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May 7, 2004, 5:58 p.m. -- (Last week's weblog)

First reactions to Secy. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's testimony. C- Span video (Sens. Clinton, Warner, Frist); Rumsfeld Wins Mixed Reviews from U.S. Lawmakers; Bush Loyalty Put to Test by Rumsfeld (both Reuters).

Queen Noor: A powerful Arab-American voice: Queen Noor of Jordan (Noor means Light) was on Hardball with Chris Matthews last night.

(She's Princeton graduate Lisa Halaby '73, daughter of former FAA chief and Pan Am CEO Najeeb Halaby and widow of the late King Hussein. She now lives in McLean, Va.)

The queen is smart, compassionate and articulate, and seems one of the few who might help bridge the gulf between the West and the Arab world right now. articulate Here's just a clip from the transcript.

MATTHEWS: ...is it a combination of nationalism, resistance to the West, anger over the fact we‘ve always taken Israel‘s side against the Arabs, anger at the fact we‘ve always dealt with perhaps corrupt governments and exploited the oil, grabbed the oil? Is it a good reason they had for coming at us?

QUEEN NOOR: There‘s never a justification for those kinds of atrocities.

They are condemned by Islam. Suicide, the killing of innocents is condemned emphatically in Islam. It is also not a reflection of Arab culture. All the reason you listed are part of the reasons for the ghastly atrocities that we witnessed on that day. It is a series of responsibilities that we in the Arab world bear for societies that have marginalized so many people, that have not promoted public participation in decision-making, but have allowed half of Arab women to be illiterate, that have not promoted education, freedom of speech and the kind of knowledge and awareness that is absolutely critical.

We have had—just to look on the positive side, there have been two Arab human development reports that have been released by the United Nations‘ UNDP, written by Arabs, respected and credible within the region. That have identified the whole range of responsibilities that we in the region bear. On the other hand, those reports also—and they‘re very objective—also make reference to the U.S. policies in the region, particularly the Arab-Israeli conflict, which has to be understood as a root cause of frustration and anger in a region and among Muslim communities the world over.

You will not succeed in Iraq and Afghanistan or in addressing terrorism and extremism in the Middle East if you don‘t recognize that that longest-standing, longest military occupation in modern history, is—has to be addressed.

and this,

MATTHEWS: Do many Arab people living in Libya and Syria, in your country of Jordan, and Egypt, do they really want human rights and democracy? Or would they rather have Sharia, Islamic rule? Would they rather have even strong dictators, as long as they‘re nationalistic and talk a tough language against the West?

QUEEN NOOR: I think that you will find people driven to extremes when there is no middle ground that offers them a voice and offers them a hope and opportunity.

The Arab human development reports clearly show—and what I have seen throughout the region as well, which is that the overwhelming majority of people in the Arab countries, including the Palestinian territories, are looking for security and stability, economic hope and opportunity, safety, safety, and a chance to contribute their voices to political decision-making. That is what they want.

Human rights is top of the list in terms of what contributes to security and contributes to confidence-building measures between a great power like the United States and people in the region or among different communities in our region. In the absence of respect for human rights as a clear—as a defining characteristic of policies and relationships, you will fail. We will all fail.

The Washington Post did a story on Queen Noor in March: After the Reign.
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Sophie Crumb: She grew up with Mr. Natural and Felix the Cat, since she's R. Crumb's daughter, and she draws, too. She first emerged (sort of) in 2001 in USA Today. Thanks to Patrick Blake for the pointer.
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Krispy Kreme Warns, Stock Drops 25 Percent: From The Street.com,

Krispy Kreme has discovered a hole in its business model. And it's blaming the Atkins diet.

Shares in the North Carolina-based doughnut maker plunged Friday after it lowered earnings guidance for the first quarter and full-year 2005, saying the low-carbohydrate craze has hurt demand for its products. Recently, the stock was down $7.90, or 24.8%, to $23.91.

Certainly, Krispy Kreme is being affected by the Atkins, South Beach and other low-carb diets. But just like a company that blames the weather on poor sales, some companies are better than others at weathering a storm....

Oddly, I couldn't find a story that tells you how many carbs are in a Krispy Kreme (Although the Times reports the fat and calories -- 200 cal/12 g fat in one donut -- neither of which count much to low-carbers).

The correct answer: 22 grams are carbs, including 10 grams of sugar.

The company has already announced it plans to introduce a low-carb donut by the end of the year.

Related: CNN Money reported this week that Splenda -- a form of sugar* with no calories and no carbs -- is booming:

With no special advertising or publicity, Splenda, the sugar replacement from Johnson & Johnson's McNeil Nutritionals Worldwide division, is riding the hottest trend in food today -- low-carbohydrate eating popularized by the Atkins Diet.

"It's wild," Colin Watts, McNeil's president, said in a recent interview. "We've doubled the business within just the most recent 18 months."

Drug maker J&J doesn't break out Splenda's results. But sales surpassed those of rival Equal in early 2003, and now command about a 47-percent share of U.S. sugar substitute market at retail, according to Watts. The market is worth an estimated $1 billion....

*The process selectively replaces three hydrogen-oxygen groups on the sugar molecule with three chlorine atoms.
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12:43 p.m.
Ad Assails D.C. Cardinal For Stance on Communion: At the Washington Post,

A Roman Catholic antiabortion group launched an advertising campaign against Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington yesterday, attacking him for saying he is not comfortable denying Communion to Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and other Catholic members of Congress who support abortion rights.

The Virginia-based American Life League said the advertisements are the beginning of a $500,000 print ad campaign targeting bishops who are reluctant to punish Catholic politicians for taking policy positions that defy the church. The first ad shows Jesus in agony on the cross and asks: "Cardinal McCarrick: Are you comfortable now?" ...

...Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, said her organization believes that all priests and lay Eucharistic ministers who hand out Communion are obligated -- with or without instructions from their bishops -- to refuse Communion to any federal, state or local official who is known to disagree with church teaching on abortion, contraception, stem cell research, euthanasia or in vitro fertilization.

Karl Maurer, vice president of Catholic Citizens of Illinois, a conservative grass-roots group, said he would add sodomy and gay marriage to that list. Some liberal grass-roots groups have said they believe the church's teachings against war and the death penalty are worthy of equal treatment.

"Once you open this door, what's going to come rolling through it?" asked Deal W. Hudson, editor of the magazine Crisis and a key Catholic ally of the Bush administration. "Pretty soon, no one would be taking Communion."

Andrew Sullivan: "Do the bishops understand what they're toying with here? Although the sacrament will remain formally open to anyone who sincerely wants to live a life in Christ, in effect only Republicans will be allowed."

Meanwhile in Boston, 37 parishes have been notified they may be closed. From the Boston Herald: (Archbishop Sean) "O'Malley ordered a reconfiguration of the archdiocese to cope with shifting demographics, a decline in the priesthood and the financial difficulties facing some urban parishes."

Locally: Many Rhode Island politicians -- including Sen. Jack Reed and Rep. Patrick Kennedy -- are Catholics who support abortion rights. On April 24, Journal religion writer Dick Dujardin published this:

PROVIDENCE - While a top Vatican official told reporters in Rome yesterday that priests should deny Communion to political figures who support abortion rights, Providence Bishop Robert E. Mulvee said yesterday that the issue is one for Roman Catholic bishops in the United States to decide....

...Bishops Mulvee and McManus pointed to a section in the long-awaited new document, Redemptionis Sacramentum, that says "Sacred Ministers may not deny the Sacraments to those who seek them in a reasonable manner, are rightly disposed and are not prohibited by law from receiving them."

The two local bishops observed that the American hierarchy has already set up a committee to study the question of elected officials and abortion, but the "conclusions have as yet not been presented to the bishops of our country for consideration."

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Two new "special reports" on exporting jobs: At news.com, Offshoring stories around the Web; at ZDNet, Outsourcing: Reality behind the politics

(Having two names for the same phenomenon is just confusing.)
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Alternate Materials 2: Wooden apples, iron bananas, a calico-covered cat. Worth 1000, home of ongoing photoshopping contests, has come up with another stunning stimulus to creativity: "Take any object, and swap its material, in a major way."

Here are the large images and the thumbnails.
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The Best of What's Next: 2004. At Popular Science. The top choice makes it clear that a few other technologies have to advance for the toys-to-die-for to be born:

No. 1: THIS PDA IS A REAL POCKET PC
The handheld "smart communicator" will have the memory and processing power of today's best desktop computers, and it'll display on any nearby screen. The virtual laptop is pocket-size.

Call it the smart communicator. In a few years, the functions in today's personal digital assistant (PDA)--notebook, to-do list, calendar, contacts--will be the least of it. Thanks to a variant of Moore's Law that says data-storage density doubles every 18 months, tomorrow's smart communicator will hold 250GB--enough to store 55 movies.

Indeed, video--both viewing and recording--will be a killer app. One reason: "There will be phenomenal leaps forward in display technology," says Hank Nothhaft, chairman and CEO of Danger Labs, maker of the SideKick PDA. Say good-bye to your PDA's power-greedy liquid crystal display (LCD). Say hello to the smart communicator's energy-efficient, organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display. OLEDs use organic materials that emit light when electrically charged, so there's no need for a backlight. Already found in some cellphones, OLEDs offer a wider viewing angle and faster refresh rate than LCDs, improving the look of everything from games to business graphics.

Another leap: high-speed wireless connectivity. As data-transfer speeds of 400 Kbps become standard, high-quality streaming video will become a reality.

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French prisoners publish a cookbook: Reuters reports,

PARIS (Reuters) - Fancy a "Solitary salad" or some "Jail-style apple pancakes"? French prisoners have published their own cookbook to teach other inmates how to produce low-budget meals with simple prison cooking equipment.

The book, "Cooking Just For Me", seeks to live up to France's reputation for gastronomic excellence. It features 100 recipes by convicts that range from sophisticated fish dishes to rich chocolate cakes and desserts.

"Cooking in prison forces you to be creative: You only have a pan, a saucepan and an electric stove -- that's all," Claude Deroussent, a doctor in the Ensisheim prison in southeastern France who launched the project, told Reuters.

Deroussent called on France's 60,000 prisoners last year to send in their favourite recipes and asked renowned chef Marc Haeberlin to select the best out of an overwhelming 600 replies....

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May 6, 2004, 4:15 p.m.

There's only one story today, and perhaps for days to come. (Seymour Hersh says, of Abu Ghraib prison, "There was a special women's section. There were young boys in there. There were things done to young boys that were videotaped. It's much worse.") Here are some diversions.

India's secret army of online ad 'clickers: From the Times of India,

NEW DELHI: With her baby on her lap, Maya Sharma (name changed) gets down to work every evening from her eighth-floor flat at Vasant Vihar. Maya's job is to click on online advertisements. She doesn't care about the ads, but diligently keeps count — it's $0.18 to $0.25 per click.

A growing number of housewives, college graduates, and even working professionals across metropolitan cities are rushing to click paid Internet ads to make $100 to $200 (up to Rs 9,000) per month.

"It's boring, but it is extra money for a couple of hours of clicking weblinks every day," says a resident of Delhi's Patparganj, who has kept a $300-target for the summer.

Traffic to click overseas Internet ads — from home loans to insurance — is spreading fast in India. "I have no interest in what appears when clicking an ad. I care only whether to pause 60 seconds or 90 seconds, as money is credited if you stay online for a fixed time," says another user.

Here's how it works: online advertisers in developed markets agree to pay hosting website each time an ad is clicked. With performance-based deals becoming dominant on the Internet, intermediaries have sprung up to "do the needful”.' Why, type in 'earn rupees clicking ads' in Google — you get 25,000 results.

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2-for-1 Voting: An interesting op-ed in the Times today by Yale professor Bruce Ackerman suggests a way Nader can run for President without being a spoiler:

In November, Americans won't be casting their ballots directly for George Bush, John Kerry or Ralph Nader. From a constitutional point of view, they will be voting for competing slates of electors nominated in each state by the contenders. Legally speaking, the decisions made by these 538 members of the Electoral College determine the next president.

In the case of Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry, electors will be named by each state's political parties. But Ralph Nader is running as an independent. When he petitions to get on the ballot in each state, he must name his own slate of electors. While he is free to nominate a distinctive slate of names, he can also propose the very same names that appear on the Kerry slate.

If he does, he will provide voters with a new degree of freedom. On Election Day, they will see a line on the ballot designating Ralph Nader's electors. But if voters choose the Nader line, they won't be wasting their ballot on a candidate with little chance of winning. Since Mr. Nader's slate would be the same as Mr. Kerry's, his voters would be providing additional support for the electors selected by the Democrats. If the Nader-Kerry total is a majority in any state, the victorious electors would be free to vote for Mr. Kerry.

This plan is consistent with the original understanding of the founders. When they created the Electoral College, they did not anticipate the rise of the party system; they expected voters to select community leaders who would make their own judgments when casting their ballots for the presidency. In designating Kerry electors rather than insisting on his own slate, Mr. Nader would be giving new meaning to this tradition that refused to view electors as simply vehicles of a candidate's will. In effect, he would be enabling his supporters to rank their choices: Mr. Nader first, Mr. Kerry second.

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Photos: When ice shrouds a ship. Lars Lund writes,

A fishing boat sank not that far away from where I live with the loss of the 4 crewmembers during NW gales and a temp. of -28C (-18F). Although the cause hasn't been oficially determined the photos taken during the search of one of the rescue craft would strongly indicate that the boat became topheavy and capsized.

Ice was thought to be the culprit. The photos are of the Coast Guard ship Sir William Alexander that searched the Bay of Fundy for the lost fishing boat El Loda Cash.
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The Kingmaker: Wired profiles WSJ tech columnist (and West Warwick native) Walter Mossberg.
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Inflatable Church: For that portable wedding:

This fantastic air filled building is 47ft long by 25ft wide & 47ft high. The attention to detail is heavenly complete with plastic "stained glass" windows and airbrush artwork which replicates the traditional church. Inside it has an inflatable organ, altar, pulpit, pews, candles and a gold cross. Even the doors are flanked by air-filled angels. The church can be built in three hours and dis-assembled in less than two.

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Bunch Puzzle Flash Game: True mindless escape. Just a demo with a few levels, but the puzzle version is interesting, even if it it doesn't last long.
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Governor Puts Communion Aside After Upsetting New Jersey Bishops:

TRENTON, May 5 - Bowing to pressure from New Jersey's increasingly outspoken Roman Catholic bishops, Gov. James E. McGreevey said Wednesday that he would no longer receive holy communion during Mass because his support for abortion rights and other social causes contradicts church doctrine.

During the past month, bishops of Camden and Trenton have stepped forward to declare that Mr. McGreevey, a former altar boy who attends services at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Princeton, is not a devout Catholic because of his stance on several political causes that are opposed by the church, including domestic partnership for gay couples, abortion rights and the use of human stem cells in medical research. The Camden bishop said he would refuse to give Mr. McGreevey communion.

The dispute reached new intensity on Wednesday when Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark released a five-page pastoral statement, published in this week's issue of the archdiocesan newspaper, The Catholic Advocate. It said elected officials who support abortion rights should spare the church "scandal" by opting not to seek communion when they attend Mass.

Speaking to reporters after an appearance on the steps of the State House, Mr. McGreevey said he would comply with the bishops' wishes. But he sharply disagreed with what he called their effort to force Catholic elected officials to choose between their political beliefs and their faith, invoking the names of both St. Thomas Aquinas and John F. Kennedy, the nation's only Roman Catholic president.

The governor also used the occasion to reaffirm his support for abortion rights, winning several ovations from the group of community leaders and environmentalists who had gathered to hear him promote an environmental initiative.

"I believe it's a false choice in America between one's faith and constitutional obligation," Mr. McGreevey said. "In America we have a longstanding policy of separation between church and state."

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(California) Ban on E-Voting OKd by Panel: Senator says secretary of state, who has barred machines in four counties, needs backup should counties 'thumb their nose' at him. L.A. Times (Reg. req.),

SACRAMENTO — The Senate Elections Committee, upset that counties are challenging the secretary of state's restrictions on electronic balloting devices, cleared legislation Wednesday that would ban all electronic voting in the November election.

"I believe the secretary of state is on solid legal footing. What he has done is reasonable," Sen. Ross Johnson (R-Irvine) said. "If the counties are going to basically thumb their nose at the secretary of state, I think it's important we have a backup."

Johnson said he also was concerned about the reliability and security of electronic machines.

The measure needs two-thirds approval from the state Senate and Assembly and the approval of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — potentially steep challenges because of organized and widespread opposition from counties that want to use the equipment in November.

If approved, the legislation would shut down the swiftest shift to electronic voting systems in the nation. Nearly 6.5 million California voters cast ballots electronically in the March election, accounting for 43% of votes cast in the state on election day and more than any other state in the nation.

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May 5, 2004, 7:20 p.m.

Lots of news today...

A big buzz for Michael Moore: Show biz, 21st-century style.

Disney Has Blocked the Distribution of My New Film... by Michael Moore

Yesterday I was told that Disney, the studio that owns Miramax, has officially decided to prohibit our producer, Miramax, from distributing my new film, "Fahrenheit 9/11." The reason? According to today's (May 5) New York Times, it might "endanger" millions of dollars of tax breaks Disney receives from the state of Florida because the film will "anger" the Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush. The story is on page one of the Times and you can read it here (Disney Forbidding Distribution of Film That Criticizes Bush).

The story says,

Mr. Moore said the film describes financial connections between the Bush family and its associates and prominent Saudi Arabian families that go back three decades. He said it closely explores the government's role in the evacuation of relatives of Mr. bin Laden from the United States immediately after the 2001 attacks. The film includes comments from American soldiers on the ground in Iraq expressing disillusionment with the war, he said.

By the way, the Cannes Film Festival starts a week from today, and Moore's film, Fahrenheit 9/11, is among the 18 films competing for the Palme d'Or

Such publicity!

"Heading into Cannes, you've got this whole controversy that people will be talking about – Miramax not being able to release the film. It adds to the mystique of the film, it adds to the danger," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations.

"With a lot of filmmakers, this would not be a good thing," he said. "When it comes to Michael Moore, there's not really a downside to him to have controversy."

It's going to be a long, hot summer.
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Gardening and Such... is a group with 37 members, but they don't all talk at once. They share garden solutions and links. It's part of StumbleUpon, which describes itself as "a community-based, word-of-mouth approach to websurfing – pages you 'stumble upon' come from like-minded people who share your interests."

Someone there linked the Garden Blogs page, then emailed to ask for a spot on it. I'm just above The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure. (No way!)
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5:20 p.m
BBC introduces flexible TV with online trial: Finally. Think about it -- there is absolutely no reason you have to watch a pretaped show at 8 p.m. on Thursday night. Watch it when you're free! The Independent's take on "TV on demand":

The future of television is almost upon us: the day when we spend our train or bus journey to work catching up on the shows we missed the night, or even several days, before.

Later this month, the BBC will launch a pilot project that could lead to all television programmes being made available on the internet. Viewers will be able to scan an online guide and download any show. Programmes would be viewed on a computer screen or could be burned to a DVD and watched on a television set. Alternatively, programmes could be downloaded to a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a hand-held computer that is becoming increasingly popular in Britain and sells from about £70 (about $125)...

...The plan is to make all television programmes from the previous week available on the internet, using a programme guide similar to that already used on digital television.

The inspiration for the idea is the BBC Radio Player scheme, which has made the corporation's radio content available online for listeners unable to catch programmes at their scheduled times.

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Electronic Voting Still In Infancy, Critics Say: WaPo.

With six months to go before the presidential election, the Election Assistance Commission established by Congress is having its first meeting today. Congress put up $3.9 billion for election upgrades after the 2000 debacle and repeat problems in South Florida in 2002. States are to get the biggest chunk of the money in the next two months. But the commission, which was established to guide them, just came into existence, too late to help in buying decisions. And the federal research intended as the basis of the standards has not been financed, much less begun.

Meanwhile, Congress is ready to weigh in, with hearings to begin next week on several election-technology-related proposals. ...

...Local officials are skittish about upgrading amid the growing controversy and changing standards. Localities that have not bought equipment are pleading for guidance. Early adopters who plunged ahead are fearful that the systems they bought will be declared unfit. On Friday, California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley did just that, decertifying 14,000 Diebold touch-screen terminals in four counties because of problems in the state's March 2 primary. He also decertified an additional 28,000 touch screens but said they could be used in November's election if several conditions are met, including giving every voter the option to use a paper ballot instead....

Meanwhile: County to sue to save e-voting. From the Riverside, (Calif.) Press-Enterprise. (Your projo password will work here.)

Riverside County's Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to sue Secretary of State Kevin Shelley for decertifying their touch-screen voting system.

After meeting in closed session, the supervisors announced they will take Shelley to court to stop his "assault on the touch-screen voting system pioneered by Riverside County," said Roy Wilson, chairman of the Board of Supervisors.

Riverside County became the first in the state to use the high-tech machines when it implemented them countywide in 2000. Twenty-nine accurate elections have taken place in the county since then, Wilson said.

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Fifty years of pop: 50 moments that shaped popular musical history. These surveys race along -- the '50s get three moments, two of which involve Elvis -- but they're irresistible. This one's from the UK Guardian.
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Red Dawn in Dallas: Columbia Journalism Review looks at what's behind the newsroom shakeup at the Dallas Morning News. (Disclosure: Belo bought The Providence Journal in 1997.)
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True hero athlete: Gwen Knapp at SFGate.

Just when we thought we had a pure and simple hero, a millionaire athlete who gave up wealth and fame to become the ideal patriot, to make the ultimate sacrifice, his friends and family complicated everything. They turned Pat Tillman into a human being Monday, showing us what was really lost during that ambush in Afghanistan, insisting that we question every assumption we've made since he died an icon on April 22.

Yes, there were uplifting tales, moments when tears and pride swelled in everyone watching Tillman's memorial service at the San Jose Municipal Rose Garden. There were jarring moments, too, and they carried the message of the afternoon -- "challenge yourself" -- more powerfully than those laden with conventional inspiration.

Tillman's youngest brother, Rich, wore a rumpled white T-shirt, no jacket, no tie, no collar, and immediately swore into the microphone. He hadn't written anything, he said, and with the starkest honesty, he asked mourners to hold their spiritual bromides.

"Pat isn't with God,'' he said. "He's f -- ing dead. He wasn't religious. So thank you for your thoughts, but he's f -- ing dead.''

What? This didn't happen for God, as well as country? A professional athlete turned soldier, and we're supposed to believe that he'd have no use for piety? Robbed of a cliche, where does that leave us?

Challenge yourself. ...

That's Rich Tillman in the AP photo above, toasting his older brother Pat during the late Arizona Cardinal's memorial service.

TV stations pull away from funeral as emotional language takes over: AZCentral.com:

...While no one disputed the honesty of emotion as relatives, friends and dignitaries eulogized the former Arizona Cardinal, who walked away from a lucrative football career to join the Army and was killed in action April 22, station executives said they had no choice but to suspend coverage when family members used curse words in their talks.

"We had certainly covered many funerals over the years, many services for police officers, firefighters, other heroes," said John Misner, president and general manager for KPNX (Channel 12). "We never imagined at a service like this, with Senator (John) McCain in attendance, Maria Shriver in attendance and other guests, that that kind of language would be used."..

Jeff Jarvis, who's become Howard Stern's greatest defender, is all over this. He's found a link that suggests that the fear of complaints over an unexpected "bad" word could end live news broadcasts:

Some CBS Affils Could Drop Newscasts: at Broadcasting & Cable

CBS affiliates are telling the Federal Communications Commission that unless it changes its ruling about profanities on-air, many will have to stop doing news outside of the 10 p.m.-6 a.m. safe harbor for indecent speech.

Noncommercial stations, meanwhile, argued that the decision has caused them to significantly self-censor for the first time.

The CBS stations move would mean an end to many morning, afternoon and newscasts, which are ironically just the sort of local service the FCC otherwise encourages.

"Live newsgathering outside of the safe harbor will be a risk that many licensees can't take," the affiliates wrote the Federal Communications Commission.

Related: FCC Swamped With Oprah Indecency Complaints. The Smoking Gun has letters, more than 1,600 letters objecting to a March 18 Oprah Winfrey afternoon show featuring a graphic glossary of teen sexual terms. Hard to tell what's real and what's a put-on, since Stern supporters urged letter writers to complain to the FCC, seeking equal treatment of Oprah.
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A think tank's lab called Iraq: The NYT's Krugman looks beyond the pieties.

...Much has been written about the damage done by foreign policy ideologues who ignored the realities of Iraq, imagining that they could use the country to prove the truth of their military and political doctrines. Less has been said about how dreams of making Iraq a showpiece for free trade, supply-side tax policy and privatization — dreams that were equally oblivious to the country's realities — undermined the chances for a successful transition to democracy.

A number of people, including Jay Garner, the first U.S. administrator of Iraq, think that the Bush administration shunned early elections, which might have given legitimacy to a transitional government, so it could impose economic policies that no elected Iraqi government would have approved. Indeed, over the past year the Coalition Provisional Authority has slashed tariffs, flattened taxes and thrown Iraqi industry wide open to foreign investors — reinforcing the sense of many Iraqis that we came as occupiers, not liberators.

But it's the reliance on private contractors to carry out tasks usually performed by government workers that has really come back to haunt us....

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The war of the words is a commentary by Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame).

One of the chief problems with the current exciting adventure in Iraq is that no one can agree on what to call anyone else.

In the second world war we were fighting the Germans, and the Germans were fighting us. Everyone agreed who was fighting who. That's what a proper war is like.

However, in Iraq, there isn't even any agreement on what to call the Americans. The Iraqis insist on calling them "Americans", which seems, on the face of it, reasonable. The Americans, however, insist on referring to themselves as "coalition forces". This is probably the first time in history that the United States has tried to share its military glory with someone else...

...Then there's the problem of what the Americans are going to call the Iraqis - especially the ones that they kill. You can call people who are defending their own homes from rockets and missiles launched from helicopters and tanks "fanatics and terrorists" only for so long. Eventually even newspaper readers will smell a rat....

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2:15 p.m.

Classical senior a Prairie Home Companion talent finalist:

Pianist Mo Tian, 17, of Providence, is one of six finalists in Prairie Home Companion's "Talent from Twelve to Twenty" contest. The winner will be selected during Saturday's show. (6 p.m. on WGBH, Boston, repeated Sunday at noon), hosted by Garrison Keillor.

For his audition, Tian played Chopin's "Nocturne for piano in D flat Major, Op. 27, No. 2" (listen to it).

Tian, a senior at Classical High school, will attend Brown University next year, according to the extensive biography on the PHC site, a jam-packed list of accomplishments and performances.

The latest entry: "Most recently, he has been performing piano with the Youth Orchestra at Trinity Repertory in a production of Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story."

(Thanks to my colleague Beth Heaney for the tip.)
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New overtime rules rejected again. WaPo:

The Republican-controlled Senate voted yesterday to block new Labor Department rules that critics said would deny overtime pay to millions of white-collar workers, handing an embarrassing rebuff to the Bush administration on a politically sensitive jobs issue.

The Senate voted 52 to 47 to scrap the new rules despite recent changes to address earlier criticism, an intense lobbying campaign by Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao and a last-ditch GOP effort to avert defeat by proposing a long list of jobs for which overtime pay could not be eliminated.

Here's how the vote went. R.I. Sen. Lincoln Chafee, despite a personal appeal from Secretary Chao, was one of 5 Republicans opposing the administration's changes: Ben Nighthorse Campbell (Colo.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) and Arlen Specter (Pa.) also joined all Democrats present except Zell Miller (Ga.) in voting to protect overtime pay. Murkowski and Specter are facing stiff competition in their November races.

The gist of this one is that the administration wanted to make some lower-income workers, such as fast-food managers, eligible for overtime by raising the income limit for workers who are guaranteed overtime, despite job title, from $8,060 to $23,660.. But they also wanted to withhold overtime from some middle-class workers by allowing companies to reclassify them as managers. Police sergeants, nurses, oil rig workers, insurance claim adjusters and even some journalists were potentially affected..

Despite a rewrite of the rules last month to address some of the major concerns -- among them, overtime protection would extend to incomes of $100,000 rather than $65,000, and protection for first responders would be protected -- it wasn't enough.

But it's not over. NYT reports,

The defeat in the Senate does not necessarily mean that the proposed restrictions, supposed to start in August, will be thwarted. The Senate still has to vote on the corporate tax bill that includes the amendment blocking the overtime rules. The provision also faces an uncertain fate in the House. Last year, the White House was able to kill a similar effort to overturn the proposed rules.

The Democrats' proposal that blocks the rules would permit the provisions of it that make low-income workers eligible for overtime.

This blog has been tracking this issue from the beginning; here's some background.
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US Presidential Election for the Rest of the World: You have to be outside the U.S. to vote. The results, so far, are surprising.
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May 4, 2004, 6:35 p.m.

Red moon rises: Total eclipse in Europe, Asia. The Scotsman reports that clouds obscured the moon there, but Iran had a better view. Links to live webcams are here, with archived images.
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Geoffrey Smith's Building A Jazz Library of clips, about 45 seconds long, at the BBC:

Geoffrey Smith the presenter of Jazz Record Requests selects some stunning recordings from the world of jazz. Listen to the clips and watch the jazz library grow as we periodically include Geoffrey's latest selections.

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An experiment in group editing: You're invited. J.d. Lasica is putting chapters of the new book he's writing up for group editing. The book is tentatively titledDarknet: Remixing the Future of Movies, Music and Television. J.D. says, "It focuses on the digital media revolution, exploring the idea that digital technologies are empowering people to create, reuse and reinvent media."

The editing tool is a "wiki" -- a page that's editable in your browser. (Think of it as editing a comment you've written into a form, only J.D. did the writing.)

Much more, and the first three chapters, await you:

Goal: In the spirit of open media and participatory journalism, I'd like to use this wiki to publish drafts of each chapter in the book. I hope you'll participate in this effort by contributing feedback, edits, criticism, corrections, and additional anecdotes, either through the comments field below or by sending me email. Feel free to be as detailed as you like or to insert comments or questions. After all, you're the editor. (And remember, this is for a book manuscript, not a finished online document.) If you make a couple of helpful edits, I'll mention your name in the book's Acknowledgments (and buy you a drink next time we meet up).

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Media Matters: New site by former conservative David Brock fact-checks right-wing media.
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Bev Harris: A simple way to make computer voting safer. The author of Black Box Voting writes in the Seattle Times,

Paperless touch-screen voting systems have triggered a controversy — invisible ballot systems may represent the biggest bamboozling in the history of voting. But even if we make vapor-ballot systems disappear, problems with computerized vote-counting will remain.

If we are going to use any form of computerized vote-tallying, we need to implement procedures to mitigate risks. One of the most important procedures, after a voter-verified paper ballot for auditing, is to post polling-place results. ...

...We vote at local polling places. Our votes are collected on electronic "ballot boxes," in the form of memory cards and cartridges. The information on these electronic ballot boxes is transferred to the county's central tally program. If someone switches the electronic ballot box (about the size of a credit card), or takes advantage of tamper-friendly features in the central tally programs, your vote can easily be changed.

Posting the polling-place tapes will be quick, easy and cheap. Diebold machines have an internal printer. Sequoia touch-screen machines have a port to which a printer can be attached. Both systems can print results at the polling place. This takes about 60 seconds and costs almost nothing. ...

Related: Christian Science Monitor: A state's troubled foray into electronic voting
By jettisoning its system because of reliability worries, California causes other states to reexamine voting methods.

Who Hacked the Voting System? The Teacher -- NYT profile of Aviel Rubin, Johns Hopkins professor who" has taught his students about the security of computer-based voting systems by hacking them."

Ireland Rejects E-Voting for Upcoming Elections at Slashdot
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The draft?

U.S. eyes proposal to draft women. From Gannett.

Rock the Vote: A new military draft? It's on everyone's lips. And it directly affects YOU.

Anna Quindlen: Who fights our wars? Minorities and the poor. From Newsweek,

For the young people who feel a shiver down their spine at the prospect of being drafted, and for the older people who love them, it's worth noting that it is as likely that the draft will be reinstated by this president as it is that he will make Richard Clarke his running mate. There are only two ways to revive conscription that would make it fair, and both would alienate key elements of the president's political base, as well as freak out most of the public.

The first deal-breaker is obvious: Student deferments would have to be ended. They operated under the radar for a long time during Vietnam, but the arrant unfairness of them is too well known now. This would mean the children of the rich and well connected -- the kind of folks who bought out their sons' commissions during the Civil War, the kind who organize big fund-raisers for presidential candidates -- could be shipped out.
The second reason the draft won't be revived is that there would be no earthly justification to draft only men. Given the number of young women who have enlisted, trained and served with valor, as well as the changes in gender roles in our lifetime, a male-only draft could not pass muster. The president's right-wing constituents, who have been trying to stuff the genie of women's progress back into the lamp for 30 years, would go nuts.

(The prospect of drafting women was one of the scare tactics used to defeat passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.)
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AudioPaint looks interesting: What does Guernica or your portrait or a map of Rhode Island sound like?

AudioPaint generates sounds from pictures. The program can read JPEG, GIF and BMP files and translates each pixel position and color into frequency, amplitude and pan information.

There's more physics on the intro page than I need to know, but the concept makes it worth pushing on through.

This is in the same vein as last week's mention of "Hearing lips and seeing voices." It's the music of pictures.
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Pac-Manhattan: Cool idea.

Pac-Manhattan is a large-scale urban game that utilizes the New York City grid to recreate the 1980's video game sensation Pac-Man. This analog version of Pac-man is being developed in NYU's Interactive Telecommunications graduate program, in order to explore what happens when games are removed from their "little world" of tabletops, televisions and computers and placed in the larger "real world" of street corners, and cities.

A player dressed as Pac-man will run around the Washington square park area of Manhattan while attempting to collect all of the virtual "dots" that run the length of the streets. Four players dressed as the ghosts Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde will attempt to catch Pac-man before all of the dots are collected.

Using cell-phone contact, Wi-Fi internet connections, and custom software designed by the Pac-Manhattan team, Pac-man and the ghosts will be tracked from a central location and their progress will be broadcast over the internet for viewers from around the world.

Koriyama and Imai said they were treated relatively well most of the time.

Imai said the abductors told them to act afraid and to cry during the video, but added that they were rough with them while the cameras were on "and so it was really frightening".

But he said they had been assured before the video that they would not be killed.

"When they realised we weren't spies, their attitude toward us changed," he said.

"A man who called himself general said he was sorry many times."