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In an extended interview, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange discusses the release of nearly 400,000 classified US military records on the war in Iraq, the biggest intelligence leak in US history. The disclosure provides a trove of new evidence on the number of civilian casualties, violence, torture and suffering that has befallen Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion. While the Obama administration is defending the US military's record in Iraq, the allegations in the documents have sparked worldwide condemnation. Assange also confirmed that threats by the Pentagon would not stop WikiLeaks from releasing additional military documents related to the war in Afghanistan. [includes rush transcript]
AMY GOODMAN: The Obama administration is defending the US military's record in the Iraq war after coming under worldwide condemnation following the release of leaked secret documents that paint a graphic picture of the US occupation. The whistleblower group WikiLeaks released close to 400,000 classified US war logs over the weekend, comprising the largest intelligence leak in US history. The disclosure provides a trove of new evidence on the violence, torture and suffering that's befallen Iraq since the 2003 US invasion. Despite US claims to the contrary, the war logs show the Pentagon kept tallies of civilian deaths in Iraq.
The documents also show the US imposed a formal policy to ignore human rights abuses committed by the Iraqi military under an order known as Frago 242 issued in June 2004, coalition troops were barred from investigating any violations committed by Iraqi troops against other Iraqis. Hundreds of cases of killings, torture and rape at the hands of the Iraqi troops were ignored. State Department spokesperson Philip Crowley rejected the accusations, saying the United States trained Iraqi security forces in human rights. Crowley said, quote, "Our troops were obligated to report abuses to appropriate authorities and to follow up, and they did so in Iraq. If there needs to be an accounting, first and foremost there needs to be an accounting by the Iraqi government itself." Meanwhile, General George Casey, who headed US forces in Iraq during 2004 to 2007, also denied that the United States turned a blind eye to prisoner abuse.
But the war logs have sparked worldwide concern and condemnation. In Britain, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said the allegations were, quote, "extremely serious" and should be "properly examined." The Gulf Cooperation Council, which comprises six US-allied Arab countries, urged Washington to open a serious and transparent investigation into possible crimes against humanity. Meanwhile, the United Nations chief investigator on torture, Manfred Nowak, has called on the Obama administration to order a full investigation of the role of US forces in human rights abuses in Iraq. And Human Rights Watch said the US may have broken international law if it knowingly transferred prisoners to potential places of abuse.
The nearly 400,000 documents were provided ahead of time to the New York Times, The Guardian newspaper in London, the French newspaper Le Monde, Al Jazeera, the German magazine Der Spiegel, on an embargoed basis. They're now available online at wikileaks.org.
We go now to London, where we're joined by the founder and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange.
Julian, welcome to Democracy Now! Talk about the significance of these documents, how you got them, and why you decided to release them.
JULIAN ASSANGE: Hello, Amy.
Well, these documents cover the periods of 2004 to the beginning of 2010. It is the most accurate description of a war to have ever been released. Within them, we can see 285,000 casualties. That's added up, report by report. That's each casualty, where it happened, when it happened, and who was involved, according to internal US military reporting.
Now, looking at particular groups of casualties, we can see, for example, over 600 civilians killed at checkpoint killings, including thirty children, previously — mostly previously unreported, that three-quarters of those killed at checkpoint killings, according to the United States military itself, were civilians, and only one-quarter, according to the US military internal reporting, were insurgents.
We see 284 reports covering torture or other forms of prisoner abuse by coalition forces, covering 300 different people. We see over a thousand reports of torture and other prisoner abuse by the Iraqi state itself, many or most of those receiving no meaningful investigation. I heard in your introduction that the Pentagon claims that the Iraqi government is responsible for this, but in international law, it is the person or government or organization that has effective control that is responsible. And certainly, before the technical legal handover from the Coalition Provisional Authority to the Iraqi government, it is clear that the United States and other coalition forces were the effective, legally responsible group for those. We see in the United Kingdom, Phil Shiner and his group Public Interest Lawyers, Amnesty International, and in New York, Human Rights Watch, calling for investigation and, in some cases, lawsuits against coalition forces for wrongful death.
There's other aspects, as well. We can see the involvement of Iran in Iraq with various forms of support given to Shia groups. We can see the corruption present in the Maliki government, including what appears to be a special forces — Iraqi special forces — squad personally responsible to Maliki and not tasked by the Iraqi army itself that has been going around and strong-arming and possibly assassinating opponents.
AMY GOODMAN: And how did you get these documents, and who wrote them?
JULIAN ASSANGE: The documents are what is referred to in military terminology as "significant action reports," so those are field reports by the US Army radioed back to base of everything those soldiers and commanders considered significant. So, that is the launch of an operation; the dropping of a bomb; the arrest or detainment of persons, of which there are approximately 174,000 cases documented in this material; significant key leadership engagements, so the meetings with some key leaders and the US Army. It is, if you like, what the US Army and the Pentagon use as its raw ingredients to come up with policy and understand how the war was progressing.
Clearly this material must have come from someone or some persons within the Pentagon or within the United States military. And it's worth pointing out that there are clearly good people in the Pentagon who were not happy with the progress of the Iraq war. And those people have chosen to provide us with this material and, presumably, have chosen to provide us with other material that we have released over the years.
AMY GOODMAN: We're going to go to break and come back to Julian Assange. He's joining us from London, actually just across the River Thames from MI5 and MI6, where we were broadcasting from a few weeks ago, the British equivalents of the FBI and the CIA. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. We'll be back in a minute.
AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is Julian Assange. He's joining us from London, where he held a news conference on Saturday with his organization WikiLeaks, the whistleblower website that has released close to 400,000 military documents, the largest leak in US history, about the Iraq war.
Now, Julian, I wanted to play for you some of the comments coming from the military, WikiLeaks being criticized for releasing these documents. This is what, well, the disgraced General Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, who also ran special operations forces during the surge in Iraq, had to say about the Iraq war logs on the eve of their release.
GEN. STANLEY McCHRYSTAL: I think, first, the decision by anybody to leak classified information is something that — not only is it illegal, it's also something that that individual is making judgments about the value of that information and the threat to comrades that almost nobody is qualified to make that judgment. So, if somebody leaks information that puts me or one of my soldiers at risk, I think that's a level of irresponsibility that's very upsetting. Then there's the decision to release them widely. I also am not comfortable with that, either. I think that a level of responsibility towards our people needs to be balanced with any argument for a need or right to know. I can't judge every single piece of information — I wouldn't try to — but I would say that there has to be that balance, and there has to that level of maturity, because it's likely that the leak of some of that information could cause death of our own people or some of our allies.
AMY GOODMAN: That was General Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of the US and NATO force in Afghanistan. His view was echoed by other soldiers farther down the chain of command. This is Private First Class David Service who's stationed in northern Iraq.
PFC DAVID SERVICE: I don't think anybody who's managed to access classified information should share, as far as regarding the safety of the soldiers or the people it could be affecting. But when you get into — the Iraqis have been — you know, it's a violent culture. We've been doing our best to help them with the problems that they're having.
AMY GOODMAN: And back in Washington, Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell also lashed out at WikiLeaks for releasing the war logs.
GEOFF MORRELL: The bottom line is, our forces are still very much in danger here as a result of this exposure, given the fact that our tactics, techniques and procedures are exposed in these documents, and our enemies are undoubtedly going to try to use them against us, and making their jobs even more difficult and dangerous.
AMY GOODMAN: That's Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell. Julian Assange, your response?
JULIAN ASSANGE: Well, this is the same old argument that the Pentagon has been trotting out every time there is media exposure of their abuses for the past fifty years. They tried it with the Afghan war logs. Last week, NATO told CNN from Kabul that there was not a single case of an Afghan that they could find who needed moving or protection. The Pentagon — Secretary of Defense Gates wrote to the US Senate Armed Services Committee privately on August the 16th saying that no intelligence sources, sensitive intelligence sources or methods had been revealed by this material, while saying publicly something completely different. Similarly, the Pentagon stated last week that it could find no incidents of an Afghan who had been adversely affected by this release or the injury to any US troops. The reality is that the only thing at risk here is the reputations and the jobs of those individuals who put troops in harm's way in Iraq and who put Iraqi citizens in the middle of a civil war.
You know, late last week, the Pentagon was saying — pushing out the message that they had found 300 names in this material of people who needed protecting. But that, in fact, is misleading rhetoric. What they had found was 300 names in their internal material, which they say needed protecting. But the Department of Defense issued — confessed yesterday that in fact none of those 300 names were present in our material.
So, on the one hand, we see no credible evidence of harm being committed. We also see the Pentagon making a position that it's not really involved in Iraq anymore. Well, we all know that there's 50,000 US forces presently in Iraq and hundreds — over 100,000 US military contractors. So that argument can't stand up on both accounts. But when we look to see what happened with the Afghan experience, we see no one harmed by this, apart from the reputation of an abusive organization, who is not credible, who's been shown time and time again, not just by our work, but by others, to make statements that are simply not credible. And so, that is the lack of harm.
So then we look at the other side of the equation. What is the possible benefit? Can this material save lives? Can it improve the quality of life in Iraq? Can it tend to shape our perceptions of how war should and should not be conducted? Can it shape our perceptions of who should be conducting war and in what manner? And the answer to that is a clear yes. We see serious consideration and calls for investigation by the top levels of the United Kingdom government. That is the correct response to the revelation of this type of material.
You know, it must be disturbing to Iraqis to see this sort of revelation, which reveals 15,000 civilian casualties that were never previously reported, 66,000 internally declared total, but 15,000 that are not present in any media report since 2003, to hear the Pentagon take such a cavalier attitude to the discovery, the public discovery, of six 9/11s, the equivalent death count of six 9/11s. And, you know, really, if the Pentagon is to be seen as a credible institution — every country needs a military to defend it, but if it's to be seen as credible in that role, it needs to also be a responsive institution.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, you —
JULIAN ASSANGE: All these reports were made secret at the time that they were written. Without doubt, they — nearly all of them should not be secret now. Their time has elapsed. They're not of tactical significance. And yet, they are still concealed. So, what is the purpose of concealing them?
AMY GOODMAN: What are the documents you're talking about, are still concealed?
JULIAN ASSANGE: Well, essentially, all this material, all these 400,000 reports have been kept by the Pentagon. The only reason that the public are seeing them now is that some brave soldier or soldiers stepped forward to give us this material and get it out into the public domain, where it can shape public policy and do some good.
AMY GOODMAN: Not only Britain has responded saying they are calling for an investigation, but the latest news right now out of — out of Denmark, I believe, the — let's see if I can find it here. The Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen promised all allegations according to which Danish soldiers may have knowingly handed over detainees in Iraq to mistreatment at the hands of local authorities are regarded as very serious. But the Prime Minister also rejected calls by the opposition to establish an independent commission to investigate the claims. Have you, Julian Assange, redacted any of these close to 400,000 documents? And how did you communicate with the Pentagon beforehand?
JULIAN ASSANGE: Yeah, so, we look at the claims made by the Pentagon last week, that they had saw 300 names in this material. That was their material. And they admitted early this week that in what we released, there are none of those 300 names. None whatsoever. So, we went through a harm minimization process, like we do with every release of our material. And we asked, back for the — back when dealing — at the time, in dealing with Afghanistan and after, for the Pentagon and the ISAF's assistance in this. The Pentagon stated to us very clearly, including in a letter from its — from the DOD's chief counsel, that they were not interested in harm minimization. They were not an organization that were interested in harm minimization, and they would not be assisting us. And they were only interested in, in fact, demanding, under the threat of compulsion, that we return and destroy all of this.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain Frago 242, the — and 039, and how US leadership might be implicated in torture?
JULIAN ASSANGE: Well, Frago 242 is a classified order that we managed to discover after reviewing this material. It wasn't included in the material itself, but we managed to explore it and get it from some of our sources, that shows that — an order that the US military not intervene in these cases of Iraqi police and Iraqi officials committing torture. We can also see cases where people have been deliberately handed over to some of the most abusive groups, most abusive police groups, in Iraq, in what looks to be an intentional sort of torture laundering, a sort of internal torture rendition in Iraq.
Now, there's an extraordinary piece of footage, which we included in the Channel 4 documentary that was released yesterday on this subject, of the chief of staff, at a press conference with Donald Rumsfeld, responding to a question by a reporter along these lines of what action US forces must take if they see torture or other forms of abuse. And the chief of staff said, "Well, they must intervene where they can," and was corrected by Donald Rumsfeld, in saying, "No, no, they don't. They don't have to intervene." And in fact, it turns out that Rumsfeld was right, and presumably Rumsfeld knew the existence of this order 242 much better than the chief of staff, because he had been involved in the drafting of that order.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me play that interaction. We played it yesterday. But it's very interesting. General Peter Pace, followed by Donald Rumsfeld. This is from November 2005.
GEN. PETER PACE: It is absolutely the responsibility of every US service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene to stop it.
DEFENSE SECRETARY DONALD RUMSFELD: I don't think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it. It's to report it.
AMY GOODMAN: Julian Assange?
JULIAN ASSANGE: Yeah, and you'll find, in the longer version of that clip, Pace says, "No, no, no, that they have an obligation to physically intervene." Not true. And not also subsequently re-corrected by Rumsfeld. But Rumsfeld was right. Frago 242 says explicitly that that is not to happen, that there is not to be a physical intervention. And arguably, the US, at that period, was the controlling organ in the situation. It had effective control on the ground, and so, under international law, it is the responsible party having effective control.
AMY GOODMAN: Julian Assange, I want to read for you from the Washington Post editorial in today's paper. They write, quote, "In Afghanistan, Wikileaks appears to have put the lives of courageous Afghans at risk, by identifying them as American sources. In Iraq, it has at least temporarily complicated negotiations to form a new government.
"We are all for the disclosure of important government information; but Mr. Assange's reckless and politically motivated approach, while causing tangible harm, has shed relatively little light."
Now, that's not a general speaking in the United States; that's the Washington Post. I wanted you to respond to that, but also, interestingly, Ellen Knickmeyer, former Washington Post Baghdad chief during much of the war, writes in the Daily Beast, "Thanks to WikiLeaks, though, I now know the extent to which top American leaders lied, knowingly, to the American public, to American troops, and to the world, as the Iraq mission exploded." Julian?
JULIAN ASSANGE: Yeah, well, those statements in the Washington Post of "tangible harm" are simply false. And that's not me making that allegation. It's not our people making that allegation. We just need to look at what the statements of the Department of Defense have been last week and this week, that there is no Afghan civilian or anyone else that they can determine who has been harmed by release of the Afghan material; the statement by NATO in Kabul last week, that there was not even anyone that they could see that needed protecting or moving as a result of the release of that material. The Australian government has just completed a review, Australian Defense Department completed a review of that material, the Afghan release, and published a press release this morning saying that they could find no harm to individuals as a result of that material. So, the Washington Post editorial is simply untrue. So, there's a question as to why a newspaper like that feels that they need to make untrue statements. What are they catering for?
AMY GOODMAN: Well, the Washington Post editorial also takes a different stance on the reports of deaths of civilians in Iraq. It reads, quote, "The report confirms that the vast majority of Iraqi civilian deaths were caused by other Iraqis, not by coalition forces; claims such as those published by the British journal The Lancet that American forces slaughtered hundreds of thousands are the real 'attack on truth.'" Julian Assange?
JULIAN ASSANGE: Well, I mean, the real attack on truth is tabloid journalism in the United States. And I would have to say the situation is worse in tabloid journalism — craven behavior by a number of mainstream media organizations. So, let's dissect that statement. The Lancet study did not say, in fact, who had caused these excess deaths. That was an epidemiological study, where deaths could have been caused by many different types of violence, disease and so on. Those were, if you like, the missing people in the Iraqi population.
Similarly, our material, which is told from the US perspective, probably only covers about 50 percent of US military — of military operations. It doesn't include British operations, doesn't include CIA, doesn't include special forces, doesn't include top-secret operations. But nonetheless, it sometimes touches on those, when there is a combined operation. It lists internally declared 66,000 civilian casualties between 2004 and the end of 2009, with two missing months.
And yes, the majority of those are listed as those who have been killed by sectarian violence, but it is the Iraq war and the mismanagement of the Iraq war that caused that sectarian violence. So, you know, organizations such as Iraq Body Count, which has the sort of most detailed and rigorous individual counting, as opposed to statistical surveys of death, individual cases that are recorded, it also has the majority of deaths caused — civilian deaths caused by civilian violence. But it still counts those as civilians killed by violence as a result of the war, and correctly so.
AMY GOODMAN: Julian Assange, we're going to break and then come back. We're speaking to Julian Assange. He's the editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, which has just posted the largest release of documents, of military documents in history. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. After we speak with him, we'll be talking about the outbreak of cholera in Haiti.
AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is Julian Assange. He's the editor-in-chief and founder of WikiLeaks, which has released — well, posted at wikileaks.org close to 400,000 Iraq war logs — military documents written by soldiers, by military officials over the years — what exactly are the years? 2004 right until 2010, Julian?
JULIAN ASSANGE: That's correct, excluding two months in 2004 that are missing for reasons we don't know.
AMY GOODMAN: Julian, you have seen these thousands and thousands of documents. What most surprised you? Is there a story or stories, a category that has most disturbed you?
JULIAN ASSANGE: Well, it's the big picture of the war, that nearly all the deaths are in incidences that kill just one or two people. A little girl on the street, who would — in a yellow dress, who would frequently go to collect candy and so on from US troops, one day a tank goes past, and for an inexplicable reason, a shooter comes out of the US tank and blows her away. There are just so many of these incidences.
You know, I spoke before about checkpoint killings. In one incident, after a car was shot up and examined, according to these internal US military reports, the man killed was a doctor delivering a pregnant woman to the hospital.
We see a very interesting example of a town of 40,000 on the Syrian border, whose population went from 40,000 to 2,000 over a year or so. And that town and that circumstance has not been reported in any — not been reported at all, that we could find in the mainstream media or, in fact, in the alternative media. There was just no reporters there as that town collapsed and people fled across to Syria.
There — you know, I like to describe the big tragedy of war, the killings on every — on almost every street corner in Baghdad, as —- it's the car accidents of war and not the bus accidents of war, that actually -—
AMY GOODMAN: It looks like we have just lost Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder. Satellite just cut off to Britain. We'll see if we can get him back, but we'll move on to our next segment. Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, editor-in-chief. We will also provide the transcript online at democracynow.org of this whole conversation. It will be in video and audio podcast, and you can link to it. And, of course, we'll link to the documents.


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1. Right wing talk jock Dan Fagan urges on his KFQD-AM Anchorage radio program, that people go down to the Alaska Division of Elections offices to file as write-in candidates for U.S. Senate, before Thursday's end-of-day filing deadline. As complaints gather at KFQD's parent company, Dan is told to take Friday off. The Miller campaign then tries to pump this into an example of the heavy-handed Lisa Murkowski once again suppressing dissent. 160 people sign up, ,making it so that the Division of Elections will not have an easy task explaining to voters how to write in Murkoski's name Monday and Tuesday, without also exlaining how to write in each name on the list for that office.
2. Anchorage TV station KTVA's planning for coverage of Thursday evening's Joe Miller rally at the Denai'ina Center, and for an interview with Miller gets recorded accidentally by a message machine at the Miller campaign. The rally itself, hijacked by Sarah Palin and turned into a self-promotion tool, is another Tea Party rehearsal for Christo-Fascism.
Late Friday:
Alaska Dispatch writer Jill Burke comes out with one of the best articles to emerge that ties together new information from Miller's personnel file release last Tuesday, with information already available and interviews with former Miller colleagues in Fairbanks. The portrait of Miller's mental health is quite shocking, as is the new detail on his penchant for security people who can't help but evoke remembrances of NSDAP SA thugs in the late 20s and early 30s Weimar Republic:
[C]onventioneers, including Simpson, couldn't help but note the unusual companions Miller had brought with him to the Hotel Captain Cook in Anchorage, where the meeting was held in 2008. She wrote in the Daily News:Toward the end of the convention when it was apparent his fireworks had fizzled, in what can only be described as paranoid and bizarre, a security detail -- yes, pretend Secret Service suits with Aviator glasses and earpieces -- showed up to flank and apparently protect the silly, self-important Joe from a bunch of mostly middle-age Republican delegates who had voted against him and were now genuinely embarrassed for him.
Republican Andree McLeod -- a Palin critic -- also noticed Miller's not-so subtle security detail: three men and a woman, each equipped with walkie talkies and ear pieces. They were friendly enough, she recalls, and although it was obvious they were shadowing Miller, they would only say they were "on a security job."
McLeod doesn't recall the name of the security guard she spoke with at the time, but recalls he was proud of his business, which he identified as Drop Zone -- the same company that handcuffed and detained Alaska Dispatch editor Tony Hopfinger after the Oct. 17 campaign town hall meeting at an Anchorage public school.
When Miller left the convention hall and headed to the hotel's downstairs for a news interview, the guards followed and stood by at the door, McLeod recalled. When Miller went upstairs to another floor in the hotel, they stuck close and buzzed around him.
A short time later, McLeod noticed them guarding an elevator door, with one guard posted in front of the door and others on either side. When the door opened, out came Miller and the four security guards moved into a diamond formation around him -- one in front, one behind him and one on each side -- and they hustled Miller in a military-style march to a waiting SUV outside the Hotel Captain Cook. Once Miller and his entourage -- which included Palin aide Ivy Fry, according to McLeod, were safely on their way -- the guards cleared out.
"It was the most surreal thing I have ever seen," McLeod said.
The mental health portrait of Miller in Burke's article is even less flattering:
Days before he was caught using the borough computers for the poll, Miller had spoken openly with members of the borough office about a potential threat coming his way. The Alaska Republican Party was out to get him, Miller told them, and he warned them to be careful about what they did on their computers. Miller claimed a public records request was in the works aimed at scrutinizing employees' computer use, adding that, if granted, he feared it might reveal child pornography on his computer. If any inappropriate material was found on his computer, Miller told them, they needed to know it would be the result of a sophisticated setup -- someone hacking the Fairbanks North Star Borough's computer system and planting inappropriate material on his computer.
It was just a few days later that his colleagues discovered something was amiss with their computers, which upset and unnerved them given the timing to Miller's earlier warnings. Miller had been on their computers during lunch hour to vote in a political poll hosted on his own personal website. When they confronted Miller about it, he told one of his supervisor's, Jill Dolan, "not to worry about it (and) that he was not on a bad site," according to a written statement Dolan provided during the borough's subsequent internal investigation.
The Miller campaign feeds a recording of a phone message mistakenly left at Miller campaign HQ to one of the sleaziest web denizens malpracticing today, Andrew Breitbart. Breitbart, who created the intentionally false story on Shirley Sherrod in July, created a web version of the taped call, with a dubious transcript of what was purported to being said in the background. As often happens when Breitbart breaks a story, it somehow made national news, even before many had a close look at the charges made by Breitbart's site.
Sarah Palin goes on FOX News Sunday and falsely makes a string of claims about what the tape represents:
I'm saying that CBS reporters in the affiliate up there in Alaska on tape are saying, 'Let's find a child molester in the crowd as a supporter for Joe Miller; let's blast that. Let's concoct a Ron Paul moment there; let's find any kind of chaos so that we can Tweet an alert saying, 'Oh, there's chaos. Joe Miller got punched.' That's sick. Those are corrupt bastards, Chris."
As Sunday afternoon wore on, the authenticity of what Breitbart and the Miller campaign purported the tape to represent continued to be questioned, and some news sources finally realized that they'd been punked by Breitbart, Miller and Palin.
The questions about Breitbart's Miller story have only served to fuel the growing outrage that this cad has been asked to provide content for ABC's Tuesday evening and night election coverage. David Brock from Media Matters has challenged Palin and Miller to release the entire tape of the KTVA incident:
Sarah Palin has made serious accusations of journalistic malfeasance. Either Palin accurately described the tapes, or she did not. America's news consumers need to know the truth about these serious accusations. The public in Alaska needs to know the truth so they are fully and correctly informed before they cast their ballots Tuesday. Palin has a responsibility to release the full, unedited tapes publicly and to all media.What Breitbart, Miller and Palin succeeded in doing however, was to take the news cycle focus away from a brilliant piece of investigative journalism by Jill Burke, and hijack this important pre-election weekend from the world of solid journalism into the fantasy world so well represented by Palin, Miller and Breitbart.
They are so good at playing victims, there should be a special award.
The conservative Public Policy Polling has just announced results of the most recent poll:
Miller 37% --- McAdams 30% --- Murkowski 30%
The most interesting finding:
Miller is winning despite having the worst personal favorability numbers of the three candidates. Only 36% have a positive opinion of him while 59% view him in a negative light. McAdams is by far the most popular with 50% rating him favorably to only 30% with an unfavorable one. Voters aren't very enamored with Murkowski either, giving her a 37/53 approval rating.For what it is worth, this is the highest McAdams has polled.
How can McAdams be so much more popular than Miller yet still be trailing the race? It's because 92% of the small group of voters that does like Miller is planning to vote for him. But only 56% of the voters with a positive opinion of McAdams are intending to cast their ballots for him, while 31% of them are going for Lisa Murkowski.
The high number of voters who like McAdams, dislike Miller, and are voting for Murkowski place the race in a whole different light than has been thought of the last few months. Murkowski's campaign, rather than propping herself up at the expense of Miller, may actually end up propping Miller up at the expense of McAdams. You never know how things would have unfolded in a two way race but Murkowski seems to be taking a lot more voters away from McAdams than she is from Miller.

subset: commoncrawl


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By John C. Toman. Posted November 6, 2011, 8:48 AM.After a brief, cool Saturday respite, a second storm is beginning to arrive in Southern California's inland valleys Sunday. Like Friday's storm, this one is a cold front from the northwest, but it does not have quite as much moisture. Still, rain from this storm will further dampen the fire season. Predictions on Sunday morning are for light to moderate rain to arrive by mid-morning in the northern locations, and late morning in the southern ones. Showers are expected this afternoon, tapering off this evening in the south. Total rainfall is predicted to be less than a half of an inch. Snow levels are predicted to fall to 4,500 feet. On Friday they went as low as 3,500 feet in the high deserts. Gusty winds and breezy conditions are expected to accompany the front. Most of the rest of the week looks dry, but another pair of storms could make Friday and next weekend wet. Sunday cold front (courtesy National Weather Service) |
Other Recent Weather News for French Valley, California


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Tag: ballot initiatives
I didn't realize Denver was having an election this November until I got my ballot in the mail. I almost didn't open it, but now I'm glad I did. The only item on the ballot is an initiative mandating police seize your vehicle if you are stopped and don't have a valid driver's license.
Aimed at undocmented residents (referred to as illegal aliens in the initiative), it has a far greater reach. Here's the text on Initiative 300.
What if you left your wallet at home? Unless you have have "convincing corrorborating identification," proof of insurance and a valid driver's license of record, your car will be impounded. If you have these things with you, you will get a summons and have ten days to bring your license to court. If you miss the ten days, your vehicle will be ordered impounded.
(40 comments, 614 words in story) There's More :: Permalink :: Comments


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A "Soft House" just completed in Hamburg, Germany, dramatically stakes its claim at the cutting edge of green building concepts.
While it meets passive house standards, its distinction is that many of its parts respond actively to efficiently meet the different energy demands of different seasons and weather.
The main active ingredient is the large, twisted, vertical louvers ("twisters") on the second and third stories of the south facade. Controlled by sensors responding to light and temperature, they twist to admit more or less sunlight into the house. Thin-film photovoltaics cover their PVC fabric surfaces, so the twisting is supposed to maximize solar power at the same time, or at least to find an optimum compromise among electric generation, solar heat gain or shading, while permitting a filtered view out onto the park.
The building comprises four live/work row houses. Each holds 1,722 square feet plus 570 square feet on the ground floor that can be either a studio apartment of a professional office. Two architecture firms—360+ Architekten of Hamburg and KVA Matx of Boston—partnered as primary designers. The Soft House will open to the public as part of a grand exhibition, the International BauAustellung (IBA).
Between the rooms and the twisters is a three-story indoor "convection atrium" that "further insulates the dwellings from extremes in temperature." Billows of fabric can descend from the top of this chamber. In addition, a fabric canopy over the roof puffs up and down with the seasons. You can watch a cartoon of the twisters twisting and the roof fabric billowing.
Inside, sheer floor-to-ceiling curtains spangled with tiny LEDs run on sinuous tracks that curl around through the rooms on each story. The architects suggest that these create a "visual breeze" and also allow occupants to reconfigure their living spaces into microclimatic and privacy zones.
The curtains sound like an interesting design feature but not an energy-saving breakthrough, except in one regard: while LEDs may be the direction we need to go in, for lighting, our acceptance of them is hindered by our compulsion to agglomerate them into familiar-looking bulbs that we can screw into sockets and put lampshades over. I'm glad someone is thinking up new ways to use them in their original form, as little points that collectively provide ambient light.
On a different front, the architects throw their chips in with the lumber-equals-carbon-sequestration camp. To back that equation up they use old-fashioned wooden dowels to assemble their copious board-footage of FSC-certified spruce, so that the building can be taken apart some day and its wood reassembled in other buildings.


text:
This plugin is an add-on for the also free Advanced Ads ad management plugin. It extends the plugin with a placement to put Google AdSense In-feed ads in the loop between posts on your homepage, category pages, tag pages, or other archive pages, etc.
Google AdSense InFeed ads are a dedicated Google AdSense ad type to monetize such post lists pages with a highly engaging layout and specialized options.
Advanced Ads was developed to place, manage and test ads on pages to increase revenue and usability.
The plugin comes with plenty of features, e.g.,
- Support for all Google AdSense types like link units, responsive, In-feed, In-article and matched content
- Google AdSense term violation checks
- Google AdSense Auto ads
Advanced Ads Pro and other add-on features include
- ads on AMP pages (all ads, not only Google AdSense ads)
- ads based on specific browser widths
- showing an alternative ad to ad block users
- click fraud monitoring to protect your Google AdSense account
- position tests
- support for caching plugins
Contributors & Developers
"In-feed ads for Google AdSense" is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors"In-feed ads for Google AdSense" has been translated into 9 locales. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.
Translate "In-feed ads for Google AdSense" into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
- Fix: update plugin icons
- Fix: update plugin description
- ensure compatibility with WP 5.8
- coding style optimized
- fixed frontend issue when Advanced Ads basic plugin is not activated
- use default index of 1 if placement position wasn't saved before
- first version


text:
Surfing the blogs will reveal a wealth of debate. Participants need not have PhDs. Challenges are made to leading scientists (and to critics) which cannot be simply brushed aside. Of course it is passionate and confusing; the science is complex and so are the arguments. This is a sort of democracy of science in action, and the blogosphere could help to provide the much desired link between science and the public.In the comments section we see the following statement:
'Could you tell me why you deleted this sentence from my article:
On the better blogs (as the one where I first posted, www.wattsupwiththat.com), the monitors ensure that the debate is courteous.'
I wonder why this sentence had so much significance for the Guardian moderators ;-)


text:
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text:
Ted Ts'o: Debian Can Learn from Ubuntu
Newly appointed CTO of the Linux Foundation and kernel developer Ted Ts'o is appealing to the Debian project to adopt a more pragmatic attitude about its Linux distro. The provocation for his advice is the current controversy over Debian's next 5.0 "Lenny" release.
The debate over the free and proprietary aspects of the Debian GNU/Linux has been whirling up for a while and with each new update to the OS. It peaked recently with the call for votes to determine the course of the Lenny release and Debian's social contract, which ended in the resignation of the project's secretary, Manoj Srivastava. The prominent Linux developer and CTO of the Linux Foundation, Ted Ts'o, responded to the debate in a recent blog, using a quote from Gordon Dickson's Tactics of Mistakes. The book treats of philosophers and how their militant followers pursue their ideas uncompromisingly. Ts'o writes, "The conflict between idealism and pragmatism is a very old one in the Free and Open Source Software Movement." He gives Richard Stallman as an example of someone "who has never compromised on issues regarding his vision of Software Freedom."
Particularly offensive to some Debian developers might be Ts'o's assertion that the Debian derivative Ubuntu could provide a positive model. Despite not always agreeing with Mark Shuttleworth on all matters or on his leadership of Canonical and the Ubuntu Linux variant, Ts'o is nonetheless sympathetic with the rules Shuttleworth instituted for Ubuntu, its Code of Conduct. He suggests that Debian developers should take "some kind of Code of Conduct at least as seriously as the Social Contract" and believes that the Debian project "would be far more efficient... and far more successful." He goes on say, "This may, however, require lessening the importance of philosophical constructs such as Free Speech and Free Software, and perhaps becoming more pragmatic and more considerate towards one another."
The wording of Debian's Social Contract is part of the problem, says Ts'o. He quotes the first paragraph, which reads, "Debian will remain 100% free... We will never make the system require the use of a non-free component." Ts'o finds fault with the expressions "100% free" and "never" in that they hardly allow for compromise: "In addition, the Debian Social Contract tends to be interpreted by computer programmers, who view such imperatives as constraints that must never be violated, under any circumstances." Ts'o cites numerous examples, relevant to the current Holiday season, where rules such as "Though shalt not kill" or "Though shalt not steal" have been broken justifiably and relativized due to war, hunger or other life conditions. He asks, "So if even the sixth and eighth commandments admit to exceptions, why is it that some Debian developers approach the first clause of the Debian Social Contract with a take-no-prisoners, no-exceptions policy?" He points to the particular fourth clause that states "We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free software community. We will place their interests first in our priorities." For him, that presupposes exceptions and flexibility.
Ts'o asserts his own feelings with "I personally believe that '100% free software' is a wonderful aspirational goal, but in particular with regards to standards documents and firmware, there are other considerations that should be taken into account." As to the vehemence and tone of the recent debate, Ts'o finds a further example in the Biblical rule "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" and adds the words, "Even for those who do not claim Christianity as their religious tradition, most moral and ethical frameworks have some variant on the Golden Rule: 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you'." He warns against moving Free Software "dangerously close" to a form of idolatry. "Ultimately," he say, "I consider people to be more important than computers, hardware or software."
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http://www.uggmalls.com -
Love Debian Squeeze - Pragmatic or otherwise
Great to see many positive messages about the Debian project.
Now is a great time to demonstrate your commitment and help the final
preparations for Debian Squeeze.
If you have some spare time and quite like the idea of a bit of beta testing then
do download Debian Squeeze from here:
Just to be double clear Squeeze installer is today labelled Alpha1 but you should
expect to find the occasional bug perhaps and help the effort by reporting it [ nicely ]
For the benefit of kb0hae, my version of OpenOffice on Debian Squeeze is 3.2
It is not entirely free from bugs just yet, and really probably does deserve to be "held up"
a little longer, whilst those bugs are (a) reported and (b) triaged into critical and minor and
(c) fixed as appropriate
MattW: "Debian has the guts to do this right: Remain 100% Free"
debian.. slow good?
It's good to have Debian as a slowly progressing stable base, but...
The world moves much faster than Debian does. New hardware is released that need new drivers. New processors (e.g. Nehalem) may have useful (and non-useful) features/tweaks. I can't get Debian install CDs to work on some of our new hardware because it doesn't seem to recognize it!
Ubuntu seems a reasonable compromise: built on a stable base but keeping pace with the more rapid change of environments. (Not every runs Linux on a hand-me-down machine with mature/old-enough hardware for public-domain drivers to exist!) For me Ubuntu is about making Linux ACCESSIBLE! -
I strongly disagree with the author...
and stand by the Debian community's present dedication to a "100% free" policy. For the same reasons others wiser than myself, have already posted. This, from an Ubuntu user, newly migrated from Windoze to Linux.
I might add that, comparing Debian's philosophy to any of the ten commandments (especially MURDER) is not only overly dramatic and pathetically obtuse...it implies a certain desperation on Mr. Ts'o's part, and smacks of a hidden agenda (likely, commercial). -
"Debian+" ?
I'm a beginner Linux user. I like the idea of free/open source software, but I'm pragmatic. I like the fact that many distributions make it more convenient for users by including proprietary software, etc.
Having said that, I think that the standard Debian distribution should stay "100% free". I probably wouldn't use it, but Debian has its purposes.
I don't know much about it, but it seems that Debian serves the purposes of a group of users very well, and the non-use of proprietary software is probably part of that.
People who are talking about 'business models' and popularity are looking at this the wrong way, IMO. Debian is not a business product, and not every distribution needs to be popular. Debian is filling a niche, and that seems like a good thing.
HOWEVER, there are clearly some people who want Debian to have the added convenience of some proprietary software. I suggest that a (hopefully) viable solution would be to collect all of the most useful proprietary stuff, and:
(A) Make it easy for users to add that software all-at-once.
(B) Release a "Debian+" version of the distribution with the proprietary stuff included. (note: I don't mean a fork! I mean use the standard distribution 'bundled' with the proprietary stuff)
To me, the above proposal would provide the greatest freedom of choice for users, while not compromising on the principles of Debian.
Not that my opinion really matters. (I don't really know much about it anyway) -
It is a religion!
All this is just a repetition of the debate between St. Augustin and Pelagius about the ten commandments.
It is well explaind here: Alan Watts podcast "85-SpiritualAuthority2.mp3" (from 1:55 to 3:11)
In short, Debian stays with the heretic teaching of Pelagius.
And Ubuntu follows the tradition of the Catholic Church.
In a word, "catholic" means universal, that is, for all the human beings - Greek adjective καθολικός (katholikos), meaning "universal". - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic
See also:
Pelagius and the doctrine of free will
Yes Debian have to remain free. No proprietary stuff !!!
So if ever some folks change the some laws
Debian can be were we can turn into again.
Ubuntu must persuade his users to go and buy only supported hardware not proprietary stuff
Like Microsoft does the other way around on it's users.
if it is true that ubuntu has many users , they should convince them to buy only non-proprietary firmwares(hardware)
Tha'ts a real useful strategy for open-source spreading faster.
open source firmwares are for human-beings
proprietary firmwares are for human victims!!!
The RULE IS SIMPLE
Spread open source and secondly spread ubuntu or whatever flavor you may want
Debian and Ubuntu
If Debian can "learn from" Ubuntu then Debian will, eventually, become Ubuntu. We need Debian to remain Debian. If people need proprietary code/drivers, they can always download and do installs themselves. -
I agree
I agree with what said, I would like to "keep base Linux distros pure" and free from propriety codes.
Just in case a future copywrite law suit files against Linux. we still have safe distro we can fell back to.
but allow an easy way for the users to add if they please a propriety codecs/drivers to there installation.
PS. its not like there is lack of many forks already provide ready out of the box installation, -
Debian has the guts to do this right: Remain 100% Free
The commercial world really wants to break in to the Linux world and is trying many approaches to keep a tight grip on the technologies that they want to control.
Its a slippery slope - if Distros start relying on Commercial/Non-Free stuff, then they lose their freedom. They put commercial interests in the driving seat and they take a backseat.
The pollution of Linux Distributions with proprietary/non-free elements is enevitable, but should be resisted and alternatives built whereever possible. These BLOB's hold back the state of the art and should be avoided at all costs.
Yes, its annoying to have "Icedove" instead of firefox... but it illustrates a very important point about freedom and copyright. Someone has to hold the line. There are many users out there who love Linux, but dont understand the blood sweat and tears that went in to building an open system in a climate where none existed before.
There will always be those who want to enjoy the fruits of other's labor - but the folks that are doing the work really need to help those folks understand what is at stake for developers.
We should keep an eye on this Ted Ts'o character - he could be under a lot of corporate pressure to soften the important open-source hard line position that Linux has taken over the years.
This argument that "philosophers are ruthless people" is ridiculous and I would look for big corporate interests behind any push to weaken/relax open source/free rules and behind any effort to discredit folks like Richard Stallman - who is an eccentric guy, but has all the right ideas about how Free software needs to be done. Read him.
What happens if Canonical gets a majority share of them bought out by sun microsystems and they start releasing a non-free version of the distro with the Solaris Kernel ? I bet people will be happy that Debian stayd the course and remained 100% free.
Most of us, we have sometimes more than one Windows computer anyway, we pay for hardware and, as idea of free Open source is very romantic, we do have the right to use our property: the drivers and programs that we own. I sympathize with those who do release varies variants of the main distributions of linux, with instructions and sources how to make system work... with and without proprietary software.
I am only end-user but where is my freedom of choice and why should I trash things I already paid for?
PS. Till now all of you - you did most wonderful job developing Linux and I will always be very grateful to you all for it! No matter how much you argue and will disagree... -
Why rivalry?
I'm always puzzled at the Debian vs. Ubuntu comparisons.
I can't write well, so I will throw a question to start you thinking: would Debian become a foundation for Ubuntu (and many other distros) if it had the free vs. proprietary compromises implemented?
Something tells me that Debian is great in its own way. Debian serves different purpose and pretty much unique in the way it deals of OSS community. Debian sets its own standard and the fact that it still exists (and internal flamewars just confirm that there are lots of people committed) says to me that the standard works.
Compromise on inclusion of single piece of proprietary software, would open road to more pressure (from people willing to monetize) to include more proprietary software what would eventually lead to divide in the community and slow death of Debian. That would also mean slow death of many distributions which depend on it: few can pull trick of building and packaging whole system from scratch by themselves. Big distros like Ubuntu backed by business would survive, but the universal distro "for all of us" would be gone.
As Debian Sid (Sidux) user I can only attest that Debian as a whole works and is extremely useful. -
...The last partial paragraph was hiding at the bottom of my text box :P
the thought was that absolute democracy rarely works, and is incapable of strategy... this explains the the success of the "benevolent dictator" approach to Ubuntu.
where ubuntu gets it right
If pushing (making incremental improvements) the envelope of the user experience is key, regular releases are the way to go. My observation thus far with Ubuntu Vs Debian is that regular releases bring more functional features than instability. This is in turn yields a net improvement in the overall experience incrementally, and progressively. keeping "not perfect" code hidden in development or unstable branches ignores the massive feedback loop that Linux is so dependent on for continuous improvement. Forcing users to go find and get their own non-free code when there are significant benefits making it simple and streamlines, is just a downer... A textbook example of inflexible purist sentiment, that while perhaps philosophically valid, is rarely useful or constructive. Shuttleworth seems to get that...
Coming to Linux from windows about about a year and a half ago, Ubuntu drew me in with enough stuff that "just worked" to get me started... To be honest... Compiz and other X eye candy and the fact that Ubuntu made it *easy* for new-to-linux people to jump into the 3d Desktop love-fest was a huge attraction. The "bad press" from the uber free software types served a purpose... just not the one they intended. It clearly telegraphed to people like myself that there was at least one distribution that was focusing on building a rich experience, and take the fight to commercial OS(es) at the consumer level. I bit, and am really satisfied with my experience thus far.
The notion of Debian being a pure democracy that only releases "ready" code (which is a subjective evaluation) sounds a lot like classic waterfall SDLC... a home for idealists and purists... but not the place where things get done. it's a good comparison, and ultimately explains how and why Ubuntu has managed to take Debian, and do something special with it. I think the entry is right on, and that Ubuntu already has eclipsed Debian in the coming "mainstreaming" of Linux.
$.02 (x2)
pure democracy is farcical, and lack cohesion of thought and therefore has no inherent strategy. When I look at Ubuntu, I see a rapidly maturing distribution that actually stands a good chance of bringing significantly -
Defining Values Cannot Be Compromised
I disagree.
Several years ago, after having test-driven several GNU+Linux distributions, I decided that I would stick with but one distribution. I chose Debian.
The primary reason for which I chose the Debian distribution was the idealism surrounding the ebian Social Contract. To me, Debian is not concerned with pumping out a new version every standard-generic-time-period. Debian's release of new stable versions happens when it happens, like all good things, in the fullness of time.
It seems to me that Debian subscribes to a different "business" model than some other distributions, and it is this particular "business" model that, in my mind, defines Debian. While other GNU+Linux distributions may have a different release model than Debian, there is, as in all things, a trade-off involved in such different models. The regular release model, it seems to me, in some cases, has resulted in some less-than-perfect releases in the past few years. That is the part of the price for a regular release cycle, and some people are willing to pay that price.
The Debian model of releasing new stable releases when they are ready, is something that I can live with, and is a part of the trade-off that I am willing to deal with. And I am sure that some other Debian users are willing to accept that trade-off.
Now, I have been using the testing branch of Debian for years. Thus, I have been running "Lenny" for quite a while, now, as have many other Debian users. I run the testing branch because that is part of eth trade-off involved with using Debian.
I'm just an unimportant user of Debian, and my opinion is, in the larger scheme of things, irrelevant. But I would rather see the Debian project be unflexible in its principles, and add the non-free blobs to my particular installations of Debian, myself.
For example, I use the proprietary Nvidia drivers <gasp>. While I suspect that Richard Stallman may get a shiver up his spine everytime someone reads that, it is my decision as an end user to use such the non-free driver. But I believe quite strongly that the Debian project should not compromise one iota on its principals.
Principals that are compromised, for whatever reason, lack substance.
Debian is a democracy
DFSG are what the name suggests, guidelines. The only thing that matters in the end of the day is the will of the many. If the many so choose, the constitution may be circumvented, ignored, rephrased or overthrown entirely. If the many so choose, Debian can also stop be a democracy. When the author complains about absolutes in Debian, I'm not sure he understands how Debian works. One only has to look in the history of Debian, to see that all major and minor decisions have been the result of voting processes, often in disagreement with the constitution. The author's argument is as pointless as arguing that the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" should be reworded to "Thou shalt not kill except under special circumstances". If the author cares about making a difference in Debian there is only one way to do it and that is being part of Debian himself. On the other hand, if he disagrees about the democratic structure of Debian that's another matter entirely.
kb0hae, when testing is frozen so is unstable. Expect all newer packages including KDE4 after the Lenny release. -
Ubuntu needs to learn from sidux and Mepis!
The developers of sidux amd Mepis seem to put a lot more effort into fixing bugs and problems than the developers of Ubuntu. Ubuntu (and Kubuntu) are also missing a couple of administrative tools that sidux and Mepis have, and are very useful. The Debian team needs to get it together as to wheather Lenny (and future releases) will have any proprietary stuff or not. If not, thos who want that type of stuff will find ways to add it themselves. I think that they should not include anything proprietary that is not absolutely necessary, but give instructions and make it easy for users to add what they want.need.
Just my thoughts on the matter.
PS. Debian team: STOP HOLDING OpenOffice.org 3 and other new versions of software in Experimental, and let them progress to Unstable , Testing, etc!!!!!!!! -
Debian code
To have the 4th amendment state that the needs of the user will be paramount (paraphrasing) and placed first is a paradoxical statement. You have just made a statement and 3 amendments. Then you follow that with a "we will place first" statement. That says to me that there needs to be further thought to what was just stated. It may be best for Debian to finally define itself properly rather than a rethinking of positions or of alterations to current positions. Say what you mean and mean what you say, but make sense in what you say.
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text:
NEW YORK (AP) — Americans paused again today to mark the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks with familiar ceremony, but also a sense that it's time to move forward after a decade of remembrance.
Hundreds gathered at the World Trade Center site in New York, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pa., to read the names of nearly 3,000 victims killed in the worst terror attack in U.S. history. President Barack Obama was to attend the Pentagon memorial, and Vice President Joe Biden was to speak in Pennsylvania.
But many felt that last year's 10th anniversary was an emotional turning point for public mourning of the attacks. For the first time, elected officials weren't speaking at the ceremony, which often allowed them a solemn turn in the spotlight, but raised questions about the public and private Sept. 11.
" I feel much more relaxed'this year, said Jane Pollicino, who came to ground zero this morning to remember her husband, who was killed at the trade center. " After the ninth anniversary, that next day, you started building up to the 10th year. This feels a lot different, in that regard. It's another anniversary that we can commemorate in a calmer way, without that 10year pressure.'
As bagpipes played at the year-old Sept. 11 memorial in New York, family clutching balloons, flowers and photos of their loved ones bowed their heads in silence at 8:46 a.m., the moment that the first hijacked jetliner crashed into the trade center's north tower, and again to mark the crashes into the second tower, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.
President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama observed the moment in a ceremony on the White House's south lawn, and then laid a white floral wreath at the Pentagon, above a concrete slab that said " Sept.11, 2001 — 937 am.'
Victims' families in New York began the solemn, familiar ritual of tearfully reading the names of nearly 3,000 killed, with personal messages to their lost loved ones.
" Rick, can you hear your name as the roll is called again? On this sacred ground where your dust settled?' said Richard Blood, whose son, Richard Middleton Blood, Jr., died in the trade center's south tower. "If only those who hear your name could know what a loving son and beautiful person you grew to be. I love you, son, and miss you terribly.'
Thousands had attended the ceremony in New York in previous years, including last year's milestone 10th anniversary. Fewer than 500 family members had gathered by Tuesday morning, making paper rubbings of their loved ones' names etched onto the Sept. 11 memorial.
Commuters rushed out of the subway and fewer police barricades were in place thanin past years in the lower Manhattan neighborhood surrounding ground zero. More than 4 million people have visited the memorial in the past year, becoming more of a public space than a closed- off construction site. On Tuesday, much of downtown Manhattan bustled like a regular weekday, except for clusters of police and emergency vehicles on the borders of the site.
Families had a mixed reaction to the changing ceremony, which kept politicians away from the microphone in New York for the first time.
Charles G. Wolf, whose wife, Katherine, was killed at the trade center, said: " We've gone past that deep, collective public grief' and said it was appropriate that politicians no longer speak.
But Pollicino said it's important that politicians still attend the ceremony.
" There's something missing if they're not here at all,' she said. " Now, allof a sudden, it's 'for the families.' This happened to our country — it didn't happen only to me.'
And Joe Torres, who put in 16- hour days in the " pit' in the days after the attacks, cleaning up tons of debris, said another year has changed nothing for him.
" The 11th year, for me, it's the same as if it happened yesterday. It could be 50 years from now, and to me, it'll be just as important as year one, or year five or year ten.'
Political leaders still are welcome to attend the ground zero ceremony, and they are expected at the other commemorations, as well.
The Obamas planned later to visit wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The U. S. terror attacks were followed by wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the U.S. military death toll years ago surpassed the 9/ 11 victim
ATTACKS Page 7
From Page 1
count. At least 1,987 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan and 4,475 in Iraq, according to the Pentagon.
Allied military forces marked the anniversary at a short ceremony at NATO's headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan, with a tribute to more than 3,000 foreign troops killed in the decadelong war.
" Eleven years on from that day there should be no doubt that our dedication to this commitment, that commitment that was seared into our souls that day so long ago, remains strong and unshaken,' said Marine Gen. John Allen, the topcommander of U.S. and coalition troops.
Scores gathered at the Flight 93 National Memorial in western Pennsylvania, where the fourth hijacked plane crashed into a Pennsylvania field. Biden and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar are expected to speak at the ceremony for the flight's 40 victims.
Other ceremonies were held across the country — from New York's Long Island, where hundreds wrote messages to their loved ones on a memorial, to Boston, where more than 200 people with ties to Massachusetts were remembered. But some cities scaled back — the suburb of Glen Rock, N.J.,where 11 people were killed, did not hold a memorial this year for the first time.
In New York, officeholders from the mayor to presidents have been heard in the past, reading texts ranging from parts of the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address to poems by John Donne and Langston Hughes.
For former New York Gov. George Pataki, this year's change ends a 10- year experience that was deeply personal, even as it reflected his political role. He was governor at the time of the attacks.
" As the names are read out, I just listen and have great memories of people who I knew very well who were on that list of names. It was very emotional.' But the former governor supports the decision not to have government figures speak. " It's time to take the next step,' he said.
The National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum — led by Mayor Michael Bloomberg as its board chairman — announced this summer that this year's ceremony would include the words of family members, hoping to remember the dead and honor families " in a way free of politics' in an election year, memorial President Joe Daniels said.
But others said keeping politicians off the rostrum smacked of … politics. And several said they were unwilling to let go.
" Coming here, it's like ripping off a Band- Aid,' said Yasmin Leon, whose sister was killed at the trade center. " You rip it off and the wound is opened again. But you keep coming back anyway.'
Leon said there was a sense of closure this year because last year, the Sept. 11 memorial — twin reflecting pools surrounded by victims' names — opened to the public. " This year, we're just here to reflect,' she said.
The Sept. 11 museum was initially to open this year, but is on hold for at least another year after a monthslong dispute over financing between the foundation and the government agency that owns the site. Late Monday, Bloomberg and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced an agreement that paves the way for finishing the $ 700 million- plus project " as soon as practicable.'
Before the deal, Cuomo, a Democrat, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, had called on federal officials to give the memorial a financial and technical hand. Some victims' relatives saw the no- politicians anniversary ceremony as retaliation.
"Banning the governors of New York and New Jersey from speaking is the ultimate political decision,' said one relatives' group, led by retired Deputy Fire Chief Jim Riches. His firefighter son and namesake was killed responding to the burning World Trade Center.


text:
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Read an excerpt of Dr. Bright's book
Purchase Discover the Book God Wrote
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CBN.com "The Bible is the greatest treasure you will ever own . As a believer for fifty-six years, I have tested God's Word and found it true. In more than five decades I have not encountered one situation in which I have not been able to turn to God's Word for comfort, wisdom, guidance, joy, and blessing. At eighty-one years of age, I would rather have the Bible on my shelf and in my heart than any other book written in history because it contains the message of God."
--- the late Dr. Bill Bright
How many of us can honestly say along with the former Campus Crusade for Christ president and co-founder that we value God and His Word above all other endeavors? That's a tall order that we often fail, claiming that the Bible is difficult to read, that we are too busy, or that we just don't know how to apply it to our daily lives. Up until now, many of us haven't found a resource that simplifies the Bible.
But this year, the Bright Media Foundation brings readers Discover the Book God Wrote (Tyndale House Publishers, 2004), one of the final works completed by Dr. Bright before his death at the age 81 on July 19, 2003. The book is written to acquaint seekers and reacquaint Christian readers to the joys of digging through God's Word and getting to know the Lord.
Recently, I talked with Vonette Bright, Dr. Bright's faithful wife of 54 years, by telephone to discuss this book, the first in what is termed the 'Legacy Series'. I also wanted to find out how we could pray for Vonette and her family as she continues to honor the work of this godly man who authored more than 100 books and booklets in his lifetime, and as she seeks to follow God's vision for the future.
What is the purpose of this 'Legacy Series'?
VONETTE BRIGHT: It is actually to introduce the Bible. Bill has written a book on discovering God, discovering His character, and this has led people to really get into the Bible. Today it seems that there is so much confusion about who God is.
I know. Isn't that weird?
VONETTE BRIGHT: Yes, it is. Of course, it is because we have ridiculed the whole aspect of truth. As people are looking for God, they are looking for truth, and as they are looking for truth, they are looking for God, but there are so many people today who do not own a Bible, who have not given any attention to the Bible. I think that with all that is happening in our world today, and with the Passion film, I think it has caused people to have much more curiosity, so Discover the Book God Wrote is really to teach people to gain confidence in the Bible and then how to study it for themselves and how to apply it to their lives and to see how practical it is, but how really informative and how instructive and what a blessing it can be to our lives.
When I was reading through the passages of Dr. Bright's book, I thought, even as Christians, there are certain things that we might not know, like, for instance, one of the quotes I read was 'Every spiritual truth that is in the Bible is first established in Genesis.' That is true. Even Christians forget that.
VONETTE BRIGHT: We do forget. There is just a lot of information to retain! Then I think with the Spirit of God working in our lives, He reveals different things to us at different times. Haven't you found it true that many times you read a passage that has been a favorite of yours for years and years, and all of a sudden you read it, and here is a new insight? That is what is so exciting about the Word of God.
Some Christians might say, 'I want to study my Bible. I have the 365-day plan.' But they never get through that plan. For some reason, they think that the Bible is dry and dull. Obviously, your husband knew it was 'living and active'.
VONETTE BRIGHT: That is really true as we recognize that it is God's textbook to mankind. It is this book that tells us how to relate to God, it tells us how to relate to each other, it tells us how to relate to family -- women to women, men to men, women and men, fathers and children, mothers and children, parents and children. This book tells us so much of the truth we should be applying every day and with such excitement. So many people look at biblical truth as being binding and legalistic and unhappy, but if you want to know real liberty, just apply the Word of God to your life.
How can we do that?
VONETTE BRIGHT: First of all, we need to know what we should believe. That was one of Bill's concerns, and he even starts out the book with that. He gives background about who wrote it and why it is trustworthy, what its message is, what it promises. Then he gives us insights on how to understand the Bible, how the Bible can guide my life, how I can unlock the Bible's meaning, how I can apply Bible study principles. Here he gives things that are very simple to apply for the person who is just starting out. Then for the person who has studied the Bible for years and years, it still has some creative ideas that can be applied.
It doesn't have to get old and get dry. I find that the excited Christian is the one who studies the Word and picks out that which he can apply daily to his life and finds opportunities to share it with someone else. It is always fresh and it is always alive. If we just read it as a dry book hoping, 'Well, I had my Bible study today, so it will be a better day for me,' and it might be, but to make application of it and to have truth to pass on to someone else, it really keeps us enthusiastic and excited about what God is giving us for the day.
My understanding, too, is that we don't necessarily have to spend hours on end to do that.
VONETTE BRIGHT: I think our time alone daily with the Lord is to meet God, and if we take the time to meet with Him, sometimes that can be done in five minutes, sometimes it takes an hour, sometimes it takes two or three hours, but it is usually in relationship to the time that we have or the time that we could take. The more we know, the more I think we want to know. And I find the more time that I spend, it is so much more profitable than any other way I could be spending my time that I find I love it more and more.
It sounds like those who fall in love with Jesus are the ones who are reading their Bibles more.
VONETTE BRIGHT: I believe that is true. It is like you don't see the necessity of brushing your teeth as a child, but your mother keeps you at it, and pretty soon it doesn't feel very good if you don't brush your teeth. It only takes about 30 days to get addicted to the Word. If you can establish a habit for 30 days in a row, it is possible to continue that habit, but it is also a commitment. If there is something that you don't understand, look for the place of that which you do understand and begin to get some materials that will help. Read it with the aspect of getting to know God.
Here again, in part three of the book, What is the Bible about? -- our powerful Creator, our perfect Judge, our loving Savior, our responding to God. And the fourth part, How does the Bible change my life? That is what people really want to know: What is it going to do for me personally? How does the Bible strengthen my faith? How does the Bible connect me to God's power? How does the Bible help me to live a holy life? How does the Bible help me to love God?
We have found that applying the Scriptures to our daily lives is so important, and the study gives us such background in lots of different ways -- the history of the world, the history of nations, the history of the actions of men. It is just full of history; it is full of poetry; it's the best kind of literature. I think it was Noah Webster who said, 'If I had to choose between a college education and the knowledge of the Bible, I would choose the knowledge of the Bible,' because it is just such a rich and wonderful book. So Bill has written this book to help people to understand it and to make it practical in their lives.
What is the most important thing people can take away from reading this book? Is it that God loves them and wants to have a relationship with them?
VONETTE BRIGHT: I can't think of any better reason to know Him, but I think they take away the practical knowledge of what the Bible is all about and how to study it and how to make it a real part of their lives. Applying it, they will see their lives change, and they will gain strength to be able to help others who are really searching and looking, the godly wisdom that comes from God's Word, and that wisdom is so available to us.
The Bible never gets old. It is timely; it is able to be applied to every situation that we are facing, even today. There is such an argument about what truth is. The Bible has always been the textbook to go back to. It has always been God's Word that has lasted through the centuries, it has been borne out as truth, and it is truth that we can apply to our lives, bank on it, and find that it really is real.
I have been writing a novel series. The whole reason to do this is because sometimes people won't read the Bible, but they will read a novel. [Editor's Note: The series is called the 'Sister Circle' series and is co-authored with Nancy Moser. The first book is called The Sister Circle, the second is called 'Round the Corner, the third is called Undivided Heart, and a fourth one is due in 2005].
In The Sister Circle, we start out with a person who has gone to church some, but all of a sudden her husband dies. In desperation, she turns to God. It has been such fun doing this series, walking through this character and others applying the Word of God. Of course, it is a fiction book, but at the same time, it helps me to see the difference that the Word of God gives and the wisdom He gives in hoping and dealing with situations.
The reason why The Sister Circle was brought up is a staff member had given the book to a friend of hers that never read the Bible. That caused her to want to see what the Bible had to say, so she began to read it, never having picked it up, never really interested in it. She came to my friend after a couple of weeks and said, 'As I read The Sister Circle book, I am now reading the Bible. I read it every day.' She said, 'I didn't know that the Bible had so much to say about so many subjects. This is a practical book!' If you are looking for particular answers to questions, they are available. The questions can be answered.
What is your vision now as you carry on the legacy of Dr. Bright?
VONETTE BRIGHT: I am eager to see that all of his knowledge and wisdom is preserved and is able to be put in a form to be kept culturally relevant through the years. My husband found that he was most blessed by people's writings of the past, that these were principles that he applied in his life from the insight that they gave to the Word of God, people like George Mueller and Andrew Murray, and a wonderful devotional book by Oswald Chambers, just these classics of years past.
I think Bill Bright's [writings] will be right up there with the best. I am very eager to get them in a form that will be able to be used. We have about 15 more books and projects that he had done everything that he felt he needed to do so that someone else could edit the material and put it in a form that would be useable.
Our sons are both in the ministry, and they are very interested in keeping their father's legacy alive. And, of course, their works are very interesting. Our son Brad has just finished his book, which is a companion to his dad's, called God is the Issue. What really is the point is your view of God that makes the difference. For Christians, we need to be able to define a biblical worldview. Bill has said over and over again that a person's view of God affects everything in their whole life. As you think about it, it determines the kind of person we are going to marry, it determines the kind of entertainment we are going to allow to come into our home, it determines the education we are going to give to our children, and it determines who we are going to vote for. Everything is determined, basically, by our view of God, yet so many people don't know what they believe about God and they don't know God. So let's get to know Him.
Do you have any closing thoughts?
VONETTE BRIGHT: This book includes not only the answers to these questions but has practical helps for the beginning student or the seasoned reader of God's Word. It's going to meet the needs of everybody.
We will be keeping you in our prayers. How can we pray for you?
VONETTE BRIGHT: I pray that my life will be always pleasing to God, that God will keep me mentally alert, that He will keep me healthy, and that I am always doing that which is going to honor Him most. He has given me a good life, and I am rejoicing because I know that Bill is rejoicing.
The verse of Scripture I believe is appropriate for everybody to know I hadn't seen until the year 2000, when we learned that Bill definitely had a terminal disease [pulmonary fibrosis]. I asked God to prepare my heart because I just was not ready to think of Bill leaving. I was reading one of my favorite chapters in the Bible in my regular devotional reading as I was reading through the Bible, and I came to John 14. Here in the 28th verse, in a context that I had never seen, were the words of Jesus when He says, 'If you really love me, you will be very happy for me that I am going to be with My Father, who is in heaven.'
I took that as my signal that I was to be very happy for Bill Bright, that he was going to be seeing Jesus, he would be seeing Him face to face, he would be spending time with Him, he would be knowing the glories of heaven. And I rejoice because I know that he is rejoicing. When he was so ill, and people would come and say, 'How are you feeling, Bill? How are you?' with a big smile he would always say, 'I am rejoicing!' I knew he was in pain. I knew he was uncomfortable. It was a struggle to breathe. He couldn't get enough oxygen. But he was rejoicing. He really did it right.
In his last words, he said, 'For decades, my greatest joy has been from being in the presence and serving the Lord.' Then he adds, 'alongside Vonette,' which, of course, might be nice to know. But then he says as he was writing to people at the last -- in fact, this is in the introduction to Discover the Book God Wrote, 'Today, I am experiencing God face to face in ways so magnificent they cannot be described in words, for no eye has seen, nor ear has heard, nor mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him,' taken from 1 Corinthians 2:9. So because I know he is rejoicing, anytime I have a tendency to be low, I begin to think, God is rejoicing in heaven, and it won't be too long before I am there to rejoice with him.
Thank you for sharing that with me.
VONETTE BRIGHT: Bless you, Dear.
Discover the Real Jesus, the second in the 'Legacy Series', is slated for sometime this fall. The series will also include the Discover God Study Bible, scheduled to release in 2006.
Dr. Bright was the founder and president of Campus Crusade for Christ, author of the well-known evangelism tool The Four Spiritual Laws, and commissioner of the JESUS film, a feature-length documentary on the life of Christ. Dr. Bill Bright was 81 at the time of his death, July 19, 2003, and has authored more than 100 books and booklets in his lifetime. Dr. Bright and Vonette Bright were married for 54 years and have two children: Zachary, a pastor in California; and Brad, an author and staff member at Campus Crusade for Christ. Campus Crusade for Christ continues under the leadership of Steve Douglass.
A caring friend will be there to pray with you in your time of need.


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Labor Day to all my American readers! For a lot of people, Labor Day means two
things: a day off and the end of summer. However, Labor Day is a day set aside
to pay tribute to working men and women and acknowledges the value and dignity
of work and its role in American life.
are ten interesting facts that you might not know about regarding Labor Day:
Labor Day originates from our neighbors to the north
Americans consider Labor Day a uniquely American experience, but in all
reality, Labor Day has it's origins in Canada. Stemming from 1870's labor
disputes in Toronto, in 1872 a parade was held in support of a strike against
the 58 hour workweek. As a result, 24 union leaders who were responsible for
organizing the event were arrested under anti-union laws.
First US Labor Day observance was in the form of a parade
first US observance of Labor Day came in the form of a parade. Sponsored by the
Central Labor Union, On September 5th, 1882 ten thousand workers paraded
through New York City. This is commonly considered the first observance of
Labor Day in America.
The 12 hour work day norm
outrageous enough to spur ten thousand people to parade through NYC? A 12 hour
workweek! In the late 19th century, the average working day consisted of 12
hours. Held on a Tuesday, the first Labor Day rally was held in order to gain
support for the 8 hour workday.
Oregon first to declare Labor Day an official holiday
February of 1887, the great state of Oregon was the first in the Union to pass
law making Labor Day and officially recognized holiday.
Grover Cleveland makes Labor Day a national holiday
Labor Day an official national holiday as part of his political campaign, in
1894, President Grover Cleveland made good on his promise, and signed a law
making Labor Day an officially recognized US holiday.
Not just in the US
Labor Day hails from Canada and the US, a large number of industrialized
nations around the world celebrate Labor Day as a time to respect and reflect
upon workers around the world. While not all celebrate it at the beginning of
summer, the concept is similar, and is sometimes celebrated in combination of
May Day.
First Waffle House opens on Labor Day
1955, in Avondale Estates, Georgia, the very first Waffle House opened it's
doors to the public. 25 states and 50 years later, Waffle House now counts over
1500 establishments. Yay waffles!
The White border
Day has been traditionally the unofficial "pack up the whites" border, and was
often considered a fashion faux pas, if worn post-Labor Day. This tradition has
been steadily decreasing over the past decade(s), and is often now just
remembered as the "something that once was."
150 million working Americans
of 2008, there were 154.4 million people over the age of 16 in the US with
jobs. Around ¾ of these workers receive paid vacation time, but an extra day
off is certainly nothing to sneeze at.
Unofficial NFL season kickoff
percent of the time, the NFL plays it's first official season game the Thursday
after Labor Day.
there you have it. Perhaps a few things you already knew about Labor Day, but
hopefully a few that you didn't.


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What helps children who have just met form a connection? A new study shows that a simple game played together in sync on a computer led 8-year-olds to report a greater sense of similarity and closeness immediately after the activity.
Children who played the same game but not in a synchronous way did not report the same increase in connection.
The findings, published April 8 by PLOS ONE, give an example of how a physical activity performed in unison helps children feel more positively toward each other and could perhaps increase their empathy.
"Synchrony is like a glue that brings people together — it's a magical connector for people," said lead author Tal-Chen Rabinowitch, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences at the University of Washington.
Synchrony occurs when people interact together in time. It's a fundamental prerequisite for activities such as playing music, singing, dancing and rowing.
But the impact of synchrony goes beyond the ability to coordinate activities with other individuals. In adults, synchrony has been linked to increased cooperation and teamwork, making work more efficient and productive.
Few studies have examined whether the same is true among children.
"We wanted to see if a synchronous, rhythmic interaction could influence the attitudes of children toward peers they had never met before," Rabinowitch said.
She conducted the study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, where co-author Ariel Knafo is a professor of psychology. The European Research Council funded the project.
In the experiment, Rabinowitch tested 74 8-year-old children in pairs of two boys and two girls. Seated in a quiet laboratory room, the experimenter introduced herself and asked the children to introduce themselves to each other by name only.
After the experimenter explained the task, the children sat side by side in front of a video screen. An animated soccer ball bounced on both halves of the screen, and the children pressed a button whenever the ball on their side of the screen hit the floor.
For some pairs of children, the balls bounced in sync, so their fingers tapped the buttons simultaneously. Other pairs of children had out-of-sync bouncing, so they had asynchronous finger tapping.
A shortened sample of the task is shown in this video: https://youtu.be/Lcye_vB6uQU
They did two 90-second trials of the game, with a short break in between. After the game, the children filled out questionnaires about how similar and close they felt to the child they had been paired with. A control group of pairs of children answered the same questions, but did not perform the game.
Children in the synchronous group reported a greater sense of similarity and closeness.
The findings suggest that time-based synchronized activities, including in music, dance and sports, could be useful tools in bringing children closer together.
"The important ingredient is joint synchronized activity — it is a form of collaboration where individuals perform the same movements at the same time," Rabinowitch said.
Now at the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, Rabinowitch is studying in detail the underlying cognitive mechanisms that enable synchronous interaction in children to shift social attitudes and enhance cooperation.
Andrew Meltzoff, co-director of I-LABS, said: "This study gives important clues about how to promote pro-social behavior in children. There may be a deep truth in saying that children care about being 'in tune' with others or that two people are in sync with each other."
In her studies with Meltzoff, Rabinowitch hopes to reveal how music, and specifically synchrony, is able to guide and improve social and emotional interactions between humans.
"The findings might be applied to formulate new strategies for education in our effort to build a more collaborative and empathic future society," she said.
And studying this phenomenon in children is especially important, Rabinowitch added, since the connection between music and social and emotional attitudes manifests itself so early in life.


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...one of the most highly
regarded and expertly designed C++ library projects in the
— Herb Sutter and Andrei
Alexandrescu, C++
Coding Standards
The test suite for Boost.TR1 is relatively lightweight; tests have been added
to the Boost.Config test suite for each new configuration macro, and each TR1
component has a very short concept check test added. The concept test programs
are designed only to verify that all the TR1 components that are supposed to
be in namespace std::tr1
indeed present and have standards conforming interfaces. There are a few test
programs (those which end in the suffix "_tricky") which do not currently
compile with the Boost.TR1 implementation, because the relevant Boost libraries
have not yet implemented the features tested; hopefully these incompatibilities
will be removed in future releases.
The concept tests do not take account of compiler defects (quite deliberately so); the intent is that the tests can be used to verify conformance with the standard, both for Boost code, and for third party implementations. Consequently very many of these tests are known to fail with older compilers. This should not be taken as evidence that these compilers can not be used at all with Boost.TR1, simply that there are features missing that make those compilers non-conforming.
Full runtime tests for TR1 components are not in general part of this test suite, however, it is hoped that the Boost.TR1 component authors will make their regular test suites compile with the standards conforming headers as well as the Boost-specific ones. This will allow these tests to be used against the standard library's own TR1 implementation as well as the Boost one.