News: Downtown shooting scares holiday horde

A Portland panhandler will not be doing it again. He was killed earlier today in front of the imposing Meier and Frank department store downtown. The 12-story art deco structure, which houses the Pacific Northwest's premier department store, is in the heart of the city, across from historical Pioneer Courthouse Square. Though Nordstrom, which began as a shoe store, may be the best known chain headquartered in the region, Meier and Frank preceded it as a department store. The Oregonian reports on the shooting.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A man was shot to death outside a busy downtown department store Thursday in front of horrified holiday shoppers and a suspect was quickly arrested, police said.

Witnesses say the gunman fired three shots at the victim, then calmly walked away.

"I heard one shot, a pause, and then two more shots, really loud," said Sandy Sprague, who operates a flower cart about 30 feet from the shooting scene.

Security workers from Meier & Frank ran out of the store after hearing the shots, called police and administered first aid to the victim, she said.

The Portland Police Department has not confirmed the details, but has acknowledged taking a suspect into custody.

It seems inevitable. Put together:

(1) Aggressive panhandlers; and

(2) Easy access to guns.

The result is bound to be volatile eventually. Having encountered my share of panhandlers who demand, rather than ask for money, I know the frustration that ensues. Nor is money always at issue. Lewd remarks to women are common. So, are threats of violence. Experts say a quarter to a third of the chronically homeless are mentally ill. Evidence of that dysfunctionality is apparent to anyone who lives in a city. In Portland, the situation has been brought home by a series of murders by street people over the years.

But, the problems that result in an incident like today's are two-pronged. The typical response to aggressive panhandlers is to get away from them as promptly as possible. Pedestrians either give them a wide berth or retreat when they encounter abuse. The easy availability of handguns makes a less peaceable response more likely to occur. Not enough is known about the episode to say whether the gunman had a permit to carry the weapon, or, whether the panhandler did something threatening beforehand. But, it seems likely the situation could have been defused without either person being killed, but for access to the gun.

The blogger at Tim Riley's City Desk sees the irony in this holiday happening.

A tarp was thrown over the dead body, so pedestrians could continue to walk past the grizzly scene to catch up on last minute shopping.

I suspect officials at Meier and Frank are furious for reasons of public relations and timing. Some suburbanites are already wary of entering the big, bad city. But, the lights, sights and sales lure them downtown during the Christmas season. The last thing retailers want is for shoppers' paranoia to seem justified. Flying bullets can create just that impression.

Like many a tall, impressive downtown department store, Meier and Frank has not been able to attract sufficient business to support the imposing building. Suburban stores produce better sales per square foot of space. The chain's owners, May Department Stores Co., of Ohio, have been seeking a way to save the building, erected in 1909, for years. Plans are underfoot to convert the top seven floors of the structure into a hotel, while making the other five floors a new and improved shopping emporium. That would mean using 230,000 square feet of the 665,000-square-foot building for Meier and Frank and the rest for a Marriott Hotel. The shooting out front is a timely reminder of why downtown stores are imperiled.

Reasonably related

~ Meier and Frank's dilemma has been repeated throughout the nation. Read more about the problems of maintaining a downtown department store:

In the Portland Tribune.

In today's Oregonian.

~ Christmas cheer? I will try to produce some before the day arrives.

News: Gregoire 'wins' recount by 8 votes

The Democrats say Christine Gregoire is the new governor of Washington. They say that eight of the 2.9 million votes cast determined the ultimate outcome.

OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON --The head of the state Democratic Party said late Tuesday that recount results from King County give Democrat Christine Gregoire an eight-vote victory in the closest governor's race in state history.

Neither King County nor the Republican Party could confirm the results Tuesday night.

Republican Dino Rossi won the first count by 261 votes and won a machine recount by 42 votes.

"We're confident Christine Gregoire has been elected the governor of the state of Washington," Democratic Chairman Paul Berendt said.

IRONY. I have typed the word in capitals because there is so much of it. Throughout the post-Nov. 2 confusion, Gregoire, the state's longtime attorney general, has said her preference was that all ballots be recounted, including those rejected for procedural reasons. The Supreme Court of Washington agreed with the Republicans, ruling that only votes previously considered could be recounted. Otherwise, the jurists said, the state would be 'recanvassing,' not recounting. Now, with a tinier margin than ever, the GOP may try to change its tune. Even if only the 700 or so ballots King County failed to count because of worker error were added to the tally, Rossi might have maintained or increased his previous 42-vote lead. If other rejected ballots had been considered, that would have had a much higher probability. Fearful that the Democrats would profit by either scenario, the Republicans opposed both. They said that recounting those ballots would mean changing the rules near the end of the game. I do not necessarily disagree with the high court's ruling. As I said in a previous entry, there are good legal reasons for the result.

I expected this outcome. The Supreme Court needed to be convinced of a major failure of the ballot counting procedure. Otherwise, the justices would not intervene in a legislative function -- establishing the criteria for voting and counting ballots. If the Democrats are serious, the appropriate response is to clarify state law in regard to the areas of the process that they consider inadequate presently. They should bring these concerns to the legislature.

But, I believe the ballots that fell victim to employee error in King County should be counted. They may not fall within the rule against re-canvassing. That argument was heard in court today as Democrats challenge a restraining order against counting those ballots. The Olympian reports.

At issue are 573 ballots mistakenly rejected by the King County canvassing board and 162 ballots that apparently had been misplaced in that county.

The number of votes is just enough that it could tip the election in favor of Democrat Christine Gregoire, who trailed Republican governor-elect Dino Rossi by just 42 votes after the first recount, done by machine. A statewide hand count of ballots is under way and could wrap up Wednesday when King County, a Gregoire stronghold, is expected to finish its tally.

Pierce County Superior Court Judge Stephanie Arend on Friday granted the state Republican Party's request for a temporary restraining order preventing the tabulation of additional votes. Arend cited a recent Supreme Court ruling in declaring it was too late to consider the disputed ballots and that a recount includes only ballots previously tabulated.

The state Democratic Party, King County elections department and Secretary of State's Office all have appealed, contending state law does allow local elections boards, called canvassing boards, to fix errors.

The ultimate irony will be if the GOP adopts the Democrats' former argument in future litigation: If any additonal ballots are counted, all of them should be.

Is Christine Gregoire the governor of Washington? Time -- and the courts -- will tell.

Update: ABC News reports the Washington Supreme Court has ruled that the 700-plus ballots missed because of employee error in King County can be counted. Gregoire has carried the large, urban county by a wide margin previously.

Opinion: Kerik may find good-bye ain't gone

In America, it is very easy for people considered marginal to disappear from folk's minds. A woman, probably from Mexico or South America, who is an undocumented alien, has apparently disappeared literally from the life of the policeman who loved to break the rules, Bernard K. Kerick. He is hoping that she will disappear symbolically, too. Having served the role of beard for the other illegalities George W. Bush's would be terrorism czar may have been involved in, Senorita No Name is supposed to disappear altogether.

Luis Humberto Crosthwaite, writing at Sign On San Diego, would like to know who she is and where she went.

No matter how much I've read about this matter, I can't find out anything about this girl or woman. We don't know her name or place of origin. We don't know if she liked her job or how much she was paid. We only know she was undocumented. Shortly after Kerik made the phone call, his nanny disappeared, and all we know is she returned to her own country.

Maybe it's because my only point of reference is my mother and other women who have worked taking care of children or the elderly, but I don't like the idea that she was forced to leave the country, summarily, for looking after the children of a man who sought a government post he didn't deserve.

I wonder if they paid her when they fired her. I wonder if she got a Christmas bonus. I wonder if she had grown to love those children she can no longer see. I wonder if Mr. or Mrs. Kerik thanked her.

Though the undocumented nanny may be the least of Kerick's breaches, I don't believe her disappearance is going to take. The fine tooth comb examination of his past that should have occurred before now has revealed too much, just days after beginning. A stock deal that made him a millionaire six times over. Links to organized crime in several ways. Abuse of power during his tenure as the head of the correction department in New York. Purchases in his various capacities that seem to have been more about possible kickbacks than the agencies involved needing the products. A seamy personal life that includes three wives, one hidden until now. An abandoned daughter that he did not acknowledge until she was well into adulthood. A son he now says is by the missing second wife, not his first as claimed before. Falsification of documents that would have pinpointed his financial and legal problems by a pattern of not completing the paperwork. Curiosity about whether Kerik ever tells the truth about anything will make it difficult for Senorita No Name to disappear.

Of course, it would be to her advantage if she could stay out of the spotlight. Having it established that she worked illegally in the United States could doom future efforts at acquiring citizenship. And, unlike Kerik, who has never faced the legal consequences of his actions, the nanny surely would.

Despite believing Kerik to be a blowhard, I am operating under the premise that he is telling the truth about the existence of the undocumented nanny. She could have been made up as a convenient way to recant his acceptance of leadership of the Department of Homeland Security, shortly after the announcement. Kerik may have hoped that by presenting a typical error of well-off political appointees, he would divert attention from his long path of shady behavior. If so, he has failed. The New York Times' recent article about Kerik's nanny problem was mainly about the absence of the nanny.

Most puzzled about the nanny, perhaps, are former neighbors of the Keriks and their kin. In the Riverdale section of the Bronx, where the family lived in a first-floor apartment for years before moving last year into the Franklin Lakes home they had extensively renovated, neighbors did not recall any household help. One neighbor, Dennis Doyle, noted that Mr. Kerik's wife, Hala Matli Kerik, a former dental hygienist, not only seemed to care for Celine, now 4, by herself, but that she did her own laundry as well.

In the blue-collar neighborhood of Elmwood Park, N.J., where Mrs. Kerik's mother, Zakia, lived in a rented duplex for years, neighbors reacted with surprise to questions about a nanny, and said that Mrs. Kerik's mother had moved into the Kerik home about a year ago.

"They never came around here with a nanny," said Sophie Borsuk, 55, the longtime landlady and downstairs neighbor of Mrs. Kerik's mother. "I never saw any nanny. This is the first time I heard about a nanny."

One current neighbor of the Keriks says she has seen an olive-skinned young woman playing with their children. But, the woman could have been a relative. Kerik's strongest defender, his attorney, Joseph Tacopina, admits he is relying on his client's claim that he filed belated tax paperwork in regard to her to prove the nanny's existence. He says he has never seen the paperwork.

If Senorita No Name exists, I hope Crosthwaite's desire she not be dehumanized occurs when she meets the press. Her 'crime' is wanting to come to a country where she can make a living beyond the subsistence level. Her former employer's behavior has been much worse.

Reasonably related

The media is now looking into allegations of Kerik having ties to organized crime in Staten Island.

Technology: Apple evicts Real from iPod Photo

As you may know, RealNetworks created software that allowed owners of Windows programmed iPods to download music from its RealPlayer Music Store , a competitor with Apple's iTunes Music Store, a few months ago. Apple refuses to open the iPod to other sellers of digital music, using its proprietary software to prevent them from competing with iTMS. Back in July, when Real announced its fait accompli, I wondered how long it would take Apple to lock Real out of the iPod, again. CNet reports that Real downloads will not play on the new iPod Photo.

Apple Computer has quietly updated its iPod software so that songs purchased from RealNetworks' online music store will no longer play on some of the Mac maker's popular MP3 players.

The move could render tunes purchased by many iPod owners unplayable on their music players. For the last four months, RealNetworks has marketed its music store as the only Apple rival compatible with the iPod, following the company's discovery of a way to let its customers play their downloaded tunes on Apple's MP3 player.

Apple criticized RealNetworks' workaround, dubbed Harmony, as the "tactics. . .of a hacker ," and warned in July that RealNetworks-purchased songs would likely "cease to work with current and future iPods." Apple offered no further statement Tuesday, but confirmed that the software released with its iPod Photo will not play music purchased from RealNetworks' music store.

Rob Glaser, Real's CEO, has argued that Apple should allow music from other distributors to be played on the iPod to best serve consumers, and, to encourage the spread of downloading digital music. However, Real Networks' does not support the Macintosh in most ways, including music downloads.

Real claims to have sold three million songs during a 49-cent sale in August. Real's songs could be purchased for half the price of those at iTMS. The promotion targeted users of Windows-compatible iPods.

Apple's argument is that it has a duty to control access to the iPod under its Digital Rights Management agreements with the music industry. It uses its DRM software, Fairplay, to do so. Competitor Microsoft also has proprietary DRM software for its Windows Media Player. As does Real for RealPlayer and parts of its subscription service.

What is DRM?

A system for protecting the copyrights of data circulated via the Internet or other digital media by enabling secure distribution and/or disabling illegal distribution of the data. Typically, a DRM system protects intellectual property by either encrypting the data so that it can only be accessed by authorized users or marking the content with a digital watermark or similar method so that the content cannot be freely distributed.

Hardware and software manufacturers also use their DRM as a way to stake a claim on territory. Incompatibility results in consumers not being able to combine hardware and products from different companies. Though Apple's tight grip on what music can be played on the iPod is the most discussed example of the exclusionary use of DRM, the practice pervades high tech industry.

It is unclear whether the update of the iPod's firmware or software that made Real downloads unusable on the iPod Photo also renders them useless on other models of the iPod. The change may be to the newest model of the iPod only. But, future upgrades could include earlier models, effectively evicting Real from the house that Apple built.

Apple's iPod has captured about 70 percent of the market for high quality MP3 players. It is said to be the most sought after high tech device this Christmas season. Internet giant Amazon has sold out of some models, as have other online and offline retailers. Best Buy has shifted its iPod supply to its brick and mortar stores. The Boston Globe reports Apple expects to sell two million iPods this quarter.

Law: Washington court rules against Democrats

Neither the slim lady nor the plump man has sung yet. The election for governor of Washington will not be over until a hand recount of all the ballots is complete. So, former attorney general Christine Gregoire and multimillionaire Dino Rossi await the outcome with even more interest than other residents of the Pacific Northwest. However, one of the questions unresolved for weeks has been answered. Only ballots previously counted will be recounted.* The Supreme Court of Washington ruled on the issue Tuesday.

Let's look at the slip opinion.

The Court considered the rationale for relief set forth by the Democrats of Washington state.

By a petition invoking this court’s mandamus jurisdiction and a statute entitled “Prevention and correction of election frauds and errors,” RCW 29A.68.011, various electors and the Washington State Democratic Central Committee seek an order directing Secretary of State Sam Reed to promulgate “uniform standards” for the manual recount now taking place in the Washington State election for Governor. Their Motion and Brief in Support of Emergency Partial Relief specifies that three such sets of standards are being sought:

(1) standards that ensure that all ballots rejected in previous counts are fully canvassed so that the hand recount produces as complete and accurate a tabulation as possible; (2) standards for evaluating previously-rejected signatures according to the more liberal standards applied in most counties; and (3) standards that allow party representatives to meaningfully witness the hand recount, by observing all actual ballots being counted.

The Court rejected that rationale as not supported by the evidence. The justices apparently do not believe a faulty electoral procedure caused votes not to be counted, or, to be counted so inaccurately it requires reconsideration of rejected ballots.

In this context, a “ballot” is a physical or electronic record of the choices of an individual voter, or the physical document on which the voter’s choices are to be recorded. RCW 29A.04.008(1)(c),(d). “‘Recount’ means the process of retabulating ballots and producing amended election returns….” RCW 29A.04.139 (emphasis added). The procedure for recounts is set forth in RCW 29A.64.041, and starts with the county canvassing board opening “the sealed containers containing the ballots to be recounted.” See RCW 29A.60.110. Thus, under Washington’s statutory scheme, ballots are to be “retabulated” only if they have been previously counted or tallied, subject to the provisions of RCW 29A.60.210.

It follows that this court cannot order the Secretary to establish standards for the recanvassing of ballots previously rejected in this election.

The justices went on the discuss specific arguments that had been made in regard to populous King County's ballot procedures, but found none of the worthy of finding infirmity in the current statutes.

I expected this outcome. The Supreme Court needed to be convinced of a major failure of the ballot counting procedure. Otherwise, the justices would not intervene in a legislative function -- establishing the criteria for voting and counting ballots. If the Democrats are serious, the appropriate response is to clarify state law in regard to the areas of the process that they consider inadequate presently. They should bring these concerns to the legislature.

Why the asterisk? Because some ballots that were not counted before probably will be, despite the Court's ruling. King County election workers accidentally failed to check a card file that contained signature cards for more than 500 absentee voters. Instead, workers mistakenly checked a computer record and failed to find those signatures. The ballots were excluded. Since the mistake was clearly worker error, King County intends to count those ballots. They could deliver the election to Gregoire. The Republicans are suing.

Health: Homeless life span short, sickly

A study conducted by researchers in Seattle offers some new insight into who the homeless are and what ails them. I realize we think we are already know who the homeless are. The panhandler in front of Safeway or Trader Joe's who will curse you out if you don't hand over some money. The 'rider' who can clear the gathering at a bus stop just by showing up sans bath and deodorant. The stereotypical drunken Indian you step over or walk around to get where you're going. Some of us have factual information about the homeless. We know there is a correlation between being homeless and a former ward of the foster care system, or a military veteran, or low level employee, such as a security guard. The researchers delved deeper by looking into one of the most telling aspects of a person's life: what he or she dies from.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has the story.

SEATTLE, Wash. -- The average homeless person in King County died prematurely at age 47, and most likely suffered from alcohol or substance abuse, a new study found.

Some homeless people had as many as eight health problems but the average was three, said the study released Monday by Public Health-Seattle & King County, which reviewed 77 deaths that occurred last year.

Roughly two-thirds of the dead had a history of alcohol or substance abuse, more than half suffered from cardiovascular disease and a quarter had a mental-health problem, the study said.

The most common cause of death was acute intoxication, followed by cardiovascular disease and homicide. More than half of the deaths occurred outside, the study said.

It is estimated that about 8,000 people are homeless each night in King County.

Having spent more time than I should have at a blog dominated by Right Wingers this year, I been told over and over again that poverty either does not exist in the United States, or, that those mired in hopelessness deserve to be. The results from the King County study reveal the interplay that makes escape from the worst kind of poverty impossible for many of those caught in the cycle. To acquire a job, housing and consistent health care, a person needs to be at least moderately functional. Many homeless people aren't because of their ill health. Their addictions make a difficult situation a futile one.

Dr. Alonzo Plough, director and health officer for public-health agency, said the study reveals the complex health challenges faced by homeless people as they struggle to survive.

"It reflects the harshness of life on the streets and in shelters, inadequate access to health care, enormous human suffering and loss," Plough said in a statement.

Though the study is not large, and is localized to the most populous county in Washington state, its findings are similar to those elsewhere in the U.S. The lives of the street dwellers seem to have changed little despite our progress as a technological society. Seattle in 2004 could be Charles Dickens' London of 1804. Life on the margins is still short, sickly and brutish.

Law: Beltway sniper gun shop settles law suit

The New York Times reports a settlement in the law suit some survivors of shootings by the Beltway snipers brought against the gun store that sold the weapon used in most of the killings. John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo were convicted of several counts of first degree murder, and conspiracy, in the case.

A judge has signed off on a $2 million settlement between a Tacoma gun shop and relatives of victims of the East Coast sniper attacks. In the settlement, which was reached in September, Bull's Eye Shooter Supply of Tacoma agreed to pay $2 million to two survivors and six families related to the victims of the snipers. The manufacturer of the weapon in the shootings, Bushmaster Firearms of Windham, Me., agreed to pay an additional $500,000. The two snipers reportedly stole the firearm from Bull's Eye. The families' suit contended that the shop's owners were negligent in allowing that gun and others to disappear and that Bushmaster was at fault for shipping the gun to an irresponsible dealer. Judge Frank E. Cuthbertson of Pierce County Superior Court in Tacoma approved the settlement this month.

I do not believe that the rifle used in the shootings that terrorized the Washington, D.C. area was necessarily stolen. Bull's Eye has a long history of a high number of guns disappearing. It seems likely that someone was selling guns under the table.

Last year, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives revoked the license of the owner of Bull's Eye, Brian Borgelt. However, it was transferred to a friend of his. Borgelt still operates a business on the premises.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports.

TACOMA -- Federal regulators have approved transferring the ownership of the Tacoma gun store that was the source of the rifle linked to the Beltway snipers who terrorized the nation's capital last fall.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on Friday granted a firearms license to Chris Kindschuh to own and operate Bull's Eye Shooter Supply, according to an ATF spokesman and lawyer Jim Frush, who represents former owner Brian Borgelt.

The sale of the store and its stock has been in process for months. Borgelt had little choice but to sell Bull's Eye after the ATF revoked his federal firearms license at the beginning of the month.

The case, though it did not go to trial, broke new ground in liability for crimes in which guns are used. Court TV explains.

The settlement with Bushmaster marks the first time a gun manufacturer has agreed to pay damages to settle claims of negligent distribution of weapons, said Jon Lowy, a lawyer with the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Lowy, who helped argue the case, also said the settlement with Bull's Eye Shooter Supply is the largest against a gun dealer.

"These settlements send a loud and clear message that the gun industry cannot turn a blind eye to how criminals get their guns," Lowy said.

The Beltway sniper killings occurred in the fall of 2002. Three people were wounded and 10 killed in the Washington, D.C. area. But, the crime spree may have begun in the Pacific Northwest. It is believed Malvo, an adolescent, shot and killed a young woman mistaken for a former friend Muhammad had targeted for revenge. Other unsolved crimes in Colorado and Alabama have also been linked to the pair. Muhammad was sentenced to death for two of the Beltway shootings. Malvo will serve life in prison.

Reasonably related

Read more about the sorry record of Borchelt and Bull's Eye in an investigative article from the Seattle Times.

Analysis: Pro-slavery pamphlet is in limelight

Excerpts from Southern Slavery speak for themselves.

"Slavery as it existed in the South was not an adversarial relationship with pervasive racial animosity. Because of its dominantly patriarchal character, it was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence."

"There has never been a multi-racial society which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world."

"Slave life was to them a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes, and good medical care."

The myth of happy slaves was a staple of textbooks in the South as late as the 1970s.

I said "purported" writers because of another controversy about Southern Slavery. Though I know Wilson and Wilkins sincerely hold their bigoted views, much of the material in the booklet was plagiarized from elsewhere. The Southern Poverty Law Center has looked into the matter.

The two neo-Confederate pastors who were recently at the center of controversy in Idaho over their defense of bondage, Southern Slavery As It Was, are facing a new brouhaha. It turns out that at least 22 passages, some of them quite lengthy, were plagiarized from a 1974 book.

In early August, Nicholas Gier, a retired philosophy professor at the University of Idaho, dropped a bombshell by announcing that his former student, Doug Wilson, and Wilson's co-author, Steve Wilkins, were "guilty of plagiarism."

Gier wrote a letter to a local newspaper, began circulating a petition denouncing the plagiarism, and produced a series of side-by-side comparisons of pages from the 1996 Wilson/Wilkins booklet and Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery, by R.W. Fogel and S.L. Engerman.

"I'm a professional academic and he's a former student," Geir told the Lewiston Morning Tribune. "I feel a responsibility for the product."

This is not surprising to persons familiar with the organized racist movements of the U.S. Leaders are often poseurs. A typical pose is that of intellectual who is far above academics who are experts in their fields. So, persons who are ignorant of history, economics or theology will publish dubious material that other members will hail as superb. Neo-Confederate apologia is invariably so poorly researched and reasoned that no real student of American history would take it seriously. But, according to fellow travelers, it is the output of -- here we go again -- superior beings. Wilson, the minister of a church in Idaho, is particularly fond of strutting his supposed intellectual rigor. He claims to have developed a 'classical' curriculum for home schoolers and Christian schools. The private school in South Carolina that is the focus of the current controversy is one that was established under the auspices of the Wilson's organization. Wilson has known that his secret, plagiarization of much of the material in Southern Slavery, was out for years. But, as long as the plagiarism was not well-known, he continued to publish the pamphlet. It is yet to be seen whether his latest claim to have withdrawn it is true.

However, the theft of much of the material in the booklet is ancillary to what is most damning about it. Like all apologia for slavery, Southern Slavery is grounded in a desire to elevate white people while denying the equality of African-Americans. Authorities on slavery, from John Hope Franklin to Herbert Gutman, make no bones about what the peculiar institution was -- a methodology for one group of people to exploit another. Claims that apologia for slavery offer 'the other side' are nonsense. There was and is no justification for depriving other people of their autonomy to enrich oneself. The slave owners of the South were immoral people.

Blogger Gen. J.C. Christian is not remotely fooled by the tomfoolery neo-Confederates offer in defense of Southern Slavery. He has said so in his singular way.

What would Jesus do?

That's a question many of us good, God-fearing Christians ask ourselves many times a day. Douglas Wilson has the answer. Jesus would buy and sell his neighbors.

It's refreshing to see someone like Wilson stand up and fight for a time-honored moral value like slavery. I hope that more people will do the same. Certainly, the results of the last election suggest that a truly conservative Christianity is back in vogue. We have political capital. We should use it to put people in chains. Then, pehaps we can bring back genocide too. It'll be just like old times.

But, the blogosphere is largely a redoubt of the Right. Neo-Confederate Christian blogger Harry Seabrook, at Little Geneva, is upset about criticism of Southern Slavery. It angers him that people dare to question white supremacy, a key underpinning of his beliefs. He is particularly rankled that Wilson and Wilkins make an obligatory remark that slavery was wrong before going on to paint slavery as benign. There was nothing wrong with enslaving blacks, Seabrook, who refers to Africans as cannibals and rapists, believes.

Those without a degree in Education might also expect for the words "slavery is wrong" to be proved by Scripture. Now, as I’ve said many times, Wilson and Wilkins have the perplexing idea that the institution of Southern slavery itself was somehow sinful for being race-based. This was no more true than the suggestion that marriage is sinful because it is sex-based, and in fact, W&W offer no scriptural reason for this particular stance. The rest of their book is quite good. . . .

Seabrook, whose bigotry knows no bounds, is doubtlessly unreachable. However, I believe a knowledge of how the neo-Confederate movement funnels its views into the mainstream is useful for many people. Your home-schooling neighbor or a school near you may be susceptible to the kind of stealth campaign for racism the dissemination of Southern Slavery As It Was represents. Now you know.

What's the art?

Frederick Douglass was a famous abolitionist who had escaped from slavery.

Reasonably related

•Both Wilson and Wilkins are ministers of churches influenced by the Christian Identity movement. Christian Identity claims the white race is God's chosen people, as referenced in the Old Testament. Its supporters believe they have a special covenant with God that places them above non-whites, non-Christians and Christians who do not adhere to their beliefs. You can read more about the Christian Identity movement here.

•The book the two plagiarized, Time On the Cross, is itself badly flawed. It purports to be an economic study of slavery. But, the research is limited to a few slave owners. Sweeping generalizations are made based on their experiences as reported in their journals. The book has become a favorite of apologists for slavery.

•What else might a child learn from Wilkins' 'history' course? See for yourself.

•Readmore of the 'enlightened' views of a neo-Confederate Christian at Little Geneva. Warning: These entries are virulently racist, anti-Semitic and anti-gay.

Law: Moore continues Ten Commandments campaign

Roy Moore, the former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, is the kind of person I like to keep an eye on. He is always up to something. Moore garnered the national spotlight when he installed a huge granite statue of the Ten Commandments in the state law building. The ensuing legal battle over establishment of religion resulted in removal of Roy's Rock from the premises and removal of Roy from office. Since turning down an opportunity to run for president for the theocratic Constitution Party, Moore has been touring the country promoting his views to the faithful. This week he, a member of the Foundation for Moral Law, filed a brief in favor of installing religious symbols on government property. The case being appealed is American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky v. McCreary County, Kentucky (2003). The issue is whether the Ten Commandments can be displayed on government property if other documents are displayed with them.

The foundation's argument is a simple one.

Two federal courts have held that Ten Commandments displays in McCreary and Pulaski County courthouses in Kentucky violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.  When the Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal, Chief Justice Moore and the Foundation decided to argue that acknowledging God through displaying the Ten Commandments does not violate the First Amendment.  

In the "friend of the court" brief (called an amicus curiae brief), Chief Justice Moore and the Foundation argued to the Supreme Court that because judges swear an oath to support the written Constitution, the Court should look at the words in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to determine whether the Ten Commandments displays are constitutional. The Establishment Clause says that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."   By putting up Ten Commandments in their courthouses, the Foundation argued, the Kentucky courthouses were simply not making a law respecting an establishment of religion.  The Foundation urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the lower courts and hold that the Ten Commandments are a constitutionally permissible manner of acknowledging God in our public places.

Too simple. The brief misses much of the meaning of the Establishment Clause. But, you will not learn anything about that at the Foundation's site. No information about opposing arguments is presented there. Even the courts' decisions are excluded.

The foundation's nitpicking over the word 'law' is particularly disingenious. Gestures by government have the impact of law. If religious symbols are displayed in, say, courtrooms, that creates the impression that a state and national judicial system supports Christianity. Equally baffling is its assertion that "acknowledging God in our public places" is not what the Establishment Clause is concerned with.

According to the former judge, all law is based on a Christian God. Specifically, his interpretation of a Christian God. Therefore, gestures that support his interpretation of a Christian God are fully acceptable. They include displays of the Ten Commandments on public property. But, Moore says, that is not establishment of religion. One can't help but wonder what would be establishment of religion from his perspective. Only behavior that it is not appropriately 'Christian' perhaps?

Moore made the same argument in an appeal of his dismissal. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal in October.

The main purpose of the Establishment Clause is to prevent the citizenry from setting up a national religion. But, there are other purposes. The clause is meant to prevent religion from being favored over absence of religion, and, one religion over others, as well. The argument advanced by Moore and the foundation fails all three purposes. Despite their attempt at deniability, they consider Christianity America's national religion. Display of religious symbols, particularly if they are preferred to secular symbols, favors religion over absence of religion. And, obviously, Christianity is being preferred over other religions.

The Supreme Court distilled its reasoning about the Establishment Clause in Everson v. Board of Education (1947).

“The establishment of religion clause means at least this: Neither a state nor the federal government may set up a church. Neither can pass laws that aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. . . . Neither a state or the federal government may, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation between church and state.'"

The Bush adminstration has also filed a brief supporting the display of the Ten Commandments in McCreary. Considering its reliance on the religious Right for its victory in November, such quid pro quos can be expected.

It can be argued that the facts distinguish McCreary from a pure display of religious symbols case. The Ten Commandments are presented with other documents after an earlier decision said a display of them alone violated the Establishment Clause. But, considering that the other documents were added to provide a framework for displaying the religious symbol, I don't find that claim persuasive.

SCOTUS is expected to rule on the case this Spring. Roy Moore is expected to continue his quest for the limelight in support of an eventual run for national office.

Reasonably related

•An overview of the Establishment Clause can be read here.

•The appellate court's decision in McCreary is available online.

•The Decatur Daily has more information about Moore's views.

Internet: Browsers also listen, watch and read

The blogger at ITFacts titled his entry about research on use of multiple media "What do people do while watching TV?" I am equally interested in why people choose to engage in other activities while watching television or browsing the Internet. There is new information on the topic from the Simultaneous Media Usage Study. The study was conducted by BIG Research, a marketing information company.

The survey from which the data studied was gathered occurred in March 2003.

This research study is the third in a series of surveys exploring the incidence of simultaneous media usage among a national sample of U.S. consumers. The research is based on 12,320 respondents who were sampled via an online network. The findings show that simultaneous media usage, i.e., multiple exposures to various media forms at a single point in time for the same media consumer, occurs in and among a substantial portion of the U.S. media population. The existence of simultaneous media exposures, created by multi-tasking consumers, is a fact in today's media marketplace.

. . .We define simultaneous media exposure as individual consumers being exposed to more than one media system or approach at a single point in time. In short, it describes the increasingly prevalent consumer activity of multi-tasking, e.g., being on line and watching television at the same time or reading the newspaper while listening to the radio or reading the mail while talking on the telephone.

BIG says that we spend about ten hours each day with different kinds of media. But, if each form of media was given our full attention, there would not be enough time in the day to devote to it. For example, if a heavy user of the Internet, say a blogger, devoted five hours per day to the Net only, he might not spend much time watching television exclusively. BIG concludes that multi-tasking is a way to do several tasks with a divided focus.

The survey found that the peak time for multi-tasking is also the peak time for watching television, 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.

The researchers do not say that the reason people easily mix media exposures is that media are not often compelling. I will subscribe to that theory, however. I suspect that breaking news or a viewer's favorite television program is watched with his full attention. Anchor patter, or a television show that is only mildly interesting, become background noise, while the person enters information into his blog client, downloads music, or reads Netscape News or the New York Times online.

What kind of media user am I? Atypical, I guess. My options for watching television are limited because I gave up cable, which I seldom used, some time ago. I tend to watch the news and a couple favored television dramas. The latter get my full attention. I do watch television and browse the Internet during non-compelling news stories and while late night shows are on. Jimmy Kimmel rarely says anything that merits an unadulterated focus. One reason I know I am atypical is that I have a deep-seated preference for a form of media BIG never mentions -- books. The larger chunk of my media time probably goes to reading them.

Reasonably related

You can download the Simultaneous Media Usage Study in PDF format here.

Politics: Rossi awaits results of recount

It is too bad reading minds is still the stuff of speculative fiction. I wish I could see inside Dino Rossi's head. I could be touring his gray matter even as I type this entry. I wonder if the far Right Republican is regretting his run for governor of the state of Washington. Not so much running, but the battle to the end the election has turned into. Rossi has trumpeted a win with his lead of 42 votes over Democrat Christine Gregoire. But, other people don't seem to perceive it that way. They say that Rossi and Gregoire are tied with 1.3724 million votes each -- 48.87 percent of the vote. The tie is the reason why all 2.9 million votes are being recounted this week.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has the latest.

On Monday, Secretary of State Sam Reed ordered an unprecedented statewide hand recount, to begin on Wednesday in most counties.

The Democrats, who are paying for the hand recount, are using a state law that allows it in rare cases when races are this close. The manual recount has never before been ordered in a Washington governor's race.

The bill could exceed $1 million, including legal fees and a ballot-handling cost of at least 25 cents per vote.

The process may last until Christmas.

As KGW-TV reports, it is still an open question whether additional ballots will be counted.

[The] Democratic Party wants the state high court to make it more than a simple recount of votes tabulated in the recent machine recount. Party officials want a fresh look at disqualified ballots, including provisional and absentee ballots that were rejected. A hearing could be Wednesday or Thursday.

The Republicans are incensed. They assert that only ballots previously counted should be reviewed. The Democrats respond that to have a fair election, as many of the ballots completed as possible should be counted.

Rossi is a Club for Growth conservative. He supports a flat tax, gutting Social Security, and abolition of most social services programs. I believe that the multimillionaire real estate investor is happy poring over his financial reports like a modern day King Midas. Instead, he is awaiting the results from a gubernatorial recount he was unable to avoid. If I could read Dino Rossi's mind, I think I would find a very disappointed man.

Reasonably related

The Club for Growth raises millions of dollars in campaign funds for far Right conservatives each year. It targets both Democrats and moderate Republicans for defeat. Mac-a-ro-nies considered the Club's effort to defeat Sen Arlen Specter (R-Pa.).

Law: Reid backs qualified Supreme Court jurists

Soon to be Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has said some things that need saying, by someone with national stature, about the U.S. Supreme Court. The victory of George Bush in last month's election means he may appoint as many as three Supreme Court justices. Most of the justices are aging and several have battled cancer. The current Chief Justice, William Rehnquist, is on leave from the Court. He is likely dying of throat cancer. Reid says the president should consider the ability of nominees to think intelligently and write well-reasoned opinions, instead of whether they subscribe to conservative ideology.

The Associated Press reports.

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush should consult with Democrats on Supreme Court nominees to ensure a smooth path to Senate confirmation, incoming Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Sunday.

. . .Reid suggested he may be open to the possibility of Justice Antonin Scalia as a replacement for ailing Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

"This is one smart guy," said Reid. "I disagree with many of the results that he arrives at, but his reason for arriving at those results are very hard to dispute."

Reid called Justice Clarence Thomas "an embarrassment." He added: "I think that his opinions are poorly written. I just don't think that he's done a good job."

Congress is expected to consider nominees for SCOTUS as early as January.

One of the topics a largely conservative Court must set rules in regard to is again before it: What are the rights of prisoners on Death Row? The previous decisions of the Court shed light on the ability of the justices to see and frame issues. The conclusion of the Court is that persons convicted of crimes and sentenced to death are entitled to procedural due process, both during their trials and post-conviction.

Many of the cases have arisen in Texas, where the overwhelming majority of executions occur. A tradition of ignoring procedural due process in capital cases has earned Texas courts rebukes from the Supreme Court. A case being reheard today, Miller-El v. Cockrell, 261 F.3d 445 (2003), raised an aspect of the topic.

The New York Times has the details.

Mr. Miller-El, who has been on death row since 1986, contends that prosecutors violated his constitutional rights by excluding blacks from his jury.

Writing for the majority in the Supreme Court's 8-to-1 decision last year, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy discussed evidence that prosecutors had acted improperly. Among other things, he noted, prosecutors questioned black potential jurors more aggressively about their views on the death penalty than they did white jurors.

Only Justice Thomas dissented from the decision, saying that none of the factors cited by Justice Kennedy "presented anything remotely resembling clear and convincing evidence of purposeful discrimination."

Mr. Miller-El, Justice Thomas wrote, "ignores the fact that of the 10 whites who expressed opposition to the death penalty, eight were struck for cause or removed by agreement, meaning no 'manipulative' script was necessary to get them removed."

In this context, procedural due process is being violated because the defendant was deprived of a jury of his peers by the state. Clarence Thomas is the only one of the justices who completely missed the point. The reasons why some white jurors were struck is not where attention should be focused. Whether the minority group members who would have brought diversity to the jury hearing the capital case of a black defendant were excluded fairly is the key issue. This is the kind of error that even a reasonably bright second-year law student would not make.

Harry Reid has urged Bush to avoid appointing additional embarrassments to the Supreme Court. It is advice with which I heartily concur.

Reasonably related

•The mess in Texas in regard to defendants in capital cases is the topic of a four-page article in the NYT. I recommend you read the whole thing.

•Read a syllabus of the Supreme Court's previous decision in Miller-El v. Cockrell here.

Health: Dutch may extend euthanasia to children

Euthanasia is one of those taboo topics I am willing to give a fair hearing. It seems to me that there are much worse things than death, particularly if a mentally competent person has chosen to to die. I live in the only state that has made assisted suicide an option for the terminally ill. They can ask for and get a prescription for the drugs needed to end their lives from a willing physician.

So, it was with some interest that I read about a proposal to carry the practice a step further.

In August, the main Dutch doctors' association KNMG urged the Health Ministry to create an independent board to review euthanasia cases for terminally ill people ``with no free will,'' including children, the severely mentally retarded and people left in an irreversible coma after an accident.

The Health Ministry is preparing its response, which could come as soon as December, a spokesman said.

Three years ago, the Dutch parliament made it legal for doctors to inject a sedative and a lethal dose of muscle relaxant at the request of adult patients suffering great pain with no hope of relief.

The Groningen Protocol, as the hospital's guidelines have come to be known, would create a legal framework for permitting doctors to actively end the life of newborns deemed to be in similar pain from incurable disease or extreme deformities.

The guideline says euthanasia is acceptable when the child's medical team and independent doctors agree the pain cannot be eased and there is no prospect for improvement, and when parents think it's best.

Not yet viable fetuses, children with extreme brain damage and those having conditions that require life long life support would be included. Dutch hospitals report having hastened the deaths of four children who fell under the guidelines last year. Researchers estimate that about ten children would be subject to the practice each year if it is implemented. Predictably, the hospitals are being criticized. The Roman Catholic Church and right-to-life groups in the United States have taken the lead in taking the Dutch task.

However, euthanasia itself is not unusual. It has probably been occurring since humans dwelled in caves. What is different is the movement to bring mercy killing out into the open. I believe many people find it difficult to confront the harsh realities of extreme disability. They can't acknowledge that lives of pain, or not even knowing that one is alive, are so poor in quality that people might be better off not living them.

A writer at a the American Medical Network considers the core objection to extending euthanasia to children.

But the children's deaths, and the possibility that the protocol will become standard practice throughout the Netherlands, have sparked heated discussion about whether the idea of assisting adults who seek to die should ever be applied to children and others who are incapable of making, or understanding, such a request.

"Applying euthanasia to children is another step down the slope in this debate," saidHenk Jochemsen, the director of Holland's Lindeboom Institute, which studies medical ethics. "Not everybody agrees, obviously, but when we broaden the application from those who actively and repeatedly seek to end their lives to those for whom someone else determines death is a better option, we are treading in dangerous territory."

It seems to me that if those who suffer most are subjected to continued suffering because they are unable to express their pain, the benefit is not to them, but to those who refuse them the option of ending their lives. The sufferers are being denied relief so that those making the decision can ride their moral high horse. Assuming that the Groningen Protocol is applied equitably, with procedural safeguards in place to prevent rash decision-making, I can think of no rational reason not to extend it to those unable to reach decisions about continuing their lives for themselves.

Internet: Success of iPod attracts scammers

Perhaps the most biggest scam on the Internet currently involves a small device -- the Apple iPod. Possibly the biggest success in Internet-related technology currently involves a small device -- the Apple iPod. The situations are not unrelated. First, let's consider the latter. Apple has sold six million of its portable music players in less than three years. Apple expects to sell another million during the Christmas shopping season.

Furthermore, it appears some of those consumers wandering into Apple Stores at malls seeking iPods will be replacing their Windows-compatible computers with Macintoshes. ZDNet has the story via Silicon.com.

According to a survey of iPod users by financial analysis firm Piper Jaffray, Macs are basking in the reflected glory of the iPod, with some who own the music player saying they have already or are intending to ditch their PCs for Macs.

The research found that 6 percent of iPod users have made the switch. An additional 7 percent said they are planning to dump their old PC for an Apple machine, according to the survey.

Gene Munster, Piper Jaffray senior research analyst, said the iPod halo effect will make a difference to Apple for a while to come.

"We're in the very early innings of a multiyear trend," he said.

Among the factors influencing the PC-dumping crowd are ease of use, a focus on entertainment and the perception of better security.

The price of Apple stock has increased by 187 percent in 2004.

Apple's reputation for exquisite design of products that are easy to use has been its glory for decades. Unfortunately, as a market share between three percent and six percent for most of its history attests, the reputation has not necessarily resulted in purchases of its computers. The iPod accounts for 23 percent of Apple sells. According to the Mac Observer, Gartner reports Apple now has a market share of 3.2 percent in the United States, and, 1.8 percent globally. The coming year will determine whether Apple can convert a spectacular response to the iPod and the iTunes Music Store into sells of more Macintoshes.

The scam piggybacks on the gleaming reputation of the iPod. The combination MP3 player and hard drive is the rather expensive item that many consumers desperately want. (A lecture about the difference between 'wanting' and 'needing' could be inserted here, but I will resist.) That seems to be particularly true of teens and 20-somethings, who are willing to take financial risks to obtain the product of the week, month, year. . . .

Leander Kahney tells us more at Wired.

A search for "iPod" on eBay yields a couple thousand listings for the digital music player and accessories, but beware: Hundreds of the listings are inducements to join pyramid-style scams.

Ebay is swamped with new "matrix" schemes, which appear to be legitimate buyers clubs but are in fact variations on classic pyramid scams, which are outlawed around the world.

. . .The eager bargain hunter is told not to bid on the item, but is directed instead to sites like My3Mobile, The Phone Matrix, or Goraks.com, which offer iPods or cell phones as free gifts when products like CDs or eBooks are purchased.

The catch is that buyers only get their free iPod after more people sign up. When making a purchase, the buyer's name is added to a list. As new members join, names are shuffled up the list. When they reach the top, the iPod is dispatched

To speed up the process, buyers are often encouraged to recruit new members to join the scheme. And that's where all the eBay posts come from: Victims are using eBay to recruit new members.

The "matrix" scheme is a revision of the illegal pyramid scheme, with the iPod as the lure instead of a check. Pyramids rely on recruiting participants who contribute varying amounts of money toward an eventual big payoff. Each participant is in turn urged to bring in others. Persons who begin participating early in the scheme do collect. However, most never will since the pyramid will collapse. James Kohn, an attorney for the Federal Trade Commission told Kahney why.

As the scheme grows, the number of new members needed to support it grows exponentially. The number of people needed to sustain the scheme would exceed the world population after about a dozen iterations. In practice, the schemes collapse much sooner than that, although early members sometimes get what's promised, Kohm said.

"You are always going to have more people who are not getting anything than those who are," he said. "Everybody's recruiting, but not everyone's going to get an iPod."

Success can generate ill effects, including envy and efforts to discredit. The use of the iPod as the major incentive in matrix schemes is a reminder there are always people willing to profit from success in unethical ways. The product may be the one to get, but participation fraud is not the way to obtain it.

Politics: Gregoire may challenge 42-vote 'win'

Democrat Christine Gregoire would like to challenge a ballot recount that gave opponent Dino Rossi the governorship of Washington with a 42-vote margin. That means she must raise $700,000 as a deposit on another recount of at least some districts. If discrepancies are found in selected districts, that will trigger a statewide recount.

Gregoire must make an official request for a recount by 5 p.m. Friday. About 9.2 million votes were cast in the race Nov. 2.

The Olympian reports.

"Our goal is to have a statewide recount. . .the trick is raising money. If this happens tomorrow and we have to raise $700,000 by Friday, it presents a challenge," Gregoire spokesman Morton Brilliant said Monday in Seattle.

He said the organization has less than half the money needed.

Brilliant did not specify how much money is in hand, but said: "We are raising money for a hand recount right now. . .These are a lot of small donors coming in now."

Secretary of State Sam Reed and Gov. Gary Locke, a Democrat, will certify the elections results today. That will initiate a process that allows the person on the short end of a very close contest to request a recount. The previous recount was automatic and the costs were covered by the state. Gregoire will pay for the new recount if it occurs.

. . .When Reed certifies the election results, Rossi will become the state's governor-elect, but the title might not be as significant as it usually is.

"With the race this close, one thing I've made clear to the Rossi folks is that it doesn't really mean a whole lot, because we expect a recount," Reed said.

So many voters. Such a small margin. How did it happen? Rossi, who is anti-abortion and quite far to Right on other issues, has downplayed his conservatism. In 2003, Rossi earned a 100 percent rating from the Washington Conservative Union (www.washcon.org). Like former candidate Jack Ryan of Illinois, he relies on a pleasant demeanor and hints at moderation to enhance his electability. His reputation, as a self-made millionaire in real estate and budget wizard, may also have impressed some voters. Gregoire may have been hurt by her gender. There are still voters who will favor a man over a woman in electoral politics. She was doubtlessly harmed by the higher than usual turnout by voters who oppose gay marriage, and, voted Republican. Some also say she ran a low-key campaign, not touting her achievements enough.

The Associated Press cites a more direct reason why Gregoire trails -- write-in votes from Democrats for other candidates.

SEATTLE -- If Christine Gregoire officially loses the race for Washington governor her supporters might blame 502 voters in King County who wrote in Ron Sims.

The King County executive lost to Gregoire in the primary. His supporters may not have known that a candidate who loses in the primary cannot be a write-in candidate in the general election.

The write-ins disclosed by the county also show 40 votes for Gary Locke, who is not seeking a third term. His wife Mona got one vote.

Other write-ins included Phil Talmadge with 28 votes, Mike the Mover with nine votes, Edgar Martinez with nine, Norm Rice with six, Donald Duck with six votes, Ralph Nader with five, Alice Cooper with two and God with two votes.

Neither Nader nor God drained away enough votes in King County to make a difference. But, 502 ineligible votes for Ron Sims may cost Gregoire the election.

Reasonably related

The Seattle Times describes the transformation of Dino Rossi's image from hardcore conservative to moderate.

Update

As of Dec. 1, Democratic Candidate Christine Gregoire is soliciting donations for the recount through the national party. The online donation site is here.

Whatever happened to?

•Getting a governor

We've followed the strongly contested governor's race in Washington during the three weeks it has been undecided. The results from the initial recount came in this week. MSNBC has the details.

OLYMPIA, Wash. - Republican Dino Rossi on Wednesday won a recount for Washington governor by just 42 votes out of more than 2.8 million cast, but Democrats were expected to order yet another recount.

A statewide machine recount left Rossi clinging to the narrowest victory ever in a state gubernatorial race over Democratic Attorney General Christine Gregoire. Rossi had also won the regular count, his 261-vote margin just a tiny fraction of 1 percentage point, triggering an automatic recount.

A statewide machine recount left Rossi clinging to the narrowest victory ever in a state gubernatorial race over Democratic Attorney General Christine Gregoire. Rossi had also won the regular count, his 261-vote margin just a tiny fraction of 1 percentage point, triggering an automatic recount.

In the final Thanksgiving Eve flurry of vote tallies, Gregoire gained ground on Rossi in Democratic-leaning King County and picked up votes in Kitsap County, completing the 39-county tally in a near tie.

Even before the last big surge of ballots was tallied, Democrats had signaled they would seek a hand recount in at least part of the state if Gregoire ended up on the short end.

Persons who have not watched the cliffhanger closely may think 42 votes is tight. But, the differential has been as narrow as 19 votes.

•The muddled mortician

Tales of funeral homes and crematoriums gone stingy are not all that unusual. From time to time, we hear about the cost-cutter who saves money by reusing expensive caskets. He transfers bodies to cheaper ones after viewings. The helicopter pilot for crematoriums who dumps the remains just anywhere appears and reappears. Ray Brent Marsh of Georgia captured our attention because of the volume of his neglect and where the remains were found. He failed to cremate hundreds of corpses and allowed them to deteriorate on the property around his home. Marsh is headed for prison.

ATLANTA -When former crematory operator Ray Brent Marsh pleads guilty Friday to dumping 334 bodies and passing off cement dust as their ashes, the victims' relatives and resident of a rural northwest Georgia community may still be left asking the question "Why?"

Marsh will reportedly be sentenced to 12 years in prison, with credit for time served, and, one assumes, good behavior. There are also charges pending against him in Tennessee.

I would be remiss if I did not emphasize that I believe the mental health issue in this case, and many other, is being ignored. An estimated 30 percent of inmates nationally suffer some form of psychiatric debilitation. If Americans took mental health issues seriously and funded treatment, many cases like this one would not occur. Read more about Marsh's mental health at Silver Rights.

•The image of the American soldier

The image of U.S. troops has been subjected to retouching by the powers that be since the invasion of Iraq began. But, the carefully planned stories of heroism topple as easily as statues when they are looked into. A Pfc. from West Virginia and a former pro football player were victims of negligence, not Iraqi gunfire. The Guardian has considered the image of the American soldier in Iraq.

. . .Stuff happened and terrible errors were made in the early days of Donald Rumsfeld's occupation-lite: disbanding the army and de-Ba'athising as if Iraq were Nazi Germany helped fuel an insurgency in which Iraqis now far outnumber the "foreign fighters" we have heard so much about.

It emerged only afterwards that the statue-toppling was staged for symbolic effect, a piece of political theatre as carefully managed as George Bush's wildly premature action-man "mission accomplished" gig on an aircraft carrier's flight deck a few weeks later. And we know, from the 24/7 TV news channels and their extraordinary pictures, that this story is far from over.

Many will remember the footage shot by an NBC cameraman of a US marine killing an injured and apparently unarmed Iraqi in a Falluja mosque, the Americans' laconic profanities and blank faces washed in eerie green light. Others will think of the casually-posed snapshots of Lyndie England and the abuses of Abu Ghraib prison as the moment that the brutality of occupation came home to them.

A single American soldier, Shane Werst of Wyoming, has been charged with killing an Iraqi detainee, ten months after the episode. I can't speak for anyone else, but as I watch the footage of cheerful troops shouting season's greetings on television, I am well aware of what is not (for some people, cannot) be said about the abuses that are an integral part of the invasion and occupation.

Health: Cost of smoking is high

I was out and about today. That meant being around smokers. I've also been doing additional research on Right Wing interests that use a handful of minority spokespersons to put a sympathetic face on their societally damaging practices. The tobacco industry is one of the worst of the lot. With tobacco on my mind already, it was with some interest that I read news about a study establishing just how costly smoking is to smokers.

The Associated Press reports.

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) - Cigarettes may cost smokers more then they believe. A study by a team of health economists finds the combined price paid by their families and society is about $40 per pack of cigarettes.

The figure is based on lifetime costs for a 24-year-old smoker over 60 years for cigarettes, taxes, life and property insurance, medical care and lost earnings because of smoking-related disabilities, researchers said.

"It will be necessary for persons aged 24 and younger to face the fact that the decision to smoke is a very costly one - one of the most costly decisions they make,'' the study's authors concluded.

Smokers pay about $33 of the cost, their families absorb $5.44 and others pay $1.44, according to health economists from Duke University and a professor from the University of South Florida. The study drew on data including Social Security earnings histories dating to 1951.

Incidental costs such as higher cleaning bills and lower resale values for smokers' cars were not included.

Most smoking studies rely on a snapshot of annual costs, said co-author B, an economics professor and the director of the Center for Health, Policy, Law and Management at Duke's Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy.

Activism by health organizations to curb smoking and the government's ban of advertising tobacco products in some venues has been reasonably successful. According to the Centers for Disease Control, bout 22.5 percent of adults in America smoked as of 2002, a reduction from 24.1 percent in 1988. In 1955, 56.9 percent of American men and 28.4 percent of American women smoked. Though some in the tobacco industry stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the link between using their products and illnesses, including heart disease and lung cancer, Americans have gradually come to believe the relationship exists.

The 'bright' side of the study is that the cost of smoking to society is less than previously thought. That is because smokers die, often of diseases related to their habit, before expending monies from Social Security, Medicare and pensions. The cost to society is estimated at $1.44 per pack of cigarettes.

The researchers believe that more of the funds from the multi-state tobacco settlement in 1988 should go toward preventing smoking. Currently, most states do not target the monies to programs to prevent smoking.