1 in 100 Americans in prison


Globe and Mail
February 28, 2008


For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report tracking the surge in inmate population and urging states to rein in corrections costs with alternative sentencing programs.

The report, released Thursday by the Pew Center on the States, said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said.

Using updated state-by-state data, the report said 2,319,258 adults were held in U.S. prisons or jails at the start of 2008 — one out of every 99.1 adults, and more than any other country in the world.

The steadily growing inmate population "is saddling cash-strapped states with soaring costs they can ill afford and failing to have a clear impact either on recidivism or overall crime," said the report.

Susan Urahn, managing director of the Pew Center on the States, said budget woes are prompting officials in many states to consider new, cost-saving corrections policies that might have been shunned in the recent past for fear of appearing soft in crime.

"We're seeing more and more states being creative because of tight budgets," she said in an interview. "They want to be tough on crime, they want to be a law-and-order state — but they also want to save money, and they want to be effective."

The report cited Kansas and Texas as states which have acted decisively to slow the growth of their inmate population. Their actions include greater use of community supervision for low-risk offenders and employing sanctions other than re-imprisonment for ex-offenders who commit technical violations of parole and probation rules.

"The new approach, born of bipartisan leadership, is allowing the two states to ensure they have enough prison beds for violent offenders while helping less dangerous lawbreakers become productive, taxpaying citizens," the report said.

According to the report, the inmate population increased last year in 36 states and the federal prison system.

The largest percentage increase — 12 percent — was in Kentucky, where Gov. Steve Beshear highlighted the cost of corrections in his budget speech last month. He noted that the state's crime rate had increased only about 3 percent in the past 30 years, while the state's inmate population has increased by 600 percent.

The Pew report was compiled by the Center on the State's Public Safety Performance Project, which is working directly with 13 states on developing programs to divert offenders from prison without jeopardizing public safety.

"For all the money spent on corrections today, there hasn't been a clear and convincing return for public safety," said the project's director, Adam Gelb. "More and more states are beginning to rethink their reliance on prisons for lower-level offenders and finding strategies that are tough on crime without being so tough on taxpayers."

The report said prison growth and higher incarceration rates do not reflect a parallel increase in crime or in the nation's overall population. Instead, it said, more people are behind bars mainly because of tough sentencing measures, such as "three-strikes" laws, that result in longer prison stays.

"For some groups, the incarceration numbers are especially startling," the report said. "While one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, for black males in that age group the figure is one in nine."

The nationwide figures, as of Jan. 1, include 1,596,127 people in state and federal prisons and 723,131 in local jails — a total 2,319,258 out of almost 230 million American adults.

The report said the United States is the world's incarceration leader, far ahead of more populous China with 1.5 million people behind bars. It said the U.S. also is the leader in inmates per capita (750 per 100,000 people), ahead of Russia (628 per 100,000) and other former Soviet bloc nations which make up the rest of the Top 10.

Source:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080228.wusprisons0228/BNStory/International/home
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McCain: 'I could lose over Iraq'


Feb. 25, 2008
ROCKY RIVER, Ohio


John McCain said Monday that to win the White House he must convince a war-weary country that U.S. policy in Iraq is succeeding. If he can't, "then I lose. I lose," the Republican said.

He quickly backed off that remark.

"Let me not put it that stark," the likely GOP nominee told reporters on his campaign bus. "Let me just put it this way: Americans will judge my candidacy first and foremost on how they believe I can lead the county both from our economy and for national security. Obviously, Iraq will play a role in their judgment of my ability to handle national security."

"If I may, I'd like to retract 'I'll lose.' But I don't think there's any doubt that how they judge Iraq will have a direct relation to their judgment of me, my support of the surge," McCain added.

"Clearly, I am tied to it to a large degree."

The five-year-old Iraq conflict already is emerging as a fault line in the general election, with the Arizona senator calling for the U.S. military continuing its mission while his Democratic opponents urge quick withdrawal.

While most Republicans continue to back the war, many independents and Democrats don't.

That presents a significant challenge for McCain and an opportunity for either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.McCain acknowledged the war will be "a significant factor in how the American people judge my candidac

Source:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/
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McCain seeks to retract 'I lose' statement


Feb. 25, 2008


McCain sought to clarify he earlier remarks Monday.

John McCain backtracked Monday from his earlier comment that he could lose the presidential race over the Iraq war.

On Monday morning, McCain had told reporters that if he can't convince the American people the United States is succeeding, "then I lose. I lose," according to the Associated Press.

"We quickly retracted that," McCain later said of the comment. "I was not allowed to retract it, obviously. I don't mean that I'll quote ‘lose.' I mean that it's an important issue in the judgment of the American voters."

"I hope that that clarifies, it's not often that I retract a comment. I retracted the finality of that statement. I think the issue of the war in Iraq we all know is important to the American people and will be a major factor in their determining who they are going to support in the election in November," he said.

McCain also told CNN's Dana Bash that "I think that clearly my fortunes have a lot to do with what's happening in Iraq. And I'm proud of that because Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama said we will not succeed militarily and we have."

Source:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/02/25/mccain-seeks-to-retract-i-lose-statement/
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Why Bush Wants to Legalize the Nuke Trade with Turkey


By Joshua Frank
OpEd News
February 20, 2008


According to FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, there is a vast black market for nukes, and certain U.S. officials have been supplying sensitive nuclear technology information to Turkish and Israeli interests through its conduits. It's a scathing allegation which was first published by the London Times two weeks ago, and Edmonds' charge seems to be on the verge of vindication.

In likely reaction to the London Times report, the Bush Administration quietly announced on January 22 that the president would like Congress to approve the sale of nuclear secrets to Turkey. As with most stories of this magnitude, the U.S. media has put on blinders, opting to not report either Edmonds' story or Bush's recent announcement.

The White House Press Release claims that President Clinton signed off on the Turkey deal way back in 2000:
"However, immediately after signature, U.S. agencies received information that called into question the conclusions that had been drawn in the required NPAS (Nuclear Proliferation Assessment Statement) and the original classified annex, specifically, information implicating Turkish private entities in certain activities directly relating to nuclear proliferation. Consequently, the Agreement was not submitted to the Congress and the executive branch undertook a review of the NPAS evaluation … My Administration has completed the NPAS review as well as an evaluation of actions taken by the Turkish government to address the proliferation activities of certain Turkish entities (once officials of the U.S. Government brought them to the Turkish government's attention)."

What "private entities" the press release refers to is not clear, but it could well include the American Turkish Council, the "entity" revealed in the Times article. The Bushites seem to be covering their own exposed backsides, for the timing of Bush's call to sell nuke secrets to Turkey is certainly suspicious, if not overtly conspicuous.

It appears the White House has been spooked by Edmonds and hopes to absolve the U.S. officials allegedly involved in the illegal sale of nuclear technology to private Turkish "entities".

One of those officials is likely Marc Grossman, the former ambassador to Turkey during the Clinton Administration who also served in the State Department from 2001-2005. Grossman has been named by Edmonds who claims he was directly involved in the nuclear smuggling ring that she says has allowed the intelligence agencies of Pakistan, Israel and Turkey to operate in the U.S. with impunity. Totally complicit in the nuke trade, the U.S. government, according to Edmonds, has known of the vast criminal activities of these foreign nations' presence in the States, which has included all sorts of illegal activities like drug trafficking, espionage and money laundering.

Edmonds says "several arms of the government were shielding what was going on" which included an entire national security apparatus associated with the neoconservaties who have profited by representing Turkish interests in Washington. As Justin Raimondo recently reported in Antiwar.com:

"…this group includes not only Grossman, but also Paul Wolfowitz, chief intellectual architect of the Iraq war and ex-World Bank president; former deputy defense secretary for policy Douglas J. Feith; Feith's successor, Eric Edelman; and Richard Perle, the notorious uber-neocon whose unique ability to mix profiteering and warmongering forced him to resign his official capacity as a key administration adviser … Edmonds draws a picture of a three-sided alliance consisting of Turkish, Pakistani, and Israeli agents who coordinated efforts to milk U.S. nuclear secrets and technology, funneling the intelligence stream to the black market nuclear network set up by the Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan. The multi-millionaire Pakistani nuclear scientist then turned around and sold his nuclear assets to North Korea, Libya, and Iran."

Is the Bush Administration seeking to exonerate these "officials" with its plea to allow Turkey to obtain U.S. nuclear secrets? Besides Grossman, who else was involved in Edmonds' grim tale of the nuke-for-profit underground? As the news that U.S. officials have allegedly been supplying Turkey with nuclear technology begins to creep in to the mainstream media, the Bush team appears to be moving to legalize the whole shady operation.

If Congress does not block or amend Bush's legislation to sell nukes to Turkey in less than 90 days, it will become law automatically, likely acting retroactively to clear the alleged crimes of Marc Grossman and his neocon, nuke-trading friends.

http://www.dissidentvoice.org

Joshua Frank is co-editor of Dissident Voice and author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush (Common Courage Press, 2005), and along with Jeffrey St. Clair, the editor of the forthcoming Red State Rebels, to be published by AK Press in July 2008.

Source:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_joshua_f_080220_why_bush_wants_to_le.htm
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Newsweek catches McCain in a serious contradiction


By Glenn Greenwald
February 22, 2008


I agree completely with Greg Sargent, the editor of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and many other McCain critics that the NYT's story on McCain yesterday was extremely poor journalism -- filled with unsubstantiated irrelevancies (his alleged affair with a lobbyist) and, where relevant (McCain's intervention on behalf of Paxson), composed exclusively of long-disclosed news to which the story added nothing new. It shouldn't have been published, at least not in that form.

But what is significant is the seriously misleading statements that McCain made when denying key parts of the NYT story. One of the central claims of that story was that Paxson Communications, a major McCain contributor and provider of jet travel, repeatedly requested that McCain intervene on its behalf with a pending FCC matter, and thereafter, McCain personally contacted the FCC to demand that it expedite its ruling on a matter of vital important to Paxson (a contact which prompted a "scolding response" from the FCC Chairman, who called McCain's letter on behalf of Paxon "highly unusual" and inappropriate).

In issuing a very specific, point-by-point denial of the NYT story, McCain specifically denied that he ever talked to Paxson's CEO, Lowell Paxson (or any other Paxson representative) about this matter:

No representative of Paxson or Alcalde and Fay discussed with Senator McCain the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proceeding. . . . No representative of Paxson or Alcalde and Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC regarding this proceeding.

But Newsweek's Mike Isikoff today obtained (or was given) the transcripts of deposition testimony which McCain himself gave under oath several years ago in litigation over the constitutionality of McCain-Feingold. In that testimony, McCain repeatedly and unequivocally stated the opposite of what he said in this week's NYT denial: namely, that he had unquestionably spoken with Paxson himself over the pending FCC matter:

"I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue," McCain said in the Sept. 25, 2002, deposition obtained by NEWSWEEK. "He wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business. I believe that Mr. Paxson had a legitimate complaint."

While McCain said "I don't recall" if he ever directly spoke to the firm's lobbyist about the issue -- an apparent reference to Iseman, though she is not named -- "I'm sure I spoke to [Paxson]."

It's hard to imagine how there could be a clearer contradiction in McCain's statements than (a) "I'm sure I spoke to [Paxson]" and (b) "No representative of Paxson or Alcalde and Fay discussed with Senator McCain the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proceeding."

Making matters much worse, when the McCain campaign today was confronted by Newsweek with this glaring contradiction, they plainly told another untruth. They said that when McCain testified that "he" spoke with Paxson, he merely meant that his staff did:

"We do not think there is a contradiction here," campaign spokeswoman Ann Begeman e-mailed NEWSWEEK after being asked about the senator's sworn testimony five and a half years ago.

"We do not have the transcript you excerpted and do not know the exact questions Senator McCain was asked, but it appears that Senator McCain, when speaking of being contacted by Paxson, was speaking in shorthand of his staff being contacted by representatives of Paxson."

But just look at what McCain actually testified to, and there is no doubt that the McCain campaign's excuse -- that Paxson merely spoke with his staff members, not McCain himself -- is patently false:

The campaign's insistence that McCain himself never talked to Paxson about the issue seems hard to square with the contents of his testimony in the McCain-Feingold case.

[Deposition questioner Floyd] Abrams, for example, at one point cited the somewhat technical contents of one of his letters to the FCC and then asked the witness, "where did you get information of that sort, Senator McCain?"

McCain replied: "I was briefed by my staff."

Abrams then followed up: "Do you know where they got the information?"

"No," McCain replied. "But I would add, I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue."

"You were?"

"Yes."

Abrams then asked McCain: "Can you tell us what you said and what he said about it?"

McCain: "That he had applied to purchase this station and that he wanted to purchase it. And that there had been a numerous year delay with the FCC reaching a decision. And he wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business. I said, 'I would be glad to write a letter asking them to act, but I will not write a letter, I cannot write a letter asking them to approve or deny, because then that would be an interference in their activities. I think everybody is entitled to a decision. But I can't ask for a favorable disposition for you'."

Abrams a few moments later asked: "Did you speak to the company's lobbyist about these matters?"

McCain: "I don't recall if it was Mr. Paxson or the company's lobbyist or both."

Abrams: "But you did speak to him?"

McCain: "I'm sure I spoke with him, yes."

That is nail-in-the-coffin testimony demonstrating the deliberately false nature of McCain's denials this week.

As I indicated, the one relevant part of the NYT story -- whether McCain inappropriately intervened with the FCC on behalf of a major contributor and all-around McCain benefactor -- is an old story, and the NYT story added little or nothing to it. But what is not old is McCain's deliberately dishonest claims in response to that story. Denying that he ever spoke with Paxson's CEO when he testified under oath that he did -- and then misleadingly claiming that he was using the royal "I" and meant only that his staff spoke with Paxson -- is clear and deliberate deceit.

Harper's Ken Silverstein has published an interview with me regarding various issues concerning the media and its coverage of presidential campaigns.

UPDATE: Kevin Drum says that "it's genuinely not clear to [him] whether this really amounts to anything serious," and that this "sounds more like a political misdemeanor than a felony."

Kevin might have a point if this had been a case where poor recollection could credibly explain McCain's behavior. That would be the case if the McCain campaign, once it was asked about this discrepancy, had said something like this:

When Sen. McCain issued his statement this week, he had forgotten that he had, in fact, spoken with Lowell Paxson about the FCC matter. The deposition testimony he gave was more than five years ago; his conversations with Paxson were far before that; and he didn't recall those contacts when responding to the Times' story this week. Having reviewed his deposition testimony, Sen. McCain now realizes he was mistaken about that one part of his statement, and only that part, and regrets that error.

Had they been straightforward about it that way, then it could be chalked up, at least theoretically, to honest lack of recall.

But that isn't what they did.

Instead, when confronted with the discrepancy, the McCain campaign lied about the testimony, offering a patently absurd explanation for what McCain meant when he testified: "I'm sure I spoke with him, yes."

That behavior is highly suggestive of a deliberate attempt to mislead -- just going into full-blown defense mode and saying anything without regard to truth.

If deliberately misleading the public about communications with key campaign contributors is not a "serious" offense -- and, more generally, if the instinct to jump into full, fact-free, self-defense mode when confronted with accusations of wrongdoing (rather than admitting errors and honestly confronting them) isn't "serious" -- then what is?

UPDATE II: For those interested, the transcripts of the relevant McCain deposition, in .pdf form, are here and here (h/t Jonathan Singer).UPDATE III: The Washington Post reports that Lowell Paxson himself says he spoke personally with McCain about the FCC matter:

Broadcaster Lowell "Bud" Paxson yesterday contradicted statements from Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign that the senator did not meet with Paxson or his lobbyist before sending two controversial letters to the Federal Communications Commission on Paxson's behalf.

Paxson said he talked with McCain in his Washington office several weeks before the Arizona Republican wrote the letters in 1999 to the FCC urging a rapid decision on Paxson's quest to acquire a Pittsburgh television station. . . .

Paxson said yesterday, "I remember going there to meet with him."

He recalled that he told McCain: "You're head of the Commerce Committee. The FCC is not doing its job. I would love for you to write a letter."

McCain's denial in this regard -- and his campaign's re-affirmation of his denial even in the face of his deposition testimoney -- were both clearly false.

Source:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/22/mccain/
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The Real McCain

Senator Gets Millions from Lobbyist "Friends"



Demand John McCain stop his lobbyist fundraising

by Robert Greenwald
Brave New Films
February 22, 2008


Since the traditional media has obsessively focused on McCain's alleged liaison with Vicki Iseman and smearing The NY Times, Brave New Films felt compelled to take action. Jason, Phillip, and Dallas raced to the editing room, turned off the phones, locked the door, and focused on the real issue about McCain's lobbyist ties.

It's not a pretty picture. But here's our chance to get the truth out there for everyone to see.

With inspiration from the insightful blogs of FireDogLake's Jane Hamsher, Christy Hardin Smith, and Marcy Wheeler, we found footage and music to show the story not being told.

We use humor, we use pop culture, we use McCain's insistent use of the word "friends!" We hope you will send it along to your friends, foes, and media outlets.

John McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, and yet he said "I'm the only one the special interests don't give any money to."

Sign the petition demanding McCain return the millions of dollars raised by lobbyists.

Robert Greenwald sits on the board of the Independent Media Institute, AlterNet's parent company

YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gEROVh8zK4

Source:
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/#77541
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McCain Torture Endorsement Lost Amid Media Sex Scandal Frenzy


By Liliana Segura
AlterNet
February 22, 2008


Upon being confronted with The New York Times' "bombshell" report of his too-cozy relationship with a "lady lobbyist" during his last presidential campaign, GOP contender John McCain took a page from the Bush playbook and blamed the media.

His spokesperson, Jill Hazelbacker, called it "a hit-and-run smear campaign." McCain invoked his service to his country and issued a blunt denial: "Obviously I am very disappointed in The New York Times article," he said. "It's not true."

And in what might be her second public utterance since she piped up to say that she is very proud of her country, would-be First Lady Cindy McCain -- who bears an eerie resemblance to the lobbyist in question -- joined her husband at a press conference to say that she, too, was "very disappointed in The New York Times."

"Americans are sick and tired of this kind of gutter politics," Hazelbacker declared in an official statement.

Maybe so -- but you can't say the same for the media.

Just when it looked like McCain was comfortably, boringly, settling into his role as GOP nominee, a sexy front-pager broke that would not only spice things up, it would give the press a chance to drop everything and indulge in a little journalistic naval-gazing.

Hours after the Times posted its story Wednesday night, The Washington Post followed with its own version of a politician-meets-lobbyist tale told amid fundraising venues and inside private jets.

AlterNet's Joshua Holland provides the sordid summary:

"The heart of the Times (and Washington Post) story is that staffers became concerned that McCain, the Patron Saint of Straight-Shooterdom, was overly cozy with a lobbying hottie -- a lobbyist whose clients had business before a committee McCain chaired -- and warned her off of the Senator's campaign. That comes from a named source, John Weaver, who says he was personally present at a meeting with (Vicki) Iseman, and personally warned her off."

The blogosphere lit up overnight, and following McCain's 9 a.m. press conference, every talking head on television was weighing in on the McCain "sex scandal" -- a scandal that ultimately has precious little to do with sex, given that the Times fell short of proving anything actually happened between McCain and Iseman.

In some ways, McCain is right: The media should be blamed -- but not just for shoddy reporting of a rather sexless scandal.

They should be castigated for ignoring a much more important and damning story about the so-called principled maverick -- one that has actual implications for American democracy.

Mere hours before The New York Times broke its story on Wednesday, McCain made a totally unrelated -- and apparently un-newsworthy -- statement to reporters, in which he called for President Bush to veto the Senate's anti-torture bill. He talked in support of "additional techniques" for interrogation, sounding ever more in line with the White House's official stance.

McCain, the "war hero" who has been an outspoken opponent of torture, voted against the bill, which would restrict the CIA to some 19 interrogation techniques listed in the Army field manual.

Now, having passed the Senate, the bill is headed for a veto at the hands of President Bush. For a man who would be president -- and who is practically giddy at the prospect of being Commander in Chief -- McCain's push for a veto is ominous.

His evolving position on torture should be deeply troubling -- much moreso than the current scandal. Yet it has received a fraction of the media attention that has already been devoted to whatever he did or did not do with a blonde lobbyist eight years ago.

Meanwhile, right-wing McCain supporters and critics alike are making so much noise chattering about family values and attacking the Times, McCain's about-face on torture is likely to stay buried.

In fact, "the Times story may have succeeded in accomplishing what politics itself could not," observed The Atlantic's Marc Ambiner, "unifying the conservative base around McCain by way of their visceral disgust with The New York Times and its lib-ber-ral politics."

So how did this mess get started?

According to an article published Thursday afternoon in The New Republic, word got out about the Times' months-long investigation of McCain, so the publishing giant may have rushed to press to keep from getting scooped by another publication.

But that theory -- ripped from the mouths of none other than McCain's own advisers -- is about as flimsy as the sex scandal itself.

Between right-wing howling against the Times and nerdy journalism gossip, the McCain fracas has largely become a story about a story. "We're going to war with The New York Times," the McCain camp announced the night the article broke. Robert Bennet, McCain's lawyer, complained to Wolf Blitzer that he had sat down with reporters and shown them "10 to 12 instances" where McCain had refused to do her bidding -- but those examples had remained conspicuously absent from the piece.

At least some in the media have acknowledged that, distilled to its base, there's very little that's news in this story -- unless you actually bought into the myth that McCain is the straight-shooting, ethical politician he claims to be.

Yet the coverage continues. "I think we're going to have a feeding frenzy for a day, maybe a day and a half, then it will go away because it's a nothing story," one McCain adviser said.

In contrast, no media feeding frenzy followed McCain's vote against the anti-torture bill last week. It was forgotten faster than you could say "waterboarding."

Of course, this is a "sex scandal." Torture, by comparison, is old news.

© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/77505/
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Why I'm not scared of John McCain (or his supporters)


BlueIndiana.net
Feb. 20, 2001



For those of you who have been following the site over the last few days, you are probably well aware that I have been covering the gubernatorial signature battle, as both of our candidates sought to get their 500 signatures in each congressional district, and thus earn a place on the statewide ballot for the May primary. As part of that process, I've been requesting daily updates from the Indiana Election Division, which keeps a rolling tally of the number of signatures that each candidate has collected.

Now, I'm originally from the 4th District, so curiosity led me to check out who had made it (and by how much) in my old stomping ground. To my surprise, I noticed that John McCain -- the presumptive front-runner for the GOP nomination -- was just a little short in a few districts, including my precious 4th, despite the fact that Attorney General Steve Carter had already turned in their petitions. I made a few phone calls, and one by one I found out that the McCain camp had got the job done across the state.

Except in the 4th District.

In the 4th District, they are short.

By my latest count, they turned in 496 signatures for the 4th, and the latest IED report for this morning shows them with only 491.

So this afternoon, I filed a challenge with the Secretary of State's office to keep John McCain off of the ballot. You can check it out here. (I'll have a .pdf version up when I get back to Bloomington this evening.)

Let's be clear here: This is one of the most Republican-friendly districts in one of the most Republican-friendly presidential states. John McCain has been endorsed by Governor Mitch Daniels, Attorney General Steve Carter, state GOP chair Murray Clark, and Secretary of State Todd Rokita.

And despite all of this high-level help, these guys managed to screw up one of the most basic steps that any candidate can take in the state.

I'm not scared of this crew at all.

This is indicative of John McCain's sloppy, ineffective national campaign infrastructure, and more notably for Hoosiers, makes it extremely clear that the incompetency of Governor Mitch Daniels, Steve Carter and the rest of this bunch has no limits.

This doesn't just make John McCain look silly -- and it does -- but this makes the entire Indiana Republican Party look silly. Silly, and clumsy, and inept, and generally incapable of running a national campaign, let alone the entire country.

Now, let's be honest here: Todd Rokita and Steve Carter will make sure McCain is on the ballot. Mitch Daniels will see to that, I'm sure. But at the end of the day, he shouldn't be, and the people of this state deserve to know that.

And while the GOP's magic wand will undoubtedly make a few signatures appear behind closed doors in the next few days, this is a clear stain upon Senator McCain as a candidate, and Governor Daniels and his Republican colleagues as standard-bearers within this state.

Did I mention he is coming to town on Friday? I wonder if he'll have a few choice words for his trusted surrogates in this state?

Update: The DNC responded to my challenge in a release a short while ago, but the key part of it is this:

Despite the fact that the McCain campaign clearly failed to qualify for the ballot, Republican Attorney General Steve Carter and Republican Secretary of State Todd Rokita (who recently endorsed McCain) rubberstamped it anyway, trying to sneak McCain onto the ballot. Clearly, the Republican Culture of Corruption is alive and well within the McCain campaign.

A culture of corruption or a culture of incompetence, the fact remains that Hoosiers expect more from their officials, and I have no doubt McCain expected more from Mitch and the gang.

Source:
http://blueindiana.net/showDiary.do?diaryId=2020
__________________

Followup:
The Super-duper McCain Signature Timeline
http://www.blueindiana.net/showDiary.do?diaryId=2028
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A Veto of the FISA Bill Endangers Americans


By Keith Olbermann
MSNBC Countdown
February 14, 2008


A part of what I will say, was said here on Jan. 31. Unfortunately it is both sadder and truer now than it was then.



Video Transcript:

"Who's to blame?" Mr. Bush also said this afternoon, "Look, these folks in Congress passed a good bill late last summer.... The problem is, they let the bill expire. My attitude is: If the bill was good enough then, why not pass the bill again?"

Like the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Or Executive Order 90-66. Or The Alien and Sedition Acts.

Or slavery.

Mr. Bush, you say that our ability to track terrorist threats will be weakened and our citizens will be in greater danger. Yet you have weakened that ability!

You have subjected us, your citizens, to that greater danger! This, Mr. Bush, is simple enough for even you to understand.

For the moment, at least, thanks to some true patriots in the House, and your own stubbornness, you have tabled telecom immunity, and the FISA act.

You. By your own terms and your definitions, you have just sided with the terrorists. You've got to have this law, or we're all going to die. But, practically speaking, you vetoed this law.

It is bad enough, sir, that you were demanding an ex post facto law that could still clear the AT&Ts and the Verizons from responsibility for their systematic, aggressive and blatant collaboration with your illegal and unjustified spying on Americans under this flimsy guise of looking for any terrorists who are stupid enough to make a collect call or send a mass e-mail.

But when you demanded it again during the State of the Union address, you wouldn't even confirm that they actually did anything for which they deserved to be cleared.

"The Congress must pass liability protection for companies believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend America."

Believed? Don't you know? Don't you even have the guts Dick Cheney showed in admitting they did collaborate with you? Does this endless presidency of loopholes and fine print extend even here? If you believe in the seamless mutuality of government and big business, come out and say it! There is a dictionary definition, one word that describes that toxic blend.

You're a fascist - get them to print you a T-shirt with fascist on it!

What else is this but fascism?

Did you see Mark Klein on this newscast last November?

Mark Klein was the AT&T whistleblower who explained in the placid, dull terms of your local neighborhood IT desk how he personally attached all AT&T circuits, everything, carrying every one of your phone calls, every one of your e-mails, every bit of your Web browsing into a secure room, room No. 641-A at the Folsom Street facility in San Francisco, where it was all copied so the government could look at it.

Not some of it, not just the international part of it, certainly not just the stuff some spy, a spy both patriotic and telepathic, might be able to divine had been sent or spoken by or to a terrorist.

Everything!

Every time you looked at a naked picture. Every time you bid on eBay. Every time you phoned in a donation to a Democrat. "My thought was," Mr. Klein told us last November, "George Orwell's ‘1984.' And here I am, forced to connect the Big Brother machine."

And if there's one thing we know about Big Brother, Mr. Bush, it is that he is - you are - a liar.

"This Saturday at midnight," you said Thursday, "legislation authorizing intelligence professionals to quickly and effectively monitor terrorist communications will expire. If Congress does not act by that time, our ability to find out who the terrorists are talking to, what they are saying and what they are planning will be compromised." You said that "the lives of countless Americans depend" on your getting your way.

This is crap.

And you sling it with an audacity and a speed unrivaled by even the greatest political felons of our history.

Richard Clarke - you might remember him, sir: He was one of the counterterror pros you inherited from President Clinton, before you ran the professionals out of government in favor of your unreality-based reality - Richard Clarke wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

"Let me be clear: Our ability to track and monitor terrorists overseas would not cease should the Protect America Act expire.

"If this were true, the president would not threaten to terminate any temporary extension with his veto pen. All surveillance currently occurring would continue even after legislative provisions lapsed because authorizations issued under the act are in effect up to a full year."

You are a liar, Mr. Bush. And after showing some skill at it, you have ceased to even be a very good liar.

And your minions like John Boehner, your Republican congressional crash dummies who just happen to decide to walk out of Congress when a podium-full of microphones await them, they should just keep walking, out of Congress and, if possible, out of the country.

For they and you, sir, have no place in a government of the people, by the people, for the people.

The lot of you are the symbolic descendants of the despotic middle managers of some banana republic to whom "freedom" is an ironic brand name, a word you reach for when you want to get away with its opposite.

Thus, Mr. Bush, your panoramic invasion of privacy is dressed up as "protecting America."

Thus, Mr. Bush, your indiscriminate domestic spying becomes the focused monitoring only of "terrorist communications."

Thus, Mr. Bush, what you and the telecom giants have done isn't unlawful; it's just the kind of perfectly legal, passionately patriotic thing for which you happen to need immunity!

Richard Clarke is on the money, as usual.

That the president was willing to veto this eavesdropping means there is no threat to the legitimate counterterror efforts under way.

As Sen. Edward Kennedy reminded us in December:

"The president has said that American lives will be sacrificed if Congress does not change FISA.

"But he has also said that he will veto any FISA bill that does not grant retroactive immunity.

"No immunity, no FISA bill. So if we take the president at his word, he's willing to let Americans die to protect the phone companies."

And that literally cannot be. Even Mr. Bush could not overtly take a step that actually aids the terrorists. I am not talking about ethics here. I am talking about blame. If the president seems to be throwing the baby out with the bath water, it means we can safely conclude there is no baby.

Because if there were, sir, now that you have vetoed an extension of this eavesdropping, if some terrorist attack were to follow, you would not merely be guilty of siding with the terrorists.

You would not merely be guilty of prioritizing the telecoms over the people.

You would not merely be guilty of stupidity.

You would not merely be guilty of treason, sir.

You would be personally, and eternally, responsible.

And if there is one thing we know about you, Mr. Bush, one thing that you have proved time and time again - it is that you are never responsible.

As recently ago as 2006, we spoke words like these with trepidation.

The idea that even the most cynical and untrustworthy of politicians in our history, George W. Bush, would use the literal form of terrorism against his own people was dangerous territory. It seemed to tempt fate, to heighten fear.

We will not fear any longer.

We will not fear the international terrorists, and we will thwart them. We will not fear the recognition of the manipulation of our yearning for safety, and we will call it what it is: terrorism.

We will not fear identifying the vulgar hypocrites in our government, and we will name them.

And we will not fear George W. Bush.

Nor will we fear because George W. Bush wants us to fear.

Sources:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23173388/
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Exxon Mobil cut off from Venezuela’s oil


February 12, 2007
Associated Press


Venezuela’s state oil company said Tuesday that it has stopped selling crude to Exxon Mobil Corp. in response to the U.S. oil company’s drive to use the courts to seize billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets.

Exxon Mobil is locked in a dispute over the nationalization of its oil ventures in Venezuela that has led President Hugo Chavez to threaten to cut off all Venezuelan oil supplies to the U.S. Tuesday’s announcement by state-run Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) was limited to Exxon Mobil, which PDVSA accused of “judicial-economic harassment” for its efforts in U.S. and European courts.

PDVSA said it “has paralyzed sales of crude to Exxon Mobil” and suspended commercial relations with the company.

It said it will honor any existing contracts it has with Exxon Mobil for joint investments abroad, but reserved the right to terminate them if permitted by the terms of the contracts.

The impact of the decision on Exxon Mobil was not immediately clear. Earlier Tuesday at an energy conference in Houston, an Exxon Mobil senior vice president declined comment on any court proceedings with Venezuela, though he said the company is eager to negotiate fair compensation for its assets.

Exxon Mobil is taking the dispute to international arbitration, to which Venezuela has agreed.

Chavez relies largely on U.S. oil money to stimulate his economy, and some analysts say it would make little sense for Chavez to follow through on his threats because Venezuela owns refineries in the U.S. that are customized to handle the South American country’s heavy crude.

Source:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/02/12/venezuela.oil.ap/index.html
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Attention Shoppers: The Consumer Product Safety Commission has run out of Power


Feb. 10, 2008
Consumerist.com


The temporary law powering the CPSC has expired, reducing our supposed watch-dog agency to a neutered shadow that can't adopt new safety standards, order mandatory recalls, or enforce existing consumer protection laws. The Commission could get back to work with three small tweaks.

First, the CPSC must be allowed to work with its current slate of Commissioners. Businesses will continue to laugh at our dawdling Commission until it regains its limited powers to oversee the marketplace. Congress could allow the CPSC to act without a proper quorum as part of a reauthorization bill.

Second, Congress needs to reauthorize the Commission. S. 2045, the CPSC Reform Act, is currently stalled in the Senate, but if passed, it would:

• Fund a full slate of 5 Commissioners
• Boost the CPSC budget from $62 million to $147 million by 2015
• Add 80 new staffers
• Repair the CPSC's decrepit inspection facilities
• Increase civil penalties from $8,000 per violation to $250,000
• Increase the maximum penalty for a series of violations from $1.8 million to a staggering $100 million

Finally, the Commission needs a powerful chairperson, not an industry shill like the two characters already nominated by the President. The New York Times editorial board coped with its sense of outrage by turning to snark, and they managed to come up with an outlandish suggestion:

We have an idea for breaking the logjam. How about if the administration names -- oh, let's see -- an advocate for consumer product safety to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Source:

http://consumerist.com/354543/attention-shoppers-the-consumer-product-safety-commission-has-run-out-of-power

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Buyers Beware: Headless Body to Protect Consumers


February 8, 2008
NYT


When the story broke of lead-coated toys flooding into the United States from China, parents had an obvious question: how has the government allowed this to happen?

A good part of the answer is that the agency charged with protecting consumers, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, has been hobbled by inadequate funding and poor appointments — in many cases, corporate-oriented foxes guarding the consumer chicken house.

The lead-paint scare should have quickly led to reforms, but things only seem to be getting worse. The commission, which once had five members, is now down to three — and there are only two commissioners in place. The staff carries on, negotiating with companies and encouraging voluntary recalls. But to do any of the really tough work, the commission needs a quorum of three.

The White House has not nominated a candidate to bring the commission up to three members. Last year, it put forward a lobbyist for the National Association of Manufacturers to be the third member, and the chairman.

It was a particularly cynical move, even for this crowd. If the lobbyist got a seat, he could lobby for industry from within the commission. If he did not, there would be no quorum. Congress stepped in and allowed two commissioners to be a quorum for a while. But that reprieve has now run out.

The Washington Post recently wrote about a possible new candidate — this time, a scientist who has written or testified for the tobacco, pesticide and energy industry. The scientist, Gail Charnley, has written in opposition to tougher regulation of power plant pollution, among other troubling stands.

It would be another no-lose proposition for industry: either they get their person in charge, or they get a commission that can’t accomplish anything.

Which is the situation right now. Consumer advocates like the U.S. Public Interest Research Group are pushing for reform legislation in Congress. Unless the law changes, though, there will be a closed sign on the commission door until the White House comes up with a decent appointment.

That means:

• It will be almost impossible for the government to impose civil penalties on anyone maliciously selling faulty products
• There will be no new safety rules issued
• There will be no mandatory recalls of products

We have an idea for breaking the logjam. How about if the administration names — oh, let’s see — an advocate for consumer product safety to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission.


Source:
http://theboard.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/buyers-beware-headless-body-to-protect-consumers/
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Crime victim stripped & brutalized by police



This is common treatment for women in US jails.

There is absolutely nothing unusual about women being stripped naked and left without covering of any kind in cold jail cells for hours at a time.

It's a popular humiliation technique used in corrupt police departments throughout the country.

If it weren't for this video, a TV local station's news report, and the Internet, no one would know that this particular event ever happened.

Keep in mind that this woman was a crime victim who called the police for help after she was assaulted.

The piece of self-propelled human garbage who runs this Sheriff's Department is Timothy A. Swanson.

He says - and I quote - that the thugs who work for him "did everything by the book."

Stark County Ohio

Email them at strkshrf@raex.com to let them know how you feel

Here is the sherrifs web site: http://www.sheriff.co.stark.oh.us/

Source"
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/270.html
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Speakers at Academy Said to Make False Claims


By Neil MacFarquhar
February 7, 2008


The Air Force Academy was criticized by Muslim and religious freedom organizations for playing host on Wednesday to three speakers who critics say are evangelical Christians falsely claiming to be former Muslim terrorists.

The three men were invited as part of a weeklong conference on terrorism organized by cadets at the academy’s Colorado Springs campus under the auspices of the political science department.

The three will be paid a total of $13,000 for their appearance, some of it from private donors, said Maj. Brett Ashworth, a spokesman for the academy.

The three were invited because “they offered a unique perspective from inside terrorism,” Major Ashworth said. The conference is to result in a report on methods to combat terrorism that will be sent to the Pentagon, members of Congress and other influential officials, he added.

Members of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a group suing the federal government to combat what it calls creeping evangelism in the armed forces, said it was typical of the Air Force Academy to invite born-again Christians to address cadets on terrorism rather than experts who could teach students about the Middle East.

“This stuff going on at the academy today is part of the endemic evangelical infiltration that continues,” said David Antoon, a 1970 academy graduate and a foundation member.

The three men were invited to talk about being recruited and trained as terrorists, not religion, although one of them, Zak Anani, did tell students that converting to Christianity from Islam saved his life, said John Van Winkle, another spokesman for the academy.

Muslim organizations objected to the fact that no other perspective about Islam was offered, saying that the three speakers — Mr. Anani, Kamal Saleem and Walid Shoebat — habitually paint Muslims as inherently violent. All were born in the Middle East but Mr. Saleem and Mr. Shoebat are now American citizens, while Mr. Anani has Canadian citizenship.

“Their entire world view is based on the idea that Islam is evil,” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on Islamic American Relations. “We want to provide a balancing perspective to their hate speech.”

Academic professors and others who have heard the three men speak in the United States and Canada said some of their stories border on the fantastic, like Mr. Saleem’s account of how, as a child, he infiltrated Israel to plant bombs via a network of tunnels underneath the Golan Heights.

No such incidents have been reported, the academic experts said. They also question how three middle-aged men who claim they were recruited as teenagers or younger could have been steeped in the violent religious ideology that only became prevalent in the late 1980s.

Prof. Douglas Howard, who teaches the history of the modern Middle East at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., heard Mr. Saleem speak last November at the college and said he thought the three were connected to several major Christian evangelical organizations.

“It was just an old time gospel hour — ‘Jesus can change your life, he changed mine,’ ” Mr. Howard said. “That is mixed in with ‘Watch out America, wake up America, the danger of Islam is here.’ ”

Mr. Howard said his doubts about their authenticity grew after stories like the Golan Heights saga as well as something on Mr. Saleem’s Web site along the lines that he was descended from the grand wazir of Islam. “The grand wazir of Islam is a nonsensical term,” Mr. Howard said.
Keith Davies, the director of the Walid Shoebat Foundation, which organizes their appearances, said critics tried to undermine the speakers’ reputation because “they can’t argue with the message.”

Arab-American civil rights organizations question why, at a time when the United States government has vigorously moved to jail or at least deport anyone with a known terrorist connection, the three men, if they are telling the truth, are allowed to circulate freely. A spokesman for the F.B.I. said there were no warrants for their arrest.

Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/us/07muslim.html?_r=2&ref=us&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
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Our Media have become Mass Producers of Distortion

An industry whose task should be to filter out falsehood has become a conduit for propaganda and second hand news.


By Nick Davies
February 4, 2008
The Guardian


Here's a little example of what I call Flat Earth News. In June 2005, Fleet Street told its readers about a gang of feral child bullies who had attempted to murder a five-year-old boy by hanging him from a tree; the boy had managed to free himself. This story was not true. Indeed, it was obviously not true from the moment it started running. There was the commonsense problem that even a fully grown man with 10 years of SAS training who found himself hanging by the neck would have the greatest difficulty in reaching up and lifting his entire body weight with one hand while using the other to remove the noose. How would a five-year-old boy do it?

More than that, there was the evidence in the story itself. From the first day, the police refused to say the boy had been hanged. The parents and neighbours, who told the press how shocked they were, never claimed to know what had happened. The one and only line on which the whole story was built was a quote from the boy's adult cousin, who said he had told her: "Some boys and girls have tied a rope around my neck and tried to tie me to a tree." That's "tie me to a tree", not "hang me from a tree".

It was a nasty case of bullying but not an attempted murder. A 12-year-old girl had put a rope around the boy's neck and led him round like a dog, pulling on it hard enough to leave marks on his neck. That was clearly dangerous. But the boy never claimed she had hanged him from a tree. Indeed, he never even claimed that she had tied him to a tree, only that she had tried to.

To double check, we spoke to Professor Christopher Milroy, the Home Office pathologist who handled the case. He said: "He had not been hanged. That was not correct and I couldn't understand why the press were insisting that he was."

Nevertheless, the tabloids ran all over it; and TV and the rest of Fleet Street joined in. The London Evening Standard called it a lynching; the Mail, Guardian and Times ran headlines which stated boldly that the boy had been hanged; the Independent ran a moody feature about fear descending on the boy's estate. Sundry columnists joined in with solemn comment about the youth of today and the impact of violence on television.

The ingredients in this little story run routinely through a stream of other small stories, through stories as big as those about the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and then into a flood of media commentary that feeds into government policy and popular understanding - falsehood as profound as the idea that the Earth is flat, widely accepted as true to the point where it can feel like heresy to challenge it.

There never was a time when news media were perfect. Journalists have always worked with too little time and too little certainty; with interference from owners and governments; with laws that intimidate and inhibit the search for truth. But the evidence I found in researching my new book, Flat Earth News, suggests our tendency to recycle ignorance is far worse than it was.

I commissioned research from specialists at Cardiff University, who surveyed more than 2,000 UK news stories from the four quality dailies (Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Independent) and the Daily Mail. They found two striking things. First, when they tried to trace the origins of their "facts", they discovered that only 12% of the stories were wholly composed of material researched by reporters. With 8% of the stories, they just couldn't be sure. The remaining 80%, they found, were wholly, mainly or partially constructed from second-hand material, provided by news agencies and by the public relations industry. Second, when they looked for evidence that these "facts" had been thoroughly checked, they found this was happening in only 12% of the stories.

The implication of those two findings is truly alarming. Where once journalists were active gatherers of news, now they have generally become mere passive processors of unchecked, second-hand material, much of it contrived by PR to serve some political or commercial interest.

Not journalists, but churnalists. An industry whose primary task is to filter out falsehood has become so vulnerable to manipulation that it is now involved in the mass production of falsehood, distortion and propaganda.

And the Cardiff researchers found one other key statistic that helps to explain why this has happened. For each of the 20 years from 1985, they dug out figures for the editorial staffing levels of all the Fleet Street publications and compared them with the amount of space they were filling. They discovered that the average Fleet Street journalist now is filling three times as much space as he or she was in 1985. In other words, as a crude average, they have only one-third of the time that they used to have to do their jobs. Generally, they don't find their own stories, or check their content, because they simply don't have the time.

Add that to all of the traditional limits on journalists' trying to find the truth, and you can see why the mass media generally are no longer a reliable source of information.

Flat Earth News: An Award-winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media is published this week. nick.davies@guardian.co.uk

Source:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2251982,00.html
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Ships did not cause Internet cable damage


(AFP)3
February 2008


CAIRO - Damage to undersea Internet cables in the Mediterranean that hit business across the Middle East and South Asia was not caused by ships, Egypt’s communications ministry said on Sunday, ruling out earlier reports.

The transport ministry added that footage recorded by onshore video cameras of the location of the cables showed no maritime traffic in the area when the cables were damaged.

‘The ministry’s maritime transport committee reviewed footage covering the period of 12 hours before and 12 hours after the cables were cut and no ships sailed the area,’ a statement said.

‘The area is also marked on maps as a no-go zone and it is therefore ruled out that the damage to the cables was caused by ships,’ the statement added.

Two cables were damaged earlier this week in the Mediterranean sea and another off the coast of Dubai, causing widespread disruption to Internet and international telephone services in Egypt, Gulf Arab states and South Asia.

A fourth cable linking Qatar to the United Arab Emirates was damaged on Sunday causing yet more disruptions, telecommunication provider Qtel said.

Earlier reports said that the damage had been caused by ships that had been diverted off their usual route because of bad weather.

Egypt’s communication and information technology ministry said it would report its findings to the owners of the two damaged Mediterranean cables, FLAG Telecom and SEA-ME-WE4.

A repair ship was expected to begin work to fix the two Mediterranean cables on Tuesday.

Sources:
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2008/February/theworld_February77.xml&section=theworld&col
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=41601&sectionid=351020502
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Massive Telecom Disruption Cripples Internet & Communications

How is it that both Flag Telecom and SEA-ME-WEA 4 cables were severed within hours of each other, although Marseille, France and Alexandria, Egypt, are hundreds of miles apart? At this point, details are sketchy and the cause is still unclear.


February 1, 2008


DailyWireless has an excellent coverage and details on the current SMW4 and FLAG cuts. As pointed out in the report, it is strange how the two cable cuts happened miles apart in quick succession. For now, Murphy's the only explanation. The issues are expected to last for weeks, not days.

From Daily Wireless:

http://www.dailywireless.org/2008/01/30/oceanic-fiber-cut/

http://www.renesys.com/blog/2008/01/mediterranean_cable_break.shtml

Two oceanic cable systems in the far East were severed yesterday greatly impacting both Internet and voice traffic to the region. The broken submarine cables are operated by Flag Telecom and SEA-ME-WEA 4 .

Repair time may be measured in weeks, not days.
http://www.renesys.com/blog/2008/01/mediterranean_cable_break.shtml

The countries highlighted in red are those whose Internet connectivity is being disrupted the most by this event. As you can see, there are several cable systems that connect Europe, the Middle East and Asia, via the Suez Canal.

According to Bloomberg six ships were diverted from Alexandria port because of bad weather, and one may have severed the cables with an anchor, said a spokesman for Flag Telecom Group.

The FLAG cut is reported to have taken place 8.3 kilometers (5.2 miles) from Alexandria beach in northern Egypt.
Flag (for Fiber-optic Link Around the Globe), runs from Britain to Japan.

In Cairo, much of the capital city was without access to the Internet for the bulk of the day, frustrating businesses and the professions. "It's a national disaster," said Joseph Metry, network supervisor at Orascom Telecom Holding SAE, the biggest mobile- phone company in the Middle East and North Africa.

The SEA-ME-WEA 4 cable was damaged in the waters off Marseille, France reports C/Net. The two cables, which are separately managed and operated, were damaged within hours of each other.

http://www.vsnlinternational.com/map/

VSNL has a terrific interactive global cable map http://www.vsnlinternational.com/map/, while the SEA-ME-WEA 4 map http://www.seamewe4.com/ shows the distance to France.

VSNL http://www.vsnlinternational.com/map/, the Indian telecom giant that bought FLAG, also bought Tyco's 6 Terabit transpacific cable for a relative song in 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/02/business/02tyco.html .

Now they planning a new TGN-Intra Asia submarine cable linking Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan with an additional connection to the Philippines, and potentially Vietnam.

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FLAG Telecom: Repair ship to get next week to site of damaged Internet cables off Egyptian coast


The Associated Press
February 1, 2008


CAIRO, Egypt: A repair ship is expected to arrive next week to the site of severed cables off the northern coast of Egypt to begin repair work on the damage that has disrupted Internet services across the Middle East and India, a leading provider of international network services said Friday.

The U.K-based FLAG Telecom said in an e-mail sent to The Associated Press that the ship was to arrive Tuesday on the location in the Mediterranean Sea. The repair work will likely be completed in a week of the ship's arrival, it said.

In a separate statement, FLAG Telecom reported that a different undersea Internet cable, FALCON, also belonging to the company, had been cut Friday at 0559 GMT at a location 56 kilometers (34.8 miles) from Dubai, on a stretch between the United Arab Emirates and Oman in the Persian Gulf.

There were no other details on this damage — the first to be reported in the Persian Gulf.
But FLAG Telecom said that a "repair ship has been notified and expected to arrive at the site in the next few days," apparently referring to the Persian Gulf location.

Earlier, the company said its FLAG Europe-Asia cable in the Mediterranean was cut Wednesday morning, 8.3 kilometers (5 miles) from the Egyptian port of Alexandria, on a stretch linking Egypt to Italy. The company also said it was able to restore circuits to some customers and was switching to alternative routes for others.

It did not provide any details as to why it would take until Tuesday for the repair ship to arrive at a site so near the port of Alexandria. The harbor has been closed for most of this week because of bad weather.

Wednesday's damage to two undersea Internet cables off Egypt's coast disrupted Web access across a wide swath of Asia and the Middle East.

Egypt's Minister of Communications and Information Technology Tarek Kamil said Friday that the Internet service in the country would be up and running to about 80 percent of its usual capacity within 48 hours, revising an earlier statement that this level would be restored by late Friday.

"However, it's not before ten days until the Internet service returns to its normal performance," Kamil told the Friday edition of the state Al-Ahram newspaper. There are eight million Internet users in Egypt, according to a ministry count.

On Thursday, Kamil described the damage as an "earthquake" and said the reason behind the cut would only be determined after the repair teams with their robot equipment reach the damaged cables.

The official Middle East News Agency quoted the minister as saying technicians managed to raise the level of the Internet service Thursday to about 45 percent and that Telecom Egypt would get soon a bandwidth of 10 gigabyte to be increased to 13 gigabyte — close to the country's total capacity of 16 gigabytes.

But Internet access remained sporadic or nonexistent Friday, the first day of the official Muslim weekend in the Middle East when all government offices and most businesses are closed.

Kamil, who said international telephone services have not been affected by the incident, also praised the cooperation among the country's companies with the ministry to share the service and the cooperation of international companies in France, Italy and southeast Asia.

The paper also said that on Thursday, the state Telecom Egypt communication company "sealed a deal" for a new 3,100 kilometer (1,900 miles) -long undersea cable between Egypt and France, also through the Mediterranean. That cable would take over 18 months to complete, the report said. It did not say who Telecom's partners in the deal were.

Source:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/02/01/africa/ME-GEN-Egypt-Internet-Outages.php
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French Police Deal Blow to Microsoft


AFP
Jan. 30, 2008


PARIS (AFP) — The French paramilitary police force said Wednesday it is ditching Microsoft for the free Linux operating system, becoming one of the biggest administrations in the world to make the break.

The move completes the gendarmerie's severance from Microsoft which began in 2005 when it moved to open sourcing for office applications such as word processing. It switched to open source Internet browsers in 2006.

Linux is an open-source operating system, which used to be the reserve of computer geeks but is now an easy-to-use system aimed at average users.

The gendarmerie's 70,000 desktops currently use Microsoft's Windows XP operating system.

But these will progressively change over to the Linux system distributed by Ubuntu, explained Colonel Nicolas Geraud, deputy director of the gendarmerie's IT department.

"We will introduce Linux every time we have to replace a desktop computer," he said, "so this year we expect to change 5,000-8,000 to Ubuntu and then 12,000-15,000 over the next four years so that every desktop uses the Linux operating system by 2013-2014."

There are three reasons behind the move, Geraud said at the Solution Linux 2008 conference here. The first is to diversify suppliers and reduce the force's reliance on one company, the second is to give the gendarmerie mastery of the operating system and the third is cost, he said.

He also added that "the Linux interface is ahead of other operating systems currently on the market for professional use."

Vista, for example, Microsoft's latest operating system, is being spurned by consumers who cite "concerns about its cost, resource requirements, and incompatibility with their existing applications," according to InformationWeek.com.

Geraud explained that the move to an open source operating system was logical after the police switched in 2005 to open sourcing for its office applications and in 2006 for its Internet browsers and its email.

The move away from licenced products is saving the gendarmerie about seven million euros (10.3 million dollars) a year for all its PCs.

"In 2004 we had to buy 13,000 licences for office suites for our PCs," he said, "but in the three years since then we've only had to buy a total of 27 licences."

In 2005 the gendarmerie switched from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice -- a collection of applications such as a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation programme similar to Microsoft Powerpoint, all of which can be downloaded free.

A year later it abandoned Mircosoft's Internet Explorer for the Mozilla Foundation's browser Firefox and its email client Thunderbird.

"When we made that choice Firefox represented about 3.0 percent of Internet browsers and it's about 20 to 25 percent now which confirms our choice," Geraud said.

The gendarmerie with its 100,000 employees is the biggest administration to shift to open sourcing for its operating system, but it is not the first in France. That honour belongs to the National Assembly which adopted Ubuntu for its 1,200 PCs in 2007.

Although the gendarmerie is ahead of the market, the market is catching up.

Dell, for example, this week started offering Ubuntu Linux 7.10 on its XPS 1330 laptops in France, Germany, Spain and Britain, while US customers will be able to order the machines within the next week or so, according to the company's website.

Source:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iU4Lq7tOR_WVOJLZ3IeRaIH03x6w
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