Prometheus 6

Quote of note:

What puzzled many of us who had listened to Shinseki was the contrast between his emphasis on careful military planning and how shortsighted the administration was in preparing for the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath. Before the war, Shinseki's Army planners were not once consulted by Rumsfeld's office. The State Department's planning proposal for postwar Iraq was similarly ignored by the administration.

The General Who Got It Right on Iraq By Frank Gibney Frank Gibney, president of the Pacific Basin Institute, is a professor of politics at Pomona College and author of "The Pacific Century" and other books on Asia and foreign policy. December 26, 2004 When Donald H. Rumsfeld swooped down on the Pentagon in 2001 as President Bush's secretary of Defense, Gen. Eric Shinseki must have looked like a natural ally to him. Like Rumsfeld, Shinseki wanted to "transform" the armed services and had announced his plan for changing the Army when he became chief of staff in 1999. But Shinseki's notion of transformation differed substantially from Rumsfeld's. To the new Defense secretary, transformation meant greater reliance on technology, not troops, to achieve goals; to Shinseki, it meant more intensified training, featuring highly mobile medium-light brigades of mechanized infantry capable of a variety of missions. Their philosophical clash became public when the United States went to war against Iraq. The preemptive attack relied on overwhelming air power and deployed a bare minimum of ground troops. Asked by a Senate committee to estimate the number of troops needed for the operation, Shinseki said "several hundred thousand." Rumsfeld's office immediately denounced the number as "wildly off the mark." But the disastrous experience in postwar Iraq has proved the general right: Security remains elusive because the numbers of U.S. and coalition forces on the ground are inadequate.

Sound like hyperbole?

Roughly, federal outlays can be divided into five equal pieces. One slice is Social Security, which has been politically off-limits to budget cutters since 1983. A second contains Medicare and Medicaid, which also have resisted cuts. The government's other support programs — food stamps, unemployment compensation and others — go in a third piece, as do interest payments on the debt. Interest payments are outside Congress' control, and other support programs are politically as well as technically difficult to adjust. The other two pieces of the budget are easier to manipulate in the short term. One of them consists of defense and domestic security, where the Bush administration has until recently shown no tendency to skimp. So most of the pressure to cut spending lands on the final fifth of the budget — the so-called domestic discretionary programs. These consist of a wide variety of projects, such as an abandoned mine reclamation fund and a zero-down mortgage program run by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Bush Team Prepares to Swing Budget Ax The president says he will not raise taxes to keep his promise to cut the deficit. So what will take a hit? Medicare and Medicaid look likely. By Joel Havemann Times Staff Writer December 26, 2004 WASHINGTON — For years, government has been about singling out winners for favored treatment in spending and tax policy. That era is about to end — and the change could be painful. The budget surpluses of 1998 to 2001 enabled Washington to make funds available for such favored causes as domestic security, medical research and prescription drugs under Medicare. The government also slashed taxes for a variety of groups, including two-earner couples and the wealthy. But the surpluses have turned into record deficits. President Bush is not about to take back his tax cuts, but in setting spending levels in the budget that he will deliver to Congress in the new year, he will single out a loser — perhaps several — for every winner. To Congress' deficit hawks, it's about time. "It sounds as if the White House is serious about it now," said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). "We can only hope that's the case. It's going to take some presidential leadership vetoing some bills." Bush's budget writers have not made all their decisions, and those that they have made are closely held. But it is widely expected that, to help Bush keep his promise of cutting the deficit in half over five years, the budget will "maintain strict discipline," as the president said at a news conference last week. Arguing that the costs are only vaguely known, budget writers may also decide not to include the outlays needed to cover the additional costs of the war in Iraq or the transition to proposed private Social Security accounts.

Firms Pay Nothing, Get Plenty California is awarding millions to companies that paid no income tax. A manufacturing credit intended to add jobs creates outrage instead. By Evan Halper Times Staff Writer December 26, 2004 SACRAMENTO — A small group of companies that paid no California income tax has begun receiving millions of dollars in refunds after a powerful state board ignored its staff and ordered the checks issued. The move has outraged critics, who call it an $82-million corporate giveaway at a time when the state has no money to spare. The dispute has revived calls from some to abolish the agency that issued the ruling: the state's five-member Board of Equalization. "I can't imagine anyone would be so brazen, particularly when the budget deficit is as large as it is and possibly growing," said Assemblyman Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles). The Board of Equalization, which implements state tax policy, voted 4 to 0 — with one abstention — earlier this month to begin writing checks to the firms. The first batch of checks, totaling $5 million, went to Conexant Systems of Newport Beach, Grundfos U.S. Holding of Fresno, and Lightwave Electronics of Mountain View. In all, 22 companies that paid no income taxes are positioned to get $82 million under a manufacturing tax credit. State tax attorneys say the credit, which expired in 2003, was intended to attract and keep manufacturers in California, but not to provide refunds to companies paying no income tax. Board of Equalization members disagreed. "High-tech companies often have no income in the beginning," said board member Bill Leonard, a Republican from San Bernardino. "They lose money, especially in the first two years or so, when a lot goes into research and development. This credit was designed to help them," he said.

Quote of note:

"This cannot afford to be a guns-and-butter term," says Sen. Judd Gregg, the New Hampshire Republican who will be the Senate Budget Committee's new chairman. "You've got to cut the butter."

As Bush Vows to Halve Deficit, Targets Already Feel Squeezed Less Budget Funding for Aid, Education, Cities, Science; Bracing for the Boomers Republican Governors Resist By JACKIE CALMES Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL December 21, 2004 WASHINGTON -- In his first term, President Bush's domestic policy focused on creating winners, through tax cuts, a new prescription-drug-benefits plan for seniors, large farm subsidies, big homeland-security contracts and increased spending for education, scientific research and more. Now, with worries about the size of the deficit widespread, get ready for a second Bush term about identifying losers. "This cannot afford to be a guns-and-butter term," says Sen. Judd Gregg, the New Hampshire Republican who will be the Senate Budget Committee's new chairman. "You've got to cut the butter." With guns -- or military spending -- growing, the butter is likely to include some of the most visible areas of domestic spending, including the Medicaid health program, subsidies to Amtrak, agricultural research and even some federal education programs. In the just-finished fiscal 2005 budget, which came in 10 weeks late, big cities received less federal aid to comply with anti-pollution laws and job training requirements. The National Science Foundation, which underwrites the country's basic research saw its funding cut from 2004 levels. Funding for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration came in below Mr. Bush's request, despite House Majority Leader Tom DeLay delaying a vote to get more money for the space program, which has major installations in his district. Even spending on the president's own initiatives for education, health research and the promotion of economic and political change overseas were cut to levels below his requests or last year's spending. A similar fate befell Laura Bush's program to sponsor cultural events in local communities. The resulting budget "was the wake-up call," says Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former Bush White House economist who heads the Congressional Budget Office.

Birdsong by The Underwolves. Download it an play it—a 128bit mp3 sounds a lot better played locally than streamed.

Everyone is busy salivating all morning and you can do stuff with no interruptions. I've cleaned up some loose ends: the "Best of P6" box in the sidebar is gone, supplanted by the menu item. Easier to maintain. I corrected some linkage—still got a lot more to go, cleared some inactive sites from the blogroll—which yet needs tuning, and mostly restored the "library" at The Niggerati Network to its condition before I screwed it up real bad—in particular, chapter 3 of The Shaping of Black America and The Black Experience in America are back in their entirety. I may have an alpha for MTClient version 2.0. Depends on how crazy I want to get. I've spent some time the last few days rooting around the source code for the wysiwyg editor because help files universally suck. The program looks wonderful but there's actually a deal-breaker in the code generation. If it were just me…anyway, if I can't get around it, wysiwyg itself is not a deal-breaker. It would give me time and an excuse to fool around with Gecko anyway. I didn't do all the programming stuff today, I was just ruminating today.

Quote of note:

In the three years since Michael R. Bloomberg succeeded Mr. Giuliani, the city has spent close to $2 million to settle lawsuits brought by residents and city workers who accused the Giuliani administration of retaliating against them for exercising free speech or other constitutional rights. Among them is a limousine driver, James Schillaci, who had complained in a newspaper article about a red-light sting set up by the police in the Bronx. The same day, police came to his home to arrest him for a 13-year-old unpaid ticket. The next day, the mayor obtained - illegally, Mr. Schillaci said - the record of his arrests from decades earlier and discussed it, inaccurately, at a news conference. The city settled with him for $290,000 in 2002.

A Legacy of Giuliani Years: Damage Suits Against City By JIM DWYER Late Tuesday, a federal magistrate released testimony by Bernard B. Kerik and a former girlfriend in an employment discrimination case, one of the legal tangles from his years as a senior aide to Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani that surfaced while his nomination as secretary of homeland security was collapsing. For the Bloomberg administration, the case was just one more in an unusual collection of city lawsuits that grind along, regardless of national politics: dealing with the civil rights damages people claim to have suffered at the hands of Mr. Giuliani or his senior aides. In the three years since Michael R. Bloomberg succeeded Mr. Giuliani, the city has spent close to $2 million to settle lawsuits brought by residents and city workers who accused the Giuliani administration of retaliating against them for exercising free speech or other constitutional rights. Among them is a limousine driver, James Schillaci, who had complained in a newspaper article about a red-light sting set up by the police in the Bronx. The same day, police came to his home to arrest him for a 13-year-old unpaid ticket. The next day, the mayor obtained - illegally, Mr. Schillaci said - the record of his arrests from decades earlier and discussed it, inaccurately, at a news conference. The city settled with him for $290,000 in 2002. A correction worker charged that he was bypassed for promotion because he supported a political opponent of Mr. Giuliani's and that city investigators videotaped the guests arriving at his home for a political fund-raiser. The city paid him $325,000 this year. Lawyers for the city say they agreed to pay as a way of making the best deal for the public, not because of wrongdoing by Mr. Giuliani or other officials. The totals for such claims could grow. Dantae Johnson of the Bronx has charged in a lawsuit that after he was shot by a police officer in May 1999, Mr. Giuliani and the police commissioner, Howard Safir, falsely described him as a criminal to justify the shooting. The officer was convicted of assault. The city has denied responsibility. Eric H. DeVarin III, an assistant deputy warden in the Correction Department, has claimed in a lawsuit that he was denied promotion because of a dispute with Mr. Kerik's former girlfriend. Mr. Kerik has said that is untrue. The coming issue of the journal CityLaw reports that a federal magistrate has said that an AIDS housing group can proceed with a suit to recover $35 million in government contracts that it claims to have lost as punishment for protests against Mr. Giuliani's policies. The city lawyers say the Giuliani administration had many sound reasons to stop doing business with the group, called Housing Works. The Housing Works case is part of "a continuing saga of the policies and litigating tendencies of the Giuliani administration," said Ross Sandler, director of the Center for New York City Law at New York Law School, which publishes CityLaw.

First American civilisation sprang up fast NewScientist.com news service Jeff Hecht The first American civilisation sprang up rapidly on the central Peruvian coast more than 5000 years ago, new research has revealed. In less than 150 years, people went "from small hunter-gatherer bands to great big permanent communities with monumental architectures," says Jonathan Haas of the Field Museum in Chicago, US, whose group carbon-dated samples from 13 of more than 20 sites in the Norte Chico region. The ancient South American culture began building massive stone structures about the same time Egyptians built their first large step-pyramids. Yet their culture followed a different pattern. They lacked pottery, which preceded stone monuments in the Middle East. They also lacked writing, art and sculpture, so they left no attractive artifacts to attract the attention of early archaeologists or looters. The main coastal site, Aspero, had been studied before, but the new work is the first to document the ages of inland sites along four river valleys.

Mystery of Mars rover's 'carwash' rolls on NASA's Mars rover Opportunity seems to have stumbled into something akin to a carwash that has left its solar panels much cleaner than those of its twin rover, Spirit. A Martian carwash would account for a series of unexpected boosts in the electrical power produced by Opportunity's solar panels. The rovers landed on Mars in January 2004 with solar cells capable of providing more than 900 watt-hours of electricity per day. Spirit's output has dropped to about 400 watt-hours, partly because Martian dust has caked its solar panels. Opportunity's output also declined at first - to around 500 watt-hours - but over the past six months it has regained power (New Scientist print edition, 30 October). Lately, its solar cells have been delivering just over 900 watt-hours. Rover team leader Jim Erickson at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, told New Scientist that a process still not understood has repeatedly removed dust from the solar panels. "These exciting and unexplained cleaning events have kept Opportunity in really great shape," he says. Whatever the process, it has taken place while Opportunity was parked during the Martian night. On at least four occasions over a six-month period, the rover's power output increased by up to 5% overnight. At the time, the team speculated that wind may have swept the dust off the panels or frost may have caused it to clump, exposing more of the panels.

This is something I wrote for Open Source Politics last time Justice Brown got nominated. It's all still valid reasoning, and I present it as an example of how to deal with the inevitable race card. Of course if you have no patience with that sort of thing you can use the short version: Q: You mean a Black person isn't allowed to have a conservative viewpoint? A: No, I mean you're an asshole. You personally.

---

You mean Justice Brown is Black?

California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown has been nominated for a U.S.Court of Appeals seat on the D.C Circuit. Her nomination is as widely opposed at that of William Pryor…whose confirmation was just defeated Thursday. According to the vast majority of Conservative spokesmen, the opposition to Pryor was obstructionist, a liberal plot, politically motivated. But the opposition to Brown, according to the vast majority of Conservative spokesmen, has a single reason.

She is being opposed because she is Black.

Normally, when someone plays the race card on me I just ignore them and toddle on my merry way. But sometimes it's played so clumsily that it demands comment.

I mean, have you actually looked at her record or have you relied on pundits? You've probably heard about her being the lone dissent numerous times, but….

In one she said racial slurs are protected speech, even when they rise to the level of harassment and discrimination. Don't you think liberals would oppose a white man who made such a ruling? (That the ruling went against U.S. Supreme Court precedent should worry Conservative opponents of judicial activism and legislation as well). I'm not asking if you agree with her, I'm asking if you recognize that that is a position civil rights organizations would oppose no matter who held it.

And drug testing. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a test must be made to determine its constitutionality in each situation, much as it has ruled as regards "affirmative action" programs. Beyond being established precedent, it just makes sense. If I ask you to make an apple pie from this bucket of fruit, your ability to do so depends on what kind of fruit is in the bucket. Just because it's all fruit doesn't mean it's all the same. Justice Brown's rulings would establish the right for any employer at all to do drug testing (you Libertarians better pay attention, because I know why you're a Libertarian).

Don't you think the ACLU would oppose a candidate who would accept the reduction in the right of privacy that they advocate?

Don't you think liberals (socialist bastards that we are) cringe at the thought of a person who called the increase of liberty we've seen since the 1940s "the triumph of our own socialist revolution" getting that Court of Appeals seat? Do you really think we wouldn't object if only it were a white guy we were talking about?

Isn't is obvious we are going to oppose any person of her record and beliefs?

So why are we being accused of opposing her only because she's Black and Conservative? Even Black Conservatives make that argument.

Read The Leadership Council on Civil Rights' fact sheet. Read the People For the American Way and NAACP joint fact sheet. Read the National Women's Law Center pdf on their position.Read them, not for agreement, but to see what they say. See if they object to her because of her race or because of her history.

And think carefully about who it was that you first heard or read discussing her race. Because THAT is who is playing the race card.

And it wasn't a liberal.

Quote of note:

Among them is California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, whose nomination last year to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia — a traditional steppingstone to the Supreme Court — ignited debate because of her statements that judges should use their authority to rein in big government.

Brown is one of the most visionary of the reversionary justices. And she's Black, so Republicans get to call people who oppose her positions racist…because, you see, there's no reason Black people would fail to support a Black candidate unless we're racist. Huh? Bush to Revive Failed Judicial Nominations The 20 candidates didn't win Senate approval the first time. Democrats inclined to block them with filibusters are now facing a stronger GOP. By Richard B. Schmitt and Nick Anderson Times Staff Writers December 24, 2004 WASHINGTON — President Bush intends to renominate to federal judgeships 20 candidates who failed to win Senate approval during his first term, the White House said Thursday. The announcement, coming before the new Congress convenes next month, drew jeers from Democrats and cheers from Republicans eager to flex their muscles following gains in November. The statement issued by White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan decried the Senate's failure to act on the "highly qualified individuals" Bush had nominated during his first term and contended that inaction had exacerbated a backlog of cases in the federal courts. Bush "looks forward to working with the new Senate to ensure a well-functioning and independent judiciary," the statement said. The nominees, who will officially be put forward once the Senate is in session, include some of the president's most contentious choices for the federal courts, including several ardently opposed by abortion-rights groups and a Pentagon lawyer linked to a disavowed administration legal memo on torture.

12/17/04

Alan Murray, The Wall Street Journal: Barbara's question gets to the Rudy Giuliani issue. The president didn't know all of this history but surely Giuliani had heard some of it. Michael Duffy, TIME magazine: And Giuliani had some of the same problems in his past so he may not have been as sensitive to them politically. He managed to be mayor of New York while he had a complicated personal life going on and they were close. 9/11 probably obscured a lot of personal issues for people not just in New York but here and all over the country about what matters and what it takes to get the job done. We had more important things in our personal frailties. They get obscured in terms of crisis. Gwen Ifill, moderator: If you take aside the personal frailties-- Michael Duffy, TIME magazine: This may be too weak a word: "frailties"-- Gwen Ifill, moderator: Well, yeah. Michael Duffy, TIME magazine: Need a much stronger word. Gwen Ifill, moderator: Let's assume that it was only the nanny problem. There is plenty of history of nominations being derailed for only that. Michael Duffy, TIME magazine: Oh, yeah. And it's interesting the nanny has not yet emerged which makes you wonder whether the nanny is the diversion. They came up with the nanny explanation in order to cover what were far more serious problems.

12/17/04

Gwen Ifill, moderator: The president talked at this economic summit about health care savings accounts as another kind of privatizing, if you will, a word I swore I'd never use on the air, of private investment opportunity for people to pay for health insurance. Is that something which is part of his vision for trying to get some sort of handle on Medicare or Medicaid? Ceci Connolly, The Washington Post: Well, it probably wouldn't help with something like Medicaid because that's mainly a low-income program. Gwen Ifill, moderator: Nothing to save. Ceci Connolly, The Washington Post: You're not going to have those individuals doing it. It might help a little bit with the ranks of the uninsured because there are a certain number of people who don't have health insurance for a variety of reasons and they might be attracted to these accounts because they may be more affordable. The argument always against them is you don't really get the sort of coverage that you need. Interesting little footnote to this week's summit, the president mentioned that he bought himself a health savings account. Now I'm a little puzzled as to why because he has free health coverage as president. It's a good gesture on his part. [P6: emphasis added] Gwen Ifill, moderator: He's got to make a point. He's the president.

12/17/04

Ceci Connolly, The Washington Post: We heard words like "crisis" and "I'm here to fix problems". You mentioned the $10 trillion gap. That's over quite a long period of time. Is Social Security really that pressing a problem in crisis? I think about the Medicare trust fund. That's supposed to run out of money much sooner than the Social Security account. Alan Murray, The Wall Street Journal: $10 trillion is a lot of money, but it's not as much as the $40 trillion or $50 trillion gap that occurs in Medicare. They took a run at this and didn't do much to deal with the funding problem. They created this new prescription drug benefit. People used to talk about the prescription drug benefit the way they talk about private accounts. That it was going to be the candy that you gave in order to get the long-term budget cuts. Well, they didn't do that with Medicare. They just gave out the candy but they never took the medicine. If they do the same thing with social security we'll have a problem on our hands. Michael Duffy, TIME magazine: In the economic summit this week, did the president talk about the deficit? And are his still emerging plans for social security suggest that they will do anything about the deficit? Alan Murray, The Wall Street Journal: It's a good question. It gets to what were just talking about -- the difference between long term and the short term. What the White House is talking about doing is borrowing a lot of money, maybe a trillion dollars, maybe two trillion dollars to fund the transition to private accounts. Now the way that works is you take a bunch of money out of the market but you put it right back in these private accounts. What Wall Street people will tell you is that's ok if you deal with this long-term problem, if you get rid of the $10 trillion funding problem. We're willing to tolerate some borrowing in the short term. But if you haven't done anything to deal with the long-term problem you have a mess.

I only got around to reading one of the eleven entries on Clarence Thomas at ACSBlog. The one where he wants to overturn a 150 year old precedent.

hat tip to Foreign Dispatches Is Heaven Populated Chiefly by the Souls of Embryos? Harvesting stem cells without tears Ronald Bailey What are we to think about the fact that Nature (and for believers, Nature's God) profligately creates and destroys human embryos? John Opitz, a professor of pediatrics, human genetics, and obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Utah, testified before the President's Council on Bioethics that between 60 and 80 percent of all naturally conceived embryos are simply flushed out in women's normal menstrual flows unnoticed. This is not miscarriage we're talking about. The women and their husbands or partners never even know that conception has taken place; the embryos disappear from their wombs in their menstrual flows. …So millions of viable human embryos each year produced via normal conception fail to implant and never develop further. Does this mean America is suffering a veritable holocaust of innocent human life annihilated? Consider the claim made by right-to-life apologists like Robert George, a Princeton University professor of jurisprudence and a member of the President's Council on Bioethics, that every embryo is "already a human being." Does that mean that if we could detect such unimplanted embryos as they leave the womb, we would have a duty to rescue them and try to implant them anyway? "If the embryo loss that accompanies natural procreation were the moral equivalent of infant death, then pregnancy would have to be regarded as a public health crisis of epidemic proportions: Alleviating natural embryo loss would be a more urgent moral cause than abortion, in vitro fertilization, and stem-cell research combined," declared Michael Sandel, a Harvard University government professor, also a member of the President's Council on Bioethics.

Putin Questions U.S. Intentions In Annual New Conference, Russia President Criticizes Iraq Policy, U.S. Interference in Ukraine Compiled From Wire Reports Thursday, December 23, 2004; 12:40 PM MOSCOW, Dec 23 -- President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he would challenge President Bush when they next meet over whether Washington was trying to "isolate" Russia. In an end-of-year news conference, the Kremlin leader also implied criticism of Washington's Iraq policy saying he doubted that planned elections there would be democratic while the country was under full occupation. "I have strong doubts that it's possible to create conditions for democratic elections (in Iraq) when its entire territory is occupied by foreign troops," he said. Putin stressed that his personal relationship with Bush remained strong, but showed irritation about U.S. criticism of the Kremlin's political restructuring proposals, which include an end to direct elections for governors.

Students to Bear More of the Cost of College By GREG WINTER College students in virtually every state will be required to shoulder more of the cost of their education under new federal rules that govern most of the nation's financial aid. Because of the changes, which take effect next fall and are expected to save the government $300 million in the 2005-6 academic year, at least 1.3 million students will receive smaller Pell Grants, the nation's primary scholarship for those of low income, according to two analyses of the new rules. In addition, 89,000 students or so who would otherwise be getting some Pell Grant money will get none, the analyses found. "Season's greetings from Uncle Sam," said Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education, which conducted one of the analyses and represents about 1,800 colleges and universities. "Your student aid stocking is going to be a little thinner next year." Beyond the implications for Pell Grants, the new rules are expected to have a domino effect across almost every type of financial aid, tightening access to billions of dollars in state and institutional grants and, in turn, increasing the reliance on loans to pay for college. Taken together, many education experts say, the consequences for the nation's core financial aid programs are among the most substantial in a decade.

Seeing a Plot, Saudis Recall Ambassador From Libya By NEIL MacFARQUHAR Published: December 23, 2004 CAIRO, Dec. 22 - Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, announced Wednesday that his kingdom was expelling the Libyan ambassador and withdrawing its own envoy from Tripoli because of a Libyan plot to assassinate the crown prince. Speaking at a news conference in Riyadh, Prince Saud said his country was not breaking off relations, but was taking what he called limited measures despite the "ugliness of what happened." The prince said the Libyan Embassy in Riyadh and the Saudi Embassy in Tripoli would remain open. He said he did not want the Libyan people to suffer, particularly with the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca coming in January. The Saudi action grew out of a bizarre series of events that started with Crown Prince Abdullah and the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, flinging insults at each other during a tense summit meeting of Arab leaders in February 2003. The meeting failed in its purpose of preventing the American invasion of Iraq. But during the discussions, Colonel Qaddafi said Saudi Arabia had made "a pact with the devil" by inviting American forces in 1990. The prince shot back that the colonel was a liar who should not speak on subjects he knew nothing about. The mercurial Libyan leader, insulted, returned home and soon began concocting a scheme to pay Saudi dissidents to try to eliminate the prince, according to a prominent Arab-American sentenced in October in the United States to 23 years in prison after confessing to his role in the plot. The plea deal by the dissident, Abdurahman Alamoudi, in federal court in Alexandria, Va., included the details of how he was recruited by Libyan intelligence officers to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars to anti-Saudi dissidents in London and elsewhere.

Europe Rejects Microsoft's Bid to Preserve Bundling Plan By STEVE LOHR and PAUL MELLER A European court swept aside Microsoft's objections yesterday and ordered it to offer a version of its Windows operating system without its software for playing digital music and movies on personal computers. The ruling applies only to Europe, but it represents the first time since antitrust challenges to Microsoft began in the 1990's that the company will be forced to alter its bedrock business strategy of bundling its software products and features with Windows. The basic operations of more than 90 percent of the world's personal computers are controlled by Microsoft's Windows program. "This ruling goes to the heart of Microsoft's bundling strategy," said Andrew I. Gavil, a professor of law at Howard University. "So potentially, this is very significant."

Scandal might cancel Bernie Kerik biopic Plus: Tom Cruise keeps talkingabout Scientology By Jeannette Walls MSNBC Updated: 9:51 a.m. ET Dec. 14, 2004 Recent revelations about Bernie Kerik may derail more than his job as head of Homeland Security. They may do damage to his big-screen biopic. New York City’s former top cop was nixed for the job as President Bush’s secretary of homeland security after info was revealed about his personal and professional life. Now, a source says that Miramax — which bought the screen rights to Kerik’s autobiography — is seriously reconsidering the movie it’s making on the controversial lawman. Miramax bought the rights to Kerik’s best-selling “The Lost Son: A Life in Pursuit of Justice” last year; “Aviator” executive producer Rick Schwartz was hired to produce it. “Bernie Kerik embodies the resolve of all New Yorkers,” Miramax head Harvey Weinstein said at the time. “His grit, determination and never-say-die attitude is an inspiration and proves once again that leadership is an action not just a word.” With the recent scandals pouring in, including reports that Kerik hired an illegal alien, didn’t pay her taxes, allegedly had multiple extramarital affairs, and conducted questionable business deals, “his light doesn’t shine quite so brightly any more,” says a source. “There are now a lot of question marks,” says the insider, who says that the movie may be a casualty of the controversy. “There’s still a chance that it will be made, but I don’t know that they can make the same movie they had planned to.” A spokesman for Miramax would say only, “The project is in development. We have nothing new to report.”

So I'm telling everyone what I told the mailing list I mentioned yesterday. It's the last word, seriously.

Y'all sound like white people. Like a stern talking to ever worked on anyone older than 14. The reason some folks won't listen to Dr. Cosby is he's solving his own problem, not theirs. You don't even want to yell at them. You want to find out what they think they need, what they think they want. And since there's thousands of ways to accomplish any given goal, talk to them about ways of getting what they want that requires them to grow a little. You cannot amputate a life's learning. But you can grow big enough that the old stuff looks like a small faded scar.

I need to send him a couple of bucks when this holiday crap dies down.

Lynne Cheney's "Sisters" Back Online

At the beginning of December, I blogged that Lynne Cheney's infamous, scarce novel 'Sisters' had been transcribed and posted online in blog format. Shortly thereafter, LiveJournal yanked it offline.

But you can't keep a graphically-violent, sexually-suggestive, lesbian-tinged novel by the Vice President's fundamentalist wife down forever. The transcribed version has been converted to a PDF file and posted here.

For background on the novel, see The Memoryblog's original post: Lynne Cheney's "Sisters" Posted Online

Quote of note: FBI Documents Call Iraq Interrogations "Torture," Refer to Presidential Order OK'ing Inhumane Treatment Under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the government has released more damning documents - this time from the FBI - regarding interrogation, abuse, and torture. The documents have been scanned and posted here. From the ACLU:

A document released for the first time today by the American Civil Liberties Union suggests that President Bush issued an Executive Order authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq. Also released by the ACLU today are a slew of other records including a December 2003 FBI e-mail that characterizes methods used by the Defense Department as "torture" and a June 2004 "Urgent Report" to the Director of the FBI that raises concerns that abuse of detainees is being covered up.... The two-page e-mail that references an Executive Order states that the President directly authorized interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs, and "sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc." The ACLU is urging the White House to confirm or deny the existence of such an order and immediately to release the order if it exists. The FBI e-mail, which was sent in May 2004 from "On Scene Commander--Baghdad" to a handful of senior FBI officials, notes that the FBI has prohibited its agents from employing the techniques that the President is said to have authorized.

There's no place like work for the holidays By Stephanie Armour, USA TODAY The economy might be showing signs of perking up, but employers are playing Grinch when it comes to year-end time off. Employees are getting less paid time off around the holidays than in previous years. With Christmas Day and New Year's falling on successive Saturdays, 33% of companies plan to give workers three or more paid days off this year. Last year's figure was almost twice as high, at 65%, according to the BNA. But it's not just because of the calendar. During 1999, when Christmas and New Year's Day last fell on Saturdays, half of employers gave workers three or more paid days off. That means that this year more employees will be working on or around the holiday — adding extra pressure to an already stressed workforce, experts say. "Employers are being a bit more miserly," says Josh Joseph, BNA's director of research.

Illegal Immigrant Measure Upheld Judge says Arizona can enforce a proposition barring some services to the undocumented. By David Kelly Times Staff Writer December 23, 2004 DENVER — A federal judge on Wednesday cleared the way for a controversial Arizona law that denies some public services to illegal immigrants. U.S. District Judge David C. Bury lifted an order that had blocked Proposition 200, which voters overwhelmingly passed last month. Shortly afterward, Gov. Janet Napolitano issued an executive order directing all state agencies to immediately implement the terms of the proposition. "The voters made the decision, and I intend to make sure the law is enforced correctly," said Napolitano, a Democrat, who had opposed the measure. The law requires proof of immigration status from anyone trying to obtain state and local welfare benefits, and proof of citizenship when registering to vote. Government workers who don't report illegal immigrants seeking services can be jailed.

U.S. Contractor Pulls Out of Reconstruction Effort in Iraq By T. Christian Miller Times Staff Writer December 22, 2004 WASHINGTON — For the first time, a major U.S. contractor has dropped out of the multibillion-dollar effort to rebuild Iraq, raising new worries about the country's growing violence and its effect on reconstruction. Contrack International Inc., the leader of a partnership that won one of 12 major reconstruction contracts awarded this year, cited skyrocketing security costs in reaching a decision with the U.S. government last month to terminate work in Iraq. "We reached a point where our costs were getting to be prohibitive," said Karim Camel-Toueg, president of Arlington, Va.-based Contrack, which had won a $325-million award to rebuild Iraq's shattered transportation system. "We felt we were not serving the government, and that the dollars were not being spent smartly." Although a few companies and nonprofit groups have pulled out of contracts in Iraq because of security concerns, Contrack's is the largest to be canceled to date, U.S. officials said. The move has led to fears that Iraq's mounting violence could prompt other firms to consider pulling out, or discourage them from seeking work in Iraq, further crippling reconstruction.

I just picked up this month's Scientific American, in this this article appears.

Exploding the Self-Esteem Myth Boosting people's sense of self-worth has become a national preoccupation. Yet surprisingly, researchshows that such efforts are of little value in fostering academic progress or preventing undesirable behavior By Roy F. Baumeister, Jennifer D. Campbell, Joachim I. Krueger and Kathleen D. Vohs

Quote of note:

Washington and Bahrain signed the trade deal in September. When the agreement, which will be ratified in 2005, goes into effect, 100 percent of consumer and industrial products and 81 percent of agricultural exports from the United States will enter the Gulf nation duty-free. Under the deal Bahrain will open its services market wider than any other U.S. trading partner, adopt Washington's preferred intellectual property rules and open government procurement to U.S. companies. Saudi Arabia is worried that Bahrain signed the deal independent of its regional partners and that the new rules will see the region flooded with U.S. goods. The GCC governments have already dropped all trade tariffs among themselves, meaning that once in the region, U.S. goods could potentially move freely across borders.

U.S. Trade Tactic Splits Arab States Emad Mekay WASHINGTON, Dec 22 (IPS) - A free trade deal between the United States and the tiny Persian Gulf Kingdom of Bahrain is causing friction with other Arab states, which say the pact could weaken their economic bloc ahead of future trade talks with Washington. A meeting of the heads of states of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), made up of the oil-rich nations of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) fell apart after Saudi Arabia, the largest and most influential member, said Bahrain's deal would open a backdoor for U.S. goods to enter the region. The GCC is an economic bloc established in 1981, modelled after the European Union (EU) and Mercosur, or the Southern Cone Common Market, in Latin America. The Arab grouping is scheduled to establish a single market and currency by 2010. The leaders ended their summit Tuesday without solving the bitter dispute, which led Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to skip the gathering in protest.

Machiavellian minister wins DNC subsidies and plots mayoral moves
The Right Rallies For Al
by Wayne Barrett
December 21st, 2004 11:40 AM

If there was any doubt about the many ways "Wildcard" Al Sharpton impacts city and national politics, consider his recent, under-covered foray into the 2005 mayoral campaign. One week before the Voice's wide-ranging expose on the Rev appeared ("On a New High, Sharpton Hits a New Low," December 8-14), he sat down at the Club Havana with El Diario's Gerson Borrero and railed against Democratic front-runner Freddy Ferrer, the near-victorious candidate Sharpton backed in 2001.

Ferrer's crime, Sharpton told Borrero, is that he is still associated with Roberto Ramirez, the former Bronx Democratic Party boss. Ramirez and Sharpton were trigger-happy sidekicks until early 2004, when Ramirez's consulting company was mysteriously jettisoned by Sharpton's presidential campaign. The two were arrested at Vieques protests in Puerto Rico in 2001 and did months in jail together. Ferrer "has to show his independence from the heads of the party, be they Latino, black, or white," says the new reformer Rev.

Ferrer is just the latest in a long line of progressive Sharpton targets. The Rev was a Republican instrument for Al D'Amato in 1986 and 1992, submarining Democrats Mark Green and Bob Abrams, and appeared in Harlem with George Pataki in 1994 on the Sunday before Pataki beat Mario Cuomo. No one least of all Mike Bloomberg will forget what he did to defeat Green again in 2001. And John Kerry just rewarded him for his full-scale assault on Howard Dean in the primary debates by making him a top surrogate in the presidential campaign, subsidized by up to $200,000 in Democratic National Committee expenses and fees. Sharpton's rationale for dumping on Ferrer is so bizarre, he actually told Newsday that he's not even "sure the Bronx machine exists," but that Ferrer must distance himself from it.

 

 

How Social Security reform can become a reality Wed Dec 22, 6:21 AM ET By Kent Conrad and Lindsey Graham With a renewed debate over the future of Social Security (news - web sites) underway, Republicans and Democrats alike need to begin by setting aside our differences and focusing on the common ground between us. As two policymakers - one from each party - who have been committed to the well-being of Social Security throughout our careers, we have agreed that the following principles should guide our deliberations going forward:

You might want to add The Bush Beat to your RSS reader or blogroll or whatever. Myers and Rumsfeld fight chaos with chaos

Denying reality even as critically wounded U.S. soldiers were fighting for their lives in a German hospital after the Mosul bombing, General Dick "Quag" Myers acted this afternoon as if he were still on tour with his fellow USO celebrities.

There's no other explanation for the blatant lie the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told an assemblage of reporters at the Pentagon about yesterday's dining-hall bombing in Iraq:

This attack, of course, is the responsibility of insurgents, the same insurgents who attacked on 9-11, the same type of insurgents who attacked in Beirut, the same insurgents who—type of insurgents who attacked the, Khobar Towers, and the list goes on.

Don't bullshit us, General. Don't lump together the Sunni resistance in Iraq—or the Shiite resistance to our occupying troops—with the Saudi hijackers who bombed New York City and the Pentagon.

It was clear from the performance of both Myers and SecDef Don Rumsfeld at the press briefing that they have no friggin' idea how to stanch the flow of U.S. blood. (They don't care about Iraqi blood; if you do, go to Iraq Body Count for the latest scores.)

Myers seems much more comfortable as a celebrity general on tour with the USO (see photos). It's astonishing that he and Rumsfeld still have their jobs.

Giuliani: I Couldn't Kerik Less By IAN BISHOP December 20, 2004 -- WASHINGTON — Rudy Giuliani — desperate to protect his reputation and his business — is sprinting away from scandal-scarred Bernard Kerik. In a lengthy interview with Newsweek, Giuliani said Kerik's role at Giuliani Partners was so minor that he handled "less than 5 percent" of the company's business. In fact, Kerik doesn't even work at Giuliani Partners, the former mayor told the magazine, he works at an offshoot called Giuliani-Kerik — even though Kerik is touted as a senior executive of the parent company on its Web site. "Senior vice president of the group is what Bernie was when we started. I think that remains his title, but that's not the way we primarily relate to him," Giuliani explained. "We should probably straighten it out and point out where his ownership interest is and primary work is done."

Sheelzebub at Pinko Feminist Hellcat

But then I was heartened, because t it seemed people took this disgusting, grisly, and sadistic crime seriously. And I was right--sort of.

Lisa Montgomery, of Melvern, Kan., was set to appear Monday afternoon before a federal judge in Kansas City, Kan., to hear the charge against her. She was later to be transferred to Missouri, where the charge was filed. The office of U.S. Attorney Todd Graves filed a motion seeking to have Montgomery, charged with kidnapping resulting in death, held without bail pending a trial.

Let's go over that again. "Kidnapping resulting in death."

I expected two murder charges if the child had died. Then I expected the one murder charge and maybe kidnapping. I didn't expect kidnapping instead of murder. Sheelzebub closes with

Can we just be honest once and for all? Just come right out and say that women's lives mean nothing. When a murderer is given a "kidnapping" charge because the focus is on the fetus, as opposed to the murder charge because a WOMAN WAS STRANGLED AND MUTILATED, that's the impression I'm left with.

This is wrong.

That's because mainstream types really don't understand what's going on. It's like Dave Chapelle's humor. Newsweek brought the whole mess up again, and Ed from Vision Circle asked a mailing list we're on about it. I, being a troublemake, quoted from Jimi Izreal's blog

So, back to her question . . .

. . . Why is it that educated, successful blacks are seen as "trying to be white"? Why does being educated and successful have a color attached to it -- isn't that
what we all want, regardless of color?

OK.

OK. I can’t speak for the race, man, but I can tell you this:

White folks find themselves eavesdropping on intra-racial conversations a lot, and this whole “acting/talking white” thing is a good example. They want so kind of guidebook or interpreter, because they really have no idea what is being talked about. None. SO here’s a head’s up: the whole “acting white” thing? Bullshit(need a NTY subscription.) Noise. This was an intra-racial conversation, spoken in our parlors, in our dialect, encoded for our ears, that got leaked into the zeitgeist. These conversations? Aren’t for your ears, Opie. They aren't for you to understand. Sorry.

Often, whites spot-check their assumptions and apocryphal tales against your first-hand testimonials—which they give little to no credence anyways. But it’s like being asked to spell your own name---they just do it to see if you know the answer. Just for shits and giggles. Jason found someone trying to put him in a trick bag like that. Whites think they know you better than you do. I used to play, but as the questions got dumber and dumber, I have opted out. I am not now nor will I ever be your Negro Tour Guide. Find some black person to nigger-fy.

A lot of smelly, hippy-dippy types want a “We Are the World”—type scenario. Me too. But we ain’t the world, man, and don’t look to be any time soon. So get off my Woodrow. Stop calling me “bro.” Stop trying to "talk black.” Just do you. And stop asking me stupid fuckin’ questions. Read a book. "Google" it. Or better yet . . . get to know someone from a different race . . . well, like black folks. Ever notice that we don't ask the same kind of questions? That's because we done peeped your hole cards long days ago.

Other answers:

It's also worth noting that where Acting White does exist (and I was respected and praised for my grades, not shunned) there is a larger trend of the White population encouraging this attitude. "You're Different." "You're not like them." "Blacks are lazy...Well, not you though.." If I'm educated and "speak well" and because of that I'm different than "them." What am I? The answer is white. And who has a larger impact and hold on public image? Earl pointed out this "well known" phenomenon is from eavesdropping. It's time we start talking about and publicizing the phenomenon that we know has been going on for centuries. If the majority is telling you you can be different from the Blacks they just talked dirt about by having these attributes, what are you then? If they want to eavesdrop, let them talk about themselves.

Hate to tell you mainstream types, but this is pretty much what Cos meant when he said he doesn't care is white people hear or what they have to say about it. In response to the above:

Well, I had another answer for that, and still do actually, because believe me, I still get this bullshit sometimes When someone says to me, you talk like a white person...my reply is... I speak better, than most white people.

And this:

Another divisive tactic ... Black folks allowing white folks to define who Black folks are, what is good and what is bad ... continuing to promote an anti-education climate in the Black community, specifically the African American community.

This issue of "acting white" as it relates to education is nonsense. The label often is thrown about due to a perception of how someone behaves, which is independent of their GPA. This issue (in my opinion) deals with self values, some where there is no such thing as an "elite" Black person. The only people that some of us accept as being superior are "White". The end result is this, if you are behaving in a manner in which I feel you are trying to be better than me, you can only be acting like that individual that I accept as being better than me, i.e. White. I went to Benjamin Franklin High School in Manhattan, graduating in 1980. I was in the honor society and also attended a math and science program in my senior year where I went to college each afternoon, not once was I accused of "acting white" because of my grades. Conversely, my girlfriend, who lived in the South Bronx was accused of this daily by those folk who lived in her neighborhood, they knew nothing of her grade point average (actually it was rather dismal), she carried herself in a particular manner, one where she saw herself above the daily roughness of her surroundings, for this she was set upon and ostracized.

Hmmmm. You can act smart; you can act dumb. Since when is "smart" white and dumb "black"? I don't necessarily see anything wrong with what Cosby said. Of course, you have to understand what he meant, not just listen to his words. If a black kid grows up in a household with two college graduates, then in addition to whatever "language" is used between and among his peers, he/she should also have equal fluency in what I call the language of publication--as opposed to "standard" English (a label that makes my blood boil). This whole thing of acting black or acting white is a useless diversion, often given legitimacy by those who value someone else's yardstick more than our own. I can hang with what some call 'black' English, with my peers and others fluent in that style of communication. I can also write a 100 page grant for a million dollars in what some called "mainstream" (another value label) English. My point is that both are equally valuable and that there is no reason why we can't strive for excellence in both arenas.

Since some schmuck said so and others latched onto it. This issue surfaces quite regularly and it really amazes me to what extent some conversations are taken on it. On the issue of Cosby, many folk are so hell bent on not airing their / our dirty laundry, they will stop at nothing to discredit anyone else who does. In addition to that, those who villify him for what he said, usually don't "listen" to what he said. They hear how it was said and simply ignore the content. I tell my children that they are bilingual, we speak one way at home and another way depending upon the situation that we find ourselves in. Anyone who cannot see through that will undoubtedly have issues when attempting to move ahead or get their point across to anyone else who does not share their speech process. Whether we like it or not, there is a "generally accepted" manner of speech that is understood by those who speak english in this country.

Note there is significant agreement that "ebonics" has meaning and will not go away. But there's also agreement that learning "English as a Second Language" and skill at code switching is valuable. After this it became a discusiion of Cos' particular approach…which means the conversation is over.

It's been a while since I responded to a comment with a whole post, but this is important enough that I don't want it missed. The original post is my promise to read The American Constitution Society's series on Clarence Thomas' opinions. The focus of the series is his disregard for stare decisis.

Stare decisis is one of the most well established principles in the law. Simply put, it means that courts will not overturn established precedent without an extraordinary reason to do so. It is also a doctrine not held sacred by all nine Justices. In Justice Antonin Scalia's words, Justice Thomas "doesn't believe in stare decisis, period."

In the comments it was said:

Thomas' mindset may be out of sync with the last 70 years of the Supreme Court, but it's highly consistent with what the court was like before Roosevelt. Attempts to paint Thomas (and Scalia) as radicals contain an unsupported claim that 70 years of movement toward more federal power was itself not a radical change.

…which is SO not the point. Clarence Thomas simply does not seem to believe in legal reasoning. Look at that definition of stare decisis again. Remove the principle of respect for precedent and you have judgment by fiat…the purest form of judicial activism that is possible. You destroy the entire judicial hierarchy…how can an appeals court rule against a local court if there is no reference to established procedure? What would remain of the Supreme Court's power if there were no need for lower courts to respect precedent? If you apply his conservative philosophy liberally it leads to anarchy. Beyond that to the specific complaint, a seventy year change is only radical if you ignore all the intermediate steps…steps, I might add, that were small because of the need to respect precedent. But over time, yes those changes have changed the nature of the game. There is simply no point to comparing things to they way it was seventy years ago because the social structures that made it that way don't exist anymore. If the changes of the last seventy years were radical, reversing them in less than seventy will be traumatic. Doing so in the next four would be blunt trauma. Especially since it means a change from ever greater liberties to ever greater restrictions. It was also said:

Not all legal means are appropriate to achieve a desired goal. Principle is important, because it solidifies the progress.

Solidification of the progress can be nothing other than establishing a precedent. Ignore the principle of respecting precedent as Thomas would have us do and there can be no solidification of the progress.

Majette accepts job as part-time judge By COREY DADE The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 12/22/04 U.S. Rep. Denise Majette, who shocked the Georgia political establishment by vacating her seat and running unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate, has accepted a position as a part-time judge in DeKalb County. Chief Magistrate Winston P. Bethel confirmed Tuesday that Majette will be sworn in and begin hearing cases once her term in Congress officially ends Jan. 3. Majette was a longtime DeKalb State Court judge before running for Congress in 2002. "Of course, the congresswoman brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to this," Bethel said. "I basically came to her because I know of her experience and because of our personal relationship from when she was in the State Court."

Quote of note:

There is something comforting in the knowledge that jurists in the nation from which we derive our legal tradition continue to uphold such basic values.

Kinda grasping at straws, though… Anyway… Freedom and terrorism OUR OPINION: BRITISH LAW LORDS UPHOLD FUNDAMENTAL CIVIL LIBERTIES At a time when the United States and other democracies are under assault from terrorists, it takes courage to stand up and declare that there are limits to what the government can do in the name of national security. In Britain, the Law Lords, that nation's highest legal authority, rose to the challenge a few days ago in a powerful and articulate defense of fundamental civil liberties. The panel of nine members of the House of Lords, roughly equivalent to our Supreme Court, ruled 8 to 1 that the incarceration of nine foreign Muslims for indefinite terms was a violation of the European Convention of Human Rights. The men are being held under the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act, Britain's version of the U.S. Patriot Act. It was passed in the wake of 9/11 and allows foreigners suspected of terrorism to be held indefinitely -- without charges. Critics call their jail ``Britain's Guantánamo.'' One court member said in his opinion that giving the state authority for such detentions posed a greater threat to democracy than terrorism. ``It calls into question the very existence of an ancient liberty of which this country has until now been very proud: freedom from arbitrary arrest.'' Precisely. Freedom is too precious, and has been purchased at too high a cost, to surrender it whenever there is a threat of attack. The war on terrorism, as President Bush often says, is a new kind of war and demands new forms of vigilance. But as our own Supreme Court ruled last June in a case involving the terrorist prison at Guantánamo Bay, no threat justifies giving the government a ''blank check'' to suppress civil liberties. There is something comforting in the knowledge that jurists in the nation from which we derive our legal tradition continue to uphold such basic values.

And 62 percent said they would not participate in such a program if it meant their retirement income would go up or down depending on the performance of their stock picks -- which is the essence of Bush's plan.

The essence of Bush's plan would require your benefits to change as the stock market changes. And you've seen how the stock market changes.

Quote of note:

It is on the specifics that Bush faces problems. Support dropped to an even split when people were told that the cost of the transition to a new program could reach $2 trillion over time, as some forecasts project. And 62 percent said they would not participate in such a program if it meant their retirement income would go up or down depending on the performance of their stock picks -- which is the essence of Bush's plan.

Details Cloud Support for Social Security Plan By John F. Harris and Dana Milbank Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, December 22, 2004; Page A01 President Bush has wide support for his argument that Social Security needs dramatic change to meet its obligations to future retirees, but there remains considerable skepticism about his plan to let people invest a portion of their contribution to the program in the stock market, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll. Since his Nov. 2 reelection victory, Bush has frequently said the results were an endorsement by voters of the most dramatic revision of the retirement program since its inception nearly 70 years ago. But the survey shows that his efforts to educate the public about the idea and convince them of the merits are at best incomplete.

The University of Michigan released the results of an annual survey of drug use by minors.

Monitoring the Future has been funded under a series of competing, investigator-initiated research grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Surveys of nationally representative samples of American high school seniors were begun in 1975, making the class of 2004 the 30th such class surveyed. Surveys of 8th and 10th graders were added to the design in 1991, making the 2004 nationally representative samples the 14th such classes surveyed. The sample sizes in 2004 are 17,413 8th graders located in 147 schools, 16,839 10th graders located in 131 schools, and 15,222 12th graders located in 128 schools, for a total of 49,474 students in 406 secondary schools overall. The samples are drawn to be representative of students in private and public secondary schools across the 48 coterminous United States, selected with probability proportionate to estimated class size, to yield separate, nationally representative samples of students from each of the three grade levels.

Given the American tendency to respond to such things in entirely theoretical fashion, especially when talking about things society officially frowns on, I'm not sure how seriously to take it. I know how to take all the headlines associated with the story though…we need good news. Everyone leads with "teen drug use down." A very few note the use of inhalants has increased. But if you read even the press release:

Overview In summary, most of the movement this year in teen substance use has been in a downward direction, but generally the declines have been quite modest. Quite a number of drugs showed little or no change in use in 2004 compared to 2003, though most of them are at levels below their recent peak rates. The continuation of a decline in marijuana use, and the hardening of attitudes about it, is one of the more important developments this year, the investigators said. The resurgence of inhalant use in all three grades, but particularly among the younger students—the 8th graders—is one of the more troublesome findings this year. “The continued rise in OxyContin use among high school seniors—even though it is not a statistically significant one—continues to concern us,” Johnston said, “particularly given the relatively high prevalence rate already attained by this highly addictive narcotic drug.”

…you'll see it's more of a pluses-and-minuses thing. And alcohol is as big an issue as illegal drugs, if not bigger. People have to violate social norms to do illegal drugs. Not so alcohol…two amendments to the Constitution attest to that fact. As does this, from Gretchen Wilson's profile on 60 Minutes:

"I think I definitely went through stages in my life where I drank way too much," she says. "I’ve never had any kind of drug problem, and I really attribute a lot of that to being a witness to some of my mom’s problems. I could see how hard everything was for her. I was her mom sometimes, and I was taking care of her."

If you drink too much, you have a drug problem but it's just not seen that way. So when I see stories with stuff like this:

Health experts and government officials called the annual survey of eighth, 10th and 12th-graders a sign of continued progress in the effort to reduce youth drug use and said further declines would come only with a sustained public education campaign about the consequences of drug abuse. Overall, illicit drug use among teens declined by 7 percent over the past year, and 17 percent over the last four years. There are now 600,000 fewer teens using drugs than there were in 2001. "These are sustained, broad and deep declines," national drug policy director John Walters said at a news conference. "The challenge before us is to follow through."

…I take it with the proverbial grain of salt. On balance, I can't really call it good news. But at least it's not bad news.

Quote of note:

To Arabs and Muslims, this discovery is less than Archimedean. For them, it has always been self-evident: The Palestine problem, a legacy of Western colonialism as virulent today as it ever was, has always been the greatest single source of anti-Western sentiment in the region. So if terrorism now ranks as the greatest single contemporary threat to global order, and if Iraq is its most profitable arena, Palestine must have a great deal to do with it.

Path to Peace Runs Through Palestine Iraq may grab the headlines, but conflict with Israel still drives Arab anger in the region. By David Hirst David Hirst was the Guardian's correspondent in the Middle East from 1963 to 1997. He is the author of "The Gun and the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East" (Nation Books, 2003) December 22, 2004 BEIRUT — Since Yasser Arafat's death, there has been a shift of international attention away from Iraq to the other, older, most imperishable of Middle East crises. Tony Blair has urged the reelected President Bush to revitalize the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which he called "the single most pressing political challenge in our world today," while British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has called it more important than Iraq itself. And the view that the two crises are malignantly linked found forceful corroboration in a surprising quarter. In a report flatly contradicting Bush administration orthodoxy, the Pentagon's Defense Science Board said Washington's problems in Iraq and elsewhere arose not from Muslims' hatred of American freedoms but of its policies and "what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights."

IN BRIEF / WASHINGTON STATE Governor's Race Tilts to Democrat in Recount From Times Wire Reports December 22, 2004 Democratic State Party Chairman Paul Berendt said in Olympia that recount results from King County gave Democrat Christine Gregoire an eight-vote statewide victory over Republican Dino Rossi in the governor's race. The report is preliminary, and neither King County nor the Republican Party would confirm the hand recount results. But if Berendt's analysis is right, it is a stunning reversal of fortune in the closest governor's race in Washington history. Rossi won the first count by 261 votes and won the machine recount by 42 votes.

Giving them a sick feeling Drug firms are on the defense as filmmaker Michael Moore plans to dissect their industry. By Elaine Dutka Times Staff Writer Dec 22 2004 America's pharmaceutical industry is putting out an advisory about the latest potential threat to its health: Michael Moore. Moore, the filmmaker whose targets have included General Motors ("Roger & Me"), the gun lobby (the Oscar-winning "Bowling for Columbine") and President Bush ("Fahrenheit 9/11") has now set his sights on the healthcare industry, including insurance companies, HMOs, the Food and Drug Administration — and drug companies. At least six of the nation's largest firms have already issued internal notices to their workforces, preparing them for potential ambushes. "We ran a story in our online newspaper saying Moore is embarking on a documentary — and if you see a scruffy guy in a baseball cap, you'll know who it is," said Stephen Lederer, a spokesman for Pfizer Global Research and Development. In September and October, GlaxoSmithKline, the second-largest in retail sales, as well as AstraZeneca and Wyeth, sent out Moore alerts, instructing employees that questions posed by the media or filmmakers should be handled by corporate communications. Heavyweights Sanofi-Synthelabo and Aventis Pharmaceuticals each sent out similar memos before their recent merger. Merck & Co., Abbott Laboratories, Eli Lilly & Co., Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novartis Pharmaceuticals and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries send periodic messages about dealing with the press but haven't singled out Moore by name. Johnson & Johnson declined to comment.

S-presso S1-P111 Centerpiece of home entertainment Just like a cup of Espresso, this all-new desktop solution is compact and rich in flavor. The ASUS S-presso provides excellent support for quality 3D graphics, multimedia entertainment and high-speed processing all in a stylish casing. This deluxe version of S-presso features a touch-control color display panel as well as a TV tuner, remote control, and multimedia center software. All combine to make the S-presso S1-P111 the ideal entertainment PC.

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I've been thinking about putting together a PC for this sort of thing…I want a PVR that can manipulate the captured media (just think what I could do with a video "quote of note"). No reason it can't be cute

Quote of note:

• Dr. P. Trey Sunderland III, a senior psychiatric researcher, took $508,050 in fees and related income from Pfizer Inc. at the same time that he collaborated with Pfizer — in his government capacity — in studying patients with Alzheimer's disease. Without declaring his affiliation with the company, Sunderland endorsed the use of an Alzheimer's drug marketed by Pfizer during a nationally televised presentation at the NIH in 2003. • Dr. Lance A. Liotta, a laboratory director at the National Cancer Institute, was working in his official capacity with a company trying to develop an ovarian cancer test. He then took $70,000 as a consultant to the company's rival. Development of the cancer test stalled, prompting a complaint from the company. The NIH backed Liotta. • Dr. Harvey G. Klein, the NIH's top blood transfusion expert, accepted $240,200 in fees and 76,000 stock options over the last five years from companies developing blood-related products. During the same period, he wrote or spoke out about the usefulness of such products without publicly declaring his company ties. Announcing such ties is not required by the NIH. The agency has encouraged outside consulting, and has allowed most of its scientists to file confidential income disclosure forms.

The National Institutes of Health: Public Servant or Private Marketer? Doctors have long relied on the NIH to set medical standards. But with its researchers accepting fees and stock from drug companies, will that change? A continuing examination by The Times shows an unabashed mingling of science and commerce. By David Willman Times Staff Writer December 22, 2004 For 15 million Americans, it is a daily ritual: gulping down a pill to reduce cholesterol. They do it because their doctors tell them to. Their doctors, in turn, rely on recommendations from the National Institutes of Health and its scientists, such as Dr. H. Bryan Brewer Jr. Brewer, as a leader at the NIH, was part of a team that gave the nation new cholesterol guidelines that were expected to prompt millions more people to take the daily pill. He also has written favorably of a specific brand of cholesterol medication, Crestor, which recently proved controversial. What doctors were not told for years is this: While making recommendations in the name of the NIH, Brewer was working for the companies that sell the drugs. Government and company records show that from 2001 to 2003, he accepted about $114,000 in consulting fees from four companies making or developing cholesterol medications, including $31,000 from the maker of Crestor. Brewer was far from alone in taking industry's money: At least 530 government scientists at the NIH, the nation's preeminent agency for medical research, have taken fees, stock or stock options from biomedical companies in the last five years, records show.

Clarence Thomas' America Stare decisis is one of the most well established principles in the law. Simply put, it means that courts will not overturn established precedent without an extraordinary reason to do so. It is also a doctrine not held sacred by all nine Justices. In Justice Antonin Scalia's words, Justice Thomas "doesn't believe in stare decisis, period." Because Justice Thomas does not feel bound by precedent, his opinions often call for substantial shifts in the law. These next two weeks, ACSBlog will explore several of these cases, explaining the history behind Thomas' disfavored doctrines, and suggesting how America would be different should Thomas' vision ever become law. We hope these pieces will be helpful in understanding the man President Bush calls a "model" Supreme Court Justice.

It's inevitable, you know. You know why?

Bush Says U.S. Immigration System Not Working
Mon Dec 20, 2004 03:50 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush said flatly on Monday that America's immigration system is not working and that in his new term he would push for a temporary guest worker program. At a news conference, Bush spoke at length about U.S. immigration problems. Last January he proposed allowing some of the estimated 8 million to 10 million illegal immigrants in the United States to gain legal work visas for at least six years. But the U.S. Congress did not pass the plan. Some in Bush's own Republican Party oppose concessions to illegal immigrants and would like to see restrictions placed on legal immigration as well. Bush said his plan would take pressure off the porous U.S.-Mexican border, match willing workers with willing employers and cut out the "coyote" smugglers who carry immigrants in the back of trucks and sometimes allow them to suffocate. "The system we have today is not a compassionate system. It's not working. And as a result, the country is less secure than it could be with a rational system," Bush said.

The United States of America needs massive amounts of labor at below market value to maintain its statistics and standard of living. I'm not blaming Bush or even cheap labor conservatives (though the bastards don't need to take it as far as they do). This is fundamental. Look at it. The country was kick-started by indentured servitude. When that became politically unfeasible they switched to enslaving the indigenous folk and Africans. That was supplanted by Jim Crow and the prison farm system…which, looking back strongly resembles slavery . Looking forward, it strongly resembles the prison-industrial complex And by the way, slavery is still legal in the USofA if you're duly convicted of a crime. All these methods of extracting labor at less than market rates were legally enacted. And even now we need the labor of the illegal market, and more…we need to keep it separate from "real" employment. I'm willing to bet if we added every felon that works for a corporation in the labor pool and factored their salaries into our economic figures the American economy wouldn't be such an aggregated wonder. The guest worker program is the latest vehicle to get sub-market rate labor into the economy. We're gonna do it. We always do it. So get it over with.

The Shizzolator Lives!

Bush Social Security Plan May Face Hard Sell WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A decade after President Bill Clinton's ambitious scheme to overhaul U.S. health care turned into a political debacle, some are wondering whether President Bush's Social Security plan could go the same way.

There are two reasons American culture dominates the world. It is marketed relentlessly, and the number of the world's intellectual leaders that were educated here. And the latter increases the effectiveness of the former. U.S. Slips in Attracting the World's Best Students By SAM DILLON American universities, which for half a century have attracted the world's best and brightest students with little effort, are suddenly facing intense competition as higher education undergoes rapid globalization. The European Union, moving methodically to compete with American universities, is streamlining the continent's higher education system and offering American-style degree programs taught in English. Britain, Australia and New Zealand are aggressively recruiting foreign students, as are Asian centers like Taiwan and Hong Kong. And China, which has declared that transforming 100 universities into world-class research institutions is a national priority, is persuading top Chinese scholars to return home from American universities. "What we're starting to see in terms of international students now having options outside the U.S. for high-quality education is just the tip of the iceberg," said David G. Payne, an executive director of the Educational Testing Service, which administers several tests taken by foreign students to gain admission to American universities. "Other countries are just starting to expand their capacity for offering graduate education. In the future, foreign students will have far greater opportunities."

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The institute has an $11 million federal contract to help bring about a "fundamental cultural shift" in Ukraine, as the organization puts it, "from a passive citizenry under an authoritarian regime to a thriving democracy with active citizen participation."

Not the sort of rhetoric to put a host government at ease. Anyway… Dollars for Democracy?: U.S. Aid to Ukraine Challenged By JOEL BRINKLEY WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 - Russian leaders, many Ukrainians and even some members of Congress are asking whether the $58 million the United States spent to promote democracy in Ukraine over the past two years was actually intended to oust the government there. The Bush administration insists that its effort to influence the conduct of the Ukrainian election is nonpartisan. Government officials say the political training programs Washington has sponsored in Ukraine are no different from those in a dozen other countries in recent years. But teaching the principles of democracy to citizens in a semi-authoritarian system may, on its face, work to empower the government's opponents. Government officials and contractors working in Ukraine say the projects Washington subsidizes - energizing disenfranchised voters, training student activists, setting up communication networks among nongovernmental organizations - tend to educate and empower the opposition and work to the disadvantage of pro-government parties. "It has become particularly tricky to walk a very thin line," acknowledged Leslie J. McCuaig, Ukraine project director for the Institute for Sustainable Communities, a Vermont-based organization with branches in Russia and Ukraine.

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The first salvo was launched by the Securities Industry Association, which recently issued a research report arguing that the private accounts would not be a financial bonanza for Wall Street. In the paper, the association calculated that firms would collect at least $39 billion in fees, and perhaps considerably more, from managing such accounts over the next 75 years. But the group noted that the fees charged would be significantly below the fees that investment firms receive these days from low-cost mutual funds. And even if the fees rose significantly as more people chose actively managed accounts, the association's report argued, they would still pale in comparison with the $3.3 trillion in revenues Wall Street firms are projected to earn from their core securities business over that period.

Wall St. Lobby Quietly Tackles Social Security By LANDON THOMAS Jr. As President Bush prepares to disclose the details of his plan to funnel hundreds of billions of dollars of future Social Security funds into privately held investment accounts, Wall Street has begun a muted lobbying campaign, chastened by bolder forays that failed in years past. So far, the chief executives of most financial firms have refused to take a public stand in support of private accounts, wary of being seen as too eager to embrace a potential new revenue stream. At last week's White House economic meeting in Washington, they were conspicuous in their absence from the Social Security panel. Even in direct meetings with President Bush, who actively campaigned on the issue of Social Security, executives have shied away. There are signs, however, that the industry is becoming a little more aggressive in pushing for private accounts, through a loose assemblage of trade associations, business coalitions and conservative research centers. These groups have lately begun trying to raise money from business interests and to marshal support on Capitol Hill, while also seeking to deflect criticism that Wall Street is behind the move simply to reap rich rewards for administering the accounts.

Today's anti-propaganda propaganda.

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The results of national tests do not put Georgia's young readers in such a favorable light. In 2003, 59 percent of Georgia fourth-graders were at the basic level or higher in reading, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a test given to a sampling of children around the country.

More 'cut scores' revealed High schoolers can miss most questions, pass By PATTI GHEZZI The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 12/21/04 High school students taking the Georgia's End-of-Course Tests in core subjects such as biology, American literature and U.S. history can miss half the questions or more and still pass, according to figures released Monday by the state Department of Education. To get an "A," students need to answer correctly between 59 and 77 percent of the questions. On Monday, state officials released the "cut scores" — the number of correct answers needed to pass — on End-of-Course Tests and the state graduation test. Tens of thousands of Georgia students take the End-of-Course Tests every year at the conclusion of eight classes. While most are taken in the spring, some students took the tests this month, mainly in one-semester classes such as economics. Those students will not find out their scores until after the winter break. The End-of-Course Test counts for 15 percent of a student's final grade.

Understand what the function of lawsuits is in our market economy. In situations where the economic harm of wrongdoing or error falls on people other than the perpetrator, legal action is taken to inflict the appropriate economic damage, or to incent action to avoid such penalties. It's not perfect but in its absence there would be no penalty at all for many things. Like malpractice. Anyway… Students Sue School System, Claiming Denial of Education By SUSAN SAULNY The student known as Exhibit D had attended high school in Brooklyn until he was arrested and sent to a detention center a year and a half ago. After he was discharged, he said, he tried to go back to school but was turned away from one after another because of his record. As a result, he missed 51 days of classes last year. Seven students who say they have had similar experiences with the New York City public schools have filed a class-action lawsuit against the city and state departments of education in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. The students claim that they have suffered irreparable harm by being denied their constitutional right to a basic education. The 43-page lawsuit was filed last week with the assistance of Advocates for Children, a nonprofit group that monitors education; the Legal Aid Society; and the Manhattan law firm of Dewey Ballantine. It argues that the plaintiffs, ages 7 to 21, have been deprived of a minimally adequate education because of systemic flaws in the way the school system processes former juvenile offenders and delinquents. According to the suit, "Schools in the community often refuse to admit class members upon their release from court-ordered settings." It continued: "Plaintiffs and class members have spent weeks, and in some cases several months, out of school or warehoused in alternative settings where court-involved youth are segregated and that do not afford them minimally adequate educational services." Under city regulations, the lawsuit argues, such students must be placed in a school within five days of applying, and no school can turn them away.

7 Arrested in Hog and Dog Competitions Raids target rodeos in which canines pin down boars. Law officials call it animal cruelty, but owners say the dogs enjoy the chase. By Ellen Barry Times Staff Writer December 21, 2004 ATLANTA — Law enforcement authorities arrested seven people over the weekend on animal cruelty charges stemming from "hog dogging" events, in which pit bulls or bulldogs are placed in a pen with pigs or wild boars and are timed as they pin the squealing animals with their powerful jaws. Several raids took place in Alabama, Arizona and South Carolina; the events' organizers also were charged with animal fighting. Robert Stewart, chief of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, said more arrests were expected. "It's bad enough to put animals of the same species against one another. Now we're staging events with different species in combat," said Wayne Pacelle, chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States. "I shake my head and am disgusted, but I am never entirely surprised."

Beginning a new chapter in his life By Erika Hayasaki Times Staff Writer December 19, 2004 He told them about himself, how he had been like them. "I can help you," he said, "I can help you." One slept. Others stared, bored. He had planned today's class carefully: His students would relate to him. They would ask his advice about college. Then he would divide them into teams and lead them in a tic-tac-toe spelling game. They would compete fiercely. Excitedly. A girl in the front row studied herself in the mirror of her compact. She ignored him. This was Ricardo Acuña's third week as a teacher. Day after day, it was growing more difficult. He gave the girl a tense look. Then he wrote her name in red on the board: detention. "Mister! I wasn't putting on makeup." She slammed her books on her desk. Then she crossed her arms and slumped in her seat. "If you have an education," Ricardo told them all, "you can make a difference in your lives and your families' lives." The hour passed without any sign that he was making much difference himself. When the bell rang, he forced a smile. "This isn't me," he told a visitor, as he gathered an armload of books and a brown briefcase stuffed with papers. He walked down three flights of stairs to another classroom, where he would do the same thing all over again, with no better result. It was starting to take a toll.

Bush Foresees a Deeper U.S. Role in Iraq The president warns that troop levels will not be cut next year and acknowledges that training of local forces has had mixed results. By Maura Reynolds and Sonni Efron Times Staff Writers December 21, 2004 WASHINGTON — President Bush warned the American people Monday that the U.S. engagement in Iraq will intensify in the coming year, with the Jan. 30 election marking the "beginning of a process" toward democracy that will require higher troop levels and continue through 2005. Painting a far more sober picture of the situation in Iraq than he did during his reelection campaign, Bush acknowledged that efforts to train Iraqi security forces have had only "mixed" results and that a violent insurgency has eroded morale among Iraqis and Americans.

After all, it's obvious nothing will be done about it. New F.B.I. Files Describe Abuse of Iraq Inmates By NEIL A. LEWIS and DAVID JOHNSTON ASHINGTON, Dec. 20 - F.B.I. memorandums portray abuse of prisoners by American military personnel in Iraq that included detainees' being beaten and choked and having lit cigarettes placed in their ears, according to newly released government documents. The documents, released Monday in connection with a lawsuit accusing the government of being complicit in torture, also include accounts by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents who said they had seen detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, being chained in uncomfortable positions for up to 24 hours and left to urinate and defecate on themselves. An agent wrote that in one case a detainee who was nearly unconscious had pulled out much of his hair during the night. One of the memorandums released Monday was addressed to Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, and other senior bureau officials, and it provided the account of someone "who observed serious physical abuses of civilian detainees" in Iraq. The memorandum, dated June 24 this year, was an "Urgent Report," meaning that the sender regarded it as a priority. It said the witness "described that such abuses included strangulation, beatings, placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees' ear openings and unauthorized interrogations."

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The jobs Year Up alumni land pay an average of $14 an hour, and Chertavian says he'll tweak the curriculum as the market for technology jobs changes. But he's equally devoted to nurturing students' love of learning. Through a partnership with Cambridge College, which caters to people who juggle school, work, and family, Year Up students earn up to 18 credits. "Now, forevermore on their résumé they can say, 'College Degree expected,' " Chertavian says. "With just that alone, on average they're expected to earn 25 percent more than their counterparts who don't have some college experience."

Add testimonials from Fast Company and The United Way of Massachusetts Bay. Anyway… Offering a way back to hopes of college A program targets some promising young people whose lives hit a bump on the path to higher education. By Stacy A. Teicher | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor Boston's downtown pedestrian mall teems with young adults, many on their way to or from a minimum-wage job. But sandwiched between the RadioShack and the Burger King there's a fifth-floor suite where better jobs finally seem within reach for a couple dozen 18- to 24-year-olds. They may not have dared to imagine that before they found Year Up, which offers college-level technology classes, professional and personal development, and paid apprenticeships. Participants must be high school graduates or have GEDs - and some even have a few college courses under their belts - but what largely defines them is a desire for higher education that has been thwarted by circumstances. Some, like Ousdhane Chadic, are immigrants who need to earn money or boost their communication skills before plunging into college full time. Others, like Carlos Torres, long for college and higher salaries, but already have children to support. Still others have had to overcome homelessness or addiction. What Year Up offers all these young people is a bridge to cross that "opportunity divide," says executive director Gerald Chertavian, an entrepreneur who used profits from the sale of an Internet firm to launch the nonprofit four years ago. Mr. Chertavian had nurtured the concept since the 1980s, when he was a Big Brother in a New York public housing complex. The people he met there "were wonderfully gifted, intelligent, and savvy - they just didn't have a path into the mainstream," he says. "It was unacceptable. America has nobody to waste."

The sum of American fears By Joel Agee BROOKLYN, N.Y. - I told a friend I'd be writing an essay about fear. He cautioned me: "Don't say that our fears are groundless." He had heard me express the widespread opinion that in allowing ourselves to be governed by fear, we may be forfeiting our freedom. Of course our fears aren't groundless. Who would deny the threat of nuclear and biological war on our shores? And militant factions within three major religions seem intent on fulfilling prophecy of a final war between good and evil, certain that they and not their enemies are the children of light. What greater danger can be imagined? But just for that reason it seems to me necessary to live without fear - to the extent that we're able. This doesn't mean we shouldn't protect ourselves from real dangers. It means we must be vigilant against the counsels of fear. What impressed me most forcefully in the pictures from Abu Ghraib was how fear was employed as an instrument of torture. Humiliation, too - but those photographs were meant to terrify, because they could be used to shame the victims in their communities. Why has the discussion of these outrages very nearly vanished from public discourse? Does our silence bespeak a tacit consent to their continuation? If so, what would be our motive? I believe it is fear - fear of an elusive, treacherous enemy, but also fear of seeing the depths to which we may go for the sake of an equally elusive security.

So Zenpundit invites my opinion of his views on historians speaking out on current events. Inspired by a couple of posts at American Future, Mark (and Marc) didn't seem impressed.

That being said, academics make a terrible misjudgement by misrepresenting their instant analysis of contemporary events on their blogs or in op-ed pieces as sound scholarship, particularly historical scholarship. It isn't. It's informed, expert opinion and interesting to be sure, compared to lightweight ruminating by airhead anchors in the MSM but the methodology, documents and peer review simply are not there. The official declassified state papers for American foreign policy - The Foreign Relations of the United States series- is only just now opening up the Nixon-Ford years to scrutiny. There is much left for this period in the National Archives, at the CIA, at Defense and at presidential libraries to be declassified - to say nothing of the Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush II administrations.

Well, I didn't read them as claiming their responses were any form of scholarship. Basically, they said how they would look at Bush were he an historical figure. Not that I, personally, mind their passing judgment at this point. Fact is, though, between classified information, clouded perceptions in the heat of the moment, propaganda and the "history is written by the victors" factors, there's no way possible to estimate how history will treat Bush or any contemporary figure. As all the historians quoted at American Future said, it's obvious Bush is an important figure in history. But the actual judgment laid on his administration will depend on the moral and circumstances at the time the judgment is made and will change over time. The surest way for him to be recorded in a positive light would be to steamroll the Middle East flat.

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"He was just the ultimate priest," Helen Kasper of Hurley, one of Erickson's parishioners, told the Daily Globe of Ironwood, Mich. "He was very strict in what he wanted done. He was very faithful to his religion."

Wis. priest questioned in slayings dead December 20, 2004 HURLEY, Wis. --A 31-year-old Roman Catholic priest who had been questioned by police in two gunshot slayings has killed himself, church officials said Monday. The Rev. Ryan Erickson was found dead in a hallway between his church and rectory at St. Mary of the Seven Dolors on Sunday morning. Police were investigating and declined to release further information. The Rev. Philip Heslin, moderator of the Curia for the Catholic Diocese of Superior, the equivalent of the diocese's chief operating officer, said Erickson hung himself. Police in Hudson recently questioned Erickson about the slayings of Dan O'Connell and James Ellison, but the priest denied involvement, Heslin said. O'Connell and Ellison were found fatally shot at the O'Connell Family Funeral Home in February 2002; O'Connell was the director and Ellison was an intern there. "We knew he was being investigated," Heslin said in a telephone interview. "But that's all we knew. I talked to him two days before this happened and he seemed in good spirits." Heslin said he wasn't aware detectives had any conclusive evidence tying Erickson to the shootings. "They told us not to say anything about this," he said, adding the investigation was still active.

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Players roll the dice, move around the board, renting properties, buying lights and equipment, planting and harvesting crops. Moving in an opposite direction on the cylinder shaped board is the "GrowBuster." He lands on the unsuspecting player's property, rips out the plants and sends the player directly to jail.

Board game lets players run marijuana farm December 20, 2004 VANCOUVER, B.C. --The hot new Christmas gift in Canada this year is a board game that lets players run their own "B.C. Bud" marijuana farm. Creators of "The Grow-Op Game" say the $39.95 "educational board game" highlights the perils of the marijuana business and cautions would-be growers. "You get ratted on by neighbors, hydro cuts you off, you get floods, there are tons of stuff that is negative about it," said Vancouver-based creator Ivan Solomon Saturday. Solomon said the Monopoly-style game is the brainchild of a young, 20-something reformed pot grower, known only as the "Rabbit," to conceal his identity. Solomon said Rabbit came up with the idea for the game while serving time in jail.

Quarter ton of coke found in plane wreck December 20, 2004 WHEELING, W.Va. --Authorities called to the scene of a weekend plane crash found no people -- dead or alive -- but they did find $24 million worth of cocaine. Federal authorities were seeking the pilot, identified as Eugene N. Cobbs, on a charge of possession with intent to distribute cocaine, U.S. Attorney Thomas E. Johnston said Monday. The Piper Aerostar twin-engine plane crashed in a wooded area around midnight Saturday near the Wheeling-Ohio County Airport, said James Peters, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration. Authorities found about 327 pounds of cocaine packaged in blocks and another 193 pounds turned up Monday in the plane's nose compartment, Johnston said. He estimated the street value at about $24 million. Authorities were searching for a man believed to be Cobbs who was picked up by a motorist near the airport's front entrance. His forehead was cut and he asked for a ride to a hotel.

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"It's just a freak thing," said Roland Langford, who works as a custodian in nearby Maryville. "It's a real nice town. People get along. That's what you like about it here -- the people."

Grisly killing adds to town's notoriety Theft of fetus is latest violence in Mo. community By Scott Canon and Rick Montgomery, Knight Ridder | December 20, 2004 SKIDMORE, Mo. -- How, wonder the people still left in this small town getting smaller, could such horrible things happen in a place they treasure for its friendly rural charms? First came the notorious "Skidmore bully," Ken Rex McElroy, whose death made national headlines. He had so terrorized the town that when somebody gunned him down in broad daylight in 1981, nobody would admit to seeing a thing. Then on Oct. 16, 2000, Wendy Gillenwater was stomped to death by her boyfriend. Locals take comfort in knowing the killer is serving life in prison. The next year, a 20-year-old resident vanished. Many think he was murdered. And now the police cars and media crews are back. On Thursday, somebody killed 23-year-old Bobbi Jo Stinnett, butchering her body to pull out the little girl who was due next month to be Stinnett's firstborn. Lisa M. Montgomery, 36, of Melvern, Kan., has been charged. "Why do they all come to Skidmore to do this?" decadelong resident Pauline Dragoo asked on Friday, her 91st birthday. "I'm going to move out of this town."

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Panzerfaust made no effort to hide the main purpose of "Project Schoolyard." Their Web site proudly proclaims: "We just don't entertain racist kids … We create them."

Hate Music: New Recruitment Tool for White Supremacists Abraham Foxman December 17, 2004 This fall, hate groups took their longstanding effort to recruit teen-agers into the white supremacist movement to a new level, with the owners of a neo-Nazi record company promising to deliver "hatecore" music into the hands of 100,000 teenagers during the 2004-2005 school year. They even created a CD filled with racist music expressly for this purpose. In one sense, there was nothing new here. Hate groups have for years sought to reach a younger audience with their message of hatred and bigotry, changing with the times and technology. We have seen hate groups create racist and anti-Semitic Web sites designed to appeal to children, and even the creation of racist video games with names like "Ethnic Cleansing." But with the start of the 2004 school year, the neo-Nazi Panzerfaust Records upped the ante with a brazen campaign dubbed "Project Schoolyard," geared specifically to middle and high school students, ages 13–19. Panzerfaust announced plans to distribute as many as 100,000 free CDs to students in schools across the country. They indicated that they would produce the CDs cheaply and in large quantity, making them widely available to white supremacists across the country, who would in turn volunteer their time to hand out the CDs and help make the campaign a success.

Settlers Back Call to Resist Gaza Pullout Jewish Settlers Endorse Call to Resist Gaza Pullout, but Say They Remain Opposed to Violence The Associated Press Dec. 20, 2004 - Israeli settler leaders Monday backed a call to resist the planned evacuation of settlements in the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank, even if it means going to jail, but said they remain opposed to using violence. The announcement signaled a shift toward revolt, as settlers' hopes dwindle for stopping the pullback through political means. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Israel won't participate in a Mideast peace conference proposed by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, days after officials said Israel was prepared to attend. Blair is expected to discuss the conference during a trip to the region this week. At a news conference, the Yesha Settlers' Council, which represents residents of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, endorsed a call to disobedience by Pinchas Wallerstein, a former leader of the group. "The Yesha council stands behind Pinchas Wallerstein," said Bentsi Lieberman, head of the council. "The proposal to expel Jews from their homes is an immoral decision and a breach of human rights." Wallerstein sent letters around the West Bank, saying settlers should resist evacuation even if it means going to prison.

I can definitely see this being a popular research tool for those students who aren't buying (or are selling) term papers on the Internet. Quote of note:

You can search for headlines in the massive database for free. In some cases, you may be able to go to the individual publication's website and find the same story for free, so if you have time and no expense account, it's probably worth trying. If you want to purchase the full text of a story, you're charged $3 per document and that gives you access to the story for 90 days. You can print and download the stories once you've bought them.

LexisNexis AlaCarte! Search the archive for free By Jonathan Dube MSNBC.com/CyberJournalist.net LexisNexis has long been one of the best research tools for journalists, enabling reporters to instantly search billions of documents from tens of thousands of sources, from newspapers and trade journals to public records. Today, LexisNexis is launching a new news search service, LexisNexis AlaCarte!, that will make it easy for anyone to search for free and retrieve content for small fees on an as-needed basis. This pay-as-you-go option is perfect for people who don't have a need for -- or can't afford -- the flat-rate LexisNexis plans. LexisNexis AlaCarte! provides users access to more than 3.8 billion documents from over 20,000 sources of news, public records, and government information, including top newspapers, magazines, and transcripts, company and industry reports, deed records, liens, zip demographics, state and federal legislation, and intellectual property. The information goes as far back as 1968.

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Webb gained notoriety in the 1990s after writing a series of stories for the Mercury News linking the CIA to Nicaraguan Contras seeking to overthrow the Sandinista government and to drug sales of crack cocaine flooding South Central Los Angeles in the 1980s.

Reporter's suicide confirmed by coroner A flood of inquiries about Gary Webb's shooting death prompts statement. By Sam Stanton -- Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, December 15, 2004 Facing a barrage of calls from the media and the public, the Sacramento County Coroner's Office issued a statement Tuesday confirming that former investigative reporter Gary Webb committed suicide with two gunshots to the head. "The cause of death was determined to be self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the head," the coroner's statement said. "Information and evidence gathered at the scene of death, including a handwritten note indicating an intention on the part of the decedent to take his own life, resulted in 'suicide' as the determined manner of death. "The investigation is continuing and will take an estimated additional six to eight weeks to complete." The statement was issued because of the number of calls that had flooded the Coroner's Office since The Bee reported Sunday that Webb's death was caused by more than one wound. Webb, a former San Jose Mercury News reporter, was found dead in his Carmichael home Friday morning.

It occurs to me that the worst thing you could do to Mr. Bush would be to sabotage his teleprompter.

Adoption as game show: Are we disgusted yet? By Adam Pertman and Hollee McGinnis NEW YORK - In most aspects of life, we have some sense of where the lines are, even if we decide to cross them. So comedians tell racist jokes, magazines publish sexist stories, and TV programs offer increasingly unsettling glimpses into just how far human beings will go to make a buck or get their 15 minutes of fame. The purveyors of such off-color fare invariably understand that they're pushing the limits, that they'll make some people cringe and others angry. The producers of an upcoming Fox special, "Who's Your Daddy?" apparently didn't have a clue that they had wandered so far beyond the line that it was no longer in sight. But it would be hard to exaggerate the level of near-uniform disgust and outrage they have engendered within the diverse segments of the adoption community - a potential audience of tens of millions whom the show's creators presumably had hoped they would attract with their oh-so-clever concept. In the program, scheduled to air Jan. 3, a woman adopted as an infant interviews eight men to determine which is her biological father. If she guesses right, she receives $100,000; if she fails, the contestant who fools her wins the money.

Quote of note: Punishing the Press Recent court developments have been grim for those who cherish a free press. On Dec. 9, a television reporter in Providence, R.I., Jim Taricani, was sentenced to six months of house arrest for refusing to reveal who gave him an F.B.I. videotape showing a local official taking a bribe. Mr. Taricani did nothing illegal. Yet the Rhode Island federal judge who sentenced him pointedly said that only health problems spared him a prison term. The worry now is that a three-judge federal appellate panel in Washington will take an equally cramped view of reporters' rights and affirm sentences of up to 18 months in prison that a lower court imposed in October on Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine. At issue is the pair's principled refusal to disclose their sources in connection with the investigation that the United States attorney and special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is leading into the leaking of the name of a covert C.I.A. officer, Valerie Plame, to the columnist Robert Novak. Among the strange wrinkles in this case is that Mr. Novak, who first published Ms. Plame's name, seems to be in no jeopardy, while Mr. Cooper faces jail time stemming from an article he wrote exposing the administration's seamy motive of retaliating against Ms. Plame's husband for criticizing Iraq policy. Stranger still is Mr. Fitzgerald's decision to entangle Ms. Miller, since she never wrote a single article about the Plame controversy. The appellate panel expressed palpable hostility to the notion that the First Amendment provides any protection for journalists subpoenaed to reveal their confidential sources to a grand jury. We hope that this is a case where the tenor of an oral argument does not foretell the content of a court's ruling. That same appellate hearing also explored another legal avenue the court could take to stop the two journalists from becoming the only people punished for the Bush administration's abuse of power in leaking the name of a covert C.I.A. operative.

Quote of note: Initially, there was speculation the fires had been set by environmental extremists, because some environmental groups had complained that the houses threatened a nearby bog. But no evidence has been found to support that theory, the police said. While many of the buyers of the half-million-dollar houses are black, Charles County, where the development is located, is largely rural and mostly white. Investigators Consider Race as Possible Motive in Maryland Arson By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS INDIAN HEAD, Md., Dec. 19 (AP) - Racial animosity and revenge are among the possible motives in the arson fires in a subdivision in southern Maryland on Dec. 6, a spokesman for federal investigators said Sunday. Four men have been charged with arson in the fires, which destroyed 10 houses and partly burned 16 others, causing $10 million in damage. No one was hurt; many of the houses were still under construction. A federal law enforcement official speaking on the condition of anonymity said two of the four men in custody made racial statements to investigators during questioning. The men are white, and many of the families moving into the development are black. Michael Campbell, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said investigators were considering revenge and race, along with several other possible motives. "Two typical motives for arson are revenge and race," Mr. Campbell said. "It's something investigators are looking at." None of the suspects have been charged with a hate crime.

Administration Looks to Curb Growth of Medicaid Spending By ROBERT PEAR WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 - Federal officials are sending auditors to state capitals across the country to investigate techniques used by states to shift hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid costs to the federal government. Also, under a proposed federal rule, the Bush administration will require states to prepare annual estimates of total improper payments and calculate payment error rates for Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program. States will have to identify the cause of each error, address it and recover any overpayments to health care providers. The moves come as the administration is considering a wide range of other new initiatives to curb the growth of Medicaid spending, crack down on improper payments and help states save money by restricting eligibility and benefits. Federal investigators said Medicaid wasted hundreds of millions of dollars a year by overpaying for prescription drugs. Many states pay on the basis of inflated, fictitious list prices reported by drug companies. One of the initiatives would link payments to actual market prices, which are often much lower.

The New Military Life: Heading Back to the War By MONICA DAVEY MANHATTAN, Kan., Dec. 15 - Earlier this year, as Sgt. Alexander Garcia's plane took off for home after his tense year of duty in Iraq, he remembered watching the receding desert sand and thinking, I will never see this place again. Never lasted about 10 months for Sergeant Garcia, a cavalry scout with the First Armored Division who finished his first stint in Iraq in March and is now preparing to return. He and the rest of his combat brigade at Fort Riley, the Army base a few miles from this town, have been working for weeks, late into the frigid prairie nights, cleaning and packing gear and vehicles for the trip back to Baghdad after the New Year. "I figured that the Army was big enough that one unit would not have to go back again before this thing was over," said Sergeant Garcia, 20. "It's my job and it's my country, and I don't have any regrets. But I kind of feel like I did my part. Just as I was readjusting to life back home, just as I was starting to feel normal again, this kind of throws me back into the waves."

Pfizer to Halt Advertising of Celebrex to Consumers By ALEX BERENSON fizer said yesterday that it would immediately stop advertising Celebrex, its best-selling arthritis pain reliever, to consumers after a study showed that high doses were associated with an increased risk of heart attacks. The suspension of advertising, which is indefinite, includes television, radio, newspaper and magazine ads and other promotions to consumers, a Pfizer spokeswoman, Mariann Caprino, said yesterday. Some magazine ads may appear for a few more weeks because of the long lead time of magazine advertising, she said. Pfizer appears to have had little choice in deciding to end the advertising campaigns. The Food and Drug Administration said Friday that it was considering regulatory measures that could include severe label warnings or even requiring that the drug be withdrawn in the United States. The federal agency agreed with the advertising withdrawal, Ms. Caprino said, adding, "We discussed it with the F.D.A. and we all concurred that it was the appropriate step." Pfizer, based in New York, spent $71 million advertising Celebrex to American consumers in the first nine months of this year, one of the biggest ad budgets for a prescription medicine. Those advertisements have annoyed some consumer advocates and scientists, who argue that they encouraged overuse of Celebrex among patients for whom the medicine offers little benefit over older drugs.

White House Defends FDA as Drug Safety Debate Looms By Marc Kaufman Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, December 20, 2004; Page A02 The Bush administration and some of its critics squared off yesterday over whether the Food and Drug Administration is doing an adequate job overseeing drug safety, and whether the agency needs major reforms. In a preview of the debate to come, White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. said the agency is doing a "spectacular" job and should "continue to do the job they do."

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Freedom and choice are wonderful things that allow us to realize our human potential. But there's a limit to how many choices each of us has time to make, and most people in the rich world are pretty much maxed out already. You see this truth in the behavior of the affluent, who actually pay to avoid choices. They hire home decorators so they don't have to stare glassily at 200 kinds of curtain rail. They hire marriage planners so they don't have to fret about cream napkins vs. white ones. There are said to be 10,000 wedding consultants practicing in the United States. If the rich are deliberately avoiding choice, why are we so sure that the majority want more of it?

Trouble With Choices By Sebastian Mallaby Monday, December 20, 2004; Page A23 The economics of Social Security privatization get plenty of attention: how to think about transition costs, the effect on national savings, the risk of equity investment. But the political philosophy of privatization is often taken for granted: It's just assumed that, if the economics were neutral, people would be happier with private accounts than with a public program. Do we really know this to be true? Is an "ownership society" preferable to a "big government" one? People want control over their lives; they value their freedom. But the first reason to wonder whether "ownership" is always good is that it can be stressful. It may be true, as promoters of ownership like to say, that nobody ever washed a rented car; but renters are very happy not to have to get the hose out. If it's up to you to choose how to invest your pension account, agonizing over health stocks vs. Asian bonds may not be such a privilege It's not just that financial planning is a dry topic to most folks. It's that modern life is overloaded with choices. In "The Paradox of Choice," the Swarthmore College psychologist Barry Schwartz shows how a certain measure of choice can be liberating but how too much is a treadmill -- sometimes even triggering depression. Freedom and choice are wonderful things that allow us to realize our human potential. But there's a limit to how many choices each of us has time to make, and most people in the rich world are pretty much maxed out already. You see this truth in the behavior of the affluent, who actually pay to avoid choices. They hire home decorators so they don't have to stare glassily at 200 kinds of curtain rail. They hire marriage planners so they don't have to fret about cream napkins vs. white ones. There are said to be 10,000 wedding consultants practicing in the United States. If the rich are deliberately avoiding choice, why are we so sure that the majority want more of it? Ownership does not merely involve choice; it involves risk also. A certain measure of risk is fine; indeed, if you want a dynamic society it's positively essential. But just as the modern economy threatens Americans with choice overload, so it also piles more risk on the shoulders of the average citizens. The risk of not being able to afford health care has risen, albeit because health care has more to offer than it used to. Fewer people have risk-free "defined benefit" pension plans that guarantee a fixed proportion of salary upon retirement. An index devised by Yale's Jacob Hacker shows that income volatility has increased sharply since the 1970s. Given that risk is already on the rise, perhaps public policy should avoid adding to it?

We didn't watch shows like this in our neighborhood.

via Foreign Dispatches

New version of test to be administered in 'red' states of Georgia, Kansas By Cole Walters
Education Correspondent

NEW YORK, NY—Officials from the College Board, the nonprofit entity that administers the Scholastic Aptitude Test or SAT, have announced that they are producing a new version of the test for students who live in school districts where creationism rather than evolution is taught in science classes. Students who take the revised test, which will be introduced in school districts in Kansas and Georgia in the fall of 2005, will no longer be tested on their ability to comprehend passages from scientific texts that are based on the controversial theory of evolution. Instead, they will read excerpts from writings on such creation-related topics as the six days in which God created the earth or the great flood, then answer a series of questions to indicate how well they've understood the passages. [P6: download PDF of the questions] The revision, says College Board spokesman Lester McCue, is a reflection of the changing nature of science content being taught in high schools around the country. "The SAT has to keep up with these changes or risk being left behind. We can't test kids on material that they are not being taught," says McCue.

There's a lot of students AND teachers that would disagree with that last line.

Race, Family Income and Standardized Tests: The National Center for Fair and Open Testing (Fair Test) has released some interesting information. This information caused the College Board which owns the SAT to demand that Fair Test remove the data from its website. Fair Test has put charts on its website that breaks down SAT scores by gender, ethnicity and family income. The College Board sent Fair Test a letter asserting that “publication of the data, significantly impacts the perceptions of students, parents, and educators regarding the services we provide." Fair test responded in a letter to the College Board stating: "That is precisely our goal”. Looking over the charts, you will see that the data is quite interesting. The charts show that the SAT and ACT both render approximately the same results. The ACT Chart starts with families that make less than $18,000 per year going up to families with incomes of $100,000 per year; the higher the family income the better the scores. Does this reflect better parenting by rich folk or better access to good schools?

Probably neither. You can take the SAT, spend a couple hundred bucks on a "How To Take The SAT" course and raise your score significantly in a matter of weeks. There's no way that tests anything fundamental.

It was a profile of Gretchen Wilson, the latest Country-Western phenom. You should check out the article and the video for "Redneck Woman." I like the video, for real. It's ghetto as hell.

I found this on Military.com. I leave a description of the site's politics as an exercise to the reader. Quote of note:

Too often, in my twenty years of military service, I experienced senior military leaders push religion on subordinates. Many seniors strongly advocated prayer breakfast attendances with threats of efficiency report repercussions. One Fort Hood brigade commander actually made his officers attend Sunday worship services with reportable consequences. The man is a general today, probably believing he was doing God's work. Then there were numerous chaplains who had to bless our tank guns to assure the highest gunnery training scores. I always abhorred their practices because I thought if there is a God out there, desperately trying to sort out our complex world, we should not waste his divine efforts on mere training events.

Reign in Religious Zealots In the Military November 10, 2003 By Ralf W. Zimmermann Lt. Gen. William Boykin's recent exposure as a uniformed media evangelist couldn't have come at a worse time for U.S. foreign relations. Just when Muslims around the world accuse the United States of waging a holy war for Christianity and Israel's cause, General Boykin's lecturing escapades and the tirades of many extreme church groupings seem to prove them right. Now, I can actually deal with the well-dressed TV freaks, frightening their poor congregations into buying absolution and useless relics, just like the corrupt preachers during Martin Luther's times. That's all about free speech and the pursuit of personal fulfillment. Boykin however, worries me. Here is a highly decorated senior officer, who should be an enlightened leader of our youth and advocate for American ideals. But what does he do? He's telling the world that our war on terror is based on competing religions. Boykin claims that we're in a life-and-death struggle with Satan and that Saddam and Bin Laden are the devil's instruments to destroy the Christian nation of America and its ally, Israel. Not different from the times of the great crusades, he firmly believes that our God is of course the better God, ensuring we will come out as the winner. He also stated openly that our current Prez is in the White House for God's personal reasons. Wow - scary thoughts for a man who helps shape this century! In an age where more religious tolerance should be the norm, the general's religious fanaticism is indeed troublesome. Firstly, it is fanaticism versus healthy belief. It's even more troublesome when you hear and read of congressional representatives not defending religious freethinking as envisioned by the Constitution, but jumping to defend the zealous general. For them, he is a reincarnated Stonewall Jackson. Instead of writing letters of support, our representatives ought to remember their constitutional duty and ask for the officer's early retirement, as well as clear policy enforcement for freedom of religion in all services. The struggle over religious influence in our military is one that can't be overlooked and runs deeper than Boykin's personal lectures. Too often, in my twenty years of military service, I experienced senior military leaders push religion on subordinates. Many seniors strongly advocated prayer breakfast attendances with threats of efficiency report repercussions. One Fort Hood brigade commander actually made his officers attend Sunday worship services with reportable consequences. The man is a general today, probably believing he was doing God's work. Then there were numerous chaplains who had to bless our tank guns to assure the highest gunnery training scores. I always abhorred their practices because I thought if there is a God out there, desperately trying to sort out our complex world, we should not waste his divine efforts on mere training events. Although I grew up as a Catholic, my father - a WorldWar II veteran - never forced single-minded religion on me. Our family always held that there was a higher power out there but that it didn't have to be in the image of only one religion. I believe that's what the fathers of our Constitution actually envisioned. Not a nation without trust in a higher force but with free choice as to what or whom we believe in - a universal force of good. Having been in a few dangerous spots in my lifetime and listening to vets of many conflicts and from different nations, I assure you that that war and its terror almost demands that you trust something bigger than yourself to get you through. In the killing fields, many of us experience interventions, may they be divine or spiritual in other ways. Since we now live in the 21st century, it's time we actually empower people to follow their own religious beliefs, as envisioned by our Constitution. King Frederick II of Prussia had it right when he proclaimed, "Every man should seek religious fulfillment in his own fashion." The Boykin revelation should be a trigger to reign in religious fanatics at all levels of our government, without curtailing the freedom to worship. The men and women, who put their lives on their line for our great Constitution and their families, should be able to believe as they wish, even if it means worshipping ancestral spirits. Believing in something bigger than oneself is a good thing. And as Martin Luther once proclaimed, God isn't something to be feared. God is good and loves all humans, no matter what color, religion, gender or national origin. Contributing Editor Lt. Col. (U.S. Army, ret.) Ralf W. Zimmermann is a decorated Desert Storm veteran and former tank battalion commander. Since his retirement, his columns have regularly appeared in Army Times and other publications. His recent novel, "Brotherhood of Iron," deals with the German soldier in World War II. It is through most major book dealers. Zimm can be reached at [email protected]. ©2003 DefenseWatch. All opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of Military.com.

THE ETHICIST Being a Good Sport By RANDY COHEN When a newly passed austerity budget cut sports in our school district, community members organized fund-raisers to restore them, but my husband and I declined to donate. We fear that private fund-raising will encourage further budget cuts. And we've heard the (unconfirmed) story that a coach might make a family's donations a factor in who makes the team. Should we donate? Anonymous, Goshen, N.Y. Write that check: if you and your neighbors do not, there won't be school sports. Fairness requires every family to bear its share of this burden, although many of your neighbors refuse to do so (hence the austerity budget). And when you pony up, you may grit your teeth and mutter darkly -- at their miserliness and their shortsightedness. Coaches should not make a child's participation in a sport contingent on a parent's willingness or ability to pay. A policy of equal access for all kids should be declared and donor privacy protected so coaches do not know who has given what. But that step defuses only the obvious and local danger. Private financing frequently means in-demand programs survive while equally worthy but less popular pursuits wither. Worse still, while kids in wealthier parts of town will have sports, children in poorer neighborhoods will not. Relying on private financing suggests falsely that sports programs benefit only children actually on a team. It's not just kids who hike in Yellowstone or call the fire department or attend public school who gain from these things. We all do, even those who've never had to extinguish a burning bear during recess. To take a stingy view of what it is to be a member of a community, to balkanize financing, frays the ties that create those communities. So don't limit yourself to pay and dismay. Efforts to forestall those dismal effects should accompany your check-writing. To provide sports programs for your kids effectively means working for policies that finance them, something you can't do alone. In this, ethics necessarily expresses itself as politics.

In Kerik, Bush Saw Values Crucial to Post-9/11 World By ELISABETH BUMILLER

It just occurred to me that when someone says "Bush" in the future no one will think of Bush the Elder. Quote of note:

"This is a new low for the United States, not just to pull out, but to block other countries from moving ahead on their own path," said Jeff Fiedler, an observer representing the Washington-based Natural Resources Defense Council. "It's almost spiteful to say, 'You can't move ahead without us.' If you're not going to lead, then get out of the way."

U.S. Waters Down Global Commitment to Curb Greenhouse Gases By LARRY ROHTER BUENOS AIRES, Dec. 18 - Two weeks of negotiations at a United Nations conference here on climate change ended early Saturday with a weak pledge to start limited, informal talks on ways to slow down global warming, after the United States blocked efforts to begin more substantive discussions. The main focus was to discuss the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, which goes into force on Feb. 16 and will require industrial nations to make substantial cuts in their emissions of so-called greenhouse gases. But another goal had been to draw the United States, which withdrew from the accord in 2001, back into discussions about ways to mitigate climate change after 2012, when the Kyoto agreement expires. Governments that are already committed to reducing emissions under the Kyoto plan used diplomatic language to express their disappointment at the American position. Environmental groups, however, were more critical of what they characterized as obstructionism.

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"I don't think that there really is any such thing as a widows-and-orphans stock anymore," said Chris Orndorff, head of equities at Payden & Rygel, the investment management firm based in Los Angeles. Stocks are simply more volatile today and many industries are less regulated, he said.

Pfizer's Plunge Will Have Side Effects for Investors By PAUL J. LIM THERE was a time not so long ago when shares of major drug makers like Merck or Pfizer were considered the modern equivalents of the old-fashioned "widows and orphans" stocks. In other words, investment advisers felt that these shares were safe enough to entrust with anyone's assets, without much concern for diversification. Who can blame them? For a long stretch in the 1990's, after the health care reform debacle in the early days of the Clinton administration, drug stocks went on a tear. "It was a charmed group," said Herman Saftlas, senior investment officer and pharmaceutical analyst at Standard & Poor's. Mr. Saftlas noted that in the mid- to- late 1990's, the earnings of drug companies were growing faster than profits for the S.& P. 500 as a whole, and their dividends were rising more quickly as well. You can't beat that combination. Indeed, S.& P. maintains a list of what it calls dividend aristocrats - companies that have managed to increase their dividend payments every year for the last 25 years. There are only 58 companies in the S.& P. 500 that make the cut today - and five of them are major drug manufacturers. But the market's violent reaction last week to troubling news from Pfizer highlights the underlying danger of assuming that there is such a thing as a can't-miss blue-chip industry - like Big Pharma - let alone a can't-lose stock. Pfizer's shares, for example, fell more than 11 percent on Friday after a clinical trial of its blockbuster painkiller Celebrex in cancer treatment showed increased risk of cardiovascular damage. That shaved about $24 billion in Pfizer's market capitalization in a single day. Someone pass the Zoloft. Pfizer's troubles come in the wake of a similar crisis for its rival, Merck, which pulled the painkiller Vioxx from the market after a study showed that the drug also led to increased risk of heart attacks. Unlike Merck, however, Pfizer has not recalled its drug. "I don't think that there really is any such thing as a widows-and-orphans stock anymore," said Chris Orndorff, head of equities at Payden & Rygel, the investment management firm based in Los Angeles. Stocks are simply more volatile today and many industries are less regulated, he said. Investors who think that the Vioxx and Celebrex news is simply an aberration in an otherwise healthy pharmaceutical industry may need to reconsider. In addition to well-reported problems in filling depleted pipelines with profitable new drugs, the industry faces other uncertainties, including Medicare's impact on pharmaceutical prices and major soul-searching at the Food and Drug Administration, Mr. Saftlas said.

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At root, then, the researchers found, the choice of whether to save comes down more to psychology than to economics. Their approach is squarely in the growing field of behavioral economics, which is gingerly stepping away from the economists' orthodoxy that humans are eternally rational, relentlessly profit-seeking machines.

How to Build a Nation of Savers By DANIEL GROSS AMERICANS seem to hate saving. In October, the nation's households saved just 0.2 percent of their income. And despite the tax advantages conferred by 401(k)'s, individual retirement accounts and other savings vehicles, most people simply refuse to stash much money in them. As of 2001, the most recent data available, only 8.4 percent of 401(k) investors made the maximum contributions, according to Alicia H. Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. Cultural critics have bruited a host of theories to explain our aversion to thrift: Americans are hoggish consumers. Like children, we live for today and don't worry about the future. Our popular culture and our economy encourage consumption. But economists have been more perplexed. After all, the tax advantages and employee match of 401(k)'s - free money! - should appeal to any rational person. Well, it could be that Americans' failure to save is caused by mechanics, not morals. At least that is one conclusion of a recent paper by four economists: David Laibson and James J. Choi of Harvard and Brigitte C. Madrian and Andrew Metrick of the University of Pennsylvania. The scholars examined what happened at four companies that switched the way they pitched 401(k)'s to employees. When employees were offered the option of signing up for a 401(k) upon hiring, participation rates after six months ranged from 25 percent to 43 percent. Not bad. But when the same companies instituted default enrollment - people were automatically enrolled in the plan when hired but could opt out - participation rates after six months were 86 to 90 percent. In other words, changing the position of the on-off switch essentially doubled the rate. At a different company, when employees were simply asked to make a decision about whether to participate - yes or no - within 30 days, the rate of enrollment rose to 70 percent from 30 percent. "This gives the lie to the mythology that the American household doesn't want to save," Professor Laibson said. "Whatever our propensities to save may be, they can easily be changed by changing the institutions in which we make choices."

Quote of note:

Among the ideas cited by Defense Department officials is the idea of "fighting for intelligence," or commencing combat operations chiefly to obtain intelligence.

Based on this idea I can see intelligence is not in use at all. Another quote of note:

One part of the overall proposal is being drafted by a team led by Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, a deputy under secretary of defense.

You remember General Boykin, don't you? If not, I got a quote from an acceptance speech Bill Moyers gave when receiving The Interfaith Alliance's Walter Cronkite Faith and Freedom Awards.

I keep a folder in my credenza marked "Holy War." It bulges with Shias and Sunnis in fratricidal conflict: teenaged girls in North Africa shot in the face for not wearing a veil, professors whose throats are cut for teaching male and female students in the same classroom, the fanatical Jewish doctor with a machine gun mowing down 30 praying Muslims in a mosque, Muslim suicide bombers bit on the obliteration of Jews, of the young Orthodox Jew who assassinated Yitzhak Rabin and then announced on CNN to the world that "Everything I did, I did for the glory of God," of Hindus and Muslims slaughtering each other in India, of Christians and Muslims perpetuating gruesome vengeance on each other in Nigeria. There is a large folder in my death marked "Timothy McVeigh," blowing up the Federal building in Oklahoma City killing 168 people in part as revenge against the U.S. Government for killing David Koresh and his followers. We didn't realize it at the time, but the first strike at New York's World Trade Center in 1993 was a religious act of terror. The second one in 9/11, claiming over 3,000 lives, was another act of religious terror. Meanwhile, groups calling themselves the Christian Identity Movement and the Christian Patriot League arm themselves, and Christians intoxicated with the delusional doctrine of two 19th-century itinerant preachers not only await the rapture, but believe they have an obligation to get involved politically to hasten the apocalypse that would bring to an end the world. Christians can invoke God for the purpose of waging religious war. Consider the American general who has turned up as a force in the web of command and action leading to the torture and humiliation of prisoners in Iraq. General William Boykin, you may recall, is the commander who lost 18 men in Somalia trying to capture a warlord in the notorious "Black Hawk Down" fiasco of 1993. He later described the conflict as a battle between good and evil. "I knew," he said, "that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was the real God, and his was an idol." Boykin became a circuit writer for the religious right, actively in a group called the Faith Force Multiplier that advocates applying military principles to evangelism. Their manifesto summons warriors in, quote, "a spiritual battle for the souls of the nation and the world." Traveling the country with his slide show, while an active member of the United States military in uniform, General Boykin declares that, quote, "Satan wants to destroy this nation. He wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army." "The forces of satan will only be defeated," says the general, "if we come against them in the name of Jesus." You might have thought that kind of fatwa from a high military officer in uniform wearing the American insignia would have struck the powers that be in the Pentagon and White House as somewhat un-American, if not un-Christian, but not only has General Boykin been kept in office, he turned up as a principal in the chain of command leading to the Iraqi prison. It was Boykin who flew to Guantanamo and ordered Major General Jeffrey Miller, then in charge of prisoners at the highly secret Camp X-ray, to go to Iraq and extend the methods practiced at X-ray to the prison system there on orders of Secretary Rumsfeld. This is the same General Boykin who last June publicly announced that, quote, "George Bush was not elected by a majority of the voters. He was appointed by God."

Pentagon Seeks to Expand Role in Intelligence-Collecting By DOUGLAS JEHL and ERIC SCHMITT WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 - The Pentagon is drawing up a plan that would give the military a more prominent role in intelligence-collection operations that have traditionally been the province of the Central Intelligence Agency, including missions aimed at terrorist groups and those involved in weapons proliferation, Defense Department officials say. The proposal is being described by some intelligence officials as an effort by the Pentagon to expand its role in intelligence gathering at a time when legislation signed by President Bush on Friday sets in motion sweeping changes in the intelligence community, including the creation of a national intelligence director. The main purpose of that overhaul is to improve coordination among the country's 15 intelligence agencies, including those controlled by the Pentagon. The details of the plan remain secret and are evolving, but indications of its scope and significance have begun to emerge in recent weeks. One part of the overall proposal is being drafted by a team led by Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, a deputy under secretary of defense. Among the ideas cited by Defense Department officials is the idea of "fighting for intelligence," or commencing combat operations chiefly to obtain intelligence. The proposal also calls for a major expansion of human intelligence, which is information gathered by spies rather than by technological means, both within the military services and the Defense Intelligence Agency, including more missions aimed at acquiring specific information sought by policy makers.

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Within less than a year, however, the investigations into espionage and aiding the enemy grew into a major source of embarrassment for the Pentagon, as the prosecutions of Captain Yee and another Muslim serviceman at the base, Airman Ahmad I. Al Halabi, unraveled dramatically. Even now, Defense Department officials refuse to explain in detail how the investigations originated and what drove them forward in the face of questions about much of the evidence.

How Dubious Evidence Spurred Relentless Guantánamo Spy Hunt By TIM GOLDEN Capt. Theodore C. Polet Sr., an Army counterintelligence officer at the detention camp for terrorism suspects at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had just begun investigating a report of suspicious behavior by a Muslim chaplain at the prison last year when he received what he thought was alarming new information. The F.B.I. had found that a car belonging to the chaplain, Capt. James J. Yee, had been spotted twice outside the home of a Muslim activist in the Seattle area who, years earlier, had been a host for a visit from Omar Abdel Rahman, the militant Egyptian cleric convicted in a 1993 plot to blow up various New York landmarks. Although it was unclear what the activist had done or whether Captain Yee even knew him, Captain Polet took the report to the Guantánamo commander, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, and laid it out in stark terms. "I said we had found something that connected Yee with a known terrorist supporter in Washington State, and at that point, he got very upset," Captain Polet said, noting that General Miller's ears turned red with anger. "This became far more serious than a basic security violation. The case was going to get bigger." In fact, documents and interviews show that the case grew much bigger than has been publicly disclosed, spinning into a web of counterintelligence investigations that eventually involved more than a dozen suspects, a handful of military and civilian agencies and numerous agents in the United States and overseas.