It's only natural.

This one's a willow.

When they're left alone,

it's amazing how many years of damage and decay a tree can sustain,

yet remain living.

I wonder what would happen if the pro-lifers sat around a table and put their heads and their hearts into finding a just way out of this one:

Defense attorneys said the death was likely an act of desperation at a prison camp where detainees are denied access to U.S. civilian courts and isolated in their cells for up to 22 hours a day.

''You have five and a half years of desperation there with no legal way out,'' said Michael Ratner, president of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights. ''Sadly, it leads to people being so desperate they take their own lives.''

Marc Falkoff, who is part of a team of attorneys representing 17 men from Yemen, said the suicide should be expected given the conditions at Guantanamo.

''We've said all along that the guys are going to try to take their lives and that appears to be what happened here,'' Falkoff said. ''It's just incredibly sad and it wouldn't happen if these guys were just given their day in court.''

A cultural adviser was helping the military handle the remains. ''The remains of the deceased detainee are being treated with the utmost respect,'' the military said.

Nevermind Kansas, there's never a point of no return; in fact, it's all a return really.*

-----------
*Apologies to Floyd. Say, is this blog becoming too Finnegans Wake? Just let me know...

Brain Power.

What happens when the last woman sitting stops being polite... and starts (harping on us about the consequences of not)
getting real.

We hear you, Ruth; be a Brennan:

To read a dissent aloud is an act of theater that justices use to convey their view that the majority is not only mistaken, but profoundly wrong. It happens just a handful of times a year. Justice Antonin Scalia has used the technique to powerful effect, as has Justice Stevens, in a decidedly more low-key manner.

The oral dissent has not been, until now, Justice Ginsburg’s style. She has gone years without delivering one, and never before in her 15 years on the court has she delivered two in one term. In her past dissents, both oral and written, she has been reluctant to breach the court’s collegial norms. “What she is saying is that this is not law, it’s politics,” Pamela S. Karlan, a Stanford law professor, said of Justice Ginsburg’s comment linking the outcome in the abortion case to the fact of the court’s changed membership. “She is accusing the other side of making political claims, not legal claims.”

The justice’s acquaintances have watched with great interest what some depict as a late-career transformation. “Her style has always been very ameliorative, very conscious of etiquette,” said Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, the sociologist and a longtime friend. “She has always been regarded as sort of a white-glove person, and she’s achieved a lot that way. Now she is seeing that basic issues she’s fought so hard for are in jeopardy, and she is less bound by what have been the conventions of the court.”

Some might say her dissents are an expression of sour grapes over being in the minority more often than not. But there may be strategic judgment, as well as frustration, behind Justice Ginsburg’s new style. She may have concluded that quiet collegiality has proved futile and that her new colleagues, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., are not open to persuasion on the issues that matter most to her.

Justice Alito, of course, took the place of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, with whom Justice Ginsburg formed a deep emotional bond, although they differed on a variety of issues. And Chief Justice Roberts succeeded Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, with whom Justice Ginsburg often disagreed but maintained a relationship that was at times surprisingly productive.

For example, in 1996, over Justice Scalia’s vigorous dissent, the chief justice gave Justice Ginsburg his vote in a decision holding that the Virginia Military Institute’s men-only admissions policy was unconstitutional. In 2003, they made common cause in a case that strengthened the Family and Medical Leave Act. When Justice Ginsburg criticized a Rehnquist opinion, she did so gently; today’s adversary could be tomorrow’s ally.

If there has been any such meeting of the minds between Justice Ginsburg and her new colleagues, it has not been evident. She may have concluded that her side’s interests are better served by appealing not to the court’s majority but to the public. “She’s sounding an alarm and wants people to take notice,” said Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women and Families, an advocacy group that focuses on the workplace.

Can you imagine what a President Romney's court could do?
--------

The Supreme Court struck a blow for discrimination this week by stripping a key civil rights law of much of its potency. The majority opinion, by Justice Samuel Alito, forced an unreasonable reading on the law, and tossed aside longstanding precedents to rule in favor of an Alabama employer that had underpaid a female employee for years. The ruling is the latest indication that a court that once proudly stood up for the disadvantaged is increasingly protective of the powerful.

Law professor counsels priest to choose better language.

From the "heh" files:

First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh of UCLA doesn't like that a well known local priest uses colorful language in addressing a crowd gathered to protest gun deaths in their South Side (Chicago) neighborhood. Specifically, Father Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina's, who is not known for passivity in confronting problems affecting his parishoners, urged action to "snuff out" a gunshop operating across the street from city limits, which allegedly has supplied guns later used in neighborhood killings.

Silence is death.
Words have power.
People come together... in peace to work on their own problems. I can see where you'd fear that. Heh

Workplace Realities?

Now what would these fine gentlemen know of workplace realities? Why would one dirty his hands with practical application? Better to proclaim from above:

WASHINGTON, May 29 — The Supreme Court on Tuesday made it harder for many workers to sue their employers for discrimination in pay, insisting in a 5-to-4 decision on a tight time frame to file such cases. The dissenters said the ruling ignored workplace realities.

The decision came in a case involving a supervisor at a Goodyear Tire plant in Gadsden, Ala., the only woman among 16 men at the same management level, who was paid less than any of her colleagues, including those with less seniority. She learned that fact late in a career of nearly 20 years — too late, according to the Supreme Court’s majority.

The court held on Tuesday that employees may not bring suit under the principal federal anti-discrimination law unless they have filed a formal complaint with a federal agency within 180 days after their pay was set. The timeline applies, according to the decision, even if the effects of the initial discriminatory act were not immediately apparent to the worker and even if they continue to the present day.

I smell a paternalism at work here: wouldn't women be better served not participating in the potential ugliness of workplace reality, thereby avoiding such workplace discrimination? I'm also impressed that the New Courts prefer to chuck so much on the Congress? Hello? That bought-and-sold, horse-and-pony show doesn't represent the American people, but well organized special interests. Let's not pretend that this judicial decision will be quickly corrected by the other branch. Pushing off your work on someone else, when you could have provided an even playing ground as injustices become known. Thanks fellas! Nice working with ya. Nevermind Ruthie -- she'll be gone soon enough...

In a vigorous dissenting opinion that she read from the bench, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the majority opinion “overlooks common characteristics of pay discrimination.” She said that given the secrecy in most workplaces about salaries, many employees would have no idea within 180 days that they had received a lower raise than others.

An initial disparity, even if known to the employee, might be small, Justice Ginsburg said, leading an employee, particularly a woman or a member of a minority group “trying to succeed in a nontraditional environment” to avoid “making waves.” Justice Ginsburg noted that even a small differential “will expand exponentially over an employee’s working life if raises are set as a percentage of prior pay.”

Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer joined the dissent.

Ms. Ledbetter’s salary was initially the same as that of her male colleagues. But over time, as she received smaller raises, a substantial disparity grew. By the time she brought suit in 1998, her salary fell short by as much as 40 percent; she was making $3,727 a month, while the lowest-paid man was making $4,286.
...
Title VII’s prohibition of workplace discrimination applies not just to pay but also to specific actions like refusal to hire or promote, denial of a desired transfer and dismissal. Justice Ginsburg argued in her dissenting opinion that while these “singular discrete acts” are readily apparent to an employee who can then make a timely complaint, pay discrimination often presents a more ambiguous picture. She said the court should treat a pay claim as it treated a claim for a “hostile work environment” in a 2002 decision, permitting a charge to be filed “based on the cumulative effect of individual acts.”

"The realities of the workplace reveal why the discrimination with respect to compensation that Ledbetter suffered does not fit within the category of singular discrete acts “easy to identify.” A worker knows immediately if she is denied a promotion or transfer, if she is fired or refused employment. And promotions, transfers, hirings, and firings are generally public events, known to co-workers. When an employer makes a decision of such open and definitive character, an employee can immediately seek out an explanation and evaluate it for pretext. Compensation disparities, in contrast, are often hidden from sight."

In response, Justice Alito dismissed this as a “policy argument” with “no support in the statute.”

Experts Say Decision on Pay Reorders Legal Landscape (May 30, 2007)
Text of the Decision (pdf)
-------------------

Legal analysis and conclusion by Workplace Prof Blog:

The crucial distinction between the majority opinion by Justice Alito and the dissent by Justice Ginsburg comes down to really just one question: under Morgan, is pay discrimination a discrete act like a termination or failure to promote -- or is it more like a cumulative series of individual events like hostile work environment sexual harassment?
...

In sum, this decision is inconsistent with the purposes of the Title VII to both make victims of discrimination whole and to eradicate employment discriminatory practices from society at large. It leads to an absurd situation where employees either must bring pay claims prematurely when there is not enough evidence that there has been unlawful pay discrimination or wait to a later time when there exists more substantial evidence of pay discrimination and be barred from bringing such claims by the statute of limitations (as in Ledbetter). This inequitable state of affairs cannot stand and, it is my hope, it will be legislatively nullified.

Big River, Old Man River, Moon River

Local filming on the $2.5 million production began May 20 at the headwaters in Lake Itasca. "We had a lovely water ceremony conducted by an Ojibwa woman who conducted a blessing of the waters at the source, a beautiful place. The river begins very clean at the source. You can see through it; it's transparent. And it becomes the Big Muddy as it carries off sediment and everything else we put in it."

On their first day of shooting, the crew encountered a man who claimed to be the premier leech trapper in the area.

"That's one of the metaphors of the movie; as you follow the Mississippi from the source on down to the Gulf of Mexico, what you're seeing is various forms of leeching, from industry leeching off the river, farmers leeching off of it, the river being used in all sorts of exploitive ways, and the river trying to coexist with leeches. I'm afraid it'll be kind of a sad story, because the arc of corruption, pollution and despair is going to increase and grow as we go south, but it's a story that needs to be told."

"Who let the wallabykillin' dogs out, who? Who?"

According to police, the mixed-breed dog and a mastiff mix got out of an Oshkosh home and entered the zoo on May 15 through the front gate.

Police Sgt. Matt Kroening said the dogs started harassing the wallabies, whose defensive mechanism is to try to flee. Although the dogs couldn't get inside their enclosure, one of the wallabies was fatally injured and the other is recovering from its injuries.

Kroening said the dogs' owner will get two citations for dogs running at large, each carrying a fine of $216.75.

Kimberly Smith said the incident with her dogs was "a freak thing." She said her 2-year-old son opened the door and the dogs got out.

That is a freaky chain. Kid's lucky he's 2; I imagine a 12-year-old might have been punished or something, even though age doesn't affect the causal chain. Heavy fines, though. Hopefully everyone's satisfied. What's a more sympathetic animal that might engender human sympathy -- a giraffe? Something more delicate and endangered? Mmm... monkey babies? "Loose dog scared a monkey baby to death? Who let the dogs out?? That kid is grounded, and his parents are paying!" Justice by PR. Funny how some animals are naturally more sympathetic to us than others.

I'd like to see, say, a polar bear respond to an invading dog. Inside the enclosure, none of this barking outside stuff. Beautiful animal, but always seems so ...passive at the zoo.

Speaking of, I was there one day -- you should have seen the 2 rhinos going at it in chase and horn challenging. There's a big enclosure at the local zoo, and a small crowd had gathered. Have you ever seen a rhino run, and I mean really run? Nothing bloody happened, only a few body thumps, but plenty of grunting and posturing as one eventually was trying to back off. (It seemed more like a fight than anything sexual, but who knows how those things relate?) Still the running was amazing for their speed. Similar to one of those closing track meet races, where the shotputters and the field competitors sprint, or make the attempt.

But now I would like to see the polar bear respond to a pair of harassing dogs just to hear the polar bear, assuming growls are involved. Poor fleeing wallaby... What do you think? Nervous heart strain, or it turned and smacked into a wall or something? "Barked to death."

"Think hams as big as car tires."

Cunningham said the animal measured 54 inches around the head, 74 inches around the shoulders and 11 inches from the eyes to the end of its snout.

"It's huge," he said. "It's just the biggest thing I've ever seen."

Mike Stone is having sausage made from the rest of the animal. "We'll probably get 500 to 700 pounds," he said.

Jamison, meanwhile, has been offered a small part in "The Legend of Hogzilla," a small-time horror flick based on the tale of the Georgia boar. The movie is holding casting calls with plans to begin filming in Georgia.

Jamison is enjoying the newfound celebrity generated by the hog hunt, but he said he prefers hunting pheasants to monster pigs: "They are a little less dangerous."

Good picture at the link.

Like Jaws, for the camping crowd.

Minnesota's most common wild feline, the famously elusive bobcat, is the likely culprit in an attack early Thursday on a camper sleeping in Itasca State Park.

Department of Natural Resources conservation officer Greg Spaulding came to that conclusion after examining photos of 2-inch claw marks on the face and head of the camper, Jon Kenning.

"It looks like it grabbed him and pulled," Spaulding said, adding that the spacing between the cuts also correlates with bobcat claws.

A DNR news release said it's possible that snoring or Kenning's moving head could have tricked a bobcat into thinking there was small prey in the tent where he was sleeping.

"In a weird way, I'm not surprised" it was a bobcat, said Kenning, 28. "I think it was a mistake on its part. [Bobcats] tend to go for rodents and maybe it saw my big, furry head sticking out of my sleeping bag and started batting me around."

...

Kenning said he didn't see the animal that attacked him at 2:13 a.m., as he slept. The Clearwater County Sheriff's office originally thought it could have been a small bear.

Kenning suffered cuts to the lower right side of his face and the back of his head. "Oh yeah, there's a lot of pain," he said Friday, "but I feel a lot better today. Yesterday was rough."

Kenning, a Hutchinson, Minn., native, is a visiting assistant professor at Creighton University in Nebraska and was leading 10 students on a two-day biology field course in the park. He said his tent was closed with two zippers, and he guessed that the animal could have used its paw or nose to open the tent, a maneuver his small terrier pulls off with ease.

Officials could not say why a bobcat would wander into a tent but noted that the animal, which can reach 3 feet in length and weigh 35 pounds, is common in the park. They move like shadows and often live in or under farm buildings without ever being seen, Spaulding said.

Bobcats prowl northern Minnesota and number about 4,000 each fall before hunting season, when licensed trappers harvest them for fur, Erb said. A record 1,000 were harvested from December 2006 to early January 2007, he added.

The current Minnesota bobcat population is about 2,600, which will increase once spring litters are accounted for, Erb said. Their numbers have grown in the past five years, meaning that encounters with humans are more likely, Spaulding said, but he also said that the chance of a repeat attack on a camper is virtually nonexistent.

The attack has piqued the interest of park visitors, but park manager Paul Wannarka said no one's been scared off. The park expects a capacity crowd this Memorial Day weekend at its 250 campsites. Information about the attack and safety tips are being posted at the park.

Kenning, a Ph.D. student at the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities campus, is expected to make a full recovery.

Show me the way to go home...

Well if I hadn't chickened out relying on instinct, I'd be celebrating my 10th wedding anniversary today.

Usually it's at Christmas, I wonder and weigh. More downtime, inside warmth, surrounded by family and fine things. My sister's just 16months older, so I tend to measure where we're at. In winter, you're more conscious of being a guest rather than having the mortgaged home and hearth of your own.

Today though...
It might seem too lightweight a lifestyle for some, sure, who prefer solidity and the slower pace that accompanies it. But there's something to be said too for those lesser travelled roads awaiting out there, just keep an eye out for random chickens-- turkeys and pheasants too, who aren't really planning on crossing, just pecking to find what they need today. Sun shining down on them...

Happy Friday,
in advance.

Not to be picking on Andrew today, but...

No matter how you spin it or who you're aiming at, I hardly think the newest Cheney is going to be the posterboy of a "vulnerable" child. Diminishes the argument somewhat. And why no "Congrats Mary and Heather"? Something about vinegar and honey, and leading by example, they tell me... Unless they're living separately, the joy and work will be shared surely. Legal recognition be damned. But I wouldn't assume Heather Poe will consider herself one of the child's moms. See Paglia.

Goodling told the House committee that she and others at the Justice Department fully briefed McNulty, who is resigning later this year, about the circumstances before his Feb. 6 testimony in front of a Senate panel. Goodling also said that Kyle Sampson, who resigned in March as Gonzales' chief of staff, compiled the list of prosecutors who were purged last year.

She said she never spoke to former White House counsel Harriet Miers or Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser, about the firings. But she admitted to have considered applicants for jobs as career prosecutors based on their political loyalties — a violation of federal law.

"I may have gone too far, and I may have taken inappropriate political considerations into account on some occasions," Goodling said. "And I regret those mistakes."

Rep. Bobby Scott (news, bio, voting record), D-Va., hammered Goodling on her decisions to hire prosecutors who favored Republican priorities.

"Do you believe they were illegal or legal?" Scott asked.

"I don't believe I intended to commit a crime," Goodling, a lawyer, answered.

"Did you break the law? Is it against the law to take those considerations into account?" Scott said.

"I believe I crossed the line, but I didn't mean to," she responded.

No comment on the predictions or "only morally defensible" argument. That always seems the weakest card to play, when you've no confidence in your footing on a particular issue:

Giving the surge a few more months to see if this genocide has even the slightest chance of being avoided seems to me a defensible position. In fact, I think it's the only morally defensible position.

Presidents do have constitutional lee-way in running a war. If, after three and a half years, the situation is clearly worse than when we started, and there is no hope for progress in the foreseeable future, then the American people will demand an end to it - and Congress will respond with veto-proof majorities.

In September '07, we'll be in Iraq for 4 + 1/2 years, fwiw.

Taking Time for Tuba.

"It's hard to call him Jason; he's Tuba to everybody here," said Martin, the principal. "If I ever talked to Tuba, it was about what was going on in life, in his life, or issues in general."

Martin said Schumann sent an e-mail to his high school band director three months ago "thanking him for all he'd done for Tuba. He talked about learning dedication and discipline. For a 23-year-old to take time to reflect and convey that message, that says a lot about the kind of guy Tuba was."

Besides playing in band where he got his nickname, Schumann was the school's mascot during his senior year, Martin said.

"We're the 'Nuggets' and nobody knew what the mascot should look like," Martin said. "But they put together an outfit with a Styrofoam pick ax, making him up like a gold miner or something, and he was out there at all the games when the cheerleaders were on the floor."

Olson read part of Schumann's obituary that will be published next week in the Hawley Herald:

"He was a selfless leader, always putting his fellow soldiers' needs before his own. ... He liked to sail and also built sailboats and enjoyed cross-country running. He was a talented artist and enjoyed writing historical fiction."

Said Olson: "He was an extremely talented young man."

Because if we don't calculate the true costs, how can we tell if it's worth it?

Squeezing Justice ... or, We Don't Play That Way in Wisconsin.

The federal prosecutors who put Georgia Thompson in prison, on charges later overturned by an appeals court as lacking in merit, repeatedly offered to go easy on her if she were to implicate others in the administration of Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle.

"They said she would have to testify before the grand jury against [former Department of Administration Secretary Marc] Marotta and Gov. Doyle," says Stephen Hurley, Thompson's attorney.

Did they specifically name Doyle?

"We knew what they were talking about," says Hurley, making his first public comments on the conduct of prosecutors in the Thompson case, which in recent weeks has become the subject of national media attention and congressional inquiry.

According to Hurley and co-counsel Marcus Berghahn, U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic and others in his office made offers of leniency prior to filing charges against Thompson and again before the start of her trial.

"I began to get the impression that the indictment was being used to squeeze her," says Hurley, noting that these overtures continued even after Thompson's sentencing.

"It was the only time in my career that, after the person was sentenced, the prosecutor has called to renew the discussion," says Hurley, who's been a criminal defense attorney for more than three decades. "I've never had that happen before."

Hurley is a well-known Madison defense lawyer, akin to Earl Gray in the Twin Cities. He comes off as tough, smart, and honest. He teaches Evidence at UW Law, and is more a real-world than a classroom teacher, if you understand the distinction.

Georgia Thompson just impresses me as tough, in a quiet, stubborn kind of way. Contributions to justice come in all suit sizes, and playing defense against even the most credentialed and seemingly clever opponents often works in real life. (Sorry suits. Can't always buy a win, gotta earn it sometimes :)

"Low Batteries"
"Successful Divorce" (I've never seen this in a maple tree -- have you? Didn't know the trunk could split like that)

Stand Up in a Clear Blue Morning...

Until you see what can be...

Alone in a cold day dawning...


Are you still free?


Can you be?

One...

Two...

We Want More!
-------------
*It's a hockey cheer,
not a polyamorous chant.

Kerr for 3.

A Bulls victory to build on
By Steve Kerr

Monday, May 14, 2007 3:29 am EDT
Remember back in the early Jordan days, when the young Chicago Bulls just couldn't seem to get past the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference playoffs? It took several painful years, but eventually Chicago overcame its demons, figured out the right formula and knocked off the Pistons to get to the NBA finals.

When the Bulls finally did beat Detroit in a sweep in the 1991 East finals, it was a result of years of work, experience and resilience. It didn't happen all at once. Chicago had to take incremental steps each season, getting closer and closer to the Pistons before finally breaking through.

I thought of that Sunday while watching the modern-day Bulls avoid a sweep at the hands of Detroit. The analogy is appropriate, given that again Chicago is the young team trying to knock the veteran Pistons off the top of the hill. If that's the case, then the significance of the Game 4 win can't be overemphasized for the victorious Bulls.

Learning how to win in the playoffs is a process, and for a young team, every playoff game provides a valuable opportunity for growth. Chicago isn't going to win this series, but the experience gained Sunday will help the franchise next season, and the season beyond that. Every time a team plays in the pressure-packed situations of the playoffs, it gains knowledge for the next time around. And every time a team can win a game like that, its confidence grows.

We always hear about playoff experience, but what does it really mean? I'm not sure if I can describe it, but I can see it when I watch San Antonio and Detroit play. They know what they're doing, they're comfortable even when they're behind and they seem to always believe that they're going to win.

John Paxson deserves a lot of credit for building a team that is capable of growing from experience. Think about the players he's brought in -- they're all winners. Luol Deng came from Duke, Kirk Hinrich from Kansas, Ben Gordon from UConn -- all top college programs that routinely go deep in the NCAA tournament. Andres Nocioni won a gold medal with Argentina. Ben Wallace won an NBA championship with Detroit before joining the Bulls.

The point is, when you have players who understand the value of hard work and sacrifice, it's easier to learn from past experiences and move forward. No matter what happens the rest of the series -- and I think the Pistons will close out the Bulls in Game 5 on Tuesday -- Sunday's win was huge for Chicago. It was part of the overall process of becoming a champion.

Thanks George. Heh

"We think America did a great thing by toppling Saddam,” Ayad told me, speaking for himself and his family. “But now they should hand us the country and leave.”

I asked him whether he fears that an American withdrawal might allow the Sunni insurgents to strike harder in Shiite areas. “We outnumber them,” he said. “And with the support of our Iranian brothers, we can take the Sunnis.”

“And then what?” I replied.

“Then the Shiites will rule Iraq.”

Ayad believes that there is no problem in establishing an Islamic government in Baghdad styled after that of the Iranian Republic. The Sunnis, he said, have “oppressed us since the days of the Prophet, and now it is our chance to hit back and rule.”

According to Ayad, a Shiite takeover in Iraq would set a good model for the Shiites of Lebanon, where they number about a third of the population, and Bahrain, where they are a majority.

“Perhaps the Shiite minority in Saudi Arabia will act too, rid themselves of the Sunni oppression against them, and rule or at least separate themselves from Riyadh and create their own state,” my friend argued.

It is exactly this possibility that has made the Sunni Arab regimes fear a Shiite regional revolt and moved some to support the Sunni insurgency in Iraq or at least to voice their resentment of the Iraqi Shiite government, which is seen as being biased against Iraqi Sunnis. “But we are Iraqis,” I told Ayad. “We are Arabs. We have our cultural differences with the Persians. We don’t even speak the same language.”

Ayad insisted otherwise: “When we fought the Persians during the 1980s, we were wrong. We’re Shiites before being Iraqis. Sunnis invented national identity to rule us.”

At this point, I understood that it was pointless to argue further. When the Baathist regime collapsed, I initially felt that there was a good chance for national unity, that Sunnis and Shiites would band together in the absence of the dictator who had played them against each other. Talking to Ayad, I realized how wrong I had been.

To change the subject, I asked Ayad about his business. He told me he had just erected flags on top of the entrance to his hotel. He chose the flags of Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and Bahrain. When I asked why he chose the flags of these four nations, he said: “These are the countries where Shiites come from to do their pilgrimage in Karbala,” he said. “It is good for business.”

Remember the days...

when writing a book was something admirable?

Seems the book industry has been overtaken by the same folks that run the movie industry... and there's nothing honorable in shilling crap, no matter how much you might personally benefit. I'll stick with what I've collected on my shelves; if you can recognize quality, they can never take that away, right?

No wonder the most galling part of Ms. Rice’s Sunday spin was her aside to Wolf Blitzer that she would get around to reflecting on these issues “when I have a chance to write my book.” Another book!

Let me extend a special welcome...

to new blog readers "readeriam" (we think she's a Seuss fan), and "InternetRon" (no really, I just like Ben Stiller movies!)

Like the song goes, I hope you find whatever it is you're looking for here ...

Derby results.

Street Sense, damn!

A regular Billy Mills. I love races like that!
-------------

"He'll do anything for you. He's very push-button," (jockey Calvin) Borel said, referring to the winning colt. "I really don't know how good he is because he always gives me something when I ask."

My fears.

I fear this next election will be Romney v. Obama, and some will have an incentive to spin it as White v. Black, with perhaps a special pitch to immigrants qualified to vote.*

Being from Chicago, I know racism exists, yet I also know it can be overcome, with people finding commonalities in wanting the best for their children, and peace in their neighborhoods. Sports helps at the local levels, with folks choosing just to cheer the team as a whole. After a while, you see people can live together, intermingle if desired, yet maintain their own identities if they so choose.

I don't kid myself that all areas of the country have worked through this yet, and I don't think the problems will all come from the lower class, uneducated people either. Sometimes the well meaning -- liberals or conservatives -- support ideas, but when push comes to shove, they pull their children for more segregated opportunites, content to have minority representation remain just that.

Time will tell, and I pray I'm wrong about this one...
---------------
*Nonsense, you say? Think we're above that politically, the slash and divide tactics? Look how easy it was to spin the Family Values issues in the last major race, and demonize a minority. Seems like the clock can be turned back to uglier days, even if we know in our hearts it hurts the country as a whole to divide the American people.

This seems as good a place as any to drop this line, an oldie but bearing repeating in these days of political scandal and denial:
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Natural healing.

In Florida, I was a caregiver for an elderly diabetic. She was a trooper when she went in every now and then to have her leg sore "scraped" and rebandaged.

We already know of the many many health benefits of honey/bee pollen; here might be another.

A doctor at the University of Wisconsin who helped about half a dozen of her diabetic patients avoid amputation has launched a controlled trial to promote the widespread use of honey therapy.

The therapy involves squeezing a thick layer of honey onto the wound after dead skin and bacteria have been removed.

The honey kills bacteria because it is acidic and avoids the complication of bacterial resistance found with standard antibiotics, Jennifer Eddy, a professor at the University's School of Medicine and Public Health, told AFP.
...
Honey therapy is already used to treat bed sores in New Zealand and as an alternative form of medicine in Europe, but has largely been relegated to history books in the United States.

Eddy first heard of it in medical school when a professor commented that of all the ancient remedies, honey actually seemed to work when he tried it out in the laboratory.

She tried honey therapy as a last resort six years ago with a 79-year-old diabetic patient who had developed foot wounds resistant to standard treatments.

"I tried it only after everything else had failed and... we had essentially sent him home to die," she said. "All antibiotics were stopped when we started honey, and his wounds rapidly healed."

Decisions... decisions...

Leonard Pitts Jr.:

On one side, you have Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid telling us the war is lost and we need to get out yesterday and allow Iraq to get about the business of blowing itself up. On the other, you have Bush and his dwindling coterie of supporters harmonizing on a ghastly corruption of an old John Lennon song, ''All we are saaaay-ing . . . is give surge a chance.'' Are these really our only options?

You find yourself wishing there were more. You think what a pity it is we couldn't assemble some elder statesmen and women, a bipartisan group that could study the situation in Iraq -- an Iraq Study Group, if you will -- and then report back with alternatives. Problem is, we did have such a group and last year it presented just such a report. It called for a fundamental shift in U.S. strategy, including an aggressive diplomatic outreach to the pariah states of Syria and Iran.

HUBRIS AND ULTIMATUMS

President Bush made a show of pretending to take the recommendations seriously, then ignored them, choosing instead the aforementioned ''surge'' of troops. In shunting aside the panel's suggestions, he demonstrated characteristic hubris and a refusal to face unpleasant facts worthy of his claim as the worst president in living memory, if not ever.

In response, Reid and his fellow Democrats have sought to draw a line in the sand: no withdrawal, no money. It's easy to understand why, after four years of Bush bungling without accountability through a ruinous war, they would embrace such an ultimatum. But that doesn't make it sensible.

The only thing worse than the debacle we have now is the debacle that would result if we ceded Iraq as a staging ground for al Qaeda and other lunatics.
...
But maybe, if Bush would give up his faith-based foreign policy and Reid would stop drawing lines in the dirt, they could craft policies that impose accountability on Iraq's fledgling government, seek outside input and allow for an orderly withdrawal of U.S. forces. As the ISG once proposed.

The alternative is to decide which vital imperative we are willing to betray. Should we ask our soldiers to continue dying in a mismanaged and ill-defined war? Or shall we award al Qaeda a new base from which to operate?

I don't know about you, but that's a choice I'd prefer not to make.

If only the President and his team would embrace accountability, and have some remorse for the bloodshed. He really should start attending more funerals...

ADDED: In the end, you have to ask: how much longer are we willing to gut our military on this mission alone? That too will take years and years to rebuild. People don't like fighting for all the wrong reasons, and privatizing the whole shebang just won't cut it.

Who's game?

Wisconsin’s inland game fishing season opens this Saturday, May 5, with fisheries biologists saying prospects for the season opener are excellent, but with state forestry officials cautioning that current statewide wildfire fire danger levels are very high in parts of the state and asking anglers and others in the outdoors to be extremely careful with any possible sources of ignition.

Emergency forest fire regulations are in effect in seven northern counties (pdf 415 kb) and they could be extended to additional areas before the weekend. Under the emergency rules, it is illegal to even have a campfire unless it is in a designated private or public campground and in a metal fire ring. No campfires are allowed in remote or wilderness campsites. Additionally, cigarette, cigar or pipe smoking cannot be done outdoors and no all terrain vehicles are allowed on state owned lands or trails in the affected counties. All burning permits for these counties have been suspended, including the use of burn barrels.

The unseasonably warm weather has really spurred on fish activity and should make for a great fishing opener, with the potential for some great post spawn walleye action on waters across the Northwoods. Surface water temperatures are near 60 degrees and this has pulled many fish into the shallows. Panfish have really been on the move and good numbers are now staging along and in the warmer shallow bays. Largemouth and smallmouth bass have also made the move up shallow and many have taken up residence near any woody or rocky cover. Bass season opens this weekend in the northern zone, but is catch and release only until June 16. The northern musky zone does not open until May 26. Fishing in the southern lakes also continued to improve. Crappie fishing has been very good on Lake Wisconsin, and excellent catches of nice bluegills have been reported on many southern inland lakes.

White bass are beginning to run in the Wolf and Fox rivers. Crappies were being hooked in the channels of the Wolf River. Walleye fishing has been consistent on Lake Winnebago. Walleye fishing in the Fox River and Lake Butte des Morts has been good. Inland trout streams are in good condition. Early season trout anglers were successful in catching newly stocked and holdover trout.

Along Lake Michigan, brown trout anglers had another excellent week fishing the more northern harbors and ports, both from piers and trolling, with some nice 5 to 7 pound fish reported.

There has been a lot of bear activity reported in northern Wisconsin with sightings of sow bears with cubs, so help avoid bear nuisance problems by removing any food sources such as bird feeders, garbage cans and pet food left outdoors. Fox pups are emerging from dens. The first litters of rabbits and squirrels have also been seen, so it is important to keep dogs and cats confined. Remember many animals will leave their young for long periods of time. These babies are not abandoned…leave them where they are so their parents can find them later. No one takes care of them better than their parents. May 11 is National Keep Your Cat Indoors Day. Many birds are starting to nest now, as well.

The first Canada goose broods have hatched. Early mallard nests will not be far behind. House wrens, upland sandpipers, savanna sparrows, and rose-breasted grosbeaks are some songbird arrivals. Now is the time to put out hummingbird feeders so they are in place when the birds arrive. Springtime courtship flights of the American Woodcock have started and snipe have been winnowing the other evening. Little brown bats have also been returning to set up their colonies.

Eastern black swallowtail butterflies and female green darner dragonflies have been seen. The warmer weather has also brought out black flies and wood ticks, so be prepared to hit the lakes and streams with bug repellant this weekend. Hepatica, wood anemone, wild ginger, spring beauty, trillium, Dutchman’s breeches, bloodroot, and trout lily are blooming and wild cherry trees are in blossom.



A three-minute audio version of this report can be heard by calling (608) 266 2277.

A new report is put on the line each week.

Just because you have memory loss...

doesn't mean we all do...
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Weird moments in Republican self-deception:

Giuliani said the only thing worse than an American-led military offensive against Iran would be Iran having nuclear weapons, which he called "the worst nightmare'' of the Cold War. The way to stop Iran, he said, was resolute American leadership facing down the Iranian president.

"He has to look at an American president, and he has to see Ronald Reagan,'' Giuliani said.

Is that the version of Ronald Reagan who sold the Iranians weapons, or it is the version that sought to check Iranian power by sending Don Rumsfeld to Baghdad to assure Saddam Hussein that the United States didn't really mind if he used poison gas to attack the Kurdish civilian population?

Going down with a laugh...

Eugene Robinson:

Is George W. Bush even trying to make sense anymore?

On Wednesday, speaking to the Associated General Contractors of America, Bush gave himself a new nickname. Responding to a question from the audience, he asked rhetorically whether "the Congress or the commanders" should decide how many U.S. troops are needed in Iraq.

"And as you know," he went on, "my position is clear -- I'm the Commander Guy."

Remember these days.
So when our children ask, "What happened?" we can be absolutely clear, it had nothing to do with enemies abroad.

This is what spoiled children grow up to become, blind adults.

Tort reform begins at home.

It's the sad story of a judge, an immigrant business owner, a lost pair of pants, and one mighty big ego.

According to court documents, the problem began in May 2005 when Pearson became a judge and brought several suits for alterations to Custom Cleaners in Washington. A pair of pants from one suit was missing when he requested it two days later.

Pearson asked the cleaners for the full price of the suit: more than $1,000.

But a week later, the Chungs said the pants had been found and refused to pay. Pearson said those were not his pants, and decided to take the Chungs to the cleaners and sue.

Manning said the cleaners have made three settlement offers to Pearson: $3,000, then $4,600, then $12,000.

But Pearson was not satisfied and expanded his calculations beyond one pair of pants. Because Pearson no longer wanted to use his neighborhood dry cleaner, he asked in his lawsuit for $15,000 — the cost of renting a car every weekend for 10 years to go to another business.

Manning said Pearson somehow thinks he has the right to a dry cleaner within four blocks of his apartment.

The bulk of the $65 million demand comes from Pearson's strict interpretation of Washington consumer protection law, which imposes fines of $1,500 per violation, per day. Pearson counted 12 violations over 1,200 days, then multiplied that by three defendants.

Much of Pearson's case rests on two signs Custom Cleaners once had on its walls: "Satisfaction Guaranteed" and "Same Day Service." He claims the signs amount to fraud.

The case is set for trial June 11.

Sherman Joyce, president of the American Tort Reform Association, an organization that fights what it considers abusive lawsuits against small businesses, has asked that Pearson be denied a renewal this week of his 10-year appointment. The association has also offered to buy Pearson the suit of his choice.

U.S.A. Today gets it...

Four months ago, President Bush addressed the nation from the White House at a critical moment in the Iraq war. The country was collapsing into sectarian violence. The American people were losing patience. Bush abandoned his sunny talk of steady progress. The situation was unacceptable, he said, as he made what amounted to one last bid for support behind a new plan.

While most attention was focused on his decision to send more troops to bring security to Baghdad, Bush was also unequivocal and stern about the need for Iraqi leaders to reach political milestones aimed at uniting them and persuading insurgents to stop fighting.

U.S. support was not open-ended, he said, and "America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced."

Ever since then, however, Iraqi leaders have been truer to sectarian instincts than to trying to achieve any sort of national reconciliation. The consequence is that Americans are left fighting and dying to nurture a government that the Iraqis themselves seem unwilling to support. That cannot be justified for much longer, and it is why the Iraq war funding bill that Bush and congressional leaders started negotiating on Wednesday needs to include meaningful benchmarks - with consequences for failure to meet them.
...
While the Iraqi leaders dawdle, U.S. servicemembers are paying a very steep price. April was the deadliest month this year, with more than 100 U.S. troops dying.

And what is the Iraqi government's response? Incredibly, the parliament is planning to take a two-month summer break. Any progress on meeting benchmarks would presumably be put on hold.

The Bush administration is trying to keep the Iraqi parliament in session, but at the same time, it has backed off its formerly urgent tone about the benchmarks. Democratic leaders in Congress are pressing for standards with teeth, but Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and White House spokesman Tony Snow now say the Iraqis shouldn't be punished for falling short.

There shouldn't even be a partisan debate about this. Benchmarks were a key recommendation of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. In December, the panel urged the president and his national security team to be like nagging parents with Iraqi leaders. Without substantial progress, the group said, Washington should "reduce its political, military or economic support." Finding the right levers - neither too rigid nor too flexible - isn't easy. But effective pressure could include U.S. redeployments or severe constraints on future funding.

With U.S. troops dying every day - and Iraqi civilians dying in vastly greater numbers - the slow-motion pace of politics and diplomacy is maddening and unsustainable. The United States can't salvage anything in Iraq if U.S. leaders care more about holding the government together than do the Iraqis themselves. Bush should return to the solid support for benchmarks that he voiced in January, not wait for Congress to hammer him back into that position.

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Note: Another 4 dead today in the Green Zone after successful attacks. I fear some non-military people think American soldiers are "secure enough" over there, and may be surprised if the insurgents experience more success while we sit back here and give them time to plan further attacks. They are fighting to win, remember, to get us out of their country, while our motives for fighting in Iraq -- reason for overthrowing the government, definitions of success -- are still in flux. Here's what we're fighting for this week:

Bush also seemed to fine-tune his definition of victory in the war, saying: "Success is a level of violence where the people feel comfortable about living their daily lives."

Bush had most recently defined success as creating a government in Iraq that can "sustain itself, govern itself, and defend itself."

This is why you object when the Supreme Court uses non-precedent to install as president a man who has always failed in his business dealings, but was bailed out and permitted to call them successes. Even if you like his swagger, and think he was the cutest, most likeable of the candidates. Eventually, even the President's work must be honestly evaluated, no excuses or redefining failure.

Nature's defenses.*

In some species of ducks, a female bonds for a season with a male. But she is also harassed by other males that force her to mate. “It’s nasty business. Females are often killed or injured,” Dr. Brennan said.
...
Female ducks seem to be equipped to block the sperm of unwanted males. Their lower oviduct is spiraled like the male phallus, for example, but it turns in the opposite direction. Dr. Brennan suspects that the female ducks can force sperm into one of the pockets and then expel it. “It only makes sense as a barrier,” she said.

To support her argument, Dr. Brennan notes studies on some species that have found that forced matings make up about a third of all matings. Yet only 3 percent of the offspring are the result of forced matings. “To me, it means these females are successful with this strategy,” she said.

Dr. Brennan suspects that when the females of a species evolved better defenses, they drove the evolution of male phalluses. “The males have to step up to produce a longer or more flexible phallus,” she said.

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or: Get Big or Get Lost.