March 28 Benefit For Hastings Race and Poverty Law Journal

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Benefit Concert at Cafe Du Nord on March 28 for the Hastings Race and
Poverty Law Journal, featuring:
On the Speakers (Ian Sefchick from Creeper Lagoon)
Black Cat Music (Lookout! Records)
Psychokinetics (Bay Area Hip Hop)
March 28, 9:00 21+
$8 in advance/ $10 at the door
Cafe Du Nord
2170 Market St., SF
www.ticketweb.com
The Hastings Race and Poverty Law Journal is a national periodical
dedicated to issues and policies of Race and Poverty Law. State budget
reductions have dissolved the Journal’s funding, leaving it to be
sustained solely by student contributions and fund raising. Proceeds
from this concert, co-presented by the Hastings Assoc. of Comm., Sports
and Entertainment Law, will go directly to publishing the Journal.
On the Speakers – Since the demise of (the more well-known line-up of)
SF indie darlings Creeper Lagoon, singer/songwriter Ian Sefchick has
taken the high road to LA, collaborating with other San Francisco
natives to form On the Speakers. Spaceland owner Mitchell Frank
described their debut LA show as ‘the best freakin’ first show I’ve
ever seen!.’ On the Speakers wowed a sold out Noise Pop crowd last
month at the DIW Magazine party, setting the stage for a return trip,
this time headlining the Cafe Du Nord. The man who MTV declared ‘must
save guitar rock’ is back with younger friends and a tie, ready to give
it another spin.
Black Cat Music – For three years, Black Cat Music has kept Bay Area
audiences wanting more. Those lucky enough to catch a live performance
from this often-elusive band can count on an experience like no other.
With prior bands including the Criminals, the Receivers, Multi Facet,
and the Magnetic, all four members know their way around a stage. But
it’s the sum of these four parts that creates such urgent rock and
roll. Black Cat Music speaks to the loss, regret, beauty, and passion
in all of us.
Psychokinetics – Hailing from the astoundingly talented depths of the
Bay Area’s independent music scene, Psychokinetics have been moving
crowds with their slumpin’ beats, positive vibes, and distinct music
format since 1995. Delivering hip-hop in its most pure and creative
state, this harmonious recipe of two DJs (Denizen and ill Media) and
two Emcees (Celsius 7 and Spidey) provide consistent heat with all the
essential cuts and rhymes you need to satisfy your musical appetite.
Get Ready to Be Moved.
For more information call Dave Kostiner at (415) 305-1695 or Cafe Du
Nord at (415) 861-5016.

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What A Bad Idea: 411 For Cell Phones

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Commercial interests are gearing up to benefit from making our personal cell phone information to the public.
Soon 411 will be able to sell your cell phone number to make extra money from its service. You’ll have to pay extra if you want to keep your number unlisted.
I think this is horrible news — A directory service for cell phones only makes sense if you have to opt-in to it, not if the burden is on you to not only opt-out of it, but pay for the privilege.
Now we’ll have to pay to be unlisted!
This seems more like a service you should have to pay to be included in, not the other way around.
Cell phone’s are largely “private” lines. If someone wants their business line listed, they can take the time to list it. The average person shouldn’t have to take up their time and valuable resources to make sure they’ve opted out.
Also, one mistake and the average person will have to foot the cost of getting a new phone number, so they can “try again” at protecting their privacy.
Please let me know if anyone knows how this can:
1) be stopped.
2) changed from an “opt-out” policy to an “opt-in” policy where the burden will be placed on the people who want to participate, not the people who want to protect their privacy.
3) be “opted out” of, at NO CHARGE, with confirmation IN WRITING, so a company can be taken to court if a mistake is made, and far enough (like a year) in advance of the roll out that we can no for sure that our privacy will be protected.
4) be made a built-in requirement for customers to be provided with a freely-available opt-out option at the same time they purchase a cell phone to make it as easy has possible to protect their privacy.
Privacy needs to be the default — not the paid-for exception.
Please keep an eye out for developments on this front and let me know about them! Thanks!
Wireless numbers to be added to 411
Large cell phone carriers on board with plan, source says

The centralized database of wireless numbers would be off limits to telemarketers, and consumers would be able to choose whether to have their numbers listed or unlisted, according to people familiar with the process.
Individual carriers would determine whether subscribers would have to pay to be unlisted.
Other privacy options are possible, too.
For example, wireless phone users might choose to be unlisted but willing to receive a short text message, sent through the directory service, from someone trying to contact them.
The nation

More On The Falsified Nuclear Evidence

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Mr. Powell, there is such a thing as making a mistake. It would appear that, if you can admit to this one mistake, innocent people don’t have to die. (The threat to the world is not what you thought, so we can give Iraq more time to disarm, etc.)
Is is really so hard to admit that someone else purposely misled you and the Shrub — causing you to unknowingly mislead the American people?
We understand that you were acting accordingly, taking what you believed to be the truth into account. But the charade is over. Please let the madness stop.
Some Evidence on Iraq Called Fake
U.N. Nuclear Inspector Says Documents on Purchases Were Forged
By Joby Warrick for the Washington Post.

Documents that purportedly showed Iraqi officials shopping for uranium in Africa two years ago were deemed “not authentic” after careful scrutiny by U.N. and independent experts, Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told the U.N. Security Council.
ElBaradei also rejected a key Bush administration claim — made twice by the president in major speeches and repeated by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday — that Iraq had tried to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes to use in centrifuges for uranium enrichment. Also, ElBaradei reported finding no evidence of banned weapons or nuclear material in an extensive sweep of Iraq using advanced radiation detectors.
“There is no indication of resumed nuclear activities,” ElBaradei said…
ElBaradei’s report yesterday all but ruled out the use of the tubes in a nuclear program. The IAEA chief said investigators had unearthed extensive records that backed up Iraq’s explanation. The documents, which included blueprints, invoices and notes from meetings, detailed a 14-year struggle by Iraq to make 81mm conventional rockets that would perform well and resist corrosion. Successive failures led Iraqi officials to revise their standards and request increasingly higher and more expensive metals, ElBaradei said.
Moreover, further work by the IAEA’s team of centrifuge experts — two Americans, two Britons and a French citizen — has reinforced the IAEA’s conclusion that the tubes were ill suited for centrifuges. “It was highly unlikely that Iraq could have achieved the considerable redesign needed to use them in a revived centrifuge program,” ElBaradei said.

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Johnny Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Evidence — Your Guilt Can Now Be “Inferred”

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Ashcroft Out of Control
Ominous Sequel to USA Patriot Act
By Nat Hentoff for the Village Voice.

Under the proposed Ashcroft bill reversing that court decision, for the first time in U.S. history, secret arrests will be specifically permitted. That section of bill is flatly titled: “Prohibition of Disclosure of Terrorism Investigation Detainee Information.” In Argentina, those secretly taken away were known as “the disappeared.”
Moving on, under Section 501 of the blandly titled Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, an American citizen can be stripped of citizenship if he or she “becomes a member of, or provides material support to, a group that the United States has designated as a ‘terrorist organization,’ if that group is engaged in hostilities against the United States.”
Until now, in our law, an American could only lose his or her citizenship by declaring a clear intent to abandon it. But~Wand read this carefully from the new bill – “the intent to relinquish nationality need not be manifested in words, but can be inferred from conduct.” (Emphasis added).
Who will do the “inferring”? A member of the Justice Department. Not to worry. As John Ashcroft’s spokeswoman, Barbara Comstock, says of objections to this draft bill: “The [Justice] department’s deliberations are always undertaken with the strongest commitment to our Constitution and civil liberties.” (This is a faith- based administration.)

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Maureen O’Dowd On Our Country’s Xanax Cowboy

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The Xanax Cowboy
By Maureen Dowd for The New York Times

As he rolls up to America’s first pre-emptive invasion, bouncing from motive to motive, Mr. Bush is trying to sound rational, not rash. Determined not to be petulant, he seemed tranquilized.
But the Xanax cowboy made it clear that Saddam is going to pay for 9/11. Even if the fiendish Iraqi dictator was not involved with Al Qaeda, he has supported “Al Qaeda-type organizations,” as the president fudged, or “Al Qaeda types” or “a terrorist network like Al Qaeda.”
We are scared of the world now, and the world is scared of us. (It’s really scary to think we are even scaring Russia and China.)
Bush officials believe that making the world more scared of us is the best way to make us safer and less scared. So they want a spectacular show of American invincibility to make the wicked and the wayward think twice before crossing us.
Of course, our plan to sack Saddam has not cowed the North Koreans and Iranians, who are scrambling to get nukes to cow us.
It still confuses many Americans that, in a world full of vicious slimeballs, we’re about to bomb one that didn’t attack us on 9/11 (like Osama); that isn’t intercepting our planes (like North Korea); that isn’t financing Al Qaeda (like Saudi Arabia); that isn’t home to Osama and his lieutenants (like Pakistan); that isn’t a host body for terrorists (like Iran, Lebanon and Syria).

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Shrub Attempts To Usurp Our Democratic Process

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Bush Calls For Ban on Judicial Filibusters
from CNN and the AP.

President Bush, his appeals court nomination of Miguel Estrada mired in party politics, called Tuesday for a ban on judicial filibusters and a mandatory vote on all court nominations he and future presidents send to the Senate.
In a letter read on the Senate floor by Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, Bush called for a permanent rule “to ensure timely up or down votes on judicial nominations both now and in the future, no matter who is president or which party controls the Senate. This is the only way to ensure our judiciary works and that good people remain willing to be nominated to the federal bench.”
Senators in the past have called for similar changes but to no effect.
Republicans have so far failed in their efforts to end the Democratic filibuster of Estrada’s nomination for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia…
Democrats have said Owen and Pickering would face serious opposition from them, including possible filibusters.
The Republicans lost a filibuster vote on Estrada on Thursday, with only four Democrats voting with the GOP majority to give him an immediate confirmation vote. Frist said he would soon try vote on ending the filibuster, and Hatch said he expects such a vote perhaps as early as next week.

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William Rivers Pitt: Arrest Me

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Arrest Me By William Rivers Pitt for truthout.

Crazy, right?
Ask Andrew J. O’Conner of Santa Fe, New Mexico if it sounds crazy. Mr. O’Conner, a former public defender from Santa Fe, was arrested in a public library and interrogated by Secret Service agents for five hours on February 13th.
His crime?
He said “Bush is out of control” on an internet chat room, and was arrested for threatening the President.
Ask Bernadette Devlin McAliskey of Ireland if it sounds crazy. She was recently passing through Chicago from Dublin, where she passed security, when she heard her name called over a loudspeaker. When she went up to the ticket counter, three men and one woman surrounded her and grabbed her passport. McAliskey was informed that she had been reported to be a “potential or real threat to the United States.”
Bernadette Devlin McAliskey has spent the better part of her life struggling for the Irish nationalist cause. She did not lob Molotov cocktails at police. Instead, she became a member of British Parliament at age 21, the youngest person ever elected to that post. In 1981 she and her husband were shot by a loyalist death squad in their home. She has traveled to America on a regular basis for the last thirty years, and has been given the keys to the cities of San Francisco and New York.
Upon her detention in Chicago last month, McAliskey was fingerprinted and photographed. One of the men holding her told her that he was going to throw her in prison. When she snapped back that she had rights, she was told not to make the boss angry, because he shoots people. “After 9/11,” said one officer, “nobody has any rights.”

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Crux Of The Dixie Chicks Situation

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This situation just goes to show that it was the Music Programming layer of the system, not the listener layer, that pulled the Dixie Chicks from station playlists over Natalie’s statements.
That’s the issue here: programmers took it upon themselves to censor the Chicks before listeners had a chance to say anything. That’s where the McCarthyism parallel kicks in. The Chicks got blacklisted by a few key people within a Monopolized Media: not by infuriated listeners.
Many thanks to Dale Carter, programming director at KFKF/Kansas City for rethinking the situation and speaking out on this important issue!

Country Radio Still Weighing Chicks Controversy

One major market programmer removed the Chicks from his station’s playlist but changed his mind after considering why Americans have fought previous wars. In a letter to listeners posted on the KFKF/Kansas City Web site, program director Dale Carter wrote, “Our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are over there fighting for our rights — and one of those is our Constitutional right to express an unpopular opinion. The longer this has gone on, the more I had visions of censorship and McCarthyism. Two wrongs don’t make a right. I agree with the 80 percent of you who abhor what Natalie said in London. On the other hand, I believe in the Constitution.”

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How The Shrub Administration Screwed This One Up

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U.S. Missteps Led to Failed Diplomacy
By Glenn Kessler and Mike Allen for the Washington Post.

But these officials add that the problem was exacerbated by a series of missteps that occurred after the president decided in September to seek U.N. approval for his Iraqi policy, including what some acknowledge was a lackluster diplomatic effort by the president and some of his senior foreign policy advisers. The administration did not help itself, some Security Council members say, by signaling early on that it would not be deterred from what many governments viewed as a preset timetable for war.
“Could we have done the diplomacy better? Absolutely,” an administration official said. “We were perceived as heavy-handed.”
…By the time Bush addressed the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 12, the administration had angered its allies by its dismissal of the global warming treaty, the international criminal court and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia. Even so, diplomats said, the administration likely would have won a second U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing military action if it had shown a little more patience and more willingness to address the concerns of other member nations.

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