UNDERNEWS

UNDERNEWS
NOV 16, 2005
FROM THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
EDITED BY SAM SMITH
Since 1964, Washington's most unofficial source

E-MAIL: mailto:news@prorev.com

1312 18th St. NW #502 Washington DC 20036
202-835-0770
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WORD
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A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion,
butcher a hog, con a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance
accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give
orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem,
pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently,
die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. - Robert A. Heinlein

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POCKET PARADIGMS
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SAM SMITH - Former President Clinton has joined Senator John Edwards in
saying that the United States made a big mistake in invading Iraq. Which
is nice, except what the Democrats really needs are not more revisionist
historians but more politicians who are right the first time.

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PAGE ONE MUST
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FEMA HEADS FOR ANOTHER KATRINA DISASTER

BBC - Many US families forced to leave their homes by devastating storms
have been told that funding for accommodation in hotels will be cut by 1
December. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, in charge of the
relief effort, has paid evacuees some $274m since hurricanes Katrina and
Rita. Almost 54,000 families are still living in hotels and motels in
Texas, Louisiana, Georgia and Mississippi. . . The decision will be most
keenly felt in Texas and Georgia, where almost 28,000 hotel rooms are
occupied by families. Texas Governor Rick Parry stressed that evacuees
must take personal responsibility for their welfare and housing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4442702.stm

SPENCER S. HSU WASHINGTON POST - Families in 12,338 hotel rooms in
Louisiana and Mississippi -- nearly one-fourth of the 53,894 total
subsidized by FEMA -- may get a reprieve. Because of those states'
devastated housing stocks, officials may seek extensions of hotel aid
two weeks at a time until Jan. 7, at the discretion of the top FEMA
official in each state, officials said. The deadline will fall hardest
in Texas, where 19,734 hotel rooms are occupied by Katrina evacuees, and
Georgia, where they are housed in about 8,900 rooms. . .

Housing advocates criticized the announcement, saying that FEMA failed
to spell out long-term housing plans, ignored existing federal housing
programs and will push some poor evacuees into shelters for the homeless
because of lack of planning. "Unless they have some serious plan for
helping move people from hotels into apartments, other than putting up
fliers . . . as of December 1, there's going to be a lot of homeless
people," said Sheila Crowley, president of the National Low Income
Housing Coalition. . .

"It's a hell of a time to be telling people that they're kicked out, a
week after the [Thanksgiving] holiday," said Doug Culkin, executive vice
president of the National Apartment Association.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111501704.html


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POLITICS
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MORNING LINE

The percent of Americans who think invading Iraq was a mistake stands at
54% according to the CNN - USA Today poll. This is the same percentage
as thought the Vietnam War was a mistake in the fall of 1968. It wasn't
until 1971 that 60% opposed the war, two yeas before we gave up on it.

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PLAME AFFAIR

WASHINGTON POST - In a more than two-hour deposition, Woodward told
Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald that the official casually told
him in mid-June 2003 that Plame worked as a CIA analyst [sic] on weapons
of mass destruction, and that he did not believe the information to be
classified or sensitive, according to a statement Woodward released
yesterday.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111501857.html


PATRICK FITZGERALD - I am not speaking to whether or not Valerie Wilson
was covert. And anything I say is not intended to say anything beyond
this: that she was a CIA officer from January 1st, 2002, forward. I will
confirm that her association with the CIA was classified at that time
through July 2003. And all I'll say is that, look, we have not made any
allegation that Mr. Libby knowingly, intentionally outed a covert agent.
We have not charged that. And so I'm not making that assertion

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CORPORADOS
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FROM THE PEOPLE WHO LECTURE YOU ABOUT DOWNLOADING
SONY CDs INFECT HALF A MILLION COMPUTER NETWORKS

WIRED - More than half a million networks, including military and
government sites, were likely infected by copy-restriction software
distributed by Sony on a handful of its CDs, according to a statistical
analysis of domain servers conducted by a well-respected security
researcher and confirmed by independent experts Tuesday. Sony BMG has
been on the run for almost two weeks with the public relations debacle
of its XCP copy-restriction software, which has installed an
exploit-vulnerable root kit with at least 20 popular music titles on PCs
all over the world.

While the company has committed to withdrawing the CDs from production,
and is said to be pulling them from the shelves, the biggest problem
remaining for the company, and perhaps the internet as well, is how many
Sony-compromised machines are still out there. That's a number only Sony
knows for sure -- and isn't releasing

http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,69573,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3

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MPAA LINKS DVD TRAFFICKING TO DRUGS; IGNORES AL QUEDA CONNECTION FOR NOW

NEWS RELEASE - MPAA investigations teams routinely uncover evidence
demonstrating that many of the gangs and syndicates involved in hard
goods piracy are also heavily involved in other forms of illegal
activity such as drug dealing. In September, Los Angeles police arrested
Jose Maria Trujillo for possession of six bundles of powder cocaine, an
ounce of marijuana, and selling illegal DVDs after a search of his car
uncovered more than 2,000 pirated DVDs. During the same month, Federal
and local authorities in New York arrested approximately 21 members of
the violent Chinatown street gang "Yi Ging" who were involved in DVD and
CD piracy as well as narcotics trafficking, loan sharking and other
crimes.

In a 2003 testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee
on International Relations, Interpol Secretary General Ron Noble stated
that the global trade in narcotics is estimated at $322 billion, while
the global trade in counterfeit goods is estimated at $512 billion.
"Intellectual Property crime is a lucrative criminal activity with the
possibility of high financial returns. It is also relatively low risk as
prison sentences tend to be light when compared to other criminal
activity such as drug trafficking," Secretary General Noble said in his
testimony.

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BEHIND THE BUSHES
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DOCUMENT SHOWS OIL COMPANIES, DESPITE DENIAL, MET WITH CHENEY'S ENERGY
TASK FORCE

DANA MILBANK AND JUSTIN BLUM WASHINGTON POST - A White House document
shows that executives from big oil companies met with Vice President
Cheney's energy task force in 2001 -- something long suspected by
environmentalists but denied as recently as last week by industry
officials testifying before Congress. The document, obtained this week
by The Washington Post, shows that officials from Exxon Mobil Corp.,
Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil Co. and BP America
Inc. met in the White House complex with the Cheney aides who were
developing a national energy policy, parts of which became law and parts
of which are still being debated.

In a joint hearing last week of the Senate Energy and Commerce
committees, the chief executives of Exxon Mobil Corp, Chevron Corp. and
Conoco Phillips said their firms did not participate in the 2001 task
force. The president of Shell Oil said his company did not participate
"to my knowledge," and the chief of BP America Inc. said he did not
know.

Chevron was not named in the White House document, but the Government
Accountability Office has found that Chevron was one of several
companies that "gave detailed energy policy recommendations" to the task
force. In addition, Cheney had a separate meeting with John Browne, BP's
chief executive, according to a person familiar with the task force's
work; that meeting is not noted in the document.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111501842.html


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BUSH BROADCASTING AGENT BROKE LAW REPEATEDLY SAY INVESTIGATORS

STEPHEN LABATON, NY TIMES - Investigators at the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting said on Tuesday that they had uncovered evidence that its
former chairman had repeatedly broken federal law and the organization's
own regulations in a campaign to combat what he saw as liberal bias. A
report concluded that Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, shown here testifying on
funding for public broadcasting in July, repeatedly broke federal law in
a campaign to combat what he saw as liberal bias. A report by the
corporation's inspector general, sent to Congress on Tuesday, described
a dysfunctional organization that appeared to have violated the Public
Broadcasting Act, which created the corporation and was written to
insulate programming decisions from politics.

The former chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, who was ousted from the board
two weeks ago when it was presented with the details of the report in a
closed session, has said he sought to enforce a provision of the
broadcasting act meant to ensure objectivity and balance in programming.
But in the process, the report said, Mr. Tomlinson repeatedly crossed
statutory boundaries that had set up the corporation as a "heat shield"
to protect public radio and television from political interference.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/16/politics/16broadcast.html?oref=login

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MONEY
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MORAL: DON'T COUNT YOUR HOUSING BUBBLE 'TIL IT BURSTS

SUE KIRCHHOFF, USA TODAY - Existing home sales set another record in the
third quarter of 2005, and prices jumped nearly 15%, but even the
National Association of Realtors in its report Tuesday said the housing
market will probably begin cooling after its five-year boom. Sales of
single-family homes and condos rose to a 7.24-million annual pace in the
July-September quarter, up 6.5% from a year earlier. At the same time,
69 of the 147 metropolitan areas studied had double-digit price gains,
as the median price of a single-family home climbed 14.7%,
year-over-year, to $215,900.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2005-11-15-q3-home-prices_x.htm?csp=34


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WORDS
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SAMUEL ALITO explained his anti-abortion writings in 1985, according to
Senator Feinstein, "It was different then. I was an advocate seeking a
job. It was a political job." Sounds pretty much the same to us.

President Bush is on his Asian tour now. He'll visit Japan, China, South
Korea, Mongolia. Once again, he's skipping Vietnam. - David Letterman

While the Democrats are focusing on how we were misled to war, Bush is
focusing on how to mislead us out of it. ... If we were wrong about why
we went in, we have to be wrong about why we're leaving. Otherwise ...
it sends our enemies the message that America lacks the will to remain
incorrect. - Daily Show correspondent Rob Corddry

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/bldailyfeed3.htm

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FURTHERMORE. . .
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DC LABOR - Amtrak workers without a contract after six years are
threatening to strike. Members of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way
Employees (Teamsters) build and maintain railroad track, buildings and
bridges for Amtrak. Amtrak has been insisting on reducing health care
for disabled union members, wage increases that don't keep up with
inflation and work changes the union says "will brutalize our working
conditions."

http://www.dclabor.org

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RECENT DOCUMENTS leaked to Raw Story reveal that as of Nov. 8, coalition
forces in Iraq held 13,514 in Iraqi prisons. The documents also reveal
the grim landscape of Iraq's internment system, in which just two
percent of those detained been convicted. A UN report has confirmed the
basic figures.

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MOVING RIGHT, STATE BY STATE
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/13
MNGHFFNMAC1.DTL&hw=UC+Berkeley&sn=001&sc=1000