Save the Planet in Your Own Backyard

Seven Steps to Thinking Globally and Acting Locally

By Jay Walljasper

Welcome to the new world of environmentalism. We think of greens rallying to protect rainforests, coral reefs, deserts and other distant yet critical ecosystems. But that’s just one aspect of protecting the planet. Many activists are now working close to home, too, joining up with neighbors to restore and preserve their own communities.

These new environmentalists make streets safe so children can walk to school. They lobby for sidewalks and benches and neighborhood parks. They transform outdated shopping malls into neighborhood centers complete with housing and lively public squares, sidewalk cafés and convenient transit stops.

You find them everywhere from Hollywood, where the Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative turned a forlorn northern bus stop into the gateway for a vital urban village, to Philadelphia, where a gang-infested stretch of vacant lots in West Kensington was transformed into community gardens. This kind of down-home activism ultimately preserves wild places at the same time it revitalizes urban and suburban communities. Improving quality of life in neighborhoods means people feel less urge to abandon existing communities for brand-new homes in sprawling subdivisions carved out of forest, marsh, desert or farmland. And neighborhood environmentalists’ efforts to reduce traffic and renovate existing homes and infrastructure make substantial contributions to halting global warming and minimizing energy use.

Jonathan Porritt, former head of the British Green Party and now a leading advocate for sustainable business, declares, “Most people think the environment is everything that happens outside our lives. We need to acknowledge that the environment is rooted in our sense of place: it is our homes, our streets, our neighborhoods, our communities.”

Thinking globally and working locally has long been a mantra for the environmental movement. To join this emerging movement, look around your neighborhood to see what places—parks, gathering spots, natural amenities, quiet nooks, play areas, walking routes, commercial centers—could be protected or regenerated. Think about what changes could be made to reduce pollution and environmental degradation. Here are a few ideas for you to get started in bringing the green movement home.

1) Team up with your neighbors

When you get a half dozen or so heads together—especially folks who are united by a commitment to the place they live—there’s no limit to what can be accomplished. This principle has been proven in neighborhood after neighborhood as people join forces to spruce up, clean up and green up their communities.

The idea of forming Eco Teams—five to 10 households taking steps together to live more ecologically— has taken root globally with more than 40,000 people in 18 countries joining with their neighborhoods to make a difference.

Jennifer Olson and Per Kielland-Lund, who joined one of the eco-teams sponsored by government agencies and local businesses in Madison, Wisconsin, enthuse, “We were able to implement many changes in our daily lives that we wanted to…It feels good to be part of the solution and not only the problem.”

In Golden, Colorado, a dozen people from the Harmony Village community meet monthly over breakfast to explore local and environmental issues. Member Dan Chiras, who hosts the discussions in his kitchen, says the group proposed that “residents install solar panels on the roofs of their homes, and that the village use energy-efficient compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs in outdoor fixtures. They routinely write letters to politicians, and recently saved a nearby piece of land that was slated for development.”

More than 100 residents of the Boundary Street neighborhood in Portland, Oregon, have become in-volved in a project to restore native plants along the banks of a local creek. “We’ve tapped into neighborhood expertise—one guy has a Ph.D. in biology,” notes Dick Roy, one of the leaders of the restoration project. “We’ve taken advantage of all the good energy to make our neighborhood more environmentally stable.”

2) Think globally, eat locally

Mealtime in modern society raises a host of serious environmental, social and nutritional issues. The vegetables on our plates may have traveled more than a thousand miles across the country and the fruit halfway around the world, while our meat and dairy products were likely produced at a factory farm. Each bite we take was probably doused with pesticides, antibiotics or preservatives along the way, and massive amounts of fossil fuels were burned in growing and transporting the food to our table. And, of course, packaged food shipped from far away never tastes as good as a meal made from locally grown ingredients. Happily, the last few years have seen a boom in local, organic foods. Whether it’s from a backyard garden, a public market, a community-supported agriculture program, or truck farmers in the area, local food nourishes our souls as well as our stomachs.

Young community gardeners affiliated with the Project for Public Spaces work the plots in Minnestrista, Indiana

The People’s Grocery in Oakland, California, is a literal moveable feast—a portable market that brings healthy, homegrown food to community centers, schools and senior citizen centers in poor neighborhoods. Panorama City, California, a largely immigrant suburb northeast of Los Angeles, has transformed an old shopping center into a Mercado-style market as a lively alternative to a Wal-Mart across the road.

In some places, it’s not just farmers coming to town but farms. Enterprising gardeners are moving onto many of Detroit’s abandoned tracts of land, producing everything from salad fixings and eggs to alfalfa and goat’s milk. In Burlington, Vermont, six percent of all fresh produce consumed in this northern city is grown at a 260-acre organic farm that’s inside the city limits. The former junkyard has been reclaimed by the nonprofit Intervale Center as a showcase of what’s possible with urban agriculture.

3) Become a guerrilla gardener

Remember Johnny Appleseed—the legendary horticulturist who roamed the countryside sowing seeds across the prairie that later grew into bountiful apple trees? You can play that same role in your community by planting flowers and even vegetables in vacant spots. Mother Nature has a remarkable way of repopulating empty lands, and you can nudge her along by tossing a few seeds through the chain links in a fenced-off property, planting some wild roses in a drab median strip or growing vegetables alongside a local business that doesn’t bother with landscaping.

Some green-thumbed New Yorkers went even further by planting gardens in waste lands. The Clinton Community Garden, now a lovely oasis in the heart of the once-infamous Hell’s Kitchen district, began when a group of 48th Street residents noticed tomato plants growing out of the rubble on a vacant, neglected lot. The neighbors rented the city-owned property through a special program, cleared the area and built paths out of bricks found on the site. A serene public garden was created in the front while the back portion of the lot was parceled out to residents who wanted to tend their own vegetables and flowers.

Today, the Clinton Garden enlists scores of volunteers to plan and care for the herb garden, rose beds, grape arbor, rock garden, Native American medicinal plants, beehive, lawn, shrubbery, trees, paths and a special display of more than 100 plant species indigenous to New York. The garden is open to the public from dawn to dusk and hosts picnics, pot luck suppers, chamber music concerts, gardening classes, herb workshops, a harvest celebration, art festivals, many birthday parties and a citywide Summer Solstice celebration.

4) Transform your neighborhood into a village

Farm-fresh produce from the Cathedral Square Market in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

One of the worst environmental disasters to hit America was the idea that homes, shops and workplaces should be strictly segregated from one another. The sad legacy of this “single-use zoning” means that driving a car is now necessary to fulfill even the most fundamental human activity such as buying a loaf of bread or going to school.

As anxiety mounts about climate change, pollution, diminishing resources, proliferating sprawl, rising gas prices, and our expanding waistlines, it only makes sense to arrange our lives so we can meet many of our daily needs without climbing into a car. That was the natural pattern of human settlement for all of history until the suburban boom of the 1950s.

Good neighborhoods all over the world, in big cities and small towns, function as villages. Celebrated architect Andres Duany defines a village as a place where many of the needs of daily life (grocery, school, café, hardware store, park, childcare center, transit stop and perhaps an ice cream shop, library or video store) are within a five-minute walk of home.

Along with his wife Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk and other leading architects, Duany launched the New Urbanist architectural movement. Over the past 15 years, New Urbanism has begun to change the face of North America as successful suburban and urban developments in nearly every state prove people’s desire to live in walkable communities.

An even bigger trend breathing new life into neighborhoods and easing the strain on the environment is the return of local shopping districts. What were once soda fountains and haberdasheries, and later vacant storefronts or makeshift apartments, have been reborn as restaurants and stores once again. Entrepreneurs, many of them recent immigrants or young people, are leading this charge to revitalize commercial streets in inner cities and inner suburbs coast-to-coast.

5) Imagine your neighborhood with half the traffic

What would your neighborhood look like if people were valued over automobiles? Cars, after all, are the biggest source of environmental problems in modern society, according to researchers at the Union of Concerned Scientists. In their handbook The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices, they write, “Alas, many of the things that cause the most damage are pretty fundamental to the American middle-class way of life. Nowhere is that fact more evident than in our reliance on the automobile.”

One of the most interesting thinkers taking on the car question is David Engwicht, a former seminary student and window washer who began looking at transportation in new ways after hearing about plans to widen a road near his home in a suburb of Brisbane, Australia. He attended a public meeting inclined to think widening was a good idea, but changed his mind after hearing neighbors’ stories about how increased traffic would disrupt their lives and diminish the sense of neighborliness.

Writing a pamphlet outlining his thoughts and later the book Reclaiming our Streets and Towns, he suddenly found himself an international spokesman for the idea of “traffic calming”—a new invention to tame reckless motorists by making physical changes to streets that force drivers to slow down and pay more attention to pedestrians. The aim is to give drivers a visual reminder that they must share the street with people—on foot, on bicycles, in wheelchairs and in baby strollers. Speed bumps, narrowed streets, stop signs, brightly painted crosswalks, on-street parking, median strips down the middle of streets, bans on right turns at red lights, crosswalks raised a few inches above the roadway, and curbs that extend into intersections all help make the streets safer and more pleasant for pedestrians.

Engwicht’s ultimate goal is to reduce the volume of traffic in our communities by as much as 50 percent, as well as reducing its speed. He weaves a compelling (if fanciful) vision of the future, prophesizing that in 30 years people will still use cars, but most likely as part of co-ops where several households share one vehicle. Cafés, groceries, bakeries, shops, and small parks will pop up in the middle of what today are residential streets.

“The front yards will become the center of social life,” he says, “as people...enjoy each other’s company, with plenty of time to relax, reflect and play. If you’re going somewhere by car you’ll feel that you’re missing out on so much. ”

6) Cut down on your driving

For most Americans, life without a car is unimaginable. Still, according to the U.S. census, a surprisingly high number of households manage without owning one: 58 percent New York City, 56 percent Washington, D.C., 37 percent Philadelphia, 36 percent Boston, 35 percent Pittsburgh, 30 percent Chicago, 29 percent San Francisco

A Denver neighborhood built on a brownfield site includes apartments, offices and transit.

In these households, people generally get more exercise, feel healthier, know their neighbors better, and have money left over in the household budget for vacations, special purchases and savings. If you live in an area with adequate public transit or good walking conditions, you might consider a car-free life. Even the occasional splurges on a taxi or rental cars will seem a pittance compared to what you would spend every month in auto payments, gas, repairs, licenses and insurance.

Of course, 100 years of all-for-the-auto urban planning makes it hard for some of us to simply forsake cars. Yet every one of us could easily drive less. On average, U.S. households make more than 12 separate automobile trips a day. You might be surprised how many of your travels could be done on bike, foot or bus. Instead of driving to the gym to exercise, for in-stance, take up running, walking or biking around the neighborhood. Save up your errands and do them on just one trip rather than a dozen.

Car-sharing programs can also reduce your dependence on autos, letting you get by with one or none until that moment when you must pick up a sick child at school, cart home some heavy item or journey out to the country on a Sunday afternoon. In the Norwood-Quince neighborhood of Boulder, Colorado, 40 people have joined a car-sharing club that rents cars by the hour. There are now 17 carsharing programs in U.S. cities with 100,000 members in total, mostly in big cities but also in places as small as Fort Wayne, Indiana; Nevada City, California; and Rutledge, Missouri (population: 103).

7) Save the Earth by enlivening your neighborhood

One of the most widespread myths about our environment is that living “close to nature” out in the country or in a leafy suburb is the best “green” lifestyle. Cities, on the other hand, are usually viewed as a major cause of ecological destruction—artificial, crowded places that suck up precious resources. Nothing could be further from the truth. The pattern of life in the country and most suburbs usually involves long hours in the automobile each week, burning fuel and spewing exhaust. City dwellers, on the other hand, have the option of walking or taking transit. The larger yards and houses found in suburbs and rural areas also extract an environmental toll in energy, water and land use.

Activists working to preserve natural places, such as the Cascade Land Conservancy in Washington State, now make this a focus of their environmental work. Gene Duvernoy, the group’s president, presents a powerful slide show of the projected expansion of sprawl in the Seattle area to local groups.

He drives home the point that if people don’t feel excited about the places they live, then suburban development will continue its destructive march. Ron Sher, a sustainable developer in Seattle who has worked with Cascade Land Conservancy says, “We can’t force people to live in cities if they don’t want to. So we must make our neighborhoods compact, congenial, comfortable places where people want to live.”

The problem is that almost everyone can readily point to a place where compact, dense development was not done right. And in nearly every case, what bothers us is not the density of human beings but the density of cars. Put pedestrians first with good walkways and a landscape that is human-scaled, and you’ll have a neighborhood that will appeal to all kinds of people. It’s worth noting that the places people dream of visiting on vacation—European cities, picturesque small towns, even Disneyland once you’re inside the gates—are perfect examples of compact development.

Ugly high-rise buildings are the other reason the mere mention of the word “density” strikes fear in the heart of many neighborhood residents. And the truth is, most high-rises built over the past 50 years deserve that disdain. They suck all the life up from the street with sterile service entrances, huge garage doors and dull parking lots, leaving a dense but dead neighborhood below.

But look to Vancouver, British Columbia, where high-rise architecture has been reinvented over the last several decades. The city is full of handsome buildings that touch the ground in a respectful, attractive way that adds to, rather than subtracts from, existing street life. The high-rises also taper as they ascend upward, allowing in more sky and sunshine.

The city of Chicago shows that urban density is not incompatible with the green American dream. Three million people live there in a surprisingly small geographic footprint. Outside of the notorious public housing projects (many of which have been, or are being, torn down) and a narrow stretch of high rises on the lakefront, the overwhelming majority of Chicagoans live in single-family bungalows and comfortable low-rise apartment buildings surrounded by lawns. This helps explains why the Windy City gains more attention every day for its lively, green, livable neighborhoods. And one of the area’s most up-and-coming neighborhoods is the next-door suburb of Berwyn, which has a population density higher than the city itself with hardly any high rises.

These are not radical ideas, and the public is usually supportive—once they’re implemented. The congestion charging plan for London (commuters pay $8 to enter the city during the work day) initially inspired heated opposition, but as traffic eased up so did the naysayers. Today, London’s congestion district is being expanded, and New York City may follow suit, though Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed congestion tax stalled in the state legislature. Should the law pass, the result would be a friendlier, more walkable New York with the added benefit of cleaner air.

JAY WALLJASPER is executive editor of Ode magazine and a senior fellow at Project for Public Spaces, a nonprofit group helping citizens improve their communities. This piece was adapted from The Great Neighborhood Book (New Society Publishers).

The power of prayer...

A Catastrophe Foretold
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times

Friday 26 October 2007

"Increased subprime lending has been associated with higher levels of delinquency, foreclosure and, in some cases, abusive lending practices." So declared Edward M. Gramlich, a Federal Reserve official.

These days a lot of people are saying things like that about subprime loans - mortgages issued to buyers who don't meet the normal financial criteria for a home loan. But here's the thing: Mr. Gramlich said those words in May 2004.

And it wasn't his first warning. In his last book, Mr. Gramlich, who recently died of cancer, revealed that he tried to get Alan Greenspan to increase oversight of subprime lending as early as 2000, but got nowhere.

So why was nothing done to avert the subprime fiasco?

Before I try to answer that question, there are a few things you should know.

First, the situation for both borrowers and investors looks increasingly dire.

A new report from Congress's Joint Economic Committee predicts that there will be two million foreclosures on subprime mortgages by the end of next year. That's two million American families facing the humiliation and financial pain of losing their homes.

At the same time, investors who bought assets backed by subprime loans are continuing to suffer severe losses. Everything suggests that there will be many more stories like that of Merrill Lynch, which has just announced an $8.4 billion write-down because of bad loans - $3 billion more than it had announced just a few weeks earlier.

Second, much if not most of the subprime lending that is now going so catastrophically bad took place after it was clear to many of us that there was a serious housing bubble, and after people like Mr. Gramlich had issued public warnings about the subprime situation. As late as 2003, subprime loans accounted for only 8.5 percent of the value of mortgages issued in this country. In 2005 and 2006, the peak years of the housing bubble, subprime was 20 percent of the total - and the delinquency rates on recent subprime loans are much higher than those on older loans.

So, once again, why was nothing done to head off this disaster? The answer is ideology.

In a paper presented just before his death, Mr. Gramlich wrote that "the subprime market was the Wild West. Over half the mortgage loans were made by independent lenders without any federal supervision." What he didn't mention was that this was the way the laissez-faire ideologues ruling Washington - a group that very much included Mr. Greenspan - wanted it. They were and are men who believe that government is always the problem, never the solution, that regulation is always a bad thing.

Unfortunately, assertions that unregulated financial markets would take care of themselves have proved as wrong as claims that deregulation would reduce electricity prices.

As Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, put it in a recent op-ed article in The Boston Globe, the surge of subprime lending was a sort of "natural experiment" testing the theories of those who favor radical deregulation of financial markets. And the lessons, as Mr. Frank said, are clear: "To the extent that the system did work, it is because of prudential regulation and oversight. Where it was absent, the result was tragedy."

In fact, both borrowers and investors got scammed.

I've written before about the way investors in securities backed by subprime loans were assured that they were buying AAA assets, only to suddenly find that what they really owned were junk bonds. This shock has produced a crisis of confidence in financial markets, which poses a serious threat to the economy.

But the greater tragedy is the one facing borrowers who were offered what they were told were good deals, only to find themselves in a debt trap.

In his final paper, Mr. Gramlich stressed the extent to which unregulated lending is prone to the "abusive lending practices" he mentioned in his 2004 warning. The fact is that many borrowers are ill-equipped to make judgments about "exotic" loans, like subprime loans that offer a low initial "teaser" rate that suddenly jumps after two years, and that include prepayment penalties preventing the borrowers from undoing their mistakes.

Yet such loans were primarily offered to those least able to evaluate them. "Why are the most risky loan products sold to the least sophisticated borrowers?" Mr. Gramlich asked. "The question answers itself - the least sophisticated borrowers are probably duped into taking these products." And "the predictable result was carnage."

Mr. Frank is now trying to push through legislation that extends moderate regulation to the subprime market. Despite the scale of the disaster, he's facing an uphill fight: money still talks in Washington, and the mortgage industry is a huge source of campaign finance. But maybe the subprime catastrophe will be enough to remind us why financial regulation was introduced in the first place.

Still Using Old PC's in the Church
From Ecunet - UCChrist Online Message

Note #42344 from VHCHILD to UCCHRIST CHATTER:

John, I'd be glad to pay for a computer, were it not for my suspicion that a church which is still using an Apple 2, is doing so not because they can't afford anything better, but because they don't see the need for anything better.  And if it meets their needs, well it was a good computer in its day, kinda like that 10 year old HP 6MP we're using in our office.  If it works for us, why replace it?

I say they don't see the need for anything newer, because the Apple 2's been out for over 20 years, and if they'd put away $10 a year for 20 years, they could afford a spiffy new iMac, an add-on modem or Airport router, and the start up costs for DSL.  Heck, if they'd begun to save for a new computer 5 years ago, and had put aside $10 a month, they'd have $600 towards that updated computer.

Don't get me wrong, I know full well that poor churches have to make choices.  I've served enough of them to see that.  I've been poor enough to have made those choices myself from time to time.  I want to see Ecunet remain accessible to the church which will never be able to get anything better than a 25 year old computer, or which lives in a part of the US which has virtually no internet access.  I believe you when you say there are places like that; I doubt however, that there are many of them or that Ecunet works for their needs. And I fear we use their existence as an excuse for refusing to live in the here and now, or to plan for the future.

It all sounds like that refrain I hear so much in my church at this time of the year... we can't talk about money, says the woman who just got back from the cruise on the QE2, because some of our  members are poor and they'll feel unwelcome.  And some of our members _are_ poor.  But if they feel unwelcome it won't be because they are ashamed of their $50 a year pledge -- it'll be because some patronizing twit condescendingly tells them, that's ok, your small gift is welcome too.  

Besides, I strongly suspect the cruise-lady is really afraid that we'll suggest that her $1800 a year pledge is inadequate.  Given that she lives alone in a 3000 sq-foot house worth 3/4 of a million dollars etc etc,it probably is.

Subject: A WEEK AT THE GYM
-Anon-

This is dedicated to everyone who ever attempted to get into a regular workout routine.

Dear Diary,

For my 60th birthday this year, my daughter Rachel (the dear) purchased a week of personal training at the local health club for me. Although I am still in great shape since being a high school football cheerleader 43 years ago, I decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and give it a try.

I called the club and made my reservations with a personal trainer named Belinda, who identified herself as a 26-year-old aerobics instructor and model for athletic clothing and swim wear. My daughter seemed pleased with my enthusiasm to get started! The club encouraged me to keep a diary to chart my progress.

MONDAY :

Started my day at 6:00 a.m. Tough to get out of bed, but found it was well worth it when I arrived at the health club to find Belinda waiting for me. She is something of a Greek goddess - with blond hair, dancing eyes and a dazzling white smile. Woo Hoo!! Belinda gave me a tour and showed me the machines. I enjoyed watching the skillful way in which she conducted her aerobics class after my workout today. Very inspiring! Belinda was encouraging as I did my sit-ups, although my gut was already aching from holding it in the whole time she was around. This is going to be a FANTASTIC week-!!

TUESDAY :

I drank a whole pot of coffee, but I finally made it out the door. Belinda made me lie on my back and push a heavy iron bar into the air - then she put weights on it! My legs were a little wobbly on the treadmill, but I made the full mile. Belinda's rewarding smile made it all worthwhile. I feel GREAT-!! It's a whole new life for me.

WEDNESDAY :

The only way I can brush my teeth is by laying the toothbrush on the counter and moving my mouth back and forth over it. I believe I have a hernia in both pectorals. Driving was OK as long as I didn't try to steer or stop. I parked on top of a GEO in the club parking lot. Belinda was impatient with me, insisting that my screams bothered other club members. Her voice is a little too perky for early in the morning and when she scolds, she gets this nasally whine that is VERY annoying. My chest hurt when I got on the treadmill, so Belinda put me on the stair 'monster'. Why the hell would anyone invent a machine to simulate an activity rendered obsolete by elevators? Belinda told me it would help me get in shape and enjoy life. She said some other shit too.

THURSDAY :

Belinda was waiting for me with her vampire-like teeth exposed as her thin, cruel lips were pulled back in a full snarl. I couldn't help being a half an hour late - it took me that long to tie my shoes. Belinda took me to work out with dumbbells. When she was not looking, I ran and hid in the restroom. She sent another skinny bitch to find me. Then, as punishment, she put me on the rowing machine - which I sank.

FRIDAY :

I hate that bitch Belinda more than any human being has ever hated any other human being in the history of the world. Stupid, skinny, anemic, anorexic little cheerleader! If there was a part of my body I could move without unbearable pain, I would beat her with it. Belinda wanted me to work on my triceps. I don't have any triceps! And if you don't want dents in the floor, don't hand me the Damn barbells or anything that weighs more than a sandwich. The treadmill flung me off and I landed on a health and nutrition teacher. Why couldn't it have been someone softer, like the drama coach or the choir director?

SATURDAY :

Belinda left a message on my answering machine in her grating, shrilly voice wondering why I did not show up today. Just hearing her made me want to

smash the machine with my planner. However, I lacked the strength to even use the TV remote and ended up catching 11 straight hours of the Weather Channel.

SUNDAY :

I'm having the Church van pick me up for services today so I can go and thank GOD that this week is over. I will also pray that next year my daughter Rachel (the little snot) will choose a gift for me that is fun - like a root canal or a hysterectomy. I still say if God had wanted me to bend over, he would have sprinkled the floor with diamonds!!!

The Great Wall of America...
By Rubén Martínez - L.A. Times
October 17, 2007

The Great Wall of America underscores a delusional faith in technology as the only solution to a problem that has nothing to do with technology. Ultimately, such Ozymandian monuments say more about the minds that conceived them than any "enemies" they actually contain. Think of the grandiose barriers of history -- the walls of Troy, and China and Berlin; the wall that kept the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. Think of their fate, their ultimate symbolism. Each began with the idea that people -- and their ideas -- could be restrained by barriers, just like rivers can be dammed. A simple feat of engineering. And yet we believe that our wall will be the exception. ...

Note: The simplest mind can grasp the reality that the US southern border is 1,950 miles long, on land. The northern border is even longer. The present cost of a border-mile is approximately $4 million. As the French learned in the 1940's, the "impenetrable Maginot line" had one glaring fault: "It was, in fact, half a line. It covered the French-German frontier, but not the French-Belgian. In 1940, the Germans simply went around it. They invaded Belgium on May 10, crossed the Somme River, and on May 12 struck at Sedan, the French city at the northern end of the Maginot Line. German tanks and planes broke through the supposedly impassable Ardennes terrain, and continued to the rear of the Maginot Line, making it useless."

Even if America were to create a wall between Mexico and the US, and between Canada and the US on intersecting land at a cost of some $20-30 billion dollars in initial costs, there would be no coverage for the several thousand miles of coastal land on the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf Coasts. As the African refugees from Mozambique aptly demonstrate, human migration landlines can be converted to sea lines if that is what is required to escape to a better world. Even if we could build "Fortress America" the management, staffing, and maintenance requirements of the Wall would be horrendous.

And then there would be the problem of the "Walled City", which has a highly negative place in the history books.

Gore Derangement Syndrome

By Paul Krugman
The New York Times
Monday 15 October 2007

On the day after Al Gore shared the Nobel Peace Prize, The Wall Street Journal's editors couldn't even bring themselves to mention Mr. Gore's name. Instead, they devoted their editorial to a long list of people they thought deserved the prize more.

And at National Review Online, Iain Murray suggested that the prize should have been shared with "that well-known peace campaigner Osama bin Laden, who implicitly endorsed Gore's stance." You see, bin Laden once said something about climate change - therefore, anyone who talks about climate change is a friend of the terrorists.

What is it about Mr. Gore that drives right-wingers insane?

Partly it's a reaction to what happened in 2000, when the American people chose Mr. Gore but his opponent somehow ended up in the White House. Both the personality cult the right tried to build around President Bush and the often hysterical denigration of Mr. Gore were, I believe, largely motivated by the desire to expunge the stain of illegitimacy from the Bush administration.

And now that Mr. Bush has proved himself utterly the wrong man for the job - to be, in fact, the best president Al Qaeda's recruiters could have hoped for - the symptoms of Gore derangement syndrome have grown even more extreme.

The worst thing about Mr. Gore, from the conservative point of view, is that he keeps being right. In 1992, George H. W. Bush mocked him as the "ozone man," but three years later the scientists who discovered the threat to the ozone layer won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In 2002 he warned that if we invaded Iraq, "the resulting chaos could easily pose a far greater danger to the United States than we presently face from Saddam." And so it has proved.

But Gore hatred is more than personal. When National Review decided to name its anti-environmental blog Planet Gore, it was trying to discredit the message as well as the messenger. For the truth Mr. Gore has been telling about how human activities are changing the climate isn't just inconvenient. For conservatives, it's deeply threatening.

Consider the policy implications of taking climate change seriously.

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals," said F.D.R. "We know now that it is bad economics." These words apply perfectly to climate change. It's in the interest of most people (and especially their descendants) that somebody do something to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, but each individual would like that somebody to be somebody else. Leave it up to the free market, and in a few generations Florida will be underwater.

The solution to such conflicts between self-interest and the common good is to provide individuals with an incentive to do the right thing. In this case, people have to be given a reason to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions, either by requiring that they pay a tax on emissions or by requiring that they buy emission permits, which has pretty much the same effects as an emissions tax. We know that such policies work: the U.S. "cap and trade" system of emission permits on sulfur dioxide has been highly successful at reducing acid rain.

Climate change is, however, harder to deal with than acid rain, because the causes are global. The sulfuric acid in America's lakes mainly comes from coal burned in U.S. power plants, but the carbon dioxide in America's air comes from coal and oil burned around the planet - and a ton of coal burned in China has the same effect on the future climate as a ton of coal burned here. So dealing with climate change not only requires new taxes or their equivalent; it also requires international negotiations in which the United States will have to give as well as get.

Everything I've just said should be uncontroversial - but imagine the reception a Republican candidate for president would receive if he acknowledged these truths at the next debate. Today, being a good Republican means believing that taxes should always be cut, never raised. It also means believing that we should bomb and bully foreigners, not negotiate with them.

So if science says that we have a big problem that can't be solved with tax cuts or bombs - well, the science must be rejected, and the scientists must be slimed. For example, Investor's Business Daily recently declared that the prominence of James Hansen, the NASA researcher who first made climate change a national issue two decades ago, is actually due to the nefarious schemes of - who else? - George Soros.

Which brings us to the biggest reason the right hates Mr. Gore: in his case the smear campaign has failed. He's taken everything they could throw at him, and emerged more respected, and more credible, than ever. And it drives them crazy.

Most fake bombs missed by screeners

By Thomas Frank, USA TODAY - Nov. 18, 2007

WASHINGTON — Security screeners at two of the nation's busiest airports failed to find fake bombs hidden on undercover agents posing as passengers in more than 60% of tests last year, according to a classified report obtained by USA TODAY.

Screeners at Los Angeles International Airport missed about 75% of simulated explosives and bomb parts that Transportation Security Administration testers hid under their clothes or in carry-on bags at checkpoints, the TSA report shows.

At Chicago O'Hare International Airport, screeners missed about 60% of hidden bomb materials that were packed in everyday carry-ons — including toiletry kits, briefcases and CD players. San Francisco International Airport screeners, who work for a private company instead of the TSA, missed about 20% of the bombs, the report shows.

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Lake Lanier has three months of water storage left

By STACY SHELTON
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 10/11/07

Lake Sidney Lanier, metro Atlanta's main source of water, has about three months of storage left, according to state and federal officials.

That's three months before there's not enough water for more than 3 million metro Atlantans to take showers, flush their toilets and cook. Three months before there's not enough water in parts of the Chattahoochee River for power plants to make the steam necessary to generate electricity. Three months before part of the river runs dry.

"We've never experienced this situation before," state Environmental Protection Division Director Carol Couch said of the record-breaking drought and fast-falling lake.

In two weeks, Couch plans to give Gov. Sonny Perdue a list of options to further restrict water use by businesses and industries, along with an analysis of potential water savings and estimated job losses. Some exemptions to the state's ban on outdoor watering in north Georgia could end, including those applied to water-dependent businesses such as car washes, pressure washing companies and landscapers. Couch's staff is still working on the details.

She said she fully expects an economic hit if substantial rain doesn't fall soon and the emergency actions are taken.

"There has to be a balance between determining how much water we can conserve against how much lost jobs and lost economy there is," Couch said. "You don't do that lightly."

Landscapers already have suffered. Days after the outdoor ban was ordered Sept. 28, Mary Kay Woodworth of the Urban Agriculture Council trade group said landscapers' phones around the region stopped ringing. "Immediately, employees were laid off. Contracts waiting on signatures — from $3,000 jobs to $150,000 installations — were canceled."

Other heavy water users are considering their options. A Pepsico Inc. plant that produces Gatorade, which is the biggest water user in the city of Atlanta, is figuring out ways to cut down further on its use in the next 30 days. Coca-Cola is waiting to see what restrictions might be imposed at its Atlanta syrup plant, but has already cut back as part of a corporate water conservation plan.

Some water providers are asking big users like manufacturers to voluntarily cut back and are making emergency plans to install equipment to pump water from unprecedented depths of Lanier and the Chattahoochee.

Fate depends on Corps

How bad things could get depends on rain, and the forecast is not promising. October is normally the year's driest month, and climatologists say another dry, warm winter is ahead.

Metro Atlanta's water fate also depends largely on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency that owns and operates Buford Dam and the 38,000-acre lake that sits behind it, bordered by Gwinnett, Hall and Forysth Counties. This month, the Corps has released from Lanier more than four times as much water as flows in from the Chattahoochee and other feeder streams.

AT&T Class Action

EFF's Class Action Lawsuit Against AT&T for Collaboration with the Illegal Domestic Spying Program The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a class-action lawsuit against AT&T on January 31, 2006, accusing the telecom giant of violating the law and the privacy of its customers by collaborating with the National Security Agency (NSA) in its massive, illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans' communications. On July 20, 2006, a federal judge denied the government's and AT&T's motions to dismiss the case, allowing the lawsuit to go forward

Former Top General in Iraq Faults Bush Administration

Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, then the top American commander in Iraq, in Baghdad in 2004.

By DAVID S. CLOUD

Published: October 12, 2007

WASHINGTON, Oct. 12— In a sweeping indictment of the four-year effort in Iraq, the former top American commander called the Bush administration’s handling of the war incompetent and warned that the United States was “living a nightmare with no end in sight.”

In one of his first major public speeches since leaving the Army in late 2006, retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez blamed the administration for a “catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan” and denounced the current “surge” strategy as a “desperate” move that will not achieve long-term stability.

“After more than fours years of fighting, America continues its desperate struggle in Iraq without any concerted effort to devise a strategy that will achieve victory in that war-torn country or in the greater conflict against extremism,” Mr. Sanchez said, at a gathering here of military reporters and editors.

General Sanchez is the most senior in a string of retired generals to harshly criticize the administration’s conduct of the war. Asked following his remarks why he waited nearly a year after his retirement to outline his views, he responded that that it was not the place of active duty officers to challenge lawful orders from civilian authorities. General Sanchez, who is said to be considering a book, promised further public statements criticizing officials by name.

“There was been a glaring and unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders,” he said, adding later in his remarks that civilian officials have been “derelict in their duties” and guilty of a “lust for power.”

The White House had no initial comment.

But his role as commander in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal leaves General Sanchez vulnerable to criticism that that he is shifting the blame from himself and exacting revenge against an administration that replaced him as the top commander in the aftermath of the scandal and declined to nominate him for a fourth star, forcing his retirement.

Though he was cleared of wrongdoing in the abuse matter by an Army investigation, he nonetheless became a symbol, along with officials like L. Paul Bremer III , the chief administrator in Iraq, of the ineffective American leadership early in the occupation.

Questioned by reporters after his speech, he included the military and himself among those who made mistakes in Iraq, citing the failure to insist on a better post-invasion stabilization plan.

But his main criticism was leveled at the Bush administration, which he said he said has failed to mobilize the entire United States government, other than the military, to contribute meaningfully to reconstructing and stabilizing Iraq.

“National leadership continues to believe that victory can be achieved by military power alone,” he said. “Continued manipulations and adjustments to our military strategy will not achieve victory. The best we can do with this flawed approach is stave off defeat.”

Asked after his remarks what strategy he favored, General Sanchez ticked off a series of steps — from promoting reconciliation among Iraq’s warring sectarian factions to building effective Iraqi army and police units — that closely paralleled the list of tasks frequently cited by the Bush administration.

But he said that the administration had failed to craft a detailed strategy for achieving those steps that went beyond the use of military force.

“The administration, Congress and the entire inter-agency, especially the State Department, must shoulder responsibility for the catastrophic failure, and the American people must hold them accountable,” General Sanchez said.

Here's your sign: Fla. county's shoplifters do public penance

Posted 11h 11m ago

By Ron Word, Associated Press

PALATKA, Fla. — Reshane Lewis wasn't happy, sweat dripping from her face as she paraded outside the courthouse here carrying a sign reading: "I stole from a local store."

The sun beat down. For two hours, Lewis carried the red and white sign back and forth, her probation officer watching. Passersby and court employees mostly ignored her.

"It is better than going to jail, but it's not fair," said Lewis, who says she was arrested in a Wal-Mart last December for being the lookout while a friend took children clothes.

Putnam County Judge Peter Miller has sentenced Lewis and more than 600 other people to carry signs at the courthouse or outside victimized stores over the past dozen years, part of his standard punishment for shoplifting.

He is one of several judges around the country who believe unusual sentences, usually some form of public penitence, work. The company that administers Putnam County's probation system says that only three of Miller's sign carriers have repeated their offense.

Church Bullies - by Mark S.
via Ecunet: Nov. 11th, 2007

"I have had 'bullies' go underground as well. One of my favorite phrases is to mention before or after worship that "the parking lot Council has..." and let's those who gossip realize that they are not as secretive as they think. I have also preached on John 3:20 ff about how evil does not like the light of Christ and if you cannot confront a person directly then you must be hiding something?

I know that many churches have 'bullies'. when a church grows from being a matriarchal - patriarchal congregation to a more pastor led congregation the M/P have a difficult time since they are no longer the kingpins in communications and events. Then turf battles begin and bullies appear.

Another point for bullies is to confront them directly and ask them 'what is a church?' or 'what is the church about?' Often times the bullies function well when a church sees itself as a "social/country club" forgetting the mission of the gospel. Two weeks ago my bullie pronounced loud enough for two young new mothers to hear a damning question... "are we the church for single mothers now?" Once again someone had to remind him that "no matter who you are... or where you are in life's journey... you are welcome."

Sometimes it is a dirty difficult job and I think I am losing my mind... but thanks to some excellent supportive friends, churchmembers who want the church to be mission minded... and my loving understanding supportive wife... I find the strength and guidance to Pastor to these 'bullies' and yet not let them control and/or intimidate me. I am called to my life's journey of being a Pastor... I am a professional... and I do not tolerate closed and/or narrow-minded people.

I pray strength for all of my colleagues who are under fire and hope that my story is helpful."

Where's the noise coming from?
(A quick search on Google for each person)
George W. Bush - 126,000,000 entries
Rudolph Guiliani - 16,600,000 entries
Hillary Clinton - 13,700,000 entries
Barack Obama - 3,090,000 entries
Mitt Romney - 2,540,000 entries
<------------------------------------->
Ann Coulter - 15,300,000 entries
Rush Limbaugh - 11,200,000 entries
Sean Hannity - 3,480,000
Bill O'Reilly - 2,210,000
Right Wing Subtotal: 32,190,000

Al Franken - 2,230,000
Stephen Colbert - 2,000,000
Keith Olbermann - 1,770,000
Arianna Huffington - 1,230,000
Left Wing Subtotal: 7,230,000

Total Broadcast TV Viewers: Nielsen - Sept 2007
CBS: 11.41 million (- 9)
ABC: 10.78 million (- 4)
NBC: 9.24 million (- 7)
Fox: 7.01 million (-10)
CW: 2.91 million (-18)
Total Broadcast TV Viewers: 41,350,000

Newspaper Circulation:
USA Today - 2,528,000
Wall Street Journal - 2,058,000
N.Y. Times - 1,683,000

Magazine Subscriptions:
1 AARP THE MAGAZINE 22,675,655
2 AARP BULLETIN 22,075,011
3 READER'S DIGEST 10,111,773
4 TV GUIDE 8,211,581
5 BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS 7,620,932
6 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC*** 5,403,934
7 GOOD HOUSEKEEPING 4,634,763
8 FAMILY CIRCLE 4,296,370
9 LADIES' HOME JOURNAL 4,122,460
10 WOMAN'S DAY 4,048,799
Total Top Ten Magazine Subscription - 93,197,000

: Miles Mogulescu

"Why Not Single Payer?" A Response to Paul Krugman and the Leading Democratic Presidential Contenders. Part 1.

Posted October 10, 2007 | 03:10 AM (EST)

US Embassy opening in Baghdad delayed indefinitely

09 Oct 2007 19:26:31 GMT

Source: Reuters

Alert Me | Print

| Email this article | RSS

By Sue Pleming WASHINGTON, Oct 9 (Reuters) - The opening of the mammoth new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has been delayed indefinitely while its Kuwaiti contractor fixes a punch list of problems, the State Department said on Tuesday. The sprawling complex, whose cost is edging toward $750 million, was set to open last month but U.S. lawmakers say shoddy work by the contractor and poor oversight by the State Department have delayed it. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack rejected claims of inadequate oversight and said there was no indication how long it would be before the new embassy opened.

Tomgram: Dilip Hiro, It's the Oil, Stupid
Tom Dispatch Website: Sept. 27, 2007

Before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, discussion of Iraqi oil was largely taboo in the American mainstream, while the "No Blood for Oil" signs that dotted antiwar demonstrations were generally derisively dismissed as too simpleminded for serious debate. American officials rarely even mentioned the word "oil" in the same sentence with "Iraq." When President Bush referred to Iraqi oil, he spoke only of preserving that country's "patrimony" for its people, a sentiment he and Great Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair emphasized in a statement they issued that lacked either the words "oil" or "energy" just as Baghdad fell: "We reaffirm our commitment to protect Iraq's natural resources, as the patrimony of the people of Iraq, which should be used only for their benefit."

That May, not long after the President declared "major combat" at an end in Iraq, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz did point out the obvious -- that Iraq was a country that "floats on a sea of oil." He also told a Congressional panel: "The oil revenue of that country could bring between 50 and 100 billion dollars over the course of the next two or three years. We're dealing with a country that could really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon."

But his relatively obscure comments, as well as his oil-based miscalculations, passed largely unnoticed in the mainstream. Had Iraq then produced a significant percentage of the globe's toys rather than possessing the planet's third largest oil reserves, the pre-war media would undoubtedly have been chock-a-block full of worried discussions about our children and the coming video drought; on the other hand, that there might have been any significant connections between the motivations of top administration officials planning an invasion and global oil flows or the garrisoning of the oil heartlands of the planet was clearly a laughable thought. It didn't matter that our Vice President, when the CEO of a major energy firm, had worried quite publicly about global energy supplies, that our President had failed in the oil business, and that our national security advisor had once had a Chevron double-hulled oil tanker, the Condoleezza Rice, named in her honor. Now, it turns out that, among the simpleminded was former Federal Reserve head Alan Greenspan.

Middle Eastern expert Dilip Hiro, whose newest book Blood of the Earth: The Battle for the World's Vanishing Oil Resources focuses on oil and blood as well as the recent geopolitics of Iraqi oil (pp. 137-148), considers Greenspan's recent oil statement in the context of the historical record. Tom
<------------------------------------->
How the Bush Administration's Iraqi Oil Grab Went Awry
Greenspan's Oil Claim in Context
By Dilip Hiro

Here is the sentence in The Age of Turbulence, the 531-page memoir of former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan, that caused so much turbulence in Washington last week: "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." Honest and accurate, it had the resonance of the Bill Clinton's election campaign mantra, "It's the economy, stupid." But, finding himself the target of a White House attack -- an administration spokesman labeled his comment, "Georgetown cocktail party analysis" -- Greenspan backtracked under cover of verbose elaboration. None of this, however, made an iota of difference to the facts on the ground.

Here is a prosecutor's brief for the position that "the Iraq War is largely about oil":

The primary evidence indicating that the Bush administration coveted Iraqi oil from the start comes from two diverse but impeccably reliable sources: Paul O'Neill, the Treasury Secretary (2001-2003) under President George W. Bush; and Falah Al Jibury, a well-connected Iraqi-American oil consultant, who had acted as President Ronald Reagan's "back channel" to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein during the Iraq-Iran War of 1980-88. The secondary evidence is from the material that can be found in such publications as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

According to O'Neill's memoirs, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill, written by journalist Ron Suskind and published in 2004, the top item on the agenda of the National Security Council's first meeting after Bush entered the Oval Office was Iraq. That was January 30, 2001, more than seven months before the 9/11 attacks. The next National Security Council (NSC) meeting on February 1st was devoted exclusively to Iraq.

Advocating "going after Saddam" during the January 30 meeting, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, according to O'Neill, "Imagine what the region would look like without Saddam and with a regime that's aligned with U.S. interests. It would change everything in the region and beyond. It would demonstrate what U.S. policy is all about." He then discussed post-Saddam Iraq -- the Kurds in the north, the oil fields, and the reconstruction of the country's economy. (Suskind, p. 85)

Among the relevant documents later sent to NSC members, including O'Neill, was one prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). It had already mapped Iraq's oil fields and exploration areas, and listed American corporations likely to be interested in participating in Iraq's petroleum industry.

Another DIA document in the package, entitled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts," listed companies from 30 countries -- France, Germany, Russia, and Britain, among others -- their specialties and bidding histories. The attached maps pinpointed "super-giant oil field," "other oil field," and "earmarked for production sharing," and divided the basically undeveloped but oil-rich southwest of Iraq into nine blocks, indicating promising areas for future exploration. (Suskind., p. 96)

According to high flying, oil insider Falah Al Jibury, the Bush administration began making plans for Iraq's oil industry "within weeks" of Bush taking office in January 2001. In an interview with the BBC's Newsnight program, which aired on March 17, 2005, he referred to his participation in secret meetings in California, Washington, and the Middle East, where, among other things, he interviewed possible successors to Saddam Hussein.

By January 2003, a plan for Iraqi oil crafted by the State Department and oil majors emerged under the guidance of Amy Myers Jaffe of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. It recommended maintaining the state-owned Iraq National Oil Company, whose origins dated back to 1961 -- but open it up to foreign investment after an initial period in which U.S.-approved Iraqi managers would supervise the rehabilitation of the war-damaged oil infrastructure. The existence of this group would come to light in a report by the Wall Street Journal on March 3, 2003.

Unknown to the architects of this scheme, according to the same BBC Newsnight report, the Pentagon's planners, apparently influenced by powerful neocons in and out of the administration, had devised their own super-secret plan. It involved the sale of all Iraqi oil fields to private companies with a view to increasing output well above the quota set by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) for Iraq in order to weaken, and then destroy, OPEC.

Secondary Evidence

On October 11, 2002 the New York Times reported that the Pentagon already had plans to occupy and control Iraq's oilfields. The next day the Economist described how Americans in the know had dubbed the waterway demarcating the southern borders of Iraq and Iran "Klondike on the Shatt al Arab," while Ahmed Chalabi, head of the U.S.-funded Iraqi National Congress and a neocon favorite, had already delivered this message: "American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi oil -- if he gets to run the show."

On October 30, Oil and Gas International revealed that the Bush administration wanted a working group of 12 to 20 people to (a) recommend ways to rehabilitate the Iraqi oil industry "in order to increase oil exports to partially pay for a possible U.S. military occupation government," (b) consider Iraq's continued membership of OPEC, and (c) consider whether to honor contracts Saddam Hussein had granted to non-American oil companies.

By late October 2002, columnist Maureen Dowd of the New York Times would later reveal, Halliburton, the energy services company previously headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, had prepared a confidential 500-page document on how to handle Iraq's oil industry after an invasion and occupation of Iraq. This was, commented Dowd, "a plan [Halliburton] wrote several months before the invasion of Iraq, and before it got a no-bid contract to implement the plan (and overbill the U.S.)." She also pointed out that a Times' request for a copy of the plan evinced a distinct lack of response from the Pentagon.

In public, of course, the Bush administration built its case for an invasion of Iraq without referring to that country's oil or the fact that it had the third largest reserves of petroleum in the world. But what happened out of sight was another matter. At a secret NSC briefing for the President on February 24, 2003, entitled, "Planning for the Iraqi Petroleum Infrastructure," a State Department economist, Pamela Quanrud, told Bush that it would cost $7-8 billion to rebuild the oil infrastructure, if Saddam decided to blow up his country's oil wells, according to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in his 2004 book, Plan of Attack (pp. 322-323). Quanrud was evidently a member of the State Department group chaired by Amy Myers Jaffe.

When the Anglo-American troops invaded on March 20, 2003, they expected to see oil wells ablaze. Saddam Hussein proved them wrong. Being a staunch nationalist, he evidently did not want to go down in history as the man who damaged Iraq's most precious natural resource.

On entering Baghdad on April 9th, the American troops stood by as looters burned and ransacked public buildings, including government ministries -- except for the Oil Ministry, which they guarded diligently. Within the next few days, at a secret meeting in London, the Pentagon's scheme of the sale of all Iraqi oil fields got a go-ahead in principle.

The Bush administration's assertions that oil was not a prime reason for invading Iraq did not fool Iraqis though. A July 2003 poll of Baghdad residents -- who represented a quarter of the Iraqi national population -- by the London Spectator showed that while 23% believed the reason for the Anglo-American war on Iraq was "to liberate us from dictatorship," twice as many responded, "to get oil". (Cited in Dilip Hiro, Secrets and Lies: Operation "Iraqi Freedom" and After, p. 398.)

As Iraq's principal occupier, the Bush White House made no secret of its plans to quickly dismantle that country's strong public sector. When the first American proconsul, retired General Jay Garner, focused on holding local elections rather than privatizing the country's economic structure, he was promptly sacked.

Hurdles to Oil Privatization Prove Impassable

Garner's successor, L. Paul Bremer III, found himself dealing with Philip Carroll -- former Chief Executive Officer of the American operations of (Anglo-Dutch) Royal Dutch Shell in Houston -- appointed by Washington as the Iraqi oil industry's supreme boss. Carroll decided not to tinker with the industry's ownership and told Bremer so. "There was to be no privatization of Iraqi oil resources or facilities while I was involved," Carroll said in an interview with the BBC's Newsnight program on March 17, 2005.

This was, however, but a partial explanation for why Bremer excluded the oil industry when issuing Order 39 in September 2003 privatizing nearly 200 Iraqi public sector companies and opening them up to 100% foreign ownership. The Bush White House had also realized by then that denationalizing the oil industry would be a blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions which bar an occupying power from altering the fundamental structure of the occupied territory's economy.

There was, as well, the vexatious problem of sorting out the 30 major oil development contracts Saddam's regime had signed with companies based in Canada, China, France, India, Italy, Russia, Spain, and Vietnam. The key unresolved issue was whether these firms had signed contracts with the government of Saddam Hussein, which no longer existed, or with the Republic of Iraq which remained intact.

Perhaps more important was the stand taken by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the senior Shiite cleric in the country and a figure whom the occupying Americans were keen not to alienate. He made no secret of his disapproval of the wholesale privatization of Iraq's major companies. As for the minerals -- oil being the most precious -- Sistani declared that they belonged to the "community," meaning the state. As a religious decree issued by a grand ayatollah, his statement carried immense weight.

Even more effective was the violent reaction of the industry's employees to the rumors of privatization. In his Newsnight interview Jibury said, "We saw an increase in the bombing of oil facilities and pipelines built on the premise that privatization is coming."

In the immediate aftermath of the invasion, much equipment was looted from pipelines, pumping stations, and other oil facilities. By August 2003, four months after American troops entered Baghdad, oil output had only inched up to 1.2 million barrels per day, about two-fifths of the pre-invasion level. The forecasts (or dreams) of American planners' that oil production would jump to 6 million barrels per day by 2010 and easily fund the occupation and reconstruction of the country, were now seen for what they were -- part of the hype disseminated privately by American neocons to sell the idea of invading Iraq to the public.

With the insurgency taking off, attacks on oil pipelines and pumping stations averaged two a week during the second half of 2003. The pipeline connecting a major northern oil field near Kirkuk -- with an export capacity of 550,000-700,000 barrels per day -- to the Turkish port of Ceyhan became inoperative. Soon, the only oil being exported was from fields in the less disturbed, predominately Shiite south of Iraq.

In September 2003, President Bush approached Congress for $2.1 billion to safeguard and rehabilitate Iraq's oil facilities. The resulting Task Force Shield project undertook to protect 340 key installations and 4,000 miles (6,400 km) of oil pipeline. It was not until the spring of 2004 that output again reached the pre-war average of 2.5 million barrels per day -- and that did not hold. Soon enough, production fell again. Iraqi refineries were, by now, producing only two-fifths of the 24 million liters of gasoline needed by the country daily, and so there were often days-long lines at service stations.

Addressing the 26th Oil and Money conference in London on September 21, 2005, Issam Chalabi, who had been an Iraqi oil minister in the late 1980s, referred to the crippling lack of security and the lack of clear laws to manage the industry, and doubted if Iraq could return to the 1979 peak of 3.5 million barrels per day before 2009, if then.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi government found itself dependent on oil revenues for 90% of its income, a record at a time when corruption in its ministries had become rampant. On January 30, 2005, Stuart W. Bowen, the special inspector general appointed by the U.S. occupation authority, reported that almost $9 billion in Iraqi oil revenue, disbursed to the ministries, had gone missing. A subsequent Congressional inspection team reported in May 2006 that Task Force Shield had failed to meet its goals due to "lack of clear management structure and poor accountability", and added that there were "indications of potential fraud" which were being reviewed by the Inspector General.

The endorsement of the new Iraqi constitution by referendum in October 2005 finally killed the prospect of full-scale oil privatization. Article 109 of that document stated clearly that hydrocarbons were "national Iraqi property". That is, oil and gas would remain in the public sector.

In March 2006, three years after the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, the country's petroleum exports were 30% to 40% below pre-invasion levels.

Bush Pushes for Iraq's Flawed Draft Hydrocarbon Law

In February 2007, in line with the constitution, the draft hydrocarbon law the Iraqi government presented to parliament kept oil and gas in the state sector. It also stipulated recreating a single Iraqi National Oil Company that would be charged with doling out oil income to the provinces on a per-capita basis. The Bush administration latched onto that provision to hype the 43-article Iraqi bill as a key to reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites -- since the Sunni areas of Iraq lack hydrocarbons -- and so included it (as did Congress) in its list of "benchmarks" the Iraqi government had to meet.

Overlooked by Washington was the way that particular article, after mentioning revenue-sharing, stated that a separate Federal Revenue Law would be necessary to settle the matter of distribution -- the first draft of which was only published four months later in June.

Far more than revenue sharing and reconciliation, though, what really interested the Bush White House were the mouthwatering incentives for foreign firms to invest in Iraq's hydrocarbon industry contained in the draft law. They promised to provide ample opportunities to America's Oil Majors to reap handsome profits in an oil-rich Iraq whose vast western desert had yet to be explored fully for hydrocarbons. So Bush pressured the Iraqi government to get the necessary law passed before the parliament's vacation in August -- to no avail.

The Bush administration's failure to achieve its short-term objectives does not detract from the overarching fact -- established by the copious evidence marshaled in this article -- that gaining privileged access to Iraqi oil for American companies was a primary objective of the Pentagon's invasion of Iraq.

Dilip Hiro is the author of Secrets and Lies: Operation "Iraqi Freedom" and After, as well as, most recently, Blood of the Earth: The Battle for the World's Vanishing Oil Resources, both published by Nation Books.

EARTHTALK

Week of 10/7/2007

♦ Ask an Environmental Question

♦ Editors, bring EarthTalk to your newspaper or website!

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♦ Spanish Archive (Archivo Español)

Dear EarthTalk: Is it true that some ingredients in common air fresheners can cause health problems?

-- Mike Jaworski, Seattle, WA

Air fresheners are a $1.72 billion industry in the United States. An estimated 75 percent of homes use them regularly. According to a September 2007 report released by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), most common household air fresheners contain potentially noxious chemicals that degrade the quality of indoor air and may even affect hormones and reproductive development, particularly in babies.

As part of its “Clearing the Air” study, NRDC researchers tested 14 brands of common household air fresheners and found that 12 contained chemicals known as phthalates. Only two, Febreze Air Effects and Renuzit Subtle Effects, contained no detectable levels of phthalates. Products testing positive included ones marketed as “all-natural” and “unscented.” None of the brands tested listed phthalates on their labels.

Phthalates are “hormone-disrupting” chemicals that can be particularly dangerous for young children and unborn babies. Like some other man-made chemicals, phthalates can affect normal hormonal processes—those that control brain, nervous and immune system development, reproduction, mental processing and metabolism—by blocking them altogether, throwing off the timing or “mimicking” natural hormones and interacting with cells themselves, with very unhealthy consequences. The State of California notes that five types of phthalates—including one commonly used in air freshener products—are “known to cause birth defects or reproductive harm.”

Despite these issues, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not regulate the use of phthalates or require the labeling of phthalate content on products. Other governments take the phthalate threat more seriously. The European Union forbids the most harmful phthalates in cosmetics or toys, and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to soon sign similar legislation for his state.

NRDC bemoans the fact that the U.S. government does not test air fresheners for safety or require manufacturers to meet specific health standards. “More than anything, our research highlights cracks in our safety system,” says Dr. Gina Solomon, a senior NRCD scientist. “Consumers have a right to know what is put into air fresheners and other everyday products they bring into their homes,” she says, adding that the government should keep a watchful eye on potentially dangerous products.

In conjunction with the study, NRDC—along with the Sierra Club, the Alliance for Healthy Homes and the National Center for Healthy Housing—is petitioning federal agencies to start assessing the risk air fresheners pose to consumers by testing all products now on the market. And NRDC has already begun working directly with some manufacturers to find ways to eliminate phthalates from these products.

NRDC recommends that consumers be selective and purchase only air fresheners that have the least amount of phthalates. Better yet, the group suggests consumers first try to reduce household odors by tending to their root causes or improving ventilation rather than masking them. “The best way to avoid the problem is to simply open a window instead of reaching for one of these cans,” concludes Solomon.

CONTACTS: Natural Resources Defense Council

George Carlin puts cool phrases in the can.

Mythbuntu: Turning Ubuntu Into A DVR System

By Scott Gilbertson

October 08, 2007 | 12:35:42 PMCategories: Linux, software, Television

Mythbuntu has released a new 7.10 beta, based on the Ubuntu 7.10 beta, which features a number of enhancements and new features. Mythbuntu is an Ubuntu derivative optimized for setting up a standalone MythTV DVR system. The project is not part of Canonical, nor is it officially affiliated with Ubuntu.

MythTV is a popular open source DVR solution that works well for converting an old PC system into a DVR box. Mythbuntu allows users familiar with Ubuntu to easily set up a lightweight MythTV installation. Programs not necessary for MythTV, such as OpenOffice, Evolution, and the full Gnome desktop, are omitted from Mythbuntu.

Version 7.10 is still a beta, but the release notes provide the following list of new features:

Xfce based setup. No more openbox, it’s not even installed on the disk
Network Manager included. You can do wifi networks both during and after install with ease.
When quiting mythfrontend, you are brought back to an Xfce desktop. You can administer the machine from here and change all settings.
VNC can be installed from multiple locales on disk
ubuntu-mythtv-frontend isn’t used at all. All sessions are Xfce sessions, but all the benefits from the ubuntu-mythtv-frontend package have been merged into mythbuntu-default-settings
Lots of additional features for mythbuntu-control-centre. Extra administration options, package updates, reloading package lists.
Mythbuntu Installation can be performed directly from an existing Gutsy installation now via Firefox. See http://www.mythbuntu.org/existing-ubuntu for more information.

For more details and complete list of new features and bugfixes, check out the Mythbuntu release notes. If you’d like the give Mythbuntu a try, you can download it from the site or via your favorite bittorrent client.

It's time for you to get off the stage, or go to Vegas...

Dan Rather is right

by Eric Boehlert

The story was true. -- Dan Rather, September 20, 2007

The Myth of AQI
By Andrew Tilghman
The Washington Monthly

October 2007 Issue

n March 2007, a pair of truck bombs tore through the Shiite marketplace in the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar, killing more than 150 people. The blast reduced the ancient city center to rubble, leaving body parts and charred vegetables scattered amid pools of blood. It was among the most lethal attacks to date in the five-year-old Iraq War. Within hours, Iraqi officials in Baghdad had pinned the bombing on al-Qaeda, and news reports from Reuters, the BBC, MSNBC, and others carried those remarks around the world.

An Internet posting by the terrorist group known as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) took credit for the destruction. Within a few days, U.S. Army General David Petraeus publicly blamed AQI for the carnage, accusing the group of trying to foment sectarian violence and ignite a civil war. Back in Washington, pundits latched on to the attack with special interest, as President Bush had previously touted a period of calm in Tal Afar as evidence that the military's retooled counterinsurgency doctrine was working. For days, reporters and bloggers debated whether the attacks signaled a "resurgence" of al-Qaeda in the city.

Yet there's reason to doubt that AQI had any role in the bombing. In the weeks before the attack, sectarian tensions had been simmering after a local Sunni woman told Al Jazeera television that she had been gang-raped by a group of Shiite Iraqi army soldiers. Multiple insurgent groups called for violence to avenge the woman's honor. Immediately after the blast, some in uniform expressed doubts about al-Qaeda's alleged role and suggested that homegrown sectarian strife was more likely at work. "It's really not al-Qaeda who has infiltrated so much as the fact [of] what happened in 2003," said Ahmed Hashim, a professor at the Naval War College who served as an Army political adviser to the 3rd Cavalry Regiment in Tal Afar until shortly before the bombing. "The formerly dominant Sunni Turkmen majority there," he told PBS's NewsHour With Jim Lehrer soon after the bombing, "suddenly ... felt themselves having been thrown out of power. And this is essentially their revenge."

A week later, Iraqi security forces raided a home outside Tal Afar andarrested two men suspected of orchestrating the bombing. Yet when the U.S. military issued a press release about the arrests, there was no mention of an al-Qaeda connection. The suspects were never formally charged, and nearly six months later neither the U.S. military nor Iraqi police are certain of the source of the attacks. In recent public statements, the military has backed off its former allegations that al-Qaeda was responsible, instead asserting, as Lieutenant Colonel Michael Donnelly wrote in response to an inquiry from the Washington Monthly, that "the tactics used in this attack are consistent with al-Qaeda."

This scenario has become common. After a strike, the military rushes to point the finger at al-Qaeda, even when the actual evidence remains hazy and an alternative explanation—raw hatred between local Sunnis and Shiites—might fit the circumstances just as well. The press blasts such dubious conclusions back to American citizens and policy makers in Washington, and the incidents get tallied and quantified in official reports, cited by the military in briefings in Baghdad. The White House then takes the reports and crafts sound bites depicting AQI as the number one threat to peace and stability in Iraq. (In July, for instance, at Charleston Air Force Base, the president gave a speech about Iraq that mentioned al-Qaeda ninety-five times.)

By now, many in Washington have learned to discount the president's rhetorical excesses when it comes to the war. But even some of his harshest critics take at face value the estimates provided by the military about AQI's presence. Politicians of both parties point to such figures when forming their positions on the war. All of the top three Democratic presidential candidates have argued for keeping some American forces in Iraq or the region, citing among other reasons the continued threat from al-Qaeda.

But what if official military estimates about the size and impact of al-Qaeda in Iraq are simply wrong? Indeed, interviews with numerous military and intelligence analysts, both inside and outside of government, suggest that the number of strikes the group has directed represent only a fraction of what official estimates claim. Further, al-Qaeda's presumed role in leading the violence through uniquely devastating attacks that catalyze further unrest may also be overstated.

Having been led astray by flawed prewar intelligence about WMDs, official Washington wants to believe it takes a more skeptical view of the administration's information now. Yet Beltway insiders seem to be making almost precisely the same mistakes in sizing up al-Qaeda in Iraq.

espite President Bush's near-singular focus on al-Qaeda in Iraq, most in Washington understand that instability on the ground stems from multiple sources. Numerous attacks on both U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians have been the handiwork of Shiite militants, often connected to, or even part of, the Iraqi government. Opportunistic criminal gangs engage in some of the same heinous tactics.

The Sunni resistance is also comprised of multiple groups. The first consists of so-called "former regime elements." These include thousands of ex-officers from Saddam's old intelligence agency, the Mukabarat, and from the elite paramilitary unit Saddam Fedayeen. Their primary goal is to drive out the U.S. occupation and install a Sunni-led government hostile to Iranian influence. Some within this broad group support reconciliation with the current government or negotiations with the United States, under the condition that American forces set a timetable for a troop withdrawal.

The second category consists of homegrown Iraqi Sunni religious groups, such as the Mujahadeen Army of Iraq. These are native Iraqis who aim to install a religious-based government in Baghdad, similar to the regime in Tehran. These groups use religious rhetoric and terrorist tactics but are essentially nationalistic in their aims.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq comprises the third group. The terrorist network was founded in 2003 by the now-dead Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. (The extent of the group's organizational ties to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda is hotly debated, but the organizations share a worldview and set of objectives.) AQI is believed to have the most non-Iraqis in its ranks, particularly among its leadership. However, most recent assessments say the rank and file are mostly radicalized Iraqis. AQI, which calls itself the "Islamic State of Iraq," espouses the most radical form of Islam and calls for the imposition of strict sharia, or Islamic law. The group has no plans for a future Iraqi government and instead hopes to create a new Islamic caliphate with borders reaching far beyond Mesopotamia.

The essential questions are: How large is the presence of AQI, in terms of manpower and attacks instigated, and what role does the group play in catalyzing further violence? For the first question, the military has produced an estimate. In a background briefing this July in Baghdad, military officials said that during the first half of this year AQI accounted for 15 percent of attacks in Iraq. That figure was also cited in the military intelligence report during final preparations for a National Intelligence Estimate in July.

This is the number on which many military experts inside the Beltway rely. Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution who attended the Baghdad background briefing, explained that he thought the estimate derived from a comprehensive analysis by teams of local intelligence agents who examine the type and location of daily attacks, and their intended targets, and crosscheck that with reports from Iraqi informants and other data, such as intercepted phone calls. "It's a fairly detailed kind of assessment," O'Hanlon said. "Obviously you can't always know who is behind an attack, but there is a fairly systematic way of looking at the attacks where they can begin to make a pretty informed guess."

Yet those who have worked on estimates inside the system take a more circumspect view. Alex Rossmiller, who worked in Iraq as an intelligence officer for the Department of Defense, says that real uncertainties exist in assigning responsibility for attacks. "It was kind of a running joke in our office," he recalls. "We would sarcastically refer to everybody as al-Qaeda."

To describe AQI's presence, intelligence experts cite a spectrum of estimates, ranging from 8 percent to 15 percent. The fact that such "a big window" exists, says Vincent Cannistraro, former chief of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, indicates that "[those experts] really don't have a very good perception of what is going on."

It's notable that military intelligence reports have opted to cite a figure at the very top of that range. But even the low estimate of 8 percent may be an overstatement, if you consider some of the government's own statistics.

The first instructive set of data comes from the U.S.-sponsored Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. In March, the organization analyzed the online postings of eleven prominent Sunni insurgent groups, including AQI, tallying how many attacks each group claimed. AQI took credit for 10 percent of attacks on Iraqi security forces and Shiite militias (forty-three out of 439 attacks), and less than 4 percent of attacks on U.S. troops (seventeen out of 357). Although these Internet postings should not be taken as proof positive of the culprits, it's instructive to remember that PR-conscious al-Qaeda operatives are far more likely to overstate than understate their role.

When turning to the question of manpower, military officials told the New York Times in August that of the roughly 24,500 prisoners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq (nearly all of whom are Sunni), just 1,800—about 7 percent—claim allegiance to al-Qaeda in Iraq. Moreover, the composition of inmates does not support the assumption that large numbers of foreign terrorists, long believed to be the leaders and most hard-core elements of AQI, are operating inside Iraq. In August, American forces held in custody 280 foreign nationals—slightly more than 1 percent of total inmates.

The State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), which arguably has the best track record for producing accurate intelligence assessments, last year estimated that AQI's membership was in a range of "more than 1,000." When compared with the military's estimate for the total size of the insurgency—between 20,000 and 30,000 full-time fighters—this figure puts AQI forces at around 5 percent. When compared with Iraqi intelligence's much larger estimates of the insurgency—200,000 fighters—INR's estimate would put AQI forces at less than 1 percent. This year, the State Department dropped even its base-level estimate, because, as an official explained, "the information is too disparate to come up with a consensus number."

How big, then, is AQI? The most persuasive estimate I've heard comes from Malcolm Nance, the author of The Terrorists of Iraq and a twenty-year intelligence veteran and Arabic speaker who has worked with military and intelligence units tracking al-Qaeda inside Iraq. He believes AQI includes about 850 full-time fighters, comprising 2 percent to 5 percent of the Sunni insurgency. "Al-Qaeda in Iraq," according to Nance, "is a microscopic terrorist organization."

o how did the military come up with an estimate of 15 percent, when government data and many of the intelligence community's own analysts point to estimates a fraction of that size? The problem begins at the top. When the White House singles out al-Qaeda in Iraq for special attention, the bureaucracy responds by creating procedures that hunt down more evidence of the organization. The more manpower assigned to focus on the group, the more evidence is uncovered that points to it lurking in every shadow. "When you have something that is really hot, the leaders start tasking everyone to look into that," explains W. Patrick Lang, a retired U.S. Army colonel and former head of Middle East intelligence analysis for the Department of Defense. "Whoever is at the top of the pyramid says, 'Make me a briefing showing what al-Qaeda in Iraq is doing,' and then the decision maker says, 'Aha, I knew I was right.'"

With disproportionate resources dedicated to tracking AQI, the search has become a self-reinforcing loop. The Army has a Special Operations task force solely dedicated to tracking al-Qaeda in Iraq. The Defense Intelligence Agency tracks AQI through its Iraq office and its counterterrorism office. The result is more information culled, more PowerPoint slides created, and, ultimately, more attention drawn to AQI, which amplifies its significance in the minds of military and intelligence officers. "Once people look at everything through that lens, al-Qaeda is all they see," said Larry Johnson, a former CIA officer who also worked at the U.S. State Department's Office of Counterterrorism. "It sort of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Ground-level analysts in the field, facing pressures from superiors to document AQI's handiwork, might be able to question such assumptions if they had strong intelligence networks on the ground. Unfortunately, that's rarely the case. The intelligence community's efforts are hobbled by too few Arabic speakers in their ranks and too many unreliable informants in Iraqi communities, rendering a hazy picture that is open to interpretations.

Because uncertainty exists, the bar for labeling an attack the work of al-Qaeda can be very low. The fact that a detainee possesses al-Qaeda pamphlets or a laptop computer with cached jihadist Web sites, for example, is at times enough for analysts to link a detainee to al-Qaeda. "Sometimes it's as simple as an anonymous tip that al-Qaeda is active in a certain village, so they will go out on an operation and whoever they roll up, we call them al-Qaeda," says Alex Rossmiller. "People can get labeled al-Qaeda anywhere along in the chain of events, and it's really hard to unlabel them." Even when the military backs off explicit statements that AQI is responsible, as with the Tal Afar truck bombings, the perception that an attack is the work of al-Qaeda is rarely corrected.

The result can be baffling for the troops working on the ground, who hear the leadership characterizing the conflict in Iraq in ways that do not necessarily match what they see in the dusty and danger-laden villages. Michael Zacchea, a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Reserves who was deployed to Iraq, said he was sometimes skeptical of upper-level analysis emphasizing al-Qaeda in Iraq rather than the insurgency's local roots. "It's very, very frustrating for everyone involved who is trying to do the right thing," he said. "That's not how anyone learned to play the game when we were officers coming up the ranks, and we were taught to provide clear battlefield analysis."

ven if the manpower and number of attacks attributed to AQI have been exaggerated—and they have—many observers maintain that what is uniquely dangerous about the group is not its numbers, but the spectacular nature of its strikes. While homegrown Sunni and Shiite militias engage for the most part in tit-for-tat violence to forward sectarian ends, AQI's methods are presumed to be different—more dramatic, more inflammatory, and having a greater ripple effect on the country's fragile political environment. "The effect of al-Qaeda has been far beyond the numbers that they field," explains Thomas Donnelly, resident fellow for defense and national security at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. "The question is, What attacks are likely to have the most destabilizing political and strategic affects?" He points, as do many inside the administration, to the February 2006 bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samara, a revered Shiite shrine, as a paramount example of AQI's outsize influence. President Bush has laid unqualified blame for the Samara bombing on al-Qaeda, and described the infamous incident—and ensuing sectarian violence—as a fatal tipping point toward the current unrest.

But is this view of AQI's vanguard role in destabilizing Iraq really true? There are three reasons to question that belief.

First, although spectacular attacks were a distinctive AQI hallmark early in the war, the group has since lost its monopoly on bloody fireworks. After five years of shifting alliances, cross-pollination of tactics, and copycat attacks, other insurgent groups now launch equally dramatic and politically charged attacks. For example, a second explosion at the Samara mosque in June 2007, which destroyed the shrine's minarets and sparked a wave of revenge attacks on Sunni mosques nationwide, may have been an inside job. U.S. military officials said fifteen uniformed men from the Shiite-run Iraqi Security Forces were arrested for suspected involvement in the attack.

Second, it remains unclear whether the original Samara bombing was itself the work of AQI. The group never took credit for the attack, as it has many other high-profile incidents. The man who the military believe orchestrated the bombing, an Iraqi named Haitham al-Badri, was both a Samara native and a former high-ranking government official under Saddam Hussein. (His right-hand man, Hamed Jumaa Farid al-Saeedi, was also a former military intelligence officer in Saddam Hussein's army.) Key features of the bombing did not conform to the profile of an AQI attack. For example, the bombers did not target civilians, or even kill the Shiite Iraqi army soldiers guarding the mosque, both of which are trademark tactics of AQI.

The planners also employed sophisticated explosive devices, suggesting formal military training common among former regime officers, rather than the more bluntly destructive tactics typical of AQI. Finally, Samara was the heart of Saddam's power base, where former regime fighters keep tight control over the insurgency. Frank "Greg" Ford, a retired counterintelligence agent for the Army Reserves, who worked with the Army in Samara before the 2006 bombing, says that the evidence points away from AQI and toward a different conclusion: "The Baathists directed that attack," says Ford.

Third, while some analysts believe that AQI drafts Baathist insurgents to carry out its attacks, other intelligence experts think it is the other way around. In other words, they see evidence of native insurgent forces coopting the steady stream of delusional extremists seeking martyrdom that AQI brings into Iraq. "Al-Qaeda can't operate anywhere in Iraq without kissing the ring of the former regime," says Nance. "They can't move car bombs full of explosives and foreign suicide bombers through a city without everyone knowing who they are. They need to be facilitated." Thus new foreign fighters "come through and some local Iraqis will say, 'Okay, why don't you go down to the Ministry of Defense building downtown.'" AQI recruits often find themselves taking orders from a network of former regime insurgents, who assemble their car bombs and tell them what to blow up. They become, as Nance says, "puppets for the other insurgent groups."

he view that AQI is neither as big nor as lethal as commonly believed is widespread among working-level analysts and troops on the ground. A majority of those interviewed for this article believe that the military's AQI estimates are overblown to varying degrees. If such misgivings are common, why haven't doubts pricked the public debate? The reason is that alternate views are running up against an echo chamber of powerful players all with an interest in hyping AQI's role.

The first group that profits from an outsize focus on AQI are former regime elements, and the tribal chiefs with whom they are often allied. These forces are able to carry out attacks against Shiites and Americans, but also to shift the blame if it suits their purposes. While the U.S. military has recently touted "news" that Sunni insurgents have turned against the al-Qaeda terrorists in Anbar Province, there is little evidence of actual clashes between these two groups. Sunni insurgents in Anbar have largely ceased attacks on Americans, but some observers suggest that this development has less to do with vanquishing AQI than with the fact that U.S. troops now routinely deliver cash-filled duffle bags to tribal sheiks serving as "lead contractors" on "reconstruction projects." The excuse of fighting AQI comes in handy. "Remember, Iraq is an honor society," explains Juan Cole, an Iraq expert and professor of modern Middle Eastern studies at the University of Michigan. "But if you say it wasn't us—it was al-Qaeda—then you don't lose face."

The second benefactor is the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, often the first to blame specific attacks on AQI. Talking about "al-Qaeda" offers the government a politically correct way of talking about Sunni violence without seeming to blame the Sunnis themselves, to whom they are ostensibly trying to reach out in a unity government. On a deeper level, however, the al-Maliki regime has very limited popular support, and the government officials and ruling Islamic Dawa Party feel an imperative to include Iraqi troubles in the broader "global war in terrorism" in order to keep U.S. troops in the country. In June, when faced with increasingly uncomfortable pressure from the Americans for his failure to resolve key political issues, al-Maliki warned that Iraqi intelligence had found evidence of a "widespread and dangerous plan by the terrorist al-Qaeda organization" to mount attacks outside of Iraq.

Elsewhere within the Shiite bloc of Iraqi politics, Moqtada al-Sadr has his own reasons for playing up the idea of AQI. "The Sadrists want to overstate the role of al-Qaeda in a way to emphasize on the 'foreignness' of the current problem in Iraq; and this easily fits their anti-occupation ideology, which seems to gain more popularity among Shia Iraqis on a daily basis," said Babak Rahimi, a professor of Islamic Studies and expert in Shiite politics at the University of California at San Diego.

Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, remain eager to take credit for the violence in Iraq, despite the bad blood that existed between bin Laden and AQI's slain founder, al-Zarqawi. They've produced a long series of taped statements in recent years taunting U.S. leaders and attempting to conflate their operations with the Sunni resistance in Iraq. "They want to bring this all together as a motivating tool to encourage recruitment," said Farhana Ali, a terrorism expert at the RAND Corporation.

The press has also been complicit in inflating the threat of AQI. Because of the danger on the ground, reporters struggle to do the kind of comprehensive field reporting that's necessary to check facts and question statements from military spokespersons and Iraqi politicians. Today, for example, U.S. reporters rarely travel independently outside central Baghdad. Few, if any, insurgents have ever given interviews to Western reporters. These limitations are understandable, if unfortunate. But news organizations are reluctant to admit their confines in obtaining information. Ambiguities are glossed over; allegations are presented as facts. Besides, it's undeniably in the reporter's own interest to keep "al-Qaeda attacks" in the headline, because it may move their story from A16 to A1.

Finally, no one has more incentive to overstate the threat of AQI than President Bush and those in the administration who argue for keeping a substantial military presence in Iraq. Insistent talk about AQI aims to place the Iraq War in the context of the broader war on terrorism. Pointing to al-Qaeda in Iraq helps the administration leverage Americans' fears about terrorism and residual anger over the attacks of September 11. It is perhaps one of the last rhetorical crutches the president has left to lean on.

his is not to say that al-Qaeda in Iraq doesn't pose a real danger, both to stability in Iraq and to security in the United States. Today multiple Iraqi insurgent groups target U.S. forces, with the aim of driving out the occupation. But once our troops withdraw, most Sunni resistance fighters will have no impetus to launch strikes on American soil. In that regard, al-Qaeda—and AQI, to the extent it is affiliated with bin Laden's network—is unique. The group's leadership consists largely of foreign fighters, and its ideology and ambitions are global. Al-Qaeda fighters trained in Baghdad may one day use those skills to plot strikes aimed at Boston.

Yet it's not clear that the best way to counter this threat is with military action in Iraq. AQI's presence is tolerated by the country's Sunni Arabs, historically among the most secular in the Middle East, because they have a common enemy in the United States. Absent this shared cause, it's not clear that native insurgents would still welcome AQI forces working to impose strict sharia. In Baghdad, any near-term functioning government will likely be an alliance of Shiites and Kurds, two groups unlikely to accept organized radical Sunni Arab militants within their borders. Yet while precisely predicting future political dynamics in Iraq is uncertain, one thing is clear now: the continued American occupation of Iraq is al-Qaeda's best recruitment tool, the lure to hook new recruits. As RAND's Ali said, "What inspires jihadis today is Iraq."

Five years ago, the American public was asked to support the invasion of Iraq based on the false claim that Saddam Hussein was somehow linked to al-Qaeda. Today, the erroneous belief that al-Qaeda's franchise in Iraq is a driving force behind the chaos in that country may be setting us up for a similar mistake.

Andrew Tilghman was an Iraq correspondent for the Stars and Stripes newspaper in 2005 and 2006. He can be reached at tilghman.andrew@gmail.com.

Adult Treasure Expo 2007
-Robotics & Sex-

The newest "robotic" from Japan is this life-like, life-size pleasure doll. It is available by mail order at $5,410 US.

Note: One commentator suggested that without the porn industry, I.T. would never have achieved the technological gains it has over the past 25 years.

Per the photo: inordinate attention by Sellers and Buyers was paid to the feel of the breasts.

War on the Cheap

Since we're talking about who pays the costs of the war, here's a way the costs are being reduced: by making sure soldiers who served in Iraq are not eligible for education benefits after they return. This is not how we should be saving money or treating our soldiers. This is from George Borjas:

Kinked Constraints, by George Borjas: Every microeconomics student learns that sudden changes in opportunities--which are usually represented by kinks in the constraints facing decision makers--generate outcomes that cluster on those kinks.

Examples abound: Workers retire at age 65 (and not at age 64 years and 364 days) because of the substantial change in retirement benefits that kicks precisely when the worker turns 65; employers recall workers from temporary layoffs just before the government-provided unemployment benefits expire; and so on.

Well, here is one particularly pathetic example of the behavioral impact of kinked constraints:

When they came home from Iraq, 2,600 members of the Minnesota National Guard had been deployed longer than any other ground combat unit. The tour lasted 22 months and had been extended as part of President Bush's surge.

1st Lt. Jon Anderson said he never expected to come home to this: A government refusing to pay education benefits he says he should have earned under the GI bill...

Anderson's orders, and the orders of 1,161 other Minnesota guard members, were written for 729 days.

Had they been written for 730 days, just one day more, the soldiers would receive those benefits to pay for school. "Which would be allowing the soldiers an extra $500 to $800 a month," Anderson said.

I no longer believe in coincidences when it comes to stuff like this. Whoever wrote the order for 729 days knew precisely what he or she was doing.

While sticks and stones are breaking bones, we're more interested in whether words have hurt us. I'd rather see the press focus on issues such as who wrote this policy and under whose direction, how widespread the practice is, and so on, than to hear another word about what Rush or anyone else said that might have hurt someone's feelings. Rush is a buffoon who deserves to be ignored, not catered to when he craves attention and makes the latest outlandish statement. Writing a policy to avoid paying education benefits under the GI bill (and other things such as providing access to needed health care when soldiers return from duty in Iraq) says more about support for soldiers who have served than anything he might say and all of the attention devoted to Rush et. al. crowds out more important discussions from the public dialogue.

Posted by Mark Thoma on October 7, 2007 at 11:16 AM in Economics, Iraq, Policy

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Is the United States headed for double bubble trouble?, by Richard Baldwin, Vox EU:
In the minds of most mainstream international economists, there is never much doubt that the dollar must eventually decline significantly.[1] A trade deficit this big cannot persist indefinitely. Many analysts hope that the necessary real depreciation of the dollar might be gradual.

Here is the basic idea underlying dollar 'plunge scenarios.' Foreign investors have long demonstrated an increased appetite for US assets, moving a greater share of their portfolios into dollars and thus generating large capital flow into the US. But the capital flows needed to maintain an increased dollar share are much smaller than those needed to achieve it. Thus, when investors reach their desired holdings, there will be a drop off in capital flows into the United States, leading to an abrupt decline in both the current account deficit and the value of the dollar.

Standard asset-price logic, however, argues against this sort of anticipated sudden depreciation. Investors should see it coming, and this will dampen their shift into dollars. Under the 'gradual scenario', the adjustment process is smoothed as dollar assets become more attractive while the greenback drops towards its sustainable level.

The asset-pricing logic is impeccable. The only reason to predict a sudden dollar plunge is if we believe today's capital flows are driven by investor myopia. That the markets are due for what Krugman calls a 'Wile E. Coyote' moment – a reference to the Warner Brothers' cartoon where a greedy, shortsighted coyote chases a roadrunner off a cliff but doesn't start falling until he looks down and realizes he's left solid ground. Up until this 'Wile E. Coyote' moment, his belief that he's on solid ground prevents him from falling. For investors in dollars, the 'Wile E. Coyote' moment comes when they realise that their expectations are inconsistent with any feasible adjustment path.[2]

Dick Cheney Got It Right ...in 1994

King John and the Abbott of Canterbury

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. (1863–1944). The Oxford Book of Ballads. 1910.

173. King John and the Abbot of Canterbury


I An ancient story I’ll tell you anon
Of a notable prince, that was callèd King John;
And he rulèd England with maine and with might,
For he did great wrong, and maintein’d little right.

II And I’ll tell you a story, a story so merrye,	5
Concerning the Abbot of Canterbùrye;
How, for his house-keeping and high renowne,
They rode poste for him to fair London towne.

III An hundred men, the King did heare say,
The Abbot kept in his house every day;	10
And fifty golde chaynes, without any doubt,
In velvet coates waited the Abbot about.

IV ‘How now, Father Abbot, I heare it of thee
Thou keepest a farre better house than mee,
And for thy house-keeping and high renowne,	15
I feare thou work’st treason against my crown.’—

V ‘My liege,’ quo’ the Abbot, ‘I would it were knowne,
I never spend nothing, but what is my owne;
And I trust your Grace will doe me no deere
For spending of my owne true-gotten geere.’	20

VI ‘Yes, yes, Father Abbot, thy fault it is highe,
And now for the same thou needest must dye;
For except thou canst answer me questions three,
Thy head shall be smitten from thy bodìe.

VII ‘And first,’ quo’ the King, ‘when I’m in this stead,	25
With my crowne of golde so faire on my head,
Among all my liege-men so noble of birthe,
Thou must tell me to one penny what I am worthe.

VIII ‘Secondlye, tell me, without any doubt,
How soone I may ride the whole worlde about.	30
And at the third question thou must not shrinke,
But tell me here truly what I do thinke.’—

IX ‘O, these are hard questions for my shallow witt,
Nor I cannot answer your Grace as yet:
But if you will give me but three weekes space,	35
I’ll do my endeavour to answer your Grace.

X ‘Now three weekes space to thee will I give,
And that is the longest time thou hast to live;
For if thou dost not answer my questions three,
Thy lands and thy livings are forfeit to mee.’	40

XI Away rode the Abbot all sad at that word,
And he rode to Cambridge, and Oxenford;
But never a doctor there was so wise,
That could with his learning an answer devise.

XII Then home rode the Abbot of comfort so cold,	45
And he mett with his shepheard a-going to fold:
‘How now, my lord Abbot, you are welcome home;
What newes do you bring us from good King John?’—

XIII ‘Sad newes, sad newes, shepheard, I must give;
That I have but three days more to live:	50
For if I do not answer him questions three,
My head will be smitten from my bodìe.

XIV ‘The first is to tell him there in that stead,
With his crowne of golde so fair on his head,
Among all his liege-men so noble of birthe,	55
To within one penny of what he is worthe.

XV ‘The seconde, to tell him, without any doubt,
How soone he may ride this whole worlde about:
And at the third question I must not shrinke,
But tell him there truly what he does thinke.’—	60

XVI ‘Now cheare up, sire Abbot, did you never hear yet,
That a fool he may learn a wise man witt?
Lend me horse, and serving-men, and your apparel,
And I’ll ride to London to answere your quarrel.

XVII ‘Nay frowne not, if it hath bin told unto mee,	65
I am like your lordship, as ever may bee:
And if you will but lend me your gowne,
There is none shall knowe us at fair London towne.’—

XVIII ‘Now horses and serving-men thou shalt have,
With sumptuous array most gallant and brave,	70
With crozier, and miter, and rochet, and cope,
Fit to appeare ’fore our Father the Pope.’—

XIX ‘Now welcome, sire Abbot,’ the King he did say,
‘’Tis well thou’rt come back to keepe thy day;
For and if thou canst answer my questions three,	75
Thy life and thy living both savèd shall bee.

XX ‘And first, when thou seest me here in this stead,
With my crown of golde so fair on my head,
Among all my liege-men so noble of birthe,
Tell me to one penny what I am worthe.’—	80

XXI ‘For thirty pence our Saviour was sold
Amonge the false Jewes, as I have bin told;
And twenty-nine is the worthe of thee,
For I thinke thou art one penny worser than hee.’

XXII The King he laughed, and swore by St. Bittel,	85
‘I did not thinke I had been worthe so littel!
—Now secondly tell me, without any doubt,
How soone I may ride this whole world about.’—

XXIII ‘You must rise with the sun, and ride with the same,
Until the next morning he riseth againe;	90
And then your Grace need not make any doubt,
But in twenty-four hours you’ll ride it about.’

XXIV The King he laughed, and swore by St. Jone,
‘I did not think it could be gone so soone!
—Now from the third question thou must not shrinke,	95
But tell me here truly what I do thinke.’—

XXV ‘Yea, that shall I do, and make your Grace merry:
You thinke I’m the Abbot of Canterbùrye;
But I’m his poor shepheard, as plain you may see,
That am come to beg pardon for him and for mee.’	100

XXVI The King he laughed, and swore by the Masse,
‘I’ll make thee Lord Abbot this day in his place!’—
‘Now naye, my liege, be not in such speede,
For alacke I can neither write, ne reade.’—

XXVII ‘Four nobles a weeke, then, I will give thee	105
For this merry jest thou hast showne unto mee;
And tell the old Abbot when thou comest home,
Thou hast brought him a pardon from good King John.

Do Not Call Registry
Note: Did you get an email about adding cell phones to the DNCR?

VA Seeks Former Prisoners of War

Week of October 01, 2007 - Courtesy of MILITARY.COM

If you know any former prisoners of war (POW) or their family members, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) needs your help. Once again, VA is reaching out to former prisoners of war not currently using VA benefits and services, urging them to contact the Department to find out if they are eligible for health care, disability compensation and other services. If you know a former POW, please ask him or her to contact VA at 1-800-827-1000. Details about benefits and services available to former POWs and family members are available at the VA's American Former Prisoners of War webpage.

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Tibetian Personality Test
(link provided by Mactecworks)

Shifting Targets: The Administration’s plan for Iran.

by Seymour M. Hersh October 8, 2007

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In a series of public statements in recent months, President Bush and members of his Administration have redefined the war in Iraq, to an increasing degree, as a strategic battle between the United States and Iran. “Shia extremists, backed by Iran, are training Iraqis to carry out attacks on our forces and the Iraqi people,” Bush told the national convention of the American Legion in August. “The attacks on our bases and our troops by Iranian-supplied munitions have increased. . . . The Iranian regime must halt these actions. And, until it does, I will take actions necessary to protect our troops.” He then concluded, to applause, “I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran’s murderous activities.”

The President’s position, and its corollary—that, if many of America’s problems in Iraq are the responsibility of Tehran, then the solution to them is to confront the Iranians—have taken firm hold in the Administration. This summer, the White House, pushed by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney, requested that the Joint Chiefs of Staff redraw long-standing plans for a possible attack on Iran, according to former officials and government consultants. The focus of the plans had been a broad bombing attack, with targets including Iran’s known and suspected nuclear facilities and other military and infrastructure sites. Now the emphasis is on “surgical” strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism.

The shift in targeting reflects three developments. First, the President and his senior advisers have concluded that their campaign to convince the American public that Iran poses an imminent nuclear threat has failed (unlike a similar campaign before the Iraq war), and that as a result there is not enough popular support for a major bombing campaign. The second development is that the White House has come to terms, in private, with the general consensus of the American intelligence community that Iran is at least five years away from obtaining a bomb. And, finally, there has been a growing recognition in Washington and throughout the Middle East that Iran is emerging as the geopolitical winner of the war in Iraq.

Minnesota e-scrap lake dumping case continues
e-Scrap News: Oct 1, 2007

One of the bodies of water in the Land of 10,000 Lakes was a dumping ground for an unscrupulous e-scrap processor, according to an ongoing criminal case in Minnesota.

In the Spring of 2006, computer monitors began floating to the surface of Rice Lake in Central Minnesota and in October of that same year, authorities found a boat filled with e-scrap from St. Paul, Minnesota's Hamline University.

Hamline officials had turned the equipment over to a still-publicly-unnamed recycling contractor more than a dozen years ago and were surprised by the discovery, according to local news reports. Minnesota authorities believe the computers were dumped there shortly before the first news of the floating monitors.

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (St. Paul) is investigating the dumping. "It was intentional and it was criminal," said Jeff Connell, manager of compliance and enforcement for the MPCA. "We have people of interest [regarding the case]. Do we have people we are circling in on? Yes, we do.''

Hamline has paid for the computers to be taken away again, and has reimbursed the MPCA $32,500 for expenses relating to the case.

Radiohead Snubs Current Distribution Model, Lets Fans Decide Pricing

By Terrence Russell

October 01, 2007 | 5:05:50 PMCategories: Music

Sure, if you're a musical artist you can choose to play the confusing media valuation game with distributors. Or, you can go Radiohead's route and let your fans decide. Since the U.K.-based band has no label or distribution partners to speak of, it has made the odd (but not unforeseen) move of allowing its fans to decide how much they'd like to pay for its newest album "In Rainbows."

Enigmatic front man Thom Yorke explained the band's motivation in a recent interview with TIME: "I like the people at our record company, but the time is at hand when you have to ask why anyone needs one. And, yes, it probably would give us some perverse pleasure to say 'Fuck you' to this decaying business model."

It's unlikely that anyone in Cupertino is jumping out of an iWindow over this, but it's still an interesting approach to the digital music scene today. Whether Radiohead's methods will take root with smaller artists at large seems doubtful, though. One of the reasons that the band has the freedom to snub traditional distribution methods is because that same business model already made them famous. Despite all this commotion, we kind of have to wonder ... does free music actually sound better? You can hear for yourself (for as little as a pence) at Radiohead.com.

Flexible Reality: A Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Save the Planet in Your Own Backyard

Seven Steps to Thinking Globally and Acting Locally

Monday, October 29, 2007

Friday, October 26, 2007

Friday, October 19, 2007

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Gore Derangement Syndrome

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Saturday, October 13, 2007

AT&T Class Action

Friday, October 12, 2007

Former Top General in Iraq Faults Bush Administration

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Miles Mogulescu

"Why Not Single Payer?" A Response to Paul Krugman and the Leading Democratic Presidential Contenders. Part 1.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Week of 10/7/2007

Monday, October 08, 2007

Mythbuntu: Turning Ubuntu Into A DVR System

Sunday, October 07, 2007

Dan Rather is right

War on the Cheap

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

VA Seeks Former Prisoners of War

Monday, October 01, 2007

Shifting Targets: The Administration’s plan for Iran.

by Seymour M. Hersh October 8, 2007

Radiohead Snubs Current Distribution Model, Lets Fans Decide Pricing

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