Wampum

From Syria Comment

Bashar al-Asad's confirmation, in an interview to the Qatari daily al-Watan, that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had given him a commitment to return the entire Golan Heights to Syria has one meaning: Syrian-Israeli peace negotiations are warming up. For the first time since the failure of the Clinton-Hafiz al-Asad Geneva summit of March 2000, there is a real chance for the resumption of peace negotiations between Israel and Syria, and perhaps even for a breakthrough.

And

From Ha'aretz

Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman is expected to arrive in Israel shortly to receive Israel's official response to the Egyptian cease-fire proposal, Palestinian sources in Cairo said yesterday.

Suleiman is to report to Israel on the agreement reached with the Palestinian factions yesterday, who are offering Israel calm in the Gaza Strip in exchange for the opening of the crossing points into the Strip, including the Rafa border crossing with Egypt. The official Egyptian news agency MENA reported that all 12 Palestinian factions whose representatives were in Cairo had accepted the Egyptian proposal.

Remember any Democrats speaking about Jimmy Carter last week? Remember what each one said?

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I don't know but this week there's two in the Gulf. Gates says its just a reminder. I'm reminded that Saint John was an Airdale.

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Nicolas Sarkozy is competitive in the beyond-satire-while-executive event, and without a 9/11 to hold back his first year numbers, may get to ponies well before George W. Bush managed to make his bones in the G-8 world of comedy.

Which is a good thing if you were amused by his break with Chirac on such minor issues as the independence from or subordination to the ultra-armed Zionist-Paleo-Xtian Alliance on the questions of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.

The world of satire may not survive a Sarko-Saint-John partnership. In every competitive event, records will be set.

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Indianz.com has the whole story:

Artman resigns from BIA after a year on the job Tuesday, April 29, 2008 Filed Under: Politics

After a little more than a year on the job, assistant secretary Carl Artman on Monday announced his resignation as head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Artman, a member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, did not give a reason for leaving. His letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne cited "many accomplishments" that he said he achieved since taking over the BIA in March 2007.

"I believe at the end of this administration, the work we have done within Indian Affairs will leave not just a legacy, but an infrastructure upon which American Indians and Alaska Natives can build to secure their governmental, cultural and economic futures," Artman wrote.

With May 23 as his last day on the job, Artman becomes the third assistant secretary to quit the BIA during the Bush administration. His predecessors left under clouds of litigation and amid questions about their leadership abilities.

I'll comment more after coffee.

Posted by MB Williams at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ban Ki-moon's in town. There's a lot of people in town. Trying to set up responses to the grain shortages. Geneva is bustling today, lots of UN agency heads trying to get secondary meetings set up. There will be a meeting of the FAO in Rome in five weeks time. Yesterday in Berne, in the old Postal Union, the oldest agency in the UN systems, Moon said "its not a crisis, its a catastrophy".

Meanwhile I suppose the Hero Twins are sniping at each other and at McCain, missing this opportunity, safely after Iowa, and in the center of target of party reflection on the future of the primary schedule, to talk about ethanol as a root cause of foreign hunger and a contributing factor in unsustainable, and increasingly GMO controlled factory farming.

And I suppose the A listers are dancing on the heads of pins (public policy coverage) damning the darkness rather than providing serious side-by-side-by-side or simply in-depth reporting.

As we drove up the Salinas Valley more crews were out than normal, as farmers try to harvest lettuce and broccoli before it bolts after two days of asphalt melting heat.

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I've pretty much ignored the post-Pennsylvania spin, but was pretty shocked to read at Avedon's that the race was back to an actual race, at least according to Gallup. So I went over there, and found this interesting trend:

Hmmmm...

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April 18, 2008

Dear Tribal Leader:

I am writing to you to give you an update on pending Indian housing legislation and also to seek your assistance in getting the legislation enacted into law this year.

Culminating years of hard work by Indian Tribes and their Tribally-Designated Housing Entities, legislation has been introduced in both the U.S. House of Representatives (H.R. 2786) and U.S. Senate (S. 2062) to reauthorize the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act (NAHASDA). I am happy to report to you that both of these bills have been approved by their respective committees of jurisdiction and, in fact, H.R. 2786 has already passed the House. The Senate legislation, S. 2062, will pass the Senate in the coming weeks. The NAIHC has prepared a summary of the major provisions of these bills that will significantly benefit Native communities nationwide. The summary is attached to this letter.

As you may know, a dispute has arisen within the Cherokee Nation involving the citizenship status of the Cherokee Freedmen within the Tribe, with the Freedmen having filed lawsuits pending in the courts of the Cherokee Nation as well as Federal Court. Unfortunately, this tribal dispute has spilled over into the U.S.
Congress and has the potential to prevent the passage of Indian housing and, indeed, other Indian legislative priorities.

On March 13, 2008, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) indicating that the CBC will actively oppose legislation to reauthorize the NAHASDA unless the legislation includes "a provision that would prevent the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma from receiving
any benefits or funding under the bill until the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma is in full compliance with the Treaty of 1866 and recognizes all Cherokee Freedmen and their descendants as tribal citizens."

The NAIHC is cognizant of the delicacy of the issue to the CBC and is also well aware that Indian Tribes conscientiously guard their rights and prerogatives to determine their own citizenship criteria. The NAIHC is very concerned that the Freedmen matter might upend not only the pending NAHASDA reauthorization but the passage of all Indian tribal legislation in this and possibly future congresses. This would be an unfortunate outcome for the hundreds of thousands of American Indian and Alaska Native low income families that would be unwitting victims in a controversy involving one Indian Tribe.

In the absence of some creative, equitable resolution, the NAIHC fears that NAHASDA will fail to be reauthorized this year. We therefore seek your consideration of these matters and look forward to your involvement and support for passage of NAHASDA in 2008.

Sincerely,

Marty Shuravloff
Chairman

A controversy involving one Indian Tribe. So Chad is on his own. As the root cause was Ross' urge to suppress some specific votes, an urge that also moved Wilma Mankiller and now runs through Chad's veins like ... electoral firewater, the core of a "creative, equitable resolution" lies in the CNO ballot box.

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Elizabeth Edwards' has a piece up at the NY Times. Here's the link.

What if I didn't remember the Army McCarthy Hearings? What if no one did? What if the footage from day 30 of the hearings, when Welsh said Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency? never made it to the network news? Senator Symington said to Senator McCarthy, Senator, the American people have had a look at you now for six weeks. You're not fooling anyone, either, but what if no one except those present throughout those six weeks had had a look at Joe McCarthy?

Edward R. Murrow wouldn't have had the material to use to make See It Now and Emile de Antonio wouldn't have had the material to use to make Point of Order and George Cluney wouldn't have made Good Night, and Good Luck.

But it wouldn't have been the lack of footage to recycle for content, it would be because the amount of content made available in the print and broadcast mediums as news would be equivalent to this cycle's content on Joe Biden's health care plan. Only those who were there would even know it existed, and the "American people" of Senator Symington's peculiar America would amount to some Senators and some staffers, the clerks and the a few members of the Capitol Police, and a few amazed children we call pages, and no one else in the world at all. There might be films by Murrow and de Antonio and Cluney, but they'd be art films about chewing gum or someone's colorful uncle.

In the last cycle I made a point of calling up Senator Bob Graham's campaign office as it was closing up, to request a copy of his jobs and economic stimulus plan, and I'm still impressed by his Workdays -- working many jobs his constituents work. It was a good plan then, its still a good plan today, and it got the same coverage as Joe Biden's health care plan. Recall, he got the media blackout and yet when he was Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, he opposed the War in Iraq for fear it would divert attention from Afghanistan. He had clue then, and he had spine then.

And if he were the nominee we'd sweep Florida.

I can loan a server and bandwidth to blogs in Indiana and North Carolina. It beats waiting for someone else to re-invent journamalism.

Posted by EBW at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So, yeah, I've kinda been on a self-imposed blogging strike. It's hard when your blogging strength is Progressive politics, and, frankly, it looks as though your interest is an endangered species. But there are lots of interesting events on the autism and Indian fronts, and so perhaps it's time to just cut those mooring lines and move on.

Eric heads back to Geneva on Monday, and I promise not to let Wampum go dark. So, yeah, I'll be back.

Posted by MB Williams at 01:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Dear Josh,

Please find attached, the remarks and observations made by Hamas on the proposed statement of Jimmy Carter. I got the official text and published it in Al-Hayat . Here is the English version.

Please note that Hamas accepts on written paper to recognize a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. Hamas will accept the results of final status peace talks.

Best,
Ibrahim HAMIDI
Al-Hayat

Here's the link

Posted by EBW at 08:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 26, 1986, at 1:23 AM, reactor #4 exploded.

First-responders in the cult of security that arose after 9/11 are untouchables. While budgets are cut, the items labeled "first-responders" remain intact. The phrase is used as a rhetorical device, and all the way down the law-and-order food chain, men and women who seek authority, security and the occasional doughnut rise up above the hum-drum of domestic violence and public drunkenness and stray livestock on that turn of phrase.

On September 18, 2001, the first-responders in Lower Manhattan were told by then-EPA Administrator Christie Whitman that the air was safe to breath. But most of the actual "first-responders" were just people who turn towards need. Not paid, not sworn, not subject to disciplinary hearings. The people the Bush Regime exploits in the choir and abandons in the courts. A lot of them are dead, or dying, or just wicked sicker than they'd be if they turned away from need and left the problem to the Regime motivated by Grover Norquist.

When Pat Buchanan won the New Hampshire primary in February 1986 his victory speech included this line¹:

Do not wait for orders from headquarters. Mount up everybody and ride to the sound of the guns.

The first-responders the night of April 26th, 1986, had shovels and firehoses. Nearly a million men and women worked the clean-up, to contain the mess. And 25,000 are dead.

It bugs me that the candidate packaged as "hope" in the Democratic primary process is a sock puppet for Excelon. It bugs me that the odds are wicked high that we Auntie Nukes are going to have to try again to stop the nuclear nutmen, this time in new and improved packaging as "low carbon", and this cycle's most effective electoral crooner is warm and fuzzy towards atoms for peace.

Isn't voting "for security" voting against the likelihood of having only whatever can be salvaged from equipment of the crews that went before you, and proceeding towards, or away from, some point on the horizon?

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Yesterday we were favored by a visit by an adult fish eagle doing circles over the Salinas River. The white tail and head against the dark body and wings was easily visible. Today we are favored by a guest post by Nord Wennerstrom:

I want to call your attention to a cultural treasure that is under threat ... the 10,000+ petroglyphs and pictographs in Utah's Nine Mile Canyon:

May 1, 2008 is the deadline for contacting the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) about a proposal that could dramatically step up damage to the rock art in Utah's Nine Mile Canyon, affectionately known as the "world's longest art gallery" and home to more than 10,000 petroglyphs and pictographs made primarily from the Fremont and Ute Indian cultures. A massive proposed oil and gas development project (more than 800 wells!) will cause a four-fold increase truck traffic inside the Canyon, resulting in enormous amounts of dust, chemical dust suppressants and vehicle exhaust that will accumulate on and permanently harm this native, and human treasure.

A recently released study shows a direct link between truck traffic in the Canyon and the deterioration of the rock art panels, due to a build up of dust and harmful chemicals used to control dust on the road. The BLM, which manages much of the land in and around Nine Mile Canyon, needs to recognize the findings of this study and present plans for a new access road to the exploration site, rather than continuing to rely on the narrow dirt roads that run through Nine Mile Canyon.

We urge you to send an email to the Bureau of Land Management today at UT_Pr_Comments@blm.gov and copy the National Trust for Historic Preservation at crc@nthp.org.

Let BLM know that it is imperative for them to protect the thousands of prehistoric petroglyphs and pictographs in Nine Mile Canyon. Tell BLM that it is unacceptable to allow these international treasures to be damaged by the dust and chemicals and exhaust generated by current and proposed truck traffic in Nine Mile Canyon. Ask BLM to perform a detailed evaluation of alternative routes that trucks could use to access the project area instead of the existing dirt roads in Nine Mile Canyon and its narrow side canyons. Encourage BLM to fulfill its role as the steward of the world's longest art gallery and save our shared heritage for future generations.

Additional information:

1. More information and to access the Draft Environmental Impact Study are available from the BLM.

2. Learn more about Nine Mile Canyon.

3. YouTube video

4. The following article appeared in the magazine Science January 25, 2008, Dust Storm Rising Over Threat to Famed Rock Art in Utah: [I'm looking for a non-pay link to the 1pp .pdf, ebw]

5. ninemilecanyoncoalition.org [ebw add]

The author is director of communications for the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

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Is there such a thing as a tactical nuclear weapon? Can nuclear weapons be used "tactically" in a "theater limited" war, with acceptable risk of the conflict not escalating into unrestricted warfare with civilian population centers immediately becoming the primary elements of the opposing sides' targeteers?

One of the hallmarks of the Bush Regime's ascendency has been first-use and theater limited use, that complete inventory expenditure is not the most likely outcome of scenarios involving weapons states, whether directly or indirectly.

Would you want to turn over the launch codes to anyone who thinks he or she can "just use a few" to advance American interests?

I'm perplexed by Juan Cole's take on the ABC's Good Morning America show the morning of the Pennsylvania election. Someone set up the question -- Clinton was asked what she would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons. This presupposes Iran's uranium enrichment program is not so that Iran can enter the commercial fuel market, and there is no evidence that Iran has produced highly enriched uranium, and become a vendor of nuclear fuel rods, and it presumes that Iran then weaponizes some stockpile of highly enriched uranium, and it presumes that Iran mates the weapons package(s) with some delivery platforms, and with or without testing, enages some targets in Israel with these nuclear weapons.

One line of analysis is that the candidate accepted the premise of the question, and should not have.

Another line of analysis is that the candidate accepted the premise of the question for reasons that may be more complex than the assumption that the premise is likely to be true.

But what is the better answer to the question "what will happen if one weapons state attacks another weapons state?" Which is the reasonable answer "effect without counter-effect" or "effect and counter-effect"?

Finally, the shared knowledge of the authors of the question, ABC's cast of political talent, and the campaign's political talent which includes the candidate, and of the passive audience, is that three weapons states, Israel, the United States and even France have threatened first-use, specifically against Iran, and the house of cards includes the disposition of more than two nuclear weapons states arsenals, there's Pakistan's to consider, and it may not end there.

Does the question asked "if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons" become meaningless if the sequence of "Iran", "Israel" is reversed? If other weapons states names are used instead of one, or the other, or both? And what about the answer? Is there ever effect without counter-effect?

The worst reading of the intent of the answer I've seen came from Juan Cole who wrote:
"Senator Clinton is by now just flailing around fantasizing about incinerating children in playgrounds in Isfahan.

I do not hope for a candidate who does not use the language of deterrence, and if there is a transfer of power from the Bush Regime to an elected administration of a different political party, I hope that administration will decrement a weapons inventory without adding weapons marketed as "capable of producing effect without counter-effect". I also hope, in that hypothetical and uncertain future, that administration will encourage the administrations of other weapons states to decrement inventories, without without adding weapons marketed as "capable of producing effect without counter-effect."

Posted by EBW at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

You may want to consider writing in Al Gore and someone else. Our choice is the Breck Girl. Click on view image (your howto may vary) to see it at 100%, here it's 50% (and melting).

Posted by EBW at 08:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Real ID went into effect today. I think I'll apply for a renewal from where I am, a wicked long ways away from my domicile of record, and see just how difficult it is to actually have government work.

Posted by EBW at 07:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Its up at defenselink.mil.

I'm still trying to imagine Terry McAuliff taking Matt Soller as his peer for as much as 4.5 seconds, let alone 45 seconds. I just lack whatever that takes.

Posted by EBW at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Ethan's wanted to go to the District for a long time. It is why he came to Maine. Someday he'd get through the muni-maze, and with Charlie Harlow's help in the famously broken election 1999 election he made it on to the Portland city council long enough to make a theatrical gesture of "stepping aside", when Jack Dawson appealed Charlie & co's gift of 35 ballots, which was enough to get him into Ann Rand's Senate seat when she term-limited, always "fighting for Portland", because some day the safe seat in the 1st CD would open up. Someday someone would move on, up, out or die, and start the feast of movable chairs, to the Senate or to the Blaine House, but most of all, from Portland to Capital Hill. Funny, when Bob Masse was designing this poster Ethan was just another guy from away who'd lost his break-in race. Now he's talking dirty to the woman who gave John Baldacci the Blaine House and fell on the Party sword to be the symbolic candidate against Susan Collins in the first election after 9/11 made every Republican a Hero, after spending almost as many years in Augusta as Michael Brennan.

I'm a Californian, married to a Mainiac, and the parent of Mainacs. Abenaki Mainiacs. When Ronnie moved from Sacramento to Washington we were really glad in California -- we'd finally gotten rid of an idiot -- the seen-one-tree-seen-em-all guy. So maybe it a good thing that Ethan is trying to leave Maine.

But what is the weirdest way you can think of to celebrate Earth Day? Torching a heap of tires to liberate those poor carbon atoms imprisoned in the harsh bonds of expropriated tropical rubber?

Try messaging that Emily's List, the PAC created to get more women elected, is just a PAC, and a clean candidate doesn't take money from any PAC.

Because there's no connection between business as usual, and all the privileges that go with inherited wealth, and inherited sex, and inherited skin color, and what is wrong with the Earth.

And Mainers should vote against any woman unfortunate enough to run with Emily's List's advice (and girl do they have wicked good political advice to offer) and their money. Because its From Away. And Ethan isn't. Sort of.

Posted by EBW at 06:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The best PA primary coverage is at Fafner, Giblets, and the Medium Lobster's digs. Its surreality based.

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A view of the field of honor, as imagined by Ross Swimmer (center), Jack Abramoff (upper right), and Chad Smith (lower right).

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has threatened to block housing legislation for Native Americans if the final bill does not include a funding ban against the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma .

Frank shares a concern first raised by the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), whose members have proposed several measures to punish the tribe for changing its constitution last year to exclude the Freedmen -- a group of largely black Americans who are descendants of freed slaves once owned by tribe members -- from its ranks.

The tribe's actions have led to an intense fight between the Cherokee Nation and the CBC. The tribe has hired a number of lobbyists to push back against punitive legislation as it also battles the issue in federal and tribal court. The powerful House Financial Services Committee chairman is yet another obstacle for the Cherokee.

"We would not pass the bill. We would not acquiesce to give funding to the Cherokees," said Frank, whose committee has jurisdiction over the legislation. Frank said he would not bring a conference report to the floor for a final vote without the ban firmly in place.

The House version of the bill passed in September with an amendment by Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) that would bar housing funds for the Cherokee. Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.), however, amended Watt's provision so that it would not take effect until a tribal court battle between the Cherokees and the Freedmen is resolved.

That has been a primary argument of the tribe: Let the courts, not Congress, decide the issue. If the bill sponsored by Rep. Dale Kildee (D-Mich.) becomes law, Watt's measure would cut $30 million of federal housing funds for close to 7,400 Cherokee, according to the tribe's estimates.

"This legislation will punish some of Oklahoma's neediest citizens based on a complete misunderstanding of the facts. Most Americans understand why it makes sense for an Indian tribe to believe that only Indians should be in a tribe," said Mike Miller, a Cherokee spokesman, in a statement.

The Senate has yet to include Watt's ban in a corresponding bill, which has holds on it unrelated to the Cherokee funding ban at the moment, according to a spokesman for Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), the bill's author.

"Once the bill gets moving again, Sen. Dorgan will look at the issue," said Justin Kitsch, Dorgan's spokesman, in an e-mail.

The CBC has warned Senate leadership that it would oppose and lobby against a bill that does not include the ban. In a letter last month to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), CBC lawmakers said the Cherokee funding ban must be included. Reid's staff has been in discussions with the caucus since receiving the letter.

"We are very aware of their concern and we understand there are very deep sentiments on both sides of this issue," said Jim Manley, Reid's spokesman, in an e-mail.

Watt was firm with his position that the ban must stay in the bill.

"You reach a point of where the Cherokees must understand what they are doing," he said. "It seems the only way for them to understand is [if] there will be some consequences."

Frank is not the only prominent Democrat to support the funding ban for the Cherokee. House leadership has also backed the ban, according to a leadership aide. (Guess what that means.)

Asked why he would not bring up the bill, Frank said the Cherokee betrayed the Treaty of 1866, which gave tribal citizenship rights to the Freedmen.

"Because it's the law. It's part of the treaty," said Frank. "Tribes too often have been victims of broken treaties."

But the Cherokee have contended that is inaccurate.

"We would like an opportunity to meet with Chairman Frank so he can become better informed about the 1866 treaty, why we haven't violated it, and why federal and tribal judges are in a better position than Congress to make a decision after hearing all the facts," said Miller, the tribe's spokesman.

Lobbyists for the tribe have begun distributing a five-page white paper to Capitol Hill offices saying Congress, not the tribe, removed citizenship rights from the Freedmen.

Specifically, the tribe points to legislation passed by Congress in the early 1900s, as well as court rulings that revoked Cherokee citizenship rights from Freedmen descendants.

Not all Freedmen have been expelled from the tribe. In amending its constitution in March of last year, the Cherokee approved a change that would exclude members that could not trace their Indian ancestry to the tribe's 1906 census.

Consequently, there are still some black members left in the tribe, though about 2,800 Freedmen are no longer part of the 270,000 member-strong Cherokee. The Freedmen who are no longer part of the tribe also have temporary citizenship rights until the issue is resolved in court.

Nevertheless, Watt said the Cherokee must reverse their position on the Freedmen.

"The ball is in their court. It's their move," said the North Carolina Democrat. "They need to have a reality check. This is the best way to deliver that message."

You'll have to imagine the audio. Or click on the YouTube and enjoy a classic.

Posted by EBW at 10:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

From Le Monde's dépêche -- by Khaled Yacoub Oweis

DAMAS (Reuters) - Le Hamas accepte l'établissement d'un Etat sur les territoires palestiniens occupés en 1967 par Israël mais ne reconnaîtra pas l'Etat juif, a déclaré lundi le chef du bureau politique du mouvement islamiste, Khaled Méchaal.

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The new slide show is at TED. At 22:11 Al is asked "When you look at the leading candidates in your own party are doing now are you excited by their plans on global warming?"

Somewhere in the next two minutes Matt Stoller finds his wee little brass ring. Its all MB's fault, she let him post at It's Still the Ecomony, Stupid (a post I'm fond of is the link to Max Sawicky, in April, 2003, on what to do with Iraq's oil revenues -- we'll be coming back to that next week when we visit Susan Collins' latest idea.

MB and I will be writing in Al Gore's name on the ballot. The Maine 1st CD is wicked safe blue, so its not likely to reverse gravity, but its the only vote we feel represents us.

We'll write in John Edwards just below Al Gore.

Posted by EBW at 06:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you prefer you can read the copy in Ha'aretz. It lacks the spilt mechanical ink.

Palestinian sources revealed l «life» Movement «Hamas» sent yesterday evening «written observations» to the former American President Jimmy Carter Commenting on the paper, which was handed over Friday to the President of the movement's political bureau Khaled Mashaal.

At the same time, continued meetings of the Political Bureau of «Hamas» to discuss an Egyptian proposal to transfer leaders in the movement, Mahmoud al-Zahhar, Said Siam to Mashaal, in the matter of reaching an agreement to defuse the «Gaza first» followed by the West Bank after an agreed period, and that as a compromise between adherence Movement b «calm comprehensive and reciprocal and simultaneous» in the West Bank and Gaza, and the refusal of Israel's commitment to calm in the West Bank «sensitivity of the security». In parallel, continuing Israeli escalation in the Gaza Strip, targeting «Hamas», which has lost eight of the activists during the past 24 hours.

The Political Bureau «Hamas» intensive meetings held yesterday in Damascus, al-Zahhar and Siam attend to discuss issues of the response to the proposals of the Carter and Cairo. The sources said that the movement of written comments sent to the Carter so declared today in Israel, in response to suggestions b «ceasefire for a period of a week or two weeks from one side», and «foot on humanitarian initiatives in the release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, and to meet with Vice President Israeli Prime Minister Eli purchased »,« signing of the Rafah crossing »in the Gaza Strip, and« supporting President Mahmoud Abbas in negotiations with Israel ».

The officials refused «Hamas» disclosure of the details of written comments on the «paper Carter» to give him an opportunity declared himself, but it is believed that the movement dealt b «flexibility» with his proposals so was recalled document of national accord, which included «support any agreements reached with Israel after Abbas presented to the People and the National Council », with reference to the announcement by the Government Ismail Haniya accept« State Limits 1967, a truce for a period of 25 years ».

It was learnt that the comments «Hamas» included willingness to sign an agreement on the Rafah crossing is not be any Israeli presence, with the approval of the presence of European observers, provided it does not reside in Israel, in addition to accept cooperation with the Palestinian presidency and reject any existence of the members of the Government, Salam Fayyad. As the need to lift the blockade, with the «non-discrimination between military aggression and blockade on Gaza».

Elsewhere, condemned «Hamas» statements, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit in Washington has revealed a plan for Egyptian contains four items, one excluding «Hamas» of any national unity government might be formed Palestinian future so as not to hamper their peaceful settlement with Israel. The spokesman for the movement in Gaza, Sami Abu Zuhri that statements by Abu Gheit «mean that he is against the legitimacy that Hamas, which won elections in the (legislative) free», stressing that «no room to overcome Hamas in any political process in the region».

Despite efforts to reach calm, the Israeli occupation forces stepped up its attacks and raids that targeted positions «Hamas» in the Gaza Strip yesterday and on Saturday night - Sunday, resulted in the death of eight Palestinians.

The Hamas newspaper Falastin, published in Gaza, reported that Carter proposed Hamas unilaterally stop rocket fire on Israel and release Shalit in exchange for no more targeted assassinations of its leaders and the release of 400 prisoners.

In a document that Falastin called "very flexible," Hamas said it was prepared to establish a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders on condition that any diplomatic agreement reached by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas would be presented in a referendum to the Palestinian Legislative Council.

A member of the Hamas political bureau, Mohammed Nazzal, told Al Jazeera that Carter, who met with Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Meshal on Friday and on Saturday, had proposed that Hamas make a gesture to Israel and implement unilateral calm. Nazzal said the organization had no objection in principle, but would have to weigh "what the price is and what Israel's response will be." Nazzal also said Hamas "did not intend to hold Gilad Shalit forever."

And finally this:

From Reuters, a long enough quote from Ellen Wulfhorst (and I've no idea where her sympathies lie)

The Illinois senator, campaigning in Pennsylvania which holds the next presidential voting contest on Tuesday, told a group of Jewish leaders he has an "unshakable commitment" to help protect Israel from its "bitter enemies."

"That’s why I have a fundamental difference with President Carter and disagree with his decision to meet with Hamas," Obama said. "We must not negotiate with a terrorist group intent on Israel’s destruction. We should only sit down with Hamas if they renounce terrorism, recognize Israel’s right to exist and abide by past agreements."

"Hamas is not a state. Hamas is a terrorist organization," he said.

In later Reuters coverage the question was asked again (today) in Reading, PA. The answer in the copy was “I actually disagree with him on his meeting with Hamas,” Obama said.

So its all a bad idea, according to at least one, if not both of the Hero Twins, and of course, Saint John, and to be fair, John Edwards' iPod has the same shuffle.

Posted by EBW at 10:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Marc Lynch asked his well-informed readers:

do you know of any NGOs doing particularly good and noteworthy work with Iraqi children? Could be in any relevant realm: health, education, orphanages. If so, please leave a note in the comments or drop me an email.

Wampum readers please leave any suggestions either at Abu Aardvark or here.

I'm in particular interested in means to aid children and their families in the camps in Syria.

Wrack your brains folks, you could be obsessing over back-to-back ads by the Hero Twins in Penn, or side-to-side spin of each by the respective campaign's designated (and urk! spontainious) spinners, and Saint John's designated spinner, and the MSM's sorry collection of corporate welfare recipients, or just stuck listening to talk radio in a 7-11 during a stick-up by a pair with bad meth teeth.

Posted by EBW at 08:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm going to post something later today on Iraq and Susan Collins, but I just saw Pentagon helps steer military analysts behind the scenes and its long enough, and important enough, to read in its entirety.

Enjoy.

The piece on Susan will come out after the dust settles in Pennsylvania.

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The end-to-end list is experiencing a sudden discussion, one brought about by the lack of discussion. What is preventing innovation? Restarted, where does wicked abuse of incumbent monopoly power lie? In the network, where those evil ISPs make HuffPo load slower, if at all, than CNN and Fox? In the middle-boxen, where track-the-employee and every-last-eyeball value-add "deep inspection" measures every mouse nibble? Or in the end host systems, where a benign "Major Company" wisely controls a network stack (and the memory protection model we all know and love as the home of virii, spam, n'bots)?

Now all the people who answered (a), its the wicked ISPs and would the FCC or Congress please pass a rule or a bill or something, can't read the following without also knowing the outcome of the research suggested is "no impact".

In the US and Europe at least, one Major Company that controls a network stack has been judged thoroughly and beyond appeal by the courts to have a legal monopoly, with the strong assertion that makes by definition about consequent market power. That *legal* position cannot be disputed.

It would take a stronger argument than a mere vague handwave by a computer scientist toward the word "competing interests" to convince most economists and lawyers that when such a company keeps its network drivers protected, proprietary, and engages in agreements with hardware vendors to "certify" their drivers and hardware, the playing field for competition enables easy implementation of anything in that dominant network stack.

Of course, computer scientists are welcome to their political opinions and dissent. But in science, dissent requires testable proof.

Thus, I propose that the next PlanetLab scale experiment on new system architectures be carried out, not with Linux, but with Windows Vista. And without any prior agreement with Microsoft that gives the researchers licenses and access to code and internal interface privileges that students in, say, Ecuador don't have.

Based on that test, we can ascertain whether the monopoly in legal fact has an impact on research freedom.

Posted by EBW at 04:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The House Natural Resource Committee, formerly chaired by Dick Pombo (R-CA-11), now by Nick Rahall (D-WV-03), approved four Indian bills at a markup on Thursday. The bill that caught my eye was HR 1575 To reaffirm and clarify the Federal relationship of the Burt Lake Band as a distinct federally recognized Indian Tribe, and for other purposes.

(b) Membership Criteria-

(1) To qualify for membership in the Burt Lake Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, a person must be able to demonstrate through evidence acceptable to the Tribe that the person meets at least 1 of the following requirements:

(A) The person descends from one or more tribal members who were domiciled at Colonial Point, Burt Township, Cheboygan County, Michigan before or at the time that the Tribe's village was burned in October 1900, as said tribal members are identified in the United States v. McGinn litigation and related documents, the 1950 Albert Shananaquet list of Colonial Point Residents, or both.

(B) The person descends from one or more tribal members who are listed on the 1900 and/or the 1910 Burt Lake Township Federal Census, Indian Enumeration Schedule.

(C) The person has an Indian ancestor who was, prior to 1910, living in tribal relations with the Burt Lake Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians as the Burt Lake Band is defined in this Act.

(D) The person descends from Rose Midwagon Moses.

No weasel words attempting to limit Indian Gaming either, no sovereignty subordinate to a state.

Posted by EBW at 02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

NYMEX Light Sweet Crude, Contract 1 closed today (4/18/2008) at 116.69. At 20:50 the price reached $117.

It seemed so rad 22 months ago to have predicted $100/bl as within the realm of possibilities. Remember when it hit $70 and then fell into the low $60s ...

Posted by EBW at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A month ago I wrote to Peter Asen (Michael Brennan), Corey Haskell (Ethan Strimling), Lisa Prosienski (Chellie Pingree), Marc Malon (Mark Lawrence), Emily Boyle (Adam Cote), and Valerie Martin (Tom Allen), letting each know I'd posted Three Defense Questions, policy and politics, for the 1st CD Dem primary candidates, and Tom Allen, offering all of them a generous "gotcha-free" reading. There were responses from Peter Asen, Marc Malon, and Willy Ritch, substituting for Lisa Prosienski.

The Brennan Campaign on Three Defense Questions, policy and politics reflects an exchange of notes clarify Michael's position on a 10% cut, that the figure is in real (inflation-adjusted) dollars, and as a long-term policy, towards 2.7% of GDP.

Today I'm posting the response received from Willy Ritch, Chellie Pingree's communications director.

On the BRAC:

The way we allocate resources for our national security budget is fundamentally flawed because of the segregation of the various functions of our security efforts.

Think of the Pentagon as our offensive effort, the Department of Homeland Security as defensive and the State Department as preventative. Currently each of those departments has a separate budget, so money isn't always allocated in proportion to how effective it would be at keeping America safe. The Pentagon, for example, might want to fund a missile defense system that costs more than the entire Coast Guard budget---when many experts would argue that we are more likely to be attacked by a terrorist device smuggled in through a port than by a missile launched by a foreign government.

Rational choices such as you've asked about can only be made if we move toward a unified national security budget so Congress and the experts can compare the relative effectiveness of different programs and make spending decisions based on which are most effective. I am someone who believes that Congress, including the Democrats, have not asked enough hard questions and have not exercised enough oversight on this and other issues. A unified national security budget is step one in a real and informed process that allows for good decision-making based on our shared national security priorities.

On the questions of control and the economic priority of Iraqi refugees during a recession [combined answer]:

The conversation around national security and Iraq has been limited for far too long by discussions of military tactics, such as the surge, instead of the real conversation that American public and our public officials need to have. Where do we go from here? How do we bring our troops home quickly, and redirect the hundreds of billions that are being spent on the war to solving the many problems we face at home, without leaving chaos in our wake? How do we prevent the mistakes that led to this fiasco so it doesn't happen again?

We have a tremendous responsibility when it comes to Iraq but it's true that we are part of the problem and that our very presence there is an obstacle to developing a reasonable international strategy to move forward.

This winter I worked with Darcy Burner, a Congressional Candidate in Washington State, and several military and national security experts to create A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq. Since we presented the plan in March, nearly fifty US House and US Senate candidates have signed on, promising to support the proposals in the plan if elected.

The plan builds off the work of the Iraq Study Group and existing legislation in Congress and is intended to accomplish three objectives:

• End the military effort in Iraq and bring our troops home.
  
• Begin to repair the damage five years of war and occupation have caused, at home and abroad.
  
• Prevent a repeat of this sort of epic and costly foreign policy blunder in the future.

This plan presents a set of actions that Congress can take to remove all troops from Iraq while engaging in a diplomatic offensive in the region. It is designed to convert our current costly and unsuccessful military approach in Iraq into a more effective civilian one that addresses the root problems we face in Iraq. It moves us away from the use of military tools and enables more robust diplomatic and humanitarian work. It offers a path to rebuild the military, the State Department, and a commitment to take care of returning veterans. It also offers a deeper look at our decision-making problems, and fixes the breakdown in checks and balances by rolling back excessive executive authority, restoring civil liberties, and ending practices such as torture and the privatization of the military.

Ultimately we believe that restoring our Constitution is the only way to prevent a repeat of these mistakes and take us where we need to go to end this war responsibly. It also addresses the humanitarian problems created by the war and occupation of Iraq.

This is a substantive plan to end the war in Iraq responsibly, and it is a political document that citizens should use in guiding their political decision-making in 2008. We look forward to building both grassroots and grasstops support around the ideas contained in it. For too long we have been denied a public debate over what to do in Iraq, and it is time to break out of this limited conversation.

I asked a follow-up question whether the portion of the Department of Energy budget spent on nuclear weapons design and fabrication was intentionally left out of the proposed "unified national security budget". The response was to leave the original response unchanged.

These were good answers. Like anyone who isn't distracted by actually running a campaign, I could "improve" on each answer, but keeping in mind what it is like to have scores of reasonable, and unreasonable questions and "push messages" come in over the course of a campaign, these were as responsive as they needed to be, and actually quite good, so I opened up my checkbook and contributed $100 to Chellie Pingree via the campaign's Act Blue page, as I have to Michael Brennan. If you happen to click on the blue image below, you can reward the Pingree campaign, either for taking a Maine blog seriously, or for having wicked good answers to my best three questions for Mainiacs intending to represent Maine in the Congress -- the body charged by the Constitution with the awful responsibility under Article I, § 8, to declare War, to raise and support Armies, and to provide and maintain a Navy, and ultimately, under Article II, § 2, to make an end to the current Wars, and re-enter into Treaties.

Posted by EBW at 02:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In the six months we spent in the Iowa 2nd, MB working (unpaid) at the IDP office and the adjacent Loebsack office in Iowa City, me talking to everyone in the camps as Jonah did the rounds to visit the curves and reflections of the wheelwells of their tow vehicles, we never encountered an Iowa Dem who had a positive thing to say about The Pledge. For the farmers we talked to, with their acreage split across corn, soy, and alfalfa, the delta it made in silo prices was much less important in determining how they farmed than the general structure of subsidies and cost factors. The bigger issues were rising land prices, the indebtedness that went along with that, and the fragility of operations, large-scale or small, that were essentially share-croppers, leasing land and equipment. A strongly held farm was one that owned both land and equipment and could look at the yield difference and the number of trips over ground (tractor/cultivator) for pesticide-free and/or GMO-free operations.

We didn't have a "candidate" for Draft Gore, so we had the luxury of planning to have our candidate-free campaign return to Iowa a year ago and, like the Arnold Vinnick character played by Alan Alda in the final season of The West Wing, talk about farm policy and western water policy and corn export (NAFTA) being the primary cause for agricultural dislocation in Mexico, that is, a few cents on the acre, most of which goes to ADM and the other giants of the Iowa farm food chain, is what is fueling the loony "Illegal immigrant crisis" marketed by Steve King in the Iowa 5th and Tom Tancredo in the Colorado 6th. It also fueled the agricultural dislocations of the 19th century, ending the farm economy in New England that once fed New York.

We also had the luxury of being able to point to serious academic studies of the ethanol energy economy that showed beyond a doubt that ethanol from corn in the midwest was simply a total energy sink, unlike switchgrass, which leads to the marginal land and nitrogen runoff issues ...

Of course, the problems in Iowa aren't limited to Iowa. California ag interests dictate that Iowan can grow corn, soy, alfalfa, and sunflowers, but not lettuce or anything that might end up in a farmer's market in the midwest that looks suspiciously like a salad. So however venal Iowa's Pledge is, for the producers (starting with the Iowa boosters) and the consumers (what candidate hasn't taken The Pledge), the venality runs along both axis of the refrigerated lettuce line that connects Salinas and New York, and both axis of the grain barge line that connects the ports on the Great Lakes and the Gulf, creating monoculture and fossil fuel and water costs everywhere.

Jean Ziegler's view is that the production of biofuels is "a crime against humanity" because of its impact on global food prices. Ziegler is the UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food. Last week the European Environment Agency (EEA), advised the European Commission to suspending its biofuel target, as the EU will have to import, which means accelerate the transformation of rain forest into export biomass monoculture, for overstated benefits. Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, head of Nestle, the world's biggest food and beverage company, and just about the last place anyone familiar with the exploitation of "forumla" to replace breast milk would look for ethical guidance, last month argued that "to grant enormous subsidies for biofuel production is morally unacceptable and irresponsible." Robert Zoellick said soaring food costs could potentially push 100 million people deeper into poverty. Mr. Zoellick is the president of the World Bank, which reported last week that global wheat prices jumped 181 percent over the 36 months to February, with overall food prices up 83 percent.

On the other side of the issue is Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who just said "Don't tell me, for the love of God, that food is expensive because of biodiesel. Food is expensive because the world wasn't prepared to see millions of Chinese, Indians, Africans, Brazilians and Latin Americans eat," and "We want to discuss this not with passion but rationality and not from the European point of view."

And the interests that hold Iowa's position in the early primary calender is inviolate, and its corollary, that there is no farm policy issue but The Pledge.

Posted by EBW at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The day before yesterday President Carter visited the grave of Yasser Arafat in Ramallah. He was unable to visit the grave of Ahmed Yassin in Gaza. Gaza is closed to American Presidents. These two men, prior to their murders, were Palestinian leaders, of the Fatah and Hamas organizations, respectively. Neither organization have particularly impressive leaders at present, but President Carter met with former Palestinian Authority deputy prime minister Naser al-Shaer (Hamas), who along with all other Hamas politicians, was dismissed by President Mahmoud Abbas (Fatah) after the Battle of Gaza. Today he meet with Mahmud Zahar, Said Siam, Mohammed Zahar, Jamil Rizq, Taher Nunu and a sixth person who's name I haven't found.. The Hamas party crossed from Gaza to Egypt yesterday morning and traveled by car to Cairo.

The President met with the Hamas delegation at the American University of Cairo today, and afterwards made a statement:

It's an atrocity what is being perpetrated as punishment on the people in Gaza. It's a crime... I think it is an abomination that this continues to go on.

Meanwhile, Jeremy Ben-Ami and a host of others have organized the lobbying group J Street and the political action group as JStreetPAC.

Here's Laura Rozen's write up in the Mother Jones blog New "Pro Israel, Pro Peace" Political Group Launches: J Street Hopes to Prod Washington MidEast Policy Towards Center. I'll check if the J Street agenda includes defining a boundary.

I wonder if Anna in Cairo still reads Wampum. I'll be there in November.

Posted by EBW at 01:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Aimé Césaire just passed away. Le Monde's obit is ici.

from the wikipedia:

Négritude is a literary and political movement developed in the 1930s by a group that included the future Senegalese President Léopold Sédar Senghor, Martinican poet Aimé Césaire, and the Guianan Léon Damas. The Négritude writers found solidarity in a common black identity as a rejection of French colonial racism. They believed that the shared black heritage of members of the African diaspora was the best tool in fighting against French political and intellectual hegemony and domination.

• Poésie
  
  
  
  • Cahier d'un retour au pays natal (1939)
    
  • Les armes miraculeuses (1946)
    
  • Soleil cou coupé (1948)
    
  • Corps perdu (1950)
    
  • Ferrements (1960)
    
  • Cadastre (1961)
    
  • Moi Laminaire (1982)
    
  • La poésie (1994)
    
  
  
• Théâtre
  
  
  
  • Et les chiens se taisaient (1958)
    
  • La tragédie du roi Christophe (1963)
    
  • Une saison au Congo (1966)
    
  • Une tempête (1969)
    
  
  
• Essais
  
  
  
  • Victor Schoelcher et l'abolition de l'esclavage (1948)
    
  • Discours sur le colonialisme (1950)
    
  • Toussaint Louverture. La Révolution française et le problème colonial (1961) (d'après AFP)
    

  Posted by EBW at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We put real questions to the Hero Twins, take their answers, and offer it to the video broadcast and cablecast distribution chains in the remaining media markets at play?

Duncan can read some questions, he's presentable enough and Avadon can read some questions.

The Democratic primary voters, undecided and potentially redecided, in the remaining delegate accumulation contests aren't tuning in for production values or spin, they're trying to get a glimpse of the real person, and not just brushing off gnats. What is more, up to the convention, automatic (PLEO) and elected delegates, and the party activists who are sending them to Denver, are going to want the same thing. Quality time with the candidate, not corporate fecal flings.

So it is possible. It hadn't been tried when Larry Lessig invited Howard Dean to guest blog, And we're all a lot better at knitting together the audio and video bits now than we were in '03/'04.

Posted by EBW at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You'll find it here. Enjoy. I couldn't stop laughing.

Posted by EBW at 01:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

If we have an Obama supporting reader, your preferred candidate is the target of a screed penned by a Chad Smith and John McCain supporting member of the Ch