A-Changin' Times (ACT)
Born in the aftermath of 9/11, ACT has become as political as the times.
Now a blog for alternative news, views and rants offered with a twist, a song and a smile. Fair and balanced.

The Times They Are A-Changin'

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize [sic] with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.
 — Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan Copyright 1963
(1991 Special Rider)

"A-Changin' Times: taking the best from the past to make the most of the present and to create a better future."

"What marching through the streets was to the Sixties, walking through the halls of Congress is now."

 — Marianne Williamson

You're visiting a website that incorporates a blogging feature, not "just" a blog.

Blog entries follow, most recent entries at the top

Saturday, November 08, 2003

	:: DUG853		11/08/2003 12:53:00 PM

This is What Rush Limbaugh Thinks About People
Who use Drugs: And What the Faux President Thinks
About the Demagogue Drug Addicted Populist

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

Excerpt:

"There's nothing good about drug use. We know it. It destroys individuals. It destroys families. Drug use destroys societies. Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. And the laws are good because we know what happens to people in societies and neighborhoods which become consumed by them. And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up.

"What this says to me is that too many whites are getting away with drug use. Too many whites are getting away with drug sales. Too many whites are getting away with trafficking in this stuff. The answer to this disparity is not to start letting people out of jail because we're not putting others in jail who are breaking the law. The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them and send them up the river, too."
-- Rush Limbaugh show, Oct. 5, 1995

* * *

Rush will rant on for sure, after proclaiming that sessions with Jerry Falwell have recommitted him to Christ. He will be “reborn.” He will “triumph over adversity.” He will be embraced by Bush as a true patriot and the betrayal of America will continue, leaving in its wake a trail of brazen lies and the ancient ruins of democracy.

Click Here for the Story

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	:: DUG853		11/08/2003 10:29:00 AM

The Bioweapons and Biodefense Freedom of Information
Fund (FOI Fund) promotes transparency in research on
biological (and biochemical) weapons

[Here is another place to get at least SOME info about America's
chemical/biowarfares programs and what OUR tax dollars are
being used for. --DUG]

The Fund files requests under the US Freedom of Information Act and other open records laws, distributing results to civil society organizations, academic researchers, and the general public.

The Fund's work generates primary documentation on biodefense and related programs, supporting research and advocacy efforts for biological weapons control.

Tax-deductible contributions are used exclusively to pursue requests under open records laws.

The FOI Fund is overseen by a Management Committee that reviews and approves the Fund's work.

The FOI Fund supports open records requests of the Sunshine Project and other non-governmental and community organizations and researchers.

Results are placed in the FOI Fund's online archive.

SOURCE

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	:: Nora		11/08/2003 05:49:00 AM

Jessica Lynch: "I'm No Hero"

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Army private Jessica Lynch, the badly injured U.S. prisoner of war who was rescued from a hospital during the Iraq war, said in her first interview that she is not the Rambo-style hero she has been portrayed as by American media and the military.

Lynch, 20, told ABC network reporter Diane Sawyer in an interview to be aired on "Primetime" next Tuesday, the same day as her authorized biography is published, that she never fired a shot when ambushed.

"My weapon did jam and I did not shoot, not a round, nothing. I don't look at myself as a hero. My heroes are Lori (Private Lori Piestewa, who died in the ambush of Lynch's convoy), the soldiers that are over there, the soldiers that were in the car beside me, the ones that came and rescued me," she said.

Lynch is still recovering from injuries to her spine, and cannot walk without crutches. She has no feeling in her left foot and has other medical problems.

Lynch, who became a symbol of U.S. heroism during the early stages of the war on Iraq, insisted, "I am just a survivor."

In an advance, partial copy of the ABC interview, Lynch said she was hurt that other people had "made up stories" about her fiercely fighting her Iraqi captors.

"I'm not about to take credit for something that I didn't do ... It hurt in a way that people would make up stories that they had no truth about. Only I would have been able to know that because the other four people on my vehicle aren't here to tell that story."

Source/Full text

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Friday, November 07, 2003

	:: Nora		11/07/2003 08:49:00 PM

White House Puts Limits on Queries From Democrats

By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
November 7

The Bush White House, irritated by pesky questions from congressional Democrats about how the administration is using taxpayer money, has developed an efficient solution: It will not entertain any more questions from opposition lawmakers.

The decision -- one that Democrats and scholars said is highly unusual -- was announced in an e-mail sent Wednesday to the staff of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. House committee Democrats had just asked for information about how much the White House spent making and installing the "Mission Accomplished" banner for President Bush's May 1 speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.

The director of the White House Office of Administration, Timothy A. Campen, sent an e-mail titled "congressional questions" to majority and minority staff on the House and Senate Appropriations panels. Expressing "the need to add a bit of structure to the Q&A process," he wrote: "Given the increase in the number and types of requests we are beginning to receive from the House and Senate, and in deference to the various committee chairmen and our desire to better coordinate these requests, I am asking that all requests for information and materials be coordinated through the committee chairmen and be put in writing from the committee."

He said this would limit "duplicate requests" and help answer questions "in a timely fashion."

It would also do another thing: prevent Democrats from getting questions answered without the blessing of the GOP committee chairmen.

CONTINUE

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Thursday, November 06, 2003

	:: Nora		11/06/2003 05:36:00 PM

Human Rights Watch Honors Global Rights Defenders

Egyptian, Liberian and U.S. Activists Recognized
Statement from HRW

(New York, November 6) -- Leading human rights defenders from Egypt, Liberia and the United States will receive Human Rights Watch's highest honor at its annual dinner on Wednesday, November 12, in New York.

"The human rights activists we honor have worked tirelessly to promote basic rights and freedoms," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "Their courage and dedication to the cause of human rights is an inspiration to us all."

The global human rights defenders to be honored for the year 2003 have fought to end torture and promote women's rights in Egypt, defended the rule of law in Liberia during wartime, and spotlighted the plight of children held in adult jails in the United States.

Human Rights Watch staff members work closely with these brave individuals as part of our defense of human rights in more than 70 countries around the world.

The 2003 Human Rights Watch Annual Dinners in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco will honor:

- Dr. Aida Seif El-Dawla, for her work to combat torture and promote women's rights and freedom of association in Egypt;
- Tiawan Gongloe, for defending the rule of law and human rights during Liberia's violent civil war;
- Javier Stauring, for fighting to improve detention conditions for youths tried as adults in the United States.

Human Rights Watch is a nonprofit, international monitoring group with headquarters in New York. We accept no financial support from any government.

To read press releases on individual honorees, please see:

Human Rights Watch Honors Liberian Lawyer

Los Angeles Juvenile Hall Chaplain Honored for Human Rights Work

Human Rights Watch Honors Egyptian Anti-Torture Activist

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	:: DUG853		11/06/2003 10:27:00 AM

HALLIBURTON CONTRACT EXTENSION CANCELLED
AMID ALLEGATIONS OF OVERCHARGING TAXPAYERS

The Army Corps of Engineers is "likely" to cancel the no-bid contract extension granted a week ago to Halliburton for delivery of oil-related services amid allegations that Halliburton is overcharging the federal government to import oil into Iraq.

The decision to revisit the contract extension comes in part due to the assertions from inside the Pentagon that Halliburton's price for imported gasoline was "at least double what it should be."

FULL TEXT

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Wednesday, November 05, 2003

	:: Nora		11/05/2003 10:09:00 AM

Flying in the face of privacy
5 November, Irish Times

An intending traveller to the US could be branded a security threat without right of appeal under new plans, writes Ian Kilroy in Boston

In Steven Spielberg's science fiction film Minority Report suspects are arrested before they commit a crime. A "pre-crime" police unit apprehends them based on the predictions of clairvoyants who can apparently see crimes to be committed in the future. People who have yet to do their wrongs are taken away. The authorities assume the information they act on is flawless.

It turns out to be anything but.

Today, something like this sci-fi scenario is becoming reality. Based on who you might turn out to be, the US wants a lot of your personal details before you arrive. The EU, among others, isn't too happy with the proposal.

The Department of Homeland Security says it needs to introduce the passenger screening system for everyone travelling to or within the US. [My emphasis - N]

The idea is to delve into private, commercial and government records to compile profiles of every US-bound traveller, instantly colour-code them as green, yellow or red security threats and draw up a no-fly list of everybody who is considered potentially dangerous.

Not only does the plan appear to disregard EU privacy laws, but also it may not prove effective in doing what it's designed to do: stop another September 11th.

The United States' current scheme, the Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-Screening System (CAPPS), was introduced in 1996, after TWA flight 800 went down over Long Island Sound, killing 230 people.

Before it was learned that the tragedy had nothing to do with terrorism, CAPPS had been implemented by the Clinton administration. The system was supposed to single out potential terrorists for increased vetting before they boarded flights. Passengers who bought one-way tickets, checked in without baggage or paid for flights in cash were flagged by the original CAPPS system as potential threats.

Now Homeland Security's Transportation Security Administration wants to go a lot further. CAPPS II, as the proposed new system is known, would be the largest surveillance system ever used on civilian populations, what the American Civil Liberties Union has dubbed a "surveillance monster that won't make anyone safer".

The idea is that each airline will supply the Transportation Security Administration with the name, address, date of birth and telephone number of each prospective passenger. A computer will then use data-mining software to cross-reference that information with computerised records. Next your level of security risk will be determined, and finally your passenger profile - with potentially everything from your on-board food preferences and travel companions to your credit-card details and employment record - will be stored for years to come.

For CAPPS II to work, a huge amount of private information will be needed about each passenger; otherwise it will be impossible to build a profile of each individual. Of the 39 pieces of information that the US wants on each traveller, only 19 are permitted to be disclosed under EU privacy laws.

Airlines that co-operate with the US will be breaking EU law. Airlines that refuse to gather intelligence will be denied US landing rights. The EU and US are at loggerheads, and the airlines are caught uncomfortably in the middle.

Critics of CAPPS II say that part of the problem is that private information is likely to be sold on to marketing interests by the companies that run the computerised reservation systems that airlines use for booking passengers. At least one of the four big reservation- system companies that the Transportation Security Administration plans to use to gather information has subsidiaries in the marketing world. The US has nothing like the data-protection legislation that exists in Europe, and it is likely that intimate information on private citizens would be sold on from company to company.

Another problem is that, as it stands, CAPPS II has no independent appeals procedure. If the system indicates you are a red, or high-risk, passenger due to faulty information (of which there is plenty) held on computer, or simply because it couldn't source enough information on you, then you could end up on a no-fly list. As appeals are up to the administration, with no independent adjudication, you could be left on that no-fly list with no recourse.

While negotiations continue between the EU and US, opposition to CAPPS II is mounting within the US. About 8,000 people have formally objected to the federal government about the plan, and at least one man is suing the government, saying curtailing his right to travel in any way is a challenge to his constitutional right to freedom of assembly.

But even Congress is wary when it come to CAPPS II. It has requested that the scheme not progress until issues of privacy and cost have been sufficiently examined. It seems Congress is beginning to have second thoughts about the free rein it has given the Bush administration since the September 11th attacks.

Other US groups that have not been too keen on the Homeland Security proposals are the Association of Corporate Travel Executives, an association for business travellers, and, as might be expected, the airline industry, which hardly needs anything that makes flying less attractive at the moment.

Advocates for CAPPS II counter criticism by pointing to the trade-off needed in civil liberties for increased security. Isn't it worth giving up a little privacy to ensure thousands don't die in another 9/11-style attack?

That argument is undermined by the ease of "identity theft". For a few hundred dollars a fake ID can be bought on the black market. It would not be too difficult for a terrorist to pass himself off as someone else, gain a green - or safe - passenger profile and so be subject to less stringent security checks. As for forging an identity, the Internet is flooded with the four essentials of any identity: name, date of birth, address and telephone number.

Still, the Department of Homeland Security plans to have CAPPS II up and running by next summer. Negotiations continue and the EU commissioner with responsibility for data protection, Frits Bolkestein, has managed to get some concessions - the US has watered down the length of time it wanted to keep each passenger profile from 50 years to seven, for example.

But the US administration is in bullish mood, and the Department of Homeland Security seems eager to push this through.

CAPPS II is a system terrorists will find a way to beat - and one that sacrifices much in civil liberties without having been proven effective. But its advocates do not consider these arguments convincing. Nor does the US seem concerned about the implications for the privacy laws of other nations.

SOURCE [This article is 'premium' content, so I've given the entire piece here - N]

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Tuesday, November 04, 2003

	:: DUG853		11/04/2003 10:19:00 PM

THINGS DUG UP BY DUG


I Sometimes Feel Like An Alien Creature

This may take a moment to load but it's well worth your time.

FLASH PRESENTATION


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William Pfaff: A fiction shattered by America's aggression

What actually has happened during the past nine months is something Americans have yet to grasp, and that others have yet to say out loud:

People outside the United States have stopped believing the American story.

FULL TEXT


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Six Months On, and Still No Signs of WMD
COLUMN ONE
By Barton Gellman

IN THEIR march to Baghdad on April 8, US marines charged past a row of eucalyptus trees that lined the boneyard of Iraq’s thwarted nuclear dream. Sixty acres of warehouses behind the treeline, held under United Nations seal at Ash Shaykhili, stored machine tools, consoles and instruments from the nuclear weapons programme cut short by the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

Thirty miles to the north and west, troops were rolling through the precincts of the Nasr munitions plant. Inside, stacked in oblong wooden crates, were thousands of high-strength aluminum tubes.

That equipment, and Iraq’s effort to buy more of it overseas, were central to the Bush administration’s charge that Saddam Hussein had resumed long-dormant efforts to build a nuclear weapon.

CONTINUE


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The Blind Are Not Hindered By The Darkness

FLASH PRESENTATION


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Iraq Business Deals May Be Invalid, Law Experts Warn

The US-led provisional authority in Iraq may be breaking international law by selling state assets, experts have warned.

FULL TEXT


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Number of Hungry Families in U.S. Rising
By EMILY GERSEMA
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - About 12 million American families last year worried that they couldn't afford to buy food, and 32 percent of them actually experienced someone going hungry at one time or another, the Agriculture Department said Friday.

It was the third year in a row that the department has seen an increase in the number of households experiencing hunger and those worried about having enough money to pay for food.

Based on a Census Bureau survey of 50,000 households, the department estimated that 3.8 million families were hungry last year to the point where someone in the household skipped meals because they couldn't afford them. That's an 8.6 percent increase from 2001, when 3.5 million families were hungry, and a 13 percent increase from 2000.

Also, more and more families are unsure if they can afford to eat or don't have enough food in their cupboards.

FULL TEXT


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A Lot of Manure, No Pony

When Bush was asked whether American troops would be coming home in another year or would still be in Iraq in force, he denounced the question as a "trick" and refused to answer.

Bush should put politics aside; Americans deserve a serious response.

FULL TEXT


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Osama Doesn't Like Us

I've noticed that when Osama bin Laden issues a statement, the full text is rarely reported to the American people.
In the interest of knowing our enemy, I thought I'd pass along a few of his statements.

CLICK HERE FOR STATEMENTS


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In case you missed it:

We Don't Want Your War!

FLASH PRESENTATION

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	:: DUG853		11/04/2003 01:21:00 PM

THINGS DUG UP BY DUG

Canadian Broadcasting Investigative Report
from "The Fifth Estate" -- Conspiracy Theories

In the course of separating fact from fiction, "the fifth estate" TV show delves into the labyrinthine and surprising ties between the Bushes and the Bin Ladens. What it finds out may startle you as much as any conspiracy theory.


Must See Documentary Video

[Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by The Fifth Estate are not necessarily those
of the Editor or associates of ACT, The Blog, but while we are considering conspiracies, this is
one that defintiely deserves consideration. -v]


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BUSH ADMINISTRATION "NEOCONS" OVERSOLD PREWAR INTELLIGENCE
TO JUSTIFY WAR IN IRAQ
From The Daily Mis-lead, a Daily Chronicle
of Bush Administration Distortion (a project of MoveOn.org)

Facing increased pressure from ongoing and escalating violence in Iraq, President Bush held a press conference last week to calm critics, saying, "We took action based upon good, solid intelligence." But the President's assertion has been challenged by both the House and Senate intelligence communities and interviews with intelligence officers, one of whom said, "There seemed to be an unseemly eagerness to believe any information which would portray the Iraqi threat as being extremely grave and imminent."

The House and Senate intelligence committees have both concluded that intelligence assessments leading up to the war were, in the words of House Chairman Porter Goss, "not 100 percent on target."

CONTINUE

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	:: Nora		11/04/2003 09:56:00 AM

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Sunday, November 02, 2003

	:: Nora		11/02/2003 09:33:00 AM

BITS AND BOBS FROM THE ROVING BLOGGER

[No funnies in today's batch, that's for sure - N]

Microsoft Made Advances Toward Google

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp., seeking a foothold in the Internet search business, approached Google within the last two months to discuss a partnership or even a merger, The New York Times said on Friday.

Microsoft may still be interested in pursuing the Web search company at a later date, the report said, citing an executive briefed on the discussion, though its recent advances gained little traction.

CONTINUE


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Degrading treatment for women at Valley State Prison

News Release from Amnesty International
31 October

Amnesty International is calling on the California prison authorities to rescind a policy which allows male guards to conduct intrusive "pat down searches" (clothed body) of female prisoners.

"Cross-gender pat searches -- which according to a state training video, involve guards touching intimate parts of the inmate's body -- are inherently degrading and inconsistent with international standards and constitute a form of violence against women" Amnesty International said.

Amnesty International's action was prompted by news that Valley State Prison for Women (VSPW), the state's largest women's prison, has recently reinstated the practice after banning it for several years. The new policy introduced this year allows male guards to conduct unsupervised searches of female prisoners which involve touching the breast and crotch areas -- a procedure that was banned in VSPW in 1998 after years of complaints by prisoners of groping and other sexual abuse by male guards.

Research has shown that pat down searches and other intimate contact involving male guards can be particularly traumatizing for women prisoners, many of whom have histories of being physically or sexually abused before their incarceration.

For more information, please see:

The findings of a visit to Valley State Prison in California

A visit to Valley State Prison in California (Dr. Silvia Casale)


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Israel and US labelled biggest threats to World peace

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Over half of Europeans think that Israel now presents the biggest threat to world peace according to a controversial poll requested by the European Commission.

According to the same survey, Europeans believe the United States contributes the most to world instability along with Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and North Korea.

CONTINUE

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