A Growing Afghan Prison Rivals Bleak Guantánamo

This is from The New York Times:

While an international debate rages over the future of the American detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the military has quietly expanded another, less-visible prison in Afghanistan, where it now holds some 500 terror suspects in more primitive conditions, indefinitely and without charges.

Pentagon officials have often described the detention site at Bagram, a cavernous former machine shop on an American air base 40 miles north of Kabul, as a screening center. They said most of the detainees were Afghans who might eventually be released under an amnesty program or transferred to an Afghan prison that is to be built with American aid.

But some of the detainees have already been held at Bagram for as long as two or three years. And unlike those at Guantánamo, they have no access to lawyers, no right to hear the allegations against them and only rudimentary reviews of their status as "enemy combatants," military officials said.

Privately, some administration officials acknowledge that the situation at Bagram has increasingly come to resemble the legal void that led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling in June 2004 affirming the right of prisoners at Guantánamo to challenge their detention in United States courts.

While Guantánamo offers carefully scripted tours for members of Congress and journalists, Bagram has operated in rigorous secrecy since it opened in 2002. It bars outside visitors except for the International Red Cross and refuses to make public the names of those held there. The prison may not be photographed, even from a distance.

From the accounts of former detainees, military officials and soldiers who served there, a picture emerges of a place that is in many ways rougher and more bleak than its counterpart in Cuba. Men are held by the dozen in large wire cages, the detainees and military sources said, sleeping on the floor on foam mats and, until about a year ago, often using plastic buckets for latrines. Before recent renovations, they rarely saw daylight except for brief visits to a small exercise yard.

"Bagram was never meant to be a long-term facility, and now it's a long-term facility without the money or resources," said one Defense Department official who has toured the detention center. Comparing the prison with Guantánamo, the official added, "Anyone who has been to Bagram would tell you it's worse."

Former detainees said the renovations had improved conditions somewhat, and human rights groups said reports of abuse had steadily declined there since 2003. Nonetheless, the Pentagon's chief adviser on detainee issues, Charles D. Stimson, declined to be interviewed on Bagram, as did senior detention officials at the United States Central Command, which oversees military operations in Afghanistan.

The military's chief spokesman in Afghanistan, Col. James R. Yonts, also refused to discuss detainee conditions, other than to say repeatedly that his command was "committed to treating detainees humanely, and providing the best possible living conditions and medical care in accordance with the principles of the Geneva Convention."

Other military and administration officials said the growing detainee population at Bagram, which rose from about 100 prisoners at the start of 2004 to as many as 600 at times last year, according to military figures, was in part a result of a Bush administration decision to shut off the flow of detainees into Guantánamo after the Supreme Court ruled that those prisoners had some basic due-process rights. The question of whether those same rights apply to detainees in Bagram has not been tested in court.

Until the court ruling, Bagram functioned as a central clearing house for the global fight against terror. Military and intelligence personnel there sifted through captured Afghan rebels and suspected terrorists seized in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere, sending the most valuable and dangerous to Guantánamo for extensive interrogation, and generally releasing the rest.

So now we have a new prison that can rival even that of Gitmo. It is amazing the lengths that the Bush administration will go towards violating even basic human rights or legal rights, all for their Great War on Terrorism. Of course, the military will not comment on the situation at Bagram, nor will they allow anyone to visit the facilities. The last thing the military wants is another Abu Ghraib to further inflame the Middle East. Continuing on:

But according to interviews with current and former administration officials, the National Security Council effectively halted the movement of new detainees into Guantánamo at a cabinet-level meeting at the White House on Sept. 14, 2004.

Wary of further angering Guantánamo's critics, the council authorized a final shipment of 10 detainees eight days later from Bagram, the officials said. But it also indicated that it wanted to review and approve any Defense Department proposals for further transfers. Despite repeated requests from military officials in Afghanistan and one formal recommendation by a Pentagon working group, no such proposals have been considered, officials said.

"Guantánamo was a lightning rod," said a former senior administration official who participated in the discussions and who, like many of those interviewed, would discuss the matter in detail only on the condition of anonymity because of the secrecy surrounding it. "For some reason, people did not have a problem with Bagram. It was in Afghanistan."

Yet Bagram's expansion, which was largely fueled by growing numbers of detainees seized on the battlefield and a bureaucratic backlog in releasing many of the Afghan prisoners, also underscores the Bush administration's continuing inability to resolve where and how it will hold more valuable terror suspects.

Military officials with access to intelligence reporting on the subject said about 40 of Bagram's prisoners were Pakistanis, Arabs and other foreigners; some were previously held by the C.I.A. in secret interrogation centers in Afghanistan and other countries. Officials said the intelligence agency had been reluctant to send some of those prisoners on to Guantánamo because of the possibility that their C.I.A. custody could eventually be scrutinized in court.

Defense Department officials said the C.I.A.'s effort to unload some detainees from its so-called black sites had provoked tension among some officials at the Pentagon, who have frequently objected to taking responsibility for terror suspects cast off by the intelligence agency. The Defense Department "doesn't want to be the dumping ground," one senior official familiar with the interagency debates said. "There just aren't any good options."

A spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency declined to comment.

The problem with the Bush administration is that they don't want to release anyone from these prisons. If the reports of torture and prisoner abuse among these secret CIA prisons are true, then releasing these individuals in Afghanistan, or any Middle Eastern country will provide ready-made foot soldiers for al Qaida. Also, how many of these individuals that are held in these prisons are actual al Qaida soldiers, or are they innocent civilians who were swept up by U.S. forces at the urging of local and tribal leaders who wish to purge their local political opponents? I can't say. But any individuals who are released from these black prisons, will not have any love for the United States and are perfect candidates for al Qaida recruitment. So we have to build more secret prisons, to hold more prisoners, who still have no political or legal rights--and will be subjected to torture by the American military and CIA officials.

Don Knotts, TV's Barney Fife, Dies at 81

Andy Griffith, left, and Don Knotts pose in a 1986 file photo. Knotts, the skinny, lovable nerd who kept generations of television audiences laughing as bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on 'The Andy Griffith Show,' died Friday night, Feb. 24, 2006 of pulmonary and respiratory complications at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills. He was 81. (AP Photo)

This is sad. Another comedic legend has passed on. From Yahoo News:

LOS ANGELES - Don Knotts, who kept generations of TV audiences laughing as bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith Show" and would-be swinger landlord Ralph Furley on "Three's Company," has died. He was 81.

Knotts died Friday night of pulmonary and respiratory complications at a Los Angeles hospital, said Paul Ward, a spokesman for the cable network TV Land, which airs his two signature shows.

Griffith, who remained close friends with Knotts, said he had a brilliant comedic mind and wrote some of the show's best scenes.

"Don was a small man ... but everything else about him was large: his mind, his expressions," Griffith told The Associated Press on Saturday. "Don was special. There's nobody like him.

"I loved him very much," Griffith added. "We had a long and wonderful life together."

Unspecified health problems had forced Knotts to cancel an appearance in his native Morgantown in August.

The West Virginia-born actor's half-century career included seven TV series and more than 25 films, but it was the Griffith show that brought him TV immortality and five Emmys.

The show ran from 1960-68, and was in the top 10 of the Nielsen ratings each season, including a No. 1 ranking its final year. It is one of only three series in TV history to bow out at the top: The others are "I Love Lucy" and "Seinfeld." The 249 episodes have appeared frequently in reruns and have spawned a large, active network of fan clubs.

As the bug-eyed deputy to Griffith, Knotts carried in his shirt pocket the one bullet he was allowed after shooting himself in the foot. The constant fumbling, a recurring sight gag, was typical of his self-deprecating humor.

Knotts, whose shy, soft-spoken manner was unlike his high-strung characters, once said he was most proud of the Fife character and doesn't mind being remembered that way.

Cast members from the television show 'Three's Company' are seen in this undated photo made available in 2000 by Nick at Nite. From left: Don Knotts, Joyce DeWitt, Richard Kline, John Ritter, Suzanne Somers and Ann Wedgeworth. Knotts, the skinny, lovable nerd who kept generations of television audiences laughing as bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on 'The Andy Griffith Show,' died Friday night, Feb. 24, 2006 of pulmonary and respiratory complications at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills. He was 81. (AP Photo/Nick at Nite)

I never really watched The Andy Griffith Show, but I do recognize the staying power of the comedic side-kick that Knotts was on that show. Knotts pretty much transferred his high-strung Barney Fife character to his Mr. Furley character on Three's Company--a comedy that I did watch and enjoy. Knotts' comedy wasn't the kind where you could laugh with him, but rather that you could laugh at him. He was the kind of comedian who could pull off some of the most humiliating and degrading sight gags--almost to the point where you could roll your eyes, saying "Oh my God!" And still you had to laugh. Knotts took self-depreciating humor, and elevated it to an art form. You really don't see that many comedians who can perform that type of self-depreciating humor, and be successful with it for decades.

He will be missed.

Santorum Charity Low on Giving, Up on Fees

This is off Yahoo News:

WASHINGTON - Sen. Rick Santorum (news, bio, voting record)'s charity donated about 40 percent of the $1.25 million it spent during a four-year period, well below Better Business Bureau standards — paying out the rest for overhead, including several hundred thousand dollars to campaign aides on the charity payroll.

he charity, Operation Good Neighbor, is described on its Web site as an organization promoting "compassionate conservatism" by providing grants to small nonprofit groups, many of them religious.

The Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance says charitable organizations should spend at least 65 percent of their total expenses on program activities.

Operation Good Neighbor is based at the same address as Pennsylvania Sen. Santorum's campaign office in suburban Philadelphia, and some of the same people who have worked on his campaign are working for his charity and collecting money from it, records show.

What did you expect from Rick Santorum? Charity? This is a political front company for lobbying efforts by Santorum, masquerading as a charity. We've seen how this works with Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff--here's an example, here is another example, and here is a third example. Charities, as according to Republicans, are simply fronts for fundraising and lobbying activities. And Rick Santorum is working on his own front here. Consider these details:

_Maria Diesel, who has been paid fundraising fees by the campaign, is listed as the charity's finance director. Filings show she has received $192,958 in professional fundraising fees from Operation Good Neighbor.

_Robert Bickhart, who has also been involved in raising campaign funds for Santorum, is listed as the charity's executive director. Filings show he has earned $75,000 in salary from the charity since 2001 and that his business, Capitol Resource Group, rents the office space to the charity. The charity has paid $20,437 in occupancy fees, filings show.

The foundation's treasurer defended the organization's level of giving. If money set aside for future gifts is counted, she said, 45 percent of the money collected during the period will go toward charity.

"It is important to realize that the foundation does not have the same ability as better-known charities, such as the Salvation American or the American Red Cross, to raise money without spending much money do so," Barbara Bonfiglio said in a letter posted Friday evening on the charity's Web site.

She said Santorum is not involved in the charity's day-to-day operations. Virginia Davis, Santorum's campaign press secretary, referred questions to the charity.

The charity's finances first came under scrutiny earlier in the week by the liberal magazine The American Prospect.

From 2001 through 2004, filings show Operation Good Neighbor took in a total of $1.6 million and spent about $1.25 million. Of that amount, just over $501,000 was awarded in grants, helping people from the homeless to AIDS patients. The charity has not yet reported 2005 figures.

Its IRS filings are signed by Bonfiglio. Its secretary is listed as Mark Rodgers, Santorum's former chief of staff and now staff director at the Senate Republican Conference, where Santorum is chairman.

Operation Good Neighbor's filings do not show that either Bonfiglio or Rodgers was paid by the charity. The two — along with Bickhart — have been on its board since its inception.

Santorum is not the only senator with a charity. Late last year, Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., was criticized after an Associated Press analysis found that his AIDS charity paid nearly a half-million dollars in consulting fees to members of his political inner circle.

Operation Good Neighbor took in $1.6 million, and gave out just $501,000 in grants. Where did the other $1.1 million go? Consulting fees? Office expenses? Marketing expenses for more fundraising to Operation Good Neighbor? Well, here's some examples of where the money went:

The charity spent 31 percent on fundraising during the four-year period, an AP analysis found, under the 35 percent maximum the Better Business Bureau sets as a standard in that category.

But other expenditures, including $169,140 on conferences, conventions and meetings, and $52,906 on travel, brought the total overhead much higher.

While reports on the charity's fundraising have been filed with the IRS, Operation Good Neighbor has not indicated on any of the forms that it has filed returns in any state.

Power corrupts.

UPDATE ON UPI STORY--UAE terminal takeover extends to 21 ports

When I first wrote my blog post about the UPI story where the United Arab Emirates would take over 21 American ports, rather than six American ports as the mainstream media is now reporting, I missed this one little-known detail buried within the story. Here is that one little-known detail:

Port facility operators have a major security responsibility, and one that could be exploited by terrorists if they infiltrate the company, said Joe Muldoon III. Muldoon is an attorney representing Eller & Co., a port facility operator in Florida partnered with M&O in Miami. Eller opposes the Dubai takeover for security reasons.

"The Coast Guard oversees security, and they have the authority to inspect containers if they want and they can look at manifests, but they are really dependent on facility operators to carry out security issues," Muldoon said.

The Marine Transportation Security Act of 2002 requires vessels and port facilities to conduct vulnerability assessments and develop security plans including passenger, vehicle and baggage screening procedures; security patrols; establishing restricted areas; personnel identification procedures; access control measures; and/or installation of surveillance equipment.

Under the same law, port facility operators may have access to Coast Guard security incident response plans -- that is, they would know how the Coast Guard plans to counter and respond to terrorist attacks.

This is a shocker! DP World would have access to security plans on how the Coast Guard would respond to terrorist attacks! This is incredibly potent information--especially if it gets into the hands of al Qaida operatives, possibly through the UAE government, that controls DP World. What this means is that al Qaida could use the Coast Guard's own security plans to seek out and exploit weaknesses in those plans during their next terror attacks.

The Bush administration is selling out America's Homeland Security for the sake of corporate profit and cronyism.

I guess this is another update on an update. DP World would have access to Coast Guard security plans regarding Coast Guard responses to terror attacks. I'd like to point out this little fact from a previous post, regarding the secret agreement between the White House and DP World. This is from the Yahoo News story referenced from the post:

In approving the purchase, the administration chose not to require Dubai Ports to keep copies of its business records on U.S. soil, where they would be subject to orders by American courts. It also did not require the company to designate an American citizen to accommodate requests by the government.

Outside legal experts said such obligations are routinely attached to U.S. approvals of foreign sales in other industries.

Dubai Ports agreed to give up records on demand about "foreign operational direction" of its business at the U.S. ports, according to the documents. Those records broadly include details about the design, maintenance or operation of ports and equipment. It also pledged to continue participating in programs to stop smuggling and detect illegal shipments of nuclear materials.

So if DP World would not have its business records in a corporate office on U.S. soil, then where would the Coast Guard security plans for U.S. ports that DP World would operate be kept? Would the security plans be kept at DP World's corporate offices in UAE? Would the American public feel safe, knowing that Coast Guard security plans be stored at DP offices in the United Arab Emirates--where they could be accessed by al Qaida operatives? In fact, such security plans wouldn't need to be held in the UAE--if such security plans are in computer files, they could be transferred from DP World computers in the U.S. mainland, to DP World computers in the UAE, then downloaded to a CD, laptops, or even jump drives.

Do you still feel secure?

Pentagon: Iraqi troops downgraded

Iraqi soldiers secure a road near the shattered Shi'ite's Golden mosque in Samarra, 100 km (62 miles) north of Baghdad, February 24, 2006. Iraq's government put Baghdad under curfew on Friday to try to stop sectarian violence among crowds from rival mosques on the Muslim day of prayer, setting a critical test for its authority and its U.S.-trained forces. REUTERS/Stringer

This is from CNN.Com:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The only Iraqi battalion capable of fighting without U.S. support has been downgraded to a level requiring them to fight with American troops backing them up, the Pentagon said Friday.

The battalion, made up of 700 to 800 Iraqi Army soldiers, has repeatedly been offered by the U.S. as an example of the growing independence of the Iraqi military.

The competence of the Iraqi military has been cited as a key factor in when U.S. troops will be able to return home.

"As we see more of these Iraqi forces in the lead, we will be able to continue with our stated strategy that says as Iraqi forces stand up, we will stand down," President Bush said last month. (Full story)

The battalion, according to the Pentagon, was downgraded from "level one" to "level two" after a recent quarterly assessment of its capabilities.

"Level one" means the battalion is able to fight on its own; "level two" means it requires support from U.S. troops; and "level three" means it must fight alongside U.S. troops.

Though officials would not cite a specific reason for downgrading the unit, its readiness level has dropped in the wake of a new commander and numerous changes in the combat and support units, officials said.

The battalion is still deployed, and its status as an independent fighting force could be restored any day, Pentagon officials said. It was not clear where the battalion is operating within Iraq.

According to the congressionally mandated Iraq security report released Friday, there are 53 Iraqi battalions at level two status, up from 36 in October. There are 45 battalions at level three, according to the report.

Iraqi army soldiers prepare to enter a house during a 'cordon and knock' operation near the northern Iraqi city of Baiji February 23, 2006. With U.S. army troops from the 101st Airborne Division acting as advisors, Iraqi soldiers searched homes and questioned residents on Thursday near the scene of several recent roadside bombings on the outskirts of Baiji. REUTERS/Bob Strong

Not one Iraqi battalion is capable of fighting without U.S. assistance. In other words, Iraq cannot defend itself--from attacks coming from outside its borders, or from within its borders. There are no Iraqi forces capable of standing up to defend their country.

American troops will not be pulling out this election year--not after the violence that has gripped Iraq through the terror attacks in the past week. Consider this story, titled Iraq Rocked by More Sectarian Violence, just out on Yahoo News:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A car bomb exploded in a Shiite holy city and 13 members of a Shiite family were shot to death Saturday in a surge of attacks that killed about 50 people despite heightened security to curb Iraq's sectarian violence following the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine.

A man checks the bodies of 12 members of an Iraqi family as they lie on the ground outside a hospital in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad February 25, 2006. Gunmen stormed a house and killed 12 members of the same Shi'ite family, Interior Ministry sources said. The attack came amid heightened sectarian tensions following the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine on Wednesday that raised fears of civil war. REUTERS/Helmiy al-Azawi

President Bush spoke to seven Iraqi political leaders Saturday in an effort to defuse the sectarian violence that threatens the goal of a self-sufficient Iraq free of U.S. military involvement.

Bush's extraordinary round of early-morning telephone diplomacy involved his first conversations with Iraqi leaders since the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra that prompted days of reprisal attacks.

At least one more Sunni mosque was attacked in Baghdad on Saturday after two rockets were fired at a Shiite mosque in Tuz Khormato, north of the capital, the previous night.

Shooting also broke out near the home of a prominent Sunni cleric during the funeral procession for an Al-Arabiya TV correspondent slain in sectarian violence. Police believed the procession was the target.

The violence occurred despite an extraordinary daytime curfew in Baghdad and three surrounding provinces. It was lifted at 4 p.m. in most areas, but the government announced a 24-hour ban on vehicular movements in Baghdad and its suburbs starting at 6 a.m. Sunday.


Despite the extra measures, the stretched security forces could not contain attacks that have killed more than 190 people since Wednesday's shrine bombing and pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war.

Political and religious leaders were anxious to contain the violence unleashed by extremists on both sides that have frozen efforts to form a new government that Washington considers essential if it is to start withdrawing U.S. troops this year.

Iraqi Shi'ites gather on a road during a protest in Kut, 172 km (107 miles) south of Baghdad, February 23, 2006. Thousands of Iraqi Shi'ites marched across Iraq denouncing the bombing of a major Shi'ite shrine, the Golden Mosque, in Samarra. REUTERS/Jaafer Abed

Iraq is now in a state of civil, religious, and ethnic war between the Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. The current Iraqi government is incapable of quelling this violent dissent--considering that the Iraqi forces are made up of Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. The differences, hatreds, and old scores to be settled, that each group has against the other is too much for the current Iraqi government to handle--it is a major testament to Saddam Hussein's political skill that he was able to keep the country unified in spite of these fractured undercurrents. If U.S. troops were to pull out now, it would cause Iraq to plunge into civil war. What is especially scary is that an Iraqi civil war could drag Turkey in the north, and Iran in the west. Turkish Kurds would want to join with Iraqi Kurds to create their own independent country--something Turkey is opposed to. And Iran would be dragged into this civil war as a means to gain greater power and influence with the Shiite-controlled territory in southern Iraq. Thus, an Iraqi civil war could become a flashpoint for an even greater Middle Eastern, or possibly a world war.

More on Portgate--Homeland Security Objected to Ports Deal

Members of the Teamsters Union take part in a rally across the street from the Seagirt Terminal in Baltimore, Maryland February 24, 2006. The rally was held to protest the sale of U.S. port operations to Dubai Ports World. REUTERS/Joe Giza

Some more on Portgate here. This is from Yahoo News:

WASHINGTON - The Homeland Security Department objected at first to a United Arab Emirates company's taking over significant operations at six U.S. ports. It was the lone protest among members of the government committee that eventually approved the deal without dissent.

he department's early objections were settled later in the government's review of the $6.8 billion deal after Dubai-owned DP World agreed to a series of security restrictions.

The company indefinitely has postponed its takeover to give President Bush time to convince Congress that the deal does not pose any increased risks to the U.S. from terrorism.

Some lawmakers have pressed for a new and intensive review. Despite persistent criticism from Republicans and Democrats, the president has defended his administration's approval of the ports deal and threatened to veto any measures in Congress that would block it. Hearings are to continue this week.

A cargo ship sits at the dock at the Port of Miami, in Miami, Florida. A United Arab Emirates company has agreed to postpone its plans to take over management of six US ports after the proposed deal ignited harsh criticism from both Democrats and Republicans on national security grounds.(AFP/File/Robert Sullivan)

So the Department of Homeland Security objected to this deal at first? Why? It was the lone protester among the committee, until a review was made on security? What was the deal that was made between Homeland Security and the rest of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States? Continuing on:

The administration approved the ports deal on Jan. 17 after DP World agreed during secret negotiations to cooperate with law enforcement investigations in the future and make other concessions.

Some lawmakers have challenged the adequacy of a classified intelligence assessment crucial to assuring the administration that the deal was proper. The report was assembled during four weeks in November by analysts working for the director of national intelligence.

The report concluded that U.S. spy agencies were "unable to locate any derogatory information on the company," according to a person familiar with the document. This person spoke only on condition of anonymity because the report was classified.

Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich., and others have complained that the intelligence report focused only on information the agencies collected about DP World and did not examine reported links between UAE government officials and al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Stewart Baker, a senior Homeland Security official, said he was the sole representative on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States who objected to the ports deal. Baker said he later changed his vote after DP World agreed to the security conditions. Other officials confirmed Baker's account.

"We were not prepared to sign off on the deal without the successful negotiation of the assurances," Baker told the AP.

So Homeland Security was concerned about the security aspects regarding the operation of the ports themselves. They were worried about terrorists infiltrating American ports to conduct attacks within the country. That is an acceptable concern for Homeland Security. But I do find it interesting that the intelligence community, or the Committee on Foreign Investment did not look into ties between al Qaida terrorists and the government of the United Arab Emirates? DP World is owned by the government of UAE. Why wasn't this taken into account? Is it not possible for lower level UAE government officials, who may be receptive to al Qaida views, to provide al Qaida terrorists with the means, through government channels, to gain access into DP World-controlled American ports? And it doesn't have to be for terrorist activities--how about smuggling activities, which can provide profits to fund al Qaida's bank accounts, and terror activities?

Why were these issues not taken into account for the sale?

UAE terminal takeover extends to 21 ports

A cargo ship sits at the dock at the Port of Miami February 24, 2006. The White House welcomed on Friday the temporary delay of a takeover letting a state-owned Arab company run U.S. port terminals, but senators called for a new law to put the deal on hold pending a security review. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

This is from The United Press International:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 24 (UPI) -- A United Arab Emirates government-owned company is poised to take over port terminal operations in 21 American ports, far more than the six widely reported.

The Bush administration has approved the takeover of British-owned Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. to DP World, a deal set to go forward March 2 unless Congress intervenes.

P&O is the parent company of P&O Ports North America, which leases terminals for the import and export and loading and unloading and security of cargo in 21 ports, 11 on the East Coast, ranging from Portland, Maine to Miami, Florida, and 10 on the Gulf Coast, from Gulfport, Miss., to Corpus Christi, Texas, according to the company's Web site.

President George W. Bush on Tuesday threatened to veto any legislation designed to stall the handover.

So instead of six ports, it is now 21 ports that DP World will control with its shipping operations. This was certainly not reported in the mainstream American press. To have a company, owned by the United Arab Emirates, control the shipping operations of 21 American ports, will certainly increase fears that al Qaida terrorists can slip into this country through just one of those 21 ports to conduct an attack. And the Bush administration is okay with this?

The more I look at this deal, the more it smells. And it is not just the fears of Middle Eastern terrorism slipping into the country through these ports. It is really how this deal was brokered secretly, how the issues of terrorism and security were brushed aside through secret government councils, and how the public and Congress were left in the dark on this issue. It smells due to the corporate ties that DP World had through the Bush White House, where the Bush administration appointed DP World executive David C. Sanborn to be the administrator for the Maritime Administration of the Department of Transportation. This deal is not about what is good for the country. This deal is about what is good for corporate cronyism--where the Bush White House sells out to the highest bidder, and disregards what is best for the country as a whole. The stench of cronyism that has emanated from the White House for the past five years, is now quickly spreading across this country. The American public is waking up to this stench, and no amount of White House PR-spin will be able to mask this smell.

S.D. Gov. 'Inclined' to Sign Abortion Ban

This is from Yahoo News:

PIERRE, S.D. - Gov. Mike Rounds said he is inclined to sign a bill that would ban nearly all abortions in South Dakota, making it a crime for doctors to perform an abortion unless it was necessary to save the woman's life.

The ban, including in cases of rape or incest, was approved Friday by South Dakota lawmakers, setting up a deliberate frontal assault on
Roe v. Wade at a time when some activists see the
U.S. Supreme Court as more willing than ever to overturn the 33-year-old decision.

Planned Parenthood, which operates the only clinic in the state that provides abortions, vowed to sue. But even before the bill has a signature, money to defend it poured in. Lawmakers were told during the debate that an anonymous donor pledged $1 million to defend the ban, and the Legislature was setting up a special account to accept donations.

"We've had people stopping in our office trying to drop off checks to promote the defense of this legislation already," Rounds said.

Many opponents and supporters of abortion rights believe the U.S. Supreme Court is more likely to overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion now that conservatives John Roberts and Samuel Alito are on the bench. Lawmakers said growing support among South Dakotans for abortion restrictions gave the bill momentum.

Under the measure, doctors could get up to five years in prison for performing an illegal abortion. The House passed the bill 50-18 on Friday, and the Senate approved it 23-12 earlier this week. If signed, it would become law July 1.

A judge is likely to suspend the abortion ban during the expected legal challenge, which means it would never take effect unless the state gets the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and wins.

Rounds said his staff will review the bill for technical defects. He said he vetoed a similar measure two years ago because it would have wiped out all existing restrictions on abortion while the bill was challenged in court.

"I've indicated I'm pro-life and I do believe abortion is wrong and that we should do everything we can to save lives. If this bill accomplishes that, then I am inclined to sign the bill into law," he said.

Gov. Mike Rounds answers questions about a bill that would ban abortions in the South Dakota Friday, Feb. 24, 2006, in Pierre, S.D. Rounds says he will have to see the bill before he decides what action he will take on it. (AP Photo/Jenny Michael)

Like it or not, this is the radical wing-nut's direct challenge to overturn Roe verses Wade. The wing-nuts have been working towards this goal for the past 30 years--certainly since the Reagan administration, with packing the lower courts with hard-lined conservative judges who could then move up to the Supreme Court. The Republican wedge issues, to rally their troops and blunt the Democratic opposition, have always been the social issues of gay marriage, flag burning, and abortion Now that they've been able to replace the abortion swing vote of Sandra Day O'Conner with Samuel Alito, they are on the verge of achieving their dream goal of banning abortions. And the American public was either too dumb, or too frightened by the Republican scare-tactics of terrorism and 9/11, to fully comprehend how a second term Bush administration would revamp the Supreme Court.

Roe verses Wade will be overturned this year--or at least completely gutted.

But there's a problem with the wing-nut's dream of overturning abortion. Abortion has always been the central political wedge issue for the Republicans. Once abortion is overturned, what else is there? A constitutional amendment? That will be especially difficult--even for the Republicans. There is no other social issue that can convey such emotional passion than abortion--whether you believe in a woman's right to choose, or believe that abortion is murder. Banning abortion at the federal level, will also diffuse that emotional passion the wing-nuts have on the Republican side of the debate. Hey, we have achieved our goal in overturning Roe, so now let's all go home. At the same time, you can bet that once Roe is overturned, it will galvanize the Democrats and the pro-choice people as never before, just as in 1973, when the Supreme Court's decision to uphold abortion as the supreme law of the land had galvanized the extreme conservatives. The abortion wedge issue becomes an advantage for the Democrats.

A second problem here is the women's vote. Like it or not, women make up half the country's population. They are a major voting block. If the Republicans overturn Roe, how do you think the women voters will respond once their rights are taken away--by male Republican lawmakers? Abortion becomes the battle of the sexes. And the Republican Party will be on the side of restricting women's rights in this country. Back in the early to middle-70s, women were fighting for both abortion, and the Equal Rights Amendment. Once abortion is banned, you can bet that both of these issues will be at the forefront of the country's social debate.

And the wing-nuts will be on the opposing side of women's rights and choice.

Once abortion does become overturned, the evangelists and religious right wing-nuts will no longer have a major rallying issue to continue maintaining their allegiance with the Republican Party. The dream goal has been achieved. The Republicans do not have another social wedge issue that is as contentious or emotional as abortion--not gay marriage, or creationism, or flag burning. And just as the legalization of abortion has sedated the Democratic Party over the past 25 years, the banning of abortion may just sedate the religious wing-nuts of the Republican Party. The Republicans are planting the seeds of their own destruction, as a party, just as they are providing a powerful rallying point for reorganizing and re-energizing the Democrats. That is the pushing the country towards one extreme end of the political spectrum. Sooner or later, the opposite end will start pushing back--hard. This South Dakota ban on abortion, and the possible Supreme Court upholding of this ban, will become a wake-up call for women, and pro-choice Americans. They will push back in a way that the Republican Party has not seen in 30 years.

It is only a matter of time.

Bush gives Federal Reserve Board seat to White House crony

I saw this off the Washington Monthly blogsite, so I wanted to go back to the original source of the story. This is actually from The New Republic Online:

You didn't have to be Karl Rove to figure out that George W. Bush needed a respected economist to fill Alan Greenspan's shoes. Coming on the heels of the p.r. disasters that were Michael Brown and Harriet Miers, the last thing the White House could afford was another crony appointment. And so, in October, Bush nominated former Princeton economist Ben Bernanke to replace the outgoing Greenspan. Bernanke happens to be one of the world's leading experts on monetary policy.

Then came January. It turns out that, in addition to appointing a new Fed chairman, the Bushies also had two seats to fill on the Federal Reserve board, whose interest rate-setting power makes it by far the most influential actor in the global economy. One of these seats went to a University of Chicago professor and former White House economist named Randall Kroszner. Kroszner is an impeccably credentialed right-of-center candidate who, though a little young (he's 43), is basically the kind of person you'd expect a Republican president to nominate. And the other? It went to a 35-year-old White House aide named Kevin Warsh. Other than a Harvard Law degree and four years in the White House, the only qualification that jumps out at you is the $165,000-plus his father-in-law has donated to various Republican committees since 2002. Warsh may be perfectly capable of hazarding opinions about the future of the economy. But, by that standard, there are tens of thousands of people entitled to a seat on the Fed. That makes Warsh's appointment a big step down a slippery slope that could eventually erode the institution's competence.

President Bush gave a seat on the Federal Reserve Board to a White House crony? Placing a lawyer on the Federal Reserve Board--the nation's powerful central bank? A lawyer? What is even worst, is this little story from CNN.Com:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate Friday approved the nominations of University of Chicago economist Randall Kroszner and White House aide Kevin Warsh to be members of the Federal Reserve Board.

The nominees were confirmed without debate.

With the Senate vote, President Bush has now put a firm stamp on the central bank, having appointed all seven members of the Fed's Washington-based board -- the first president to do so since Reagan in 1988.

Fed Vice Chairman Roger Ferguson, the only Democrat, was initially appointed by President Clinton. Board member Donald Kohn is a political independent.

The board lies at the heart of U.S. monetary policy-making and as such wields great influence over the direction of the world's largest economy.

The Federal Reserve is the heart of the U.S. monetary policy-making. The Fed yields enormous power in regulating the money supply, setting interest rates, raising and lowering rates, determines how much inflation the economy is generating. Wall Street investment firms, banks, hedge funds, pension funds, other nation's central banks--just about anyone who deals within the U.S. economy closely watches the Fed, to determine how the Fed would react to economic issues, data, and try to gauge the direction the U.S. economy is going. And President Bush places a lawyer on the Federal Reserve Board. But what is more astonishing is that the Senate voted to confirm Warsh without any debate! There was no debate in the Senate--they just rubber-stamped Warsh on the board! A White House flunkie is now on the board of the most powerful central bank in the world.

But it gets better. Here's a little background story from Bloomberg:

Preston Martin, who was Fed vice chairman from 1982 to 1986. called Kroszner ``a brilliant choice because he has served in many categories around and in the Federal Reserve system.''

Warsh graduated from Stanford University in 1992 with a bachelor's degree in public policy and from Harvard Law School in 1995. He married Jane Lauder, the granddaughter of cosmetics pioneer Estee Lauder, in 2002 at an estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and lives primarily in Washington, according to an April 2005 article in the New York Times.

He was hired by Morgan Stanley as an associate in August 1996, at the age of 26, and then promoted to vice president in investment banking and later to executive director.

``If I were on the Senate committee, I'd vote yes for Kroszner and no for Warsh,'' said Martin. ``I have great reservations about Warsh because he just doesn't have the background.''

So Warsh is married to the granddaughter of Estee Lauder, meaning he's a part of the old money, corporate elitist group that loves President Bush. Warsh played the neocon game in Bush's White House, and now the president is going to reward Warsh with a Federal Reserve Board seat.

This game of cronyism continues on.

Arab Co., White House Had Secret Agreement

An aerial view of the Port of Miami is shown in this May 26, 2005 file photo. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2006, that his brother, President Bush, would adequately protect national security as part of the federal government's approval of the sale of a ports operator to a state-owned company in the United Arab Emirates. Under a proposed deal, a British company that has been running some operations at six U.S. ports would be acquired by Dubai Ports World. The British company owns a 50 percent share in the Port of Miami Terminal Operating Co. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz, File)

Portgate has just taken a turn into the Twilight Zone. This is from Yahoo News:

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration secretly required a company in the United Arab Emirates to cooperate with future U.S. investigations before approving its takeover of operations at six American ports, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. It chose not to impose other, routine restrictions.

As part of the $6.8 billion purchase, state-owned Dubai Ports World agreed to reveal records on demand about "foreign operational direction" of its business at U.S. ports, the documents said. Those records broadly include details about the design, maintenance or operation of ports and equipment.

The administration did not require Dubai Ports to keep copies of business records on U.S. soil, where they would be subject to court orders. It also did not require the company to designate an American citizen to accommodate U.S. government requests. Outside legal experts said such obligations are routinely attached to U.S. approvals of foreign sales in other industries.

"They're not lax but they're not draconian," said James Lewis, a former U.S. official who worked on such agreements. If officials had predicted the firestorm of criticism over the deal, Lewis said, "they might have made them sound harder."

The conditions involving the sale of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. were detailed in U.S. documents marked "confidential." Such records are regularly guarded as trade secrets, and it is highly unusual for them to be made public.

The concessions — described previously by the Homeland Security Department as unprecedented among maritime companies — reflect the close relationship between the United States and the United Arab Emirates.

The revelations about the negotiated conditions came as the White House acknowledged
President Bush was unaware of the pending sale until the deal had already been approved by his administration.

A container ship is loaded at Port Newark in Newark, N.J., Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2006. President Bush said Tuesday that a deal allowing an Arab company to take over six major U.S. seaports should go forward and that he would veto any congressional effort to stop it. (AP Photo/Mike Derer)

Secret deals of future U.S. investigations into DP World's business records in exchange for the sale of the ports? DP business records would not be maintained on U.S. soil, where they could be accessed by a court order? No American representative to DP World that would accommodate the U.S. government's requests? This Portgate deal seems like it was negotiated, then publicly presented by the Keystone Kops, rather than a competent U.S. government and White House. Of course, now that this secret agreement is public, you can bet there is going to be an even greater firestorm in both Congress, and the liberal and progressive blogosphere. Concerning the details of this secret agreement:

Dubai Port's top American executive, chief operating officer Edward H. Bilkey, said the company will do whatever the Bush administration asks to enhance shipping security and ensure the sale goes through. Bilkey said Wednesday he will work in Washington to persuade skeptical lawmakers they should endorse the deal; Senate oversight hearings already are scheduled.

"We're disappointed," Bikley told the AP in an interview. "We're going to do our best to persuade them that they jumped the gun. The UAE is a very solid friend, as President Bush has said."

Under the deal, the government asked Dubai Ports to operate American seaports with existing U.S. managers "to the extent possible." It promised to take "all reasonable steps" to assist the Homeland Security Department, and it pledged to continue participating in security programs to stop smuggling and detect illegal shipments of nuclear materials.

The administration required Dubai Ports to designate an executive to handle requests from the U.S. government, but it did not specify this person's citizenship.

It said Dubai Ports must retain paperwork "in the normal course of business" but did not specify a time period or require corporate records to be housed in the United States. Outside experts familiar with such agreements said such provisions are routine in other cases.

This whole Portgate sale is a colossal screw-up. The problem with this sale isn't whether the sale to DP World is right or wrong, but rather the negotiations and the public disclosure of the sale was handled in a furtive and secretive way. The Bush White House went about in pushing this sale through without any congressional or public hearings. What we get from the Bush administration is this attitude of "We know what we're doing, so we don't need your comments." We hear from President Bush that security concerns have been addressed through secret government agencies, even though Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld didn't know about the port sale. Even President Bush didn't know about the port sale? Like it or not, this is a public relations disaster, in the magnitude of a tsunami swamping these ports!

And now we've got secret agreements with this port sale.

The sad thing is that this sale may have gone through, had the Bush White House quietly promoted this sale through congressional leaders of both political parties, and allowed public hearings regarding this sale--and not playing the political campaigning PR-spin that they are accustomed to--this port sale may have gone through without a problem. The security and terrorism issues would have certainly been raised, but real bi-partisan negotiations and compromise could have addressed these issues. The details of the port sale would have to be adapted to reflect new congressional legislation that would address these security and terrorism concerns. The American public would have had their views reflected in public hearings and congressional reviews. There is nothing to say that this port sale could not have gone through. The issue here is that for the port sale to go through, there had to be honest transparency and open debate regarding this sale. But instead of transparency, the Bush White House decided to go the secretive, furtive way of trying to ram this deal down both Congress, and the American public's throats.

And they are sowing the discontent that is now being generated as a result of this deal.

So Speedy, So Exclusive, So Expensive, So Totaled

A deputy passes the wrecked Ferrari that crashed on Pacific Coast Highway west of Decker Canyon Road on Tuesday. The car's registered owner, Swedish millionaire Stefan Eriksson, said that he was a passenger.
(Hans Laetz / Malibu Times) Feb. 21, 2006.

This is just fricking insane! This is what happens when you're rich, bored, and incredibly stupid. You embark on this dumb stunt, destroying a beautiful piece of art. From The Los Angeles Times:

It was a SigAlert made for Malibu.

A red Ferrari Enzo — one of only 400 ever made and worth more than $1 million — broke apart Tuesday when it crested a hill on Pacific Coast Highway going 120 mph and slammed into a power pole.

The driver jumped out of the wreckage and ran into the canyon above, evading a three-hour search by a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department helicopter and a mountain search-and-rescue team.

The crash did not result in serious injuries. But it sent shockwaves through both the tabloid and exotic car worlds as one group wondered if the driver was a celebrity and the other mourned the loss of a hand-built car revered by many as a work of art.

A deputy looks into the passenger compartment of the wrecked Ferrari. (Hans Laetz / Malibu Times)

A telephone pole hangs hangs by a cable tv antenna after it was hit by Stefan Eriksson's Ferrari. (Hans Laetz / Malibu Times)

The car was certain to be owned by someone rich, if not famous. Actor Nicolas Cage owns one. And Malibu local Britney Spears has been chased in a Ferrari by the paparazzi.

But by day's end the tabloids were disappointed to learn that the demolished car had been owned by a Swedish millionaire without a Screen Actors Guild card.

Sheriff's investigators identified him as 44-year-old Stefan Eriksson, a Bel-Air resident. Officials are trying to determine whether he is the noted Swedish game designer whose firm, perhaps not surprisingly, was involved with car-racing themed video games.

Swedish millionaire Stefan Eriksson, 44, of Bel-Air, talks to a deputy after his Ferrari crashed. (Hans Laetz / Malibu Times)

Authorities said Eriksson said he was a passenger in the Ferrari, which he said was being driven by a German acquaintance he knew only as Dietrich.

One witness told deputies that the Ferrari appeared to be racing with a Mercedes-Benz SLR northbound along the coastal highway when the accident occurred about 6 a.m. west of Decker Road.

"It took out the pole, and part of the car went another 600 feet," Sheriff's Sgt. Philip Brooks said. "There were 1,200 feet of debris out there."

A firefighter looks at the engine to the wrecked, million-dollar Enzo Ferrari that crashed on Pacific Coast Highway on Tuesday.
(Hans Laetz / Malibu Times)

Eriksson told authorities that "Dietrich" ran up a hill toward the canyon road and disappeared. Brooks said detectives are far from convinced they have the whole story.

Eriksson "had a .09 blood-alcohol level, but if he's a passenger, that's OK," Brooks said. "But he had a bloody lip, and only the air bag on the driver's side had blood on it. The passenger-side air bag did not. My Scooby-Doo detectives are looking closely into that.

"Maybe the 'driver' had a friend who picked him up. Maybe he thumbed a ride," the sergeant added. "Maybe he was a ghost."

Gil Lucero, a Mountain View telecommunications company executive who is president and Pacific region chairman of the Ferrari Club of America, said only 399 Enzos were at first scheduled to be assembled at the factory between 2002 and 2004, each priced at $670,000.

But a final car was built and donated to Pope John Paul II and later sold to raise $1,275,000 million for charity, Lucero said.

But what do they care? It was just a toy--a plaything!

I feel sorry for the car.

Ohio Democrats Shying Away From Ney Race

This is also from Yahoo News:

WASHINGTON - National Democrats failed three times to recruit experienced elected officials to run against the Ohio Republican at the center of a lobbying scandal. Now, they're left with lesser-known contenders running against one of their top political targets in a race they've been touting for months.

Three men with more experience in countywide elected office and greater name recognition than the four Democrats who are running turned down offers by the party's national House campaign organization last year to challenge Republican Rep. Bob Ney (news, bio, voting record).

Ney is a top target for Democrats in the 2006 elections because of his ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. When Abramoff pleaded guilty to fraud charges in January, he told federal prosecutors Ney took thousands of dollars in gifts, travel and campaign donations from him and associates in exchange for official acts.

"From (Ohio Gov.) Bob Taft to Bob Ney, Ohio is ground zero for voters who want real change from the status quo and the ethical scandals in government," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (news, bio, voting record), D-Ill., chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Taft, who has rock bottom approval ratings, pleaded no contest to ethics charges last year and was the first Ohio governor charged with a crime.

The Democrats have made Ney's race the bellwether for their attempt to erase a 231-202 GOP advantage in the House, but Ney said the fact that "the top-three tier people didn't run against me should tell Rahm Emanuel that the bell's already misshaping itself."

Ney has won at least 60 percent of the vote in all but two of his six House campaigns and ran unopposed in 2002. No Republican has won the presidency without Ohio, and the GOP has controlled state government for 12 years and holds 10 of 18 House districts.

Covering parts of rural, south-central Ohio to more populated, northeastern areas near the industrial city of Canton, Ney's district is Ohio's largest by area.

One of the Democrats who turned down Emanuel's recruiting efforts said Ney could be unbeatable, despite his troubles.

"He is well liked in the district. He enjoys broad-based support from labor unions and business. My own personal feeling is, until he is led off the floor of Congress in handcuffs, he'll be tough to defeat," state Rep. John Boccieri said.

Robert W. Ney, R-Ohio

My question for the Democrats is why are they setting their sights on Ney--especially when Ney is practically unbeatable in his district? Now I know that Ney is a high profile target, and that his unseating would be a coup for the Democratic Party. The problem here is that Ney is only a single candidate, and a Democratic election fight against Ney is going to cost a large amount of money--money the Democratic Party can ill afford to spend on high profile races that have little chance of success. Why not bypass Ney, and channel money towards other Democratic candidates running in Ohio races? Why not concentrate on other smaller representative races in Ohio, where the money can make a greater impact in swinging districts over to the Democratic side, and still give the Democrats a greater shot at controlling the House. Bypass Ney, and let him rot in the bad publicity of the Abramoff scandal. If the Democrats do gain control of the House, they can further marginalize Ney since he would not have the leadership position he currently has now.

In other words, pick the fights you know you can win. Avoid the fights that you know your opponent has the advantage in.

Scientists: Pluto might have rings

Pluto, center, with its moon Charon (below Pluto and right of center) and two newly discovered moons. From NASA.

This is an interesting story from CNN.Com:

(SPACE.com) -- The two moons discovered around Pluto last year were likely formed from the same giant impact that created the planet's much larger satellite, Charon, scientists say.

The idea suggests that other Kuiper Belt Objects might also harbor multiple satellites and raises the possibility that Pluto is encircled by rings fashioned from debris ejected from the surface of the tiny moons.

The two moons, called P1 and P2 for now, were discovered in May 2005 using the Hubble Space Telescope. Scientists now think the two moons are roughly 37 and 31 miles (60 and 50 kilometers) in diameter. Charon has an estimated diameter of about 750 miles (1,200 kilometers).

The moons' tiny sizes raise the possibility that even more satellites might be discovered around Pluto in the future.

"The very small masses of P1 and P2 relative to Charon beg the question of why ... there are not more small satellites of Pluto," a team of researchers write in the February 23 issue of the journal Nature. "Perhaps there are other, still fainter satellites that escaped detection."

Because of how P1 and P2 move, scientists think they were formed from the same collision that, according to the leading theory, spawned Charon.

"The small moons are in circular orbits in the same orbital plane as Charon, and they are also in, or very near, orbital resonance with Charon," said study leader Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI).

For every twelve orbits Charon makes around Pluto, P1 makes almost two orbits and P2 completes nearly three. This ratio would likely not be constant if P1 and P2 were merely passing objects captured by Pluto's gravity. The most likely explanation for this arrangement, scientists figure, is that all three moons were born of the same event.

Collisions between large objects helped shape many aspects of our solar system. The Moon, for example, is believed to have formed when a Mars-sized object slammed into Earth 4 billion years ago. The crash that's thought to have created Pluto's moons is believed to have occurred at around the same time.

This illustration released by NASA shows the Pluto system from the surface of one of the candidate moons. Pluto is the large disk at center right and its confirmed moon Charon is the smaller disk to the right of Pluto. Astronomers using the Hubble telescope have determined that Pluto has two tiny satellites in addition to Charon.(AFP/NASA-HO/File)

Scientists will get a closer look at Pluto and its moons when NASA's recently launched New Horizon mission reaches the system in 2015. (Full story)

Scientists have determined that up to a fifth or more of known Kuiper-belt objects (KBOs)harbor satellites or belong to binary systems; the new modeling suggests that there could also be numerous systems consisting of three, four or even more bodies grouped together.

But finding these systems is difficult because of the distances involved. The Kuiper belt is a region of space populated by asteroids and comets and other rocky, icy bodies; it is located beyond Neptune, between 30 and 50 AU from Earth. One AU is equal to the distance from the Earth to the sun.

"Finding small satellites around KBOs is difficult because their large distances from the Sun makes them appear very faint," said study team member Andrew Steffl of SwRI.

However, KBOs and their satellites are occasionally ejected from the Kuiper Belt and get flung closer to the Sun, where they become easier to spot. Steffl said a good way to determine whether KBOs with multiple satellites are unusual or the norm is to search for satellites around these outcasts, which are known as "Centaurs."

"We hope to use Hubble to search for faint moons around some of them," Steffl said.

The discovery of P1 and P2 also raises the intriguing possibility that impact debris from the small moons is captured by Pluto's gravity and coalescing into rings or even arcs around the tiny planet. If confirmed, it would be the first example of a ring system around a solid body rather than a gas giant planet.

W aides' biz ties to Arab firm

This is off the New York Daily News. I don't know how reputable this story is, but it does provide an interesting reason as to why the White House allowed for this port sale to secretly go through. Here's the story:

WASHINGTON - The Dubai firm that won Bush administration backing to run six U.S. ports has at least two ties to the White House.

One is Treasury Secretary John Snow, whose agency heads the federal panel that signed off on the $6.8 billion sale of an English company to government-owned Dubai Ports World - giving it control of Manhattan's cruise ship terminal and Newark's container port.

Snow was chairman of the CSX rail firm that sold its own international port operations to DP World for $1.15 billion in 2004, the year after Snow left for President Bush's cabinet.

The other connection is David Sanborn, who runs DP World's European and Latin American operations and was tapped by Bush last month to head the U.S. Maritime Administration.

The ties raised more concerns about the decision to give port control to a company owned by a nation linked to the 9/11 hijackers.

"The more you look at this deal, the more the deal is called into question," said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who said the deal was rubber-stamped in advance - even before DP World formally agreed to buy London's P&O port company.

Besides operations in New York and Jersey, Dubai would also run port facilities in Philadelphia, New Orleans, Baltimore and Miami.

It is interesting that these two connections to the Bush White House has been raised. And it is also not surprising--the White House develops policies that benefit their corporate interests. In this case, it was Treasury Secretary Snow who was bound to make a nice profit from the CSX sale of its port to DP World, and now Sanborn, who previously worked for DP World and is now heading the U.S. Maritime Administration. This administration doesn't care about public policy. Public policy is crafted to benefit corporate interests--any corporate interests which administration officials have ties to. And you can bet that these officials still have ties to the corporations they've left to work in the White House--shares of stock, or options that have been placed into blind trust funds is a perfect example. They will use their power in government to help their former companies in providing government goodies, tax breaks, and deregulation because they know that such benefits will help increase the company stock that they hold in their blind trust funds.

The cronyism continues on.

Blast Rocks Shiite Shrine in Samarra

Iraqis inspect the damage inside a Shrine in Samarra, 95 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad, Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2006. A large explosion Wednesday heavily damaged the golden dome of one of Iraq's most famous Shiite religious shrines, sending protesters pouring into the streets. It was the third major attack against Shiite targets in as many days. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)

This is also from The Washington Post:

BAGHDAD, Feb. 22 -- One of the most revered shrines in Shiite Islam was bombed early Wednesday morning north of Baghdad, causing the collapse of its dome, police and eyewitnesses said. There was no immediate estimate of casualties in the latest in a series of sectarian attacks in the country.

The attack on the Askariya shrine, also known as the Golden Mosque, in the city of Samarra sparked immediate and widespread protests among Shiites across Iraq and reports of reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques. The blast appeared designed to further inflame sectarian tension between Iraq's Shiite majority and the Sunni Arab population from whose ranks the bulk of the country's insurgency is drawn.

"The main aim of these terrorist groups is to drag Iraq into a civil war," said Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, in an interview on al-Arabiya, a Dubai-based Arabic news channel.

Thousands of Shiite militia fighters -- many armed with pistols, automatic rifles and grenade launchers -- took to the streets of cities across Iraq after the bombing, even as Shiite political and religious leaders called for peaceful demonstrations and restraint.

In Baghdad, Shiite militia fighters converged upon at least one Sunni Arab mosque and the headquarters of the Sunni-led Iraqi Islamic Party, witnesses said. Gunfire broke out at both sites, sending families in the neighborhood diving to the floors of their homes to escape bullets. U.S. military helicopters backed Iraqi security forces as they tried to get the Shiite militia fighters there to withdraw.

Gunfire and bombings were reported at other Sunni mosques and political headquarters in Samarra, Basrah and elsewhere.

The shrine in Samarra, a predominantly Sunni Arab city 65 miles north of Baghdad, contains the remains of two of Shiite Islam's most prominent imams. The bomb is believed to have been planted a day earlier, said Capt. Basheer Qadoori of the city's police force.

Iraq is in a state of civil, ethnic, and religious war between the Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds. The only reason that Iraq has not broken out completely in fighting is that the U.S. still occupies the country, and the civil strife is divided between the American troops and the different religious factions. Pull the Americans out of Iraq, and the civil war would break out completely. Iraq is made up of three different countries, comprised of three different ethnic and religious groups. And all three groups are fighting each other to gain access to territory, oil reserves, weapons, and influence within their respected spheres of influence--once the U.S. decides to pull out of Iraq. And I haven't even gotten into the Iranian connection regarding this issue--that's a whole new can of worms. This attack is just another example of the low-simmering civil war that bubbles underneath the American occupation.

I don't know if there is any resolution to this simmering crisis.

Naval Academy Charges Midshipman With Rape

What can I say about this story, except that Lamar Owens should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. This is from The Washington Post:

A star football player at the U.S. Naval Academy has been charged under military law with raping a female midshipman in her dorm room, the school said today.

The charges stem from a Jan. 29 incident in which senior Lamar S. Owens Jr., last season's quarterback and team co-captain, allegedly entered the midshipman's room in Bancroft Hall and raped her, according to charging documents.

Owens, 22, of Savannah, Ga., has been charged with rape, conduct unbecoming an officer and a related count for indecent assault. The female midshipman's name, age and other personal information was being withheld by the academy.

The academy said in a statement that it has assigned the alleged victim a personal advocate "and is doing everything it can to protect the victim, as well as offer support and counseling."

Owens, meanwhile, remains in school while he awaits a preliminary hearing. A date has not been set. He was not available for comment today, said Cmdr. Rod Gibbons, an academy spokesman. Owens has been assigned a military defense lawyer, Gibbons said.

Calls to Owens's parents in Georgia were not immediately returned this morning.

The academy said it is has taken steps to prevent contact between Owens and the alleged victim.

"It's important to emphasize that these are accusations and that he's innocent until proven guilty," Gibbons said.

Academy officials declined to discuss the case further. The charges are based on an investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

Owens was voted the football team's most valuable player by his teammates after rushing for 880 yards and 11 touchdowns and throwing for 1,299 yards and six touchdowns to lead Navy to a record of eight wins and four losses after a victory in the Poinsettia Bowl. The 5-foot-9, 185-pound Owens set school records this fall for passing yards per attempt (10.6), yards per completion (20.6), passing yards per attempt in a career (10.5) and total offense yards per play in a career (6.0). Owens finished with 1,009 rushing yards during his career, which earned him the school's Joe Bellino Award, which is presented to the varsity football player of the graduating class who amassed the most career rushing yards.

The allegations come amid heightened scrutiny at the military service academies over issues of sexual assault and sexual harassment. That is a response to reports by female cadets at the Air Force Academy of extensive problems in 2003.

Bush Unaware of Ports Deal Before Approval

A part of the Brooklyn Marine Terminal is seen in New York February 21, 2006. British firm P&O may have to retain management of six major ports in the United States even though it is on the verge of being taken over by Dubai Ports World, a U.S. congressman said on Tuesday. REUTERS/Seth Wenig


I've been watching this "Portgate" going on for the past week with a detached fascination, but not really sure how to comment on it. The gist of the story is sort of a non-issue here--shipping operations in six big American ports were sold to Dubai Ports, of the United Arab Emirates. What is fascinating is how this story has brought out a number of issues--September 11th, terrorist infiltration, security concerns, al Qaida's using the UAE as a base of operations, Homeland Security, secret government security studies, and the utter disregard for congressional consultations. And of course, the Bush White House is swirling in the middle of this latest scandal, scrambling to put together its political spin-meister PR.

Now this is from Yahoo News:

WASHINGTON -
President Bush was unaware of the pending sale of shipping operations at six major U.S. seaports to a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates until the deal already had been approved by his administration, the White House said Wednesday.

Defending the deal anew, the administration also said that it should have briefed Congress sooner about the transaction, which has triggered a major political backlash among both Republicans and Democrats.

Bush on Tuesday brushed aside objections by leaders in the Senate and House that the $6.8 billion sale could raise risks of terrorism at American ports. In a forceful defense of his administration's earlier approval of the deal, he pledged to veto any bill Congress might approve to block the agreement involving the sale of a British company to the Arab firm.

Bush faces a rebellion from leaders of his own party, as well as from Democrats, about the deal that would put Dubai Ports in charge of major shipping operations in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.

While Bush has adamantly defended the deal, the White House acknowledged that he did not know about it until recently.

"He became aware of it over the last several days," McClellan said. Asked if Bush did not know about it until it was a done deal, McClellan said, "That's correct." He said the matter did not rise to the presidential level, but went through a congressionally-mandated review process and was determined not to pose a national security threat.

"The president made sure to check with all the Cabinet secretaries that are part of this process, or whose agencies or departments are part of this process," the spokesman said. "He made sure to check with them — even after this got more attention in the press, to make sure that they were comfortable with the decision that was made."

"And every one of the Cabinet secretaries expressed that they were comfortable with this transaction being approved," he said.

Now I don't know how much the president knew of this issue, or even if it was near the top of his agenda for this past week. In one sense, it doesn't make a difference whether the president was aware of the port deal or not. The real issue is the utter lack of contempt that this administration has for any type of checks and balances, or even consultations with Congress on any issue. The Bush administration--or at least the lower underlings of the administration--though they could push this port sale through without any type of input from Congress, or the American public. Congress is a rubber-stamp for whatever the White House feels it can do. This attitude has been brought in by President Bush and his top advisors, and it is consistently reinforced down through the lower levels of the administration. Thus, the deal is considered good for business--in this case Dubai Ports, which may have lobbied for the sale and provide campaign contributions. The deal goes through a secret government committee, which is probably made up of Bush apparatchiks, who view this deal through political eyeshades. Every facet of this deal goes through White House channels that are accountable to no one.

And where is Congress in all this? Congress has become a rubber-stamp for this country, and this White House. The Republican leadership in Congress has place party loyalties above the greater interests of the country, and of the legislative branch of this government. Hence, we get the delays of any type of congressional oversight and legislative investigation into a number of the Bush scandals--the intelligence failures in Iraq, the Valerie Plame leak, the Katrina fiasco, the illegal NSA domestic spying, and so many others that have gone on over this past five years. The White House considers Congress as a rubber-stamp, and the Republicans have gone along with it. And as the Republicans congressional leaders have shirked their duty in oversight, this has emboldened the Bush White House to push for even more executive power at the expense of Congress, and to continually reinforce their hatred and contempt for the legislative branch. This becomes a self-fulfilling cycle.

Now we come to this port sale. The sale becomes public, and all of the sudden there is this outcry of criticism. What happened? The sale was pushed through the administration without any type of congressional or public consultations. As the Republicans in Congress, and the American public, learn of these details, the issues of September 11th terrorist attacks and homeland security are brought to the forefront of this story--issues that the administration may have ignored, or have brushed aside. The Republicans in Congress, who have shirked their responsibility of oversight, have woken up to the fact that the American public wants some type of check against unbridled executive power, with polls showing they feel that they feel that the Democrats can do a better job as leaders in Congress, than the Republicans. And this year is a midterm election year. And with this secret deal being pushed through without congressional knowledge, this calls into doubt that the Republicans in Congress can provide any leadership, or protection of the American public. This issue becomes a political issue for the Republicans in Congress, since the White House never informed Congress of the sale. The Republicans have to face the American voters this November, and how can they explain to the American voter that they let the White House push a sale of American port operations to an Arab country, which may have ties to al Qaida terrorists? An issue regarding national security that the Republicans claim they have stronger credentials on, over that of the Democrats? That is the reason you're watching this outrage brewing in Congress. The Republican leaders in Congress know that if this sale goes through, they are going to be tarred with allowing terrorists to gain access into the 'homeland' for conducting attacks on the American public. And if such terror attacks do occur as a result of this sale, it would be a public relations disaster for the Republican Party.

Now we come to the White House on this issue. This is another disastrous policy that the Bush administration has embarked on. The first problem with this sale is that the Bush administration has failed to inform Congress on this issue--had they informed Congress, they may have learned that the issues of terrorist attacks and security concerns would be at the forefront of the American public, with the public demanding answers from their congressional leaders during an election year. The second problem is the contempt that the White House has over Congress. President Bush believes he is a "unitary executive," who has practically dictatorial powers that he can use in fighting terrorism. Bush believes he is accountable to no one--and this belief has filtered down through his administration underlings. So this administration pushes this sale through with utter disregard to what Congress, or the American public may feel about it. Finally, as this sale becomes public and the outrage grows because of the issues of terrorism and security, the White House continues playing their political PR-spinmeister game in defending any action they give as being right. First we have President Bush defending the sale as being good for the country, and threatening to use the presidential veto if Congress passes legislation blocking this sale (Of course, Bush has never vetoed any bill during the past five years). And now we have the story coming out that President Bush was unaware of the proposed sale, but that he still defends the sale--even though he never knew about it? This administration rules through political campaigning and PR-spin--not through any type of policy analysis. Whatever policies they choose to embark on, is decided through ideology or how it helps their corporate benefactors and lobbyists. And when such policies that the administration favors due to ideology, or political lobbying that runs contrary to the public's interest becomes known, the Bush White House counters through their tired, old political campaigning spin.

We're watching that spin unfold here with Portgate.

Justices to Weigh Late-Term Abortion Ban

So you want to know the consequences of Justice Samuel Alito's confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court? Well, here it is. From Yahoo News:

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will consider the constitutionality of banning a type of late-term abortion, teeing up a contentious issue for a new-look court already in a state of flux over privacy rights.

The Bush administration has pressed the high court to reinstate the federal law, passed in 2003 but never put in effect because it was struck down by judges in California, Nebraska and New York.

The outcome will likely rest with the two men that President Bush has recently installed on the court. Justices had been split 5-4 in 2000 in striking down a state law, barring what critics call partial birth abortion because it lacked an exception to protect the health of the mother.

But Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who was the tie-breaking vote, retired late last month and was replaced by Samuel Alito. Abortion had been a major focus in the fight over Alito's nomination because justices serve for life and he will surely help shape the court on abortion and other issues for the next generation.

Alito, in his rulings on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, has been more willing than O'Connor, the first woman justice, to allow restrictions on abortions, which were legalized in the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.

The federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act prohibits a certain type of abortion, generally carried out in the second or third trimester, in which a fetus is partially removed from the womb, and the skull is punctured or crushed.

Justices on a 9-0 vote in a New Hampshire case reaffirmed in January that states can require parental involvement in abortion decisions and that state restrictions must have an exception to protect the mother's health.

The federal law in the current case has no health exception, but defenders maintain that the procedure is never medically necessary to protect a woman's health.

Even with O'Connor's retirement, there are five votes to uphold Roe, the landmark ruling that established a woman's right to an abortion.

Alito's views "are not going to change the outcome of the central principle of Roe v. Wade," said John Garvey, the dean at Boston College Law School. "In some ways, these are tokens or markers in ... a symbolic tug of war."

Bush has called the so-called partial birth abortion an "abhorrent practice," and his Supreme Court lawyer, Solicitor General Paul Clement, had urged justices not to delay taking up the administration's appeal.

The case that will be heard this fall comes to the Supreme Court from Nebraska, where the federal law was challenged on behalf of physicians. Doctors who perform the procedure contend that it is the safest method of abortion when the mother's health is threatened by heart disease, high blood pressure or cancer.

A judge in Lincoln, Neb., ruled the law was unconstitutional, and the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis agreed last summer, prompting the Supreme Court appeal. Federal judges in New York and San Francisco also declared the law unconstitutional and appeals courts agreed.

"Every court considering this ban has found that it lacks the necessary protections for women's health," said Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation.

Fifteen states urged justices to review the case: Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Virginia.

There is really not much to say about this story. The court will probably uphold such a ban--even though the ban does not provide a provision to allow such an abortion in case of the mother's life or health is at risk. This is what happens when you place two hard-lined conservatives on the highest court in the land--you are going to see Roe being chipped away with restriction after restriction. Now I'm not so sure I'd care much for this type of abortion rather late in the pregnancy. But what angers me is how the right-wingnuts want to restrict any right of abortion for any reason--including the life and health of the mother. It is as if the fetus has greater legal rights than that of the mother, within the wing-nuts convoluted view.

What is even more amazing is how simple this issue can be resolved. Uphold the ban with the exception of the mother's health or life is at risk. It is that simple. Keep it as an option if there are medical complications that endanger the mother. The problem is that the wing-nuts refuse to accept any compromise. To them, abortion is murder and any abortion--regardless of whether it can save the mother's life--is considered illegal in their views. Abortion becomes a religious issue to them, and there is no compromise within their religious beliefs. And so, the wing-nuts will continue to legally fight and chip away at abortion--pushing to get more hard-lined ideologies on the judicial bench, until the Supreme Court finally overturns Roe. That is the holy grail for the religious wing-nuts.

And they are closing fast on their grail.