« November 12, 2006 - November 18, 2006 | Main | November 26, 2006 - December 2, 2006 »

November 24, 2006

Plenty Of Troops To Fight Against the War On Christmas

Signing up to fight the "War on Christmas" may be more popular these days than signing up to fight that other war. Between Bill O'Reilly's ranting and John Gibson's writing, publicity about the non-existent war on Christmas hit a peak last holiday season.

Alliance Defense Fund Attorney Mike Johnson says that "About this time every year, our phones start to ring off the hook from people reporting cases of discrimination." According to Johnson, ADF received 400 phone calls last year about incidents that included possible discrimination against Christians.

This year, the ADF will once again focus on keeping Christmas in the schools and in public spaces. Over 930 attorneys are available "to combat any improper attempts to censor the celebration of Christmas in schools and on public property." According to the ADF, the organization's major function is to point out what is legal in cases in which institutions "censor" Christmas. For example (from the ADF website):

* The U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled that public schools must ban the singing of religious Christmas carols or prohibit the distribution of candy canes or Christmas cards.

* School officials do not violate the Constitution by closing on religious holidays such as Christmas and Good Friday.

* School officials are not legally obligated to recognize all other religious holidays simply because they officially recognize Thanksgiving or Christmas.

* School officials may use "Christmas Vacation" to refer to the December holiday break without offending the Constitution.

* Government-sponsored Christmas displays are not banned as some people believe. When faced with the question of whether a Christmas display is constitutional, a court simply asks, "Is the government celebrating the holiday or promoting religion?" Often, the "Three Reindeer Rule" is used by courts, whereby a judge reasons that having a sufficient number of secular objects in close enough proximity to the Christmas item (such as a crèche) renders the overall display as a constitutional community observance of the holiday.

This year, the ADF has support from Concerned Women for America, Focus on the Family, Coral Ridge Ministries, and the majority of the nation's state-based family policy councils.

Recently, Wal-Mart changed it's policy on holiday greetings. Wal-Mart staff will no longer say "Happy Holidays" to customers, but will instead say "Merry Christmas." The "Happy Holiday" policy led to protests and calls for a boycott from conservative religious groups.

Thanksgiving for the Bush Family

President Bush celebrated Thanksgiving at Camp David with relatives and good friends like Condoleeza Rice. This week, George Bush Sr. was with a much less welcoming crowd in Abu Dhabi—defending his son’s record on the war.

In a story that did not make the headlines in American media over the holidays, Bush Sr. was jeered by a crowd after giving a key note address to young business leaders in the United Arab Emirates.

After a woman audience member told Bush Sr. “We do not respect your son. We do not respect the work he’s doing all over the world,” the crowd whooped.

Due to the presence of journalists, Bush Sr. would not say what advice he gives George W. on the war. But he displayed unfailing family loyalty, saying that his son was “an honest man” who was working for peace.

“When your son’s under attack, it hurts,” Bush Sr. told the audience. “You’re determined to be at his side and help him any way you possibly can.”

--Caroline Dobuzinskis

November 22, 2006

Marine Gets Less than Two Years for Executing Iraqi Civilian

In his final speech before the invasion of Iraq, George W. Bush pronounced that "unlike Saddam Hussein, we believe the Iraqi people are deserving and capable of human liberty."

Liberty meaning that you won't be dragged from your home and shot point-blank in the head by a group of soldiers?

That's what happened to Hashim Ibrahim Awad last April, and the soldiers were American. Seven Marines and a Navy corpsman dragged Awad from his home in Hamdaniyah, west of Baghdad. They bound his hands and feet, though Awad is lame, and forced him outside. Four of them then shot him in the face. Afterwards, the soldiers placed a shovel and an AK-47 by Awad's body to make it look like he was an insurgent digging a hole for a roadside bomb. The real motive for the killing remains unknown.

Lance Cpl. Jerry E. Shumate Jr. was one of the shooters. He was sentenced yesterday to 21 months in jail. That's significantly less than the five-year federal minimum sentence for growing a single marijuana plant. None of Shumate's co-conspirators has received a longer sentence (though some have yet to be tried).

An Iraqi life is worth less than a victimless crime. How much is saving these young soldiers' asses really worth to the military?

Iraqi Students Want Saddam Back

At least so a Baghdad University professor told a conference in Boston. Among the war's less-famous casualties is Iraq's higher education system: Over 200 professors have been assassinated since 2003, thousands have fled the country and the rest are terrified of saying anything that might raise the murderous ire of one militia or another. Classes are cancelled more often than they are taught.

"The students are disappointed in America and they say it now openly, even on the television: ‘Bring back Saddam and we will apologize and he will restore order to the country,’” said Dr. Saad Jawad, professor of political science at Baghdad University.

Be Thankful for Complainers

Tomorrow, be thankful for complainers. Just when you thought you were the only one who had really boring dreams and always used the one stall that was out of toilet paper, a Finnish choir group has come along to express solidarity with all those suffering from these minor disturbances.

The Complaints Choir of Helsinki, singing beautifully in Finnish, has made public appearances in its Scandinavian homeland, and recently online through blogs and YouTube.

There is something to be said for a multitude of ringing voices singing their gripes and grievances about everything from the mundane ("Reference numbers are too long" and "The battery on my mobile is always going flat") to the more sublime protests ("Bullshitters get on too well in life" and "People have no time for fair trade goods, but rush to where they grow"). Sometimes it's a combination of both ("I can't escape the headlines of the tabloids").

I would love to have this choir sing their refrain of "Christmas season starts earlier every year" at a Starbucks, where they start playing carols and peddling snowflake-adorned coffee paraphernalia the day after Halloween. It drives me crazy.

Of course, I guess I could stop going to Starbucks. But then I couldn't complain. And what would be the beauty in that?

--Caroline Dobuzinskis

NYPD Watches From Above

New York City has set up a two-storey "patrol tower" equipped with spotlight, sensors and cameras to literally oversee a Harlem neighborhood. According to NY1 News, local residents sick of the area's crime are pleased, as are folks in a Brooklyn neighborhood that also hosts one of the towers. I don't doubt that, but surely I'm not the only one to find the idea of cops surveillling the public from on high more than a bit creepy.

Teen Birth Rate at a Record Low

The CDC released data yesterday showing that last year the birth rate in the U.S. for women aged 15 to 19 declined to a record low of 40.4 births per 1,000, down from 41.1 in 2004 (a 2% decrease). For some perspective, the rate back in 1991 was 68.1 births per 1,000 women. The decline was most pronounced among 15-17 year-olds, for whom the birth rate fell 3%, to 21.4 births per 1,000. The rate for this age group has dropped fully 45 percent since 1991.

Now, folks at the the National Abstinence Clearinghouse will laud these results as directly stemming from their abstinence-only education efforts, though there is no evidence that such education works, and plenty that the curricula is false and misleading. (Still abstinence-only ed shops have received a billion dollars in federal funding since Bush came to office.)

Choicers will be equally proud of the low rate, which they'll point out is an outgrowth of proper access to birth control and, thus, fewer unwanted pregnancies. Still, while we'll be hearing about the record low, coverage likely won't focus on the flip side, that there were nearly half a million (421,123) children born to girls under 20 last year.

There is more work to be done for sure to protect women's right to choose -- whether they want to have an abortion, or take a pill, or have sex before marriage -- and though there was lots of good news out of this month's election, repro rights are still in jeopardy. The Nation's Katha Pollitt points out that of the 22 pro-choice Dems who ran for Congress only two won, and every anti-choice woman incumbent prevailed.

November 21, 2006

Outsourcing American Journalism? Meet the Bangalore Bureau

Well, I guess this really shouldn't shock me, but the International Herald Tribune reports that, as if the wave of pink slips hitting America's daily papers and wire services weren't bad enough, there's a new trend that goes hand in hand: outsourcing (or offshoring, if you prefer) journalism jobs to India and elsewhere:

The rush of job recruiting ads on MonsterIndia.com tells the story of the latest class of workers to watch their trade start migrating to another continent. "Urgent requirement for business writers," reads one ad looking for journalists to locate in Mumbai. "Should be willing to work in night shifts (UK shift)." Another casts for English-speaking journalists in Bangalore with "experience in editing and writing for US/International Media."

Remote-control journalism is the scornful term that unions use for the shift of newspaper jobs to low-cost countries like India or Singapore with fiber-optic connections transmitting information all around the world. But the momentum for "offshoring" to other countries or outsourcing locally is accelerating as newspapers small and large seek ways to reduce costs in the face of severe stresses, from sagging circulation and advertising revenue to shareholder pressure. "Outsourcing plays a major part in the newspaper industry of today," the World Association of Newspapers concluded in a study released in July.

This trend has been around for a while:

More than two years ago, Reuters, the financial news service, opened a new center in Bangalore. The 340 employees, including an editorial team of 13 local journalists, was deployed to write about corporate earnings and broker research on U.S. companies. Since then, the Reuters staff at the Bangalore center has grown to about 1,600, with 100 journalists working on U.S. stories.

But not to worry:

The World Association of Newspapers, a Paris-based organization representing 72 national newspaper associations, conducted a global survey of about 350 newspapers in Europe, Asia and the United States, and company executives reported that they expected the outsourcing to increase, although few were willing to farm out all of their editorial functions.

Yeah, I'm sure those corporate VPs at WAN's member papers are safe.

Lieberman Hires Fellow Changling

The NYT reports that Joe "Guess Which Side of the Aisle I'm On" Lieberman has made a hire —his new spokesman, Marshall Wittmann—who is cut from the same cloth.

Mr. Wittmann, meanwhile, is a Trotskyite turned Zionist turned Reaganite turned bipartisan irritant turned pretty much everything in between — including chief lobbyist for the Christian Coalition, the only Jew who has ever held that position.

Perfect.

A Victory for Janitors in Houston, With Thanks to a Humble Martyr

The Service Employees International Union yesterday won a tentative agreement for higher pay and health insurance for its new members in Houston, who have been locked in an acrimonious, monthlong strike at the city’s largest cleaning companies. It’s a major victory for the SEIU, which set out last year to organize part-time, often-undocumented Hispanic workers in a region of the country that hasn’t typically embraced organized labor. Houston is likely to become a model for the union’s efforts in other Southern cities: Beyond using the same quiet educational efforts, noisy protests and hardball negotiating, organizers are sure to be on the lookout for another Ercilia Sandoval.

Rosy-cheeked, clad in a wig and leopard print headband, and suffering from laryngitis that had reduced her voice to a whisper, Sandoval met with me in her small apartment last month, sitting down at a table beneath a print of the Last Supper. She told a story of leaving three of her children in San Miguel, El Salvador ten years ago to pursue an illusory American Dream. “I promised them that, at most, I would be gone a year,” she whispered, “and then I would bring them here.” To this day she hasn’t seen them. Instead, she has struggled to make ends meet laboring for a tortilla factory, then an Episcopal church, and finally a major janitorial contractor working in downtown skyscrapers—one of five companies targeted by the SEIU. Preoccupied with sending money to her family, she might have never involved herself in the union’s struggle if she hadn’t decided she’d nothing to lose.

Last September Sandoval began feeling worn out on the job. She scrubbed bathroom fixtures through headaches and fevers, emptied trash cans with sore arms and a tight back. Lacking health insurance, she couldn’t afford to see a doctor. Nearly a year passed before she forked over $200 for a consultation. A mammogram confirmed her worst fears: she suffered from an advanced stage of breast cancer. Yet hospitals in Houston wouldn’t treat her because she was uninsured. She waited two months to be approved for state disability coverage. In June, Doctors finally began chemotherapy treatments but say she probably has only a few months to live.

Just as her cancer was spreading, she met an SEIU organizer at her Episcopal church who was looking for janitors. The organizer found in Sandoval someone looking to harness her outrage and despair. “Some of the workers were afraid,” Sandoval says, “but often I said, ‘Afraid of what? We are not going to lose a good job. We are not going to lose a good salary-- we don’t have benefits, we don’t have anything.” As Sandoval’s health deteriorated, her resolve strengthened. In September, she accepted a spot alongside the SEIU top brass at the negotiating table. Her job: to convince the cleaning companies to provide her and 5,300 fellow janitors with health insurance in the union’s first contract.

On the day of the negotiations, Sandoval was the last person to talk. She feared she’d be just another person asking for something. She stepped into the bathroom to steel her nerves. Returning to the conference room, she asked the executives and lawyers if they were looking at her. “And I looked them all in their eyes,” she said. “I assured myself that they were all looking at me. And I took off my wig.”

Sandoval saw a group of men who were shocked. “Some were crying. Others sat with their mouths open. Other ones just couldn’t even blink their eyes.

“And that,” she said, “is what I wanted.”

Sandoval’s display was only the beginning of a struggle this fall that led to the strike, solidarity protests around the country, and ads featuring her bald visage. But it was clearly a defining moment for the movement and Sandoval’s own sense of transcendence. “I’m not just fighting for me,” she told me. “I’m fighting for everyone. Because why not rise up? Why not try?”

BU College Republicans Create Scholarship For White Students...Sort Of

The Boston University College Republicans have decided to put their money where their mouth is in order to combat the "worst form of bigotry confronting America today." To that end, the organization has created a scholarship for white students only, the Caucasian Achievement and Recognition Scholarship. In order, I suppose, to not look too "politically incorrect," recipients are required to be at least 25% white, recalling the days of 19th Century New Orleans.

The scholarship is intended to "raise awareness" to what its creators say is the bigotry of racial preference programs. The scholarship is worth only $250, which probably won't raise a lot of awareness. Once the recipient is chosen, BUCR will host an event to honor the winner, discuss the award, and conduct a forum on racial preference. To be followed, perhaps, by a reverse Quadroon ball?

Five-Time National Hobo King and Founding Member of National Hobo Foundation Dies at 89

Sometimes, the little guys don't get enough credit.

'King of Hobos' Dies at Age 89
By Associated Press

November 21, 2006, 3:04 PM EST

NAPOLEON, Ohio -- Maurice Graham, who began hitching rides on trains as a teenager and was known as the "King of the Hobos," has died at the age of 89.

Graham, who recently suffered a stroke, died Saturday at the Northcrest Nursing Home, his family said.

Graham, nicknamed "Steam Train Maury," was a founding member of the National Hobo Foundation and helped establish the Hobo Museum in Britt, Iowa.

He was "a true hobo hero," said foundation president Linda Hughes.

"He was a classy and respected man," she said. "No one can live up to Steam Train. He's irreplaceable."

Graham in 1990 wrote "Tales of the Iron Road: My Life As King of the Hobos," telling his stories of hopping trains beginning at the age of 14 and living in hobo camps until 1980. He was named National Hobo King five times at the annual hobo convention in Britt, and was crowned Grand Patriarch of Hoboes in 2004.

Graham worked as a mason and founded a school where he taught the trade. He was a medical technician during World War II.

He is survived by his wife, Wanda, and two daughters.

For more: The Hobo Foundation.

Al Jazeera's First Week Gets Positive Reviews

Before its launch, Americans were already opposed to the idea of the English Al Jazeera network. But after being on the air for a week, the station has been receiving praise from American viewers and news media for its wide scope, unique perspective and its cold shoulder approach to the salacious OJ Simpson book release story.

The station broadcasts around the clock and can be picked up via satellite television in the United States on a few platforms listed on the website. These include Globecast, Fision, JumpTV and VDC. Broadcasts can also be seen online in 15-minute increments (or via subscription).

According to a source in an article from today’s International Herald Tribune, the station has been "flooded" with positive emails from viewers in the U.S. and China — places where people weren’t supposed to be watching.

In the Hartford Courant, Roger Catlin acclaims Al Jazeera’s "sleek presentation, with lush electronic fanfare." (But can anyone really top CNN Headline News' dramatic theme song?) More importantly, Catlin gives the station a thumbs up for its "solid, sober international reports from the Darfur region of Sudan in Africa to Baghdad, Iraq."

Not surprisingly, a scan of the network’s website reveals a stronger emphasis on Middle East and Africa than American news networks. Since its launch on November 15, the network has been following the conflict in Uganda in detail. The network recently reported on the struggles of the Muslim Malay population in Thailand, a group that rarely makes it into headlines elsewhere.

An article in the New York Sun describes how Al Jazeera’s reputation is a key to insider access on stories on Muslim issues within immigrant circles.

Is this what parts of England have become? Places where only a reporter from Al-Jazeera can explain what's going on in England to the English, because the Muslim inhabitants won't speak to anyone else? If so, western news organizations, not to mention governments, should be worried.

The station's bad rep might only be a boon amid stubborn American news network fans who still perceive the network is within arm’s length of Al Qaeda. Yesterday, in a press release, Al Jazeera announced it was the first foreign news network to gain access to Naypidaw in Myanmar (formerly Burma). Today’s report from the area by journalist Veronica Pedrosa can be read on the Al Jazeera English website.

The station network announced today the location of its fourth broadcast center -- the 60th floor of the tallest towers in the world, the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia. According to managing director, Nigel Parsons, Singapore was passed over as a headquarter because of its "sterile" politics.

-- Caroline Dobuzinskis

The New Republic 'Fesses Up

You've got to give them points for taking responsibility. In their latest issue, the editors of the august Washington journal declare:

The New Republic deeply regrets its early support for this war...This magazine has long advocated deploying U.S. power to halt the mass slaughter of innocents. Saddam Hussein distinguished himself at the mass slaughter of innocents: About this, there can be no dispute. Yet, in this case, we supported an invasion that has led to the same savage result.

They add, to their further credit:

America's role in creating this Mesopotamian hell does not diminish our moral obligations. It increases them. Even an arch-realist like Colin Powell understood that when we broke it, we owned it. And, before we throw up our hands and enjoy the catharsis of walking away, we must exhaust every attempt to minimize further nightmares.

Democrats Lose NM-01 in Nail-Biter: Maybe Hillary Can Pay for the Recount?

Democratic challenger Patricia Madrid conceded the race for New Mexico's 1st Congressional District to incumbent Republican Heather Wilson today, even though the final margin of 875 votes is less than one-half of one percent of the total number of votes cast.

In many other states, such a small vote differential would automatically trigger a state-funded recount—but not in relatively poor New Mexico (the state’s coffers are filled —or not filled—by taxes from the third-lowest per capita income in the nation). A recount is expected to cost between $250,000 and $300,000, but the Democrats don't have the money. Madrid notes that a single-vote swing in each precinct would reverse the outcome.

With such a small differential and State Democratic Party Chairman John Wertheim accusing state Republicans of "systematic vote suppression" (Democrats had to file suit against Republicans calling non-republican voters with misleading information) the 2006 race for NM's 1st looks to have gone the way of Florida's 13th District and other places in the nation where misleading and harassing phone calls paid for by the GOP—one of the "dirtier, yet mostly legal, tricks in a political operative's bag of last-minute campaign tools"—may have tipped the balance in some very tight Congressional races.

New Poll: Vast Majority of Iraqis Want U.S. to Go Home

A new survey by WorldPublicOpinion.org reveals the depth of Iraqi antipathy towards the contiued American presence in their country. Now a solid majority of all Iraqis, including once pro-U.S. Baghdad Shias, say they want us out of there in a year:

Eight out of ten Shias in Baghdad (80%) say they want foreign forces to leave within a year (72% of Shias in the rest of the country), according to a poll conducted by World Public Opinion in September. None of the Shias polled in Baghdad want U.S.-led troops to be reduced only “as the security situation improves,” a sharp decline from January, when 57 percent of the Shias polled by WPO in the capital city preferred an open-ended U.S presence.

This brings Baghdad Shias in line with the rest of the country. Seven out of ten Iraqis overall—including both the Shia majority (74%) and the Sunni minority (91%)—say they want the United States to leave within a year.

One statistical difference worth noting: Baghdad Shias, unlike most other Iraqis, do not favor disarming sectarian militias even though 59% say a U.S. withdrawal will lead to more interethnic violence. That's not just a sign of how bad things are in the capital but also an ominous hint of the power struggle to come. But while the U.S. may be providing a temporary buffer, that doesn't mean it's seen as the good guy who simply needs to holster his gun and ride into the sunset. Nearly 60% of all Shias say they support attacks on American-led troops. And 100% of Baghdad Sunnis and 91% of Sunnis elsewhere say they approve of attacks on U.S.-led forces.

November 20, 2006

Palestinians Form Human Shield, Israelis Back Off

Hundreds of Palestinians, many of them women and children, formed a human shield around a Gaza building targetted by the Israeli military - a novel tactic that got the Jewish state to call off their planned air strike. The Israelis, as they often do, had given advance notice to the militants whose homes they were aiming to blast with missiles so that their families could be evacuated. Instead, they sent out a call for supportive protesters, at the prompting of a female Hamas activist who had also led a group of women to form human shields to help a group of trapped gunmen escape an Israeli siege earlier this month.

Now, no one can deny that Israeli military actions have killed lots of innocent Palestinian civilians, and that's a terrible thing. But this whole episode does point out a difference between them and their suicide-bombing opponents. Israel doesn't intentionally target civilians; Hamas and other Palestinian groups do. In fact, the same day that the Israelis called off their missilie attack lest it harm innocent people, Palestinian missiles fired into the town of Sderot injured three people. Is there a difference between extreme disregard for the possibility of civilian casualties as a side effect of a military strike and deliberately killing civilians? Discuss.

FBI Conspired To Frame Innocent Men In Murder Convictions 40 Years Ago

Thousands of recently released FBI documents from the U.S. Justice Department show that the FBI, in an attempt to cultivate mobsters Vincent "Jimmy the Bear" Flemmi and Joseph "The Animal" Barboza, allowed them to frame four innocent men for murder forty years ago.

Flemmi and Barboza conspired to murder Edward "Teddy" Deegan, a fact well known to the FBI agents who bugged the mob office for several months. Yet these agents allowed Flemmi and Barboza to frame four men, two of whom are still alive, and who are seeking over $100 million in damages from the federal government. The survivors, Joseph Salvati and Peter Limone, are basing their case largely on documents discovered by a special task force of the U.S. Department of Justice during an investiation of law enforcement corruption in New England.

Salvati, Limone and two other men, Henry Tameleo and Louis Greco, are described as victims of an FBI run amok during the J. Edgar Hoover/Robert Kennedy Mafia crackdown. After the Deegan murder, Barboza agreed to confess to his participation in exchange for a reduced charge that would actually have netted him no prison time (he was in prison on another charge and was to be released). He refused, however, to name Flemmi as an accomplice in the conspiracy, and he is alleged to have talked the FBI into letting him name four innocent men as accomplices. In exchange, both Barbosa and Flemmi became FBI informants.

Three of the men were sentenced to death by electrocution, but their sentences were later commuted to life terms; the fourth man, Salvati, had already by given a life sentence. Tameleo and Greco died in prison.

The U.S. Justice Department has challenged the lawsuit, claiming immunity, but the judge disagreed, and his decision was upheld by the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals.

What Color is Richard Pombo's Parachute?

I try to ignore press releases like this, but this post-election PR stunt caught my attention when it popped into my inbox:

After the mid-term elections, six senators and twenty-one representatives are now out of a job, with five House incumbents still waiting to hear. To help these civic-minded men and women in their search for a new career and a new life, Ten Speed Press is donating a copy of What Color Is Your Parachute?—the world’s best-selling job-hunting, career-changing, and soul-searching manual—to every incumbent who lost a seat in the election. Books have been mailed out and will arrive on the desks of the outgoing legislators in time for Christmas.

Pretty clever—who knew that book was even still around? I like this bit of career advice for soon-to-be former California Rep. Richard Pombo, who has said he will become a lobbyist for property-rights (read: anti-environmental) groups as soon as the revolving door is opened for him: "Mr. Pombo may be an experienced agenda-pusher, but perhaps he may be better suited for a job as an actuary or a florist." I dunno. I think Pombo's parachute is any color but green.

"Go Big"..."Go Long"...or "Go Home"?

Today, during a news conference in Bogor, Indonesia, President Bush said, "I have not made any decisions about troop increases, troop decreases, and won't until I hear from a variety of sources, including our own United States military."

Yet just last Thursday, the Guardian reported that "President George Bush has told senior advisers that the US and its allies must make "a last big push" to win the war in Iraq and that instead of beginning a troop withdrawal next year, he may increase US forces by up to 20,000 soldiers, according to sources familiar with the administration's internal deliberations."

All of this decision-making for the President comes just as the Baker Commission is set to release its recommendations, which Bush's comments about troop increases appear to mirror. You can read the leaked parts of their recs. here. The Pentagon is also getting in on the planning action. Today, the Washington Post reports that the review of Iraq, commissioned by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Peter Pace, is looking at three options which have been deemed "Go Big," "Go Long" or "Go Home."

"Go Big" = a large increase in U.S. troops in Iraq to try to break the cycle of sectarian and insurgent violence. That option has been all but rejected by the study group, which concluded that there are not enough troops in the U.S. military and not enough effective Iraqi forces.

"Go Home" = a swift withdrawal of U.S. troops. It was rejected by the Pentagon group as likely to push Iraq directly into a full-blown and bloody civil war.

"Go Long" (Read: "stay the course") = Planners envision [it] taking five to 10 more years to create a stable and competent Iraqi army.

The review team seems to be leaning toward an amalgam of "Go Big" and "Go Long," which looks very similar to the initial recommendations of the Baker Commission, a sharp increase of 20,000- 30,000 troops and then a transition from the suppression of insurgent violence to training and advising the Iraqi Army. They call this one "Go Big But Short While Transitioning to Go Long." I think someone is having fun over there.

Uranium Poisoning Still Plagues the Navajo Nation

They built their homes out of uranium mill waste because "it made good concrete." They drank the water of lakes that appeared "as if by magic" on the arid reservation in the 1950s and 1960s. What they didn't know was that these lakes were actually pools covering abandoned uranium mines.

Fifty years ago, reports Judy Pasternak in the Los Angeles Times, cancer rates on the Navajo reservation in the desert southwest were so low that a medical journal published an article titled "Cancer immunity in the Navajo." Then, from 1944 to 1986, 3.9 million tons of uranium ore were chiseled and blasted from the mountains and plains, with radioactive waste piles, open tunnels and pits left behind. Few companies bothered to fence the properties or post warning signs. Federal inspectors seldom intervened.

Not until 2000 were some families warned that they were living in homes as radioactive as uranium mines. The U.S. government still hasn't cleaned it up. Read more about the cruel legacy uranium has left for this tribe in Pasternak's heartbreaking series, running this week.

—April Rabkin

"This Just In..." A Fair and Balanced Daily Show

Via Think Progress comes a great tidbit reported by Forbes today. It looks like Jon Stewart has some future competition. Fox News and Joel Surnow, the executive producer of "24," are scheming to put together a news satire show for the right. Surnow thinks it's time for the left to have it handed to them, Fox News style. "The other side hasn't been skewered in a fair and balanced way," says Surnow. The working title for the show is "This Just In" and is set to air this winter, on Saturdays during primetime. The impetus for the show appears to be the change in power in Congress and Surnow wants to be ready: "By January, we will have a whole bunch of new people to do material about." Watch out Pelosi.

John McCain and the Religious Right -- Increasingly Comfortable and Not So Odd Bedfellows

Before you can be Commander-in-Chief, you have to be Panderer-in-Chief. Or so thinks John McCain, anyway, who continues to discard his "moderate" and "maverick" labels in favor of listing very strategically to the right. A run-down:

Yesterday on ABC, McCain said that he supports the overturning of Roe v. Wade. A few years ago, McCain told the San Francisco Chronicle this:

I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations.

McCain yesterday on ABC:

I do believe that it’s very likely or possible that the Supreme Court should — could overturn Roe v. Wade, which would then return these decisions to the states, which I support... I don’t believe the Supreme Court should be legislating in the way that they did on Roe v. Wade.

Of course, this all recalls the McCain-Falwell saga, where McCain told reporters during his 2000 presidential run that Falwell, Robertson and their ilk were bad for the country, and that Falwell specifically was an "agent of intolerance."* Early this year, McCain took back the "agent of intolerance" quote and gave the commencement address at Falwell's Liberty University.

And two days ago, ThinkProgress blogged that McCain is hiring Falwell's staffers. Specifically, the debate coach at Liberty University, who will advise McCain on communications issues. So we can look forward to McCain's new position on fighting the war on terror: "Blow them all away in the name of the Lord."

* That is a pretty easy case to make. Here's Falwell on the causes of 9/11:

I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'

Obama to Reporter: I'm Sorry for "Messing Up Your Game"

In the past Barack Obama has been accused of many things -- having ties to a crooked political fundraiser, for one -- but this, I dare say, is a first. In a recent column in the Henry Daily Herald of McDonough, Georgia, reporter Nicklaus Lovelady lambasts Obama for ruining his chances with a love interest working for a rival paper. Best to let Lovelady take it from here:

I had the looks, I had the charm and I had my eye on this pretty young thing who was doing an internship for a competing paper.

It took me nearly two months of running into each other at various news events before I worked up the nerve to begin talking to her.

And then Obama shows up.

The senator made his way to SIUE one day to introduce some legislation that would increase grants for students. Prior to that, me and the girl became really cool as I let her in on a few tricks of the trade.

The day Obama came, there was a huge press conference at the university’s student center with about 100 people inside the conference room and hundreds more viewing the conference on a big screen in the lobby.

Obama did his thing, and at the end there was segment for questions by the media.

After about five questions from different television and newspaper reporters, I stood up to ask mine.

“Wait a minute son, this is for professional media only,” Obama said to me.

“What do you mean? I work for the local paper,” I said with a crackling nervous voice.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were a college student. You have such a baby face,” he said with an unremorseful grin.

At that point everyone in the room turned to look at me and laugh. The 800 people in the lobby laughed as my face was projected on the big screen.

Alas, the "pretty young thing" was laughing, too. And, after that humiliating episode, she was no longer interested in Lovelady's "tricks of the trade." "Obama owes me a public apology for making me look like a court jester and for blocking my shot," Lovelady's column concludes. "Until that time, Hillary or Giuliani will get my vote."

Not about to lose Lovelady's vote, Obama, who has yet to declare whether or not he'll seek the presidency in 2008, phoned the reporter “to publicly apologize for messing up your game. I read that; I felt terrible. I didn't know there were any ladies around. I just wanted to let you know that I'm deeply sorry.”

Presidential material? Definitely.

Guantanamo Roundup: New Courtrooms, Shackles in the O.R., and the Quiet Release of More Detainees

In today's Gitmo news... The Miami Herald reports that the Pentagon has big plans for the detention center there—a $75 million-plus "legal compound" to house the long-awaited military commissions. Some features of the offshore hall of justice:

It would have two courtrooms; housing for up to 1,200 U.S. forces, lawyers, members of the news media and other visitors; a 100-car motor pool; an 800-person dining facility; conference and closed-circuit television facilities and a secure work space for classified material.

Amnesty International has slammed the Pentagon for planning "a permanent homage to its failed experiment in second-class justice." The scheme still has to get through Congress.

Meanwhile, a federal judge has denied a prisoner's request to get a cardiac procedure off-site. The prisoner is Saifullah Paracha, AKA Detainee 1094, who needs a cardiac catheterization.

Paracha's lawyer said that his client complained that several simple diagnostic examinations were not performed adequately by doctors at Guantanamo Naval Hospital. Gaillard Hunt, Paracha's lawyer, said that his client has had his hands and feet shackled when being examined at the base hospital and that several attempts to perform an electrocardiogram, or EKG, proved difficult for base medical staff.

The judge said he was "troubled by the shackling allegations," but ruled against Paracha anyway. Paracha caught our attention a few months ago for being a bit of a wise guy in one of his tribunal hearings.

And in a quiet milestone, the U.S. has released "the last remaining Guantanamo detainees determined to be no longer enemy combatants." The three prisoners are being sent to Albania, leaving behind 430 detainees in Cuba, awaiting their day in the shiny new coutroom.

Orgasms for Peace, Deep Fried Flags, Terrorist Stamps and Other Ways to Win People Over

Call it deft showmanship or call it the equivalent of making a bonfire with your furniture after winning the NCAA tournament—either way, you’ve got to hand it to our liberal activists as of late for keeping things entertaining. I mean, how do you top the stalwart men and women who four years ago brought us the word “Peace” spelled out on fields and hills around the world in naked bodies? Well, one way would be to sign up for their next project: Global Orgasm for Peace. According to Sunday’s story in the San Francisco Chronicle:

The Global Orgasm for Peace was conceived by Donna Sheehan, 76, and Paul Reffell, 55, who live together on a houseboat along scenic Tomales Bay in Marin County, just north of San Francisco.

Their immodest goal is for everyone in the world to have an orgasm on December 22 while focusing on world peace.

"The orgasm gives out an incredible feeling of peace during it and after it," Reffell said on Sunday. "Your mind is like a blank. It's like a meditative state. And mass meditations have been shown to make a change."

Or rock the boat, at least.

Speaking of rocking the boat, you probably noticed at some point since, say, 1976, that burning a flag is generally no longer an effective political statement. You could, however, take a cue from an artist in Tennessee and deep fry it. From the AP today:

Art student William Gentry said his piece, "The Fat Is in the Fire," was a commentary on obesity in America. "I deep-fried the flag because I'm concerned about America and about America's health," Gentry said.

The exhibit, at the Customs House Museum in Clarksville, featured more than 40 flags fried in peanut oil, egg batter, flour and black pepper. Apparently, the Southern appetite for everything from fried Twinkies to fried Snickers bars has its limits, though. The museum removed the exhibit, saying it conflicted with “community values.”

For another eloquent (and not necessarily effective) challenge to the values voters, see also this 2005 exhibit at the Houston art gallery DiverseWorks. Among the highlights: The image of a baby strapped with TNT, below the words "Hamas Baby Bomb," appeared on a faux postage stamp, which artist Michael Hernandez de Luna had stuck to an envelope and repeatedly mailed to himself without a glitch. Now that there's reason to beleive public opinion has turned against Bush and the war, ever-catchier agit-prop this sort may be coming to an inbox near you.

CBS on the "Group of Weirdos" Who Ran the GOP House

When liberals complain about the conservative bias of the media, they often invoke clichés such as "serving corporate ownership" or "putting profit ahead of truth." And while there are elements of truth to the clichés, a much bigger factor in journalists' deference to power is civility. As CBSNews.com's editorial director, Dick Meyer, put it in this decidedly impolite column, "the media didn't call a duck a duck, because that's not something we're supposed to do."

The "duck" in this case is the "group of weirdos" who ran the House of Representatives for the past 12 years. Just in time for Thanksgiving, Meyer roasts a few ducks of his own: Newt Gingrich is called out for having "lived out a very special hypocrisy" which he did with "epic sanctimony." And Dan Burton, Robert Livingston, Henry Hyde, and Dennis Hastert all get served with a side of good riddance. Here is Meyer's surprisingly candid appraisal of the architects of the Contract With America:

The iconic figures of this era were Newt Gingrich, Richard Armey and Tom Delay. They were zealous advocates of free markets, low taxes and the pursuit of wealth; they were hawks and often bellicose; they were brutal critics of big government.

Yet none of these guys had success in capitalism. None made any real money before coming to Congress. None of them spent a day in uniform. And they all spent the bulk of their adult careers getting paychecks from the big government they claimed to despise. Two resigned in disgrace.

Meyer begins his column with an apology: "This is a story I should have written 12 years ago when the "Contract with America" Republicans captured the House in 1994. I apologize."

That's okay, Dick. Others did write those stories. Your complimentary copies of impolite and unapologetic Mother Jones issues from a decade ago are on their way.