Month: September 2005

First of all, I want to thank all of you that have already been supporting the site through visiting the advertisers, buying t-shirts and coffee mugs, using Powell Books to purchase books and DVD’s, linking to the site, telling your friends about BT, and just by writing diaries and comments and making this community great.

Many of you have asked how you could be supportive without having to buy stuff you don’t need. Wolverine and I put our heads together and came up with an idea. What could people buy that doesn’t take up much space? Eureka! A bumper sticker!

If you visit the store you’ll see that we have two new bumper stickers available. The black and white one is offered for a reasonable $5. You can tell your neighbors what you think about Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, Duke Cunningham, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and the rest of the crooks running our country.

But for those of you that would like to make a more substantial contribution to the BT community, we offer the full-color version for $25. It’s a way for me to offer something tangible in return for your generosity.

The financial side of the site is starting to improve after a dismal August. We upgraded the server, doubling the costs, but also really improving the speed of the site. Blogads have come back, I just got my first check from Google, and the Powell sales have been surprisingly strong. I just may be able to pull this off. Thanks again for all your good-will and support. And, as always, thanks to Susan, who is the straw that stirs the pond.

Boo

DefCon, the Campaign to Defend the Constitution, officially launched today.

The campaign promises to aggressively challenge the religious right on the facts, the law and the Constitution. One defining characteristic of DefCon’s approach — is that it has apparently made a clean break with the dubious Inside-the-Beltway-driven tactic of name-calling that has hobbled Democratic and liberal responses to the religious right for a generation. Instead of relying on focus-group derived labels such as “radical religious extremists,” DefCon is choosing to focus on delivering clear, forceful arguments and messages. This is very good news and offers hope of the development of a far more productive strategy to persuade the American people that theocracy is not the direction we want to go.
Duke University Law Professor Erwin Chemerinsky writing at the DefCon Blog says its “Time To Fight the Religious Right.”  

“I believe,” Chemerinsky declared, “that the greatest threat to liberty in the United States is posed by the religious right, largely comprised of Christian fundamentalists.  Across a broad spectrum of issues they want to move the law in a radically more conservative direction, ultimately threatening our freedom.”

DefCon (aka, Campaign to Defend the Constitution) released a report today titled Islands of Ignorance, describing the threat to American science education in ten states and localities where “intelligent design” is being promoted by the religious right as an alternative to evolution.    

DefCon also released a letter, signed by leading scientists, clergy, Nobel Laureates and others, urging the governors of all 50 states to work to stop the erosion of American science education.

Specifically, we are concerned about efforts to supplement or replace the teaching of evolution in our public schools with religious dogma or unscientific speculation.  Science classes should help provide our children with the tools and scientific literacy they need to succeed in a 21st century economy.    

We are well aware of studies showing American children falling behind those of other nations in their knowledge and understanding of science.  We certainly will not be able to close this gap if we substitute ideology for fact in our science classrooms – limiting students’ understanding of a scientific concept as critical as evolution for ideological reasons.

We do not oppose exposing our children to philosophical and spiritual discussion around the origin and meaning of life.  There are appropriate venues for such discussion — but not in the context of teaching science in a public school science classroom.

We have come together — people of science and people of faith – for the sake of our children and the competitiveness of our country, to urge you to ensure that:

·        Science curricula, state science standards, and teachers emphasize evolution in a manner commensurate with its importance as a unifying concept in science and its overall explanatory power.

·        Science teachers in your state are not advocating any religious interpretations of nature and are nonjudgmental about the personal beliefs of students.

·        There are no requirements to teach “creation science” or related concepts such as “intelligent design,” or to “teach the controversy” — implying that there is legitimate scientific debate about evolution when there is not.  Teachers should not be pressured to promote nonscientific views or to diminish or eliminate the study of evolution.

·  Publishers of science textbooks should not be required or volunteer to include disclaimers in textbooks that distort or misrepresent the methodology of science and the current body of knowledge concerning the nature and study of evolution.

Our nation’s future rests, as always, in the hands of our children.  We hope to have your commitment to ensure that our schools teach science, not ignorance, to our children as they prepare the next generation for the challenges of a new century.

[Crossposted from Talk to Action]

NY Times columnist Bob Herbert writes that the Bush administration has blood on their hands for their catastrophic bungling of the Katrina disaster. Therefore, he writes, we need an independent commission to investigate the Katrina debacle, as this is too grave of an issue to be decided by partisan politics.

While Senator Russ Feingold is developing constructive solutions to help the survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Herbert gives an overview of the sad mismanagement of the disaster preperation that infected all levels of government, causing a massive breakdown of trust. Why should we trust the Bush administration anymore, when they don’t have a clue when it comes to disaster relief. And neither do enablers like GOP shill David Brooks.
Senator Feingold has been proposing solutions for Katrina survivors like these:

—Calling for a relaxation of the Bankruptcy Bill for people affected by the hurricane or other such disasters:

Providing a one year grace period after the new law takes effect in which victims of Hurricane Katrina can file for bankruptcy under the law that was in effect as of August 29, 2005, the date of the hurricane:

Preventing payments from FEMA or other disaster relief agencies from being treated as income under the new law. This was done in the new law for Holocaust victims and 9/11 victims;

Allowing expenses incurred as a direct result of a natural disaster to be treated as legitimate expenses;

Prohibiting the dismissal of a Chapter 7 case or conversion to a Chapter 13 case under the means test if the debtor is the victim of a natural disaster. This was done in the new law for disabled veterans whose indebtedness was incurred primarily during active duty;

Permitting victims of a natural disaster to file for bankruptcy without first completing credit counseling if they are unable to satisfy that requirement of the new law because of the natural disaster. This was done in the new law for people who are serving in military combat zones and people who are disabled or incompetent;

Exempting victims of natural disasters from the provisions of the new law that make it easier for landlords to evict their tenants who are in bankruptcy;

Allowing courts to extend the time limits for victims of natural disasters to comply with the more onerous paperwork and documentation requirements of the new law;

Providing flexibility for the courts to extend filing deadlines put into place by the new law for small businesses affected by natural disasters.

—Feingold has repeatedly called for the TV networks to devote airtime to help survivors reunite:

“Like all Americans, my thoughts are with those struggling to cope with the terrible effects of Hurricane Katrina. The devastation brought by the storm is absolutely heart-wrenching and beyond description,” Feingold’s letter read. “As your news coverage has shown, one of the many struggles that the survivors of Hurricane Katrina face today is their separation from family and loved ones.”

In the letter, Feingold said that while there have been many success stories of families being brought back together by the news media and others after being displaced by the hurricane, many survivors “still carry the heavy burden of not knowing the whereabouts of loved ones, especially children.”

While there have been efforts by reporters, through the internet, to connect Hurricane survivors “the effort to bring families back together might be well served by having the news networks dedicate a substantial block of air-time… so that those survivors who are in search of loved ones could both let their voice be heard and tune in to a particular network at a specific time to connect with family members through telephone hotlines at the various staging areas.”

“Using the power of our television airwaves could go a long way in helping to bring families back together after this tragedy. It would also ease the enormous anxiety and pain many must feel not knowing the condition of their loved ones,” Feingold said. “This could do a great deal to restore hope to those who have lost so much in this national tragedy.”

—Supports a waiver of NCLB rules for schools directly affected by disasters.

—Supported  an investigation into price-gouging by oil companies. This bill passed the Senate on Septmber 16th.

—Renewed calls for airtime to highlight missing families. Feingold reasoned that if the networks can give Bush airtime, they can also give families for Katrina victims airtime as well.

—Got passed a law increasing reimbursement rates for people driving for charities.

—Supports low income energy assistance increases; Feingold estimates fuel costs will go up from $400-600 this winter as a result of Katrina.

Take a look at these measures being supported by Feingold and passing the Senate. Take a moment to picture all the good things Feingold is doing to help Katrina victims. You can visit your senator’s website and see what they are doing as well.

Now, compare that to the massive incompetence practiced by the Bush administration, as documented by Herbert.

Herbert starts out by pointing out that nothing is politically safer than thrashing Michael Brown, the disgraced former head of FEMA. This may make everybody on the GOP side feel a little better. But he writes that thrashing Brown will not address the larger issues that arose from the Hurricane. He calls for an independent commission of people not bound by partisan politics to sort out this mess, as he writes that this is too grave an issue for people to play politics with.

Nagin gets tarred and feathered by Herbert for failing to realize that a large part of his city was too poor to afford to leave. By contrast, the Houston mayor did an outstanding job by enlisting the metro bus service to evacuate hundreds of people would could not otherwise afford to leave Houston. But Herbert writes that the larger failure is with the Bush administration.

Herbert then goes on to say that the Bush administration has blood on their hands for their negligence and that Americans need answers. He starts off his indictment by asking why Bush failed to intervene. One answer, from Time, is that Bush hates recieving bad news, and that his staff did not want to disurb him.

Herbert says another reason for the failure of the relief efforts is that the Louisiana National Guard unit stationed in NO did not recognize the problem until it was too late. By then, he writes, they were reduced to a frantic struggle to sane their own men, let alone try to save other people.

The problem I see from this account is that the Louisiana National Guard in NO had no contengency plan to find and use equipment in the event of their own barracks being flooded. Not only that, they failed to monitor the weather conditions, as they could easily have done by checking the weather service’s website regularly.

And furthermore, as Herbert notes, much of their equipment and men are in Iraq, not back home. Bush’s catastrophic failure to maintain adequate troop numbers came home to roost.

Herbert then quotes Bush’s desire to head the investigation into what went wrong with Katrina himself. But there is a major problem. Why should we trust Bush, when he has lied so much in the past as documented by the Downing Street Memo, hates recieving bad news as documented by Time, and rewards loyalty over competence? Bush is totally unaware that many Americans simply do not trust him anymore.

As a result, Herbert writes that we are poorly prepared should any terrorist ever strike again. Senator Feingold made this point painfully clear:

I cannot support an Iraq policy that makes our enemies stronger and our own country weaker, and that is why I will not support staying the course the President has set. If Iraq were truly the solution to our national security challenges, this gamble with the future of the military and with our own economy might make sense. If Iraq, rather than such strategically more significant countries as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, were really at the heart of the global fight against violent Islamist terrorism, this might make some sense. If it were true that fighting insurgents in Baghdad meant that we would not have to fight them elsewhere, all of the costs of this policy might make some sense. But these things are not true. Iraq is not the silver bullet in the fight against global terrorist networks. As I have argued in some detail, it is quite possible that the Administration’s policies in Iraq are actually strengthening the terrorists by helping them to recruit new fighters from around the world, giving those jihadists on-the-ground training in terrorism, and building new, transnational networks among our enemies. Meanwhile the costs of staying this course indefinitely, the consequences of weakening America’s military and America’s economy, loom more ominously before us with each passing week. There is no leadership in simply hoping for the best. We must insist on an Iraq policy that makes sense.

Bin Laden must be rubbing his hands with glee. Feingold also noted in today’s speech that the National Guard only has 34% of the equipment that they need, compared to 75% in 2001. How does this make sense, when Bush has increased military spending so dramatically? I suggest that the extra money is being sucked into the black hole of Halliburton, never to return.

Not only does this hamper our war with Iraq, it hampers our ability to cope with hurricanes like Katrina and Rita. As the Bush administration’s own figures show, hurricane intensity will increase because of global warming.

So, how should Democrats respond to all this? Not the milquetoast approach that David Brooks recommends in today’s column:

Will we learn from DeLay’s fall about the self-destructive nature of the team mentality? Of course not. The Democrats have drawn the 10-year-old conclusion that in order to win, they must be just like Tom DeLay. They need to rigidly hew to orthodoxy. They need Deaniac hyperpartisanship. They need to organize their hatreds around Bush the way the Republicans did around Clinton.

The old team is dead. Long live the new team.

Brooks’ logic is fatally flawed. People don’t want a milquetoast party which is Bush-lite, they want the party to contrast itself more from Bush. In fact, people would rather vote for the real thing than the fake Republican with the D beside his name on the ballot.

Dick Gephardt wrote the Iraq War Resolution bill; his 2004 Presidential campaign tanked in Iowa. Tom Daschle and Martin Frost ran ads of themselves and Bush together and lost as well. Jean Carnahan’s and Max Clelland’s votes for the war did not help them win their reelection bids. John Kerry struggled to explain why his stance on the war was different than Bush and lost. So, Brooks’ logic has been debunked.

It is telling that Brooks can spend a whole column bashing Tom DeLay, and then right at the end throw a cheap shot in at the Democrats and claim they are no better. I suggest that was the only real point of the whole column — to call the Democrats the moral equivalent of DeLay without any solid evidence.

The contrast between the Democrats and the Republicans in the next election will be telling. While the Democrats are proposing and passing bipartisan solutions to solve our contry’s problems, the Republicans, through their lies and corruption, have forfeited the trust of the American people. I foresee a political earthquake for the 2006 election.

Click Image to Enlarge

I thought people might be interested to know that cases of avian flu have been reported in Kazakhstan.

His warning comes after reported outbreaks of bird to human infection in Kazakhstan and central Asian parts of Russia at the end of August, though there have been no reported cases in Europe.

“Who cares?  I can’t even pronounce Kazakhstan…probably a bunch of yak herders,” you say? Well, Kasakhstan borders the Caspian Sea, which provides a bit of a haven for birds as they fly south for the winter.

Coastal wetlands, including temporary and permanent shallow pans, many of which are saline, attract a variety of birdlife. Birds are prolific throughout the year, in and around the Caspian, and their numbers swell enormously during the migration seasons when many birds patronize the extensive deltas, shallows and other wetlands.

So much for the region’s bird-watching ecotourism.

Also bordering the Caspian Sea is Iran, which has already taken the precautionary measure of banning grain imports from countries where the virus has been found.  But with winter migration coming soon, health officials the world over worry that such measures may not do enough to impede the virus’ spread.

Beyond the Caspian, there are many countries along the migration route that are simply not in a position to effectively deal with an outbreak should the wild birds bring the avian flu with them on their travels.  

“FAO is concerned that poor countries in southeast Europe, where wild birds from Asia mingle with others from northern Europe, may lack the capacity to detect and deal with outbreaks of bird flu,” said Joseph Domenech, FAO’s Chief Veterinary Officer.

Bird migration routes also run across Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq, Georgia, Ukraine and some Mediterranean countries, where bird flu outbreaks are possible, FAO said.

India and Bangladesh, which currently seem to be uninfected, are also considered to be at risk. Bangladesh, and to a lesser extent India, harbour large numbers of domestic ducks and are situated along one of the major migratory routes. They have the potential to become new large endemic areas of bird flu infection, FAO warned.

Iraq may not have large bird populations at the moment, but neither has it anything resembling a functional medical infrastructure.  It is no secret at all that Iraq’s hospitals already struggle to provide care to victims of the war.  An outbreak of the virus there could make the current devastation relatively moderate.  With a pronounced lack of clean water, public hygiene, and communications systems, Iraq seems especially susceptible to high rates of infection, even without the dreaded mutation that could make H5N1 contagious between humans.  

Tamiflu and other potential remedies notwithstanding, we are looking at a rather daunting confluence of events as the flu season approaches.  The life span of your average viral cell is quite short, allowing for fairly rapid emergence of mutations.  It is not at all unusual for flu vaccines to turn obsolete from one winter to the next, due to even tiny variances in the virus cells’ protein structures.  It is also the case that flu pandemics have a habit of occuring approximately every 40 years.  The last one we saw was in the 1960’s – some experts have gone so far as to say we are “overdue.”  

“Why on earth do you tell us such terrible things!?!?” you say.  Because the best precaution any of us can take is to stay informed.  So please keep up with this story and take the information seriously. but whatever you do, keep your towel handy and don’t panic!

Update [2005-9-29 22:7:24 by BooMan]: NY Times article is up.

Update [2005-9-29 23:0:44 by BooMan]: Miller’s Statement

Judith Miller has been released from jail.

from Liberal Street Fighter

There is a haunting piece about the dead in Louisiana in the Village Voice, a piece also about the dead in another criminal war, a piece that got me thinking about who gets protected, what they get protected from, and why that protection is or isn’t there when it is needed most.

I walked down Iberville toward Hwy 30 and the railroad tracks that run along the perimeter of the morgue until I reached a spot of relative darkness, shielded by some warehouses from the massive banks of lights that illuminate St. Gabriel’s 24-hour operation. I lay down on the tracks and closed my eyes and tried to clear my mind. I got down to what I really came to St. Gabriel for: to see if I could feel the dead, if I could hear them.

Michael Swindle is visiting the temporary morgue set up in the town of San Gabriel, a place he visited shortly before the government relented, allowing the press entrance to the facility. He seeks some sense of the place by taking that walk, trying to commune with the dead within:

I have met the dead before like this, supine in a physical and mental darkness, in a very small place called Dong Ha that was nestled hard up against what was in 1968 the South Vietnam side of the DMZ, where I was sent on courier duty from Danang now and again when my Marine Corps superior officers were in a particularly eager mood for me to be killed. A trip to Dong Ha was always an overnighter, and the transient barracks (a large tent) abutted the graves registration operation for all of I Corps, the northernmost sector of combat in that war. That’s where the bodies came, and they came in a steady, 24-7 stream, to be tagged, bagged, and “sent home.” And they came year after year, far past my tour of duty, for a long, long time.

That transient tent in Dong Ha was the eeriest and most unsettling spot I have ever visited, and it had nothing to do with machine-gun and small arms fire, with grenades and mortars, with incoming rockets. The dead were there. Their bodies were there, and their spirits were there. You could feel them. All night long, if you were listening, you could hear them, and I rarely slept there.

For a short time, in the aftermath of Katrina, the press actually pulled back the gauzy veil of relentless consumerism and showed us real life, real death, real suffering and real heroism and really real consequences to human choices, government choices and the relentless, unstoppable wail and force of Gaia when she decides to cut loose.

It didn’t last long, of course. We need the fairy tales, the predigested “reality” of comfortable narratives of ONLY heroism, of faith-based charities, of an upbeat story of how the devastated South will rise again, preferably with profitable walls of condos and new second homes for rich folks, nice hotels for rich tourists, and nowhere for the poor. For the dead:

I got to my feet and dusted myself off and walked back to my van. I had not felt the dead in this place, nor had I heard them. Only their corpses are here, their casings, and they are invisible. No Press on recovery efforts, no images of corpses. Press blackout on all aspects of the morgue, no images of corpses. The symbol of “dead body” around here is a gleaming Peterbuilt pulling an insulated, odorless, refrigerated 18-wheeler trailer. This works on the same principle that holds that no images of body bags or coffins coming back from Iraq “respects the dignity” of grieving families and “softens,” I guess, the collective loss. The dead you can’t see become simply numbers, and numbers are clean unambiguous things. They are easier to work with than, you know, the other.

This isn’t, of course, done for the protection of the families, of the survivors. It’s certainly not done for the protection of the unlucky, the foolish and especially not for the abandoned. No, this view must be obscured, must be wrapped in a silken shroud of numbers, of PR spin and obfuscation and an avoidance of any responsibility, any accountability. This arithmetic caul must be pulled over our fragile innocent eyes to protect the guilty. To protect those in power. To protect the ruling corporate feudal class and the Boy CEO they elevated to rule over their little concrete fiefdoms.

After all, this is where our society expends its greatest energies, to protect those with the most from failure, from consequences … from the aftermath of the disasters they bring upon others. While more and more Americans keep going, without the security of health coverage or insurance for job losses or even access to a living wage, layers upon layers of legal kevlar protect the assets of the wealthy.

Trusts, overseas bank accounts, holding companies within holding companies protecting the incorporated Lords in their tailored bulletproof suits. Not for them the vagaries of nature … a quick ticket out on the platinum card, a cozy hotel waiting in another place, for the world is their playground. Feudal America has no need for keeps on hills or watery moats: these fiefdoms exist on fluid paper and international travel. They are fortresses created by the best estate and corporate lawyers money can buy. If a business plan goes bad, government is there to help to preserve it, to cover any losses. Losses for the bosses, that is: the lower level plebes will just have to fend for themselves.

While the Dauphin rides in his armored Cadillac Presidential Limousine , kept safe from the sight of those he rules by tinted bulletproof windows, soldiers fighting his illegal war for oil and American Hegemony are still underarmored in body and vehicles.

After all, what must be protected is what we value: money and power. Left to our own devices, many of us vote for the promise that if we’re good, if we get with the program, then maybe WE or our children will get access to that money, that power. No counter offer is forthcoming from an opposing party, for there is no real opposing party. The “other side” of our party-and-a-half system is itself mired in privilege and wealth and their very own armored vehicles. As they usher in a corporate counsel as the new Chief Justice of the highest court, we see that most of our leaders are just comfy with protecting a system they benefit from. No one is left to fight for the idea that there are other values beside cash and power, no one to stand for the belief that we the people had hoped to form a more perfect union. No one.

Meanwhile, the dead are ritually washed and ritually interred and ritually forgotten, as the shiny Peterbuilt trucks roll down the highway and the armored Cadillac limosines carry the comfortable from keep to safe and luxurious keep.

Washington (Claw News Service) – Lawyers for Tom Delay scrambled yesterday in negotiations with Texas authorities in an attempt to have Mr. Delay avoid the indignity of public arrest and handcuffing. Mr. Delay has been charged with conspiracy in violating Texas political fundraising laws. Their claim is that Mr. Delay feels the institution of the House of Representatives and his leadership role has suffered enough at the hands of politically instigated scandal.

In a surprise reversal, today, Mr. Delay’s team announced that posed pictures of his arrest will be offered up for sale to anyone interested. Proceeds will go towards his expanding legal defense fund. They stated that the true pictures of the arrest, if this occurs, will be kept secret, and possibly offered later, depending upon how sales of this first offering go.
The initial photos will include the following:

Prints reportedly will be selling for $19.95 plus shipping and handling. For an extra $200 they will be autographed.

Today’s Topical Limericks

Just caught a piece of the old sitcom MASH
For a split second this image did flash,
‘Twas the weaseling grin;
Tight-ass conservative spin;
Chief Justice Burns really makes my teeth gnash…

In Iraq, we’ve news of three more car bombs,
Sixty-two gone in salaam to Islam.
And yet the Bushies implore
Don’t use the term “Civil War”…
Better a Shiite and Sunni “pogrom”?

Alvin Hellerstein issued a smack down,
Which elicited a Pentagon frown,
Their smutty prisoner pics,
They can’t keep out of the mix,
Abu Gharib will be heading uptown…

The GOP still says they’ll never be beat,
And the Hammer won’t melt from the heat.
Now everyone’s in suspense,
What will be his defense?
Maybe a lifetime’s exposure to DEET?

Did you know there’s a World Toilet Summit.
To discuss how your excrement plummets?!?
Many more topics for sure,
But I am flushed with allure,
By the UriLift toilet, dad-gummit!

I’ve been searching and searching. Yes, I found enough via U.N. news releases to give you the details below, but first I wanted to tell you what the United States and President Bush are doing to respond to this new, grave crisis in Darfur. It should be easy for me to find since I subscribe — via RSS feed — to all of the daily U.S. State Dept. briefings and releases. But I’ve found nothing.

Nothing, even though one of my personal heroes, Jan Egeland, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, says: “My warning is the following: If it continues to escalate, if it continues to be so dangerous on humanitarian work, we may not be able to sustain our operation for 2.5 million people requiring lifesaving assistance.”

The name of the only newspaper in which I could find Egeland’s quote? New Orlean’s Times-Picayune.

On Tuesday, Juan Mendez, the U.N.’s envoy for prevention of genocide — genocide! — warned the world that “violence is increasing” in Darfur and he criticized the “Sudanese national courts for doing little to try suspects accused of atrocities.”

The day after — Wednesday — Pres. Bush issued a clearly pro forma written statement that congratulates the Sudanese government, reports VOA, for naming 29 cabinet members and neglects to mention the new violence and aid crisis.

What exactly did Bush write to Sudan yesterday? “All Sudanese can be proud of this significant progress, because it demonstrates the parties’ continued commitment to a common vision of a unified, democratic, prosperous, and peaceful Sudan.” A peaceful Sudan, my ass. Bush is an ignorant criminal. Does Bush even know the true condition of the Sudanese government, or about the recent violence?

The facts: Today, the United Nations refugee agency “voiced ‘grave concern’ over an ‘unprecedented attack’, purportedly by armed Arab men, on a camp for thousands of internally displaced persons in western Sudan’s Darfur region that is reported to have left 29 people dead and another 10 seriously wounded.”

“As long as this insecurity continues, the international community cannot provide the assistance that is so desperately needed by hundreds of thousands of people,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) António Guterres of Darfur, where fighting between the government, allied militias and rebels has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 2 million since early 2003.”

The conflict has spread to Chad:

A soldier from the National Army of Chad patrols the wadi Tine, the empty bed of seasonal river that runs between Chad and Sudan in Tine, in 2004. The bloody conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region spread across the border to Chad this week when some 75 people, mostly civilians, were killed in an attack on a village by the Sudanese ethnic Arab militia known as the Janjaweed, authorities and witnesses said.(Yahoo News – AFP/File/Marco Longari)

One more thing: These refugees and citizens of these countries depend on cereal for sustenance. Yet, “[w]orld cereal production in 2005 is forecast at 1,984 million tonnes, slightly down since the previous forecast and 3.4 per cent less than 2004’s record output, according to the latest United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report issued today.

Why does this matter so much? From yet another U.N. release today: “Some 30.5 million people in 24 countries in sub-Saharan Africa [including Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe] are facing food emergencies caused by problems ranging from war to bad weather to economic crisis, with 12 million people in southern Africa needing immediate aid after a poor cereal harvest, according to a United Nations report issued today.”

When I hear those snide snipers in Congress blast the U.N., I know that they have no comprehension of the vast, unending, seemingly insurmountable challenges that the U.N. tries to address every day. It’s been an education to sign up for the daily news releases. I recommend it. Particularly to Sen. Norm Coleman.

Information is beginning to filter in:

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WOMENSE-NEWS)–Accounts of rapes in the Louisiana Superdome and other evacuee sites are beginning to trickle in to counselors and the clergy more than three weeks after Katrina hit New Orleans.

Police in major evacuation sites such as the Houston Astrodome are now accepting reports as well.

On Sept. 13–the same day that Women’s e-News reported that the Houston Police Department was not taking courtesy reports of rapes that happened in other jurisdictions–Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt sent out a circular to personnel, instructing them to take reports and hold them for safekeeping until other police jurisdiction are prepared to deal with them, spokesperson Johanna Abad said.

Additionally

Reports by people who said they witnessed rapes are starting to filter in to rape counselors, said Judy Benitez, executive director of the Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault in Hammond. The foundation is beginning to compile a database of reports without specifically naming victims but including enough details about incidents in an attempt to rule out duplicates and get a better count, she said. The reports are being taken from victims as well as witnesses, Benitez said, but she did not know how many reports had been gathered by press time.

There is, however, a definite, responsible-sounding witness:

New Orleans singer-songwriter Charmaine Neville, in a Sept. 2 video aired by WAFB-TV in Baton Rouge, La., said she had reported to New Orleans police that “a lot of us women had been raped down there by guys who had come . . . into the neighborhood where we were that were helping us to save people, but other men . . . they came and they started raping women . . . and then they started killing.”

Despite what some people have reported about no multiple deaths and no multiple rapes in the Super Dome and in the Convention Center, I believe that it is only a matter of time–and possibly for some women impregnated against their will–before the full story is known.