Life in OUR America, Volume 5, the Livyjr Files Options

[Livyjr]

And this next story is one that just has me shaking my head ....

Since the impoundment behind this dam ....

Is going to be the size of Lake Superior .....

A "great" lake here in OUR America .....

That can get some pretty ferocious storms on it ....

In a place where there was never a lake of that size before ....

Only a river ....

And so ....

"China builds dam for hydroelectric project" 
 
Associated Press
Last updated: 3:01 a.m., Saturday, May 20, 2006

BEIJING -- Construction crews finished the dam of the world's largest hydroelectric project on Saturday, state media reported.

The construction of the 607-foot high, 1.4-mile long dam across the Yangtze River does not fully complete the hugely controversial Three Gorges Dam project.

And speaking of Lake Superior ....

"New Clues to the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"

Robert Roy Britt, LiveScience Managing Editor, LiveScience.com

Sat May 20, 12:00 AM ET

Weather experts have "hindcasted" the storm that sunk the Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior during the November 1975.

Hurricane-force gusts and waves coming from an unexpected angle likely contributed to the disaster immortalized by Gordon Lightfoot in the song, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," researchers say.

All 29 crewmembers died.

"During the late afternoon and early evening of Nov. 10, conditions deteriorated rapidly with winds in excess of 69 mph, hurricane-force gusts [over 74 mph] and waves more than 25 feet high," said Thomas Hultquist, science and operations officer at the NOAA National Weather Service forecast office in Negaunee, Mich.

The freighter, thought like the Titanic to be invincible, was heading south.

Waves were traveling west-to-east, the new analysis shows.

This could have created a hazardous rolling motion.

The ship sank about 15 miles from Whitefish Bay.

Lake Superior is the largest of the Great Lakes.

"While high winds on Lake Superior are not rare, it is unusual for the waves to get that high on the lake," said Schwab.

"It's unlikely that Captain Ernest McSorley, the skipper of the Edmund Fitzgerald, had ever seen anything like that in his career."

The findings are detailed in the May issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

[Livyjr]

And as we enter into the home stretch with respect to the upcoming Congressional elections in November of this year ......

"McCain touts Sweeney's service - Arizona senator, once criticized by Clifton Park congressman, spends day campaigning for him"

By KATE PERRY, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, May 21, 2006

Facing perhaps the toughest race of his political career, Rep. John Sweeney brought an unlikely supporter to the area Saturday to boost his campaign -- U.S. Sen. John McCain.

Six years ago, Sweeney blasted McCain, R-Ariz., who was in a presidential primary against George W. Bush, as "anti-New York," citing his voting record on ice storm relief for the Northeast, the Northeast Dairy Compact and mass transit money.

But Saturday, the pair praised each other limitlessly at events in Saratoga Springs and Brunswick.

Sweeney didn't deny his past criticism of McCain.

"I was wrong," Sweeney said to thunderous applause and laughter.

"And that was in the context of a presidential race, but let me say this ... since September the 11th, everyone became a New Yorker in some respects."

"I don't think we've had a better friend than John McCain, a stronger advocate at a time when we most needed it and a more respected advocate."

"As I said, you can be wrong in this business and you get do-overs."

"This is a do-over."

In 2000, Sweeney was quoted saying, "If there was such a thing as an anti-New York caucus, (McCain) would be the head of it."

Since 2000, McCain said, the two Republicans have worked together on issues like steroid use, U.S.-Irish relations and body armor supplies for the military.

Six years is a long time, he said, and the comments Sweeney made are superseded by his service and loyalty to the GOP.

"I'm here because I think that John is a dedicated public servant, he is a real leader and one that I think is important to the future of the Republican Party," McCain said.

Sweeney, who took heat recently for appearing in photos at a late-night Union College fraternity party, faces Democratic attorney Kirsten Gillibrand from Hudson.

Gillibrand raised funds and campaigned aggressively early on, and some view her as Sweeney's first real opponent in years.

McCain said he frequently stumps for fellow Republicans during congressional races and is confident Sweeney will win re-election.

Still, he noted Sweeney has his work cut out for him.

"We all know this is going to be a very tough election season," McCain said.

"Republicans are going to have a difficult challenge in this election."

Gillibrand campaign manager Bill Hyers said his camp is shocked McCain would stump for Sweeney after the congressman's remarks in 2000.

"It's obvious that (Sweeney's) an endangered incumbent seeking to get any popular Republican that's out there," Hyers said.

Sweeney's deputy chief of staff, Melissa Carlson, said Gillibrand's camp canceled today's fundraiser with Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., because of pressure exerted by Republicans.

The Clifton Park GOP issued a release Thursday calling Emanuel, a Chicago congressman, "corrupt."

Hyers said the accusation was ridiculous and that Emanuel couldn't come to the fundraiser because of a family emergency.

Steny Hoyer, the House Democratic whip, will come to the Crown Plaza event in his place tonight, Hyers said.

In Saratoga, about 125 people picked at cold Asian chicken salad and chocolate chip cannolis for $150 a plate as McCain spoke.

He told them the Republican Party could restore the public's confidence by passing meaningful immigration legislation and learning to pick and choose funding requests.

He cited a $3 million expenditure for a DNA study on bears in Montana as a time when, according to McCain, legislators should have said no.

Outside, about 30 protesters hoisting picket signs and brooms said it was time to "clean out the House" by not re-electing Sweeney.

Stillwater resident Lisa Scerbo cited Sweeney's support of CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement), which passed by a 217-215 vote.

"How many New Yorkers lost their jobs over that," she said.

Scerbo said she was disappointed that McCain, who she used to respect, had cozied up to Sweeney.

Later in the afternoon, the pair joined Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno under a slow drizzle at the Elks Lodge in Brunswick, where he hosted a picnic to raise funds for Rensselaer County's underprivileged children.

George Flanders, a part-time construction worker from Castleton, said he hoped to meet all three legislators in person, but only caught up with Bruno.

He was interested to see what McCain had to say, but his vote is already set.

"I personally would have voted for Sweeney regardless, but I'm happy to see Senator McCain here."

"I respect him greatly," Flanders said as his wife listened intently for the number of the winning raffle ticket.

"He's a war hero and a good man."

Bruno said it's important for Sweeney to take this year's election seriously, even in a district where enrolled Republicans outnumber Democrats by 84,657, but he said the situation isn't that dire.

"The President's numbers are as low as they've ever been," Bruno said.

"Some Democrats are working hard to make this sound like it's going to be a big tsunami, but it's not going to be."

Perry can be reached at 454-5420 or by e-mail at kperry@timesunion.com.

You can get a passable cold Asian chicken salad up here at any number of Chinese buffets for maybe five dollars .....

Or less .....

And a good cannoli is about a dollar .....

Maybe a dollar-and-a-half ......

And so .....

I guess it makes the REPUBLICANS up here feel good to get gouged on what they paid for theirs at this McCain-Sweeney LOVE FEST ........

And so ....

Go figure on that one .....

If you can ....

And so ....

[Livyjr]

"McCain touts Sweeney's service - Arizona senator, once criticized by Clifton Park congressman, spends day campaigning for him" 
 
By KATE PERRY, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, May 21, 2006

Facing perhaps the toughest race of his political career, Rep. John Sweeney brought an unlikely supporter to the area Saturday to boost his campaign -- U.S. Sen. John McCain.

Six years ago, Sweeney blasted McCain, R-Ariz., who was in a presidential primary against George W. Bush, as "anti-New York," citing his voting record on ice storm relief for the Northeast, the Northeast Dairy Compact and mass transit money.

But Saturday, the pair praised each other limitlessly at events in Saratoga Springs and Brunswick.

And while we are on the subject of the LOVE FEST between John McCain and REPUBLICAN New York State CONGRESSBOY John "HEY JACKIE BOY HEY JOHNNIE" Sweeney ......

voteforme.com

By Elizabeth Wasserman

Posted Friday, Jan. 28, 2000, at 3:30 AM ET

The door bursts open to the one-man war room of the Web site headquarters for Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

A towering figure appears.

"I want you to get Bill Powers' e-mail address," Roy Fletcher, McCain's campaign strategist, barks at Max Fose, the campaign's Net guru.

Powers is the New York state Republican Party chairman.

New York is the only state in which McCain isn't yet on the primary ballot—due largely to the efforts of the state Republican Party, which backs McCain rival George W. Bush.

"I want you to e-mail it to everyone on our list," Fletcher snarls, punctuating each word by stabbing his forefinger in the air.

"And I want you to tell them to e-mail Powers and tell those bastards to put us on the ballot."

Fletcher starts to leave—but turns around one last time to drawl.

"Let's see how Mr. Powers likes answering 20,000 e-mails."

Fose smiles, and chuckles come from a speakerphone.

That's because Fose—who started as an intern for McCain in 1992 and now manages the Arizona senator's Internet campaign operations—was in the middle of a conference call before Fletcher crashed into the room.

Every day, Fose has a phone meeting with his boss, Wes Gullett, deputy campaign manager, and the campaign's Web consultants, Tom Yeatts and Laura Kittleman from the Maryland-based firm Virtual Sprockets.

They plot the daily strategy of what to feature on the campaign's Web site (McCain2000.com), what to send to the nearly 55,000 folks who signed up for McCain's e-mail list, and how to best use the Net to reach prospective primary voters, educate them, and get them to the polls.

McCain and other candidates are finding the Net to be a valuable campaign tool.

Particularly with the underdog campaigns, the Web is used to keep costs down, disseminate the campaign message, and enable voter participation in ways never before contemplated.

In short, campaign managers say the Internet is beginning to live up to the predictions that it might become as influential a medium in politics as television became after the 1960 presidential race.

Only four years ago, candidates posted sites that resembled brochures.

Today, the Web is incorporated on a daily basis into the larger campaign strategy at the headquarters of all the front-runners—including Bill Bradley's campaign in West Orange, N.J.; Al Gore's offices in Nashville, Tenn.; Bush's operation in Austin, Texas; or Steve Forbes' base in Alexandria, Va.

The Forbes camp last week credited its Internet operation with a better-than-expected second-place showing in the Iowa caucus.

Forbes' Internet consultant, advertising executive Rick Segal, says the tactic that proved most effective was mobilizing some of the 84,000 people nationwide who offered to volunteer to make personal calls to Iowans.

"This is the first demonstrative example of the power of the Internet in politics," Segal says.

"There's this old phrase 'weekend warrior' that refers to supporters who don't live in a state but are willing to do work on the weekend."

"What we've done is turn out 84,000 online volunteers into cyberweekend-warriors."

The lessons the campaigns are learning about the Web should prove valuable not only for campaigns to come but also for Internet companies trying to design products for political activity and for offline organizations seeking to migrate online.

The campaigns are being bombarded with solicitations from companies selling everything from new ways of delivering video over the Internet to talking e-mail to membership marketing programs for their donors.

(The last is a violation of election rules.)

Most campaigns are sticking with tried-and-true technologies from vendors with whom they have established relationships.

Millionaire businessman Steve Forbes, who has outspent rivals on his Web campaign, experimented successfully with an audio e-mail created with help from Radical Mail of Marina Del Ray, Calif., and a video clip designed by eCommercial.com of Mission Viejo, Calif.

Staff indicated those have helped build his corps of online volunteers.

McCain's camp says it has been pitched by some of the same vendors but that it found the technology often didn't work.

Gore has experimented with more video and audio messages than Bradley, but the former New Jersey senator has raised more in online contributions than any of his rivals.

(By the end of 1999, Bradley raised $1.2 million via the Net, compared with $1 million for McCain, $910,000 for Gore, and $180,000 for Bush, according to Politics Online.)

Meanwhile, campaigns are devising new ways to use the Internet to keep costs low.

Bradley used TV and radio ads to drive Iowans to a special caucus site, caucusforbradley.com, which provided step-by-step instructions on the caucus process, complete with click-on video demonstrations.

Lynn Reed, Bradley's Internet consultant, says the campaign proved so popular they might try something similar in other states.

McCain's camp is planning to use the network of volunteers it lined up via the Net to establish a nationwide phone bank to get New Hampshire voters to turn out for the Feb. 1 primary.

McCain's staff found 1,500 people willing to make calls from their homes.

A list of registered voters in New Hampshire was divided up into blocks of 10 and e-mailed to volunteers.

Some of the campaigns try to keep phone bills low by relying on America Online's Instant Messenger program to connect staff across the country.

The Gore and Bush campaigns are also making rampant use of e-mail chains, which involve getting supporters to tell 10 friends, who then are expected to tell 10 more friends, and so on.

As campaigns move more aggressively online, campaign strategists are learning that proper Internet etiquette is important.

Several have been chastised by supporters about receiving too much e-mail after signing up for campaign alerts.

The Bush campaign shows the most restraint, sending only one message per day, trying not to abuse the privilege of having volunteers' e-mail addresses, says Greg Sedberry, Bush's Internet operations director.

In contrast, Bradley's campaign sent out nine e-mail messages Dec. 13 about, among other topics, Ernestine Bradley visiting Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Rep. George Miller endorsing the former senator; Bradley's speech urging campaign-finance reform; and an attack on Gore's alleged lack of interest in campaign-finance reform.

Back at McCain headquarters, the staff has used all sorts of tools to analyze visits to the campaign Web site.

There were a record 10.2 million hits in December.

The average visitor spends 22 minutes on the site; the most popular section is the one that focuses on issues.

The staff alerts supporters when McCain will be in their area to ensure good turnout at events.

But the McCain campaign also says it needs more tools to help it better use the Internet.

"This year the Internet will have a big impact," says Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager.

"But in the next race, the Net will dominate the campaign."

Right now, the Internet is used for message delivery, but what campaigns need in the future is demographic information about Web audiences to help them pick and choose sites on which they want to advertise.

Says Davis, "This is a learning process."

Back in the Web war room, Fose returns to his task at hand.

He has to draft a plea to send to the thousands who have signed up for the McCain e-mail newsletter asking them to use the Internet to help get McCain on the primary ballot in New York.

"The Bush campaign and the New York state GOP are trying to keep John McCain off the ballot in New York though tens of thousands of New York voters, state leaders—including supporters of Texas Gov. George W. Bush—and newspapers across the across the country say he should be on the ballot," the plea begins.

Fose asks supporters to send e-mail to New York Gov. George Pataki at gov.pataki@chamber.state.ny.us and to Powers, for whom the closest thing to a personal e-mail address he can find is Republicans@nygop.org.

Some politicians, it seems, are more wired than others.

Elizabeth Wasserman is the Washington bureau chief of the Industry Standard. You can e-mail her at elizabethw@thestandard.com.

[Livyjr]

And while we are on the subject of the LOVE FEST between John McCain and REPUBLICAN New York State CONGRESSBOY John "HEY JACKIE BOY HEY JOHNNIE" Sweeney ......

"McCain Accuses Bush of Trying to Keep Him Off NY Ballot"

By Jerry Miller
CNS Correspondent

16 January, 2000

CONCORD, NH (CNSNews.com) - Republican Presidential hopeful John McCain is mad at the Bush campaign and its New York supporters for working overtime to keep him off that state's primary ballot.

In remarks delivered locally, McCain said New York Gov. George Pataki, Republican State Chairman William Powers and other Bush supporters are behind the effort to keep him off the ballot.

In December, McCain filed suit challenging the state's ballot access rules.

Under those rules, a candidate must obtain signatures from 20,000 party members, in each of the state's 31 congressional districts, to get on the ballot.

Now, even though McCain supporters have collected more than the 20,000 signatures needed to gain access, the documents are being challenged, by those supporting Bush and according to the Arizona senator the challengers are using "Stalinist" tactics.

"Look, the Berlin Wall came down."

"Let's not have the kind of Stalinist politics that the New York State Republican Party has been practicing."

"Everybody knows I'm a legitimate candidate."

"Don't try to use the muscle of the New York Republican Party and its apparatchiks to knock us off the ballot," McCain said.

"I would never consider allowing any supporter of mine to challenge the right of Gov. Bush to be on the ballot in all 50 states," he added.

McCain contends Bush and his supporters broke their promise that they would not challenge his right to be on the ballot and urged the Texan to act "out of fairness" and stop the effort to deny him a spot.

"I'm asking Gov. Bush to tell his subordinates, Gov. Pataki and Bill Powers, to do what they said they would do, which is not challenge our petitions and let us be on the ballot."

"That's only fair."

For his part, Bush said New York Republicans must make their own decision concerning McCain's petitions.

In an appearance on the New Hampshire seacoast, Bush said, "I think it is important for all of us to play by the same rules..."

"I'm confident Chairman Powers will run the party in a way that's fair for everyone...what is fair is that we all play by the same rules."

However, Bush did not say what those fair rules are and whether it was fair for his supporters to continue their efforts to keep McCain off the New York ballot.

end quotes

And of course ....

As I remember it ....

"HEY JACKIE BOY HEY JOHNNIE" Sweeney was one of those New York State REPUBLICAN apparatchiks who was doing his damndest to run John McCain's name and reputation right on down into the dirt beneath his feet ...

In an effort to keep John McCain off the ballot on the State of New York during the 2000 election season .....

And so ...

When they say politics makes for strange bedfellows ....

It sure does seem to be true in this case, anyway .....

And so ....

[Livyjr]

And of course ....

As I remember it ....

"HEY JACKIE BOY HEY JOHNNIE" Sweeney was one of those New York State REPUBLICAN apparatchiks who was doing his damndest to run John McCain's name and reputation right on down into the dirt beneath his feet ...

In an effort to keep John McCain off the ballot on the State of New York during the 2000 election season .....

And so ...

When they say politics makes for strange bedfellows ....

It sure does seem to be true in this case, anyway .....

And so ....

"Party Officials May Abandon Fight to Keep McCain Off Ballot"

By RICHARD PEREZ-PENA

Feb. 2, 2000

ALBANY, Feb. 2 -- Worrying that the state Republican Party's attempts to knock Senator John McCain off the presidential primary ballot have backfired, Republican and Bush campaign officials said today that they might abandon their court fight with Mr. McCain.

A day after the Arizona senator trounced Gov. George W. Bush in the New Hampshire primary, Bush campaign officials spoke with New York Republicans who have fought tenaciously so far to block Mr. McCain from appearing on the ballot statewide in New York's primary on March 7.

Bush and New York officials now say that if the judge who is hearing Mr. McCain's lawsuit to get on the ballot statewide rules in his favor -- as he has strongly suggested he will -- they might not appeal.

A decision by the judge is expected this week.

The ballot battle in New York has played more broadly to Mr. McCain's advantage, some of these officials conceded, by helping him portray himself as the insurgent or the campaign finance reformer fighting an establishment much like the state party machinery that is contesting his nominating petitions in nearly half of New York's 31 Congressional districts.

While surveys of New York Republicans in December and January showed Mr. McCain a distant second to Mr. Bush, who has the backing of the party machinery and nearly all of the state's prominent Republicans, including Gov. George E. Pataki, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and the leader of the State Senate, Joseph L. Bruno, many political analysts expect the senator to gain ground here.

"This guy says, 'The powers that be fear me,' " said a prominent Republican office-holder who supports Mr. Bush and who did not want his name used for fear of angering Governor Pataki and the state party chairman, Bill Powers.

"Well, if the powers that be are trying to keep him off that ballot, that plays right into his hands."

"He gets publicity."

"He gets sympathy."

"And Bush looks like the bad guy."

A Republican political consultant who is close to the party leaders said:

"The awful thing for the Bush people is McCain's probably going to get on the ballot anyway."

"You've got all of the pain and none of the gain."

"It's like exercising six hours a day and putting on weight."

Republicans who have not taken sides in the nomination fight agreed.

"McCain's been able to stoke his outsider image," said Nelson Warfield, a political consultant who worked for Bob Dole in 1996.

"If Pataki and company were smart, they'd throw the door wide open right now."

Zenia Mucha, the governor's communications director and chief political adviser, argued that there would be no anti-Bush, pro-McCain backlash from the ballot fight.

"New Yorkers will be able to see through the hypocrisy of a senator in his third term calling himself an outsider," she said.

"What the Republican voters are going to look at are the issues -- taxes, education -- and on that, they will see that Bush has a stronger record."

In New York, candidates must gain access to the ballot by collecting thousands of signatures on petitions.

The number needed is determined by a formula that is applied in each Congressional district.

The rules are considered the most difficult in the nation and are filled with detailed requirements that allow challenges to a candidate's petitions.

The process greatly favors candidates like Mr. Bush, who have in their camp the party foot soldiers to collect the signatures and the party lawyers to examine them, or like the publisher Steve Forbes, who have the money to hire people to do the work.

The rules were relaxed after the party was criticized for trying to keep Mr. Forbes off the 1996 primary ballot, but they remain far more onerous than those in most states, where well-known candidates are automatically on the ballot.

In hearing Mr. McCain's case, Judge Edward R. Korman of United States District Court in Brooklyn has made clear his distaste for the system, saying last week that, "What is going on here is an effort to turn this on its head and hold a meaningless primary."

Jeffrey T. Buley, chief counsel for the New York Republican State Committee, said, "We are awaiting the court's decision before we make any decision to appeal."

But officials close to Mr. Powers and Mr. Bush say they are debating whether, if they lose in court, to cut their losses.

Whether Mr. McCain can carry New York is another matter.

The most recent public opinion surveys, conducted weeks before the New Hampshire primary, showed him trailing Mr. Bush by 20 or more points in New York, and until the next round of polls is published next week, no one will know how much of a bounce he got from his victory.

But New Hampshire clearly is not New York. Mr.

McCain had months to cultivate New Hampshire, but he will have only weeks to work New York, with primaries in South Carolina, Arizona and Michigan in between.

Still, political analysts say Mr. McCain's chances have improved significantly.

"I think he's within striking distance in New York," said Douglas Schwartz, director of the Quinnipiac College Poll.

"It's a state of moderate Republicans, and he's appealing to moderates."

http://www.partners.nytimes.com/library/po...0wh-gop-ny.html

[Livyjr]

And then, of course .....

There is IRAQINAM .....

"Iraqi prime minister vows to end violence"

By PATRICK QUINN, Associated Press
Last updated: 6:27 p.m., Sunday, May 21, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq's new prime minister promised Sunday to use "maximum force" if necessary to end the brutal insurgent and sectarian violence wracking the country, while a suicide bomber killed more than a dozen people at a restaurant in downtown Baghdad.

Although he focused on the need to end bloodshed, Nouri al-Maliki also had to address unfinished political negotiations at a Cabinet meeting on the government's first full day in office.

Al-Maliki said the appointment of chiefs for the key Defense and Interior ministries should not "take more than two or three days."

He is seeking candidates who are independent and have no ties to Iraq's myriad armed groups.

The two ministries, which oversee the army and the police, are crucial for restoring stability, and al-Maliki needs to find candidates with wide acceptance from his broad-based governing coalition of Shiites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds.

Failure to set the right tone could further alienate the disaffected Sunni Arab minority, which is the backbone of the insurgency.

Or it could anger Shiite militias, some of which are thought to number in the thousands.

"We are aware of the security challenge and its effects."

"So we believe that facing this challenge cannot be achieved through the use of force only, despite the fact that we are going to use the maximum force in confronting the terrorists and the killers who are shedding blood," al-Maliki said.

Disarming militias, whose members are believed to have infiltrated the security services, will be a priority, he said, along with promoting national reconciliation, improving the country's collapsing infrastructure and setting up a special protection force for Baghdad.

It is unclear if al-Maliki, a Shiite with the conservative Islamic Dawa party, will be able to persuade others in the religious United Iraqi Alliance to use their influence to try to disarm Shiite armed groups.

Many Sunni Arabs think some Shiite militias are behind death squads blamed for sectarian violence that has escalated in recent months, leaving dozens of bodies to be found scattered around Iraq every day.

Al-Maliki decried what he called "sectarian cleansing."

"The militias, death squads and the killings are all abnormal phenomena," he said.

"We should finish the issue of militias because we cannot imagine a stability and security in this country with the presence of militias that kill and kidnap."

The new government was welcomed by several Arab leaders, many of whom worry that the violence in Iraq could spill over to its neighbors and that their own extremists might find fertile training ground in Iraq and eventually return to their homelands to wreak havoc.

In neighboring Jordan, King Abdullah II said he hoped the seating of al-Maliki's government proves a "significant step toward building a new Iraq that would be able to fulfill the aspirations of its people for a better life, democracy, (political) pluralism and stronger national unity."

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said the new Cabinet could open the way for a conference in Iraq bringing together representatives of the country's diverse ethnic and political forces, possibly as early as next month.

Kuwait's leader, Emir Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, whose country was invaded by Saddam Hussein's army in 1990, expressed hope the Cabinet members will succeed in "closing their ranks and using their capabilities in building Iraq."

Political infighting, however, kept al-Maliki from filling the defense and interior posts before the Cabinet was sworn in Saturday.

Sunni Arabs are demanding the defense ministry, which controls Iraq's army, to counterbalance the Shiite-controlled interior ministry, which is responsible for the police.

Al-Maliki has said he wants to accelerate the pace at which army and police recruits are trained in an effort to speed up the withdrawal of U.S.-led international troops from Iraq.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the new government must "get the security ministries to transform in such a way that they will have the confidence of the Iraqi peoples."

"The next six months will be truly critical for Iraq," he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said al-Maliki needed five or six days to pick the two men to head those two ministries.

"The prime minister has made very clear to us and to the people in the other parties that he wants to have people in whom he has supreme confidence because of the importance of this," she told Fox News.

She said al-Maliki told her during a visit in late April about the need "to re-establish confidence in the police, to re-establish confidence in the ability of the government to deal with this."

President Bush telephoned al-Maliki on Sunday to assure him the Untied States would support his government.

"I fully understand that a free Iraq will be an important ally in the war on terror, will serve as a devastating defeat for the terrorists and Al-Qaida, and will serve as an example for others in the region who desire to be free," Bush said.

Shortly after the first Cabinet meeting, a suicide bomber killed at least 13 people and wounded 17 by blowing himself up among filled lunch tables in a downtown Baghdad restaurant popular with police officers.

Three of the dead were policemen.

The attack at the Safar restaurant was part of a spree of bombing that killed at least 19 Iraqis and wounded dozens Sunday.

One bomb attack hit a busy fruit market in New Baghdad, a mixed Shiite, Sunni Arab and Christian area in an eastern part of the capital.

Police found one bomb and detonated it after trying to evacuate the market, but a second, undiscovered bomb exploded moments later, killing three civilians and wounding 23.

A car bomb targeting a police patrol in northwestern Baghdad killed a bystander and injured 15 people.

------

Associated Press writers John Daniszewski and Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.

[Livyjr]

And as it is a "slow news" day right now ....

And since I find it directly relevant to the various discussions and "currents" that are swirling around in here ....

Vis-a-vis the WAR IN IRAQINAM .....

Which we are bound to hear much more about ...

In these months leading up to the November 2006 CONGRESSIONAL elections ...

Where the Republican strategy is to make us think the Democrats are "weak" when it comes to "national security" ....

Whatever on earth that term might actually mean ....

I want to once again return to Rick Atkinson's book CRUSADE .....

Which was about BIG BUSH'S WAR against Saddam Hussein back in 1991 .....

Where we find at page 488 .....

Some relevant AMERICAN HISTORY, as follows .....

In the three months since the war had ended (March of 1991), peace had taken an ugly turn.

George Bush (BIG BUSH, father of George W.), in mid-February (1991) had urged the Iraqis "to take matters into their own hands to force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside."

But the anticipated coup by Saddam's vanquished army failed to materialize.

Instead, bloody rebellions erupted in the Kurdish north and Shi'ite south ....

Where the people were FOOLISH ENOUGH to take Bush's counsel.

THE STRENGTH OF THE INSURRECTIONS IMPERILED NOT ONLY SADDAM BUT ALSO THE IRAQI OFFICER CORPS - PREDOMINATELY SUNNI MUSLIMS ALIGNED WITH THE RULING BA'ATHIST PARTY - WHO RALLIED TO SADDAM, THOUGH MORE FOR SELF-PRESERVATION THAN THROUGH LOYALTY.

Here the Americans and their allies made several miscalculations more significant than the question of whether the cease-fire should have been delayed another day or two.

Fearful of a Shi'ite victory that would strengthen pro-Iranian Muslim fundamentalists in the Persian Gulf, WASHINGTON FAILED TO RECOGNIZE that most Iraqi Shi'ites were a different faction from those in Tehran.

NEITHER BEHOLDEN TO AN IRANIAN AYATOLLAH NOR INCLINED TO POLITICAL SEPARATISM, THEY ASPIRED CHIEFLY TO RIGHTFUL REPRESENTATION IN BAGHDAD, WHICH HAD LONG FAVORED THE COUNTRY'S SUNNI MINORITY.

Saudi moderates like Prince Bandar, the ambassador in Washington, recognized this distinction but failed to convince the White House (BIG BUSH) that the Shi'ites were worthy of support.

Bandar soon regretted not passing a sharper warning to Tehran - through the Syrians - to keep a discrete distance as the insurrection unfolded; consequently, Iran's overt support further galvanized the Iraqi army to unite around Saddam and reinforced the impression that Shi'ite rebels were Iranian stooges fighting to create another Islamic republic.

THE SIMPLEST COURSE FOR WASHINGTON WAS TO DO NOTHING.

And then, of course .....

There is IRAQINAM .....

"Iraqi prime minister vows to end violence" 
 
By PATRICK QUINN, Associated Press
Last updated: 6:27 p.m., Sunday, May 21, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq's new prime minister promised Sunday to use "maximum force" if necessary to end the brutal insurgent and sectarian violence wracking the country, while a suicide bomber killed more than a dozen people at a restaurant in downtown Baghdad.

The "WORLD" ......

According to the whims and dictates .....

Of the GOD EMPORER .....

Bush the SMALL .....

Who really is not much at all .....

"Judge Throws Out Lawyer in Saddam Trial"

By SINAN SALAHEDIN, Associated Press Writer

2 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Guards forcibly ejected a defense lawyer from the courtroom and the chief judge shouted down Saddam Hussein on Monday in a stormy start to a new session of the trial of the former Iraqi leader and members of his regime.

The squabble began when chief judge informed defense lawyer Bushra Khalil that she would be allowed to return to the court after being removed from a session in April for arguing with the judge.

But when she tried to make a statement, he quickly cut her off, saying, "Sit down."

"I just want to say one word," she said, but Abdel-Rahman yelled at guards to take her away.

Khalil pulled off her judicial robe and threw it on the floor in anger, then tried to push the guards who were grabbing her hands, shouting, "Get away from me."

As she was pulled out of the court, Saddam objected from the defendants' pen, and Abdel-Rahman told him to be silent.

"I'm Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq."

"I am above all," Saddam shouted back.

"You are a defendant now, not a president," the judge barked.

Recent sessions of the trial have been remarkably orderly because Abdel-Rahman has taken a tough line to put a stop to frequent outbursts by Saddam and his co-defendants.

He first removed the Lebanese-born Khalil, the only woman on the defense team, in an April 5 session after she objected to a video of Saddam shown by prosecutors.

After the outbursts Monday, the court resumed hearing defense witnesses.

Saddam and seven former members of his regime face possible execution by hanging if convicted on charges of crimes against humanity in a crackdown against Shiites in the town Dujail in the 1980s.

Saddam and the upper-level defendants have insisted the sweep of arrests — in which some detainees, including women and children, died in prison and 148 Shiites were sentenced to death — was a justified response to a 1982 assassination attempt on Saddam in the town.

Monday's first witness was a former employee of the Revolutionary Court, Murshid Mohammed Jassim, who testified on behalf of defendant Awad al-Bandar, the judge who sentenced the 148 to death.

Abdel-Rahman has accused al-Bandar of convicting the Shiites without a proper trial, though al-Bandar has maintained the trial was fair.

Jassim, who shook his cane at times as he spoke, acknowledged that he did not work at the court at the time of the Dujail trial in 1984.

But he insisted the court was "the most fair, the most just ... (Al-Bandar) is a quiet, polite, fair man."

He said the Revolutionary Court always gave defendants a full chance to defend themselves and ensured they had lawyers and that Saddam or his officials never intervened in its proceedings.

Referring to the ejection of Khalil, al-Bandar asked Jassim, "Were defense lawyers ever thrown out of court when they tried to make an argument."

Jassim said no, then added: "Lawyers were always treated with respect in accordance with the law."

Al-Bandar has said the 148 defendants confessed.

But he has also acknowledged that there was only one defense lawyer for all of them and the trial only lasted 16 days.

The prosecution has argued that it was a show-trial in which the defendants had no opportunity to present their cases.

It has presented documents showing that a number of minors below the age of 18 were convicted, including one as young as 11.

The prosecution has also argued that the crackdown went far beyond the perpetrators of the attack on Saddam, sweeping up entire families in an attempt to punish the town.

[Livyjr]

Massive corruption problems ...

Sounds just like the United States Congress to me .....

"Congress Faces Multiple Criminal Probes"

By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - For the first time since the Abscam scandal a quarter-century ago, multiple lawmakers face criminal and ethics investigations that are tarnishing Congress, already low on public approval.

"We have an entire generation who imagines their member of Congress in an orange jumpsuit," said Paul Light, a New York University professor of public service, referring to the common prison uniform.

"It's like members of Congress don't have any shame."

end quotes

The United States Congress .....

It sure isn't anything to be proud of ....

That is for sure .....

Unless you are proud of having the biggest whore house in the world ....

Down there in the Potomac River ....

And so ...

"Congressman caught on tape, documents say"

By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press
Last updated: 7:45 a.m., Monday, May 22, 2006

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- Allegedly scamming a Virginia businesswoman could prove to be a major mistake for a Democratic congressman from New Orleans.

The FBI revealed Sunday that Rep. William Jefferson, under investigation for bribery, was videotaped accepting $100,000 in $100 bills from an FBI informant whose conversations with the lawmaker also were recorded.

Agents later found the cash hidden in his freezer, according to a court document released Sunday.

At one meeting captured on audiotape, Jefferson chuckles about writing in code to keep secret what the government contends was his corrupt role in getting his children a cut of a communications company's deal for work in Africa.

As Jefferson and the informant passed notes about what percentage the lawmaker's family might receive, the congressman "began laughing and said, 'All these damn notes we're writing to each other as if we're talking, as if the FBI is watching,'" he told the businesswoman, who was wearing an FBI recording device.

Jefferson has not been charged and denies any wrongdoing.

As for the $100,000, the government says Jefferson got the money in a leather briefcase last July 30 at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Arlington.

The plan was for the lawmaker to use the cash to bribe a high-ranking Nigerian official -- the name is blacked out in the court document -- to ensure the success of a business deal in that country, the affidavit said.

All but $10,000 was recovered on Aug. 3 when the FBI searched Jefferson's home in Washington.

The money was stuffed in his freezer, wrapped in $10,000 packs and concealed in food containers and aluminum foil.

Two of Jefferson's associates have pleaded guilty to bribery-related charges in federal court in Alexandria.

One, businessman Vernon Jackson of Louisville, Ky., admitted paying more than $400,000 in bribes to the lawmaker in exchange for his help securing business deals for Jackson's telecommunications company in Nigeria and other African countries.

The new details about the case emerged after the FBI searched Jefferson's congressional office on Capitol Hill Saturday night and Sunday.

The nearly 100-page affidavit for a search warrant, made public Sunday with large portions blacked out, spells out much of the evidence so far.

The document includes excerpts of conversations between Jefferson and an unidentified business executive from northern Virginia.

She agreed to wear a wire after she approached the FBI with complaints Jefferson and an associate had ripped her off in a business deal.

Jefferson's lawyer, Robert Trout, said in a statement that the prosecutors' disclosure was "part of a public relations agenda and an attempt to embarrass Congressman Jefferson."

"The affidavit itself is just one side of the story which has not been tested in court."

The affidavit says Jefferson is caught on videotape at the Ritz-Carlton as he takes a reddish-brown briefcase from the trunk of the informant's car, slips it into a cloth bag, puts the bag into his 1990 Lincoln Town Car and drives away.

The $100 bills in the suitcase had the same serial numbers as those found in Jefferson's freezer.

While the name of the intended recipient of the $100,000 is blacked out, other details in the affidavit indicate he is Abubakar Atiku, Nigeria's vice president.

He owns a home in Potomac, Md., that authorities have searched as part of the Jefferson investigation.

The Jefferson investigation has provided some cover for Republicans who have suffered black eyes in the investigations of current and former GOP lawmakers, including Tom DeLay of Texas, the former majority leader.

Republican Randy "Duke" Cunningham of California, a Vietnam-era jetfighter ace, was sentenced in March to more than eight years in prison for accepting bribes on a scale unparalleled in the history of Congress.

end quotes

Ah, yes ...

GLOBALIZATION .....

Corruption and bribery the new standard of "performance" in this GLOBAL SOCIETY that we are having rammed right on down our throats .....

[Snuffysmith]

STATE SECRETS PRIVILEGE SHUTS COURTHOUSE DOORS

The state secrets privilege has been invoked by the Bush
Administration with greater frequency than ever before in American
history in a wide range of lawsuits that the government says would
threaten national security if allowed to proceed.

In virtually every case, the use of the privilege leads to dismissal
of the lawsuit and forecloses the opportunity for an injured party
to seek judicial relief.

Most recently, a lawsuit brought by Khaled El-Masri, a German
citizen who alleged that he was kidnapped by the CIA and tortured
over a five month period, was dismissed after the CIA invoked the
"state secrets" privilege.

The dismissal was not based on a finding that the allegations
against the CIA were false.

"It is in no way an adjudication of, or comment on, the merit or
lack of merit of El-Masri's complaint," wrote Judge T.S. Ellis, III
in a May 12 order.

In fact, "It is worth noting that ... if El-Masri's allegations are
true or essentially true, then all fair-minded people... must also
agree that El-Masri has suffered injuries as a result of our
country's mistake and deserves a remedy," he wrote in the order
dismissing the case.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/statesec/elmasri051206.pdf

"Yet, it is also clear from the result reached here that the only
sources of that remedy must be the Executive Branch or the
Legislative Branch, not the Judicial Branch," he suggested.

But in this case the executive branch is the alleged perpetrator of
the offense, and the legislative branch has no procedures for
adjudicating allegations such as El-Masri's, even if it had an
interest in doing so. That's what courts are for.

Terrorists can kill people and destroy property. But they cannot
undermine the rule of law, or deny injured parties access to the
courts. Only the U.S. government can do that.

The state secrets privilege has been invoked lately in a remarkable
diversity of lawsuits. See this selection of case files from
recent state secrets cases:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/statesec/index.html

Tom Blanton of the National Security Archive reflected on the
growing use of the state secrets privilege and how it relates to
the larger climate of secrecy in "The lie behind the secrets," Los
Angeles Times, May 21:

http://tinyurl.com/mkd78

Recently introduced legislation would "provide protection from
frivolous government claims of state secrets," the Project on
Government Oversight noted:

http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2006/05/state_secrets_.html

Wired News today published documents pertaining to the alleged role
of AT&T in NSA warrantless surveillance related to another lawsuit
in which the state secrets privilege has been invoked. See:

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70947-0.html

[Livyjr]

STATE SECRETS PRIVILEGE SHUTS COURTHOUSE DOORS

The state secrets privilege has been invoked by the Bush Administration with greater frequency than ever before in American history in a wide range of lawsuits that the government says would threaten national security if allowed to proceed.

In virtually every case, the use of the privilege leads to dismissal of the lawsuit and forecloses the opportunity for an injured party to seek judicial relief.

Well done with this one, Snuf .....

It ties right in with a story that is unfolding right up here where I am ....

Where a man is on trial in an alleged terror-related matter ...

And his lawyer is shut out of knowing what the federal judge and the federal prosecutor are saying back and forth to each other ....

In connection with "SECRET" motions that the government prosecutor can file ....

Without the defense attorney having any knowledge of the contents of the motion ....

It sure is some strange **** .....

And that is a fact .....

It is just like we are back in the Viet Nam times ...

When this same strange **** was going on, again ...

Except not so rampant ....

And blatant ....

As now ....

And so ....

[Livyjr]

And speaking of "CON-JOB CONNIE" Rice .....

"Rice faces silent protest in Boston"

By Jason Szep

1 hour, 59 minutes ago

BOSTON (Reuters) - Dozens of faculty and students turned their backs and waved protest signs when U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice received an honorary degree from Boston College on Monday.

But the protest against Rice, a central player in President George W. Bush's Iraq policy, was smaller than had been expected and those among the 25,000 crowd who gave her a standing ovation outnumbered those who sat in silence.

Rice's selection as commencement speaker had stirred controversy at the Jesuit school, where many oppose the war and say it contradicts Catholic teaching.

"We've spent the last four years learning how to appreciate and work for social harmony, and to have a woman who is part of an administration that has launched a very unjust war, it's just outrageous," said Emily Jendzejec, 22, one of about 60 students who turned their backs on Rice.

Like dozens of students, Jendzejec wore a protest armband and sticker on her graduating robe reading "Not in my name."

At one point, a propeller plane flew overhead dragging a sign saying:

"Your war brings dishonor."

About 100 protesters outside chanted "Stop the Lies - Troops out now" and waved placards including one reading "No degrees for terrorism."

About 22 percent of the school's 1,000 faculty had signed a petition circulated by Boston College theology professor David Hollenbach and Kenneth Himes, the department's chair, objecting to the honorary degree -- a custom for commencement speakers.

One faculty member resigned in protest.

But unlike a commencement day address by Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona on Friday at The New School in New York, there were no loud boos and rowdy heckling from students and the crowd at Boston College's football stadium.

In her speech, Rice avoided direct reference to Iraq and stuck closely to the boilerplate themes often followed by graduation day speakers, urging students to follow their passions, seek humility and overcome personal adversity as she did growing up in a segregated city in southern United States.

Boston College stood by its decision to choose Rice for its commencement speaker for its about 3,000 graduating students.

"We're not honoring her for the war we are honoring her for her life's accomplishments," said spokesman Jack Dunn.

[Livyjr]

"Say kids ..."

"Has anyone seen Karl lately?"

"Rove's address was more of a defense"

By CRAGG HINES
First published: Monday, May 22, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Karl Rove is not going quietly, assuming he's going at all.

And the attitude of equanimity being adopted by President Bush's deputy chief of staff and top political strategist is almost admirable, with a modest emphasis on "almost."

A number of journalists and policy wonks who have followed Rove's exploits for some years waited last week to get a flash from the American Enterprise Institute that Rove's scheduled "major policy address" had been canceled.

It would have been understandable.

The liberal blogosphere was atwitter all the previous weekend with word that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald had secured an indictment against Rove for lying to investigators in the CIA leak case and had informed Rove's attorneys.

Rove was said to have alerted Bush.

Both reports were initially on Truthout.com.

Rove's legal camp denied the reports flatly and unequivocally.

Fitzgerald doesn't comment but is said by usually reliable sources to be near a decision regarding Rove.

As things stand now, however, the reports seem to have been a disservice from a writer and site who might like in the not too distant future to be able to claim to have been first with a juicy story.

And if there turns out not to be such a story, well, who will remember in the great big fast-paced cyber world?

So a no-show by Rove was not out of the question.

But no cancellation notice arrived, and the conservative think-tank's auditorium filled quickly.

Some in the audience may have felt like Madame Defarge knitting as she awaited the revolution.

AEI President Christopher DeMuth picked up on the point in his introduction:

"In Washington, the hens are pecking and the sharks are circling."

"Still, he goes about his work with discipline, serenity, never permitting himself to lapse into vitriol at the unfairness of it all, even in circumstances of flagrant unfairness."

I looked to make certain it was Rove who was being introduced.

Yep, it's Karl, who has left any number of foes mud-splattered over the years.

Rove's performance itself gave little hint of any shadow hanging over him, regarding the federal investigation, or over his president or party in the run-up to the November elections.

Rove, of course, did not mention the prospective unpleasantness of federal prosecution.

When a questioner (David Corn of the liberal Nation magazine) finally turned to the elephant in the room, Rove was matter of fact in his refusal to engage substantively, referring all to a three-week-old anodyne statement from his attorney, Robert Luskin.

"I have nothing more to add to it," Rove said.

It turned out that Rove's speech was not a "major policy address" but a major policy defense, centered on the national economy under Bush.

With a flurry of malleable statistics, Rove defended Bush's economic stewardship.

Rove, although dismissive of journalistic reliance on public polling, reads the same numbers -- and has plentiful polling of his own that is conducted by the Republican National Committee.

He was trying to make the case that Americans have no right to feel as edgy as they do about the future, including about their own finances.

When challenged in questions, Rove at least let on that he's not living in neverland.

"Look, we're in a sour time," Rove told a reporter for London's Daily Telegraph.

"I readily admit that," although he'd admitted no such thing in his prepared remarks.

Sour, why could that be?

"I mean, being in the middle of a war where people turn on their television sets and see brave men and women dying is not something that makes people happy and optimistic and upbeat."

I guess not.

Having moved past the economic happy talk, Rove returned to his new theme in the next answer.

"I think the war looms over everything," he said.

"You know, there's no doubt about it."

As for November:

"I'm absolutely confident ... we're going to be just fine in the fall elections."

But what about those pictures on the TV set?

Cragg Hines writes for the Houston Chronicle. His e-mail address is cragg.hines@chron.com.

[Livyjr]

And that's just the way that it is .....

And so .....

Merry? Maybe, but clouds did their gloomy worst - May's rainy, cold weather has washed out sporting events, frustrated farmers

By DENNIS YUSKO, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Springtime weather in the Capital Region hit bottom early Monday as temperatures fell into the 30s, Albany recorded rain for the 10th consecutive day, and high elevations got snow.

A wet, chilly and sometimes windy weather pattern has stuck over the Capital Region for much of the month, making temperatures feel more like late March than late May.

Albany received more rainfall the last 10 days than it usually averages the entire month, and temperatures have dipped below average 11 days so far this May, according to the National Weather Service.

The monotony of waking up to rain everyday has growers and athletes feeling anxious for sunnier days as the traditional marker for summer -- Memorial Day weekend -- approaches.

The rain has postponed or canceled countless sporting events and threatens the area's hay and corn crops.

"You can play in the rain, but you can't play in standing water," said Mary Ann Schubmehl, administrator of the Capital District Youth Soccer League, whose 10,000 players have had about 300 games scratched in the last week to 10 days.

Sunday reached a high of just 54 and a low of 37 in Albany for an average warmth of 46.

That's 14 degrees colder than the average for the date, according to the weather service.

Monday's temperatures, too, were 10 to 15 degrees below normal.

The weather was even nippier in higher elevations, where snow fell in parts of Fulton County; Berkshire County, Massachusetts; and north of the Capital Region.

"Snow this time of the year is pretty unusual," said meteorologist Steve DiRienzo of the National Weather Service.

Saturday's light traces of precipitation meant rain fell every day from May 12 to 21.

The combined 3.82 inches is 1.47 inches more than the period's average.

For dairy and vegetable farmers, the lack of heat and sunshine means delays in harvesting and planting.

The unseasonably soggy season has kept many farmers indoors when they should be cutting hay and planting corn, said Aaron Gabriel, crops and soils educator for Cornell Cooperative Extension of Washington County.

"The frequency of the rain has caused somewhat of a problem," Gabriel said.

Woody Hill Farm in Salem is getting a late start on mowing and drying hay, and planting all its corn, co-owner Sheldon Brown said.

Alfalfa production is running about a week behind, and the farm is waiting for a string of sunny days to plant corn.

If they don't come soon, the farm risks a reduced yield in the fall, Brown said.

He operates an 860-cow milking operation with his cousins Jim and Dan Brown.

"With this past week of rainy weather, our fields are too wet to do anything," Brown said.

The constant rainfall made it hard for anyone to garden or mow their lawns.

About 65,000 plants usually adorn Saratoga Springs by the first week of May.

City crews are set back two weeks, so some flower beds remain vacant, Director of Public Works Bill McTygue said.

'It's been an annoyance."

"We're anxious to get under way," he said.

One positive side effect is that tulips and pansies last a bit longer, said David Becker, owner of Becker's Farm in East Greenbush.

But the rain cut deeply into sales, he said.

"The weather the past 10 days has been horrid," Becker said.

In the world of sports, clay fields tend to flood quicker than sandy surfaces.

While soccer clubs in East Greenbush and Bethlehem have canceled several matches this month due to puddles around the goal, Clifton Park's fields soak up the rainfall better, Schubmehl said.

But scheduling scholastic sports, even in Clifton Park, has become chaotic.

The school has postponed and rescheduled six to eight junior varsity and varsity games per day, with baseball, softball and tennis affected the most, Shenendehowa Athletic Director Matt Jones said.

"We're pretty much playing everyday this and next week to make up schedules."

"The ones that can't be played will be lost," he said.

The sun is expected to make its comeback this week, with temperatures possibly reaching past 80 by Sunday, meteorologist DiRienzo predicted.

"It's going to be hot."

"Summer is going to come," he said.

[jeffmoskin]

"Say kids ..."

"Has anyone seen Karl lately?"

How do you keep tabs on a professional liar?

Jason Leopold says he's been indicted, and stakes his professional career on that position.

Rove and Luskin, known perjurers, state the contrary.

Who do you trust?

[Livyjr]

How do you keep tabs on a professional liar?

Jason Leopold says he's been indicted, and stakes his professional career on that position.

Rove and Luskin, known perjurers, state the contrary.

Who do you trust?

Well, jeffmoskin ...

In this day and age ....

What would be politically correct ....

Would be to lock your heels together ....

Standing at a rigid position of attention ....

To salute KARL ROVE .....

As he is the POWER here in OUR America ...

Regardless of whether he ever told a drop of truth in his life ...

And so ....

[Livyjr]

And while jeffmoskin has us on the subject of what is mockingly known ...

Here in OUR America ....

As "TRUTH, JUSTICE AND THE AMERICAN WAY" .....

"Speaker Hastert protests to Bush over raid"

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press
Last updated: 7:06 a.m., Wednesday, May 24, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The FBI's raid on a congressman's office is rippling through Capitol Hill, with majority Republicans in the House complaining to President Bush and predicting a constitutional showdown in the Supreme Court.

Lawmakers predict this may be the beginning a long dispute over the FBI's search of Rep. William Jefferson's office last weekend. Historians say it was the first raid of a representative's quarters in Congress' 219 years.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., was so angry that he complained to Bush about the FBI's conduct.

"My opinion is that they took the wrong path," Hastert said of the FBI, after meeting with Bush in the White House.

"They need to back up, and we need to go from there."

FBI agents searched the Louisiana Democrat's office in pursuit of evidence in a bribery investigation.

The search warrant, signed by U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Hogan, was based on an affidavit that said agents found $90,000 in cash wrapped and stashed in the freezer of Jefferson's home.

Jefferson has not been indicted and has denied wrongdoing.

The search brought Republican and Democratic leaders together in a rare alliance, fighting what they branded a breach of constitutional boundaries between branches of government.

White House officials said they did not learn of the search until after it happened.

They pledged to work with the Justice Department to soothe lawmakers.

"We are hoping that there's a way to balance the constitutional concerns of the House of Representatives with the law enforcement obligations of the executive branch," White House press secretary Tony Snow said.

"Obviously we are taking note of Speaker Hastert's statements."

House Democrats reacted particularly quickly, in keeping with their election-year pledge to campaign against what they call a Republican "culture of corruption."

Democrats, hoping to exploit Republican scandals on Capitol Hill and regain control of Congress, are making it known that Jefferson is no longer welcome on the House's most prestigious committee, the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.

For his part, Jefferson remains defiant.

"I will not give up a committee assignment that is so vital to New Orleans at this crucial time for any uncertain, long-term political strategy," Jefferson said Tuesday.

"If asked, I would respectfully decline."

His spokeswoman, Melanie Roussell, added that Jefferson will not resign from Congress.

Officials said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had discussed Jefferson's situation with several fellow senior lawmakers and there was a consensus that he should step aside, preferably voluntarily, at least until his legal situation was clarified.

It was not clear whether she or an emissary approached Jefferson.

The officials who described the developments did so on condition of anonymity, citing the delicacy of the situation.

Pelosi had no immediate comment.

Jefferson is on the Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over taxes, trade, Medicare and more.

Pelosi moved aggressively recently when questions were raised about financial dealings of Rep. Alan Mollohan.

The West Virginian quickly announced that he was voluntarily stepping aside as the senior Democrat on the ethics committee.

Whatever Jefferson's fate, the weekend raid stirred bipartisan expressions of concern.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales tried to strike a conciliatory tone, saying, "We have a great deal of respect for the Congress as a coequal branch of government."

But he also defended the search:

"We have an obligation to the American people to pursue the evidence where it exists."

Justice Department officials said the decision to search Jefferson's office was made in part because he refused to comply with a subpoena for documents last summer.

Jefferson reported the subpoena to the House on Sept. 15, 2005.

The House and Senate Judiciary committees were looking at the ramifications of Hogan's action.

Also, House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters that Hastert's aides are reviewing several responses, including legal options.

"I've got to believe at the end of the day it's going to end up across the street at the Supreme Court," Boehner said.

"I don't see anything short of that."

------

Associated Press writers David Espo and Mark Sherman contributed to this report.

[Livyjr]

And while that is happening here ....

What's that happening there ....

Over in IRAQINAM?

Well ...

Let's not guess ....

Let's just go and see ....

And so ....

"Ex-Saddam minister: Wrong people on trial"

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 34 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A pajama-clad Tariq Aziz, once the most prominent public face of Saddam Hussein's regime, defended his former boss in court Wednesday and said Iraq's current Shiite leaders should be on trial for attempts to kill him and Saddam in the 1980s.

The 70-year-old Aziz, a former foreign minister and deputy prime minister, appeared thin and pale in his checkered pajamas and wore what looked like a hospital bracelet on his right wrist.

His family has said he suffers from heart trouble.

Aziz, appearing in public for the first time since turning himself in to the Americans during the 2003 U.S. led-invasion, is the best-known Saddam-era figure to take the stand in the seven-month-old trial.

Aziz insisted Saddam had no choice but to crack down in the Shiite town of Dujail after a July 8, 1982, shooting attack on his motorcade there, blamed on the Shiite Dawa Party backed by Iran.

"It was an assassination attempt against the president, and this party also tried to assassinate me in 1980," Aziz said.

"If the head of state comes under attack, the state is required by law to take action."

"If the suspects are caught with weapons, it's only natural they should be arrested and put on trial."

Hundreds of men, women and children were arrested by security forces after the assassination attempt.

Some prisoners allegedly were tortured to death and 148 Shiites were ordered sent to the gallows by Saddam's Revolutionary Court for alleged roles in the attempt.

Saddam and his seven co-defendants could be hanged if convicted of crimes against humanity for their involvement in the crackdown.

The defense has been making its case for the past two weeks.

A series of defense witnesses took the stand Wednesday — including former Saddam bodyguards — and testified that the Dujail shooting was a serious attack on the then-president.

One bodyguard, Abed Abdel-Hameed Mahmoud al-Tikriti, said a woman put a bloody handprint on Saddam's car to mark it for attack, so Saddam was put into a different car.

Aziz insisted Saddam did not bring up Dujail during later government meetings and never ordered co-defendants Barzan Ibrahim, the former Mukhabarat intelligence chief, or Taha Yassin Ramadan, a former Revolutionary Command Council member, to carry out the wave of arrests in Dujail.

Though his voice was hoarse, Aziz spoke firmly and gave a lively denunciation of the Dawa Party, to which the head of Iraq's current government, Nouri al-Maliki, and his predecessor, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, belong.

He said Dawa Party activists threw a hand grenade at him during an April 1980 visit to Baghdad's Mustansiriya University, an attack he claimed killed dozens of students.

When Chief Judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman told him to stick to the Dujail case, he protested that the Dujail shooting was "part of a series of attacks and assassination attempts by this group."

"I'm a victim of a criminal act conducted by this party, which is in power right now."

"So put it on trial."

"Its leader was the prime minister and his deputy is the prime minister right now, and they killed innocent Iraqis in 1980," he said.

The defendants and other witnesses in U.S. custody have been able to wear what they choose and have sometimes used their clothes to make a statement.

In February, Ibrahim wore only long underwear and a long-sleeve undershirt to show his contempt for the court.

Aziz, known during his time in office for his designer suits, wore pajamas and looked pale and weak — though his dress may have been chosen to emphasize his poor health and help his case for release.

Aziz's lawyers and family say he has heart problems and have been pressing for the U.S. military to free him or allow him to get treatment abroad, though American officials have insisted he gets adequate care in prison.

Saddam stood during the session and defended Ibrahim and Yassin, saying he did not order them to investigate the Dujail attack.

"This issue took its normal path."

"The security service is in charge of Iraqis inside Iraq while Mukhabarat was in charge of foreigners inside Iraq and Iraqis outside Iraq," Saddam said.

"I didn't order either Taha or Barzan in the Dujail issue."

"Why accuse Taha and Barzan in such a wrong way?"

"But you see the director of General Security or you ask the interior minister .. that's a natural thing."

"But to accuse someone who doesn't have anything to do with it is not normal."

The session had more of the fierce exchanges that have characterized the stormy trial, with Abdel-Rahman shouting at the defense team to stop arguing that the court is unfair.

"You don't have a defense plan, so you just insult the court!" Abdel-Rahman shouted at chief defense lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi when he complained that the judge was not letting them speak.

The judge also clashed with Saddam, who said from his seat:

"Do you want to shut people's mouth this way?"

"You are a defendant!" Abdel-Rahman yelled.

"I am your president!" Saddam shouted back.

But Aziz was the focus of the session, both in and out of the courtroom, where proceedings are to continue Monday.

During Saddam's autocratic rule, Aziz was seen as the regime's more humane and urbane face at home and abroad.

He often represented it at the United Nations, wearing Western suits and clenching a cigar between his teeth.

Aziz remains in U.S. custody and could face a future trial, though prosecutors in the special tribunal trying former regime members have not decided on any charges.

In Baghdad, Iraqis crowded around television sets in coffee shops and other public places to watch his testimony.

"Even though Aziz is part of the previous government, his hands are clean and pure, he doesn't have any role in criminal acts," said Wissam George, an engineer and — like Aziz — a Christian.

Doctoral student Omar al-Jabouri, 35, looked sadly on Aziz's poor state.

"We used to see Mr. Aziz looking very handsome, but today we see him in pajamas, which means they don't take care for the humanitarian side," he said.

Aziz's condemnations against Dawa struck a chord among some in the Sunni Arab minority that once held sway under Saddam and now feels discriminated against by the new Shiite leadership, seen as linked to Iran.

"Aziz spoke frankly and clearly about the Iranian aims and their intentions," university professor Osama Ahmed said.

"It's proven now, they planned to control Iraq."

[Livyjr]

And then ...

There is this ...

Which is different from all that other stuff that is usually going on in here ...

And so ....

"Archeologists to Search for Lost Mission"

By ELLIOTT MINOR, Associated Press Writer

Tue May 23, 7:05 PM ET

ALBANY, Ga. - Amateur archeologists will get a chance to search this summer for the lost mission of Santa Isabel de Utinahica, built in the wilderness in the 1600s for a lone friar who was dispatched to evangelize among the Indians on the edge of Spain's colonial empire.

"This was on the frontier," said Dennis Blanton, curator of native American archaeology at Atlanta's Fernbank Museum of Natural History.

"It was perched on the edge of the known world in this hemisphere."

"A barefoot Franciscan was dropped alone into alien territory and given his marching orders to convert these Indians and probably gather a certain amount of intelligence."

Fernbank and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources' Historic Preservation Division have teamed up to launch the exploration in June near the rural south Georgia town of Jacksonville, about 160 miles south of Atlanta.

"You'll get a sense of what these friars were dealing with," said Blanton, who will supervise the work.

"We want to put people in the crucible and be a part of this educational experience."

The program is intended to give adults and high school and college students an opportunity to take part in an excavation and to heighten appreciation for the state's history and archaeological treasures.

The amateurs will be guided by professional archeologists.

"This really is the perfect example of how archaeology contributes," Blanton said.

"If we want to understand the situation on the ground in any detail, we've got to go move some earth and that's what we want to do."

The site is in a Telfair County forest in an area known as "the forks," where the Ocmulgee and Oconee rivers converge to form the Altamaha River.

Based on historical accounts and American Indian artifacts, there's no doubt there was a mission in the area, one of the most remote of several dozen missions set up by the Spanish in northern Florida and southern Georgia, Blanton said.

The mission was named Utinahica after the Indians that lived in the area, Blanton said.

They were ancestors to the well-known Creek Indians.

Archeologists have already surveyed the area using remote sensing devices and plan to check it further with ground penetrating radar, he said.

Spanish artifacts have already been recovered at three sites and those will be targeted first, Blanton said.

"We want to set a good model for what ought to be done on these places," he said.

"We want people to come away with an appreciation of how it's done well."

"It'll be thoughtful and systematic."

"By the end of the summer, we'll be targeting places that look particularly interesting."

Blanton has hired two assistants to help with the program, which is expected to be offered again during the summer of 2007.

Teachers who participate can get continuing education credits.

"My strongest personal interest is to get people in middle and south Georgia deeply involved," he said.

"But we've got people coming from as far away as Oklahoma."

"It's really appealed to a lot of folks."

Most Georgians know about the role of the English and Gen. James Oglethorpe, who arrived with a band of settlers in 1733 to establish Savannah and the Georgia colony, but they know little about the role of the Spanish, who had a mission on St. Catherines Island south of Savannah that was active from about 1575 to 1680, Blanton said.

"There's nearly 200 years of prior European history that had a huge bearing on the later history we attribute to the English," Blanton said.

"What we're trying to do is give people a healthy reminder of this longer history, which is also pretty interesting history."

"It's almost like reading fiction."
___

On the Net:

Fernbank Museum: http://www.fernbank.edu/museum/homepage.aspx

[Livyjr]

And then, of course ....

There is this ...

"House leaders demand FBI return papers"

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press
Last updated: 6:56 p.m., Wednesday, May 24, 2006

WASHINGTON -- In rare, election-year harmony, House Republican and Democratic leaders jointly demanded on Wednesday that the FBI return documents taken in a Capitol Hill raid that has quickly grown into a constitutional turf fight beyond party politics.

"The Justice Department must immediately return the papers it unconstitutionally seized," House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement.

After that, they said, Democratic Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana must cooperate with the Justice Department's bribery investigation against him.

The leaders also said the Justice Department should not look at the documents or give them to investigators in the Jefferson case.

The developments capped a day of escalating charges, demands and behind-the-scene talks between House leaders and the Justice Department that ended with no resolution, according to officials of both parties.

House officials were drafting a joint resolution frowning on the raid.

And Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., announced a hearing next week titled, "Reckless Justice: Did the Saturday Night Raid of Congress Trample the Constitution?"

Constitutional confrontation aside, Pelosi said Jefferson should resign from the powerful Ways and Means committee.

He refused.

At the same time, Jefferson filed a motion asking the federal judge in the case to order the FBI to return the material it seized from his office.

The Justice Department dug in, repeating that the raid was carried out only after Jefferson refused to comply with a subpoena and only then with a search warrant signed by a judge.

"The actions were lawful and necessary under these unique circumstances," said Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty.

The constitutional fight was set in motion last Saturday night, when the FBI raided Jefferson's legislative office in pursuit of evidence against him in an investigation of whether he accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in a bribery deal.

Historians say the search was the first of its kind in Congress' 219-year history.

Reaction has crossed party lines and brought in all three branches of government.

Hastert, Pelosi and several other leaders of both parties in the Senate say the weekend raid violated the Constitution's separation of powers doctrine.

"These constitutional principles were not designed by the founding fathers to place anyone above the law," Hastert and Pelosi said.

"Rather, they were designed to protect the Congress and the American people from abuses of power, and those principles deserve to be vigorously defended."

Not all lawmakers agreed.

"These self-serving separation of power arguments" have no basis in law, said Sen. David Vitter, R-La., in a letter to GOP leaders.

He noted that search warrants had previously been served on members' homes, including Jefferson's.

"A distinction that would treat searches in their offices completely differently is superficial and baseless," Vitter wrote.

"The American people will come to one conclusion -- that congressional leaders are trying to protect their own from valid investigations."

No one was defending the Louisiana congressman other than Jefferson himself.

"In the interest of upholding the high ethical standard of the House Democratic Caucus, I am writing to request your immediate resignation from the Ways and Means Committee," Democratic leader Pelosi wrote him.

"With respect, I decline to do so," he wrote back, leaving it to the House to try to pressure him out of the seat or strip him of the post by majority vote.

"I will not give up a committee assignment that is so vital to New Orleans at this crucial time for any uncertain, long-term political strategy," he added.

Away from the Capitol, Jefferson filed a motion that mirrored parts of Pelosi and Hastert's statement.

In it, he asked U.S. District Chief Judge Thomas Hogan to order the FBI to return all of the documents taken from his office during the 15-hour search.

Hogan, appointed by the President Reagan, was the judge who last Thursday issued the warrant authorizing the search.

Ethics investigations involving lawmakers and executive powers claimed by President Bush are expected to be issues for many candidates in the upcoming midterm elections.

House Democrats have been building a campaign around what they call a Republican "culture of corruption" focused on influence peddling and convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Many Republicans, meanwhile, are trying to distance themselves from Bush, whose public approval ratings have fallen with the continuing war in Iraq and disclosures of secret domestic wiretaps without warrants.

Hastert on Tuesday complained directly to Bush that the raid violated the Constitution's separation of powers doctrine.

Justice Department officials said there was no similar outcry when FBI agents searched a federal judge's chambers in a bribery investigation in the early 1990s.

In that case, U.S. District Judge Robert Collins of Louisiana was convicted of bribery, after agents found marked bills in his office.

The Collins case is the only one in which a federal judge's office has been searched, the department said.

[Livyjr]

And while the CONGRESS boys and girls down there in Washington. D.C. are all atwitter about the Federal Bureau of Investigation .....

Looking into the ABSOLUTE NAUSEATING STENCH OF CORRUPTION ...

That is wafting up out of the "HILL" down there in Washington, D.C. .....

A disgusting MIASMA OF DECAY that threatens to engulf the entire world in its grip .....

Let's see what Richard Bruce Cheney is up to this morning ....

Besides carrying some of that stink around with him ...

Wherever he goes ....

And so ....

"Cheney may be called in CIA leak case"

By TONI LOCY, Associated Press
Last updated: 6:46 a.m., Thursday, May 25, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Could Vice President Dick Cheney be a star prosecution witness in the perjury trial of his former chief of staff?

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald suggested in a court filing Wednesday that Cheney would be a logical witness for the prosecution because the vice president could authenticate notes he jotted on a copy of a New York Times opinion column by a critic of the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

Fitzgerald said Cheney's "state of mind" is "directly relevant" to whether I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice president's former top aide, lied to FBI agents and a federal grand jury about how Libby learned CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity and what he later told reporters.

Libby "shared the interests of his superior and was subject to his direction," the prosecutor wrote.

"Therefore, the state of mind of the vice president as communicated to (the) defendant is directly relevant to the issue of whether (the) defendant knowingly made false statements to federal agents and the grand jury regarding when and how he learned about (Plame's) employment and what he said to reporters regarding this issue," according to the filing.

Cheney's spokeswoman, Lea Anne McBride, said, "Since the inquiry relates to a case in the courts, I refer you to the Office of the Special Counsel."

In the Times op-ed on July 6, 2003, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson -- Plame's husband -- accused the administration of twisting intelligence on Iraq to justify going to war.

In 2002, the CIA sent Wilson to Niger to determine whether Iraq tried to buy uranium yellowcake from Niger to build a nuclear weapon.

Wilson discounted the reports.

But a version of the allegation, attributed to British intelligence, wound up in President Bush's State of the Union address in 2003.

Cheney wrote on the article, "Have they done this sort of thing before?"

"Send an ambassador to answer a question?"

"Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us?"

"Or did his wife send him on a junket?"

Libby told the agents and the grand jury that he believed he had learned from reporters that Plame was married to Wilson and that he had forgotten that Cheney had told him that in the weeks before Wilson's article was published.

In his grand jury testimony, Libby said Cheney was so upset about Wilson's allegations that they discussed them daily after the article appeared.

"He was very keen to get the truth out," Libby testified, quoting Cheney as saying, "Let's get everything out."

Libby also testified that he did not recall seeing Cheney's notes on the Wilson article.

Cheney viewed Wilson's allegations as a personal attack because the article suggested the vice president knew that Wilson had discounted the reports that Iraq had tried to buy the material from Niger.

Eight days after Wilson's article, syndicated columnist Robert Novak identified Plame and suggested that she had played a role in the CIA's decision to send Wilson to Niger.

Fitzgerald contends that Plame's status as a CIA officer was classified and that Libby was told that disclosing the identities of intelligence operatives like her could pose a danger.

The prosecutor wants to use Cheney's notes on the Wilson article to corroborate other evidence that he says shows Libby lied about outing Plame to reporters.

In a filing last week, Libby's lawyers said Fitzgerald would not call Cheney as a witness and would have a hard time getting the vice president's notes admitted into evidence at Libby's trial, which is scheduled for January.

"Contrary to defendant's assertion, the government has not represented that it does not intend to call the vice president as a witness at trial," Fitzgerald wrote.

"To the best of government's counsel's recollection, the government has not commented on whether it intends to call the vice president as a witness."

The fact that Cheney's notations included a reference to Wilson's wife makes it "more likely than not" that the vice president and Libby discussed her shortly after Wilson's article was published -- and not weeks or months later as Libby told the grand jury, Fitzgerald wrote.

Libby also told the grand jury that Cheney often scribbled on newspaper articles and kept them on a corner of his desk at the White House.

"He often cut out from a newspaper an article using a little penknife that he has and put it on the edge of his desk," Libby testified, according to a transcript of the grand jury proceeding that Fitzgerald attached to his filing.

Libby testified that Cheney would pull an article out of the pile later and "think about it."

end quotes

SO ......

There sits Richard Bruce Cheney .....

And his "LITTLE PENKNIFE" ......

And there are all of these news clippings ....

That Richard Bruce has "cut" from the newspapers .....

With his little penknife .....

I wonder if he takes that little penknife of his ...

And gouges out the eyes ...

From the pictures of his "ENEMIES" .....

Or whether he does that later ...

With one of his "GUNS" .....

And it would be both interesting ...

And educational ...

If that information ...

Came out at SCOOTER'S trial ...

And so ....