Some people will buy new clothes for a loved one for Easter. Others might give away a basket. What is Bush giving America for Easter? It could be another war.

According to well-known Russian journalist Andrei Uglanov, the U.S. is planning an attack on Iran, scheduled to happen on April 6th. Uglanov’s sources are Russian military experts who are close to the Russian General Staff.

According to the report, the attack has been codenamed “Operation Bite” and it’s slated to last for 12 hours (4am to 4pm) and will target, in addition to other places, “uranium enrichment facilities, research centers, and laboratories.”

So, how would Russia know and why would it be interested? Perhaps, this will explain why:

The first reactor at the Bushehr nuclear plant, where Russian engineers are working, is supposed to be spared from destruction. The US attack plan reportedly calls for the Iranian air defense system to be degraded, for numerous Iranian warships to be sunk in the Persian Gulf, and for the most important headquarters of the Iranian armed forces to be wiped out.

The attacks will be mounted from a number of bases, including the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Diego Garcia is currently home to B-52 bombers equipped with standoff missiles. Also participating in the air strikes will be US naval aviation from aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, as well as from those of the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. Additional cruise missiles will be fired from submarines in the Indian Ocean and off the coast of the Arabian peninsula. The goal is allegedly to set back Iran’s nuclear program by several years, writes Uglanov, whose article was reissued by RIA-Novosti in various languages, but apparently not English, several days ago. The story is the top item on numerous Italian and German blogs, but so far appears to have been ignored by US websites.

Observers comment that this dispatch represents a high-level orchestrated leak from the Kremlin, in effect a war warning, which draws on the formidable resources of the Russian intelligence services, and which deserves to be taken with the utmost seriousness by pro-peace forces around the world.

Asked by RIA-Novosti to comment on the Uglanov report, retired Colonel General Leonid Ivashov confirmed its essential features in a March 21 interview: “I have no doubt that there will be an operation, or more precisely a violent action against Iran.” Ivashov, who has reportedly served at various times as an informal advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, is currently the vice president of the Moscow Academy for Geopolitical Sciences.

Ivashov attributed decisive importance to the decision of the Democratic leadership of the US House of Representatives to remove language from the just-passed Iraq supplemental military appropriations bill that would have demanded that Bush come to Congress before launching an attack on Iran. Ivashov pointed out that the language was eliminated under pressure from AIPAC, the lobbing group representing the Israeli extreme right, and from Israeli Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni.

I really hope that this article is wrong but, I am not naive enough to believe that this could not happen as stated above.

Popularity: 10% [?]

This just goes to show you that Richard Pryor, in a lot of ways, was much deeper than some gave him credit for being. He was one of the greatest social commentators I’ve ever seen and had a way articulating the profound in a very straightforward, but clever, manner. This is one example.

Popularity: 60% [?]

“5 O’clock” from the album Until the Day

Popularity: 8% [?]

My, my, my…how shameful. I seem to have found the answer to the issue that I posted last night. It appears that the captain of the U.S.S. Justice Department will try to stay on the ship but plans to do so by throwing his staff to the sharks.

Gonzalez is saying that, while he approved the firings of the 8 U.S. Attorneys and says that the decision to do so was above board, he is not aware of the criteria for the firings or how the decision-making process was done.

Sound like double-talk? Well, let’s clarify. This is just a lame attempt by Gonzalez to deflect responsibility away from himself and blame his staff for a major decision that, most likely, could not have been made without his input.

For example, see this excerpt from an interview he did with NBC’s Pete Williams.

PETE WILLIAMS: Can you answer some of the questions that have come up over the weekend? As you know, there was an email that came out Friday night that showed that ten days before the firings there was a meeting in your office, which you attended to discuss the firings. And yet when you talked to us here at the Justice Department two weeks ago, you said you were not involved in any discussions about the firings. Can you explain what seems like a contradiction?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: Let me just say, a wise senator recently told me that when you say something that is either being misunderstood or can be misunderstood, you need to try to correct the record and make the record clear. Let me try to be more precise about my involvement. When I said on March 13th that I wasn’t involved, what I meant was that I had not been involved, was not involved in the deliberations over whether or not United States Attorneys should resign.

After I became Attorney General, I had Kyle Sampson coordinate a department review of the performance of United States Attorneys. And I expected him to consult with appropriate Department of Justice officials who had information and knowledge about the performance of United States Attorneys. From time to time, Mr. Sampson would tell me something that would confirm in my mind that that process was ongoing.

For example, I recall him mentioning to me that inquiry from the White House about where were we in identifying underperformers? And there are other similar type reminders that occurred during this process that I’m going to discuss specifically with the Congress.

I was never focused on specific concerns about United States Attorneys as to whether or not they should be asked to resign. I was more focused on identify– or making sure that the White House was appropriately advised of the progress of our review. And I was also concerned to ensure that the appropriate Department of Justice officials, people who knew about the performance of United States Attorneys, that they were involved in the process.

Now, of course, ultimately at the end of the process or near the end of the process, the recommendations were presented to me. There had been a lot of work done to review the performance of these United States Attorneys. And recommendations were presented to me that reflected the recommendations of Kyle Sampson and of others in the department. And so there was obviously a discussion with respect to that recommendation.

And, of course having decided there will be changes, there was a discussion about how do we implement this change? And so that is, in essence, the context of my involvement and the substance of my comments on March 13th.

So, in other words, don’t blame me. If anything, blame my lack of intellectual curiosity and poor judgment about who I let advise me on decisions but, really, it’s not my fault.

Gonzalez is set to testify in front the of the Congress on April 17th. He’d better get this story straight by then.

Popularity: 14% [?]

I like stories like this. Here we have a young pilot looking to leave his mark on history. 23-year-old aerospace student Barrington Irving took off last Friday in hopes of becoming both the youngest person and the first black person to ever fly solo around the world.

He gets my respect for just getting to this point. Irving’s project came at a cost of $1,000,000, including $300,000 in donated parts he used to build his plane. Though $20,000 short of his goal, Irving is stepping out on faith and has embarked on his journey.

So, hopefully, on April 30th, Irving will return home as the owner of two new aviation records.

Popularity: 71% [?]

I have a very ordinary name. So, I couldn’t imagine going to buy a car or rent some property and be denied strictly because I share the same name as some person who’s a drug trafficker.

Well, imagine your name is Tom Hassan Kubbany, a middle-aged mental health worker from California. Kubbany has owned homes and has a credit history. However, he recently had a very bad experience when trying to obtain a mortgage. You see, in post 9/11 America, lists are generated, containing the names of suspected terrorists and drug traffickers and, if your name is somewhat similar to those on the list, too bad for you.

The Office of Foreign Asset Control’s list of “specially designated nationals” has long been used by banks and other financial institutions to block financial transactions of drug dealers and other criminals. But an executive order issued by President Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has expanded the list and its consequences in unforeseen ways. Businesses have used it to screen applicants for home and car loans, apartments and even exercise equipment, according to interviews and a report by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay area to be issued Tuesday.

So, why was Kubbany given such a hard time?

Reviewing his loan file, he discovered something shocking. At the top of his credit report was an OFAC alert provided by credit bureau TransUnion that showed that his middle name, Hassan, is an alias for Ali Saddam Hussein, purportedly a “son of Saddam Hussein.”

The record is not clear on whether Ali Saddam Hussein was a Saddam offspring, but the OFAC list stated he was born in 1980 or 1983. Kubbany was born in Detroit in 1949.

But it gets worse. Check out this case:

Saad Ali Muhammad is an African American who was born in Chicago and converted to Islam in 1980. When he tried to buy a used car from a Chevrolet dealership three years ago, a salesman ran his credit report and at the top saw a reference to “OFAC search,” followed by the names of terrorists including Osama bin Laden. The only apparent connection was the name Muhammad. The credit report, also by TransUnion, did not explain what OFAC was or what the credit report user should do with the information. Muhammad wrote to TransUnion and filed a complaint with a state human rights agency, but the alert remains on his report, Sinnar said.

So, if the name Muhammad gets one flagged, I wonder what Muhammad Ali’s credit report reads.

Instead of really fighting terrorism, we get lazy policies and enforcement tactics that get us nowhere. But, all you have to do is say “war on terror” and people are given a free pass for this kind of stupidity.

Popularity: 49% [?]

You know, it’s funny to see how people who seemingly violate the law with such impunity can scurry off to their holes when they no longer have the upper hand. For the last six years, the Bushies have enacted some of the most draconian (and likely illegal) policies and programs this country has ever seen. They did so under the cover of Attorney General John Ashcroft and, even more egregiously, under the cover of Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez.

However, the incident regarding the firings of 8 federal prosecutors for what appears to be political motivations has turned up the heat on the internal goings-on at the Justice Department.

The latest person to feel the heat is Monica Goodling. Goodling is a senior counsel at the Justice Department and Gonzalez’s liaison to the White House. Upon hearing that she would be subpoenaed to testify in front of the Senate about her role in the firings, Goodling is set to plead the Fifth to avoid incriminating herself. Goodling is also taking a leave of absence from the Justice Department.

Goodling claims that she is pleading the Fifth because “senators have already decided that wrongdoing occurred.” However, it can’t bode well for Gonzalez and others involved if Justice officials feel that, by testifying, they could be looking at legal consequences. As we have been told by Republicans in other issues (the Patriot Act and the NSA spying, for example), if you’ve done nothing wrong then, there’s nothing for them to be worried about.

So, the rats are jumping ship. I wonder if Gonzalez plans on going down with it.

Popularity: 9% [?]

An economic Hurricane Katrina could be hitting in black America very soon. As you might have heard, the subprime mortgage market appears to be bottoming out and a lot of black homeowners stand to get swept away.

If you remember, during the last election cycle President Bush made a big to-do about how black homeownership grew with him in office. However, what he did not say was how these loans were made. Way too many of these loans have black lenders in over their heads.

Let’s look at the statistics, as quoted by those in the know (bolding mine):

(John) Gapper (of the Financial Times) continues, “Some 52 percent of loans made to black people in 2005 were subprime and 80 percent of these subprime loans were exploding ARMs.” (Adjustable Rate Mortgage). Martin Eakes, a credit union CEO claims estimates that 2.2 million families could lose their homes to foreclosure. This catastrophe, claims Eakes, could become “the largest loss of African-American wealth in American history.“

So, my calling this an “economic Hurricane Katrina” is no exaggeration. We could be in for huge monetary collapse in black America, virtually wiping away much of the progress of the last 30 years.

I shudder to think what this is going to look like.

Popularity: 18% [?]

I will not feign objectivity. In my local area (Cincinnati, OH), the NAACP seems almost irrelevant and, believe me, there is no shortage of social justice issues that the organization could take up.

However, short of the annual Martin Luther King breakfast, you don’t hear too much out of them.

I wouldn’t say that this was always the case. As I understand it, previous Cincinnati NAACP leadership has been on the vanguard of social justice issues. Even those that weren’t were, at least, willing to speak out on these issues.

However, today, you have an organization at the crossroads. On one side, you have current leadership that is most interested in bringing the 2008 NAACP convention to the city. On the other side, you have a challenger who wants to see the local chapter get back to dealing with the issues of the people. Well, this could all be settled tonight.

The candidates, current Cincinnati NAACP president Edith Thrower and challenger, Christopher Smitherman, will, for the second time in 4 months, vie for the office of president. The previous election was mired in controversy when, according to some, a board member, Victor Brown, violated the bylaws by taking some 24 disputed ballots home with him and counting them with no oversight. When the normal voting ending, Smitherman was up by 14 votes. After Brown’s count, he certified that, out of the 24, Smitherman gained 1 new vote, Thrower gained 16 new votes and the 5 remaining votes were thrown out. Therefore, Thrower was declared the victor by 1 vote.

Smitherman disputed the outcome of the election and the NAACP finally conceded, agreeing to a new vote.

Obviously, this dispute has created divided opinions among the group’s members. On one side, people are seeing the good that could come from Thrower’s good relations with corporate donors. On the other side, people are saying that the NAACP’s mission is to be a social justice organization and should work on that. I don’t see these things being mutually-exclusive but, there is an issue about which should take precedence. Also, Smitherman is no friend of the business community or the police. He has been very vocal about how both are not holding up their end of the deal when it comes to black folks. This is why some say he would be bad for corporate donations.

In the end, I am sort of a rabble-rouser so, I lean more towards the need to shake things up but, I guess the other side has a point, as well. Therefore, I am just hoping for a fair vote that reflects the true will of the Cincinnati NAACP’s membership.

Popularity: 17% [?]

“The Most Beautifullest Thing in This World” from the album The Most Beautifullest Thing in This World

Popularity: 9% [?]