Monte's Ramblings

Been Really Busy

2007-08-14T12:52:00.000+09:00

Well, Jackie and I finished our move to Hirosaki and my job in Kuroishi is officially over. I will start at Schole on the 16th, so just a few more days. Even being in this area for five years, I never did get to know Hirosaki very well. I know the Eki mae area and Dotemachi, the famous park, and that's about it.

The heat is almost unbearable these days, but the new apartment gets a good draft and has air conditioning, so we will get through it just fine.

Jackie is pregnant and was told that she can no longer work where she was because of the pregnancy, so money will be tight. Again, we will make it work out in the end.

Hopefully, with the new job, I will have more time to keep up on news and get to keeping this blog working right.

Oh yeah, the guy who replaced me in Kuroishi is cool. He has a blog here.

Talks Break Down Between the Koreas

2007-08-02T11:18:00.000+09:00

It looks like the Koreas are going to be icy for more time. They couldn't complete a high level summit on fishing grounds and water way uses. It seems that North Korean leader Kim insisted on continuously bringing up controversial issues so even issues that haven't caused much dispute couldn't even be addressed and worked on.
More here.

Subway in Amersterdam?

2007-07-26T15:47:00.000+09:00

I first saw something about this on the Discovery Channel about extreme engineering. Apparently, they think they can find a way to build a subway system in the waterlogged earth of Amsterdam, where even the buildings are known to sway due to all the water.

Just take a look at this picture to get an idea of what they are going to have to deal with.

Want to know how they think they can pull it off? Look here.

The World is Getting on Edge

2007-07-26T15:38:00.001+09:00

Russian bombers flew dangerously close to British Air space after a tussle that involved British expulsion of Russian diplomats. British fighter scrambled to intercept the bombers, but they turned back before any engagement proved necessary.

Source Link

House Votes to Protect Public Broadcasting

2007-07-26T15:28:00.000+09:00

I love public broadcasting. I like that it is free from media hype and sensationalism and that they tend to focus on things of importance versus their bottom line and attracting advertisers to fund their corporation. This could lead me to rant about how poor the media is in the US right now, not to mention Japan, too, but I am a bit pressed for time so I won't veer too far off topic.

Some studies suggest that those who get the bulk of their news from NPR and Public Broadcasting were the most informed on issues of political importance, with the media giants failing to inform their readers/ viewers by quite a large difference. This was markedly true of those who got the bulk of their information from Fox News -- those people were actually often times mis-informed! So, it came as no surprise then that Republicans used their tired mantra of "liberal bias" against NPR and Public Broadcasting. My joke was, well, if those entities are liberally biased, then reality must be, too, given that they give the most informed positions on the issues. I fail to see how this "fair and balanced" bull shit has come to mean that all deluded views get the same treatment. Fair and balanced should mean a healthy dose of facts, with some opinion and analysis thrown in, and out with hate-filled rants that deflect from reality and are devoid of any factual substantiation.

Okay, I guess I did rant...

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Source Link (Ironically CNN)

House protects public broadcasting

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House on Wednesday evening overwhelmingly rejected President Bush's plan to eliminate the $420 million federal subsidy for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The 357-72 vote demonstrated the enduring political strength of public broadcasting. The outcome was never in doubt, unlike a fight two years ago when Republicans tried but failed to slash public broadcasting subsidies.

The move to kill subsidies for the CPB, which make up about 15 percent of its budget, was launched by Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado.

"Taxpayers are being asked to pay more in taxes because Congress is not willing to make hard choices and balance our spending with our income," Lamborn said.

Congress created the corporation in 1967 to shield public broadcasting from political influence. The CPB distributes federal subsidies to PBS, National Public Radio and hundreds of public radio and television stations.

"It is providing a voice for America, a noncommercial, independent voice that is sadly lacking. It isn't available any place else in the million channels on our cable networks," said Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Oregon.

The vote came as the House for a second day debated a huge spending bill funding job training, education and health programs.

The underlying bill provides about $152 billion next year for programs whose budgets are set at lawmakers' discretion each year.

Among the largest increases is $2.2 billion to finance an increase of $260 in the maximum Pell Grant for college students.

More Government Corruption? No Way?!

2007-07-26T15:20:00.000+09:00

Two Republicans Congressfolk, and high profile ones at that, are facing the possibility of bribery charges in relation to an oil services company, called VECO Corp. Big surprise there, eh?

Senator Stevens of Alaska and Representative Young, also of Alaska, seem to be up to their necks in their own bull shit. I will laugh long and hard if they see jail time, particularly as they long established themselves as idiots long ago.

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source

Two US lawmakers face corruption probe

Two senior Republican lawmakers are reportedly under criminal investigation for alleged corruption linked to an Alaska oil services company.

Federal authorities are looking into whether Representative Don Young or Senator Ted Stevens accepted bribes, illegal gratuities or unreported gifts from VECO Corp., an oil field engineering firm in Alaska, the Wall Street Journal wrote, citing unnamed "people close to the case."

It remained unclear what the company may have received in return for the alleged favors, the newspaper said. The firm has won a series of federal government contracts since 2000, including projects to deliver logistics support for arctic research, it said.

The two lawmakers are the latest to come under federal investigation after a series of corruption probes in recent years that sent two members of Congress to prison and resulted in a bribery indictment of another lawmaker.

The investigations have hurt President George W. Bush's Republican party, with some party members blaming the corruption cases for helping hand their Democratic rivals control of Congress in legislative elections last year.

VECO is reportedly the focus of a federal probe of corruption in Alaska's state legislature but it was the first time Young has been linked to the inquiry, the Journal said.

Government authorities arrested three state lawmakers earlier this year as part of a sweeping corruption investigation in the state of Alaska. Former VECO chief executive officer Bill Allen agreed in May to plead guilty to charges of bribery, conspiracy and extortion.

A spokesman for Young, who has served 18 terms in the House of Representatives, declined to comment on any possible investigation, the paper said.

The newspaper reported the lawmaker has hired a criminal defense team and has paid out 262,000 dollars in legal fees in the past three months.

Stevens also declined to discuss the investigation.

"This investigation should proceed to its conclusion without any appearance that I have attempted to influence its outcome," the senator said through a spokesman, the paper reported.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation last year raided the offices of Stevens' son, Ben Stevens, and seized papers related to VECO's pipeline projects and other documents, the Journal said.

Kitty Kat Predicts Death

2007-07-26T15:17:00.000+09:00

I found this strange story while crawling the web about a cat that seems to know when elderly are about to die. If you like animals, then this will be for you.

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Feline Grim Reaper Stalks R.I. Nursing Home

(AP) PROVIDENCE, R.I. Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours.

His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means they have less than four hours to live.

"He doesn't make too many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die," said Dr. David Dosa in an interview. He describes the phenomenon in a poignant essay in Thursday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Many family members take some solace from it. They appreciate the companionship that the cat provides for their dying loved one," said Dosa, a geriatrician and assistant professor of medicine at Brown University.

The 2-year-old feline was adopted as a kitten and grew up in a third-floor dementia unit at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. The facility treats people with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and other illnesses.

After about six months, the staff noticed Oscar would make his own rounds, just like the doctors and nurses. He'd sniff and observe patients, then sit beside people who would wind up dying in a few hours.

Dosa said Oscar seems to take his work seriously and is generally aloof. "This is not a cat that's friendly to people," he said.

Oscar is better at predicting death than the people who workthere, said Dr. Joan Teno of Brown University, who treats patientsat the nursing home and is an expert on care for the terminally ill.

She was convinced of Oscar's talent when he made his 13th correct call. While observing one patient, Teno said she noticed the woman wasn't eating, was breathing with difficulty and that her legs had a bluish tinge, signs that often mean death is near.

Oscar wouldn't stay inside the room though, so Teno thought his streak was broken. Instead, it turned out the doctor's prediction was roughly 10 hours too early. Sure enough, during the patient's final two hours, nurses told Teno that Oscar joined the woman at her bedside.

Doctors say most of the people who get a visit from the sweet-faced, gray-and-white cat are so ill they probably don't know he's there, so patients aren't aware he's a harbinger of death. Most families are grateful for the advanced warning, although one wanted Oscar out of the room while a family member died. When Oscar is put outside, he paces and meows his displeasure.

No one's certain if Oscar's behavior is scientifically significant or points to a cause. Teno wonders if the cat notices telltale scents or reads something into the behavior of the nurses who raised him.

Nicholas Dodman, who directs an animal behavioral clinic at the Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and has read Dosa's article, said the only way to know is to carefully document how Oscar divides his time between the living and dying.

If Oscar really is a furry grim reaper, it's also possible his behavior could be driven by self-centered pleasures like a heated blanket placed on a dying person, Dodman said.

Nursing home staffers aren't concerned with explaining Oscar, so long as he gives families a better chance at saying goodbye to the dying.

Oscar recently received a wall plaque publicly commending his "compassionate hospice care."
link to source

Fidel Castro Once Again Bows Out of Public Festivities

2007-07-26T15:11:00.000+09:00

Fidel Castro, love him or hate him, is one of those people that you just think is never going to die. An eternal enemy; a great menace meant for film. However, as the world is prone to do, reality eventually catches up and shows us that we all are, indeed, mortal. Even the great rulers.

One can say whatever they want about Fidel Castro, but he managed to stay in power, in defiance of the will of the US for around 50 years! That's a long ass time. It will be interesting to watch Cuba as Fidel fades more and more into the background and eventually leaves the mortal plane behind. We may be seeing the end of an Era.

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Castro bows out of yet another major Cuban event

By Marc Frank Wed Jul 25, 12:37 PM ET

HAVANA (Reuters) - Convalescing Cuban leader Fidel Castro has bowed out of Thursday's Revolution Day festivities, with his stand-in and brother, Raul Castro, to speak in his place, the government said on Wednesday.

"Raul will speak tomorrow" blared a red banner headline of the Communist party newspaper Granma.

The news was hardly a surprise to most Cubans and foreign observers as Fidel Castro has repeatedly failed to appear in public since undergoing the first of a series of intestinal operations a year ago.

"We'll be waiting for him. If Fidel can't make it, who better than Raul to be here," said Norma Iglesias, a teacher in the central town of Camaguey where this year's festivities marking the launch of Castro's revolution are taking place.

Castro has traditionally delivered a state of the union style speech on July 26 in the province deemed to have been the most socially and economically successful each year.

The date marks a 1953 assault on a military barracks that failed but nevertheless led to the formation of Castro's revolutionary movement, which toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

Castro, who turns 81 next month, has not made a public appearance since his illness, although he has written a series of editorial columns in the state-run media. Recent videos broadcast on television of him being interviewed and meeting foreign allies have shown him looking stronger.

Castro's last public appearance was on July 26 last year in eastern Holguin province. Five days later, he temporarily ceded power to Raul Castro, who remains at the head of the government.

The younger Castro, 76, has seemingly managed his first year in office with little difficulty, though expectations he would reform one of the most centralized state-dominated economies in the world have so far proved unfounded.

Fidel Castro's exact condition and whereabouts remain state secrets and the balance of power between the brothers is also shrouded in secrecy.

"Raul Castro's style is different -- no long speeches, no middle-of-the-night meetings, open criticism of economic performance and demands for results," said Phil Peters, a Cuba expert at the Virginia-based Lexington Institute policy group.

"But he is respecting his interim role. As a result, his policy preferences won't be known until Fidel leaves the scene."

That also appeared to be the perspective of some of the Castro brothers' contemporaries in Camaguey on Wednesday.

"In the end, Raul will bring Fidel's message to Camagueyans and that's how we will receive him," retiree Roberto Garcia said in a telephone interview.

The Pope Defends Evolution!

2007-07-26T14:55:00.000+09:00

The Catholics have always been more, well, logical, if not necessarily, reasonable, than the Protestants. I mean, the Papacy still asserts itself as the only true path to salvation, while at the same time "honoring" ecumenical talks between faiths. Note that they just reasserted their exclusive doctrine this year.

So, in some ways, it was a bit of a surprise to see the Papacy admit that evolution rests in a foundation of facts and has collected a solid amount of evidence. Given how some of the more conservative Bishops have been talking, this might cause some trans-Atlantic tension for Pope Sidious, err Benedict, but I'm glad to see him give his support of evolution some publicity, as it means that he, at least, isn't trying to recreate a one tiered world of Papal Privilege as many people feared.

Pope Darth Sidious Benedict implores you to follow him to greatness...

Here is the full story:
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Pope Benedict admits evidence for evolution

POPE Benedict has said there is substantial scientific proof of the theory of evolution.

The Pope, speaking as he was concluding his holiday in northern Italy, also said the human race must listen to "the voice of the Earth" or risk destroying its very existence.

In a talk with 400 priests, the Pope spoke of the current debate raging in some countries, particularly the US and his native Germany, between creationism and evolution.

“They are presented as alternatives that exclude each other,” the Pope said.

“This clash is an absurdity because on one hand there is much scientific proof in favour of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such.”

But he said evolution did not answer all the questions and could not exclude a role by God.

“Above all it does not answer the great philosophical question 'where does everything come from?'“

His comments appear to be an endorsement of the doctrine of intelligent design.

Climate change

Benedict is wrapping up a three-week private holiday in the majestic mountains of northern Italy where residents are alarmed by the prospect of climate change that can alter their way of life.

A full transcript of the two-hour event was issued yesterday.

“We all see that today man can destroy the foundation of his existence, his Earth,” he said.

“We cannot simply do what we want with this Earth of ours, with what has been entrusted to us,” said the Pope, who has been spending his time reading and walking in the scenic landscape bordering Austria.

World religions have shown a growing interest in the environment, particularly the ramifications of climate change.

The Pope, leader of some 1.1 billion Roman Catholics worldwide, said: “We must respect the interior laws of creation, of this Earth, to learn these laws and obey them if we want to survive.”

“This obedience to the voice of the Earth is more important for our future happiness ... than the desires of the moment.

"Our Earth is talking to us and we must listen to it and decipher its message if we want to survive,” he said.

Last April the Vatican sponsored a scientific conference on climate change to underscore the role that religious leaders around the world could play in reminding people that wilfully damaging the environment is sinful.

Someone Had an Unlucky Day

2007-07-26T14:50:00.000+09:00

A New York man managed to get himself arrested three times in less than 3 hours! This is a Western phenomenon that I really quite miss. This has to be one of the greatest displays of intentional stupidity I have ever seen! And you have to be committed to stupidity to pull this one off.

Once, twice, three times arrested

ONEIDA, N.Y. - A central New York man hit the criminal justice trifecta, three arrests in three hours. Kevin Rich, 40, was charged early Sunday morning with soliciting money from people and loitering.

A little more than an hour later he was charged with disorderly conduct for stepping in front of a vehicle, causing the driver, an off-duty police officer, to slam on his brakes.

Around 2:30 that same morning, police say Rich was arrested a third time after taking money from people after telling them he ran out of gas and needed to get to another town. Police say Rich has no car.

Rich was sent to the Madison County Jail and is due back in court later this week.

House Moving on Contempt Charges

2007-07-25T15:21:00.000+09:00

I am personally happy to see this go forward. This executive privilege BS needs to be dealt with and buried, allocated to the dark, dusty corners of US history. The executive branch needs to be open to the other branches of government. After all, the executive merely executes the laws legislated by Congress, so one would think that Congress has a right to ensure that the laws they legislate are being executed properly. That is, after all, the reason why it says, in the US Constitution, that the Congress has oversight responsibilities on the Executive branch!

Will this go anywhere? Well, not for a long time. The Justice Department has a hard on for Bush as Alberto and Dubya are buddies. It will be interesting to follow.

House to Move on Contempt Action Against Bush Aides
By Richard B. Schmitt
The Los Angeles Times

Tuesday 24 July 2007

Washington - The House Judiciary Committee said Monday that it would move forward with contempt of Congress proceedings against President Bush's chief of staff, Joshua Bolten, and former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers for refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas pertaining to the investigation of the firing of eight U.S. attorneys last year.

The panel's chairman, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., said the committee would vote Wednesday on a resolution to hold Bolten and Miers in contempt for refusing to turn over documents and testimony sought by the panel.

The decision ratchets up a battle between Congress and the White House in which the Bush administration has sought to invoke executive privilege to keep documents about the firings under wraps. The resolution would go to the House floor for a vote if, as expected, the committee approves it.

Only twice since the Watergate investigations of the mid-1970s has the full House voted to hold an administration official in contempt of Congress.

In 1982, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Anne Gorsuch refused to turn over documents; a year later, another EPA official, Rita Lavelle, refused to appear before a House committee. The Justice Department refused to prosecute Gorsuch, and Lavelle was acquitted in court.

"This investigation, including the reluctant but necessary decision to move forward with contempt, has been a very deliberative process, taking care at each step to respect the executive branch's legitimate prerogatives," Conyers said.

"I've allowed the White House and Ms. Miers every opportunity to cooperate with this investigation, either voluntarily or under subpoena. It is still my hope that they will reconsider this hard-line position, and cooperate with our investigation so that we can get to the bottom of this matter," he said.

Democrats have seized on the dismissals of the U.S. attorneys, all appointed by Bush, because of evidence that some were removed because they were not pursuing cases that would further Republican Party goals. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales is expected to be questioned about his role in the dismissals in an appearance Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Gonzales has been criticized for giving what lawmakers considered to be conflicting explanations about the depth of his involvement in the firings. He is also facing questions about a conversation he had with a former top aide, Monica Goodling, who said he attempted to discuss the firings with her before she was questioned by congressional investigators.

In his prepared testimony for the hearing, distributed Monday by the Justice Department, Gonzales, whose tenure once seemed imperiled by the controversy, said he remained troubled by the allegations of politicization at the department. But he vowed to stay at the department to "fix the problems."

Congressional investigators have reviewed thousands of pages of Justice Department documents and testimony, but the investigation has hit a wall at the White House, which has declined to make officials available for public questioning under oath.

The administration has offered to make some officials available for private questioning without a transcript and without the opportunity for follow-up questions. Lawmakers have said those conditions are unacceptable.

"It seems now that we have a fishing expedition that's woefully short on fish," White House spokesman Tony Snow said Monday. "This is one of these things where Congress can get its facts and do its due diligence without having to get to this point, and we continue to hold open the possibility of accommodation."

Under federal law, being in contempt of Congress is a misdemeanor, and cases are referred to the U.S. Attorney's office for the District of Columbia for prosecution. The penalty is one to 12 months in jail and $100 to $1,000 in fines.

Snow reiterated Monday that the administration likely would attempt to block any effort to prosecute Miers or Bolten. The White House has cited Justice Department legal opinions that contend the law does not allow for criminal proceedings against administration officials who assert executive privilege for refusing to answers lawmakers' questions.

"Certainly the tradition, when it comes to dealing with ... such matters, has been one in which, for separation of powers reasons, the Justice Department has in fact been reluctant to do such things," Snow said, adding that any final decision would be made by the Justice Department.

If the Judiciary Committee passes the contempt resolution Wednesday, it is not clear when it would reach the House floor. With Congress going on summer vacation after next week, some observers said the vote might not happen until after Labor Day.

Miers became White House counsel in February 2005, when plans for replacing some of the U.S. attorneys were formulated. One was told in the middle of last year that he was being replaced and seven lost their jobs on the same day in December. Miers resigned a month later.

Miers, who was called to testify before the Judiciary Committee on July 12, had alerted the committee that she was invoking executive privilege and would not answer questions. Ultimately, she chose not to attend the hearing, citing orders from Bush.

Bolten was the recipient of a subpoena for White House documents pertaining to the investigation. White House counsel Fred Fielding told lawmakers June 28 that the White House considered the documents protected by executive privilege and that officials would not be providing them.

The Likely Belgian Prime Minister Doesn't Know His National Anthem

2007-07-25T15:13:00.000+09:00

I find this incredibly amusing for several reasons.

1) A top politician looking foolish is always fun.

2) The politician in question, Yves Leterme, is a Flemish politician in Belgium, where tensions are running high between Dutch speakers and French speakers. Leterme is on record calling French speakers stupid and lazy for not learning Flemish, so finding him unable to remember even the opening words to his country's national anthem is amusing.

3) He even went on record saying that the Independence festivities are a celebration of the Belgian Constitution, when it is, in fact, celebrating the accession of King Leopold I of Belgium.

I just can't ever get enough of watching Politicians make asses of themselves. It's sad, I know, but since we see so few good people willing to be politicians, we might as well get something out of the shit they create.

Say It Ain't So!

2007-07-25T14:34:00.000+09:00

It turns out that the massively overhyped Iphone is going to cause Apple some problems for the foreseeable future. Its about time that the rest of the world put the Apple Zombies in their place and showed them that just because it looks pretty doesn't mean it's any good. Apple sucks. End of story. I mean, really, you all can stop proselytizing about your Great Enlightenment. We get it. You are a Cult.

This is a frantic Apple Zombie about to meet the Fist of Truth aiming for her face:

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Apple falls on initial iPhone activation numbers

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shares of Apple Inc fell 4 percent on Tuesday after AT&T Inc issued initial subscriber numbers for customers of Apple's iPhone that were below analyst estimates.

Shares of Apple were off $5.70 to $138.02 on Nasdaq after AT&T, the exclusive service provider for iPhone, said it signed up 146,000 iPhone customers as subscribers in the first two days of iPhone sales, well below analyst estimates for sales.

Pacific Crest analyst Andy Hargreaves said that while iPhone sales figures for coming months would be more telling than the first few days, AT&T's number had disappointed investors as some analysts estimated sales "north of 500,000."

Hargreaves had himself estimated 400,000 iPhone sales for the first two days, he said.

"The difference (between sales and activations) is going to be what was sold on eBay or activations that didn't happen immediately. There were some problems with activations but from what we heard it was minimal," the analyst said.

Apple and AT&T had attracted long lines of gadget enthusiasts to their stores when the much-hyped iPhone first went on sale in the evening of June 29.

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Did you get that? Anticipated sales over 500,000 and they managed to sign up a paltry 146,000. Ouch! That's gotta hurt!

Clairvoyant Princess?

2007-07-25T14:20:00.000+09:00

Norway's Princess, Martha Louise, has convinced herself that she has psychic powers, and can communicate with animals and even angels. Not only that, but she wants to teach others how to do the same, and with that in mind, has opened up a business venture that can be reached online.

Unfortunately, I can't read the language, but I think its all about that New Age mystical stuff. Her business is Astarte Education so feel free to check it out and read up, if you feel interested or just bored enough to need a quick laugh.

From Norway's English Paper, Aftenposten:

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Princess claims clairvoyant powers, aims to share them
Norway's Princess Märtha Louise, daughter of King Harald and Queen Sonja, has emerged as a clairvoyant, and is launching an alternative school aimed at training students to contact angels. Officials at the Royal Palace won’t comment on the princess' latest business venture.

The princess' business partner has publicly confirmed the training program, which is billed as a means of "getting in touch with your own truths" through "readings, healing, crystals and hands-on treatment."

The princess, who still officially represents the Royal Family at various events, has named her new venture after "one of the oldest goddesses in the Middle East," Astarte, and its website is registered at her home address in Lommedalen, just west of Oslo. The telephone number listed is that for the Royal Palace in Oslo.

Even though use of the palace's phone number implies the business is indirectly supported by the Royal Palace, palace officials won't comment on it.

"The palace never expresses itself on the princess' private business ventures," said a tight-lipped Sven Gjeruldsen, information adviser on the palace staff. He referred further questions to the contact information on Astarte’s web site.

The princess wrote on her school's new website, Astarte Education, that she's "always been interested in alternative treatment programs," suggesting she's had psychic abilities since she was a little girl.

"I especially remember one time I met a woman when I was small," Princess Märtha Louise wrote. "I went up to her and said she didn't need to be sad about her husband, that things would go well between them."

The woman was astonished, according to the princess, and "wondered who had told me this. There was a big commotion, and many fearful adults, because none of them wanted her to think one of them had gossiped," Märtha Louise wrote.

Communicating with animals
The 35-year-old princess was educated as a physiotherapist, trained as a Rosen therapist and also has studied at an academy for holistic medicine "where I learned to systematize sensual impressions to read others, and through horses I learned to communicate with animals on a deeper level."

Märtha Louise, who competed in equestrian events for several years, said that she started "taking contact with angels" when she worked with horses. "I have later learned the value of this enormous gift, and want to share it with others," she said.

The princess has launched Astarte Education with a friend, Elisabeth Samnøy, who describes herself on the website as a former ship mechanic who also attended a holistic academy.

"After that I have been in a process where angels and their frequency opened contact with the divine in my heart," Samnøy wrote.

The pair concedes that their training program isn't sanctioned by Norwegian education authorities. Courses will be offered twice a week over three years, at a cost of NOK 12,000 per half-year.Students are obligated to sign up for at least one year at a time.

A Tad Bit Disturbing

2007-07-25T14:08:00.000+09:00

This is a tad bit on the disturbing side. It's been long known that Japan has a fascination for all things cute. Well, the Japanese federal government seems to have decided to take this and run with it, using cute characters to explain itself and its policies. This includes their department of defence, which has decided to use a little girl in a maid outfit to explain their policies, who often times tussles with her stuffed teddy bear, which is apparently a foreign policy hawk.

This was one of the least perverted images I could find, by the way. One of the things that has made this comic so successful, particularly in the Otaku crowd, is the borderline panels drawn that come as close to crossing the line of decency as can be drawn.

From the Mainichi Shinbun:

Defense Ministry turns to 'Lolita' manga character to reveal inner self

From the successor of the government ministry that gave the world Pearl Harbor and the Rape of Nanking now comes a cutesy little girl cartoon character dressed as a maid with a hawkish stuffed teddy bear to give a simple explanation of Japan's defense policies, according to Cyzo (August).

Growing numbers of government agencies have used borderline pedophile manga characters to promote their activities in recent years, but it's the Defense Ministry's little girl character that is attracting attention among Japan's otaku, the monthly says.

In the "Manga de Yomu Boeisho Hakusho (Defense Ministry White Papers in Manga)" series printed in 2005, a little girl wearing "Lolita" fashions and an apron is involved in exchanges -- sometimes violently -- with a hawkish stuffed teddy bear as they rumble over the way Japan should defend itself.

News of the story spread through Japan's Internet and by word of mouth and turned the manga into a hit, with second and third editions hitting the bookstores rapidly. It seemed a given that the publisher, Japan Defense Foundation for Mutual Aid, would be given the contract to print last year's manga version of the ministry's white papers, but things didn't quite turn out that way.

"Publishing rights are decided in public bidding and another company undercut us," a spokesman from the Japan Defense Foundation for Mutual Aid tells Cyzo. "But it was such a popular book that we didn't want its success to end after only a single year. We asked the same author of the 2005 edition to draw up another manga using the same characters in a way that would help readers to understand what's going on with the defense of Japan."

The new book "Heiwa no Kuni no Nebaarando (The Neverland of the Peaceful Country)" has also proved to be as popular as its predecessor, with sales going well since its January release.

Japan Defense Foundation for Mutual Aid is confident its cutesy manga characters can drum up plenty of support for an industry that revolves around defending people.

"It's pretty serious contents," a group spokesman tells Cyzo. "But we figure the manga characters are easy to relate to and will make the difficult issues more accessible for kids and young adults to understand." (By Ryann Connell)

July 24, 2007

Odd Stuff

2007-07-25T14:01:00.000+09:00

As people can probably tell, I am really quite bored at work these days, given that it is now summer vacation and I have no more classes to deal with. In some ways this is great. I can finish lots of planning for my move on the weekend, but that isn't enough to get my by for an entire day. So, instead of wasting my time playing online games at work, I've decided to start reading things again and try to get into the habit of breathing life into this blog. Yesterday, I spammed it up with political articles so I will try to shy away from that today and instead focus on odd things I find on the internet. So, here goes nothing.

I had heard stories of the infamous South East Asian transsexual phenomenon, but didn't realize it had gone to such extremes. There seems to be a small Hindu cult with a patron deity to transsexuals with its temple in one of the adherents grandmother's house. The only problem is that it has generated international acclaim but the state it is housed in refuses to give them any land to build a proper temple. Well, this hasn't stopped them from holding festivals:

Devotees from Malaysia and Singapore fulfil vows to deity for transsexuals

By WANI MUTHIAH

KLANG: The five-day celebrations dedicated to Goddess Bahuchara Mataji, the Hindu presiding deity for transsexuals, ended yesterday in a ceremony that saw some 400 participants from Malaysia and Singapore at a temple in Pandamaran near here.

The temple, dedicated to the deity whose main temple is in Shankhalpoor in Gujarat, India, is owned and managed by the local Hindu transgender community.

The celebrations began last Thursday with the highlight on the third day when devotees fulfilled vows by carrying pal kudam (milk pots) and thee chatti (earthen pots with fire).

Dressed in green sarees, the official colour for Bahuchara Mataji, the entourage, led by the community’s matriarch M. Asha Devi, 63, carried the pal kudam and thee chatti to the temple.

This was followed by a chariot procession in the evening with Pandamaran assemblyman Datuk Dr Teh Kim Poo as the event’s special guest.

Asha Devi said preparations for the celebrations began several months ago, as arrangements had to be made to accommodate the devotees.

“Devotees also prepare themselves by fasting for at least three months before carrying the pal kudam and thee chatti,” said Asha Devi, who runs a food outlet in Kuala Lumpur.

According to her, a flag bearing the Goddess’ emblem was raised on the first day followed by an ubayam (special prayers) on the second day.

“The fourth day was also observed with prayers for Mataji. On the final day, which is today, we have special prayers for a male deity known as Veera Vetai Karar Muniandy followed by anathanam (feeding of the masses),” she added.

Meanwhile, S. Komathi, 50, who cooked for the devotees, said this year’s event was special as they were praying hard to obtain a piece of land from the state government to build a proper temple.

“The temple is currently situated in the home of one of our members’ grandmothers. Due to space constraints we cannot do any renovation,” said Komathi who owns a flower shop in Klang.

Komathi said the community badly needed a bigger temple to accommodate the crowd.

“In the past, it was only our community which prayed here but now others are also coming to the temple.”

For K. Janani, 27, who came all the way from Singapore to carry the pal kudam, the event was both fun and colourful.

“I like the festive atmosphere. I have been coming here for the past two years to offer prayers as our community does not have a dedicated temple in Singapore,” Janani added.

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Very odd, indeed.

On RIAA Cluelessness

2007-07-24T15:32:00.000+09:00

I've long had it out for the RIAA. I absolutely cannot stand them. The way they treat the "artists," and I use the term loosely as such icons as Britney Spears are called "artists," their insatiable greed and lust of power are all revolting. Their litigation campaigns against ordinary people only help solidify these images in my mind.

I used to be able to rant long about the RIAA, how they create "music" like Backstreet Boys, defend lip-synchers as "artists," such as Ashlee Simpson (I think that's the right one,) and do everything they can to keep individual small labels out of the realms of profit.

Personally, I think that is why they vie so hard against file sharing. With fearless file sharing, it is much easier to find good music from small independent labels that don't have the vast sum of money for advertising through such media giants as MTV and Clear Channel, not to mention have the integrity not to associate with such personality strippers as the aforementioned.

Anyway, here's a good up to date article on the current stage of the controversy. Note that the RIAA is still clueless, though they have seen to woken up to some inconvenient facts that they had earlier been in denial of.

RIAA says lawsuits cannot be the complete answer to music piracy
Business and Law
By Bruce Gain
Monday, July 23, 2007 10:47

The Recording Industry Association of America’s massive lawsuit campaign to crack down on music pirates has generated a lot of bad PR, while any good that has come out of it remains controversial at best. In a recent conversation with TG Daily, the RIAA acknowledged that suing potential customers “was not the answer,” while adding that the lawsuits were “a necessary part of a larger equation.”

“Litigation tends to generate more heat, friction, and headlines,” Jonathan Lamy, a spokesman for the RIAA told us. “What is the most important anti-piracy strategy is aggressive licensing and offering great legal alternatives. That is what our member companies obviously do and our job is to complement that, which is the most important thing to do to win over fans.”

According to the latest statistics from the RIAA, there were over 7.8 million households in March 2007 in the U.S. that illegally downloaded music versus 6.9 million households in April 2003, when the litigation campaign began. However, while this number suggests that the lawsuits have been counter-productive there is also the fact that the broadband penetration rate in the U.S. has also more than doubled since 2003.

Still, whether or not the litigation has had much of an effect in mitigating piracy, the benefits for society, as well as for the recording industry, remain debatable.

“I don’t think [the litigation] has made a meaningful dent in how much piracy goes on among American young people,” John Palfrey, a clinical professor of law at Harvard Law School and executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. “And I think it continues to represent a signal that the recording industry is out of step with the future, and frankly out of step with the present as well [….] But it is more importantly, I think, a distraction from finding the way forward in a digital age.”

Besides its questionable benefits, the RIAA’s lawsuit dragnet that has involved over 21,000 legal actions in the U.S. since 2003 and has ensnared some innocent parties in its wake.

One such person wrongly accused was Tanya Andersen, a single mother who is also disabled, against whom the RIAA only recently dismissed its lawsuit against her for allegedly having shared 1400 pirated music files.

The claim was dismissed with “prejudice,” meaning that the RIAA or the record companies it represents must pay her attorney fees.

But the RIAA’s dismissal of the case came after more than a year after Ms. Andersen first received a letter from RIAA lawyers claiming she was liable for a minimum of $750 for each of the 1400 songs they claimed she downloaded.

Ms. Andersen, who had never heard of the songs and artists she allegedly pirated then offered to surrender her computer as proof that she had not downloaded the files. But instead, the RIAA’s continued to litigate with same zealousness as if it were going up against a large corporation.

Ms. Andersen’s eventual legal victory is but one example of other dismissals of RIAA cases, which were dropped after over a year of depositions, trials, and numerous other time-consuming procedures the defendants were subjected to but not compensated for.

Federal judges have rejected RIAA’s legal claims in federal courts in Oklahoma, New York, and in Michigan.

Some of the defendants are taking a more aggressive approach in fighting back. Defendant Suzy Del Cid in Florida recently filed a counter claims against UMG for computer fraud and abuse, extortion and trespassing when her computer was accessed.

As far as bad PR goes, it does not get much worse when a multi-million dollar legal machine wrongfully attacks single mothers with limited financial resources to fight back. But instead, the RIAA has extended its litigation campaign.

The RIAA has begun to target college campuses, much to the ire of university officials and some politicians. In what it called a “fifth wave” of pre-litigation letters, the RIAA said its lawyers have sent over 395 letters to 19 universities demanding settlement fees. The organization also has asked universities to forward copyright infringement complaints to students for file sharing on school networks to; reactions are pouring in and not all universities said they will follow the idea: Harvard was among the first that said that it will ignore the RIAA’s request. Instead, more and more universities are beginning to enforce their own piracy policies: For example, the University of Kansas is reported to have implemented a new copyright infringement policy for the students, which says that students who are caught downloading copyrighted material will lose their privileges on the university’s residential network “forever”.

From the view of the RIAA, it is unlikely that the litigation will end anytime in the near future.

“They know what they are doing. They are not going to wake up one morning and say ‘oh, gee, there is a new method of distributing music,’” Lory R. Lybeck, Andersen's attorney from Lybeck Murphy of Mercer Island, Washington, said. “I think what it is going to take is for the artists and the general public to say ‘you guys are dead. You’ve been dead for a long time.’”

The settlement fees are certainly not paying for the litigation costs, either, Ray Beckerman, a New York-based attorney with Beldock Levine & Hoffman, who has represented defendant clients against RIAA claims, said.

“It has cost them more than they've collected,” Beckerman said in an email. “They've accomplished nothing, other than to create a whole class of people who are boycotting their product.”

In fairness, the majority of the 21,000 IP addresses targeted for illegal file downloads in the U.S. are probably at fault in the legal sense. Litigation is by no means the only strategy the recording industry employs to thwart music file pirating, either.

“No one relished having to take all these actions, but they have undeniably played a big role in raising awareness that unauthorized file-sharing is illegal and they have helped contain levels of file-sharing,” a spokesman for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry - the international equivalent of the RIAA – wrote to us in an email. “But legal actions are in no way a strategy in isolation - making great music services available is key, as is public education. At the same time it’s recognized that, effective as they are, lawsuits against illegal-file sharing are only the second best way to stop mass piracy on the internet.”

Instead, the recording industry’s main emphasis is more focused on the ISPs, the spokesman said. “They have the ability and the opportunity to make a huge difference simply by enforcing their terms and conditions against people file-sharing on their networks and disconnecting infringers,” the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry said.

But while statistic show that the RIAA is getting its message across that downloading music files without paying for them is illegal, many do not deem sharing files from a CD that they or someone else has paid for as stealing or morally wrong. People know that smoking marijuana or driving above the speed limit without endangering the welfares of others, are against the law, for example, but people do not necessarily see these acts as immoral.

“[Studies] show a continued sense on the part of American young people that file sharing may be wrong on the law but it is acceptable as a moral matter,” Palfrey said.

The artists who stand to lose money are often hardly advocates of the massive litigation campaign, either.

Rick Mason, for example, the drummer for Pink Floyd recently told this writer how he believed that artists need to be paid for their work, but that lawsuits were the wrong approach.

Instead, artists’ compensation should increase with new music distribution methods, Lybeck said. “They should let the music authors actually share some of the profit, which [the RIAA] has had a strong hold on in the distribution scheme for 50 years,” Lybeck said. “There is a whole new distribution capability, and the [RIAA] guys are not needed--and they know it.”

Chinese Rock Music

2007-07-24T15:12:00.000+09:00

I found this to be a fun and entertaining, as well as informative, read, regarding rock music in China and some of its festivals. I like its early ties to Tianneman square and the brief mention of how it has left that behind, much like in the West. I thought it'd be a nice break from all the politics I've been posting today.

From Tiananmen to Inner Mongolia: China's Musical Challenge
By J. Sri Raman
t r u t h o u t | Columnist

Thursday 19 July 2007

Some 10,000 tents have sprung up, all of a sudden, on a vast green area in north China's Inner Mongolia. To some, the scene might recall the eve of a Genghis Khan expedition into a country that has coped with many a covetous invader. What it augurs today, however, is a weekend of music - and much more.

On July 20-22, China will host a cultural event of a curious kind and complex significance. The Green Flag Rock Festival, to be celebrated here, will be a gala affair, to go by official and media publicity given to the occasion. Guitar-strumming participants from not only the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong but also Taiwan, Mongolia and Tuva (a republic of the Russian federation) are gathering at this far-away venue to present an interesting fusion of pop and politics.

It was not exactly a publicity blitz for the festival that started in Beijing a month ago. The media announcements of the event did not seem to create any mass excitement, at least none visible to a foreign visitor like me. But then, no one ever claimed that rock or pop music was part of the mainstream Chinese culture. The music still mattered: it had once made a political difference, and can do so again, though not in the same way.

The appeal of the mainstream Chinese music was obvious. One could see and hear it, any time of the day, on the CCTV (China Central Television) in one's hotel room. On the music channel of the country's largest TV network, classical operas keep up a continuous stream of music from the lips of colorfully attired actors on the stage with painted backdrops.

As the veteran warrior or any other vintage character, swinging his stick-on beard for effect, elaborates musical phrases with his on-stage companion, an obvious connoisseur, nodding and shaking his head appreciatively, the audience breaks into spontaneous applause. Coming from India with its own street theater and similarly savored classical music, it was easy for me to empathize. As easy, perhaps, as it may be hard for the average Chinese audience to respond to something like rock.

Confucian values like "filial piety" may not coexist comfortably with responsiveness to rebellious rock, but China does have its own following for this form of music. The Chinese rock tradition is only a few years older than the Tiananmen student protest (1989), for which it helped pave the way, however limited its contribution. The tradition continues, though the music has been transformed, in both its medium and message. The rock song of that protest, hailed by some as the "anthem of Tiananmen," was Cui Jian's 'Nothing to My Name' (less frequently translated as 'I Own Nothing'). Charismatic Cui sang: "I am giving you my aspirations/And my freedom too./But you always laugh at me/Because I have nothing." Fellow-protester Chang Kuan asked: "While the granddads in their seventies lead the nation,/Uncles in their sixties take care of modernization,/Those in their fifties retire and take it easy;/Our brothers in their forties are with money-making busy./They say only once you're thirty do you really understand./But where in all this do we twenty-year-olds stand?/Some are busy with Reform, others go overseas./So what's left for us twenty-year-olds - can someone tell me, please?"

Cui, now in his mid-forties, is called the "father" and sometimes even the "grandfather" of Chinese rock. And the twenties of Chang are as dim and distant a memory as Tiananmen itself. The point to note is that both Cui and Chang have continued, though they practice rock as a profession, too. They have continued to hold concerts and sing to screaming fans, though without drawing huge crowds.

Tiananmen Square is no big draw for the tourists today. Much bigger crowds throng the Forbidden City, right opposite the venue of the protest that the much-trumpeted support from the West actually weakened. The protest was then officially pilloried as nothing more than a plot hatched abroad, Beijing today takes a more benign view of the rebellion - as well as the rock.

Not all rock musicians take kindly to the official approval of "rock with Chinese characteristics." But the organizers of this weekend's event themselves claim such characteristics for it. Jiang Shilong, lead singer of the Old Demon of the Western Mountain (Xishan Laoyao), says, "The Chinese rock music does not mean decadence, confusion or extremes, but love, responsibility and dreams."

Green movements elsewhere may have got along well with rock music, but no organizer of any other rock festival would have emphasized an ecological point with Jiang's force. Says he, "I hope our audience at the festival will pay attention to the environment and won't litter, which has been a problem at many such festivals."

This rock festival will certainly not be one of rebellion in the familiar sense of the word. Whether it will still voice aspirations of a new China, only listeners from this ancient land can tell. We will have to wait for the strains from Inner Mongolia to waft into the outside world.

Interegation Rules

2007-07-24T15:09:00.001+09:00

I'm bringing this one up since Bush recently "revised" the rules and the headlines led me to believe that actual change happened. I read the articles and found out that he kept the rules but put them in a more aesthetically pleasing package, ie changed the language in the documents but not the policies. The media fails again...

Bush Alters Rules for CIA Interrogations
By Katherine Shrader
The Associated Press

Saturday 21 July 2007

Washington - President Bush breathed new life into the CIA's terror interrogation program Friday in an executive order that would allow harsh questioning of suspects, limited in public only by a vaguely worded ban on cruel and inhuman treatment.

The order bars some practices such as sexual abuse, part of an effort to quell international criticism of some of the CIA's most sensitive and debated work. It does not say what practices would be allowed.

The executive order is the White House's first public effort to reach into the CIA's five-year-old terror detention program, which has been in limbo since a Supreme Court decision last year called its legal foundation into question.

Officials would not provide any details on specific interrogation techniques that the CIA may use under the new order. In the past, its methods are believed to have included sleep deprivation and disorientation, exposing prisoners to uncomfortable cold or heat for long periods, stress positions and - most controversially - the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding.

The Bush administration has portrayed the interrogation operation as one of its most successful tools in the war on terror, while opponents have said the agency's techniques have left a black mark on the United States' reputation around the world.

Bush's order requires that CIA detainees "receive the basic necessities of life, including adequate food and water, shelter from the elements, necessary clothing, protection from extremes of heat and cold, and essential medical care."

A senior intelligence official would not comment directly when asked if waterboarding would be allowed under the new order and under related - but classified - legal documents drafted by the Justice Department.

However, the official said, "It would be wrong to assume the program of the past transfers to the future."

A second senior administration official acknowledged sleep is not among the basic necessities outlined in the order.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the order more freely.

Skeptical human rights groups did not embrace Bush's effort.

Tom Malinowski, Washington director for Human Rights Watch, said the broad outlines in the public order don't matter. The key is in the still-classified guidance distributed to CIA officers.

As a result, the executive order requires the public to trust the president to provide adequate protection to detainees. "Given the experience of the last few years, they have to be naive if they think that is going to reassure too many people," he said.

The order specifically refers to captured al-Qaida suspects who may have information on attack plans or the whereabouts of the group's senior leaders. White House press secretary Tony Snow said the CIA's program has saved lives and must continue on a sound legal footing.

"The president has insisted on clear legal standards so that CIA officers involved in this essential work are not placed in jeopardy for doing their job - and keeping America safe from attacks," he said.

The five-page order reiterated many protections already granted under U.S. and international law. It said that any conditions of confinement and interrogation cannot include:

* Torture or other acts of violence serious enough to be considered comparable to murder, torture, mutilation or cruel or inhuman treatment.

* Willful or outrageous acts of personal abuse done to humiliate or degrade someone in a way so serious that any reasonable person would "deem the acts to be beyond the bounds of human decency." That includes sexually indecent acts.

* Acts intended to denigrate the religion of an individual.

The order does not permit detainees to contact family members or have access to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

In a decision last year aimed at the military's tribunal system, the Supreme Court required the U.S. government to apply Geneva Convention protections to the conflict with al-Qaida, shaking the legal footing of the CIA's program.

Last fall, Congress instructed the White House to draft an executive order as part of the Military Commissions Act, which outlined the rules for trying terrorism suspects. The bill barred torture, rape and other war crimes that clearly would have violated the Geneva Conventions, but allowed Bush to determine - through executive order - whether less harsh interrogation methods can be used.

The administration and the CIA have maintained that the agency's program has been lawful all along.

In a message to CIA employees on Friday, Director Michael Hayden tried to stress the importance and narrow scope of the program. He noted that fewer than half of the less than 100 detainees have experienced the agency's "enhanced interrogation measures."

"Simply put, the information developed by our program has been irreplaceable," he said. "If the CIA, with all its expertise in counterterrorism, had not stepped forward to hold and interrogate people like (senior al-Qaida operatives) Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the American people would be right to ask why."

For decades, the United States had two paths for questioning suspects: the U.S. justice system and the military's Army Field Manual.

However, after the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration decided more needed to be done. With Zubaydah's capture in 2002, the CIA program was quietly created.

Since then, 97 terror suspects are believed to have been held by the agency at locations around the world, often referred to as "black sites."

The program sparked international controversy as details slowly emerged, with human rights groups saying the agency's work was a violation of international law, including the Third Geneva Convention's Common Article 3 protections, which set a baseline standard for the treatment of prisoners of war.

In September, Bush announced the U.S. had transferred the last 14 high-value CIA detainees to the military's detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they would stand trial. The CIA has held one detainee since then - an Iraqi who the U.S. considered one of al- Qaida's most senior operatives. He was also eventually transferred to Guantanamo.

Filibuster Debate

2007-07-24T15:01:00.000+09:00

The current session of Congress has been beyond shameful, particularly for a group of politicians who have wanted to do away with the filibuster tool altogether not more than a few years ago. I can understand it with highly contentious issues every so often, but the current Republican rate threatens to triple the number of the previous Congress' 58, which is a record! That would be 164 filibusters! And to top it all off, most of them are trying to find a way to weasel out of their shameful behavior and blame the Democrats, who they vilified for doing it much less often. And what really bothers me most, the media has been pretty much silent about filibusters this session but brought it up quite often whenever the Democrats so much as threatened to do it.

It seems to me that the current Republicans are the obstructionists. Why do they have to set double standards? Oh right. It's politics as usual, and the Republicans are good at manipulating the media...

Senate Tied in Knots by Filibusters
By Margaret Talev
McClatchy Newspapers

Friday 20 July 2007

Washington - This year Senate Republicans are threatening filibusters to block more legislation than ever before, a pattern that's rooted in - and could increase - the pettiness and dysfunction in Congress.

The trend has been evolving for 30 years. The reasons behind it are too complex to pin on one party. But it has been especially pronounced since the Democrats' razor-thin win in last year's election, giving them effectively a 51-49 Senate majority, and the Republicans' exile to the minority.

Seven months into the current two-year term, the Senate has held 42 "cloture" votes aimed at shutting off extended debate - filibusters, or sometimes only the threat of one - and moving to up-or-down votes on contested legislation. Under Senate rules that protect a minority's right to debate, these votes require a 60-vote supermajority in the 100-member Senate.

Democrats have trouble mustering 60 votes; they've fallen short 22 times so far this year. That's largely why they haven't been able to deliver on their campaign promises.

By sinking a cloture vote this week, Republicans successfully blocked a Democratic bid to withdraw combat troops from Iraq by April, even though a 52-49 Senate majority voted to end debate.

This year Republicans also have blocked votes on immigration legislation, a no-confidence resolution for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and major legislation dealing with energy, labor rights and prescription drugs.

Nearly 1 in 6 roll-call votes in the Senate this year have been cloture votes. If this pace of blocking legislation continues, this 110th Congress will be on track to roughly triple the previous record number of cloture votes - 58 each in the two Congresses from 1999-2002, according to the Senate Historical Office.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., forced an all-night session on the Iraq war this week to draw attention to what Democrats called Republican obstruction.

"The minority party has decided we have to get to 60 votes on almost everything we vote on of substance," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D- Mo. "That's not the way this place is supposed to work."

Even Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., who's served in Congress since 1973, complained that "the Senate is spiraling into the ground to a degree that I have never seen before, and I've been here a long time. All modicum of courtesy is going out the window."

But many Republicans say the Senate's very design as a more deliberative body than the House of Representatives is meant to encourage supermajority deal-making. If Democrats worked harder to seek bipartisan deals, Republicans say, there wouldn't be so many cloture votes.

"You can't say that all we're going to do around here in the United States Senate is have us govern by 51 votes - otherwise we might as well be unicameral, because then we would have the Senate and the House exactly the same," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

To which Reid responds: "The problem we have is that we don't have many moderate Republicans. I don't know what we can do to create less cloture votes other than not file them, just walk away and say, 'We're not going to do anything.' That's the only alternative we have."

Some Republicans say that Reid forces cloture votes just so he complain that they're obstructing him.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., called the all-nighter on Iraq "meaningless, insulting" and "an indignity." "There is no doubt that there are not 67 votes present to override a veto. There is little doubt that there are not 60 votes present to bring the issue to a vote."

Republicans also say that Democrats are forgetting how routinely they threatened filibusters only a few years ago when they were the minority, especially to block many of President Bush's judicial nominees. Back then, Republicans were so mad that they considered trying to change Senate rules to eliminate filibusters - but didn't.

"The suggestion that it's somehow unusual in the Senate to have controversial matters decided by 60 votes is absurd on its face," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Although this year's Congress is taking it to a new level, the frequency of cloture votes has been climbing for decades - the result of more polarized politics in Congress and also evolving Senate rules and practices.

Associate Senate Historian Don Ritchie said that since the nation's start, dissident senators have prolonged debate to try to kill or modify legislation. The word "filibuster" - a translation of the Dutch word for "free-booter" or pirate - appears in the record of an 1840s Senate dispute about a patronage job.

From Reconstruction to 1964, the filibuster was largely a tool used by segregationists to fight civil rights legislation. Even so, filibusters were employed only rarely; there were only three during the 88th Congress, which passed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 after two months of filibustering.

Filibusters were infrequent partly because the Senate custom of civility prompted consideration of minority views - and partly because they were so hard to overcome that compromises were struck. In 1917 cloture rules for ending filibusters were put in place, but required a two-thirds vote - so high it was rarely tested.

Post-Watergate, in 1975, the bar was lowered to three-fifths, or 60 votes, and leaders began to try it more often.

By the early 1990s, tensions between then-Majority Leader George Mitchell of Maine and Minority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas upped the ante, and the filibuster-cloture spiral has soared ever since as more partisan politics prevailed. The use of filibusters became "basically a tool of the minority party," Ritchie said.

The current Senate has two other complications: the 51-49 Democratic majority, which includes a pro-war independent and an absent Democrat recuperating from brain surgery, makes it harder to find 60 votes. And the presidency and Congress are controlled by opposing parties, which increases confrontation.

The Senate "has always been a cumbersome and frustrating and slow body because that's what the Constitution wanted," Ritchie said. The new majority's decisions are: "How often are you willing to lose on these issues? Would you rather campaign on the other side being obstructionists? What's a tolerable compromise? They're still working these things out."

Republican Senate leader McConnell said Friday in a news conference that when he became minority leader, "it was not my goal to see us do nothing. I mean, you can always use the next election as a rationale for not doing anything. But as you all know, we've had a regularly scheduled election every two years since 1788, so there's always an election right around the corner."

"A divided government has frequently done important things: Social Security in the Reagan period, when (Democrat) Tip O'Neill was speaker; welfare reform when Bill Clinton was in the White House when there was a Republican Congress. There's no particular reason why divided government can't do important things. We haven't yet, but it's not too late.

"And I think clearly the way to accomplish things is in the political middle, and I would challenge our friends on the other side of the aisle to step up and take a chance on something big and important for our country."

Of course, Democrats say similar things - but then neither side often compromises.

England's Torrential Rainfall Seen as Evidence to Global Warming

2007-07-24T14:58:00.000+09:00

Yeah, I know that we see all kinds of things linked to Global Warming these days, but hey, with all due respect, what is happening in England actually does match with what Environmental Scientists have said will happen for decades.

And truly, I think I am experiencing similar weather here in Aomori. The storms are more violent and harsh than they have been during my 5 year stay here.

England Under Water: Scientists Confirm Global Warming Link to Increased Rain
By Michael McCarthy
The Independent UK

Monday 23 July 2007

It's official: the heavier rainfall in Britain is being caused by climate change, a major new scientific study will reveal this week, as the country reels from summer downpours of unprecedented ferocity.

More intense rainstorms across parts of the northern hemisphere are being generated by man-made global warming, the study has established for the first time an effect which has long been predicted but never before proved.

The study's findings will be all the more dramatic for being disclosed as Britain struggles to recover from the phenomenal drenching of the past few days, during which more than a month's worth of rain fell in a few hours in some places, and floods forced thousands from their homes.

The "major rainfall event" of last Friday fully predicted as such by the Met Office has given the country a quite exceptional battering, with the Thames still rising. In Gloucester water levels had reached 34 feet, just 12 inches below flood defences the same level as during the flood of 1947 although a police spokesman said last night that the River Severn had stopped rising.

Last night vast areas of the country around Gloucestershire and Worcestershire were still inundated, large numbers of people in temporary accommodation, transport links were widely disrupted, and yet more householders were standing by to be flooded in their turn, in one of the biggest civil emergencies Britain has seen.

About 150,000 residents in Gloucestershire were left without drinking water when the Mythe Water Treatment Works in Tewkesbury became inoperable after flooding. Another 200,000 people are at risk of losing their supplies. The water shortages may last until Wednesday and 600 water tanks were being drafted to the area.

Panic buying of bottled water was reported, with supermarkets selling out of stocks, and there were contamination problems in south London, where 80,000 households and businesses in the Sutton area were advised to boil their water after rain got into a tank. Yet another potential danger was from car thieves; West Mercia police warned drivers who had abandoned their cars in the floodwater to collect them quickly to prevent theft.

The Great Flood of July is all the more remarkable for following right on from the Great Flood of June, which caused similar havoc in northern towns such as Doncaster and Hull, after a similar series of astonishingly torrential downpours on 24 June.

Meteorologists agree that the miserably wet British summer of 2007 has generally been caused by a southward shift towards Britain of the jetstream, the high-level airflow that brings depressions eastwards across the Atlantic. This is fairly normal. But debate is going on about whether climate change may be responsible for the intensity of the two freak rainfall episodes, which have caused flooding the like of which has never been seen in many places.

This is because the computer models used to predict the future course of global warming all show heavier rainfall, and indeed, "extreme rainfall events", as one of its principal consequences.

The new study, carried out jointly by several national climate research institutes using their supercomputer climate models, including the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office, does not prove that any one event, including the rain of the past few days in Britain, is climate-change related.

But it certainly supports the idea, by showing that in recent decades rainfall has increased over several areas of the world, including the mid-latitudes of the northern hemisphere, and linking this directly, for the first time, to global warming caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases.

The study is being published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, and its details are under embargo and cannot be reported until then. But its main findings have caused a stir, and are being freely discussed by climate scientists in the Met Office, the Hadley Centre and the Department for Environment For Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

One source familiar with the study's conclusions said: "What this does is establish for the first time that there is a distinct 'human fingerprint' in the changes in precipitation patterns the increases in rainfall observed in the northern hemisphere mid-latitudes, which includes Britain.

"That means, it is not just the climate's natural variability which has caused the increases, but there is a detectable human cause climate change, caused by our greenhouse gas emissions. The 'human fingerprint' has been detected before in temperature rises, but never before in rainfall. So this is very significant.

"Some people would argue that you can't take a single event and pin that on climate change, but what happened in Britain last Friday fits quite easily with these conclusions. It does seem to have a certain resonance with what they're finding in this research."

The Hadley Centre lead scientist involved with the study was Dr Peter Stott, who specialises in finding "human fingerprints" sometimes referred to as anthropogenic signals on the changing climate.

Last September Dr Stott, who was not available for comment yesterday, published research showing that the climate of central England had warmed by a full degree Celsius in the past 40 years, and that this could be directly linked to human causes the first time that man-made climate change had been identified at such a local level.

The human fingerprint is detected by making computer simulations of the recent past climate, with and without emissions of greenhouse gases and then comparing the results with what has actually been observed in the real world.

In Dr Stott's research, and in the study to be published on Wednesday, the observed rises in temperature and rainfall could be clearly accounted for by the scenario in which emissions were prominent.

The conclusions of the new rainfall study are regarded as all the more robust as they are the joint work of several major national climate research bodies, led by Environment Canada, with each using its own supercomputer climate model.

Global warming is likely to lead to higher rainfall because a warming atmosphere contains more water vapour and more energy. Since climate prediction began 20 years ago, heavier rainfall over Britain has been a consistent theme.

Shady Dealings

2007-07-24T14:52:00.000+09:00

More of that US attorney shenanigans. This time something that I remember reading from years ago has been brought up to the surface. An attorney investigating a "Reinsurance Company," in other words, companies created to Insure the Insurers (O, the ways to make money never cease,) was being investigated by David Maguire, who claims that the corruption and broken laws make Enron look like amateurs. He was promptly removed from the case and the whole thing just dropped off the radar -- just like that, even after 2 million dollars was spent on building the case for indictment. Interesting stuff, particularly as it gives a glimpse into how things work inside the DoJ.

US Dropped Enron-Like Fraud Probe
By Marisa Taylor
McClatchy Newspapers

Monday 23 July 2007

Prosecutor who built case against Virginia insurer was replaced.

Two years into a fraud investigation, veteran federal prosecutor David Maguire told colleagues he'd uncovered one of the biggest cases of his career.

Maguire described crimes "far worse" than those of Arthur Andersen, the accounting giant that collapsed in the wake of the Enron scandal. Among those in his sights: executives from a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, the investment empire overseen by billionaire Warren Buffett.

In May 2006, he felt strongly enough about his case that he prepared a draft indictment accusing executives from a Virginia insurer, Reciprocal of America, of concocting a series of secret deals to hide its losses from regulators. Although he didn't name anyone from Berkshire Hathaway's subsidiary, he described the company as a participant in the scheme.

But Maguire never brought those charges.

Months after preparing the draft, he was removed as the lead prosecutor on the case and reassigned.

His replacement, a prosecutor who hadn't been involved in the case until then, soon announced that the Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary, General Reinsurance, would not be indicted. By April of this year, the entire investigation, which the Justice Department once hailed as one of the largest insurance-fraud cases in Virginia history, had fizzled.

Former employees and policyholders of the Richmond-based insurer were astounded. Why had the Justice Department spent upward of $2 million to investigate the case only to decline to prosecute? Maguire and his team of investigators had secured two related guilty pleas, interviewed dozens of witnesses and gathered 7,000 boxes of documents.

At the Justice Department, some whispered that Maguire and his team had overreached and had been knocked down. Others heard that the government needed resources for terrorism investigations.

Lawyers for the two companies had another explanation: Prosecutors realized they didn't have evidence of a crime.

"It was a black and white decision," said Stanley Twardy Jr., one of General Reinsurance's attorneys and a former U.S. attorney. "They just called it like they saw it."

But Tom Gober, a certified fraud examiner who worked on the case, thought investigators had gathered plenty of evidence.

Gober, a government-contracted investigator, concluded that the Justice Department had buckled under pressure from defense lawyers. Shortly before Maguire was removed, his supervisors were urging him to drop the case against General Reinsurance, Gober said.

Gober's suspicions were fanned by allegations of politicization in the Justice Department after nine U.S. attorneys were fired. He took his complaints to the Office of Professional Responsibility, which investigates Justice Department misconduct. That investigation is under way.

"It just stinks," he said. "You don't come in out of nowhere and in no time kill three years of sophisticated effort."

Maguire and officials with the U.S. attorney's office and the FBI in Virginia declined to respond to questions about the decision.

Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra said he wouldn't comment, either.

Internal documents obtained by McClatchy Newspapers show that Justice Department lawyers in Washington had become locked in an intense debate with Maguire over the case until he was removed from it.

Five years after Enron collapsed and tough measures aimed at white-collar crime were enacted, federal officials struggled with questions of corporate accountability: Who should be held responsible when fraud leads to a company's demise? How far should federal prosecutors go in pursuing corporate suspects? In the Reciprocal of America case, the fallout was clear.

More than 80,000 lawyers, doctors and hospitals in 30 states lost their malpractice coverage. As they couldn't expect new insurers to cover them for past cases, some who were sued have claimed losses of hundreds of millions of dollars.

A Company Under Siege

A team of state insurance auditors arrived at Reciprocal of America's headquarters in January 2003 to launch their investigation. They shepherded the company's 300 employees into a conference room and locked the doors.

Suspicious accounting activity had been detected. The company and its subsidiaries were being shut down for the duration of the investigation.

Federal agents soon expressed interest in joining the case.

The auditors had found troubling numbers.

Insurance companies are supposed to avoid insolvency by socking away vast surpluses collected from policyholders' premiums and passing risk to giant reinsurance counterparts such as General Reinsurance.

Reciprocal's surplus began to erode in the late 1990s, when medical malpractice awards shot up. Desperate to pump up the surplus, the company's executives asked General Reinsurance to assume millions more in risk.

The Berkshire subsidiary agreed, according to documents from both companies. General Reinsurance, known as "Gen Re," treated the unusual transactions as "side" or "unenforceable" or "handshake" deals. Executives referred to one deal as an "off balance sheet loan," according to internal documents.

Maguire included details of the deals in his draft indictment as part of the alleged accounting-fraud scheme designed to help Reciprocal inflate its surplus and hide its losses from regulators.

Regulators and FBI agents sifted through thousands of e-mails and memos. The trail led straight to Reciprocal President Kenneth Patterson and his executive vice president, Carolyn Hudgins.

Investigators found evidence that the pair had manipulated the company's accounting records to conceal losses and urged the pair to admit their guilt.

In February 2005, Patterson and Hudgins pleaded guilty to felony fraud charges. They agreed to cooperate with investigators. But agents soon became frustrated with the pair because they didn't appear to be divulging much detail. Corporate fraud cases are hard enough to prosecute because of their complexity. Without testimony from convincing cooperators, the case could be difficult to sell to a jury.

A federal judge sentenced Patterson to 12 years in prison and Hudgins to five years. Both declined requests for interviews.

That spring, Justice Department lawyers in Washington began to voice skepticism about proceeding against General Reinsurance. They pointed out that some of the evidence, which dated to the late 1990s, might be too old. They also warned that an indictment could hurt a major corporation unnecessarily.

"The bottom line has always been what do we want to do with Gen Re," Joshua Hochberg, the Justice Department's then chief of the fraud section, wrote to Maguire. "Indicting the company would have enormous collateral consequences."

Hochberg, who's no longer with the Justice Department, declined to comment.

Maguire pushed back, arguing that his team had plenty of evidence showing a pattern of fraud over more than 15 years.

"Gen Re has been a public menace for a long time," he wrote colleagues. "Their 'I'm not my brother's keeper' attitude has enabled them to make millions by 'aiding and abetting' bad guys."

At the very least, Maguire argued, the department should impose a fine of up to $600 million. "If they balk, they should know that we are more than ready to indict Gen Re," he wrote.

Some Setbacks

While General Reinsurance attorneys acknowledged their clients might have entered into "handshake deals" with Reciprocal, they described them as harmless and the industry norm.

Ronald Olson, an attorney for General Reinsurance and a director on Berkshire Hathaway's board, argued that his client was a victim of Reciprocal's fraud. After Reciprocal collapsed, General Reinsurance lost millions, he said. It later banned "side" deals as a bad business practice.

"There was no knowledge at Gen Re that people at Reciprocal of America were hiding information from regulators or auditors," Olson said.

FBI agents urged Maguire in May 2005 to proceed at least with an indictment against John William Crews, Reciprocal's general counsel, who'd co-founded the company in 1977, according to internal documents.

Maguire and the agents believed that Crews had participated in many of the meetings with General Reinsurance and had received memos and e-mails about the firms' relationship.

Crews and his law firm also had collected more than $63 million in legal fees from Reciprocal of America and its subsidiaries, documents show.

Within months, Maguire was removed from the Reciprocal of America case.

His replacement, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Gill, quickly set a new tone. In his first meeting with the team last fall, he called General Reinsurance's lawyers to tell them that no case would be brought against their clients in regard to Reciprocal.

Gill decided this spring not to indict Crews, either.

Crews' lawyer, J. Jonathan Schraub, said his client wasn't indicted because he didn't do anything illegal. "There are many reams of allegations," Schraub said. "None of them are valid."

Government Corruption? No Way!

2007-07-24T14:48:00.000+09:00

I think the entirety of the Bush Administration has provided mountains of evidence of corruption, particularly involving Cheney's old company that he claims to have no more ties to (except those stock options.) But here's more for good measure. The wasted money, cynicism and cronyism of today's politics is truly revolting.

Note the guilty plea, the exact figures and whatnot -- hard evidence that rarely gets the credit it deserves in politics anymore.

Bribery Network to Bloat War Costs Is Alleged
By James Glanz
The New York Times

Saturday 21 July 2007

Federal investigators have uncovered what they describe as a sweeping network of kickbacks, bribes and fraud involving at least eight employees and subcontractors of KBR, the former Halliburton subsidiary, in a scheme to inflate charges for flying freight into Iraq in support of the war, according to court papers unsealed yesterday.

The latest conviction in the cases related to the scheme came yesterday, when a former Houston-based executive for an air-freight carrier hired by KBR pleaded guilty in federal district court to dispensing bribes and then lying to federal investigators. The executive, Kevin Andre Smoot, 43, of The Woodlands, Tex., served as a managing director for Eagle Global Logistics Incorporated, a carrier that received a subcontract from KBR to ship the freight.

The guilty plea by Mr. Smoot is the second by an Eagle executive in the case. But the papers describing his plea indicate that investigators believe at least one more Eagle employee and five KBR employees, all so far unnamed, were also involved. Mr. Smoot alone admitted to delivering bribes, called gratuities in the legalistic language of the court papers, to the employees of KBR on some 90 occasions between 2002 and 2005.

At the core of the case is a contract that KBR, previously known as Kellogg, Brown & Root, won before the war to supply the American military with food, fuel, housing and other necessities. The value of the contract soared with the Iraq invasion, and has so far paid KBR some $20 billion.

The company hired Eagle in a subcontract to fulfill part of that mission, carrying military goods from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to Baghdad. But the scheme by the Eagle executives began in November 2003 when a plane operated by a rival carrier, DHL, was struck by a missile and landed in Baghdad with its left wing in flames. The Eagle executives used that incident to charge a fraudulent "war-risk surcharge" of 50 cents for every kilogram (2.2 pounds) of freight on its own flights, the papers say.

Between November 2003 and July 2004, Eagle made 379 flights as part of the subcontract, charging some $13.3 million — an amount that included $1.1 million in overcharges. It is not clear whether KBR knew of the overcharging scheme, but the papers say that Mr. Smoot and an Eagle subordinate delivered nearly $34,000 in gratuities to KBR employees "to obtain or reward favorable treatment" in connection with the contract.

According to the papers, the gratuities included "meals, drinks, golf outings, tickets to rodeo events, baseball and football games and other entertainment items."

A spokeswoman for KBR, Heather L. Browne, said in a statement yesterday that the company "in no way condones this behavior."

"We are fully cooperating with the government's investigation of this matter and will continue to do so," Ms. Browne said.

The guilty plea by Mr. Smoot was announced yesterday by Rodger A. Heaton, the United States attorney for the Central District of Illinois, where the Army Field Support Command, which administers the logistics contract, is based in Rock Island.

Ridiculousness Is Not Limited to Just the US

2007-07-24T11:45:00.000+09:00

It looks like the Conservatives in the US are not the only bat-shit crazy conservatives in the world anymore. The Fundie Christians in Australia seem to have gained some power and now claim that Australia was founded on Judeo-Christian values. How long before they try to start installing a theocracy in Australia, I wonder? And will Australians look up from their beer long enough to start to give a damn?

From the Sydney Morning Herald
THE compulsory citizenship test that measures understanding of Australian values will include questions on Australia's Judaeo-Christian background, as well as its geography and the colour of the flag.

With the citizenship resource manual due for release soon, the Immigration Department's senior official, Andrew Metcalfe, has confirmed that would-be citizens should expect questions on Australia's post-1788 religious heritage. Christian groups had lobbied the Government to acknowledge this background in its primer on what defines Australia and being Australian.

"I think without doubt you can ultimately trace our values and beliefs back to the body of knowledge that derives from the Old Testament and upon which the Judaeo-Christian background is based," Mr Metcalfe recently told a hearing of the Senate's Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee.

"We are talking about questions that go to Australia, our values, our history, our geography, our political system and national symbols," Mr Metcalfe said. "Part of Australia, its values and its history would go to our belief system, so I imagine that that is an area that would be covered in the resource book."

The Minister for Immigration, Kevin Andrews, spoke of how "British settlers of Australia brought with them the Anglo-Celtic principles and traditions of Christianity, the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment" in May when he spoke to Parliament about the new law.

The Labor senator Annette Hurley told Mr Metcalfe that government secrecy had created "a bit of a climate of uncertainty for people who are considering citizenship".

The test will require applicants to answer 20 multiple-choice questions, including three that relate specifically to national values. While the test's pass rate is 60 per cent, applicants must get all three "Australian values" questions right to pass. There is no limit to the number of times applicants can sit the test.

The questions will come from a pool of about 200 confidential questions, drawn from information in the citizenship resource book.

"We need to make sure that people are not only familiar with Australia and our values, but also able to understand and appreciate the commitment they are required to make," Mr Andrews said in May.

More on Contempt, And Executive Privelege

2007-07-23T15:59:00.001+09:00

You know that you are getting disgusting when the press refers to Nixon and Nixionian views. The statements that the Bush administration make regarding their powers is actually quite terrifying. They act as though they have no need to respect the Balance of Powers of the US Constitution and the current Conservative idea of a "unitary executive" isn't too far off from the idea of an Emperor or King, or Dictatorship. One would have thought that this phase would have been over with the Fall of Nixon.

Broader Privilege Claimed In Firings
By Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein
The Washington Post

Friday 20 July 2007

White House Says Hill can't pursue contempt cases.

Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege.

The position presents serious legal and political obstacles for congressional Democrats, who have begun laying the groundwork for contempt proceedings against current and former White House officials in order to pry loose information about the dismissals.

Under federal law, a statutory contempt citation by the House or Senate must be submitted to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, "whose duty it shall be to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action."

But administration officials argued yesterday that Congress has no power to force a U.S. attorney to pursue contempt charges in cases, such as the prosecutor firings, in which the president has declared that testimony or documents are protected from release by executive privilege. Officials pointed to a Justice Department legal opinion during the Reagan administration, which made the same argument in a case that was never resolved by the courts.

"A U.S. attorney would not be permitted to bring contempt charges or convene a grand jury in an executive privilege case," said a senior official, who said his remarks reflect a consensus within the administration. "And a U.S. attorney wouldn't be permitted to argue against the reasoned legal opinion that the Justice Department provided. No one should expect that to happen."

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly, added: "It has long been understood that, in circumstances like these, the constitutional prerogatives of the president would make it a futile and purely political act for Congress to refer contempt citations to U.S. attorneys."

Mark J. Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University who has written a book on executive-privilege issues, called the administration's stance "astonishing."

"That's a breathtakingly broad view of the president's role in this system of separation of powers," Rozell said. "What this statement is saying is the president's claim of executive privilege trumps all."

The administration's statement is a dramatic attempt to seize the upper hand in an escalating constitutional battle with Congress, which has been trying for months, without success, to compel White House officials to testify and to turn over documents about their roles in the prosecutor firings last year. The Justice Department and White House in recent weeks have been discussing when and how to disclose the stance, and the official said he decided yesterday that it was time to highlight it.

Yesterday, a House Judiciary subcommittee voted to lay the groundwork for contempt proceedings against White House chief of staff Joshua B. Bolten, following a similar decision last week against former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers.

The administration has not directly informed Congress of its view. A spokeswoman for Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), the Judiciary Committee's chairman, declined to comment . But other leading Democrats attacked the argument.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) called it "an outrageous abuse of executive privilege" and said: "The White House must stop stonewalling and start being accountable to Congress and the American people. No one, including the president, is above the law."

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) said the administration is "hastening a constitutional crisis," and Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) said the position "makes a mockery of the ideal that no one is above the law."

Waxman added: "I suppose the next step would be just disbanding the Justice Department."

Under long-established procedures and laws, the House and Senate can each pursue two kinds of criminal contempt proceedings, and the Senate also has a civil contempt option. The first, called statutory contempt, has been the avenue most frequently pursued in modern times, and is the one that requires a referral to the U.S. attorney in the District.

Both chambers also have an "inherent contempt" power, allowing either body to hold its own trials and even jail those found in defiance of Congress. Although widely used during the 19th century, the power has not been invoked since 1934 and Democratic lawmakers have not displayed an appetite for reviving the practice.

In defending its argument, administration officials point to a 1984 opinion by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, headed at the time by Theodore B. Olson, a prominent conservative lawyer who was solicitor general from 2001 to 2004. The opinion centered on a contempt citation issued by the House for Anne Gorsuch Burford, then administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

It concluded: "The President, through a United States Attorney, need not, indeed may not, prosecute criminally a subordinate for asserting on his behalf a claim of executive privilege. Nor could the Legislative Branch or the courts require or implement the prosecution of such an individual."

In the Burford case, which involved spending on the Superfund program, the White House filed a federal lawsuit to block Congress's contempt action. The conflict subsided when Burford turned over documents to Congress.

The Bush administration has not previously signaled it would forbid a U.S. attorney from pursuing a contempt case in relation to the prosecutor firings. But officials at Justice and elsewhere say it has long held that Congress cannot force such action.

David B. Rifkin, who worked in the Justice Department and White House counsel's office under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, praised the position and said it is consistent with the idea of a "unitary executive." In practical terms, he said, "U.S. attorneys are emanations of a president's will." And in constitutional terms, he said, "the president has decided, by virtue of invoking executive privilege, that is the correct policy for the entire executive branch."

But Stanley Brand, who was the Democratic House counsel during the Burford case, said the administration's legal view "turns the constitutional enforcement process on its head. They are saying they will always place a claim of presidential privilege without any judicial determination above a congressional demand for evidence - without any basis in law." Brand said the position is essentially telling Congress: "Because we control the enforcement process, we are going to thumb our nose at you."

Rozell, the George Mason professor and authority on executive privilege, said the administration's stance "is almost Nixonian in its scope and breadth of interpreting its power. Congress has no recourse at all, in the president's view. . . . It's allowing the executive to define the scope and limits of its own powers."