Quote for Today:

"Permanent good can never be the outcome of untruth and violence."
-- Gandhi

Join the Blue Ribbon Online Free Speech Campaign!

Two years later...

From Slate.com

What You Think You Know About Sept. 11 ...
...but don't.
By David Plotz

A Busy Day at the Feeder

It has been an extremely busy day at the bird feeder. Normally the finches frequent it, an occasional sparrow stops by, and the cardinals pick up what the others drop. Here is what I have seen at my window so far today:

• Tufted Titmouse - * listen *


• Black-capped Chickadee - * listen *


• White-breasted Nuthatch - * listen *


• House Finch - * listen *


• House Wren - * listen *


• Northern Cardinal - * listen *

In addition there are the other birds that don't come to the feeder:

• Robins
• Bluejays
• Common Grackles
• Mourning Doves

If you could play all of those songs at once you would have an idea of what it sounds like around here during the day. At night it is just as noisy. To get an idea of what it sounds like here at night you should turn up the sound as high as you can and click here. I prefer the bird songs to the cicadas, the birds are better looking also.

War on Terror

How are we doing?

• Osama bin Laden - alive and free
  
• Saddam Hussein - alive and free
  
• Al Qaeda - thriving
• Mulluh Omar - alive and free
• Taliban - re-emerging
• WMD - nope
• Jose Padilla - American citizen, still being held as "enemy combatant," incommunicado and without charge
• 287 US troops killed in Iraq
• 1,450 US troops wounded in Iraq

TERROR! Be Afraid!

While Dubya and Rummie fight their war in Iraq, Ashcroft continues to press for expansion of the UPA to make it easier for him to spy on Americans here on the homefront.

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands ... may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."


-- James Madison, Federalist No. 47

Read this:

Fierce Fight Over Secrecy, Scope of Law

Amid Rights Debate, Law Cloaks Data on Its Impact

By Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 8, 2003; Page A01

In Seattle, the public library printed 3,000 bookmarks to alert patrons that the FBI could, in the name of national security, seek permission from a secret federal court to inspect their reading and computer records -- and prohibit librarians from revealing that a search had taken place.

In suburban Boston, a state legislator was stunned to discover last spring that her bank had blocked a $300 wire transfer because she is married to a naturalized U.S. citizen named Nasir Khan.

And in Hillsboro, Ore., Police Chief Ron Louie has ordered his officers to refuse to assist any federal terrorism investigations that his department believes violate state law or constitutional rights.

(read more)

Protect overtime pay:

Tell your senators to block the Bush overtime take away.

Block the Bush Overtime Pay Cuts

Michigan J. Frog

I saw one of my favorite animated shorts was on this morning. It is called "One Froggy Evening" and stars Michigan J Frog as a singing and dancing frog.

An out-of-luck man rescues the frog from a building that is being demolished and he thinks that the frog will make him rich. The man decides to put on a show but he discovers that the frog only performs when nobody else is around.

Quote for Today:

You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.


- George W. "The Education President" Bush,
Newsweek, March 5, 2001

Poem of the Day:

I Took a Piece of Plastic Clay
by: Author Unknown

I took a piece of plastic clay
And idly fashioned it one day-
And as my fingers pressed it, still
It moved and yielded to my will.


I came again when days were past
The bit of clay was hard at last.
The form I gave it, still it bore,
And I could change that form no more!


I took a piece of living clay,
And gently fashioned it day by day,
And molded with my power and art
A young child's soft and yielding heart.


I came again when years were gone:
It was a man I looked upon.
He still that early impress bore,
And I could fashion it never more.


Spoken on the Senate floor today by Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) while arguing for his amendment to a funding bill for the "no child left behind" program.

Quote of the Day

"I have a theory, and it's an accurate one, that most people who go to prison are losers"

-- Rep. Bill Janklow (R-SD), June 2003

Oil = Influence

While Americans were trapped in airports and pulling bodies from rubble in the days following September 11, 2001, BushCo approved a getaway flight for Saudis in the US. Apparently on September 13, 2001, a plane made stops in at least ten American cities to pick up Saudis and take them out of the country. All of this while US airspace was "closed."

See: Bin Laden family's US exit 'approved' by BILL ANDREWS

Right WingNut Judicial Nominee Gives Up

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Miguel Estrada, after two years of waiting for U.S. Senate confirmation, has decided to withdraw from nomination to a federal appeals court, a source close to the Washington attorney said on Thursday. (more)

Bush: Working Hard for Big Business

In case you missed Federal Register Volume 68, Number 61, the Bush Administration is making it easier for big business to avoid paying overtime.¹

Bu$hCo even shows employers how to get more workers to qualify for "exemption from minimum wage and overtime pay for executive, administrative, professional, outside sales and computer employees." It goes so far as to give big business four options when employees work more than 40 hours per week and explains that "employers affected by the proposed rule would be expected to choose the most cost-effective compensation adjustment method." (pg 15576)

Of course I fall under one of the exemptions (old rules and new), not that I am concerned about it for myself, but a woman who is a department manager for a retail store with two other employees in her department qualifies for the exemption.² Under the new rules anyone who makes at least $425 a week and has some kind of supervisory duty or a "skill" is exempt.

¹see The Grinch that stole Labor Day by Greg Palast

² Example: If the woman currently earns $10.65/hour over a 40 hour work week she would make $426 (and maybe get 5 vacation days after a year, but that's another story). Under the new 'white collar' exemptions she qualifies as exempt and is not entitled to overtime pay. Or, since she would complain about that, they could give her a new title and make her salaried at, say $450/wk and require that she works six eight-hour days per week.

*** UPDATE ***
Protect Overtime Pay: Tell Your Senators to Block the Bush Overtime Take Away

September Baseball

When Major League Baseball instituted a realignment from two to three divisions in each league I was totally against it. The main reason was the wild card. For those of you who are not sports fans (you have probably already stopped reading but anyhow) the wild card spot in the playoffs goes to the team in each league with the best record but did not win its own division.

I thought that this would degrade the World Series because a team that did not even win its own division could win the World Series. Would baseball become like hockey and basketball where they play a whole season to eliminate a few teams? Okay, I overreacted.

The Phillies are currently atop the National League Wild Card standings. At 13 games behind Atlanta there is realistically no hope for the Phils to win the Eastern Division but here it is after Labor Day and and the season is still exciting, not only for Philly fans but there are seven teams within five games in the National League.

Quote of the Day:

"Like most Americans, I hate paying taxes, but I love my roads, my garbage pick-up, and my federal prison system. Public Education? Eh, I home school."
-Stephen Colbert. The Daily Show

Quote of the Day:

If you have a particular faith or religion, that is good. But you can survive without it.

- Dalai Lama

Army of One

Join the Army

Celebrate Labor Day...

...in Bush's America

Low-Wage America - NPR's Noah Adams Profiles
the Struggle to Earn a Living Wage

UPA at work

Read this from The Palestine Chronicle

Secret Saudi History

"I smiled at my own joke, but the clerk's smile disappeared. 'Ask again,' he hissed, 'and I will call security to remove you from the building and have you barred as a security risk ..'"


By Sarah Whalen, Professor at Loyola University School of Law

"I'm sorry," the clerk at the U.S. National Archives says: "You can't see the Saudi Arabian documents." I'm surprised. All the National Archive's documents are already reviewed and then declassified or removed. In theory, whatever's there is no longer secret.

Until 9/11.

"It's part of the Patriot Act," the clerk averred, referring to Public Law 107-56, the hastily-passed legislation entitled, "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001."

(read more)