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29101 Pat Buchanan, apologist for terror -- rank: 1000

C. G. Estabrook wrote: >Ah, a joke. I see. > >So he can be safely relegated to the ranks of "quasi-fascist xenophobes," >and we all go back to the comfortable orthodoxies, eh? Are you implying that Buchanan isn't a nativist bigot after all? That his opposition to empire (and to trade) isn't motivated by xenophobia rather than a principled egalitarian internationalism? That his anxieties about dark-skinned men playing bongos on the streets of his hometown, Washington, aren' ...

Document Size:	5248
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Jun 1 07:38:01 PDT 2002

29102 200 AQ members worldwide? -- rank: 1000

[pointed out by Sam Smith's Progressive Review] Palm Beach Post - July 27, 2002 FBI: Just 200 hard-core Al-Qaeda By Rebecca Carr, Palm Beach Post Washington Bureau Saturday, July 27, 2002 WASHINGTON -- Senior FBI officials believe there are now no more than 200 hard-core Al-Qaeda members worldwide. "Al-Qaeda itself, we know, is less than 200," said an FBI official, referring to those who have sworn allegiance to Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind behind the Sept. 11 terrorist atta ...

Document Size:	9476
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jul 31 14:15:01 PDT 2002

29103 political oddities -- rank: 1000

[Excellent to have Chris Caldwell back in NY Press. The rest is at <http://www.nypress.com/15/31/news&columns/beans.cfm>.] New York Press - July 31-August 6, 2002 Hill of Beans Christopher Caldwell Panhandlers Florida Democratic Party Chairman Bob Poe is up in arms that his Republican counterparts have already gone on the air with attack ads in the state governor's race. He has called on the GOP to stop making them, and on local television stations to stop running them. What makes Poe ...

Document Size:	8168
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jul 31 13:08:15 PDT 2002

29104 Dems tap queer-basher for radio address -- rank: 1000

Windy City Times - July 24, 2002 Democrats Tap Illinois Homophobe as Spokesman By Bob Roehr Congressman David Phelps is one of only 13 cosponsors of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, and one of only three Democrats. But he did more than simply put his signature on the document, he actually held a series of news conferences around his downstate Illinois district touting his support, "to send a positive message to our children about marriage and family." Chicago Democratic ...

Document Size:	12241
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jul 31 10:35:40 PDT 2002

29105 House of Mirrors -- rank: 1000

joanna bujes wrote: >Global: House of Mirrors > >Stephen Roach (New York) > >Lest I be accused of piling on, read no further if you're looking for >the next WorldCom. I don't have a clue. But I do know that Corporate >America is not alone in cooking its books. Washington statisticians seem >poised to join the restatement sweepstakes with a stunning rewrite of >the recent performance of the US economy. So much for the boom! > >Each July, when many of us head to th ...

Document Size:	10960
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jul 31 08:27:50 PDT 2002

29106 Intellectuals vs. activism (Re: Halle weighs in -- rank: 1000

Oh yes, Radical Society should be available in bookstores that trade in that sort of thing, as well as at <http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/14760851.html>. Doug

Document Size:	4780
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jul 30 14:08:18 PDT 2002

29107 Intellectuals vs. activism (Re: Halle weighs in -- rank: 1000

Nathan Newman wrote: >I'll be interested in seeing the piece, but where are the intellectuals >embedded in the movement? Why aren't they there asking those questions in an >organic way and promoting a discussion on such matters in a manner that >addresses the needs of those activists? As you'll see in the piece, we've all tried that, and gotten shot down. One incident in my personal experience. I was on a panel with an activist lawyer who was touting the importance of encouraging sma ...

Document Size:	5588
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jul 30 11:48:50 PDT 2002

29108 Why India needs transgenic crops -- rank: 1000

Michael Perelman wrote: >Most countries >do not have the land base to allow them to produce the way the US does. >Resource endowments are important. So you're arguing in favor of trade based on comparative advantage? Or should regions with the advantage choose to forego it out of solidarity with the less endowed? >Small island countries, Hong Kong and Singapore, can prosper with >virtually no ag., but the LDCs as a whole cannot. > >Also, when you talk about industrialized ag ...

Document Size:	5485
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jul 30 11:29:07 PDT 2002

29109 Question for the list -- rank: 1000

Marco Anglesio wrote: >Besides, steak, oysters, and red wine sounds like a fine breakfast to me. >Where do I sign up? In the U.S., anyone consuming alcohol before noon is regarded as a drunk, and before sundown as someone flirting with a serious medical/characterological problem. I was stunned to see the Muncheners drinking beer at breakfast. Doug

Document Size:	4741
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jul 30 11:06:07 PDT 2002

29110 Why India needs transgenic crops -- rank: 1000

Michael Perelman wrote: >The problem is that cheap, subsidized grain hurts ag. production in the >poor countries, driving more people to the cities, causing problems. So what's the takeway, as the nonprofit types say? That the U.S. should garage the farm equipment, empty the cities, and send us all back to the land, or that it's an urgent priority that poor countries mechanize their agriculture? Or is there some third option I'm missing? Doug

Document Size:	4956
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jul 30 10:56:26 PDT 2002

29111 pacifica wars... -- rank: 1000

Brad DeLong wrote: >Presumably she was threatening to take her program and her audience >someplace else. Where? Good question. Since the negotiations were done secretly by the two top officials of Pacifica without consulting even the rest of the board, no one knows. But I'm reminded of Alexander Cockburn's reaction to (false) rumors that Murdoch was going to sell the NY Post - impossible, it would be like Dracula selling his coffin. Doug

Document Size:	4786
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jul 30 09:47:10 PDT 2002

29112 beauty -- rank: 1000

Apropos the physical appearance issue, this classic is always worth a look: <http://papers.nber.org/papers/W4518> >Beauty and the Labor Market > >Daniel S. Hamermesh, Jeff E. Biddle > >NBER Working Paper No.w4518* >Issued in November 1993 > >---- Abstract ----- > >We develop a theory of sorting across occupations based on looks and >derive its implications for testing for the source of earnings >differentials related to looks. These differentials are exa ...

Document Size:	6153
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jul 30 08:44:41 PDT 2002

29113 Why India needs transgenic crops -- rank: 1000

Michael Perelman wrote: >I was merely pointing out the ag. trade deficit. The US excels in >producing large amounts of grain per capita because grain production is >easiest to mechanize. And wouldn't that be good for the starving masses in poor countries? What's wrong with mechanizing agriculture to feed hundreds of millions of people? I can't shake the suspicion that you have some aesthetic objection. Doug

Document Size:	4932
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jul 30 08:41:31 PDT 2002

29114 Halle weighs in -- rank: 1000

Nathan Newman wrote: >Yes, a left perspective has to critique the narrowing of political choices >created by hegemonic racist capitalism, but a lot of activists just look at >the theorists and say, tell me something I didn't know (and use fewer >three-dollar words). And a lot of theorists look at activists and say - what are they doing? Why? What are their goals? How does this little struggle fit into a larger whole? And in my experience, many activists don't even think about the que ...

Document Size:	5176
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jul 30 08:38:07 PDT 2002

29115 Kagarlitsky on US crash -- rank: 1000

One rather worrisome side-effect of all the corporate scandals is that people are concluding that profits are all an accounting artifact. They're not. A few companies have committed massive fraud, and most massage their numbers - but big capital is still very profitable, and it's not all a scam. Well it is in the sense that capitalism is organized crime, as the t-shirt says, but within the context of the system, surplus value is still extracted in huge quantities. Doug

Document Size:	4843
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jul 30 08:12:17 PDT 2002