newsrackblog.com

I share Nell’s, Avedon’s, eRobin’s, Mick’s, Paul’s, Kevin’s, Glenn Greenwald’s and many others’ anger and/or disappointment re the “express train to Nixonland“ FISA capitulation by the Democratic Party and Obama.

While it’s justifiably the headliner aspect of the bill for opponents, the telcom immunity provision is only part of the problem. When you get long-time Jucidiary Committee staffers and Department of Justice veterans like James Dempsey and Marty Lederman scratching their heads and saying they’re still not quite sure what all is being authorized here — and neither is Congress — then it’s time to pull the emergency brake for that reason alone, not stoke the engine.

Given that “if you have to ask, you can’t afford it”, it seems likely we’re about to approve giga-scale “vacuum cleaner” data mining of a great deal of innocent e-mail and telephone traffic on “general principles” of some unknown nature, with a resulting huge spike in ‘false positives’ like those that have affected so many air travelers since 9/11 changed everything. Those positives will result in additional “warranted” yet essentially unjustified spying — fruit of the poisonous tree, declared tasty and nutritious by congressional fiat, Fourth Amendment be damned.

Re Obama: in one way or another, many of the bloggers above “told you so” about Obama’s propensity to lean towards whatever the DC establishment consensus is — not that I think they take great pleasure in seeing their analyses confirmed. But some didn’t, and Greenwald’s scoldings notwithstanding, I have to say that I’ve seen a lot of fairly fervent primary season Obama supporters be forthright about being disappointed with Obama now: hilzoy, Paul, and Kevin among them.

For my part, while I thought I was braced for that kind of thing, I confess I’m “Charlie Brown in midair” all the same to see Obama flatly renege on this so soon after his campaign promise last fall to support no FISA bill with immunity provisions. While I’ve been quiet online, I did fire off an e-mail to some Obama delegates I know; both replied that they shared my disappointment, and would pass along my comments to the campaign. Given that I couldn’t get through to the campaign with a phone call, I suspect they’re getting the message in Chicago; whether that message bothers them or not I can’t say.

There must be some kind of way out of here; seems like we’ve been here before. Meanwhile, Nell reminds me to go down fighting — there at least needs to be an amendment offered to strip immunity from the bill. I’m off to call my Senators; don’t expect much from Mikulski, but Cardin might hold the line on this.

Sound advice for Obama supporters — in a barely friendly, clenched-teeth, … oh, what the heck, fairly hostile sort of way — from Obama-skeptic Kate Harding (at “Shakesville”). With the refrain “Obama is not a f*@%ing progressive,” Harding rehearses a well-researched list of many of the Obama negatives I’ve noted myself,* concluding

Obama has feet of clay, just like every other politician in history. Quit trying to pretend he doesn’t and start figuring out how to help reinforce them. Be realistic about who this candidate is, to whom he’s beholden, and how much he can reasonably accomplish, so you don’t end up under your bed sucking your thumb when the shit starts to fly.

For my part, this Kool-Aid Kultist welcomes — nay, applauds — Obama-skepticism (really) and even ninety-thousand word obscenity-laced posts devoted to it (not really). I merely hope for a correspondingly skeptical post about Senator Clinton by the Shakesville team in the near future. Someone I know called Obama the “new Teflon candidate” today — nothing sticks. But I wonder — is there an example of some industrial substance that got approved simply because everyone thought someone else would ban it?

Ms. Harding says her goal is simply to explore “Obama the myth vs. Obama the man” — but cannot forebear to note she voted for Clinton mainly (and merely) because Clinton knows how to fight the slime machine propaganda the GOP will throw at either candidate, and Obama allegedly doesn’t. In the key rhetorical move of the post, she wisely concedes Clinton is no “f*@%ing” progressive either — and wisely places that concession very, very early in her long, long march through Obama’s shortcomings.

But if that’s the case, progressivism isn’t this critic’s sine qua non, either, nor is skepticism per se. Instead we essentially have one intrapartisan’s demand that opposing intrapartisans step back, take a good look at their candidate, and find him wanting in characteristics … that she apparently doesn’t require of her preferred candidate either.

I looked at Ms. Harding’s post via Jeff Fecke (”Blog of The Moderate Left”), an Obama supporter and sometime Shakesville contributor who endorses Ms. Harding’s post more generously. His post actually was a genuine call for skepticism about either candidate, and for pushing them the right way towards the right goals:

By all means, recognize that both candidates have failings, and push them to correct them, especially if they are the candidate you support. But make sure that you’re doing it for the right reasons, and with the right goals in mind. If we push Obama or Clinton to the left, they will move to the left. But if we push them to the right — if we attack them as elitist, soft, emotional, out-of-touch — if we do that, they will move to the right. And that is not the direction we want them to go.

But push them. Push them. Push them.

Amen to that.

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* E.g., here, here, here, and here. My principal Clinton-skepticism post is here.
EDITS, 4/13: “mainly/merely” and “allegedly” clauses and additional “e.g.” links added.

Senator Feingold addresses fundraiser attendees
Two other photos from the event here.
Originally uploaded by Thomas Nephew
(For more and better images, see KC’s photos.)

I went to a “Netroots Nation” fundraiser yesterday at the Mott House near the Capitol. The price was pretty reasonable as fundraisers go, and there was the prospect of seeing some friends and hearing from some of the good guys in Washington, D.C., including Senator Russ Feingold. The entry price went to support expenses for the Yearly Kos meeting in Austin this summer; that seemed like a pretty good cause.

Several online friends of mine were there, including KCinDC, altHippo, and WorldWideWeber. (Not sure anonymity is important to all of them, but I’ll go with the pseudonyms just in case.)

The first order of business was hearing from Feingold and others. Feingold — an Obama voter and likely supporter as superdelegate — surprised me a little by saying that “January 21, 2009 is as important as January 20″, meaning that it wouldn’t just matter who’s elected, but how the next president actually proceeds. He continued that it was important that the online progressive community held Washington’s feet to the fire. The subtext really seemed to be that even if Obama was elected, Feingold felt the “netroots” audience would need to continue putting pressure on DC to do the right thing. In a followup, a questioner mentioned Jim Webb and his disappointing votes on FISA. Feingold didn’t spit fire and brimstone, of course, but he said he felt the questioner needed to keep the pressure on — “not saying get rid of him”, but keep the pressure on.

Other speakers included Representatives Lloyd Doggett (TX-25), Steve Cohen (TN-9), Brad Miller (NC-13), and Rush Holt (NJ-12). Several had a bit of trouble drowning out a single songbird that was just singing his heart out as dusk gathered. But all of them made a very good impression on me. Cohen mentioned he was going to speak up for Barack Obama at a meeting of the Anti-Defamation League — which drew strong applause; I’m not saying Clinton supporters would have booed that, but my impression was that if polled, the crowd would probably have favored Obama by a wide margin. Miller noted that all incoming House members try to pick an obscure topic to become expert in that won’t step on anyone else’s toes - his was mortgage lending, and he was emphatic that in his view lenders had gone into the subprime loan business with a view to “stripping equity” from their customers.

Weber and I wound up having a long talk with altHippo. AH wondered what I thought of what he’s calling the “great 2008 rift” in the lefty blogosphere, as Obama and Clinton partisans duke it out online, and suggested it was (again paraphrasing) the end of an era of community of lefty bloggers who had made objectivity their goal rather than propaganda. I allowed that was a concern, but offered a couple of countertheories; one, that like Feingold was suggesting, some bloggers are putting down markers for being ready to go into opposition if (or when) Obama or Clinton disappoint — should one of them be elected, knock on wood.

A second thought was that as the Bush years have worn on, enraging so many of us, and as the established opinion media have at best failed to oppose him, the leftish blogosphere has put a premium on rhetorical feistiness. Some of that no-holds barred anger has maybe carried over to a Democratic campaign where neither remaining candidate looks like a progressive savior, so as people wind up choosing sides, there’s little reason to hold back with all the firepower gained from doing our “rhetorical pushups”, as I called it, over the years.

I had and have few ready quotes or links to point to in support of any of the above. On a third point, however, I do; an observation by Obsidian Wings reader “callimaco” about the Ohio primary rang true. I’ll leave it an excerpt, but the whole thing was very good:

More, [working class voters] don’t want to “join” anything. They want a “transaction”. That’s the “vote for me” model of political action. The transaction is this: we will vote for you and you will fight for us. Clinton offered them that transaction and they voted for her.

Maybe there’s a way to square that with my feeling that sometimes, perhaps given all the imponderables, the fight between online Obama and Clinton supporters often seems to turn on more on their evaluation of eachother than of the candidates. Many of us have faced or face a difficult choice between candidates, one involving weighing their Iraq, healthcare and other policy positions, the kind of campaign they run, the kind of support they’ve built, and the kind of advocate and president they might be. Once we’ve made our choices, the conflicts with others may “simply” reflect personality types and personal priorities.

There’s nothing wrong with that — I just hope we’ll all see there was nothing all that wrong with picking the other candidate either. Or that our preferred one may not be all he or she is cracked up to be. Come November, it’s going to need to be good enough that McCain and the Bush tradition he intends to carry forward is much worse. But like Feingold said, come January 21, 2009, our job won’t be over even if McCain loses.

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* I’m paraphrasing Feingold’s remarks from memory; while the gist is accurate, they may not be the precise remark Feingold made.

EDIT, 4/10: next to last paragraph edited a couple of times, to little avail.
UPDATE, 4/11: altHippo discusses the event and our discussion as well, and provides an example of an arguably unproductive Obama critique at Talkleft. Matthew Yglesias was there, too (fundraiser, not our discussion), and was glad of the reminder that there are some bona fide good guys in Congress.
UPDATE, 4/14:: Welcome Air America readers — and thanks for the link(s), Avedon.

Originally uploaded by longwayround

E-Robin’s blog “fact-esque” is celebrating its fourth birthday, so here’s a birthday cake; I hope it’s OK with photographer “longwayround” (seems to be under the license), but if not, I’ll find another one.

“Fact-esque” is one of my favorite blogs; eRobin manages a rare blend of activism, smarts, passion, and good humor that I haven’t found anywhere else.

Each of her readers will have their own favorite posts, but here are a few of mine:

• White House Letter — eRobin pinch hits a grand slam for Liz Bumiller. Eerily, Bumiller actually wrote very nearly the same thing the next year.
• Social Security 70th anniversary week
• The Chuck Pennacchio Online Petition Drive — eRobin organized bloggers to write on behalf of insurgent candidate Chuck Pennacchio, running against DINO “I’d vote for Sam Alito if only I could” Bob Casey for Pennsylvania’s junior Senate seat.
• Casting Call! — features “Curious George” book cover and a casting call for firefighters in the wake of yet another Bush photo-op with them, after Katrina.
• … and I could go on.

I’ve met eRobin once, at a demonstration back in 2005; she’s as nice in person as she seems online. As Edwards supporters will be chanting in 2012: Four more years! Four more years! …Well, whether they’re chanting that or not in 2012, I am right now. Keep up the great work, eRobin — long may you blog!

But at least Fafblog has a long shelf life. February 20, 2006:

Q. Why are we in Iraq?
A. To prevent the failure of the occupation of Iraq. If we pull out now the occupation will be a failure!

Q. Would it have been easier to have never occupied it in the first place?
A. Ah, but if we never occupied Iraq, then the occupation certainly would have been a failure, now wouldn’t it?

Q. [meditates for many years]
Q. Now I am enlightened.

August 25, 2005:

FAFBLOG: So what’s up, Democrats?
JOE BIDEN: What’s up is the war in Iraq, which is terribly mismanaged, Fafnir.
FB: Oh wow! Are you guys against the war, too?
JOE LIEBERMAN: Oh no, we’re not AGAINST the war!
HARRY REID: We’re all FOR it!
BIDEN: It’s the best worst idea in the world, and we’re gonna run with it to victory!
HILLARY CLINTON: Watch me eat a bug!
FB: So we can actually win the war! That’s great news!
LIEBERMAN: Yes!
REID: Sort of!
BIDEN: Maybe!
CLINTON: I can wrestle a buffalo!
FB: I’m confused.
REID: The problem is troop levels, Fafnir. The US invaded without enough boots on the ground!
LIEBERMAN: Just another couple hundred thousand soldiers on the ground and hey, we should have this thing wrapped up in no time!
BIDEN: Just like I told George Bush all along! I told him in the Oval Office, “You’re gonna go in without enough troops and you’re not gonna plan for the occupation and it’s gonna be the biggest mistake of your presidency and I’m gonna vote for it!”
FB: Wow, that all seems so prescient.

July 10, 2004:

It’s so easy to kind of sweep it all under your brain an think “Well theres nothin more to be said an nothin more to think about it” cause let’s face it nobody wants to think about their government participating in horror. An right now the level of torture talk has gone from “Torture: Bad!” to “Torture: Bad, But Not As Bad As Saddam Hussein” to “Torture: Bad, But What About Ticking Bombs?” to “Torture: Bad, But Not Necessarily Proof That The People Who Ordered Torture Are Bad” to “Torture: We Still Talkin Bout Torture?” to “Torture: Bad?” An before we get to “Torture: Sorta Like Mowin Your Lawn” I think we should try as hard as we can to wake up.

Wake up.

Apropos of which: high school kids in Chicago did, about the war — now they’re getting expelled. They did their part — now you do yours, and sign this petition to “drop all disciplinary action against the said students, and to remove any indications of said events from their permanent records. We urge you to respect these students right to free expression now and in the future.”

I would add that that I wish there were/there ought to be at least one or two colleges in this great country of ours that might look favorably on expulsions such as these. More by Arthur Silber, all via Jonathan Schwarz.

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NOTE, UPDATE, 11/11: “sorta like mowin your lawn” link via Nell Lancaster, “A Lovely Promise.” Other favorite Fafblog posts of mine are an interview with James Dobson (features tbe unforgettable line “powerful shockwaves of destructive gay energy”) and “drivin with Donald.”

An occasional review of further developments in stuff I’ve written about before.

# Terraforming Today, October 19, 2002 — As I wrote in 2002, it’s been established for some time that phytoplankton “blooms” — surges of growth of marine single celled plants– can be caused simply by adding relatively small amounts of iron to areas of open ocean. (Iron is a trace element the organisms need to grow and multiply.) Much of the biomass that isn’t converted into plankton-eaters eventually settles to the bottom of the ocean. The questions have been whether this could result in significant net removal of carbon from the atmosphere — and even if it did, would it be a good idea? Now we can add another one: is it commercially viable as a “carbon credit” scheme? In early May, the New York Times’ Matt Richtel reported in “Recruiting Plankton to Fight Global Warming“:

In an effort to ameliorate the effects of global warming, several groups are working on ventures to grow vast floating fields of plankton intended to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and carry it to the depths of the ocean. It is an idea, debated by experts for years, that still sounds like science fiction — and some scholars think that is where it belongs. [...]

In Europe, where there is a market for carbon credits, it is now worth only $2 to offset a ton of carbon emissions. But not long ago, that figure was $35, and it is expected to rise again as the limits imposed under the Kyoto Protocol on global warming start to bite. Planktos believes that it can make a healthy profit if it receives $5 a ton for capturing carbon dioxide. [...]

….[but] one unresolved question is whether regulatory bodies will even endorse iron fertilization as a valid means of carbon sequestration that would be allowed under any so-called cap-and-trade system to limit global warming gases.

One objection to the “Geritol tablet” global cooling theory are that at least some of the biomass settling to the bottom of the ocean may wind returning to the atmosphere later on as methane or nitrous oxide, both of which are worse greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide. Another problem is that large scale carbon and biomass dumps to the deep sea might well change the chemistry of the deep sea environment, disrupting ecosystems there.

Meanwhile, though, at least two companies — Planktos and Climos — are looking at the idea. Planktos is sending a ship, Weatherbird II, to the Pacific Ocean area near the Galapagos Islands to measure carbon uptake after iron releases.

# Wal-Mart wins another one, February 25, 2005; WalMartWorkersRights.org, July 17, 2005; Employee Free Choice Act, June 13, 2005 — Human Rights Watch (HRW) has published a study of Wal-Mart labor practices this month — Discounting Rights: Wal-Mart’s Violation of US Workers’ Right to Freedom of Association. From the introduction:

Wal-Mart is a case study in what is wrong with US labor laws. It is not alone among US companies in its efforts to combat union formation, following the incentives set out in unbalanced US labor laws that tilt the playing field decidedly in favor of anti-union agitation. It is also not alone in violating weak US labor laws and taking advantage of ineffective labor law enforcement. But Wal-Mart stands out for the sheer magnitude and aggressiveness of its anti-union apparatus and actions.

Between January 2000 and July 2005, even the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) found 15 labor law violations by Wal-Mart. The next closest “competitor” was Kroger — with 2. The HRW report describes a variety of illegal Wal-Mart anti-labor tactics in detail, including Discriminatory Hiring, Firing, Disciplining, and Policy Application; Union Activity Surveillance; “Unit Packing” and Worker Transfers to Dilute Union Support; Addressing Worker Concerns to Undermine Union Activity; Threatening Benefit Loss if Workers Organize; Interrogating Workers about Union Activity; Illegal No-Talking Rules; Discriminatory Application of Solicitation Rules; Illegal No-Solicitation Rules; and Confiscating Union Literature. There’s also a chapter on the Loveland, Colorado case I wrote about a couple of times back in early 2005 (see “Wal-Mart wins another one”.)

# ICJ: Srebrenica was genocide. Serbian police were involved… (yet Serbia cleared of genocide), February 26, 2007 — In early April, the New York Times’ Marlise Simons reported “Genocide Court Ruled for Serbia Without Seeing Full War Archive“:

Lawyers interviewed in The Hague and Belgrade said that the outcome might well have been different had the International Court of Justice pressed for access to the full archives, and legal scholars and human rights groups said it was deeply troubling that the judges did not subpoena the documents directly from Serbia. At one point, the court rebuffed a Bosnian request that it demand the full documents, saying that ample evidence was available in tribunal records. [...]

As part of its ruling, the court said that the 1995 massacre of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, a designated United Nations safe haven in eastern Bosnia, was an act of genocide committed by Bosnian Serb forces, but that it lacked proof in this case that the forces were acting under Serbia’s “direction” or “effective control.”

The ruling raised some eyebrows because details of Serbian military involvement were already known from records of earlier tribunal cases. For instance, evidence showed that in late 1993, more than 1,800 officers and noncommissioned men from the Yugoslav Army were serving in the Bosnian Serb army, and were deployed, paid, promoted or retired by Belgrade.

These and many other men, including top generals, were given dual identities, and to help handle that development, Belgrade created the so-called 30th personnel center of the general staff, a secret office for dealing with officers listed in both armies. The court took note of that, but said that Belgrade’s “substantial support” did not automatically make the Bosnian Serb army a Serbian agent.

However, lawyers who have seen the archives and further secret personnel files say they address Serbia’s control and direction even more directly, revealing in new and vivid detail how Belgrade financed and supplied the war in Bosnia, and how the Bosnian Serb army, though officially separate after 1992, remained virtually an extension of the Yugoslav Army. They said the archives showed in verbatim records and summaries of meetings that Serbian forces, including secret police, played a role in the takeover of Srebrenica and in the preparation of the massacre there.

I’ve meant to write about this in its own post, but couldn’t figure out what else to say beyond spluttering in disgust. So rather than lose sight of it altogether, I’m just putting down a marker here. It seems to me there’s a back story waiting to be reported on this. One involves the “controversy” of whether Serbia and Montenegro could be held to account under international law, since this “rump Yugoslavia” was not strictly the former republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) in and of itself. A second, deeper controversy involved some judges’ 1996 opposition to the whole idea of holding nations — rather than individuals — accountable for genocide:

In [Judges Shi Jiuyong's and Vereshchetin's] view, the Convention on Genocide was essentially and primarily designed as an instrument directed towards the punishment of persons committing genocide or genocidal acts and the prevention of the commission of such crimes by individuals, and retains that status. The determination of the international community to bring individual perpetrators of genocidal acts to justice, irrespective of their ethnicity or the position they occupy, points to the most appropriate course of action. Therefore, in their view, it might be argued that the International Court of Justice is not the proper venue for the adjudication of the complaints which the Applicant has raised in the current proceedings.

A remarkable view for a judge on the International Court of Justice! This view didn’t prevail in 1996, but it was co-authored by a judge (China’s Shi Jiuyong) who was among the majority finding against Bosnia this February. As before, it seems to me that justice for Bosnians and Srebrenicans has foundered on legal pedantry and shortsightedness.

# Starbucks Challenge, November 20, 2005 — Just got a comment to this post alerting me to the documentary “Black Gold,” by Nick and Mark Francis, about Ethiopian coffee farmers and their struggle to get a decent price for their crop:

Tadesse Meskela, the representative of the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union in Southern Ethiopia, seeks to circumvent the global commodity exchanges by tirelessly traveling the world selling premium grade coffee directly to coffee roasters who will pay more for his high grade product and who support the idea of paying farmers a living wage. He returns the profits to the cooperative members who use the extra income to build the schools and infrastructure needed to develop their communities.

At the Cancun conference, one African delegate explains, “Trade is more important than aid.” Seven million Ethiopians are dependent on aid and Africa exports a smaller percentage of world trade today than 20 years ago - only 1%. If that figure only doubled it would represent 70 billion dollars, five times the amount of aid the continent receives.

# Send some good thoughts Steve Gilliard’s way, March 9, 2007 — Mr. Gilliard is not getting better; a post-operative “system-wide infection” has him back in the ICU at his hospital. In addition to good thoughts, consider visiting his web site and clicking through on some ads, donating some money, or buying some of his handsome “Fighting Liberals” or “We Fight Back” t-shirts, coffee mugs or other items.

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NOTES: “Recruiting Plankton” item via Enrique Gili (”commonground”), who also linked my 2002 post (thanks); Human Rights Watch Wal-Mart report via Jonathan Tasini. Gilliard via digby and Avedon Carol.

Semi-retired blogger Semipundit tells a story in the comments section of a “No Silence Here” post (”Are bloggers burning us out?”):

Recently I was at a store of a big-box mega-retailer for whom I do some work (no, not that one, the other one). I dropped by the breakroom where some of the employees were having lunch; the network news was on the TV.

I sat down to have my coffee and do some paperwork when I noticed that they were watching intently a story about the possible indictments of White House operatives. File footage of Carl Rove was showing at the time.

One of the young women, a manager and a college graduate, turned to the others and asked, ‘Who is that man, and what is that all about?’ No one of the group of four others responded; a couple of them gave a ‘beats me’ shrug.

I told them I could explain it clearly, in simple terms, in one minute, which I thought I did. The young lady listened attentively, then responded, ‘Oh, OK. For a minute I thought something really bad was happening.’

So the answer to Silence’s question may be: if bloggers are burning anyone out, it’s only other bloggers. And we’re a cheap, renewable resource.

This is just a quick survey of recent posts from some of the interesting, specialized blogs I read now and then from my “specialty” blogroll — maybe you’ll start reading one or the other of them, too.

# Schneier on Security — Those tiny little yellow dots you never noticed? They’re Secret Forensic Codes in Color Laser Printers: Many color laser printers embed secret information in every page they print, basically to identify you by. Here, the EFF has cracked the code of the Xerox DocuColor series of printers.

# Mystery Pollster — Getting Past the Noise: Bush Slide Continues (10/19/2005): The bottom line: the President’s approval has fallen all year, declining about 1% every month since January. But since August we’ve seen a sharper drop. Call it the “Katrina effect.”

# Lunar Development — Shall McArthur return?: “Russia has met all the engagements on transferring NASA employees to the ISS. Formally, we even do not have to return McArthur to the Earth,” Russia’s space agency Roskosmos senior official Alexey Krasnov said. [Moscownews.com] Karen Cramer writes that the story is connected to the Iran Non-proliferation Agreement as well.

# Savage Minds — No more “Bushmen of the Kalahari.” Bushmen expelled from Homeland: All but a few of the Bushmen living in Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve have been forcibly removed from their homes in recent days in what spokesmen for the affected communities said is a final push by the government to end human habitation there after tens of thousands of years. [Washington Post, 10/10/2005] … Before forced removals started in the late 90s, there were over 2,000 Bushmen living there.

# The Panda’s Thumb — Covering the “intelligent design” case in Pennsylvania with Waterloo in Dover: The Kitzmiller v. DASD case: The defense needs to defeat the plaintiffs’ arguments concerning both the purpose and the effect of the “intelligent design” policy. For the second, they are most likely to try to convince Judge Jones that “intelligent design”, and specifically the policy adopted by the DASD, are scientific in character, and thus have a place in the science curriculum regardless of any secondary effect they might have in the way of having implications for religious belief.

DASD is the Dover Area School District, which is trying to enforce ‘intelligent design’ teaching in biology classes. The post is now updated with new developments every couple of days or so as the case proceeds.

# RealClimate — Global Warming On Earth discusses the latest NASA Goddard Institute surface temperature data analysis: The 2005 Jan-Sep land data (which is adjusted for urban biases) is higher than the previously warmest year (0.76°C compared to the 1998 anomaly of 0.75°C for the same months, and a 0.71°C anomaly for the whole year) , while the land-ocean temperature index (which includes sea surface temperature data) is trailing slightly behind (0.58°C compared to 0.60°C Jan-Sep, 0.56°C for the whole of 1998).

# Chris Mooney — Henry Waxman (D-CA-30) is Busy, busy on a number of Bush vs. science fronts, including avian flu, misinformation about sexual health on a government web site, and the ongoing Plan B “morning after pill” fiasco at the FDA. On the latter: The chronology ends with yet another resignation: that of Frank Davidoff, a former FDA advisory committee member who voted for the approval of Plan B and who wrote, “I can no longer associate myself with an organization that is capable of making such an important decision so flagrantly on the basis of political influence, rather than the scientific and clinical evidence.” (link added)

# Blogrel — Return to Gyumri: What lessons could Pakistan learn from Armenia’s sputtering reconstruction process, which, 17 years later, has 3,500 families in the city still living in “temporary accommodation” - a euphemism for shacks, metal containers and disused railway wagons? [Guardian]

# Effect Measure — You can’t stop a wrecking ball in mid-swing: As state and local health departments gear up to battle a possible avian flu outbreak, they face a sharp cut in funding from the Department of Health and Human Services. However, the loss could be fixed through funds intended to cover the costs of controlling a pandemic, added as an amendment to the 2006 Defense Department Appropriations bill.

Recording Katrina is a “collection of survivors’ stories and non-traditional reporting on the recovery effort in the Gulf” that eRobin (”fact-esque”) and I have been compiling.

Generally speaking, I think we both intend to get out of the way and let the stories do the talking, as opposed to adding a lot of our own commentary. I see this as simply an online repository of Katrina survivor stories, with a special interest in personal accounts — an oral/electronic history of the storm and its aftermath. For eRobin’s description, see her announcement in the “American Street” blog.

Tips, stories, and especially a few more collaborators — most especially ones with connections to the region — are welcome. You can leave suggestions as comments here, or e-mail RecordingKatrina@gmail.com.