http://www.lanet.lv/misc/charts/

music charts from all over the world.

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http://www.hermenaut.com/a4.shtml

best biography/annotated bibliography of philip k. dick in the world.

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http://coldfury.com/reason/comments.php?id=P1285_0_1_0

'angels in america' to be screened on HBO this sunday night (7 dec 2003).

"This is a world in which the Netherlands becomes the latest European country to lurch to the anti-immigrant anti-Muslim right through the offices of a gay politician assassinated by an infuriated vegan anti-mink farming gun-toting lunatic, and I am simply too old-fashioned and maybe just too old to explain to you how we got from Stonewall to Pim Fortuyn, I'm still trying to understand how it is that I pay taxes but I can't marry my boyfriend, but I bet you can get the Netherlands and more explained for you on http-backslash-backslash neocongaypundit.com, and maybe you could have gotten that guy, you know, whatsisname, to come to explicate further the future we face of new crusades and the clash of cultures and how laws against discrimination and hate crimes are actually bad for gay people." --tony kushner

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meanwhile...

http://www.aclu.org/LesbianGayRights/LesbianGayRights.cfm?ID=14481&c=104

LAFAYETTE, LA – After a 7-year-old boy was scolded in front of his classmates and sent to a school behavioral clinic for answering another child’s questions about his lesbian mothers, the American Civil Liberties Union today demanded that the school expunge the boy’s disciplinary records and stop restricting him from talking about his family with other students.

“I was concerned when the assistant principal called and told me my son had said a word so bad that he didn’t want to repeat it over the phone,” said Sharon Huff, the second-grader’s mother. She added, “But that was nothing compared to the shock I felt when my little boy came home and told me that his teacher had told him his family is a dirty word." ...The school required Marcus to attend a special behavioral clinic at 6:45 in the morning, where he was forced to repeatedly write “I will never use the word ‘gay’ in school again.”

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http://www.shreveporttimes.com/html/AE0F03BF-76FC-4300-8564-695F1898F37C.shtml

Shreveport, LA - A student expelled from Parkway High for a year for having Advil, an over-the-counter pain reliever, will not be allowed to return to the school. Kelly Herpin and daughter Amanda Stiles, a sophomore, appealed the one-year expulsion... "I'm not really sure at this point what we'll do," Herpin said. "I'm going to have to talk to my husband, and we're going to have to make some plans. I'm not sure we could afford a private school. We've been looking at moving to another area." She would have to sue the School Board to continue fighting the expulsion.

Superintendent Ken Kruithof said after the board meeting that the school system is following a state law that requires a one-year expulsion and being consistent in the system's "zero-tolerance" policy... The search of Stiles' purse that turned up the medication came after a tip from a teacher about a student smoking at school. Herpin said her daughter was part of a group that was searched in response to the tip.

Kruithof said a teacher identifed Stiles as the student smoking a cigarette and that Stiles ran into a restroom, where a teacher searched only her purse. No cigarettes or lighters were found. Stiles was not disciplined for tobacco-related violations. Students caught smoking usually are suspended.

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http://www.pressherald.com/news/state/031204teachersues.shtml

A seventh-grade social studies teacher in Presque Isle [Maine] who said he was barred from teaching about non-Christian civilizations has sued his school district, claiming it violated his First Amendment right of free expression.

...[Teacher Gary] Cole alleged that complaints by "a small group of fundamentalist Christian individuals" led to the creation of a curriculum "which never mentions religions other than Christianity and never teaches the history of civilizations other than Christian civilizations." "He can't even teach the history of anti-Semitism (or the) history of ancient Greece," said Cole's lawyer, A.J. Greif of Bangor. "How can you explain the evolution of democracy in the Western world without talking about ancient Greece? He can't talk about all the influences of the Indian, Japanese or Chinese cultures."

Superintendent Gehrig Johnson said on Tuesday that he had not seen the lawsuit, but he noted that the curriculum has been "developed by teachers across the district and adopted by the SAD 1 School Committee." "Teachers are expected to follow the curriculum," he added.

...Greif said Cole wasn't trying to teach anything unusual or anything that wasn't being taught in most seventh grades across the state. His lawsuit seeks injunctive relief to allow him to teach "the history of the entire Eastern Hemisphere, as appropriate."

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and now, back to our regularly-scheduled war.

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_844321.html

The Thanksgiving turkey George W Bush was seen serving to troops in Baghdad last week was a fake. The photograph was shown around the world of a smiling Mr Bush apparently offering a platter with a huge, succulent turkey to US soldiers. But it has emerged the Bush turkey had been a "model" adorning the end of the buffet line... Asked whether the turkey was genuine, Scott McClellan, Mr Bush's spokesman, made a rare joke by deflecting attention to the White House Christmas tree, due to be unveiled later he said: "The tree today, as far as I know, is real."

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http://badattitudes.com/MT/archives/000926.html#000926

President Bush might have enhanced his manly profile for his photo-op aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln — the first known instance, if the innuendoes are true, of a turkey stuffing himself. [see photo of bush's bulge between stratgeically-cinched straps at original website.] ...When I appropriated the photograph above from a gay web site last month, my accompanying post elicited the following comment from a patriot in Arizona named Terry... "You learn in flight school to cinch those straps tight — while you’re seated in the cockpit — in the event that you have to eject or bail out. But every kid learns, quickly, that you don’t stand up with those straps tight; it pinches your nuts. And yes, Bush would have been very familiar with that."

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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/07/international/middleeast/07TACT.html?ex=1071742542&ei=1&en=902587f5d4e2808a

Dec. 6 — As the guerrilla war against Iraqi insurgents intensifies, American soldiers have begun wrapping entire villages in barbed wire. In selective cases, American soldiers are demolishing buildings thought to be used by Iraqi attackers. They have begun imprisoning the relatives of suspected guerrillas... In Abu Hishma, encased in a razor-wire fence after repeated attacks on American troops, Iraqi civilians line up to go in and out, filing through an American-guarded checkpoint, each carrying an identification card printed in English only.

...The Americans say there are no Israeli military advisers helping the Americans in Iraq. Writing in the July issue of Army magazine, an American brigadier general said American officers had recently traveled to Israel to hear about lessons learned from recent fighting there. "Experience continues to teach us many lessons, and we continue to evaluate and address those lessons, embedding and incorporating them appropriately into our concepts, doctrine and training," Brig. Gen. Michael A. Vane wrote... "You have to understand the Arab mind," Capt. Todd Brown, a company commander with the Fourth Infantry Division, said as he stood outside the gates of Abu Hishma. "The only thing they understand is force."

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http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/7427192.htm

An influential Mississippi congressman has raised the possibility that the Pentagon has undercounted combat casualties in Iraq after he learned that five members of the Mississippi National Guard who were injured Sept. 12 by a booby trap in Iraq were denied Purple Heart medals... Of 441 service members who have died in Iraq, 304 are listed as killed in hostile action; 137 deaths resulted from nonhostile action.

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http://kobtv.com/index.cfm?viewer=storyviewer&id=6723&cat=HOME

A Catholic priest and peace activist [in Albuquerque] says he ordered National Guard soldiers from Springer to disobey military orders to go to Iraq. The Reverend John Dear says he encountered about 75 soldiers from the 515th Corps Support Battalion outside his home November 20th. Members of the Springer-based 515th are to be deployed to Iraq later this month for 18 months active duty. The priest said the soldiers were on a fitness run but had gathered outside his house chanting the word kill. Dear says he told the soldiers to stop “in the name of God.” He says he told the soldiers to quit the military and disobey orders to kill anyone.

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http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AFGHAN_ATTACK?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME

HUTALA, Afghanistan (AP) -- Children's hats and shoes littered a bloody field cratered by gunfire Sunday after a U.S. airstrike, aimed at a wanted Taliban commander, mistakenly killed nine children in an Afghan mountain village. The American warplane was targeting Mullah Wazir, once a local commander for the hard-line Islamic militia... The residents reported at least one adult man, possibly a Wazir relative, was killed along with the children.

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http://www.washtimes.com/world/20031205-090656-8362r.htm

The United States is seeking allies in a major campaign to destroy Afghanistan's coming opium crop, having concluded that Afghan drugs now represent al Qaeda's principal source of income. The U.S. initiative, outlined by a senior American official in Kabul, reflects the failure of British efforts to curb poppy production. According to separate reports by the United Nations and the CIA, about 3,600 tons of opium resin were produced this year in an unprecedented 28 of Afghanistan's 32 provinces. The crop earned poppy farmers and traffickers $4.3 billion, or more than 50 percent of Afghanistan's gross domestic product.

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http://www.rosbaltnews.com/2003/12/06/64996.html

MOSCOW, December 5. US soldiers are developing a drug addiction problem in Afghanistan, said Deputy State Drug Controller Alexander Mikhailov. He said that there have already been several occurrences of drug addiction among US soldiers in Afghanistan, but the US leadership is keeping it quiet. 'They don't have control of the situation. This should be a good example for our troops in Tajikistan,' said Mikhailov. [?! --mrs. h.]

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signs o'th'times

http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/reuters12-06-085317.asp?reg=MIDEAST

KUWAIT, Dec. 6 — International scholars and Islamist thinkers accused Washington on Saturday of trying to impose a flawed vision of democracy on the Middle East that was biased and doomed to failure. The delegates told the opening session of a three-day conference on the role of Islamic groups in political reform in the Middle East any reform process that was not home-grown was destined to fail... John Esposito of the U.S.-based Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, said many viewed Washington's talk of democracy with great cynicism. ''They're wondering whether or not, along with military and economic options, democracy is simply being used as a tactic to redraw the map of the Middle East,'' the author and academic said... Others lambasted what they see as Washington's attempts to impose an Americanised version of Islam coated with the garb of political participation and American democracy... Bahrain's Sheikh Ali Salman, head of the National Islamic Alliance Society, said dealing with the West was inescapable, but should be done according to a Muslim agenda, not a U.S. one. ''America rules large tracts of our countries,'' he said. ''Can we escape from dealing with it?''

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40109-2003Dec5.html

In Elzain Elzain's Baghdad, they serve peanut butter, lobster and ice cream. The cell phones have a 914 area code. The television sets show Monday Night Football. The people speak English. And the strictly enforced speed limit is 35 mph. "It's like I never left America," said Elzain, an artist from the District who works as an interpreter for the U.S.-led occupation government. Elzain and several thousand other government workers, contractors and soldiers live and work in what is called the Green Zone. The four-square-mile area, encircled by 15-foot concrete walls and rings of barbed wire, includes Saddam Hussein's presidential palace compound.

...Venturing from the protection of the Green Zone is not just a chore, it's a feat. Forms must be filled out explaining the reason for the outing, requesting transportation and a protective detail. Some trips must be rescheduled three or four times... "The Americans are behind the walls in the palace. They have difficulty knowing what's going on. I call it the 'green area syndrome,' " said Frank Dall, project director for District-based Creative Associates International Inc., which is assisting the U.S. Agency for International Development with education reform and is housed outside the zone.

...The streets are populated by joggers and people in casual clothes carrying around cell phones that are part of the only operating network in Iraq, run by MCI Communications Corp. To reach someone, even just a few miles away in Baghdad, you call an upstate New York area code. Because of concerns that food could be poisoned or contaminated, nearly everything is imported. Cases of Aqua Gulf bottled water come from Kuwait and the frozen food is sent from the United States.

...Elzain, 38, who is on leave from the Museum of Contemporary Art DC, lives in a trailer north of the palace... "Sometimes you feel really homesick," he said, "despite the fact that everything here is American."

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http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1683

U.S. forces unleashed at least 75 tons of toxic depleted uranium on Iraq during the war, reports the Christian Science Monitor. An unnamed U.S. Central Command spokesman disclosed to the Monitor last week that coalition forces fired 300,000 bullets coated with armored-piercing depleted uranium (DU) during the war. “The normal combat mix for these 30-mm rounds is five DU bullets to 1 -- a mix that would have left about 75 tons of DU in Iraq,” wrote correspondent Scott Peterson. Peterson measured four sites around Baghdad struck with depleted uranium munitions and found high levels of radioactive contamination.

...While the Pentagon maintains that spent weapons coated with the low-level, radioactive nuclear-waste are relatively harmless, Peterson notes that U.S. soldiers have taken it among themselves to print leaflets or post signs warning of DU contamination.

..."Radioactive? Oh, really?" was the response of a former director general of the ministry, when Peterson presented a Geiger counter registering emissions of 1,900 times normal from spent DU-coated bullets amongst the grounds at the Ministry of Planning.

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http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,1101341,00.html

Halliburton, the engineering group formerly run by US vice-president Dick Cheney, has been given $1 billion worth of reconstruction work in Iraq by the US government without having to compete for it, thanks to repeated delays in opening up a key contract to competition... The figures have emerged as the UK Government and contractors reacted with dismay to news this week that competitive tendering had again been pushed back to between 15 December and 17 January. Previously it was delayed to mid-October, late October, then year-end. One leading UK contractor, which made strong representations in Whitehall this week, said: 'We are very disappointed that it has been put back again,' adding that the longer the delay, the more KBR [Kellogg, Brown and Root, the Halliburton company in question] benefited.

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http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,11538,1101277,00.html

The [British] government is selling arms and security equipment to countries whose human rights record it has strongly criticised, according to lists of weapons cleared for export that have been seen by the Guardian. The countries include Indonesia, where the Foreign Office has reported allegations of extrajudicial killings, Nepal, where it has reported summary executions, and Saudi Arabia, where torture is just one abuse of basic human rights attacked by the FO.

Licences have been approved this year for the export to Saudi Arabia of "security and paramilitary goods", hitherto unpublished figures show. The list of items under this category is: "Acoustic devices... suitable for riot control purposes, anti-riot shields... leg irons, gangchains, electric shock belts, shackles... individual cuffs... portable anti-riot devices... water cannon... riot control vehicles... portable devices for riot control or self-protection by the administration of an electric shock". [elisions in original]

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remember tommy franks?

http://www.sptimes.com/2003/12/07/Columns/From_Tommy_Franks__a_.shtml

The doomsday scenario was laid out by Gen. Tommy Franks, the recently retired head of CentCom, in of all places the December edition of Cigar Aficionado magazine... Franks suggested that a "massive casualty-producing event" might cause "our population to question our own Constitution and begin to militarize our country." ...Franks, a four-star general, was warning of a future he sees as possible if not likely. Our economy might survive another terrorist assault, so might our mass culture - it'll take more than a nuclear device to shut up Jessica Simpson - but the prognosis for the Constitution is bleak.

...We ain't seen nothing yet, according to the experts. If terrorism's sting is felt again, fascism may be its aftermath.

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http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20031202-114458-1245r.htm

The U.S. military has held a dress rehearsal of planned tribunals for al Qaeda and Taliban combatants, complete with a defendant who acted up and had to be restrained and ejected. The mock trial was conducted in early November at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

...There is a team of military defense attorneys at the Pentagon assigned to defend the prisoners. But to date, no criminal charges have been filed, and none of the defense team has met with future clients... The actual tribunals will be run by the Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions. It includes a staff of six military defense attorneys and 10 prosecutors. An "appointing authority" — at this point it is Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz — will approve any charges and appoint three to seven commission members for the trial.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1098523,00.html

A team of military lawyers recruited to defend alleged terrorists held by the US at Guantanamo Bay was dismissed by the Pentagon after some of its members rebelled against the unfair way the trials have been designed, the Guardian has learned.

...A former military lawyer with good contacts in the US military legal establishment said... "The first day, when they were being briefed on the dos and don'ts, at least a couple said: 'You can't impose these restrictions on us because we can't properly represent our clients.' When the group decided they weren't going to go along, they were relieved. They reported in the morning and got fired that afternoon." The Pentagon's recently set up Office of Military Commissions denied the claim.

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kidnapping and gitmo

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101031208-552060,00.html

The Supreme Court recently agreed to decide whether the captives at Guantanamo can at least challenge their detention in federal court... A U.S. military official tells TIME that at least 140 detainees—"the easiest 20%"—are scheduled for release. The processing of these men has sped up since the Supreme Court announced it would take the case, said the source, who believes the military is "waiting for a politically propitious time to release them." U.S. officials concluded that some detainees were there because they had been kidnapped by Afghan warlords and sold for the bounty the U.S. was offering for al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters.

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http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2003/11/23/army_reserve_battling_an_exodus/

The US Army Reserve fell short of its reenlistment goals this fiscal year... The US Army, the primary service deployed in Iraq, is offering reenlistment bonuses of $5,000 for soldiers serving there. The Army National Guard is extending an official thank-you to members by arranging services to honor returning soldiers. The Massachusetts National Guard is offering rewards ranging from plaques to NASCAR tickets to members who lure recruits. And throughout the branches, recruitment advertising is up and programs are being launched to make the military seem more family-friendly. The Army also is resorting to a policy called "stop loss" that allows the Pentagon to indefinitely keep soldiers from leaving the service once their time has expired.

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feel a draft ?

http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=8&id=281131

One thousand and seven hundred U.S. soldiers have deserted their posts in Iraq, with many of them failing to return to military duty after getting permission to go back to the United States, according to the French weekly magazine Le Canard Enchaine.

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http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=68502c5eae5b193f0d75af16d5b0ce6b

U.S. commanders say their troops killed at least 54 Iraqis in the northern city of Samarra on Nov. 30. Townspeople say far fewer died, but that they were mostly civilians. Either way, it was a massacre... The U.S. troops were provoked into attack, but in retaliation they not only fired on a kindergarten and a mosque, they also fired on those trying to evacuate the wounded.

...The U.S. government has made much of the fact that the battle was instigated by members of the Fedayeen, the elite guards loyal to Saddam Hussein, who appeared in uniform to bait the U.S. troops... The black uniforms of the Fedayeen have additional symbolic value. They are reminiscent of the Black Flags of the Abbassid Empire, the great Persian-Arab empire founded in 750 C.E. in Baghdad that ushered in the Golden Age of Islamic civilization. No one in Iraq can see the solid black color without having this association. Because the founders of the Abbassid Empire usurped the weaker Umayyids, conquerors from outside, the symbolic message is clear to the residents of the region.

The U.S. Army clearly sent another message. For the Shi'a population of Iraq an event such as this calls up images of martyrdom, such as that suffered by the central religious figure of Shiism, Hussein, grandson of the prophet Mohammad. Hussein was killed by illegitimate external forces in 680 C.E. Two of Hussein's most important descendants -- the 10th and 11th Shi'a Imams -- were martyred and buried in Samarra. The mystical, messianic 12th Imam disappeared there in 878 C.E. He will reappear at the Day of Judgment according to Shia tradition. Thus the Fedayeen become representatives of perfect heroes and perfect martyrs in one fell swoop.

Events such as this highlight the degree to which the Bush administration fails to appreciate the impact of cultural symbolism.

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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,104800,00.html

President Bush wants to send Americans back to the moon — and may leave a permanent presence there — in a bold new vision for space exploration, administration officials said yesterday... Bush's call for a return to space would give Americans something new to hope for.

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something else to look forward to

http://www.rainbownetwork.com/content/News.asp?newsid=4011

In a move likely to cause contention among conservative Republicans, the District of Columbia plans to install free condom dispensers in some government office buildings. The District`s health department says it will put 50 plain white dispensers in areas frequented by the public, including the D.C. Housing Authority and the departments of human services, motor vehicles and public works. "They`re going to be as common as water fountains," Ivan O. Torres, interim director of the city`s HIV/AIDS Administration, said of the dispensers.

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plus

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61243,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2

Diebold Election Systems is withdrawing legal threats against voting activists and Internet service providers for publishing copies of internal staff e-mails that the company says were stolen from its servers. The documents pointed to security flaws with Diebold's computerized voting machines and suggested the company knew about those flaws long before it sold machines to several states, including California, Maryland and Georgia.

Beginning in August, Diebold issued cease-and-desist letters to more than a dozen individuals who posted the documents or links to sites hosting them on the Internet. The company claimed copyright infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act... The nonprofit ISP Online Policy Group and two Swarthmore College students sought a court order in October to block Diebold's action. On Monday, Diebold reversed itself without explaining its decision.

...Among revelations contained in the memos was information that the Microsoft Access database used by the Diebold system to collect and calculate votes was not protected by a password. This meant someone could alter votes by entering the database through physical access to the machine or remotely using the phone system. The memos also revealed that the audit log, which records any activity in the Access database, could be easily altered so that an intruder could erase a record of the intrusion... Other memos indicated that patches were installed in systems after they were already certified and delivered to states.

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from http://www.unknownnews.net

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