, we were unable to support ourselves," said Garcia, the programme administrator. "When we grew to 70 groups, we began to cover our expenses with the interest earned, and now, with 130 groups, we even take in a small profit."

"Unfortunately, no institution has come forward to provide us with a relatively large sum of money. If we could receive a significant boost in terms of aid, we could achieve stability in this area," she added.

Father Velasco said that "If we could turn over one billion guaran�es (200,000 dollars) a year with 300 groups, that would enable us to take in profits and expand into other areas, like housing for example."

solar electricity costs to drop over next three years ...affordable...
Solar Energy Poised to Go Mainstream, Say Researchers

Aaron Glantz, OneWorld US Thu May 24, 12:20 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO, May 24 (OneWorld) - Solar power is the fastest growing source of energy in the world and likely will become much more affordable in the next few years, according to a new report out this week.

"As production costs fall, technologies continue to advance, and supply and demand come into balance," the report reads, "[solar power] prices will fall more than 40 percent in the next three years relative to prices in late 2006. Such a decline would make solar electricity far more affordable in markets across the globe."

Additionally, China's strong entry in the field could drive prices down even further, the report's authors predict.

Already, global production of solar photovoltaic (PV) cells, which turn sunlight directly into electricity, has risen six-fold since 2000 and grew 41 percent in 2006 alone, says the report from the Washington, DC-based Worldwatch Institute and the Prometheus Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. That makes solar power the world's fastest growing energy source, though grid-connected solar capacity still makes up less than 1 percent of the world market.

"Today, high cost is the largest barrier, but this is a temporary challenge," said Worldwatch's Janet Sawin, who authored the report.

The growth of solar power has been fastest in Japan and Germany, the report notes. Sawin said that's no accident. Those countries, she told OneWorld, have enacted laws friendly to solar power, which is generated without emitting carbon dioxide or other significant pollutants.

In Germany a law guarantees that owners of solar panels get a fixed price when they produce more solar energy than they consume and sell the excess back to the national electricity grid. In Spain, ordinances require "that new and renovated buildings include solar [power]."

Researchers said the biggest surprise in the report was the dramatic growth in PV production in China. Last year, China passed the United States, which first developed modern solar cell technology at Bell Labs in New Jersey in the 1950s, to become the world's third-largest producer of the cells -- trailing only Germany and Japan.

"To say that Chinese PV producers plan to expand production rapidly in the year ahead would be an understatement," Travis Bradford, president of the Prometheus Institute, said in a statement. "They have raised billions [of dollars] from international [initial public offerings (IPOs) of stock] to build capacity and increase scale with the goal of driving down costs. Four Chinese IPOs are expected to come to market this month alone."

Most of the solar panels manufactured in China are made for export, according to Sawin. "China is applying its world-leading skills at low-cost light manufacturing of devices such as televisions and computers to the solar industry."

Sawin said that China, with its growing need for energy, large work force, and strong industrial base, could drive dramatic reductions in PV prices in the next few years, helping to make solar energy prices competitive with conventional power even without subsidies.

Solar energy has already dramatically improved living conditions for some 100,000 people in rural India.

In the country where millions supplement a sparse and unreliable electricity grid with kerosene lighting, which is responsible for untold pollution-related deaths and disabilities each year, roof-installed solar panels have offered a clean energy alternative to run a small fan, radio, or television, and a few lights for working or reading.

A UN-sponsored program has encouraged banks in the southern Indian state of Karnataka to finance small loans for the solar systems -- typically $300 to $500 for a system to power two to four small lights or appliances.

The UN credits the solar panels with "better grades for schoolchildren, better productivity for needlework artisan groups and other cottage industries, and even better sales at fruit stands, where produce is no longer spoiled by fumes from kerosene lamps."

The India project has been so successful that similar solar energy programs are being initiated in Algeria, China, Egypt, Ghana, Indonesia, and Mexico, the UN said.

But in the United States, growth has not taken off. The Worldwatch report said only 202 megawatts of solar electricity were produced in the United States last year -- less power than a single coal or natural gas plant.

The legal atmosphere in the United States remains largely hostile to solar power, Worldwatch's Sawin said.

"Many homeowner associations forbid them," she said, and while a handful of states have adopted "net metering" laws, encouraging the use of solar power by allowing customers to run their electricity meters backwards when they feed the power their solar panels generate back into the grid, most states have not.

"There is no state in which customers are paid the full value of the power they generate with PV and feed into the grid," Sawin added, noting that solar panels produce the most electricity on hot days when demand is highest and conventional electricity is the most expensive.

Still, she remains optimistic about solar energy's future.

"The conventional energy industry will be surprised by how quickly solar PV becomes mainstream -- cheap enough to provide carbon-free electricity on rooftops, while also meeting the energy needs of hundreds of millions of poor people who currently lack electricity," she said.

Discuss this article

an return of civilian, democratic rule save Pakistan and flush out Bin Laden?
Bhutto, Sharif vow to return to Pakistan soon

1 hour, 39 minutes ago

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Exiled former Pakistani premiers, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, vowed to return home regardless of President Pervez Musharraf's refusal to let them in the country before a general election due later this year.

"No matter what, I'm going back this year," Bhutto told Britain's Daily Telegraph in an interview published on Sunday.

Sharif, who is living in exile in London, said he was also planning to return to Pakistan in the near future, as challenges to General Musharraf's authority are mounting.

"The iron is hot, but after a few weeks or months it will start melting and I will go when it starts melting," said Sharif, the prime minister Musharraf ousted in a widely popular military coup in 1999.

Musharraf last week ruled out allowing either exiled former prime minister to return to Pakistan to take part in elections expected in December or January.

Speculation has been rife that Musharraf and Bhutto, who lives in self-imposed exile to avoid a raft of corruption cases against her, could overcome mutual distrust to strike some kind of power-sharing deal ahead of the election.

But the chances of that happening have receded following political violence on May 12 in Karachi, when about 40 people were killed during gun battles between pro-government activists and opposition party workers.

"It is inappropriate to talk of back-channel contacts against the background of the Karachi killings," Bhutto said.

Bhutto, who served twice as prime minister in the 1980s and 1990s, said Musharraf should call a meeting with opposition leaders, including her and Sharif, to steer the country out of the crisis brought on by Musharraf's attempt to sack Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.

Regarded as an attack on the independence of the judiciary, Musharraf's move sparked countrywide protests by lawyers and the opposition. The clashes in the southern port city of Karachi were the worst political violence in Pakistan in years.

"THEY WANT TO MALIGN ME"

Musharraf said the judge's case was a purely legal and judicial issue and the opposition was trying to get political mileage by politicizing it.

"They want to harm me and my allies ... They want to malign me," Musharraf said at a rally in the northwestern city of Mansehra on Monday.

"I want you to be aware of this trap. You should support only truth and rightness."

Musharraf suspended Chaudhry on March 9 and ordered a judicial panel to investigate unspecified accusations of misconduct against him.

But the Supreme Court suspended the judicial panel's hearing after Chaudhry challenged its composition and its competence. The Supreme Court is hearing Chaudhry's petition but it is not clear when it will reach a decision.

Musharraf aims to be re-elected by the present national and provincial assemblies in September or October, about a month before they are dissolved for a general election, possibly in December.

Musharraf has not made his intentions clear on whether he will quit as army chief, as he is required to do by the end of this year under the constitution.

Re-election by the sitting assemblies, and the retention of his army post would inevitably raise constitutional challenges.

Many analysts believe that is why Musharraf has sought to replace the independent-minded chief justice with a more compliant judge.

Ta-dah! The sad, stubborn decline of a heroic, sainted weasel successfully struggles forth against the odds!
Think Progress

see for yourself... (http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/18/mccain-fbomb/)

Hot topics: Ethics Iraq Congress Administration Iran Judiciary
McCain Drops F-Bomb On Senator When Confronted With Recent Absences

Busy campaigning for his presidential bid, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has missed over 40 consecutive roll-call votes, going five straight weeks “without casting a vote on the Senate floor.”

Yesterday, after apparently skipping most of the extended closed-door White House/Senate immigration negotiations, McCain “suddenly re-emerged” to take part in the press conference announcing the deal.

This isn’t sitting well with McCain’s colleagues. Tonight, Fox News correspondent Major Garrett reported that “anger burst forth memorably and loudly” when Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) accused McCain of being “too busy running for president.” McCain responded by using “the f-word toward Cornyn,” though it’s not clear “if the f-word was a verb or a gerund.”

Watch it:

Maybe McCain should take his own advice and “lighten up.”

Digg It!

UPDATE: Apparently it wasn’t just the f-word:

At a bipartisan gathering in an ornate meeting room just off the Senate floor, McCain complained that Cornyn was raising petty objections to a compromise plan being worked out between Senate Republicans and Democrats and the White House. He used a curse word associated with chickens and accused Cornyn of raising the issue just to torpedo a deal.

Things got really heated when Cornyn accused McCain of being too busy campaigning for president to take part in the negotiations, which have gone on for months behind closed doors. “Wait a second here,” Cornyn said to McCain. “I’ve been sitting in here for all of these negotiations and you just parachute in here on the last day. You’re out of line.”

McCain, a former Navy pilot, then used language more accustomed to sailors (not to mention the current vice president, who made news a few years back after a verbal encounter with Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont).

“[Expletive] you! I know more about this than anyone else in the room,” shouted McCain at Cornyn.

Transcript:

GARRETT: As this deal was being brokered behind the scenes, Fox News has learned, Republican anger burst forth memorably and loudly. Arizona’s John McCain and Texas’ John Cornyn argued over the compromise. McCain accused Cornyn of trying to sabotage it. Cornyn told McCain he wasn’t around to negotiate, too busy running for president. McCain, Fox News has been told, used the f-word toward Cornyn. We just can’t be sure if the f-word was a verb or a gerund.

Filed under: Congress, Immigration

Posted by Nico May 18, 2007 8:33 pm

Permalink | Comment (87)...

? 2005-2007 Center for American Progress Action Fund

Evolution is still denied in 2007. So are decsions to abolish Klan rule! All LINKS present and accounted for, MASSUH!
Carter blasts Bush, Blair on Iraq

Sat May 19, 7:06 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former President Jimmy Carter blasted George W. Bush's presidency as "the worst in history" in international relations and denounced British Prime Minister
Tony Blair's loyal relationship with Bush in interviews released on Saturday.

"I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history," Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, said in a telephone interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette from the Carter Center in Atlanta.

"The overt reversal of America's basic values as expressed by previous administrations, including (those of) George H.W. Bush and
Ronald Reagan and
Richard Nixon and others, has been the most disturbing to me," Carter told the newspaper.

In an interview on Britain's BBC radio, Carter slammed Blair, who leaves office next month, for his tight relations with Bush, particularly concerning the
Iraq war.

"Abominable. Loyal, blind, apparently subservient," Carter said when asked how he would characterize Blair's relationship with Bush.

"I think that the almost undeviating support by Great Britain for the ill-advised policies of
President Bush in Iraq have been a major tragedy for the world," Carter said.

Carter, who was president from 1977-1981 and won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for his charitable work, was an outspoken opponent of the invasion of Iraq before it was launched in 2003.

In the newspaper interview, Carter said Bush had taken a "radical departure from all previous administration policies" with the Iraq war.

"We now have endorsed the concept of pre-emptive war where we go to war with another nation militarily, even though our own security is not directly threatened, if we want to change the regime there or if we fear that some time in the future our security might be endangered," Carter said.

REPUBLICANS STRIKE BACK

The White House declined to comment on his statements, but the
Republican National Committee struck back at Carter.

"Most Americans will probably take his criticisms with a grain of salt considering he also challenged Ronald Reagan's strategy for the Cold War, and history has since proven him wrong," said RNC spokeswoman Amber Wilkerson.

Carter told the BBC that if Blair had opposed the invasion he could have reduced the ensuing harm by making it tougher for Washington to shrug off critics, even if the British prime minister had not been able to stop the war.

"It would certainly have assuaged the problems that have (arisen) lately," Carter said.

"One of the defenses of the Bush administration in America and worldwide ... has been: 'Okay, we must be more correct in our actions than the world thinks because Great Britain is backing us,"' Carter said.

"I think the combination of Bush and Blair giving their support to this tragedy in Iraq has strengthened the effort and has made opposition less effective and has prolonged the war and increased the tragedy that has resulted," he told the BBC.

Blair, who made an unannounced visit to Iraq on Saturday, has said he will step down in June. His Labour Party has named his long-serving finance minister, Gordon Brown, to succeed him.

Brown was a member of the Cabinet that voted in favor of the war, but has said mistakes were made in Iraq and he will review policy there.

In the newspaper interview, Carter, who brokered the Camp David accords between Egypt and
Israel, also criticized Bush's Middle East policies.

"For the first time since Israel was founded, we've had zero peace talks to try to bring a resolution of differences in the Middle East. That's a radical departure from the past," Carter said.

(Additional reporting by Peter Graff in London)

No more evidence of absolute corruption need be gathered, unless the judge goes along with this crap!
The Plame Investigation

Trial: Evidence/Synopsis
Judge Told Leak Was Part of 'Policy Dispute'

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 18, 2007; Page A03

Attorneys for Vice President Cheney and top White House officials told a federal judge yesterday that they cannot be held liable for anything they disclosed to reporters about covert CIA officer Valerie Plame or her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.

The officials, who include senior White House adviser Karl Rove and Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, argued that the judge should dismiss a lawsuit filed by the couple that stemmed from the disclosure of Plame's identity to the media.


Joseph C. Wilson IV and Valerie Plame say revealing Plame's job endangered their family. They are suing administration officials.
Joseph C. Wilson IV and Valerie Plame say revealing Plame's job endangered their family. They are suing administration officials. (Courtesy Of Conde Nast Portfolio)
More on the Libby Trial

The perjury trial of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff calls up high-profile witnesses.

* Evidence Entered in Trial Government exhibits used in the trial in the format admitted in the court.
* Indictment: U.S. v Libby
* The Verdict
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The suit claims that Cheney, Libby, Rove and former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage violated the couple's privacy and constitutional rights by publicly revealing Plame's identity in an effort to retaliate against Wilson. Plame's identity was disclosed in a syndicated column in July 2003, days after Wilson publicly accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence to exaggerate Iraq's nuclear threat and justify an invasion.

Libby was convicted in March of lying to a grand jury investigating the leak.

The lawyers said any conversations Cheney and the officials had about Plame with one another or with reporters were part of their normal duties because they were discussing foreign policy and engaging in an appropriate "policy dispute." Cheney's attorney went further, arguing that Cheney is legally akin to the president because of his unique government role and has absolute immunity from any lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates asked: "So you're arguing there is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- these officials could have said to reporters that would have been beyond the scope of their employment," whether the statements were true or false?

"That's true, Your Honor. Mr. Wilson was criticizing government policy," said Jeffrey S. Bucholtz, deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's civil division. "These officials were responding to that criticism."

Erwin Chemerinsky, a Duke University law professor who is representing Wilson and Plame, said the leak was no typical policy debate. President Bush himself said that revealing Plame's identity could be illegal conduct and a firing offense, he told Bates.

Chemerinsky said that after Plame's cover was blown, the couple feared for their safety and their children's safety and Plame lost any opportunity for advancement at the CIA.

"This isn't a case where the government said mean things about Mr. Wilson. This is about revealing the secret status of his wife to punish Mr. Wilson," Chemerinsky said. "In the end, this is egregious conduct that ruined a woman's career and put a family in danger."

Bates, who expressed doubts about arguments on both sides, said he will rule in the coming weeks whether to dismiss the case.

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Forgiveness for Fawell? Are you nuts? The same goes for any replacement "anti-christ" seducing Fawell's followers!
McCain panders to Falwell's flock

By John Nichols — 5/17/2007 8:23 am

The various and sundry Republican presidential contenders have been stumbling over one another this week in a rush to curry favor with the religious right by expressing their sorrow at the passing of the Rev. Jerry Falwell.

It's not that most of the Republican candidates really cared much for Falwell. Aside from Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, the most seriously evangelical of the bunch, none of the GOP runners really qualifies as a Falwell follower in the classic sense.

But the Republicans who would be president care for those for whom Falwell claimed to speak -- the millions of fire-and-brimstone Christians in states such as Iowa and South Carolina who are expected to participate in next year's caucuses and primaries.

It may be true that Falwell had ceased to be a definitional figure on the Republican right some years ago -- perhaps even before he blamed the 9/11 attacks on pagans and feminists. But few of the Republican candidates will chance it when it comes to praising the preacher.

So get ready for the "Old Time Hypocrisy Hour."

Arizona Sen. John McCain got things rolling with a statement released just minutes after the announcement that the man who for many years was the face of evangelical politics in America had died from an apparent heart attack at age 73.

"I join the students, faculty, and staff of Liberty University and Americans of all faiths in mourning the loss of Rev. Jerry Falwell," said McCain. "Dr. Falwell was a man of distinguished accomplishment who devoted his life to serving his faith and country."

Distinguished accomplishment?

Would that be when Falwell regularly featured segregationists Lester Maddox and George Wallace on his Old Time Gospel Hour television program in the 1960s? When he condemned the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and referred to the civil rights movement as "the civil wrongs movement"? When he opposed sanctions against South Africa's apartheid regime in the 1980s?

Or when he produced an infomercial in the 1990s accusing President Clinton of orchestrating murders of journalists and political critics, even though he would eventually admit that "I do not know the accuracy of the claims"? When he attacked "Teletubbies" character Tinky Winky as a gay recruitment tool? When he asserted that the Antichrist "must be, of necessity, a Jewish male"?

McCain did not always see the preacher as a servant of his country.

Indeed, McCain's praise of the preacher today is a far cry from what the senator said in 2000, when, in a much-heralded speech in Virginia, he described the fiery Falwell as "an agent of intolerance."

McCain has gone through some changes since the days when he was preaching "big tent" Republicanism. He learned an ugly lesson in 2000, and he's playing hard to the right this time around. As such, he has made his peace with Falwell.

Last year, the Arizona senator made his way to Lynchburg, Va., to deliver the commencement address at Falwell's Liberty University.

"Are you freaking out on us?" host Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show," once a McCain fan, asked the senator. "Are you going into the crazy-base world?"

The short answer is "yes." And McCain will have plenty of company in the rush to the crazy-base world.

While there are serious debates opening up about just how strong a force the religious right remains within a Republican Party that is struggling to position itself for the post-Bush era -- after all, pro-choice gay rights supporter Rudy Giuliani is the GOP poll leader of the moment -- there is no question that McCain and most of the other contenders fear the wrath of the evangelicals Falwell did so much to lead into the Republican fold more than a quarter-century ago.

That fear is uglier than anything Falwell ever did or said.

It is possible to treat Falwell with respect in death, to recognize that he apologized for some of his more divisive and destructive statements and that he grew beyond his segregationist stances and some of his other intolerances. It is certainly possible to regard him as a political figure of consequence and deeply held views.

But for McCain to heap praise on Falwell at this politically convenient moment is an embarrassing example of how the maverick of the 2000 race has become the predictable politician of the 2008 contest.

John Nichols is the associate editor of The Capital Times.

By John Nichols — 5/17/2007 8:23 am

McCain is a Loser!
Capitol Briefing
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McCain Misses 42nd Straight Vote ... and Counting

Sen. John McCain (R-Campaign Trail) missed another vote today on a resolution related to the Iraq war, skipping a procedural move on a war funding measure in favor of hitting the campaign trail in New York.

In fact, McCain's missed vote today marked his fifth straight week without casting a vote on the Senate floor, with this morning's vote marking the 42nd straight roll call that he has missed.

Since the first-quarter fundraising period for presidential candidates ended March 31, McCain has made just three floor votes. He hasn't cast a single vote since the full details of his wildly disappointing presidential campaign's fundraising report were revealed in mid-April.

If McCain misses the next three votes -- the $2.9 trillion fiscal 2008 budget is likely to be voted on this afternoon -- he will officially have been absent for 50 percent of the more than 170 roll calls held in the chamber so far in the 110th Congress.

Granted, McCain isn't the only senator missing votes in favor of the presidential campaign trail. And as his staff has pointed out repeatedly, none of McCain's missed votes has made the difference in a bill's fate. In a statement to Capitol Briefing, McCain's campaign said, "Regrettably, it is impossible for a presidential candidate to avoid missing votes. The Senator has not missed a vote where his vote would have affected the outcome, and he will make every effort to be in the Senate on the occasions when it would."

One of McCain's strongest backers is Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), the Republican whip who would presumably make sure McCain got back to Capitol Hill for particularly close votes.

But the other 2008 contenders in the Senate have made an effort to be on the floor this spring. Take Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas), who trails McCain as the most absentee senator (Not including Tim Johnson of South Dakota, who has missed every vote this year as he's recovered from a brain hemorrhage). Brownback missed a series of votes Tuesday related to a water resources bill as he, McCain and the rest of the GOP field gathered in South Carolina for a candidates debate. But by 10:44 a.m. ET yesterday when the vote began on an amendment to cut off funding for the Iraq war, Brownback was in the chamber to vote against the provision.

In fact, McCain was the only senator running for president who missed Wednesday's vote. Parsing his campaign statement, Senate watchers shouldn't expect McCain in the Capitol very often; his pledge is only to "make every effort" to vote when he would make the difference in the outcome.

Today McCain will be in New York raising money at a private event and then speaking to the Empire State's GOP state committee dinner in Manhattan. McCain was in the Washington area for at least part of today, too, attending a 1:30 p.m. ET press conference at the Capitol to help announce a bipartisan Senate agreement on immigration legislation. He left before the event was over, presumably heading for the Big Apple.

To be fair to the senator, this morning's vote was essentially a sense-of-the-Senate resolution on troop safety in Iraq that simply moves the supplemental spending bill on Iraq back into a House-Senate conference. McCain has been a steadfast supporter of President Bush's recent handling of the Iraq war, so his views are widely known on this issue.

And for anyone wondering about Democratic frontrunners Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.), they have missed just 1.8 percent and 6.4 percent of votes this year, respectively.

UPDATE: McCain did in fact miss the budget vote Thursday afternoon, as he headed north for his political events in Manhattan. That means he's missed 43 straight Senate votes...

Here's a link to some Big Apple coverage of his and Rudy Giuliani's speaking engagement last night.

By Paul Kane | May 17, 2007; 2:15 PM ET | Category: Senate
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McCain is a fricking loser who kisses Bush's
arse like nobodies busines.. He is quite a
kiss ass.

Posted by: Alan | May 17, 2007 06:06 PM

Tipically, normal fallout form US Military Intervention said to be Saving Freedom...!
Death in Iraq spawns grim subcultures

By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer Thu May 17, 5:34 PM ET

BAGHDAD - Abdullah Jassim expected ambulances and security forces to arrive first after a blast last month near his clothing shop. Instead, it was thieves.

"I saw them with my own eyes," said Jassim, who has survived a string of suicide bombings in Baghdad's well-known Shurja market. "Young men between 20 and 30 years old stole mobile phones, money and wrist watches from the dead and badly hurt."

The consequences of sudden and violent death — so commonplace in
Iraq's relentless turmoil — have spawned their own macabre subcultures: the human vultures, grave markers with serial numbers for unidentified victims, tattoo artists asked to etch IDs on people afraid of becoming an unclaimed body amid the carnage and killings.

It's more than just another grim tableau in a nation brimming with sad stories. It points to how deeply war and sectarian bloodshed have reordered the way Iraqis live — and confront the constant possibility of death.

"As a society, we are finished," said Jassim, whose store is only several dozen yards from the site of a car bomb that killed at least 127 people and wounded 148 on April 18. "We may have hit rock bottom."

The black banners hoisted on street corners to announce a death have markedly increased since sectarian violence intensified after the February 2006 bombing by Sunni militants of an important Shiite shrine in Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad.

Estimates of civilian deaths since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion vary widely — from 62,000 by the private Iraq Body Count group to as many as 600,000 in a study published last year by the respected British medical journal The Lancet — but the figures alone can't fully explain how Iraqis have learned to treat death in different ways.

Even mourners are alert for attack. Suicide bombers have targeted the funeral tents traditionally used by families to receive relatives, friends and neighbors.

That same fear keeps relatives from going to cemeteries to bury their dead or, in some cases, even publicizing the victim's name.

Stories making the rounds in Baghdad speak of relatives receiving calls from the mobile phones of loved ones who were missing, with callers claiming to hold them hostage and demanding ransom. When the money is delivered, the families are told their relatives are dead.

A top police official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said authorities were aware of looting at bombing sites and the use of stolen mobile phones to collect ransoms from families. He blamed organized criminal gangs.

Fadil Abu Semidiah, an undertaker from the holy Shiite city of Najaf, recalls a teenage boy who recently came with his family to the city's vast cemetery to bury his father — a victim of a Baghdad bombing.

As the father was being laid to rest before him, the son's mobile phone rang. The screen showed the number of his father's missing telephone. The caller did not say anything, but it was enough to unglue the boy.

"The boy became hysterical," said Abu Semidiah, 56. "He kept shouting 'my father is alive! my father is alive!'"

The cemeteries in Najaf and Karbala, another holy Shiite city south of Baghdad, have for centuries been used exclusively by Shiites to bury their dead.

Now, they are being used to bury both Sunni and Shiite victims of sectarian violence whose bodies were not claimed by families.

Abu Semidiah said bodies in batches of 70 or more arrive from Baghdad about once a week in refrigerated trucks belonging to the Health Ministry. With each body comes a serial number that corresponds to a picture of the body kept at the Baghdad central morgue.

The number is engraved on tombstones so families that finally track down a missing relative can either exhume the remains for burial elsewhere or replace the number on the tombstone with the deceased's name, said the undertaker, who lost a 15-year-old, Salam, in a Baghdad bombing two years ago but was too grief-stricken to bury him himself.

Much of the sectarian violence in Baghdad has been blamed on Sunni militants or death squads linked to the Shiite Mahdi Army militia of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The bodies of the victims — handcuffed, showing signs of torture and with execution-style gunshot wounds — are routinely found in deserted areas, garbage dumps or floating in the Tigris river.

Ironically, the men in Najaf and Karbala who volunteer to administer the ritual washing of bodies — part of the Islamic burial rites — and pray for their souls are often volunteers from the Mahdi Army.

"The Mahdi Army has played a pioneering role in this humanitarian task," boasted Sheik Abdullah al-Karbalai, a 32-year-old Shiite cleric from Karbala and a supporter of al-Sadr.

Al-Karbalai has overseen the burial of about 3,000 sectarian violence victims, many of them in land he said was purchased by al-Sadr for that purpose.

In Baghdad, a 34-year-old man asked a tattoo artist to mark his right shoulder with three words. "My brother Hossam," reads the tattoo in blue letters.

Firas Adel said the wording was selected so his immediate family and close friends could recognize his remains in a morgue packed with decomposed, bloodied and decapitated bodies.

Such individualized markings are now the most popular tattoos in Baghdad. But people avoid tattooing their names, which can betray their sectarian affiliation, and go instead for a symbol or a name that close family and friends would recognize.

"I may be kidnapped, beheaded and then my body is burned," said Adel, who makes a living delivering goods across Iraq, braving its deadly roads on a daily basis. "I know people who spent weeks trying to locate relatives. Don't want this to happen to me."

No way to say this nicely, Cheney is the SLIME (significant appendage of Bush Senior) from which slime oozes!
CIA leak destroyed Plame's career, her lawyer says

By James Vicini Thu May 17, 3:59 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bush administration officials destroyed
Valerie Plame's career by disclosing her identity as a secret
CIA operative, a lawyer for Plame and her husband said on Thursday in urging a federal judge to rule that their lawsuit can go forward.
ADVERTISEMENT

"In the end, it's about egregious conduct by the defendants that ruined a woman's career," Duke University law professor Erwin Chemerinsky said as Plame sat silently in the courtroom.

But lawyers for Vice President
Dick Cheney, one of his former aides, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, White House political adviser Karl Rove and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage argued that the lawsuit should be dismissed.

They said the officials could not be sued personally when acting in their official capacity, that the couple waited too long to bring the lawsuit and that courts traditionally were barred from getting into classified CIA information, like Plame's job duties.

According to the lawsuit, the officials disclosed Plame's identity to reporters in 2003 to discredit, punish and seek revenge against her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for publicly disputing statements made by
President George W. Bush justifying the war in
Iraq.

The lawsuit seeks money damages from the officials for violating the couple's constitutional free speech, due process and privacy rights.

Lawyer Michael Waldman, representing Armitage at the hearing before U.S. District Judge John Bates, cited a "myriad of legal reasons why each claim fails" and said the lawsuit should be thrown out.

"Put bluntly, your honor, this suit is principally based on a desire for publicity and book deals," Waldman said. Plame has signed a book deal reportedly worth more than $2.5 million.

Attorney John Kester, representing Cheney, said that allowing the case to proceed would result in the examination of CIA activities, including how Plame's duties changed after the disclosure of her identity.

"This is a fishing expedition, inevitably, about the duties at the CIA," Kester said. "The courts just don't go there and the court should not go there."

Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, said there was no evidence the couple suffered any actual harm or loss of employment, which is required in such cases.

The Bush administration supported the officials, arguing they are entitled to immunity.

Nobody was ever charged with the leak of Plame's identity. But Libby was convicted in March of obstructing the leak investigation and lying about how he learned about Plame. He is scheduled to be sentenced on June 5.

The judge, who vigorously questioned both sides, said at the end of the hearing that he would rule in the future.