Prometheus 6

Though it seems a serious diversion, I'm asking you to bear with me and run this thought experiment. It's not mine, it's Albert Einstein's. He used it to explain the repercussions of relativity to non-technical folks. He used light because its speed is fundamental and he was looking for the fundamental. I'm going to use sound because I want you to feel this understanding in your bones. It may seem more quantum mechanical than ballistic, but no one said ballistics was a piece of cake either.

Here's the set up: You're in a train, dead center of a box car. You have a box that emits a selected tone when you push a button and four sound activated switches. You mount the switches at either end of the box car along the axis you'll be traveling along and the axis perpendicular to the center of that axis and the tone generator at the intersection of the two axises (is that plural for 'axis'?). The switches are programmed to mark the time it receives the selected tone.

Now you accelerate the train to half the speed of sound (obviously we're talking maglev) and press that button.

When you check the timers you'll fine the timers aligned perpendicular to the axis of travel agree on when the tone was generated. But the sound activated switches along the axis of travel will not have tripped at all. Doppler shift. And it's not at all subjective, it's an actual change in the physical parameters of the sound based on your state of motion...the energy used to generate your tone made it to both ends of your box car but the tone didn't.

So you do some calculations, make adjustments to the appropriate sound activated switched. Once again charging forward at half the speed of sound you hit the switch.

Because of your adjustments, the switches placed along the axis of travel were tripped...but the timer at the trailing end of the train will show the tone as being received before the time reported by the timer at the lead end. Because the box car's trailing end is advancing toward the source of the tone the sound wave had less distance to travel to reach the switch. From your perspective in the center of the car. All the switch knows is that you sent a higher pitched tone than you thought you had, sooner than you thought you did...and the switch at the other end of the car disagrees with both of you. And all three positions have equally valid physical proof of their perceptions.

We are beginning to see parallels, I hope.

Einstein continued his thought experiment with detectors based on stationary...well, what you perceive as stationary relative to the train...detectors and timers. I'm sure you can guess there's a wild array of possible times and frequencies detectable depending on the position of the detectors on the platform, the speed of the train and such.

Now you've got this pile of various times and tones recorded as a result of the same push of a button. You've got to wonder if reality is really that fluid. It's not. It's the range of possible positions and accelerations that makes it seems so. If your frame of reference can encompass all of them you can understand the relationships between them, calculate what it looks like over there when you see it over here. Which is another parallel.

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Mr. Livingstone told Mr. Finegold that he was behaving like a German war criminal, according to the reporter's tape-recording of the incident. When Mr. Finegold said he was Jewish, the mayor said: "Well, you might be, but actually you are just like a concentration camp guard."

The mayor wrote that his differences with Mr. Grunwald related to "the policies of successive Israeli governments," not anti-Semitism.

"Israel's expansion has included ethnic cleansing," he wrote. "Palestinians who had lived in that land for centuries were driven out by systematic violence and terror aimed at ethnically cleansing what became a large part of the Israeli state."

Oof! That had to leave a mark...

Actually, there's little more meat to the article so here's the link and we're done.

London Mayor's Latest Statements on Israel Raise New Complaints
By ALAN COWELL

Marijuana really shouldn't be illegal. It wouldn't be nearly profitable enough to fund these major criminal activities, a lot of cancer patients would be more comfortable, and when people realize what Republicans have done to the USofA they're going to want everyone sedated.

Anyway...

Violent New Front in Drug War Opens on the Canadian Border
By SARAH KERSHAW

SEATTLE, March 2 - The drugs move across the Canadian border inside huge tractor-trailer rigs, pounds and pounds stashed in drums of frozen raspberries, tucked in shipments of crushed glass, wood chips and sawdust, or crammed into hollowed-out logs, in secret compartments that agents refer to as "coffins."

Kayakers paddle them south from British Columbia across the freezing bays of America's northwest corner, and well-paid couriers carry up to 100 pounds at a time in makeshift backpacks, hiking eight hours over the rugged mountainous terrain that forms part of the border between the United States and Canada. Small planes drop them onto raspberry fields and dairy farms in hockey bags equipped with avalanche beacons to alert traffickers that the drugs have landed.

The contraband is called B.C. bud, a highly potent form of marijuana named for the Canadian province where it is grown, and it has become the center of what law enforcement officials say is an increasingly violent $7 billion cultivation and smuggling industry.

...which, in fact, is a pretty sad statement.

Anyway...

Electronic Arts Expands Turf with 'Godfather' Saga
Thu Mar 3, 2005 07:01 AM ET

By John Gaudiosi

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Hours before actors James Caan and Robert Duvall walked down the red carpet, press and retailer VIPs lined up in the frigid air of New York's Little Italy recently to get a first look at Electronic Arts' "The Godfather" video game.

As locals gathered to see what all the fuss was about, the message was clear: EA was unveiling its new title like Hollywood opens a movie.

The game publisher, which has made a mint from such Hollywood-licensed film franchises as "Harry Potter," James Bond and "The Lord of the Rings," is utilizing next-generation technology to bring Francis Ford Coppola's Oscar-winning film to the interactive realm.

But the source material is just the beginning of the game experience. The film's distributor, Paramount Pictures, and its Viacom Inc. parent granted Electronic Arts the rights to expand the fiction beyond the scope of the film and Mario Puzo's novel.

"We took the movie as a starting point and looked at the story of five families competing for turf," said Hunter Smith, senior producer of "The Godfather" game. "You're not playing the movie game with this experience, you have your own original story that intersects with characters and high points from the first film."

U.S. Must Address Global Warming, Bush Ally Says
Thu Mar 3, 2005 08:20 PM ET

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Former Secretary of State James Baker, a close ally of the Bush family, broke ranks with the Bush administration on Thursday and called for the United States to get serious about global warming.

Baker, in a speech to an audience that included a number of oil company executives, said "orderly" change to alternative energy was needed.

"It may surprise you a little bit, but maybe it's because I'm a hunter and a fisherman, but I think we need to a pay a little more attention to what we need to do to protect our environment," he told the Houston Forum Club.

"When you have energy companies like Shell and British Petroleum, both of which are perhaps represented in this room, saying there is a problem with excess carbon dioxide emission, I think we ought to listen," Baker said.

Quote of note:

Fifty years after its publication, Black Bourgeoisie reads as both overstated and prescient. Frazier exaggerated black middle-class capitulation to the Jim Crow racial order, and underestimated the black bourgeoisie s willingness to join with black working class people to bring down that order in the face of violent white resistance. Yet his attention to the ways that some successful African Americans put limits on the black freedom agenda holds important lessons for how historians might trace the roots of black class divisions, and how contemporary commentators might begin to make sense of figures such as Condoleezza Rice or Bill Cosby.Black Bourgeoisie, seen in its Cold War context, also reminds us of the extent to which the moment of antiracist promise at the victory over fascism in 1945 has receded in recent history into burgeoning prison construction expanding racialized poverty on a global scale.

Title:  BLACK BOURGEOISIE
Author:  Franklin Frazier
ASIN:  0684832410
Format:  Paperback
List Price:  $13.00
Amazon.com Price:  $9.75

With last year's semicentennial commemoration of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision, we have entered the season of 50-year anniversaries of the African American civil rights movement. 2005 marks 50 years since the Montgomery bus boycott projected the black freedom movement onto the national consciousness. Perhaps less noteworthy, 1955 is also when E. Franklin Frazier published the original edition of his notorious Black Bourgeoisie. It s not obvious what we should make of the concurrence of these two events, nor is any connection between the two immediately apparent. As everyone knows, Rosa Parks s refusal to relinquish her seat on a Montgomery bus galvanized all classes in the black community to work together to set in motion the beginning of the end of American apartheid. In light of this manifestation of racial unity against segregation, Frazier s brief against the black middle class appears ill timed and rather out of touch. But read with its Cold War context in mind, Black Bourgeoisie   Frazier's indulgences in caricature notwithstanding   serves as an important reminder that at mid century, while pathways in the struggle against racism were being cleared, other routes to liberation were being sealed off. Half a century later, we are still living with the consequences of that paradox.

...Frazier's indictment of the black middle class hinges on his juxtaposition between  the world of reality  and  the world of make believe,  which structures his two-part argument. Frazier describes the black bourgeoisie as white-collar workers whose education orients them away from the African American working class, and encourages an emulation of the white propertied classes. Reaffirming his earlier work on cultural survivals, Frazier argues that  the black bourgeoisie has been uprooted from its  racial  tradition and as a consequence has no cultural roots in either the Negro or the white world. 

Having abandoned black workers, the black middle class in Frazier's view use their new found pecuniary success to indulge in a false sense of superiority behind the segregated veil of the larger society. As one of the most powerful sectors of black business, the black press claims to speak for the entire African American community while only advancing bourgeois interests within it, one example being editorial timidity when covering international colonial issues. In the end, unwilling to face the economic underpinnings of segregation, members of the black middle class feel acute insecurity, anxiety, and self-hatred in their unfulfilled quest for inclusion into the white world of property.

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If lawmakers raise the cap and use the money to help pay for private accounts, that's when you'll know for sure that fiscal discipline is dead.

Greenspan Talks Tax Increases

It's a sad thing, really, that it has taken this long for the chairman of the Federal Reserve to finally suggest that Congress consider tax increases to close the nation's gargantuan budget deficit. That should be a no-brainer, especially since the deficit - now at $412 billion - is largely due to tax cuts that President Bush and Congress have lavished on the most affluent over the past four years.

The recognition of the obvious by the Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan, followed much waffling and was accompanied by oracular talk of spending cuts and his familiar act of fealty to Mr. Bush: a vague endorsement of private accounts in Social Security. In the end, all the huffing and puffing is testament to the strength of the anti-tax fixation of the White House and the Republican-controlled Congress, which has produced reckless tax cuts during wartime and a weak dollar in place of budgetary discipline. But as Mr. Greenspan has now made clear, the profligacy must end. "Unless we do something to ameliorate" rising debt levels, he told the House Budget Committee on Wednesday, "we will be in a state of stagnation."

Deficits and Deceit

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Four years ago, Alan Greenspan urged Congress to cut taxes, asserting that the federal government was in imminent danger of paying off too much debt.

On Wednesday the Fed chairman warned Congress of the opposite fiscal danger: he asserted that there would be large budget deficits for the foreseeable future, leading to an unsustainable rise in federal debt. But he counseled against reversing the tax cuts, calling instead for cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Does anyone still take Mr. Greenspan's pose as a nonpartisan font of wisdom seriously?

When Mr. Greenspan made his contorted argument for tax cuts back in 2001, his reputation made it hard for many observers to admit the obvious: he was mainly looking for some way to do the Bush administration a political favor. But there's no reason to be taken in by his equally weak, contorted argument against reversing those cuts today.

Iraq's New Government May Take Weeks to Be Formed
Fri Mar 4, 2005 02:46 PM ET
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - More than a month after Iraq's historic election, ethnic and sectarian divisions have stymied efforts to form a government, deepening political uncertainty and delaying badly needed reconstruction.

The divisions and political horse-trading among Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims and Kurds have prevented a new 275-member national assembly from meeting and a prime minister from being chosen.

The parliament elected in a Jan. 30 vote is supposed to name a government and write a constitution before dissolving and new elections being held by the end of the year.

But so far Ibrahim Al-Jaafari, proposed as prime minister by the Shi'ite bloc that won half the seats in parliament, has been unable to secure enough votes in the assembly to get the job.

Jaafari is challenged by pro-American interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, with 40 seats, and both men are seeking the support of the Kurds, who have emerged as the potential kingmakers.

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Earlier Friday, Sauerbrey said the United States was dropping its demand that the document be amended to say that abortion is a matter of national sovereignty and not a human right delineated by the 1995 conference in Beijing.

US Draws Jeers for Abortion Comments at UN
Fri Mar 4, 2005 08:35 PM ET

By Deborah Zabarenko

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Jeers and catcalls greeted the top U.S. delegate to a global women's conference on Friday as she stressed Washington's opposition to abortion and support for sexual abstinence and fidelity.

After withdrawing an unpopular anti-abortion amendment from a key U.N. document, the United States joined in approving the declaration that reaffirmed a 150-page platform agreed 10 years ago at a landmark U.N. women's conference in Beijing.

The final approval prompted cheers, applause and a standing ovation by some participants.

However, top U.S. delegate Ellen Sauerbrey drew boos from the audience, which included some of the 6,000 activists who came from around the world, when she commented on Washington's interpretation of the document.

"We have stated clearly and on many occasions ... that we do not recognize abortion as a method of family planning, nor do we support abortion in our reproductive health assistance," Sauerbrey said.

The loudest catcalls, unusual at the world body, came when she articulated U.S. policy on AIDS prevention for adolescents: "We emphasize the value of the ABC -- abstinence, be faithful, and correct and consistent condom use where appropriate -- approach in comprehensive strategies to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS and the promotion of abstinence as the healthiest and most responsible choice for adolescents."

No Separate Agenda for Black Americans, Conservative Says
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Morning Editor
March 3, 2005

(CNSNews.com) -- An outspoken black conservative says he is offended by black liberals who suggest there is a separate agenda for black Americans.

The Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, the founder of a group that "rebuilds the family by rebuilding the man," has emerged as a national spokesman on conservative issues; and he is blasting a recent gathering of black liberals who presumed to "define the African-American agenda."

"There is no separate 'African American' agenda," Peterson insists. "The agenda for black Americans is the same as the one for whites and other Americans: Love of God, country, and family; lower taxes, a good education, and a good environment to raise a family."

And since different things separate Black people from that goal than white people, there are specific issues Black people need addressed.

I spotted this lovely headline and had to investigate a bit.

Black Americans rather chance the lottery instead of saving
Category: uk Dated: 04/03/2005
A survey in the United States reveals black Americans feel they are more likely to become rich through playing the lottery, rather than by topping up their savings.

As you know, surveys are very sensitive to the phrasing of the questions. According to the article, the survey by Minority Wealth Magazine was very simple.

When asked whether saving in a retirement plan, saving outside a retirement plan or playing the state lottery would provide better opportunities to build wealth; taking a chance in the lottery won hands down.

The magazine's press release says

When minorities were asked,  which of the following do you think provides the best opportunity to build wealth , and given the following choices: Save in a retirement plan, Save outside of a retirement plan or Play the state lottery, the number one response from minorities was playing the state lottery.

  Nearly twice as many minorities surveyed admit that they have a higher confidence in building wealth through playing the state lottery, rather than contributing to a retirement fund. (Minorities surveyed consisted of 48% African Americans, 41% Hispanic Americans, 5% Asian Americans, and 6% other minority.)

But the survey document itself (pdf, see page four) is subtly different.

Question:

Given the following choices which provides you with the best opportunity to build Wealth?

I did not capitalize the W in wealth, and it's that capitalization that made the article's interpretation of the question (more likely to become rich through playing the lottery) reasonable.

Now, if the people surveyed were talking about getting rich rather than building wealth, they are right. You can't get rich by saving, and conservative investments in the stock market aren't investments in strict economic terms. It's gambling.

Social Security was a warm-up for Medicare and Medicaid. Newt is trolling now because they don't have a successful example of dropping the government's responsibility on individuals as they thought they would.

You don't have to have a big discussion about it right now. Just keep it in mind.

Transform It, Don't Reform It
Medicaid Needs a New Structure and the Ability to Tap Technology
By Newt Gingrich
Wednesday, March 2, 2005; Page A17

...A 21st Century Responsible Citizen Medicaid Act would divide Medicaid into three distinct areas, each administered separately with its own rules and structures.

First, the act should establish a Capabilities Program to help both Americans with disabilities and those with work-related or other injuries lead the fullest possible lives. The program should provide incentives to people with disabilities to be productive, rather than threatening them with a loss in benefits if they get a job. The program should also allow participants to capitalize on technologies and therapies that maximize their abilities, and that emphasize integration into social, family and work life.

What does this have to do with Medicaid?

Well, if the disabled person becomes employed they can buy their own medical insurance.

The second area would address the needs of the relatively healthy poor, who have much different needs than people with disabilities or the elderly. Poor individuals should be offered vouchers for health savings accounts that sensitize them to the benefits of prevention, wellness and early detection.

This is flat-out crazy. Has Gingrich ever looked at a hospital bill?

Poor individuals are poor. Their income doesn't allow them to save enough to have their tonsils removed.

Third, the legislation would create a program to serve the elderly that reintegrates the family back into their care. The current system, for example, prevents a daughter whose mother is in an assisted-living facility from contributing financially to her mother's care without losing all Medicaid coverage. This either-or mentality is anti-family and leaves the recipient with a lower quality of life.

What "reintegrates the family back into their care" means is "reduce payments and let the families pick up the difference."

And so it begins...again

I think I need to start over. Not that I've written anything here that is incorrect, it's that I want to use the correct metaphors at the correct levels. That's what I meant the other day about working in mythic mode.

A mythos, to me, provides a framework, a set of assumptions, from which you can reason or on which you can base your decisions or within which your decisions make sense. A myth is a specific story or narrative that communicates or supports specific elements of a mythos. Unsupported elements of the mythos I call beliefs. Now, I could tell you about the unsupported elements of my personal mythos because there are very, very few. And I could tell you my personal mythology is organized around metaphors of physics and geometry. But my mythos...that's a tough one. It would sound like the recitation of a set of rules.

Any mythos sounds like a set of rules and baldly stated mythos is entirely unconvincing to those who have any grip on any other mythos at all. You don't learn a mythos that way. You learn through stories, parallels and examples. For instance, I use gravity as a metaphor for social structures in general. It's seeped into the general consciousness that space (spacetime, actually) "bends around" mass and energy. I don't know if it's so widely known that gravity is that very curvature of spacetime, that falling into a gravity well is simply the path that uses the least energy. The more mass in one place, the greater the curvature and the stronger the gravity.

In my metaphor, humans are mass and space is the world (I need to say right here I see a difference between the world and the planet). When a bunch of humans get together they change what is necessary to fulfill any need by their very presence. They affect what is available to solve problems, providing some tools, depleting others and making some impossible by their behavior. You can see that, right?

It's all much messier than physics though, because the bending of spacetime only "produces" gravity. The bending of social structures produce a panoply of effects, pretty much one for every behavior impacted, all feeding back into each other in fractal fashion. Still, it gives me a handle I can use to consider many things.

Let's take slavery.

The world has always had humans held as chattel, but in general that chattel had rights of a sort. Much as you can be punished for cruelty to animals, most societies with a slave component would punish masters for excessive abuse of a slave. More, when slaves were freed they had no stigma. They were full members of society. In the North American colonies, the thing closest to that condition was not known as slavery. It was known as indentured servitude and differed from "traditional" slavery by having a fixed term. The Peculiar Institution differed from slavery in that one could never actually escape the stigma and in being hereditary. And by pulling so many Africans into the condition, the social space was warped, bent, and social institutions adapted accordingly. Best example of the adaptation? The myth that white women need protection from the depraved lusts of Africans.

In order to preserve domestic tranquillity, the leading groups in the colonies made it a matter of public policy to destroy the solidarity of the laborers. Laws were passed requiring different groups to keep to themselves, and the seeds of dissension were artfully and systematically sown. Indians were offered bounties for betraying black runaways; blacks were given minor rewards for fighting Indians; and poor whites were used as fodder in the disciplining of both reds and blacks. At the same time masters used Draconian measures to stop the mingling and mating of blacks and whites. From the last quarter of the seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth century, policy-makers legislated against these practices. In the process white women were whipped, banished, and enslaved to keep them from marrying black men. "The increasing number of mulattoes, through intermarriage and illicit relationships," Lorenzo J. Greene writes, "soon caused alarm among Puritan advocates of racial purity and white domination. Sensing a deterioration of slavery, if the barriers between master and slaves were dissolved in the equalitarian crucible of sexual intimacy, they sought to stop racial crossing by statute." In this instance, as in so many others, it was necessary to teach whites the value of whiteness.

Under the ground rules of the time, a master could virtually enslave a white woman who married a black man and could hold in extended servitude all the issue of such a marriage. In this situation, as might have been expected, Puritan greed triumphed over Puritan morals, and many masters encouraged or forced white women to marry black men. It finally became necessary to pass laws penalizing masters for forcing white women to marry black men. The Maryland law of 1681 said:

Forasmuch as, divers free-born English, or white women, sometimes by the instigation, procurement or connivance of their masters, m's-tresses, or dames, and always to the satisfaction of their lascivious and lustful desires, and to the disgrace not only of the English, but also of many other Christian nations, do intermarry with Negroes and slaves, by which means, divers inconveniences, controversies, and suits may arise for the prevention whereof for the future, Be it enacted: That if the marriage of any woman-servant with any slave shall take place by the procurement or permission of the master, such woman and her issue shall be free.

That "always to the satisfaction of their lascivious and lustful desires" is kind of denied by the "sometimes by the instigation, procurement or connivance of their masters, m's-tresses, or dames" part to my way of thinking. Also telling is that the punishment is economic. Slaves were the major repository of wealth in the South in those days…the amount of land you were allocated was determined by the number of servants (indentured and slave) you had. Your political leverage was increased by 3/5ths of a vote for each slave you owned as well when the USofA struck out on its own. And all that was self regenerating as long as you owned the children of your slaves. That means "miscegenation" had to be prevented because before this point it was just going on all the time.

Just one of the panoply of effects that followed the bending of society to accomodate hereditary slavery. And like the gravitic effects of mass on spacetime, the social distortion is such that you will either orbit it, fall in or your trajectory will take you outside the system entirely.

Here's a rarely used category.

Couple of days ago I told cnulan in the comments he was looking at something on the quantum mechanics level when ballistics would be the right level. He responded

Alrighty then, break it down for me in plain and simple terms that I can understand.

Never has such a simple and fair sounding question thrown me into such turmoil.

I've mentioned before (in a post at The Niggerati Network that got blown away when I screwed up the site in December; I'll repost it here when I'm done with this thing) I use a physics metaphor for society. Well, I use that metaphor for sociology, psychology, politics, you name it. When reasoning I use my (totally qualitative) understanding of physics the same way an evangelical uses his (adjective of your choice) understanding of his Bible...to suggest paths to useful information, patterns by which solutions can be found and against which suggestions can be measured.

That's the symbolism in which my reasoning is encoded. And I've been like, how do you lay that out clearly?I told cnulan it would take a minute...

Today it struck me...ballistics, not quantum mechanics.

My daughter said my view would be called utilitarianism. Close...understandable that she would think so. But functionalism is much closer. You see, I'm quite selfish. I'm looking for the maximum good for myself, not the greatest number as utilitarianism would have it. I think it foolish to take that to the point of damaging the collectives I am a part of, though...proof functionalism is my primary principle.

Then there's that word "good." By that I pretty much always mean "the option that leaves me in the strongest condition at the end of the period of time under consideration."

That's the basics of how I judge things on a personal level. I sort of scale it up for social/collective issues.

It will take a minute. I didn't lie about that.

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The Fourth Circuit is considered one of the most conservative circuits in the entire country and even it has repeatedly found Boyle to be too radical in his judgments. The Fourth Circuit has had to reverse Boyle's decisions a whopping 150 times for errors in judgment and fundamental legal mistakes.

This is the guy Bush wants to review other judges' work?

In Godon v. North Carolina Crime Control & Pub. Safety, "a boot camp counselor claimed that her supervisors violated her First Amendment rights when they fired her for complaining about the treatment of black and female cadets." Boyle dismissed the case because he found the counselor's speech was not protected by the First Amendment, "but rather merely a personal expression of dissatisfaction." A unanimous Fourth Circuit reversed him.

This is the guy Bush wants to add to the Fourth Circuit?

JUDICIARY
Reverse Boyle's Nomination

President Bush once claimed he would be a "uniter, not a divider." You wouldn't know it by his judicial nominees. Bush has continued to re-nominate radical, activist judges who have been strongly opposed by mainstream America. Case in point: Terrence Boyle, whose nomination hearings for the Fourth Circuit began yesterday. Boyle has been vociferously opposed by civil rights groups and disability groups for his extreme decisions to weaken civil rights and disability rights. Boyle's high reversal rate even in non-ideological cases is a mark of mediocrity. None of this has the president particularly concerned; turning a blind eye to Boyle's record, President Bush in January said: "[Judge Terrence Boyle is] an exceptional candidate for the appeals court He'd make a superb addition to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, and he is vitally needed on that court." The following shows why he is wrong:

REVERSING BOYLE: Judge Boyle, a former Jesse Helms protégé, has been trying to win a seat on this court since he was first nominated in 1991. The problem? He's just not a very good judge. The Fourth Circuit is considered one of the most conservative circuits in the entire country and even it has repeatedly found Boyle to be too radical in his judgments. The Fourth Circuit has had to reverse Boyle's decisions a whopping 150 times for errors in judgment and fundamental legal mistakes.

BOYLE AGAINST MINORITIES: Boyle is opposed by a large number of groups for his dismal civil rights record. For example, during the 1990 redistricting of North Carolina, the state created a congressional district to reflect the strong African-American population of the area. Boyle tried to block the district's creation and twice declared it unconstitutional. His decision was reversed twice by the Supreme Court. The first time, writing for a unanimous court , Justice Clarence Thomas found Boyle's ruling was "clearly erroneous." The Supreme Court sent the case back to Judge Boyle and his colleagues. Judge Boyle wrote another opinion reprinting large swaths of the first one the Supreme Court had rejected. The Supreme Court rejected Boyle's view again. Boyle also has a record of siding with employers in cases of workplace discrimination. In Whiting v. Ski's Auto World, Boyle ruled against an employee who had been passed over for promotion because of his race; the Fourth Circuit again overturned his decision. In Godon v. North Carolina Crime Control & Pub. Safety, "a boot camp counselor claimed that her supervisors violated her First Amendment rights when they fired her for complaining about the treatment of black and female cadets." Boyle dismissed the case because he found the counselor's speech was not protected by the First Amendment, "but rather merely a personal expression of dissatisfaction." A unanimous Fourth Circuit reversed him.

BOYLE AGAINST THE DISABLED: Appellate courts have repeatedly criticized Boyle for his overreaching attacks against the Americans with Disabilities Act. Boyle has tried to undermine the constitutionality of the ADA. He has tried to exempt state agencies from following the federal anti-discrimination laws. In Williams v. Channel Master Satellite Systems, Inc., for example, Boyle ruled working was "not a major life activity" which should be protected by the ADA. In reversing his ruling, the Fourth Circuit said of Boyle's declaration that "while some courts might entertain claims under the 'major life activity' of 'working,' this Court does not."

BOYLE AGAINST WOMEN: Boyle has a record of undermining workplace discrimination laws. In one of the most egregious examples, United States v. North Carolina, Boyle fought to protect North Carolina's right to discriminate against women in the workplace, claiming the state should be exempt from federal laws protecting the rights of women because the anti-bias laws were somehow against the state's "culture." The Fourth Circuit overturned Boyle's nonsensical decision, stating his ruling "constituted an abuse of discretion."

GROUPS AGAINST BOYLE: The National Bar Association (NBA), a national network of African-American lawyers working together to protect civil and political rights, is strongly opposed to Boyle's nomination. In a letter to Sen. Arlen Specter yesterday, the group said it found Judge Boyle "not qualified" for appointment, saying, "Judge Boyle has not reigned in his judicial activism to apply an appropriate judicial balance." North Carolina cops don't like Boyle. The North Carolina Police Benevolent Society opposes the nomination over a series of rulings. In both Kirby v. Elizabeth City and Morrash v. Strobel, Boyle dismissed cases brought by police officers who were penalized for telling the truth in court, ruling their testimonies were not protected by the First Amendment. The National Employment Lawyers Association "strongly opposes" him for his record against workers' rights.

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Two-thirds of the estimated 4 million annual deaths of newborns occur in India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia, Afghanistan, and Tanzania, the study found.

Most of the deaths are caused by preterm births, infections, breathing problems from a variety of complications, and tetanus, afflictions rarely fatal to newborns in developed countries. The authors said that 16 simple measures -- including widespread tetanus shots, access to antibiotics, breastfeeding education, and sanitary delivery rooms -- could prevent most of the deaths. Also needed were readily accessible basic emergency services, for caesarean sections and blood transfusions, the report said.

Simple changes urged to save newborns
Study says $4b could keep 3 million alive
By Raja Mishra, Globe Staff  |  March 4, 2005

The lives of 3 million newborn babies in poor nations could be saved annually through simple improvements in birthing procedures and basic healthcare that would cost the world $4.1 billion per year, according to a new study.

The study is the first to place a price, about $2,100 per life saved, on a problem that has been somewhat obscured in the recent rush to tackle global health issues, said public health advocates.

The global community has regarded the deaths of newborns as a second-tier issue behind the AIDS epidemic and other infectious diseases, said researchers and representatives of charities. Seeking to rectify that, a coalition of charities, activist groups, and researchers yesterday released the first broad assessment of the problem, a four-part series of studies published by the Lancet, a British medical journal, and framed as a call-to-arms by its authors.

Lancet editor Richard Horton said the newborn toll was ''10,000 to 11,000 deaths per day, 450 deaths per hour, and seven neonatal deaths per minute, up to three-quarters of which are entirely unnecessary and preventable."

Conviction overturned in rape-order case

MULTAN -- A Pakistani court yesterday overturned the conviction of a village elder and four other men sentenced to death for allegedly ordering a woman gang-raped as punishment for her brother's illicit sex with a woman from another family, a defense lawyer said. The 2002 rape in a mud-brick house in central Pakistan made world headlines, and led the government to promise sweeping changes to end centuries of so-called ''honor" killings and attacks. Six men, including village council chief Faiz Mastoi, were later convicted and sentenced to death. But the court overturned the sentences yesterday, citing a lack of evidence. Mastoi and four others were ordered released and the sixth man's death sentence was reduced to life in prison, said Ramzan Joya, a lawyer for the woman. The woman was in court and wept at the decision. (AP)

Convict denies role in deaths of judge's kin

By Mike Robinson, Associated Press  |  March 4, 2005

CHICAGO -- Jailed white supremacist Matthew Hale said yesterday that the slaying of a federal judge's husband and elderly mother was a "heinous crime" that "only an idiot" would think he ordered, according to a statement released by his mother. [P6: Hey...your ass is in jail for trying to have the judge killed over a fucking copyright dispute. And you feel qualified to call someone an idiot?]

"There is no way that any supporter of mine could commit such a heinous crime," Hale said in the statement, released through his mother after her weekly telephone call to him at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago. "I totally condemn it, and I want the perpetrator caught and prosecuted." [P6: No supporter...but an employee?]

The shootings at the home of US District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow occurred a month before Hale was to be sentenced by another judge for trying to have Lefkow killed. In a dispute on a trademark presided over by Lefkow, she had ordered Hale to change the name of his extremist group.

Two part quote of note:

1 . Two days ago, Frist noted intense Democratic opposition and suggested he might not be able to move a bill to the Senate floor this year, as Bush has pushed for. "I want to be realistic," Frist said on Tuesday.

2. Yesterday, Frist said he would work to move the legislation forward.

Well, that shoots being realistic all to hell, doesn't it?

You know what the problem is, don't you?

His comments come as Bush tries to navigate a challenging political landscape.

Bush is playing politics with our money. And everyone knows that now.

Senate leader, in shift, urges swift action on Social Security
Vows to advance key legislation
By Laura Meckler, Associated Press  |  March 4, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Senate majority leader Bill Frist said yesterday that Congress must confront Social Security's problems this year, dialing back comments earlier in the week that action might have to wait.

We need to do it this year. Not the next year," Frist said yesterday on the Senate floor. "We are working towards this goal."

Two days ago, Frist noted intense Democratic opposition and suggested he might not be able to move a bill to the Senate floor this year, as Bush has pushed for. "I want to be realistic," Frist said on Tuesday.

Other Republicans have expressed skepticism about the Bush plan, and polls have indicated public support falling.

That has left opponents feeling optimistic about how the debate is shaping up, a month after Bush laid out his ideas in his State of the Union address.

Yesterday, Frist said he would work to move the legislation forward.

"This president and this Congress are facing this challenge, and the challenge is to fix Social Security for seniors, for near retirees, and for that next generation," he said. "And we need to do it this year."

Microsoft Loses Key Windows Architect to Google
By Mary Jo Foley

Mark Lucovsky, a former Microsoft distinguished engineer, has quietly abandoned the Redmond ship for one of Microsoft's archrivals.

One of Microsoft's key Windows architects has defected to Google. But at least so far, no one is talking about what Marc Lucovsky's new role will be at one of Microsoft's major rivals.

A 16-year Microsoft veteran, Lucovsky was one of a handful of "Distinguished Engineers" at Microsoft. He is credited as one of the core dozen engineers that came from Digital Equipment Corp. to Microsoft and built the Windows NT operating system. He was charged with building the Windows NT executive, kernel, Win32 run-time and other key elements of the operating system. NT was the precursor to Windows Server.

Quote of note:

Finally, how can the president continue to escalate the rhetoric against Iran given that his invasion of neighboring Iraq has handed control of the country to Shiites trained in Tehran, like Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, as well as Kurds who have enjoyed significant Iranian support over the years?

So, tangled history aside, what should the U.S. do now about a repressive and potentially threatening government in Iran? The one thing Bush strangely has refused to do throughout the world: practice the principles of capitalism.

The Force Bush Won't Use on Iran
Robert Scheer
March 1, 2005

U.S. policy toward Iran is now a big, dangerous mess. President Bush again has backed us into a corner with his confrontational framing of every dispute as one of pristine virtue versus stark evil, putting us out of sync with our allies in Europe and probably giving the ayatollahs in Tehran a public relations boost at home.

In his State of the Union address, Bush singled out Iran as "the world's primary state sponsor of terror   pursuing nuclear weapons while depriving its people of the freedom they seek and deserve." For weeks we heard ominous warnings of war with Iran. Then, last week, Bush scoffed at the idea that we were going to bomb Iran as "ridiculous," even as he menacingly noted that "all options are on the table." Meanwhile, Europe continued to negotiate constructively with Iran to find a peaceful solution and prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The sad fact, however, is that Bush's irrational policies and rhetoric have left the mostly fundamentalist leaders of Iran defending a more logical position than that of our own government on three counts.

Quote of note:

The law is littered with abuses like the bankruptcy bill: measures that benefit a narrow economic interest at the expense of the broader public good. Most Democrats, like Biden, are smart enough to oppose most of them. But there's almost always a Democratic senator or two willing to shill for their home state industry's favorite abusive privilege.

When Democrats Join the Dark Side
Their kowtowing to home-state industries props up the Republicans.
JONATHAN CHAIT
March 4, 2005

Not long ago, I was listening to Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) being interviewed, and I was struck at how intelligent and morally serious he was. Biden is justly viewed as a smart foreign policy hawk, but he also expressed his opposition to Social Security privatization in a particularly lucid way.

All in all, he came across as just the sort of person you'd like to have as president.

There's just one issue that's the exception. And that's what's wrong with most of the Democrats: There's always one issue that's the exception...

...The worst abuses are loopholes allowing corporations or wealthy individuals to declare bankruptcy and keep millions of dollars safe from creditors. One such device is something called an "asset protection trust"   a kind of savings fund that can't be touched by creditors. States actually compete with one another to offer the most generous trusts so they can lure businesses and affluent individuals to park their money in that state.

The most popular state for such trusts is corporate-friendly Delaware.

Delaware, of course, is home to Joe Biden. It's also home to many credit card companies, the driving force behind the bankruptcy bill. You don't have to connect a lot of dots to see the picture here.

The law is littered with abuses like the bankruptcy bill: measures that benefit a narrow economic interest at the expense of the broader public good. Most Democrats, like Biden, are smart enough to oppose most of them. But there's almost always a Democratic senator or two willing to shill for their home state industry's favorite abusive privilege.

Gung-Ho, but What Do They Know of Death?
By Nancy Y. Bekavac
Nancy Y. Bekavac is president of Scripps College in Claremont.
March 4, 2005

Every morning at sunrise, I walk my large mixed-breed dogs through my small college town. There's a dreamlike quality to most mornings, and not just because I walk before I have coffee. I've gotten to know my neighbors' gardens and trees. Sometimes I pick the route for specific reasons. One recent day, it was for the flowering cherry that had just opened up, and the last of the crab apple blossoms. The dogs were snuffling in the ivy when I heard a group of strong young voices calling out a marching cadence.

There's an ROTC unit at the colleges. As I walked south, they came toward me, running in formation on the street, three or four abreast, mostly short-haired men, but there were some women with pony tails. They wore gray "ARMY" T-shirts, black shorts and orange web belts. The lead officer, a chesty 40-year-old, responded to my "Hello," and he and the group ran in place to let me and the dogs cross in front of them. As they passed behind me, a woman's voice called out the next verse, and then they all repeated it:

If I die in a combat zone,
put me in a box and ship me home.

Their rubber soles hit the pavement with a dull thud as they jogged slowly past. As I reached the far corner, I tried to get hold of my feelings. Only one of them was likely to have seen a combat zone, and I bet none of them had ever looked into "a box."

via The Republic of T

The coming crackdown on blogging
March 3, 2005, 4:00 AM PT
By Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

In just a few months, he warns, bloggers and news organizations could risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a campaign's Web site. Even forwarding a political candidate's press release to a mailing list, depending on the details, could be punished by fines.

Smith should know. He's one of the six commissioners at the Federal Election Commission, which is beginning the perilous process of extending a controversial 2002 campaign finance law to the Internet.

WTO Upholds Brazil's Cotton Complaint
The Associated Press
Thursday, March 3, 2005; 12:25 PM

GENEVA - The World Trade Organization on Thursday upheld a ruling condemning government help for cotton producers in the United States, saying that many U.S. programs include illegal export subsidies or domestic payments that are higher than permitted by WTO rules.

The WTO appeals body rejected a U.S. attempt to overturn a September 2004 ruling by an independent panel of trade experts, which acted on a complaint from Brazil.

Brazil had alleged that the United States kept its place as the planet's second-largest cotton grower and largest exporter because the U.S. government paid $12.5 billion in subsidies to American farmers between August 1999 and July 2003.

The United States had insisted that its payments to farmers are within permitted levels, claiming many are not subsidies as defined by WTO.[P6: emphasis added]

Washington lodged its appeal in October 2004 to WTO, whose members set the rules for global commerce. Thursday's appeals body ruling is final.

WTO uses independent panels to rule on disputes among its 148 member nations.

The joke is:

Q: President Bush, why are you so sure Iraq has weapons of mass destruction?
A: We still have the receipts.

Looking the Other Way

The Bush administration enthusiastically congratulated itself this week for including abuses by Iraqi authorities in its annual report on human rights violations. One State Department official called it proof that "we don't look the other way." But the report did look away - from American involvement in the mistreatment it decried. In the end it was another sad reminder of the heavy price the nation has paid for ignoring fundamental human rights in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo; in the secret cells where the C.I.A. holds its unaccounted-for prisoners; and at home, where President Bush continues to claim the power to hold Americans in jail indefinitely without the right to trial.

The administration's refusal to remedy these abuses - or even acknowledge most of them - leaves the 2004 human rights report heavy with irony and saps its authority. Not only did the report fail to mention that the Iraqi government it criticized was appointed and controlled by the United States, but it also chastised the local security forces for the same kinds of arbitrary detentions, abusive treatment and torture that have been widespread in American military and intelligence prison camps. Indeed, some of the practices the report labeled as torture when employed by foreign governments were approved at one point for American detention centers by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Quote of note:

The Fed chairman's tone, as he addressed the House Budget Committee on Wednesday, was noticeably more urgent than it was last year or even in Congressional hearings just a few weeks ago.

"When you begin to do the arithmetic of what the rising debt level implied by the deficits tells you, and you add interest costs to that ever-rising debt, at ever-higher interest rates, the system becomes fiscally destabilizing," he told lawmakers. "Unless we do something to ameliorate it in a very significant manner," he added, "we will be in a state of stagnation."

Gee, ya think? And now that you can't artificially drive interest rates any lower than you have, we're back to standard financial physics. Our fiscal policy reminds me of all the plans to manufacture high tech materials in low gravity...you get the results you're looking for only in a situation that can't sustain itself.

Y'all know how I divided people whose job title is "Economist" into two groups, right?

The discussion of Class War Strategies on The NewsHour feature an economist and a salesman posing as an economist....Long term readers know I refer to these professions as Type One and Type Two Economists, respectively. And they know I have no respect for Type Two economics pronouncements, and that I love folks that come to the same conclusions I have.

Greenspan is like a Type 1.5 economist.

Anyway...

Greenspan Says Federal Budget Deficits Are 'Unsustainable'
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: March 3, 2005

WASHINGTON, March 2 - Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, warned on Wednesday that the federal budget deficits were "unsustainable," and he urged Congress to scrutinize both spending and taxes to solve the problem.

Mr. Greenspan also warned that the deficits could be driven sharply higher by costs connected to the aging of the baby boom generation, particularly entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. While reiterating his support for President Bush's plan to offer private accounts as part of overhauling Social Security, Mr. Greenspan urged lawmakers to tackle the program's problems now, rather than later.

The assessment was Mr. Greenspan's gloomiest to date about the government's budget straits. Unless Congress takes major action to reduce the deficits, preferably, he said, by deep cuts in spending, annual budgetary shortfalls will continue and closing those gaps will become even more difficult.

Though Mr. Greenspan has made similar pleas in the past, he spoke more urgently on Wednesday and disagreed more adamantly with Republican lawmakers and Mr. Bush, who have steadfastly refused to put restrictions on new tax cuts.

A while back Spelman College was to host a charity event featuring Nelly that got canceled because the sisters at Spelman took exception to an image in his video for Tip Drill. I don't know whether they approached Essence or vice versa, but the two have gotten together for a promotion called Take Back the Music.

I was supportive of the Spelman sisters' initial reaction. Qusan became more supportive just recently.

I found the link to that column on Steve Guilliard's site. I was actually a little surprised by his assessment of the article and even more appalled by many of the comments. It seems some people feel that a) Spelman women are just a bunch of uppity black women and b) they should find something other than music to worry about. I posted a comment too but by this afternoon, I was more convinced that the campaign against this type of music needs to continue.

(The column she mentioned is by Stanley Crouch)

Steve is harsh.

OK, here's the first point: no one gives a shit what Spellman educated women have to say about rap. They don't make it, they don't hire the artists, and they don't buy it. Most importantly, they don't speak to the community affected. They spout platitudes about a music that they have scant connection to. Is Crouch high? Because if white women couldn't stop the degrading images in metal, you think they have ANY influence in rap? I would think pigs would shit gold first.

That part where I added the emphasis is just wrong, but the thrust of his statement is correct. The campaign will have little direct impact for the first three reasons he mentioned: they don't make it, they don't hire the artists, and they don't buy it. Especially that last one. The fact that Essence is now owned by one of the larger purveyors of the musical genre is a sign they themselves expect a modest impact at best.

Steve is also right to point out this absurdity:

Why doesn't Crouch turn his ire on Bob Johnson and master John Malone. Rappers are like any other businessmen, they will serve the market. Social consiciousness was tossed aside for money. Bob Johnson created that market more than any single person. Viacom is also guilty. But no, let's blame the rappers for supply what the market demands.

I am in favor of the campaign continuing, though. I think we should support it because there would be great utility is everyone being clear about exactly who is buying it. If we're really concerned about the impact this music has on popular culture we should know where to apply the pressure.

lynne d johnson popped up long enough to share some links to aggregations of Black bloggers...some share blogging space and some are literal aggregators.

Try new stuff. It's good for you.

Quote of note:

...Krakauer has watched how groups of wild turkeys band together to back up one of their brothers -- the dominant one within the brotherhood -- as he displays his attributes to attract a mate.

The male, approaching a female in a courtship ritual with two or more of his brothers, will blush brilliantly red and blue about his face and throat, fan his broad brown and white tail, lower his outspread wings and emit loud thrumming noises through his air sacks as he prances in a shuffling strut.

And while he engages in his display, his brothers do so, too -- but silently and without the strut, in a kind of cooperative semi-courtship -- and they also turn to ward off any hostile interlopers seeking to court the same female.

Ultimately, Krakauer found, only the dominant male successfully copulates with the female, while his brothers never get the satisfaction.

Turkey mating games challenge theory of 'survival of the fittest'
UC biologist finds young males help top tom get sex
- David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor
Thursday, March 3, 2005

The sex lives of wild turkeys in a remote Carmel Valley nature reserve offer striking evidence that animal altruism pays and that cooperation rather than combat can often be the best way to keep a species flourishing.

A graduate student at UC Berkeley, Alan H. Krakauer, has been carefully observing hundreds of the birds and their offspring for more than four years and has learned a lot about the turkey mating game.

While male birds and animals often engage in bitter battles to establish which of many rivals will dominate and mate with a favored female, the wild turkeys that Krakauer studied join together as a band of brothers to help their leading sibling succeed in his romantic quest.

Krakauer's research is being published today in the journal Nature, and his results go far in validating a long controversial theory that adds a concept called "kinship selection" to the classic Darwinian version of natural selection -- which has often been corrupted to mean merely "survival of the fittest."

It also offers a clear confirmation of the concept of "altruism" that the late, famed Harvard entomologist E. O. Wilson saw as an inborn and widely useful trait in the procreation of many creatures as varied as insects and humans.

At UC Berkeley's Hastings Reserve Biological Field Station in the remote reaches of Carmel Valley's Santa Lucia Mountains, Krakauer has watched how groups of wild turkeys band together to back up one of their brothers -- the dominant one within the brotherhood -- as he displays his attributes to attract a mate.

The male, approaching a female in a courtship ritual with two or more of his brothers, will blush brilliantly red and blue about his face and throat, fan his broad brown and white tail, lower his outspread wings and emit loud thrumming noises through his air sacks as he prances in a shuffling strut.

And while he engages in his display, his brothers do so, too -- but silently and without the strut, in a kind of cooperative semi-courtship -- and they also turn to ward off any hostile interlopers seeking to court the same female.

Ultimately, Krakauer found, only the dominant male successfully copulates with the female, while his brothers never get the satisfaction.

Is Justice Done in 2 Versions?
A California murder case in which two juries were told differing accounts of events raises concerns about fairness, ethics and tactics.
By Maura Dolan
Times Staff Writer
March 3, 2005

Los Angeles prosecutor Steven J. Ipsen, arguing his first murder case in 1990, told a jury that Tauno Waidla had used a hatchet to inflict "the death blow" that killed a woman in her North Hollywood living room. Waidla was sentenced to die.

Several months later, the same prosecutor told a different jury that Waidla's accomplice, Peter Sakarias, had "finally ended" the life of the victim, Viivi Piirisild. Sakarias also was sentenced to die for the murder.

The lethal blow could not have been inflicted by both men. Did the prosecutor mislead the jury? If so, should the death sentences be thrown out?

More broadly, how far should prosecutors be allowed to go in presenting conflicting facts to different juries?

Both the U.S. Supreme Court and the California Supreme Court are considering that issue. In both cases, death sentences sit in the balance. The California court could rule in the Piirisild murder cases as early as today.

And what have you learned children, if nothing else?

Gov. Softens Pension Stance
His finance director says Schwarzenegger is willing to bend on a proposal to shift state workers to private retirement accounts.
By Evan Halper
Times Staff Writer
March 3, 2005

SACRAMENTO   The Schwarzenegger administration is backing away from its demand that the state employees' pension system be replaced with private retirement accounts.

Finance Director Tom Campbell said Wednesday at a legislative hearing that the governor is open to changing the pension system in other ways, provided there are savings for taxpayers and predictable costs for the state.

Hopefully you've learned that reality + understanding > rhetoric. This is exactly what has happened in the Social Security debate as well. Hesiod, writing at The American Street, doesn't feel this is necessarily good news.

But, if the Democrats aren't careful, Bush and the Republicans will come out of this potential debacle smelling like roses.

Here's what I mean.

Apparently, Bush has said that the supporters of private accounts have a six-week window of opportunity to turn around public opinion. This jibes with Mickey Kaus  theory that Karl Rove wants either a win on this issue, or a quick failure that will not have an impact on the midterm elections next year. A theory I agree with.

BUT .

Even if the Democrats and their allies manage to skuttle the dreaded private accounts, Bush has set it up that major Social Security reforms such as increasing the retirement age or eliminating the income cap on FICA are now palatable alternatives. [In fact, Bush has already been hinting he'd support the latter.]

In a vacuum, both proposals were political death. But when compared to private accounts that destroy the fundamental soundness of the Social Security system, they seem like reasonable alternatives.

So here is what will likely happen. Bush will eventually abandon the private accounts idea, and embrace one of the aforementioned alternative  fixes  for Social Security. He will almost certainly get Democratic support for those fixes.

That, in turn, will give many Republicans who are in marginal districts or in Blue States political cover to  save  Social Security by endorsing and voting for, say, removing the income cap on FICA.

Then, VIOLA!  — George W. Bush and the Republicans go into the 2006 midterms as the party that  saved Social Security!  Erasing for a generation the inherent advantage Democrats have had on the issue for decades.

The answer, of course, is more reality and understanding. More accurately, rhetoric based on reality and understanding.

The Republicans will want this issue to fade for a while but Democrats would be foolish to let it go away until they're ready to take another run at it. So periodically, say every other Sunday talk show session, Democrats should casually mention how we're still waiting for the President's Social Security proposal...how now that it's obvious Americans have rejected the fiscal irresponsibility of private accounts, now that they were forced by the facts to admit their plan would not help the solvency of Social Security, they seem uninterested in the problem.

Since Bush already dragged every Democrat in history that ever had the words "account", "private" and "Social Security" in the same paragraph into the discussion, they can be used by Democrats. Democrats have always been on top of this. Democrats suggested private accounts back when we could afford them. Clinton wanted to fix Social Security and was blocked by Republicans for political reasons. As Hesiod says, Democrats have always had the edge here.

And there IS a plan that will fix the problem...lifting that income cap. There's even a compromise you can offer...lifting the cap on employee contributions but not the employer contributions, and adjusting payouts on that end of the income scale accordingly. The whole issue behind the Orwellian Alliance for Worker Retirement Security (and thanks to Waveflux for that link; the Alliance's membership makes clear why I call them Orwellian) is to cap their contribution to Social Security. This compromise would get their support.

Democrats can actually take possession of this issue. Failure to succeed with this agenda item is a small chink in the Republican armor...being the party that fixed Social Security would be an excellent chisel to place in that chink. It lets you take the mantle of fiscal responsibility, which allows you to stress how the stock market has actually done best under Democratic administrations. Periodic wondering about exactly why the Republicans pushed a program that would have damaged the security of people's retirement income opens the door to clear explanations of how other Republican initiatives turned out as compared to how they were promoted.

Best of all, making this adjustment really would be of public benefit. Otherwise I couldn't go into all this.

Contacts:
Cate Brandon | (202) 365-0352 | [email protected]
Hans Riemer | (202) 213-1072 | [email protected]

[download the poll findings pdf]

POLL OF YOUNG ADULTS FINDS
SUPPORT FOR PRIVATE ACCOUNTS PLUMMETS
IN FACE OF BENEFIT CUTS, BORROWING

The more young people learn about private accounts, the less they like them

Washington, DC - Feb. 03, 2005
A new poll shows young voters may not be the political base that some politicians expect for phasing out Social Security in favor of private investments. Released by Rock the Vote, AARP, and the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, the poll finds that nearly sixty percent of 18-39 year olds oppose private accounts if it would mean  a lower guaranteed benefit in retirement. 

The survey of 1000 adults, conducted by Roper Public Affairs, reaches similar conclusions to previous polls: many young people doubt they will receive Social Security and are receptive, at first blush anyway, to the idea of investing their own Social Security money. But when they consider the price of creating private accounts, young people, like the majority of Americans, no longer support them.

In releasing the poll, Rock the Vote s Washington Director Hans Riemer said,  This poll shows that young people do not support changing Social Security if it means dismantling the basic safety net, cutting benefits dramatically, or massively increasing the national debt. We get all three at once under most private account plans. We hope the politicians who say they want to help younger generations are paying attention. 

Other findings of the poll among 18-39 year olds include:

  63 percent would oppose private accounts if it meant  massive new federal debt in order to pay current benefits.  The plan commonly viewed as a  consensus  version from the President s Social Security Commission, as the press has widely reported, would require $2.2 trillion in new borrowing over just the next ten years (and much more after that).

  70 percent would oppose private accounts if it meant  cuts to your guaranteed benefits would be so severe that you could not make up the difference with money from your private account.  Many plans include a benefit cut (often called the switch toprice indexing of benefits) that is so severe it will produce a net loss of income on average, with a massive loss for people whose investments do not work out. Consider the planintroduced by Senator Lindsey Graham, for example, as analyzed by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (02/03/05):

Under the plan, the retirement benefits for typical wage earners who are 25 to 35 today  including the monthly income from their private accounts   would be 27 percent or $4,900lower (in today s dollars) than what they would receive under the current benefit structure. (These figures are based on the Congressional Budget Office s methodology for estimating the gains from private accounts.) This benefit cut is larger than the cut that would beneeded if no action were taken to shore up Social Security s finances.

  65 percent would oppose private accounts if it meant  changes in the way Social Security benefits are calculated would result in cuts in guaranteed benefits for everyone not just people who choose to participate in private accounts program.  Again, this is a critically important aspect of most privatization plans that has not received significant attention. While, as the President said last night in his State of the Union Address,the plans offer  voluntary personal retirement accounts,  the benefit cuts are mandatory for everyone, regardless of whether they choose to invest. For young people whose choice wouldbe to stick with a guaranteed benefit, the plans exact a devastating price cuts approaching 50% within our own lifetimes.

Additional comments from Hans Riemer, Rock the Vote s Washington Director, follow:

 Right now, Social Security is 100% funded for 40-50 years and 80% funded after that. Young people should know this because when we understand the real financial picture for Social Security, we are in a much better position to deal with politicians who want to talk us into giving upour benefits which is precisely what many of them are trying to do.

We want elected officials to get to work now on bolstering Social Security so that it can payfull benefits for future retirees. We support private accounts on top of Social Security, and we hope tolead the politicians to a compromise here.

A lot of what we are hearing about potential benefit cuts and borrowing for private accounts concerns us. The benefit cuts fall almost entirely on our shoulders. So does paying back the debt. Now is the time for young people to cut through the hype and start asking some hard questions about Social Security. 

[download the poll summary of findings pdf]
[download this press release as a pdf]
[take a related poll]


ABOUT ROCK THE VOTE

Founded in 1990 by members of the recording industry, Rock the Vote is a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to protecting freedom of expression and empowering young people to change their world. Over the past decade, Rock the Vote has called on young people to recognize their role increating significant political and social change. Across the country, street teams are engaging youngpeople as civic activists in their communities and contributors to the political process. These street teams have organized, educated and registered voters at thousands of concerts, community festivals, college campuses, pride events and coffee shops across the nation. In 2004, Rock the Vote registered over 1 million voters, forced the candidates to address young people as a legitimate political force especially about a possible military draft and helped mobilize an historic turnout of 21million 18-29 year olds on Election Day.

Quote of note:

Rev. Jackson proceeded to take a survey of the audience, asking us how important to us was it to have jobs that paid livable wages, a healthy environment, universal health care, affordable housing, quality public education?  Nearly every hand in the room went up.

Then he asked us who would be affected by gay marriage?  No hands went up in the air.

"So why do we tell the President that the most important issue in the Black Community is gay marriage?" he asked us.  "We have been taken out by a Weapon of Mass Distraction!" Rev. Jackson told us.  And to the ministers on the panel, Bishop Eddie Long and Rev. Harry Jackson, Rev. Jackson told them, "Shame on you for going to the House of the most Powerful Leader of the Free World and telling him that first, YOU speak for all African-Americans, and while you had the opportunity to talk to the President about the issues that are most important to African-Americans, the only things that came out of your mouths were abortion and gay marriage!"  The crowd went wild with applause and a standing ovation, while these two Pastors hung their heads in shame.

Now you see why the right has a problem with Rev. Jackson.

Anyway...

BEING SILENT ON THE THINGS THAT MATTER

by The Truth
Tue Mar 1st, 2005 at 13:09:57 PST

This past weekend, I attended Tavis Smiley's "State of the Black Union" Conference in Atlanta, GA.  As I sat in the santuary of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, a quote of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s replayed in my head like a refrain from a song.  The quote is "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter."  While it did my heart and spirit a world of good to hear heavyweights in the Civil Rights movement like Rev. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, or the Rev. Joseph Lowery, Michael Eric Dyson or Minister Louis Farrakhan, exhorting those of us in the audience and watching on C-Span, my mind kept repeating Dr. King's quote.

Can we continue to be silent on the matter of no longer having a free press, freedom of expression or the freedom to participate in political dissent, because dissent is essential to having true democracy?

Can we continue to be silent on the matter of a government whose sole mission is to continue to reward the wealthy at the expense of the poor?

Can we continue to be silent on the matter of not having a guaranteed, fundamental, inalienable right to a quality education, affordable, liveable, sustainable housing, not to mention a sustainable and replenishing environment, quality healthcare and jobs that pay liveable, sustainable, family-supportable wages?

Can we continue to be silent on the matter of a woman's right to control reproductive choice, or quality, comprehensive education and information on health issues such as preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, developing sexuality, diabetes, hypertension, mental illnesses, not to mention the need to educate about medical treatment of all with sensitivity and awareness in a cultural and linguistically competent manner, while teaching the need for staying healthy, eating right, being active?

Can we continue to be silent on the matter of our elderly - their quality of life, now that they have earned the right to retire and rest from their labors, while being attacked on an economic scale in terms of eliminating access to medicines that would enhance their quality of life, as well as sustaining the trust fund into which they have paid in preparation for retirement and enjoyment of their golden years?

Can we continue to be silent on the matter that this government has sought to divide rather than unite; facilitates an inherent contempt for the poor, the elderly, the downtrodden, men and women of color, homosexuals, by initiating programs, initiatives and policies guaranteed to steal, kill and destroy life as we now know it?

I read a book by Rep. Jesse  Jackson Jr. (D-Illinois) titled: "A More Perfect Union: Advancing New American Rights" which I recommend everyone to read if you are trying to muster up courage to find your voice and not remain silent.  The book makes compelling arguments for healthcare, education, the environment, housing, jobs, to be an inalienable, fundamental, Constitutional right of every American in this country.  None of these factors should be given to the few, or the privaleged, if you read and interpret the U. S. Constitution on its face.

During the conference, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr. reprimanded some of the ministers on the panel forum, for going to meet with GeeDubya and implying to him that the only issues of importance to African-Americans in our community were gay marriage and abortion.  Rev. Jackson proceeded to take a survey of the audience, asking us how important to us was it to have jobs that paid livable wages, a healthy environment, universal health care, affordable housing, quality public education?  Nearly every hand in the room went up.

Then he asked us who would be affected by gay marriage?  No hands went up in the air.

"So why do we tell the President that the most important issue in the Black Community is gay marriage?" he asked us.  "We have been taken out by a Weapon of Mass Distraction!" Rev. Jackson told us.  And to the ministers on the panel, Bishop Eddie Long and Rev. Harry Jackson, Rev. Jackson told them, "Shame on you for going to the House of the most Powerful Leader of the Free World and telling him that first, YOU speak for all African-Americans, and while you had the opportunity to talk to the President about the issues that are most important to African-Americans, the only things that came out of your mouths were abortion and gay marriage!"  The crowd went wild with applause and a standing ovation, while these two Pastors hung their heads in shame.

An even further shame is that both of their churches were recipients of Bush's Faith-Based Money Pie.  All I can say here is "Two Negro Pastors for Rent"...

The issues that concern Black America, are universal issues that are important to all Americans, Black, White, Brown, Red and Yellow, gay or straight, married or single, Christian, Jew, Catholic, Protestant, Episcopalian, Unitarian, Non-Believer, Agnostic or Atheist.  We ALL want a sustainable environment, decent, affordable housing, quality public education for our children as well as those who missed out the first time; we ALL want jobs that pay livable wages above the poverty line, healthcare, and be able to return to the communities that nurtured us from infancy to adulthood.  We ALL want to be treated with dignity, respect, honor and sensitivity to our individuality, our uniqueness, our ethnicity, our heritage.  And the day we stop talking about these things that do matter to every human being on this earth, but more importantly in the United States of America, our lives don't begin to end: I submit that the day we begin to be silent on the things that matter to us as a Nation, as part of the human race, our lives have already ended, and we become walking zomies, unable to contribute anything that makes life worth living.  

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter."  Remember, when Dr. King wrote that, he wrote it from a cell in a jail in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963.  If it meant something then, how much more does it have meaning for us 42 years later.

Therefore, we can't afford to be silent on the things that matter.  The cost we would have to pay is the ending of our lives.  And that's a price that's too expensive for you or for me, to pay.

My name is Leutisha Stills and I am the Christian Progressive Liberal. I don't care if you approve of this message, I feel it so strongly in my heart and soul that I could NOT keep silent.

If I knew everything I would understand how you can fuck up like these two did and get promoted for it. I mean, how do you even get in a position where that's possible?

Come to think of it. Wolfowitz didn't really fuck up. He did fucked-up things.

Fiorina Called Candidate for World Bank
By ELIZABETH BECKER

WASHINGTON, March 1 - Carleton S. Fiorina, who lost her job as chief executive of Hewlett-Packard almost three weeks ago, has emerged as a strong candidate to become president of the World Bank, according to an official in the Bush administration.

Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, was also under serious consideration, according to the official, who refused to be identified because discussion about the candidates is continuing.

Quote of note:

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, a Democrat, said: "Governors are very willing to come to the table to discuss a comprehensive solution but are very leery of the budget number proposed by the president. If the flexibility comes with $60 billion worth of cuts, that will give us the flexibility to cut people off health care that they desperately need."

Governors and Officials Step Up Talks on Medicaid

By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, March 1 - Governors and the Bush administration agreed on Tuesday to intensify negotiations on ways to clamp down on Medicaid costs after four days of talks sputtered to an inconclusive end.

Michael O. Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, said he saw 8 to 10 "areas of potential common ground" with the governors.

Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia, a Democrat who is chairman of the National Governors Association, said, "We have a growing consensus on some principles," but no agreement on details. The sentiment of most governors is, "Let's plunge ahead" with further negotiations, he said.

Medicaid provides health insurance for more than 50 million low-income people, pays for more than one-third of all births, and finances care for two-thirds of nursing home residents. The cost of the program, financed jointly by the federal government and the states, shot up 63 percent in the last five years. For more than two decades, federal and state officials have been engaged in a tug-of-war over who should pay how much of the cost.

"If we don't do something, people in this country who are currently served by Medicaid will lose their health coverage," Mr. Leavitt told the National Governors Association on Tuesday at the end of its four-day winter meeting.

Picture Dr. Rice, wearing Italy's latest and a pair of bright, fuck-me red pumps with the same pictures of "mobile labs" General Powell showed them.

Anyway...

U.S. Accuses Iran of Deceiving U.N. Inspectors

By RICHARD BERNSTEIN

VIENNA, March 2 - The United States and other members of the board of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency intensified the pressure on Iran today, accusing the nation of numerous failures to abide by its own promise to suspend all its uranium enrichment activities.

In a toughly worded statement to the trimonthly board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is based in Vienna, the American representative, Jackie W. Sanders, denounced Iran for what she called its willingness "to cynically manipulate the nuclear nonproliferation regime in the pursuit of nuclear weapons."

She also called on the I.A.E.A. to report what she called "Iran's noncompliance" to the United Nations Security Council, a move that has been advocated by the United States for two years but resisted by most other countries, including members of the European Union.

In more moderate terms, Britain, France and Germany - the "European Union three" that are striving to negotiate a permanent suspension of Iran's nuclear weapons program - issued a joint statement expressed "serious concern" and "deep regret" over what they called violations of Iran's promise to suspend all of its nuclear programs.

Proposed Law on Bankruptcy Has Loophole

By GRETCHEN MORGENSON

The bankruptcy legislation being debated by the Senate is intended to make it harder for people to walk away from their credit card and other debts. But legal specialists say the proposed law leaves open an increasingly popular loophole that lets wealthy people protect substantial assets from creditors even after filing for bankruptcy.

The loophole involves the use of so-called asset protection trusts. For years, wealthy people looking to keep their money out of the reach of domestic creditors have set up these trusts offshore. But since 1997, lawmakers in five states - Alaska, Delaware, Nevada, Rhode Island and Utah - have passed legislation exempting assets held domestically in such trusts from the federal bankruptcy code. People who want to establish trusts do not have to reside the five states; they need only set their trust up through an institution in one of them.

"If the bankruptcy legislation currently being rushed through the Senate gets enacted, debtors won't need to buy houses in Florida or Texas to keep their millions," said Elena Marty-Nelson, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., referring to generous homestead exemptions in those states. "The millionaire's loophole that is the result of these trusts needs to be closed."

If America Is Richer, Why Are Its Families So Much Less Secure?

Los Angeles Times reporter Peter G. Gosselin has spent the last year examining an American paradox: Why so many families report being financially less secure even as the nation has grown more prosperous. The answer lies in a quarter-century-long shift of economic risks from the broad shoulders of business and government to the backs of working families. Safety nets that once protected Americans from economic turbulence   safeguards like unemployment compensation and employer loyalty   have eroded or vanished. Familes are more vulnerable to sudden shifts in the economy than any time since the Great Depression. The result is a daunting "New Deal" for many working Americans   one that compels them to cope, largely on their own, with financial forces far beyond their control.

PART 1: If America Is Richer, Why Are Its Families So Much Less Secure?

PART 2: The Poor Have More Things Today -- Including Wild Income Swings

PART 3: How Just a Handful of Setbacks Sent the Ryans Tumbling Out of Prosperity

President Highlights Faith-Based Initiative at Leadership Conference

...You know, one of the tests of character for America is how we treat the weakest of our citizens. Interesting test, isn't it? What are we doing in government to help people who need help? Part of the test of government is to understand the limitations of government. Government -- when I think about government, I think about law and justice, I really don't think about love. Government has got to find ways to empower those whose mission is based upon love in order to help those who need love find love in society. That's really what we're here to talk about.

Finding ways to help those who need love find love in society, eh?

I guess that explains Guckart.

No, such a ridiculous statement by Bush deserves a ridiculous response.

I happened to catch this speech. There's normally a lot of vacuousness in Bush's speeches and this one was no exception. There are only a few things he said that are worth commenting on. One was his implication that funding for faith based organizations has been increased.

Since 2003, the administration has increased grants to faith-based organizations by 20 percent. That's a positive development; that's the kind of news that I like to hear, particularly when those faith-based programs are changing America one soul at a time. Last year, 10.3 percent of all federal grants -- those are grants coming out of Washington, those are not formula-based grants to states -- 10 percent of those grants went to faith-based organizations. That's up from 8.1 percent. So I asked Towey, I said, how are we doing? He said, well, the percentage of grants to faith-based programs has grown, and that's good. Ten percent isn't perfect. Ten percent is progress. That means about $2 billion in grants were awarded last year to religious charities. That's a start.

I've been over this before. Basically, Bush's crew are including organizations that don't consider themselves faith based in that total.

There were also two anecdotes given to explain his concern for the rights of faith based organizations:

...the federal government denied a Jewish school in Seattle emergency disaster relief because the school was religious. That's an indication that there's a roadblock. We have a cultural problem when FEMA money -- we're going out to help lessen the effects of a disaster that hurt -- hit, and all of a sudden, the school was denied federal money because of the nature of the school.

...the federal government -- when I came in office, I found out the federal government was threatening to cut off funds for an Iowa homeless shelter. The shelter was receiving money from the federal government, and the shelter was doing good work. The shelter was helping to meet an objective, which was to provide housing for the homeless, but they were threatening to cut off money because the governing board was not sufficiently secular.

Not to put to fine a point on it, but I don't believe him.

Given the rhetoric used to justify repealing the inheritance tax (farmers losing their family farms, when not a single case of it happening can be found), I would like to know which organizations he's talking about. I do not believe it was as cut-and-dried as he said, if anything similar happened at all.

The devil is in the details...which is why he never gives them to you up front.

I figure it should take maybe a couple of hours for the White House to come up with the names and addresses of these mistreated organizations. The records for the organizations should be available for FOIA requests as well.

You see, my concern comes because of Bush's insistence that government has been obstructing these organizations.To my knowledge, the only "obstruction" the government regulations impose is insisting you don't discriminate in hiring. And they've already changed that. So I think it's a good idea to hold Bush's feet to the fire over his incendiary rhetoric.

Momentum by Runaways UK. Something cool to listen to while I'm thinking about a couple of things.

Quote of note:

Indeed, by not ensuring that these detainees have work permits, housing and other essential services upon release, ICE sets them up for failure and burdens the communities they go to with multiple social headaches. Intended or not, it appears that ICE has decided that it is payback time for those who rightly argued that indefinite detention was inhumane and unconstitutional.

DHS dodges its obligation
OUR OPINION: AGENCY SHOULD FUND TRANSITION COSTS FOR FREED CUBAN MARIEL DETAINEES

A Cuban detainee recently was released by the Department of Homeland Security in Colorado, given a bus ticket to Miami, some sweets -- and no money. Arriving three days later, he was weak and famished from the cross-country, 1,700-mile ordeal. Camillus Health Concern has treated at least five recently released Cuban detainees found homeless on the streets of Miami; three men arrived via Greyhound Bus with nothing more than their corrections ID and in need of social services. How shameful and wrong of DHS to shirk its responsibilities.

In indefinite detention

These men are among the 920 Cuban Mariel refugees and other immigration detainees ordered freed by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling. DHS does little to ensure homeland security by sending these ex-convicts to homeless shelters in local communities without warning or transitional services. South Florida, a likely magnet to many of the 747 Cubans among those being released, and its already overburdened social-services agencies will feel the impact.

The group covered by the Supreme Court order had been kept in indefinite detention, some more than a decade, even after the men had served out their criminal sentences. That's because, for one or another reason, these detainees couldn't be deported to their homelands.

For years, U.S. immigration authorities argued that such indefinite detention protected local communities from dangerous criminals. Yet DHS's Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement makes no effort to prevent those released from quickly returning to a life of crime. Indeed, by not ensuring that these detainees have work permits, housing and other essential services upon release, ICE sets them up for failure and burdens the communities they go to with multiple social headaches. Intended or not, it appears that ICE has decided that it is payback time for those who rightly argued that indefinite detention was inhumane and unconstitutional.

Messages rated plus-good or better will be available whenever you watch any channel.

Senator Bids to Extend Indecency Rules to Cable
Industry Defends Its Self-Policing Activities as Sufficient

By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 2, 2005; Page E01

Cable television shows packed with sex and profanity, such as HBO's "Deadwood," FX's "Nip/Tuck" and Comedy Central's "South Park," would be subject to the same indecency regulations that govern over-the-air broadcasts if the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee has his way.

Currently, the Federal Communications Commission has the authority to fine only over-the-air radio and television broadcasters for violating its indecency regulations, which forbid airing sexual or excretory material between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., when children are most likely watching.

But Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) told a group of broadcasters yesterday that he wants to extend that authority to cover the hundreds of cable and satellite television and radio channels that operate outside of the government's control. In addition to basic cable channels such as ESPN, Discovery and MTV, that would include premium channels such as HBO and Showtime and the two satellite radio services, XM and Sirius.

"We put restrictions on the over-the-air signals," Stevens said after his address to the National Association of Broadcasters, according to news reports confirmed by his staff. "I think we can put restrictions on cable itself. At least I intend to do my best to push that."

Relatives of U.S. Judge Slain in Chicago Home
White Supremacist Had Ordered Judge Killed

By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 2, 2005; Page A03

CHICAGO, March 1 -- Last year U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow spent weeks under federal protection after a white supremacist in her court threatened to have her killed. But when the suspect was behind bars, Lefkow felt safe enough to drop the security detail provided her by the U.S. Marshals Service.

On Monday night, Lefkow returned from work to discover the bodies of her husband and her elderly mother in the basement of her home on Chicago's North Side. Both had been shot. On Tuesday, as marshals were again providing Lefkow with around-the-clock protection, and dozens of detectives and FBI agents began searching for a motive and suspect in the homicides, speculation centered on the followers of Matthew Hale, convicted last year of obstruction of justice and ordering Lefkow's killing.

Lefkow had enraged Hale and his supporters when she ordered Hale's group to change its name after it lost a trademark-infringement suit to an Oregon church with a similar name, and later held Hale in contempt and fined him $200,000. More than once since then, someone posted the judge's address on the Web and pasted in a biography and photograph of her husband, Michael Lefkow, 64, a lawyer.

Careful not to push the evidence too far too fast, a police supervisor said Tuesday that investigators are looking in "many, many directions."

Same interview.

JIM LEHRER: As you know, the Democrats say if you in fact do that, they will use rules like using the unanimous consent rule, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, in other words, not going along with unanimous consent, and essentially shut down the business of the United States Senate.

SEN. BILL FRIST: Jim, I just have to keep coming back to the Constitution of the United States. Last week or last month when thirty-three, thirty-four senators took an oath, they didn't take an oath of government overall; they took an oath to the Constitution of the United States of America and it come back -- the other side of the aisle really believes that they ought to stop the nation's business when we have to make health care more available and more affordable; we're fighting a war on terror today.

Isn't that like worshipping a bible instead of God?

JIM LEHRER: You mean so be it, go ahead, shut down the Senate?

SEN. BILL FRIST: No, of course I don't want them to but if they are - you know, I can't tell them it's posturing or not - I don't know - and I'm not saying that I'm just saying that ultimately the oath that I took to our government to be a United States Senator is to the Constitution and that's my first priority.

Nice attempt at non-partisan camouflage. But the meaning of the Constitution is the subject of an extraordinarily partisan debate. Scalia doesn't believe in unenumerated rights

Justice Scalia, dissenting.

    In my view, a right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children is among the  unalienable Rights  with which the Declaration of Independence proclaims  all Men   are endowed by their Creator.  And in my view that right is also among the  othe[r] [rights] retained by the people  which the Ninth Amendment says the Constitution s enumeration of rights  shall not be construed to deny or disparage.  The Declaration of Independence, however, is not a legal prescription conferring powers upon the courts; and the Constitution s refusal to  deny or disparage  other rights is far removed from affirming any one of them, and even farther removed from authorizing judges to identify what they might be, and to enforce the judges  list against laws duly enacted by the people. Consequently, while I would think it entirely compatible with the commitment to representative democracy set forth in the founding documents to argue, in legislative chambers or in electoral campaigns, that the state has no power to interfere with parents  authority over the rearing of their children, I do not believe that the power which the Constitution confers upon me as a judge entitles me to deny legal effect to laws that (in my view) infringe upon what is (in my view) that unenumerated right.

...when the Ninth Amendment is as clear as day

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

...as is the original intent of the authors of the Bill.

The Preamble to The Bill of Rights

Congress of the United States
begun and held at the City of New-York, on
Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

So that "oath to the Constitution" schtick is insufficient cover, as far as I'm concerned.

And just to be snarkastic, I'd like to present this bit of poetry that I find worthy of Dubya himself.

SEN. BILL FRIST: There's not, I just told you, never before in the history of the country has a judicial nominee come from the president that has majority support if this new procedural tool has been used to kill 'em on the floor of the Senate. They've got majority support, denied giving advice and consent. It has never ever happened until the last Congress.

Last night, in discussing The Nuclear Option with Jim Lehrer, Bill Frist said some things that make me glad so many shows have transcripts on the net.

Democrats' nuclear option

JIM LEHRER: Are you prepared to use what's called a nuclear option

SEN. BILL FRIST: Jim, I'd like not to have to and I hope by allowing these nominees, even like today, who've already had a hearing, that we're having them go back, have another hearing, the same sort of questions chose to sort of balance common sense restraint that I am showing.

I tell you what I cannot -- or we're showing - I tell you what I cannot tolerate and that is to throw away 220 years of history in this country where it's never been done before, never been done before. It was done last Congress. We can't let that stand as a precedent and I will do everything within my power as Republican leader, Majority Leader, to get an up or down vote. And there are a whole range of things that can be done.

First it was filled with a degree of restraint on our side and their side just to allow them to a vote. But, yes, everything is on the table, and we may well have to use either a constitutional option, if we have no choice, and I hope that we don't have to though.

Let me draw attention to that one more time:

First it was filled with a degree of restraint on our side and their side just to allow them to a vote.

Look, Fristy. You want to talk about throwing away 220 years of history...when has one side of the isle determined to silence the other side entirely? When has there been such blatant manipulation of the rules? When has the dominant party decided to lock the other party out of discussion entirely, to give opponents an hour to read the legislation with no opportunity to even take notes?

We're used to all manner of frippery coming out of the House of Representatives because they want to send a message more than they want to pass truly enabling legislation. We're used to the Senate acting as the grown-ups.

And now you say allowing Democrats to vote at all is some kind of charity?

Good. Lord.

Social Security Vote May Be Delayed
Critics Could Force Proposal to Change

By Mike Allen and Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 2, 2005; Page A01

The Senate's top Republican said yesterday that President Bush's bid to restructure Social Security may have to wait until next year and might not involve the individual accounts the White House has been pushing hard.

The comments of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), made as GOP lawmakers returned from a week of trying to sell the plan to voters, underscored the challenge facing the White House, especially in light of unbroken Democratic opposition.

"In terms of whether it will be a week, a month, six months or a year, as to when we bring something to the floor, it's just too early," Frist said.

Frist is reluctant to put off a vote until 2006, when lawmakers will be focused on midterm congressional elections and the atmosphere will be more politically charged, aides said. But with polls showing widespread skepticism of Bush's proposal and some Republicans opposed to the approach, GOP leaders signaled yesterday that they may have no choice but to put off action.

That a politician as closely allied to the White House as Frist would even raise the possibility of putting off the proposal until next year -- possibly dooming it -- was an unexpected blow to the administration.

Not hating, but I must admit my first thought on reading the headline was along these lines.

Anyway...

Middle Class Drives Soaring Purchases of Second Homes

By Daniela Deane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 2, 2005; Page E01

Sales of second homes soared last year and accounted for more than a third of all residential sales transactions, according to a study released yesterday.

The study, conducted by the Washington-based National Association of Realtors, showed that nearly one in four U.S. homes bought in 2004 was purchased for investment purposes; 13 percent were bought as vacation homes.

Together, that constituted the surging second-home market, which accounted for 36 percent of the 7.7 million homes sold in the country last year. Second-home sales were up 16.3 percent over 2003.

Kelly Robinson and Debra Thomas, two office colleagues in Bethesda, were just two of last year's buyers. The women decided recently to team up to invest in real estate together.

A few months ago, they bought their third investment property -- a $225,000, four-bedroom townhouse in Gaithersburg that they now rent out.

And it's people like Robinson and Thomas who are buying homes they're not planning to live in rather than just high-income lawyers and lobbyists. A second survey by the Realtors association found that the typical investment property buyer last year earned an annual salary of $87,500 and was 47 years old. The typical vacation-home buyer was a little older and made a little less -- a 55-year-old making $71,000 a year.

"The second-home market is firing on all cylinders," said David Lereah, chief economist of the Washington-based Realtor group. "And it's middle Americans who are buying, not high-flying investors."

Quote of note:

Ronald J. Sider, the president of Evangelicals for Social Action who met with Bush to talk about the initiative after the 2000 election, said the program is important "and maybe even historic." But he said Bush has failed to tackle the fundamental causes of poverty while emphasizing only the value of spiritual renewal. "The result is they tend to exaggerate the importance of that and ignore the structural part of it," Sider said. "In my more cynical moments, I wonder if he cares about the poor at all."

Bush Stresses Support for 'Faith-Based' Agenda
By Peter Baker and Alan Cooperman
Washington post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 2, 2005; Page A04

President Bush renewed his commitment yesterday to promoting social welfare through religious groups with taxpayer funds, calling on a balky Congress to lift its "roadblocks" and implicitly rebutting critics who say he has shirked his "compassion agenda."

Setting out a second-term blueprint for advancing his faith-based initiative, Bush highlighted legislation, heading to the House floor today, that would allow religious charities to hire and fire based on religious beliefs even while receiving federal funding. If Congress does not follow his lead, Bush warned that he would try to circumvent lawmakers by using executive powers.

Bush aides hope the president's appearance at a White House conference on faith-based and community initiatives at a time when he has been consumed with Social Security and foreign policy would help quell the discontent among religious supporters who feel abandoned. Two weeks ago, a former Bush aide published a rare attack on the White House, complaining that the president's "promises remain unfulfilled in spirit and in fact" in part because of "minimal senior White House commitment to the faith-based agenda."

Without directly referring to that criticism, Bush assured an audience of community and religious leaders gathered at a Washington hotel yesterday that his dedication to the cause remains undiminished. "I am here to talk about my continued commitment to faith-based and community groups because I'm firmly committed to making sure every American can realize the promise of our country," he said.

Democrats have never said there's no problem with Social Security. They say there's no crisis. And here's the difference.

You have a problem that can kill you in five years. But you have everything you need in knowledge and material to fix the problem long before your health is affected. So...no problem.

vs.

You have a problem that can kill you in five years. And you've signed a contract giving away all the material you need to cure yourself in exchange for a job that keeps you too busy to see the doctor anyway. So...crisis.

And Frist says "everything is on the table," which apparently means we've already shown you everything we're willing to offer because when asked if that means he'll give up private accounts tro get a deal made, the good Doctor said, "Oh, no, I didn't say that..." This gives us a third parallel:

You have a problem that can kill you in five years. You have everything you need in knowledge and material to fix the problem long before your health is affected. But don't wanna take the nasty medicine so you force the hired help to take it for you.

...is asserting as though it were fact "the only way we can advise and consent on a nominee is to vote up or down on the Senate floor."

The nuclear option threat is a reminder that the Senate can arrange its own procedures. They could legally decide to leave it up to a committee of freshmen.

Now, this concedes Frist could legally silence the Democrats. And it disturbs me that stating a fact disturbs me to this degree.

Scholars Debunk Attack on Affirmative Action

Updated Feb. 14, 2005: EJS co-authored a rebuttal to Richard Sander's new study in the Stanford Law Review, in which he argues that affirmative action decreases the number of African American attorneys nationwide. This critique was an invited submission to the Stanford Law Review by David Chambers and Richard Lempert of the University of Michigan Law School, EJS researcher William Kidder, and Tim Clydesdale, sociologist at the College of New Jersey, and it demonstrates that Sander's forecasts are untenable.

We show that available data on law school admissions, law school performance, and bar exam performance indicate that Sander's article is premised upon a series of statistical errors, oversights, and implausible assumptions. We conclude that if affirmative action in law school admissions were eliminated tomorrow, there would probably be a 30-40 percent decline in the numbers of African Americans entering the legal profession, not the rosy 7.9 percent improvement that Sander forecasts.

Download the Feb. 2005 draft essay as a PDF
Note: A longer version will be posted in March or April

MEDIA   COME WITH ME IF YOU WANT TO SHILL: Arnold Schwarzenegger is starring in another horrible sequel, though this one is straight-to-T.V. The Los Angeles Times reports that California Gov. Schwarzenegger's administration used taxpayer dollars to produce a "mock news story" that pushes a government-backed, corporation-friendly proposal that would kill mandatory lunch hours. The report comes days after the Government Accountability Office sharply warned federal agencies against producing similar propaganda videos, which the Bush administration was caught doing twice in the last two years. Eighteen stations ran the Schwarzenegger spots as news reports, complete with a positive promo text for the local anchors which read: "If approved, the changes would clear up uncertainty in the business community and create a better working environment throughout the state." Never mentioned was the fact that organized labor opposes the rule change, nor that the proposal is backed by the California Restaurant Assn., "which donated $21,000 to one of Schwarzenegger's campaign funds last year and provided food for his 2003 inauguration."

Quote of note:

The 1st Amendment lobby would howl in protest if any version of the British system were considered here. But I would argue that the 1st Amendment right to free speech should never trump the 6th Amendment right to "a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury."

High Cost of Media Circuses
By R. Foster Winans
R. Foster Winans is the author of "Trading Secrets" (St. Martin's Press, 1986).
March 1, 2005

When Martha Stewart leaves prison this weekend, she will walk into the arms of a media circus and a commercial juggernaut that promises to turn what would be a shameful moment for anyone else into a triumph of marketing. There's something terribly wrong with this picture, and what it says about our culture's ethics and sense of fair play is deeply disturbing.

In the good old days of the 1980s, when I was a Wall Street Journal columnist convicted and sent to prison for insider trading, celebrity justice meant scuttling in and out of courthouses through side doors with your head down and your mouth shut. A few of us who thought we had some insight to share about our bad behavior wrote books and appeared on talk shows, but always after the fact and with remorse. We did not hire armies of advisors to spin the case before trial, nor did we send our relatives out to appear on "Larry King Live" to testify to our loving natures.

Today, there are no rules. We are treated to the spectacle of Scott Peterson achieving rock star status before his conviction for murder, Michael Jackson dancing atop an SUV on his way to arraignment on charges of child molestation and, during her trial, Stewart posting reassuring notes to adoring fans.

These manipulations by the defendants directly undermine our judicial system: Innocent people are identified as suspects; witnesses' lives are ruined; it becomes impossible to pick an untainted jury; jurors are distracted by their fear of or desire for fame; judges are distracted; ambitious prosecutors and defense attorneys try cases on talk shows before the first witness is called; costly mistrials are triggered.

Our fascination with celebrity justice sends a perverted message about the difference between right and wrong (there isn't much) and about equal justice for all (there isn't any). It all started in the 1980s, after my case became public, when then-U.S. Atty. Rudolph Giuliani became notorious for grandstanding for the media by having Wall Street suspects shackled in their offices and perp-walked to the booking room and for discussing evidence on the courthouse steps. Giuliani helped legitimize trial by media, and defendants have been fighting back ever since.

You can blame the media, and certainly the suspects and defendants. But the real culprit is the U.S. judicial system itself. And the fix is so obvious and simple. What we need is an American version of Britain's 1981 Contempt of Court Act, which prohibits media coverage of trials until they are over. In criminal cases, the blackout begins the moment a person has been arrested, or charged, or summoned to appear in court, or a warrant is issued for his arrest. Only when the verdict is in, or no charge is filed, can the first reports be published. In civil cases, the blackout period begins when a case is set for trial. During the blackout, the trial is still open to the public. The right of the press to report on it is not abridged, just delayed to allow for an unpolluted atmosphere in which justice can truly be blind.

Whether a British media outlet has produced a story that is in contempt of court is determined by whether it creates a substantial risk that "the course of justice will be seriously impeded or prejudiced." The decision whether the media can cover a pending case is left up to the presiding judge.

Though the British press has sometimes tested the limits, the government has imposed hefty fines and in recent years further tightened the restrictions. What do the British know that we seem to have forgotten? That justice, whether criminal or civil, is not a form of entertainment. Nothing is more basic to human liberty than a fair trial. This right has been substantially eroded in the last decade by our willingness to let those who are not judges or jurors call the tune.

Quote of note:

Several governors complimented Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, a former Utah governor, as an ally inside the White House on the Medicaid issue.

Not Schweitzer, who likened the secretary to ranch hands who "ride a brand."

"Once they come in and work for your ranch, they toe the company line," Schweitzer said. "He seemed to be riding for the president's brand right now."

Montana Governor Isn't Cowed by Bush
Democrat likens pitch for Social Security plan to livestock auction that fails to tempt buyers.
By Peter Wallsten
Times Staff Writer
March 1, 2005

WASHINGTON —  President Bush often quips that the aura of the White House intimidates visitors, leaving would-be critics to express only niceties.

But the presidential mansion   and its current occupant   apparently did not have that effect Monday on Montana's new governor, who made some sharp comments after Bush tried to promote his Social Security overhaul to a group of governors consumed by other matters.

A no-nonsense rancher and wheat farmer who took office six weeks ago in a Republican state, Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer likened the president's pitch to a magic show trick featuring a rabbit in a hat.

He also compared it to a bull auction hawking lousy studs.

"I was watching the governors around the room," said Schweitzer, comparing the group to potential livestock buyers who assess the wares and express their intentions with head-nods or nose-crinkles.

"I was seeing more of this," he said, crinkling his nose as if detecting a foul odor, "than I was of this," he said, nodding his head. "I didn't see a lot of buyers in the room."

But Schweitzer compared Bush's promotion of Social Security changes to a magician with a hat in his right hand that he is waving around with "wide gestures" to distract his audience.

"Today we're talking about Social Security, something that might happen 20, 30, 40 years from now," Schweitzer said. "But guess what's really happening, over in the left hand? We're cutting Medicaid. We're cutting programs in the heartland."

And it sound like resisting Chicago's plan will be as successful as resisting San Francisco's plan was.

Quote of note:

The lawsuit says that housing officials don't have a firm plan for what will be built in place of the run-down buildings. They don't know when residents would be able to return, or how many would be accommodated in the new housing.

The complaint also highlights evidence   including an independent report commissioned by the Chicago Housing Authority   that the agency has moved residents from Cabrini and other projects into poor neighborhoods to the south and west such as Englewood and Roseland, which have some of the city's highest crime and poverty rates.

"Why should we go, if the alternatives aren't much better?" asked Carol Steele, 53, one of the leaders of the lawsuit. Steele has spent her whole life in the Cabrini neighborhood and wants to rebuild a way of life she remembers with fondness.

It's Bleak but It's Home
Chicago is tearing down the notorious Cabrini-Green projects. Some tenants refuse to go, saying the city won't provide anything better.
By P.J. Huffstutter
Times Staff Writer
March 1, 2005

CHICAGO — For 24 years, Gladys Franklin has called the Cabrini-Green projects home.

The high-rise where she lives is decaying, and nearly a third of the doors and windows are boarded up. Squatters have broken into some of the apartments. Other units sit empty.

The elevator works only when it wants to, so Franklin refuses to take it. Instead, she hobbles to the stairwell that reeks of urine. Stepping over a broken crack pipe, she inches down the 14 steps from her second-floor home.

It's a journey that can take an hour.

Franklin knows that Cabrini-Green is a flawed and dangerous place to live, especially for an 83-year-old grandmother crippled by arthritic pain. But the gangs couldn't drive her away and, swears the old woman, neither will the city of Chicago.

"The city talks of a new world, a better life for all of us," Franklin said. "But all we get are broken promises."

Housing officials want to relocate Franklin and about 1,400 residents who remain at Cabrini-Green, one of the nation's most notorious public housing projects. For the last five years, the Chicago Housing Authority has been gradually emptying Cabrini-Green as part of a 10-year, $1.6-billion plan to level public housing projects. Similar efforts are underway across the country.

The towers of poverty in different projects throughout Chicago have been deemed unlivable by federal and city officials. They are to be replaced with condominiums and row houses where the impoverished and the well-heeled would live side by side.

It is the biggest overhaul of public housing in the country: 51 high-rises across the city, totaling 16,000 apartments, would be replaced by about 25,000 new or rehabilitated units.

"We will do what it takes to break the cycle of generations of families living in public housing," said Terry Peterson, the housing authority's chief executive. "We have a lot of work ahead of us."

But no matter how bad life is at Cabrini-Green, many residents don't believe the city will find them better temporary housing until the new apartments become available. Nearly 400 families have banded together and are suing the city to prevent their eviction and stop the demolition.

Lakers Are Cut Off at Overpass
They fail to take a shot at end of 117-115 overtime loss to Knicks, as Walton declines an open look and throws the ball to Bryant, who fumbles it.
By Mike Bresnahan
Times Staff Writer
March 1, 2005

NEW YORK   Slowly, but ever more surely, the Lakers and the playoffs are distancing themselves from each other, amid a defense that bends and breaks, and a shaky offense that can't quite figure out what to do when the ball is not in the hands of Kobe Bryant.

The Lakers lost for the second time in as many days against a lower-echelon Eastern Conference team, this time surrendering a bad quarter instead of a bad half and, when it counted, making one pass too many in a 117-115 overtime loss to the New York Knicks before 19,763 Monday at Madison Square Garden.

Quotes of note:

Ask former LAPD Chief Daryl Gates, whose son has spent his adult life cycling in and out of jail for drug-related crimes that began when he was a teenager. Or former Orange County Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl, whose son is now on trial for participating in an alleged gang rape when he was 16.

The graffiti that recently appeared on bus benches and trash bins near my home in Northridge was not the handiwork of gang members motoring up from Compton but bored, belligerent teenage boys from a nearby gated community. Where were the parents? Probably in bed.

Ask Bernard Melekian, the Pasadena police chief. He has three sons, now adults. "As a dad, I was very involved," he says. "Went everywhere with them, did everything, talked to them about values. They did everything a parent would want   went to college, turned out great." But listening to them reminisce about high school, he learned things he still finds hard to believe.

As teens, they'd sneak out after Dad went to sleep, go party-hopping, run the streets with friends, congregate in a nearby canyon and drink. "The things I didn't know," he says now, "are mind-boggling to me."

Control Our Kids, You Say? We Can Only Do So Much
By Sandy Banks
Sandy Banks is a Times editorial writer.
February 20, 2005

It's easy to agree that 13-year-old Devin Brown should not have been riding around South-Central Los Angeles in a stolen car at 4 a.m. on the Sunday morning he was shot to death by police.

It's easy to blame his family, and that's exactly what people are doing in letters to editors, calls to talk shows and conversations over vanilla lattes. "What kind of mother lets her kid run the streets in the middle of the night?" goes the radio talk show refrain. As if a 13-year-old asks Mom for permission before he slips out to steal a car. We might feel better if it were that simple, if we could hold that neglectful mother to account for her young son's tragedy. That would let "good" parents off the hook, allow us to look in the mirror and say, "Not me."

But how much control, really, does any parent have over a reckless, willful, impetuous teen?

Ask former LAPD Chief Daryl Gates, whose son has spent his adult life cycling in and out of jail for drug-related crimes that began when he was a teenager. Or former Orange County Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl, whose son is now on trial for participating in an alleged gang rape when he was 16.

The truth is that teenagers are intrinsically unruly, often unpredictable and uncharacteristically devious when they need to be. Even the best occasionally veer off course. Most ultimately right themselves without tragedy.

And rebellious, destructive behavior isn't only the province of broken families and inner-city teens. The graffiti that recently appeared on bus benches and trash bins near my home in Northridge was not the handiwork of gang members motoring up from Compton but bored, belligerent teenage boys from a nearby gated community. Where were the parents? Probably in bed. The only way to control some kids is for Mom and Dad to go without sleep.

Ask Bernard Melekian, the Pasadena police chief. He has three sons, now adults. "As a dad, I was very involved," he says. "Went everywhere with them, did everything, talked to them about values. They did everything a parent would want   went to college, turned out great." But listening to them reminisce about high school, he learned things he still finds hard to believe.

As teens, they'd sneak out after Dad went to sleep, go party-hopping, run the streets with friends, congregate in a nearby canyon and drink. "The things I didn't know," he says now, "are mind-boggling to me."

Their misbehavior was no more or less the full measure of their character than young Devin's tragic escapade provides his full rendering. That night was merely one snapshot of his young life   proof of a boy's dumb choice and its dangerous risk. If the night had ended differently, if he'd never attracted the attention of police as he drove that stolen car, who knows what might have happened to him? Perhaps, like many of us, he would have changed course in time, gained wisdom with maturity. That night would have become a vivid, regrettable, cautionary tale, resurrected to shock his mom or warn his own wayward offspring. Instead, we pull back on the lens and see only the sad scenes and ex post facto plot line that accrues to a tragedy   a confused boy whose dad had recently died; an exhausted mom, now working two jobs; a neighborhood full of rudderless kids.

Maybe Devin had the makings of a heartless gangbanger, or maybe he was just a mischievous boy who would have grown up to be a responsible man. Either way, do not make the mistake of assuming it was solely his parent's fault. Devin's neighborhood, where violence is part of the background noise, is not as forgiving as mine or Chief Melekian's. And even the most diligent parents make mistakes, misjudge their kids, lose children to delinquent friends or dangerous streets.

Control your kids. It's a nice sound bite, aimed in radio talk show lectures at Devin's grieving mom and neighbors: "You're not going to get sympathy from the rest of this city until you learn to control your kids," one show's host said.

Too bad, because Devin's tragic end reflects not so much the failure of one mother as the limitations of parental influence. Who among us can say with certainty our kids don't lie, don't steal, don't cheat? A teen is a work in progress, struggling clumsily to weigh parental expectations against peer group credibility. So we guide them, lecture them, listen to them, watch them. We need help from our neighbors, pastors, teachers, coaches and even the police. And, ultimately, we hope our kids learn to control themselves.

Bush Seeking Ways to Reward Allies on Iran
By Sonni Efron and Alissa J. Rubin
Times Staff Writers
3:58 PM PST, February 28, 2005

WASHINGTON   In what could herald an important shift in U.S. policy, President Bush is considering ways to support the European allies who are offering Iran incentives in exchange for Tehran halting its nuclear programs, the White House said today.

But U.S. officials were noncommittal about how far the president was prepared to go to engage the theocratic Iranian regime that Bush once labeled part of an "axis of evil."

"The president is considering ideas that were discussed last week in Europe for moving forward on our efforts to get Iran to end its pursuit of nuclear weapons and abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

Among the specific incentives that were discussed during President Bush's trip to France and Germany this month were allowing Iran to join the World Trade Organization and have access to spare aircraft parts, or possible aircraft sales, to replace Iran's aging commercial fleet, a European diplomat said.

In the past, the Bush administration has argued that Iran should not be bribed with economic and political incentives to abide by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which it signed. U.S. officials have also pointedly refused to endorse or take part in the negotiations by Britain, France and Germany, which have been negotiating with Iran to provide economic incentives in exchange for Tehran halting its uranium enrichment.

But the EU 3, as the three European nations are called, have been increasingly vocal in arguing that no deal can be reached with the Iranians without at least tacit U.S. support. Moreover, they have argued that even if the negotiations with Iran fail, it is better for the United States to have done everything possible to reach a diplomatic solution lest it later be accused of being a spoiler.

Go here and scroll up like one screen.

Q: Has the President ever issued an order against torture of prisoners? And do we still send prisoners to Syria to be tortured?

MR. McCLELLAN: The President has stated publicly that we do not condone torture and that he would never authorize the use of torture. He has made that --

Q: But has he issued an order?

MR. McCLELLAN: -- statement very publicly, and he's made it clear to everybody in the government that we do not torture.

Q: Well, why do we still hear these stories then?

MR. McCLELLAN: If there are allegations of wrongdoing, then the President expects those allegations to be fully investigated and if there is actual wrongdoing that occurs, then people need to be held to account. The President has made that very clear.

Q: Well, do you deny that we still send prisoners to other countries to be tortured? Is that a denial?

MR. McCLELLAN: Judge Gonzales testified previously that we have an obligation not to render people to countries that we know would torture them.

Q: He did not rule out torture.

MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, David.

All non-answers. ALL of them.

[caught In between]

Looking over the past winners, it's easy to slap one of the labels on each of the roles that won the top, or supporting Oscars. Since there are so few winners, I will go right ahead and do it: a struggling wife of a death row inmate who falls for the white racist cop who executed her spouse (tragic mulattoe), a crooked cop (buck), a phony psychic (coon), an insubordinate army private (buck), a hardassed drill sargeant (buck), an out-of-work construction worker (buck), and an all-knowing housekeeper named "Mammy" (yeah, that one's easy: mammy). While all of these performances are to be praised as fine examples of thespian artistry, and I'm not saying the actors should have turned down these roles (because heads have got to eat and a paying job is a good thing) I can't really say that any of the actual roles are inspiring, at least not to me. Art imitates life, and it also gives sheep cues for how to think. Since we're looking at patterns here that are well-defined and long-lasting, it isn't very difficult to me to figure out how America is supposed to feel about the bruthas and sistas.

Unfunded mandate of note:

The governors are especially angered by President Bush's proposal to cut federal payments to the states for administrative costs of Medicaid, costs that will soon increase as a result of the new Medicare drug law, which directs the states to help the federal government identify low-income people who qualify for extra assistance with their drug costs.

Bush Tries to Reassure Governors on Medicaid Costs
By DAVID STOUT
Published: February 28, 2005

WASHINGTON, Feb. 28 - President Bush sought today to calm governors worried about soaring Medicaid costs, telling them that he empathizes with them and wants to work with them to find solutions.

"We want Medicaid to work," Mr. Bush told the National Governors Association at the White House. "We also recognize that the system needs to be reformed, and we want to work with you to do so."

Alluding to his days as governor of Texas, Mr. Bush said, "The governors are on the front line of Medicaid, I know full well."

The governors, in Washington for their association's winter meeting, have said they welcome the president's proposals to give states wide discretion on who gets what benefits. But they have insisted that the states cannot afford the budget cuts sought by the White House and Republican leaders in Congress.

Mr. Bush envisions cutting federal Medicaid spending by about 2 percent, or $60 billion, over the next decade. The program is financed jointly by the federal government and the states, at a cost of more than $300 billion a year. More than 50 million people with lower incomes rely upon Medicaid.

Governors and state legislators, already forced to cut back on Medicaid benefits and tighten eligibility standards, have said they need every federal dollar they can get. The states' opposition to Medicaid cutbacks has been voiced by Republicans and Democrats alike. For instance, Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, a Republican and the vice chairman of the governors association, said over the weekend that "simply cutting the Medicaid budget is unacceptable."

Santorum Puts Rate Hike on Table
The senator says he's willing to discuss a tax increase for Democratic aid on Social Security.
By Joel Havemann
Times Staff Writer
February 28, 2005

WASHINGTON   Sen. Rick Santorum, the conservative from Pennsylvania who ranks third in the Senate Republican leadership, said Sunday that he was willing to discuss increasing the Social Security tax rate as a way of helping to assure the program's solvency.

Santorum said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that raising the Social Security payroll tax might be the price Republicans have to pay for Democratic support for diverting some of the tax revenue to private retirement accounts, as President Bush has proposed.

Santorum's comments on raising the Social Security payroll tax rate come at a time when the public appears to be reacting negatively to Bush's private accounts. In holding out an olive branch to Democrats, Santorum's position went one step further than the president's.

Quote of note:

Such "add-on" accounts have been widely considered a potential compromise on the Social Security issues, since Democrats are strongly opposed to diverting payroll taxes for such accounts. Mr. Shaw said in an interview on Sunday that he was shopping his plan on his own, without the blessing of the Republican leadership or the White House.

What they're supposed to be working on is the solvency of the Social Security program. Because it's so important, I think any suggestion that doesn't directly improve solvency needs thorough explanation and justification.

Given that it's now acknowledged private accounts will not improve Social Security's solvency...that, in fact, their effect will make it harder to pay for Social Security...I see no reason to assume private accounts must be, as Santorum says, "a part of the solution." Leaving private accounts our of any Social Security legislation doesn't mean they can't be pursued. Rep. Shaw's suggestion is, indeed one way to approach establishing them. But objectively speaking, Social Security solvency is easier to achieve without the cost of private accounts being added in.

The private accounts proposal represents a large change in out economic system. It should be pursued separately so we can truly see the costs vs. the benefits of private accounts by looking at the proposal in isolation.

Anyway...

An Early Call for Compromise on Social Security
By ROBIN TONER
Published: February 28, 2005

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 - With the two parties seemingly at a stalemate over President Bush's proposal for private accounts in Social Security, Representative E. Clay Shaw Jr., Republican of Florida, says he hopes to promote his own Social Security plan as a potential compromise.

But as Congress returns from its weeklong recess, spokesmen for Republican leaders said Sunday that it was too early to talk of deals or throwing over the president's plan. And leading Democrats said they were unaware of any serious overtures from the Republicans.

"It's clear that the Republicans are going to have to get on the same page amongst themselves before they start any serious negotiations with Democrats," said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader.

Mr. Shaw, a former chairman of the House Social Security subcommittee who announced the first version of his plan six years ago, said he believed it was time for compromise, "if we can find somebody to compromise with." His plan centers on voluntary retirement savings accounts added to Social Security that would not be financed by payroll taxes, as they would under Mr. Bush's plan. Under Mr. Shaw's plan, accounts would be financed by a refundable income tax credit, capped at $1,000 a year, and would require substantial government borrowing.

Such "add-on" accounts have been widely considered a potential compromise on the Social Security issues, since Democrats are strongly opposed to diverting payroll taxes for such accounts. Mr. Shaw said in an interview on Sunday that he was shopping his plan on his own, without the blessing of the Republican leadership or the White House.

Quote of note:

It's not at all clear how that crime is linked in particular to late-term abortions, which just happen to be the current target of Republican anti-abortion activists across the country.

What's Secretly Wrong With Kansas

In a shocking abuse of office, the attorney general of Kansas is conducting a stealth campaign to violate the privacy of about 90 women who obtained late-term abortions, offering the flimsy claim that he's looking for evidence of crime.

Protected by a sweeping gag order from a local judge, Attorney General Phill Kline has been demanding the women's records from two clinics that have been unable to even warn clients that their intimate histories are being sought. When the inquiry finally came to light through a court brief, Mr. Kline maintained that he needed all the women's records - including their identities, sexual histories, clinical profiles and birth control methods - to prosecute statutory rape and other suspected sexual crimes.

...Mr. Kline's campaign echoes a similar salvo last year by Attorney General John Ashcroft. Federal judges eventually cited privacy laws to stop his attempt to forage through hundreds of records at a half-dozen hospitals. Two years ago, Mr. Kline called on health-care providers to report underage sexual activity, but a federal judge ruled him out of line. Mr. Kline deserves another rebuff, beginning with the suspension of the gag order.

The targeted clinics say they have observed state requirements to report possible crimes. They have filed an appeal to the State Supreme Court, complaining that Mr. Kline is conducting a fishing expedition, not a case-specific inquiry. The clinics have suggested a compromise - that the identities of the women be blacked out with the option for more information from any whose records might yield evidence of crimes like statutory rape.

Quote of note:

Mr. Arar was the victim of an American policy that is known as extraordinary rendition. That's a euphemism. What it means is that the United States seizes individuals, presumably terror suspects, and sends them off without even a nod in the direction of due process to countries known to practice torture.

It's Called Torture

By BOB HERBERT

As a nation, does the United States have a conscience? Or is anything and everything O.K. in post-9/11 America? If torture and the denial of due process are O.K., why not murder? When the government can just make people vanish - which it can, and which it does - where is the line that we, as a nation, dare not cross?

When I interviewed Maher Arar in Ottawa last week, it seemed clear that however thoughtful his comments, I was talking with the frightened, shaky successor of a once robust and fully functioning human being. Torture does that to a person. It's an unspeakable crime, an affront to one's humanity that can rob you of a portion of your being as surely as acid can destroy your flesh.

Mr. Arar, a Canadian citizen with a wife and two young children, had his life flipped upside down in the fall of 2002 when John Ashcroft's Justice Department, acting at least in part on bad information supplied by the Canadian government, decided it would be a good idea to abduct Mr. Arar and ship him off to Syria, an outlaw nation that the Justice Department honchos well knew was addicted to torture.

Mr. Arar was not charged with anything, and yet he was deprived not only of his liberty, but of all legal and human rights. He was handed over in shackles to the Syrian government and, to no one's surprise, promptly brutalized. A year later he emerged, and still no charges were lodged against him. His torturers said they were unable to elicit any link between Mr. Arar and terrorism. He was sent back to Canada to face the torment of a life in ruins.

Quote of note:

To defend the Commandments as a historical or legal document is "to desacralize a sacred text, to rip it out of context and distort its meaning and significance," he said. "It ought to be unconvincing to people outside the religious tradition and insulting to those within it."

The Ten Commandments Reach the Supreme Court

By LINDA GREENHOUSE

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 - One federal court upheld them as a symbol of the country's devotion to its legal heritage. Another federal court ordered them removed as an illicit message of religious endorsement. Fifteen months ago, Alabama's chief justice lost his job over them, and the two-ton granite monument that once sat in the rotunda of the state courthouse is now the star of a national tour. The profile of the Ten Commandments, it seems, has rarely been higher, or their ability to attract lawsuits greater.

Now, as with all great controversies in American life, this one has finally reached the Supreme Court. In two cases to be argued on Wednesday, the basic question for the justices will be: what does it mean for the government to display a copy of the Ten Commandments?

Keep in mind this dramatic admission takes place during discussions about their existing nuclear program and the entire article can be abbreviated to three letters.

D'oh!

(Punctuation doesn't count.)

Pressed, Iran Admits It Discussed Acquiring Nuclear Technology
By ELAINE SCIOLINO and DAVID E. SANGER

As the International Atomic Energy Agency prepares to open a meeting today to review Tehran's nuclear program, Iranian officials have reluctantly turned over new evidence strongly suggesting that Iran discussed acquiring technologies central to making nuclear arms and hid that fact for 18 years, according to American and European officials.

The officials said the evidence, a document dated 1987, was handed over after I.A.E.A. investigators confronted Iranian officials with evidence gathered in interviews with members of the network run by Pakistan's top nuclear expert, A. Q. Khan. The document, according to officials who have seen it, includes an offer by Mr. Khan's representatives to provide a package of technologies - for a price that ran from tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a European diplomat - including the difficult-to-master process of casting uranium metal.

That is a critical step toward making the core of a nuclear warhead, though investigators note that Iran could come up with other explanations for why it wanted to fabricate uranium in a metal form.

There's an editorial about Warner Bros. "reimagining" their cartoon characters, which I'd say nothing about but for the closing paragraph:

See the dangers of re-imagining cartoons? If Wile E. Coyote spent half his money on real food instead of spending it all on Acme products, he could eat well and never chase again. But don't tell him.

Take a lesson.

Quote of note:

In fast-growing Riverside County, experts and law enforcement officials say, rising racial hostility has been triggered by increasing racial diversity among newcomers.

Although the county's white population rose 7% from 1990 to 2000, the number of blacks grew 61%, and Latinos and Asians increased 82% and 62% respectively, said James P. Allen, a Cal State Northridge professor who analyzes racial and ethnic data.

"Any kind of major demographic change has the potential to spark racial turbulence and hate crimes," said Mark Potok, who monitors hate crimes nationally for the Southern Poverty Law Center in Birmingham, Ala. "Very often, hate crimes are someone acting out in response to some kind of real pressure, including sprawl and economic pressures."

Inland Empire Sees Rise in Hate Crimes, Bucking Trend in State
The tally stands out in regions where violations have declined. Authorities say the stimulus is an influx of racial minorities.
By Lance Pugmire and Janet Wilson
Times Staff Writers
February 28, 2005

When a teen lifted his baggy shorts and flashed a swastika and German army tattoos at Kenny Turner outside his high school last June, the popular black Lake Elsinore senior just kept walking.

"It was the second-to-last day of the school year," recalled Turner, now 19. "I didn't want to be in trouble with one day left."

But Turner and two witnesses said the young man, armed with an ice pick, ran after him and stabbed him while screaming a racial slur. It's an incident that, although rare, is emblematic of a growing problem in the Inland Empire, authorities say.

The number of reported hate crimes in Riverside and San Bernardino counties has risen sharply in recent years, fueled in part by dramatic demographic changes that experts say are bringing more minorities into a region that has long been home to pockets of white supremacists. Other growing Southland suburbs   among them Santa Clarita, Lancaster and Simi Valley   have also had high-profile racially motivated crimes and incidents in recent years.

Although hate crimes declined 10% statewide in 2003, they rose a combined 19.5% in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, according to the most recent data from the state attorney general's office.

Authorities announced in January that an alleged white supremacist in Riverside County's Menifee was recruiting players on a local high school football team. Educators and prosecutors promptly vowed to work jointly to combat hate crime on campuses.

...In the last two years, incidents in that county have included teens parading with a homemade flag emblazoned with swastikas in front of Lake Elsinore High School, and the beating of two black students by four white students at Murrieta Valley High School.

Last year, a black Norco High School junior found song lyrics on her desk about gunning down blacks. In May, a melee among 200 students at Temescal Canyon High School in Lake Elsinore was triggered by racial slurs. In March, Corona police arrested a dozen Centennial High School students after a racially motivated fight broke out.

Mexico Stubbornly Denies Its Dark Past
By Denise Dresser
Denise Dresser is a professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico and a former member of Mexico's Citizens' Advisory Committee to the Special Prosecutor for Crimes of the Past.
February 27, 2005

While many countries seek to uncover the truth about their history, Mexico seems intent on burying it. Although more than 20 countries have established effective mechanisms for dealing with their troubled pasts, Mexico's isn't working. Rwanda and Kosovo and Chile have recognized the criminal behavior of their former leaders, but Mexico isn't prepared to do so. Argentina is jailing former generals, and Mexico still can't. Today, Mexico faces the real possibility of obligatory amnesia, of forced forgetting.

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The proposed law would make it more difficult for Americans, especially wealthy ones, to have their debts erased by filing for bankruptcy. The bill has been a priority for banks and credit card companies since 1998, when it started to wend its way through Capitol Hill.

Abortion Debate Still Tangled in Bankruptcy Bill
The proposed law, which would make it harder for people to have their debts erased, may again have a provision aimed at clinic protesters.
By Maura Reynolds
Times Staff Writer
February 28, 2005

WASHINGTON   When Randall Terry filed for bankruptcy in 1998, he probably had little idea he was setting in motion a series of events that years later would entangle a congressional push to rewrite bankruptcy laws with a seemingly unrelated issue: abortion.

Terry, the founder of the antiabortion group Operation Rescue who led high-profile protests against abortion clinics in the 1980s and '90s, said he was filing for bankruptcy to avoid paying court damages resulting from his confrontational tactics.

"I will never let a cent of my money be seized to support the killing of the unborn," he was quoted as saying in news reports and court documents.

Six years later, in a legacy of those sometimes violent clashes over abortion clinic access, the fate of a much-debated bankruptcy bill may depend on whether Congress considers it appropriate for antiabortion protesters to file for bankruptcy to avoid paying fines.

Congress responded to concerns about a surge in the number of people filing for bankruptcy in the 1990s   and thereby escaping their debts   by passing a bill in 2000 designed to stem the trend. But President Clinton refused to sign it, agreeing with critics who said the measure would create hardships for lower-income consumers while doing little to slow the proliferation of credit cards that they said enticed people to assume more debt than they should.

The financial sector geared up again, and shortly after President Bush took office in 2001 the House and Senate passed competing versions of the bill.

One difference was that the Senate's measure included an amendment targeting abortion protesters. That came about partly because of Terry's outspokenness, but also because of reports that other antiabortion activists were deliberately divesting themselves of assets before taking part in illegal protests.

The reports riled abortion rights supporters, notably Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). He drafted the amendment to the Senate's bankruptcy bill that specifically would prevent abortion opponents from using the bankruptcy code to escape paying court fines.

"This is an abuse of bankruptcy law, just as somebody who gambles and wants to go into [bankruptcy] and doesn't pay his or her debts is an abuse of the bankruptcy law," Schumer said. "It's not pro-choice or pro-life or anti-choice or anti-life. It's very simply pro-rule of law."

No summary of the Heritage-sponsored performance art piece that was the Jesse Lee Show...

Lively Meeting of the Minds Is of Two Minds
A rift between African American conservatives and liberals, evident in the election, reemerges at the State of the Black Union conference.
By Ellen Barry
Times Staff Writer

February 27, 2005

LITHONIA, Ga.   At a passionate discussion of the African American political agenda Saturday, few sparring partners better personified the fallout from the last election than the two preachers, Jackson and Jackson.

The first Jackson was the Rev. Jesse Jackson, liberal war horse, civil rights veteran and two-time candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, who delivered a stirring declamation on social justice.

The second   and lesser-known   was Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr., a Democrat who supported President Bush in the last election. He announced the dawn of a new black agenda based on the Bible and emanating from megachurches.

"My concern is: Have we allowed one party to take the black agenda and hold it hostage at gunpoint to the issue of gay rights?" asked Jackson, senior pastor of Hope Christian Church in suburban Washington, D.C.

The role of socially conservative black pastors in politics was a recurrent theme at the sixth State of the Black Union, an annual event hosted by journalist and political commentator Tavis Smiley.

Smiley invited the panelists   among them Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, civil rights leader Joseph Lowery and the Rev. Al Sharpton   to consider what planks might appear in a "Contract With Black America on Moral Values," which could be used to hold politicians accountable.

The interesting this is, I was thinking "The State of the Black Union" overstated our condition somewhat, I've decided the name is cool if you consider this the first report.

It seems they're trying the same thing Ben Chavis wanted to do...but where Chavis went after the raw activist edge of the Black community this covenant thing is focusing on the mainstream of the Black communities. Black folks in general weren't that special combination of mad, scared and stubborn you need to be activist in Chavis' day. That may have changed.

He done took over. And no one knows how to stop him because he's got the strongest response from the audience.

But he's got an old nationalist, back to the earth line that isn't going to work.

Ah, my people.

The meeting is pretty amusing. They've hit the best point and missed one or two and they're preaching now.

I think I'll keep it running for a while.

In general, positive while reflecting that we need to get together as a people...which, I think, needs clarification already but basically true.

Rev. Lowry: We should call this a "covenant" rather than a contract.

Min. Farrakhan sounds like a born-again minister...and got off a great line: "A contract is between people that intend to keep their word."

Jehmu Greene Rock the Vote: Young folks are ready to get in the mix.

Ozzie Davis was scheduled to be at the State of the Black Union meeting. They're leaving his spot there, empty, as a gesture.

Okay, I'm having fun with my new Delphi 2005 Professional installation...a clean install for some reason makes me feel better about abandoning old code. And I'm having MUCH fun writing a new and improved Drupal module for interfacing with Amazon.com. So I'm going to do that instead of a whole lot more news.

But I'm also playing The State of the Black Union. And I'll be commenting. For instance, Tavis just made a comment that will be key in pursuing the written agenda he suggests: when we make Black America better we make all America better.

The mainstream will support that which they feel helps them. AFTER (I repeat, AFTER) deciding what will benefit the Black community, we must examine how those suggestions will affect the mainstream. We must identify that which benefits them and in discussions with the mainstream those are the reasons with which we must lead.

Remember, Black progress has never come as a result of morality or considerations of justice.

Anyway, I'm watching now.

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Reform of these major entitlement programs is the pressing need to avoid a budget train wreck in the next generation, but Bush has offered little leadership on that. His Social Security plan -- for individual savings accounts -- does nothing to address the shortfall in that system. And his "contribution" to solving the more pressing crisis in Medicare has been to add an unaffordable prescription drug benefit to the program.

Stealthy Budget Cuts
By David S. Broder
Sunday, February 27, 2005; Page B07

Back-to-back briefings last week put a harsh spotlight on the deep hole left by the budget policies of George Bush's first term. Millions of Americans will be paying the price for the fiscal profligacy of this misnamed conservative government.

The bad news, delivered in the first report, is that the camouflaged domestic spending cuts contained in the Bush budget will -- if accepted by Congress -- do serious damage to education initiatives, low-income assistance and environmental programs over the next five years.

The worse news, documented in the second report, is that these cuts will not even begin to deal with the looming calamity of runaway entitlement spending on the retirement and health care costs of the baby boom generation.

You won't find either of these warnings spelled out in the budget message of the president. An analysis by the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noted that for the first time since at least 1989 the White House Office of Management and Budget failed to give Congress or the news media information on the proposed spending on most domestic programs beyond the coming year.

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Housing costs contribute to malnutrition, and malnutrition affects school performance and cognitive capacity. It weakens immune systems and makes children susceptible to illness, which diminishes appetites and thereby increases vulnerability to the next infection. The downward spiral can lead to frequent absences from school and expensive hospitalization.

What is not visible may be more serious. Inadequate nutrition is a stealthy threat, because its hidden effects on the brain occur long before the outward symptoms of retarded growth. Several decades of neuroscience have documented the impact of iron deficiency, for example, on the size of the brain and the creation and maturation of neurons and other key components. If the deficiencies occur during the last trimester of pregnancy or the first two or three years of life, the results may last a lifetime.

Long after malnutrition ends, such children have lower IQs. In adolescence, they score worse than their peers on arithmetic, writing, spatial memory and other cognitive tests. Parents and teachers see in them "more anxiety or depression, social problems, and attention problems," according to a volume of studies compiled in 2000 by the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine.

Children Going Hungry
By David K. Shipler
Sunday, February 27, 2005; Page B07

If you spend a day in a malnutrition clinic, you will see a dismal parade of babies and toddlers who look much younger than they are. Underweight and developmentally delayed, they cannot perform normally for their ages. Some are so weak that when you hold them in a standing position, their knees buckle. When they lie on their stomachs, they cannot push themselves up. Long after they should be able to roll over, they can only flop around listlessly.

Doctors describe these conditions as "failure to thrive." If President Bush's budget is enacted, there will be many more children in America who fail to thrive.

The most direct reason is his proposed cut in food stamps. But there is another cause of hunger, less obvious and no less damaging: his budget's diminished housing subsidies, which will leave more families exposed to escalating rents.

It may seem odd to think of housing causing hunger, but the link becomes clear when you talk with parents who bring their children into a malnutrition clinic. They usually lack government protection against the private market's steeply rising housing costs. They can't get into public housing; they are languishing on a long waiting list for vouchers that would help pay for private apartments. Or they are immigrants ineligible for government programs. As a result, some find that rent alone soaks up 50 to 75 percent of their earnings.

They have no choice. They have to pay the rent. They have to pay the relentless electricity and telephone bills. In most of the country, they need automobiles to get to work, which means car loans and auto insurance. None of these can be squeezed very much. The main part of the budget that can be squeezed is for food. What happens then is documented by a soon-to-be-published study in which nearly 12,000 low-income households in six cities were surveyed. It found an increased incidence of underweight children in families without housing subsidies.

Heavy Over All Our Heads
By Albert B. Crenshaw
Sunday, February 27, 2005; Page F01

With the Bush administration, one never knows what is intentional and what isn't, but the president's proposal to introduce private investment accounts into Social Security has certainly served to divert attention from whether the whole federal government is headed for a fiscal train wreck.

That's probably a good idea, from the administration's point of view, because both it and many private employers are asking people to pin their retirement and other hopes for the future on financial assets. And they are asking this at a time when the government is promising benefits and services it can't come close to affording without taxing the fillings out of our teeth or going to banana republic-style inflation -- or both.

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"The president could claim a real victory just by getting personal accounts," said Shaw, who has shared his ideas with Vice President Cheney and White House senior adviser Karl Rove.

I like how Bush's "real victory" does nothing to resolve the problem he drew attention to. With it being so widely known, it would indeed be a real victory. And it would be the end of even pretending the truth matters in the public debate.

David Gergen, who served in Clinton's White House and in the administrations of several Republican predecessors, does not believe Democrats will ever give Bush the compromise victory Ickes is worried about.

"Why would they put their head in that noose?" he asked.

Indeed.

Anyway...

GOP May Seek a Deal on Accounts
Anxious Lawmakers Negotiate With Democrats on Social Security Changes
By John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, February 27, 2005; Page A01

President Bush is still in the opening phase of a campaign to sell the public and Congress on his ambitious plans for Social Security, but some Republicans on Capitol Hill have decided it is not too early to begin pondering an exit strategy.

With polls showing widespread skepticism of Bush's proposed individual investment accounts and Democratic lawmakers expressing nearly uniform opposition, some allies of the president are focused on possible split-the-difference deals.

...In one example, Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr. (R-Fla.) said, a compromise might involve merging Bush's proposal with plans -- some backed by Democrats -- that create government-subsidized savings plans outside Social Security. Under this scenario, Bush's proposal to divert 4 percent of an individual's Social Security payroll tax would become 2 percent or less.

...Meanwhile, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said that he is discussing with Democratic colleagues a compromise plan that would guarantee low-income beneficiaries will do better under a new program than the existing system, even if this increases the program's cost.

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...three decades of impassioned, interminable argument have somehow congealed into a collective fantasy about what the reversal of Roe would mean - how the American abortion brawl would be over, lost or won, depending on one's point of view, but over. Wrong.

Imagine a Nation Without Roe v. Wade
By CYNTHIA GORNEY

FOR anyone interested in dodging partisan rhetoric long enough to think seriously about the coming decade in the American abortion battle, some of the most illuminating reading right now can be found on a chart. It's a partisans' chart, to be sure; the information that fills its tables was compiled by the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, whose lawyers have been arguing abortion cases for more than two decades.

But take a quick look down the column on the left, Existence and Status of Abortion Ban. That's ban, not regulation. Old abortion laws, unenforceable under Roe v. Wade, remain in the statute books of more than a dozen states.