Quote of note:

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

The General Who Got It Right on Iraq
By Frank Gibney
Frank Gibney, president of the Pacific Basin Institute, is a professor of politics at Pomona College and author of "The Pacific Century" and other books on Asia and foreign policy.

Sound like hyperbole?

Roughly, federal outlays can be divided into five equal pieces. One slice is Social Security, which has been politically off-limits to budget cutters since 1983. A second contains Medicare and Medicaid, which also have resisted cuts.

The government's other support programs — food stamps, unemployment compensation and others — go in a third piece, as do interest payments on the debt. Interest payments are outside Congress' control, and other support programs are politically as well as technically difficult to adjust.

The other two pieces of the budget are easier to manipulate in the short term. One of them consists of defense and domestic security, where the Bush administration has until recently shown no tendency to skimp.

So most of the pressure to cut spending lands on the final fifth of the budget — the so-called domestic discretionary programs. These consist of a wide variety of projects, such as an abandoned mine reclamation fund and a zero-down mortgage program run by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Bush Team Prepares to Swing Budget Ax
The president says he will not raise taxes to keep his promise to cut the deficit. So what will take a hit? Medicare and Medicaid look likely.
By Joel Havemann
Times Staff Writer

Firms Pay Nothing, Get Plenty
California is awarding millions to companies that paid no income tax. A manufacturing credit intended to add jobs creates outrage instead.
By Evan Halper
Times Staff Writer

December 26, 2004

SACRAMENTO — A small group of companies that paid no California income tax has begun receiving millions of dollars in refunds after a powerful state board ignored its staff and ordered the checks issued.

The move has outraged critics, who call it an $82-million corporate giveaway at a time when the state has no money to spare. The dispute has revived calls from some to abolish the agency that issued the ruling: the state's five-member Board of Equalization.

Quote of note:

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

As Bush Vows to Halve Deficit, Targets Already Feel Squeezed
Less Budget Funding for Aid, Education, Cities, Science; Bracing for the Boomers
Republican Governors Resist
By JACKIE CALMES
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
December 21, 2004

WASHINGTON -- In his first term, President Bush's domestic policy focused on creating winners, through tax cuts, a new prescription-drug-benefits plan for seniors, large farm subsidies, big homeland-security contracts and increased spending for education, scientific research and more.

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

Everyone is busy salivating all morning and you can do stuff with no interruptions.

I've cleaned up some loose ends: the "Best of P6" box in the sidebar is gone, supplanted by the menu item. Easier to maintain. I corrected some linkage—still got a lot more to go, cleared some inactive sites from the blogroll—which yet needs tuning, and mostly restored the "library" at The Niggerati Network to its condition before I screwed it up real bad—in particular, chapter 3 of The Shaping of Black America and The Black Experience in America are back in their entirety.

I may have an alpha for MTClient version 2.0. Depends on how crazy I want to get. I've spent some time the last few days rooting around the source code for the wysiwyg editor because help files universally suck. The program looks wonderful but there's actually a deal-breaker in the code generation. If it were just me…anyway, if I can't get around it, wysiwyg itself is not a deal-breaker. It would give me time and an excuse to fool around with Gecko anyway.

Quote of note:

In the three years since Michael R. Bloomberg succeeded Mr. Giuliani, the city has spent close to $2 million to settle lawsuits brought by residents and city workers who accused the Giuliani administration of retaliating against them for exercising free speech or other constitutional rights.

Among them is a limousine driver, James Schillaci, who had complained in a newspaper article about a red-light sting set up by the police in the Bronx. The same day, police came to his home to arrest him for a 13-year-old unpaid ticket. The next day, the mayor obtained - illegally, Mr. Schillaci said - the record of his arrests from decades earlier and discussed it, inaccurately, at a news conference. The city settled with him for $290,000 in 2002.

A Legacy of Giuliani Years: Damage Suits Against City

First American civilisation sprang up fast
NewScientist.com news service
Jeff Hecht

The first American civilisation sprang up rapidly on the central Peruvian coast more than 5000 years ago, new research has revealed.

In less than 150 years, people went "from small hunter-gatherer bands to great big permanent communities with monumental architectures," says Jonathan Haas of the Field Museum in Chicago, US, whose group carbon-dated samples from 13 of more than 20 sites in the Norte Chico region.

The ancient South American culture began building massive stone structures about the same time Egyptians built their first large step-pyramids. Yet their culture followed a different pattern.

They lacked pottery, which preceded stone monuments in the Middle East. They also lacked writing, art and sculpture, so they left no attractive artifacts to attract the attention of early archaeologists or looters. The main coastal site, Aspero, had been studied before, but the new work is the first to document the ages of inland sites along four river valleys.

Mystery of Mars rover's 'carwash' rolls on

NASA's Mars rover Opportunity seems to have stumbled into something akin to a carwash that has left its solar panels much cleaner than those of its twin rover, Spirit. A Martian carwash would account for a series of unexpected boosts in the electrical power produced by Opportunity's solar panels.

The rovers landed on Mars in January 2004 with solar cells capable of providing more than 900 watt-hours of electricity per day. Spirit's output has dropped to about 400 watt-hours, partly because Martian dust has caked its solar panels.

Opportunity's output also declined at first - to around 500 watt-hours - but over the past six months it has regained power (New Scientist print edition, 30 October). Lately, its solar cells have been delivering just over 900 watt-hours.

This is something I wrote for Open Source Politics last time Justice Brown got nominated. It's all still valid reasoning, and I present it as an example of how to deal with the inevitable race card.

Of course if you have no patience with that sort of thing you can use the short version:
Q: You mean a Black person isn't allowed to have a conservative viewpoint?
A: No, I mean you're an asshole. You personally.

---

You mean Justice Brown is Black?

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

She is being opposed because she is Black.

Quote of note:

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

Brown is one of the most visionary of the reversionary justices. And she's Black, so Republicans get to call people who oppose her positions racist…because, you see, there's no reason Black people would fail to support a Black candidate unless we're racist.

Huh?

Bush to Revive Failed Judicial Nominations

12/17/04

Alan Murray, The Wall Street Journal: Barbara's question gets to the Rudy Giuliani issue. The president didn't know all of this history but surely Giuliani had heard some of it.

Michael Duffy, TIME magazine: And Giuliani had some of the same problems in his past so he may not have been as sensitive to them politically. He managed to be mayor of New York while he had a complicated personal life going on and they were close. 9/11 probably obscured a lot of personal issues for people not just in New York but here and all over the country about what matters and what it takes to get the job done. We had more important things in our personal frailties. They get obscured in terms of crisis.

12/17/04

Gwen Ifill, moderator: The president talked at this economic summit about health care savings accounts as another kind of privatizing, if you will, a word I swore I'd never use on the air, of private investment opportunity for people to pay for health insurance. Is that something which is part of his vision for trying to get some sort of handle on Medicare or Medicaid?

Ceci Connolly, The Washington Post: Well, it probably wouldn't help with something like Medicaid because that's mainly a low-income program.

Gwen Ifill, moderator: Nothing to save.

Ceci Connolly, The Washington Post: You're not going to have those individuals doing it. It might help a little bit with the ranks of the uninsured because there are a certain number of people who don't have health insurance for a variety of reasons and they might be attracted to these accounts because they may be more affordable. The argument always against them is you don't really get the sort of coverage that you need. Interesting little footnote to this week's summit, the president mentioned that he bought himself a health savings account. Now I'm a little puzzled as to why because he has free health coverage as president. It's a good gesture on his part. [P6: emphasis added]

12/17/04

Ceci Connolly, The Washington Post: We heard words like "crisis" and "I'm here to fix problems". You mentioned the $10 trillion gap. That's over quite a long period of time. Is Social Security really that pressing a problem in crisis? I think about the Medicare trust fund. That's supposed to run out of money much sooner than the Social Security account.

Alan Murray, The Wall Street Journal: $10 trillion is a lot of money, but it's not as much as the $40 trillion or $50 trillion gap that occurs in Medicare. They took a run at this and didn't do much to deal with the funding problem. They created this new prescription drug benefit. People used to talk about the prescription drug benefit the way they talk about private accounts. That it was going to be the candy that you gave in order to get the long-term budget cuts. Well, they didn't do that with Medicare. They just gave out the candy but they never took the medicine. If they do the same thing with social security we'll have a problem on our hands.

I only got around to reading one of the eleven entries on Clarence Thomas at ACSBlog.

The one where he wants to overturn a 150 year old precedent.

Is Heaven Populated Chiefly by the Souls of Embryos?
Harvesting stem cells without tears
Ronald Bailey

What are we to think about the fact that Nature (and for believers, Nature's God) profligately creates and destroys human embryos? John Opitz, a professor of pediatrics, human genetics, and obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Utah, testified before the President's Council on Bioethics that between 60 and 80 percent of all naturally conceived embryos are simply flushed out in women's normal menstrual flows unnoticed. This is not miscarriage we're talking about. The women and their husbands or partners never even know that conception has taken place; the embryos disappear from their wombs in their menstrual flows.

Putin Questions U.S. Intentions
In Annual New Conference, Russia President Criticizes Iraq Policy, U.S. Interference in Ukraine

Compiled From Wire Reports
Thursday, December 23, 2004; 12:40 PM

MOSCOW, Dec 23 -- President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he would challenge President Bush when they next meet over whether Washington was trying to "isolate" Russia.

In an end-of-year news conference, the Kremlin leader also implied criticism of Washington's Iraq policy saying he doubted that planned elections there would be democratic while the country was under full occupation.

"I have strong doubts that it's possible to create conditions for democratic elections (in Iraq) when its entire territory is occupied by foreign troops," he said.

Students to Bear More of the Cost of College
By GREG WINTER

College students in virtually every state will be required to shoulder more of the cost of their education under new federal rules that govern most of the nation's financial aid.

Because of the changes, which take effect next fall and are expected to save the government $300 million in the 2005-6 academic year, at least 1.3 million students will receive smaller Pell Grants, the nation's primary scholarship for those of low income, according to two analyses of the new rules.

In addition, 89,000 students or so who would otherwise be getting some Pell Grant money will get none, the analyses found.

Seeing a Plot, Saudis Recall Ambassador From Libya
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

Published: December 23, 2004

CAIRO, Dec. 22 - Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, announced Wednesday that his kingdom was expelling the Libyan ambassador and withdrawing its own envoy from Tripoli because of a Libyan plot to assassinate the crown prince.

Speaking at a news conference in Riyadh, Prince Saud said his country was not breaking off relations, but was taking what he called limited measures despite the "ugliness of what happened."

The prince said the Libyan Embassy in Riyadh and the Saudi Embassy in Tripoli would remain open. He said he did not want the Libyan people to suffer, particularly with the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca coming in January.

Europe Rejects Microsoft's Bid to Preserve Bundling Plan
By STEVE LOHR and PAUL MELLER

European court swept aside Microsoft's objections yesterday and ordered it to offer a version of its Windows operating system without its software for playing digital music and movies on personal computers.

The ruling applies only to Europe, but it represents the first time since antitrust challenges to Microsoft began in the 1990's that the company will be forced to alter its bedrock business strategy of bundling its software products and features with Windows. The basic operations of more than 90 percent of the world's personal computers are controlled by Microsoft's Windows program.

Scandal might cancel Bernie Kerik biopic
Plus: Tom Cruise keeps talkingabout Scientology
By Jeannette Walls
MSNBC
Updated: 9:51 a.m. ET Dec. 14, 2004

Recent revelations about Bernie Kerik may derail more than his job as head of Homeland Security. They may do damage to his big-screen biopic.

New York City’s former top cop was nixed for the job as President Bush’s secretary of homeland security after info was revealed about his personal and professional life. Now, a source says that Miramax — which bought the screen rights to Kerik’s autobiography — is seriously reconsidering the movie it’s making on the controversial lawman.

Miramax bought the rights to Kerik’s best-selling “The Lost Son: A Life in Pursuit of Justice” last year; “Aviator” executive producer Rick Schwartz was hired to produce it.

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

Y'all sound like white people. Like a stern talking to ever worked on anyone older than 14.

The reason some folks won't listen to Dr. Cosby is he's solving his own problem, not theirs.

You don't even want to yell at them. You want to find out what they think they need, what they think they want. And since there's thousands of ways to accomplish any given goal, talk to them about ways of getting what they want that requires them to grow a little.

You cannot amputate a life's learning. But you can grow big enough that the old stuff looks like a small faded scar.

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

Lynne Cheney's "Sisters" Back Online

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

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

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

Quote of note:

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

From the ACLU:

A document released for the first time today by the American Civil Liberties Union suggests that President Bush issued an Executive Order authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq. Also released by the ACLU today are a slew of other records including a December 2003 FBI e-mail that characterizes methods used by the Defense Department as "torture" and a June 2004 "Urgent Report" to the Director of the FBI that raises concerns that abuse of detainees is being covered up....

The two-page e-mail that references an Executive Order states that the President directly authorized interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs, and "sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc." The ACLU is urging the White House to confirm or deny the existence of such an order and immediately to release the order if it exists. The FBI e-mail, which was sent in May 2004 from "On Scene Commander--Baghdad" to a handful of senior FBI officials, notes that the FBI has prohibited its agents from employing the techniques that the President is said to have authorized.

There's no place like work for the holidays
By Stephanie Armour, USA TODAY

The economy might be showing signs of perking up, but employers are playing Grinch when it comes to year-end time off.
Employees are getting less paid time off around the holidays than in previous years. With Christmas Day and New Year's falling on successive Saturdays, 33% of companies plan to give workers three or more paid days off this year. Last year's figure was almost twice as high, at 65%, according to the BNA.

But it's not just because of the calendar. During 1999, when Christmas and New Year's Day last fell on Saturdays, half of employers gave workers three or more paid days off. That means that this year more employees will be working on or around the holiday — adding extra pressure to an already stressed workforce, experts say.

Illegal Immigrant Measure Upheld
Judge says Arizona can enforce a proposition barring some services to the undocumented.
By David Kelly
Times Staff Writer

December 23, 2004

DENVER — A federal judge on Wednesday cleared the way for a controversial Arizona law that denies some public services to illegal immigrants.

U.S. District Judge David C. Bury lifted an order that had blocked Proposition 200, which voters overwhelmingly passed last month. Shortly afterward, Gov. Janet Napolitano issued an executive order directing all state agencies to immediately implement the terms of the proposition.

"The voters made the decision, and I intend to make sure the law is enforced correctly," said Napolitano, a Democrat, who had opposed the measure.

U.S. Contractor Pulls Out of Reconstruction Effort in Iraq
By T. Christian Miller
Times Staff Writer

December 22, 2004

WASHINGTON — For the first time, a major U.S. contractor has dropped out of the multibillion-dollar effort to rebuild Iraq, raising new worries about the country's growing violence and its effect on reconstruction.

Contrack International Inc., the leader of a partnership that won one of 12 major reconstruction contracts awarded this year, cited skyrocketing security costs in reaching a decision with the U.S. government last month to terminate work in Iraq.

"We reached a point where our costs were getting to be prohibitive," said Karim Camel-Toueg, president of Arlington, Va.-based Contrack, which had won a $325-million award to rebuild Iraq's shattered transportation system. "We felt we were not serving the government, and that the dollars were not being spent smartly."

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

Exploding the Self-Esteem Myth

Boosting people's sense of self-worth has become a national preoccupation. Yet surprisingly, researchshows that such efforts are of little value in fostering academic progress or preventing undesirable behavior

By Roy F. Baumeister, Jennifer D. Campbell, Joachim I. Krueger and Kathleen D. Vohs

Quote of note:

Washington and Bahrain signed the trade deal in September. When the agreement, which will be ratified in 2005, goes into effect, 100 percent of consumer and industrial products and 81 percent of agricultural exports from the United States will enter the Gulf nation duty-free.

Under the deal Bahrain will open its services market wider than any other U.S. trading partner, adopt Washington's preferred intellectual property rules and open government procurement to U.S. companies.

Saudi Arabia is worried that Bahrain signed the deal independent of its regional partners and that the new rules will see the region flooded with U.S. goods. The GCC governments have already dropped all trade tariffs among themselves, meaning that once in the region, U.S. goods could potentially move freely across borders.

U.S. Trade Tactic Splits Arab States
Emad Mekay

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

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

How Social Security reform can become a reality
Wed Dec 22, 6:21 AM ET

By Kent Conrad and Lindsey Graham

With a renewed debate over the future of Social Security (news - web sites) underway, Republicans and Democrats alike need to begin by setting aside our differences and focusing on the common ground between us.

As two policymakers - one from each party - who have been committed to the well-being of Social Security throughout our careers, we have agreed that the following principles should guide our deliberations going forward:

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

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

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

Giuliani: I Couldn't Kerik Less

By IAN BISHOP

December 20, 2004 -- WASHINGTON — Rudy Giuliani — desperate to protect his reputation and his business — is sprinting away from scandal-scarred Bernard Kerik.

In a lengthy interview with Newsweek, Giuliani said Kerik's role at Giuliani Partners was so minor that he handled "less than 5 percent" of the company's business.

In fact, Kerik doesn't even work at Giuliani Partners, the former mayor told the magazine, he works at an offshoot called Giuliani-Kerik — even though Kerik is touted as a senior executive of the parent company on its Web site.

"Senior vice president of the group is what Bernie was when we started. I think that remains his title, but that's not the way we primarily relate to him," Giuliani explained. "We should probably straighten it out and point out where his ownership interest is and primary work is done."

Sheelzebub at Pinko Feminist Hellcat

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

And I was right--sort of.

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

That's because mainstream types really don't understand what's going on. It's like Dave Chapelle's humor.

Newsweek brought the whole mess up again, and Ed from Vision Circle asked a mailing list we're on about it.

It's been a while since I responded to a comment with a whole post, but this is important enough that I don't want it missed.

The original post is my promise to read The American Constitution Society's series on Clarence Thomas' opinions. The focus of the series is his disregard for stare decisis.

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

Majette accepts job as part-time judge
By COREY DADE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 12/22/04

U.S. Rep. Denise Majette, who shocked the Georgia political establishment by vacating her seat and running unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate, has accepted a position as a part-time judge in DeKalb County.

Chief Magistrate Winston P. Bethel confirmed Tuesday that Majette will be sworn in and begin hearing cases once her term in Congress officially ends Jan. 3. Majette was a longtime DeKalb State Court judge before running for Congress in 2002.

"Of course, the congresswoman brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to this," Bethel said. "I basically came to her because I know of her e

Quote of note:

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

Kinda grasping at straws, though…

Anyway…

Freedom and terrorism
OUR OPINION: BRITISH LAW LORDS UPHOLD FUNDAMENTAL CIVIL LIBERTIES

At a time when the United States and other democracies are under assault from terrorists, it takes courage to stand up and declare that there are limits to what the government can do in the name of national security. In Britain, the Law Lords, that nation's highest legal authority, rose to the challenge a few days ago in a powerful and articulate defense of fundamental civil liberties.

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

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

Quote of note:

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

Details Cloud Support for Social Security Plan
By John F. Harris and Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 22, 2004; Page A01

President Bush has wide support for his argument that Social Security needs dramatic change to meet its obligations to future retirees, but there remains considerable skepticism about his plan to let people invest a portion of their contribution to the program in the stock market, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

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

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

Given the American tendency to respond to such things in entirely theoretical fashion, especially when talking about things society officially frowns on, I'm not sure how seriously to take it.

Quote of note:

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

Path to Peace Runs Through Palestine
Iraq may grab the headlines, but conflict with Israel still drives Arab anger in the region.
By David Hirst
David Hirst was the Guardian's correspondent in the Middle East from 1963 to 1997. He is the author of "The Gun and the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East" (Nation Books, 2003)

IN BRIEF / WASHINGTON STATE
Governor's Race Tilts to Democrat in Recount
From Times Wire Reports

December 22, 2004

Democratic State Party Chairman Paul Berendt said in Olympia that recount results from King County gave Democrat Christine Gregoire an eight-vote statewide victory over Republican Dino Rossi in the governor's race.

The report is preliminary, and neither King County nor the Republican Party would confirm the hand recount results.

But if Berendt's analysis is right, it is a stunning reversal of fortune in the closest governor's race in Washington history.

Rossi won the first count by 261 votes and won the machine recount by 42 votes.

Giving them a sick feeling
Drug firms are on the defense as filmmaker Michael Moore plans to dissect their industry.
By Elaine Dutka
Times Staff Writer

Dec 22 2004

America's pharmaceutical industry is putting out an advisory about the latest potential threat to its health: Michael Moore.

Moore, the filmmaker whose targets have included General Motors ("Roger & Me"), the gun lobby (the Oscar-winning "Bowling for Columbine") and President Bush ("Fahrenheit 9/11") has now set his sights on the healthcare industry, including insurance companies, HMOs, the Food and Drug Administration — and drug companies.

At least six of the nation's largest firms have already issued internal notices to their workforces, preparing them for potential ambushes.

S-presso S1-P111
Centerpiece of home entertainment

Just like a cup of Espresso, this all-new desktop solution is compact and rich in flavor. The ASUS S-presso provides excellent support for quality 3D graphics, multimedia entertainment and high-speed processing all in a stylish casing.

This deluxe version of S-presso features a touch-control color display panel as well as a TV tuner, remote control, and multimedia center software. All combine to make the S-presso S1-P111 the ideal entertainment PC.

---

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I've been thinking about putting together a PC for this sort of thing…I want a PVR that can manipulate the captured media (just think what I could do with a video "quote of note").

Quote of note:

• Dr. P. Trey Sunderland III, a senior psychiatric researcher, took $508,050 in fees and related income from Pfizer Inc. at the same time that he collaborated with Pfizer — in his government capacity — in studying patients with Alzheimer's disease. Without declaring his affiliation with the company, Sunderland endorsed the use of an Alzheimer's drug marketed by Pfizer during a nationally televised presentation at the NIH in 2003.

• Dr. Lance A. Liotta, a laboratory director at the National Cancer Institute, was working in his official capacity with a company trying to develop an ovarian cancer test. He then took $70,000 as a consultant to the company's rival. Development of the cancer test stalled, prompting a complaint from the company. The NIH backed Liotta.

• Dr. Harvey G. Klein, the NIH's top blood transfusion expert, accepted $240,200 in fees and 76,000 stock options over the last five years from companies developing blood-related products. During the same period, he wrote or spoke out about the usefulness of such products without publicly declaring his company ties.

Announcing such ties is not required by the NIH. The agency has encouraged outside consulting, and has allowed most of its scientists to file confidential income disclosure forms.

The National Institutes of Health: Public Servant or Private Marketer?
Doctors have long relied on the NIH to set medical standards. But with its researchers accepting fees and stock from drug companies, will that change? A continuing examination by The Times shows an unabashed mingling of science and commerce.
By David Willman
Times Staff Writer

Clarence Thomas' America

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

Because Justice Thomas does not feel bound by precedent, his opinions often call for substantial shifts in the law. These next two weeks, ACSBlog will explore several of these cases, explaining the history behind Thomas' disfavored doctrines, and suggesting how America would be different should Thomas' vision ever become law. We hope these pieces will be helpful in understanding the man President Bush calls a "model" Supreme Court Justice.

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

Bush Says U.S. Immigration System Not Working
Mon Dec 20, 2004 03:50 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush said flatly on Monday that America's immigration system is not working and that in his new term he would push for a temporary guest worker program.

At a news conference, Bush spoke at length about U.S. immigration problems. Last January he proposed allowing some of the estimated 8 million to 10 million illegal immigrants in the United States to gain legal work visas for at least six years.

But the U.S. Congress did not pass the plan. Some in Bush's own Republican Party oppose concessions to illegal immigrants and would like to see restrictions placed on legal immigration as well.

The Shizzolator Lives!

Bush Social Security Plan May Face Hard Sell

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

There are two reasons American culture dominates the world. It is marketed relentlessly, and the number of the world's intellectual leaders that were educated here. And the latter increases the effectiveness of the former.

U.S. Slips in Attracting the World's Best Students
By SAM DILLON

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

Not the sort of rhetoric to put a host government at ease.

Anyway…
Dollars for Democracy?: U.S. Aid to Ukraine Challenged
By JOEL BRINKLEY

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 - Russian leaders, many Ukrainians and even some members of Congress are asking whether the $58 million the United States spent to promote democracy in Ukraine over the past two years was actually intended to oust the government there.

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The first salvo was launched by the Securities Industry Association, which recently issued a research report arguing that the private accounts would not be a financial bonanza for Wall Street. In the paper, the association calculated that firms would collect at least $39 billion in fees, and perhaps considerably more, from managing such accounts over the next 75 years. But the group noted that the fees charged would be significantly below the fees that investment firms receive these days from low-cost mutual funds.

And even if the fees rose significantly as more people chose actively managed accounts, the association's report argued, they would still pale in comparison with the $3.3 trillion in revenues Wall Street firms are projected to earn from their core securities business over that period.

Today's anti-propaganda propaganda.

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

More 'cut scores' revealed
High schoolers can miss most questions, pass
By PATTI GHEZZI
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 12/21/04

High school students taking the Georgia's End-of-Course Tests in core subjects such as biology, American literature and U.S. history can miss half the questions or more and still pass, according to figures released Monday by the state Department of Education.

Understand what the function of lawsuits is in our market economy. In situations where the economic harm of wrongdoing or error falls on people other than the perpetrator, legal action is taken to inflict the appropriate economic damage, or to incent action to avoid such penalties. It's not perfect but in its absence there would be no penalty at all for many things.

Like malpractice.

Anyway…

Students Sue School System, Claiming Denial of Education
By SUSAN SAULNY

The student known as Exhibit D had attended high school in Brooklyn until he was arrested and sent to a detention center a year and a half ago. After he was discharged, he said, he tried to go back to school but was turned away from one after another because of his record.

7 Arrested in Hog and Dog Competitions
Raids target rodeos in which canines pin down boars. Law officials call it animal cruelty, but owners say the dogs enjoy the chase.
By Ellen Barry
Times Staff Writer

December 21, 2004

ATLANTA — Law enforcement authorities arrested seven people over the weekend on animal cruelty charges stemming from "hog dogging" events, in which pit bulls or bulldogs are placed in a pen with pigs or wild boars and are timed as they pin the squealing animals with their powerful jaws.

Several raids took place in Alabama, Arizona and South Carolina; the events' organizers also were charged with animal fighting. Robert Stewart, chief of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, said more arrests were expected.

Beginning a new chapter in his life
By Erika Hayasaki
Times Staff Writer
December 19, 2004

He told them about himself, how he had been like them. "I can help you," he said, "I can help you."

One slept. Others stared, bored.

He had planned today's class carefully: His students would relate to him. They would ask his advice about college. Then he would divide them into teams and lead them in a tic-tac-toe spelling game.

They would compete fiercely. Excitedly.

A girl in the front row studied herself in the mirror of her compact. She ignored him.

This was Ricardo Acuña's third week as a teacher. Day after day, it was growing more difficult. He gave the girl a tense look. Then he wrote her name in red on the board: detention.

Bush Foresees a Deeper U.S. Role in Iraq
The president warns that troop levels will not be cut next year and acknowledges that training of local forces has had mixed results.
By Maura Reynolds and Sonni Efron
Times Staff Writers

December 21, 2004

WASHINGTON — President Bush warned the American people Monday that the U.S. engagement in Iraq will intensify in the coming year, with the Jan. 30 election marking the "beginning of a process" toward democracy that will require higher troop levels and continue through 2005.

Painting a far more sober picture of the situation in Iraq than he did during his reelection campaign, Bush acknowledged that efforts to train Iraqi security forces have had only "mixed" results and that a violent insurgency has eroded morale among Iraqis and Americans.

After all, it's obvious nothing will be done about it.

New F.B.I. Files Describe Abuse of Iraq Inmates
By NEIL A. LEWIS and DAVID JOHNSTON

ASHINGTON, Dec. 20 - F.B.I. memorandums portray abuse of prisoners by American military personnel in Iraq that included detainees' being beaten and choked and having lit cigarettes placed in their ears, according to newly released government documents.

The documents, released Monday in connection with a lawsuit accusing the government of being complicit in torture, also include accounts by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents who said they had seen detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, being chained in uncomfortable positions for up to 24 hours and left to urinate and defecate on themselves. An agent wrote that in one case a detainee who was nearly unconscious had pulled out much of his hair during the night.

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

Add testimonials from Fast Company and The United Way of Massachusetts Bay.

The sum of American fears
By Joel Agee

BROOKLYN, N.Y. - I told a friend I'd be writing an essay about fear. He cautioned me: "Don't say that our fears are groundless." He had heard me express the widespread opinion that in allowing ourselves to be governed by fear, we may be forfeiting our freedom.

Of course our fears aren't groundless. Who would deny the threat of nuclear and biological war on our shores? And militant factions within three major religions seem intent on fulfilling prophecy of a final war between good and evil, certain that they and not their enemies are the children of light. What greater danger can be imagined?

But just for that reason it seems to me necessary to live without fear - to the extent that we're able. This doesn't mean we shouldn't protect ourselves from real dangers. It means we must be vigilant against the counsels of fear.

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

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

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

Wis. priest questioned in slayings dead
December 20, 2004

HURLEY, Wis. --A 31-year-old Roman Catholic priest who had been questioned by police in two gunshot slayings has killed himself, church officials said Monday.

The Rev. Ryan Erickson was found dead in a hallway between his church and rectory at St. Mary of the Seven Dolors on Sunday morning. Police were investigating and declined to release further information.

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

Board game lets players run marijuana farm
December 20, 2004

VANCOUVER, B.C. --The hot new Christmas gift in Canada this year is a board game that lets players run their own "B.C. Bud" marijuana farm.

Creators of "The Grow-Op Game" say the $39.95 "educational board game" highlights the perils of the marijuana business and cautions would-be growers.

Quarter ton of coke found in plane wreck
December 20, 2004

WHEELING, W.Va. --Authorities called to the scene of a weekend plane crash found no people -- dead or alive -- but they did find $24 million worth of cocaine.

Federal authorities were seeking the pilot, identified as Eugene N. Cobbs, on a charge of possession with intent to distribute cocaine, U.S. Attorney Thomas E. Johnston said Monday.

The Piper Aerostar twin-engine plane crashed in a wooded area around midnight Saturday near the Wheeling-Ohio County Airport, said James Peters, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

Authorities found about 327 pounds of cocaine packaged in blocks and another 193 pounds turned up Monday in the plane's nose compartment, Johnston said. He estimated the street value at about $24 million.

Blatant denial of note:

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

Grisly killing adds to town's notoriety
Theft of fetus is latest violence in Mo. community
By Scott Canon and Rick Montgomery, Knight Ridder | December 20, 2004

SKIDMORE, Mo. -- How, wonder the people still left in this small town getting smaller, could such horrible things happen in a place they treasure for its friendly rural charms?

First came the notorious "Skidmore bully," Ken Rex McElroy, whose death made national headlines. He had so terrorized the town that when somebody gunned him down in broad daylight in 1981, nobody would admit to seeing a thing.

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

Hate Music: New Recruitment Tool for White Supremacists
Abraham Foxman
December 17, 2004

This fall, hate groups took their longstanding effort to recruit teen-agers into the white supremacist movement to a new level, with the owners of a neo-Nazi record company promising to deliver "hatecore" music into the hands of 100,000 teenagers during the 2004-2005 school year. They even created a CD filled with racist music expressly for this purpose.

Settlers Back Call to Resist Gaza Pullout
Jewish Settlers Endorse Call to Resist Gaza Pullout, but Say They Remain Opposed to Violence
The Associated Press

Dec. 20, 2004 - Israeli settler leaders Monday backed a call to resist the planned evacuation of settlements in the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank, even if it means going to jail, but said they remain opposed to using violence.

The announcement signaled a shift toward revolt, as settlers' hopes dwindle for stopping the pullback through political means.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Israel won't participate in a Mideast peace conference proposed by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, days after officials said Israel was prepared to attend. Blair is expected to discuss the conference during a trip to the region this week.

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

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You can search for headlines in the massive database for free. In some cases, you may be able to go to the individual publication's website and find the same story for free, so if you have time and no expense account, it's probably worth trying.

If you want to purchase the full text of a story, you're charged $3 per document and that gives you access to the story for 90 days. You can print and download the stories once you've bought them.

LexisNexis AlaCarte!
Search the archive for free
By Jonathan Dube
MSNBC.com/CyberJournalist.net

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

Reporter's suicide confirmed by coroner
A flood of inquiries about Gary Webb's shooting death prompts statement.
By Sam Stanton -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Facing a barrage of calls from the media and the public, the Sacramento County Coroner's Office issued a statement Tuesday confirming that former investigative reporter Gary Webb committed suicide with two gunshots to the head.

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

Adoption as game show: Are we disgusted yet?
By Adam Pertman and Hollee McGinnis

NEW YORK - In most aspects of life, we have some sense of where the lines are, even if we decide to cross them. So comedians tell racist jokes, magazines publish sexist stories, and TV programs offer increasingly unsettling glimpses into just how far human beings will go to make a buck or get their 15 minutes of fame. The purveyors of such off-color fare invariably understand that they're pushing the limits, that they'll make some people cringe and others angry.

The producers of an upcoming Fox special, "Who's Your Daddy?" apparently didn't have a clue that they had wandered so far beyond the line that it was no longer in sight. But it would be hard to exaggerate the level of near-uniform disgust and outrage they have engendered within the diverse segments of the adoption community - a potential audience of tens of millions whom the show's creators presumably had hoped they would attract with their oh-so-clever concept.

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Punishing the Press

Recent court developments have been grim for those who cherish a free press.

On Dec. 9, a television reporter in Providence, R.I., Jim Taricani, was sentenced to six months of house arrest for refusing to reveal who gave him an F.B.I. videotape showing a local official taking a bribe. Mr. Taricani did nothing illegal. Yet the Rhode Island federal judge who sentenced him pointedly said that only health problems spared him a prison term.

The worry now is that a three-judge federal appellate panel in Washington will take an equally cramped view of reporters' rights and affirm sentences of up to 18 months in prison that a lower court imposed in October on Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine. At issue is the pair's principled refusal to disclose their sources in connection with the investigation that the United States attorney and special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is leading into the leaking of the name of a covert C.I.A. officer, Valerie Plame, to the columnist Robert Novak.

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Initially, there was speculation the fires had been set by environmental extremists, because some environmental groups had complained that the houses threatened a nearby bog. But no evidence has been found to support that theory, the police said.

While many of the buyers of the half-million-dollar houses are black, Charles County, where the development is located, is largely rural and mostly white.
Investigators Consider Race as Possible Motive in Maryland Arson
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Administration Looks to Curb Growth of Medicaid Spending
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 - Federal officials are sending auditors to state capitals across the country to investigate techniques used by states to shift hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid costs to the federal government.

Also, under a proposed federal rule, the Bush administration will require states to prepare annual estimates of total improper payments and calculate payment error rates for Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program. States will have to identify the cause of each error, address it and recover any overpayments to health care providers.

The New Military Life: Heading Back to the War
By MONICA DAVEY

MANHATTAN, Kan., Dec. 15 - Earlier this year, as Sgt. Alexander Garcia's plane took off for home after his tense year of duty in Iraq, he remembered watching the receding desert sand and thinking, I will never see this place again.

Never lasted about 10 months for Sergeant Garcia, a cavalry scout with the First Armored Division who finished his first stint in Iraq in March and is now preparing to return.

He and the rest of his combat brigade at Fort Riley, the Army base a few miles from this town, have been working for weeks, late into the frigid prairie nights, cleaning and packing gear and vehicles for the trip back to Baghdad after the New Year.

Pfizer to Halt Advertising of Celebrex to Consumers
By ALEX BERENSON

fizer said yesterday that it would immediately stop advertising Celebrex, its best-selling arthritis pain reliever, to consumers after a study showed that high doses were associated with an increased risk of heart attacks.

The suspension of advertising, which is indefinite, includes television, radio, newspaper and magazine ads and other promotions to consumers, a Pfizer spokeswoman, Mariann Caprino, said yesterday. Some magazine ads may appear for a few more weeks because of the long lead time of magazine advertising, she said.

White House Defends FDA as Drug Safety Debate Looms
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 20, 2004; Page A02

The Bush administration and some of its critics squared off yesterday over whether the Food and Drug Administration is doing an adequate job overseeing drug safety, and whether the agency needs major reforms.

In a preview of the debate to come, White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. said the agency is doing a "spectacular" job and should "continue to do the job they do."

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Freedom and choice are wonderful things that allow us to realize our human potential. But there's a limit to how many choices each of us has time to make, and most people in the rich world are pretty much maxed out already.

You see this truth in the behavior of the affluent, who actually pay to avoid choices. They hire home decorators so they don't have to stare glassily at 200 kinds of curtain rail. They hire marriage planners so they don't have to fret about cream napkins vs. white ones. There are said to be 10,000 wedding consultants practicing in the United States. If the rich are deliberately avoiding choice, why are we so sure that the majority want more of it?

Trouble With Choices
By Sebastian Mallaby
Monday, December 20, 2004; Page A23

The economics of Social Security privatization get plenty of attention: how to think about transition costs, the effect on national savings, the risk of equity investment. But the political philosophy of privatization is often taken for granted: It's just assumed that, if the economics were neutral, people would be happier with private accounts than with a public program. Do we really know this to be true? Is an "ownership society" preferable to a "big government" one?

People want control over their lives; they value their freedom. But the first reason to wonder whether "ownership" is always good is that it can be stressful. It may be true, as promoters of ownership like to say, that nobody ever washed a rented car; but renters are very happy not to have to get the hose out. If it's up to you to choose how to invest your pension account, agonizing over health stocks vs. Asian bonds may not be such a privilege

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

via Foreign Dispatches

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

NEW YORK, NY—Officials from the College Board, the nonprofit entity that administers the Scholastic Aptitude Test or SAT, have announced that they are producing a new version of the test for students who live in school districts where creationism rather than evolution is taught in science classes.

Students who take the revised test, which will be introduced in school districts in Kansas and Georgia in the fall of 2005, will no longer be tested on their ability to comprehend passages from scientific texts that are based on the controversial theory of evolution. Instead, they will read excerpts from writings on such creation-related topics as the six days in which God created the earth or the great flood, then answer a series of questions to indicate how well they've understood the passages.

Race, Family Income and Standardized Tests:

The National Center for Fair and Open Testing (Fair Test) has released some interesting information. This information caused the College Board which owns the SAT to demand that Fair Test remove the data from its website. Fair Test has put charts on its website that breaks down SAT scores by gender, ethnicity and family income. The College Board sent Fair Test a letter asserting that “publication of the data, significantly impacts the perceptions of students, parents, and educators regarding the services we provide." Fair test responded in a letter to the College Board stating: "That is precisely our goal”.

It was a profile of Gretchen Wilson, the latest Country-Western phenom. You should check out the article and the video for "Redneck Woman."

I like the video, for real. It's ghetto as hell.

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

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Too often, in my twenty years of military service, I experienced senior military leaders push religion on subordinates. Many seniors strongly advocated prayer breakfast attendances with threats of efficiency report repercussions.

One Fort Hood brigade commander actually made his officers attend Sunday worship services with reportable consequences. The man is a general today, probably believing he was doing God's work. Then there were numerous chaplains who had to bless our tank guns to assure the highest gunnery training scores. I always abhorred their practices because I thought if there is a God out there, desperately trying to sort out our complex world, we should not waste his divine efforts on mere training events.

THE ETHICIST
Being a Good Sport
By RANDY COHEN

When a newly passed austerity budget cut sports in our school district, community members organized fund-raisers to restore them, but my husband and I declined to donate. We fear that private fund-raising will encourage further budget cuts. And we've heard the (unconfirmed) story that a coach might make a family's donations a factor in who makes the team. Should we donate? Anonymous, Goshen, N.Y.

Write that check: if you and your neighbors do not, there won't be school sports. Fairness requires every family to bear its share of this burden, although many of your neighbors refuse to do so (hence the austerity budget). And when you pony up, you may grit your teeth and mutter darkly -- at their miserliness and their shortsightedness.

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

It just occurred to me that when someone says "Bush" in the future no one will think of Bush the Elder.
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"This is a new low for the United States, not just to pull out, but to block other countries from moving ahead on their own path," said Jeff Fiedler, an observer representing the Washington-based Natural Resources Defense Council. "It's almost spiteful to say, 'You can't move ahead without us.' If you're not going to lead, then get out of the way."

U.S. Waters Down Global Commitment to Curb Greenhouse Gases
By LARRY ROHTER

BUENOS AIRES, Dec. 18 - Two weeks of negotiations at a United Nations conference here on climate change ended early Saturday with a weak pledge to start limited, informal talks on ways to slow down global warming, after the United States blocked efforts to begin more substantive discussions.

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

Pfizer's Plunge Will Have Side Effects for Investors
By PAUL J. LIM

THERE was a time not so long ago when shares of major drug makers like Merck or Pfizer were considered the modern equivalents of the old-fashioned "widows and orphans" stocks. In other words, investment advisers felt that these shares were safe enough to entrust with anyone's assets, without much concern for diversification.

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

How to Build a Nation of Savers
By DANIEL GROSS

AMERICANS seem to hate saving. In October, the nation's households saved just 0.2 percent of their income. And despite the tax advantages conferred by 401(k)'s, individual retirement accounts and other savings vehicles, most people simply refuse to stash much money in them. As of 2001, the most recent data available, only 8.4 percent of 401(k) investors made the maximum contributions, according to Alicia H. Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

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

Based on this idea I can see intelligence is not in use at all.

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

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

I keep a folder in my credenza marked "Holy War." It bulges with Shias and Sunnis in fratricidal conflict: teenaged girls in North Africa shot in the face for not wearing a veil, professors whose throats are cut for teaching male and female students in the same classroom, the fanatical Jewish doctor with a machine gun mowing down 30 praying Muslims in a mosque, Muslim suicide bombers bit on the obliteration of Jews, of the young Orthodox Jew who assassinated Yitzhak Rabin and then announced on CNN to the world that "Everything I did, I did for the glory of God," of Hindus and Muslims slaughtering each other in India, of Christians and Muslims perpetuating gruesome vengeance on each other in Nigeria.

There is a large folder in my death marked "Timothy McVeigh," blowing up the Federal building in Oklahoma City killing 168 people in part as revenge against the U.S. Government for killing David Koresh and his followers.

We didn't realize it at the time, but the first strike at New York's World Trade Center in 1993 was a religious act of terror. The second one in 9/11, claiming over 3,000 lives, was another act of religious terror. Meanwhile, groups calling themselves the Christian Identity Movement and the Christian Patriot League arm themselves, and Christians intoxicated with the delusional doctrine of two 19th-century itinerant preachers not only await the rapture, but believe they have an obligation to get involved politically to hasten the apocalypse that would bring to an end the world. Christians can invoke God for the purpose of waging religious war.

Consider the American general who has turned up as a force in the web of command and action leading to the torture and humiliation of prisoners in Iraq. General William Boykin, you may recall, is the commander who lost 18 men in Somalia trying to capture a warlord in the notorious "Black Hawk Down" fiasco of 1993. He later described the conflict as a battle between good and evil. "I knew," he said, "that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was the real God, and his was an idol." Boykin became a circuit writer for the religious right, actively in a group called the Faith Force Multiplier that advocates applying military principles to evangelism. Their manifesto summons warriors in, quote, "a spiritual battle for the souls of the nation and the world." Traveling the country with his slide show, while an active member of the United States military in uniform, General Boykin declares that, quote, "Satan wants to destroy this nation. He wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army." "The forces of satan will only be defeated," says the general, "if we come against them in the name of Jesus."

You might have thought that kind of fatwa from a high military officer in uniform wearing the American insignia would have struck the powers that be in the Pentagon and White House as somewhat un-American, if not un-Christian, but not only has General Boykin been kept in office, he turned up as a principal in the chain of command leading to the Iraqi prison. It was Boykin who flew to Guantanamo and ordered Major General Jeffrey Miller, then in charge of prisoners at the highly secret Camp X-ray, to go to Iraq and extend the methods practiced at X-ray to the prison system there on orders of Secretary Rumsfeld.

This is the same General Boykin who last June publicly announced that, quote, "George Bush was not elected by a majority of the voters. He was appointed by God."

Pentagon Seeks to Expand Role in Intelligence-Collecting
By DOUGLAS JEHL and ERIC SCHMITT

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Within less than a year, however, the investigations into espionage and aiding the enemy grew into a major source of embarrassment for the Pentagon, as the prosecutions of Captain Yee and another Muslim serviceman at the base, Airman Ahmad I. Al Halabi, unraveled dramatically.

Even now, Defense Department officials refuse to explain in detail how the investigations originated and what drove them forward in the face of questions about much of the evidence.

How Dubious Evidence Spurred Relentless Guantánamo Spy Hunt
By TIM GOLDEN

Capt. Theodore C. Polet Sr., an Army counterintelligence officer at the detention camp for terrorism suspects at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had just begun investigating a report of suspicious behavior by a Muslim chaplain at the prison last year when he received what he thought was alarming new information.