Just in case there was any doubt...
on this man's vision, integrity, mental acuity, or political skills

Senator Obama: Reach out to Christ -- and to evangelicals

Washington, June 29, 2006 --The National Council of Churches USA and other faith groups applauded remarks Wednesday by Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) testifying to his faith in Christ and calling upon progressive politicians to reach out to evangelical Christians.

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The full text of Obama's address follows:
Note: Also available by podcast here

"Good morning. I appreciate the opportunity to speak here at the Call to Renewal's Building a Covenant for a New America conference. I've had the opportunity to take a look at your Covenant for a New America. It is filled with outstanding policies and prescriptions for much of what ails this country. So I'd like to congratulate you all on the thoughtful presentations you've given so far about poverty and justice in America, and for putting fire under the feet of the political leadership here in Washington.

But today I'd like to talk about the connection between religion and politics and perhaps offer some thoughts about how we can sort through some of the often bitter arguments that we've been seeing over the last several years.

I do so because, as you all know, we can affirm the importance of poverty in the Bible; and we can raise up and pass out this Covenant for a New America. We can talk to the press, and we can discuss the religious call to address poverty and environmental stewardship all we want, but it won't have an impact unless we tackle head-on the mutual suspicion that sometimes exists between religious America and secular America.

I want to give you an example that I think illustrates this fact. As some of you know, during the 2004 U.S. Senate General Election I ran against a gentleman named Alan Keyes. Mr. Keyes is well-versed in the Jerry Falwell-Pat Robertson style of rhetoric that often labels progressives as both immoral and godless.

Indeed, Mr. Keyes announced towards the end of the campaign that, "Jesus Christ would not vote for Barack Obama. Christ would not vote for Barack Obama because Barack Obama has behaved in a way that it is inconceivable for Christ to have behaved."

Jesus Christ would not vote for Barack Obama.

Now, I was urged by some of my liberal supporters not to take this statement seriously, to essentially ignore it. To them, Mr. Keyes was an extremist, and his arguments not worth entertaining. And since at the time, I was up 40 points in the polls, it probably wasn't a bad piece of strategic advice.

But what they didn't understand, however, was that I had to take Mr. Keyes seriously, for he claimed to speak for my religion, and my God. He claimed knowledge of certain truths.

Mr. Obama says he's a Christian, he was saying, and yet he supports a lifestyle that the Bible calls an abomination.

Mr. Obama says he's a Christian, but supports the destruction of innocent and sacred life.

And so what would my supporters have me say? How should I respond? Should I say that a literalist reading of the Bible was folly? Should I say that Mr. Keyes, who is a Roman Catholic, should ignore the teachings of the Pope?

Unwilling to go there, I answered with what has come to be the typically liberal response in such debates -- namely, I said that we live in a pluralistic society, that I can't impose my own religious views on another, that I was running to be the U.S. Senator of Illinois and not the Minister of Illinois.

But Mr. Keyes's implicit accusation that I was not a true Christian nagged at me, and I was also aware that my answer did not adequately address the role my faith has in guiding my own values and my own beliefs.

Now, my dilemma was by no means unique. In a way, it reflected the broader debate we've been having in this country for the last thirty years over the role of religion in politics.

For some time now, there has been plenty of talk among pundits and pollsters that the political divide in this country has fallen sharply along religious lines. Indeed, the single biggest "gap" in party affiliation among white Americans today is not between men and women, or those who reside in so-called Red States and those who reside in Blue, but between those who attend church regularly and those who don't.

Conservative leaders have been all too happy to exploit this gap, consistently reminding evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their Church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage; school prayer and intelligent design.

Democrats, for the most part, have taken the bait. At best, we may try to avoid the conversation about religious values altogether, fearful of offending anyone and claiming that -- regardless of our personal beliefs -- constitutional principles tie our hands. At worst, there are some liberals who dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant, insisting on a caricature of religious Americans that paints them as fanatical, or thinking that the very word "Christian" describes one’s political opponents, not people of faith.

Now, such strategies of avoidance may work for progressives when our opponent is Alan Keyes. But over the long haul, I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in people’s lives -- in the lives of the American people -- and I think it’s time that we join a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy.

And if we’re going to do that then we first need to understand that Americans are a religious people. 90 percent of us believe in God, 70 percent affiliate themselves with an organized religion, 38 percent call themselves committed Christians, and substantially more people in America believe in angels than they do in evolution.

This religious tendency is not simply the result of successful marketing by skilled preachers or the draw of popular mega-churches. In fact, it speaks to a hunger that’s deeper than that -- a hunger that goes beyond any particular issue or cause.

Each day, it seems, thousands of Americans are going about their daily rounds -- dropping off the kids at school, driving to the office, flying to a business meeting, shopping at the mall, trying to stay on their diets -- and they're coming to the realization that something is missing. They are deciding that their work, their possessions, their diversions, their sheer busyness, is not enough.

They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives. They're looking to relieve a chronic loneliness, a feeling supported by a recent study that shows Americans have fewer close friends and confidants than ever before. And so they need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them -- that they are not just destined to travel down that long highway towards nothingness.

And I speak with some experience on this matter. I was not raised in a particularly religious household, as undoubtedly many in the audience were. My father, who returned to Kenya when I was just two, was born Muslim but as an adult became an atheist. My mother, whose parents were non-practicing Baptists and Methodists, was probably one of the most spiritual and kindest people I’ve ever known, but grew up with a healthy skepticism of organized religion herself. As a consequence, so did I.

It wasn't until after college, when I went to Chicago to work as a community organizer for a group of Christian churches, that I confronted my own spiritual dilemma.

I was working with churches, and the Christians who I worked with recognized themselves in me. They saw that I knew their Book and that I shared their values and sang their songs. But they sensed that a part of me that remained removed, detached, that I was an observer in their midst.

And in time, I came to realize that something was missing as well -- that without a vessel for my beliefs, without a commitment to a particular community of faith, at some level I would always remain apart, and alone.

And if it weren't for the particular attributes of the historically black church, I may have accepted this fate. But as the months passed in Chicago, I found myself drawn -- not just to work with the church, but to be in the church.

For one thing, I believed and still believe in the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change, a power made real by some of the leaders here today. Because of its past, the black church understands in an intimate way the Biblical call to feed the hungry and cloth the naked and challenge powers and principalities. And in its historical struggles for freedom and the rights of man, I was able to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world. As a source of hope.

And perhaps it was out of this intimate knowledge of hardship -- the grounding of faith in struggle -- that the church offered me a second insight, one that I think is important to emphasize today.

Faith doesn't mean that you don't have doubts.

You need to come to church in the first place precisely because you are first of this world, not apart from it. You need to embrace Christ precisely because you have sins to wash away – because you are human and need an ally in this difficult journey.

It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street in the Southside of Chicago one day and affirm my Christian faith. It came about as a choice, and not an epiphany. I didn’t fall out in church. The questions I had didn’t magically disappear. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt that I heard God’s spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.

That's a path that has been shared by millions upon millions of Americans -- evangelicals, Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims alike; some since birth, others at certain turning points in their lives. It is not something they set apart from the rest of their beliefs and values. In fact, it is often what drives their beliefs and their values.

And that is why that, if we truly hope to speak to people where they’re at -- to communicate our hopes and values in a way that’s relevant to their own – then as progressives, we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse.

Because when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations towards one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome – others will fill the vacuum, those with the most insular views of faith, or those who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends.

In other words, if we don't reach out to evangelical Christians and other religious Americans and tell them what we stand for, then the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons and Alan Keyeses will continue to hold sway.

More fundamentally, the discomfort of some progressives with any hint of religion has often prevented us from effectively addressing issues in moral terms. Some of the problem here is rhetorical – if we scrub language of all religious content, we forfeit the imagery and terminology through which millions of Americans understand both their personal morality and social justice.

Imagine Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address without reference to “the judgments of the Lord.” Or King’s I Have a Dream speech without references to “all of God’s children.” Their summoning of a higher truth helped inspire what had seemed impossible, and move the nation to embrace a common destiny.

Our failure as progressives to tap into the moral underpinnings of the nation is not just rhetorical, though. Our fear of getting “preachy” may also lead us to discount the role that values and culture play in some of our most urgent social problems.

After all, the problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and the unemployed, are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect ten point plan. They are rooted in both societal indifference and individual callousness – in the imperfections of man.

Solving these problems will require changes in government policy, but it will also require changes in hearts and a change in minds. I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manufacturers’ lobby – but I also believe that when a gang-banger shoots indiscriminately into a crowd because he feels somebody disrespected him, we’ve got a moral problem. There’s a hole in that young man’s heart – a hole that the government alone cannot fix.

I believe in vigorous enforcement of our non-discrimination laws. But I also believe that a transformation of conscience and a genuine commitment to diversity on the part of the nation’s CEOs could bring about quicker results than a battalion of lawyers. They have more lawyers than us anyway.

I think that we should put more of our tax dollars into educating poor girls and boys. I think that the work that Marian Wright Edelman has done all her life is absolutely how we should prioritize our resources in the wealthiest nation on earth. I also think that we should give them the information about contraception that can prevent unwanted pregnancies, lower abortion rates, and help assure that every child is loved and cherished.

But, you know, my Bible tells me that if we train a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not turn from it. So I think faith and guidance can help fortify a young woman’s sense of self, a young man’s sense of responsibility, and a sense of reverence that all young people should have for the act of sexual intimacy.

I am not suggesting that every progressive suddenly latch on to religious terminology – that can be dangerous. Nothing is more transparent than inauthentic expressions of faith. As Jim has mentioned, some politicians come and clap -- off rhythm -- to the choir. We don’t need that.

In fact, because I do not believe that religious people have a monopoly on morality, I would rather have someone who is grounded in morality and ethics, and who is also secular, affirm their morality and ethics and values without pretending that they’re something they’re not. They don’t need to do that. None of us need to do that.

But what I am suggesting is this – secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King – indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history – were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their “personal morality” into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Moreover, if we progressives shed some of these biases, we might recognize some overlapping values that both religious and secular people share when it comes to the moral and material direction of our country. We might recognize that the call to sacrifice on behalf of the next generation, the need to think in terms of “thou” and not just “I,” resonates in religious congregations all across the country. And we might realize that we have the ability to reach out to the evangelical community and engage millions of religious Americans in the larger project of American renewal.

Some of this is already beginning to happen. Pastors, friends of mine like Rick Warren and T.D. Jakes are wielding their enormous influences to confront AIDS, Third World debt relief, and the genocide in Darfur. Religious thinkers and activists like our good friend Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo are lifting up the Biblical injunction to help the poor as a means of mobilizing Christians against budget cuts to social programs and growing inequality.

And by the way, we need Christians on Capitol Hill, Jews on Capitol Hill and Muslims on Capitol Hill talking about the estate tax. When you've got an estate tax debate that proposes a trillion dollars being taken out of social programs to go to a handful of folks who don't need and weren't even asking for it, you know that we need an injection of morality in our political debate.

Across the country, individual churches like my own and your own are sponsoring day care programs, building senior centers, helping ex-offenders reclaim their lives, and rebuilding our gulf coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

So the question is, how do we build on these still-tentative partnerships between religious and secular people of good will? It’s going to take more work, a lot more work than we’ve done so far. The tensions and the suspicions on each side of the religious divide will have to be squarely addressed. And each side will need to accept some ground rules for collaboration.

While I’ve already laid out some of the work that progressive leaders need to do, I want to talk a little bit about what conservative leaders need to do -- some truths they need to acknowledge.

For one, they need to understand the critical role that the separation of church and state has played in preserving not only our democracy, but the robustness of our religious practice. Folks tend to forget that during our founding, it wasn’t the atheists or the civil libertarians who were the most effective champions of the First Amendment. It was the persecuted minorities, it was Baptists like John Leland who didn’t want the established churches to impose their views on folks who were getting happy out in the fields and teaching the scripture to slaves. It was the forbearers of the evangelicals who were the most adamant about not mingling government with religious, because they did not want state-sponsored religion hindering their ability to practice their faith as they understood it.

Moreover, given the increasing diversity of America’s population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.

And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson’s, or Al Sharpton’s? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount – a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let’s read our bibles. Folks haven’t been reading their bibles.

This brings me to my second point. Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.

Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what’s possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It’s the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God’s edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one’s life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing. And if you doubt that, let me give you an example.

We all know the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham is ordered by God to offer up his only son, and without argument, he takes Isaac to the mountaintop, binds him to an altar, and raises his knife, prepared to act as God has commanded.

Of course, in the end God sends down an angel to intercede at the very last minute, and Abraham passes God’s test of devotion.

But it’s fair to say that if any of us leaving this church saw Abraham on a roof of a building raising his knife, we would, at the very least, call the police and expect the Department of Children and Family Services to take Isaac away from Abraham. We would do so because we do not hear what Abraham hears, do not see what Abraham sees, true as those experiences may be. So the best we can do is act in accordance with those things that we all see, and that we all hear, be it common laws or basic reason.

Finally, any reconciliation between faith and democratic pluralism requires some sense of proportion.

This goes for both sides. Even those who claim the Bible’s inerrancy make distinctions between Scriptural edicts, sensing that some passages – the Ten Commandments, say, or a belief in Christ’s divinity – are central to Christian faith, while others are more culturally specific and may be modified to accommodate modern life.

The American people intuitively understand this, which is why the majority of Catholics practice birth control and some of those opposed to gay marriage nevertheless are opposed to a Constitutional amendment to ban it. Religious leadership need not accept such wisdom in counseling their flocks, but they should recognize this wisdom in their politics.

But a sense of proportion should also guide those who police the boundaries between church and state. Not every mention of God in public is a breach to the wall of separation – context matters. It is doubtful that children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance feel oppressed or brainwashed as a consequence of muttering the phrase “under God.” I didn’t. Having voluntary student prayer groups use school property to meet should not be a threat, any more than its use by the High School Republicans should threaten Democrats. And one can envision certain faith-based programs – targeting ex-offenders or substance abusers – that offer a uniquely powerful way of solving problems.

So we all have some work to do here. But I am hopeful that we can bridge the gaps that exist and overcome the prejudices each of us bring to this debate. And I have faith that millions of believing Americans want that to happen. No matter how religious they may or may not be, people are tired of seeing faith used as a tool of attack. They don’t want faith used to belittle or to divide. They’re tired of hearing folks deliver more screed than sermon. Because in the end, that’s not how they think about faith in their own lives.

So let me end with just one other interaction I had during my campaign. A few days after I won the Democratic nomination in my U.S. Senate race, I received an email from a doctor at the University of Chicago Medical School that said the following: “Congratulations on your overwhelming and inspiring primary win. I was happy to vote for you, and I will tell you that I am seriously considering voting for you in the general election. I write to express my concerns that may, in the end, prevent me from supporting you.”

The doctor described himself as a Christian who understood his commitments to be “totalizing.” His faith led him to a strong opposition to abortion and gay marriage, although he said that his faith also led him to question the idolatry of the free market and quick resort to militarism that seemed to characterize much of the Republican agenda.

But the reason the doctor was considering not voting for me was not simply my position on abortion. Rather, he had read an entry that my campaign had posted on my website, which suggested that I would fight “right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman’s right to choose.” The doctor went on to write: “I sense that you have a strong sense of justice…and I also sense that you are a fair minded person with a high regard for reason…Whatever your convictions, if you truly believe that those who oppose abortion are all ideologues driven by perverse desires to inflict suffering on women, then you, in my judgment, are not fair-minded….You know that we enter times that are fraught with possibilities for good and for harm, times when we are struggling to make sense of a common polity in the context of plurality, when we are unsure of what grounds we have for making any claims that involve others…I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words.”

Fair-minded words.

So I looked at my website and found the offending words. In fairness to them, my staff had written them using standard Democratic boilerplate language to summarize my pro-choice position during the Democratic primary, at a time when some of my opponents were questioning my commitment to protect Roe v. Wade.

Re-reading the doctor’s letter, though, I felt a pang of shame. It is people like him who are looking for a deeper, fuller conversation about religion in this country. They may not change their positions, but they are willing to listen and learn from those who are willing to speak in fair-minded words. Those who know of the central and awesome place that God holds in the lives of so many, and who refuse to treat faith as simply another political issue with which to score points.

So I wrote back to the doctor, and I thanked him for his advice. The next day, I circulated the email to my staff and changed the language on my website to state in clear but simple terms my pro-choice position. And that night, before I went to bed, I said a prayer of my own – a prayer that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me.

And that night, before I went to bed I said a prayer of my own. It’s a prayer I think I share with a lot of Americans. A hope that we can live with one another in a way that reconciles the beliefs of each with the good of all. It’s a prayer worth praying, and a conversation worth having in this country in the months and years to come. Thank you."

All Mirrors...no smoke, no fires

Indictment of suspected terrorists contains little evidence of plot
By Marisa Taylor and Lesley Clark
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Even as Justice Department officials trumpeted the arrests of seven Florida men accused of planning to wage a "full ground war against the United States," they acknowledged the group did not have the means to carry out the plan.

The Justice Department unveiled the arrests with an orchestrated series of press conferences in two cities, but the severity of the charges compared with the seemingly amateurish-nature of the group raised concerns among civil libertarians.

"We're as puzzled as everyone else," said Howard Simon, the director of the Florida chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. "There's no weapons, no explosives, but this major announcement." Simon said his organization is reserving judgment until it gets more information. "We count on our law enforcement officers to make a distinction between people who are trash talking or making serious threats," he said. "But this one requires more information for the general public to be able to make a judgment as to which category they fall into."

Bush is Not Incompetent !

Bush Criticizes Reports About Bank Tracking

NY Times
By Peter Wallsten and Greg Miller, Times Staff Writers
June 27, 2006

WASHINGTON — President Bush on Monday criticized newspapers for exposing a secret U.S. government program that monitors international banking transactions, calling the disclosures a "disgraceful" act that could assist terrorists.

Bush made his remarks during a White House meeting with organizations that support the war in Iraq, echoing comments Friday from Vice President Dick Cheney and conservative commentators. They had condemned the reports last week in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and other media outlets.

The newspapers published their reports despite requests from the Bush administration to withhold the stories. The controversy has sparked renewed debate about whether the government has gone too far in tracking terrorists, and whether news organizations are obstructing the terrorist-tracking effort by exposing the government's methods.

Bush said Monday that members of Congress had been briefed in advance on the program, and that "what we did was fully authorized under the law." "The disclosure of this program is disgraceful," he said. "We're at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America, and for people to leak that program, and for a newspaper to publish it, does great harm to the United States of America."

The ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said Monday that she and many of her colleagues on the panel were briefed on the program by Treasury Department officials only after the administration learned it would be exposed in the press.

Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) said that she did not learn about the transaction-monitoring program until last month, even though it had been in operation since shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"They knew it was going to leak," Harman said. Because the program was hidden from most members of the committee for more than four years, she said, she had "significant concerns" about the lack of oversight.

Harman noted that the committee chairman, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), had been informed of the operation before the full committee briefing. A spokesman said Hoekstra was told of the program shortly after he became chairman in 2004. Harman said she did not know why she had not also gotten an earlier briefing.

The Treasury Department, which runs the program, had briefed ranking members of the Senate Intelligence Committee periodically since shortly after the program was launched, according to a senior Senate aide. It had not briefed the full panel until last month, said the aide, who would not be quoted by name when discussing sensitive committee matters.

In his remarks Monday, Bush said the program was consistent with tactics endorsed by the bipartisan commission that studied the government's failures before and after the Sept. 11 attacks. "The 9/11 commission recommended that the government be robust in tracing money," he said. "If you want to figure out what the terrorists are doing, you try to follow their money. And that's exactly what we're doing. And the fact that a newspaper disclosed it makes it harder to win this war on terror."

According to the newspapers' reports, the program obtains information from the world's biggest financial communication network to monitor international bank transfers. That network is operated by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, and carries up to 12.7 million messages a day that typically include names and account numbers of bank customers.

The U.S. government obtained the information using administrative subpoenas, which are not subject to independent reviews that check for abuse.

Game Maker Discloses a Subpoena
NY Times
By MATT RICHTEL
Published: June 27, 2006

The video game publisher Take-Two Interactive, (publisher of "Grand Theft Auto" Ed), said yesterday that it had received a grand jury subpoena from the Manhattan district attorney's office, seeking information about a range of its business practices dating back to 2001 and the inclusion of sexually explicit material in one of its games.

Once and for all !

The Price Is Wrong
Depending on which administration official you, um, believed, the Iraq War was going to cost anywhere from $200 million to zero. But it’s going to fly over $1 trillion.
By Matthew Yglesias
Issue Date: 07.05.06

On September 11, 2001, the United States was hit by devastating terrorist attacks perpetrated by a transnational terrorist network. Less than a year later, it was apparent that the Bush administration wanted to invade Iraq, allegedly as part of the response. Famously, selling this agenda involved a highly deceptive effort to link the two issues. Iraq was said to have an advanced nuclear weapons program and to be likely to provide the fruits of its research to al-Qaeda.

All this we know. Less well remembered nowadays, though -- in fact, almost never discussed in the major media -- was another implicit prong of the argument: that invading Iraq would be cheap and easy, leaving plenty of resources for other purposes. When White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey stumbled off message in September 2002 with his prediction that war could cost $100 billion to $200 billion, the administration flew into crisis mode. Budget Director Mitch Daniels was trotted out to label the estimate “very, very high.” Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz opined -- in testimony to Congress, no less -- that reconstruction would cost virtually nothing in light of Iraq’s promising oil revenues. Daniels proffered an estimate in the $50 billion to $60 billion range, substantially less than the $80 billion inflation-adjusted cost of the Persian Gulf War. Lindsey, famously, was soon after fired -- for his troublesome cost estimates and, reportedly, the President’s annoyance at his poor personal fitness habits.


By April 2006, a Congressional Research Service (CRS) inquiry concluded that Lindsey’s estimate was, indeed, way off -- but in the other direction. Around $261 billion had already been spent. Given the human stakes, it may seem crass to worry overly much about the dollar cost of a military conflict. But the fact that a CRS report is needed at all, as opposed to the straightforward accounting that either the White House or the Pentagon could surely provide were they so inclined, points to the basic reality that the war’s proponents are continuing the prewar pattern of covering up the costs. And with good reason: They’re enormous. Scandalously enormous.

The same CRS report indicated that before it ends, the war will likely cost somewhat more than the $549 billion spent (adjusted for inflation) in the much more lethal Vietnam War. But even this figure will likely prove to be off by hundreds of billions of dollars because it accounts only for funds directly appropriated for war fighting. As Linda Bilmes, a leading Harvard budgetary expert, and Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph Stiglitz point out in their January 2006 paper, “The Economic Costs of the Iraq War,” the spending captured by the CRS, even in strict budgetary terms, is “only the tip of a very deep iceberg.”

Wartime appropriations do not, for example, include the cost of disability payments to veterans wounded in the war, payments that will continue throughout their life spans. Nor do they cover the costs of medical treatment for those seriously injured in the war, or even such basic war-related costs as the replacement of equipment and munitions expended in the conflict or the need to transport soldiers back to their home bases when they rotate out of country. The war has also substantially increased the military’s overall recruiting costs, reflected in bigger bonuses and additional recruiters. What’s more, by combining the war with aggressive tax cutting, the administration has ensured that the operation is paid for entirely by borrowing money on which interest will need to be paid. The shocking truth, according to Bilmes and Stiglitz, is that if one applies the Congressional Budget Office’s basic assumptions about the duration of the conflict (“a small but continuous presence”), it will cost nearly a staggering $1.27 trillion dollars before all is said and done.

The number is so high as to defy human comprehension. All the numbers ending in “-illion” sound the same. But a trillion is what you get if you spend a million dollars a day … for a million days. That’s 2,737 years -- a cool mil a day, every day, in other words, until the Year of Our Lord 4743. Or, working backward, from the time when Homer wrote the Iliad up to now. The $270 billion in rounding error is worth another 750 years at the million-a-day rate. That takes us up to the year 5493 -- or back to when Moses fled Egypt.

Anyway you slice it, it’s a lot of money. More than enough to fund any sort of “too expensive” pie-in-the-sky liberal domestic scheme. Universal preschool, for example, clocks in at about $35 billion annually -- cheap enough to get 37 years’ worth. But Bush never said invading Iraq would educate our children or fight domestic poverty, so let’s not even get into that, for now. What the President did promise was the following: that regime change would curb nuclear proliferation, weaken al-Qaeda, and create a shining beacon of democracy. What happened? We eliminated a nuclear program that didn’t exist, encouraged Iran and North Korea to speed theirs along, offered terrorists a gigantic recruiting opportunity and training ground, and turned Iraq into a venue for chaos and civil war plagued by death squads and offering local despots a handy cautionary tale about the dangers of liberalization.

For $1.27 trillion, we have our hands full in a quagmire; the world hating us; worldwide acts of terrorism on the sharp rise; and much more. We could have done better. Much better. You might even say a trillion times better. Economists use the term “opportunity cost” to refer to the cost of an endeavor in terms of the opportunities that endeavor foreclosed. Iraq foreclosed advancing important humanitarian goals, killing and capturing terrorists more effectively, eliminating nuclear threats, and securing the homeland among other goals. Here are 11 ways it could have been different -- and still could be, come January 20, 2009.

1. Military Transformation

The American military is, by global standards, enormous and remains without a doubt the world’s top fighting force. Nevertheless, it’s still mainly geared for Cold War–era threats and countering conventional foes. The new world has less need for heavy weapons, but more need for special forces to hunt down and eliminate small groups of radicals and various types of boots on the ground to help bring stability to chaotic areas. Echoing John Kerry’s presidential campaign, the Center for American Progress’s liberal alternative to the official Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) proposed increasing the authorized strength of the U.S. Army substantially. The idea is to add 50,000 special-operations forces to fight the new kind of battles, plus 26,000 soldiers for two new peacekeeping divisions, and 10,000 additional civil affairs and military police officers. That way, if the United States ever did come across a legitimate reason to mount an Iraq-scale stabilization we might have the chance to do it properly. The price tag over the life of a QDR is $60 billion.

2. Nuclear Materials

The threat of nuclear terrorism was the most potent argument raised in favor of the Iraq War, and understandably so. Conventional terrorist attacks, though tragic, can’t fundamentally threaten the United States in the way our great adversaries of the past did. A single nuclear detonation in an American city would, however, be a catastrophe in terms of its death toll and the inevitable crackdown on civil liberties. The American way of life as we understand it would never be the same. There were, of course, no nuclear weapons in Iraq and no program to make them. But there is plenty of fissile material in the former Soviet Union. The good news is that our government has programs in place to remove them that have been rated highly effective. The bad news is that they’re working slowly. The 2001 Baker-Cutler Commission on the subject estimated that $30 billion over 10 years would get the job of destroying much of it and securing the rest done expeditiously.

3. The Other War

Remember Afghanistan? The place where the old regime actually was harboring al-Qaeda, and we really were welcomed as liberators? We never quite finished off the enemy there, and recent weeks have seen the highest level of violence since 2001. We desperately need to shore up popular support for Hamid Karzai’s government. Today, there is a gap between estimates of what’s needed to rebuild the country and what the international community has pledged in aid. About $8.6 billion over the next seven years would close it. Meanwhile, the country’s main economic activity is growing opium for sale to the world’s heroin dealers. The total value of the crop over five years is about $11 billion. If we were prepared to spend that much, we could follow a Center for American Progress proposal to pay Afghan farmers to not grow the stuff, taking the crops off the world market and giving the farmers breathing room to make the transition to cultivating something else.

4. International Security

Conservatives often deride the United Nations as ineffectual. The reality, however, is that U.N. peacekeeping has a very good track record (better, certainly, than the track record of unilateral American-sponsored regime change) in those instances where an appropriate level of resources has been available. A Center for Defense Information task force has proposed that we pony up an additional $5 billion over 10 years in financial support for these missions to make them more robust. The same task force also recommended that we sponsor the creation of a 5,000-strong standing international civilian police force under U.N. auspices that could act quickly in global trouble spots while the world’s governments think out longer-term solutions. The American share of the bill would be about $2 billion over 10 years.

5. Transportation Security

On 9-11, the terrorists hijacked airplanes, and since that time a great deal has been done to make it harder to do exactly the same thing again. Nothing, however, requires terrorists to focus exclusively on airplanes as possible targets. Indeed, more recent attacks in London and Madrid have both come against rail transportation targets. The American Public Transportation Association estimates that fully securing American public transportation would cost $5.2 billion in one-time capital improvements and $800 million annually in new money for personnel, training, and technical support. The additional money would put security cameras in trains and train stations currently lacking them, place automatic vehicle locator systems in buses so emergency responders can find them in case of a problem, develop systems to detect hazardous chemicals, hire more security guards, and improve communications systems. The most recent federal budget boosted public transportation security spending, but it’s still at around half the needed level -- even though public transportation has about 16 times the passenger load of air travel and the attacks in Europe show terrorists are just as happy to strike trains as planes.

6. Ports Security

News a while back that a state-owned firm from the United Arab Emirates may operate several American ports provoked instant outrage around the country. But keeping ports out of foreign hands is a small issue compared to the generally lax state of security at America’s shipping facilities. The GreenLane Maritime Cargo Security Act, introduced by a bipartisan group of senators, is considered the gold standard in terms of preventing the smuggling of nuclear materials or other dangerous weapons through America’s container ports. The legislation is languishing in Congress because deficit-conscious legislators propose to finance it through a roughly $20-per-container fee, which, naturally, the relevant businesses don’t want to pay. The Gordian knot could be cut by letting taxpayers pick up the $1.5 billion annual bill (call it $15 billion over 10 years) to buy radiation detectors, establish a multitiered system of container security standards, boost grants to local port authorities, improve the U.S. Customs Service’s existing Automated Targeting System, create a uniform data system for export and import information, and establish joint operating centers to facilitate day-to-day management of port security issues.

7. Airplanes Again

Much has been done to improve the security on America’s commercial passenger jets. Much less has been done regarding cargo that’s often carried in these very same planes. An estimated 55,000 tons of freight is shipped around the United States each day, with Congressional Research Service indicating that about a quarter of domestic shipping and almost half of international shipping is done on passenger planes. Legislation introduced by two congressmen, Republican Chris Shays and Democrat Ed Markey, would require 100 percent screening of all air cargo. David Wirsing, executive director of the Airforwarders Association, an airfreight industry group, noted in opposition to the bill that it would require “a cost of over $700 million in the first year alone.” But this is actually a rather modest sum of money in the grand scheme of America’s $450 billion and rising annual security budget. More genuinely extravagant would be equipping commercial airliners with defenses against the approximately 100,000 shoulder-launched missiles floating around the world at a price of $10 billion.

8. Emergency Response

More troops could improve America’s security situation in a variety of ways. But terrorism isn’t only -- or even primarily -- a task for soldiers. Civilian emergency responders -- cops, firemen, emergency medical technicians -- do much of the heavy lifting. A total of $5 billion would double the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program, and $14 billion would fully fund the Community Oriented Policing Services Program, both for 10 years. Both programs offer financial assistance to state and local governments in maintaining adequate emergency response manpower. Meanwhile, as things stand, emergency response radio systems are still largely non-interoperable, a situation that had tragic consequences for New York City’s police and firefighters on 9-11. Just $350 million could resolve the problem.

9. Public Diplomacy

Everyone acknowledges that fighting Islamic extremism has a large diplomatic component, oriented toward the hearts-and-minds question. A panel appointed by the Bush administration proposed a $12 billion increase in funding for public diplomacy over 10 years to help improve America’s standing in the world, but it never happened. Throwing money at the problem won’t solve anything on its own, but it would help. Extra cash could be used to upgrade the language skills of America’s diplomats (according to the Government Accountability Office, 30 percent of language-designated public diplomacy positions in the Muslim world are filled with officers who lack the required linguistic ability), conduct audience research and segment target audiences as seen in the private sector, open more consulates in Muslim countries, and improve the quality and quantity of broadcasts in Arabic, Farsi, and other languages widely spoken in the Muslim world.

10. Development Assistance

OK, so far, assuming all nine of the above are funded fully, we’ve spent $228.65 billion, leaving around $1 trillion still unallocated. Where else should we spend it? Well, the war has also been justified on humanitarian grounds as a means of helping the Iraqi people and ameliorating political conditions throughout the Muslim world. In practice, however, starting wars (as opposed to, say, curing diseases) is a highly inefficient method of helping suffering people, and the war has devastated America’s moral standing worldwide. Development assistance could massively improve it.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, for example, that a onetime expenditure of less than $500 million would allow the WHO to bring about a 90 percent reduction in measles deaths. This would save hundreds of thousands of lives over a period of years for less than what Congress appropriates per week for Iraq. Measles, as it happens, isn’t a major problem in Arab countries, but Muslim Nigeria, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Bangladesh combine with India to account for almost 80 percent of the world’s measles deaths.

Indeed, useful foreign-aid programs are generally so cheap that listing them one by one would take forever. Fortunately, there’s a convenient aggregate at hand. Over the past several years the United Nations, in consultation with leading experts and potential donor governments, has formulated an ambitious foreign-aid program known as the Millennium Development Goals. Like most developed countries, the United States has agreed in principle to boost spending up to the levels called for in the goals but hasn’t actually appropriated the money.

The goals, among other things, promise to reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar per day, reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger, ensure that all children complete a course of primary education, eliminate gender disparities in education, reduce the child mortality rate by two-thirds, reduce the maternal mortality rate by three-quarters, and reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water. All this can be done by approximately 2015, according to the U.N., if the rich countries of the world increase their level of foreign aid to the promised level of 0.7 percent of GDP and reform current giving to conform to the targets. The total price tag for the United States would be about $1.04 trillion, which would represent a boost over current levels of about $650 billion.

11. Climate Change

In a May 10 Washington Post op-ed piece, University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein argued that “the economic burden of the Iraq War is on the verge of exceeding the total anticipated burden of the Kyoto Protocol.” Sunstein’s argument, predictably, came under attack from the right, but in fact he seriously understated his case. The estimated $325 billion cost of Kyoto refers not to direct budgetary costs -- most academic studies have concluded that these would be extremely small. Instead, the figure refers to indirect costs to economic growth. This is a large price to pay, but as with the rest it’s significantly less than the economic impact of the war. On top of the $1.27 trillion in direct expenditures, however, Bilmes and Stiglitz also anticipate an additional trillion or so in indirect reduced economic growth. Without the invasion, in other words, we could have both gotten a jump on the emerging challenge of global warming and enjoyed higher levels of overall prosperity than we’re seeing today.

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Had we followed the course suggested above, the world would not only be a better place and the United States a more secure country; we would be in an infinitely better position to push the agenda of regional political transformation in the Middle East that now stands as the ostensible rationale for the Iraq venture. Beyond the mess in Iraq itself, our efforts at political reform have been persistently undermined by the United States’ massive unpopularity in the Muslim world. A despised foreign power has little ability to influence events in a constructive direction, and at the moment the tendency is for political liberalization to merely boost the position of radical parties like Hamas in Palestine or the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. In the bargain, we would be saving around $400 billion -- hardly chump change -- that could be directed to domestic priorities.

Anti-Americanism has abated somewhat recently from its post–Iraq invasion peak, but it still remains incredibly strong in almost every Muslim country. The main exception is Indonesia, where the 2005 Pew Research Center survey of Islamic opinion registered an enormous 23 point jump in pro-American sentiments, a phenomenon virtually all observers attribute to our relatively generous response to the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that devastated the country. The lesson is clear -- when the United States directs its counterterrorism efforts to genuine self-defense, and channels its idealistic impulses into uncontroversial popular causes rather than as add-on rationales for war-waging, world opinion looks more kindly on the United States. That gives us much more ability to do everything from pressing for political reform to trying to assemble a diplomatic coalition to block Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Instead, America stands not only remarkably undefended against the possibility of terrorist attack, but also isolated on the world stage.

What’s done, of course, is done and can’t be undone. We can’t unfight the war. The country can, however, still change course in a variety of ways. Some of these goals -- securing loose nuclear material comes to mind -- are sufficiently important that it makes sense to brush budgetary constraints aside. For others, like cargo inspections, it’s worth doing the political heavy lifting necessary to get them financed by user fees if it’s not possible to find the money in the general budget.

Budgetary offsets outside of Iraq could also do a great deal to help put us on the right track. The military spending priorities reflected in the most recent Quadrennial Defense Review are badly outdated, reflecting an orientation toward a no-longer-extant Soviet threat or a merely hypothetical Chinese one rather than America’s actual defense needs. Not coincidentally, these priorities also reflect the defense industry’s preference for hardware over manpower. Eliminating unneeded weapons systems like the F/A-22 Raptor plane, the Virginia Class submarine, the DD(X) destroyer, and the V-22 Osprey helicopter could generate more than enough funds to finance needed increases in special forces and peacekeeping missions. Cutting back on ballistic missile defense and America’s overly large nuclear arsenal -- still, 15 years after the Soviet Union’s collapse, a stunning 4,500 weapons, far more than are needed to hit any conceivable set of military targets -- might finance increased expenditures on homeland-security needs. On the foreign-aid front, much good could be done by simply reorienting current spending, much of which is not seriously targeted at helping the world’s neediest, and incremental progress toward the Millennium Goals would do enormous good even if we don’t reach the targets in a timely manner.

When you’re in a hole it’s always a good idea to stop digging. The total bill for the Iraq War isn’t yet a fixed quantity -- it’s still going on. Stiglitz and Bilmes assume, following the Congressional Budget Office, the existence of a small-but-continuous American military presence in Iraq through 2015. This estimate could, of course, prove mistaken (in either direction). But the sooner we get out of Iraq, the faster we’ll be able to start directing our resources to more productive uses. Conversely, things could get much worse if, as some suggest, we launch a new war with Iran. To be sure, today’s talk is of targeted airstrikes rather than full-scale war, but talk before the invasion of Iraq was of a $50 billion to $80 billion cakewalk, not a $1.27 trillion debacle. The odds of the Bush administration suddenly deciding to change course are low, but with the GOP on the ropes politically, Democrats have the chance to outline a serious alternative agenda if they care to seize it. The country can ill afford to continue down its current path.

Greenland's Ice Sheet Is Slip-Sliding Away

The massive glaciers are deteriorating twice as fast as they were five years ago. If the ice thaws entirely, sea level would rise 21 feet.
By Robert Lee Hotz, Times Staff Writer
June 25, 2006

"One Thousand Reasons" - documenting the failures of the Bush (43) Administration

Note: Yes, some are purely partisan - but the preponderance of evidence shows quite clearly why this Administration is destined to become "The Worst Administration in History"

...the pattern continues...

FBI Says 7 Terror Suspects Were Mostly Talk
LA Times - June 24, 2006
By Carol J. Williams and Richard B. Schmitt, Times Staff Writers

The men never posed real danger, agents say -- the `Al Qaeda' contact was an undercover informant, and no weapons were found.

MIAMI — In a four-count indictment unsealed Friday, federal officials charged seven men caught in a sting operation here with conspiring to support Al Qaeda and "levy war against the government of the United States."

Authorities arrested the suspects — whom Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales characterized as "homegrown terrorists" — after searching a warehouse in the impoverished Liberty City area north of downtown Thursday. They said the men, ages 22 to 32, never presented any real danger.

The indictment suggested they never came in contact with anyone from Osama bin Laden's terrorist network. The only materials they received during the seven months they were monitored by an undercover informant appear to have been six pairs of boots and use of a digital video camera.

Note: What do I mean by "the pattern continues"?...just that - when Congress decides after three years of enforced silence, to have a minor discussion about the War in Iraq, suddenly (without having heard of anything similar in dozens of months), we are treated to at least two "terrorist" news items: Gas Attack in NY, and then this Miami theatre piece, that features a bunch of poor, black guys from a ghetto in Miami trying to obtain shoes, guns, and $50k from a planted co-conspirator/double agent.

Given the history over the past six years, this reeks of media manipulation by the Bush administration. Especially in the "NY Gas Attack" which came from an allegation in a recently published book! - but by virtue of media attention, the public at large thinks this was an actual plot that was foiled by the Bush Administration. Instead perversely, the NY Gas Attack story probably got its legs because of the DHS budgeted cuts in GWOT funding for New York.

Also, absent the religious fanaticism from these personalities in Miami, there are absolutely no similarities between these "alledged perpetrators" and the 19 religious fanatics from "9/11". Terrorist does not accurately describe Al Qaeda or the 9/11 hijackers...religious outlaw fanatic does. Terrorists are attempting to achieve a social change by the use of violence against a State, whereas religious outlaw fanatics are attempting to achieve a change in secular society based on strict adherence to fundamentalistic religious doctrines.

The Great Divide: How Westerners and Muslims View Each Other

Pew Global Attitudes Project
June 2006

After a year marked by riots over cartoon portrayals of Muhammad, a major terrorist attack in London, and continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, most Muslims and Westerners see relations between them as generally bad.

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"International opinion on the future of Iraq is generally gloomy. Majorities in most countries surveyed believe that efforts to establish a stable democratic government in Iraq will ultimately fail. Pessimism is strongest in Spain, Turkey, Germany, Jordan, and Egypt - in all five countries, more than six-in-ten respondents believe efforts to establish democracy will definitely or probably fail.

American public opinion also tends to be somewhat optimistic about the future of Iraq, with 54% saying efforts to establish a stable democratic government will be successful, up from 49% in March of this year, but down from 60% in July 2005. Views on this issue are driven at least in part by party affiliation - 76% of Republicans believe the war will end in success, compared with only 39% of Democrats and 52% of independents."

Frontline's Special: "The Dark Side" - June 20th, 2006

Note: In a word - Wow !! Watch the complete video here beginning Thursday, June 22nd, 2006

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Also check out the WGBH Forum Network's "War on Terror Series" which fills in many of the open questions the public might have about the entire GWOT subject.

Flag Amendment - "...how many times Lord..."

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, (D-CA): Article in Support of Amendment

Legal precedent primer

American Civil Liberties Union: Historical perspective, and Additional Resources

US v. O'Brien - Supreme Court of the US, 391 U.S. 367, May 27, 1968 "Draft Card burning" case

Texas v. Johnson: Supreme Court of the US. 491 U.S. 397, June 21, 1989 "Flag Burning" case

Gallup Polling: 2005 - "Recent Gallup polling shows only slightly more than half of Americans favor a constitutional amendment that would allow Congress and state governments to make it illegal to burn the American flag. Thus, there isn't a large groundswell of public support for such constitutional protections for the flag -- and support for such a measure appears to have eroded over time."

Myth's and Realities: People for the American Way

Sen. Bill Frist - Speaking in Support of the Amendment:
"Opponents of the measure claim flag burning should be protected as an exercise of free speech. To these individuals, I would ask: Is defacing a government building speech? No, it is considered a criminal act of vandalism. By the same token, burning the flag is not a form of constructive speech but an act of physical assault. America is the freest country in the world, and its citizens have the right to express dissent in myriad ways. Exercising one’s right to free speech by destroying the very icon of that right need not be one of them."

Political Polarization

Continuing the recent series of posts on political polarization and its effect on government - here are the three excerpts which first appeared in the Washington Times from the book: America's Promise Restored: Preventing Culture, Crusade and Partisanship from Wrecking Our Nation, by Harlan Ullman

Part One -
Part Two -
Part Three

Georgia Tech, IBM announce new chip - shatters speed records

By GREG BLUESTEIN Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press

Georgia Tech and IBM (News - Alert) Corp. announced Tuesday they shattered a microchip speed record in a development that could lead to advances in cell phones, radar technology and space exploration. The chip is far from commercial availability, mainly because it only set the silicon-based speed record when it was frozen to 451 degrees F below zero (minus 268 C).

The previous speed for a silicon-based chip, set at room temperature, was 375 gigahertz. While the Georgia Tech team's chip set a slightly lower speed at the same temperature -- about 350 gigahertz -- Cressler said there is plenty of room to improve. "This is a first look at what the limits can be," said Cressler. "I'm hoping this record can be broken a few times."

The Mind of the Fanatic

"The vast majority were not what one might expect. They were bright, idealistic, hard-working, self-sacrificing individuals who believed strongly, completely, in the justness of their causes. With rare exception, their fanaticism was rooted in a sincere intention to right wrongs, "clean up" sins, impurities or injustices, establish a society fully compliant with what they felt certain was God's will.

Fanaticism often begins with a sudden, dramatic shift in world-view, often due to an overwhelmingly disturbing experience that is not readily explainable using "ordinary" or familiar frameworks. Sometimes this involves betrayals and deep disappointments at the hands of close friends, family, loved ones, or a group/cause with which one strongly identifies. (Osama bin-Laden fits into this mold.) Discarding beliefs and allegiances that related to a profound betrayal can feel thoroughly liberating.

The second step on the road to fanaticism is exposure to a fanatic ideology (and, sadly, there are religious and political philosophies that lend themselves easily to this mindset). The third step usually involves a personal connection to a charismatic leader who appears to embody the "purity" promised by the ideology. The final step requires the internalization of information control: The fanatic's new ideology and personal allegiances must be strengthened and reinforced through the demand to be ever-vigilant against "wrong" thinking, to deny and denigrate information from "outside" sources, and to confess any and all doubts and questioning of one's faith. Over time, the new identity solidifies and the "old" self becomes equated with the very "disease" that must be eradicated. The fanatic does not distinguish between military personnel and civilians because they (we) are all germs capable of infecting those who would otherwise become or remain "pure."
{Steve K. Dubrow-Eichel: Sep. 23, 2001}

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{From Nomoremrniceguy.com blog by Aslan}

"I have a fanaticism test. It goes like this:

What kind of evidence would prove you wrong?

This forces the other person to consider a possibility that he/she could be wrong. If the answer is "nothing" I move on because if nothing can EVER dissuade you then you are a fanatic. Fanaticism does not tolerate that other opinions even exist let alone accept that they might have merit.

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"Only a handful of Germans in the Reich had the slightest conception of the eternal and merciless struggle for the German language, German schools, and a German way of life. Only today, when the same deplorable misery is forced on many millions of Germans from the Reich, who under foreign rule dream of their common fatherland and strive, amid their longing, at least to preserve their holy right to their mother tongue, do wider circles understand what it means to be forced to fight for one's nationality." {Adolf Hitler - (Mein Kampf)}

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"One of the most important practical benefits of the membership of the T.S. is that it brings a person into contact with the followers of other creeds on terms not only of mutual tolerance but of respect and sympathy for the faiths of each other. And as each member necessarily has relations and friends outside the T.S., this tolerance and respect and sympathy for different faiths gradually spread from him to these others; and so in a small and slow and quiet but sure way is helped on the work of bringing about peace and good-will between the different religions.

But the prime condition of success along these lines is that every member should carefully avoid all excess, all vehemence, all emotional violence, in the pushing of his own views, especially as regards the spiritual and religious super-eminence of any persons, and yet more emphatically of persons still in the flesh. Each and every member of the T.S. has, no doubt, a perfect right to his views and, it would seem, to advocate them also, but this should be done in a mild way and only so far as he can do so without hurting the feelings of any other brother within the T.S.

As to where reasonable advocacy ends and fanaticism begins, where mutual benefit by exchange of knowledge ends and mutual harm by self-assertion begins — that cannot be laid down in precise words and must be left to the tact, good sense, and observation of the actual effects on each other’s feelings, of the members concerned. But one thing is fairly clear—any very impassioned advocacy of any particular view and especially of any person-cult is very likely to tread on the toes of others by the inevitable implication and challenge that other persons honoured by others are not deserving of the same honour as one’s own ideal.

Too loud and proof-less assertion of the overwhelming merits of any one individual, unavoidably, by a psychological law, provokes comparisons; and comparisons are ever proverbially ‘odious,’ ‘invidious,’ pregnant with evil consequences. And hence all such excessive advocacy is likely to retard the work of establishing peace and goodwill amongst the various living religions." {by Bhagavan Das M.A. - April 1912}

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Perhaps the most widely read modern take on fanaticism as impaired psychology came from longshoreman-philosopher Eric Hoffer, author of The True Believer. To Hoffer, fanatics usually prove to be "selfish people... forced by innate shortcomings, or external circumstance, to lose faith in their own selves." The fanatic, "perpetually incomplete and insecure," is able to find self-assurance "only by clinging passionately to whatever support he happens to embrace."

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"Fanaticism arises through a lack of understanding of ones own position and a lack of appreciation of the positions of others." {John Dobson - Oct. 2004}

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“The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan value and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism”. {Reinhold Niebuhr: 1892-1971}

The Essential Krugman: "The Phantom Menace"

by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: June 16th, 2006

Over the last few weeks monetary officials have sounded increasingly worried about rising prices. On Wednesday, Richard Fisher, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, declared that inflation "is running at a rate that is just too corrosive to be accepted by a virtuous central banker."

I'm worried too — but not about recent price increases. What worries me, instead, is the Fed's overreaction to those increases... Discussions of inflation can be numbingly arcane — are you a core C.P.I. type or a trimmed-mean P.C.E. person? But the real issue is whether there's a serious risk that inflation will become embedded in the economy.

The classic example of embedded inflation is the wage-price spiral — better described as wage-price leapfrogging — of the 1970's. Back then, whenever wage contracts came up for renewal, workers demanded big raises, both to catch up with past inflation and to offset expected future inflation. And whenever companies changed their prices, they raised them by a lot, both to catch up with past wage increases and to offset expected future increases.

The result of this leapfrogging process was that inflation became a self-sustaining process, feeding on itself. And ending that self-sustaining process proved very difficult. The Fed eventually brought the inflation of the 1970's under control, but only by raising interest rates so high that in the early 1980's the U.S. economy suffered its worst slump since the Great Depression.

Fed officials now seem worried that we may be seeing the start of another round of self-sustaining inflation. But is that a realistic fear? Only if you think we can have a wage-price spiral without, you know, the wages part.

The point is that wage increases can be a major driver of inflation only if workers consistently receive raises that substantially exceed productivity growth. And that just hasn't been happening. In fact, the distinctive feature of the current economic expansion — the reason most Americans are unhappy with the state of the economy... is the disconnect between rising worker productivity and stagnant wages...

Nor is there much sign that things are changing on that front. ... But if wage pressures are so moderate, where's the inflation coming from? The answer is soaring oil and commodity prices.

It's true that some widely used inflation measures, like so-called core inflation, strip out the direct "first-round" effects of rising energy prices. But there are still indirect effects, which usually take some time to show up in the data. Much of the recent rise in core inflation probably represents the delayed effect of the big run-up in fuel prices a few months ago. And unless something else happens to drive up oil prices — like, to give a wild example, a military strike on Iran — inflation will probably subside in the months ahead. ...

It would be an exaggeration to say that there's no inflation threat at all. I can think of ways in which inflation could become a problem. But it's much easier to think of ways in which the Federal Reserve, wrongly focused on the phantom menace of a new wage-price spiral, could be slow to respond to bigger threats, like a rapidly deflating housing bubble.

So I don't fear inflation nearly as much as I fear the fear of inflation. And I wish the Fed would lighten up on the subject.

The Essential Krugman: "Class War Politics"

by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times:

In case you haven't noticed, modern American politics is marked by vicious partisanship, with the great bulk of the viciousness coming from the right. It's clear that the Republican plan for the 2006 election is, once again, to question Democrats' patriotism. ... So what's our bitter partisan divide really about? In two words: class warfare. That's the lesson of an important new book, "Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches," by Nolan McCarty ..., Keith Poole..., and Howard Rosenthal...

What the book shows ... is that for the past century, political polarization and economic inequality have moved hand in hand. Politics during the Gilded Age, an era of huge income gaps, was a nasty business — as nasty as it is today. The era of bipartisanship, which lasted for roughly a generation after World War II, corresponded to the high tide of America's middle class. That high tide began receding in the late 1970's, ... and as income gaps widened, a deep partisan divide re-emerged.

Both the decline of partisanship after World War II and its return in recent decades mainly reflected the changing position of the Republican Party on economic issues.

Before the 1940's, the Republican Party relied financially on the support of a wealthy elite, and most Republican politicians firmly defended that elite's privileges. But the rich became a lot poorer during and after World War II, while the middle class prospered. And many Republicans accommodated themselves to the new situation, accepting the legitimacy and desirability of institutions that helped limit economic inequality, such as a strongly progressive tax system. (The top rate during the Eisenhower years was 91 percent.)

When the elite once again pulled away from the middle class, however, Republicans ... returned to a focus on the interests of the wealthy. Tax cuts at the top — including repeal of the estate tax — became the party's highest priority.

But if the real source of today's bitter partisanship is ... economic issues, why have the last three elections been dominated by talk of terrorism, with a bit of religion on the side? Because a party whose economic policies favor a narrow elite needs to focus the public's attention elsewhere. And there's no better way to do that than accusing the other party of being unpatriotic and godless. ...

Pre-New Deal G.O.P. operatives followed the same strategy. Republican politicians won elections by "waving the bloody shirt" — invoking the memory of the Civil War — long after the G.O.P. had ceased to be the party of Lincoln and become the party of robber barons instead. Al Smith, the 1928 Democratic presidential candidate, was defeated in part by a smear campaign — burning crosses and all — that exploited the heartland's prejudice against Catholics.

So what should we do about all this? I won't offer the Democrats advice right now, except to say that tough talk on national security and affirmations of personal faith won't help: the other side will smear you anyway.

But I would like to offer some advice to my fellow pundits: face reality. There are some commentators who long for the bipartisan days of yore, and flock eagerly to any politician who looks "centrist." But there isn't any center in modern American politics. And the center won't return until we have a new New Deal, and rebuild our middle class.

POLITICS - "Beware of the Crazies Fixated on Symbolic Issues"

American Progess Action
June 19th, 2006

And For Which It Stands

The U.S. Congress is closer than ever to passing a constitutional amendment that would criminalize desecration of the U.S. flag. If successful, it will mark the first time in 214 years that the Bill of Rights has been restricted by a constitutional amendment, and will place the United States among a select group of nations that have banned flag desecration, including Cuba, China, Iran, and Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

The amendment has already been approved by the necessary two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives, and last week it passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on a near-party line 11-7 vote. Now, aided by a handful of Democrats, the amendment has gathered 66 votes in favor, just one shy of passage. "Whether advocates can find the 67th vote to send the flag amendment to the states for ratification remains unclear." The Senate vote is expected next week. Take a stand now by signing up with Veterans Defending the Bill of Rights.

DEFENDING THE FLAG, AND FOR WHICH IT STANDS: Defacing a flag is an act that most Americans find offensive and outrageous. It is also "an act of protected speech under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution," as established by the Supreme Court in Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989), and reaffirmed in U.S. v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990).

It takes no courage to stand for freedom of speech for the views with which we agree. Rather, favoring freedom of speech means favoring freedom of speech precisely for those views one finds offensive and outrageous. As Colin Powell has said of the First Amendment, affirming his opposition to a flag-burning amendment, "I would not amend that great shield of democracy to hammer a few miscreants. The flag will be flying proudly long after they have slunk away."

SOLVING A NON-PROBLEM: Amendment supporters seek to restrict the Bill of Rights despite the fact that they "cannot point to a single instance of anti-American flag burning in the last 30 years," the New York Times notes. "The video images that the American Legion finds so offensive to veterans and other Americans are either of Vietnam-era vintage or from other countries." Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT), who opposes the amendment, has argued, "I don't want to amend the Constitution to solve a non-problem. People are not burning the flag."

BAD PRINCIPLES LEAD TO BAD POLICY: The proposed amendment is also bad public policy. If ratified, it "would be the first in our history to cut back on the First Amendment's guarantee of that freedom of expression that is so necessary to ensure the vigorous debate and dissent that is imperative to prevent the abuse of power in our democracy." The amendment will not, as some of its supporters claim, be a means of "establishing and preserving community" or "national unity." As World War II-era Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Jackson observed, such unity "can only be achieved through persuasion, not coercion." Jackson wrote in a 1943 decision that "those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard." He added pointedly that the First Amendment "was designed to avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings."

WEAKENING THE BILL OF RIGHTS DOESN'T PROTECT OUR SOLDIERS: "Our fighting men and women are serving America under a proud flag, and that flag should be cherished and protected," President Bush told a crowd of veterans in the run-up to the 2004 election. But as 23-year Navy veteran and American Progress fellow Lawrence Korb has written, Congress could help our veterans much more "by resisting the draconian measures advocated by the Bush administration that adversely impact our current and future veterans." Instead, many of the same conservatives in favor of the flag amendment have tried or succeeded in increasing veterans' health care costs, reducing hostile fire pay and family separation pay, closing commissaries and schools on military bases throughout our country, refusing to allow National Guard and reserve members to participate fully in the military’s Tricare Health System, and resisting an expansion of the army to reduce the significant strain on forces serving today.

POORLY DRAFTED: The flag-burning amendment under consideration is "phrased in such broad and vague language" that scholars and legal analysts expect unintended consequences, including "censorship of images of the flag in works of art, advertising, or commerce." The term "desecration" is itself interpreted broadly in the Uniform Flag Statute, which forbids producing "any word, figure, mark picture, design, drawing or advertisement of any nature on any flag," and any "article of merchandise" upon which a flag is produced. Also, the amendment could "permit indictments and prosecutions not only of protestors, but individuals who purchase these works of art, or who use advertisements that desecrate the flag."

DO NOTHING, BY DESIGN: The current conservative-led Congress has been disparaged as a "Do-Nothing Congress," but this is by design. As Roll Call reported, Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) recently "decided to abandon any efforts at bipartisanship in favor of using his chamber to hold a series of highly partisan, mostly symbolic votes on conservative causes, including amendments banning gay marriage and flag burning, and fully repealing the estate tax." Instead of addressing pressing problems like Iraq, health care, energy, or global warming, the "world's greatest deliberative body" last week turned its attention to the critical question of whether the flag amendment would permit the prosecution of women "wearing a very skimpy bathing suit" decorated like the flag. Thankfully, a clear answer was offered: "When you get to a bikini or a bathing suit, it's not a flag, it's a bikini."

Note: "Every time this issue comes up I'm dumbfounded. Don't these guys get it? Adding an amendment like this to the Constitution is completely antithetical to the principles upon which this country was founded. America is supposed to be a place where we are able to voice our disagreement or dissatisfaction with our leaders without fear of reprisal or recrimination. The only reason I would ever want to burn the flag is if they made it illegal to do so. The flag is a symbol of our democracy. Making it illegal to burn the flag is tantamount to making it illegal to disagree with our government. And then what would our flag stand for?" {Comment by PK - 6/22/05}

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"...however, I never lost sight of the fact that the flag is venerated because it is a symbol of the liberties our Founders guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, liberties that justify the sacrifice of countless service men and women who fought and died to protect them. It is our liberties that make the United States unique among nations. We are a country where every issue can be debated, where citizens who disagree with the policies formulated by a current but transient majority can even burn our flag in protest. The flag does not need this amendment to "protect" it. It needs Americans who understand the importance of preserving our liberties to contact our senators and tell them to preserve the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech by voting against this amendment."
{Mike Pheneger, colonel, U.S. Army (retired),Tampa - Summer 2004}

On June 19, 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was approved after surviving an 83-day filibuster in the United States Senate.

"We have lost the South for a generation." — Lyndon Johnson, to an aide, immediately after signing the Act.

Marriage Protection Act

from Ecunet - UCChristChatter by Nancy

"Maybe some people _do_ realize that amendments of this sort will hurt heterosexual couples who are not legally married. Maybe that is part of the point. People who have 'trouble with' the idea of gay unions and marriage might also have 'trouble with' the idea of people living together in what has been termed "sin." People are in different stages of faith development and understanding."

Why Do They Do It? - The Colbert Report and Rep. Lynn Westmoreland

The Georgia Republican Representative co-sponsors a House bill to require the Ten Commandments be displayed in the House, Senate, and all judicial buildings...but he can only name three of the ten???

How about you? Can you name them all? ...and in their original context?

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{From Wikipedia}

1. "I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery. Thou shalt have no other gods besides Me... .."

This commandment is to believe in the existence of God and His influence on events in the world, and that the goal of the redemption from Egypt was to become His servants (Rashi). It prohibits belief in or worship of any additional deities.

2. "Do not make a sculpted image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above..."

This prohibits the construction or fashioning of "idols" in the likeness of created things (beasts, fish, birds, people) and worshipping them.

3. "Thou shalt not swear falsely by the name of the LORD..."

This commandment is to never take the name of God in a vain, pointless or insincere oath (Rashi). This includes four types of prohibited oaths: an oath affirming as true a matter one knows to be false, an oath that affirms the patently obvious, an oath denying the truth of a matter one knows to be true, and an oath to perform an act that is beyond one's capabilities[citation needed].

4. "Remember [zachor] the Sabbath day and keep it holy" (the version in Deuteronomy reads shamor, "observe")

The seventh day of the week is termed Shabbat and is holy, just as God ceased creative activity during Creation. The aspect of zachor (remember) is performed by declaring the greatness of the day (kiddush), by having three festive meals and by engaging in Torah study and pleasurable activities. The aspect of shamor is performed by abstaining from the 39 melachot (forbidden categories of activity) on the Shabbat.

5. "Thou shalt honour your father and your mother..."

The obligation to honor one's parents is an obligation that one owes to God and fulfills this obligation through one's actions towards one's parents.

6. "Thou shalt not murder"

Killing an innocent human being is a capital sin.

7. "Thou shalt not commit adultery."

Adultery is defined as cohabitation with a married woman (Rashi).

8. "Thou shalt not steal."

This is not understood as stealing in the conventional sense, since theft of property is forbidden elsewhere and is not a capital offense. In this context it is to be taken as "do not kidnap" (Rashi).

9. "Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor"

One must not bear false witness in a court of law or other proceeding.

10. "Thou shalt not covet your neighbor's house..."

One is forbidden to desire and plan how one may obtain that which God has given to another. Maimonides makes a distinction in codifying the laws between the instruction given here in Exodus (You shall not covet) and that given in Deuteronomy (You shall not desire), according to which one does not violate the Exodus commandment unless there is a physical action associated with the desire, even if this is legally purchasing an envied object.

Do you call 411 for information?

Phone companies charge us $1.00 (or more) for information calls (aka: 411) when they don't, and shouldn't have to? When you need to use the 411 information option, simply dial 1-800-FREE-411 or 1-800-373-3411 without incurring a charge. This also works on home phones as well as your cell phone.

Disaster Planning & Recovery

Details for Personal and Professional Success

Recent events such as the Tsunami in southeast Asia, heat waves and flooding in Central Europe and the hurricanes that decimated the U.S. Gulf Coast have brought the concepts of survival and temporary self-sufficiency to the top of many corporate and domestic to-do lists. The images of those who had lost everything and were at the mercy of governmental infighting and ineptitude have been burned into our collective consciousness, and should not be forgotten.

What then, is a family or SMB to do? What are the priorities for assuring relative comfort and safety during the most harrowing of times? We have polled dozens of leading industry experts and combined their suggestions with our own knowledge of business continuity and data backup to offer the following overview. This overview is intended to address the highest-need items and greatest value services that disaster victims and industry experts have reported as critical during the days and weeks following a major event.

21 New Microsoft Windows Vulnerabilities

- Patches Available Now -

Attack code comes on heels of Microsoft patches
C/Net NEWS.COM
By Greg Sandoval
Story last modified Wed Jun 14 18:18:39 PDT 2006

Just a day after Microsoft released patches for vulnerabilities in some of its software, code designed to take advantage of those weaknesses appeared on the Internet.

Most of the patches that Microsoft issued were for flaws that were widely known. But at least two flaws were made public for the first time on Tuesday as part of the company's monthly security update.

Security firms reported finding the code in Wednesday. The exploit code for previously unknown flaws means hackers could use the code to pounce on computer systems where managers are slow to apply patches.

"Microsoft is aware that detailed exploit code was published on the Internet for some of the vulnerabilities," the software maker said in a statement. "With the exception of MS06-027 (the Word malware that began circulating last month), Microsoft is not currently aware of any active attacks utilizing this exploit code...the exploit code does not affect users who have installed all June security updates."

In all, Microsoft issued patches for 21 flaws in its security update, saying all but two of them could let an intruder run malicious code on a compromised computer.

Some of the exploits that appear on the Web are for "critical" flaws in Windows Media Player and for "routing and remote access." The SANS Internet Storm Center reported that two exploits were for the "routing and remote access."

Verisign's iDefense team also announced that it had developed a "proof of concept" exploit code for a security hole in the ".ART" file, a file type used often for AOL services and Web sites, according to iDefense.

So What's Up About Rumsfeld?

Root causes of Haditha
St. Louis Dispatch - June 13th, 2004
By Maj. Gen. John Batiste (retired)

There is a direct link between the alleged atrocities in Haditha and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. His poor decisions and bad judgment in 2003 and 2004 are the root causes for the prolonged challenge we now face. Haditha is but a symptom of a much bigger problem.

The secretary of defense got the war in Iraq terribly wrong, and he did not set the conditions for success. He rejected the existence of the insurgency, which was an absolute certainty, and sent America to war with insufficient resources to accomplish the mission. Remember that he alone is responsible for what happens or fails to happen in the Department of Defense. The news of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's demise is certainly good news, but we must remember the Zarqawi was but a cog in a very complex insurgency that the secretary of defense's plan allowed to take root, grow, and expand to what it is today. This is all about competency and accountability. This is all about what is good for our country.

I am a two-time combat veteran in Iraq with many years of experience in peace enforcement operations in Bosnia and Kosovo. My only motivation in speaking out is our great country, our incredible military and their terrific families. I left the military after 31 years of service despite a promising career and promotion in order to speak out, to turn the lights on in a very dark room. I am honor bound to continue to do so. I have been a lifelong Republican.

America went to war in Iraq with the secretary of defense's plan. He ignored the U.S. Central Command's deliberate planning and strategy, dismissed honest dissent, and browbeat subordinates to build his plan, which did not address the hard work to crush the insurgency, secure a post-Saddam Iraq, build the peace and set Iraq up for self-reliance. He refused to acknowledge and even ignored the potential for the insurgency.

Bottom line, his plan allowed the insurgency to take root and grow to where it is today. Our great military lost a critical window of opportunity to secure Iraq because of inadequate troop levels and the decision to stand down the Iraqi security forces.

In the early days of the campaign, we needed at least 380,000 coalition forces in addition to the Iraqi security forces to impose security and prevent the insurgency. We were undermanned by a factor of at least three and could not secure the country during a very crucial period.

To compensate for the shortage of troops, commanders were routinely forced to manage shortages and shift coalition and Iraqi security forces from other contentious areas to counter growing threats in places like An Najaf, Tal Afar, Samarra, Ramadi, Fallujah and others.

We were certainly successful in the short term, but the minute we completed the mission and redeployed forces back to where they came from, insurgents reoccupied the vacuum and the cycle repeated itself. In addition, forces returning to familiar territory found themselves fighting to reoccupy ground that had once been secure. I am reminded of the myth of Sisyphus.

This is no way to fight a counter-insurgency. The secretary of defense's plan did not set our military up for success. He squandered an opportunity early on to nip the insurgency in the bud. Haditha should not be a surprise to any of us. Our Army and Marine Corps remain under-resourced and overcommitted.

The secretary of defense's plan did not anticipate nor account for the insurgency, which was an absolute certainty and fully addressed in the U.S. Central Command's deliberate planning. Remember the Pentagon news conference in late October 2003. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff chose to use the word "insurgent" to describe the enemy in Iraq. The secretary of defense quickly corrected him and went out of his way to dismiss the word insurgent. Sadly, this was already seven months into the campaign and beyond the point of no return. The so-called "speed bumps on the way to Baghdad" would become our focus of main effort for years.

The secretary of defense's decision to stand down the Iraqi military resulted in uncontrollable chaos and the dismantling of the extensive Iraqi security force infrastructure that we are still working to rebuild today. This decision gave the insurgency an unlimited supply of manpower, weapons and ammunition.

Further, when Saddam's well-appointed military garrisons were abandoned, the Iraqi people looted them and carried away every brick, door and piece of glass. There was nothing left but concrete slabs all over Iraq. Chaos reigned.

The work to rebuild the Iraqi army and police became that much harder, and we have yet to recover. We are now into our fourth year with continued chaos, Haditha, Abu Ghraib, 2,477 dead and 17,869 wounded Americans, and up to $9 billion spent every month. We continue to bleed our national treasure in blood and dollars. It did not need to be this way. What should have been a deliberate victory is now a protracted challenge.

The secretary of defense does not understand the human dimension of warfare. The mission in Iraq is all about breaking the cycle of violence, building relationships and the hard work to change attitudes and give the Iraqi people alternatives to the insurgency. This requires boots on the ground in sufficient quantity to establish security, intimidate the insurgent, protect lines of communication and the oil infrastructure, train the Iraqi security forces, and control the borders. You cannot do this with precision bombs from 30,000 feet. This is tough, dangerous, and very personal work. Numbers count.

Based upon all the above, the secretary of defense is not a competent wartime leader. He knows everything, except "how to win." He surrounds himself with like-minded and compliant subordinates who do not grasp the importance of the principles of war, the complexities of Iraq, or the human dimension of warfare.

I wonder how many times in the last five years the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was permitted to give the president his unvarnished opinion, one on one, with no one else in the room? The 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act mandates that the chairman be, among other things, the "principal military adviser to the president." How can he render advice when overshadowed by a secretary of defense who knows everything and dominates all that he touches?

The American people deserve accountability and it is time for change. Without accountability, we cannot move forward. Move forward we must to win the war on terrorism. Our leaders are dodging their responsibilities. Our congressional oversight committees need to get engaged and start asking the tough questions. We all deserve a secretary of defense whose instinct and judgment we trust. Victory hangs in the balance.

Note: Maj. Gen. John Batiste (retired) commanded the Army's First Infantry Division, both in Iraq and in Kosovo. Before that, he was the senior military assistant to then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. He's now president of Klein Steel Services in Rochester, N.Y.

That Sinking Feeling

Robert Reich reports in after his latest battle with the supply-side brigade:

Sinking, by Robert Reich: I just did Kudlow's show again. He and Steve Moore both wanted to argue that (1) Tom DeLay was a great American and (2) the phone and cable companies should be able to levy different charges on different content providers, thus ending net neutrality. The reality is (1) Tom DeLay was an irresponsible political hack who ran an extortion racket on K Street, and (2) the phone and cable companies are already getting their fees from subscribers and should not have to start charging content providers; and if they did, they'd end the Internet as the last bastion of equal access.

Meanwhile, the stock market is sinking. Why? Because Wall Street is worried sick about Ben Barnenke and the Fed raising short-term interest rates, which will slow the economy and also move money out of stocks and into bonds. High oil prices, and instability in Iraq (let's face it -- it's a civil war, and utter chaos, and Bush's invasion and occupation have done extraordinary harm to Iraqi's and to us) and jitters about Iran have also contributed. Adjusted for inflation, the market is well below where it was in 2000.

The entire Bush era will go down in history as one of the worst for the very people who are Bush's core constituency -- the big investor class. Sadly, it will also go down as one of the worst for Bush's non-constituency -- the poor and the middle class, who have taken it on the ear. Again, please remember this important fact: Over the last five years, productivity has soared 24 percent, while median wages have remained flat (adjusted for inflation). (Those of you who want to know the source of this have only to look at the govt stats in Census and at BLS.)

The Essential Krugman: "The Some of All Fears"

by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times:
June 11, 2006

Back in 1971, Russell Baker, the legendary Times columnist, devoted one of his Op-Ed columns to an interview with Those Who — as in "Those Who snivel and sneer whenever something good is said about America." Back then, Those Who played a major role in politicians' speeches.

Times are different now, of course. ... And we rarely hear about Those Who these days. But the Republic faces an even more insidious threat: the Some. The Some take anti-American positions on a variety of issues. For example, they want to hurt the economy: "Some say, well, maybe the recession should have been deeper," said President Bush in 2003...

Mainly, however, the Some are weak on national security. "There's Some in America who say, 'Well, this can't be true there are still people willing to attack,' " said Mr. Bush during a visit to the National Security Agency.

The Some appear to be an important faction within the Democratic Party — a faction that has come out in force since the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Last week ... The Washington Times claimed that "Some Democrats" were calling Zarqawi's killing a "stunt."

Even some Democrats (not to be confused with Some Democrats) warn about the influence of the Some. "Some Democrats are allergic to the use of force. They still have a powerful influence on the party," said Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution after the 2004 election. Joe Klein, the Time magazine columnist, went further, declaring that the Democratic Party's "left wing" has a "hate America tendency."...

But here's the strange thing: it's hard to figure out who those Some Democrats are.

For example, none of the Democrats quoted by The Washington Times actually called the killing of Zarqawi a stunt, or said anything to that effect. Mr. Klein's examples of people with a "hate America tendency" were "Michael Moore and many writers at The Nation." That's a grossly unfair characterization, but in any case, since when do a filmmaker who supported Ralph Nader and a magazine's opinion writers constitute a wing of the Democratic Party?

And which Democrats are "allergic to the use of force"? Some prominent Democrats opposed the Iraq war, but few if any of these figures oppose all military action. Howard Dean supported both the first gulf war and the invasion of Afghanistan. So did Al Gore ... both men opposed the Iraq war only because they thought this particular use of force was ill advised and was being sold on false pretenses. ...

So what's going on here? Some might suggest that the alleged influence of the Some is no more real than the problem of flag-burning, that right-wing propagandists are attacking straw men to divert attention from the Bush administration's failures...

Some might also suggest that Democrats who accuse other Democrats of closet pacifism are motivated in part by careerism — that they're trying to sustain the peculiar rule, which still prevails in Washington, that you have to have been wrong about Iraq to be considered credible on national security. And they're doing this by misrepresenting the views and motives of those who had the good sense and courage to oppose this war.

But that's just what Some Democrats might say. And everyone knows that Some Democrats hate America.

Health Savings Accounts - A Review

Health Savings Accounts Unlikely to Significantly Reduce Health Care Spending
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
By Edwin Park
June 12, 2006

Proponents of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) — tax-favored savings accounts attached to high-deductible health insurance plans — have long argued that widespread adoption of HSAs will contain health care costs substantially over time. The theory is that the high deductibles required under HSAs (at least $1,050 for individuals and $2,100 for family coverage in 2006) will encourage individuals to be more prudent consumers since they will now be responsible for the cost of health care below the deductibles and therefore will be more likely to limit use to necessary, cost-effective services. To further spur enrollment in HSAs, the Administration has proposed new tax cuts expanding HSAs, which the Treasury projects will cost $156 billion over ten years, and the House of Representatives may consider these proposals on the floor during the House leadership’s “Health Week” later this month.[1]

This brief analysis indicates, however, that HSAs are unlikely to reduce overall health care expenditures to any significant extent. The analysis also finds that to the limited extent HSAs may cause some modest reduction in health care spending, any such reduction is likely to result in no small part from individuals — particularly those with lower incomes — forgoing cost-effective medical services including primary care, prescription drugs, and preventive services.

*

The vast majority of the nation’s health care spending would not be affected by the high deductibles required under HSAs. There is limited potential for cost containment because most of the nation’s health care costs are for expensive procedures or treatments — often related to major illnesses or end-of-life costs — the costs of which exceed the high deductibles required under HSAs and consequently would still be paid for by health insurance plans.

One study has determined that the top 10 percent of health-care users account for about 70 percent of total health expenditures, while the bottom 50 percent of users account for only three percent of total expenditures.[2] Another study found that more than 95 percent of medical expenditures by working-age households with health insurance were made by those who spend above the minimum HSA deductibles, and that overall, nearly 79 percent of total medical expenditures occurred above the minimum HSA deductibles.[3]
*

Because most health care spending occurs well above the high deductibles required under HSAs, numerous health policy analysts have concluded that HSAs are unlikely to produce significant reductions in overall health care spending. For example, the Congressional Research Service states that “it would be unreasonable to expect [HSAs] to produce a significant reduction in the nation’s health care costs.”[4] An analysis for the National Health Policy Forum also notes that HSAs “seem unlikely to reduce the overall level of expenditures very much... [and it] is doubtful that health care costs would moderate much if the 25 percent of the population accounting for most of the spending all had high-deductible health plans and HSAs.”[5]

Similarly, an analysis issued by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center (authored by TPC director Leonard Burman and Urban Institute health care expert Linda Blumberg) points out that “even if HSAs were to eventually cover all working-aged households, they would have little effect on medical spending. Households spending more than the deductible, are on the margin, reimbursed by insurance — just like current insured — and would face little or no additional incentive to economize.”[6]

In the same vein, a Commonwealth Fund analysis concludes that HSAs are “unlikely to affect health care outlays significantly.”[7] Finally, the benefits consultant Watson Wyatt believes that high-deductible health plans attached to HSAs are unlikely to curb employers’ health care costs because most of firms’ health care spending is incurred by a small percentage of individuals with serious health conditions, who would unaffected by the high deductibles.[8] Even the Administration’s own actuaries at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services believe that new developments in private insurance coverage such as HSAs, as well as disease management programs, will have a relatively small net impact on health care cost containment.[9]
*

In addition, to some degree, the availability of HSAs may actually increase health care spending. HSAs provide a new tax subsidy for out-of-pocket medical costs. Prior to the establishment of HSAs by the 2003 Medicare prescription drug law, only certain limited tax breaks were available for out-of-pocket medical spending.[10] Under HSAs, however, contributions made to a HSA, earnings on investments of the funds held in a HSA, and withdrawals from a HSA to pay for out-of-pocket medical costs all are tax-free. As a result, practically any medical expense paid for with funds held in a HSA now receives a tax subsidy, including benefits and some elective procedures that are not typically covered by health insurance plans as well as benefits that often are restricted in their amount, duration and scope.[11] For example, health insurers often require individuals to get prior approval before a specialty service is covered by the insurance plan or set limits on how many of those services may be provided annually. As a result, tax-favored HSAs could encourage some HSA enrollees to obtain additional health care services they would not otherwise use, and thereby to increase these enrollees’ health care expenditures.
*

Low-users of health care who could be affected by the high deductibles already incur significant cost-sharing, so HSAs are not likely to produce much savings among this population. Individuals who do not use much in the way of health care may have health care spending that could be affected by the high deductibles required by HSAs. (One study estimates, however, that individuals who spend less than the minimum HSA deductible account for less than 6 percent of total health care expenditures for individuals and less than 4 percent of family expenditures.[12]) But a recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation determined that much of the spending by this population already is subject to sizable cost-sharing through coinsurance and existing, lower deductibles. For example, non-elderly individuals with private insurance who were in the bottom 80 percent of health care users paid, on average, 76 percent of the cost of vision care on an out-of-pocket basis, 59 percent of the cost of home health care, 54 percent of the cost of prescription drugs, and 30 percent of the cost of office visits.[13] In other words, these low-users of health care are subject to significant out-of-pocket costs that already discourage them from using many health care services. As a result, the high deductibles would only somewhat increase financial disincentives for these low-users to seek medical care and therefore would be likely to have only a limited impact among the population of low-users.
*

To the extent that there are any reductions in health care spending, it likely is due in significant part to reductions in the use of cost-effective medical services, such as primary care, prescription drugs and preventive services, with a disproportionate impact on low-income individuals and families. Among the medical services whose costs are generally below the minimum HSA deductibles are services that many experts consider to be the most cost-effective. Examples include primary care services such as physician visits that diagnose and provide low-cost treatment of acute conditions (like an ear infection for children or a urinary tract infection) and maintenance drugs that manage or treat chronic conditions like diabetes.[14] In addition, while the high-deductible plans attached to HSAs may exempt preventive care services like diagnostic tests and screenings from the high deductible, there is no requirement that such plans actually do so.[15] In its 2005 employer survey, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research Educational Trust found that only 30 percent of workers enrolled in a high-deductible plan that qualified for a HSA had some preventive benefits exempt from the deductible.[16] The effect of the high deductibles required under HSAs on the use of such services is likely to be particularly pronounced among lower-income individuals and families because they have less disposable income and therefore are more sensitive to increases in their out-of-pocket medical costs.[17] Even President Bush’s own Council of Economic Advisers acknowledges that greater cost-sharing among such households could result in worse health outcomes for low-income families.[18] If a medical condition or illness goes untreated because lower-income individuals are unable to pay out-of-pocket for appropriate primary care or prescription drugs, their health could decline, forcing them ultimately to make greater use of costly services like emergency room visits or hospitalization. As a result, to the extent that low-income individuals and families fail to use preventive care, primary care, prescription drugs, or other cost-effective, lower-cost services, HSAs could actually drive up the health-care costs that such people incur.

End Notes:

[1] The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates the cost of the Administration’s HSA proposals at $108 billion over 10 years. For an analysis of these proposals, see Jason Furman, “Expansion in HSA Tax Breaks Is Larger — and More Problematic — Than Previously Understood,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Revised February 7, 2006 and Jonathan Gruber, “The Cost and Coverage Impact of the President’s Health Insurance Budget Proposals,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, February 15, 2006.

[2] Alan C. Monheit, “Persistence in Health Expenditures in the Short Run: Prevalence and Consequences,” Medical Care 41, July 2003 Supplement, cited in Karen Davis, Michelle Doty and Alice Ho, “How High Is Too High? Implications of High-Deductible Health Plans,” The Commonwealth Fund, April 2005.

[3] Linda Blumberg and Leonard Burman, “Most Households’ Medical Expenses Exceed HSA Deductibles,” Tax Notes, August 16, 2004.

[4] Bob Lyke, Chris Peterson and Neela Ranade, “Health Savings Accounts,” Congressional Research Service, Updated March 23, 2005.

[5] Beth Fuchs and Julia James, “Health Savings Accounts: The Fundamentals,” National Health Policy Forum, April 11, 2005.

[6] Blumberg and Burman, op cit.

[7] Davis, Doty and Ho, op cit.

[8] Watson Wyatt, “Financial Incentives Alone Unlikely to Curb Health Care Costs, Watson Wyatt Says,” April 24, 2006.

[9] Christine Borger, Sheila Smith, Christopher Truffer et al., “Health Spending Projections Through 2015: Changes on the Horizon,” Health Affairs, Web Exclusive, February 22, 2006.

[10] For example, a tax deduction is available for out-of-pocket medical costs in excess of 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI). In addition, if offered by a firm, an employee can contribute pre-tax dollars to a Flexible Spending Account to pay for out-of-pocket medical costs incurred during the year.

[11] For a list of allowable out-of-pocket medical expenses, see Internal Revenue Service, “Publication 502: Medical and Dental Expenses,” 2005.

[12] Blumberg and Burman, op cit.

[13] Kaiser Family Foundation, “Snapshots: Distribution of Out-of-Pocket Spending for Health Care Services,” May 2006, available at www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm050206oth.cfm

[14] Davis, Doty and Ho, op cit. The Commonwealth Fund analysis also notes that “studies tend to find underutilization of preventive and primary care services, while overutilization tends to occur with “big ticket” items such as surgery, imaging and diagnostic tests, end-of-life care, and specialty consultations,” all services whose costs exceed the minimum HSA deductibles.

[15] IRS guidance indicates that some prescription drugs may meet the preventive care definition such as cholesterol-lowering drugs taken by an individual without heart disease to prevent the future occurrence of heart disease (though it is unclear if any high-deductible health insurance plans do so), but the preventive care exemption does not encompass prescription drugs used to treat an existing illness, injury or condition. See Internal Revenue Service, “Internal Revenue Bulletin: 2004-33,” August 16, 2004.

[16] Gary Claxton, Jon Gabel, Isadora Gil et al., “What High-Deductible Plans Look Like: Findings from a National Survey of Employers, 2005,” Health Affairs, Web Exclusive, September 14, 2005.

[17] At the same time, the high deductibles would most likely be too low to significantly affect health care utilization of such services by higher-income individuals. See, for example, Martin Feldstein and Jonathan Gruber, “A Major Risk Approach to Health Insurance Reform,” Tax Policy and the Economy, James Poterba (ed.), Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

[18] According to CEA, “There were, however, some health benefits [from reduced cost-sharing and greater health spending] for select subpopulations of low-income and chronically ill individuals, suggesting that care should be taken not to expose lower-income families to excessively high cost-sharing relative to their income.” Council of Economic Advisers, “Economic Report of the President: 2006,” February 13, 2006, p.95.

Traceability records required for fish products

PRWEB - Spring 2006

By mid-2006, farm-raised and wild-catch fish/shellfish operators that receive, hold, and ship raw or processed fish/shellfish products will be required to register their facilities and supply complete traceback and traceability records for all their products. These requirements are mandated by the FDA through the Bioterrorism Act of 2002, as well as the EU Directive 2002/991EC and Directive 91/493/ECC, and apply to all facilities wherever food commodities and fish/shellfish are received, cleaned, stored, blended, processed, and reshipped, and all associated records.

Operations that receive raw agricultural commodities, and manufacture and pack them for sale as fresh food products, are also required to comply with these laws. Even the delivery truck and its drivers have to be recorded. These food handlers will have to keep records of all fish/shellfish received, stored, and shipped which is required to help prevent natural or terrorist contamination.

The wild and farm-raised fish/shellfish recordkeeping process must be in place by June 2006 for US operations that have 11 or more employees. After this date, all records must be available to the FDA as soon as possible, and no longer than 24 hours after a request is made if contamination is tracked to a fish/shellfish handling operation.

The Essential Krugman: "The DeLay Principle"

by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times - June 9th, 2006

"The federal estate tax had its origins in war. As America moved toward involvement in World War I, Congress — facing a loss of tariff revenue, but also believing that the most privileged members of society should help pay for the nation's military effort — passed the Emergency Revenue Act of 1916, which included a tax on large inheritances.

But today's Congressional leaders have a very different view about wartime priorities. "Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes," declared Tom DeLay ... in 2003. Mr. DeLay has since been dethroned, but the DeLay Principle lives on. Consider the priorities on display in Congress this week.

On one side, a measure that would have increased scrutiny of containers entering U.S. ports, at a cost of $648 million, has been dropped from a national security package being negotiated in Congress.

Now, President Bush says that we're fighting a global war on terrorism. Even if you think that's a bad metaphor, we do face a terrifying terrorist threat, and experts warn that ports make a particularly tempting target ... almost five years after 9/11, only about 5 percent of containers entering the U.S. are inspected. But our Congressional leaders ... decided that improving port security was too expensive.

On the other side, Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader, tried yesterday to push through elimination of the estate tax, which ... would reduce federal revenue by $355 billion over the next 10 years. He fell three votes short of the 60 needed to end debate, but promised to keep pushing...

So there you have it. Some people might wonder whether it makes sense to balk at spending a few hundred million dollars — that's million with an "m" — to secure our ports against a possible terrorist attack, while sacrificing several hundred billion dollars — that's billion with a "b" — in federal revenue to give wealthy heirs a tax break. But nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes.

The push for complete repeal of the estate tax has apparently failed, but ... chances are still pretty good for a Senate deal that will go most of the way toward repeal. The Tax Policy Center estimates that ... the possible ... compromises proposed by Senator Jon Kyl ..., Senator Olympia Snowe, ...[and] Senator Max Baucus would ... cost several hundred times as much as the port security measure that was rejected as too expensive. But that's O.K.: nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes. ...

Americans from an earlier era might have been puzzled by the DeLay Principle. They still believed in the principle enunciated by Theodore Roosevelt, who called for an inheritance tax in 1906: "The man of great wealth," said T.R., "owes a peculiar obligation to the state."

But the DeLay Principle isn't really that hard to understand: it's just like the Roosevelt Principle, but the other way around. These days, the state — or rather, the political coalition that controls the state, and depends on campaign contributions to maintain that control — owes a peculiar obligation to men of great wealth. And nothing is more important than cutting these men's taxes, even in the face of a war."

Inconsistent Information Policies Jeopardize Research, Panel Says

By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: June 9, 2006

WASHINGTON, June 8 — The quality and credibility of government research are being jeopardized by inconsistent policies for communicating scientific findings to the public, says an independent group of scientists that advises Congress and the White House.

Letter to Senator McCain From the National Science Board

The group, the National Science Board, examined the issue at the request of Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona. Mr. McCain sought the review in February after Civil Service workers and scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and other agencies complained publicly that political appointees had interfered with efforts to discuss global warming and other controversial issues.

The board canvassed an array of agencies like the space agency and the National Institutes of Health and found a lack of clear, consistent guidance to scientists and press offices on releasing information to the public and the news media.

In recent months, the board found, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have taken "steps in the right direction." But it said other agencies continued to lack consistent standards.

Innocence is priceless

-Unknown-

"One Sunday morning, the pastor noticed little Alex standing in the foyer of the church staring up at a large plaque. It was covered with names with small American flags mounted on either side of it. The seven year old had been staring at the plaque for some time, so the pastor walked up, stood beside the little boy, and said quietly, "Good morning Alex."

"Good morning Pastor," he replied, still focused on the plaque.

"Pastor, what is this?" he asked the pastor.

The pastor said, "Well, son, it's a memorial to all the young men and women who died in the service."

Soberly, they just stood together, staring at the large plaque.

Finally, little Alex's voice, barely audible and trembling with fear, asked,
"Which service, the 9:45 or the 11:15?"

Reporters, beware of bogus information

Charges against Wen Ho Lee turned out to be false - after they were publicized.
By Daniel Schorr
WASHINGTON – There are leaks from the Ship of State, and then there are leaks.
Christian Science Monitor
Tuesday, 06/06/06

There are punitive leaks, like the outing of a covert CIA officer, whose husband had offended the White House by contradicting its position on Iraq's interest in nuclear weapons. There are public-spirited leaks by whistle-blowers, lifting the veil on secret prison camps and warrantless wiretapping.

And then there are leaks of bogus information, sometimes called disinformation, intended to influence public opinion in some direction.

Such a leak was the planting of information that Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwan-born nuclear scientist working at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, had been identified as a spy for China. At least five news organizations were favored with that scoop, along with a wealth of personal information about the scientist - The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, ABC News, and the Associated Press.

After Mr. Lee spent nine months in solitary confinement, and took several lie detector tests, the government came up short in its espionage suspicions. Espionage charges were dropped, and the government settled for a confession from Dr. Lee of having mishandled computer files.

The Federal judge sitting on the case apologized to Lee in open court. "I believe you were terribly wronged," said Judge Thomas Jackson. On the floor of the Senate, Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter criticized the FBI and Justice Department.

After more than five years of investigation, Lee, seeking vindication after a years-long investigation, sued the government for invasion of privacy. That case has now been settled, with the government agreeing to pay $895,000. And the news organizations, still stuck with sources they would not name even though the "sources" had left them in the lurch with a phony story, paid an additional $750,000 in lieu of being cited for contempt.

A monetary payment is certainly preferable to going to jail. But it tends to make investigative reporting a pastime for very rich media.

The reporter is left with this dilemma: How to handle sources peddling big stories that may turn out to be untrue?

Answer: Very carefully!

Daniel Schorr is the senior news analyst at National Public Radio.

The Medicare and Social Security Hoax

By Dean Baker
BeatThePress.com
Friday 12 May 2006

Medicare and Social Security costs are projected to soar over the next decade as the baby boomers retire. Medicare and road maintenance costs are projected to soar over the next decade as the baby boomers retire.

Health care costs in the United States are out of control, with per capita health care costs rising at rate that is more than 2 percentage points more rapid than the rate of growth of per capita income. If this pattern continues, health care costs will have a devastating effect on the private economy and also on the federal budget because of government health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid. The obvious policy response to the projections of exploding health care costs would be to find some way to fix the US health care system (no other country has a problem of the same magnitude). It is dishonest to portray the issue as a problem of aging - we can afford the costs associated with aging - the problem is our health care system.

When the media reports, as the Post did this morning, that the problem is not with discretionary spending, "but with entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security, which will grow by 23 percent through 2010," they badly mislead readers. The cost of Social Security is rising only slightly faster than GDP. Over the next decade, Social Security spending is projected to increase by just 0.2 percentage points as a share of GDP. By contrast, spending on Medicare and Medicaid is projected to increase by a total of 1.5 percentage points of GDP.

Furthermore, Social Security is financed by a designated tax that is projected to keep the program fully solvent through the 2052 by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. This means that any cuts to Social Security should in principle be matched by cuts in the tax, unless the intention is to mislead people about the purpose of this tax.

There is a large and powerful lobby that would badly like to cut and/or privatize Social Security, and they have no qualms about playing with the truth to advance their agenda. The media should not help them.

Note: Dean Baker is an economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He was author of the Economic Reporting Review, a commentary on economic reporting in the New York Times and Washington Post, from 1996-2006. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan.

al-Zarqawi is Dead

{AP Photo Here}

US Strike Hits Insurgent at Safehouse
By John F. Burns
The New York Times
Thursday 08 June 2006

Baghdad, Iraq - Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in an American air strike on an isolated safe house north of Baghdad at 6.15 p.m. local time on Wednesday, top United States and Iraqi officials said today.

At a joint news conference with Iraq's prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the top American military commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., said Zarqawi's body had been positively identified by fingerprints, "facial recognition" and "known scars." He said seven of Zarqawi's associates had also been killed in the strike.

The Niger "Yellowcake" Disinformation Campaign

from Vanity Fair by Craig Unger
..."to trace the path of the documents from their fabrication to their inclusion in Bush's infamous speech, Vanity Fair has interviewed a number of former intelligence and military analysts who have served in the C.I.A., the State Department, the Defense Intelligence Agency (D.I.A.), and the Pentagon. Some of them refer to the Niger documents as "a disinformation operation," others as "black propaganda," "black ops," or "a classic psy-ops [psychological-operations] campaign." But whatever term they use, at least nine of these officials believe that the Niger documents were part of a covert operation to deliberately mislead the American public."

Chip - chip - chip away

House Judiciary Panel Seeks to Bar Federal Courts from Hearing Pledge Cases
(6/7/2006)
ACLU Press Release
Contact: Media@dcacluorg

WASHINGTON - As the House Judiciary Committee met to consider a controversial measure to deny access to the courts on certain first amendment issues, the American Civil Liberties Union today urged lawmakers to reject this deeply misguided and unconstitutional proposal. The bill, H.R. 2389, or the "Pledge Protection Act of 2005," would strip jurisdiction from all federal courts, including the Supreme Court, in any First Amendment case involving the Pledge of Allegiance. It is the latest of several similar politically motivated measures that would interfere with our independent judiciary and that would jeopardize American’s access to fair and impartial courts.

The bill, H.R. 2389, the "Pledge Protection Act of 2005," would bar all federal courts, including the Supreme Court, from reviewing cases involving the Pledge of Allegiance. If enacted, the measure would effectively close federal courthouse doors to religious minorities, parents, schoolchildren and others who seek to have their religious and free speech claims heard before the federal courts. The House adopted a similar version in 2004, but the Senate did not take action.

While politicians who support the bill argue the proposal is an appropriate response to potential court decisions that they might dislike concerning the words "under God" in the Pledge, the ACLU warned that the impact of the bill would be far-reaching. All federal courts would be barred from considering all constitutional claims related to the pledge. In 2004, the Third Circuit held that a Pennsylvania law mandating recitation of the Pledge violated the Constitution because it violated the free speech rights of the students. Such cases could not be heard if H.R. 2389 were to become law.

The ACLU also pointed to a growing trend by some members of Congress to push similar measures. Similar proposals seek to restrict the ability of the courts to review cases considering the legal definition of marriage and public display of the Ten Commandments.

Passage of any of these measures, the ACLU said, would establish a dangerous precedent in which Congress responds to court decisions it disagrees with by attempting to restrict the courts’ jurisdiction. Furthermore, denying access to the federal courts would force plaintiffs to raise federal claims and concerns in state courts, which may lack expertise and independent safeguards provided to federal judges under Article III of the Constitution.

"Closing the doors of federal courthouses on issues that some lawmakers disagree with strikes at the very purpose of the federal courts as envisioned by the Founding Fathers," said Terri Ann Schroeder, an ACLU Senior Lobbyist. "They saw a need for neutral arbiter that would be the final authority in determining the constitutionality of the laws that Congress passed. We urge Congress to respect that authority. Our Federal Courts need to be accountable to the Constitution and the law not to the political whims of Congress."

EOL Take-Back Policies

Eric Masanet's Dissertation specifically related to take-back planning for plastics from end-of-life computer systems

Same-Sex Marriage - Is it important?

On the June 5 edition of Fox News' The Big Story with John Gibson, Gary Bauer, president of the group American Values and a former GOP presidential candidate, asserted that "the American people" believe that a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage "is important." In fact, according to recent polling, when asked to prioritize the most pressing issues facing the country, most respondents have cited the war in Iraq, the economy, energy prices, terrorism, and immigration, but very few, (less than 1%), listed same-sex marriage.

Toyota Dominates 2006 Quality Rankings

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 7, 2006
Filed at 10:20 p.m. ET

DETROIT (AP) -- Toyota Motor Corp. held onto its dominant position in annual vehicle quality rankings, which were revamped to highlight design and layout problems that can irritate consumers as much as defects.

Toyota and Lexus, the automaker's luxury brand, took the top spot in 11 out of 19 vehicle categories in the survey released Wednesday by J.D. Power and Associates. Porsche AG came in first in the overall ranking of brands, averaging 91 problems per 100 vehicles. That compared with an industry average of 124 problems per 100 vehicles.

The study, in its 20th year, was revised to isolate consumers' concerns about design flaws, as distinct from defects and malfunctions. The change in methodology makes year-to-year comparisons impossible.

However, a parallel survey conducted using the old methodology found that as a whole, the industry improved 8 percent from 2005, said Joe Ivers, executive director of quality and customer satisfaction research at J.D. Power.

Lexus came in second in the overall nameplate rankings, with 93 problems per 100 vehicles, while the Toyota brand was fourth with 106. The two brands scored particularly well on the defect side of the equation.

''They're the closest thing to defect-free,'' Ivers said Toyota and Lexus.

On the other hand, Porsche's top ranking had a lot to do with good design: It had the least number of design problems of any brand, but was behind Lexus when it came to defects and malfunctions.

One Million Dollar Plus Muscle Cars

Super-size your LinkSys WRT54G Router

al-Zarqawi - Who Is He?

by Mary Anne Weaver - July/Aug 2006 - Atlantic Monthly
Here's An Article that Answers The Question..

Perfect Soldiers

Note: Thinking about buying John Updike's latest? Consider Terry McDermott's book: "Perfect Soldiers" instead, or in addition to Updike's.

Jack Anderson's Papers

Senators Seek Answers in Probe of Reporter
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 6, 2006
Filed at 1:22 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate Judiciary Committee gave the Bush administration a new lashing Tuesday over its use of executive power, citing the FBI's posthumous probe of columnist Jack Anderson and questioning the notion that espionage laws might allow the prosecution of journalists who publish classified information.

''It's highly doubtful in my mind that that was ever the intent of Congress,'' Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said.

The World War I-era espionage laws, countered Justice Department criminal division chief Matthew Friedrich, ''do not exempt any class of professionals, including reporters, from their reach.''

''I believe that's an invitation to Congress to legislate on the subject,'' replied Specter, R-Pa. ''Clearly, the ball is in our court.''

Friedrich refused to comment on the Anderson case, in which the FBI is seeking 50 years' worth of papers from the investigative journalist who exposed government scandals and earned a place on President Nixon's ''enemies list.''

Friedrich's response echoed deferrals by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other Justice Department officials in previous hearings on the administration's domestic wiretapping, phone tapping and other policies. Specter and other committee members grew exasperated.

''Why in heaven's name were you sent up here?'' ranking Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont fumed. ''Are there any questions you guys are allowed to answer other than your title, time of day?''

Friedrich responded that Judiciary Committee was advised of this limit before the hearing opened. He added that the FBI was preparing answers to the committee's questions about the Anderson case.

With the administration considering prosecuting journalists who publish classified information and refuse to reveal their sources, the committee wants the full story of the effort to obtain Anderson's archive months after his death at age 83.

Anderson's son Kevin, a lawyer, told the panel that he and his mother are prepared to face contempt charges if the FBI's effort to search the papers ever produces a subpoena or is upheld in court.

''The family has met and decided that we would not abide by a subpoena if one were issued by the FBI,'' Anderson said.

Specter asked if Anderson would risk a contempt citation.

''I would and I've spoken with my mother and she would as well,'' Anderson said.

''It's not an irrelevant question,'' Specter observed.

Anderson and Mark Feldstein, a former investigative reporter who is writing a book about Anderson, say FBI agents have appeared at their homes seeking the roughly 200 boxes of Anderson's papers to which the family had granted Feldstein access. The agents, Feldstein has said, cited national security concerns.

The FBI has said that if the papers contain classified information, they belong to the government.

The FBI had long sought Anderson's papers after he published stories exposing the Keating Five, a CIA plan to assassinate Fidel Castro and details of the Iran-Contra affair.

Anderson's son said the FBI contacted his mother shortly after his father's funeral, expressing interest in documents that would aid the government's case against two former lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who have been charged with disclosing classified information.

In addition, the agents told the family they planned to remove from the columnist's archive -- which had yet to be catalogued -- any document they came across that was stamped ''secret'' or ''confidential,'' or was otherwise classified.

The family refused.

''They flashed their badges and said they needed access to the papers,'' said Feldstein. Anderson donated his papers to the university, but the family had not yet formally signed them over.

FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko, a spokesman in Washington, said in an April interview that the bureau wants to search the Anderson archive and remove classified materials before they are made available to the public. ''It has been determined that, among the papers, there are a number of U.S. government documents containing classified information,'' Kolko said, declining to say how the FBI knows. The documents contain information about sources and methods used by U.S. intelligence agencies, he said.

Journalistic Code of Conduct

Note: Read any one of these to see what you are not getting with the news you obtain.

Voice of America

New York Times

Society of Professional Journalists

Note: And for a look at how the "Code" has changed over the years at the NYT, see the research paper here.



Note: What about TV News?

Email & Response to Congressional Pensions and Social Security

{Excerpt from original email message}

Social Security 2008

WHY WAIT UNTIL 2008? THERE IS AN ELECTION IN 2006. I HEREWITH FIRMLY STATE THAT I WILL NOT VOTE FOR ANY POLITICIAN, REGARDLESS OF THE OTHER ISSUES, IF HE DOES NOT SPONSOR AND SUPPORT THE FOLLOWING LEGISLATION.. THAT INCLUDES EVERYONE STANDING FOR ELECTION IN 2006.

LET US SHOW OUR LEADERS IN WASHINGTON "PEOPLE POWER" AND THE POWER OF THE INTERNET. LET ME KNOW IF YOU ARE WITH ME ON THIS BY FORWARDING TO EVERYONE IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK.

IT DOESN'T MATTER IF YOU ARE REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT!

KEEP IT GOING!!!!

2008 Election Issue !!

GET A BILL STARTED TO PLACE ALL POLITICIANS ON SOC. SEC.

This must be an issue in "2008" Please! Keep it going...

---

Note: And if you go by what is written in the email, and contact your Senator/Representative urging them to "join Social Security" they will know you are an uninformed writer who is susceptible to mass mailings and low-grade arguments. Don't let them think that ! If the original writer of the mass email would have spoken instead about the Congressional Health Plan, (FEHBP), and urged readers to require all Senators and Representatives to forfeit their FEHBP coverage in exchange for Medicare/Medicaid coverage, then there would be a much stronger argument.

But apparently that is not what the writer was attempting to do. If you read the original email, you will see direct reference made to (Sen.) Byrd (D); (Sen.) Bradley (D); (Rep.) White (D); but not (Rep.) DeLay (R), or (Sen.) Frist (R).

Why is that? What is it about Byrd, Bradley, and White that the original email writer selected only these three to point to in the email?

---

Retirement Benefits for Members of Congress

Summary
Prior to 1984, neither federal civil service workers nor Members of Congress paid taxes to Social Security, nor were they eligible for Social Security benefits. Members of Congress and other federal employees were instead covered by a separate pension plan called the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS). The 1983 amendments to the Social Security Act (P.L. 98-21) required federal employees first hired after 1983 to participate in Social Security. These amendments also required all Members of Congress to participate in Social Security as of January 1, 1984, regardless of when they first entered Congress.

Because the CSRS was not designed to coordinate with Social Security, Congress directed the development of a new retirement plan for federal workers. The result was the Federal Employees’ Retirement System Act of 1986 (P.L. 99-335).

Members of Congress first elected in 1984 or later are covered automatically under the Federal Employees’ Retirement System (FERS), unless they decline this coverage. Those who already were in Congress when Social Security coverage went into effect could either remain in CSRS or change their coverage to FERS.

Members are now covered under one of four different retirement arrangements:

Full coverage under both CSRS and Social Security;

The “CSRS Offset” plan, which includes both CSRS and Social Security, but with CSRS contributions and benefits reduced by Social Security contributions and benefits;

FERS plus Social Security; or Social Security alone.

Congressional pensions, like those of other federal employees, are financed through a combination of employee and employer contributions. All members pay Social Security payroll taxes equal to 6.2% of the Social Security taxable wage base ($90,000 in 2005). Members covered by FERS also pay 1.3% of full salary to the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund. Members covered by CSRS Offset pay 1.8% of the first $90,000 of salary, and 8.0% of salary above this amount, into the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund.

Under both CSRS and FERS, Members of Congress are eligible for a pension at age 62 if they have completed at least five years of service. Members are eligible for a pension at age 50 if they have completed 20 years of service, or at any age after completing 25 years of service. The amount of the pension depends on years of service and the average of the highest three years of salary. By law, the starting amount of a Member’s retirement annuity may not exceed 80% of his or her final salary.

As of October 1, 2002, 411 retired Members of Congress were receiving federal pensions based fully or in part on their congressional service. Of this number, 340 had retired under CSRS and were receiving an average annual pension of $55,788. Seventy-one Members had retired either with service under both CSRS and FERS or with service under FERS only. Their average annual pension was $41,856 in 2002.

The Essential Krugman: Shameless in the Senate

by Paul Krugman, Estate Tax Commentary, NY Times:
June 5th, 2006

"The Senate almost voted to repeal the estate tax last fall, but Republican leaders postponed the vote after Hurricane Katrina. It's easy to see why: the public might have made the connection between scenes of Americans abandoned in the Superdome and scenes of well-heeled senators voting huge tax breaks for their even wealthier campaign contributors.

But memories of Katrina have faded, and they're about to try again. ... So it's important to realize that there's still a clear connection between tax breaks for the rich and failure to help Americans in need. ... To understand this point, ... look at what Congress has been doing lately in the name of deficit reduction. The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which was signed in February, consists mainly of cuts to spending on Medicare, Medicaid and education. The Medicaid cuts will ... cause 65,000 people, mainly children, to lose health insurance, and lead many people who retain insurance to skip needed medical care because they can't afford increased co-payments.

Congressional leaders justified these harsh measures by saying that we have to reduce the budget deficit, and there's no way to do that without inflicting pain. But those same leaders now propose making the deficit worse by repealing the estate tax. Apparently deficits aren't such a big problem after all, as long as we're running up debts to provide bigger inheritances to wealthy heirs rather than to provide medical care to children. ...

Who would benefit from this largess? The estate tax is overwhelmingly a tax on the very, very wealthy; only about one estate in 200 pays any tax at all. The campaign for estate tax repeal has largely been financed by just 18 powerful business dynasties, including the family that owns Wal-Mart.

You may have heard tales of family farms and small businesses broken up to pay taxes, but those stories are pure propaganda... Nonetheless, the estate tax is up for a vote this week. First, Republicans will try to repeal the estate tax altogether. If that fails, they'll offer a compromise ... like a plan suggested by Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, that would cost almost as much as full repeal, or a plan suggested by Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, that is only slightly cheaper.

In each case, the crucial vote will be procedural: if 60 senators vote to close off debate, estate tax repeal ... will surely pass. Any senator who votes for cloture but against estate tax repeal — which I'm told is what John McCain may do — is simply a hypocrite, trying to have it both ways.

But will the Senate vote for cloture? The answer depends on two groups of senators: Democrats like Mr. Baucus who habitually stake out "centrist" positions that give Republicans almost everything they want, and moderate Republicans like Lincoln Chafee ... who consistently cave in to their party's right wing. Will these senators show more spine than they have in the past?

In the interest of stiffening those spines, let me remind senators that this isn't just a fiscal issue, it's also a moral issue. Congress has already declared that the budget deficit is serious enough to warrant depriving children of health care; how can it now say that it's worth enlarging the deficit to give Paris Hilton a tax break?

---

Robert Reich on "The Super-Rich Estate Tax"

:
June 2nd, 2006

The Super-Rich Estate Tax (Don't Call it a Death Tax), by Robert Reich:

This coming week, Senate Republicans are putting up for a vote repeal of the estate tax (which Republicans have renamed the "death" tax in order to fool Americans into thinking most have to pay it when they die). Right now, the tax only hits families with more than $4 million to give to their heirs. That's the richest one-half of one percent of American families -- only about 1,200 families altogether.

Families can leave their children up to $4 million without any tax at all. But because this small group of families has so large a fortune, repeal would cost the U.S. Treasury $1 trillion in its first ten years. That's about equivalent to what's needed to save Social Security over the next 75 years. Put another way, the yearly loss to the Treasury is almost exactly equal to the amount the U.S. spends each year on homeland security. If the super-wealthy won't pay, the middle class will have to pay more taxes to make up the difference. Or the national debt will expand, and we'll all be paying more interest on the resulting borrowing (mostly from wealthy Americans, along with China and Japan).

So why aren't Americans making a bigger fuss? Because they've been sold a huge load of lard about this. The PR campaign for repeal has been financed by 18 super-rich families, with a combined total wealth of $185 billion. If they get the tax repealed, they'll save over $70 billion.

Every Republican president who has waged war during his presidency, from Abe Lincoln on down, has supported the estate tax as a way to finance the war equitably by having the rich pay their fair share. George W. Bush is the first to want to repeal it. To make matters even more absurd, the richest American families, with personal fortunes of $2 million or more, already own a third of all the wealth in the nation. That's a record high, since records have been kept.

Stolen Election: 2000

Al Gore on Stolen 2000 Election...
'No Intermediate Step Between Supreme Court and Violent Revolution'
From this week's issue of New York magazine...

Does Gore, like many Democrats, think the election was stolen? Gore pauses a long time and stares into the middle distance. "There may come a time when I speak on that,” Gore says, "but it’s not now; I need more time to frame it carefully if I do.” Gore sighs. "In our system, there’s no intermediate step between a definitive Supreme Court decision and violent revolution."

Later, I put the question of Gore’s views on the matter to David Boies, his lawyer in the Florida-recount battle. "He thought the court’s ruling was wrong and obviously political," Boies says. So he considers the election stolen? "I think he does—and he’s right."

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"...Robert Lockwood Mills said on 5/23/2006 @ 3:29am PT...

The words "violent revolution" couldn't carry a clearer message. The message is, "I had to choose between accepting the Supreme Court decision or encouraging my supporters to claim a stolen election through violence." Whether that was the real choice he faced or not, Gore would never have chosen those words without having believed the election was in fact stolen. So the answer must be "yes."

But saying the Supreme Court stole it, while not incorrect, is only part of the story. It never would have come to that if the vote hadn't been rigged. The same techniques which the Republicans used to steal the 2004 election were already in use in 2000...flipped votes, under-allocation of voting machines to minority districts, illegal removal of eligible voters from the rolls, throwing out of legally cast ballots, intimidation of voters, dirty tricks. This is the real story of the 2000 election, because once they got away with everything, it was a no-brainer to repeat them in 2004 (with a few improvements).

Al Gore had a third choice in 2001, between accepting Bush's inauguration and calling for a violent revolution. He could have made a public speech; if I had written it for him it would have begun this way:

"Honest elections are the right and privilege of every voter...Republican, Democrat, and Independent. I'd rather that this speech have been delivered by someone else, because it will appear to many that I'm speaking out of wounded self-interest. I will be called a sore loser, a poor sport, and a disloyal American for what I'm about to say.

The election was fraudulent. George W. Bush is not entitled to take office, any more than a burglar is entitled to stolen property. The votes weren't stolen from me, mind you...they were stolen from the American people, who deserve to have them back."

Etc., etc. If Gore had done this, Bush would still have been inaugurated and Gore would have been excoriated as a sore loser, poor sport, disloyal American, etc. But the 2004 election couldn't have been stolen, because Gore's words would still have lingered in the minds of his supporters. The DNC would not have been able to ignore evidence of fraud in 2004 (as it did, and as most prominent Democrats continue to do), because it would have been a case of "Fool me once, shame on you...fool me twice, shame on me."

In other words, Al Gore was more afraid of ending his own political career, and facing the "slings and arrows of outrageous political fortune (and by so doing end them)..." than he was willing to stand up for a higher purpose. Gore's Hamlet moment came and went without a soliloquy, and the American people, and our political system, have suffered for 5-1/2 years because of Gore's weakness.

Was the 2004 Election Stolen - Rolling Stone Article - June 1, 2006

Note: Absolutely devastating article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Also Available in PDF format here.

Grass to Gas

Bio-Based Ethanol is Poised to Take Off
eMagazine - June 2006
by Heather Augustyn

When George W. Bush delivered his State of the Union Address this past January, three words appeared that had not previously been heard from the Oval Office: Switchgrass, stalks and woodchips. Here were kind words about bio-based ethanol technology from a President who’d never met a fossil fuel he didn’t love.

Although traditional corn-based ethanol has a loyal constituency in farm states, support for bio-ethanol, also known as cellulosic ethanol, is not common among politicians. Bush’s stance was welcomed in the industry. But even though the President touts cellulosic ethanol and predicts that it will be widely available within six years, he doesn’t necessarily put his money where his mouth is.

Bush’s signals on renewable energy have been decidedly mixed. Shortly before he visited the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Colorado last February, a $5 million funding shortfall forced the lab to lay off 32 workers. Bush blamed the layoffs on a “budget mixup,” and NREL got its funding back.

Switchgrass is a fast-growing perennial plant native to the central and eastern U.S. and tolerant of many different soil types. To make cellulosic ethanol, switchgrass—or any cellulose-based plant—is broken down to make sugar, then fermented to make the fuel. Supporters say that when blended with petroleum products, ethanol from switchgrass results in a net energy gain of 334 percent, compared to just 21 percent for corn-based ethanol.

The cellulosic process has been invented and is being refined, but it hasn’t been commercialized, and that’s what is preventing it from going into our tanks today, says former CIA Director James Woolsey, among switchgrass’s biggest supporters. “It’s continued learning and rationalization and lower costs of a process that already exists, so there’s nothing, in a sense, that has to be invented new,” says Woolsey. “There’s no Manhattan Project. The Wright Brothers have already flown. You’re talking about improving the pitch and the propeller and the design of the wings so it’s more stable.”

Corn-based ethanol has made great strides. According to Tom Slunecka, executive director of the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council, the U.S. currently produces four billion gallons a year, or approximately three to four percent of the fuel supply. “It’s growing rapidly,” he says. “By 2012 we’re projecting 7.5 billion gallons, but I think we’ll far surpass that.” Automakers get federal tax credits for producing “bi-fuel” cars and trucks that can run on ethanol, but until recently the lack of an ethanol refueling infrastructure hampered the actual use of the fuel. But now General Motors and other carmakers are promoting ethanol vehicles with a new vigor. Even without bi-fuel technology, all cars today can burn a 10 percent ethanol blend.

David Bransby, a professor in Auburn University’s Agronomy Department, has been working on bio-ethanols for two decades. He says that the technology is ready to be used in the U.S., but there are barriers, including the fact that “we actually don’t have a big market for it yet. If I planted a thousand acres of switchgrass, I don’t know if I could sell it because all of the ethanol that is being produced in this country is derived from corn. You need a different production technology if you’re going to process biomass, and we don’t have any of those technologies commercialized yet,” says Bransby, who nonetheless says that Bush’s six-year commercialization timetable is reasonable.

But Michael Pacheco, who became director of the Energy Department’s National Bioenergy Center (a division of NREL) after 16 years in the oil industry, is optimistic. “We’re really making quite good progress,” he says. “The costs have come down quite a bit. Just five years ago, a gallon of bio-based ethanol was $5, and today it’s $2. With gasoline prices going up as much as they have the past several years, most people in the industry believe that those cost curves are going to cross over. When they do, there really will be a major investment growth in biofuels.”

The process of harvesting tall-growing switchgrass is not dissimilar to mowing your lawn, but even though the weed is hearty, it can be fragile when it comes to production. “You cannot transport switchgrass very far,” says Paul Nyren, director of North Dakota State University’s Central Grasslands Research Center. “The cost of building the industrial unit has yet to be determined, but it all just depends on getting a pilot plant up and running,” he says.

Pacheco says the biomass industry is on the verge of taking off, but there is difficulty in taking that first step. “I think it will take some government assistance for the first plants to actually get built,” he says. “To develop a new fuels technology like this is a very expensive proposition. But the investment community is ready to put a lot of capital into the growth of the biofuels industry. They want to be ahead of that curve.”

For those on the front line, government and investor support has been slow to nonexistent. Lawrence Stewart, independent marketing representative for Phoenix Consulting Group International, asks, “How do we get over the commercialization hurdle? Traditionally, the government has played that role with respect to new technologies. Once you get one or two plants up and running, we’ll be golden, because then it can be financed. Why doesn’t the government support this? That’s a good question and something we ask a lot.”

Slunecka says bio-based ethanol production is still in its infancy: He cites a Canadian plant currently producing 100,000 gallons per year. “It works, it’s not science down the road,” he says. “Private companies are trying to crack the cost barrier. But the feedstock potential is enormous. I can’t wait until these cellulosic plants are bolted onto the front side of traditional ethanol plants.”

Bransby says we need to take action, because we’re in an international competition. “Europe is ahead of everybody in the use of biodiesel, and Brazil is leading the world in the production and use of ethanol. We are behind. I hope that the President’s address indicates that there is going to be a change, but he’s fighting a war in Iraq and trying to recover from two hurricanes. To be quite honest, these alternative fuels are just as important as those other things. It’s all part of national security and needs to be treated with the same priority.”