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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mannie who wrote (56253)	1/26/2006 11:24:18 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 361856

Charlie Rose has new guests tonight due to the Palestinian elections...fyi... charlierose.com -s2@GilbertoGilWillBeOnInTheFuture.com

To: Mannie who wrote (56253)	1/26/2006 11:30:27 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 361856

Man behind the 747 tells his story By JAMES WALLACE seattlepi.nwsource.com

To: Mannie who wrote (56253)	1/27/2006 7:26:26 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 361856

Guest on Future Charlie Rose Shows...fyi... boards.charlierose.com Tonight (1/27/06): BERNARD-HENRI LEVY Author, "American Vertigo" RON WYDEN Senator (D-OR) ________________________________ Monday, Jan. 30, 2006: GILBERTO GIL Minister of Culture, Brazil Singer/Songwriter DONNY DEUTSCH Author, "Often Wrong, Never In Doubt" Host, "The Big Idea With Donny Deutsch" "Witness" PETER GABRIEL, Co-founder, "Witness" / Musician GILLIAN CALDWELL, Executive Director, "Witness" VAN JONES, Executive Director, "Books Not Bars"

To: Mannie who wrote (56253)	2/2/2006 4:30:16 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 361856

The Strength of Internet Ties pewinternet.org

To: Mannie who wrote (56253)	2/4/2006 2:29:03 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 361856

Upstart Hawks have 'got it' won _______________________________________________________ By ART THIEL SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST Saturday, February 4, 2006 seattlepi.nwsource.com DETROIT -- Someone who has had some non-interview contact with Seahawks players around town this week spoke slowly, to emphasize his words. "The Seahawks ... are ... pissed." He wasn't a Seahawks employee, and didn't want his well-known name used. He was offering more evidence to the inescapable feeling that the Seahawks resent the hell out of being street urchins at the kitchen door of the NFL establishment, begging for scraps. Yes, the respect theme is overused. And the Seahawks have said little publicly about their dismay. This time, it's real, albeit real quiet. From signs great and small, the Seahawks are honing their pique as sharply as their talents. The national media doesn't get it. Fans don't get it. Oddsmakers don't get it. They'll get it Sunday, when the Seahawks win Super Bowl XL 27-24. Sure, that reads like a hometown pick. But anyone who has been a regular reader here knows that local-team sentiment appears as often as eloquence in a Bush news conference. The forecast doesn't preclude the notion that a special-teams screw-up, or a bad call, or another Immaculate Reception from Pittsburgh won't change things. Nor should it be construed as a dismissal of the Steelers, a premier outfit from ownership through coaching to players. The fan base's intensity and loyalty ranks with any in the sports world. The Steelers deserve every salute. They just don't happen to be the better team. The Seahawks have the NFL's best record over the past three regular seasons for more reasons than a loud home crowd. The single most significant element Sunday is the Seahawks' offensive line. Not Jerome Bettis' return to his hometown. Not Steelers linebacker Joey Porter's insipid yammering. Not Pittsburgh's 3-4 defense. Not four Super Bowls won in the 1970s. Not 19 Hall of Famers compared to Steve Largent. Not because Bill Cowher is the epitome of an NFL coach. Forget history, tradition and sentiment. On Ford Field Sunday, the Seahawks line will give running back Shaun Alexander room and quarterback Matt Hasselbeck time. Not a lot of either. But enough of both. The ultimate test of a line is offense in the red zone, especially around the goal line, where the field is short and options fewer. The fact the Seahawks led the NFL in close-in scoring is based not on schemes, or tendencies averted. It is based on the fact Walter Jones, Steve Hutchinson, Robbie Tobeck, Chris Gray and Sean Locklear, along with fullback Mack Strong, are stronger, smarter and -- attention Steelers! -- tougher than the best defense. In the pelting rainstorm of interviews this week, there was one shining shaft of light from Hasselbeck that explained what most football pundits have been missing. "If the defense knows it's coming, so what -- let's do it better," he said. "Look at what we do on the goal line. Shaun is the best goal-line back in football. He scores every time we're down there. We don't change. People know it's coming. "I'm under center and guys that used to play for us (such as Carolina cornerback Ken Lucas) are yelling, 'Here it comes! Right here! We got it!' "But they don't got it." Intentionally bad grammar notwithstanding, Hasselbeck is right. They don't "got it." About many aspects of the Seahawks. Part of why they don't "got it" is because the Seahawks' best asset is their most immeasurable, by standard football metrics. It was explained in another simple burst of light, this from Strong, whom you may know by now is neither braggart nor fool after 13 NFL seasons. "We take pride," he said, "in being the smartest team in the league." That was said of another team a few years ago, the one Warren Moon thinks reminds him, in both talent and temperament, of these Seahawks. "They are a lot like the Dallas teams of the 1990s," said the former Seahawks and Huskies quarterback, who is a candidate for the Hall of Fame in today's voting. The Cowboys won three Super Bowls, including the 1996 game over Pittsburgh, 27-17, behind quarterback Troy Aikman, running back Emmitt Smith and linemen Nate Newton, Erik Williams, Larry Allen and Mark Tuinei, plus a superb defense. Of course Moon, the club's radio analyst, is biased. So is much of the NFL culture when it comes to considering the chances of a team with modest history and minimal previous success. That part of it apparently has been manipulated with great care by coach Mike Holmgren, who months ago began to describe privately how dismissed the Seahawks would be if they reached the pinnacle. Alexander suggested to a gaggle of reporters that all has gone as scripted. "I think you guys have been great," he said, smiling and laughing. "Mike had a plan for this whole Super Bowl. Actually, he started the plan about Week 8. You guys are doing exactly what we want you all to do. "You guys are really making Mike look like a genius." Unplanned little things stoked the fire. Hasselbeck was scheduled to be a guest on ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" late-night show that has been in Detroit this week. But his appearance was reduced to cue-card boy and a seat in the band, playing a tambourine. He never made the couch. Then there was the Pistons-Lakers game this week, attended by several Seahawks. Up on the big screen, the crowd was introduced to Cowher, sitting next to Pistons owner Bill Davidson, as well as other Steelers. Mad cheers for the Pittsburghers, no mention of the Seahawks. At a charity bowling tournament put on by Bettis, Detroit Mayor Kwame Fitzpatrick talked about the Steelers back bringing the Lombardi Trophy home for a visit. Then there was tight end Jerramy Stevens, a player oft-maligned for his dubious past in Seattle, standing up to a media onslaught Wednesday by a horde desperate to provoke him into making as big a dip of himself as his new rival, Porter. For nearly an hour, no matter how repetitive or foolish the question, Stevens calmly answered without rancor, contempt or retaliation, for which he drew much deserved praise. Again, another deft execution of script. Holmgren added a finishing touch this week. The Super Bowl is supposed to be a neutral field. But because of Detroit's proximity to and affinity for Pittsburgh, Holmgren had the offense work on silent counts, the counter to hostile-crowd noise. The Seahawks know exactly what they are up against. They are pissed ... and delighted. The rest of the NFL world that don't "got it" starts the learning curve Sunday. ________________________________________________________ P-I columnist Art Thiel can be reached at 206-448-8135 or artthiel@seattlepi.com. © 1998-2006 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

To: Mannie who wrote (56253)	2/10/2006 3:04:05 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 361856

Why 2,245 Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg by Erik Leaver* Published on Thursday, February 9, 2006 The South Florida Sun-Sentinel commondreams.org Cindy Sheehan and Beverly Young's arrests at the State of the Union for wearing opposing "protest" T-shirts is the latest illustration of how the Iraq War is the nation's most provocative issue. The attack on free speech for both sides was in fact outrageous. But lost in the T-shirt battle is what really matters: President George W. Bush's failure to tell the nation about the true costs of the war. Any honest national discussion about the war must begin with the death of Sheehan's son Casey and the other 2,244 soldiers who have died because of this conflict. The number of soldiers killed boldly written on Sheehan's shirt was a shocking, in-your-face accounting of the State of the Union over the last three years. As horrific as they are, those numbers are just the tip of the iceberg of the human costs of this war. Along those soldiers are 16,584 soldiers wounded in combat, and upwards of 100,000 needing mental health services, just to start with. Bush didn't mention the human cost of war because in part gross mismanagement by the administration has inflated it. For example, both Bush and members of Congress have pledged to fix problems with body and vehicle armor year after year. But despite promises to fix the situation, the military recently reported that 80 percent of Marines killed by torso wounds could have lived if they had better body armor. That's hard to swallow, especially when one of the makers of body armor, CEO David H. Brooks of DHB Industries, received $87,500 in compensation for "foregone vacation," almost three times what an Army private makes in an entire year of combat. With complete disregard for rampant war profiteering, Brooks earned $70 million in 2004. Those veterans who return from Iraq are finding Washington's promises to care for them are violated with impunity. Last year, the Veterans Affairs Department suspended enrollment of 263,257 vets seeking health care. The VA underestimated the number of veterans needing care upon return from Iraq and Afghanistan by 300 percent, so qualified veterans were simply cut from the rolls. Maybe they thought no one would notice. In addition to the war's human costs, Bush overlooked the financial costs. Three days after the State of the Union address, budget officials announced another $70 billion will be requested. Such a large initiative should have been highlighted for all of the nation. With these funds, the U.S. will spend more than $320 billion in the Iraq War. As astonishing as this number is, it does not include many of the indirect and long-term costs. Adding in estimates for future Veterans Administration and ongoing health care costs along with the interest on the debt, Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard budget expert Linda Bilmes recently estimated the long-term cost of the war at $1.3 trillion. Instead of calling for a plan to pay for the shared sacrifice needed to cover the war's costs, Bush urged Congress to make his tax cuts permanent. Surely the government could use these funds to offset the looming Social Security crisis he highlighted. Or the sorely needed reconstruction of those cities destroyed by Hurricane Katrina could be accelerated. The irony of the war's outrageous financial costs is that they hobble the very social and economic programs that keep this country strong. While Iraq staggers under the occupation-spurred violence, the war is exacting a huge toll at home. The costs of war might be worthwhile if there was indeed a "plan for victory." But squeezing the same lemon again and again isn't producing very good lemonade. The lack of leadership and vision coupled with the tremendous loss of life and staggering economic costs make the Iraq War one of the nation's greatest tragedies. Ignoring the real human and economic costs of the war, it was easy for Bush to use his State of the Union speech to vow to stay the course. But while Cindy Sheehan and her tell-the-truth shirt from the Capitol were quickly removed from public view, the reality of the war is not so easy to hide. ____________________________________________________________ *Erik Leaver is a research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and the policy outreach director for the Foreign Policy In Focus Project. He is the co-author of "The Iraq Quagmire: The Mounting Costs of War and the Case for Bringing Home the Troops." Online at ips-dc.org

To: Mannie who wrote (56253)	2/11/2006 9:53:45 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 361856

Hey Bush: Obey the Law by Charley Reese / February 11, 2006 It was appropriate that the issue of government domestic spying was raised at the recent funeral of Mrs. Coretta Scott King. Martin Luther King Jr. and his family were victims of a vicious domestic spying program instigated by the federal government. The parallels with today's domestic spy program are almost exact. It was done in the name of national security. It was authorized by the president, John F. Kennedy, and the attorney general, Robert Kennedy, and carried out by the FBI. There was a war on – in that case, the Vietnam War as well as the Cold War. It was kept secret from the public. The FBI not only tapped King's telephones but also planted bugs in places where he was staying. One tape, which allegedly implicated King in an extramarital affair, was sent to Mrs. King. Now think about this. Here is the federal government secretly spying on an American citizen and trying to break up his family and disrupt the civil-rights movement. And this was not done by some right-wing fanatic, but by two bona fide liberals, the Kennedy brothers. The current president says he has authorized domestic spying without warrants only on those connected to terrorists, but he refuses to provide even Congress with enough information for his claim to be verified. As you can see from the King affair, even people with good intentions can abuse government power in the heated atmosphere of war. We don't know who is being spied upon. We would not even know spying was going on but for a whistle-blower who tipped off The New York Times, which sat on the story for a year before finding the courage to publish it. That every tyrant who ever lived rationalized his abuse of power by claiming to be protecting the people or the empire or the country is kindergarten basic civics. We should know better at this point in our history. We are a nation of laws, not an empire and not a monarchy. Our Constitution deliberately created a weak chief executive. The president, for example, is not our commander in chief. He's the commander in chief of the armed forces. As far as we civilians are concerned, he is just the administrator of laws passed by Congress. He cannot make laws. He cannot assume powers not given to him by the Constitution or by Congress. He must obey all the laws just the same as you and me. A problem for many Americans is that they have never lived in the free republic created by our forefathers. We became a war state during World War II, and the Cold War was used as an excuse to maintain a war state and to expand it. We are spending more on defense than most of the rest of the world combined at a time when the only threats we face are isolated attacks by a loosely organized band of criminals. The government in Washington has become as secretive as the old Soviet Union. Too many Americans are willing to let demagoguery scare them into writing a blank check to any politician who claims he will protect them from the boogeyman. I, for one, will never surrender this free republic, no matter how many enemies, real or imagined, are at the gates. What would be the point? Our ancestors fought for freedom and independence, not for a dictatorship. You can't be free if you give the president unlimited powers to violate both the laws and the Constitution. The tension between a government of law and a government of men runs throughout American history. What worries me is that while there seems to be constituencies for every special interest in the world, there is little or no constituency for liberty and the rule of law. I would like to see all Americans send the president a simple message: "With all due respect, sir, obey the damned laws or resign. Both the law and the Constitution require warrants for domestic spying. Get them. Both the law and the Constitution require that Congress exercise oversight. Cooperate with Congress. You are a public servant, not a God-anointed ruler of a kingdom." Find this article at: antiwar.com

To: Mannie who wrote (56253)	2/18/2006 5:14:36 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 361856

Orwell wrote Bush's script seattletimes.nwsource.com The resemblance grows between the Bush administration and the sinister, monolithic political party INGSOC, from George Orwell's novel "1984," with every twisted and evasive defense for the violation of American civil rights. Bush and Co.'s battle against terrorism has turned into a power grab and a war on Americans. Fear and contorted language are the weapons of choice. The administration's assertive actions after 9/11 might have made sense in the raw aftermath of nearly 3,000 dead. With time and distance comes perspective. Those new presidential controls awarded to help ensure the safety of Americans now look more like the political clubs wielded by INGSOC. Orwell might have got the year wrong, but his nightmarish vision of a super-nation at perpetual war, dominated by a government only concerned about control and party preservation, could gain purchase in 2006. I hear more of Newspeak, the restrictive language created by INGSOC, with every presidential explanation as to why the government feels compelled to spy on Americans. Orwell wrote that the idea of Newspeak was to restrict the language to the point that people would have to think in the limited language of the party. In true INGSOC fashion, the administration has used Bushspeak to spin a story broken by The New York Times about a domestic-spying program run by the National Security Agency and approved by executive order soon after 9/11 into a necessary program needed to weed out the deeply integrated terrorists living next door. The timing was curious when, last week, Bush revealed that a terrorist plot was thwarted in 2002. Bush talked about the plot the same day stories surfaced about the doubts a secret surveillance court judge had about the legality of domestic spying. Of course, an administration spokesperson danced around the question of whether the NSA program was involved in stopping the terrorist plot. The use of powerful and well-placed words and images worked for INGSOC. Its slogan — war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength — fits like a truncheon in the cradle of shattered bone with Bush's recent State of the Union address: War is peace "There is no peace in retreat." Freedom is slavery "The terrorist surveillance program has helped prevent terrorist attacks. It remains essential to the security of America." Ignorance is strength "... We have benefited from responsible criticism and counsel offered by members of Congress of both parties ... Yet, there is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success, and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure." Political doublespeak is nothing new, but has become a real threat to democracy in the hands of this administration. Bush has taken communication strategy to new heights, said David Domke, associate professor of communications at the University of Washington. "This administration has become preeminent in crafting messages for political gain," Domke said. The Republicans have made no secret about what they will run on this year. A recent Pew poll showed that Americans believe the Democrats could lead the nation better on every issue except national security. Bush aide Karl Rove has given speeches about national security and the president skips across the nation talking about the importance of spying on Americans to keep us safe. This strategy works only if the electorate is fearful that a hostile world is ready to overrun America. Bush's fear-mongering resembles a version of INGSOC's Two Minutes (of) Hate, in which party members watch a video of legions of the enemy army marching behind a bleating political enemy. American democracy has buckled under the weight of Americans voting scared, a weak press diluted because of consolidation by mega-public companies, and no real political alternative. It does not matter that the administration and, by extension, the Republican Party are only doing what is needed to hold on in November and again in the 2008 presidential election. Their actions are beginning to eclipse our civil rights, potentially reducing freedom to a dim flicker. _____________________________________ Ryan Blethen's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is rblethen@seattletimes.com