Letter Never Sent

Senate Panels to Investigate Pricing of Energy: Bush’s pals at Enron worked hard to lift money from Californian taxpayers. I think Bush can say goodbye to winning California in 2004.

Rummy effectively offered up a scapegoat today in order to keep scrutiny off Army Secretary Thomas White. White, glad to have the heat off and glad to still have his cushy job, has this to say:

“I am personally and professionally disturbed by the preparation of these so-called talking points that I find–frankly–offensive and insulting to the Department of the Army and the Department of Defense,” White said in a statement. “I have made clear within the Army that this action was repugnant and contrary to the interests of our troops and country.”

Chavez on the coup from the Washington Post:

But Chavez said members of the military unit responsible for guarding the president arrested four foreigners who were firing on the crowd from the Hotel Ausonia, less than a block from the presidential palace. Chavez said the men, who were found with high-powered rifles, were released the next day by the provisional government. Police have said that at least five of those killed were shot in the head from above.

“I have no doubt that I would have been killed had I gone out into the streets that day — Chavez killed by a bullet from the people,” he said. “That was the idea behind this. This march was looking for deaths.” …

Since his return, Chavez has spoken to a number of world leaders, including Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Mexico’s Vicente Fox, Spain’s Jose Maria Aznar and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. All offered their congratulations, he said. But Chavez has yet to hear from any State Department official more senior than Ambassador Charles Shapiro.

Good bits from here and there:

1. Backing for Palestine state increases in US
2. The American Empire’s plan to invade Iraq with 250,000 soldiers.
3. Sharon’s plan is to drive Palestinians across the Jordan Moving or killing 2 million arabs.
4. Israel to refuse cooperation with UN Trying to block Jenin massacre investigation.
5. Bush Seeking to Squeeze School Loan Program We can’t all be Yaley blue-blood, draft-dodgers.

The US has already changed rules so that they do not even need evidence of a crime to hold detainees at Camp X-Ray. I think flouting the Geneva conventions is idiotic and wrong. There should be protections for people captured during military operations.

Earlier this month, Amnesty International criticised that as a “pick-and-choose approach” amounting to “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”

Two prisoners who protested at their uncertain fate by refusing to eat for 30 days were force-fed 2,000 calories a day through nasal feeding tubes for 10 days.

They were returned to the prison cells but still are not eating and probably will be taken back to the hospital in a few days for more forced feeding.

Some links from Antiwar.com:

1. 9/11 Was a Boon for the CIA
2. Al-Qaeda Inmates ‘Outwitting Interrogators’ I found this story funny. I like how despite the ad campaign and patriotic exhortation ‘military intelligence’ is still an oxymoron.
3. Gore Vidal: CIVIL LIBERTIES The New War on Freedom Give me liberty, or give me … what? Security?
   The Federation of American Scientists has catalogued nearly 200 such military incursions since 1945 initiated by the United States.

Here’s a good Chomsky interview on 4/8/02 regarding the situation in the mideast and Israel. You can list to it in Real Audio here.

Something fishy is going on at Harvard. Half of all grades are A and A-minus, and nearly all Harvard seniors are graduating with honors.

Last year, a record 91 percent of Harvard seniors graduated with honors, a Globe study found, compared with 51 percent at Yale and 44 percent at Princeton.

A Harvard education, while expensive and a badge of the elite, doesn’t seem to mean much in reality.

From the folks at cleancampaigns.org: Remember to vote ‘yes’ on Proposition 1: Austin Fair Elections Act (for austinites only) Election Date: Saturday May 4th, 2002 Early Voting starts April 17th. The measure will provide campaign financing for local candidates for less than a nickel a week per voter..which is around $2.60 or so a year. Not a bad idea. I first heard about this when I went to a show benefitting the Austin Green Party.