Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Until now, I’ve followed the 9/11 Commission hearings both with rapt attention and also with tremendous admiration for the tenacity and frankness of its members in their questioning of hitherto untouchable government bureacrats.

I’ve also admired the Commission members’ use of the media to advance the Commission’s goals. They, and those 9/11 survivor families supporting the Commission’s work, have realized that the only way to goad balky bureacrats into cooperation (remember Bush refused to authorize the Commission for over a year!) is by going “over their heads” to the American people. And the only way to do that is through the media.

But the Commission’s negotiation with President Bush about his testimony allowed him to pull the wraps over his testimony and bury it (for what little coverage there is see Bush and Cheney Tell 9/11 Panel of ‘01 Warnings).

tags 9-11-commission, dick-cheney, george-bush

Many webloggers have, or are considering adding Google Adsense ads to their blogs. You will see such ads in my sidebar. I installed Adsense as an experiment to see how much, if any revenue it will generate. Since my site has relatively low visitor numbers, I’m not expecting huge returns. But I wanted to try it and see what happens.

My preference is for my site to remain ad free. But I spend a considerable amount of time blogging and have no other source of income (I’m a stay at home dad most of the time). So exploring the potential for earned revenue from my blog seemed appropriate. Also, these ads do not appear overly intrusive. They’re relatively benign compared to some ads I’ve seen on other websites.

But for anyone using the Mozilla Firefox browser…BEWARE! Adsense is tremendously balky with Mozilla. The configuration process is a nightmare. You are constantly bounced back to the login page each time you attempt to configure your Adsense settings. I strongly recommend you use Netscape or Internet Explorer when configuring Adsense. Once I tried configuring within IE all my troubles vanished.

Adsense explains that Mozilla is a “pre-release product” and they don’t support such browsers as a policy. I’d remind Adsense that hundreds of thousands of people use Mozilla and by foreclosing Adsense to them, Google is only hurting it’s own bottom line. Also, the Adsense FAQs say nothing about not supporting Mozilla. I told their suppport staff that they should state this clearly so that people like me can avoid the hours of frustration I experienced in attempting to configure Adsense.

tags google-adsense, mozilla-firefox

I find our local TV news here in Seattle to be very entertaining, but not in the way that the TV stations would wish. And last night, one of the stations (they’re all so interchangable I can’t even tell them apart) broadcast another unintentionally hilarious story.

tags jim-mcdermott, pledge-of-alleigance

Richard Perle finally finds Iraqi
WMD! (credit: Al-Jazeera.info)

The New York Times ran an expose yesterday, How Pair’s Finding on Terror Led to Clash on Shaping Intelligence, about the Defense Department’s Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group, founded by Douglas Feith (number 2 at the Pentagon under Don Rumsfeld). The Group was created because Richard Perle, Don Rumsfeld and Douglas Feith had no faith in the accuracy or reliability of CIA intelligence analysis regarding Al Qaeda.

I always find the Bushite neocons’ ‘divorce from reality’ to be quite amusing and horrifying at the same time. Perle, for one, provides ample mirth. The article quotes his nasty take on the CIA:

But the effort [to create the Counter Terrorism Group] immediately aroused suspicions at the C.I.A. and the D.I.A. Mr. Feith and his two analysts were closely linked to Richard N. Perle, then chairman of a Pentagon advisory group and a leading neoconservative who had long advocated toppling Mr. Hussein and was a vocal critic of the C.I.A.

“I think the people working on the Persian Gulf at the C.I.A. are pathetic,” Mr. Perle said in an interview. “They have just made too many mistakes. They have a record over 30 years of being wrong.” He added that the agency “became wedded to a theory,” that did not leave room for the possibility that Iraq was working with Al Qaeda, and that “they went to battle stations every time someone pointed to contrary evidence.”

Let’s forget about the CIA’s record over the past 30 years and focus on the period between 9/11 and the Iraq War. Those at the CIA who found no connection between Al Qaeda and Hussein and who found no credible evidence of WMD in Iraq–were they wrong or right? They were right. So Perle created the Counter Terrorism Group in order to propound theories about Iraq which have been proved bogus both by opposing US intelligence and by reality on the ground (where’s the WMD?). How can he justify this? I see only wrong intelligence and wrong analysis coming from Feith’s stealth snoops. I’d rate them even more pathetic than the CIA. This guy Perle’s supposed to be a genius but he sounds more like an idiot to me.

Man, if you’re a web designer or webmaster I’d be scared shitless by Tim Egan’s story in today’s New York Times: Computer Student on Trial for Aid to Muslim Web Sites. It seems that John Ashcroft and his G-boys must’ve been sittin’ ’round the old Justice Department late one night trying to come up with some new ways to make Muslim-American “terrorists” shiver in their boots (not to mention scoring a few points with the Bush Administration’s right-wing base). So they said: “Why don’t we start going after guys who maintain Islamic websites?” What a brilliant strategy!

Poor old Sami Omar al-Hussayen. He is a computer science doctoral candidate at the University of Idaho at Moscow who helped organize a campus vigil criticizing the 9/11 attacks as an assault against Islam. But according to Big Bad John’s boys, Sami started hanging out with some bad hombres.

What is his crime? He is “accused of plotting to aid and to maintain Islamic Web sites that promote jihad.” When he’s not pursuing his graduate work, Sami maintains Islamic websites to make a little extra cash. It appears that some of the sites disseminate a broad range of Islamic views including those promoting jihad, now a dirty anti-American word in the Bush lexicon.

Sami, according to the Justice Department, violated a provision of the USA Patriot Act, “which makes it a crime to provide ‘expert guidance or assistance’ to groups deemed terrorist.”

Mind you, Sami never advocated jihad. He never endorsed any of the extreme views expressed at the sites. He just made a few extra bucks by working for the sites. That makes him an accessory after the fact, right? Huh?? That’s something like saying if I give bank robbers directions to a bank (without knowing who they are), then I’m culpable for their crimes. Does that make any sense whatsoever?

Sami’s graduate advisor, Professor John Dickinson, says the FBI pummeled him with questions for three hours trying to uncover Sami’s sinister underbelly. Only there wasn’t any. “It’s an illustration of how much power the government can bring against somebody. It should scare anybody. They kept saying his Ph.D. program was a front and that the person I knew was only the tip of this monstrous iceberg,” he said. “But I’ve yet to hear one thing the government has said since then that has made me question his innocence.”

When the U.S. Army went after Chaplain James Yee on trumped up charges of transporting secret documents, I wrote about this grave miscarriage of justice and labelled it anti-Islamic. I’m pleased to say that the Army eventually came to its senses and dropped all charges against Yee. The same will happen in this case. I just hope that Idaho’s elected officials and the high technology industry will let Ashcroft know in no uncertain terms that computer scientists are not props for bolstering Bush’s anti-terrorism agenda.

Mad Dick (credit: AP/ Eric Gay)Dick the Destroyer Dog(credit: nzzoom.com)President Bush announced today that he was giving all his pets to the Washington ASPCA and replacing them with a new attack dog named Dick. When asked why he was exiling pets who'd given him long and trusting service, Bush replied: "those old hounds just wouldn't do a thing. I'd throw a piece of Democratic meat out there on the South Lawn and they'd just lie there. I figured I needed me a ...

In the summer of 1987, my brother was teaching Chemistry at Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA. He was friendly with members of the College Outing Club who invited him on their riverrafting trip down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, known more poetically as the River of No Return. This was how I was blessed by possibly the most exciting outdoor experience I ever enjoyed. The trip began inauspiciously with a cancelled flight in Los Angeles which caused me to miss my connecting flight to the Tri-Cities Airport. I finally arrived 7 hours after my original scheduled arrival time. The ...

Chaim Nachman Bialik, poet of the Hebrew Renaissance (credit: Hofesh.org) My light is not unearned, Though it has not come to me from my father as an inheritance; Rather, it has been hollowed out of stone and quarry And hewn from my heart. A single spark in the refuge of my heart lurks, A small spark--but it is all mine, I have not borrowed it from any man, nor stolen it-- From me and within me it comes. Under the hammer of my great sorrows, That would burst my heart, refuge of my strength, That spark flies out to my eye, And from my eye--to my rhyme. From my rhyme it slips into your hearts, And by the light of ...

Natan Alterman pictured on a record coverfor his Magash Hakesef ("On a Silver Platter")(credit: Israeliscent.com)Palestine is an Arab land. Strangers have no share in it. --a public broadsheet A clear night. Trees wave Their boughs in an airy whisper. From above, Arab night stars Sparkle over an Arab land. The night-stars sparkle and blink Sowing their trembling light Upon the quiet city, El Kuds, Where King Daoud dwells. From there, they gaze To the far-off city, El-Chalil, The city where Father Ibrahim is buried-- Ibrahim who bore Ischak. From there, their sharp line of light Hastens to paint with radiance The waters of the river, El-Urdun Which Yakub with his crook crossed over. A clear night. ...

At the setting of the sun, approach my window, Embrace me, Hold fast to my neck, put your head on mine, And so cling fast to me. As we cling closely, we silently lift our eyes To the terrible radiance. We will set all our hearts' yearnings free On the seas of light. They will rise up to the heavens, a yearning flight of doves. In the distance they will sail and become lost; And upon the purple mountain tops--radiant red islands-- They will fall in silent flight. They are the distant islands, the elevated worlds Which we saw in dreams; Which made us strangers under the heavens And our lives--into Hell. They are the islands of gold for which we have thirsted As for a native land; And which the night stars shadowed forth With a flickering beam ...