The day after the mosque was blown up in Iraq and the "sectarian violence" or civil war began, the news provided us with a number of known dead. The day after the bombing I woke up and the headline said 111 dead so far, later in the day it was around 134 dead. then the number stopped being widely reported. Damage control? well of course, there's more outrageous political manipulations to talk about than this, but today the Washington post gave us a peek at the numbers game

"Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari said Tuesday that the death toll provided to The Washington Post by morgue workers -- more than 1,300 dead since last Wednesday -- was "inaccurate and exaggerated." Jafari said the toll was 379. Gen. Ali Shamarri of the Interior Ministry's statistics department put the toll at 1,077."

But you know, I think this whole civil war thing is "made up by the media" what about you Rupert?

Trent Lott is straight up "offended" by Bush's veto threat, you gotta watch this video. it shows you exactly how much the president's own Republican Party is getting annoyed by his imperial attitude.

Crooks and Liars has the Movie Here

I'm very thankful I could be a part of the event. Great group of people. and it was great to put Internet personalities together with the real thing. Great to meet (e:Paul) Buffalo Pundit Zack Schneider Cynthia Van Ness and others. Thanks again For the invitation Paul, it was a great experience.

Everyone had great stuff to share, there was really a wealth of ideas and talent there. Aside from 3created who realy didn't have a good product. but it was great to see and hear everyone else. I got a lot out of Zack Schneider's talk he definitely does great stuff with web design.

I always like doing speaking engagements, this was my first in Buffalo. Of course they make you nervous, but I accept that, and I know that throughout life I will have to do public speaking, and the more practice I get the better. I Learned a lot this time, for one I hardly looked at my notes, part of the reason was that I couldn't read them in that setting, and the other part was that following words on paper just wasn't going to help get my point across. unfortunately I think I left a lot out of my presentation due to my lack of adequate notes. next time, bullet points, and 25pt font size!

But since I painstakingly typed up notes for my presentation here they are.



Notes From my Geek Meet Presentation:
Politics and the Buffalo Internet

I'm going to talk about What kinds of websites exist in WNY, where they came from and what their role is in shaping the public discourse as well as how they are putting pressure on the local government.

First a little bit about my Background, BA Political Science, started Masters at UB but I left that for the New Media Design Program � at the same time I got internship for Brian Higgins, to see what it was like behind the scenes.

As For My Web Design background, I started coding in notepad, and am currently using CSS PHP and other basic languages that I've learned at UB.

Also participate by writing for WNY Media, for almost a year.

So Regarding Politics and the Buffalo Web,
the Internet has Suddenly emerged as an important medium for local politics and news.

Technology has progressed to make Internet Publishing easier and more affordable,

And over the past year many important websites have been started, but a big factor in the rise of the Buffalo Internet is that Local news has been so interesting.

The Buffalo Mayoral Race kind of solidified and encouraged all the alternative news websites. But also
Erie County's fiscal crisis - Downtown Casino - Waterfront Development - Increasing investment in city neighborhoods.

Lots of issues have pushed local news to the front of peoples minds.

More Western New Yorkers are paying attention to local politics,
meaning more people want to talk about and read about local politics.

People have gone beyond simply reading the Buffalo News, and watching the major news channels. Now they are finding news online.

For example a site like WNY Media, gets over 30,000 hits per day,
it is also listed under Google news,
and it is more popular than all four TV news network websites.

Meaning that online news readership has grown tremendously. STOP

Lets think about who is reading online news.

some are just concerned community members like myself, but journalists and politicians also make up a significant part of online news readership.

Politicians and Journalists have a vested interest in public sentiment, and perception of different issues.
Journalists want to know what people are talking about, so that they can produce more Attractive News Coverage.

Politicians want to get reelected, so they want to make sure that they know about public discontent and can either cover their butt, or proactively address a winning issue.

If for example someone writes an article about Brian Higgins or one of his issues, Brian and the people who work for him are going to want to know what is said. It's their job to stay connected to the public and make sure that their candidate looks good.

When I was working in Higgins office, I got an email on Buffalo Issue Alerts listserv and that same day one of Higgins staff was talking about the e-mail, calling somebody to find out if the issue had been addressed, quoting the e-mail. I asked her if she was on the Buffalo Issue Alerts listserv and she said that she tries to keep up with everything she can, and she also gets forwards from people, e-mails and news articles that might be important to the Brian Higgins Team.

Ok, I've mentioned some of the local websites, and I'd like to show you some of them, and get into specifics.


Examples:



WNY Media Network:
About one year old
30,000 hits per day, just wnymedia
Site ranks higher on a daily basis than all 4 local TV stations
Started email � budget disaster - > website
Wordpress Blogs sponsored through the site, Judy, Buffalo Pundit 12 total regularly updated
Many Writers on main site, easy to get involved.
ie. My articles
Buffalo News Part of the problem � 238 reads
Impeaching the President � 878 reads
Relevant articles get 70 reads in 2 days
Joe Illuzzi Front page Buffalo News, Beast broke story originally.
Members meeting in person who never knew each other before the websites started.
Reporters contacting webmasters about community happenings. Marc "all the time"
Helping local community endeavors, "Save Santaland"
Marc fired from channel 2
"we have grown from 1 site less than a year ago to 12 quality daily updated websites. We
have all grown closer as friends in the process and I have met dozens if not hundreds of people through our website. We continuously get tips and information from people"





Buffalo Rising:
1 year May 2004
Started with a blogger account to supliment their small free magazine.
Quickly increasing number of visitors. About one third as popular as WNY Media
on par with WBEN Radio News website.
Very relevant, talks about community development and positive points.
Publicity given on B Rising definitely helps issues.
Community meetings, Charity gatherings, arts, etc


Speakup WNY:
2.5 years may 2003
Very popular twice WNY Media, but focused on discussion board.
Skewed statistics because small number of people checking their posts.
Relevant but focused on community discussion, can be chaotic.


Buffalo Issue Alerts:
3.5 years 2002
List Serv 300 subscribers
Started from local concerns and e-mail
Ideas frequently picked up by Buffalo Rising
Promoted petitions through listserv, to save Antwater House, and prevent gates circle Walgreans


Buffalo Pundit:
Buffalo Pundit nearly 2 years. Started before to promote Wes Clark for President,
About 1000 visitors per day, higher on weekdays
Illuzzi Webstats Story picked up
Hosted 2 "BloggerCon" events many locals attended both
Promoted petitions by others



Fix Buffalo:
1 year Oct 2004
Lives on near east side
300 visitors per day 130 subscribers
Interviewed by News and Artvoice about Woodlawn Row houses
"I've met more people this past year in decision making rolls than I would have otherwise."
"upset that the City of Buffalo could hold private property owners to a higher standard than they use themselves in maintaining real property."



Politics WNY:
7.5 years old 1998
Somewhat popular.
Snail Mail turned into e-mail, website, new magazine.

One thing I can say is, I'm glad I don't work in the whitehouse right now. News today of Iraq possibly drifting into Civil War because one of the holiest shia shrines in Iraq had it's dome blown off...

wow, it makes me realy sad to think about what's next.. I know peopple are talking about civil war... I can't wrap my mind around it, what a horrible situation.

meanwhile it makes me feel bad for the whitehouse too, throw in the other big news that Dick Cheney shot he friend with birdshot, and this whole Port issue with national security... man, that's stress.
I mean could you imagine being all embarrassed because you're the vice president and you just shot your friend in the face, then the whole congress Republican and Democrat is pissed off at you for turning over our ports to a questionable nation. and then.. after all that you wake up to find out that someone just blew the giant gold dome off of one of the holiest shia mosques.

But then again, the bush regime is much better off than the people who are actually dying in the streets, because of GOP incompetence. Dying in America and overseas.

this entry could have also been entitled "Bush: off his Rocker" because not only does Bush have no clothes, he's dropping hints that he is actually naked.

As I posted last week [inlink]dcoffee,53[/inlink] 6 US ports are in the process of being sold to DP World, a state owned company from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Wondering WTF is the UAE? Well if you remember a few years ago, some planes flew into the world trade center in NYC, the pentagon and etc. there were 19 hijackers none were from Iraq, 16 were from Saudi Arabia, and 2 of those hijackers were from the UAE. in addition, the funding for the September 11 hijackers came largely through UAE banks. And when we wanted to investigate the financial sources of these terrorists the UAE refused to cooperate, no data from UAE. Seems a little fucked up to open our borders to these guys.

Plus The UAE has transported nuclear materials to Iran, North Korea, and Lybia among other countries. Huh? They are heavily involved in shipping, some of that activity involves transporting Nuclear materials to the "Axis of Evil"? Nothing wrong with that?!?!?!


Well Guess what, congress and the media have actually picked up on this story and are looking for answers. Republican leaders Bill Frist and Dennis Hastert are asking to delay the transaction, yea that's right the majority leader of the house and the speaker in the senate. Frist said he would introduce a bill to delay the sale if Bush refused to give the sale further consideration.

Bush's response to the criticism,
"There's a mandated process we go through. ... They ought to listen to what I have to say to this. I'll deal with it with a veto,"

Bush has never vetoed any bill, but he will veto this one. Smart, very smart, way to go George.



"I can understand why some in Congress have raised questions about whether or not our country will be less secure as a result of this transaction,'' the president said. ``But they need to know that our government has looked at this issue and looked at it carefully.''
Oh, nevermind, the president has checked it out and everything is fine.

In reality, it took 25 days for the sale to go through. You think I'm bullshitting you?
UPDATE: Rumsfeld never even heard about the deal until this past weekend so much for government oversight.


well George I hope you'll forgive us if we don't trust you on this one. with Iraq Osama and Katrina on our minds, you don't look so trustworthy Bucko. in fact you look like a miserable failure.

The party of national security my fat ass. this is the party of profit. Remember the bush clan has strong ties to middle eastern businesses and businesses through the Carlyle group. I suspect someone is making some serious bucks .

National Security is the Neo Con's last card, and Bush just let it fall out of his sleeve onto the poker table. the Truth is that the Free market is loyal only to profit, that means international corporations. Bush doesn't just hate black people, he hates America my friends. he doesn't give a flying fuck about any of you.


CNN

Guardian UK

Nice Quotes from Lawmakers in opposition

one of the great things about Internet News is that you can embed your sources directly into the text. This enables the reader to get more thou roughly informed about an issue, and it also gives the article some legitimacy by making all the facts verifiable. many people thing if you got some piece of news from the "web" it's automatically suspect, probably a bunch of nonsense. Blog sites like Think Progress and Huffington Post are great examples of this. it's easy to wrap your mind around an issue by following some of the links in the text to get more info.

Check out Think Progress:
and Huffington Post:

From Democracy Now!

John Perkins, author of "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," will talk about his former work, going into various countries to try to strongarm leaders into creating policy favorable to the U.S government and corporations. Perkins describes himself as an economic hit man.

JOHN PERKINS: We economic hit men, during the last 30 or 40 years, have really created the world's first truly global empire, and we've done this primarily through economics, and the military only coming in as a last resort. Therefore, it's been done pretty much secretly. Most of the people in the United States have no idea that we've created this empire and, in fact, throughout the world it's been done very quietly, unlike old empires, where the army marched in; it was obvious. So I think the significance of the things you discussed, the fact that over 80% of the population of South America recently voted in an anti-U.S. president and what's going on at the World Trade Organization, and also, in fact, with the transit strike here in New York, is that people are beginning to understand that the middle class and the lower classes around the world are being terribly, terribly exploited by what I call the corporatocracy, which really runs this empire.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, before we move further, your experience with it? Explain the vantage point you come from. What does it mean to be an economic hit man?

JOHN PERKINS: Well, what we've done -- we use many techniques, but probably the most common is that we'll go to a country that has resources that our corporations covet, like oil, and we'll arrange a huge loan to that country from an organization like the World Bank or one of its sisters, but almost all of the money goes to the U.S. corporations, not to the country itself, corporations like Bechtel and Halliburton, General Motors, General Electric, these types of organizations, and they build huge infrastructure projects in that country: power plants, highways, ports, industrial parks, things that serve the very rich and seldom even reach the poor. In fact, the poor suffer, because the loans have to be repaid, and they're huge loans, and the repayment of them means that the poor won't get education, health, and other social services, and the country is left holding a huge debt, by intention. We go back, we economic hit men, to this country and say, "Look, you owe us a lot of money. You can't repay your debts, so give us a pound of flesh. Sell our oil companies your oil real cheap or vote with us at the next U.N. vote or send troops in support of ours to some place in the world such as Iraq." And in that way, we've managed to build a world empire with very few people actually knowing that we've done this.

AMY GOODMAN: And you worked for?

JOHN PERKINS: I was recruited by the National Security Agency, the one that's in the news so much today because of spying on people, and I was tested by them, recruited by them --

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean you were recruited by them?

JOHN PERKINS: Well, while I was a senior in business school at Boston University, they came to me and suggested that I take their test. I had connections through my wife with people in the agency, and they put me through a series of tests, personality tests, lie detector, several days, and concluded that I would make a good economic hit man, and they also discovered a number of weaknesses in my character, which they could use then to hook me into the business, and then I ended up working for a private corporation.

AMY GOODMAN: Why didn't you work for the N.S.A.?

JOHN PERKINS: Because these days it's not done that way. Nobody wants to be able to connect the dots. So the N.S.A., the C.I.A., these types of organizations often recruit economic hit men and the jackals, the assassins, the 007 types, but they will recruit us, maybe train us, and then turn us over to a private corporation, so that you really can't make the connection, so that if I were caught at what I was doing in one of these countries, it would not reflect on our government; it would only reflect on the corporation that I worked for.

AMY GOODMAN: And who did you work for?

JOHN PERKINS: I worked for a company called Charles T. Main, a big consulting firm out of Boston.

AMY GOODMAN: And your job?

JOHN PERKINS: Well, I started off as economist, became chief economist, and my job really – I had a staff of several dozen people. My job was to get them, and for me to convince these countries to accept these very large loans, to get the banks to make the loans, to set up the deal so that the money went to big U.S. corporations. The country was left holding a huge debt, and then I would go in or one of my people would go in and say, "Look, you know, you owe us all this money. You can't pay your debts. Give us that pound of flesh."

The other thing we do, Amy, and what's going on right now in Latin America is that as soon as one of these anti-American presidents is elected, such as Evo Morales, who you mentioned, in Bolivia, one of us goes in and says, "Hey, congratulations, Mr. President. Now that you're president, I just want to tell you that I can make you very, very rich, you and your family. We have several hundred million dollars in this pocket if you play the game our way. If you decide not to, over in this pocket, I've got a gun with a bullet with your name on it, in case you decide to keep your campaign promises and throw us out."

AMY GOODMAN: Well, explain actually how that plays out, because it's not really in this pocket and that.

JOHN PERKINS: No, it's – what I'm saying is that, you know, I can make sure that this man makes a great deal of money, he and his family, through contracts, through various quasi-legal means, and I can also – if he doesn't accept this, you know, the same thing is going to happen to him that happened to Jaime Roldos in Ecuador and Omar Torrijos in Panama and Allende in Chile, and we tried to do it to Chavez in Venezuela and are still trying – that we will send in the people to try to overthrow him, as, in fact, we recently did with the President of Ecuador, or if we don't overthrow him, we'll assassinate him. And these people all know the history. They know that this has happened many, many, many times in the past.

---

The Rest of the interview on Democracy Now!

Six US Ports have been sold to United Arab Emirates company DP World. That's right, US ports in the continental United States, Miami, New York and Philadelphia to be exact, have been sold to a Middle Eastern nation. Port security is not America's strong suit in the war against terrorism, so it's a little troubling that we will now have even less control over six of them.

The Seattle times has the scoop from before the sale "A company in the United Arab Emirates is poised to take over significant operations at six U.S. ports as part of a corporate sale, leaving a country with ties to the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers with influence over a maritime industry considered vulnerable to terrorism."

My opinion: The free market will not solve all of the problems in the world. Many conservatives seem to put far too much faith in market forces. We can talk about Enron and California's energy crisis, or the skyrocketing cost of healthcare, or any number of other problems facing us today, the point is that the free market can be a problem rather than a solution. This time it is making us more vulnerable to a terrorist attack.

NY Times declares in this Sunday's editorial "Bush is Full of Shit"

Lists 3 recent revelations as reasons for why Bush can't be trusted:


[size=l]The Trust Gap[/size]

Published: February 12, 2006
Archived Here


We can't think of a president who has gone to the American people more often than George W. Bush has to ask them to forget about things like democracy, judicial process and the balance of powers - and just trust him. We also can't think of a president who has deserved that trust less.

This has been a central flaw of Mr. Bush's presidency for a long time. But last week produced a flood of evidence that vividly drove home the point.

DOMESTIC SPYING

After 9/11, Mr. Bush authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on the conversations and e-mail of Americans and others in the United States without obtaining a warrant or allowing Congress or the courts to review the operation. Lawmakers from both parties have raised considerable doubt about the legality of this program, but Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made it clear last Monday at a Senate hearing that Mr. Bush hasn't the slightest intention of changing it.

According to Mr. Gonzales, the administration can be relied upon to police itself and hold the line between national security and civil liberties on its own. Set aside the rather huge problem that our democracy doesn't work that way. It's not clear that this administration knows where the line is, much less that it is capable of defending it. Mr. Gonzales's own dedication to the truth is in considerable doubt. In sworn testimony at his confirmation hearing last year, he dismissed as "hypothetical" a question about whether he believed the president had the authority to conduct warrantless surveillance. In fact, Mr. Gonzales knew Mr. Bush was doing just that, and had signed off on it as White House counsel.

THE PRISON CAMPS

It has been nearly two years since the Abu Ghraib scandal illuminated the violence, illegal detentions and other abuses at United States military prison camps. There have been Congressional hearings, court rulings imposing normal judicial procedures on the camps, and a law requiring prisoners to be treated humanely. Yet nothing has changed. Mr. Bush also made it clear that he intends to follow the new law on the treatment of prisoners when his internal moral compass tells him it is the right thing to do.

On Thursday, Tim Golden of The Times reported that United States military authorities had taken to tying up and force-feeding the prisoners who had gone on hunger strikes by the dozens at Guantánamo Bay to protest being held without any semblance of justice. The article said administration officials were concerned that if a prisoner died, it could renew international criticism of Gitmo. They should be concerned. This is not some minor embarrassment. It is a lingering outrage that has undermined American credibility around the world.

According to numerous news reports, the majority of the Gitmo detainees are neither members of Al Qaeda nor fighters captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan. The National Journal reported last week that many were handed over to the American forces for bounties by Pakistani and Afghan warlords. Others were just swept up. The military has charged only 10 prisoners with terrorism. Hearings for the rest were not held for three years and then were mostly sham proceedings.

And yet the administration continues to claim that it can be trusted to run these prisons fairly, to decide in secret and on the president's whim who is to be jailed without charges, and to insist that Gitmo is filled with dangerous terrorists.

THE WAR IN IRAQ

One of Mr. Bush's biggest "trust me" moments was when he told Americans that the United States had to invade Iraq because it possessed dangerous weapons and posed an immediate threat to America. The White House has blocked a Congressional investigation into whether it exaggerated the intelligence on Iraq, and continues to insist that the decision to invade was based on the consensus of American intelligence agencies.

But the next edition of the journal Foreign Affairs includes an article by the man in charge of intelligence on Iraq until last year, Paul Pillar, who said the administration cherry-picked intelligence to support a decision to invade that had already been made. He said Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney made it clear what results they wanted and heeded only the analysts who produced them. Incredibly, Mr. Pillar said, the president never asked for an assessment on the consequences of invading Iraq until a year after the invasion. He said the intelligence community did that analysis on its own and forecast a deeply divided society ripe for civil war.

When the administration did finally ask for an intelligence assessment, Mr. Pillar led the effort, which concluded in August 2004 that Iraq was on the brink of disaster. Officials then leaked his authorship to the columnist Robert Novak and to The Washington Times. The idea was that Mr. Pillar was not to be trusted because he dissented from the party line. Somehow, this sounds like a story we have heard before.
•

Like many other administrations before it, this one sometimes dissembles clumsily to avoid embarrassment. (We now know, for example, that the White House did not tell the truth about when it learned the levees in New Orleans had failed.) Spin-as-usual is one thing. Striking at the civil liberties, due process and balance of powers that are the heart of American democracy is another.

i work in a photography studio, and for the next 2 weeks the boss will be out of town. which means that me and the other 2 full time employees will have to pick up the slack, and fill in the blanks, when customers call looking for their pictures and wedding albums. We've done this before, it's a little crazy but we manage.

Anyway, before he left, the boss (Mike) left us instructions on how to deal with the many loose ends regarding people's individual orders, this is what Terri's desk looked like this morning.






my desk and Angela's were just as bad or worse, but by the time I thought to take a picture we had cleared some of the debris.