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The Blogmanac: "On This Day" ... and much more
Think universally. Act terrestrially.
For in a hard-working society, it is rare and even subversive to celebrate too much, to revel and keep on reveling: to stop whatever you're doing and rave, pray, throw things, go into trances, jump over bonfires, drape yourself in flowers, stay up all night, and scoop the froth from the sea.
Anneli Rufus*
From the BBC: "The oldest pieces of jewellery made by modern humans have emerged in Africa.
"Shell beads found in Blombos Cave on the southern tip of the continent are 75,000 years old, scientists say.
"The pea-sized items all have similar holes which would have allowed them to be strung together into a necklace or bracelet, the researchers believe.
"Christopher Henshilwood and his team have told Science magazine the find is probably one of the first examples of abstract thought seen in our ancestors.
"'The beads carry a symbolic message. Symbolism is the basis for all that comes afterwards including cave art, personal ornaments and other sophisticated behaviours,' Professor Henshilwood, of the University of Bergen, Norway, told BBC News Online."
*Ø* Blogmanac April 17, 1854| Happy birthday, Benjamin Tucker
1854 Birth of Benjamin Tucker (d. 1939), American publisher, journalist, propagandist, theorist, leading proponent of individualist anarchism in the 19th century, born at South Dartmouth, Massachusetts, USA. Tucker translated into English Proudhon’s classic work What is Property?
Benjamin Ricketson Tucker's contribution to American anarchism was as much through his publishing as his own writing. In editing and publishing the anarchist periodical, Liberty, Tucker both filtered and integrated the theories of such European thinkers as Herbert Spencer and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon with the thinking of American individualist activists, Lysander Spooner, Ezra Heywood, Stephen Pearl Andrews, William Greene and Josiah Warren, as well as the uniquely American free thought and free love movements in order to produce a rigorous system of philosophical or individualist anarchism.
Tucker shared with the advocates of free love and free thought a disdain for prohibitions on non-invasive behavior and religiously-based legislation, but he saw the poor condition of American workers as a result of four state-maintained monopolies: the money monopoly, the land monopoly, tariffs, and patents.
For 27 years his journal Liberty ('The Mother, not the Daughter of Order') served as a voice of individualist anarchism, opposed to the major anarchist communist and anarchist syndicalist wings of the movement. Liberty published such works as George Bernard Shaw's first original article to appear in the United States, the first American translated excerpts of Friedrich Nietzsche.
The Daily Bleed says that Liberty, until recently was the longest running anarchist journal in American history (the Detroit publication ‘The Fifth Estate’ is now past its 28th year). Tucker converted to anarchism Jo Labadie, whose personal papers formed the basis of the famed Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan.
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
This was made by one of our members as a way for people to let their friends know about TrueMajorityACTION and our work to fire George Bush.
Check it out. If you like it too, please send this message and/or the url to your friends. It's a great way to spread the word and help build the power of our organization.
Thanks,
Ben Cohen President, TrueMajorityACTION Co-founder, Ben&Jerry's Ice Cream*
* I am writing this email on my own and not on behalf of Ben & Jerry's, which is not associated with the TrueMajority campaign.
Knowing my penchant for sixties nostalgia, Pip referred me to a website from the University of Virginia where they teach a course on The Psychedelic '60s. Little did he know that what would catch my eye would be the section on 19th Century Precursors! LOL! I was reminded of our strong heritage of thinking Americans who showed us how great we could be . . . how we can transcend the demands of gold rushes and political rhetoric and see through the lies into our hearts and into the truth of life on this planet. We knew, once upon a time, what was right. We learned the lessons of discrimination and liberty and civil rights and how to treat a planet a long time ago! Our leaders today haven't. They're ignoring those lessons and replacing those qualities with something else. Something totally at odds with what Americans want and what Americans have fought for. They have us now fighting only for their greed and tossing us nothing but crumbs. Soon there will be none of those. Has no one stopped to notice?
We're having our very selves stolen from us! Our poetry readings are being canceled for fear of an anti-war sentiment being expressed. Our radio channels are being overtaken by right-wing Christian owners who approve only certain artists and songs for fear a traditional American protest song might be heard. Our textbooks are being revised leaving out the truth for fear we won't look like superheroes. For fear, for fear, for fear! What are they afraid of? What are WE afraid of? And WHY? Isn't our government made up of "civil servants" who work for US? Have we forgotten that America is a democracy that is of the people, by the people and for the people? What has become of us? Perhaps the following history will remind us of who we are as we approach Earth Day 2004 and, goddess help us, Election 2004:
Nature Ralph Waldo Emerson "THERE WAS A new consciousness." That is how Emerson, writing in 1880, summed up the cultural revolution that defined the most advanced thought and art in the United States in the decades before the Civil War. To many at the time, Emerson's first book, Nature, was the bible of the movement. It begins by inviting the new generation to leave the past behind, to "enjoy an original relation to the universe." It ends by exhorting the reader to "build your own world." These "new views"--Emerson's preferred term for what others would soon call Transcendentalism--never became a mass cultural or media phenomenon. Most Americans were more interested in the gold in California than the wealth that Emerson said was to be found within, and more interested in building railroads and factories than in creating the newer world he announced as imminent. But as a prophet or popular philosopher Emerson inspired thousands in his time and helped articulate for all time the idea that America is less a place than a process--a becoming new. [Emphasis added. -v]
An Oration Delivered Before the Phi Beta Kappa Society Ralph Waldo Emerson WHEN EMERSON RESIGNED from the ministry to become a prophet of consciousness, he told a friend that his own "particular parish" was "young people inquiring their way in the world." Speaking on behalf of the generation for whom Emerson's was the voice that found them in the wilderness, Theodore Parker wrote about how his words glowed in the American heavens, "drawing the eyes of ingenuous young people to look up to that great new star, a beauty and a mystery, as it led them along new paths and towards new hopes." Emerson's favorite rhetorical occasion was the college oration. In 1837 he gave "The American Scholar" address at Harvard. Telling the students in his audience that colleges exist "to set the hearts of youth on flame," he called for "the helpful giant to destroy the old or build the new." To the "young men crowding to the barriers for the career," he spoke of "the disgust which the principles on which business is managed inspire," and called each one of them instead to "plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide." Oliver Wendell Holmes called this speech "America's declaration of cultural independence." [Emphasis added. -v]
Walden; Or, Life in the Woods Henry David Thoreau SOON AFTER THOREAU graduated from Harvard in 1837, he tuned in to Emerson's voice--and in the mid-1840s became America's most famous "drop out." When he moved to Walden Pond as a protest against conventional society and as the first citizen of what he calls "the only true America," he disappointed the parents who had scraped and saved to send him to college. When he transformed his two years in the woods into Walden, however, he gave American culture one of its most resonant symbolic gestures. The land he built his cabin on belonged to Emerson, though in his own version of the sixties dictum that you can't trust anyone over thirty Thoreau vehemently denied all debts: "I have lived some thirty years on this planet," he wrote in Walden, "and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors. They have told me nothing, and probably cannot tell me anything to the purpose."
Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman WHITMAN ACKNOWLEDGED THE debt this way: "I was simmering, simmering, and Emerson brought me to a boil." Thoreau wrote Walden, he said, to "wake his neighbors up" by "crowing as lustily as chanticleer in the morning." In Leaves of Grass, Whitman "sounds my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world." An exhilarating combination of mysticism and sexuality, his poetry is a newer testament, a celebration of the kingdom of consciousness that can be found in the soul, in the body, in the "kosmos," and in all the forms of spirit and matter. Whitman urged his listeners to get outside and become "undisguised and naked:" "Unscrew the locks from the doors! Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!" Few in his time even recognized his work as poetry, and on several occasions he was prosecuted for obscenity. This first edition of Leaves of Grass, which Whitman published himself, had almost no sale at all. Between 1855 and his death in 1892, Whitman kept adding poems to new editions of Leaves of Grass, and by the end of his life had acquired a few disciples. But it wasn't until the twentieth century that the literary critical establishment recognized him as one of the great American poets. To such anti-establishment figures as Allen Ginsberg (who 100 years after Leaves of Grass first appeared used the lines about "unscrewing the locks" as the epigraph to Howl) he was even greater as the prophet of cultural revolution.
Aesthetic Papers Elizabeth Palmer Peabody AS IN THE SIXTIES, the "new consciousness" in America in Emerson's time made itself manifest across the whole range of cultural expression, from social life and religion to art and politics. This volume, for example, contains the first publication of Hawthorne's "Main Street," but it is now best-known for an essay called "Resistance to Civil Government, by H.D. Thoreau, Esq." In our time the essay is better-known as "Civil Disobedience." In this work Thoreau describes how he went to jail rather than pay taxes to support the Mexican War and the slave system that he felt was the real reason America was fighting in Mexico. Neither the essay nor Thoreau's act of protest attracted much attention among his contemporaries, but it later inspired Mahatma Gandhi, who read it while in jail in South Africa, and through him Martin Luther King. Thoreau's example was also a major inspiration to the anti-war movement of the sixties. "Break the law," Thoreau writes, "Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine." Interested in many forms of radical change, from education to utopian communities, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody herself was an important figure in the cultural revolution of the 1840s and 1850s. Henry James caricatures her as Miss Birdseye in The Bostonians.
Woman in the Nineteenth Century Margaret Fuller THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT in America has its origins in this period too. Genealogically its central branch--Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony, and so on--grew out of the Abolitionist Movement, and addressed its efforts to specific political reforms like suffrage. Margaret Fuller was never in that camp. But her Woman in the Nineteenth Century was the first American book devoted to the question of woman's place and rights. It was the final product of Fuller's own participation in the unorganized Transcendentalist movement. Starting from the idea that the divine spirit is in all consciousness, Fuller argues for complete equality between the sexes: "I have believed and intimated that this hope would receive an ampler fruition than ever before in our own land. And it will do so if this land carry out the principles from which sprang our national life. I believe that at present women are the best helpers of one another. Let them think; let them act; till they know what they need."
To paraphrase Ms Fuller in today's terms regarding the craziness we see around us: war on innocent Iraqi people after they've been "liberated" from their tyrannical leader, discrimination against gays and lesbians, denying them the civil rights afforded other human beings under our constitution, and American citizens losing our rights of privacy and liberty for which our own forefathers fought and for which our troops are purportedly fighting today:
"Right now THINKERS are the best helpers of one another. Let them think; let them act; till they know what they need."
[In a political climate where outspoken cartoonists are dropping out of the nation's mega-corporation controlled newspapers like flies, one man has remained. Long live one favorite syndicate king, Gary Trudeau, and his beloved "court" of characters! -v]
Politics is a game of power, a game with serious repercussions and heavy consequences: war, taxes, laws, and more. Points are argued with intensity and loyalties run deep.
It’s a heavy sport to watch, bruising in its intensity. The best medicine for too much heaviness is a good dose of laughter. By delivering wickedly mischievous insights about political culture through a cartoon, Trudeau takes the edge off politics and brings in heart and laughter. Who can forget the talking waffle of Bill Clinton or the floating feather of Dan Quayle?
*Ø* Blogmanac | Can you hear me now, Verizon? Three strikes, you're OUT!
From Lisa:
As Verizon gets bigger, their batting average plummets!
Strike One: Data-mining a captive audience.
Verizon was already on my shit list for unilaterally deciding that the money they extort from me each month to have an unpublished telephone number (I still have trouble fathoming that it costs money to not do something!) didn't really mean that I didn't want to be contacted by telemarketers... THEIR bleeping telemarketers!! They say I have to "opt out". Up theirs!! They opt me out of my money every month... peace and quiet is what I pay for!
Now I have even more reason to look for another provider:
The incident I'm about to describe could easily be interpreted as a "gun rights" issue... but, IMHO, it is as much or more about how much say your employer has over what you do when you're not at work.
Last December, Libertarian activist Jeffrey "The Hunter" Jordan was driving home from out of state and got stopped for speeding. Long story short: despite having a concealed carry permit, Jeffrey was arrested and charged with a felony because he was carrying a gun and ammunition.
Jeffrey has yet to stand trial. You will see on his supporters' web pages that there are many legal issues that may result in his exoneration; the verdict is certainly not a foregone conclusion. (I am particularly interested to hear the outcome of their "full faith and credit" argument. You may recognize that phrase from all the homophobic panic about gay marriage.)
Before he even made bail and got back home (a matter of days, btw), Jeffrey's employer, Verizon, suspended him without pay. There was a message on his answering machine, basically telling him not to bother to come to work.
Think about that. On what did they base their decision, if they hadn't even heard from Jeffrey?! They have never claimed that the suspension was for "absenteeism" or some other version of "not showing up". There seems to be absolutely no employment-related violation on Jeffrey's part.
Verizon has a written policy against carrying guns while on company property or on company business... neither of which apply to Jeffrey. He was on his own time and minding his own business. WTF?!
Verizon has engaged in some Rove-worthy evasiveness and intimidation when it comes to Jeffrey. To this day, they refuse to give him a hearing or severance pay, both of which are mandated by his union contract. They also have thusfar refused to pay him previously earned wages. Their only "statement" about Jeffrey's situation has been a vague reference to his alleged violation of some company policy; they did, however, find time to demand that Jeffrey's supporters censor their web pages.
In an effort to save Jeffrey's job, most of the webmasters who were approached (steamrolled) agreed to delete the specified information.
It was after the webmasters' good faith effort that Jeffrey received the certified letter telling him that he had been terminated... retroactively!! (Jeffrey's union, however, is being given a different story, and continues to work on his "suspension"!)
Last time I checked, organizations that make threats and demands but give nothing in return are called terrorists...!
Activists suspect Verizon's intransigence is based on the fact that the charge is a firearms offense. Does Verizon instantaneously suspend (and surreptitiously fire) employees arrested for all offenses — disorderly conduct, trespassing, shoplifting — before they are proven guilty?!
Employers increasingly seem to believe that they have the right to run employees' lives — prohibiting things like smoking or drinking in one's own home — or wanting to carry a gun, a right guaranteed (for now, anyway) by the 2nd amendment. What they want to ban on their own property is one thing; to try to tell an employee what they can do in the privacy of their own home or car, off company property, is a gross overstepping of bounds.
LET VERIZON KNOW THAT WHAT THEY HAVE DONE TO JEFFREY IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. If you have Verizon landline or cell service, consider taking your business elsewhere. And contact Verizon to let them know why you left.
[Stay tuned for Strike Three!]
P.S.: Dig the creepy inscription on the wall of the courthouse where Jeffrey's trial will take place. (Warning: it is 1184 x 888 pixels, over 360kb... might be a killer on dialup connections.)
*Ø* Blogmanac | It's Simply Too Heavy a Price to Pay
FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH -- Actions to Take to Make the Difference
Here's an easy one! You can take this action lying down . . . with your eyes closed! Put on your headphones and tune in to the wide and varied voices on our side heard on CSPAN.org or NPR radio. Granted, CSPAN is a great source of liberal voices most of the time but, oddly, April 15th, is jam-packed with subjects in which we're especially interested.
MOST NOTABLY, Democrat Representative Charles Rangel's Speech to the Washington Press Club is really one to remember and one I'd like to reprint here in its entirety if I could. His subject is a brilliant angle (a Rangel angle! LOL) on "taking action" and "serving our country." He calls it "The Death Tax" which is the new name for what was the inheritance tax. But while the wealthy of our nation are getting tax cuts and becoming wealthier, it's the poor who are paying the heaviest of all taxes, their actual death in Iraq. Rep. Rangel talks about shared sacrifice. You've got to hear it to understand. It's an incredibly brilliant -- and informative -- speech! Go there. Put on the headphones, close your eyes and really listen. I believe it will change you. I don't have to suggest that you share it with others. I believe you'll be moved to do so.
*Ø* Blogmanac | They said Howard Dean was a draft dodger?!
From Lisa:
Chickenhawkn. A person enthusiastic about war, provided someone else fights it; particularly when that enthusiasm is undimmed by personal experience with war; most emphatically when that lack of experience came in spite of ample opportunity in that person's youth.
In a demonstration of why New Hampshire was the destination of choice for the Free State Project, the New Hampshire Gazette has compiled the Chickenhawk Database. It's amazing how many of these folks had "bad knees", yet are to this day engaging their middle-aged bodies in such weight-bearing activities as running!
Quoted from the Chickenhawk Database: The alleged "gentlemen" [guess they couldn't in good conscience call Ann Coulter a "lady"? –L.] listed in this database are here because they share three qualities: bellicosity (a warlike manner or temperament), public prominence, and a curious lack of wartime service when others their age had no trouble finding the fight. (Sorry, Dan and George W. and Dan Q. — your safe, cushy National Guard slots won't help you now.) The fact that they's almost all Republicans is . . . well, curious, don't you think? No doubt this list is incomplete. Readers are encouraged to nominate their favorite overlooked chickenhawks.
The Gazette has divided the (sadly lengthy) list into groups with something in common (besides being chickenhawks!). Some highlights:
Barking Head Brigade (media bigmouths who, oddly, don't want to talk about their lack of service)
Bureaucratic Battalion (some repeats here, but worth a look to see those not previously listed)
Chaplain Corps (Never pass up an opportunity to read about the hypocrisy of the pious!)
Politicians Platoon (Check here for your favorite — or least favorite! — local politico. This also includes national-scale Repug hacks who haven't been mentioned elsewhere. I couldn't have been more delighted to find Rep. Roscoe 'women-should-be-barefoot-and-pregnant' Bartlett on this list!)
Propaganda Platoon (Mostly media and entertainment types — lots of repeats — but fresh pokes at Brit Hume and Lee Greenwood(!))
Sui Generis (An entire page devoted to Ted Nugent... wonder where they got that disgusting toon?!)
The Legal Department (A must visit... the opening salvo is aimed at Ashcroft. Need I say more?)
*Ø* Blogmanac | US military see Iraqi people as sub-human?
"Senior British commanders have condemned American military tactics in Iraq as heavy-handed and disproportionate. One senior officer said that America's aggressive methods were causing friction among allied commanders and that there was a growing sense of ‘unease and frustration' among the British high command.
"The officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said part of the problem was that American troops viewed Iraqis as untermenschen -- the Nazi expression for ‘sub-humans.' Speaking from his base in southern Iraq, the officer said: ‘My view and the view of the British chain of command is that the Americans' use of violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threat they are facing. They don't see the Iraqi people the way we see them. They view them as untermenschen. They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life in the way the British are.'" (Sean Rayment, British commanders condemn US military tactics, the [British] Telegraph)
*Ø* Blogmanac | Hear no evil, read no evil, speak drivel
Bush's press conference shows just how ill-informed he is about Iraq
Sidney Blumenthal April 15, The Guardian
"On April 21 1961, President Kennedy held a press conference to answer questions on the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion by Cuban exiles that he had approved. "There's an old saying," he said, "that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan ... I am the responsible officer of the government and that is quite obvious."
"On Wednesday, President Bush held only his third press conference and was asked three times whether he accepted responsibility for failing to act on warning before September 11. "I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer, but it hadn't [sic] yet," he said. "I just haven't - you just put me under the spot here and maybe I'm not quick - as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one."
"Bush's press conference was the culmination of his recent efforts to staunch the political wounds of his bleeding polls since the 9/11 commission began public hearings and violence spiralled in Iraq. Bush had tried to divert blame by declaring that the August 6 memo he was forced to declassify at the commission's insistence contained no "actionable intelligence", even though it specifically mentioned the World Trade Centre and Washington as targets.
"Bush, in fact, does not read his President's Daily Briefs, but has them orally summarised every morning by the CIA director, George Tenet. President Clinton, by contrast, read them closely and alone, preventing any aides from interpreting what he wanted to know first-hand. He extensively marked up his PDBs, demanding action on this or that, which is almost certainly the likely reason the Bush administration withheld his memoranda from the 9/11 commission.
"'I know he doesn't read,' one former Bush national security council staffer told me. Several other former NSC staffers corroborated this. It seems highly unlikely that he read the national intelligence estimate on WMD before the Iraq war that consigned contrary evidence and caveats that undermined the case to footnotes and fine print. Nor is there any evidence that he read the state department's 17-volume report, The Future of Iraq, warning of nearly all the postwar pitfalls, that was shelved by the neocons in the Pentagon and Vice-President Cheney's office.
"Nor was Bush aware of similar warnings urgently being sounded by the military's top strategic analysts ..."
*Ø* Blogmanac April 15, 2003 | The Mosul Massacre: Forgotten tragedy
2003 The Mosul Massacre. American troops opened fire on anti-US protesters in the northern city of Mosul, Baghdad, killing at least ten unarmed Iraqis.
The Americans had marched their newly appointed puppet in Mosul, Mashaan al-Juburi, onto a stage in front of a few hundred people. The new governor was making a passionate pro-American speech, telling the people that the Americans had come to liberate them and would improve their lives. The crowd retorted he was a liar, and children began to hurl stones at him. People began chanting and denouncing the American occupation.
According to reports, this incensed the American troops, who had been arrogantly moving amongst the crowd with their American flag. When the crowd began to shout "the only democracy is to make the Americans leave" whilst continuing to hurl stones and abuse at the puppet governor, the American troops opened fire upon the people killing and injuring many.
"The people moved towards the government building, the children threw stones, the Americans started firing. Then they prevented the people from recovering the bodies," said Marwan Mohammed, who was amongst the protestors. Dr Iyad al-Ramadhani, from the hospital caring for the victims, said "there are perhaps 100 wounded and 10 to 12 dead". Another doctor reported "The wounded said (the governor) Juburi asked the Americans to fire". Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Meanwhile, President Bush, speaking in the White House Rose Garden, was declaring that the Iraqi people were "regaining control of their own destiny", US soldiers were turning their weapons on civilians opposed to American and US-appointed rulers. Hours earlier, 20,000 people marched through the southern city of Nasiriyah to oppose Washington's plans to install a puppet government. On the same day, in Baghdad, the US military tried to prevent journalists from reporting on the third straight day of anti-US demonstrations.
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
*Ø* Blogmanac | New York Boy Scout Seeks To Enlighten 1,000,000 Of His Fellow Citizens
From Lisa:
We NEED more Eagle Scouts like this one!
Most Americans are sadly uninformed (because that's the way the system wants it) of their rights as jurors. Having been nailed with jury duty 3 times already, I know how much jurors hear about "responsibilities"... but nobody is in a hurry to tell you that you also have rights.
Enter Alexander Navarro, a New York Boy Scout who is working toward his Eagle Scout rank. He has set up a web site, Jurors Rule, to help educate his fellow citizens about the rights of jurors.
My only complaint about the site is that he focuses on his "questionnaire" — which, oddly, does not submit. You must go back to the top and click the "answers" link to get the list of correct answers... which has no record of how you answered. But the list is pretty short, so most folks will be able to handle checking their own responses. (Frankly, if they can't, I don't want them sitting on a jury!)
Jury duty will catch up with you eventually; visit Alexander's site now and be educated when your number is called. Or, if you have already served, read it and weep! You will likely be incensed that you were systematically lied to.
Most of the hard info lies at the sites he lists on his "links" page; but he certainly deserves credit for noticing this situation, and for choosing such a political hot potato for his Eagle project! Visit Jurors Rule and help Alexander reach his 1M goal.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Cut America's Global Warming Pollution NOW!
Redo the will. Start the college fund. Stop global warming.
Urgent Mobilization to Pass McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act
I have just learned that the second vote on the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act has been scheduled in the U.S. Senate for as soon as mid-May and I urgently need your help to ramp up our campaign to win this major environmental victory. Global warming is the most urgent environmental problem facing the world today, and McCain-Lieberman is the most comprehensive and practical approach to cutting America's global warming pollution.
We have precious little time to mobilize and raise the funds necessary to battle powerful special interests in Washington who are opposed to McCain-Lieberman.
In the few weeks we have before the vote, we must raise at least $725,000 if we are to have the resources necessary to win this historic vote.
That's why I am inviting you to become a member of the 51 Club today. The sole purpose of the 51 Club is to raise the financial resources necessary to mobilize the American people to win 51 votes in the Senate to pass the McCain-Lieberman Act. With 51 votes, we will have a global warming majority in the Senate for the first time ever.
As a 51 Club member you will receive weekly campaign updates from the field on how your support is making a difference in this historic fight for the future of our planet.
We don't have a moment to lose. Please act today.
Thank you.
Fred Krupp
PS: Every dollar will help us win this critical vote. If you can give more than $51 please consider doing so. If less, know that I appreciate whatever you can do. Donate.
About the 51 Club -- Needed to win a global warming majority in the Senate:
* Fire up grassroots efforts in 5 swing states -- Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Ohio and Nebraska. * Get 500,000 Emissions Petition signatures before the Senate Vote. (Have you signed the Petition yet?) * Flood the media with our message: tv, radio, newspaper and Internet. * Boost our Capitol Hill lobbying efforts. * Get a 51-vote majority in the Senate to past the Climate Stewardship Act. --------------------------------------------------
"The Bush administration today grappled with allegations that President George W. Bush did not see a sixty-foot-tall billboard featuring Osama bin Laden that appeared suddenly across the street from the White House in August 2001.
"The gigantic billboard, which featured bin Laden’s stern visage and the words 'I AM GOING TO HIJACK U.S. AIRPLANES VERY SOON,' was first spotted by a UPS driver, Clayton Spedding, while making his morning deliveries on Pennsylvania Avenue.
"I was like, 'Didn’t there use to be a Bacardi ad up there?'" Mr. Spedding, 34, told reporters today.
After making his startling discovery, Mr. Spedding called the White House, but was told to call back when he had 'something more specific.'
As Mr. Bush’s apparent failure to notice the bin Laden billboard ignited a new round of finger-pointing in Washington, the President went on the offensive, warning the al-Qaeda kingpin to make future terror threats more explicit or 'face the consequences.'
In a nationally televised address, Mr. Bush said that all future terror threats that did not include 'the who, what, when, where and why' in the first paragraph 'would be completely and categorically ignored.'
In addition to Mr. bin Laden, Mr. Bush singled out Iran and North Korea for making terror threats that were not specific enough, calling them 'The Axis of Vagueness.'
As for the billboard of bin Laden, Mr. Bush said that once he was notified of its existence he took appropriate action: 'I asked the national security staff to find out if Saddam Hussein had put it up there.'
"WASHINGTON -- Five months before Sept. 11, 2001, the officers responsible for defending American airspace wanted to test their ability to prevent a hijacked airliner from being crashed into the Pentagon, but the scenario was rejected by the Joint Chiefs of Staff as impractical, a Joint Chiefs spokesman confirmed yesterday.
"The disclosure was made after a government watchdog group released a leaked e-mail from a former official at the North American Air Defense Command. In the message, the official told colleagues a week after the attacks that in April 2001 NORAD requested that war games run by the Joint Chiefs include an 'event having a terrorist group hijack a commercial airline ... and fly it into the Pentagon.'"
*Ø* Blogmanac April 14, 1912 | Sinking of the Titanic
1912 On its maiden voyage, RMS Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean; it finished sinking at about 2:20 am the next day.
It is not true that millionaire passenger Jacob Astor quipped "I ordered ice, but this is ridiculous".
Sir Lew Grade made a film, Raise the Titanic, based on the best-selling book about the salvage of the disaster liner. The budget blew out and Grade lost £10 million. He is reported to have quipped, "It would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic".
A young radio operator in New York on April 14, 1912, picked up the message from SS Olympic through the static: "SS Titanic ran into iceberg. Sinking fast". He sat for hours taking down whatever information he could, communicating it to the anxiously waiting world, until he collapsed, exhausted.
The young man was David Sarnoff – later founder of communications giant RCA.
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
*Ø* Blogmanac | PM urged to act on 'intelligence failures'
"A senior Army intelligence analyst has written to the [Australian] Prime Minister calling for a royal commission into Australia's intelligence services, claiming there has been systemic failures and a culture of cover up.
"Lieutenant Colonel Lance Collins ran Australia's intelligence operations in East Timor and is currently based at Victoria Barracks in Sydney.
"This week The Bulletin magazine is publishing a letter from Lt Colonel Collins urging Prime Minister John Howard to appoint an impartial, open and wide-ranging royal commission into Australia's intelligence services.
"Lt Colonel Collins lists a series of what he describes as intelligence failures over the last eight years, including Iraq's weapon's of mass destruction, delay in the Willie Brigitte case, and warning of the Bali bombing.
"He insists there has been a failure of insititutional controls over the nation's intelligence system and he fears the will to reform does not exist, only the will to cover-up ..." Source: ABC Oz
CLAIM: "The president returned to the White House and called me in and said, I've learned from George Tenet that there is no evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11." – National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04 FACT: If this is true, then why did the President and Vice President repeatedly claim Saddam Hussein was directly connected to 9/11? President Bush sent a letter to Congress on 3/19/03 saying that the Iraq war was permitted specifically under legislation that authorized force against "nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11." Similarly, Vice President Cheney said on 9/14/03 that "It is not surprising that people make that connection" between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks, and said "we don't know" if there is a connection. [Source: BBC, 9/14/03] More at: Condoleezza Rice’s Credibility Gap
*Ø* Blogmanac April 13, 1888 | Nobel's change of heart
1888 Alfred Nobel woke in his Paris home and opened the morning newspaper. There, to his surprise, he read his own obituary.
The inventor of dynamite, blasting caps, smokeless gunpowder and hundreds of other mean and nasty things, was very much alive, but his brother Ludwig was not. The newspaper had made a mistake, but it was a mistake that helped Alfred Nobel turn to a new career.
So appalled and ashamed was he with the obituary that described him as a "bellicose monster" and which reported that his discoveries "had boosted the bloody art of war from bullets and bayonets to long-range explosives" – all of which was true, of course – that his conscience pricked him and he decided to make amends somehow.
It was due to the shame of knowing what he had made, and what he had become, that he used some of his great wealth (derived in part from war) to create the Nobel Peace prizes.
Or, so it is said.
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Expect more deserters as Iraq force morale hits low
So say US veterans groups
The World Today – Tuesday, 13 April , 2004 12:17:53 Reporter: Karen Percy
TANYA NOLAN: There are fresh reports that the morale of US troops in Iraq is very low in the wake of the hostage takings and intensifying attacks.
And there seems to be growing resentment within the ranks of the military.
On the ABC's Lateline last night two soldiers, who've escaped to Canada in the hopes of seeking refugee status, spoke about their concerns over the war.
Some veterans groups in the US believe there'll be more deserters to come.
Karen Percy reports.
KAREN PERCY: Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey are far from the frontlines in Iraq, but they are engaged in a battle of their own, against the US administration and the war itself.
Last night, they appeared on the ABC's Lateline program from Canada.
Jeremy Hinzman is 25-years-old from South Dakota. He joined the US military in 2001, and served in Afghanistan, but he was not prepared to participate in this war.
JEREMY HINZMAN: Obviously, the Nuremberg Tribunal is saying, as a soldier you have a responsibility to not carry out illegal acts, and that's the logic I used for what I've done. If I were to go to Iraq, I would be taking part in a criminal enterprise.
KAREN PERCY: Since January he's been awaiting news from Canadian authorities, about whether they'll grant him refugee status.
Fellow military deserter, Brandon Huey, is also hoping that he won't have to return to the United States.
BRANDON HUGHEY: I feel that this war is wrong, and I'm not going to let myself be a part in it. Just because I signed a contract, doesn't mean I should throw out my moral principles.
KAREN PERCY: Their cases are being keenly watched by US veterans groups. David Cline is the National President of Veterans for Peace.
DAVID CLINE: There've been a few cases recently, there are several people up there in Canada right now, trying to get refugee status. And there's also been several refusers in the military. There was one guy, Camille O'Mahoney (phonetic), who had served in Iraq, he came home on leave and he refused to go back. And we don't know how many people are out there. There's at least 700 people at this point that they say are AWOL/ deserters. And we don't know where they're at, or what they are doing, but I think that these initial cases, and the outcome of them is going to have an impact on what happens after that.
KAREN PERCY: There is a network of groups across the United States helping those who wish to flee the military and the country. Not all of those groups are keen to talk publicly, but there is talk of establishing yet another underground railway to Canada.
At the very least, deserters face court marshal and perhaps jail time. Still, Veterans for Peace President, David Cline, believes there will be those prepared to voice their dissatisfaction.
DAVID CLINE: I think that the deserters and the resisters are just sort of the tip of the iceberg, and the real iceberg is all the guys in, and women, 'cause there is a large number of women in our military today, who when their time comes up and they get out, are not going to re-enlist.
KAREN PERCY: David Cline says that while the number of deserters is much smaller than that seen in the Vietnam War, if soldiers rebel, there could be major political ramifications.
DAVID CLINE: Increasingly this administration is being compelled to look at the idea of conscription, and if a draft comes in, all hell's going to break loose.
KAREN PERCY: What do you think the chances of that happening are?
DAVID CLINE: Well I don't think anything is going to happen before this election.
KAREN PERCY: A spokesman for the US Consulate in Sydney referred The World Today's queries to the Pentagon in Washington. We were unable to speak to anyone at the Pentagon.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Friends in High Places: The Story of Clear Channel
Clear Channel: Lessons in Building a Media Empire
Building a media empire is no simple task. But it helps to know the right people. Our story today is about Clear Channel Communications, the media conglomerate notorious for its vast network of radio stations, but which is increasingly spreading its tentacles across a broad array of music, advertising, and other media. Not surprisingly, this story includes profiles of two brothers closely connected to the Bush administration, which has been very supportive of allowing media conglomerates to grow even larger.
Send your message to John Hogan, CEO of Clear Channel Radio: ACT NOW!
CONNECTIONS COUNT:
The Hicks brothers and the Bush Administration have had a mutually beneficial relationship for at least a decade. Tom Hicks, vice chairman of Clear Channel, and his brother Steven Hicks, who built and sold a radio empire, together raised about $200,000 for Bush’s presidential campaign in 2000, giving them “Pioneer” fundraiser status. Their connections, however, go much deeper than that.
President Bush's involvement with the Hicks family began shortly after his first gubernatorial victory in 1994. In 1995, as a member of the University of Texas Board of Regents, Tom Hicks successfully lobbied then Governor Bush and the Texas legislature to create the University of Texas Investment Management Company, a private enterprise known as UTIMCO that controlled the school's public funds.
Tom Hicks served as chairman until 1999, when reports surfaced that almost a third of UTIMCO’s $1.7 billion in private equities between 1995 and 1998 had been invested with firms personally or politically connected to Hicks or Bush.
In addition to these questionable dealings, Hicks helped make Bush a very wealthy man in 1998 when he purchased the Texas Rangers for $250 million from the ownership group that included the then-Texas governor. Bush's 1.8 percent stake in the franchise landed him nearly $15 million on a $600,000 investment.
Not surprisingly, Clear Channel is known for advancing an agenda friendly to the Bush Administration. For example, many media critics questioned Clear Channel’s “Rally for America,” a series of controversial 2003 pro-war rallies sponsored and promoted by individual Clear Channel stations throughout the country. [Emphasis added. -v]
Thanks to the efforts of Steven and Tom Hicks and the continuing erosion of media ownership laws, Clear Channel now stands as the largest owner of radio stations in the country, with more than 1,200. It also owns 39 television stations, a number that could grow under new media ownership laws, as well as 135 live entertainment venues, 41 amphitheaters in the United States, 30 venues in Europe and a half million outdoor billboards worldwide. [Emphasis added. -v]
Read the entire story on the Hicks brothers and their connections to the Bush administration:
WHAT DOES CLEAR CHANNEL OWE US?
Clear Channel reaches some 180 million listeners across the country. They do so using airwaves that are the property of the American people. Clear Channel merely holds a broadcasting license for them. With that kind of privilege comes great responsibility. Common Cause thinks Clear Channel owes the public more. [Emphasis added. -v]
What do you think about radio? Because YOU own these airwaves, you have a voice in changing them. Join us and send a message to Clear Channel as we ask the company to do better.
What would you like hear more of:
More local musicians on your favorite radio station? More coverage of local and national elections and issues? More news stories of local interest? More diverse opinions on talk radio? You Decide! Now let Clear Channel know.
Send your message to John Hogan, CEO of Clear Channel Radio: ACT NOW!
Know someone who would like to send Clear Channel an opinion? Forward this message!
Apparently ClearChannelSucks.org has been "disappeared." Too bad. It put up a great freedom fight! In its place has appeared ClearChannelBites. Long may she run!
Contrary to what we hear about "insurgents" being responsible for the resistance against American forces and deaths of American troops in Iraq, there's quite a bit going on over there that we're not hearing about in our mainstream media. The following past PINR analyses are relevant when understanding the current Shi'a uprising:
"What To Do With Moqtada Al-Sadr" Drafted by Erich Marquardt on April 08, 2004 Power and Interest News Report (PINR)
Pushing Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani into the shadows, Shi'a leader Moqtada al-Sadr has emerged into the Iraqi spotlight, finally flexing his muscles by calling his followers into open confrontation with the United States. Al-Sadr has created a dilemma for the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) because his rabid anti-Americanism makes him difficult to negotiate with, yet his large, dedicated following warrants that course.
Al-Sadr, just at the tender age of 31, is the son of respected Shi'a cleric Mohamed Sadeq al-Sadr, who was assassinated by Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party in 1999 due to his outspoken criticism of its policies. The rest of his family -- including his two older brothers and a famous uncle -- were also murdered by Ba'ath Party operatives.
With such big shoes to fill, al-Sadr is hoping to leave his mark on Iraqi society, utilizing the power gained from his prominent family background to rally Iraq's Shi'a together against a common enemy. With the Ba'ath Party dissolved, that enemy has become the new wielder of power in Iraq, the U.S.-led coalition. Hoping to prove to Washington that he is a force that must be contended with, al-Sadr wants to be intimately involved in decisions regarding the future of the Iraqi state.
After the fall of Saddam, al-Sadr quickly worked to fill the newly created power vacuum in Baghdad. In the early days after the U.S.-led invasion, al-Sadr sent his disciples into the Baghdad streets to hand out food and water at a time when social services were either insufficient or non-existent. His private militia, known as the Mehdi Army, provided desperately needed security in Baghdad's Shi'a slums. All of these quick actions undertaken by al-Sadr boosted his reputation in the eyes of Iraq's Shi'a, earning him much more respect than the CPA.
Therefore, when the CPA decided to shut down his newspaper, al-Hawza, there was bound to be a power struggle. It was clear from the start of this struggle which side Iraq's Shi'a would be on.
The justification for shutting down al-Hawza stemmed from the fact that al-Sadr's fiery anti-American rhetoric was becoming increasingly incendiary toward the CPA. Openly criticizing the leadership of the U.S. in Iraq, al-Sadr was beginning to concern Washington policymakers. While he never publicly called his followers into open revolt against CPA troops, he was continuously tarring the image of the CPA, and at the same time buoying his prestige and power in the Shi'a community.
This created a difficult situation for the CPA. The CPA could have chosen to embrace al-Sadr, to offer him a prominent role in the new Iraqi government, but al-Sadr's ideology is so at odds with U.S. interests that Washington was unwilling to go this route. The second option, which is the course that the U.S. has followed since the fall of Saddam, was to simply ignore al-Sadr, and not exacerbate tensions with him. This explains why the United States did little to disarm al-Sadr's Mehdi Army even though the CPA publicly stated that private militias were outlawed in Iraq. However, in recent days, due to the increasing stature of al-Sadr, Washington chose to give up its policy of isolation and move directly against al-Sadr's interests.
Once the CPA shut down al-Hawza, al-Sadr responded with even more anti-American tongue lashing. Washington retaliated by arresting one of his top deputies on a year-old murder charge, which was basically used as an excuse to punish al-Sadr for his anti-American stance. It was then that al-Sadr called for his followers to openly defy U.S.-led troops in the streets of Iraq. This civil uprising among the Shi'a community led to many Iraqi deaths and over a handful of CPA troop losses.
Now, the CPA has put out a warrant for the arrest of al-Sadr, on the same year-old murder charge that his deputy is being held for. Al-Sadr has apparently moved into the city of Najaf, surrounded and protected by his followers and his private militia. It will be very significant to see how Washington decides to proceed from this point. While al-Sadr is an obstacle for the CPA, the alternative of arresting him is bound to create massive unrest in Iraq's Shi'a community. CPA forces are already so taxed and spread so thin that, without a significant influx of new troops, it will have a difficult time quelling any Shi'a uprising as long as attacks in the Sunni Arab areas continue too. Hoping to strengthen his hand, U.S. General John Abizaid has apparently requested more troops from the Pentagon.
Furthermore, while al-Sadr is often scorned by other Shi'a leaders, his movement against the CPA is so popular among Shi'a that other clerics have been very cautious in speaking out against him. For example, the highest religious authority among Iraq's Shi'a, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has called for an end to the violence but said that the motives behind al-Sadr's revolt were "legitimate."
Al-Sadr wants to make it clear that he has the power to alter U.S. plans in Iraq and, because of this power, he expects Washington to compromise on its interests and allow al-Sadr to have a significant role in Iraqi politics. There is no simple way to alleviate the situation and any mistakes made at this point in Iraq's progression could be detrimental to the future success of the U.S.-led reconstruction efforts.
----- The Power and Interest News Report (PINR) is an analysis-based publication that seeks to, as objectively as possible, provide insight into various conflicts, regions and points of interest around the globe. PINR approaches a subject based upon the powers and interests involved, leaving the moral judgments to the reader. This report may not be reproduced, reprinted or broadcast without the written permission of inquiries@pinr.com. All comments should be directed to content@pinr.com.
Welcome to "The Daily Outrage," your last best hope to keep up with the blizzard of Bush-era bad news. Whether they're cutting down your forests, raiding your retirement funds, reading your email or shrinking your constitutional rights, the Republican (sometimes it's bipartisan) assault advances by the hour. The outrages come so fast that it's hard for even well-read citizens to stay abreast. So this column will provide you with a regular update on their doings. Pass it on.
Nero Fiddles
A "war-time president" wouldn't skip town just as the combat situation soured.
Which must by why George W. Bush has skipped town.
Yes, he's taken another unearned vacation down in Texas, where he's been showing off his expansive ranch to representatives of the National Rifle Association and other "sporting aficionados and conservation groups."
Now, why true sportsmen would have any interest in the anti-Teddy Roosevelt -- the President who's weakened protections on as much land as Roosevelt set aside, and whose shootin'-fish-in-a-barrel sidekick is Dick Cheney -- is beyond me.
But it's good to know that George W. Bush has found time for a 500th vacation day, even as the ever-rising American death toll in Iraq reaches 628. (For all of you shrill semantic hair-splitters out there who divide war zone sacrifices into those that count and those that don't, the toll of Americans killed in full-on combat action stands, at this writing, at 455. It's no doubt rising even as I type this.)
And yet Bring 'Em On Bush is taking it manfully in stride. As The Washington Post reports, "This is Bush's 33rd visit to his ranch since becoming president. He has spent all or part of 233 days on his Texas ranch since taking office ... Adding his 78 visits to Camp David and his five visits to Kennebunkport, Maine, Bush has spent all or part of 500 days in office at one of his three retreats, or more than 40 percent of his presidency." [Emphasis added. -v]
That includes a month-long kick-back in August 2001 that was the longest presidential vacation in 32 years. [Emphasis added. -v]
Forty percent of his presidency! That's the equivalent of taking paid leave off from Jan. 1 to May 24. Must be nice. But it sure does cast a harsh new light on this Administration's anti-weekend drive to scale back overtime pay.
[Hey! If Dubya is such a big cowboy, how come we've never seen him on a HORSE?! We've seen him fall off a Segway, but you'd think on horseback would be a great photo-op. Just as I thought! All hat, no cattle and skeered o'horses. -v]
The Biddenden Dole The Biddenden Maids and the Chulkhurst Charity
The Biddenden Maids, Elisa (or Eliza) and Mary Chulkhurst, were conjoined twins (sometimes called Siamese twins) who were born in Biddenden, Kent, England in 1100. In the popular imagination of the time, the death of King William was associated with the Maids and other 'anomalous' occurrences.They were joined at the hip, although illustrations also depict them joined at the shoulder. Mary and Elisa died in 1134 and left their estate for an unusual charity, associated with Easter Monday. It is said that the death of one was followed in a few hours by the death of the other.
On Easter Monday (some sources say Easter Sunday) some six hundred so-called Biddenden cakes are distributed among parishioners who attended the afternoon services at the church, as well as some about hundred loaves of bread, each of three and a half pounds weight, and each accompanied by a pound and a half of cheese. Beer also used to be distributed until the seventeenth century but the bread, cheese and cakes are still allocated. As well as the picture of the sisters on the cakes their names appear, and on the apron of one is written the number 34 – the age at which Elisa and Mary died.
The endowment comes from the earnings of an estate known as the Bread and Cheese lands, which, according to the best authorities, were some centuries ago left to the parish for this purpose by the Chulkhurst sisters (some sources give their surname as Preston).
The Biddenden cakes have impressed on them the figures of the sisters. What we know of the story of the Biddenden Maids largely comes from a handbill that used to be printed and sold on the spot, entitled 'A Short but Concise Account of Elizabeth and Mary Chalkhurst'.
We note, too, that a similar story has been told of two females whose figures appear in the pavement of Norton St. Philip Church in Somersetshire, England. Edward Hasted in his History of Kent (1798) has examined the Biddenden myth, and decides that it arose simply from the rough impression on the cakes, which had been printed in this manner only within the preceding fifty years.
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
*Ø* Blogmanac | How GI bullies are making enemies of their Iraqi friends
Iraqis who detested Saddam and welcomed the invasion are uniting against a new perceived oppressor – the US. Paul McGeough reports from Baghdad.
"It should have been a weekend of celebration – the first anniversary of the toppling of Saddam Hussein and the first chance in decades for millions of Iraqi Shiites to join the Arbi'een pilgrimage to the southern shrine city of Kerbala – their holiest day which had been outlawed by Saddam.
"Instead, the country is in convulsions and it seems the Americans have already lost the battle for Iraqi hearts and minds ...
"Sadeer, my driver in Baghdad, is leaning the same way.
"When he arrived at the Palestine Hotel yesterday he was limping; the leg of his jeans was soaked in blood. The cut was small and we were able to bandage it, but George Bush had lost another Iraqi friend.
"Sadeer, a 28-year-old Shiite, had been an enthusiastic supporter of the Americans and he takes his life in his hands by working for me. Iraqis are being executed just for being in the company of Westerners.
"But his encounter with a bullying US soldier, who roughed him up as he came through the security cordon around the hotel, has pushed him into the nationalist Iraqi camp.
"When the GI challenged him, Sadeer tried to explain in his limited English that he entered the hotel routinely. But he was barked at, shoved away and then belted on the foot with a rifle. He used to slow in traffic to greet the US troops. Now he has turned: 'Americans bad for Iraq – too many problems.'
"Leaving the hotel on foot, we had to go through the same streets to get to his car. I tried to explain our movements to the officer in charge of a US tank unit, but we were greeted with a stream of invective.
"As I thanked the officer for his civility and moved on, one of his men fell in beside me, mumbling. Asked to repeat himself, he exploded: 'Don't you f---in' eyeball me.'
"Nodding to his officer and raising his weapon, he shrieked: 'He has rank to lose. I don't. I'll take you out quick as a flash, motherf---er!' Source: Sydney Morning Herald
"A senior Defence Department adviser says she lost her job because she refused to write a briefing paper, which she says would have lied about the threat posed by Iraq's weapons programs.
"Jane Errey was a senior adviser with the Defence Science and Technology Organisation until she was sacked last week ...
"Ms Errey says the Defence Department asked her to write a briefing paper claiming Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, but that was not backed up by intelligence material she had seen.
"'I believe I was being asked, as was the rest of the department at that time, to perpetuate the lie that the Government was putting forward in so far as the weapons of mass destruction existed and that they were a grave threat to the rest of the world,' Ms Errey said ..." Source: ABC
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From the BBC: "The oldest pieces of jewellery made by modern humans have emerged in Africa.
1854 Birth of Benjamin Tucker (d. 1939), American publisher, journalist, propagandist, theorist, leading proponent of individualist anarchism in the 19th century, born at South Dartmouth, Massachusetts, USA. Tucker translated into English Proudhon’s classic work What is Property? 
time, Emerson's first book, Nature, was the bible of the movement. It begins by inviting the new generation to leave the past behind, to "enjoy an original relation to the universe." It ends by exhorting the reader to "build your own world." These "new views"--Emerson's preferred term for what others would soon call Transcendentalism--never became a mass cultural or media phenomenon. Most Americans were more interested in the gold in California than the wealth that Emerson said was to be found within, and more interested in building railroads and factories than in creating the newer world he announced as imminent. But as a prophet or popular philosopher Emerson inspired thousands in his time and helped articulate for all time the idea that America is less a place than a process--a becoming new. [Emphasis added. -v]
America's most famous "drop out." When he moved to Walden Pond as a protest against conventional society and as the first citizen of what he calls "the only true America," he disappointed the parents who had scraped and saved to send him to college. When he transformed his two years in the woods into Walden, however, he gave American culture one of its most resonant symbolic gestures. The land he built his cabin on belonged to Emerson, though in his own version of the sixties dictum that you can't trust anyone over thirty Thoreau vehemently denied all debts: "I have lived some thirty years on this planet," he wrote in Walden, "and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors. They have told me nothing, and probably cannot tell me anything to the purpose." 
mysticism and sexuality, his poetry is a newer testament, a celebration of the kingdom of consciousness that can be found in the soul, in the body, in the "kosmos," and in all the forms of spirit and matter. Whitman urged his listeners to get outside and become "undisguised and naked:" "Unscrew the locks from the doors! Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!" Few in his time even recognized his work as poetry, and on several occasions he was prosecuted for obscenity. This first edition of Leaves of Grass, which Whitman published himself, had almost no sale at all. Between 1855 and his death in 1892, Whitman kept adding poems to new editions of Leaves of Grass, and by the end of his life had acquired a few disciples. But it wasn't until the twentieth century that the literary critical establishment recognized him as one of the great American poets. To such anti-establishment figures as Allen Ginsberg (who 100 years after Leaves of Grass first appeared used the lines about "unscrewing the locks" as the epigraph to Howl) he was even greater as the prophet of cultural revolution. 
by H.D. Thoreau, Esq." In our time the essay is better-known as "Civil Disobedience." In this work Thoreau describes how he went to jail rather than pay taxes to support the Mexican War and the slave system that he felt was the real reason America was fighting in Mexico. Neither the essay nor Thoreau's act of protest attracted much attention among his contemporaries, but it later inspired Mahatma Gandhi, who read it while in jail in South Africa, and through him Martin Luther King. Thoreau's example was also a major inspiration to the anti-war movement of the sixties. "Break the law," Thoreau writes, "Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine." Interested in many forms of radical change, from education to utopian communities, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody herself was an important figure in the cultural revolution of the 1840s and 1850s. Henry James caricatures her as Miss Birdseye in The Bostonians. 
Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony, and so on--grew out of the Abolitionist Movement, and addressed its efforts to specific political reforms like suffrage. Margaret Fuller was never in that camp. But her Woman in the Nineteenth Century was the first American book devoted to the question of woman's place and rights. It was the final product of Fuller's own participation in the unorganized Transcendentalist movement. Starting from the idea that the divine spirit is in all consciousness, Fuller argues for complete equality between the sexes: "I have believed and intimated that this hope would receive an ampler fruition than ever before in our own land. And it will do so if this land carry out the principles from which sprang our national life. I believe that at present women are the best helpers of one another. Let them think; let them act; till they know what they need." 
"On Wednesday, President Bush held only his third press conference and was asked three times whether he accepted responsibility for failing to act on warning before September 11. "I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer, but it hadn't [sic] yet," he said. "I just haven't - you just put me under the spot here and maybe I'm not quick - as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one." 
1912 On its maiden voyage, RMS Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean; it finished sinking at about 2:20 am the next day.
"A senior Army intelligence analyst has written to the [Australian] Prime Minister calling for a royal commission into Australia's intelligence services, claiming there has been systemic failures and a culture of cover up. 
1888 Alfred Nobel woke in his Paris home and opened the morning newspaper. There, to his surprise, he read his own obituary.
The Biddenden Dole
Iraqis who detested Saddam and welcomed the invasion are uniting against a new perceived oppressor – the US. Paul McGeough reports from Baghdad.