Monday, October 17, 2005

This is so funny! The Top 10 Conservative Idiots (No. 218) October 17, 2005 Stage-Managed Edition Conservative woes increased last week as George W. Bush (1) made a fool of himself during a live teleconference, leaving Scott McClellan (2) in the line of fire. Meanwhile the Department of Homeland of Security (3) has been scaring people, Harriet Miers' (4) personal papers were released, and the the Department of Defense (5) are screwing the troops. Elsewhere, Tom DeLay (6) is still in trouble, Ann Coulter (9) demonstrates conservative integrity, and John McCain (10) plays the hypocrite. Enjoy, and don't forget the <A href="javascript:openWin('/top10/key.html');">key! George W. Bush What's a president to do when faced with growing public discontentment and crashing poll numbers? If you're George W. Bush, the answer is clear: try to focus the nation's attention away from what a jackass you are, and regain some of that pre-election military mojo. Which is exactly what Our Great Leader attempted to do last week, holding a live teleconference with some troops from the 42nd Infantry Division, all of whom coincidentally happened to agree with all of the Bush administration's current talking points on Iraq. Here's George, participating in a totally spontaneous back and forth chat with the troops: Wait a minute... the president appears to have dyed his hair. And lost some height. And turned into a woman. Okay, you got me. That's not George W. Bush, that's Allison Barber of the Defense Department. And what was she doing there? Unfortunately for the Bush administration, the answer was revealed by the raw satellite feed streamed to news outlets before the teleconference began. The feed showed Ms. Barber carefully coaching the troops on what Bush was going to say, the techniques they should use when responding, and giving them an opportunity to rehearse their answers. Some choice quotes: "Master Sergeant Lombardo, when you're talking about the president coming to see you in New York, take a little breath before that so you can actually be talking directly to him. You've got a real message there, okay?" (snip) "If the question comes up about partnering how often do we train with the Iraqi military who does he go to?" (snip) "...if we're going to talk a little bit about the folks in Tikrit the hometown and how they're handling the political process, who are we going to give that to?" (snip) "But if he gives us a question that's not something that we've scripted, Captain Kennedy, you're going to have that mic, and that's your chance to impress us all." Hmmm. "Not something we've scripted," eh? Funnily enough, even though the event was totally stage-managed and pre-packaged, Our Great Leader still managed to make a complete hash of it . Bush forgot about the satellite delay and talked across soldiers, stumbled over words and phrases (as usual), offered a completely disingenuous invitation for the troops to drop by and visit him any time they're in Washington, and at>Scott McClellan But it was Scott McClellan who took the brunt of Bush's tomfoolery at the White House press conference which followed the teleconference. Unfortunately for Scott, he didn't know that the reporters already knew that the event was staged. Hilarity ensued: Q: Scott, why did the administration feel it was necessary to coach the soldiers that the President talked to this morning in Iraq? SCOTT McCLELLAN: I'm sorry, I don't know what you're suggesting. (snip) Q: ...we asked you specifically this morning if there would be any screening of questions or if they were being told in any way what they should say or do, and you indicated no. SCOTT McCLELLAN: I don't think that's what the question was earlier today. I think the question earlier today was asking if they could ask whatever they want, and I said, of course, the President was - and you saw - Q: And I asked if they were pre-screened. SCOTT McCLELLAN: You saw earlier today the President was trying to engage in a back-and-forth with the troops... (snip) Q: But I also asked this morning, were they being told by their commanders what to say or what to do, and you indicated, no. Was there any prescreening of - SCOTT McCLELLAN: I'm not aware of any such - any such activities that were being undertaken... Worst. Press Secretary. Ever. By the way, don't miss this Keith Olbermann segment on Bush's teleconference travesty - I promise you won't be disappointed! Olbermann Part target=_blank>Olbermann Part Two Olbermann Part Three Videos hosted by CanOFun.com. The Department of Homeland Security Unlike Mike Brown, Keith Olbermann's been doing a heck of a job lately. As well as his hilarious exposé of Our Great Leader's Giant Stupid Teleconference, Olbermann reported last week on " The Nexus of Politics and Terror," citing numerous occasions when the Department of Homeland Security raised the terror alert level immediately following either bad news for the administration, or a speech on terror by George Bush. Former Homeland Security head Tom Ridge outright admitted back in May of this year that during his tenure "he often disagreed with administration officials who wanted to elevate the threat level to orange, or 'high' risk of terrorist attack, but was overruled" (see Idiots 198). But that didn't stop the administration from trying to pull the same tired old trick in New York City last week, causing New Yorkers to... well, yawn and go about their business as usual. We commented recently (see Idiots 217) on George W. Bush's "major speech" on Iraq and the war on terror at the National Endowment for Democracy, which basically involved him gabbing on and on about 9/11 (again). Just seven hours after that speech, a bomb threat warning was issued by New York City officials. According to Olbermann's blog, the warning was "based on information supplied by the Federal Government," but it was later revealed that "a Homeland Security spokesman says the intelligence upon which the disclosure is based is 'of doubtful credibility.'" That intelligence was subsequently determined to be a hoax. But that's just the tip of the iceberg: it seems that not target=_blank>according to the New York Daily News: At least two E-mails revealing the purported plot were sent to a select crowd of business and arts executives early last week by New Yorkers who claimed to have close connections to Homeland Security and other federal officials, authorities said. The NYPD confirmed that it learned of the E-mails on Oct. 3 - three days before Mayor Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and the FBI went public with the threat. But surely it was mere coincidence that despite days of foreknowledge the warnings were announced just hours after Bush's big speech on terrorism. And the fact that terror warnings have coincidentally followed bad news for Bush or big terrorism speeches on multiple occasions - well, um, that must be a coincidence too. Harriet Miers It looks like Harriet Miers is qualified after all! Perhaps not qualified to be a Supreme Court justice, admittedly, but certainly highly qualified to lick George W. Bush's boots. Last week a handful of Miers' personal papers were released by the Texas State Library, "most of them routine legal memos, press releases and transcripts," according to Knight Ridder. But among those papers were a few personal notes from Miers to Bush, which reveal... well, let's see: "You are the best governor ever - deserving of great respect!" - Harriet Miers "Cool!" - Harriet Miers "You are the best!" - Harriet Miers Can you imagine if she'd been on the court in 2000? ...in a Presidential election the clearly expressed intent of the legislature must prevail. And there is no basis for reading the Florida statutes as requiring the counting of improperly marked ballots, as an examination of the Florida Supreme Court's textual analysis shows that George W. Bush is the best governor ever - deserving of respect! We will not parse that analysis here, except to note that the principal provision of the election code on which it relied, §101.5614(5), was, as the Chief Justice pointed out in his dissent from Harris II, "cool." The Department of Defense Scenario: you volunteer to serve your country in the armed forces. You're sent to Iraq, where a bomb takes target=_blank>according to the Washington Post, "the government's computerized pay system is designed to 'maximize debt collection' and has operated without a way to keep bills from going to the wounded." Now why am I not surprised? So much for "supporting the troops." Tom DeLay There was more bad news for Tom DeLay this week - according to the Austin American-Stateman, "Travis County prosecutors want to know how U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, purchased a 2004 Toyota Sienna minivan, subpoenaing all records surrounding the transaction, as well as telephone records from Delay, his campaign and his daughter." The new subpoenas raise further questions - and not just about DeLay's alleged money-laundering activities. For example, why would someone so staunchly pro-American buy a Japanese car? And what would a manly Texas dude like DeLay want with the soccer mom's vehicle of choice? Perhaps he was attracted to the 230-horsepower V-6 engine which, according to U.S. News and World Report, "shows a lot of chutzpah." And of course there's always the "numerous configurations that let you fold down any or all of the seats, depending on your hauling/chaufeurring needs," which would make it super-convenient for moving lobbyists, golf clubs, and tote-bags filled with non-sequential hundred dollar bills. Top 10 Conservative Idiots exclusive: thanks to a talented DU cameraman with an extremely long lens, we have obtained this photograph of DeLay's actual 2004 Toyota Sienna: The Pentagon I just thought you should know that according to Fox News, "Pentagon officials are denying that a live video conference between President Bush and U.S. troops in Iraq was staged." In a related story, Milli Vanilli want their Grammys reinstated. Lou Beres Won't somebody think of the children? Lou Beres, "longtime head of the Christian Coalition of Oregon," apparently has been. Last week he stepped down from his position and said he will "withdraw from political life" after he was accused of sexual abuse by three of his relatives. According to the Seattle Times: The three women - now adults - allege they were abused by Beres as preteens. Their families called the child abuse hot line last month, after the three openly discussed the alleged abuse for the first time. "I was molested," target=_blank>website, "The Christian Coalition of Oregon is committed to representing the pro-family agenda and educating America on the critical issues facing our society." Perhaps someone should explain to Lou Beres that "pro-family" doesn't mean "banging your pre-teen relatives." Ann Coulter Ann Coulter revealed the full extent of her integrity last week on Sean Hannity's radio show and you'll be unsurprised to learn that, yes, Ann Coulter has no integrity. During a conversation with Hannity and Brent Bozell, Coulter remarked that the administration is not telling the truth about the Harriet Miers nomination. "They're treating us like liberals lying to us," she said. "When they lie to conservatives, we have a problem." So there you have it - Ann Coulter admits that the administration is a bunch of liars, it's just that when she thought they were src="http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/icons/top10-10.gif" widthU align=left>John McCain And finally, Sen. John McCain criticized Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week for holding "carefully staged campaign events," according to Reuters. "The benefit of an open town hall meeting is target=_blank>barred from attending. The Washington Post reported back in March that "McCain has been especially supportive of his target=_blank>loyalty oaths. Here's a picture of McCain sternly taking Bush to task at a campaign rally in 2004: What was that about credibility again? See you next week! 12:02:44 PM

	Monday, September 12, 2005

Four years ago, when I was still at Seybold Seminars, I asked Dave Winer to host a session on "How Publishers and Their Production Teams Fared in Covering the Tragedies in New York and Washington."  That year, Seybold San Francisco occurred just 2 weeks after 9/11.  Dave led a spirited, yet somber discussion, whic was chronicled on this web site. Check it out. 4:47:15 PM

	Friday, September 09, 2005

First hand account of being trapped in the Big Easy during Katrina courtesy of Anna Voog. Trapped in New Orleans By LARRY BRADSHAW and LORRIE BETH SLONSKY (Bradshaw and Slonsky are paramedics frorm California that were attending the EMS conference in New Orleans. Larry Bradsahw is the chief shop steward, Paramedic Chapter, SEIU Local 790; and Lorrie Beth Slonsky is steward, Paramedic Chapter, SEIU Local 790. [California]) Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the Walgreens store at the corner of Royal and Iberville Streets in the city's historic French Quarter remained locked. The dairy display case was clearly visible through the widows. It was now 48 hours without electricity, running water, plumbing, and the milk, yogurt, and cheeses were beginning to spoil in the 90-degree heat. The owners and managers had locked up the food, water, pampers and prescriptions, and fled the city. Outside Walgreens' windows, residents and tourists grew increasingly thirsty and hungry. The much-promised federal, state and local aid never materialized, and the windows at Walgreens gave way to the looters. There was an alternative. The cops could have broken one small window and distributed the nuts, fruit juices and bottled water in an organized and systematic manner. But they did not. Instead, they spent hours playing cat and mouse, temporarily chasing away the looters. We were finally airlifted out of New Orleans two days ago and arrived home on Saturday. We have yet to see any of the TV coverage or look at a newspaper. We are willing to guess that there were no video images or front-page pictures of European or affluent white tourists looting the Walgreens in the French Quarter. We also suspect the media will have been inundated with "hero" images of the National Guard, the troops and police struggling to help the "victims" of the hurricane. What you will not see, but what we witnessed, were the real heroes and sheroes of the hurricane relief effort: the working class of New Orleans. The maintenance workers who used a forklift to carry the sick and disabled. The engineers who rigged, nurtured and kept the generators running. The electricians who improvised thick extension cords stretching over blocks to share the little electricity we had in order to free cars stuck on rooftop parking lots. Nurses who took over for mechanical ventilators and spent many hours on end manually forcing air into the lungs of unconscious patients to keep them alive. Doormen who rescued folks stuck in elevators. Refinery workers who broke into boat yards, "stealing" boats to rescue their neighbors clinging to their roofs in flood waters. Mechanics who helped hotwire any car that could be found to ferry people out of the city. And the food service workers who scoured the commercial kitchens, improvising communal meals for hundreds of those stranded. Most of these workers had lost their homes and had not heard from members of their families. Yet they stayed and provided the only infrastructure for the 20 percent of New Orleans that was not under water. * * * ON DAY Two, there were approximately 500 of us left in the hotels in the French Quarter. We were a mix of foreign tourists, conference attendees like ourselves and locals who had checked into hotels for safety and shelter from Katrina. Some of us had cell phone contact with family and friends outside of New Orleans. We were repeatedly told that all sorts of resources, including the National Guard and scores of buses, were pouring into the city. The buses and the other resources must have been invisible, because none of us had seen them. We decided we had to save ourselves. So we pooled our money and came up with $25,000 to have ten buses come and take us out of the city. Those who didn't have the requisite $45 each were subsidized by those who did have extra money. We waited for 48 hours for the buses, spending the last 12 hours standing outside, sharing the limited water, food and clothes we had. We created a priority boarding area for the sick, elderly and newborn babies. We waited late into the night for the "imminent" arrival of the buses. The buses never arrived. We later learned that the minute they arrived at the city limits, they were commandeered by the military. By Day Four, our hotels had run out of fuel and water. Sanitation was dangerously bad. As the desperation and despair increased, street crime as well as water levels began to rise. The hotels turned us out and locked their doors, telling us that "officials" had told us to report to the convention center to wait for more buses. As we entered the center of the city, we finally encountered the National Guard. The guard members told us we wouldn't be allowed into the Superdome, as the city's primary shelter had descended into a humanitarian and health hellhole. They further told us that the city's only other shelter--the convention center--was also descending into chaos and squalor, and that the police weren't allowing anyone else in. Quite naturally, we asked, "If we can't go to the only two shelters in the city, what was our alternative?" The guards told us that this was our problem--and no, they didn't have extra water to give to us. This would be the start of our numerous encounters with callous and hostile "law enforcement." * * * WE WALKED to the police command center at Harrah's on Canal Street and were told the same thing--that we were on our own, and no, they didn't have water to give us. We now numbered several hundred. We held a mass meeting to decide a course of action. We agreed to camp outside the police command post. We would be plainly visible to the media and constitute a highly visible embarrassment to city officials. The police told us that we couldn't stay. Regardless, we began to settle in and set up camp. In short order, the police commander came across the street to address our group. He told us he had a solution: we should walk to the Pontchartrain Expressway and cross the greater New Orleans Bridge to the south side of the Mississippi, where the police had buses lined up to take us out of the city. The crowd cheered and began to move. We called everyone back and explained to the commander that there had been lots of misinformation, so was he sure that there were buses waiting for us. The commander turned to the crowd and stated emphatically, "I swear to you that the buses are there." We organized ourselves, and the 200 of us set off for the bridge with great excitement and hope. As we marched past the convention center, many locals saw our determined and optimistic group, and asked where we were headed. We told them about the great news. Families immediately grabbed their few belongings, and quickly, our numbers doubled and then doubled again. Babies in strollers now joined us, as did people using crutches, elderly clasping walkers and other people in wheelchairs. We marched the two to three miles to the freeway and up the steep incline to the bridge. It now began to pour down rain, but it didn't dampen our enthusiasm. As we approached the bridge, armed sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our conversation with the police commander and the commander's assurances. The sheriffs informed us that there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us to get us to move. We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was little traffic on the six-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans, and there would be no Superdomes in their city. These were code words for: if you are poor and Black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River, and you are not getting out of New Orleans. * * * OUR SMALL group retreated back down Highway 90 to seek shelter from the rain under an overpass. We debated our options and, in the end, decided to build an encampment in the middle of the Ponchartrain Expressway--on the center divide, between the O'Keefe and Tchoupitoulas exits. We reasoned that we would be visible to everyone, we would have some security being on an elevated freeway, and we could wait and watch for the arrival of the yet-to-be-seen buses. All day long, we saw other families, individuals and groups make the same trip up the incline in an attempt to cross the bridge, only to be turned away--some chased away with gunfire, others simply told no, others verbally berated and humiliated. Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented and prohibited from self-evacuating the city on foot. Meanwhile, the only two city shelters sank further into squalor and disrepair. The only way across the bridge was by vehicle. We saw workers stealing trucks, buses, moving vans, semi-trucks and any car that could be hotwired. All were packed with people trying to escape the misery that New Orleans had become. Our little encampment began to blossom. Someone stole a water delivery truck and brought it up to us. Let's hear it for looting! A mile or so down the freeway, an Army truck lost a couple of pallets of C-rations on a tight turn. We ferried the food back to our camp in shopping carts. Now--secure with these two necessities, food and water--cooperation, community and creativity flowered. We organized a clean-up and hung garbage bags from the rebar poles. We made beds from wood pallets and cardboard. We designated a storm drain as the bathroom, and the kids built an elaborate enclosure for privacy out of plastic, broken umbrellas and other scraps. We even organized a food-recycling system where individuals could swap out parts of C-rations (applesauce for babies and candies for kids!). This was something we saw repeatedly in the aftermath of Katrina. When individuals had to fight to find food or water, it meant looking out for yourself. You had to do whatever it took to find water for your kids or food for your parents. But when these basic needs were met, people began to look out for each other, working together and constructing a community. If the relief organizations had saturated the city with food and water in the first two or three days, the desperation, frustration and ugliness would not have set in. Flush with the necessities, we offered food and water to passing families and individuals. Many decided to stay and join us. Our encampment grew to 80 or 90 people. From a woman with a battery-powered radio, we learned that the media was talking about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every relief and news organizations saw us on their way into the city. Officials were being asked what they were going to do about all those families living up on the freeway. The officials responded that they were going to take care of us. Some of us got a sinking feeling. "Taking care of us" had an ominous tone to it. Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking city) was accurate. Just as dusk set in, a sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces and screamed, "Get off the fucking freeway." A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water. Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway. All the law enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we congregated into groups of 20 or more. In every congregation of "victims," they saw "mob" or "riot." We felt safety in numbers. Our "we must stay together" attitude was impossible because the agencies would force us into small atomized groups. In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed, we scattered once again. Reduced to a small group of eight people, in the dark, we sought refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were hiding from possible criminal elements, but equally and definitely, we were hiding from the police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and shoot-to-kill policies. The next day, our group of eight walked most of the day, made contact with the New Orleans Fire Department and were eventually airlifted out by an urban search-and-rescue team. We were dropped off near the airport and managed to catch a ride with the National Guard. The two young guardsmen apologized for the limited response of the Louisiana guards. They explained that a large section of their unit was in Iraq and that meant they were shorthanded and were unable to complete all the tasks they were assigned. * * * WE ARRIVED at the airport on the day a massive airlift had begun. The airport had become another Superdome. We eight were caught in a press of humanity as flights were delayed for several hours while George Bush landed briefly at the airport for a photo op. After being evacuated on a Coast Guard cargo plane, we arrived in San Antonio, Texas. There, the humiliation and dehumanization of the official relief effort continued. We were placed on buses and driven to a large field where we were forced to sit for hours and hours. Some of the buses didn't have air conditioners. In the dark, hundreds of us were forced to share two filthy overflowing porta-potties. Those who managed to make it out with any possessions (often a few belongings in tattered plastic bags) were subjected to two different dog-sniffing searches. Most of us had not eaten all day because our C-rations had been confiscated at the airport--because the rations set off the metal detectors. Yet no food had been provided to the men, women, children, elderly and disabled, as we sat for hours waiting to be "medically screened" to make sure we weren't carrying any communicable diseases. This official treatment was in sharp contrast to the warm, heartfelt reception given to us by ordinary Texans. We saw one airline worker give her shoes to someone who was barefoot. Strangers on the street offered us money and toiletries with words of welcome. Throughout, the official relief effort was callous, inept and racist. There was more suffering than need be. Lives were lost that did not need to be lost. LARRY BRADSHAW and LORRIE BETH SLONSKY are emergency medical services (EMS) workers from San Francisco. They were attending an EMS conference in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina struck. They spent most of the next week trapped by the flooding--and the martial law cordon around the city. +++ here seems to be the original posting: http://www.emsnetwork.org/artman/publish/article_18337.shtml i called the SF chapter of SEIU, and found out that lorrie is his wife, from the woman on the phone. she fwd me to a voicemail (his?) i left a message for him. so these ARE real people and can be contacted! ands yes, there WAS an ems convention in new orleans on those days described in the article: NATIONAL EMS MEETINGS 2005-2006 August 2005 Fire-Rescue International Denver, CO August 11-14, 2005 www.iafc.org EMS EXPO/NAEMT EMS Expo 2005 Ernest N. Morial Convention Center 900 Convention Center Boulevard New Orleans, LA 70130 August 23-27, 2005 www.emsmagazine.com http://www.caas.org/meetings.html and the people who wrote the article are listed in the phone book of san francisco. media should contact them more. so this is all very real. please forward this to media. this story needs to get out to everyone! 9:54:38 AM

	Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Firsthand account of suriving the terroist attack on the tube in London.... July 07, 2005 Fait Accompli Surviving a Terrorist Attack Fate is a strange thing. On this particular day a series of events transpired such that I ended up on a Tube train that was destroyed by terrorists. Fortunately it was only the carriage in front of me, but tragically it resulted in a serious amount of injuries. This is my story. I boarded the train at King's Cross after a series of line closures forced me onto a Circle Line train; little did I know at the time that this was probably the worst thing I could have done. Travelling just past Edgware Road Station the train entered a tunnel. We shook like any usual tube train as it rattled down the tracks. It was then I heard a loud bang. The train left the tracks and started to rumble down the tunnel. It was incapable of stopping and just rolled on. A series of explosions followed as if tube electric motor after motor was exploding. Each explosion shook the train in the air and seems to make it land at a lower point. I fell to the ground like most people, scrunched up in a ball in minimize injury. At this point I wondered if the train would ever stop, I thought "please make it stop", but it kept going. In the end I just wished that it didn't hit something and crush. It didn't. When the train came to a standstill people were screaming, but mainly due to panic as the carriage was rapidly filling with smoke and the smell of burning motors was giving clear clues of fire. As little as 5 seconds later we were unable to see and had all hit the ground for the precious air that remaining. We were all literally choking to death. The carriage however was pretty sealed; no window could open, no door would slide and no hammers seemed to exist to grant exit. If there were instructions on how to act then they were impossible to see in the thick acrid black smoke. In the end I opted to do something about the problem and began shouting to find out in which direction the fires were emanating from. I then tested with the inter-carriage door to see if venting the smoke caused fire to spread. It didn't so I held the door open trying to clear the carriage and look for escape routes. The train was packed and so there was no escape to the other carriages. Through the gap between the carriages however I saw an escape route and it calmed me from panic; if things got bad I could see an exit along the tunnel wall. The fire concerned me and the acrid smoke never seems to fully dissipate. I calmed passengers playing down the issue as a bad tube network and a network derailment. Naturally people were in a mixture of states from quiet to abject panic in all its colours. People could be heard screaming from all around; people were trapped, yet no-one could move and do anything. After an eternity a guard moved through the carriages and asked everyone to move in the opposite direction. No one however moved, I think they were all in shock. Questions were asked and we were still trying to determine which direction could be used for escape, which directions had fire. It was all so unclear and the smoke persisted. In the end a flow of people started and stopped after more confusion and screaming, then out of the smoke injuries started to come through. Everyone parted, for in the next carriage there was total carnage. Serious facial and body injuries caused by smoke, glass from windows and pure shock. Naturally we let the injured off first, but with no medical assistance in the area I feared for the others. Particularly as there was little more I could do. Eventually I made it to the end of the train and dismounted down the wooden ladder, something curiously I've done before. We walked down the tunnel back to Edgware Road and fresh air, finally being able to breathe properly. I called my love ones and told them what had happened; the news hadn't broken. I was lead out of the station and expected to see emergency services. There were none; things were so bad that they couldn't make it. The victims were being triaged at the station entrance by Tube staff and as I could see little more I could do so I got out of the way and left. As I stepped out people with camera phones vied to try and take pictures of the worst victims. In crisis some people are cruel. I prayed for the victims and injured, I truly hoped they'd get medical attention quickly, but terrorism isn't about compassion it's about pain and London's poor medical and fire services are being stretched to their limit today. London Transport should have closed all stations immediately, but didn't. My dice with death could have been avoided with better planning. The design of trains needs to be changed and zero-visibility factored into emergency plans. I pity the waste and loss, while thanking the gods while wondering why me - why do I get to live another day? Edit: Thank you all for your kind comments on my experiences. If you wish to read the follow-up of my day you'll find it here. --- Justin (8th July) Posted by justin at 11:10 AM UTC+1 | Comments (41) | TrackBack (39) 10:56:50 AM

	Monday, April 18, 2005

Reading this euology brought tears to my eyes, becuase it was clear this guy loved her.  I've known women like her and its perilous to love them because their focus is so far beyond you..... Marla Ruzicka with Harah, who was 3 months old when her entire family was killed when a U.S. rocket struck their car. Marla Ruzicka, RIP While others argued, Marla acted. She gave her young life to help the innocent victims of the Iraq war. At 28, she represented the best of America. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Phillip Robertson April 18, 2005  |  This is a eulogy of a thousand words that should really be a poem. It's one I never thought I would write. In Iraq on Saturday afternoon, around 3 p.m., a suicide bomber entered Baghdad Airport road, heading east. On the same stretch was a U.S. military convoy, an Australian security detachment, and a car that carried U.S. aid worker Marla Ruzicka and her colleague Faiz Ali Salim. When the bomber detonated his explosives, Marla and Faiz were among those killed, and with that terrible act, the bomber cut short the life of a tireless champion of the victims of the war. Marla Ruzicka founded the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC) in 2003, an NGO that began as a one-woman operation and grew to include dedicated Iraqis who compiled statistics of Iraqi civilian casualties. It was a difficult, heart-wrenching job. Marla pursued the casualty figures by going door to door in a country that sent so many other aid agencies over the brink. Human Rights Watch works in some of the most dangerous countries in the world. But it does not have field offices in Iraq. Marla was amazingly cheerful about the dangerous situation. Unfazed by the weight of paranoia around her, she continued to travel around the country, even when her American citizenship made her a target. Looking back to the time we spent in Baghdad last summer, when I was covering the conflict, I can't remember Marla ever talking about being afraid. This was during the height of the insurgency in Sadr City, a brutal time, and I can't remember a single instance where Marla said she was scared. It doesn't mean she didn't feel it. But fear wasn't something that slowed her down.     Premium Benefits Get 2 months of Paste Magazine Get Premium on your PDA or Wireless device Free one month audio subscription to the New York Times or Wall Street Journal Get Salon's headlines delivered to your e-mail address Download Salon as plain text or PDF     I remember Marla throwing salsa parties, inviting all of us to gatherings at the Hamra pool, encouraging us to crash other people's parties. Marla was the activities director on a cruise liner in the most hellish seas, and she knew how to dance. All of us, and I mean the hundreds of people in the press corps, loved her. But we were just the beginning of the story. Marla was as open and gracious with Iraqis as she was with Westerners. Who knows how many are grieving for her now. I thought she would never get hurt out there, a superstition that bad luck was for others and would just take a detour around someone like Marla. Rita Leistner, a photojournalist who knew her, wrote me a message this evening: "I think it's possible that she didn't have a single malicious bone in her body." Above all, Marla Ruzicka had a mission. She believed deeply that the families of civilians killed by the U.S. should receive compensation. She forcefully argued that the U.S. government had a duty to all innocents injured by its weapons, especially children who needed urgent medical care from decent hospitals. These simple principles cut straight to the heart of our collective responsibility during wartime. She lobbied Congress, raising the most uncomfortable questions about our involvement in Iraq, and then demanded justice for the people forgotten in government policy. She won. Tens of millions of dollars were set aside to assist Iraqis who were the victims of the war. But Marla didn't stay in Washington. How many innocent people have been killed by U.S. forces? Marla wanted to know the answer to that ugly question and so she returned to Iraq. She started looking for the truth by going door to door in Baghdad, taking a survey. She just started asking Iraqi families how many people they were missing. Of course, it was so simple -- this was her human approach. Marla spent a great deal of time trying to help Iraqis who lost family members to the war. During the first siege of Fallujah, I once found her screaming at the director of the Iraqi Red Crescent, demanding that he organize a way to bring supplies to refugees. She was furious at his apathy. It drove her crazy. Marla told me how hard it was to try to wring compensation payments from the U.S. military and what it was like to lobby Congress for Iraqi civilians rights. To get her projects through, she described to anyone who would listen the cases of injured Iraqis and the families of those killed. She would lean on her point, even when surrounded by experts who were supposed to know the deal. Marla also understood the power and the responsibility of the press because she thought we could help her save people. It was all true. Charming and relentless, she sought out reporters to pick up her stories, she got her quotes in print and on television. I was one of the lucky ones who learned about her projects by hearing her describe them in her own voice, her lilting California accent that camouflaged her determination and bravery. Marla also had a wild messianic streak and was beautiful in the way girls from Northern California are often beautiful, with blond hair and clear eyes. Around the time I first met her three years ago, I was coming out of a U.N. press conference in Kabul. It was dusk and we were on the grounds of the Hotel Intercontinental on a high hill, surrounded by deep ditches. Marla was talking to me about something and I was so hypnotized by her otherworldly style, I walked right off the edge of a 15-foot cliff. When she finally found me in a gully, she didn't laugh. Anyone else would have died laughing. She was concerned and thought I was hurt. "Oh my God. Are you OK?" she yelled. I had just become an innocent victim of a cliff -- and one of her fans. This is not a hagiography. Marla had her rough spots like anyone. She was emotionally vulnerable but her projects gained strength and she never gave up. What more can you ask of someone? Here is one of the great things about her. In a divided nation, when so many idealistic young Americans chose a side as if it were a football team, picking the partisan fights and slugging it out over the dinner table, Marla chose the war instead. It would be her stage. She bought a ticket, organized her visas and went to Afghanistan and Iraq to see it for herself. In the end, she knew more about the true nature of conflict than any analyst in the United States, more than the president himself. If Marla's methods were unorthodox, it's because the war couldn't be handled the normal way. It needed her personality and her style. Her heart was pure. I ran into Marla all over the world. I saw her in Afghanistan, Baghdad, and recently in New York City. We were on some kind of strange trajectory that meant we were always running into each other. I took this to be part of her magic and came to expect to see her all the time because her territory was the entire planet. In late March, over dinner at a place on the Lower East Side, the day before she left for Iraq, Marla was talking about a medical evacuation case with my friend Chris Hondros, a photographer for Getty Images. Chris had recently photographed a checkpoint shooting in Tal Afar, where the mother and father of an Iraqi family were killed by American soldiers. One of their orphaned children, a young boy named Rakan Hassan, had a bullet in his spine and needed medical care that he couldn't get in Iraq. As Marla and Chris talked about how to get Rakan surgery so he could walk again, I witnessed Marla in action, plotting and scheming in her ingenious way. She was planning to work on Rakan's case from Iraq and left for the Middle East as soon as she could. The moment she arrived, she wrote to her contacts in Washington and the State Department in Amman, Jordan. Subject: Visa for little boy who needs treatment in the U.S. Date: 12/04/2005 03:03:57 Eastern Daylight Time Hi Karen and Tim, We are working to get a little boy medical treatment in the U.S. We have a doctor who will treat him in San Francisco, but he needs it ASAP. He has a visa and we have his costs secured -- is there any way we could get him a humanitarian visa? Karen is there, any way the State Department in Baghdad could help with this -- if we don't get him treatment soon he may never be able to walk again. Thanks, Marla See how she goes straight for the gut. Marla then received a long bureaucratic reply from the embassy that detailed what she would need to do to get an appointment. It made her mad. Subject: RE: emergency Date: April 12, 2005 2:21 P.M. hi we have a medical emergency -- is there no compasssion? can we have the department of state help? The diplomats replied with information that was more personal and to the point than any that ever comes from the government. Marla had called on their humanity and sympathy and won. They pledged to see the boy as soon as he made it to Amman. "The little boy must come to Amman a.s.a.p., and once he is in Amman, write me again and I will set up an appointment for him the very next day," the diplomat replied. "In the email, give me the child's full name as it appears in his passport, his passport number, and a copy of the enclosed emails." Marla had broken through to them. She was brilliant that way. Reporters are now writing about how she became an innocent victim of the war, just like the people she championed. I know that is true because she was certainly innocent. But at the end she wasn't a powerless victim. She had already won. She fought cruelty and bloodshed and indifference. Marla Ruzicka was a true enemy of war and she triumphed over it again and again with every person she helped. The last thing she said to me that night in New York was, "You know, Phillip, I'm trying to save the world." Marla Ruzicka was 28. 2:19:08 PM

	Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Is this mind-numbing or what? all you ahve to do is listen to the BBC or some other european news service to see the cirucs that is American politics today in the absurd, incredulous light in which folks outside our country view it. It's breathtakingly cynical..... Daily Kos: Schiavo political impact. It's not pretty for the GOP. CBS News. 3/21-22. MoE 4%. (February results) Congress Job Approval Approve 34 (41) Disapprove 49 (44) Bush Approval Ratings Approve 43 (49) Should Congress and the President be involved in the Schiavo matter? Yes 13 No 82 This is turning into a disaster of epic proportions for the GOP. They thought they had the Dems wedged, and instead they have wedged themselves from the American public. Congress is being exposed as the cynical, power-mad, ethics-free zone that it has become under DeLay's leadership. Read the poll. It has nothing but bad news for Republicans. And don't miss Bush's numbers on Iraq - his approval ratings in the war are down six points in the last month - from 45 percent to 39 percent. Update: The party breakdown for this poll is: Republican 44 Democrat 29 Independent 28 If the poll represented the actual partisan breakdown of the US public, the numbers would be far, far worse. [Daily Kos] 6:49:18 PM

	Tuesday, March 22, 2005

FEC Considers Restricting Online Political Activities New Rules May Apply to Web Ads, Bloggers' Endorsements By Brian Faler Special to The Washington Post Monday, March 21, 2005; Page A17 The Federal Election Commission has begun considering whether to issue new rules on how political campaigns are waged on the Internet, a regulatory process that is expected to take months to complete but that is already generating considerable angst online. The agency is weighing whether -- and how -- to impose restrictions on a host of online activities, including campaign advertising and politically oriented blogs. Election officials are reluctantly taking up the issue, after losing a court case last fall. The FEC, which enforces federal election law, had issued scores of regulations delineating how the campaign finance reform legislation adopted in 2002 ought to be implemented. But Reps. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) and Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.), who sponsored the legislation, complained that many of those rules were too lax, and they successfully sued to have them rescinded. The commission must now rewrite a number of those directions, including ones that left online political activities virtually free from government regulation. "We are almost certainly going to move from an environment in which the Internet was per se not regulated to where it is going to be regulated in some part," said FEC Commissioner David M. Mason, a Republican. "That shift has huge significance because it means that people who are conducting political activity on the Internet are suddenly going to have to worry about or at least be conscious of certain legal distinctions and lines they didn't used to have to worry about." Which people, what activities and where those lines should be drawn, though, have yet to be determined. The rise of the Internet as a political tool, the variety of ways in which it can be used to promote a campaign and the fact that most federal election laws were written long before the Internet became a household word have combined to present the agency's commissioners with plenty of knotty legal questions to consider. Should bloggers who work for political campaigns, for example, be required to disclose that relationship? Should their writings include a disclaimer indicating that they were paid for by a campaign? What if a campaign supporter links his Web site to a candidate's home page? Is that considered a campaign contribution subject to government regulation? What if an independent blogger endorses a candidate? Or posts a campaign's news release? Are those contributions? The panel, which has been criticized for being slow to decide contested points of the law -- but is loath to do anything that would chill free speech -- is free to address whatever issues it chooses. The three Democrats and three Republicans who compose the commission have not settled on an agenda for this latest round of rulemaking. That is expected to come later this month. But several commissioners have begun making their suggestions public. Republican Commissioner Bradley A. Smith, who opposed some previous attempts to impose regulations on online political activities, sparked a furious debate among bloggers earlier this month, when he told the online technology magazine CNET that the FEC might regulate their activities. He argued, for example, that the laws that allow publications such as this newspaper to make political endorsements without having them considered akin to financial contributions to those campaigns -- and therefore subject to government regulation -- may not apply to bloggers who back candidates. His comments quickly ricocheted across the Web, as bloggers began wondering if they might have to bone up on election law. Two of the authors of the campaign finance legislation, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) issued a joint statement denouncing Smith's remarks, saying they would "whip up baseless fears." A few prominent online political strategists and bloggers sent a letter recently to the FEC, urging it not to restrict unpaid political activities on the Internet. Their letter has since been endorsed by more than 2,500 other supporters. Republican Commissioner Michael E. Toner said he has begun receiving "very heated" e-mails on the issue. Four commissioners -- Democrats Scott E. Thomas and Ellen L. Weintraub, along with Toner and Mason -- said in interviews that they oppose regulating independent bloggers. "I really see no appetite at the agency for regulating bloggers," Weintraub said. "I would be very, very surprised if that was the result." She said the commission would likely focus on other issues, such as whether to subject expenditures on Internet ad campaigns to the agency's contribution rules. The FEC requires campaign supporters who spend money on political ads in coordination with a candidate to report those expenses to the government and subjects them to contribution limits -- but the rules apply only to offline ads. So if, for example, a campaign supporter pays for an ad in the Los Angeles Times at the request of a candidate, that expenditure must be reported and counted against those limits. But if the supporter pays for an ad on the Los Angeles Times's Web site, it does not. Weintraub also predicted that many of the activities mentioned as possible items on the FEC's agenda would ultimately fall outside its jurisdiction. "We regulate campaign finance. We don't regulate speech in the abstract. We only regulate when money is spent," she said. "One of the great things about the Internet is that it's really cheap, and if people are not spending money, then it's really none of our business. Most of the time when people are sitting at their home computers, blogging, e-mailing -- whatever they're doing -- there really isn't any money being spent." Some longtime FEC observers said they believed the commission would tackle a relatively narrow slate of issues. "I don't think this is going to be as broad a rulemaking as some are threatening," said Larry Noble, a former FEC general counsel who now runs the watchdog group Center for Responsive Politics. "I think what the FEC is going to focus on is political activity undertaken by campaigns, by political committees, by possibly corporations and labor unions on the Internet . . . how you regulate that, how you make sure that's reported." The commission is not expected to reveal its agenda until later this month, when it releases its "notice of proposed rulemaking." The FEC is scheduled to then invite public comments on that draft, hold a public hearing on the proposed rules and, later this summer, vote on the final regulations. Print This Article E-Mail This Article RSS Feed 8:02:35 PM