"Coon songs," "rube sketches," "Irish character songs," and other dialect recordings that were popular vaudeville routines and genres of songs during the late 19th and early 20th century often contain negative stereotypes and portrayals of blacks and other ethnic groups. These recordings reflect the attitudes, perspectives, and beliefs of different times. Many individuals will find the content offensive. Some of these songs and recitations were written or performed by members of the ethnic group in question, while others were not, such as the tradition of blackface minstrelsy of whites performing caricatured portrayals of blacks. To exclude these cylinders from the digital collection would deprive scholars and the public the opportunity to learn about the past and would present a distorted picture of popular culture and music making during this time period. The mission of the UCSB Libraries is to make its resources available to the faculty, staff, and students of the University community and to the general public. The UCSB Libraries presents these documents as part of the record of the past and does not endorse the views expressed in these collections.

At the May 3 start of the Orange County trial of three teenage boys accused of gang-raping an unconscious minor, a defense attorney made a startling assertion: the alleged victim enticed the "sweet," "caring," "kind" defendants into a sexual frenzy and then, while faking unconsciousness, sexually assaulted them. At one point, the attorney, an incredulous Joseph G. Cavallo, blurted out to the jury, "Why isn’t she being charged with this crime?"

"She knew how to use her body. She knew how to use sex," said Cavallo, one of at least nine defense lawyers (not including the publicist, a jury consultant and an army of private investigators) representing Gregory Scott Haidl, 18; Kyle Joseph Nachreiner, 19; and Keith James Spann, 19. They’ve pleaded not guilty to 24 felony counts for the July 2002 Newport Beach incident. Referring to a video they made of the incident, Cavallo said, "The boys had every reason to believe she consented: she orchestrated it."

It was just one of the defense’s many remarkable claims after apparently horrified jurors inspected prosecution-supplied photographs of the late night gang bang. The images (which I’ll describe momentarily) are so disturbing that the defense team wasted no time calling the filmed episode repugnant, but blamed it solely on the 16-year-old girl known in court only as Jane Doe.

"The things she wanted done were done," said John Barnett, counsel for Nachreiner. "It’s disgusting and it’s awful. Who would consent to this? Jane Doe. Nobody is going to argue this isn’t morally outrageous. It is, but it was a choice. . . . This is exactly what she wanted. They believed her when she says she wanted to be a porn star."

Peter Morreale, who represents Spann, claimed that Doe rarely wore panties and flirted, and that his client "was [then] 17 years old and tripping over himself" to have "consensual sex" with her. On the night of the alleged crime, Doe first rejected their invitation to come to their party.

"They were bummed that they’re not going to get any!" said Morreale. Later, Doe changed her mind and drove to Newport Beach. When she called to say she’d arrive soon the boys "high-fived" each other. He claims the girl promised Nachreiner that she wanted a gang bang. "I’m not advocating this girl wanted to be the next Marilyn Chambers or a deep-throat expert, but that was her mentality," said Morreale.

In just his opening statement, a pacing, finger-pointing Cavallo told the jury that the girl—next to the tape itself, the prosecution’s star witness--is "a nut," "a pathological liar," "a cheater," an "out-of-control girl," "the aggressor," a wanna-be "porn star," "a troubled young lady," "a tease--that’s what she is!" "a mess," a "master manipulator," a "little opportunist," "a compulsive liar," "a cheat--that’s what she is" and a "callous" drug addict and alcoholic who trimmed her pubic hair, bragged about liking group sex and once drank a beer in a car.

"Why was her vagina and anus completely shaved?" Cavallo asked jurors. "How many teenagers have a shaved vagina and anus? I don’t know, but I can think of a reason. Sex! She’s a sexual person!"

During preliminary hearings, Cavallo called Doe a "slut"; on this day, he stayed away from the word. However, he told the jury several times that everyone, including the girl’s parents, "knows what she is." Talk outside the courtroom was less coy. In the hallway just outside, a defense consultant openly and repeatedly called Jane Doe "a fucking whore."

Haidl had provided a soundtrack to the sex recorded by his Sony Hand-Held camcorder. It was bass-heavy hip-hop, with lyrics such as, "We like pussy. We like pussy. We like pussy . . . Fuck an asshole too . . . We just want to have sex!"

The girl is heard only at the beginning of the tape, after the boys had given her a Bud Lite, a couple of hits of marijuana and a mixed drink they claim was Bombay Gin and 7-Up. Police suspect the drink, made by Nachreiner, was laced with GHB, a fast-acting synthetic drug occasionally used by date rapists. The illegal substance can knock out unsuspecting victims for hours.

Hess had said the opening shot features Haidl on the garage sofa with Jane Doe, who is holding a beer. Haidl tries to lift her shirt.

"You’re trying to take my clothes off, huh, Greg?" she says, slurring her words. "I’m so fucked up."

The three defendants smile into the camera. One of the boys says, "Slick-ass me!" Later, someone yells, "Nigger!"

The next scene shows a naked Doe on her knees in front of the couch. At first, it looks like she is orally copulating Nachreiner and is moving. But soon the viewer learns that a well-endowed Spann has entered the unconscious Doe doggy-style and Nachreiner is holding her head up, forcing her mouth up and down on his penis. Moans are heard. The boys mug happily for the camera.

Hess had earlier told the jury what comes next: "Haidl slaps Jane Doe hard on the buttock to which she doesn’t respond." Nachreiner can be seen looking at the girl’s unresponsive face, and says, "All right, she look pretty much good!"

The sex continues on the couch. The force of Spann’s intercourse constantly moves her body. Nachreiner, still seeking oral pleasure, complains, "You’re making her eat my fucking dick with her mouth. Come on!" He then lifts and holds Doe so that her body is on top of his. He enters her vagina. Spann tries to stick his penis in the girl's mouth, but her head swivels uncontrollably and he can't fit it in. Hess said Doe's body was "flopping like a rag doll." The defendants whisper and then point. "Pool table! Pool table!" they yell.

Moving the girl toward the pool table, they drop Doe on her face. According to prosecutors, she doesn’t flinch.

Once on the pool table, Doe is again visibly unconscious. Her legs are spread, and Haidl zooms in for a close-up of Doe’s genitals. He sticks his finger in and out of her vagina; she has no reaction. Wearing a red cap backwards, Spann mugs for the camera. Doe’s face is shown, her eyes shut. She is motionless. Haidl returns for more shots of Doe’s vagina. One of the defendants says, "Let me take your spot" and someone replies, "No. No. Fuck that! Fuck that!"

Hess said Spann next rapes Doe again. Haidl focuses the camera on Spann's penis entering Doe. From the public seating section, we can hear the sound of intercourse on something like a squeaky bed. "Oh, hell yeah! Oh, that feels great. That’s fantastic! That feels so good. That’s some fantastic shit. Oh yeah!" a boy says. Haidl takes shots of the girl’s expressionless face from multiple angles. The boys laugh. Spann eventually pulls his penis out, masturbates until he ejaculates on Doe's stomach, grabs her bra, uses it to wipe off his penis and then tosses it on the floor. Shaking his hand sideways—like a baseball umpire--Spann apparently signals to his buddies that Doe is still out.

But the video goes on.

Your honor, I would like to describe my life before and after July Fourth. Before July Fourth I was a normal 16-year-old teenager. I was outgoing, cheerful, loving, compassionate and trusting. I had many friends and enjoyed spending my time with them. I was very athletic and I was on the volleyball, track and cross country teams at my high school. I was a straight a student. I was always grateful for my friends and family.

I had an extremely close relationship with my parents. My home life was great, and I felt comfortable and confident with the woman I was growing into. I had goals and dreams. I was determined to get a scholarship and go to NYU, New York University. I had dreamed of going there since I was a little girl. I wasn’t going to let anything get in my way. Very abruptly this all changed.

On July Fourth, the woman I was blossoming into and the dreams I was determined to succeed were all taken from me. I was ripped of my adolescence, womanhood, hopes, goals, dreams, and my life. All that I was and the woman I was becoming was savagely thrown away by three men. Three men brutally assaulted me not only with their bodies, but with foreign objects also. All the while I was unconscious and never even given a chance to fight back. Cowardly, they had to make sure I was knocked out cold before they sexually assaulted me, because they knew I would have said no if I was conscious.

I will relive forever in my head the morning that my father got a call from the Newport Police Department telling him they had a videotape of his daughter being gang-raped. I remember waking up to my parents standing over me, the look of horror and disgust in their eyes. My father asked me what happened on July Fourth and I told him, "I don’t know," because I couldn’t remember what happened to me.

That is when he grabbed me and he held me in his arms and tears rolled down his cheeks. He proceeded to tell me a videotape was given to the police that unveiled myself being brutally gang-raped by three men, the three men that I gave all my trust to and thought were my friends.

As the words slowly rolled out of his mouth, I began to shake violently. Before I could make it to the bathroom I collapsed on the floor, started vomiting. I was going into shock. My parents had to help me calm me down. After awhile I was able to stand up, but I couldn’t feel anything. I was numb to any thoughts and feelings. And unknown to me, I was going to stay numb for many years to come.

But at that moment, I didn’t want to believe what I had been told. This could not be possible, the detectives had to be mistaken. I was convinced my so-called friends were not capable of such a crime. But as I was rushed to the hospital to be examined by forensics, I was hit with the realization that I was no longer dreaming, this was real. My entire existence had been taken from me and thrown out by the choices and hands of three men I had given my friendship and trust to.

Since that day my life has and never will be the same.

The first few months directly following the assault I was in a severe state of depression. I would stay in bed most days and never leave my room. Sleep was difficult to get because it was always interrupted by nightmares of the events that had happened.

These three men haunted my dreams and still do. I wake up many times in a cold sweat, crying and screaming. When I gave up on trying to get a decent sleep, I would sit facing my bedroom wall, covered with pictures of my previous life. The pictures of the people I had called friends for so many years would begin to blur. The tears would stream down my cheeks as if I would never cry again. My eyes were always puffy. My nose was always sore.

I would ask God when was this pain going to stop, or if it every would. I sadly started to lose my faith in God, wondering why such a horrific and life-numbing event could happen to anyone. I spent many months in a daze. I felt like a thousand knives were stabbing me. These knives were not only stabbing my heart, but they were penetrating my soul. The woman I was had been lost forever. The people I had called friends left me alone and abandoned. Reality hit me when I realized my life and dreams had been destroyed and my so-called new life and dreams would have to be put on hold until they could be determined.

That is why we are here today, your honor. I haven’t been able to truly live since these men sexually assaulted me. I wouldn’t be able to until I feel safe and secure that they are behind bars for numerous years. When you make a decision on the amount of time you’re going to sentence these men to, I would like to tell you a little bit the about the harassment, intimidation and torture these men have done to me these last three years. I guess assaulting me and videotaping it wasn’t enough for them. They had to continue to make my life and my family’s life a living hell since. I feel that instead of showing remorse for their crimes, they have continued to assault me since every day since July Fourth.

The harassment and torture started immediately after the assault became known to the public. It started with private investigators sitting in front of our house day in and day out, watching our every move. Our family’s privacy was completely eliminated. The private investigators got worse when they began watching my parents at their places of work. One day I was driving home and a private investigator began following me. I panicked. I did not know what to do. I called my mom on her cell phone for help. All she could do was tell me to drive to the police station and try to calm down. In the parking of the police station the private investigator cornered me and began taking pictures of me.

I was still on the phone, hysterically crying for my mother’s help. I will never forget the terror and helplessness I heard in her voice. It tore me to pieces. These men have ruined me and my life, but now they are also ruining the lives of people that I loved the most. I had to stop driving alone because I was always being followed. I had to live a life in which I had to have permission to move, and my every move had to be observed for my safety. I didn’t understand – "Why were they still torturing me? Wasn’t that one night enough for them?" I guess not, because the harassment and intimidation continued.

The next big event was when fliers were placed in all the mailboxes, local stores of my neighborhood. They asked for anyone with information on the Newport Beach assault that occurred on or about July Fourth to call a number. That flier said my last name. My family never sent out the fliers like they portrayed. It was the families of these three men. Now my entire neighborhood knew I was Jane Doe, the 16-year-old girl that was gang-raped.

All I wanted was to stay anonymous, but to no surprise, they didn’t allow that to happen either. It was around this time that I lost all my friends. They all ran from me because they didn’t know how to act. I was treated by others like the one with an incurable disease, although I was the victim. I was lonely and I had no one left. I was even witnessing my family slowly collapse and my parents’ marriage of many, many years began to fall apart. Why was I being treated like the perpetrator of the crime? Didn’t people realize I was the victim?

I spent the summer before my junior year in high school locked away from the world, trying to give a reason why such a thing had happened to me, or anyone else for that matter. The things these men did to me and were continuing to do to me were so cruel and inhumane. I never would have wished this even on my worst enemy. I was in counseling multiple times a week, but the pain only increased. I experienced emotions and feelings I never knew existed. I felt angry, hurt, betrayed, lost, abandoned, worthless, and most of all, dirty. The people that used to be there for me had hidden themselves because they were unsure how to react to my cruel experience and all the intimidation. I spent all my days at home crying and severely depressed.

After everyone in my neighborhood found out my identity, my family and I thought it was best for me to transfer to a new high school and start off fresh where no one knew who I was. I was in such fear of the new kids in my new school finding out who I was. I registered at my new high school under a different name. These men had not only taken my life, but now they had taken my identity and who I was. The first few weeks of my junior year went as planned. No one knew about my past, but that quickly changed when people hired by these men came to my school and stood in the parking lot screaming out my real name as I was walking with my friends. I was stopped by a man who served me papers right in front of my new friends. Then he proceeded to tell them who I was. I wanted to curl up and die. So much for no one knowing.

In less than a week the students, staff and teachers all knew my history and real identity. I wasn’t safe anywhere, and I had nowhere else to run, so for my last two years of high school I felt like an outcast. Now they took away two more of my happiness. I kept wondering if this would ever stop. To know surprise, it didn’t. These three men continued to destroy every day my life with no guilt or shame. They slandered my name and image all over the press and media. The abuse continued up to the first trial, where I was also abused on the stand when I testified. I’m not sure how I stayed strong enough to get through that. Maybe it’s because I would do whatever it takes to see these men pay for their crimes.

There were many days I questioned if I should testify because I was so scared of what they would do. They seemed to be going to any lengths to intimidate me and I didn’t know where or if they would ever draw the line at some point. But I testified and continued to watch my family and I be abused.

The worst day of my life was when I heard the verdict of the first jury. I was in my room waiting for the verdict. I remember my mom walking into my room. She sat next to me on the bed and hugged me, looked me in the eye and said it was a hung jury. I felt my stomach drop and my heart being ripped out of my chest. There was no way this could be true. My mom had to be mistaken. When she started to cry I knew she wasn’t. I was in such shock I didn’t know what to feel. I became hysterical and started screaming.

All my anger I had towards these men and the verdict came out. I thought I was going crazy. Why didn’t anyone believe me? Couldn’t they see I was like a rag doll? I was so unconscious. I’m the victim here. All I could ask was, "Why?" I just wanted to die. If I was dead, everyone’s lives would be better. Maybe things would be normal if I was gone. The thought of suicide began to cross my mind numerous times a day, but I was stronger than that. I was not going to let these men win. They had already taken everything from me. I wasn’t going to let them take my very last breath also. So once again I told the district attorney I would testify in the second trial. I was numb to the abuse by now because it became so prevalent.

Before the second trial I was asked if I wanted to see the videotape of the assault. I was terrified. What if I watched it and it literally put me into a mental institution? I spent many weeks deciding. I knew that if I saw the video I would be able to express my feelings better to the jury while testifying, but I also knew how real it would make the assault to me.

In my heart I knew I had to see it with my own eyes, to be able to know exactly what these three men did to me, so I chose to watch it. I remember my mouth started burning while I was watching the video because it was so dry from hanging open in disbelief. I cannot and don’t think I will ever be able to describe what I felt while watching that video. I remember asking myself, "When did I become a piece of meat and not a human being to these men? How could any sane human do these things they did?" They did things not even savage animals would do. They violated me in every way possible.

As I watched that video, I remember feeling two distinct feelings. I remember becoming furious at the animals that were attacking me because no human could do such a thing. And I remember feeling my soul and inner being completely deteriorating. I was empty. They had now taken every last bit of who I was and no longer felt human. I was like a lifeless and feelingless doll that these men thought they could use and abuse in any way they wished.

A part of me died that day, a part that I don’t know if I’ll ever get back. The part that was lost as I watched three men I called my friends and trusted completely, abuse, assault and torture me. All the while they laughed and rooted each other on and smiled like it was the best day of their life. I can still hear their disgusting comments and evil laughs in my head. It makes my insides turn and my head ache. It reminds me that those three men are not me. They are sexual predators that deserve numerous years behind bars. I will never forget how I felt when I heard the verdict being read and these men were found guilty for their crimes. It was a relief like I’ve never felt. I bursted into tears of joy. Justice was finally being served, and today is where my justice is finished. These men will never be punished to the extent that I feel they deserve, but multiple years behind bars is settling enough for me.

I would like to remind you, your honor, before you sentence these men, that they are not men. Only inhuman beings can do what they did to another person. They are inhumane beings that are a threat to society and should not get the privilege of living in society with normal human beings. These men took my adolescence. They took away what was supposed to be the best years of my life. They took away my adolescent years and forced me to become an adult before it was time. They caused me to spend my time in and out of meetings with detectives, attorneys and district attorneys when I should have been out with my friends. They violated my body in every way possible and forced it to continue to be violated by doctors to try and correct the damage these men have created on me. I will spend the rest of my life in counseling, hoping someday I can deal with what they did to me.

For the rest of my life I will have restless nights filled with nightmares caused by them. For now I have very little self-esteem and I trust no one because these men took those things from me. I also feel unlovable due to the abuse I endured. I pray one day I will get these securities back, but I know that will only be after many more years of counseling.

These men also took my family’s lives, which slowly can be repaired. These men stole a part of me. They took a part of me I will never get back. I’ve come to the realization that part of my soul will be lost forever. But what hurts the most is throughout all this pain, suffering and abuse these men have put me through, they have shown absolutely no remorse. It just makes it clear to me they deserve many years in prison. I will never be who I was before July Fourth because these men unconsensually took that woman from me. I will be affected by their actions for the rest of my life. But I can live with that if I feel justice is served. With any luck, many years behind bars will give them plenty of time to think about what they did and maybe begin to feel some kind of remorse for their crimes.

Thank you, your honor.

A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.

An attempt to resume state spending on birth control was shot down yesterday by House members who argued it would have amounted to an endorsement of promiscuous lifestyles.

Missouri stopped providing money for family planning and certain women’s health services when Republicans gained control of both chambers of the General Assembly in 2003.

But a Democratic lawmaker, in a little-noticed committee amendment, had successfully inserted language into the proposed budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 that would have allowed part of the $9.2 million intended for "core public health functions" to go to contraception provided through public health clinics.

The House voted 96-59 to delete the funding for contraception and infertility treatments after Rep. Susan Phillips told lawmakers that anti-abortion groups such as Missouri Right to Life were opposed to the spending.

"If you hand out contraception to single women, we’re saying promiscuity is OK as a state, and I am not in support of that," Phillips, R-Kansas City, said in an interview.

Far more women suffer from insomnia, and far more women — even young ones — pop sleeping pills than men. As Ariel Levy wrote in New York magazine, pills are now seen as "brain styling," not mind-altering, because "the line between medication and recreation has become blurred."

One girlfriend of mine wanted to call her Upper East Side doctor yesterday and switch to Lunesta. "I have visions of myself in my Subaru crossing the George Washington Bridge at 3 in the morning covered in Cheetos dust," she said. But then she realized they'd probably find out something equally weird about Lunesta next week — that it causes you to run off with a Starbucks barista and go to male strip clubs in your sleep.

The scary news of zombie hordes of Ambien sleep-eaters follows fast upon the scary news of zombie hordes of Ambien sleep-drivers and zombie hordes of Ambien sleep-sirens.

The U.S. Congress approved a $781 billion increase in the federal government's debt limit, the fourth time lawmakers have raised the cap since President George W. Bush took office.

The Senate voted 52-48 to increase the legal limit on federal borrowing to $8.97 trillion, up from $8.18 trillion. The House approved the measure last year, meaning the legislation now goes to the president for his signature.

The increase was approved about 30 minutes after the Treasury postponed the scheduled announcement of the sale of three-month and six-month Treasury bills. Treasury Secretary John Snow warned Congress in increasingly dire terms that the government couldn't continue to pay its bills, and risked defaulting on its obligations, without an immediate increase in the debt ceiling.

After the vote, Snow said lawmakers had protected ``the full faith and credit of the United States'' and ensured the government ``can deliver on promises already made, such as Social Security and Medicare payments and aid for the victims of the 2005 hurricanes.''

The government will spend $217 billion on interest on the debt this year, according to the Congressional Budget Office. By contrast, federal spending for the Department of Education is $83 billion.

Human-fueled global warming has reached a "tipping point," according to a new survey of scientific research that found warming would continue even if greenhouse gas emissions halted immediately.

"It would keep on warming even though we have stopped the cause, which is greenhouse gases from the combustion of fossil fuels," David Jhirad of the Washington-based World Resources Institute said on Wednesday.

The rate of warming would be slower, Jhirad said in a telephone interview, but a kind of thermal inertia would ensure that global temperatures continue their upward trend.

He referred to a report released by the nonprofit institute this week that analyzed research reports on climate change for 2005.

"Taken collectively, they suggest that the world may well have moved past a key physical tipping point," the institute wrote.

Jhirad said there were actually two tipping points. The first is that there is no doubt human activities cause global warming; a more physical tipping point is that the effects of global warming are evident now.

The report, based on research published in journals including Science and Nature, also found the effects of climate change were so severe they should spur urgent action to prevent more damage and to combat damage that has already occurred.

"We can't assume this change is so far in the future that we can afford to delay," Jhirad said.

The World Resources Institute, founded in 1982, is a nonpartisan environmental think tank that works with industry and other ecological groups around the world.

CARBON TRADING

New policies should encourage companies to make technological and commercial innovations that will cut air pollution, Jhirad said, adding U.S. companies were also clamoring for political leadership.

Jhirad said he was "underwhelmed" by U.S. political leadership on this issue. In 2001, President George W. Bush pulled the United States out of the Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations' main plan to curb global warming. He denounced Kyoto as an economic straitjacket that would cost U.S. jobs and said it wrongly excluded developing nations.

The Kyoto agreement obliges some 40 industrial nations to cut emissions of heat-trapping gases by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008 to 2012.

Jhirad said the United States should adopt a system of carbon trading, like one in place in much of Europe, where companies that emit few greenhouse gases get credits that can be traded with companies that emit a lot.

"The market has expanded tremendously in terms of the volume of trading and the value of the carbon credits," he said. "That's what we would like to see (in the United States): a market-friendly approach that would set incentives for technological innovation, which is going to be needed."

Also on Wednesday, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Civil Society Institute released a survey that found 83 percent of Americans wanted more leadership from the federal government to reduce the pollution linked to global warming.

The U.S. government is strongly opposing efforts by the United Nations to protect some of the most vulnerable World Heritage Sites from the impacts of global warming. The move comes as a meeting of experts convened by UNESCO begins today in Paris in response to petitions to protect World Heritage Sites threatened by climate change, including Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park (in the U.S. and Canada), on Mount Everest and the Peruvian Andes where glaciers are rapidly melting, and the Belize Reef and Great Barrier Reefs (in Australia) which are being damaged due to climate change.

In a position paper posted on the conference website, the Bush administration argues against any action under the World Heritage Convention and attempts to cast doubt on the science of global warming.

“The administration is wrong on the science, and it’s wrong on the law,” said Chris Wold, Associate Professor of Law and Director of the International Environmental Law Project at the Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, and co-author of the petition to protect Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park. “This position paper repudiates the well-established science of global warming, and contradicts other official U.S. government documents on climate change.”

The apparent author of the position paper is Paul Hoffman, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior, a Bush political appointee who gained national notoriety last year for his proposed re-write of National Park Service rules, which, according to a New York Times editorial, did “everything possible to strip away a scientific basis for park management.” The position paper makes a number of misstatements relating to climate change science, including the following:

Misstatement Number 1: “There is not unanimity regarding the impacts, causes, and how to or if man can affect the changes we are observing.”

This statement contradicts the scientific consensus that has existed for years on the causes of climate change. A 2002 National Academy of Sciences Report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, affirmed the now well-known principle that “[g]reenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and sub-surface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact, rising.” At that time, greenhouse gas concentrations had increased from about 280 parts per million (ppm) at the start of the Industrial Revolution to about 370 ppm, and the Report found that “[h]uman activities are responsible for the increase.” Greenhouse gas concentrations now stand at 380 ppm. The National Academy of Sciences Report summary was incorporated into the U.S. Department of State’s U.S. Climate Action Report, submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat in 2002 as the official position of the U.S. government. The causes and impacts of global warming are not in doubt.

Misstatement Number Two: “[T]here currently is not enough data available to distinguish whether climatic changes at the named World Heritage Sites are the result of human-induced climate change or natural variability.”

As early as 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Assessment Report, confirmed by the National Academy of Sciences, stated that “there is new and stronger evidence that most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.” In the past five years the evidence has continued to mount and is now unassailable. Groundbreaking research by NASA in 2005 confirmed, via precise measurements of ocean temperature, the Earth’s energy imbalance due to greenhouse gas concentrations. Another leading paper demonstrated that the observed warming of the world’s oceans is far beyond what can be explained by any source of natural variability.

“The administration’s attempt to contradict global warming science is analogous to stating ‘the Earth is flat,’” said Kassie Siegel, Climate Program Director for the Center for Biological Diversity. “Climate change threatens natural treasures like Glacier National Park, biodiversity, public health, and our nation’s future prosperity. The administration’s dangerous and irresponsible attempts to block progress must stop.”

After running roughshod over well-established scientific facts, the United States, which was only elected to the 21-member World Heritage Committee in October 2005, attempts to bully other nations into acceding to its do-nothing approach, stating, “There is no compelling argument for the Committee to address the issue of global climate change – especially at the risk of losing the unified spirit and camaraderie that has become synonymous with World Heritage.”

Peter Roderick, co-Director of the Climate Justice Programme which supports the petitions, and an attendee of today’s meeting, said “Opposing the international consensus on climate change is standard practice from the current U.S. government. But I am surprised that they are trying to undermine the previous Committee’s decision quite so soon after becoming a member. The Committee has already recognized the dangers that climate change poses to the best parts of the planet, and it is entirely appropriate for it to investigate the threat and draw up an urgent plan of action.”

WILDMON: What does -- what does [Equality Ride co-director] Jacob Reitan say? He's one of the spokesmen. "We must cut off the suffering at its source. The source is religion-based opposition -- the religion-based oppression -- and it's taken place for centuries." In other words, we must get rid of the Christian faith. Let's go to these Christian schools. What if we had organized a tour and said, "We're going to the bathhouses in -- in 24 cities -- the homosexual bathhouses -- and we're going to confront these people, you know, for what they're doing," etc. -- etc. -- how would the media play that?

JACKSON: And demand that these bathhouses give us a forum to have our say.

WILDMON: Make them and bring 'em out there and give us -- set us up and -- yeah.

JACKSON: Yeah. Well, we know where the media would have its sympathies in that case. Of course, and it wouldn't be done, anyway. But these people, it just reinforces as you say, Don, what you just said. They regard Christianity, they regard biblical teaching, as the source of their problems. And what they're demanding is no less than you Christians stop teaching that homosexuality is a sin.

WILDMON: Stop -- stop -- stop preaching from the Bible.

JACKSON: That's right.

[...]

BENSON: Yeah, I mean, this is -- this is what you call -- what? -- chutzpah. This is -- this is --

WILDMON: That's a Jewish word, right? Be careful.

The title is a bit misleading, because only the middle section of the book, which is divided into thirds, deals with the religious right. The first part, "Oil and American Supremacy," is about America's prospects as oil becomes scarcer and more expensive, and the last third, "Borrowed Prosperity," is about America's unsustainable debt. Phillips' argument is that imperial overstretch, dependence on obsolete energy technologies, intolerant and irrational religious fervor, and crushing debt have led to the fall of previous great powers, and will likely lead to the fall of this one. It reads, in some ways, like a follow-up to "The March of Folly."

"Conservative true believers will scoff: the United States is sue generis, they say, a unique and chosen nation," writes Phillips. "What did or did not happen to Rome, imperial Spain, the Dutch Republic, and Britain is irrelevant. The catch here, alas, is that these nations also thought they were unique and that God was on their side. The revelation that He was apparently not added a further debilitating note to the later stages of each national decline."

[snip]

To tell the story of the impending end of American supremacy, Phillips ranges through history and across subjects, going into detail about seemingly tangential matters like the production of whale oil in 17th century Holland. It can be a slog -- Phillips is sometimes a dry writer who builds his arguments by slapping down numbers and statistics like a bricklayer. (At least he's self-aware -- at one point in his section on religion, he notes, "By this point the reader may feel baptized by statistical and denominational total immersion.") Much of what he writes in individual chapters has been covered elsewhere in numerous books about peak oil, the religious right and economic profligacy.

But Phillips' book is very valuable in the way he brings all the strands together and puts them in context. He has a history of good judgment that affords him the authority to make big-picture claims: In 1993, the New York Times Book Review wrote of him, "through more than 25 years of analysis and predictions, nobody has been as transcendentally right about the outlines of American political change as Kevin Phillips." Other recent books foresee American meltdown; James Howard Kunstler's "The Long Emergency" deals with some of the same gathering threats as "American Theocracy." Kunstler is a far more engaging writer than Phillips, but he's also more prone to doomsday speculation, and he sometimes seems to relish the apocalyptic scenario he conjures. It's Phillips' sobriety and gravitas that gives "American Theocracy" ballast, and that makes it frightening.

[snip]

The first section, "Oil and American Supremacy," covers the history of oil in American politics, both foreign and domestic, and what it means for America when oil starts running out. The subject of peak oil has been extensively covered elsewhere, yet it remains on the fringes of much of the political debate in America, despite its massive implications. Essentially, peak oil is the point at which more than half the earth's available oil has been extracted. "After this stage, getting each barrel out requires more pressure, more expense, or both," writes Phillips. "After a while, despite nominal reserves that may be considerable, more energy is required to find and extract a barrel of oil than the barrel itself contains." Before that point comes, scarcity will drive prices to unheard-of levels. If that happens, the entire American way of life -- the car culture, agribusiness, frequent air travel -- will become untenable.

Experts differ about when we might pass the peak, but as Phillips notes, "even relative optimists see it only two or three decades away." Unfortunately, the United States is uniquely unable to grapple with the mere idea of life after cheap gasoline, because the country's entire sprawling infrastructure was built on the assumption that oil would remain plentiful. Writes Phillips, "[B]ecause the twenty-first-century United States has a pervasive oil and gas culture from its own earlier zenith -- with an intact cultural and psychological infrastructure -- it's no surprise that Americans cling to and defend an ingrained fuel habit …The hardening of old attitudes and reaffirmation of the consumption ethic since those years may signal an inability to turn back."

The end of previous empires, Phillips explains, also corresponded with the obsolescence of their dominant energy source. The Netherlands was the "the wind and water hegemon" from 1590 to the 1720s. In the mid-18th century, Britain, harnessing the newly discovered power of coal, became the leading world power, only to be left behind by oil-fueled America. "The evidence is that leading world economic powers, after an energy golden era, lose their magic -- and not by accident," he writes. "The infrastructures created by these unusual, even quirky, successes eventually became economic obstacle courses and inertia-bound burdens."

"American Theocracy's" middle section deals with religion. Once again, the book's value lies not in any new revelations -- Phillips mostly relies on the work of other reporters and analysts -- but in the context provided. In his sweeping overview, he misses some subtleties. He writes, for example, "Opponents of evolution -- successful so far in parts of the South -- are indeed busy trying to ban the teaching of it and textbooks that support it in many northern conservative or politically divided areas." That's not quite true -- Darwin's foes might dream of the day when he's expunged from the schools, but right now, their focus is on having creationism or "intelligent design" taught alongside evolution, not in place of it.

That's a relatively small point, but it's indicative of the rather cursory treatment Phillips gives to the dynamics of the movement he decries. He's much more interested in what it portends -- a kind of soft theocracy that itself is an indication of an empire in decline. What he's talking about is not a Christian version of Iran, but a country ruled by an evangelical party whose electoral machinery is integrated into a network of fundamentalist churches.

[snip]

Looking at the possible crises facing the country, Phillips writes of the "potential for an incendiary convergence if -- a big if, to be sure -- several of the worry-wart camps prove to be correct … I can't remember anything like this multiplicity of reasonably serious calculations and warnings. It is as if the United States, like the poet Oliver Wendell Holmes's 'One-Hoss Shay,' is about to lose all its wheels at once."

For someone who is profoundly uneasy about America's future right now, there's something perversely comforting about reading this from a figure like Phillips. It suggests that one's enveloping sense of foreboding is based on something more than the psychological stress of living under the Bush kakistocracy. A feeling that the world is falling apart is usually associated with neurosis; now, it's possible that it's a sign of sanity.

But if Phillips is correct, the coming years are going to be ugly for all of us, not just blithe exurbanites with SUVs and floating-rate mortgages. With oil growing scarce and America unable or unwilling to even begin weaning itself away, we could see a future of resource wars that would inflame jihadi terrorism and bankrupt the country, shredding what's left of the social safety net. As Phillips notes, a collapsed economy would leave many debt-ridden Americans as what Democratic leaders have called "modern-day indentured servants," paying back constantly compounding debt with no hope of escape via bankruptcy. The prospect of social breakdown looms. The desperation of New Orleans could end up being a preview.

Desperate economic times are not good for democracy. The Great Depression, which ushered in the New Deal, was an anomaly in this regard. In an Atlantic Monthly article published last summer, the Harvard economist Benjamin Friedman wrote, "American history includes several episodes in which stagnating or declining incomes over an extended period have undermined the nation's tolerance and threatened citizens' freedoms." During the Midwestern farm crisis of the 1980s, when tens of thousands of families lost their land due to a combination of rising interest rates and falling crop prices, the Posse Comitatus, a far-right paramilitary network, made exceptional recruiting inroads. One poll had more than a quarter of Farm Belt respondents blaming "International Jewish bankers" for their region's woes.

The right's ideological infrastructure has only grown stronger since then. Kunstler may not have been exaggerating when he told Salon, "Americans will vote for cornpone Nazis before they will give up their entitlements to a McHouse and a McCar."

Eventually, like Spain, England and the Netherlands, the United States, shorn of imperial fantasy, may evolve into something better than what it is today. But terrible times seem likely to come first -- years of fuel shortages, foreign aggression, millenarian madness and political demagoguery. A Democratic president could stop exacerbating the country's problems and could reconcile with the rest of the world, but it's unclear how much he or she could really turn things around. America's economic and energy foundations are too badly eroded to be restored anytime soon. Besides, redistricting and the overrepresentation of rural states in the Senate mean that the GOP will remain powerful even if a decisive majority of Americans vote against it. Zealous conservatives in Congress and the media will almost certainly mount an assault on any future Democratic president just as they did on Bill Clinton. Governmental deadlock, as opposed to flagrant recklessness and misrule, is probably the best that can be hoped for, at least for the next few years.

Despite the confirmation of a third case of mad cow disease, the government intends to scale back testing for the brain-wasting disorder blamed for the deaths of more than 150 people in Europe.

The Agriculture Department boosted its surveillance after finding the first case of mad cow disease in the United States in 2003. About 1,000 tests are run daily, up from about 55 daily in 2003.

The testing program detected an infected cow in Alabama last week, and further analysis confirmed Monday that the animal had mad cow disease.

Still, a reduction in testing has been in the works for months. The department's chief veterinarian, John Clifford, mentioned it when he announced the new case of mad cow disease.

"As we approach the conclusion of our enhanced surveillance program, let me offer a few thoughts," Clifford said, explaining that the U.S. will follow international standards for testing.

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns pointed out testing is not a food safety measure. Rather, it's a way to find out the prevalence of the disease.

"Keep in mind the testing was for surveillance," Johanns told reporters Monday in Warsaw, Poland, where he was attending trade talks. "It was to get an idea of the condition of the herd."

If the current Congress had been called on to intervene in the case of Mr. Allen, it would probably have tried to legalize shoplifting.

Classic.  George W. Bush, not content with locking up foreigners in Cuba, has sent my 88 year-old grandma to her room.

A brief news item on NPR piqued my interest this morning.  They announced that the President would be visiting a retirement home near Rochester to tout his drug benefit plan.  My grandmother lives in a retirement home near Rochester, so I checked the local papers online and, sure enough, the Commander-In-Chief was headed for my grandmother's community at  Ferris Hills.

I emailed my family to share the bad news, and received this response from my Republican father:

"The residents are rather upset.  Only a chosen few get to see GW and the rest have to stay in their rooms while he's there."

Classic.  George W. Bush, not content with locking up foreigners in Cuba, has sent my 88 year-old grandma to her room.

The point of moving to a facility like Ferris Hills is to be able to get out of your room, get some exercise, interact with your peers, and enjoy the view of Canandaigua Lake.  But today all these residents - the ones who don't pass the loyalty test - are shut-ins.

So this is the state of the nation:  When the president and his security team visits a retirement home, his ego is so fragile that he must be protected from octogenarians.  

UPDATE:

Just off the phone with gran as the retinue arrived. Here are the details:

- They are not restricted to their rooms, but are restricted to their floors. The meeting is taking place in the lounge area on the ground floor. The restriction is for 1-2 hours, then they are free to move about the building once he leaves.

- There was a meeting with presidential advisers some weeks ago for anyone who wanted to attend. A group of 10-12 people was picked from this group.

- She doesn't know how they were picked since she didn't attend - she has a nice company plan from my grandpa's years at Kodak! She did note that the fellow resident interviewed in the Finger Lake Times article is known as being politically active for the Repubs.

- Residents were asked if they wanted to attend the other event at the Canandaigua Academy, but as this entailed spending about four hours waiting on a bus, then in the auditorium, she declined.

- The shared internet PCs were shut down and cars cleared out of the garage a few days prior to the visit.

Other Links:

This is the spin: "When President Bush comes to Canandaigua today to talk up the Medicare Part D prescription drug program, he'll likely face multitudes of people like Joseph LaGeorge."

This is the reality: "Bush and the panel took no questions from the audience or the media. The event lasted about 30 minutes" and "Then he let each [panel member] talk about the plan, from their perspective, reacting to questions that Bush provided..all comments were supportive"

It may be true that Americans, as one Democrat told me, "will never elect a guy as president who has a name like a Middle East terrorist." And it may be true that Democrats are racing like lemmings toward a race where, as one moaned, "John McCain will dribble Hillary Clinton's head down the court like a basketball."

But the clever, elegant performance by Mr. Obama — who is intent on keeping his head down in the Senate until he, too, can be a tedious insider — underscored the Democratic vacuum. Not only do the Democrats "stand for anything," as Mr. Obama semijoked, but they have no champion at a time when people are hungry for an exciting leader, when the party should be roaring and soaring against the Bushies' power-mad stumbles. They should groom an '08 star who can run on the pledge of doing what's right instead of only what's far right.

The Republicans won with Ronald Reagan and W. by taking guys with more likeability and sizzle than experience. They figure they'll win in a McCain-Hillary duel by running a conservative beloved by the media and many Democrats against a polarizing Northerner who can't win any red states despite pandering to conservatives.

The weak and pathetic Democrats seem to move inexorably toward candidates who turn a lot of people off. They should find someone captivating with an intensely American success story — someone like Senator Obama, Tom Brokaw or some innovative business mogul who's less crazy than Ross Perot — and shape the campaign around that leader. Barack Obama is 44. J.F.K., who had a reputation as a callow playboy and lawmaker who barely knew his way around the Hill, was 43 when he became president.

With seniority comes dullness. And unless you can draw on it in desperate times, promise is merely a curse.

Democrats think Senator Potential's experience does not match Senator Pothole's. Much of hers is as a first lady who bollixed up chunks of domestic policy. They also suspect she may be more macho than he is. They fret that the freshman Illinois senator would wilt against the Arizona senator's foreign policy experience — and he probably would. But Mr. McCain, a big hawk on Iraq, has talked of sending more troops, and his mentor was Henry Kissinger. These are not recommendations.

W. had the foreign policy "dream team," and it shattered our foreign policy, ideals and self-image. Despite hundreds of years of combined experience, the Bushies rammed through cronies and schemes that were so destructive, it will take hundreds of years to straighten out the mistakes.

The Democrats should not dismiss a politically less experienced but personally more charismatic prospect as "an empty vessel." Maybe an empty vessel can fill the room.

In a remarkable speech over the weekend, Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt recommended that Americans start storing canned tuna and powdered milk under their beds as the prospect of a deadly bird flu outbreak approaches the United States.

In Connecticut, rape counseling activists say a recent study concludes that about 20% of state hospitals routinely refuse to offer emergency contraceptives to rape victims who are determined to be ovulating at the time they're attacked. A proposed bill would require them to do so.

And what sayith Holy Joe about this? According to The New Haven Register:
This fight isn't exclusively being drawn along party lines.

U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, who often takes a conservative line on social issues, is facing a liberal Democratic primary challenge from wealthy Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont. But that hasn't stopped Lieberman from supporting the approach of the Catholic hospitals when it comes to contraceptives for rape victims.

Lieberman said he believes hospitals that refuse to give contraceptives to rape victims for "principled reasons" shouldn't be forced to do so. "In Connecticut, it shouldn't take more than a short ride to get to another hospital," he said.

I'm sure that waving a chicken over your head is a marvelous cure for something but as yet we still don't call it medicine in this country. That access to emergency contraception is essential to the health and well being of rape victims is undeniable, and if Catholics can't provide that then they should get out of the fucking emergency medical business. Having to deal with their superstitious voodoo nonsense applied as science is just one more indignity rape victims do not need. If Catholics want rape victims to be forced to carry the fetuses of their attackers that's great, let them move to South Dakota.

It is outrageous and yet quite predictable that Lieberman once again provides "bi-partisan" cover to this especially ugly brand of religious extremist bullshit. His cloture vote put Alito on the Supreme Court and paved the way for what is happening today in South Dakota, Mississippi and Missouri. That he continues to be considered a "friend of choice" by both NARAL and Planned Parenthood is an absolutely contempt worthy. They should both be denouncing him loud and long and calling bullshit on his claim to be "pro-choice" rather than rubber stamping his nonsense.

I called NARAL Connecticut and spoke with Executive Director Carolyn Treiss, who said that she has a call into Lieberman's office and that they have not yet returned her call. Susan Yoland, Executive Director of Planned Parenthood Connecticut, however, says that they have no plans to do any kind of press release or make any kind of statement denouncing Lieberman for his position.

Private equity firm The Carlyle Group established a team to acquire public-purpose facilities such as ports a day after a United Arab Emirates company said it would transfer newly acquired operations at American ports to a U.S. organization.

D.C.-based Carlyle Group announced an eight-person team would invest in public-purpose infrastructure projects such as ports, transportation and water facilities, airports, bridges and stadiums. The team will begin work March 13.

The new infrastructure team had been planned for six months, but the Carlyle Group decided Thursday to launch it.

DP World, a company owned by the United Arab Emirates, acquired a British company that manages operations at six U.S. ports, but the House Appropriations Committee voted 62-2 on March 8 to prevent it from taking control of the ports.

DP World will transfer the operations to a "U.S. entity," Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said Thursday.

The Carlyle Group, however, doesn't want to be that entity, says spokesman Chris Ullman. "We have zero interest in that deal, and we will continue to have no interest."

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., and others in Congress are considering legislation that would block any foreign company from operating ports and other key U.S. infrastructure. If that legislation is approved, it could give The Carlyle Group and other private equity firms opportunities to buy foreign-owned operations at a discount.

The new public infrastructure investment group is co-headed by Robert Dove, former executive vice president at Bechtel Enterprises, and Barry Gold, former managing director and co-head of the structured finance group at Citigroup/Salomon Smith Barney.

"We are at a crossroads of the right market, right private equity firm and right team with complementary skills and experience," Gold says in a statement. "As a U.S. firm with exceptional experience in government contracting, Carlyle is now well positioned to invest in U.S. and other infrastructure either alone or as part of a consortium."

Carlyle's infrastructure team will invest primarily in U.S. infrastructure in transactions ranging from $100 million to more than $1 billion. It will enter into public-private partnerships with federal, state and local governments by purchasing projects outright or through long-term concessions.

Mr. McCain's reputation as a moderate may be based on his former opposition to the Bush tax cuts. In 2001 he declared, "I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us."

But now — at a time of huge budget deficits and an expensive war, when the case against tax cuts for the rich is even stronger — Mr. McCain is happy to shower benefits on the most fortunate. He recently voted to extend tax cuts on dividends and capital gains, an action that will worsen the budget deficit while mainly benefiting people with very high incomes.

When it comes to foreign policy, Mr. McCain was never moderate. During the 2000 campaign he called for a policy of "rogue state rollback," anticipating the "Bush doctrine" of pre-emptive war unveiled two years later. Mr. McCain called for a systematic effort to overthrow nasty regimes even if they posed no imminent threat to the United States; he singled out Iraq, Libya and North Korea. Mr. McCain's aggressive views on foreign policy, and his expressed willingness, almost eagerness, to commit U.S. ground forces overseas, explain why he, not George W. Bush, was the favored candidate of neoconservative pundits such as William Kristol of The Weekly Standard.

[snip]

When it comes to social issues, Mr. McCain, who once called Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell "agents of intolerance," met with Mr. Falwell late last year. Perhaps as a result, he is now taking positions friendly to the religious right. Most notably, Mr. McCain's spokesperson says that he would have signed South Dakota's extremist new anti-abortion law.

The spokesperson went on to say that the senator would have taken "the appropriate steps under state law" to ensure that cases of rape and incest were excluded. But that attempt at qualification makes no sense: the South Dakota law has produced national shockwaves precisely because it prohibits abortions even for victims of rape or incest.

[snip]

What about Mr. McCain's reputation as a maverick? This comes from the fact that every now and then he seems to declare his independence from the Bush administration, as he did in pushing through his anti-torture bill.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Guantánamo. President Bush, when signing the bill, appended a statement that in effect said that he was free to disregard the law whenever he chose. Mr. McCain protested, but there are apparently no hard feelings: at the recent Southern Republican Leadership Conference he effusively praised Mr. Bush.

And I'm sorry to say that this is typical of Mr. McCain. Every once in a while he makes headlines by apparently defying Mr. Bush, but he always returns to the fold, even if the abuses he railed against continue unabated.

So here's what you need to know about John McCain.

He isn't a straight talker. His flip-flopping on tax cuts, his call to send troops we don't have to Iraq and his endorsement of the South Dakota anti-abortion legislation even while claiming that he would find a way around that legislation's central provision show that he's a politician as slippery and evasive as, well, George W. Bush.

He isn't a moderate. Mr. McCain's policy positions and Senate votes don't just place him at the right end of America's political spectrum; they place him in the right wing of the Republican Party.

And he isn't a maverick, at least not when it counts. When the cameras are rolling, Mr. McCain can sometimes be seen striking a brave pose of opposition to the White House. But when it matters, when the Bush administration's ability to do whatever it wants is at stake, Mr. McCain always toes the party line.

In an exclusive interview on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold called on the Senate to publicly admonish President Bush for approving domestic wiretaps on American citizens without first seeking a legally required court order.

"This conduct is right in the strike zone of the concept of high crimes and misdemeanors," said Feingold, D-Wis., a three-term senator and potential presidential contender.

He said President Bush had, "openly and almost thumbing his nose at the American people," continued the NSA domestic wiretap program.

President Bush has long asserted that the so-called 'warrantless wiretaps' are an essential tool in the war on terror.

But in a copy of the censure resolution obtained by ABC News, Feingold asserts the president, "repeatedly misled the public prior to the public disclosure of the National Security Agency surveillance program by indicating his administration was relying on court orders to wiretap suspected terrorists inside the United States."

Feingold cites three instances over a year-long period in which Bush outlined the necessity of a court order or a judge's permission prior to a domestic wiretap of a U.S. citizen.

[snip]

Censure, essentially a public disapproval by the Senate as a whole, has only been applied to one president, Andrew Jackson, in a politically-charged move the Senate historian's office describes as "unprecedented and never-repeated tactic."

Frist called the censure attempt "political" and a "terrible, terrible signal" to enemies of the U.S. abroad.

The governor's lack of curiosity about the mechanics of the law is a failure of leadership, and a reflection of his blind spot for religious and medical values that differ from his own.

Consider the theory of embryonic development articulated in the law. It is based on a narrow interpretation of Christian values, but it has nothing to do with science, or medicine, or the values of the larger society. Gov. Rounds seems to believe that since the law reflects his values, there are no others. That's his blind spot.

The law prohibits a woman from getting an abortion to protect her health. But it allows an abortion to protect her life. Think about that. It is a remarkably idiotic piece of legislative craftsmanship. Where is the line between "health" and "life"? Who will make the decision? The law is mute on these problems. That's the way it is with religious crusades - big on symbolism, lousy when it comes to the lives of real people.

Can we agree that a woman and her physician should make the decision about the invisible, fleeting line between health and life? No! The whole point of the new law is to take these judgments away from the woman and her physician and put them in the hands of ... whom? Lawyers? Christian elders? A church tribunal? Ah ... an Inquisition.

I asked a local obstetrician: If a woman has been raped and impregnated and is in poor health, he cannot, under the new law, recommend an abortion in the first trimester, when it could be done safely. Instead, he told me, he must wait until death is imminent, when the risk to both the woman and the fetus is at its highest.

Even if the wording of the law is hopeless, Gov. Rounds might reasonably have looked at "legislative intent." Sen. Bill Napoli was eager to weigh in during an interview on "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer." He was asked to describe a situation in which an abortion would be allowed to protect the life of a pregnant woman.

My thoughts turned to problems like chronic heart disease or complications from diabetes. But Sen. Napoli, having given the matter serious consideration for several months, went in another direction entirely. "A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life."

Despite the fact that the law does not make an exception for rape or incest, Sen. Napoli has carved out his own "virgin Christian sodomy" exception.

I can imagine the hospital operating room now - an obstetrician, a pediatrician, a surgeon, a few nurses, the hospital lawyer, a priest, in deference to Sen. Napoli, a psychologist. And oh, lest we forget ... the woman.

"Shall we abort?"

"Well, doctor, she was brutally raped and sodomized, but do we know whether she was a Christian?"

"Was she a virgin? Was she saving herself?"

Of course, Sen. Napoli's comments are bigoted and absurd, but they speak to the intent of many legislators to hoist the banner of a religious crusade rather than actually making law to reduce the need for abortions in South Dakota.