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From:  "Robert Garisson" <garrissonbob@clarigan.com>
Subject:  Get 80% off your ink cartridges Bob
Date:  Thu, 15 Dec 2005 21:03:07 -0500
>December 2005
>
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>555A5A185E5B025B430E09225443595456504959
>The Kansas State Board of Education has backed up its decision to encourage more criticism of evolution in science classes with ... yet another difficult policy pill to swallow.
>
>The Board could decide, as early as this month, whether to approve vouchers for at-risk and special education students and make it easier for the establishment of charter schools.
>
>The move, which would be the ultimate decision of the Kansas Legislature, proves to us, to be another in a line of bad decisions by the politically motivated, ultra-conservative Board of Education.
>Kick out the incumbent conservatives.
>
>There's an event being held in January to educate voters on the issues, and interested parties should plan on attending. More as that all gets closer.
>posted by Josh Rosenau at 7:57 PM Be the first to comment | Trackback (0)
>
>Good government
>George Packer described "Bush�s philosophy of corporate conservatism" as "not anti-government, just anti-good-government." This seems unfair at first, but evidence constantly conspires to confirm it.
>
>In Afghanistan,
>
>nearly a year after an American-led coalition deposed the Taliban, the United States launched what would become an aggressive effort to build or refurbish as many as 1,000 schools and clinics by the end of 2004, documents show. However, design flaws and construction errors caused the initiative to fall far short.
>
>By September 2004, congressional figures show that the effort's centerpiece -- a $73 million U.S. Agency for International Development program -- had produced only 100 finished projects, most of them refurbishments of existing buildings.�
>
>Internal documents and more than 100 interviews in Washington and Kabul revealed a chain of mistakes and misjudgments: The U.S. effort was poorly conceived in a rush to show results before the Afghan presidential election in late 2004. The drive to construct earthquake-resistant, American-quality buildings in rustic villages led to culture clashes, delays and what a USAID official called "extraordinary costs." Afghans complained that the initial design for roofs made them too heavy to build in rural areas without a crane, and the corrected design made them too light to bear Afghan snows. Local workmen unfamiliar with U.S. construction methods sometimes produced shoddy work.
>
>At the outset, USAID and its primary contractor, New Jersey-based Louis Berger Group Inc., failed to provide adequate oversight, documents state.
>In Iraq, we hired a convicted felon to oversee rebuilding projects.
>
>And in a story that Chris Mooney could have written, "the Bush administration is � pursuing its political and ideological goals even when they are in conflict with data collected by agencies, analysis provided by professionals and procedures set by law."
>
>And then � oops � a known bomber got cut loose from an American prison in Iraq because we're too busy scooping people up at random to properly administer the prisons.
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>While cutting one bomber loose will mean more dead Americans, the fact that there's no plan for shutting down terrorist funding a full four years after 9/11 puts everyone at risk.
>
>Similar cock-ups can be found in various state governments as well. I've criticized the 65% plan on similar grounds, as a policy which is advocated for no real benefit, but to place arbitrary limits on successful government. Equally harsh things can and have been said about voucher proposals.
>
>Government can do good things. It doesn't always, but if you come in thinking that it can't you've set yourself up to fail. Providing voicemail to poor people is a simple way that good government can help people, so would providing free wireless internet access to every community. Social Security and Medicare are good examples, too.
>posted by Josh Rosenau at 5:43 PM Be the first to comment | Trackback (0)
>
>Tuesday, December 13, 2005
>Senators
>I was all set to do a thing about how the top ten popular senators are Democrats and Republicans who vote with Democrats (most popular senators are Snow and Collins), when I scrolled down to see number 10 � Ted "effing moron" Stevens.
>
>Who the hell likes him? Alaskans I suppose, all of whom dream of one day having bridges of their very own.
>
>In any event, Roberts clocks in at # 48, Brownback at # 50. Does anyone else find it odd that 43% of self-described liberals would approve of Brownback's performance? I sure do.
>
>Kit Bond is at number 45, Jim Talent at # 81. The McCaskill campaign must be happy.
>posted by Josh Rosenau at 11:07 PM Comments (2) | Trackback (0)
>
>Dover
>Decision on Dover's ID case soon?
>posted by Josh Rosenau at 5:39 PM Be the first to comment | Trackback (0)
>
>Tookie
>In Pete Seeger's Where Have All the Flowers Gone, he tells this joke:
>
>
>A couple hundred years ago a shipwrecked sailor drifted for weeks till he saw land. He crawled up the beach not knowing what country or continent he'd landed on. He staggered up the bluff, and at the top found himself in a large field where there was a gallows and a man hanging. He exclaimed, "Thank God! I'm in a Christian country."
>I'm conflicted on the death penalty. On one hand, I see nothing inherently unjust in executing Osama bin Laden, Jeffrey Dahmer, Tim McVeigh, or the leader of a violent criminal gang. On the other hand, I do believe in the possibility of personal rehabilitation and second chances. The life and death of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, co-founder of the Crips brings my ambivalence to the forefront.
>
>If anyone deserves the death penalty, it's people who plan and carefully execute large-scale criminal enterprises that leave cities in ruins and kill people. That explains three of my examples above. Incurable serial murderers are the the other class of people who seem to present a profound case for the death penalty, if anyone does. And on paper, Tookie fit that bill also when he was sentenced
>
>But he turned his time in prison into an opportunity to work against gangs, with children's books, personal memoirs and descriptions of prison life as outreach tools. For him, the prison system worked, and we should encourage that sort of personal transformation.
>
>Failing to pardon him has removed one incentive that the other death row prisoners might have to reform themselves. On balance, it was the wrong decision, and it raises other fundamental questions.
>
>Most people figure that the nation's death rows are populated by people like I listed above, the worst sort of murderers. In fact, most of the people on death row are not mass murderers out of movies or Law and Order, and most were not put there by the best of evidence.
>
>If it were, you wouldn't find patterns like this:
>
>
>While blacks and whites are murdered in roughly equal numbers in the USA, the killers of white people are six times as likely to be put to death, according to a statistical analysis released last week by the anti-death penalty human rights organization Amnesty International USA. It found that of 845 people executed since the U.S. resumed capital punishment in 1977, 80% were put to death for killing whites, while only 13% were executed for killing blacks.
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>The findings point to but one chilling conclusion: The criminal justice system places a higher value on the lives of whites than on the lives of blacks and other minorities.
>I was in Illinois when more people had been released from death row than had been executed. The stories of how those innocent men got onto death row were shocking. Coerced confessions, bogus evidence, horrible defense attorneys and a general disregard for human life all conspired to put several innocent men within days of their deaths. Whether the death penalty is ever morally justifiable, it isn't under those circumstances. The execution of an innocent man is a stain on all of our hands.
>
>But assume that Tookie was genuinely guilty of four murders. How can we justify putting his blood on all of our hands? Presumably, it starts with the belief that failing to take his life will cost other people their lives. Even if he weren't reformed, a life sentence without parole and containment in solitary ought to prevent him from killing again. And given that he did reform, his eventual release might actually have helped keep some people out of gangs and saved some lives. Or not, I can't see the future.
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>The problem is that no one can see the future, and we often have trouble seeing the past.
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>That's why the story of Cory Maye is getting the attention it deserves. Cory Maye is a black man convicted of shooting a white police officer. No one disputes that that's exactly what he did.
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>The problem is, the cop had no good reason to be in his home, may have busted in without announcing himself, and evidence may have gotten planted along the way. Maye lived next door to a drug dealer, and owned a gun for protection. He used the gun exactly the way the NRA thinks people ought to, to defend himself and his 18 month-old daughter against an unknown intruder in the middle of the night.
>
>We can all agree that there's plenty of blame to go around. The cops should probably not have busted down his door. He probably shouldn't have shot the cop. The cops probably shouldn't have planted pot in the apartment. And so forth. But even if he actually had a joint stashed someplace, and even if the cops did announce themselves, there's no clear reason why Maye ought to be put to death.
>
>The death rows of America are populated by people like Cory Maye. Maybe they're innocent, maybe they're guilty. If guilty, they are not mass murdering sociopaths, they are people who fired a gun at the wrong time and in the wrong place. And even the mass murderers have the possibility of redemption.
>
>If only 100 of the very worst sociopaths, terrorists and ganglords had been put to death since 1976, no one would even notice the passing of Tookie Williams. But the fact that Cory Maye is on death row forces us to reconsider Tookie, too. And when we look at him in detail, not for his crimes but for his totality as a human, things start to look murky.
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>A system as flawed and arbitrary as this is not worthy of this nation, nor is the certainty of the death penalty reflective of our limits as mortal humans. End the death penalty, turn all the death sentences into life without parole. Then we can start over from scratch, if we want.
>
>�Joe Hill� by Utah Phillips from the album We Have Fed You All a Thousand Years (1993, 1:37).
>
>"The copper bosses they framed you Joe,"
>"They shot you, Joe" says I.
>"Takes more than guns to kill a man,"
>Says Joe, "I didn't die."
>posted by Josh Rosenau at 4:35 PM Comments (11) | Trackback (0)
>
>Old news
>Sebelius not interested in vouchers | LJWorld.com:
>
>Gov. Kathleen Sebelius today said she�s not interested in a proposal before the State Board of Education to use tax dollars to send students to private schools.
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>�What�s interesting to me is that in some ways the board is focusing on old news,� Sebelius said.
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>The issue of private school vouchers has been unsuccessfully pushed in the Legislature for more than a decade, she said.
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>�I�m hoping that what we can do is move forward, and look at what is going to make the most effective public school system possible ... not only in Kansas but in the country,� Sebelius said.
>Sounds like a good plan. Vouchers are a non-solution, especially for Kansas.
>
>More of TfK's voucher coverage.
>posted by Josh Rosenau at 11:57 AM Comments (2) | Trackback (0)
>
>Survivor
>Apparently it's still on the air. Who cares knew?
>posted by Josh Rosenau at 10:13 AM Comment (1) | Trackback (0)
>
>Republican Kansas State Treasurer: Remember the reason for the season �
>� spending:
>
>Remember the Reason for the Season
>
>State Treasurer Jenkins Urges Kansans to Give from the Heart, not the Pocketbook.
>
>December 2005 - Monthly Column
>
>I know I've done it. A child, family member or friend has told me about a particular item they've been dreaming about for months, but haven't bought for themselves because it was "just too expensive." It's the holiday season and I want them to be happy by receiving exactly what they want, so I buy it, even though it IS very expensive and it was much more than what I had budgeted.
>
>The holiday season is about giving thanks, family, good will towards your fellow men, and unfortunately, going into the poor house.
>Bring forth the dogs of war! The holiday season is about the miraculous persistence of one day's worth of oil for eight whole days, not petty baubles.
>
>Yes, friendship and family companionship while spinning a dreidl are important, as are gifts around the menorah, but let's not forget why we light candles for 8 days.
>
>We light candles in this season because we are celebrating the victory of King Rama over the demon Ravana or maybe Satyabhama's victory over Narakasura, and as people lit the king's path back from the battle, we celebrate by bringing light back to our houses and begin our affairs anew.
>
>If not candles, perhaps we light fireworks to celebrate the end of Ramadan, a month-long fast, and the Prophet's victory over his enemies at the battle of Badr.
>
>Or we don our dashikis to celebrate the seven principles of Blackness: Umoja (unity), Kujichagulia (self-determination), Ujima (collective work and responsibility), Ujamaa (cooperative economics), Nia (purpose), Kuumba (creativity), and Imani (faith).
>
>Faith.
>
>Whether we're celebrating Jesus' birth, the miracle of Hanukkah, the lights of Diwali, moral victory and peace at Eid, or our African heritage at Kwanzaa, we're celebrating faith. Not just Christian faith, nor just Jewish, Muslim, or Hindu faith. When we celebrate the new year, we celebrate new beginnings, which take a special kind of faith, the faith that what went wrong in the old year can be fixed. That's exactly the spirit that motivated people fighting a critical battle that was wrested from the teeth of failure, the ones who tended the eternal flame as a cask of oil lasted until more oil arrived, and people who were brought to this country as slaves, who, when freed, labored under oppressive laws, but still struggled on, aiming for something better.
>
>Happy Holidays.
>posted by Josh Rosenau at 9:39 AM Be the first to comment | Trackback (0)
>
>Not exactly
>KU: Mirecki left leadership post voluntarily:
>
>Kansas University stands firm, maintaining that religious studies professor Paul Mirecki voluntarily left his post as chairman of the department and disputing Mirecki�s recent allegations he was fired.
>While I agree that he was not fired from the post, I think that it's inaccurate to say that he left wholly voluntarily. My understanding is that he left as a result of pressure from the department, and he is asserting pressure from above as well. To call that voluntary is overly generous to KU, though to call it a firing is not quite right either.
>I'm inclined to side with the university here. My guess is that Mirecki is frustrated with the lack of progress by the police, is frustrated that his honor is being attacked, rather than the honor of his attackers, and he wants to lash out. If there were suspects in custody, he'd know who to lash out at, but there aren't, so he's going after people whose names he knows.
>Setting aside the lawsuit and the precise claims each side is making for a moment, I am troubled by the idea that he may have been pressured from above. I'm walking a line here, because I think it was probably wise for him to step out of his position of authority in the department for the time being. And if that's what his colleagues said that in a supportive way, and if his superiors approached him as colleagues and said the same thing, there's really nothing objectionable.
>
>But if he was forced out, it compounds the effects of the attacks by conservative legislators and commentators. If he stepped aside to protect himself, his department and his colleagues, it's great, but if he was pushed aside to give in to appease the forces arrayed against academic freedom, it's a problem.
>posted by Josh Rosenau at 9:03 AM Be the first to comment | Trackback (0)
>
>Monday, December 12, 2005
>Holiday Shopping
>As you do your Diwali shopping this holiday season, you can drop a little money on TfK by doing any Amazon.com shopping through the links in the sidebar. I don't care if you buy through Amazon.com or not, but if you do, I'd appreciate you starting your shopping from one of those links. It costs you nothing, and helps support TfK.
>
>And I can't recommend the Etymotic Research ER6i Isolator Earphones highly enough. If you buy them for the portable music fan in your life, he/she won't be disappointed.
>posted by Josh Rosenau at 11:21 PM Be the first to comment | Trackback (0)
>
>Very funny
>ThinkProgress has video evidence �Christmas Has Nuclear Weapons�:
>
>SEDER: I�d like to get back to the operational ties between Santa Claus and al Qaeda.
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>PHILLIPS: I don�t think that exists. Bob? Help me out here.
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>SEDER: We have intelligence, we have intelligence.
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>PHILLIPS: You have intel. Where exactly does your intel come from?
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>SEDER: Well, we have tortured an elf and it�s actually how we got the same information from Al Libbi. It�s exactly the same way the Bush administration got this info about the operational ties between al Qaeda and Saddam.
>At last, people treating the war on Christmas with the seriousness it so richly deserves.