Michael Moore Today
Protests planned for anniversary of war
By Steve Cartwright / Kennebec Journal Morning Sentinel
Peace activists from Old Orchard Beach to Eastport will gather March 17 on town commons and city squares to demonstrate opposition to the war in Iraq.
Similar rallies are planned nationwide, including Washington, D.C., where activists are organizing what they hope will be a massive antiwar march to the Pentagon.
Robert Hayes of Winslow, a member of Waterville Bridges of Peace and Justice, said the United States shouldn't have gone to war in Iraq in the first place.
"The goal is to find a diplomatic and peaceful solution to the conflicts, not only in this area (Iraq), but also in the wider Middle East," he said.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=9381
No More Death
No More Dollar
Bring Them Home Now
http://www.everyvillage-me.us/
War protesters target lawmakers' offices
By Jennifer C. Kerr / Associated Press
Some opponents of the Iraq war are taking their protests straight to Congress — staging "occupations" in lawmakers' offices on Capitol Hill and in their home communities.
Rep. Rahm Emanuel's office in Chicago was targeted on Thursday.
A day earlier protesters were headed off before getting into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office in San Francisco.
In Washington, peace activists dressed in pink showed up recently at the Senate offices of presidential hopefuls John McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The protesters haven't abandoned the larger, more familiar gatherings at college campuses, major cities and monuments in Washington. But in recent weeks, they have been turning up at congressional offices, vowing to stay until they get pledges that lawmakers will vote against more war funding — or until they are forcibly removed.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=9382
3,000 Christians from Across America Coming to D.C. Worship and Protest to End Iraq War
Christian Peace Witness Set for March 16th; Worship to be Followed by Procession to White House and Peaceful Protest
(ChristianPeaceWitness.org)
Thousands of Christians -- Evangelicals, mainline Protestants, and Catholics -- from more than 40 states will fill the Washington National Cathedral to capacity on March 16th to mark the fourth anniversary of the Iraq War. The worship service will be followed by a candlelight procession through the center of our nation's capital to the White House, which thousands of Christians will surround with the light of peace.
Organized by a broad cross section of Christian organizations, Christian Peace Witness for Iraq is expected to be the largest expressly Christian war protest to take place since the War in Iraq began four years ago. To date, more than 20 bus loads of Christians will travel to Washington from states across the country, including Texas, Ohio, Indiana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. More than 150 Christian and interfaith peace vigils and actions will also be held around the country, including large-scale acts of moral civil disobedience organized by Christian Peace Witness coalition member group the Declaration of Peace.
WHAT: Christian Peace Witness for Iraq
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=9379
MarchOnPentagon.com
http://www.pephost.org/site/PageServer?pagename=m17_homepage
Events
Events listed are not necessarily endorsed or organized by UFPJ. This calendar is maintained as a resource for the entire peace and justice movement. For further information about any event listed, please click on the event listing and contact the person and/or email address listed as the contact for the specific event.
Listing 4th Anniversary of Iraq War Event(s)
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/calendar.php?sortby=&caltype=51
CODEPINK and Voices for Creative Nonviolence is organizing the Occupation Project, a campaign aimed at the offices of Representatives and Senators who won't stop funding the war. The campaign began the first week of February, 2007, when Bush introduced the new Supplemental Spending Bill. The Occupation Project encourages ongoing visits, sit-ins, and of sustained nonviolent civil disobedience to put the pressure on our elected officials to support our troops and stop funding war!
http://www.codepink4peace.org/article.php?list=type&type=192
March 9th, 2007 12:21 pm
Justice Dept.: FBI misused Patriot Act
By Lara Jakes Jordan / Associated Press
The FBI improperly and, in some cases, illegally used the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information about people in the United States, a Justice Department audit concluded Friday.
And for three years the FBI has underreported to Congress how often it forced businesses to turn over the customer data, the audit found.
FBI agents sometimes demanded the data without proper authorization, according to the 126-page audit by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine. At other times, the audit found, the FBI improperly obtained telephone records in non-emergency circumstances.
The audit blames agent error and shoddy record-keeping for the bulk of the problems and did not find any indication of criminal misconduct.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=9384
Local Soldier Declares War On Army Hospital; Takes Fight To Capitol Hill
VIDEO
WASHINGTON (WSOC-TV) -- A local soldier is declaring war on the country's biggest army hospital after he says he was mistreated there.
Corporal Dell McLeod, of Chesterfield, S.C., says he got the runaround at Walter Reed Army Medical Center after suffering a head injury in Iraq. He claims his doctors dismissed his brain injury as evidence of a prior learning disability, and he's not getting the treatment he needs.
On Tuesday both Dell and his wife Annette took their fight to Capitol Hill. On Monday Annette testified before Congress on Dell's behalf, describing the red tape and neglect wounded soldiers routinely face. They found a powerful ally in one of our own lawmakers, Congressman John Spratt (D-SC), who is a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee. Rep. Spratt told Channel 9 what happened at Walter Reed could be happening at VA hospitals in the Carolinas. He promises a full investigation.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=9385
New US commander says no military solution to Iraq conflict
By Bryan Pearson / AFP
The new US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, urged Iraq's leaders on Thursday to put aside sectarian rancour and warned there was no "military solution" to the nation's conflict.
At his first news conference since taking charge of US-led forces in Iraq, Petraeus said he had felt "shame, horror and sadness" on Tuesday when he heard of a suicide attack that killed more than 100 Shiite pilgrims.
"There is no military solution to a problem like that in Iraq. Military action is necessary to help improve security... but it is not sufficient. There needs to be a political aspect," he said.
Petraeus was speaking inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone after three days of attacks by Sunni insurgents on Shiite pilgrims left more than 150 dead and dramatically increased political tensions.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=9374
Democrats want Iraq pullout by fall 2008
By David Espo / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - In a direct challenge to President Bush, House Democrats unveiled legislation Thursday requiring the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the fall of next year.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the deadline would be added to legislation providing nearly $100 billion the Bush administration has requested for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
She told reporters the measure would mark the first time the new Democratic-controlled Congress has established a "date certain" for the end of U.S. combat in the four-year-old war that has claimed the lives of more than 3,100 U.S. troops.
The White House had no immediate reaction, although Bush has repeatedly rejected talk of establishing a deadline for troop withdrawals.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=9370
Iraq 'surge' may need 7,000 back-up troops
By Demetri Sevastopulo, Alim Remtulla and Edward Luce / Financial Times
US commanders in Iraq may need another 7,000 troops to support the military surge in Iraq, a senior Pentagon official told Congress on Tuesday.
Gordon England, the deputy defence secretary, said the troops would be necessary to support the 21,500 combat troops who are being sent to Iraq to help quell violence in Baghdad and al-Anbar province. Appearing before the House budget committee, Mr England rejected a recent estimate by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office that the surge would require an additional 15,000-28,000 support personnel.
"Our expectation is the number of support troops could go above 21,500 but about 4,000, maybe as many as 7,000, if the commanders on the ground request and they are all validated," said Mr England. "But it will be much lower, in my judgment, than what the CBO estimate is."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=9373
Guardian Unlimited
EU agrees deal to reduce carbon emissions by 20%
Staff and agencies
Friday March 9, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
The EU today agreed an ambitious deal for tackling climate change, committing the bloc to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020 and to producing a fifth of its energy via renewable sources by the same date.
The agreement, thrashed out at a summit in Brussels despite a series of objections from some eastern European members and France, gives the EU "ambitious and credible" targets to tackle climate change, said the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/eu/story/0,,2030142,00.html
Sinn Féin and DUP start talks with Hain over power-sharing
Owen Bowcott, Ireland correspondent
Friday March 9, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
The leaders of Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist party have met the Northern Ireland secretary, restarting talks aimed at restoring power-sharing government even before the last seats were distributed in the assembly election.
Gerry Adams and his party's chief negotiator, Martin McGuinness, saw Peter Hain at his residence in Hillsborough during the morning.
They were followed in by the DUP's deputy leader, Peter Robinson. Mr Hain was due to travel to Ballymena later to see the Rev Ian Paisley, the DUP's leader.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/northernirelandassembly/story/0,,2030466,00.html
Greek Cypriots begin razing wall that divides capital
Agencies
Friday March 9, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Greek Cypriots have brought down a wall forming part of a barrier that has divided Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, for over 30 years.
Nicosia residents hailed the move as an important step and one compared it with the destruction of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
"This is what happened when the Berlin Wall came down, only in our case the police wouldn't let us take anything," said a woman who, after an altercation with police officers, retrieved a rotting plank of wood.
People grabbed chunks of mangled metal and concrete from trucks as they rumbled past.
"This is extremely symbolic ... The dynamism created by this move will lead to the opening of the crossing," Rasit Pertev, the chief adviser to the Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat, told Reuters.
The Greek Cypriot authorities had ceased overnight demolition work by dawn today on a concrete barrier in Nicosia's Ledra Street, exposing a corridor of crumbling buildings untouched for decades.
They quickly replaced the barrier with sheets of aluminium and put the area under heavy police guard. For security reasons the area would remain off limits to civilians until Turkey removed its troops from its side, they said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/cyprus/story/0,,2030226,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12
Campbell will publish diaries after Blair steps down
Michael White
Friday March 9, 2007
The Guardian
Alastair Campbell's long-awaited and potentially explosive account of the nine years he spent at Tony Blair's side will be published this year shortly after the prime minister leaves office, the former Downing Street spokesman confirmed last night.
Edited extracts from his 2m-word diaries will run to around 800 pages - or 350,000 words. He hopes eventually to publish the diaries in full as a serious contribution to the history of the Blair years.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,2029817,00.html
'High value' hearings begin at Guantánamo Bay
Ewen MacAskill Washington
Friday March 9, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
The US opened military hearings at Guantánamo Bay today into the 14 suspects described as "high value", allegedly the most dangerous of all the inmates with direct links to al-Qaida.
Journalists were barred from the hearings for the first time since detainees began arriving at the US base in Cuba in 2001.
The 14 include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, who was arrested in Pakistan in 2003. Some of the 14 were transferred from secret CIA prisons worldwide.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,,2030568,00.html
A predator becomes more dangerous when wounded>
Washington's escalation of threats against Iran is driven by a determination to secure control of the region's energy resources
Noam Chomsky
Friday March 9, 2007
The Guardian
In the energy-rich Middle East, only two countries have failed to subordinate themselves to Washington's basic demands: Iran and Syria. Accordingly both are enemies, Iran by far the more important. As was the norm during the cold war, resort to violence is regularly justified as a reaction to the malign influence of the main enemy, often on the flimsiest of pretexts. Unsurprisingly, as Bush sends more troops to Iraq, tales surface of Iranian interference in the internal affairs of Iraq - a country otherwise free from any foreign interference - on the tacit assumption that Washington rules the world.
In the cold war-like mentality in Washington, Tehran is portrayed as the pinnacle in the so-called Shia crescent that stretches from Iran to Hizbullah in Lebanon, through Shia southern Iraq and Syria. And again unsurprisingly, the "surge" in Iraq and escalation of threats and accusations against Iran is accompanied by grudging willingness to attend a conference of regional powers, with the agenda limited to Iraq.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2030015,00.html
Complete poppycock
Tony Blair's campaign to stamp out opium production in Afghanistan is ill-informed and fanciful.
March 9, 2007 10:32 AM | Printable version
Tony Blair is to urge his Nato allies "to take the lead in fighting the growth of opium production," so I read in my Guardian yesterday. When it comes to opium and heroin, he adopts the approach of that great philosopher and strategic thinker, the late Tommy Cooper. His approach to all his failed tricks and twists of prestidigination, you may remember, was that it all could be put right "just like that".
Tony Blair committed Britain to lead the international effort to remove Afghanistan's dependence on the narcotics trade at the Bonn conference in the aftermath of the overthrow of the Taliban and expulsion of al-Qaida in late 2001.
Five-and-a-half years on, opium production has boomed. Today Afghans are garnering their greatest poppy harvest ever - overproduction now is actually driving prices down, much to the chagrin of the Taliban now in cahoots with the drug barons. The area cultivated is up a fifth on last year at around 120,000 hectares yielding a crops worth well over $3bn, even with marked deflated prices.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/robert_fox/2007/03/opium.html
Four men, five punches and a boot: A 19-year-old woman is arrested• Guardian obtains footage of Sheffield police incident
• PC who dealt blows says he acted in self-defence
Watch the CCTV footage here
Duncan Campbell and Eric Allison
Thursday March 8, 2007
The Guardian
According to the CCTV camera that recorded the incident, the first blow was thrown at 02.18.58. Seconds later, as she was pinned down by two police officers and two nightclub staff, the young woman was hit on five further occasions. A foot then appears to be placed on her body.
The 19-year-old seems limp, and may even have been unconscious. As the officers struggle to pick her up and drag her to a waiting police van, the teenager's trousers fall round her ankles.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2028849,00.html
Super-rich get richer
In pictures: the world's richest
The rich quiz
David Teather
Friday March 9, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
The rich just keep getting richer. There are now a record 946 dollar billionaires around the globe, according to the latest Forbes ranking; making their fortunes in everything from telecoms to steel to Chinese dumplings.
For the 13th year straight, the ranking was topped by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who is rapidly becoming as well known for giving his money away as he is for accumulating it. Mr Gates' fortune rose $6bn last year to $56bn (£29bn).
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2030259,00.html
High street highs
Designed by the hottest name in British fashion; modelled by Drew Barrymore; yours for a song. Jess Cartner-Morley on Giles Deacon's New Look collection
Friday March 9, 2007
The Guardian
Click here to view more pictures
http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/gallery/2007/mar/09/fashion?picture=329740256
The dresses on the right were designed by Giles Deacon, toast of London Fashion Week and the reigning British Fashion Designer of the Year. They were tweaked and accessorised by Katie Grand, editor of Pop magazine, the stylist who works her magic for, among others, Louis Vuitton and Prada. Drew Barrymore, who modelled the dresses, liked them so much she took them home to LA with her. They go on sale on Monday. But don't bother looking for them on Bond Street; instead, head to New Look, where you will find them on sale for £30 each, in sizes 8-18.
http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/fashion/story/0,,2030019,00.html
I love the Dylan and Dr Seuss mash-up
An album of Dr Seuss classics performed by a Bob Dylan soundalike makes me think there's a market in mash-ups between musicians and children's books.
What a weird and wonderful week it has been for Bob Dylan. First there's the strangely appealing combination of Bryan Ferry greasing his way through some vintage back catalogue, then the pope has at a pop at him for a 1997 gig,and now there is the quite magnificent website album Dylan Hears a Who.
We are used to hearing mash-ups - Elvis suddenly appearing halfway through a Girls Aloud track like a Cadillac shunted on to the back of a Seat Ibiza - but this is something altogether more ambitious. Here, a Bob Dylan soundalike sings a selection of Dr Seuss classics, including The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham, to the tunes of Like a Rolling Stone, Tombstone Blues and Ballad of a Thin Man.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/03/indie_music_for_kids.html
The San Francisco Chronicle
ALICIA'S STORY
Cancer. Despair. Faith. And now, a blog.
Alicia R. Parlette, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, March 9, 2007
After I started chemo on Jan. 26 in an attempt to stop the growth of cancer in my lungs and hip, I knew I didn't want to write a piece chronicling the experience. Everyone knows chemo can be awful.
The difference was that no one expected my chemo experience to be awful. It was one of the "better" chemos, all the doctors and nurses said, and I shouldn't have much nausea or vomiting.
So they were humble and guilt-ridden when I told them I had spent 48 hours bedridden -- not a moment up even to go to the bathroom -- because my head and stomach were swimming with nausea.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/09/DDGLROA6C342.DTL
Bush Hails Biofuels Pact in Brazil
President Bush on Friday denied charges that the United States under his leadership has ignored Latin America's poverty and problems. "That may be what people say but it's certainly not what the facts bear out," Bush said. "We care about our neighborhood a lot."
Bush's eighth trip to the region was widely viewed locally as a counter to efforts by the president's nemesis, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, to use his vast oil wealth to court allies. After Brazil, Bush goes to Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico.
"I don't think America gets enough credit for trying to help improve people's lives," he said.
At a mega fuel depot for tanker trucks, Bush heralded a new ethanol agreement with Brazil Friday as way to boost alternative fuels production across the Americas. Demonstrators upset with Bush's visit here worry that the president and his biofuels buddy, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, really have visions of an OPEC-like cartel on ethanol.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/03/09/international/i073141S69.DTL
Justice Dept.: FBI Misused Patriot Act
By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer
Friday, March 9, 2007
The FBI improperly and, in some cases, illegally used the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information about people in the United States, a Justice Department audit concluded Friday.
And for three years the FBI underreported to Congress how often it forced businesses to turn over the customer data, the audit found.
FBI Director Robert Mueller said he was to blame for not putting more safeguards into place.
"I am to be held accountable," Mueller said. He told reporters he would correct the problems and did not plan to resign.
"The inspector general went and did the audit that I should have put in place many years ago," Mueller said.
The audit by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine found that FBI agents sometimes demanded personal data on individuals without proper authorization. The 126-page audit also found the FBI improperly obtained telephone records in non-emergency circumstances.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/03/09/national/w073548S43.DTL
Appeals Court Overturns D.C. Gun Ban
By BRETT ZONGKER, Associated Press Writer
Friday, March 9, 2007
A federal appeals court overturned the District of Columbia's long-standing handgun ban Friday, rejecting the city's argument that the Second Amendment right to bear arms applied only to militias.
In a 2-1 decision, the judges held that the activities protected by the Second Amendment "are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual's enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued intermittent enrollment in the militia."
The court also ruled the D.C. requirement that registered firearms be kept unloaded, disassembled and under trigger lock was unconstitutional.
In 2004, a lower-court judge had told six city residents that they did not have a constitutional right to own handguns. The plaintiffs include residents of high-crime neighborhoods who wanted the guns for protection.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/03/09/national/a105206S77.DTL
4 Killed in Hawaii Helicopter Crash
By JAYMES SONG, Associated Press Writer
Friday, March 9, 2007
The three passengers killed when their tour helicopter crashed on Kauai and the three survivors were from Arkansas, California and New York, authorities said Friday.
None of the victims' names or ages was released.
The helicopter went down at Princeville Airport on Thursday shortly after its Heli-USA Airways pilot radioed that he was having problems with the hydraulics.
Witnesses reported hearing a loud boom as far as a mile away and the sound of crunching metal as the helicopter hit the ground about 200 yards from its normal landing pad. Two men and two women died, three in the crash and one on the way to a hospital.
The three survivors were flown to Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu in critical condition. The pilot didn't survive, Kauai County spokeswoman Mary Daubert said.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/03/09/national/a121157S94.DTL
Reaction to Coulter's slur hints at shift in view of gays
Wyatt Buchanan, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, March 9, 2007
When conservative commentator Ann Coulter called former Vice President Al Gore a "total fag" on national television nearly a year ago, it barely caused a stir.
Coulter's recent labeling of presidential candidate John Edwards as a "faggot," however, has triggered a huge response, including a campaign initiated today by a gay rights group and media watchdog to persuade mainstream media outlets to dump her for good.
At least four newspapers have dropped Coulter's syndicated column, and 40,000 people signed an online petition to Universal Press Syndicate, which distributes her column, demanding that it release her. Three corporations, including Verizon, stopped advertising on Coulter's Web site after she made the comment.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/09/MNGF9OID9J1.DTL
BAY AREA
BART losing revenue through ticket scams
Recent fraud find: Manipulation of magnetic strip
BART officials said Thursday that passengers who defraud the system have become increasingly creative, resulting in the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in fare-box revenue.
The latest scam that surfaced involved magnetic strips on the cards; in short, the counterfeiters took the magnetic strip on one card, cut it into smaller strips, and created multiple new cards.
Step-by-step instructions on how to create the illegitimate BART tickets were making the rounds on the Internet.
The strips determine the value of a ticket and are read by automated fare gates as passengers enter and exit BART. In January, BART engineers figured out a way to prevent the fare gates from accepting the illegal cards -- many of which were being sold on the street for less than face value.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/09/BAGREOIB221.DTL
Marin County residents, religious leaders protest immigration arrests
Chronicle Staff Report
Friday, March 9, 2007
(03-09) 09:48 PST SAN RAFAEL -- Marin County religious leaders and residents gathered today to hold a candlelight vigil in support of the large immigrant community here and to protest recent raids by federal authorities.
The early morning protests, held in Novato as well, were in response to raids earlier this week in San Rafael and Novato that led to the arrests of 30 alleged illegal immigrants, according to federal authorities.
The raids are part of an ongoing campaign, "Operation Return to Sender," to arrest illegal immigrants who are convicted criminals or have ignored deportation orders. Since it began last spring, however, many other immigration violators also have been arrested in the course of the operation.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/09/BAGRGOIGU24.DTL
Refinery profit margins double in West
It's one reason price of gas in state is up 44 cents since Feb. 1
David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, March 9, 2007
Profit margins at California's gasoline refineries are soaring. And they're taking pump prices along for the ride.
Refinery profit margins have more than doubled since last fall, according to one rough measurement, and now stand at $39 per barrel on the West Coast. That's more than double their average of $17 for the last five years.
Bulging refinery margins are one of the reasons Californians now pay $2.96 for a gallon of regular, up 44 cents since the start of February. And they play a part in record multibillion-dollar profits of major oil companies.
Californians also pay far more than drivers in other states do. The state's average now is 45 cents higher than the national average. Usually, the difference is more like 25 cents.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/03/09/MNGF9OID9N1.DTL&type=business
Can Democrats stop the war?
Friday, March 9, 2007
DEMOCRATS who control Congress are beginning to call President Bush's bluff.
Sort of.
Ever since the Democrats swept the November elections, Republicans have dared them to force a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq by cutting off funds for the war.
Now, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders have found a middle ground -- not threatening to cut off funds for the war, but linking a massive spending bill to benchmarks on the Iraqi government.
In order to get Congress to appropriate $100 billion for spending on defense and veterans, Bush would have to agree to withdraw all troops by Aug. 31, 2008 -- even if the Iraqi government were to meet a series of U.S. imposed benchmarks.
Democrats have yet to agree, however, on a unified plan. There is still a danger that this latest push to force a change in Bush's strategy in Iraq will collapse in a mess of competing Democratic strategies.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2007/03/09/EDGRJN7AU01.DTL
No premature pardons
Friday, March 9, 2007
PRESIDENT BUSH is coming under increasing pressure from certain conservative quarters to pardon Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who faces up to 25 years in prison after being convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice.
Bush is in no position to be granting a pardon for a simple reason: The White House has a big conflict of interest in this case.
As Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald observed during the trial, the proceedings on the relatively narrow questions of whether Libby told the truth to a grand jury was accompanied by "a cloud" over Vice President Dick Cheney's actions in an apparent attempt to discredit war critic Joseph Wilson. Juror Denis Collins suggested Libby was "the fall guy" for Cheney and White House political guru Karl Rove.
Neither Cheney nor Rove was called to testify by the defense team -- fueling suspicions that it was protecting them from harsh questioning in an effort to curry favor for a possible presidential pardon. Libby has yet to offer either the justice system or the American people a forthright account of the role of his superiors in this smarmy affair.
A pardon will assure Libby's eternal loyalty and silence on behalf of those who let him twist in the legal wind. A pardon would close a chapter on unseemly official behavior that remains woefully incomplete. It must not happen.
Cars that make hybrids look like gas guzzlers
Plug-in versions can go 100 miles on a gallon of gasoline
Sherry Boschert
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Toyota Prius owners tend to be a proud lot since they drive the fuel-efficient hybrid gas-electric car that's the darling of mainstream environmentalists and one of the hottest-selling vehicles in America. A few, however, felt that good was not good enough. They've made "improvements" even though the modifications voided parts of their warranties.
Ron Gremban of Corte Madera did it. So did Felix Kramer of Redwood City, and Sven Thesen of Palo Alto. Why? Five words: one hundred miles per gallon.
"We took the hybrid car to its logical conclusion," Kramer says, by adding more batteries and the ability to recharge by plugging into a regular electrical socket at night, making the car a plug-in hybrid.
Compared with the Prius' fuel efficiency of 50 mpg, plug-in hybrids use half as much gasoline by running more on cleaner, cheaper, domestic electricity. If owners forget to plug in overnight, it's no big deal -- the car runs like a regular hybrid.
These trendsetters monkeyed with the car for more than their own benefit. They did it to make a point: If they could make a plug-in hybrid, the major car companies could, too. And should.
Kramer, Gremban and a cadre of volunteers formed the California Cars Initiative (online at calcars.org), and in 2004 converted Gremban's Prius to a plug-in hybrid in his garage. They added inexpensive lead-acid batteries and some innovative software to fool the car's computerized controls into using more of the energy stored in the batteries, giving the car over 100 mpg in local driving and 50 to 80 mpg on the highway. The cost of conversion is about $5,000 for a do-it-yourselfer.
CalCars' efforts to publicize plug-in hybrids were so successful that in January 2006 the Bush administration lifted a photo of the car peeking out from Gremban's garage and featured it on the White House Web site as a harbinger of good cars to come. Do-it-yourselfers in Illinois and elsewhere converted their hybrids to plug-ins. Several small companies like EnergyCS in Southern California started doing small numbers of conversions for fleets and government agencies using longer-lasting, more energy-dense lithium-ion batteries.
Kramer hired EnergyCS to convert his Prius and reported on a typical day of driving. He traveled 51 miles, mostly on the highway, at fuel efficiencies of 124 mpg of gas and about a penny's worth of electricity per mile. Compared with driving his Prius before the conversion, he used 61 percent less gas and spewed out two-thirds less greenhouse gases at a total cost of $1.76 for electricity and gasoline, instead of the $3.17 it would have required on gasoline alone.
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. acquired an EnergyCS plug-in Prius conversion, too. It so impressed Thesen, a PG&E supervisor in the clean air transportation group, that he offered his privately owned Prius to CalCars as a guinea pig. Back in Gremban's garage, CalCars and the Electric Auto Association converted it in November to a plug-in with lead-acid batteries as part of a video and educational package to guide do-it-yourselfers (www.eaa-phev.org).
Support for plug-in hybrids from a utility like PG&E, which still produces 45 percent of its electricity from polluting fossil fuels, makes some environmentalists nervous. The data on plug-in hybrids, however, have calmed their fears. On the U.S. electrical grid, which gets more than half of its power from dirty, nasty coal, plug-in cars produce fewer overall emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants than do other cars.
California's grid uses less coal, which makes plug-in cars even cleaner. As more wind and solar power get added to the energy mix, driving on electricity gets cleaner still. Driving on gasoline will only get dirtier as conventional sources dry up and we desperately turn to hard-to-extract oil that requires lots of energy to get at, producing lots more pollution.
Enthusiasm over plug-in hybrids has created strange bedfellows. Perched somewhat uneasily alongside PG&E and the former oil man in the White House, Sierra Club leaders representing 13 chapters in California and Nevada adopted a resounding endorsement of plug-in hybrids in the past year.
Former Sierra Club President Larry Fahn has been looking for a mechanic to convert his Prius for more than a year. Therein lies the problem. People want plug-in hybrids but can't get them. Dealers don't sell them yet, and the few conversion services cater to fleets.
There are only a few dozen plug-in hybrids in the world, while demand for them is growing rapidly. The city of Austin, Texas, which uses more renewable power than any other U.S. city, started a Plug-in Partners Campaign and gathered more than 8,000 advance orders for plug-in hybrids. In the Bay Area, San Francisco, Alameda, Berkeley and Marin County signed on as Plug-in Partners.
Are the automakers listening? Maybe.
Several showed plug-in hybrid prototypes in the 1990s but cast them aside during their battle to weaken California's Zero-Emission Vehicle Mandate. Stung by bad publicity from the 2006 documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?", General Motors reversed course and showed the prototype plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt at a January auto show. In the past year, at least six major car companies have said they're developing plug-in vehicles, including Toyota officials, who seem none too happy about amateurs messing with the Prius.
Plug-in hybrids won't hit the market, though, until better batteries are developed, the automakers say. That doesn't sit well with drivers like Marc Geller of San Francisco, who co-founded the nonprofit group Plug In America (www.pluginamerica.org). The nickel-metal hydride batteries in Gellers' all-electric 2002 Toyota RAV4-EV give the compact SUV plenty of power, take him all over the Bay Area, and are expected to last the life of the car, based on utility company fleet tests.
Consumers appear to have three options to hasten the arrival of plug-in hybrids: Demand them ("Tell the automakers that you won't buy a new car unless it has a plug on it," Geller says), or push for government incentives or interventions. (The California Air Resources Board is planning to revise the zero-emissions mandate this year.)
Or, build your own plug-in hybrid.
Sherry Boschert is the author of "Plug-in Hybrids: The Cars That Will Recharge America" and a member of Plug In America. She will speak about renewable energy and plug-in cars at a free public event on Thursday at 7 p.m. at Sierra Club headquarters, 85 Second St., third floor, San Francisco. Contact us at insight@sfchronicle.com.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2007/03/04/ING44OD4AS1.DTL
Vote Online for Oddest Book Title
(03-09) 10:36 PST LONDON, United Kingdom (AP) --
"How Green Were the Nazis?" could be the title to beat this year for the Bookseller/Diagram Prize for oddest book title.
The book by Thomas Zeller, Franz-Josef Bruggemeier and Mark Cioc is billed as the first to examine the environmental policies of the Third Reich. It is published by Ohio University Press.
Other nominees announced Friday:
"The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: a guide to field identification," by Julian Montague.
"Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoon Boxes of Daghestan," by Robert Chenciner, Gabib Ismailov, Magomedkhan Magomedkhanov and Alex Binnie.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/03/09/entertainment/e103618S50.DTL&type=entertainment
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