bush is wrong, no leg left with which to stand

Who actually belives this line anymore? Not the Heritage Foundation, or the Brookings Institute. So why are we fighting a war in Iraq again?

Experts accuse Bush of exaggerating threat
By William Douglas
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - It's become President Bush's mantra, his main explanation for why he won't withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq anytime soon.

In speech after speech, in statement after statement, Bush insists that "this is a war in which, if we were to leave before the job is done, the enemy would follow us here."

The line, which Bush repeated Wednesday in a speech to troops at California's Fort Irwin, suggests a chilling picture of warfare on American streets.

But is it true?

Military and diplomatic analysts say it isn't. They accuse Bush of exaggerating the threat that enemy forces in Iraq pose to the U.S. mainland.

"The president is using a primitive, inarticulate argument that leaves him open to criticism and caricature," said James Jay Carafano, a homeland security and counterterrorism expert for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy organization. "It's a poor choice of words that doesn't convey the essence of the problem - that walking away from a problem doesn't solve anything."

U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic experts in Bush's own government say the violence in Iraq is primarily a struggle for power between Shiite and Sunni Muslim Iraqis seeking to dominate their society, not a crusade by radical Sunni jihadists bent on carrying the battle to the United States.

Foreign-born jihadists are present in Iraq, but they're believed to number only between 4 percent and 10 percent of the estimated 30,000 insurgent fighters - 1,200 to 3,000 terrorists - according to the Defense Intelligence Agency and a recent study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a center-right research center.

"Attacks by terrorist groups account for only a fraction of insurgent violence," said a February DIA report.

While acknowledging that terrorists could commit a catastrophic act on U.S. soil at any time - whether U.S. forces are in Iraq or not - the likelihood that enemy combatants from Iraq might follow departing U.S. forces back to the United States is remote at best, experts say.

James Lewis, a U.S. foreign policy analyst at CSIS, called Bush's assertion oversimplistic, but added that there's a slight chance a few enemy combatants could make their way to the United States after a U.S. troop withdrawal.

"There's a grain of truth in Bush saying it's better to fight them there rather than here, but it's also overstated," Lewis said. "It's not like there's going to be gun battles in the United States."

Daniel Benjamin, the director of the Center on the United States and Europe at The Brookings Institution, a center-left think tank, agreed.

"There are very few foreign fighters who are going to be leaving the area because they don't have the skills or languages that would give them access to the United States," said Benjamin, who served as the National Security Council's director for transnational threats from 1998 to 1999. "I'm not saying events in Iraq aren't going to embolden jihadists. But I think the president's formulations call for a leap of faith."

"The war in Iraq isn't preventing terrorist attacks on America," said one U.S. intelligence official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he's contradicting the president and other top officials. "If anything, that - along with the way we've been treating terrorist suspects - may be inspiring more Muslims to think of us as the enemy."

Carafano and Lewis believe that a U.S. troop pullout would embolden Islamic jihadists, but that they're much more likely to stay closer to home and spread violence to neighboring countries with poor records of combating terrorism, such as Somalia, Morocco, Algeria and perhaps Egypt, than they are to try to penetrate America.

Increased terrorism in those places would tax the United States, which would have to deal with the economic costs, global refugees and health crises that combat in those countries could produce.

"The danger is not that they'll follow us home," Carafano said. "The problems will come to our doorstep, not the terrorists."

Lewis of CSIS believes that a U.S. pullout could prompt some foreign fighters in Iraq to go home, head to Afghanistan to fight U.S. forces there or move to Europe, where Muslim anger is high and there are more Muslim communities to blend into.

"The United States is a distant (fourth)," he said.

marx cafe tonight

Yes, that's right. You heard it here first. Music starts at 10pm.

3203 Mount Pleasant St. NW

WOW

EWWWWWWWWW!!!!

OMG I am never going to order food from Manny & Olga's! YYUUUKKK!! This picture was taken on 14th street. It's making me sick thinking of the food I have eaten from there over the years.

Homeless people in libraries.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=180836

This is a really interesting article that I tripped across earlier in the day. Pretty foul reading, eye opening though; hope your done eating.

Marx Cafe tonight!

Hey it's almost Tuesday nite again, so for me that indicates a trip to the DJ booth at the Marx Cafe is right around the corner. Hope to see you there!

Music starts at 9pm.

3203 Mount Pleasant St. NW

Copper theft is serious business

This theft amazes me, and it's only going to get worse if copper prices continue their upward trend. I wish this report would have included the other side of this type of transaction; who are these theives selling their purloined wire to? Someone is buying their booty, otherwise there isn't much incentive to steal it in the first place. There's a copper fence market then, some unscruplous smelter no doubt.

Network World's LANs & Routers Newsletter, 04/03/07

Copper theft is incredibly widespread
By Jeff Caruso

Who knew that the copper wiring in your network was such an investment? Thieves everywhere are stealing copper as prices for the commodity have stayed at high levels - and they're risking their lives to get it.

Blame China. Apparently the country's rapid economic growth is behind the huge worldwide demand for copper. According to a Bloomberg article this week, demand for copper in China may increase as much as 10% this year. Prices will reach $3.50 per pound in the next few weeks, and may soon rebound to the record of $4 set last year.

Last week the Lowell (Mass.) Sun reported that two men were electrocuted when they allegedly tried to steal copper wiring from a transformer in Tyngsboro, Mass.

These were not the sharpest tools in the shed. They had applied bolt cutters to a wire that carried 13,000 volts, according to the paper.

Stealing copper is, of course, rampant. Over a year ago I relayed the news of 130 light poles that had been stolen from Baltimore streets because they were filled with electrical wires. But there are tons of more recent examples.

In Memphis last week, WREG-TV (Memphis) reported that thieves had been stripping copper from air-conditioning units at local businesses. In a recent case, someone turned on a vandalized air conditioner, and the thieves had left loose wires in the wall - the resulting fire did $45,000 worth of damage to a beauty shop.

In Palm Springs, Calif., two were arrested this week for allegedly stealing copper from wind towers. In Honolulu, experts this week estimated it would cost taxpayers a million bucks to replace the 225 light poles stolen from the sides of Hawaiian freeways. Police said the value of the stolen copper was about $420,000.

I could go on and on.

Now the target is mostly large electrical equipment, where the most copper is, so your Cat-5E copper wiring is probably pretty safe. But hey, you never know. How 'bout that fiber?

EV event in DC

This sounds like something i might be interested in. Going to try and check it out!

The Electric Vehicle Association of Washington, DC and the National Electric Drag Racing Association are putting on an exhibition of electric vehicles and their capabilities called the Power of DC. The event has been held for the last six years at the Mason-Dixon Drag Way in Hagerstown, Maryland. This year, the seventh year of the event, we are adding an autocross event the day before the drag race. This will be an EV autocross event, (dubbed EVautoX). The EVautoX will take place at Hagerstown Community College June 2nd, admission is free. The electric vehicle drag race event will take place at the Mason Dixon Drag Way on June 3rd, spectator admission is $5.

Because of the added event of the EVautoX, the Power of DC organization is in need of sponsors. There is growing interest in plug-in vehicles and this is the closest sanctioned event of its kind to Washington, DC. Sponsors of significance will have their logo placed on the events official T-shirt.

The Power of DC is mainly an exhibition demonstrating the speed and power that can be achieved using electricity as a fuel. What better way to show the acceleration capabilities of electric vehicles than through a drag race. The drag race has helped to dispel the sometimes common perception that electric vehicles are slow off the line. This year the Power of DC will be showing electric vehicles maneuverability, range and look through the EVautoX, which tests electric vehicles in slalom like timed courses, range courses and in a beauty contest called the Show-n-Shine.

At the demonstrations we will have a super efficient, super aerodynamic, and super light weight EV called the AZTEC. This vehicle was the winner of the commuter category in the 1994 American Tour de Sol. The University of West Virginia will be bringing its electrically powered Formula race car, (called a Formula Lightning when electric). The Formula Lightning vehicle can reach speeds up to 145 miles an hour on a race track without any pollutants coming from the vehicle. There will be other vehicles there to see and to touch, such as a solar panel clad Destiny 2000, a convertible Cabriolet, a few home converted Ford Escorts, a Toyota built RAV4 EV, and a Solectria Force. All vehicles that are worth coming to the show to see touch and ask the owners questions about. There will also be vehicles built by high school students, such as the Miramar 944 Porsche, and Shawn Lawless's famous Orange Juice dragster, as I said plenty of vehicles to see and touch. But there is more to the electric vehicle movement than just electric vehicles.

The electric vehicles movement is part of the larger alternative fuels movement. There will be demonstrations of solar panels, solar ovens, evacuated tube water heating and more. We still have room for exhibitors, so the door is open for organizations and companies to display their alternative fuel and energy products at the events.

Even though the Power of DC is a well attended event, this year our hope is to make it even bigger. We are asking that all schools, high schools, colleges, universities, and all organizations that are working on alternative fuels and electric drive trains, if they have products or vehicles to showcase to bring them to the event. We would really like to see a solar powered vehicle, one that was built to compete in competitions like the World Solar Challenge to be displayed at the event. We believe that advanced battery manufacturers and researchers would find a welcome home at these events. Organizations that are developing and selling electric motors for the hybrid and plug-in markets would be in line with the theme of the event. Automobile manufacturers exhibiting their hybrid technology would be a perfect fit. What ever you have that you feel the public should know about in terms of automotive advanced technology, alternative fuels and alternative energy contact us. I am sure we can make room for you in the event.

So, we need your assistance. First thing we would like you to do is spread the word about the Power of DC. Come and be there your self, bring family members, tell friends to make a weekend of it and come and have a good time. The second thing we need help on is finding sponsors. If you know of an organization or company that would be interested in beefing up its green credentials, here is their opportunity. The Power of DC is that event that has vast popular appeal, from the environmentalist to the automotive gear head, from the peace nick to the security hawk, the Power of DC brings all these groups together on common ground. Sponsoring our event upsets no one. Thirdly, bring your stuff. If you have an electric vehicle or an alternative fueled vehicle of any kind, bring it to the event. If you work in batteries, electric motors, controllers, capacitors or power electronics, bring it to the event and show it off. We welcome you. If you are in the solar panel, solar hot water heating business, if you sell high efficiency appliances, super insulation, bring it to the show. EV people tend to purchase those things also to the tune of 40%. For example, 40% of electric vehicle owners in California also have solar panels on their homes. It is precisely the market you are looking for. Car dealers, if you have hybrids of any kind, whether they be small cars to large trucks, this is the place to be. Show electric vehicles owners need to tow their vehicles long distances for shows. A hybrid truck is just the thing to bring to such an event. If you bring it, we will make room for it. In the end what we need is to bring your selves and your friends and family, bring sponsors, and bring your stuff. With that the Power of DC will become the catalyst to making the world better for our children and our children's children, but we will be having so much fun doing it, too.

For more information on this exciting EVent visit our website at
http://www.powerofdc.com

To Register, fill out our convenient Registration Form at
http://www.powerofdc.com/lets_race.html

A downloadable file of the EVent flyer is available at
http://www.powerofdc.com/powerofdc_flyer.pdf

For sponsorship opportunity contact Chip Gribben the organizer of the
Power of DC
futurev@radix.net
240-687-1678

For EVautoX information contact Mike Harvey
info@harveyev.com

And if you don't know who to contact, contact me and we will figure it
out.
Joe Lado
joelado@yahoo.com

back stabbing saudi royal people

What??! I thought these guys were on our side.

The Saudi monarch has made a forceful appeal for Arab unity, denouncing US policy in Iraq and the embargo imposed by western nations on the Palestinians.

At the Arab League summit in Riyadh, King Abdullah described the US presence in Iraq as an illegitimate occupation.

Correspondents say he is seeking to show a measure of independence from Saudi Arabia's ally, the United States.

Arab leaders are meeting to relaunch a plan for peace with Israel that they first endorsed five years ago.

The plan offers Israel normal relations with Arab states if it withdraws from land occupied in 1967, and accepts a Palestinian state.

Arab hard-liners have accused Riyadh of being ready to water down the "land for peace" deal to gain Israeli acceptance.

Israel's western allies have withheld recognition from a new Palestinian unity government, including members of the Islamist group Hamas which they consider a terrorist organisation.

Abhorrent

The Saudi monarch insisted said the "real blame" for Arab woes lay with squabbling Arab rulers, who could only prevent "foreign powers from drawing the region's future" if they united.

"In beloved Iraq, blood is flowing between brothers, in the shadow of an illegitimate foreign occupation, and abhorrent sectarianism threatens a civil war," said the king.

"In wounded Palestine, the mighty people suffer from oppression and occupation," he said.

"It has become vital that the oppressive blockade imposed on the Palestinians end as soon as possible so the peace process will get to move in an atmosphere without oppression."

"Our constant disagreements and rejection of unity have made the Arab nation lose confidence in our sincerity and lose hope."

A US official has insisted King Abdullah was wrong to criticise the US military presence in Iraq.

"The United States is in Iraq at the request of the Iraqis and under a United Nations mandate. Any suggestion to the contrary is wrong," said National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

Guarded welcome

Separately, Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres said it refused to accept the revived Arab peace plan as it stood and further discussions were needed.

"There is only one way to overcome our differences, and that is negotiation," Mr Peres told Israeli public radio. "It's impossible to say: you must take what we offer you as is."

Under the plan, Arab nations would recognise Israel if Israel withdrew from land occupied in the 1967 war, accepted a Palestinian state, and agreed a "just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem".

Israel rejected the 2002 plan outright after it was first proposed at an Arab summit in Beirut, but Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is now giving it a guarded welcome, albeit with reservations linked to the issue of refugees.

There are more than four million Palestinian refugees registered with the US, most of them descendants of people living in British-administered Palestine, before Israel was created in 1948.

Israel opposes allowing them to exercise any right to return to their original homes or land, because it could erase its current Jewish majority.

marx cafe tonite!

I'll be at Marx Cafe tonite playing some classic garage, 2step and 4x4 bassline. Mention that you know where the treasure has been buried and I'll buy you a couple of drinks. Music starts at 10pm. Seeya tonite!

3203 Mount Pleasant St. NW

Why no Impeachment??

I really hope that Dave here is wildly off the mark. If not this would represent a truly cynical political manipulation of our armed forces involved in the fight in Iraq.

Why Haven't They Impeached Bush (and Cheney) Yet?

* ImpeachForChange

By Dave Lindorff

After a year of running around flogging my book The Case for Impeachment (St. Martin’s Press, 2006), I’ve had to give a lot of thought to a question I have gotten over and over from radio hosts to ordinary people concerned about the fate of the country and our Constitution. The question: Why haven’t the Democrats already impeached the president for all these crimes, abuses of power and assaults of the Constitution?

I used to chalk it up to cowardice, but I’m no longer happy with that answer. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) may be a politician’s politician, but she hasn’t lacked for courage. She has, for example, always been ready to stand for taking a tough line on civil liberties in China, when the corporatocracy has been pressing the government to cozy up to China.

It’s also hard to buy the idea that so many progressive members of the House--people like John Conyers (D-Mich.), Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), Chakka Fattah (D-Penna.) and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.)--all of whom clearly understand the nature of the president’s crimes, could be afraid to submit bills of impeachment--indeed that all the progressive members of the Democratic Party in the House are so afraid to take a stand on impeachment that not one has dared to submit an impeachment bill. (Only Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) has taken that step, and she waited until she had already been voted out of office and then filed her impeachment bill in the last week of the 109th Congress.)

That said, there are some things I do know.

First of all, there are members of Congress who understand that the president should be impeached. Chief among these is Rep. Conyers. Back in the last Congress, Conyers, as ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee--the committee that would hold impeachment hearings if a bill of impeachment were submitted--held unofficial hearings into some of the president’s high crimes and misdemeanors, which resulted in a book, George W. Bush Versus the U.S. Constitution: The Downing Street Memos and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, Coverups in the Iraq War and Illegal Domestic Spying. The book is a clear call for impeachment. Conyers also filed a bill in the 109th Congress which called for creation of a “select committee” to investigate possible impeachable crimes by the Bush administration. It ultimately boasted 39 co-sponsors, including Reps. Rangel, Fattah and Waters.

I also know that midway through the 2006 election year, Rep. Pelosi began telling reporters, at every opportunity, that if Democrats were elected to a majority in the House in the November election, there would be no impeachment effort--impeachment, in her words, would be “off the table.”

And so it has been, at least inside the Beltway. And not only has it been put off the table--Pelosi and the party leadership have been actively working behind the scenes in an unconscionable effort to undermine grassroots campaigns to put it back on, via state legislative resolutions. In both New Mexico and Washington state, Democratic party leaders from Washington have put the screws on local legislative leaders to keep the issue of impeachment from even making it to an open floor debate in a legislative chamber. Clearly, progressive members of Congress have also been pressured not to submit impeachment bills.

In part, I think this is all happening because Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic Party leadership have bought the Republican Party’s spin--that impeachment would be “good for Republicans” because it would allegedly “energize the Republican base” that supports President Bush no matter what. Maybe that is technically true, but that base is less than 30 percent of the voting public, and it ignores that fact that impeachment would also energize the Democratic, progressive base, and might well also energize the libertarian base, all of which collectively would far outnumber any possible energized reactionary base.

This leads me to what I think is the real reason the Democratic leadership is opposing impeachment--a reason I find thoroughly disgusting and unworthy of the party of Roosevelt.

I believe that Pelosi, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), Howard Dean and the rest of the leaders of the Democratic Party, have concluded that the Republican Party and the Bush administration have so screwed up that they have lost the support of the majority of Americans, and that all Democrats need to do to win the White House and a bigger margin in the House and Senate in 2008 is to let them continue to screw up, aided by selective Congressional investigations designed to further embarrass them.

While Pelosi has talked grandly about passing a progressive agenda of bills in the 110th Congress, the Democrats know that they cannot pass any meaningful progressive legislation. Their majority in both houses is razor thin and could never survive a veto, and even if they could, by watering down their bills, lure enough Republican votes to override a veto, President Bush would invalidate any bill that made significant change or reform by just issuing one of his unconstitutional and illegal “signing statements” asserting that as commander in chief in the war on terror he doesn’t have to adhere to the Constitution.

So what Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid plan to do is pass legislation that they know won’t go into law, like the minimum wage bill, or global warming laws, and then go to the voters in 2008 saying, “We would have gotten these bills into law, if only we had more Democrats in the Congress, or a Democratic president.”

They’re doing the same thing with the war. If Democrats wanted to end the war, they could do so immediately by refusing to pass a supplemental funding measure to support it, but they don’t want to do this. It’s not that they fear being called unpatriotic--hell, with 70 percent of the public wanting the war to end immediately, nobody would fault Congress for pulling the plug. Even the troops who are stuck over there wouldn't be upset to see the funding that keeps them there terminated. But ending the war would leave the Democrats without their best issue going into the 2008 national election: Bush’s war. So instead of ending the war, they vote to oppose it, but then continue to fund it. (Rep. Emanuel has actually said publicly that it would be good for Democrats if the war were to continue through November 2008.)

It’s a supremely cynical campaign ploy, and it’s also behind the strategy of keeping impeachment “off the table.”

If Bush were impeached, and witnesses began getting called in under oath to expose his and Vice President Dick Cheney’s lies and deceit in tricking the nation into war, his illegal NSA spying activities, his obstruction of justice in the Valerie Plame outing investigation, his authorization of torture, his obstruction of efforts to combat global warming, his criminal failure to provide troops with armor or to plan for an Iraq occupation or to respond to the disaster in New Orleans, and his usurpation of the powers of Congress and the Judiciary in invalidating over 1200 laws passed by the Congress, it would almost certainly lead to his (and Cheney’s) removal from office and to a prompt end to the war.

Then where would Democrats be?

They’d have to stand on their own merits. They’d have to give voters a positive reason to vote for them.

And it’s been so long since Democrats have done that that they really may not even know how it’s done.

Even progressive Democratic representatives seem to have bought into this cynical thinking. How else to explain Rep. Conyers’ repudiation of his own book, even as it’s about to come out in paperback? How else to explain the deafening silence of progressives like Reps. Waters, Rangel, Jesse Jackson Jr., and, at least until this week, Dennis Kucinich?

I’m hoping that at least Kucinich will finally stand up and reject this cynical Democratic thinking, and file a bill of impeachment, giving Rep. Conyers the chance to redeem himself by standing up to Pelosi et al. If he does stand up, and begins hearings on an impeachment bill, I hope other progressive Democrats—and maybe a few principled Republicans?--will join him by filing their own impeachment bills. I hope state legislators in Vermont, Washington state, New Jersey and elsewhere, will take heart from what Kucinich appears ready to do, and will shrug off the pressure from Democratic national leaders, listen to their own residents, and pass joint resolutions calling for Congress to initiate impeachment hearings, too.

This dam can be broken.

If it is, perhaps Democrats and patriotic Republicans will finally be able to live up to their oaths of office, which pledge them to uphold and defend the Constitution “against all enemies foreign and domestic.” There is no greater enemy of Constitutional government, the rule of law, and the freedoms that so many have died to establish and to defend than President Bush and his administration. If Congress will not stand up to the crimes of this administration and call this president to account through impeachment, all future presidents will feel free to follow his corrupt example, and the impeachment clause may as well simply be removed from the Constitution.

Or be rewritten to refer only to lies about extramarital sex.

-----------------------
DAVE LINDORFF is co-author, with Barbara Olshansky, of "The Case for Impeachment: the Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office (St. Martin's Press, 2006). His work can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net and at www.counterpunch.org

big surprise: TJX data theft earns for criminals

Wasn't this exactly what TJX officials said couldn't be done with the stolen/lost data right after going public with the news of the breach?

Stolen TJX Data Used in $8M Scheme Before Breach Discovery
By Evan Schuman, Ziff Davis Internet
March 21, 2007

Information stolen from the systems of massive retailer TJX was being used fraudulently in November 2006 in an $8 million gift card scheme, one month before TJX officials said they learned of the breach, according to Florida law enforcement officials.

The significance of this new TJX detail—discovered as Florida authorities issued arrest warrants for 10 suspects and took six of them into custody—is not clear, but it might yield clues as to how TJX learned of the breach.

The $16 billion retail chain has officially said that a huge amount of information was accessed as early as 2005 (with some of the captured data dating back to 2003), but that TJX officials didn't learn of the breach until December 2006. The company didn't announce the breach until mid-January 2007 due to—according to one credit-card source—a request from the Secret Service because it was actively pursuing a suspect.

The Florida information raises the possibility that whoever took the data had decided to start using it late last year. Law enforcement pursuing those cases would have found TJX as the common link, potentially prompting TJX to more closely examine its systems.

In the Florida case, a group used TJX credit- and debit-card information to do a low-tech clone scam to the tune of about $8 million. The group is accused of taking credit cards and applying new magstripes containing the stolen data. It is not clear if the credit cards displayed the same numbers in plastic embossing that were in the magstripe, said Dominick Pape, the special agent in charge for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Florida officials released the names of the six suspects who were arrested: Irving Escobar, 18; Reinier Camaraza Alvarez, 27; Julio Oscar Alberti, 33; Dianelly Hernandez, 19; Nair Zuleima Alvarez, 40; and Zenia Mercedes Llorente, 23. Four others are still at large, Pape said.

The group has been charged with an organized scheme to defraud, and they are also being investigated by the Secret Service, which participated in the arrests.

Florida officials said the group used the increasingly common tactic of using the bogus credit cards to purchase gift cards and then cashing them at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores. The group usually purchased $400 gift cards because when the gift cards were valued at $500 or more, they were required to go to customer service and show identification, Pape said.

The gift card float technique is attractive to thieves because it buys them more time. When a credit card is stolen and detected by the victim, it's only a matter of hours before the card will be invalidated.

But if the thief immediately uses the card to purchase gift cards, it buys the thief a significant amount of time. Once the credit card is deactivated, it may take days or weeks before authorities learn what was purchased—down to the exact identification number of those gift cards—and then start invalidating those gift cards.

Florida authorities have video of their suspects from both inside the store and outside. Videotape captured the license plate of a rented vehicle one of the suspects was driving. Items purchased included computers, gaming devices and big-screen televisions, police said.

At this stage, authorities are hoping to press the group to identify where they got the card data, in hopes that it will ultimately lead them to the cyberthieves who struck TJX. Pape said it is unlikely that the 10 suspects are the ones who attacked TJX. "We do not have information today that they were at the high end of the compromise," he said.

In other TJX news this week, a TJX shareholder—the Arkansas Carpenters Pension Fund—is suing TJX to access records showing how TJX handled data security.

Retail Center Editor Evan Schuman can be reached at Evan_Schuman@ziffdavis.com.

marx cafe tonite!

That's right, it's Tuesday; AGAIN! Seems like this thing happens once a week weather I like it or not. It's an unstoppable force; time that is. i have a bunch of new music that I didn't get an opportunity to play last week.

Seeya tonight! Music starts at 10pm.

3203 Mount Pleasant St. NW

Clear headed analysis

Wow, this article was posted on Military.com; how far we have come in a couple of years. Even a year ago I think it would have been unthinkable to see these sentiments displayed so openly. Perhaps after this whole episode is over our country will learn to shy away from military adventurism and foreign conquest and instead focus on our priorities here at home.

Playing the Course
Jeff Huber | March 19, 2007

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. --Voltaire

The peculiarly insane brand of neoconservative pro-war rhetoric continues to resonate. Last week, Representative C.W. Bill Young (R-FL) said, "Nobody wants our troops out of Iraq more than I do, but we can't afford to turn over Iraq to al-Qaida."

The Sunni organization al-Qaeda is not going to take over Shiite dominated Iraq. If Young honestly thinks it can, he's an utter dullard. It's more likely that Young was the Bush liegeman chosen to introduce the latest Rovewellian talking point.

Straying the Course

From the beginning, The administration and its echo chamberlains have sold their woebegone war in Iraq with a fabric of glittering generalities, appeals to emotion, bandwagons, sand bagging, blame shifting, straw man attacks, faulty main assumptions, false analogies, and the rest of the propaganda arsenal. They coaxed us into this war by making visions of mushroom clouds dance in our heads, and they've been playing Rovewellian mind games with us ever since.

Their most enduring trick has been the "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" mantra. In recent months "fighting them over there" has morphed into "If we withdraw, they will follow us here." Pish. How are they going to get here--hide in our troops' luggage? Swim? Wind surf? Jump?

Despite what Bush the younger tells us, the oceans do, in fact, still protect us. Nobody has an army large enough to invade and occupy the United States, and they certainly don't have a navy or air force capable of transporting a force that size across the Atlantic or Pacific. Even if they did, we could sink them and/or shoot them down before they got halfway here.

Yes, terrorists might still sneak through our borders and ports in drips and drabs like the 9/11 perpetrators did, but nothing we're doing militarily in the Middle East is preventing that from happening. That's Homeland Security's job, and if Homeland Security can't keep terrorists from infiltrating our country, why does it even exist?

Young Mr. Bush exhorts us to show "resolve" in the Middle East. But the kind of resolve we're showing in the Middle East is the kind of resolve it takes to throw yourself in front of a moving bus, and then lie there while the bus continues to roll back and forth over you.

In January, Senator Joe Lieberman (?-CT) said on Meet the Press that "We all want to find the right exit strategy. But my own sense of history tells me that in war, ultimately, there are two exit strategies. One is called victory; the other is called defeat."

My three dogs have a better sense of history than Lieberman does. Wars, especially modern American wars, have seldom been decisive. World War I ended in an armistice, the conditions of which laid the groundwork for World War II. World War II concluded with the formal surrenders of Germany and Japan, but that only led to the Cold War and a series of dirty little third-world proxy wars that lasted for half a century.

One pro-war neoconservative pundit recently compared Representative Jack Murtha (D-PA) to Lee Harvey Oswald. He said that Murtha and Oswald formed a small club of individuals who deserved to be classified as "ex-Marines." This pundit is not a Coulter-class luminary in the neoconservative galaxy. He is a distinguished dean and professor at one of our most distinguished graduate level war colleges who consistently indulges in this kind of vituperative through the Big Brother Broadcast megaphone. With people like him in key positions of upper level of military academia, it's little wonder our national security brain trust is so bankrupt.

We hear from voices on the right that a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq will create conditions that could lead to a regional war, but the fact is that U.S. presence in Iraq has created a regional war. Conflict, at one level or another, rages from the Horn of Africa to Pakistan, and our presence in Iraq is fueling it, not containing it.

The Bush war hawks keep serving up grape flavored hallucinogen shooters, and their non-cognitive supporters keep slamming them down. Meanwhile, a pack of dune farmers armed with tinker toys continue to make the "best-trained, best-equipped" armed force in history look like it couldn't find its oasis with a map and a flashlight.

It's so difficult for me to watch our chicken hawk leaders pour more of our magnificent troops into a war they're not designed to fight in pursuit of a "victory" that cannot be defined, and justify their policies and strategies with arguments they have to know are medicine show hokum, and blame their failures on the CIA, the news media, Catholics who voted for John Kerry, and whatever other scapegoat is handy.

It breaks my heart.

marx cafe tonite!

Yes sir! I'll be at Marx tonite playing from 10pm until 2am. I have a whole batch of fresh tunes to try out, so it should be good times. Mention this blog and I'll buy you some drinks. Seeya there!

3203 Mount Pleasant St. NW

Casting call for national Treasure 2

Why make a NT2 when the first film was so awful? Do they think they will get it right this time? lol

National Treasure 2 Open Call in DC Monday the 19th
CARLYN DAVIS CASTING IS CALLING ALL MEMBERS WHO ARE AVAILABLE FOR BACKGROUND WORK ON NATIONAL TREASURE II

There will be a huge open call this Monday the 19th from 3:00 until 7:00pm.Location: McFadden’s Restaurant on the corner of 24th and Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Parking is on the street and Metro is the Foggy Bottom stop about 2 ½ blocks from McFadden’s.The entire Casting Team will be there. Come join the fun! McFadden’s will be showing National Treasure 1 on Monday night.

All you need to do is bring a headshop OR current snap shot of yourself.For up to date information, keep checking www.carlyndaviscasting.com (c-a-r-l-y-n) and www.mcfaddensdc.com . Look forward to seeing you on the big screen, Washington!

National Treasure 2: The Book of Secrets" Starring Nicholas Cage, Diane Kruger, Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel and Justin Bartha.

We will be needing the following types for background work:
- Cigar smokers (Senators) & White House Staff Types
- Secret Service and FBI types
- Good Drivers w/Cars (not black, white, red or yellow)
- Military to include 2 Generals and 1 Major
- Catering Waiters/Waitresses, Chefs and Bartenders (experience a plus)
- George and Martha Washington look-alikes
- Diplomat couples in formal attire (authentic Scottish, African, Japanese, French and Middle Eastern costumes)
- Beautiful Model types 25-40 in age for a formal scene
- Formal types-ladies in FULL length dresses, men in Tuxes
- Bomb Detection Units w/dogs
- Bike Messengers (experience a plus)
- College students including 20 skateboarders and some hacky sackers
- University Professors
- Security Guards and Police
- Lots of Business and Tourist types
- Librarians
- Joggers (female)
- Dog Walkers w/ dogs
- Senior Citizens
- Bicyclists w/ bikes
- 18 and older who look 15-17
- Park Rangers
- Teachers
- Rich Texans
- String Quartet

Northern State at Black Cat

OMG OMG!! I will be there, these girls are AWSOME!! I'll have to suck it up and return to the black cat, last time I went there i didn't have a very good time.

UPCOMING SHOWS (See list of past shows)

* Monday March 12, 2007
Washington DC

The Black Cat
1811 14th St. NW
Washington DC, 20009
202.667.7960
9 pm
$10
http://www.blackcatdc.com/schedule.html
w/ Bitch and The Exciting Conclusion

Happy John Frum day!!!!1

This is amazing, one day I will complete the trek; and celebrate this fine holiday with the people of Sulphur Bay.

A Christian youth worker told me how he thought the cult was childish. "It's like a baby playing games," he insisted. "Those people are holding on to a dream that will never come true," he said.

HA HA HA HA, oh.. Irony; this is your name.

Cargo cult lives on in South Pacific
By Phil Mercer
BBC News, Tanna, Vanuatu

At the base of a sacred volcano in an isolated corner of the South Pacific young men play the "Star Spangled Banner" on bamboo flutes.

Men march with the US flag
Islanders have celebrated John Frum's generosity for 50 years
Every February they parade in old US army uniforms with wooden weapons.

Others go bare-chested with the letters "USA" painted in bright red letters on their bodies.

Nearby, a giant Stars and Stripes flutters in the breeze from the main flagpole.

This is the heart of John Frum country on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu.

Villagers at Sulphur Bay worship a mystical figure who they believe will one day bring them wealth and happiness.

Time of upheaval

"John is our god," declares village chief Isaac Wan, who beats his fists into the ground to emphasise his words.

"One day he will come back," he says.

Believers are convinced that John Frum was an American.

The name could well have come from war-time GIs who introduced themselves as "Jon from America."

Devotees say that the ghost of a mystical white man first appeared before tribal elders in the 1930s.

It urged them to rebel against the aggressive teachings of Christian missionaries and the influence of Vanuatu's British and French colonial masters.

The apparition told villagers to do all they could to retain their own traditions.

Anthropologist Ralph Reganvalu told the BBC that the sect was a "cultural preservation movement" that was born during a time of upheaval.

"There was a whole period in history known as Tanna Law where the missionaries put in this series of rules about what people weren't supposed to do and the movement emerged because of this oppression," he said.

Homage to the US

World War II and the arrival of US troops on Vanuatu was a defining time for the movement. They had a name for their spiritual deity. He was John Frum.

Villagers believe that their messiah was responsible for delivering to them the munificence of the US military.

They were awestruck by the army's cargo of tanks, weapons, refrigerators, food and medicine.

John Frum day is held annually on 15 February. This year's celebration marks the 50th anniversary of the sect's formal establishment.

It also recognises the day when villagers raised the US flag for the first time.

Through this homage to the US, disciples hope their ethereal saviour can be encouraged to return.

"It's a little bit weird but it makes me feel really patriotic," said Marty Meth, a retired businessman from New York, who had travelled to Tanna to see the festivities.

"It's really nice to see Americans welcome here since in so many places in the world we're not so welcome these days," he added.

Many followers of John Frum believe his spirit lives deep within the volcano.

Every few minutes Yasur bellows.

Watching and listening from the crater's edge is both exhilarating and frightening. A deafening growl is followed by the blasting of molten rock high into the sky.

These rumblings are a constant reminder for villagers that the spirit of John Frum remains as potent as ever.

About 20% of Tanna's population of 30,000 follow the teachings of one of the world's last remaining cargo cults.

Other islanders can barely disguise their contempt for it.

A Christian youth worker told me how he thought the cult was childish. "It's like a baby playing games," he insisted. "Those people are holding on to a dream that will never come true," he said.

I put this view to Rutha, who's married to Chief Isaac's son. She was unfazed.

"I don't care what they think," she says gently without a hint of displeasure. "John is our Jesus and he will come back."

The John Frum Movement is still trying to entice another delivery of cargo from its supernatural American god.

In the meantime his disciples continue to wait and hope.

Marx Cafe tonight!

Another Tuesday; another opportunity to get wild without the weekend! I'll be spinning from 10-2, you know where.

3203 Mount Pleasant St. NW

DOD; global warming real, will destroy us all

Wow, this is not good news at all. Time to go to code red!

Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us

Mark Townsend and Paul Harris in New York
Sunday February 22, 2004
The Observer

Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..

A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.

'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'

The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority.

The report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades. He was the man behind a sweeping recent review aimed at transforming the American military under Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Climate change 'should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern', say the authors, Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network.

An imminent scenario of catastrophic climate change is 'plausible and would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately', they conclude. As early as next year widespread flooding by a rise in sea levels will create major upheaval for millions.

Last week the Bush administration came under heavy fire from a large body of respected scientists who claimed that it cherry-picked science to suit its policy agenda and suppressed studies that it did not like. Jeremy Symons, a former whistleblower at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said that suppression of the report for four months was a further example of the White House trying to bury the threat of climate change.

Senior climatologists, however, believe that their verdicts could prove the catalyst in forcing Bush to accept climate change as a real and happening phenomenon. They also hope it will convince the United States to sign up to global treaties to reduce the rate of climatic change.

A group of eminent UK scientists recently visited the White House to voice their fears over global warming, part of an intensifying drive to get the US to treat the issue seriously. Sources have told The Observer that American officials appeared extremely sensitive about the issue when faced with complaints that America's public stance appeared increasingly out of touch.

One even alleged that the White House had written to complain about some of the comments attributed to Professor Sir David King, Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser, after he branded the President's position on the issue as indefensible.

Among those scientists present at the White House talks were Professor John Schellnhuber, former chief environmental adviser to the German government and head of the UK's leading group of climate scientists at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. He said that the Pentagon's internal fears should prove the 'tipping point' in persuading Bush to accept climatic change.

Sir John Houghton, former chief executive of the Meteorological Office - and the first senior figure to liken the threat of climate change to that of terrorism - said: 'If the Pentagon is sending out that sort of message, then this is an important document indeed.'

Bob Watson, chief scientist for the World Bank and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, added that the Pentagon's dire warnings could no longer be ignored.

'Can Bush ignore the Pentagon? It's going be hard to blow off this sort of document. Its hugely embarrassing. After all, Bush's single highest priority is national defence. The Pentagon is no wacko, liberal group, generally speaking it is conservative. If climate change is a threat to national security and the economy, then he has to act. There are two groups the Bush Administration tend to listen to, the oil lobby and the Pentagon,' added Watson.

'You've got a President who says global warming is a hoax, and across the Potomac river you've got a Pentagon preparing for climate wars. It's pretty scary when Bush starts to ignore his own government on this issue,' said Rob Gueterbock of Greenpeace.

Already, according to Randall and Schwartz, the planet is carrying a higher population than it can sustain. By 2020 'catastrophic' shortages of water and energy supply will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the planet into war. They warn that 8,200 years ago climatic conditions brought widespread crop failure, famine, disease and mass migration of populations that could soon be repeated.

Randall told The Observer that the potential ramifications of rapid climate change would create global chaos. 'This is depressing stuff,' he said. 'It is a national security threat that is unique because there is no enemy to point your guns at and we have no control over the threat.'

Randall added that it was already possibly too late to prevent a disaster happening. 'We don't know exactly where we are in the process. It could start tomorrow and we would not know for another five years,' he said.

'The consequences for some nations of the climate change are unbelievable. It seems obvious that cutting the use of fossil fuels would be worthwhile.'

So dramatic are the report's scenarios, Watson said, that they may prove vital in the US elections. Democratic frontrunner John Kerry is known to accept climate change as a real problem. Scientists disillusioned with Bush's stance are threatening to make sure Kerry uses the Pentagon report in his campaign.

The fact that Marshall is behind its scathing findings will aid Kerry's cause. Marshall, 82, is a Pentagon legend who heads a secretive think-tank dedicated to weighing risks to national security called the Office of Net Assessment. Dubbed 'Yoda' by Pentagon insiders who respect his vast experience, he is credited with being behind the Department of Defence's push on ballistic-missile defence.

Symons, who left the EPA in protest at political interference, said that the suppression of the report was a further instance of the White House trying to bury evidence of climate change. 'It is yet another example of why this government should stop burying its head in the sand on this issue.'

Symons said the Bush administration's close links to high-powered energy and oil companies was vital in understanding why climate change was received sceptically in the Oval Office. 'This administration is ignoring the evidence in order to placate a handful of large energy and oil companies,' he added.